What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted
labour--Competition of unskilled labour--Competition of
uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of
organised industry--Factory-labour and garret-labour--
Communism--Proposals for state organisation of labour--
Social publishing establishment--Practical co-operation.
There is a passage in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' in which he describes the
benevolent and philosophical hero of his poem, a pedler, listening to
the complaints of poverty, and searching into the causes of the evil:--
"Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts,
Huts where his charity was blest; his voice
Heard as the voice of an experienced friend.
And, sometimes, where the poor man held dispute
With his own mind, unable to subdue
Impatience, through inaptness to perceive
General distress in his particular lot;
Or cherishing resentment, or in vain
Struggling against it, with a soul perplex'd
And finding in herself no steady power
To draw the line of comfort that divides
Calamity, the chastisement of Heaven,
From the injustice of our brother men;
To him appeal was made as to a judge;
Who, with an understanding heart, allay'd
The perturbation; listen'd to the plea;
Resolv'd the dubious point; and sentence gave
So grounded, so applied, that it was heard
With soften'd spirit--e'en when it condemn'd."
The poor man is accustomed to hold dispute with his own mind; he thinks
his particular lot is worse than the general lot; his soul is perplexed
in considering whether his condition is produced by a common law of
society, or by the injustice of his fellow-men; the experienced friend
listens, discusses, argues,--but he argues in a temper that produces a
softened spirit. The adviser soothes rather than inflames, by dealing
with such questions with "an understanding heart." He unites the
sympathising heart with the reasoning understanding.
Now, we may fairly inquire if, during the many unfortunate occasions
that are constantly arising of contests for what are called the rights
of labour against what is called the tyranny of capital, those who are
the most immediate sufferers in the contest are addressed with the
"understanding heart?" If argument be used at all, the principles which
govern the relations between capital and labour are put too often
dictatorially or patronisingly before them, as dry, abstract
propositions. They are not set forth as matters of calm inquiry, whose
truths, when dispassionately examined, may be found to lead to the
conclusion that a steadily-increasing rate of wages, affording the
employed a greater amount of comforts and conveniences, is the
inevitable result of increasing capital, under conditions which depend
upon the workers themselves. The result is generally such as took place
in a recent Lancashire strike, where one of the leaders exclaimed, "The
sooner we can rout political economy from the world, the better it will
be for the working-classes." It might, indeed, as well be said, the
sooner we can rout acoustics from the world, the better it will be for
those who have ears to hear; but the absurdity would not be corrected by
a mathematical demonstration to those who did not comprehend
mathematics. The same person held that political economy was
incompatible with the gospel precept of doing unto others as we would be
done unto, because it encourages buying in the cheapest market and
selling in the dearest; and he necessarily assumed that political
economy recommends the capitalist to buy labour cheap and sell it dear.
We have not learnt that calmly and kindly he was told, in the real
spirit of political economy, that it is impossible that, by any
individual or local advantage the capitalist may possess, he can long
depress wages below the rate of the whole country, because other
capitalists would enter into competition for the employment of labour,
and raise the average rate. If Wordsworth's experienced friend had heard
this perversion of the meaning of the axiom about markets, he would have
said, we think, that to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the
dearest simply means, in commerce, to buy an article where its cheapness
represents abundance, and to sell it in a place where its dearness
represents a want of it and a consequent demand,--even as he, the
pedler, bought a piece of cloth at Kendal, where there was plenty of
cloth, and sold it for a profit at Grasmere, where there was little
cloth. The business of mercantile knowledge and enterprise is to
discover and apply these conditions; so that, if a trader were to buy
hides in Smithfield and carry them to Buenos Ayres, he would reverse
these conditions,--he would buy in the dearest market and sell in the
cheapest. Political economy--the declaimer against it might have been
told--says that to produce cheap is essential to large demand, and
constantly-increasing demand; but it does not say that cheap production
necessarily implies diminished wages. It says that cheap production, as
a consequence of increased production, depends upon the
constantly-increasing use of capital in production, and the
constantly-diminishing amount of mere manual labour compared with the
quantity produced--which result is effected by the successive
application of all the appliances of science to the means of production.
At every step of scientific improvement there is a demand for labour of
a higher character than existed without the science. At every extended
organization of industry, resulting from an extended demand, not only
skilled labour, but trusted labour, becomes more and more in request;
and the average amount of all labour is better paid. A bricklayer is
paid more than the man who mixes his mortar, because one is a skilled
labourer, and has learnt his art by some expenditure of time, which is
capital. The merchant's bookkeeper is paid more than his porter, because
the one has an office of high trust and responsibility, and the other a
duty to perform of less importance, and for which a far greater number
of men wanting hire are fitted. We could wish that not only "in ragged
huts," but in well-appointed houses, were the things better understood
that political economy really does say.
[Illustration: Feed the hungry.]
