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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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Miscellaneous papers on subjects relating to Wales
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Rees, Thomas
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London; Swansea
Collation: vi, [I], 107 p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Contents: The resources of Wales -- The working classes of Wales -- The working classes of Wales and religious institutions -- The alleged unchastity of Wales -- Education in Wales -- Welsh literature -- The church establishment in Wales in relation to the Welsh people -- Welsh dissent: a letter to the Bishop of Llandaff, with His Lordship's reply -- The Congregational churches of Wales -- The Congregational churches and the English population of Wales -- The great revival in South Wales in 1849 -- The Irish and Welsh revivals in 1859. "Most of the Papers in this collection have appeared at different times, within the last fifteen years. in the Metropolitan or local Newspaper". [Preface, p. [v]]. Printed by R. Griffiths, Swansea.
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John Snow & Co.; E. Griffiths
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1867
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CT71
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Wales
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Miscellaneous papers on subjects relating to Wales), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Congregationalism-History
Conway Tracts
Dissenters
Education
Literature
Religion
Religious-England-History-19th century
Wales
Working Class-Great Britain
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fe 2-5 'y 5
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
POINTING OUT A MEANS BY WHICH THE WORKING CLASSES MAY RAISE» •
THEMSELVES FROM THEIR PRESENT STATE OP LOW WAGES AND
CEASELESS TOIL TO ONE OF
COMFORT, DIGNITY, AND INDEPENDENCE;
AND WHICH IS ALSO CAPABLE OF ENTIRELY REMOVING, IN
COURSE OF TIME, THE OTHER PRINCIPAL SOCIAL EVILS
BY-
M. G. II.
“ The Diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be prevented or
cuied, without being spoken about in plain language."— J ohn Sxuabt.Miu.
ILoniJon:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH H0L30RN;
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1885.
[PRICK ONE PENNY.]
�INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This little tract—made as small as possible in order that, by its mode
rate price, it may be within the reach of even the very poorest—is
written for the purpose of pointing out to the working classes, and
indeed to all other classes, the only true means of bettering their
condition. Its object is thoroughly practical, since the means we
advocate is simple, and requires no self-denial; but, on the contrary,
must cause a speedy improvement in the circumstances of the parties
adopting it. And, moreover, if its practice were universally recog
nized as a great social duty (as there is every reason to believe it will
be in time), it leads us to hope that, besides Poverty, the two other
great evils of our country, Prostitution and Celibacy, may be entirely
extirpated. We doubt not that at first it will be overwhelmed with
contempt and abuse, more especially by the “moralist;” but we
firmly believe that after such a calm examination of the subject as
its immense importance deserves, it will be acknowledged to be the
only means of escaping from the manifold evils under which we all, rich
and poor, now suffer. We have thought it necessary to precede the
communication of this means by a short explanation of the principal
cause of the present state of Low Wages, in order that the reader
may the more deeply feel that any scheme, benevolent or otherwise,
for the abolition of poverty, hitherto tried, must either be totally
powerless to effect its object, or, if successful, can only be so at the
cost of inflicting fresh evils, hardly less grievous than Poverty itself.
�3
POVERTY:
ITS
AND
CAUSE
CURE.
L
“The life of our working classes is worse than that of most of the
beasts of burden. They toil unremittingly, at a laborious, monotonous,
and in many cases a deadly occupation; without hope of advance
ment, or personal interest in the work they are engaged in. At night
their jaded frames are too-tired to permit their enjoyment of the few
leisure hours; and the morn awakens them to the same dreary day of
ceaseless toil. Even the seventh day, their only holiday, brings them,
fa this country, little gaiety, little recreation.................... Thus have
the poor to toil on, as long as their strength permits. At last some
organ gives way, the stomach, the eyes, or the brain; and the un
fortunate sufferer is thrown out of work, and sent to the hospital,
whilst his wife and family are reduced to the brink of starvation.
Often, the man, rendered desperate by his hopeless position, plunges
into drink, and gives himself over to ruin. At other times, the
Working classes, in a frenzy of rage at their infernal circumstances,
determine that they will have higher wages or perish. Hence result
the disastrous strikes, and the terrible social revolutions, that have in
recent times so often convulsed society. But they are vain; they are
but the blind efforts of men to do something or die, the fruitless
heavings of a man in a night-mare. The mountain of misery in
variably falls back upon their breast, with only increased pressure ;
and forces them, worn out by impotent struggles, to bear it quietly
for another little season.”
The above extract presents a sad, but too true, picture of the
*
manner in which thousands, nay millions, of our fellow countrymen
are forced to pass their lives. That it is not overdrawn, all belonging
fo the class referred to must be able to testify. Those who earn good
wages, and therefore save themselves and families from a personal ex
perience of the bitter miseries of poverty, doubtless know many less
favored by fortune, who have sunk and been trodden upon, in the hard
struggle for the bare necessaries of life which is going on around us.,
• From “The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual,
ind Natural Religion.” E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
�4
Were we to ask, “ What is the cause, and what trie cure (if any) ot
¡this sad state of things ? ” how various and how contradictory would
be the replies. Some, and these would be of the richer classes, would
attribute it principally to idleness, drunkenness, or improvidence ;
recommending as its remedy education, the establishment of penny
Banks, sick funds, hospitals, &c. A large portion of th® middle
classes, viewing it from religious grounds, would declare it to be a
visitation-from heaven, sent for our spiritual good; and offer no Other
hope than that all -will be set right in the next world. Other®, of a
more practical turn, lay it at the door of over-competition, and re
commend emigration to the colonies as a cure. From the above,
opinions would vary, in proportion as we descend the Social scale,
through all the gradations ot trades unions, associated industry, socialism, change of laws, down to the extreme of red republicanism, and
a forcible division of the property of the rich amongst the poor.
'Now, in a work of this limited kind, it would be quite impossible
to examine in detail all these various schemes for the bettering of th®
state of the working classes. We must therefore content ourselves
with remarking that those among them that are at all practical, and
that - have had a trial, partial or general, have either been totally
powerless, or, at best, have only had a-very passing effect, in raising
the poor from the mire in which they are sunk. The main question
is, “ How can we raise wages ? ” All else is comparatively unim
portant—for as long as the present miserable rate of wages prevails
(a rate hardly sufficient to keep starvation from a man’s door), edu
cation, savings’ banks, and the like, are but mockeries. Even reli
gion itself is but a poor substitute for food and other necessaries.
No; if we could but raise wages to a fair rate, all the rest would
follow in time, even to the reformation of our criminals and prosti
tutes, who are for the most part driven into those wretched paths of
life Tor very bread.
Inorder to solve the question, “How can we raise wages?” we
must first look to the cause of the present low rate. This, it must be
evident to all, arises from the fact that the number of hands able and
willing to work greatly exceeds the capital for their employment at
good wages; in short, that the supply of labor is too large in propor
tion to the demand. When this is the case, wages will always be
low; and all efforts to raise them by such means as trades-unions and
strikes can only result in misery to both employers and employed«
We do not wish here to discuss the vexed subject of the combinations
of workmen against employers for the purpose of forcing up wages;
we only state a fact which few will dispute, namely, that this means
of bettering their condition is scarcely ever successful, but on the
contrary, nearly always leaves those who have taken part in it in a
worse condition than ever. Equally powerless for good is the plan,
once very popular, of fixing wages by law, at a higher rate than
would be warranted by the demand. Such compulsory interference
with the labor market was -.easily evaded.; but where enforced, it
always had the effect of throwing a number of men out of work. A
�ô>
moment’s consideration wiH'convince us that such must be the result.
Capital is a certain sum which is divided, in the form of wages,
amongst a certain number of men. If, without altering the relative
proportion between capital and labor, we forcibly raise the current
rate of wages, a portion only of the hands may indeed obtain that
advance, but at the cost of depriving the rest of their shares alto
gether; that is, throwing them out of work, to starve, or rely on
charity.
Brom the above considérations, we believe it will be acknowledged
that the only means of raising wages, without at the same time
causing a number of hands to suffer by it, would be to increase the
capital, and therefore the demand for labor, as compared with the
supply.
Now, from various causes, amongst the principal of which we may
mention the application of steam to land and sea travelling (that is,
railway and steam navigation), the rotation of crops and other im
provements in agriculture, &c., this country has increased in wealth
within the last fifty years to an extent and with a rapidity hitherto
unknown. And yet the working classes have by no means benefited
by all this increase of capital. It is quite as difficult for them to gain
an honest livelihood now as it was formerly. The very small weekly
snnas (six or eight shillings, for instance) which we find to have been
the current wages two centuries or so back, may seem to give the lie
to this; but such sums were in reality equal to double or treble their
present value, since food and rent were then not one-half or one-third
as high as at present. To convey some idea of the cost of living at
that period, we give the following table of the price of some of the
necessaries of life about the middle of the 17th century :—
Oatmeal, per quart .......... 1 Ad.
Beef and Mutton, per lb. ... 34d.
Beer, per gallon.................. 3d.
Bacon
„ ... 3^-d.
Eggs, per dozen.................. 3d.
Dutch Cheese
„ ... 2|d.
Sack of Best Coals ...........6d.
Best Salt Butter
„ ... 4d.
Weekly rent of a laborer’s
Biscuit
„ ... l^d.
Cotton Candles
„ ... 4d.
cottage.......................... 2d.
We have not given the price of wheaten bread, because in the middle
of the 17th century it had hardly come into general use, its place
being supplied by .rye, oatmeal, or buck wheat, whose price bore about
the same relative proportion to wages as wheaten bread now does.
Few will be bold enough to assert that wages have advanced in
greater proportion than this. We here speak of factory and other
trade operatives. The agricultural laborer has fared far worse, for
his wages have never considerably varied, during two centuries, from
10s. per week, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the prin
cipal necessaries. As we should expect, we find his condition to be
worse than any other class of honest laborers, and by far inferior to
that of the condemned criminals. From Mr. Mayhew’s work we
learn that, whilst prisoners on hard labor are supplied with a weekly
allowance of 254 ounces of solid food—that being’the smallest amount
which (according to eminent medical men) can be given consistently
�6
with health and vigor—the English laborer can procure for himself
alter feeding his family, no more than an average of 140 ounces’
that is to say, the honest working man gets hardly more than half
as. 7n}ch
the crlminal, whose allowance is the smallest consistent
with health and vigor. In plain terms, a large portion of the most
hard-working of our industrial classes are half-starved.
If the case of male laborers is bad, doubly so is that of the females
lhe miserable condition of the sempstresses and slop-workers for
large shops is well known. Indeed, so truly appalling is the life they
lead, that instead of wondering at our streets being over-run with
prostitutes, we ought rather to feel astonishment that so many young
women should be found willing to prefer a virtuous life with sixteen
hours daily toil, and barely enough food to keep life in them, to the
degraded course of living on the streets: in which way, however
■shameful, they can at least generally procure an abundance of food.
After such facts as these, and they might be multiplied indefinitely,
let us- no longer boast of our civilization, our respect for religion our
wondrous progress in arts and sciences. Such only tend to dazzle us
and to hide with a gilded cloak the vast mass of poverty, over-work’
and vice, beneath. If all our glorious achievements cannot lighten
the sufferings of our fellow beings, then have they nothing accom
plished worthy of being called glorious.
We are now led to inquire into the causes which have prevented
the poorer classes from sharing in the great increase of wealth which
has taken place during the present century. Such, all our best
modern authors declare to be ovek-pofulation. We shall now
examine and explain what is called the “Law of Population.”
n.
One of the chief propositions of this law is the following:_ “All
animated nature has a constant tendency to increase beyond the
means for its support; ” that is to say, that, however great may be
the increase in the produce of the soil, it will always in old countries
be far short of the increase of living beings, supposing nothing were
to prevent their following natural instinct, and multiplying their
species unchecked. This applies equally to the human race, not
withstanding the power they possess of immensely augmenting the
produce of the soil above the natural yield.
Now, although man’s greatest power of multiplication is not exactly
known, it can be approached nearly enough for our present purposes.
It has been variously stated by different writers at the power of
doubling the numbers in the course of every 25 years, to as rapidly
as every 10 years. We will choose the more moderate rate, and
suppose population capable of doubling itself every quarter of a
century. Representing the present population as I,' at the end of
25 years it would be 2; in fifty years it would have again doubled, 4;
in another 25 years, 8; and at the end of the century, 16; that is, it
would be sixteen times as numerous as at first.
�1
As to the rate of increase of the produce of the soil, it is even more
difficult to arrive at a true result, than in the case of population; but
one thing we may be certain of, that it is very far indeed behind the
latter. For the sake of argument, however, we will suppose that the
produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by
a quantity equal to what it at present produces. No sane man could
suppose a greater increase than this. Indeed in a few centuries it
■would make every acre of land in the island like a garden.
In the table here given we see these two rates contrasted :—
At the end of
Present 25
50
75
100
Time. Years. Years. Years. Years.
Increase of Food .....
1
2
3
4
5 &c.
Increase of Population ...
1
2
4
8
16 &c.
By this we see, that, were it possible for min to follow his greatest
rate of multiplication, at the end of a century he would exceed, by
more than three times, the food for his sustenance. But we know
that this would be practically impossible. A larger number of in
dividuals than could procure food would not be able to exist a week
after food began to run short; which, in the above example, would
occur after the lapse of the first 25 years. We therefore see that the
Mte of increase of the human race must be limited to the very
moderate rate of increase of food; all efforts to exceed that rate being
met by a falling off in the necessary supply of food, that is, by
famine. But though this must operate to repress excess of multipli
cation, were there no other checks; still, in point of fact, it is rarely
that this is the actual one. It is replaced (especially in more civilize^ ■
Countries) by a large variety of other checks. In describing these,
we shall for convenience divide them into two great divisions, the
Positive and the Preventive checks. The former consists of wars,
vice, disease, misery, and all other causes whatsoever which tend to
shorten the duration of human life. The latter, having no direct
influence on the deaths, operates in checking the births, and consists
in Sexual Abstinence or Celibacy, whatever form it may assume.
The priesthood, convents and nunneries in Catholic countries, the
large standing armies and navies of most civilized states, to whose
members marriage is generally impossible; above all, the class who
remain single from motives of prudence, common to all countries, but
most numerous in Switzerland, Norway, a few German States, and
our own, all have the effect of reducing the number of births, and
thus effecting, by opposite means, precisely the same end as is brought
about by the positive check, namely, keeping down the population to
the level of the food.
From the action of one or other of these checks man has had no
means of escape. He cannot choose apart from them: he can only
choose between them. If he follows natural instincts without restraint,
and brings more beings into the world than can find support (making
every allowance for increased yield of the products of the soil con
�8
sequent on improving knowledge of agriculture, &c.), the Stirplus
twist be cut off by disease, vice, or war; unless, indeed, a part of
these evils are warded off, as amongst the working classes of England,
by fearful efforts of industry, which reduce them to the condition of
mere machines. . On the other hand, if he exercise that prudence
and foresight which is peculiar to civilized man, and restrain himself
from begetting offspring until late in life (say thirty), he will by this
prudence procure for himself exemption to a very great extent from
the evils of over-population: but at the cost, besides an immense
amount of unhappiness, of introducing vicious habits.
Had we space we should examine in detail the condition of every
modern state in the world, and show how population is repressed in
each, either by the positive or preventive check; and how in pro
portion to the rarity of the one, we shall be sure to find the opposite
check in force. However, as such would lead us beyond the limits of
á small tract of this nature, we must content ourselves with reviewing
two or three countries where their action is most plainly seen
Amongst the most remarkable is Hindostán or India. Here marriage
is greatly encouraged, by the religious code, which makes the pro
creation of male children one of the greatest merits In the
ordinances of Menu (their Bible,) it is said, “ By a son, man obtains
a victory over all people; by a son’s son, he enjoys immortality; and
afterwards by the son of that grandson, he reaches the solar abode.”
Thus, marriage in India is considered a religious duty; and therefore
the preventive check operating little, the positive one must of necessity
supply its place. The people are so crowded that the most excessive
poverty prevails, and periodical famines have been always very Se
quent. Wars and pestilences have also at times carried off large
numbers. So much for the positive check falling on a race but lialfcivilized ; let us see its effect on a people much more advanced_ the
Chinese.
In China the population is enormous, being upwards of 300 millions
or about one-third of the human race. These vast numbers are
owing to the goodness of the soil and climate, the very great attention
that has always been paid to agriculture, and also the extraordinary
encouragements to marriage, which here, as in India, is considered a
religious duty; to be childless being held a dishonor. The preventive
check having therefore operated but little, the positive has been the
chief one. The most grinding and abject poverty prevails among the
lower classes, together with an untiring industry and hard work, (&
combination which finds a parallel perhaps in England alone).
Famines are very frequent, which sweep off vast numbers, and
infanticide is very general. It is in these modes rather than by wars
(which, till lately, have not been so destructive in China), that the
positive check operates. The check to population from vicious sexual
intercourse does not appear to be very considerable in China. The
women are modest and reserved, and adultery is rare.
From the above two examples of the operation of the positive
check, let us turn to the opposite extreme, where the preventive check
�9
or sexual restraint, is in greatest force, namely, in Switzerland, Nor
way, ^nd several of the German States. We shall borrow the words
of a weekly periodical, which sets forth in glowing terms the pros
*
perous and happy condition of the people of those countries. “ They
are certainly in advance of us in England,” says the writer. “ They
have almost destroyed pauperism; they have no ragged children, nor
ragged schools; the very boys have such regard for the rights of pro
perty, that the orchards are not enclosed, and cherry trees hang loaded
over the paths and roads, without being robbed by the pilferer, or
watched by the owner; not even watch-dogs are kept; each defends
the property of his neighbour as well as his own. The houses are
large and comfortable, two stories, and sometimes three, with nu
merous apartments; and in all the country there are no such cots
hovels as there are in England. The people are all well but simply
dressed; and even the few laborers that live on day wages are as well
dressed, and as comfortably fed and lodged, as their masters; and
work and live in hope that by their savings, which are weekly accu
mulating, they shall be able to purchase a little farm for themselves,
and spend the evening of their days in comfort.” We should remark
that the writer of the article from which the above is taken, attri
butes all these beneficial results to the system of “ peasant pro
prietors” there in force; that is to say, the possession by every
laborer of a piece of land of from five to ten or more acres, which is
Cultivated by himself and his family. Now we do not deny that such
may be a very useful means of raising the condition of the working
classes, giving them, as it does, a personal interest in their work;
still w® assert that alone it would be quite powerless to raise one jot
the poor from their miserable condition. In proof of this, we point
to the description of the state of the Chinese above given, which
shows the results of the above system (for there it is in greatest force,
nearly every peasant being a land-holder) when unaided by sexual re
straint.
The true cause of this prosperity we find in the custom of late
marriages and celibacy, more general in those countries than in any
other in Europe. Indeed, so much is it felt to be a duty to refrain
from wedlock until the man is able to maintain a wife and children,
that in some of the states alluded to, a law is enforced which requires
every person intending to marry, to prove before a magistrate that he
possesses the means of supporting a family; otherwise he cannot
marry. However repulsive such a law may seem to us Englishmen,
born and bred in an atmosphere of liberty, there can be no doubt that
it has effected in those countries all the improvements so remarkable
of late years.
We shall now turn to our own country, and endeavour to solve the
question put in th,e first part of this work, “ What are the causes
* “Family Herald,” for the week ending Feb. 22, 1857, article,
“The World but little known.”
�10
which have operated in cutting off the working classes of England
from their due share of the vast increase of wealth, which has takes
place in this country during the present century ? ” To thia we
boldly answer, early marriages and undue procreation; and in this we
are supported by all the greatest modern writers on the state of the
poor, to wit, Messrs. John Stuart Mill, Malthus, McCulloch, Dr.
Whately, and others too numerous to mention. We are so impressed
with the idea (which has descended to us from the ancient Hebrews),
that to rear a large family is a very meritorious act, that it may seem
startling when we lay at its door all the poverty, misery, and even
crime, so rife amongst the poorer classes. And yet from the facts
before passed in review, namely, the existence of universal poverty in
all those countries whose inhabitants do not practise sexual restraint,
and, on the contrary, its rarity in proportion as sexual restraint is
exercised, we can no longer shut our eyes to the conclusion, however
harsh it may appear, that the large families common amongst the
working classes have not only the effect of dragging down and
crippling the parents who have to toil for their support, but are also
the great cause of the present state of low wages, ceaseless drudgery,
and early death, consequent on an over-crowded population, and too
great a supply of labor in proportion to the demand. As long as the
number of hands seeking work is greater than the capital for their
employment at fair wages, it is vain to expect a rise in wages ; just
in the same way as when the population of a country exceeds the
food for its comfortable support, it would be impossible for all to get
enough sustenance.
III.
From what we have said in the preceding chapters, it may be
thought that we would wish to impress upon the poor and working
classes the duty of exercising moral restraint; that is, sexual ab
stinence. This is the view of the question taken by Mr« Malthus,
Dr. Chalmers, and many other writers; and no doubt whatever can
exist as to the power of this means, if it could be adequately prac
tised, to remove poverty and want in England. But, with all due
deference to such eminent authorities, we cannot refrain from ex
pressing our firm conviction that such a remedy for poverty is almost,
if not quite, as bad as the disease it would cure. Our endeavours
should be not merely directed to the removal of poverty, which is but
one form of human misery, but to the much larger question of a re
moval of all the causes of unhappiness. If we remove one only to
replace it by another as bad, then have we done no real good.
This subject—the evils of moral restraint or sexual abstinence
will require a little careful examination; as, although we all feel by
instinct that it is an evil, yet (from its very nature causing its victims
to hide their sufferings) it is much less capable of being clearly de
fined and put down in black and white, than is that of over-popula
tion, and its natural result—poverty.
In order the better to explain this subject, we shall borrow a few
�.11
passages from the work already quoted from, which, being written
by a student of medicine, who has evidently carefully studied this
branch of physiology, is entitled to our serious attention.
“It is most unwise,” he says, “ to suppose that our chief duty with
regard to our appetites and passions, is to exercise self-denial. This
quality is far from being at all times a virtue ; it is quite as often a
vice; and it should by no means be unconditionally praised. Every
natural passion, like every organ of the body, was intended to have
moderate exercise and gratification. ... At the present, in this
country, abstinence or self-denial, in the matter of sexual love, is
much more frequently a natural vice than a virtue; and instead of
deserving praise, merits condemnation, as we may learn from the
mode in which all-just nature punishes it. Wherever we see disease
following any line of conduct, we may be certain that it has been
erroneous and sinful, for nature is unerring. Sexual abstinence is
frequently attended by consequences not one whit less serious than
sexual excess, and far more insidious and dangerous, as they are not
io generally recognised. While every moralist can paint in all its
horrors the evils of excess, how few are aware that the reverse of the
picture is just as deplorable to the impartial and instructed eye.”
Those who require a more detailed account should consult the work
itself, where also are shown in vivid colors the hundred times more
ruinous effects resulting from the abuse of this part of our frames,
whether in the form of self-pollution, or that of prostitution, with the
melancholy list of diseases in their train ; both of which vices are
sure to be rampant wherever great obstacles to marriage exist.
Let us now view moral restraint or sexual abstinence from a lower,
but, to the majority, more influential point of view; that is, its effect
On the every-day comfort of the working man. It is here that would
be found the greatest difficulty in its adoption; for to a young
operative a wife is a necessity, if he would obtain any of those in
numerable small comforts, without which, however trifling they may
be thought by some, this life is hardly worth the having. Unable to
hire a cook or housekeeper, as is done by the more wealthy bachelor,
he would find it impossible to procure comfortable meals, nor even
any degree of cleanliness in his home, engaged as he is from morning
to night at work, probably far away from home. If the life of the
unmarried working man is comfortless and dreary, ten times more so
must be that of the unmarried woman after a certain age. Indeed,
amongst the poorer classes, such a person is quite in the way; she is
felt to be a burden to her family if she remain at home; and it is
hardly possible to support herself independently in lodgings, except
in the most miserable way. Thus, apart from any other reason,
marriage is felt to be an absolute necessity to both sexes, soon after
their reaching full growth, for the sake of that dearest of all things
to an Englishman, no matter how miserable it may be, a home. The
last remaining objection to moral restraint and late marriage, namely,
the deprivation, during the flower of man’s life, of the two dearest
objects for which human nature yearns—to love and be beloved by a
�12
wife and children—is too evident from the unhappiness it is universally
acknowledged to produce, to nc-ed illustration. Suffice it to say that
by this, the lot of the greater part of the middle classes, especially
the female portion, is rendered so comfortless and dreary, that many
of them would joyfully exchange their comfort and wealth, enjoyed
in solitude, for the poverty of what are called their less fortunate
neighbours, who at least are not deprived of all outlet for the social
and domestic virtues with which we are all endowed. Indeed, so ut
terly cheerless and miserable are the lives of most of that much to
be pitied section of the middle classes, called in ridicule “old maids,”
that we could not have the heart to wish to see the like state amongst
the poor, who, God knows, have as it is but very few pleasures.
“Is there no escape, then,” we are tempted to cry in despair, “from
the miseries inflicted on man by want of food, love, or leisure.”
“There is none,” cries the orthodox political economist; “none,”
repeats the disciple of Malthus; “none,” echoes the religionist. “If
such be the case then, if ordinary political economy, Malthusianism
of the ascetic school, religion itself, can do nothing but tear from us
all hopes of improvement in this world, and content themselves with
croaking resignation and patience under our afflictions: then will we
have none of them.” But we truly believe that human affairs are not
so hopeless, else should we have refrained from opening afresh the
many wounds which torment us. No, there is a means, the only
means, by which the evils of want of love, equally with those of want
of food and leisure (those three great necessities of our nature), may
in course of time, be entirely cured. It may appear at first sight,
perhaps, ridiculously unequal to such gigantic results, perhaps im
moral, perhaps unnatural, but we are confident in being able to meet
and refute any objections which can be made to it, and prove it to be
the only solution to the question nearest to the interests and happiness
of mankind—“Is it possible to obtain for each individual a fair share
of food, love, and leisure ? ”
IV.
The means we speak of, the only means by which the virtue and
the progress of mankind are rendered possible, is preventive sexual
intercourse. By this is meant, sexual intercourse where means are
taken to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be obtained
without entailing upon us the want of food and leisure, by over
crowding the population.
Two questions here arise: First, “ Is it possible, and in what way?”
Second, “Can it be done without causing moral and physical evil?”
In answer to the first question, we reply that there are several
means which have been adopted in this country, and more especially on
the continent, for the purpose of checking the increase of an already
numerous family without the exercise of perfect continence; but we
shall.chiefly recommend the following, as most of the others are more or
less iniurious to the health or nervous system of the parties adopting
�13
them. The following, however, has none of these objections, being
perfectly harmless, easy of adoption, and at the same time not in the
least diminishing the enjoyment of the act of coition. It consists in the
introduction of a piece of fine sponge, slightly soaked in tepid water,
and of sufficient size, in such a way as to guard the womb from the
entrance of the male semen during sexual connection. This might
be followed by an injection of tepid water.
By this means a fruitful result would be rendered Impossible. The
other means of preventing conception which have 1 een employed or
proposed, are, firstly, withdrawal before ejaculation; secondly, the
use of the sheath, or “French Letter;” thirdly, the use of injections
immediately after intercourse; and fourthly, the avoidance of con
nection, from two days before, till eight days after, the monthly
courses—at which time impregnation is far most likely to occur. Of
these, the two first are the most certain preventives: but the two
last, as well as the sponge, are the least open to objection in other
respects.
The second question was, “ Can preventive sexual intercourse be
used without causing physical or moral evils?” We firmly believe
that it can, or at least, that if there be any evil results, such would
sink into insignificance beside the present ones, which, arising as they
do from over-population, are otherwise irremediable. We think a
ealm consideration of the principal objection which may be urged
against the adoption of this invaluable means, will enable us to con
vince the reader that it is founded on error. We allude to the idea
that many entertain, of preventive intercourse being a kind of murder
or infanticide. In order to do this, we must pause to explain the
nature of the act of generation, which, though one of the simplest,
and at the same time most beautiful operations of nature, has often
been considered as a deep mystery and a subject never to be
mentioned.
The fixture human being is formed by the union, in the womb, of
two very minute cells, of opposite sexes, invisible to the naked eye,
called the sperm (male) and germ (female) cells, which is effected by
the act of copulation. When once this union has taken place, the
embryo, as it is then called, possesses life, which is as sacred as that
of the adult’s, and the destruction of which would truly be murder.
But to prevent this union from taking place is a totally different
matter. Before coition the seminal fluid is no more than a secretion,
like the saliva, perspiration, &c.; and consequently it is a total con
fusion of ideas to associate its loss with infanticide, as it cannot be
murder to destroy that which has never existed as life. Moreover,
the curious discovery has recently been made, that every time a
woman menstruates (that is, has the monthly illness), one or more of
the germ cells or eggs is spontaneously discharged, and, if sexual
coition have not previously taken place, it is wasted. So that, if we
go on the principle that to prevent a birth is murder, we might with
equal justice accuse those persons who remain unmarried during the
time of potence (namely, more than 30 years) of the murder of all
�14
the children who might have been bot~n, had they married. Far from
being murder, preventive intercourse is the only possible means of
preventing murder; for that is hardly too strong a word to apply to
the bringing into the world of such a number of beings as we know
could never find support should they all reach manhood. Let us see
if facts do not bear us out in this assertion. In this country, amongst
the poor, 53 in every 100, or more than one-half of the children who
are born, die in infancy. Now in spite of this large amount of mor
tality, those who survive to manhood, perhaps not more than one-third
of those born, still find it next to impossible to gain a livelihood.
What, then, would be the result, think you, were it possible, by im
provements of dwellings and other means of health, to save those
children from an early grave, and throw upon the already over
crowded labor market a triple number of hands? Famine.
Thus, if we know that, as at present, twice or thrice as many being#
are brought into the world as can by any possibility find food, instead
of a crime, would not preventive intercourse rather be the greatest
virtue we could possibly practise, since it would save nearly twothirds of our fellow-beings from the death by slow starvation, poverty, ■
or neglect, which is otherwise inevitable?
For the satisfaction of those who may feel timid in adopting any
thing which they suppose to be new, it will be as well to mention that
Messrs. Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, Dr.
Knowlton, and the author of the Elements of Social Science, have,
in the journals or books edited or published by them, strongly re
commended the adoption of preventive intercourse. It is also openly
advocated by a number of the most eminent foreign writers, some of
them holding high positions in the universities of their respective
cities.
With regard to the extent to which it should be practised, that
must of course depend greatly on the present state of population of
the country, or of the class adopting it; but we believe we should be
near the mark in saying that, under existing circumstances, married
persons should in no ease allow themselves more than two children, at
least in this country. Indeed, considering the fearfully over-crowded
state of England, it would be a noble sacrifice on the part of married
persons to refrain from having any for the present, until the rate of
wages has somewhat risen.
*
The day will come, and soon too, we hope, when the having a large
family, far from being thought a virtue, as at present, will be looked
upon in its true light--that of a great social wrong; and although
this tract is more particularly addressed to the working classes, as
they are probably the greatest sufferers by the present state of things,
and the least aware of its true cause, we nevertheless believe limited
procreation ts be a duty equally binding on all classes, rich or poor.
Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the great Law of Population, laid it
* Or until the price of the necessaries of life—as bread, house
rent, clothing, &c.—has fallen ; which, as we have before shown, is
practically the same as an increase of money-wages.
�15
down as a duty strictly binding on all, “ Not to bring beings into the
world for whom one cannot find means of support;” but what would
be the result of following that course? Why, to give the rich a
monopoly of those blessings, or rather those necessaries of life, love
and offspring, cutting off the poor from what is now often their only
solace. Instead of the above, we should rather say, “It is a sacred
duty for us all, by the use of preventive means, to limit the number
of our families, in order that we may not prevent our fellow beings
from obtaining their share of love, food, and leisure,” any one of
which is, in the present age of celibacy and large families, quite un
attainable without a proportionate sacrifice of the two others. .
Preventive intercourse, then, is the only means by which it i3 pos
sible for mankind to make any real or satisfactory advance in happi
ness; and were it to be universally practised, it could not fail to
cheapen food, raise wages, and remove the greater part of the vice
and disease for which, in spite of all our boasting, this country is
remarkable.
But although preventive intercourse is the main remedy for poverty
amongst the poor, and celibacy amongst the rich, there are some other
schemes which, tried with the above, would doubtless do much good.
Amongst the foremost is associated industry, that is, the system which
gives every working man in trade a direct interest in the success of his
labor, and a share of the profits, raising him from the condition of a.
mere machine to that of a kind of junior partner. In a similar
manner, there is no doubt that to raise the country laborer from his
present condition of a hired drudge, to that of an owner of land,
however small in quantity, would have a very beneficial effect in im
proving his state, moral and physical. This would require an altera
tion in the laws regarding freehold land, which now render its ac
quirement almost impossible for any but a rich man. However, as
such reforms are for the most part out of the reach of the class to
whom this work is addressed, and are, after all, of little consequence
compared with the duty of limiting procreation, we need not longer
pause to consider them.
In conclusion, we call upon all to throw away false prejudices, and
unite in the adoption of preventive sexual intercourse. By such
means the state of ideal happiness for which we all instinctively
yearn, may not be in time so unattainable; meanwhile, the working
classes can, by the practice of the above simple and harmless ex
pedient, very much better their condition with regard to wages: in
which it is vain to expect a rise as long as the supply of labor is so
great in proportion to the demand, as is the case in these days of
large families and over-crowded population. Working men! your
salvation is in your own hands. If you allow yourselves to turn
from it and lean solely upon socialism, red republicanism, and
trades’-unions, your condition is indeed hopeless; but we sincerely
believe that when once you learn the true remedy for your ills, you
will not be slow to adopt it: and by using every effort in your power
to Spread the knowledge of it amongst your fellow workmen, will
be the means of raising the class to which you belong, from the state
�16
of semi-slavery, ^ith ceaseless toil and scantv food, which is but too
commonly their lot, to one of comfort and Independence.
POSTSCRIPT.
The reader is earnestly requested to do all in his power towards
making widely known the contents of this tract. This he might do
with little or no trouble to himself, by lending it amongst his friends
or fellow workmen, or by leaving it on the tables of coffee-houses,
mechanics’ institutes, and other public places. It must be evident
that unless the duty of limited procreation be almost universally
recognized, any good effected by its practice in raising wages, will be
liable to be counteracted by the earlier marriages and increased pro
creation of those not adopting it.
The 22ndEdition, enlarged by the addition of a Fourth Part, of the
TpLEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, Sexual,
and Natural Religion. With the Solution of the Social
Problem. Containing an Exposition of the true Cause and only Cure
of the three primary social evils—Poverty, .Prostitution, and
Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. 6d.; or in cloth 3s.
Post-free.
Upwards of 600 pages.
%
u
Opinions of the Press.
. . si)me respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a book as
the one in question is not only a far lesser, evil than the one that it combats, but in
\??nse a
which it is mercy to issue and courage to publish.”—Reasoner.
.
. av?xnever risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
thrni this. i Ur ^reatest hope is that it may get into families where the principles
w
inculcated by a parent, who will use his authority in the advice to both sons
and daughters, which should always accompany the reading of works like this. And
we are certain that in every case where it is read with care, there will be another
soldier gained to that brave band who are ever encircling the ramparts of bigotry
and ignorance.
**This book is the BIBLE OF THE BODY. It is the founder of a great moral
reform. It is the pioneer of health, peace, ami virtue. It should be a household Lar
in every home. head it, study it, husbands and wives Had you, had your parents,
read a book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be
wasting away in our country. By reading this wonderful work every young man may
preserve his health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or
indelicate—not so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and to honour.
That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the population can
be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We
really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can
only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race.”—
Ptepte's Paper.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that
this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has brought his special know
ledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare to the
public, and probes with a most unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by anoma
lies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto ccelo from the author in his
views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dis
solution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence
and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy
.. .
—The British Journal of Homoeopathy. January, 1860. 1 (Pub
lished Quarterly, Price 5s.)
London: K Truetx>ve, 256, High Holborn, W.O.
�
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Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Publisher's advertisement for Elements of social science, 22nd ed., on p.16. Full title: Poverty: its cause and cure pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from the present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity and independence and which is also capable of entirely removing in course of time, the other principal social evils. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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E. Truelove
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1885
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Social problems
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Birth Control
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Poverty
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY
THE FACTS
- ABOUT THE -
UNEMPLOYED.
An Appeal and a Warning.
BY
'
iV A
*
-Me ONE
cUaiM
i &\
MIDDLE-CLASS.#^
OF <• THE
:o:
Beholding with the dark eye of a seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown,
Foretelling them to those who will not hear,
As in the old days, till the hour will come
When truth shall strike their eye through many a tear.
—Prophecy of Dante.
:o:~
LONDON:
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND
W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, EAST TENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
1886.
�To sleep in when their pain is done.
These were not fit for God to save.
As naked hell-fire is the sun
In their eyes, living, and when dead
These have not where to lay their head.—Swinburne.
To bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due captaincy ? This is
really the question of questions, on the answer to which turns, among other things, the
fate of all Governments, constitutional and other—the possibility of their continuing to
exist or the impossibility. Captainless, uncommanded, these wretched outcast
‘ soldiers,’ since they cannot starve, needs must become banditti, street barricaders—
destroyers of every Government that cannot make life human to them.—Thomas Carlyle.
Socialism, in that sense, is the application of the power and resources of the State
to benefit one particular class, especially the most needy. There stares us in the face the
fact that the duty of maintaining the most necessitous class of the country by the
public funds has, for three centuries, formed part of the law of the land. That is so
strong a fact that it vitiates every argument which we can use from what is called sheer
principle against measures of time.—Lord Salisbury, 30th September, 1885.
The typhoon itself is not wilder than human creatures when once their passions are
stirred. You cannot check them ; but if you are brave you can guide them wisely.
—Froude.
People are all very glad to shut their eyes. It gives them a very simple pleasure
when they can forget that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family and all that
embellishes life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by death—by the
deaths of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals called revolu
tionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals.—R. L. Stevenson.
Hyde Park in the season is the great rotatory form of one vast squirrel cage:
round and round it go the idle company, in their reversed streams, urging themselves to
their necessary exercise. When they rest from their squirrellian revolutions, and die in
the Lcrd and their works do follow them, these are what will follow them. They took
the bread and milk and meat from the people of their fields ; they gave it to feed, and
retain here in their service, this fermenting mass of unhappy human beings—news
mongers, novel-mongers, picture-mongers, poison-drink-mongers, lust and death mon
gers, the whole smoking mass of it one vast dead-marine store shop—accumulation of
wreck of the Dead Sea, with every activity in it a form of putrefaction.—John Rushin.
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for youf miseries that shall come upon
you. Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of
you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.—St. Janies.
Yet there is a pause, a stillness before the storm ; lo, there is blackness above, not
a leaf quakes ; the winds are stayed, that the voice of God’s warning may be heard.
Hear it now, O chosen city in the chosen land ! Repent and forsake evil; do justice ;
love mercy : put away all uncleanness from among you.—George Eliot.
In God’s name, let all who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm
and the growl of the breakers, speak out! The past, wise with the sorrow and desola
tion of ages, from amid her shattered fanes of wolf housing palaces, echoes speak ! But
alas! the Constitution, and the Hon. Mr. Bagowind, M.P., say, Be dumb.—J. R. Lowell.
Balance the two things against each other. At present you have what you call
■“ freedom of trade” in these respects—i.e., every capitalist has almost unlimited scope
for his “ arrangements,” so as to screw out of his workmen the largest possible amount
of labour for the smallest possible remuneration. But then what have you to do with
it ? A population becoming more and more wretched, more and more vicious, more
and more discontented, and who only need, at any moment, an able leader to be pre
pared to revolutionise the Empire.—Remedies for the Perils of the Nation (1844).
The Writer will be glad to hear from anyone who agrees with his conclusions.
�THE FACTS ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED.
OR years past the optimist philosopher and the complacent
statistician have declared that the material condition of the
masses of the British nation has been steadily improving. But
hard facts have a logic of their own, before which pretty
theories and judicious compilations must give way when they are found
out not to agree with the actual circumstances. Gradually the impos
sibility of taking a rose-coloured view of the condition of the people has
forced itself upon the intelligent public. The occurrences of last winter
arrested attention, but the eventful struggles of political life have caused
forgetfulness of the truth that whatever changes have taken place on
the surface one thing remains unchanged—-the monotonous misery of
the struggle for a living amongst a large proportion of our countrymen.
So short are men’s memories, so prone are they, in their suspicion of the
exaggerations of hysterical philanthropists and unscrupulous agitators,
to discount estimates of distress, that it is necessary to repeat here
the deliberate statements of officials writing in cold blood.
It is impossible to give details as to the whole country, but those for
the metropolis will serve as a guide, and are by far the most important
on account of the danger arising from the congestion of misery in this
huge city, where the striking contrast of squalid destitution and immense
wealth is ever present. But if the numbers of the Unemployed in
London in the winter of 1885 were greater than elsewhere, the misery
has been even more intense in many provincial towns where the muni
cipal institutions and local public feeling have enabled earnest if
inadequate efforts to be made to mitigate the distress. In Hartlepool,
Gateshead, Newport (Monmouth), Brighton, Gloucester, Sheffield,
Jarrow, Northampton, Southampton, Pontypridd, Liverpool, Ashtonunder-Lyne, Salford, Wolverhampton, Dover, Burton-on-Trent, Derby.
Walsall, Stoke-upon-Trent and many other towns all the horrors or
famine have been experienced. This, autumn, threats of reduction of
wages and dismissal of “ hands ” show only too clearly to those who
will take warning that before Christmas 1886 the destitution will be
yet more widespread.
At the end of January, 1886, the number of persons applying for relief
at the workhouses of London showed no very great increase. From
this it was falsely argued that no exceptional distress could exist. Bu
*
it is the fact that the severity with which the Poor Law has recently
been administered denies any relief to persons under 60 years of age
who are free from disease. Such “ able-bodied persons ” are allowed
no succour, save on condition of entering the living tomb of the work
house, which means severance of all family ties, perpetual confinement,
�4
diet worse than is allowed to many criminals, and the abandonment of
all hope of being anything but a pauper for the rest of life. It is true
that Guardians are allowed to give relief to “ able-bodied ” males out
side the workhouse, on condition of their undergoing the labour test.
In actual practice last winter this meant that in three unions skilled
artizans, mechanics, clerks, and shop assistants were asked to break
from 7 to 9 bushels of stone for a reward varying from 4d. in money,
4d. in groceries, and 2 lbs. of bread to gd. in money and 2 lbs. of bread.
Thus it is small wonder that, in spite of their distress, very few beside
the ordinary hardened paupers applied to the guardians for the only
forms of relief allowed, viz., imprisonment without hard labour in the
workhouse or criminal tasks in the stoneyard. In Westminster,
where piecework was offered, and men were able to earn from 2S. to
2S. gd. per day, the work was eagerly applied for.
Thus the number of applications for relief showed little increase, and
this fact was vaunted in the usual way. But when, in February, 1886,
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, as President of the Local Government Board,
instituted enquiries as to the extent and nature of distress, he received
the replies given below.
*
They are very significant, for in spite of the
horror of “ the house ” entertained by the deserving poor, the number
of persons in receipt of relief in London in September, 1886,
exceeds by fourteen hundred the number who had been driven
to the Unions at the same season last year. If September, 1885,
was the precursor of a winter of such appalling destitution, clearly the
following statements only faintly foreshadow the probable sufferings of
the workers in the Metropolis during the winter of 1886-1887.
REPORTS OF GUARDIANS.
4
Ik
w
St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.—-Doubtless exceptional distress exists among the class
■who prefer to suffer the severest privation rather than apply for Poor Law Relief.
Paddington. Distress thought to prevail amongst the classes just above the pauper
ranks.
Fulham. The medical officers and relieving officers allege that a great deal of distress
does exist.
St. Luke, Chelsea. Distress not excessive.
St. George, Hanover Sq. No exceptional distress.
Westminster. No more than the normal amount of distress.
St. Marylebone. Has been an increase of distress.
St. John, Hampstead. Believe distress great and quite unusual.
St. Pancras. Some increase of distress experienced by the better class of workmen.
St. Mary, Islington. More distress prevailing than usual.
Hackney. No doubt considerable distress chiefly among people who will not apply for
relief unless under very extreme circumstances.
Strand. More than ordinary distress prevails amongst classes who do not usually
apply for relief.
St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Exceptional number of struggling poor in distress and yet
do not seek relief until actually obliged by acute suffering.
Bethnal Green. Of opinion that there is a large amount of distress not brought
under notice of Guardians.
Whitechapel, Much distress of a chronic or intermittent character.
St. George’s-in-the-East. Increase of the always considerable distress.
Stepney. Distress undoubtedly prevailing.
Mile End Old Town. Working people experiencing great privation.
St. Saviour’s. Large numbers of able bodied men with families out of work.
* These extracts are taken from the Blue Book, Return “Pauperism and Distress.”
Printed by order of the House of Commons, 8th May, 1886. Price is. 9d., or second
hand copies, for which Members of Parliament apparently can find no use, can be pro
cured for a few pence.
�St. Olave’s Distress slightly more prevalent, about 1,100 men out of employ.
St. Mary, Lambeth, Severe and unusual distress among ordinary selfmaintaining
working people.
St. Giles, Camberwell. Large amount of distress among people who will not seek
parochial relief.
Wandsworth and Clapham. Exceptional distress.'
Lewisham. 21 i honest and industrious workingmen compelled to seek employment in
labour yard.
Woolwich. Exceptional distress among families who will not come on the parish.
Holborn. A large number of able-bodied men with families applying for relief.
In addition to these answers from the Guardians of the Poor, the
following replies were sent by
VESTRIES & DISTRICT BOARDS OF WORKS.
St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington. Unquestionably a large number of the labouring
class out of work.
Fulham. Special distress is existing.
Chelsea. No exceptional distress with which we are unable to cope.
Westminster. Persuaded that distress is exceptional.
St. Marylebone. Believe there is considerable distress amongst persons who do not
or would not apply for relief.
St. John, Hampstead. Exceptional amount of distress.
Islington. A very great amount of distress.
St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Painfully recognize the fact that large numbers are |out
of employment.
Holborn. Distress exceptional.
St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Undoubtedly considerable distress owing to lack of em
ployment.
Bethnal Green. Believe there is considerable distress.
Whitechapel. Exceptional distress exists.
St. George’s-in-the-East. A great deal of distress. Much acute suffering. Signs of
still further diminution of labour.
Mile End Old Town. Undoubtedly a great number of mechanics out of work.
Poplar. Distress exceptional among better class of artizans. In many trades lack of
employment, seems no hope in the future. Of 61 lads at Board School, fathers of
22 out of work.
Newington. Distress exceptional. Chiefly among artizan and labouring classes.
St. Olave’s, Southwark. Distress always throughout the year.
Bermondsey. Unemployed labourers somewhat more numerous.
Rotherhithe. Widespread distress. Men unable to obtain work for many weeks past.
Lambeth. In surburbs many employes out of work.
Wandsworth. In Battersea, distress exceptional. In Clapham, very marked. Putney,
many more out of work than for ten years past. Streatham, distress not very
exceptional. Wandsworth, a great many men out of work.
Camberwell. Great and exceptional distress especially among mechanics, clerks, un
skilled workers, &c., who are not accustomed to apply to guardians.
Plumstead. Exceptional distress.
Do these dry statements convey to the reader any idea of the suffering
they represent ? Can an average member of the classes who control the
domestic policy of this wealthy nation, figure to himself accurately what
being “out of work” even for a few weeks means to men who have to
live by selling their labour ? To these, hard times do not occasion
merely a diminution of an income ample to provide all the comforts and
luxuries of existence, but a life and death struggle with starvation. To
commence full of hope to search for fresh employment: to gradually sell
or pawn the few sticks of furniture which convert the single room,
whither poverty has driven you, into a home; to blister the feet
in walking from factory gate to factory gate only to meet with disap
pointment and often with hard words, while hope deferred makes the
heart sick and want of nourishment enfeebles the frame: to see your
�6
wife sinking for lack of food and to send your children to the Board
School without a bit of breakfast: to know that as you grow each day
more gaunt in the face, more shabby in outward' appearance, more
emaciated in physique, there is less and less chance of getting employ
ment ; to return faint and footsore after a long day’s tramp and hear
those you love best on earth crying for food : to have to answer their
moans by telling them that because you are not allowed to work for
your living, Society has doomed them to yet another twenty-tour hours
of starvation ; despairing, to beg from the stranger in the street and be
met with a contemptuous dole or pitiless suspicion : to ponder in cold and
hunger whether the theft that would save your family from slow
starvation is a crime or a duty: to be restrained from suicide only by
the certainty that your death must drive your wife and daughters
to swell the ghastly army of degraded womanhood that parades the
streets of midnight London ; to feel drawing ever nearer the day when
you will be driven into the workhouse to lose for ever freedom and inde
pendence, to part from your wife as surely as if the grave were closing
over her and to condemn your children to be brought up as paupers : to
feel, through all this, that you have done nothing to deserve it—this
was the lot of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen last winter. It is
the certain doom of thousands more during the next few months.
And terrible as is the state of affairs revealed by these official facts,
gloomy as is the prospect they hold out for the coming winter, it is con
fidently declared by those who made a house to house visitation to
collect statistics that they did not adequately depict the destitution
which prevailed last year, and which will recur in an aggravated form in
the next few months. A Special Commissioner of the Pall Mall Gazette
visited a typical East End street, and declared that more than half the
male adults were out of work. Two members of the Holborn Board of
Guardians, Messrs. A. Hoare and S. Brighty, have testified on oath that
when a Committee of that Board, mistrusting the reports of the Reliev
ing Officers, made a personal inspection, they found in many streets of
Holborn and Clerkenwell 30 to 40 per cent, of the population out of
work, and the results of the enforced idleness of the bread winners on
the health of their families was so terrible that the Board were obliged
to strain the Infirmary Relief Regulations, so as to treat sheer starvation
as a prevalent disease !
