GIFT OF
MICHAEL REESE
PART I.
PRODUCTION AND POPULATION.
THE
WAGES QUESTION
A TREATISE ON
WAGES AND THE WAGES CLASS
BY
FEANCIS A. WALKEE, M.A., PH.D.
Professor of Political Economy and History, Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale College.
Late Chief of the U. S. Bureau of Statistics ; Superintendent-
of the Ninth Census ; Author of the Statistical
Atlas of the United States.
NEW YORK
HEtfEY HOLT AND COMPANY
1886
COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY
HENRY HOLT.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING
PRINTERS,
205-213 East \ztfi St.,
NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
PAET I. PKODUCTION AND POPULATION.
PAGB
CHAPTER I.
WAGES A QUESTION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH 3
CHAPTER II.
NOMINAL AND REAL WAGES 12
CHAPTER III.
NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR 40
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR 81
CHAPTER V.
THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS 89
CHAPTER VI.
MALTHUSIANISM IN WAGES THE LAW OF POPULATION 101
CHAPTER VII.
NECESSARY WAGES c 109
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAGES OF THE LABORER ARE PAID our OF THE PRODUCT
OF HIS INDUSTRY 138
CHAPTER IX.
THERE is NO WAGE-FUND IRRESPECTIVE OF THE NUMBER AND
INDUSTRIAL QUALITY OF LABORERS 138
CONTENTS.
PART IL DISTRIBUTION.
CHAPTER X.
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION COMPETITION THE DIFFU-
SION THEORY THE ECONOMICAL HARMONIES 155
CHAPTER XL
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR 174
CHAPTER XII.
THE WAGES CLASS 206
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAPITALIST CLASS RETURNS OF CAPITAL RENT AND IN-
TEREST 224
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EMPLOYING CLASS THE ENTREPRENEUR FUNCTION THE
PROFITS OF BUSINESS 243
CHAPTER XV.
CO-OPERATION: GETTING RID OF THE EMPLOYING CLASS 262
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRUE WAGES QUESTION 289
CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT MAY PLACE THE WAGES CLASS AT A DISADVANTAGE 303
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT MAY HELP THE WAGES CLASS IN ITS COMPETITION FOR
THE PRODUCT OF INDUSTRY 345
CHAPTER XIX.
MAY ANY ADVANTAGE BE ACQUIRED BY THE WAGES CLASS
THROUGH STRIKES OR TRADES-UNIONS?. . . 385
CONCLUDING REMARKS 409
THE WAGES QUESTION.
CHAPTER I.
WAGES A QUESTION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
ALL the questions of Political Economy may, both con-
veniently and appropriately, be grouped under four titles,
namely, the Production, the Distribution, the Exchange,
and the Consumption of "Wealth. All wealth has, of course,
to be produced, in the first place ; and, moreover, it is pro-
duced to be consumed, and for this end alone. Production
and Consumption, therefore, are concerned with the entire
sum of wealth.
All wealth, however, is not exchanged 1 ; nor is all
1 Not only is not, but could not be. I say this to meet the sugges-
tion that wealth, though actually not exchanged, is yet always sub-
ject to exchange in the sense that, if that particular form of wealth
were to rise, or some possible substitute for it in use were to fall
markedly in price, exchange would then take place, so that such
wealth should still be regarded as within the domain of exchange.
But the state of facts assumed is not real. No matter how much rice
might advance, or other food decline in price, no human power could
take all the crop out of India and bring back a food-substitute to the
people, even were it Liebig's extract. The whole transportation system
of India, reinforced by the revenues of the British Government, broke
down under the effort, in 1873-4, to distribute to the people of certain
districts of India an amount of rice equivalent to but a small portion
of their usual crop. The railroads and water-courses of the United
States could not take all the crops from the farms where they were
raised.
4 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
wealth distributed. Exchange and Distribution, therefore,
have not to deal with the entire sum of wealth. Nor is
that part of wealth which is excluded from Exchange
identical with that which is excluded from Distribution.
Yast amounts of wealth are exchanged which are not
distributed ; vast amounts are distributed which are not
exchanged.
The term Production of Wealth does not need, for our
present purposes, to be defined.
Consumption, in the economical sense, is the use of
wealth. The actual destruction of wealth thereby may be
total or partial, rapid or slow, according to the nature of
the material and the object to which it is directed. The
Consumption begins when the use begins.
" That almost all that is produced is destroyed, is true ;
but we can not admit that it is produced for the purpose of
being destroyed. It is produced for the purpose of being
made use of. Its destruction is an incident to its use ; not
only not intended, but, as far as possible, avoided." 1
Wealth is exchanged, in the meaning of the political
economist, when the producer and the consumer of it are
different persons ; and this, whether different persons have
united in the production of it or not.
On the other hand, wealth must be distributed when dif-
ferent persons (having separate legal interests) unite in
production; and this, whether the product is to be ex-
changed or not.
In illustration of the latter case, let us suppose that a
dozen persons unite in a fishing venture, on equal or unequal
shares. Upon their return the product is distributed that
is, divided into shares among them. It may be that each
of the producers will desire all the fish thus falling to his
share for his own immediate consumption, or to be salted
down for winter use : then none of the product will be
exchanged, though all of it has been subject to distribution.
1 N. W. Senior, Pol. Econ., p. 54.
DISTRIBUTION vs. EXCHANGE.
Or, again, some of the fishermen may desire to sell the
whole, others portions only, of their fish, in order to pur-
chase articles more adapted to their necessities : then we
should have a product distributed wholly and exchanged
in part.
In illustration of the former case, let us take a small far-
mer, in the American sense of that term, 1 a peasant pro-
prietor in the phrase of Europe, cultivating his land by his
own labor and that of his minor children, and perhaps of
his wife as well. The product here is not distributed,
because it is all his, 2 the children and, for that matter,
the wife, having no separate interests legally, and the
avails of their labor going entire to the father and husband.
The product, therefore, not being divisible into shares rep-
resenting the claims of different producers, Distribution is
not concerned at all with it ; yet a part of it, or the whole,
may be exchanged. If the farm were situated in one of our
North-eastern States, and the product were chiefly pork,
corn, potatoes, and garden vegetables, the greater part
would presumably go to the support of the family, and but
little would be exchanged for other articles. If, on the
1 " When we speak of an American farmer, we generally mean one
who is the absolute owner of the land and every thing on it." T.
Sedgwick, Pol. Econ., p. 54.
a It may be said that the father and husband is bound, both morally
and legally, to support his wife and children out of the product;
and that the subsistence thus derived by them constitutes, in effect,
their wages. To this it will be sufficient to answer, first, that the
amount and character of that subsistence are not determined by con-
tract between the parties, as in the case of what may properly be
called wages, but, within the limits of the mere support of life, are
wholly at the will and discretion of the head of the family, having no
relation to what other persons, rendering the same character and
amount of service, may be receiving next door ; and, second, which
settles the question, that the head of the family is equally bound to
supply subsistence whether the wife and children labor or not. In the
case of children too young to labor, or of an invalid wife, the obliga-
tion of the head of the family, in respect to subsistence, is precisely
the same.
6 THE WAGES QUESTION.
other hand, it were situated in one of the Southern sea-
board States, and the product were cotton, the whole of it,
though not distributed, would be exchanged, being sold to
purchase breadstuffs, clothing, West-India goods, etc.
Both the Exchange and the Distribution of Wealth may
be, according to subject and circumstance, either simple
and obvious, or effected through most complicated and
roundabout processes. Thus, Exchange may take place in
the form of direct barter between two neighbors, each
giving some of what he has for some of what he wants ;
or it may involve the services of railroad, steamship, and
ocean telegraph, with the mediation of importers, jobbers,
wholesalers, and retailers.
In like manner, Distribution may take the form of a sim-
ple division of a product into two or three equal shares ; or
it may involve the partition of the annual avails of a factory
among five hundred persons having claims upon the pro-
duct, in shares varying from that of the nine-year-old
" half-timer," working under the Factory acts, to that of
the employer or the owner of the mill.
The distinction which I have sought here to illustrate
between the Exchange and the Distribution of Wealth is
not of importance in the general theory of political econ-
omy only, but it is of immediate application to the pro-
blem of Wages. I shall seek to show 1 that the fact that
a large portion of the wealth produced is not distributed,
while yet it is exchanged, may have a powerful influence on
the condition of those classes who produce distributed
wealth. In my opinion, one can no more explain all the
phenomena of distribution without reference to the fact
of a vast undistributed product, than one could explain the
movement of the Gulf Stream without reference to the
colder waters through which and over which it flows.
1 P. 220.
WAGES A QUESTION OF DISTRIBUTION. 7
These brief remarks upon the scope of the four depart-
ments of Political Economy will be sufficiently connected
with the special topic of this work by the remark that the
question of Wages is a question in the Distribution of
Wealth.
. Now it is clear that in treating of the Production of
Wealth we need to distinguish industrial functions ; and
this the systematic writers have done with great success,
and we have the laws of production developed early in the
history of economical investigation with great complete-
ness, little being left to be added by later writers.
But is Tt not equally clear that in treating of the Distri-
bution of Wealth, we need to distinguish industrial classes,
recognizing industrial functions only as they serve to
characterize such classes ? This the systematic writers in
economics have generally failed to do ; and I venture to
think there is in this the explanation of the little progress
made towards the settlement of the important questions in
this department of the science.
Thus the political economist, having shown, by careful
analysis and apt illustration, the parts taken in production
by labor and by capital, carries the same classification for-
ward into Distribution, and speaks of the shares of the pro-
duct received by labor and by capital respectively. Now
it does not follow at all, as a matter of course, that because
labor and capital perform parts which can be clearly dis-
tinguished in production, they will receive separate shares
in the distribution of the product. That will depend on
whether these functions are or are not united in the same
persons. In the distribution of wealth, shares go to per-
sons, who may be grouped in larger or smaller classes, hav-
ing less or more in common. So far as the function per-
formed in production may serve to characterize the
industrial class, so far the function may be recognized in
treating the questions of Distribution, but only so far.
Beyond this it becomes as idle to refer in distribution to
functions performed in production as it would be to seek
8 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
to identify the members of the body engaged in a certain
kind of labor, and undertake to show the parts of the pro-
duce which go severally to the hand, the eye, and the foot.
It is true that we find men laboring, generally at reduced
wages, who have lost one or both hands, one or both eyes,
one or both feet ; and the economist may, by judicious in-
quiry, satisfy himself how much these unfortunate persons
lose in wages by their several infirmities. But this would
not be held to justify the extension of such an analysis or
dissection to the vastly greater number of sound laborers,
and the erection of a system of distribution based on the
respective contributions of the several parts of the undivi-
ded body to the work of production.
Now, as matter of fact, although labor is a function in
production which is always separable in idea from the work
of capital, the instances where capital is furnished by one
person and labor performed wholly by a different person
are, if we look over the world, fewer 1 by far than those in
which capital is furnished more or less by those who per-
form the labor, and in which labor is performed more or
less by those who furnish the capital. In other words, it
is not the rule, but the exception, that one or the other in-
dustrial function shall characterize the industrial person or
class, just as, notwithstanding all the effects of malicious
and accidental injury, the number of those who preserve
all their organs and members exceeds the number of the
maimed, the halt, and the blind.
Yet the great body of systematic writers in political
economy have carried the classification which resulted
from their analysis of the processes of production over,
without change, into the discussion of the questions of
distribution ; and having found labor and capital the two
agents in production, have proceeded to speak of the remune-
ration of labor and the remuneration of capital, as if labor
1 Chapter XII.
CLASSIFICATION OF LABORERS. 9
and capital did in fact receive shares always distinct in
the distribution of wealth.
Now it is easy to show that the term Labor, according to
this use of it, includes the part in industry of five classes
of persons clearly separable in economical idea, and gene-
rally to be distinguished clearly in life, namely : 1st, the
class who work for themselves, by themselves, either on
their own land (the " peasant proprietor" of Europe, and
the American " farmer- ') or in mechanical trades. This
class may consume their own products entire, 1 or exchange
them in a greater or less degree, but in either case there is
no distribution. 2d, the tenant occupier of land, like the
cottar of Ireland or the ryot of India, who receives the
whole produce, subject only to the deduction of rent for
the natural powers of the soil. 3d, the class of persons
working for hire (e. g., domestic servants, soldiers, clergy-
men) who are paid out of the revenue of their employers,
and are not employed with any reference to the profits of
production. 4th, the class of persons working for hire,
whether in agriculture, in trade, or in mechanical pursuits,
who are paid out of the product of their industry, and are
employed with reference to the profits of production.
1 Throughout the present discussion I shall waive all question of
the amount derived by the government from taxation. Whether
taxes be, as Professor Senior claims (Pol. Econ., p. 183-5), " a form 01
expenditure," and hence only cognizable in the department of Con-
sumption, it is not needful to decide here. Suffice it to say that
even though government were to be regarded as, in a certain sense, a
partner in the production of wealth, and a sharer in its distribution,
yet, inasmuch as government always enters by force and carries
away its part, determining for itself alike how much it will take and
to what use it will apply what it takes, political economy can know
nothing of it. As the laws are silent amid arms, economical science
bows before the tax-gatherer. Whether government shall take much
or little for its own purposes out of the wealth that has been pro-
duced is the business, not of the economist, but of the statesman.
The methods and subjects of taxation do come within the field of politi-
cal economy, but it is only because they affect the production of future
wealth, its distribution, its exchange.
10 THE WAGES QUESTION.
5th, the employers themselves, in so far as they personally
conduct and control business operations, their remuneration
being styled the " wages of supervision and management."
Now to the remuneration of each of these five classes the
economists generally, as I have said, apply the term "Wages,
although only the third and fourth classes do in fact receive
a remuneration for their services distinct from that which
they receive for the use of their capital ; being therefore
the only classes which receive "wages" in the ordinary
meaning of that word ; and although, in the second place,
classes 4 and 5 thus grouped have interests as strongly
opposed as human interests can well become.
The explanation of such a classification would fairly
seem to be that which has been indicated, namely, that
economists have assumed as of course that the industrial
functions which they distinguish in the production of
wealth will necessarily characterize the industrial classes
interested in the distribution of wealth. Otherwise it
would scarcely be possible that a classification should
be seriously proposed, for the solution of the problems of
distribution, which groups together employer and em-
ployed ; the peasant proprietor, the tenant occupier, and
the hired agricultural hand ; the navvy and the railroad
king; the day-laborer and the domestic servant with a
Stewart, an Astor, and a Rothschild.
It is true that labor, in a certain sense of that word, is
common to these and all other classes in production ; and
this fact of itself ought to be enough to show that it is not
labor which should be taken to distinguish classes in dis-
tribution. It is not what these classes have in common,
but those things by which they differ from each other,
which should be made the means of characterizing them
as claimants to the product of industry.
It might fairly be expected that after insisting thus
peremptorily that the question of Wages is a question in the
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 11
Distribution of Wealth, and that, in distribution, not in-
dustrial functions, but industrial classes, should be consider-
ed, one would in a treatise on "Wages at once proceed to
state the problem of distribution, and to define the wages
class as a party thereto. But, on the contrary, I shall be
obliged to take up and explain with much particularity
certain principles of Production and Population which
can not safely be assumed for our present purposes, and
also to deal at some length with a current theory respect-
ing the remuneration of labor, which squarely blocks the
way to a philosophy of Wages.
CHAPTEE II.
NOMINAL AND KEAL WAGES.
A DISTINCTION which needs to be apprehended with great
clearness and held strongly in the mind, throughout all
discussion of "Wages, is that between Nominal and Real
Wages.
Real Wages are the remuneration of the hired laborer as
reduced to the necessaries, comforts, or luxuries of life.
These are what the laborer works for ; these are truly his
wages. The money he receives under his contract with
his employer is only a means to that end ; sometimes, as it
proves, a most delusive means. If, as is the case with the
great majority of his class, he spends every week or every
month his entire earnings, he can see for himself, no
matter how little given to reflection, that his wages are not
his money, but what his money brings. If, again, he is
frugal and forehanded enough to save a portion of his
wages, and hoard it up or put it out at interest, it is still
true, though not perhaps so evident, that this portion of
his wages also means, in some near or distant future, " food,
clothing, lodging, and firing" to himself or to his family.
The habitual miser, the person who loves money for its
own sake, is one of the most exceptional of human beings,
the victim, doubtless, of a distinct form of disease as truly
as the subject of alcoholism.
But this reduction of Nominal to Real Wages is not an
easy matter. " No one," says Mr. G. R. Porter in his Pro-
gress of the Nation, " unless he shall have made the at-
NOMINAL AND REAL WAGES. 13
tempt to obtain information of this kind, can be aware
of the difficulties opposed to his success."
Real may differ from Nominal Wages by reason of :
1st. Variations in the purchase-power of money.
2d. Varieties in the form of payment.
3d. Opportunities for extra earnings.
4th. The greater or less regularity of employment.
5th. The longer or shorter duration of the laboring
power.
I shall consider these causes 1 in the order in which
they are here given.
I. The purchase-power of money may vary by reason
of changes in the supply of, or in the demand for, money.
First, of changes in the supply of money.
(a) Changes of Coinage. If a given amount of
gold or silver be rendered into a greater number of
coins than formerly, it is evident that each coin will
piirchase fewer commodities. Now when it is stated
that the English "pound" of to-day contains less
than one third the standard silver it contained in 1300
A.D. 12 oz. of English silver coin metal being now
rendered into 66 shillings, whereas a shilling 8 is nomi-
nally the twentieth part of a "pound" and that the
French livre of 1789 contained less than one sixty-sixth
part of the silver implied in its name, the importance of
1 To the considerations enumerated must be added, as Mr. Ward
has shown, still another, in the case of laborers working by the piece.
" When piece-work is done, you have to consider not only the price
per piece paid, but also the conditions, as of machinery, etc. Thus the
Hyde spinners in 1824 struck because they were getting less per piece
than others, though all the tune they were, by reason of improved
machinery, actually earning more per day." Workmen and Wages,
p. 23.
2 The shilling in America suffered a still harder fate twenty " York
shillings" having the value of but $2.50, and 20 New-England shil-
lings the value of $3.33. In Pennsylvania the " dollar " was, at differ-
ent dates, worth 4s. Qd. ; 5*. ; 5* Qd. ; 6*. ; 6*. 6d. ; 7s. 7*. 6d. Col-
well's Ways and Means of Payment, p. 99.
'
14 THE WAGES QUESTION.
this discrimination in historical comparisons of wages be-
comes manifest.
Even in comparison of contemporary wages, care has often
to be taken lest coins of the same name but of differing
value be confounded. Thus, in the United States, the
York shilling (eight to a dollar) and the New-England
shilling (six to a dollar) were until recently liable to be
taken for each other in calculation of prices. In the same
way the English penny differs from the penny in use in the
island of Jersey, of which it takes thirteen to make a shil-
ling.
(5) Changes in the amount of the precious metals in
circulation. The history of the production of gold and
silver is a history of often intermitted and always highly
spasmodic activity. Thus in the year 800 there is sup-
posed to have been on hand gold and silver to the value, as
expressed in American gold coin, of $1,790,000,000.
Between that date and 1492, the date of the discovery of
America, with its vast reserves of mined and resources of
unmined treasure, the estimated product was $345,000,000.
Between 1492 and 1803 the product is given as $5,820,-
700,000 ; between 1803 and 1848, as $2,484,000,000 ; be-
tween 1848 and 1868, as $3,571,000,000. The effect upon
prices wrought by such wholesale changes in the volume of
the precious metals has long been discussed, and with
great fulness, by economical writers, as influencing the
wages of labor, producing a wide divergence between real
and nominal wages in comparison of different periods ;
but we owe to Prof. Cairnes 1 the demonstration that this
cause is also influential in creating disturbances in contem-
porary wages, the effect upon prices being produced very
irregularly as between countries, and as between different
classes of commodities in the same country.
(c) Fluctuations in the paper substitutes for coin. A
paper currency purporting to be convertible into coin, but in
1 Essays on the Gold Question, 1858-60.
PURCHASE POWER OF MONEY. 15
fact issued, in reliance on the doctrine of chances, in con-
siderable excess of the amount of gold and silver held for
its redemption, will undergo far more sudden and violent
changes than would be possible with a gold and silver cur-
rency, or a paper currency based, dollar for dollar, upon
the precious metals. The reason is that, as the excess
of circulation over the specie basis consists of credit, and
not of value, it is governed, both in expansion and in con-
traction, by the condition of credit, and not by the laws of
value, as a value currency would be. It costs twice as
much labor to raise two thousand ounces of gold from the
mine as to raise one thousand ounces. It costs no more to
engrave, print, and sign a thousand two-dollar than a thou-
sand one-dollar bills. Since, then, a paper circulation may
be increased without labor, all such currencies have shown
a strong tendency to increase under every speculative im-
pulse in trade, the currency allowing prices to advance, and
the advance of prices, in turn, quickening the speculative
impulse, and thus creating new demands for additional cur-
rency. When, however, prices have been carried to their
height, and the market begins to feel the effects of highly-
stimulated foreign importations, while for the same reason
the specie basis of an already dangerously inflated circula-
tion begins to be drawn upon to pay for the goods thus
brought in, the contraction of the currency will be even
more sudden and extreme than was the expansion. Not a
gold dollar can be taken away unless something is given
for it ; a bank-bill has cost nothing : it will cost nothing to
replace it. It may therefore be destroyed without loss to
the bank.
But while a wide divergence between Nominal and
Real Wages may be created by the alternate expan-
sions and contractions of a currency issued on the doctrine
of chances in excess of its specie basis, the disturbances
hereby introduced into wages are slight compared with
those caused by the issue of inconvertible government pa-
per. Thus we iind Washington writing, during the Revo-
16 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
lution, that it took a wagon-load of money to buy a wagon-
load of provisions. The money of which he thus wrote
was the famous " Continental currency." The deprecia-
tion of this currency had been rapid. March 1st, 1778,
$1 in coin would purchase $1.75 in paper; Sept. 1st,
1778, $4; March 1st, 1779, $10; Sept. 1st, 1779, $18 ;
March 18th, 1780, $40 ; Dec. 1st, 1780, $100 ; May 1st,
1781, $200-500.
The printing-press had nearly fulfilled the prediction of
John Adams, in making " money as plenty, and of course
as cheap, as oak-leaves." 1 Mr. Jefferson says 2 that the
paper continued to circulate in the Southern States till it
had fallen to $1000 for $1. We are familiar with the
prices at which the necessaries of life were purchased in
currency thus depreciated : " Bohea tea, forty-five dollars ;
salt which used to be sold for a shilling a bushel forty
dollars a bushel, and, in some of the States, two hundred
dollars at times ; linens, forty dollars a yard ; ironmongery
of all sorts, one hundred and twenty for one." 3
I have before me the public records of the second pre-
cinct of the township of Brookfield, Massachusetts, for this
period. On the 23d May, 1776, a " gospel minister " was
called, the terms of settlement being as follows : " Voted
and granted the sum of 70 the two first years each as sa-
lary, and the third year to rise to 80 per annum during his
ministry." The succeeding votes show the effects of the
currency inflation : Dec. 3d, 1778, " Yoted and granted the
sum of 220 to the Rev. Mr. Appleton, to be assessed on
the polls and estates within this precinct, in addition to
the former grant of 80 for the present year." Oct. 21s,
1779, " Voted and granted the sum of 720 to the Rev.
Mr. Appleton, in addition to his stated salary of 80."
April 3d, 1780, " Voted that the 220 granted Dec. 3d,
1778, shall go for the preceding year. Voted that the 720
granted Oct. 21st, 1779, be so far reconsidered as that the
1 Works, ix. 463. a Works, ix. 249. 3 Works of J. Adams, vii. 199.
PURCHASE-POWER OF MONEY. 17
same shall be for the preceding instead of the ensuing year.
Then voted and granted the sum of 2420 in addition to
his stated salary, to be assessed on the polls and estates
within this precinct, for the support of the Rev. Mr. Ap-
pleton from October, 1779, to October, 1780."
Second. The purchase-power of money may vary by
reason of changes in the demand for money. The sup-
ply of money is the amount which is offered for all other
commodities ; the demand for money is the amount of all
other commodities offered for it. Eggs in the Highlands
were cheap in Dr. Johnson's day, " not because eggs were
plenty, but because pence were few." "Whether it be the
plentifulness cf eggs or the fewness of pence which deter-
mines the price, the historian of wages is bound to ascer-
tain.
It is manifest that the annual production of commodities
will increase with the efficiency of labor and capital, and
that this increase is from age to age very great ; also, that
the longer this annual production is sustained the greater
will be the accumulation of commodities, the results of
past production.
Two practical remarks remain to be made, in the nature
of warning, to those who undertake the difficult task of
instituting such comparisons of wages as are referred to
above.
The first relates to the effect of local prices. The com-
modities into which the laborer desires to render his money
wages, bear prices differing greatly in localities not far re-
moved from each other. The mere passage from city to coun
try often produces a marked distinction in the prices of the
first necessaries of life; while, where more considerable
distances intervene, the differences in local prices are often
sufficient to effect a substantial equality between nominal
wages widely divergent, or to greatly exaggerate apparent
differences. Thus a mechanic living in some portions of
>v
^r^\
UNJVEKfclT* 1
18 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Vermont, away from a railroad, can buy food for his fam-
ily at prices which would sound like a dream to a town
mechanic. Indeed some of the most expensive luxuries of
the city, to which professional men scarce aspire, sweet
cream, fresh fruits, and new-laid eggs, are within easy
reach of his means. The more substantial articles of diet,
meats, grains, and vegetables, cost one half, or one third
perhaps, what they do in a city market. Would he build
a house ? The main material costs little ; the land less.
Does he lease a cottage ? His rent is not one fourth what
his city cousin pays for perhaps squalid and unwholesome
quarters.
But, it may be asked, is not the country mechanic at a
disadvantage in respect to all the commodities, whether
manufactured articles or the products of agriculture, which
are brought from abroad ; and does not this disadvantage
go far to counterbalance the advantages enumerated ? It
can not be questioned that a loss is suffered on this ac-
count ; but it is much less than the gain by reason of two
causes : first, the greater share of his expenditures are for
articles produced near by ; second, those which are brought
from abroad are, almost without exception, markedly in-
ferior in bulk to those which are supplied by the domestic
market, and hence their price is less enhanced by transporta-
tion. He saves upon his meats and grains and vegetables,
his fuel, and the timber for his house, the freight of those
articles to a market ; he pays the freight from market upon
groceries and spices ; upon clothes and shoes ; upon nails
and putty and glass.
My second warning relates to the liability of error in
comparison of wages due to the great diversity which ex-
ists in the articles consumed by the wages class in dif-
ferent places and at different times. Even in the lowest
condition of life the laborer's expenditure is upon several
articles which are necessary to his subsistence, while in
countries where nature is more liberal or art has greatly
diversified human industry, the laborer indulges in a con-
PURCHASE-POWER OF MONEY. 19
siderable variety of expenditures. Now, not only is it
true that some of these articles may rise in price while
others remain stationary, or even decline or if all rise, yet
each rises in a degree peculiar to itself, and so an average
becomes difficult to reach, particularly in the absence of
ample and authentic statistics of retail trade, scarcely any-
where attainable but those articles which make up the sub-
sistence of workingmen are consumed by them in very vari-
ous proportions, rendering it necessary, in estimating the
comparative wages of two periods, to have regard not only to
the advance or decline in price of each such article, but also
to the amount thereof entering into consumption, inasmuch
as a large advance upon some commodity which the la-
borer uses but rarely and in very limited amounts may
affect his well-being far less than a moderate rise in
another commodity of prime necessity.
This it is which makes it so difficult to compare wages at
different periods in the United States. The habits of the
people vary and have varied so greatly in respect to dress
and diet, not to speak of other things, as to make it almost
impossible to secure a statement which will be accepted by
all candid parties to a controversy as to the quantities
of each principal article of consumption, which shall
represent the expenditure of the average workman's fam-
ily ; and unless a statement of quantities can be accepted
as approximately correct, it can afford only a vague idea
to secure even a precise statement of the prices of the sev-
eral articles.
II. Nominal and Keal "Wages may differ, secondly, by
reason of varieties in the form of payment.
Wages are, to a very large extent, though reckoned in
money, not paid in money. 1 In agriculture, the world
1 Even when wages are paid in money, there are two methods by
which their real value to the laborer may be reduced in addition to all
the causes mentioned under the preceding head. These are, first, the
practice of " long-pays," by which the workman is held a long time
out of his wages, and obliged to purchase goods meanwhile on credit.
20 THE WAGES QUESTION.
over, full payment in money is highly exceptional where
it is not wholly unknown. In England the money wages
in general far exceed the estimated value of all the other
forms of payment, and rarely constitute less than one half
the nominal wages. In Scotland, except in the neighbor-
hood of large towns, payment in kind is very general,
while " in some parts of the highlands little money passes
at all between employer and employed." l In Germany 3
the report of the recent commission of the Agricultural
Congress proves the custom of payments in kind to prevail
in every province from East Prussia to Alsace. In France 3
this custom prevails to a greater or less extent in nearly all
departments. In the United States board to the unmar-
ried laborer is perhaps the rule ; while in the South, at
least, the payment in kind generally includes the subsist-
ence of the laborer and his family, and, to a considerable
extent, other necessaries of life.
on ruinous terms. This is sometimes necessary in new countries ; but
in old countries it is often resorted to needlessly, and forms one of the
standing grievances of the laboring class. The second is the practice
of " truck," by which the workman, though perhaps for form's sake
paid in money, is compelled, under fear of discharge, to purchase
goods at the employer's store. The effects of the latter practice on the
welfare of the laboring classes will be discussed fully at a later stage
(pp. 324-42).
1 Fourth Report, Commission on the Employment of Women and
Children in Agriculture, p. 110. " Part payment in food still prevails
extensively in Wales." Frederick Purdy, Statistical Journal, xxiv.
329.
2 Die Lage der landlichen Arbeiter.
" The married farm-servants/' says Mr. Petre in his Report of 1870
on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Prussia (p. 50), " are called
' Deputaten/ or persons receiving an allowance in kind, to distinguish
them from other farm-servants who all take their meals together at
the farm. The ' Deputaten ' receive in addition to their wages a cer-
tain allowance of corn, potatoes, etc. TJiis primitive practice is, however,
gradually giving way to the system of paying full wages in money, ."
3 " In the departments Bouches du Rhone, Gard, and Gironde it is
not customary to pay in kind. In some, this description of payment
does not amount to more than 10 francs (a year). In some, it sur-
passes in value the amount of money payment." Lord Brabazon's Report
on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of France, 1872, p. 42.
PAYMENT OF WAGES IN KIND. 21
In the various branches of mechanical labor money pay-
ment is more usual, though Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, in
his visits to the United States prior to 1850, found the
practice of paying wages partly in commodities quite gen-
eral j 1 and in England money payments have only been
secured by vigorous legislation and great vigilance in ad-
ministration. Mr. Herries reports" that in the sulphur-
mining districts of Italy " stores exist, under the direction
of the administration, where the persons employed are pro-
vided with oil, wine, and bread, and other necessaries, under
the i tally ' or i truck ' system."
Payment of the wages of mechanical labor otherwise than
in the coin of the realm is forbidden in Germany by the In-
dustrial Code of 1869. In France the artisan classes have
always resented payment in commodities with a peculiar
jealousy.
The multitudinous forms of payment other than in
money may be rudely grouped for our present some-
what casual purpose as (1) rent, where cottages or tene-
ments are provided for the laborer and his family by the
employer, whether in agricultural or in mechanical indus-
try ; (2) board, mainly confined to unmarried laborers ;
(3) allowances, such as definite quantities of various kinds
of food, drink, or fuel ; (4) what we may call, in distinction
from No. 5, perquisites, such as the hauling of the labor-
er's coal or peat by the employer's teams, the keep of a
cow, the opportunity to take flour at miller s prices ; 8
1 Report on the Payment of Wages Bill (1854), pp. 103-5.
2 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Italy, 1871, p.
231.
8 In Devonshire and elsewhere a " grist-corn" perquisite is recog-
nized, by which the laborer is allowed to have grain at a fixed price
per bushel, whatever the market rate. The amount so allowed to be
taken ranges from two or three pecks to a bushel every fortnight.
Heath's English Peasantry, pp. 95, 96, 140, 141.
" In some counties, as Dorset, the farmer pays part of his men's
wages in corn at 1 shilling per bushel below the market price."
Mr. Purdy, Stat. Journal, xxiv. 329.
23 THE WAGES QUESTION.
(5) privileges, like the gleaning of fields or the keeping a
Pig-
Thus Mr. T. Scott, of Roxburghshire, allows his work-
men a free house and garden ; food (say 4 weeks) in har-
vest ; carriage of coal ; permission to keep a pig, and the
keep of a cow ; 100 stones of oatmeal, 21 bushels of bar-
ley, 6 bushels of peas, 1600 yards of potatoes, 6 tons of
coal at pit prices, 5 in money, in addition to extra earn-
ings at harvest. 1 Another farmer gives his two plough-
men 27 and 26 severally per annum, free cottages
and gardens, 6J- bolls of meal, 3 bolls of potatoes, and
" drives" their coal. Another in the highland part of
Lanarkshire gives 18 annually, the keep of a cow, liberty
to keep a pig, 65 stones of oatmeal, and 16 cw r l. of pota-
toes. He places the total value of money wages, allowances,
etc., at from 35 to 40. 2 From the above it will readily
be seen how difficult and how nearly impossible it is to re-
duce such various conditions to the uniform expression
necessary for comparison. The " board " furnished may
vary from the generous living characteristic of Cumber-
land and Westmoreland 3 in England, and of the United
States generally, to the barest and coarsest subsistence
allowed in less favored regions. The cottages thus given
rent free may be " model cottages" or they may be of the
character 4 described in so many English official reports,
early and recent, with reference to which the Earl of
Shaftesbury said, " Dirt and disrepair such as ordinary
1 Fourth Report (1870) Commission on the Employment of Women
and Children in Agriculture, p. 58.
3 Ibid., p. 110. 3 See Mr. Tremenheere's Report for 1869.
4 The Hon. Edward Stanhope, Assistant Commissioner, says of the
cottages in Shropshire : " The point especially deserving of attention in
this county is the infamous character of the cottages. In the majority
of the parishes I visited they may be described as tumble-down and
ruinous, not water-tight, very deficient in bedroom accommodations and
in decent sanitary arrangements." Report on the Employment of
Women and Children in Agriculture, 1868-9, p. xxxiv.
PERQUISITES AND ALLOWANCES. 23
folks can form no notion of, darkness that may be felt,
odors that may be handled, faintness that can hardly be
resisted, hold despotic rule in these dens of despair." * In
respect to the other allowances, perquisites, and privileges,
as we have classed them, which go so largely to make up
the wages of the laborer in agriculture in all countries,
there is perhaps not quite so great range as in the board or
cottage rent furnished ; yet differences in the quality of
the articles allowed, or in their adaptation to the wants of
the laborer, or in the generosity with which traditional or
stipulated privileges are interpreted, may still go far to
contract or expand the apparent wages. Thus Mr. Heath
in his work, " The English Peasantry," charges that the
hauling of turf for the laborer's fuel is often a delusion
and a snare, the turf when cut and piled up on the moors fre-
quently being spoiled by the rain before the farmer finds
it convenient to lend the horse and cart ; 2 also that the
oft-cited " grist-corn" perquisite is of little or of no value
to the laborer, the corn for this purpose being frequently
taken from the " rakings" of the field. 3 It is upon the
cider allowance, however, that Mr. Heath expends the main
force of his indignation, and he quotes with effect the tes-
timony of Mr. Austin, one of the Assistant Poor-Law Com-
missioners of 18i3, as to the very inferior quality of the
article supplied by the farmers of the western counties
" under the ironical name of cider."*
The "cow" and the "pig" as elements of wages de-
serve a brief mention. It will be noted that we have
placed them under different heads in our classification.
The entire " keep" of the cow is furnished by the employ-
er over whose land she grazes ; the food of the pig, on the
other hand, is supposed to be furnished by the laborer him-
self, though a natural doubt on that point leads many em-
1 Address as President Br. Soc. Sc. Association, 1833. Transac-
tions, p. 9.
a P. 94. 8 P. 95, cf. 140, 141. 4 Pp. 55, 58, 86, 87.
24 THE WAGES QUESTION.
ployers to refuse this highly valued privilege. 1 " For-
merly," said Mr. Inglis, writing of the peasants' rent in Ire-
land in 1834, " the pig was sufficient for this ; but the market
has so fallen that something is wanted besides the pig to
make up the rent." 2 In England Mr. Heath assigns the
pig a somewhat different function. It is at once " to the
farm laborer a kind of savings-bank, in which he puts the
few scraps he can save out of his scanty fare," 3 and also " a
kind of surety with the petty village tradesman. Poor
Hodge could get no credit if he had not some such secu-
rity as a pig affords."*
The keep of a cow is of course a much larger concession
from the employer, and is proportionally rare. Sir Bald-
wyn Leighton declares it to be not less than " the solution
of the whole question of the agricultural laborer." 5 The
net weekly profit Sir Baldwyn estimates at 5 or 6 shil-
lings, the entire labor being performed by the wife and
younger children. It will, of course, be urged that such a
concession would amount simply to a proportionate reduc-
tion of money wages. This is a question which we shall
perhaps be in a better position to discuss hereafter. The
concession of " cow-land " is only mentioned here as one
of the many ways in which, even in wealthy communities,
laborers in agriculture are still paid, rendering it a work of
extreme difficulty to reduce the wages prevailing in differ-
ent sections to any thing like equal terms.
III. Nominal and Real Wages may further differ by
reason of opportunities for extra earnings in some occupa-
tions and in some localities.
It has been said that the true measure of wages is to be
1 " In Dumfriesshire even the keeping of a pig is often prohibited
on the ground that it affords inducements to little acts of peculation."
Fourth Report (1870) on the Employment of Women and Children in
Agriculture, p. 85.
8 A Journey throughout Ireland (4th ed.), p. 371.
'English Peasantry, p. 113. 4 Ibid., p. 115.
6 Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1872, pp. 395-8.
THE FAMILY THE UNIT OF INCOME. 25
found not in the money received, but in the amount of the
necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life which that money
will purchase. But it often happens that the amount of
money received oy the laborer as wages does not express
the sum of his own earnings, while, again, the resources of
the family which, rather than the individual, ought to be
the unit of income as it is of expenditure may be, in many
cases, largely augmented by the earnings of other members.
Such opportunities vary greatly as among localities and as
among occupations, and hence we may find a substantial
equality of family income where a great difference in
wages apparently exists ; or, in other cases, the apparent
difference may be much enhanced through the operation of
the same cause.
An example of the first means of adding to real wages
is found in the Allotment system, which already prevails to
a considerable extent in England and has been highly ap-
proved by economists of reputation ; 1 though there are not
wanting those who argue that this is merely another means
of reducing money wages. By the Allotment system the
laborer is enabled to rent a piece of ground large enough
to employ him for but a portion of his time, with a view
to its being carefully worked by spade culture as a garden.
An example of the second means of adding to real wages
is given by Prof. Senior when he says, " The earnings of
the wife and children 2 of many a Manchester weaver or
1 H. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., pp. 254, 255. W. T. Thornton on Over
Population, chap. viii.
The Commissioners of 1843 reported strongly in favor of the Allot-
ment system ; they declared that it did not tend to reduce wages, but
that all the proceeds of the land thus cultivated constituted " a clear
addition to wages."
On the other side, Mr. Mill, in his Principles of Pol. Econ. , wrote,
" The scheme, as it seems to me, must be either nugatory or mis-
chievous. " I. 441, 442.
2 The industrial disadvantages of the employment of married wo-
men in factories will be spoken of hereafter. To their full extent,
whatever that may be, the superiority claimed by Prof. Senior for the
26 THE WAGES QUESTION.
spinner exceed or equal those of himself. Those of the
wife and children of an agricultural laborer, or of a carpen-
ter or a coal-heaver, are generally unimportant while the
husband in each case receives 15 shillings a week, the
weekly income of the one family may be 30 shillings, and
that of the other only IT or 18 shillings." 1 The income
of the family, it is evident, therefore, should be taken as
the unit in estimating wages.
IV. No consideration is more needful to be observed
in the reduction of Nominal to Real Wages than that of
the greater or less regularity of employment ; yet none is
more neglected, not only in comparison of the remunera-
tion of labor in different occupations and localities, but
also in a still more important use of the statistics of
wages, namely, the comparison of different periods to
ascertain whether strikes and trades unions have been
really successful in advancing the condition of the working
classes. It is not unusual to see the fact of an in-
crease of wages in certain occupations following a threat-
ened or accomplished strike, put forward as proof positive
of the efficiency of this instrumentality, without the ques-
tion being raised whether the certainty and continuity of
work may not have been affected injuriously in conse-
quence. Yet it is clear that a nominal increase of wages
may be offset by irregularity of employment so as not only
spinner or weaver must be discounted. Again, so far as the employ-
ment of the female head of the family in outside labor, or of very
young children in any sort of labor, tends to reduce health and
strength or to shorten life, this must be set off against the advantage
of increased present earnings, in accordance with the principles to be
noted in the paragraphs which immediately follow.
1 Lectures on Wages, pp. 8-9.
It is not only true that the opportunities for extra earnings vary
greatly as between different occupations, as shown by Prof. Senior's
illustration, but such opportunities vary greatly within the same occu-
pation in different localities. Thus Mr. Purdy's tables of Irish
agricultural wages show that the " harvest wages" for men range
from 2 shillings 6fZ. a week above ordinary wages, all the way up to
11 shillings. Statistical Journal, xxv. 448-50.
REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT. 27
to render the advance nugatory, but, through the influence
on the laborer's habits of industry, temperance, and frugal-
ity, to make the change highly pernicious. The neglect to
make account of the regularity of employment is probably
due not to want of candor in argument, but to the lack of
a popular recognition of the vital importance of this con-
sideration. Yet it ought to be evident to the earliest
writer on comparative wages that the tme time-unit is not
less than the entire year. The hourly, daily, or weekly
rate of payment is but one factor of wages ; the number
of hours, days, and weeks throughout the year for which
that rate of wages can be obtained is the other.
Yarying regularity of employment is due to (1) the na-
ture of the individual occupation, (2) the force of the sea-
sons, (3) social causes, (4) industrial causes of a general
character.
In agriculture, for example, we find the first two causes
operating to produce great variations in the monthly rate
of wages. It is not alone the difference of seasons which
makes agricultural wages so irregular ;' it is in part the
lr riiis irregularity may be greater or less according to climate
or the character of the crops. Some crops require far more days of
labor in the year than others. Some countries are locked in frost half
the year ; in others the ground opens early and freezes late. " In the
countries on the Danube, these operations are spread over seven
months ; in the countries on the north of the Volga they must be con-
cluded in four months." Hearn's Plutology, pp. 74, 75. An English
farmer is ploughing while a New-England farmer is hauling wood oa
the ice and snow. Mr. Purdy's valuable tables (Statistical Jour-'
nal, xxiv. 352, 353) show that February Is the worst mouth for employ-
ment in agriculture in England ; August, the best.
Mr. Purdy gives a table which he deems fairly representative, ex-
hibiting the divisions of agricultural wages between the seasons &s
follows :
Paid for Labor :
First quarter
Second " 22.1
Third " 38.6
Fourth ....... 20.4
100.0
TEE WAGES QUESTION.
nature of the operations involved. After the seed has
been planted, time must be given it to grow, and this
would be so even if there were no winter. So in the fish-
eries it is not stress of weather alone ^ hich obliges the
laborer to lie idle portions of the year, but in part the re-
productive necessities of the fish. In other instances it is
the force of the seasons alone which makes employment
irregular, as for example in the brickmaking, 1 quarrying,
carpentering, house-painting, and sundry other out-door
trades.
The loss of time from sickness, as shown by the statis-
tics of friendly societies and by other evidence, varies
greatly in different localities and occupations : an element
that can not properly be excluded from the discussion of
comparative wages, as such sickness involves not only
loss of labor, but also, generally, a positive expense for at-
tendance and medicine.
The following table from Mr. Alex. Glen Finlaison's re-
port (1853) on sickness and mortality in friendly societies,
shows the experience of certain large groups of occupa-
tions in this respect :
LIGHT. LABOR.
HEAVY LABOR.
AGE.
Without ex-
With expo-
Without ex-
With expo-
posure to the
weather.
sure to the
weather.
posure to the
weather.
sure to the
weather.
Days lost.
Days lost.
Days lost.
Days lost.
20
6.48
6.00
6.71
7.16
25
6.00
5.78
6 82
7.45
30
6.01
5.85
7.06
7.69
35
6.20
5.84
7.45
8.04
40
7.13
7.29
8.03
9.40
45
8.03
7.4S
9.87
10.78
50
10.48
10.02
12.15
12.58
55
13.65
10.66
16.08
14.33
60
17.18
11.23
20.36
21.78
65
26.22
18.15
26.99
31.55
1 In brickmaking, in England, it is estimated that men can be em-
ployed but 45 weeks in the year, in consequence of rain and frost. In
the Northern States of America the failure of employment is for a
much longer period.
LOSS OF TIME BY HOLIDAYS. 2ft
What we call social causes in restriction of employ*
ment include the habits of a community respecting festiv-
ities and religious observances. 1 Yauban estimated the
loss of labor in France from fete days and Sundays at 90
days in the year. In some Catholic countries the holidays
more or less scrupulously observed exceed, including Sun
day, one hundred. Among the Hindoos they are said to
consume nearly half the year. It is doubtless true that
poverty sometimes joins with superstition 8 in imposing
excessive fasts, and the want of work may account for
the readiness with which a population surrenders itself
to celebrating the virtues of a saint ; yet there can be
no doubt that a force not industrial operates in some
countries in reduction of the number of days of labor.
A very common multiplier taken in England and the
United States in reckoning annual earnings is 300 ; yet
there can be little doubt that this is an exaggeration.
But there are also industrial causes of a general nature
1 Mr. Lecky remarks of holidays in Catholic countries : " The num-
ber that are compulsory has been grossly exaggerated." History of
Rationalism, ii. 323.
Diplomatic and consular reports to the British Government give
perhaps the most recent and exact information on the subject of holi-
days in the Greek Church.
Consul Calvert reports from Montastir that, reckoning Sundays,
there are more than one hundred days in the year when the Christians
voluntarily cease work (1870, p. 244). Consul Stuart states the number
of days besides Sundays which the Eastern Church attempts to with-
draw from labor at 48. Formerly, he says, the number was greater ;
but the opposition of the working classes to the loss of so much time
has caused a reduction in this respect, which will doubtless proceed
further (1871, p. 780). Mr. Gould gives the number of working days
in Greece as 265 (1870, p. 500). Consul Sand with gives the number of
fete days in Crete as 30 (1872, p. 382). Consul Egerton states that in
Russia " besides Sundays there are about 24 holidays in the year,
when no work is allowed. Some are saints' days ; others, state holi-
days" (1873, p. 111).
8 Gibbon, chap, xlvii., of the Jacobites, whose five annual Lenta
the historian is disposed to regard as an instance of " making a virtue
of necessity."
30 THE WAGES QUESTION'.
which of late years are operating more and more to inter-
rupt the continuity of production and render employment
precarious. These causes, though general in their origin,
do yet affect localities and occupations very diversely, in-
troducing thus a new element of great difficulty into the
problem of wages. Thus there is no reason from the nature
of the operations involved, why cotton-spinning should not
proceed equably through all the months of the year, but in
fact the demands of modern trade require that periods of
heavy production shall alternate with periods of dulness
and depression. 1 In the same way the aggregation of vast
numbers of workmen into factories for the manufacture of
boots and shoes has introduced an irregularity into that
branch of manufacture which did not exist when it was
confined to the small shop where the master worked with an
apprentice and perhaps a journeyman, and made goods for
a well-defined and permanent body of customers.
Among the industrial causes which introduce this dis-
turbance into the employment of labor must of course be
included strikes and lock-outs. Dr. John Watts has fur-
nished some very instructive computations as to the first
cost of strikes. Thus, assuming five per cent addition to
existing wages to be the matter in dispute between the
employer and the laborer, he shows that if the strike
succeeds its results will be, roughly speaking, as follows : a
1 Mr. Dudley Baxter, speaking of the operatives in this branch of
industry, wrote : " We all know their periodical distresses. It may be
said that these were accidents. They are not mere accidents, but inci-
dents natural incidents of our manufacturing economy. They are
sure to recur under different forms, either from gluts, or strikes, or war,
and they must be allowed for in computations of earnings." National
Income, p. 45.
"In 1829 the weavers of Lancashire and Cheshire were earning,
at best, from 4s. 4^d. to 6s. per week when at work. The most
favored had to wait a week or two between one piece of work and the
next ; and about a fourth of the whole number were out of employ-
altogether." Martineau, History of England, iii. 167.
2 Statistical Journal, xxiv. 501. I have sought to show elsewhere
(p. 391, n.) that all the time occupied by a strike is not necessarily lost.
LOSS OF TIME BY STRIKES. 81
Years of
the extr
The loss of 1 lunar month's wages will require to make it up,
2 " " ' "
Years of work at
the extra rate.
" The strike of the London builders in 1859 was for 10
per cent of time or its equivalent, 10 per cent of wages ;
and as it lasted 26 weeks, would, if successful, have re-
quired lOf years of continuous work at the extra rate to
make up the loss of wages sacrificed. The amount in dis-
pute between the weavers of Colne and their employers
did not average more than 3 per cent, and had the strike
been successful, would have required more than 28 years
continuous employment at the advance to make up the
amount of wages lost, by which time the lost wages would,
at 5 per cent (interest), have quadrupled." This Colne
strike lasted 50 weeks ; the great Preston strike, 38 weeks ;
the Padiham strike, 29 weeks.
Computations like these do not of themselves show that
strikes can not advantage the working classes, but they do
show the necessity of taking such elements into account in
reducing nominal to real wages.
The joint effect of all the causes enumerated as affect-
ing the regularity of employment is very considerable.
Prof. Leone Levi, in his treatise on Wages, 1 estimates the
lost time of all the persons returned as pursuing gainful
occupations in England to be 4 weeks in the year, and
deems this loss covered by the exclusion of all persons
over 60 years of age, leaving those below employed full
time. To this Mr. Dudley Baxter, in his admirable
work on " National Income," 2 rejoins that if this were
so, there would be no able-bodied paupers in England.
Mr. Baxter goes forward to show the inadequacy of
Prof. Levi's estimate in terms which I shall do weD to
quote :
" I will take a good average instance (and a very large
'P. 5. ' Pp. 41, 42.
32 THE WAGES QUESTION".
one) of the way in which wages are earned in the building
trades. Thess trades form a whole, and include carpen-
ters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, painters, and plumbers,
and number in England and Wales about 387,000 men
above twenty years of age. It is only the best men, work-
ing with the best masters, that are always sure of full time.
These trades work on the hour system, introduced at the
instance of the men themselves, but a system of great
precariousness of employment. The large masters give
regular wages to their good workmen, but the smaller mas-
ters, especially at the east end of London, engage a large
proportion of their hands only for the job, and then at
once pay them off. All masters when work grows slack
immediately discharge the inferior hands and the unsteady
men of whom there are but too many among clever work-
men and do not take them on again until work revives.
In bad times there are always a large number out of em-
ployment. In prosperity much time is lost by keeping
Saint Monday and by occasional strikes. Let us turn to
another great branch of industry, the agricultural labor-
ers, whose numbers are : men, 650,000 ; boys, 190,000 ; wo-
men, 126,000 ; and girls, 36,000. Continuous employment
has largely increased since the new Poor Law of 1834, and
good farmers now employ their men regularly. But in
many places such is not the custom. Near Broadstairs, in
Kent, I was told that, on an average, laborers were only
employed 40 weeks in the year. Mr. Purdy's figures of
the influence of the seasons on agricultural employment
show that the wages paid in the second quarter of the year,
on a large estate in Notts, were 20 per cent more than in
the first quarter. In the harvest quarter they were more
than double. He also mentions the significant fact that
the pauperism of the five most agrarian divisions of Eng-
land is greater in February than in August by 425,000
against 370,000, or 55,000 persons. These 55,000 repre-
sent a great prevalence of the custom of turning off labor-
ers at the slack season. So that even so far as the men
DURATION OF LABORING POWER. 33
are concerned, there must evidently be a large deduction
for time out of work. But when we come to boy sand wo-
men, the case is still stronger. I found in Kent and other
places that boys' and women's employment is very irregu-
lar, and that they are not at work more than half their
time ; in fact, they are only employed as supernumeraries to
the men, and only taken on at busy times."
Y. Still further, Nominal and Keal Wages may be made
to differ through the longer or shorter duration of the
power to labor.
We have seen that it is not what the laborer obtains for
a single day of the week or a single month of the year
which, fixes his real remuneration, but that regularity of
employment from month to month and quarter to quarter
is a most important element in the wages problem. But
neither is it what the workman receives in a single year or
in a term of years which alone can determine the question
of high or low wages. We need, besides, to know the to-
tal duration of his laboring power, that we may be able to
compare the term of his productive with that of his unpro-
ductive life.
It is evident, supposing two persons begin to labor
productively at fifteen years of age, and continue actively
at work, with the same rate of nominal wages, until death,
that the one receives a higher real remuneration who lives
the longer, since the cost of his maintenance during the
first 15 years of helpless life must, in any philosophical
view of the subject, be charged upon his wages 1 during
1 The cost, at contract prices, of raising an orphan child to the age
of 11, is computed by Mr. Chadwick (Statistical Journal, xxv. 505) at
130, or the value of a team of four first-class farm-horses.
The same eminent authority estimates the average loss of working
ability, by premature deaths from preventible causes, to be at least 10
years (Stat. Journal, xxviii. 26).
" In the production of dead machinery," says Dr. Edward Jarvis, " the
cost of all that are broken in the making is charged to the cost of all
which are completed So, in estimating the cost of raising
children to manhood, it is necessary to include the number of years
34 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
his period of labor. It is true that the expense was, in
fact, borne by his parents, while he will himself bear the
cost of the maintenance, in childhood, of his own offspring ;
but no one will, I believe, question that, in the economical
sense, the support of each generation of laborers should be
charged against its own wages, 1 just as truly as that a far-
mer, in solving the question whether a cow dying at a
certain age had paid for herself, would set against the pro-
ceeds of the sales of her milk or butter the expense of
rearing her.
If this principle of estimating the wages of a lifetime
be accepted as just, its great practical importance will not
be denied.
And first in comparison of nations.
In a paper on the Political Economy of Health, Dr.
Edward Jarvis has given some most instructive tables
which can not be better introduced than in the language
of the British Poor-Law Commissioners of 1842 : a " The
strength of a people does not depend on the absolute num-
ber of its population, but on the relative number of those
who are of the age and strength to labor."
The following table 8 shows the number of years spent
under 20 for every 100 persons attaining that age :
COUNTRY.
Years spent under 20.
Per cent of loss.
2142
2182
2192
2251
2327
2514
7.1
9.1
9.6
12.55
16.35
25.70
United States
France
that have been lived by those that fell by the way with the years
of those that pass successfully through the period of development."
Report Massachusetts Board of Health, 1874, p. 340.
1 " Le salaire d'un ouvrier doit comprendre .... ramortisse-
ment du capital employe par ses parents, avec lequel il peut alimenter
eon enfant qui le remplacera un jour dans la societe." Jos. Gamier,
Traite d'ficonomie Politique, p. 462.
9 P. 184. 3 Report Mass. State Board of Health, 1874, pp. 341, 342.
DURATION' OF LABORING POWER.
35
Again, the Life Tables of the several States show the
average number of years lived after the age of 20 to be as
follows :
COUNTRY.
YEARS.
COUNTRY.
YEARS.
Norway
39.61
England
35 55
38.10
France
32 84
United States (Males)
37.46
28.88
Hanover
35.81
" Thus the productive efficiency fell short of its fulness 1
20.78 per cent in Norway ; 23.7 per cent in Sweden ;
25.08 per cent in the United States ; 28.38 per cent in
Germany ; 28.9 per cent in England ; 34.3 per cent in
France, and 42.24 per cent in Ireland."
Again Dr. Jarvds says, " Having the number that are
lost in the maturing period and the number of years they
have lived, and also the number that die in the effective
stage and the duration of their labors, it is easy to draw
a comparison between them and show the cost, in years, of
creating and maturing human power, and the return it
makes in labor in compensation. By this double measure-
ment of life in its incompleteness and in its fulness it is
found that for every 1000 years expended in the develop-
ing period upon all that are born, both those who die and
those who survive the period from birth to 20, the conse-
quent laboring and productive years are : In Norway,
1881 years; in Sweden, 1749 years; in England, 1088
years ; in the United States, 1664 years ; in France, 1398
years ; and in Ireland, 1148 years."
But it is not only between the populations of distinct
countries that such differences in the duration of the
economic force appear. Important differences in this re-
spect are shown by mortuary statistics to exist between
occupations. Thus the excessive mortality of the " dusty
1 50 years, i.e. from 20 to 70 years of age.
3G THE WAGES QUESTION.
trades" lias long been the subject of scientific and official
inquiry. The highly injurious effects upon the lungs of
the dust of cotton and flax mingled with " China clay"
and other poisonous ingredients, producing a haze in the
atmosphere of some factories, and rising in a palpable cloud
in others, have been thoroughly investigated and exposed
by Drs. Hirt 1 and Buchanan. 2 In the " dry-grinding" of
the metals, the deadly influences are even more positive. 3
The following description of the steel-dust in a needle-fac-
tory will suffice for our present purpose of illustration.
" I smelt the dust from one such manufactory before I was
within 70 or 80 yards of it, and though in an open field ;
and I could see the dust floating away like a cloud. It
not only covers the roof and windows on which it settles
with a brown rusty coat, till in time the glass becomes ob-
scured almost as if it were painted, but so corrodes them
as to make the slates and even the glass crumble away.
The dust collects in the flues which carry it from the
stove in large black stalactite-like lumps. Two such were
given me, weighing over two pounds each." 4
Mining may be given as an instance of an occupation
where nominal wages must be heavily discounted by rea-
son of its destructive effects on human life. When it is
remembered that in addition to the great liability to fatal
accident, 5 the amount of carbonic acid gas, which in nature
1 Krankheiten der Arbeiter.
2 Returns to the order of the House of Commons, 13th May, 1872.
8 See the evidence collected by Mr. Jellinger Symons under the Eng-
lish Commission of 1841 ; also, Dr. Greenhow's report in 1860, in the
Third Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council.
4 Report of Mr. J. E. White, Asst. Commr. Employment of Women
and Children, 1865.
6 Sir Thomas Bazley's report for 1870 states the number of deaths
from accidents in collieries and ironstone mines at 991. In the same
year 373 persons were killed in works under the Factory acts ; 1378
were so injured that amputation was required, while the lesser inju-
ries footed up 16,828.
" En France, ces accidents sont beaucoup plus rares,et 1'expl citation
MORTALITY AMONG OCCUPATIONS. 87
is 300-350 in 1,000,000, and does not ordinarily exceed
3000 in the stifling atmosphere of factories and workshops,
often goes up to 20,000 in the air of mines, 1 the exces-
sive mortality within this occupation will not be a matter
of wonder. Dr. Scott Allison found the average age of
the living male heads of families of the collier population
at Tranent, so far as the same could be ascertained, to be
34 years, while the average age of the living male heads of
the agricultural families was nearly 52 years. Dr. Allison
expressed the belief that these proportions would serve as
fair indications of the relative conditions of the different
populations. 2
" So considerable," says Dr. Neison, in a recent paper,*
" is the influence of occupation that the mortality in one
avocation exceeds that of another by as much as 230 per
cent."
Thus taking the period of life 25 to 65, Dr. ISTeison finds
the mean mortality in the clerical profession to be 1.12 per
cent ; in the legal, 1.57 ; in the medical, 1.81. In domestic
service the mortality among gardeners was but .93 ; among
grooms, 1.26 ; among servants, 1.6T ; among coachmen,
1.84. The effect of out- door exposure in all kinds of weather
is here shown alike in the case of the physician and the
coachman. Of several branches of manufacture, the paper
manufacture showed a mean mortality of 1.45 ; the tin
manufacture, of 1.61 ; the iron manufacture, of 1.75 ; the
glass manufacture, of 1.83 ; the copper manufacture, of
2.16 ; the lead manufacture, of 2.24 ; the earthenware man-
ufacture* of 2.57. Among the different kinds of mining
des mines n'a jamais ete raise au nombre des industries qui creent une
position insupportable aux ouvriers." Theodore Fix, Les Claaaee
Ouvrieres, p. 146.
1 Dr. Angus Smith, Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1865, p. 241.
3 Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners of 1842, p. 200.
3 Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, July, 1872, p. 98.
4 The mortality among the " china-scourers" is something fright-
ful '-' In all *he process the operatives are exposed to the inhaling of
38 THE WAGES QUESTION.
industry the range is even greater. Thus the mean mor-
tality of iron-miners is 1.80 ; of coal-miners, 1.82 ; of tin-
miners, 1.99 ; of lead-miners, 2.50 * ; of copper-miners,
3.17. 9
But it is not alone by death that the laboring power is
prematurely destroyed. The agricultural laborer of Eng-
land, for example, who is long lived, often becomes crip-
pled early by rheumatism due to exposure and privation.
" Then he has to work for 4 shillings or 5 shillings per
week, supplemented scantily from the rates, and at last to
come, for the rest of his life, on the rates altogether. Such
is, I will not call it the life, but the existence or vegetation,
of the Devon peasant. He hardly can keep soul and body
together." 3
In the same country, Mr. Dudley Baxter states, there are
40,000 men out of less than 400,000 in the building trades
who between 55 and 65 are considered as past hard work.
In other trades, he says, a man is disabled at 55 or 50. A
coal-backer is considered past work at 40. 4
I can not better close this protracted chapter than with
the following words taken from the address of Sir Stafford
Northcote, as President of the British Social Science Asso-
ciation : " A man who earns a pound a week is not neces-
sarily twice as well off as a man who earns 10 shillings.
the fine dust with which the air of the different workshops is charged,
and which dust the finer it is the longer it floats in the atmosphere
and the more dangerous it becomes." Ibid., p. 109.
1 " The diseases engendered by lead-mining may be stated as asthma
and chronic bronchitis." Ibid., p. 103.
a The heat in copper-mines was found by Dr. Greenhow to be very
much greater than in tin-mines. In one mine which he visited the
temperature was 125. "Steam was coming out of the shaft in
volumes at the time of inspection."
8 Letter of Canon Girdlestone to Mr. Heath, "Peasantry of Eng>
laud," p. 100.
4 National Income, pp. 41, 43.
NOMINAL AND REAL WAOE8. 89
You must take into account the amount of work which
they respectively have to do for their money, the number
of hours they are employed, the amount of strain upon the
body and on the brain, the chance of accident, the general
effect upon the health and upon the duration of life." 1
1 Transactions, 1869, p. 18.
CHAPTEK III.
NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR.
ANOTHER distinction which needs to be strongly marked
is that between Wages and the Cost of Labor.
In treating wages as high or low we occupy the laborer's
point of view ; in treating the cost of labor as high or low
we occupy the point of view of the employer. "Wages are
high or low according to the abundance or scantiness of the
necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life which the laborer
can command, without particular reference to the value of
the service which he renders to the employer therefor.
The cost of labor, on the other hand, is high or low accord-
ing as the employer gets an ample or a scanty return for
what he pays the laborer, whether the same be expressed
in money or in commodities for consumption, and this
without the least respect to the well-being of the laborer.
Now this distinction is not of importance merely because
such a distinction can be drawn, and the same object look-
ed at from different points of view. Not only are the
points of view here diametrically opposed, but the objects
contemplated are not necessarily the same, so that high
wages do not imply a high cost of labor, or low wages a low
cost of labor. A sufficient demonstration of this, for the
present moment, is found in the well-known fact that em-
ployers usually take on their lowest-paid laborers last, and
NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR. 41
discharge them first. 1 The explanation is found in the
varying
EFFICIENCY OF LABOR.
The extent to which this consideration is popularly neg-
lected may be seen by recurring to any discussion of the
question of " protection," whether in the legislature or in
the public press. A day's labor is almost universally taken
as the unit of measure in determining the cost of similar
products in different countries. In fact, " a day's labor"
conveys scarcely a more definite idea than the boy's com-
parison, " big as a piece of chalk," or " long as a string."
The mere announcement that a day's labor can fie had in
one country for 10 cents, in another for 50, while in a third
it commands $1.50, conveys to the mind of one familiar
with the statistics of industry not even an impression as to
the comparative cost of labor in the several countries. Yet
it has been held by a large party in the United States to
be conclusive of the question of " protection," that labor-
ers in other countries are more scantily remunerated than
in our own. The avowed object of protective tariffs here
has been to keep wages from sinking to the level of Europe
and Asia. The allusions to " pauper labor" which crowd
the speeches of Clay, Stewart, and Kelley have sig-
nificance only as it is assumed that a day's labor in one
place is the economical equivalent of a day's labor any-
where, and that one man's labor is effective in the same
degree as that of any other man.
It is, however, very far from the truth that a day's labor
is always and everywhere the same thing. We can
scarcely take the estimate adopted by Lord Mahon, 9 that
1 Masters " prefer those laborers who earn the most wages." Mr.
Chadwick, Statistical Journal, xxv. 510.
Sir Joseph Whitworth, the great manufacturer of cannon, told Mr.
Chadwick that " he could not afford to work his machines with a horse
that cost less than 30." Ibid.
2 History of England, vii., pp. 229,330.
42 THE WAGES QUESTION.
an English wood-sawyer will perform as much work in the
same time as thirty-two East-Indians, as giving the general
ratio 1 between labor in the two countries ; yet, on the
other hand, the comparison is not absolutely an extreme
one. The difference between an English woodsawyer,
before a pile of hickory cordwood, and an effeminate East-
Indian, accustomed to think it a day's job to saw off a
few lengths of bamboo, is not so great as that which would
exist between a Maine mast-man and a Bengalee at the
foot of a 40-inch pine. The one would lay the monster
low in half a day, the other might peck at it a week and
scarcely get through the bark. In the contests of industry
the civilized, organized, disciplined, and highly-equipped
nations may safely entertain much the same contempt for
barbarous antagonists as in the contests of war. " The wolf
cares not how many the sheep be," said one conqueror ;
" The thicker the grass," said another, " the easier it is
mown." So vast are the differences in this matter of the
efficiency of labor that it is difficult to write respecting
them without producing the impression of a disposition to
exaggerate, if the reader has not specially studied the con-
ditions of production and is unacquainted with the statis-
tics of industry. Yet in sober earnest we may borrow the
language of Edmund Burke respecting the political adapt-
ations of men, and say that, in industry as in government,
men of different nationalities may be regarded as so many
different kinds of animals.
The testimony to the varying efficiency of labor comes
1 Prof. Senior, in his Lectures on Wages, stated the average annual
wages of labor in Hindostan at from one pound to two pounds troy of
silver against nine pounds to fifteen pounds troy in England
Mr. Finnic, who was engaged by the Madras Government as superin-
tendent of the cotton experiment from 1845-9, says, " the interest of
the money invested in the purchase of a laborer in America, added to
the actual cost of his maintenance, would pay for nine able-bodied men
in India." Wheeler's Cotton Cultivation, p. 100.
NATIONALITY IN LABOR. 43
from so many sources that our only difficulty is that of
selection. The comparison of the English with the Irish
laborer, whether as a cottar tenant at home or working
for hire in the northern counties of England, used to be a
favorite one with economists before the famine and the
emigration. Of late this disparagement of Irish labor has
become infrequent. In the last century Arthur Young,
the eminent traveller, who spent two years near Cork as
the manager of a large estate, declared an Essex laborer at
2 shillings 6 pence a day to be cheaper than a Tipperary
laborer at 5 pence. The improvement in the condition of
the Irish peasant and in the methods of industry in Ireland
was very marked in the seventy years which next follow-
ed ; but in 1845 Dr. Kane, in his work on the Industrial
Resources of that country, placed the number of native
laborers requisite for a given production at two or more
where one English laborer w r ould suffice (pp. 397-9). In
the iron manufacture he gives the ratio as three to one.
In the same manner the Russian serf was, up to the time
of the Emancipation, often adduced as illustrating the low
efficiency of brutalized and underfed labor. Thus Prof.
Jones says : " In spite of the dearness of provisions in
England and their cheapness in Russia, the mowing a quan-
tity of hay which would cost an English farmer half a
copeck, will cost a Russian farmer three or four copecks."
But it is not only in comparison with the oppressed
laborers of Ireland and with the serfs of Russia that the
superiority of English labor has been asserted on high
authority. Mr. Edwin Rose, long employed as an operative
engineer in France and Germany, testified before the Fac-
tory Commission, forty years and more ago, that it required
fully twice as many hands to perform most kinds of fac-
tory work in France and Switzerland as in England ; and
the statistics of per capita product and of the ratio between
hands and machines amply bore out Mr. Rose's statement.
The estimate of Mr. Briavoinne, founded on the total pro-
duction of Belgium, gave 116 pieces of cloth printed foi
44 THE WAGES QUESTION.
each workman per annum. The production of certain
establishments, however, was estimated as high as 300
pieces. At the same time the workmen of the great
establishment of Ainsworth & Co., in England, were turn-
ing out 1000 pieces per head. In cotton-spinning, again,
we find from the best international statistics available that
the number of spindles attended by a single operative to-day
in England ranges from two to four times the correspond-
ing number on the Continent. 1 The statistics of the iron
industry of France show that on the average 42 men are
employed to do the same work in smelting pig iron, as is
done by 25 men at the Clarence Factories on the Tees.
And so it comes about that, while wages are higher in
England than in any other country of Europe, English
manufactures have to be excluded by heavy duties from
competition with the so-called cheaper labor 2 of the Con-
tinent.
