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THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE
.
WORKING CLASS.
*
*\
& ftttert
Delivered to a Meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868.
BY
EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY,
PBOEESSOB OP HISWEY IN UNIVEBSITY COLL EC®, LONDON.
“ The working class is not, properly speaking, a class at all, but constitutes the-body
of society. From it proceed the various special classes, which we may regard as organs
necessary to that body.”—-Auguste Comte.
Reprinted from the “Fortnightly Review.”
LONDON:
E.
TRUELOVE, "256,
. .
HIGH HOLBORN.
± 1869*1^
��THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.1
We live in a day when social questions are for the first time con
testing precedence with political questions. In the first French
revolution the distinction was not apparent; at all events it was not
recognised even by sharp-sighted observers, though we, looking back
to those times, can detect the signs of it. During the reign of Louis
Philippe—from 1830, that is, to 1848—the distinction became every
year more marked. It is the fashion to speak of the revolution of
1848 as a very small affair—as a feeble imitation of the old revolu
tion. If looked at from a political point of view, in the narrowest
sense of that term, it certainly was a much smaller affair than the
old revolution. But to those who have realised in their minds that
there has been in truth but one revolution, which began in 1789 and
has been going on ever since, and that the year 1848 marks its
transition from the purely political to the social phase,—to such
persons, I say, the last epoch will seem even more momentous than
the first. The attempt of 1848 was a failure, no doubt. But the
history of the French revolution was not closed in 1848, as most of
us here present will live to see.
In England we have travelled the same path, though hitherto
without such violent shocks. We are all of us, French and English
alike, moving rapidly towards the most fundamental revolution
Europe has yet undergone ; a revolution in comparison with which
the great political changes in the time of our grandfathers, and even
the great religious changes three centuries ago, were, I had almost
said, insignificant. I will not pretend to say how far workmen may
have clearly realised to themselves this prospect. I am inclined to
think that not many of them have more than a vague conception of
it, although they are instinctively working towards it. But the
middle class have no conception of it at all. I am not speaking of
the stupidly ignorant part of that body, but of its more enlightened
and active members. They sincerely believe that the series of
political changes which they commenced in England forty years ago
is nearly completed. When they shall have abolished the State
Church, reduced taxation somewhat, obtained the ballot and equal
electoral districts or something like it, they think reform will be
completed, and that England will enter upon a sort of golden age.
(1) This lecture was the last of a series of three delivered last spring, by request of
the London Trades’ Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were
"by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison.
�2
THE SOCIAL FUTURE 0$ THE WORKING CLASS*
They do not contemplate any serious change, either political or
industrial. Politically, we are still to be governed by Parliament.
In industry we are to have the reign of unlimited competition.
' Now we can all of us understand that some men, either from
education or mental constitution, do not believe in progress at all.
They think that all change is for the worse, unless it is a change
backwards; and they are convinced that nothing but firmness is
wanting to resist change. There always have been such men, and
we can understand them. But what is less easy to understand is
that there should be men who believe heartily in progress, and yet
shut their eyes deliberately to the goal whither we are tending.
The truth is that their belief in progress does not rest on any reason
able basis. It is nothing better than a superstitious optimism, a
lazy semi-religious idea that the world must have a natural tendency
to get better. As for what getting better means, that they settle by
their own likes and dislikes. Consequently the middle-class man
interprets it to mean a reign of unlimited competition and individual
freedom; while the workman understands it to be a more equal
division of the products of industry. Although the workman’s
circumstances have led him to a truer conception of progress, perhaps
he has not arrived at it on much more reasonable grounds than those
on which the middle-class man has arrived at his. For, after all, it
does not follow because we long for a certain state of society that
therefore we are tending towards it.
The lot of the poor is a hard lot; there is no denying that. With
a very large number of them life is absolute misery from birth to
death. Though they may not actually starve, they are more or less
hungry from one week’s end to another; their dull round of toil
occupies the whole day; their homes are squalid and frightful,
seldom free from disease, and the heartrending .incidents of disease,
when aggravated by poverty. For them life is joyless, changeless,
hopeless. “ They wait for death, but it cometh not; they rejoice
exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave.” Those who
have mixed with the very poor, and have been startled by the strange
calmness with which they contemplate and speak of death, whether
of themselves or their relatives, will not say that this picture is much
over-drawn. But it is not of this poorest class that I now wish to
speak. I say that the lot of the skilled artizan earning his 30s.
or 35s. a week (when he is not out of employment) is a hard lot.
Perhaps it may seldom or never happen to him to go for a day with
his hunger only half satisfied. But his position compared with that
of a non-workman is one of great discomfort. People often seem to
forget this. It is not uncommon for rich men, when addressing an
audience of workmen to say, “ My friends, I am a working man. I
have been a working man all my life. I have been working with
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
my brain as you have with your hands.” Yes, but there is just
that difference. The one man has risen, say, at eight in the morning,
from a comfortable bed, has come down-stairs to a comfortable
breakfast, read his newspaper, reached his place of business towards
eleven o’clock, and then worked perhaps hard enough for some hours,
but in a comfortable office, and with interest in his work so intense
that he perhaps prefers it to any amusement, and then back to his
comfortable dinner and bed. The other man has risen perhaps
before daylight, has toiled ten or twelve hours, it may be under a
broiling sun, or a chilling rain, or under other conditions equally
disagreeable, and at work which cannot have very much interest for
him, first, because it is monotonous, secondly, because the product
will not be his when he has produced it. He has snatched his coarse
food at intervals during the day, and has returned at night to an
uncomfortable home. I think rich people are too apt to forget that,
though habit counts for much, a poor man’s, muscles, lungs, and
stomach,.are, after all, not very unlike their own, and that no amount
of custom makes such a life Otherwise than disagreeable and even
painful to him; and that the main question for him in reference to
civilisation will be, how it alleviates his condition. How are we
to answer that question? Everyone is familiar with the hymns
of triumph that are raised from time to time on the platform and in
the press. We need not enter into particulars, because no one
disputes that, so far as they go, they do point to progress of a certain
kind. No one disputes that the production and accumulation of
wealth is an element of progress J but it is only one element, and if
even this is confined to a comparatively small section of the com
munity, it must be admitted either that society as a whole is not
progressing, or that its progress must be proved by somewhat better
evidence than the statistics paraded in budget speeches and news
paper articles.