The process which has been steadily going on amongst us for increasing
the demand for skill and trustworthiness has no doubt produced a
diminution of the funds for employ in which neither skill nor trust is
required. Thus a great amount of suffering is constantly presented to
our view, which benevolence has set about relieving, in our time, with a
zeal which shows how fully it is acknowledged that the great principle,
to "Love one another," is not to evaporate in sentiment, but is to be
ripened in action. As a nation, England was never indifferent to the
command, "Feed the hungry." The art of Flaxman has shown this "act of
mercy" in its most direct form. But the "understanding heart" has
discovered that many of the miseries of society may be relieved by other
modes as effectually as by alms-giving, and perhaps much more
effectually. Whether some of these efforts may be misdirected, in no
degree detracts from the value of the principle which seeks the
prevention of misery rather than the relief. One of the most obvious
forms in which misery has presented itself in our large cities, and
especially in London, has arisen from the competition amongst labour
which may be called unskilled, because there are a numerous unemployed
body of labourers at hand to do the same work, in which there is no
special skill. This was the case with the sempstresses of London; and
the famous 'Song of the Shirt' struck a note to which there was a
responding chord in every bosom. But the terrible evils of the low wages
of shirt-making would not have been relieved by an universal agreement
of the community to purchase none but shirts that, by their price, could
afford to give higher wages to the shirt-makers. The higher wages would
have infallibly attracted more women and more children to the business
of shirt-making. The straw-platters, the embroiderers, the milliners
would have rushed to shirt-making; and, unless there had been a
constantly-increasing rate of price charged to the wearers of shirts,
and therefore a constant forced contribution to the capital devoted to
shirt-making, the payment to one shirt-maker would have come to be
divided amongst two; and the whole body, thus doubled by a rate of wages
disproportioned to the rate of other labour requiring little peculiar
skill, would have been in a worse condition in the end than in the
beginning.
Whatever suffering may arise out of the competition that must exist
between mere manual labour, and also between that labour which is
displayed in the practice of some art easily learnt, capable of exercise
by both sexes, and in which very young children may readily engage--it
is scarcely fair that those who witness the suffering of the employed
at very low wages should instantly conclude that the employers are
extortioners and oppressors. A branch of trade which seems
inconsiderable as regards the article produced is often found in a
particular locality, and furnishes employment to large numbers. In the
London parish of Cripplegate there are great quantities of toothbrushes
made. The handle is formed by the lathe, in which skilled labour is
employed. The hair is cut by machinery. The holes in the handle in which
the hair is inserted are also pierced by machines. But the insertion of
the hair, and the fastening it by wire, are done by hand. Excellent
people, who, with a strong sense of Christian duty, enter "ragged huts"
to relieve and to advise, see a number of women and children daily
labouring at the one task of fastening the hair in toothbrushes; and
they learn that the wages paid are miserably low. They immediately
conclude that the wages should be higher; because in the difference
between the retail price of a toothbrush and the manufacturing cost
there must necessarily be large profits. They say, therefore, that the
wholesale manufacturer is unjust in not giving higher wages. But the
retail price of toothbrushes, however high, does not enable the
manufacturer, necessarily, to give a payment more considerable than the
average of such labour to the women and children who very quickly learn
the art of fastening the hair. The price he can pay is to be measured by
the average price of such labour all over the country. It is not in the
least unlikely that the manufacturer in Cripplegate may not receive a
fourth of the price at which a toothbrush is sold in Saint James's. The
profits are determined by the average of all his transactions. He has to
sell as cheaply as possible for the export trade. If he sell dear, the
export-trader will see if he cannot buy a hundred thousand toothbrushes
at Havre instead of London. It is nothing to the exporter whether he
obtain a profit out of French or English toothbrushes. Again. The
manufacturer sends a hundred thousand toothbrushes to a wholesale dealer
at Glasgow, who supplies the retailers throughout Scotland. But before
the Scotch warehouseman will repeat the order, he will ascertain whether
he can buy the article cheaper at Birmingham; and one per cent. lower
will decide against Cripplegate. Now, in all these domestic labours
involving small skill, the question is whether the miserably-paid
workers can do anything more profitable. Mr. Mayhew says that some large
classes "do not obtain a fair living price for their work, because, as
in the case of the needle-workers and other domestic manufacturers,
their livelihood is supposed to be provided for them by the husband or
father; and hence the remuneration is viewed rather as an aid to the
family income than as an absolute means of support." It is not what is
"supposed," or what is "viewed," that determines the question. It is
what really is. Such employ may, unhappily, be sought by many as "an
absolute means of support." But if there be an almost unlimited number
who seek it as "an aid to the family income," there is no possibility of
preventing a competition, perfectly equal as regards the wages of
labour, but wretchedly unequal in the application of those wages.
The miseries that are so frequently resulting from the competition of
unskilled labour are also results from what we will venture to call
uncapitalled labour, attempting to unite wages with profits. Upon a
large scale, the miseries of Ireland, which finally collapsed in the
terrible famine, were produced by labour trenching upon the functions of
capital without possessing capital. In 1847 there were in Ireland five
hundred thousand acres of land in more than three hundred thousand
holdings, thus supplying the only means of maintenance to three hundred
thousand male labourers and their families, but averaging little more
than an acre and a half to each tenant. There are not more than nine
hundred thousand labourers and farmers to the twenty-five million
cultivated acres in England and Wales--about one labourer to every
thirty-eight acres, and about one farmer capitalist to every hundred and
ten acres. Nor is the effect of uncapitalled and unskilled labour--for
uncapitalled labour is for the most part unskilled--less remarkable in
manufactures than in agriculture. Many are familiar with the minute
details of low wages and suffering--of the oppressions attributed to
masters and middle-men--which are contained in a series of papers by Mr.
