THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 179, 26 July 1873, Page 4

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF

THE SABBATH. The right to afford proper time to the industrial classes for recreation, and for mental and moral culture, is first and above all, to protect the first day of the week from all needless work; and second, to shorten the time of business and labor on Saturday afterooou. The in<Jußirious classes in the days of our ancestors, though poorly paid, firmly demanded the full protection of the D.iy of ftest to all, as security for the common aood;and in this way preserved their independence, and ruised themselves to a very hitfh state in morals and temporal comfort. Had they consented to a system promoting wotk on the Day of Rest, the drudgery of unremitting toil would, long ere now, have been spread through the whole of the working classes; and would have brought them down, through want and competition, to seven days' labor instead of six, for their daily bread. Therefore it is our duty to transmit these liberties and privileges unimpared to the generations following. No work creates so much other work and attendance, or attempt so much to other work and attendance as places of public amusement and railway travelling. In the first instance, to railway servants, offi- . cers, porters, vehicles, and at hotels, inns, taverns, public-housts, tea-gardens, &c, and this leads to the opening of not a few shops ; and, any tradesman, shopkeeper, manufacturer, or contractor, in aoy buainess, who begins to serve the public by having work done on the Day of Rest, compels others to do the same in selfdefence. So that there is no end to the evil when once begun, as it has been lamentably proved by experience in various parts of England. The effect of the extension of the hours of work on the Day of Rest, is to lower the rate of all kinds of wages; the adding of one-seventh to the workingtime, being in this respect precisely equivalent to the adding of one-seventh to the working han?s. This would make greater cheapness and be a cle*»r gain to all who do not work for their bread, but would not be a clear gain to those who do woik for their bread, the cheapness being produced by the sacrifice of the latter alone, this is to say, by giving them less wageß for the seven days' work than they before got for six days' work. Therefore to make the liberties of all secure, all must keep free on the Day of Kest; and all should set their faces like flint against the enslaving of any. The conclusion of the whole is the commandment "Thou shaltdo no manner of work" one day in seven confers a right on the working man of immense value. Keep holy therefore the Sabbath D.y.