There is no question about the material progress of the non-work
man class. There are many thousands of houses in London infinitely
more commodious and luxurious than the palaces of Plantagenet
kings. But there is very great question whether the workmen
generally have made any real progress in comfort. Some of them
have, no doubt. The skilled artizan in London gets enough to eat.
He is perhaps no better lodged than his forefathers, but he dresses
better, and he has greater opportunities of enjoying himself and
moving about to better himself. But among the agricultural
labourers what state of things do we find ? In many parts of England
they are positively worse off than they were a hundred years ago.
In the Eastern Counties, where agriculture is carried on by the
newest lights of science, the horrible gang-system has come into
existence within the present century. Nor is such misery confined
.
b 2
�4
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSJ
to agricultural labourers. It has been proved in official reports that
' the workmen in such extensive trades as shoe-making, silk-weaving,
and stocking-weaving, are on an average worse fed than the
Lancashire operatives were during the cotton famine.1
Now, wretchedness of this terrible kind does not exist even among
barbarous nations and savage tribes. The child of the North
American Indian, or the Caffre, or the Esquimaux, does not begin to
work in a mill or in an agricultural gang almost as soon as it can
walk. It gets better food than the English child, and leads a
healthier and more enjoyable life. The West Indian negro has
been treated as an irreclaimable savage because he will not toil like
an English labourer, and the reason assigned is that he has plenty
to eat and drink without working hard for it. I fancy most English
labourers wish they could say the same. Really, if progress and
civilisation mean nothing but an increase of wealth, irrespective of
its distribution, Rousseau had much reason to prefer the state of
nature. It is childish to remind the poor man that his ancestor
under the Plantagenet kings had no chimney to his hut, no. glass in
his windows, no paper on his walls, no cheap calico, no parliamentary
trains, no penny newspapers. He was no worse off in these respects
than the Plantagenet king himself, who was equally without chimneys,
glass windows, calico, railways, and penny newspapers. There are parts
of the world now where the labourer is still in that condition. But
he gets sound and healthy sleep out of the straw spread on the floor
of his windowless hut, which is more than three or four families
huddled together in a single room in St. Giles’s can do, though they
may have a glazed window and a chimney. A poor Englishman
might be ashamed to walk about in a good stout sheepskin; but he
is often clad in garments much less warm and durable. What sort
of progress is this, in which the larger part of the community remains
as miserable, if not more miserable, than in a state of barbarism ?
If progress is necessarily so one-sided, it were better—I say it deli
berately—it were better it ceased. It were better that all were poor
together than that this frightful contrast should exist to shake men’s
faith in the eternal principles of justice.
Happily, we are not shut up to so discouraging a conclusion. If .
we look at the whole history of our race in Western Europe, instead
of studying one short chapter of it alone, we shall soon see what its
progress has been. The labouring class have steadily advanced in
dignity and influence. Once they were slaves, with no more rights
than horses and oxen. Then they were serfs, with certain rights,
but still subject to grievous oppression and indignities. Then they
became free hired labourers, nominally equal with the upper class
before the law, but in practice treated as an inferior race, and them(1) Public Health; Sixth Report, for 1863, pp. 13, 14.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
selves looking on the rich with much deference and awe. Now we
have come to a time when the workmen are almost everywhere
standing on their rights, and resisting what they deem unfair or
oppressive. They have learnt the secret of combination. With
freedom and dignity has come confidence—confidence in each other.
They have grasped the idea that the main object of government and
industrial organisation should be their comfort and happiness. What
is more, everybody is beginning to hold the same language. Every
proposal publicly made, whether to destroy or to create, is represented
as for the good of the lower classes. The very employers who are
trying to destroy your trade societies profess to be doing it out of
pure love for you. How astonishing and incomprehensible would all
this have been—I do not say to the ancient slave-owner, or to the
mediaeval baron—but to the wealthy men of the last century. Is
not this progress ? What if a minority only of the workmen have
as yet derived any benefit from the increased production of wealth ?
Is it nothing that the arms are being forged with which all shall at
length get their share ? Material improvement has always begun,
and always will begin, not with. those who need it most, but with
those who need it least; and the higher classes of workmen are now
making the experiment which the lowest will repeat after them.
Once firmly grasped, this truth throws a flood of light on history,
and makes clear what at first sight, is so obscure—the unbroken,
continuous progress of society. We see that even in the so-called
dark ages, when the splendour of Roman civilisation appeared to be
extinguished by the barbarian—when science, art, and literature
were lost and forgotten, and the world seemed to have retrograded
ten centuries—even then, in that dark hour, our race was accom
plishing the most decided step forward that it has ever made. When
the philosophers and poets and artists of Greece were lavishing their
immortal works on small communities of free men—when the
warriors and statesmen of Rome were building up the most splendid
political fabric that the world has seen—the masses were sunk in a
state of brutal slavery. . But when savage tribes, with uncouth names
and rude manners, had poured over Europe,. when a squalid bar
barism had superseded the elegance and luxury of ancient society,
when kings could not read, and priests could not write, when trade
and commerce had relapsed into Oriental simplicity, when men
thought that the end of a decayed and dying world was surely near
—then were the masses, . the working men, accomplishing un
noticed their first great step from slavery to' serfdom.
