HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.--IN FLOURISHING NATIONS.
A permanently[173-1] high rate of wages[173-2] is, both as cause and
effect, very intimately connected with a flourishing condition of
national life. It proves on the one hand, great productiveness of the
public economy of the people generally: prudence, self-respect and
self-control, even of the lowest classes, virtues, which, however, are
found, on the whole, only where political liberty exists, and where the
lowest classes are rightly valued by the higher.[173-3] On the other
hand, it produces a condition of the great majority of that portion of
the population who have to support themselves on the wages they receive,
worthy of human beings, a condition in which they can educate their
children, enjoy the present and provide for the future. Equality before
the law and participation in the affairs of government are empty
phrases, and even tend to inflame the passions, where the rate of wages
is not high. When the lower classes are dissatisfied, in highly
civilized countries, with the sensitiveness and mobility of the whole
national life, there can be no certainty of the freedom of the middle
classes or of the rule of the upper. Here, in other respects, also, the
philanthropy of employers harmonizes remarkably well with their
reasonable self-interest. According to § 40, only the well-paid workman
can accomplish anything really good, just as, conversely, only the good
workman is on the whole, and in the long run, well paid. This suggests
the physiological law, that where muscular activity is great, nutrition
must be great, likewise; and the rapid waste and repair of tissues
strengthens the muscles and gives tone to the whole physical life. With
a correct insight into the relations of things, antiquity described its
greatest worker, Herakles, as a great eater also. A well-paid workman,
who costs and accomplishes as much in a day as two bad ones, is cheaper
than they. He works much more cheerfully and faithfully, is, hence, more
easily superintended, is less frequently sick, and later
decrepid.[173-4] His childhood costs less, and his burial is not so
expensive. In cases of need, he can more easily bear the weight of
taxation or a temporary lowering of wages.[173-5] We might say of the
granting of holidays and of evening leisure something similar to what we
have said of the rate of wages. They are indispensable requisites to the
development of a desirable individuality in the working classes; and
when used for that purpose are certainly no detriment to the product of
labor or to employers.[173-6] [173-7]
In consideration of all the blessings attending a high rate of wages, we
may well be induced to put up with a certain and frequently inconvenient
external defiance of the lower classes which is wont to accompany
it.[173-8] It teaches the upper classes many a moral lesson, and is
surely a lesser sin in the lower, than the cowardly, malicious crimes of
the oppressed. When wages are so low that they have to be supplemented
by begging or public charity, the effect on morality is the same as when
government officials, who cannot live on their salaries, resort to
bribery or embezzlement.[173-9] [173-10]
[Footnote 173-1: A merely momentary rise in wages might be
the result of a great calamity, destructive of human life,
and might seduce workmen not intellectually prepared for it
into idleness. Compare _von Taube_, Beschreib. von Slavonien
etc., II, § 4.]
[Footnote 173-2: On the necessity of _free_ wages, that is
of an excess over and above the costs of support and of
maintaining one's position, see _Roesler_, Grandsätze, 394.]
[Footnote 173-3: _Dans aucune histoire on ne rencontre un
seul trait, qui prouve que l'aisance du peuple par le
travail a nui à son obéissance, (Forbonnais.)_ This is true
only of well governed countries. When, in England, about the
middle of the eighteenth century, a great improvement took
place in the condition of the laboring classes,
_Postlethwayt_ (Great Britain's commercial Interests, 1759)
was one of the first to recognize its general beneficial
character; also _Th. Mortimer_. (Elements of Commerce,
Politics and Finance, 1774, 82 ff.) _Benjamin Franklin_,
before the American revolution, was of opinion that high
wages made people lazy. (On the Price of Corn, 1776. On the
laboring Poor, 1768.) He afterwards, however, acknowledged
its generally good effect, and that even the products of
labor might be cheapened thereby. (On the Augmentation of
Wages, which will be occasioned in Europe by the American
Revolution. Works II, 435 ff.) See further, _Paoletti_, Veri
Mezzi di render felici le Società, ch. 15; _Ricardo_,
Principles, ch. 5; _Th. Brassey_, on Work and Wages, 1872.
