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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
\V\cyYViíií> A- vIhaccoöVtU
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
��Distribution Reform.
The Remedy for Industrial Depression,
and for the removal of many
Social Evils.
BY
THOMAS ILLINGWORTH.
‘1 They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother,
‘ Be of good courage.' So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that
smootheth with the hammer him that smiteth the anvil."
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited;
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE.
�“ Charge them that are rich in this present world that they be not
high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but
on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; that they do good, that
they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to
communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation
against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life
indeed.'”
�CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preliminary Remarks
xi
*
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—The true Social Science—The Social Problem—Extremes of
Wealth and Poverty—Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., an Alarmist as to
the Future of England—The great Want of the Day, some Mode of
bridging over the Gulf between Rich and Poor—Lord Thurlow on rePeopling the empty Villages of England—Mr. Gladstone on the intoxi
cating Increase of Wealth and the Extreme of Poverty—The late
Professor Fawcett, M. P., on Pauperism—Pauperism in Manchester—
Karl Marx, the German Socialist, points to Wealthy England for an
Example of the Miserable Condition of the Labouring Classes, and
bases his Statements on the Official Reports of Drs. Smith, Simon,
and Hunter—Dr. Westcott on the Causes of Suicides—The Report of
the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes a
Revelation of a Condition of Things full of Disgrace and Danger to the
Country—The Bishop of Manchester on the Decadence of Practical
Christianity in England—A greater Knowledge of Physical Science
and the Use of Machinery has vastly increased the Production of
Wealth—We have retrograded in the Art and Economy of its Distri-
CHAPTER II.
The three Factors in the Creation of Wealth—Land, Labour, and Capital
—Their relative Importance—The Economies made in Production of
Wealth by Machinery should have been used for the Collective Good—
But whilst Economies have been made in Production, Labour has
gradually Declined in relative Power—Until to-day it is little better
than the Slave of Capital—A far more important Question than the
relative Importance of the Factors in Wealth Creation is the Equitable
Distribution of the Wealth when created—The Desire to become Rich,
and Mistrustfulness of ¿Divine Promises the Primary Causes of In
justice—The Fall of the Nations of Antiquity traceable to Injustice
and Inequity in the Distribution of the Rewards of Labour and
Industry—A Retrospect
...................................................
... 14
�VI
COttTFNTSt
CHAPTER III.
—,
FAGS
.
1 he Growth of Middlemanism contemporary with the Introduction of
Labour-saving Machinery and Concentration of Population—The
Economy in Production has been swallowed up by the Waste and
Destruction in Distribution and Exchange—The Need of a Moral
System of Distribution and Exchange—Examples in Proof thereof—
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the false Relations between Men that come
Trade, and the Want of a Higher Standard than Money as a
Measure of Exchange—Money gotten in Exchange is not Wealth
created ; it is simply Wealth collected, and too frequently it is destruc
tive of Wealth—What are Riches, and what Powers of Virtue or
Means to Happiness do they possess ?—The Sayings thereon of ancient
Philosophers, Old Testament Writers, and Christ—Concentration and
Monopoly of Riches defeats its own Ends—Riches, to be a Living
Power, must be active—To be active they must be within the Use of
Others ...
...
...
...
...
..............
CHAPTER IV.
Wealth ceases to be Wealth when it ceases to be used—The most direct
Means of obtaining Wealth is in labouring Nature—With increasing
Knowledge of the Arts of Industry and Peace, Man must obtain an
increasing Quantity of natural Commodities for his Labour—The
Labour of Man is, like the Fruitfulness of the Earth, the more it
receives back of its own the more it reproduces—Examples of this
Truth in India, Australia, &c.—The Industrial Revolution, and the
Severance of Agricultural from Manufacturing Pursuits—The Founda
tion of a Scheme of Imperial Federation rests on a moral, not a
legislative, Bond—On kindred Interests and mutual Helpfulness
... 31
CHAPTER V.
The Ties which bound together Primitive Communities—The Bond of Kin
ship and Brotherhood—The Christian and Moral Bond which now
binds Men together is the Bond of Humanity—The Analogy, and yet
the Contrast, between Primitive and Modern Society—This is the Era
of Free Competition and Individualism—The Reforms advocated for
Remedying the Evils of the Modern Era are, however, all more or less
founded on the Primitive Idea of the Family Group and Community
of Interests—The true Doctrine of Free Trade—The selfish Indi
vidualism that prompted the Support of Manufacturers to the Free
Trade Movement
........................................................................................ 38
�CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
vii
PAGE
The Industrial Revolution and Unjust Land Laws have Contributed to the
Sacrifice of the more Natural Agricultural Pursuits for the more Arti
ficial Industrial Callings—The Malthusian Theory Proved to be Untrue
—Free Trade has given us the Benefit of Natural Prices in Raw
Materials, but the Result of the Free Trade Policy as Hitherto
Applied has Brought About a Concentration and Monopoly of Capital
— The Accumulation of Capital in a Few Hands is as Detrimental to
the Well-being of a Country as Land Monopoly—Protection and the
Consequent Dearness of Provisions was, before the Repeal of the Corn
Laws Ascribed as the Cause of the then Existing Depression—Now
Lowness of Prices and Cheapness are Ascribed as the Cause of the
Present Depression : What an Anomaly !—Land Law Reform The
Natural Law of Rents
...
............................................................. 46
CHAPTER VII.
The Present System of Distribution Unsatisfactory and Unjust—The Pro
ducer is depressed, the Consumer extorted : Consumption is therefore
Limited, and the Demand for Labour Restricted—Competition rules
Prices in Production and Wholesale Distribution, but in Retail Trading
Custom and not Competition rules the Prices Consumers have to pay
—This statement illustrated—Examples of Inequities and Injustices
in Distribution in various Trades and Industries ...
...
...
... 54
CHAPTER VIII.
On the Difficulties that will be seen in the Way of any Attempt at Reform
by the hard-headed Practical Man—The Evils of Distribution are of
Modern Growth—A Glance at the economic and social Condition of
Village Life before the Industrial Revolution—In it there was no Waste
in Distribution, no Middlemanism—Primitive Village Communities and
“ Neutral Ground” for Markets for the Exchange of surplus Produc
tions—The Need of making Distribution Neutral Ground to-day—
The Co-operative Movement, and its Failure in carrying out the
Principles of true Co-operation—The Essentials of true Co-operation
explained
...
•••
•••
•••
CHAPTER IX.
The Remedy—The Establishment of Associations for Distribution of Agri
cultural and Industrial Products for Mutual Benefit of Producers and
Consumers—The Organization of Associations for Mutual Distribution
�vili
CONTENTS.
of Agricultural Produce and Food-The Organization of Associations™“
for Mutual Distribution of Manufactures, Articles of Dress and
Clothing, Furniture, &c.—The Machinery and Working of the same
Explained
..................................................................................... 97
CHAPTER X.
The Benefits of Mutual Association in Distribution—A -Possible Saving of
¿200,000,000 per Annum—Resulting in Increased Consumption and
Greater Demand for Labour—Home Trade of Greater Importance
than the Export Trade—The Fair Trade Cry and Depression in the
Worsted Trade The True Cause of the Depression in the Worsted
Trade—If Distribution were in the Hands of Producers and Consumers
for their Mutual Benefit the Pleas for Fair Trade and Protection
would Lose their Potency
CHAPTER XI.
Organization of Associations in Production—Industrial Partnerships and
Profit Sharing—The True and False Association of Capital and Labour
—The French Minister of the Interior on the Vital Power of Associa
tion—The French Parliamentary Committee on Working Men’s Asso
ciations-Illustrations of the Success of the Association of Labour
and Capital in France The Familistère at Guise—The Maison Leclaire, Paris Their Nloral, Social, and Economic Advantages_ The
Absence of such Associations in England—The Federal Combination
of Associations for Distribution and Associations for Production a
Complete System of Co-operation—Mr. Bright and Free Labour—Free
Imports do not of themselves give Freedom to Labour—Free Trade
and Military Expenditure—Greater Benefits to be Conferred on the
People by a Reform in Distribution than have yet been Conferred by
Partial Free Trade —A Free Breakfast-table — Direct and Indirect
Taxation—The True Meaning of Capital—Summary of the Benefits to
be Derived from a Reform in Distribution
..........................
I25
CHAPTER XII.
Democracy in Government, Oligarchy in Industry—The two Incompatible
—The Most Active Advocates of Free Trade Policy the Most Diligent
in Bringing about this Inconsistency—Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., on
Money Bags in Parliament and the Incapacity of their Owners to Take
an Intellectual Part in the Work of the House—The Archbishop of
York on the Need of Social Reforms—The Representatives of the
�CONTENTS.
Oligarchy in Industry in Parliament—Their Public Professions and
Private Practices Compared with the Works of Godin and Leclaire—
Private Enterprise and Individual Effort Compared with Collective
Enterprise—It is by Collective Enterprise in Public Works that our
Artificial Civilization is made Possible— The Waste and Costliness of
Distribution by Private Enterprise Compared with Possible Saving and
Economy of Associative Distribution—Past Class Legislation and De
pression of the Labourers—Recent Legislation in the Repeal of Old
Laws Favouring Employers, and the Enactment of New Laws Pro
tecting the Community against the Encroachments of Private Enter-
CHAPTER XIII.
Individual Freedom to be Attained by Collective and Mutual Associations —
The Moral and Social Condition a Hundred Years Ago—The Progress
of Education—The Diminution of Crime—The more Artificial Civil
ization becomes the Greater the Need of Education and a More
Perfect Social Organization—Von Stein and the Emancipation of the
Prussian Peasantry—The Real Wealth of Nations—Conclusion
... 172
�I
�PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
In the autumn of 1884 my attention was arrested by the
announcement of “The Industrial Remuneration Conference
Committee,” and the proposed holding of a conference for the
discussion of the following question :—
“ Is the present system or manner whereby the products of
Industry are distributed as between various classes and persons of
the community satisfactory ?—or, if not, are there any means by
which that system could be improved ? ”
The Committee was composed of the President and other
representatives of the Statistical Society, members of the
Political Economy Club, representatives of Trades Unions and
the Co-operative movement, capitalists, and well-known friends
of social and industrial reform—a sufficient evidence of the
importance of the question and its many-sided aspects and
influences.
The question is one which for some time had engaged my
thought and consideration, for in the everyday experiences of
a commercial life I saw many inequalities and injustices in
distribution. The greater the consideration I have given to the
subject, the more I have become convinced that it is in the
injustices existing in the distribution of the products of
industry we find the greatest of all the causes of our social
evils—evils so serious and so much fraught with disaster, all
classes of society now admit they must be remedied.
It was at one time my intention to prepare a paper for
�xii
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
reading and discussion at the Conference which was held in
January, this year. I had some correspondence and an inter
view with my friend Mr. Cunningham, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, the hon. secretary to the Committee, but even
tually I withdrew. I, however, wrote a pamphlet entitled
“ Unregulated Competition and Distribution,” and also a
shorter paper entitled, “ Distribution Reform; the remedy for
Industrial Depression,” each of which had their origin in a
humble desire to forward the discussion and consideration of
the problem stated by the Conference Committee above re
ferred to.
The pamphlet and shorter paper were printed and dis
tributed for private circulation only; by one means or another
out of the small number circulated, copies found their way
into the hands of eminent political economists, leading
statesmen, and leaders of many movements for social reform,
and practical business men. I was somewhat surprised at the
almost unanimous expressions of approval that reached me,
and have been much gratified with the friendly associations that
have sprung up therefrom with men whom it is a pleasure and
an intellectual profit to know.
The present work is a larger and more elaborate treatment
of the subject than was attempted in the pamphlet and paper
referred to. It is to the kindly encouragement of Sir Thomas
Farrer, Bart., Mr. Thorold Rogers, M.P., the Right Hon. G.
J. Goschen, M.P., the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M.P., the
Marquis of Ripon, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Q.C., Mr. Lloyd
Jones, and the General Secretary of the Central Co-operative
Board, Mr. Vansittart Neale, and many others I might name,
but more especially to Professor Bonarny Price, Professor of
Political Economy in the University of Oxford, the present
work has been written.
�PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
xiii
Although I make mention of these names, I by no means
wish to imply that any of them will act as sponsors for every
thing contained in these pages; doubtless there will be some
things that one or another will disagree with. I merely refer to
them as an evidence that the subject and the treatment of it are
worthy of serious consideration.
In the estimation of Professor Bonamy Price “ This
question is one which really rivals, in interest and importance,
Free Trade.” Many sound economists and practical men of
business share this opinion. I am quite sure that when the
subject has been fully discussed and ventilated there will be a
consensus of opinion that, without a reform in distribution, free
trade, so called, will be only half a blessing.
It is a noteworthy fact that the most ardent advocates of
the free trade policy have also been the most devoted adherents
of the doctrine of individual liberty and freedom; it is also
noteworthy that, contemporary with the adoption and continued
adherence to the policy of partially free imports, which we call
Free Trade, labour has more and more been concentrated in
large establishments, under the rule of an ever-growing and
accumulating capital.
Free trade was necessary for the collective good of the
community, individual, and class interests, said its advocates,
must not stand in the way of reforms in our fiscal policy,
which would benefit the people collectively. In this they had
a powerful argument. But benefits which have come of the
free trade policy, and the concentration of labour under the
factory system, have not been distributed for the collective
good, so much as they have been monopolised for individual
aggrandizement and wealth. The most serious charge that can
be brought against the free trade policy is that it has brought
about greater extremes of wealth and poverty than previously
�xiv
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
existed. Forty years ago the advocates of free trade pointed
to protective customs duties as the cause of the dearness of
commodities, and consequent bad trade and wretched condi
tion of the people; to-day the lowness of prices, the cheapness
of commodities, are pointed to as the cause of the present and
long continued depression. The opposites of causes cannot
bring about like results. So gross an anomaly as the one I
refer to could not have existed if free trade had been ac
companied by just and economic distribution.
Another serious charge that must be made against the
ardent advocates of Free Trade is, that they justify or seek to
explain the extremes of wealth and poverty, on an erroneous
conception of the function and teaching of political economy and
the true meaning of individual liberty. True political economy
knows no such brutal law as the fittest surviving, of buying in
the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Political
economy cannot be separated from sociology; it is but the
application of common sense in the making of laws and in
the organization of industrial and social institutions, which will
minister to the collective good of a community. Political
economy teaches of the laws which govern the production
and distribution of wealth; long practice and the use of
common sense have made us proficient in producing
wealth, but we are sadly remiss in the art of its distribution.
Social science teaches of the laws and social organisms
which conduce to the happiness of the greatest number. The
science, if science it may be called, which deals with the produc
tion and distribution of wealth, is therefore inseparable from the
social science which treats of collective happiness and well
being. Individual freedom is the most precious of all liberty,
but individual freedom is most assured when collective liberty,
prosperity and well being, prevail; individual freedom in the
�PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
"KN
obtaining of wealth becomes tyranny when it refuses a like
freedom to others, and when it is unjust in distributing
the proceeds of industry to capital, intellect, and labour, in
proportion to the relative amount each of these factors has
contributed to wealth creation.
Distribution Reform will be the corollary of the Free Trade
Movement; the latter without the former will remain imperfect
and incomplete. Distribution Reform must be of a two-fold
nature, it must deal with the distribution of the products of
industry in productive enterprise, and, therefore, with the
relationship and association of capital and labour as well as
with the distribution of goods, the necessaries of life, food and
clothing.
The work has been written in the leisure hours of a
business life, a life which, under present day customs of speed
and competition, is not calculated to leave much time nor
inclination for philosophical or scientific study. A great want
of the times is that the masters and students of economic and
social science should have a more practical knowledge of every
day business life and organizations, and that practical business
men should know more of the laws which govern the creation
and distribution of wealth, and true social science. The active
contact of the two—the theoretical with the practical—would
be of incalculable good.
The subject is outside the domain of party politics, it is
social rather than political; I have not attempted a scholarly
or scientific treatment of it, but have written as a business man
to business men, using every day phraseology and illustrations.
In so doing I trust I have made what otherwise might be con
sidered dry economic questions interesting to all. The subject
is the Alpha and Omega of practical life, whether we look upon
life from the mere worldly point of view of buying and selling
�xvi
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
and getting gain, or upon life as a great trust with high and
noble aims and serious responsibilities and duties ; this subject
of distribution sooner or later forces itself on our attention, the
prosperity and happiness of a people is to be measured by
the extent to which the community has conformed to the
infallible truths of equity and justice of which it teaches.
If what I have written should in any way be the means of
arousing a more earnest interest and inquiry into the important
subject of which I treat I shall be amply rewarded.
THOMAS ILLINGWORTH.
Ashburnham Grove,
Bradford,
September, 1885.
�Distribution Reform.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—The true Social Science—The Social Problem—Extremes of
Wealth and Poverty—Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., an Alarmist as to the
Future of England—The great Want of the Day, some Mode of Bridging
over the Gulf between Rich and Poor—Lord Thurlow on re-Peopling the
empty Villages of England—Mr. Gladstone on the intoxicating Increase of
Wealth and the Extreme of Poverty—The late Professor Fawcett, M. P., on
Pauperism—Pauperism in Manchester—Karl Marx, the German Socialist,
points to Wealthy England for an Example of the Miserable Condition of
the Labouring Classes, and bases his Statements on the Official Reports of
Drs. Smith, Simon, and Hunter—Dr. Westcott on the Causes of Suicides
—The Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes a Revelation of a Condition of Things full of Disgrace and Danger
to the Country—-The Bishop of Manchester on the Decadence of Practical
Christianity in England—A Greater Knowledge of Physical Science and
the Use of Machinery has vastly increased the Production of Wealth—We
have retrograded in the Art and Economy of its Distribution.
To arrive at a correct estimation of the constitution of a patient,
the physician seeks to know something of his family history, of
what build and temperament his parents were, the number of
his brothers and sisters, the nature of the diseases with which
they may have been afflicted, the length of days of his grand
parents, of his father and mother. The student of social and
industrial problems, ere he can rightly understand them, and
properly estimate their force, must learn something of history,
primitive, mediaeval, and modem, “ for the roots of the present
lie deep in the past, and nothing in the past is dead to the
man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is.”
More than this, he must be a bold man, indeed, who can ap
proach the subject without a feeling of reverence, of awe and
B
�2
DtSTRlB^TtON' REFORM.
wonder, and ot faith reverence for the Almighty power that
laid the foundations of the earth, awe and wonder at God’s
mighty works, and faith and confidence in God’s promises.
In these latter days the discoveries in various sciences have
been truly marvellous, but science has not yet discovered the
origin of life, nor unravelled the mystery of what is this breath
of life. Social history throughout all the ages is but the record
of how man has fulfilled, or failed to fulfil, the Divine laws. In
the Mosaic account of .the creation, we are told that “ God
created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him ; male and female created he them. And God blessed
- them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth on the earth. And God said, Behold,
I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a
tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be meat.”
Scientific research, discovery and invention, sometimes
called the triumph of mind over matter, are only the fulfilment
of this Divine command to subdue the earth ; as the psalmist
puts it, “ Thou madest him (man) to have dominion over the
works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.”
Aristotle, the pagan philosopher, says, “ It is evident then that
we may conclude that plants are created for the sake of ani
mals, and all other animals for the sake of man; the tame for
our use and provision, the wild, at least the greater part, for
our provision also, or for some other advantage—as in order to
furnish us with clothes, and the like purposes. Since, there
fore, nature makes nothing either imperfect or in vain, it neces
sarily follows that she has made all these things for the sake ot
man. p %
The true social science is the right conception and under
standing of the laws and just ways of making this dominion
over God’s creation, over nature, minister to man’s true happi1 Politics, Book i., chap. viii.
Bohn’s Library.
�THE SOCIAL PROBLEM.
3
Hess. We cannot have dominion without laws; laws to be true
and just, must be truth themselves, injustice cannot be made
to square with truth, as this domination and subjugation of the
earth is to be wrought out by man, it can alone be perfectly
wrought out on lines of perfect truth, justice, and morality;
therefore, the true social science to be perfect must be a science
founded on morality and duty.
It is a law of nature that man must work before he can eat,
but it is also a law of nature that all animals immediately on
their first birth have the power of providing themselves with
food; man is no exception to this law, the moment the babe
has a separate existence, that moment nature supplies its craving
and its little strugglings for food. The bountifulness of nature
yields to man’s labour, ten, twenty, thirty, sixty, ay, even a
hundredfold, it is thus also a law of nature that whilst man
must work, his work will bring him enough and to spare ; time
for rest, and time for the cultivation of his higher nature, his
mind and reason, the faculties which make him higher than the
brute, and but a little lower than the angels.
*
The social and industrial problems now so pressing for a
solution can only be solved by the natural and moral law.
What are these problems ?
Side by side with an accumulation of wealth, such as the
world has never before witnessed, in this wealthy England we
have the greatest misery and want. One in thirty-five of our
population are paupers supported by the State; at least three
in thirty-five scarcely know how to-morrow’s meal is to be
provided. They are living hand to mouth, many debarred from
their natural right, the right to work for their daily bread. A
country’s real prosperity and happiness is not to be estimated
by its accumulated wealth nor by the aggregation of its
capital. No doubt the condition of the people of this country
* Messrs. Carter have for three or four years been making experiments’in
the direct fertilisation of wheat and other corn. They mention that one of
their new hybrid wheats has produced no less than sixty developed ears from
one grain. These average fifty grains per ear ; so that the one plant gives a
total of 3,000 grains—i. e., three-thousandfold.
B 2
�4
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
is no worse than it was before the repeal of the corn laws,
doubtless it is better. The question is, have we made the best
use of our opportunities, is the condition of the masses as
good, are the means to happiness as great, is the burden as
light, as our high privileges afford. It is poor consolation to
one when ill, to be told that his suffering is not so great as
those who have been like afflicted. Thirst is not quenched,
hunger is not satisfied, nor is the downcast heart made glad, the
thinly-clad form made warm, the cheerless home made bright,
by such miserable comfort.
If we were to set about a comparison, we should not choose
the first half of this century as a fitting one wherewith to com
pare the present with the past condition of the people, rather
would we take the early feudal system of the middle ages, with
its patriarchic interests, when the bond of common ties drew
class closer to class, and competition, as now pursued, did not
depress labour unduly, and leave it to starve when lack of
employment came. In the middle ages, with all that seems
dark, no man willing to work was without enough for his wants,
and to spare.
That there is something radically wrong in our social
condition is an admission made on all sides, by the rich as well
as the poor, the middle class man as well as the labouring
operative. Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., in a speech reported in
the Daily News, March 13th, 1885, said he had arrived at
impressions in connection with the Commission on the Housing
of the Poor, that we had dangerous days before us, unless, as
Christian people, we manifested more practical sympathy with
those less favoured than ourselves. He did not believe that
one person in fifty knew what was really meant by the expres
sion “ over-crowding ” in the homes of the poor. If we could
follow it out into its actual effects, there would be a stirring of
conscience amongst us as to the comparatively little we were
doing to remedy this state of things. There was a state of
depression which entirely warranted Judge Talfourd’s recom
mendation, namely, that the great want of the day was some
�EVIDENCE OF SOCIAL EVILS.
5
mode of bridging over the gulf between the rich and poor.
Those who had means of their own were bound to share them
to a reasonable extent with those who had none. He had
become an alarmist, and looked with dread at the future of
England if there was not more constant effort. The report of
the Royal Commission would bring out the details of circum
stances that must urge those who had influence to do far more
than formerly in trying to remedy the present state of things.”
At the Industrial Remuneration Conference, held in January,
1885, Sir Thomas Brassey stated that a more equitable dis
tribution of wealth must be made.
Evidence that evils exist and must be removed is to be
found in the numerous societies and associations being estab
lished to ameliorate the condition of various classes of the
community. We are having founded “ small farm and labourers'
land associations,” industrial dwellings companies, needlework
registry associations for improving the condition and increasing
the remuneration of needlewomen, societies for promoting
industrial villages, to relieve the congested districts of the
metropolis and large towns, labour associations for giving to
the labourer a greater share of the proceeds of his labour and
industry, co-operative stores, now fully established, having stood
the test of experiment, for giving to the consumer a share in
the profits which previously went absolutely to the dealer, and
for purveying unadulterated articles of food. In nearly all
trades is there not an artizan or labourers’ protection society,
and also the masters’ associations, marking the two armies ever
at war over the spoils of man’s labour and the capitalist’s profit ?
Listen to the remarks of Lord Thurlow, the chairman of the
Small Farm and Labourers’ Land Association, in a speech
reported in the Standard, July 1 st, 1885. “Why should they
not endeavour,” said his lordship, “ to re-people the empty
villages of England, to spread contentment through the land,
and to see the villages of England occupied by the hardy
peasantry and yeomen of one hundred years ago. There could
be no more valuable institution for any country to possess
�6
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
than a contented peasantry, and there could be no greater
danger for the country to have, as had happened and was
happening in England, a starving peasantry swept into the
large towns, unable to find bread to support their wives and
families. These were the conditions that were most suitable
for forming a hotbed fit for the propagation of communistic
and revolutionary doctrines.”
These are very recent utterances. They only confirm the
statements as to the sadness and wrongs of our social life made
forty years ago. In a speech made in 1843 Mr. Gladstone
said : “ It is one of the most melancholy characteristics of the
social condition of this country that a decrease in the power of
consumption among the people and an increase of privations
and misery among the labouring classes should go hand-in-hand
with a constant accumulation of wealth in the higher classes of
society and with the constant growth of capital.”
In a speech twenty years later, when presenting the budget
in 1863, Mr. Gladstone said: “The fact is astonishing and
scarcely credible of this intoxicating increase of wealth and
power confined entirely to the possessing classes. But it must
be of indirect advantage to the labouring population in
cheapening the ordinary articles of consumption . . . That
the extremes, however, of poverty have been modified I dare
not say.” After speaking of the masses on the brink of
pauperism, he concluded by saying, regarding the labouring
classes generally, “ that human life in seven cases out of ten is
a mere struggle for existence.” The late Professor Fawcett,
M.P., wrote as follows in 1869: “The rapid increase of
pauperism is a subject which at the present time has assumed
an overwhelming importance. Parliament, the press, and the
country urgently demand that steps should be taken to check
its further development.”
In 1869, in England and Wales, ^7,673,100 were expended
in actual relief of the poor; in 1883 the amount had increased
to >£8,353,292. I may be told that the number of paupers in
receipt of relief is less now than it was in 1869, but here we
�PAUPERISM IN MANCHESTER.
7
have the largely increased expenditure. The number of
paupers actually receiving relief is no true indication of the
amount of misery and wretchedness existing. Thousands on
the verge of starvation would rather die than pauperise them
selves. The vigilance of relieving officers also greatly reduces
the numbers of “ official paupers.” Many of the poor, rather
than go into the “ house,” drag on a weary existence, hoping
against hope for better days.
The number of hospitals increased from 346 in 1871, to
691 in 1881. In the great increase of such institutions we
have, no doubt, a cause of the small decrease in the number of
paupers. The poor will go into a hospital or charitable insti
tution willingly, but into the workhouse only when the last
resource is exhausted, and the last hope has been dispelled.
Notwithstanding the fall in prices of recent years, viewing
the condition of the masses as a whole, Professor Fawcett’s
reasoning of fifteen years ago holds good to-day. “ The rich,”
he then said, “ are becoming rapidly wealthier, whereas no
increase can be discerned in the comforts of the labouring
classes. The means of livelihood are getting dearer, and the
working people become almost the slaves of those petty trades
men whose debtors they are.”
Mr. A. MacDougall, the chairman of the General Purposes
Committee of the Manchester Board of Guardians, has recently
read a paper on the causes of pauperism in Manchester, which
is full of very interesting information. One point he brings
out very clearly is that pauperism is hereditary to a greatly less
extent than people generally suppose. He says : “ The total
number of persons granted relief during the half-year ” (that is,
the second half of 1884) “was 6,145, and the number sup
posed to be hereditary paupers was 91, or 1'48 per cent, of
the entire township. Of course it was not possible that the
relieving officers would be able to select all the persons of this
class who came before them ; but it would be leaving a
sufficient margin to assume that not more than 2 per cent, of
the pauperism of the township can be traced to hereditary
�8
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
taint.” He goes on to observe that the deaths among children
under sixteen years in the workhouse and in families in receipt
of out-relief are not found to largely exceed the average death
rate of children ; and he finally affirms, “ I find that there is
most positive evidence that there is a continual progress
towards self-support going on amongst a large proportion;
many now in the ranks of artisans and tradesmen having lifted
themselves from poverty-stricken and most unpromising con
ditions.” On the subject of the proportion of paupers to
population Mr. MacDougall has also collected much valuable
information. During the past year there were altogether
13,676 persons in receipt of relief for longer or shorter periods ;
in the same year the population of the township may be taken
at 148,769 ; so that 9.78 is the per-centage of the pauper class.
The former numbers, he adds, do not include vagrants
relieved at the casual wards, except those who obtained orders
from the relieving officers for admission to the workhouse.
The total number of deaths in the workhouse, and also of
persons in receipt of out-relief during the second half of last
year, was 393, and the total number of deaths of persons of all
classes in the township as registered during the half-year, and
also at Crumpsall Workhouse, not registered in the township as
it is situated outside the boundary, was 2,297. Thus, out of
2,297 deaths, 393 were those of paupers ; showing that one
death in every 5 -84 was that of a pauper. Here we have the
fact established that, while among the living the proportion of
the pauper class to the population is one in every 978,
amongst the dying it is one in every 5-84. This great
difference in the proportions during life and at death points to
the conclusion that a large number of the inhabitants have no
resources for support and medical treatment during serious
illness. Of the 359 deaths in the workhouse, as many as 137
persons died within one month after admission, or considerably
more than a third; and 51 died in the second month after
admission.
Karl Marx, the German socialist, points to England,
�MISERABLE CONDITION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.
9
wealthy England, as an example of the miserable condition of
the labouring classes, and contrasts their misery with the
wealth of which this country boasts. He refers to the official
reports presented to the Privy Council in 1862 and 1863 by
Drs. Smith, Simon, and Hunter, and draws attention to the
astounding facts published in those reports. The amount of
nourishment, examined chemically and statistically arranged, as
consumed by agricultural and industrial labourers appeared to
be an absolute minimum, just sufficient to prevent “ starvation
diseases.” Dr. Hunter, in his memorable report on the domi
ciliary condition of the agricultural labourer, says : “ The means
of existence of the hind are fixed at the very lowest possible
scale. What he gets in wages and domicile is not at all
commensurate with the profit produced by his work. His
means of subsistence are always treated as a fixed quantity.
As for any further reduction of his income, he may say,
1 Nihil habeo nihil euro.’ He is not afraid of the future; he
has reached zero, a point from which dates the farmer’s
calculation. Come what may, he takes no interest in either
fortune or misfortune.” Both in quantity and quality, the
report says, the feeding and housing are becoming worse
progressively every year.
*
Dr. Westcott has made a special study of suicides in this
country and on the continent; in a work recently published
he makes clear the truth that whilst in England crime is steadily
decreasing, suicide is steadily on the increase—of the 2,000
suicides in England in 1881, Dr. Westcott is of opinion that if
a calculation could be made of the proximate causes, the most
common cause would be found to be misery, despair of success
in life.
The report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the
Working Classes, since published, fully confirms the alarmist
observations of Mr. Samuel Morley, which I have already
* For a fuller treatment of this matter, see Dr. Schaffle’s work, “ Kapitalismus
und Socialismus,” or the English work founded thereon, by the Rev. M.
Kaufman, entitled "Socialism,” published by Henry S. King & Co.
�IO
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
quoted. A memorandum to the report made by Mr. Jesse
Collings, M.P., signed and agreed by Cardinal Manning, the
Bishop of Bedford, Lord Carrington, Mr. Samuel Morley,
M.P., and Mr. Henry Broadhurst, M.P., contains the following
paragraph :—“ The state of things revealed by the evidence is
so startling, so full of disgrace and danger to the country, that
it should not in any case continue. The majority of the class
on whom the wealth and prosperity of the country and the
safety of its institutions mainly depend are living under con
ditions which must be regarded by all thoughtful readers of the
evidence to be both shocking and intolerable.”
A perusal of the report of the Royal Commissioners, to
gether with the minutes of evidence, will be found most enter
taining, to those who have a heart to feel for the lot of suffering
humanity, or patriotism which lifts them to a love of country,
and a care for its good name, the perusal will stir them to
thought and action ; to those who live the lives of luxury and
ease, whose knowledge of life is derived from the reading of
three-volumé novels, who feed on the sensationalism these con
tain, will here find many things more strange and sensational
than any fiction. Be it remembered, startling and so full of
disgrace as the evidence given before this Commission may be,
trenchant and bold as the report and recommendations of the
Commissioners may appear, the Commission is composed of
gentlemen representing all shades of opinion, and various
classes of society. Side by side sit the Heir Apparent to the
Throne and the working-man Member of Parliament, Mr.
Henry Broadhurst, the Marquis of Salisbury and Mr. Jesse
Collings, Mr. Goschen and Sir Richard Cross, Cardinal Man
ning and Sir Charles Dilke—the general report bears their
signatures, together with those of the other Commissioners.
The Bishop of Manchester, in a sermon preached in St.
Margaret's Church, Westminster, June 28th, 1885, said, “Have
any of you seriously considered how little of Christianity re
mains in England. I am not speaking of it as fashioning
individual lives, in which there is still much that is noble, self-
�DECADENCE OF CHRISTIAN MOTIVE.
II
sacrificing, Christ-like, but as a pervading and governing social
power, characterising and shaping the life and thought of the
age. Read what comes forth daily from a teeming press ; read
the contemporary literature you find on any drawing-room
table, or in any club-house library; does this press, does this
literature, proclaim the supremacy of Christian motive and
Christian principle, or does it not rather indicate that both are
merely respectable ancient traditions, which it is not convenient
and perhaps not quite decent as yet openly to ridicule and put
aside, but which no one dreams of regarding either as an incen
tive or as a restraint. I am no prophet, or the son of a
prophet, but methinks I see plainly enough ahead the perils
that threaten society; I am not thinking of the fashionable
portion of it to which many of you belong, but I am thinking
of the whole social structure in which we live and move.”
Not long ago in London I chanced to be passing a room
where a meeting of working men was being held to discuss the
cause of and remedy for the distress prevalent in the East End.
The remedies were more fully treated than the causes. One
speaker was a free trader, another a state socialist, another was
for religion as the cure. One man, whose earnestness was most
impressive, with tears rolling down his cheeks, described his
efforts to do what he could to alleviate the suffering of the dock
labourers, and the miserable condition of the people who mostly
lived by doing sewing work and such like labour. The man
was no idle vagabond, he was a well-to-do artizan. After dwell
ing on the scenes of wretchedness with which he was familiar,
he said he had no hope of a remedy except the remedy of
force. The wrongs of the East End could only be put right by
a forcible attack on the wealth of the West End. Such luxury
and wantonness on the one side and the deplorable misery and
wretchedness on the other were contrary to nature and to God.
He, for one, was ready to take up arms to redress the grievance.
Whilst one could but admire the man’s earnestness and sym
pathy for those whose cause he was pleading, one could not
but regret the extremes to which his feeling carried him. The
�12
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
speaker was not alone in sharing the sentiments he gave utter
ance to, others speedily endorsed them. What a condition
things have come to, what a powerful confirmation there is in
this incident to the alarm of Mr. Samuel Morley and others,
which I have just quoted.
Here, then, we have ample proof, if proof were needed, that
our social fabric is unsound. The columns of the daily press,
the literature of our magazines and reviews, are day by day, week
by week, and month after month affording further illustration of
the sad truth. You can read it on men’s faces as, with downcast
eye and anxious expression, they go about their daily duties.
You may hear of it at the street corners, in the workshop, the
factory, the warehouse, and the exchange. There is a screw
loose somewhere, is the unanimous opinion. In the following
pages I shall strive to show not only where the screw is loose,
but also endeavour to apply the remedy, and, in the progress of
the inquiry, we shall find that whilst we possess unexampled
means and aids to the creation of wealth, we have retrograded
in the art and economy of its distribution. This century has
seen time and distance reduced, if not annihilated, by the
application of machinery and greater knowledge of physical
science; distant parts of the earth unknown a hundred years
ago now supply us with food and Nature’s products.
Countries thousands of miles across the seas are nearer to us
in the time it takes to go to or come from them than Edinburgh
was to London eighty years ago. Commodities for man’s use
and enjoyment are now brought to us at Nature’s prices, which
are the prices they can be grown at to cover the trifling cost
of the labour expended on their cultivation and the small cost
of bringing them here. Goods are now being carried from
Bombay to London at considerably less than they are carried
from Manchester to London.
With all these advantages, all this vast supply of nature’s
bounties, we have the misery which we have dwelt upon. Strange
it is that with all these riches we have thousands under-fed,
under-clothed, wanting employment.
�GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF A REMEDY.
13
Let me here disarm suspicion in our inquiry into this deplor
able condition of society and the treatment of the remedy.
State socialism, nor communism, spoliation, nor any injustice
will be countenanced or advocated. The redressing of a wrong
cannot be effectually performed by the setting up of another
kind of grievance. The principles of perfect freedom, of
justice, truth, and equity are the foundations upon which we
shall proceed. On these alone can social peace and happiness be
established.
�CHAPTER II.
The three Factors in the Creation of Wealth—Land, Labour, and Capital—
Their relative Importance—The Economies made in Production of Wealth
by Machinery should have been used for the Collective Good—But whilst
Economies have been made in Production, Labour has gradually Declined
in relative Power-Until to-day it is little better than the Slave of Capital—
A far more important Question than the relative Importance of the Factors
in Wealth Creation is the Equitable Distribution of the Wealth when
created—The Desire to become Rich and Mistrustfulness of Divine Promises
the primary Causes of Injustice—The Fall of the Nations of Antiquity
traceable to Injustice and Inequity in the Distribution of the Rewards of
Labour and Industry—A Retrospect.
Political economists tell us that wealth cannot exist without
the combination of three factors, viz., land, labour, and capital.
As to their relative importance great difference of opinion
exists, but a little reasoning, a little analysis will show that their
relative force is definable. In the term land, as a factor in
wealth production, must be included the whole creation—earth,
air, sea, and the heavenly bodies also, for the land without
sunshine and rain would be barren and unproductive. These,
as we have seen, are Nature’s gifts, and under man’s dominion.
Consider the timid, quiet and harmless sheep, or the cotton
plant, the iron ore, and coal. They have contributed more to
the making of England’s wealth than all the ingenuity and the
labour of the owners of that wealth. Science cannot give the
prescription, nor human ingenuity discover the way of making
a sheep or a seed of cotton.
Labour is the work of man. Without food man could not
live; he works to live. The earth yields food in reward for his
labour in varying degree. Sometimes, in most favoured places,
the want is supplied by the mere effort of gathering, without
the previous labour of tilling and sowing. In most cases,
however, tools and implements, tilling, sowing, reaping, and
storing must be used and resorted to. These tools and imple
�PRIMITIVE LABOUR AND CAPITAL.
1$
ments, the seed which is sown, the barn in which the harvest
is stored, are capital and stock, and, like all capital, they are the
result of past saving, for the tools are the result of past labour,
so, too, is the barn, also the seed. They are savings in a con
crete form.
The bone harpoon with which the Esquimaux kills the
seal, the needles made from the teeth of animals by which the
Greenlander sews together the skins with which he is clad, the
wooden plough of the African are capital, resulting from saving
of past labour. It is therefore evident that in primitive society
land and labour, or Nature and man’s toil, were the primary
factors, capital but a secondary factor in wealth-creation. In
the middle ages, even down to the beginning of the industrial
revolution, capital was a secondary factor in producing wealth,
much material comfort was enjoyed, man laboured nature, and
obtained all his necessaries of food and clothing without being
wholly dependent on capital. If the farmer wanted a spade or
a plough, the village blacksmith wrought the iron by manual
labour, and the village carpenter shaped the woodwork. Neither
of them depended on capital for their employment. Conjointly
they made each other’s tools. The main “ investment ” they
had in their business was their strength of arm, and the prac
tical, or, in present day phraseology, the technical knowledge
they possessed of their handicraft. Did the farmer want a set
of harness for his horse, he called in the village saddler.