What I have already said amounts to this: that the improvement
of the condition of the working class is the most important element
of human progress—so important that even if we were to make it
�6
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
the sole object and test of our public life we could not justly be said
to be taking a one-sided view of political and social questions. I
shall endeavour presently to draw a picture of the workman’s life,
as it ought to be, and, as I believe, it will be in the future. But I
must first examine some of the means by which the transition is
being effected.
I will put aside the various schemes of Socialists and Communists.,
which have found so many supporters on the Continent. Widely as
they differ from one another, I believe they all agree in demanding
that the State shall intervene, more or less, in the direction of
industry. Now that' opinion has never found much favour in
England, nor is there at the present time any large body of workmen
who support it. In France the first idea of every reformer or
innovator is to act through the Government. This tendency arises
partly from the jealousy with which all Governments in that country
have repressed voluntary association, but partly also from the logical
and orderly character of the French mind, which abhors anything
partial or patchy either in thought or action. But in England,
where there has always been considerable facility for private and
associated action, it is our way rather to depend upon ourselves than
to wait till we have a Government of our way of thinking. Hence
the only two methods which have any serious pretensions to promote
the elevation of workmen in England have both of them sprung, not
from the brains of philosophers, but from the practical efforts of
workmen themselves. This is shown by the very language we
employ to describe them. In France the labour question has meant
the discussion of the rival schools, the Economic School, the school of
Fourier, the school of Proudhon, the school of Louis Blanc, of Cabet,
of Pierre Leroux, and so on. In England we do not talk of schools,
but of Unionism and Co-operation, which began in a practical form,
and have continued practical. There can be no doubt that all work
men who care for the future of their class are looking to one of these
two methods for the realisation of their hopes. Here, as on the
Continent, there is no lack of thinkers with elaborate schemes which,
in the opinion of their authors, would ensure universal happiness.
But whereas the French philosophers, whom I have mentioned, had
each his thousands of ardent disciples among the workmen, our
theorists cannot count their disciples by dozens, and are therefore not
worth taking into account. But Co-operation and Unionism are real
forces, and to pass them over in silence would be to deprive this
lecture of all practical value and interest for such an audience as I
am addressing.
The first thing to be noticed about Co-operation is that the word is
used for two very different things. There is the theory, and there is
the practice. The theory, as you know, is that there should be no
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
7
employer-class, that the workmen should divide the profits of produc
tion amongst themselves, and that whatever management is necessary
should be done by salaried officers and committees. Co-operation,
nowever, in that sense, does not get beyond a theory. The nobleminded men who founded the celebrated mill at Rochdale did indeed
for some years manage to put their principles in practice; but even
their own society at length fell away from them, and began to employ
workmen who were not shareholders at the market-rate of wages;
and I believe there is not in England, at the present moment, a
single co-operative society in which workmen divide the profits
irrespective of their being shareholders. Co-operation, in this sense,
then, may be dismissed from consideration with as little ceremony
as the Socialist and Communist theories before alluded to. Like*
them it supposes a degree of unselfishness and devotion which wedo not find in average men, and it does not attempt to create those
qualities, or supply their place by the only influence that can keep
societies of men for any length erf time to a high standard of
morality, the influence of an organised religion.
The Co-operation which actually exists, and is an important featureof modern industry, is something very different. We must strip it
mercilessly of the credit it borrows from its name, and its supposed
connection with the theory above described. It is nothing more than
an extension of the joint-stock principle. In what respect does the
Rochdale mill differ from any other joint-stock company ? A con
siderable number of its shares are already%eld by persons who do not
work in it, and it is very possible that in course of time all, or most
of the workmen employed in it, will be earning simply the market
rate of wages. A certain number of men, by the exercise of industry,
prudence, and frugality, will have risen from the working class into
the class above. How is the working class the better for that ?
What sort of solution is that for the industrial problem ? We set out
with the inquiry how the working class was to be improved, not how
a few persons, or even many persons, were to be enabled to get out of
it. We want to discover how workmen may obtain a larger share of
the profits of production, and the Rochdale Co-operative Mill, which
pays workmen the market-rate, has certainly not made the discovery.
The world is not to be regenerated by the old dogma of the economists
masquerading in Socialist dress.
The history of Co-operation is this. The noble-minded men who
first preached the theory in. its purity, were deeply impressed with
the immoral and mischievous way in which capital is too often
employed by its possessors,, and instead of inquiring how moral
influence might be brought to bear on capitalists, they leaped to the
conclusion that capitalists as a separate class ought not to exist. In
making this assumption they overlooked the distinction between the-
�8
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OB’ THE WORKING* CLASS!
accidental and the permanent conditions of industry. Collective
activity among men has had two types—the military and the indus
trial, the latter of which has gradually almost superseded the former.
Military organisation has undergone many and great changes, from
the earliest shape in which we find it among savage tribes down to
its most elaborate form in our own time. But its one leading
characteristic has remained unchanged. There has never been a
time when armies weje not commanded by generals with great power
and great responsibility. Wherever there has been the slightest
attempt to weaken that power and diminish that responsibility, there
it is admitted that the army has suffered and the work has been so
much less efficiently done. Whether the soldiers were mere slaves
as in Eastern countries, or free citizens as in the republics of Greece
and Rome and America, or mercenaries fighting for hire as has often
been the case in modern Europe, the principle of management has
always been the same. Discipline was as sharp among the citizen
soldiers of Grant and Sherman as among the conscripts of Frederick
and Napoleon. Such a thing as the co-operative management of an
army has never been heard of.
