"Socialistic Legislation."
§ 1. Legislation in restraint of "Free" Contract.--The direct pressure
of certain tangible and painful forms of industrial grievance and of
poverty has forced upon us a large mass of legislation which is
sometimes called by the name of Socialistic Legislation. It is necessary
to enter on a brief examination of the character of the various
enactments included under this vague term, in order to ascertain the
real nature of the remedy they seek to apply.
Perhaps the most typical form of this socialistic legislation is
contained in the Factory Acts, embodying as they do a series of direct
interferences in the interests of the labouring classes with freedom of
contract between capital and labour.
The first of these Factory Acts, the Health and Morals Act, was passed
in 1802, and was designed for the protection of children apprenticed in
the rising manufacturing towns of the north, engaged in the cotton and
woollen trades. Large numbers of children apprenticed by poor-law
overseers in the southern counties were sent as "slaves" to the northern
manufacturer, to be kept in overcrowded buildings adjoining the factory,
and to be worked day and night, with an utter disregard to all
considerations of physical or moral health. There is no page in the
history of our nation so infamous as that which tells the details of the
unbridled greed of these pioneers of modern commercialism, feeding on
the misery and degradation of English children. This Act of 1802,
enforcing some small sanitary reforms, prohibited night work, and
limited the working-day of apprenticed children to twelve hours. In
1819, another Act was passed for the benefit of unapprenticed child
workers in cotton mills, prohibiting the employment of children under
nine years, and limiting the working-day to twelve hours for children
between nine and sixteen. Sir John Cam Hobhouse in 1825 passed an Act
further restricting the labour of children under sixteen years,
requiring a register of children employed in mills, and shortening the
work on Saturdays. Then came the agitation of Richard Oastler for a Ten
Hours Bill. But Parliament was not ripe for this, and Hobhouse,
attempting to redeem the hours in textile industries, was defeated by
the northern manufacturers. Public feeling, however, formed chiefly by
Tories like Oastler, Sadler, Ashley, and Fielden, drove the Whig leader,
Lord Althorp, to pass the important Factory Act of 1833. This Act drew
the distinction between children admitted to work below the age of
thirteen, and "young persons" of ages from thirteen to eighteen;
enforced in the case of the former attendance at school, and a maximum
working week of forty-eight hours; in the case of the latter prohibited
night work, and limited the hours of work to sixty-nine a week. The next
step of importance was Peel's consolidating Factory Act of 1844,
reducing the working-day for children to six and a half hours, and
increasing the compulsory school attendance from two hours to three, and
strengthening in various ways the machinery of inspection. In 1845 Lord
Ashley passed a measure prohibiting the night work of women. In 1848, by
the Act of Mr. Fielden, ten hours was assigned as a working-day for
women and young persons, and further restrictions in favour of women and
children were made in 1850 and 1853.
It must, however, be remembered that all the Factory legislation
previous to 1860 was confined to textile factories--cotton, woollen,
silk, or linen. In 1860, bleaching and dyeing works were brought within
the Factory Acts, and several other detailed extensions were made
between 1861 and 1864, in the direction of lace manufacture, pottery,
chimney-sweeping, and other employments. But not until 1867 were
manufactories in general brought under Factory legislation. This was
achieved by the Factory Acts Extension Act, and the Workshops Regulation
Act. For several years, however, the beneficial effects of this
legislation was grievously impaired by the fact that local authorities
were left to enforce it. Not until 1871, when the regulation and
enforcement was restored to State inspectors, was the legislation really
effectual. The Factory and Workshop Act of 1878, modified by a few more
recent restrictions, is still in force. It makes an advance on the
earlier legislation in the following directions. It prohibits the
employment in any factory or workshop of children under the age of
eleven, and requires a certificate of fitness for factory labour under
the age of sixteen. It imposes the half-time system on all children,
admitting, however, two methods, either of passing half the day in
school, and half at work, or of giving alternate days to work and
school. It recognizes a distinction between the severity of work in
textile factories and in non-textile factories, assigning a working week
of about fifty-six and a half hours to the former, and sixty hours to
the latter. The exceptions of domestic workshops, and of many other
forms of female and child employment, the permission of over-time within
certain limitations, and the inadequate provision of inspection,
considerably diminish the beneficial effects of these restrictive
measures.