1 " In the weaving-mills a Russian rarely has the care of more
than two looms, while in England a weaver will frequently look
after six." (Report of H. B. M. Consul Egerton on the Factory
System of Russia, 1873, p. 111.) Mr. Batbie states that the English
farmers on the shores of the Hellespont prefer to give 10 pounds
sterling a year for Greek laborers to giving 3 pounds for Turk-
ish laborers. (Nouveau Cours de 1'Economie, i. 73.) Even with the
best Continental labor there is a decided inferiority to English
rates of production. In Switzerland the number of hands employed
per 1000 spindles does not average less than 8 to 8, against 7 in Eng-
land. (Report of Mr. Gould on the Factory System of Switzerland,
1873, p. 129.)
In England, moreover, it should be noted, the machinery is almost
uniformly run at a speed not known on the Continent.
8 Whereas female labor in the cotton manufacture is paid at from
12*. to 15s. a week in Great Britain ; at from 7*. Sd. to 9s. 7d. in
France, Belgium, and Germany ; at from 2s. 4d. to 2s. lid. in Rus-
sia, the one thing which is most dreaded by the Continental manufac-
turers everywhere is British competition. The demand for protection
is loudest in France, Austria, and Russia, where the average wages
reach their minimum. . . .
The average price of labor per day for puddlers is 7s. 6d. to 7s.
IQd. in Staffordshire ; 6*. 4d. in France ; and from 4s. Id. to 5s. in
NATIONALITY IN LABOR. 45
But by far the most important body of evidence on the
varying efficiency of labor is contained in the treatise of
Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., entitled " Work and Wages,"
published in 1872. Mr. Brassey's father was perhaps the
greatest " captain of industry'' the world has ever seen,
having been engaged, between 1834 and 1870, in the con-
struction of railways in England, France, Saxony, Austria,
Hungary, Moldavia, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Canada, Aus-
tralia, the Argentine Eepublic, Syria, Persia, and India.
" There were periods in his career," says Sir Arthur Helps, 1
" during which he and his partners were giving employ-
ment to 80,000, upon works requiring seventeen millions
(sterling) of capital for their completion." The aggregate
length of the railways thus constructed appears to have ex-
ceeded six thousand five hundred miles. The chief value
of Mr. Brassey, Jr.'s work is derived from his possession
of the full and authentic labor-accounts of his father's
transactions. " Frenchmen, Belgians, Germans, Italians,
Russians, Spaniards, and Danes came under the close in-
spection of Mr. Brassey and his agents ; and we are told
how the men of these various nationalities acquitted them-
selves in their respective employments." 2 Some of the
results of this vast experiment of labor are given by Mr.
Brassey, Jr., in his chapter on the Cost of Labor.
On the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada the French-
Canadian laborers received 3s. 6d. a day, while the
Englishmen received from 5s. to 6s. a day ; " but it was
found that the English did the greatest amount of work
for the money." 3
Contrasting the wages paid on an English railway, 3*.
to 3s. 6d. a day, with those paid on an Irish road, Is. 6d.
Belgium. Yet tlie average price of merchant bar-iron was 6 10*. in
England, 7 in Belgium, 8 in France. Mr. D. A. Wells' reports, oa
Special Commissioner U. S. Revenue.
1 Brassey's Life and Labors, p. 160. * Ibid., Preface, xvi.
8 Work and Wages, p. 87.
46 THE WAGES QUESTION.
to "Ls. Sd. s Mr. Brassey remarks, " Yet with this immense
difference in the rate of wages, sub-contracts on the Irish
railway were let at the same prices which had been pre-
viously paid in South Staffordshire." 1
" In India, although the cost of daily labor ranges from 4|-
to 6d. a day, mile for mile the cost of railway work is
about the same as in England." " In Italy, masonry and
other work requiring skilled labor is rather dearer than
in England." 2
" Great pains were taken to ascertain the relative indus-
trial capacity of the Englishman 8 and the Frenchman on
the Paris and Rouen line ; and on comparison of half a
dozen < pays,' it was found that the capacity of the English-
man was to that of the Frenchman as five to three." 4
" Mining is perhaps the most exhausting and laborious of
all occupations. It has been found that in this description
of work the English miner surpasses the foreigner all over
the world. On the Continent, long after earth-work and
all the other operations involved in the construction of
railways had been committed to the native workmen, Eng-
lish miners were still employed in the tunnels."
" In the quarry at Bonnieres, in which Frenchmen,
Irishmen, and Englishmen were employed side by side,
the Frenchman received three, the Irishman four, and
the Englishman six francs a day. At those different
rates, the Englishman was found to be the most advanta-
geous workman of the three." 5
Such differences in industrial efficiency as have been in-
dicated may exist not only between nations, but between
geographical sections of the same people. The very mi-
1 Work and Wages, p. 69. z Ibid., p. 90.
8 Four thousand Englishmen were sent over to work on this road.
Ibid., p. 79.
Two thousand English and Scotch were sent to Australia to work on
the Queensland line.
4 Ibid., p. 115. * Ibid., p. 82.
NOMINAL AND REAL COST OF LABOR. 47
nute and careful researches of M. Dupin in the early part of
this century seemed to establish a decided superiority in
productive power of the artisans of northern over those
of southern France. In England the superiority of the
agricultural population of the northern counties is unmis-
takably very great. " Any one," says Mr. Mundella, M.P.,
" who has witnessed agricultural operations in the west
of England, will agree that the ill-paid and ill-fed laborer
of those parts is dearer at 9s. or 1 Os. per week than the
Nottinghamshire man at 16s." * " It would be a great
mistake," says Mr. Walter Bagehot, in the Economist? " to
put down as equal the day's hire of a Dorsetshire laborer
and that of a Lincolnshire laborer. It would be like having
a general price for steam-engines not specifying the horse-
power. The Lincolnshire man is far the more efficient
man of the two."
From a single page of the Report for 1869 of the
Commission on the Employment of Children, Women and
Young Persons in Agriculture, I extract the following
testimony respecting the inefficiency of the laborers of
Berkshire : " I would rather pay a Northumbrian hind
16 shillings a week than a Berks carter 12 shillings,"
testifies one farm bailiff. " Our men here," says an-
other, " are very inferior to Scotch laborers ; 3 two men
there do as much as three here." Another bailiff testifies
that " he was obliged to employ as many men in Berkshire,
at certain kinds of work, as he had been accustomed to
employ of women in Perthshire." 4
1 Social Sc. Trans., 1868, p. 524. * January 24th, 1874.
3 " I protest," so writes a farmer, " that one of the Scotchmen whom
I formerly employed would do as much work as two or even three
Suffolk laborers. It ' makes one's flesh creep ' to see some of the lat-
ter at work." Clifford, Agricultural Lock-out of 1874, p. 25, note.
4 Second Report, p. 105. " I have myself in Northumberland heard
a Northumbrian farmer declare that one of the strong big-boned wo-
men who worked in his fields was worth much more than any average
southern laborer." Clifford, Agric. Lock-out of 1874, p. 25.
48 THE WAGES QUESTION.
In view of such wide differences in the productive power
of individuals, communities, and peoples, no attempt at a
philosophy of wages can omit to inquire into the causes
of the varying efficiency of labor. These causes I shall
emunerate under six heads ; but the possible effect of no
one cause will be fully apprehended unless it be held
constantly in mind that the value of the laborer's services to
the employer is the net result of two elements, one positive,
one negative, namely, work and waste that in some degree
waste, using the term in its broadest sense to express the
breakage and the undue wear and tear of implements and
machinery, the destruction or impairment of materials, 1
the cost of supervision and oversight to keep men from
idling or blundering, and, finally, the hinderance of many
by the fault or failure of one, 2 is inseparable from work ;
and that, with the highly finished products of our modern
industry, with its complicated and often delicate machine-
ry, and its costly materials, themselves perhaps the result
of many antecedent processes, it is frequently a question of
1 On this point of waste I select two illustrations. The first is
taken from an address of George J. Holyoake, the historian of Co-opera-
tion:
" It has been calculated that the working colliers at Whitwood and
Methley could, by simply taking the trouble to get the coal in large
lumps, and by reducing the proportions of slack, add to the colliery
profits 1500 a year. If they would further take a little extra care below
ground in keeping the best coal separate from the inferior, they could
add another 1500 to the profits." (Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1865, p.
482.) All this without diminishing their own earnings.
The second is the result of an experiment, noticed in the Statistical
Journal (xxviii., pp. 32, 33), for the economy of coal in an engine-fur-
nace, through giving the stokers a share in the money value of what-
ever saving might be effected. The result was to reduce the consump-
tion of fuel, without loss of power, from 30 to 17.
2 H. B. M. Consul Egerton, in his admirable report of 1873 (Textile
Factories), notes the great irregularity of attendance at work in Rus-
sia. " It is therefore essential to have a large staff of supernumerariea
who have learnt their work, so as to be ready to supply the vacant
places." P. 112.
CAUSES OF VAHYINQ EFFICIENCY. 49
more or less waste whether work shall be worth having 1
or not.
The various causes which go to create differences in in-
dustrial efficiency may be grouped under six heads, as fol-
lows :
I. Peculiarities of stock and breeding.
II. The meagreness or liberality of diet.
III. Habits, voluntary or involuntary, respecting clean-
liness of the person, and purity of air and water.
IY. The general intelligence of the laborer. .
Y. Technical education and industrial environment.
YI. Cheerfulness and hopefulness in labor, growing
out of self-respect and social ambition, and the laborer's
interest in the results of his work.
The first reason which we are called to recognize for
the great differences in industrial efficiency which exist
among men is found in peculiarities of stock and breeding.
Of the causes which have produced such widely diverse
types of manhood as the Esquimaux, the Hottentot, and
the Bengalee at the one extreme, and the Frenchman, the
Englishman, and the American of to-day at the other, 8 it
is not necessary to speak here at all. The effects of local
climate and national food, continued through generations,
upon the physical structure, have become so familiar to the
public through the writings of geographers and ethnologists
that they may fairly be assumed for our present purpose.
The scope and power of these causes are far more likely to
1 " It may appear incredible," remarks Mr. Carleton Tuffnell, the
Poor-Law Commissioner, " that a great demand for labor may exist
simultaneously with a multitude of people seeking employment and
unable to find it. The real demand is not simply for labor, but trained
labor, efficient labor, intelligent labor."
3 M. Batbie states the results of certain experiments with the dyna-
mometer by which it appears that while the figure 50 represents the
sheer lifting-weight of a native of Van Diemen's Land, 71 represents
that of an Anglo-Australian cultivator. Nouveau cours de l'conomie
politique, i. 70.
50 THE WAGES QUESTION.
be magnified than disparaged by the scientific spirit of
this age. But we have also to recognize large differences
as existing between far advanced and highly civilized peo-
ples as to average height, strength, manual dexterity,
accuracy of vision, health, and longevity.
Thus, for example, the mean height of the Belgian
male was given by MM. Quetelet and Yillerme, about
1836, as 5 feet By 3 ^ inches ; that of the Frenchman, as 5 feet
4 inches ; that of the Englishman, 5 feet 9J inches. Such
differences in stature exist as well between sections of the
same country ; thus the Breton peasants are notably defi-
cient even as measured by the low French standard ; while
the proportion of " tall men" (i.e., 6 feet) examined for the
British army was out of every 10,000 English, 104 ; out of
every 10,000 Scotchmen, 194 ; out of every 10,000 Irish-
men, 91.'
At the same time, the largest proportion of rejections
for unsoundness was among the Irish, the least among the
Scotch. MM. Quetelet and Yillerme give the following
determinations of mean weight for the same three coun-
tries :
1 Tliis statement is taken from Mr. Thornton " On Labor," p. 16, n.
Of tlie (very) " tall men" (6 feet 3 inches) enlisted in the U. S. army,
1861-5, there were of each 100,000 of English birth, 103 ; of Scotch,
178 ; of Irish, 84 (Statistical Memoirs of the Sanitary Commission, p. 159) ;
while of the " short men" (under 5 feet 1 inch) there were in 100,000
of English, 690 ; of Scotch, 610 ; and of Irish, only 450, the proportion-
al number of Germans in this class rising to 770, and of Frenchmen to
950. (Ibid., p. 177.) The mean height of the native soldiers was much
reduced by the enlistment of large numbers of very young persons ;
but if we take the soldiers from 35 years upwards, we find the natives
of the United States surpassing in stature those of every other nation-
ality. Thus the mean height of soldiers from New-England was, in
inches, 68.300; New-York, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 68.096;
Ohio and Indiana, 68.980 ; Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, 68.781 J
Kentucky and Tennessee, 69.274, etc. ; while the mean height of
soldiers born in Canada was 67.300 ; England, 66.990 ; Scotland, 67.647 ;
Ireland, 67.090 ; France, Belgium, and Switzerland, 66.714; Germany,
66.718 ; Scandinavia, 67.299. (Ibid., pp. 104, 105.)
DIFFERENCES IN NATIONAL PHYSIQUE. r,\
Lbs. avoirdupois.
Belgian, male (Brussels and environs) 140.49
Frenchman (Paris and environs) 136.89
Englishman (Cambridge) 150.98
There is reason to suspect that these are all pitched a
little high. Among the sections of the American Union
the difference in mean weight, as determined by measure-
ments during the war, 1861-5, was very decided. Thus of
men weighed in health, those from New-England averaged
140.05 Ibs.; those from New- York, New-Jersey, and Penn-
sylvania, 141.39 ; those from Ohio and Indiana, 145.99 ;
those from Kentucky and Tennessee, 150.58. 1
Such and other physical differences on which it is not
needful to dwell are due in part to the influences of local
climate and national diet, but in part, also, to causes social
and industrial.
Of social causes ample, in their aggregate effect, to pro-
duce much of the difference between the Englishman
and the Frenchman of to-day, may be instanced the war
system, by which, in France, the principle of natural
selection has been violently reversed, and the men of
superior size, strength, and courage have, generation
after generation, been shut up in barracks or torn
to pieces on the battle-field, while the feebler males
have been left at home to propagate the stock. It
is beyond question that not a little of the difference
in industrial efficiency which makes a French navvy
dear at 3 francs, while an English navvy is cheap at 5s. 6d?.,
is due to the wholesale operation of this cause among the
French people during the eighty years since 1793, during
which time the standard of the army has been reduced
from 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet ! inch. During the same
1 Statistical Memoirs U. S. Sanitary Commission, p. 403. As WM
remarked respecting mean height, the average of the native soldiers of
the U. S. army was brought down by the great number of boys en-
listed.
52 THE WAGES QUESTION.
period the French horse was steadily gaining in size and
weight.
Among the industrial causes tending to create such
differences in laboring power we may instance the em-
ployment of children of tender age at hard labor and under
circumstances of exposure ; and the employment of wo-
men, first, in work wholly unsuited to their sex, as former-
ly in England in mines, where they were even harnessed
with cattle to loads of ore, and as now on the pit-banks
and coke-hearths, and, secondly, at their ordinary work
with too short an interval after childbearing. 1
Looked at with no eye of charity, but with a strictly
economical regard, such acts as these constitute a horrible
waste of industrial force, both in the present and in their
effects on the laboring power of the next generation.
At the meeting of the Social Science Association in
1870, Mr. George Smith presented a lump of clay weighing
43 Ibs. , which in a wet state he had taken, a few days before,
off the head of a child 9 years of age, who had daily to
walk 12-J- miles in a brickyard, half that distance with such
a burden. " The clay," said Mr. Smith, " w r as taken from
the child, and the calculations made by me, in the presence
of both master and men." 2 Two or three instances taken
at random from the report 3 of Mr. J. E. White, Assist-
1 Speaking alike of the weaving-sheds of the cotton districts and of
the woollen districts, Dr. Bridges and Mr. Holmes, in their report to the
Local Government Board, in 1873, say : " The work is done in the
great majority of cases by women ; a considerable portion of these are
married, and the practice of working until the last stage of pregnancy,
and of returning to work within a month, sometimes within a fortnight,
or even a week, of childbirth, is as common in the West Riding (of
York) as in Lancashire." (Report, p. 33, cf. pp. 38,39, 55.) An old fac-
tory surgeon says : " I regard the mother's return to the mill as almost
a sentence of death to the child." It is also a fruitful source of per-
manent injury to the mother herself.
2 TransactioDs, p. 537.
8 Fourth Report (1865) of the Children's Employment Commission
of 1802.
EXCESSIVE LABOR IN CHILDHOOD. 58
ant Commissioner, 1865, will perhaps help the American
reader to appreciate the scope and force of the cause we are
adducing. A boy, now 11, who went at 9 years old to
hardening and tempering crinoline steel, worked there
from 7 A.M. till 9|- P.M. four nights a week " for many
and many a month," " many a time till 12 at night," and
once or twice worked from 7 in the morning all through
the next night and day, and on till 12 the following night.
Another, at 9 years old, sometimes made three 12-hour
shifts running, and, when 10, has made two days and two
nights running. Another, now 13, at a former place
worked from 6 P.M. till noon next day for a week toge-
ther, and sometimes for three shifts together, e.g., from
Monday morning till Tuesday night.
Nor is it only in mines or factories, in a stifling atmo-
sphere and amid poisonous exhalations, that children are,
even yet, in happy England, exposed to the influences
which stunt, distort, and weaken them, and lower the
average vitality of the population, and with this its indus-
trial efficiency. The driving of children six, eight, and ten
years 1 afield to work for 12 and 14 hours, whether under a
hot sun or against chilling, cutting winds, must tend to
disorganize the cartilages of the joints, to produce curva-
ture of the spine, to dwarf the growth, and to prepare the
way for an early breaking down from rheumatism and
scrofula.
I repeat I have not adduced these facts and incidents for
charity's sake, or in any sentimental vein, but wholly for
their economical significance, and I propose to use them
in strict subordination to recognized economical principles.
II. A f urth er reason for the greater industrial efficiency
of one laborer than of another, and of one class or nation of
laborers than of another, is a most vulgar one, namely, better
1 See the reports of the Commission of 1862 on the Employment of
Children, and of the Commission of 1867 on the Employment of Wo-
men and Children.
54 THE WAGES qUESTION.
feeding. The human stomach is to the animal frame what
the furnace is to the steam-engine. It is there the force is
generated which is to drive the machine. The power with
which an engine will work will, up to a certain point, in-
crease with every addition made to the fuel in the furnace ;
and, within the limits of thorough digestion and assimi-
lation, it is equally true that the power which the laborer
will carry into his work will depend on the character and
amount of his food. What the employer will get out of
his workman will depend, therefore, very much on what
he first gets into him. Not only are bone and muscle to
be built up and kept up by food, but every stroke of the
arm involves an expenditure of nervous energy, which is
to be supplied only through the alimentary canal. What
a man can do in 24 hours will depend very much on what
he can have to eat in those 24 hours ; or perhaps it would
be more correct to say, what he has had to eat the 24 hours
previous. If his diet be liberal, his work may be mighty.
If he be underfed, he must underwork. So far away as
the Hundred Years' War, Englishmen were accustomed to
assign a more generous diet as the reason why their " beef-
fed knaves" so easily vanquished their traditional enemies,
and even into this century the island writers were accus-
tomed to speak as if still for the same reason, in work at
least if not in war,
" Upon one pair of English legs did march three Frenchmen." 1
Of course in this, as in every other department of
1 " Each Frenchman consumes on an average 16 oz. of wheaten bread
a day ; each Englishman, 32 oz. ; the former, If oz. of meat ; the latter,
6 oz." Alison, Europe, 1815-51, ch. xvii., sec. 126.
" Des experiences ont demontre que 1'ouvrier franQais, lorsqu'il est
aussi bien nourri qu'un ouvrier anglais rend a peu pres autant de tra-
vail." Batbie, Nouveau Cours de I'Economie politique, i. 71.
I should be disposed to believe that a somewhat greater difference
would remain, notwithstanding equivalent subsistence, than M. Bat-
bie's patriotism will allow him to confess. The causes adduced un-
der the previous head must count for much.
RELATIONS OF FOOD TO WORK. 65
expenditure, there is an economical maximum, where the
greatest proportional return is received. Beyond this,
though an increase of food may yield an increase of force,
it does not yield a proportional increase, just as in a furnace
with a given height of chimney, the combustion of a given
number of pounds of coal to the square foot of grate-sur-
face yields the economical maximum of power. More fuel
burned will evaporate more water, but not proportionally
more, With the laborer the economical maximum of
expenditure on food is reached far short of the point at
which " gorging and guzzling" begin ; it shuts off every
thing that partakes of luxury or ministers to delicacy ; yet
till that maximum be reached every addition to food brings
a proportional, or more than proportional, addition of
working strength. To stop far short of that limit and
starve the laboring man is as bad economy as to rob the
engine of its fuel. Thus with a furnace of a given height,
having for its economical maximum 12 Ibs. of coal to the
square foot of grate-surface, the consumption of 6 Ibs.
might yield far less than one half the power, while 3 Ibs.
might scarcely serve to keep the furnace warm under the
constant loss by radiation and the cooling influence of the
water in the boilers. In much the same way a laborer
may be kept on so low an allowance of food that it will
all go to keeping the man alive, and nothing be left to
generate working power. 1 From this low point, where the
bad economy of starving the laborer is manifest even to
the most selfish or stupid overseer, up to a point where it
requires a great deal of good sense and more magnanimity
of character on the part of the employer to make him feel
sure of a return for added expenditure, there is a steady
1 Mr. B. R. Torrens, M.P., stated, at the meeting of the Social Sci-
ence Association in 1867, that when he was employed in sending out
emigrants from Ireland in 1840, he found that " a large portion of the
Irish people were living on a kind of potato called ' lumpers/ which
were so inferior in quality that even pigs could not fatten on them."-
Transactions, p. 670.
56 THE WAGES QUESTION.
progression in working power as the diet becomes more
ample and nutritious.
ISTow this principle, if I have correctly stated it, as to
the economical relation between food and laboring force,
becomes of validity not only to explain in part the great
differences in industrial efficiency which we have seen to
exist among bodies of laborers, but also to show how, in cases
where the subsistence of the laborer is below the economi-
cal maximum, a rise of wages may take place without a
loss to profits.
That a large portion of the wage-laboring class are
kept below the economical limit of subsistence there can
be no doubt. " To-day, in the west of England," says
Prof. Fawcett, " it is impossible for an agricultural laborer
to eat meat more than once a week." 1 Of the Devon peas-
ant Canon Girdlestone writes : " The laborer breakfasts on
teakettle broth hot water poured on bread and flavored
with onions ; dines on bread and hard cheese at %d. a
pound, with cider very washy and sour ; and sups on pota-
toes or cabbage greased with a tiny bit of fat bacon. He
seldom more than sees or smells butcher's meat." 2 Little
wonder is it that the Devon laborer is a different sort of
animal from the Lincoln or Lothian laborer. No Devon
farmer would doubt that it was bad economy to keep his
cattle on a low, unnutritious diet. ~No reputable Devon
1 Pol. Econ., p. 471. Lord Brabazon, in his report (p. 54) on the
condition of the industrial classes of France, 1872, cites the opinion
of Dr. Cenveilhier that the French population are, as a rule, insuffi-
ciently nourished. " Many a French factory hand never has any thing
hetter for his breakfast than a large slice of common sour bread,
rubbed over with an onion so as to give it a flavor." (Lord Brabazon,
p. 52.) Mr. Locock writes from the Netherlands (Report of 1870, p.
19) : " Meat is rarely tasted by the working classes in Holland. It
forms no part of the bill of fare either for the man or his family."
From Belgium Mr. Pakenham reports : " Very many have for their
entire subsistence but potatoes with a little grease, brown or black
bread, often bad, and for their drink & tincture of chickory." (Re-
ports of 1871, p. 20.)
2 Heath's English Peasantry, p. 100.
UNDERFED LABOR. 57
farmer would reason that, as he was but just able now to
make a living profit, he would be ruined, for good and for
all, were he to give his horses enough to keep them in
good condition for work. And if one were found so nig-
gardly and so foolish as to act and talk thus, his neighbors
at least would tell him that the very reason why he made
such bare profits now was that he starved his stock, and
that with better feeding they would better earn their
keep. 1 Yet the farmers of the west of England, almost as
a body, when they had to meet the demands of their
laborers for increase of wages in 1873 and in 1874, under
the instigation of the Agricultural Union, declared that they
would be ruined if they paid higher wages ; and there are
not wanting economists of reputation to corroborate them,
and assert that it is " physically impossible " 2 that wages
should be advanced without impairing profits. If there
is any physical impossibility in the case, it is that the
wretched peasants could be better fed without adding to
the value of their labor to their employers.
The revelations of the Poor-Law Commission of 1833
respecting the comparative subsistence of the soldier, the
agricultural laborer, and the pauper were veiy striking.
The soldier, who had active duties and needed to be kept
in at least tolerable physical condition, received a ration of
"S68 oz., the able-bodied pauper received 151 oz., while the
independent laborer, sole surviving representative of the
yeomanry of Crecy and Agincourt, received 122 oz. per
week. Now it goes without saying that when the day
laborer, toiling from morning till night hi the fields, re-
ceives a smaller amount of nourishment than the sense of
public decency will allow to be given to paupers, that
1 Sir Joseph Whitworth is reported to have said that he could not
afford to work a horse in his establishment which ate less than 18 Ibu.
of oats a day.
a " It is physically impossible that any permanent rise in wages should
take place without corresponding diminution of profits." H. Fawcett,
Pol. Econ.,p. 264.
58 THE WAGES QUESTION.
laborer is underfed, in the sense that he must and will un-
derwork.
To avoid multiplying titles, I will in this connection
mention clothing as in most climates a condition of effi-
ciency in production. A portion, in some countries a
large portion, of the food taken into the stomach goes to
support the necessary warmth of the body. Clothing goes
to the same object. Within certain limits, it is a matter of
indifference whether you keep up the temperature of the
body by putting food into a man or clothing on to him.
As Mr, Peshine Smith has said, " A sheet-iron jacket put
around the boiler prevents the waste of heat in the one
case, just as a woollen jacket about the body of the laborer
does in the other." 1 Here, again, there is an econo-
mical maximum beyond which expenditure will not be
justified by the return ; but here, again, it can not be
doubted that large classes of laborers suffer a great loss of
industrial efficiency from the want of adequate clothing.
Prof. Fawcett quotes 3 the poor-law inspectors as stating
that one fifth in number of the population are insufficient-
ly clothed. Insufficiency of clothing means, of course, fee-
bleness of working and excessive sickness and mortality.
But I may be here called to meet an objection to my
statements under this head, based on the assumed sufficien-
cy of the sense of self-interest in employers. How, it may
be asked, do you account for the failure of employers to
pay wages which will allow their laborers a more liberal
sustenance, if indeed it is for their own advantage to do
so?
In the first place, I challenge the assumption which un-
derlies the orthodox doctrine of wages, namely, the suf-
ficiency of the sense of self-interest. Mankind, always
1 Pol. Econ.,p. 107.
8 Economical Position of the Br. Laborer, p. 231, note.
UNDERFED LABOR. 59
less than wise, and too often foolish to the point of stupidi-
ty, on the one side, and of fanaticism, on the other, wheth-
er in government, in domestic life, in the care of their
bodies, or in the care of their souls, do not suddenly be-
come wise in industrial concerns. The argument for keep-
ing a laborer well that he may work well applies with
equal force to the maintenance of a slave. Yet we know,
by a mass of revolting testimony, that in all countries
avarice, the consuming lust of immediate gain, a passion
which stands in the way of a true and enlarged view of
self-interest and works unceasing despite to self-interest,
has always 1 despoiled the slave of a part of the food and
clothing necessary to his highest efficiency as a laborer.
The same argument would apply with equal force to the
care of livestock. Yet it is the hardest thing in the world
to bring a body of farmers up to the conviction, and hold
them there steadily, that it pays to feed cattle well and treat
them well. England, what with unending fairs and pre-
miums,' with royal and noble patronage and ensample,and
with a very limited proprietorship which it might be sup-
posed could be more easily kept informed as to the real
economy of agriculture England, I say, has managed to
create a public sentiment which keeps her farmers reasona-
bly up to the standard in this matter of the care of stock ;
1 Where slaves were kept and worked only for purposes of gain.
Where slavery was a political and social institution, as in the Middle
States of the American Union, something of grace and kindliness
might come to climb up about it.
a I have never chanced to hear of any premiums offered in Devon or
Dorset for the fattest and sleekest, or the most manly and athletic
team" of agricultural laborers, though there have been, all honor for
it ! instances of prizes given for " model cottages." " Comment ! Voa
cultivateurs consacrent des sommes considerables pour couvrir leura
champs d'engrais, vos industriels ne negligent aucun soin, ne reculent
devant aucune depense pour assurer et faciliter le jeu de lours ma-
chines ; et vous, vous negligez de cultiver votre champ le plus fertile,
de graisser efr de soigner votre machine la plus precieuse, votre ma-
cUne mere, de laquelle toutes les autres dependent, puisqu'elles en
eont sorties." Blanqui (aine) Cours d'ficonomie Industrielle, li. 353.
60 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
yet even in England the exceptions are not few ; while,
the world over, the rule is niggardliness of expenditure
working deep and lasting prejudice to production.
I might thus abundantly shelter myself behind the anal-
ogous cases which have been cited, where true self-interest
is most conspicuously sacrificed to greed. 1 But another
reason appears in the case of the wage-laborer. It is that
the employer has none of that security which the owner
of stock or the master of slaves possesses, that what goes
in food shall come back to him in work. A man buying
an underfed slave or an underfed ox knows that when he
has brought his property into good condition, the advan-
tage will be his ; but the free laborer when he waxes fat
may, like Jeshurun, kick, and take himself off. There is
no law yet which gives an employer compensation for
" unexhausted improvements" in the person of his laborer.
The employer therefore takes his risk, in respect to all
subsistence which goes to build up bone and sinew in his
workmen, that the added laboring power may be sold to a
neighbor or carried away bodily to Australia.
III. Another reason for differences in industrial efficien-
cy is found in differing habits, whether of choice or neces-
sity in their origin, respecting cleanliness of the person and
purity of air and water. The first great prison reformer
shocked the civilized world with the revelations which he
1 Doubtless race-characteristics have very much, to do with the
ability to subordinate greed to real interests, and to take a large view
'of economy. We should expect to find the Teutonic peoples surpass-
ing all others in this respect ; the Slavonic peoples far to the rear.
Mr. Consul Holmes, in his Report to the British Government on the
Condition of the Industrial Classes of Bosnia in 1871, remarks that the
Eastern Christians, like the Turks, " look far more to cheapness than
excellence in what they purchase, and good workmanship and consci-
entious labor is neither appreciated nor desired " (p. 762). Mr. Consul
Palgrave makes a similar remark respecting the Anatolians (p. 732).
" The very appreciation of good work," writes Sir P. Francis from Tur-
key, " is, I believe, lost." Report on the Condition of the Industrial
Classes, 1872, p. 372.
UNSANITARY ABODES. 61
made of the abodes of the convict classes. Yet, a distin-
guished sanitarian, often quoted in these pages, has said :
" More filth, worse physical suffering and moral disorder
than Howard describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be
found among the cellar population of the working people
of Liverpool, Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions
of the metropolis." 1 " Out of a population of 85,000
householders," says Prof. Gairdner, speaking of Glasgow,
" 30,000 or 35,000 belong to a class who are most dan-
gerous in a sanitary point of view." 3 " Hovels, cellars,
mere dark dens," says Inglis, in describing the city homes
of Ireland in 183-1, " damp, filthy, stagnant, unwholesome
places, into which we should not in England put any do-
mestic animal." 3 But even in England and to-day Canon
Girdlestone says of the homes of the peasants of Devon :
" The cottages as a rule, are not fit to house pigs in."*
Of 309 cottages at Ramsbottom, near Bury, " one of the best
districts in Lancashire," remarks Col. Sykes, 5 137 had but
one bedroom each, the aggregate occupants being 777 ; 172
had two bedrooms each, the aggregate occupants being
1223. Some of the families occupying a single bedroom
consisted of from 8 to 13 individuals. At Bristol, out of
6000 families reported on, 556 occupied part of a room
only ; 2244 one room only ; the average number of persons
to a family being 3.46. " One third of the population of
Scotland in 1861," says Mr. Caird, " lived in houses of one
room only ; another third in houses of two rooms only."'
The subject is not a pleasant one to pursue, but as none
holds more important relations to the philosophy of wages
than the one now under consideration, I must ask my
readers to endure the following descriptions of human
habitations taken from the Poor-Law Keport of 1842.
1 Edwin Chadwick. Poor-Law Report, 1842, p. 212.
2 Soc. So. Transactions, 1866, p. 737.
3 Journey Throughout Ireland, p. 379.
4 Heath's English Peasantry, p. 100.
Statistical Journal, xiii. 47. ' But. Journal, *m ,5.
62 THE WAGES QUESTION.
" Shepherd's Buildings consist of two rows of houses
with a street seven yards wide between them ; each row
consists of what are styled back and front houses ; that is,
two houses placed back to back. There are no yards or
out-conveniences ; the privies are in the centre of each
row, about a yard wide ; over them there is part of a sleep-
ing-room ; there is no ventilation in the bedrooms. Each
house contains two rooms, namely, a house-place and sleep-
ing-room above ; each room is about three yards wide and
four long. In one of these houses there are nine persons
belonging to one family, and the mother on the eve of her
confinement. The cellars are let off as separate dwellings ;
these are dark, damp, and very low, not more than six feet
between the ceiling and floor. The street between the
two rows is seven yards wide, in the centre of which is the
common gutter, or, more properly, sink, into which all sorts
of refuse are thrown." Report, pp. 17, 18.
This is a description of the cottages of a manufacturing
village. The same report gives an account of the homes
of the peasantry of Durham, " built of rubble or unhewn
stone, loosely cemented." " The chimneys have lost half
their original height, and lean on the roof with fearful
gravitation. The rafters are evidently rotten and displaced,
and the thatch, yawning to admit the wind and wet in
some parts, and in all parts utterly unfit for its original
purpose of giving protection from the weather, looks more
like the top of a dunghill than a cottage. Such is the ex-
terior ; and when the hind comes to take possession, he
finds it no better than a shed. The wet, if it happens to
rain, is making a puddle on the earth floor They
have no byre for their cows, nor sties for their pigs ; no
pumps or wells ; nothing to promote cleanliness or comfort.
The average size of these sheds is about 24 by 16. They
are dark and unwholesome ; the windows do not open,
and many of them are not larger than 20 inches by 16 ;
and into this place are crowded 8, 10, or even 12 persons."
Report, pp. 22, 23.
UNSANITARY ABODES.
The climax of possible horror would seem to be readied
in the description of the wynds of Edinburgh ; but I will
not offend the reader's sensibilities by quoting from it. It
will perhaps be quite as effective to compare the experi-
ence of sickness in these dens of abomination with that
of other localities. The following table shows the average
number of days' sickness suffered in a year by a family in
the wynds in comparison (1) with the experience of the
Benefit Societies in Scotland, and (2) with the experience
of places under sanitary measures.
AGE.
Benefit Societies.
Under Sanitary
Measures.
The Wynds.
Man 40
6.9
2 75
15 1
Woman 30
4.2
2.10
11
Child, 15
0.2
0.17
3 5
11.3
5.02
29.6
So much for the places where men live during the half
of the day devoted to sleep and refreshment. In the
places where they labor there is not such a dreary monotony
of squalor and misery. Neither indifference nor malignity
even, on the part of employers could succeed in placing the
great majority of workingmen so wretchedly. The first
occupation of man still employs by far the greater part of
the race, and for them sunlight and air are provided by the
indefeasible bounty of nature. If the Durham and Devon
hind does not " sleep all night in Elysium," he at least
" sweats all day in the eye of Phoebus/' Nor is it only
the agriculturist who pursues his occupation in the open
air. In no small proportion of the mechanical trades either
the conditions of the work do not allow the laborer to be
shut in between walls, or the expense of enclosure out-
weighs its advantages, and the trade, though it might be
even better prosecuted under cover, is, in fact, carried on
out-doors. After all deductions, however, there remain a
melancholy multitude who are called to breathe the foul
64 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
air of mines ; to labor in the stifling atmosphere of
mills and factories, " hazy" or " cloudy" with, particles
irritating to the lungs or poisonous to the blood, and to
pant through the hours of work in " sweating dens" like
those which the indignant eloquence of Kingsley 1 has made
so painfully familiar to his English and American readers,
though all verbal description must fall short of the shock-
ing reality. 3
I have not dwelt thus at length upon descriptions of
human habitations unfit for cattle or for swine, for the
purpose of harrowing the feelings of my readers, or even
with a view to excite compassion for the condition of the
working classes. My single object has been to afford illus-
tration of the influence of the cause we are now consider-
ing, upon the efficiency of labor. A great part, if not the
great majority, of the laborers of the world are to-day
housed thus miserably ; uncounted millions worse. Even
of those whose lot is more fortunate but a very small pro-
portion, in any of the older countries, have in their lodging
the light and air which the least exacting hygiene declares
to be essential to the harmonious development and adequate
sustentation of the bodily powers.
It is in abodes such as have been described that children
grow to maturity and get the size and strength which are
to determine their quality as workers. It is in abodes like
these that laboring men have to seek repose and refresh-
ment after the complete exhaustion of a hard day's work ;
that they breathe the air which istooxydize their blood, and
eat and undertake to digest the food on which to-morrow's
work is to be done. What wonder that children grow
up stunted and weazen and deformed ; that the blood of
manhood becomes foul and lethargic, the nerves unstrung,
the sight, on which depends much of the use of all the
1 In his Alton Locke.
* See Report Poor-Law Commission, 1843, pp. 98-104.
IMPURITY OF WATER. 65
other powers, weakened or distorted, and the whole tone
of life 1 and of labor depressed and intermittent ?
I have spoken of the dwellings too often inhabited by
the laboring classes, and of the air which they have to
breathe. As to the water they have to drink, it will
suffice here to cite the results of an inspection and chemi-
cal analysis of 140 specimens of drinking-water made in a
large number of the cities and towns of Scotland by Dr.
Stevenson Macadam : a
Number grossly contaminated by sewage matter
and decidedly unwholesome 104
Number less contaminated and less unwholesome. . .. 32
Number tinged with sewage matter 4
Number free from all contamination. .
Total examined 140
IY. The general intelligence of the laborer is a factor
of his industrial efficiency. This proposition is too well
established and too familiar to need extended illustration.
The intelligent laborer is more useful not merely because
he knows how to apply 8 his bodily force in his work with
the greatest effect, but also because
(a) He requires a shorter apprenticeship and less techni-
1 How, indeed, do human beings live at all under such circum-
stances ? Fresh and vigorous constitutions would go off at a gallop in
some form of active disease, under such ever-present infection. The
only reason why the very miserable live under it is because they have
taken on a lower type of being, which is compatible with existence in
such surroundings but altogether incompatible with great exertions.
" Their freedom from specific evil is only evidence that they have sub-
sided into a coarser and lower nature. The florid, strong-pulsed man,
fresh from a wholesome country dwelling, would die right off when
subjected to the deficient sanitary conditions which are innocuous to the
lower physical development of the very poor vegetating in the pur-
lieus of large towns or in mud-built country cottages." Charles Lam-
port, Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1870, p. 532.
a Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1867, p. 561.
3 " Le travail suppose 1. 1'intelligence qui conceit et 2. le main qui
execute." Batbie.
6G THE WAGES QUESTION.
cal instruction. " A recruit." says Prof. Rogers. " who
/ O '
knows how to read and write can learn his drill in half the
time in which a totally ignorant person can." 1
(5) He requires far less superintendence. Superintend-
ence is a] ways costly. If an overseer is required for every
ten men engaged on a piece of work, the product must pay
for the time and labor, not of ten men but of eleven ; and
if the overseer obtains, as he most likely will, twice the
wages of a common laborer, then the product must pay for
the time and labor of twelve. The employer would just
as soon pay his hands 20 per cent more if he could dispense
with the overseer.
(0) He is far less wasteful of material. Even in agri-
culture no product can be obtained from labor without the
sacrifice of pre-existing wealth. A bushel of wheat must
be sown for every six or eight bushels to be reaped, and
with it must be buried large quantities of .costly manures.
But in mechanical industry it often happens that the value
of the materials used in a manufacture, being themselves
the result of antecedent processes, far exceeds the value
proposed to be added by labor. Thus, in the United States
in 1870, we find a group of industries employing 101,504
hands, where the value of the materials was $707,361,378,
while only $31,734,815 were paid in wages. 2 Now, waste is
inevitable in all handling of material. It is merely a ques-
tion of more or less ; and in this respect the range between
ignorant and intelligent labor is very great. By waste is
not meant alone the total destruction of material, but its
impairment in any degree so that the finished product
takes a lower commercial value. So great are the possi-
bilities of loss from this source that in all the higher branches
of production unintelligent labor is not regarded as worth
having at any price however low.
(d) He can use delicate and intricate machinery.
1 Pol. Econ., p. 117.
8 Ninth Census of the United States, 1870. Industry and Wealth,
p. 380.
INTELLIGENCE IN LABOR. 67
The cost of repairing and replacing this with ignorant
labor very soon eats up the profits of production, and not
unfrequently the effect is to practically prohibit the use of
all but the coarsest tools. " Experienced mechanicians
assert that, notwithstanding the progress of machinery in
agriculture, there is probably as much sound practical
labor-saving invention and machinery unused as there is
used ; and that it is unused solely in consequence of the
ignorance and incompetency of the workpeople." 1
We have some striking testimony on this point from Asia
and Eastern Europe. Wheeler, in his " Cotton Cultivation,"
states that the women of India were accustomed to earn
with the native " churka" from three farthings to a little
over a penny a day, while with the Manchester cotton-gin
they could have earned with ease three pence and possibly
four and a half pence. 2 And H. B. M. Consul Stuart re-
ports concerning the laborers of Epirus : " In dealing with
weights and resistance they use direct physical force ; the
aids of the pulley or windlass are but seldom called in,
while handbarrows and wheelbarrows are seen only on
rare occasions. It is a singular fact that during the fifty
years of British occupation in the Ionian Islands, not a
single mechanical improvement crossed from Corfu to
Epirus, if I may except the screw and the buckle, which
found their way here some few years ago, and are now in
limited use." 3
Y. Still another reason for the large differences which
exist in respect to industrial efficiency is found in technical
education and industrial environment. Perhaps no one of
the causes already mentioned contributes more to this re-
sult. Even more, I am disposed to believe, than stock and
breeding, even more than national diet, do the inherited
instincts of a people in respect to labor, and their habits and
methods of work, consciously or unconsciously acquired,
1 Ream's Plutology, p. 59. ' p - 173 -
8 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 18 <1, p. 775.
68 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the esprit and the dominating ideas of the national industry,
determine the degree of efficiency which will be reached
in the production of any country. Handiness, aptness, and
fertility of resource become congenital ; in some commu-
nities the child is brought into the world half an artisan.
Then, too, he becomes a better workman simply by reason
of being accustomed, through the years of his own inability
to labor, to see tools used with address, and through
watching the alert movement, the prompt co-operation, 1
the precise manipulation, of bodies of workmen. The
better part of industrial as of every other kind of educa-
tion is unconsciously obtained. And when the boy is
himself apprenticed to a trade, or sets himself at work, he
finds all about him a thorough and minute organization of
labor which conduces to the highest production ; he has
examples on every side to imitate ; if he encounters special
obstacles, he has only to stop, or hardly even to stop, to see
some older hand deal with the same ; if he needs help, it is
already at his elbow ; and, above all, he comes under im-
pulses and incitements to exertion and to the exercise of
thoughtfulness and ingenuity, which are as powerful and
unremitting as the impulses and incitements which a re-
cruit experiences in a crack regiment from the moment he
dons the uniform.
Very striking testimony is borne in many official reports
to the differences in the industrial spirit of the different
nations. Mr. Edwin Rose testified before the Factory
Commission to the great superiority of the English laborer
over his Continental rival in his habits of close and continu-
ous application ; and at a subsequent inquiry Mr. Thomp-
son, of Clitheroe, spoke from a vast personal observation
1 In a debate in the House of Lords in 1875, Earl Fortescue stated
that Sir Joseph Whitworth, the eminent manufacturer of arms, had ex-
pressed the opinion that " a workman who had acquired the habit of
moving promptly at the word of command was worth on the average
Is. 6d. a week more than a man of equal manual dexterity who had
not acquired the habit." The Times.
INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT. r;o
of the "enduring, untiring, savage industry" of the Eng-
lish workman. " The labor of Alsace," he says, " the
best and cheapest in France, is dearer than the labor of
Lancashire." That was forty years ago. To-day the
esprit and the technique of industry on the Continent are
perhaps advanced somewhat beyond where England was in
1835 ; but the English are looking back with not a little
wonder at their own want of force and drive industrially,
in the time of which Mr. Thompson speaks. Thus we find
Dr. Bridges and Mr. Holmes, in their report to the Local
Government Board of 1873, writing of the Scotch flax
district as follows :
" We were struck by the easy and almost leisurely way
in which labor was carried on in the spinning-rooms as
compared with the unremitting application of the Lanca-
shire operatives. All the spinners had seats provided for
them, of which a large number availed themselves. The
number of spindles assigned to each was small, varying from
50 to 80 j 1 and the number of ends breaking was in no
case such as to necessitate constant movement. Some of
the women were knitting, and all appeared much at their
ease. In fact, the work very much resembled the picture
frequently drawn to us, whether truly or otherwise, of
Lancashire weaving and spinning as it was 20 or 30 years
ago.
~Now it is needless to say that some of this heightened
1 The proportion of looms to weavers in England as contrasted with
the proportion which obtains in Ireland and Scotland is significant in
the same regard.
Looms in Cotton Mfr. Weavers.
England, . . 165,032 . . . 57,555
Scotland, . . 22,621 . . . 12,114
Ireland, . . 3,372
191,025 71,533
Nearly three looms to 1 weaver in England ; not quite 2 looms in
Scotland and Ireland. (Report, p. 16.)
3 Report, p. 27.
70 THE WAGES QUESTION.
activity is of bad and not of good. Undoubtedly it involves
in some degree overwork and the undue wear and tear of
the muscular and the nervous system. But by no means
all, or probably the greater part, comes to this. It is because
manual dexterity and visual accuracy have been developed
to a high point in one generation and bred into the next
generation ; because habits of subordination and co-operation
have become instinctive ; because organization and discipline
have been brought nearly to perfection, that mechanical
labor in England is so much more effective than on the Conti-
nent. E"or is keen, persistent activity necessarily injurious.
Dawdling and loafing over one's work are not beneficial to
health. Man was made for labor, for energetic, enthusi-
astic labor, and within certain limits, not narrow ones, in-
dustry brings rewards sanitary as well as economical.
I have spoken of the faculty of organization 1 as account-
ing for much of the difference in the efficiency of labor
between England and France, for example. I beg to insist
on this with reference to the point of the wear and tear
of the laboring force. Those who are familiar with the
movements of armies know that a body of troops may be
marched thirty miles in a day if kept in a steady, equable
motion, with measured periods of rest, and not be brought
into camp, at night, so tired as another body of troops that
have come only half the distance, but have been fretted and
worried, now delayed and now crowded forward, every
1 The famous Committee of the House of Commons on the Exporta-
tion of Tools and Machinery dwelt on the " want of arrangement in
foreign manufactories," as an important reason for the superior cheap-
ness of production in England.
In the evidence given before them is found (p. 363) the following
highly-suggestive remark : " A cotton manufacturer who left Manches-
ter seven years ago would be driven out of the market by the men
who are now living in it, provided his knowledge had not kept pace
with those who have been during that time constantly profiting by the
progressive improvements that have taken place in that period. This
progressive knowledge and experience is our great power and advan
tage."
ORGANIZATION IN INDUSTRY. 71
portion of the column balked by turns, and kept waiting
for long periods in that most wearing expectation of instant
movement. JSTow, this is not an extreme contrast as regards
military movements ; nor need any thing be taken from its
extent when we come to apply it to the operations of in-
dustry. In an establishment where each person has his
place and perfectly knows his duty, where work never
chokes its channels and never runs low, where nothing ever
comes out wrong end foremost, where there is no fretting
or chafing, where there are no blunders and no catastrophes,
where there is no clamor and no fuss, a pace may be main-
tained which would kill outright the operatives of a noisy,
ill-disciplined, badly-organized shop. For, as was said in
opening this subject of the efficiency of labor, there is in
all industry a positive and a negative element. Waste is
inseparable from work ; but the proportions in which the
two shall appear may be made to vary greatly. It is only
when we see a perfectly-trained operative performing his
task that we realize how much of what the undisciplined
and ignorant call their work is merely waste ; how little
of their expenditure of muscular and nervous force really
goes to the object ; how much of it is aside from, or in
opposition to, that object. And the remark applies not
alone to the exertions of the individual but, in a still higher
degree, to the operations of bodies of men.
" It is not," says Mr. Laing, " the expertness, dispatch,
and skill of the operative himself that are concerned in the
prodigious amount of his production in a given time, but
the laborer who wheels coals to his fire, the girl who makes
ready his breakfast, the whole population, in short, from
the pot-boy who brings his beer, to the banker who keeps
his employer's cash, are in fact working to his hand with
the same quickness and punctuality that he works with
himself." 1
We have some interesting instances in proof that such
1 Notes of a Traveller, p. 290.
72 THE WAGES QUESTION.
industrial superiority as has been described is not due alone
to differences of stock and breeding or of general intelli-
gence, but that strangers placed within the same industrial
environment, and afforded opportunities of like technical
education, tend steadily, and it may be rapidly, to advance
towards the efficiency of the native laborer. Thus Mr.
Brassey, after dwelling on the advantages of carrying out
English navvies, at vast expense, even to Canada or to
Queensland, adds significantly : " The superiority of the
English workmen was most conspicuous when they first
commenced work in a country in which no railways had
been previously constructed." 1
The Commissioners (1867) on the Employment of "Women
and Children in Agriculture, in their second report, 8 1869,
give the results of a very considerable experiment in drain-
ing in Northumberland, extended over a series of years, in
which large numbers both of English and Irish were em-
ployed, from which it appears that " whereas the English
beginner earns an average of four shillings a week more
than the Irish beginner, better food and about ten years'
practice reduce the difference to Is. 4d" And Mr.
Chadwick states 3 " that agricultural laborers who have
joined gangs of navvies and have been drilled, with them,
into their energetic piece-work habits, on returning to farm
labor will do their tasks of work in half the time of the
common day-laborers. Examples," he adds, " of the high-
est order of agricultural piece-work, with increased wages
closely approaching manufacturing wages, are presented in
the market-garden culture near the metropolis."
VI. The last reason which I shall assign for the superior
efficiency of individual laborers, classes of laborers, or na-
tions of laborers, is cheerfulness and hopefulness in labor,
growing out of self-respect and social ambition and the
laborer's personal interest in the result of his work.
1 Work and Wages, p. 117. a P. 104.
3 Statistical Journal, xxviii., p. 307.
INEFFICIENCY OF SLAVE LABOR. 73
I have spoken of causes which affect the laborer's bone
and sinew, his physical integrity and his muscular activity.
I have spoken also of causes which affect his intellectual
qualification for his work, the intelligence which shall di-
rect his bodily powers to the end of production. The
causes now in view are moral, affecting the will.
After all, it is in the moral elements of industry that we
find the most potent cause of differences in efficiency. If
it constitutes one a sentimentalist to recognize the power of
sentiment in human action, whether in politics or in econo-
mics, the writer gladly accepts the appellation. Cheerful-
ness and hopefulness in the laborer are the spring of exer-
tions in comparison with which the brute strength of the
slave or the eye-server is but weakness.
The inferiority of the labor of the slave 1 to that of the
freeman, even of the lowest industrial grade, is proverbial.
Slave labor is always and everywhere ineffective and waste-
ful because it has not its reward. 2 No matter how com-
plete the authority of the master over the person and the
life, he cannot command all the faculties of his slave. The
slave may be made to work, but he can not be made to
think ; he may be made to work, but he can not be kept
from waste ; to work, indeed, but not with energy. En-
ergy is not to be commanded, it must be called forth by
hope, ambition, and aspiration. The whip only stimulates
the flesh on which it is laid. It does not reach the parts
of the man where lie the springs of action. No brutality
of rule can evoke even the whole physical power of a hu-
man being. The man himself, even if he would, can not
1 Prof. Cairnes, in his able work on " The Slave Power," sums up the
economical defects of slave labor under three heads : " It is given re-
luctantly ; it is unskilful ; it is wanting in versatility." (P. 44.)
2 " The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates
that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their
maintenance, is, in the end, the dearest of any. A person who can
acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as much and
to labor as little as possible." Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, i. 390^
39L
74 TEE WAGES QUESTION".
render his own best service unless some passion of the
higher nature, love, gratitude, or hope, be awakened. The
nervous force, which is to the muscular what the steam is
to the parts of the engine, is only in a small degree under
the control of the conscious will. It is a little fire only
that fear kindles, and it is a little force only that is gene-
rated thereby to move the frame. I speak of fear alone,
that is, mere fear of evil. When love of life and home
and friends are present and give meaning to fear, the
utmost energies may be evoked ; but not by fear alone,
which is, the rather, paralyzing in its effect.
Were it not for this impotence of the lash, the nations
would either not have risen from the once almost universal
condition of servitude, or would have risen far more slowly.
The slave has always been able to make it for his master's
interest to sell him freedom. He could always afford to
pay more than could be made out of him. This is a well-
recognized principle, and hence the former slave States of
the American Union, building their political and social in-
stitutions on slaver} 7 " as the corner-stone, had to forbid en-
tirely or to put under serious disabilities the exercise of
manumission. Even with the little the brutalized black
could apprehend of the privileges of freedom, even with
his feeble hopes and aspirations, condemned, as he knew,
by his color to perpetual exclusion, he could always buy
himself if permitted. This unprofitableness of slave or
bond labor 1 has prepared the way for those great changes,
generally, it is true, effected immediately under the pressure
of political necessities, 2 which have transformed whole pop-
ulations of slaves or serfs into nations of freemen.
1 Mr. Turnbull, in his work on Austria, says : " A large Bohemian
proprietor, who with his brothers counted on their estates 18,000 sub-
jects, has frequently observed to me that he found it usually more
advantageous to accept even a very small part of the legal commuta-
tion-money, and to hire labor from others, than to take it in kind from
those who were bound to yield it."
* Instance the action of the nobles of Hungary, at the outbreak of
HOPEFULNESS IN LABOR. 75
But great as is the superiority, arising from this cause
alone, of free over serf or slave labor, the difference is yet
not so great as exists between grades of free labor, as cheer-
fulness and hopefulness in labor, due to self-respect and
social ambition, are found, in greater or in less degree,
animating classes and communities of laborers.
It is in the proprietor of land under equal laws that we
find the moral qualities which are the incentive of industry
most highly developed. Arthur Young's saying has be-
come proverbial : " Give a man the secure possession of a
bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden ;'" as also
his other saying, " The magic of property turns sand into
gold." 2 The energy which fear and pain can not command,
joy and hope call forth in its utmost possibilities. The
man not only will, he can. The waste of muscular force
is perhaps not half as great in toil which is taken up freely
and gladly. Nervous exhaustion comes late and comes
slowly when the laborer sees his reward manifestly grow-
ing before his eyes.
It is the fulness and the directness of this relation of
labor to its reward which, without bell or whip, drives the
peasant proprietor afield, and,
" From the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb,"
the revolution of 1848, in transmuting the urbarial tenure of lands into
unrestricted tenure by freehold. " By this great and voluntary con-
cession," says Alison, " the property of 500,000 families, consisting of
little estates from 30 to 60 acres each, and comprehending nearly half
a kingdom, was at once converted from a feudal tenure, burdened with
numerous duties, into absolute property." History of Europe, xxii.
612.
1 " An activity has been here that has swept away all difficulties
before it, and has clothed the very rocks with verdure. It would be a
disgrace to common-sense to ask the cause : the enjoyment of proper-
ty must have done it. Give a man the secure possession of a bleak
rock, and he will turn it into a garden ; give him a nine years
lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." Travels iq
France, Pinkerton, iv. 122.
2 How the magic of property turns sand into mold, a truer source of
wealth than placers or auriferous quartz, has been shown in the mari-
time districts of Belgium.
76 THE WAGES QUESTION.
employs his every energy, directed by all his intelligence,
towards the maximum of production with the minimum of
loss and waste. Thus it is that Mr. Inglis describes the
peasantry of Zurich :
" When I used to open my casement, between four and
five in the morning, to look out upon the lake and the dis-
tant Alps, I saw the laborer in the fields ; and when I re-
turned from an evening walk, long after sunset, as late
perhaps as half past eight, there was the laborer, mowing
his grass or tying up his vines."
" No men in the world," says Prof. liearn, " exhibit a
greater degree of habitual energy than the Scottish subjects
of Queen Victoria ; yet when her great-grandfather was
heir to the throne, the Scottish people were conspicuous
for their incorrigible indolence. The lazy Scotch were in
the last century as notorious as the lazy Irish 1 of a later day.
In both countries a like effect was produced by a like
cause." 8
When we turn from the proprietor of land to the hired
laborer, we note at once a loss of energy. In the constitu-
tion of things it can not be otherwise. When the relation
of labor to its reward becomes indirect and contingent,
and the workman finds that the difference, to himself, of
very faithful or but little faithful service is only to be ex-
perienced in a remote and roundabout way, according as
the master's future ability to employ him may be in a de-
gree affected thereby, his own present wages being fixed
by contract, and secure upon compliance with the formal
requirements of service ; or according as his own reputa-
tion for efficiency or inefficiency may lead to his being
longer retained or earlier discharged, in the event of a fu-
ture reduction of force I say, when the relation of labor
1 Arthur Young in 1777 described the Irish as " lazy to an excess at
work, but spiritedly active at play" (Pinkerton, iii. 872.) When the
Irishman has a fair chance under equal laws, he imports all this ac-
tivity into his work.
a Plutology, p. 41.
FAITHFULNESS IN WAGE LABOR. 77
to its reward becomes thus indirect and contingent, the
workman not only will not, he can not, being man, labor as
he would labor for himself. Even without the least wilful
intention to shirk exertion or responsibility, there will be,
there must be, a falling off in energy and in carefulness : a
falling off which will make a vast difference in production
long before it is sufficiently a subject of consciousness on
the part of the laborer himself to become " eye-service," or
of observation on the part of the employer to lead to com-
plaint.
But the loss of energy and carefulness due to the making
distant or doubtful the reward of extra exertion on the
part of the workman, will be much greater with some than
with others under precisely similar conditions, and will vaiy
greatly, also, as conditions vary. Whether it be superiority
in faith, in conscience, or in imagination, 1 that makes the
difference, there are those who can work in another's
cause almost as zealously and prudently as if it were in
their own. Such men more clearly apprehend, however
they come to do it, the indirect and remote rewards of zeal
and fidelity, or, apprehending these no more strongly than
others, they are yet better able to direct their energies to
an end, and control and keep under the appetites and im-
pulses which make against a settled purpose. Some men,
some races of men, are easily recognized as more genuine,
honest, and heroic than others, and these differences in
manly quality come out nowhere more conspicuously than
in the degrees of interest and zeal exhibited in hired labor.
I have not chosen to introduce into the body of the fore-
going discussion the effects of drunkenness and dishonesty
1 I will guard myself against a critic's sneer at the introduction of
this word into a treatise on wages by citing Mr. Mill's remark, " It is
very shallow, even in pure economics, to take no account of the influ-
ence of imagination." Pol. Econ., i. 392,893.
78 THE WAGES QUESTION.
in reducing the efficiency of labor. Throughout all that
has been said the laborer has been assumed to be temper-
ate and well-intentioned. Of the frightful waste of pro-
ductive power, through both the diminution of work and
the increase of waste, which results from the vice of
drunkenness, so lamentably characterizing certain races, it
can not be necessary to speak. More than all the festivals
of the Greek or the Roman church, the worship of " Saint
Monday" 1 reduces the current wages of labor, while leaving
its ineffaceable marks on heart and brain and hand. The
want of common honesty between man and man, though
happily less frequent than the indulgence of vicious appe-
tites, works even deeper injury to industry where it pre-
vails in any considerable degree. " A breach of trust
among the stoneworkers of Septmoncel," says Lord Bra-
bazon, in his report of 1872 on the condition of the indus-
trial classes of France, " would be sufficient to cause the
banishment of this rich industry from the mountains of the
Jura to the workshops of Paris and Amsterdam ;" 2 and the
same judicious reporter states that the abstraction of the
silk given to the Lyons workmen to manufacture " has
always weighed heavily on the trade of that city." " To
meet this," says M. Beaulieu, in his Populations Ouvrieres,
" the manufacturer has but one resource, the diminution
of the rate of wages. Either the factory or workshop
must be closed or wages must be lowered. There is no
middle course, and in either case the workman is the
sufferer." It need not be said that the illicit gains thus
obtained sold as the plunder is surreptitiously, under
penalty of the galleys have afforded a very inadequate
1 " Almost invariably an unemployed day in Belgium." (Report of
Mr. Consul Grattan on the condition of the industrial classes, 1872,
p. 19.) Much the same story comes from Norway and Sweden, Eng-
land and Scotland, whose inhabitants we reckon among the noblest
peoples of the world.
2 P. 67.
WAGES THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY. 79
compensation to the workmen for the loss which their dis-
honesty inflicted upon the trade.
I can not better close this extended discussion of the causes
which contribute to the efficiency of labor than by intro-
ducing two extracts, the first from Dr. Kane's work on the
Industrial Resources of Ireland, in which he accounts very
justly for the difference between the Irish and the English
laborer of that period ; the second from Adam Smith's
Wealth of Nations. Both are profoundly significant, and
I ask the reader's careful consideration of them with refe-
rence to the principles previously discussed, and also with
reference to the doctrine of the wages fund, to be treated
hereafter.
" A wretched man," says Dr. Kane, " who can earn by
his exertion but four or five shillings a week, on which to
support his family and pay the rent of a sort of habitation,
must be so ill-fed and depressed in mind that to work as
a man should work is beyond his power. Hence there are
often seen about employments in this country a number of
hands double what would be required to do the same work
in the same time with British laborers. When 1
say that the men thus employed at low wages do so much
less real work, I do not mean that they intentionally idle,
or that they reflect that as they receive so little they should
give little value ; on the contrary, they do their best honestly
to earn their wages ; but, supplied only with the lowest de-
scriptions of food, and perhaps in insufficient quantity,
they have not the physical ability for labor, and being with-
out any direct prospect of advancement, they are not ex-
cited by that laudable ambition to any display of superior
energy. If the same men are placed in circumstances
where a field for increased exertion is opened to them, and
they are made to understand, what at first they are rather
incredulous about, that they will receive the full value of
any increased labor they perform, they become new beings,
the work they execute rises to the highest standard, and
they earn as much money as the laborers of any other
80 THE WAGES QUESTION.
country. Wages are no longer low, ~but labor is not on that
account any dearer than it has been before" 1
" The liberal reward of labor," says Adam Smith, 8 " as it
encourages the propagation, so it encourages the industry, of
the common people. The wages of labor are the encourage-
ment of industry, which, like every other human quality,
improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives.
A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the
laborer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition
and ending his days perhaps in ease and plenty animates
him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages
are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen
more active, diligent, and expeditious than where they are
low : in England, for example, than in Scotland ; in the
neighborhood of great towns than in remote country places."
1 Pp. 397, 398. 2 Wealth of Nations, i. 86.
CHAPTER IY.
THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR.
I USE the term, degradation of labor, here in the sense
of the reduction of the laborer from a higher to a lower
industrial grade.
The constant imminence of this change, the smallness of
the causes, often accidental in origin and temporary in du-
ration, which may produce it, and the almost irreparable
consequences of such a catastrophe, are not sufficiently at-
tended to in discussions of wages. To the contrary, it is
the self -protecting power of labor which is dwelt upon. It
is shown how, if by any insidious cause, or from any sud-
den disaster in trade or production, be the same local or
general, industry is impaired and employment diminished,
labor immediately sets itself, by natural laws, to right itself,
by withholding increase of population, or by migrating
to more fortunate localities.
The same, if labor be crowded down by the power of
capital, or by unjust laws : through economical harmonie9
which have excited the admiring gratitude of many writers,
the vindication of the laboring class is effected automati-
cally and peacefully, without revolution and without ma-
chinery. The excessive profits which the employing class
are thus enabled for a time to make, increase the capital of
the community, and thus give enhanced employment to
laborers, so that, in the end, it is quite as well as if the
money had gone in wages instead of profits. Thus Prof.
Perry says : " If capital gets a relatively too large reward,
82 THE WAGES QUESTION.
nothing can interrupt the tendency that labor shall get, in
consequence of that, a larger reward the next time. ... If
capital takes an undue advantage of labor at any point, as
unfortunately it sometimes does, somebody at some other
point has, in consequence of that, a stronger desire to em-
ploy laborers, and so the wrong tends to right itself. This
is the great conservative force in the relations of capital to
labor." 1
Now, of the degrees of celerity and certainty with which
population does, in fact, adapt itself to changes in the seats
or in the forms of industry, or assert itself against the en-
croachments of the employing class or the outrages of leg-
islation, I shall have occasion to speak with some fulness
hereafter (Chapter XI.). But I desire at the present tune,
in close connection with our discussion of the causes which
contribute to the efficiency of labor, to point out the conse-
quences of any failure or undue delay on the part of popu-
lation in thus resenting the loss of employment or the re-
duction of wages.
The trouble is, these changes which are to set labor
right always require time, and often a very long time.
There is danger, great danger, that meanwhile men will
simply drop down in the industrial and social scale, accept
their lot, and adapt themselves to the newly-imposed con-
ditions of life and labor. 2 If this most melancholy result
1 The Financier, August 1, 1874.
8 ' There is considerable evidence that the circumstances of the agri-
cultural laborers in England have more than once in our history sus-
tained great permanent deterioration from causes which operated by
diminishing the demand for labor, and which, if population had exer-
cised its power of self -adjustment in obedience to the previous standard
of comfort, could only have had a temporary effect ; but, unhappily, the
poverty in which the class was plunged daring a long series of years
brought that previous standard into disuse, and the next generation,
growing up without having possessed those pristine comforts, multi-
plied in turn without any attempt to retrieve them." J. S. Mill, Pol.
Econ., i. 41.
Mr. Mill here explains the whole permanent effect upon the grounds
THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR. 83
takes place, then, it should be observed, the restorative
changes which have been spoken of need not be effected at
all. All things settle to the new level ; industrial society
goes on as before, except that there is a lower class of
citizens and a lower class of laborers. There is thereafter
no virtue at all, no tendency even, in strictly industrial
forces or relations to make good that great loss. In a
word, much of the reasoning of the schools and the books
on this subject assumes that the laboring class will resent
an industrial injury, and will either actively seek to right
themselves, or will at least abide in their place without sur-
render until the economical harmonies have time to bring
about their retribution. But the human fact (so often to
be distinguished from the economical assumption) is, there
is a fatal facility in submitting to industrial injuries which
too often does not allow time for the operation of these
beneficent principles of relief and restoration. The in-
dustrial opportunity comes around again, it may be, but it
does not find the same man it left : he is no longer capable
of rendering the same service ; the wages he now receives
arg. perhaps quite as much as he earns.
V^^ Let us take successively the cases of a reduction of wages
\and of a failure of employment. Let it be supposed that
a combination of employers seeking their own immediate
interests, that is, to get labor as cheaply as possible, per-
haps under some pressure brought on them by the state of
the market, succeeds in effecting a reduction of the wages
of common labor, in a given community, from $1 to 75 cents
per day. If the $1 previously received has allowed comforts
and luxuries and left a margin for saving, and especially if
intelligence and social ambition prevail in the community.
of Malthus, overlooking the equally important consideration that,
without respect to the numbers of the laboring class, the efficiency of
labor must have been seriously impaired by inadequate food and
clothing, unhealthy dwellings, and, more than all, by the loss of hope-
fulness, cheerfulness, and self-respect.
84 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tins reduction will probably be resented in the sense that
population will be reduced by migration or by absti-
nence from propagation until the former wages are, if
possible, restored. But if the previous wages have been
barely enough to furnish the necessaries of life, with no
margin for saving, and especially if the body of laborers
are ignorant and unambitious, the probabilities are quite
the other way. The falling off in the quantity or quality
of food and clothing, and in the convenience and healthful-
ness of the shelter enjoyed, will at once affect the efficiency
of the laborer. With less food, which is the fuel of the
human machine, less force will be generated ; with less
clothing, more force will be wasted by cold ; with scantier
and meaner quarters, a fouler air and diminished access to
the light will prevent the food from being duly digested
in the stomach, and the blood from being duly oxydized in
the lungs ; will lower the tone of the system, and expose
the subject increasingly to the ravages of disease. Now,
in all these ways the laborer becomes less efficient simply
through the reduction of his wages. The current economy
asserts that whatever is taken off from wages is added to
profits, and that hence a reduction of wages will increase
capital and hence quicken employment, and hence, in turn,
heighten wages. But we have seen it to be quite possible
that what is taken from wages no man shall gain. It is
lost to the laborer and to the world. Now, so far as strictly
economic forces are concerned, where enters the restorative
principle ? The employer is not getting excessive profits,
to be expended subsequently in wages. The laborer is not
underpaid : he earns what he gets now no better than he
formerly did his larger wages. ,
This image of the degradedTaborer is not a fanciful one.
There are in England great bodies of population, com-
munities counting scores of thousands, which have come, in
just this way, to be pauperized and brutalized ; the inhabi-
tants weakened and diseased by underfeeding and foul air
until, in the second generation, blindness, lameness, and
THE FATE OF SPITALFIELDS. 85
scrofula become abnormally prevalent ; hopeless and lost
to all self-respect so that they can scarcely be said to de-
sire a better condition, for they know no better ; and still
bringing children into the world to fill their miserable
places in garrets and cellars, and, in time, in the wards of
the workhouse.