Now in the other type of collective activity-—the industrial—a
similar organisation has constantly prevailed. The analogy is
striking, and it is not accidental, for the conditions are fundamentally
the same. Fighting and working are the two great forms of activity,
and if you have to organise them on a large scale, it is not strange
that the same method should be found best for both. And workmen
will do well to notice this analogy, and insist on pressing it home to
the utmost of their power; for the more logically it is carried out, the
more striking and overwhelming are the arguments it supplies for
their side of the labour controversy. There is not a phase of that
controversy which it does not illustrate, and invariably to their
advantage. As one instance out of many, I may mention the sanc
tion afforded by military practice for a uniform rate of wages to the
rank-and-file of labour—an argument which was put by one of the
Trades’ Union Inquiry Commissioners to the Secretary of the Master
Builders’ Association, and which completely shut his mouth on that
questioh. But it is for another purpose that I am now referring to
this analogy. Special skill and training, unity of purpose, prompti
tude, and, occasionally, even secrecy, are necessary for a successful
direction of industry just as much as of war. “ A council of war
never fights ” is a maxim which has passed into a proverb, as
stamping the worthlessness of such councils. Yet councils of war
are not composed of private soldiers, but of skilful and experienced
officers. They are more analogous to our boards of railway directors,
whose incapacity, I must admit, does not take exactly that form.
Whether the efficiency of our railway management would be improved
�Khe soUIAIj future of the Working class.
9
by an. infusion of stokers and plate-layers into the direction, I will
leave it to the advocates of Co-operation to say.
Another no less important advantage of the old industrial system
over Co-operation is that it transfers the risk from the workman to
the employer. Capital is the reserved fund which enables the
employer to carry on his business' with due enterprise, and yet
to give a steady rate of wages to the workman. Great as have been
the changes through which industry has passed—^-slavery, serfdom, and
free labour—this fundamental characteristic has remained unaltered.
In all ages of the world, since industry began to be organised at all,
the accumulated savings which we call capital ha^e been in the hands
of comparatively few persons, who have provided subsistence for the
labourer while engaged in production. The employer has borne the
risk and taken the profits. The labourer has had no risk and no
share of the profits. Though in modern times there appears to be
some desire on the part of the master to make the workman share
the risk, he will soon come to see that such a policy destroys the
only justification of capital, and thus strikes at the root of pro
perty itself. The workmen will help him to see this by their com
binations, if he shows any indisposition to open his eyes. It is one
among many ways in which they will teach him in spite of himself
what is for his own good. In point of fact, in the best organised
trade—that of the engineers—the rate of wages is subject to little if
any fluctuation.
The separation, then, between employers and employed, between
capitalist and labourer, is a natural and fundamental condition of
society, characteristic of its normal state, no less than its preparatory
stages. We may alter many things, but we shall not alter that.
We may change our forms of government, our religions, our
language, our fashion of dress, our cooking, but the relation of
employer and employed is no more likely to be superseded in the
future by Communism in any of its shapes, than is another institu
tion much menaced at the present time—that of husband and wife.
It suits human nature in a civilised state. Its aptitude to supply
the wants of man is. such that nothing can compete with it. There
may be fifty ways of getting from Temple Bar to Charing Cross;
but the natural route is by the Strand; and along the Strand the
bulk of the traffic will always lie. ' And so, though we may have
trifling exceptions, the great mass of workmen will always be
employed by capitalists.
Now this was what the founders of Co-operation refused to see;
and in their enthusiasm they fancied they could establish societies,
the shareholders of which would voluntarily surrender to non-share
holders a large part of the profits vhich their capital would naturally
^command. But the shareholders were most of them only average
�10
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
men; they were not enthusiastic, or their enthusiasm cooled as the
money-making habit crept over them. The co-operative theory was
not bound up with any religious system, or supported by any spiritual
discipline ; and they soon fell into the vulgar practice of making the
most of their capital. What is the lesson to be learnt ? Whatever
there was of good in the movement belonged not to the industrial
theory, but to the social spirit of the men who started it. If those
men had been employers, or if any employers had had their spirit,
the workmen would have reaped the same advantages without any
machinery of co-operation. Therefore we must look for improvement, not to this or that new-fangled industrial system, but to the
creation of a moral and religious influence which may bend all in
obedience to duty. When we have created such an influence, we
shall find that it will act more certainly and effectually on a small
body of capitalists than it would on a loose multitudinous mob of
co-operative shareholders.
Before leaving the subject of Co-operation, let me say that, while I
cannot recognise its claims to be the true solution of the industrial
question, I heartily acknowledge the many important services it may
render to the working class. Even as applied to production, in
which I contend it can never play an important part, it will do good
for a time by throwing light On the profits of business. As applied
to distribution in the shape, that is to say, of co-operative stores, its
services can hardly be exaggerated. It not only increases the
comfort of workmen, by furnishing them with genuine goods and
making their money go further, but it gives them dignity and
independence by emancipating them from a degrading load of debt.
Moreover, it sets free, for the purpose of reproduction, a large
amount of labour and capital which had before been wasted in a
badly arranged system of distribution.
If we turn now to the other agency by which the labouring class
in this country is being elevated, I mean Trades Unions, we shall
find more enlightened ideas combined with greater practical utility
Unionism distinctly recognises the great cardinal truth which Co
operation shirks—namely, that workmen must be benefited as work
men, not as something else. It does not offer to any of them
opportunities for raising themselves into little capitalists, but it
offers to all an amelioration of their position. Co-operation is a fine
thing for men who are naturally indefatigable, thrifty, and ambitious
—not always the finest type of character, be it observed in passing—
but it does nothing for the less energetic, for the men who take life
easily, and are content to live and die in the station in which they
were born. Yet these are just the men we want to elevate, for they
form the bulk of the working class. They are in very bad odour
with the preachers of the Manchester school, the apostles of self-help.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
11
To my mind there is not a more degrading cant than that which
I incessantly pours from the lips and pens of these wretched instructors.