In 1842 Lord Ashley secured a Mining Act, which prohibited the
underground employment of women, and of boys under ten years. In 1850
mine inspectors were provided, and a number of precautions enforced to
secure the safety of miners. In 1864 several minor industries, dangerous
in their nature, such as the manufacture of lucifer-matches, cartridges,
etc., were brought under special regulations. To these restrictive
pieces of legislation should be added the Employers' Liability Act,
enforcing the liability of employers for injuries sustained by workers
through no fault of their own, and the "Truck" legislation, compelling
the payment of wages in cash, and at suitable places.
This slight sketch will suffice to mark the leading features of a large
class of laws which must be regarded as a growth of State socialism.
The following points deserve special attention--
1. These measures are all forced on Parliament by the recognition of
actual grievances, and all are testimony to the failure of a system of
complete _laissez faire_.
2. They all imply a direct interference of the State with individual
freedom--i.e. the worker cannot sell his labour as he likes; the
capitalist cannot make what contracts he likes.
3. Though the protection of children and women is the strongest motive
force in this legislative action, many of these measures interfere
directly or indirectly with adult male labour--e.g. the limit on the
factory hours of women and children practically limits the factory day
for men, where the latter work with women or children. The clauses of
recent Factory Acts requiring the "fencing of machinery" and other
precautions, apply to men as well as to children and women. The Truck
Act and Employers' Liability Act apply to male adult labour.
§ 2. Theory of this Legislation.--Under such legislation as the
foregoing it is evident that the theory that a worker should be free to
sell his labour as he likes has given way before the following
considerations--
(1) That this supposed "freedom to work as one likes" often means only a
freedom to work as another person likes, whether that other person be a
parent, as in the case of children, or an employer, as in the case of
adult workers.
(2) That a worker in a modern industrial community is not a detached
unit, whose contract to work only concerns himself and his employer. The
fellow-workers in the same trade and society at large have a distinct
and recognizable interest in the conditions of the work of one another.
A, by keeping his shop open on Sundays, or for long hours on week-days,
is able to compel B, C, D, and all the rest of his trade competitors to
do the same. A minority of workmen by accepting low wages, or working
over-time, are often able to compel the majority to do the same. There
is no labour-contract or other commercial act which merely regards the
interest of the parties directly concerned. How far a society acting for
the protection of itself, or of a number of its members, is justified in
interfering between employer and workman, or between competing
tradesmen, is a question of expediency. General considerations of the
theoretic "freedom of contract," and the supposed "self-regarding"
quality of the actions, are thus liable to be set aside by this
socialistic legislation.
(3) These interferences with "free contract" of labour are not traceable
to the policy of any one political party. The most valuable portions of
the factory measures were passed by nominally Conservative governments,
and though supported by a section of the Radical party, were strenuously
opposed by the bulk of the Liberals, including another section of
Radicals and political economists.
These measures signify a slow but steady growth of national sentiment in
favour of securing for the poor a better life. The keynote of the whole
movement is the protection of the weak. This appears especially in a
recognition of the growing claims of children. Not only is this seen in
the history of factory legislation, but in the long line of educational
legislation, happily not ended yet. These taken together form a chain of
measures for the protection of the young against the tyranny, greed, or
carelessness of employers or parents. The strongest public sentiment is
still working in this same direction. Recent agitation on the subject of
prevention of cruelty to children, free dinners for school-children,
adoption of children, child insurance, attest the growing strength of
this feeling.
