Each of these causes is essentially distinct; in the first case there
is neither an increase in the number of hands nor a decrease in the
quantity of work, and yet a surplusage of labourers is the consequence,
for it is self-evident that if there be work enough in a given trade
to occupy 6000 men all the year round, labouring twelve hours per
day for six days in the week, the same quantity of work will afford
occupation to only 4000 men, or one-third less, labouring between
fifteen and sixteen hours per diem for seven days in the week. The
same result would, of course, take place, if the workman were made to
labour one-third more _quickly_, and so to get through one-third more
work in the same time (either by increasing their interest in their
work, by the invention of a new tool, by extra supervision, or by the
subdivision of labour, &c., &c.), the same result would, of course,
ensue as if they laboured one-third longer hours, viz., one-third of
the hands must be thrown out of employment. So, again, by altering the
_mode or form of work_, as by producing on the large scale, instead
of the small, a smaller number of labourers are required to execute
the same amount of work; and thus (if the market for such work be
necessarily limited) a surplusage of labourers is the result. Hence we
see that the alteration of the hours, rate, or mode of working may tend
as positively to overstock a country with labourers as if the labourers
themselves had unduly increased.
But this, of course, is on the assumption that both the quantity of
work and the number of hands remain the same. The next of the three
causes, above mentioned as inducing a surplusage of hands, is that
which arises from a positive _increase in the number of labourers_,
while the quantity of work remains the same or increases at a less rate
than the labourers; and the third cause is, where the surplusage of
labourers arises not from any alteration in the number of hands, but
from a positive _decrease in the quantity of work_.
These are distinctions necessary to be borne clearly in mind for the
proper understanding of this branch of the subject.
In the first case both the number of hands and the quantity of work
remain the same, but the term, rate, or mode of working is changed.
In the second, hours, rate, or mode of working remain the same, as well
as the quantity of work, but the number of hands is increased.
And in the third case, neither the number of hands nor the hours, rate,
or mode of working is supposed to have been altered, but the work only
to have decreased.
The surplusage of hands will, of course, be the same in each of these
cases.
I will begin with the first, viz., that which induces a surplusage
of labourers in a trade by enabling fewer hands to get through the
ordinary amount of work. This is what is called the “economy of labour.”
There are, of course, only three modes of economizing labour, or
causing the same quantity of work to be done by a smaller number of
hands.
1st. By causing the men to work _longer_.
2nd. By causing the men to work _quicker_, and so get through more work
in the same time.
3rd. By _altering the mode_ of work, or hiring, as in the “large
system of production,” where fewer hands are required; or the custom
of temporary hirings, where the men are retained only so long as their
services are needed, and discharged immediately afterwards.
First, of that mode of economizing labour which depends on an _increase
of either the ordinary hours or days for work_. This is what is usually
termed over-work and Sunday-work, both of which are largely creative
of surplus hands. The hours of labour in mechanical callings are
usually twelve, two of them devoted to meals, or 72 hours (less by the
permitted intervals) in a week. In the course of my inquiries for the
_Chronicle_, I met with slop cabinet-makers, tailors, and milliners who
worked sixteen hours and more daily, their toil being only interrupted
by the necessity of going out, if small masters, to purchase materials,
and offer the goods for sale; or, if journeymen in the slop trade, to
obtain more work and carry what was completed to the master’s shop.
They worked on Sundays also; one tailor told me that the coat he worked
at on the previous Sunday was for the Rev. Mr. ----, who “little
thought it,” and these slop-workers rarely give above a few minutes to
a meal. Thus they toil 40 hours beyond the hours usual in an honourable
trade (112 hours instead of 72), in the course of a week, or between
three and four days of the regular hours of work of the six working
days. In other words, two such men will in less than a week accomplish
work which should occupy three men a full week; or 1000 men will
execute labour fairly calculated to employ 1500 at the least. A paucity
of employment is thus caused among the general body, by this system
of over-labour decreasing the share of work accruing to the several
operatives, and so adding to surplus hands.
Of over-work, as regards excessive labour, both in the general and
fancy cabinet trade, I heard the following accounts, which different
operatives concurred in giving; while some represented the labour as of
longer duration by at least an hour, and some by two hours, a day, than
I have stated.
The labour of the men who depend entirely on “the slaughter-houses”
for the purchase of their articles is usually seven days a week
the year through. That is, seven days--for Sunday work is all but
universal--each of 13 hours, or 91 hours in all; while the established
hours of labour in the “honourable trade” are six days of the week,
each of 10 hours, or 60 hours in all. Thus 50 per cent. is added to
the extent of the production of low-priced cabinet-work, merely from
“over-hours;” but in some cases I heard of 15 hours for seven days in
the week, or 105 hours in all.
Concerning the hours of labour in this trade, I had the following
minute particulars from a garret-master who was a chair-maker:--
“I work from six every morning to nine at night; some work till ten.
My breakfast at eight stops me for ten minutes. I can breakfast in
less time, but it’s a rest; my dinner takes me say twenty minutes at
the outside; and my tea, eight minutes. All the rest of the time I’m
slaving at my bench. How many minutes’ rest is that, sir? Thirty-eight;
well, say three-quarters of an hour, and that allows a few sucks at a
pipe when I rest; but I can smoke and work too. I have only one room
to work and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether I labour
14-1/4 hours every day, and I must work on Sundays--at least 40 Sundays
in the year. One may as well work as sit fretting. But on Sundays I
only work till it’s dusk, or till five or six in summer. When it’s
dusk I take a walk. I’m not well-dressed enough for a Sunday walk when
it’s light, and I can’t wear my apron on that day very well to hide
patches. But there’s eight hours that I reckon I take up every week one
with another, in dancing about to the slaughterers. I’m satisfied that
I work very nearly 100 hours a week the year through; deducting the
time taken up by the slaughterers, and buying stuff--say eight hours
a week--it gives more than 90 hours a week for my work, and there’s
hundreds labour as hard as I do, just for a crust.”
The East-end turners generally, I was informed, when inquiring into
the state of that trade, labour at the lathe from six o’clock in the
morning till eleven and twelve at night, being 18 hours’ work per day,
or 108 hours per week. They allow themselves two hours for their meals.