Men professing to be Christians, and very strict Christians too—■
Protestant Christians who have cleansed their faith of all mediaeval
corruptions and restored it according to the primitive model of
apostolic times, when, we are told, “all that believed were together,
and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men, as every man had need ”—these teachers,
I say, are not ashamed to talk of making money and getting on in
the world, as if it were the whole duty of a working man. Thus it
comes to pass, that while they are bitter opponents and calumniators
of Unionism,1 they patronise Co-operation, because it enables their
model workman to raise himself, as Lord Shaftesbury expressed it
not long ago, “ into a good and even affluent citizen,” a moral eleva
tion to which it is clear a primitive Christian never attained. But
you who are workmen, and have a little practical experience of the
thing, you do not want me or anyone else to tell you that the men
who raise themselves from the ranks are very often not distinguished
by fine dispositions or even by great abilities. What is wanted for
success of that sort is industry, perseverance, and a certain sharpness,
often of a low kind. I am far from saying that those who raise
themselves are not often admirable men ; but you know very well
that they are sometimes very much the reverse—that they are morally
very inferior to the average workman who is content with his posi
tion, and only desires that his work may be regular and his wages
fair. Now the merit of Unionism is that it meets the case of this
average workman. Instead of addressing itself to the sharp, shifty
men, who are pretty certain to take care of themselves in any case,
it undertakes to do the best that can be done for the average man.
And not only so, but it attends to the man below the average in
industry and worthiness: it finds him work, and insists on his
working; it fortifies his good resolutions; it strengthens him
against temptation; it binds him to his fellows;—in short, it
regulates him generally, and looks after him. Nor is even this the
full extent of the difference in this respect between Co-operation and
Unionism. While the benefits of the former are exclusively reaped
by shareholders, the union wins its victories in the interest of nonunionists just as much as of its own members..
I noticed as a fatal error of Co-operation that it regards the relation
of employer and employed as a transient and temporary arrangement
which may and will be superseded, whereas it is permanent, and
(1) “ God. grant that the work-people may be emancipated from the tightest thraldom
they have ever yet endured. AR the single despots, and aU the aristocracies that ever
were or will be, are as puffs of wind compared with these tornadoes of Trades Unions, j
BufeJ^.have small hope. The masses seem to me to have less common-sense than they
had a year ago.”—Zcfter of Lord Shaftesbury to Colonel Maude.
�12
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
destined to survive all attacks. It is an eminent merit of Unionism
that it recognises this important truth. The practical good sense of
workmen has here shown itself superior to all the cleverness of philo
sophers. They have instinctively grasped the maxim that we shall
best serve the cause of progress, whether political or social, by striving
not to displace the actual possessors of power, but to teach them to
use their power for the interests of society.1 And there is this further
advantage of a practical kind, that Unionism is not obliged, like the
schemes of the philosophers, to hover impotently in the air, as a mere
speculative phantom, till such time as it can command the assistance
of the State to get itself tried in practice. A few dozen men can
commence the application of it in their own trade any day they please.
Nor is it a cut-and-dried scheme in which every detail is settled
beforehand with mathematical exactness; it is of infinite elasticity,
and can adapt itself spontaneously to the circumstances of each
case.
I It is desirable that the workman’s wages should be good, but it is
still more desirable that they should be steady. A fluctuating income
in any station of life is, as everyone knows, one of the most demora
lising influences to which a man can be exposed. When an outcry
is raised against the unions because -they maintain that wages ought
not to fall with every temporary depression of trade, it always seems
to me that in so doing they are discharging precisely their most
useful function. I have already alluded to the duty of the capitalist
in this respect, and Unionism supplies exactly the machinery required
for keeping him up to his duty, until a religious influence shall have
been organised which will produce the same result in a more healthy
and normal way. No doubt unions might offend deplorably on their
side against this principle of a steady rate of wages. It is conceivable
that they might screw out of the employer every year or every month
wages to such an amount as would leave him only the bare profit
which would make it worth his while to continue in business. It is
manifest that on those terms he could not amass such a reserve fund
as would enable him to tide over temporary depression without
reducing wages. Every fluctuation in trade would cause a corre
sponding fluctuation in wages, which would vary from month to
month. If Trades Unions were to act in this way they would lose
their principal justification. They are charged with doing so now,
but the charge is perfectly groundless. Probably in no case do they
extract from the employer anything like the wages he could afford
to give if he was disposed. I do not believe that unions, extend them
as you will, will ever be strong enough to put such a pressure on the
employers. I believe that an organised religious influence will here
after induce employers to concede to their men, voluntarily, a larger
(1) Comte Pol. Pos. i. 163 (p. 173 of the translation by Dr. Bridges).
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
13
sh^?e ofxhew profits than any Trades Union could extort from them.
An additional security that unions will never go too far in this direc
tion is to be found in the fact that some masters, whether from larger
capital, greater business ability, or higher reputation, make much
larger profits than others. But unions do not pretend to exact higher
wages from such masters. The tariff, therefore, is evidently ruled by
the profits of the least successful employers.
It might have been supposed at first sight that employers would
have looked with more favour on Unionism, which leaves them in full
possession of their capital, their authority, and their responsibility,
than on Co-operation, which proposes to supersede them altogether.
But, as you all know, the contrary is the case; and there could not
be a more instructive test of the relative efficiency of the two methods.
Unionism maintains that capital has its duties, and must be used for
a social purpose. Co-operation shrinks from asserting a doctrine so
distasteful to the propertied classes, and seeks to evade the necessity
for it by the. shallow fallacy that everyone is to become a capitalist.
Although everyone will not become a capitalist, no doubt some
will, and the net result of the co-operative movement will be that
the army of capitalists will be considerably reinforced in its lower
ranks. Will that army so reinforced be more easy to deal with ?
