INTERNATIONAL LABOUR PROTECTION.
Years and years elapsed before the first supporters of international
protection received any recognition. Then immediately before the
assembling of the Berlin Conference, the idea began to take an enormous
hold on the public mind. Switzerland demanded a conference on the
subject. Prince Bismark refused it. The Emperor William II. made an
attempt towards it by summoning an international convention to discuss
questions of Labour Protection.
The inner springs of the movement for international Labour Protection
are not, and have not been, the same everywhere.
With some it is motived by the desire to secure for wage labour in all
"Christian" States conditions compatible with human dignity and
self-respect. This was the basis of the Pope's negotiations with the
labour parties and with certain of the more high-minded sovereigns and
princes. Others demand it in the combined interests of international
equilibrium of competition and of Labour Protection, believing that
these two may be brought into harmony by the international process,
since if industry were equally weighted everywhere, and the costs of
production, therefore, approximately the same everywhere, protected
nations would not suffer in the world's markets. The first, the more
"idealist" motive prevails most strongly among Catholics, and contains
no doubt a deeper motive--namely, the preservation of the social
influence of the Church. At the International Catholic Economic Congress
at Suttich, in September, 1890, this view prevailed, with the support of
the English and Germans, against the opposition of the Belgians and
French.
The light in which international Labour Protection is viewed depends
upon whether the one or the other motive prevails, or whether both are
working together.
Two results are possible. Either limits will be set to the right of
restricting protection of employment and protection in occupation by
means of universal international legislation, or the interchange of
moral influence between the various governments will be brought about by
means of periodical Labour Protection Conferences and through the Press,
which on the one hand would promote this interchange of influence, and
on the other hand would, uniformly for all nations, demand and encourage
the popular support of all protective efforts outside the limits of the
State.
Before the Berlin Conference it was by no means clear what was expected
of international Labour Protection. Since the Conference it has been
perfectly clear, and this alone is an important result.
The international settlement which Prince Bismark had opposed ten years
before did not meet with even timid support at the Berlin Conference.
England and France were the strongest opponents of the idea of the
control of international protective legislation. This can be proved from
the reports of the Berlin Conference.
The representative of Switzerland, H. Blumer, in the session of March
26, 1890, made a proposal, which was drawn up as follows:--
"Measures should be taken in view of carrying out the provisions adopted
by the Conference.
"It may be foreseen on this point that the States which have arrived at
an agreement on certain measures, will conclude an obligatory
arrangement; that the carrying out of such arrangement will take place
by national legislation, and that if this legislation is not sufficient
it will have to receive the necessary additions.
"It is also safe to predict the creation of a special organ for
centralizing the information furnished, for the regular publication of
statistical returns, and the execution of preparatory measures for the
conferences anticipated in paragraph 2 of the programme.
"Periodical conferences of delegates of the different governments may be
anticipated. The principal task of these conferences will be to develop
the arrangements agreed on and to solve the questions giving rise to
difficulty or opposition."
Immediately upon the opening of the discussion on this motion, the
delegates from Great Britain moved the rejection of the proposal of
Switzerland, "since, in their opinion, an International Convention on
this matter could not supply the place of special legislation in any one
country. The United Kingdom had only consented to take part in the
Conference on the understanding that no such idea should be entertained.
Even if English statesmen had the wish to contract international
obligations with respect to the regulation of factory labour, they would
have no power to do so. It is not within their competence to make the
industrial laws of their country in any way dependent on a foreign
power." The Austrian delegate suggested that it be made quite clear
"that the superintendence of the carrying out of the measures taken to
realise the proposals of the Conference is exclusively reserved to the
Governments of the States, and that no interference of a foreign power
is permitted." The Belgian delegate "considers it advisable, in order
that the deliberations of the Conference may keep their true character,
not to employ the word 'proposals,' but to substitute for it 'wishes,'
or 'labours.'" M. Jules Simon, the French delegate, states that he and
his colleagues have received instructions which "forbid them to endorse
any resolution which either directly or indirectly would appear to give
immediate executive force to the other resolutions formulated by the
Conference." And M. Tolain adds that "it is true that the French
Government had always considered the meeting of the Conference
exclusively as a means of enquiring into the condition of labour in the
States concerned, and into the state of opinion in respect to it, but
that they by no means intended to make it, at any rate for the present,
the point of departure for international engagements."
The idea of an international code of Labour Protection could not have
been more flatly rejected. Hence the opposition to the idea manifested
by Prince Bismark was fully borne out by the Conference. This opposition
has everything in its favour, for it is clear that a uniform
international code of Labour Protection would supply boundless
opportunities for friction and for stirring up international commercial
quarrels. If it were desired to establish Labour Protection guaranteed
by international agreement, it would be found that there would be as
many disturbances of international peace as there are different kinds of
industry, nay, I will even say, as there are workmen. The countries
whose administration was best and most complete would be the very ones
that would be most handicapped: seeing that they could expect only a
very minimum of real reciprocity from those other contracting powers
whose administration was faulty, and where a strong national sentiment
was lacking in the workers, owing to their miserable and penurious
condition in the absence of effective protection for labour. Accurately
to supervise the observance of such an international agreement we should
require an amount of organisation which it is quite beyond our power to
supply. But even on paper, international labour legislation has no
significance beyond that of creating international discontent and
agitation, and of supplying political animosity with inexhaustible
materials for arousing international jealousy. The Berlin Conference has
negatively produced a favourable effect by the protest of England and
France, if one reflects how fiercely the scepticism of Bismark's policy
was attacked before the meeting of the Conference. Repeated readings of
the reports of the Conference have confirmed me in the impression that
Prince Bismark was fully upheld by the Conference in his opposition to
the establishment of Labour Protection by international agreement. But I
have felt it necessary to clearly establish the grounds on which the
opposition to this form of protection is based.