Henry Mayhew, published in '_The Morning Chronicle_' in 1849-50, under
the title of 'London Labour, and London Poor.' Nothing could be more
laudable than the general object of these papers, which, in the preface
to a collected edition of a portion of them, was "to give the rich a
more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism
under these sufferings, of the poor;" and to cause those "of whom much
is expected, to bestir themselves to improve their condition." But, at
the same time, it would be difficult to say how the condition of
particular classes of these sufferers was to be improved, except by such
general efforts as would raise up the whole body of the people in
knowledge and virtue, and by directing the labours of those who, without
skill or capital, were struggling against skill and capital, into
courses of industry more consonant with the great modes of
productiveness all around them. One example may illustrate our
meaning--that of "the garret-masters of the cabinet-trade." The writer
we have mentioned says that wages had fallen 400 per cent. in that
trade, between 1831 and 1850; but he also says that the trade was
"depressed by the increase of small masters--that is to say, by a class
of workmen possessed of just sufficient capital to buy their own
materials, and to support themselves while making them up." Taking the
whole rate of wages,--the payment to the unskilled as well as the
skilled workmen--it would be difficult not to believe that the average
reduction was quite as great as represented. A cabinet-maker tells this
tale:--
"One of the inducements," he said, "for men to take to making up for
themselves is to get a living when thrown out of work until they can
hear of something better. If they could get into regular journeywork
there a'n't one man as wouldn't prefer it--it would pay them a deal
better. Another of the reasons for the men turning small masters is the
little capital that it requires for them to start themselves. If a man
has got his tools he can begin as a master-man with a couple of
shillings. If he goes in for making large tables, then from 30_s._ to
35_s._ will do him, and it's the small bit of money it takes to start
with in our line that brings many into the trade who wouldn't be there
if more tin was wanted to begin upon. Many works for themselves, because
nobody else won't employ them, their work is so bad. Many weavers has
took to our business of late. That's quite common now--their own's so
bad; and some that used to hawk hearthstones about is turned Pembroke
tablemakers." Whether the mode in which this workman expresses himself
correctly indicates, or not, the amount of his education, it is quite
certain that he had got to the root of the evil of which he complains.
The competition that is only limited by the capacity of endurance
between the unskilled workman and the uncapitalled workman--each
striving against the other, and striving, in vain against capital and
skill--has been going on for centuries in the distribution of
commodities. The retailer with small capital has always had to carry on
an unequal contest with the retailer with large capital. In our time,
small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every
article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof--from a
penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these
bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors.
But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization,
by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no
unsaleable stock is kept on hand. It is easy to understand that the
larger profits of the small retailer have very little chance of
accumulation against the smaller profits of the large retailer.
But this contest of small capital against large was formerly carried on
in the struggle of the itinerant traders against the shopkeepers. It is
now carried on in a struggle amongst themselves. The census returns show
seven thousand costermongers, hucksters, and general-dealers. Mr.
Mayhew says there are ten thousand in London.[46]
[Illustration: Costermonger.]
The costermonger is a travelling shopkeeper. We encounter him not in
Cornhill, or Holborn, or the Strand: in the neighbourhood of the great
markets and well-stored shops he travels not. But his voice is heard in
some silent streets stretching into the suburbs; and there his
donkey-cart stands at the door, as the dingy servant-maid cheapens a
bundle of cauliflowers. He has monopolized all the trades that were
anciently represented by such "London cries" as "_Buy my artichokes,
mistress_;" "_Ripe cowcumbers_;" "_White onions, white St. Thomas'
onions_;" "_White radish_;" "_Ripe young beans_;" "_Any baking pears_;"
"_Ripe speragas_." He would be indignant to encounter such petty chapmen
interfering with his wholesale operations. Mr. Mayhew says that "the
regular or thoroughbred costermongers repudiate the numerous persons who
only sell nuts or oranges in the streets." No doubt they rail against
these inferior competitors, as the city shopkeepers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries railed against itinerant traders of every
denomination. In the days of Elizabeth, they declare by act of common
council, that in ancient times the open streets and lanes of the city
have been used, and ought to be used, as the common highway only, and
not for hucksters, pedlers, and hagglers, to stand and sit to sell their
wares in, and to pass from street to street hawking and offering their
wares. In the seventh year of Charles I. the same authorities denounce
the oyster-wives, herb-wives, tripe-wives, and the like, as "unruly
people;" and they charge them, somewhat unjustly as it must appear, with
"framing to themselves a way whereby to live a more easy life than by
labour."
"How busy is the man the world calls idle!"