An exaggerated and superstitious reverence for the rights of property,
and an indifference to its duties, is the chief obstacle to the elevation
of the working class. The fewer the possessors in whose hands
capital is concentrated, the more easy will it be to educate, discipline,
and, if need be, gently coerce them. But when the larger capitalists
have at their back an army of little capitalists, men who have sunk
the co-operative workman in the co-operative shareholder, men who
have invested their three or four hundred pounds in the concern, and
are employing their less fortunate fellow-workmen at the market rate
of wages, why, it stands to reason that the capital of the country will
be less amenable to discipline than ever. A. striking example is to
be seen in France at the present time. You know that the immediate
effect of the old revolution was to put the cultivators in possession of
the soil. A vast number of small proprietors were created. Doubtless
many advantages resulted from that change. France got rid of her
aristocracy once and for good. The cultivators identified themselves
with the revolution which had given them the soil, and defended it
fiercely against the banded sovereigns of Europe. If the people had
not been bribed with the land, the revolution might have been
crushed. But there has been another result from it, of more doubtful
^advantage. The whole of this class of small proprietors is fanatically
devoted to the idea of property; and in their fear that property should
Ue attacked they have thrown their weight on the side of conserfeailSKL and against further political and social progress. The wealthy
�14
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
middle class plays on their ignorance and timidity. All who desire
to initiate the smallest social reform, who express any opinion adverse
to the tyrannical power exercised by capital, are denounced as Com
munists and apostles of confiscation. The small proprietors are
worked up into a frenzy of apprehension, and fling themselves into
the arms of any crafty impostor who talks big words about saving
society. Thus the artizans and small proprietors, men whose interests
must be essentially the same, for they are all alike workmen living by
the sweat of their brow and the labour of their hands, are pitted
against one another, and the middle class alone profits by the dissen
sion. If the manufactures of this country were to get into the hands
of a number of small shareholders, simple workmen would soon find
the rein tighter and the load heavier. Their demand for the repeal
of unjust laws would encounter a more stubborn resistance; the
progress they have been making towards comfort and dignity would
be abruptly checked. Fortunately, as I have already endeavoured to
1 show, there is no likelihood that so-called Co-operation will ever drive
the capitalist employer out of the field.
Such are the reasons for which I hold Unionism to be by far the
most efficient of all the agencies that have as yet been largely advo
cated or put in practice for the purpose of elevating the working
class, and preparing it for its future destinies. The French workmen
have much to teach us ; but I think in this matter they might take
a lesson from our men with advantage. I hope they will signalise
their next revolution—for which, by the way, I am getting rather
impatient—by abolishing all those laws which so iniquitously obstruct
their right to combine. Indeed, Unionism cannot be said to have
had a fair trial in England until it is established in the other
countries of Europe also?
It remains to consider what the destinies are for which our work
men are thus preparing themselves, and to picture to ourselves what
their condition will be when society shall approximate more nearly
to its normal state. We may do so without indulging in Utopias or
extravagant estimates of our capacity to shape the course of human
development, because we are not postulating springs of action in
individuals, which, as a matter of fact, do not exist, or do not exist
in sufficient strength—we are not spinning theories out of a priori
notions of what society ought to be, but we are feeling our way by
an examination, on the one hand, of the permanent facts of our nature,
and the conditions imposed upon us by the external world ; and, on
the other hand, of the steady, continuous progress of society in the
past. And if it has occurred to anyone that I have been a long
time coming to what professed to be the subject of this lecture—
namely, “ the future of the working class ”—I must plead, in justi
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
131
fication, that I have in effect been dealing with it all along, and that
nothing now remains but to give some practical illustrations of the
conclusions already arrived at.
That the position of the workman will ever be as desirable as that
of the wealthier classes seems, as far as we can see, highly impro
bable. Some people are shocked when such a proposition is plainly
enunciated. They have a sort of hazy idea that the external condi
tions of our existence cannot be inconsistent with the perfection and
happiness of man. They have been taught that this is a world
where only man is vile, and it sounds to them immoral to talk as if
there was any insurmountable obstacle to an ideal state of society
except what they are accustomed to term our fallen nature. The
fact is, however, that this is very far from being the best of all
possible worlds, and we must look that fact in the face. Human
society might arrive much nearer perfection, both moral and material,
if there was not so much hard work to be done. It must be done by
some; and those to whom it falls to do it will inevitably have a less
pleasant life than others. But though to annul or entirely alter the
inflnone.es of the world external to ourselves is beyond our humble
powers, we can generally either modify them to some extent, or,
what comes to the same thing, modify ourselves to suit them, if only
successive generations of men address themselves wisely to the task;
just as an individual may by care preserve his health in a pestilential
climate, though he can do little or. nothing to alter the climate.
And so, though there will probably always be much to regret in the
workman’s lot, we may look forward to improvements which will
give him a considerable amount of comfort and happiness. I will
enumerate some of these which we may reasonably expect will be
reached when present struggles are over, and when employers and
workmen alike have learnt to shape their lives and conduct by the
precepts of a rational religion.
Employers, though exercising their own judgment and free action
in their industrial enterprises, will never forget that their first con
cern must be, not the acquisition of an enormous fortune, but the
well-being and comfort of the labourers dependent on them. Hence
there will be an end of that reckless speculation which sports with
the happiness, and even the life, of workmen and their families—
displacing them here, massing them there, treating them, in short,
as mere food for powder in the reckless conflicts of industrial compe
tition. We shall no longer see periods of spasmodic energy and
frantic over-production first in one trade, then in another, followed
by glutted markets, commercial depression, and cessation of employ
ment. For capital being concentrated in comparatively few hands,
it will be possible to employ it with wisdom and foresight for the
general good; which is quite out of the question while the chieftains
�16.