The harness was made on the spot, the only capital the saddler
wanted was sufficient savings to go to the village currier and
pay for the leather, or to the village smith for the metal parts.
If the farmer’s wife wanted a dress, or yarn for hosiery, she
span the home-grown wool on the spinning-wheel, which was
made by the village carpenter, and the loom to which the
weaver took the warp and weft to weave into cloth was
made by the co-operative and manual labour of the weaver, the
carpenter, and th® blacksmith ; the capital required to create
that wealth was infinitesimal, and withal the people lived con
tented lives, were happy and prosperous.
�DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
It is only since the days of the steam-engine and mechani
cal production, and the increased and ever increasing divisions
of labour concentrated in vast productive establishments, that
capital has obtained an approach to an equality of power with
nature and labour in the production of wealth.
That the steam-engine, and the inventions of machinery,
and various labour-serving appliances, have made a great
economy in the cost of production no one will deny; that
capital is an essential to this new method of production, is also
a proposition that will readily be assented to. If labour-saving
appliances make a great economy, and produce a greater
amount of wealth, the saving and increased production accruing
should be made to minister to the collective good. But whilst
these great economies have been applied, we have seen labour,
which is yet an essential to mechanical production, gradually
declining in its relative power and independence; and capital,
which is the production of nature, labour and machinery, step
by step increasing in power, until to-day labour is little better
than the slave of capital.
As recently as twenty-five to thirty years ago, the manufac
ture of heavy woollen cloth was done by hand-loom weaving.
A man working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. five days, and from 6 a.m.
to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, would weave, on an average, 3 strings a
day ; a string is 3 yards and 12 inches, that would equal 18
strings a week, or 60 yards of cloth ; the average earnings were
fifteen shillings per week. To-day the weaving is done in the
factory, not by a man throwing the shuttle with his hands, and
treading the shafts with his feet, but by girls and women stand
ing by and watching the power-loom. They work 56 hours
a week, as against the hand-loom weaver’s net working hours,
after deducting “ meal times,” of about 80 hours. The pre
sent average wages for these girls and women are twelve
shillings a week ; they produce about 27 strings of cloth,
or about 90 yards, per week. The production is 50 per
cent, more, and the wages 20 per cent, less than by the
hand-loom. This in itself is no doubt a wonderful economy,
�CARLYLE ON SOCIAL FEUDS.
17
in lighter fabrics the economy is very much greater; a saving
to a like extent funs through all the processes. In the carding
and spinning the economy is fully as great—who has got the
benefit ? The weaver certainly is no better; what about the
consumer? Here is an interesting item taken from an old
newspaper for 1835 :—*
..............
...
...............
...
..........................
£, s.
1 12
9
d.
o
o
17
o
2 18
Paid for fine Dress-Coat
,,
,, Waistcoat
,,
,, Trousers
o
A fine dress-coat in those days was made of the best of
cloth; it is only since the days of machinery, spurious fabrics
have been produced. For a suit of clothes of fine quality you
would to-day have to pay not less than ^4 10s. Where then
has the economy gone ?—it has been swallowed up and wasted
in an expensive, costly, and wasteful system of distribution ;
but of this, and the question of competition, we shall treat more
fully hereafter.
A far more important question than the relative importance
of each of the three factors—nature, labour, and capital—in the
production of wealth, is the relative and equitable distribution
of the wealth when created. It is this question of the division
of the proceeds of industry which makes the wide gulf between
capitalist and labourer; it is the cause of socialism and com
munism. Until it is dealt with and adjusted our social and
industrial institutions cannot stand the test of Christianity or
morality; nor can our dealings and relationships, one with
another, be mutual and helpful. Considering the tension there
is in these relationships, who can deny the truth of Carlyle’s
taunt when he says, “ Our life is not a mutual helpfulness, but
rather, cloaked under laws of war, named fair competition, and
so forth, it is a mutual hostility.”
Whence comes all this hostility, this struggling, man against
man?—primarily from a desire to become rich, secondarily
* From Mr. Hutchinson’s article in “ Nineteenth Century,’’ Oct., 1884.
C
�l8
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
from a mistrustfulness of nature, and a want of faith in the
Divine promises. Man arrogates to himself godlike powers,
he is not satisfied to partake of the bounteousness of nature in
a spirit of thankfulness and praise, but he must strive to be a
, lord and master of creation, not a recipient of its goodness ; he
must strive to monopolise and make his own what he simply
holds in trust, and at best can only partake of to the smallest
extent, and ere long must leave what his perverted mind had
made the idol he had worshipped, and on whose altar he had
sacrificed his earthly happiness. And from this desire to
become rich, to monopolise wealth, to become affluent, luxuri
ous, and opulent—at one time it may be the tribal chiefs,
another the king or emperor, or at another time the owners
of the land, or the employers of labour, or those who grow rich
by exchange or usury—one individual or a class, at the sacri
fice of their brothers’ toil and servitude, steps to power and
temporary dominion over man. The way to such a power is
the way of cruelty and injustice, it has been the cause of the
oppression and misery, the wars and slaughtering, the darkest
pages of history reveal to us.
It is a crime of the deepest dye for man to take away the
life of his fellow. The spread of Christian teaching and the
growth of morality and humanitarianism have made us consider
it a crime for man to hold property in the life and servitude of
his brother man. The day is not far distant when we shall
consider it a most heinous crime for a class or individual to
deny or debar, by any restrictive means whatsoever, their fellow
man the full reward of his industry and freedom to labour.
If life is sacred, surely the natural right to sustain it can only
be one degree less sacred.
The fall of the nations and empires of antiquity is traceable
to the injustice and inequity of the distribution of the rewards
of labour and industry. It was so with Babylon, Greece, and
Rome. With an excess of wealth and luxury in the hands of a
few, there was in Rome forced and non-requited servitude
of the many. No incentive to reproductive employment
�HISTORY AND INEQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION.
19
existed. The patrician lived in affluence on the enforced
labour of his slaves ; the free-born citizen, having no possibility
of competing with the products of slave labour, and driven
from the soil by the privileged few, was pacified by free grants
of com and often of money, and his passions pandered to by
the gladiatorial shows ; the slaves were held in subjection by
the sword and the most unjust of laws ; infanticide, abortion,
and forced celibacy, and every check to the growth of popula
tion was resorted to; corruption reigned everywhere, until at
last the social fabric collapsed.
The French Revolution was brought about because on the
unprivileged classes fell the whole of the burdens of local and
imperial taxation, and on the nobility all the gains of oppressive
privileges which bore heavily on the industry of the country.
The beginning of the strife between capital and labour in
England and the first social revolt was the rising of the peasants
in 1377 1381, a rising to resist the enforcement of the Statute
of Labourers. The black death had carried off probably a
third of the population ; the “ labour market ” was disturbed;
a scarcity of hands brought about a rise in wages. The scarcity
of labour was such the landowners were glad to grant an
abandonment of half their rents to refrain the farmers from the
abandonment of their farms. For the time cultivation became
impossible. “ The sheep and cattle strayed through the fields
and corn,” says a contemporary, “ and there were none left who
could drive them.” Even when the first burst of panic was
over, the sudden rise of wages consequent on the enormous
diminution in the supply of free labour, though unaccompanied
by a corresponding rise in the price of food, rudely disturbed
the course of industrial employments. Harvests rotted on the
ground and fields were left untilled, not merely from scarcity
of hands, but from the strife, which now for the first time
revealed itself, between capital and labour.
*
The Statute of Labourers enacted that every able-bodied
man or woman under three score years of age having no land
*See Greens “A Short History of the English People,” pp. 241-242.
�20
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
of his own to till, nor serving any other, must serve the
employer who required him to do so, and at the wages which
were accustomed to be taken in the neighbourhood where he
is bound to serve, two years before the plague began, upon
pain of punishment by imprisonment on refusal to obey. By
this statute not only was the price of labour fixed at the price
before the plague, and the rise in prices of commodities con
sequent thereon, but the labourer was once again tied to the
soil. He was forbidden to quit the parish where he lived in
search of better-paid employment; if he disobeyed he became
a fugitive, and was liable to imprisonment at the hands of the
justices of the peace. To enforce such a law literally, must
have been impossible, for corn had risen to so high a price
that a day’s labour at the old wages would not have purchased
wheat enough for a man’s support. The landowners, however,
did not flinch from the attempt. Fines and forfeitures which
were levied for infractions formed a large source of royal
revenue; but so ineffectual were the original penalties, the
runaway labourer was at last ordered to be branded with a hot
iron on the forehead, while the harbouring of serfs in towns
was rigorously put down. The villains and serfs who had
previous to the plague held themselves free were, by the
ingenuity of the lawyers in cancelling on grounds of informality,
manumissions and exemptions which had previously passed
without question, brought back to bondage. A fierce spirit of
resistance was maintained. The cry of the poor found a terrible
utterance in the words of the “mad priest of Kent,” John Ball.
It was in the preaching of John Ball that England first listened
to the knell of feudalism and the declaration of the rights of
man. “ Good people,” cried the preacher, “ things will never
go well in England so long as goods be not in common, and
so long as there be villains and gentlemen. By what right are
they whom we call lords greater folk than we ? On what
grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in
serfage ? If we all came of the same father and mother, of
Adam and Eve, how can’’they say or prove that they are better
�PAST OPPRESSION OF LABOURERS.
21
than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our
toil what they spend in their pride ? They are clothed in
velvet and warm in their furs and ermines, while we are covered
with rags. They have wines and spices and fair bread, and we
oatcake and straw and water to drink. They have leisure and
fine houses, and we have pain and labour, the rain and the
wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil that these
men hold their state.”
It was the tyranny of property that then, as ever, roused
the defiance of socialism. A spirit fatal to the whole spirit of
the middle ages breathed in the popular rhyme, which con
densed the levelling doctrine of John Ball, “When Adam
delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman.”*
Following the Statute of Labourers, we have the Statute of
Edward VI., under which a combination of workmen con
cerning the work or wages is to be followed by a penalty on
conviction, of ten pounds or twenty days’ imprisonment on
bread and water for the first offence, a fine of twenty pounds
or the pillory for the second, and a fine of forty pounds, the
pillory, the loss of one of his ears, and judicial infamy for the
third. This Statute was confirmed by 22-23 Charles II., and
was in force till the general repeal of all such prohibitions on
combinations of workmen, which took effect under 6 George
IV., cap. 129.
In his most valuable work, “ Six Centuries of Work and
Wages,” Mr. Thorold Rogers, M.P., reviewing the condition of
the labourer from 1563 to 1824, says, “ I have protested before
against that complacent optimism which concludes because the
health of the upper classes has been greatly improved, because
that of the working classes has been bettered, and appliances
unknown before have become familiar and cheap, that, there
fore, the country in which these improvements have been
effected must be considered to have made for all its people
regular and continuous progress. I contend that from 1563 to
1824 a conspiracy, concocted by law and carried out by parties
* Green’s Short History, p. 243.
�22
distribution reform.
interested in its success, was entered into to cheat the English
workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of
hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty. For more
than two centuries and a half the English law and those who
administered the law were engaged in grinding the English
workman down to the lowest pittance, in stamping out every
expression or act which indicated any organised discontent,
and in multiplying penalties upon him when he thought of his
natural rights.”
Since the repeal of the conspiracy and combination
laws, and the repeal of the old poor law, the English workman
has been free to sell his labour for the best price the circum
stances of his lot would allow. But contemporaneously with
his freedom, in so far as legislative enactments are concerned,
he has been encircled with new difficulties. The industrial
revolution has, as we have already observed, made him more
dependent on capital for employment. Along with the concen
tration of labour under the factory system, and its minute
division of labour and undoubted increase and cheapness of
production, there has grown up a complicated, uneconomic,
and destructive system of distribution, a system neither
established by law nor founded on common sense nor justice,
but the clumsy growth of inexplicable custom, but, neverthe
less, a system under which the producer is robbed of his fair
share of the proceeds of his industry, and the consumer is
extorted.
�CHAPTER III.
The Growth of Middlemanism contemporary with the Introduction of Laboursaving Machinery and Concentration of Population—-The Economy in
Production has been swallowed up by the Waste and Destruction in Dis
tribution and Exchange—The Need of a Moral System of Distribution and
Exchange—Examples in Proof thereof—Ralph Waldo Emerson on the
False Relations between Men that come of Trade, and the Want of a
Higher Standard than Money as a Measure of Exchange—Money gotten
in Exchange is not Wealth created ; it is simply Wealth collected, and
too frequently it is destructive of Wealth—What are Riches, and what
Powers of Virtue or Means to Happiness do they possess?—The Sayings
thereon of Ancient Philosophers, Old Testament Writers, and Christ—
Concentration and Monopoly of Riches defeats its own Ends—Riches, to
be a Living Power, must be active—To be active they must be within the
Use of Others.
This century has witnessed the introduction and use of laboursaving machinery such as are the wonder of the age, but it has
also witnessed the growth of “ Middlemanism,” which is an un
necessary multiplication of the processes of distribution and
exchange—the economy of the former has been swallowed up
by the waste and destruction of the latter, under the unrelenting
law of competition, which, in its application to the circumstances
of which I am now speaking, is of a truth prostituted to a wrong
end; the producer, the workman, is now, as of old, filched of
his rights. Abundant proof of this we shall hereafter adduce.
The remedy, as we shall also show, lies not either in legisla
tive enactment, nor in any way within the province of the poli
tician, but is to be found in a moral system of exchange and
distribution.
The yard stick, the pound weight, and the pound sterling,
invaluable in their way as measures of quantity, and mediums
and standards of exchange, do not fulfil the demands of the
moral law. If I were to sell a pint of milk for two-pence, and
I gave full measure, it does not follow I have satisfied moral
�24
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
law. I might have put in some water; although I gave full
measure, it does not follow the purchaser has benefited in a
moral exchange by giving me the two-pence.
Suppose I were, say a dealer in shoes, buying wholesale and
selling retail, and went to a boot and shoe maker and he offered
me half-a-dozen pairs of boots and shoes at say fifteen shillings
the pair, if I, well knowing he lived solely by the produce of
his labour, and that it was expedient he should exchange his
boots and shoes for cash, which cash he would, immediately he
got it, take to the provision dealer, or the tailor, or the currier,
to exchange for the necessaries of life, and the material for
future employment, knowing this, if I were to say no, you are
anxious to sell, I am in no hurry to buy, as you must sell I shall
give you only twelve shillings and sixpence the pair. On buying
them at this reduced price, I go home to my store, congratulating
myself on a good bargain; ere the week is out I sell them at
the current retail value, taking no account of the reduction
made by the shoemaker. I distribute one pair to a farmer at
twenty shillings, another to a factory worker, another to a school
master, and so on until the six pairs are all sold, at an extra
profit of two shillings and sixpence per pair beyond the usual
retail rate of profit, and on the six pairs I thus make a gross
profit of forty-five shillings. By such a transaction how much
have I benefited society?—how much have I increased the
world’s wealth ?—what moral obligation have I discharged to
my fellows ?—none at all, I have simply made myself a parasite
on society, I have depressed the producer, and made him so
much less a reproductive consumer to the amount of fifteen
shillings, the reduction he made on the six pairs of shoes.
I have collected into my hands, or my pocket, forty-five shil
lings from the six parties to whom I sold the shoes, and cur
tailed their consumption to a like extent. As, probably, I
shall spend in employment, by purchasing commodities for
my own consumption, but a mere fractional part of the fortyfive shillings profit I had made, I shall add the balance to
capital, and by a multiplicity of such transactions, making it my
�ON BUYING CHEAP AND SELLING DEAR.
25
daily business, I shall probably ere long be moderately wealthy ;
but where would the wealth have come from ?—why evidently
out of the depression of the labourer on the one hand, and the
needlessly high prices I obtained from the wearer or consumer
on the other. Although I possessed the wealth, I should not
have increased the world’s goods one atom ; on the contrary, I
should have limited consumption and reduced production.
Or again, suppose I were a merchant, or dealer, and a
manufacturer were to come to me and say I have accumulated
a stock, and have not sufficient capital, nor credit, to enable me
to hold it until a favourable opportunity presents itself for
selling, the season has not yet begun for the retail dealer want
ing the goods, will you buy ?—if, after this plain intimation
of the man’s position, I were to say, yes, I will look at your
samples, and compare their values, and, after comparing them,
I were to offer 20 to 30 per cent, less than I well knew I could
buy similar value elsewhere; under the strain of the circum
stances the offer, despite the great loss, is accepted, the
manufacturer is brought a step nearer to ruin, ere long he fails,
his creditors are disheartened by their losses, which are made
greater by the 20 to 30 per cent, reduction below the market
price I had obtained on the transactions passing between us.
I may have made a large gain, and done a smart piece of busi
ness, and whitewashed my conscience on the altar of competi
tion, and a stupid conception of the law of supply and de
mand, but what moral obligation should I have fulfilled to my
fellows?—how much should I have added to the world’s
wealth by such a transaction? Not one atom, all I should
have done would have been to make it easy for me to make
money by a further exchange of the goods, and minimise the
possibility of others making their usual gain in competing with
me. I should have collected or gathered into my hands the
wealth which others had lost, the world would be no richer, the
means to happiness no greater ; on the contrary, they would be
decreased.
Such transactions are of daily occurrence. Their lin-
�26
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
morality and evil consequences are of no less magnitude when
done on a large scale by large mercantile firms and by men of
position in the commercial and religious worlds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson evidently saw and felt the need of a
moral, in addition to a pecuniary or monetary measure of
exchange, when, in his lecture on the New England Reformers,
he said, “ This whole business of trade gives me to pause and
think, as it constitutes false relations between men, inasmuch
as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to
behave well and nobly to that person whom I pay with money;
whereas if I had not that commodity I should be put on my
good behaviour in all companies, and man would be a bene
factor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had
a right to those aids and services which each asked of the
other.” *
Money gotten in exchange beyond the payment for services
rendered, which services to be legitimate, must be an actual aid
to production, and therefore an integral part of production
itself, is not wealth created; it is purely and simply wealth
collected, and more frequently than otherwise is destructive of
wealth and a limitation of happiness to the many.
And what are these riches, after which there is so much
struggling and strife? What powers of virtue or means to
happiness do they possess? Hear what Plato says: “For
nothing born of earth is more honourable than what is in
Olympus [the supposed abode of the gods], and he who
thinks otherwise of the soul is ignorant that he is careless of
this wonderful possession. Nor when a person who desires to
possess wealth not honourably, or when possessing does not
bear it ill, does he then honour his soul with gifts? He fails
of it entirely, for he sells what is honourable and at the same
time beautiful in his soul for a little gold, for all the gold on
earth and under the earth is of no value against virtue.” And
again : “ It is impossible for persons to be very rich and good,
such at least as the many reckon rich. For they reckon rich
* “Essays,
by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
London: Macmillan & Co., p. 515.
�RICHES AND VIRTUE.
those who amongst a few persons have possessions valued at
the greatest quantity of coin, which even a bad man may
possess. Now, if such be the case, I will never agree with
them that the rich man, if not a good one, can be truly happy,
but that it is impossible for the person pre-eminently good to
be pre-eminently rich.”* Lord Bacon, the great ng is
moralist and philosopher of the seventeenth century, says :
“ I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue. The
Roman word is better, ‘ impedimenta,’ for as the baggage is to
an army, so is riches to virtue : it cannot be spared or left
behind, but it hindereth the march, yea and the care of it
sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches
there is no real use, except it be in the distribution : the rest is
but conceit.”
And what of the teaching of the ancient Biblical writers.
Like the teaching of Christ, they warn us against the love of
riches. In the book of Ecclesiastes there is a teaching of
moral philosophy that is as true of life to-day as when it was
written. In the writings of the Old Testament and the teach
ings of Christ we have a social philosophy applicable to all
time, and the political economy that is founded on this moral
and social philosophy, not only founded but practised, must
lead us to know what the true ends of life are, and how man’s
happiness and destiny are to be sought out and fulfilled.
Ponder the philosophy of the writer of the book of Ec
clesiastes, “Moreover, the profit of the earth is for all, the
king himself is served by the field. He that loveth silver shall
not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with
increase; this is also vanity. When goods increase, they are
increased that eat them, and what good is there to the owners
thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes. The
sleep of a labouring man is sweet whether he eat little or much,
but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely,
riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those
* Plato, “The Laws,” translated by Burges, b. V., c. i.
�28
distribution reform.
riches perish by evil travail, and he begetteth a son, and there
is nothing in his hand. As he came forth of his mother’s
womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take
nothing of his labour which he may carry away in his hand
And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so
shall he go; and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the
wmd.’’ How. many of us believe or, believing, take heed of
Christ s warning as to covetousness, when, as an introduction
to the parable of the rich man who set up greater barns,
e sai , Take heed, and keep yourself from all covetousness,
for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possessed.” And then applying the parable, he
said unto his disciples, “Therefore I say unto you take no
thought for your life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body
what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the
body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens, for they
neither sow nor reap, which neither have storehouse nor barn,
and God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than
fowls, and which of you with taking thought can add to his
stature one cubit ? If ye, then, be not able to do that thing
which is least, why take ye thought for the rest ? Consider the
lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin not, and yet, I
say unto you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the
field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will
he clothe you, O ye of little faith. And seek not ye what ye
shall eat or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
For all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and
your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.”
Timothy warns us that “ they that will be rich fall into tempta
tion and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of
money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after
they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through
with many sorrows.”
We are often told that in the hands of the English-speaking
9
�THE WORSHIP OF THE GOD MAMMON.
29
people the lamp of Christian truth, liberty, and civilization is
now kept burning, its light ere long must spread over the
whole earth. We claim to be a Christian people. So jealous
are we of any taint of insincerity, the majority of members in
the House of Commons will not allow a duly elected member
of free-thinking and atheistic profession to join them in
legislation. Notwithstanding all these professions, who that
lives a life of business activity or of social enjoyment, of phi
lanthropic labour or of priestly profession can say the practice
is an approach to the profession. The real god we worship is
the god Mammon, the chief priest of this god is competitionIt is to him we go for absolution for all our sins. An attribute
of this competition is a mythical belief in the law of the
fittest surviving. The religion of human nature and the in
stinct implanted in the human mind and heart, and the religion
of Christ, teach us that man is the brother of man. We are
bidden to love one another. There can be no love, no
brotherly kindness, no humanity, in the brutal law of force and
of the fittest surviving.
We pray “ Give us this day our daily bread,” and our ever
constant struggle the moment we enter business, under the
justification of the law of competition, is to make it difficult,
if not impossible, for our fellow man to earn his daily bread.
No wonder the Bishop of Manchester and Mr. Samuel
Morley, and many similar minded men, should be fearful of the
wrecking of our whole social structure. The consensus of
thought and expression, as regards the too abundant possession
of riches, being a hindrance to, rather than an enjoyment of, the
greatest happiness, would be remarkable if our own eyes did
not witness its truth. What was spoken on this matter by
numerous ancient Jewish writers, Pagan philosophers, by
Christ and his disciples, by Lord Bacon, and other English
writers, is reproduced by modern writers, and is confirmed in
our daily lives.
Concentration and monopoly of riches defeats its own ends,
it is only in activity and reproductive employment that riches
�30
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
are a living power; to be reproductive they must be within the
use of others, if not reproductive and active they will, in any
form whatsoever, wither away and decay. “The profit of the
earth is for all; when goods increase, they increase that eat
them.” Robinson Crusoe, the monarch of all he surveyed, was
passing rich, for the whole island was in his dominion ; yet he
was very poor, for there was no one with whom he could ex
change the produce. When by chance Friday was found, the
only pleasure he had, beyond satisfying his wants, was to see
Friday eat of his riches.
The richest man is he who has sufficient for his wants,
enough of labour to make rest sweet, and enough of leisure to
enjoy his earthly inheritance. The most pitiable of men is he
who has a superabundance of wealth, the littleness of soul that
the love and worship of it too often begets, and the constant
fear and anxiety in tending and guarding it.
�CHAPTER IV.
Wealth ceases to be Wealth when it ceases to be used—The most direct Means
of obtaining Wealth is in labouring Nature—With Increasing Knowledge
of the Arts of Industry and Peace Man must obtain an Increasing Quantity
of Natural Commodities for his Labour—The Labour of Man is like the
Fruitfulness of the Earth, the more it receives back of its own the more it
reproduces—Examples of this Truth in India, Australia, &c.—The Indus
trial Revolution, and the Severance of Agricultural from Manufacturing
Pursuits—The Foundation of a Scheme of Imperial Federation rests on a
moral, not a legislative, Bond—On Kindred Interests and Mutual Helpful
ness.
By natural law, wealth must either increase or decay, it ceases
to be wealth when it ceases to be used. If one has a house
and does not occupy it himself, nor cannot get another to live
in it at a rental, the house is useless, and is not wealth. If a
man owns a warehouse stored with goods, and cannot find a
sale for the goods, his goods and warehouse are not wealth,
they are worse than nothing. If I claim ’ the ownership of a
tract of country, and cannot induce any one to rent it from me,
nor on my own account be able to procure labourers to work it,
that tract of land is useless, there is no wealth in it. Wealth can
only be made reproductive, and prevented from decay, when it
is directly, or indirectly, applied to the labouring of nature, and
the reproductive consumption of the necessities of life; and
as the productiveness of the earth increases, man’s labour,
vastly beyond man’s power of consumption, with increasing
knowledge of the arts of industry and peace, a higher civiliza
tion, and a nearer approach to the Christian life of justice and
equity, man must of necessity obtain an increasing quantity
of natural commodities in exchange for his labour.
We hear great outcries of the disastrous fall in prices, from
some quarters we are told this is because of the appreciation
in the value of gold, and the depreciation of silver. The
�32
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
simple truth is that the fall in prices is the natural law enforc
ing itself; it is too strong and too powerful for the monopoly
of man. The fall in prices is the gift of nature, in reward for
man’s labour. With morality in exchange, and economy in
distribution, a fall in prices would be a boon to all men, not
even excepting the capitalist, who now regrets it, and fears
the consequences.
In our desire to increase wealth, we have increased man’s
capacity for reproductive labour a hundredfold; nature, as she
ever will do, has rewarded the labourer seven times seven. In
this enterprise for wealth we have discovered vast continents, by
the aid of machinery and labour we have replenished the virgin
soil, and obtained ever increasing supplies, until we now begin
to cry enough, enough. The constantly increasing supplies
aie reducing prices, there is over production—let us protect
the value of our wealth by limiting production.
With all this increasing supply, what about consumption :
we pay the agricultural labourer ten to twelve shillings a week,
we sell him back the products of his labour at ioo per cent,
profit, and wonder that consumption does not keep pace with
production. The Lancashire spinning and weaving operatives
produce a fabric at five-pence per yard, it passes through the
hands of two or three exchangers, or distributors, for the privi
lege of buying back for their own consumption, the fabric they
had conjointly made at the cost of five-pence per yard ; they
have to pay the last distributor, the retailer, ten-pence half
penny per yard. The wages of cotton piecers average the
mighty sum of six shillings per week, and weavers about
fourteen shillings per week for full work.
The spinners and weavers in the worsted trade manufacture
a dress fabric which costs the manufacturer, after the payment of
their labour and of all other expenses, is. 6d. per yard; the
weekly wages of spinners working fifty-six hours per week, average
9s. to ns ; and weavers “minding” two looms, 14s. 6d. The
fabric they have produced at a cost of is. 6d. per yard, after
passing through two or three hands, is retailed to them at 3s. per
�CAUSE OF SO-CALLED OVER-PRODUCTION.
33
yard, just ioo per cent, profit. More than half our population
are employed in agriculture and industry, or maintained on the
wages earned therein; their productiveness is vast, their wages
of the scantiest nature, ever being checked by competition.
In supplying their consumptive wants they get no benefit from
competition; but by a complicated and insane system of
middlemanism they are gammoned and befooled; what they
have produced under the severest of competition is re-sold back
to them at ioo per cent, profit. They who have contributed
most to making the wealth are extorted; the exchangers of
their labour and distributors of the wealth become rich out of
the profits made in exchange. The production is great, but
the consumption of the producers is small.
After complaining of the vast production and scanty con
sumption at home, we look abroad for new markets. We take
an eastern country, say Egypt; we reason amongst ourselves
that Egypt has rich natural resources ; corn, cotton, and other
products grow there profusely in the fertile valley of the Nile.
We will get an exchange in sending our manufactured goods
for their cotton and corn; but we overlook the fact that the
purchasing power • of a community is in proportion to the
distribution of its wealth, and not in proportion to its accumu
lation. The lot of the producer in Egypt is worse than the
purchasing power of the operative at home, and that is bad
enough. Forced labour prevails • yet in that country, where
three successive crops may be gathered in one year, the condi
tion of those engaged in agriculture is one of extreme poverty
and wretchedness; the sheikh, the pacha, or other grandee,
enrich themselves, and live luxurious and debauched lives at the
cost of the suffering and misery of the peasant. If his purchas
ing power was measured by the productiveness of his labour,
and the bountifulness of nature, the Egyptian peasant would re
quire three times the quantity of European manufactures now
exported thither.
In India we have a teeming population of 254,000,000.
The amount of British exports thereto in 1883 was ^33,382,786,
D
�34
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
an average of only 2s. 7d. per head of the population. The
population of British Australasia, including Fiji but excluding
New Guinea, is about 3,100,000 ; the amount of British exports
thither in 1883 was ^26,839,490, averaging about ^8 13s. od.
per head of the population. The amount of imports into
Great Britain from British India in 1883 were of the value of
^38,882,829, averaging about 3s. per head of its population.
The imports here from British Australasia in 1883 were valued
at ^25,936,201, or about ^8 10s. od. per head.
The total value of the foreign trade of British India in
1883, in exports and imports of all kinds of merchandise,
averaged but 5^ rupees (equal to 9s. 6d. in English money)
per head of the population. In 1882 the total value of the
exports and imports of the British possessions in Australasia
amounted to ^108,690,000, an average of ^35 per head of
population. In 1883 the total value of imports and exports to
and from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
was ^732,328,649, or a proportionate average of ^20 ns. 3d.
per head of population. Here we have three examples from
within our own empire. The economic conditions of the three
countries may not be exactly parallel; the necessities of the one
may be greater than another, or the richness of the soil of one
greater than the others, yet they are not so totally different as
to explain away the fact that the surplus production of an
Australian is seventy times greater than that of a Hindoo, nor
that the re-purchasing power of an Australian should be 130
times greater than the Hindoo.
The total imports and exports of the United States of
America in 1884 were 1,408,211,302 dollars, equal to
about ^281,640,000 ; the estimated population in the same
year was 57,000,000, giving an average of about ^4 19s. per
head.
The inference to be drawn from these facts is a confirmation
of the law that the labour of man is like the fruitfulness of the
earth : the more it receives back of its own, the more it repro
duces in return. Those countries where man’s labour is
�OUR COLONIES AND INDIA.
35
directly applied to nature, and the distribution of the proceeds
is equitably distributed, will be the most prosperous : their
reconsumptive capacity will be in the same ratio as their
productiveness. Australia is a brilliant example of this truth.
Though the productiveness of the soil of a country might with
good cultivation be great, if any artificial barriers exist, any
obstruction of natural law, and if the wealth produced, such
as it is, be inequitably distributed, the reconsumptive powers
of the people will be small, their progress fitful and uncertain,
their social condition insecure.
It is of the highest importance to British industry that in
our colonies and dependencies, whilst encouraging agriculture,
husbandry, and every means to the production of wealth, we
should at the same time inculcate the importance of its
distribution, remembering that the more each individual
producer or labourer receives back as his share of his own
industry, the more will be the individual, and hence the greater
the aggregate, reconsumption. The sure foundation of a scheme
of imperial federation rests on a moral and not a legislative
bond. Our colonies and India can only be bound to us and
we to them by the tie of mutuality of interest. No chain,
however strong, can be forged by the statesman that will
be half so powerful as kindred interests and mutual help
fulness.
It would seem to be a corollary of the industrial revolution
that agricultural must be for ever severed from manufacturing
pursuits. The economy of the latter is in concentration of
population and vast mechanical establishments, carried on
under conditions fatal to agricultural life, and destructive of
vegetation. Although, with a reform in the land laws and the
encouragement of smaller holdings, we may vastly increase the
productiveness of English soil, and thus increase our wealth
in the most effectual because the most natural way, the
prosperity of our industrial population largely depends on the
closeness of the relationship we hold with the Greater England
in our colonies and India. Because of the natural advantages
D 2
�36
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
we possess in the industrial arts and manufactures, and because
of the immense advantages they possess in agriculture and
husbandry, and richness of soil and climate for the production
of raw commodities and food stuffs, we are now mutually
dependent upon each other. The closer the association and
intercourse we have, the higher the morality practised in
exchange; the more economic and moral the system of
distribution, the greater will be the benefits we can confer on
each other and the more lasting the union. We have proof of
this in our government of India : under the “ Old Company”
disaffection was rife, the social condition was uncertain and
insecure; the Company ruled India for the benefit of its
shareholders, and cared little for the welfare of the natives.
Since the direct assumption by the British government of the
administrative and governing functions, progress has been
marvellous and prosperity and contentment unparalleled. The
principle on which that government has been based is that
it must be for the benefit and in the interests of the natives
first of all, and for the British trader in a secondary degree.
The outcome of a policy so just and natural has been the
progress and advancement of the natives and an increased
productiveness. In this progress the British trader has
benefited. The policy of extortion pursued by the old Com
pany was killing the goose that laid the golden egg; the policy
of British government has been to stimulate the goose, and
encourage it by stimulation to be more productive. All have
mutually participated in this increased activity.
The results of such an enlightened policy will be yet more
startling. The increased incentives to industry the natives
of India are gradually receiving will vastly increase their
production of raw commodities. Their importations to Europe
will constantly grow in volume. The more equitably the pro
ceeds of this increased productiveness are distributed, the
greater will be the quantities of European manufactures they
can take back in exchange. Instead of an average of 9s. 6d.
per head on imports and exports, we may look forward to the
�REFORMED GOVERNMENT OF INDIA—ITS RESULTS. 'ifl
time when the average may be raised to as many pounds
sterling as it is now shillings.
*
The infatuated and impolitic attempt of the mother country
to levy taxation on the North American colonies, resulting in
the revolt and final declaration of independence of the thirteen
colonies which afterwards formed the United States, will for
ever be a lesson in colonial government and legislation. The
policy of extortion failed. The colonists resented an unjust
exaction on the proceeds of their toil and enterprise. As it is
in imperial legislation, so it is in industrial affairs. The path
way to unity, peace, and progress lies in justice and equity,
in giving to the community and the individual the full reward
of toil and labour.
* The progress that trade has made in India since the “Old Company”
was overthrown and the government taken in hand by the British Government,
for the benefit of the people of India, not for a class, will be more forcibly im
pressed upon the reader by the following statement of imports and exports at
five decennial periods :—
IMPORTS.
1882-3
1872-3
1862-3
£
£
Merchandise
Treasure .
Total
1852-3
£
1842-3
£
.
.
52,090,000
13,450,000
31,870,000
4,560,000
22,630,000
20,510,000
10,070,000
6,830,000
7,600,000
3,440,000
.
65,540,000
36,430,000 •
43,140,000
16,900,000
11,040,000
EXPORTS.
1882-3
Total
1872-3
1862-3
1852-3
1842-3
£
£
83,480,000
1,040,000
55,250,000
1,300,000
47,860,000
1,110,000
20,460,000
1,060,000
i3> 55°,°oo
220,000
84,520,000
56,550,000
48,970,000
21,520,000
13.770,0°°
£
Merchandise
Treasure .
£
The territories formerly possessed by the East India Company were by the
Act of Parliament of 1858 transferred to the British Government. Since then
the imports of merchandise have increased five-fold and the exports of merchan
dise four-fold ; this is a grand example of the material and social progress of a
people caused by greater equity in distribution.
�CHAPTER V.
The Ties which bound together Primitive Communities—The Bond of Kinship
and Brotherhood—The Christian and Moral Bond which now binds Men
together is the Bond of Humanity—The Analogy, and yet the Contrast,
between Primitive and Modern Society—This is the Era of free Competi
tion and Individualism—The Reforms advocated for Remedying the Evils
of the modern Era are, however, all more or less founded on the Primitive
Idea of the Family Group and Community of Interests—The true Doctrine
of Free Trade—The selfish Individualism that prompted the Support of
Manufacturers to the Free Trade Movement.
“The most recent researches into the primitive history of
society,” says Sir Henry Maine, in his work entitled “ Early
History of Institutions,” “point to the conclusion that the
earliest tie which knitted men together in communities was
consanguinity or kinship. The subject has been approached
of late years from several different sides, and theie has
been much dispute as to what the primitive blood-relationship
implied and how it arose, but there has been general agree
ment as to the fact I have stated. The caution is, perhaps,
needed that we must not form too loose a conception of
the kinship which once stood in the place of the multiform
influences which are now the cement of human societies.
It was regarded as an actual bond of union, and in no respect
as a sentimental one. The notion of what, for want of a better
phrase, I must call a moral brotherhood in the whole human
race has been steadily gaining ground during the whole course
of history, and we have now a large abstract term answering to
this notion—humanity. The most powerful of the agencies
which have brought about this broader and larger view of
kinship has undoubtedly been religion.”
A German writer has tersely said, “The family is the
ground form of human society prepared by nature itself, and
necessary to a moral and industrious union,”
�PRIMITIVE SOCIETY.
39
In the researches and writings of Van Maurer, Nasse,
Stubbs, Laveleye, and Sir Henry Maine and others, we have
a clear exposition of the structure of primitive society. The
collective ownership of the soil by groups of men, either in fact
united by blood-relationship or believing or assuming that they
were so united, is now admitted to take rank as an ascertained
primitive phenomenon, once universally characterising those
communities of mankind between whose civilisation and our
own there is any distinct connection or analogy. The ancient
village community was an association of kinsmen united by the
assumption of a common lineage, so organised as to be
complete in itself. The end for which it existed was the
tillage of the soil, and it contained within itself every element
for the attainment of its end without extraneous help from
outside.
Sir Henry Maine describes the village community—still
found in the eastern world—as a community so organised as
to be complete in itself. The brotherhood, besides the culti
vating families who form the major part of the group, com
prises families hereditarily engaged in the humble arts which
furnish the little community with articles of use and comfort.
Within the primitive village community competition was
unknown. The measure of price was custom; it was considered
unnatural and cruel to drive a bargain with a kinsman. Usury
was as baneful and as much spurned as by the law of Moses.
The Scotch clans and Irish tribes were groups founded on
the family tie. “ As regards guilds,” says Sir Henry Maine,
“ I certainly think that they have been much too confidently
attributed to a relatively modern origin, and that many of
them, and much which is common to all of them, may be
suspected to have grown out of the primitive brotherhoods of
co-villagers and kinsmen. The trading guilds which survive
in our own country have undergone every sort of transmuta
tion which can disguise their parentage. They have long
since relinquished the occupations which gave them a nam .
They mostly trace their privileges and constitutions to some
�40
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
royal charter; and kingly grants, real or fictitious, are the
great cause of interruption in English history. Yet anybody
who, with a knowledge of primitive law and history, examines
the internal mechanism and proceedings of a London Com
pany, will see in many of them plain traces of the ancient
brotherhood of kinsmen ‘joint in food, worship, and estate.’ ”
It is a remarkable fact, and a pleasing evidence of their
attachment to and faith in the polity of their collective enjoy
ment of property, that the earliest English emigrants to North
America, who belonged principally to the class of yeomanry,
organised themselves at first in village communities for pur
poses of cultivation. When a town was organised, the process
was that “ the General Court granted a tract of land to a com
pany of persons. The land was first held by the company as
property in common.”