Such a region is Spitalfields, where a large popula-
tion, once reasonably prosperous and self-respectful, was
ruined by a great change in the conditions of the silk
manufacture. The severity of the industrial blows dealt
them in quick succession was so great that the restorative
principles never began to operate at all. Spitalfields suc-
cumbed to its fate. Instead of it being true that the misery
of the weavers was a reason to them to emigrate, it consti-
tuted the very reason why they could not emigrate, or
would not. Instead of it being true that their misery was
a reason to them not to propagate, the more miserable they
became, the more reckless, also, and the heavier grew their
burdens. As a consequence, in a single human generation
the inhabitants of Spitalfields took on a type suited to their
condition. Short-lived at best, weakness, decrepitude, and
deformity made their labor, while they lasted, ineffective
and wasteful. So long ago as 1842 the Poor-Law Com-
missioners reported that it was almost a thing unknown
that a candidate from this district for appointment in the
police was found to possess the requisite physical qualifi-
cations for the force. 1 "You could not," says another
witness, "raise a grenadier company among them all."
Yet it is recorded that the Spitalfields volunteers during
the French wars were " good-looking bodies of men."
But if this loss may be suffered in respect to the physical
powers of the laborer through a reduction of wages, quite
as certainly and quite as quickly may his usefulness be im-
paired through the moral effects of such a calamity. And
just as the greatest possibilities of industrial efficiency lie
1 Report, p. 202.
86 THE WAGES QUESTION.
in the creation of hopefulness, self-respect, and social am-
bition among the laboring class, so the chief possibilities of
loss lie in the discouragement or the destruction of these
qualities. "We have seen through what a scale the laborer
may rise in his progress to productive power ; by looking
back we may see through what spaces it is always possible
he may fall under the force of purely industrial disasters.
" The wages of labor," says Adam Smith, " are the en-
couragement of industry, which, like every other human
quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it
receives." If this be true, every reduction of wages must,
in some degree, diminish the efficiency of labor. But
it is when the reduction begins to affect the power of
the workman to maintain himself according to the standard
of decency which he has set for himself that the decline
in industrial quality goes on most rapidly. The fact that
he is driven to squalid conditions does not merely lower
his physical tone : almost inevitably it impairs his sense of
self-respect and social ambition, that sense which it is so
difficult to awaken, so fatally easy to destroy. Especially
as the pinching of want forces his family into quarters
where cleanliness and a decent privacy become impossible
does the degradation of labor proceed with fearful rapidity. 1
Ambition soon fails the laborer utterly ; self-respect disap-
pears amid the beastly surroundings of his life ; the spring
of effort is broken ; it may be he becomes dissipated and
irregular, and his employer can not afford his beggarly pit-
1 " Modesty must be an unknown virtue ; decency, an unimaginable
thing, where in one small chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as
they can be packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and grow-
ing-up girls are herded promiscuously ; where every operation of the toi-
let and of nature dressings, undressings, births, deaths is performed
within the sight and hearing of all ; where children of both sexes to as
high an age as 13 or 14, or even more, occupy the same bed ; where
the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into
something below the level of the swine. It is a hideous picture ; and
the picture is drawn from life." Appendix to the First Report of the
Poor-Law Commissioners, p. 34.
INDUSTRIAL INJURIES REMAIN. 87
tance now so well as formerly the wages of his hopeful
labor.
All such effects tend to remain and perpetuate them-
selves. When people are down, economical forces solely
are more likely to keep them down, or push them lower
down, than to raise them up. It is only on the assumption
that labor will resent industrial injuries, either by seeking
a better market or by abstaining from reproduction, that
it can be asserted that economical laws have a tendency to
protect the laboring class and secure their interests. Just
so far as laborers abide in their lot, and bring forth after
their kind, while suffering industrial hardship, no matter
how in the first place incurred, the whole effect and ten-
dency of purely economical forces is to perpetuate, and not
to remove, that hardship, either in the next year or in the
next generation. Moral and intellectual causes only can
repair any portion of the loss and waste occasioned.
If such are the unfortunate liabilities of a violent reduc-
tion of wages, it will of course appear, without any extended
illustration, that the effects of a protracted failure of employ-
ment must be even more injurious to the efficiency of labor
where the margin of life is at the best narrow and no accu-
mulation of savings has been effected. All the hardships
of the conditions described are here aggravated to an intol-
erable degree, and it is more than is to be expected of hu-
man nature if despondency and despair do not drive the
unhappy laborer to the dram-shop 1 to drown his sorrows
and his fears in indulgences which will leave him worse in
character and weaker in nerve and sinew. However in-
dustry may revive, the shattered industrial manhood can
never be fully restored.
But perhaps even more than in the miserable resort to
the dram-shop, the fatal effects of a cessation of employ-
ltt C'est surtout pendant les epoques de cliomages que 1'ouvrior. no
sachant comment employer ses heures, hante le cabaret." Rapport
(M. Ducarre) Salaires et rapports entre ouvriers et patrons, p. 269.
THE WAGES QUESTION.
ment upon the industrial quality are seen in the readiness
with which, when once he has had experience of public
support, the laborer takes refuge in charity. Rarely is char-
acter found robust enough to throw off this taint. Let a man
once be brought to that painful and most humiliating ne-
cessity, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that ever after
he must be counted as industrially dead. Where first he
was driven, as to the bitterness of death, only by extremity
of suffering, only after desperate efforts and long endur-
ance, he now resorts with a fatal facility on the first sug-
gestion of want. Known to his comrades as having re-
ceived relief, his children bearing the pauper-brand among
their playmates, all ingenuous sensibility soon disappears.
" We can not," says Mr. McCullagh Torrens, in his work
" The Lancashire Lesson," dealing with the experiences of
England during the Cotton Famine incident to our war
" we can not help marking the readiness with which, on the
first cessation of adequate wages, large numbers of persons
now resort to rates and subscription funds, many of whom
three years ago would have shrunk instinctively from such
public avowal of indigence." This is the despair of indus-
try. The pauper lies below the slave in the industrial
scale. No lower depth opens downward from this.
My object, I repeat, in treating here this topic of " the
degradation of labor" is to point out the constantly immi-
nent danger that bodies of laborers will not soon enough
or amply enough resent industrial injuries which may be
wrought by the concerted action of employers, or by slow
and gradual changes in production, or by catastrophes in
business, such as commercial panics ; and upon this, and
in immediate connection with the discussion of the causes
which contribute to the efficiency of labor, to show the self-
perpetuating nature of such industrial injuries under the
operation of the very economical principles which, with
alert and mobile labor intelligently seeking its interests,
would secure relief and restoration.
CHAPTER V.
THE LAW OF DIMINISHING KETURNS.
WE have now reached a point where we must consider
the principles which govern the relations of population to
subsistence.
Why should not population multiply indefinitely and
still find, at each stage of increase, food ample for all ?
Nay, with the power there is in mutual help, and with the
wonderful mechanical advantages which result from the
subdivision of industry and the multiplication of occupa-
tions, why should not the share of each be continually aug-
menting as the number of laborers capable of rendering
such mutual services and uniting in industrial enterprises,
increases ?
The answer to these questions is found in the Law of
Diminishing Returns in Agriculture. Up to a certain
point, the increase of laborers increases the product not
only absolutely but relatively ; that is, not only is more pro-
duced in the aggregate, but the product is larger for each
laborer. Two men working over a square mile of arable
land will not only merely produce twice as much as one man :
they will produce more than twice, perhaps three tine-
as much. This is because the two can take hold together
of work to which the strength of either alone would be in-
adequate, or which requires that one person shall be in one
place, and another at the same time in another place, in
order that the two may act simultaneously, as, for example,
one driving oxen and the other holding the plough.
90 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Moreover, where the two are not working together, in the
usual acceptation of that term, they may yet help each other
greatly by agreeing to divide their tasks. Each, confining
himself to a certain part, will become, for that reason, more
apt and dexterous, will learn to avoid mistakes and save
waste, and will acquire a facility in production which would
be impossible were he to undertake a wider and more
varied line of duties.
For a similar reason, three men will not merely produce
three times as much as one : they will probably produce
four times, perhaps five times, as much. A minuter sub-
division of industry will become possible, and a more
effective assistance in those parts of the work which require
the actual co-operation of the different members.
Much in the same way is it with the application of capital
to land. Let four men be working upon a square mile of
arable land, having the use of a capital to the value of $25,
comprising rude spades, axes, and hoes. Now, double that
capital, allowing an improvement in the quality of the tools
or an increase in the quantity as may be desired. There
will be, if that additional capital have been judiciously
used, an increase of product over the product of the same
men when employing the smaller capital, which increase
we will call A. If we place in the hands of these men an-
other $25 of capital, in forms appropriate to their wants,
making $75 capital in all, we shall have another incre-
ment of product ; but it will not be A only, but A plus
something. And if, again, we give them an additional
capital of $75, making $150 in all, including now a horse,
a plough, and a cart, the addition made thereby to their
product will not be 3A merely : it may be 5A ; it may
be 10A ; it may be 20A.
This process of increasing the labor and capital to be
applied to a square mile of arable land might, as we need
not take space to show, be continued to a very consider-
able extent ; and all the while it would remain true that
the product was increased more than proportionally, so
INCREASING RETURNS. 91
that a continually larger share could be assigned to each
individual laborer, and to each dollar of capital. The
two principal causes for such increase of product, if we con-
fine our attention to the increase in the number of laborers
as, for simplicity's sake, we shall hereafter do are
those already indicated, namely : 1st, the ability of men actu-
ally working together to do things to which any one of them
would be singly incompetent, or would do slowly, painfully,
and imperfectly; and 2d, the advantages which men
acquire by dividing their tasks, so that each may confine
himself to a single line of duties, and acquire a higher de-
gree of efficiency therein.
But now appears a new opportunity for at once employ,
ing more laborers on our square-mile tract, and increasing
the remuneration of each. Let us suppose there are 12
laborers, and that the increase of capital has been such as
to give them a sufficiency of the ordinary tools used in
agriculture at the time. Let us also suppose that out of
their previous production they have been able to save a
considerable store of provisions and other necessaries of
life, all included under the generic name capital. They
have also bred livestock till they have a pretty full supply
of working animals.
Up to this time they have been cultivating only certain
portions of the tract to which we have assigned them.
They could not cultivate the whole successfully with so
few hands, and they have accordingly made selection <
those parts which were best suited to their immediate pur-
poses. 1 A skilled agriculturist walking over the tract, kick
ing a clod now and then on the cultivated parts with his
toe, and breaking a hole with his heel, here and there,
through the natural turf, would say that they had thus far
made use only of the light, warm, sandy soils whi
> The principle which guides the American farmer to to take the
1 most paying crop which can be grown with the least cost oflc
James Caird's Prairie Farming, p. 21.
93 THE WAGES QUESTION.
quick returns on the application of little labor, but that
there were other portions of the tract, as yet wet and cold,
with a strong, deep soil, which would some time, with la-
bor and capital, be much better worth cultivating. More-
over, a portion of the tract is covered with wood, and
a hundred acres, or so, lie in swamp, useless, and even pesti-
ferous, to our young community.
Now, having reached the comparative freedom of life we
have described, feeling strong in their united labor and
their accumulated capital, 1 they resolve to undertake the
thorough drainage of the swamp ; and with this view
invite four new laborers from outside to join fortunes with
them. The draining of the swamp involves a year's labor,
and requires the community to give up a year's crop, a
thing which they would have been unable to do at an earlier
period in their history, but which their accumulations now
render possible. The ground thus drained and opened, rich
with the vegetable deposits of centuries, proves to be by far
the most productive portion of their land. So far as they
still work upon the old lands they achieve as large a product
as before ; so far as they work upon the n'ew land the pro-
duct is greater ; and consequently (as we are assuming a
community of land, of labor, and of wealth) the share of
each is greater in spite of, or indeed by reason of, the in-
crease in their numbers.
A few years pass. The store of provisions and other
necessaries, of implements and of livestock, which was
drawn down very low by the great effort of draining the
swamp, has now, from the increased productiveness of the
joint estate, grown to dimensions larger than ever before.
The community is now, therefore, in a position to under-
take any improvement which, though involving large pre-
1 " In a new country and among poor settlers . . . poor land is a rela-
tive term. Land is called poor which is not suitable to a poor man, which,
on mere clearing and burning, will not yield good first crops
Thus that which is poor land for a poor man may prove rich land to a
rich man." Prof. Johnston's Notes on North America, ii. 116, 117.
INCREASING RETURNS. 93
sent expenditures, promises to be remunerative in the final
result. The incentive thus arising from the possession of
capital joining, as it chances, with the arrival of four new
laborers who desire to cast in their fortunes with the young
community, leads to the resolution to thoroughly under-
drain the rich, deep soils which have been lying so long
cold and wet, on the further side of a sharp, rocky ridge,
while the thinner but dryer and wanner parts have been
cultivated for the sake of their quick returns. Another
harvest is foregone and the year given up to the improve-
ment, which again brings the stock of provisions and cloth-
ing very low, and reduces the tools and livestock of the
community to the smallest dimensions consistent with
working efficiency ; but the thing is done, and done once
for all : soils richer and stronger have been opened to til-
lage, and the community, now consisting of 20 laborers, is
able to withdraw, in the main, from the lighter, sandy soils,
and concentrate their energies principally on the site of the
former swamp, and on the parts last brought under cultiva-
tion ; and now the product per man is notably increased,
while the capabilities of the soil are so liberal that the
land responds to every increase of capital with constantly-
increasing returns.
It will not be necessary to recite the cutting down of the
timber, the clearing up of the ground, and the opening of
what is, after all, the best land of the whole tract. Suffice
it to say that the poorer lands are now given up entirely,
and the community, increased by accessions from abroad to
24 laborers, working on none but those soils which are really
in the broad view the most productive, obtains a larger per-
capita crop than ever before.
So far certainly we have not reached a condition of
"diminishing returns." On the contrary, returns have
increased with and through the increase of population.
But we will now suppose that 24 laborers are as many aa
can be employed to the best advantage on the good lands
of the tract which we have been considering, and that if
94 THE WAGES QUESTION.
25 laborers were to be engaged the product would be more
than with 24 f or that is a matter of course but not -^ T as
much more, so that, with community of labor and of
wealth, each of the 25 must fain be content with a little
less than each of the 24 had received ; and, in the same
way, were still another laborer to appear, the 26 would pro-
duce more than the 25 had done, to be sure, but not -^ more,
so that each of the 26 would receive less even than each of
the 25 had done. This would be a condition of " diminish-
ing returns ;" and this condition is liable to be reached in
the course of the settlement of any region. 1
"We will suppose our community to become aware of
this condition, and thereon to resolve that no further acces-
sions from abroad shall be received ; but in the very act of
so resolving, one of the number discovers the principle of
the rotation of crops. Heretofore they had been accus-
tomed to leave every year a portion of their choicest lands
unsown, having learned that this was essential to keeping
the soil in its highest productive power. Thus they not
only lost the advantage of cultivating these choicest por-
tions of their domain, but, as they found it necessary to
plough the fallow in order to keep down the weeds, they
had to lay out a part of their laboring-power each year with-
out any result in the crop of the year. But the discovery
of the principle of rotation changed all this. The dis-
1 Prof. Cairnes's answer to those who deny the diminishing produc-
tiveness of land is absolutely conclusive. " If any one denies the fact,
it is open to him to refute it by making the experiment. Let him
show that he can obtain from a limited area of soil any required
quantity of produce by simply increasing the outlay that is to say, that
by quadrupling or decupling the outlay, he can obtain a quadruple or
decuple return. If it be asked why those who maintain the affirma-
tive of the doctrine do not establish their views by actual experiment,
the answer is that the experiment is performed for them by every prac-
tical farmer ; and that the fact of the diminishing productiveness of
the soil is proved by their conduct in preferring to resort to inferior
Boils rather than force unprofitably soils of better quality." Logical
Method, etc., p. 35.
INCREASING RETURNS. 95
coveiy, in a word, was that the soil, like a man or a horse,
may rest from one kind of work while doing another ; that
to the soil the raising of two different crops is the doing
of two different kinds of work : that crop A draws from the
soil properties a ; crop B, properties 5 ; crop C, properties
c ; and that consequently the soil may be recuperating as
to properties a and 5, while bearing crop C quite, or nearly,
as well as if it were doing nothing.
JSTow, this discovery of the principle occurred, we will
suppose, just in time to prevent the disappointment of 12
worthy laborers who had come a great distance, hoping to
join themselves with our community, but were on the
point of being turned away on the ground that with 36
laborers, under the existing system of fallows, the commu-
nity would be obliged to return to some of the less produc-
tive lands which had been abandoned. With rotation,
however, this objection no longer exists. The 12 new-
comers are received, and inasmuch as the laborers in the
fields are now relatively more concentrated, not having to
go out to work, or to haul the produce over fallow spaces,
and inasmuch, too, as the increase in numbers allows a
much higher degree of co-operation and a minuter subdivi-
sion of industry (always a prolific source of mechanical ad-
vantage), while yet all are working on the better lands, the
product is found to be not one half larger only, but even
more, so that each of the 36 receives more than each of the
24 had done.
It will not be necessary to take our reader's time to relate
how the simple suggestion that muck might be taken from
the bed of the old swamp and spread on other portions, led
to the employment of four additional laborers from abroad ;
or how the invention 1 of a new plough which turned up
the earth from 18 inches depth instead of 8, as by the
ploughs previously in use, allowed the number of laborers
1 Be it remembered that in our community there are neither rents
nor royalties.
96 THE WAGES QUESTION.
to rise, one by one, to 48, not only with no diminution of
the average product, but with its positive increase.
Now, the above illustrations have not exhausted the num-
ber or exaggerated the scope and effect of advantages in the
resort from inferior to better soils, in the accomplishment
of permanent improvements, in the invention of tools and
implements, in the discovery of new resources, and in
the utilization of waste, which may enable the number of
laborers in any given country to increase from year to year
without the part of each being diminished. 1
But without trying further my reader's patience, I will
assume that, in the case taken, all known means of increas-
ing the product proportionally, or more than proportionally,
to the increase of the number of laborers, have been tried
and exhausted, and that with 48 laborers to the square-
mile tract the condition of " diminishing returns " has
been reached, so that any increase of laborers beyond that
point will result in a diminished per-capita product. In
such a condition the remark of Mr. J. S. Mill applies : " It
is in vain to say that all mouths which the increase of man-
kind calls into existence bring with them hands. The new
mouths require as much food as the old ones, and the hands
do not produce as much." 2 Let it be borne in mind, how-
ever, that the aggregate product may still, and may even
1 " The soil of England produces eight times as much food as it
produced 500 years ago." Rogers, Pol. Econ. , p. 181. Of the agriculture
of the former period, Prof. Rogers says : " In those days half the ara-
ble land lay in fallow. The amount produced was, to take wheat as
an example, about eight bushels the acre in ordinary years, i.e., little
more than a third of an average crop at the present time. There
were no artificial grasses. Clover was not known, nor any of the
familiar roots. As a consequence, there was little or no winter feed,
except such coarse hay as could be made and spared. Cattle were
small and stunted by the privations and hard fare of winter. The
average weight of a good ox was under four cwt. Sheep, too, were
small, poor, and came very slowly to maturity. The average weight
of a fleece was not more than two pounds. With ill-fed cattle there
was little or no strong manure." Pol. Econ., pp. 157, 158.
* Pol. Econ. i. 230.
DIMINISHING RETURNS. 97
indefinitely, be increased by additional labor. England,
densely populated and highly cultivated as that country
is, has not begun to approach the state where additional
labor will produce no appreciable increase of crops.
" There are," says Prof. Senior, " about 37,000,000 acres in
England and Wales. Of these it has been calculated that
not 85,000 less, in fact, than one four-hundredth part are
in a state of high cultivation, as hop-grounds, nursery-
grounds, and fruit and kitchen gardens, and that 5,000,-
000 are waste." 1 Prof. Senior proceeds with this striking
exposition of the capabilities of production :
" If the utmost use were made of lime and marl and
other mineral manures ; if, by a perfect system of drainage
and irrigation, water were nowhere allowed to be excessive
or deficient ; if all our wastes were protected by enclosures
and planting ; if all the land in tillage, instead of being
scratched by the plough, were deeply and repeatedly
trenched by manual labor ; if minute care were employed in
the selecting and planting of every seed and root, and
watchfulness sufficient to prevent the appearance of a
weed ; if all livestock, instead of being pastured,, had their
food cut and brought to them; in short, if the whole
country were subjected to the labor which a rich citizen
lavishes on his-patch of suburban garden ; if it were pos-
sible that all this should be effected, the agricultural pro-
duce of the country might be raised to ten times, or indeed
to much more than ten times, its present amount. . . .
But although the land in England is capable of producing
ten times, or more than ten times, as much as it now pro-
duces, it is probable that its present produce will never be
quadrupled, and almost certain that it will never be de-
cupled."
It will not have failed to be observed that the law of
1 Pol. Econ., p. 82.
98 THE WAGES QUESTION.
diminishing returns does not apply directly to mechanical
industry. Yet, inasmuch as the materials of that industry
are all of an agricultural origin, or at least are all taken
from the soil, the cost of manufactured products will in-
evitably be enhanced in consequence. All, however,
will not rise equally from this cause. Those in which the
cost of the material is relatively small may for a long time
decline in price in spite of " diminishing returns ;" those in
which the cost of the material is relatively large may increase
steadily in spite of mechanical inventions and improve-
ments.
In 1832 Mr. Babbage stated 1 that pig-lead to the value
of 1 became worth when manufactured into
Sheets or pipes of moderate dimensions 1.25
White-lead 2.60
Ordinary printing characters 4.90
The smallest type 28.30
Copper of the value of 1 became worth when manu-
factured into
Copper sheeting 1.26
Household utensils 4.77
Metallic cloth, 10,000 meshes to the square inch 52.23
Bar-iron of the value of 1 became worth when manu-
factured into
Slit-iron for nails 1.10
Natural steel 1.42
Horseshoes 2.55
Gun-barrels, ordinary 9.10
Wood-saws 14.28
Scissors, best 446. 94
Penknife-blades 657.14
Sword-handles, polished steel 972.82
Now, it is evident that the part of the cost of the nearly
1000 of sword-handles, instanced by Mr. Babbage, which
is affected by the law of diminishing returns, is the few
1 Economy of Manufactures, pp. 163, 164.
DIMINISHING RETURNS. 99
shillings' worth of pig-iron originally taken plus the few
shillings' worth of coal necessary to produce the power
and the melting and the tempering heat for the successive
processes of manufacture. With the progress of chemical
and mechanical discovery, therefore, the cost of the sword-
handle and the penknife-blade will approach that of the
horseshoe and the nail-iron. The efficiency of human
labor, again, in the production of wheat may have in-
creased sixfold since the days of the Odyssey ; the efficiency
of labor in converting that wheat into bread, as M.
Chevalier computes it, has been multiplied one hundred
and forty-four times. The efficiency of labor in producing
wool may have increased four-fold in this long period, but
many living men have seen the efficiency of labor in ren-
dering wool into cloth multiplied fifty- fold.
So far, then, as human wants can be met by the ela-
boration of the crude materials furnished by the earth,
satisfactions (to use the term which Bastiat's writings have
brought so much into vogue) may be multiplied almost in-
definitely, not in spite of, but partly in consequence of,
the increase of population. The mechanic of to-day, if his
wages yield something over the demands of physical main-
tenance, may purchase with the balance luxuries, in one
of a thousand forms, which two hundred years ago would
have tasked the means of the wealthiest banker. The wife
of a common laborer may wear fabrics which would once
have excited the admiration of a court. But, after all, the
great bulk of the consumption of the working classes must
be in coarse forms of agricultural produce simply pre-
pared. It matters little to the laborer that for a few pence
additional he may have his cotton wrought into exquisite
designs which a century ago would have required months
for their elaboration, if the pence he has are not enough
to buy a sufficient weight of cotton to keep him and his
children warm. His main concern is with the cost of
grains and meats, of cotton and wool, of iron and wood ;
and to these, in their simplest forms, the law of diminish-
100 THE WAGES QUESTION.
ing returns applies with a stringency that never relaxes.
" If the fact were otherwise . . . the science of political
economy, as it at present exists, would be as completely
revolutionized as if human nature itself were altered." 1
1 J. E. Cairnes, Logical Method, etc., p. 36.
CHAPTEK VI.
MALTHUSIANISM IN WAGES THE LAW OF POPULATION.
To the situation reached at the close of the last chapter
let us now apply the law of population known by the
name of the English writer who, if he did not discover the
principles underlying it, at least called and compelled gen-
eral attention to them.
The reader will have noted that in tracing the gradual
increase in numbers of the agricultural community whose
experiences formed the subject of the last chapter, the ad-
ditional laborers for whom room and work were found
were in all cases called in from abroad, and that these
laborers were taken as without families, or at least that
women and children were in no way introduced into the
narrative. This was because we were then only concerned
with the industrial capabilities of the square-mile tract
under consideration.
But now let us change the supposition. The addi-
tion of laborers shall be through the growth to maturity
of the children of the first residents. All the conditions
will remain substantially the same, through the whole
course of settlement and improvement, until we reach
the stage of "diminishing returns." Here the differ-
ence between the two modes of accession begins, and
here Malthusianism applies for the first time. In the
last chapter our supposition was that when the point
was reached where the number of laborers was as great
102 THE WAGES QUESTION.
as could be employed upon the land to advantage
that is, without a reduction of the per-capita crop
the existing body of laborers would refuse to receive
further accessions, and thus stop at the limit of the highest
individual product. But how will it be if the accessions
are by the arrival at maturity of the children of the laborers
themselves ? "Will that mode of increase be checked so
easily, surely, and, one might say, automatically, when the
real interests of the laborer demand that no more shall be
admitted to the land now tilled to its highest per-capita
capability ? Mr. Maltlms answers, No ; and his great repu-
tation rests on his searching investigation of the principles
of population, and his conclusive statement that population
has tended, at least under past human conditions, to disre-
gard the moral inhibition contained in the fact of diminish-
ing returns, and to increase thereafter faster than subsist-
ence, and even to persist in that increase, while food be-
came more scant, meagre, and unnourishing, until at last
the one sufficient check was applied by disease and famine.
Population, said Mr. Mai thus, increases in a geometrical
ratio, while subsistence increases in an arithmetical ratio
only. What, now, is the characteristic of geometrical as
contrasted with arithmetical increase ? It is that the
increase itself increases. Thus, in a series of seven terms,
we might have :
Arithmetical, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14.
Geometrical. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128.
Here, in the former series, the actual difference between
the sixth and seventh terms is the same as that between the
first and second, namely, 2. In the latter series, the
difference between the first and second terms is also 2,
while between the sixth and seventh it is 64. This tre-
mendous leap from term to term is due to the fact that the
increase between the first and second terms becomes itself
the cause of increase between the second and third terms ;
and this increase, in turn, becomes the cause of corre-
THE LAW OF POPULATION. 103
spending increase between the third and fourth, and so on
to the end. Whereas in the arithmetical series we may
say that the entire increase comes out of the original first
term, and all the successive increments remain themselves
barren.
Mankind, like every other species of animals, said Mr.
Malthus, tend to increase in a geometrical ratio. Speaking
broadly, every human pair, no matter in what term of the
series appearing, has the same capability of reproduction
as the original pair, and has the same likelihood of an
equally numerous offspring, after the same number of gen-
erations, as Adam and Eve are credited with. It is in this
fact of a reproductive capability in the descendant equal to
that of the ancestor that Mr. Malthus found the possibili-
ties of perpetual poverty, misery, and vice among the human
race. At this point, however, it needs to be observed that
the mere fact of children being born to eveiy human pair
on earth does not of itself meet the conditions of Mr. Mal-
thus' s reasoning. Mr. Greg, in his Social Enigmas, has
written as if Malthusianism presented the issue whether
people should have children or not. But it is plain almost
too plain, indeed, to be formally stated that every human
pair might have one child, and yet the race become extinct
in a few generations ; might have two children, yet no in-
crease of population result, the children only supplying the
parents' places in the social and industrial order ; nay, as a
large proportion of those who are born do, and seemingly
must, in the present state of sanitary and medical science,
die before reaching maturity, and as many who survive do,
from one cause or another, remain single, every married
pair might have three children, and yet there >e no in-
crease. Surely these facts dispose of Mr. Greg's sentimen-
tal grievance.
The doctrine of Malthus, then, assumes an average
number of children to a family sufficient, after allowance
for infant mortality, celibacy, and exceptional sterility, to
yield a net increase in each generation. As matter of fact,
104 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Mr. Malthus 1 assumes in excess of four children to a family
as the average under conditions where neither " vice, misery,
nor moral restraint" appear to check the natural progress of
population. The validity of the theory does not, however,
depend on the specific ratio taken. Given only a number
of children sufficient to yield a net increase, however
slight, in each generation, with an undiminished reproduc-
tive capability in each married pair, we have the condi-
tions of a geometrical progression. And the capabilities of
a geometrical progression when persisted in are simply
tremendous. " The elephant," says Mr. Darwin, " is
reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I
have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum
rate of natural increase. It will be safest to assume that
it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on
breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth six young in
the interval, and surviving till one hundred years old ; if
this be so, after a period of from seven hundred and forty
to seven hundred and fifty years there would be alive
nearly nineteen million elephants descended from the first
pair. . . . Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-
five years, and at this rate in a few thousand years there
would literally not be standing-room for his progeny." 5
But how would it be meanwhile with subsistence ? In
saying that this tends to increase in an arithmetical ratio
only, Mr. Malthus did not deny an inherent capability in
vegetable life to reproduce itself far more rapidly than it is
given to most species of animals to do. " Wheat, we know,"
says Prof. Senior, " is an annual, and its average power of
reproduction perhaps about six for one ; on that supposi-
tion, the produce of a single acre might cover the globe in
fourteen years. 3 " Here, surely, is geometrical and geogra-
phical progression with a vengeance ! Why, then, assert
for vegetable life a power of arithmetical progression only ?
1 The Principle of Population, i. 474-6.
3 The Origin of Species, chap. iii. 8 Pol. Econ., p. 30.
THE LAW OF SUBSISTENCE, 105
The justification of this will be found in the last words of
the extract just given : the globe would be covered, and
that in fourteen years, by the increase of a single acre of this
comparatively unprolific cereal. There are weeds, and even
useful plants, whose rate of increase would allow them to
overspread the earth in half that time. Mr. Malthus's theory
assumes the earth generally occupied and cultivated, in its
fertile parts at least. From this point on, all increase of
vegetable food must be made against an increasing resist-
ance, and hence can only be obtained through the expen-
diture of constantly-increasing force. After the condi-
tion of " diminishing returns" described in the preceding
chapter has been reached, every addition to the crop is
obtained at the cost of more than a proportional amount
of labor. Thus the share of each laborer becomes smaller
and still smaller, as, through the persistence 8 of the sexual
instincts, population continues to increase. " The diminish-
ing productiveness of the land, as compared with the un-
diminished power of human fecundity, forms the basis of
the Malthusian theory." 3
From my own analysis of the doctrine of Mr. Malthus, I
1 " Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms nature has scat-
tered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand,
but has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment
necessary to rear them. "Malthus, The Principle of Population, i. 3.
" L'accroisement des moyens d'existence et I'accroisement du capital
ont necessairement des limites dans un espace de temps donne. Au
contraire, I'accroisement de la population est pour ainsi dire illimite.
.... Si done, entre ces deux productions extremement inegales,
la prevoyance humaine ne s'interpose, une calamite est imminente."
M. Chevalier, 7eme Discours, d'Overture du cours de 1'annee, 1840-7.
* " The same power that doubles the population of Kentucky.
Illinois, and New South Wales every five-and-twenty years, exists
everywhere, and is equally energetic in England, France, and Holland."
J. R. McCulloch, Pol. Econ. 226.
8 Prof. Rickards, Population and Capital, p. 127.
106 THE WAGES QUESTION.
should say he reached in succession three results : first, the
power of population to increase faster than subsistence ;
secondly, the tendency of population so to increase that is,
he proved that the mere fact of passing into the stage of " di-
minishing returns" in production has of itself no necessary
effect whatever to check propagation ; thirdly, the deter-
mination, the strong and urgent disposition, of population
so to increase, due to the power and persistence of the
sexual instincts, under the force of which human reproduc-
tion will go forward in spite of the plain warnings of pru-
dence, in spite of increasing discomfort, squalor, and
hunger. " Moral restraint" might, Mr. Malthus admitted,
intervene to stay the fatal progress ; but this required too
much virtue to be reasonably expected of large masses of
people. Hence the limit to population must be looked for
mainly in " vice" (a preventive check to population) or in
" misery" (a positive check). Prostitution might enter in
disparagement of marriage ; foeticide and abortion might
enter to diminish the average number of children to a
marriage ; such were the methods of vice in limiting popu-
lation by diminishing births. On the other hand, misery
that is, privation and excessive exertion by aggravating in-
fant mortality and shortening the duration of mature life,
has been found, and is likely through an indefinite future
to be found, the chief agency in keeping down the num-
bers of mankind.
Of this last result it may be said that it was a not very
extravagant generalization of the experiences of most of
the countries of Europe to which Mr. Malthus, writing be-
fore the French Revolution had fully wrought its mighty
work, could look to ascertain the comparative strength of
the principle of increase and the restraints of prudence.
He might indeed he did look away to a country beyond
the ocean, where a popular tenure of the soil, popular edu-
cation, and a popular control of government might be ex-
pected to bring out the virtues of self-respect and self-re-
straint ; but here it chanced that the political and the indus-
ANALYSIS OF MALTHTJSIANI8M. 107
trial interests of the people coincided in encouraging the
most rapid development of population.
Such being the three successive but distinct results
which make up Mr. Malthus's body of doctrine, it should
be noted that they are not all of the same validity. The
first result comes directly out of facts in the physical con-
ditions of the earth and of man, which can not be impugned.
The second, for all that is known of human physiology,
would seem to be equally indisputable. Prof. Senior has,
indeed, in terms, while admitting the power, denied the
tendency ; but I must think that his denial should be
taken as extending not to the tendency, but to what I have
called the determination, of population to increase unduly.
It seems incredible that Prof. Senior should have intended
to question that population tends to increase faster than
subsistence, so long, at least, as subsistence remains ade-
quate to physical well-being, for it must be remembered
that the condition of diminishing returns may begin when
\hvper-capita product is still ample to afford a liberal sup-
port to all. Now, a country may proceed a long time with
diminishing returns, diminishing, it may be, very slowly,
before squalor and hunger become the necessary concom-
itants of an increase of population. So that, considering
a people on the verge of that condition, it is certainly safe
to say that subsistence can not thereafter increase as fast as
before, because the constitution of the soil forbids ; while
yet population may, for a longer or a shorter time, continue
to increase as fast as before, since the reproductive capa-
bility 1 is undiminished and the sexual instinct remains as
active and strong as ever. Hence, I believe Prof. Senior
V must have meant to deny this tendency only in the degree
1 Indeed, the reproductive capability might even be increased during
the first stages of diminishing returns. This would doubtless be so if
the previous returns to labor had been so liberal as to encourage luxu-
riousness and some degree of effeminacy. In this case the first effects
of diminished returns might be to induce a greater physical and ner-
vous vigor.
108 THE WAGES QUESTION.
of force and persistency which Mr. Maltlms attributed
to it.
It is then against Mr. Malthus's last result, namely, the de-
termination, the strong and urgent disposition, of popula-
tion to increase in spite of reason and prudence, and in
spite of privation and squalor, that all valid criticism must
be directed. Many of Mr. Malthus's opponents have con-
sidered that they have demolished Malthusianism when
they have shown to their own satisfaction that the im-
pulse to propagation is somewhat less strong, or that the
motives and physiological tendencies which work against
increase of population are somewhat stronger, than he re-
presented them to be. Malthusianism, however, stands
complete and inexpugnable on the demonstration of the
power and the tendency of population to increase faster
than subsistence. The gloomy forebodings of the amiable
clergyman who promulgated the doctrine are not at all of
its essence. Malthusianism would survive a demonstra-
tion, on the largest scale, of the power of prudence and
social ambition to hold the impulses to propagation firmly
in check.
CHAPTEE VII.
NECESSARY WAGES.
THE phrase "necessary wages" makes a considerable
figure in economical literature. By it is intended a mini-
num below which, it is assumed, wages can not fall without
reducing the supply of labor and thus inducing an opposite
tendency, namely, to a rise in wages. 1
It is not meant that the employer is bound, by either
equitable or economical considerations, to pay the laborer,
in the immediate instance, enough to support life in him-
self and family. The employer will, in general, pay only
such wages as the anticipated value of the product will
allow him to get back from the purchaser, with his own
proper profits thereon. If, in a peculiar condition of in-
dustry, he consents for a time to give up his own profits,
or even to produce at a sacrifice, it is with reference to his
own interest in keeping his laboring force, or his custo-
mers, together, in the expectation that a turn in affairs will
1 " The cost of purchasing labor, like that of every thing else, must
be paid by the purchasers. The race of laborers would become alto-
gether extinct unless they were supplied with quantities of food and
other articles sufficient for their support and that of their families.
This is the lowest limit to which the rate of wages can be permanent-
ly reduced, and for this reason it has been called the natural or neces-
sary rate of wages." J. B. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., p. 385v
110 THE WAGES QUESTION.
enable him to make himself good for the temporary loss.
If he pays more than is consistent with this object, or if
he pays any thing from any other view than his own in-
terest, what he thus pays is not wages, but alms disguised
as wages.
Such instances of temporary sacrifice are, however, ex-
ceptional. In the vast majority of cases the wages which
employers pay their workmen are governed by the price
at which they may fairly expect to sell the product ; and
this, whether the workmen and their families can live
thereon or not. If now, in any country, at any time,
laborers, from any cause, become in excess of the demand,
necessaiy wages in that instance will not include a suffici-
ency of food and clothing for all these laborers, but only
for those who are wanted.
JSTor by necessary wages is it meant that workmen will
not accept wages which are below the standard of subsist-
ence. It is when men are receiving wages which give
them a margin for the comforts of life, and perhaps some-
thing for luxury, that they say, sometimes in very wanton-
ness, " If we can not have such and such wages, we will
not work," and perchance refuse offers which are as liberal
as their employers can make. But when wages approach
the dread line where they cease to furnish a sufficiency of
the coarsest food, laboring men do not talk so. In coun-
tries where there is no poor law, and where the claim to
support is not admitted by the state, it is a thing unknown
that a workman refuses wages because they will not keep
himself and family alive. He takes them for what they
are worth, applies them as far as they will go, and works
on, perhaps with failing strength, eager to secure the per-
haps failing employment. If it is in the city, and the sight
of luxury maddens the crowd of laborers giddy with fast-
ing, the dreadful cry of " Bread or blood " may be raised,
and the last effort of strength be given to pillage and de-
struction. But the single laborer, acting out his own im-
NECESSARY WAGES. Ill
pulses, takes the wages that are offered him never so surely
as when those wages are close down upon the famine line.
If the least sum on which a man with a wife and five
children can subsist, be seven shillings a week, and yet in
hard times he is offered but six shillings for his labor, this
does not mean that one victim is to be selected from the se-
ven and set apart to starve, while the rest are fed. It means
that all will try to live on the scantier supply. The famine
line is not a line which it is easy to trace. Laboring men
and women can live for single days on what they could not
live upon during an entire week ; they can live for a single
week on what they could not live upon every week of the
month ; they can even live for months on what they could
not live upon an entire year. They can live along for
years on a half of what would be necessary to keep them
in robust health and with strength to labor efficiently.
With the aged and the young the capacity of enduring
privation is almost indefinitely less. Yet even when each
succumbs in his turn, the nursing child and the young man
in his strength, the chances are that it is to some distinct
form of disease, for which privation has prepared the way.
Thus in Ireland, when the annual number of deaths rose
from Y7,Y54, the average of the three preceding years, to
122,889 in 1846, and 249,335 in 1847, it was from fever, and
not from literal starvation, that the great mass of victims
died. 1 So in India, in the famine of 18Y3-4, the number
of deaths from starvation reported from districts embrac-
ing millions of inhabitants was in some instances but three,
five, or ten, while yet the population had been greatly re-
duced by an extraordinary mortality from the recognized
forms of ordinary disease. Dr. Hunter, in his Famine
1 The number of deaths actually attributed, on inquest, to starva-
tion, and so reported in the famous Irish census of 1851, was 2(
1846, 6058 in 1847, and 9395 during the two years following. (Report^
Part V., vol. i.,p. 253.)
113 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Aspects of India, lias strikingly drawn the lamentable
picture of a people entering the famine state.
" At the outset of a famine the people fall back upon
roots and various sorts of inferior green food. The children
and the weaker members of the family die, and those who
survive eke out a very insufficient quantity of rice by roots
and wild plants. The wages which would not suffice to
feed an average family of four are sufficient for the two
or three members who survive. The rural population
enters a famine as a frigate goes into battle, cleared of all
useless gear and inefficient members"
"We have seen that by " necessary wages" is not meant that
masters will not offer, or workmen receive, in the immedi-
ate instance, wages which are greatly and increasingly inade-
quate to the support of life. But more than this, it is not even
meant that any wages at all are necessary unconditionally.
The employing class may, from causes affecting the indus-
try of a community or a country, itself slowly disappear.
Many regions once most fair and flourishing have, as we
know, been stricken with a paralysis of industry, leaving
no small part of their inhabitants occupationless. In such
a case not only can no particular scale of wages be said to
be necessary, but no wages at all will be necessary ; the
population thus rendered surplus must remove if it can to
new seats, or remaining, as is most likely, must pass rapidly
away by the excess of deaths over births, induced by hardship
and privation. Hence, if we will say that wages must be
high enough to maintain the laboring class in condition to
labor, and to keep their numbers good, we should bear in
mind the condition on which this alone is true, namely, that
the employing class is itself kept good.
The whole significance of the term necessary wages is
that, in order to the supply of labor being maintained,
wages must be paid which will not only enable the labor-
ing class to subsist according to the standard of comfort
and decency, or discomfort and indecency it may be, which
NECESSARY WAGES. 113
they set up for themselves as that below which they will
not go, but will also dispose them to propagate 1 suffi-
ciently to make up the inevitable, incessant loss of labor
from death or disability. If the standard of living re-
ferred to above varies among several communities or coun-
tries, then the term " necessary wages" must be interpreted
in each community or country according to the habitual
standard there maintained.
It is, then, because something besides vice and misery
do, in a degree, limit the increase of population, that the
question of necessary wages becomes more than the ques-
tion of the amount of the barest, baldest subsistence which
will keep men alive and in condition for labor. And as, ik
fact, the standard of living varies with each community or
country, the laboring population in no two making pre-
cisely the same requirements as the condition precedent to
their keeping their numbers good, the term necessary
wages must be understood in each country and separate
community according to the habitual standard there main-
tained.
JSTecessary wages, as thus defined, may be very low. It
is commonly said that the lowest point which can be
reached is that at which enough food (taking that as the
type of expenditure), of the coarsest and meanest kind, can
1 It will be seen that the wages of the laborer thus made necessary-
must include not only his own subsistence but that of those persons,
not themselves productive laborers, whose maintenance is a means to
the supply of labor in the immediate future. Thus the wages of the
bread-winners must provide food and care for women in the weakness
of childbearing, and for children in the years of infancy. Whether
they shall also provide food and care for the aged in their decrepi-
tude, and for the crippled and infirm, is determined by other conside-
rations, to be noted further on. These, at least, are not essential to the
supply of labor ; and in barbarous countries not a few, the horrid cus-
tom of making away with those who are regarded as a hopeless burden
shows that the support of such ia not an element of necessary wages
among those peoples.
114 THE WAGES QUESTION.
be provided to sustain life and the ability to labor. But
in truth necessary wages may be a great deal lower than
that. It is found that, throughout countries comprising a
largo part of the human race, tlio wages given and taken
not only provide subsistence so scanty and so little nour-
ishing that the population become stunted and more or
less deformed and ineffective in labor ; but that even so, a
large part of all who are born die in infancy and early
childhood from the effects of privation. The horrible in-
fant mortality of many districts is not accounted for solely
by neglect of sanitary precautions, but is also largely due
to the low diet of mothers and children.
But necessary wages may not only be so low as to require
the death, under four years of age, of one half the persons
born into the community : they may be so low as to re-
quire the phrase " to sustain life" to be very much quali-
fied in respect to those who survive the period of childhood
and attain the capacity to labor. In most countries, if we
take civilized and semi-civilized together, no scale of wages
is so necessary but that population will, in spite of an infant
mortality aggravated almost to the proportions of a gen-
eral massacre, increase to the point of docking one quarter,
one third, or one half from the natural term of the industrial
force, for all those who come to man's estate. By this I
mean that, if adequate and wholesome food, with simply
decent and healthful conditions of life, would, with no
regeneration of society or perfection of individual man-
hood, or even so much as the sanitary reformation of cities
and dwellings, allow to persons attaining the age of 20
years a further term, upon the average, of 40 years, popu-
lation is still capable of increasing, in spite of the principle
of necessary wages, until food, clothing, and firing are so
reduced, and dwellings become so crowded, that, instead
of 40 years, an average term no longer than 30, or even
20 years, is allowed to those who attain manhood. Surely
the phrase to " sustain life" needs to be qualified in such
THE STANDARD OF LIVING. 115
cases, where life is, in fact, from want of food and ordinary
comforts, sustained through but a fraction of its other-
wise natural term.
We have thus reduced the scope of the principle of
necessary wages by showing, first, that no wages at all are
necessary unless some one sees it for his own interest to
employ labor, and, secondly, that when wages are paid, it
is not necessary that they should be sufficient to support
more than two thirds or one half of the persons bom into
the world, or, in the case of those actually surviving to the
age of labor, to " sustain life" through more than one half
or three fourths of the natural term of labor.
But there is nevertheless a truth in the doctrine of
necessary wages. There is a point below which if, in any
community, wages go, the supply of labor will not be kept
up ; and hence if employers will have labor, they must
pay for it up to this point.
But it is not in every community, it is not in most com-
munities, perhaps it is not in any community, so long as
employment is offered at all, that the minimum of wages
is fixed by the barest physical conditions of keeping up the
supply of labor. Powerful as is the sexual passion, 1 it has
not unresisted sway. Somewhere above the point we have
indicated it may be far above, it may be but a little way
above this men will cease bringing children into the world.
They may in many countries they do increase to such an
extent as to involve the frightful infant mortality we have
noticed, and to reduce the term of adult life to very narrow
limits. But they will not sink to prove the last possibilities
of the case ; they stop short of the bald, brutal demonstra-
tion of the inability to keep up the supply of labor upon
scantier food, fire, and raiment ; and stopping here, they do
1 " Happily there is but one passion of the same nature ; for if there
were two there would not be a single man left in the universe who
would be able to follow the truth." An Eastern writer.
116 THE WAGES QUESTION.
in fact give themselves some little margin of living. The
Chinaman buys his precious drug ; the East Indian gives
months of every year to the service of his goggle-eyed di-
vinity.
In Persia, Turkey, and other States of the East impera-
tive custom requires the most lavish outlay in the period
immediately before marriage, for which preparation or
reparation has to be made during preceding or succeeding
years of labor. " A man," writes Mr. Consul Taylor from
Koordistan, 1 " one would not suppose to possess a penny,
not unfrequently spends 30, raised on loan from his em-
ployer, that is dissipated during the seven days of riotous
living preceding the ceremony."
Here, then, we have the actual as distinguished from
the theoretical minimum ; in other words, the " neces-
sary wages," the wages that must be paid to keep the
supply of labor good, if, indeed, it is to be kept good ;
for that, w r e have seen, is not a necessity. All the
way up from this low plane, through the scale of na-
tions, we find points established which mark the mini-
mum of wages for one community or another, those
wages, namely, on which that community will consent to
keep its numbers good. Such wages thus become the
necessary wages for that community, necessary only in the
sense that the habits of living among the people will not
permit reproduction sufficient to repair the natural waste
of labor, on any lower terms, with any thing less of the
" necessaries, comforts, and luxuries" of life.
JTow, since among most peoples food is the main object 2
1 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 800, cf.
721. In Koordistan the annual earnings of the artisan appear to range
from 12 to 18.
a The eminent statistician, Dr. Engel, of Berlin, has given the fol-
lowing comparative statement as showing the average relative expen-
diture in Prussia of families of three classes, ranging from those of
well-to-do artisans to those of persons in easy circumstances :
THE STANDARD OF LIVING.
117
upon which wages are expended, economists have been
very much in the way of grading the " necessary wages" of
nations according to their habits respecting food, the princi-
ITEMS or EXPENDITURE.
PERCENTAGE OP THE EXPENDITURE OP THE
FAMILY op
1.
A working
man, with in-
come of $225 to
$300 a year.
2.
A man of the
intermediate
class, with in-
come of $450 to
$600 a year.
3.
A person in
easy circum-
stances, within-
come of $7oO
to $1125 a year.
1. Food
Per cent.
62
16
12
5
Per cent.
55
18
12
5
Per cent.
50
18
12
5
2 Clothing
4. Firinwand Lightino-
5. Education, Worship, etc...
C. Legal protection
95
2
1
1
1
90
3.5
2
2
1.5
85
5.5
3
3
3.5
7. Care of health
8. Comfort and Recreation. . .
100
100
100
From this table Dr. Engel deduces the following proposition :
While the proportion of the total outlay upon food increases as the
family becomes poorer, the percentage of outlay for clothing is ap-
proximately, and that for lodging is invariably, the same in the three
classes taken for consideration. Dr. Engel seems disposed to regard
this very much as a law of expenditure. I am disposed to believe,
however, that the apparent conformity has been reached by merging
iirban and rural communities which if considered separately would
show very wide differences of expenditure on the several objects indi-
cated ; and, secondly, that the extension of the inquiry to other lati-
tudes and other social conditions would develop great diversity in
these respects. The Baron Riesbeck in his Travels in Germany (Pink-
erton, vi. 147, 173), in 1780, notes the very marked differences existing
between Southern and Northern Germany as to the scale of expendi-
ture on dress. The lower orders among the Turks probably expend
more of their earnings relatively upon dress than the higher classes.
The same may probably be assumed respecting the ordinary Danish
workman, who insists on passing himself off as a gentleman on Sun-
days. Again, the scale of expenditure on lodging varies greatly ac-
cording to social conditions. In England, Mr. Clifford says, " the agri-
cultural laborer seldom pays, even for a good cottage, more than -ft of
his income, and more commonly -jV. The town laborer receiving 18 or 20
113 1IIE WAGES QUESTION.
pal article in the diet of each being taken as indicating
the wages which must there be paid to keep the supply of
labor good. Thus it is said the Chinese will breed up to
the point where a sufficiency of food of the meanest kind,
even including much of what we call vermin, can be
obtained to rear a constantly-increasing number of laborers
of small stature and low vitality. The East Indians, again,
are satisfied with rice ;' and population in that country,
accordingly, will increase on that diet, even in the face of
the certainty of a famine on an average once in four or five
years. 3 The Irish, again, are satisfied with a potato diet, 3
and will increase up to the limits of subsistence on that
food, 4 though at the constantly-imminent risk of a scarcity
from the failure of that most uncertain crop. The Scotch,
shillings weekly will certainly not pay less than ; the artisan receiv-
ing 30, 35 shillings or 2 will pay and, including rates and taxes,
probably . Agricultural Lock-out of 1874, p. 246.
In France, Lord Brabazon reports : " Whilst at about the same pe-
riod town workmen were earning wages 53.32 per cent higher than
agricultural laborers, these latter were paying 40.45 per cent less
rent." Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1872, p. 49.
The well-known passion of the Netherlander for having a whole
house, however small, to himself, must, I think, result in a larger pro-
portional expenditure in this direction by common laborers than by
the higher classes. I note also that Dr. Engel's computations do not
agree very well with those given by Mr. Scott respecting the expendi-
tures of families in Wurtemburg. (Report on the Condition of the In-
dustrial Classes, 1872, pp. 196, 197, 205.)
1 Mr. Brassey says of the Coolie laborers employed on the railways
in India : " Their food consists of two pounds of rice a day, mixed with
a little curry ; and the cost of living on this, their usual diet, is only Is.
a week." Work and Wages, p. 88.
2 " No fewer than four great scarcities, amounting almost to famines,"
since the mutiny, namely, 1861-2, 1865-6, 1868-9, 1873-4. The Duke of
Argyle, quoted by London Economist, May 9, 1874.
3 " A laborer in Ireland will live and bring up a family on potatoes ;
a laborer in England will see the world unpeopled first." General T.
Perronet Thompson.
* " Three times the number of persons can be fed on an acre of po-
tatoes who can be maintained on an acre of wheat in ordinary Bea-
cons." Alison's History of Europe, 1815-51, xviii., p. 11.
FOOD HABITS. lift
again, pitch their minimum of wages at an oaten diet ;
the Germans, at a diet of black bread ; while the English
insist, at the very lowest, upon wheaten bread, though un-
fortunately not so rigidly and persistently but that a con-
siderable unnecessary mortality at the extremes of life, and
a lowering of the vital force among large portions of the
actual workers, take place. 1
It will be seen that, according to this doctrine, the neces-
sary wages of every country are fixed by the habits of liv-
ing among the people, and that at any given time there
is a point below which wages can not go without diminish-
ing the supply of labor. This point may change from one
period to another. A people broken down by industrial
misfortune or crowded by too rapid propagation may
temporarily be driven to a lower and meaner diet ; and in-
stead of resenting this by withholding their increase, and
thereby opening the way, or at least holding the way open,
to a return to better times and circumstances, may accept
the degradation to which they are thus violently brought ;
may lay aside that self-respect and self-control which had
hitherto kept them from sinking in the social scale, and
consent to bring children into the world to share their own
miserable lot. Thus, in a single generation, a new scale
of wages may be determined, and population adjust itself
accordingly. Instances of such lowering of the necessary
wages of a people are unfortunately not uncommon.
1 Prof. Cairnes makes a remark in his Logical Method of Pol. Econ.
which is liable to be misunderstood. He says : " It is not asserted
that population in fact increases faster than subsistence ; this would,
of course, be physically impossible." In one sense of the word in-
crease, that, namely, which the vital statisticians intend by the phrase
" effective increase," Prof. Cairnes'8 remark is unexceptionable ; but
there is nothing to prevent persons from being born into the world in
large numbers, for whom there is not food enough to keep them alive,
and who must consequently die prematurely. Most people would say
that in such cases " population in fact increases faster than subsist-
ence." Population, of course, can not increase and remain beyond the
limits of subsistence.
120 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
On the other hand, a people accustomed to a low and
mean diet, and to circumstances of filth and squalor, may,
under impulses moral or economical, which it is not neces-
sary to recite, raise themselves to a new standard of living, 1
involving a new scale of wages, which thereafter become
necessary to them, and which determine population
accordingly.
Such a change, involving the substitution of the best
wheaten bread for that of an inferior quality, 2 passed upon
the masses of the English people between 1715 and 1765.
Food wages rose, yet, as population did not increase corre-
spondingly in consequence, there was a " decided elevation
in the standard of their comforts and conveniences." Such
a change has, by the testimony of observers who can not be
doubted, been passing over Ireland since 1850 ; and the
temporary relief from excessive population afforded by
famine and forced emigration has, under the impulse of
that terrific suffering, been taken advantage of to reach a
somewhat higher standard of living. 3 A similar change,
for which an easy opportunity is offered in the rapid in-
crease of production, through the discovery of new re-
sources in nature, and new arts and appliances in industry,
is, I am fain to believe, passing upon not a few of the peo-
ple of Europe who are taking advantage of the liberality of
art and nature, not to increase their numbers to the limit of
their former modes of life, but to snatch something, at
least, as a store for the future, and something for greater
decency and comfort in the present.
1 " The habits of the English and Scotch laborers of the present day
are as widely different from those of their ancestors in the reigns of
Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. as they now are from the habits
of the laborers of France and Spain." J. R. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., p.
392.
8 Malthus, Pol. Econ., p. 229.
8 Note, for instance, the very general introduction of cornmeal in
place, in part, of the potato. (See Mr. Purdy's paper in the Statistical
Journal, xxv. 459-00.)
CHEAP FOOD. 121
It is in this view of the relation of food to the increase of
population, that economists have very generally been agreed
in pronouncing cheap food a source of much evil to any
people that adopts it. This doctrine can not be better stated
than in the language of Prof. Rogers :
" A community which subsists habitually on dear food
is in a position of peculiar advantage when compared with
another which lives on cheap food; one, for instance,
which lives on wheat as contrasted with another which
lives on rice or potatoes ; and this quite apart from the pru-
dence or incautiousness of the people. Two instances will
illustrate this rule. The Irish famine of 1846 was due to
the sudden disease which affected the potato. It was
equally severe in the northern parts of Scotland, and par-
ticularly in the Western Highlands ; its effects, as we all
know, were terrible ; but the same disease affected the same
plant in England. That, however, which was distress to the
English was death to the Irish and the Highlanders ; they
had nothing else to resort to, 1 they subsisted on the cheap-
est food. Now, were such a calamity as the potato-dis-
ease to attack wheat in England, formidable as the conse-
quences would be, they would not be destructive." 2
Now, I dare say Prof. Rogers would be very slow to ap-
1 " When the standard of natural or necessary wages is high
when wheat aud beef, for example, form the principal part of the food
of the laborer, and porter and beer the principal part of his drink, he
can bear to retrench in a period of scarcity. Such a man has room to
fall ; he caxi resort to cheaper sorts of food to barley, oats, rice, and
potatoes. But he who is habitually fed on the cheapest food has
nothing to resort to when deprived of it. Laborers placed in this situ-
ation are absolutely cut off from every resource. You may take from
an Englishman, but you can not take from an Irishman. The latter is
already so low he can fall no lower ; he is placed on the very verge of
existence ; his wages, being regulated by the price of potatoes, will
not buy wheat, or barley, or oats ; and whenever, therefore, the sup-
ply of potatoes fails, it is next to impossible that he should escape
falling a sacrifice to famine." J. E. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., p. 396.
"Pol. Econ., pp. 70,71.
122 THE WAGES QUESTION:
prove the theory of the British Legislature in seeking, as late
as 1774, to discourage the use of cotton goods, and to restrict
the people to the costlier fabrics of linen, silk, and wool.
Yet why should not dear clothing be desired as an ele-
ment in high necessary wages, as much as dear food ? If
necessaiy wages, called 100, be made up of dear food, 90,
and cheap clothing, 10, is it not the same, in the result, as if
the constituents were cheap food, 80, and dear clothing, 20 ?
And, if famine comes, does not the possibility of going
down from dear clothing to cheap clothing, from woollen, 1
say, to cotton, or from flax 2 to cotton, afford a margin, just
as truly as the substitution of cheap for dear food ? If so,
how does this laudation of dear food for the people con-
sist with the laudation of the machinery which cheapens the
clothing of the people ? Yet economists who will not
admit the wholesale supersedure of human labor by cot-
ton and woollen machinery in the early part of this
century, and the consequent throwing out of employment
of vast numbers of men and women to sink into pauper-
ism and squalor, to be even a qualification of the advan-
tages of introducing machinery to cheapen clothing, are
unhesitating in their denunciation of cheap food.
It appears to me that cheap food, just like cheap clothing,
ought to be, and but for the folly and wickedness of men
would be, a blessing to the race ; that, to any free, in-
dustrious, and self-respecting people, to-day, every cheap-
1 One pound of wool manufactured into flannel costs 3s. Id. ; 1 Ib. flax
into shirting, 2s. 4d.; 1 Ib. cotton into shirting, 1*. The materials
for a full dress of outer garments if composed of wool would not cost
less than thirty shillings ; while the game quantity of material of cot-
ton, and of more durable quality, costs only Is. Gd. to 105. (Mr. Ash-
worth, quoted by Prof. Levi, Statistical Journal, xxvi. 36.)
2 One hundred pounds of flax will produce about 200 yards of white
cloth. One hundred pounds cotton, BOO yards of pretty equal general
appearance, taking a medium set of light cloth as an example. (Mr.
John Mulholland, Soc. Sc. Trans., 1867, p. 151.)
CHEAP FOOD. 123
erring of food is, without any qualification, an advantage ;
that the use of oat and corn meal, and even of the dreaded
and despised potato, has been a help, a most important
help, to many struggling communities, and may be, in
the same degree, to-day to any community where the
land is not locked up in feudal tenures, where industry is
unconstrained, where class legislation has not put labor at
disadvantage, and the native desires and aspirations of man
are allowed fair play. Did the substitution of " rye and
Indian" for the dearer wheat tend to degrade the people
of New-England? The question is grotesque in its
absurdity. It left the more wealth and labor to be applied
to higher uses than filling the belly. It allowed just so
much the more to be done in the way of making decent
and comfortable homes ; of erecting churches and school-
houses, and supporting the offices of religious and secular
instruction; of clearing the ground, opening roads, and
building bridges ; of making ample provision for old age,
for the endowment of dependent members of the family,
and for the equipment of the young for their struggle, in
their turn, with nature and with men. It allowed the child
to go to school, not grudging the wages he might earn by
starving his mind. 1 It allowed the wife and the daughter
to keep the house, making possible that sterling sense of
decency which has been the savor of New-England life.
That is what the substitution of cheaper food did for early
New-England, and what it might do and would do among
any people taught to fear God and not man, accustomed
to decent belongings, and cherishing generous aspirations.
Has the use of the potato by the Irish in America, so far
1 No small sacrifice for poor folks. Mr. Gould in his very interest-
ing Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Switzerland, in
1872, estimates the average loss to working families from requiring
the school attendance of children above twelve years of age to be 10
to 12 per annum, for each child so withdrawn from labor (p. 849).
Such expenses, when made " necessary," are a deal better than dear
food.
124 THE WAGES QUESTION.
as it has been used and it has been used very freely been
in any sense or in any degree an injury to them ? Far
otherwise : it has enabled them to acquire their little home-
steads 1 the more rapidly ; it has enabled them to put tea,
coffee, and sugar on their table ; to clothe their wives de-
cently on week days and handsomely on the Sabbath ; to
give their children their time at school, and send them
there with shoes and stockings 2 on their feet that they
may not be ashamed before the American children. Such
has been the influence of the potato on the fortunes of the
Irish in the United States ; and there is no reason, aside
from the oppression, spoliation, and proscription practised
for many generations by the English in Ireland, why the
same cause should not have produced the same effect there.
Justice and equal rights have made the Irish industrious
and provident ; and in such a condition any lowering of
the cost of subsistence is a distinct, unqualified advantage.
In America the Irish, no matter how newly arrived, have
shown a passionate eagerness to acquire homesteads, for
1 1 have before me the tax and valuation lists of a township in Massa-
chusetts containing a smart manufacturing village. The total popula-
tion of the township was about 3300. The Irish males above 18 years
of age numbered 229. Of these, 128 paid taxes upon property. The
total amount of estate owned by these 128 Irishmen, exclusive of all
money in savings-banks (the deposits of these institutions being taxed
en masse by the State without distinction of ownership), was $163,560,
being an average to each holder of $1278.
8 " Custom has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England.
The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear
in public without them. In Scotland custom has rendered them a
necessary of life to the lowest order of men, but not to the same order
of women, who may, without any discredit, walk about barefooted.
In France they are necessaries neither to men nor to women, the low-
est rank of both sexes appearing there publicly, without any discredit,
sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted." Adam Smith,
Wealth of Nations, ii. 467.
Mr. Senior says of shoes : " When a Scotchman rises from the lowest
to the middling classes of society, they become to him necessaries.
He wears them to preserve, not his feet, but his station in life." Pol.
Econ., pp. 36, 37.
TEE STANDARD OF LIVING. 125
which they will labor and for which they will deny them-
selves. Cheap food here has helped them to accomplish
this object more easily and quickly. Cheap food in Ire-
land did not tend in the same direction, but the rather
allowed and excited a dangerous increase of population :
and this for reasons which the public conscience of Eng-
land has long recognized.
All this potato-philosophy is based upon the assump-
tion that, excepting small expenditures for clothing and
shelter, 1 nothing can be made indispensable or " necessary"
to the workingman except his food ; and that his food
will consist practically of a single staple article, the cost
of which will govern his whole expenditure ; and hence,
if that staple article be cheapened, the consequences pre-
dicted by Prof. Rogers will, in the persistence of the sexual
instincts, inevitably ensue. But we in the United States
know very well, first, that a cheap staple article of food
may be compatible with a lavish expenditure on garnishes,
fruits, condiments, relishes, and drinks ; a arid, secondly, that
a great many things may be made indispensable to the
working classes beyond their food ; that, moreover, the
higher the industrial desires rise, the more tenacious and
persistent they are ; that tastes, when once inspired, are
not only more costly than appetites, but are far stronger ;'
1 " The worst-paid class in England, the agricultural laborers, ex-
pend about two thirds of their revenues in food and one third in other
objects." Jones, Pol. Econ.,p. 99.
Mr. Mill makes this strange remark respecting " the workpeople,"
having, presumably, those of England in mind : " They are not the
principal customers, if customers at all, of most branches of manufac-
ture." It would puzzle one to tell of what branches of manufacture the
workpeople of the United States are not customers.
2 Wheat-flour is very cheap in the United States, corn and oat
meal relatively much cheaper. The cost of these articles can scarcely
be said to govern the expenditure of an American family. Many a
mechanic spends as much for milk, butter, and egga as he does for
flour and meal.
* " The great preventive check ia the fear of losing decencies."
Senior, Pol. Econ., p. 38.
126 THE WAGES QUESTION.
that the industrial desires are constantly multiplying and
intensifying among a people where political freedom and
social ambition exist, such desires extending themselves
rapidly even among new comers or persons just released
from thraldom ; that decent and comfortable homes, with
yards and gardens, schoolhouses and churches, may be*
come just as " necessary" in such a community as food
and drink ; that parents in such a community will gladly
deny themselves the wages their children might earn, in
order to send them to school, and the husband gladly deny
himself the wages his wife might earn, in order that she
may " keep the house." 1 When such desires and aspirations
are once enkindled, any cheapening of the food of the
people merely releases just so much wealth to be bestowed
on other and higher objects.
Let me not be understood as objecting to the proposition
that the use of the potato by any people as the sole article
of food is injurious and dangerous, but only as taking ex-
ception to the reason assigned therefor. It is because this
crop is a most precarious one, and because the potato, w r hile
forming an admirable element in a diversified diet, is not
1 The proportion of breadwinners to dependants will of course vary
greatly with the habits and dispositions of the people in the respects
mentioned in the text.
The results of Cantillon's computations are thus stated by Adam
Smith : " Mr. Cantillon seems to suppose that the lowest species of
common laborers must everywhere earn at least double their own main-
tenance in order that, one with another, they may be enabled to bring
up two children ; the labor of the wife, on account of her necessary
attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient
to provide for herself. But one half the children born, it is com-
puted, die before the age of manhood. The poorest laborers, therefore,
according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at
least four children in order that two may have an equal chance of liv-
ing to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is
supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man." Pol. Econ. i. 71.
The rudeness of these computations appears on the face. In Belgium,
in 1856, 49.3 per cent of the population were reported as pursuing
gainful occupations ; in the United States, in 1870, only 32.4 per cent ;
in England and Wales, in 1871, 51 per cent ; in Scotland, 43.7 per cent.
THE STANDARD OF LIVING. 137
fitted physiologically to be the sole nutriment of human
beings, that its exclusive use is undesirable. So far as it
is to be used, its cheapness is a recommendation ; and if
all other articles of food used with it could be cheapened
to its level, it would be so much the better in any commu-
nity where laws are free and education general. Given
these, the native desires and aspirations of men will find
objects enough 1 on which to expend the labor which is
released from the slavery of ministering to the merely
animal necessities of the body. I say " slavery," for that
labor is only truly free which is exercised as the result
of a choice. So far as a man is driven by brutal hunger to
work he differs not much from a slave ; when he works
because he chooses exertion rather than privation of things
agreeable and honorable, his labor is that of the free man.
1 Contrast the Swiss and the Russian. Consul Egerton reports that
an incentive to labor is the great desideratum in Russia. " In the
truly agricultural districts the peasant, earning enough for his wants
during the summer months, remains idle throughout the winter." Re-
port of 1873 (Textile Factories), p. 92, note. So much for a land where
the people are universally ignorant, and are despotically governed.
In Switzerland, to the contrary, Mr. Gould reports, " Men who during
the short tourist season frequently earn as guides, porters, etc. , enough
to keep themselves and their families in comfort during the remain-
der of the year, may nevertheless be seen in whiter willingly exposing
themselves to the severest hardships for the small sum of a franc or
two a day." Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1872,
p. 346.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAGES OF THE LABORER ARE PAID OUT OF THE PRO-
DUCT OF HIS INDUSTRY. 1
A POPULAR theory of wages, of which we shall have here-
after to speak, is based upon the ^ssurnption that wages
are paid out of capital, the saved results of the industry of
the past. Hence, it is argued, capital must furnish the mea-
sure of wages. On the contrary, I hold that wages are ? in a
philosophical view of the subject, paid out of the product of
present industry, and hence that production furnishes the
true measure of wages. The difference may be found to
be an important one ; and I will therefore state the grounds
of my belief.
An employer pays wages to purchase labor, not to expend
a fund of which he may be in possession. He purchases
labor not because he desires to keep it employed, but as
a means to the production of wealth. He produces wealth
not for the sake of producing it, but with a view to a
profit to himself, individually, in that production. Doubt-
less there is a satisfaction in conferring benefits on the de-
pendent, a pride in directing great operations, an enthusi-
asm of work, which make up a part of the compensation
of many employers ; but it is evident that these can not be
relied upon to any great extent as motives to the systematic
1 The substance of this and the following chapter appeared in the
North American Review for January, 1875; art., The Wage-Fund
Theory.
WAGES PAID FROM PRODUCTION. 129
and sustained production of wealth through wage-labor.
Individual profit is, and must remain, the great reason for
production. If a person have wealth, that of itself consti-
tutes no reason at all to him why he should expend any
portion of it on labor, on machinery, or on materials. It
is only as he sees that he can increase that wealth through
production that the impulse to employ it in those direc-
tions is felt. But for the profits by which he hopes thus
to increase his store, it would be alike easier and safer
for him to keep his wealth at rest than to put it in motion
for the benefit of others.
It is true that an employer may for a time produce with-
out profits, or even at a loss ; but this will be for the sake
of holding together his working force, or his body of cus-
tomers, in the hope of better times when he can make him-
self good for present hardship, or because he has formed
contracts or engagements which law or business-honor
compel him to fill at any sacrifice. These cases do not
constitute a substantial exception to the principle that the
motive to the purchase of labor is found in the profits of
production.