The above undeniable facts show that the first necessity is an inde
pendent and trustworthy report as to the numbers of men now out of
work. The investigation made in a slovenly way by Mr. Chamberlain
after the windows of the Carlton Club were smashed should now be
made in a careful and deliberate manner. This need not entail much
expense, at any rate in comparison with what continued neglect of such
suffering, if it really does exist, will cost the country. The Local Govern
ment Board should at once require the Guardians of all the Unions to appoint
a small committee of their members to visit every house in a dozen streets in the
poorer quarters of their districts, and render a report showing the number of men
out of work, how many weeks1 work each has done in the last 3 months, his trade,
the number of children dependent upon his wages for food, and finally whether he
would be willing to perform useful labour during eight hours in each day for the
equivalent of 20s. -per week.
*
______________ ___
* This wage is taken as being 37J per cent, less than the average income of a working
class family, according to the estimate of Professor Leone Levi, and, therefore, too
little to attract labour from private enterprises.
�7
This could be done in a few days, and should the event prove that
distress amongst the deserving poor is severe, wide spread, and increas
ing, there can be no excuse for refusing to take steps for their relief. To
begin with, it is intolerable that, under the exceptional circumstances,
th sturdy independence which leads the sufferers to dread becoming
paupers should be broken down. It is sheer brutality to give the Unem
ployed no choice but the workhouse, or a useless, and in the long run,
costly labour test, if it be made manifest that the distressed are
really skilful and hard working men. For the immediate pressure
it will be necessary to place a certain amount of discretionary
power in the hands of the Committees of the Guardians, to
enable them, when they are satisfied that the suffering is genuine,
to give out relief to men out of work. This should be strictly
limited to relief in kind. Doles of money would inevitably go straight
from the hands of men out of work, who are naturally in arrears with
their rent, straight into the pockets of their landlords, too many of whom
are on these Parochial Boards. The best form which the relief could
take, would be the provision of a free dinner to children in the
Board Schools. Whatever may have been the crimes or follies of their
fathers, these children have done nothing to deserve the tortures that
the poverty, whether deserved or not, of their parents inflicts upon
them. They cannot be “ pauperised ” by the enjoyment of food from
public funds, and the interest of the future of our country demands that
thousands of children should not be again forced to starve for a few
months, and so contract the physical, and consequent mental and moral
infirmities, which will prove so great a burden on the next generation.
It is undoubtedly true that the endowments and charities of the City
parishes would be ample and sufficient to cover the cost of providing a
free meal to all the Board School children in London. These funds *
are squandered in a variety of foolish ways, there being now no con
gregations in the City Churches, and no poor resident in the City
parishes. The best interests of England will be better served by secur
ing the nourishment of starveling infants than by maintaining clerical
sinecures, in order that sermons of thanksgiving may be preached to
empty aisles on the anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or
of the detection of Guy Fawkes. Much of this money is already spent
in providing free dinners, not in Board Schools for the children of the
poor, but at the Star and Garter at Richmond, or the Trafalgar at Green
wich, for the officials who administer the funds.
But if the distress be as wide spread as is supposed, it is impossible
to provide for it from local resources, more especially as the demand
would be heaviest where the ratepayers are poorest. In the working
class districts of London a large proportion of the rates are contributed
by persons who are largely dependent, as lodging-house keepers, small
tradesmen, &c., on the welfare of the working classes, and the state
of affairs which denies the workers a chance of earning wages, means, to
the poorer ratepayers, rents in arrears, and trade reduced to the vanish
ing point. If on the top of this Poor Rates were largely increased,
thousands, who are now by the most strenuous exertion keeping out of
the pauper class, would be overwhelmed in one common ruin. It is, be
sides, absurd that able-bodied workmen, who only ask to be allowed to
See Reports of the School Board for London on the matter.
�8
-earn their living, should be compelled to be idle when there is so much
necessary and productive work undone. The Embankment of the poor
man’s side of the Thames, and the building by public bodies of whole
some working class dwellings on vacant sites throughout London, would
provide really useful work for hundreds of men. The demolition of the
buildings and the preparation of the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the
House of Detention for artizans and labourers’ dwellings would provide
employment for a large amount of unskilled labour. The reclamation of
*
waste lands and foreshores} would entail little expenditure beyond what
was actually paid in wages for manual labour. If England can recruit
and equip her sons to defend the suspicious interests of bondholders in
Egypt, if ^10,000,000 of British gold can be poured into the sands of
the Soudan with no other result than the destruction of human life and
happiness, surely even a large expenditure of wealth in the effort to save
life is justifiable !
But this State or Municipal organisation of labour can be done
effectively and economically if the will is not wanting. When similar
works were undertaken in Lancashire during the cotton famine by Sir
Robert Rawlinson, £1,500,000 of public money were profitably expended,
and though the bulk of the workers were factory hands unaccustomed
to outdoor labour, thec^ztagHaid out in plant and superintendence
amounted to only 6-3 of the total expenditure. The attempts made at
the end of last winter in a few London parishes on a smaller scale
show that the thing can be successfully done, if it is energetically
undertaken.} But so slow are the officials to move that public opinion has
* A company is now building artizans dwellings in Central London, and has proved
the possibility of clearing 8 per cent, on capital by providing houseroom on highlyrented ground at an average rent of 2s. 6d. per room. Nothing has been done t6
provide the workers with wholesome lodging within their means since the report of the
Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, and the passing of the Act
of August, 1885, which allows the issue of loans at 3J per cent, interest for this purpose.
The Act has remained a dead letter ; but if its provisions were enforced, the money
raised, and the work done without the intervention of a contractor, the saving of his pro
fits would allow the lower rate of interest to be paid if only half the rent were demanded
for accommodation much better than is offered by the above-named commercial under
taking. But public bodies, many of whose members are pecuniarily concerned in their
own vested interests in the extorting of high rents for unwholesome tenements, are not
likely to encourage this form of competition save under tremendous pressure.
f At a recent meeting of the British Association at Barrow-in-Furness it was stated
that 40,000 acres of land round a neighbouring estuary would pay to reclaim.
+ See the Report of M. Geo. R, Strachan, Surveyor of Chelsea, in the Pall Mall
Gazette, October 2,1886, from which the following are extracts. .
“In response to the public demand, in the early spring of this year, the Chelsea vestry
on the 20th of February last instructed me to pave the macadamized part , of King s
Road with wood, and further instructed me to employ and pay the men without the
intervention of a contractor. The pay was to be 4d. per hour, and of this two shillings
was to be paid each night in order to get the men food. It was questioned whether
there would be 100 applicants for the work, but on the day appointed to take the names
no less than 300 were at hand. There is much discussion as to a test for distinguishing
genuine cases of distress from the loafers and the ne’er-do-weels. I venture to suggest
that a man who will hack up a macadam road like King’s Road for 4d. per hour has
earned the right to be considered a genuine case. The number of men employed was
increased to 230, among whom, to my own knowledge, were carpenters, , plasterers,
bricklayers, fitters, shoemakers, watchmakers, printers, hatters, gentlemen s servants,
and tailors, as well as general labourers, each of whom commenced work at 4-d. per
hour. The severe work tried many of the men at the beginning. When paying the
men each night their two shillings, I noticed that many of them had. been punished by
their particular job, and where it was possible they were given a lighter job the next
�9
to be heated to a dangerous degree before they can be made aware
that the punctual drawing of their salaries and pigeon-holing of all com
munications is not their whole duty. The pressure necessary to stir them
entails mass meetings of hungry and wretched men, injudicious inter
ference by officious policemen, and then, perhaps, riot and bloodshed,
for which the whole responsibility rests on those who will not hear any
other appeal.
But these measures are merely stop-gaps. Extension of out-door
relief and provision of employment- by public bodies will prevent deaths
from starvation for the time, but they will do nothing to avert the
recurrence of a state of affairs which would be an amusing satire on
human intelligence if it were not for its tragic side. On all hands over
production, so it is said ; too great an abundance of all the commodities
which labour makes. Yet in every great town threatening crowds of
workers complain that this very superfluity of the good things of
this world keeps them in want of the merest necessaries of life. The
means of producing wealth have been so improved and multiplied that
it is impossible for the workers to get enough to keep them and their
families in health. The burden of the evidence taken by the Royal
Commission on Depression of Trade is, not that the volume of trade is
decreasing, but that the intense competition is ruining every industry.
In the decade 1874 t° T883 all the great industries of the country showed
a great increase of production, with only a trifling increase, or even a
decrease, in the number of persons employed.
*
That is to say, im
proved methods had enabled each man to produce more, and had con
sequently denied work to many. Thus it is certain that the distress we
are now witnessing is no passing symptom, but destined to increase in
intensity with every advance in the modes of production.
day. At first they did not earn their money, but as they got food into them they visibly
improved. Where a man was found capable of better work than hacking the road up
he was put to mixing the concrete, for which he received 5d. per hour. When it came
to laying the blocks, the artisans among them were advanced to that work, and were
then paid the usual wage of a pavior—9d. per hour...........................One scarcely knew the
men again. Nine weeks’ work had enabled them to turn round in the world. They had
rescued their clothes, which in many cases had been “ put away,” and there they were,
a body of contented men, forming a striking contrast to the hungry men who struggled
for work when the names were taken down. Altogether, a sum of £2,000 was circulated
to these men as wages, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it gave assist
ance to men who were deserving of consideration, and that it saved many a wife and
her little ones from hunger and suffering.
But did it pay ? Yes. These roads cost gs. rod. and gs. yd. per square yard
respectively, all told, which included superintendence, printing, testing, and a substan
tial allowance for the depreciation of plant and tools The price could not be bettered
for the quality of the work. The work is satisfactory as regards execution. The vestry
and the parishoners were so satisfied with the works that they resolved to continue
them, and I am now engaged in paving Pont Street with wood under the conditions
named. There is an eagerness for work that is equal to that at the beginning of the year,
and though the men are not so starved as they were then, yet they are out of work. If
300 men—all Chelsea men—were wanted, they would be forthcoming in two days.
This opens out a serious prospect. Should the winter be a severe one it will be
necessary to relieve the distress. I submit that there are few better ways than by
employing the men in useful public works. Our wood pavement experiment is only one
class of work. It would be a desirable precaution for all the local authorities to look
up the works they could put in hand if the emergency arises, so as to be ready.
The surveyor who has such work entrusted to him has a strange team to drive over a
new course, and he cannot have his rem hand or his whip hand pulled at, if he is to get
over it successfully. He should be given a free hand while the work is on, and made
to render a strict account when it is done.”
* See "The Emigration Fraud Exposed,” by H. M. Hyndman.
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*
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�IO
Mr. Hugh Owen, C.B., the Secretary to the Local Government
Board, has pointed out, very wisely from his point of view, the danger
of allowing the Unemployed to entertain the idea that it is the duty of
Government to provide them with wages. And certainly, relief works,
whether undertaken by the National or Municipal authorities, must
come to an end sooner or later. If the stress of poverty passes away
the industrial regiments that have been enrolled may be disbanded with
impunity. But should the permanent causes which have brought about
scarcity of employment remain in action, should the distress therefore
continue to augment, the State will have on its hands an ever-increasing
army of desperate men who have been taught that if they agitate fiercely
enough the State will provide for them, It is not a pleasant prospect.
Surely it is wiser, while undertaking special measures for the momentary
pressure, to at once go boldly to the root of the matter.
The question is really the one with with which the ruling classes are
now face to face in all countries in the world. “ Why are the workers
poor? ” This is the riddle of the modern Sphinx, which our civilization
has to answer or perish. Poverty, the material degradation of a large
proportion of the population, means that long hours of work for low
wages are alternated with these long spells of want of employment and
sheer starvation. There is one way and one way only to put a check on
this—the establishment of a shorter working day—and this can be
best effected by the
1. Reduction of the hours of labour in all Government
employments to eight a day.
2. The prohibition by law of more than 48 hours per week
being exacted from their employes by any railway, tramway,
or omnibus company.
3. The establishment of communications with foreign
countries in order that an international agreement may be
arrived at for curtailing, in each State, the hours of labour
in manufactures and industries which are affected by inter
national competition.
Some objections will be raised to these proposals, but there is not
the slightest doubt that any Governmeet which enforced the first of
them would be amply supported by public opinion. The public have
too often lately supped on horrors provided by the graphic descriptions
of the life of the poor not to be willing that any practical steps should
be taken for their relief. It only needs to be pointed out that, for
instance, plenty of Government work is given out to contractors who
over-drive their men, that many of the uniforms of our soldiers, police
men, postmen, etc., are made on the sweating system,” for men of
every class and every shade of political belief to unite in declaring that
as citizens they object to what, as individuals, they may themselves be
forced by competition to do, and that even if low profits drive the
employing class to reduce wages and lengthen hours, this wealthy
nation shall not take advantage of the necessities of the poor to grind
their lives out of them. This one measure would at once give employ
ment to many thousands who would be called in to fill the vacancies
created.
But some difficulties would be experienced in passing an Act
�11
of Parliament compulsorily reducing the hours of adult males in
the employment of companies of capitalists. Such interference has
always been deprecated, by those interested in maintaining long hours
and low wages, on the ground that if the men really desire it they would
combine and enforce a reduction through a trade union by strikes etc.
To this the reply is : that large numbers being out of work, the em
ployers could readily fill the places of any number of men who struck for
a reduction of hours : that the same circumstance drains the funds of all
existing trade societies as they are also benefit societies and pay all
members out of work, and therefore cripples them for undertaking
*
strikes ; that strikes are a barbarous method of effecting such a change
and to be successful must be backed up by at any rate a certain amount
of intimidation, boycotting etc. Much vigorous opposition will be raised
by the shareholders in these enterprises and their numerous supporters
in Parliament. They undoubtedly wall suffer by being deprived of
the right to make profits by overworking their employes, but it is not
possible to undo injustice and remedy hardships without appearing to
injure someone. Advantages to the community at large must be
weighed and a decision taken on that ground. There are some 360,000
men employed, for instance, on the railway system of this country. Their
average hours are 12 per dayt and their average wages are under 20s. a
week. The compulsory reduction of the hours to 48 per week would
therefore mean the taking on of 180,000 workers and the expenditure as
wages of nine millions of pounds which now go into the shareholders
pockets as dividends. This is less than one per cent, of the capital
invested in railways in England. Now admitting that individual cases
ofhardship will occur, but also remembering the awful and wide-spread
distress which is now devastating the “ lower orders,” the question for
the community is whether one per cent, interest is worth more than the
devotion of that sum to wages would effect, i.e. increased leisure for 360,000
men, and a chance of earning a living to 180,000. There can be no
question as to the opinion of the working class on the point, and even
the well-to-do may see it in a different light, when it is borne in upon
them that some hundreds of thousands of unemployed men must
somehow be provided for, either by charity, private or public, or by legis
lation, and that it may be cheaper, easier, and safer to meet such a pro
posal as this half-way than to seek to evade the inevitable.
This applies still more strongly to tramway and omnibus companies.
They exact longer hours and their victims are consequently still less
able to combine, and for unskilled work such as theirs the competition,
even at such miserable wages, is terrific.
There are many other trades and occupations in which the enforce
ment of a shorter day of labour is necessary. Where competition has
reached a point when its disastrous effects are patent to all, when
individuals are powerless to control it, it surely becomes the duty of the
* It is on this account that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers had a deficit of
over ^43,000 last year. The Union of Operative Bakers cannot prevent many employers
exacting 18 hours work a day. The Boiler Makers show 23I per cent, of their members
out of work and ^45,000 paid to them; the Brass-founders (Liverpool), 17 per cent,
unemployed, the Amalgamated Carpenters, 18 per cent. See Returns “ Pauperism
and Distress.”
f The average hours of drivers are 10, goods guards n to 12, passenger guards 12
to 15, porters all work 12 and over. For further particulars see a pamphlet by T. Mann,
entitled “ What an Eight Hour Working Day Means.”
�12
organised community to fix a limit beyond which the excesses of com
petition must not go. In the cases mentioned above the difficulty is
not complicated by the presence of foreign or oriental underpaid labour.
There can be no doubt whatever that under what is called Free Trade
“ the unrestricted competition to which Parliament in its wisdom has
decided that this country shall be subjected ”—the market of the world
will confer its custom on those countries where, other things being equal,
labour is cheapest, and that our artizans will some day have to accept
the wage of Belgians, and Italians, or English manufacturers will be
beaten. And there is nothing more certain than that in each of the
foreign countries, whose competition we may have to dread, there is a
strong feeling in favour of international legislation on these labour
questions. To that end communications should at once be made to
foreign governments, and should they be unwilling to come to reasonable
terms, it will certainly be found in England, as in every country where
the workers have any voice in national policy, that the democracy is in
favour of a war of tariffs to coerce the recalcitrant countries.
There is one objection from the worker’s point of view w'hich remains
to be met. Reduction of hours would no doubt provide work for those
out of employment, but would it not reduce the average rate of wages ?
Especially where men are paid by the hour it seems on the face of it so
certain that a week of 48 instead of 60 hours must mean a proportionate
reduction of income. But this is not so. The main factor in the pres
sure which keeps wages down is the eagerness of men who are out of
work to accept it on any terms. The employer, perhaps smarting from a
diminution of his normal income, feels justified in reducing wages when
he sees that thousands would be only too glad to be taken on even at
the reduced rate. As long as “ the reserve army of labour ” is there to
draw upon, unscrupulous employers are in a position to do exactly what
they please, and, by the action of competition, force better men to have
recourse to the same villanies in order to escape bankruptcy. If the
Unemployed are provided for, and the pressure on the labour market
reduced, the same laws of supply and demand which now make the
capitalist the absolute arbiter in matters of work and wages will then
destroy his present advantage. Every man who is looking for work is
an ally of the capitalist and an enemy of his fellows. The reduction of
hours, by absorbing the Unemployed, will inevitably raise wages until
further developments of machinery and invention increase the produc
tivity of labour, and bring about a repetition of the miseries of the last
few months.
Not the least significant fact about the recent agitation on the
subject of the Unemployed is that it has been allowed to remain entirely
in the hands of a body of men who form the Social-Democratic Federa
tion, the oldest and best known of the English Socialist organisations.
Of these men Mr. Geo. R. Sims, whose knowledge of the poor in Lon
don is great, says that their influence over the workers is enormous,
and Mr; Arnold White, the well-known philanthropist, admits, while
attacking them zealously, that “ they are slowly and surely winning the
confidence of the masses.” From time to time their doings are chro
nicled in the papers, but some of the following facts should be more
widely known.
1
�13
On Monday, February Sth, 1886, a large meeting of men out of work
was held in Trafalgar Square. Speeches were delivered by some Social
Democrats, who afterwards headed a portion of the large crowd towards
Hyde Park. On the way stones were thrown at the Reform and Carlton
CIttbs in Pall Mall. The accidental absence of police showed that this
Could be done with impunity, and portions of the crowd broke hundreds
Of pounds worth of plate glass, ill-treated the passers-by, and sacked two
shops in Piccadilly, and several in May Fair, before they were dispersed.
On the following day London was in a panic, but no further riots
occurred. Four of the Social Democrats, who were reported to have
used very strong language, were indicted for seditious speaking and
inciting to violence, and after five days’ trial at the Old Bailey were
acquitted on April 10th, Mr. Justice Cave stating in his summing up that
they deserved “ some considerable credit ” for their vain efforts to bring
the dangerous nature of the distress among the working classes to the
notice of the proper authorities.
So much is notorious. What is unknown is the real origin aud
meaning of occurrences without parallel in modern times.
The
following summary can be readily verified from reports of the meetings
and of the testimony of witnesses at the trial:—
In the winter of 1883, when the distress began to be seriously felt, the
Social-Democrats made themselves conspicuous by vehement attacks on
the supporters of emigration as a panacea for working class poverty.
During that and the following winter they repeatedly carried amendments
by unanimous votes in the meetings convened by the advocates of
emigration. This made them very popular all over the country, especially
in East London, and gave them an influence they were not slow to utilise.
In February, 1885, the Social Democratic Federation convened a
meeting of the Unemployed (even then very numerous) on the Thames
Embankment, whence a deputation proceeded to ask the Local
Government Board to urge various remedial measures for the distress of
the thousands stated to be then out of work. In the absence of Sir Charles
Dilke, the Under Secretary, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, stated that nothing
could be done by the central authority at Whitehall, and advised the
deputation to “ bring salutary pressure to bear on the local authorities.”
This advice was not immediately followed, probably owing to the
approach of summer and the consequent diminution of the suffering.
But early in 1886 proceedings were again commenced, and the methods
taken by a branch of the same organization in Clerkenwell were
closely followed in Marylebone, Hampstead, Bermondsey, Hackney,
Westminster, Limehouse, Battersea, and other parts of London, but
the description of the one agitation applies with more or less force to
all. Determined to put “ pressure ” on the Guardians of the Holborn
Union, the members of this body instituted a house-to-house census of
the poorer parts of the district, in order to satisfy themselves as to the
distress. They summoned the Local Members of Parliament (one a
Conservative, the other a Liberal), who declared themselves willing, but
impotent, to effect any remedial legislation. On January 27 a deputation
attended the meeting of the Guardians, and pointed out—(a) That their
investigations had showed 40 per cent, of the bread-winners to be out of
employment ; (&) That the workhouses were overcrowded ; (c) That in
accordance with the strict regulations denying outdoor relief to persons
under 60 years of age and free from disease, succour was refused to the
�x4
sufferers; (d) That the reports of the Relieving Officers showing that
comparatively few persons applied for relief were misleading, since artizans out of work did not apply : firstly, because they were not of the
“ pauper class,” secondly, because they were well aware that application
for relief would be vain, unless they entered the workhouse and broke up
their homes. They further demanded that —(i) The Guardians should
personally investigate the distress; (2) Should apply to the Local
Government Board to relax the rules, and grant discretionary relieving
powers during the winter; (3) Should urge the Vestries and Boards of
Works in the districts to employ men on any works of real utility, such
as artizan’s dwellings, baths and washhouses, or street improvements ;
(4) Should insist on the Metropolitan Board of Works carrying out the
recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Work
ing Classes by clearing the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the House of
Detention, and erecting on these and other available sites working class
dwellings, to be let at the lowest rents which would cover the outlay ;
and (5.) Should try to procure the immediate commencement of the new
Admiralty and War Office proposed for Whitehall. The Guardians
listened very patiently, and there being some thousands of Unemployed
men outside their Board Room, decided to adopt all these proposals—with
the following results. They appointed a committee who made a houseto-house visitation in their locality, and found the severest privations,
and even starvation, being suffered, owing to lack of employment, by
hundreds of families of even the better-to-do artizan class. Of all this
no hint had been given in the reports of Relieving Officers and Local
Government Board Inspectors, who merely record the individuals who
apply for relief. The Local Government Board, or rather Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, was not so far carried away by the impulses of the
“ political humanity,” on which he spoke so eloquently to working class
audiences during the electioneering campaign, as to relax the rules,
owing to the stringency of which so much patient misery had remained
unnoticed and unrelieved. A ‘‘labour test” was imposed, and the
skilled artizans and watchmakers of the district were invited to prove the
reality of their distress by breaking stones all day for a remuneration of
ninepence and two pounds of bread. Of the few who accepted this
test many suffered severely from cut faces and blistered hands. On
more than one occasion these men, who lost their right to vote by
entering the labour yard, broke into open revolt. But the majority said
that it would be just as pleasant to die of starvation outside the
stoneyard as inside.
Few practical steps of any use whatever were taken by the Vestries
or Metropolitan Board of Works.
The Members of Parliament for London, irrespective of party, were
summoned to an informal conference, which appointed a Committee.
After a delay of some two months the Committee reported that the dis
tress was exceptional, and that it was quite beyond their province and
powers as only a section of the Legislature to deal with it. With this
ended the interest displayed in the matter by members of Parliament,
for the proposal made by two Republican “ working class representa
tives/’ Mr. George Howell and Mr. Joseph Arch, that the Queen’s
Jubilee should be antedated by a year, in order that public festivities
and wasteful expenditure might improve trade, can only be regarded as
a piece of shameless sycophancy or ill-judged pleasantry.
�The Social Democrats, however, convened a meeting in Holborn
Town Hall on 3rd January, 1886, to which all Members of Parliament
for London were invited. With one consent they made excuse, and not
a single Member put in an appearance. The hall was crowded with men
out of work, who unanimously passed resolutions demanding remedial
measures. No notice whatever was taken of this. On February 8th,
1886, Patrick Kenny, a well-known promoter of public meetings on all
sorts of subjects, who had previously persuaded the Lord Mayor to open
a Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed, convened a mass meeting
of men out of work in Trafalgar Square for the purpose of denouncing
Free Trade and demanding Protection. The Social Democrats attended,
as did thousands of hungry and desperate men. Being recognised by
the crowd and called on to speak, the Socialists harangued the assembly,
who deserted the conveners of the meeting to hear John Burns,
H. H. Champion, H. M. Hyndman, John Williams, and others. At
the close of the meeting, Burns, who had in his hand a red flag, led
the way into Hyde Park. It was proved at the trial of the four chief
speakers that no disorder occurred until some real or fancied insult
by the gentlemen at the windows of the Reform Club enraged the crowd.
Stones were thrown at the windows, and no police were present. En
couraged by this circumstance, the rougher and more desperate portions
of the crowd broke hundreds of windows, and even rifled some shops, until,
on reaching Hyde Park, the majority, on the advice of the speakers of
the Social Democratic Federation, dispersed to their homes, while a
small band went through May Fair, damaging a good deal of property,
until stopped by a small band of police. On the following day
crowds again collected in Trafalgar Square, but the Social Democrats
went to Mr. Chamberlain at the Local Government Board, who,
on their representations, issued the circular to the local authorities,
whose replies are summarised above.
After some delay, Mr.
Childers, the Home Secretary, summoned up courage to proceed
against Burns, Champion, Hyndman, and Williams for seditious speak
ing. They were committed for trial, and on April 10th acquitted at the
Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Cave. It was proved, to the satisfaction
of the jury, that their advice had not been that of Timon of Athens,
Break open shops, nothing can you steal
But thieves do lose it...........................
Large handed robbers your grave masters are—
And pill by law.
but not more seditious, if more sincere, than many speeches delivered by
Privy Councillors.
Since that time various attempts have been made by the Social
Democrats to induce the local as well as the central authorities to pre
pare for the inevitable distress of this winter, but absolutely without
effect.
If the rulers of England do not want to have another Ireland at their
own doors they will do well to show that redress for grievance, in Lon
don at any rate, can be obtained without recourse to violent methods
of agitation.
No one can doubt that if the Unemployed had pursued the tactics
which have hitherto been so successful on the other side of St. George’s
Channel, their condition would now be occupying the serious attention
of our statesmen. The poor are learning this lesson. When they have
mastered it, what will be its application in London ?
�Lord Rosebery has pointed out that you cannot go on for ever sucking
the social wreckage of all other towns into the vast maelstrom of misery
that lies east of the Bank of England. City missionaries and bishops
are for ever dinning their warning into the ears of all who will hear.
No one now attempts to deny the danger to society caused by the con
trast between undeserved poverty and riches too often equally unde
served. But while the danger comes ever nearer, no attempt is made to
grapple with the causes of it. It is not too much to say that the winter
of 1885—1886 may be a turning point in the national history. If in
stead of dry reports of Commissioners, who sit to collect evidence
which is never utilised, something is done to remove these evils at their
root, all may yet be well. If this winter passes leaving the permanent
causes of social misery just where they were, and the poor still more
hopeless of peaceable changes, and chafing still more bitterly under a
sense of injustice, we have before us a prospect of bread riots put down
by arbitrary force, and martial law opposed by secret conspiracy. And,
if this be the result, who is to blame? YOU, if you agree with the
above proposals, and yet do nothing to support them. YOU, if not
agreeing with them, you fail to put forward better proposals of your
own.
H.H.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
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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The facts about the unemployed: an appeal and a warning by one of the middle-class
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Champion, H.H.
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London; New York City
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
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The Modern Press; W.L. Rosenberg
Date
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1886
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G4982
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Working conditions
Socialism
Rights
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Poverty
Socialism
Unemployment
Working Class-Great Britain
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
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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The political situation: an address delivered to a meeting of working men. August 24, 1868
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Guedalla, Joseph
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Adhesive tape marks on first two pages. Joseph Guedalla was Vice-President of the Reform League. Printed by Judd and Glass, Phoenix Printing Works. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer
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1868
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G5204
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Politics
Socialism
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Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Politics and Government-19th Century
politics
Working Class-Great Britain
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THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE
.
WORKING CLASS.
*
*\
& ftttert
Delivered to a Meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868.
BY
EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY,
PBOEESSOB OP HISWEY IN UNIVEBSITY COLL EC®, LONDON.
“ The working class is not, properly speaking, a class at all, but constitutes the-body
of society. From it proceed the various special classes, which we may regard as organs
necessary to that body.”—-Auguste Comte.
Reprinted from the “Fortnightly Review.”
LONDON:
E.
TRUELOVE, "256,
. .
HIGH HOLBORN.
± 1869*1^
��THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.1
We live in a day when social questions are for the first time con
testing precedence with political questions. In the first French
revolution the distinction was not apparent; at all events it was not
recognised even by sharp-sighted observers, though we, looking back
to those times, can detect the signs of it. During the reign of Louis
Philippe—from 1830, that is, to 1848—the distinction became every
year more marked. It is the fashion to speak of the revolution of
1848 as a very small affair—as a feeble imitation of the old revolu
tion. If looked at from a political point of view, in the narrowest
sense of that term, it certainly was a much smaller affair than the
old revolution. But to those who have realised in their minds that
there has been in truth but one revolution, which began in 1789 and
has been going on ever since, and that the year 1848 marks its
transition from the purely political to the social phase,—to such
persons, I say, the last epoch will seem even more momentous than
the first. The attempt of 1848 was a failure, no doubt. But the
history of the French revolution was not closed in 1848, as most of
us here present will live to see.
In England we have travelled the same path, though hitherto
without such violent shocks. We are all of us, French and English
alike, moving rapidly towards the most fundamental revolution
Europe has yet undergone ; a revolution in comparison with which
the great political changes in the time of our grandfathers, and even
the great religious changes three centuries ago, were, I had almost
said, insignificant. I will not pretend to say how far workmen may
have clearly realised to themselves this prospect. I am inclined to
think that not many of them have more than a vague conception of
it, although they are instinctively working towards it. But the
middle class have no conception of it at all. I am not speaking of
the stupidly ignorant part of that body, but of its more enlightened
and active members. They sincerely believe that the series of
political changes which they commenced in England forty years ago
is nearly completed. When they shall have abolished the State
Church, reduced taxation somewhat, obtained the ballot and equal
electoral districts or something like it, they think reform will be
completed, and that England will enter upon a sort of golden age.
(1) This lecture was the last of a series of three delivered last spring, by request of
the London Trades’ Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were
"by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison.
�2
THE SOCIAL FUTURE 0$ THE WORKING CLASS*
They do not contemplate any serious change, either political or
industrial. Politically, we are still to be governed by Parliament.
In industry we are to have the reign of unlimited competition.
' Now we can all of us understand that some men, either from
education or mental constitution, do not believe in progress at all.
They think that all change is for the worse, unless it is a change
backwards; and they are convinced that nothing but firmness is
wanting to resist change. There always have been such men, and
we can understand them. But what is less easy to understand is
that there should be men who believe heartily in progress, and yet
shut their eyes deliberately to the goal whither we are tending.
The truth is that their belief in progress does not rest on any reason
able basis. It is nothing better than a superstitious optimism, a
lazy semi-religious idea that the world must have a natural tendency
to get better. As for what getting better means, that they settle by
their own likes and dislikes. Consequently the middle-class man
interprets it to mean a reign of unlimited competition and individual
freedom; while the workman understands it to be a more equal
division of the products of industry. Although the workman’s
circumstances have led him to a truer conception of progress, perhaps
he has not arrived at it on much more reasonable grounds than those
on which the middle-class man has arrived at his. For, after all, it
does not follow because we long for a certain state of society that
therefore we are tending towards it.
The lot of the poor is a hard lot; there is no denying that. With
a very large number of them life is absolute misery from birth to
death. Though they may not actually starve, they are more or less
hungry from one week’s end to another; their dull round of toil
occupies the whole day; their homes are squalid and frightful,
seldom free from disease, and the heartrending .incidents of disease,
when aggravated by poverty. For them life is joyless, changeless,
hopeless. “ They wait for death, but it cometh not; they rejoice
exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave.” Those who
have mixed with the very poor, and have been startled by the strange
calmness with which they contemplate and speak of death, whether
of themselves or their relatives, will not say that this picture is much
over-drawn. But it is not of this poorest class that I now wish to
speak. I say that the lot of the skilled artizan earning his 30s.
or 35s. a week (when he is not out of employment) is a hard lot.
Perhaps it may seldom or never happen to him to go for a day with
his hunger only half satisfied. But his position compared with that
of a non-workman is one of great discomfort. People often seem to
forget this. It is not uncommon for rich men, when addressing an
audience of workmen to say, “ My friends, I am a working man. I
have been a working man all my life. I have been working with
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
my brain as you have with your hands.” Yes, but there is just
that difference. The one man has risen, say, at eight in the morning,
from a comfortable bed, has come down-stairs to a comfortable
breakfast, read his newspaper, reached his place of business towards
eleven o’clock, and then worked perhaps hard enough for some hours,
but in a comfortable office, and with interest in his work so intense
that he perhaps prefers it to any amusement, and then back to his
comfortable dinner and bed. The other man has risen perhaps
before daylight, has toiled ten or twelve hours, it may be under a
broiling sun, or a chilling rain, or under other conditions equally
disagreeable, and at work which cannot have very much interest for
him, first, because it is monotonous, secondly, because the product
will not be his when he has produced it. He has snatched his coarse
food at intervals during the day, and has returned at night to an
uncomfortable home. I think rich people are too apt to forget that,
though habit counts for much, a poor man’s, muscles, lungs, and
stomach,.are, after all, not very unlike their own, and that no amount
of custom makes such a life Otherwise than disagreeable and even
painful to him; and that the main question for him in reference to
civilisation will be, how it alleviates his condition. How are we
to answer that question? Everyone is familiar with the hymns
of triumph that are raised from time to time on the platform and in
the press. We need not enter into particulars, because no one
disputes that, so far as they go, they do point to progress of a certain
kind. No one disputes that the production and accumulation of
wealth is an element of progress J but it is only one element, and if
even this is confined to a comparatively small section of the com
munity, it must be admitted either that society as a whole is not
progressing, or that its progress must be proved by somewhat better
evidence than the statistics paraded in budget speeches and news
paper articles.
There is no question about the material progress of the non-work
man class. There are many thousands of houses in London infinitely
more commodious and luxurious than the palaces of Plantagenet
kings. But there is very great question whether the workmen
generally have made any real progress in comfort. Some of them
have, no doubt. The skilled artizan in London gets enough to eat.
He is perhaps no better lodged than his forefathers, but he dresses
better, and he has greater opportunities of enjoying himself and
moving about to better himself. But among the agricultural
labourers what state of things do we find ? In many parts of England
they are positively worse off than they were a hundred years ago.
In the Eastern Counties, where agriculture is carried on by the
newest lights of science, the horrible gang-system has come into
existence within the present century. Nor is such misery confined
.
b 2
�4
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSJ
to agricultural labourers. It has been proved in official reports that
' the workmen in such extensive trades as shoe-making, silk-weaving,
and stocking-weaving, are on an average worse fed than the
Lancashire operatives were during the cotton famine.1
Now, wretchedness of this terrible kind does not exist even among
barbarous nations and savage tribes. The child of the North
American Indian, or the Caffre, or the Esquimaux, does not begin to
work in a mill or in an agricultural gang almost as soon as it can
walk. It gets better food than the English child, and leads a
healthier and more enjoyable life. The West Indian negro has
been treated as an irreclaimable savage because he will not toil like
an English labourer, and the reason assigned is that he has plenty
to eat and drink without working hard for it. I fancy most English
labourers wish they could say the same. Really, if progress and
civilisation mean nothing but an increase of wealth, irrespective of
its distribution, Rousseau had much reason to prefer the state of
nature. It is childish to remind the poor man that his ancestor
under the Plantagenet kings had no chimney to his hut, no. glass in
his windows, no paper on his walls, no cheap calico, no parliamentary
trains, no penny newspapers. He was no worse off in these respects
than the Plantagenet king himself, who was equally without chimneys,
glass windows, calico, railways, and penny newspapers. There are parts
of the world now where the labourer is still in that condition. But
he gets sound and healthy sleep out of the straw spread on the floor
of his windowless hut, which is more than three or four families
huddled together in a single room in St. Giles’s can do, though they
may have a glazed window and a chimney. A poor Englishman
might be ashamed to walk about in a good stout sheepskin; but he
is often clad in garments much less warm and durable. What sort
of progress is this, in which the larger part of the community remains
as miserable, if not more miserable, than in a state of barbarism ?
If progress is necessarily so one-sided, it were better—I say it deli
berately—it were better it ceased. It were better that all were poor
together than that this frightful contrast should exist to shake men’s
faith in the eternal principles of justice.
Happily, we are not shut up to so discouraging a conclusion. If .
we look at the whole history of our race in Western Europe, instead
of studying one short chapter of it alone, we shall soon see what its
progress has been. The labouring class have steadily advanced in
dignity and influence. Once they were slaves, with no more rights
than horses and oxen. Then they were serfs, with certain rights,
but still subject to grievous oppression and indignities. Then they
became free hired labourers, nominally equal with the upper class
before the law, but in practice treated as an inferior race, and them(1) Public Health; Sixth Report, for 1863, pp. 13, 14.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
selves looking on the rich with much deference and awe. Now we
have come to a time when the workmen are almost everywhere
standing on their rights, and resisting what they deem unfair or
oppressive. They have learnt the secret of combination. With
freedom and dignity has come confidence—confidence in each other.
They have grasped the idea that the main object of government and
industrial organisation should be their comfort and happiness. What
is more, everybody is beginning to hold the same language. Every
proposal publicly made, whether to destroy or to create, is represented
as for the good of the lower classes. The very employers who are
trying to destroy your trade societies profess to be doing it out of
pure love for you. How astonishing and incomprehensible would all
this have been—I do not say to the ancient slave-owner, or to the
mediaeval baron—but to the wealthy men of the last century. Is
not this progress ? What if a minority only of the workmen have
as yet derived any benefit from the increased production of wealth ?
Is it nothing that the arms are being forged with which all shall at
length get their share ? Material improvement has always begun,
and always will begin, not with. those who need it most, but with
those who need it least; and the higher classes of workmen are now
making the experiment which the lowest will repeat after them.
Once firmly grasped, this truth throws a flood of light on history,
and makes clear what at first sight, is so obscure—the unbroken,
continuous progress of society. We see that even in the so-called
dark ages, when the splendour of Roman civilisation appeared to be
extinguished by the barbarian—when science, art, and literature
were lost and forgotten, and the world seemed to have retrograded
ten centuries—even then, in that dark hour, our race was accom
plishing the most decided step forward that it has ever made. When
the philosophers and poets and artists of Greece were lavishing their
immortal works on small communities of free men—when the
warriors and statesmen of Rome were building up the most splendid
political fabric that the world has seen—the masses were sunk in a
state of brutal slavery. . But when savage tribes, with uncouth names
and rude manners, had poured over Europe,. when a squalid bar
barism had superseded the elegance and luxury of ancient society,
when kings could not read, and priests could not write, when trade
and commerce had relapsed into Oriental simplicity, when men
thought that the end of a decayed and dying world was surely near
—then were the masses, . the working men, accomplishing un
noticed their first great step from slavery to' serfdom.
What I have already said amounts to this: that the improvement
of the condition of the working class is the most important element
of human progress—so important that even if we were to make it
�6
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
the sole object and test of our public life we could not justly be said
to be taking a one-sided view of political and social questions. I
shall endeavour presently to draw a picture of the workman’s life,
as it ought to be, and, as I believe, it will be in the future. But I
must first examine some of the means by which the transition is
being effected.
I will put aside the various schemes of Socialists and Communists.,
which have found so many supporters on the Continent. Widely as
they differ from one another, I believe they all agree in demanding
that the State shall intervene, more or less, in the direction of
industry. Now that' opinion has never found much favour in
England, nor is there at the present time any large body of workmen
who support it. In France the first idea of every reformer or
innovator is to act through the Government. This tendency arises
partly from the jealousy with which all Governments in that country
have repressed voluntary association, but partly also from the logical
and orderly character of the French mind, which abhors anything
partial or patchy either in thought or action. But in England,
where there has always been considerable facility for private and
associated action, it is our way rather to depend upon ourselves than
to wait till we have a Government of our way of thinking. Hence
the only two methods which have any serious pretensions to promote
the elevation of workmen in England have both of them sprung, not
from the brains of philosophers, but from the practical efforts of
workmen themselves. This is shown by the very language we
employ to describe them. In France the labour question has meant
the discussion of the rival schools, the Economic School, the school of
Fourier, the school of Proudhon, the school of Louis Blanc, of Cabet,
of Pierre Leroux, and so on. In England we do not talk of schools,
but of Unionism and Co-operation, which began in a practical form,
and have continued practical. There can be no doubt that all work
men who care for the future of their class are looking to one of these
two methods for the realisation of their hopes. Here, as on the
Continent, there is no lack of thinkers with elaborate schemes which,
in the opinion of their authors, would ensure universal happiness.
But whereas the French philosophers, whom I have mentioned, had
each his thousands of ardent disciples among the workmen, our
theorists cannot count their disciples by dozens, and are therefore not
worth taking into account. But Co-operation and Unionism are real
forces, and to pass them over in silence would be to deprive this
lecture of all practical value and interest for such an audience as I
am addressing.
The first thing to be noticed about Co-operation is that the word is
used for two very different things. There is the theory, and there is
the practice. The theory, as you know, is that there should be no
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
7
employer-class, that the workmen should divide the profits of produc
tion amongst themselves, and that whatever management is necessary
should be done by salaried officers and committees. Co-operation,
nowever, in that sense, does not get beyond a theory. The nobleminded men who founded the celebrated mill at Rochdale did indeed
for some years manage to put their principles in practice; but even
their own society at length fell away from them, and began to employ
workmen who were not shareholders at the market-rate of wages;
and I believe there is not in England, at the present moment, a
single co-operative society in which workmen divide the profits
irrespective of their being shareholders. Co-operation, in this sense,
then, may be dismissed from consideration with as little ceremony
as the Socialist and Communist theories before alluded to. Like*
them it supposes a degree of unselfishness and devotion which wedo not find in average men, and it does not attempt to create those
qualities, or supply their place by the only influence that can keep
societies of men for any length erf time to a high standard of
morality, the influence of an organised religion.
The Co-operation which actually exists, and is an important featureof modern industry, is something very different. We must strip it
mercilessly of the credit it borrows from its name, and its supposed
connection with the theory above described. It is nothing more than
an extension of the joint-stock principle. In what respect does the
Rochdale mill differ from any other joint-stock company ? A con
siderable number of its shares are already%eld by persons who do not
work in it, and it is very possible that in course of time all, or most
of the workmen employed in it, will be earning simply the market
rate of wages. A certain number of men, by the exercise of industry,
prudence, and frugality, will have risen from the working class into
the class above. How is the working class the better for that ?
What sort of solution is that for the industrial problem ? We set out
with the inquiry how the working class was to be improved, not how
a few persons, or even many persons, were to be enabled to get out of
it. We want to discover how workmen may obtain a larger share of
the profits of production, and the Rochdale Co-operative Mill, which
pays workmen the market-rate, has certainly not made the discovery.
The world is not to be regenerated by the old dogma of the economists
masquerading in Socialist dress.
The history of Co-operation is this. The noble-minded men who
first preached the theory in. its purity, were deeply impressed with
the immoral and mischievous way in which capital is too often
employed by its possessors,, and instead of inquiring how moral
influence might be brought to bear on capitalists, they leaped to the
conclusion that capitalists as a separate class ought not to exist. In
making this assumption they overlooked the distinction between the-
�8
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OB’ THE WORKING* CLASS!
accidental and the permanent conditions of industry. Collective
activity among men has had two types—the military and the indus
trial, the latter of which has gradually almost superseded the former.
Military organisation has undergone many and great changes, from
the earliest shape in which we find it among savage tribes down to
its most elaborate form in our own time. But its one leading
characteristic has remained unchanged. There has never been a
time when armies weje not commanded by generals with great power
and great responsibility. Wherever there has been the slightest
attempt to weaken that power and diminish that responsibility, there
it is admitted that the army has suffered and the work has been so
much less efficiently done. Whether the soldiers were mere slaves
as in Eastern countries, or free citizens as in the republics of Greece
and Rome and America, or mercenaries fighting for hire as has often
been the case in modern Europe, the principle of management has
always been the same. Discipline was as sharp among the citizen
soldiers of Grant and Sherman as among the conscripts of Frederick
and Napoleon. Such a thing as the co-operative management of an
army has never been heard of.
Now in the other type of collective activity-—the industrial—a
similar organisation has constantly prevailed. The analogy is
striking, and it is not accidental, for the conditions are fundamentally
the same. Fighting and working are the two great forms of activity,
and if you have to organise them on a large scale, it is not strange
that the same method should be found best for both. And workmen
will do well to notice this analogy, and insist on pressing it home to
the utmost of their power; for the more logically it is carried out, the
more striking and overwhelming are the arguments it supplies for
their side of the labour controversy. There is not a phase of that
controversy which it does not illustrate, and invariably to their
advantage. As one instance out of many, I may mention the sanc
tion afforded by military practice for a uniform rate of wages to the
rank-and-file of labour—an argument which was put by one of the
Trades’ Union Inquiry Commissioners to the Secretary of the Master
Builders’ Association, and which completely shut his mouth on that
questioh. But it is for another purpose that I am now referring to
this analogy. Special skill and training, unity of purpose, prompti
tude, and, occasionally, even secrecy, are necessary for a successful
direction of industry just as much as of war. “ A council of war
never fights ” is a maxim which has passed into a proverb, as
stamping the worthlessness of such councils. Yet councils of war
are not composed of private soldiers, but of skilful and experienced
officers. They are more analogous to our boards of railway directors,
whose incapacity, I must admit, does not take exactly that form.
Whether the efficiency of our railway management would be improved
�Khe soUIAIj future of the Working class.
9
by an. infusion of stokers and plate-layers into the direction, I will
leave it to the advocates of Co-operation to say.
Another no less important advantage of the old industrial system
over Co-operation is that it transfers the risk from the workman to
the employer. Capital is the reserved fund which enables the
employer to carry on his business' with due enterprise, and yet
to give a steady rate of wages to the workman. Great as have been
the changes through which industry has passed—^-slavery, serfdom, and
free labour—this fundamental characteristic has remained unaltered.
In all ages of the world, since industry began to be organised at all,
the accumulated savings which we call capital ha^e been in the hands
of comparatively few persons, who have provided subsistence for the
labourer while engaged in production. The employer has borne the
risk and taken the profits. The labourer has had no risk and no
share of the profits. Though in modern times there appears to be
some desire on the part of the master to make the workman share
the risk, he will soon come to see that such a policy destroys the
only justification of capital, and thus strikes at the root of pro
perty itself. The workmen will help him to see this by their com
binations, if he shows any indisposition to open his eyes. It is one
among many ways in which they will teach him in spite of himself
what is for his own good. In point of fact, in the best organised
trade—that of the engineers—the rate of wages is subject to little if
any fluctuation.
The separation, then, between employers and employed, between
capitalist and labourer, is a natural and fundamental condition of
society, characteristic of its normal state, no less than its preparatory
stages. We may alter many things, but we shall not alter that.
We may change our forms of government, our religions, our
language, our fashion of dress, our cooking, but the relation of
employer and employed is no more likely to be superseded in the
future by Communism in any of its shapes, than is another institu
tion much menaced at the present time—that of husband and wife.
It suits human nature in a civilised state. Its aptitude to supply
the wants of man is. such that nothing can compete with it. There
may be fifty ways of getting from Temple Bar to Charing Cross;
but the natural route is by the Strand; and along the Strand the
bulk of the traffic will always lie. ' And so, though we may have
trifling exceptions, the great mass of workmen will always be
employed by capitalists.
Now this was what the founders of Co-operation refused to see;
and in their enthusiasm they fancied they could establish societies,
the shareholders of which would voluntarily surrender to non-share
holders a large part of the profits vhich their capital would naturally
^command. But the shareholders were most of them only average
�10
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
men; they were not enthusiastic, or their enthusiasm cooled as the
money-making habit crept over them. The co-operative theory was
not bound up with any religious system, or supported by any spiritual
discipline ; and they soon fell into the vulgar practice of making the
most of their capital. What is the lesson to be learnt ? Whatever
there was of good in the movement belonged not to the industrial
theory, but to the social spirit of the men who started it. If those
men had been employers, or if any employers had had their spirit,
the workmen would have reaped the same advantages without any
machinery of co-operation. Therefore we must look for improvement, not to this or that new-fangled industrial system, but to the
creation of a moral and religious influence which may bend all in
obedience to duty. When we have created such an influence, we
shall find that it will act more certainly and effectually on a small
body of capitalists than it would on a loose multitudinous mob of
co-operative shareholders.
Before leaving the subject of Co-operation, let me say that, while I
cannot recognise its claims to be the true solution of the industrial
question, I heartily acknowledge the many important services it may
render to the working class. Even as applied to production, in
which I contend it can never play an important part, it will do good
for a time by throwing light On the profits of business. As applied
to distribution in the shape, that is to say, of co-operative stores, its
services can hardly be exaggerated. It not only increases the
comfort of workmen, by furnishing them with genuine goods and
making their money go further, but it gives them dignity and
independence by emancipating them from a degrading load of debt.
Moreover, it sets free, for the purpose of reproduction, a large
amount of labour and capital which had before been wasted in a
badly arranged system of distribution.