The modem era is one of free competition and indivi
dualism. It is remarkable how the reforms set forth for
reforming the evils of the modern era are all more or less
founded on the primitive idea of the family group and the
bond of kinship and community of interest. It is on this
idea of brotherhood and community of interests that the
reforms of Robert Owen, in England, and Fourier, in France,
were based and advocated; it is on this idea that presentday socialism is founded, and on which existing movements
are established. In varying degree it is the chief corner
stone of the co-operative movement in England, a movement
which is the outcome of Robert Owen’s work, though far from
his ideal of co-operative action, as it also falls far short of the
aspirations of its promoters and leading advocates. The idea
of community of interests is also to be seen in working-men’s
associations in England and on the Continent, in the Famili
stère, at Guise, and the Maison Leclaire, at Paris. In the
attempts now being made to found industrial villages and
small farms’ associations, we find the primitive idea of social
relationship—namely, community of interest and co-operative
action—clearly reflected. In all this we have a living evidence
�PRIMITIVE SOCIETY AND USURY AND EXCHANGE.
41
of the lasting truths of justice, and mutual helpfulness, and
interdependence on which primitive society was founded.
“Among the Greeks,” says Dr. Smith, the Greek historian,
“ as among every people which has just emerged from bar
barism, the family relations are the grand sources of lasting
union and devoted attachment. All the members of a family
or a clan were connected by the closest ties, and were bound
to revenge with their united strength an injury offered to any
individual of the race. In the heroic age, as in other early
stages of society, we find the stranger treated with generous
hospitality : the chief welcomes him to his house, and does not
inquire his name, nor the object of his journey, till he has
placed before him his best cheer.”
The predominant feature of primitive society, standing out
clear and bright amid all that is dark and harsh, is that the
little groups—the family, the village community, the tribe, or
the small state, were within themselves actuated by a spirit of
co-operation and thoroughgoing community of interest. They
looked upon the land as a common inheritance ; they worked
and laboured nature to live; they thoroughly grasped the
first axiom of economics, that their comfort and happiness,
their wealth, consisted in the productiveness of the earth, and
that the productiveness of the land was in proportion to the
labour they put into it. They were wiser than we in grasping
the truth that exchange is not production ; on the contrary, it
is rather akin to usury. Honest labour was no degradation ;
the headman, the chief, or the king did not consider it deroga
tory to acquire skill in manual arts : simplicity of manners
was a marked feature of primitive society; “ the wives and
daughters of the chiefs in like manner did not deem it beneath
them to discharge various duties which were afterwards
regarded as menial. Not only do we find them constantly
employed in weaving, spinning, and embroidery, but, like the
daughters of the patriarchs, they fetch water from the well, and
assist their slaves in washing garments in the river.”
Within the community we find trafficking discountenanced
�42
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
among themselves. Competition was unknown. It is only in
the conflict of one community, or tribe, or petty state against
another we see anything approaching a struggle for existence.
Every community outside their community was considered a
deadly foe, not of so much interest as the dog that followed
them or the beasts on whom they fed.
What an analogy, and yet what a contrast, between primitive
and modem society! We, like them, proclaim the bond of
community of interest and the tie of brotherhood and kinship j
unlike them, we own the tie of kinship embraces not only our
fellow-countrymen, our state, our fatherland, but, professing the
religion of Jesus Christ, we own every man a brother. The
Christian religion, like the religion of the Stoic philosophers,
teaches us that “ Divine Providence has appointed the world
to be a common city for men, and each one of us to be a part
of the vast social system.” But how unlike the spirit of this
profession is the practice of modern society, the modern era of
free competition ! Notwithstanding its professions, is it not an
era of social strife and warfare? Not long ago in the House
of Commons, in a private conversation, I heard a Member of
Parliament say that life was a race for wealth, trade and
industry were a struggle for existence, the fittest survived and
the weakest went to the wall. It was a law of political
economy, and could not be helped. It was a good thing for
those who survived, and a bad job for those who had to go
under, but it always had been so, and must continue. The
gentleman who gave expression to this opinion is a so-called
representative of progress and reform■ he is an active member
of a Christian Church, a disciple of the doctrine of free trade,
an upholder of the rights and liberties of the people, a large
employer of labour, and, as may be expected, a great capitalist.
This version of the industrial problem is one that is, alas !
too generally held. The anomaly one daily, almost hourly,
meets with, is the professor of the free-trade dictum and the
capitalist monopolist rolled together into one individual. Free
trade is a doctrine which is very respectable, very high-
�PREF. TRADE AND NATURAL LAW.
43
sounding, and therefore very desirable to subscribe to.
Monopoly in ownership of land is a national sin and a great
social injustice, but concentration and monopoly of capital is
a grand achievement. It was a crime against humanity for the
land monopolist, the feudal baron, to hold in serfage his
brother man the villein; it is a monstrous evil for the modern
landlord to exact a high rental from his tenant, and for the
tenant farmer to pay his labourer only ios. to 12s. a week,
little more than a pauper’s relief; it is a national crime for the
said agricultural labourer to be debarred the franchise; but in
the eyes of these free traders, these large employers of labour,
these capitalist monopolists, it is no sin nor moral wrong to
grow rich on paying 4s. a week wages to children who ought
to be at school, or 13s. to 15s. a week to adults for fifty-six
hours of labour; nor is it in the eyes of their brother capitalists
and brother free traders, the wholesale and retail distributors,
a crime to re-sell to these miserably-paid labourers their own
productions at 100 per cent, profit, nor to depress the wages of
the home labourer by the prejudice and favouritism they give
to the encouragement of foreign industries.
The doctrines of free trade and the truths of political
economy are founded on higher moral and natural laws than
these professed saviours of society, these miserable comforters,
are ever likely to comprehend. For what is the doctrine
of free trade, but an exposition of the natural law that man has
the natural right to obtain the necessaries of life simply at the
cost of the labour expended in the obtaining of them. The
first command of God to man, to multiply and replenish the
earth, to subdue it, and have dominion over it, was the first
preaching of the free-trade doctrine.
The laws of Moses, in fact the whole teaching of Scripture,
are the teachings of free trade. No one was to stand betwixt
the labourer and his natural right to obtain the necessaries
of life from his toil. “ Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant
that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren or of
thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates. At his day
�44
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down
upon it, for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it, lest he cry
against thee unto the Lord, and it be a sin unto thee.” * “ If
thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee,
thou shalt not be to himas an usurer, neither shalt thou lay
upon him usury.
If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment
to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth
down. For that is his only covering, it is his raiment for his
skin wherein shall he sleep, and it shall come to pass when he
crieth unto me, that I will hear him, for I am gracious. ” f
The true doctrine of free trade is a noble and a heavenly
teaching when fully and justly applied, but in the partial
and interested way in which we have seen it applied it has
been only half a blessing. Free trade means products at
Nature s prices. In the obtaining of raw commodities, whether
of food or articles for manufacture, we have the benefits of free
trade. Our manufacturers and importers have the advantages
of free imports, but in the supplying of our individual wants
we have neither free trade nor free competition : we pay the
prices and cost of monopoly and restriction. The benefits of
free trade will not be diffused until, besides the removal of
the barriers of import duties, we remove the barriers and
the costliness of the multiplicity of exchangers and distributors.
The exponents of the free-trade doctrine will not be true to
their mission until they establish and enforce the principle that
the labourer shall have his fair share of the proceeds of
his labour, and the necessities of life at the minimum price.
In the early part of this century it was a necessity of our
condition that new fields of enterprise should be opened
out. What with the oppression of the land laws and the
severity of taxation following on the costly Napoleonic wars,
the change from domestic to mechanical production, and the
legacy of centuries of class legislation and misrule, the time
had come when a change in our fiscal policy was demanded.
* Deuteronomy, xxiv. 14 and 15.
f Exodus, xxii. 25-27.
�FREE TRADE AND CAPITALISM.
45
The relief was found in the repeal of the corn laws, and the
gradual removal of all import duties on commodities for
manufacture or food.
A necessity of the new era of steam engines and mechanical
production, the substitution of machine production for hand
labour, was that we should have raw material at the smallest
cost and in the largest quantities. So every large' employer
of labour under the factory system was of necessity an advocate
of, and clamoured for, free trade. He wanted wool imported free.
The English farmer did not grow enough either in quantity or
variety. The new system of production had drawn and was
drawing the population from the rural districts to the towns,
partly because their occupation in domestic industry was gone.
Cheap food was a necessity, it allowed lower wages to be paid
the operative; the repeal of the corn laws and the free im
portation of foreign corn ensured a cheaper loaf. Why should
the English farmer be protected at the cost of the new capitalist
manufacturer? The cheaper production of the power-loom
gave the new English manufacturer a great advantage over his
foreign competitor in all the markets of the world. A necessity
of his continued prosperity was that, in exchange for his manu
factured article we should take the natural produce of other
countries ; like Cato, the slave-owner of old, who justified the
institution of slavery, first of all for his own aggrandizement and
wealth, and, secondarily only, for the accidental good of his
slaves, the English manufacturer early became a free-trader,
first of all for his own good, secondarily only for the good of
his operatives and the community generally.
�CHAPTER VI.
The Industrial Revolution and Unjust Land Laws have Contributed to the
Sacrifice"t>f the more Natural Agricultural Pursuits for the more Artificial
Industrial Callings—The Malthusian Theory Proved to be Untrue—
Free Trade has given us the Benefit of Natural Prices in raw materials, but
the Result of the Free-Trade Policy as Hitherto Applied has Brought
About a Concentration and Monopoly of Capital—The Accumulation ot
Capital in a Few Hands is as Detrimental to the Well-being of a Country
as Land Monopoly—Protection and the Consequent Dearness of Provisions
was before the Repeal of the Corn Laws Ascribed as the Cause of the
then Existing Depression—Now Lowness of Prices and Cheapness are
Ascribed as the Cause of the Present Depression : What an Anomaly !—
Land-Law Reform—The Natural Law of Rents.
By the industrial revolution, the depopulation of the rural dis
tricts, consequent on the substitution of mechanical for domes
tic production, and by the cruel and unjust system of land
tenure and ownership, we have gradually seen in this country
agricultural pursuits sacrificed for the more artificial industrial
callings, until at last husbandry, the most direct means of
obtaining wealth, and that most natural of all callings, the culti
vation of the soil, have sunk into utter insignificance.
The land laws and the industrial revolution have together
alienated the worker from the soil; for our prosperity we are
dependent on foreign trade, and go begging of our colonies
and foreign countries to take our manufactures, in exchange
for their food and raw material.
But there is a bright side to this revolution: like all revolulutions it has not only brought about a new condition of things,
but it has torn down barriers ; one of the barriers it has re
moved is the barrier of localism and nationality.
The steam-engine has not only drawn the labourers closer
together in vast industrial establishments, it has also drawn
continent nearer to continent, it has reduced distance and
economised time; if it has brought about more minute divisions
�LAND MONOPOLY AND CAPITAL MONOPOLY.
of labour, it has also extended the application and employment
of labour.
Our interests are now world-wide. Less than a century
ago, the interests of a state were all but restricted within its
frontier; the interchange of productions was limited to the
smallest possible limit; jealousy, mistrust, and consequent strife
predominated. Laws were made on the assumption that each
country’s wealth, and means of subsistence, must be raised
within itself; the price of a commodity was not what it could
be produced at in the most favoured spot, but what it could
be grown for at home.
The free-trade policy, so far as pursued, has given us the
untold advantage of natural prices for raw commodities ; it has
exposed the cruelty and injustice of our land laws, and of land
monopoly—for these blessings we are thankful. But a result of
the free-trade policy, as hitherto applied, has been the creation
of a new and powerful monopoly, a monopoly and concentration
of capital. This new power is no doubt also partly the out
growth of the new and gigantic method of production in manu
factures.
Monopoly of capital, or too great an accumulation of it in
a limited number of possessors, is as pernicious and disastrous
to a country’s well-being and progress as is a monopoly of land.
Both are natural products. Land, like capital, is reproductive
in proportion to the extent it is worked and utilised. Each,
when held in monopoly, reduce the labour that gives them
their return, whether of usury, profit, or interest, to the con
dition of dependency. Where dependency exists, there is
rarely to be found justice. To have justice does not imply
that you must have equality.
If free trade has shown the injustice of land monopoly, it
has also shown the injustice of capital monopoly. Before the
repeal of the corn laws, and the adoption of partial free trade,
the cry went up that men were starving because of the dearness
and scarcity of food. To-day the cry is that men are starving,
and wanting employment, although there is abundance and
�4%
distribution reform.
cheapness. The price of corn is lower than has ever been
known in modern times ; raw materials are well-nigh considered
to be at panic prices. The Malthusian theory, that population
would increase in a greater ratio than the means of existence
could be raised from the earth, has been proved to be utterly
false and a delusion. * Vast new tracts of continent, in all parts
of the earth, have been and are now being opened up Their
productiveness of the necessities and luxuries of life are so
great, that the capitalists are now crying out Stop, stop '__your
supplies are so much greater than the demand, the consequent
fall in prices destroys our gain. We cannot turn over the
stocks we must hold quick enough ; we are caught by lower
prices before we can get quit of past purchases.
The misery and depression before the repeal of the corn
laws was because of scarcity and dearness. The depression
Of MnUh a n0t:WOrthy fact- and rather * sarcastic one, too, that the doctrines
of Malthus, who was a minister of the Christian religion, should now be
d t7 a.lea^Ue mamly comPosed of Atheists and Freethinkers. TAe
althunan has its home m the Freethought Publishing Offices; amono-st the
Vice-Presidents of the Malthusian League are Mrs. Besant and Mr Chas
Bradlaugh, and other English and Continental Freethinkers.
Makhus arrived at his conclusions when misery and wretchedness overo?T beffi/OUntrieSffi
P6’ bUt MalthUS mistook the causation. Instead
o it being an insufficiency and incapacity of nature to provide the means
of subsistence, the misery and wretchedness was caused by the despotism and
greed of the privileged classes, by the destruction of wars and the^yranny of
Ind'the
T PHTShed the firSt 6diti0n °f WS 6SSay on PoPuiation in
and the second and larger edition in r8o3 ; it is therefore evident he formed his
opinion from observations and experiences of the time, and the miserable
condition of affairs that brought about the French Revolution. One can
understand Atheists and Freethinkers evincing a faithlessness in God’s promises
and lmP ying a want of Perfection and completeness in nature, and therefore
eoffidfi d^l
' £lmSelf ; bUt h
diffiCUR tO beli6Ve these impressions
Ch t P KCLln! ?e mmd °f a minister and Professor of the religion of
Jesus Christ. If Malthus were living to-day, it would be difficult for him to
explain that the misery and depression now prevailing were occasioned by the
excess of population. We have abundance and to spare, goods are rotting
because they are not consumed, yet people are in want, on the verge of
starvation. Misery and suffering are the creation of man, the remedy is in
man s hands
The problem is not in the creation of the means of subsistence
but m tneir distribution.
’
�LAND LAW REFORM.
49
now existing is because of plentifulness and cheapness. What
an anomaly! Starvation and want are a natural conse
quence of scarcity and dearness, and are easy to understand ;
but starvation and want with superabundance and cheapness,
are unnatural, and betoken injustice, and wrong-doing, and un
soundness in our social economy.
Distribution, it is unanimously agreed, must be the reform
for land monopoly. Large landed proprietors admit that the yeo
man, the peasant proprietor, must be tempted back to the soil.
Legislation has decreed that in Ireland ownership and occu
pancy must go together. Contracts as to rent must not be
held sacred; fair rents are fixed by law, and not by competi
tion. Money is advanced by the State to encourage a wider
distribution of ownership of land.
Legislation will be necessary to land-law reform, for until
the unjust laws which now tie up the land in vast estates are
removed, natural law cannot prevail. Once remove those
relics of feudalism, the land question in England will settle
itself. The peasant proprietor will be attracted back to its
cultivation j the matters of value and fair rents will solve
themselves.
Free land would be possible with the enactment of Mr.
Arthur Arnold’s programme of land-law reform, viz. :—
1. Abolition of the law of primogeniture.
2. Abolition of copyhold and customary tenure.
3- Prohibition of settlement of land upon unborn persons,
and of the general power of creating life-estates in
land.
4. Conveyance by registration of title; all interests in the
property registered to be recorded.
5. Provision for the sale of encumbered settled property.
Free land once established, as I have already said, values
and rents would speedily be settled by natural law. The
process is already at work; rents are being reduced voluntarily,
to keep the farmer on the land and prevent it going out of
cultivation.
E
�50
DIS TRIBUTION REFORM.
What is the natural law of rents ? It is that the rental of
all land must be no more than will allow the productions for
which it is most suited to be grown and cultivated at prices
that will compete with similar productions grown in the most
favoured spot on earth, allowing for sustenance for the labourer
and the cost of transit.
If wheat can be grown cheaper in the north-west provinces
of Canada, and put on the market in Liverpool at a lower rate
than Russian or Hungarian or Australian wheat can be landed
at Hull or London, then in so far as the English market takes
off the surplus productions of these countries, the price of
Russian, Hungarian, or Australian will be levelled to that of
Manitoba and the north-western Canadian provinces.
The price of fine merino wool is no longer ruled by the
quantity which can be grown on the plains of Andalusia, the
Pyrenees, or the south of France, but by the productiveness
and more congenial climate and soil of our Australian colonies.
A hundred years ago the price of fine merino wool averaged
about 3s. 3d. per lb. : to-day the average price is about is. 6d.;
a hundred years ago the importation of wool into this country
amounted to an average of about 2,500,000 lbs.; the quantity
in 1883 amounted to 495,946,779 lbs.
The price of butchers’ meat, although now ruled by the
butchers, based on the prices they pay (not to say dictate) to the
English grazier, must ere long be influenced by the prices which
the stock breeders on the cattle ranches in the United States,
the Brazils, and South America, and the sheep farmers in
Australia, can afford to offer their meat in this country dead
or alive. Science is coming to their aid; what they cannot
send alive they can refrigerate. For all practical purposes,
Texas or the country on the River Plate, or South Australia or
New Zealand, are speedily becoming as much our bases of
supplies, as the fields adjoining the monastery were the only
means of provisioning the larders of the monks of old, five
centuries ago.
The representatives of the feudal system, as regards the
�^MONOPOLY AND THE RICHES OF NATURE.
5I
ownership and monopoly of land, have brought about their own
Klin. The laws of primogeniture and entail, the policy of
monopoly and restriction, have driven the yeoman and peasant
from the soil, and given an impetus to colonisation and settle
ment on virgin soil. The forty millions of Anglo-Saxons who
have colonised the American continent, Australasia, South
Africa, or who have emigrated to other lands, have dictated
the terms on which the English land question must be settled.
It is obvious the settlement must be that whoever is the
occupier of the land, whether owner or tenant, must be in
possession on such terms as will allow him to compete with his
brethren who have wandered further over the earth’s surface,
who labour nature under more natural, and therefore more
favourable, circumstances. The struggle may be severe, but
sooner or later land in this country must come down to its
natural price, or must go out of cultivation more and more.
Legislation may help on the struggle to a speedier close by
abolishing the law of primogeniture and making the transfer
and conveyancing of land more simple and economic, but
existing laws and customs cannot prevent this consummation of
natural law.
The millions who have left these shores to makes homes in
far-off lands—homes whose happiness and prosperity have been
founded on the most natural and most secure foundations, the
pastoral life and husbandry—have rendered a mighty service
to their fellow-countrymen and to humanity. They have
Remonstrated that the measure of values in old countries must
approximate to those of virgin and favoured lands, that the
monopoly and usury of man is powerless against the riches and
boundlessness of nature. God, in His all-wise providence, is
Ro respecter of persons; the fulness of the earth is His and
they that dwell therein. He gives to all according to their
labour; to obtain dominion over the earth and subdue it,
man has God’s command and nature’s reciprocal aid. But for
man to have dominion over man, for the individual to live idly
on the monopoly of the earth and the proceeds therefrom, or
E 2
�52
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
on his fellow-man’s toil, there is no justification or warranty,
neither in revealed nor natural religion.
It will require no unsheathing of the sword, no bloody
revolution, no spoliation nor robbery, no violation of vested
interests, to restore occupancy to ownership of land ; they are
the natural condition. For centuries, through the jealousy
and envy of the rulers of nations, the narrowness and bigotry
of the priesthood, and the darkness and ignorance in which
the people were kept, land in European countries was a
monopoly. The people working it lived in thraldom. But
now, under the name of civilisation, European countries are
vying one with another in colonisation and territorial acquisi
tion. Whatever may be the true cause of this new and burning
desire to spread the benefits of civilisation, its only effect will
be to make the whole world kin, to break down national
barriers to the free intercourse of peoples, and in so far as
regards the providing of the necessaries of life, it is making
the whole earth one vast harvest-field. As we have already
remarked, the application of physical science has well-nigh
annihilated distance. Against the spirit of enterprise and
freedom no land laws can be of any avail. If rich soil in a
splendid climate can be purchased at
an acre, or rented at
2S. an acre, and the product of it, by the aid of steam and that
natural highway, the mighty ocean—over which no man has yet
claimed a monopoly nor demanded any rent—can be carried
ten thousand miles at less cost than a similar given quantity
could be carried fifty miles sixty years ago, it is very clear that
land in an old country must approximate to the value or rental
of that in a new country; this new “ civilisation ” and values
must go hand in hand. It is monstrous to suppose that the
remnants of feudalism can stand against these new and mighty
economic factors. It is a noteworthy fact, however protec
tionist a country may be—and many civilising countries are
protectionist—not one refuses to sell its surplus products. A
country may seek to protect the industry of its people and
colonists or dependents by import dut:es> but no country
�THE REMEDY FOR SOCIAL EVILS.
53
strives to impede the disposal of its surplus products. The
result is, a country pursuing a free-trade policy, like England,
obtains its supplies at the very lowest price; but the country
enjoying these privileges—or rather would I say, these natural
rights—truly needs the highest culture in economic and moral
science. As Aristotle remarked, the inhabitants of the Fortu
nate Isles, which were supposed to be surpassing rich, stood itt
need of greater than ordinary wisdom, that they might use
their wealth and advantages aright. So with us, in order that
the abundance and advantages we enjoy may be widely dif
fused, and that the productiveness of our land may be main
tained and be made the support of as great a number as
possible—notwithstanding the surplus supplies we may obtain
elsewhere—for this we must see to, if we are not to accept an
altogether artificial position, it behoves us to cultivate a high
standard of morality in exchange, and a just, wise, and free
system and method of distribution. Just as we have neglected
these essential elements to a sound economic -and perfect
social life, and given greater importance to obtaining and
producing wealth, so have we gradually drifted into the con
dition in which we now find ourselves—a condition, as we have
before stated, in which we have a superabundance of wealth
and the greatest difficulty to find a use for it—a superabundance
of goods, and the greatest difficulty to find a sale for them—
provisions abundant, and the consequent lowness of prices
causing serious alarm to importers and dealers ; and yet, with
all this so-called abundance, we have thousands in want—many starving who would be users of this wealth, and con
sumers of this abundance, if they had the opportunity to work,
or working, were allowed an equitable share in the wealth they
created.
Distribution Reform is the remedy for this anomalous con
dition of affairs; and it is to the present system of distribution
and its evils we will now turn our attention.
�CHAPTER VII.
The Present System of Distribution unsatisfactory and unjust—The Producer
is depressed, the Consumer extorted : Consumption is therefore Limited
and the Demand for Labour Restricted—Competition rules Prices in Pro
duction and Wholesale Distribution, but in Retail Trading Custom and
not Competition rules the Prices Consumers have to pay—This statement
illustrated Example of Inequities and Injustices in Distribution in various
trades and industries.
The statement of the industrial problem submitted for con
sideration at the conference to which I have referred in my
preliminary remarks, was as follows :—
“A the present system or manner whereby the products of
industry are distributed as between various classes and persons of
the community satisfactory, or, if not, are there any means by
which that system could be improved
This statement of the question I will accept as the text on
which I will base the following remarks on the industrial
question.
The present system of distribution is not only unsatisfactory
but unjust, because betwixt producer and consumer are a num
ber of unnecessary and costly intermediaries, which raise the
price of commodities against the consumer, and, therefore,
limit consumption, depress wages and capital employed in
production, and which, by reason of the barriers they set up
against free competition, rob the consumer of what, in an
economic system of distribution, would be the natural or
minimum prices, and the producer of that which in the primi
tive condition was his inalienable right, the full reward of his
labour and product of his industry.
It is unsatisfactory, for whilst, during the past eighty years,
every attention has been given to increasing production and
reducing its cost, distribution, the helpmeet of production,
remains unreformed and uneconomised. Notwithstanding the
�COMPETITION DOES NOT RULE EVERYTHING.
55
facilities of cheap transport and rapid communication, which
I have already commented upon, by reason of the unnecessary
number of distributors, and because of narrow trade prejudices
and obstructions tending to monopolies, the process is enor
mously wasteful, more costly to the consumer than in the days
of the pedlar and the pack-horse. The abstract political
economist satisfies himself with the idea that the inexorable law
of supply and demand, together with an active competition,
keep down inordinate profits and bring down prices to th®
lowest remunerative level. How often we are told competition
rules everything. No doubt competition does rule prices in
the active wholesale markets, but in retail distribution, in the
supplying of our actual necessities, the most important matter
in the business of our daily existence, prices are not ruled
by competition but by custom. The political economist will
render a great service to society if he will co-operate in the
work of reforming the present anomalous and unjust method
and practice of distribution, making it conformable to his law,
which is no doubt true and sound in the abstract, but which
is outraged in a most glaring manner, causing suffering and
injustice, and being the cause of many social evils.
Economy in production is a science. Competition is so
keen, profits in manufactures of all kinds have gravitated to
the minimum or altogether vanished. Manufacturers fight
against a trifling increase of wages, the slightest increase in
railway rates, or the smallest addition whatsoever to the cost
of production, as a matter of life, and death ; but between the
prices at which they have to sell their goods to the wholesale
distributors, and the prices which the consumer pays to the
retailer, there is a margin of at least fifty per cent., affording
a wide field for economic treatment, to the great advantage and
harmonious working of our industrial system, to capitalist and
labourer as producers, and the whole community as consumers.
The competition of manufacturers one against another for
the business of wholesale distributors, and that of wholesale
distributors against each other for the business of the retailer
�56
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
depresses prices, and reacts first of all on the wages of the
worker to the extent of depressing them to the point of rupture
between capital and labour. This must be so, for in individual
enterprise, seeing the capitalist manufacturer is in business
first of. all for the good of himself, and only after that for
the accidental good of any whom it may concern, it is fair to
assume that wages will be made to suffer before the capitalist is
affected.
This competition of manufacturer against manufacturer, and
wholesale distributor against wholesale distributor, does not
benefit the consumer, because the competition of retail distri
butors, for the demands of consumers, is not, as in production
and wholesale distribution, a competition of values; it is a com
petition for custom, for arresting public attention, which en
hances, rather than lowers, the price to the consumer. The
multiplicity of retail distributors does not lower prices, nor
make an economy; the trade is only divided amongst a greater
number.
Competition amongst them takes the form of rivalry as to
who can spend the most money in advertising, or pay the
highest premium for a good position, or who can fix up the
most expensive and attractive shop-front, for all of which the
consumer has to pay. They are all taxes and additions to the
cost of distribution. It is in retail distribution the same as in
insurance, increased competition largely increases the cost of
obtaining business. The cost in the former comes out of the
consumer, in the latter from the insured.
The individual consumer cannot, for his comparatively
small wants, be an expert in values in all branches of trade; he
cannot bring to bear on the retailer the same artfulness in com
petition which the retailer brings to bear on producer and
wholesale distributor.
In large wholesale transactions, although it is assumed com
petition decides the sale, it is a misnomer to call it competition.
Stratagem and artfulness are powerful weapons in the hands of
the buyer. For example, suppose I am about to buy a quan
�COMPETITION IN PRODUCTION.
57
tity of textile fabrics of a standard character: a number of
manufacturers, well known to me, are producers of the goods
I am open to buy, I ask them all for samples, and by compari
son select two or three makers’ goods for final treatment. I
go to maker No. i and say I have a favourable inclination to
his goods, but others are equally satisfactory; will he please
look into his prices and see if he can do better; to No. 2 and
No. 3 I say much the same. No. 2 shortly comes and says
the quotations are already very low, but to secure the order he
will make a reduction of, say, one shilling per piece. I thank
him for his offer, and condole with him on the keenness of
competition. No. 1 also comes along, and says he will also
make a reduction of one shilling, but I tell him another most
able competitor of his has already offered the same; in a war
like spirit, with protestations of the valour of his firm, and their
determination not to be beaten by anybody, not to be done
he offers to take two shillings per piece off. I also sympathise
with him on the harshness of competition, but as business is a
race for wealth, and the fittest survives, I tell him the matter
must stand for a day or two until I see what I can do. Mean
while manufacturer No. 3 comes round, whom I know as a
nominal social friend of No. 2 : they dine at the club together,
worship at the same church, and stand side by side on the same
political platform. We begin our conversation about the com
mercial outlook, flounder about and stumble over time-worn
economic fallacies, and then settle down to business. I begin
by saying, Well what about this order?—I have got some very
low quotations j prices are weaker ; now, what is the very best
you can do ? He looks at me most anxiously and inquiringly ;
after a moment’s silence he says, Well, here goes: I will take one
shilling and sixpence per piece off my quotation. Oh ! say I,
that is no use. So-and-so, naming No. 2, has already offered to
take two shillings off his quotations ; you know his is a good
firm, plenty of capital, and determined not to be beaten.
Maker No. 3 replies, Neither am I going to be beaten. I took
a large order out of his hands the other day, besides his goods
�58
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
are not so well made as mine; there are no more perfect goods
in the trade than ours. Although he and I are friendly, rather
than let him have the order, I will take three shillings per piece
off if you will settle it at once. After some further talk, I
eventually give him a good order at three shillings per piece off
his quotations. By a little artfulness and diplomacy I have had
prices reduced three shillings per piece, but it does not follow
supply and demand, or fair competition, had anything to do
with it. Probably not one piece more or less will be sold
because of the reduction I obtained. Each competitor was
ignorant of the true facts ; personal jealousy and rivalry was a
greater factor than any economic laws. Such cases are of
frequent occurrence ; in the long run wages suffer. Such a
system of so-called competition would be impossible with a
well-organised and moral system of distribution. Each compe
titor would be conversant with the real state of the market,
and know the full extent of the demand, and participate in the
true market price.
*
Now, supposing I were to pursue the same tactics in
buying a suit of clothes, or a sack of flour, I should be kicked
out of the retailer’s shop, and be called a bore and a screw.
Fancy any one going to the tailors, and asking them to send
patterns and quotations for comparison, and pitching one off
against the other, in order to get the prices lowered ; or going
to two or three grocers and asking for samples of flour, and
using the arts of diplomacy and the craft of competition; it
would be considered a waste of time, a mean thing to do, and
a pernicious attempt to encroach on the profits of the poor
retailer. In the selling of the labourer’s work, which is what a
manufacturer has to do, competition rules the market; but
in supplying one’s everyday wants custom dictates prices or
the rate of profit—the labourer is depressed by competition,
the consumer is at the mercy of the retailer.
* The above is a specimen of present-day competition amongst manufac
turers. A few years ago the position was reversed : the merchant went, with
bated breath and lowly demeanour, to the manufacturer, thinking it a favour to
get goods on the makers’ own terms.
�COMPETITION IN DISTRIBUTION.
59
Not only is the present system of distribution unsatisfac
tory, but it is also unjust, because it tends to the inequitable
distribution of wealth, and is the cause of the worst of our
social evils. The Report of the Royal Commissioners for
Inquiring into the Housing of the Working Classes, on the
evidence given before them, has most emphatically denounced
the system of middlemanism, the house-jobbers, the house
farmers, or house-knackers, who stand between the freeholder
and the occupier, and who fix the rent of the tenement houses.
To this system is attributed the worst phases of the over
crowding and misery of the poor of London. It was proved
in evidence that in some cases the house-jobbers obtained
^iooa year by letting houses out in single rooms, for which
they paid to the proprietor a rental of only ^20. The same
policy is at work in the industries of the country; the pro
ducer, like the freeholder of the slums of London, receives but
a small fractional part of the proceeds of his industry; he pro
duces in quantity, middlemanism distributes in detail, and
takes the lion’s share of the spoils.
The following are a few examples of the inequity and
wastefulness of the system of distribution :—With best wheat
at 33s. to 35s. a quarter, super flour sells at 2od. per stone,
leaving a gross profit of 13s. to 15s. a quarter after the
expenses of milling and dressing have been provided for. Yet
with this margin between the market price, which is the price
consumers pay and the price producers receive, agriculturists
are depressed. If the margin between the price of flour and
the price consumers pay for bakers’ bread was clearly shown,
the inequality of the division of the proceeds would appear
yet more strikingly. In an article on the retail prices of
provisions, in the WzW newspaper, December 27th, 1884, the
following remarks were made :—“ The inordinate profits made by the middlemen—that is
to say, the salesman and the retailer—amounting in a vast
number of articles to even more than 50 per cent., are not
merely injurious to the individual purchaser, but detrimental
�6o
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
to the well-being of the community at large. Productive
industry is checked, because the producer cannot find a remu
nerative sale for his goods; the private consumption of the
well-to-do is lessened, and the indigence of the poor rendered
more painful to endure, by the inordinately high prices of
many of the mere necessaries of life. This statement applies
especially to articles of food. At the present moment the
price of bread in London bears little or no relation to the
price of wheat, which is now so unsaleable that farmers are
using it as food for stock. The cost of the 41b. loaf varies from
5d. to 7d., but the guardians of Holbeach Union have just
entered into a contract for the supply of the best bread at 3d.
for the 41b. If the bakers in Lincolnshire can supply the poor
with bread at fd. a pound, there can be no reason why the
poor of the metropolis should pay nearly double the amount.
“ The same excessive charges on the part of the middlemen
are experienced in the case of meat. The announcement is
made in the daily journals of Tuesday that the Elderslie steam
ship had arrived from New Zealand with 25,000 carcases of
frozen mutton—the largest consignment ever yet brought to this
country in one vessel, which is due to the fact that the ship
was constructed specially for this trade. The present price of
New Zealand mutton in Smithfield market is from 5d. to 5-Jd.
per pound, and the quantity imported has risen in the last
three years from 8,840 carcases in 1882, to 98,000 in 1883, and
400,000 in 1884. The question may be asked, What becomes
of all this meat ? It is not, as a rule, sold openly by butchers.
If a purchaser asks for New Zealand mutton at a butcher’s, he
is informed they never keep it, although at the same time
twenty or thirty carcases may be hanging up in the back shop,
to be retailed to purchasers as prime Dartmoor or some other
well-known kind of mutton, at prices varying according to the
purses of the customers from is. to iqd. per pound for saddles
and legs, the prime cost being under 6d. per pound. This
deception can be, and is, very generally practised, because the
quality of the meat is of the best character. The disappear.
�THE EXTORTIONS OF MIDDLEMEN.
61
Sttice of the half million of New Zealand sheep, that have appa
rently melted into air, is thus accounted for; and those who
know how to recognise this meat by its dark rich tint, and the
somewhat purplish colour the cut surface has after exposure to
the atmosphere, see enough of it in the London shops to have
no doubt upon the subject.
“ The evil effect of the monopoly possessed by the salesmen
extends widely in every direction. As may have been seen by
the recent correspondence that has taken place in our poultry
columns, it is almost hopeless for a farmer or producer to send
poultry to the London market. However good the birds may
be, the price returned is seldom or never remunerative. The
consignor has no check whatever on the salesman, and it is too
much to expect from human nature, where there are no means
of proving what were the actual prices realised, that consignees
should in all cases pay over to their clients the full amount
which they ought to receive. This circumstance alone, even if
there were no other insuperable hindrances, would be fatal to
the prosperity of poultry farming.
“ In the wholesale fish trade, the existence of the so-called
‘Billingsgate ring’ is notorious. The cheers elicited from
many of those present at the meeting of the City Council, when
it was proposed to close the New Farringdon Fish Market,
were but the natural outcome of the joy of interested mono
polists. All fish sent for sale must of necessity pass through
the hands of the salesmen. They sell for the most they can
obtain, and remit the vendor what sum they please. That in
one case an average amount of 2d. per pound was returned for
fish re-sold for 8d. and 9d. to the fishmonger, and retailed at
from is. to is. 6d. to the public, is a fact within our personal
knowledge.
“It is not -surprising that the injurious monopoly which
thus enhances the price of food without benefit to the pro
ducer should be designated by the latter as ‘ robbery.’ ”
This is pretty strong language. I am glad to be able to
quote so influential a representative of the country gentleman
�62
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
in support of my contention, and will now relate two cases, the
truthfulness of which I can vouch for, which corroborate the
statement of the Field as regards butchers’ meat and fish.
A farmer in a Yorkshire village, stung to revolt by the
limitations butchers fixed upon the price he could obtain for his
fat cattle, sent an ox to be slaughtered and the carcase dressed
and cut up ; he made it known to the villagers that he would
retail the best cuts of beef at 6d. per lb., the same cuts for
which butchers charged rod. to is. per lb. He thus saved the
consumer 50 per cent., and after selling the offal and paying all
expenses, he had
more per beast left for himself than he
could obtain from the butchers. Production was benefited
25 per cent., and consumers saved 50 per cent.
A fisherman in the Isle of Wight, depressed by the prices
he could obtain from the fishmongers, determined upon selling
direct to the inhabitants fish of his own catching, and in the
kitchen of a mansion the following scene occurred:—The
fishmonger presents himself and solicits orders. The cook
disappears to ask her mistress if she wants anything. During
her absence the fisherman, who has toiled all through the night,
appears. The fishmonger, with angry face, thus accosts him :
Hallo 1 what do you want here ? You have no business to
sell your fish to my customers; you are not wanted here.”
The fisherman quietly replies, “You wait and see.” The cook
reappears, and, addressing the fishmonger, says, “No, thank
you, ‘ Missis ’ does not want anything to-day; ” but on seeing
the fisherman, she says, “Oh, you are here, are you? I think
‘Missis’ will see you.” She accordingly goes and tells her
mistress. They speedily return together; the lady of the
house, addressing the fisherman, says, “Good morning; what
have you got this morning? ” “I have five very fine lobsters,
freshly caught.” “What is the price?”. “One shilling and
threepence each, ma’am, if you please.” “ I will take them
all,” replies the lady; “the fishmongers charge me two shillings
and sixpence each for similar-sized lobsters.” The fisherman
departs, but finds the fishmonger awaiting him at the gate.
�OPPRESSION OF FISHERMEN.
6$
The fishmonger attacks the fisherman thus : 11 If ever I find you
selling to my customers again, I will ‘ boycott ’ you, and also
put my fellow-fishmongers on to ‘boycott’ you.” The fishertaian replies, “ I am independent of you. I catch the fish.
You starve me during the winter when visitors are few, and
in summer you dictate the price you will give me. I have
arranged to sell my own catchings here and in other towns.
I can save the ladies one-half they pay you, and then get half
as much again for myself as you will give me. ”
Mackerel selling at 4s. per hundred—about a halfpenny
each—at the auction sale at the seaport town are retailed in the
inland towns at three for a shilling, or fourpence each.
Surely a margin of 400 per cent, is more than enough to pay for
cost of carriage and risk.
Not long ago a beachman at a seaside resort, which was
also a good fishing port, stated that he and his fellows had
nearly given up fishing; they got so little for their labour.
Except in stormy weather, when the risk was great and the
fish supply more limited, the proceeds were so small as to
make it not worth the trouble. It was only in stormy weather,
at the risk of their lives, and probably the widowhood of their
wives and orphanage of their children, that they could get a
fair price sufficient to induce them to run the risk.
The market-gardeners around London complain of the
unremunerative prices they obtain for their produce ; yet the
retail prices of vegetables are not less than 100 per cent higher
than they can obtain from the wholesale salesman.