The evil, as the citizens term it, seems to have increased; for in 1694
the common council threatened the pedlers and petty chapmen with the
terrors of the laws against rogues and sturdy beggars, the least penalty
being whipping, whether for male or female. The reason for this terrible
denunciation is very candidly put: the citizens and shopkeepers are
greatly hindered and prejudiced in their trades by the hawkers and
pedlers. Such denunciations as these had little share in putting down
the itinerant traders. They continued to flourish, because society
required them; and they vanished from our view when society required
them no longer. In the middle of the last century they were fairly
established as rivals to the shopkeepers. Dr. Johnson, than whom no man
knew London better, thus writes in the 'Adventurer:' "The attention of a
newcomer is generally first struck by the multiplicity of cries that
stun him in the streets, and the variety of merchandise and manufactures
which the shopkeepers expose on every hand." The shopkeepers have now
ruined the itinerants--not by putting them down by fiery penalties, but
by the competition amongst themselves to have every article at hand, for
every man's use, which shall be better and cheaper than the wares of the
itinerant.
A curious parallel might be carried out between the itinerant
occupations which the progress of society has imperfectly suspended, and
those which even the most advanced civilization is compelled to retain.
For example,--the water-carrier is gone. It is impossible that London
can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two
enormous pails, vociferating "_New River Water_." But the cry of
"_Milk_," or the rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be heard
in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through
which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital
becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about
this article of food. The old cry was, "_Any milk here_?" and it was
sometimes mingled with the sound of "_Fresh cheese and cream_;" and it
then passed into "_Milk, maids, below_;" and it was then shortened into
"_Milk below_;" and was finally corrupted into "_Mio_," which some wag
interpreted into _mi-eau--demi-eau_--half-water. But it must still be
cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is
perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The
days are long since past when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and
Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, and
St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St.
Martin's was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked
clay stride over the clover and the buttercup; and yet every family in
London may be supplied with milk by eight o'clock every morning at their
own doors. Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous
masses in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture
in the fields which lie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in
the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,
"When proud pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,"
yet for the rest of the year the coarse grass is carted to their stalls,
or they devour what the breweries and distilleries cannot extract from
the grain-harvest. Long before "the unfolding star wakes up the
shepherd" are the London cows milked; and the great wholesale venders of
the commodity bear it in carts to every part of the town, and distribute
it to hundreds of itinerants, who are waiting like the water-carriers at
the old conduits. But the wholesale venders have ceased to depend upon
the suburban cows. The railways bring milk in enormous cans to every
station. The suburb has extended, practically, to a circle of fifty
miles instead of five. It is evident that a perishable commodity which
every one requires at a given hour must be rapidly distributed. The
distribution has lost its romance. Misson, in his 'Travels,' published
at the beginning of the last century, tell us of the May-games of "the
pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk." Alas! the
May-games and pretty young country girls have both departed, and a
milkwoman has become a very unpoetical personage. There are few indeed
of milkwomen who remain. So it is with most of the occupations that
associate London with the country. The cry of "_Water-cresses_" used to
be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had
dipped her feet into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to
the citizens' breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now grown like
cabbages in gardens.
Of the street trades that are past and forgotten, the small-coal man was
one of the most remarkable. He tells a tale of a city with few fires;
for who could now imagine a man earning a living by bawling "_Small
coals_" from door to door, without any supply but that in the sack which
he carries on his shoulders? His cry was, however, a rival with "_Wood
to cleave_." In a metropolis full of haberdashers, large and small, what
chance would an aged man now have with his flattering solicitation of
"_Pretty pins_, _pretty women_?" He who carries a barrel on his back,
with a measure and funnel at his side, bawling "_Fine writing-ink_," is
wanted neither by clerks nor authors. There is a grocer's shop at every
turn; and who therefore needs him who salutes us with "_Lily-white
vinegar_?" The history of "cries" is a history of social changes. The
_working_ trades, as well as the venders of things that can be bought in
every street, are now banished from our thoroughfares. "_Old chairs to
mend_" still salutes us in some retired suburb; and we still see the
knife-grinder's wheel; but who vociferates "_Any work for John Cooper_?"
or "_A brass pot or an iron pot to mend_?" The trades are gone to those
who pay scot and lot.
[Illustration: Pots to mend.]
There are some occupations of the streets, however, which remain
essentially the same, though the form be somewhat varied. The sellers of
food are of course amongst these. "Hot peascods," and hot sheep's-feet,
are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. "_Hot wardens_,"
and "_Hot codlings_," are not the "cries" which invite us to taste of
stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a
charcoal fire; and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with
savoury salt-butter to put between the "fruit" when it is cut; and
chestnuts roasted; and greasy sausages, redolent of onions and marjoram;
and crisp brown flounders; and the mutton-pie-man, with his "toss for a
penny." Rice-milk, furmety, barley-broth, and saloop are no longer in
request. The greatest improvement of London in our own day has been the
establishment of coffee-shops, where the artisan may take his breakfast
with comfort, and even with luxury; where a good breakfast may be had
for three-pence; where no intoxicating liquors are sold; and where the
newspapers and the best periodical works may be regularly found.