If we turn now to the other agency by which the labouring class
in this country is being elevated, I mean Trades Unions, we shall
find more enlightened ideas combined with greater practical utility
Unionism distinctly recognises the great cardinal truth which Co
operation shirks—namely, that workmen must be benefited as work
men, not as something else. It does not offer to any of them
opportunities for raising themselves into little capitalists, but it
offers to all an amelioration of their position. Co-operation is a fine
thing for men who are naturally indefatigable, thrifty, and ambitious
—not always the finest type of character, be it observed in passing—
but it does nothing for the less energetic, for the men who take life
easily, and are content to live and die in the station in which they
were born. Yet these are just the men we want to elevate, for they
form the bulk of the working class. They are in very bad odour
with the preachers of the Manchester school, the apostles of self-help.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
11
To my mind there is not a more degrading cant than that which
I incessantly pours from the lips and pens of these wretched instructors.
Men professing to be Christians, and very strict Christians too—■
Protestant Christians who have cleansed their faith of all mediaeval
corruptions and restored it according to the primitive model of
apostolic times, when, we are told, “all that believed were together,
and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men, as every man had need ”—these teachers,
I say, are not ashamed to talk of making money and getting on in
the world, as if it were the whole duty of a working man. Thus it
comes to pass, that while they are bitter opponents and calumniators
of Unionism,1 they patronise Co-operation, because it enables their
model workman to raise himself, as Lord Shaftesbury expressed it
not long ago, “ into a good and even affluent citizen,” a moral eleva
tion to which it is clear a primitive Christian never attained. But
you who are workmen, and have a little practical experience of the
thing, you do not want me or anyone else to tell you that the men
who raise themselves from the ranks are very often not distinguished
by fine dispositions or even by great abilities. What is wanted for
success of that sort is industry, perseverance, and a certain sharpness,
often of a low kind. I am far from saying that those who raise
themselves are not often admirable men ; but you know very well
that they are sometimes very much the reverse—that they are morally
very inferior to the average workman who is content with his posi
tion, and only desires that his work may be regular and his wages
fair. Now the merit of Unionism is that it meets the case of this
average workman. Instead of addressing itself to the sharp, shifty
men, who are pretty certain to take care of themselves in any case,
it undertakes to do the best that can be done for the average man.
And not only so, but it attends to the man below the average in
industry and worthiness: it finds him work, and insists on his
working; it fortifies his good resolutions; it strengthens him
against temptation; it binds him to his fellows;—in short, it
regulates him generally, and looks after him. Nor is even this the
full extent of the difference in this respect between Co-operation and
Unionism. While the benefits of the former are exclusively reaped
by shareholders, the union wins its victories in the interest of nonunionists just as much as of its own members..
I noticed as a fatal error of Co-operation that it regards the relation
of employer and employed as a transient and temporary arrangement
which may and will be superseded, whereas it is permanent, and
(1) “ God. grant that the work-people may be emancipated from the tightest thraldom
they have ever yet endured. AR the single despots, and aU the aristocracies that ever
were or will be, are as puffs of wind compared with these tornadoes of Trades Unions, j
BufeJ^.have small hope. The masses seem to me to have less common-sense than they
had a year ago.”—Zcfter of Lord Shaftesbury to Colonel Maude.
�12
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
destined to survive all attacks. It is an eminent merit of Unionism
that it recognises this important truth. The practical good sense of
workmen has here shown itself superior to all the cleverness of philo
sophers. They have instinctively grasped the maxim that we shall
best serve the cause of progress, whether political or social, by striving
not to displace the actual possessors of power, but to teach them to
use their power for the interests of society.1 And there is this further
advantage of a practical kind, that Unionism is not obliged, like the
schemes of the philosophers, to hover impotently in the air, as a mere
speculative phantom, till such time as it can command the assistance
of the State to get itself tried in practice. A few dozen men can
commence the application of it in their own trade any day they please.
Nor is it a cut-and-dried scheme in which every detail is settled
beforehand with mathematical exactness; it is of infinite elasticity,
and can adapt itself spontaneously to the circumstances of each
case.
I It is desirable that the workman’s wages should be good, but it is
still more desirable that they should be steady. A fluctuating income
in any station of life is, as everyone knows, one of the most demora
lising influences to which a man can be exposed. When an outcry
is raised against the unions because -they maintain that wages ought
not to fall with every temporary depression of trade, it always seems
to me that in so doing they are discharging precisely their most
useful function. I have already alluded to the duty of the capitalist
in this respect, and Unionism supplies exactly the machinery required
for keeping him up to his duty, until a religious influence shall have
been organised which will produce the same result in a more healthy
and normal way. No doubt unions might offend deplorably on their
side against this principle of a steady rate of wages. It is conceivable
that they might screw out of the employer every year or every month
wages to such an amount as would leave him only the bare profit
which would make it worth his while to continue in business. It is
manifest that on those terms he could not amass such a reserve fund
as would enable him to tide over temporary depression without
reducing wages. Every fluctuation in trade would cause a corre
sponding fluctuation in wages, which would vary from month to
month. If Trades Unions were to act in this way they would lose
their principal justification. They are charged with doing so now,
but the charge is perfectly groundless. Probably in no case do they
extract from the employer anything like the wages he could afford
to give if he was disposed. I do not believe that unions, extend them
as you will, will ever be strong enough to put such a pressure on the
employers. I believe that an organised religious influence will here
after induce employers to concede to their men, voluntarily, a larger
(1) Comte Pol. Pos. i. 163 (p. 173 of the translation by Dr. Bridges).
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
13
sh^?e ofxhew profits than any Trades Union could extort from them.
An additional security that unions will never go too far in this direc
tion is to be found in the fact that some masters, whether from larger
capital, greater business ability, or higher reputation, make much
larger profits than others. But unions do not pretend to exact higher
wages from such masters. The tariff, therefore, is evidently ruled by
the profits of the least successful employers.
It might have been supposed at first sight that employers would
have looked with more favour on Unionism, which leaves them in full
possession of their capital, their authority, and their responsibility,
than on Co-operation, which proposes to supersede them altogether.
But, as you all know, the contrary is the case; and there could not
be a more instructive test of the relative efficiency of the two methods.
Unionism maintains that capital has its duties, and must be used for
a social purpose. Co-operation shrinks from asserting a doctrine so
distasteful to the propertied classes, and seeks to evade the necessity
for it by the. shallow fallacy that everyone is to become a capitalist.
Although everyone will not become a capitalist, no doubt some
will, and the net result of the co-operative movement will be that
the army of capitalists will be considerably reinforced in its lower
ranks. Will that army so reinforced be more easy to deal with ?
An exaggerated and superstitious reverence for the rights of property,
and an indifference to its duties, is the chief obstacle to the elevation
of the working class. The fewer the possessors in whose hands
capital is concentrated, the more easy will it be to educate, discipline,
and, if need be, gently coerce them. But when the larger capitalists
have at their back an army of little capitalists, men who have sunk
the co-operative workman in the co-operative shareholder, men who
have invested their three or four hundred pounds in the concern, and
are employing their less fortunate fellow-workmen at the market rate
of wages, why, it stands to reason that the capital of the country will
be less amenable to discipline than ever. A. striking example is to
be seen in France at the present time. You know that the immediate
effect of the old revolution was to put the cultivators in possession of
the soil. A vast number of small proprietors were created. Doubtless
many advantages resulted from that change. France got rid of her
aristocracy once and for good. The cultivators identified themselves
with the revolution which had given them the soil, and defended it
fiercely against the banded sovereigns of Europe. If the people had
not been bribed with the land, the revolution might have been
crushed. But there has been another result from it, of more doubtful
^advantage. The whole of this class of small proprietors is fanatically
devoted to the idea of property; and in their fear that property should
Ue attacked they have thrown their weight on the side of conserfeailSKL and against further political and social progress. The wealthy
�14
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
middle class plays on their ignorance and timidity. All who desire
to initiate the smallest social reform, who express any opinion adverse
to the tyrannical power exercised by capital, are denounced as Com
munists and apostles of confiscation. The small proprietors are
worked up into a frenzy of apprehension, and fling themselves into
the arms of any crafty impostor who talks big words about saving
society. Thus the artizans and small proprietors, men whose interests
must be essentially the same, for they are all alike workmen living by
the sweat of their brow and the labour of their hands, are pitted
against one another, and the middle class alone profits by the dissen
sion. If the manufactures of this country were to get into the hands
of a number of small shareholders, simple workmen would soon find
the rein tighter and the load heavier. Their demand for the repeal
of unjust laws would encounter a more stubborn resistance; the
progress they have been making towards comfort and dignity would
be abruptly checked. Fortunately, as I have already endeavoured to
1 show, there is no likelihood that so-called Co-operation will ever drive
the capitalist employer out of the field.
Such are the reasons for which I hold Unionism to be by far the
most efficient of all the agencies that have as yet been largely advo
cated or put in practice for the purpose of elevating the working
class, and preparing it for its future destinies. The French workmen
have much to teach us ; but I think in this matter they might take
a lesson from our men with advantage. I hope they will signalise
their next revolution—for which, by the way, I am getting rather
impatient—by abolishing all those laws which so iniquitously obstruct
their right to combine. Indeed, Unionism cannot be said to have
had a fair trial in England until it is established in the other
countries of Europe also?
It remains to consider what the destinies are for which our work
men are thus preparing themselves, and to picture to ourselves what
their condition will be when society shall approximate more nearly
to its normal state. We may do so without indulging in Utopias or
extravagant estimates of our capacity to shape the course of human
development, because we are not postulating springs of action in
individuals, which, as a matter of fact, do not exist, or do not exist
in sufficient strength—we are not spinning theories out of a priori
notions of what society ought to be, but we are feeling our way by
an examination, on the one hand, of the permanent facts of our nature,
and the conditions imposed upon us by the external world ; and, on
the other hand, of the steady, continuous progress of society in the
past. And if it has occurred to anyone that I have been a long
time coming to what professed to be the subject of this lecture—
namely, “ the future of the working class ”—I must plead, in justi
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
131
fication, that I have in effect been dealing with it all along, and that
nothing now remains but to give some practical illustrations of the
conclusions already arrived at.
That the position of the workman will ever be as desirable as that
of the wealthier classes seems, as far as we can see, highly impro
bable. Some people are shocked when such a proposition is plainly
enunciated. They have a sort of hazy idea that the external condi
tions of our existence cannot be inconsistent with the perfection and
happiness of man. They have been taught that this is a world
where only man is vile, and it sounds to them immoral to talk as if
there was any insurmountable obstacle to an ideal state of society
except what they are accustomed to term our fallen nature. The
fact is, however, that this is very far from being the best of all
possible worlds, and we must look that fact in the face. Human
society might arrive much nearer perfection, both moral and material,
if there was not so much hard work to be done. It must be done by
some; and those to whom it falls to do it will inevitably have a less
pleasant life than others. But though to annul or entirely alter the
inflnone.es of the world external to ourselves is beyond our humble
powers, we can generally either modify them to some extent, or,
what comes to the same thing, modify ourselves to suit them, if only
successive generations of men address themselves wisely to the task;
just as an individual may by care preserve his health in a pestilential
climate, though he can do little or. nothing to alter the climate.
And so, though there will probably always be much to regret in the
workman’s lot, we may look forward to improvements which will
give him a considerable amount of comfort and happiness. I will
enumerate some of these which we may reasonably expect will be
reached when present struggles are over, and when employers and
workmen alike have learnt to shape their lives and conduct by the
precepts of a rational religion.
Employers, though exercising their own judgment and free action
in their industrial enterprises, will never forget that their first con
cern must be, not the acquisition of an enormous fortune, but the
well-being and comfort of the labourers dependent on them. Hence
there will be an end of that reckless speculation which sports with
the happiness, and even the life, of workmen and their families—
displacing them here, massing them there, treating them, in short,
as mere food for powder in the reckless conflicts of industrial compe
tition. We shall no longer see periods of spasmodic energy and
frantic over-production first in one trade, then in another, followed
by glutted markets, commercial depression, and cessation of employ
ment. For capital being concentrated in comparatively few hands,
it will be possible to employ it with wisdom and foresight for the
general good; which is quite out of the question while the chieftains
�16.
THE SOCIAL .FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
of industry are a disorganised multitude, swaying to and fro in the
markets of the world as blindly and irrationally as a street-mob at a
fire. Thus the workman will be able to count on what is more
precious to him than anything else—steady employment, and an
income which, whether large or small, is, at all events, liable to
little fluctuation. The demoralising effects of uncertainty in this
respect can hardly be overrated. Large numbers of workmen at
present, from no fault of their own, lead as feverish and reckless an
existence as the gambler. When this state of things ceases, we may
look forward with confidence to a remarkable development of social
and domestic virtue among the working class.
To give the workman due independence, he ought to be the owner
of his abode, or, at all events, to have a lease of it. In some
instances at present we find men living in houses belonging to their
employers, from which they can be ejected at a week’s notice. This
_is often the case among colliers and agricultural labourers, and what
grinding tyranny results from it, I need not tell you. It is not
desirable in a healthy, industrial society that labour should be
migratory. Ordinarily, the workman will continue in the same
place, and with the same employer, for long periods, just as is the
habit with other classes. Fixity of abode will naturally accompany
fixity of wages and employment. Here, again, we may expect an
admirable reaction on social and domestic morality.
A diminution of the hours of work is felt by all the best workmen
to be even more desirable than an increase of wages. All of you,
I am sure, have so thoroughly considered this question in all its
bearings, that I am dispensed from dwelling on it at length. I
merely mention it that it may not be supposed I undervalue it. If
the working day could be fixed at eight hours for six days in the
week, and a complete holiday on the seventh, the workman would have
time to educate himself, to enjoy himself, and above all to see more
of his family.
Let us next consider how far the State can intervene to render the
position of the workman more tolerable. That ought to be the
first and highest object of the State, and therefore we need have no
scruple about taxing the other classes of the community to any extent
for this purpose, provided we can really accomplish it.1 But of course
it must be borne in mind that by injudicious action in this direction
(1) As I have had some experience of the criticism (always anonymous) which seizes
a detached passage and draws from it inferences directly excluded by the context, I
desire by anticipation to protest against any quotation of the above sentence apart from
at least the three which immediately succeed it. Taken by itself (although even so it
is guarded by a strictly adequate proviso) it might be misunderstood. In the context
the proviso is carefully and fully expanded into an argument on social grounds against
excessive taxation of the rich. Arguments from the individualist point of view I
entirely reject, as I trust my audience did.
�THE’ SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
• 17
we might easily defeat our own benevolent intentions. For instance,'
it is conceivable that such taxation might become so heavy as to
approximate in effect to the establishment of Communism, and the
springs of industry and frugality, in other words the creation of capital,
would be proportionately affected. Again, the State must not afford
help to workmen in such shape as directly or indirectly to encourage
on the one hand idleness, and on the other a reckless increase of the
population. For example, it must not interfere to lower the price
of food or houses; because common sense and experience alike show
us that such interference would rapidly pauperise the class it was
intended to benefit. But there are, I believe, many ways in which
it may add most materially to the comfort and happiness of the poor
without at all relieving them from the necessity of exercising prudence
and industry. As regards their physical comfort, it may carry out
sanitary regulations on a scale hitherto not dreamt of. It may
furnish them in London, and other large towns, with a copious supply
of good water free of expense. It may provide medical assistance
much more liberally than at present. I would add, it may exercise
a close supervision over the weights and measures of the shopkeepers
and the quality of the goods they supply, did I not hope that the
spread of co-operative stores may render such supervision unnecessary.
The State may also do much to make the lives of the poor brighter
and happier. It may place education within their reach; it may
furnish an adequate supply of free libraries, museums, and picture
galleries; it may provide plenty of excellent music in the parks and
other public places on Sundays and summer evenings.
I think that a London workman in steady employment, earning
such wages as he does now, working eight hours a day, living in
his own house, and with such means of instruction and amusement
as I have described gratuitously afforded him, would not have an
intolerable lot. His position would, it is true, be less brilliant than
that of his employer. But it does not follow that the lot of the
latter would be so very much more desirable. His income, of course,
will be lessened in proportion as his workmen receive a larger share
of the profits of production. He will live in greater luxury and
elegance than they do, but within limits; for public opinion, guided
by religious discipline, will not tolerate the insolent display of
magnificence which at present lends an additional bitterness to the
misery of the poor. His chief pleasure will consist, like that of the
statesman, in the noble satisfaction of administering the interests of
the industrial group over which he presides. But the responsibilities
of this position will be so heavy, the anxiety and the strain on the
mind so severe, that incompetent men will generally be glad to take
the advice that will be freely given them, namely, to retire from it
to some humbler occupation, The workmen, on the other hand.
�18*
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
will lead a tranquil life, exempt from all serious anxiety; and
although their position will be less splendid than that of the
(employers, it will not be less dignified. For in that future to which
I look forward, the pressure of public opinion, directed, as I have
several times said, by an organised religion, will not tolerate any idle
class living by the sweat of others, and affecting to look down on all
who have to gain their own bread. Every man, whether he is rich
or poor, will be obliged to work regularly and steadily in some way
or other as a duty to society; and when all work, the false shame
which the industrious now feel in the presence of the idle will dis
appear for ever. I am addressing an audience, which, whether it
calls itself Republican or not, has, I am sure, a thoroughly Repub
lican spirit, and a keen sense of the insolent contempt with which
labour is regarded by those whose circumstances exempt them from
performing it. You will therefore agree with me that of all the
changes in the workman’s condition which I have enumerated as
likely to be realised in the future, this is by far the most precious—
that his function will be invested with as much dignity as that of
any other citizen who is doing his duty to society.
There are some men who are inclined to be impatient when they
are asked to contemplate a state of things which confessedly will not
be of immediate realisation. They are burning for an immediate
reformation of all wrong in their own time. They think it very poor
work to talk of a golden age which is to bless the world long after
they are dead, buried, and forgotten. They are even inclined to
resent any attempt to interest them in it, as though dictated by a
concealed desire to divert them from practical exertions. “ Tell us,”
they say, “how we may taste some happiness. Why should we
labour in the cause of progress if the fruits are to be reaped only by
posterity ? ”
I do not wish to speak harshly of workmen who have this feeling.
There has been too much of such hypocritical preaching in times
past, and it is not strange if they have become suspicious of exhorta
tions to fix their eyes on a remote future rather than on the present.
So conspicuously unjust is their treatment by the more powerful
classes, so hard and painful is the monotonous round of their daily
life, that the wonder is, not that some men should rebel against it,
but that most should bear it with calmness and resignation. Never
theless, it is necessary to say firmly, and never to cease saying, that
such language as I have alluded to belongs to a low moralityJ
Moreover, it defeats its own object. For whatever may be the case
with individuals, the people will not be stimulated to united action
by arguments addressed to its selfishness. The people can only be
moved to enthusiasm by an appeal to elevated sentiments. If leaders
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
19
of the worst causes find it necessary to invest them with some delusive
semblance of virtue that may touch the popular heart, shall we who
have put our hand to the sacred task of helping and accelerating
social progress, shall we deal in cynical sophisms and play on selfish
passions ? We owe it to our race that we should leave this world in
a better state than we found it. We must labour for posterity,
because our ancestors laboured for us. What sacrifices have we to
make compared with some that have been made for us ? We are
not called on to go to the gallows with John Brown and George
William Gordon, the latest martyrs in the cause of labour; or to
mount barricades, like the workmen who flung away their lives in
Paris twenty years ago next month. Is their spirit extinct ? Were
they men of different mould from us ? Or did they enter upon that
terrible struggle on some calculation of their personal advantage ?
No ! but so short a time had wrought them up to an heroic enthu
siasm which made it seem a light thing to pour out their blood if
they might inaugurate a happier future for their class. And shall
we who live in times less stormy, but not less critical for the cause
of labour, shall we complain if the fruits of such small sacrifices as 1
we may make are reserved for another generation ?
The worst of this unworthy spirit is, that the exhibition of it is an
excuse to the self-indulgent and frivolous for their neglect of all
serious thought and vigorous action. One is sometimes ready to
despair of any good coming out of a populace which can fill so many
public-houses and low music-halls ; which demands such dull and
vulgar rubbish in its newspapers; which devours the latest news
from Newmarket, and stakes its shillings and pots of beer as eagerly
as a duke or marquis puts on his thousands. This multitude, so
frivolous and gross in its tastes, will not be regenerated by plying
it with fierce declamation against the existing order of society. You
will more easily move it by appealing to its purer feelings, obscured
but not extinct, than by taunting it with a base submission to class
injustice. The man whose ideas of happiness do not go much beyond
his pipe and glass and comic song, knows that the sour envious
agitator will never be a bit the better off for all the trouble he gives
himself; and he sees nothing to gain by following in his steps. But
there are few men so gross as not to be capable of feeling the beauty
of devotion to the good of others, even when they are morally too
weak to put it in practice. And though a man may lead an un
satisfactory life, it is something if, so far as his voice contributes to
the formation of public opinion, it is heard on’ the right side. This
is the ground we must take if we wish to raise the tone of workmen.
We must place before them, without reserve, the highest motive of
political and social action——the good of those who are to come after
�20
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
us. We must hold out no prospect of individual advantage or reward
other than the approval of their own consciences.
Those who complain most bitterly of the slow rate of progress
towards an improved industrial state, would sometimes do well to
reflect whether their own conduct does not contribute to retard »
it. The selfish spirit follows us even into our labours for others,
and takes the form of vanity and ambition. Probably all of us have
had frequent occasion to observe how the cause of labour has suffered
from ignoble jealousies and personal rivalries. Yet it is the greatest
spirits who are invariably most ready to.t^ke the subordinate position '
and to accept obscurity with a noble satisfaction. The finest type k
of theocratic government, the lawgiver of the Hebrew nation, was
ready to be blotted out of God’s book, so that the humblest and
lowest, the rank-and-file of his people, might enter the promised
land. The greatest of the apostles wished that he himself might, be
accuised from Christ, if at that price he might purchase salvation for
an obscure mob of Jews. “ Reputation,” said the hero of the French
revolution, “ what is that ? Blighted be my name, but let France
be free.” So speaks a Moses, a Paul, or a Danton, while petty ambi
tions are stickling for precedence, and posturing before the gaze of
their contemporaries. Devotion, forgetfulness of self, a readiness to
obey rather than an eagerness to command—-if a man has not these
qualities he is but common clay, he is not fit to lead his fellows.
Det us school ourselves into a readiness not merely to storm the
breach, but to lie down in the trench, that others may pass over our.
bodies as over a bridge to victory. It is a spirit which has never
been found wanting whenever there has been a great cause to call it
forth; and a greater cause than that of the workman of Europe
advancing to their final emancipation, this world is not likely to see
again.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The social future of the working class: a lecture delivered to a meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868
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Beesly, Edward Spencer [1831-1915.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Reprinted from Fortnightly Review. "This lecture was the last in a series of three delivered last spring, by request of the London Trades' Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were given by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison". [p. 1]. Title page brown and paper acidified. Tears at edges of title page. Printed by Virtue & Co., London.
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E. Truelove
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1869
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Labour Movement
Socialism
Capitalism
Conway Tracts
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Social Reform
Socialism
Working Class-Great Britain
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Text
WASTETHRIFTS AND WORKMEN.
OF THE MODE OF PRODUCING THEM,
AND
THEIR RELATIVE VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY.
BY
HENRY BRANDRETH, M.A.,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CURATE AT ST. BOTOLPH’S, BISHOPSGATE.
Now, sir, what make you here ?
Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. ’I
What mar you then, sir?
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made,
a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
As You Like It.
LONDON:
LONGMANS,
GREEN, AND
18G8.
Price One Shilling.
CO.
�The main principle advocated in these pages is, that real productive
ness in any field can only be secured by sparing the growing crops ; and
that the work of children of every age must be arranged, not to secure
the largest immediate return, but to develop the greatest capacity of ivork
in after-life.
�19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.:
April 18G8.
LONDON WASTETHRIFTS.
The condition of a great part of the poorer inhabitants of London is
deplorable in the extreme, and there can be no field calling more
urgently for the labours of the' philanthropist and the Christian. Thousands of adult workmen are; from defective education (considering
school and apprenticeship together as education), incapable of earning
more than the barest journeyman’s wages, and they have little sense of
any duty incumbent upon them of earning for any purpose save that
of spending on the gratification of their immediate desires ; if they look
forward at all, they contentedly regard the ‘ house ’ and the rates as the
natural provision for their age. They have no idea of any obligation
upon them to support sick or decayed members of their families, and they
consider their children not as fellow-creatures whom they are responsible
for having brought into the world, and whom they should make some
effort to make masters of some trade which would make them able to
earn good wages and maintain themselves in honest industry through
life, but as pieces of property who ought to be bringing them in some
thing, out of Whom they have a natural right to increase their incomes
by selling their services during youth, but whom they will have no
interest in when a few years are past; and hence, in too many cases, they
follow their interest, and sell them for an immediate wage, instead of cul
tivating the capacity of doing real work in after life; and this destroys
all hope that the rising generation will be made into anything superior
to the present. If these children were all taken from their parents and
placed in industrial schools, their grievance would not be any infringe
ment of any right of a man to direct the education of his children, but
the loss of the earnings of the little slaves during their youth.
The question must be fairly asked—Can society do nothing to im
prove the condition of the next generation ?
Experience shows that it is possible to excite lively feelings of
affection and gratitude in yormg minds towards those persons and in
stitutions who labour for their benefit during youth; the gratitude of
children to those masters who, in school or in business, try to do well
by them is a real force binding them to good ; and the hearts of chil
dren can be turned to a loyal appreciation of the benefits which law
and order have conferred upon them, instead of to a sullen belief that
high civilisation and progress merely separate the rich and poor
by a yet wider interval. A well directed education in school and
business makes them capable of doing real work throughout life, and at
the same time sets them safely above most of the dangers of early life.
a 2
�4
It is, however, difficult to keep children at school, because the body
is somewhat earlier in its development than the mind and heart, and it
can be put to perform certain tasks during the period allotted by
nature to the growth of the higher faculties. A prolonged education
sacrifices the actual work by which a child might contribute to the
wealth of the world, for the sake of training it to become a real con
tributor through after life, and of securing favourable conditions for
the ripening of the moral and intellectual powers. These early years
are not those during which children are capable of any very serious
work; but the importance of keeping good examples of action from
conscientious motives before children cannot be over-estimated. Their
unconscious imitation of all that is kept before them, recommended by
the voice of all those whom they look up to, makes a second nature of
doing right or wrong. It must, however, be remembered that mostd
masters are so distant from the boys that the real examples which they
follow are their school-fellows; and it is what is called the general tone
of a school which really influences education; and the best masters are
not those who influence single boys to copy a pattern unsuited to their
age, but those who raise the average sense of duty in all around them.
I do not, however, dwell at present on the civilising and humanising
effects of real information, but on the practical money value of teaching
at this period of life. We may cease teaching a child as soon as it can
read and write, and hire it out to do such trifling work as it is already
capable of for the benefit of the adult population; but unless it is
somebody’s duty and somebody’s interest to make such child capable
of doing something more than what it can already do, it grows up to
the passions and appetites of an adult, but with the skill and reason of
a child. We may, on the contrary, pay fees to have it taught in
school, or a premium to have it taught as an apprentice; we may
develop its reason and increase its knowledge—the latter process
involves an immediate outlay—but the sum thus spent is an invest
ment bringing in an enormous return ; the child’s wages are increased,
i.e. the value of the work done by it for society is increased during
each year of real life, by a sum fully equal to that invested in improv
ing it.
A human being is, at the lowest, a very improvable piece of pro
perty, and becomes valuable in proportion as his mind and heart,
which contrive and save, gain the control of his body, which wastes
the stores of society. We may arrest the development of the con
trolling faculties, so that the man becomes a mere wastethrift, never able
to produce as much as he destroys. Thousands of such are annually
turned loose on society, and are in effect maintained on the fruits of
the industry of others, who by proper training have learnt to produce
more than is needed for their own immediate needs, and this it is
which impoverishes a country—the number of mouths without heads
or hands who are in any way maintained by the industry of others.
We are all ready to condemn the improvidence of a family where
the children are allowed to grow up without being made capable of
supporting themselves; but such conduct is not so short-sighted as our
own, because the cost of maintaining unprofitable members does not
�fall directly on the family, but is borne equally by the whole com
munity; but when a nation omits to train its youth to work, the cost
rwBMB and workhouses falls upon the nation itself.
It is a real drag on the progress of a nation to turn out uneducated
and undisciplined hordes who can do nothing which cannot be done
Mtn- half the cost by machinery, whose whole work does not replace
the value of the food and clothing they destroy. But every workman
who can produce a good article by which the comforts and conveniences of those around him can be raised, or their more real interests
advanced, is a real increase of the resources of the nation. For though
in particular trades the labour market may be overstocked, and the
■invention of machines may displace workmen, our power of converting
raw material into manufactured goods for the use of man will never
be too great, unless it is mere quickness at some detail, and not that
general intelligence which, by having learnt its proper lessons in child
hood, is capable of learning when childhood is past, and, when not
needed in one trade, can enter upon a new field of work, because its
training has not been so special as to make it merely an intelligent
wheel in a machine, which may any day be replaced by iron fingers
taught to perform the same thoughtless round of labour.
But the workmen themselves enter into associations to limit the
number of apprentices, because they see that labour will be sold
cheaper in any trade where there is an excess of workmen. But by
thus uniting to prevent their children from being made fit to earn their
own living for fear of their competition, they lower the average pro
ductive power throughout the country, and with it the average condition
of the workman. If the workers in any one trade could secure a
monopoly for their own labour, as in India, where trades are
hereditary, and the last survivor of a family may become the only
maker of an article; or if, while the producers in other trades increase,
the number, e.g. of watchmakers could be kept the same, there will be
more work and higher wages for each worker in that trade. But if the
number of hands in every trade is kept constant, and the increasing
population debarred from learning any trade which will enable them
to produce a fair equivalent for their food and clothing, every skilled
workman will have to support one of these incapables.
Whether this is done by increased iigost of everything, or by heavy
rates and high rents, or by the wastethrift being quartered upon the
■workman, will make no difference; the means conquered by labour
From nature will be shared by the incapables. But if the craftsmen
freely impart their skill, and each makes his wastethrift into a real
producer, then the means won from nature increase with the increase
of consumers. Power to win commodities from nature is not a thing
that there will ever be too much of. If a million of skilled labourers
can exist side by side, supporting each other by the mutual inter
change of their productions, another million side by side with them
could do the same. Restrictions overstock and cause misery in the
unprotected trades ; and at present the unskilled labour, is in excess.
A skilled labourer is one who produces more commodities than he con
sumes, and not only supports himself but has usually a surplus to
�6
accumulate, or to spend in poor-rates or luxuries. A wastethrift is one
who cannot improve the raw material furnished by nature sufficfewl|
to provide himself with necessaries, and is, in some way or other,
maintained by the winnings of others.
Of course, neither ever takes home the actual goods he makes; by
an arrangement of convenience, he daily receives their money value.
In proportion to his skill each increases daily the world’s goods by the
improvement of the material by his work; and the strength of a nation
consists in the number of such over-producers who unite to observe its
laws. Its weakness is the number of wastethrifts it has to maintain ;
and if, by effective educatiou, these over-consumers can be turned
into over-producers, the steady employment of their work is the
national resources.
A thousand more workmen, fairly distributed among the various
trades, do not mean more competition for the little work there already
is, but each creates a demand for additional work to exchange for his
. productions. Skilled workmen produce more than they consume.
They not only lead innocent and happy lives themselves, but create
fresh markets for labour among ourselves, with a real increase of
national force. We adopt very questionable means of opening foreign
markets, while the cost of an expedition would create a new people
among ourselves—certain customers in our markets, willing sharers of
our taxes—instead of the mass of pauperism and crime which we allow
to lie at our doors, till it has rotted sufficiently for us to assume the
permanent charge of maintaining it in workhouses and jails. Skilled
productive workmen are the real elements of a nation’s strength. Money
can only produce by setting men to work. Men combine, and shape
the rough material which nature affords till it becomes serviceable ;
they make tools and machines, extract food and ores from the earth.
The work of man alone enables men to live. The whole produce on
w’hich all live is due to the intelligence and skill of each; and the
whole work of each creature is highest if he is spared when young, and
taught, till he becomes a really effective producer.
Even if every man is trained to do some one thing fairly, machines
will continually be invented doing the same things well, and cheaply.
The commodities produced by a day’s unaided labour will be sold for
less than a man can be supported on, and the man must starve, beg,
steal, or work at another trade. But without that early quickening of
the faculties which early education produces, a man cannot turn to
anything new. Intelligent hands would increase the productiveness of
other fields of labour by the transfer of their power, and the machines
would increase the productiveness of all, without any increase in the
consumption of necessaries ; each would spend the same wages on the
purchase of a larger stock of the cheapened comforts. Hence, in an age
of mechanical inventions, untrained and half-trained workmen must
suffer, and swell the mass of pauperism and discontent. But such evils
can be provided against by training our workmen to that special form
of labour which no machine can execute—viz. thinking. Each has
within him a far more subtle machine than man has ever invented, the.
powers of which, in improving the labour of the human hand, cannot
�7
be over-estimated; and alittle care taken of this machine during early
life will make each a capable worker for ever.
Every man only trained to such work as a machine can do better
must be a tax upon society for life; but careful schooling, apprentice
ships and industrial training, will make him a useful contributor
through life. And the education of the manual-labour classes, which
all recognise as the great need of the day, is not called for by recent
legislation, but by the characteristic feature of the age—by the in
dention of machinery.
It has always been reckoned to the credit of machinery that it
would perform the harder work—the drudgery of human labour—
and, terminating the necessity for man’s toiling as a mere beast of
burden, set him free to ennobling and elevating pursuits. But the
doing of the work of unskilled hands is a doubtful blessing if we,
at the same time, continue to pour upon the market thousands of un
skilled hands, incapable of those higher arts which are henceforth to
be the only work of man. The tools with whi|h men contend with
ipature are becoming too delicate to be handled by ignorant men; and
the genius of inventors has, unfortunately, beep, directed to bringing
out machines which will employ .the hands of children. At certain
points, a slightly more subtle movement is required than machinery
can cheaply effect. A young child’s hand supplies this; but the
mental development of that child is hopelessly arrested by its round of
mechanical drudgery; it becomes a part of the machine, and grows to
the strength and appetites of a man, without its real value being much
increased beyond the sixpence a day which it earned at first. The
instinct of practising the mechanical arts needed for his support are not
developed in man as in lower orders of creation; but the most per
fectible creature is, in its origin, the weakest, being cast for a long
period of helpless infancy and childhood' on the forbearance of the
adult members of the species; but, during the years in which boys
need the protection of their elders, they are singularly apt to learn and
to receive moral impressions. And it is our only good economy to
conform to the plan by which nature intends that the creature shall be
perfected, to set it to learn whilst it is capable of learning, that it may
work effectively when strong enough to work. That any individual
adult should seek to enrich himself by using the half formed minds
and bodies for any trifling purpose which they are already capable
of, is only too natural; but that a nation should follow so short
sighted a policy is, I own, to me surprising. The nation is not so
utterly bankrupt that it cannot afford to educate its children, but
must, for the sake of their paltry earnings, sacrifice their future pro
spects and its own. Every child who now is, or ought to be, at
school is a most improvable piece of property. If neglected, he
will earn small wages, but, in his best days of full work and full
strength, not enough to support the family which he is sure to have,
in the habits of waste and intemperance to which he is accustomed.
But any sum invested in schooling and apprenticeship will make
him capable of earning an equal sum in wages every year of his life—
e.g. 261 of outlay would increase his weekly wages by at least 10s., or
�s
he will produce commodities at this increased rate; whilst, as a pros
perous workman, he will consume less than either as a beggar gaS
thief. Whether by wages paid as an equivalent for labour, or by poorrates, or in jail, society has made itself responsible for maintaining him,
and any family he may choose to rear. He is quite willing, however,
to learn the use of his head and hands, but neither he nor his parents
can afford the necessary outlay. We have lent money to poor land
lords to improve their estates; let us lend a little to poor children to
improve theirs, and we shall attain our end more certainly by making
education an obviously profitable investment than by any other means.
At present, the whole value of the improved estate is handed over to
the youth on entering into life ; and there are no means by which any
person who has been induced to sink any capital on the improvement
of the property can recover one penny. But men will not invest
money in making railways unless the legislature empowers them to
take tolls; men will not breed horses if others are to take them from
them.
It is a remarkable thing how every inducement to parents to invest
money on their children has been removed; since aged paupers are
secured maintenance from the poor-rates, the duty of the children is
terminated, and the parents derive no benefit from any wage-earning
power which might be developed in youth; and by the early age at
which children can be emancipated from parental control, we make it
the interest of the parents that they should earn as soon as possible.
But a master who buys the little slave’s work of his mother, instead of
taking an apprentice, does so merely to avoid all trouble and responsi
bility of teaching the child. It is a man’s interest to make an ap
prentice a good workman, because he looks for repayment for the outlay
and trouble of his first years from the work which he becomes capable
of doing before the end of his time ; but a mere money bargain autho
rising the employer to use up, in immediate rough unskilled work, the
docility and imitative powers of the child, which are the seed and
promise of his future life, this is a bargain in which it is clearly in
tended that the parent and employer should use up the child for their
profit, as fully as if the child were bought on the coast of Africa. It
would be better for a child to be—as was suggested at Manchester-—
ground up into corn (or, as might be suggested in the country, spun
into cotton) than to be thus taken from every opportunity of improve
ment, for children do not get better, but worse, every day, unless special
pains are taken with their training. The greatest obstacles to frugality
on the part of the poor is the uncertainty and distant day of any
return ; they see that saving does not really increase their means in old
age, but that the man who spends his all every day will be relieved
up to any standard of comfort which their savings are ever likely to
command. But if we can make it obviously profitable to invest on
their children’s education, the immediate pleasure of working for a child
and setting it a good example is one which need only be once felt to
secure a continuance of such exertion. Much is said about the selfish
ness of parents, but the fault is not entirely theirs; the employers have
no plea of necessity, they merely employ child labour because it is
�9
cheap; they deliberately employ one boy after another to avoid the
■fahEnreSd responsibility of an apprentice, and turn them out untaught
Bin dlhn ski lied to swell the ranks of those who cannot compete with the
machines, ‘with as little compunction as a man would feel at drowning
an overgrown kitten. They bribe the parent to throw away the chance
of improvement. It is not the working classes who derive any benefit
from dealing with children to get all that is possible out of them,
instead of trying to put all that is possible into them. In fact it is
hard to see that any class profits by making the young children labour
for them. The capitalist buys work cheaper for it, and is enabled to
introduce machines which could not have competed with human labour,
but for their direction being within the power of a cheap boy. But
he does not really profit, because competition forces him to sell at
the lowest remunerative rate. The working classes are forced to sell
their work for less because of the very cheap rate at which child labour
can be bought; and if the owners of fixed property seem to profit by
cheapened goods, they have eventually to bear the increased rates
which are finally needed for those half-developed workers, who are as
completely incapable of supporting themselves as if they had lost the
use of their limbs, instead of that of their heads. The cheap rate of
production is a gain by bringing more commodities within the reach
of all, though it may fairly be doubted whether the increase of
comfort, as the world grows older, does make each generation happier
than the last; and any such gain is most dearly purchased by the
nation at the cost of consuming its most valuable elements of future
strength.
Even if compulsory education, the applying of the rod which modern
theorists would spare on the child, to the parents were practicable, it
would be better to make the parents wish for their children’s education,
to enlist all possible home influences to make them valuable workmen,
and introduce into the families the natural virtues of parent and child;
this will be the better thing both for the parent and the child. No
legislation will produce any great result by attempting to compel half
the community to do something which they believe to be contrary to
their interests. It is necessary to secure the hearty co-operation of the
head of every house, to make his interests identical with those of his
children; at present the child requires protection from the necessity of
immediate productive labour, and the cultivation of such faculties as
it possesses; every pound spent upon it is worth a pound a year through
life; but the parent requires that the earnings should be large during
the period in which only the natural dependence of children enables
them to be taught effectively: five shillings earned at once is more to
the parent than five pounds a year through life. It is idle to affect to
be surprised if the general conduct of large bodies of men is dictated
by their interests.
But it is a most reckless waste of the national strength to allow the
management of these most improvable pieces of property to remain in
the unaided hands of men who cannot advance the sum necessary for
\ their proper cultivation, and whose tenure terminates before any
•rail liable crop is ripe. The education of the country is neglected for
�10
the same reason that its agriculture would be if each acre of land were
in the hands of a peasant who was forced to give up possession to
another early in July. Is it not obvious that nobody will cultivated
valuable late ripening crop unless he has some security that he will
reap it ?
If the tenure of land were such as I have suggested, the remedy
would be to alter the tenure by giving the possessor control over the
property till the crops were ripe, or from some general fund to which
all might contribute to remunerate the outgoing tenant according
to the condition of his acre, or for society at large to undertake the
cultivation. This, however expensive it might seem, would be in the
end a real saving; and if they hesitated about it, they would all ba.
starved, as acre after acre was cultivated only for such common stuff
as coidd be sold in June.
And the practical problem is how to secure that a sufficient portion
of the increased value of an educated child should be paid to the
person who is at the cost and trouble of educating If the educator
could be sure of a return proportioned to the earnings of the child from
twenty to twenty-five, education and the improvement of workmen
would become at once the best investment in which capitalists could
invest their money. Nor could the charitable endowments of the
country, whose abuse is the theme of every tongue, find a better use.
The taxation of one part of the community for the gratuitous relief of
the other is already carried to a most alarming extent by the poorlaws ; but the system of supporting the incapable deprives a workman
of every incentive to frugality ; he sees that by strict economy he may
secure an annuity ; but any such return is very distant, and seems to
him very uncertain; meanwhile he sees that his neighbour, who spends
weekly every penny, has a great deal of pleasure at once, and will in
his old age be quite as certainly provided for by the parish; everything
which he lays by will in fact be taxed to make his improvident neigh
bour as comfortable as himself.
All workmen are taxed to contribute to a fund which is finally
divided among the most thriftless: we should rather endeavour to
make even more marked the contrast of the results of idleness and
industry. If society and labour must be taxed to maintain the un
employed, let the aid at least be directed to secure that the next
generation become fit to maintain themselves. If men know not
how to support themselves, let them forego the right of bringing up
children as incapable and unintelligent as themselves. Society has both
the power and the right to control the liberty. of those who cannot
maintain themselves. If the honest man were asked to invest his
savings at once in his children’s training, by the hope of an honourable
fairly earned annuity, proportioned to the efficiency of their training,
he would have a real interest in seeing that his children frequented good
schools and profited by the teaching; it would be his interest that his
children should become virtuous and intelligent; and not only would
this result be generally secured for the children, but the parents would
be humanised by their efforts to humanise their children.
If education is a most profitable national investment, the magnitude
�1^
^fflEfiKhl^^^S^^^RyiSthe greatest possible recommendation. The
SmSBMWMS^E^nunerative, because it penetrates a fertile district of
parental and Christian benevolence, and gives room for the play of
forces whose energy is real and very great.
Theiparent who brings a child into the world is already responsible
for its maintenance. In a large workhouse-school a child cannot be
kept for less than 107., and in a working man’s house the cost is probably greater; and we may put at 100Z. the cost of rearing a young
animal capable of exerting some physical force, but entirely devoid of
Bfe intelligence which might enable him to apply that force usefully.
They (for he is certain to marry and have a large family) consume
daily more commodities than he produces, and are maintained by the
Fwork of the rest of the community. The creature thus reared is one
which no slave-owner would take as a gift, unless he had power to
work, feed, and clothe it in a way which our workhouse officials would
Rry shame on. But it is in the power of society, by spending a small
sum in aid of the large outlay already incurred by the parent, to
develop a mind, to make the wastethrift into a skilled intelligent workman, whose labour will every year fully replace all that it consumes,
and whose earnings in any single year will amply replace any sum
Advanced.
A very small part of the encouragement given ,to the investment of
money in railways would enable the zeal which® is so widely felt to
bring the means of becoming an intelligent workman within the reach
of every child. We did not then trust the zealpwmen for their fellowCreatures’ good; we did not leave each owner of an acre of land to do
as he liked. We passed laws that the interests of the community were
more important than the rights of individuals, and we sanctioned the
levying of tolls; so now we must make it a safe investment to train
skilled workmen, by allowing the person investing to share the increased
value of the manufactured article. But among the poorer classes,
where the parents actually have not the money to invest, it is the
interest of the community at large to levy rates and taxes to increase
the future productiveness of the country. It would be a real blessing
to a child if the school were to keep an account against it of all sums
expended, and the repayment of such advances made a first charge on
his earning. But it would be far better in every way to throw the
charge on local and national taxation than on any individual.
It is particularly cruel that the nation should in this century grudge
the cost of education. Fifty years ago the day’s work of an unskilled
labourer earned enough to support him; but we have discovered buried
underground enormous stores of that untrained force which is all that
an untrained workman has to sell; and when he comes and asks for
work and wages, the practical answer is that one shilling’s worth of coal
will do everything he is capable of; in fact, the iron giant would pro
bably give less trouble and need less superintendence than the man.
We have found in coal mines that by which the productiveness of
Rilled labour is enormously increased, and unskilled labour made
worthless; but the reduced cost of everything due to machinery puts
it in our power to afford for others the training which it renders neces
�12
sary. The skill of the workman must keep pace with the improvement
in his tools; more time than formerly is required to develop sufficient
intelligence to enable them to do work above the capacity of the
machines; during the years which youthful docility and quickness
point out as fitted for mastering any craft, children should be counted as
learners and repaid for any small service which they render the com
munity by increased opportunities of learning. Those who are
untaught to think, and incapable of turning their hands to any new
work, who from want of training of their intelligence can only do
mechanical work, will certainly be displaced by the more cheaply
working iron hands. It is not any special kind of knowledge which
schools are useful for imparting, but the general cultivation of the moral
and intellectual faculties; these cannot be strengthened in a child whose
whole daily stock of energy is wanted in the mill or farm; neither
growing mind nor growing body will improve if strained by labour to
minister to the comfort of adults.
The displacement of his labour by machinery is no very great matter
to a man whose intelligence enables him to turn his hand to something
else. It is the hopelessly unintelligent whose minds are closed against
all new ideas who have to be maintained by the community.
But education is a great religious duty, and this is to. make it all a
matter of profit and calculation. Not at all; education is a religious
duty, and nobly is it performed. Witness the scanty salaries on which
masters work, finding their real payment in the sense of service done
to their fellows. But subscribing to anything is not a religious duty ;
the work which our Master calls us to cannot be done by paid hands
for us. Education will always remain in the hands of religious men,
the salaries of teachers are too small to retain those who have no zeal
for the work ; but we must not trust to that zeal which is only kindled
by personal contact to fill our subscription lists, or to advance such
capital as will enable masters to maintain themselves in their, labours
of love. Similarly, a passion for science retains many men in posts
the pay of which seems inadequate. But no passion for science will
ever bring any man to face the daily round of routine of a school.
Whilst children are under education, we are careful only to
put high motives to action before them, because their character is in
process of being moulded by the motives thought of by them. But
with adults, whose character is formed, we must not leave, powerful
motives unappealed to. Among men, their actions are more important
than their motives, and we take nature as it is, and seek to direct
their actions; with children, we look forward in hope to what nature is
becoming, and seek to perfect their motives—thinking their actions
comparatively of very little importance.
It is impossible to make the duty and interest of grown men too
obviously identical; however far the point is carried up to which in
terest and duty coincide, the worst parents will come up to that point
however advanced, whilst the zeal of the better class of parents will
still urge them to do more.
In dealing with a numerous class of adults, it would be folly to. say
that the duty of providing for their children is so clear that it is
�13
l"ver motives. We must rather try how
BWWBBHHMDe made to fall in the same direction with duty. There
|Mw hMffmffigB-oom for the preference of virtue at the last.
But the whole question of the religious view of education must be
UaQpIndently considered.
Though I have tried to point out how the national pocket is to be
benefited by liberal investment in education, the real interest which
B^Wuld be felt in it arises solely from the desire that the children
should be religiously and virtuously brought up. However great may
be the necessity of school-teaching for the purpose of raising our future
workmen into an intelligent class, capable each of producing sufficient
Bommodities to maintain himself in honest industry, instead of doing the
work which a machine can do for sixpence a day, and being maintained
on the alms of the real workers, we must not forget that there are
other interests beyond those of mere animal need which should not be
neglected. Of course, these interests are in great measure things of
faith, and many men will be simply unable to appreciate their im
portance. The excellence of a school is not anything that can be
written out during an examination, but will be spread throughout
the whole of after-life. The eye of the astronomer does not see a star
so distinctly by looking directly at it, but when he glances a little on
one side ; and children do not seize those things which are deliberately
set before them so readily as those which are laid in their way
without that straining of the attention which is considered the right
thing in lessons. And it is not the actual words which drop from the
teacher’s lips, not the precepts which he reiterates with authority, but
the daily, hourly example of those to whose example he unconsciously
endeavours himself to conform, and which is continually presented to
young minds as the standard of that society into which they look
forward to being admitted.
It is hardly necessary to say that education does a very small part
of the good in its power unless it secures that the children are brought
under humanising, moral, and religious influences. There is, however, no practical chance of education being really conducted by
irreligious teachers. The wages of a teacher are so small compared
with those of equally skilled workmen in^qually laborious and equally
responsible situations that the work haivery slight attractions to men
who do not feel that it is at once a duty and a pleasure. Within the
last thirty years, the ministers of religion have undertaken such an
amount of work and responsibility, and made such munificent contri
butions to schools, that others who, with far larger means and much
more time at their command, content themselves with talking, really
complain of their having pushed forwards in the matter. But this
high-class labour will not continue to support the schools if they
become places where men’s interests in this world are alone thought
of. The good teacher looks for his wages nopdn what he receives, but
in the far more real pleasure of giving. He asks for little, barely
enough to maintain himself, but he takes pleasure in the power of
giving to all around him something which they are really grateful for,
something which he knows to be even more desirable than they think.
�11
He has no applicants at his door clamorous for a dole, wBMMMing
pretence of gratitude, but he sees an easily read expression of the
heart’s emotions. It is true he will at times meet with unwilling re
cipients of his charity, but at least he knows it, and he also knows that
their kindness is only delayed, and that at the worst it is a small thing f&l
him to be judged by their judgment. Wordsworth tells most charm
ingly how the simple act of natural kindness from the strong to the
weak filled old Simon Lee’s heart with gratitude, and the schoolmaster
more than auy other man can say—
I’ve heard of hearts unkind kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.
