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[Froude was then preparing or writing his _History of England_. It will be remembered that Cardinal Newman's influence over him at college decided him later on taking Holy Orders, but he never went beyond the diaconate.]
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Gladstone's letters just now are a powerful stimulus to public opinion.... Not the Socialists only, but numbers of workmen besides treat it as _an abstract wickedness_ in a master to offer lower wages than are at any particular time existing. They have never any objection to a _rise_ of wages; so I cannot say they treat the existing rate as a divinely appointed amount; but they do not see that if they are unwilling to bind themselves not to strike for a rise, they ought to concede in the master a moral right to lower.... What is to be done with those who will go on enunciating and propagating dangerous general maxims as abstract axiomatic truth?... _Your_ method of making the masters determine how many _shall enter_ a trade will succeed; but I do not see that it will succeed in ejecting. In the years of railroad excitement the London newspapers were enormously overworked, and a great increase no doubt took place in the numbers of printers (perhaps also in their wages); now the printers for some time have been in comparative depression.... I do not contend that _all_ lowering of wages by masters is merciful and just, but that _some_ may be; whereas the Socialists and Co. instantly declaim against _all_ or _any_ lowering, without entering into any details as to present or past history of the trade. When I said that machinery is in every light the friend of the poor, I do not think I overlooked the occasional mischief caused by its _sudden_ introduction.... The effect of machinery is in the long run a steady rise of wages as well as a cheap supply of goods: the advantage to the poor is universal and permanent, the evil is partial and transitory. Moreover, the evil is immensely aggravated by their perverseness. Three generations of hand-loom weavers have been propagated in spite of the notorious misery it must cause. Machinery does _not_ raise the rate of profits or interest; it _does_ raise the rate of wages: compare Manchester and Buckingham in proof.... I do not think I am _at all_ carried into reaction by unjust attacks on capitalists, but I am very strongly by the [right or wrong] belief that the first great want of the workmen is better morality and more thriftiness, _not_ better masters or higher wages. I have not dared to print half of what are my convictions on this head.... The sufferings of the poor from bad air and bad water are quite a separate chapter. High wages do little to cure this. Indeed, in Manchester the workmen habitually prefer to save a shilling a week in house rent and spend it in beefsteaks, when the shilling would have got them a healthy instead of an unhealthy lodging. Bricklayers' wages are at present high in London; what is the consequence? I have at present a bit of a dwarf wall building in my garden. The men leave their work; I complain; the builder replies: 'Men will not come to work on a Monday without much trouble.' I fear this _means_ that they drink on Sunday and are very 'seedy' on Monday morning. The very men who are excited by high wages to drinking and idleness will make a violent outcry when a fall of wages takes place, and _moreover_ will get the ear and sympathies of Maurice and Co. for their outcry.
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Maurice and Co. of course refers to Frederick Denison Maurice, who was the principal mover in the Christian Socialism of the day, as he was in all social reforms. He had met with much abuse and opposition, but still there were very many who called him
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Master. Amongst these last was Charles Kingsley, who had been one of his pupils, and who had been very greatly influenced by his opinion in religion and social matters. [Footnote: Kingsley (see memoir) said to Maurice, when opposition was fiercest against him:
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Your cause is mine. We swim in the same boat, and stand or fall thenceforth together. ] Neither man could bear the narrowness of