There are scores of millions of men in China glad to work for a
few pennies per day.
There are no labor unions in China, and in some districts the
employer can have his workmen beheaded for demanding an increase
of pay. If the venerable old New York merchant is right, China
ought to be certainly a marvellously successful country
industrially.
As a matter of fact, China is dead, and there is no better proof
of her complete deadness than the fact that among all her
millions of coolies there is not enough spirit for the formation
of a labor union.
The energy of the British workman established England's
industrial greatness and fought for and won the great
trades-union system which the workmen of this country are
developing so ably. ----
Suppose it were true that trades unionism, with its higher wages
and shorter hours, decreases exports--what of it?
Is it not more important to have ten million workmen well paid,
with reasonable leisure and decent lives, than to have a handful
of iron masters and coal-mine owners piling up millions of pounds
and producing sons like the famous "Jubilee Juggins"?
Wouldn't it be better for China if her several hundred millions
of citizens were well paid, well fed and well educated, even
though Li Hung Chang and the other prosperous viceroys should all
be paid a little less money, and own fewer square miles of rice
fields and tea plants? ----
In Huxley's admirable biography, written by his son, you may read
of a 'longshoreman who, thanks to reasonably short hours of work
and a little leisure, took up the study of scientific subjects.
He was aided by Huxley, who lent him a microscope, and ultimately
this common 'longshoreman's researches were of real value to the
scientific world.
Isn't it well to have a trades-union system which curbs the
avariciousness of employers and gives workmen a chance to
develop the best that is in them?
Isn't it better for England to have that 'longshoreman develop
into a scientist than to let some man who employs him make an
extra shilling a day out of his labor, even though it should add
a little to the exports of England? ----
A country's greatness depends on the quality of the men that live
in the country, not on goods manufactured to sell to outside
nations.
Rome was doing little exporting when she ruled the world.
She was breeding men, independent and brave, who could bring the
products of the world to her.
She did not need to worry about exports, nor does any other
country need to worry about them.
The thing to worry about is the condition of your citizens, the
education of children, the decent treatment of women, the
equality of laws.
Other things take care of themselves.