The _Westminster Review_ for January, in an able and temperate article, entitled _Employers and Employed_, delineates the progress of the working power from the original condition of _serfdom_, through that of _vassalage_, which prevailed in the middle ages, to the system of simple contract in which we now find it in France and America. This the writer regards as part of a universal progress towards a more and more equalised condition of the various orders of men--'an equality, not perhaps of wealth, or of mind, or of inherent power, but of social condition, and of individual rights and freedom.' In England, however, we are only in a state of transition from that relation of protection on the one hand, and respect or loyalty on the other, which constituted the system of vassalage, to the true democratic relation which assumes a perfect equality and independence in the contracting parties. 'The master cannot divest himself of the idea, that in virtue of his rank he is entitled to deference and submission; and the workman conceives that, in virtue of his comparative poverty, he is entitled to assistance in difficulty, and to protection from the consequences of his own folly and improvidence. Each party expects from the other something more than is expressed or implied in the covenant between them. The workman, asserting his equality and independence, claims from his employer services which only inferiority can legitimately demand; the master, tacitly and in his heart denying this equality and independence, repudiates claims which only the validity of this plea of equality and independence can effectually nonsuit or liquidate.' Arguing that 'the reciprocal duties of employers and employed, _as such_, are comprised within the limits of their covenant,' the writer goes on to say, that nevertheless there remains a relation of 'fellow-citizenship and of Christian _neighbourhood_,' by virtue of which the employer owes service to his work-people, seeing that 'every man owes service to every man whom he is in a position to serve.' Let not the Pharisaic fundholder and lazy mortgagee suppose that the great employers of labour are thus under a peculiar obligation from which _they_ are exempt. The obligation is assumed to be equal upon all who have power and means; and it only lies with special weight at the door of the employer of multitudes, in as far as he is in a situation to exercise influence over their character and conduct, and usually has greater means of rendering aid suited to their particular necessities.