In the .Daily News, April 3, 1885, there was an article,
being one of a series on “ Workers and their Work.” It was
the record of an interview with Mr. Clare Sewell Read, M.P.,
and gave the opinions of that able and experienced authority on
the farming question., Mr. Read laments the wide difference
between the prices the farmers receive and retail prices, and
touches upon the distribution question. The following is an
extract:—
“ I have endeavoured to follow the times as well as I may
�64.
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
in what appears to me the only way of grappling with the
difficulty of farming just now ■ that is, a great increase of stock,
especially of sheep. I know there has been a fall in their
value just recently, but they are the farmers’ best friends.
They turn over his capital quickly. The majority of sheep,
not killed as lambs, are killed from 13 months to a year and ahalf old—-the most at 15 months.”
“ How is it that when mutton is down 2d. a pound at whole
sale the consumer reaps no benefit from the fall ? Bread, also,
does not seem to be as cheap as it should be in proportion
with the price of wheat.”
“ There is what has been called a 1tendency to permanence ’
in retail prices. It must be admitted at once that the con
sumer can hardly expect the full benefit, according to figures,
of any market reduction. The cost of collection and distribu
tion, as Sir Rowland Hill pointed out concerning letters,
remains the same, and the retailer or distributor is compelled
to keep up the same establishments or staff whether the raw
material is cheap or dear. In the case of bread the cost of
grinding, bolting, making, baking, and distribution is absolutely
permanent. Beer remains at a fixed price whatever the value
of barley, malt, or hops may be. A barrel of beer seems to be
a sort of unit of value. Milk, again, is an extremely difficult
article to assess the value of. I am assured on good authority
that the cost of distribution doubles that paid to the farmer.
On an average a farmer gets sixpence or sevenpence a gallon
for his milk—not more.”
“ Why do not they make butter or cheese with it ? Both
are very dear, especially good butter.”
“ I do not think, when labour and time are considered,
that they can do better than by selling their milk fresh.
Cheese pays, perhaps, better than butter; but with only a
limited experience I think I may safely say that for butter
making purposes milk is barely worth sixpence a gallon.
Common cheese, again, finds no market. Nobody now would
touch that celebrated old Suffolk cheese made from skim-milk,
�OPPRESSION OF FARMERS.
65
and which when cut in wedges was used to prop open doors
and to serve as gate-pegs, and when Bloomfield’s farmer’s boy
ate it he found it ‘ too big to swallow and too hard to bite.’ ”
“ You think, then, that a farmer who can sell fresh milk
should do so ? ”
“ He seems to me to get rather more money, and to save
time and labour.”
“Touching the pig question—Since the falling off in the
number of sheep there has been a great increase in that of pigs.’’
“ It is perfectly natural that it should be so. Several wet
seasons in succession, and sheep dying of rot, brought the
smaller farmers to an awkward pass. The little men were
obliged to sell their sheep to meet their other losses, and then
the problem arose—how were they to stock their farms the
quickest and get some return at the smallest outlay. If the
small farmer elected to restock with sheep, twenty ewes would
cost him ^60, and produce him twenty-five or thirty lambs in
a year. In the same space of time four sows would give him
about eighty pigs, and the cost of the four sows would be only
^10. To a needy man this difference is very great.”
“ How much would he get for his pigs ? ”
“ That would depend upon circumstances. It is a saying
that ‘ pigs are always all gold or all copper.’ The pig is a
useful, animal upon a farm, and when other things went wrong
he helped farmers round to a bit of ready money quickly, but
the value of pigs fluctuates more than that of any other descrip
tion of stock. The very rapid rate of production is an element
of weakness in price. When prices go up production increases
so enormously that the price of these prolific animals goes down
rapidly. The pig breeder is generally a small man. In my
part of the country there are usually three stages in the life of
a pig. First, there is the small farmer who breeds him and
who may sell him at any price from 5s. to 15s., the pigling being
in both, cases of equal size, weight, breed, and beauty;
secondly comes the big farmer who grows him in his stockyard ; and thirdly, the genuine pig feeder, who buys him from
F
�66
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
the big farmer, fattens him on the refuse from flour and starch
mills, and sells him to the butcher or bacon factor. In the
pig’s price there is again a gigantic difference between retail
prices and those paid to the farmer, who can barely get 8s. or
9s- a score for bacon hogs, while bacon is worth at retail
is. or is. 2d. per pound.”
Mr. Read is very charitable to the distributors. If he
would bring to bear on the question of distribution the practical
and economising treatment he has so successfully applied to
production, he would find that it is capable of yielding quite
as great an economy and saving.
In April, 1885, a struggle was being waged between capital
and labour in the coal trade. The miners resisted a reduction
of ten per cent, in wages, which the colliery proprietors said
was necessary to leave them a profit on capital. At that time,
best house coal was sold in London at 23s. to 25s. a ton. The
cost at the pit’s mouth was 8s. to 9s., carriage to London and
city dues average a cost of 8s. per ton. The coal merchant
had, therefore, a gross profit of 7s. to 9s. a ton to cover the
cost of distribution. The miners’ net wrages averaged nd. per
ton. For the process of distribution the consumer pays as
much as the natural value of the coal, miners’ wages, interest
on capital, all included. The middleman’s profit of 7s. to 9s.
a ton remains intact, the miners’ wages of nd. a ton are
reduced. Which renders the most important service to the
community? Who runs the greatest risk or suffers the most
hardship, the miner or the middleman ?
Take another case in the coal trade. In a certain part of the
West Riding of Yorkshire, at the time I am writing the miners
are on strike against a reduction in wages. They have been
paid at the rate of 2s. for filling 36 corves, equal to about two
tons of coal. They have to pay the wages of the boys, “ the
hurriers,” who push the corves along, to find lamps and oil, and
pay for their picks sharpening. In a week’s work of about 50
hours, the average net earnings of the miners, after paying the
outgoings named, are about 18s. In the language of an able
�OPPRESSION OF MINERS.
67
bodied and intelligent miner, if they have more than 20s. a
week left for themselves, it is so unusual they think they have
got something that does not belong to them. The net earnings
of the men are at the rate of less than iod. per ton. Their
proprietors from their own depot will not sell a ton of coals for
less than 8s. 6d., the buyer has to pay for the “leading” or
carriage. It may be urged that the proprietors have to provide
against interest on their investment, for wear and tear, and risk,
but it will be admitted that the miner out of his iod. a ton has
also to provide against wear and tear and against risk. Out of
his earnings he must provide against accident and a premature
death. It may also be urged that the proprietor must provide
against the exhaustion of the seam of coal, but so also must
the miner provide against the exhaustion of himself, he must
provide against the possibility of leaving his wife a widow and
his children fatherless. If the seam of coal is the capitalist’s
sheet anchor, so, too, the miner is the bread-winner for those
dependent upon him.
But to pass on to another branch of industry, the textile
and kindred trades. On a piece of dress stuff for which the
consumer pays 3s. per yard, the profit to the retailer is is.
per yard; the weaver’s wages are but at the rate of i^d. per
yard. For the process of distribution the consumer has to pay
on a piece of such stuff a profit to the retailer greater in
amount than has been distributed in wages to the whole of the
operatives whose combined labour has made it an article
of commerce. Not only more than has been paid to wool
sorter, and comber, spinner, and weaver, and dyer, but also
added to these the profit, at present minimum rate, of the
capitalist manufacturer. But worse still. On many articles of
dress the consumer pays more for the process of distribution
than the whole cost of raw material, cost of transit, cost -of
operatives’ wages, and manufacturer’s profit.
The silk weaver at Lyons works seventy to eighty hours per
week for 12^ francs (10s.), and produces a richly brocaded
satin for furniture decoration. So keen is competition (or so
F 2
�6<S
/)/STR/IJUUOtX AViZ-W.l/.
active is craftiness) the manufacturer sells it for 22s. a yard, and
is refused even 23s. 6d, so fine are prices cut. The satin,
an article of luxury, is charged to the consumer not 30s', nor
50s., but 60s. per yard, a profit of one hundred and fifty per
cent. The weavers in Lyons are earning about is. 6d. a day
for making expensive fabrics. No wonder they are frequently
on the verge of a revolution, and form a hotbed for the
propagation of the most revolutionary and anarchical remedies.
The Lancashire cotton weaver produces a dress fabric, which
is sold by the manufacturer to the wholesale distributor at 4.3^.
per yard; the maker cannot get even 4^6^-, to say nothing of the
more familiar division of a penny—an eighth, or one farthing,
but is in fear that next time a competition takes place the
thirty-second part of the penny must go, and the price be
made even money.
The wholesale distributor prints and
finishes the fabric, adding to the cost one penny per yard,
making the cost 5/^d.. The same article is sold retail at
io|d., and in many cases is puffed as a “French print” ; the
weaver is paid at the rate of three-farthings per yard for
weaving; the cost of distribution is upwards of ¿d. per yard,
100 per cent, on cost, and seven times more than the weaver’s
wages. The cotton trade is depressed, and judging from
the reports in the Manchester newspapers, the lot of the
spinner and manufacturer is an unenviable one ; the trade is
unremunerative to the capitalist; any and every remedy but
the right one is suggested; but they never think of turning their
attention to distribution; there they would find ample room
for reform. The following is an extract from a letter which
appeared in the Manchester Courier a few weeks ago, and is
interesting and also amusing as showing the feeling of the
manufacturers:—
“ It is admitted on all hands that something wants doing
to improve the present depressed state of the cotton trade.
Almost all I talk with say it is quite time united action was
taken by the trade as a whole, and that if the Masters’ Asso
ciation would only call a meeting, they would be well supported.
�OPPRESSION OP TEXTILE MANUFACTURERS.
69
“ We are being harassed on all hands. What with the
merchants on one hand, and the operatives on the other, we
are continually in trouble. This we can alter by being united.
It reminds me of a tale I once heard. A man gave his son a
bundle of sticks to break, and the boy tried to break them all
at once ; but his father said—‘ Stop, my son, you cannot do
that ; you must break one at a time, and you will soon com
plete your work ’ ; and so the boy finished his task quite
easily.
“ Well, are we not the bundle, and being broken one at
a time by the merchants in prices and the operatives in indi
vidual strikes ? Why can we not have the band of unity tied
round us, so that neither merchant nor operative can break
us ? It is our own fault, and the sooner we unite, and cease
to live in a fool’s’ paradise, hoping for something to turn up,
the better.”
The distressed manufacturer seeks a remedy in a com
bination against the power of the merchant on the one hand,
and the combination of operatives on the other. Poor be
nighted fellow, he never dreams of attacking the 50 to 100 per
cent, margin that exists between the price he gets and the price
the consumer pays the retailer. He goes for the reduction
of the operatives’ wages, or for putting the merchant through
a “ boycotting ” operation. I heard a large manufacturer say
not long ago, the whole system of competition and distribution
is a game of beggar my neighbour, the retailer plays to beggar
the merchant and befool the consumer, the merchant plays his
cards to beggar the manufacturer, and the manufacturer in turn
plays to beggar the operative and the grower of the raw material.
What a glorious condition, how mutual and how Christian !
The whole structure is based on mistrust and want of con
fidence in one another, Manufacturers, when they were making
their millions sterling, cried poverty and bad trade so as to
keep down wages, the operatives were over-worked. “ Be
tween 1802 and 1833 five Acts of Parliament were passed in
favour of the labourers. Until the act of 1833, children
�7°
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
and young persons ‘were worked the whole night and the
whole of the day ad libitum.'1”* This Act only prohibited the
work of young persons (z.<?., from thirteen to eighteen) from
exceeding twelve hours per day, and that of others fifteen
hours. Even this legislative measure was nullified by inhuman
employers, who succeeded in circumventing the law by a
complicated system of relieving or shifting hands, moving
about the labourers in the factory, so as to puzzle the inspectors
and elude prosecution. At last, with the agitation of the
Chartists and the repeal of the Corn Laws, came in what is
known as the ten hours movement. After a preliminary Act for
the protection of women and young persons was passed, the
punctilious minutiae of which showed the difficulty of the
law in coping with the slippery manipulation of the employers
of labour, the ten hours’ labour day was fixed by Parliament,
which came into operation in 1848, notwithstanding the
opposition of the free trade advocates—Cobden and Bright.
A powerful reaction followed after this, during which the
employers dismissed many of their hands, and, with more
or less success, tried to escape the consequences of this
Act of Parliament, f
. The history of the past eighty years warrants the operative
in mistrusting the manufacturer. He cannot be blamed if now
he mistrusts him, when possibly “competition” has run his
(the manufacturer’s) profits to a minimum. The merchant
mistrusts the manufacturer, for when circumstances favoured
manufacturers, they made enormous profits and commanded
them. The merchant paid the prices asked and was glad to
do so, he had no alternative. Now so-called over-production
and competition have turned the scales, the merchant dictates
to the manufacturer. They mistrust each others’ representa
tions as to fair prices and reasonable profits.
Confidence and open and fair dealing can alone secure
* See Report of Inspectors of Factories, 30th April, i860, p. 51.
t See “Socialism." By the Rev. M. Kaufman, B.A. Founded on Dr.
Schliffle’s work, “ Kapitalismus und Socialismus,” p. 171.
�OPPRESSION OF SEAMSTRESSES.
71
prosperity to these warring interests. Society can only be
benefited, by morality in industrial affairs, fédéralisation can
alone make these clashing interests mutual and. harmonious.
But to resume, and give further illustrations of the in
equities in distribution.
In the auxiliary trades, those of the dressmaker, the seam
stress, the slop-maker, the same injustices in distribution
exist.
A common cotton shirt is sold by the retailer at 2 s. 3d to
2S. 6d. per shirt. This shirt is made of 3^ yards of cotton,
costing 4|d. per yard; the making up is done by contract.
The contractor cuts out the garments to the proper shapes and
sizes, and puts them out to seamstresses or machinists to sew.
The contractor finds the buttons, but the labourer finds needles
and sewing thread, and provides herself with a sewing machine.
The contractor, or organizer of this labour, receives 3s. per
dozen, or 3d. per shirt for the whole work. Out of this he
pays the seamstress is. çd. per dozen, or ifd. per shirt, for the
making. A seamstress at this work, by working eighty hours,
cannot make more than 10s. per week. The shirt thus costing
is. 6d., is retailed at 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. The poor sewingmachine girl, whose labour goes to make it an article of
value and exchange, is just kept from starvation—simply exist
ing; her labour brings to the distributor 50 per cent. gain.
For every penny paid in wages to every operative con
tributing their labour to make the cloth, the buttons, the sew
ing thread, and the shirt, the consumer is charged 3d.
This is by no means an overdrawn case. Thousands of
women and girls in London are working at starvation wages,
making garments of one kind or another, not one of which gets
into the hands of the public under 50 per cent, on cost of pro
duction. On September 27th, 1884, the following extract was
taken from the Daily Telegraph :—
“ A distressing case of starvation was investigated by a
coroner’s jury in Hackney, yesterday. It was shown by
medical evidence that a widow, thirty-five years of age, who
�72
DISTRIBUTION REBORN.
worked as an upholstress, and earned only about 4s. a week,
had starved herself, in order to provide food for her child.”
The report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of
the Working Classes says :—“ Sack-making and slop tailoring
are two occupations carried on to a great extent in the homes
of the poor, and they are both remunerated at starvation wages.”
If the proposed Royal Commission on trade depression will
follow up this question, I have no doubt it will find these
starvation wages, like the exorbitant rents these poor beings
have to. pay, leave a very handsome profit to the middleman
employing them and selling their labour.
We will now take an article of luxury, Buckingham lace.
The making of this lace is done entirely by hand. The work
is of a most skilled and dexterous kind. The worker has so
many bobbins and pins to manipulate, she does as it were the
work of a Jacquard engine and a loom with her hands. At
this work, a good worker will make 4s. per week, and in that
week will make one yard of lace of moderate width and good
design. The only cost of production beyond the woman’s
labour is the cost of the cotton thread or yarn. If we allow
the manufacturer who supplies this thread and organizes the
labour 3s. per yard for the cost of same and his profit, we have
this Buckingham lace costing 7s. per yard to produce. What
is it retailed at ? If you go to a West End shop to buy it, you
are told how scarce it is, and how real lace is being put out of
the market by the cheap power-loom lace; but there is yet
something so rich and rare in real lace, although it is made by
hand, and labour is scarce, they oblige their customers by
keeping it. What we saw cost 7 s. per yard to produce is sold
at from 15s. to 21s. per yard. The poor lacemaker works
incessantly from morn to night for the starvation wage of 4s.
per week.
The lacemakers in Devonshire making 11 Honiton, Valen
ciennes,” and other laces, are as miserably paid; their labour
yields a good return to the dealers. A narrow lace, for which
the maker is paid iod. per yard, is retailed at is. 9d.
�OPPRESSION OF LACE-MAKERS.
73
Real lace making is a domestic industry, a remnant of the
pre-machinery days. It is one of those industries that can be
and is carried on in villages. Middlemen do not so much as
in other trades stand between the producer and the consumer.
The large retailers, from all parts of the country, go to Devon
shire to buy. They go round to the cottages of the lace makeis
and buy their small stocks. Yet the foregoing illustrations show
how inequitable and one-sided is the division of the proceeds of
their industry. The lace-maker, who is in most cases her own
master, buying her own cotton-thread, selling her product
direct to the retailer, is as much depressed and as miserably
paid as the seamstress in a crowded town working for a
iC master.’’ There is only one remedy, namely, a thoiough
reform in the system of distribution and a moral standard and
method of exchange.
The marvellously cheap pocket-handkerchief is retailed at
3 id., leaving a profit on cost of production of seventy-five per
cent., the poor woman making it, that is cutting and hemming
it, is paid one penny per dozen, less than one-eighth of a penny
each, scraping six shillings a week together by constant toil,
just a little more than a pauper’s relief.
A gentleman whom I know was recently interested in the
transfer of a small property of the value of ^540. When the
transfer was completed the lawyer’s bill was presented amount
ing to ¿£15. A protest was made against what was deemed to
be an exorbitant charge for the small amount of trouble the
lawyer was put to, but the lawyer replied that he could have
charged much more if he had claimed all the rules regulating
such charges allowed. A charge of ^15 for the transfer of
^540 worth of property may seem excessive. I am by no
means going to defend or justify lawyers’ charges, but what
think ye of the cost of transferring ^540 of goods from the
hands of the producer into the hands of consumers. What the
lawyer did for £15 the various distributors will not do for less
than ^180 to ^200, in other words, goods for which the
producer receives £>3^® are sold to consumers at not
�74
distribution reform.
less than ^720. Such are the excessive charges for the
transfer.
Inequities in the distribution of the proceeds of industry
are to be found m all trades and every calling. The large and
elegant restaurants and hotels in London are remarkable for
their grandeur. People wonder how they can pay. In many
of them the profit on the labour of the waiters would yield a
large revenue. In some establishments a charge of three
pence each person is made for attendance, at table d’/ibte; a
waiter is paid 12s. a week for his services from 5 p.m. to
u.30 or 12 o’clock midnight. In this time he will serve
an average of fifteen dinners. He has to make good all
breakages and omissions. The proprietor thus receives from
every fifteen patrons 3s. 9d. for attendance, out of which he
gives the waiter 2s. An establishment having seventy waiters,
and there are several employing such a number, will thus make
4 5 12s. 6d. per day profit out of the waiters’ labour; that
wijl make ^33 15s. od. per week, or ^1,755 a year. Besides
this, out of the deductions made for breakages it keeps up
the stock of glass and china. The few gratuities the waiter
receives, and these are not many when attendance is charged,
are pretty well swallowed up in breakages and fees to servants
in the kitchen.
In other cases the waiter has to pay for the privilege
of having a situation, and makes his income out of fees; as
much as 30s. per week is given as a premium for a place.
On ten waiters as much as ^780 per annum is cleared by the
proprietor out. of waiters’ labour. It is calculated there are
4,000 waiters in London. All is not gold that glitters with
them; they are hard worked, have to be at the beck and call
of every one, to be polite when insulted, and submissive when
bullied. 1 he profit made on their labour pays a great portion
of the rental and expenses of large establishments.
An amusing and interesting incident in the experience of a
French waiter on his first coming to England was recently
related to me by the waiter himself. Being desirous of learning
�OPPRESSION OF WAITERS.
75
to speak English, he applied at a first-class cafe-restaurant in
London for a situation. He asked to see the proprietor, and
was favoured with an audience. The proprietor inquired the
nature of the business about which he sought the interview.
The waiter replied that he was anxious to secure a situation as
waiter. In answer to further inquiries, he stated that he could
speak French, German, and Italian, and had come over to
England to perfect himself in English also. The proprietor
replied that he thought he could give him a situation. /I’he
waiter then asked what the wages would be. “ Wages !
exclaimed the proprietor, “ I pay no wages. You will have to
give me 30s. a week for the place.” i£ What! shouted the
waiter, “ me pay you ? No fear. In my country we get paid
for working-; in this country the waiter must pay, must he, for
the privilege of working ? Good day. That won’t do for me.”
These illustrations of the injustice of our system of distribu
tion may be carried on to an indefinite extent. I have given
sufficient to prove my case, and I trust more than sufficient to
enlist the sympathy and co-operation of all earnest readers in
an effort of reform.
�CHAPTER VIII.
On the Difficulties that will be seen in the Way of any Attempt at Reform by
the hard-headed Practical Man—The Evils of Distribution are of Modern
Growth—A Glance at the Economic and Social Condition of English
Village Life before the Industrial Revolution—In it there was no Waste
in Distribution, no Middlemanism—Primitive Village Communities and
“ Neutral Ground ” for Markets for the Exchange of Surplus Productions
—The Need of making Distribution Neutral Ground to-day—The Co
operative Movement, and its Failure in carrying out the Principles of True
Co-operation—The Essentials of True Co-operation explained.
Before passing on to the treatment of the measures for the
reform of this deplorable condition of affairs, it will be oppor
tune to notice here one or two questions and objections that
have been and will again be urged.
First of all there will be the objection of our candid, practi
cal, and hard-headed friend, his objection may be summarized
in the expression of his regret at the evils and injustices
abounding, in a professed sympathy for all suffering, but the
stumbling-block with him is how is it to be reformed. He will
profess a belief in a higher life, and talk of the rights of man,
but his severely practical turn of mind brings him to the
question—how is it to be done. He asks to see the remedy
explained, he half-heartedly professes a belief in co-operation,
but cannot see how it is possible to make it work, the time for
action with the severely practical man is rarely very opportune.
Our candid and practical friend is so hard-headed, ideas do not
easily enter his brain, profit and interest, the craftiness of com
petition, the race for wealth, make his nature unimpressionable
to other considerations, the higher life and the reforms and
progress he professes to believe in he can scarcely think
possible.
The hard-headed practical man is, moreover, a professed
believer in Christianity; he attends church or chapel on each
�VESTED INTERESTS AND REFORM.
77
^turning Sabbath; presumably, for his practical turn of .mind,
and his assumed godly life, he is made an office-bearer in the
church. When one comes to reason with this professing
Christian, to dwell upon the glaring evils and outrages on
Christian teaching that meet the observing eye at every turn,
if one points out the misery and wretchedness, the hopelessness
of thousands of labourers, and the sumptuous ease and luxury
of their employers—if one should make mention of the golden
rule, or call attention to Christ’s parables and exhortations and
the lessons they teach, the hard-headed practical man, the
professing Christian will boldly turn round and declare that the
Christian religion is very nice in theory, beautiful for a life of
seclusion, but is utterly inapplicable to every-day life, and can
not be practised. Miserable hypocrite ! he will lecture what
he calls the lower orders on the duties of the servant to the
master ; he will recite to them what he thinks suitable of the
beatitudes, but he never seeks to learn, nor learning, strives to
fulfil his duty to his fellows, nor discharge his obligations to
society. If there be any social evils which are crying for
redress, the hard-headed practical man will coolly refer you to
the State. The evils may be the outcome of personal greed
and the grabbing and injustice of “private enterprise, but no
matter—the hard-headed and practical class believe in no resti
tution; vested interests, no matter on what injustice and iniquity
they may have been vested, must be respected; local taxes
must be relieved by the State; in fact, the State must do and
relieve anything and everything, but the pocket of the hard
headed, practical man must not part with a single fartning.
What we as yet know of State Socialism, and what we may
have to endure of future Socialistic legislation is, and will be,
because an outraged public opinion demands the strong arm of
the State to redress the wrongs and injustices brought about by
the hard-headed, phlegmatic, selfish, so-called practical man of
the world.
I have heard of a clergyman in the Church of England who,
n conviction, was a convert to disestablishment, but for many
�7*
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
years he held on to his living; when old age came on eventually
he resigned his charge, and was free to give expression to his
convictions , he was asked how it was he had not resigned and
given up his. living sooner, he replied, “ I was blinded with
^400 a year in one eye, and ^400 a year prevented the sight
of the other, I could not see it.” Our candid and practical
friend is similarly blinded, so was the young man who went to
Christ and asked what good thing he should do to have eternal
life, had not he kept the commandments, and does not our
candid friend also keep them according to his reading of them ?
The real stumbling block of our candid friend, like the one
that sent the young man away sorrowful, is that he has
great possessions.
It is to the hard-headed and practical man that we might
recommend a study of Burke’s noble words
“ If we make
ourselves too little for the sphere of our duty, if, on the
contrary, we do not stretch and expand our minds to the com
pass of the object, be well assured that everything about us will
dwindle by degrees until at length our concerns are shrunk to
the dimensions of our minds. It is not a predilection to mean,
sordid, home-bred cares that will avert the consequences of a
false estimation of our interest or prevent the shameful dilapid
ation into which a great Empire must fall by mean reparation
upon mighty ruins.”
Practical hardheadness in the race for wealth has well-nigh
upset the coach , the race has certainly engrossed us so very
much, our minds have made us too little for the sphere of our
duty; here we are with an abundance of wealth and do not
know how to find a use for it, and all the while thousands are
in want and unable to have the opportunity of using the wealth
and making it, like the earth whence it has come, reproduc
tive ; practical hardheadness, without heart and a sense of man’s
duty to his neighbour, has run its course; its salvation for the
remnant of its days lies in helping on the reforms that shall
distribute the wealth which may hereafter come of the employ
ment of the wealth already created.
�THE LAISSER FAIRE POLICY.
79
There is a large body of opinion represented by influential
advocates professedly brimming with sympathy for the interests
of the masses, and also professedly disciples of the religion
proclaiming the rights of man. This section of the community
are devotees of the laisser faire policy. They point out the
vast growth of English industry and commerce, and give tables
of assessed incomes and statistics of the growth of capital, and
hold these up as a grand example of the triumph of indivi
dualism and private enterprise. Now if, as they admit, there
is much to be reformed, many injustices and much suffering to
be removed, ere the lot of the masses can be considered
satisfactory, how can this be done except by joint action ?
The evils we deplore are the outcome of individualism and
private enterprise. Whilst I am a believer in the “ laisser faire
policy ” as regards legislative action, I am not a believer in it
in industrial affairs. On the contrary, I am of opinion that the
present condition can only be remedied by corporate or federal
action, by laws and customs which shall be founded on truth
and justice, and which shall be enforced by the moral sense of
our duties one to another, and by a healthy public opinion,
which happily in its collective expression is invariably on the
side of right and truth.
“ A free industry in a free state ” can and will be brought
about and perfected without legislative interference. In fact,
legislation would prevent its consummation. An objection
which may also be anticipated is after the following order:—
“ Yes,” some will say, “ the difference in price betwixt cost of
production and consumers’ prices is no doubt great, but it
cannot be done cheaper. There are great expenses in dis
tribution. Look at the cost of rents, rates and taxes, interest
on capital employed, cost of wages, and expenses of advertising,
and the risk of loss by bad stock, and the evils of the credit
system.” To such objections the sufficient answer is ready in
turning to the achievements of existing co-operative distributive
societies. The co-operative societies giving returns to the
Central Co-operative Board, show a total amount of retail sales
�8o
DIS THIB UTION REFOR. \I.
amounting to about ^25,000,000 per annum.
*
The cost of
distribution is covered at from five to six per cent, on the
turnover, including interest on capital, depreciation of stock,
rent and taxes, wages, and all other expenses. The 50 to 100
per cent, profit consumers now pay is, therefore, a manifest tax
on industry, a limitation of consumption, and hence of em
ployment.
Public opinion, founded on Christian morals and Mosaic
teaching, has for ages condemned usury. To-day our judges
do not spare the lender of money at usurious rates of interest
in the cases that come before them; the money-lender who is
known to advance money at 30, 40, or 50 per cent, interest
puts himself outside the pale of respectable society, but a
tradesman who makes 30, 40, or 50 per cent, gross profit on his
sales or by the multiplicity of sales, and the number of times
he turns over the capital employed, makes a nett profit on
capital of 50 or 60 per cent., is considered a smart man, highly
courted by society. If usury is an outrage upon morals, what
must an excessive and depressing costliness of the process of
distribution be ! They each form a ruinous and extortionate tax
on labour; each depress honest and reproductive production
and consumption. Economically they stand on precisely the
same ground.
I have already incidentally remarked that the cost of dis
tribution has increased alongside a reduction in cost of produc
tion. I have also referred to primitive society to show that
distribution and production went together hand in hand. We
may further enforce the contention that the evils of distribution
are of very modern growth, by taking a glance at the economic
social condition of English village life, as it existed within the
memory of many now living. The village combined agricul
tural with industrial occupation, the click of the loom was
* The total amount of sales shown in the general summary for 1884 is
„£31,053,628. This includes the sales of the productive societies and the whole
sale society; they together amount to „£6,305,296. If we deduct them, we
h ive a gross return of aiout ^25,000,000 retail sales.
�MIDDLEMANISM A MODERN GROW TEL
heard in the cottages; the farm-yard and the fields, the
cottages and the allotment gardens made a delightful picture
of rural life. The land was mainly freehold; the farmers were
of the yeoman class, mostly owning the land they occupied,
and not unfrequently combined the calling of a clothier or
master manufacturer along with that of farming. The farmer’s
wife, although born with a silver spoon, was industrious and
thrifty, and considered it part of her duty to assist not only
in the work of the house, but also in the management of
affairs; with her own hand she would churn the butter, make
the cheese, cure the bacon and ham, or bake the bread; her
daughters would assist in spinning the yarn, or knitting the
stockings ; from the cloths woven under their supervision they
would, with the assistance of the village dressmaker, make their
own dresses. They knew no middlemen, nor did they pay 50
to 100 per cent, on the cost of production.
If you entered one of the cottages you would find the
master of the house in the “ chamber ” sitting at the loom,
busy throwing the shuttle, weaving the piece of cloth; his
daughter would be sitting at the wheel spinning weft, and the
good wife would be busy with her domestic duties. One son
would be out working on the land for the farmer, another
would be working on the weaver’s allotment. If you ask them
how they get along, they will tell you they are quite contented;
the father earns about 15s. a week by weaving, the daughters
earn a little by spinning. But this is not their only source of
providing the necessities of life : down in their little allotment
plot they grow their own vegetables, and a little crop of oats,
which they have ground into oatmeal for making their porridge ;
they also keep a pig or two, and provide their own bacon and
ham. A glorious time they have at the pig-killing feast; their
neighbours are all welcome, and all partake of the good things
of that festive time. They are on good terms with the master
manufacturer—that is, the gentleman who gives them warp and
weft to weave into cloth. He is also a large farmer; in the
hay harvest and com harvest they have all a fine time in the
G
�82
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
fields, giving a hand to the cutting, the harvesting, and home
carrying of the crops; they buy a sack of wheat from the
farmer at the current market price of the raw produce, and
send it down to the miller to grind and dress ; the corn-mill
is driven by water power, or may be it is a windmill. The
miller combines the agricultural with the milling enterprise,
and is also a small farmer. The miller charges 6d. a bushel
for grinding and dressing the wheat; his cart on its journey to
the village delivers the flour, and the bran and sharps; the
weaver thus obtains the flour, “ the staff of life,” simply at the
market price—the cost of production plus the cost of milling,
which averages only about 2s. per sack of wheat, or say less
than 2d. per stone. The bran and the sharps help to feed the
pigs; there is no waste, no middleman’s profit, no cost of dis
tribution.
The village handicraftsmen, the carpenter, the stone-mason,
the blacksmith, the painter, the plumber, &c., supply themselves
with the necessities of life in a similar way. Each has his bit
of land, each may keep his pigs and poultry or a cow, all get
their cloth direct from c< the maker ” or wheat from the grower,
middlemanism and expensive distribution are unknown. The
pedlar or the packman may come round occasionally ; they
may buy a few trinkets or a bit of ribbon from the pedlar for the
wife, to make her look fine on the Sunday, or from the pack
man they may buy a pound of tea, which is used as a luxury on
Sundays and holidays. But these are not necessities, they
are their little luxuries. Their chief articles of food are pro
duced from the land immediately surrounding them. Their
means of subsistence and comfort are not to be computed by the
amount of their earnings in money wages, but on the produce
of their bit of land and the ease and cheapness with which they
can obtain other necessities.
One or other of the farmers would combine the trade of
butcher, weekly he would kill the sheep and oxen sufficient for
the small needs of the village. The cattle would be of his own
rearing or bought from another of his neighbouring farmers; on
�VILLAGE LIFE FORTY YEARS AGO.
83
Friday the barn doors would be thrown open, the villagers
could examine the carcases hanging there and order the cut
they would like, on the Saturday the whole would be cut up
and distributed, if any pieces remained, there you would find
them for sale laid on a beautifully-clean trestle. There was no
shop, with its rent and expenses. The farmer was a butcher
only two days a week, he worked his farm the rest of his time,
and did not absolutely rely on the sale of meat for his liveli
hood. In the supplying of meat there was no middleman, no
extensive system of trafficking and exchange.
When a villager wanted coals the following was the method
of supplying the want. He would engage a farmer to send two
horses and two carts to the colliery, may be some ten miles
distant; on arrival there the teamster would wait his turn to be
“ filled.”
After having his carts filled with coal he would take
them on to the weighing-machine, and there, on receiving the
note indicating the net weight and the price of the coal, he
would pay the amount out of the money with which he had
been provided for that purpose. On his arrival back at the
village he would deliver the coal and at the same time present
the note. The villager would settle any differences between
the amount indicated thereon, and the amount he had provided
the teamster with, and besides this he would pay the usual
charge for a day’s hire of the two horses and carts and man,
amounting to about 6s. The villager thus obtained his coals
direct from the colliery at the market price at the pit’s mouth.
There was no middlemanism, no usury, no exchange, the price
paid for leading for a journey of twenty miles there and back
was little more than is charged to-day by the coal merchant forleading a couple of miles. The number of merchants and
middlemen now existing in some branches of the coal trade it
would be difficult to define.
The surplus productions of the village were dealt with in
the most economical way. The cloth was taken on market
days by the master clothier to the market town, and there sold
to merchants who exported or to any home buyer who wanted
the
g
2
�84
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
it or found a market for it. One part of the day the master
clothier would be busy selling cloth, at another time he would
be selling his surplus wheat or farm produce or buying a little
wool to help out the insufficiency of the local growth. In all
this there was the simplest economy. No agencies nor broker
ages—the personal expenses and cost of the day’s marketing
would altogether be less than the manufacturer of to-day
spends on the bottle of wine he takes to dinner, to say nothing
of the dinner itself, and a hundred other expenses attending
the sale of his goods.
In these good old days of village industry and mutual
interchange of products honest work was considered sacred
and ennobling; the lives of the villagers were too simple and
natural for them to take any delight in mastering the craftiness
and subtleties of distribution and exchange.
In primitive times the village communities bought and sold
their surplus productions on neutral ground. At several points
where the “ frontiers ” of the villages converged there appear to
have been spaces of what we should now call neutral ground.
“ These were the markets. They were probably the only
places at which the members of the different primitive groups
met for any purpose except warfare, and the persons who came
to them were doubtless at first persons specially empowered to
exchange the produce and manufactures of one little village
community for those of another.” * Under existing system the
producer of to-day in the sale of his productions does not stand
on neutral ground, he runs with open eyes into warlike terri
tory, every man’s hand is against him and his hand is against
every man ; there is no neutrality, no trustfulness, no true co
operation. It will be by making neutral ground for the
exchange and distribution of products that producer and con
sumer will eventually have justice meted to them; it will be
by making an active neutrality of exchange and distribution
that social peace and progress will be established, and class
feuds and strifes allayed.
* Village Communities, p. 192.
�THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
85
I believe in the progress of man ; present evils I reckon,
but the storm that will clear the atmosphere and leave to
morrow fresher and brighter than to-day. With Plato, I believe
the soul is “ Unwillingly deprived of truth.” By education and
lessons of a trying practical experience the people will ere long
learn the truth of this trade depression and the inequities of the
method and systems of distribution ; ere long the truth will be
fearned of the economic changes brought about by the new
Ifoethod of production and the displacement of the old, of the
breaking down of national barriers in the interchange of com
modities, and the opening up of vast new continents and
islands, and the annihilation of time in communication and
travel—once the truths of these changes are realised and fully
appreciated, and society conforms to the application of the
lessons these truths teach us, social progress and happiness will
be as marvellous as have been the progress of physical science,
the application of machinery to production, and the vast
economies in the cost of production during the past eighty
years.
A paper prepared by a committee of the American Social
Science Association, and read at its meeting at Cincinnati in
1878, gives a very vivid account of the displacement of labour
by machinery. After giving a very graphic and minute descrip
tion of domestic production, and comparing the same with the
results of labour-saving appliances, the general effects are sum
marised as follows :—
“ 1. It has broken up and destroyed our whole system of
agriculture as practised by our fathers, which required the
whole time and attention of all the sons of the farm, and many
from the towns, in never-ending duties of food production, and
has driven them to towns and cities to hunt for employment, or
remain in great part idle.
“ 2. It has broken up and destroyed our whole system of
household and family manufactures, as done by our mothers,
when all took part in the labour and shared in the product, to
the comfort of all ; and has compelled the daughters of our
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DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
country and towns to factory operations for ten to twelve hours
a day in the manufacture of cloth they may not wear, though
next to nakedness in the shivering blast ; or to the city to ply
their needles for eighteen or twenty hours a day, in hunger
and cold ; or to the streets in thousands, spinning yarns and
weaving webs that become their shrouds.
“3. It has broken up and destroyed our whole system of
working in wood and iron and leather in small shops of one,
two, or it may be half-a-dozen workmen, in every town, village,
or hamlet in the country, with blacksmith shops in near neigh
bourhood upon every road, where every man was a workman
who could take the rough iron or unshaped wood and uncut
leather and carry it through all its operations, until a thoroughly
finished article was produced, and has compelled all to produc
tion in large shops, where machinery has minutely divided all
work, requiring only knowledge and strength enough to attend
a machine that will heel shoes or cut nails, or card wool, or
spin yarn, or do some other small fraction of a complete whole.
“ 4. It has broken up and destroyed our whole system of
individual and independent action in production and manufac
ture, where any man who possessed a trade by his own hands
could at once make that trade his support and means of ad
vancement, free of control by any other man, and has com
pelled all working men and women to a system of communal
work, where, in hundreds and thousands, they are forced to
labour with no other interest in the work than is granted to
them in the wages paid for so much toil ; with no voice, no
right, no interest in the product of their hands and brains, but
subject to the uncontrolled interest and caprice of those who,
too often, know no other motive than that of avarice.
“ 5. It has so enormously developed the power of produc
tion as to far outstrip man’s utmost power of consumption,
enabling less than one-half of the producing and working
classes, working ten hours a day, to produce vastly more than
a market can be found for ; filling our granaries, warehouses,
depots, and stores with enormous amounts of products of every
�THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED.
8/
description, for which there is no sale, though never before
offered at such low prices—with multitudes of men and women
in the greatest want—being without food, clothing, shelter—
without work, and consequently without means to obtain the
Simplest necessaries of life.
“ 6. It has thrown out of employment substantially one-half
of the working classes ; in fact, it has utterly destroyed all
regular or constant employment for any considerable class in
any industry, and is constantly and steadily displacing able and
willing men, and filling their places with women and children,
leaving no place to be filled by, and no demand for, the con
stantly increasing numbers developed in our increase of popu
lation, in this way adding to the number of the unemployed.