But, of course, the nation is perfectly at liberty to say that it will
have industrial schools, where men shall give mere secular instruction.
Fine gentlemen may agitate, and make speeches, and even legislate in
favour of such schools; but five times the present amount of salaries
will not tempt men of the same stamp to undertake posts of such
degrading drudgery as the mechanical duty of preparing heathen
children for examination in the elements of secular knowledge. Unless
a man has sufficient belief in what he does believe to feel that a neces
sity is on him of preaching it, his example is one which will be most
undesirable to put before boys. The whole of this matter is admirably
put in the preface to ‘ Tom Brown —
‘ Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest respect,
while saying very kind things about this book, have added that the
great fault of it is “ too much preaching;” but they hope I shall amend
in this matter, should I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly
decline to do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the
chance of preaching. When a man comes to my time of life, and has
his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely he will
spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in writing a story just to
amuse people ? I think not. At any rate, I wouldn’t do so myself.’
1 The sight of sons, nephews, and godsons, playing trap-bat-and-ball, and
reading “ Robinson Crusoe,” makes one ask oneself whether there isn’t
something one would like to say to them before they take their first
plunge into the stream of life, away from their own homes, or while
they are yet shivering after their first plunge. My sole object in
writing was to preach to boys; if ever I write again, it will be to
preach to some other age. I can’t see that a man has any business to
write at all unless he has something which he thoroughly believes and
wants to preach about. If he has this, and the chance of delivering
himself of it, let him by all means put it in the shape in which it is
most likely to get a hearing, but let hi® never be so carried away as to
forget that preaching is his object.’
But although interference with the liberty of religious instruction
will have the disastrous effect of lowering the general moral character
of the teachers, by depriving the trade of every attraction »to every man
whose character and example it is at all desirable to keep before
children, the ministers of religion have it in their power to increase
�15
gr®iyn;newiniiUEroBwhich they now exert, and to secure the direction
of the forces which the newly awakened national demand for action
wi11 set in motion, by voluntarily exercising the self-denial of confining
their attention to the essential outlines of our religion. A very undue
of attention has been drawn to some theological questions by the
very fact of their fruits being hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies. Superficial enquirers are so struck with the
Bare shown to define the differences of Christians that they lose the
whole weight of the testimony of the whole of the civilised world to the
really important facts of our religion. The religion which our Saviour
came to reveal was not a doctrine, noi' a ritual, but an example; the
records of His life give no countenance to the idea that any man was
ever turned back by Him on any speculative opinion of controversial
theology, or any question of dress. If He again walked among us, we
should not dare to bring under Hit notice the points disputed among
Protestant churches. Whilst the doctrines, so long ago tried and found
utterly inadequate to give men peace, of the Stoics, hoping to perfect
man by unaided development^ of the Epicureans, who would deny the
interference of a God in human affairs; or of those who sought peace in
the submission of reason and conscience to a sacrificing and absolving
priesthood—while these armies are closing in to the siege, we, like the
wretched Jews, are only intent on fortifying against each other the
portions of the city of God entrusted to our keeping.
But if our streets must be filled with this fratricidal struggle, let us
at least hide our weapons for one hour of early morning, while the
Children pass by on the way to school. What have these children
done that when they look up in their weakness for that guidance
which is absolutely necessary to their making their way in life we
should deserve the last touch of indignant satire with which the poet
dared to caricature the haters of the human race, 4 Hee monstrare vias
eadem nisi sacra colenti ? ’ And when the life-giving water of the
Saviour’s example, if set forth in the majesty of unadorned simplicity,
which his followers at the first were content to put forward, might
captivate the mind of every child, and of men willing to become as
little children, is it our religion ? iJQusesitum ad fontem solos deducere
verpos.’ Why, the result of our school-teaching of the last generation
Hs enough to show that to import into children’s schools the distinctive
tenets of denominations is offending the little ones, is forbidding them
to come to Jesus, is a yoke which cannot be borne. Can we be sur
prised if the State, seeing that the denominations insist on the division
of the living child, seeks elsewhere for the mother thereof?
A new-born babe is entirely unable to attach any meaning to the sights
and sounds which surround it. But by unconscious experience, and the
loving patience of others, it learns by little and little to form ideas about
things. But the formation of the moral sense, and realising the things
of the spiritual life, needs far more anxious patience on the part of all
around through whom it learns of this higher new world. But only
the most arrant pedantry would ever think of giving these lessons by
definite formal teaching; there is nothing in children’s minds which can
digest and assimilate formal teaching; religious influences are not things
�16
to be set before children at a fixed hour of the day. We must take a
lesson from The Great Teacher, and be content to veil our meaning for
a time in parables. And first among these is the daily acting of the
parent’s or teacher’s life; children necessarily think upon, and desire
to imitate, the conduct of those whose power seems so unlimited to
them. The daily example set before the child, and the character of the
motive from which he sees that everybody expects others to act,
determine whether the child thinks only of what it can get in this
world for itself, or knows that it has a friend whose good will is worth
more than all else, on comparison with pleasing whom all earthly
pleasures are as dust in the balance. If the child sees no one doubts
but that the unseen distinction between right and wrong is more im
portant than the distinction between pain and pleasure, which is tem
porary and of this animal life, it learns to think more of the spiritual
than of what is seen and felt. In a man, the desire to serve our heavenly
Father, and please Him always, is the true source of action; but a
child is, by God’s providence, surrounded by a parable which brings
him gradually to feel this ; he gladly, and without being provoked to
any opposition, feels that he is entirely dependent on a father’s love, and
the desire to please and make some return to him is the natural motive
to encourage. If you .talk to a child of what he owes to God, he is
awed into a kind of acquiescence, and feels a painful restraint which he
feels relief in throwing off. But the care and love of his parents is a
thing not far from him, on which thought is easy and pleasant. But
the parable must precede its interpretation, through early life the
motive must be developed of striving to please father ; and if fathers
are not always all they should be, nothing is more effective to humanise
them than to find their children looking up to find them what they
should be ; fathers’ love for their children deepens as they become used
to them, and here as everywhere what a man voluntarily forces him
self to at first finally becomes habitual to him. But in bringing a
child to believe in his father’s love, it is not necessary to make him
repeat correct explanations how all the seniors of the family are one,
whose orders he is equally bound to obey, and yet fellow-workers each
in his own place, or to define the moment at which his father’s love
was first provoked towards him, whether it was the cause of the mother’s
love or was caused by it. The tree of knowledge of theology stands side
by side with the tree of life; but the one bears the words of Jesus—its
twelve differing fruits are each different from the rest, but they all,
and even the leaves, are for the healing of the nations; the other the
traditions and interpretations of men more subtle than the rest. If we
search our writings, thinking that in them we have eternal life, instead
of having for their office to witness to the Desire of all nations, we shall
not come to Him. We do as Peter in his ignorance, who would have
built tabernacles for his law, and prophets side by side with Jesus.
But He will yet be found alone, to abide with those who obey the
heavenly voice which rings in every heart: this man, this perfect
human life, you see in its daily detail. He is my beloved Son. Hear
Him.
Sjpotiiswoode d Co., Printers, Nev:-street Square and Parliament Street.
�
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Wastethrifts and workmen, of the mode of producing them, and their relative value to the community
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Brandreth, Henry
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed by Spottiswoode & Co., London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. At head of first page: 19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.: April 1868.
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1868
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G5383
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Labour
Social problems
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Text
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English
Education
Labour Supply
Poverty
Social Conditions-Great Britain-19th Century
Work Ethic
Working Class-Great Britain
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
t-eovi e-
i~e v/i
WORK AND PAY.
�M .m tffM .IT H IM W ................
'
�WORK AND PAY:
OR,
PRINCIPLES OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY.
IN KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON.
WITH
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION-
ON COMBINATIONS OF LABOURERS AND CAPITALISTS.
By LEONE LEVI, F.S.A., F.S.S.,
PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMERCE AND COMMERCIAL LAW IN KING S
COLLEGE, LONDON ; DOCTOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY ; AND OF
LINCOLN’S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
STRAHAN AND CO., LIMITED,
34, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
1877.
The right of translation is reserved.^
�Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Printers, London & Aylesbury.
�TO
SAMUEL MORLEY, ESQ., M.P.
Dear Sir,—
These lectures are the outcome of the Bristol Meeting
of the British Association, when the report of its Committee on
Combinations of Capitalists and Labourers was read and dis
cussed. And they owe their delivery to your earnest desire to
have the important questions at issue between masters and men
treated in a calm spirit and in an impartial manner. I do not
jay claim to the enunciation of any new theories, or to any
novelty in argument. What I have advanced is nothing more
than what the well-established principles of political economy,
recognised alike in their essentials by British and foreign
economists, have taught us.
Your desire and mine is that the relations between capital and
labour be placed on a sound and equitable basis, and I earnestly
trust that the effort now made to bring the principles of economic
science and the interests and aspirations of the working classes
into direct contact and possible harmony may have a beneficial
influence on the well-being of the people.
Believe me, dear Sir, yours very faithfully,
LEONE LEVI.
5,
Crown Office Row, Temple,
March, 1877.
��CONTENTS
RAGE
LECTURE
I. WORK AND WORKERS............................................................ I
II. THE DIVISION . OF LABOUR AND THE WONDERS OF
MACHINERY............................................................................... 17
III. USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY............................................... 33
IV. THE REWARD OF LABOUR..........................................................49
V. TRADE UNIONS.............................................................................. 67
VI. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS
.
.
VIII.
.
.
.85
.
.
VII. BUDGETS OF THE WORKINGCLASSES
.96
SAVINGS BANKS AND OTHER INVESTMENTS OF THE
WORKING CLASSES.................................................................. HI
APPENDIX.
(a)
cost of living in 1839, 1849, i859>
1&75 ,
• 129
.
.
. 130
(c) BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES .
.
. 131
(b) wages
in 1839, 1849, 1859, 1873
(D) REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THEBRITISH
ASSOCIATION.................................................................. 137
��I.
WORK AND WORKERS.
If I venture to come before you, in this great centre of labour,
to discuss some of those questions connected with “Work
and Pay ” which so often give occasion to quarrels and diffi
culties, it is in the full consciousness that the proper solution
of economic problems depends not only on the right con
ception of abstract theories and principles, but on their being
regarded side by side with the realities of life. I do not pre
tend to be a philosopher, but I would like to be a practical
economist. If I am able to state to you what I consider the
dictates of economic science on the questions before us, you
may also be able to point out to me how such dictates are found
to work in practical life. In any case, should I be unable to
carry conviction into your mind, should you see reason to object
to any principles I may lay before you, I hope you will not refuse
giving due heed to the lessons and warnings of a science which is
essentially connected with the progress and wealth of the nation.
It is cheering to know that we are all wanted in this wide
world ; that all of us have a purpose to accomplish, and that, if
we have only the will to exercise them, our faculties need not lie
dormant, or languish. To me, and to all of us, constituted as
we are, it is a real pleasure to work. I delight in a tableful of
papers. I do not sympathize with the sentiment, dolce far
niente; I rather believe in the adage, “Amind at rest is a
mind unblest.” With our powers of thought and imaginaI
�2
WORK AND- WORKERS.
tion, and with our capacity of invention, construction, and
intercourse, we must be active in order to be happy. The use
of such expressions as “ condemned to labour,” or the “ task of
labour,” or the calling of labour of any kind “ servile,” whilst
we enjoy full freedom of labour, betokens simple ignorance of its
dignity and utility. Sometimes, indeed, we may be disappointed
at the result of our labour. Occasionally, it may be, thorns
and thistles spring where we expected luxuriant fruitfulness
and beauty. But what then ? The necessity to meet our daily
wants, and even our failure to accomplish the object of our
aspirations, often prove a salutary incentive to strengthen and
refine the powers and faculties with which we are endowed.
One thing is absolutely certain, that without labour nothing is
produced. The sun, water, fire, wind, gravitation, magnetism,
the vital forces of animals, the vegetative forces of the soil, the
duration, resistance, and ductility of metals, whatever active
or inert forces may exist, if left to themselves they will not
exist for us, and will be quite indifferent to our happiness. That
they may serve us, they must be turned to our service; that they
may be able to produce, they must be directed in the work of
production. Though they exist independently of us, as agents
of production, they exist only by human industry.
"... Nature lives by labour ;
Beast, bird, air, fire, the Heavens and rolling world,
All live by action ; nothing lives at rest,
But death and ruin! ” *
We often speak of the working classes as a distinct body
of persons upon whom mainly fall the work and toil of life.
What a blunder ! We are all workers. Every one of us, from
the Queen on the throne to the humblest of her subjects, has a
place to fill and a work to do. Some are labouring in directing
and administering the affairs of the State. They are the
Ministers of State, the Governors of Colonies, the whole Civil
* Dyer.
�WORK AND WORKERS.
Service. Some are engaged in extracting the fruit of the soil,
in appropriating, adapting, converting, shaping matter to our
convenience. They work the land. They are busy with animal
and vegetable substances and minerals. Many are fulfilling
various offices for man—curing diseases, teaching youth, pre
serving peace, defending right, punishing wrong, and in a
thousand ways upholding the great structure of human society.
Some work in the field, some in workshops, some in the
mines, and some on the sea. Some labour with the hand,
some with the head, and some with both. Yes, we are all
workers. Strictly speaking, we may not be all producers of
wealth; all labour being, economically speaking, unproductive
which ends in immediate enjoyment without tending to any
increase of permanent stock, or not having for its result a
material product. Yet we can scarcely say that no labour is
valuable which is not immediately employed in the production
of material riches. The genius which enlightens, the religion
which comforts, the justice which preserves, the sciences and
arts which improve and charm our existence, are indirectly, if
not in a direct manner, as truly productive as commerce, which
affords us the enjoyment of the produce and labour of other
countries; as agriculture, which extracts the fruit special to
each soil; and as manufactures, which transform the raw produce
of different countries into articles adapted to the taste and
wants of the opulent, as well as of the masses of the people.
Few, indeed, who truly fulfil the mission to which they are
called, who labour in the sphere a,nd condition in which they are
placed, and who exercise the faculties and talents with which
they are endowed, can be said to be unproductive in this great
laboratory. The whole nation is practically working together
as a great co-operative society, under the very best division of
labour; all the more perfect since it is natural and spontaneous.
Let us perform our part well, and we need not fear but our
labour will be useful.
Ashamed of working ?—
�4
WORK AND WORKERS.
“ Work, work ! be not afraid,
Look labour boldly in the face;
Take up the hammer or the spade,
And blush not for your humble place.
There’s glory in the shuttle’s song,
There’s triumph in the anvil’s stroke,
There’s merit in the grave and strong,
Who dig the mine or fell the oak.
The wind disturbs the sleeping lake,
And bids it ripple pure and fresh,
It moves the grain boughs till they make
Grand music in their leafy mesh.”
I have often wondered at the power of endurance of the
human frame when engaged in some of the most arduous tasks
of manual labour. It must be hard to be continually lifting
enormous weights, to deal with such substances as iron and
steel, to stand the heat of a fiery furnace, or to work for hours
in the very bowels of the earth. But do not imagine that those
who labour with the head have a much lighter work. The head
ache, the excited nerve, the sleepless eye, of the man of letters
are as irksome and injurious to life as the undue exercise of our
physical energies. An agricultural labourer, working in the
open air with mind and heart perfectly at ease, has a greater
expectancy of life than a solicitor or a physician. The distinc
tion, moreover, between manual and intellectual labour is no
ldnger so marked as it once was. It is ungenerous to assume
that the manual labourer employs no skill, for what labour is
there which does not need skill and judgment ? What are the
wonderful results of machinery, those exquisite examples of
handicraft at our Kensington Museum, but so many monuments
of the talent and dexterity of those who are engaged in socalled manual labour ? Among the labouring classes there is a
wonderful and endless variety of talent and skill. Between the
Michael Angelos employed by a Bond Street goldsmith, and the
common labourer employed in the East and West India Docks,
the gradations are most numerous. We speak of a million of
�WORK AND WORKERS
5
men engaged in agricultural work, of half a million in the
building trade, of a third of a million employed in the textile
manufacture, and of a third more in tailoring and shoemaking.
But really these different descriptions of workmen divide them
selves into as many classes as they have special skill and
capacity. Together, they cultivate during the yea 47,000,000
acres of land, rear 32,000,000 sheep and 10,000,000 cattle, ex
tract some ^65,000,000 worth of minerals, produce goods for
export to the extent of ^200,000,000, and bring into existence
ever so many commodities and utilities needed for the susten
ance, comforts, and luxuries of the inhabitants of all countries.
But to what extent each individual labourer assists in this work
it would be difficult to say. I fear the difference is in many
cases enormous.
It is well indeed to remember what are the conditions for
the efficient discharge of duties in the work of production. To
my mind, first and foremost amongst such conditions is energy,
or the possession of a good strong will to work ; for with in
dolence and carelessness no work is done, no wealth is pro
duced. There must be steady and persevering labour, and an
energetic and willing mind to overcome the difficulties which
Nature presents. An impulsive and transient effort is not
sufficient. How far it is true that six Englishmen can do as
much work as eight Belgians or Frenchmen, I do not know;
but to be able to do a certain amount of work, and to give
oneself in earnest to do it, are two distinct things. There is
such a thing, let it be remembered, as idling away our time
whilst we profess to work, as laying 500 bricks in a day when
1000 might easily be laid, as giving five blows to strike a tree-nail
when three ought to be sufficient. A day’s work means a day
of continuous, energetic work—a day in which as much work
is done as can possibly be done, a day in which our powers
and talents are employed in full active service, when the work
is gone through thoroughly, speedily, earnestly. To pretend to
�6
WORK AND WORKERS.
be working when you are wasting your time in idle talk, is to
defraud your master of the value of your service. To make a
show of work is a very different thing from doing real work.
Then there is another consideration. How many days in the
year do you work ? An Irishman’s year used to be 200 days,
instead of at least 300 ; for he had 52 Sundays, 52 market-days,
a fair in each month, half a day a week for a funeral, and some
13 days in the year as saints’-days and birthdays. What a
waste ! “ Alas for that workman who takes all the Mondays
for pastime and idleness, who keeps fairs and wakes, or who
deliberately neglects the work which a bountiful Providence
set before him ! Miserable is he who slumbers on in idleness.
Miserable the workman who sleeps before the hour of his rest,
or who sits down in the shadow whilst his brethren work in
the sun.” * There is enough of forced idleness and slack time
in every occupation, without aggravating the evil by wilful
neglect. “To live really,” said Mr. Smiles, “is to act energeti
cally. Life is a battle to be fought valiantly. Inspired by high
and honourable resolve, a man must stand to his post, and die
there, if need be. Like the old Danish hero, his determination
should be to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never falter in the
path of duty.”
" Let us go forth, and resolutely dare
With sweat of brow to toil our little day;
And if a tear fall on the task of care,
Brush it not by 1”
The national characteristics of each country are sure to be
reflected in the work performed by its people. Her Majesty’s
Secretaries of Legation reported of the French that there is
much instability in their manner of work; that the workmen are
most competent when it suits their fancy to display their skill, but
that, as a rule, they do not work steadily. Of the Germans, that
their work is well performed, but that their chief fault is slowness
and indifference as to time in completing their task. Thequality
* Tynman.
�WORK AND WORKERS.
1
of the work in Italy is not to be despised, but the workmen
require a great amount of watching, their conscience not being
at all sensitive. Of the Swiss, they say that, as a rule, they are
competent for their work, and that they do take an interest in
it. The work of the Dutch is sound and good, but it has not
the polish and finish of the English. The Russians, the Secretary
of Legation reports, seem utterly indifferent as to the quality
of their labour. They take no pride in their work, and require
the most constant supervision. The Turks perform their work
roughly, rudely, and incompletely. The Argentines turn out a
rough and unfinished work. And our friends in the United
States have many short cuts for arriving at what may not be
quite equal to the article turned out in the English workshop.
Rare are the instances where absolute praise is awarded for
energy, where it can be said with truth that the labourers do
really take a pride in their work, and throw their character
into it. What reports are the Secretaries of Foreign Legations
in England sending out to their Governments as regards work
in this country? Is there good foundation for the complaint of
the deterioration of work in many branches of British labour ?
Nearly one hundred years ago, a German writer described the
Englishman as the best workman in the world ; for he worked
so as to satisfy his own mind, and always gave his work that
degree of perfection which he had learnt to appreciate and
attain. As the Frenchman sought to enhance the value of his
manufactures by all kinds of external ornament, so the English
man sought to give his productions in exactitude, usefulness,
and durability a less fleeting worth. Has this important encomium
been forfeited? I do not think so, whatever may be said to the
contrary. As a matter of fact it is seen in the cotton industry
that an English labourer is able to superintend 74 spindles,
whilst a German can at most [superintend 35, a Russian 28,
and a Frenchman 14. Physically and intellectually, the British
workman is better than he ever was. I doubt, indeed, if he has
�8
AND WORKERS.
a rival in his capacity for continuous exertion ; and if there be
reason to lament his disposition to obey with perfect discipline
the mandates of such associations as undertake to protect his
rights, we should not forget that it is that same disposition that
best fits the British workman for taking his place in the modern
organization of labour, where every human hand has work
assigned, the value of which depends on the relation it bears toa great whole.
I am persuaded, however, that the exercise of energy in work
depends in a great measure on the possession of strength and
health ; for it is impossible to work well unless we are in health
and comfort. The body must be in full vigour, the vital energies'
must be elastic and fresh, the mental faculties must be quick
and active, ere we can give ourselves to patient and persevering
labour. Viewed in this aspect, every measure of sanitary reform
has a direct economic value. How can you expect hard-working-
men and women where the very air is tainted by the most noxious
gases ? Liverpool, Manchester, and Salford, said Dr. Farr, are
at the head of a mournful cohort of unhealthy districts which
call aloud for healers. It is not the water, nor the food,
nor the absence of food, nor the clothing that produce the
mischief, but it is the heedless admixture of tallow-chandlery
and slaughter-houses, and the vitiated atmosphere from the
black outpourings from innumerable chimneys, that make the
Manchester artisan pale, sallow, and unhealthy, and that make his
children grow pale, thin, and listless. Many of our workmen,
moreover, have to meet dangers peculiar to their occupations..
They are liable to suffer from exposure to dust and other foreign
substances, from exposure to noxious gases and heated and im
pure air, from mechanical concussions, from peculiar postures of
body, and from excessive exertion. In the manufacture of artificial
flowers or wall-paper with emerald-green, the workers are in
danger of slow poisoning from arsenic. A dozen leaves from
a lady’s head-dress were found to contain ten grains of white
�WORK AND WORKERS.
9
arsenic. Those who have to do with phosphorous are exposed
to its fumes, which produce jaw disease and bronchitic affections.
The workers in lead are exposed to lead-poisoning, and those
who work with mercury to mercurial poisoning ; whilst builders,,
miners, fishermen, and seamen are in special danger of sudden
death from falls, explosions, or storms. Domestic servants,
always at home, comparatively at ease as respects the necessaries
of life, may be supposed to have a good expectancy of life ; yet
carpenters and even metal-workers have better prospects of great
age than they.
But, as I have just hinted, quite apart from dangers of this
nature, other risks follow many of our workmen in their homes.
Born, many of them, in the midst of comparative privations,
living often in low, dingy, uncomfortable houses, how hard it
is for them to maintain anything like freshness and vivacity.
The rents of houses are certainly dear, and they often absorb a
good portion of their weekly wages. Yet I apprehend that a
comparatively high house-rent might be really a good investment,
should it prevent, as it is sure to do, the slow deterioration of
health, the lowered vitality of enjoyment, and the long series of
evils arising from overcrowding. Room to breathe is wanted
everywhere. Much good will, I hope, result from the recent
Act for facilitating the improvement of the dwellings of the
working classes ; and good work is done in London by such
associations as the Metropolitan Association for Improving
the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, the Improved Indus
trial Dwellings Company, and many other kindred societies.
But all such efforts need the co-operation of the labouringclasses themselves. How much an individual is justified in
spending in house-rent it is difficult to say, circumstances
varying so much. Ten per cent, of the income is, I believe,
generally devoted to house-rent by the middle classes, whether
by paying that proportion for a whole house, or by paying more
and recovering a portion by sub-letting. But ten per cent, of
�IO
AND WORKERS.
the working Oman’s wages, viz., three or four shillings a week
on an income of thirty shillings to forty shillings, is hardly
enough for sufficient accommodation for even a moderate
family. Supposing, therefore, that twelve per cent, be required,
or even fifteen per cent., better far to economise in other
items of expenditure than to live in a house smaller than we
require. In the economic management of a limited income
the first thought should be an airy, wholesome, cheerful
house—a real home for every inmate of the household.
Need I say that there may be a house without a home?
A house where father, mother, and children, some even of
tender age, are absent from six in the morning to six or seven
at night, can scarcely be called a home. Where mothers
cease to nurse their children, and leave them to the tender
mercies of servants, or deposit them at the Creches, there must
of necessity be a frightful mortality of children, a grievous de
generation of the race, and a total absence of moral education.
And when, late in the evening, father, mother, and children
meet together, more as strangers than as members of a common
household, often in the only room they possess, empty and
cheerless, what comfort can they expect ? Alas ! cleanliness in
such a case is out of the question. The fire is out; the food is
not ready; the children’s clothing falls into rags ; and, worse
than all, father and brothers, disgusted, take refuge at the
nearest public-house. I know nothing more essential, both in
a social and economic aspect, than a happy home. “ Home 1
If any of you working men have not got a home yet, resolve,
and tell your wife of your good resolution, to get, to make it at
almost any sacrifice. She will aid it all she can. Her step will
be lighter and her hand will be busier all day, expecting the
comfortable evening at home when you return. Household
affairs will have been well attended to. A place for everything,
and everything in its place, will, like some good genius, have
made even an humble home the scene of neatness, arrange-
�WORK AND WORKERS.
ii
ment, and taste. The table will be ready at the fireside ; the
loaf will be one of that order which says, by its appearance, You
may cut and come again. The cups and saucers will be waiting
for supplies. The kettle will be singing; and the children,
happy with fresh air and exercise, will be smiling in their glad
anticipation of that evening meal when father is at home, and
of the pleasant reading afterwards.” *
In matters of food and drink, I imagine, the British labourer
is better off than the labourers of any other country. Meat is
indeed dear, yet not dearer than in New York or Paris ; whilst
bread is decidedly cheaper, vegetables are abundant, and fish
plentiful. And the people are doing full justice to such bounties.
What a change in the quantities of foreign commodities con
sumed during the last thirty years 1 In 1844, there were ijj lbs.
of tea per head consumed in the United Kingdom; in 1875,
4'44 lbs. In 1844, f lb. of foreign butter ; in 1875, 4’92 lbs. In
1844, scarcely anything of foreign bacon and hams was con
sumed; in 1875, 8-26 lbs. per head. And, whilst the home pro
duction of wheat and flour is as large as ever, the consumption
of wheat and flour of foreign countries increased from iyjlbs., in
1844, to 197 lbs. per head in 1875. How many who are now able
to eat wheaten bread, were thirty years ago content with rye
bread ! and how many who never saw butcher meat from
week to week, now enjoy it every day I Surely we may rejoice
that by a wise legislation the door has been opened for the
importation of the necessaries of life from every part of the
globe ; and that, as a result of the same and of other favourable
circumstances, whereas the number of paupers, including indoor
and outdoor, in 1849 was in the proportion of 573 per cent, of the
population, in 1875 it was only 3’11 per cent. These are facts of
unmistakable importance as regards the well-being of the people.
An important element in the maintenance of health is cer
tainly the duration of labour; but how many hours a day a
* Helps.
�12
WORK AND WORKERS.
workman may safely work in any industry without injury to
his health must depend not only on the age and constitution of
the worker, but on the kind of labour and the spirit with which
the work is performed. I cannot say that, personally, I have
much sympathy with any excessive indulgence for rest; for I
am myself a great worker, having been often at my work sixteen
or eighteen hours a day-—not occasionally, but for weeks to
gether ; nor do I feel the slightest inconvenience from it. Yet
it must be allowed that labour saved is not lost; and that unless
we husband our strength, we stand a good risk of losing it
altogether. I fully approve, therefore, of the legislation respect
ing labour in factories, which limits the number of hours of
work to women and children. But let us not carry the matter
too far. Remember, that even an hour a day extended over say
5,000,000 workpeople, working 300 days in the year, means a
loss of 150,000,000 days a year. Doubtless such loss may be
recovered by increased energy on the part of the workers, and
by the introduction of improved ’machinery. As a matter of
fact, at no time has England produced more than at present,
notwithstanding the extension of the factory laws, and the widely
diffused adoption of shorter hours. But is that a reason why
we should indulge in idleness, beyond what is requisite for
health and moderate enjoyment ?
Hitherto I have dwelt on energy, physical strength, and
health. It is necessary that I should add education as one of
the very first conditions for the efficient discharge of duties
in the work of production. Never was the saying, “ Knowledge
is power,” more truly applicable than at present. Compare the
value of skilled and unskilled labour. The demand for com
paratively unskilled labour may be as great as ever, but the
reward of skilled labour is certainly much greater. It is no new
discovery, though it has, of late, acquired greater prominence,
that in the work of production to sturdy will, patient endurance,
and strong hands, we must add some knowledge of science, a
�WORK AND WORKERS.
13
cultivated mind, and a refined taste. Education and science
must no longer remain the ornament and luxury of the few—
they must become the necessary endowment of the many, if we
will succeed in the great arena of industrial competition.
To what but to science does England owe her great achieve
ments ? Mechanical and chemical science have revolutionized
the productive power of the country. It was but yesterday,
comparatively, that in the coal beneath our feet we found a
primary source of colour which makes England almost inde
pendent of the most costly dyewoods hitherto consumed in’the
ornamentation of the textile fabrics. Yet, with all our dis
coveries, and all our advantages, here we are but little in
advance of other countries, and our only hope of maintaining
our position depends on the success which we may yet attain
in fathoming the inexhaustible secrets of Nature, on the increase
in the number of patient yet ardent votaries of science, and
still more, on the diffusion of education and scientific knowledge,
among the great body of labourers. With the progress of
civilization and refinement all over the world, it is no longer
sufficient now to be able to produce what is cheap and
plentiful, or objects adapted to the common wants of the
masses. If England is to keep her place as the greatest manu
facturing country in the world, we must endeavour, by the
cultivation of the science of the perception of beauty, and by
paying proper attention to the fine arts, to produce articles
suitable to every state of civilization.
Much has been said, of late, on technical education, by
which we understand the teaching of those sciences which
are useful in industrial pursuits. Is it not a sound principle
that the designer should know something of drawing, the
dyer something of chemistry, the miner of geology and
mineralogy? The chairmaker, the tailor, the bootmaker, the
hatter, the coachmaker, and even the pastrycook, all requiresome knowledge of form.
All honour then to the London
�14
WORK AND WORKERS.
School Board for introducing drawing m their scheme of
Elementary Education.
How few, indeed, are at all ac
quainted with the scientific principles of their labour. An
order comes for cloth of a particular shade of colour. How
few can tell, beforehand, precisely, what manipulation will
give it to a nicety ! And if there be one in an establishment
endowed with such knowledge, probably because he stumbled
into it, he is deemed the possessor of a great mystery.
But
why should it be so ? Science need neither be a mystery nor a
monopoly. Its pages are open to all, and let us not think that
its meaning is hid or incomprehensible to the common under
standing With the simplicity of language ordinarily used, and
the constant appeal to real facts by visible demonstrations and
illustrations, the acquisition of scientific knowledge has been
rendered wonderfully easy.
Apart- from intellectual powers, however, I own great par
tiality for the moral. It seems to me that we must elevate, not
the mind only, but the taste and affections of the people, if we
wish to realize true progress. With such huge conglomerations
of people as we have in this metropolis and in our manufactur
ing towns, quite away from the beauties of nature, we do need
museums and galleries to educate the sense of the beautiful.
What a power on our imagination have the common prints
and representations which adorn our walls! What an effect the
ornaments which cover our mantelpieces ! Nor should we
forget that more important even than the cultivation of the
taste and the affections is the possession of good morals and
simple piety. To secure a good reward, the labourer must not
only have a good physical frame, and a proper aptitude for
labour, but those qualities which create confidence and animate
trust. Unless a labourer is worthy of confidence, it is impos
sible that he can be regularly employed. And what is; it that
. creates confidence? Sober and steady conduct, truthfulness
and purity of character, conscientiousness and strict regar
�WORK AND WORKERS.
i5
to duty ; in short, an abiding sense of the responsibility of
our calling.
The requisites of production, John Stuart Mill said, are
two—labour and appropriate natural objects. Certain lands
are more favoured than others in natural productiveness. The
climate has great influence in promoting vegetation, and in
making the people hearty and robust. Numerous external in
fluences, physical, economical, political, and social, determine
more or less the success of labour. Taking it all in all, England
is highly favoured as a field of human labour. Geographically,
she is splendidly situated, on all sides open to communica
tion with all the world.
Her climate is most temperate.
Coal and iron are sources of immense wealth. Her manufac
turing industry is wonderfully developed. The commercial
spirit of her people quite boundless. Her political organization,
based on personal freedom to move, to speak, to meet, well nigh
perfect. Her economical policy is immensely superior to that
of almost any other nation. Can we wonder that her people
are tranquil, that the Queen reigns supreme in the heart of the
nation, and that wealth is increasing at an enormous ratio ?
Where can you find a better field of labour than in
England ? Go to France, and you have no freedom of action
and a constant dread of revolution. Go to Russia, and you
meet despotism all rampant. Go to the United States, and you
find that better wages are scarcely equivalent to the higher cost
of living. Go to any of the British Colonies, and you must be
prepared to work harder far than you are doing in this country,
and to bid adieu to every association and to all the pleasures of
civilized life.
Nowhere, indeed, is labour more appreciated,
nay, I might say more ennobled, than in this country, and no
where is an ampler field afforded for its application.
But if labour is honoured, is the labourer receiving due con
sideration? Are his trials and difficulties taken into account?
Are his wants as a man and a citizen properly recognised ?
�AND WORKERS.
Alas ! I fear not. On the contrary, there is far too ready a
disposition to regard the labourers as a class as ignorant,
wasteful, drunken, idle, and criminal. But where is the evi
dence for such a charge ? In the number signing the marriage
register with marks there is a vast improvement. The Savingsbanks and Building Societies testify that the labouring classes
have saved large sums in recent years. The yearly amount
of production in the kingdom tells us that they have not been
altogether idle ; and if they drink more, or it may be are more
amenable to its consequences than they formerly were, probably
through better police administration, of crime, especially of the
heavier character, they are certainly less guilty. They might
be better, and so we all should be. But let us not indulge in
sweeping condemnations of whole classes of the people. They
are not true, and their effect is most injurious.
In the new organization of labour incident to production on
a large scale, there is abundant scope for the display, by both
masters and men, of those qualities which are essential for the
maintenance of peace and concord. Let the master recognise,
fully and unreservedly, the free position of the workman, and
his absolute right to improve his condition. Let him see that
labour be carried on under conditions, as favourable as possible,
to the preservation of human health and vigour. Let him pro
mote, as far as in him lies, provident habits and intellectual
improvement among his labourers. Let him manifest a per
sonal sympathetic interest in their behalf. Let the master
do all this, and we shall also witness among workmen an in
creasing earnestness and energy in the execution of their work,
a greater interest in the success of production, and a better
disposition to apply all their forces, physical, intellectual, and
moral, towards the surmounting of those obstacles which hinder
and retard the economic progress of the nation.
�II.
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND THE WONDERS OF
MACHINERY.
Within this century, within the recollection of many living
among us, one of the greatest of economic revolutions has taken
place, the consequence of which has far exceeded any human
expectation. It is the substitute of collective for individual
labour, of factory for home industry, and of mechanical for
human labour.
Time was when the weaver was both the-:
capitalist and the labourer ; when the linen weaver cultivated
the flax, heckled it, spun it into yarn, wove it, and sold the web
at the linen market. There was no division of labour in those
days. The producer gloried in his independence. He was his.
own master. He did all the work himself. But production
proceeded slowly in that fashion. And so the capitalist came
to the rescue by supplying the weaver with the material, and
paying him a given sum on the delivery of a given quantity ot
finished cloth. As yet, the loom belonged to the weaver; and if
he had no loom of his own, he worked at a loom belonging to<
some other weaver, in which case he was the journeyman, and
the weaver at whose loom he worked was the master weaver.
But, in time, the loom itself was supplied by the capitalist or
manufacturer; and then the journeyman, free from the master
weaver, came into direct relation with the manufacturer. This
is the system of home industry which existed in this country
2
�i8
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
for a considerable time, certainly till as late as the end of the
last century. And this is the system which obtains to a con
siderable extent in Russia at the present time. Employed in
the actual work of agriculture only a portion of the year, the
Russian farmer spends the remainder in weaving and bleaching.
The home system of industry has been passing away so
rapidly from this country that we are apt to connect all manu
facture with x the machinery and steam power in use in the
Lancashire cotton industry. But it is not so. And I venture
to say that by far the largest amount of production in the north
of Europe, in Asia, and Africa, and largely in America also,
consists of home-made goods, which, though dearer in price,
are in the end cheaper far than the trashy prints, and some
of the highly-sized calicoes and other inferior descriptions of
Manchester goods. The battle of the hand-loom against the
power-loom, of home industry against factory labour, is not yet
quite ended, for in not a few industries, especially in Nottingham
and Leicester, hand-loom weavers are numerous. But of the
final issue of the conflict who can doubt ? In truth, young men
o not take to the old and almost effete system. What remains
of it is carried on by old people, and for those descriptions of
labour only where the hand can work with more dexterity than
the machine itself. But how soon is machinery overtaking
every obstacle 1 And what a change has taken place in the
divorcement of manufacture from agriculture, in the creation
of great cities of labour, in the mode of producing on a
large scale, in the division of labour, and the introduction
of machinery!
From the moment the manufacturing system acquired a
sufficient importance to stand by itself, from the moment the
requirements of manufacture necessitated concurrence and co
operation in the various pursuits necessary for the same, the
manufacturers were compelled to emigrate from the farm
house and the sequestered village, and to constitute themselves
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
into distinct communities. Both industries are indeed inter
dependent. Agriculture gains from the existence of a thriving
manufacturing industry, and is the better for its products.
Manufactures depend upon a prosperous agriculture for a sufciency of food and provision. But the two industries are not
■capable of being prosecuted in like manner. Agriculture does
not admit of the same concentration of labour, of the same
■division of employment, and of the same constancy of labour.
Even steam-power can only be employed in agriculture under
less advantageous circumstances than in manufactures. The
experience of every nation abundantly proves that the more
absolute is the separation between the two industries, the better
■each may be developed in its own manner and fashion. Would,
indeed, that the agricultural could copy a little more from the
manufacturing industry than it appears to be doing ! How
much it has to learn in dealing with diversities of soil, in the
reclamation of waste lands, in the introduction of machines and
implements of husbandry, in the use of manure, and above all
in the economy of labour and the application of scientific prin
ciples in the management of farms ! Some writers used to
•distinguish agriculture from industry, the one being intent
upon the extraction of produce from the soil, the other upon the
shaping, converting, or manufacturing what nature supplies.
But it is not so. Agriculture and manufactures are both indus
tries requiring alike labour, skill, capital. In England, the
divorce is indeed complete ; but they had better look keenly to
one another, and each draw from the other the lessons which it
needs.
Look at Lancashire, the first county which inaugurated the
great change. See how coal and iron have superseded turf
and corn. Behold those illumined factories, with more (windows
than in Italian palaces, and smoking chimneys taller than
Egyptian obelisks. Everywhere you find monuments of in
domitable energy. All you see indicates the march of modern
�20
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
progress. Enter for a moment one of those numerous factories,,
behold the ranks of thousands of operatives all steadily working,
behold how every minute of time, every yard of space, every
practised eye, every dexterous finger, every active mind, is at
high-pressure service. There are no lumber attics nor lumber
cellars ; everything seems cut out for the work, and the work for
it. And what can be more wonderful than those factories far
the manufacture of machines ? Listen to the deafening din.
What power has mind over matter ! What metamorphoses can
human industry perform ! One hundred years ago, Manchester
had only 1,600 inhabitants. Now, with Salford, she has 500,000..
Three hundred years ago, Liverpool was only a fishing hamlet,,
with 138 inhabitants ; now she has 527>°°°. Whilst Westmore
land, a purely agricultural county, has 771 acres to one person,
Lancashire has only 0-43 acres to one person. In 1861, the town
population of England was in the proportion of twenty-four per
cent, of the whole. In 1871, her town population had increased
to such an extent that it constituted fifty-six per cent, of the
whole. The very meaning of the word town has changed.
Whilst in olden times it meant a tract of land enjoyed by a
community, though there might not be a single house in it; in
modern times it has come to signify a place with a multitude of
houses, built side by side, and standing in streets, rows, or
lanes, all as like one another as possible,— the very personation,
of the Coketown of the inimitable Dickens.
Shall we lament the change from the primitive industrial
organization of former days to the complex, and, in many ways,,
the artificial combination of the present time? Is England
the better or the worse for the change? Have the working
classes been injured or benefited by it ? Could we return to the
agricultural system if we would ? And would we return to it if
we could ? Compare the state of England a hundred years ago
and now, by any test you please, socially, politically, and morally,
in education, wealth, power, population, agriculture, and mann-
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
21
factures. Nothing has been stationary. On every side we note
change, progress, improvement.
There are evils connected
with the agglomeration of many people within fixed boundaries,
for where ignorance, vice, crime, exists, oh how contagious it be
comes ! And yet, if you compare the moral condition of the
agricultural and manufacturing districts, you will find that the
latter are by no means inferior to the former, for if there is
an army of evil-doers in our great cities, there are also many
regiments of those who do well. Call the present organization
of labour artificial, capitalistic, or by any title you please, yet
the fact remains that not only is it the inevitable result of
science, civilization, and economic progress, and therefore it
is of no use whatever grumbling about it, but it is on the whole
beneficial to the well-being of the people, an element of strength
and power to the nation at large.
Steam, whose power dwarfs the fabled feats of Grecian
prodigy, has not only torn asunder the manufacturing from
the agricultural industry, but has centred industrial labour
within large buildings and great factories. When human force
was the only motive power, work could as advantageously be
performed in the solitary chamber as in great centres of popu
lation ; but when a force greater than human was discovered,
which far exceeded the energies of any single individual, which
needed no rest, which could be transported anywhere, and
which could be regulated at discretion,—isolated working gave
place to factory labour, and production on a small scale was
immediately superseded by production on a large scale. Of
course, factory labour has its own evils,—but what human
system is free from them ? With a motive power at hand
capable of continuing without intermission, the temptation was
too strong to use human labour as unsparingly. The compara
tively light labour required to assist the machinery, prompted
the employment of women and children; and their strength, by
too long hours of employment, was taxed beyond measure. And
�22
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
so the Legislature had to interfere, in the way of fixing the
number of hours that women and children should be allowed to
work, of taking care that the education of such children shall
not be altogether neglected, of compelling proper precautionsagainst accidents from machinery, of providing for the health
of the workers, and of securing by the right of inspection
scrupulous compliance with the prescribed regulations. And
thankful we may be that the provisions of such laws have been
extended and strengthened, for we do need the protection of
the law against abuse of power, whether by masters or by men.
Apart, however, from such abuses which the law has set itself
to rectify, there is a great principle involved in the present
system of producing on a large scale of very wide reach and
application. Do we not see large farms, large shops, large jointstock companies, and large enterprises, fast superseding small
farms, small shops, small partnerships, and small enterprises ?'
And why? Simply because the expense of management and
the labour of administration do not increase in proportion to the
extension of the undertaking; because expensive machinery may
be more advantageously employed; and because greater economy
of power and administration is thereby obtained. In a largefactory, moreover, the master can exercise more supeiwision of
labour, can have more command over the detail of the work.
And the result is more production, more wealth. The more
united the forces, the greater the momentum.
And what shall I say of the division of labour, which produc
tion on a large scale permits ? Adam Smith has well noted the
increase of dexterity in every particular workman, the saving of
time spent in passing from one species of work to another, and
the happy contrivances for facilitating and abridging laboui
which such division of labour suggests and permits. Nothing, in
deed, is more natural, and yet nothing is more wonderful in the
present organization of labour, than the symmetry of its appor
tionment, the careful regard to the adaptation of the work to the
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
23
worker. But little consideration suffices to convince us that
the surest way to acquire a thorough knowledge of anything is
to concentrate our thoughts, and to devote our energies almost
exclusively upon the one thing before us. No science could be
cultivated with any hope of success, were it not that special
men give themselves to the innumerable researches which are
required for their development. The physician, the chemist,,
the botanist, the mineralogist, the astronomer, each takes upon,
himself the study of special phenomena in nature. Sir David.
Brewster made optics his special study; Professor Owen devoted
himself to fossils; Professor Liebig to organic chemistry
Professor Tyndal to light; Professor Huxley to physiology..
Mr. Glaisher made his experiments on balloon ascents; Dr.
Carpenter made observations on oceanic circulation. The
principle of the division of labour with a view to the greater
concentration of mental energies is of wide application, and,,
wherever applied, it of necessity leads to the greater efficiency
and economy of labour. How natural the division of labour
between agriculture, manufacture, and commerce ! How conso
nant with the laws of nature the preference given in different
countries to special industries 1 What is international commerce
but the result of an extended division of labour ? Of course the
division of labour is limited by the power of exchange. One
may confine himself to one specific branch of industry which
may satisfy one kind of wants only, provided on the one hand
he can find purchasers enough of that commodity as to render
it worth his while producing nothing else, and provided also
there are others ready to satisfy all the other wants. An ex
tended division of labour demands a large and varied con
sumption. In little villages where the consumption of groceries
is limited, the grocer is also the haberdasher, the stationer, the
innkeeper. In London we have shops for certain specific classes
of articles, and no more. But wherever the division of labour
can be advantageously adopted, it is certain to be attended with
�24
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
advantage, at least in an economic aspect. And yet, that too
has its evil, for it has certainly a tendency to concentrate the
mind too consecutively to one operation, and it may have the
effect of weakening a man’s power, and make him become a
mere machine. What fertility of invention, what independence
of thought can you expect from a man who is required to do
but one thing—say, to watch a pair of wheels, or to walk three
steps forward and three steps backwards—throughout his life
time? He will doubtless do that work more perfectly, more
quickly, more economically, but the monotony and the same
ness of the operation, and the want of excitement attending it,
are sure to take away any spirit he might have.
Alas 1 nothing pleases us. Undivided work is very unpro
ductive, too divided work is prejudicial to the human under
standing. I am not ignorant of, and we cannot ignore or deny,
the evils of the present organization of industry; but is it of
any use to complain of them ? Let us the rather strive to
neutralize what is prejudicial, and set into motion remedies and
influences which shall bring good out of evil. Let the church
and the school be active in their work of moral and intellectual
instruction. Let science and philanthropy devise good work
able plans for the well-being of the masses of people huddled
together in places unfit for human habitation. And if the
family circle has still to be broken by the employment of
women and children in factories, let us at least do our utmost
to check vice, waste, luxury, extravagance, betting, gambling,
drunkenness, and the license and wretchedness which meet us
on every side—the result, to a large extent, of a vicious social
system.
If it is to Watt and his wonderful engine that we owe the
use of the new motive power, steam, it is to Arkwright, Har
greaves, Crompton, and many more illustrious inventors and
discoverers, that we owe our machines and instruments for regu
lating the action of force. There is an intimate relation between
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
25
the division of labour and machinery. If, on the one hand, it is
the steam engine and machinery that have rendered division
of labour possible, it is to the division of labour that we owe
the large increase of machinery, The change wrought by
machinery is something wonderful, A woman habituated to
knit can make 80 stitches a minute. By the use of the circular
loom, she can now make 480,000 stitches a minute, showing
an increase of 6,000 times the quantity. To make by hand
all the yarn spun in England in one year, by the use of the
self-acting mule, carrying 1,000 spindles, viz., 1,000 threads
at the time, we would require 100,000,000 of men. I have just
spoken of knitting; but see what is done by the sewing machine.
To make a shirt by the hand it takes at least fourteen hours ; by
the machine, less than two hours. A pair of trousers cannot
be done by the hand in less than five hours; by the machine
it may be done in one. A woman’s chemise, which by the
hand would take ten hours and a half, may be completed by
the machine—ay, ornamented—in one hour. This is indeed
the era of machines. We have the calculating machine and
the electric machine. Hats are made by machinery, and so
are opera-glasses. There is a machine to mould the mortar,
a machine to make cigarettes, and a machine to make neck
cravats. There are machines for measuring the wind, the
evaporation, and the rain; machines for measuring the in
tensity and velocity of light; an instrument for measuring the
interval between the appearance of the flash and the arrival
of the sound; an instrument for measuring the pressure of the
atmosphere, and an instrument for measuring the ten-thousandth
part of an inch.
The machine is simple when it transmits
force in a direct manner; it is composite when it is composed
of so many organs all combined and acting together in the
transmission of force. But whether simple or complex, in
whatever form or description, as a machine, an instrument,
or a tool, their uniform tendency has been to take from the
�26
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
human hand some of the most drudgery work, to produce
largely, to bring within the reach of the lowest classes many
articles which were once rarities and luxuries. Machinery
has lightened human labour of the most irksome tasks, and
opened up to man the widest field for the exercise of his in
tellectual faculties. At one time it was muscular force that
performed most of our work. Now, it is art, it is design, it
is intellect. It is labour just the same, it is true, but it is
nobler, higher, and more befitting our place and destinies.,
more in keeping with our aspirations and ambition. Only
let workmen have sufficient dexterity in passing from one
kind of labour to another, and the introduction of machinery
is certain to prove a blessing, not a curse. But, alas ! it is that
capacity that is sometimes wanting.