§ 3. General extension of Paternal Government.--The class of measures
with which we have dealt recognizes that children, women, and in some
cases men, are unable to look after their own interests as industrial
workers, and require the aid of paternal legislation. But it must not be
forgotten that the century has seen the growth of another long series of
legislative Acts based also on the industrial weakness of the
individual, and designed to protect society in general, adult or young,
educated or uneducated, rich or poor. Among these come Adulteration
Acts, Vaccination Acts, Contagious Diseases Acts, and the network of
sanitary legislation, Acts for the regulation of weights and measures,
and for the inspection of various commodities, licenses for doctors,
chemists, hawkers, &c. Many of these are based on ancient historic
precedents; we have grown so accustomed to them, and so thoroughly
recognize the value of most of them, that it seems almost unnecessary to
speak of them as socialistic measures. Yet such they are, and all of
them are objected to upon this very ground by men of the political
school of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Auberon Herbert. For it should be
noted--
1. Each of these Acts interferes with the freedom of the individual. It
compels him to do certain things--e.g. vaccinate his children, admit
inspectors on his premises--and it forbids him to do certain other
things.
2. Most of these Acts limit the utility to the individual of his
capital, by forbidding him to employ it in certain ways, and hampering
him with various restrictions and expenses. The State, or municipality,
in certain cases--e.g. railways and cabs--even goes so far as to fix
prices.
§ 4. State and Municipal Undertakings.--But the State does not confine
itself to these restrictive or prohibitive measures, interfering with
the free individual application of capital and labour, in the interests
of other individuals, or of society at large. The State and the
municipality is constantly engaged in undertaking new branches of
productive work, thus limiting the industrial area left open to the
application of private capitalist enterprise.
In some cases these public works exist side by side in competition with
private enterprise; as, for example, in the carriage of parcels, life
insurance, banking, and the various minor branches of post-office work,
in medical attendance, and the maintenance of national education, and of
places of amusement and recreation. In other cases it claims an absolute
monopoly, and shuts off entirely private enterprise, as in the
conveyance of letters and telegrams, and the local industries connected
with the production and distribution of gas and water. The extent and
complexity of that portion of our State and municipal machinery which is
engaged in productive work will be understood from the following
description--
"Besides our international relations, and the army, navy, police, and
the courts of justice, the community now carries on for itself, in some
part or another of these islands, the post-office, telegraphs, carriage
of small commodities, coinage, surveys the regulation of the currency
and note issue, the provision of weights and measures, the making,
sweeping, lighting, and repairing of streets, roads, and bridges, life
insurance, the grant of annuities, shipbuilding, stockbroking, banking,
farming, and money-lending. It provides for many of us from birth to
burial--midwifery, nursery, education, board and lodging, vaccination,
medical attendance, medicine, public worship, amusements, and interment.
It furnishes and maintains its own museums, parks, art galleries,
libraries, concert-halls, roads, bridges, markets, slaughterhouses,
fire-engines, lighthouses, pilots, ferries, surf-boats, steam-tugs,
life-boats, cemeteries, public baths, washhouses, pounds, harbours,
piers, wharves, hospitals, dispensaries, gas-works, water-works,
tramways, telegraph-cables, allotments, cow-meadows, artisans'
dwellings, schools, churches, and reading-rooms. It carries on and
publishes its own researches in geology, meteorology, statistics,
zoology, geography, and even theology. In our colonies the English
Government further allows and encourages the communities to provide for
themselves railways, canals, pawnbroking, theatres, forestry, cinchona
farms, irrigation, leper villages, casinos, bathing establishments, and
immigration, and to deal in ballast, guano, quinine, opium, salt, and
what not. Every one of these functions, with those of the army, navy,
police, and courts of justice, were at one time left to private
enterprise, and were a source of legitimate individual investment of
capital."[37]
Some of the utilities and conveniences thus supplied by public capital
and public labour are old-established wants, but many are new wants, and
the marked tendency of public bodies to undertake the provision of the
new necessaries and conveniences which grow up with civilization is a
phenomenon which deserves close attention.
§ 5. Motives of "Socialistic Legislation."--Stated in general terms,
this socialistic tendency may be described as a movement for the control
and administration by the public of all works engaged in satisfying
common general needs of life, which are liable, if trusted to private
enterprise, to become monopolies.