If we lament over the general decay of the itinerant traders--their
uncertain gains, their privations from constant exposure, their want of
home comforts, their temptation to drive their children into the streets
to make more sales--we lament over what is an inevitable consequence of
the general progress of society. Can we correct these evils by saying
that the profits of the itinerant traders ought to be raised? Their low
condition is a necessary consequence of their carrying on a system of
industry which is at variance with the general system of civilization.
They may have their uses in districts with a scattered population,
because they bring articles of consumption to the door of the consumer.
But in densely populated districts they must inevitably be superseded by
the shopkeepers. They carry on their industry by a series of individual
efforts, which are interfered with by numerous chances and accidents. We
are told that the class is extending yearly. But it cannot extend
profitably. In many cases it assumes only another form of mendicity. It
is a precarious occupation. It can count upon no regular returns. Its
gains, such as they are, are like all other uncertain gains--the impulse
to occasional profligacy in connection with habitual misery. The
costermongers, according to Mr. Mayhew, are drunkards and
gamblers,--living without religion or the family ties. Their children
are wholly uneducated. These are brought up to assist very early in
obtaining their precarious living; and they cleave to a wandering in
place of a settled life. Dissociated, thus, from all regular industry,
they become the outcasts of the people; and go on swelling the number of
those who, in France, are called "the dangerous classes." All classes
are dangerous in whom there is none of that self-respect which goes
along with domestic comfort--with sobriety, with cleanliness, with a
taste for some pursuit that has a tincture of the intellectual. How is
such a class to be dealt with? The adult are almost past hope; the
young, taken early enough, may be trained into something better. But the
very last thing that society has to do is to encourage, by any forced
and unnatural process, the accession of numbers to the body, always
deriving new competitors from the unfortunate and the idle who have
fallen out of regular occupation. Those who learn the necessity of being
provident cease to be costermongers. With some, indeed, the profitable
sale of an article in the streets may be the first step in an
accumulation which will lead to the more profitable sale of an article
at a stall, and thence, onward, to the possession of a shop. There have
been such instances; and we knew of a remarkable one in a boy who went
to a tea-dealer, and said if he could be trusted with one pound of tea
he could make a living. He was trusted. In time he wanted no credit, and
was a regular and valuable customer to his first patron. He passed out
of the itinerant life into the settled; and ultimately became a
flourishing shopkeeper.
In striking contrast to the various forms of unskilled labour and
irregular trading which we have noticed, may be mentioned an industry
which in London has a very perfect organization. In Clerkenwell and the
neighbouring parish of Saint Luke's, there are sixteen hundred
watchmakers. These are not the artisans whom we see as we pass along the
streets of the metropolis, and of the provincial towns, sitting in front
of the shop-window diligently repairing or putting together the works of
a watch, by the light of day or of a brilliant lamp, each with a
magnifying glass pressed under his eyebrow. Nor are they the workers in
metal who manufacture the movements,--that is, the wheels--of a watch,
for these chiefly dwell in Lancashire. The London watchmakers, thus
closely packed in a district which is small compared with the whole area
of the metropolis, are those who put the movements together, and supply
all the delicate parts of the mechanism, such as the spring and the
escapement. They provide also the case and the dial-plate. The degree
of the skilled labour employed in these several branches necessarily
varies, according to the quality of the instrument to be produced, from
the ordinary metal watch to the most luxurious repeater. With some
exceptions, the artisans do not work in large factories. They are
subdivided according to their respective qualities, amongst small
establishments, where a master has several men receiving wages for
performing one particular branch of work; or the artisan himself, in his
own home, may be an escapement-maker, a spring-maker, a fusee-maker, a
maker of hands, an enameller, an engine-turner, a jewelled pivot-hole
maker. All this beautiful subdivision of employments has been found
necessary for the perfection and the cheapness of watches. The
capitalist, who is essentially the watch manufacturer, organizes all
these departments of industry. English watches, by this economical
system of production, keep their place against the competition of
foreign watches; of which we imported, in 1853, fifty-four thousand. The
skilled workmen, in all the various subdivisions of the manufacture, are
well paid, and take their due rank amongst the great and increasing body
of intelligent mechanics.
Within these few years American clocks have been extensively sold in
this country. People would once have thought that the business of
clockmaking in England would be at an end, if it had been predicted that
in 1853 we should import, as we did, a hundred and forty thousand
clocks. The goodness and cheapness of American clocks have carried a
clock into many a house, that without them would have been deficient of
this instrument for keeping all industry in accordance with the
extraordinary punctuality which has been forced upon us as an
indispensable quality. We owe the general exercise of this virtue to the
post and the railroads. No one needs now to be told, as our grandfathers
were somewhat roughly told by the sun-dial in the Temple, "Be gone about
thy business." The American clocks are produced by factory labour. In
Connecticut two hundred and fifty men are employed in one establishment,
in making six hundred clocks a-day, the price varying from one dollar
to ten, and the average price being three dollars. Each clock passes
through sixty different hands; but in every stage the most scientific
applications of machinery chiefly produce the excellence and the
cheapness.