Time was when inventions were the products of simple
vagaries, or freaks of the imagination, of ignorant pretenders or
mere charlatans. How to make a wheel turn by itself, and to
get at perpetual motion ; how to clean and keep bright the skin
and flesh so as to preserve it in its perfect state ; how to make
upon the Thames a floating garden of pleasure, with trees,,
flowers, and fountains, and all in the midst of the stream
where it is most rapid;—these were secrets and inventions of
former days which contributed but little to the well-being of
the people. Happily, the inventions, machines, and instru
ments of the present day are of a more utilitarian and sober
caste, and they have immensely augmented, not only the
wealth, but the comfort and the intelligence of the whole
nation—ay, of the whole world. And who are the inventors ?
In many cases our working men themselves, and, strange
to say, those very men who have to perform daily the same
monotonous work, to repeat over and over again the operation
of the same single member of a complicated whole. Yes,
our working men, our artizans, are often able to suggest im
provements in manufacture, and short cuts in workmanship,
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
27
which economise labour, and are of immense value to the pro
ducers. Would that they were justly rewarded! A working man
who has brain enough to invent a new article, or to use a new
process, has a full right to the fruits of his labour, and to be
rewarded for the product of his brain ; and I am glad to know
that sometimes, though not always, they do get the benefit of
their inventions, either in an increased salary, or in a portion of
the profits. Do not imagine, however, that the profits of an
invention can go to any considerable extent into the pockets of the
inventor, for the success of the invention depends often less on
the fact of the invention itself, than on the appliances, energy,
and capital employed in carrying it into practice. I should be
glad if the cost of a patent were greatly reduced, in order to
enable our working men to patent inventions for themselves even
before they communicate them to their own employers ; but oh
how often the most sanguine hopes are placed on worthless inven
tions, how soon they are superseded, how often they prove more
costly than they are worth ! On the whole, the profession of an
inventor is a profitless one, and it is this among other things
that has more than once suggested the expediency of abolish
ing the Patent Laws altogether.
That machinery has immensely benefited production, and
that it has placed a new engine of success in the hands of the
producer, is beyond doubt, for though still depending upon
labour, the machine enables the producer to spare a great
number of labourers, whilst it immensely economises the cost of
production. Once let him have a machine that will do the work
of a thousand men, with only ten persons attending to it, and he
is in a position to distance far any other manufacturer who
wholly depends on human labour. How often indeed a persist
ence on the part of the labourer in asking higher wages than
the business could afford, or demands of conditions of labour
incompatible with its success, or the refusal to perform certain
acts, or to allow other labourers to be introduced for their
�28
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
performance, have driven our manufacturers to introduce
machinery !
But how has machinery affected the working classes? An
inventor once proposed to Colbert, the great minister of Louis
XIV. of France, a machine which would do the work of ten
men. “ I am anxious,” said the minister, “ that men should be
able to live honestly by their work, and you propose to me to
take the work out of their hands. Take the invention, if you
please, somewhere else.” Statesmen are often as ignorant of
economic questions as the least among us, and just as when
railways were projected all manner of apprehensions were enter
tained lest horses, cattle, and carriages should cease to be
required, so when machines were introduced into any branch
of industry, the first thought was, Well, labourers will no longer
be wanted in it. But has it been so ? Calculate the number
employed in the occupation of transport and conveyance before
and since the adoption of the railway system,—the number
employed in the cotton manufacture, or any other textile
industry, before and since the introduction of machinery,—the
number employed in printing, copying, and publishing, before
and since the invention of the printing machine. The first
introduction of machinery may indeed displace and diminish
for a while the employment of labour, may perchance take
labour out of the hands of persons otherwise not able to take
another employment, and create the need of another class of
labourers altogether; but if it has taken labour from ten
persons, it has provided labour for a thousand. How does it
work? A yard of calico made by hand costs two shillings,
made by machinery it may cost fourpence. At two shillings a
yard, few buy it ; at fourpence a yard, multitudes are glad to
avail themselves of it. Cheapness promotes consumption : the
article which hitherto was used by the higher classes only, is
now to be seen in the hand of the labouring classes as well.
As’the demand increases, so production increases, and to such
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
■29
an extent, that although the number of labourers now employed
in the production of calico may be immensely less in proportion
to a given quantity of calico, the total number required for
the millions of yards now used greatly exceeds the number
engaged when the whole work was performed without any
aid of machinery.
And so as regards wages. Doubtless
a manufacturer who has to pay for the use of an invention and
for the cost and maintenance of the machinery, and who needs
only a few labourers able to perform some mechanical act,
might be tempted to take advantage of his position and to
offer less wages. But if the cost of production and the mainte
nance of the machinery are more than replaced by the profits
arising from increasing production, will not a large portion of
those profits, in one way or another, fall on the labouring classes ?
And if to wrork the machinery, in the production of immensely
larger quantities, the manufacturer requires more labourers than
ever he did in the palmy days of hand labour, where will be his
greater independence ? No, no ! Machinery may have decreased,
in some cases, the rates of wages, but it has in all cases increased
the total earnings of the labouring classes. It may have taken
labour out of some, impoverished a few, done injury here and
there, but it has given more labour to the community at large,
and has added immensely to the resources of the artisans
and labouring classes all the world over. M. Bastiat, in his.
excellent work on “ What is Seen and What is not Seen in.
Political Economy,” illustrated.the operation of machinery on
human labour in his usual spirited manner. “Jacque Bonhomme,” he said, “ had two francs, which he was in the habit of
paying to two workmen whom he employed. Suddenly, how
ever, having found out the means of abridging the work by
half, he discharged one workman, and so saved one franc.
Upon this, the ignorant is ready to exclaim, 1 See how misery
follows civilization! See how fatal is freedom to equality 1
The human mind has made a conquest, and immediately a
�3o *
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND
workman, falls into pauperism. Even if Jacque Bonhomme
should continue to employ the two workmen, he will only give
them half a franc each, for they will compete one with another,
and they will offer their labour for half the money.’ But it is
not so, since both the premises and the conclusions are false.
Behind the half of this phenomenon which is seen, there is
another half which is not seen ; for what does Jacque Bonhomme
do with the other franc, which he saved ? He employs it in
another work, and whilst the same work is done for one franc
by one workman which formerly required two to do it, extra
work is done with the other franc, which employs the other also.
The two workmen are as much employed as ever, but double
work is done, and so the invention has procured a gratuitous
benefit.”
The introduction of machinery should never be used as a
threat against the demands of labourers. It is mean to i esort to
such an expedient in order to frighten the labourers to acquiesce
in the conditions offered. But remember, machinery is of great
utility to production, and manufacturers may be compelled to
introduce it for the salvation, possibly, of the whole industry.
See what is taking place now in the watch manufacture of
Switzerland. Hitherto watchmaking at Geneva has been almost
entirely a hand-work industry.
But Switzerland stands in
danger of losing the industry altogether, since Germany and
America have learnt to make watches and clocks by machinery.
There is a certain protection, after all, against the sudden intro
duction of machinery in the fact that it is very costly, that it
requires great capital, that manufacturers are very unwilling to
alter their usual course of business, and that, in reality, in some
industries the hand has some advantage over the machine,
though machinery is now becoming so perfect and automatic
that it is impossible to say what it cannot accomplish. It
has been complained that the use of machinery often leads to
over-production, and to gluts of merchandize, which redounds
�THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.
31
against the well-being of the masses especially by alternations of
great activity and great depression. But a large production of
articles of general use is always attended by increasing cheap
ness, and increasing cheapness most assuredly leads to an
enlarged demand, which soon absorbs any surplus production.
Machine and tool making has become' an important industry.
In x851 it employed in England and Wales 48,000 persons ; in
1861, 117,000; and in 1871, 175,000. In 1851 our exports of
steam engines, and other kinds, amounted to ,£1,168,000; in
I^75> to £4,213,000. We export engines and machinery to
every part of the world. Any one is now at liberty to order from
the British workshop the most complex and the finest piece of
machinery that can possibly be invented. It may be said, What
folly it is to injure ourselves by enabling foreign manufacturers
to obtain an advantage which is exclusively our owp ! True,
England has superior facilities for the manufacture of machinery
in her abundance of coal and iron, but the power of inventive
ness is not confined within the British shores. In 1824, the
Americans were considered as thirty years behind England, and
France was the only country which could be said to rival
England in the making of machinery. Since then, however,
and for many years past, foreign countries have made won
derful progress. As well attempt to shut up all the avenues
of science and knowledge as to secrete from public gaze the
discoveries and inventions which benefit industry and manu
facture.
It is well to realize that many of the primary conditions
necessary to the development of manufacturing industry are
no longer exclusively enjoyed by any country, and it would be
folly for the British manufacturer to remain content and tran
quil, as if he needed to dread no competition, and as if he
could be sure to continue to enjoy the practical monopoly of
the markets of the world.. Greater command over capital,
the possession of mineral resources almost boundless in extent
�32
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR, ETC.
and productiveness, greater commercial sagacity and power of
enterprise, have hitherto kept and may yet keep Britain on a
position of eminence above all her competitors; but in every
one of these elements, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the
United States are striving to advance; and with the most
powerful machinery within the reach of every one, who can
say how soon, from eager competitors, they may become for
midable rivals? It would be a great mistake indeed on the
part of our manufacturers^ to imagine that their only hope to
preserve their supremacy rests in their being able to keep the
wages of labour low. I have no faith in any plan which
begins by starving the labourer. The essentials of real pro
gress must ever consist in increasing power of production, in
greater adaptiveness of our manufactures to the wants of the
masses of the people at home and abroad, and in greater
skill and advancement in the arts and sciences. Emulate
other nations in their efforts to combine beauty with usefulness,
elegance with solidity. Let nothing discourage the investment
of capital in industry. Furbish your intellect to achieve greater
wonders than were ever yet imagined. Let Capital and Labour
march hand in hand, and England need not fear being out
done, however keen the contest, however close the issue.
�III.
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
On the sea-coast of Sicily there was once a wild, lawless,
gigantic race, who, with one eye in the middle of their forehead,
but with strong hands, were constantly employed in forging
thunderbolts for Jupiter. And in this island of Britain, there
are many sons of the sturdy Saxon race who, with two eyes
and both wide open, are constantly forging capital, not for
Jupiter, but for the whole world. A disposition to labour, to
save, and to accumulate ; a growing conviction that wealth is
power, whatever knowledge may be; a keen relish of the
comforts of life, which wealth to a large extent provides ; a
decided aptitude for commerce, industry, and enterprise ; con
fidence in the public institutions of the country; and a firm
reliance on the impartial administration of justice,—these, to
gether with those wonderful inventions and discoveries which
have so enlarged the range and utility of human labour, have
rendered Britain the great storehouse of capital, and at this
moment borrowers from every nation are for ever coming to
this modern Egypt, to buy capital of the living J osephs,—the
Bank of England, the Rothschilds, the Barings, and many
others who keep the keys of the coveted granary. An enviable
position this for England to occupy. The taunt of contempt
once expressed by the title La Nation Boutiquiere (the shop
keeping nation), only betokens the sentiment of jealousy which
3
�34
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
♦
France once felt for this new power in the hands of England.
But if England has got riches, it is because she has been
industrious. If the broad acres of old England have become
more luxurious and productive, if her mineral stores have become
a source of perennial wealth, if her cities are full of people, and
her manufacturing industry has become the wonder of all nations,
it is simply because English labour and English perseverance
have combated valorously with the obstacles presented by
nature. What is the ocean to the daring British manner?
Boldly to the depths of the earth the British miner will
venture, fearing nothing. Nature’s inexhaustible riches and
powers have all along animated the British discoverer to make
unknown sacrifices. And so the British have thriven.
We might suppose that by this time every country would
have become rich. With an old civilization, an immense
population, untold resources, and varied opportunities, what
is it that hindered the accumulation of wealth, and kept
nearly every state in a condition of poverty? Alas! the
work of destruction has been even more effective than the
work of production. The warlike policy of the Roman Empire
was not favourable to the production of wealth. . In the
Middle Ages, whatever was achieved by the thriving cities was
more than destroyed by the injurious influence of feudalism and
barbarism.
Insecurity of person and property discouraged
accumulation. Monopoly diverted the streams of wealth into
narrow channels. Vicious fiscal systems often corroded the
very sources of wealth. The Thirty Years’ War, the Seven
Years’ War, and the French War, brought desolation into every
home, and destroyed, not only all that had theretofore been
produced, but even the produce of years to come, Can we
wonder that under such circumstances but little or nothing
was accumulated ? Cast a glance beyond Europe. In Asia
there has been much hoarding of wealth, but no accumulation
and no workable capital. India has been rather the absorbent
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
35
than the producer of capital. Africa is as yet destitute both
of wealth and capital. And America, the land of promise for
capital, is still, comparatively speaking, a new country, where
the means of investment are always greater than the available
resources for the same. There is no end of openings all over
the world for the disposal of British capital; and for the interest
of the great mass of our population we may well desire that,
whatever the competition, British industry and commerce may
ever prove the safest and the most advantageous investment of
British capital.
Does it seem an easy thing to you to accumulate capital?
Look around. See the vast numbers of persons who find it hard
enough to get their daily bread, and to make the two ends meet.
See the vast numbers earning a good income, yet spending it as
fast as it comes, and never thinking of saving a farthing, far less
of accumulating any capital. Think of the numbers who strive
hard to save, but who, after succeeding for a time, are compelled
to give up the attempt from sickness, misfortune, or losses.
Think of the vicissitudes of trade, changes of fashion, and new
inventions which from time to time disconcert the best conceived
plan. What violent efforts, and what sudden collapses, what
heaving and subsiding, what flow and ebb of fortune, do we wit
ness ! How many try, how few succeed ! It is easy compara
tively to accumulate after a good foundation has been laid ;
but how hard it is to lay that foundation. What judgment,
what decision of will, what disposition to economise, there must
exist to have the slightest chance of success. Doubtless the
present division of property is not all that could be wished.
The laws of primogeniture and entail favour the accumulation
of wealth, at least in land, in comparatively few hands.
Those rich enough to pay income tax on any amount of
profits of trade and industry are only about 16 for every
1000 of the population of Great Britain, and of these much
less than one in 1,000 (0'65) pay on incomes amounting to
�36
USE OF CAPITAL iN INDUSTRY.
^1,000, and upward, per annum. Yet the number of capitalists
might be immensely greater were there more thrift, more com
mon prudence, and more practical wisdom among the people.
I do not speak of the working classes only, but of the middle
and higher classes quite as much, or more. Would that they
had the wisdom to lay by something for a rainy day when they
have a chance of doing so ! Would that they used and not
abused the means which Providence places within their reach !
Realize, I pray you, what capital really is, and what a useful
commodity it is to every nation. Generally speaking, capital
is that portion of an individual’s or of a nation’s wealth which
is applied to reproduction. All property becomes capital so
soon as it, or the value received from it, is set apart for pro
ductive employment. By dint of industry, a shilling to-day,
a pound to-morrow, you gather ^ioo. You resolve to have
a home of your own, and to employ ^25 in furnishing
it, and with the ^75 remaining you determine to set up
a shop. You have got, indeed, ZIO° of your own, but only
^75 of capital.
Just as wealth, in its economic mean
ing, consists of all those things, and those things only,
which are transferable, limited in supply, and directly or
indirectly productive of value, so capital, which is part of that
wealth, must bear the same characteristic. There are many
things most valuable in themselves, which are not, in their strict
economic sense, capital. Capital does not include the instru
ments furnished by nature, without our aid. The water of the
sea, the air we breathe, are not capital, unless, indeed, by labour
we enclose a portion of the sea, or introduce the air into a
building. Capital consists of those things which are created,
and which were previously accumulated by man. To be capital,
moreover, the possession must be a material object, and capable
of transfer. The skill of an artist, the genius of a composer, the
wisdom of a statesman, the talent of a man of letters, the health
and strength of a labourer, are doubtless so many valuable
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
37
endowments to their respective possessors, but they are not of.
a material character, and cannot be transferred. If English
statesmen could transfer a little of their wisdom to the French ;
if British labourers could endow their confreres in France with
a little of their strength and steadiness of purpose; if French
artizans could pass over to British artizans part of their fertility
of invention, and their quickness of perception, what a market
there would be for them all! But these personal endowments
cannot be sold or bought, and, therefore, they do not corrie
within the meaning of the word capital.
I do not know what we should do without capital.
The
riches of nature are profusely scattered, some on the surface
and some on the very bowels of the earth; and human labour is
required to make them subservient to the many uses for which
they are adapted.
Few things are the spontaneous, unaided
gifts of nature, requiring no exertion for their production.
Nature offers its powers and its products.
Industry and
labour discover their latent utility, and surmount the diffi
culties of obtaining such products, and of giving them their
requisite modification.
‘' I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows ;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and white eglantine.” *
Yet who is ignorant of the wonders of gardening ? What
triumphs of skill do we see in a streak, a tint, a shade
secured by the morning care, the evening caution, and the
vigilance of days bestowed by the diligent horticulturist.
Even labour, however, cannot always act singly. It needs
the aid of tools, implements, and machines. There are in the
United Kingdom immense tracts of cultivable land. Will it
do simply to employ any number of men or women to till, to
plough, to sow, to reap? No. The farmer must erect the
* Shakspeare.
�38
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
steadings. He must clear and drain. He must eradicate noxious
weeds, must make the road, the bank, the fence, the bridge.
He must purchase guano or some other fertilizer. He must have
a sufficient number of live stock. He must have the grubber, the
roller, the harrow, the rake, the reaping machine, the thrashing
machine ; ay, even the steam plough, and the steam engine, if
he can afford it. How can these be obtained, unless there be
something left of previous accumulation whereby to get them ?
Now that something is—Capital. The labourers in the act of
producing must be fed and clothed.
From whom can they
expect their sustenance but from the capitalist ? The very first
use of capital, therefore, is to provide such commodities as are
employed in producing wealth and in supplying the fund neces
sary for supporting labour.
Capital is used in all manner of ways for purposes of repro
duction. We often see our manufacturers intentionally destroy
ing it, in order to obtain the effects which are the direct
consequences of its destruction ; as, for example, they consume
coal in the furnace that they may produce iron. They are
content to see capital used up little by little as in machinery,
or consent to vary its very kind by manufacturing, or shaping
it in new forms, as in the case of cotton, wool, or other raw
material.
Subject certain quantities of cotton and wool to
certain processes ; destroy, in fact, their identity, and you obtain
in their stead shirts, drawers, gloves, shawls, stockings, hose.
Subject wool and woollen yarn to other processes, and you have
Brussels carpets, tapestry, velvets, felt, blankets, beaveis,
flannel, coverlets, etc. Capital is given away in wages as
reward for labour. It is employed in providing, extracting,
or producing materials, as in agriculture, mining, fisheries,
manufactures. It is invested in roads, railways, shipping. But
in whatever way it is employed, capital is the spring, the mover
of labour, and scarcely any work can be accomplished without
t. The greater, indeed, the amount of capital accumulated, the
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
39
larger the amount of work executed. What egregious folly it is
to call capital the natural foe of labour, and the capitalist the
jealous rival of labour. Instead of being an incubus on the
energies of the labourer, or the weight that crushes him down,
capital is the very prop and stay of labour, it is the indispensable
means of all employment, and of all reward of labour.
But there is a difference in the method of employing capital.
On a closer examination of what is required for production, in
the very instances already given, you will find that part of the
capital is employed in works of a permanent character, and part
for temporary and fluctuating purposes. If you wish to establish
a cotton mill, you must needs build the factory and purchase the
machinery ; if you will construct iron works, you must have the
furnaces ; if you will give yourself to agriculture, you must im
prove the land. Now capital so employed cannot be withdrawn
at pleasure. It is for all practical purposes sunk; and all you
may derive from it is a yearly rent or interest. This is techni
cally called fixed capital. But to work the factory, to produce
iron, to cultivate grain or fruit, you must get the raw material,
pay wages, buy the seed, and provide for the thousand require
ments of the business. And this is circulating or floating capital.
The fixed capital of the hunter consists of his gun and dog;
the floating, of powder and shot. The boat and net are the
fixed capital of the fisherman; any food in the boat is the float
ing. The warehouse is the fixed capital of the trader, and so
are his weights or machines ; his stock in trade and effects are
his floating capital. There is this further difference between
fixed and circulating capital, that whilst the fixed always re
mains, the circulating is always spent. You buy land for a
railway, that land remains. You pay money in wages, it goes.
Do not imagine, however, that what is termed fixed capital is
absolutely fixed or indestructible, or that what is termed float
ing is really lost. In truth, the fixed capital, unless renewed,
is in time completely lost. The floating, though temporarily
�40
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
departing, always returns. That the whole floating capital em
ployed, together with a certain amount of profits, shall return,
is the whole aim of the capitalist. Alas if it does not return !
And remember, too, that as all fixed capital must come originally
from the operation of circulating capital, and must be fed by it,
—no factory, no machine being obtainable except by first pro
viding, and afterwards sustaining, labour,—so no fixed capital
can, by any possible means, give a revenue except by the use
of circulating capital; for what is the use of building the factory,
or purchasing a piece of land, unless you are able and prepared
to manufacture cotton or woollen, or to cultivate the ground ?
At home and abroad, wherever this wonderful element, capital,
is distributed, it is employed as floating and as fixed in certain
proportions, not always precisely the same, but still pretty well
balanced. In truth, it is quite a misadventure when either form
takes an undue share of public attention. Suppose, for instance
the construction of public works should require the conversion
of any considerable part of floating into fixed capital, and what
follows ? There will be much less left for the general wants of
trade and ordinary purposes of manufacture, and serious incon
venience may ensue from it.
I wish I could give you some idea of the extraordinary sums
of capital required to carry on the industries of this country.
There are in the United Kingdom some 47,000,000 acres of
land under cultivation, on which farmers sometimes invest
y^'io or ^15 per acre. Allow ^5 10s. per acre on the average,
and you have ^258,000,000 required for agriculture. We have
a large number of industries whose very existence depends
on the constant flow of capital. Some ^80,000,000 sterling
are required for the cotton manufacture; some ^40,000,000
for the woollen; some ^30,000,000 for the iron industry ;
some £70,000,000 for our mercantile marine. Just imagine the
amount required to carry on the foreign trade of the country
--those distant trades, especially, with Australia, India, China,
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
4i
and Japan, which do not allow of quick returns. As many
as ^600,000,000 of capital are invested in our railways, and
I cannot tell you how much has been invested by British
capitalists in public undertakings for water, gas, and docks, in
banking and insurance, and in a hundred other objects at home
and abroad. Yes, abroad also ; for immense sums of capital
are constantly going out from Britain to every part of the
world, to fructify the soil of native industry, to fill waste places,
and to construct great public works. And what a drain is
caused by foreign loans, that new, and in many respects novel,
species of gambling of the present day. Scarcely a year passes
but we have princes and potentates, wealthy states and puny
republics, knocking at the door of the British Stock Exchange
for a new loan. At this moment, a large portion of the debt of
most states in the world, probably ^300,000,000, and more, is
due to British capitalists. This is the way in which capital
is employed. It will not do to keep capital idle, for idleness is
sure to bring about its own punishment. Take it into your head
that you will not work, and of course you get no wages. That
is your well-deserved punishment.
Let capital be kept idle,
and it will bring no interest. That is its punishment. It would
be interesting to know in what proportion capital is employed
respectively in British industry, commerce, and shipping, and
foreign enterprises and loans. I wTill not venture on bold esti
mates, but what is it that determines what specific investment
shall be preferred? Nothing else than what offers the best ad
vantage. It is the same with large as with small transactions.
A fourth or a half per annum per cent, will turn the scale,
whether I will buy American or British funded securities. One
or two per cent, will determine whether agriculture or manufac
tures shall be preferred. It is wonderful what a little difference
often turns the scale, But, mind you, it makes all the differ
ence to those who are to participate in the benefit arising from
the employment of capital, how capital is eventually invested.
�42
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
There is a great difference, for instance, in the various
proportions in which capital is distributed among the several
agents of production even as between different industries. It
has been calculated in France, that for every hundred francs
produced, fifteen go in labour, fifty-five in materials, and the
remainder in the maintenance of fixed capital, fuel, adminis
tration, and profits. According to the census of the United
States for 1870, out of $100 produced, eighteen go in labour,
fifty-six in raw materials, and the rest in interest and ad
ministration.
What are the proportions in England it is
difficult to say, but all industries are not alike. In industries
where the material is of no great value, the proportion
falling on labour for wages may even exceed the proportion
required for the material. But there are industries of just
the reverse character, where the value of the material far
exceeds every other element in the cost of production. In
the production of flour, which is only a process in the further
utilization of wheat, in calico-printing, bleaching, and dyeing,
in the reduction of gold and silver, in the refining of sugar,
the proportion of the produce falling on wages is comparatively
small, in some cases four, six, and eight per cent., and no more.
In the production of hardwares, glass wares, furniture, cotton
goods, bricks, and ship-building, the proportion of the product
falling on labour ranges from twenty to thirty per cent. I have
often been struck at the incongruity exhibited by a man constantly
touching gold and silver, silk or woollen, of the finest description,
yet he himself poor and half-starving. Walk to Spitalfields,
and see the poor silk weaver: he is manufacturing some magni
ficent velvet, or some splendid moire antique; he must be a
‘trusty man, for he is trusted with the material in his own home ;
he must have considerable knowledge of his work, and he must
be at great expense in the maintenance of the loom, and even in
house rent, for he must have as much space and light as he can.
Ask what are his wages, and he will tell you that he has the
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
43
poorest wages, often not better than a common labourer can
earn. Go to a cotton factory, and you see men and women
apparently simply watching a machine, or performing some
mechanical act, now taking a lump of cotton from one place
to another, and again replacing a single thread on the spindle.
Ask what is their earning, and you will find that they get
handsome wages.
Why this difference ? In the one case
the raw material is very dear, and takes away considerable
part of the produce; in the other it is very cheap, and
leaves a good share to be divided among the workers. The
dearer the raw material, whether ordinarily or exceptionally, the
worse for the labourer and the manufacturer, for often in the
difficulty of obtaining the full price the only alternative left is
to work at reduced wages and profits. Happily, in England,
the great bulk of our manufactures are the products of raw
materials of comparatively little value. Whilst France is the
home of the silk manufacture, England is the seat of the cotton
and iron industries. It will not do, however, to say we should
pick and choose the industries which give the best return to
labour. Whatever is most beneficial to capital must also be
equally beneficial to labour, and you may be sure of this, that
the watchful eye of the capitalist will ever be on the outlook
to make a good selection for his investments.
It is difficult to say what we should most dread, either an
unlimited growth of capital, or any sudden stoppage of accumu
lation ; for an unlimited growth would inevitably be followed by
a diminution of profit, and a consequent discouragement of
industry; and a diminution of capital would have results still
more disastrous. As yet, we are -thankful to say, there is no
danger either of the one or of the other. Capital is growing in
England at an enormous ratio. But the demand for capital both
at home and abroad is greater than ever. Nor is it a bad thing,
after all, that some of our surplus should find its way abroad.
John Stuart Mill attributed to the perpetual overflow of capital
�44
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
to colonies or to foreign countries, to seek higher profits than
can be obtained at home, the principal cause by which the
decline of profits in England has been arrested. This, he said,
has a twofold operation. “ In the first place, it does what a fire,
or an inundation, or a commercial crisis, would have done ;—it
carries off a part of the increase of capital from which the
reduction of profits proceeds. Secondly, the capital so carried
off is not lost, but is chiefly employed either in founding colonies,
which become large exporters of cheap agricultural produce, or
in extending, and perhaps improving, the agriculture of older
communities. It is to the emigration of English capital, that we
have chiefly to look for keeping up a supply of cheap food and
cheap materials of clothing, proportioned to the increase of our
population : thus enabling an increasing capital to find employ
ment in the country, without reduction of profits, in producing
manufactured articles with which to pay for this supply of raw
produce. Thus, the exportation of capital is an agent of great
efficacy in extending the field of employment for that which
remains ; and it may be said truly, that up to a certain point,
the more capital we send away the more we shall possess and
be able to retain at home.” Fear not, indeed, the exportation
of capital, so long as it goes to fertilize the land, to create
new means of transport, to animate industry, and to strengthen
and invigorate labour in America, India, Australia, or any part
of the world. But fear such exportation when it goes to act as
the sinews of war, when it is to be employed for destruction,
and not for production, Better far to sink capital into the
deep, than to lend it to any power in Europe—ay, to the British
Government itself—for the support of a warlike policy in any
quarter, and for any purpose whatever.
It is good, after all, to be able to say that, however selfish
and materialistic it may seem at first sight, political economy
has this redeeming characteristic, that it does not teach us to
hide our light under a bushel, to keep what we have to ourselves
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
45
and for ourselves. If you have gathered capital, let it out; do
not keep it in your pocket, nor hide it in an old stocking.
If you have any talent, let it shine. Use it liberally for your
selves and for others. I remember reading a happy illustration
of the principle in question as applied to literary pursuits in
“Excelsior,” a charming publication, edited by the late Dr.
Hamilton. “An earnest mind,” he said, “is not a bucket, but
a fountain; and as good thoughts flow out, better thoughts flow
in. Good thoughts are gregarious. The bright image or spark
ling aphorism, the gold or silver of capital,—fear not to give it
wing, for, lured by its decoy, thoughts of sublimer range and
sunnier pinion will be sure to descend and gather round it. As
you scatter, you’ll increase. And it is in this way that, whilst
many a thought that might have enriched the world has been
buried in a sullen and monastic spirit, like a crock of gold in
a coffin, the good idea of a frank and forth-spoken man gets
currency, and after being improved to the advantage of thou
sands, has returned to its originator with usury. It has been
lent, and so it has not been lost; it has been communicated,
and so it has been preserved ; it has circulated, and so it has
increased.”
We should all remember that, in one sense or another, we are
all capitalists. In an economic sense, labour is an element
distinct from capital. But in a better sense—for it is the sense
of common experience—we stand much more on a level. We are
all labourers, and all capitalists. Taking the working classes
at two-thirds of the entire population, and assuming an average
weekly aggregate earning of thirty shillings for each family of 4'50
persons, the entire income of the working classes will amount
to ^400,000,000 per annum, probably quite as much as the
income of all the middle and higher classes together. You, the
working classes, destitute of all capital, a class distinct from the
capitalists ? What folly ! Multiply that earning of yours at ten
years’ purchase, and your property in your labour income from
�46
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
all sources is worth ^4,000,000,000. Away with all jealousy
between Labour and Capital ! We are all interested in each
other’s welfare : on the success of the capitalist your income
depends ; and on your welfare and happiness, the capitalist’s
chief strength must ever rest.
Moralists have often been led to decry the all-absorbing eager
ness of the present age in the pursuit of wealth, and fears have
been expressed lest the love of money should engross far too much
the heart and mind of the nation,—lest, instead of seeking wealth
as an instrument for the purchase of ease and enjoyment, both
the ease and the enjoyment of a whole life should be rendered
up a sacrifice to its shrine,—lest, instead of its being desired as a
minister of gratification to the appetites of nature, it should bring
nature itself into bondage, robbing her of all her simple delights,
pouring wormwood into the current of her feelings, making that
man sad who ought to be cheerful. Well might Matthew Henry
say, “ There is a burden of care in getting riches ; fear in keep
ing them ; temptation in using them ; guilt in abusing them;
sorrow in losing them ; and a burden of account at last to be
given up concerning them.”
But let us not ignore or forget the many benefits derived from
wealth ; and whilst we condemn an excessive devotion to its
pursuit, let us be ready to acknowledge that the acquisition of
wealth is good in itself as the reward of well-directed labour, of
industry, frugality, and economy. And look at the results !
What power of attraction, what magic influence, does capital
possess ! What wonders does it achieve ! Behold the embodi
ments of capital in our halls and palaces, docks and warehouses,
factories and workshops, railways and canals, parks and plea
sure grounds. What a mighty power is capital, even in politics !
Three millions of British sovereigns haye silenced the grumbling
of the Americans for the concession of belligerent rights to the
Confederate States, and the raids of the Alabama and other
privateers on American shipping. Four millions of hard sove-
�USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
47
reigns have procured to England an interest in the Suez Canal.
What is it that renders Britain so influential in the council of
the nations ? What is it that placed this nation, once so ob
scure, in the foremost place in civilization and science ? Whence,
but by the expenditure of much treasure, has Britain been
rendered the healthy and courted resort of princes and nobles
from all countries ? Look around, and see what wealth is
capable of performing,—what monuments it has raised,—what
agencies it has called into activity,—what encouragement it
has afforded to science, art, and discoveries. What but wealth
has procured for Britain those store-houses of knowledge which
enrich our museums and galleries ? And what but the exist
ence of a class in the full enjoyment of ease and wealth has
given to the nation the immense benefit of a large number of
men who, with refined taste and enlarged views, can give them
selves to those higher objects which foster civilization and
science ? It is the glory of England that she possesses so
many men of position and wealth, who, eschewing the tempta
tion of ease and luxury, are thankful if they are selected to
preside over our hospitals, to take their share in the maintenance
of order and justice, to devote themselves to legislation, to take
an active part in the laborious task of our School Boards.
Many are the examples of liberality, moreover, which redeem
wealth from the charge of sordid avarice or cold unconcern for
human suffering. The names of George Moore and George
Peabody, of Samuel Morley and the Baroness Coutts, are
household words in the national catalogue of benefactors :—
“Those are great souls, who touch’d with warmth divine,
Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine ;
All hoarded pleasures they repute a load,
Nor think their wealth their own, till well bestow’d.”
And let any cry of distress be heard, do we not see at once a
flow of liberality to mitigate its pressure ? Yes ! let wealth
continue to diffuse blessings such as these, and what a crop of
�^g
USE OF CAPITAL IN INDUSTRY.
beneficence will be gathered !
How much misery will be alle
viated ! What amount of ignorance will be removed 1. What
high purposes will be served 1 In the work of production and
distribution of wealth, most of us are immediately interested.
Let us be thankful for the measure of prosperity this work of
ours procures for us. Let us remember that, whether rich or
poor in gold and silver, it is always in our power to possess the
godlike happiness of doing good, to be benefactors to others,
and to have a perpetual spring of peace and joy in ourselves.
�IV.
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
Are the working classes at this moment receiving such wages as
they are entitled to have ? Do they participate fully and justly in
the produce of their labour ? Do they get a just reward for the
work they perform ? These are the questions before us this
evening ; and certainly I know of no other social theme which
has called forth more continuous, more keen, and more interest
ing controversy. We all know that labour is indispensable for
production, that it must be performed with energy, health, and
intelligence, that it is economised by machinery, and rendered
more productive by the division of labour,—and that, as a whole,
labour is exercised in England under circumstances, physical,
economical, and political, far superior to those of many other
countries. Now let us bring labour face to face with capital, that
element so much dreaded for its power and influence, yet without
which labour cannot proceed. On the one hand, we have the
labourer hard at work in the business of life j on the other, the
capitalist, bringing to the help of labour the fruit of his saving, yet
trying to economise it, and to render it as useful as possible.
Labourers both they are, the labourer and the capitalist, because
all capital is the fruit of labour—saved, not wasted, and em
ployed in reproduction. Whilst, however, there lie before us
the two parties in the great conflict, ever at issue, ever jealous
of one another, and now and again coming to an open struggle,
4
�5°
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
let us keep in mind that the two great factors in the determina
tion of the reward of labour, are not capital and labour, but the
producers on the one hand, as including both labour and capital,
and the consumers on the other. On what condition can the
interests of all parties be satisfactorily established, and any
seeming divergence reconciled ?
I do not know how far you are prepared to give heed to what
economists have to say on a question which so touches your
interest to the quick. I have heard the science charged with
being cold and unsympathetic, yet I believe that its dictates
ought to be listened to with attention, for Adam Smith and
John Stuart Mill, Jean Baptiste Say and Michel Chevalier, did
not give their oracles as from the gods, but as the result of
induction from ascertained facts. And whence the immense
accumulation of wealth within the last quarter of a century,
in which the labouring classes have so much participated,
but from the recognition of the principles of economic science
and the practical application of their dictates to national
legislation ?
The machinery of production and distribution is much more
complicated than we are apt to imagine, for it extends back
to the manifold operations connected with the production and
acquisition of the raw materials, tools, and factories, and reaches
far and away, through manifold ramifications, till the produce
finds its way into the hands of the consumer. In a primitive
state of society, a labourer may easily cut a tree and build a
hut for himself, or work on the virgin soil and draw from it a
scanty subsistence ; but it is not so in the present advanced
civilization. The raw materials come from the most distant
regions. The tools, machines, and instruments are the pro
ducts of exquisite skill. The motive power is no longer the
running steam or the rushing wind.
How extensive, how
systematic, how economically adapted everything must be ere
a labourer can enter into his labour! What scheming, what
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
Si
.organization, what foresight are required in the master in the
conduct of all his operations 1 What a number of agents !
How many are the instrumentalities required to bring the pro
duce within the reach of the consumer, in towns and hamlets,
at home and abroad ! Travel among the Exquimaux or the
Hottentots, penetrate Asia or America, visit the Fair of Nijni
Novgorod, and the bazaars at Constantinople, and everywhere
you find British goods. How came they there? What toil,
what expenditure to bring them there ! How much of the pro
duce of such goods falls into the hands of the producer in
England, and how much is divided and subdivided among the
merchants and traders, carriers and shipmasters, agents and
brokers, engaged in their transmission, who can say ?
Nor is it easy to ascertain how the net amount which eventually
falls into the hands of the producer should be distributed
between the master and the workmen, the capitalist and the
labourer. Deeply interested alike in the results of production,
interdependent on one another for its success, we might fancy
they might easily agree to act jointly in a kind of partnership.
But can the labourer wait till the article is completed and sold,
to divide the proceeds with the capitalist ? Can he work on
the chance that the article may be sold or prove profitable ?
Better for him, in most cases, to receive something prompt and
certain, than a larger sum at a distant time, and contingent on
the success of the enterprise. Nor would such an agreement
answer the interest of the master, for he must look to the best
time for selling his merchandize, and he cannot expose himself
to the pressure of the labourers, or to the danger of disagree
ment. Better for them both to substitute for such an uncertain
issue, which might in the end prove satisfactory to neither party,
the contract of wages, or the purchase and sale of certain labour
for a certain renumeration, the workmen consenting to have
their share of the profits, whatever they be, or their chance
of profit or loss, commuted into a fixed payment. Only let it
�'52
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
be understood that in entering into such a contract the parties
agree on the mutual recognition of property in capital and
labour, and on the absolute freedom on the part of both, the one
to demand, and the other to give, whatever their respective
interests may dictate.
The business of production is one requiring extreme nicety
of calculation. To accept a contract for the building of a
house, to undertake the working of a mill, or to rent a farm,
are alike operations the success of which depends on the
careful estimate of receipts and expenditure. We often speak
of the master as the capitalist, but the capital he requires is a
commodity having a market value, and the cost of which he
must take into account. You wish to establish a cotton mill.
the mill itself may cost you some ^30,000 in land’ bulld'
ings, steam-engines, gas-works, warehouses, and all the fixed
requisites, besides a per centage per annum for repair and
dilapidation. Beyond this, as much capital will be required
for the machinery; and to that, too, a still larger per centage
per annum must be added for wear and tear, and renewal
when worked out. Then you need capital to purchase cotton
and stock for carrying on the trade. You have the insurance
to pay, and the expense of taxes, engines, horses, the weekly
contengencies of oil, tallow, etc.; and the most important
item, the interest of all this capital, which varies from time
to time from 2| to io per cent, per annum. Add now, the
wages of labour, and the remuneration due to the master for
the labour and talent required in the administration—talent
often of a very high order,—and you can form a fair estimate of
the cost of the article produced. But can the manufacturer
count upon recovering the whole of his cost from the consumer ?
Ultimately, indeed, the value of any article is regulated by the
cost of production, whatever that be ; but is there no probability
that the competition between the producers within the same or
in different countries, or the inability of the consumers, may
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
53
compel the producer to sell at prices lower than he had calcu
lated. And if so, the cost of capital and other commodities being
the same, must not the master, if he is to continue to produce,
lower the wages of labour and be content to do himself with
less remuneration ?
It is objected, that before thinking of lowering the wages, the
master should see whether some economy might not be effected
in the expense of distribution, which often absorbs so large a
portion of the produce of an article. It is possible that some
economy may be effected in this direction, but in this matter
the producer is often helpless, the business of production
being quite distinct from that of distribution. Do not imagine
that it would be economy if the producer should attempt to
take into his own hands the business of distribution, for would
he not require double the number of agents, a corresponding
increase in the amount of capital, and double the amount of
profits? But allowing the necessity of lowering both profits
and wages, it is asserted that it must still remain at the
option of the workman whether he will sell his labour at the
lower rates. No one can certainly question the right of the
workman to act on his own judgment in the matter. All I
venture to assert is that the master may be compelled by the
circumstances of trade to offer to his workmen less wages for
the future than he was wont to give for the past. If they will
not accept such lower wages, the master cannot help it, but the
chances are that if they insist on refusing the offer production
may be thereby suspended, for surely the master may be credited
for using the best means in his power to carry on his business,
not only without interruption, but in peace and harmony with
his men, if he can possibly do so.
The motive power which prompts a master in accepting a
contract for the building of a house, in undertaking the working
of a mill, or the renting of a farm, is doubtless profit. It is
with a view to profit that he emplo- s his own capital, and
�54
the reward of labour.
Whatever additional capital may be required in his business ;
and it is with a view to profit that he employs his labourers.
To succeed the master must seek to economise the use of
every element which affects the cost of the produce ; must
choose the best market for it; must endeavour to maintain his
productive power, and avoid any break or interruption of work.
But do you think that it is the interest of the employer to starve
his labourers ? I venture to say, the employer is fully conscious
of the fact that those whom he employs, must be able to live
by their work, that they must educate their children, and they
must have a share of relaxation and enjoyment, without which
life becomes a burden. The master cannot forget that the
best way to make his labourers work well is to pay them well,
or as well as the state of business permits, to keep them happy
and cheerful, strong and healthy ; and he knows, too, full well,
that if he will deal justly by his labourers, they will neither neg
lect their work nor be disaffected, they will neither complain nor
be disposed to strike. Only, the master cannot always control
the course of the market, and he may be compelled to lower the
wages and reduce his profits, lest by keeping the cost of pro
duction too high, he should become unable to compete with the
foreign producers, or to meet the ability of the consumers, and
so lose his custom altogether.
‘ Where is the guarantee, however, that the employer will act
fairly in such calculations ? What if his intentions be solely to
force the labourers to accept lower wages with a view to the
retention of higher profits? What if the statements of bad
trade, or restricted demand, or increasing competition, should
be purposely exaggerated for the same end ? What, m short,
if the wages offered are not justified by the state of the market ?
I fully admit the possibility of such circumstances, and I think
that where there has been between masters and men a long
course of dealings, the men have a moral right to expect from
the master an open and frank statement of the position of the
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
55
business, and of the reasons which necessitate an alteration of
the terms of their contract, before he summarily announces a
reduction of wages. In any case, he should remember that he
has to deal with his labourers as with free men, and that they
will exercise their judgment to accept or not, as they please, the
wages offered. And be sure of this, that if the competition
'among labourers is certain to prove favourable to the employer
in keeping the wages low, the freedom of the labourers,
and an extensive field of labour in the colonies and America,
enable the labourers to resist any attempt of his to lower
wages unduly, and to prevent them falling below what is just
and necessary.
There is, indeed, a minimum below which wages can never
go. Much labour has been expended in ascertaining what
that minimum is, or what is the intrinsic value of labour at
any time ; and it has been said that, as the intrinsic value of
anything is regulated by the cost of production, so the intrinsic
value of labour is ultimately governed by the cost of subsistence
of the labourer and his family. However large the competition
among labourers, the wages can never fall below the cost of
bare living, for the simple reason that if the labourer cannot
live in one occupation, he will leave it and choose another ; and
if he is not able for any other, he will emigrate. This, then, is
the natural or necessary rate of wages, and it is variable ac
cording to the cost of articles of food and clothing, and must
also differ at different times and in different countries. Let it
be established, for instance, that the cost of living in England,
including food, drink, clothing, and house-rent, has increased
twenty per cent, within the last twenty years, and the natural or
intrinsic value of labour must of necessity have risen in similar
proportions.* And must not the intrinsic value of labour be
higher in England, where the labourer eats wheaten bread
* See Appendix A.
�56
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
and butcher’s meat daily, than in China, where a labourer is
content and able to live almost exclusively on rice ?
Happily, this minimum of wages is scarcely ever touched, but
there are industries where the profits of production are extremely
low, and where the competition among labourers is extreme.
Who has not heard of the pitiful cases of the silk weavers and
throwsters, of the needlewomen and kid-glove stitchers, of the
stocking and glove weavers, of the farm and dock labourers ? It
does seem miserable pay to offer z^d. for embroidering a skirt
two or three yards wide, even with the sewing machine. Who has
not felt pain, sorrow, and I may say indignation, when reading
those plaintive words of Hood :
“ With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch ! stitch 1 stitch 1
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the ‘ Song of the Shirt.'
Work, work, work—
Till the brain begins to swim !
Work, work, work—
Till the eyes are heavy and dim 1
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam—
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream !”
But what is the cause of such low wages ? Some say,
nothing else but the competition among producers to sell their
products sufficiently cheap to attract custom. But pay higher
wages, and immediately a rise on the price of such articles must
be made, which will lessen proportionally their consumption,
and check likewise production. Do not say that the consumers
would pay more if they could not get such articles so cheap.
Probably a great number will, but a large number will abstain
�7HE REWARD OF LABOUR.
57
rom consuming them. The consumption of articles of necessity,
as well as of luxury, is alike governed by the price. Add a
penny to the cost of a single shirt, or to that of a pound of tea,
or a halfpenny to the price of sugar or a loaf of bread, and at
once the consumption is sure to diminish in exact proportion.
And what will be the consequence ? A reduction of production
means a less demand for labour ; and many who are now
obtaining a scanty livelihood, may, instead of getting more,
be doomed to get nothing at all. The wages of agricultural
labour are low, but remember that in most cases the labour is
purely manual, and that the supply of simply manual labour is
always superabundant. Mr. Malthus exhibited with great force
the disagreeable fact, that, whilst the population is capable of
increasing at a geometrical ratio, such as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so
forth, the means of subsistence only increase at an arithmetical
ratio such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Doubtless, a proper restraint in
the matter of matrimony, and prudence as regards the increase
of our families, might check the excess of labourers, and so tend
to keep wages above their minimum, but we cannot trust on so
much wisdom on the part of the people, and so our only hope
must lie in the vast fields of emigration ever open for our super
abundant population. As an evidence that supply and demand of
labour regulate the wages compare Devon and Northumberland.
In Devon the wages are, say, I2j. a week ; in Northumberland,
20j. But in Devon the supply of labour is far in excess of the
demand; in Northumberland, with the demand for coal-mining
and with Newcastle at hand, full of industries absorbing any
quantity of labour, labour is ever scarce. What is it that lowers
so much the wages in the manufacturing districts but the con
stant influx of agricultural labourers ? As Mr. Cobden tersely put
it, when two workmen run after one master, the wages will fall;
and when two masters run after a workman, the wages are
certain to rise.
There are industries, however,—and I am happy to say they
�58
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
include almost every branch of the artisan population,—where
the wages are not pressed down by excessive supply of labour,
and where fair wages ought to obtain. To be remunerative the
wages ought to provide the workman not only the cost of living
to himself and his family in the locality where the workman
must live,-—in London, if his work be there, or in a provincial
town, if his labour be there,—but also the cost and maintenance
of his tools, the recovery of the cost of his apprenticeship,
some provision for old age and infirmity, and an insurance
against the perils of sudden or early death, especially in those
occupations which are essentially injurious to health. And
some difference should be made, too, for the agreeableness or
disagreeableness of the work. But all these items are repre
sented in the relative wages of different classes of artisans.
What is included in the price of an article, in a certain rate of
wages of labour, in the course of exchange between one country
and another, or in the rate of interest on capital, it is often
extremely difficult to analyse. The Bank rate is, say, 3^ per
cent. In what proportions are included in that rate the value
of capital proper, the commission and expense of the trans
action, and the insurance of the risk ? And so as regard wages.
How much, for instance, of the ninepence per hour goes to meet
the relation of supply and demand of masons or carpenters, the
cost of their tools, and any of the other considerations named ?
Such analyses are not easily made, yet depend upon it the wages
or the price represents the aggregate of all the items which
enter into their value at the time.
It should be remembered that whilst the labourer calculates
what he receives in relation to the compensation he expects for
his work and toil, the employer calculates what he gives in
relation to the amount of work performed for him in return ;
for the same amount of wages may produce twice as much
labour where the labourer is sturdier in strength, and really in
earnest in his work, than where the labourer is weak and
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
59
indolent. And is there not a difference in the power of labour
between the stalwart Northumbrian and the weakly Devonian ?
A greater amount of labour will be performed in a summer
than in a winter’s day, in countries where the people are less
given to enjoyments than in those where pleasure seems
the first and most attractive pursuit. Let us suppose that in
France, Austria, or any other country, a manufacturer should
require twice the number of hands, twice as large a building to
contain the hands, twice as many clerks and bookkeepers and
Overlookers to look after them, and twice as many tools as he
would to do the same quantity of work in England, must he
not pay such labourers less there than he would here? The
rate of wages may be lower in France than in England, and yet
the amount of wages paid for a given quantity of work may be
more in France than in England. “ Profits,” said Mr. Ricardo,
“ depend on wages,—not on nominal but real wages ; not on the
number of pounds that may be annually paid to the labourers,
but on the number of days’ work necessary to obtain those
pounds.”
By whichever standard the rate of wages may be estimated,
the question really at issue between masters and men is whether
or not what is now paid in the shape of wages is just, or below
what is really due to the share taken by labour in production.
There is no concealing the fact that in the mind of many of
our workmen there is a lurking idea that the immense fortunes
amassed by our producers and traders are more or less the
result of an unequal division of the profits of production, and
that they could pay considerably more wages, but they will not.