Articles which everybody needs, the consumption or use of which is
fairly regular, and where there is danger of insufficient or injurious
competition, if the provision be left to private firms, are constantly
passing, and will pass more and more quickly, under public control. The
work of protection against direct injuries to person and property has in
all civilized countries been recognized as a dangerous monoply if left
to private enterprise. Hence military, naval, police, and judicial work
is first "socialized," and in modern life a large number of subsidiary
works for the protection of the life and wealth of the community are
added to these first public duties. Roads, bridges, and a large part of
the machinery of communication or conveyance are soon found to be
capable of abuse if left to private ownership; hence the post and
telegraph is generally State-owned, and in most countries the railways.
There is for the same reason a strong movement towards the municipal
ownership of tramways, gas-and water-works, and all such works as are
associated with monopoly of land, and are not open to adequate
competition. In England everywhere these works are subject to public
control, and the tendency is for this control, which implies part
ownership, to develop into full ownership. Nearly half the gas-consumers
in this country are already supplied by public works. One hundred and
two municipalities own electric plant, forty-five own their tramway
systems, one hundred and ninety-three their water supplies, at the close
of 1902.
The receipts of local authorities from rates and other sources,
including productive undertakings, had increased from seventy millions
sterling to one hundred and forty-five millions between 1890-1 and
1901-2. Art galleries, free libraries, schools of technical education,
are beginning to spring up on all sides. Municipal lodging-houses are in
working at London, Glasgow, and several other large towns.
In every one of these cases, two forces are at work together, the
pressure of an urgent public need, and the perception that private
enterprise cannot be trusted to satisfy their need on account of the
danger of monopoly. How far or how fast this State or municipal
limitation of private enterprise and assumption of public enterprise
will proceed, it is not possible to predict. Everything depends on the
two following considerations--
First, the tendency of present private industries concerned with the
supply of common wants of life to develop into dangerous monopolies by
the decay of effective competition. If the forces at work in the United
States for the establishment of syndicates, trusts, and other forms of
monopoly, show themselves equally strong in England, the inevitable
result will be an acceleration of State and municipal socialism.
Secondly, the capacity shown by our municipal and other public bodies
for the effective management of such commercial enterprises as they are
at present engaged in.
Reviewing then the mass of restrictive, regulative, and prohibitive
legislation, largely the growth of the last half century, and the
application of the State and municipal machinery to various kinds of
commercial undertakings in the interest of the community, we find it
implies a considerable and growing restriction of the sphere of private
enterprise.
§ 6. The "Socialism" of Taxation--But there is another form of State
interference which is more direct and significant than any of these. One
of the largest State works is that of public education. Now the cost of
this is in large measure defrayed by rate and tax, the bulk of which, in
this case, is paid by those who do not get for themselves or for their
children any direct return. The State-assisted education is said to tax
A for the benefit of B. Nor is this a solitary instance; it belongs to
the very essence of the modern socialistic movement. There is a strong
movement, independent too of political partisanship, to cast, or to
appear to cast, the burden of taxation more heavily upon the wealthier
classes in order to relieve the poor. It is enough to allude to the
income tax and the Poor Law. These are socialistic measures of the
purest kind, and are directly open to that objection which is commonly
raised against theoretic socialism, that it designs "to take from the
rich in order to give to the poor." The growing public opinion in favour
of graduated income tax, and the higher duty upon legacies and rich
man's luxuries, are based on a direct approval of this simple policy of
taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
The advocates of these measures urge this claim on grounds of public
expediency, and those whose money is taken for the benefit of their
poorer brethren, though they grumble, do not seriously impugn the right
of the State to levy taxes in what way seems best. Whether we regard the
whole movement from the taxation standpoint, or from the standpoint of
benefits received, we shall perceive that it really means a direct and
growing pressure brought to bear upon the rich for the benefit of the
poor. A consideration of all the various classes of socialistic
legislation and taxation to which we have referred, will show that we
are constantly engaged more and more in the practical assertion and
embodiment of the three following principles--
1. That the individual is often too weak or ignorant to protect himself
in contract or bargain, and requires public protection.
