A.D. 1689 
—~1776. 
and the 
onditions 
of labour. 
PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
friend Bennet Langton!, that Wilberforce and Clarkson met 
some influential men, and that the agitation against the 
slave trade first took practical shape’ The struggle on 
behalf of labour against capitalism at home® had similar 
political affinities, for it was commenced by Michael Thomas 
Sadler, a Tory member of Parliament, and supported by the 
landed interest at a time when the labourers themselves 
were apathetic. At the close of the eighteenth century 
the lines were being already formed for the struggles of 
the nineteenth. The capitalists were preparing to demand 
greater freedom from restriction of every kind, and to abolish 
the survival of by-gone institutions in the name of economic 
science; but the principles and sentiments to which the 
Tories were attached were to have no little share in the 
positive work of re-constructing a new order, in which 
human welfare would be the primary consideration. 
| Diet. Nat. Biog., 8.v. Wilberforce. 
+ Comparatively little progress was made till the philanthropic agitation was 
re-enforced by political and economic reasons for abandoning the trade as 
letrimental. Hochstetter, Die wirthschaftlicken Motive fir die Abschaffung 
Jes britischen Sklavenhandels, 33. 
+ An interesting illustration of the common interest of these classes occurs in 
‘he Report of the Select Committee on the Calico-Printers: “ Without entering 
nto the delicate and difficult question, as to the distribution of profits between 
Masters and Journeymen, in this as well as the other mechanical professions, 
Your Committee may venture to throw out, for the consideration of the House, 
vhether it be quite equitable towards the parties or conducive to the public 
‘pterest that on the one part there should arise a great accumulation of wealth, 
while on the other there should prevail a degree of poverty from which the 
parties cannot emerge by the utmost exertion of industry, skill and assiduous 
application, and may at an advanced period of life, notwithstanding perpetual 
abour, be obliged to resort to parish aid for the support of their families. Is it 
just that such a state of things should be permitted to exist? Is it fair towards 
the Landed Interest in those districts in which Manufactories are established 
:hat they should be called upon to contribute from the Poor Rates to the support 
of those who ought to be enabled to derive a support from their labour, and who 
are at the same time contributing to establish a fortune for the Principals of 
aneh Mannfactories?! Reports. 1806. mi. 1160.