It takes them, upon an average, two hours more every day fetching and
carrying their work home. Some of the East-end men work on Sundays, and
not a few either, said my informant. “Sometimes I have worked hard,”
said one man, “from six one morning till four the next, and scarcely
had any time to take my meals in the bargain. I have been almost
suffocated with the dust flying down my throat after working so many
hours upon such heavy work too, and sweating so much. It makes a man
drink where he would not.”
This system of over-work exists in the “slop” part of almost every
business--indeed, it is the principal means by which the cheap trade is
maintained. Let me cite from my letters in the _Chronicle_ some more of
my experience on this subject. As regards the London mantua-makers, I
said:--“The workwomen for good shops that give fair, or tolerably fair
wages, and expect good work, can make six average-sized mantles in a
week, _working from ten to twelve hours a day_; but the slop-workers,
by toiling from thirteen to sixteen hours a day, will make _nine_ such
sized mantles in a week. In a season of twelve weeks 1000 workers
for the slop-houses and warehouses would at this rate make 108,000
mantles, or 36,000 more than workers for the fair trade. Or, to put it
in another light, these slop-women, by being compelled, in order to
live, to work such over-hours as inflict lasting injury on the health,
supplant, by their over-work and over-hours, the labour of 500 hands,
working the regular hours.”
The following are the words of a chamber-master, working for the cheap
shoe trade:--
“From people being obliged to work twice the hours they once _did_
work, or that in reason they _ought_ to work, a glut of hands is the
consequence, and the masters are led to make reductions in the wages.
They take advantage of our poverty and lower the wages, so as to
undersell each other, and command business. My daughters have to work
fifteen hours a day that we may make a bare living. They seem to have
no spirit and no animation in them; in fact, such very hard work takes
the youth out of them. They have no time to enjoy their youth, and,
with all their work, they can’t present the respectable appearance they
ought.” “I” (interposed my informant’s wife) “often feel a faintness
and oppression from my hard work, as if my blood did not circulate.”
The better class of artizans denounce the system of Sunday working as
the most iniquitous of all the impositions. They object to it, not
only on moral and religious grounds, but economically also. “Every
600 men employed on the Sabbath,” say they, “deprive 100 individuals
of a week’s work. Every six men who labour seven days in the week
must necessarily throw one other man out of employ for a whole week.
The seventh man is thus deprived of his fair share of work by the
overtoiling of the other six.” This Sunday working is a necessary
consequence of the cheap slop-trade. The workmen cannot keep their
families by their six days’ labour, and therefore they not only, under
that system, get less wages and do more work, but by their extra labour
throw so many more hands out of employment.
Here then, in the over-work of many of the trade, we find a vast cause
of surplus hands, and, consequently, of casual labour; and that the
work in these trades has not proportionately increased is proven by the
fact of the existence of a superfluity of workmen.
Let us now turn our attention to the second of the causes above cited,
viz., _the causing of men to work quicker_, and so to accomplish
more in the same time. There are several means of attaining this end;
it may be brought about either (_a_) by making the workman’s gains
depend directly on the quantity of work executed by him, as by the
substitution of piece-work for day-work; (_b_) by the omission of
certain details or parts necessary for the perfection of the work;
(_c_) by decreasing the workman’s pay, and so increasing the necessity
for him to execute a greater quantity of work in order to obtain the
same income; (_d_) increasing the supervision, and encouraging a spirit
of emulation among the workpeople; (_e_) by dividing the labour into a
number of simple and minute processes, and so increasing the expertness
of the labourers; (_f_) by the invention of some new tool or machine
for expediting the operations of the workman.
I shall give a brief illustration of each of these causes _seriatim_,
showing how they tend to produce a surplusage of hands in the trades
to which they are severally applied. And first, as to _making the
workman’s gains depend directly on the quantity of work executed by
him_.
Of course there are but two direct modes of paying for labour--either
by the day or by the piece. Over-work by day-work is effected by means
of what is called the “strapping system” (as described in the _Morning
Chronicle_ in my letter upon the carpenters and joiners), where a whole
shop are set to race over their work in silence one with another, each
striving to outdo the rest, from the knowledge that anything short of
extraordinary exertion will be sure to be punished with dismissal.
Over-work by piece-work, on the other hand, is almost a necessary
consequence of that mode of payment--for where men are paid by the
quantity they do, of course it becomes the interest of a workman to do
more than he otherwise would.
“Almost all who work by the day, or for a fixed salary, that is to
say, those who labour for the gain of others, not for their own,
have,” it has been well remarked, “no interest in doing more than the
smallest quantity of work that will pass as a fulfilment of the mere
terms of their engagement. Owing to the insufficient interest which
day labourers have in the result of their labour, there is a natural
tendency in such labour to be extremely inefficient--a tendency
only to be overcome by vigilant superintendence on the part of the
persons who _are_ interested in the result. The ‘master’s eye’ is
notoriously the only security to be relied on. But superintend them
as you will, day labourers are so much inferior to those who work by
the piece, that, as was before said, the latter system is practised in
all industrial occupations where the work admits of being put out in
definite portions, without involving the necessity of too troublesome
a surveillance to guard against inferiority (or scamping) in the
execution.” But if the labourer at piece-work is made to produce a
greater quantity than at day-work, and this solely by connecting his
own interest with that of his employer, how much more largely must the
productiveness of workmen be increased when labouring wholly on their
own account! Accordingly it has been invariably found that whenever
the operative unites in himself the double function of capitalist
and labourer, as the “garret-master” in the cabinet trade, and the
“chamber-master” in the shoe trade, making up his own materials or
working on his own property, his productiveness, single-handed, is
considerably greater than can be attained even under the large system
of production, where all the arts and appliances of which extensive
capital can avail itself are brought into operation.
As regards the increased production by _omitting certain details
necessary for the due perfection of the work_, it may be said that
“scamping” adds at least 200 per cent. to the productions of the
cabinet-maker’s trade. I ascertained, in the course of my previous
inquiries, several cases of this over-work from scamping, and adduce
two. A very quick hand, a little master, working, as he called it, “at
a slaughtering pace,” for a warehouse, made 60 plain writing-desks in a
week of 90 hours; while a first-rate workman, also a quick hand, made
18 in a week of 70 hours. The scamping hand said he must work at the
rate he did to make 14_s._ a week from a slaughter-house; and so used
to such style of work had he become, that, though a few years back he
did West-end work in the best style, he could not now make eighteen
desks in a week, if compelled to finish them in the style of excellence
displayed in the work of the journeyman employed for the honourable
trade. Perhaps, he added, he couldn’t make them in that style at all.