Between the factory-labour required to produce an American clock, which
labour affords ample wages to every labourer employed, and ample
security to the capitalist that he will not establish expensive
machinery, and pay constant wages, without profit,--between this
factory-labour, and the "garret-labour" which produces a rickety
Pembroke-table, with bad materials and imperfect tools, at the lowest
rate of profit to the workman,--the difference really consists in the
application or non-application of capital. The theorist then steps in at
this stage of the evidence, and says that the garret-labourer ought to
be provided with capital. His theory resolves itself into what is called
Communism; and it seeks to be maintained by exhibiting the aggregate
evils of Competition. The theorist does not deny that competition has
produced an immense development of wealth; but he affirms that the
result of the struggle has been, to fill the hands that were already too
full, and to take away from the hands that were already nearly empty. He
maintains that the labouring classes have been more and more declining
with every increase of the general riches; and that, at every stop in
which industry advances, the proportion of the wretched to the great
mass of the population as certainly increases. We shall not attempt to
reply to these declamations by any counter declamation. We point to the
great body of facts contained in this volume; and upon them rests our
unqualified assertion that the doctrines of Communism are wholly untrue,
and are opposed to the whole body of evidence that enables us to judge
of the average condition of the people, past and present.
To remedy the evils which it alleges to exist, Communism proposes
associations working upon a common capital, and dividing the produce of
all the labour of the community. To make a whole country labour in this
way, by a confiscation of all the capital of the country, presents,
necessarily, great difficulties; and therefore there must be smaller
communities in particular localities. But these communities must produce
everything within themselves, or they must deal with other communities.
There would be competition in these communistic dealings between one
community and another. Even if the whole world were to become
communistic, there would be competition between one nation and another
nation.
The main objection to the theory of Communism (the objections to its
application are obvious enough) is that, in proposing to have a common
fund for all labour, it wars against the natural principle of
individuality, and destroys the efficiency of production, by confounding
the distinctions between the various degrees of skill and industry. If
it give higher rewards to skilled labour than to unskilled, it does
exactly what is done in the present state of society. If the unskilled
and idle were the larger number under a system of Communism, they would
soon degrade the skilled and the industrious to their own level. If they
were the less powerful number, the skilled and the industrious would
soon bring back the law of competition, and drive the unskilled and idle
to the minimum point of subsistence.
But Communism, to meet such difficulties, sets up a system of
expedients. It invokes the aid of the State as a regulating power; and,
having maintained that the State is bound to find employ for every one
willing to labour, however inefficiently, and to supply the necessary
funds for all labour, it makes the State the great healer of
differences, even as Mr. Sergeant Thorpe held that the State could
provide "a salve for every sore." Let us take one example of the mode in
which Communism proposes to discharge its functions.
There is a little treatise, in Italian, by Count Pecchio, on the
Application of the General Laws of Production to Literary and Scientific
Publications. It considers that literary-labour is governed by the same
laws as any other labour; that the capital of a man of letters consists
in his stores of acquired knowledge; that, as there is no equality in
literary talent--as there is a great range of talent between the most
skilled and the least skilled literary labourer--so the rewards of
literary industry are proportionally unequal; that the wages of literary
labour depend upon the usual conditions of demand and supply; that,
under a system of competition in an open market, the literary labourer
is more sure of his reward, however large may be the number of
labourers, than in the old days of patronage for the few; that State
encouragement is not necessary to the establishment of a high and
enduring literature; that when literary industry is free--when it is
neither fostered by bounties, nor cramped and annihilated by
prohibitions--when there is neither patronage nor censorship--it is in
the most favourable condition for its prosperous development. These
principles, applied to literary production, are in many respects
applicable to all production.
Every one has heard of the 'Organization of Labour,' which some
philosophers of a neighbouring country were attempting to transfer from
the theories of the closet to the experiments of the workshop, in 1848.
It is not our object, as we have said, to discuss whether a vast system
of national co-operation for universal production be a wise thing or a
practical thing. Let us state only a small part of that system, as
exhibited in the 'Organisation du Travail,' by Monsieur Louis Blanc, the
second part of which is devoted to the question of literary property.
All the beneficial results contemplated by the organizers of a universal
social industry are to be obtained for literary industry, according to
this system, by the foundation of a Social Publishing Establishment,
which is thus described: It would be a literary manufacture belonging to
the State without being subject to the State. This institution would
govern itself, and divide amongst its members the profits obtained by
the common labour. According to its original laws, which would be laid
down by the State, the Social Publishing Establishment would not have to
purchase any author's right in his works. The price of books would be
determined by the State, with a view to the utmost possible cheapness;
all the expenses of the impression would be at the charge of the Social
Establishment. A committee of enlightened men, chosen and remunerated by
the Social Establishment, would receive the works. The writers whose
works the Social Establishment would publish would acquire, in exchange
for their rights as authors, which they would wholly resign, the right
of exclusively competing for national recompenses. There would be in the
annual national budget, a fund provided for such recompense, for authors
in every sphere of thought. Every time the first work of an author was
deemed worthy of a national recompense, a premium would also be given to
the Social Establishment, that it might be indemnified for the possible
loss which it had sustained in giving its support to youthful talent.