2. That considerations of public interest are held to justify a growing
interference with "rights of property."
3. That the State or municipality may enlarge their functions in any
direction and to any extent, provided a clear public interest is
subserved.
§ 7. Relation of Theoretic Socialism to Socialistic Legislation.--Now it
has been convenient in speaking of this growth of State and municipal
action to use the term Socialism. But we ought to be clear as to the
application of this term. Although Sir William Harcourt declared, "We
are all socialists to-day," the sober, practical man who is responsible
for these "socialistic" measures, smiles at the saying, and regards it
as a rhetorical exaggeration. He knows well enough that he and his
fellow-workers are guided by no theory of the proper limits of
government, and are animated by no desire to curtail the use of private
property. The practical politician in this country is beckoned forward
by no large, bright ideal; no abstract consideration of justice or
social expediency supplies him with any motive force. The presence of
close detailed circumstance, some local, concrete want to be supplied,
some distinct tangible grievance to be redressed, some calculable
immediate economy to be effected, such are the only conscious motives
which push him forward along the path we have described. An alarming
outbreak of disease registered in a high local death-rate presses the
question of sanitary reform, and gives prominence to the housing of the
working-classes. The bad quality of gas, and the knowledge that the
local gas company, having reached the limit of their legal dividend, are
squandering the surplus on high salaries and expensive offices, leads to
the municipalization of the gas-works. The demand made upon the
ratepayers of Bury to expend; £60,000 on sewage-works, a large
proportion of which would go to increase the ground value of Lord
Derby's property, leads them to realize the justice and expediency of a
system of taxation of ground values which shall prevent the rich
landlord from pocketing the contribution of the poor ratepayer. So too
among those directly responsible for State legislation, it is the force
of public opinion built out of small local concrete grievances acting in
coalition with a growing sentiment in favour of securing better material
conditions for the poor, that drafts these socialistic bills, and gets
them registered as Acts of Parliament.
But the student of history must not be deceived into thinking that
principles and abstract theories are not operative forces because they
appear to be subordinated to the pressure of small local or temporal
expediencies. Underneath these detailed actions, which seem in large
measure the product of chance, or of the selfish or sentimental effort
of some individual or party, the historian is able to trace the
underworking of some large principle which furnishes the key to the real
logic of events. The spirit of democracy has played a very small part in
the conscious effort of the democratic workers. But the inductive study
of modern history shows it as a force dominating the course of events,
directing and "operating" the _minor_ forces which worked unconsciously
in the fulfilment of its purpose. So it is with this spirit of
socialism. The professed socialist is a rare, perhaps an unnecessary,
person, who wishes to instruct and generally succeeds in scaring
humanity by bringing out into the light of conscious day the dim
principle which is working at the back of the course of events. Since
this conscious socialism is not an industrial force of any great
influence in England, it is not here necessary to discuss the claim of
the theoretic socialist to provide a solution for the problem of
poverty. But it is of importance for us to recognize clearly the nature
of the interpretation theoretic socialists place upon the order of
events set forth in this chapter, for this interpretation throws
considerable light on the industrial condition of labour.