_Umpfenbach_, Nat. Oek, 181, calls the costliness of labor to
the purchaser of labor, "givers' wages," their purchasing
power to the laborer himself, "receivers' wages," and is of
opinion, that as civilization advances, the former declines
and the latter rises.]
[Footnote 173-4: When in the department of the Tarn flesh
food was introduced among journeymen smiths instead of mere
vegetable diet, the sanitary improvement that followed was
so great that the number of days lost by sickness in a year
decreased from 15 to 3. (_Moleschott_.)]
[Footnote 173-5: In high stages of civilization, it is
always more profitable, the result being the same, to keep a
few well fed cattle than many poorly fed. (_Roscher_,
Nationalök. d. Ackerbaues, § 179.) _Infra_, § 231. When the
drainage of Oxford street in London was made while wages
were rising, it happened that the cubic foot of masonry work
at 10 shillings per day was cheaper than it was formerly at
6 shillings per day. (_Brassey_, 68 ff.) _Senior_ calls it
an absurdity to consider the high wages paid in England as
an obstacle in the way of its successful competition with
other countries. Rather would he consider it as the
necessary result of the excellence of English labor. Thus,
in his Lectures on the mercantile Theory of Wealth, p. 76,
he says that if the English employ a part of their labor
injudiciously, they must pay it not in proportion to what it
really accomplishes, but to what it might do if well
employed. If a man calls in a doctor to cut his hair, he
must pay him as a doctor. If he puts a man to throwing silk
who might earn 3 ounces of silver a week spinning cotton, he
must pay him weekly 3 ounces of silver, although he may
deliver no more silk within that time than an Italian who
gets only 1-1/2 ounces.]
[Footnote 173-6: Norfolk country workmen never worked more
than 10 hours a day except in harvest and seed time. But a
plowman there accomplished as much in 5 days as another in
8. (_Marshall_, Rural Economy of N., 138.) In southwestern
Germany, the country working day is from 2 to 4 hours
shorter than in the northeast, and yet just as much is
accomplished in the former quarter. (_von der Goltz_, Ländl.
Arbeiterfrage, 88, 131.) Thus the coal diggers of South
Wales work 12 hours a day, those of Northumberland, 7; and
yet the same achievement is 25 per cent. dearer in case of
the former. In the construction of the Paris-Rouen Railroad,
the English achieved more than the French, although the
former worked from 6 A. M. to 5:30 P. M., and the latter
from 5 A. M. to 7 P. M. (_Brassey_, 144 ff.) Examples from
English manufactories in _Marx_, Kapital, I, 401 seq. In an
English factory the hours worked were 12, and afterwards,
11. This caused the number of attendants of the evening
school to grow from 27 to 98. (_Horner._) _Dollfuss_, in
Mühlhausen, reduced the number of hours worked from 12 to
11, and let the wages remain the same as before. The result
was besides a great saving made in fuel and light, a surplus
product of at least 1-2/3 per cent. Something similar
observed by _M. Chevalier_, Cours, I, 151.
Hence _J. Möser_, Patr. Ph., III, 40, desired, on this
account, that work in the evening should be prohibited by
law. In England, not only the moral necessity, but also the
economic general utility of leisure time of workmen has been
defended, among others by _Postlethwayt_, Dictionary of
Trade and Commerce, I, prelim. Discourse, 1751. A beautiful
law, V Moses 24, 15. Only, care must be taken not to go to
the other extreme, which is still more detrimental to
personality. The North American ideal of 8 hours a day for
work, 8 for eating, sleeping, etc., and 8 for leisure, would
be injurious except to workmen intellectually very active.
But the provision to be met with in many states of the Union
and in the arsenal employ of the government, that in case of
doubt, the work day is to be tacitly assumed as of 8 hours,
has, it is said, correspondingly lowered wages. See _supra_,
§ 168.]
[Footnote 173-7: In India, where the institution of caste is
found, nearly half the year is made up of feast days, while
in rationalistic China there is no Sunday and very few
general holidays. (_Klemm_, A. Kulturgeschicht. VI, 425.