The moral influence of the international Conference, however, has been
on the other hand something more than "vain beating the air." This is
already shown in the increased impetus given to the improvement of
national labour-protective legislation.
The conclusions arrived at by the Conference as to the international
furtherance of Labour Protection are, it is true, of the nature of
recommendations merely, and are in nowise binding on the governmental
codes of each country. But even as recommendations they are practically
of the greatest value. None of the nations represented will venture, I
think, to disregard the force of their moral influence. All the means
recommended by the Conference have promise of more or less success. Some
of the proposals, for instance, are: the repetition of international
Labour Protection Conferences, the appointment of a general, adequate,
and fully qualified industrial inspectorate, the international
interchange of inspectors reports, the uniform preparation of statistics
on all matters of protection, the international interchange of such
statistics, and of all protective enactments issued either legislatively
or administratively.[15]
But what of the proposal for the appointment of an international
commission for the collection and compilation of statistics and
legislative materials, for the publication of these materials, and for
summoning Labour Protection Conferences, and the like? And what would
this proposal involve?
None of the objections which can be urged against the enforcement of an
international code of Labour Protection would apply to this. The
commission would be well fitted to help forward the international
development, on _uniform lines_, of labour protective legislation,
without in any way fettering national independence. Its moral influence
would be of great international value.
What it would involve is also easy to determine. Such a commission would
be an international administrative organ for the spread and development
of Labour Protection on uniform lines in all countries; a provision by
International Law for the enforcement of the international moral
obligations arising out of protective right.
That is really what the Labour Protection Conferences would be if they
met periodically as suggested At the Berlin Conference this at least was
felt when it was said that the Conference was indeed less than a
treaty-making Congress, but more than a scientific Congress.
"International Conferences may be divided into two categories. In the
first the Plenipotentiaries of different States have to conclude
Treaties, either political or economic, the execution of which is
guaranteed by the principles of international law; to the second
category belong those Conferences whose members have no actual powers,
and give their attention to the scientific study of the questions
submitted to them, rather than to their practical and immediate
solution. Our Conference, from the nature of its programme, and the
attitude of some of the States good enough to take part in it, has a
character of its own, for it cannot pass Resolutions binding on the
Governments, nor may it restrict itself to studying the scientific sides
of the problems submitted to its examination. It could not aspire to the
first of these parts; it could not rest content with the second. The
considerations which have been admitted in the Commissions relative to
all the questions contained in the programme have been inspired by the
desire of showing the working population that their lot occupies a high
place in the attention of the different Governments; but these
considerations have had necessarily to bend to others which we cannot
put aside. In the first place, there was the wish to unite all the
States represented at the Conference in the same sentiment of devotion
to the most numerous and the most interesting portion of society. It
would have been grievous not to arrive at the promulgation of general
principles, by means of which the solution of the most important half of
the social problem should be attempted. It was evidently not possible to
arrive at once at an agreement on all its details. But it was necessary
to show the world that all the States taking part in the Conference
were met in the same motives of humanity."
The proposal of a commission for summoning repeated conferences,
international, uniform gatherings of representatives of all
non-governmental agencies of Labour Protection, for the purpose of
dealing uniformly with the requirements of a progressive policy in
national labour-protective legislation, was a summing up of the demands
urged by the Conference for a strong, international, administrative
organisation for the furtherance of Labour Protection by the
international exchange of moral persuasion, but without the enforcement
of a code of international application.
From a scientific point of view it is of the highest interest to observe
how international right, and even to some extent an international
administrative right, is here breaking out in an entirely new direction.
Treaties between two or more, or all, civilized States have hitherto
mainly been treaties for combined action in certain eventualities
(treaties of alliance), or territorial treaties for defining spheres of
influence. Or else they have been treaties for the reciprocal treatment
of persons or of goods passing between or remaining in the territories
of the respective contracting States: migration treaties, commercial
treaties, treaties concerning pauper aliens, tariff treaties and other
treaties. Or they have been treaties for the prevention of the spread of
infectious diseases. The exercise of international activity in the
creation, development, and regulation of an international uniform Social
Policy would be quite a new departure. Probably the idea of Switzerland
has not been thrown out altogether in vain.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] Proposals VI., I_a-d_, and II. I_c_ is as follows: "All the
respective States, following certain rules, for which an understanding
will have to be arrived at, will proceed periodically to publish
statistical reports with respect to the questions included in the
proposals of the Conference."