The frequent use of rosewood veneers in the fancy cabinet, and their
occasional use in the general cabinet trade gives, I was told, great
facilities for scamping. If in his haste the scamping hand injure the
veneer, or if it have been originally faulty, he takes a mixture of
gum shellac and “colour” (colour being a composition of Venetian red
and lamp black), which he has ready by him, rubs it over the damaged
part, smooths it with a slightly-heated iron, and so blends it with
the colour of the rosewood that the warehouseman does not detect the
flaw. In the general, as contradistinguished from the fancy, cabinet
trade I found the same ratio of “scamping.” A good workman in the
better-paid trade made a four-foot mahogany chest of drawers in five
days, working the regular hours, and receiving, at piece-work price,
35_s._ A scamping hand made five of the same size in a week, and had
time to carry them for sale to the warehouses, wait for their purchase
or refusal, and buy material. But for the necessity of doing this the
scamping hand could have made seven in the 91 hours of his week, though
of course in a very inferior manner. “They would hold together for a
time,” I was assured, “and that was all; but the slaughterer cared only
to have them viewly and cheap.” These two cases exceed the average, and
I have cited them to show what _can_ be done under the scamping system.
We now come to the _increased rate of working induced by a reduction of
the ordinary rate of remuneration of the workman_. Not only is it true
that over-work makes under-pay, but the converse of the proposition
is equally true, that under-pay makes over-work--that is to say,
it is true of those trades where the system of piece-work or small
mastership admits of the operative doing the utmost amount of work
that he is able to accomplish; for the workman in such cases seldom
or never thinks of reducing his expenditure to his income, but rather
of increasing his labour, so as still to bring his income, by extra
production, up to his expenditure. Hence we find that, as the wages
of a trade descend, so do the labourers extend their hours of work
to the utmost possible limits--they not only toil earlier and later
than before, but the Sunday becomes a work-day like the rest (amongst
the “sweaters” of the tailoring trade Sunday labour, as I have shown,
is almost universal); and when the hours of work are carried to the
extreme of human industry, then more is sought to be done in a given
space of time, either by the employment of the members of their own
family, or apprentices, upon the inferior portion of the work, or else
by “scamping it.” “My employer,” I was told by a journeyman tailor
working for the Messrs. Nicoll, “reduces my wages one-third, and the
consequence is, I put in two stitches where I used to give three.” “I
must work from six to eight, and later,” said a pembroke-table-maker
to me, “to get 18_s._ now for my labour, where I used to get 54_s._ a
week--that’s just a third. I could in the old times give my children
good schooling and good meals. Now children have to be put to work
very young. I have four sons working for me at present.” Not only,
therefore, does any stimulus to extra production make over-work, and
over-work make under-pay; but under-pay, by becoming an additional
provocative to increased industry, again gives rise in its turn to
over-work. Hence we arrive at a plain unerring law--_over-work makes
under-pay and under-pay makes over-work_.
But the above means of increasing the rate of working refer solely
to those cases where the extra labour is induced by making it the
_interest_ of the workman so to do. The other means of extra production
is _by stricter supervision of journeymen, or those paid by the day_.
The shops where this system is enforced are termed “strapping-shops,”
as indicative of establishments where an undue quantity of work is
expected from a journeyman in the course of the day. Such shops, though
not directly making use of cheap labour (for the wages paid in them
are generally of the higher rate), still, by exacting more work, may
of course be said, in strictness, to encourage the system now becoming
general, of less pay and inferior skill. These strapping establishments
sometimes go by the name of “scamping shops,” on account of the time
allowed for the manufacture of the different articles not being
sufficient to admit of good workmanship.
Concerning this “_strapping_” system I received the following
extraordinary account from a man after his heavy day’s labour. Never in
all my experience had I seen so sad an instance of overwork. The poor
fellow was so fatigued that he could hardly rest in his seat. As he
spoke he sighed deeply and heavily, and appeared almost spirit-broken
with excessive labour:--
“I work at what is called a strapping shop,” he said, “and have worked
at nothing else for these many years past in London. I call ‘strapping’
doing as much work as a human being or a horse possibly can in a day,
and that without any hanging upon the collar, but with the foreman’s
eyes constantly fixed upon you, from six o’clock in the morning to six
o’clock at night. The shop in which I work is for all the world like
a prison; the silent system is as strictly carried out there as in a
model gaol. If a man was to ask any common question of his neighbour,
except it was connected with his trade, he would be discharged there
and then. If a journeyman makes the least mistake, he is packed off
just the same. A man working at such places is almost always in fear;
for the most trifling things he’s thrown out of work in an instant.