But again it is evident that an employer will be dis-
posed to produce, within the limits of the agencies at his
command, all that he can produce at a profit to himself.
So long as additional profits are to be made by the employ-
ment of additional labor, so long a sufficient reason for
production exists ; when profit is no longer expected, the
reason for production ceases. At this point the mere fact
that the employer has capital at his command no more
constitutes a reason why he should use it in production
when he can get no profits, than the fact that the laborer
has legs and arms constitutes a reason why he should work
when he can get no wages.
We repeat, the employer purchases labor with a view to
the product of the labor ; and the kind and amount of that
product determine what wages he can afford to pay. He
must, in the long run, pay less than that product, less by a
130 THE WAGES QUESTION.
sum which is to constitute his own profits. If that pro-
duct is to be greater, he can afford to pay more ; if it is to
be smaller, he must, for his own interest, pay less. It is,
then, for the sake of future production that the laborers
are employed, not at all because the employer has posses-
sion of a fund which he must disburse ; and it is the value
of the product, such as it is likely to prove, which de-
termines the amount of the wages that can be paid, not at
all the amount of wealth which the employer has in posses-
sion or can command. Thus it is production, not capital,
which furnishes the motive for employment and the
measure of wages.
But it may be said, we grant that wages are really paid
out of the product of current industry, and that capital
only affects wages as it first affects production, so that
wages stand related to product in the first degree and
to capital in the second degree only ; still, does not produc-
tion bear a certain and necessary ratio to capital ? and
hence may not the measure of wages be derived from cap-
ital virtually though not, it is true, directly through
its determination of the product ? By no means. It
would be easy to adduce many successive reasons why
capital bears no certain or constant ratio to production,
but two will abundantly serve our turn.
(a) The ratio which capital bears to the product of indus-
try varies, all other things remaining equal, with the scanti-
ness or abundance of natural agents. One hundred laborers
having the use of a capital which we will represent by lOa?
may not, in one set of circumstances, be able to produce
anywhere near twice as much as 50 laborers using the
same amount of capital ; or, under a different set of cir-
cumstances, they may be able to produce far more than
twice as much. With unlimited natural agents, as in new
countries like America and Australia, the 100 may, through
the minuter subdivision of labor and the more effective
co-operation which their numbers allow, produce twice as
much as 50 with a capital of 12#, or as 60 with a capital
RATIO OF CAPITAL TO PRODUCT. 131
of 10#. On the other hand, with limited natural agents,
after the condition of " diminishing returns" has been
reached, the 100 may be able to produce only twice as
much as 50 with a capital of 8a?, or as 40 with a capital of
(b) The differences in the ratio between capital and
the product of industry which are caused by the economi-
cal quality of a people, their intelligence, sobriety, and
thrift, their capacity for self-direction and industrial or-
ganization, their manual dexterity and mechanical aptitude,
are greater even than those due to the bounty of nature.
(liven machinery, raw materials, and a year's subsistence
for 1000 laborers, does it make no difference with the
annual product whether those laborers are Englishmen or
East-Indians ? Certainly if only one quarter part of what
lias been adduced under the head of the efficiency of
labor be valid, the differences in the product of industry
arising out of differences in the industrial quality of dis-
tinct communities of laborers are so great as to prohibit us
from making use of capital to determine the amount that
can be expended in any year or series of years in the pur-
chase of labor.
I have no wish to disparage the importance of the service
rendered in production by capital, the saved results of the
industry of the past ; but I firmly deny that it furnishes
the measure of wages.
But while wages must in any philosophical view of the
subject be regarded as paid out of the product of current
industry, wages are, to a very considerable degree, in all
communities, advanced 1 out of capital, and this from the
very necessity of the case ; while in those countries which
have accumulated large stores of wealth, wages are, in fact,
very generally, if not universally, so advanced, equally for
1 " Elle doit etre avancee par le capitaliste et le retrouver, par con-
sequent, dans la valeur du produit obtenu." A. E. Cherbuliez, Precis
de la Science conomique, i. 415.
132 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the convenience of employers and of the employed. Yet
even where the entire amount of the weekly or monthly
pay-roll is taken out of a store of wealth previously gathered
and husbanded, it is not capital out of which wages are
borrowed, but production out of which they are finally
paid, to which we must look to find their true measure. 1
I have said that in all communities wages are, by the very-
necessity of the case, advanced to a considerable extent out
of capital. It is only in a few industries, mainly of the class
termed " extractive," and in these only when pursued
under circumstances peculiarly favorable, that the laborer
can eat of the product of his labor for the day. The fish-
erman, indeed, or the hunter may live from hand to
mouth, catching and killing as he eats, though always at
the imminent risk of privation and even of starvation.
But the tiller of the soil must abide in faith of a harvest,
through months of ploughing, sowing, and cultivating ; and
his industry is only possible as food has been stored up from
the crop of the previous year. The mechanical laborer is
also removed by a longer or a shorter distance from the
fruition of his labor. So that almost universally, it may be
said, the laborer as he works is fed out of a store gathered
by previous toil, and saved by the self-denial of the posses-
sor. The extent of this provision, thus made the primary
condition of industry, may be rudely measured by the inter-
val between harvests. And this provision is one which is
not made without great sacrifice, even in the most advanced
stages of industry. Vast and varied as is the accumulated
1 Mr. F. D. Longe, in his Refutation of the Wage-Fund Theory,
insists on this distinction. Of the wealth or capital used " for the
maintenance of laborers while employed in producing new goods or
wealth/' he says, it " may come either from their (the laborers') own
resources or those of their employers, or be borrowed from bankers or
elsewhere." Of the wealth " to be used for the purchase of their work,"
he says, it " may consist of funds belonging to the consumer or of
funds belonging to the employer, or both, or may even be taken out of
the very goods which the laborers produce, or their money value."
SUBSISTENCE ADVANCED BY CAPITAL. 133
wealth of the most highly-civilized communities, the store
of food which imist be kept on hand to meet the necessities
of the year's subsistence constitutes no insignificant part
of the aggregate value ; while among nations which com-
prise, probably, two thirds of the human race, so severe is
the struggle with nature, so hard are the conditions of life,
so many its enemies, that, after all the painful accumula-
tions of centuries, spring remains as it was in the days of
Alkman, " the season of short fare," when the progress of
the growing crop is eagerly watched, not with eyes greedy
of gain, but with eyes hollow from hunger. 1
To the extent of a year's subsistence, then, it is necessary
that some one should stand ready to make advances to the
wage-laborer out of the products of past industry. All
sums so advanced come out of capital ; but it is important
to note that it need not be the capital of the employer.
The laborer himself may be a capitalist to this extent.
Where the reward of industry is as liberal as it is in America
and Australia, there is no reason why a laborer should not
save enough out of three or five years' wages to be a year
beforehand, and thus, so far as the employer is concerned,
that man's labor be thereafter freed from this condition
of provisional maintenance. Moreover, even where the
laborers' dependence on the employer for the year's sub-
sistence is entire, it should be clearly noted (for it has been
strangely overlooked, 2 with most unfortunate results in the
1 " There is in Ireland," says Alison, " what is called the * starving
season/ which is about six weeks before the ' new harvest.'" Hist.
Europe, xxi. 204.
8 " A very little consideration will render it evident that laborers
whilst engaged in any particular industry can not live upon the com-
modity which their labor is assisting to produce. The ploughman
who tills the soil from which in the following autumn the harvest will
be gathered, iafed with the wealth which his master has saved ; or.
in other words, the master pays his laborer's wages from the wealth
which he has previously saved." Prof. Fawcett, Political Economy,
p. 19.
Here we find asserted or assumed, (1) the necessity of the laborer fo?
134 THE WAGES QUESTION.
popular theory of wages) that this by no means involves
the payment of his entire wages in advance of the harvest-
ing of the crop or the marketing of the goods. There is
nothing in the need the laborer has of provisional mainte-
nance which defeats his claim to a payment, over and
above the mere cost of his subsistence, out of the product
when completed. It may be that poor Piers, the plough-
man, must, as Professor Fawcett says, depend daily until
harvest upon the squire for bread out of the crop of the
last year ; but surely that constitutes no reason why Piers
should not at harvest receive some sheaves as his own.
And in the case of all laborers of a higher class, whose
wages may be perhaps twice or three times the cost of
their bare subsistence, it is evident that, in countries where
capital is scarce, the advances which are likely to be made
to them during the year will leave a very considerable por-
tion of the wages to be taken out of the product at the close
of the year.
But how largely, in fact, are wages advanced out of capi-
tal ? In old countries, to a very great extent certainly.
Yet even in these there is but a small proportion of
cases where wages are paid of tener than once a week that
is, where the laborer does not trust his employer with six
days' work. And in some exceptional industries it hap-
pens that the employer realizes on his product 1 in a shorter
maintenance while the crop is growing ; (2) his entire dependence on
the employer for that maintenance ; (3) the natural equivalency of
subsistence and wages.
1 I may mention, in illustration, the case of transportation compa-
nies, owning railroads, canals, steamboats, or coaches. The employees
of such companies in the United States number hundreds of thou-
sands, and they are rarely paid by the day, commonly by the week or
month. Yet the companies collect all their fares for passage and a
portion of their charges for freight, daily. They are thus always
in debt, often to a vast amount, to their laborers (using that term in its
generic sense) for services which have been rendered to them, and of
which they have availed themselves to the full extent. So that the
EMPLOYERS IN DEBT TO LABORERS. 135
time than this, so that the laborer is not only paid out of
the product of his industry, but actually advances to the
employer a portion of the capital on which he operates.
Quite as common, probably, even yet in countries which
we may call old, as weekly payments are monthly pay-
ments ; and here the probability that the laborer may re-
ceive his wages out of the price of this marketed product
increases with the quadrupled time given the employer to
dispose of it. Yet even here the cases are doubtless excep-
tional where the employer does not have to " stand out,"
for a longer or a shorter time, of the amount which he
pays in wages, though always, be it remembered, in the
expectation of a reimbursement out of the product when
marketed, the anticipated price of the product determin-
ing the amount which he can safely thus advance.
In new countries, by which we mean those to which
men have gone with the industrial ideas and ambitions of
older communities, but with an amount of capital which,
from the necessity of the case, is more or less inadequate
to the undertakings for which their skill and labor qualify
them, the wages of labor are paid only partially out of
capital. The history of our own country so amply illus-
trates this statement that we need not go elsewhere for
examples. From the first settlement of the colonies down
to the discovery of gold in California, laborers, whether in
agriculture or in manufactures, were, as a rule, hired by
the year, and paid at the end of the year. Bare subsistence
might be furnished by the employer meanwhile ; small
amounts of money might be advanced " for accommoda-
tion ;" the laborer's tax bill or doctor's bill might be settled
by the employer ; but these payments were not to such an
extent (except in case of protracted sickness or sudden mis-
fortune) but that the employer was always in debt to his
laborer.
companies are virtually carrying on their operations on capital a por-
tion of which is advanced by their own employees. Many other ex-
amples might be given.
13ft THE WAGES QUESTION.
I have before me a considerable collection of accounts
taken from the books of farmers in different sections as late
as 1851. These show the hands charged with advances of
the most miscellaneous character. There are charges for
grain and salted meats from the product of the previous year,
for cash for minor personal expenses, for bootmaker's bills,
grocer's bills, apothecary's bills, doctor's bills, and even town-
tax bills, settled by the employer, for the use of teams for
hauling wood for the laborer, or breaking up his garden
in the spring. Yet in general the amount of such advances
does not exceed one third, and it rarely reaches one half, of
the stipulated wages of the year. Now it is idle to speak
of wages thus paid as coming out of capital. At the time
these contracts were made the wealth which was to pay
these wages was not in existence. At the time these ser-
vices were rendered, that wealth was not in existence. It
came into existence only as the result of those contracts
and the rendering of those services.
Not less distinctly did this system of paying wages pre-
vail in the department of manufacturing industry during
the same period. Extensive inquiries have satisfied me
that manufacturers in New-England did not generally
leave off paying their workmen by the year until after
1854: or 1855. Some of the more successful were able to
make the change to quarterly or monthly payments as early
as 1851. A gentleman conducting one of the largest,
oldest, and most successful manufacturing establishments
in Massachusetts informs me that, up to the earliest of the
dates mentioned, his firm paid their workmen yearly ;
and any hand requiring an advance of wages on work done
was charged interest at current rates to the end of the
year.
Now in this there was nothing unjust or ungenerous.
Such an arrangement was the very condition on which
alone the industry could be prosecuted, on which alone
employment could be given. Capital was scarce, because \
the country was comparatively new ; and if wages had been 1
PRODUCTION THE MEASURE OF WAGES. 137
measured by capital, wages must have been low ; but at
the same time production was large, 1 because natural
agents were copious and efficient, and labor was intelligent
and skilful, and as it is production, not capital, which
affords the measure of wages, wages were high ; but the
workmen had to wait for them till the crop was harvested
or the goods sold. And this they gladly did, and never for
an instant suspected they were being paid out of capital ;
indeed, they knew better, for they had seen growing under
their hands that in which they were finally paid. In the
Middle States the change referred to came a few years
later than in New-England ; yet by the outbreak of the
civil war monthly or weekly payment of wages had proba-
bly become more general than payment by the year.
Farther to the "West and South the change to monthly
and weekly payments has, in many sections, not yet begun.
In these parts of our country the payment of wages
out of capital is scarcely more common than it was in
New-England a hundred years ago. The employer ad-
vances to the laborer such provisions and cash as are
absolutely required from time to time ; but the " settle-
ment " does not take place until the close of the season or
of the year, and the final payment is often deferred until
the crop is not only harvested but sold.
But whether wages are advanced out of capital in whole,
or in part, or not at all, it still remains true that it is the
product to which the employer looks to ascertain the
amount which he can afford to pay : the value of the pro-
duct furnishes the measure of wages. When the em-
ployer shall pay is a financial question ; what he shall pay
is the true industrial question with which we have to do in
treating wages. This is determined by the efficiency of
labor under the conditions existing at the time and place.
1 u Capitalists and laborers receive large remuneration in America
because their industry produces largely." J. E. Cairnes, Some Lead-
ing Principles, etc. , p. 462.
CHAPTEK IX.
THERE IS NO WAGE-FUND IRRESPECTIVE OF THE NUMBER
AND INDUSTRIAL QUALITY OF LABORERS.
WE can not well go farther in our discussion without con-
sidering a theory of wages which has been very generally
accepted by the political economists of the English school,
namely, that of a Wage^Fund.
The doctrine is in substance as follows :
There is, for any country, at any time, a sum of wealth
set apart for the payment of wages. This fund is a por-
tion of the aggregate capital of the country. The ratio
between the aggregate capital and the portion devoted to
the payment of wages is not necessarily always the same.
It may vary, from time to time, with the conditions of in-
dustry and the habits of the people ; but at any given time
the amount of the wage-fund, under the conditions exist-
ing, is determined in the amount of capital.
The wage-fund, therefore, may be greater or less at
another time, but at the time taken it is definite. The
amount of it can not be increased by force of law or of
public opinion, or through sympathy and compassion on
the part of employers, or as the result of appeals or
efforts on the part of the working classes. 1
1 " That which pays for labor in every country is a certain portion
of actually-accumulated capital, which can not be increased by the
proposed action of government, nor by the influence of public opinion,
nor by combinations among the workmen themselves. There is also
THE WAGE-FUND THEORY. 139
The sum so destined to the payment of wages is distri-
buted by competition. If one obtains more, another must,
for that reason, receive less, or be kept out of employment
altogether. Laborers are paid out of this sum, and out of
this alone. The whole of that sum is distributed without
loss ; and the average amount received by each laborer is,
therefore, precisely determined by the ratio existing be-
tween the wage-fund and the number of laborers, or, as
some writers have preferred to call it, between capital and
population. 1
The wage-fund having at any given time been deter-
mined for that time, the rate of wages will be according to
the number of persons then applying for employment. 8
If they be more, wages will be low ; if they be fewer,
wages will be high.
I have stated this doctrine minutely, with something of
iteration, and with full quotations, in order to avoid all
suspicion of misrepresenting that which I propose to assail.
An excellent summary of the doctrine is that given by Mr.
John Stuart Mill, in the Fortnightly Eeview for May, 1869,
as follows :
" There is supposed to be, at any given instant, a sum of
wealth which is unconditionally devoted to the payment of
wages of labor. This sum is not regarded as unalterable,
for it is augmented by saving, and increases with the pro-
in every country a certain number of laborers, and this number can not
be diminished by the proposed action of government, nor by public
opinion, nor by combinations among themselves. There is to be a di-
vision now among all these laborers of the portion of capital actually (
there present." A. L. Perry, Pol. Econ., p. 122.
1 " The circulating capital of a country is its wage-fund. Hence if
we desire to calculate the average money-wages received by each
laborer, we have simply to divide the amount of this capital by the
number of the laboring population." H. Fawcett, Economic Position
of the British Laborer, p. 120.
a * The demand for labor consists of the whole circulating capital of
the country, * * * * The supply is the whole laboring popula-
tion." J. S. Mill, Fortnightly Review, May, 1869.
140 THE WAGES QUESTION.
gress of wealth ; but it is reasoned upon as at any given
moment a predetermined amount. More than that amount
it is assumed the wages-receiving class can not possibly
divide among them ; that amount, and no less, they can not
but obtain. So that the sum to be divided being fixed, the
wages of each depend solely on the divisor, the number of
participants."
The doctrine of the wage-fund has found wide accept-
ance on both sides of the Atlantic. The natural history of
the notion on which it rests is not obscure. It grew out
of the condition of affairs which existed in England during
and immediately subsequent to the Napoleonic wars. Two
things were then noted. First, capital had become accumu-
lated in the island to such an extent that employers found no
(financial) difficulty in paying their laborers by the month,
the week, or the day, instead of requiring them to await the
fruition of their labor in the harvested or marketed product.
Secondly, the wages were, in fact, generally so low that they
furnished no more than a bare subsistence, while the em-
ployment offered was so restricted that an increase in the
number of laborers had the effect to throw some out of
employment or to reduce the rate of wages for all. Out
of these things the wage-fund theory was put together.
Wages are paid out of capital, and the rate is determined
by the ratio between capital and population.
Both the facts observed were accidental, not essential.
"Wages in England were paid out of capital because capital
had become abundant, and employers could just as well as
not pay their laborers as soon as the service was rendered.
In the United States, 1 at the same time, employers were
1 " The spread of this doctrine in the United States is not to be ex-
plained in the same way. It would seem to have been accepted, so far
as it has been accepted, upon the authority of the English economists.
Certainly the conditions which have been noted as prevailing in Eng-
land during the period when the laborer's subsistence came to be
identified with his wages, have at no time been known in the United
States. Here the people have not been shut out from the land ; the
WAGES IF THE UNITED STATES. Ul
paying their laborers larger wages, but obliging them to
wait for the whole or a considerable part till the product
should be harvested or marketed. In the United States,
therefore, the industrial conditions were more favorable
to the payment of wages, while in England the financial
conditions were more favorable. But it is the industrial
conditions which determine the amount of wages, the
necessaries, comforts, and luxuries which the laborer re-
ceives ; the financial conditions only determine the manner
and time of payment, whether at once or at a future day,
whether in money or in goods, etc.
Again, the fact that in England, at the time this doc-
trine sprang up, an increase of the number of laborers
laboring classes have been able to make and have made vast accumu-
lations, and the great bulk of wages have, since the first settlement of
the country, been paid, not out of capital, but out of the completed pro-
duct when harvested or marketed.
" The wage-fund seems to have been considered, we know not why, a
pillar in the temple of free-trade. Certainly the line drawn in the
United States between those who have accepted it and those who have
combated it, or let it severely alone, appears to intimate a general
sense of some such relation between the doctrines. We find no trace
of it among the writers known as protectionists. Professor Bowen
distinctly rejects it. Messrs. Daniel Raymond and Peshine Smith omit
all allusion to it, so far as we have observed. Mr. Carey, it is true,
gave it countenance in his Essay on Wages ; but then Mr. Carey
was a free-trader in 1835. On the other hand, Professors Vethake, Bas-
com, and Perry, who take strong ground against governmental inter-
ference with the methods and courses of industry, all strongly pro-
nounce the wage-fund theory.
" Dr. Way land, whose treatise on Political Economy, though publish-
ed in 1837, would appear (see Preface) to have been mainly composed
prior to the emergence in distinct form of the wage-fund theory, fol-
lowed Malthus in his statement of the law of wages. (Wayland's Pol.
Econ.,p. 312.) Excepting Dr. Wayland, Mr. Amasa Walker is the
only American writer on systematic political economy, of the free-
trade school, whom we remember as giving no countenance to the
wage-fund theory. It can scarcely need to be said that we regard the
idea of an essential connection between the two doctrines as wholly
mistaken. Free-trade rose without this theory of wages, and will sure-
ly not fall with it." North-American Review, cxx., pp. 93, 94, note.
143 THE WAGES QUESTION.
applying for employment involved, as it doubtless did, a
reduction in the rate of wages, was due to the circumstance
that English agriculture, in the then existing state of chemi-
cal and mechanical knowledge, had reached the condition
of " diminishing returns." But at the same time in the
United States, the accession of vast bodies of laborers was
accompanied with a steadily-increasing remuneration of
labor, and States and counties were to be seen bidding
eagerly against each other for these industrial recruits.
That English writers should have been misled, by what
they saw going on around them, into converting a generali-
zation of insular experiences into a universal law of wages,
is not greatly to be wondered at ; but that American writ-
ers should have adopted this doctrine, in simple contempt
of what they saw going on around them, is indeed sur-
prising. 1
I would not impeach the scientific impartiality of those
who first put forward in distinct form this theory of wages ;
but it may fairly be assumed that its progress towards
general acceptance was not a little favored by the fact that
it afforded a complete justification for the existing order of
things respecting wages. If there was, in truth, a definite
fund out of which wages were paid ; if competition un-
erringly distributed the w T hole of that snm ; and if no
more could be paid to the wages class, as a whole, without
impairing capital, diminishing employment, and thus in
the end injuring the laborers themselves, then surely it
was an easy task to answer the complaints or remon-
1 We have had a right to do better than this in political economy, in
the United States. " The Americans are Englishmen whose intelli-
gence is not intimidated and whose conduct is not controlled by many
of the influences derived from tradition and authority, which govern
the beliefs and actions of the mother country. From the course taken
fc.y the United States, we may often correctly interpret the lent which our
nation will follow as they gradually escape, for good or evil, from the
rumination of the past." Address of Lord Napier and Ettrick as
President of the British Social Science Assertion, 1872. (Transac-
tions, p. 17.)
THE WAGE-FUND THEORY. 143
strances of the working classes, and to demonstrate the
futility of trades-unions and strikes as means of increasing
wages. If an individual workman complained for himself,
he could be answered that it was wholly a matter between
himself and his own class. If he received more, another
must, on that account, receive less, or none at all. 1 If a
workman complained on account of his class, he could be
told, in the language of Prof. Perry, that " there is no use
in arguing against any one of the four fundamental rules
of arithmetic. TJie question of wages is a question of
division. It is complained that the quotient is too small.
"Well, then, how many ways are there to make a quotient
larger ? Two ways. Enlarge your dividend, the divisor
remaining the same, and the quotient will be larger ;
lessen your divisor, the dividend remaining the same, and
the quotient will be larger." (Pol. Ecoii., p. 123.)
A most comfortable doctrine surely, 3 and one which
made it a positive pleasure to conduct a quarterly review
in times when the laboring classes were discontented or
mutinous. If the workman would not give up when told
to enlarge his dividend, he was struck dumb on being in-
formed that his only alternative was to lessen his divisor.
The divisor aforesaid being flesh and blood, with certain
1 " If law or opinion succeeds in fixing wages above this rate, some
laborers are kept out of employment." J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., i. 432.
2 The writer has been sharply criticised for having said in a public
address at Amherst College, in 1874, that " by the wage-fund theory,
whatever is in wages, is right." This has been .referred to as an in-
stance of misrepresenting an opponent's position, the more easily to
refute him. I confess myself so dull of apprehension as now, not-
withstanding the effect of this castigation in sharpening my wits, to be
unable to understand wherein my proposition is objectionable, even on
the ground of my critics. If the wage-fund comprises all that can be
paid in wages ; if that fund is unfailingly distributed by competition ;
if farther to increase wages would be to trench on capital, and thus di-
minish future employment, and thus work permanent injury to the
laboring classes, together with the rest of the community, why is it
not riglit that the employer should pay just such wages as he does?
Why would it not be wrong were he to pay more ?
144 THE WAGES QUESTION.
attachments to home and life, and with a variety of incon-
venient affections, was not to be lessened so easily. If the
workman turnsd him from words to blows, and went out
" on strike " with a view to better his condition, it was
regarded as the act of an irrational animal whose in-
stincts, unfortunately, were not politico-economical. S trikes
could not increase the wage-fund ; strikes did not diminish
the number of applicants for employment ; therefore, it
was plain as a pikestaff that strikes could not raise wages.
Now, it may seem wanton to break such a pretty toy as
this ; but the fact is that the wage-fund theory is demon-
strably false, contrary alike to the reason of the case and
to the course of history.
1st. As has been shown in a former chapter, wages are
really paid out of current production, and not out of capi-
tal, as the wage-fund theory assumes.
(a) Granting, for the moment, that wages are wholly
advanced out of capital to supply the immediate necessities
of the laborer, I have, I think, abundantly proved that
the two questions, whether labor shall be employed at all,
and, secondly, what wages shall be paid to laborers if em-
ployed, are decided by reference to production and not /
to capital. It is the prospect of a profit in production |
which determines the employer to hire laborers ; it is the /
anticipated value of the product which determines how
much he can pay them. The product, then, and not capi !
tal, furnishes at once the motive to employment and the
measure of wages. If this be so, the whole wage-fund
theory falls, for it is built on the assumption that capital
furnishes the measure of wages ; that the wage-fund is no
larger because capital is no larger, 1 and that the only way to
1 " It thus appears that if population increases without any increase
of capital, wages fall ; and that if capital increases without an increase
of population, wages rise. It is evident, also, that if both increase,
but one faster than the other, the effect will be the same as if the one
had not increased at all, and the other had made an increase equal to
the difference." James Mill, Pol. Econ., p. 43.
EFFICIENCY AFFECTS WAGES. 145
increase the aggregate amount which can be paid in wages
is to increase capital.
() But as matter of fact, wages are not wholly ad-
vanced by capital, but are paid out of the product of the
labor for which wages are due, as has been shown in the
preceding chapter. This alone, which is indisputable, in-
validates the theory we are considering.
2d. But there is more and worse to be said against the
wage-fund. It will be noted that by every statement of
this doctrine which we have quoted, the amount that can
be paid in wages is taken as fixed irrespective of the num-
ber and quality of laborers seeking employment. If, then,
the laborers be few, wages will be high ; if they be many,
wages will be low, for the number of laborers is taken as
the divisor of a predetermined dividend. Let us consider
this.
(a) This assumption disregards all those elements,
brought out to view in Chapter III., which go to make
up the efficiency of the laborer. Thus, granted a certain
store of provisions, of tools, and of materials for produc-
tion, sufficient, say, for 1000 laborers, those who hold the
wage-fund assert that the same rate of wages (meaning
thereby the actual amounts of necessaries, comforts, and
luxuries received by the laborer) would prevail whether
those 1000 laborers be Englishmen or East-Indians ; or, if
Englishmen, whether thej^ be, as a body, drunken, ignorant,
wasteful and indolent, or possessed of all the economical
virtues. Ultimately, it is held, the former state of things
would reduce capital, and hence reduce wages ; but, in the
exact present, the rate of wages is fixed by the ratio be-
tween the predetermined wage-fund and the number of
laborers applying for employment, and employers can and
will pay the rate so fixed.
On the contrary, is it not true that the present economi-
cal quality of the laborers, as a whole, is an element in as-
certaining the aggregate amount that can now be paid in
wages ; that as wages are paid out of the product, and as
146 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
the product will be greater or smaller by reason of the
workman's sobriety, industry, and intelligence, or his want
of those qualities, so wages may and should be higher or
lower accordingly ? l
(b) But, again, since wages are paid out of and measured
by the product of industry, and since productive power
may be increased by the invention of machinery, the dis-
covery of arts, and the improvement of processes, without
any immediate increase of capital, ought it not to be possi-
ble that wages should be enhanced by such causes, popula-
tion and capital being assumed, for purposes of argument,
to stand still ? Now, the wage-fund advocate concedes
that such inventions and improvements will increase capital,
and hence become the reason for an advance in a more or
less distant future ; but only as they first increase capital
can they increase the wage-fund.
Let us discuss this point.
We will take a community having a capital represented
by 100,000, a population represented by 1000, and an an-
nual product represented by 10,000, of which labor receives
7000. Let it be supposed that the productive power of
this community is increased at once 10 per cent by im-
provements in tools, implements, and machinery through
all the departments of its industry. The new machinery
is brought into use. The capital of the community has
not been thereby increased ; on the contrary, all such in-
ventions involve a temporary diminution of capital. The
old machinery becomes useless, while a portion of the
previously-circulating capital has to be taken for the new.
1 The view here taken of the relation of the laborer's efficiency to
his wages substantially coincides with that presented by Prof. Stanley
Jevons in his Theory of Political Economy, pp. 256-202, and by Prof.
Hearn, of Melbourne, in his Plutology. Mr. Jevons styles his own
views " somewhat heretical." Mr. J. L. Shadwell, writing in the " In-
dependent Section " of the Westminster Review (January, 1872), ad-
vances " the efficiency of labor" as one great cause for the variations of
wages, wholly independent of increase of population or of capital.
INVENTIONS AFFECT WAGES. 147
The capital, whether we consider the aggregate capital or
circulating capital only, being certainly no larger, wages
can not at present, the wage-fund advocate declares, be in-
creased, although the productive power of the community
is greater, by 10 per cent, from the moment the new ma-
chinery begins to move. The product is now 11,000 ; but
as capital is now something less than 100,000, wages must
even be something less than before. The additional 1000
of product will therefore go to the share of capital, although
there is less capital than before. And it is only as the
capitalists, in their uncontrolled discretion, decide to save
this addition to their income, or a portion of it, for future
reproductive investment, instead of spending it upon their
own pleasure, that capital will be increased, and, with that
increase, increase of wages be realized.
Now, to the contrary, I hold that the moment the aggre-
gate product of labor and capital is increased by inventions,
which are a clear gain of power for the benefit of all, 1 that
moment a sufficient economical reason exists for an ad-
vance of wages in some degree corresponding. In the
case supposed, the share of the laborers in the 1000 gained
might be found to be 700, or it might be but 690, or it
might rise to 710.
(c) But the most signal fallacy of the wage-fund doctrine
remains to be noted. Waiving now all consideration of
the economical quality of the laborers in any given com-
munity, and of the possible gain in production through
improvements and inventions, irrespective of any increase
of capital, let us inquire what foundation there is for the
assumption that an increase in the number of laborers in-
volves a proportionate reduction in the amount of wages
going to each.
Let us take, first, a community which has not reached
the condition of " diminishing returns." The number of
1 I omit purposely all consideration of the limited monopoly of In-
ventions created by law for the encouragement of ingenuity.
148 THE WAGES QUESTION.
laborers being taken as 100, let the amount of capital
accumulated be represented by 100&. By the wage-fund
theory a certain rate of annual wages will result from the
ratio between these quantities. Now let us suppose that
twenty additional laborers arrive, bringing with them
capital 20a. The ratio between capital and population
remains the same as before, and by the wage-fund theory
no increase of wages can result. Upon our principles,
however, an increase of wages may result, because an in-
crease of production will occur. 120 laborers with
capital 120#, can and will produce more, per man,
in a community which has not reached the con-
dition of " diminishing returns" than 100 laborers with
capital 100&. A more effective co-operation will become
possible, a minuter subdivision of labor will result, and
the greater laboring force of the community will enable
them to undertake highly-remunerative enterprises to
which their numbers were previously inadequate. In. the
same way, it might be that in this same community 150
laborers with capital 150& would produce more, per man,
than the 120 laborers ; and that 200 laborers only equally
endowed might produce in a higher degree,^/ 1 capita,
than 150. The reader is referred to Chapter Y. for a fuller
discussion of the industrial possibilities of such a commu-
nity. Now, through all this, it is to be noted that our
results are directly in contradiction of the wage-fund
theory, which asserts that wages are determined by the
ratio between capital and population.
Now, if there is such power in association and in the
subdivision of employments that j!he product may be
largely increased although the capital, per man, remains
the same, the reader will scarcely question that the opera-
tion of these causes might suffice to keep the per capita
product good, though the capital, per man, should fall off
somewhat. Yet this result, again, would be in contradic-
tion of the wage-fund theory. , Indeed, it is quite conceiv-
able that a considerable number of laborers might be
WAGES NOT A PROBLEM IN DIVISION. 149
added to a community without bringing with them any
capital at all, yet the per capita product be actually in-
creased thereby. It is insight into this condition of pro-
duction that gives motive to the exertions put forth by
almost every Western and Southern State, and almost
every Western and Southern county, to attract immigra-
tion. Capital they want, and they would much prefer
immigrants with capital ; but they want immigrants any-
how. These communities are not acting foolishly. They
are not calling in additional laborers to divide with them a
predetermined product. They know perfectly well that
the product will increase as the producers increase, and
that, in their situation, the product will increase faster
than the producers ; and therefore that each producer may
have more, and not less, by reason of the arrival of immi-
grants.
Laborers have come to us from every part of the world,
and constantly has the existing body of laborers been
benefited by the accessions. Some of these laborers have
brought with them small amounts of capital, and have
been all the more welcome on that account. But, however
they have come, were it with but a bundle on a stick,
there has been room and work enough for all. Labor has
had its periods of distress ; but these have been due to
the interference of government with industry, to false
currencies, to extravagant speculation, or to other causes,
but not to any real excess of labor.
In contradiction, then, of the view that wages are uni-
versally determined by the ratio between capital and pop-
ulation, we see that in countries which have not reached
the condition of " diminishing returns," the per-capita
product may be largely increased while the amount of
capital, per man, remains the same, and that it may even
be increased, though, of course, not in the same propor-
tion, while the amount of capital, per man, is actually re-
duced by the accession of new bodies of laborers destitute
of accumulations.
150 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But suppose now that the condition of "diminish-
ing returns" isrfeached ; that cthe accessions to population
have continued until all the eligible land is taken up. and
the first course of simple improvements made. If further
accessions are made, we may then expect to see the wages
of labor fall, not because there is a greater number to divide
among them a predetermined dividend, but because the
annual product is not increased proportionally to the in-
crease of labor. Nature fails to respond to fresh applica-
tions with its former generosity. Under this condition,
five men now produce, as they always must produce, more
than four, but not one fourth as much more. The five
must, therefore, submit to receive each less than the four
had received, that is, the wages of labor must fall. They
fall because production has sustained a check, through the
limitations of natural agents.
But this process of reduction in wages may, and gene-
rally will, proceed slowly, first, because for a long time
the labor of the new-comer, while it will not be quite as
productive as was that of the community upon the average
previous to his arrival, will yet not fall far short of it,
nature giving long warning against an undue increase of
population, and having great patience with men ; and,
secondly, because the limits of production are being con-
stantly pushed backward by the discovery of new re-
sources, by increased economy of labor, by improvements
of method, by the application of distinctly new arts, by
the invention of machinery, and by the utilization of
waste. But through all these the tendency now is to
" diminishing returns," and hence to lower wages.
Under these conditions, then, is the wage-fund theory
true ? "We answer with confidence that this theory can
never be true, for it excludes altogether the contribution
which the new-comer, the additional laborer, makes to
the production of the community in which he is so un-
welcome an arrival. The wage-fund doctrine regards him
as a pure addition to the divisor, without recognizing the
FALLACY OF THE WAGE-FUND. 151
fact that his labor must also add something to the divi-
dend. He no longer contributes more, far more to pro-
duction than the cost of his own subsistence, as in an ad-
vancing state of industry, before natural agents are fully
occupied and employed. He no longer contributes as
much as he requires. But he still contributes something,
and that something, however small it may be, helps to
swell the amount that can be paid in wages. 1
1 See the remarks by Prof. Senior on the possibilities^ English
agriculture, quoted on p. 97.
PART II.
DISTRIBUTION
CHAPTER X.
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION: COMPETITION: THE DIFFU-
SION THEORY: THE ECONOMICAL HARMONIES.
HAVING discussed much at length certain principles in
the production of wealth, in that connection showing the
falsity of the current doctrine of a wages-fund, we come
now to the problem of distribution, wherein we may look
to find the true philosophy of wages.
But is there a problem of distribution ? Can there be
a philosophy of wages ? Certainly if we exclude the ques-
tion of rent, the orthodox 1 economists have scarcely rec-
ognized a problem of distribution, and were it not for the
space taken for refuting the opinions of heretical writers,
what the text books have to say on the subject of wages
would be very little. How, indeed, can there be a philoso-
phy of wages, when the doctrine of a wages-fund prevails ?
If the question of wages is simply a question in long-divis-
ion, what need to take much space to illustrate the opera-
tions of " one of the four fundamental rules of arithmetic." 2
Population being given, there is no philosophy of wages.
The whole question of the well-being of the laboring-class
is, then, reduced to a question of population. Here phil-
osophy becomes possible ; but the question of population
does not belong in the department of distribution at all.
1 " L'economie politique que j'appellerais volontiers orthodoxe. . .
eemblait etre definitivement constituee, Comme 1'eglise de Rome, elle
avait son Credo/' E. de Laveleye, Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15
1875. See p. 143.
156 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But even the wage-fund doctrine aside, the economists
of the Manchester School have not been disposed to regard
the problem of distribution, the question of rent excepted,
as one of much urgency or difficulty. They have been of
the opinion expressed by Chevalier, thirty-five years ago,
that this department of political economy is inferior in
interest and importance to that of production. 1 This has
not been from a disposition to disregard the effects on
human happiness, and the strength and stability of the
state, wrought by a good or an ill distribution of the pro-
ducts of industry ; but from a belief in the absolute suffi-
ciency of economical forces, in a state of industrial free-
dom, to diffuse all burdens and all benefits alike, to the
highest advantage of the industrial community. Laissez
faire : let these principles work unhindered, has hence come
to contain pretty much the whole theory of distribution as
held by the writers of this school. To such it can only be
a matter of curious interest, so far as they are concerned
as political economists, what are the facts of the distribu-
tion of wealth at any given time, or what the moral and
social condition of any single class of the community. If
things are wrong, they need only to be let to work them-
selves right, under the impulsion of purely economical
forces ; and such forces are constantly operating for the
redress of grievances, and the repair of inequalities. If
aught is wrong at present, it is simply because the free
play of economic forces has been hindered by arbitrary
enactment, or illegal violence in the past : the one thing
required to bring about industrial relief is industrial free-
dom. So completely satisfied are the writers of this school
1 " Certes, le partage des produits du travail est digne de toute la
Bollicitude de quiconque a de 1'intelligence et du coeur. Cependant,
ette est moins urgente d discuter, et pratiquement elle sera Uen moina
embarrassante que celle de I'accroisement harmonique et regulier da
la production." Troisieme discours d'Ouverture du cours de I'anntie,
1841-2.
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. 151
with the sufficiency of the force they invoke to secure a
right distribution, that they refuse to make political free-
dom a condition, 1 necessary or even important, for the
successful operation of that force. The question of wages
is no different in the United States from what it is in
Russia, by reason of differences in the political institutions
of those countries. It differs nothing in Austria from
what it is in Prussia, by reason of the wide difference in
popular intelligence existing between those countries.
The ballot can do nothing to enhance wages : social oppor-
tunities can do nothing, except as they operate in restraint
of population; sympathy and respect for labor can do
nothing. The economical force is all-sufficient, granted
only a state of industrial freedom.
COMPETITION.
Competition it is, and competition alone, to which the
economist looks to accomplish the distribution of the pro-
ducts of industry. Competition expresses the desire and
the effort of the buyer to buy as cheaply, and of the seller to
sell as dearly ; of the one to give as little, and of the other
to get as much, as he can ; and inasmuch as every man is
at once 2 buyer and seller, we say he gives as little and gets
as much as the existing conditions of industry allow.
Competition involves, therefore, we see, a free, easy and
1 Let me not seem, by omission, to do injustice. Many of the
writers of this school have recognized, in the fullest manner, not only
the moral and social, but also the industrial, advantages of education
and political freedom, in increasing the productive power of the work-
man ; but for the distribution of wealth, they hold strictly economical
forces to be sufficient.
2 No man can buy anything, unless at the same time, he sells
something ; else he does not buy the thing he gets ; it is given to him.
When a man buys a pound of meat he sells a shilling, more or less.
The butcher may say, I will send home the meat now, and you may
hand in the shilling at the end of the week, or of the month ; but the
credit given does not alter the substantial relations of the parties to
the transaction.
r
158 THE WAGES QUESTION.
sure resort to the best market, whatever be the thing that
is to be bought or sold.
If competition be perfect, no question can be made of
its result in an equable division of all burdens and diffu-
sion of all benefits throughout the industrial society.
Let us consider the laborers and the employers of labor in
a state of active competition. Each laborer will sell hia
labor at the highest price which any employer can afford
to give, since the employers are in competition among
themselves for labor. Each employer will get his labor at
the lowest price at which any laborer l can afford to sell
it, since the laborers are in competition among themselves
for employment. The lowest price at which any laborer
will sell his labor is thus the highest price which any
employer can afford to pay. If we suppose the rate of
wages to any single laborer to be reduced, be it ever so lit-
tle, below the highest price which any employer can afford
to pay, the competition among employers for the extra
profit thus offered will speedily reduce that margin to the
minimum. If again we suppose the wages obtained by a
single laborer to be above the average of his class, the
resort of his fellows to that better market 2 will instantly
afford his individual employer all the labor he requires
at the usual rate. So much for the reduction or elevation
of the wages of a single laborer below or above the stand-
ard ; but if we suppose that standard to be lowered, and
the wages of the whole body of laborers to be reduced, we
shall then find a like satisfactory result wrought out in
one of two ways; either the employers, getting their
labor for less, will sell their products at correspondingly
reduced prices, and the laborers will thus, as consum-
1 We here assume the industrial quality of all laborers to be the
lame, and all employers to stand on the same footing as regards busi-
ness capacity and credit.
" Every scene of competition is called a market." F. W. New
man, Lectures on Pol. Econ., p. 5.
COMPETITION. 10g
ers, 1 make good their nominal loss as producers, or, if prices
be maintained, the enhanced profit thus afforded on each
pound, bushel or yard of the product will incite each
individual employer to produce all he can, and for this
purpose to employ all the labor he can ; and employers
will thus be brought to bid against each other until the
margin of extra profit wholly disappears, and the lowest
price at which any laborer will sell his labor will thus
again become the highest which any employer can afford
to pay. On the other hand, if we suppose the standard of
wages to be raised and the body of laborers to receive a
larger compensation, then it will follow from the action
of competition, that either prices will be raised corre-
spondingly and the laborers lose as consumers what they
have nominally gained as producers, or, prices remaining
the same, the employers will find their profits trenched
upon, and this, diminishing the motive to production, will
diminish the employment offered, which will induce com-
petition among the workmen for employment, which will
restore the standard of wages. \
The above account will hold good of laborers and em-
ployers found in the same locality and engaged in
the same occupation. But if we assume laborers and
employers to be dispersed among different localities and
occupations, precisely the same result would, in a con-
dition of absolute competition, be effected without loss
and without delay. Laborers would seek employers or
employers laborers, with perfect facility, across the divid-
ing lines, whether territorial or industrial. All inequal-
ities of condition would thus be immediately reduced.
The effort of each to get the most possible for himself
1 " For this class (the proletaires) as for all, the operation of com.
petition is two-fold. They feel it both as buyers, and as sellers of
services." Bastiat, " Harmonies of Pol. Econ.," p. 280. Doubtless j
but do they feel it equally, in their two capacities ? For what Prof .
Cairnee calls " the excessive friction" of retail trade, see p. 313-5.
160 THE WAGES QUESTION.
would simply result, with equal strength and opportuni-
ties, in giving the same to all.
By the operation of the same principle, any burden
say, a tax imposed arbitrarily upon any class, whether
of persons, of industrial processes, or of products, is distri-
buted equally over the whole community. That burden,
wherever first imposed, becomes an element in determin-
ing the actual net advantage enjoyed in their place by
the class of persons, upon whom, or upon whose processes,
or upon whose products, the burden is laid. The dimi-
nution thus effected in their substantial remuneration,
will either cause their products to rise in price, while the
same quantity is produced by the same number of laborers
(which may be the case if the products are of prime
importance or necessity) ; or laborers and employers will
leave these avocations until the prices of their products,
thus diminished in quantity, are raised by scarcity to a
point which will afford wages to laborers and profits to em-
ployers equivalent, after full account be had of the excep-
tional burden, to those enjoyed in other departments of
production. This is the reasoning of those who hold the
diffusion theory of taxation.
Such is the operation of unhindered competition,
achieving a beneficent distribution of the products of
industry, equalizing all burdens and all benefits through-
out the industrial community. These are the Economical
Harmonies celebrated by Bastiat. Of course no one ever
supposed that competition was perfect in any place, or in
any department of human activity; but the political
economists of the Manchester School have felt themselves
at liberty to treat the questions of distribution precisely
as if competition were perfect, regarding the failures as so
far exceptional as not to impair the substantial validity
of practical conclusions based on the assumption of uni-
versal competition. Our further course will lead us to
investigate this assumption of a competition so general
THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL. 161
that the exceptions thereto may for practical purposes be
disregarded ; and if we find the exceptions numerous and
important, to inquire how far the conclusions based on
competition alone require modification to meet the condi-
tions disclosed. But first, of a term just used. What is
THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY ?
It is usually spoken of as the school of Free Traders ; l
but this, in my estimation, does not present the real char-
acteristic of the class of writers included by the term.
There were Free-traders before Manchester ; there are
Free-traders who are not of Manchester.
I should rather define the Manchester school to consist
of those free traders who carry into the department of
Distribution, that assumption of the economical sufficiency
of competition which the whole body of free-traders accept
when dealing with the questions of Exchange ; who fail to
recognize any differences between services and commodities,
between men and merchandise, which require them to modi-
fy their doctrine of laissez faire, looking on a Manchester
spinner as possessing the same mobility economically, as
being under the same complete subjection to the impulses of
pecuniary interest, as a bale of Manchester cottons on the
wharf, free to go to India or Iceland as the difference of a
penny in the price offered may determine ; free-traders,
who, to come down to single practical questions, object to
laws against truck 2 as an interference with the freedom
of contract ; who oppose exceptional legislation respecting 8
the employment of women under ground in mines and at
1 Le point de depart des Katheder-socialisten est entierement different
de celui des economistes orthodoxes, qu'ils designent sous le nom de
Mancliester-thum, ou aecte de Manchester, parce que c'est en effet,
I'ecole des litres echangistes qui a expose avec plus de logique les dog-
mes da Credo ancien." Laveleye. Revue des Deux Mondes, 15
July, 1875.
* See this term defined and truck practices described, pp. 324-42.
Fawcett, Speeches, p. 180.
163 THE WAGES QUESTION.
factory labor during pregnancy and for the period im-
mediately succeeding confinement, on the ground that such
matters should be regulated by the interest of the parties
thereto ; who, while perhaps approving, on social consid-
erations, laws regulating the employment of children in
mines and factories, 1 yet deny that such regulations
have any economical justification, holding that self-interest
is here, again, a sufficient guide ; who object to laws 01
compulsory rules respecting apprenticeship, or admission
to the professions, to the governmental regulation or in-
spection of industrial operations, and to any and all acts of
the state directed to the promotion of prudence arid fru-
gality on the part of the working classes. It was to the
effects of such teaching that Prof. Cairn es referred when he
said : " Laissez faire, freedom of contract, and phrases of
like import, have of late become somewhat of bugbears,
with a large number of people. It is enough to mention
them to discredit by anticipation the most useful practical
scheme." 2
But it may be here asked, are not the Manchester econ-
omists merely more consistent and thorough than those who
stop short in their advocacy of freedom from legal restraints
when they leave the department of exchange ; does it not
amount to this, that the Manchesterians stick to their
principles, while others do not ? It is to be in a position to
meet this question that I have stated the theory of com-
petition so much at length ; and I now answer, no ques-
tion of principle is involved, but only a question of fact. Ed
one will deny that if competition be perfect, a right distri
bution will be effected by its agency, but on the other hand
no one can claim that any such assurance exists if com-
petition be seriously impaired. If laborers and employers
i The Factory Act of 1844 was passed against the opposition of
the majority of English economists in Parliament and out.
' Essays in Pol. Econ. p. 251.
LA188EZ FAIRE A PRACTICAL RULE. 163
do not in fact, 1 whatever the cause, resort to the best market,
then injuries may be inflicted on labor or on capital, and
no economical principle whatever will operate to secure
redress. The entire justification for laissez faire is found
in an assumed sufficiency of the individual motive-force to
reach the best market. With immobility, total or partial,
there is no certainty, or probability, of an equalization
of burdens and benefits, or of the propagation, without
delay or loss, of any economical impulse whatever.
Competition, to have the beneficent effects which have
been ascribed to it, must be all-pervading and unremitting ;
like the pressure of the atmosphere of which we are happily
unconscious because it is all the while equal within and
without us, above and below us. "Were that pressure to be
made unequal, its effects would instantly become crashing
and destructive. So it is with competition ; when it becomes
unequal, when the ability of one industrial class to respond
to the impulses of self-interest is seriously reduced by igno-
rance, poverty, or whatever cause, while the classes with
which it is to divide the product of industry, are active,
alert, mobile in a high degree, the most mischievous
effects may be experienced.
Free traders, therefore, who decline to carry the rule of
laissez faire into the department of distribution, are not
dodging their principles. They deny that the condition
which alone justifies that rule, exists in this department.
With respect to merchandise, destitute alike of sympa-
thies and antipathies, competition is so far perfect that
it may be reasoned upon as if no obstruction to exchange
existed. The one additional penny of profit will send the
bale of goods east or west, north or south, to kinsman or
to stranger, to black man or white, with absolute indiffer-
ence. But with that strange bundle of " apathies, sympa-
thies and antipathies" 2 called man, bound by manifold
1 The mobility of labor forms the subject of Chap. XL
1 Charles Lamb Essays of Elia.
164 THE WAGES QUESTION.
strong attachments to place and scene, to home and friends,
weighted with daily burdens, almost or quite to the limit
of his strength, beset with reasonable and with supersti-
tious fears, a prompt resort to the best market must so
evidently be a matter of great uncertainty, that no econo-
mist can justly be accused of abandoning his principles
who refuses to trust wholly to the individual impulse for
the right distribution of the products of industry. The
question of a competition sufficient or insufficient to this
end, is a question of fact. And it is important to be borne
in mind that the obstructions to competition which defeat a
right distribution, are not physical merely, or mainly, but
moral ; ignorance, superstition, timidity, procrastination,
mental inertia, love of country, love of home, love of
friends. So much for the obstructions to competition,
on the side of the working classes. But it is equally impor-
tant to note that a further effect prejudicial to them may
be produced by the greed of employers counteracting a
true regard for their own self-interest. The theory of
competition assumes that the employer in seeking his own
interests will become the conservator of the interests of
the laborer, there being a true harmony of interests be-
tween them. This may be so, as Prof. Cairnes has noted,
with interests as they really exist, and as they would be
seen by an enlightened eye. But it does not follow that
the employer's interest, as he may regard it, coincides with
the interests of those dependent on him for .employment.
" This chasm in the argument of the laissez faire school
has never been bridged. The advocates of the doctrine
shut their eyes and leap over it." 1
But here we have to meet the further questions : grant-
*ng that competition is in fact impaired to an extent
1 Essajs in Pol. Econ., p. 24G.
IMPERFECT COMPETITION. 1M
which allows serious and lamentable injury to result in the
distribution of the products of industry, from the inability
of persons and classes to resort to their best market, is it
the part of the legislator or of the economist to do or to
speak otherwise than as if competition were perfect ? Are
we not to accept competition, as it is, for what it can now
do ; and wait for the action of economical forces in gradu-
ally perfecting it ? Does not the existence of competition,
however much impaired, establish a steady tendency which
must sooner or later wear out the obstructions which are
admitted to beset the resort to the best market, on the part
of no inconsiderable portion of the industrial community ?
And meanwhile, to repeat, should we argue or act other-
wise than as if competition were complete ?
To these questions I have to answer as follows :
1. The reader is referred to what has been said in Chap-
ter IY. on the degradation of labor : the breaking down of
the laboring population through industrial distress and dis-
aster. It was there sought to be shown, that if the blow,
in its suddenness or its severity, bears more than a certain
ratio to the power of resistance, the chances are many,
human nature being what it is, that the wages class will
succumb, that is, that they will accept the harder terms
imposed upon them ; and, on the one hand, through a less
ample or nourishing diet and meaner conditions, and on
the other, through a loss of self-respect and perhaps the
contracting of distinctly bad habits, they will become
unable to render the same amount and quality of service
as before. This result being reached, not only is there
not a tendency in any economical forces to repair the
mischief, but even the occurrence of better times and new
opportunities, if brought about from the outside (as for
example, by the discovery of new resources in nature, or
new powers in art), would not serve to restore the shattered
industrial manhood.
2. Such disasters aside, the tendency of purely econom-
166 THE WAGES QUESTION.
ical forces is continually to aggravate the disadvantages
from which any person or class may suffer. The fact ot
being worsted in one conflict is an ill preparative for
another encounter. Every gain which one party makes
at the expense of another, furnishes the sinews of war for
further aggressions ; every loss which one person or class
of persons sustains in the competitions of industry, weak-
ens the capability for future resistance. This principle
applies with increasing force as men sink in the industrial
scale. Emphatically is it true that the curse of the poor
is their poverty. Cheated in quantity, quality and price l
in whatever they purchase, they are notoriously unable
to get as much, proportionally, for their little, as the rich
for their larger means. Economically speaking, this
must ever remain true, and operate with increasing powei
Moral forces may indeed enter to restore the equilibrium ;
the liberality of nature may afford to the weaker class a
margin sufficient for them to long maintain themselves ;
the discovery of new arts and new resources may open up
fresh opportunities for retrieving loss ; but, through all, it
cannot be controverted that the tendency of purely eco-
nomical forces is to widen the differences existing in the
constitution of industrial society, and to subject any and
every person and class of persons who may, from any
cause, be at disadvantage in respect to selling his or their
service or product, to a constantly increasing burden.
3. Progress toward freedom is not necessarily accom-
plished by indiscriminately throwing off restraints,
either in the political or the industrial 3 body. True, men
1 Count Rumford's Essays contain much interesting matter in
illustration of the losses which the working classes suffer in the do-
mestic use of what they have purchased, from the want of simple and
elementary apparatus for cooking, storing, etc.
8 Thus, I cannot hesitate to assent to the opinion of M. Say, that
fche breaking down of all the fraternities in Paris, after the Revolution
of 1830, and the sudden rush, without order or discretion, of a mob ol
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. 167
only learn to swim by going into the water ; only make
their eyes of use by going into the light ; but, out of
regard to human weakness, exposure to either element
should be conducted with measure, and in order. While
progress toward freedom is to be made by the removal of
industrial restrictions, it does not follow that the removal
of any specific restriction at any given time, conduces to
such progress. The restriction may be, in the situation
existing, correspondent to an infirmity which cannot so
summarily be done away. A crutch operates by restraint
only ; but it is a restraint which prevents a lame man from
falling to the ground, whence he might have no strength
to raise himself again ; while, if artificially sustained, he
may be able to achieve a very considerable freedom of
movement and of action. A law prohibiting a child under
eight years to work in a factory, operates by restraint only ;
but it is a restraint upon parental folly or greed, which may
prevent a horrible waste of physical force, and cause a
larger amount of actual labor to be accomplished during
the entire term of life, than would be effected were the
child to be stunted by premature exposure and hardship.
For this reason I believe, with Mr. Homer, that " the
interposition of the legislature in behalf of children, is
justified by the most cold and severe principles of political
economy." 1
labor into trades immemorially restricted, was the cause of great
disaster in 1831 ; that it would have been better, both for the trades
and for the mass of outside labor, had the barriers been removed more
gradually.
1 " Employment of children in factories," p. 15. Mr. Homer, who
was government inspector of factories, states that in the lace mills of
Nottingham, children, 9 to 15 years of age, were frequently employed
20 hours on a stretch, from 4 A.M. to 12 at night, [p. 14.] He quotes a
witness who testified that " being frequently detained in his counting,
house late at night, till 12 or 1 o'clock, he has often, in going home, in
the depth of winter, met mothers taking their children to the neigh-
boring print-works, the children crying." [p. 123.]
Dr. Villerme, in his memorable report to the French Academy
168 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
Just how much force, on purely economical principles,
has the objection urged against many proposed measures,
that they are in violation of the freedom of contract ? Le*
us candidly but searchingly consider this question. What
is the authority of laissez faire * when levelled against a
factory act, or a proposition to restrain truck ? Laws
in restraint of trade, or interfering with the times and
methods of employment, with wages and prices, are not
mischievous because they violate a theoretical self-suffi-
ciency of labor, but because they effect a certain actual
result. What is that result ? They diminish mobility,
which, as we have seen, is the prime condition of compe-
tition, while competition affords the only security the
laborer can have that he will get the utmost possible for his
service. The mischief of such laws is simply and solely
that they are obstructive. Here, then, and not in the
shibboleth, laissez faire, laissez passer, we have the true
test of the expediency of a proposed regulation of indus-
try or trade. Does it practically obstruct movement ?
used the following language in writing of the factory laborers of
Alsace : " The rents in the manufacturing towns and villages imme-
diately adjoining, are so high that they are often obliged to live at the
distance of a league and even a league and a half. The poor children,
many of whom are scarcely seven years old, and some even younger,
have to take from their sleep and their meal-hours, whatever is required
to traverse that long and weary road, in the morning to get to the
factory, in the evening to get home To judge how excessive is
the labor of children in the factories, one has only to recollect that it
is unlawful to employ galley-slaves more than 12 hours a day, and these
12 must be broken by two hours for meals, reducing the actual labor
to ten hours a day ; while the young people of whom I speak have to
toil 13 hours, and sometimes 13^, independent of their meal times."
* "So understood, I hold it to be a pretentious sophism, destitute of
foundation in nature and fact, and rapidly becoming an obstruction
and nuisance in public affairs." J. B. Cairnes' Essaya in Pol. Econ..
p. 252.
LA18SEZ FAIRS. 16|
But is it said : every restriction or regulation is in soxne
degree, obstructive ? Right and wrong, at once. Restric-
tion and regulation are obstructive as against a pre-existing
condition of perfect practical freedom. But perfect free-
dom obtains in nothing human. There are obstructions
on every hand, not physical only, but also intellectual and
moral. May not a regulative act well conceived to remove
certain moral and intellectual obstacles to free action, have
the effect to promote, not retard, industrial movement ?
For instance : take the transfer of real estate. An act
for the registration of ownership is restrictive upon
transfers; yet can any one doubt that judicious provis-
ions for registration, instead of retarding transfers of land
and buildings, do in fact, in the most important degree,
promote them ? The compliance with the requirement of
registration is indeed, in itself, an obstruction : it involves
a certain expenditure of labor and money ; a few shillings
and an hour's time. But it gives every possible buyer
such an assurance as to his title and the history of the
property, as constitutes an intellectual and moral help in
the acquisition of estates, of the greatest effectiveness. 1
For it should be borne in mind, in all discussions relating
to the exchange and distribution of wealth, that fear,
ignorance, superstition and custom are as truly obstruc-
tive as are rivers and mountains; and if a registrative pro-
vision gives certainty and clearness, where before was
doubt and apprehension, or utter ignorance, it may pay
a thousand times over, for the nominal hindrance to
action which is involved in a formal compliance with its
requirements.
It is difficult to see how perfect freedom becomes the
condition of economical, any more than it is of political,
security and advancement. Why should not the throw-
ing-off of economical restrictions among a people long
1 In England, the absence of a system of registering titles has bui
dened the transfer of estates most oppressively.
170 THE WAGES QUESTION.
abused and deeply abased, be accomplished with, the same
caution, and the same regard for the order of things, as
the social and political emancipation and enfranchisement
of oppressed masses ? Yet we find writers who would
ridicule the notion that one form of government is equally
good for all peoples, or that any form of government could
be good for any people, which had not respect to national
peculiarities of character and structure ; who hold that no
people long degraded can safely be raised at once to politi-
cal freedom ; and even insist that among a people long
habituated to universal suffrage, and with traditions of
self-rule extending through centuries, stringent limitations
should be imposed on the popular will : we find, I say,
these writers declaring for the removal of all restrictions
throughout industrial society, even such as are of a regu-
lative character merely, not only without regard to th
habits or condition of the people, but equally without
regard to the order in which such restrictions should be
removed.
For myself, I am utterly at a loss to conceive how such
reasoners, some of whom are conservatives and pessimists
of the deepest dye in politics, justify their optimistic radi-
calism in industry. Certainly, if, as Chevalier, the great
apostle of free trade in France, has said, Political Econ-
omy and politics rest on the same principles, 1 there would
seem to be as much virtue in judicious and disinterested
restraint in labor, as in government or society. Nowhere
has restraint any positive virtue ; no life or healing comes
out of it ; but grave evils may be suppressed ; great waste
and mischief prevented by it.
But while I hold that discretion and order should be
observed in throwing off social, political and economical
restrictions, alike, I hold this in no desponding or distrust-
lu L'economie politique s'appuie sur lea memes principes que It
politique."--8th Discours d'ouverture de 1'annee, 1847-8.
THE PROBLEM Off DISTRIBUTION. m
ful vein. I believe that society and industry may unload
rapidly, if in due order ; that there is something in the
very name of liberty to which the heart of man, in what-
ever condition, responds ; and that men who believe in
freedom are the safest guides in directing the progress of
a people toward perfect freedom. I do not say that
progress should be made slowly ; but that it should be
made by steps, by due gradation and with something
of preparation for each successive stage of the advance.
What then is the problem of Distribution ?
We have seen that so far as differences exist in respect to
the ability and opportunities of the several classes of indus-
trial society to resort swiftly and surely to the best market,
such difference must put at an economical disadvantage the
class suffering the greatest relative obstruction, and con-
fer corresponding advantages at their expense, upon tho
class or classes more favorably situated and better en-
dowed. We have seen, moreover, that such disadvantages,
be they great or small, at the outset, are cumulative ; that
the word " to him that hath shall be given, and from him
that hath not shall be taken away even the little that he
seemeth to have," is a law of universal operation and a
very unharmonizing tendency; that economical forces,
thus, instead of bringing redress, tend to crowd further
down the classes who enter the struggle weakest.
If, then, the political economist finds the obstructions be-
setting the resort to the best market, existing in the present
condition of industrial society, to be, in fact, serious, is ho
not bound to abandon a rule of conduct based on tho
assumption of a competition so general that it may for prac-
tical purposes be deemed universal, and to study critically
the condition of the several classes of persons making claims
on the product of industry with a view to ascertain what help
173 THE WAGES QUESTION.
can be brought from the outside, in the absence of any repar-
ative virtue in industrial causes, to supply the deficiencies of
competition ? Failing to find relief in economical forces, he
will look away to moral forces to achieve the emancipation
of the economically oppressed classes, not by taking them
out from under the operation of economical laws, for that
is impossible, but by providing the conditions (intelligence,
frugality and sobriety, political franchises and social ambi-
tions) which will secure that mobility, that easy, quick and
sure resort to market, which alone is needed to give scope
and sway to the beneficent agencies of competition.
Fortunately he may look with confidence to see this
amelioration coincide with a continued increase in the
productive power of labor, due to fresh advances in the
arts and sciences, which will facilitate the upward move-
ment.
Meanwhile the question whether any specific legislation
in protection of the working classes (say, a factory act), or
any measure of regulation and restraint adopted by an in-
dustrial class for their own benefit (say, a trades union
rule), is likely to promote the desired object, should be
treated, I suggest, on the following principle. Remem-
bering that the one thing to be secured for the right dis-
tribution of wealth, is perfect competition, it should be
.inquired, whether that act or measure will, all things con-
sidered, on the whole and in the long run, increase or dimin-
ish the substantial, not the nominal, freedom of movement.
If the effect would be to quicken the resort to market, then,
no matter how far restrictive in form, it must be approved.
But in considering the probable tendencies of such acts or
measures, we should bear in mind how great are the
liabilities to error and corruption in legislation ; how cer-
tain is the administration of the law to fall shore of its
intent ; how much better most results are reached through
social than through legal pressure ; how destitute of all
positive virtue, all healing efficacy, is restraint, its only
TEE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. 173
office being to prevent waste ; how frequently, too, good
acts become bad precedents. 1
Yet these considerations, strong as they are, do not
suffice to create doubt in my mind of the justification, on
purely economical grounds, of laws for the registration of
real estate, for the limitation or prohibition of truck, or
for the regulation of the labor of children, of women, or
even of men, in accordance with the dictates of the most
advanced sanitary science. In Chapter XYIII, questions
will arise respecting the practical influence of legislation
upon the substantial freedom of industrial movement.
These will be discussed with single reference to the prin-
ciple of judgment here set up. And when the question
of trades unions and strikes comes before us, it will be
treated on the same grounds. I shall not deern the
question to be decided against these agencies by the fact
that they take the form of inhibition and restriction ;
but shall hold myself bound to inquire whether they do, in
their time and place, increase or diminish the freedom
and the fulness of the laborer's resort to market, bearing
in mind that his practical ability to accomplish that resort,
is made up of a material element, the means of transporta-
tion and of provisional maintenance, and of intellectual
and moral elements, quite as essential.
1 " It is one thing to repudiate the scientific authority of laissez
faire, freedom of contract, and so forth : it is a totally different thing
to set up the opposite principle of state control, the doctrine of pa-
ternal government. For my part, I accept neither one doctrine nor the
other, and, as a practical rule, I hold laissez faire to be incomparably
the safer guide. Only let us remember that it is a practical rule, and
not a doctrine of science ; a rule in the main sound, but, like most other
Bound practical rules, liable to numerous exceptions ; above all, a rula
which must never for a moment be allowed to stand in the way of the
candid consideration of any promising proposal of social or industria
reform," J. E. Cairnes' Essays in Pol. Econ., p. 251.
CHAPTER XI
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR.
WE have seen that, with perfect competition, the work
ing classes have ample security that they will, at all
times, receive the greatest amount of wages which is
consistent with the existing conditions of industry. The
object of the present chapter is*to ascertain, if we may,
how far the actual mobility of labor corresponds to that
theoretical mobility which is involved in perfect compe-
tition.
And first, we note that the theoretical mobility of la-
bor rests on the assumption that laborers will, in all things
and at all times, pursue their economic interests ; that they
perfectly comprehend those interests, and will suffer
nothing to stand in the way of their attainment. Of
course the men of whom this can be predicated are not
real human men. They are a class of beings devised for
the purposes of economical reasoning in accordance with
the definition given by Mr. Mill in his " Essays on some
Unsettled Questions in Political Economy," as follows:
"Political Economy is concerned with man solely as a
being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of
judging of the comparative efficacy of means to that
end. . . It makes entire abstraction of every other
human passion or motive, except those which may be
regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the
desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labor and desire of the
present enjoyment of costly indulgences. These it takes,
to a certain extent, into its calculations, because these dc
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 175
not merely, like other desires, occasionally conflict with
the pursuit of wealth, but accompany it always as a drag
or impediment, and are therefore inseparably mixed up
in the consideration of it. Political Economy considers
mankind as occupied solely J in acquiring and consuming
wealth."
But thus to frame a system of economics upon the as-
sumption of the perfect, unintermitted, unimpeded action
of one, and that not always the most potential, of many
human motives, is it not, as Dr. Whewell has said, 2 as if
the physical geographer should construct his scheme in rec-
ognition of gravitation alone, disregarding the power of
cohesion in preserving the~original structure of the earth's
surface, and should thus reach the conclusion that all the
mountains must at once run down into the valleys and the
face of nature become a plain ? In much the same way the
economist of the & priori school disregards the original
structure of industrial society, the separation of classes
and nations, the obstructions offered by differences of race,
religion and speech, 3 the effects of strangeness and appre-
1 If Mr. Mill had said, " Political economy considers mankind solely
as occupied in acquiring and consuming wealth," the statement would
Jiave been unexceptionable. But if " Political economy considers man-
kind as occupied solely in acquiring and consuming wealth," Political
economy considers mankind most falsely ; and the results in economi-
cal reasoning of that unwarranted assumption have been most mis-
chievous. Political economy is not bound to consider mankind so far
as they are occupied in anything else than in acquiring and consuming
wealth ; but it is bound in simple honesty not to consider them as oc-
cupied in acquiring and consuming wealth when they are not, and to
a degree they are not.
* Introduction to R. Jones' Pol. Econ.
* The effects of speech-differences in preventing the easy and rapid
flow of labor are clearly to be seen in France and Scotland. The
greater number of the Bas Bretons cannot speak or understand French,
and are hence confined more closely to their native fields, than the
people of any other section. [Report of H. B. M. Consul Clipperton,
1872, p. 160.]
The commissioners of the Scotch Census of 1871 found the influ
170 THE WAGES QUESTION.
hension of change, the constraints of ignorance and super-
stition, the attachments of home, country and friends, the
helplessness of men in new occupations, the jealousy of im-
ported labor, 1 and perhaps more than all else, the inhibition
of migration, in the case of perhaps the vast majority of
the race, by the want of the supplies of food and money
necessary to their removal and immediate subsistence.
Does the comparison seem extravagant ? Look at China.
There is found a population of three or four hundred
millions, of whose mode of life and means of subsistence
travellers give accounts that are simply shocking ; reduced
to the vilest food, the vilest clothing, the vilest shelter, or
none at all of the latter two classes of assumed necessaries.
