by material considerations alone, but is largely swayed by sentiment;
and any system which ignores this and treats men simply as calculating
machines is bound to fail. Thus it is that, while men accept the latest
doctrines of social science, they do not act upon them. They sympathize
with Mr. Spencer's account of an ideal State in which the governmental
power is the least possible, but they pay the education rate, support
compulsory vaccination, and express not the slightest wish to see
public-houses open all night. It is in this as in other theoretical
affairs--our minds agree, but our hearts arbitrate. A parent may accept
most thoroughly the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, but he will
strive his utmost to preserve life to a crippled or lunatic child. And a
trader may indicate assent when he hears that the employed ought to be
paid only the amount which would secure similar services in the labour
market; but, if he is even commonly honest in his dealings with his
fellows, he will not discharge an old servant because he can obtain
another for something less.
But no sooner do some men secure a fact than it begets a theory, and
truth thus becomes the father of many lies. It is well enough that every
one should strive to be independent of external help, but it is not
within the bounds of the possible that every one can be perfectly so;
and that being the case, the State, as the protector of all, is bound to
interfere. What has to be decided is the limit of such interference; and
although upon that point no precise line can be drawn, for as conditions
vary so must the limit change, discussion may serve to show that all the
truth lies in neither of the contending theories, but in a judicious use
of both.
XXXII.--HOW FAR SHOULD THE STATE INTERFERE?
To precisely limit the interference of the State in private affairs has
been urged to be impossible, for the boundaries of such interference are
ever changing, and will continue ever to change as the circumstances
vary. In some respects the State has more to say about our domestic
concerns, in others less, than it formerly had; but there never was a
time when it left us altogether alone, and there is never likely to be.
When people groan about "grandmotherly government," and talk hazily of
"good old times" when such was unknown, they speak with little knowledge
of the social history of England. They forget that there was a day when
under penalty men had to put out their fires at a given hour; that later
they were directed to dress in a fashion presumed to be becoming to
their several ranks; that at one period they had to profess Catholicism
under fear of the fagot, and at another Protestantism under penalty of
the rope; that in later days they had to go to church to escape being
fined, and even until this century had to take the Sacrament in order to
qualify for office; that in other times they were allowed to bury their
dead only in certain clothing; that a section of them had to give six
days in the year to the repair of the highways; and that in divers
further ways their individual liberty was fettered in a fashion which
would not now be tolerated for a day.
The State, in fact, has always claimed to be all-powerful, and has never
assigned set limits to its demands. It has asserted, and still asserts,
rights over that which is intangible, which it has not created, and
which in its origin is superhuman. If a man has used a stream for his
own purposes for a given period, the State secures him a right of use,
protecting him from interference in or providing him compensation for
that which neither he nor the State made or purchased. If another has a
window which is threatened with being darkened by a newer building
adjacent, the State steps in to assure him of the retention of his
"ancient light." And when people have for a series of years walked
without hindrance across land belonging to others, the State gives to
the commonalty a right of way, which, however seemingly intangible,
often seriously deteriorates the value of the property over which it is
exercised.
In the gravest concerns of man as well as in those which merely affect
his comfort or his purse, the State intervenes. It used to assert by
means of the press-gang its right to seize men for service in war; and
it could at this day order a conscription which would compel all in the
prime of life to pass under the military yoke. It can and does direct
property to be seized for public purposes, upon compensation paid, from
an unwilling owner; and it can and does take out of our pockets a
proportion of our income, which proportion it has the power to largely
increase, in order to pay its way.
That which does all these things is for convenience called "the State,"
but in present circumstances it is really ourselves. The nation is
simply the aggregate of the citizens who compose it, and each one of
us--especially each possessor of a vote--is a distinct portion of the
State. The misfortune which attends upon the frequent use of the word is
that many persons seem to think that there is some mystic power called
"the State" or "the Government," which can dispense favours, spend
money, and do great things--all from within itself. But neither State
nor Government has any money save that which we give it, and no power
except that which is accorded by the constituencies. And, therefore,
when people cry out for "the State" to do this or "the Government" to do
that, they should remember that _they_ are portions of the force they
beseech, and that if what is to be done costs money they will have to
pay their share; and this much it is highly useful to recollect when
appeals are more and more being made to the State for help.
Let us start, therefore, with the conviction that the State, which is
simply ourselves and others like us, has no power beyond what the people
give it, and no money but what the people pay; that it has throughout
our history attempted to solve social problems, and is doing so still;
and that it is as sure as anything human can be that if it did not
interfere in certain cases to aid the struggling, to put a curb upon the
tyrannous, and to regulate divers specified affairs, the poor and the
helpless would be the principal sufferers, and greed of gain and lust of
power would be in the ascendant.