And then the quantity of work that one is forced to get through is
positively awful; if he can’t do a plenty of it, he don’t stop long
where I am. No one would think it was possible to get so much out of
blood and bones. No slaves work like we do. At some of the strapping
shops the foreman keeps continually walking about with his eyes on all
the men at once. At others the foreman is perched high up, so that he
can have the whole of the men under his eye together. I suppose since
I knew the trade that a _man does four times the work that he did
formerly_. I know a man that’s done four pairs of sashes in a day, and
one is considered to be a good day’s labour. What’s worse than all, the
men are every one striving one against the other. Each is trying to
get through the work quicker than his neighbours. Four or five men are
set the same job, so that they may be all pitted against one another,
and then away they go every one striving his hardest for fear that the
others should get finished first. They are all bearing along from the
first thing in the morning to the last at night, as hard as they can
go, and when the time comes to knock off they are ready to drop. I was
hours after I got home last night before I could get a wink of sleep;
the soles of my feet were on fire, and my arms ached to that degree
that I could hardly lift my hand to my head. Often, too, when we get
up of a morning, we are more tired than when we went to bed, for we
can’t sleep many a night; but we mustn’t let our employers know it, or
else they’d be certain we couldn’t do enough for them, and we’d get the
sack. So, tired as we may be, we are obliged to look lively, somehow
or other, at the shop of a morning. If we’re not beside our bench the
very moment the bell’s done ringing, our time’s docked--they wont
give us a single minute out of the hour. If I was working for a fair
master, I should do nearly one-third, and sometimes a half, less work
than I am now forced to get through, and, even to manage that much, I
shouldn’t be idle a second of my time. It’s quite a mystery to me how
they _do_ contrive to get so much work out of the men. But they are
very clever people. They know how to have the most out of a man, better
than any one in the world. They are all picked men in the shop--regular
‘strappers,’ and no mistake. The most of them are five foot ten, and
fine broad-shouldered, strong-backed fellows too--if they weren’t they
wouldn’t have them. Bless you, they make no words with the men, they
sack them if they’re not strong enough to do all they want; and they
can pretty soon tell, the very first shaving a man strikes in the shop,
what a chap is made of. Some men are done up at such work--quite old
men and gray with spectacles on, by the time they are forty. I have
seen fine strong men, of 36, come in there and be bent double in two or
three years. They are most all countrymen at the strapping shops. If
they see a great strapping fellow, who they think has got some stuff
about him that will come out, they will give him a job directly. We are
used for all the world like cab or omnibus horses. Directly they’ve
had all the work out of us, we are turned off, and I am sure, after my
day’s work is over, my feelings must be very much the same as one of
the London cab horses. As for Sunday, it is _literally_ a day of rest
with us, for the greater part of us lay a-bed all day, and even that
will hardly take the aches and pains out of our bones and muscles. When
I’m done and flung by, of course I must starve.”
The next means of inducing a quicker rate of working, and so
economizing the number of labourers, is by the _division_ and
_subdivision of labour_. In perhaps all the skilled work of London, of
the better sort, this is more or less the case; it is the case in a
much smaller degree in the country.
The nice subdivision makes the operatives perfect adepts in their
respective branches, working at them with a greater and a more assured
facility than if their care had to be given to the whole work, and in
this manner the work is completed in less time, and consequently by
fewer hands.
In illustration of the extraordinary increased productiveness induced
by the division of labour, I need only cite the well-known cases:--
“It is found,” says Mr. Mill, “that the productive power of labour is
increased by carrying the separation further and further; by breaking
down more and more every process of industry into parts, so that each
labourer shall confine himself to an even smaller number of simple
operations. And thus, in time, arise those remarkable cases of what is
called the division of labour, with which all readers on subjects of
this nature are familiar. Adam Smith’s illustration from pin-making,
though so well-known, is so much to the point, that I will venture
once more to transcribe it. ‘The business of making a pin is divided
into eighteen distinct operations. One man draws out the wire, another
straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, and a fifth grinds
it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two
or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business;
to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put
them into the paper. I have seen a small manufactory where ten men
only were employed, and where some of them, consequently, performed
two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and
therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery,
they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve
pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of 4000 pins of a
middling size.
“‘Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of 48,000
pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of 48,000
pins, might be considered as making 4800 pins in a day. But if they
had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them
having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could
not each of them have made 20, perhaps not one pin in a day.’”
M. Say furnishes a still stronger example of the effects of division
of labour, from a not very important branch of industry certainly,
the manufacture of playing cards. “It is said by those engaged in the
business, that each card, that is, a piece of pasteboard of the size of
the hand, before being ready for sale, does not undergo fewer than 70
operations, every one of which might be the occupation of a distinct
class of workmen. And if there are not 70 classes of work-people in
each card manufactory, it is because the division of labour is not
carried so far as it might be; because the same workman is charged
with two, three, or four distinct operations. The influence of this
distribution of employment is immense. I have seen a card manufactory
where thirty workmen produced daily 15,500 cards, being above 500 cards
for each labourer; and it may be presumed that if each of these workmen
were obliged to perform all the operations himself, even supposing him
a practised hand, he would not, perhaps, complete two cards in a day;
and the 30 workmen, instead of 15,500 cards, would make only 60.”
One great promoter of the decrease of manual labour is to be found in
the economy of labour from a very different cause to any I have pointed
out as tending to the increase of surplus hands and casual labour,
viz., to _the use of machinery_.
In this country the use of machinery has economised the labour both
of man and horse to a greater extent than is known in any other land,
and that in nearly all departments of commerce or traffic. The total
estimated machine power in the kingdom is 600,000,000 of human beings,
and this has been all produced within the last century. In agriculture,
for example, the threshing of the corn was the peasant’s work of the
later autumn and of a great part of the winter, until towards the
latter part of the last century. The harvest was hardly considered
complete until the corn was threshed by the peasants. On the first
introduction of the threshing machines, they were demolished in many
places by the country labourers, whose rage was excited to find that
their winter’s work, instead of being regular, had become _casual_.
But the use of these machines is now almost universal. It would, of
course, be the height of absurdity to say that threshing machines
could possibly increase the number of threshers, even as the reaping
machines cannot possibly increase the number of reapers; their effect
is rather to displace the greater number of labourers so engaged, and
hence indeed the “economy” of them. It is not known what number of
men were, at any time, employed in threshing corn. Their displacement
was gradual, and in some of the more remote parts of the provinces,
the flails of the threshers may be heard still, but if a threshing
machine--for they are of different power--do the work, as has been
stated, of six labourers, the economization or displacement of manual
labour is at once shown to be the economization and displacement of the
whole labour (for a season) of a country side; thus increasing surplus
hands.
In other matters--in the unloading vessels by cranes, in _all_ branches
of manufactures, and even in such minor matters as the grinding of
coffee berries, and the cutting and splitting of wood for lucifer
matches, an immense amount of manual labour has been minimized,
economized, or displaced by steam machinery. On my inquiry into the
condition of the London sawyers, I found that the labour of 2000 men
had been displaced by the steam saw-mills of the metropolis alone.
At one of the largest builder’s I saw machines for making mortises
and tenons, for sticking mouldings, and, indeed, performing all
the operations of the carpenter--one such machine doing the work,
perhaps, of a hundred men. I asked the probable influence that such
an instrument was likely to have on the men? “Ruin them all,” was
the laconic reply of the superintendent of the business! Within the
last year casks have been made by machinery--a feat that the coopers
declared impossible. Wheels, also, have been lately produced by steam.