THE SOCIAL .FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
of industry are a disorganised multitude, swaying to and fro in the
markets of the world as blindly and irrationally as a street-mob at a
fire. Thus the workman will be able to count on what is more
precious to him than anything else—steady employment, and an
income which, whether large or small, is, at all events, liable to
little fluctuation. The demoralising effects of uncertainty in this
respect can hardly be overrated. Large numbers of workmen at
present, from no fault of their own, lead as feverish and reckless an
existence as the gambler. When this state of things ceases, we may
look forward with confidence to a remarkable development of social
and domestic virtue among the working class.
To give the workman due independence, he ought to be the owner
of his abode, or, at all events, to have a lease of it. In some
instances at present we find men living in houses belonging to their
employers, from which they can be ejected at a week’s notice. This
_is often the case among colliers and agricultural labourers, and what
grinding tyranny results from it, I need not tell you. It is not
desirable in a healthy, industrial society that labour should be
migratory. Ordinarily, the workman will continue in the same
place, and with the same employer, for long periods, just as is the
habit with other classes. Fixity of abode will naturally accompany
fixity of wages and employment. Here, again, we may expect an
admirable reaction on social and domestic morality.
A diminution of the hours of work is felt by all the best workmen
to be even more desirable than an increase of wages. All of you,
I am sure, have so thoroughly considered this question in all its
bearings, that I am dispensed from dwelling on it at length. I
merely mention it that it may not be supposed I undervalue it. If
the working day could be fixed at eight hours for six days in the
week, and a complete holiday on the seventh, the workman would have
time to educate himself, to enjoy himself, and above all to see more
of his family.
Let us next consider how far the State can intervene to render the
position of the workman more tolerable. That ought to be the
first and highest object of the State, and therefore we need have no
scruple about taxing the other classes of the community to any extent
for this purpose, provided we can really accomplish it.1 But of course
it must be borne in mind that by injudicious action in this direction
(1) As I have had some experience of the criticism (always anonymous) which seizes
a detached passage and draws from it inferences directly excluded by the context, I
desire by anticipation to protest against any quotation of the above sentence apart from
at least the three which immediately succeed it. Taken by itself (although even so it
is guarded by a strictly adequate proviso) it might be misunderstood. In the context
the proviso is carefully and fully expanded into an argument on social grounds against
excessive taxation of the rich. Arguments from the individualist point of view I
entirely reject, as I trust my audience did.
�THE’ SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
• 17
we might easily defeat our own benevolent intentions. For instance,'
it is conceivable that such taxation might become so heavy as to
approximate in effect to the establishment of Communism, and the
springs of industry and frugality, in other words the creation of capital,
would be proportionately affected. Again, the State must not afford
help to workmen in such shape as directly or indirectly to encourage
on the one hand idleness, and on the other a reckless increase of the
population. For example, it must not interfere to lower the price
of food or houses; because common sense and experience alike show
us that such interference would rapidly pauperise the class it was
intended to benefit. But there are, I believe, many ways in which
it may add most materially to the comfort and happiness of the poor
without at all relieving them from the necessity of exercising prudence
and industry. As regards their physical comfort, it may carry out
sanitary regulations on a scale hitherto not dreamt of. It may
furnish them in London, and other large towns, with a copious supply
of good water free of expense. It may provide medical assistance
much more liberally than at present. I would add, it may exercise
a close supervision over the weights and measures of the shopkeepers
and the quality of the goods they supply, did I not hope that the
spread of co-operative stores may render such supervision unnecessary.
The State may also do much to make the lives of the poor brighter
and happier. It may place education within their reach; it may
furnish an adequate supply of free libraries, museums, and picture
galleries; it may provide plenty of excellent music in the parks and
other public places on Sundays and summer evenings.
I think that a London workman in steady employment, earning
such wages as he does now, working eight hours a day, living in
his own house, and with such means of instruction and amusement
as I have described gratuitously afforded him, would not have an
intolerable lot. His position would, it is true, be less brilliant than
that of his employer. But it does not follow that the lot of the
latter would be so very much more desirable. His income, of course,
will be lessened in proportion as his workmen receive a larger share
of the profits of production. He will live in greater luxury and
elegance than they do, but within limits; for public opinion, guided
by religious discipline, will not tolerate the insolent display of
magnificence which at present lends an additional bitterness to the
misery of the poor. His chief pleasure will consist, like that of the
statesman, in the noble satisfaction of administering the interests of
the industrial group over which he presides. But the responsibilities
of this position will be so heavy, the anxiety and the strain on the
mind so severe, that incompetent men will generally be glad to take
the advice that will be freely given them, namely, to retire from it
to some humbler occupation, The workmen, on the other hand.
�18*
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
will lead a tranquil life, exempt from all serious anxiety; and
although their position will be less splendid than that of the
(employers, it will not be less dignified. For in that future to which
I look forward, the pressure of public opinion, directed, as I have
several times said, by an organised religion, will not tolerate any idle
class living by the sweat of others, and affecting to look down on all
who have to gain their own bread. Every man, whether he is rich
or poor, will be obliged to work regularly and steadily in some way
or other as a duty to society; and when all work, the false shame
which the industrious now feel in the presence of the idle will dis
appear for ever. I am addressing an audience, which, whether it
calls itself Republican or not, has, I am sure, a thoroughly Repub
lican spirit, and a keen sense of the insolent contempt with which
labour is regarded by those whose circumstances exempt them from
performing it. You will therefore agree with me that of all the
changes in the workman’s condition which I have enumerated as
likely to be realised in the future, this is by far the most precious—
that his function will be invested with as much dignity as that of
any other citizen who is doing his duty to society.