Every year the representatives of the people would name, for every
branch of intellectual exertion, a citizen who would examine the works
issuing from the social presses. He would have a whole year to examine
them thoroughly; to read all the criticisms upon them; to study the
influence which they had produced upon society; to interrogate public
opinion through its organs, and not judge by the blind multitude of
buyers; and finally to prepare a report. The national rewards would then
be distributed in the most solemn manner.
We thus state briefly but fairly the plan which is to put an end to that
literary competition which it is proclaimed "commences in dishonour and
ends in misery;" which is to destroy bad books and encourage good;
which, it is affirmed, is "no longer to make the publication of good
books depend upon the speculators, who have rarely any other
intelligence than a commercial aptitude, but upon competent men, whom it
interests in the success of every useful and commendable work." We truly
believe that this would be a practicable plan--provided two conditions
were secured, which at present seem to be left out of the account. They
are simply these--that there should be unlimited funds at hand for the
purpose of rewarding authors, and unlimited wisdom and honesty in their
administrators. But unhappily, as we understand it, the entire plan is a
confusion of principle--rejecting much that is valuable in competition,
and adopting much that is positively harmful in co-operation. Those
authors who are profiting largely by the competitive system are to give
up their profits to the common fund, which is to support those who could
not make profits under that system. This is the social workshop notion
of equality. But in the literary workshop the State is to step in and
restore the ancient condition of inequality, by exclusive rewards to the
most deserving of the competitors. It is a practical satire upon the
whole scheme of a new social arrangement.
With a sincere disposition to speak favourably of every plan for
promoting the welfare of our fellow-creatures which is not founded upon
a destruction of the security of property, we have no desire to maintain
that all the denouncers of competition are weak and dangerous advisers
of the great body of working people. We believe that the entire system
of any proposed co-operation that would set aside competition is a
delusion,--out of which, indeed, some small good might be slowly and
painfully evoked, but which can never mainly affect the great workings
of individual industry, whilst its futile attempts may relax the springs
of all just and honest action. But we do not in any degree seek to
oppose any practical form of co-operation that is built upon the natural
and inevitable workings of capital, tending to produce, in a manner not
less favourable for production than a system entirely competitive.
Co-operation is not a new thing in England. Two centuries and a half
ago, Shakspere became a considerable land-proprietor at Stratford, out
of his share of the profits of a co-operative enterprise; and, in the
same profession of a player, Allen acquired a sufficient fortune to
found Dulwich College. In those companies of players of the Elizabethan
era there were shareholders with varying interests--some having a
capital in the building and properties of a theatre, combined with their
other capital of histrionic skill. The joint proprietors lived in great
harmony together, and treated each other with affection as friends and
fellows.
The co-operation which many earnest thinkers hold to be desirable to
establish in England is precisely this sort of united industry. They
have no desire to attempt the introduction of a fallacious equality,
such as communism proposes; but they ask to have the legal power of
combining men in common labours, according to their respective degrees
and qualifications. He who brought to the undertaking capital only
should receive a share of profits proportioned to its value and
hazard--the wear and tear of implements--the deterioration of stock. He
who brought great administrative skill, and took the higher office of
trust and responsibility, should also receive a share in proportion to
the rarity of these qualities; and so of those who were skilful and
trustworthy in a lesser degree. The great body of the workers would
receive their due shares under a scale founded upon experience. But
capitalist, inventor, manager, and labourers,--all would have some
ultimate interest in reference to profits.
The Queen, in opening the Session of Parliament in 1856, announced that
a measure would be brought forward for amending the law relating to
Partnership. During that Session "The Joint-Stock Companies Act" was
passed, by which it was provided that seven or more associated persons,
by complying with the forms of the Act with regard to Registration,
might form themselves into an Incorporated Company, with or without
limited liability. Under this act many Companies have been formed; and,
as might have been expected, various crude projects have thus been
born--quickly to die. A bill for amending the law of Partnership was
brought forward; but it met with so much opposition that it was
withdrawn. Without the machinery of a Joint-Stock Company, partnership
liability remains as before.
What is risked by the continued existence of the law of Partnership, and
what might be gained by its modification, are clearly put by Mr. J. M.