I need, however, as I have so recently touched upon the subject, do
no more than call attention to the information I have given (p. 240,
vol. ii.) concerning the use of machinery in lieu of human labour.
It is there shown that if the public street-sweeping were effected,
throughout the metropolis, by the machines, nearly 196 of the 275
manual labourers, now scavaging for the parish contractors, would
be thrown out of work, and deprived of 7438_l._, out of their joint
earnings, in the year.
It is the fashion of political economists to insist on the general
proposition that machinery increases the demand for labour, rather than
decreases it; when they write unguardedly, however, they invariably
betray a consciousness that the benefits of machinery to manual
labourers are not quite so invariable as they would otherwise make out.
Here, for instance, is a confession from the pamphlet on “the Employer
and Employed,” published by the Messrs. Chambers, gentlemen who surely
cannot be accused of being averse to economical doctrines. It is true
the pamphlet is intended to show the evils of strikes to working men,
but it likewise points out the evils of mechanical power to the same
class when applied to certain operations.
“Strikes also lead to _the superseding of hand labour by machines_,”
says this little work. “In 1831, on the occasion of a strike at
Manchester, several of the capitalists, afraid of their business being
driven to other countries, had recourse to the celebrated machinists,
Messrs. Sharp and Co. of Manchester, requesting them to direct the
inventive talents of their partner, Mr. Roberts, to the construction
of a self-acting mule, in order to emancipate the trade from galling
slavery and impending ruin. Under assurances of the most liberal
encouragement in the adoption of his invention, Mr. Roberts suspended
his professional pursuits as an engineer, and set his fertile genius
to construct a spinning automaton. In the course of a few months he
produced a machine, called the ‘Self-acting Mule,’ which, in 1834, was
in operation in upwards of 60 factories; _doing the work of the head
spinners so much better than they could do it themselves, as to leave
them no chance against it_.
“In his work on the ‘Philosophy of Manufactures,’ Dr. Ure observes on
the same subject--‘The elegant art of calico-printing, which embodies
in its operations the most elegant problems of chemistry, as well as
mechanics, had been for a long period the sport of foolish journeymen,
who turned the liberal means of comfort it furnished them into weapons
of warfare against their employers and the trade itself. They were,
in fact, by their delirious combinations, plotting to kill the goose
which laid the golden eggs of their industry, or to force it to fly
off to a foreign land, where it might live without molestation. In
the spirit of Egyptian task-masters, the operative printers dictated
to the manufacturers the number and quality of the apprentices to be
admitted into the trade, the hours of their own labour, and the wages
to be paid them. At length capitalists sought deliverance from this
intolerable bondage in the resources of science, and were speedily
reinstated in their legitimate dominion of the head over the inferior
members. The four-colour and five-colour machines, which now render
calico-printing an unerring and expeditious process, are mounted in
all great establishments. It was under the high-pressure of the same
despotic confederacies, that self-acting apparatus for executing the
dyeing and rinsing operations has been devised.’
“The croppers of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the hecklers or
flax-dressers, can unfold ‘a tale of wo’ on this subject. Their
earnings exceeded those of most mechanics; but the frequency of
strikes among them, and the irregularities in their hours and times of
working, compelled masters to substitute machinery for their manual
labour. _Their trades, in consequence, have been in a great measure
superseded._”
It must, then, be admitted that machinery, _in some cases at least_,
does displace manual labour, and so tend to produce a surplusage
of labourers, even as over-work, Sunday-work, scamping-work,
strapping-work, piece-work, minutely-divided work, &c., have the same
effect so long as the quantity of work to be done remains unaltered.
_The extensibility of the market_ is the one circumstance which
determines whether the economy of labour produced by these means is
a blessing or a curse to the nation. To apply mechanical power, the
division of labour, the large system of production, or indeed any
other means of enabling a less number of labourers to do the same
amount of work _when the quantity of work to be done is limited in
its nature_, as, for instance, the threshing of corn, the sawing of
wood, &c., is necessarily to make either paupers or criminals of those
who were previously honest independent men, living by the exercise of
their industry in that particular direction. Economize your labour
one-half, in connection with a particular article, and you must sell
twice the quantity of that article or displace a certain number of
the labourers; that is to say, suppose it requires 400 men to produce
4000 commodities in a given time, then, if you enable 200 men to
produce the same quantity in the same time, you must get rid of 8000
commodities, or deprive a certain number of labourers of their ordinary
means of living. Indeed, the proposition is almost self-evident, though
generally ignored by social philosophers: economize your labour at a
greater rate than you expand your markets, and you must necessarily
increase your paupers and criminals in precisely the same ratio. “The
division of labour,” says Mr. Mill, following Adam Smith, “is limited
by the extent of the market. If by the separation of pin-making into
ten distinct employments 48,000 pins can be made in a day, this
separation will only be advisable if the number of accessible consumers
is such as to require every day something like 48,000 pins. If there is
a demand for only 25,000, the division of labour can be advantageously
carried but to the extent which will every day produce that smaller
number.” Again, as regards the large system of production, the same
authority says, “the possibility of substituting the large system of
production for the small depends, of course, on the extent of the
market. The large system can only be advantageous when a large amount
of business is to be done; it implies, therefore, either a populous and
flourishing community, or a great opening for exportation.” But these
are mere glimmerings of the broad incontrovertible principle, that _the
economization of labour at a greater rate than the expansion of the
markets, is necessarily the cause of surplus labour in a community_.
The effect of machinery in depriving the families of agricultural
labourers of their ordinary sources of income is well established.
“Those countries,” writes Mr. Thornton, “in which the class of
agricultural labourers is most depressed, have all one thing in common.
Each of them was formerly the seat of a flourishing manufacture
carried on by the cottagers at their own homes, which has now decayed
or been withdrawn to other situations. Thus, in Buckinghamshire and
Bedfordshire, the wives and children of labouring men had formerly very
profitable occupation in making lace; during the last war a tolerable
lacemaker, working eight hours a day, could easily earn 10_s._ or
12_s._ a week; the profits of this employment have been since so much
reduced by the use of machinery, that a pillow lacemaker must now work
twelve hours daily to earn 2_s._ 6_d._ a week.”