We see that the land nationalizer claims to remove, and the land
reformer in general to abate, the evil of poverty by securing for those
dependent on the fluctuating value and uncertain tenure of wage-labour
an equal share in those land-values, the product of nature and social
activity, which are at present monopolized by a few. Now the quality of
monopoly which the land nationalizer finds in land, the professed
socialist finds also in all forms of capital. The more discreet and
thoughtful socialist in England at least does not deny that the special
material forms of capital, and the services they render, may be in part
due to the former activity of their present owners, or of those from
whom their present owners have legitimately acquired them; but he
affirms that a large part of the value of these forms of capital, and of
the interest obtained for their use, is due to a monopoly of certain
opportunities and powers which are social property just as much as land
is. The following statement by one of the ablest exponents of this
doctrine will explain what this claim signifies--
"We claim an equal right to this 'inheritance of mankind,' which by our
institutions a minority is at present enabled to monopolize, and which
it does monopolize and use in order to extort thereby an unearned
increment; and this inheritance is true capital. We mean thereby the
principle, potentiality, embodied in the axe, the spade, the plough, the
steam-engine, tools of all kinds, books or pictures, bequeathed by
thinkers, writers, inventors, discoverers, and other labourers of the
past, a social growth to which all individual claims have lapsed by
death, but from the advantages of which the masses are virtually shut
out for lack of means. The very best definition of government, even that
of to-day, is that it is the agency of society which procures title to
this treasure, stores it up, guards and gives access to it to every one,
and of which all must make the best use, first and foremost by
education."
The conscious socialist is he who, recognizing in theory the nature of
this social property inherent in all forms of capital, aims consciously
at getting possession or control of it for society, in order to solve
the problem of poverty by making the wage-earner not only a joint-owner
of the social property in land but also in capital.
In other words, it signifies that the community refuses to sanction any
absolute property on the part of any of its members, recognizing that a
large portion of the value of each individual's work is due, not to his
solitary efforts, but to the assistance lent by the community, which has
educated and secured for the individual the skill which he puts in his
work; has allowed him to make use of certain pieces of the material
universe which belongs to society; has protected him in the performance
of his work; and lastly, by providing him a market of exchange, has
given a social value to his product which cannot be attributed to his
individual efforts. In recognition of the co-operation of society in all
production of wealth, the community claims the right to impose such
conditions upon the individual as may secure for it a share in that
social value it has by its presence and activity assisted to create. The
claim of the theoretic socialist is that society by taxing or placing
other conditions upon the individual as capitalist or workman is only
interfering to secure her own. Since it is not possible to make any
satisfactory estimate of the proportion of any value produced which is
due to the individual efforts, and to society respectively, there can be
no limit assigned to the right of society to increase its claim save the
limit imposed by expediency. It will not be for the interest of society
to make so large a claim by way of regulation, restriction, or taxation,
as shall prevent the individual from applying his best efforts to the
work of production, whether his function consists in the application of
capital or of labour. The claims of many theoretic socialists transcend
this statement, and claim for society a full control of all the
instruments of production. But it is not necessary to discuss this wider
claim, for the narrower one is held sufficient to justify and explain
those slow legislative movements which come under the head of practical
socialism, as illustrated in modern English history.
Now while this conscious socialism has no large hold in England, it is
necessary to admit that the doctrine just quoted does furnish in some
measure an explanation of the unconscious socialism traceable in much of
the legislation of this century. When it is said that "we are all
socialists to-day," what is meant is, that we are all engaged in the
active promotion or approval of legislation which can only be explained
as a gradual unconscious recognition of the existence of a social
property in capital which it is held politic to secure for the public
use.
The increasing restrictions on free use of capital, the monopoly of
certain branches of industry by the State and the municipality, the
growing tendency to take money from the rich by taxation, can be
explained, reconciled, and justified on no other principle than the
recognition that a certain share of the value of these forms of wealth
is due to the community which has assisted and co-operated with the
individual owner in its creation. Whether the socialistic legislation
which, stronger than all traditions of party politics, is constantly
imposing new limitations upon the private use of capital, is desirable
or not, is not the question with which we are concerned. It is the fact
that is important. Society is constantly engaged in endeavouring,
feebly, slowly, and blindly, to relieve the stress of poverty, and the
industrial weakness of low-skilled labour, by laying hands upon certain
functions and certain portions of wealth formerly left to private
individuals, and claiming them as social functions and social wealth to
be administered for the social welfare. This is the past and present
contribution of "socialistic legislation" towards a solution of the
problem of poverty, and it seems not unlikely that the claims of society
upon these forms of social property will be larger and more
systematically enforced in the future.