It takes married women in thousands from their maternal
cares and duties, and children but little more than infants from
the schools, putting them to the care of machinery and its
work, until quite one-third of the machine tenders in our
country are women and children; thus breaking down the
mothers, slaughtering the infants, and giving employment to
any who obtain it only upon such conditions of uncertainty,
insecurity, competition with the workless, and steady reduction
in wages, as create a constant struggle to obtain the little work
they do have, and get such compensation for it as will barely
support life even when in health.
“ These points show clearly the changes which have taken
place in all our industries within a period of little more than
half a century—changes greater than the world has before
known during its whole existence.”
This is a picture of the effects and changes wrought by
machinery that may be called the dark side; but there is a
bright side. The mastery of science, and the inventiveness of
which the introduction of labour-saving machinery is proof, is
but the further fulfilment of man’s mission, given to him in
the Divine command to have dominion over the earth and to
subdue it. The problem we have to solve—and here comes
the application of social and economic science and morality—■
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DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
is, How can these great economies in production be made to
minister to man’s happiness and real progress ? In the estima
tion of the earlier economists increased production was neces
sary as an instrument of social progress. We have now
attained that increased production; the problem is the distribu
tion of the undoubted means to happiness and progress that
it makes possible. The remedy lies in the establishment of a
moral system of exchange, that shall give to the present pro
ducer, although he may only tend a loom or a threshingmachine, as fair a share of the proceeds of his labour and his
increased productiveness as his predecessor, the domestic pro
ducer, obtained in the more primitive days.
The question has been asked, is not the co-operative
movement doing much to mitigate the evils of which you
complain ?
The only reply I can make is that in England, after fifty
years of talking and preaching, we have not yet seen a solid
and earnest effort made -to demonstrate and prove the blessings
that will yet come from true co-operation.
The praises of co-operation have been sung since the days
of Robert Owen, by all the professors of political economy, by
social reformers of all shades of opinion; statesmen and
Parliamentary candidates and politicians have, for the sake of
standing well with the working classes, extolled the benefits of
co-operation and association ; but, notwithstanding all this, the
question has not been seriously and earnestly taken in hand.
No doubt a cause of this has been the ease with which money
has been made in private enterprise during the past forty years;
the race for wealth has made us indifferent to the higher duties
and purposes of life ; the motto has been “ Own self first, and
the devil take the hindmost.” Now the results of such a
selfish policy are being seen we are by degrees opening our
eyes to perceive that- the condition of the hindmost has some
how a great influence on the well-being of oneself. The hap
piness of the individual may be estimated by looking at the
numbers and the social and economic condition of the masses.
�THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT.
89
Co-operative distribution has done something to mitigate
the evils of distribution—it has divided amongst its members
the easily earned profits made in retail trading, and has
demonstrated the advantages and success to be gained by
association ; just as we are thankful to free trade for the
partial good it has done and the improvement it made on the
pre-existing condition of affairs, so are we thankful to co
operative distribution for the partial good it has done.
Both the free trade movement and the co-operative move
ment have partially laid hold of great and noble principles;
each only require fully applying for the good of the whole
community. A principle in each of them is that they know no
class interests. The individual who seeks for wealth and
honour, and happiness, must find them in the services he has
rendered his fellows and the benefits he has conferred on the
community.
The co-operative movement may be described as consisting
of 1,284 joint stock limited companies of 764,000 members,
engaged in trading for their mutual benefit and gain.
*
The
share capital is about £8,328,720, and loan capital £1,690,520.
On this capital they make a net profit of £2,735,170, equal to
27I per cent, (these figures include the capital employed and
the profits made in the so-called co-operative productive
societies. These show worse results in profit making than the
retail distributive societies ; if the profits were taken on capital
employed in distribution only they would show about 32 per
cent.) In the returns of the Manchester District Co-operativg
Association, which in 1883 had sales amounting to £1,264,773
and net profits .£150,299, the disposal of the profits is par
* The societies recognised by the Central Co-operative Board are alone
worthy of being included in the co-operative movement. The Civil Service
Stores prosper on the very worst evils of middlemanism. If all the goods for
home consumption were distributed on the principles on which they are
worked we should have producers beggared, until at last it would not be worth
while producing anything at all. The Civil Service Stores sacrifice the rights
of producers for the benefit of their shareholders and their members. There
is no mutuality of interests, no morality in exchange.
�ço
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
ticularised. The sum of >£"143,960 was distributed as members’
dividend and only £’1,004 in non-members’ dividend, £"2,287
was placed to the educational fund, which is a very pleasant
and unobtrusive system of advertising; £1,645 was placed to
reserve fund, and other sundry items, amounting to >£1,433,
were employed in additional depreciation, etc. etc. I find no
participation in profits by the storemen nor assistants in the
stores, nor do I find any participation in profits by producers.
The Manchester District Co-operative Association may be
taken as a sample of the working of the whole of the Co
operative Stores. It is no unfairness to say that there is a
want of evidence that it is actuated by the principles of true
co-operation in the working of it.’"
The wholesale co-operative society is a gigantic concern,
established to supply the smaller retail distributive societies.
Its share capital is subscribed by the distributive societies. It
has a turnover of >£4,675,371, and is the proprietor of four
productive societies, doing a business of >£162,149 in 1884,
and making a net profit thereon of >£5,675, but it does not
divide a single farthing of these profits amongst its workers.
It is a sham to represent these societies as co-operative. The
Co-operative Wholesale Society is a gigantic middleman ; in its
workshops it pays the lowest of competition wages ; in the
language of one of the workers in one of the shoe factories,
“ the workmen have to work for what they can get, they know
there is no true co-operation.” In its transactions with other
* Further evidence of the fact that this so-called co-operation is no benefit
to producers is found in an analysis of the sales of the Afanchester District
Co-operative Association. Encouragement of home productions seems to have
no concern for these co-operative societies ; one would think that in working
men's co-operative societies the promotion of home industries would be the first
duty. Out of total sales of ¿1,264,773 in 1883, only ¿9,195 was in farm and
dairy produce, ¿58,199 in drapery, ¿7,553 in tailoring, and ¿733 in furnish
ing ; these are very small sums proportionately to the gross turn over; they are
branches of trade in which home industry could be encouraged. Butchering is
credited with ¿129,134, grocery with ¿1,014,691; in these branches of trade
the interests of home producers and home workers were no more studied than
in any non-co-operative trading establishment.
�THE SINS OF CO-OPERATORS.
QI
producers it pays the lowest of competition prices; the profits
made out of the retail prices are distributed amongst the
members, labour is depressed. In short, it is as far from dis
playing a single feature of real co-operation as any private trader
is who uses the weapons of competition and capitalism for his
personal ends, regardless of the interests of others.
The Co-operative Labour Association, whose principal
object is to recognise the combined interests of capital and
labour, and advocate the introduction of co-partnerships of
labour in productive enterprise, is largely composed of members
of the co-operative movement. In a conference just held, a
resolution was passed asking “ the committee of the Labour
Association to point out in a fraternal spirit to the Wholesale
Co-operative Society the grave injury they are doing to the
cause of co-operation by their failure to carry out co-operative
principles in their productive works, and to offer their services
in discussing practical means of placing the wholesale woikshops upon a true co-operative basis.” The members of the
co-operative movement are therefore not satisfied with the
evasion of true co-operative principles their societies are
showing.
But not only is the Wholesale Society doing a grave injury
to the cause of co-operation; the distributive societies them
selves fail to fulfil the first condition of true co-operation. An
industrial community is made up of producers and consumers.
The first necessity of a man’s existence—especially of a work
ing man—is that he must produce something to live. In
these days of divisions of labour and concentration a workman
does not live on the article or part of an article he produces,
he lives on the exchangeable value of the wages he receives.
These wages are supposed to represent the money value of the
labour he has contributed. Distribution here comes in j its
business is to supply the wants of consumers and find a
market for the productions of producers. A workman may be
engaged in making shoes at Leicester ; by the aid of machinery
and minute divisions of labour four workmen may produce,
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DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
say, 1,000 pairs of shoes a year. Out of their wages, con
sidering they have other things to provide besides shoes, they
can only buy, say, two pairs each per year; there are, there
fore, 992 pairs of shoes to be distributed. A market will be
found for some in London, for others in Bristol, and others,
say, in Leeds. Workmen are engaged in making woollen cloth
at Leeds, just in the same way as the boot and shoe makers
are at Leicester. They can buy a few pairs of shoes, but must
first exchange the cloth they have put their labour into. In
exchange for cloth the boot and shoe makers at Leicester
willingly supply the boots and shoes. In like manner the
farmer and agricultural labourer produce vastly more than they
can consume ; they exchange their surplus productions for
other necessaries of life. They take boots from the boot
maker, cloth from the cloth manufacturer, hats from the hat
maker, furniture from the upholsterer, and all these take the
productions of the farm in exchange for their manufactures.
It is therefore the function of distribution to be the medium
of exchange between producers and consumers ; it takes from
one producer that which he has made but does not need for
his own consumption; and gives him back that which he
requires, the same having been made by some other producer
which he could not use ; unless this distribution is economised
and organised, and made mutual for the benefit of producers_
who are also the consumers—it is evident that it will become
nothing less than usury; now my contention is that just
because this most important function of distribution has not
been performed for the mutual benefit of producers and con
sumers, but on the contrary has been performed for the selfish
interests of distributors, whose interests are alien to those of
the classes they profess to serve—for this they must be when,
as I have shown, the producer is depressed and the consumer
extorted—I say my contention is that distribution has become
a system of usury, detrimental to the well-being of the country.
The duty of co-operation is to make distribution mutual, and
remove from it the stigma of usury. The first condition of
�PRINCIPLES OF TRUE CO-OPERATION.
93
true co-operation is therefore that the producer should not be
unduly depressed, but should receive value for value, measure
for measure, in the exchange of his labour. Co-operative
distribution has only grasped half the principle of true co
operation ■ in buying goods the stores support middlemanism |
they do not buy first hand, and do not in any way seek to
restore labour to its rightful position in productive enterprise.
After the payment of capital employed in distribution and all
other legitimate expenses necessary for the discharge of the
function of distribution, half the surplus profits are as much
the right of the producer as they are of the consumer, but this
co-operation takes the whole of the profits for its members.
It can be on no other footing than that which I have laid
down, that production can be honestly and fairly treated, and
the interests of producer and consumer made mutual. Until
this principle is recognised and acted upon, until distribution
is made a moral and equitable system of exchange, freed from
the taint of usury, it will be futile to expect that labour
partnerships can be founded, or associations of capital and
labour successfully established in productive enterprise ; the
profits more easily made in retail distribution cannot be
separated and treated of themselves ; they must be joined to
those of production before true co-operation can exist, or ever
the rights of labour can be recognised or justly dealt with.
In subsequent chapters on the treatment of the remedy for
existing evils, I hope to be able to show how distribution may
be made mutual and true co-operation established.
I have had the pleasure of discussing this question with Mr.
Lloyd Jones and Mr. Thomas Hughes, each of them veterans
in the co-operative movement. I but give expression to their
convictions and sentiments when I say that they look upon
existing systems of co-operation as but a stepping stone to the
good that will yet come when co-operation in production and
distribution are joined together ; by no other plan can the pro
ducer be made partaker in his fair share of the proceeds of his
labour, for the market price is what the consumer pays, the
�94
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
pioducer can only benefit in his share of the proceeds by
having distribution in its every form made subversive to, and a
helpmeet of, production.
I had the privilege of being present at the Co-operative
Congress at Oldham when the report of the committee ap
pointed to make inquiry into the state of co-operative produc
tion was considered. The committee did not make a very
encouraging report as to the probabilities of success for new
ventures in productive co-operation. The storm of indignation
and disappioval which this report aroused was good evidence
that the delegates to the Congress did not approve of it. Mr.
Hughes asked if the time was not now ripe for dealing with the
application of their principles to production, when would it be
ripe ? He went so far as to say that unless this question of
applying the principles of co-operation to labour was seriously
taken up and dealt with ere another year passed he would be
ashamed of them. Speaker after speaker expressed similar
views, the opinion seemed to be prevalent that success in dis
tribution, the dividing of the easily-earned profits of retail
trading, which are abnormal, was no remedy for the labour
question.
Besides, the co-operative movement and Civil Service
Stores are not, it may be asked, manufacturers themselves,
economising distribution by selling their productions, if not
direct to the consumer at any rate appealing direct to the con
sumers, and supplying their articles at fixed prices through the
retailers; is there not an economy and a protection to the
consumer in this ? Household requisites and also articles of
dress, whether sold direct by the maker or through retailers,
which are largely advertised, and which rely on continued
expenditure in advertising for a sale, are the dearest articles of
all; the consumer pays for all the cost of puffing and advertising,
and therefore pays a partially self-imposed tax on his own
consumption.
In our large towns stores are now seen with placards on
the windows announcing that they supply clothing direct from
�ON GULLING THE PUBLIC.
95
the factory to the consumer, saving the consumer 25 to
50 per cent. ; it is at once an evidence of the wide margin of
profits already existing, and also of their belief in the credulity
of the public when such an announcement is made. These
stores have no factory; they sometimes buy their cloth from
manufacturers and cut up a few garments and put them out to
tailors to sew, and sweat down the wages of those tailors to
starvation point; much more frequently they buy from slop
makers, and shirt makers, and hatters ; in every sense of the
term they are middlemen of the worst type, making a business
on what they call the “gullibility of the British public.”
In several manufacturing centres there are now firms doing
a large business, solely by advertising; the hit they make on the
public mind is that they represent themselves as manufacturers
selling direct from the mill or manufacturer to the consumer;
these also are middlemen of the worst kind, for they delibe
rately make false representations. They have neither loom nor
spindle. Instead of the public making a saving by buying
from them they pay as much if not more than customary retail
prices, some of these concerns professing to save the consumer
50 per cent., make a minimum profit of 50 per cent, on cost of
production—every yard of stuff they sell is taxed 10 per cent,
for advertising alone.
The economy of distribution is to be found in collectivism
and not individualism; if every manufacturer in the country
sold his goods direct to the consumer middlenianism would
not be got rid of, for the manufacturer would be a middleman
all the same; he would stand between the producers, the
workers, and the consumers; the one would be depressed and
the other extorted, then just as now the public would have no
guarantee either of economy or of equity.
Emerson says the disease with which the human mind now
labours is want of faith. “ Some men do not believe in a
power of education; they do not think we can speak to divine
sentiments in man, and do not try. All high aims are re
nounced. We believe that the defects of so many perverse
�96
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
and so many frivolous people who make up society are organic,
and society is a hospital for incurables.” Like Emerson, I do
not believe in this infidelity and faithlessness ; with Emerson,
I agree that “ life must be lived on a higher plane. We must
go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to
ascend; there the whole aspect of things changes.” It is
because I believe in the attainment of this higher plane of
existence I am writing these pages.
“ Happiness,” says Aristotle, “ is one of those things which
are honourable for their own sakes, and are complete and
perfect in themselves. Among other reasons, it seems to me
to hold this supreme rank from the fact of its being an ultimate
principle. It is for the sake of happiness that we perform all
the actions of our lives ; and that which is an ultimate principle
and the cause of what is good we rank as something honourable
and divine.” * It is with a humble desire to promote happiness
by the morality of our actions in industrial life, in buying
and selling and getting gain, that I ask attention to a treatment
of the remedy in subsequent pages.
* “Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy,” by Hatch, p. 57.
�CHAPTER IX.
The Remedy—The Establishment of Associations for Distribution of Agricul
tural and Industrial Products for Mutual Benefit of Producers and Con
sumers—The Organization of Associations for Mutual Distribution of
Agricultural Produce and Food—The Organization of Associations for
Mutual Distribution of Manufactures, Articles of Dress and Clothing,
Furniture, &c.—The Machinery and Working of the same Explained.
And now to a consideration of the remedy. In a cursory way,
in previous pages, we have roughly dealt with the social
problem. We have seen what wealth is, and what are the
factors in its creation; we have admitted its uses and con
demned its abuses; we have seen primitive society was
constituted on the basis of kinship and co-operative action,
and that modern industrial society is writhing in the agonies of
individual competition and personal gain. Throughout these
pages we have striven to let it be evident that the spirit
actuating the writing of them is one of veneration and reverence
of the All-wise One, and an acknowledgment that all happiness
can alone come of our obedience to the natural law, if by the
aid of revealed and natural religion we will only strive to learn
what that law is, and live in accordance with its teaching,
“ then shall the light rise in obscurity and the darkness be as
the noon-day.”
“ Good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be
necessary consequences of the constitution of things, and it is
the business of moral science to deduce from the laws of life
and the conditions of existence what kinds of actions neces
sarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce
unhappiness.” *
In the work on Socialism by the Rev. Mr. Kaufman, founded
on the German work of Dr. A. E. F. Schaffle, which I have
previously quoted, the concluding paragraph on p. 315 gives
' 11 Data of Ethics,” Mr. Herbert Spencer.
H
�98
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
expression to sentiments which all earnest and thinking men
must reciprocate, and pray for their attainment in actual life.
It says : “ Without uprooting any existing social institutions,
without precipitating the introduction of any additional forms
of economy, we may look forward to the time when the further
spread of knowledge and human culture, social peace shall at
last have been concluded, when the now contending classes
shall have learned the true nature of their common interests,
and the mutual inter-dependence between honest labour and
property honestly acquired. Without any destructive measures
a system may be gradually constructed of a free industry in a
free state, both endued with a new spirit of liberality, general
culture, co-operative discipline, sound morality, and unfeigned
brotherly love.”
The summary of principles laid down by the Society for
Promoting Working Men’s Associations, of which the late Rev.
F. D. Maurice was president, were :—1. That human society is a brotherhood, not a collection of
warring atoms.
2. That true workers should be fellow-workers, not rivals.
3. That a principle of justice, and not selfishness, should
regulate exchanges.
It is on the ethical truth of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the noble
aspirations of Kaufman and Schaffle, and the Christian
principles of the Society for Promoting Working Men’s Associa
tions, the measures of reform I am about to explain are founded.
Of the many laws given to the children of Israel by Moses
fortheir social guidance, one commanded “that they should do
no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in
measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just
hin shall ye have.” Here we have laid down a high moral
standard of exchange.
It is by the establishment of a higher moral standard of
exchange than is possible under existing free and individual
competition that the corner-stone of a remedial measure will be
laid. I therefore recommend agency associations for the retail
�THE REMEDY EXPLAINED.
99
distribution of the products of kindred trades, it being a
principle and condition of their foundation that they be
established as an aid to production on the one hand and a
protection to the consumer on the other.
These Co-operative Associations or Agencies would per
form the twofold function for the mutual benefit of producers
and consumers in the following manner:—
I. The share capital would be raised on the joint stock
principle, with limited liability, in shares of sufficiently small
amount to place them within the means of purchase by the
industrial classes.
II. The management would be vested in a sufficiency but
not a superfluity of directors—a managing director and a
secretary. Their election and re-election being of course vested
in the hands of the shareholders.
III. The shareholders shall have a first claim on net profits
to such an amount as shall pay up to but not beyond five per
cent, per annum on the paid up capital—the said five per cent,
per annum being considered and accepted as a fair and just
return for the usury of the capital employed in these associa
tions, these agencies of distribution.
(A.) Surplus profits shall be distributed as follows :—A
bonus or share in surplus profits shall be given to the managers
and every assistant employed by the associations, the propor
tionate amount of such bonus or share in profits to be decided
upon and fixed by the directorates, the amount, of course, being
entirely dependent on the successful working of the various
departments in the various associations.
(B.) The remaining profits shall be distributed, half to pro
ducers or manufacturers in proportion to purchases made by the
associations from them, and half to consumers or purchasers in
proportion to the amount of their purchases from the associations.
These associations would be of two kinds. First, the distri
butors of agricultural produce and food, and secondly, the
distributors of industrial produce, manufactured articles, of dress,
clothing and furniture.
H
2
�IOO
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
The mode of operation of each would be similar in principle.
We will first treat the agricultural one.
Suitable premises would be taken in London or some other
large centre of population, these would be constituted the chief
store and head office for the general management of the
business of the association. Branch stores would be estab
lished in other towns and villages as may from time to time
seem expedient. Arrangements would be entered into with
farmers, millers, market gardeners, poultry keepers, dairy
farmers, fishermen, fruit growers, and all similar producers, for
the supply of corn, flour, vegetables, fruit, fish, poultry, eggs,
milk and cattle. The association would be a general dealer in
agricultural produce and butchers’ meat. It would take the live
cattle from the farmers and organise its own slaughtering and
dressing establishments. The association would pay in cash
the market price of the day; at the end of the half year the
profits would be dealt with as described, the farmer, the market
gardener, the fisherman, each and all would receive hisshare in
the profits. Supposing a farmer had supplied thirty head of
cattle, for which he had been paid say ^450, if the surplus
profits, after paying all expenses and the fixed five per cent, on
capital, amounted to ten per cent, on the turnover, as doubtless
they would do if customary retail prices were charged, the
farmer would secure as his share of the profits £22 10s.
*
No doubt the association would in time find it within its
province and a great economy to organise its own mills for
grinding and dressing corn and making it into flour. Suppose
a farmer had supplied five hundred quarters of wheat at 35 s. a
* I am warranted in calculating the surplus profits, after the payment of
all expenses, at 10 per cent, on turnover, by the results of the working of the
Co-operative Societies. On retail sales amounting to ^25,000,000 a net profit
of ^2,610,130 is shown, after all expenses and interest on capital have been
provided for. This is a little over 10 per cent, on gross sales. Co-operative
Societies do not buy everything at first cost-; they also claim to sell at less than
the usual retail prices. The associations I describe will buy everything at cost
of production. If customary retail prices were charged the net profits would
exceed 10 per cent, on turnover.
�THE WORKING OF THE REMEDY.
IO I
quarter, amounting to ^875, and if as before described, the
profits for distribution amounted to 10 per cent, on the turn
over, the farmer supplying these five hundred quarters of wheat
•Would receive as his share five per cent, on the amount, viz.,
^43 15s., equal to an addition of is. 9b. per quarter. The
fisherman supplying fish would receive the price of the day and
at the end of the half year would, if profits were as I have
indicated, receive a return of five per cent, on the amount
supplied. So all through, every producer would have fair
measure meted out to him in distribution, and would participate
in the price of the market. In so far as farmers and fishermen
were purchasers for their consumptive wants, they would also
receive back 5 per cent, on the amount of their purchases, and
would thereby be benefited not only as producers but as con
sumers also.
With large quantities of agricultural produce, the first stage
is now the consignment of the same by the grower or breeder
to the wholesale salesman. The producer has to be satisfied
with whatever the salesman chooses to fix as the market price.
The producer knows and feels that he is depressed and un
fairly dealt with; but the consignments to the agency of asso
ciation I describe would be treated fairly. Instead of sending
his produce into a ring of monopolists, the producer would be
forwarding it to a mutual agency, and receive a return propor
tionate to the prices realised from consumers. The scandalous
outrages which are described in the article from the Field,
which I have previously quoted, would be impossible. Every
transaction would be fair and aboveboard; an inducement
would be given to greater cultivation of the land and agricul
tural productions generally ; the consumer would be shielded
from extortion; interests now supposed to be antagonistic
would become thoroughly mutual.
The following is a table of some articles of food imported
into this country in 1883, and the declared value of the same,
all of which we can produce at home. I do not say
we could produce all this vast amount, but we might
�102
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
greatly increase our production, and reduce the amount
imported :—
Butter and Butterine
............... ¿”,773,933
Cheese
..............
4,890,400
Eggs......................................
...............
2,732,055
Potatoes
..............
1,585,260
Fish.......................................
............... 2,301,966
Animals : Oxen, Bulls, Cows, and Calves
9,332,242
Sheep and Lambs ...
...............
2,518,382
Beef ...
..............
2,894,397
Bacon and Ham
............... 10,036,326
Pork......................................
..............
761,871
Lard ...
...............
2,247,016
Corn: Wheat
.............. 31,454,481
,,
Barley
..............
5,74L795
„
Oats ...
..............
5,010,293
,,
Maize...
.............. 10,370,074
„
Other kinds ...
...............
2,207,397
,, Flour—Of Wheat ...
............... 12,344,778
,,
„
Other kinds
..............
493,549
¿118,695,215
No doubt a first step in the way of obtaining a greater pro
duction from the land of this country is the reform of the
land laws, to which reference has already been made. It is
an outrage on common sense, that whilst we are receiving
these enormous imports of agricultural produce there are thou
sands of acres of land going to waste, thousands of labourers
on the verge of starvation with the waste lands before their
eyes, all because the inhuman land laws prevent its free dis
tribution, and hinder the working of the natural law of rents,
occupancy, and the labouring of the soil.
Evidence of what might be accomplished in greater pro
ductiveness of the soil is to be found on Lord Carrington’s
estate in Buckinghamshire. His lordship has recently stated
that his 800 allotment tenants get a net produce from the land
of ^40 an acre. The most a farmer, farming the same land on
the great culture plan, can obtain is 7? 7 an acre. Production
�LITTLE CULTURE VERSUS GREAT CULTURE.
IC>3
on a large scale may be best in manufactures, but in the culti
vation of the land little culture obtains a greater yield than
great culture. The Rev. Mr. Stubbs supports this view. On
his allotments at Granborough the land cultivated by labourers
as allotments produced 60 per cent, more wheat than the far
mers’ average, and 11 per cent, more than the average of the
highest scientific farming. In his evidence before the Royal
Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes Mr.
Stubbs repeated the statement he had previously made, that
40 bushels of corn to the acre is a very common allotment
crop—the farmer usually places his average at 25 bushels. The
labourer puts more labour into his allotment than the farmer
does into his land, and produces 40 bushels while the farmer
is getting only 25 or 26 bushels. Further evidence of the in
creased productiveness of the land if ownership was more
widely distributed, and cultivation cut up into smaller plots, is
to be seen in the results of the cultivation of the railway em
bankments and bits of odd plots alongside our railways. The
employe's of the railway companies, having the privilege of
cultivating for their own benefit these bits of what would other
wise be waste land, obtain an astonishing amount of production
therefrom.
N ext in importance to a reform in the land laws is a reform
in the distribution of the products of the land. Such an asso
ciation for distribution as I have described will—granted the
natural law of rents were allowed to prevail—do much to
encourage the yeoman and the peasant proprietor back to the
soil from which he has been driven away by monopoly and
demi-godism, which are alike an insult to Nature, to humanity,
and to God.
The schemes for establishing peasant proprietorships and
small farms’ associations, industrial villages, and so forth, will
surely be unsuccessful unless accompanied by some method
for the economic and moral distribution of the products, for
without this the peasant proprietors and the small producers it is
proposed to attract to the industrial villages will simply be
�104
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
fleeced by middlemen. I noticed not long ago a speech made
by an influential Member of Parliament, at a meeting called
for promoting the establishment of an industrial village, in
which it was i emarked that the wholesale houses would take
the productions of the women in articles of dress, and would
no doubt give out work for them to do; but in the wholesale
houses or any other you will find no philanthropy, only iron
heeled competition. In the lace trades in Buckinghamshire,
Devonshire, and the underclothing trades in Ireland, where
they are carried on in the villages, you find the women making
4s. to 5s. a week. They are depressed by the dealers, who
make enormous profits out of their labour. The handloom
hosieiy manufacturers in the villages in Leicestershire and
Nottinghamshire earn about 8s. per week, and produce work
that leaves a margin between the cost of production and the
price consumers pay of fully 75 per cent. The labourers in the
village, whether it be in the labour of the field, in growing
vegetables, or rearing stock, or poultry farming, or in making
stockings, shirts, or lace, under existing systems of distribution
and competition, will be screwed down and depressed below
the minimum of a fair living and a fair share of the proceeds
of their labour.
By the establishment of associations for distribution, such
as I am endeavouring to describe, industrial villages might
flourish and be encouraged, their products, whether of the field
or the cottage, would be sure of a market and a fair price.
Together with the distribution of agricultural produce
would be associated the distribution of coals and the hundreds
of odd things required in the household. Sugar—and here the
English refiner would receive a bounty, not from the State, but
simply from morality in exchange—then there would be such
articles as jams, pickles, vinegar, mustard, blacking, and blacklead, brooms, and coal-scuttles, and so on throughout the
almost endless list of household requisites, all producers in
every case participating in the distribution of surplus profits. It
might also be found advantageous to associate the distribution
�FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE REM.EDY.
10$
of colonial and Indian produce, the same principles of dis
tribution of surplus profits being made applicable. By degrees,
as experience showed the way, you might have a grand federa
tion of English and colonial producers and consumers bound
together by the grandest of all ties—the bond of mutual in
terestedness and helpfulness, of justice and equity.
The association for distribution of agricultural and kin
dred produce would be its own Smithfield, its own Covent
Garden, and its own Billingsgate, and, if thought desirable, its
own Mincing Lane also. It would put itself outside the power
of these monopolies and the “ rings ” existing therein, and
would place both producer and consumer in a free market.
As regards the constitution and mode of operations of the
Industrial Associations for Distributing Manufactures, they
would be as follows
The chief store and head offices for the general management
of the business of the Association would be established in London.
Distributive stores would also be established in the provincial
centres of population as may from time to time seem expedient.
In order to secure the most efficient and direct communi
cation with producers in our principal manufacturing districts,
resident representatives or buyers, having thorough technical
knowledge and local experience, would be appointed, and suit
able premises taken in such productive centres as Manchester,
Bradford, Glasgow, Nottingham, &c. &c.
The duties of such resident representatives to be as
follows :—They would be in constant communication as to the
productions of their districts with the managers of departments
at the chief store and the various branches, and would, on the
instructions of such managers, purchase and forward goods as
may from time to time be ordered by them. The resident
representative would be responsible for the examination, passing,
or rejecting of all goods, the packing and forwarding of the same
to the various distributive stores, see to the process of dyeing
and finishing where such might have to be done by the Associa
tion, and would forward to the head office daily all invoices for
�io6
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
goods bought, and detailed particulars of goods forwarded to
the distributive stores.
All orders would be placed on the official forms of the
Association. A copy of every order would, within twenty-four
hours of the receipt of the same, be forwarded to the head
office by the firm receiving it.
Accounts would be settled monthly, or at such times as
should entitle the Association to the largest possible discount
for cash payments. All accounts to be paid from the chief
office. All goods sold to be paid for on or before delivery.
Full freedom of trade would exist. The resident repre
sentatives would be free to enter into communication and busi
ness relations with any manufacturers whatsoever ; preference
in all cases being given to such concerns as shall adopt the
principles of profit sharing, or industrial partnerships, or which
shall in any way acknowledge the principles of participation
of labour in profits.
The remuneration of resident representatives would consist
of a fixed salary proportionate to the magnitude and importance
of the services rendered, and beyond this, in accordance with
the principles already laid down, a share in the profits of their
particular departments.
The managers of the departments at the chief stores, as also
at all the branches, would each be responsible to the directorate
for the successful working of their departments, and would at
any time visit any of the productive centres they might be in
terested in, and, in conjunction with the resident representa
tive, where there may be one appointed, make such purchases
as may seem fit. Managers of departments and resident
representatives would work in co-operation for the common
good, but managers would be independent of the direct inter
ference of resident representatives, the function of the latter
being to supply the demand, of the former to say what the
demand consists of. In the distributive stores efficiency and
economy would be secured by placing two or three depart
ments under one management,
�SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF THE EEMEDY.
10/
The Association would organise its own factories or work
rooms for the manufacturing of costumes, mantles, and various
articles of dress ; the labour employed in these trades is the
most depressed and worst paid of any connected with the
textile and clothing trades, and yet the articles produced yield
the largest rate of profit. Thousands of seamstresses and
machinists work for wages of 8s. per week. The public, as
consumers, by the multiplicity and costliness of middlemen,
are made to pay 24s. to 40s. for the self-same work that the
labourer was paid 8s. for doing. In this department a direct
and mighty benefit can be conferred on labour, and, at the
same time, a great saving made to consumers.
Manufacturers have often stocks of goods thrown on their
hands. Sometimes they may be too late in delivery, or they
may have run a special style too long; in such cases it is diffi
cult to fix a market price. The Distributive Association in a
case of this sort would take goods on consignment, and would
offer them at the market price, plus 12^ per cent, to cover expences and contingencies; if the goods sold, all well and good,
the maker would be paid his price, but would not be entitled to
any share of profit on consigned goods; if they did not sell the
maker would have to take them back or reduce the price to
such a limit as would ensure a sale; the buyers of the associa
tion would be competent to judge if there was any probability
of a proposed consigned lot being readily saleable.
The advantage of a plan like this will be illustrated by stating
a case which recently came before my notice. A manufacturer
had received a cancel for 100 pieces of dress goods which had
been sold to a Paris house at 2s. 6d. per yard; having them
cancelled he had to find a customer. When it was seen by the
wholesale buyers that it was a cancelled lot the market value
dropped at once, after trying one and another the 100 pieces
were eventually sold at is. 9|d. per yard to a wholesale firm,
who afterwards sold them on commission to a large retail house
at is. nd. per yard; the retail firm thought they were so very
cheap they would get an extra profit, and sold the lot very
�io8
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
speedily to the public at 3s. nd. per yard, being a profit of 2s.
per yard. The maker lost 30 per cent, and the retailer made a
profit of upwards of 100 per cent., the public gained no benefit.
This is no exceptional case ; by the plan before named of taking
any doubtful lot on consignment the association would save the
producer from needless loss, and at the same time protect the
consumer.
The division of the profits to consumers would be simplified
by any regular customer of the association being furnished with
a pass book in which the total amount of recurring purchases
would be entered, much the same way as the Post Office
Savings’ Bank enters deposits in the pass books ; at the end of
the half-year the pass books would be sent in for inspection,
and the division of profits due to each remitted or paid
accordingly ; a small charge of, say, one shilling per half-year
might be made to cover the expenses of keeping these books ;
but to every non-pass book holder an invoice bearing the
official stamp of the association would be given for every sale,
and at the division of profits the holders of these official invoices
or sales notes would, within a given limit of time, be entitled to
participate, precautions being taken to prevent any imposition
or fraud.
The division of profits to producers would be simple
enough, the ledgers of the association would at a'glance show
the total amount of purchases made from any producers who
were entitled to participate.
The division of profits to the workers in the distributive as
sociations would be separated into two classes ; first, a fixed
proportion of profits would be placed to the credit of a Mutual
Aid or Insurance fund, and the balance of the amount allotted to
employes would be paid in cash ; after a given number of years
in the service of the association an employe would be entitled
to a retiring pension, or if an employe died and left a widow she
would be entitled to an annuity according to the condition of the
funds of the Mutual Aid Society, and the nature of the services,
and position her husband had occupied in the association. In
�FURTHER BENEFITS OF THE REMEDY.
10$
the factories organized by the associations for the manufacture of
garments, or for any other manufacturing process, the same
principles would be applied. There would not be a co-worker
in the associations that would not be making a provision against
old age or accident, or, in case of premature death, the widow
and fatherless children would be provided for, beyond the reach
of absolute want.
A few months ago I received a circular from a large retail
house soliciting votes for the election of a youth into an orphan
asylum ; if I was not a subscriber to the funds of the institution
it was earnestly solicited I should at once become one so as to
help this most urgent case. The facts of the case were as
follow :—The youth for whom they were pleading for vote®
was one of six young children, their father had died and left
the widow and children totally unprovided for; he had been in
the employ of the firm soliciting votes for twenty years and bore
a good character. He was industrious and careful, but the
claims of his family had made it impossible for him to provide
for the future out of his limited income. During the twenty
years he was in the employ of the house his yearly income had
not averaged more than ^90, although he had discharged the
duties of a responsible position. During the twenty years he
had received a total of ^1,800, but during the same twenty
years the partners in the house must have made considerably
more than a million sterling, for just before the death of
the employe one of the principals had died leaving a fortune of
more than ^500,000. Was this an equitable distribution of the
proceeds of industry ? On whom had the poor children of the
hard-worked and under paid employe the greatest claim ? If
some of the children were not provided for out of private
charity there was no alternative but state pauperism for them.
I think the reader will agree with me that the poor unfortunate
widow and children had the greatest moral claim on the great
wealth which the firm had made out of the under-paid labour of
their servants, and the enormous profits made from the public
who were their customers.
�no
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
The number of orphan asylums, trade schools, and charita
ble institutions generally, has largely increased. It is a question
that is woith consideration as to how far the public subscrip
tions, by which they are supported, are simply an indirect tax
paid voluntarily by the benevolent, which goes to mitigate the
evils brought about by unrelenting private enterprise.
The Mutual Aid fund in the distributive associations would
obviate such a social scandal and injustice as I have referred to *
hundreds of similar cases happen every year. In associations
of capital and labour in France to which I shall presently refer, a
mutual aid fund has been established and is working most suc
cessfully.
A security for the successful working of the distributive
associations would be found in the individual interest each
of the. co-workers in them would have for the collective
well-being of the whole, in the participation of profits
by the co-woikers there would be a guarantee against wasteful
expenses and bad management. New life would be constantly
infused, and in the publicity which would be given to the affairs
of the associations, and the salutary effect of public opinion,
there would be a safeguard against corruption and decay. And
yet whilst the co-workers in the distributive associations might
be looked to for making them a success for their own interests,
those interests could not be served without conferring a benefit
on the community. The public by their participation in profits
as purchasers would be safeguarded against extortion, and the
producers by virtue of their participation in surplus profits
would also be safeguarded against undue depression, interests
would be thoroughly mutual, and by the mutual association of
capital and labour in productive enterprise, to which I shall
shortly refer, morality and justice would prevail, the distribution
of the proceeds of industry would be satisfactory, true co-opera
tion would be established. If this method of distribution should
ever become general there would be room for numerous associa
tions. Healthy competition would stimulate one another;
competition might then rule everything for the general good.
�CHAPTER X.
The Benefits of Mutual Association in Distribution—A Possible Saving of
^200,000,000 per Annum—Resulting in Increased Consumption and
Greater Demand for Labour—Home Trade of Greater Importance than the
Export Trade—The Fair Trade Cry and Depression in the WorstedTrade —
The True Cause of the Depression in the Worsted Trade—If Distribution
was in the Hands of Producers and Consumers for their Mutual Benefit the
Pleas for Fair Trade and Protection would Lose their Potency.
Assuming the successful establishment and working of distri
butive associations, such as I have endeavoured to explain,
what will be the benefit to the community, what saving to the
public ?
The population of Great Britain and Ireland is 36,000,000.
Suppose the average consumption of food, clothing, and furni
ture is only £"20 per head, the total yearly consumption at
retail prices is therefore ^720,000,000. I am certainly under
rather than over the mark when I say that the cost of dis
tributing the vast amount of goods represented by this sum
is not less than 33^ per cent, or one third of the total sum,
in other words, the cost of distribution is ^£240,000,000 a
year.
In the returns of the Central Co-operative Board we have
sufficient data whereon to base a calculation of the necessary
cost of distribution. In the Manchester District Co-operative
Association there are 32 societies with 92 branches, giving a
total of 124 shops or stores. In 1883 the total sales amounted
to ,£1,264,773 ; the total expenses, including wages, deprecia
tion of stock and property, interest on capital, rents, rates, and
taxes, were >£69,133, being equal to about five and a half per
cent, on sales. The articles dealt in embraced food, clothing,
furniture, and every household requisite, and comprising 124
�112
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
shops, give a fair indication of the actual necessary cost of dis
*
tribution.
Supposing then the whole of the necessaries of life were
distributed by associations for the mutual benefit of producers
and consumers, and supposing the turnover is £720,000,000
a year, the cost need not exceed £"40,000,000, whereas it now
amounts to not less than £240,000,000, there is therefore an
unnecessary expenditure of £200,000,000 per annum.