* * * * *
The last of the conditions above cited, as causing the same or a
greater amount of work to be executed with a less quantity of labour,
is _the large system of production_. Mr. Babbage and Mr. Mill have
so well and fully pointed out “the economy of labour” effected in
this manner, that I cannot do better than quote from them upon this
subject:--
“Even when no additional subdivision of the work,” says Mr. Mill,
“would follow an enlargement of the operations, there will be good
economy in enlarging them to the point at which every person to
whom it is convenient to assign a special occupation will have full
employment in that occupation.” This point is well illustrated by Mr.
Babbage:--“If machines be kept working through the 24 hours” [which is
evidently the only economical mode of employing them], “it is necessary
that some person shall attend to admit the workmen at the time they
relieve each other; and whether the porter or other servant so employed
admit one person or twenty, his rest will be equally disturbed. It will
also be necessary occasionally to adjust or repair the machine; and
this can be done much better by a workman accustomed to machine-making
than by the person who uses it. Now, since the good performance and the
duration of machines depend, to a very great extent, upon correcting
every shake or imperfection in their parts as soon as they appear, the
prompt attention of a workman resident on the spot will considerably
reduce the expenditure arising from the wear and tear of the machinery.
But in the case of a single lace-frame, or a single loom, this would
be too expensive a plan. Here, then, arises another circumstance,
which tends to enlarge the extent of the factory. It ought to consist
of such a number of machines as shall occupy the whole time of one
workman in keeping them in order. If extended beyond that number the
same principle of economy would point out the necessity of doubling or
tripling the number of machines, in order to employ the whole time of
two or three skilful workmen. Where one portion of the workman’s labour
consists in the exertion of mere physical force, as in weaving, and in
many similar arts, it will soon occur to the manufacturer that, if that
part were executed by a steam-engine, the same man might, in the case
of weaving, attend to two or more looms at once; and, since we already
suppose that one or more operative engineers have been employed, the
number of looms may be so arranged that their time shall be fully
occupied in keeping the steam-engine and the looms in order.
“Pursuing the same principles, the manufactory becomes gradually
so enlarged that the expense of lighting during the night amounts
to a considerable sum; and as there are already attached to the
establishment persons who are up all night, and can therefore
constantly attend to it, and also engineers to make and keep in
repair any machinery, the addition of an apparatus for making gas to
light the factory leads to a new extension, at the same time that it
contributes, by diminishing the expense of lighting and the risk of
accidents from fire, to reduce the cost of manufacturing.
“Long before a factory has reached this extent it will have been found
necessary to establish an accountant’s department, with clerks to pay
the workmen, and to see that they arrive at their stated times; and
this department must be in communication with the agents who purchase
the raw produce, and with those who sell the manufactured article. It
will cost these clerks and accountants little more time and trouble
to pay a large number of workmen than a small number, to check the
accounts of large transactions than of small. If the business doubled
itself it would probably be necessary to increase, but certainly not
to double, the number either of accountants or of buying and selling
agents. _Every increase of business would enable the whole to be
carried on with a proportionally smaller amount of labour._ As a
general rule, the expenses of a business do not increase by any means
proportionally to the quantity of business. Let us take as an example
a set of operations which we are accustomed to see carried on by one
great establishment--that of the Post Office.
“Suppose that the business, let us say only of the London letter-post,
instead of being centralised in a single concern, were divided among
five or six competing companies. Each of these would be obliged to
maintain almost as large an establishment as is now sufficient for the
whole. Since each must arrange for receiving and delivering letters
in all parts of the town, each must send letter-carriers into every
street, and almost every alley, and this, too, as many times in the
day as is now done by the Post Office, if the service is to be as
well performed. Each must have an office for receiving letters in
every neighbourhood, with all subsidiary arrangements for collecting
the letters from the different offices and re-distributing them. I
say nothing of the much greater number of superior officers who would
be required to check and control the subordinates, implying not only
a greater cost in salaries for such responsible officers, but the
necessity, perhaps, of being satisfied in many instances with an
inferior standard of qualification, and so failing in the object.”
But this refers solely to the “large system of business” as applied
to purposes of manufacture and distribution. In connection with
agriculture there is the same saving of labour effected. “The large
farmer,” says Mr. Mill, “has some advantage in the article of
buildings. It does not cost so much to house a great number of cattle
in one building, as to lodge them equally well in several buildings.
There is also some advantage in implements. A small farmer is not so
likely to possess expensive instruments. But the principal agricultural
implements, even when of the best construction, are not expensive. It
may not answer to a small farmer to own a threshing machine for the
small quantity of corn he has to thresh; but there is no reason why
such a machine should not in every neighbourhood be owned in common, or
provided by some person to whom the others pay a consideration for its
use. The large farmer can make some saving in cost of carriage. There
is nearly as much trouble in carrying a small portion of produce to
market, as a much greater produce; in bringing home a small, as a much
larger quantity of manure, and articles of daily consumption. There is
also the greater cheapness of buying things in large quantities.”
A short time ago I went into Buckinghamshire to look into the allotment
system. And, in one parish of 1800 acres, I found that some years ago
there were seventeen farmers who occupied, upon the average, 100 acres
each, and who, previous to the immigration of the Irish harvest-men,
_constantly_ employed six men a-piece, or, in the aggregate, upwards
of 100 hands. Now, however, the farmers in the same parish occupy to
the extent of 300 acres each, and respectively employ only six men _and
a few extra hands at harvest time_. Thus the number of hands employed
by this system has been decreased one-half. I learned, moreover, from
a clergyman there, who had resided in Wiltshire, that the same thing
was going on in that county also; that small farms were giving way to
large farms, and that at least half the labourers had been displaced.
The agricultural labourers, at the time of taking the last census,
were 1,500,000 in number; so that, if this system be generally carried
out, there must be 750,000 labourers and their families, or 3,000,000
people, deprived of their living by it.
Sir James Graham, in his evidence before the Committee on Criminal
Commitments, has given us some curious particulars as to the decrease
of the number of hands required for agricultural purposes, where the
large system of production is pursued in place of the small: he has
told us how many hands he was enabled to get rid of by these means, the
proportion of labour displaced, it will be seen, amounted to about 10
per cent. of the labouring population. In answer to a question relative
to the increase of population in his district, he replied:--
“I have myself taken _very strong means to prevent it_, for it so
happens that my whole estate came out of lease in the year 1822, after
the currency of a lease of fourteen years; and by _consolidation of
farms, and the destruction of cottages, I have diminished, upon my own
property, the population to the extent of from 300 to 400 souls_.”