That indeed, they say, is the real secret of low wages. Only, they
try to cover it under the pretext of the doctrine of the wages or
labour fund. But what is this theory ? According to the econo
mists, the doctrine is simply this : that wages, by an irresistible
law, depend on the demand and supply of labour, and can in no
circumstances be either more or less than what will distribute the
�6o
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
existing wage fund among the existing number of competitors for
the same,—the demand for labour consisting of the whole circu
lating capital of the country, including what is paid in wages
for unproductive labour ; the supply, the whole labouring popu
lation. If the supply is in excess of what the capital can at
present employ, wages must fall. If the labourers are all
employed, and there is a surplus of capital still unused, wages
will rise.
This is the wage-fund theory upon which Mr.
Thornton broke lance with John Stuart Mill. If the question
be asked, Is there such a thing as a wage fund, in the sense
here implied ? exists there any fixed amount which is neither
more nor less than what is destined to be expended in wages ?
Mr. Thornton boldly declares that the supposed barrier to the
expansion of wages as indicated by this theory is a shadow, and
not a reality, for besides the original capital which the employer
invests in the business, there are the growing profits which may
also be used in wages. Mr. Mill, in his review of Mr. Thornton’s
work on “ Labour and its Claims,” in the Fortnightly Review, so
far admitted that there is no law of nature making it impossible
for wages to rise to the point of absorbing not only the funds
which the employer had intended to devote to the carrying on
his business, but the whole of what he allows for his private
expenses beyond the necessaries of life. But, said Mr. Mill,
there is a limit nevertheless, and that limit to the rise of wages
is the practical consideration how much would ruin the employer,
or drive him to abandon his business. In short, just as wages
may be too low, so as to impair the working power of the
labourer, so they may be too high, so as to leave no profit; and
just as excessively low wages will drive the labourer to emigrate,
so unduly high wages will drive capital out of the business.
How far the assumption is correct that employers are
amassing large profits, I am not prepared to say. The under
standing is, that the return of seven per cent, on the capital
invested is a pie, and it cannot be considered excessive when
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
6l
we consider the dangers and vicissitudes of commerce. See
what losses are incurred by bankruptcy. During the last six
years, from 1870 to 1875, the total amount of liabilities of estates
liquidated by bankruptcy, by arrangement, or composition with
creditors, was Ziioj759?ooo> and the total amount of assets
^32,607,000, showing an actual loss to creditors of £78,152,000,
or in the proportion of Z^?000,000 Per annum; and this,
remember, irrespective of the cost of bankruptcy, which in
many cases absorbs nearly the whole of the assets. Suppose,
however, good fortune should favour any branch of production,
and unusual profits be realised, will there not' be a sudden rush
of capital for investment in the same ? For a time, the greedy
employer may pocket large profits, but as soon as fresh capital
is invested, competition causes a larger share of the same to fall
on the labourer, and wages rise, till the rates of profits and the
rates of wages are brought to their normal level. The relation
of profits to wages is often wrongly apprehended. It is an error
to suppose that large profits are the results of low wages, and
low profits the results of high wages. Although an increase of
capital has the tendency to lower the profits, and to increase
wages, the same increase of capital also tends to render labour
more profitable, and to increase the amount of production, which
in turn maintains a high rate of profits. See the operation of
machinery on wages. The investment of capital in machinery
enables the workman to produce tenfold more than he was able
to produce by the hand ; and in proportion as he increases his
productive power, so his earnings increase. A workman at
Bristol said that the extra production of machinery ought to
be divided by masters and workmen.
And so they are, in
certain proportions.
Before 1842, said Mr. Ashworth, the
operative spinner’s wages for the production of 20 lb. of yarn
70’s, on a pair of mules of 400 spindles each, was 43-. yd. (or 2fd.
per lb.), and at this rate his net earnings amounted to about
20s. per week. In 1859, with the improvements effected in the
�62
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
spinning mule, by which each machine carries 800 spindles,
the same workman, with a little extra assistance by piecers
(boys), could earn 30J. icvf. per week net, although the amount he
received in wages for 20 lb. of yarn was reduced from 4s. ^d. to
3J. ii%d. or 2'36d, per pound. Compare the actual earnings of
spinners and others employed in the cotton industry during
the last forty years : they show an increase of 30 or 50 per
cent., besides a considerable reduction in the number of hours
of labour.*
The reason why the employer amasses a larger amount of
wealth in proportion than the labourer, will be found, not in
any usurpation of the share of profits which may belong to
workmen, for that, after all, is a matter of simple contract, but
in the fact that whilst the labourer receives only the proper
remuneration of his labour, the employer not only gets higher
remuneration for his skill, because of a higher order, but also
the profit of his capital, or an annual sum of profit on the
aggregate accumulation of all his savings for years past ;—to
say nothing of the immense advantage of production on a large
scale which the possession of large capital enables the master
to realize, and of his chances of large profits from sudden
changes in the value of produce, to be placed, however,
against the chance of equally sudden losses, the result either of
unusual skill and good fortune, or of sad miscalculations and
blunders.
The wages of labour, the profits of merchants and bankers,
the earnings of men of letters, of barristers and doctors, the
salaries of civil servants, and even the incomes of bishops and
clergymen, are not, I apprehend, so uniformly balanced as we
might wish. Doubtless, the progress of freedom, the extended
knowledge of the use of capital, the progress of division of
labour, the facilities of communication, and the advanced conSee Appendix B.
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
63
dition of certain industries, may tend to the greater equalization
of wages. But such equalization can never supersede the essen
tial difference of earnings of any number of persons, the natural
consequence of greater or less amount of skill, greater or less
amount of energy, health, or special capacities, and of relative
advantage of position for the exercise of certain industries. To
suppose the possibility of any uniformity of wages, irrespective
of such differences of skill, knowledge, industry, and character,
is to imagine that equal enjoyment may be had as the return
for unequal efforts, abilities, and sacrifices. Upon the relative
merits of the payment of wages, by the day or hour, or by socalled piece-work, little need be said. The contract of labour
is doubtless not so many hours, but so much labour for so much
money ; and it should be a matter of simple convenience to both
parties which of the two systems should be preferable. Honestly
performed, and as honestly inspected, piece-work appears to
me to contain the elements of perfect fairness, though payment
by the day may stimulate greater attention to solidity and finish
of workmanship.
I will not venture to assert that present wages are satis
factory. Taking the wages of builders in the metropolis at
9<£ per hour, they may appear sufficiently liberal. But are all
builders earning as much ? How many get no more than
per hour ? How little are the building labourers earning ! Nor
do such wages continue uninterrupted during the year : for at
least two months of the year many of them remain in forced idle
ness. True, the rates of wages are higher now than they were,
but the cost of living has increased also, whilst the standard
of living is altogether altered.
Must they not pay more now
for the education of their children ? Can they do without their
newspapers ? Must they not travel from their homes to their
works ? And ought they not to have their due relaxation on
Bank holidays, at Christmas, and Whitsuntide ? Many items of
expenditure, once deemed extravagant, are now become almost
�64
I
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
as imperative as the necessaries of life. And if the imperial
taxes are higher, are not the local rates greatly increased ? There
are features at work which leave much to be desired in the
economics of the labouring classes. The sudden emancipation
of youth from all family control, and the consequent waste of
recourses which a family purse would avoid, are a decided evil.
The large proportion of married women employed in the textile
industries, is a sad element in the social system. Let the man be
the bread-winner, and the woman attend to household duties.
That is Nature’s rule ; but instead of this, all home comforts are
sacrificed for recruiting the scanty wages of the men, certain to
be destroyed by mismanagement. Happy indeed would it be
for the manufacturing districts of England were every married
woman having a family prohibited working in any factory, for
it is contrary to the course of all nature that mothers should
have to deposit their nurslings with some friend or neighbour,
or perhaps in some institution established for that purpose,
whilst they go out to work for the family living.*
Better wages, and better use of wages, we must still desire.
Think not that higher wages will restrain industry, for the
economic condition of the masses all over ,the world is im
mensely improved, and their means of purchase are decidedly
enlarged. Low wages are the concomitant of declining, not of
prosperous industries. It has been said that high wages engender
idleness and dissipation. I do not agree with such a proposi
tion. Idleness and dissipation are more frequently the conse
quence of misery and want of strength than of comfort, health,
and vigour. A sudden increase of means may, for a time, lead
to extravagance, but let it consolidate itself into a regular income,
and it is sure to create love of property, a desire of acquisition,
and a sense of self-esteem,—the best safeguards against waste and
dissipation. Charge not the recent rise of wages for the un* See Report of Robert Baker, Esq., Factory Inspector, 31st October,
1873, p. 120.
�THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
65
happy condition of large numbers of the labouring classes.
Charge the same, the rather, on the want of education, on the
employment of women and children in factories, and on the
many evils incident to our present, in many respects, artificial
organization of society.
For all the progress achieved during the last half century
in the economic condition of the people, let us be thankful.
What a change in the mode of living from the time of Queen
Elizabeth, when, while the gentlemen provided themselves with
sufficiency of wheat for their own table, their households and
poor neighbours were content with rice or barley, or in time of
dearth with bread made either of beans, peas, or oats. And
we are cleverer, too, as to the true sources of better wages.
Bitter experience has more than proved that war cannot improve
the condition of the labouring classes, for whatever hinders or
interrupts the production of wealth, whatever discourages the
investment of capital, must of necessity reduce employment and
lower wages. True, a sudden demand of men for the army and
navy may cause a temporary diminution of competition among
labourers; but while production is well-nigh suspended, and the
unproductive expenditure excessive, the resources of the people
are sure to suffer. The attempt to .regulate wages by law has been
tried and failed, as might have been well expected. An artificial
barrier of prohibitions and import duties has been tried as a means
to foster the productive power of the nation, but what is the use
of producing, when the people cannot consume ? The fictitious
and dangerous experiment of supplementing wages by poor relief
has also been tried, and abandoned as Communistic in principle,
and economically most mischievous. A better era, a sounder
policy, has been at last inaugurated, and wealth has increased at
a rapid pace. Have the labouring classes profited by the happy
change to the full extent in their power ? Workmen, it is for
you to answer. Are you desirous to improve your condition, to
become yourselves capitalists ? It is quite within your reach, for
5
�66
THE REWARD OF LABOUR.
wages are the parent of all capital. Only, learn to be thrifty.
Beware of little expenses, and you will soon amass capital which
will enable you from labourers to become employers ; employers,
I hope, the more able to deal kindly and justly with your men
because you have yourselves occasionally had reason to com
plain of your own employers.
�V.
TRADE UNIONS.
The tree is known by its fruit. You cannot expect roses from
thorns. And from a legislation which deliberately robbed the
working man of the only true patrimony he possessed—his
labour by compelling him to work at such wages as the master
chose to pay, by one degree only removed from the state of
slavery, where both the slave and his work are the property of
the master j from a legislation which consigned to the common
gaol any one who attempted to improve his wages, and doomed
to the pillory any one who dared attempt to conspire, cove
nant, or promise, with or to any other, that he should not do
certain works but at certain rates, and should not work but
at certain hours and time, you could expect nothing else but
secret societies acting in the most arbitrary manner, dis
countenancing any record of their proceedings, having their
most stringent laws unwritten, and their most significant usages
unrecorded, whose committees were practically irresponsible,
whose threats were not expressed but understood, and whose
punishments were carried out, not in broad daylight, but by in
visible hands. Happily, we may say, the age of secret societies
is now gone by. We have no sympathy for the Templars or the
Jesuits, the Red Cross or the Carbonari, and though we laugh at
the Pope putting Freemasonry in the Syllabus—for we know it
�68
TRADE UNIONS.
not to be any conspiracy against Government and religion, but
a fraternity for the practice of mutual charity, protection, and
assistance—we rejoice to know also that secret societies need no
longer exist, and should have no place in the political, social, or
economical condition of the nation.
There are a few, but very few, who profess to regard capitalists,
as a class, with suspicion, and who account for their existence
simply as an historical accident, owing its birth, perhaps, to
the fact of all nations having begun in slavery. Incapable
of accounting for the fact that for every hundred persons ninetysix are working people and four capitalists, such enthusiasts
are prepared, like Caspar Rauchbilder, a kind of philosophic
sugar-baker, to put society into a cauldron, secure a perfect
vacuum by relieving it of all prejudices and all property, and
from the ashes make a filter, through which this selfish age
shall pass, and emerge a new moral world. But the great
mass of members of our Trade Societies are not such foolish
dreamers. If they fail at all, they fail in contemplating capital
as something to a certain extent antagonistic to labour,—in
striving not for a maximum of production, but for the maxi
mum share of a given amount of production, in endeavouring to
secure for labour the largest share of a product, which is, to
say the least, the joint result of capital and labour. But what
ever be the object, workmen have a perfect right to combine,
and seek such ends as are lawful, in the way they best prefer.
The right to combine with others in order to secure a common
benefit is, I believe, a sacred one, not a whit less sacred
than that of individual liberty; and I rejoice that all laws
against combinations have long ago been abolished. Nay, I
go further ; I believe that the formation of Trade Societies,
within proper limits, is perfectly justifiable, and may be even to
some extent beneficial, for I sympathise with the condition of
many of our workmen, who seldom come into direct contact
with their employers, or who have to deal with masters too
�TRADE UNIONS.
much hardened in the old system of ruling with the iron rod to
be able fully to recognise the higher aspirations of our workmen.
Only, let me say to such societies, and more particularly to
their leaders, that great as is the power of association, it cannot
be all-supreme ; and undoubted as is their utility, there are
rights and privileges which must be likewise guarded and pro
tected. Individual independence, and the right of isolated
action, are quite as essential as the right of association, and no
one ought to be called to abdicate such rights in deference to
-those of the association. Whilst asserting their right to act
in a corporate capacity, they must not ignore the right of those
who prefer to act by themselves and for themselves. What
ever be the proportion of Trade Unionists to the total number
■of workers in any branch of industry, this is not a case where
■the majority can bind the minority, simply because by no act
of theirs, as in a case of partnership, can non-unionists be said
to have delegated to unionists any power to interfere with their
rights and independence.
Much do I deplore any contest between labour and capital.
It is ominous to find, on the one hand, a National Federation
■of Associated Employers established with a view “ to secure,
through the continuance of existing laws and the enactment of
new ones, complete freedom of labour, protection to capital, and
the true interests of national industry,” with their excellent organ
Capital and. Labourj and, on the other, “ a Federation of Trade
Unions,” recently organized, or about to be organized, in view
“ that struggles between capital and labour will probably be con
ducted in future on a far more gigantic scale than we have hitherto
witnessed, with the Beehive, now the Industrial Review, also ably
conducted as their organ. What can we expect from two such
antagonistic forces set in battle array but quarrels and conflicts ?
What better justification could Trade Societies have for their ex
istence than the very fact of such associations among the masters?
The masters justify their unions by the necessity of self-defence.
�70
TRADE UNIONS.
But what other plea is put forth by Trade Unions but selfdefence ? Whether or not the regulations which bind the masters
associations substantially differ from those of Trade Unions is
of less importance than the fact itself, that those who may be
supposed to be more intelligent, and better acquainted with
economic laws, find that union is strength for them as well as
for others, and that instead of resting on the working of economic
laws, they endeavour by united action to offer an effective resist
ance to the claims of labour.
But can labour effectively contend with capital ? Here effec
tive strength does not depend on mere numbers. What though
the proletaires be ninety-six and the capitalists only four in a
hundred? True, labour is property, and capital is property.
But what is the value of labour as property unless employed
by capital ? As well have a Raphael in the Sandwich Islands
as have ninety-six labourers without the four capitalists. And
is not this superabundance of labour a constant source of
weakness ? Even if you succeed in regulating the supply of
labour in this country, can you attempt to do so in foreign
countries ? True, capital can do nothing without labour, but
neither can labour do anything without capital. To both
capital and labour I should say, by all means use your power
and energy in maintaining your rights ; but avoid any resort to
strikes, or the final arbitrement of war, which is sure to destroy
the very spoil you are striving to possess.
Well organized as many of the Trade Societies are, I cannot
help thinking that their constitution is defective, in supposing a
greater equality of capacities and skill in their members than
human experience justifies us in expecting, a greater amount of
intelligence and prescience in their councils or committees than
they can lay title to possess, and in assuming greater authority
to compel obedience to their rules than is consistent with the
nature of a perfectly voluntary society. The members are sup
posed to be, every one, able to earn the average wages which
�TRADE UNIONS.
U-
the trade gives, or the minimum wages which the Union deter
mines, the test of that ability being found in either five years’
apprenticeship or five years’ work in the trade, or the testimony
of any member who may have worked with the candidate.
Are such tests invariably reliable ? Intelligent workmanship is,
I imagine, the result of qualities and circumstances not always
acquired by apprenticeship, nor are many years’ work in a busi
ness a sure guarantee for ability; whilst the testimony which will
satisfy the committee of a Union may not be such as will satisfy
an employer. Within an apparent uniformity of qualifications
there may be an essential diversity of merit. Hundreds of gen
tlemen are called to the bar every year by the Inns of Court
under the same regulations. Can it be said that they are all
equally gifted ? A uniform wage obtains among privates in the
army, but that continues so long only as they are idling in the
barracks, a mass of inert force. Let them be in active service,
and immediately individual valour will show that they are not
a band of uniform automatic machines.
The executive councils or committees are called to fulfil duties
of a most difficult and delicate character. Their efforts are to
secure a fair and reasonable remuneration for labour, to maintain
a fair rate of wages, to provide the means of legally resisting
unnecessary reductions in the price of work, and to allow no en
croachment on the peculiar privileges of the trade. But is it an
easy work to determine what is a fair rate of wages, what is a
reasonable remuneration, when a reduction may be successfully
resisted, or when no such resistance should be attempted ? The
members of council or committees are themselves workmen.
They do not pretend to be guided by the theories or maxims of
political economists. Naturally in favour of high wages and
short hours, are they such impartial judges as to be able duly to
appreciate the real circumstances of the case before acting in any
emergency? True, they are guided by the periodical reports of
the state of trade and wages from every part of the kingdom ;
�72
TRADE UNIONS.
but these very facts are only the exponent of phenomena which
require a deep and extended range of observation on conditions
and circumstances not within the reach of every one. Far be it
from me to detract from the intelligence and practical knowledge
of the councils of such trade unions. I give them full credit for
an earnest desire to form sound opinions on the questions before
them, and to urge the same for acceptance by fair, open, and
peaceful means. Only, it is not in their power to regulate
economical phenomena, and they cannot prevent their action.
The societies are supported by entrance fees, by weekly or
monthly fees, and by fines. Failing to pay the proper contribu
tion, absenting oneself from a quarterly or a special meeting,
mentioning any club transactions to outsiders, omitting to make
a proper report, and performing many more such acts and trans
actions, are visited with fines; whilst a still more hostile system
of ostracism may be resorted to where perfect obedience is not
secured by fines. But is it desirable to enforce obedience among
a large number of men on matters which touch very nearly the
mode of earning a livelihood ? Doubtless the constitution of such
societies empowers the committees to determine the policy to
be pursued, and there would be an end of all authority if it
were left optional with the members to accept or not the de
cision of their committees ; yet the very fact that large sums are
annually collected by means of fines indicates the frequent resort
to compulsion, on every account to be deprecated. On the whole,
I cannot help thinking that a more elastic system would operate
better, and prove in the end even more efficient than the present
stringent method of action.
The principal objects which Trade Unions have in view are
the regulation of the supply of labour and the supervision of the
rate of wages. By controlling the labour of their own members,
by endeavouring to equalize the supply of labour all over the
country, by regulating and restricting the admission of appren
tices, by hindering the employment of boy and woman labour, and
�TRADE UNIONS.
73
by putting obstacles to the employment of non-unionists, the
Trade Societies hope to maintain a monopoly of labour, and
thereby to reduce that competition among labourers which is so
formidable a barrier to the rise of wages. Nay, more; in the
hope of spreading the work among as large a number of members
as possible, they prohibit working overtime. But rules such as
these contravene some of the first maxims of legal rights,
besides being clearly opposed to sound economy. The mutual
rights and duties arising from the contract of labour are simple
and direct—so much labour for so much reward. The master
has a right to employ his labourers or not as he pleases. The
labourer may consent to work or not as he likes. What right
has either to interfere with the free action of the other in any
matter concerning their respective businesses ? The objection
to overtime is justified by the plea that it is essential for any
labourer overburdened with hard work to have time left for in
struction and recreation, and that it is a grievous evil to protract
labour beyond what nature seems to suggest. But to lay down
any general rule, that no man shall labour beyond a certain
number of hours on each day, is to deprive the young and strong
•of the best opportunity they may have of making hay whilst
health and vigour last. It seems very philanthropic to limit the
work of the over-employed that some work may be left for the
unemployed. But it is, I fear, the law of society, that wealth and
employment are not equally distributed. Aptitude for labour is
not a common gift, and if we neglect the work which Providence
places within our reach, it by no means follows that it will be
given to those less fortunate than ourselves.
Apart, however, from any legal or social considerations, what
are the economic effects of any effort to monopolize or regulate
labour ? Are they not to cripple production, which in turn
must react on wages ? Every hour you take from your daily
labour is so much deducted from the profits of production, all
the fixed capital being to that extent rendered less productive.
�74
TRADE UNIONS.
The fewer labourers are at work the less will be produced,
unless new machinery comes to take their place. Whenever
adult labour is employed where boys and women would besufficient, so much encouragement is given to a waste of forces,
which will render production less profitable. But can you pre
vent an increase of labourers in a profitable industry ? High
wages are certain to be attractive. An agricultural labourer in
the receipt of 15^. a week will be too glad to apprentice his son
to an engineer, in the expectation of getting 305-. or 40^. a week.
And it is against all natural and economic law to attempt to
hinder a process so simple and necessary. There is, indeed, a
necessary monopoly of talent which we cannot abolish. The
few actors, musicians, painters, barristers, and doctors, who
may possess learning and skill far excelling those of the masses
of their competitors ; the few workmen absolutely superior to
others in the perfection of their bodily organs, in the dexterity
of their hands and motions, and in the skill with which they
execute their task, must, of necessity, have a natural monopoly
of the work which may be offered. And they are sure to enjoy
the benefit of that monopoly in a larger remuneration than is
obtained by their competitors, as a fair compensation for ser
vices conferred in the work of production. But to pretend to
establish any monopoly whereby labourers, strong or weak,
skilful or ignorant, shall derive an equal remuneration, and
to entertain any expectation that such higher remuneration
may be derived from diminished production—these are wild
notions, which no true economic principle will sanction.
On the question whether or not Trade Unions can exercise
any influence on wages, I am prepared to make some conces
sions. Wherever wages are in any measure governed by
custom, as to some extent in agriculture, a Trade Society
may shake off that dull sloth and produce a sudden improve
ment. Wherever the labourers are in a position so low and
dejected as to be under the necessity of working for wages not
�TRADE UNIONS.
75
sufficient to pay for the simple cost of living, as in the case of
the needlewomen, a Trade Society may, by granting temporary
help with a view to resistance, operate some reform of wages,
though with the almost certain result of either lessening pro
duction, and so causing a diminution of employment, or of
stimulating machinery.. Wherever, moreover, the rate of profit
is larger than is necessary to provide for the interest of capital,
and a legitimate remuneration for the employer’s services, a
Trade Society may, by a vigilant supervision, operate upon the
margin which may exist between the rate of wages and the rate
of profits below which all production would cease, and in all
probability succeed in securing part of the same for labour,
unless defeated either by the competition of labourers among
themselves, or by foreign competition. In the former case,
however, wages will remain low, though the profits may be
high ; and in the latter, wages will fall, and the profits decline
also, or, at most, remain stationary. Under any circumstance
the advantage derived by Trade Unions can only be temporary,
for supply and demand are sure to assert their sway. Shake
off the custom if you can, and yet if there be seven persons
available to one hundred acres, where four are amply sufficient
for agricultural purposes, the competition among the seven
to get the employment which can only be had by four will be
sure to keep wages low. Enhance by artificial combination
the wages in any one business, or in any one district, yet, unless
that rise is supported by increased savings, and by the sub
stantial accumulation of capital, it will not, it cannot be sus
tained. But suppose the employer should secure for himself a
large amount of profits out of what would be due to the em
ployees, or by keeping wages unduly low, what can he do with
such profits but employ them to render them productive ? See
how it works practically. In i860, the exports of the produce
and manufactures of the United Kingdom were valued at
^136,000,000, and the profits assessed to income tax under
�76
TRADE UNIONS.
Schedule D were declared at ^95,000,000.
But trade has
been very prosperous ever since, and the result has been that in
1874 the amount of profits so assessed to income tax amounted
to ^197,000,000, showing an increase of ^102,000,000, which
you may say went all to the masters, since few or no workmen
pay income tax. But wait a little. How was that extra amount
of profits gained but by increased production? During that
period the amount of exports of British produce rose from
^136,000,000 in i860 to ^223,000,000 in 1874. And from that
increased production workmen got increased wages. Allow
that 20 per cent, of the total amount of produce go in wages,
and upon the ^87,000,000 of extra production for exports only,
at least £ 17,000,000 more per annum must have been divided
among labourers in wages. In truth, the excess of profits must
in all, or in part, sooner or later find its way among the people,
and that is the best possible guarantee for an equitable distri
bution of profits among employers and employed.
Trade Unions endeavour to operate on wages by fixing the
lowest rate and by determining that all their members shall
earn at least that low rate. It is not easy, however, to say
what the lowest rate of wages should be under any circum
stances. You observe the state of the market, that it is buoyant;
the number of orders, which appear numerous. You notice a
certain amount of eagerness among the employers in pursuing
their operations. And as everything seems to denote activity
and progress you say wages must rise. But do not misunder
stand high prices for large profits, for a high price may be the
result of pure speculation, to be soon followed by a great re
action; or the result of increased cost of the raw materials,
which may render production even less remunerative. In truth,
it is not possible to fix what the wages should be, any more than
you can fix what shall be the price of any article or the rate of
interest, and any haphazard way of determining what the lowest
rate of wages ought to be, apart from what is produced by
�TRADE UNIONS.
77
the relation of supply and demand, must be uncertain and un
satisfactory. It is somewhat discomforting to feel that we can
do comparatively so little for ourselves, that we cannot secure
a rise, cannot prevent a fall, and must in a manner stand still.
Only depend upon it, economical laws do not stand still, and
they will operate quite irrespective of our action.
It has been urged by Trade Unionists that they do not
demand any uniformity of wages, but that they only fix the rate
under which no member of the Union shall work. Give such
of them as deserve it as much more as you please, but none
shall work for less. What, however, if what you lay down as
the minimum, employers should regard as the maximum ? Give
to the least capable the maximum wages, and what more can the
most capable earn ? Again, it is said it is to protect labour against
the pernicious system of competition by tender, that labourers
must insist upon a uniform minimum rate ; but on what principle
can the labourers make themselves the guardians of the public
interests ?
Weak as is generally the power of Trade Unions with reference
to the determination of the lowest rate of wages, still more doubtful
is the possibility of their being able to maintain any uniformity in
the wages and earnings of their members. If there be no such
thing as uniformity of talent, skill, judgment, strength, vigour,
will, or of anything that constitutes and regulates our real power
to act upon matter, how can there be such a thing as a uniformity
in the value of the part taken by any number of men in the
production of any article? There is no such thing as an
average ability, for what is an average but an ideal abstract
and imaginary medium of an equal distribution of all the
inequalities among individuals of a series ? We say the average
temperature of England is 50° Fahrenheit, but that is made up
of constant changes from day to day, varying from 38° to 71 °.
And so it is with the average life of a man, or the average loss
of ships, or the like. The great value of an average rests in the
�78
TRADE UNIONS.
indication it gives of the medium of the range in those
variations, but that does not destroy their existence. In matter
of labour, though you may form a fair idea of the average
strength and capacity of any number of labourers, that does not
affect the fact of their possessing some more and some less of
those faculties which are required in production, and which con
stitute the very basis and conditions of the earning of wages.
In the engineering trade, the classification of wages with refer
ence to skill must be carried on to a high point, it having been
given in evidence before the Royal Commissioners on Trade
Unions, that in an establishment of more than 900 men there
were as many as 267 rates of wages earned. The introduction
of machinery may have reduced the great extremes, many of
those feats of force and skill which at one time placed one work
man so much above another being now done by machinery.
Yet there is room enough left for the display of superior personal
ability, strength, and judgment, and to attempt to enforce any
ideal uniformity in wages is as unsound in principle as it is
mischievous in practice.
Partly with a view to uniformity of wages, and partly also as
a means of defence against the masters’ attempts to reduce
wages, some Trade Societies have resisted what is called pay
ment by piecework. The different systems of payment of wages,
by time as by the day or hour, or by piecework as according
to results, or by a combination of the two as by time with
relation to so much work done, are respectively adapted to
different descriptions of labour. For the performance of labour
requiring great exactitude and patient attention, payment by
time is probably the best. For the performance of work ad
mitting of great swiftness of operation, payment by piecework
appears fair for the workman and just to the employer ; whilst
for the execution of work demanding both precision of execution
and economy of time, the combined system seems the best
adapted. In any case there can be no doubt that payment by
�TRADE UNIONS.
79
result is the least fallible test of the value of labour, whilst it is
the only mode by which patient labour and superior intelligence
can raise itself above the surrounding level of low mediocrity.
It is alleged against piecework that it incites the worker to work
longer hours than is good for him, that it tempts him to hurry
over the work, and leave it imperfectly finished ; that it is often
abused by the master appointing middle men, or piece-masters,
to fix the price arbitrarily ; that it is used by the master to
■cut down the wages to the minimum, thus preventing the
labourer from deriving any corresponding benefit from his
greater labour and exertion. Far be it from me to justify any
such practices. I admit that the system may be greatly abused
by both masters and workmen. I allow that unprincipled men
may use it as a snare, rather than as a fair mode of rewarding
labour. And I cannot too strongly condemn any attempt on
the part of either to make it the vehicle of fraud and usurpation.
But as to the objections that piecework is a system by which
the weakest always goes to the wall, or that it incites the labourer
to work too much, or that it gives an advantage to the skilful
over the unskilful, I fear that, practically hard as such objec
tions may prove in some cases, they are but futile in this matterof-fact world. A paternal government, be it by societies or by
the State, can never be advantageous, and you cannot inflict a
deeper injury on any number of people than by taking from them
the right to utilize their forces and energies to the maximum of
their power. It is the great recommendation of piecework that
it is conducive to a better reward of skill, strength, and energy,
that it affords the best possible encouragement to improvement
in workmanship, and that it is a beneficial instrument to the in
crease of the productive power of the nation. Some difficulty,
however, does doubtless exist in the adoption of the piecework
system in different industries. Taking as our guide the two prin
ciples already enunciated, that whilst on the one hand the contract
•of labour is not so many hours in a day, but so much work for so
�8o
TRADE UNIONS.
much money ; and on the other, that the wages themselves are
a commutation of something certain and fixed for the uncertain
share which might fall on the workman of the result of produc
tion,—it is evident that whilst piecework affords the best test
of the real amount of work performed, as a basis for the reward
of wages, it still fails in this, that it does not produce that
certainty of earning which the workman very justly appreciates.
In the cotton manufacture, in printing, and in many other
industries, where the work to be done is generally uniform, thevalue of piecework may be estimated with nearly as much
correctness as day-work. But in other industries, especially in
engineering works, where each article is different from the
other, no such certainty can possibly exist. In the printing and
cotton industries, the price of the work is arrived at from ex
tensive experience, by a committee of masters and men. In
such engineering works as I have mentioned, the price named
is simply what the foreman thinks will be a fair remuneration..
To my mind, the method of gauging wages by the actual work
done, however technically just, is not always practicable, and
to force piecework on unwilling labourers, and to provoke a
strike upon that question, is conduct which can scarcely be
justified. If masters and men are to work harmoniously, piece
work must be held out, wherever there is any doubt on the
matter, as an inducement for greater exertion, and not as a hardand-fast rule for the payment of ordinary wages.
It would be interesting to ascertain how far Trade Unions
have proved themselves beneficial to the labouring classes in
the matter of wages. During the last twenty years, all prices,,
salaries, and wages have risen considerably. The salaries of
clerks at the Bank of England and in every house of trade,,
the salaries of assistants in wholesale warehouses and work
shops, are all higher. In consideration that the cost of livingis dearer, and that a higher standard of living has been intro
duced, more remuneration has been asked and granted in every
�81
TRADE UNIONS.
occupation. But is not this owing to the immense addition to
the supply of the precious metals, the largely increased trade, the
-enormous augmentation of capital ? What else but these cir
cumstances have provided for such increase of wages, prices, and
•salaries ? Trade Unions may have clamoured for higher wages
in certain branches of industry. But if masons and carpenters,
•engineers and ironworkers, protected by Trade Unions, have
realized a handsome rise, so have agricultural labourers, and
especially domestic servants, realized it without any Trade
Unions. Simply left to the tender mercies of the law of supply
and demand, a cook and housekeeper who twenty years ago
was well paid at ^16, now cannot be had for ^25 to ^30. See
what supply and demand do in agricultural labour. Take six
purely agricultural counties, such as Devon, Dorset, Wilts,
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge, and six agricultural and
industrial counties, such as Cheshire, Lancashire, the West
Riding of Yorkshire, Durham, Kent, and Monmouthshire. The
average wages of agricultural labourers, and the earnings especi
ally by piece-labour, wherever introduced, have risen everywhere,
in consequence of the increasing amount of capital invested in
agriculture ; but whilst the wages in the purely agricultural
counties have risen 15 per cent., those in the agricultural and
industrial counties, from the simple competition in the demand
for labour, have risen 30 to 40 per cent. Making every allow
ance for special cases, it is absurd to imagine that Trade Unions
have been the main instruments in bringing so much additional
wealth into the lap of the working classes. If by constant vigilance
on the relation of wages to profits, they have caused, in certain
instances, a distribution of any excess at an earlier date than
might otherwise have taken place, it is quite possible that the
sudden rise of wages consequent upon it may have been as
rapidly followed by a reaction. And we well know that frequent
oscillations of wages and uncertainty of earnings are more an
•evil than a boon to the working population. Nor should it be
6
�82
TRADE UNIONS.
forgotten that an employer, who may have for some time been
producing at a loss, has a right to retrieve his position by securing
somewhat more liberal profits for a certain period, before he can
risk to establish a more equitable level between profits and wages.
The employer’s object in production is profit, and unless he has
a fair prospect of reasonable profits, we cannot expect that he
will continue to employ his capital or to engage his services in
the business.
Fears have been expressed, that Trade Unions, by harassing
the employers with constant demands, by thwarting the
operation of supply and demand, and by placing restrictions
on the freedom of labour, have discouraged production, and
placed the industries of the country in danger of foreign
competition. But the statistics of trade do not corroborate any
such fear. During recent years production has proceeded at an
enormous scale, whether through the extension of mechanical
agency and steam-power, which has been enormous, or by the
larger adoption of production on a large scale, or by an
actual increase of manual labour. Nor is foreign competition
more formidable now than ever it was.
An increase of
exports from ^136,000,000 in i860 to ^223,000,000 in 1875,
an increase in the quantity of coals produced from 80,000,000
tons in i860 to 132,000,000 tons in 1875, an increase in the
tonnage of shipping belonging to the United Kingdom from
4,600,000 tons to 6,152,000 tons in 1875, are facts which do
not indicate that the British workman has been idle during
the last fifteen years. And what do we find with respect to
the relative increase of the productive power of different
countries ? Compare the exports of Britain with the exports
of other countries, and you will find that British exports
have increased fully in proportion to those of other countries.
Taking the entire amount of exports of seven principal
countries, viz., France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Austria, the
United States, and the United Kingdom in i860 and 1873, you
�TRADE UNIONS.
S3
will see that the proportion of British exports to the whole
was 37 per cent, in i860, and 37 per cent, in 1874. Nor can
we take the total exports of such countries as a guide to the
great question of danger from foreign competition. Comparing
the exports of manufactured goods, such as cotton, linen, silk,
woollen, from Britain and France in the years 1861 and 1874, it
appears that whilst the exports from the United Kingdom in
creased at the rate of 64 per cent., the exports from France in
creased at the rate of 60 per cent. Since then, I am sorry to
say, the exports from the United Kingdom have been decreasing ;
but trade has been depressed in nearly every country,—the neces
sary reaction from many years of unusual buoyancy.
Trade Unions have been charged with having contributed
to the deterioration of the character of British workmen, by
making them more quarrelsome, more selfish, and more guided
by a spirit of antagonism towards employers than heretofore.
But I doubt the truth of such sweeping charges. In so far as
Trade Unions are concerned, they doubtless consist mostly of
skilled artisans who compare favourably with the great mass
of the labouring classes; whilst as societies they manifest a
degree of organization and a power of management of no mean
order. It must be allowed also that the demonstrations of Trade
Unionists, and the conduct of workmen during any strike at
the present time, contrast favourably with similar exhibitions in
times past. We hear of no incendiarism, no outrage, no riotous
assemblage. The practices at Sheffield were utterly disowned
by the great body of workmen, and though we still hear of
picketing and coercion of different kinds, which the committees
of trade societies would do well to repress as acts of true
cowardice, I am not prepared to join in the cry that our work
men are worse than other people. In the universal progress of
society our workmen have not lagged behind. If they are a
little more quarrelsome than we would like them to be, it is
because they wish to lift themselves up in the scale of society,
�84
TRADE UNIONS.
and because they see the need of protecting their interests,
which were too often heretofore held at nought or trodden
under foot.
Upon the action of trade societies on their benefit funds, I have
scarcely time to touch. For my part, I deeply regret that the
high purposes of a benefit society should be mixed up with the
contentious questions of restraints of trade. I can conceive of
nothing more important than that money laid aside for sick
ness and burials, for widows and orphans, should be perfectly
secure from danger of being swamped up by any warfare with
employers. The best service Trade Unions can render to the
labouring population is to inculcate habits of thrift, and to check
as far as in them lies the evil of intemperance. Let our Trade
Unions abandon the advocacy of theories which are contrary to
sound economy. Let them adopt a spirit of harmony and
conciliation. Let them cease to make war against capital,
which is the necessary handmaid of labour. Let them use only
such means as the law permits, and society sanctions, for the
protection of the just rights of workmen. Let them lead the
mass of labourers in the way of solid progress, and they will
render themselves the benefactors of the people, and be
acknowledged as the friends and trusted helpers of both
capital and labour.
�VI.
STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
That masters and men engaged in industries of a most com
plex character, so often disturbed by the introduction of new
methods and machinery, having much in common, yet each
striving for their own distinct interests, should at times find it
difficult to avoid disagreements, is not, after all, a matter to
cause much surprise. The marvel rather is, that such conflicts
occur so seldom, in comparison with the immense number of
employers and employed, and that when they do occur, they
exercise, comparatively, so small an influence on the general
industry of the country.
What gives to such dissensions any degree of importance is
the dire effect they have on the large number of persons thereby
affected,—the consequence of the modern organization of labour.
A passenger ship has often been compared to a floating village,
and so a mill, or a factory, gathers around itself a complete
community, every inhabitant of which depends on the unin
terrupted progress of the special industry. Let the factory or
the iron work be in full activity, and you see hundreds of
families , rejoicing in plenty, dwelling-houses neatly furnished,
tradesmen and artificers all earning sufficient incomes, and if
the employer be a Sir Titus Salt, or a Sir Francis Crossley,
you will find in such communities the church and the school,
�86
STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
reading-rooms and savings-banks, the club, and many other
institutions which contribute to the moral and intellectual
advancement of the labouring population. But let a dissension
occur, and a strike or lock-out be resolved upon, and what a
sudden blight falls on the whole prospect, what dejection, what
sufferings 1 Here the full loaf is replaced by the half loaf, there
are poverty and sickness, everywhere an idleness which makes
one sad.
A strike, or the joint action on the part of a body of workmen
or persons employed in any department of business, by which
each and all refuse to work except under certain prescribed
conditions, often with the means of sustenance, or some
approximate equivalent to the loss of wages thereby incurred,
provided for by a common fund, is war, which, as Lord Bacon
defined, is “ the highest trial of right.” And a grave responsi
bility rests on those who resort to such a step on any ground
not clearly justifiable, who rush into it before exhausting every
means of conciliation, and who are not ready to withdraw from
it at any moment when a fair compromise can be effected.
That a war may be just, at least in diplomatic language (for
I doubt the possibility of the justice or moral lawfulness of an
act which carries with it so much carnage and destruction), it
must at least be dictated by the necessity of defending ab
solute rights, and be the very last expedient which a nation can
resort to.
" Force is at best
A fearful thing e’en in a righteous cause.
God only helps when man can help no more.”
Strikes have arisen for the purpose of securing higher wages,
for resisting a fall of wages, for opposing or preventing the
introduction of machinery, for obtaining a reduction of the
hours of labour, for resisting any addition to the number of
apprentices. They have been waged against the employment
of non-unionists, against contract work, against piece-work and
�STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
«7
overtime, or to secure overtime beginning earlier. Only the
other day there was a strike in London in consequence of
the employment of plasterers to do a kind of work which the
bricklayers thought they were themselves entitled to do. And
in another case, a printing office lost some of its best members
for the sole reason that the masters accepted in their em
ployment one who had not a full certificate of apprenticeship,
though as able as any of the rest. By what criterion shall
we judge of the justice of such a course where there is no
inalienable right to depart from? The labourer has a right
to his wages, but the rate of wages is a matter of contract, and
depends more on the operation of economic laws than on the
will of the master. Where is the right of the labourer to prevent
any economy of labour by machinery ? On what principle can
he oppose the employment of non-unionists? The right to
resist, and the rectitude of the cause for which resistance is
made, are two distinct things.
An impression seems to exist among our workmen that it is
advantageous to them to show that they are in earnest in
resisting any attempt on the part of masters to ignore their just
rights, and that whether they gain or not the object in view in
the particular instance, they are enabled by such resistance to
secure better terms for the future. A strike, say they, is the
only remedy we have in our own hands. What else can we do ?
What, if masters, strong as a money power, presuming on our
weakness, are found to set aside all considerations of moral
duty, to stretch unduly the laws of economic science, and to
impose conditions which we cannot accept,—what other course
can we pursue but refuse to work at their terms, or, in short, to
strike ? Against such considerations, however, be mindful, I
pray you, to place the immediate sacrifices you thereby inflict
on yourselves, the injury you cause to large multitudes who
can ill spare any cessation of labour, the disorganization of the
industry, the hatred and rancour engendered in your relations
�88
STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS.
with your employers, the chance of failure in the struggle, the
want of security as to the maintenance of your success should
you be so fortunate as to obtain what you strive for, the loss of
wages, the loss and waste of funds the fruit of years of labour
and privations, the injury to theSnation at large ; for remember
that trade is a plant of tender growth, it requires sun and soil
and fine seasons to make it thrive and flourish. It will not
grow like the palm-tree, which with the more weight and
pressure rises the more.” Ere you strike, I pray you, count the
cost. The present dispute in the cotton trade, for instance, is
fraught with danger. Whatever reason there may be for re
vising the standard list, that is no excuse for a strike, especially in
mills where no ground of complaint really exists. Nor have the
masters any justification for a general lock-out simply because
a few workmen in certain mills have unhappily taken such an
objectionable course. I cannot expect that anything I may
say will influence materially the progress of the dispute. But,,
if a word of mine can reach the contending parties, most
earnestly would I urge on the workmen on strike, at once toreturn to their work, on the assurance that a' committee from
both masters and men will be appointed to inquire into the
whole matter and forthwith remove any just ground of com
plaint. And on the masters I would urge not to commit them
selves to joint action in the matter, or to anything like a
general lock-out, which would be the cause of so much trouble
and misery. Ere you resort to a measure so disastrous as to
shut the door of your factories to thousands of innocent labourers,
I pray you, I beseech of you, count the cost.
Before a war is finally resorted to among nations, diplomacy
generally uses its best endeavours to prevent the sad catastrophe,
and certainly no step should be omitted to prevent a strike.
The rules of many Trade Unions prescribe that in case of
dispute, a deputation of two or more members shall wait
on the employer and endeavour to come to an amicable
�STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
89
arrangement; that the men shall first reason the matter with
their employers; that no strike be resorted to without an
attempt having first been made to settle the matter of con
tention between employers and employed by an amicable
negotiation ; and that where a grievance exists, the labourers
shall, in the first place, solicit their employer or foreman for
relief from the same. Now it is only fair to expect from the
masters that they should follow a similar course, for I do not
think it would be beneath their dignity to descend a little and
reason with their workmen on the ground of dispute between
them. How much misgiving, how much prejudice would be saved,
if masters only condescended to reason with their men, not as
so many hands in their service, but as men, working with and
for them ! When masters give sudden notice of a reduction of
wages, without saying why and under what circumstances, the
men are under the necessity of taking an immediate course,
and having had no previous consultation, or time to deliberate^
they cannot help assuming a position of resistance not easily
altered by subsequent action. It is an unfortunate consequence
of the present organization of labour, or of production on a
large scale, that the employers do not deal with the men
individually, and that they are therefore called to act together
in a kind of combination. But that should not prevent a full
mutual understanding of the matter in question. 'Only, if a
deputation be sent to the masters, let it be composed of the
most trusted members in their employment. In the choice of
an ambassador, care is always taken to send one whose pre
sence shall be acceptable at the Court to which he is to be ac
credited, and similar care should be exercised in the selection
of those who are to represent the wishes and views of the
workmen to their masters. Avoid by all means all causes of
irritation at a time when you engage in negotiations requiring
for their solution mutual forbearance and mutual sympathy.
Whatever be the issue of such direct negotiations, care should
�9°
STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
be taken to allow time to work its own good, influence of better
counsel and more ripened judgment. A disposition to strike is
incident to the association of working men smarting under a
sense of wrong. When large numbers have a common griev
ance, a spirit of opposition is speedily engendered, and it is
well if they have not it in their power to act on the impulse of
the moment.
It has been said that Trade Unions encourage workmen to
resistance. Doubtless the feeling that they have such societies
at their back may render workmen less afraid of the issue, but,
on the other hand, an organized society, acting upon rules, must
also introduce an increased sense of order, subordination, and
reflection. Many of such Unions reserve in their own hands the
right of deciding whether a strike should be sanctioned or not.
Some of their rules perscribe that no strike shall be con
sidered legal without the consent of the majority of the lodges,
to all of whom information of any movement has to be sent;
that when a strike for an advance of wages is contemplated by
any lodge, the secretary is to report the same to the Central
Committee, showing the number that would be out, the number
of payable members, the state of trade, and the position of the
Society in the neighbourhood ; that should an attempt be
made unnecessarily to reduce the wages of any of the members,
or to increase their hours of labour unjustly, they shall first
solicit relief from their employers, and afterwards apply to the
president or secretary of their branch, who shall call a com
mittee, or general meeting to inquire into the case ; and that
should the members of any branch leave their employment
without having first obtained the sanction of the Executive
Committee, such members shall not be entitled to the allowance
provided in case of oppression. Would it not be desirable that
the rules of the different Unions on such an important matter
should be more uniform than they appear to be ? I see no
reason why Trade Unions should not operate most favourably
�STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
9i
in matters of strikes, and when we consider that part of the
funds entrusted to them is expended in the maintenance of
persons on strike, surely it becomes their interest to reduce the
demand for such purposes to the minimum possible.
When a strike has, unhappily, commenced, it is too much
to expect the maintenance of much courtesy between the parties,
and many are the circumstances which tend to increase the
bitterness arising from such a forced suspension of labour.
The time when the strike happens is often most inconvenient,
for advantage is taken of a brisk trade to insist on a rise of
wages, just when the employer is, so to say, at the mercy of the
employed. What if the work in operation was contracted for
on the basis of existing wages ? What if the contractor under
took, under penalties of a heavy character, to complete the work
'within a limited time ? What if the season be towards the close,
and the opportunity of fulfilling the engagement fast hastening
away ? Two persons are engaged in a partnership at will, the
condition being that either can retire when he pleases. Can
either leave at an inopportune moment, when difficult questions
are in suspense, when hazardous contracts are pending ? And
ought there not to be in the relation between masters and
men, as far as is possible and is otherwise applicable, the same
sense and practice of equity as we expect between partners
in trade ? A strike occurs, and in the plenitude of your right
you take your tools and go. Can you compel others to follow
your course ? Can you object to others coming to take your
place? You may wish to force your master to make the con
cession you demand, and you may regret seeing your efforts
frustrated by the avidity of others to grasp the chance of em
ployment on any condition ; but remember, you have no right to
interfere, and if you proceed to violence of any kind, even if it
be a slight assault, if you indulge in such threats as will convey
to the mind of such other parties that you will bring any form of
evil upon them, either in their person, property, or reputation,
�92
STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS.
with the intent of forcing them to act otherwise than you wish,,
or if you intimidate them by any deed or word which hnight
create fear, or if you molest them or obstruct them in the
exercise of their rights,—in either of such cases you commit a
wrong which may expose you to criminal proceedings.
A reference to past strikes is not very encouraging as totheir good results to workmen. In 1834 the workmen in the
Staffordshire potteries struck for an advance of wages, and
after fifteen weeks the masters yielded. Elated by their suc
cess, however, the men thought they could demand more, and
so two years after they struck for a diminution in the hours of
labour and a restriction in the number of apprentices. But the
masters were not so ready now to make concessions. They
united together, and they decided to suspend their manufacture
whenever the workmen struck to any master. And the strike
was an utter failure, though it cost the men ,£188,000. What
was gained on the previous occasion was more than lost only
two years after. In 1853 a great strike took place at Preston
for higher wages, which were unconditionally demanded. The
masters made some concessions, but these were indignantly
refused. So the mills were closed, 18,000 Jiands were rendered
inoperative, and after a lengthened struggle, in which the men
sPent Z100,000, submission became unavoidable. A few strikes
have proved successful, but many more have utterly failed.
Not many years ago seven distinct strikes took place in
Lancashire, every one of them unsuccessful. They involved
a loss of employment to 38,000 hands. They lasted a long
time one thirty weeks, another fifty weeks—and together they
produced a loss in wages of ,£757,000 ; and if you add to that
sum the profits on capital, and the subscriptions, at | of the
wages, the total loss exceeded £^1,000,000. In the recent un
happy strike in South Wales nearly 120,000 workers stood out
against a reduction of wages, and upwards of £3,000,000 in
wages was actually lost in the contest.
