One has but to refer to the statistics with which the Christian Social Union supplies us, as well as other societies, to have this idea quickly negatived. Mrs. Carlyle's experiences and Mrs. Newman's were evidently involuntarily misleading. There was a certain impulsiveness in discussing many subjects to which Newman seems to have been peculiarly subject. He was sometimes so led away by it as to dogmatize inaccurately or over-forcibly. _Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman._ "My dear Martineau, "... In a day or two I am meditating a visit to Froude, who is in Wales, and too much in solitude." [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.] "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]