Opposite their own land lies a region of great fertility,
containing vast expanses with an average population of
from one to four, six or ten to the square mile. Why has
not this mountain run down into this valley : Why have not
untold millions poured upon our shores to relieve the fear-
ful internal pressure of the Celestial Empire ? The rea-
sons are too familiar to need to be stated. The fact is
what we wish to use here. What a commentary on the
political economy which has been reared on the assump-
tion of the absolute mobility of labor ! Three or four
hundred million Chinese suffering the extremity of misery
at home ; 63,199 Chinese in the United States in 1870,
and that, after the energetic recruiting of Mr. Koopmans-
ence of tliis cause very powerful in preventing emigration from the
northern and western parts of Scotland, including the Isles, where the
Gaelic is still spoken. [Report p. 20. cf. 4th Report (1870) on the em
ployment of women and children in Agr., p. 117.]
1 Miss Martineau notes the jealousy of " imported labor " (from Ire-
land) during the Napoleonic wars. [Hist. England 1. 332.] Even so late
as 1846, the committee on Railway Laborers reported that not only did
the Irish and the Scotch not work on the same gangs with the Eng-
lish navvies, but they were kept apart from each other. [Report p. 5.]
There was especial jealousy manifested toward the Irish importations.
[Ibid. p. 52, 77.]
FAILURE OF EMIGRATION. 177
choop and his emigrant-runners! The original struct-
ure of that mountain, at least, has withstood the effects of
gravitation with not a little success. Popocatapetl has
lost a larger proportion of his bulk, in the last one hun-
dred years.
But we may turn to a people less strangely constituted
and less strongly conserved than the Chinese ; a people
longer in contact with the western world, and in blood,
speech and faith far less removed from the nations of
Europe. The inhabitants of British India have been
moved even less than those of China, by the pressure of
population, to seek relief in more sparsely settled portions
of the globe. "With the wages of manual labor at 3d. a
day in good times, and with a scarcity amounting to famine
on an average once in four or five years, the East Indians
respect the "original structure" by which they were
placed on the great Asiatic peninsula, and meet their fate
where they were born, without thought of change.
Wages may rise to any height in America and Australia,
but the people of India are even unconscious of any im-
pulse to emigration ; and with oriental stoicism and fatalism
abide in their lot, like the everlasting hills that guard their
northern frontier.
Surely we need not seek more such illustrations to
justify Dr. WhewelPs comparison. In these two instances,
we have seen nearly half the human kind bound in fetters of
race and speech and religion and caste, of tradition and
habit and ignorance of the world, of poverty and inepti-
tude and inertia which practically exclude them from the
competitions of the world's industry.
In turning now to consider this matter of the power of
labor to protect itself, by migration or otherwise, among
peoples of a higher industrial civilization, we need to pro-
ceed somewhat more analytically. Let us discuss this
question under two titles :
1st. The migration of laborers from place to place.
178 THE WAGES QUESTION.
2d. Change of occupation.
1st. The migration of labor. Why should laborers
need to migrate at all ? Why not stay and work in theil
lot \ Movement involves the expenditure of force : why
should this waste be incurred ?
It is the unequal development of population and indus-
try that marks the beginning of most of the distresses of
labor. Industry and population must, it is evident, fit
together throughout the entire extent of both, or loss of
power and of production will follow, on the one hand ;
destitution, squalor, and perhaps starvation, on the other.
Labor will suffer both from not being where it is wanted,
and from being where it is not wanted. Now in fact,
there is ever found a liability in population and industry
to grow apart, even though all conditions appear to re-
main unchanged ; while no new cause can begin to ope-
rate in the social or political life of a community, which
may not very differently affect them. Wherever diver-
gence appears, there is distress. At times the effect is
almost instantaneous, when sudden calamities overtake
the peculiar industries of states and cities. At times the
effect is wrought as gradually as the ruin of a wall into
whose seams some slow-maturing vine has thrust its
fibres, never to be withdrawn till stone is thrown from
stone. Numberless illustrations might be drawn from
history and from the statistics of production, of this ten-
dency to divergence between population and industry; 1
1 The knitting frame caused stocking-making in England to be
transferred from its former seat at Norwich. The woolen manufac-
ture has, within living memory, migrated from Essex and Suffolk to
the North. Between 1857 and 1861 occurred a falling off in the mus-
lin embroidery manufacture of Ireland and Scotland, which in-
volved a reduction in the number of persons employed of 146,000
(Statistical Journal XXIV. 516.7). About 1846, the English power-loom
caused the absolute destruction of an industry which supported 250,-
000 workmen in Flanders. (Ibid, XXVIII, 15.) Seemingly petty
changes in fashion will often produce wide-reaching effects in produc-
MOVEMENTS OF INDUSTRY. m
and it will be not less interesting to note the incessant
small vibrations of industry which require an almost daily
readjustment of population, than to mark the course of
those great cyclical changes which transfer the seat of
commercial empire, and leave cities and countries for-
saken and almost forgotten behind.
Such being the tendency of industry to occasional or
periodic movement, the mobility of labor 1 becomes, under
the theory of competition, an essential condition of its
tion. Mr. Maltlius states that the substitution of shoe ribbons for
buckles was a severe blow, long felt by Sheffield and Birmingham.
" On a smaller scale and with less notoriety," says a writer in the Athe-
naeum, " the dismal tragedy of the cotton famine, is enacted every year
in one or another of our great cities. Every time fashion selects a
new material for dress, or a new invention supercedes old contri-
vances, workmen are thrown out of employment." Prof. Rogers gives
the following piquant illustration of the effect of changes in the mere
fashion of dress. "A year or two ago every woman who made any
pretension to dress according to the custom of the day, surrounded
herself with a congeries of parallel steel hoops. It is said that fifty
tons of crinoline wire were turned out weekly from the factories
chiefly in Yorkshire. The fashion has passed away and the demand
for the material and the labor has ceased. Thousands of persons once
engaged in this production are now reduced to enforced idleness, or
constrained to betake themselves to some other occupation. Again,
a few years ago, women dressed themselves plentifully with ribbons.
This fashion has also changed ; where a hundred yards were sold, one
is hardly purchased now, and the looms of a multitude of silk
operatives are idle. To quote another instance. At the present time
women are pleased to walk about bareheaded. The straw-plaiters of
Bedfordshire, Bucks, Hertfordshire and Essex are reduced suddenly
from a condition of tolerable prosperity to one of great poverty and
distress." (Pol. Econ., 1869, pp. 77-8.)
1 But it may be said, if industry abandons population, and wages
become reduced, this of itself constitutes a reason for industry to return,
as it will have the advantage of cheap labor. This is much as if one
should say : the approach of cold induces shivering : shivering is of
the nature of exercise: exercise induces warmth; therefore a man
may not freeze on a Minnesota prairie in an ice-storm, with the ther-
mometer at 40 degrees below zero ; and indeed the colder it gets, th
more he will shake, and consequently, the warmer he will be.
180 THE WAGES QUESTION.
well-being. It is of course not necessary that the whole
body of laborers should be organized like a Tartar tribe,
packed and saddled ready for flight. The great majority of
laborers will never be required to move at all ; but as it
will always prove that of those who could go, many will
not, and of those who would go, many cannot, we may
fairly say that the laboring population is never likely to
be more completely mobilized by intelligence and the
possession of property, than is desirable in order to render
it certain that just the amount of movement from industry
to industry, and from place to place, which may be required,
will be effected with the minimum of loss and delay.
Such being the necessity for the mobility of labor to
enable it to follow the movements, accountable and
unaccountable, of industry, it is not needful to go into
the history of emigration to show that labor has scarce-
ly, in any country, possessed the readiness and activity
which answered the requirement. The United States 1
perhaps afford the highest example of a body of labor pre-
pared and equipped to seek its best market, wherever that
market may be ; and Americans, familiar with the prompt
and easy flow of population here, are liable to under-esti-
mate the difficulties which beset the like movements in
almost any other country of the world. In part, the activ-
ity of labor in the United States is due to the generosity
of nature with us, which allows so large a margin of ex-
penditure. In still greater measure, it is due to the wido
diffusion of information through the press and the post-
i In 1870, 7,500,000 persons of the native population were living in
suites other than those of their birth. See Census Reports. " The
full-blooded American," says Chevalier, " has this in common with
the Tartar, that he is encamped, not established, on the soil he treada
upon." Travels in the United States, p. 129. In Russia, too, the free-
dom of migration from place to place, has frequently been noted.
Sir Arch. Alison attributes this to the Tartar blood. History of Europe
iv, 164. See Sir A. Buchanan's account of the industrial nomada of
Russia. Reports, H. B. M. Consuls, etc. 1870, p. 301.
MOVEMENTS OF POPULATION. 181
office. Perhaps in still greater degree is it due to the
almost perfect social and political freedom which prevails,
in the absence of those barriers and restrictions l which, to
the inhabitant of older lands, are as much a matter of
course as the limitations to his power of reaching objects
with his arm. The exceptions to this readiness to follow
industry in its movements, are found among three classes :
the newly emancipated slaves of the south, in respect to
whom no explanation is required, that portion of our
women who are compelled to enter the general market for
labor, and, lastly, our foreign population, and among these
the disability indicated exists mainly among those who
have been left in our eastern cities by the exhaustion of
the immigrating force.
" No one can travel much in the East without seeing
that, with no small proportion of our vast foreign element,
occupation is determined by a location that is accidental,
or practically beyond the control of individuals ; that these
people are doing what they are doing because they are
where they are. And the reason for such a wholesale sub-
jection of labor to its circumstances, is found in the miscel-
laneousness, the promiscuousness, and we may say the tumul-
tuousness of the immigration to the United States since the
days of the Irish famine. Of all who have come to us in the
past twenty-seven years, by far the greater part have come
unprovided and uninstructed for the experiences of their
American life. Whether pushed fairly out of their own
country by the pressure of population, or escaping from
military conscription, or moved by restlessness and the spirit
1 " No cause has, perhaps, more promoted, in every respect, the
general improvement of the United States than the absence of those
systems of internal restriction and monopoly, which continue to dis-
figure the state of society in other countries. No laws exist here
directly or indirectly confining men to a particular occupation or
place, or excluding any citizen from any branch he may at any time
think proper to pursue. Industry is in every respect free and unfet-
tered." Albert Gallatin.
183 THE WAGES QUESTION.
of adventure, or burning with the gold fever, or allured
by the false reports of relatives and acquaintances on this
side the water, they have fallen on our shores, the immi-
gratory impulse exhausted, their money gone, with no
definite purpose, with no special preparation, to become
the victims of tfheir place and circumstances. There is a
tendency at every harbor w T hich lies at the debouche of a
river, to the formation of a bar composed of mud and
sand brought down by the current which yet has not the
force to scour its channel clear out to deep water. And
in much the same way, there is a tendency at every port
of immigration to the accumulation, from the failure of the
immigrating force, of large deposits of more or less help-
less labor which a little assistance from government would
serve to carry far inland, and distribute widely, to the
best advantage at once of the immigrants and of the indus-
try of the country.
"Of those foreigners whose occupations have deter
mined their location, the most notable instances are the
Welsh and the Scandinavians.
" Why should there be four times as many Welsh in
Pennsylvania as in New York: Why four times as many
in Ohio as in Illinois 2 The reason is obvious : the
Welsh are famous iron miners and iron makers. They
have come out to this country under intelligent direction,
and have gone straight to the place where they were
wanted. Quite as striking has been the self-direction of
the Swedish and Norwegian immigrants. Four states, all
west of Lake Michigan, contain ninety -four per cent of all
the Norwegians in the country and sixty-six per cent of
the Swedes. It is probably not owing so much to superior
foresight or to ampler means that the British Americana
" in the States " have, as it would appear, located therni
selves according to their industrial preferences, as to the
feet of their original proximity and the advantages they
found in this for obtaining information, for easily reaching
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 18|
the place of their choice, and for easily recovering them
selves in case of mistake Of all our foreign
elements, the Irish is that which would seem, from a study
of their occupations, to have been most subject to circum-
stances. The conditions of the forced and most painful
emigration from Ireland must be held to account amply
for this." i
"With exception, then, of the three classes named, there
has been, in the fortunate state of freedom from social and
legal restraints, in the great generosity of nature on our
behalf, and in the general intelligence of our population,
if not that perfect competition which the economists
assume in their reasonings, at least a very active resort of
labor to market. Our advantages in this respect are, how-
ever, highly exceptional. In general it is found as Adam
Smith has expressed it, that " of all sorts of luggage, man
is the most difficult to be transported."
Mr. Frederick Harrison 2 has thus set forth this diffi-
culty of moving labor to its market :
" In most cases, the seller of a commodity can send it
or carry it about from place to place, and market to mar-
ket, with perfect ease. He need not be on the spot; he
generally can send a sample ; he usually treats by corre-
spondence. A merchant sits in his counting house, and
by a few letters or forms, transports and distributes the sub-
sistence of a whole city from continent to continent. In
other cases, as the shopkeeper, the ebb and flow of pass-
ing multitudes, supplies the want of locomotion in his
wares. His customers supply the locomotion for him.
This is a true market. Here competition acts rapidly,
i The Advance, Dec. 10, 1874. In the last century the Irish emigra-
tion was from an altogether different class. " The spirit of emigration
in Ireland," said Arthur Young in 1777, " appears to be confined to twc
circumstances, the Presbyterian religion and the linen manufacture. 1
Pinkerton, iii. 868.
f Fortnightly Review, III. 50.
I4 THE WAGES QUESTION.
fully, simply, fairly. It is totally otherwise with a aa^
laborer, who has no commodity to sell. He must himself
be present at every market, which means costly, personal
locomotion. He cannot correspond with his employer ;
he cannot send a sample of his strength ; nor do employ-
ers knock at his cottage door."
Of the freedom of movement among the states of
Europe, we get an approximate measure from the follow-
ing Census Statistics, * which are about twenty-six years
old. Switzerland, a small country bordering three great
nations, and having the languages of all three spoken as
native tongues in her own limits, contains the largest pro-
portion of foreigners to total population, viz., 2.99 per
cent. Holland comes next of those on our list, with 2.32
per cent ; Belgium next with 1.76 ; France with 1.06 ;
Denmark with 0.93 ; the United Kingdom last, with 0.27
per cent.
But the statistics of international migration afford a very
inadequate and often a very deceptive notion as to those
quick and apt movements of population which anticipate in-
dustrial distress and prevent the breaking down of the labor
market, with all its consequences in the degradation of the
working classes. To move from one county to another,
or even only from one parish to another, would cost incom-
parably less than to move across the sea, and would often
be quite as effectual. And here the systematic writers in
economics commonly assume the complete mobility of
labor. 8 Yet we find that the impulse which is sufficient
to send laborers from England to Australia, is not always
sufficient to send them from Devon to Durham. Prof.
Senior, in one of his illustrations, supposed that, in case of
1 Statistical Journal, xx. 75.
9 " The assumption commonly made in treatises of political econ-
omy, is that, as between occupations and localities within the same
country, the freedom of movement of capital and labor is perfect." [J
E. Cairnes, " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 362.]
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 135
a local failure of employment, laborers would follow their
landlord from Leicestershire to London, but not from Lon-
don to Paris. In real life, however, the difficulty of mi-
gration is not so graded. Thus Mr. Chadwick cites
instances l of laborers in the south and southwest of Eng-
land, who had heard of America, but had not heard of
Lancashire, and could not be persuaded to go there, on
offer of favorable employment. 2 Mr. Muggeridge bears
quite as explicit testimony in his evidence before the com
mittee of 1855.
" The workman never goes out of his viHage, and is aa
ignorant as a cart-horse of what is going on elsewhere,
even in his own county. I found on going into the North
of England, that there was a demand everywhere for
laborers ; but when I got to the South and West of England
I heard general complaints of the superabundance of the
laboring population, and consequently of high poor rates.
I then suggested to the government a plan for removing,
with their own consent, the unemployed portion of the
population. I think that, altogether, something like
17,000 persons who were paupers and wholly out of em-
ployment in the South and "West of England were, in the
North of England put into most lucrative employment."
Q. " At the time to which you refer, there was, I
presume, a great demand for labor in the North of Eng-
land ?
A. " There was ; but I do not think that the people in
the South and West of England ever heard of it. I carried
the news of it into Suffolk and Norfolk also. They knew
1 Statistical Journal, xxviii. p. 12.
a A part of this effect, viz., the preference of emigration from the
kingdom over migration within the kingdom, is due to the ineffable
stupidity of the act of 12 and 13 Victoria (c. 103) which enables guar-
dians of the poor to borrow money to send laborers out of the country ;
but does not authorize them to spend a penny in sending a person from
the parish of his residence to another part of the kingdom where em
ployment may be freely offered.
186 THE WAGES QUESTION.
no more of it there, than they did of what might be going
on in North America." l
This immobility of labor has of course powerfully
affected wages. A century ago Adam Smith wrote: 2
" The wages of labor in a great town and its neighborhood
are frequently a fourth or a fifth part twenty or twenty -
five per cent higher than at a few miles distance. Eigh-
teen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of
labor in London and its neighborhood. At a few miles
distance, it falls to fourteen and fifteen pence. Ten pence
may be reckoned its price in Edinburgh and its neighbor-
hood. At a few miles distance it falls to eight pence, the
usual price of common labor through the greater part of
the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal
less than in England. Such a difference of prices which
it seems is not always sufficient to transport a man from
one parish to another, would necessarily occasion so great
a transportation of the most ~bulky commodities, not only
from one point to another, but from one end of the king-
dom, almost from one end of the world, to another, as would
soon reduce them more nearly to a level" 3
One might suppose that the vast increase in the facilities
for transportation of freight and passengers, and for the
diffusion of information through the post-office and the
printing-press, would have gone far in this century to
remove the obstruction which then retarded the flow of
1 Report on the Stoppage of Wages, p. 172.
2 Wealth of Nations, I. 79.
3 In discussing his extremely valuable Keturns before the Statistical
Society, Mr. Purdy says : " It would appear that no commodity in this
country presents so great a variation in price at one time, as agricul-
tural labor, taking the money wages of the men as the best exponent of
its value. A laborer's wages in Dorset or Devon are barely half the
sum given for similar services in the Northern parts of England."
Statistical Journal, xxiv. 344. Mr. Purdy refers, as among the causes of
this, " to the natural vis inertise of the class. . . . and above all,
a well founded dread of the miseries of a disputed poor-law settlement
in the hour of their destitution."
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 187
labor to its market ; ' but the force of ignorance, timidity
and superstition is not so easily broken. Prof. Fawcett
writes : " During the winter months, an ordinary agricul-
tural laborer in Yorkshire earns thirteen shillings a week.
The wages of a Wiltshire or Dorsetshire laborer, doing
the same kind of work, and working a similar number ol
hours, are only nine shillings a week. This great differ-
ence in wages is not counterbalanced by other considera-
tions ; living is not more expensive in Yorkshire than in
Dorsetshire, and the Dorsetshire laborer does not enjoy any
particular advantages or privileges which are denied to
the Yorkshire laborer." 2
1 Professor Rogers, in his History of Agriculture and Prices, ex-
presses the opinion that not only the transport of freight, but the tran-
sit of persons, was as free in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth,
as in the eighteenth century. The roads were maintained in good
order, chiefly by the monasteries, and travelling was then professional
in many trades. The tiler, the slater, the mason, and the finer carpenter
(who made furniture) were migratory. [Hist. I. 234-5 ]. Of a period a
little later, Prof. Rogers says, " Labor travelled in those days (1530-
1620) as freely as now ; indeed, in the account books of Elizabeth, we
find that mechanics for Greenwich and the Tower are procured from
places as distant as Cardiff, Dorchester, Brighton, Bristol and Bridge-
water." [Statistical Journal, xxiv. 548.]
The practice of travelling or " wandering " as it is called, which has
come down from this period, still prevails extensively in Germany
among the younger journeymen (" Herbergen") see Mr. Petre's report
on the condition of the industrial classes, 1870, p. 56. The ease with
which the German artisans are " metamorphosed into Frenchmen,
Englishmen, Italians, Americans or Turks " (Mr. Strachey, Ibid p. 507)
has doubtless contributed to the freedom of their movement. Not
less than 8,000 German workmen were reported at Mulhouse before
the war of 1870.
Consul Wilkinson reports that the settled population of the province
of Macedonia is augmented in winter by five or six thousand itiner-
ant artisans who quit their native mountains in central Albania, and
distribute themselves over the province in quest of employment, [ibid
p. 248]. M. Ducarre's report to the French assembly of 1875, notes th
considerable proportions of the annual migration from Italy into Cor
sica. [p. 247.]
8 Pol. Econ. p. 167.
188 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But while, in modification of the assumption of the
complete mobility of population under economical im-
pulses, we find such great and permanent differences
in the remuneration of labor in neighboring districts, if
we look to the condition of the lowest order of laborers in
many European countries, we shall see reason not to
assert many and large exceptions to the rule of mobility,
but to deny the validity of the rule altogether. If we
consider the population of the more squalid sections of
any city, we can only conclude that, contrary to the
assumption of the economists, the more miserable men are,
the less and not the more likely they are to seek and find a
better place in society and industry. Their poverty,
their ignorance, their superstitious fears and, perhaps
more than all, the apathy that comes with a broken
spirit, bind them in their place and to their fate. To
apply to human beings in their condition, maxims derived
from the contemplation of the Economic Man, is little
less than preposterous. Such populations do not migrate ;
they abide in their lot ; sinking lower in helplessness,
hopelessness and squalor; economic forces have not the
slightest virtue either to give them higher wages, or to
make them deserving of higher wages.
2d. I have spoken of change of location as a means of
restoring the due relations of population and industry
which have, as has been shown, an incessant tendency
to grow apart. Let us now consider the change of occu-
pation, within the same locality, as a second means to
that end. Not only may the industry of different places
or sections develop with great irregularity relatively to
their respective populations ; but in any place or section
the proportions borne by the several branches of industry
are liable to frequent and extensive alterations, from the
effects of changing fashions, from the exhaustion of the
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 199
materials which have formed the basis of production,
from the invention or discovery of substitutes, or from the
growth of other habits of living in the community. In-
deed, as between the two great divisions, agriculture
and manufactures, there is not only a constant tendency
to change, but there is the highest improbability of the
proportions long remaining the same, the reason being the
more rapid and extensive introduction of machinery, and
the more minute subdivision of work in the latter than in
the former department.
Again, as between any two mechanical pursuits, the
demand for labor is likely to be differently affected by
change of fashion, by the application of new arts and
the discovery of new resources. Thus, to consider a
single cause, the productive power of a hundred hands
engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes was in-
creased thirty per cent by the introduction of special
machinery between 1860 and 1870. This is by no means
an extreme example. The wholesale discharges of
laborers from employment in the textile manufactures
during the last quarter of the last century and the first
quarter of the present, as the result of the successive inven-
tions and improvements of machinery, required a readjust-
ment of population to industry which amounted almost
to a continuous revolution. In a greater or less degree,
the need of such readjustment is constantly pressing upon
labor, and if it fails to be effected or is effected partially
and tardily, there will be a loss to labor, a two-fold loss,
first, in that the laboring class will miss, in whole or part,
the advantages of the opening employment, and second,
in that the body of laborers remaining in the crowded
occupations will trample each other down in their in-
dividual eagerness to obtain work and wages, with all the
consequences in the degradation of labor, which have been
depicted in Chap. IY.
A similar result may be brought about by changes in
i90 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the comparative demand for the products of the severa
branches of manufactures. These changes are literally in
cessant, sometimes amounting only to a temporary quick-
ening of production in some, and corresponding dullness
in other departments : sometimes amounting to the slow
decay or even to the sudden destruction of industries
\vhich have engaged large bodies of workmen. In in-
stances of the former sort, the laborers concerned in depart-
ments which suffer depression, simply hold on, in expecta-
tion of returning demand and reviving business ; while if
certain branches of manufactures are peculiarly liable to
such disturbances, that fact comes to be reckoned among
the considerations 1 which determine the real, as contrasted
with the nominal rate of wages therein.
O
But not infrequently such change of demand exhibits a
persistency which brings to the body of laborers tradition-
ally engaged in these industries the choice of encountering
a general failure of employment, bringing them sooner or
later to the condition of hopeless pauperism, or of seeking
in some other department of industry, perhaps in some
other land, the means of supporting themselves and their
families.
But while the irregular growth of different branches
of industry would thus require a frequent readjustment of
labor, if we assumed an equable growth of the populations
which furnish the natural supply of such branches of indus-
try, severally, there is the possibility of a further and more
urgent need of a readjustment arising out of the irregular
growth of the latter.
By the population which furnishes the natural supply
of labor in each branch of industry, I mean, simply, the
offspring of families engaged therein. It will not be ques-
tioned that there is at least a strong tendency within each
trade to supply its own labor by its own increase. That
tendency may, according to circumstances and character,
1 See p. 26.
TEE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 191
be slight^ or it may be very strong, or almost irresistible.
It differs from some of the asserted tendencies on which
we have had occasion to comment, in that it is a real and
not an ideal tendency : all the weaknesses of human nature
minister to make it powerful and effective. Now, there
being an admitted disposition of children to settle down
in their parents' occupation, the need of a readjustment of
labor, which can only be effected through positive efforts
and sacrifices, becomes greater on account of the irregular-
ity in the natural increase of population within the dif-
ferent branches of industry, which is wholly additional to
the irregularity in the growth of those branches them-
selves, viewed as furnishing employment to laborers. The
rate of effective increase varies greatly within each such
natural population, through differences both in the aver-
age number of children to a family and in the proportion
of children who survive infancy. 1 In agriculture, for
instance, the social and vital conditions of the occupation
encourage births, while pure air and food give the chil-
dren born on the farm a better chance of life. On the
other hand, in some occupations, domestic increase is
almost practically forbidden. Occupations range all the
way between these extremes, in this respect of their nat-
ural supply of labor. Thus the census of Scotland, 1871,
shows that there are 177 dependents to 100 bread-win-
1 It is not merely by differences in the birth-rate and in the death-
rate of these natural labor-populations, that the supply of labor ia
made to vary. The census of Scotland quoted above, shows that the
proportion of males born varies greatly in the different occupations.
Thus, among the workers in chemicals there are but 85.2 males to IOC
female children under five years of age; among operatives in silk
factories, there are 93.9, in cotton -factories, 95.3, in woolen factories
97.8 ; while among the agricultural population there are 105.2, among
fishermen, 107.5, among general out-door laborers, 106.6, among quarry-
inen and brickmakers, 107.8, and among rail way laborers and navvies,
117.1. See Report, p. 44. Of course the greater the jroportional
number of males, the greater the supply of effective labor.
192 THE WAGES QUESTION.
ners within the agricultural class, while there are but 122
dependents to 100 bread-winners within the manufactuK-
ing class. 1 Doubtless, some portion of this relative defi-
ciency in the manufacturing class is due to the larger oppor-
tunity for the employment of children productively in
mechanical industry ; but doubtless, also, a considerable
remainder testifies to the superior fecundity of the agricul-
tural population, and the greater vitality of children bred
in the country.
Such being the occasion for a frequent readjustment of
population within the several occupations, arising from
great irregularity of growth in both population and indus-
try, how far is labor able to respond to such economical
necessities ?
Adam Smith's treatment of this subject constitutes one
of the most extraordinary phenomena of economical lite-
rature. No man has dwelt more strongly than he on the
difficulties which embarrass and delay the movement of
laborers from place to place. It is his own phrase that
man is " of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be
transported." He saw in his own little island the wages
of common, unskilled laborers ranging from eighteen pence
to eight pence a day, while in the islands, just a bit smaller,
to the west, he saw them lower by from twenty to forty
per cent; he saw " a few miles distance," make a difference
in the remuneration of the same sort of labor of " a fourth
or a fifth part ; " he knew that such differences had existed
for generations without any adequate movement of labor,
new causes continually creating divergence faster than
population could close up the intervals ; and he exclaimed
that a difference of prices which proved insufficient to
carry a man to the next parish would be enough to carry
the most bulky commodities " from one end of the king-
dom, almost from one end of the world, to the other."
1 Beport, p. 42.
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 193
Yet the same philosopher, a few pages on, treats the dif-
ferences which appear in the remuneration of the different
occupations as either imaginary or else transient. It is
thus he writes : " The whole of the advantages and disad-
vantages of the different employments of labor and stock
must, in the same neighborhood, be either perfectly equal
or continually tending to equality. If in the same neigh-
borhood there was any employment evidently either more
or less advantageous than the* rest, so many people would
crowd into it, in the one case, and so many would desert it,
in the other, that its advantages would soon return to the
level of other employments. This, at least, would be the
case in a society where things were left to follow their
natural course." 1
It would almost seem as though Dr. Smith deemed the
obstacles which beset the movement of laborers from place
to place, to be physical merely, and, since no physical
difficulties stand in the way of a change of occupation by
the laborer while remaining in the same place, he saw no
important, no note- worthy, obstacles to the free movement
of labor from employment to employment. But if the
obstacles which beset migration were physical merely, man,
instead of being " of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult
to be transported," would, with his own consent, be the
easiest to be transported. It is because the difficulties
which beset migration are, after all, mainly moral, that
the statement quoted above is true.
Economists writing since Adam Smith's time have gen-
erally followed his lead in regarding the obstacles which
hinder the movement of laborers within the several
branches of industry as of little or no account. Some
exceptions appear, but as Prof. Cairnes remarks, it is
commonly assumed in treatises of political economy that
between occupations, as between localities, in the same
> Wealth of Nations i, pp. 103-4
194 THE WAGES QUESTION.
country, the freedom of movement, for labor or for capi-
tal, is perfect. 1 In 1874, however, that eminent economist
brought forward his theory of " Non-Competing Groups "
in industry, a contribution of so much importance that I
insert his statement substantially entire. The form of
Prof. Cairn es' opening is due to the fact that he is reply-
ing to a " school of reasoners " of whom Mr. F. D. Longe
was, we may assume, the individual most conspicuously
in his view at the time, who hold the movement of labor as
between occupations to be practically nil.
" Granted, that labor once engaged in a particular occu-
pation is practically committed to that species of occupa-
tion, all labor is not thus engaged and committed. A
young generation is constantly coming forward, whose
capabilities may be regarded as still in disposable form.
. . . The young persons composing this body, or others
interested in their welfare, are eagerly watching the pros-
pects of industry in its several branches, and will not be
slow to turn toward the pursuits that promise the largest
rewards. . . . On the other hand, while fresh labor is
coming on the scene, worn-out labor is passing off;
and the departments of industry in which remunera-
tion has from any cause fallen below the average level,
ceasing to be recruited, the numbers of those employed
in them will quickly decline, until supply is brought
within the limits of demand, and remuneration is restored
to its just proportions. In this way, then, in the case of
labor as in that of capital, the conditions for an effective
competition exist, notwithstanding the practical difficulties
in the way of transferring labor, once trained to a particu-
lar occupation, to new pursuits. But as I have already in-
timated, the conditions are, in this case, realized only in an
imperfect manner. . . Each individual laborer can only
choose his employment within certain tolerably well-defined
limits. These limits are the limits set by the qualifica-
1 Some Leadiug Principles, etc., p. 362.
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 195
tions required for each branch of trade, and the amount of
preparation necessary for their acquisition. Take an indi-
vidual workman whose occupation is still undetermined,
he will, according to circumstances, have a narrower or
wider field of choice ; but in no case will this be co-exten-
sive with the entire range of domestic industry. If he
belongs to the class of agricultural laborers, all forms of
mere unskilled labor are open to him> but beyond this he
is practically shut out from competition. The barrier is
his social position and circumstances which render his
education defective, while his means are too narrow to
allow of his repairing the defect, or of deferring the return
upon his industry, till he has qualified himself for a skilled
occupation. Mounting a step higher in the industrial
scale to the artisan class, including with them the class
of small dealers whose pecuniary position is much upon a
par with artisans here also within certain limits there is
complete freedom of choice ; but beyond a certain range,
practical exclusion. The man who is brought up to be
an ordinary carpenter, mason, or smith, may go to any of
these callings, or a hundred more, according as his taste
prompts, or the prospect of remuneration attracts him ;
but practically he has no power to compete in those higher
departments of skilled labor for which a more elaborate
education and larger training are necessary, for example,
mechanical engineering. Ascend a step higher still, and
we find ourselves again in the presence of similar limita-
tions ; we encounter persons competent to take part in any
of the higher skilled industries, but practically excluded
from the professions.
" It is true indeed that in none of these cases is the
exclusion absolute. The limits imposed are not such as
may not be overcome by extraordinary energy, self-denial
and enterprise; 1 and by virtue of these qualities indi-
1 " The founder of the cotton manufacture was a barber. The inven-
tor of the power loom was a clergyman. A farmer devised the appli-
196 THE WAGES QUESTION.
viduals in all classes are escaping every day from the
bounds of their original position and forcing their way
into the ranks of those who stand above them. All this
is no doubt true. But such exceptional phenomena do
not affect the substantial truth of our position. What we
find, in effect is, not a whole population competing indis-
criminately for all occupations, but a series of industrial
layers superimposed on one another, within each of which
the various candidates for employment possess a real and
effective power of selection, while those occupying the
several strata are, for all purposes of effective competition,
practically isolated from each other. 1
The consequences economically of this practical isola-
tion of large industrial groups, must, on the first state-
ment, strike the mind of the reader as very important and
far-reaching. If this isolation exists, then there is not a
tendency, through the operation of economical causes
alone, to the equalization primarily of wages throughout
the several groups : and, derivatively, of the prices of the
corresponding products of such groups. Prof. Cairnes
does not flinch from carrying his theory to its proper con-
sequences. Citing Mr. John S. Mill's law of Internationa]
Values, 2 he declares that this doctrine is manifestly appli-
cation of the screw-propeller. A fancy-goods shopkeeper is one of the
most enterprising experimentalists in agriculture. The most remark-
able architectural design of our day has been furnished by a gardener.
The first person who supplied London with water was a goldsmith.
The first extensive maker of English roads was a blind man, bred to
no trade. The father of English inland navigation was a duke, and
his engineer was a millwright. The first great builder of iron bridges
was a stone mason, and the greatest railway engineer commenced his
life as a colliery engineer." Hearn's Plutology, p. 279.
1 Some Leading Principles, etc., pp. 70-3.
8 " That doctrine may be thus briefly stated : International values are
governed by the reciprocal demand of commercial countries for each
other's productions, or more precisely, by the demand of each country
for the productions of all other countries as against the demand of al]
other countries for what it produces. . . Whatever be the exchang
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 197
cable to all cases in which groups of producers, excluded
from reciprocal industrial competition, exchange their
products. Such cases, as I have shown, occur in domestic
trade, in the exchanges between those non-competing in-
dustrial groups of which I have spoken." As applied to
such groups, the law formulated by Mr. Mill would leave
the average relative level of prices within each group to
be determined by the reciprocal demand of the groups ;
or, to abandon technical language, we have the result of
large groups, each of which is left to meet its industrial
fate by itself, without sharing in the advantages of other
groups, or contributing to their welfare out of its own
abundance ; a condition in which it can no longer be
claimed that if one group be exceptionally prosperous,
labor will flow into it from the outside, till the rate of
wages therein is reduced to an assumed general average,
and vice versa. What then, becomes of the Economic
Harmonies, and of the assumption that the " Laws of
Trade " only need to be left to their unimpeded operation to
bring out the best good of the whole industrial community ?
Is this doctrine, bringing with it such vast consequences,
true ? I answer, there is, in my judgment, a great deal of
truth in it, otherwise I should not be justified in having
introduced it at such length ; but that it will be finally ac-
cepted in the form in which Prof. Cairn es left it, I do not
believe, though it is not unlikely that his statement, over-
strained as it is, will compel the attention of economists to
considerations of real importance heretofore overlooked,
or avoided on account of their difficulty, more effectually
even than a more measured statement would have done.
Certainly after so emphatic an utterance, by an economist
ing proportions or, let us say, whatever be the state of relative prices
in different countries, which is requisite to secure this result, those
exchanging proportions, that state of relative prices, will become
normal will furnish the central point toward which the fluctuations
of international prices will gravitate." "Some Leading Principles,
etc." pp. 99, 100.
.98 THE WAGES QUESTION.
60 distinguished, writers in economics can hardiy continue
to assume a perfect freedom of movement on the part
of labor, as between localities and occupations within any
country, an assumption as mischievous as it is false.
Instead of asserting, as Prof. Cairnes has done, the prac-
tical isolation of certain great groups, with entire freedom
of movement within these groups, I believe that a fuller
study of industrial society will establish the conviction
that nowhere is mobility perfect, theoretically or even
practically, and nowhere is there entire immobility of
labor ; that all classes and conditions of men are apprecia-
bly affected by the force of competition ; but that, on the
other hand, the force of competition, which nowhere be-
comes nil, even for practical purposes, ranges from a very
high to a very low degree of efficiency, according to
national temperament, according to peculiarities of per-
sonal character and circumstance, according to the laws
and institutions of the community, and according to natu-
ral or geographical influences.
And first, briefly, of the assumed isolation of certain
great groups, as of skilled or unskilled labor. Here Prof.
Cairnes asserts that not only will adult laborers, once
engaged in unskilled occupations, not go up into skilled
occupations in any appreciable numbers ; but that the
transfer will not take place in the next generation, by the
passing of the children of unskilled laborers into skilled
occupations, to an extent which will practically affect, in
any appreciable degree, the numbers of the class into
which or out of which, such children, if any, shall go.
It cannot be denied that there is a strong constraint,
made up of both moral and physical forces, which keeps
the vast majority of children not only within the great in-
dustrial group into which they were born, but even with-
in the very trades which their fathers individually pursue.
I shall have occasion hereafter to dwell on this as of great
importance in the philosophy of wages. But that this
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 199
constraint is so powerful and unremitting that those who
escape are so few as not in any appreciable degree to re-
lieve the class which they leave or to influence the class
into which they thus enter, I must doubt. It is not so in
the United States, in Canada, in Australia. I seriously
doubt whether it is so in Germany, with its universal pri-
mary instruction for the young and its admirable system
of technical education. It surely is not so in Scotland.
If Prof. Cairn es' generalization remains sound for his
own country, it is still true that the humblest English
laborer has only to emigrate to the United States, as tens
of thousands do every year, in order to place his children
in a situation where they can pass into a higher industrial
group, not by the display of " extraordinary energy, self-
denial and enterprise," but by the exercise of ordinary
social and industrial virtues.
On the other hand, how is it with the assumed free-
dom of movement within the industrial groups which
Prof. Cairnes has in view ? Let us recur to his own state-
ment of the case. He does not claim that laborers who
have once become engaged in any occupation are practi-
cally free to leave it for any other which may seem more
remunerative. He admits, perhaps too fully if we have
regard to the United States, Canada, and Australia, that
the mass of laborers are held in their place and lot by a
constraint from which it is practically beyond their power
to escape. But he does claim that the rising generation
of laborers furnishes a disposable force a disposable fund,
he terms it which can be and will be directed freely
within the great groups he defines, according " as remu-
neration may tempt, in various directions. The young
persons composing this body, or others interested in thei?
welfare, are eagerly watching the prospects of industry in
its several branches, and will not be slow to turn towards
the pursuits that promise the largest rewards." 1
1 Some Leading Principles, etc., p. 69.
200 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Now let it for the moment be granted that Prof. Cairaes'
proposition is true to the full extent, how far does the
mobility thus given to labor answer the requirements of
the case ? Reference to tables of vital statistics will show
that the number of persons annually arriving at the age of
twenty is from two and a half to three per cent of the
population twenty years of age and upwards. This then is
the extent of this "disposable fund." Now in Chap. IY.
we have sought to show how serious often is the evil effect
upon those elements of character which go to make up the
efficienc}^ of labor, of even a brief failure of employment ;
how almost certainly extensive mischief results from
" hard times " protracted through months and years ;
how easily and quickly harm is done ; how slowly and
painfully industrial character is built up again. In view
of such possibilities of disaster, always imminent from the
very nature of modern industry, the question becomes one
of great importance, whether this " disposable fund,"
which Prof. Cairnes adduces, is large enough for its
purpose, whether it secures the needed mobility of labor.
But before finally answering this inquiry, let us ask
whether Prof. Cairnes is justified by the facts in assuming
that the whole of the rising generation of laborers is thus
disposable, " fulfilling the same function in relation to the
general labor force of the country which capital, while
yet existing as purchasing power, discharges in its rela-
tion to its general capital ? "
One would not lightly speak in terms of ridicule of any-
thing which Prof. Cairnes has written ; yet there is some-
thing ludicrous in the picture which his words suggest of
a weaver, with half a dozen children and fifteen shillings a
week, earnestly pondering the question, to which of the
various trades of the group to which he belongs he shall
devote the opening talents of his nine-year-old boy, now
just able to earn three-pence a day in the mill ; or of pro-
tracted and frequently adjourned family councils in which
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 201
poor Hodge, his wife and eldest daughter, discuss the indus-
trial capabilities of the younger members of the family, and
the comparative inducements of the several hundred manual
occupations recognized in the tables of the census. The
picture is ludicrous only because the truth of the case is so
pitifully the other way. We know that mill owners are
harassed with applications from their hands to take chil-
dren into employment on almost any terms, and that the
consciences of employers have required to be rein-
forced by the sternest prohibitions and penalties of the law
to save children ten, seven, or four years old, from the
horrors of " sweating dens " and crowded factories, since
the more miserable the parents' condition, the greater
becomes the pressure on them to crowd their children
somehow, somewhere, into service; the scantier the re-
muneration of their present employment, the less becomes
their ability to secure promising openings, or to obtain,
favor from outside for the better disposition of their off-
spring. Once in the mill, we know how little chance there
is of the children afterwards taking up for themselves an-
other way of life.
We know, too, that in the agricultural districts of Eng-
land, gangs of children of all ages, from sixteen down to
ten or even five years, have been formed, and driven from
farm to farm, and from parish to parish, to work all day
under strange overseers, and to sleep at night in barns
huddled all together, without distinction of sex. We
know that the system of public gangs required an act of
parliament ten years ago, to break it up, and we have the
testimony of the commissioners of 1867, that, in spite of
the law, it is still continued in some parts of the king-
dom ; while the system of private gangs, 1 only less shock-
1 ' Even sometimes as many as eighty or one hundred may be taken
from a neighboring town to one farm." Report- of E. B. Portman, asst.
comm'r., Employment of women and children, 1867-8, p. 95. " At
present, parents solicit employers to take children into service often
203 THE WAGES QUESTION.
ing to contemplate, is still continued without rebuke of
law. Surely, such facts as these are not consistent with
the assumption that the comparative merits of a large
number of occupations constituting a " competing group "
are carefully and intelligent^ canvassed by parents, anx-
ious for the highest ultimate good of their offspring, and
willing and able to take advantage of opportunities afforded
in branches of industry strange to them and perhaps pros-
ecuted at a distance. So late as 1870, children were
employed in the brickyards of England, under strange task-
masters, at three and a half years of age. 1 Account is
given us, sickening in its details, of a boy weighing
fifty-two pounds, carrying on his head a load of clay
weighing forty-three pounds, seven miles a day, and walk
ing another seven to the place where his burden was to
be assumed. Perhaps his mother was eagerly "watching
the prospects of industry in its several branches," with a
view to selecting a thoroughly agreeable, remunerative,
and at the same time improving occupation, where he
could at once earn a handsome living and secure oppor-
tunities for the harmonious development of his physical,
intellectual and spiritual faculties, but I scarcely think it.
John Allinsworth tells Mr. White, Asst. Commissioner,
how he and his son, aged nine years, earn their daily
bread. " Work in the furnace. Last Saturday morning
we began at two. We had slept in the furnace, being
strangers to the town. We live at Wadsley, four or five
miles off. We have to be here by six A. M. It is a long
way for the boy to come and go back each day, though I
can manage it. I should like to get someplace in the town
for him to stay in." 2 !Nbw there is a father who is looking
BO young as to be worthless." Ibid. p. 97. " In Cambridgeshire, the
children go out to work as young as six years old, many at seven 01
eight." Ibid, p. 95. cf. pp. 12, 15, note.
1 Social Science Transactions, 1874, p. 4.
8 Report of 1865, p. 13.
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 203
out for his son, according to Prof. Cairnes' assumption 3
yet Mr. Commissioner White would probably, from his
large experience, give heavy odds that John Allinsworth's
little son, aged nine, will be found twenty years from this,
if still alive, working in the furnace, perhaps sleeping in it,
stunted and blighted, the father of a nine-years-old boy,
for whom he too, " would like " to get a better place to
work and sleep.
I have not called up such pictures of human misery with
the object of exciting compassion, much less with a view to
obtain an advantage in controversy, but to show graphically
the error of Prof. Cairnes' assumption that parents who are
tied down hopelessly to an occupation which affords but
the barest subsistence can freely dispose of their children
to the best advantage among a large class of occupations.
Especially when we consider that, in the development of
modern industry, trades become highly localized, entire
towns and cities being given up to a single branch of
manufacture, shall we see the practical fallacy of this
assumption. Even if we suppose the parent to be advised
of better opportunities for employment opening in some
trade prosecuted at a distance, and to be pecuniarily able
to send his child thither and secure him a position, yet,
years before the boy or girl would be fit to send away from
home, the chance of earning a few pence in the mill where
the parent works would almost irresistibly have drawn the
child into the vortex.
May we not then question Prof. Cairnes' assumption that
the children of the working classes constitute " a disposa-
ble fund " to be distributed to the highest advantage of
labor among those occupations which at the time are most
remunerative ? The truth is, that until you secure mobility
to adult labor you will fail to find it in the rising genera-
tion, and that among an ignorant and degraded population
four-fifths, perhaps nine-tenths, of all children, by what
may be called a moral necessity, follow the occupations of
204 THE WAGES QUESTION.
their parents, or those with whom their fortune h^,s placed
them. The great exception is that which Prof. Fawcett
has indicated, 1 that of the children of agricultural laborers
in the immediate vicinity of flourishing manufactories.
We have now reached a position where we can judge of
the adequacy of the force which Prof. Cairnes invokes to
secure to labor its needed mobility, and we must pronounce
it wholly insufficient. Even were the whole mass of
labor coming each year into market to be reckoned as
"disposable" in the sense in which he uses the term, it
would yet sometimes fall short of effecting that redistribu-
tion which is required by changes which, as we have seen
not infrequently amount in a few years almost to a revo-
lution of industry ; but when we consider how partial and
doubtful is the mobility thus claimed for the rising gen-
eration of laborers, we are constrained to say that unless
more can be adduced than Prof. Cairnes has shown,
the freedom of movement within industrial groups which
he has claimed to be practically perfect, is in truth very
inadequate to effect that object of supreme importance to
labor the free and quick resort to the best market.
But it may be asked, is not the ubiquity of the " tramp "
a proof that you have over-estimated the difficulty which
besets the movement of labor ? Is there not a large adult
population which is constantly shifting its place, here to-
day and there to-morrow ? What more could you ask ?
I answer, there is no more virtue to relieve the pres-
sure upon honest self-respecting labor in the forces which
direct the movement of the " tramp," than there is of vir-
tue to save men from drowning in the forces which bring
a human body to the surface after a certain period of putre-
faction. The body comes up, indeed, but only when
1 " An agricultural laborer is not suddenly converted into a cotton
weaver. Sucli a transition rarely takes place ; but if there is a manu-
factory close at hand many of the children of the agricultural laborers
will be employed therein." Pol. Econ., p. 170.
THE MOBILITY OF LABOR. 205
swollen and discolored by the processes of corruption ;
and so the laborer, who has lost his hopefulness and self-
respect and become industrially degraded, whether by
bad habits for which he is primarily in fault, or by the
force of causes he had no strength to resist, wanders about
the country begging his food and stealing his lodgings aa
he can ; but his freedom, thus obtained by being loosed
from all ties to social and domestic life, does not so much
relieve labor as it curses the whole community, rich and
poor alike.
CHAPTER XII.
THE WAGES CLASS.
IT has been said that, by most systematic writers on
political economy, the wages class is taken as coincident
with the labor class. In the opening chapter I briefly
indicated five important classes thus brought together
under a single title. In the present chapter it is proposed
to show that of the five, but two can with any propriety
be said to receive wages; and of these two, it is proposed,
though not with the same degree of assurance, to exclude
one, leaving but a single class as really the recipient of
wages. It is hoped that, by strictly defining the wages
class, and setting the other classes thus distinguished in
their true relations to it, something may be added to the
understanding of the law of wages.
To begin : The wages class includes only the employed.
It is not necessary to spend time in proving that by
etymology, at once, and popular usage, the word is re-
stricted to the remuneration paid by one person to another.
Those who give the word a wider significance in political
economy are bound to justify themselves in doing so, by
showing that something is gained, in clearness, thereby.
But my reason for desiring to confine the word as has
been proposed, in a treatise on wages, is better than a
linguistic one. It is that the very object of the inquiry is
to ascertain the laws which govern the condition of those
persona who, having no command of the agencies and in-
strumentalities of production, are obliged to seek employ-
THE WAGES CLASS. 207
ment and the means of subsistence at the hands of others.
It is the condition of this class that the philanthropist is
especially interested in, because this is preeminently the
dependent class. The economist should be equally inter-
ested because just here comes the real strain in the distri-
bution of the products of industry. How, for example,
if we group employer and employed in one great " wages"
class, can we properly reach the subjects of strikes and
trades unions? Are we not, most unnecessarily and in
most undeserved contempt of popular speech, slurring over
and obliterating the natural and obvious distinction which
points us the way to the right discussion of some of the
most important questions of distribution, when we speak
of the wages of a cotton manufacturer ; wages stipulated
by no one, due from no one, and, if paid at all, paid by
the accidental consumer of the product?
If employers do not belong in the wages class, no more
do those who are neither employers nor employed ; who
having command of the agencies and instrumentalities of
production sufficient for their own labor, take a most im-
portant part, indeed, in the production of wealth ; but, own-
ing the entire product, have no concern whatever with the
distribution of wealth, and hence nothing to do with wages.
We thus exclude the whole body of peasant proprietors,
who in many countries constitute the bulk of the popula-
tion, and are, taking the whole world together, undoubt-
edly more numerous than any other single class which we
shall have occasion to characterize. These persons, culti-
vating their own land with their own labor only, or per-
haps with that of their wives and minor children (having
no separate rights or interests recognized by the law of the
land, and hence capable of making no demand, as laborers,
for any portion of the product), create in the aggregate a
vast amount of wealth, but it is wealth not distributed.
Each such peasant proprietor owns the entire product of
his land (subject only to the claims of the government for
208 THE WAGES QUESTION.
contribution, which claims, being legal and not economica
in their nature, cannot be recognized in an economical
treatise), to be consumed for the subsistence of himself
and family and the increase of his own stock, or to be
exchanged at his pleasure for the products of others.
Such wealth, therefore, is not subject to distribution, and
hence we clearly must exclude this body of laborers from
the wages class.
In England the peasant proprietor does not exist.
Forty years ago Prof. Jones 1 wrote " In parts of England
and Wales, though the race is fast vanishing, there may
be seen specimens of our first division of laborers, unhired
by any one, occupiers of the soil, tilling it with their own
hands." a
The "specimens" have by this time all disappeared
except possibly from Westmoreland and Cumberland, coun-
ties characterized by comparatively small estates. But
while the condition of large landed properties, cultivated
by hired agricultural laKorers, is almost universal in Eng-
land and Scotland, one cannot cross the narrow seas in
any direction without coming upon a condition very
different. 3 To the west, Ireland furnishes an example of
which we shall speak in connection with another class of
producers ; while, before one reaches the coast of France,
he finds in the " Channel Islands," a part of the British
empire but retaining their own laws regulating the descent
of landed property, a body of peasant proprietors who
have furnished the advocates of that system of cultivation
with some of their most valued illustrations. In France
1 " Whose Essay on the distribution of Wealth (or rather Rent) is a
copious repertory of valuable facts on the landed tenure of different
countries." J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. 297.
Pol. Econ., p. 15.
8 " You have no other peasantry like that of England. You have no
other country in which it is entirely divorced from the land. There ia
BO other country in the world where you will not find men turning
up the furrow in their own freehold." Cobden, Speeches, II, 116.
THE WAGES CLASS. 209
the principle of " partible succession," introduced by the
[Revolution, has created a vast number of small properties,
estimated at between four and five and a half millions.
" In Germany a revolution of the same nature, though
not of the same magnitude, has been effected in a more
regular manner. The benefits of landed property have
been imparted progressively to a numerous and prosperous
class of cultivators by the abolition of feudal superiorities,
by the restriction of entails and special destination of
property, by the deliberate division of estates between the
landlord and the occupier, on a basis, if not always equitable
to the former, at least patriotic in its motives and happy in
its results, and by the operation of rules of succession re-
producing in some instances and in others adopting with
various modifications, the maxims of the French Code. 4 "
In Italy, under the principle of partible succession,
somewhat modified, and through sale of church lands and
the dismemberment of feudal estates subject to commu-
nal rights ; and in Russia, through the emancipation of
the serfs and their investiture with portions of the estates
to which they formerly belonged, we have a large and
increasing portion of the soil cultivated by its owners,
working for themselves and by themselves, receiving the
whole produce of the soil, subject only to deduction
through taxation.
But it is not only the peasant proprietor of Europe, the
" farmer " of America, who must be excluded from the
wages class on the ground that he is not dependent on
another for employment. In the same class economically,
so far as the principles of distribution are concerned, are
large bodies of mechanical laborers, artisans, who having
possession of the agencies and instrumentalities of pro-
4 Address of Lord Napier and Ettrick. Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1879.
810 THE WAGES QUESTION.
duction, are enabled to produce wealth by their own
labor, without the consent of any person, the product
being all their own and hence not subject to distribution,
though presumably in great part exchanged for the pro-
ducts, especially the agricultural products, of others.
These persons, again, receive no wages, are not hired.
They are no more the employed than they are the em-
ployers ; indeed they are neither. Distribution has
nothing to do with them.
Adam Smith recognized this class. "It sometimes
happens," he says, " that a single independent workman
has stock enough both to purchase the materials of his
work and to maintain himself till it be completed. He is
both master and workman, and enjoys the whole produce
of his labor. 1
I do not, for the present, say that the condition of this
class is better or worse than that of the wages class, but
only that the two classes stand in different economical
relations, and should be treated separately. The self-em-
ployed laborer has still to seek his market, and if the mar-
ket fail him he may suffer or starve like the wage laborer ;
but it is a market for his product that he seeks, not for his
labor } and in the pregnant fact that he has possession of
the agencies and instrumentalities of production, and may
work in his place without the leave or help of any, is
found an abundant reason for preserving the distinction
expressed above.
Closely allied to the peasant proprietor in many respect
economically, though differing widely in others, and not
the less distinctly to be excluded from the wages class, are
those tenants, whether known as ryots in Asia or meta-
yers in Europe, who have, whether by law or by impera-
tive custom, a recognized right to the cultivation of soil
which they do not own, upon the payment of a fixed share
1 Wealth of Nations, I. 69.
THE WAGES CLASS. 211
of the produce. The wealth thus produced is, indeed, un-
like that produced by the classes previously described,
subject to distribution, inasmuch as the owner of the soil
is here entitled to participate in the results of the industry ;
but the tenant's share is still in no sense wages. He is not
of the employed class ; he is not dependent on the will
of another for the opportunity to labor ; he has a right to
work on that particular body of land and to enjoy the
fruits of his labor, subject only to the due payment of the
share of the product going to the landlord be the same
an individual or the state. And this is equally true whether
the right of the tenant to remain in occupancy is one fixed
by law, or only by a custom which is so distinct and im-
perative as to give a practical assurance of permanency.
And it is equally true whether the amount of rent be fixed
by law, or by a custom which the owner so far respects as
to put it out of his disposition to undertake to raise it. 1
The metayer system, under which the landowner re-
ceives a definite share of the produce, originally one-half,
as the term implies, but varying in present usage from
one-half to two-thirds, according to local law or custom,
once prevailed throughout the western division of Conti-
nental Europe, Italy, France, and Spain. 2 In France,
1 " In Tuscany," writes Sismondi, and the remark holds true of
most parts of Italy where the metayer system prevails, "public
opinion protects the cultivator. A proprietor would not dare to im-
pose conditions unusual in the country, and even in changing one
metayer for another he alters nothing of the rent."
" In this country (England) the cultivator of the soil and the owner
of the soil are, as a rule, different persons ; in other countries they are,
as a rule, the same; or where they are not the same the owner of the
eoil rather occupies the position of a perpetuallessor or mortgagee than
that of a landlord whose contracts with his tenants are constantly lia-
ble to revision." Prof. Rogers' Pol. Econ., p. 151.
2 Prof. Jones finds the origin of the metayer system of Western
Europe, in Greece, from which it was adopted by the Romans, and in-
troduced into Italy first, and France and Spain afterwards. Prof.
Rogers finds that the metayer system was introduced quite generally
12 THE WAGES QUESTION.
since the Revolution, it has been largely superseded by
peasant proprietorship ; and in Italy, since the unification
of the kingdom, the same process has been going on,
though more slowly. A large portion of the soil of these
three countries is, however, still cultivated under this
tenure.
The ryot system of Asia and Turkey in Europe is held
by some economists to be substantially equivalent to per-
sonal proprietorship ; by others to be the Oriental equiva-
lent of the metayer system, the taxes, varying from fifty
upwards to perhaps seventy per cent., which the govern-
ment levies on the produce, being regarded as virtually the
rent of the land. The question need not be discussed
here, for it is evident that, whichever way it might be
decided, the ryot is not a wage laborer.
In a very different economical position is the cottar ten-
ant, who is liable, on the expiry of his longer or shorter
lease, or at the will of the landlord in the absence of a
lease, to have his rent raised ; and on his inability to re-
sist or to satisfy such a demand, or even from the personal
prejudices or preferences of the landlord, to be ejected
from his occupancy ; yet we cannot designate his share
of the product of the soil, after deducting rent, by the
term wages. The condition of the cottar may be better
than that of the wage laborer, or it may easily be worse ;
but worse or better, it is certainly different, and results
from wholly different economical relations. As we go
forward the unfitness of such a designation, if, indeed,
there should be any question concerning it, will be made
to appear more clearly than could be done at present with-
into England after the great plague of 1348, and prevailed for about
sixty years, when it was " superseded by the growth of a hardy and
prosperous yeomanry, who either purchased the land in parcels, or
bargained to work it with their own capital, and at a money rent."
Pol. Econ., 168, 170. The fate of these yeomen in England has been
noticed.
THE WAGES CLASS. 21b
out an extensive excursion from the path of our discus-
sion ; but it will perhaps be sufficient at this point, waiv-
ing objections from etymology and popular use, to say that
it is of the essence of wages that they are at stipulated
rates, and therefore certain in amount, while the produce
of the cottar tenant is never certain, since nature decline?
to make any stipulation, and the quantity and quality ol
the crop must always remain, up to the moment of har-
vesting, a matter of conjecture.
The cottar tenancy is still very general in Ireland.
The soil is held in small quantities, 1 by the great body oi
the agricultural laboring population.*
We have thus far insisted that only the employed
shall be included in the wages class. Applying this test
of dependence on others for the opportunity to labor, we
have successively excluded several large bodies of laborers,
constituting in the aggregate the vast majority* of the hu-
man race. In respect to the production of most of these,
the principles of distribution do not apply. In contem-
plating their condition and prospects, we have only to
consider the law of production taken in connection with
the law of population. Masters of their own fate, econom-
ically, whether they shall be happy or miserable will
depend [assuming their own industry, frugality and sobri-
ety], first, upon their habits in respect to procreation ;
1 Of the 682,237 holdings in Ireland, 512,080 are of less value than
15. a year each, 527,000 are tenancies at will. Statistical Journal,
xxxiii, 152.
9 Day-laborers in agriculture were, until recently, almost unknown
in Ireland. They are now appearing in considerable numbers. Les-
lie's Land Systems, etc. p. 44.
8 " The unhired laborers who are peasant cultivators," according
to Prof. Jones, comprised in his day "probably two-thirds of the la-
boring population of the globe." Pol. Econ., p. 14,
2U THE WAGES Q UESTIOX.
second, upon the acts of their government, protecting them
or robbing them, as the case may be, with which political
economy has nothing to do ; and third, on the kindness
or unkindness of nature in affording sun and shower in
due order and proportion, and with this, again, political
economy has nothing to do.
We have applied the test of employment. We must
now apply other tests, still further to reduce the range of
our investigation.
First, we count out all those who, though em-
ployed, are employed on shares. It is, as has been said, of
the essence of wages, that they are stipulated in amount.
In the case of laborers working on shares, no definite
amount is stipulated ; but only the proportion of an uncer-
tain product which shall go to the laborer. His remunera-
tion, therefore, becomes greater with good luck and favor-
able weather, or smaller with the reverse. He shares with
the employer the risk of bad seasons and accidental loss ;
and is entitled to participate in all the advantage of every
fortunate venture. In other words, he is the partner of
his employer, dependent indeed, with no voice in the man-
agement, and perhaps on hard terms, but a partner still
in the distribution of the product; a condition which is
strongly contrasted with that of the wage-laborers proper,
who have their remuneration at fixed rates, receiving no
less if the business be unsuccessful (except in the rare and
not anticipated event of bankruptcy) ; and receiving no
more, however great the returns of the industry.
The class of hired laborers working on shares is not
large, but it is desirable that it should be clearly separated
and excluded from the wage class for scientific precision..
The share principle is applied somewhat extensively in.
mining, but its chief application is on the sea, where it
becomes of great importance to interest all hands in the
success of the enterprise. In fishing vessels and whalers
of almost all nationalities, and with the Greeks even in
THE WAGES CLASS. 215
the general merchant service, the crews take shares in the
venture.
Secondly, it is my view that another and a very large
body of laborers should be excluded from the wages clusa
in treating the questions of distribution, though the term
wages is applied, and with entire propriety, to the remu-
neration of this class of persons, and its exclusion may
not meet the general assent which I trust will be accorded
to the exclusions previously effected.
What, then, is the class thus to be excluded against
common usage ? It includes those persons who are defined,
by Prof. Jones 1 as paid, or supported, out of the revenues
of their employers. I deem the difference between this
class, which it is proposed throughout the further course
of this work to call the SALARY or STIPEND class, and that
which I shall call the WAGES class, to be not only sufficiently
clear to justify the economist in giving to the former a
distinctive name, but so important in its bearings on the
relation of persons of that class to their employers, and on
their claim to a share of distributed wealth, as to render it
imperative to treat them separately.
The domestic servant affords, perhaps, the best illustra-
tion, for present purposes, of the salary or stipend class.
He is not employed as a means to his master's profit. His
master's income is not due in any part to his employment;
on the contrary, that income is first acquired, or its acqui-
sition reasonably assured ; and in the amount of the in-
come is determined whether the servant shall be employed
or not, while to the full extent of that employment the
income is diminished. As Adam Smith expresses it, "a
man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufac-
turers ; he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of
menial servants.'' 2
Pol. Econ., p. 420.
Wealth of Nations, I, 332.
210 THE WAGES QUESTION.
The case ol the wage laborer is different. He is em-
ployed with a view to his master's profit ; the master's
income is the result of such employment of labor; and,
with the exercise of due judgment, that income will be
greater by reason of the employment, within the limits of
his productive capacity, of each additional man. " Though
the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his
master, he in reality costs him no expense, the whole
value of those wages being generally restored, together
with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon
which his labor is bestowed. But the maintenance of a
menial servant is never restored." l
The expectation of profits, be it observed, furnishes the
test for discriminating the wages class from the stipend or
salary class. It is not necessary that the profit expected
in the employment of persons of the former class should
always be realized ; nay, in a given case, actual loss may
result without changing the character of the service. But
unless the reason for the employment is found in the ex-
pectation of a profit to the employer out of the production
in which the laborer is to be engaged, we do not find in
such employment the true sign of the wages class. Hence
we may broadly say, No profits, no wages.
Let us recapitulate. "We have, first, excluded the em-
ploying class ; second, all who, having possession of the
agencies and instrumentalities of production, whether
agricultural or mechanical, are not dependent on others
for the opportunity to produce ; third, those who, though
not owning land, lease it, whether under the protection of
law or subject to all the hardships of competition. These
successive exclusions leave us the employed class, whether
in agriculture or manufactures. From this we further ex.
1 Wealth of Nations.
THE WAGES CLASS. 217
elude all who produce on shares, and all who are paid 01
subsisted out of the revenues of their employers. We
have left the wages class proper, including all persons who
are employed in production with a view to the profit of
their employers, and are paid at stipulated rates. This ia
the class whose economical position and interests it is pro-
posed here to discuss. "With such limitations as have been
imposed, the wages question is not of that wide interest
which is given to it when pretty much the whole human
race is brought within its scope ; but it may be that by this
limitation our inquiries will become more fruitful, i
But though the wage class includes but a fraction of
humanity, it is perhaps as large as can be comfortably
treated in a work of a single volume. Of the eighty mil-
lions of English-speaking people, three-fourths probably,
two-thirds certainly, subsist on wages.
It may be well here to anticipate a hostile criticism. It
may be said that we have made our analysis of the labor-
ing population an essential part of our theory of wages,
while yet, in fact, no inconsiderable number of persons
sustain economical relations which refuse to submit to such
a classification. Thus there are persons belonging alter-
nately to the wages and to the stipend class, now employed
for profit, now paid out of revenue. In like manner there
are persons in every community who are employed as
hired laborers during portions of the year, while at other
seasons they are engaged in production on their own ac-
count in their own shops or on their own small holdings
of land.
To this it may be replied that while the recognition of
" The (third) class of hired laborers, paid from capital, has so ex-
clusively met the eyes and occupied the thoughts of English writers
on wages, that it has led them into some serious and very unfor-
tunate mistakes as to the nature, extent, and formation of the funda
out of which the laboring population of the globe is fed, and, as usual,
they have misled foreign writers." R. Jones, Pol. Econ., p. 15
218 THE WAGES QUESTION.
vast bodies of undistributed wealth which are yet subject
to exchange, is here asserted to be necessary to a right
understanding of some of the phenomena of wages, the
validity of this position does not depend on the possibility
of an exact enumeration of the several classes defined.
On this point I cannot do better than quote from the
admirable chapter on Economic Definition, which Prof.
Cairnes, just before his lamented death, added to his treat
ise on the Logical Method of Political Economy.
" In controversies about definitions, nothing is more
common than to meet objections founded on the assump-
tion that the attribute on which a definition turns, ought to
be one which does not admit of degrees. This being
assumed, the objector goes on to show that the facts or
objects placed within the boundary line of some definition
to which objection is taken, cannot, in their extreme
instances be clearly discriminated from those which lie
without. Some equivocal example is then taken, and the
framer of the definition is challenged to say in which
category it is to be placed. 2sTow it seems to me that an
objection of this kind ignores the inevitable conditions
under which a scientific nomenclature is constructed, alike
in political economy and in all the positive sciences. In
such sciences, nomenclature, and therefore definition, is
based on classification, and to admit of degrees is the char-
acter of all natural facts. As has been said, there are no hard
lines in nature. Between the animal and vegetable king-
doms, for example, where is the line to be drawn ? . . .
It is, therefore, no valid objection to a classification, nor
consequently, to the definition founded upon it, that
instances may be found which fall, or seem to fall, on our
lines of demarcation. This is inevitable in the nature of
things. But this notwithstanding, the classification, and
therefore the definition, is a good one, if, in those instances
which do not fall on the line, the distinctions marked ly
the definition are such as it is important to mark, such
THE WAGES CLASS. 210
that the recognition of them will help the inquirer for
ward toward the desiderated goal." l
THE EXCHANGE OF DISTRIBUTED FOB UNDISTRIBUTED'
WEALTH.
Bur it may be asked, what avails it to show that the
wages classes, instead of being co-extensive with the labor
class, as is assumed in the current theories respecting
wages, is only a small fraction of it, communicating with
those other great masses of labor, only in the exchange of
its completed and marketed products ? How can this fact
bear on the question, whether wages may be increased
actually and permanently? Are not wages governed by
exactly the same principles as if the wages class constituted
the whole of the labor class, instead of one-fifth, one-sixth,
or one-seventh ?
I answer, in the first place, that if the wages class is
only a fraction of the labor class, that fact should be clearly
set forth in discussions of the wages question, and the
extent of the interests involved should be, as nearly as
possible, indicated. The reader has a right to know
whether the principles laid down govern the fortunes of
substantially the whole human race, or of only one-fifth or
one-seventh of it. The confusion of the labor question
with the wages question, is as unnecessary as it is unscien-
tific.
But secondly, I answer that the fact of the production
of a vast body of undistributed wealth, portions of which
are subject to exchange with distributed wealth, may, and
does, powerfully affect the condition of the wages class.
Let us discriminate. So far as undistributed wealth,
that is, wealth which is produced entire by one person, 3
1 Log. Meth. Pol. Econ. p. 139-141.
1 p. 4.
With the assistance, it may be, of his wife and minor children
whose labor is, in the eye of the law, his own.
220 THE WAGES QUESTION.
who owns the whole product, is not exchanged but is con-
sumed by the producer, as is the case with probably the
major part of such wealth, the world over, no effect on the
wages class can be wrought thereby. That wealth, being
neither distributed nor exchanged, neither its production
nor its consumption concerns other classes of producers.
But so far as undistributed wealth is exchanged against
distributed wealth, there is a distinct possibility, therein,
of gain or loss to the wages class.
It was remarked in our first chapter, that it is as truly
impossible to explain all the phenomena of wages, with-
out reference to this outside body of undistributed wealth,
as it would be to account for the Gulf Stream, without
reference to the colder waters between which, and over
which, it flows. We are now in a position to justify this
remark. We have seen (chap, x,) that the theory that all
burdens are divided and all benefits diffused equally
throughout industrial society, rests on the assumption of
perfect competition. Industrial society is taken, for the
purposes of this reasoning, as composed of economical atoms,
absolutely equivalent, possessing complete mobility and
elasticity. Given this condition, all that Bastiat has
claimed for the economical harmonies, is happily true.
The laborer and the employer feel the force of competition
equally, and neither has a natural advantage over the other.