Did they succeed ?
�STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
93
l?ar from it. They refused, to accept a reduction of ten per
■cent., yet eventually they were compelled by the force of events
-f-0 re-enter work at a reduction of I21> per. cent. ! Suppose,
however, you do succeed in the contest. Remember that you
will have to work a long time at the higher wages before you
■can recover what you have lost by forfeiting the entire amount
week by week. Suppose you strike for 5^. more wages, or for
more in every pound. Dr. Watt made a calculation to show
in how long a time you will get back what you had before. A
week is two per cent, of a working year, or two per cent, of
the wage of one year. Let the strike succeed, and you will
require
year, at the increased rate, to make up for 1
month’s wages lost j 3v years to make up for 2 months
wages lost ; 4-t years to make up for 3 months wages lost ,
94 years to make up for 6 months’ wages lost; and 20 years
to make up for 12 months’ wages lost.
Do not think that the money distributed by the Trade
Societies during the strike goes to diminish the loss of the
persons on strike, for the money so consumed is the saving of
former labour, which might go towards further production. It
is one of the most unfortunate results of a strike, that funds
gained by toil and prudence are expended so fruitlessly in
times of forced idleness. During a strike you not only lose
what you might otherwise earn, but expend what you had
amassed. Nor is the loss confined to the workmen. The
employer is certainly as great a sufferer, for a strike may not
only rob him of his trade for the time being, but may. make
him lose the custom which he possesses, and the labour of men
of skill well versed in the peculiar work he has on hand,
never probably to be replaced, and probably affect also his
permanent power to produce as economically as heretofore.
If the strike be for higher wages when the condition of the
trade or of the nation cannot bear it, either the community will
suffer from the increased cost of the article produced, or else
�94
STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
it may cause the introduction of machinery. A strike may
have the effect of equalizing wages. An industry badly paid
may, by a strike, attract to itself part of the wages which fall
to another; but no equalization of wages can possibly be
equivalent to the production of capital, which alone can support
an increase of wages. If the strike be against the introduc
tion of machinery, it may be the means of the trade being
transplanted to other places. It was probably an exaggeration,,
some years ago, when it was asserted that the frequent strikes
of shipwrights’on the Thames caused shipbuilding to leave the
Thames for the Clyde and the i yne ; the real reason being that
iron shipbuilding found a more natural home where iron and
coals were immediately available. Yet it is no exaggeration to
say that an industry distracted and rendered unproductive in
one quarter may take wing and find rest in another. I have,,
indeed, proved in my previous lecture that up to 1873 at least
the trade and industry of England had not suffered from the
many disturbances which have taken place,—at least, not to any
material extent,—and that foreign competition had not till then
gamed upon British industry. But what has not yet been may
still be. The danger remains, though it may not be imminent.
I doubt the possibility of our ever reaching a time when there
shall be no strikes, for just in proportion as our labouring
population rises to the consciousness of its power, and seeks to
participate in a higher degree in the profits of production, so
the struggle between capital and labour may be expected to be
more frequent. But may we not expect that, side by side with
this, a greater disposition may also be engendered to remove
sources of quarrel, to soften their asperity when they do arise,
and to settle disputes by arbitration and conciliation ? Must
force ever reign ? Is the arbitrement of the sword befitting our
character and position in life. The legislature has done
whatever it could possibly do to provide for the adoption of
more peaceful means. A refusal to leave a matter of dispute to
�STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS.
95
arbitration betokens either haughtiness and arrogance, or
weakness.
I do not think that the appointment of one or
more strangers as arbitrators, be they lords, lawyers, or phi
lanthropists, is a desirable method, for their decision can, at
best, be a simple compromise of the immediate ground of dis
pute ; it will never be able to regulate the subsequent action of
the parties, and will be certain to leave one of the contending
parties dissatisfied with the result. A conciliation board, on
the other hand, within the establishment itself, composed of an
equal number of masters and men, with a neutral umpire, ah
of them having a perfect acquaintance, not only with the case
in point, but with the bearing of the question generally upon
production, and upon the comfort of working as concerning both
masters and men, and each of them possessing the full con
fidence of the parties interested, is sure to give a verdict
entitled to respect and assent. But let it be fully remembered
that it is the essence of arbitration or conciliation that you
commit the matter in dispute to the decision of other parties,,
and that you thereby incur an obligation to abide by their
verdict, whether it may go in your favour or against you,—
provided, of course, the arbitrators or the board confine them
selves strictly to the matter submitted to them. How far any
national board of arbitration may be advantageously established,
seems to me very doubtful. The first essential to success in any
effort for the prevention of disputes, or their early settlement, is
the possession of a conciliatory spirit, and a ready disposition
to consider the rights and interests of both sides. Let that
spirit prevail within the establishment among both masters and
men, and there will be no difficulty in arriving at an equitable
and satisfactory settlement of any disputes, however formidable
they may appear.
�VII.
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
About twenty years ago, a work was published in France, by
M. Le Play, the superintendent of the Paris International Ex
hibition, entitled “ Studies on the Labour, the Domestic Life, and
theMoral Condition of the Working Population of Europe,” giving
accurate and minute details, from actual fact, of all the money
received and expended during one year, by a certain number of
families of the working population in every country in Europe;
the income including the wages of the head of the family, as
well as of the mother and children, counting the actual number
of days they were at work, as well as any income from a garden
or parcel of land, rent of house or field, produce of pasture,
pig, sheep, or from any pension, funds, interest, and any miscel
laneous or accidental sources ; the expenditure divided into
expenses for food and drink, for house, fire, and light, for cloth
ing, for moral, educational, or religious purposes, for taxes,
recreation, or debt. And most interesting it is to compare the
habits of the different people, and the effects of temperature,
climate, race, and religion, on the description and quantity ot
food and drink used, the nature of their amusements, and the
amount devoted to the cause of charity and beneficence. I
imagine, however, that if a similar work were attempted regarding
the various classes of labourers in England, if, instead of com-
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
97
paring the French andthe Russian, the German and the Italian,
the Spanish, Turkish, and Greek labourers, with the English,
the Scotch, and the Irish, we had before us the real income and
expenditure of any number of families in England from among
the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the industrial classes,
in town and country, and in the metropolis, we would find
the same diversity of results, the same strange anomalies, and
the same gulf in the different traits of manner and character,
as can be found among them in any part of the world.
How, then, can I venture to give you the budgets of the working
classes ? Of what guidance can the income and expenditure of
one family of five be to the income and expenditure of another
family of ten ? What is there in common between a bachelor
living in lodgings and a young couple with two babies, and it may
be with a mother or father to keep ? The ways of life are very
different; so much depends on the surroundings of the family, on
the mode in which the parties have been brought up, the character,
the education, the state of health, and a vast variety of circum
stances, that, really, every household is a world of itself. Home
is the Englishman's castle—impregnable and inaccessible ; who
can assail it ? No ; my object is not to pry into matters which
are happily beyond the public gaze, but rather to lay before you
the value and importance of simply taking a good account of
what we are actually receiving, and what we are actually spend
ing, during the whole of a long year. You are aware that one
of the most important evenings of the Session in Parliament is
the evening when the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes his
financial statement j that is, when he reviews all the circum
stances connected with the income and expenditure of the State
during the preceding year, investigates the condition and pros
pects of the nation as respects the future, communicates his
calculations of the probable income and expenditure for the
year to come, and declares whether the burthens upon the
people are to be increased or diminished. This statement is
7
�98
*
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
familiarly known as the Budget, and it is regarded with the
greatest possible interest by the whole nation. Now if this is
a good practice for the State, would it not be an excellent practice
for private individuals also ! The large questions that have
engaged our attention in the previous lectures are most impor
tant. A knowledge of the economic laws which govern the rate
of wages is most interesting and valuable. Still more important,
however, in any case, is it to come home to ourselves, and to
consider whether our own annual income is fully equal to our
expenditure, whether every item of income of every member of
the family is duly gathered, accounted for, and properly utilized,
and whether the expenditure is, in every respect, moderate,
legitimate, and kept within proper control. “ Gear is easier got
than guided.” Have you ever tried to keep a diary? The
difficulty of persevering in it is immense. You require habits
of order and method not often possessed. Carefully to note
down what we are doing, and what happens to us every day, is
as difficult as to register all the money that comes and goes.
Merchants, who make all their payments by cheques, and who
draw all their current money by cheques on their bankers, have
a ready means of ascertaining what they get and expend during
the year. But those who have not the luxury of a banker must
keep a little book for themselves ; and it is wonderful how useful
and interesting it becomes in course of time for a comparison
with the past and a check for the future. Let your wife begin
to put down what she expends, and you begin to put down what
you expend,-—and what a monitor such a record will prove !
The pay of the labourer is his wages, but his earnings will
comprise also the produce of labour from any other industry
at spare hours, any allowance from any society, and the fruit of
any money or property he or any member of his family may have
at the savings bank, building society, trade society, or other
wise. The pay itself may consist either in money or in kind,
or in both ; and where clothing, board, or lodging is given, the
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
99
money value of the same ought to be taken into account. A
sailor who gets 6oj., or 70s., and sometimes 90s., per month,
must remember that during the whole time of his engagement
he is fed and lodged on board. An agricultural labourer often
gets very little money wages. But in Northumberland the
wages include an allowance of corn for a cow or pig, house and
garden, coals, etc. A hind’s poll in Scotland comprises a given
quantity of oats, barley, peas, and land enough for potato plant
ing. In Devonshire, besides the money wage, there is the allow
ance of cider, and a labourer has a cottage for £1, with a patch
of land, from which he can get vegetables for the whole year for
the entire family, and enough to feed a pig, which again becomes
a source of income. A domestic servant gets from ^10 to ^30 a
year, in money, besides board and lodging, which, in London at
least, are equivalent to as much again. In the occupations I have
noted, the combination of payment in money and kind is not
only indispensable, but really advantageous to the labourers. In
calculating the amount of earnings, therefore, do not forget the
value of the advantages you obtain from your employment over
and above the weekly or monthly wages in money.
Where, moreover, there are more earners than one in a family,
where the wife, or sons, or daughters, earn also money, and bring
it into the common purse, that must be calculated also.' I
imagine sons and daughters do not bring to their fathers and
mothers all they earn, or anything like it. Would that they did 1
A very large portion of the earnings of the younger members of
the whole working population is, I fear, utterly wasted, simply be
cause it never reaches the home treasury. The practice of either
father or children allotting any portion of their wages to the
wife or mother for their food, keeping the rest for themselves,
and throwing on the poor mother the burden of making the two
ends meet, is wrong in principle. The boarding system is wrong
when applied to the family. Oh for a return to the patriarchal
system of united and not divided interest! There are thousands
�IOO
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
of families of working people in England where the aggregate
earnings would amount to ^3 or £4 a week, but where no account
is taken of a great portion of the same. I am not exaggerating
when I say that in very many cases fully one-fourth of the
income of the family is, in this way, utterly squandered, leading
to no result, giving no comfort, and only going in waste,
drunkenness, and vice. It is the same, unfortunately, in the
country as in towns. The agricultural villages, which have been
greatly multiplied since the introduction of machinery into agri
culture, are the absorbent of most of the earnings of many hard
working agricultural labourers. The public-house, the music
hall, and other places of amusement, waste away many an income
which could maintain a family in honour and comfort.
In order to make the income and the expenditure meet, there
are only two ways: one is, to increase the income; the other
is, to diminish the expenditure. Don’t you be deceived into
any expectation that you may increase your income by any
other means than by hard work. Don’t you be so foolish as to
renounce any income now in the hope that by renouncing it
to-day, you may get more to-morrow. Get what you can, and
keep what you have, is the way to get rich. Don’t you trifle
with any penny you may get, simply trusting on the continuance
of health and work to earn more. Trust in Providence ? Yes,
but never forget the duty of using rightful means. There is one
source of income, moreover, which we should scorn to resort to,
unless under the direst necessity, and that is, the poor rate. I
am strongly of opinion that the poor law in England is most
destructive to the industry, forethought, and honesty of the
labourers. What more degrading than using the parish doctor
both for birth and death ? What more lowering than the
workhouse? What more inconsistent with political economy
than the supporting, by public rates, of able-bodied labourers ?
It is a noble axiom, that none shall die of hunger,—that the
wealth of the rich shall supply the necessities of the poor. But
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
IOI
it is communistic in essence, and in practice most mischievous.
The subject is a very difficult one, and a change from a system
which has been so long in use might be attended with hardship ;
but it is for the working classes to say how long a compulsory
charity shall be allowed to enervate the very vitals of their
character and independence. They manage poor relief better
in other countries. In Sweden, every able-bodied person is
expected to maintain himself, his wife, and children, as a legal
obligation. In France, there is no legal claim for support.
“ When the virtue of charity ceases to be private,” said M.
Thiers, “ and becomes collective, it ceases to be a virtue, and it
becomes a dangerous compulsion.” In Belgium, the classic land
of pauperism, there is no poor rate. The legal provision for the
support of the poor consists in the donations of the public, vested
in, and administered by, the civil authorities. In Elberfeld there
is a right to relief, but outdoor relief is entrusted to overseers, and
every person applying for help must show that he cannot exist
without it. In Italy there is no legal provision for the support of
the poor. Comparing the proportion of pauperism to population,
England may seem to stand better than any other country; but
remember, the amount of charity in England, over and beyond
any provision of the poor law, is far in excess of what is given
abroad. Look at the report of the Charity Commissioners. See
how much is spent and squandered in every parish. See what
is passing through the poor box in every police office in the
metropolis. The public support of the sick, the lame, the blind,
the old, and the helpless infant, is a duty; but it is a disgrace
in any one who earns enough and, it may be, to spare, to abandon
an old father or mother, a wife or a child, to the miserable
pittance of the parish. It is a shame and a crime, by extrava
gance and waste, to throw our burden off our shoulders. Burden,
did I say ? There is no sweeter joy, no pleasanter duty, than
to contribute to the well-being of our dear ones, our friends, and
our kindred.
�102
BUDGETS OB THE WORKING CLASSES.
It is time, however, to turn to the other side of the account—
the expenditure. There is a well-known saying fitly applicable
to our subject—“ Cut your coat according to your cloth.”
Measure your expenditure by your income. It is a most un
fortunate practice of our Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
making up the financial statement of the nation, that he does
exactly the reverse, by measuring the public income by the public
expenditure. But he can do that, because he has a whole nation
to fall upon, by compulsory taxation. Not so the private
individual. You and I have no other resource than what we
earn; and we must, of necessity, measure our ekpenditure
by that, and by nothing else whatever. In any case, under no
circumstances, allow yourselves to fall into debt, for it is the
certain source of ruin. “Out of debt out of danger.” A very
large number of the plaints brought before the county courts
consist of sums not exceeding 4°r., and many are for sums not
exceeding ij. It is impossible to exaggerate the burden, the
aggravation, the misery, and the dependence of a man who
gets into the habit of purchasing what he requires, often, it may
be, in excess of what he needs, but with the consciousness of
not having the wherewithal to pay for it. “ Cut your coat ac
cording to your cloth.” Never give out what does not come in.
Avoid, above all, shop debt ; for you pay very dear for it, in
exorbitant prices of all you purchase.
I do hope Mr. Bass
will succeed in his effort to abolish imprisonment for debt, as
a discouragement to shops to sell on credit, for then prices would
sink to the scale of cash prices, and shopkeepers would get rid
of a great deal of care. Have the money before you spend it,
and you will be sure to economise it to the very best.
" Ken when to spend, and when to spare,
And when to buy, and you’ll ne'er be bare,”
The expenditure of a working man’s family cannot differ very
much from the expenditure of a person of the middle classes,
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
103
except in this, that the proportion of what is spent in necessaries,
comforts, or luxuries must vary according to the amount of
income. With 5 or. or 6or. a week, you may devote some
portion to the comforts or even the luxuries of life. With 20J.
a week, you may be thankful if you can provide for the neces
saries of life. Our absolute wants usually consist of bread,
flour, vegetables, meat, butter, sugar, tea, and milk ; house-rent,
fire and light, clothing, and the education of children. These
are the necessaries of life. The comforts of life consist, pro
bably, in an extensive use of these very things, plus spices and
condiments, newspaper and omnibus, church and charity,
an excursion, and some insurance for the future. And the
luxuries may consist of tobacco and drink, frivolities, pots
of flowers, keeping of birds, etc. But are we all agreed in
such a classification as this ? Time was when white bread
was a luxury ; now it is an article of common use, as a neces
sary of life. Meat is necessary, but is it necessary to eat it
every day ? And is there not a material difference between
purchasing a prime joint and other portions equally if not
more nutritious ? Clothing is necessary, but what clothing ?
Are bonnets with feathers and flowers necessary ? Are twenty
yards necessary for a dress ? N eed we all dress in silk attire ?
Whether an article of use is to be classed among the neces
saries, comforts, or luxuries of life depends in a great measure
on the standard by which we are guided, on the ideal we form
for ourselves of our own wants.
Looking over a large number of budgets in the work already
■quoted on European labourers, in returns kindly sent to me
direct by several workmen, and in the reports of the Secre
taries of Legation on the industrial condition of the working
classes abroad,* the conclusion I arrive at of a legitimate
appropriation of wages is somewhat as follows : 60 per cent.
* See Appendix B.
�104
BUDGETS OF THE WOEKTNG CLASSES.
is required for food and drink ■ 12 per cent, for'rent and taxes •
10 per cent, for clothing; 6 per cent, for fire and;[light; 1 peicent. for newspapers, omnibus, or travelling;' 4 per cent, for
church, education, and charity; 2 per cent, for amusementsand 5 per cent, for savings. In other words, for every pound of
wages the expense would be-12.. for food and drink; 2s.
for
lodgmg; 3d. forfiring and light; 2s. for clothing; 2ff. for omnibus
and newspaper ; t,. 6d. for church, education, and charity •
for amusements; and u. for saving in any insurance company
or benefit club. But this takes no account of the doctor’s bill
nor of slack time, and it would be only fair that some economy
should be made in either of the items to meet these possible
if not unavoidable, drawbacks. Nor are drink and tobacco’
specially calculated, for the cost of a reasonable quantity of beer
should certainly be included in the 12J. for food and drink
and the cost of the tobacco should be included in the expense
for amusement,-if, by any construction of language, smoking
can be considered an amusement. As a general rule, the neces
saries of life should be first provided ; and whatever excess may
remam may go towards the comforts of life; but, under any cir
cumstance, leave something for saving. It may be kind to be
liberal, and to be anxious to make every member of the family,
day by day, as comfortable as your means allow; but it is
kinder far to provide something for the almost inevitable con
tingency of sickness, want of work, or old age, when you, that
are now the strength and support of the family, are com
pelled sadly to put all work aside, or when any member of your
family, from disease or otherwise, may have to draw more on
your resources than you are able to provide.
Need I say that a considerable economy may be effected in
our. every-day expenditure without abridging in the slightest
manner our means of subsistence and comfort ? You buy | of
an ounce of the best tea, and you are charged fff.—equivalent to
4s- per pound. Buy J pound for cash, and you may get the same
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
105
tea at the rate of y. or 2s. 6d. per pound. Is there not much
waste in our cooking ? Is there not wanton waste in many of our
household arrangements ? A penny here and a penny there, and
soon shillings and pounds vanish. It is, however, impossible,
when we come to details such as these, not to place in the very
foremost rank of waste a very considerable portion of what is
spent in drink. Am I wrong in supposing that a person earning
30^. a week will spend 3^. in drink, that being considered a
moderate allowance for dinner and supper ? Am I exaggerating
when I say that in a very large number of cases that pro
portion is far, far exceeded, the amount so expended often being
more than 25 or 30 per cent, of the income ? What is the use
of reasoning on economy in little matters with such a drain
as this? What can the poor wife do with the very small
amount entrusted to her for housekeeping? And how often
does a dissipated husband make a dissipated wife ! What a
wretched example for children ! What a source of vice and
crime drunkenness is proving over the whole country! I am
not in favour of the so-called Permissive Bill, because it would
introduce strife in parishes, and because I think it would, at
best, be of partial application, and might be applied just
where it is least needed.
Nor can I say that we should
lightly interfere with any legitimate business, or with the
common rights of the people.
If there is a demand, the
supply will most assuredly be forthcoming somehow or other.
No, the reform must begin with ourselves. Reasons of duty,
reasons of self-respect, reasons of education, must impel us
to remove this source of scandal, at any rate, from our own
shoulder, and by our exhortation, and by our example, strive to
blot it out from the escutcheon of England. When I last
visited Liverpool I was attracted by the cocoa-shops established
in the immediate centre of the dock and sea-faring population,
and there I got a mug of cocoa for \d. and a scone for ^d.—both
excellent and satisfying. Take that in the morning, and you
�io6
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES
will find it an excellent preservative against any craving for
strong drink. All honour to Mr. Lockhart for his noble efforts
in that direction. Would that we had such cocoa-shops in
London! Would that public-houses without drink, and public
coffee and working men’s clubs,, were multiplied, for I am sure
there is ample room, and an imperious need, for extensive
efforts in improving the morals of the people in this one direc
tion. I do not trust much in the power of an Act of Parliament
to make people temperate. But I do trust in a sound and
wholesome public opinion, and I appeal to you to create it by
your hearty, spontaneous, and energetic example and action.
Who will help in this glorious enterprise? Do not wait for
great opportunities. Begin at once, and at home. In Mr.
Smiles’ excellent work on Thrift there is a story illustrative of
the influence of example in this matter which is worth re
peating :—
“A calico printer in Manchester was persuaded by his wife,
on their wedding-day, to allow her two half-pints of ale a day,
as her share. He rather winced at the bargain, for, though a
drinker himself, he would have preferred a perfectly sober wife.
They both worked hard, and he, poor man, was seldom out of
the public-house as soon as the factory was closed. She had
her daily pint, and he, perhaps, had his two or three quarts,
and neither interfered with the other, except that, at odd times,
she succeeded, by dint of one little gentle artifice or another,
to win him home an hour or two earlier at night, and now and
then to spend an entire evening in his own home. They had
been married a year, and on the morning of their wedding
anniversary the husband looked askance at her neat and
comely person, with some shade of remorse, as he said, ‘ Mary,
we’ve had no holiday since we were wed ; and, only that I have
not a penny in the world, we’d take a jaunt down to the village
to see thee mother.’
Would’st like to go, John ?’ said she, softly, between a smile
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
and a tear, so glad to hear him speak so kindly,
io7
so like old
times. £ If thee’d like to go, John, I’ll stand treat.’
“ £ Thou stand treat! ’ said he, with half a sneer : £ has’t got a
fortune, wench?’
« £ Nay,’ said she, £ but I’ve gotten the pint o’ ale.’
“ £ Gotten what ? ’ said he.
“ £ The pint o’ ale,’ said she.
“ John still didn’t understand her, till the faithful creature
reached down an old stocking from under a loose brick up the
chimney, and counted* over her daily pint of ale, in the shape
of three hundred and sixty-five threepences, or ^4 4-y* 6^-, and
put them into his hand, exclaiming, £ Thou shalt have thee
holiday, J ohn 1 ’
“John was ashamed, astonished, conscience-stricken, charmed,
and wouldn’t touch it. £Hasn’t thee had thy share? Then
I’ll ha’ no more ! ’ he said. He kept his word. They kept theii
wedding day with mother, and the wife’s little capital was the
nucleus of a series of frugal investments, that ultimately swelled
out into a shop, a factory, a warehouse, a country seat, a carriage,
and perhaps a Liverpool mayor.”
In England, the working classes have not much reason to
complain that their taxes are too heavy. That every subject
of the kingdom should, in proportion to his means, contribute his
quota to the general taxation is a principle of finance universally
admitted.
As members of the commonwealth, we are all,
though certainly in different degrees, interested in securing its
preservation and advancement. The poorest among us feels
an interest, if not pride, in the honour and glory of his fatherland. In truth, we should regard the national expenditure in
the light of an insurance, and the payment of the premuim as
a common duty and privilege. During the last thirty years,
however, nearly every step in the reform of the Budget has
been in the direction of lessening the taxes which pressed on
the necessaries of life, and of increasing the taxes affecting
�10S
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
wealth, industries, and, especially, luxuries. Taxes on sugar, tea,
co ee, corn, and on a vast number of imported articles have
been greatly reduced, or remitted altogether; and in their stead
stamp duties, income tax, land tax, probate duties, and duties on
spirits malt, wine, and tobacco have been newly imposed or in
creased. And what is the result? Of the taxes affecting wealth
and industry, amounting in all to
000,000, the working
classes do not pay more than half a million. Of taxes on ne
cessaries they may pay probably £2,500,ooo-the greater part on
tea. But of the taxes on luxuries, including spirits, malt, and to
bacco, the working classes pay their full quota in some£23,ooo,ooo
a year. But this large sum of taxation, borne by the working
classes under this head, is entirely voluntary. Give up drinking,
give up tobacco, and you avoid nearly every farthing of taxation.
owhere, probably, are the working classes treated with more
consideration than in England. What a pity that greater advan
tage is not taken of this wonderful exemption ! As it is, no tax
of any consequence is paid by the working classes, except in
t e slight addition caused by the duties on the cost of their
spirits, malt liquor, or narcotics ; and no one would grumble if
these taxes were considerably increased.
I have ventured to give what might be deemed a legiti
mate distribution of the expenditure of our working classes
Now, look at the results. I have estimated the total annual
wages and earnings of the working classes at the large amount
o £400,000,000, including money and money’s worth ; but take
no account of money’s worth, and assume only £300,000,000
in hard cash as falling into the hands of our working classes.
And on the proportion given, the money should go in the following
shapes : £180,000,000 would be expended on food and drink;
£36,000,000 in rent; £6,000,000 in firing and light; £30,000,000
m clothing; £3,000,000 in newspapers, omnibuses, and rail
way travelling, £12,000,000 in church, education, and
charity; £6,000,000 in amusements; whilst £15,000,000 would
�BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES. '
109
be reserved, for savings. But is the money so expended ?
Let us see. We may fairly assume that the ,£180,000,000 is
fully expended in food. The £36,000,000 laid down for house
rent tallies, so far, with the census report of 1871, showing
that the rental of houses under ,£20 had an estimated
aggregate annual value of ^32;000?000, Fire and light will
cost quite as much as I have estimated. The amount given for
clothing is, I fear, rather below than above the amount annually
expended. And so, probably, the amount given for amusements
and other items. But as for the ^12,000,000 expended in church,
education, and charity, and ,£15,000,000 reserved for saving,
alas ! where are they ? No, my calculations are fallacious in
two distinct items. Instead of the 60 per cent, given for food
covering the amount expended in drink, that item, to the ex
tent of fully 15 per cent, of the whole income, or £45,000,000,
and also 2 per cent, or £6,000,000 for tobacco, or, in all,
,£51,000,000, must be added as a separate and additional ex
penditure. But if this large amount is really so expended, as
is, unhappily, most likely to be the fact, if it is not indeed
greatly exceeded, what remains for church, education, and
charity, or for savings, or for any other rational purpose ?
Positively nothing. The little saved—probably £3,000,000 or
,£4,000,000 a year—as indicated in the annual increase of the
amount in the savings banks, friendly and building societies,
co-operative societies, etc., is the fruit of the economies of some
families, too few in number to constitute any perceptible
percentage in the whole number of the working population of
the country.
Now this I consider a very lamentable result of the budgets
of the working classes. What wonder if debt and pauperism
be rampant? What surprise can it cause that days of
sunshine and prosperity are so soon followed by dark,’ dark
days of misery and wretchedness ? I hope I may be wrong in
my calculations.
But if I am not, as I fear is not the case, it
�no
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
may not be in vain that I have called your attention to the
subject.
In discoursing upon the budgets of the working
classes, it would be wrong to ignore the thousand cases of
real, unmistakable hardship. That there is real poverty in
the land, that there is suffering, want, and misadventure, who
can ignore? The difficulties of the poor, their valour and
fortitude in bearing with and mastering them, are best known
to those who come most intimately in contact with them.
Their charitable disposition towards their friends in trouble,
their self-sacrifice, their heroism in labour, have been depicted
by the most masterly hands. But I am now speaking to the
great mass of our working men and women, and I say, if you
will avoid falling into the deep mire of calamities, if you will
maintain yourselves in comfort, honour, and self-reliance, look to
your budget, and endeavour so to economise your income that
you may have always enough and to spare.
�VIII.
SAVINGS BANKS AND OTHER INVESTMENTS OF THE
WORKING CLASSES.
The drift of all my Lectures has been—Look well into your
estate. Large economies depend upon little economies. If
you must be liberal in some kind of expense, do try to save in
some other. If you will be plentiful in diet, be at least saving
in drink. Let not your candle burn at both ends. By all
means, try to save. But how ? By putting aside whatever is
not absolutely indispensable for present want, in order that you
may make a reserve for unforeseen eventualities. And be not
ashamed to save. Call it not penury, miserliness, niggardliness,
and the like. A disposition to save for the future, a prescience
of, and a preparation for, what is to come, are just what place
us above the brute. Savages are not thrifty. They live from
day to day.
It is prudence that prompts us to save, and
wisdom that regulates the amount of our savings. It is modera
tion which enables us to realize any saving, and intelligence
which enables us to render it fruitful. And what are prudence,
wisdom, moderation, and intelligence, but the offspring of
civilization and morals? To have no thought for the morrow,
to have no regard for the welfare of friends and relatives, to
make no provision for old age and sickness, to indulge in
waste while the sun shines, never reflecting that after summer
�112
SA TINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
comes winter, are not consistent with our moral duties and
obligations. Is it a true picture of the English what Mr.
Smiles said, that though they are a diligent, hard-working, and
generally self-reliant race, they are not yet sufficiently educated
to be temperate, provident, and foreseeing; that they live for
the present, and are too regardless of the coming time ; that
though industrious, they are improvident—though money-making
they are spendthrift. I would fain believe that the future is too
highly drawn, for, certainly, there is no nation of the world that
puts aside so much wealth from year to year as England. What
is it but thrift that renders this country able to accumulate
capital at such an enormous ratio ? Ask the merchant and the
manufacturer, and they will tell you that they must and do
strain every nerve to increase their capital. The State, it is true,
has no reserve in the Tower to meet any possible contingency of
war as France had, prior to the Napoleonic wars, in the palace
of the Tuileries. We make no account of the blessing of water
when it rains in abundance. We have no public granaries for
the storing of the surplus of prosperous harvest years. Yet
production and saving must be far in excess of our expenditure,
or else how could wealth increase so fast ? No, there is much
saving going on in England, but the effort is made compara
tively by the few. How often do we see calculations, almost
fabulous, of what good could be done if we would only put
aside what is superfluous or wasteful! What number of churches
and schools, of museums and palaces, of parks and gardens,
could be built and provided with the expenses now allotted to
the army and navy, or the sum devoted to the interest of the
national debt, or the amount expended in drink, or any other
luxuries. Alas I alas! the dreams of the reformer are not so
easily realized.
The first step in the way of saving is to spend well.
You
save one pound. Spend it on some evening classes to learn
drawing or mechanics, arithmetic or French, whatever may be
�SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
113
most useful to you. Remember, we are never too old to learn.
Better late than never. You save another pound. Buy Cassell’s
Popular or Technical Educator. Spend it in, or set it aside to
wards, a new set of tools for your employment. • Lay it out, in short,
in what may be useful to you in improving your fitness for work,
in enabling you to raise yourself and earn better wages. Howmuch has been set aside in tools and implements by our work
ing classes it would be difficult to estimate. A joiner’s tools
may be worth £10, and more, but unhappily with the introduc
tion of machinery the labourer is no longer called to provide
himself with tools and implements, and so this form of saving is
rather diminishing than increasing. Well prepared for your
work, look to your house. By all means let it be comfortable,
cheerful, and well furnished. Mr. Mundella noticed the great
demand for pianofortes and other musical instruments for work
ing men’s houses. Do not indulge in luxuries, but do take a
pride in having a pretty house, a full house, and a comfortable
home. Am I wrong in taking ^10 each, at least, as the
value of furniture in the 3,500,000 houses tenanted by working
people? If so, then some ^35,000,000 or ^40,000,000 must
have been set aside by them in this form.
Under no circumstances, I pray you, keep your money in
your pockets, for it may not be long there. The coin is round,
and it rolls away swiftly. Temptations are strong. The shops
are inviting. If you keep your money loose, you may not have
the fortitude to resist the attraction to spend it amiss. So put
it aside. And where ? Not inside an old stocking, not under a
brick, but at the savings bank. The savings banks only com
menced with the opening of the present century. In 1798,
a Miss Priscilla Wakefield founded a bank at Tottenham, for
receiving the savings of workwomen and female domestic ser
vants. In 1799, an offer was made by the Rev. Joseph Smith,
of Wendover, to receive any part of the savings of the people in
his parish every Sunday evening, during the summer, and to
8
�H4
SA CLEGS OR THE WOREiimG CLASSES.
repay them at Christmas, with the addition of one-third of the
whole amount deposited, as a bounty; and in 1810, the Rev.
Henry Duncan founded the Parish Bank Friendly Society at
Ruthwell. These were the days of small things, but institutions
of this nature soon multiplied, and so a Bill was introduced in
the House of Commons by Mr. Whitbread to make use of the
Post Office machinery for the purpose of receiving and repaying
the savings of the people, though matters were not ripe for that
step. However, in 1817 the first Act was passed upon the subject,
authorising the formation of savings banks for the purpose of
receiving deposits of money for the benefit of the persons de
positing, allowing the same to accumulate at compound interest,
and to return the whole, or any part of the same, to depositors,
after deducting the necessary expense of management, but
deriving no profit from the transaction. The limit of the de
posits was set at ^100 for the first year, and /50 for every year
following, and the interest allowed to depositors was 4 per cent,
net; the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt
paying the trustees for the amount invested with them, at the rate
of 3d. per day for every ^100, producing an interest of ^4 iu. 3^.
Some change was made in the limits of deposits in 1824, reducing
it to ^30 for the first year, and ^30 for the subsequent ones; the
whole not to exceed ^150, and interest to cease when principal
and interest amounted to ^200,—as at present. But money
having become less valuable, in 1844 the interest to depositors
was reduced to ^3 os. iod. per cent, per annum. And how
great has been the success of such measures ! In 1817, on the
first formation of these banks, the amount due to depositors
was^^ooo. In 1831, the amount rose to ^15,000,000, and
thirty years after, in-1861, it reached £42,000,000. By that
time, however, the proposal to make use of the Post Office for
facilitating the employment of the savings of the people acquired
more force from the failure of some savings banks, whilst the
eagerness shown by the people in France in responding to the
�SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
115
appeal of Napoleon III. for one loan after another, with full
confidence in their national securities, commended the use of
the Post Office as an instrument for multiplying the means of
depositing the savings of the people all over the country, as
alike convenient and advantageous. So the suggestion years
before made by Mr. Whitbread was taken up in earnest. And
in i860 Mr. Gladstone laid before the House of Commons a
plan which became the basis of the pi esent system. For a
short time, the old savings banks somewhat suffered from the
presence of these fresh competitors, but they speedily recovered,
and now whilst the Trustees Savings Banks have an amount as
large as ever, or ^42,000,000, the Post Office Banks, so suddenly
sprung up, have already in hand ^25,000,000—making in all
^67,000,000.
This amount is supposed to represent, at least to a large ex
tent, the savings of the labouring classes. There is no means,
however, of ascertaining the classes of persons to whom such
deposits really belong. The probability is that not an incon
siderable portion of such savings belongs to the middle classes,
who need such instruments of saving quite as much as the
working classes. If we take two-thirds of the whole amount
as belonging to the working classes, the sum to their credit
would be ^45,000,000. Nor is this all, for there are a large
multitude of small savings banks connected with Sunday
schools, churches, and other societies, which are of great value,
and which would be found to have together a handsome sum.
The present Post Office Savings Banks fail in their not being
open in the evening, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays,
in their not receiving less than one shilling at a time, and in
their limiting the deposits to ^3° a year. The Society of Aits
and the Provident Knowledge Society represented these wants
to the Postmaster-General, and whilst he consented to open the
banks in the evening, at least gradually, he objected to the
diminution of deposits to less than ij. on the ground of expense-
�u6
SAJHNGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
As it is, every transaction of a depositor, whether he pays in
or draws out money, costs the State nearly 6d. Let the de
posit be i^„ and for each transaction the cost may be ij.
To the objection against the limits of £3o, the Postmaster
said that it was necessary to maintain it on account of
expense, and also for the purpose of keeping clear of com
petition with the ordinary business of bankers. Meanwhile,
however, the National Penny Bank has been founded, in which
our friend Mr. Hamilton Hoare takes a deep interest. It is
open in the evening. It has school branches and workshop
branches, and it is perfectly safe. Patronise it with your pennies,
Do not imagine, indeed, that every penny or pound once de
posited at the savings banks is allowed to remain there. Far,
far from it. It is an advantage certainly of the savings bank
that you have no trouble in taking out whatever you need, but
remember the pith and marrow of the transaction is to keep the
money there. Once taken out, unless, indeed, for the purpose
of a better investment, and it is done. Look at the accounts for
1875, for England only. During that year the old Trustees
Savings Bank received /6,656,000, and actually paid out
^7?O49?OO°? or more than they got. True, some of that money
has possibly been transferred to the Post Office Savings Banks,
and there we find that they received in the year .£8,779,000,
and paid back £6,864,000. But, certainly, it is not satisfactory
that, with receipts amounting in all to upwards of £i5,ooo,oooj
the amount left, or saved, in all the savings banks in one year,
was only £1,5 22,000. Just imagine how many must have tried to
save something, and how few have been able to manage it. How
many must have started with a good resolution, how few were
strong enough to keep to it. And how many must have used
the savings banks simply for a temporary convenience, probably
till Christmas or Whitsuntide, or till the want or the fancy
came to buy something. Thankful, indeed, we may be that
so much has been gathered, and that such a substantial sum
�OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
H7
as /45 000,000, or thereabout, remains there on account of the
nrkino- classes Only remember, it is the accumulation of very
- a matter of fact, if we compare the deposrts
per head of the population in 18S1 and .874, - find tha he
smallest per centage increase has been m England
Whilst^
England the increase was at the rate of 53 pei
•>
it was 175 per cent., and in Scotland 200 per cent.
In connection with savings banks I pray you to remember that
by allowing 3 per cent, per annum the nation loses a large sum
of money every year* The Post Office Savings Banks allow only
per cent., and I venture to say that with the present low
value of money it will not be long before the Trustees Savings
Banks will have to revise their system, unless they obta
greater freedom in the choice of investments. In France, the
savings banks invest their funds in landed and other real pro
perty^ well as in the public funds. In Belgium, they even dis
count bills. InHolland,theylendonmortgages. Needlsaytha
in the United Kingdom all the deposits are invested in the Bntis
funds 7 Whether or not greater latitude might be allowed in the
investments consistently with sufficient security, .s a question for
grave consideration. Comparing the savings bank system in
England and other countries, it would appear that England stands
far ahead, in Europe at least. In 1874, m England and Wales,
the savings banks had £2 yn 8<Z. per head, Scotland £1 1 w.
Ireland nr., France gs. toil., Holland Jr. 4rf, Austria 36s. yi.,
Germany 3^., Switzerland 84s., Italy r6r. 6.. While Great
Britain had 9,436 depositors for every 100,000 persons, Switzer
land had 20,3m, and France only 5,600. But, for purposes of
comparison, you must take into account other faculties of invest
ments, and the habits of the people. The workmg people 0
France and Belgium are less venturesome than those of Englan .
* On the 20th November, 1876, the deficiency from the amount of the liabilitS of tie Government, and the value of the securities held by the Com
missioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, amounted to £a,5^,727
�H8
0^
l^OA^VG CLASSES.
They prefer becoming rentieres, or fundholders, to having money
at their disposal at the savings bank, and still more they like a
plot of ground which they may call their own. The subdivision
o and in France certainly favours this, and the Frenchman
e lghts m it. In England land is not to be had. The funds
o not present much facility for investment. Whilst in England
no m°re than 228,696 persons are entitled to various amounts
of dividends on the several kinds of stock in the public funds, in
rance the number of fundholders is given at 5,500,000. It is
safety and physical grasp of the property that mostly attract
the Frenchman. The Englishman is quite prepared to hazard a
ittle more for profit. After all, the savings banks offer no suffi
cient compensation. All they do is to keep for you any sum
of money you please, paying you as high a rate of interest as
and indeed more than, money is worth in this great storehouse
of capital.
Next to having some ready money always available in case
of need, we do well if we can make provision to secure some
help m case of sickness, or special contingencies ■ and here come
to our aid the many friendly societies. In the savings banks
e depositor’s capital remains his own, he has full freedom to
use it howsoever he likes, and can withdraw it whenever he
likes. In a friendly society the capital of the members con
stitutes a common fund; the investor is understood to devote the
amount to the object of the society, and he can get the fund
back only on the happening of certain events. The purposes
of friendly societies are very varied. They relieve members in
sickness and old age ; they furnish proper medicine and medical
attendance; they provide members with assistance when tra
velling in search of employment; they assist them when in
istress ; they provide a sum on the death of members for their
widows and children; and they defray the expense of burialcomplete list of such societies in every part of the kingdom
would show how extensively the spirit of association is in opera-
�SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
tion First is the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows Next is
the Ancient Order of Fore^XtXVd" ReZite
Zpeyran“ FrieX' sXyZ for its motto, “ We will drink
LX for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded
"Z Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons, fo
ever.” Besides these, and among many others we ha«t e^
c*
a »
TJparts of Oak Benefit Society?
Dreids” “The Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds,” “The Order
golden Fleece,” “ The Stat of the E-t,” and many mu,
numberin'* together one million and a quarter of members Aft
heTe come the burial societies, with another milhon mid hatf of
members. Then the societies
ZdLiXs ” aL
Sisters ” the “ Comforting Sisters,” the United Siste ,
Xe Daughters of Temperance.” The Scottish Societies go
by the names of “ The Humane,” “ The Protector,
Accord” “The Thistle” Ireland has her Emerald Isle T
bne So’ciety,” the “ Adam and Eve Tontine,” the “ St. DommiP
“St Ignatius,”“St. Joseph,” andmany more. Besides the frien y
societE proper, there are the trade unions, which are friendly
societies and something more ; the industrial an provi en
societies, constituted for carrying on trade ; the loan socie i
and co-operative societies, which have of late made wonderfu
progress. These friendly societies have been ivi e
y
commissioners into seventeen classes. And even these byno
means exhaust all the varieties of societies thus formed. A
y
all solvent? Can they be all recommended? Their object is,
doubtless, good, their intention excellent. But do they Kt e
proper precautions in their investments of money. Do they t
sufficient account of the rate of mortality in the different emp oyments. Are the returns they give reliable ? Should W society
of this character be allowed to meet at public-houses
I
hone the Act recently passed may eventually afford sufficient
guarantees for the 4,000,000 members interested in sue
�120
SA™rCS OF THE WORIawG CLASSES.
societies, having together about g'to,000,000 or ZI2 000 000
"aXa‘
°f thCir
ove^xx:: xx xxxsfrom bWers’
yourseives with such societies, XXXXZXX
are registered, those whose accounts are properly audited and
ose which can produce real certificates that they are sound
solvent, and safe.*
ouna’
.. °.f friendl>'societies th= most useful, when properly used are
«
certa-n
AXr
"r ; “d theSC
”gSa° yiS
"’1WSe
te™inatin»’
F“Xbe
J- °r Peil°dlcal sums> "’h>oh accumulate till the
ate sufficient to give a stipulated sum to each member
When the whole is divided amongst them. The members of
funds
sue societies may have the amount of their share in anticipation
by allowing a large discount,-not all, however, but such as by a’
sort of auction, bid the highest sum of discount, the repayment
bemg secured by mortgages on real or household property The
P-mnent societies do not disso.ve upon the completion of the
ares In a termmatmg society a person must either become
member at the time the'society is established or else pay a
rge amount of back subscriptions. In a permanent, one mac
become a member at any time. In a terminating, one does not
now ow ong he has to continue his payments, and how much
ay withdraw. In a permanent, he does. Together they
have a capital of some ^2,000,000, of which perhaps ,£8,000,000
may belong to the working classes. Are building societies advantageous as an investment for the working classes ? Are they
sa^e.
toperly conducted, a building society ought to be safe,
FrieJdlySodetv^n1305^ tHat
Government shou’d establish a National
the PostOffice Savin*s Banks;
of the causes and d ° t
%
X
abS6nCe °f any reliable data
cost of management n nd°th
]iaMity to decePtion2 the
meats
&
’
he dlfficulty of securing the continuance of pay-
�SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
121
for it invests its funds in houses and other real property, and
it ought to be able to calculate exactly what its funds at com
pound interest are likely to produce. And as for conveni
ence, I can conceive no investment more attractive than one
which may enable you in a comparativly few years to have a
house of your own. In London, indeed, the distance between
your house and your work, the expense of living in the suburbs,
and the uncertainty of remaining long in any employment m
any locality, may prove an obstacle to the purchase of a house,
but I cannot conceive a more mischievous disposition m any
family than that of being continually shifting from place to
place. “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” What waste is the
expense of removing ! What unfixedness of habits '. What
discouragement to beautify your house—to make it a home.
Stay still, my friends. And by all means if you can, buy a house
for yourselves. It is the best and most profitable expenditure
you can possibly make.
The building society will provide you with a house to dwell
in. The friendly society will see that in sickness you have a
doctor, and that on your death you may have a decent burial.
But what of the friends you must leave behind? For any
security to them, you must have recourse to the provident
principle of life insurance. Based on the fixedness of the law
of nature, which not only lays a bound to our natural life, but
seems to indicate what proportion of any given number of
human beings is likely to die, at every age, the life insurer
is ready to take upon himself the obligation to pay a certain
amount to your friends and relatives whenever you may die,
be it to-morrow or fifty years hence, provided you engage to
pay, and do actually pay, every year, as long as you live, a fixed
annual premium. Suppose you have a wife and children, and
you are anxious that when you die they shall not remain pemless. If you are thirty years of age you will have to pay, say,
£2 is. 6d. per annum to secure ^100 at death for your friends.
�122
SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
But mind you—and this is a hard measure in life insurancethat if you do miss a single year, you lose all you have put in.
er, say, ten years, you may surrender the policy to the Office
and get some allowance for what you have paid. But not be
fore But can workmen engage to make annual payments, and
an they be sure of continuing them ? This is indeed the difficu ty, or the collection of weekly payments is very costly, and
hitherto, where insurance has been tried among working men, the
proportion of lapses is very large. It is certainly an advantage,
in life insurance, that it compels you to make some self-sacrifice
nay, to make a very hard struggle every year, somehow, to pay
the premium; for the longer you pay it the safer is the policy.
ou are not likely to grudge paying the premium, because you
wish for yourself length of days, whatever it may cost. And the
insurance company will be glad if you live very long, if you be
come a very centenarian, for then it will get the premium out of
you twice or three times over. But workmen having uncertain
employments have great difficulty to meet the demands of life
insurance. Nevertheless, 1 do wish life insurance could be ex
tended among the labouring classes, for it is of great comfort
and benefit, and the upper and middle classes use it largely, up
wards of £300,000,000 being insured upon their lives, upon which
they pay more than £ 10,000,000 per annum in premium. The
Government has provided for the granting of Government
annuities and insurance in connection with the Post Office ; and
there if you only succeed in paying the premium for five years,
you will be entitled, if you wish to discontinue it, to the sur
render value. But the working classes do not seem to have taken
much advantage of the plan. Founded as far back as 1865, con
tracts have been entered into for the purpose by the Post Office,
for less than £300,000. Insurance companies do not come to
you. You must go to them. If you do decide upon insuring, take
care to choose the safest office ; for valuable as life insurance is,
it should not be forgotten that’the actual solvency of the com-
�SAWINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
123
puny depends on the accuracy of the data upon which it carries
on its business, on the rate of mortality which they
™
the rate of interest which they are able to realize,. an
portion of income from premium which they are able tc. reserve
for future expenses and profits. Inthe words of Messrs. Malcolm
and Hamilton, who have reported on the accounts o insurance
companies, “taking insurance business as it ex
country, where adequate premiums are charged, and live
selected with care, the public cannot be misled if, when seek
ing an office in which to effect an insurance, they select one
which transacts its business at a small percentage of wor mg
cost, and does not anticipate its profits.”
. .
I have mentioned among the friendly societies, the co
operative societies, both for distribution and production. Co
operative societies may be regarded as a means of invest
ment, and as a mode of securing a more liberal reward for
labour. It is not indeed put forth that either co-operative
societies or industrial partnerships can supersede effectua ly, or
in any important degree, the present relation of capital an
labour, as by far the simplest and capable of the wides
application, yet it is conceived that by affording grea er
encouragement to save, and ampler opportunities tor the
profitable use of such savings, many who at present have
other prospect than that of remaining m a condition of com
parative dependence, may eventually become possessed of a
small capital. How to give to the consumer direct access o
the producer ; how to give to the immediate producer, that ,
labour, direct access to capital, either directly, by an antecede»
act of aggregate saving on the part of the producer himself or
mediately, by crediting the immediate producer or labourer with
the necessary capital,-these are the objects which co-operation
seeks to obtain. Co-operative societies have been formed or
distribution and production, and even for credit. The con
ception is certainly simple and practical. Here are a hundre
�■24
SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
men goring yearly’ Say< Z4° each> at Ieast> of commodities,
which if bought wholesale will cost no more than £3o Form
a co-operative society to buy direct such provisions from the
producer, and the profit which the retailers would have gained
Will form a substantial economy to the consumers. Or let the
price of the commodities consumed remain as they would be if
so
y retailers, and let the profits accumulate in the hands of
such society; and you will have, by degree, a handsome capital
belonging to such members, which may be employed in prouction. And thus, from a co-operative society for distribution
you may easily rise to a co-operative society for production’
Here are a thousand operatives, each having a small savinoGather them savings together to form the capital. Let the con
tributors be themselves the operatives, and the combination
will seem perfect. But how should the relative rights of capital
and labour be adjusted ? The workman, as a capitalist, has an
interest m increasing, as much as possible, the profits of the
establishment, but as a workman he is still more interested in
securing a liberal rate of wages. Here an antagonism of
interests is sure to follow, and it is a great question whether the
problem admits of a satisfactory solution. But I have supposed
t e existence of capital in the hands of the labourers. What
if they have no such capital? Can they be credited with it ?