By the plan of distributive associations which I have laid
down, the surplus profits after the payment of all expenses
would be distributed. Suppose the distribution of goods foi
home consumption were performed on that plan, and supposing
present retail prices were charged, £200,000,000 would be
distributed amongst the people. In 1883 the amount of the
total declared value of British and Irish produce exported from
the United Kingdom was £239,799,473, the amount of possible
saving on the distribution of the goods we consume within
ourselves is therefore only £"40,000,000 short of the total value
of our export trade. Without fear of contradiction I maintain
that if we were to economise distribution and make it thoroughly
mutual we might make ourselves completely independent of
foreign nations. I by no means wish to imply that we should
disregard the importance of an export trade. By all means let
us do as much as possible, but instead of looking to the export
trade as the principal source of employment, if we were to
thoroughly organise our home trade we have within it an
abounding source of employment; instead of begging of foreign
nations to make their fiscal policy suit our wishes, being strong
in our intensive strength we might put ourselves in such a
position as to sell our surplus productions on our own
* Altogether the returns of 1,240 retail distributive societies are given by
the Central Co-operative Board. I do not know how many branches they
have, but there cannot be fewer than some 2,000 shops or stores. The
expenses of all seem to be covered by five to six per cent, on turnover.
The amount of business done is ^25,000,000. Therefore on a thirtieth part
of the whole turnover of the country we have proof that five to six per cent,
is sufficient to cover the cost of distribution.
�NATIONAL GAIN OF MUTUAL DISTRIBUTION.
II3
terms. The ^200,000,000 which I maintain may be saved
in the cost of distribution, whether it was distributed as
surplus profits or actually saved to consumers in the direct
reduction of prices, would give a great impetus to increased
consumption. There is not a workman now out of employ
ment but might have work enough; there is not a worker
now half-starving but might have food enough and the where
withal to buy it, if this question of distribution was thoroughly
reformed. In the calculation I have made of the yearly
consumption, the average profit that is charged thereon over
and above the cost of production, the necessary rate of expenses
that would cover the cost of distribution by association, I have
in no way exceeded the actual facts and possibilities; startling
as are the deductions I draw from them, there is nothing I have
stated beyond the reach of attainment. I do not mean to say
the result could be obtained in one year or five years, but if an
earnest effort was made it would be astonishing how speedily
good results would show themselves. Within five years, with
out lowering the present rate of wages, it is possible to reduce
the cost of living in this country fully one-fourth.
The increased consumption, and, therefore, the increased
demand for labour, occasioned by this saving in distribution,
is not the only direct gain that would be conferred on home
labour. If the distribution of goods was performed by pro
ducers and consumers for their mutual benefit, in less than five
years we should hear no more of Fair Trade and Protection.
The distribution of goods, I maintain, is now in the hands of
aliens, whose interests lie neither with producers nor con
sumers ; they are simply in business as shopkeepers, to make
fortunes out of the cheap rates at which they buy from pro
ducers and the dear rates at which they sell to consumers.
It is their policy to encourage the keenest competition amongst
producers ; they welcome foreign competitors as a means of
still further depressing the prices of home manufactures.
Since the French treaty of i860 we have gradually increased
the quantities of foreign manufactures imported for home conI
�DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
114
sumption, until now, in the silk and woollen trades, unless this
matter is seriously taken in hand, we bid fair ere long to
import more than we make ourselves. In 1883 we imported
woollen and worsted manufactures valued at ^6,251,281, and
woollen and worsted yarns valued at ^2,001,603. So recently
as 1869 the value of woollen manufactures imported was only
*
^2,534,523 Values in 1869 were much higher than in 1883;
if quantities were shown, the increase in 1883 would appear to
be not less than three times the quantity imported in 1869.
In silk manufactures we are almost dependent on foreign sup
plies ; our home industries have been well-nigh ruined since
i860.
Even in cotton manufactures, which are supposed
to be our strength, we now import goods of the value of
^2,500,000—double the quantity we imported in 1870.
The severe political economist and the strict free trader
will tell us that competition rules everything. If foreign goods
can be bought cheaper than home-made goods, competition
decides the purchase—foreign goods must be bought and
home manufactures neglected. But this is all nonsense ; com
petition does not decide the sale in retail purchases, that is, in
what the purchaser (the consumer) buys for his own wants ;
* The following table shows the value of our exports and imports of woollen
and worsted manufactures, including yarns, previous to the French Treaty
of i860, and at various periods since then :—•
Woollen
Exports.
............
and
Worsted Manufactures.
Imports.
£
£
12,731,827
1858
..
1862
17,001,429
1862
...
.....................
1,850,000
1869
22,669,233
1869
...
...
...
4,3TO,2I2
1858
...
...
1,250,000
1883
.....................
...
8,252,884
1883
............ 18,315,575
From this it will be seen that whilst our exports have increased in value
since 1858 only one-half, our imports have increased nearly sevenfold. If our
exports had increased at the same rate as our imports, we should now be
doing ^90,000,000 a year instead of ^’18,000,000. These statistics speak
for themselves. They are a very unsatisfactory indication of the condition of
an industry which was formerly only second in importance to agriculture, and
which is now second in importance of our textile industries. If the same
progress is made in imports as we have experienced since 1869, and the
same rate of decline in our exports, in about five years we shall be importing
more than we export.
�FAIR TRADE AND PROTECTION.
•
I 15
foreign goods are imported mainly for two reasons, one, that
manufacturers’ prices should be depressed and a greater
margin of profit left to the distributor; another is for the sake
of novelty and fashion, for something to attract public notice
and make an advertisement—a foreign name is supposed to
have a great charm, a French .cotton or a French stuff is sup
posed to be more fascinating than an English one. Can any
one believe that this sentiment, this short-sighted and suicidal
policy would be pursued if the distribution of goods was per
formed for the benefit of producers and consumers ? Certainly
not. Did the old yeoman go buying foreign stuffs when he
had his own looms for making his cloth ? Not he. Would
the producers and consumers of to-day so far forget their own
interests, if they were collectively associated for promoting
them, by buying a large proportion of their cloths abroad, and
leave their looms at home standing all the while ? Not they.
The foreigner would sell here what we could not produce our
selves, and we should be glad to buy of him; just the same
way as we should sell to a foreigner what he could not make.,
and which, in spite of his protective duties, he is glad to
buy from us.
If in this country we continue to pursue the policy we are
pursuing—having land, and getting but a fractional part of the
possible produce from it, having manufactures, but buying from
foreigners a large quantity of the textile fabrics we wear—the
sooner we write Ichabod on the walls the better. Where can
be our greatness if we are so weak ? I am sure to be told that
taste and fashion have a good deal to do with the importations
of foreign manufactures. Fashion is a very fickle thing, diffi
cult to define ; nobody knows where it comes from nor where it
goes; it is somewhat a matter of sentiment, but largely a matter
of accident. The probabilities are, if as producers and consumers we collectively distributed our goods, the sentiment and
accidents of fashion would remain with us, we should have as
great a variety and as much novelty as hitherto. But, say some,
we are deficient in technical education; the country that has
1 2
�ii6
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
invented and now makes most of the machinery used in textile
manufactures has lost its craft ; foreigners who have bought its
machinery, and learned from it the art of its use, have out
stripped it in taste and skill.
The cry of the Fair Tradersand the lament of the Technical
Educators came upon us simultaneously ; they both had their
origin in what has been called the decline of the Bradford trade.
In our cotton trade there is no falling-off, we have a fairly pro
gressive trade, in it there is nothing the Fair Traders can lay
hold of. The Bective movement brought the decline in the
Bradford trade prominently before the public. Never was a
movement founded on so unstable a foundation ; few have
ended in so great a fiasco.
Rightly to understand this question, the worsted trade must
not be confounded with the woollen trade. In the manufac
ture of woollen cloths we hold our own both at home and abroad,
we are literally without foreign competition in our home market;
but in the manufacture of worsted stuffs, chiefly for ladies’
dresses, we have lost a great deal of our foreign trade, and, as I
have shown, import a largely increased quantity for home con
sumption ; the decline has been most marked since 1874. This
decline in our worsted trade has brought about the cry of the
Fair Traders for protective duties on goods imported from those
foreign countries which put protective duties on our goods
going thereto, and in this way a blow is expected to be given to
the importation of foreign woollens, also silks. Home industry,
it is represented, would thereby be benefited, but the only
people that would benefit would be the capitalist manufacturer
and the retailer, for they would both have a forcible excuse for
putting on greater profits, which the consumer would have to
pay ; consumption would be restricted, little extra demand for
labour would be created, wages would not rise in purchasing
power.
The decline in our worsted trade also gave increased force
to the lament of our want in technical education. Neither the
Fair Traders, nor the Technical Educators, nor the Bective
�CAUSE OF DEPRESSION IN BRADFORD TRADE.
II/
movement put the real issue before the people of this country ■,
the real cause of the decline in our worsted trade was not
stated.
The fact is, that since 1840 the success of our worsted
trade, as shown in the prosperity and rapid growth of Bradford,
and the villages and towns around it engaged in the same branch
of trade, has been made in the manufacture of mixed fabrics, that
is, fabrics made of cotton warp and worsted weft. In fact, if the
truth must be told, Bradford made its rapid fortune by breaking
the Mosaic law—in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus and the
nineteenth verse, we read “ Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou
shalt not let cattle gender with a diverse kind ; thou shalt not
sow thy field with mingled seed, neither shall a garment mingled
of linen and. woollen come upon thee."
In Deuteronomy the commandment reads : “ Thou shalt
not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together."
From this it is clear the children of Israel were forbidden
to wear mixed fabrics, therefore it was useless to make them.
It is a most impressive confirmation of the good sense and sound
economic truth of this law, that the manufactures throughout the
world that have been founded on the mixing of articles, making
spurious fabrics and shoddy garments, have had a short life and
a most fitful existence; their success for a time may have been
brilliant, but it has not lasted.
*
Previous to 1840 the worsted manufacture in England was
a pure manufacture, the fabrics were alike in warp and weft
English wool made a sharper handling fabric than French,
Spanish or Saxony wool. Until 1800 the importation of foreign
wool into Great Britain was free. The quantity then imported
averaged for some years about four and a-half million pounds’
weight a year, of which Spanish merino wool was the largest
item. From 1800 to 1844 import duties of varying amount
were levied on foreign wool, so that it is evident the legislature
intended the manufacture of woollen and worsted fabrics during
this period should be restricted as much as possible to the use of
English-grown wool. At this time the manufacture of worsted
�118
DIS TRIB UTION REFORM.
stuffs in France was of some importance. French merinos had
for centuries been a favourite fabric; the difference between the
French merinos and British merinos was that the former were
softer and finer in texture than the latter, because they were
made of softer and more fleecy wools than could be grown in
England. The English manufacturers vigorously appealed for
the repeal of the import duty on foreign wool, for they
wanted the soft fleecy merino wools to mix with home
grown wools, to make their fabrics of softer and finer texture ;
the duty was repealed in 1844.
During this period the
French and English manufacturers were making similar fabrics,
but about 1840 the English manufacturers made a new depar
ture. The consumption of fabrics of any kind was very small;
they were very dear, but possessed the virtue of lengthened
wear. The cotton manufacture had rapidly grown into import
ance ; after several attempts the combination of the cheaper
cotton warps was at last combined with worsted weft, a new class
of fabric was made. Coarse wools of the alpaca character were
used, which were previously found unuseable; a new industry
sprang into importance; from 1840 the worsted stuff manufac
ture may be said to have been the making of“ mingled fabrics.”
Whilst English worsted-stuff manufacturers had departed
from the manufacture of all-wool fabrics, French manufacturers
went on making their merinos and tissues de laine; they have
never striven to compete with us in the manufacture of mixed
fabrics.
At the time the English worsted-stuff manufacturers de
parted from the manufacture of all-wool fabrics, an important
factor in the future character of the woollen manufacture was
at work in the development of our Australian colonies. In
1820 our total importation of foreign and colonial wool
was 9,789,020 lbs., of which only 99,415 lbs. was from Aus
tralia; in 1840 the total importations were 46,880,745 lbs.,
of which 9,721,243 lbs. came, from Australia; in 1884 the
total import was 527,000,000 lbs., of which no less than
382,545,933 lbs. came from Australia, more than half of which
�PURE VERSUS MINGLED FABRICS.
I IQ
we, however, re-exported for foreign manufactures. In our
Australian colonies the merino sheep has found a more con
genial home than in its native grounds on the plains of
Andalusia, the South of France, or Saxony. It will be seen
that from 1840 to 1884 the importation has grown from nine
and three-quarter million pounds weight to three hundred and
eighty-two and a-half million pounds weight in 1884. It is
this vast increase in the growth of Australian merino wool that
has been the most important factor in the change that has
come over our worsted trade. Whilst our manufacturers were
busy with their mingled fabrics, French manufacturers were
buying our machinery, changing from handloom production to
the factory system, and all the while increasing their trade, and
improving the character of their all-wool fabrics by the use of
Australian wools, for which they come over to the London wool
sales to buy. In the worsted fabrics they make there is no
great taste in design, for three-fourths and more of what we
buy from them are of the plainest character—fabrics so simple
in construction, you may see the self-same textures wrapped
round the bodies of Egyptian mummies that have been buried
three thousand years. It is a confirmation of the soundness of
the Mosaic law to which I have drawn attention, that the whole
of our imports of foreign worsted manufactures are pure wool
fabrics, not mingled with either linen or cotton. It is still
further a confirmation of the uniform good sense and taste of
the wearers of these fabrics, that they are plain but rich in tex
ture, of such primitive construction and character as the Jews
of old made and wore, such as the classic Grecian robe was
made of, and such as are yet to be found to this day being made
in the out-of-the-way villages in the East.
In the making of these fabrics there is no superior technical
knowledge required. Why, then, may it be asked, do we not
make what we consume? The reply is because, until 1874,
the English manufacturer was so engrossed in the execution of
orders for the export and home trade for mixed fabrics, he
never troubled about anything else. So long as our manufac-
�120
distribution reform.
turers were fully employed, they took no trouble to look at the
signs of the times. They were not troubled about the distribu
tion of their goods ; that was done by middlemen, and there
fore they knew nothing of what foreign manufacturers were
doing. Towards 1878, however, after two or three years’
bad trade, English manufacturers began to think and look
about; they suddenly found the importation of foreign worsted
stuffs was increasing at an alarming rate ; that just as our trade
in this class of goods was falling off with neutral countries, that
of french makers was increasing in a similar proportion. Then
up went the cry for Fair Trade, the Bective movement, and
technical education, and for longer hours of labour. It was
said that foreign manufacturers worked longer hours than we;
although some said we suffered from over-production, the evil
was to be cured by working longer hours and producing more.
*
The real truth of the whole matter is, the manufacture of
__ mingled fabrics ” is played out and made useless, by the vast
increase in the growth of wool in our colonies, and the cheap
ness at which fine merino wools and pure all-wool fabrics can
now be made. Whilst the English manufacturer was growing
rapidly rich out of the profits of a new industry, so independent
was he, the distribution of his goods did not trouble him one
* Whilst our manufacturers are demanding a restoration of sixty working
hours for a week, the Act of Sir Richard Cross having reduced them to fifty-six
hours (these demands are favourably noticed by journals of standing and
influence, such as the Economist}, French manufacturers are clamouring for
a reduction of their working hours; they say depression in trade is caused
because manufacturers work up to, and some more than, the twelve hours fixed
by law as daily working hours. Depression cannot be caused in England
by the very thing which French manufacturers are seeking to copy as a& cure
for their depression. I wonder if it ever occurs to English and Foreign
capitalist manufacturers that if they pay three-fourths of the population the
lowest possible wages, and work them half their living hours, and for those
depressed wages and long hours get an ever-increasing production of goods,
the question must sooner or later be answered, Who is going to consume the
goods produced ? Clearly the workers cannot, for they work in rags or the
worst of worn-out clothing, they have little leisure in which to wear better
things ; and if they had, their wages are too small to admit of them being
purchasers. If this is the condition of the workers, who form the bulk of the
population, who then can consume the goods produced ?
�ENGLISH MANUFACTURERS AND DISTRIBUTION.
121
atom •, he left this important function to a set of middlemen,
who for years came to him begging for his productions. Whilst
he was thus independent and at ease, French and German
manufacturers were up and doing, stealthily taking a march on
their self-satisfied English competitor. Whilst the English
manufacturer was pursuing a stay-at-home policy, leaving the
sale and distribution of his goods to others, French manufac
turers were at work in every market of the world, doing their
trade direct, trusting to as few middlemen as possible—fre
quently to none at all.
In our home trade the goods of an English maker could not
get into the hands of a retailer without passing through at least
one wholesale merchant’s hands, often they went through two ;
but French manufacturers, seeing their opportunity, came and
sold direct to the large retail houses. They made a trade, and
established a business for their soft, all-wool fabrics; the British
public returned to their old allegiance, and wore the class of
fabric they had been accustomed to before 1840. The English
manufacturer was outdone by smarter men; when he awoke to
the seriousness of the position, he found he was too late. He
was hemmed in by trade prejudices and customs; the whole
sale middlemen who sold his goods would not allow him to
sell direct as the French makers did ; even if he was wishful to
do so, he was without experience in the method of doing it; the
retail distributors cared nothing for the prosperity of the
English manufacturer, it did not matter where the goods came
from so long as they made good profits. The English maker
was stranded, left high and dry on the sand-bank, the current
was changed and went rolling along in a new channel.
The point I here wish to impress upon the reader is, that if
distribution had been performed in the collective interests of
producers and consumers, English manufacturers would have
been cognisant of the actual state of the market. If they had
been directly interested in the distribution of their goods, or, to
put it another way, if they had been conversant with the wants
of consumers by coming into direct contact with them, as they
�122
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
will do in such a plan as I have explained, they would never
have been so completely worsted as they have been. The crisis
they have been and are passing through is a severe one ; it is
the breaking-up of middlemanism, and drawing the manu
facturer out of his retirement into an active interest in the
distribution of his productions.
It has been proved that English manufacturers can make
the goods we are importing equally as well as the foreigner, also
that English dyers can dye and finish them quite as well; the
great difficulty is the middleman, the retail distributor. He
has no interest in making a new departure, the cry 'of foreign
goods answers his purpose, he would rather have a few more
foreign competitors to lower prices and increase his profits. I
may be pardoned any seeming egotism if I prove what I say by
the relation of a personal experience.
Some four years ago, when public attention was drawn to
this question of home manufactures, unfortunately for my peace
of mind and welfare I took a lively interest in it. From a
consideration of the facts and the history of the question, I saw
that what we had got to do, was to show that we could make
the pure all-wool fabrics as well as the previous generation of
English makers had done, and also as well as foreign manu
facturers are now doing ; the secret of winning back the home
trade we were letting go to the foreigners lay in the breaking
of the prejudice in favour of foreign fabrics, by proving we
could produce as good at home ; the task was a formidable
one, and turned out much more formidable than I expected.
My engagements, however, left me free to devote considerable
time to the prosecution of the task; an important and able
manufacturer was ready to make the goods and- find the capital
necessary for the working of the business; I became the
middleman, and got the goods dyed and finished, and then set
about finding a sale for them. After a few trials the goods
were made successfully, and a dyer was found to dye and finish
them as successfully. There had been so much outcry for
home manufactures, I anticipated at any rate an impartial trial
�RETAIL DISTRIBUTORS' IDEA OF BRITISH INTERESTS.
123
from the retailers; but to my astonishment the more determined
I became to succeed the more difficulties they put in my way;
by some I was told they would buy home-made all-wool
cashmeres and merinos when I had got the British public to
insist on having them; by others I was told that the goods
would only be bought at such prices as would make it a
decided inducement for them to change from foreign goods.
Others said the British public liked gammoning, if they could
be most easily gammoned with foreign fabrics it was not likely
for the sake of supporting home manufactures they would
make a change.
Not to be baffled, I acted on the advice I received, and
set to work to make the goods known to the public ; the most
efficient way of doing this was found to be in advertising : by
giving a good order for advertisements, the fashion and society
and trade journals would give “paragraph notices;” by degrees
a little attention was drawn to the goods, and a few retailers
induced to take them up. Meantime, a display of them was
made at the Amsterdam Exhibition, in spite of the mis
representations of French manufacturers : for they represented
to the jurors that although the goods were called English they
were not made in England, but were French goods shown
under the name of English for the sake of making a name and
a market. The silver medal (the second prize) was awarded ;
the jurors intimated that as it was a first exhibition of the
fabrics the second prize was a high honour, and would meet the
case, although in point of merit the exhibit was equal to the
best there, and French makers who had taken prizes at the
great exhibitions since 1851 were fully represented.
Step by step a sale was made for the goods, but as I pro
gressed in breaking down the prejudice, I found myself no
nearer a solid success and a paying business. The best retail
houses in the kingdom were induced to take them up; some
houses that had bluntly refused to entertain them asked for
them as they came more prominently before the public, but
I found the more public favour was enlisted to them the less
�124
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
did I progress in reaping a benefit. Cloths, which for an in
troduction I sold at is. 9d., I found retailed at 2s. 6d. per yard
as being marvellously cheap; others I sold at 2s. 3d. I found
retailed at 3s. 6d. per yard, After a season, when orders were
expected to be repeated, and it had been proved beyond
question we could make the goods, new difficulties presented
themselves. I was told that French makers had reduced their
prices, and I must do the same or could not have any more
business. To keep the ball rolling so as not to lose the bene
fits of the good impression already made, concessions in prices
were made ; but I still found the prices to the consumer the
same. If a penny per yard reduction was made to the retailer
it all went into his pocket, the consumer did not benefit; but
worse still, in some cases, I found scores of pieces of French
goods of inferior quality sold as this particular make of
English goods, and this, too, by houses who were having the
advantage of getting the goods advertised for them free of cost.
In every case I found that, having made a speciality of the
goods, each retailer in every town who took them up insisted
on having a monopoly. Hemmed in by difficulties on all sides,
I saw plainly enough the only way to break down the prejudice
and participate in the price of the. market was not only to
appeal direct to the public, but also to supply the goods direct
to the public. At the risk of a rupture with the manufacturer,
I offered fand supplied them direct to the public. The result
was that in three months’ time no less than 2,000 sales
were made to ladies in all parts of Great Britain, amongst
the number ladies of title and position in society and in the
fashionable world. This, it must be remembered, was on one
class of fabric alone ; in three months, by a direct appeal to the
public, sales were made of greater amount than I could obtain
through the middlemen in six times that period when first in
troducing the goods. The attempt ended in apparent failure.
It was deemed uncustomary for a manufacturer to have his
goods sold in a somewhat direct manner to the public. A
manufacturer, it would seem, makes his goods first of all for
�A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
I25
the benefit of middlemen, allowing them to impose a duty on
them, and only after that for the good of consumers. I was
glad to be rid of the worry and work, and had to retire from
it under the humiliation of failure ; but I had the great satisfac
tion of learning, and proving to those who cared to see it, that
the cause of the large imports of foreign stuffs was not superior
technical skill : for I believe that neither any of the manu
facturers’ staff who so successfully made the goods, nor any of
the dyers’ workmen who so ably dyed and finished the goods,
•received a single lesson in the technicalities of their crafts to
enable them to do what they did. The stumbling-block is
purely and simply the prejudice and personal interests of the
retail distributors. After, so far as I was concerned, the busi
ness was ended; within nine months, no less than 1,200 repeat
orders and inquiries were made for the fabrics by ladies who
had previously been supplied : a convincing proof of the confi
dence they had won and the ultimate success that would
have been attained. I need not follow the matter further, nor
give the subsequent history of the goods. What I have said
is sufficient to prove my contention.
Before summarising the benefits to be derived from a
thorough reform in distribution, we must devote some con
sideration to that branch of our subject dealing with the
organization of productive establishments, and the distribution
of the proceeds of industry as between capital and labour ; to
this important question we will turn our attention in the
following chapter.
�CHAPTER XL
Organization of Associations in Production—Industrial Partnerships and
Profit Sharing The true and false Association of Capital and Labour_ The
French Minister of the Interior on the Vital Power of Association—The
French Parliamentary Commission on Working-Men's AssociationsIllustrations of the Success of the Association of Labour and Capital in
France—The Familistère at Guise—The Maison Leclaire, Paris—Their
Moral, Social, and Economic advantages —The Absence of such
Associations in England—The Federal Combination of Associations for
Distribution, and Associations for Production, a Complete System of Co
operation—Mr. Bright and Free Labour—Free Imports do not of them
selves give Freedom to Labour—Free Trade and Military Expenditure—
Greater Benefits to be conferred on the people by a Reform in Distribution
than have yet been conferred by Partial Free Trade—A free Breakfast
table —Direct and indirect Taxation—The true Meaning of Capital—Sum
mary of the Benefits to be derived from a Reform in Distribution.
Hitherto, I have treated of the organization of associations
for distribution only. The question may be asked, What
guarantee will you have that the surplus profits which the
Distributive Associations will return to producers will benefit
labour? Private firms might do a large business with the
Distributive Associations, and put into the pockets of the
proprietors every penny of the division of profits they partici
pate in, and what amelioration in the condition of the labourer
would there come of it ? The reply to such objections is,
that the Distributive Associations at the commencement would
have to make the best of Industrial Organizations as they now
exist, and would without respect of persons return the surplus
profits to producers and consumers, in proportion to purchases
and sales no private firm could, however, long withstand the
pressure of public opinion ; if they were treated as I have de
scribed in the participation of the profits of the Distributive
Associations, they could not long resist the moral claims of
their workers to be treated in like manner.
�MUTUAL ASSOCIATION OF CAPITAL AND LABOUR.
127
As I have already stated, preference would be given to
such productive concerns as acknowledged and acted upon
the principle of the rights of labour to share in profits ; within a
short time of the establishment of the Distributive Associations
confederate arrangements would be made with productive
establishments adopting the principle of participation in profits
—many private firms now completely at a deadlock would, I
am quite sure, be ready to organise themselves on this principle,
if they saw a safe and steady outlet for their productions ;
on the other hand, in some branches of trade, Industrial
Partnerships might be established; in all cases the organization
of industry would be free to adopt the system most suited to
each particular trade, the Distributive Associations would be
the bridge connecting producer and consumer across which
each might travel on equal terms, the only toll exacted
being simply the actual cost of maintenance, and nothing
more.
Once the principles were practically demonstrated on which
the Distributive Associations would be founded, a new light
would dawn on productive industry. Ere long, production,
distribution, and consumption would be associated in one
vast federal Union, based upon a living realization of the truism
that their interests are mutual ; in this moral union Capital
would be accorded its due, and Labour and Intellect their
rights ; with a free system of distribution, labour and capital
could associate for their mutual benefit in many ways now
impossible.
It will be opportune now for us shortly to explain some of
the most successful systems by which the relations of workmen
and capitalists have been put on a sounder footing. These
are—
(1) The co-operation of workmen and employers in any
scheme of partnership which gives to the employed a share in
nett profits in addition to wages.
(2) The co-operation of workmen forming joint Stock Com
panies for prosecuting any Industrial Enterprise, Manufacturing
�128
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
or Agricultural, the capital being bona-fidely provided by the
workmen themselves.
These two forms of association are what are generally
called Co-operative production :—besides these, there are_
. (3) Limited liability companies, founded on the joint stock
principle, professedly with the object of associating Capital and
Labour by enabling the employed to become shareholders.
Such, for example, as the Oldham Cotton Spinning Companies,
and manufacturing firms like John Crossley and Sons, Limited,
Norton Bros, and Co., Limited, Mark Oldroyd and Sons,
Limited; and Crewdson Crosses and Co., Limited; and I
must also add the Flour Mills and other productive Societies
associated with the Central Co-operative Board.
(4) Private firms giving at their pleasure a bonus to labour,
but acknowledging no fixed principle—disclosing no accounts,
nor taking the employed into their confidence in any way what
soever.
I will at once say the two latter so-called forms of associa
ting Capital with Labour are unworthy lengthened consider
ation, for in no way do they offer any solution of the problem
they profess to deal with. The Productive Societies rendering
returns to the Central Co-operative Board, which are inferentially treated as Co-operative Productive Societies, show a share
and loan capital in 1884 of £772,342. Goods sold,
^1,791,074; and nett profit made during 1884, ,£76,224.
The amount paid to labour out of this profit appears to have
been the mighty sum of ^£546. It will be difficult to explain
where the co-operation is to be found in these societies, and
yet more difficult to explain how they in any way perform the
great mission co-operators have taken upon themselves to
prosecute.
The Limited Liability Companies at Oldham admit no right
of the labourer to share in profits—only shareholders, the
providers of the capital, participate; a few workmen may be
shareholders, but it is pretty well known that the shareholders
are mainly capitalists and speculators; many of the Companies,
�CAPITAL AND LABOUR IN ENGLAND.
129
and there are about 100 of them, have been floated by
speculators in shares without any regard whatever to the
interests of the workers. It is a sad reflection on the assumed
co-operative spirit of the ‘‘Oldham Limiteds” that their
operatives are now on strike against a reduction in wages.
Imagine a co-operative association of workers striking against
their own interests ! In the body corporal the foot does not
strike against the head, nor the hand against the eye. Every
separate member works in harmony with its fellow members ;
all co-operate for the common good.
As regards the Limited Companies which have been
converted from private firms, they also only acknowledge the
right of the shareholders to participate in profits ; their relations
with their workers are no more amicable or mutual than in
any private firms, where the rights of labour are considered
satisfied by the payment of the lowest possible competition
wages. If the truth were told, many of these once private
firms now turned into Limited Companies, were established
as public companies simply as a means whereby the proprietors
could relieve themselves of heavy burdens too great for private
enterprise to bear; to adopt limited liability is a convenient
way of defining the respective shares and responsibilities of
many members of a family, and also of allowing the public to
share the risks; they have not done one atom to better the
relations between workmen and capitalists.
Private firms, or Limited Liability Companies giving at their
pleasure a bonus to labour without any spirit of co-operation,
maintaining a policy of strict secresy, have also not contributed
to a better feeling between Capital and Labour. Secresy is
the cause of mistrust; if profits have been abnormally large,
the workers have had no confidence that they have received
their fair share in bonus. If they have been small, there has
been a mistrust that the bonus was smaller than needs be;
if profits have vanished altogether, the workers have not
believed things were so bad as represented; disputes as to
wages have followed—the only solution of the problem as to
J
�130
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
the respective rights of Capital, Intellect and Labour lies in
the acknowledgment of the truth that they are inseparable. If
they are inseparable, they ought to be mutual. A house
divided against itself cannot stand—they can only be made
mutual by the exercise of the fullest confidence. The assess
ment of their respective shares of the proceeds of their con
joint enterprise can only be satisfactorily adjusted by treating
everything above-board.
It is to France we must turn for the best illustrations of the
successful working of co-operative productive establishments,
and for examples of the great benefits derived from the par
ticipation of labour in profits.
A French Parliamentary Commission has recently been
inquiring into the working of working-men’s associations, and
much valuable evidence has been put on record regarding the
constitution and working of these associations. M. Waldeck
Rousseau, Minister of the Interior, President of the Commission,
addressed the members at the close of their labours as
follows :—
“ The firms that admit their staff to a share in their profits
show results not less remarkable than those of the working
men’s associations. The advantages of this combination—which
have, perhaps, been too little considered by the parties in
terested-—have become better known through the information
supplied by the inquiry. This institution, as well as that of the
working-men’s associations, have found new and valuable advo
cates. The witnesses examined show also that, with rare
exceptions, these trials, notwithstanding the difficulties of the
time, have been successful. Only five of the associations whose
history has, so to speak, been unrolled before you, have failed.
And of these three have perished from causes quite foreign to
the system which has formed the subject of inquiry. Almost
all of them have succeeded in securing to their members a remunera
tion for their work more equitable, more reasonable andfair, and
thus affording them a proof of the vital power of association.
Not less deserving of attention are the facts brought to light by
�ASSOCIATION IN FRANCE.
131
the inquiry in respect to the participation in profits. The
evidence taken by us shows that working-men’s associations
and the participation in profits are guarantees for the good
execution of work. I have been struck by the decision with
which the most experienced employers have declared that by estab
lishing in their firms theparticipation in profits, they had not only
done a good action, but made a good stroke of business. You will
find this affirmation on the lips of all whom you have heard.
The labour, the co-operation which they obtain, is more
efficient, more productive. We are, they add, amply repaid for
the sacrifice we have made by the devoted co-help that we
obtain.
“ I stated at our first meeting that in my opinion we are in
the presence of facts which are irresistibly carrying labour into
new paths. This prognostic, this judgment, formed at the
commencement, has been confirmed in my mind by the
attentive examination of the economical'transforma ions which
*
every day grow more decided. If it is true that the products
of industry do not leave a profit large enough to allow of the
present conflict between the workman and the manufacturer
becoming more aggravated without danger, I, at least, cannot
see any practical solution, except in the development of associa
tion under all its forms, uniting what is now separated, and
asking for the reward of labour out of the profits that it has
procured. This is the thought to which I have already given
shape before you, in saying that labour would progressively seek
its remuneration less and less from the hire of work and more
and more from association.
“ Here is the dominant idea which leads us to seek how the
State, within the limits of the action permitted to it, may aid
the development of workmen’s associations. The attentive
study which I have made has brought two main conclusions.
The first is, that association in all its forms develops and improves
the moral and material condition of the labourer. It procures
for him a more equitable remuneration. It raises him a step in
the social scale. He becomes his own master, and is at once
J 2
�132
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
employer and employed. He comes into contact with every
social interest. A closer solidarity binds them together.
There results a valuable guarantee for good order and progress.
Thus, in my eyes, does the interest of the State justify it in
developing and giving facilities to the associations.
“ If the State ought not to impose association, assuredly its
duty is to remove all useless and superannuated hindrances to
it. Neither obligation nor obstacle—such appears to me to be
the rule that ought to guide us.”
This is a most valuable tribute to the advantages, moral,
material, and economic, of the power of association. The
employers of labour and capitalists in this country will do well
to turn their attention to the study of the various forms of asso
ciation now successfully working in France ; leaving aside the
moral elevation of the workers and the improvement of their
social condition, a mastery of the details of these associations
will convincingly prove that participation in profits, the taking
of workers into full confidence, pays.
M. Godin, the founder of the Familistère at Guise, in his
evidence before the French Parliamentary Commission, reply
ing to a question as to what is the result from the industrial
point of view of the association of capital and labour, on the
principle of participation of workers in profits, replied
“ From the industrial point of view the facts speak more
forcibly than any possible praise. Since the association has
been established, the workmen have become interested in im
proving production. They are watchful to point out any losses
or causes of imperfect work. They exert their ingenuities to
discover novelties. We are continually obliged to take out new
patents.” Asked if in the name of the society or of the
inventors, he replied
In the name of the society. I ought
to say that I have my share in these inventions. Only, during
my previous industrial career I had to do everything myself.
When the idea was conceived I had to work it out and appre
ciate it. Now I can say to my co-workers, investigate in this
or that direction, there is something to be done there • and
�THE FAMILISTÈRE AT GUISE
133
this is done with enthusiasm, with the desire of attaining a
result.”
The Familistère at Guise, destined to be referred to in
generations yet to come as one of the cradles in which the
industrial organizations of the future were nursed and tended,
was founded by M. Godin in i860; it was only, however, in 1877
that the principle of participation was established. At Guise,
and the branch establishment at Lacken, near Brussels, 900
persons now participate in profits. All are become shareholders,
some to the extent of ^30, others >£40, and even ¿£400. The
constitution of the association appears to be grafted on to what
was originally M. Godin’s private firm. The capital at the
present time is as follows :—M. Godin’s share ^£i 23,000 ; the
900 shareholders referred to possess amongst them ¿£48,000 ;
a reserve fund of ¿£16,000, and also a capital of ¿£26,800
forming a fund for the assurance of pensions and a guarantee
against want. This fund receives annually from the association
a sum equal to two per cent, of the wages and salaries, taken
from the profits before any division of them is made ; a provision
against accident, want, or old age is thus made a first duty; the
insurance fund receives interest at the rate of five per cent,
before profits are calculated. Besides the 900 who participate
in profits and are become shareholders, there are about 500
other persons who do not participate, but they have a right to
assistance and to retiring pensions. The association has now
thirty-five pensioners in the enjoyment of perfect security, as
sured against misery till their last hour.
The administration of the Familistère is in the hands of a
directive council, with M. Godin as gerant or managing director.
The heads of each department in the different branches of the
business have each a seat on the council ; besides these, the
associés elect six persons who represent the workers on the
council.
The division of profits is made in proportion to the respect
ive shares in the production. It is a rule in the association
to estimate the services rendered by capital, labour, and skill,
�134
DIS TRIBUTION REFORM.
and to attribute to each of them a share in profits propor
tionate to the services performed. If a working shareholder
derives, for instance, ^40 as interest on his capital, and on
the other hand receives ^40 as wages, the total amount of the
services rendered by him to the association is thus valued at
^80, and it is on this basis that he participates rateably in the
£ in the division of profits.
The participants are divided into three classes : a partici
pant requires one year’s residence, a sociétaire three years, and
an associé five years, besides other conditions prescribed by the
statutes of the association. An associé is considered to render
service of greater value than a sociétaire, and & sociétaire services
of greater value than a participant. . The participant shares in
proportion to the exact amount of his salary, the sociétaire in
proportion to one-and-a-half times, and the associé in propor
tion to twice the amount of his salary. Last year the partici
pant received 15 per cent., the sociétaire 23 per cent., and the
associé 30 per cent, on their wages.
M. Godin draws ^9,000 interest on his capital, and a
salary of ^3,20.0 as gerant or managing director,.which sums
he considers enormous, yet they are only his share of the
profits as defined by the principles of participation. His
co-workers are more than satisfied, and have no desire to get
rid of him.
The workers receive only in cash the interest upon the
shares allotted to them, all other, shares in profits, acquired by
them are converted into shares in the association, without
increasing M. Godin’s capital. These new shares serve to
repay the original shares; if, say, ^30,000 of profits were
distributed in one year, this would be converted into new
shares for the working shareholders, and . would repay a
corresponding proportion of M. Godin’s capital. M. Godin
says : “ My shares would be replaced in the society by those of
the workers. There is a further point to which, gentlemen, I
invite your attention. A time may come when all my capital
will have been repaid. The workers will have taken my
�CONSTITUTION OF THE FAMILISTERE.
135
place ; but under our statutory provisions the repayment will
continue indefinitely. It will act on the oldest shares, so that
the establishment will always remain in the hands of actual
workers. This is a result which I consider to be very impor
tant in an economical point of view.”
Besides association in business, there is in the Familistère
a co-operative consumers’ society. Everything which a com
munity of 1,200 requires in food and clothing is supplied like
the Lancashire co-operative societies at the usual trade prices ;
the profits at the end of the year are distributed, half to the
buyers, and the other half carried to the general account of the
profits of the Association. Last year 5 per cent, was given to
the buyers on the amount of their purchases, and 5 per cent,
carried to the general profits.
*
Nor is this all. The principle of association is carried
even to the housing of the workers, somewhat after the fashion
of the ancient house community, traces of which are yet to be
found in existence in Switzerland. A co-operative house
community is also found amongst the savages of the Pacific
Isles. At Guise large buildings called palaces, the property of
the association, are let out in rooms to suit the workers, and as
the workers are shareholders in the association, they are in
part their own landlords. M. Godin says that individual
liberty, which is prized above everything, is respected at Guise.
In the palaces the worker is not put in a barrack ; the inhabi* The constitution of the Co-operative Consumers’ Society at Guise, it will
be seen, is somewhat similar to the constitution of the Distributive Associations
I have herein advocated. I accept the fact as a most valuable approval of the
soundness of the principles on which they would be founded. When I first
suggested this form of association, I was totally ignorant of the existence of the
Familistère at Guise. That I should have arrived at conclusions so similar,
and so fully in sympathy with those at which M. Godin had previously arrived,
is a noteworthy coincidence, full of good augury. The application of the principles
laid down in the associations I have recommended are more thorough and cos
mopolitan, and calculated to diffuse the benefits and economy of association
more widely than does the Guise Co-operative Consumers’ Society. But I need
not just now attempt to draw a comparison ; it will for the present be sufficient
to draw attention to their similarity.
�DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
tant of rooms, M. Godin declares, is freer than in an isolated
dwelling. The rooms are entered from large galleries, which
represent the footpaths of a street. One of these palaces is
capable of accommodating 600 inhabitants.
The morality of the population at Guise is high : there has
not been occasion for a single legal proceeding since i860.
All the affairs of the Familistère are settled in family. The
population forms its own internal police. There is not a
child of six years old who cannot read. ^1,200 a year, equal
t0 Zi per head of the population, is spent on primary educa
tion.
Here we have a grand example of the truth that social and
industrial justice is not social equality ; each receives a return
proportionate to his talents or the uses he has made of them;
there is no levelling, no spoliation. The arrangement for the
repayment of capital provides for renewed youth and activity;
there is no law of primogeniture nor entail. A man, because
he is the son of his father, is not hoisted into a position he may
be utterly unfit for, and which may be distasteful to him. In
this, wise economic arrangement we see an embodiment of
Christian principle. No matter whatsoever may be our lot,
whether it be one of honour, wealth and influence, or of humble
service, we are but journeying through life ; we hold what we
have, and use the bounties of nature, simply in trust for genera
tions to follow. How many worn-out and lifeless concerns
might one point to that are now an anxiety and a curse to those
who have succeeded to them, which, if they had been founded
on the principles of M. Godin, would now be full of vigour,
activity, and prosperity. Wealth is a trust; if it is not used for
the benefit of others it will assuredly be as nothing and flee
away ; to tie it up is to suffocate it.
It may be interesting in closing a reference to the Familistère
at Guise to say that the business carried on there is making
cooking and heating apparatus and hardware used for furniture.
Other examples of profit-sharing will be found in Mr. Sedley
Taylor’s work on Profit-Sharing, published by Messrs. Kegan
�THE MA IS ON LECLAIRE, PARIS.
137
Paul, Trench and Co., also in the publications issued by
Messrs. Chaix et Cie., Rue Berger, Paris.
In the department of the Seine there are upwards of fifty
co-operative workmens’ associations.
Before leaving this part of our subject, I would like to refer
to the Maison Leclaire, for by so doing I might, perchance,
interest some reader possessed of opportunity to follow in
Leclaire’s footsteps ; or maybe some working-men, hitherto un
acquainted with such noble examples of the advantages of
association and co-operation of labour and capital as are to be
found in the Familistère at Guise and the Maison Leclaire, may
be influenced to reflect on this new light, this higher life in the
industrial world, and induced to work out some practical
results.
At the age of seventeen Leclaire arrived in Paris, penniless
and without a friend; he apprenticed himself to a house-painter ;
at twenty-six years of age he started on his own account. He
soon made a reputation for excellence of work, and was recog
nised as a leader in his trade. In 1835 a friend told Leclaire
that he saw no way of getting rid of the antagonism which existed
between workman and master except the participation of the
workman in the profits of the master. So great an impression
did this make on Leclaire’s mind, for seven years he was
cogitating a plan for giving effect to the idea. In 1842 he
announced his intention of dividing part of the profits amongst a
certain number of his workers. As in the case of M. Godin at
Guise, mistrust at first seized hold of the workmen. Some could
not but believe that it was a far-fetched scheme for reducing
their wages. Leclaire, however, gave an ocular and practical
demonstration of his meaning. Calling those of his workmen
together who were to share in the profits, he placed upon the
table a bag of money containing 11,886 francs (about ^475),
and there and then distributed to each his share, averaging
more than ^10 per worker. After that there was no doubt
ing his meaning or purpose. Mistrust gave place to con
fidence.
�138
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
Leclaire’s experience in inaugurating the principle of profitsharing was almost the same as M. Godin experienced thirty
years later. M. Godin relates his experience as follows :—
“ An illiterate population, living in the country, and accus
tomed to a certain daily work, was clearly not prepared for ideas
of association so largely conceived. Men came and told these
people that I wanted to entrap them, to condemn them to
slavery, that my promises were only lies. You know what the
human mind is. Doubt and bewilderment got such a hold on
their minds, that at the time of the first division, before the
society was constituted, when I offered to share more than ^4,000
with the workers—£& to one, ^12 to another—the majority
of them refused. As the day when the division was to be made
came round, their heads had been turned; they came to say,
‘We don’t know why this is given us.’ I put the orders back
in my safe, and subsequently the workers came one after
another to ask for them. The idea had been comprehended,
and afterwards the association was founded without difficulty.
The sum divided has grown since then from ^4,000 to
^40,000. You will see by this that the body of workers have
opened their eyes and become eager to be associated.”
When Leclaire announced his intention of dividing profits,
the newspaper IJAtelier accused him, as M. Godin was after
wards accused, of manoeuvring in this way to reduce wages; his
promises, it said, were only lies; but Leclaire, as did also M.
Godin, lived down this obloquy, and survived to see a mighty
influence in the friendly and co-operative relations of capital
and labour firmly established.
In 1838 Leclaire established a Mutual Aid Society: it derived
its funds from monthly subscriptions of the workers who became
members. The original statutes of the society provided that
a division of its funds might be demanded at the end of fifteen
years from the date of its foundation. In 1853 a liquidation
took place, but the society was reconstituted, and from that
time the funds of the society have been chiefly drawn from
a share in the profits given by the firm at its usual stocktaking.
�CONSTITUTION OF THE MAISON LECLAIRE.
139
The Mutual Aid Society forms an insurance and superannua
tion fund, and has now a capital of 1,500,000 francs (^60,000) ;
its income from investments, &c., is 60,000 francs (^2,400)
in. addition to 25 percent, of the profits from the business. An
associate member of the house is entitled to an interest in the
Mutual Aid Fund giving him a pension of 1,200 francs (^48)
per year on attaining the age of fifty, or after twenty years’ work
in the house. The widow of an associate receives 600 francs
(^24) a year for her life. In 1882 there were 51 pensioners
receiving an aggregate of ^2,060 per annum from the
*
society.
Leclaire died in 1872 but so perfect were the arrangements
made for the continuity of the house, it has prospered and
flourished since he ceased to take any active part. Its con
stitution is of a twofold nature. First, there is the commercial
* The Mutual Aid Society in the 'Maison Leclaire, the Assurance Fund ot
the Familistère at Guise, and similar funds that have been established in several
French working-men’s societies and profit-sharing houses, is but the reproduc
tion of one of the leading features of the ancient guilds. Historians agree that
the ancient trade and craft guilds were founded as benefit societies for mutual
helpfulness and friendly encouragement. In the Report of the Royal Commis
sion on the City of London Companies,'we read—“The provincial guilds of
England, in the reign of Richard IL, seem to have been associations of neigh
bours, or of members of the same trade, which assembled for the purposes of
common worship and feasting, and which served—to borrow the language of
modern life—as benefit societies and burial clubs.
They were also private
tribunals for the settlement of disputes, and the craft guilds seminaries of techni
cal education. The incomes of all the guilds were, up to a certain point, ex
pended in the same way—viz., the maintenance of the hall, the expense of
feasting, the payment of salaries, the relief of poor members, and of the widows
and orphans of poor members, the finding of portions for poor maids, and the
payments for funerals and obits ; the funds were also applied to the binding of
apprentices, to loans to young men starting business, the purchase of new
receipts and inventions, and the prevention of adulteration. Both social and
craft guilds also relieved the poor. ” The work the associations of capital and
labour are now doing in France could not be more accurately described than
the work the old trade and craft guilds sought to do in their day is described
in the Report of the City Companies’ Commission. The guiding principles of
the ancient and modern associations are co-operative action and mutual help
fulness ; the method of applying these must of necessity be different now to
what it was in the Middle Ages, but the principles are nevertheless the same.
�140
DISTR/BUTTON REFORM.
part of the institution, and then the Mutual Aid Society.
Each, though closely connected, may be worked separately and
independently of each other. The capital of the house is
;£i6,ooo, half of which is held by the two managing partners,
the other half by the society which is the collective embodi
ment of the workers. There is also a reserve fund of 100,000
francs (¿£4,000;, which has been formed by a- retention of 10
per cent, of the annual profits. The Mutual Aid Society
possesses, as I have already shown, a capital of ¿£60,000, of
which one-third is invested in securities guaranteed by the
State, and two-thirds lent upon interest to the house. The two
managing partners receive £240 each per annum, as salaries
for superintendence and management; they receive interest at
five per cent, for their capital. The society receives the same
on its capital. Twenty-five per cent., or one quarter of the nett
profits, go to the two managing partners conjointly. Seventyfive per cent., or three-quarters of the nett profits, is allotted to
the workers; twenty-five per cent, of this is placed to the
pension fund in the Mutual Aid Society, and fifty per cent, is
paid in cash each year to the workers according to their
respective earnings. The workers do not individually partici
pate in losses, but they do so collectively, for in the name of
the Society they have large investments in the business, and
also provide half the capital.
The share in profits averages about £16 a year for the
regular workman, constantly employed, but if a man works only
an hour, he receives his fraction of the profits. Either in cash
bonuses, or contributions to the Mutual Aid Society, from
1842 to 1882 inclusive, no less a sum than ¿£133,045 was paid
out of profits for the benefit of the workers. The yearly turn
over at the time of Leclaire’s death in 1872 was ¿£80,000 ; in
1882 it had reached ^125,580.
There are 400 workers employed, 126 of whom have an
interest in the Mutual Aid Pension Fund. The workers annu
ally nominate two delegates, who go through the accounts and
see the profits are divided according to the rules of the associ-
�LECLAIRE'S CONFESSION OF FAITH.
I41
ation. The results, morally and economically, of this method of
association and participation in profits have been marvellous.
The workers know that it is their interest to do their work well, to
be careful of tools, and prevent all possible waste. If they do their
work efficiently, they know the reputation of the house is kept
up, and further work ensured ; if they are careful of tools and
economise at all points, they know there will be a greater
amount of profit to divide. Before the commencement of
the participation, forty per cent, of the workers did not
work on Mondays, and drank excessively; this number does
not now exceed one per cent. The members are jealous
of their character for morality and honesty; any worker
or associate guilty of immorality is at once excluded.
Leclaire’s life was a success from a worldly point of view;
he attained to a position of influence and comparative wealth.
In 1865, he wrote, “I maintain that if I had gone on in the
beaten track of routine, I could not have arrived, even by
fraudulent means, at a position comparable to that which I
have made for myself.” Although he made no profession of
faith in any of the dogmas of any Christian sect, when in sight
of death he made the following grand confession of faith and
duty:—“ I believe in the God who has written in our hearts the
law of duty, the law of progress, the law of sacrifice of one’s
self for others; I submit myself to His will, and bow before the
mysteries of His power, and of our destiny. I am the humble
disciple of Him who has told us to do to others what we would
have others do to us, and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
It is in this sense that I desire to remain a Christian until my
last breath.” *
I might give further proofs of the success, from whatsoever
point of view it may be looked at, of the principle of associa
tion of capital and labour by what is known as “ participation,”
by referring to the Co-operative Paper Mill at Angouleme,
employing 1,500 workers; to the Parisian Cabinet-Makers,
* See Mr. Sedley Taylor’s “ Profit-Sharing,” p. 25.
�142
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
Limited, with 215 workers; to the Association of Working
Tailors, the Association of Cabdrivers, the Association of Tinworkers, and to the printing house of A. Chaix et Cie.; and to
numerous other convincing proofs of the power and efficacy of
the principle of association, all clearly showing that when once
the interests of master and workman, of capital and labour, are
made mutual in the only way they can be so made—namely,
by mutually sharing the profits of their conjoint labour—the
results achieved are increased production and superior
workmanship, less waste, and an all-round effort to achieve
success.
These various forms of association in productive enterprise,
which the French Legislative Chamber, French statesmen, and
French employers of labour now appreciate as a fulcrum for
levering the workmen into a higher social life, and for
smoothing the hitherto rugged pathway along which capital
and labour must—whether amicably or in a hostile spirit—■
travel together, are—in a modernised and more economically
efficient form—reproductions of the ancient village community,
or the brotherhood of the mediaeval trade and craft guilds.
They accomplish, by no greater power than that of moral union,
what the ancient communities and guilds sought to attain by
force of law. The ancient and the modern associations, how
ever, all acknowledge that man doth not live to himself alone.
Prosperity'and happiness are most assured by abnegation of
self. Society is an aggregation of individuals : there can be no
real nor lengthened happiness to the true man if the society or
community in which he lives is not prosperous and happy;
therefore the good of self is only to be found in seeking to
promote and secure the well-being of the community.
In these associations we find no trace of the brutal law
of the fittest surviving, nor do we see an ill-regulated
scramble for wealth. We find well-organised systems
suited to the various trades, in which work, intellect, and
capital are rewarded according to their respective merits and
productiveness. We find a provision made for old age and
�EMANCIPATION OF LABOUR.
143
a shield and protection for the widow and the fatherless—the
workmen are not left to be fleeced and swindled by Friendly
Societies, which prey upon the pockets and work upon the
ignorance of the uneducated and unbefriended workman, as
many of our English Friendly Societies do.
*
In these associations the workman is insured out of
profits, and his means of subsistence are not reduced; as a
matter of fact, he is insured out of his own increased pro
ductiveness ; the insurance fund is managed without exorbitant
commissions and fees—these run away with half the premiums
in many English Workmen’s Friendly Societies. England
boasts of being the home of free trade, of liberty, justice,
and enlightenment—the working-man’s paradise. The great
princes of industry in England have much to learn from
France, much to learn of their duty to their fellow-men, of
the obligations of capital.
Amid all the great names in English industrial enterprise
—although many have made fortunes of millions, and some,
after attaining success in commercial life, have been honoured
in the political world—there is not one that will be esteemed
so highly in future generations for having done noble deeds
and Christian service in the business world, as Leclaire of
Paris, and Godin of Guise.
The first step in the emancipation and freedom of labour
must be made in the economy and organization of distribution;
if there is useless expenditure and waste in the process of
distribution, it is undoubtedly a tax on production and con
sumption.
In the associations for. distribution, the organizations of
which I have explained, and their federal association with pro* It is a deplorable fact that many Friendly Societies are irretrievably
insolvent; in some cases the expenses amount to seventy per cent, of the
income; the directors and agents swallow up three-farthings of every penny
contributed. There are exceptions to this disastrous condition of affairs,
but as in the solvent societies the branch lodges are mostly held in public
houses, the members have the temptation to spend as much or more in
drink as they do in a provision for sickness or death.
�144
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
ductive establishments founded on the principles of association
of capital and labour, such as I have shown exist in the
Familistère at Guise and Maison Leclaire in Paris, and many
other industrial foundations in France, labour will be freed and
receive its fair share of the proceeds of its industry, the yoke
will be easy, the burden lightened.
Despite the now historical case of the Messrs. Briggs at the
Whitwood Collieries, Messrs. Fox, Head and Co., Sir W.
Armstrong, and other spasmodic and weak attempts to
form industrial partnerships, we have not yet had tried in
England a solid and well-determined plan of association of
capital and labour in productive enterprise. In every case there
has been clearly visible the elements of future shipwreck j the
plans have not been thoroughly mutual : labour has not received
its fair share in the councils, nor its equitable participation
in the profits j the interests not being mutual, the first
little storm has laid bare the want of confidence in each
other.
In the federal combination of the two forms of association
which I have described, I venture to submit that we should
have an automatic system of general co-operation which Robert
Owen, Fourrier, Mario, and the earlier advocates of association
and co-operation would have supported, which more recent but,
alas ! now departed economists, like Mill, Fawcett, and Jevons,
would have pleaded for, and which the great body of living and
energetic co-operators and social reformers must support if
they remain true to their professions.
At the Co-operative Congress at Oldham, one of the French
delegates who had been deputed by French co-operators to
express their good-will to their English fellow-workers in the cause
of the social elevation of labour, was reported to have said that
“ the English co-operative societies, being engaged chiefly in dis
tributive enterprise, were taking the bull by the horns : they in
France, having devoted their efforts to co-operative association
in production, were taking it by the tail ; ” but the animal to be
put under proper control requires to be taken bodily. This
�MR. JOHN BRIGHT AND FREE LABOUR.
145
federal union of morality and economy in distribution, and
justice and equity in production will, I maintain, give freedom
to labour and justice to every interest concerned in that which
makes up the social and industrial economy.
In a speech made at a dinner given in celebration of
American Independence on July 5th, 1885, Mr. John Bright,
M.P., is reported to have said :—“ I hope the time will come
when there will be another Independence Day in the United
States, not to free bodies of white and black men, but to free
permanently and as freely as I believe we have done in this country,
the labour of the whole poptilation. I want the two nations to
be one people. I want them to be foremost in political and
religious freedom. I want, also, and hope the time will come
when there will be that other freedom which the States may be
as proud of as the great bulk of Englishmen are of the freedom
we have achieved.”
In these two sentences we have a clear repetition and state
ment of the error Mr. Bright and his free-trade friends seem
incapable of dispelling from their minds. The bulk of English
men are proud of the labour and achievements of Cobden and
Bright and their associates, in the agitation for the Repeal of the
Corn Laws, and for their advocacy of customs’ reforms and free
imports ; but to suppose that the removal of customs’ duties on
many articles has been the emancipation and freedom of labour,
is a grievous mistake. Can labour be called free, when it works
for starvation wages? Can labour be free, when thousands are
willing to work but cannot find employment ? Is labour free,
when there is land that needs cultivation but the labourer is
not allowed to work it? According to Lord Thurlow, the labourer
is left to starve, yet all the while if he was free to labour nature
he might produce for himself enough and to spare. Can labour
be free, when the industrial labourers receive an unjust share ot
the proceeds of their labour? Can labour be free, when be
tween the producer and the consumer there is a tax — an
unnecessary tax—for distribution, amounting to at least
¿£200,000,000 per annum more than is natural and necessary?
K
�146
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
Ask the half-timers, the children who work in factories for 3s.
per week of 28 hours’ labour, equal to one penny-farthing per
hour. Ask the youths engaged in spinning, who earn 9s. per
week for 56 hours of work : about twopence per hour. Ask
the weaver who earns 14s. a week for weaving no yards of a
certain kind of dress stuff, equal to about i|d. per yard; if for
her own consumption she buys back the production she has
helped to make, she has to pay to the distributors a profit of
is. 6d. per yard, that is, twelve times the amount of her wages.
Ask the seamstress earning 8s. per week, the slop-tailor, the
matchbox-maker, the agricultural labourer earning his 10s. to
12s. a week. Agricultural labourers earning 12s. a week
pay 3s. a week for rent and is. a week for school fees; on
the 8s. remaining they have to support a wife and family
of three or four children. In giving the 8s. in exchange
for food and clothing, they are mulcted in a usurious rate of
profit or cost of distribution to the tune of 50 to 100 per cent.;
when 10 per cent, would be more than sufficient for the
necessary cost of making the exchange. The owners of the
land live wantonly on their toil, the middlemen who exchange
their products grow rich and are clothed luxuriously, whilst
they are in rags. If this is not “ oppressing an hired servant
that is poor and needy,” what can be ? Where is freedom in
such labour ? It is such as these that constitute the great
industrial army that is the making of England. If you ask
them, they will tell you their labour is too free: too free in the
giving of the labour, and too scant in getting their fair share of
the proceeds. It is by the exchange of each others’ labour the
social circle is completed; the exchange should be for their
mutual benefit, but it is performed for their mutual disadvan
tage: for the exchange of their productions, even after the
capital employed in production has had its reward, the labourers
have to pay a usury of not less than 50 per cent.—more fre
quently it is 100 per cent. With the bulk of labourers it is
a constant struggle for existence. The sellers of their labour
and distributors of the productions grow rich-and live in luxury;
�IS LABOUR YET EMANCIPATED IN ENGLAND ?
147
the labourers are habitually poor, content with the barest means
of subsistence.
From the paper I have already quoted, read by Mr.
MacDougall on the causes of pauperism in Manchester, it
appears that in the Manchester Union 8f per cent, of the
population were in receipt of relief for longer or shorter
periods during 1884. The astounding fact was brought
to light that one death in every six was that of a
pauper. This points, says Mr. MacDougall, to the conclusion
that a large number of the inhabitants have no resources for
support and medical treatment during serious illness. This
pauperism is, moreover, proved to be non-hereditary, only two
per cent, can be traced to hereditary taint.
Thus, in Manchester, the home of free trade—and
therefore, according to Mr. Bright, it should be the home
of free labour—one in eleven of the population is a pauper
receiving parish relief, and one in six of the population
dies a pauper’s death—rather a sad condition this for free
labour !
How, then, can Mr. Bright say we have freed labour ? In
the United States, under the pretence of protection to native
labour, they put excessive import duties on foreign productions.
In this country, as a first step to freedom of labour, we have
removed most of our previous import duties ; but neither in the
United States is labour protected, nor is it in this country free,
for in both cases it is mulcted in unnecessary charges, and pri
vileged classes exact toll of it. The evils in the English system
may be less than in the United States, but it is only a question
of degree.
In customs duties from 1840 to 1883 inclusive, the amount
of customs duty repealed in the United Kingdom was
^29,405,679; the amount of new duties imposed or old duties
increased was ^5,020,450; giving a net total reduction during
the whole period of forty-four years of ^24,385,229. This is
all the reduction in the direction of free imports that the freetrade policy has made. In lieu of this reduction in customs
k 2
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DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
duties, internal taxes, direct and indirect, have to some extent
been imposed and increased.
I am cognisant of the fact that the benefit of free imports
and tariff reforms is not to be measured solely by the amount
of the reductions made in the customs tariff; the benefits are
indirectly shown in the increased volume of trade. I readily
admit these benefits; but say it is a misnomer to call the
removal of customs duties the consummation of free trade and
the entire freedom of labour.
I have before stated that the principle of free trade is based
on the law of natural value. If a person buys an article for
consumption on which an import duty of ten per cent, has been
imposed, and for which a profit or charge of fifty per cent, was
also made for distribution, it is clear the ten per cent, for the
import duty made the article so much dearer than its natural
value, and if the legitimate cost of distribution could have been
covered for thirty per cent, less than was charged, it is also clear
that besides the import duty of ten per cent, the consumer also
paid twenty per cent, more than the natural price.
Distribution, as I have striven to show, is but a part of pro
duction. When the cost of distribution is unnecessarily great,
then it is as pernicious and as much a tax on commodities, a
restriction upon production and labour, as any customs duty.
A reform in the process of distribution would confer as great if
not greater benefits on the people than the removal of import
duties has conferred. Like the reform in customs tariffs, the
benefits would not only be seen in the amount saved (and
the saving would far exceed the reduction of import duties),
but would be of greater benefit in the increased consumption it
would create, and the wider diffusion of employment such in
crease would occasion. Until this reform is made in distribu
tion labour cannot be free ; until then it will not receive its
fair reward.
It may be satisfactory to Mr. Bright to think the removal
of import duties has freed labour, it may be satisfactory to those
who have made enormous fortunes since the commencement of
�A FREE BREAKFAST TABLE.
149
the free-trade policy, but it won’t do for the student of economics
nor will it stand the criticism of the future historian of this period
of industrial and national history.
The most powerful argument now in the hands of the freetrade politicians is the waste and destruction of wealth in the
military systems of Europe. The estimated army and navy
expenditure for 1884 of the whole of the European powers was
;£i 71,514,740. It is a favourite argument with free-trade poli
ticians that it is in the waste of this sum expended in non
productive labour, taken by taxation out of the results of
industry, we have one of the greatest causes of trade depression.
But it never strikes these gentlemen that in our own
country we have a yearly waste in the distribution of the
necessaries of life equal to the whole annual naval and
military expenditure of “ burdened Europe ; ”—the one is just as
much a tax on industry as the other. We may agree with these
gentlemen that this martial expenditure is wasteful and depres
sive of trade and industry we may join with them in advo
cating its reduction and abolition ; but are not the greatest of
virtues the domestic ones ? Here at home, within our control,
we have a waste of wealth, a tax on industry, as great as that
which we complain of in the warlike expenditure of the powers
of Europe. We plead for the abolition of the latter on the
principles of peace and goodwill amongst the nations; but by
practising peace and goodwill in our own social and industrial
organisations, we may speedily remove as great a burden as we
complain of.
To preach to foreign nations on their internal policy is a
presumptuous proceeding, very likely to be resented. If the
disciples of the apostle of peace and brotherly love will set to
work to remove this domestic burden, the load of trade depres
sion will be removed. A greater amount of practical good will
be accomplished in five years, than preaching for twenty years
to foreign nations on their military policy will accomplish.
It is as futile to talk of a free breakfast table as it is to
represent that we have freed labour by removing import duties,
�I5o
distribution rd form.
for neither a free breakfast table nor free labour can exist
until distribution is reformed and freed from its present waste
and costliness, and, I must also add, the usurious spirit actu
ating those engaged in it. Representations are made to the
effect that a free breakfast table would exist if the remain
ing customs duties on articles of food were repealed; in
bur customs tariff, the requisites for a free breakfast table
on which import duties are now imposed are tea, coffee,
chicory, and dried fruits; the revenue raised on tea is
^£4,000,000 a year, this sum is added to the cost; I am
assured by a gentleman of great experience in the tea trade,
that the price consumers pay averages not less than 50 per
cent, more than the price at which the tea leaves the custom
house, after prime cost, duty, and all charges are added ; there
fore, consumers have to pay the dealers a profit of £2,000,000
on the £4,000,000 of duty, which they, (the dealers) pay
the government in other words, instead of the tax being
,£4,000,000 as it nominally appears, it is really a tax of
£6,000,000.
In like manner we pay a nominal duty on
imported tobacco and snuff of £8,900,000 a year, but snuff
takers and smokers are really taxed £12,000,000, for to the
duty of ,£8,900,000 must be added the profit thereon ot
distributors.
Suppose the customs duty on tea and every food requisite
was removed and absolutely abolished, it by no means follows
we should then secure a free breakfast table, for so long as the
cost of distributing these requisites and the cost of exchanging
them was 30 per cent, more than is necessary, just so long
would the breakfast table be taxed; there is no difference
whatever between taxation by customs duty and taxation by
exorbitant charges and unnecessary cost in distribution ; they
both raise prices, both are a tax on labour, and have to be
paid for out of the proceeds of labour.
Speaking of customs duties and taxation leads me to make
a digression, briefly referring to the question of taxation in
general. Reform in distribution will not be complete until all
�DIRECT TAXATION AND DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
I5I
indirect taxes are abolished, and the expenses of government
raised by direct taxation; there is an enormous waste in indirect
taxation, not only in the cost of collection, but also in the
indirect way it increases the cost of necessaries. I hope to see
the time when all customs duties will be abolished, and our
ports made free to receive, without let or hindrance, all
foreign produce we require ; so soon as distribution is done
associatively for the benefit of producers and consumers, then
shall we be ready for this sweeping customs reform. With a
thorough reform in local government and one sole rating
authority constituted in every district, I do not see why the
imperial government should not, after the votes have been
passed by the House of Commons, make precepts on each
local authority for its proportion of the national expenditure.
School-boards now receive their funds, in so far as they are
raised from local rates, after this fashion, by making precepts
on the constituted local authorities. If we had one rating
authority in each local district it would levy its rates under
various headings; for instance, there would be the rate
required by the local government for sanitary and general
purposes, then the poor rate, and after that the imperial rate.The rateable value of the whole country would be ascertained,
the imperial expenses would be so much in the pound, and
each local district would be called upon for its proportion.
Besides legacy and succession duties, and stamp duties,
taxation would come directly from owners and occupiers of
property; licensing laws, and the regulation of the drink traffic
left entirely in the hands of local authorities, there would be
no overlapping of tax-collectors, customs and inland-revenue
officers. The question of taxation is large enough to occupy
a volume to itself. I cannot now further enter into it; what I
wish to point out is that if distribution was reformed, wealth
would be more equitably distributed, and direct taxation could
be adopted more readily and with greater justice. Direct
taxation would be the best security for economy, a double
check would be made on extravagant expenditure, whether
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D/S Tk'/DU’TION REFORM.
local or imperial, costly wars would not be lightly entered
upon, and wasteful military and naval expenditure would be
closely scrutinised.
Apologising to the reader for this digression, and also for
what may appear a digression in an inquiry into what capital
consists of, we will proceed to sum up the benefits to be gained
by a thorough reform in distribution, such as in previous pages
we have been advocating.
That which we call capital is not money, nor gold, for there
is not as much gold in the whole world as the capital value of
one of our largest cities. The ancients used a more accurate
and expressive term : what we call capital they called goods.
The early English economists called it stock.
The capital of an agriculturist consists in land, buildings,
cattle, produce, and implements; that of a manufacturer in
land, buildings, machinery, cotton or wool, yarn, or manufac
tured goods. If you invest money in a railway, you do not
invest it in gold or money ; your investment consists of car
riages or engines, rails or land or buildings. Money is simply
the measure of exchange. Bankers who deal in money are
mediums of exchange ; through them differences in values of
exchange are settled. One pound in gold is sufficient to settle
the difference in exchange of ^500 worth of goods. Bankers,
besides being mediums of exchange and agents for the
collection and payment of debts, are also “engines of credit;”
it is only as mediums of exchange and agents for collection
and payment of debts I have here to deal with them : these are
the bankers’ legitimate functions. The more capital is employed
in direct production and distribution without the employment
of any intermediate agency of credit, and the more banks
are restricted to their proper functions as mediums of exchange
and agents for payment and collection of debts, the better
it will be for the stability of commercial and industrial affairs.
I know a village where ¿£80 in coinage pays ¿£4,000 a year in
wages. The workers, on getting their weekly wages, take them
to thè village store in exchange for provisions and clothing
�WIIAT IS CAPITAL"?
153
the manufacturer employing the labour gives a cheque to the
storekeeper every week for ^80, and gets, week after week,
the self-same coins. The storekeeper hands the cheque to
his banker, and against it draws cheques in payment for goods
which he has bought in various parts. These cheques find
their way to the Bankers’ Clearing-houses in London or Man
chester ; the cheque of one dealer or trader is set off against
another. A few pounds in coinage settles the difference in
transactions of thousands. The process goes on ad infinitum ;
in twenty years, allowing for wear and tear of the coins, the
same ^80 would pay ^80,000 in wages.
But this is not all : the manufacturer pays his debts to the
people he buys from in cheques or bills, and is paid by the
parties he sells to in like manner; bankers take these cheques
and bills, and thus become the agents for collection and
payment of debts; therefore, besides the ^80 wanted in coins
for payment of wages, and the cash the manufacturer requires
for his personal expenses, and the small amount of coinage
required by the bankers for the settlement of differences in
clearing the cheques and bills, there is very little money dealt
in; the manufacturer for his personal expenses may use the
same coins over and over again, so will the bankers use the
identical coins many times in payments and repayments of
differences; we may, therefore, safely say ^120 in money,
coins, or cash, is all that is needed to do the turn-over of the
manufacturer, which may be taken at ^20,000 a year. The
same >£120 in cash serves not only for one, but ten, twenty,
thirty, forty, or fifty years and more, so that in fifty years
(with a little wear and tear to be allowed for) ^120 in coins or
money suffices for the conducting of a business, the payment
of wages, and every process of buying, and selling, and
exchange, of an aggregate turn-over of ^1,000,000. This is a
small illustration of what is going on in the whole of the
transactions of the country. A little reflection will show what
a small part actual money really plays in the making of what
we call capital.
�154
D/S TRIBUTION REFORM.
Therefore, when we speak of a great increase in capital,
we simply mean a great increase of goods; when we talk of
an accumulation of capital, we really mean an accumulation of
goods ; when we talk of a glut of capital, we ought to say a
glut of goods ; when we say there is over-production, we simply
imply there are more goods being made than the owners
thereof will allow to be consumed, for they cannot get what
they consider an equitable exchange.
If some large public works are to be constructed—such, for
example, as large docks, railways, or waterworks — at an
estimated cost of £1,000,000, it is customary for us to say
one million of money will be spent on them ; as a matter of
fact, no money whatever is spent. If, instead of saying
¿£1,000,000 would be spent on them, or invested therein, we
were to say the workers employed in constructing the works
would consume goods of, say, the measurable value of
¿£750,000, and also use other goods of the measurable value
of, say ¿£250,000, we should get a clearer idea of what
actually happened; ¿£4,000 in cash would be all the money
required and all that would be used throughout the gigantic
operation. This sum would pay and repay the workers' wages
times without number, and would remain in existence after the
whole of the works were completed. There would not be
¿£1,000,000 of money invested in the works, there would
simply be goods of the measurable value of ¿£250,000 trans
ferred thereto, and labour of the measurable value of
¿£750,000 put therein. The said goods would be the savings
of past labour. So, too, the goods the labourers consumed
during the construction would be goods the results of savings
from some previous labour. The investment of the proprietors
or shareholders would therefore consist, not in money—for the
whole of the money required during the construction of the
works would be in existence after they were finished and paid
for—but in the value of the works, which would represent
merely so much labour.
The ¿£4,000 in cash employed would merely be the
�MONEY A MEASURE OF EXCHANGE.
I $5
measure of exchange between the labourers and the investors
who were allowing goods of past accumulation to be consumed
by the labourers. The investment they would get in return
would be the docks or railway, which would be the results of
the work of the labourers, thereafter to be called “capital.”
The ^4,000 in cash, as I have before said, after being the
measure of exchange, would be in existence after the works of
the measurable value of ^1,000,000 were completed.
If we have a right conception of what capital is, and what
it consists of, we shall have a clearer idea of the importance ot
its distribution. If we were to say that goods must be more
equitably distributed, instead of saying that capital must be
more equitably distributed, the human mind would at once
grasp its full meaning ; the importance of distribution in all
its varied functions would at once be seen.
The foundation and origin of the English system of weights
was the grain of corn : so many grains of corn were taken to
make up so many ounces, and so many ounces made a pound.
The pound weight was the measure of exchange between corn
and any other commodity. The pound sterling is also but a
measure of exchange; of itself it is not wealth; it represents a
given quantity of goods, and measures the relative values of
articles.
Just as in primitive times it was demanded for the safety
and protection of the community that weights and measures
should be attested and stamped by an official—for by that
means it was known that the pound weight actually represented
so many grains of corn—so to-day I ask that distribution and
exchange between man and man shall have the moral protec
tion of the collective interests of all, that we should not simply
rely on the stamped gold, which is after all only somewhat of a
token, but upon a higher standard of exchange which shall take
cognizance of actual services rendered and work done.
If, then, we rightly conceive that capital consists of
goods, land, buildings, or machinery—in other words, in what
we live in, on, or by—and that money is only a valuable and
�156
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
convenient measure of exchange, this question of morality and
economy in distribution and exchange will appear of threefold
importance ; and as we have previously seen what are the
factors in the creation of capital, and now having a true idea of
what capital is when created, we may proceed to summa
rize the advantages to be derived from a thorough reform in
the various functions and processes of distribution. The
benefits, amongst others, will be :—
1. The prevention of an enormous waste, which is a tax on
consumers and a depression and limitation of labour.
2. The possible saving is not less than ^200,000,000
a year, an amount greater than the normal yearly naval and
military expenditure of the whole European powers, and twoand-a-half times as much as our normal national expenditure.
3. The possible savings to be made by association for the
mutual benefit of producers and consumers in the distribution
of goods for home consumption is well-nigh as great as the
value of the whole of our exports of home produce and manu
factures, and far exceeds the value of our exports of textile
manufactures.
4. The savings to be made in the cost of distribution would
benefit labour by reducing the cost of the necessaries of life,
consumption would be increased, and a greater demand for
labour created.
5. We should be less dependent for our prosperity on trade
with foreign nations. The cries for Fair Trade and Protection
would lose their potency, for the distribution of goods being in
the hands of producers and consumers for their mutual benefit,
they would buy nothing abroad they could produce themselves,
but would gladly buy from the foreigner anything necessary for
their comfort and happiness, and such things they would desire
to have at the cheapest rate, free from all protective duties.
The present trade depression would be effectually remedied by
increased productiveness and consumption at home.
6. A reform in distribution would ere long reduce the cost
of living in this country one-fourth.
�BENEFITS OF REFORMS ADVOCATED.
•
157
7. A reform in the distribution of goods together with a
reform in the distribution of the results of industry, by the
mutual association of capital and labour in productive enter
prise, which a reform in the distribution of goods by the mutual
association of producers and consumers for their collective
well-being would make much more possible and feasible than
hitherto, would tend to the more equitable distribution of
wealth, the extremes of excessive wealth and pressing poverty
would be moderated, and society elevated.
8. By making distribution a helpmeet to production, and a
moral and economic system of exchange, speculation would be
discouraged, accumulations of capital or goods wrould be
directly employed in increased production; the outcome of
further production would be an increase of goods, and a per
manent tendency to lower prices.
9. Lower prices, which must of necessity follow a wider
expansion of civilization, and an increasing knowledge of the
arts of industry would, under an economic and moral system
of distribution and exchange, be a loss to no one but a benefit
to all. Growth of civilization, and an increasing knowledge and
use of applied sciences, must bring about an increase of goods.
An increase of goods cannot be disastrous, but ought to be a
positive gain, giving greater comforts and more leisure to all.
If the farmer had to take a lower price for his wheat, he would
be compensated by supplying his wants in other articles at
proportionately lower prices. If the growers of wool received
lower prices for their wool, they would be compensated by
purchasing their cloth at proportionately lower rates. If the
ironmaster received lower prices for his iron, compensation
would be made to him by supplying him with everything he
wanted in exchange for his iron at lower rates. If the wages
of the workers in the iron trade, the coal trade, or the textile
manufactures were reduced because of lower values, they
would be more than compensated by the cheapness of pro
visions and every article necessary to their well-being. If the
pwners of land or houses had to accept reduced rents, com
�i58
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
pensation would be made them in lower prices for everything
they needed ; they would in reality be richer than before.
io. A reform in distribution would impartially distribute the
benefits of lower prices ; under existing systems of individual
competition and enterprise, one class becomes rich out of the
losses of another, the benefits of lower prices are not distributed
for the collective good, the producer is depressed and the
consumer extorted. A reform in distribution would make all
interests mutual, measure would be given for measure, a spirit
of thorough mutual helpfulness and interdependence would
actuate the whole of our social relationships,
�CHAPTER XII.
Democracy in Government, Oligarchy in Industry—The two Incompatible—
The Most Active Advocates of Free Trade Policy the Most Diligent in
Bringing about this Inconsistency—Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., on MoneyBags in Parliament and the Incapacity of their Owners to Take an Intel
lectual Part in the Work of the House—The Archbishop of York on the
Need of Social Reforms—The Representatives of the Oligarchy in Industry
in Parliament—Their Public Professions and Private Practice Compared
with the Works of Godin and Leclaire—Private Enterprise and In
dividual Effort Compared with Collective Enterprise—It is by Collective
Enterprise in Public Works that our Artificial Civilisation is made Possible
—The Waste and Costliness of Distribution by Private Enterprise Com
pared with Possible Saving and Economy of Associative Distribution—Past
Class Legislation and Depression of the Labourers—Recent Legislation in
the Repeal of Old Laws Favouring Employers, and the Enactment of New
Laws Protecting the Community against the Encroachments of Private
Enterprise.
In the friendly and amicable understanding arrived at for
drafting and passing through both Houses of Parliament the
bills for the extension of the franchise to every householder in
the country and for redistribution of seats, each of the great
political parties—Liberals and Conservatives alike—have ad
mitted that the government of the nation and its destinies may
be entrusted to the democracy.
In a democratic form of government the power is in the
hands of the many; its security rests on the assumption that the
collective interests and rights of the many are greater collectively
than those of any one person or of a few persons; and as the
end aimed at in government is good, the greatest good, the
happiness of all, is particularly the end of good government, and
this end the democratic form of government, public opinion in
this country has unmistakably expressed the conviction, is best
calculated to secure.