But it would be easy to push this interference too far. Admitted that
the State has done certain things for us, and, in the main, done them
well, this affords no argument that it should do everything in the hope
that equal success would follow. There is an assumption dear to pedants
and schoolboys that because one does _this_ he is bound to do _that_,
but neither our daily lives nor our State concerns are or ought to be so
governed. They are largely regulated by circumstances, with the idea of
doing the best possible under existing conditions. For there is no
infallible scheme of government or of society, and the system must be
made to suit the people and not the people to suit the system.
And although the State, in certain departments of its interference, has
done well, it has not brilliantly succeeded where it has entered into
competition with private enterprise. Just as public companies are worked
at a greater cost than the same concerns in the hands of individual
proprietors, so Government enterprises are always highly expensive and
often disastrous failures. It did not need the recent revelations
concerning the waste, the jobbery, and the wanton extravagance of
certain of our departments to inform those who knew anything of the
public offices or the Government dockyards, that such things were the
customary results of the system. Stroll through a private dockyard and
then through a public one; visit a large mercantile office and then a
Government department in Whitehall; and decide whether the State is a
model master. It may be said that it is simply the system that is to
blame, but surely the universality of evil result from the same cause
should teach a lesson.
There may be asserted the possible exception of the Post-office to the
charge that the State fails where it competes with private enterprise;
and no one would deny that that department does good work, and that, if
all others were like it, there would be less reason to complain. But it
must not be forgotten that the Post-office, as far as the main portion
of its business--letter-carrying--is concerned, does not compete with
private enterprise, for it possesses by law the monopoly of the work;
and that the cheapness of postage, upon which it prides itself, is
largely secured by making the people of London pay at least twice as
much as they would if competition existed for the letters they send
among themselves, in order that they and others may, for the same money,
forward letters to Perth or Penzance. As to the Government monopoly of
the telegraphs, the result, while beneficial in a certain degree, has
had this effect--it has partially strangled the telephone system; and
that will hardly be claimed as a triumph.
Any suggestion, therefore, for making the State interfere still further
with private enterprise ought to be most carefully weighed. The question
really is whether it has not already done as much in this direction as
it ought, and whether, generally speaking, the limits now laid down are
not sufficiently broad.
What it does is this: it undertakes by means of an army and navy our
external defence; secures by the police our internal safety; makes
provision by which no person need starve; enforces upon all a certain
amount of education; and enjoins a set of sanitary regulations for the
protection of the community from infectious or contagious disease. These
are the main items of its work, but beyond them it provides the means of
communication by post and telegraph; fixes in certain degree the fares
on railways and the price of gas; encourages thrift by the institution
of savings banks; and gives us all an opportunity for religious exercise
by the provision of an Established Church.
The objectionable part of this is that which directly interferes with
personal opinion or private enterprise. The noble saying of
Cromwell--"The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of
their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that
satisfies"--spoken before its time, as even some of the Protector's
friends may have considered, must now be extended to the contention that
the State has no concern whatever with the opinions of its citizens, and
that it ought not to endow any sect at the expense of the rest.
Concerning the competition with private enterprise, the State, in
providing a system of national education and a postal and telegraph
service, has gone to the verge of what it should do in such a direction.
While, therefore, the State should not abandon any function it now
exercises, the severest caution ought to be used before another is
undertaken. All attempts of the ruling power to interfere too closely
with the private concerns of men--as witness the sumptuary laws and
those against usury--have defeated themselves, and it is not for us to
revive systems of interference which, even in the Middle Ages, broke
down. It is no answer that some things are going so badly that
State-interference may be considered absolutely necessary, and that it
is merely the extremity of nervousness that hinders the experiment being
tried. Caution is not cowardice, and no man is called upon to be
foolhardy to prove his freedom from fear.
When it is said that, in certain directions, matters have come to such a
pass that the State must more actively interfere, let us note that
extremes meet upon this as upon so many other matters; for the cry that
"the country is going to the dogs" is nowadays raised as lustily by some
friends of the working man as ever it has been by the retired colonels
and superannuated admirals whose exclusive possession it was so long.
And the remedy suggested is that the State should do this, that, and the
other, with an utter ignoring of the fact, which all history proves,
that the creation of an additional army of officials would strangle
enterprise and stifle invention. Thus from the general, it will be
necessary to go to the particular, and to ask how far the proposed
remedy would be effectual. The principle here argued is that the State
should concern itself simply with external defence, internal safety,
the protection of those unable to guard themselves, and the undertaking
of such work for the general good as cannot be better done by private
enterprise; and this principle holds good against many a nostrum now put
forward as an infallible remedy for social ills.