The laborer feels the force of competition alike as seller of
labor and as buyer of commodities. Labor and capital
flow freely to their best market. The highest price which
any employer can afford to give will be the lowest which
any laborer will consent to receive; while, as between any
two departments of production, the advantages enjoyed by
the laborers, capitalists and employees engaged will be
absolutely equalized.
But, on the other hand, it is evident that the least vis-
cosity of material, the slightest idiosyncrasy of structure
musty in a degree, defer, if not entirely defeat^ the tend-
THE WAGES GLASS. 221
ency to the propagation, through economic media, of any
economic impulse. Just so far as men differ in their
industrial quality, or are diversely organized in natural
or artificial groups, just so far there is the possibility that
one person or class of persons may be disproportionately
affected by an economic force ; may receive more or receive
less of the benefit, may suffer less or suffer more of the
burden, than his or their just distributive share.
Now the division of the body of laborers into the
employed and the non-employed, or independent work-
men, is a great structural fact which cannot but profoundly
influence the propagation of economic impulses. Doubt-
less there are compensations in the condition of the wages
class; while nothing could exceed the misery of whole
nations of peasant proprietors or tenant occupiers, where
the government fails to render the protection to which the
subject is entitled, or where, as too often happens, the
government becomes the plunderer of the people. Yet,
through all, we discern in the fact that the wages class are
dependent on others for the opportunity and the means to
labor, not having, in their own right, possession of the
agencies and instrumentalities of production, the possibil-
ity of deep and lasting detriment.
I have already expressed the opinion, in criticism of
Prof. Cairnes' doctrine of non-competing groups, that com-
petition never becomes nil, for practical purposes. But let
us for the moment inquire what would be the effects, did
the employed and the non-employed constitute two great
non-competing groups ; that is, did not the employed ever
become an independent workman; or the independent
workman ever seek employment. We will also suppose
competition to be perfect within the employed class.
It is evident that upon these assumptions any economi-
cal impulse, for good or for evil, which should be experi-
enced anywhere in the latter class, would extend at once
and without loss through the whole body of the employed,
222 TEE WA GES Q UESTION.
that the burden would be divided or the benefit diffused
among the entire mass, action and reaction continuing un-
til equilibrium was everywhere restored. But this im-
pulse would not be propagated across the dividing line
between the employed and the non-employed. The econo-
mical movement would cease in this direction as abruptly
as a vein of gold stops at a new geologic formation. For
good or for evil, the non-employed would feel no econo-
mical sympathy with the employed. Each group would
meet its own fate, individually, by itself. Certain " ex-
changing proportions " would be established for the sur-
plus products of the two groups ; a scale of relative prices
would be reached by trade between them ; but so long as
labor was not free to flow across the line of demarcation
there would not be even a tendency to the equalization of
the wages of the employed to the average production of
the independent workman.
Now, as has been said, there is no such utter failure of
competition as is here assumed for the purposes of illustra-
tion. The employed do come, in greater or less degree, to
be independent workmen ; independent workmen do
come under employment. The facility with which these
interchanges are made depends much upon the nature of
special industries, much upon the character of the individ-
ual workman, much upon the state of legislation and the
social condition of the country. In some lands the move-
ment across the line dividing the employed and the non-
employed is very free, many laborers alternating between
their own little farms or shops, where they work for them-
selves by themselves, receiving all advantages and suffer
ing all losses, and the larger estates or factories where they
come under direction and control, and receive wages at
stipulated rates. In other lands the transition is slow and
painful ; in some it can scarcely be said to be effected at
all. 1 On the whole, it is notorious that interchanges be-
1 " No English agricultural laborer, in his most sanguine dreams
THE WAGES CLASS. 228
tween the two groups are comparatively rare ; the great
mass of the employed never have the choice whether they
will set up for themselves ; they abide in their lot and
share, because they have no resource, the fortune of their
class, be that good or evil. The division we have indi-
cated remains incontestibly the greatest structural fact in
modern industrial society, telling powerfully upon the
rate and direction in which economic impulses shall be
propagated.
If this be so, and I do not look to see it questioned by
any one, then there clearly is the possibility that one of
these groups may profit at the expense of the other, since
the only security which could exist for their sharing
equally the benefits and burdens of production would be
found in the unimpeded interchange of labor. "Which of
the two is more likely to be the gainer in the exchange of
its marketed products, whether it be the independent work-
man who has possession of the means and materials of
production, who can create wealth in his own name and
right, and has to ask no man's leave to labor, or the em-
ployed workman, will more clearly appear the further we
carry our discussion of the conditions of the wages class in
modern industrial society.
has the vision of occupying, still less of possessing, land." Rogers'
Hist, of Agr. and Prices, I, 693.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAPITALIST CLASS : RETURNS OF CAPITAL I RENT AND
INTEREST.
OF capital it is not necessary to discuss here either the
origin or the office. Many economists carefully exclude
land from the lists of capital. What Ricardo calls " the
original and indestructible 1 powers of the soil," not being
the creation of labor, and commanding, as they do, for
their possessor, an annual remuneration, over and above
the proper returns of labor (as determined by the yield of
the poorest soils under cultivation), are, these writers hold,
not in the nature of capital.
But whatever be the economical nature or the social
justification of rent, the facts that land almost everywhere
bears its price proportioned to this annual income ; that a
great part of all the land in possession to-day in civilized
countries was actually acquired by purchase, through the
payment of undoubted capital ; that this interchange of
fixed and circulating capital is constantly taking place, land
always practically having its price in denominations of
capital, capital surely commanding the use or fee of land ;
and finally that no small part, often by far the greatest
part, of the selling price of land represents, on any theory
of rent, the actual investment of capital merged indistin-
guishably with the original productive powers of the soil,
these facts justify me, I think, for all present purposes, in
embracing alike the proprietors of land and the owners of
1 Bicardo's theory of rent applies to land only as it is assumed to be
THE RETURNS OF CAPITAL. 225
other forms of wealth which may be used productively, in
one capital-class.
Capital, then, whether in land or in some other form, if
it be emploj^ed productively, yields a return to its owner
over and above the remuneration of the labor applied.
The laws which govern these returns of capital it is not
necessary to discuss here. My only concern with the
capital class is to define its membership and ascertain how
far that coincides with the membership of the employing
class.
But, first, a definition. When capital is employed re-
productively by the owner, the generic term, returns, suffi-
ciently describes the increase of production effected there-
by. When capital is employed by a person not the owner,
"returns" still describe the increased product; but the
special terms, rent and interest, come into use to charac-
terize the sums paid out of those returns to the owner. I
say " out of those returns," for commonly rent and interest
are something less than the amount by which the product
has been enhanced, otherwise it would not ordinarily be
worth the while to borrow and become responsible for the
capital so applied, though it may happen, and not infre-
quently does, that the desire of the borrower (I use the
term here generically, to include the occupier of land) to
relieve himself of dependence on an employer, by coming
into possession himself of the agencies and instrumentali-
ties of production, may lead him to pay more, as interest
or rent, than the returns of capital, measured by the ex-
cess of the product over the value of his labor expressed in
wages at current rates.
It seems to me best that the words rent and interest
should only be used where capital is actually leased or
loaned. There is, indeed, highly respectable authority for
unimproved. Differences of fertility wrought by actual applications
of capital, are to be compensated on tlie same principles as invest-
ments of equal safety and permanence.
225 THE WAGES QUESTION.
saying of a man cultivating his own land, that he pays
rent to himself, or of one using his own circulating capital,
that \\epays interest to himself. But it is better to avoid
all such strained uses of words which have a precise mean-
ing, by which they fill an important place in economical
terminology. Let the returns of capital remain the generic
term, while rent and interest are employed only with re-
epect to payments for capital actually leased or loaned.
Who, then, constitute the capital class ? Who receive
the returns of capital ?
With that vast body of property, real and personal,
which is employed in production by peasant proprietors,
or occupiers of land under a practically indefeasible ten-
ure, whether guaranteed by law or imperative custom, this
treatise has nothing to do, except that it may be noted in
passing that those who speak of the capitalist as the em-
ployer of labor, are obliged to regard these peasant pro-
prietors or occupiers as their own employers, another
instance of a perversion of economical terms made neces-
sary by a false analysis.
If we turn to England and Scotland, where the soil is
cultivated under farmer-rents, we do not find the owners
of land employing agricultural labor to any considerable
extent, except in the ornamentation of grounds, payment
for which is made out of revenues already acquired, and
the sums so paid are hence, according to our definition, not
wages, but salary or stipend. Where agricultural laborers
are employed for profit in England, it is almost universally
by a middle- man, a farmer, who, on the one hand, leases
the land from the owner, and on the other agrees with the
laborer for his work, by the year, the month, or the day,
obligating himself to pay landlord and laborer at fixed
rates, and looking to his own enterprise and economy to
secure his own remuneration out of a product which
varies continually with good or ill fortune, with good or
ill management. The English farmer is, however, almost
THE CAPITALIST GLASS. 227
necessarily the owner of circulating capital to some ex-
tent, not only to guarantee the landlord's rent and the
laborers' wages, but also to purchase live stock, seed, tools,
and machinery, and to make advance of wages while the
crops are growing. But he is not necessarily the owner
of circulating capital to anything like the extent to which
be uses it ; good character and a reputation for business
capacity will enable him, under the modern organization
of credit, to command the use of far more than he actually
possesses.
In France, peasant proprietorship gives form to the
agriculture of the country ; but even under the old regime
the seignior-capitalist did not directly employ labor, and
Arthur Young pokes fun at the great lords who, desiring
the reputation of cultivating the soil, when that had be-
come a fashion in France, let out on shares portions of
their estates immediately about the chateau ! In the
United States the land is, as a rule, held either by persons
corresponding industrially to the " peasant proprietors " of
Europe, but rejecting that term, and calling themselves
very inappropriately " fanners," or by larger operators
who hold the fee of the land and cultivate it by hired
labor. Land leased for purposes of agriculture is here
highly exceptional. But while the legal owner of the
land is thus in a considerable degree the employer of
labor, it is to a very large extent capital borrowed on note
or mortgage which enables him to eke out the purchase
money of the " farm," to stock it, and to pay wages in
anticipation of the crop.
We thus see that even in agriculture, where the effects
of lordship still survive, the capitalist is not necessarily the
employer of labor, nor is the employer of labor limited in
his operations by the extent of his personal ownership of
capital. But if we turn to the department of mechanical
industry, in which lordship never had existence, and aL
that has survived from feudal times (the trades unions, as
238 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the illegitimate successors of the ancient guilds) is antago-
nistic to the employer's authority ; a department which is
eminently the field of " new men," and in which the hered-
itary principle is reduced to a minimum, we find the as-
sumption that the capitalist is the employer, the employer
the capitalist, monstrously unreal. True it is that the
employer should be a capitalist, that he should have posses-
sion of some accumulations, not only to guarantee 1 the
loans he contracts and the wages he becomes responsible
for, but also to steady his own operations, lest he should
act as one who has everything to gain and nothing to lose ;
true it is that able employers come to own an increasing
share of the capital used in their increasing business ; and
that the larger their accumulations become, the greater the
freedom and strength with which they conduct business.
Yet it still remains that the employer is not an employer
because he is a capitalist, or in proportion as he is a capi-
talist. Of capitalists under our modern organization of in-
dustry, but a small minority employ labor ; of employers
few but use capital far in excess of what they own. More-
over the employer who owns little capital ; the employer
who owns much, and the employer who owns perchance
all he employs, are not to be distinguished in their indus-
trial attitude and relations, or in the nature, or, generally
we may say, in the extent of their operations ; but differ
only in the ease, freedom, and security with which they
conduct their respective businesses. And that difference is,
in ordinary times, not very noticeable. One employer, in-
deed, is down on the books of the Commercial Agency
with A five times repeated, and his paper is known as
1 Mr. Ricardo makes this distinction in respect to the banker him-
self. " The distinctive function of the banker begins as soon as he
uses the money of others." Yet, though it is the use of other people's
money that characterizes the banker, it is important that he should
be known or supposed to have money of his own to afford guaranty
of his good faith and prudence.
THE CAPITALIST CLASS. 229
* gilt edged." Another must be content to be rated lower
by the Agency, live smaller, pay a little more interest on
loans, run around a little more lively before the close of
banking hours, and be served after his betters. But the
outside world sees very little difference, granting them
equality of business ability, in their employment of labor
or conduct of affairs.
Who, then, are the capitalists who are not employers of
labor ? I answer, first, those who by age, sex, or infirm-
ity are disabled from active operations ; men retired from
business, women of all ages, children and young persons of
both sexes, the crippled and incompetent for whom provis-
ion has been made ; these, in the order of nature, own a
large part of the property of the world. If their wealth is
in their own hands, they know their limitations, and do
not undertake to employ it personally ; if their wealth is
held for them, the responsibilities of the trustee or guar-
dian are incompatible with the ventures of manufacture or
trade. Secondly, those who, from dignity and love of
leisure, as is especially the case with men of inherited
means, are indisposed to increase their store by active ex-
ertions, but live upon their income ; and those who are
engaged in professions 1 which do not allow the invest-
ment of their earnings. Thirdly, the laboring classes,
whether receiving wages or salaries, who are able, even
out of scanty earnings, to make savings which they are,
from the nature of their industrial position, unable to
apply personally to production. Small as are the individ-
ual contributions of this class to the loanable capital of a
community, the statistics of the savings banks show what
is the virtue of a large multiplier. There might be added,
perhaps should be added, to the vast aggregate of capital
thus constituted, the accumulating profits of industries
1 E. g., Lawyers, physicians, clergymen, architects, engineers, gov
eminent officials, and the like.
30 THE WAGES QUESTION.
which are already fall of capital up to the point of " di>
minishing returns," where overflow must take place into
newer branches of production. Thus no small part of the
net annual profits of agriculture in Somersetshire and
Hampshire go up to London to be loaned to the manufac-
turers of Yorkshire and Lancashire ; 1 while in the United
States the current is reversed, and the manufacturing divi-
dends of New England go to the West to be invested in
agriculture, which can still afford to pay eight, ten, and
even twelve per cent. Here again we have a large body
of capital, which, though the owners of it are employers
in some branch of industry, yet goes to swell the aggregate
of loanable capital to which employers who are not capi-
talists, or who wish to be employers beyond the extent
which their own capital permits, may resort under the
modern organization of credit.
It is so clear that the membership of the capitalist clasa
is not coincident with that of the employing class, not-
withstanding the use by- the economists of the word capi-
talist to signify the employer of labor ; and the subject of
the relation of the capitalist to the employer is, as far as I
have occasion to consider it, so simple, that I should not
have devoted a separate chapter to this class, but have de-
fined it in remarks introductory of the employing class
proper, were it not that I desired to emphasize this my
difference with the text-book writers ; and secondly and
chiefly, that it becomes necessary for me to take exception,
to the use, by the same writers, of the word Profits, an
exception best taken under the present title.
My exception is not on linguistic grounds. Profits, so
far as the etymology of the word goes, might include in-
terest, rent, wages, and the gain derived from the conduct
1 Bagehot's Lombard Street, p. 12.
DEFINITION OF PROFITS. 231
of business, any one or all of these. The economists gen-
erally use the word to express the returns of capital. 1 I
propose to express by it the gains of the employing class,
letting the returns of capital stand as previously explained
in this chapter. By what, then, do the economists express
that which I call profits ? I answer, that as they refuse to
the employing class a separate entity, 8 so they, logically
enough, practically deny the existence of profits distinctly
from the returns of capital. If the employer, who is
assumed to become an employer because he is a capitalist,
and to the extent to which he is a capitalist, gives his per
sonal attention and his time to the business, they acknowl-
edge that he receives an addition to his income on that ac-
count, which addition they define as u the wages of super-
vision and management." This they regard as belonging
strictly to the category of wages, and treat the case pre-
cisely as if the employer or "capitalist 5 ' had dispensed
with a paid overseer, superintendent, or manager, and
drawn the salary of the position himself otherwise his
"profits" are all the proper returns of capital. If he
chooses to withdraw his personal attention and retain the
overseer, superintendent, or manager, then his " profits "
have no such foreign admixture.
But inasmuch as the theory of distribution offered in
i " Profits proper, or interest." Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 139.
" The return for abstinence is profit." Prof. Cairnes' " Some Lead-
ing Principles," etc., p. 48.
a As Mr. Amasa Walker is the only systematic writer on political
economy, with whose work I am familiar, who recognizes the employ-
ers of labor as constituting a distinct industrial class, so he is the only
one who gives the word Profits the significance it has in the text.
" By the term profits we mean that share of wealth, which, in the
general distribution, falls to those who effect an advantageous union
between labor and capital .... the parties, then, to production
are (1) the laborer, (2) the capitalist, (3) the employer, or manager.
Each ha-s a distinct province and a separate interest." Science of
Wealth, pp. 279-80.
233 THE WAGES QUESTION.
this treatise requires the recognition of the employers of
labor as a distinct industrial class (see Chapter XI Y), per-
forming a function of high importance, something beyond
"supervision and management," as exercised by hired
agents, it is evident that a term is needed to designate the
share of this class in the product of industry. Now,
while the use which the text-books make of the term
Profits is, as has been said, not objectionable on linguistic
grounds, that which is here proposed certainly corresponds
far better to the popular usage, at least in America. I
cannot speak with assurance in respect to the significance
of the word in England ; but with us, few practical men
would understand a manufacturer's or a merchant's profits
to include his interest-account. Webster's Dictionary
gathers the American sense of the word correctly in the
following definition : " The profit of the farmer and the
manufacturer is the gain made by sale of produce or man-
ufactures, after deducting the value of the labor, materials,
rent, and all expenses, together with, the interest of the
capital employed, whether land, machinery, buildings,
instruments, or money." And since this use of the word
agrees thus with the speech of practical men, while the
term, Returns of Capital, is perfectly descriptive of the
object to which it is applied, I trust the reader will not
revolt at being asked to carry through the further course
of this enquiry the definition of Profits, as the remunera-
tion of the employing class, or the gains of business.
According to our analysis and definition, then, th*
parties to the distribution of the product of modern indus-
try, in its highest organization, and the shares they re-
spectively receive, are as follows :
1. The Wages Class Wages.
2. The Capitalist Class Returns of Capital (Rent : Interest)
8. The Employing Class Profits.
18 INTEREST AT ITS MINIMUM f 238
Are the returns of capital already at or neai .he mini-
mum ? A very common answer to complaints respecting
the inadequacy of wages, or to schemes for securing their
increase, is that the returns of capital are already as low
as it is for the interest of the laborers themselves they
should go ; that if a smaller annual return were to be
made to the capitalist for the use of his accumulated
wealth, the disposition to save would be so far affected
thereby as to reduce the store of capital, and thus diminish
employment. I am embarrassed in making quotations
from economical writers to show the direction of this
argument, by the fact that they generally use the word
profits * to express the returns of capital (including remu-
neration for its risk), but with always a possible addition
of "the wages of supervision and management." It is,
therefore, difficult to say whether, in a specific instance,
the rate of interest is referred to alone, or the remunera
tion of the man of business, after estimating the proper
returns of capital, is also included. But as the latter
element is treated as of comparatively slight importance,
I think I may assume that, when Professor Cairnes says
" Profits are already at or within a hand's breadth of the
minimum," 3 he refers chiefly, if not wholly, to the returns
upon capital. Of course, if profits be at the minimum,
any increase of wages which involved a further reduction
in the returns of capital, 3 would unquestionably be detri-
mental. Prof. Fawcett thus works out the effects of such
a reduction : " If profits are diminished, there is not so
great an inducement to save, and the amount of capital
accumulated will decrease ; the wages fund will conse-
1 " Profit : a word which, like many others in political economy, is
very loosely applied." Prof. Rogers' Pol. Econ., p. 5.
2 " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 258.
8 It has been shown that it is possible that an advance of wagea
may be made in several ways without involving a reduction either in
profits or in the returns of capital.
234 THE WAGES QUESTION.
quently be diminished, and there will be a smaller amount
to distribute among the laboring classes." 1
But I fail wholly to understand what evidence Prof.
Cairnes can have had that the returns of capital are at 01
near the minimum. If he had in view the fact that in
England the rate of interest and the returns from capital
invested in land are now so low that a continually increas-
ing amount of capital is going abroad to newer countries,
this is undoubtedly true ; but it affords no proof that the
rate of interest in England has reached the point where a
further reduction would touch the principle of frugality
in the quick. Every dollar of British capital fortunately
invested in Australia or the United States helps to cheapen
the materials of British manufactures, and to w T iden the
market for British products. So long as these new coun-
tries enjoy such extraordinary natural advantages, English
capital will doubtless continue to go abroad ; but were
these countries filled up with capital, so as to bring the
rate of interest down to what it is in England, where is
the reason for believing that Englishmen would not save
their wealth for the sake of an annual return lower than
the present? The return to an investor in the British
consols, which are regarded as the ideal security, is about
three and three-sevenths per cent, per annum. The in-
surance companies realize about four and one-half per
cent, on their investments. Railway shares paying five
per cent, a year sell ordinarily close on 100. Could Prof.
Cairnes have meant that, if Englishmen could not get five
per cent, for their capital, or at least three and three-sev-
enths per annum, they would consume it in self-indul-
gence ? But we know that the Dutch have accumulated
vast savings on still lower inducements, for the rate of
interest in Holland long ruled at two and one-half per
sent., while the government borrowed freely at two per
1 Pol. Econ., p. 243.
THE MOTIVE TO SA V1NQ. 235
cent. Nor have we any grounds for assuming that even
a lower rate might not find people still saving, be it from
profits, from wages, or from the returns of previously
existing capital.
One consideration of importance, which is often lost
sight of in this connection, is that the motive to save con-
tains an element besides the expectation of an annual
income from the accumulation. Saving is also in the
nature of an insurance against the casualties of life. The
strength of this motive to self-denial for the sake of insur-
ance alone, is seen in communities where there are no
banks, as in many of the departments of France, and 110
means of ordinary investment, where yet vast sums are
accumulated by the peasantry. 1 Not the less in countries
where banks afford the safe and sure means of deriving
present revenue from savings, does this desire to save, as
an insurance against the inevitable ills of life, constitute a
considerable part of the motive to accumulation. Men
would in a degree provide against old age and sickness,
provide for the possible widowhood and orphanage of
those dependent on them, were there no interest on
money ; and saving thus, a very low rate of interest on
absolutely safe investments would call their funds into
productive use.
Now this view, the justice of which cannot, I think,
be questioned, affords the means of judging somewhat
more critically the statement of Prof. Fawcett just quoted.
Prof. Fawcett says, If wages are enhanced, profits are
diminished, and hence less capital will be accumulated.
But we know, both from the reason of the case and from
the statistics of the savings banks, that capital may be ac-
cumulated from wages as well as from profits, whether we
understand by that term, the returns of capital, or the
1 European financiers have been more than once astonished by the
enormous accumulations of the French peasantry, when these were
tapped by a popular loan.
236 THE WAGES QUESTION.
gains of business. Does any one say, a reduction in the
rate of interest would affect the disposition of the laborers
to save out of their wages equally with the disposition of
the capitalist or the employers, to save out of their earn-
ings ? I answer, no, decidedly not. The motive to save,
for the sake of insurance, operates with far greater force
among the laboring class than among the more fortunate
classes. Thus, taking the case of a hundred laborers work-
ing for one employer, can it be doubted that the desires of
all these individuals, even if we make deduction of spend-
thrifts and drunkards, to provide against old age, sickness,
and the premature death of the bread-winner, would con-
stitute a stronger force to direct towards savings an extra
thousand pounds of wages, than would the corresponding
desire on the part of the single employer, in the matter of
an extra thousand pounds of profits ? That this would be
so in France or Germany, would not, I think, be questioned
by any Frenchman or German. If it should not prove so
in England, it would be in no small degree due to the fact
that the tenure of the land, the true savings banks of the
people, has been so much embarrassed by statute and by
judicial fictions.
It should, of course, be expected that a large and sud-
den increase of wages, due to general industrial causes like
that which took place four years ago in the iron and coal 1
trades of Great Britain, would, most likely, human nature
being what it is, be employed in ministering, more or less,
to folly arid vice, or squandered in expenditures, not per-
haps hurtful in themselves, but unnecessary, and therefore,
as against a strong reason for saving, mischievous. The
possible increase of wages which I have in view is rather
a steady advance due to the increasing mobility of labor
from the growth of the industrial virtues, enabling the
1 Coal rose, between July 1871, and February, 1872 in the proportion
f 100 to 256, iron following, though at a considerable interval.
INTEREST AT THE MINIMUM. 237
wages class to resort more promptly to their market, and
to press their employers more closely with a truly effective
competition. Wages thus won would, in general, be well
employed.
So much for that desire to make savings as an insurance
against the contingencies of life and health, which is one
element of the principle of frugality. Of the other, and
doubtless more important, element, the desire to secure an
annual income from investments, or from the personal use
of capital, it is not necessary to speak here at any length.
I know no reason for believing that interest in any coun-
try has reached its minimum, that is, the point where the
desire to spend overpowers the disposition to save, in such
a proportion of instances as to waste capital, or to prevent
it from increasing proportionally to population and to the
opportunities for its reproductive use at current rates.
It is quite another question whether it makes any differ-
ence whether the returns of capital are at the minimum, or
are very much above that point. I have already J quoted
a paragraph from Prof. Perry in which he takes the
ground that if, from any cause, an undue amount of the
product of industry goes to the share of the capitalist-em-
ployer, nothing can defeat the tendency that the excess
shall be restored to wages. Prof. Cairnes, in his " Lead-
ing Principles," has expressed himself on the same ques-
tion as follows :
" Thus, supposing," he says, " a group of employers to
have succeeded, as no doubt would be perfectly possible
for them, in temporarily forcing down wages by combina-
tion in a particular trade, a portion of their wealth previ-
ously invested would now become free how would it bo
employed ? Unless we are to suppose the character of a
1 Pp. 81-2.
238 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
large section of a community to be suddenly changed in a
leading attribute, the wealth so withdrawn from wages
would, in the end, and before long, be restored to wages.
The same motives which led to its investment would lead
to its reinvestment, and once reinvested, the interests of
those concerned would cause it to be distributed amongst
the several elements of capital in the same proportion as
before. In this way covetousness is held in check ~by cov-
etousness, and the desire for aggrandizement sets limits to
its own gratification."
The doctrine here seems to be that the desire for accu-
mulation, or aggrandizement, 1 is a constant force, and thus
the effects of covetousness, through the employer's efforts
to give the laborer as little as may be for his services, are
compensated by the effects of covetousness through the
employer's efforts to make a profit on the amount thus
saved by again employing it in the purchase of labor.
The motives to investment and reinvestment are therefore
equal.
Now it seems to me that this doctrine is inconsistent
with any recognition of the varying strength of the econo-
mical motives. "While in particular instances, with per-
sons of the miserly disposition, the passion for accumula-
tion may grow with increasing wealth, the observation of
every one must convince him that, with the vast majority
of men, especially in this age of refinement and of artificial
wants, the impulse to spend luxuriously acquires force,
after the comforts and decencies of life are once provided
for, faster than the impulse to save ; that large incomes
are not applied as severely and judiciously to further get-
ting as are moderate incomes; that the rich expend their
revenues with a lavishness, a capriciousness and a heed-
lessness which are unknown to men of smaller means. If
this be so, and, with full regard to no inconsiderable num-
1 Pp. 278-9.
INTEREST AT THE MINIMUM. 239
ber of particular instances to the contrary, I do not think
it will be denied, then the motives to reinvestment cannot
be held to be necessarily equal to the motives to invest-
ment ; and instead of covetousness being held in check by
eovetousness, luxuriousness comes in to consume a portion
at least of such excessive gains.
It needs to be noted, moreover, that, upon Prof. Cairnes'
own doctrine of " non-competing groups," 1 it would not
follow that the sums thus taken from one body of labor-
ers in excessive profits will be restored in wages to the
class or classes suffering such losses. Capital having, on
Prof. Cairnes' statement, a much higher degree of mobility
than labor, the body of laborers to be benefited by such
restoration of profits to wages, will not necessarily, or even
probably, be identical with that which was in the first in-
stance depleted. And if a right distribution of the pro-
ducts of industry be important to secure the highest indus-
try and zeal in future production, then incontestibly, in
addition to all considerations of the iniquity of thus bleed-
ing one class for the benefit of others, we have a strictly
economic argument against the theory of the practical in-
difference of the present proportions of wages and profits.
But we may go further and say that all this kind of
reasoning in economics which makes the employing or the
capitalist class, in a state of imperfect competition, the
guardians of the wages class, in such a way that it really
doesn't matter whether the laborer gets all the wages he
might, or even, at any specified time, gets any at all, because
excessive profits will further enrich those other classes who
hold their wealth as a sort of sacred trust for him, so that
at another time he will get all the more, if he gets less or
nothing now all this sort of reasoning is much to be clis-
1 See p. 194.
240 THE WAGES QUESTION.
trusted. And I cannot sufficiently express my astonish-
ment that an economist of Prof. Cairnes' eminent ability,
who made the most important contribution ever offered
in modification of the theory of competition, and who
pointed out the frightful hiatus in Bastiat's composition of
the Economical Harmonies, 1 should have fallen into the
trap at this point. Anything more contradictory of his
own doctrine of the extensive failure of competition, and
the want of harmony between the interests of the work-
man and the employer, as each understands his interests
and is prepared to act with reference thereto, than this
assumption of the certain restoration to wages of all sums
taken for excessive profits, it would be impossible to
conceive.
It is a poor rule that doesn't work both ways. Yet
writers who hold it to be of no consequence at all that the
" capitalists " should, by pressure brought upon the labor-
ers, reduce their wages below the equitable point, sinco
the extra profits thus acquired are certain to be restored
to wages, seem to regard it as a subject of just apprehen-
sion lest laborers should, by trades unions or strikes, bring
a pressure to bear, on their side, which might reduce
profits unduly. But why should not such extra wages be
restored to profits, just as certainly, peacefully, and auto-
matically ? What difference does it make if the " capital-
ist," in any given time or place, gets an inadequate profit,
or indeed no profit at all ? He will only get just so much
more the next time. Certainly, if the laborer can wait
to have excessive profits restored to wages, the " capitalist"
can wait to have extra wages restored to profits.
This notion of a see-saw between wages and profits is
well hit-off in a story which Governor "Winthrop tells : " I
may upon this occasion report a passage between one of
Kowley and his servant. The master being forced to sell
1 See p. 164.
THE LABORER HIS OWN G UARD1AN. 241
a pair of oxen to pay his servant his wages, told his ser-
vant he could keep him no longer, not knowing how to
pay him the next year. The servant answered him that
he would serve him for more of his cattle. But how shall
I do (saith the master) when all -my cattle are gone ? The
servant replied, you shall then serve me, and so you may
have your cattle again" * Surely, if a man becomes an
employer in industr}^ only because he is a capitalist, and
as he is a capitalist, the servant in this story was not more
of a wag than of a political economist.
No, in a state of imperfect competition, the employer is
not the laborer's guardian, or the trustee of his earnings.
The workman's legitimate wages are a great deal better
in his own pocket, or standing in his own name on the
books of the savings bank, than paid into the hands of the
employer as extra profits. The reasoning to the contrary,
on the assumption of a vital harmony of interests, cannot
fail to remind one of the economical plea, with which it is
point by point identical, once so widely urged, that the
owner's interest would abundantly protect the slave against
physical abuse or privation. It is also closely analogous
with the political plea by which the privileged classes
have always sought to show that it really didn't matter
how much political power was entrusted to them ; that the
interests of rich and poor, high and low were indissolubly
bound up together, so that if one suffered, all must suffer
with it ; and that, therefore, the class most intelligent,
most apt for government, having most leisure for public
affairs, with, moreover, the largest stake in society, might
safely be trusted to make and execute all laws, their own
true and permanent interests prohibiting them from any
and every course prejudicial to the lower classes, who
1 History of New England, II. 219-20.
243 THE WAGES QUESTION.
could not, it was urged, be in any way oppressed but that
social and industrial disorders would afford immediate
retribution for the neglect of duty or abuse of power on
the part of their self-constituted guardians.
The argument is a very pretty one, but alas ! and alas !
what a dreary and sickening tale is that of the exactions
and oppressions of the Old Regime ! There is no class fit
to determine its own rights and prescribe the duties of
others. Inevitably will tyranny be engendered, whenever
there is weakness or helplessness on the one side. Noblesse
oblige ; and the sentiments of compassion and charity go
far to mitigate the natural severity of legislation and
administration ; but, after all, there is only one way in
which the rights of any body of men can be secured, and
that is by being placed in their own keeping.
CHAPTEE XIV.
THE EMPLOYING CLASS! THE ENTREPRENEUR FUNCTION:
THE PROFITS OF BUSINESS.
have seen (Chapter I.) that much confusion has been
introduced into the theory of wages by the economists
carrying the classification which results from their analy-
sis of functions in production over into the distribution of
wealth, assuming, it would seem, that industrial functions
must needs characterize distinct industrial classes. We
have seen that, in fact, the laborer and the capitalist are
largely the same person ; and that no division of the pro-
duct into shares, representing the claims of different par-
ties, in such cases takes place. We have now to note a
further source of error in the almost universal neglect by
the text-book writers to make account of an industrial
function which, while, the world over and history through,
it characterizes a class no more 1 than labor or capital, does
yet, in the most highly organized forms of industry, espe-
cially in these modern times, characterize a distinct and a
most important class. This class comprises the modern
employers of labor, men of business, " captains of indus-
try." It is much to be regretted that we have not a single
"Lnglish word which exactly fits the person who performs
this office in modern industry. The word " undertaker,"
1 Thus the peasant proprietor takes all the responsibilities of pro-
duction, determines its courses and its methods, and acts, so to speak,
as the entrepreneur in respect to his own little affairs, at the same
time owning the capital employed and performing all the labor.
244 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the man who undertakes, at one time had very much this
extent ; but it has long since been so exclusively devoted
to funereal uses as to become an impossible term in politi-
cal economy. The word " adventurer," the man who
makes ventures, also had this sense ; but in modern par-
lance it has acquired a wholly sinister meaning. The
French word " entrepreneur" has very nearly the desired
significance ; and it may be that the exigencies of politico-
economical reasoning will yet lead to its being naturalized
among us.
This function, then, of the man of business, middleman,
undertaker, adventurer, entrepreneur, employer, requires
to be carefully discriminated.
The economists, almost without exception, have regarded
capital and labor as together sufficient unto production,
the capitalist being the employer, the laborer being the
employed. It may fairly be presumed that the failure to
recognize a third party to production, the middleman, has
been due in part to the fact that these writers have been
accustomed to take their illustrations of the offices of labor
arid capital from the savage state, or at least from a very
primitive condition of industry. The bow, the spear, the
canoe, are the favorite subjects when it is to be shown,
how it is that the results of labor may pass into the form
of capital ; how it is that capital may assist current labor;
and how it is that a reward can be given to capital out of
the product of industry without any wrong being done to
the laborer. And it is true that when the forms of pro-
duction are few and simple, and when the producer and
the consumer are either the same person, or are found in
close proximity, the possession of capital is the one suffi-
cient qualification for the employment of labor ; and, on the
other hand, a supply of food and of tools and materials is
all that labor needs to institute production.
But when, in the development of industry, the forms of
production become almost infinitely numerous and compli-
THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 245
cated ; when many persons of all degrees of skill and
strength must be joined in labor, each in his place contri-
buting to a result which he very imperfectly, if at all, com-
prehends ; when the materials to be used are brought from
distant fields, and the products are in turn to be scattered
by the agencies of commerce over vast regions, the con-
sumers constituting an ill-defined or an undefined body,
personally unknown to the producer or any immediate
agent of his ; then a reason for an employer exists which is
wholly in addition to that which exists in a primitive con-
dition of industry. The mere possession of capital no
longer constitutes the one qualification for employing labor ;
and, on the other hand, the laborer no longer looks to the
employer to furnish merely food and the materials and
tools of the trade; but to furnish also technical skill, com-
mercial, knowledge, and powers of administration ; to as-
sume responsibilities and provide against contingencies ; to
shape and direct production, and to organize and control
the industrial machinery. And, moreover, so much more
important and difficult are the last specified duties of the
employer ; so much rarer are the abilities they require,
that he who can perform these will find it easy to perform
those ; if he be the man to conduct business, capital to
purchase food, tools, and materials will not, under our
modern system of credit, long be wanting to him. On the
other hand, without these higher qualifications, the capi-
talist will employ labor at the risk, or almost the certainty,
of total or partial loss. The employer thus rises to be
master of the situation. It is no longer true that a man
becomes an employer because he is a capitalist. Men
command capital because they have the qualifications to
profitably employ labor. To these, captains of industry,
despots of industry, if one pleases to call them so, capital
and labor alike resort for the opportunity to perform then
several functions. I do not mean that the employer is not
in any case, or to any extent, a capitalist ; but that he is
246 THE WAGES QUESTION.
not an employer simply because he is a capitalist, or t4
the extent only to which he is a capitalist.
Now all this is evident to any man who looks careftill}
on our modern industry. Yet the economists, having
made their analysis of production in a primitive state
wholly neglect these later developed duties of the em
ployer, this new and far higher function; and insist on
regarding the capitalist as himself the employer. Thej
resolve the entire industrial community into capitalista
and laborers ; 1 and divide the whole product between the
two. To the contrary, I hold that no theory of the dis-
tribution of wealth, in modern industry, can be complete
which fails to make account of the employing class, as dis-
tinguished in idea, and largely also in its personnel, from
the capitalist class.
It would, I admit, be difficult to prove the importance
of the entrepreneur function in industry, just as it would
be difficult by argument to establish in the mind of an
objector, a true conception of the functions of the general
in war. Those who know nothing about warfare might
believe that campaigns could be conducted on the principle
of popular rights and universal suffrage. "Why not?
There is the materiel of war (capital) in abundance ; here
are the soldiers (laborers), who, if any fighting is to be
done, will have to do the whole of it ; why should not
these soldiers take those guns, and do their work ? In
much the same way, those who know little practically
about production are easily persuaded that the trouble-
some and expensive a captain of industry" may be dis-
pensed with, and his place occupied by a committee or a
mass meeting.
1 "The ultimate partners in any production maybe divided into
two classes, capitalists and laborers. ... If the distributor be tha
capitalist, the share of the laborer is called wages. If the distributor
be the laborer, the share of the capitalist is called either interest or
rent." Hearn's Plutology, pp. 325-7.
THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 247
We have had but few instances of actua] attempts to
conduct campaigns on the town-meeting plan, the most
notable, perhaps, being the crusade of "Walter the Penni-
less and the first Bull Run ; but there have been numerous
efforts made to get rid of the entrepreneur, and it is in the
almost universal failure of such efforts that we have the
highest evidence of the importance of this functionary in
modern industry. Cooperation, 1 which is nothing more
or less than the doing away with the middleman, has
several distinct advantages, of vast scope, in production ;
yet these have been weighed down again and again, even
under conditions most favorable to the experiment, by the
losses resulting from the suspension of the employing
function. Let those who resolve the industrial community
into capitalists and laborers only, and divide the whole
product between these two classes, explain, if they can,
the failures of cooperation.
It has been said that the omission of the economists to
recognize the employers as a distinct class in modern in-
dustry, is presumably due, in part, to the tendency to go
back to the savage, or to a very primitive state, for illus-
trations of the nature and offices of labor and capital.
But I believe that it is also in part due to the fact that
the real employing class is covered up, more or less, from
casual view, by what may be called a false employing
class, many times more numerous. This false employing
class, as I make bold to call it, is composed of several con-
siderable bodies of so-called employers.
1. Those who hire servants or retain assistants who are
to be paid out of revenues already acquired. Reasons
have already 3 been assigned for removing persons so en-
gaged or employed from the wages class, and treating
them by themselves as the "salary or stipend class. *' Of
1 A wholly erroneous conception of cooperation, due to the neglect
of the entrepreneur-function, is exposed on page 264.
8 P. 215.
243' THE WAGES QUESTION.
course, the same reasons require the removal of their
masters or patrons from the lists of the employing class.
If we were to consider the domestic servants, alone, of
England and the United States, we should find the so-
called employers to be far more numerous than those who
pay wages to laborers whom they hire for profit. No
wonder that when those who are paid out of revenue are
confounded with those who are paid out of the product of
their labor, the inclusion of the masters of the former
class should obstruct the view of the far less numerous
employers of the latter class.
2. In this false employing class are large numbers of
artisans who have single apprentices. Such an artisan
might, for instance, earn $500 a year by his own unassisted
labor, while his gains by the apprentice's services might
be $50. So far, doubtless, he is an employer of labor, and
his gains are entitled, on a nice judgment of the case, to
be called " profits ; " but these bear so small a proportion
to his other source of income, and he is, in his capacity of
employer, of so little account, that we cannot afford to be
encumbered by carrying him on as the employer of a third
or a fifth part of an able laborer. A single cotton manu-
facturer or iron master may employ a thousand times, or
five thousand times, as much effective labor. It is of more
importance that we should see the cotton rr.anufacturer
and the iron master in their true relations to the great body
of labor seeking employment, than that we should trouble
ourselves about the economical status of the fraction of a
laborer who is perhaps, at present, spoiling more material
than his work is worth. The principle of the law, de mini-
mis non curatur, applies with even greater force in politi-
cal economy. What we need in studying the problem of
distribution is not a nice theoretical classification, but a
jnst and strong exhibition of the great groups of our mod
ern industrial society. 1
1 For remarks of Prof. Cairnes regarding the office of economic de-
finition, see page 218.
THE FALSE EMPLOYING CLASS. 248
3. Another large body which we need to exclude, tem-
porarily, at least, from the employing class, in order that
we may get a proper view of its real constitution, is that
where the condition is one of nominal employment but of
substantial partnership. This includes a great number of
cases where two men, or perhaps three, of a trade, approxi-
mately equal in skill and experience, the work of the one
being merely a repetition of the work of the other, labor
together at the bench, one being recognized as the master,
the other receiving wages ; yet where the reason for one
being the employer and the other the employed is so
slight, the equality of skill and experience so well main-
tained, the character and the profits of the business so
well understood by him" who receives wages, and the
ability of that person to set up for himself so evident, that
the employer virtually becomes little more than the senior
member of a partnership where the nominal wages and
terms of service are scaled to give a substantial equality of
remuneration, with some slight compensation to the senior
member for extra trouble and responsibility.
4. There remains to be characterized a fourth class of
persons to whom I do not wish to deny the title of em-
ployer, but whom it is desirable for the moment to isolate,
those, namely, who, having mistakenly become by occupa-
tion the employers of labor, through helplessness or false
pride cling to the skirts of the profession, and remain in
a small and miserable way conductors of industry, follow-
ing humbly and at a distance the example of leading
houses ; content, in flush times, to make a little profit on a
little product, using generally antiquated machinerj T , con-
suming materials of doubtful quality, and making a low
class of goods, but shutting up promptly on the first inti-
mation of hard times, or just so soon as competition be-
comes close and persistent. Numerically the men of this
class constitute a considerable proportion of every trade ;
but if we consider the aggregate product, their part is com-
paratively slight.
250 THE WAGES QUESTION.
I do not mean to embrace in this class any manufacturer
merely because bis establishment is a small one. It would
be easy to show that in some departments of production,
perhaps in most, petty establishments fill a place, take up
a certain amount of labor not otherwise employed (as, for
instance, the labor of the wives and daughters of agricul-
turists in the immediate neighborhood), find a distinct
market to which, in a homely but useful way, they adapt
themselves perhaps better than the monster factory can do.
The commerce of the world requires not only the ship of
5,000 tons, but the schooner, the lighter, and the dory.
Yet of no small part of these petty establishments which
make short runs from point to point between storm and
squall, it may be boldly asserted that they answer no true
industrial purpose. Their only raison d'etre is found in
the fact that their proprietors, having committed them-
selves to the profession of the entrepreneur, having come
into the possession of a certain amount of the machinery
and agencies of production, and being unable to betake
themselves, at the point of life they have reached, to an-
other occupation, or being unwilling to so openly confess
failure, can pick up a very poor living in this way. And
of employers of this sort, it is significant to note, laborers
are not apt to be jealous. They are known to have a
pretty hard time of it. Their lot is not envied, and they
commonly receive the sympathy of the general community
and of their hands ; while the successful captain of indus-
try, who amasses a giant fortune, is regarded by not a few
as having despoiled the laboring class. Yet it is incon-
testable that the profits 01 the former constitute by far the
heavier tax, dollar for dollar, upon the product of labor.
Nothing costs the working classes so dearly, in the long
run, as the bad or merely commonplace conduct of
business.
THE MEAL EMPLOYING CLASS. 251
Putting aside for the moment the several classes enu-
merated, we have plainly in view the real employing clasa
of our modern industrial society : a comparatively small
body of men, who control the destinies of labor no more
than they do the destinies of capital. These men consti-
tute a class strictly limited in numbers, and dealing most
despotically, as indeed they must, with the outside world.
The conditions of admission are a long self -initiation, a
high premium of immediate loss, and a great degree of
uncertainty as to ultimate success. Into this guild, in
these modern days, no aspirant for profits needs to be
inducted with ceremonies, or first invited by the existing
membership. All are in theory free to enter ; but the
number who venture is closely restricted by the known
conditions of business. Those only undertake it who are
able, or, like the rowers of Mnestheus, think they are able,
to sustain the ordeal of fierce and unrelenting competition ;
while those who have the courage to venture are contin-
ually sifted by commercial and industrial pressures and
panics, so that only the fittest survive.
I have no wish to idealize the successful employer of
labor. He may easily be found to be a very unamiable
and a very uninteresting person. For the perfect temper
of business something doubtless of hardness is needed, just
as it is the alloy of baser metal which fits the gold for cir-
culating in the hands of men. A little too much sensi-
bility or. a little too much imagination, is often a sufficient
cause of failure in the stern competitions of business. The
successful entrepreneur need not even understand the
theory of trade, or be a financier in the larger sense of that
word. A kind of subtle instinct often directs the move-
ments of the ablest merchants, bankers, and manufacturers.
They know that the market is about to experience a con-
vulsion, because they know it ; just as the cattle know
that a storm is brewing. They not only could not give
reasons intelligible to others for the course they take ; they
B52 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
do not even analyze their intellectual processes for theii
own satisfaction.
It is not necessary to draw the outlines of the represen-
tative entrepreneur. Living illustrations will rise before
the mind of every reader, far more vivid than any art of
mine could execute. M. Courcelle-Seneuil, in his Opera-
tions de Banque^ has grouped the qualities the employer
should possess : " du jugement, du bon sens, de la fermete,
de la decision, une appreciation froide et calme, une intel-
ligence ouverte et vigilante, peu d'imagination, beaucoup
de memoire et d' application." 1
I said that the real employing class is comparatively
small. I do not speak alone of those employing workmen
by the thousand or the ten thousand, or even of those
alone whose pay-rolls count up hundreds of hands. 3 If
we go down to the captains of fifties and the captains of
tens, it still remains true that the bulk of the wage-labor
of England, France, Germany, and the United States, is
controlled by a small, choice band of men, who are masters
in industry because, whatever be their social quality, in
industry they are masterly. To call these men the creat-
ures of their workmen, and speak of the sums they exact
in royalty on all the business which passes through their
hands, as "the wages of supervision and management,"
seems to me as idle a fiction as it would have been to cal'
the seigniors under the Old Regime the social representa-
tives of the tiers etat, and to speak of the sums they
lavished in pomp and pleasure, as their "allowances."
Are profits already at the minimum, so that we may
1 P. 392.
2 Thus, even in Austria, one of the most backward of European
countries in the organization of industry, we find that 493 employers
provide lodging for not less than 59,343 workmen. In France, Messrs.
Schneider & Co. (" Le Creusot") employ 10,000 workmen. Anzin
employs 15,000 under a single direction. At the great cannon foundry
of Krupp, at Essen in Westphalia, between 8,000 and 10,000 are
employed. In Great Britain, like gigantic establishments aboard.
ARE PROFITS AT THE MINIMUM? 25|
not look to see an increase of wages obtained from this
source? Much of what has been said relative to the
asserted restoration to wages, of all sums which may go in
excessive returns to capital, applies equally in the case of
excessive profits, the remuneration of the man of business,
the employer, the entrepreneur. It cannot safely be
assumed that, to use Prof. Cairnes' phrase, 1 covetousness
be held in check by covetousness, inasmuch as luxurious-
ness will inevitably enter to absorb a portion of such
undue gains. But here still another reason appears,
namely, that, as the part of the employer in production 13
active ; not abstinence, as in the case of the capitalist, but
exertion ; in addition, then, to the effects of luxuriousness,
excessive profits will, with no small proportion of employ-
ers, allow the native propensity to indolence and ease of
life to enter to take something from the. zeal and enter-
prise with which business is conducted. It is only the
exceptionally ambitious and resolute who will wholly
withstand this propensity. So that when Prof. Perry
says, " If, in the division between profits and wages, at
the end of any industrial cycle, profits get more than their
due share, these very profits will wish to become capital,
and will thus become an extra demand for labor, and the
next wages fund will be larger than the last," 2 I am
obliged to take the exception that a portion of these
profits, so far as Prof. Perry includes in that term the
gains of the man of business, will wish to become fine
horses and houses, fine clothes and opera boxes ; while
another portion will wish to take the form of coming to
the office an hour later in the morning and going home
an hour earlier in the afternoon.
Hence, if we cannot safely assume that it is a matter oi
indifference to the wages class whether a little more or less
goes in profits to the employer, it becomes of important
' P 238.
* The Financier, August 1, 1874.
254 THE WAGES QUESTION.
to inquire whether there is any reason to believe that pro
fits are already at the minimum. And as to this, one can
have no hesitation in saying that the probabilities are
strongly against such a supposition. The present average
rate of profits, or annual aggregate of profits, has noto-
riously been reached as the result of unequal competition,
; n which employers have been active, alert, and mobile,
while laborers have been, in a great degree, ignorant and
inert, resorting to the right market tardily, or mistakenly
to the wrong market. It does not follow that because the
laborers have lost heavily by this failure of competition,
the employers have gained it all. Much has been lost
to the laborers and to the world. Nowhere does the
monopolist gain all that others lose by him. Yet the em-
ploying class have profited, and still profit, greatly by this
partial immobility of labor. The lowest price which any
laborer will receive for his services is no longer the highest
price which any employer can afford to give.
In the first part of this work, when treating of produc-
tion, I had occasion to show that the wages of the laborer
might be increased in several ways without diminishing
profits, the explanation being that the laborer's efficiency
will be increased proportionally or more than proportion-
ally. In dealing with the problem of Distribution, the
laborer's efficiency will be assumed constant, and I shall
inquire what causes may operate to increase the laborer's
share of the product, not the absolute amount of his wages.
And, first, let it be noted that a gain might be effected
through a reduction in what may be called the cost of em-
ployment, without involving any reduction in the aggre-
gate profits of employers as a body. Let me illustrate : I
was much struck at the complaints made at some of the
meetings of agricultural laborers in England during the
lockout of 1874:, that many of the employers were hard-
drinking men and poor farmers, and that if they attended
more closely to their business and managed it better, they
INCOMPETENT EMPLO YERS. 255
could afford to pay higher wages. Now no one should
lightly credit the complaints of angry men ; nor was there
any reason to suppose that the farmers of the lockout sec-
tion comprised more than the usual proportion of dissolute
and negligent employers. What occurs to me as notice-
able in this matter is the correctness with which these
laborers apprehended the principle that when men who
are unfit to conduct business force themselves into the
employment of labor, it is at the expense of labor. The
theory of competition assumes the intelligence and capacity
of the employer to see and follow his own interests. 1
His doing this is (assuming the mobility of labor) to be
the very means by which the laborer's interest is secured.
If the employer fails in this requirement of intelligence
and capacity, it may be not the better but the worse for
the laborer. Bad business management is the heaviest
possible tax on production, and while the incapable em-
ployer gets little for himself, the laborer loses heavily in
the rate or the regularity of his wages.
Now, several causes may help to swell the proportion
of incapable employers. Shilly-shally laws relating to
insolvency do this ; fictitious currency does this ; truck
does this. 2 Each of these causes enables men to escape
1 Errors in directing production are never offset one against another,
as mistakes in computation so often are with a result of substantial
accuracy. Whether the employer err in being too timid or too ven-
turesome, loss is alike sustained, an injury is suffered which is with-
out compensation. There is no balancing of one mistake against
another in industry.
It is needless to say that the employer is almost always either too
timid or too venturesome. The perfect temper of business, we might
suppose, is found in no living man. But the sterner the responsibility
to which the employer is held, the more steady and severe the compe-
tition to which he is subjected, the nearer will be the approach to this
ideal, the less will be the waste in production due to mis-direction of
the industrial force.
8 The evidence before the Committee of 1854 brought out strongly
this feature of the truck system ; that it was chiefly resorted to by
256 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the consequences of incompetency, and to hang miserably
on to business, where they are an obstruction and a
nuisance. Any thing which should decisively cut them
off, and remit them to subordinate positions, would be a
great gain to the laboring classes, and very likely, in the
result, prove a real relief to themselves. Slavery, in like
manner, enables men to control labor and direct produc-
tion who never would become, on an equal scale, the
employers of free labor ; and it is not more to the ineffi-
ciency of the slave than to the incompetency of the
master, that the unproductiveness of chattel labor is due.
The lower the industrial quality of free labor, the more
ignorant and inert the individual laborer, the lower may
be the industrial quality of the men who can just sustain
themselves in the position of employer. Men become the
employers of cheap labor who would never be the employ-
ers of dear labor, and who ought not to be the employers
of any sort of labor. The more active becomes the com-
petition among the wages class, the more prompt their
resort to market, the more persistent their demand for
every possible increase of remuneration, the greater will
be the pressure brought to bear upon such employers to
drop out of the place into which they have crowded them-
selves at the cost of the general community, and where
they have been able to maintain themselves only because
the working classes have failed, through ignorance and
inertness, to exact their full terms.
But, secondly, a rise of wages due to a quickened com-
petition on the part of the wages class, might be to a very
great extent compensated by increased zeal, energy, and
small and doubtful establishments which thus contrived to make up,
by "sweating" the wages of their operatives, what they could not
make in legitimate profits, and thus kept themselves alive. Indeed,
the excuse most frequently urged by truck masters was that, but for
gains thus realized, they would be obliged to give up business. It ia
needless to say that the sooner such, employers are driven out, the
better for the laboring class.
EMPLOYERS ON THEIR METTLE. 257
economy on the part of the really able men of business.
It does no man good to have much odds given him ; and
the inertness of labor has always a mischievous effect even
upon the best of the employing class. So far as the
increasing demands of the laborer are due to his greater
vigilance, activity, and social ambition, we may be pretty
sure that these demands will be responded to fully by the
entrepreneur. Whether we consider business on its side
of enterprise, or on its side of economy, we shall find that
it does the manager no harm to be sharply followed up.
Where large margins are afforded, there is likely to be
much waste ; and, on the other hand, no man does his
best except when his best is required. " It was an axiom
of the late Mr. John Kennedy, who was called the father
of the cotton manufacture, that no manufacturing im-
provements were ever made except on threadbare profits."
Mr. Babbage, in his Economy of Manufactures, 1 has
shown that inventions and improvements in the mechan-
ical arts have sometimes been healthfully stimulated by
the goadings of industrial distress ; and Mr. Chadwick has
given an interesting exposition 2 of the manner in which
the increasing pressure of competition has served to pro-
mote the commercial ventures which have successively
widened the market for British manufactures. But surely
we need no " modern instances " to establish a principle
so old and familiar. The weighty words of Gibbon : " the
spirit of monopolists is barren, lazy, and oppressive,"
apply to all production in just the degree in which com-
petition is defeated or deferred, whether by the force of
law, or by the ignorance and inertness of the laboring
classes.
Perhaps as good an illustration as could be given of the
effects of increased competition in winnowing the employ-
ing class of its least efficient members, and stimulating
P. 294. Statistical Journal, xxviii. 3-5.
J858 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the enterprise and the economy of those who survive the
process, is afforded by the course of English agriculture
since the repeal of the Corn Laws, a measure which the
landed interest believed at the time would be absolutely
fatal, and which, indeed, would have ruined that interest
but for the saving virtue of the forces here invoked. Yet
English agriculture never stood on a better foundation
than to-day : the gains of the farmer probably were never
larger through an equal term of years. The reason is
that the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the opening of
English markets to the bread-stuffs of the world, put the
agricultural interest on its mettle ; the farmers found that
they must abandon the old clumsy and wasteful ways ;
break up the old clumsy and wasteful machinery ; pay
higher wages for better work ; breed only from the choicest
stock ; make improvements in every process of cultivation,
from selecting the seed to garnering the grain ; find some
chance for saving, every day, from harvest round to har-
vest again, and that, too, without pinching useful expend-
itures. These things the farmers of England had to do,
and consequently did them. The less energetic and
thrifty, one by one, dropped out of a contest so severe and
unremitting ; those who survived studied their business
as never before, scanned their expenses as men do who
Lave small margin for waste, brought the latest results of
chemical and physiological science into their selection of
crops and of breeding animals, made a business, and not a
drinking bout, of the annual fair, set up agricultural clubs,
compared notes among themselves, and read Mr. Caird's
letters in the Times.
But, thirdly, a rise of wages due to a quickened compe-
tition on the part of the wages class become more intelli-
gent, frugal, and self-assertive, should it proceed so far,
after exhausting the two resources already named, as to
cut into the profits of the employing class, as a whole,
would bring a partial compensation in the increased dig-
EMPLOYERS PARTLY PAID IN HONOR. 259
nity and the heightened intellectual gratification attend-
ing the conduct of business and the control of labor, under
such a condition. I have said, in a previous chapter, that
the pride of directing great operations, and the sense of
power in moving masses of men at will, could not, at
present at least, be relied upon, primarily or principally,
as furnishing the motive to production on the part of the
employing class. And yet we know these do enter, in no
inconsiderable degree, to make up the remuneration of
the entrepreneur. It is true that but a small portion of
the human race are much alive to these feelings, but it
is also true that the men of the entrepreneur stamp are
just those of all in the world to respond to such im-
pulses. 1
We have a very pleasant and instructive picture, by
Mr. Gould in his report to the British government in
1872, of the relations existing between the employer and
the laborer in Switzerland. No country has achieved
industrial success under heavier disadvantages. No conti-
nental country has developed a higher order of business
managers. The Swiss employers maintain themselves
against a severe and unremitting competition only by the
constant exercise of all the industrial virtues. But the
Swiss laborers are politically and socially their equals.
The employer has no feeling of degradation in the contact :
the laborer no feeling of inferiority. Perfect democracy
and universal education have cast out all notions of that
sort as between free Switzers. Hence the employers of
labor of every class, even such as are wealthy, are found
in general among their men, not to be distinguished from
1 "As, even wlien relieved from tlie pressure of necessity, the
large-brained Europeans voluntarily enter on enterprises or activities
which the savage could not keep up, even to satisfy urgent wants ;
BO their larger brained descendants will, in a still higher degree, find
their gratification in careers entailing still greater mental expend!,
tures." H. Spencer, Principles of Biology, II. 520.
260 THE WAGES QUESTION.
them in appearance, and taking hold freely with them at
any part of the work, as occasion serves. 1
I cannot but believe that, as the working classes advance
in individual and mutual intelligence, and push their em-
ployers closer with a more searching and vital competition,
more and more will the reward of the employer come to
consist of the zest of intellectual activity, the joys of
creative energy, the honor of directing affairs, and the
social distinctions of mastership.
For after all, it must be remembered that the employ-
ment of labor is an occupation, as truly as is manual labor
itself; and that the body of employers must continue to
employ labor, or find other ways and means to live. To
assume that employers generally are going to leave busi-
ness on account of a reduction of profits, would be more
sensible if it were shown that they would also leave the
world on that account. JSTot a little of the reasoning in
books as to what employers will do, or capitalists will do,
or laborers will do, if something happens which they can-
not be expected to like, practically assumes that men have
a choice whether they will be born into this world or not ;
' and that, once in it, if they are not satisfied, they have at
hand one or more eligible spheres into which they can
pass, easily and gracefully, with a perfect assurance of
welcome ; and that indeed they will be quite likely to do
so, unless treated with distinguished consideration here.
1 Mr. Gould's Report, p. 346. Mr. Bonar reported in 1870: "In
enumerating the highly favorable circumstances in which the Swiss
working man is placed, prominence must be given to the immense
extension of the principle of democracy, which, whatever may be its
defects and dangers from a political point of view, when pushed to
extremes, serves in Switzerland, in its economical effects, to advance
the cause of the operative, by removing the barriers dividing class
from class, and to establish among all grades the bonds of mutual
sympathy and good will." Report, p. 271. Coxe, in his travels in
Switzerland during the last century, notes the frank, courteous as-
sumption of absolute equality on the part of the Swiss peasantry.
(Pinkerton, V. 657).
THE EMPLOYING CLASS. 261
"Whereas, the most of us, in this world, do, not what we
would like, but what we must, or the best we can ; and I
entertain no manner of doubt that long after profits should
be forced down, if that were to happen, below what might
be deemed an equitable rate, the superior men of everj
country, the men of thought, of prudence, and of natural
command, would be found directing and animating the
movements of industiy.
CHAPTER XV
COOPERATION I GETTING RID OF THE EMPLOYING OLA88.
IN its first arid largest sense, cooperation signifies the
union in production of different persons, it may be of
different classes of persons, and it may be on the most
unequal terms. In this sense, cooperation is compatible
with the subordination of the employed to the employer
and with the existence of industrial "principalities and
powers." In the sense which has been made of late years
so popular, and in which alone it will be used in this
treatise, cooperation means union in production, upon
equal terms. It is democracy introduced into labor.
It is as we turn from discussing the industrial character
of the employing class, that we can most advantageously
consider the schemes proposed, under the title of coopera-
tion, for the amelioration of the condition of the wages
class; and, at the same time, it is as we try to find the
real significance of these schemes that we realize most
fully the confusion introduced into the theory of distribu-
tion by the failure to discriminate the entrepreneur-func-
tion, and by the undue extension of the word profits. In
my opinion, it is simply not possible to give an intelligible
account of cooperation through the use of the definitions
by the text-book writers. If what we have called the
profits of business are only " the wages of supervision and
management," what is it that cooperation aims to effect ?
Supervision and management must still be exercised, or
cooperation will come to a very speedy end. If super*
COOPERATION. 263
vision and management are to be exercised, it must be by
some one, and if the present supervisors and managers
(the employers, as I call them) are to be turned adrift or
reduced to the ranks, then these duties will have to be
performed by men now taking some other part in indus-
try, and to them " the wages of supervision and manage-
ment " will be paid. Wherein have the workmen gained
anything ? It is fairly to be presumed that these peculiar
and difficult duties will not be performed any better by
men chosen by caucus and ballot, than by men selected
through the stern processes of unremitting business com-
petition.
If the wages of supervision and management are to be
paid, in manner and in amount, as heretofore, to super-
visors and managers chosen by the workmen themselves,
we can readily understand that the pride of the workmen
may be gratified (whether that will tend to make them
more easily supervised and managed, is a question we
need not anticipate) ; but wherein is the economical advan-
tage ? If it is said, wages are not to be paid to the super-
visors and managers, under the cooperative system, equal
to those paid under the existing industrial organization,
while yet the work is done as well, what does this amount
to but a confession that the sums now received by the
employers are not wages, but something more than, and
different from, wages; the difference in amount represent-
ing the power given to the employer by his industrial
position to wrest an undue share of the products of in-
dustry ?
To repeat : if, under the cooperative system, the work
of " supervision and management " is to be done by a new
*et of men for the same " wages," the workmen will gain
nothing ; if, on the other hand, the workmen, controlling
the operations of industry for themselves, can get the
work done for less (and the great promises held out as to
the benefits of cooperation would imply that it must be
264 THE WAGES QUESTION.
for very much less), then it must be concluded that em-
ployers at present receive something more than and differ-
ent from wages.
But if we find it difficult to conceive what account one
could give of cooperation, using the definitions of the
text-books, we find that, if we stand aside and allow the
text-book writers to state it in their own way, the result is
not a whit the more happy. Prof. Cairn es, so highly dis-
tinguished for his justness and clearness of reasoning,
stumbles, at the very threshold of the subject, across an
obstacle of his own devising. Thus in the very act of
bringing forward the scheme of cooperation as a cure for
the industrial ills of society, he makes a statement of
cooperation which reduces it to a nullity: "It appears to
me that the condition of any substantial improvement of a
permanent kind in the laborer's lot is that the separation
of industrial classes into laborers and capitalists shall not
be maintained ; that the laborer shall cease to be a mere
laborer in a word, that profits shall be brought to reen-
force the wages fund?' * And again, more tersely : " The
characteristic feature of cooperation, looked at from the
economic point of view, is that it combines in the same
person the two capacities of laborer and capitalist"*
This needs but to be looked at a moment to reveal its
utter fallacy. Remember, this is not the declaration of an
irresponsible philanthropist that every workman ought to
have a palace and a coach, but the grave statement of an
accountable economist as to the manner in which the wel
fare of the working class may, under economical condi-
1 " Some Leading Principles," etc., p. 339.
" Essays on Political Economy." How singularly unfortunate
this would be as a definition, even were Prof. Cairnes not mistaken in
his general view of coo'peration, will be seen when we say that the
above would be a very good description of a peasant proprietor, or
email American farmer. He "combines in the same person the two
capacities of laborer and capitalist." Is he a cofiperator ?
GETTING E1D OF THE ENTREPRENEUR. 263
tions, be advanced. What is this industrial panacea!
Why, the laborers are to become capitalists. A raost
felicitous result truly ; but how is it to be accomplished ?
By saving their own earnings ? But this they can and do
accomplish at present ; and, through the medium of the
bank of savings, they ma} r and do lend their money in
vast amounts to the employing class (oftentimes to their
individual employers), and thus, under the present system
profits (in Prof. Cairnes' sense) may be and are " brought
to reenforce" wages. Is it, then, by saving somebody
else's earnings, and bringing the profits thereof to " ree'n-
force the wages fund " ? But this is spoliation, confiscation,
a resort which no one would be before Prof. Cairnes in
denouncing, and whose disastrous consequences to the
laborers themselves no one could more forcibly portray.
We see, therefore, that Prof. Cairnes' statement is a
form utterly without content. Cooperation is to be an
admirable thing, because in cooperation the workmen are
to be both laborers and capitalists. But if we inquire
how they are to become capitalists, otherwise than at
present, we fail to find an answer.
No ! Cooperation, considered as a question in the dis
tribution of wealth, is nothing more or less than getting
rid of the employer, the entrepreneur, the middleman.
It does not get rid of the capitalist. In modern industrial
society, that society which Prof. Cairnes is contemplating
when he finds the condition of the workman hard and
requiring relief, there are three functions, not two merely ;
and the reform to be effected through cooperation, if
indeed cooperation be practicable, is by combining in the
same person, not the labor function and the capital func-
tion, but the labor function and the entrepreneur function.
What then is the attitude of laborers in cooperation ?
To the employer they say : You have performed an im-
266 THE WAGES QUESTION.
portant part in production, and you have performed it
well ; but you are now relieved. You have charged too
high for your services. Your annual profits, taking good
years and bad together, are greater than we need to pay
to get the work done, if we will take the responsibilities
of business on ourselves, and exercise a forethought,
patience, and pains we have had no call to exercise while
you were in charge. Up to this time the state of the case
has been this :
1. A product, varying with seasons and circumstances
multifarious.
2. Our wages, fixed ; you making yourself responsible
for their payment, whatever be the character of the season
or the state of the market, yourself receiving nothing till
we are paid.
3. From a variable quantity deducting a fixed quantity
leaves a variable remainder, viz., your profits fluctuating
with good or bad fortune, good or bad management.
Hereafter the state of the case will be :
1. A product, variable, so long as the laws of nature
remain the same.
2. A fixed salary paid to a manager whom we select,
and to whom we make ourselves responsible with what-
ever we possess, meanwhile receiving nothing till he is
paid.
3. From a variable quantity deducting a certain quan-
tity leaves a variable result : our earnings, no longer
called wages, greater in good years, smaller in bad years ;
greater as we labor with zeal and conduct our business
with discretion, smaller as we fail in either respect.
One word more before we part. We intend no dis-
respect. With workmen who are ignorant, dissolute, un-
willing to subordinate the present to the future, incapable
of organization, such services as you are qualified to render
are absolutely indispensable ; and we will not say that
such remuneration as you exact is excessive. But we pro-
NATURE OF CO-OPERATION. gffl
fees better things. We are prepared to exercise patience,
industry, economy, and to subject our individual desires
to the general will, for the sake of dividing among our-
selves the profits you have been accustomed to make out
of us. 1 We know it will be hard ; but we believe it can
be done. If men are not fit for an industrial republic,
then they must submit to the despot of industry, and they
have no right to complain of Civil List and Privy Purse.
But we are republicans, cheerfully accepting all the re-
sponsibilities of freedom, and boldly laying claim to all its
privileges.
This is, in effect, what the laborers, by cooperation, say
to the entrepreneur. Do they give the capitalist his
conge after the same fashion ? Do they assert independ-
ence of him, and ability to go along without him ? Not
in the least. Not a word of it. Cooperation is not going
to rid them of dependence on capital. They are to bj
just as dependent on the capitalist as were their employers
whose place they aspire to fill. They know that they
must have just as much and just as good machinery, just
as abundant and good materials, as competing establish-
ments under entrepreneur management. So far as they
themselves have capital, the results of their savings out of
past wages, they will employ these and receive the returns
therefrom directly, instead of lending it to the entrepre-
neur through the savings bank and getting interest there-
for. So far as they want capital for their operations over
what they can scrape together, they must go to the banks or-
to private lenders, and pay as high a price for its use as
their quondam employer was wont to do ; indeed, for
1 " A scheme ... by which the laborer can unite the functions
and earn the wages of laborer and employer by superseding the neces-
sity of using the services of the latter functionary ." Prof. Rogers, Pol.
Econ., 108. This is a strictly accurate, and but for the regretable use
of the word wages, would be a felicitous, statement of the design oi
cooperation.