There are some men who are inclined to be impatient when they
are asked to contemplate a state of things which confessedly will not
be of immediate realisation. They are burning for an immediate
reformation of all wrong in their own time. They think it very poor
work to talk of a golden age which is to bless the world long after
they are dead, buried, and forgotten. They are even inclined to
resent any attempt to interest them in it, as though dictated by a
concealed desire to divert them from practical exertions. “ Tell us,”
they say, “how we may taste some happiness. Why should we
labour in the cause of progress if the fruits are to be reaped only by
posterity ? ”
I do not wish to speak harshly of workmen who have this feeling.
There has been too much of such hypocritical preaching in times
past, and it is not strange if they have become suspicious of exhorta
tions to fix their eyes on a remote future rather than on the present.
So conspicuously unjust is their treatment by the more powerful
classes, so hard and painful is the monotonous round of their daily
life, that the wonder is, not that some men should rebel against it,
but that most should bear it with calmness and resignation. Never
theless, it is necessary to say firmly, and never to cease saying, that
such language as I have alluded to belongs to a low moralityJ
Moreover, it defeats its own object. For whatever may be the case
with individuals, the people will not be stimulated to united action
by arguments addressed to its selfishness. The people can only be
moved to enthusiasm by an appeal to elevated sentiments. If leaders
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
19
of the worst causes find it necessary to invest them with some delusive
semblance of virtue that may touch the popular heart, shall we who
have put our hand to the sacred task of helping and accelerating
social progress, shall we deal in cynical sophisms and play on selfish
passions ? We owe it to our race that we should leave this world in
a better state than we found it. We must labour for posterity,
because our ancestors laboured for us. What sacrifices have we to
make compared with some that have been made for us ? We are
not called on to go to the gallows with John Brown and George
William Gordon, the latest martyrs in the cause of labour; or to
mount barricades, like the workmen who flung away their lives in
Paris twenty years ago next month. Is their spirit extinct ? Were
they men of different mould from us ? Or did they enter upon that
terrible struggle on some calculation of their personal advantage ?
No ! but so short a time had wrought them up to an heroic enthu
siasm which made it seem a light thing to pour out their blood if
they might inaugurate a happier future for their class. And shall
we who live in times less stormy, but not less critical for the cause
of labour, shall we complain if the fruits of such small sacrifices as 1
we may make are reserved for another generation ?
The worst of this unworthy spirit is, that the exhibition of it is an
excuse to the self-indulgent and frivolous for their neglect of all
serious thought and vigorous action. One is sometimes ready to
despair of any good coming out of a populace which can fill so many
public-houses and low music-halls ; which demands such dull and
vulgar rubbish in its newspapers; which devours the latest news
from Newmarket, and stakes its shillings and pots of beer as eagerly
as a duke or marquis puts on his thousands. This multitude, so
frivolous and gross in its tastes, will not be regenerated by plying
it with fierce declamation against the existing order of society. You
will more easily move it by appealing to its purer feelings, obscured
but not extinct, than by taunting it with a base submission to class
injustice. The man whose ideas of happiness do not go much beyond
his pipe and glass and comic song, knows that the sour envious
agitator will never be a bit the better off for all the trouble he gives
himself; and he sees nothing to gain by following in his steps. But
there are few men so gross as not to be capable of feeling the beauty
of devotion to the good of others, even when they are morally too
weak to put it in practice. And though a man may lead an un
satisfactory life, it is something if, so far as his voice contributes to
the formation of public opinion, it is heard on’ the right side. This
is the ground we must take if we wish to raise the tone of workmen.
We must place before them, without reserve, the highest motive of
political and social action——the good of those who are to come after
�20
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
us. We must hold out no prospect of individual advantage or reward
other than the approval of their own consciences.
Those who complain most bitterly of the slow rate of progress
towards an improved industrial state, would sometimes do well to
reflect whether their own conduct does not contribute to retard »
it. The selfish spirit follows us even into our labours for others,
and takes the form of vanity and ambition. Probably all of us have
had frequent occasion to observe how the cause of labour has suffered
from ignoble jealousies and personal rivalries. Yet it is the greatest
spirits who are invariably most ready to.t^ke the subordinate position '
and to accept obscurity with a noble satisfaction. The finest type k
of theocratic government, the lawgiver of the Hebrew nation, was
ready to be blotted out of God’s book, so that the humblest and
lowest, the rank-and-file of his people, might enter the promised
land. The greatest of the apostles wished that he himself might, be
accuised from Christ, if at that price he might purchase salvation for
an obscure mob of Jews. “ Reputation,” said the hero of the French
revolution, “ what is that ? Blighted be my name, but let France
be free.” So speaks a Moses, a Paul, or a Danton, while petty ambi
tions are stickling for precedence, and posturing before the gaze of
their contemporaries. Devotion, forgetfulness of self, a readiness to
obey rather than an eagerness to command—-if a man has not these
qualities he is but common clay, he is not fit to lead his fellows.
Det us school ourselves into a readiness not merely to storm the
breach, but to lie down in the trench, that others may pass over our.
bodies as over a bridge to victory. It is a spirit which has never
been found wanting whenever there has been a great cause to call it
forth; and a greater cause than that of the workman of Europe
advancing to their final emancipation, this world is not likely to see
again.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The social future of the working class: a lecture delivered to a meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868
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Beesly, Edward Spencer [1831-1915.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Reprinted from Fortnightly Review. "This lecture was the last in a series of three delivered last spring, by request of the London Trades' Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were given by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison". [p. 1]. Title page brown and paper acidified. Tears at edges of title page. Printed by Virtue & Co., London.
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E. Truelove
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1869
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G5208
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The social future of the working class: a lecture delivered to a meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
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Labour Movement
Socialism
Capitalism
Conway Tracts
Labour Movement
Political reform
Social Reform
Socialism
Working Class-Great Britain