XXXIII.--SHOULD THE STATE REGULATE LABOUR OR WAGES?
Among the many social questions which the pressure of circumstances may
soon make political is that of the State regulation of the hours of
labour. The president of the Trades Union Congress for 1887 advocated,
for instance, the passing of an Eight Hours Bill; and it is desirable to
consider whether this would in any respect be a step in a right
direction.
The argument for such a measure appears in principle to be this: that
the classes dependent upon manual labour for their livelihood have too
many hands for the work there is to do; that those who do get work toil
too long; and that both evils would be remedied by restricting the hours
of labour, more men thus finding employment and all working well within
their strength.
Against these points may be set others: that England has already been
severely affected by competition with countries where the hours are
longer and the pay less; that any further restriction of hours without a
corresponding reduction of pay would be ruinous to our trade; and that
it is highly probable that the majority of workmen would prefer to
labour for nine hours at their present wages than for eight hours at
less. The last contention, of course, might be answered by an enactment
fixing not only the hours to be worked but the wages to be paid. If this
is wished for, it should be clearly put; but before any step is taken
towards either such measure, several points concerning each, which now
appear more than doubtful, should be made clear.
A fallacy underlying much of the contention in favour of any such
enactment is the idea that the community is divided into two distinct
classes--the producing and the consuming. As a fact, there are no
producers who do not consume, though there are some consumers who do not
produce. But is even that an unmixed evil? There is a further fallacy
which arbitrarily divides us into capitalists and labourers; but every
man who can purchase the result of another's labour is a capitalist, and
that much-denounced person will never be got rid of as long as it is
easier to buy than to make.
A third class which secures the condemnation of many is "the
middle-man." It is easy to denounce him, but he is a necessity at once
of commerce and of comfort. If one wants some coffee at breakfast, he
cannot go to Java for the berry, the West Indies for the sugar, the
dairy-farm for the milk, and the Potteries for the cup from which to
drink. So far from the middle-man unduly increasing the price of those
articles, he lessens it by dealing in bulk with what it would pay
neither the producer nor the purchaser to deal with in small quantities;
and not only lessens the price but, in regard to the commodities of a
distant land, renders it practically possible for us to have them at
all.
It is equally useless to rail at competition as if it were inherently
evil, for there will be competition as long as men exist to struggle for
supremacy. And competition keeps the world alive, as the tide prevents
the sea from stagnating. Occasionally the waves break their bounds, and
loss and tribulation result; but the power for good must not be ignored,
because the power for evil is sometimes prominent.
To talk of the working classes as if they thought and acted in a body is
another delusion. Not only this. The frequent assumption that somebody
or other can speak on behalf of "the people" is a mistake. When it is
done, one is entitled to ask what the phrase means? "The people" are the
whole body of the population, and no one section, even if a majority has
a right to exclusively claim the title. In legislating, regard must be
had to the interests of all and not to those of a part, however
numerous; and this brings us straight to the question of interfering by
enactment with the price or the amount of labour.
It is curious to note that the demand which is now being raised by some
Trade Unionists on behalf of labour is similar in principle to that
which was used for centuries by the propertied classes against labour.
The Statute of Labourers, passed in the reign of Edward III., fixed
wages in most precise fashion, settling that of a master mason, for
instance, at fourpence and of journeymen masons at threepence a day. And
as lately as only eight years after George III. came to the throne, all
master tailors in London and for five miles round were forbidden under
heavy penalties from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than
2s. 71/2d. a day--except in the case of a general mourning. Subsequently,
statesmen grew more wise, and, in the closing years of last century, the
younger Pitt refused to support a bill to regulate the wages of
labourers in husbandry. But it is singular that, whereas Adam Smith
could say that "whenever the Legislature attempts to regulate the
difference between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always
the masters," to-day it is the workmen who promise to become so.
If it be replied that it is State interference with the hours alone and
not with the wages that is demanded, it may be submitted that if the one
is done it will be a hardship to the worker rather than a boon if the
other be not attempted. For, if a man, by working nine hours a day,
could earn, say, 27s. a week, it is obvious that for eight hours a day
he would not earn more in the same period than 24s., unless Parliament
insisted that he should receive the higher sum for the less work. But is
Parliament likely to do anything of the kind; if it did do it, would it
be found to be practicable; and, if it were found to be practicable,
would it be just?
Parliament is not likely to do anything of the kind, because the
experience of centuries has taught us that it is impossible to fix wages
by statute. It was tried over and over again, first by enactments
applying to the whole country, and then by regulations for each county,
settled by the local justices of the peace; but, though the experiment
was backed by all the forces of law, it broke down so utterly that in
time it had to be got rid of.