368 THE WAGES qUE8T10N.}
awhile at least, probably a higher price, as their credit
will not be likely to be so good at first as his. And if
cooperation should start earliest, and make most progress,
in those industries where the amount of capital required
is comparatively small, this would be but a recognition 01
the fact that cooperation has no tendency to free the labor-
ing class from any domination of capital, of which com-
plaint may have been made, but that its sole object is to
GET RID OF THE ENTREPRENEUR.
Such being, as I apprehend it, the true nature of coop-
eration, let us inquire as to the advantages which may be
anticipated from it, if accomplished ; as to the obstacles to
be encountered by it ; and as to the probability of its
success in any such measure as to afford an appreciable
relief from the peculiar hardships of the wages class. Let
it be remembered that it is the question of wages, and not
the question of labor, which cooperation aims to solve.
The welfare of labor depends on the laws of production,
under the rule of diminishing returns, taken in connection
with the laws of population. The question of wages is a
question in the distribution of wealth, and arises out of
the dependence of a portion of the laboring population
upon the entrepreneur-class for employment.
What, then, might we fairly look to cooperation to
accomplish ?
Considering the scheme from the laborer's point of view,
we say :
, First, to reap the profits of the entrepreneur, which
are very large, 1 large enough if divided among the wages
" Double interest is, in Great Britain, reckoned what the mer-
chants call a good, moderate, reasonable profit." Adam Smith 1, 102.
Sir Arch. Alison gives as an argument against what would practically
be cooperation, that the profits if divided among the laborers, " would
not make an addition to them of more than thirty or forty per cent "
'-(Hist. Europe, xxii, 237.) "Profits "here include both the returns
of capital and the gains of the middleman. Prof. Senior says; "it
ADVANTAGES OF CO-OPERATION. 269
class to make a substantial, addition to their means of sub-
sistence.
Second: to secure employment independently of the
will of the " middle man." It has been shown in a pre-
vious chapter, that the interest which the employer has in
production is found in the balance of profit left after the
payment of wages. The payment of these, perhaps to
the extent of ten, twenty, or fifty times his profit, is to him
merely a necessary means to that end. It may be, as has
been said, that his relations to a body of customers shall
be such as to induce him to continue producing even
though, for a time, he sinks his own profit. After the
effect of this has been exhausted, however, and it is soon
exhausted, he will pay wages only to get a profit. But
the condition of the market will often be such as to ren-
der him exceedingly doubtful of his profit, or even appre-
hensive of a loss ; and then his whole interest in produc-
tion ceases. Because he can not see his way to make ten
or five thousand dollars profit, he is ready to stop a pro-
duction, the agencies and instrumentalities of which are
wholly at his command, which involves the payment of
one or two hundred thousand dollars in wages. Now,
with reference to such an oft recurring condition of in-
dustry, a body of workmen may properly say that,
while they cannot blame the employer for refusing to risk
the payment of such large amounts in wages to them,
without a reasonable assurance of getting it back, with a
may be laid down generally, that in no country have profits continued
for any considerable period at the average rate of fifty per cent per
annum." (Pol. Econ., p. 140.)
Mr. Purdy estimates the division of the annual product of the land
of England and Wales as follows :
Landlord's share (returns of capital) 43,955,963
Farmer's share (profits) 21,477,981
Laborer's share (wages) 39,766 156
104,200,100
[Statistical Journal a tlv, 868.]
270 THE WAGES QUESTION.
profit, in the price of the goods, yet they are much dis
posed to take the responsibility of production upon them-
selves. Thus, especially in branches of manufacture
where the value of the materials bears a small proportion
to the value of the finished goods, they might propose to
go on producing moderately in spite of the most unfavora-
ble aspect of the market, on the ground that they might
just as well be laboring as lying idle, and sell the product
for what it would bring. All they should thus receive
would be clear gain, as against a period of enforced idle-
ness, and it might not infrequently happen that, on settling
up their venture, they would find a turn in the market
giving them a compensation as large or nearly as large as
usual.
But it may be asked why should not the employer in
times of business depression, agree with his workmen to
pay them whatever he should find in the result he could
afford. But this would be cooperation, slightly disguised.
The essence of wages is that they are stipulated before-
hand : the essence of profits is that they are, as DeQuincey
calls them, "the leavings of wages," and therefore vary
as the product varies under the varying conditions of
industry, natural or artificial. It is of the essence of the
relation of employer and employed, that the employer
secures to the employed their wages, and after that,
appropriates his own remuneration. Were the employed
to consent to give the employer his profit first, and take
their wages afterwards, their relations would merely be
reversed. Five hundred mill hands entering into this
arrangement would become a body of cooperative produ-
cers ; the so-called manufacturer would become simply
their paid manager, their hired man.
It is true that arrangements for a " sliding scale " of
wages, adapted to the market price of the product, are
sometimes entered into in coal and iron mining ; but these
cover only a portion of the ground embraced in the
ADVANTAGES OF CO-OPERATION. 271
cooperative plan, as the cost of materials and transporta-
tion, rent, interest, and the general expenses of business
management, may vary so greatly as very much to reduce,
and at times to destroy, the employer's expectations of
profit, in spite of the sliding scale of wages.
Such, as we understand the matter, are the two econom-
ical advantages for which the wages class look to coopera-
tion. There is still another advantage, non-economical
and therefore not in our province, namely, the getting rid
of the feeling of dependence and the securing of a higher
social standing.
In addition to the advantages which the wages class
have generally in contemplation when plans of coopera-
tion are proposed, the political economist sees three advan-
tages of high importance which would result from this
system if fairly established.
First : cooperation would, by the very terms of it,
obviate strikes. The employer being abolished, the work-
men being now self-employed, these destructive contests
would cease. The industrial " non-ego " disappearing, the
industrial egotism which precipitates strikes would dis-
appear also. Second : the workman would be stimulated
to greater industry and greater carefulness. He would
work more and waste less, for, under the cooperative
system, he would receive a direct, instant, and certain
advantage from his own increased carefulness and labori-
ousness. It is true that the pressure thus brought to bear
upon the individual laborer is not so great as in the case
of the individual proprietor of land, since there the gain is
all his own, while here the workman has to divide with
his fellow-cooperators the advantages of his own extra
exertions, looking, though not with absolute assurance, to
receive an equivalent from each of them in turn. Third :
the workman would be incited to frugality. He has at
once furnished him the best possible opportunity for in-
vesting his savings, namely, in materials and implements
873 THE WAGES QUESTION.
which he is himself to use in labor. Especially in the
early days of cooperative industry, when the great need of
cooperators is capital, will this pressure be felt, constrain-
ing the workman to invest in his trade all of his earnings
that can be spared from necessary subsistence. Capital
thus saved and thus invested is likely to be cared for and
used to the best ability of the cooperators. They will
make the most of it, for it will have cost them dear.
The additional considerations that cooperation tends to
improve the moral, social, and political character of the
workman, by giving him a larger stake in society, making
his remuneration depend more directly on his own con-
duct, and allowing him to participate in the deliberations
and decisions of industry : these considerations, being
non-economical, belong to the statesman and the moralist.
Here are several distinct advantages, not fanciful but
real and unquestionable, which together make up an argu-
ment for cooperation which is simply unanswerable and
overwhelming, unless there is validity in our theory of
the character and functions of the employing class.
In spite of these marked advantages, however, we have
to note that cooperation in mechanical industry has
achieved a very slight and even doubtful success. Mr.
Frederick Harrison has called attention in the Fortnightly
Review l to the fact that the vast majority of all the
cooperative establishments maintained in England are
simply stores, i. e. shops, "for the sale of food and some-
times clothing." " These, of course, cannot affect the con-
dition of industry materially. Labor here does not in any
sense share in the produce with capital. The relation of
employer and employed remains just the same, and not a
single workman would change the conditions of his em-
1 Fortnightly Review, III., 482.
SMALL SUCCESS OF COOPERATION. 273
ployment if the store were to extinguish all the shops of
a town."
The industrial cooperative societies, Mr. Harrison con-
tinues, are mainly flour mills and cotton mills. The flour
mills chiefly supply members, though they often employ
persons unconnected with the society, at ordinary market
wages, and on the usual terms. They are joint-stock
companies, for a specific purpose, like gas or railway com
panics. The only true instances of manufacturing coop-
erative societies of any importance are the cotton mills.
" Some of the mills never got to work at all ; some took
the simple form of joint-stock companies in few hands ;
others passed into the hands of small capitalists, or the
shares were concentrated among the promoters. In fact,
there is now, I believe, no cooperative cotton mill, owned
by working men, in actual operation, on any scale, with
the notable exception of Rochdale. . . . Here and
there, an association of bootmakers, hatters, painters, or
gilders, is carried on, upon a small scale, with varying
success. . . . But small bodies of handicraftsmen (or
rather artists), working in common, with moderate capital,
plant and premises, obviously establish nothing."
This is certainly a discouraging account to come from a
labor-champion, at the end of thirty years of effort, and
after the inauguration of so many hopeful enterprises
which have enjoyed an amount of gratuitous advertise-
ment, from philanthropic journals and sanguine econo-
mists, which would have sufficed to sell a hundred millions
of railroad bonds, or make the fortunes of a hundred
manufacturing establishments.
A later writer gives a not more encouraging picture :
" A large proportion of all cooperative societies are dealers
in food, provisions, and articles of clothing, consumed
chiefly by themselves and families. Others, but in a small
ratio, are manufacturers of flax, spinners of cotton or wool,
and manufacturers of shoes, etc. But very few of them
374 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
succeed ; and the failures are to be found chiefly in these
attempts at production." 1
The same tale comes from France, where these enter-
prises were inaugurated during the revolutionary period
of 1848. M. Ducarre's report of 1875, from the Commis-
sion on Wages and the Relations between Workmen and
their Employers, claims even less success for cooperative
production in that country than is reported in England
and Germany. 2
In Switzerland, the nursery of accomplished artisans,
whose citizens are trained in self-government more per-
fectly than those of any other country in the world, we
find, at the latest date for which the facts are given, 3 only
thirteen small cooperative societies of production. In
these inconsiderable results, if not failure, of cooperative
manufacturing, we find the most striking testimony that
could be given to the importance of the entrepreneur-
function in modern industry. Small groups of highly
skilled artisans artists, Mr. Harrison would call them
carefully selected, using inexpensive materials and small
" plant,'' and working for a market 4 close at hand, per-
haps for customers personally known, may achieve success
by the exercise of no impossible patience and pains. But
where laborers of very various qualifications, of all ages
and both sexes, are to be brought together in industries
1 Social Science Transactions, 1871, p. 585.
* " Les societes cooperatives n'ont pas eu jusqu'a ce jour en France
le succes qu'elles ont obtenu, soit en Angleterre, soit en Allemague.
. . . En France, les societes de production n'existent qu'a 1'etat de
minimes exceptions " pp. 264-5.
' Report of Mr. Gould, on the Condition of the Industrial Classes,
1872, p. 355.
4 " Pour la petite Industrie, les placements sont en quelque sorte
assures ; le marche est la sous les yeux du producteur, il en peut a
chaque instant consulter les besoins, il reconnait a des signes certaina
1'engorgement et la plethore, aussi bien que rinsuffisance et la disette."
Blanqui (aine), Cours d'lsconomie Industrielle, II., 62.
DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 275
which involve a great many processes requiring differing
degrees of strength and skill, and which produce goods
for distant, and perhaps, at the time of production,
unknown markets, we see as yet scarcely a sign of the
services of the employer being dispensed with. What,
then, is the reason for this comparative failure of indus-
trial cooperation ? I answer, the difficulty of effecting
cooperation on a large scale is directly as its desirableness.
It is solely because of the importance of the entrepreneur-
function that the employing class are enabled to realize
those large profits which so naturally and properly excite
the desires of the wages class ; and it is for precisely the
same reason that it is found so difficult to get rid of the
employing class.
The qualities of the successful entrepreneur are rare.
"We need only to look around us, within the most limited
field, and for the shortest time, to see how vast a differ-
ence is made by the able, as contrasted with the merely
common-place, not to say bad, conduct of business ; and
how great losses may be incurred by the failure to realize
all the conditions of purchase, production, and sale. And
the more extensively markets are opened by the removal
of commercial restrictions, the more intense competition
becomes under the opportunities of frequent communica-
tion and rapid transportation, the richer the prizes, the
heavier the penalties, of the entrepreneur; the wider the
breach between the able and the commonplace manage-
ment of business. In these days, a person who should,
upon the strength of respectable general abilities, under-
take a branch of manufacture to which he had not been
trained, and in which he had not long been exercised in
subordinate positions, would run a serious risk of sinking
a large part of his capital in a few years, it might be in a
few months ; and this, without any great catastrophe in
trade, or any flagrant instance of misconduct in the opera-
U*
876 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tions undertaken. Simply not to do well is generally, in
production, to do very ill.
It is, of course, hard for workmen to see such large
amounts taken out of the product to remunerate the
entrepreneur, leaving so much the less to be divided
among themselves ; and the ambition which leads them to
attempt to earn these profits by undertaking this part in
industry, is wholly honorable and commendable. But it
is clear that it is a great deal better, even for the work-
men, that this heavy tax should be paid to the entrepre-
neur, than that production should be carried on without
the highest skill, efficiency, and energy. The proof is
that, as a rule almost without exception, those employers
who make the highest profits are the employers who,
when regularity of employment is taken into account, as
it ought to be, pay the highest wages. Business must be
well conducted, no matter how much is paid for it : that
is the first condition of modern industrial life. The ques-
tion who shall conduct it, must, even in the interest of the
working classes, be secondary and subordinate.
Is it asked, why may not the men who have the knowl-
edge, skill, and experience requisite for the conduct of
business, be employed as agents of cooperators, receiving
wages for their services ? In the first place, I answer,
the same men cannot conduct the same business as well
for others as for themselves. You might as well expect
the bow to send the arrow as far when unbent as when
bent. The knowledge that he will gain what is gained ;
that he will lose what is lost, is essential to the temper of
the man of business. No matter how faithfully disposed,
he simply cannot meet the exigencies and make the
choices of purchase, production, and sale, if the gain or
the loss is to be another's, with the same spirit as if the
gain or the loss were to be all his own. That alertness
and activity of mind, that perfect mingling of caution and
audacity, those unaccountable suggestions of possibilities,
DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 2TJ
opportunities, and contingencies, which, at least, make
the difference between great and merely moderate success,
are not to be had at a salary. 1
Yet I do not claim that the effect of this would extend
so far as to neutralize all the great advantages 2 of coopera-
tion. If a body of workmen possessed the faith and
patience necessary to carry them through the period of
outlay and experiment, if they had the good judgment to
select the best manager they could find, the good sense
to pay him enough to keep him solidly attached to them,
and the good humor to support him heartily, submit
promptly to his decisions, and remain harmonious among
themselves, cooperation might become a triumphant suc-
cess with them. But let us see how much all this
demands from poor human nature.
In the first place, there is the all-important choice of a
manager. Not to dwell on the danger of a body of work-
men mistaking presumption for a true self-confidence, a
brave show of information for thorough knowledge, an
affected brusqueness for decision of character; or being
led away by the plausibility and popular acts of a candi-
date, we have the almost certainty that such a body would,
in the result, lose the best man, if not by turns every
competent man, through indisposition to pay a sufficient
salary. In his address before the Cooperative Congress
already quoted, Mr. Thomas Brassey asked : " "Where shall
we find cooperative shareholders ready to give 5,000 a
year for a competent manager ? And yet the sum I have
1 "It is impossible to hire commercial genius, or the instincts of a
skilful trader." Fred'k Harrison, Fortnightly Review, III, 492.
3 " I am confident that the manual operations will be skilfully and
probably more diligently performed in a coSperative establishment.
The personal interests of the workmen will be so directly advanced
by their application and perseverance that they will naturally work
hard. But their best efforts will fail to ensure a satisfactory result,
unless the general organization is perfect also." Mr. Brassey, at Hali
fax. The Times' Report.
278 THE WAGES QUESTION.
named is sometimes readily paid by private employers to
an able lieutenant." * But it is not merely an able lieu-
tenant, but a u captain of industry," that cooperators must
secure, if they are to conduct purchase, production, and
sale in competition with establishments under individual
control. Can we imagine such a body paying $50,000 a
year to a manager, when they receive on an average not
more than $500 themselves ? Would not jealousy of such
high wages sooner or later, in one way or another, over-
come their sense of their own interest ? Even if we sup-
pose them intellectually convinced of the expediency,
upon general principles, of paying largely for good service,
will they not be found calculating that for this particular
manager this particular sum is altogether too much, or,
without any disparagement of his merits, experimenting
to see how much they can " cut him down " without driv-
ing him off, an experiment always dangerous, always
breeding ill-feeling, and preparing the way for a separa-
tion. For why should the man who has the skill and
knowledge necessary to conduct business on his own
account be content to remain on a salary greatly below
the amount he might fairly expect to earn for himself ?
Is it said his salary is regular and his profits always more
or less uncertain 2 But the men of the temper to conduct
business are not generally timid men or self-distrustful ;
they like responsibility and the exercise of authority it
is a part of their pay. !N~or are they averse to a risk well
taken ; it braces them up and makes the game exciting.
Is it said that want of capital may constrain some of the
best men to seek employment at the hand of such associa-
tions ? This is true, in a degree, and here is one of the
possibilities of cooperation. Yet if a man have the real
stuff in him, want of capital is not likely long to keep him
under. The history of modern industry teaches that.
1 The Times' Report.
DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 279
Getting into business in the niDst humble way, the mer-
chants from whom he buys his materials, those to whom
he sells his products, and the bankers to whom he resorts
with his modest note, 1 all soon take his measure, and when
they have taken his measure they give him room. Genius
will have its appointed course : antagonism and adversity
only incite, inspire, instruct.
We have thus far spoken only of those difficulties of
cooperation which attend the selection and retention of
able managers. On the difficulties to which this is but an
introduction, arising out of the tendency to intrigue which
exists in all numerous bodies, and the disposition to
meddlesomeness on the part of committees or boards of
directors, 2 I need not dwell. A sufficient lively impres-
sion of them is likely to be created by the merest mention.
I will only further refer to an embarrassment which
attends the extension of the cooperative plan to all
branches of manufacture which employ laborers of very
different degrees of industrial efficiency. Thus, in a cot-
ton or woolen mill are to be found persons of both sexes
and of all ages, earning under the present system from a
few pence up to as many shillings a day. Under the
cooperative plan, how is the scale of prices to be fixed ?
To say that all should be paid alike would be monstrous,
impossible. It would be grossly unjust, and would be
quite sufficient to wreck the enterprise from the start. 3
1 My honored father has told me of the discussion once held over a
note for $250, offered at the bank of which he was a director, signed
with the then unknown name of James M. Beebe.
a Mr. Thornton (On Labor, p. 441) argues that while societies of
workingmen may be unable to administer their affairs directly, they
may be competent, like political societies, " to provide for their own
government." To the contrary, Mr. Harrison urges (Fortnightly
Review, III., 492) that " he who is unfit to manage, is unfit to direct
the manager."
* Mr. Babbage has shown (Econ. of Manufactures, p. 173-183) that
the earnings of persons employed in the production of pins, in his day
280 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But if the laborers are to be paid at different rates, who,
I ask again, is to determine the proportions in which the
product shall be divided ? How is general consent to be
obtained to a scheme which must condemn the great
majority to receive but a contemptible fraction of their
proportional share ? Without general consent, what
chance of harmonious action ? But if we suppose the
scale of distribution to be fixed, who is to assign the per-
sonnel of the association to their several categories, to say
that this man shall go into one class, and that man, who
thinks quite as well of himself, shall go into a lower class \
Is there not here the occasion, almost the provocation, of
disputes and bad blood highly dangerous to such an enter-
prise ?
I have no desire to multiply objections to this system
or to magnify the scope of those that offer themselves to
view. Heartily do 1 wish that workingmen might be found
rising more and more to the demands which cooperation
makes upon them ; but I entertain no great expectations
of success in this direction. The reduction of profits
through increasing intelligence, sobriety and frugality on
the part of the wages class, securing them a prompt, easy
and sure resort to the best market, is the most hopeful
path of progress for the immediate future. There are of
course some departments of industry where the services
of the entrepreneur can be more easily dispensed with,
than in others. Here cooperation under good auspices
may achieve no doubtful success.
It would appear that if cooperation could be intro-
duced anywhere, it would be in agriculture : yet in no
ranged from 4)-d. to 6s. If the workmen who were capable of doing
the higher parts of the work (pointing, whitening, etc.) were to be put
to making the whole pin, through all the ten processes described, the
cost of the pins would be three and three-quarter times as great as
under the application of the division of labor, with payments to eacli
workman according to his capacity.
COOPERATION. 88,
department of production have the experiments tried
proved less satisfactory. 1 One reason which, in addition
to those already enumerated, will probably always serve to
delay the extension of the cooperative system in this
direction, is the great difficulty of determining the actual
profits of a year or a term of years, with reference, as. is
essential, to the value of unexhausted improvements. So
long as the cooperators hold together and divide the yearly
produce, all goes well ; but if at any time one desires to
withdraw, and men will not enter into associations of this
character without the right of retiring, at pleasure, with-
out forfeiture, the question of undivided profits becomes
of the most serious importance. To settle it with absolute
justice is simply impossible, 3 and no method of arriving
roughly at a result of substantial justice, is likely to avoid
deep dissatisfaction and sense of wrong.
1 An apparently successful experiment in this direction obtains
notice in Prof. Fawcett's Pol. Econ., pp. 292-3, note.
a Perhaps the difficulty of the problem will be best outlined, to
those who are not familiar with this special subject of undivided
profits, or " unexhausted improvements," in agriculture, by present-
ing the following classification of tenants' expenditures on the soil,
which was embraced in the Duke of Richmond's Bill of 1875. That
bill divided improvements into three categories ; permanent, wasting
and temporary. In the first class were included reclaiming, warping,
draining, making or improving watercourses, ponds, etc., roads,
fences, buildings, and the planting of orchards and gardens. With
respect to these, it was proposed that an outgoing tenant should be
allowed compensation for the unexhausted value of such of them as
he might have made within 20 years of the termination of his tenancy
with the written consent of his landlord. The second class included
liming, claying, chalking, marling, boring, clay-burning, and planting
hops, and it was proposed that the tenant should be able to claim for
these processes, if done within seven years of the end of his tenancy,
no consent being necessary. So also with respect to the third class-
consuming by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of corn, cake, or other feeding
stuffs, or using artificial manures where, however, a claim could not
go back beyond two years.
283 THE WAGES QUESTION.
The difficulties of industrial cooperation have been so
manifest that schemes have been suggested for avoiding
them in great part, by methods which should sacrifice a
proportionally smaller part of the advantages looked for
from cooperation. Among these schemes, one, which seems
to have been first definitely brought forward by Mr. Bab-
bage, 1 has been tried upon a considerable scale. By this
plan, which may be called one of partial cooperation, the
employer is induced to admit his workmen to a participa-
tion to a certain extent in the profits of manufacture, while
himself retaining the full authority and responsibility of the
entrepreneur. By this plan the employer might fairly hope
to attach his workmen to himself by more than the slight
tie of daily or monthly employment, and to interest them
so directly in the production of the establishment, as to
secure a greater activity in labor and more carefulness in
avoiding waste. The resulting advantages to the workmen
would clearly be both moral and economical. There is
quite a body of literature relating to the experiments
in this direction, of MM. Leclaire, 3 Dupont, Gisquet, and
Lemaire, in France ; of the Messrs. Briggs, owners of exten-
sive collieries and others in England; 3 of a few manufactu-
rers in a small way in Switzerland, 4 of M. Cini, an exten-
sive paper manufacturer of Tuscany, 5 and the Messrs.
1 In Mr. Babbage's admirable little work on "the Economy of Man-
ufactures," published in 1832, a plan of industrial organization is pro-
posed on the idea that " a considerable part of the wages received by
each person employed should depend on the profits made by the
establishment." (pp. 249-50.)
2 J. S. Mill, Pol. Econ., ii. 335-7.
Thornton " On Labor," pp. 369-84 McDonnell's Survey of Pol
Econ. 220-1.
4 Report of Mr. Gould on the condition of the industrial classes
1872, p. 355.
Report of Mr. Herries on the condition of the industrial classes of
Italy. 1871 p. 234-5.
COOPERATION.
Brewster, 1 carnage manufacturers, of Broome st.,
York. That something of the sort is practicable, with
the exercise of no more of patience, pains and mutual
good faith than it is reasonable to expect of many em-
ployers and many bodies of workmen, I am greatly dis-
posed to believe. Many experiments, and probably much
disappointment and some failures, will be required to
develop the possibilities of this scheme, and determine its
best working shape, yet in the end I see no reason to
doubt that such a relation will be introduced extensively
with the most beneficial results.
The objections which have been shown to exist to pro-
ductive cooperation do not apply with anything like equal
force to distributive cooperation, so-called (but which
could more properly be termed consumptive cooperation),
that is, the supplying of the wages class with the necessa-
1 The proposal of the Messrs. Brewster was most honorable at once
to the good feeling and to the sagacity of the members of the firm,
especially Mr. J. W. Britton, with whom the enterprise originated.
The firm offered to divide ten per cent of their net profits among their
employees, in proportion to the wages severally earned by them, no
charge to be made by the members of the firm for their services prior
to this deduction of ten per cent, or for interest on the capital in-
vested ; the business of each year to stand by itself, and be independ-
ent of that of any other year. This handsome proposal was accepted
by the employees, and an association formed. The plan worked to
the satisfaction of all parties, as high as $11,000 a year being divided
among the hands : but at the great strike of the trades in New York
three years ago, the workmen of this establishment were carried away
by the general excitement, and the strong pressure brought to bear
upon them from the outside ; and the scheme was abandoned. So
long as it worked, it worked well ; and showed that the plan had
no financial or industrial weaknesses. The failure was at the point
of patience, forbearance and faith, a very important point ; but may
not masters and men be educated up to this requirement, in view of
the great advantages to result ?
*84 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
ries of life through agencies established and supported by
themselves.
By productive cooperation, workmen seek to increase
their incomes.
By distributive or consumptive cooperation, they seek
to expend their incomes to better advantage. They no
longer seek to divide among themselves the profits of
manufacture, but the profits of retail 1 and perhaps even
of wholesale 2 trade.
The advantages of this species of cooperation are :
First : the division among the cooperators of the ordi-
nary net profits of the retail trade.
Second : the saving of all expenses in the line of adver-
tising, whether in the way of printing and bill posting, or
of the decoration of stores with gilding and frescoing,
with costly counters, shelves, and show cases, with plate
glass windows and elaborate lighting apparatus, or ot high
rents paid on account of superior location. The aggre-
gate saving on these accounts is very large. The " union "
store may be on a back street, with the simplest arrange-
ments, yet the associates will be certain to go to it for
their supplies, without invitation through newspapers or
posters.
Third : a great reduction in the expenses of handling
and dealing out goods. The retail trader must be pre-
pared at all times to serve the public, and he does not
dare to greatly delay one while serving another, lest he
should drive custom to a rival shop. He is therefore
1 For remarks of Messrs. Mill and Cairnes respecting the " excessive
friction," and consequent undue profits and expenses of retail trade,
the reader is referred to page 313-5.
* Very recently the cooperative societies of England have decided
on a new and far reaching step, and have undertaken the importation
of foreign supplies required for their numerous stores and shops.
This step evidently involves a very large addition of responsibility
and risk, without, as I should apprehend, a proportional gain in the
event of success.
COOPERATION. 285
obliged to be at an expense for clerks and porters far
exceeding what would be required were the trade of the
day somewhat more concentrated. Some curious results
of observations concerning the average number of cus
tomers in shops in London, are given in Mr. Head's paper
before the Social Science Association, 1 which may be
summarized as follows :
1st observation : time, 4 to 6 o'clock p. M. ; in 88 shops
there were 76 persons = .86 persons to a shop.
2cl observation : time, 11 A. M. to 1 p. M. ; 54= persons in
the same 88 shops .61 persons to a shop.
3d observation : time, 2 to 4 P.M. ; 114 persons = 1.3
persons to a shop.
Average of the three observations : .92 persons to a
shop.
JSTow cooperators can effect a great saving in this re-
spect. Being sure of their custom, they can control it,
and concentrate it into a few hours of the day, or perhaps
of the evening wholly.
Fourth : a saving, of vast moment, in the abolition of
the credit system, involving as that does the keeping of
books, the rendering of accounts, and much solicitation of
payment, and, secondly, a very considerable percentage
of loss by bad debts.
Fifth : security, so far as possible with human agencies,
against the frauds in weight and measure and in the
adulteration of goods, which are perpetrated extensively
under the system of retail trade, the poorest customers
being generally those who suffer most.
The difficulties of consumptive are fewer and less severe
than those of productive cooperation. To handle and sell
goods is a much less serious business than to produce
them. When once marketed, the contingencies of pro-
duction are past, the quality of the goods is already deter-
1 Transactions, 1872, pp. 449-50.
286 THE WAGES QUESTION.
mined, and in the great majority of cases, only moderate
care is required to prevent deterioration. Then again,
the profits of retail trade are relatively higher, for the
capital and skill required, than the profits of manufacture ;
and hence there is more to be gained by total or even
a partial success. Finally and chiefly, the destination of
the goods is already practically provided for ; the members
are certain to take off what is bought, if only ordinary dis-
cretion is used ; waste and loss are therefore reduced to
the minimum.
There are, therefore, powerful reasons, in the nature of
the case, for the success of consumptive cooperation. The
facts bear out the prognostication, although even this form
of association has had many disappointments and often
come to grief, not always from causes easily to be deter-
mined. " Cooperation," says Mr. Holyoake, the historian
of the movement in England, " is the most unaccountable
thing that is found amongst the working classes. Nobody
can tell under what conditions it will arise. Why it
flourishes when it does, and why it does not flourish when
it should, are alike inexplicable. "Why should it succeed
in Rochdale, Blaydon, and Sowerby Bridge, and never
take root in Birmingham, Sheffield, or Glasgow ? There
is no place in Great Britain so unlikely as Sowerby Bridge
to produce cooperators. There are no places so likely as
London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Sheffield. Yet
cooperators in some of these places make no more progress
than a society of Naggletons. In Sheffield the socialists
have tried cooperation ; the Methodists have tried it ; the
Catholics have tried it ; but neither Owen, "Wesley, nor
the Pope have any success in that robust town, whero
mechanics have more advantages, independence, and
means, and as much intelligence as in any town in Eng-
land." l "We may fairly presume that the case is not alto-
1 Soc. Science Transactions, 1864, p. 6-8.
COOPERATION. 387
gether so mysterious as Mr. Holyoake would make it out
to be. Lack of interest in the result, and consequent lack
of the patience, pains, and self-denial necessary to achieve
success, and unfortunate choice of managers, through in-
difference or intrigue, would probably explain most of
the failures of cooperative trading, where the principle of
cash payments has been strictly adhered to, and where
the enterprises have been confined to the supply of the
cooperators with the simple necessaries and comforts of
life, without venturing into lines where fashion and taste
predominate. The latest statistics attainable show 746
cooperative societies existing in England and Wales. The
total share capital reaches 2,784,000. The money taken
for goods sold during the year was 11,379,000. The
largest of all these societies is the " Civil Service Supply
Association," which musters 4,500 associates, and which
in the six months ending February 28, 1874, took in, from
sales, 819,428.
It is to be noted that these "stores" do not try to
undersell the retail shops, but sell their goods at ordinary
prices, and divide all profits, after a reasonable addition to
the "reserve," annually or semi-annually, among their
stockholders. The sums thus coming once or twice a year
to a workman are likely to be so considerable as strongly
to suggest the savings bank.
In France, M. Ducarre's report, while announcing the
comparative failure of cooperative societies of production,
states that those devoted to the supply of articles for con-
sumption, have at once had a much wider trial and
achieved a much larger degree of success. 1 In Germany,
Belgium, and Italy, the movement for consumptive coop-
eration is in full present vigor. 3 Even in little Denmark,
where but one industrial cooperative society exists, 37
1 P. 265.
McDonnell's Survey of Pol. Econ., pp. 224-5.
888 THE WAGES QUESTION.
cooperative establishments are reported * for the sale of
articles of domestic consumption. In Austria, account is
given 2 of 237 cooperative store-unions. In the United
States, consumptive cooperation has been widely estab-
lished in connection with the " Granger " movement, and
also, more on its own merits, through the organization
known as the " Sovereigns of Industry." 8
1 Report of Mr. Strachy, 1870, p. 512.
Report of Mr. Lytton, 1870, p. 564.
* I am disappointed to find so little precise statistical information
in Mr. Chamberlain's work on the Sovereigns of Industry. Figures
of arithmetic are more needed than figures of speech, in discussions oi
cooperation.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRUE WAGES QUESTION.
IF the three great classes which together make up
modern industrial society, in its highest development,
have been justly delineated, it will be seen how inaccu-
rate is that statement of the wages question which makes
it identical with the labor question. The true wages
question is the question of employment. Hence the
popular phrase, "the contest of labor and capital," be-
comes at once revealed as a misnomer. The true contro-
versy is not between the laborer and the capitalist, but be-
tween the laborer and his employer, to whom laborer and
capitalist alike are compelled to resort for the opportunity
to produce wealth and to derive an income.
In the highly-complicated organization of modern in-
dustry, the employer, the entrepreneur ', stands between the
capitalist and the laborer, makes his terms with each, and
directs the courses and methods of industry with almost
unquestioned authority. To laborer and to capitalist
alike he guarantees a reward at fixed rates, taking for him-
self whatever his skill, enterprise, and good fortune shall
secure. How completely the laborer accepts this situation
of affairs we see in the fewness of the attempts to estab-
lish productive co-operation, as shown in the preceding
chapter. But the laborer does not accept the situation
more utterly, more passively, than does the capitalist.
Quite as closely does the man of wealth who has not been
290 THE WAGES QUESTION.
trained to business, respect his own limitations ; quite as
little is he disposed to venture for himself.
"We have a striking exemplification of this impotence of
the capitalist, as capitalist, in the experience of the United
States during the past three years. What have the capi-
talists done, what can the capitalists do, to help them-
selves in the event of a withdrawal of the business class ?
They have done nothing, certainly, in the present crisis :
they can do nothing important, of themselves. They can
lower their terms and offer their capital at diminished
rates, affording enterprise thus a wider margin for profits ;
but if enterprise finds this inducement insufficient, the
capitalist has nothing to do. The money lies in bank ;
the shops and stores are tenantless.
Does the capitalist, discontented with the inadequacy of
his remuneration when he has for months received but
two or three per cent per annum upon his money, set up
business in order to employ his own capital and make a
better interest for himself ? I trow not. The very fact
that the veteran professional conductors of business have
withdrawn from production, or have greatly curtailed their
operations, is a sufficient advertisement to him that it is no
time for outsiders to push into the field. lie knows that,
in the best of seasons, a single venture into an industry of
which he has had no personal experience, or even into one
from which he has retired, but so long ago as to have be-
come rusty in its methods, unfamiliar with its latest ma-
chinery, and strange to the personnel of the trade, might
well cost him a year's interest on his fortune ; while an
attempt to carry on production, merely for the sake of
employing his capital, in a time when the masters of the
business shrink from the prospect of disaster, would, most
likely, cost him the bulk of the capital itself. It is not in
such a time, if ever, that the outside capitalist ventures
into the field of industry. Even less than the laborer,
who may be goaded by the stings of personal want, is he
likely to step forward to take the place from which the
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. 291
entrepreneur retires. He, too, waits for better times, and
meanwhile gets what he can for his money " on call."
I shall, then, in the four remaining chapters of this
work confine myself to (1) the comparative advantages,
either in the essence of the relationship or in the acciden-
tal constitution of the classes as they are found in ex-
isting economical society, which the employers and the
employed may be seen to possess ; and (2) the means by
which that class which we shall find at a relative disadvan-
tage may be helped or hindered in competition for the
product of industry.
And, in the first place, it should be inquired, has either
a natural advantage over the other ?
It is to be observed that they are respectively buyers
and sellers of the same thing, 1 service or labor ; and each
finds his own interest only as the bargain is effected. Un-
less that bargain be made, the employer can not have his
profits any more than the laborer can have his wages. So
far their interest is common : that the laborer shall be
employed. It is only as to the rate of wages and the rate
of profits that opinions and interests diverge. Hence we
say, the relation of the two parties is not and can not be
one of antagonism, for the object and effect of antagonism
is to destroy or to supplant.
Since, then, the employer gets his profits only as the
laborer gets his wages, 2 and because the laborer gets his
1 Mr. Frederick Harrison, in a somewhat noted article in the Fort-
nightly Review (vol. iii. , p. 50), strenuously maintains that " the la-
borer has not got a thing to sell." This beems to be a question of the
proper use of two words, thing and sell. There are no facts or eco-
nomical principles involved in the dispute. If Mr. Harrison were to
acknowledge the propriety of our use of those two monosyllables, he
would not object to our statement otherwise. If, again, we were to
take Mr. Harrison's view of the etymology of these words, we should
not claim that the laborer had a thing to sell.
2 I am here speaking broadly. In an individual transaction the em-
ployer may fail of his anticipated profits and the laborer yet receive
his wages all the same ; and in other possible cases an employer may
293 THE WAGES QUESTION.
wages, it is difficult to see that the employer is any more
necessary to the laborer than the laborer is to the employer,
or that either has any natural advantage over the other.
Not a little, however, has been written to prove that the
employer has such an advantage. Mr. Thornton, in his
well-known treatise On Labor, has sought to show that
the sellers of labor are at a disadvantage.
" All other commodities," he says, 1 " may be stored up
for a longer or a shorter time without loss either in quan-
tity or quality. But labor will not keep ; it can not be
left unused for one moment without partially wasting
away. Unless it be sold immediately some portion of it
can never be sold at all. To-dai/s labor can not ~be sold
after to-day, for to-morrow it will have ceased to exist. A
laborer can not, for however short a time, postpone the
sale of his labor without losing the price of the labor
which he might have exercised during the period of the
postponement."
Mr. Thornton certainly did not intend to say that labor
can not be unused " for one moment" without wasting
away, since the very first condition of labor is that for
several hours in each day, perhaps one half of the twenty-
four, it shall be unused. But taking this expression as a
mere slip of the pen, we note that Mr. Thornton overlooks
a common experience in industry when he asserts that the
omission to labor on any day carries with it a total loss of
the labor that might have been performed. It surely can
not be denied that a man may work considerably harder
one day for having lain-by the day before, provided it was
not for a debauch, or in honor of Saint Monday, but that
the time was really taken for rest. So that it is entirely
possible, if, to save contention, we take the case of a man
engaged in piece-work or hired by the hour, that a man
may still have left him to sell a part at least of the labor
consent to pay wages, and sacrifice his own present interest in the pro-
duct, for the sake of profits to be made in better times.
1 On Labor, p. 93.
MR. THORNTONS VIEW. 298
which, on Mr. Thornton's assumption, he would entirely
and forever lose by failing to work, whether from delibe-
rate choice, or by higgling with his employer, or by look-
ing about for better terms than those offered him.
Nor is it only on the day following that he may find
himself able to render a portion of the service which Mr.
Thornton assumes to be wholly lost by the failure to per-
form a day's work every day. It is notorious that a laborer
may be able, by lying-by a whole week, to perform a dis-
tinctly greater amount of work every day of the week fol-
lowing ; not, perhaps, that he can well do two ordinary
weeks' work in one, but that he can in six days do considera-
bly more than one ordinary week's work, if he has been pre-
pared for the effort by a long rest. And this capability of
storing-up the power of labor is not wholly confined with-
in the limits of a secular week. It is well known that in
many trades, having peculiar natural or industrial condi-
tions, workmen acquire an anaconda-like faculty of alter-
nately gorging and digesting 1 through periods amounting
to entire seasons of the year. I do not say that this is de-
sirable ; I merely assert it as a fact. In none, it may be as-
sumed, do the workmen perform as much, in the aggre-
gate for twelve months, as if they had worked continuously,
or at least with intervals of rest and recreation expressly
adapted to maintain the highest degree of physical vigor ;
yet in none, probably, do they fail to perform more, and
it may be very much more, than it would have been possi-
ble for them to perform in equal periods, without the
preparation of a long term of complete rest.
But it was not alone to correct Mr. Thornton in this
particular that I quoted him' here. Granting, for the time,
the total loss of labor in the instances given, and admitting,
for argument's sake, that the sellers of labor are in a differ-
ent position from the sellers of any other commodity, is not
1 The scholars and men of letters who distribute their labors equally
over the fifty-two weeks of the year are, I apprehend, very few.
294 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the buyer of labor in the same situation precisely ? If he
does not buy to-day's labor to-day, he surely can not buy
it to-morrow ; it will thon, on Mr. Thornton's assump-
tion, have ceased to exist. If the laborer does not realize
wages on his present capacity for labor, the employer
certainly can not realize profits on it. Manual labor is
the essential condition of all production of wealth. If
manual labor is withdrawn, land can not yield rent, money
interest, or business-enterprise profits. Labor, meanwhile,
and just for the same length of time, loses its wages. If
the stoppage is for a month, each party loses one twelfth
of its year.
But that is an even stranger reason which Mr. Thorn-
ton has discovered for attributing to the employer, in his
turn, a disadvantage to a degree counterbalancing that
which he attributes to the laborer, as above. It is that the
employer, in case of the continued cessation of industry,
will become " industrially defunct" (On Labor, p. 275)
when he has eaten up all his capital, whereas " the laborer,
who is trying conclusions with him, provided only that his
health be not permanently impaired by the privations he
is meanwhile enduring, in preserving his thews and sinews
preserves also his stock-in-trade and his industrial abili-
ty." Mr. Thornton elsewhere (p. 177) explains what he
means by employers becoming industrially defunct : " to
them entire exhaustion of resources would be absolutely
fatal For the capitalist in losing his capital loses
his all, distinctive class-existence included ; he ceases to be
a capitalist." So, we suppose, if the laborer should starve
to death for want of employment, he would lose his dis-
tinctive class-existence, with his other existence, and cease
to be a laborer.
Now, in the first place, who, pray (accepting Mr. Thorn-
ton's definitions of laborer and capitalist), is to find sub-
sistence for the laborer, whom Mr. Thornton takes as ha-
bitually poor, through the long struggle during which the
capitalist is to become industrially defunct? Is it not
MR. THORNTON'S VIEW. 295
something very like a bull to make the assumption that
the means of the employing capitalist would be exhausted
before the means of the striking laborer, who accordingly
remains sound and plump in "thew and sinew," whilo
the emaciated master sinks out of his distinctive class-
existence and, economically speaking, expires of inani-
tion ?
But, secondly, the employer (here spoken of by Mr.
Thornton as the capitalist) does not necessarily lose all
and become industrially defunct on losing his capital.
" Goodwill " remains, constituted of business connection
and business reputation, which has been in countless cases
better than a fortune to the able and deserving man of
business. It is scarcely too much to say that an employer
of character and standing, who should sink his capital in
such a contest as Mr. Thornton supposes, would not fail to
command the means to resume and carry forward his in-
dustrial operations. Indeed, it is, at least in the United
States, uncommon for a really reputable house to be
extinguished even by a failure on commercial grounds.
Witness the great liquidation of 1873-6.
We do not, then, find any ground for attributing to
either employer or laborer a natural advantage over the
other. Certainly, if there be truth in the adage of Cha-
teaubriand, " Le salaire n'est que 1'esclavage prolonge," it
is not on account of any thing essential in the nature of
the relations of the employer and the employed.
We have already, in discussing the causes which dimin-
ish industrial mobility, alluded to the principal causes
which place the wage-laborer at a disadvantage in com-
petition. Now that we have formally arrayed the em-
ploying and the employed classes over against each other,
two of these causes may instructively be considered more
in detail. The first is the accidental fact of the superiority
of numbers on the side of the employed, giving the em-
ployers an advantage which is not at all of the essence of
the relationship. In most countries and in most occupa-
296 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tions 1 the buyers of labor are few, the sellers of labor are
many. Aside from the effects of possible combinations
among the buyers or the sellers, there is in this an element
of weakness to the individual seller. For instance, if we
consider the case of a manufacturer employing usually
twenty hands, we may say that his need to employ those
workmen is correspondent precisely to their need of em-
ployment. If the conditions of his business would allow
the profitable employment of twenty hands, his loss, if for
any cause he employs but nineteen, may be assumed to be
as great as the twenty workmen, taken as a body, suffer
therefrom. But just here is the rub : the twenty are not
a body having a common interest. The loss is not to be
divided equally among them. It is to fall entire on a
single one of the number ; and this calamity each one for
himself seeks to escape.
In the apprehension, amounting it may be to terror, of
being left out of the number of the employed, each of the
twenty is ready to accept terms below the ordinary rate.
It does not require any analysis of the elements of the
case to show that, in such a temper of the competitors for
employment, wages will go below it may be greatly
below the limit at which the employer might be able
fairly to reimburse himself for his expenditure and make
his average profits. Here we have a result of distinct
economical advantage on the part of the employer, arising
not from the essential character of the relation, but from
the accident that the employers are few, the employed
many.
The second great fact in regard to the wages class as we
find them, is their habitual poverty. This poverty is not
1 The most marked exception is found in the matter of domestic
service. The employers are here more numerous, but only in a mode-
rate degree. The number of families employing one or two servants
only, vastly exceed the more highly-organized households. But, upon
our definition, domestic servants belong to the salary or stipend class,
and not to the wages class.
THE LABORER'S POVERTY. 297
at all involved in the position of a wage-laborer, and in
fact it is not found as a rule in some communities, nor
without exception in any community. The vast majority,
however, of all wage-laborers have little or no accumula-
tions, many being even without the means of subsisting
themselves a month, or a week, without work. They are,
therefore, unable to stand out against their employers and
make terms for their services, or to seek a better market
for their labor in another town or city, but must accept
the first offer of employment, however meagre the com-
pensation. Even though the matter in dispute between
them and their employers may be sufficient to justify a
protracted contest, they lack the primary physical means
of sustaining that contest. The wage-laborer is thus like
a poor litigant who must lose a valuable claim because he
has not the money to pay the cost of a suit ; and after a
struggle, short at the utmost, he sees himself on the verge
of suffering or even of starvation ; and, if not for his own
sake, at least for that of his wife and children, is fain to
accept the terms that are offered him.
The employer, on the other hand, has only to calculate
whether the matter in dispute between him and his hands
is really worth a contest ; and if he find it so, he can, BO
far as his own mere physical maintenance is concerned,
protract the contest indefinitely. By " indefinitely" I
mean that the term through which the master can with-
hold employment is altogether out of proportion to the
term during which the laborer, as he is found in actual
life to be furnished with the means of subsistence, can
manage to live without employment.
But the employer may not deem the matter in dispute
worth a contest, and hence it is of great importance to the
laborer that he should have the ability, at least for a time,
to dispute the employer's terms, and make him fairly face
the prospect of a struggle before deciding against his de-
mands. If, then, the employer sees that the profits which
the lower wages would enable him, in a given period, to
298 THE WAGES QUESTION.
make will be eaten up in a period of inactivity, it may
fairly be assumed that, if he can, he will concede what is
asked. This, of course, implies that the question of pe-
cuniary interest only is considered, and that bad temper
and creature pugnacity 1 do not enter as elements in the
situation.
In connection with this assumed calculation by the em-
ployer as to the expediency of standing out against a de-
mand for wages which he may be able, though reluctant,
to concede, we have to take into account two elements
which are additional to the simple one of the amount of
wages to be paid.
The first is the employer's interest in the continuity of
production.
The interest which the employer has in the continuity of
production, over and above the mere profits which he might
expect to realize in a given period during which a sus-
pension of industry might be proposed or threatened,
1 This exception is important. We have a strange dictum, from.
Professor Cairnes in his work, Some Leading Principles of Political
Economy (p. 268), as follows : " The temporary success of a strike
does not necessarily prove its wisdom ; but the failure of a strike, im-
mediate or ultimate, is decisive evidence that it ought never to have
been undertaken." It would be possible to place a construction on
this language which should remove the remark from the criticism
which the plain sense of the words invites. Surely it is conceivable
tnat a body of workmen should make a demand on their employer
which the state of the market would fairly allow him to concede, and
which, in another mood, he might cheerfully concede. The demand,
however, being made or met, it matters not which, in bad temper, ill-
blood is aroused and a conflict precipitated. In such a contest the
workmen might be beaten by the longer purse of a wilful, resolute em-
ployer, and finally obliged to yield, without proving their demands un-
reasonable, any more than a poor patentee being obliged to abandon
an invention to a powerful combination of manufacturers, in these days
of tardy and costly justice, would prove that he never had any rights
in the case. Of course, if it be held that failure in human affairs of
itself proves folly, Professor Cairnes's remark is justified. In that case
it would be correct to say of a ship which should sail by the usual
route from Liverpool to New- York and be sunk by an iceberg hallway
across, that she ought never to have undertaken the voyage.
CONTINUITY OF PRODUCTION. 299
arises mainly out of that business connection and that
business reputation which are summed up in the phrase
" goodwill." Altogether besides the loss of immediate
profits, an employer of labor has to contemplate a certain
loss of custom as involved in any protracted stoppage of
his works.
The world of politics does not sooner forget a former
leader in retirement than the world of business forgets
one who withdraws from the competitions of trade. Even
the strongest houses, however completely they may seem
to have the control of the market in their line, do not
like to have their customers arid correspondents learn to
go elsewhere, through any failure of theirs to meet every
demand upon them. Hence they not infrequently con-
tinue producing through considerable periods of depres-
sion, making a sacrifice of their accustomed profits, and
sometimes even for shorter periods producing at an actual
loss, though on a scale as much diminished as is consistent
with keeping their hold on their connection. 1
1 Somewhat aside from this consideration, yet here mentioned in
order to avoid multiplying distinctions, is the fact that, in some in-
dustries, besides the sacrifice of the employer's profits during a stop-
page, there are considerable expenses (additional to loss of rent and
interest) to be incurred in maintaining the service in condition for re-
sumption. Such expenses are those of keeping mines free from water,
and keeping furnaces in blast. If these things are to be done, it is at
a great cost ; if omitted to be done, and the mines are allowed to fill
up and the fires to go out, a heavy tax is imposed upon the resumption
of production. On the other hand, it deserves to be mentioned that the
suspension of production may at times be a relief to the employer.
This may happen when the reduction of profits, through the depression
of trade, coincides with an occasion for repairing or renewing machinery
or enlarging works, or converting buildings to different uses. Thus
we find it stated concerning the great Glasgow strike of 1874 : " Ad-
vantage is being taken of the present opportunity to execute any im-
portant repairs and reconstructions that can be undertaken ; so that
even though the strike were at an end to-morrow, some days would
elapse before the work of production could possibly be in full swing
again." Iron and Coal Trades Review.
300 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But, secondly, the employer has an interest in the con-
tinuity of employment.
This arises (a) out of the knowledge acquired, through
previous service, of the laborer's disposition and charac-
ter, especially as to honesty, truthfulness, and sobriety ;
(Z>) out of that mutual adaptation, in way and habit, ex-
tending even to the tone of the voice and the carriage of
the body, which results between man and master, and be-
tween every man and his mates, from long acquaintance ;
(c) out of that familiarity which the workman acquires with
the peculiarities of his employer's business, which is wholly
additional to a mastery of the technicalities of the occu-
pation, and which includes an intimate knowledge of the
localities in which the industry is prosecuted, of the fix-
tures and machinery in use, of the customers, it may be,
of the establishment; and lastly, of the minor yet im-
portant characteristics which often distinguish the product
of one establishment from that of any other, and thus give
it a quality which, though it perhaps adds nothing to its
utility in the hands of the consumer, yet serves the pur-
poses of the producer for the advertisement and easy
recognition of his wares 1 ; and (d) out of the loss of time
or of energy which every change, simply as change, in-
volves, in greater or less degree.
The interest which, on the above several accounts, em-
ployers have in preserving the continuity of employ-
ment, varies greatly. No employer, it may be assumed,
but is interested to a degree in knowing how far he may
look to his individual workmen for the simple virtues of
honesty, truthfulness, and sobriety ; but in many large de-
partments of industry the advantages which we have
indicated as implied in the retention of workmen would
1 Many manufacturers and dealers will recognize this element as of
no small importance. They identify the products of different establish-
ments by their style and finish, as easily and certainly as the editor of a
newspaper comes to identify the smallest clipping from a contemporary
by its paper, type, and " make-up."
CONTINUITY OF EMPLOYMENT. 301
seem shadowy and unsubstantial. !N"ew men taken on in
an emergency do as much work, and perhaps do it as
well, as the old. The conditions of the business, the na-
ture of the products, are not such as to make it wortli
while to retain a workman at any great sacrifice, so long
r.s another of the same industrial grade can be had.
In other branches of industry, however, the advantages
which have been enumerated are not only substantial but of
great importance. At times, indeed, they are recognized
in the grading of wages somewhat according to the length
of service; and probably few employers of labor in these
branches would deny that the reason of the case would
justify that system being carried much further than it is.
Yet, while the distinct acknowledgment of the advantages
of continuity of employment, by money payments propor-
tioned to length of service, is still highly exceptional, it
may be said that these advantages are almost as a rule re-
cognized by employers in a preference given to their older
employees in the event of a reduction of force ; and since,
as has been shown heretofore, regularity of employment
is to be taken into account in reducing nominal to real
wages, we may fairly say that these advantages are actu-
ally paid for in no inconsiderable amount.
Yet, though workmen are thus compensated through
money payments, or, more frequently, by preference given
them in reductions of force, for the power they have ac-
quired, through continuance in employment, of rendering
a higher quality of service ; in general, at least, there is
strong reason to believe that they are not paid as much on
this account as the considerations adduced would warrant.
The force of custom, the jealousy of fellow-employees,
the stress of trades-union regulations, 1 and, not least, the
failure of the employer to recognize the full merit of the
1 Many trades unions or societies disavow the purpose to prevent
workmen of exceptional merit from receiving wages above the
average.
302 THE WAGES QUESTION.
workman and the degree in which it contributes to his
own success ; these latter, in connection with the master's
knowledge that, though the workman may take from him
these advantages, he can not carry them to any one else,
are in a great majority of cases sufficient to keep the re-
muneration of the higher grades of labor from rising pro-
portionally to their real worth. Yet we can not doubt
that the employer's conscious interest in the continuity of
employment does enter, 1 in almost every issue joined be-
tween him and his workmen, as an element in deduction
from the computed difference between the wages paid
and the wages demanded. Few masters in any branch of
industry could contemplate the sudden change of their en-
tire laboring force as less than a business calamity, while
in many branches of production it would involve great
loss if not ruin. Partial changes may indeed be effected
without actual sacrifice of capital, but not without a
marked increase of labor and of anxiety on the part of
employers.
1 A very striking demonstration of the importance of this considera-
tion in many branches of industry is to be seen by the most casual ob-
server in the phenomenon of a part of the laborers in a trade wholly
unemployed. Why are not all employed at lower prices ? This would
be the effect of simple competition. The answer is found partly in the
force of personal consideration and respect arising out of acquaintance
and association ; but mainly in the employer's interest in the continuity
of employment. He could not afford for a short time to take on new
hands even at lower rates.
CHAPTER XYII.
WHAT MAY PLACE THE WAGES CLASS AT A DISADVANTAGE ?
WE have seen (Chapter X.) that the only security which
the wages class can have that they shall receive the largest
possible remuneration which is compatible with the exist-
ing conditions of industry, is found in their own perfect
mobility. Without this, they are clearly subject to re-
ductions of wages under pressure, to be succeeded only
too surely by industrial degradation (Chapter IV.). And
it is further evident that it matters not, in the result,
whether the total or partial immobility of labor be pro-
duced by physical causes, by the force of positive law, or
by fear, ignorance, or superstition. Any thing which de-
ceives the sense of the wage-laborer or confuses his appre-
hension of his own interest may be just as mischievous,
in a given case, as bodily constraint.
Following out this line of thought, we find that the
wage-laborer may be put at disadvantage,
I. By laws which act in restraint of movement or con-
tract. Such laws may not be prohibitory, but merely
regulative in their intention, and yet retard more or less
seriously the passage from occupation to occupation, or
from place to place. Even the mere necessity of registra-
tion imposed must have an effect, however slight, in the
nature of obstruction ; and unless it can be shown 1 that, by
increasing the intelligence and confidence with which
1 See p. 169.
304 THE WAGES QUESTION.
changes of location or of occupation may be effected, it
more than compensates for the degree of hindrance and
irritation which the merest act of registration involves, it
must be condemned as prejudicial to the wages class,
whose supreme interest is the easy, ready flow of labor to
its market.
But it is not of such incidental or perhaps wholly un-
designed mischief that labor has had chiefly to complain in
the past Those countries are very young whose history
does not afford repeated instances of direct and purposed
obstruction to industrial movement and contract, in the
interest of the employing class, which has generally been
largely identical with the law-making class. The vicious
maxims of English legislation in this respect extended
even to the American colonies, free as they kept them-
selves otherwise from the industrial errors of the mother
country, and laws in regulation of service and of wages
remained long on the statute-books of these enlightened
communities.
A brief recital of the English legislation in restraint of
the natural rights of labor will not prove uninstructive.
After the frightful plague, called the Black Death,
which swept over England in 1348-49, carrying away
" perhaps from one third to one half of the population," 1
wages rose, from the temporary scarcity of labor, to rates
previously unknown ; nor can it be doubted that labor-
ers, thus by a great accident made for the time masters
of the situation, assumed a tone which employers relished
quite as little as they liked their higher terms. To meet
this exigency, 2 Edward III. issued a proclamation for-
bidding the payment of more than customary wages, 3
1 Rogers, Hist, of Agr. and Prices.
a " Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen
and servants, late died of the pestilence, many, seeing the necessity of
masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they receive
excessive wages," etc., etc.
'Namely, those wages which had been paid in the 20th year of King
LAWS FIXING WAQE8. 805
and requiring workmen to serve in their accustomed
place. About a year later, the disputes which arose in
determining what wages had been customary before the
plague led to the enactment of a law (25 Edward III.)
fixing for the whole kingdom the precise amount to be
paid in wages in each of the principal occupations. Ser-
vants were to be "sworn two times in the year before
lords, stewards, bailiffs, and constables of every town to
hold and do these ordinances." . . . "And those
which refuse to make such oath, or to perform that that
they be sworn to or have taken upon them, shall be put in
the stocks by the said lords, stewards, bailiffs, and con-
stables of the towns by three days or more, or sent to the
next gaol, there to remain till they will justify them-
selves." The statute prescribed the " liveries and wages"
of " carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, shepherds,
swineherds, deies, and all other servants" in husbandry; of
"carpenters, masons and tilers, and other workmen of
houses," including their " knaves," and of " plaisterers and
other workers of mudwalls and their knaves." 1
But by the 13th year of Richard II. Parliament had ac-
Edward's reign, or the average of " five or six other common years next
before."
1 1 select the following examples from the laws of the Massachusetts
Colony :
1630, 23d August. " It was ordered that carpenters, joiners, brick-
layers, sawyers, and thatchers shall not take above 2. a day ; nor any
man shall give more, under pain of 10s. to taker and giver."
28th September. " It is ordered that no master carpenter, mason,
joiner, or bricklayer shall take above IQd. a day for their work, if they
have meat and drink, and the second sort not above 12d. a day, under
pain of 10s. both to giver and receiver."
Two other acts had been passed of a similar nature, when, on the 22d
March, 1631, the General Court, " ordered (that whereas the wages of
carpenters, joiners, and other artificers and workmen were by order of
court restrained to particular sums) shall now be left free, and at
liberty as men shall reasonably agree." In September, however, the
Court suffered a relapse, and for four years longer continued to fix spe-
cifically the wages of labor.
306 THE WAGES QUESTION.
cumulated experience enough of the evils of settling a
common rate for all England to provide that " forasmuch
as a man can not put the price of corn and other victuals
in certain," 1 justices of the peace should in every county
make occasional proclamation, " by their discretion, accord-
ing to the dearth of victuals, how much every mason, car-
penter, tiler, and other craftsman, workman, and other
laborers by the day, as well in harvest as in other times of
the year, after their degree, shall take, with meat and
drink or without meat and drink." By the important act
of 5 Elizabeth this power of justices to fix wages was
re-enacted, and, though long disused, it was not until the
53 George III. that the authority was formally with-
drawn.
But it was not the rate of wages alone which received
the attention of the early parliaments. The statute of 37 Ed-
ward III. required that " artificers, handicraft people, hold
them every one to one mystery, which he will choose be-
twixt this and the (said) feast of Candlemas ; and two of
every craft shall be chosen to survey that none use other
craft than the same which he hath chosen." By statute
of 12 Richard II. it was ordained that " he or she which
use to labor at the plough and cart, or other labor or service
of husbandry, till they be of the age of twelve years ; that
from thenceforth they shall abide at the same labor, with-
out being put to any mystery or handicraft." But the
statute of the largest effect in constraining the courses of
labor was that of the 5th Elizabeth known as the Statute of
1 The Massachusetts General Court reached the same conclusion some
hundreds of years later, and having repealed, September 3d, 1635, the
law "that restrained workmen's wages to a certainty," enacted in 1636
" that the freemen of every town shall from time to time, as occasion
shall require, agree an-ong themselves about the prices and rates of all
workmen, laborers, and servants' wajjes ; and every other person in-
habiting in any town, whether workman, laborer, or servant, shall be
bound to the same rates which the said freemen or the greater part
shall bind themselves unto/'
LEGAL REGULATION OF LABOR. 307
Apprentices, by which the access of unskilled labor to the
trades and professions was restricted within the narrowest
bounds. A single section will suffice. No merchant,
mercer, draper, goldsmith, ironmonger, embroiderer, or
clothier may take an apprentice, " except such servant or
apprentice be his son, or else that the father or mother of
such apprentice or servant shall have, at the time of taking
of such apprentice or servant, lands, tenements, or other
hereditaments of the clear yearly value of forty shillings
of one estate of inheritance or freehold at the least."
So much for restraints on movement from one occupa-
tion to another. Movement from place to place was re-
stricted with equal jealousy. By statute of 25 Edward
III. it was ordained that, with exception of certain coun-
ties, no laborer in agriculture should "go out of the
town where he dwelleth in the winter to serve the sum-
mer, if he may serve in the same town, taking as before
is said." By the statute of 12 Richard II. it was provided
that " no servant or laborer, be he man or woman, shall
depart at the end of his term out of the hundred, rape, or
wapentake where he is dwelling, to serve or dwell else-
where, or by color to go from thence in pilgrimage, unless
he bring a letter-patent containing the cause of his going,
and the time of his return, if he ought to return, under
the king's seal," etc. Although all life had long passed
out of these statutes, it was not until 1824: that the laws
prohibiting the emigration of artisans from the kingdom
were repealed, as vain and uselessly irritating.
Such extracts as have been presented will perhaps serve
sufficiently to convey an impression of the minuteness and
rigidity of the numerous acts which sought to regulate the
industry of England. It is not necessary to show that such
laws were always fully enforced, 1 to establish the certainty
1 Many of these acts were doubtless passed in the spirit of 2 and 3
Edward VI. (c. 9) : " Therefore, as the malice of man increaseth to de-
fraud the intent of good laws, so laws must rise against such guile
vrith the more severity, day by day, for the due repress of the same."
308 THE WAGES QUESTION.
that they wrought grievous evil to the working classes.
If they had effect only in part, if they were only enforced
here and there and now and then, or even if they were
always to be evaded, but by resort to concealment, strata-
gem, or indirection, then they must have seriously affected
the mobility of labor.
But it is doubtful if all the barbarous enactments we
have cited are together responsible for more of the present
pauperism and destitution of England than is the law of
parochial settlement. This act originated in the reign of
Charles II., and while other restrictions upon the move-
ment of population were gradually giving way before the
expansion of industrial enterprise and the liberalizing ten-
dencies of modern thought, the mischievous provisions of
the Law of Settlement were given a wider scope and an
increased severity from reign to reign. It is only within
the last twelve years that the cords that crossed the politi-
cal body in all directions, cutting off the circulation until
every portion of the surface broke out in putrefying sores,
have been loosened. The image may seem extravagant ;
but no language can exaggerate the effect of such restraints
on population. Migration within the kingdom was prac-
tically prohibited. If the laborer in search of employ-
ment ventured across the boundaries of his parish (and
there are 15,535 parishes in England and Wales), he was
liable to be apprehended and returned to the place of his
settlement ; while parish officers were perpetually incited
by the fears of the ratepayers to zeal in hunting down and
running out all possible claimants of public charity on
whom, if unmolested, residence would confer a right to
support. " When an employer wished to engage a servant
from a foreign parish, he was not permitted to do so un-
less he entered into a recognizance, often to a considerable
amount, to the effect that the incomer should not obtain the
settlement, else the bond to be good against the employer.
Parochial registers are full of such acknowledgments." 1
1 Eogers, Pol. Econ., p. 122.
LEGAL REGULATION OF LABOR. 309
The peasant and the artisan, thus shut up within the
place of their birth, were compelled to meet the fate which
awaited the industry of that locality. All local calamities
fell with unbroken force upon a population that had no
escape. The calamity might be temporary, but the effects
upon character and life were not. Industry might look
up again, but the peasant, broken in his self-respect, bru-
talized, pauperized, could never afterwards be the same
man. Employment might revive; but no art of man,
no power of government could reconstitute the shattered
manhood.
It is probably safe to say that no Continental country
has, at least within late years, maintained any law so in-
jurious in its practical effects in producing a helpless im-
mobility of labor, as the English law of settlement, the
original object of which was to keep, not laborers, but
paupers, in their place. But of laws directly seeking, in
the interests of employers, to control the movements of
labor, whether from place to place or from occupation to
occupation, there is in the history of European legislation
limit neither to number nor to variety. In France, 1 in
spite of some contradictory features, it may be said that
freedom of labor was achieved by the Revolution. In
Germany, and among the Scandinavian 2 peoples, the system
of restriction was strongly intrenched, and still survives
with no little force, noth withstanding the tremendous
breaches made in it by the liberalizing tendencies of the
last twelve or fifteen years. In Denmark, perhaps, of all
these countries, free trade in labor is most nearly achieved.*
In Austria laws instituting the " Genossenschaften," or
1 M. Ducarre's Report of 1875. to which I Lave several times referred,
presents a good view of the course of measures by which labor in
France has been emancipated (pp. 22-64).
2 " The corporation system exists with more vigor in Denmark, Nor-
way, and Sweden," wrote Mr. Laing in 1851, " than in any other coun-
try." Denmark and the Duchies, p. 301.
8 Since 1862. See Report of Mr. Strachey on the Condition of the
Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 505.
310 THE WAGES QUESTION".
guilds, are so far modified that these are no longer close
corporations. They are still, however, compulsory associa-
tions, to which every Austrian workman is under legal
obligation to belong. 1
II. The wage-laborer may be put at disadvantage by
a fictitious currency. The laborer suffers, with other
classes of the community, from the disturbances of in-
dustry which are always occasioned by an inflated and
fluctuating circulation ; but the injury to which I refer
under the present title is due to the difficulty which the
laborer experiences in adjusting his demand upon his
employer to the rapid and violent changes in the currency
cost of living, and to the illusions created by paper
wealth, by which the laborer's expenditure is inevitably
more or less perverted and distorted.
The most difficult mental operation which ordinary men
are called upon to perform is that of discount. Even the
book-educated and men of affairs find it laborious and
painful. Mr. Laing, the well-known traveller, has left a
curious bit of testimony on this point in a remark made
in his Tour in Sweden, to the effect that he always caught
himself thinking of a mile in that country as he would of
a mile in England, although the Swedish mile is seven
times as long. If such is the experience of a cultivated
mind in so simple and familiar a matter, what can be ex-
pected of men of limited views and little information,
subject unduly to the first impression of things and un-
trained to arithmetical computations, when called to render
their wages into terms corresponding to the rapidly chang-
ing prices of the necessaries of life ? It is a work which
would task the powers of a philosopher ; it is extremely
improbable that a workingman will succeed in accomplish-
ing it. The laborer's interest will not come to him : he
must go to it; and to do so he must be able to identify
and locate it with precision and assurance. In the absence,
1 Report of Mr. Lytton, 1870, p. 522.
WAGES AND THE CURRENCY. 811
therefore, of clear and definite ideas on the relation of
wages and prices, the laborer must under such a currency
follow blindly around after prices, guided only by a gen-
eral sense of the inadequacy of his wages in making his
demands upon his employer. Acting without intelligence
in the premises, it is a matter of course that he sacrifices
in some degree his own interests. He either demands too
much, and failing perhaps in a persistent demand injures
alike himself and his employer; or, asking too little, he
rests content with getting that.
It was doubtless with reference to this inability of the
laboring class to meet such sudden and violent changes of
conditions as are caused by a fictitious currency that Mr.
Mill assigned to " custom" in economics the same benefi-
cent function which it has performed in the sphere of poli-
tics as " the most powerful protector of the weak against
the strong." Habit, usage, constitutes a barrier which in
a degree preserves the economically weak from the hust-
lings and jostlings of the marketplace, and gives them
room to stand. 1 A fictitious currency breaks down this
barrier and involves all classes of the community in a fu-
rious and incessant struggle for existence in which the
weakest are certain to be trampled down.
But it is not alone in competition with the employer
that the laborer is placed at disadvantage by a fictitious
currency. If it is difficult for the laborer to secure the
1 I am here speaking of wage-laborers as they are and not as they
might be. There could be a better state of things still than that in
which "custom" protects the poor that is, a condition in which the
laboring class should be so intelligent, and hence so strong, that they
could not afford and would not endure to take a defensive position,
but should welcome the utmost that competition could do. But so
long as the working classes remain, as in most countries, ignorant and
inert, it is possible that causes reducing the severity of competition
may be properly correspondent to their weaknesses, and thus beneficial.
However that may be, it stands by itself, that the working classes, be-
ing inadequately prepared to follow around after changes of price, must
be injured by whatever makes those changes more frequent and
violent.