Ludlow, an eminent barrister:--"The example of those strikes which have
been first agitating and then desolating the country for the last
half-year (1853) is surely most instructive on this head. It cannot be
doubted that, from the energies of the working classes having been
hitherto directed, it may be said, to the sole economic object of high
wages, both the best paid and most prudent workmen have often been
dragged, willingly or unwillingly, into these conflicts, of which some
at least of the most benevolent employers have in like manner had to
bear the brunt. But suppose a power given to the working men, by a
relaxation of the laws of partnership, to invest their savings as
_commandite_ partners in their employer's concern, how different might
have been the result! Whenever an employer had really deserved the
confidence of his work-people, all the most industrious amongst them
might have grown bound up as _commandite_ partners with the interests of
the establishment, having no longer for their object the raising of
their own wages, but the prosperity of that business in the profits of
which they would have a share--able on the one hand, as receivers of
wages, to counsel the employer, their managing partner, as to any wise
advance; able, on the other, as receivers of profits, to dissuade their
fellow-workers from any injurious demand."[47]
Let us also hear the opinion of a practical merchant--Mr. George Warde
Norman, a Director of the Bank of England: "The extreme difficulty, if
not the legal impossibility in England, of giving clerks or workmen a
salary proportioned to the profits of an employer, without making them
partners in the widest sense, I consider a vast practical evil. It seems
to me that the system thus checked is of so highly beneficial a nature,
that it merits every encouragement that the law can give it. It would at
once enable an earnest wish on the part of a portion of the operative
class to be met in a way most satisfactory to their feelings."[48]
However earnest and thinking men may differ as to the legislative means
of effecting a more perfect union of skill and capital, it is a prayer
in which all good men unite, that the condition of the working-classes
may be more and more improved,--that their outward circumstances may be
made better and better. But those who labour the steadiest, and the most
zealously, in the endeavour to realize this hope, feel that the day of
this amelioration is far removed by perpetual contests between the
employed and the employers, which impede production and diminish the
funds for the support of labour. They know that every improvement in the
arts of life improves also the condition of the humblest working-man in
the land; and they also know that every successive improvement has a
tendency to lessen the inequality in the distribution of wealth. But, if
the condition of the working-men of these kingdoms is to be permanently
improved,--if they are to obtain a full share of the blessings which
science and industry confer upon mankind,--they must win those blessings
by their own moral elevation. They cannot snatch them by violence; they
cannot accomplish them suddenly by clamour; they cannot overthrow a
thousand opposing circumstances to a great and rapid rise of wages; they
must win them by peaceful and steady exertion. When the working-men of
this country shall feel, as the larger portion of them already feel,
that Knowledge is Power, they will next set about to see how that power
shall be exercised. The first tyranny which that power must hold in
check is the tyranny of evil habits--those habits which, looking only to
the present hour, at one time plunge some into all the thoughtless
extravagance which belongs to a state of high wages--at another, throw
them prostrate before their employers, in all the misery and degradation
which accompany a state of low wages, without a provision for that
state. It is for them, and for them alone, to equalize the two
conditions. The changes of trade, in a highly commercial country like
this, must be incessant. It is for the workmen themselves to put a
"_governor_" on the commercial machine, as far as they are concerned; in
a season of prosperity to accumulate the power of capital--in a season
of adversity to use effectively, because temperately, that power which
they have won for themselves.
But there are other duties to be performed, in another direction--the
duties of employers. That duty does not consist in making servants
partners, if the employers have no inclination thereto. It does not
consist in attempting any private benevolence, by raising the rate of
wages paid by their own firms beyond the average rate, which attempt
would be ruinous to both classes interested. But it does consist in
exercising the means within their power to benefit the condition of all
in their employ, by cultivating every sympathy with them that may be the
real expression of a community of interests. Such sympathy is manifested
when large firms devote a considerable portion of their profits to the
education of the young persons employed in their factories; when they
cultivate the intelligent pleasures of their adult work-people; when, in
a word, they make the factory system a beautiful instrument for raising
the whole body of their labourers into a real equality, in all the moral
and intellectual conditions of our nature, with themselves the captains
of industry. When those duties are attended to, there may be common
misfortunes; demand may fall off; the machinery, whether of steam or of
mind, may be imperfectly in action; the season of adversity may bring
discomfort. But it will not bring animosity. There may be deep anxieties
on one part, and severe privations on the other, but there will not be
hatreds and jealousies,--the cold neglect, and the grim despair.
"We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws,
To which the triumph of all good is given:
High sacrifice, and labour without pause,
Even to the death."
[46] The subject of itinerant traders is treated fully in an article by
the author of 'Knowledge is Power,' in a paper in 'London,' vol. i.
A portion of that article is here reprinted, with some alterations.
[47] First Report of Mercantile Law Commission, 1854.
[48] Ibid.
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND
CHARING CROSS.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER NOTES:
Page x: illustration #95 was not included in this edition.
Page 61: "seing" changed to "seeing" (and seeing, therefore, the
fallacy).
Page 83: "cobler" changed to "cobbler" (carpenter, carter,
cobbler, cook).
Page 155: "Parke" changed to "Park" (Mungo Park describes the sad
condition).
Page 196: "Delf" changed to "Delft" (the common ware from Delft).
Page 227 two places: "calicos" changed to "calicoes" (no longer
sends us his calicoes) and (is not longer weaving calicoes for
us).
Page 248: deleted "the" (beyond providing a supply of material).
Illustration caption preceding page 321: "Manufctory" changed to
"Manufactory" (Pianoforte Manufactory).
Page 392: "an." changed to "ann." (30 per ann. should now be).
Page 396: "diference" changed to "difference" (it also expresses
the difference between).