“On how many acres?--On about 30,000 acres.” [This is at the rate of
one in every 100 acres].
“What was the whole extent of population?--It was under 4000 before I
reduced it.
“What became of those 300 or 400?--The greater part of them, being
small tenants, were enabled to find farms on the estates of other
proprietors, who pursued the opposite course of subdividing their
estates for the purpose of obtaining higher nominal rents; _others
have become day labourers_, and as day labourers, I have reason to
know, they are more thriving than they were on my estate as small
farmers, subject to a high rent, which their want of capital seldom
enabled them to pay; two or three of these families went to America.
“Have you any out of work?--None entirely out of work, some only
partially employed; but since the _dispersion of this large mass of
population_, the supply of labour has not much exceeded the demand,
for _whenever I removed a family, I pulled down the house_, and the
parochial jealousy respecting settlements is an ample check on the
influx of strangers.”
Similar to the influence of the large system of production in its
displacement of labourers, as enabling a larger quantity of work to be
executed by one establishment with a smaller number of hands than would
be required were the amount of work to be divided into a number of
smaller establishments,--similar to this mode of economizing labour, is
that mode of work which, by altering the produce rather than the mode
of production, and by substituting an article that requires less labour
for one that required more, gets rid of a large quantity of labour,
and, consequently, adds to the surplusage of labourers. An instance of
this is in the substitution of pasturage for tillage. “_Plough less and
graze more_,” says Sir J. Graham, the great economist of labour, simply
because fewer people will be required to attend to the land. But this
plan of grazing instead of ploughing was adopted in this country some
centuries back, and with what effect to the labourers and the people
at large, the following extract from the work of Mr. Thornton, on
over-population, will show:--
“The extension of the woollen manufacture was raising the price of
wool; and the little attendance which sheep require was an additional
motive for causing sheep farming to be preferred to tillage. Arable
land, therefore, began to be converted into pasture; and the
seemingly-interminable corn fields, which, like those of Germany at
this day, probably extended for miles without having their even surface
broken by fences or any other visible boundaries, disappeared. After
being sown with grass they were surrounded and divided by inclosures,
to prevent the sheep from straying, and to do away with the necessity
of having shepherds always on the watch. By these changes the quantity
of work to be done upon a farm was exceedingly diminished, and most
of the servants, whom it had been usual to board and lodge in the
manor and farm-houses, were dismissed. This was not all. The married
farm-servants were ousted from their cottages, which were pulled down,
and their gardens and fields were annexed to the adjoining meadows. The
small farmers were treated in the same way, as their leases fell in,
_and were sent to join the daily increasing crowd of competitors for
work that was daily increasing in quantity_.
“Even freeholders were in some instances ejected from their lands. This
social revolution had probably commenced even before the prosperity
of the peasantry had reached its climax; but in 1487 it attracted the
notice of Parliament, and an Act was passed to restrain its progress;
for already it was observed that inclosures were becoming ‘more
frequent, whereby arable land, _which could not be manured without
people and families, was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by
a few herdsmen_;’ and that ‘tenancies for years, lives, and at will,
whereupon most of the yeomanry lived, were turned into demesnes’[35].
In 1533[36], an Act was passed strongly condemning the practice of
‘accumulating’ farms, which it was declared had reduced ‘a marvellous
multitude’ of the people to poverty and misery, and left them no
alternative but to steal, or to die ‘pitifully’ of cold and hunger. In
this Act it was stated that single farms might be found with flocks of
from 10,000 to 20,000 sheep upon them; and it was ordained that no man
should keep more than 2000 sheep, except upon his own land, or rent
more than two farms.
“Two years later it was enacted that the king should have a moiety of
the profits of land converted (subsequently to a date specified) from
tillage to pastures, until a suitable house was erected, and the land
was restored to tillage. In 1552, a law[37] was made which required
that on all estates as large a quantity of land as had been kept in
tillage for four years together at any time since the accession of
Henry VIII., should be so continued in tillage. But these, and many
subsequent enactments of the same kind, had not the smallest effect in
checking the consolidation of farms. We find Roger Ascham, in Queen
Elizabeth’s reign, lamenting the dispersion of families, the ruin of
houses, the breaking up and destruction of ‘the noble yeomanry, the
honour and strength of England.’ Harrison also speaks of towns pulled
down for sheep-walks; ‘and of the tenements that had fallen either down
or into the lord’s hands;’ or had been ‘brought and united together by
other men, so that in some one manor, seventeen, eighteen, or twenty
houses were shrunk.’[38]
“‘Where have been a great many householders and inhabitants,’ says
Bishop Latimer, ‘there is now but a shepherd and his dog.’[39] And in a
curious tract, published in 1581, by one William Stafford, a husbandman
is made to exclaim, ‘Marry, these inclosures do and undo us all, for
they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy, and causeth that
we can have no land to put to tillage; all is taken up for pasture,
either for sheep or for grazing of cattle, insomuch that I have known
of late a dozen ploughs, within less compass than six miles about me,
laid down within this seven years; and where threescore persons or
upwards had their livings, now one man, with his cattle, hath all.
Those sheep is the cause of all our mischief, for they have driven
husbandry out of the country, by which was increased before all kinds
of victuals, and now altogether sheep, sheep, sheep.’[40] While numbers
of persons were thus continually driven from their homes, and deprived
of their means of livelihood, we need not be at a loss to account for
the increase of vagrancy, without ascribing it to the increase of
population.”
As an instance, within our time, of the same mode of causing a
surplusage of labourers, and so adding to the quantity of casual labour
in the kingdom, viz., by the extension of pasturage and consequent
diminution of tillage, we may cite the “clearances,” as they were
called, which took place, some few years back, in the Highlands of
Scotland. “It is only within the last few years,” says the author
above quoted, “that the strathes and glens of Sutherland have been
_cleared of their inhabitants, and that the whole country has been
converted into one immense sheepwalk_, over which the traveller may
proceed for 40 miles together without seeing a tree or a stone wall, or
anything, but a heath dotted with sheep and lambs[41].... The example
of Sutherland is imitated in the neighbouring counties. During the
last four years _some hundreds of families_ have been ‘weeded’ out of
Ross-shire, and nearly 400 more have received notice to quit next year.