Even if the return could be secured of a majority to Parliament pledged
to the proposal, would it be likely to be any more practicable to-day
than it was in olden times? We are now an open market for the world. If
hours were lessened and wages not reduced, imported articles from
foreign countries would become much cheaper than our own goods, and
would be bought to the detriment of English workers. Is it proposed by
the promoters of a compulsory eight-hours working day that we should
have Protection once more, and a prohibitory tariff placed upon all
manufactured goods brought from abroad in order to keep up the price of
English articles?
And, further, if it were practicable, would it be just? It would be
unjust to the employers, who would have to pay present prices for
lessened work; it would be unjust to the toilers, in that it would
prevent them from making a higher income by working more; and it would
be unjust to the consumers, in making them give a greater price for the
commodities they required. Those who propose the compulsory eight hours
would presumably wish wages to be maintained at the present standard; it
would hardly be a popular cry if it would have the effect of bringing
wages down.
If the Legislature is to interfere at all in this direction, the old
proposal had better be put forward at once--
Eight hours' work, eight hours' play,
Eight hours' sleep, and eight shillings a day.
This, at least, would have the merit of simplicity, and the more
comprehensive proposal is as just and as practicable as the limited one
now put forward. But even as to the limited one, it would be well to
know how far and to what persons it would be applied. If the answer is
"The working classes," the further question is "How are these to be
defined?" Sailors, for instance, are working men, but no one would
seriously propose to apply the eight hours' system to them. Granting
they form an extreme exception, how are we to deal with shopkeepers and
all whom they employ? The shopkeepers may be put aside as "capitalists"
or "middle men," and, therefore, undeserving of sympathy or
consideration; but those behind their counters are distinctly workers.
Are they all to be included in the eight hours' proposal? If so, either
one of two things: the shops will be shut sixteen hours out of the
twenty-four, or their keepers will have to employ half as many hands
again as they now do. "Good for the unemployed" may be replied, but who
would have to pay for the additional labour? The consumers, of course,
for no law is going to be passed keeping tea and sugar, hats and coats
at their present price; and it would be those that live by weekly wages
who would thereby suffer the most. And if, in order to obviate such
consequences, all who work in shops were to be excluded from the
benefits of an Eight Hours Act, it would be grossly unjust that tens of
thousands of toilers, as much entitled to consideration as those
employed in any factory or mill, should be kept at work in order to
minister to the convenience of their fellows, set free from a portion of
their labour by the action of Parliament.
And this leads to a consideration of the proposal that all shops, with
certain limited exceptions, shall be closed at a given hour. For the
general reasons applicable to other employments, any such proposition
ought to be strongly opposed. It would be a grievous hardship to the
smaller tradesmen, with many of whom the best chance of making a living
is after the great establishments have closed, and an intolerable
nuisance to the working classes who can only shop at what a legislator
might consider a late hour. If attempted to be put in operation, it
would necessitate the creation of an army of informers and inspectors to
see that it was not evaded, and it would create an amount of annoyance
to honest and hard-working traders for which no expected benefits from
it could compensate. The small tradesman, threatened by the co-operative
society on the one side and the "monster emporium" on the other, has
enough to do to live, without being harassed by a law which he would be
tempted constantly to evade, and which, if not evaded, might prove his
ruin.
Much the same argument may be used concerning a point which, if the
State interferes with the hours of labour, is certain to be raised, for
it would have to be plainly stated whether all men would be forbidden
under penalty to work overtime. If any such proposal is to be made, how
is it to be carried out? Are we to have an additional body of
inspectors, prying into every man's house to see whether extra work was
being done; or is the hateful system of "the common informer" to be
revived for the special benefit of working men?
The argument is not weakened by the fact that, in various directions,
not only has the Legislature passed enactments interfering with the
amount and the price of labour, but that some of these continue in
active operation. By means of the Factory Acts, for instance, it has
directly intervened for the protection of women and children, and in so
doing has been acting within that part of its duty which demands that it
shall stand between the unprotected and overwhelming power. But there is
no strict parallel between the case of the adult males of the working
classes and that of those women and children who have to toil. The
former have again and again shown their power of preserving their own
interests by combination; and the evils of State interference where it
can possibly be avoided appear sufficient to induce the belief that it
is to combination that the working classes ought still to trust. If they
cannot by this means put down overtime--and as yet they have not been
able to do so--they cannot expect their countrymen to raise prices and
run the risk of commercial ruin by doing for them what they ought to be
able to do for themselves.
XXXIV.--SHOULD THE STATE INTERFERE WITH PROPERTY?
Having dealt with the manner in which the State interferes with labour,
which to most is their only property, it is necessary to consider how it
deals with capital, which is the fruit of labour, and how it thus
interferes with some of what are termed "the rights of property."