What security can they offer? Shall we ask the State to lend
capital to such labourers if the capitalists will not incur the
usk ? The idea is in itself preposterous.
Take, however, the most probable case, where labourers have
on y a very small capital. Shall we encourage them to em
ploy their savings in co-operative societies for production ? A
arge portion of the success which attends commercial operations
is the result of the skill and shrewdness of those who engage in
them. Capital is an important element, but the capacity to
know when and where to buy and to sell, and the possession of
a spirit of adventure balanced by prudence and caution, are
�12'5
SA RINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
elements of enormous value in securing success. Can working
men lay claim to such knowledge and foresight
If they
have to depend upon others for the management of such
dertakings, is there no danger of their falling into the hands
of designers and schemers, who will soon squander
savings?
e 1
Of the many"^“^X'CeTXcceeded.
1
t chas are for distribution-as grocers, drapers, and proven
dealers—have succeeded exceedingly well, scarcely anyt formed
for productive purposes can show any real gam.
Whils the
Rochdale Equitable Pioneers-as grocers, provision dea e ,
drapers, tailors-realized a goodly sum, the Rochdale card manu
facture realized nothing, and so in a number of instances. The
recent abandonment of the principle of industrial partner^.by
Messrs. Briggs has been exceedingly disappomtmg to the fnends
“ co-operatfon ; and so also has the breakdown of the Ouseburn
Engine Works, of the Shirland Colliery, and the Industnal Ba
in Newcastle. To my mind, there is no royal road to.wealth
The workman must, in some measure, become a capitalist
before he can seek to become a co-operator with the capitalist
in industrial enterprise. And when he has amassed a ittb sum
let him take care what he does with it. In these d y , P
duction on a small scale has no chance of success m competition
with production on a large scale. Great enterprises, w,th la ge
capital, are carried on at much less expense, and can always
command greater facilities. Lay you a solid foundation for your
advancement in a substratum of real capital, foster >t bypru
deuce and foresight, increase it by legitimate means, and yo
may depend upon it that in Z/«t? you will have the surest sa eguard for independence and improvement.
§ The introduction of limited liability in joint stock compam
has opened for the working classes the avenues_ to commercial operations to any extent. All you require is capital,
�^6
SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
and this capital you must gather, little by little, by hard labour
and, it may be, by continuous toil and hardship. Gentlemen it
requires some amount of heroism to set aside any fragment’of
our present income for our future wants, to deprive ourselves
it may be, of needed comforts that we may provide for con
tingencies at present, at least, beyond our ken. But it is worth
doing. A pound to-day and another to-morrow. Now five
pounds and anon ten—it is astonishing how soon the sum grows
if you are only careful. But be you extra cautious how you’
invest your savings, for the more labour we have to give to
the acquisition of small incomes and the accumulation of small
savings, the more incumbent it becomes on us to be on our
guard, lest we should lose it all by carelessness or misemployment. Trust not on the Government to protect you. Keep your
eyes open, and mind what you are about, for once you lose what
you have got, it is extremely difficult to get it again. After all
it is not much we want. Strive for more, but be content with
your lot.
Man s rich with little, were his judgments true ;
Nature is frugal, and her wants are few :
Those few wants answer’d, bring sincere delights ;
But fools create themselves new appetites.”
But, my friends, is it only money that we should seek after?
Are there not treasures of knowledge, treasures of benefaction,
treasures of inward joys and happiness, that we may aspire to
obtain ? Must we all strike the same path ? Have we all the
same talents ? Have we all the same opportunities ? Thirtytwo years ago, a comparative youth came to England, from the
centre of Italy, unknowing and unknown. He had but one talent
—not that of the Universities, either of Oxford or Cambridge,
Pisa or Bologna ; not that of riches, or of fame ; but one com
mon to all—an open eye and an open mind, with perseverance in
duty, and hope and faith to cheer him in his path. He planted
that talent in the British soil, and there it lodged summer and
�SAVINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
127
winter, and winter and summer, giving little signs of life; but
it was growing, and it gave fruit in the establishment of a
Chamber of Commerce in Liverpool, in a work on the Com
mercial Law of the World, and another on the History of Britis
Commerce. And that talent is still growing, and has made its
possessor a barrister-at-law, a member of not a few scientific
societies, and the Professor of the Principles of Commerce
and Commercial Law in King’s College, London ;-the very
one who has now the honour and the pleasure of addressing to
you these Lectures. If you could trace the antecedents of many
of those who are now great, how often would you find that it is
not fortune, or birth, or estate, that produces our best men, but
labour, perseverance, force of will. Read Smiles’ “ Self-made
Men ; ” and you will find that Hargreaves and Crompton were
artiza’ns, and Arkwright a barber. That Telford and Hugh Miller
were stonemasons, and Trevithick amechanic. That Lord Tenterden the judge, and Turner the painter, were both sons of barbers.
That Inigo Jones the architect, and Hunter who discovered
the circulation of the blood, were carpenters. That Cardinal
Wolsey and Defoe were sons of butchers ; that the immorta
John Bunyan was a tinker, and Herschel the astronomer a
bandsman. That James Watt was the son of an instrument
maker, and Faraday the son of a blacksmith ; that Newton’s
father was a yeoman, with a small farm worth iia 6^. a year ;
and Milton the son of a scrivener. That Pope and Southey were
sons of linendrapers, and Shakspeare the son of a butcher
and grazier. That Lord Eldon was the son of a Newcastle coal
fitter and LordJSt. Leonard the son of a barber, who began life
as an errand boy. AU honour to them I Strive you to be like
them.
“ Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
�128
SA VINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.’’
Let our occupation be high or low in public estimation,
he is a great man who, by high character and self-mastery,
by culture and industry, by application and perseverance,
secures for himself a true individuality ; and who, with powers
fully developed, and faculties duly expanded, uses whatever
talent he may possess to the glory of God, and to the benefit
of his fellow-creatures.
�appendix a.
Statement of the weekly expenditure, in 1859, of a family consistm«
wife, and three children, whose total wages averaged th'rtV
P
week, as compared with the cost of the same arttclesm 875,>8^ and
|> 1839.—“ Progress of Manchester,” by D. Chadwick, Brit.sh Assomation
1861, revised by Dr. Watts.
|
Articles.
Expenditure in
i875-
Expenditure in
1849.
Expenditure in
1859.
Expenditure in
i
|(I.) Bread, Flour, and
Meal.
S|8 41b. loaves (32 lbs.) .. 6 Id. per 41bs.
IL a peck of meal........... is. 10d.pr.pk.
||l a doz. (6 lbs.) of flour is. lod. pr.dz.
6d. per 4lbs.
is.6d. perpk.
1s.10d.pr.dz.
5Jd. per 41b.
is.8d. perpk.
is.8d. per dz.
5
4
2
I
81- 7 I. per lb
4 9
4
oj
2
O
0
9
6
4
3
xs.4d. per lb. 0
8
0
3
6
8Jd. per 41b.
is-4d. perpk.
2S.4d. per dz.
(II.) Butchers’ Meat
and Bacon,
;lbs. of butchers' meat 8'd. per lb.
dbs. of bacon ................
6Jd. per lb. .
(III.) Potatoes, Milk,
and Vegetables.
2 score of potatoes .... is. per score
7 quarts of milk ............ 4d. per qt. .
Vegetables ....................
tl
is. per score
3d. per qt. ..
I
;. per score
1. per qt. ..
is. per score
3d. per qt...
;. 4d. per lb.
5. 4d. ,,
2S. per lb.
(IV.) Groceries, Coals,
etc.
Jib. of coffee
Jib. of tea ....
31bs. of sugar
albs, of rice ..
1 lb. butter.. ..
21bs. of treacle
rjlbs. of soap
Coals................
Candles...........
xs. id. per lb
I
I
0
I
0
5
6
0
6
6
Rent, taxes, and water
Clothing .........................
Sundries .........................
I
0
0
II
I
.
4
3
2
9
Totals
• 30
0
0
5*
sJ
0
�APFENDIX.
130
AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS OF THE COTTON OPERATIVES.
Week of 69
1839
s. d.
Steam-engine tenders
24 0
Warehousemen .... 18 0
Carding stretchers
7 0
Strippers, young men, women, and
girls....................................... 11 0
Overlookers....................................... 25 0
Spinners on self-acting Winders,
Males
.
.
.
. 16 0
Piecers, women and young men 8 0
Overlookers ..... 20 0
Reeling Throttle, reelers, women 9 0
Warpers
..... 22 0
Sizers............................................... 23 0
Doubling, Doublers, women.
7 0
Overlookers...................................... 24 0
Agricultural—
Devon
Somerset.
Cheshire .
Durham .
i860.
Per week.
8s. to 12s.
12s. ,, 14s.
15s.
15s. to 20s.
Builders—
Masons .
hours.
1849
s. d.
28 0
20 0
7 6
12
28
0
0
14
28
0
0
19
32
18
0
0
0
6
0
0
6
0
20
10
26
0
0
0
6
0
0
0
0
25
16
9
22
9
22
23
7
25
18555s. per day.
1850.
Per month.
Seamen, London—
Mediterranean
.
45s.
...
.
50s.
...
North America
East India and China 40s.
Australia
40s.
Week of 60 hours.
1873
1859
s. d.
s. d.
32 o
30 0
26 o
22 0
12 o
8 0
...
...
9
23
25
9
28
...
30
12
26
30
12
32
o
o
o
o
o
6
o
6
o
1872.
Per week.
9s. to 12s.
13s. ,, 20s.
16s. 6d.
17s. to 20s.
1876.
96. per hour.
...
...
...
...
1874.
Per month.
70s. to 80s. ... 80s. to 90s.
80s. „ 95s. ... 85s. „ 95s.
60s. „ 65s. ... 80s. „ 85s
70s.
�APPENDIX.
APPENDIX B.
BUDGETS OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
Great Britain.
(From the “ Times," November Vjih, 1872.)
Weekly Expenses of a Farm Labourer in 1872 in East Sussex :—
Per week.
£ s. d.
£, s. d.
0 7 0
7 gallons of flour
.
.
0 i 4
1 lb. butter
.
.
0 0 4
2 oz. tea *
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 7
2 lb. sugar *
.
.
0 1 3
2 lb. cheese
,
.
0 0 3i
Milk
....
.
.
0 O 2
1 lb. soap
.
.
0 O I
Soda and blue .
.
.
0 0 10J
i| lb. candles .
.
.
0 O 7
Schooling
.
.
0 0 3
Cotton and mustard
•
•
0 I 0
Washing and mangling .
.
.
0 2 0
Rent
....
0 15 10
Extra expenses per annum :—
£> s. d.
Benefit club .
Boots
....
Clothes ....
Tools ....
Faggots ....
Extra food in hop drying
1
O IO
4
0
0
0
0
0
12
4
2
I
0
2
7
4
14
0
4
0
equal to 0 3 0
o 18 10
�132
APPENDIX.
Income and Expenditure of a Tobacco Spinner in Edinburgh, the Family
consisting of Six Persons. Income: Father, 25s.; Boy in the Telegraph
Service, 6s.—total, 31s.
Expenditure :—
£
Bread, 361b. ; meat, 4Mb. ; flour, 71b. ;
rice, ilb. ; potatoes, 10J lb ; sugar,*
51b ; tea, * Jib. ; coffee, * Jib. ; butter,
0
i|lb.......................................................
Beer,* 4 pints; spirits nil; tobacco,*
0
302.........................................................
House rent ......
0
Coal and gas...................................
0
Clothing............................................
0
Taxes....................................................
0
vhurch or chapel, 4d. ; amusements,
rd.; benefit club, is. id. ; doctors
bill, and sundries, 2s. 6d.
0
Zr
16 6
0
2 4
8
I
4 0
0 34
2
4 0
IO
94
Per cent.
Taxes.
54
s. d.
0 6
6
7
6
13
I
I
9
0 34
13
IOO
64
2
Income and Expenditure of a Printer, Single Man, living in London.
Income £1 16s. od. a-week :—
z s. d.
Bread, i21b. ; meat, 41b. ; flour, 41b. ;
potatoes, 81b.; sugar,* ilb.; tea,* 202.;
coffee,* 2oz. ; butter, iooz.
Beer,* 14 pints ; spirits, * 1 quartern ;
tobacco,* 40Z........................................
House rent...................................
Coal and gas......
Clothin
......
Church, amusements, laundress .
Per cent.
0 9 8
4i
0 3
■0 5 0
0 2 6
0 I 6
0 2 6
0 2 6
21
1 4
Z*
3
8
Taxes.
II
6
II
IO
IOO
1
7
�APPENDIX.
*33
France.
{From Lord Brabazon s Report, vFjz, p. 45.)
Average. Expenditure of a Married Day Labourer’s Family, consisting of
Father, Mother, and Three Children, with a Collective Income of
£24 is. 7d.
£. s. d. Per cent.
Bread,* vegetables, meat,* milk, salt
59
13 15 7
6
I 7 2
Wine* beer,* and cider* ....
I 13 7
7
Lodging* (tax on doors and windows) .
I
5
5 8
Firing*....................................................
I
0 4 6
Taxes....................................................
16
3 12 9
Clothing*....................................................
6
I
5 9
Other expenses............................................
£23
5 0
IOO
Prussia.
{Dr. Engel’s Table.}
Percentage of the Expenditure of the Family of
A Working Man with A Man of Middle A Person n easy circum
stances with
Class with
an income of
an income from Z 9° an income from ZrS0
from
to Z 220 a year.
Z45 to Zoo a year.
to ZI2° a year.
Per cent.
. 62
Subsistence
. 16
Clothing .
.
. 12
Lodging .
Firing and lighting 5
Education, public
.
. 2
worship
Legal protection
. 1
Care of Health
. 1
Comfort, mental and
bodily recreation 1
IOO
Per cent.
55
18
12
5
3’5
2
2
i’5
IOO
Per cent.
50
18
12
5
5'5
3
3
3‘5i
TOO
�134
APPENDIX.
Netherlands.
(Mr, Locock's Report, 1871, p. 351.)
Weekly Expenses of a Mason, with a Wife and Two Children :—
Bread,* butter, milk, sugar,*
coffee,* suet, flour, potatoes,
Per cent.
s. d.
greens, meal, salt, bacon, oil,
II 11
tobacco,* soap,* etc.
53
2 0
House rent
9
6
I 3
Firing*
....
2 1
Clothing * .
.
.
9
Sundries ....
• 5 3
23
22 6
.
100
Switzerland (Bale).
(dZ. Gould's Report, 1872, p. 366.)
Yearly Expenditure of a Working Man’s Family :—
Bread, coffee, chicory, milk, potatoes, butter, oil, meat, vege£ s.
tables ....
29 6
Rent...................................
IO 8
Wood
....
4 0
Taxes
....
0 6
Clothing ....
6 0
Sick Fund
0 16
d.
2
O
O
5
0
0
50 16 7
Per cent.
57
.
20
8
.
0
.
12
3
.
100
Russia.
Annual Expenditure of a Peasant Family, consisting of Father and Son, Two
Brothers, and a Third Young Man, in the Province of Novgorod :—
(Consul Michel's Report on Land Tenure, p. 63.)
z * d.
8o| bush, rye from the land, 361b. fish, 1
sack wheat, 2.88 bush, buckwheat, salt ...
30 o
Dress,* boots, etc.
.
.
.
.
.
2 13 4
Taxes, Imperial and Provincial, at 3 roubles
per male .......
1 4
Village priest
.
.
.
.
.
o
�APPENDIX.
135
(Consul Gregnon's Report, 1871, p. 54.)
Estimated Expenditure for a Single Man, Factory Hand, for a
d.
Day’s Living in Riga
3 lbs, Russ, rye bread, at 2A copecks
si
1 lb. Russ, meat
....
3k
Coffee,* sugar, and milk.................................................. 12
Potatoes.............................................................................02
Butter........................................................................ ......
Herrings...............................................................................
Barley meal..............................................
.
. ok
10
To the above must be added lodging, capitation-tax, clothing, and per
sonal expenses.
(Consul Campbell's Report, 1872, p. 312.)
A Manufactory Workman’s Monthly Expenditure at Helsingfors
s. d.
£ s. d.
Food,
24 to30 marks .
. o 19 o to 1 3 9
Fuel,
2 ,, 2j „
.
. o 1 7 „ o 2 o
Lodging, 10,, 12 ,,
.
.080,, 096
Clothing,* 10 ,, 12J ,,
.
. o 7 o ,, o 9 6
1 15 7
2 4 9
United States (Pennsylvania).
(Mr. Consul Kortright’s Report, 1871, p. 921.)
Weekly Cost of Living of Two Parents and Three Children
in Philadelphia:—
Bread, flour, meat, butter, cheese,
Per cent.
sugar,* milk, coffee,* tea,*
£ s. d.
fish, salt, eggs, potatoes,
I 8 6 .
fruit
.
.
,
.
.
■
54
. 24
0 13 0
Rent............................................
6
0 3 3 •
Light * and Fire
.
.
0 7 5 •
Clothing *
....
■
14
0 0 4! •
Taxes...................................
•
2
0 0 9J
Other Expenses
2 13 3
100
�136
APPENDIX.
United States.
(From the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of the Statistics of Labour.}
Percentage of the Expenditure of the Family of a Working Man
with an income—
From ^60
ZI2O
/150
Above
Z90
Average
to Z90. to/'lCO. to/150. to ^zso. ^250.
Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent.
Subsistence.
. 64
60
63
56
5t
58
Clothing
10-5
19
14
• 7
74
15
Rent .
. 20
15
16
14
i5'5
17
Fuel
. 6
6
6
6
5
6
Sundry Expenses 3
6
6
10
6
5
—
----------■
----- IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
�APPENDIX.
137
APPENDIX C.
Report of the Committee of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, on Combinations of Capital and
Labour. Lord Houghton, D.C.L., F.R.S. (chairman); Jacob
Behrens, Esq.; Thomas Brassey, Esq., M.P.; Frank P.
Fellows, Esq.; Archibald Hamilton, Esq.; Professor Leone
Levi; A. J. Mundella, Esq., M.P.; Wm. Newmarch, Esq.,
F.R.S.; Lord O’Hagan; R. J. Inglis Palgrave, Esq.; Professcr
Thorold Rogers. Submitted by Professor Leone Levi, and
ordered to be printed and laid before the Association.
Your Committee appointed to inquire into the economic effects
of Combinations of labourers or capitalists, and into the laws of
Economic science bearing on the principles on which such
Combinations are founded, have already stated in their preli
minary Report made last year, the course they have thought
to take in order to ascertain the exact views held by both
employers and employed on the subject in question. Although
the general objects of such Combinations, whether of capitalists
or labourers, are well known, both from the written rules, which
bind them together, and from the action taken from time to
time, your Committee have deemed it desirable to come into
personal contact with some representative men from both classes,
with a view of finding whether they do now stand by the rules
of their Unions, and how far they are prepared to defend them.
And for that purpose, your Committee resolved to hold a con
sultative private conference of employers and employed m the
presence of the members of the. Committee, where they might
discuss the questions involved in the resolution of the British
Association, and with a view of reporting thereon to the same.
The points more especially inquired into were the following :—
1 st. What determines the minimum rate of wages ?
2nd. Can that minimum rate be uniform in any trade, and
can that uniformity be enforced ?
3rd. Is Combination capable of affecting the rate of wages,
whether in favour of employers or employed ?
�138
APPENDIX.
4th. Can an artificial restriction of labour or of capital be
economically right or beneficial under any circumstances?
For the discussion of these questions your Committee had
the advantage of bringing together a deputation from the
National Federation of Associated Employers of Labour, in
cluding Messrs. R. R. Jackson, M. A. Brown, H. R. Greg,
Joseph Simpson, J. A. Marshall, R. Hannen, and Henry Whit
worth. As representing labour : Messrs. Henry Broadhurst,
Daniel Guile, George Howell, Loyd Jones, George Potter, and
Robert Newton; Mr. Macdonald, M.P., and Mr. Burt, M.P.,
having been prevented from attending. And on the part of
your Committee there were Lord Houghton, Professor Rogers,
Mr. Samuel Brown, Mr. W. A. Hamilton, Mr. Frank Fellows,
and Professor Leone Levi.
Many are the works and documents bearing on the questions
at issue. Of an official character we have the Report of the
Royal Commission appointed “ to inquire into and report upon
he organization and rules of Trade Unions and other associa
tions, whether of workmen and employers and to inquire into
and report on the effects produced by such Trade Unions and
associations on the workmen and employers and on the relations
between workmen and employers and on the trade and industry
of the country.” Of an unofficial character we have the Report
of the Committee of the Social Science Association “on the
objects and constitution of Trade Societies, with their effects
upon wages and upon the industry and commerce of the country.”
Of special works we have the late lamented Professor Cairnes’
“ Leading Principles of Political Economy,” Mr. Thomas
Brassey’s “Work and Wages,” and Professor Leone Levi’s
“Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes.”
The chief functions of Combinations, whether of Capital or
Labour, being to operate on wages, your Committee were
anxious to ascertain by what criterion the parties interested
ordinarily judge of the sufficiency or insufficiency of existing
wages. The first test of the sufficiency of wages is the re
lation they bear to the cost of the necessaries of life. “The
minimum of wages,” said Prof. Rogers, “ is the barest possible
amount upon which a workman can be maintained ; that
which, under the most unfavourable circumstances, a man is
able to obtain.” But the minimum thus estimated can only be,
and is, submitted to under circumstances of extreme necessity.
“ I believe the minimum rate of wages,” said one of the repre
sentatives of labour, “ is that which, under the worst circum
stances, the worst workman gets from the worst master.” We
cannot, therefore, take the minimum rates so considered as a
proper basis for the sufficiency of wages. How far insufficient
wages in relation to the cost of living in the U nited Kingdom is
�APPENDIX.
139
a cause of the large emigration which is taking place fiom year
to year it is not possible to establish ; * but, doubtless the pros
pect held out in the distant Colonies and in the United States
of America of considerable improvement has been for some
time past and still is a strong inducement. to those m receipt of
insufficient wages in this country to emigrate to other lands
Your Committee are desirous to point out in connection with
this question that not only has the cost of some of the principal
necessaries of life greatly risen within the last twenty years but
that in consequence of the general increase of comfort and
luxury many articles of food, drink, and dress must now be
counted as necessaries which some years ago were far beyond
the reach of the labouring classes ; whilst house rent, especiallyadapted for the labouring classes, is considerably dearer. If,
therefore, the cost of living be taken as a guide to he rate of
wages, it would not be enough to take into account the cost of
the mere necessaries of life. A higher standard of living having
been established, it would be indispensable to compare the
wages of labour to such higher standard. Your Committee are
not satisfied, however, that it is possible to regulate wages
according to the scale of comfort or luxury which may be
introduced among the people, and are compelled to assert that
it is an utter fallacy to imagine that wages will rise or fall m
relation to the cost which such supposed necessaries or indul
gences may entail.
.
,
A better test of the sufficiency of wages is the relation they
bear to the state of the labour market; and tested by that
standard the minimum rate of wages which workmen are at
any time prepared to accept is the least which they think they
are entitled to have under existing circumstances, the 1 rade
Unions guiding them, as to the state of trade and the value of
labour at the time. Unfortunately, however, what workmen
think themselves entitled to have does not always correspond
with what employers find themselves able to grant. Primarily
the wages of labour are'determined, by the. amount of capital
available for the purpose of wages in relation to the number
of labourers competing for the same. But the amount ot
capital employed in any industry is itself governed by con
siderations of the relation of the cost of production to the
market price of the produce—that is, to the price which the
.consumer is able or willing to give for the same : the cost of
production including the cost of materials, the value ot capital,
the cost of superintendence, and the wages of labour.
* The average number of emigrants in the last ten years from the United
Kingdom, from 1862 to 1873, was 239,000 per annum. In 1873, the total
number was 310,612, and in 1874, 241, 014. The emigration to the United
States decreased from 233,073 in 1873, to 148,161 in 1874.
�140
APPENDIX.
Objection has been taken at the Conference to this method
for arriving at the rate of wages ; and it was urged that instead
of taking the price of the article produced, or the interest of
the consumer, as the basis of the calculation, the first ingredient
in the cost of the article should be the price to be paid to the
workman in producing it. But a serious consideration will
show that the employer cannot ignore what the consumer can
or will pay any more than the share which the value of capital,
the cost of superintendence, and the cost of the materials have
upon the cost of production ; for he must cease producing
altogether if he cannot both meet the ability of the consumer
to purchase his article and successfully compete with the
producers of other countries. Your Committee think that it is
not in the power of the employer to control the proportion of
the different elements in the cost of production, each of them
being governed by circumstances peculiar to itself. The value
of Capital, as well as the value of the raw materials, is regu
lated by the law of supply and demand, not only in this
country, but in the principal markets of the world. The cost
of superintendence and the wages of labour are likewise governed
by the relation of the amount of capital to the number seeking
to share in the different employments. The employed say,
“'We must have certain wages. We care for nothing else.
Labour is our property. We set our value upon it. If you
will have our labour you must pay what we ask for it. And
if such wages should require a rise in the market price, let the
consumer pay it.” What however, if the consumer will not
or cannot pay sufficient price to enable the employer to pay
such wages ? What, if he can get the article cheaper else
where ? Must not production cease if there be no market ?
And where will be the wages if there be no production? Nor
should it be forgotten that a general rise of wages producing
an increase of the cost of all the commodities of life reacts on
the masses of the people, and thus far neutralizes the benefit
of higher wages.
Disagreements between employers and employed are often
produced on the subject of wages by the fact that all the
elements of the case are not within the cognizance of both
parties ; experience showing that in making a demand for an
advance of wages, or for resisting a fall, workmen are of
necessity groping in the dark as to the real circumstances of
the case. One of the chief advantages supposed to result from’
the organization of Trade Unions is the competency of their
leaders to give solid and practical advice to those interested,
as to the condition of the labour market; and we have no
doubt that this duty is in the main honestly performed, but it is
very much to expect that such leaders should universally possess
�APPENDIX.
141
laive and liberal views enough to vindicate the exercise of their
enormous power, and such constant and accurate knowledge
of the multiple facts of the case as would enable them to
exercise an almost infallible authority. On the other hand,
were it possible for employers, who are not in the dark in such
matters, to make known to their own workmen the grounds of
the action they propose taking before the resolve is carried
into execution, your Committee are convinced that many
disputes would be avoided, and much of the jealousy which
now exists between the parties would be removed. The recent
lock-out in South Wales illustrated the need of such a course.
Had the facts which Lord Aberdare elicited from the principal
colliery firms in Glamorganshire been made known previous
to or simultaneously with the notice of a fall, it is a question
whether such a widespread calamity would have occurred.
It is perhaps a natural but unfortunate circumstance that
employers are seldom found to take the initiative in allowing
a rise in wages when the state of the market permits it as they
are in case of a fall, and spontaneously to offer what they must
sooner or later be compelled to grant. A more prompt and
politic course on their part in this matter would go far to
neutralise the hostile action of Trade Unions.
Your Committee were anxious to ascertain how far is it in
the mind of the employed that the employers obtain for them
selves too large a share of profits at their expense. Your Com
mittee were assured that no such doubts are entertained, though
cases were produced supporting such suspicions by reference to
the time of the great rise in the price of coals in 1873, when
workmen’s wages did not, in the opinion of the representatives
of labour, rise to anything like the proportion of the masters’
profits.* Your Committee admit that in cases of great oscilla
tions in prices, the share participated either by the employers
in the shape of profits, or by the employed in the shape of
wages, may be for a time greater or less than their normal
distribution would justify. And it is possible that some portions
of these extra profits may be unproductively spent or so em
ployed as not to benefit the parties more immediately _ con
cerned, and even used in totally alien speculations. Yet, in the
main, the working classes must receive in one way or another,
a considerable advantage from them, there being .no doubt that
the largest portion of such extra profits will be reinvested in the
* Mr. Halliday’s evidence before the Committee of the House of
Commons on coals, was that, though the custom was to give to work
men a portion of any rise of prices in the shape of increasing wages,
the proportion being an additional 2d. a day for every 10L a ton, the
rise in wages was often id. per ton only and sometimes nothing, whilst
when the price rose ar. 6d. to 55. a ton the wages were only increased 3^.
a day.
�142
APPENDIX.
ordinary industries of the country. In the end, however, wages
and profits will be divided among the producers in proper pro
portions, and if at any time profits or wages should be larger
than they ought to be, we may be quite sure that ere long the
competition of capitalists will tend either to the lowering of
prices or the raising of wages so as to make profits and wages
gravitate towards each other.
Immediately allied to the question of the determination of a
minimum of wages is that of their uniformity. In the opinion
of many Trade Unions, all workmen of average ability in any
trade should earn the same wages, the average ability of each
man being understood to have been determined in advance by
the fact of his being admitted as a member of the Union. But
a man is subject to no examination, and is generally admitted
upon the testimony of those who have worked with him, whose
evidence must frequently be fallacious and insufficient. Nor
does it appear that the rejection is absolutely certain even if
the applicant should not be deemed a man of average ability,
the acceptance or rejection of the party being always optional
with the lodge to which he is introduced. Your Committee are
therefore not satisfied that any guarantees exist that every
member of a Union is able to earn a fair day’s wages for a
fair day’s work ; and they cannot, therefore, agree in the pro
position that all workmen should be entitled to uniform wages
on the ground of uniform ability. But another reason has been
alleged for the uniformity of wages—which is still less tenable
than the former—viz., a supposed uniformity of production in
dependent of skill. The right of the workman to a uniform
standard of wages was stated to be the production of an article
which, though demanding less skill to perform, is of equal
utility and is proportionally as profitable to the employer.
Your Committee must, however, entirely demur to the principle
that, in the apportionment of wages, no account should be
taken of the skill brought to bear on the execution of the task,
since a system of that nature would act as a premium on in
feriority of workmanship. Again, by another test should the
right of each individual to earn certain wages be determined,
and that is by his productive capacity. Professor Levi asked
whether that was taken into account when the workman was
assumed to be of average ability ; and the answer was that the
amount of production depended largely upon the skill. “ The
more skilful a man is the more he will produce.” But whilst, in
so far as this answer was correct, it contradicted the principle
embodied in the preceding test, the answer itself did not take
sufficiently into account that skill is not the only element in
effectiveness of labour. There are qualities of mind, judgment,
and even of heart, disposition, and of moral character, which
�APPENDIX.
143
go far to increase or diminish the efficiency of labour ; and of
such qualities the employer is, of necessity, a far better judge
than any Union can be. That under ordinary circumstances
wages in any trade should tend to uniformity is quite possible.
The facility of communication and the extension of intercourse
of necessity equalise prices and wages : but any attempt to
compel uniformity of wages among any large number of men
of varied capacity must of necessity prove a source of dis
appointment. Much, again, may be said in favour of a common
standard of wages in any industry, as avoiding the embarrass
ment necessarily encountered in any attempt to adjust the
rate to the exact worth of each individual. Yet it is impossible
to ignore the fact that, whilst a uniform rate is sure to operate
unjustly in favour of persons who may be wanting in fairness
of dealing or capacity for workmanship, in the nature of things
it is almost incapable to exist over a wide area, having regard
to the varieties in the prices of fuel, carriage, house accommo
dation, or of the means of livelihood, as well as in the cost of
raw materials and in the processes employed as affecting the
rate of production of each individual. On the whole, your
Committee find that an absolute uniformity in the rate of wages
in any trade, though to a certain extent convenient, is neither
just nor practicable, whilst any effort to compel uniformity in
the amount of earnings of any number of individuals must
prove fallacious and wrong as an illegitimate interference with
the rights of industry.
A still more important question in connection with the subject
is how far Combination of any kind can affect permanently or
temporarily the rate of wages. Upon this, as might be ex
pected, the most divergent opinions are held by the repre
sentatives of Capital and Labour. The employers of labour,
standing on the solid principles of political economy, deny that
Combinations can under any circumstances affect the rates of
wages, at least in any permanent manner. The argument
adduced being that if workmen are entitled to higher wages
they are sure to get them, since, under the law of supply and
demand, whenever it is found that profits trench unduly upon
wages fresh capital is sure to be introduced, which provides for
the raising of wages. The employed, on the other hand, con
fidently appeal to past experience, and point out the fact that
almost every increase of wages has been due to the action of
Trade Unions. They say that without Combination workmen
cannot secure the market price for their labour, but are to a
certain extent at the mercy of their employers. That in trades
where one establishment employs a large number of workmen
the employers can discharge a single workman with compara
tively slight inconvenience, while the workman loses his whole
�144
APPENDIX.
means of subsistence. That without the machinery of Com
bination the workmen, being dependent upon their daily work
for their daily bread, cannot hold on for a market.
Your Committee are not prepared to deny that Combinations
can render useful service in matters of wages; but they think
that it is impossible for them to frustrate or alter the operations
of the laws of supply and demand, and thereby to affect per
manently the rates of wages. Combination may hasten the
action of those laws which would undoubtedly, though perhaps
more slowly, operate their own results. The limited power of
Combinations is in effect admitted by the workmen themselves.
“We do not say,” said one of the workmen’s representatives,
“ that Trade Unions can absolutely interfere with supply and
demand, because, when trade is very bad, they cannot obtain
the standard ; when it is good they easily raise the standard.
What they do is, they enable workmen sooner to strike at the
right time for a general advance. They get the advance sooner
than if they were an undisciplined mob, having no common
understanding. And when trade is receding, the common
understanding enables workmen to resist the pressure put upon
them by their employers. It helps them in both ways, and the
workmen find they can act together beneficially.” The ground
here taken by the working-men is not at variance with sound
economic principles. But there is yet another way in which
Trade Unions may prove useful, and that is by rendering wages
more sensitive to the action of the state of the market, and so
preventing the influence of custom to stand in the way of the
operation of supply and demand ; for there are such occupa
tions, as agriculture, where custom often exercises imperious
rule even upon wages. As has been well said by M. Batbie,
Wages do not change unless the causes for the change exercise
a strong influence. If the conditions of supply and demand do
not undergo a great change, wages continue the same by the
simple force of custom. The variations of wages are not like
those of a thermometer, where the least clouds are marked,
where one can read the smallest changes of temperature. They
may rather be compared to those bodies which do not become
heated except under the action of an elevated temperature, and
remain quite insensible to the slight modifications of the atmo
sphere. Until a great perturbation takes place in the conditions
of supply and demand, no one would think of changing the rate
of wages.” * After making every allowance your Committee
cannot admit that Combinations have any power either to raise
permanently the rate of wages or to prevent their fall when the
conditions of trade require the same, as recent experience abun* See M. Batbie's article on "Salaries in Bloek's Dictionnaire de la
Politique."
�APPENDIX.
145
dantly shows, and, whilst admitting that Combinations may be
beneficial in accelerating the action of economic laws, your
Committee cannot be blind to the fact that they produce a
state of irritation and discontent which often interferes with
the progress of production.
Limited as is the power of Combinations to affect the rates
of wages, still more limited is their power to affect materially the
progress of productive industry. The Royal Commission on
Trade Unions reported that it was extremely difficult to deter
mine how far Unions have impeded the development of trade,
whether by simply raising prices or by diverting trade from cer
tain districts, or from this to foreign countries. The representa
tives of capital at the conference alluded to, endeavoured to
prove that certain branches of trade have permanently been
injured by the Unions. Whether the fact can be established or
not, it is undeniable that British trade has enormously increased
within the last twenty years, and that the exports of manufac
tured goods are on a larger scale now than they were at any
former period.*
What is perhaps most objectionable in Combinations of labour
is the method they often pursue in order to operate on the rates
of wages ; for they are not content with making a collective de
mand on employers for a rise, but endeavour to force it, or resist
a fall, by restricting the supply of labour and increasing the need
of it. One such method, explained at the Conference, seems to
your Committee peculiarly objectionable. A representative of
Labour said that when depression of trade comes, by means
of associated funds the men are able to say to the surplus
labourers, “ Stand on one side—you are not wanted for the time
being. If you go on with your labour at half-price, it will not
mend the trade; we will not let you become a drug on the
market, putting every other man down, but we will sustain you.”
In three years, your Committee were informed, over £100,000
was thus paid for unemployed labour, in the hope that undue
fall in wages would be prevented by keeping labourers out of
* The following were the quantities of some of the principal articles of
British produce and manufacture exported from the United Kingdom in
1854 and 1874 ;—
Coal and Coke ...
Copper
Cotton Yarn
Cotton Manufacture
Iron
...............
Worsted Manufacture
1854
tons 4,309,000
cwts. 274,000
lbs. 147,128,000
yds. 1,692,899,000
tons 1,175,000
yds. 133,600,000
Increase
per cent.
1874
13,927,000
709,000
220,599,000
3,606,639,000
2,487,000
261,000,000
223
159
49
”3
112
71
The total value of British produce exported increased from £135,891,000
in i860 to £239,558,000 in 1874 or at the rate of 76 per cent.
IO
�146
APPENDIX.
the market. Your Committee are of opinion that the artificial
prevention of a fall of wages when such a fall is necessary and
inevitable, is economically wrong, and can only have the effect of
still more injuring the condition of workmen, since by so doing
they only throw hindrances in the way of production, which is
the parent of all wages. Equally objectionable in your Com
mittee’s opinion, as interfering with the freedom of labour and
with the general economy of production, is every regulation of
such Trade Unions that excludes from employment in the trades
all who have not been regularly apprenticed, or any rule which
should set a limit to the number of apprentices. Professor
Cairnes, commenting on the monopoly thus advocated by Trade
Unions, said, “ It is a monopoly, moreover, founded on no prin
ciple either of moral desert or of industrial efficiency, but simply
on chance or arbitrary selection ; and which, therefore, cannot
but exert a demoralizing influence on all who come within its
scope—in all its aspects presenting an. ungracious contrast to all
that is best and most generous in the spirit of modern demo
cracy.”
The only other question on which your Committee will report
is whether an artificial restriction of labour, or of capital, can
under any circumstances be economically right or beneficial. It
is, indeed, scarcely necessary to say that any restriction of
Labour or of Capital, having the effect of limiting production,
must of necessity prove injurious. Yet it may be a point for
consideration whether under certain circumstances it may not be
better for either Labour or Capital to submit to the evil of re
striction in order to avoid a still greater evil, of producing at a
loss, or working at rates of wages not sufficiently remunerative.
The labourers justify their proceedings in this respect by refer
ence to the practice of producers. One of the representatives of
labour, speaking on this subject, said :—“No doubt there.is not
a working man in Lancashire who would not say that limitation
was an injury. Generally that there should be the largest pos
sible production in a given time is no doubt a true law, but every
trade must regulate that according to its own necessities. The
ironmaster blows out his furnaces when an increased production
would injure; the cotton manufacturer runs his manufactory short
time ; and the labourer limits the production.” There is little or
no difference in the relative position of Capital and Labour as
respects their need of continuous production. Primarily, both
employer and employed alike depend upon production as the
only source for profits and wages. Whilst the employers have
the maximun interest in producing as much as possible, from the
fact that the fixed capital which they cannot withdraw would lie
dormant and unproductive while the forge or mill is silent, the
employed find it thier interest to aid in such production inas-
�APPENDIX.
147
much as they depend upon it for their means of subsistence.
The argument of the employed against a proposal for a reduction
of wages is expressed in the words, “ If you have too much of an
article in the market and you cannot sell, I would rather limit
the quantity in your hands than aggravate the evil and take less
money for it.” But by refusing to work when the employer is
able or willing to continue producing, or by not submitting him
self to accept lower wages when the inevitable law of supply
and demand compels the same, the employed only aggravates
his own position, whilst he places the employer in a still worse
strait; the certain consequence of the withdrawal of labour being
to discourage production, to enhance the cost, and to increase
the difficulty of foreign competition—injurious alike to the pro
ducer and to the whole community.
A frequent source of contention between employers and
employed is the mode of paying wages—viz., by time, such as
by the day or hour, or by piecework. There appears to be no
uniform practice on the subject. While in some branches of
industry the rule is to pay wages by piecework, in other branches
the rule is to pay by time—the reason probably being that whilst
in some branches it is easy to establish a scale of prices at
which the work is to be paid for, in other branches such a scale
could not easily be framed. In so far as the method of pay
ment can be considered to affect production, it seems to your
Committee that whilst payment by piecework is likely to pro
mote quantity of production, payment by time is more likely
to promote precision of execution. Your Committee cannot
believe what has often been alleged, that payment by piecework
is often offered to conceal any reduction of wages. If honestly
acted upon on either side, payment by piecework has, in the
opinion of your Committee, all the elements of fair justice. But
the question in any case is not of sufficient importance to justify
a breach of the friendly relation which should exist between
Capital and Labour. When either party has any decided prefer
ence for one system, it seems advisable that the other party
accept the same.
The economic effects of Strikes and Lock-outs are well known,
and it matters but little which party in the contest in the end
may prove successful. In recent years Strikes and Lock-outs
have occurred among coal and iron miners, the building trade,
engineers, the cotton trade, ship-builders, and most of the trades
and industries of the country, each and all of which have caused
serious losses on the community at large. In the opinion of
your Committee a well-devised system of conciliation is the only
proper and legitimate method of solving labour disputes. And
your Committee cannot too strongly express their sense of the
grave responsibility which rests on either employers or em-
�148
APPENDIX.
ployed when, regardless of consequences, they resort to a step
so vexatious and destructive as a strike or lock-out.
Your Committee are of opinion that the British Association
will confer a lasting benefit if, on its pilgrimage in the principal
industrial towns in the United Kingdom, it will seize every
opportunity for the enunciation of sound lessons of political
economy on the questions in agitation between employers and
employed. It.was suggested to your Committee that workmen
should be admitted to the meetings of Section F at a reduced
rate, and they commend the proposal to the consideration of
the Council. Your Committee would also recommend to the
Council to urge on Her Majesty’s Government the importance
of promoting, as far as possible, the study of political economy,,
and especially of those branches of industrial economy which
most intimately concern the industry, manufactures, and com
merce of the country. Your Committee have learned with
pleasure that the Cobden Club are prepared to offer some
encouragement for the teaching of political economy to the
labouring classes, and your Committee would suggest that the
Chambers of Commerce might advantageously take similar
means in the great centres of commerce and manufacture. In
the opinion of your Committee, a proper sense of the necessity
and utility of continuous labour, an earnest desire for the
achievement of excellence in wTorkmanship in every branch 01
industry, and a keen and lively interest on the part of one and
all to promote national prosperity, are the best safeguards against
the continuance of those disturbances between Capital and
Labour which have of late become of such hindrance to success
ful production. In the great contest which Britain has to wage
with other industrial nations, it is the interest of both masters
and men to be very careful, lest by raising the prices of British
produce and manufacture too high they should no longer be able
to carry the palm in the arena of international competition.
Your Committee regret the death of their much-esteemed
member, Mr. Samuel Brown, who took an active part in the
proceedings. Professor Fawcett, M.P., was unable to act.
But your Committee have pleasure in reporting that the Right
Hon. Lord O’Hagan, Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., and Mr. A. J.
Mundella, M.P., were added to the Committee.
LEONE LEVI,
Secretary.
Augusty 1875.
�INDEX
Agricultural Industry, condi
tion for progress of, 19
Arbitration -versus Strikes, 94
British Workman, characteristics
of, 7
— productive power of, 8
Butter, consumption of, in 1844 and
1875, 11
Bacon, consumption of, in 1844 and
1875, 11
Building Societies, object of, 120
— permanent and terminating, 120
Competition, foreign effects of
machinery on, 32
Capital, production in England of,
33
— causes which arrested the growth
of, 34
, .
— difficulty of accumulating, 35
— obstacles to the diffusion of, 35
— what is ? 36
— amount employed of, 41
— what determines the investment
of, 41
— proportions of, distributed in
production, 42
— stoppage of, accumulation of, 43
— consumption of, 44
•— exportation of, 44
— abuse of, 46
— relation of, to labour, 49
— distribution of, between masters
and men, 51
— and labour, partnership of, 51
Capitalists, how regarded, 68
Combinations, Old Laws on, 67
Co-operative Societies, for produc
tion and distribution, 123
Co-operative Societies, advantages
of, 124
Day's work, what is it? 5
Division of labour, advantages of, 23
— disadvantages of, 24
Drunkenness, means of surmount
ing, 105
Drink, amount expended in, 109
Education, necessary for produc
tion, 12
— technical, advantages of, 13
England as a field of labour, 15
Employers’ calculation of wages, 52
— duties towards employed, 54
— profits, 60
— risks of, 61
— power to amass wealth, 62
Earnings, of workmen, sources of, 99
— collective, what, 100
Expenditure of workmen, distribu
tion of, 103
— economy in, 104
Earnings of workmen, total amount
of, 108
Expenditure of workmen, total
amount of, 108
French workman, characteristics
of, 6
Food and drink, consumption of, in
England, n
— expenditure of workmen in, 104
Firing and lighting, expenditure cf
workmen in, 104
Friendly Societies, objects of, 118
— amount invested in, 119
German
of, 6
workman,
characteristics
�150
INDEX.
Health necessary for production, 8
Houses, healthiness of, 9
— high rents of, 9
Home, advantages of, 10
Home industry, condition of, 18
Hand loom and power loom, 18
Italian workman, characteristics
of, 7
Insurance (life), benefits of, 121
— amount insured, 122
— Government, 122
Labour, pleasures of, 1
— necessity of, 2
— value of, 3
— productive and unproductive, 3
— manual and mental, 4
— condition for the efficient dis
charge of, 5
— dangers attending, 8
— duration of, 12
— skilled and unskilled, 12
— division of, 22
— need of capital to, 37
— reward of, 49
— relation of, to capital, 49
— supply and demand of regu
lating, 57
— difficulties of, in contending
wages with capital, 70
Lancashire, progress of, 19
Liverpool, increase of, 20
Labourers capitalists, 45
Morals an element in production, 14
Manufacture, divorcement of, from
agriculture, 19
Manchester, increase of, 20
Machinery, advantages of, 25
— character of, 26
■—■ effects of, 27
— relations of, to wages, 30, 61
— exports of, 31
Minimum wages, limits to, 85
Natural powers, utility of labour to,
37
r ,
Needlewomen, low wages of, 56
Overtime, action of Trade Unions
on, 73
Pauperism, rate of, in 1849 and
1875.- 11
Production on a large scale, advan
tages of, 22
— machinery of, 50
—• requirements for, 52
— cost of, 52
Population, increase of, effect of, on
wages, 57
Piecework, payment by, 78
Pay, what, 98
Poor Law, effects of, 100
— in Sweden, 101
— France, 101
— Belgium, 101
— Eberfeld, 101
Post Office Savings Banks, amount
in, 114
Swiss Workman, characteristic
of, 7
Steam-power, advantages of, 21
Strikes and lock-outs, chances of, 85
— what, 86
— causes of, 86
— supposed advantages of, 87
— means to avoid, 88
— how promoted by Trade Unions,
90
— circumstances attending, 91
— effects of, 85
— cost of, 92
— losses caused by, 93
— arbitration or conciliation, 'versus,
94
Saving, duty of all respecting, 112
— first steps in, 112
Savings Banks, history of, 113
— amount invested in, 115
— post office and trustees, 116
— amount per head in England and
Wales, 117
— Scotland, 117
— Ireland, 117
— France, 117
— Holland, 117
— Belgium, 117
— Austria, 117
— Germany, 117
— Switzerland, 117
Tea, consumption of, in 1844 and
1875, 11
Trade Unions, limits of usefulness
of, 68
— limits of rights of, 69
— constitutional defects of, 70
— membership of, 71
�INDEX.
Trades Unions, councils of, 71
— fees in. 72
— objects of, 72
— monopoly of, 72
— objection of, to overtime, 73
— operation of, on wages, 74
— effects of, on foreign competi
tion, 82
— effects of, on the character of
workmen, 83
— and benefit funds. 84
— rules of, respecting strikes, 88
Tobacco, expenditure of workmen
in, 104
Taxation, effects of, on workmen,
108
Workmen, united labour and pro
duction of, 5
— difference of skill among, 5
Wheat and wheat flour, consump
tion of, in 1844 and 1875, 11
Wealth, benefits of. 46
Wages, what are, 51
— relation of, to profits, 53
Workman, interest of employer in,
54 ,
Wages, lowering of, 54
— minimum rate of what, 55
— of artisans, 58
— what are the elements of, 58
— cost of, 58
Wage-fund, theory of, 60
Wages, effects of machinery on, 61
— uniformity of, 62, 71
— use of, 64
— effect of war on, 65
— attempt to regulate by law, 65
— effects of prohibition tariffs on,
65
— effects of Poor Law on, 65
— how affected by Trades Unions,
76
Working-classes, Budgets of, 96
Wages in money and in kind, 99
Workmen, taxes affecting, 107
Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Printers, London & Aylesbury.
��
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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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>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Original Format
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Work and pay; or, principles of industrial economy. Two courses of lectures delivered to working men in King's College, London. With report of the Committee of the British Association on Combinations of Labourers and Capitalists
Creator
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Levi, Leone [1821-1888]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 151 p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Includes bibliographical references and index. Printed by Hazell, Watson & Visey, London and Aylesbury. Appendix A: Statement of the weekly expenditure of a family ...whose total wages averaged thirty shillings per week ... B: Budgets of the Working Classes. C: Report of the Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and Combinations of Capital and Labour.
Publisher
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Strahan and Co., Limited
Date
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1877
Identifier
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N438
Subject
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Labour
Industry
Trade Unions
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Work and pay; or, principles of industrial economy. Two courses of lectures delivered to working men in King's College, London. With report of the Committee of the British Association on Combinations of Labourers and Capitalists), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Industrial Organisation (Economic Theory)
NSS
Trades Unions
Wages
Work
Working Class-Great Britain