Similar notice has been given to 34 families in Cromarty, and only the
other day eighteen families, who were living in peace and comfort, in
Glencalvie, in Ross-shire, were expelled from the farms occupied for
ages by themselves and their forefathers, to make room for sheep.” And
still we are told to “_plough less and graze more!_”
* * * * *
We now come to the last-mentioned of the circumstances inducing a
surplusage of labourers, and, consequently, augmenting the amount of
casual labour throughout the kingdom, viz., by _altering the mode of
hiring the labourers_. At page 236 of the present volume, I have said,
in connection with this part of the subject,--
“Formerly the mode of hiring farm-labourers was by the year, so that
the employer was bound to maintain the men when unemployed. But now
weekly hirelings and even journey-work, or hiring by the day, prevail,
and the labourers being paid mere subsistence-money only when wanted
are necessitated to become either paupers or thieves when their
services are no longer required. It is, moreover, this change from
yearly to weekly and daily hirings, and the consequent discarding of
men when no longer wanted, that has partly caused the immense mass
of surplus labourers, who are continually vagabondizing through the
country, begging or stealing as they go--men for whom there is but
some two or three weeks’ work (harvesting, hop-picking, and the like)
throughout the year.”
Blackstone, in treating of the laws relating to master and servant (the
greater part of the farm labourers or farm servants, as they were then
called, being included under the latter head), tells us at page 425 of
his first volume--
“The first sort of servants, acknowledged by the laws of England, are
MENIAL SERVANTS; so called from being _inter mœnia_ or domestic. The
contract between them and their masters arises upon the hiring. If
the hiring be generally, without any particular _time limited_, the
law construes it to be a _hiring for a year_ (Co. Lit. 42); upon a
principle of natural equity, that the servant shall serve, and the
master maintain him, throughout all the revolutions of the respective
seasons, as well when _there is work to be_ done, as _when there is
not_.”
Mr. Thornton says, “until recently it had been common for farm
servants, even when married and living in their own cottages, to take
their meals with their master; and, what was of more consequence, in
every farm-house, many unmarried servants, of both sexes, were lodged,
as well as boarded. The latter, therefore, even if ill paid, might
be tolerably housed and fed, and many of them fared, no doubt, much
better than they could have done if they had been left to provide for
themselves, with treble their actual wages.”
Formerly throughout the kingdom--and it is a custom _still_ prevalent
in some parts, more especially in the north--single men and women
seeking engagements as farm-servants, congregated at what were called
the “Hirings,” held usually on the three successive market days,
which were nearest to May-day and Martinmas-day. The hiring was
thus at two periods of the year, but the engagement was usually for
the twelvemonth. By the concurrent consent, however, of master and
servant, when the hiring took place, either side might terminate it at
the expiration of the six months, by giving due notice; or a further
hiring for a second twelvemonth could be legally effected without the
necessity of again going to the hirings. The servants, even before
their term of service had expired, could attend a hiring (generally
held under the authority of the town’s charter) as a matter of right;
the master and mistress having no authority to prevent them. The Market
Cross was the central point for the holding of the hirings, and the
men and women, the latter usually the most numerous, stood in rows
around the cross. The terms being settled, the master or mistress gave
the servant “a piece of money,” known as a “god’s penny” (the “handsel
penny”), the offer and acceptance of this god’s penny being a legal
ratification of the agreement, without any other step. In the old times
such engagements had almost always (as shown in the term “God’s penny”)
a character of religious obligation. At the earliest period, the
hirings were held in the church-yards; afterwards by the Market Cross.
I have spoken of this matter more in the past than the present tense,
for the system is greatly changed as regards the male farm-servant,
though little as regards the female. Now the male farm-labourers,
instead of being hired for a specific term, are more generally hired
by week, by job, or by day; indeed, even “half-a-day’s” work is known.
At one period it was merely the married country labourers, residing
in their own cottages, who were temporarily engaged, but it is now
the general body, married and unmarried, old and young, with a few
exceptions. Formerly the farmer was bound to find work for six or
twelve months (for both terms existed) for his hired labourers. If
the land did not supply it, still the man must be maintained, and be
paid his full wages when due. By such a provision, the labour and wage
of the hired husbandman were regular and rarely _casual_; but this
arrangement is now seldom entered into, and the hired husbandman’s
labour is consequently generally casual and rarely regular. This
principle of hiring labourers only for so long as they are wanted, as
contradistinguished from the “_principle of natural equity_,” spoken
of by Blackstone, which requires that “the servant shall serve and the
master maintain him _throughout all the revolutions of the respective
seasons, as well when there is work to be done as when there is not_,”
has been the cause, perhaps, of more casual labour and more pauperism
and crime, in this country, than, perhaps, any other of the antecedents
before mentioned. The harvest is now collected solely by casual
labourers, by a horde of squalid immigrants, or the tribe of natural
and forced vagabonds who are continually begging or stealing their way
throughout the country; our hops are picked, our fruit and vegetables
gathered by the same precarious bands--wretches who, perhaps, obtain
some three months’ harvest labour in the course of the year. The ships
at our several ports are discharged by the same “_casual hands_,” who
may be seen at our docks scrambling like hounds for the occasional bit
of bread that is vouchsafed to them; there numbers loiter throughout
the day, even on the chance of _an hour’s employment_; for the term of
hiring has been cut down to the finest possible limits, so that the
labourer may not be paid for even a second longer than he is wanted.
And since he gets only bare subsistence money when employed, “What,” we
should ask ourselves, “_must_ be his lot when unemployed?”
* * * * *
I now come to consider the circumstances causing an undue increase
of the labourers in a country. Thus far we have proceeded on the
assumption that both the quantity of work to be done and the number
of hands to do it remained stationary, and we have seen that by the
mere alteration of the time, rate, and mode of working, a vast amount
of surplus, and, consequently, casual labour may be induced in a
community. We have now to ascertain how, still assuming the quantity of
work to remain unaltered, the same effect may be brought about by an
undue _increase of the number of labourers_.
There are many means by which the number of labourers may be increased
besides that of a positive increase of the people. These are--