_Wray_, The practical Sugar Planter, 1849.) The
Judaic-Christian sanctification of the seventh day is a
happy medium between these two extremes. Recuperation and
collectedness get their due without its costing too much to
action. _Ora et labora!_ Compare _Sismondi_, N. P. II, ch.
5. Which is best, traveling on foot, to drag along all the
time, or to walk decently and rest properly between times?
The rest of Sunday, even leaving the work of recuperation
and edification out of account, is necessary in the
interests of the family and of cleanliness. The French
_decadis_ accomplished materially even too little: _ils ont
à faire à deux ennemis, qui ne cèderont pas, la barbe et la
chemise blanche_. (_B. Constant._) Hence, an English prize
essay on the material advantages of Sunday found 1,045
competitors among English working men. (Tübinger Zeitschr.,
1851, 363.)]
[Footnote 173-8: Thus _Parkinson_, A Tour in America,
complains that with four servants in the house, he was
obliged to polish his own shoes, and with his wife and
children to milk the cows, while his people were still
asleep. Strange servants bringing a message, come in with
their hats on. All domestics are called mister or misses.
Servant maids are called "helps," and their masters,
"employers." If a person at a hotel asks for a laundress, he
is answered: "Yes, man, I will get a lady to wash your
clothes." Similarly in _Fowler_, Lights and Shadows,...
three Years' Experience in Australia. But, at the same time,
it is remarkable how seldom a native born white American
accepts a fee. On the other hand, Russia is the classic land
of fees. There is a popular story in that country to the
effect that when God divided the earth among the different
nations, they were all satisfied except the Russians, who
begged a little drink-money or fee in addition, (_von
Haxthausen_, Studien, I, 70.) Similarly in Egypt. (_Ebers_,
Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 1873, 31 seq.) The system of feeing
servants holds a middle place between the modern system of
paying for everything lawfully and the medieval system in
which people either rob, donate or beg.]
[Footnote 173-9: Compare _Garve_ in _Macfarlan_, 90. The
wages of English wool workers in 1831 amounted to:
_Tax per capita of the_
_population for_
_In_ _support of the poor._
Leeds, 22--22-1/2s. 5s. 7d.
Gloucester, 13--15-1/4s. 8s. 8d.
Somerset, 16-3/4--19-3/4s. 8s. 9d.
Wilts, 13-7/12--15-5/12s. 16s. 6d.
_Ure_, Philosophy of Manufactures, 476. After an
enthusiastic eulogy of high wages, _McCulloch_ remarks
especially that the English poor rates cost more than if the
laborers were obliged to provide for themselves by getting
higher wages. (Principles, III, 7.) Sad results of the
system which came into vogue in the South of England in
1795, to supplement wages according to the price of corn and
the number of children. Previously the laboring classes
married only after the age of 25 and even at 35, and not
until they had saved from £40 to £50. After the above
mentioned system was adopted, even minors married. (Edinburg
Review, LIII, 4, 7.)]
[Footnote 173-10: _Von Thünen_, Isolirte Staat., II, 1, 154,
gives the following formula as the expression of ideal
wages: sqrt(ap), in which a = the necessary requirement for
maintenance of the workmen, and p = the aggregate product of
his labor. _von Thünen_ attached so much importance to this
formula that he had it engraved on his tomb-stone. But even
if it were possible to reduce capital-generating labor and
wage-labor to a common denominator, it would not be possible
nor equitable to maintain the same dividing measure when
capital and labor contributed in very different amounts to
the production of the common product. An artist, for
instance, who could make costly vessels out of very cheap
clay and with cheap fuel would get too little by _von
Thünen's_ law; a mechanic who used a very efficient and
costly machine, too much. The fundamental defect in his
theory, _von Thünen_ himself seems to have obscurely felt.
Compare the letter in his Lebensbeschreibung, 1868, 239 and
_Roscher_, Geschichte der Nat. Oek., in Deutschland, 895 ff.]