The oligarchic is that form of government which is the
direct opposite of the democratic. In an oligarchy the govern
�i6o
DIS TRIB UTION REFORM.
ment is in the hands of a few individuals, the supreme power is
lodged with the rich, the privileged few. Mediaeval England
illustrates the oligarchic, the constitutional government of the
United States the democratic, form of government. The rule
of the Stuarts, as compared with the Commonwealth, may be
taken as another illustration in principle, whatever may have
been the shortcomings of the latter in practice. In England
we have this century seen a great extension of democratic
principles in government. In the agitation preceding the
passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, the stirring times of the
agitation for the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and for the removal
of the shackles that fettered industry, the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1867, and more recently the agitation for extending
county franchise, and the agitation that came out of it in the
autumn of 1884 for the reform of the House of Lords—the
flag of liberty has often been unfurled, the rights of man pro
claimed, and the everlasting principle of justice expounded.
Notwithstanding all this progress of liberty, freedom, and
justice in political affairs, in constitutional government, imperial
and municipal, there has contemporaneously grown up a
contrary spirit in the organization of industrial affairs. In
constitutional government we have .now a democracy—the
government of the people by the people, but in industry in the
business world we have an oligarchy—the government of the
many in the hands of the rich and privileged few. The two
are inconsistent, and cannot stand together; the social structure
erected on so glaring a contradiction of vital principles will be
at the best unstable; if the one is true the other must be
false. Society is an aggregation of individuals bound together
under a form of government for their collective good, and
therefore for each individual’s happiness; laws are made for
mutual protection and benefit; if, as is admitted, in the demo
cratic form of government the collective interests of the many
are greater than those of the few, and if, as is also admitted,
the collective wisdom of the many in seeking their collective
good is greater than that of the privileged few ; and if, as both
�DEMOCRACY AND OLIGARCHY.
161
political parties have admitted, the people of this country are
possessed of moral worth and discernment sufficient to enable
them to see in what ways their collective good is most likely to
be secured, democracy in government and democracy in indus
try must go hand-in-hand together.
In a perfect state of democratic government legislation
must be passive rather than active, for in a people of high
moral worth, where in the eyes of the law man is the equal of
man, as the democratic principle implies, there will be little
law-breaking and therefore little necessity for law-making.
The duties of the administrator will be negative rather than
aggressive. Social economy in such a state will be founded on
the unwritten law—the laws of morality, justice, and truth, of
man’s obligation to his fellow man, and mutual helpfulness ;
therefore in a democracy industrial organizations are the most
important of all. No matter what may be the nominal principles
of constitutional government, be they ever so democratic, so
full of expressions of freedom and justice, if these principles
do not pervade every organization in which men work
for their daily bread, social peace and true progress cannot
exist.
As in political government justice is supposed to hold
the balance between class and class, so in everyday life, in the
working for the necessaries of life, in the workshop, the
factory, and the store, it must be justice that shall allocate to
each his share of the proceeds of labour and industry, the
sweat of the brow must be rewarded in proportion to the
amount of wealth it has created.
It was demanded that for the good of the community
increased production was needed, but the economies of me
chanical production, and the gains made thereby, have been
appropriated by the few. The oligarchic spirit has prevailed,
labour has more and more become the slave of capital accu
mulated from the proceeds of previous labour. Economies,
and new methods of production, which might have been and
which ought to have been made conducive to the collective
L
�IÖ2
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
good of the many, have enriched the few and left the masses
little if any better than before.
It is an inconsistency which for ever will redound to their
discredit, that the most active advocates of the policy of free
trade and democracy in government have been most diligent
in bringing about this oligarchy in industry ; they have spared
no words in denouncing the monopoly of the landed proprietors,
but all the while they have practised none of their doctrines
in the organization of their own businesses. In the political
world it has seemed fit to them to preach up Christian princi
ples and high moral and humane doctrine, but in the race for
wealth their definition of the law of competition has justified
them in the formation of “rings,” and the establishment' of
customs as despotic and detrimental to the interests of the many
as was ever a feudal baron with his prerogatives and despotic
power; in their eyes competition in the race for wealth has
justified them in depressing wages to the lowest possible limit,
in extorting the longest possible number of hours for the
least possible pay, and with unblushing effrontery the
productions which are the outcome of this depressed labour
are sold back to the same labourers at a usury of ioo per cent.
When the collective production of the labourers at home has
by the aid of machinery been far more than the depressed
wages they are paid would allow them to consume, the same
oligarchic spirit has made the capitalist manufacturer grumble
and complain because foreign nations would not buy his sur
plus productions on his own oligarchic terms.
Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., in a speech reported in the
Daily News, July nth, 1885, said : “his experience had been
that most of the Members of Parliament were sent there
because they possessed money-bags, and these were absolutely
innocent of taking an intelligent and intellectual part in the
work of the House.”
The Archbishop of York, in a sermon preached August
2nd, 1885, said: “We wanted a new school of politics, which
should demand from the representatives of the people not
�MONEY-BAGS AND GREAT SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
g
L
’
163
dull adherence to the torn skirts of old party traditions, but an
earnest insight into great social questions.”
The reformed Parliament bids fair to contain as many
money-bags as of old; so powerful are the machinations of
party politics, the first requisite of a candidate for parliamentary
honours must be a dull adherence to the torn skirts of party
policy and traditions ; the second requisite is, that he has a
money-bag and can pay the cost of the contest and bear those
other local and general expenses entailed on a Member of
Parliament. Granted these two qualifications, the intellectual
requirements Mr. Morley demands are of little consequence, if
the member votes straight and according to the wish of the
local caucus; it is not necessary he should take an intelligent
and intellectual part in the work of the House, nor possess an
earnest insight into great social questions.
Not long ago I read of a Member of Parliament, in a speech
on the Egyptian question, referring to the late General
Gordon, saying that Gordon may have been a good man, but
to his mind and according to his reading of the Scriptures, it
was impossible for a man to be a successful and distinguished
soldier and at the same time a good Christian; he for one did
not believe in a Christian soldier.
The gentleman I refer to is a fair representative of the
capitalist radical politician ; he is a large employer of labour, a
devoted advocate of free trade, an upholder of the rights of the
people, a non-interventionist in foreign affairs, a liberationist,
a member of the Peace Society, in fact he is an advocate and
supporter of that political party that is for the removal of every
monopoly and every abuse, of course excepting any monopoly
its members may individually possess ; in their eyes the rights
of property in land should be limited and restricted, land must
be free, no monopoly; if the exigences of the case demand,
the rights of real property must be sacrificed for the good of
the community. These are noble sentiments, no doubt, and
very attractive, but we never hear of these representatives of
the oligarchy in industry saying anything of the rights of the
l 2
�164
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
factory operative or of the coal miner, or of the miserable
wretches who eke out a living on the starvation wages paid in
many branches of industry; but it is out of the labour of these
they hold their wealth.
It is not for me here to criticise Gordon’s life, nor to say how
far he lived a Christian life, nor of the possibility of a success
ful soldier being a good Christian; but I have read of the great
Apostle of Peace saying that it is hardly possible for they that
have riches to enter the kingdom of heaven. The most humilia
ting spectacle we see in public life is the one where representa
tives of the industrial oligarchy, rolling in the riches accumulated
from the toil and labour of their operatives and workers, obtain
election to parliament and set themselves up as defenders
of the rights of the people, who for the sake of popularity and
power are ready to advocate state socialism and many
economic fallacies; the hope may be indulged that the day is
not far distant when the intelligence of the people will pene
trate these shams and inconsistencies, and appraise them at their
true worth. If those of the class to whom I refer had proved
themselves benefactors of their race, if, whilst they had been
diligent in business they had served God and their fellow men,
and shown a love of equity such as was shown by Leclaire or
is being shown by M. Godin, then we might have honoured
them as Nature’s noblemen; but in no case do I know of a
democratic-capitalist-free-trader-millionaire who has divided his
profits with those who have helped to make them ; true, we
have cases where charities have been endowed, but we want
justice before charity.
In the expansion of industry new towns have grown up.
In some cases the capitalist manufacturer, to escape the local
government of boroughs, and more fully to enforce the oligar
chic spirit, has built a new hive of industry, and founded a new
town in some country spot, away from the heavier taxation and
closer supervision of local authorities. Many of such towns
and villages have been referred to as model communities, and
held up as examples of benevolence and philanthropy; but I
�PALEY ON LAWS AND LEGISLATION.
165
can see no benevolence nor philanthropy in buying a large plot
of land and building as many houses as could well be crammed
on to it, with money borrowed on the security of the land and
buildings at four per cent, interest, and charging the tenants,
who are also the workers in the mill or foundry, a rental based
at the rate of twelve-and-a-half per cent, interest on the capital
invested, which was borrowed for the purpose at four per cent.
This may be good business, for it makes two profits out of the
labourers : one, a profit on their labour in the industry the pro
prietor is engaged in, the other a profit beyond the current rate
of interest on the investment in the houses they must live in—
but there is no philanthropy nor self-sacrifice in it.
Leclaire and Godin, as I have shown, founded a democracy
in their businesses; they gave freely, as a right to their co
workers, what a few of our English millionaires have scantily
given as a charity when they could not take it away beyond the
grave. In Socialistic France they bid fair to settle the feud
between capital and labour by association and the equitable
distribution of the proceeds of their joint production; in
England we seem to be running the danger of having Socialistic
legislation agitated for by factions that have done most to create
the evils they seek to remove. If English radical capitalists
had acted in their industrial relationships in the same spirit of
democracy which they avow in politics, the evils they seek to
redress would never have existed.
More is expected of legislation and laws than laws and legis
lation can do. “ Laws,” as Paley says, “ cannot regulate the
wants of mankind, their mode of living, or their desire of those
superfluities which fashion, more irresistible than laws, has once
introduced into general usage, or, in other words, has erected
into necessaries of life. . . . Laws, by their protection, by
assuring to the labourer the fruit and profit of his labour, may
help to make a people industrious, but without industry the
laws cannot provide either subsistence or employment; laws
cannot make corn grow without toil and care, or trade flourish
without art and diligence.”
�166
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
All that need be asked of the law or the legislator is the
old Reform cry of “Justice to all, favour to none.” Granted
this broad principle of equitable treatment was acted upon, the
reforms most calculated to ensure prosperity and progress are
to be inaugurated and carried to a successful issue by mutual
association, by mutual helpfulness and forbearance; they lie
outside the power and function of the legislature.
In the patriarchal days it was a custom rigorously observed
for the corn in the corners of the field, the odd sheaf, and the
gleanings and fallen fruit of the vineyard and the cornfield to
be left for the poor ; they enjoyed the privilege as a right, not as
a favour. But the greed of modern capitalism leaves not even
the sweepings of the floor; in the scramble for wealth, before
capital must suffer the labourer must starve.
*
In this country we have been so much accustomed to hear
sung the praises of private enterprise and individual effort, we
scarcely ever think of looking at the other side of the question,
but as a matter of fact it is collective enterprise that has made
the progress we boast of so much. Railways, which have
opened up communication and supplied our large towns with
food, are the outcome of collective enterprise^ The canals,
which preceded the railways, were the work of collective
enterprise, and so were many of the roads that gave the means
of communication in the olden time. Our waterworks and gas
works, whether administered by joint-stock companies or muni
cipal authorities, are the results of conjoint action and collective
enterprise ; so, too, are the postal and telegraphic services and
our insurance societies ; joint-stock banking, which has done
more than all the private enterprise put together to develop our
commerce and industry, is the collective employment of the
capital of the country. Private enterprise has succeeded on
two main grounds, the labour and productiveness of the workers
* The right of gleaning existed in many districts in England until very
recently. Canon Girdleston says that the use of machinery for cutting and
reaping takes up the crops so clean there is nothing left worth gleaning.
f In 1883, 2,502 miles of railway were open in the United Kingdom ; the
total amount of paid-up capital was ^784,921,312.
�SOME RESULTS OF COLLECTIVE ENTERPRISE.
167
on the one hand, and the credit and facilities offered by the
banking system on the other. No doubt private enterprise is
justly entitled to a fair return for any needful service it renders
the community, but in the absence of any standard of measure
ment or any details of quantities of such services, the public are
justified in looking on private enterprise with some mistrust.
Joint-stock banking may be said to date from 1834, the
time of the establishment of the London and Westminster
Bank. The growth and expansion of our commerce and
industry has been contemporary with the extension of the col
lective employment of capital in the joint-stock banks.
*
It is
a most flattering acknowledgment of the success of joint-stock
enterprise in banking that private banks have gradually been
absorbed or supplanted by them. Messrs. Glyn, Mills and Co.
have owned this success, for whilst they are a private bank they
now voluntarily publish their balance sheet and accounts as if
they were a public company; this for no other purpose than
to merit the continued public confidence they have for so long
enjoyed and deserved.
Gas companies by law are not allowed to pay more than
ten per cent dividend on capital; if the profits exceed what is
sufficient to pay that amount, the price of gas to consumers
must be reduced. Railway companies, By Act of Parliament,
* In 1840 four London joint-stock banks—viz., the London and West
minster, London Joint-Stock, the Union Bank and London and County—held
deposits amounting to ¿3,348,188; at the end of 1884 the same four banks
held deposits to the amount of ¿72,828,705. The total value of imports and
exports in 1840 was ¿118,899,000; in 1883 the value was ¿732,328,649.
The amount of deposits in the four principal London joint-stock banks in 1884
was upwards of twenty-one times more than in 1840 ; the total imports and ex
ports increased during that period only a little more than six times. On May
16th, 1885, The Economist published a return of 108 joint-stock banks in
England and Wales, two in the Isle of Man, ten joint-stock banks in Scotland,
and nine in Ireland, showing deposits and current accounts amounting to
¿430,170,590, and paid-up capital of ¿66,376,591. Of these amounts
¿341,585,905 were employed in discount advances, on loans, bills, overdrawn
accounts, and other securities. In these figures we have abundant proof of the
advantages of the collective employment of capital in joint-stock banking, also
the extent to which private enterprise is nursed thereby.
�168
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
are bound to run a certain number of trains on every line atone
penny per mile per passenger. When this restriction was first
imposed it was considered a great hardship on the companies
and too liberal a concession to the public; but so enlightened
have many of the companies now become, perceiving that
seiving the inteiests of the public is the best way of serving
their own, they go beyond parliamentary restrictions, and run
workmen’s trains and give other facilities much more liberal than
the original Act of Parliament insisted upon. In the appoint
ment of the railway commission, with powers to arbitrate and
settle differences as to rates and accommodation, and in many
other restrictions which might be named, there is clear evidence
that in the opinion of the legislature there is a point beyond
which a public company must not go in making a profit out ot
the public.
If, then, all the great public works that make this artificial
civilization possible are the results of collective enterprise, if
our railways and docks, postal services, telegraphs and
telephones, waterworks and gasworks, banks and insurance
companies are the outcome of the co-operative employment
of capital, if the blessings of municipal and local government
are the outcome of the collective wisdom and co-operative
action of local communities, and a modern growth and repro
duction of the ancient village community, what has been left
for private enterprise to do? Private enterprise has mainly
been engaged in producing and distributing the necessities
and luxuries of life, food, clothing, furniture, etc., and in
the erection of buildings.
I have previously shown that the consumption of these
necessities, food, clothing, and household effects, is not less
than
20,000,000 per annum, the cost of distribution by
private and individual enterprise is not less than ^240,000,000
per annum. By association for mutual benefit the cost of
distribution need not exceed ^40,000,000 per annum. There
is, therefore, a waste of ^200,000,000 per annum, which must
be debited to private enterprise. Just now I said the
�PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND RECENT LEGISLATION.
169
^200,000,000 was wasted. It is, in any case, a needless tax
on production and an increase of the cost of living which must
come from labour. In the waste and useless cost in distribu
tion hundreds of miles of streets and shops have been built,
where one mile would be more than sufficient; the value
of property has been risen to a fictitious price because it
has been built upon an unreal and unnatural demand, the
great depreciation in the value of real property now ex
perienced is simply the fall to its natural value. I am very
certain if natural value is ruled by natural and only necessary
demand, values must go much lower. All the capital employed
in creating this unnatural and fictitious value has sought its
return, firstly in a tax on commodities, but ultimately in a tax
on labour. If distribution had been made a helpmeet of
production performed by association for the collective good,
the increase of wealth would have been employed in increased
production founded on a greater consumption, and would have
tended to reduce prices, to the great benefit of the whole
community. Private enterprise, then, must also be debited
with the fictitious value of property andthe tax it imposes on
consumers.
The legislation of this century may be divided into two
classes—first, Acts of Parliament which repealed the statutes
of previous class legislation, such, for example, as the repeal
of the Conspiracy Laws, which prevented the organization of
labourers and made it illegal to establish labour partnerships;
the repeal of the laws which empowered magistrates at quarter
sessions to fix the wages of labourers in all industries, the
abrogation of the law of compulsory apprenticeship, the
abrogation of the law of settlement, which, together with the
law empowering magistrates to fix wages, made the English
workman a slave, tied him to his native village or town, there
to work for whatever wages the magistrates, who were his
masters, chose to fix as legal. These Acts and others of
a similar spirit were the legislation of a faction, the offspring
of the privileged few in whose hands the government rested,
�170
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
the outcome of private enterprise. The other class of legis
lation which has this century distinguished the British Parlia
ment, more particularly since the passing of the Reform Bill
of 1832, has been remarkable for the spirit which pervades the
numerous Acts of Parliament protecting the rights of the many
against the encroachments of private enterprise.
The numerous Factory Acts for regulating the hours of
labour of women and children, the provisions they make for
securing the health of the workers, are most important illustra
tions of this truth. The causation of these Acts was the
brutal inhumanity of private enterprise in working children
that should have been on their mothers’ laps, all hours of the
day and night for the merest pittance. The provisions of act
after act were evaded, and ultimately enforced by the appoint
ment of inspectors and the vigorous application of the powers
conferred on them. Further illustrations of the necessity the
legislature saw for the protection of the masses against the
gain of private enterprise, may be seen in the Adulteration
of Foods Acts, the abolition of the Truck System, the Act
enforcing the compulsory testing of weights and measures, the
inspection of mines, the Employers’ Liability Act, the Agri
cultural Holdings Act, but more especially in the Irish Land
Acts. The suppression of the slave-trade in the Colonies in
1833 cost this country ^20,000,000, paid as compensation to
the slave-owners ; a sad example of the boundless greed that
private enterprise will run to in the race for wealth ; it will
even traffic in the flesh and blood of its fellow man. The
Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 conferred the boon of
local self-government. The history of local government is a
continuous recitation of the struggles of the collective interests
of the many against the privileged few. But for the powers
conferred on local government in its embodiment of the
collective interest of the many, our towns would be unbearable.
The marked improvements that have been made in our pro
vincial towns, their fairly good sanitary condition and good
administration, are grand proofs of the benefits of collective
�THE SINS OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.
I fl
enterprise. If they had been left to private enterprise they
would have been dens of fever and wretchedness. Abundant
proof of this will be found on perusal of the report of the
Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes
and the evidence given before it. London does not enjoy
the benefits of a thoroughly representative system of municipal
government. Had it done so, many of the evils the Com
mission deplore would not have been permitted ; the report of
the Commission is a strong condemnation of the outrages
perpetrated on the poor by private enterprise.
When making improvements for the good of the commu
nity, local authorities are extorted by private enterprise.
Those who doubt this statement will have their doubts removed
by reading the Report of the Royal Commission on the
Housing of the Working Classes, pages 44 to 49.
I he
evidence, of Mr. Forwood, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, Sir Curtis Lampson, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Young, and others, convincingly
proves that millions sterling have been paid by local authori
ties to private individuals as compensation, to which they were
not morally entitled. In many cases, although the improve
ment is a benefit to the individual demanding compensation,
the community have to pay for the improvement and be
extorted in compensation also. Many improvements are not
made, for fear of excessive demands that will be made by pri
vate enterprise.
�CHAPTER XIII.
Individual Freedom to be Attained by Collective and Mutual Associations—
The Moral and Social Condition a Hundred Years Ago—The Progress of
Education—the Diminution of Crime—The more Artificial Civilization
becomes, the Greater the Need of Education and a More Perfect Social
Organization—Von Stein and the Emancipation of the Prussian Peasantry
—The Real Wealth of Nations—Conclusion.
Individual freedom is the most precious of all liberty ; govern
ments in ages past, and representative governments in modern
times, by the will of majorities in the holy name of liberty have
committed crimes and put chains upon the people. In the
reforms I have endeavoured to explain, the reforms in distribu
tion and reforms in production, individual freedom will be
extended, the principle of mutual association on which they are
founded is untainted by tyranny, the task-master is unknown.
Man has been called a social animal ; the higher he rises in
civilization the more precious social happiness becomes ; the
more highly his mental faculties are cultivated and developed
the less inclination has he to suffer any injustice or oppression.
The association in distribution and the association of capital
and labour in production which I have dwelt upon have for
their foundation the closest and dearest of all social ties, the
bond of brotherhood, the family tie. This bond of union re
quires for its enforcement neither sword nor truncheon, nor even
statute law. It rests on the highest of all laws, the moral law :
man’s duty to man and mutual interdependence and help
fulness.
Doubtless the question will be asked, is the moral elevation
of the people sufficiently high, are the masses sufficiently edu
cated, is the organization of society ripe for such association ?
The reply to these objections and questions is that these forms
of association, thesej'eforms, are good in themselves, they are
�PAST DEGRADATION OF LABOURERS.
173
sound economically, and will succeed on commercial grounds,
apart from any moral or social advancement. No man who
cares for or thinks of the progress of his fellow-men can help
deploring the condition ^of thousands in this country, their
degradation, morally and intellectually; but there is moral
degradation in the upper and middle classes as great as in what
are called the lower orders. If the lower working class or the
working classes generally are not what the new ideal of intellec
tual and moral worth could wish, do not let us forget that the
British workman is what society has made him ; let us remember
that he is the descendant of that class who in the early centuries
of the Christian era was degraded from the collective ownership
of the soil into the position of a serf and a vassal. After the
Plague, the ancestor of the English workman of to-day was
branded on the forehead like a brute, if he refused to work for
his lord at wages that would not keep him from starvation, and
made to work in chains. By the laws of the Edwards, Henries
VII. and VIII., and Elizabeth, in the statute of labourers, the
statute of apprentices, the law of settlement and the poor law,
the laws empowering magistrates to fix wages, most of which
have been abrogated or repealed this century, the English
workman was robbed of individual freedom, treated with
scarcely so much regard as his superiors treated their cattle—in
all this degradation he was left uneducated, and treated as if the
Creator had given him no mental faculties. Even, comparatively
speaking, a few years ago, all the education the English work
man was considered to stand in need of was to be able to say
Amen after the parson, and make his obeisance to the squire.
By degrees, through the growth of morals and Christian
teaching, freedom has been extended and more of justice has
been seen. It cannot but be wondered at that the moral and
intellectual status of the English lower classes is no worse than
we now find it; considering the condition of society in the
well-to-do and so-called educated classes a hundred years ago,
the marvel is that it is so good as it is.
We deplore the vice of drunkenness and other debasing
�174
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
vices. Dr. Smiles, in his work on “ Thrift,” says :—“ Though
drunkenness is bad enough now, it was infinitely worse a
hundred years ago. The publicans’ signboards announced
‘You may get drunk for a penny, dead-drunk for twopence,
and have clean straw for nothing.’ Drunkenness was con
sidered a manly vice. To drink deep was the fashion of the
day. Six-bottle men were common. Even drunken clergy
men were not unknown. What were the popular amusements of
the people a hundred years ago ? They consisted principally ot
man-fighting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, badgerdrawing,'the pillory, public whipping, and public executions.
Mr. Wyndham vindicated the ruffianism of the Ring in his place
in Parliament, and held it up as a school in which Englishmen
learnt pluck and the manly art of self-defence. Bull-baiting
was perhaps more brutal than prize-fighting, though Wyndham
defended it as ‘ calculated to stimulate the noble courage of
Englishmen.’ . . One can scarcely imagine the savageness
of the sport, the animal mutilations, the imprecations of
ruffians, worse than brutes, the ferociousness and drunkenness,
the blasphemy and unspeakable horrors of the exhibition.
Yet, less than a hundred years ago, on the 24th May, 1802, a
Bill for the abolition of bull-baiting was lost in the House of
Commons by sixty-four to fifty-one.”
Not many years ago the English workman was too often
paid his small earnings in the public-house, and every tempta
tion put before him to spend them there. Within this century
the workman was expected to take out his wages at his
master’s tally-shop ; in recent years he has been paid the
minimum of wages and charged the maximum of an expensive
and wasteful system of distribution, when giving those wages
in exchange for the necessaries of life; the rental of his house
has been raised to a fictitious value. Left without education,
without cultivation of his mental faculties to raise him higher
than the brute, he has had the temptation ever before him of a
public-house at every street corner. Lacking a higher moral
culture, the temptation has been too strong; wages which
�THE HIGHER LIFE ON EARTH.
175
should have been used to increase the happiness of his home
have gone to fatten an indolent class, that never rendered a
useful service to the community, but made themselves rich on
the ruin of others.
I, for one, will not believe that man is the only part of
God’s creation that is imperfect. I have faith in man attaining
a higher life here on earth. The progress we have made
during the past hundred years will, I believe, be as nothing
compared with the higher progress that will follow. It is a
good augury for the future, considering the darkness, the
injustices, and the oppression of the past, that the past was
no worse than history proves it to have been, and the present
is as good as we find it.
There are those who are so satisfied with their own
righteousness and culture they scarcely believe in any moral
qualities of the masses, as they choose to call those beneath
them. They go about bowing their heads like a bulrush, and
mourn the unfitness of man for even this worldly life; they
believe in no regeneration here on earth. While they mourn
their fellow-man’s shortcomings, they take good care to have
hold of the money-bags ; they alone are worthy to have posses
sion of them. Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,
and did all that God commanded him in building the Ark, and
who, with his wife and sons and sons’ wives, was saved from
the flood, was a direct descendant of the murderer Cain. The
most prosperous colonies of the English Crown have been
founded by convicts or the immediate descendants of convicts.
Poor consolation this for those who insist on the degeneracy
of man !
In the treatment of the insane, it has been found that the
desire to escape is greatest when locks and keys and severe
restraint are used. Also, in the treatment of criminals, the
great amelioration in our penal code initiated by Romilly has
not been followed by increased criminality but by decreased
criminality 5 and the testimonies of those who have had most
experience—Maconochie, in Norfolk Island, Dickson, in West-
�i?6
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
ern Australia, Obermier, in Germany, Montesinos, in Spain—
unite to show that in proportion as the criminal is left to suffer
no other penalty than that of maintaining himself under such
restraints only as are needful for social safety, the reformation
is great, exceeding indeed all anticipation.” *
The secret of progress is confidence—there must be con
fidence between class and class, employer and employed,
before we can have social elevation. There cannot be con
fidence without open-handedness; measure for measure must
be given. Morality and publicity must prevail, for they alone
can beget confidence; they must hold the balance, and
reward each one according to his talents and the use he has
made of them in ministering to the well-being and advancement
of the community. If the working classes were trusted more,
if more confidence was shown in them, the trust would not be
misplaced; they are alive to their interests, and instinctively
know when and how those interests can be promoted.
It is most gratifying to know that crime is decreasing as
education becomes more widely diffused. In 1851 there were
132 prisoners in the prisons of England and Wales for every
10,000 of the population. The census of 1881 showed
the number had fallen to 107 for every 10,000 persons. In
1851 reformatory and industrial schools were not fully
established ; in 1881 no less than 16,856 juveniles were inmates
of these schools, being educated and trained as possible useful
members of society, whereas, under the old system, they would
probably have been driven to crime.
In 1869, in the United Kingdom, 26,979 criminal offenders
were committed for trial; in 1883 the number had fallen to
20,247—a decrease of 25 per cent. In 1869 there were
19,384 convictions out of those cases committed for trial.
In 1883 the number was only 15,001, a decrease of 22 per
cent. During this time the population increased from 31 to
36 millions.
It may be only fair to add that the strength of the police
* Mr. Herbert Spencer's “ Study of Sociology,” p. 13.
�educational progress.
¡77
force during the same period increased from 43>i64 m 1869
to 53,330 in 1883. The police force perform many duties not
connected with crime ; such, for example, as the regulation of
street traffic and attendance at public buildings. . If crime had
been on the increase rather than decreasing, the increase in the
police force would have resulted in an increased number of
committals and convictions. It is the schoolmaster, not the
policeman, that has decreased crime; the decrease in the
convictions is largely in the juvenile class.
In 1869, 10,337 primary schools were inspected; in 1883
the number had doubled, and numbered 21,630. In 1869
the number of children .present at inspection was 1,639,502 ;
increased in 1883 to 4,203,902- or upwards of 160 per cent.
In 1869 the average number of children in attendance at
primary schools in Great Britain was 1,332,786, and in 1883
3,560,351. In 1869 one in twenty-four of the total population
of the United Kingdom attended school; at the present time
one in every ten goes to school. In 1870 the amount of
Parliamentary grants for primary schools in Great Britain was
^840,336 ; in 1884 the sum was no less than three-and-ahalf millions sterling.
With educational progress like this, the men and women in
the workshop, the foundry, the fields and the factory of
twenty years hence will be as highly educated and have as much
mental culture as the average middle-class tradesman and
manufacturer of to-day. The more mental culture and educa
tion a people possess, the less inclined are they to suffer any
injustice. Can it for a ihoment be supposed the working man
of the next generation will quiescently suffer the inequalities
in the distribution of the proceeds of his industry which the
working man of the past and the present has suffered and is
suffering ?
“ The competition of the world,” we are told, “ has become
a competition of intelligence ; and if we desire the nation to
continue first among industrial nations, we must train the
people to be foremost in the knowledge of science and ait,
M
�DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
which lies at the root of modern manufacturing industries.”
By all means let us have the people trained to the knowledge
of arts and sciences; the increased productiveness of the
earth, and increased production of man’s labour they give us,
clearly point to the conclusion that their use must give to
toiling men greater leisure for intellectual pursuits, and time to
learn something more than hitherto of the wonders of nature
and the mysteries of creation. The spread of knowledge will
decrease the power and might of riches. The uses of ma
chinery, and all the economies that science has given us, make
man’s domain over the earth more powerful and complete;
obtaining the necessaries of life is no longer the problem, the
art of distributing them is now the burning question. Can we
for one moment think that working people foremost in the
knowledge of science and art will be content to work for semi
starvation wages, whilst their masters are nursed in the lap of
luxury ? Not they, indeed ; people cultured in art and science
will know that man does not live by bread alone—that there is
a higher duty than the accumulation of riches, and a nobler
end. and aim in life than being a mere machine working for
other men’s gain.
The more artificial the civilization on which a community
is built up, the greater need is there of education and a most
perfect social organization. British civilization is the most
artificial the world has ever seen. In these Isles we have a
greater disparity between the population and the produce of
the soil than was ever known before, greater extremes of
poverty and wealth, the population is concentrated in large
towns to such an extent no parallel is to be found in history.
Living as we do in a less natural way than our forefathers, it
behoves us to exercise a greater wisdom in our social
organisms. It is because of this that I ask a serious consider
ation of the reforms I have endeavoured to set forth.
In 1807, when Prussia was at the feet of the first Napoleon,
Von Stein came forth and expounded to his countrymen his
plan for emancipating it and giving freedom and liberty to the
�VON STEIN AND PRUSSIAN LIBERTY.
179
people. “ What the State loses,” said Von Stein, “ in extensive
greatness it must make up by intensive strength. The true
strength of the kingdom was not to be found in the aristocracy
but in the whole nation. To lift up a people it is necessary to
give liberty, independence, and property to its oppressed
classes, and extend the protection of the law to all alike. Let
us,” said he, “ emancipate the peasant, for free labour alone
sustains a nation effectually. Restore to the peasant, the
possession of the land he tills, for the independent proprietor
alone is brave in defending hearth and home. Free the
citizen from monopoly and the tutelage of the bureaucracy,, for
freedom in workshop and town-hall gave to the ancient
burgher of Germany the proud position he held. Teach the
landowning nobles that the legitimate rank of the aristocracy
can be maintained only by disinterested service in countiy and
State, but it is undermined by exemption from taxes and other
unwarrantable privileges. The bureaucracy, instead of con
fining itself to pedantic knowledge and esteeming red tape and
salary above everything else, should study the people, live with
the people, and adapt its measures to the living realities of the
times.”
Von Stein died in 1831, mourned by the whole of Prussia,
and leaving the reputation of one of Prussia’s greatest states
men. His plans were mostly carried out. In 1877 a monu
ment to his memory was erected in Berlin.
The power of England, I am afraid, rests more on its
extensive greatness than its intensive strength. Whilst we
should be sorry to see its extensive greatness wane, who would
not help on aud increase its intensive strength? It is to lift
up the people, to give them the necessary liberty and inde
pendence of which Von Stein spoke, that I venture to invite
public opinion to a consideration of this Distribution Reform,
for in it social reformers, philanthropists, Christian workers—
aye,’ even those who estimate the progress of the nation by
statistics of capital employed in various industries—will, find a
lever wherewith to help on the work they make their delight.
m
2
�I^°
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
The wealth of a nation does not consist of the money
value of its capital, neither is the number of its millionaires
any indication of its intensive strength. Nations that have not
known the use of money have been surpassing rich. In the
islands of the Pacific there are peoples who know not the
blessings of civilization nor the value of gold, that are richer
than we. They have no paupers, nor any half-starved citizens.
The wealth of a nation consists in the ease with which it
obtains the necessaries of life, in the liberty and independence
of its people. The money value of commodities may be great
or small; but it is in the abundance of the supply that wealth
exists. Phe more artificial the civilization, the more perfect
should be the industrial organizations for obtaining that supply,
and for its distribution.
Under existing systems of production, it may be possible
for increased supplies and falling prices to be a loss to the
individual and an indirect gain to the community j if produc
tion was organized for the collective good of producers, and
distribution organized for the collective good of consumers
and producers, falling prices could not be considered disas
trous. «In depreciations, rises and falls, the results would be
distributed ; if the gains overbalanced the losses, the benefit
would be collective, and individual good would come out of
the collective good.
I base the reforms advocated on grounds of general pro
gress, and a higher life of society generally. I wish to see
class bias removed, and therefore ask for no favours for a
particular class ; I simply plead for justice for all. If the
working classes are under existing systems proportionately less
favoured than other classes, then in a just measure of reform
they will be proportionately more benefited ; but in the strain
and tension of social and industrial organizations it is not only
one particular class, but the whole community, that now suffers.
It is for the relative well-being of all that this question de
mands serious consideration.
Considering the wonderful diversity of character and varied
�JUSTICE NOT EQUALITY.
l8l
aspirations of the human mind, its boundless power of research
and grasp of knowledge, its capacity for the divination of laws
which govern the universe—-aye, even its capacity for divining
God’s will to man—it is clearly evident that men were never
intended by the Creator to be on one dead level of mental
equality. The powerful mind and cultured intellect will attain
a higher sphere, and consequently have greater influence, than
the less cultured. All we ask for in this reform is justice to all,
and fair play to intellect and labour in the industrial world,
and their reward in proportion to results. If we are to have
an aristocracy, by all means let it be one of mind, and moral
and intellectual worth, rather than one of wealth.
The growth and amount of the capital in Savings Banks is
often referred to as a proof of the well-being of the working
classes. At the end of 1883 the amount of capital in the PostOffice Savings Bank was ^41,768,808, and in the Trustees
Savings Banks ^44,987,123; in all, ^86,755,931. If these
savings do belong to the working class, and if they were to
employ a twentieth part of them in forming distributive asso
ciations such as I have described, I will venture to predict that
in less than twenty years’ time they would have the distribution
of the products of their industry in their own hands, and would
then be able to dictate the conditions on which productive
enterprises should be established and carried on. Labour
would then indeed be emancipated. But rather would I see
this work undertaken without class bias; rather would I see
capitalist and labourer join in the work for their mutual good,
and by degrees gradually bring about that co-operative action
which is indispensable to their mutual well-being. In the
success of such associations we should have a solid guarantee
for national prosperity ; it would be easy for all to obtain
enough, difficult for any one to accumulate inordinately.
Wealth and power would be associated with intellect and per
sonal worth; the people would be contented, because pros
perous ; the great ends of life more nearly attained than we
have yet seen.
�182
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
The smallest price on which a new bishopric can be
founded would appear to be ^100,000. A direct successor
of the Apostles, the Galilean fishermen and the tent-makers,
who did their Master’s will from love of duty and devotion to
His cause, must, it seems, have a minimum income of ^4,000
a year guaranteed before he can begin work. The first'
Apostles, whose direct successor he claims to be, went forth
i£ provided with neither gold nor silver nor brass in their
purses, nor scrip for their journey, neither had they two coats
nor shoes nor yet a staff.” They trusted the Master’s promise,
and laid no store on, nor made any provision of, worldly
wealth. To-day the oligarchy of money—plutocracy—is to be
seen in our churches and chapels as well as in parliamentary
and industrial life ; the worshippers in them are the well-to-do,
the opulent hold in them the places of honour and influence ;
the poor and needy are not seen therein, the observance of
Christian worship is left to the well-dressed few. Well may the
Bishop of Manchester lament the little of Christianity remain
ing in England. The practice of the Christian religion has
been crowded out by the love of wealth, and the race for
its possession.
If the amount required to endow a new bishopric were
employed in distributive and productive associations, on the
principles I have laid down and explained, it would do more
good in five years, bring about more of a spirit of true religion
and practical Christianity, than will be done in twenty years of
dogmatical preaching or theological speculation.
The prophet Isaiah reproved the hypocrisy of his time ;
his righteous condemnation of the counterfeit fast might have
been written for the present day—his expressions of the true
fast, and the earthly happiness following the observance of it
are within the possible reach of any community. In the
fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah we read—“ Cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their
transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they
seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that
�THE TRUE AND COUNTERFEIT FAST.
did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous ordinances, they delight to draw near
unto God.”
“ Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not 2
wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no
knowledge 2 Behold, in the day of your fast ye find yottr
own pleasure, and oppress all your labourers. Behold, ye fast
for strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of wicked
ness : ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be
heard on high. Is such the fast that I have chosen 2 the day
for a man to afflict his soul 2 Is it to bow down his head as a
rush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him 2 wilt thou
call this a fast, and an acceptable to the Lord. Is not this the
fast that I have chosen 2 to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo
the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye
break every yoke 2 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and
that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house 2 when
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide
not thyselffrom thine own flesh 2 Then shall thy light break
forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily,
and thy righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord
shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall
answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here L am. Lf thou
take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the
finger, and speaking wickedly ; and if thou bestow on the hungry
that which thy soul desireth, then shall thy light rise in darkness,
and thine obscurity be as the noonday : and the Lord shall guide
thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in dry places, and make
strong thy bones ; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and
like a spring of water, whose water fail not. And they that
shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise
tip the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called
the repairer of the breach—the restorer ofpaths to dwell ini
Here we have a positive affirmation of the truth that the
well-being, prosperity, and happiness of a people is the result of
individual sacrifice, and that individual happiness and peace of
�184
DISTRIBUTION REFORM.
mind are alone to be found in the material progress and well
being of the whole.
To those who would see the hungry fed, the naked clothed,
the bands of the yoke broken and the oppressed go free; to
those who would see a provision made from the proceeds of
industry for the fatherless and the widow; those who would
see virtue flourish where vice now prevails, those who would
see the brightness of noonday in the lives of the people, the
waste places made fruitful, the breach between class and class
repaired, I recommend an earnest consideration of this question
of Distribution Reform.
Cassell
Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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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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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Distribution reform : the remedy for industrial depression, and for the removal of many social evils
Creator
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Illingworth, Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: xvi, 184 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references: lacks index. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Cassell & Company
Date
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[Pref. 1885]
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N321
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Social problems
Industry
Rights
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Depressions (Economic)
Distribution (Economic Theory)
Great Britain-Economic Conditions-19th Century
NSS
Social Problems