312 THE WAGES QUESTION.
adjustment of his wages to the varying cost of living,
much more difficult is it for him to hold his own in the
contest with the retail dealer from whom he obtains the
necessaries of life. A laborer's earnings are expended in
hundreds of small purchases. If his earnings come to him
in depreciated paper, and are to be expended in commo-
dities at inflated prices, he is, if he would judge either of
the proportion between his present and past expenditures
as a whole, or between the price of any one article and
that which he has had to pay for it, obliged to perform
operations of discoiint which would be laborious to an
arithmetician. All hold being lost on " custom," how can
he tell what he ought to pay per pound, per bushel, or per
yard for articles of ordinary consumption ? He knows
nothing about the conditions of their production, and has
no longer a traditional price to guide him. Formerly, if
an article of domestic consumption advanced considerably,
he was in the mood and in the position to resist the ad-
vance until it proved itself a genuine one. He disputed
the higher price ; he alleged the customary price ; he held
off purchasing as long as he could, because he disliked
to pay the advance; he inquired elsewhere to ascertain
whether other dealers were asking the same. "With a
community in this temper, retail prices will not be wan-
tonly advanced ; nothing less than a substantial reason in
the state of the market will succeed in establishing a new
price, and since every step will be taken against resistance,
that new price will be kept down to something like the
necessity of the case.
But under a fluctuating currency this hold of the retail
buyer upon customary price is lost. It is with prescrip-
tion as with a bank-bill : when once it is broken, the pieces
are soon gone. 1 The laborer loses his reckoning. When
prices go up far beyond what is usual, he can not presume
to judge whereabouts they should stop. After finding
1 The Northern Monthly, May, 1868 ; article, " The Greenback Era."
THE CURRENCY AND RETAIL PRICES. 313
advance upon advance established, in spite of his question-
ing and complaints, he becomes discouraged. He learns
to pay without dispute whatever the shopkeeper demands,
for he has no means of determining the justice of that
demand. It is this temper which enables the retail dealer
to gather his largest profits and work his worst extor-
tions.
This it was, over and above the proper effects of curren-
cy inflation, which allowed retail prices to be carried up to
such an unprecedented height in the United States during
the war of secession, and to be kept up by combinations
of dealers long after whatever reason had existed for the
advance ceased. The extravagant profits thus realized had
not, as is well known, the effect to invite true competition
tending to reduce prices, but merely served to allow the
multiplication of shops and stands at every corner and to
support an army of middlemen. 1
This point is of so much importance in the philosophy
of wages, that I take the further space to present some
notable extracts from the writings of Mr. Mill and Prof.
Cairnes relative to the function of " custom" in retail
trade.
" Hitherto," says Mr. Mill, " it is only in the great cen-
tres of business that retail transactions have been chiefly,
or even much, determined by competition. Elsewhere it
rather acts, when it acts at all, as an occasional disturbing
influence. The habitual regulator is custom, modified,
from time to time, by notions existing in the minds of
purchasers and sellers, of some kind of equity or justice
. . . Retail price, the price paid by the actual con-
sumer, seems to feel slowly and imperfectly the effect of
competition, and where competition does exist, it often,
1 It appears that while the total number of persons reported as of
gainful occupations at the census of 1870 was but 18 per cent greater
than the corresponding number at 1860, the number engaged in trade
and transportation had increased in the decade 44 per cent. " Some
Results of the Census." (Soc. Science Journal, 1873, p. 91.)
314 THE WAGES QUESTION.
instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gain among
a greater number of dealers
" Competition in retail markets," says Prof. Cairnes, "is
conducted under conditions which may be described as of
greater friction than those which exist in wholesale trade.
In the wholesale market the sellers and purchasers meet
together in the same place, affording thus to each other re-
ciprocally the opportunity of comparing directly and at
once the terms on which they are severally disposed to
trade. In retail dealing it is otherwise. In each place of
sale there is but one seller ; and though it is possible to
compare his terms with the prices demanded elsewhere by
others, this can not always be done on the moment, arid
may involve mucli inconvenience and delay. A purchaser
frequently finds it on the whole better to take the word of
the seller for the fairness of the price demanded, than to
verify his statements by going on the occasion of every pur-
chase to another shop. It is probable, indeed, that if the
charge be excessive, the purchaser will in time come to
discover this, and may then transfer his custom to a cheap-
er market. This shows that competition is not inoperative
in retail trade, but it shows also the sort of friction under
which it works, and helps to explain what has often been re-
marked upon, and what, as a matter of fact, it is practical-
ly important people should bear in mind the different
prices at which the same commodity is frequently found
to sell within a very limited range of retail dealing, al-
most in what we may call the same market. This is one
circumstance that distinguishes retail from wholesale trad-
ing. The other lies in the advantage which his superior
knowledge gives the seller over the buyer in the transac-
tion taking place between them a superiority which has
no counterpart in the relations of wholesale dealers. In
the wholesale market buyer and seller are upon a strictly
equal footing as regards knowledge of all the circumstances
. i. 291,292.
FRICTION IN RETAIL PRICES. 815
calculated to affect the price of the commodity dealt
in. . . . The circumstances of retail dealing are here
again in contrast with those of the wholesale trade. The
transactions do not take place between dealers possessing,
or with the opportunities of acquiring, equal knowledge
respecting the commodities dealt in, but between experts
on one side, and, on the other, persons in most cases whol-
ly ignorant of the circumstances at the time affecting the
market. Between persons so qualified the game of ex-
change, if the rules be rigorously enforced, is not a fair
one ; and it has consequently been recognized universally
in England, and very extensively among the better classes
of retail dealers in Continental countries, as a principle of
commercial morality, that the dealer should not demand
from his customer a higher price for his commodity than
the lowest he is prepared to take. 1 Retail buying and
selling is (sic) thus made to rest upon a moral rather than
an economical basis ; and, there can be no doubt, for the
advantage of all concerned." 2
Prof. Cairn es elsewhere refers to a the excessive fric-
tion in the action of competition in retail dealing." " The
sluggish action of competition in this department of indus-
try" (p. 132).
III. The laborer maybe put at a disadvantage through
the incidence 3 of taxation.
1 " In the great majority of cases, nowadays, the debate about th
value of an article, called by Adam Smith, the higgling of the market,
is confined to wholesale purchases and sales. But a generation or two
ago, the habit of bargaining in matters of retail trade was general. It
still is a custom in many European countries. It is all but universal
in the East." Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ., p. 186. "The value of any
thing in Spain is what you can get for it ; consequently, every pur-
chase, from the most expensive articles of luxury down to the poorest
vegetable, entails a system of haggling and bargaining." Mr. Ffrench's
Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 606.
2 Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, pp. 128-30.
3 1 do not speak here of the degree of taxation. Whether govern,
ment shall take much or take little is a political question. In somq
countries, even in the present day, the only limit to exactions appears
316 THE WAGES QUESTION.
A theory of taxation which has been urged somewhat
widely asserts the entire indifference of the place or the
subject of imposition. Instead of looking to the individ-
ual citizen to pay his personal contribution, in proportion
to his means, towards the support of government, it is pro-
posed to levy upon the agencies of production, or upon
commodities in the course of exchange, or upon certain
species of property visible and tangible, without considera-
tion of the persons thus first called upon to pay the taxes,
in the assurance that the burden will, through the opera-
tion of " the laws of trade," be diffused, in the course of
time, equally over the entire community. 1
"We have, however, reached a point of view from which
we can discern the fallacy of this doctrine. The diffusion
theory rests upon the assumption of perfect competition.
It is true only under the conditions which secure the com-
plete mobility of capital and labor. Just so far as any
class of the community is impeded in its resort to its best
market by ignorance, poverty, fear, inertia, just so far is
it possible that the burden of taxation may rest where it
first falls. In the language of Prof. Rogers, 2 " taxes tend
to remain upon the person who immediately pays them ;
or, in other words, it requires an effort, which is made
with varying degrees of ease or difficulty, to shift a tax
which is paid by the first payer to the shoulders of an-
to be the limit of the people's means, and all above bare subsistence is
carried away by the strong arm of the law, to be spent in pomp, lux-
ury, or war. But this, as has been said, is a political question, and so
long as taxation presses on each class of the community with weight
proportional to its strength, I do not see that the economist can take
account of the amount, any more than of the objects, of such expendi-
tures.
1 " I hold it to be true that a tax laid in any place is like a pebble
falling into and making a circle in a lake, till one circle produces and
gives motion to another, and the whole circumference is agitated from
the centre." Speech of Lord Mansfield, 1766, on the right of Parlia-
ment to tax the colonies.
2 Cobden and Political Opinion, pp. 83, 84.
DIFFUSION-THEORY OF TAXATION. 317
oilier." Not only is the effort of the first payer made
with varying degrees of ease or difficulty, but the resist-
ance of the other person, on to whose shoulders he seeks
to shift his own burden, maybe of any degree of effective-
ness, powerful, intelligent, and tenacious, or weak, igno-
rant, and spasmodic. The result of the struggle will de-
pend on the relative strength of the two parties ; and as
the two parties are never precisely the same in the case of
two taxes, or two forms of the same tax, it must make a
difference upon what subjects duties are laid, what is the
severity of the imposition, and at what stage of produc-
duction or exchange the tax is collected. 1 There can, I
think, be no question that under the old regime a direc-
tion was given to taxation in every country of Europe, ex-
cept Switzerland and Holland, which was intended to re-
lieve the law-making classes from their just share of the
expenses of government ; and there can, I think, be as
little doubt that, clumsy and unintelligent as was much of
the financiering of those evil days, in this respect at least
the intention of the law-making classes was effectually ac-
complished. It is the opinion of Prof. Rogers, than
whom, certainly, no man living is more competent to
judge of such a point, that the real weight of taxation
during the great continental wars of England, fell upon
and was endured by the poorer classes. 2 If this was true
of England, where the common people never lost their
power of self-assertion, what shall be said of the misera
plebs contribuens of the Continent ?
Speaking of France under the old regime, Sir Arch.
Alison says : " Heavy taxes on the farmer, from which the
clergy and nobility were exempt, aggravated by the arbi-
trary manner in which their amount was fixed by the in-
tendant, and the vexatious feudal privileges of the landed
proprietors, depressed the laboring classes, and rendered
1 The Nation, June llth, 1874.
8 Notes to Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, i. 349.
318 THE WAGES QUESTION.
prosperity and good management little more than a signal
for increased assessment. Such was the accumulated effect
of these burdens that the produce of an acre being esti-
mated under the old regime at 3 2s. 7^., the king drew
1 18s. 4<#., the landlord 19s. 3<#., and to the cultivator was
left the miserable pittance of 5s., or one twelfth of the
whole, and one eighth of the proprietor's share ; or if the
proprietor cultivated his own land, the king drew 1 18s.
4d.j and the proprietor only 1 4s. 3d. Whereas in Eng-
land the produce of an acre being calculated at 8, the
rent may be stated at 1 10s., land tax and poor rates
10s., and there remains 6 for the farmer, being twelve
times the amount of the public burdens, and four times
that of the rent to the landlord." (On Population, i. 412.)
And the same writer (Hist. Europe, xxii. 490, 491)
quotes from Bailey dier as follows respecting the taxation
of Hungary prior to 1848 :
" To such a length had the abuse of these privileges
been carried that the nobles and their servants paid no
toll on passing the bridge into Pesth, though it contributed
one of the principal sources of revenue enjoyed by the
town. The peasants, bourgeoisie, and mechanics alone
were burdened with it. The peasant alone paid the hearth-
tax ; he alone contributed to the expenses of the Diet and
the county charges ; he paid the dues of the schoolmasters,
guards, notaries, clergy, and curates ; he alone kept up the
roads, the bridges, the churches, the public buildings, the
dykes, and the canals ; he alone paid the whole war taxes,
and furnished the recruits to the army ; and in addition
to all this he was compelled to hand over a ninth of his
income to his lord, and to give him fifty-two days' service
in the year. Finally, besides the charges of transporting
wood for his lord's family, he was burdened exclusively
with the quartering of soldiers, and he was compelled at all
times, and for a merely nominal remuneration, to furnish
such to the county authorities or their attendants. The
Spartan Helots were kings in comparison."
CHANGES OF TAX-LAWS. 319
It may appropriately be added in this connection that
while taxation, unequal in its incidence, may have the
cffoct to place the laborer at a disadvantage, frequent
changes of tax-laws are almost certain to prove prejudi-
cial to his interests. We have seen that there is no assur-
ance that excessive burdens imposed by taxation ill-con-
sidered or intentionally oppressive will be diffused by the
course of exchange over the entire community in due pro-
portion, but it can at least be claimed that there is a ten-
dency to such a result, however far that tendency may be
defeated or deferred. That this tendency should even
begin to operate it is, However, essential that time should
be given. It is only by a long course that the ameliorat-
ing effects looked for in the diffusion of burdens can be
brought around, if at all. If tax-laws are often to be
changed, the class which is from any cause already at
disadvantage is sure to suffer further and increasingly.
Those who are buying and selling, watching and manipu-
lating the market, are certain to get all the benefit of the
remissions, and to recoup themselves for all the substituted
impositions. Those who are economically weakest, the
ignorant, the very poor, and those who are distant from
the centres of information and of trade, will suffer most.
IY. The wages class may be put at disadvantage by in-
judicious poor-laws. The subject is a large one, and I
must be content with a " fierce abridgment." Let us go
back at once to the elementary question, Why does the
laborer work ? Clearly that he may eat. If he may eat
without it, he will not work. Simple and obvious ; yet the
neglect or contempt of this truth by the English Parlia-
ment, between 1767 and 1832, brought the working classes
to the verge of ruin, created a vast body of pauperism
which has become hereditary, and engendered vices in the
whole labor-system of the kingdom which work their evil
work to this day. The Law of Settlement has already
been spoken of among the acts restraining labor in its
resort to market; let us now ' contemplate the English
320 THE WAGES QUESTION.
poor-laws as destroying the very disposition of the labor-
ing class to seek an opportunity to labor.
By statute of the 27th year of Henry VIII. giving of
alms was forbidden, and collections for the impotent poor
were to be made in each parish. By 1st Edward VI.
bishops were authorized to proceed against persons who
should refuse to contribute or dissuade others from con-
tributing. By 5th Elizabeth the justices were made
judges of what constituted a reasonable contribution. By
14th Elizabeth regular compulsory contributions were ex-
acted. But the more famous act of 43d Elizabeth created
the permament poor-system of England. By it every
person was given a legal right to relief, and the body of
inhabitants were to be taxed for this object. 1 By sub-
sequent legislation the burden was thrown entire upon
the landowners. Voluntary pauperism was vigorously
dealt with ; the able-bodied were compelled to work ; while
by the act of 9th George I. parishes or unions of parishes
were authorized to build workhouses, a residence in which
might be made the condition of relief. This system, fairly
administered, reduced the necessary evil of pauperism to
the minimum. But, unfortunately for the working classes,
a different theory directed legislation in the latter half of
the eighteenth century, and a different temper of adminis-
tration began to prevail. Six acts, passed in the early part
of the reign of George III., intimated the changed spirit
in which pauperism was thereafter to be dealt with. This
spirit found fuller expression in Gilbert's act (22d George
III.). Guardians were to be appointed to protect the
poor against the natural parsimony of parish officers.
The workhouse test was repealed for the able-bodied poor.
Guardians were required to find work for all applicants as
near their own homes as might be, and to make up, out of
the rates, any deficiency in wages. By this latter provi-
1 J. W. Willis Bund on Local Taxation, p. 17.
POOR-LAWS AND WAGES. 321
sion, says Sir George ETicholls, 1 " the act appears to as-
sume that there can never be a lack of profitable employ-
ment, and it makes the guardian of the parish answerable
for finding it near the laborer's own residence, where, if it
existed at all, the laborer might surely, by due diligence,
find it himself. But why it may be asked should he
use such diligence when the guardian is bound to find it
for him, and take the whole responsibility of bargaining
for wages and making up to him all deficiency? He is
certain of employment. He is certain of receiving, either
from the parish or the employer, sufficient for the main-
tenance of himself and his family ; and if he earns a sur-
plus, he is certain of its being paid over to him. There
may be uncertainty with others and in other occupations.
The farmer, the lawyer, the merchant, the manufacturer,
however industrious, active, and observant, may labor
under uncertainties in their several callings ; not so the
laborer. He bears, as it were, a charmed life in this
respect, and is made secure, and that, too, without the
exercise of care or forethought. Could a more certain
way be devised for lowering character, destroying self-
reliance, and discouraging, if not absolutely preventing,
improvement ?"
The experience of England, under the operation of the
false and vicious principle of Gilbert's act, answers the
inquiry with which this quotation closes, in the negative.
By 1832 the principls had been carried logically out to its
limits in almost universal pauperism. In the case of one
parish, the collections of the poor-rates had actually ceased,
because the landlords preferred to give up their rents, the
clergyman his glebe and tithes, the farmers their tenan-
cies. 2 In numerous other parishes the pressure of the
poor-rate had become so great that the net rent was re-
duced one half and more, while it was impossible for land-
lords to find tenants. The pauper class had been elevated
1 History of the English Poor-Laws, ii. 96, 97. 9 Ibid., p. 353.
THE WAGES QUESTION.
by a system of liberal relief, unaccompanied by a work-
house test, far above the condition of the independent
laborers, 1 who had only to drop-down upon the rates to be
better fed, clothed, and lodged than their utmost exer-
tions could effect while working for hire. Thus not only
did industry lose its natural reward, but a positive pre-
mium was put upon indolence, wastefulness, and vice.
All the incidents of the English system were bad : the
allowance for each additional child was so much out of
proportion to the allowance for adults, that the more
numerous a man's family the better his condition ; 2 while
the allowance for illegitimate children was more liberal
than for those born in wedlock.
Such was the system which the wisdom of Parliament,
under the influence of the squirearchy, substituted for the
economic law that he that would eat must work. The
natural effects of this system were wrought speedily and
completely. The disposition to labor was cut up by the
roots; all restraints upon increase of population disap
peared under a premium upon births; self-respect and
social decency vanished under a premium upon bastardy. 8
The amount expended in the relief and maintenance of
1 The commissioners of 1832, as the result of extended comparisons,
found that, while the pauper received 151 ounces of solid food per
week, the independent laborer received but 122 ounces.
2 "In some instances," says Dr. Chalmers, "the vestries have felt
themselves obliged to rent and even to furnish houses for the reception
of the newly -married couple." Pol. Econ. 307.
8 " The English law has abolished female chastity." Mr. Co well's
Report.
" It may safely be affirmed that the virtue of female chastity does
not exist among the lower orders of England, except to a certain
extent among domestic servants, who know that they hold their
situations by that tenure, and are more prudent in consequence." Re-
port of the Commissioners of 1831.
" In many rural districts it was scarcely possible to meet with a
young woman who was respectable, so tempting was the parish
allowance for infants in a time of great pressure." Martineau,
Hist. England, iii. 168.
THE ENGLISH POOR-LAWS. 323
the poor had risen to 7,036,969, or 10 shillings per head
of the population. In this exigency, which in truth con-
stituted one of the gravest crises of English history, Parlia-
ment, by the Poor-Law Amendment Act (4th and 5th
William IY.), returned to the principle of the earlier laws ;
that principle being, as expressed by Prof. Senior, that it
is " the great object of pauper legislation" to render " the
situation of the pauper less agreeable than that of the in-
dependent laborer." 1 The workhouse test was restored,
allowances in aid of wages were abolished, paid overseers
were to be appointed, and a central commission was insti-
tuted for the due supervision of the system. Illegitimacy
was discouraged by making the father responsible, instead
of rewarding the mother, as under the former system.
The conditions of " settlement" were mitigated so as to
facilitate the migration of laborers in search of employ-
ment.
By this great legislative reform the burden of pauperism,
notwithstanding that the evil effects of the old system still
remained in a great degree, had by 1837 become so much
reduced that the expenditure, per head of the population,
sank to 5s. 5d. Mr. Baxter in his work on Local Taxa-
tion 2 gives some of the details by counties :
1834. 1837.
Sussex 18s. Id. 8s. 7d.
Bedford 16 4 80
Bucks 16 11 88
Northampton 15 8 83
Suffolk ,. 16 7 93
There is no need to draw, at any length, the moral of
this episode in the industrial history of England. It is of
the highest economical importance that pauperism shall
not be made inviting. It is not necessary that any bru-
tality of administration shall deter the worthy poor from
public relief, but, in Prof. Senior's phrase, the situation of
1 Foreign Poor-La ws, etc., p. 88.
* P. 11.
324 THE WAGES QUESTION.
the pauper, whether in or out of the workhouse, should al-
ways be made less agreeable than that of the independent
laborer. The workhouse test for all the able-bodied poor,
and genuine labor up to the limit of strength within the
workhouse, are imperatively demanded by the interests of
self-supporting labor. One might, indeed, hesitate to carry
the labor test quite so far as Pennant observed it in his Second
Tour in Scotland, where he writes : " The workhouse is
thinly inhabited, for few of the poor choose to enter : those
whomever necessity compels are most usefully employed.
With pleasure I observed old age, idiocy, and even in-
fants of three years of age contributing to their own sup-
port l)y the pulling of oakum" 1 There is no reason that
I know of, why the principle of the factory acts should not
be extended to the poor-asylum, to excuse infants of tender
years from work, or any danger to helpful labor in allow-
ing repose to old age or idiocy ; but wherever there is a
possible choice between self-support and public support,
there the inclination of the poor to labor for their own sub-
sistence should be quickened by something of a penalty,
though not in the way of cruelty or of actual privation,
upon the pauper condition. " All," says Mr. George
Woodyatt Hastings, " who have administered the Poor
Law must know the fatal readiness with which those
hovering on the brink of pauperism believe that they can
not earn a living, and the marvellous way in which, if the
test be firmly applied, the means of subsistence will be
found somehow.'"
Y. May the laborer be put at disadvantage through
the form in which his wages are paid ? A great deal of
public indignation and not a little of the force of law 3
have been levelled at TRUCK. How, in an effort to treat
the wages question systematically, are we to regard this
practice ?
1 Pinkerton, iii. 197.
9 Soc. Sc. Transactions, 1871, p. 146.
* About sixty acts of the British Parliament have dealt with Truck.
THE TRUCK SYSTEM. 335
To truck (Fr. Troc) is to exchange commodities, to
barter. The truck system of wages, then, is the barter sys-
tem introduced between the laborer and his employer.
What objection can there be to this ? How can it be sup-
posed to injure the laboring class ? I shall discuss this
question at length, not more on account of its intrinsic im-
portance, than because it affords an excellent practical ap-
plication of important principles relating to the distri-
bution of wealth.
The truck system may take two forms. First, there
may be given to the laborer a portion of that which he
actually produces, whether that product be suitable to his
wants or not, leaving him, in the latter event, to exchange
it as he can for whatever he may desire, food, drink, cloth-
ing, fuel or shelter. Second, under the truck system
the laborer may receive, not what he produces, but what
he is to consume; he is paid in commodities supposed to
be more or 1 ess suited to his wants.
Both these forms of truck are as old as labor ; but in
the earliest times they were generally found not separate
but united. What the workman produced he also de-
sired to consume, and for his labor in tending sheep and
cattle, and in sowing and reaping grain, he received wool
for his clothing, and meat and bread for his food. And so
to-day are the laborers of many countries mainly paid ; and
doubtless in the majority of cases the practice is both nec-
essary and beneficial. But when distinction came to be
made of labor as agricultural and as mechanical, and
when employments came to be much subdivided, it would
happen that a laborer's production was calculated to sup-
ply but a part only, or perhaps none at all, of his wants ;
for it might be that an artisan of Birmingham or Shef-
field would be employed in making an article which he not
only never used but never even saw used. Hence, if he
were to be paid in kind, he would be obliged to sell or ex-
change the same for commodities more suitable to his ne-
cessities, and this, it will be seen, he might have to do at
826 THE WAGES QUESTION.
a very great disadvantage, having no place of trade, no
business acquaintance, and no time to spend in bartering
off his wares . So we find, in the fourth year (1464) of
King Edward IY. of England, an act passed in which oc-
curs the following :
" Also whereas, before this Time, in the occupations of
Cloth-Making, the Laborers thereof have been driven to
take a great part of their Wages in Pins, Girdles, and other
unprofitable wares, under such price that it did not extend
unto .... therefore it is ordained and established
that every man and woman being cloth-makers, from the
(said) feast of St. Peter, shall pay to the carders, spinsters,
and all such other laborers, in any part of the said trade,
lawful money for all their lawful wages."
This is the first English act aimed at the truck system.
Between that and the act of 1st and 2d "William IY. (c. 37)
intervened nearly four centuries, during which this system,
in one or both its phases, prevailed in respect to a great
part of English labor, and apparently the British Parlia-
ment lias not even yet done legislating about it.
I have said that the second form of truck is where the
laborer is paid in commodities supposed to be suitable to
his wants as a consumer, irrespective of the question
whether he has helped to produce the identical articles or
similar articles himself. This is done where board is
given as a part of wages, but truck to this extent was ex-
pressly excepted 1 from the prohibitions of the great Eng-
lish truck act namely, that of William IY., already re-
ferred to. Another form of partial payment which is in the
nature of truck, is the allowance of perquisites and privi-
leges, such as the keep of a cow, the gleaning of the
wheat-field, the cutting of turf, and others which we have
had occasion to mention in speaking of the difficulty of
1 It was made lawful to stop wages on account of victuals dressed or
prepared under the roof of the employer and there consumed by the
artificer.
BEER AND CIDER TRUCK. 827
estimating the real wages of the laborer. This kind of
payment prevails, from the nature of the case, mainly in
respect to agricultural labor, and agricultural truck was
not forbidden 1 by the act of William IV. One form of
agricultural truck deserves especially to be noted. It is
found in the beer or cider allowances so prevalent in Eng-
land. 3 The farms in that country where such payment is
not stipulated or is not customary would doubtless be
found, on a count, to be in a decided minority. In many
cases the allowance is in amount reasonable, if we assume
that the use of these drinks in any quantity at all is de-
sirable ; but in a vast number of instances the figures
of these allowances as reported are startling to minds
unfamiliar with the statistics of beer-gardens. In some
places Mr. Purdy reports 3 that the men have from 2 to 4:
quarts of beer daily ; women and children half that quan-
tity. The cider-truck would seem to be carried to a far
greater extent. Mr. Edward Spender states 4 that the agri-
cultural laborers of the cider-producing countries, particu-
larly Herefordshire and Devonshire, receive from 20 to 50
per cent of their wages in cider ! Eight to twenty pints a day
he indicates as the actual range. 5 With such a state of
1 " Nothing herein contained shall extend to any domestic servant, or
servant in husbandry" (xx.). This exception was due in part to the rea-
son of the case, and in part, we can not doubt, to the want of political
power in the agricultural labor class.
2 The words of the Massachusetts General Court are worthy to be
commended to the high and mighty Parliament of England. "Whereas
it is found, by too common and sad experience, in all parts of the
colony, that the forcing of laborers and other workmen to take wine in
pay for their labor is a great nursery or preparative to drunkenness and
unlawful tippling, . . . it is therefore ordered and ordained by this Court
that no laborer or workman whatsoever shall, after the publication and
promulgation hereof, be enforced or pressed to take wine in pay for
his labor/' (May 14, 1645.)
8 Statistical Journal, xxvii. 526.
4 Statistical Journal, xxiv. 333, cf. 339.
* " In Herefordshire it has happened that a farmer paid his laborers 9
shillings a week in money, and during harvest-time 9 gallons of cider a
328 THE WAGES QUESTION.
things, no wonder Mr. Spender can quote the statement of
a medical gentleman, long resident in the cider district,
that " the failure of the apple crop has the same favorable
effects on the health of the laborer as the good drainage of
a parish has on the health of the inhabitants generally."
But the form of truck which has especially excited the
opposition of the working classes, and which has been
stringently prohibited 1 by law in England, is the furnish-
ing by the employer to the mechanical laborer, of goods
for his personal and family consumption, the charges for
the same being set off against the wages due. It is of
truck in this sense only that we shall hereafter speak.
The custom of part-payment in goods, which at one
time prevailed almost universally in many districts in
England and very generally in the United States, did not
fail to find excuse for itself in the supposed advantage of
both parties. It was claimed that, in many branches of
week." Mr. Spender's computations assume that the cider was a good
merchantable article. On this point see Heath's English Peasantry.
One of the " clergy returns" published in the Report of the Convoca-
tion of Canterbury on Intemperance, states the allowance of cider to a
laborer at harvest-time at 2 gallons daily ; another at nearly 2 gallons
(p. 39). In one of the " workhouse returns" the governor speaks of la-
borers as "swallowing, some of them, as much as 3 or 4 gallons a
day." (Ibid., p. 40.)
1 The Act of 1st and 2d William IV. provides that " in all contracts for
the hiring of any artificer in any of the trades enumerated, the wages
of such artificer shall be made payable in the current coin of the realm,
and not otherwise." The trades enumerated are the manufactures of
iron and steel ; the mining of coal or iron, limestone, salt-rock ; the
working or getting of clay, stone, or slate ; manufactures of salt, bricks,
tiles, or quarries ; hardware manufactures, textile manufactures, glass,
china, and earthenware, manufactures of leather, and others.
There was excepted the right to supply to artificers medicine and
medical attendance ; fuel, materials, tools, and implements in mining ;
also hay, corn, and pr.n ender to be consumed by any horse or beast of
burden employed by the artificer in the occupation ; also, to furnish
tenements at a rent to be thereon reserved ; also, to advance to arti-
ficers money to be contributed to friendly societies and savings-banks,
or for relief in sickness, or for the education of children.
RAILWAY AND MINING TRUCK. 329
industry, the proximity of stores and shops kept by per-
sons disconnected with the employers could not be relied
on to the degree required for the supply of the laborers'
wants. This plea was urged with most assurance, and
probably with the greatest degree of truth, in respect to
truck-stores for navvies engaged upon canals and rail-
ways, as the gangs employed on such works are, from the
nature of the work, continually shifting their place, and
often pushing into districts settled sparsely or not at all.
At the same time, evidence was presented in the Com-
mons Report on Railway Laborers (1846) going to show
that the supposed necessity for truck did not exist even.
here. 1 But as the building of canals and railways had
reached no great proportions in 1831, when the act of 1st
and 2d William IY. prohibiting truck passed, this depart-
ment of industry was omitted from the enumeration in
that act, and the truck system was kept up in full vigor
on the canals and railways of the kingdom long after it
had ceased elsewhere, or had sunk into an illicit traffic main-
tained, under disguise and at risk, by the least reput-
able employers.
The department of industry which, next to that men-
tioned, put in the strongest plea for truck, was coal and
iron mining. In the nature of the case, works of this
character are found principally at considerable elevations,
upon difficult and broken ground, and often at consider-
able distances from market towns.' Hence the proprie-
tors were not without a show of reason in holding that
the prompt and sure supply of a large and perhaps fluc-
tuating body of workmen required that shops for the
sale of the necessaries of life should be established in im-
mediate connection with the works themselves.
1 Sir Morton Peto, then a great contractor, and one of the partners
of Thomas Brassey, testified that there was no difficulty in provision-
ing men on the most remote sections of railway. (Report, p. 75.)
8 Commons Committee on Payment of Wages Bill, 1854. Report,
pp. 37-9.
330 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But the opportunity to add to the profits of manufac-
ture the profits, and (through the unscrupulous exercise
of the influence and authority of the employer) more than
the ordinary profits, of trade, did not suffer truck to be
confined to departments of industry presenting so much
of an excuse for the system as the building of canals and
railways, and the mining of coal and iron. Truck long
prevailed, to a vast extent, in connection with many
branches of manufacture, and in many communities, where
no reason but the greed of employers existed for the
practice. Workmen were compelled to buy at the mas-
ter's store, on pain of discharge. Sometimes hints accom-
plished the object ; sometimes threats were necessary ;
sometimes examples had to be made. However strong
the disapprobation of the workmen, or of the larger com-
munity around, the profits of truck were so enormous as
to overcome the scruples and the shame of many em-
ployers. Those profits were five-fold. First, the ordi-
nary profit of the retail trader, large as that is, and
larger as we know it becomes, in proportion to the igno-
rance and poverty of the customer. Second, there was a
great diminution of ordinary expenses, due to the com-
pulsion exercised. The trader, who was also the manufac-
turer, did not have to resort to costly advertising to draw
custom, to maintain an attractive establishment in a con-
venient location, or to keep up an efficient body of clerks
and attendants. The only advertisement needed was the
ominous notice to trade there : the store might be the
merest barn, the service might be reduced to a degree
involving the greatest inconvenience, and even hardship,
to the customer. 1 Third, it seems to be abundantly
1 Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, in his exhaustive evidence before the
Select Committee of 1854, stated that the truck-shops were so small,
and the persons retained to serve customers so few, that the women
attending to get supplies for their families, on the credit of their hus-
bands' wages, frequently could not enter, but that fifty or one hundred
would be seen collected outside, waiting their turn to be served. Ha
TRUCK PRACTICES. 831
proved, by the evidence before the several commissions
and committees, that the charges at the truck-shops were
generally higher by 5, 10, or 15 per cent than at the ordi-
nary retail stores. Fourth, the employer, having the
absolute control of the laborers' wages, incurred no bad
debts such as eat up the profit of the open trader. Fifth,
the quality of the goods furnished was likely to be as
best suited the interests of the employer, who, for the
best of reasons, feared no loss of custom.
Such was truck in England before the act of 1st and 2d
William IY. ; and there can be no question in the mind of
any candid person who peruses the painful evidence ad-
duced in the course of the several inquiries which took
place before and after that legislation, and who carefully
considers the nature of the case, that, whether the system
be intrinsically mischievous or not, abuses 1 shameful and
had himself seen women with children in their arms standing in the
open air in bad weather, and on asking had been told they had been
waiting for hours. (Report, p. 8.)
Other witnesses placed the time for which a woman might thus
be compelled to wait at the truck-shop at two, four, or six hours, or
even longer. (Report, pp. 42, 128, 156-7, 322, 830, 371.) Meanwhile
the children not in arms were locked up at home.
Mr. J. Fellows, Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths at Bilston,
but also, it ought to be mentioned, a retail grocer, stated that in six-
teen years he had had occasion to record a number of deaths, which he
placed, from memory, at eleven, of young children burned in the ab-
sence of their mothers while waiting at these shops. (Report, p. 43).
1 Sir Archibald Alison appeared before the Committee of 1854 as the
champion of truck.
" I think," he said, " generally speaking, the people are furnished
with subsistence, and with articles of use for themselves and their
families infinitely better than from the stores of private dealers." Re-
port, p. 229.
" From all that I have seen I think the establishment of stores luia
been followed by a great improvement in the condition of the work-
men." Ibid.
"I have known instances of workmen going miles to the master's
stores in preference to dealing with the private shops." P. 234.
". . . . the immense advantage of the truck system in compelling
332 THE WAGES QUESTION.
even horrible were perpetrated under it. Doubtless there
was much passionate exaggeration by men smarting under
its evils, as there was in respect to the abuses of the old
unreformed jails ; to the wrongs of American slavery ; to
the outrages of the Confederate prison-pens ; but if the
simple truth respecting truck in England in the early days
of this century could be written out, it would form one of
the most painful chapters in the long and dreary story of
" man's inhumanity to man."
Another wrong which it is charged is done to laborers
through the form of their payment, is by the so-called
rental by the employer to the laborer, of the tools and
machines necessary to production, the wages being stop-
ped to the amount of the " rent." This alleged abuse
attracted attention from economists and legislators in
England particularly in connection with the hosiery man-
ufacture, and we will, for brevity, draw our illustrations
wholly from that branch of industry.
The system of Frame Rents, as exposed by the evidence
before the Commission of 1S44 and the Committee of
1855, was this:
Instead of the employer hiring laborers to work upon
his own machines, paying them net wages for their ser-
vice, the knitting is let out to middlemen upon contracts ;
" the middleman supplies the workman with frames and
other machinery, sometimes belonging to himself and
sometimes hired of the manufacturer or other owner, and
when he settles with the workman, he deducts out of the
gross price per dozen of the work performed, iirst, a sum
the workman to spend a large portion of his earnings in food for himself
and his family." P. 245.
"I think the workmen in the great manufactories and collieries are
just like a great ill-disciplined army. It is just as impossible to make
them dispose of their money properly as it would be to provide an army
with adequate subsistence if you were to abolish the commissariat and
pay every man in money, and let him buy his provisions where he
pleased." Pp. 237, 238.
FHANE TiENTS. -333
as rent for the use of the frame; secondly, a sum for
winding the yarn, which is a necessary operation for each
workman ; a third sum to remunerate himself for the use
of the premises where the work is performed, and for the
standing-room of the frame ; and a fourth for his trouble
and loss of time in procuring and conveying to the work-
man the materials to be manufactured, for his responsibili-
ty to the manufacturer for the due return of the materials
when manufactured, for superintending the work itself,
and for his pains in sorting the goods when made, and in
redelivering them at the warehouse of the manufacturer."
The language quoted is that of the Committee of 1855.
That this system of gross wages, with deductions to be
made for the use of machinery employed and on the other
accounts specified, was not necessary to protect the owners
of the machinery was abundantly proved by the fact that
in trades requiring the use of even more costly and deli-
cate machinery, the plan of clear net wages prevailed.
The real reason for the frame-rent system, as brought out
unmistakably by the evidence, was the profit to be made
from the use of the frames, owned partly by the manufac-
turers and partly by the middlemen. This was admitted
by the manufacturers themselves, who even claimed that
but for this profit they could not carry on their business in
a depressed condition of trade. 1
1 Just as Sir Archibald Alison admitted, the masters made use of
the opportunities of the truck-system. Thus he speaks of ' ' periods
of great distress, when the masters are driven to be sharp with their
furnishings." (Report of the Committee of 1854, p. 232.) " I have no
doubt that under these circumstances, during these periods of distress,
they sometimes furnish inferior articles, at least to what they have
furnished before." .... The complaints which I have heard
have almost always been complaints about measure ; or, in some in-
stances, I have heard complaints, in periods of distress, that the quali-
ty of the goods was inferior." .... I think when a master is
receiving high prices for his articles, for iron and coal, then his
pockets are full of money, he is in affluent circumstances, and he is
not, therefore, under the necessity of being strict with his furnishings ;
334 THE WAGES QUESTION.
The fact of rents so high as to make this profit often
enormous was abundantly proved. Mr. Muggeridge pre-
sented authentic accounts of transactions where the an-
nual rent charged approached, equalled, or even exceeded
the value of the frames. Thus one workman in 22 years
paid as rent upon a frame worth but 8 or 9 between
170 and 180. 1 Another paid ninepence a week for 30
years, on a frame costing at the beginning but 7, and
requiring but 6 or 7 for repairs during the entire
period. Still, again, Mr. William Biggs, a member of the
Committee of 1855, had testified before the Commission
of 1844 that during the two years 1835-36 his firm owned
8000 of frames ; that the rents amounted to 5100,
which, after deducting 5 per cent interest per annum on
the capital invested, and the cost of all repairs and inciden-
tal expenses, left a clear profit of 1950, or 24 per cent
for the two years.
Such was the system by the admission of those inte-
rested in its maintenance. But there can be no question
that abuses were easily perpetrated under it. "The
amount of this deduction," says Mr. Muggeridge, 2 "is
regulated by no fixed rule or principle whatever ; it is not
dependent upon the value of the frame, upon the amount
of money earned on it, or on the extent of the work
made; it has differed in amount at different times, and
now does so in different places ; the youthful learner or
apprentice pays the same rate from his scanty earnings as
tli at is to say, when trade is good, he gives good measure, lie gives the
best articles, and is liberal with his workmen ; he does not feel the
pressure himself. If in bad times he is out at elbow and feels the
pressure, as he always does in a monetary crisis, then he is obliged to
be more strict with his workmen, and then complaints are made."
There is something beautiful in this Tory confidence in human nature,
leading to the assurance that masters will never cheat their workmen
in measure or quality unless it is positively necessary to save them-
selves.
1 Report of the Committee of 1855, p. 160.
8 Ibid.
TRUCK AND LA18SEZ FAIRE. 335
the most expert and skilful workman in the trade from
his of four-fold the amount." Moreover, the workman,
obliged to hire the machine if he would have employment
at all, was compelled, not infrequently, to pay the rent
not only when prevented by sickness from labor, but also
when no work was furnished him by the middleman, who
had a direct interest not only in " spreading the work over
a greater number of frames than were requisite," 1 the
amount given out being, accordingly, in some cases, " what
would be three full days' work in a week, in others four,
in some as little as two," 2 but also in keeping inferior ma-
chines of antiquated pattern worn to the very edge of
absolute inefficiency, since the less each machine could
perform, the larger the number which would be required ;
and the more hands he could hold in dependence on him
for an inadequate occupation, the more complete his control
over these unfortunates ; the more meagre the living they
were able to get off their frames, the less likely they were
to have either the spirit or the material means to remove.
I have given so much space to the questions of Truck
and Frame Rents, both because of their prominence in
the history of labor and in economical literature, and be-
cause they afford illustrations of certain very important
principles in the philosophy of wages.
To the appeals of the working classes for legislation
abolishing these systems, the economists of the Manches-
ter school have replied with the doctrine of laissez faire.
Asserting, as they did in their contest for free trade, the
self-sufficiency of capital, they felt bound to vindicate their
consistency by asserting the self-sufficiency of labor. To
them truck and frame-rents were a mode of ascertaining
the wages of labor ; and they deemed the hours and me-
1 Report of the Committee of 1855, pp. 163, 164, cf. p. 22.
2 Ibid., p. 105, cf. p. 24.
836 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tliods of labor and the amount and kind of wages mat-
ters to be left to employers and employed, 1 subject only to
the " law of supply and demand." By the operation of
this law, they claimed, the employer gets the laborer's ser-
vices for the least sum possible under the conditions of
supply ; and on the other, the laborer secures the greatest
sum for his services consistent with the existing demand.
The employer's least price and the laborer's greatest price
are therefore the same, and no injustice can be done so
long as both parties are left free by law.
It is, however, fairly a question whether the writers and
statesmen of this school, in their valorous disposition to
stand by their principle in every case where issue on it
might be joined, have not mistaken their ground in the
matter of frame-rents and truck. Surely, freedom of
contract, on which the Manchesterians insist so strongly,
does not involve freedom to break contracts or to evade
contracts ; nor does the most advanced advocate of laissez
faire propose that breach of contract shall be left to be pun-
ished by natural causes that is, by the loss of business repu-
tation, by the withdrawal of confidence, or by public repro-
bation. But if exactitude of performance may be enforced
by law without any interference with industrial freedom,
why, pray, may not precision in terms be required by the
law, as the very first condition of a due and just enforcement
of contracts ? Precision in terms is, however, manifestly
incompatible, in the very nature of the case, with truck ;
for if the employer says to the laborer, " I will pay you for
your work twenty shillings a week, but you shall take it
in commodities at my prices," he does not in fact agree
how much he will pay the laborer ; the use of the term
twenty shillings becomes purely deceptive : it may mean
more or less according as the employer chooses to fix his
prices at the time ; the laborer can not tell what his wages
really are ; the law can not tell, and therefore can not enforce
1 Fawcett's Speeches, p. 130.
TRUCK AND LAISSEZ FAIRS. 337
the laborer's right if litigated. 1 Perhaps we can not say that
precision in terms is incompatible with the very nature of
the system of machine rents; but there is ample evidence
to prove that it has been so in fact, and therefore the law,
which is bound to enforce the contract, may justly demand
that the contract shall not contain an element unsuscep-
tible of exact determination. This is not interference
with freedom of contract, but with looseness and uncer-
tainty of contract, or with the power of one party to a
contract to break, evade, or pervert its terms.
But I am not anxious to reconcile the prohibition of
truck and machine rents with laissez faire. The autho-
rity accorded to that precept is not, in my opinion, to be
justified on strictly economical principles.
We have previously (p. 168-9) discussed the principles
on which it should be judged whether a law prohibitive or
regulative in form really impairs competition, and pre-
vents the resort of labor to its market. It was there seen
that such a measure, though unquestionably obstructive
as against a supposed pre-existing condition of perfect
practical freedom, might, by removing important moral
or intellectual obstacles to free action, which actually exist
in human society as it is, have the effect to promote, and
not retard, industrial movement.
Now, let us apply this principle to a proposed law in re-
gulation or restraint of truck. It is, say Mr. Bright and
Prof. Fawcett, an interference with freedom of contract
and an obstruction to trade, and therefore mischievous
1 For instance, suppose in a truck establishment a workman to die
having undisputed claim son the employer, for work done, to the nomi-
nal amount of 100 shillings : what amount would his widow he en-
titled to recover in money at law, or would the employer be entitled to
pay the debt into court in groceries and provisions, in quantities
and at prices to suit himself ? If the man had lived, the 100 shillings
would have been paid, wholly or in part, in truck. His death certainly
does not change the nature of his claim ; yet is it conceivable that a
court should award a payment in kind ?
338 THE WAGES QUESTION.
laissez faire, laissez passer. But is it really or only form-
ally obstructive ? There will not be absolute freedom of
movement with it. Granted. But is there absolute free-
dom of movement without it ? Assuredly not. Shall
not, then, the question be, whether there will be more
freedom with or without such a law ?
Now, if we ask the question respecting truck and frame-
rents in England as they were in the first half of the cen-
tury, it must, I think, be answered that interference with
the formal freedom of contract in these particulars served
to enhance, in a most important degree, the substantial
freedom of movement among the laboring classes. The
laborer's practical ability to seek his best market is made
up of a material element the means of transportation and
present subsistence and of intellectual and moral elements
quite as essential, the knowledge of the comparative ad-
vantages of the different occupations and locations offering
themselves, and the courage to break away from place and
custom to seek his fortune elsewhere. Ignorance and fear
keep far more men in a miserable lot than does the sheer
physical difficulty of getting from place to place, and sus-
taining life meanwhile.
At the laborer's knowledge of the comparative advan-
tages of different occupations and locations, the truck
and machine-rent systems struck a deadly blow. In addi-
tion to the inevitable difficulties in determining the real
wages of labor, which were detailed in Chapter II., this
system introduced a new and most hopeless element of un-
certainty. The laborer's wages, paid nominally in money,
were to be converted into commodities for his consump-
tion, by an illicit process, at rates governed by the pleasure
of the individual employer at the particular time. The
truck system was maintained for the purpose chiefly, as
was admitted, of enabling the employers to " sweat" their
laborers' wages, as counterfeiters " sweat" the coin of the
realm. It was claimed that in this way employers might
make themselves good, if the nominal wages they were
TRUCK BLINDFOLDS THE LABORER. 339
paying were too high, more easily than they could obtain
a reduction in the nominal wages themselves. Moreover,
the degree to which wages should be thus reduced would
depend upon the rapacity or the necessities of individual
employers, and also upon the state of manufacture and
trade. 1 The great flexibility of these charges was univer-
sally admitted ; and, indeed, the readiness with which
they could be adapted, in form and degree, to the times
and exigencies of the master's business was made one of
the chief recommendations.
If workmen are to seek their own interests, they must
know them. Every thing that tends to simplify wages
makes it easier for the laborer to dispose of his service to
the highest advantage. Every thing that tends to compli-
cate wages puts the laborer at disadvantage. A system
of gross wages, with deductions "regulated by no fixed
rule or principle whatever" (Muggeridge), varying with
times and places, and, as Sir A. Alison admits, varying
with the state of trade and the disposition of employers,
makes it impossible for the most enlightened workman to
act intelligently respecting his interests, while the unedu-
cated workman loses his reckoning completely : his senses
are deceived, and he is put wholly at the mercy of the ex-
tortioner. 3
But it is said the workman may not, indeed, be able
to compute with exactness his net wages and those of his
fellows, through all this system of allowances and deduc-
tions and payments in kind ; but he surely can appreciate
the result so far as his own comfort and well-being are
1 See Sir A. Alison's remarkable admissions on this point, quoted in
note to page 333.
5 " This is a great oppression," quoth Arthur Young. " Farmers and
gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a great abuse. So many
days' work for a cabin, so many for a potato- garden, so many for keep-
ing a horse, and so many for a cow, are clear accounts which a poor
man can understand well ; but further it ought not to go, and when
he has worked out what he has of this sort, the rest of his work ought
punctually to be paid him every Saturday night." Pinkerton, iii. 815.
340 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
concerned ; he surely knows whether he is well off or
not ; and if he feels himself wronged, he will seek a bet-
ter employer. But how, I ask, is he to judge in ad-
vance, under such a system of combined truck and ma-
chine rents as oppressed the framework-knitters of Eng-
land fifty years ago, whether his condition would be more
tolerable under another master or in another place?
Suppose him to have the rare intelligence and enter
prise to ascertain the gross wages paid by other employers,
perhaps in distant localities, and to find some more
favorable than his own, how can he have the slightest as-
surance that greater severity in the administration of the
system of stoppages and deductions, and greater greed in
pursuing the profits of truck, might not make the dif-
ference, and perchance more than the difference, in nomi-
nal rates ? He can not tell until he has tried, and how
often would a workman, on such a narrow margin of liv-
ing, and it may be with a family, be able to change em-
ployers and shift his place in order to better his lot ?
How surely would he, after one or two bitter disap-
pointments, relinquish the effort, and sink without a strug-
gle into his miserable place, getting what wages he could,
and taking for them what he might, at "the master's
store." The fact is, the system of truck and machine
rents, as administered in England in the early part of the
century, completely blindfolded the workman, and left
him to grope about in search of his true interest, in peril
of pitfalls and quagmires, or, as was most likely, to sub-
mit in sullen despair to every indignity and injury of the
position in which he found himself.
Surely, then, we are entitled to say that laws in re-
straint of these practices differ from those other laws af-
fecting labor which have been described in this chapter,
in the one all-important particular, that the latter were
intended to diminish that mobility by which laborers
could seek their best market, while the former have the
effect to make competition more easy and certain.
18 TRUCK EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 341
Is truck, then, always subject to economical censure ?
I answer, No. Truck is a form of barter ; and he would
be a bold man who should say that barter is always and
everywhere prejudicial. When truck arises naturally, is
compatible with the general usages of exchange, and is
maintained in good faith by common consent, it may not
only be unobjectionable but highly advantageous to all
classes. 1 When, however, truck is forced upon a body of
impoverished and ignorant workmen against the general
usages of exchange, and maintained by intimidation as
the means of " sweating" their wages, and keeping them
down to the barest subsistence and under an incapacity to
migrate, then truck becomes a horrid wrong and outrage.
This varying aspect of truck, according to the circum-
stances and character of the community among which it is
introduced, exemplifies the futility of setting up as economi-
cal principles what are in truth mere rules of expediency.
Thus, if barter be the general condition of exchanges
in a new community, as it ordinarily is in the scarcity of
currency, we may fairly say that it constitutes no special
hardship to the laboring classes that they have to receive
their wages in kind. Doubtless, in the further develop-
ment of society and industry, the introduction of money
payments in such a community will prove a real and
great industrial advantage to all classes. Doubtless, also,
the wages class, as presumably the poorest class, and that,
also, the members of which have least time and oppor-
tunity for rendering the commodities they may chance to
receive in payment, into the commodities they desire to
consume, would be most helped by such an advance.
1 M. Ducarre's report notices with approbation the attempt of tha
Orleans Railway Company to supply their 14,000 employees with food
and clothing. The results seem to show that the workmen thus ob-
tained their supplies thirty per cent cheaper than they could have
done at the shops. There is no reason why such enterprises should
not be carried out to a much greater extent, to the highest advantage
of employers and workmen, and with general consent.
342 THE WAGE 8 QUESTION.
Yet, prior to that consummation, the wages class, or the
economist speaking for them, could scarcely make com-
plaint that they were obliged to share in the general in-
convenience, even though, from their industrial position,
they might feel it more severely than others ; or demand
that exemption from truck be secured them by law. In-
deed, in such a general condition of exchange, it is quite
conceivable that a class which should be enabled to en-
force money payments to itself might thus secure an un^
due advantage which would be resented by others as ob-
tained at their expense. An amusing illustration of this
is furnished by Gov. "Winthrop in his History of New-Eng-
land, as follows :
" One Richard , servant to one Williams, of
Dorchester, being come out of service, fell to work at his
own hand, and took great wages above others, and would
not work but for ready money. By this means, in a year
or a little more, he had scraped together about twenty-
five pounds, and then returned, with his prey, into Eng-
land, speaking evil of the country by the way," etc., etc.
(Yol. ii. 98, 99.) The good governor notes with apparent
gusto the fact that he was met by the cavaliers and eased
of his money his prey on his arrival.
But if we come, now, to consider a state of industrial
society in which exchanges are generally effected through
the use of money, and inquire as to the results to a single
class of the community of being reduced, through some
force operating upon them when in a position of disad-
vantage, to accept payment for their services in commodi-
ties 1 instead of currency, those, at least, who discard the
1 Clearly the evil, if there is any evil in the system, will be some-
what according to the variety of the articles thus forced upon the la-
borer. The greater that variety the greater his disadvantage. One of
the arguments against abolishing or abating agricultural truck has
been that the arrangement was generally restricted to " one, two, or
three distinct things." Testimony of Mr. Tremenheere before the
Committee of 1854. Report, p. 102.
HOW TRUCK MAT BE A HARDSHIP. 343
theory of diffusion can easily see that wrong amounting
to robbery might be wrought by this means. To deny to
one class the advantage they would naturally derive from
the introduction of a universal " standard of value and
medium of exchange," while allowing it to the classes
with which that single class is to compete for the posses-
sion of wealth, would be not unlike prohibiting to one
merchant the use of the railway, and sending him back to
the stage-coach, while his competitors were permitted to
use the telegraph and the steam-car. So long as the coach
was common to all, none had equitable cause of complaint
of the want of a better means of transportation. The hard-
ship, such as it was, lay in the constitution of things.
"When the steam -car and telegraph came, they did not bene-
fit all alike ; on the contrary, they tended to inequality ; l
to make the great greater, the small, by comparison at least,
smaller, yet no one could rightfully charge blame in that he
received less than others of the great addition to human
well-being. It would be quite another thing, however,
were one individual or class to be prohibited from par-
ticipating, in his measure, in what should be the gain of
all. This would be ground for complaint ; this would
be gross, palpable injustice. And such a wrong was that
truck against which the statute of 1st and 2d William IY.
was levelled. Truck prevailed, not because it consisted with
the general system of exchange in the country at the time,
not because it was for the convenience of both parties,
not from any scarcity of currency to allow cash pay-
ments, but, in the vast majority of instances, it had been
forced 2 upon the working classes simply and solely be-
1 The effects of railways in taking the life out of small country
towns, and drawing trade and manufactures to junctions and termini,
are too familiar to need illustration.
2 In some cases even the pretence of adapting the commodities, in
which the laborer was paid, to his wants was abandoned, and the la-
borer was paid in whatever was most convenient to the employer.
E violence was given before the Committee of 1854 that workmen were
344 T8E WAGES QUESTION.
cause it enabled the employers to add the profits of trade
to the profits of manufacture ; because it kept the laborers
always poor and in debt, and diminished the ease, or prac-
tically destroyed the possibility, of migration.
sometimes forced to receive such an excess of flour, for instance, as to
have to pay their rent in this article, of course at inconvenience and
with a loss. (Report, p. 6.)
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT MAY HELP THE WAGES CLASS IN ITS COMPETITION
FOB THE PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRY.
IN Chapter III. were set forth certain causes which go
to heighten the efficiency of labor and increase the product
of industry. Under the present title I shall have occasion
to speak of causes, some of them the same, as operating to
give the wage-laborer a larger share of that product, with-
out reference to its absolute amount.
Bearing in mind still that it is competition in the full
sense of that word, involving as it does the strong desire
and the persistent effort to buy in the cheapest and sell in
the dearest market, which alone is needed to give the
wages class the highest remuneration which the existing
conditions of industry will allow, we can not find difficulty
in enumerating the principal helps to this end. 1 These are :
I. Frugality. All capital is the result of saving ;
and the frugality of the working classes, contributing to
the increase of the wealth available for the purposes of
industry, secures indirectly an increase of production.
1 Mr. Mill says : " When the object is to raise the permanent condi-
tion of a people, small means do not merely produce small effects, they
produce no effect at all." (Pol. Econ., i. 459.) The remark is just, but
is perhaps liable to be misunderstood. Causes which, when contem-
plated as operating in a given moment, appear so small as to be incon-
siderable, may, if they operate continuously in any direction, produce
great effects ; but then such causes can not, in a philosophical view, be
considered small.
346 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
But we have here only to do with the fact that, without
reference to any increase of production, the workman's
frugality gives him a distinct advantage, rendering com-
petition on his side, in one degree, more effective. ~No
matter how clearly workingmen may discern their interest
in a prompt resort to another market, whether that im-
ply a change of occupation or of place, or both, without
some savings out of their past earnings they must e'en
say, with the " Third Citizen" in Coriolanus, " We have
the power in ourselves to do it ; but it is a power that we
have no power to do." No human thought can distin-
guish the several parts of ignorance and of penury in the
immobility of agricultural labor in the West of England :
but it can not be doubted that the poverty which has
existed among that class since the Napoleonic wars has
contributed largely to the miserable result. Their scanty
earnings have rendered it extremely difficult for them to
make any savings out of their wages ; the lack of savings
has placed them at the mercy of their employers by ren-
dering it extremely difficult for them to escape to locali-
ties offering superior inducements. Prof. Fawcett, writ-
ing from Salisbury in 1873 or '4, says of the agricultural
laborers of that section : " They are so poor that it is ab-
solutely impossible for many of them to pay the expense
of removing even to a neighboring county." ' I have al-
ready cited the testimony of Mr. Muggeridge 8 respecting
the removal of large numbers from the south and west of
England at the public expense, by which persons who had
actually been supported as paupers were immediately
brought to a condition of comfortable self-support. In
some rare instances this removal of laborers has been ef-
fected by the enterprise of private employers. Thus, at
the meeting of the Social Science Association in 1874, Mr.
C. M. Palmer, of Newcastle, one of the largest employers
1 Correspondence of the Doily News.
8 P. 185.
FRUGALITY AFFECTS WAGES. 347
in England, stated that some years previously, when there
was great distress in Cornwall, he had sent an agent to
collect laborers, paying him so much for each man re-
cruited, offering minimum wages until the men should
become instructed in mining, one half the cost of trans-
portation to be ultimately deducted from their wages.
Mr. Palmer deemed that the enterprise had been very
prosperous both in his own interest and in that of the la-
borers. The philanthropic endeavors of Canon Girdle-
stone in securing the removal of laborers -from the crowd-
ed districts have also been alluded to. But whether such
schemes are undertaken by government, by business en-
terprise, or by private charity, they are almost sure to be
successful, if at all, in some lower degree than where the
laborer is furnished with means of his own earning and sav-
ing, and undertakes his own removal. In strong contrast
with the helpless condition of the agricultural laborers of
the south and west, Prof. Rogers notes the independence
of the laborers of Cumberland and Westmoreland, of
whom it is reported that they " never allow themselves to
be destitute of such a sum of money as will enable them
to emigrate in case the ordinary rate of wages shows signs
of yielding to the pressure for employment." *
On men thus provided, the casualties of production will
work small permanent injury. Their reserves enable
them to tide over any commercial disaster, and the return
of prosperity finds their efficiency unimpaired. If, on the
1 Pol. Econ., pp. 101, 102. The savings-banks statistics bear out this
assertion respecting the laboring classes of these counties. By the
report of the Penrith Branch of the Carlisle Savings-Bank, it appears
that the total amount due to 260 male farm- servants was 9259
9s. 5d. ; to 240 female farm-servants, 7904. 8s. Qd. Instances are given
of 200, 300, or even 500 having been accumulated by a single per-
son. (Second Report (1869) of the Commission of 1867 on the Employ-
ment of Children in Agriculture, p. 141.)
Sir Frederick Eden in his " History of the Poor" has preserved some
remarkable instances of considerable accumulations out of earnings. (I.
495. 496, note.)
348 THE WAGES QUESTION.
other hand, the steady decline of industry in their section,
under any general or special cause, imposes on them the
necessity of migration, they can go at the best time and in
the best way. Thus we see that frugality on the part of
the working classes goes far to supply that condition on
which competition will secure to them absolutely the high-
est wages which the existing conditions of industry allow.
" Wages," says Mr. Mill, " are likely to be high where none
are compelled by necessity to sell their labor." 1
But while frugality is thus a condition of great impor-
tance in securing a beneficent distribution of the product
of industry, we are compelled to acknowledge that the
condition of the wage-laborer is not conducive to the devel-
opment of this quality. We saw a that he must, human
nature being what it is, be somewhat less industrious than
the person who works on his own account ; he is also likely
to be less frugal. Take the case of the " peasant proprie-
tor" of land. Is there an hour of the day left, there is
always something to be done ; the land is ever crying out
for labor. Has he a few shillings to spare at the end of
the month, there is always something connected with the
land which demands its investment. Whether it be work
on the growing crop, or the ditching, fencing, and clear-
ing of land, the increase of live stock and implements, or
additions to stables and barns, the small farmer has always
a good use to which to put every hour of labor and every
shilling of money which he can command. After all, it is
as Sismondi said : " The true savings-bank is the land."
With the wage-laborer the case is different. He can
not reapply any portion of the product of his labor di-
rectly to the subject-matter of his labor, for that is not
his. If he would put any portion of his wages to a re.
productive use, he must seek out some borrower, and
the amount he has to lend being small, this borrower must
1 Pol. Econ., i. 442.
8 P. 74-7.
INTEMPERANCE AND WAGES. 349
be the bank, which will lend the money out, he knows
not when, he knows not where. This is a very cold-
blooded affair compared with the application of earnings
to the land by the proprietor thereof, who works over
it and lives upon it, who feels that it is all his, and shall
be his children's after him. Neither the imagination nor
the affections are addressed very powerfully by the sav-
ings-bank. There is, besides, some delay involved in a
deposit, which, however slight, defeats many a good reso-
lution and brings many a half-consecrated sixpence to the
grocery or the bar-room.
I have named in the last word the great foe to frugality
in the working classes. Wholly aside from the perversion
of instincts, the loss of laboring power, and the actual vice
and crime resulting from drunkenness, the waste of wealth
shown by the statistics of the consumption of wine, beer,
and liquors by the working-classes is appalling.
I had occasion in the preceding chapter to refer to the
payment of beer and cider as a part of agricultural wages
in England. The amount of money actually received and
spent for these and stronger drinks is estimated, on respect-
able authority , as follows i 1 1869, 113,464,874 ; 1871, 118,
906,066 ; 1873, 140,014,712. The author of this compu-
tation proceeds to estimate the cost of the bread consumed
annually by the people of England at 2 12-5. 6d. per head ;
the cost of tea, coffee, sugar, rice, and cocoa consumed, at
1. 10. 9<$. per head : making altogether an average expend-
iture for these articles of 4. 7s. 3d., against an expenditure
of 4. 7s. %d. for alcoholic drinks, on the basis of 1873. At
this rate, six years' expenditure would amount to enough to
pay the national debt, or to build a house worth 150 for
every family in the kingdom. There may be some exag-
geration in these estimates ; and it is to be considered that
the expenditure of the higher classes on this account is
more than proportional ; yet one can not set the cost of
1 The Temperance Reformation and the Christian Church, pp. 112, 113.
350 TEE WAGES QUESTI01/.
wines, ales, and liquors consumed by the wage-laboring
classes of Great Britain lower than 100,000,000 per
annum. Mr. G. R. Porter, in a paper read before the
Statistical Society, adopted the estimate that one -half the
income of workingmen earning between ten and fifteen
shillings a week was spent by them on objects in which
other members of the family had no share ; while the
proportion thus selfishly devoted by higher paid and pre-
sumedly more temperate artisans earning from twenty to
thirty shillings, not infrequently reached one third. 1
Yet, in spite of strong and urgent tendencies to dissipa-
tion and extravagance among the manual-labor classes, the
statistics of the savings-banks show a steady growth of the
principle of frugality, the total deposits in 1873 reaching
$312,000,000. The deposits in savings-banks throughout all
Europe, 2 exclusive of Russia 3 and Turkey, are estimated,
in a report of M. Normandie to the French National As-
sembly in 1875, at a total of $1,180,000,000.
1 Statistical Journal, xiii. 364.
Mr. Baines states that nineteen-twentieths of the occupants of cottages
in Leeds pay their rent weekly, and could not be trusted longer. (Statis-
ticalJournal, xxii. 136, 138.) The plan of Monday-morning payments has
been widely urged as a simple, practical measure in aid of the laborer's
instincts of frugality. French laborers find less difficulty in carrying
their earnings past the cabaret.
Mr. Brassey relates that during the construction of the Paris and
Rouen Railway, the Frenchmen employed were, at their own request,
paid only once a month. (Work and Wages, p. 17.)
Mr. McCulloch in his Commercial Dictionary (p. 478) argues strenu-
ously that the State should refuse to protect small debts, with a view
to promote frugality on the part of the working-classes.
3 The fullest body of information relating to banks of saving is to
be found in a recent report by Prof. Louis Bodio, the accomplished
chief of the Italian Bureau of Statistics. "Casse di Risparmio in
Italia, ed all' estero."
3 Russia, however, has her system of savings-banks, numbering six-
ty-two, with deposits to the amount of four and a half million roubles,
in the name of seventy thousand depositors. In contrast with these
facts, we find in little Switzerland not less than 353,855 depositors, or
one in every seven of the population. In Denmark the proportion ia
one to eight and a half.
THE SAVINGS OF THE WAGES CLASS. 351
On the Continent of Europe the amount of deposits in
savings-banks represents but a fraction of the accumula-
tions of the working classes. The passion of the common
people for acquiring land leads to the continuous applica-
tion of circulating capital to the purchase of this species of
property, 1 while the various classes of credit institutions
facilitate the erection of workingmen's houses. If it be
asked how the acquisition of real property by the work-
ing classes consists with the mobility of labor which is so
much to be desired, I answer, one need have no fear that
the true mobility of labor will be impaired at all by any
form which the savings of the working classes may take ;
that the virtues" which are required for the exercise of
frugality, and which the exercise of frugality strengthens,
afford the best security for all needed movement of labor
at the right time and in the right way ; and finally, that
the individual acquisition of real property is never likely
to become so general as not to leave a considerable portion
of the members of every trade without ties to the soil.
It is quite another question how the extensive acquisi-
tion of public property by the Swiss communes 2 affects the
desired mobility of labor in that country. It would
certainly appear at this distance to be inexpedient, as re-
quiring an undue sacrifice on the part of individuals whom
the conditions of industry seem to invite to other locali-
ties.
The statistics of savings-banks in the United States are
not to be used with much confidence, for the reason that
onerous taxation has in several States driven large
amounts of personal property, belonging to persons of
means, under the protection of these institutions, which
1 In the Canton of Berne, of 500,000 inhabitants, the real property-
holders numbered, in 1868, 88,670. (Report of Mr. Gould on the Condi-
tion of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 670.)
2 " The estimated value of the property held by the Swiss communes
between the years 1863 and 1864, independently of the Cantons, may
be put down at the large sum of 586.853,077 francs." (Ibid.)
352 THE WAGES QUESTION.
enjoy a partial immunity from contribution. It is not un^
usual to deposit, up to the limit of the amount authorized
by law, in each of a number of banks, and still further to
multiply such deposits by entering equal amounts in the
names of wife and children. 1
Notwithstanding this, however, it is evident that a vast
body of wealth is held by the laboring classes of the
United States in movable form, in addition to the sums
invested in houses and lands. In 1873 the savings-banks of
Maine showed 91,398 separate accounts, with an aggregate
deposit of $29,550,524; Ehode Island, 93,124: accounts,
$46,617,183 ; Massachusetts, 666,229 accounts, $202,195,-
344 ; New-York, 839,472 accounts, $285,520,085.
II. Individual and mutual intelligence among the work-
ing classes. The phrase mobility of labor is very useful
in discussions of the questions of wages, as expressing
better than any other the one condition upon which
laborers can receive the highest remuneration which the
state of productive industry (their own present efficiency
being taken into account) will allow, and the sole security
which society can have that the inevitable immediate
effects of industrial pressure or disaster shall not become
permanent. Yet there is danger that the conception of
what is involved in this term will be inadequate. Assum-
ing the desire of industrial well-being to be universal, the
mobility of labor should supply on the part of the wages
class all that is needed for a perfect competition ; and this
clearly requires something more than legalized freedom of
movement, something more, even, than the possession of
the physical means of transportation and subsistence need-
ed for migration. The laborer must be in a position to
discern where his real interest lies, for to move in any
other than the right direction may be more injurious than
1 One case has come to my knowledge where a depositor, after ex.
hausting the list of his human family, entered the maximum amount
in the name of his dog.
INTELLIGENCE AFFECTS WAGES. 853
to abide in his lot, since all movement implies loss of
force, and is only to be justified by the prospect of a
distinct gain in the result.
This ability to discern where one's interest lies requires
two things, the acquisition of just information and the
rejection of false information. Of the former it is not
necessary to speak. It is seen in the mere mention, how
l.irge is the requirement it makes of the working classes ;
how slight the probability that this requirement will be
completely filled. The second requirement is, among an
ignorant population, even more difficult. So prone to dis-
couragement are men, especially men lacking in mental
training and culture ; so efficient is Rumor in her evil
office of spreading the news of failure and disaster, that
the effects of acting upon false information in a single
instance may, with ignorant persons, neutralize the most
substantial inducements of self-interest in many other in-
stances. Such persons have little to hold on to, or steady
their minds upon ; they generalize hastily and passionate-
ly, or, rather, they do not in any true sense generalize at
all ; and after the first shock to their confidence they be-
come absurdly suspicious.
Even in enterprises of less pith and moment, the cloud
of prejudice, vague apprehensions, and false conceits,
originating in ignorance, obscures the view, in every direc-
tion, of the laborer's true interest.
" Few," says Mr. Chad wick, 1 " who have not had ex-
perience in the administration of relief to the destitute in
periods of wide distress, can be fully sensible of the dif-
ference, in amount of trouble and chargeability to the
ratepayers, between educated and intelligent and uneducat-
ed and unintelligent people of the wage-class the heavy
lumpishness of the uneducated, their abject prostration,
their liability to misconception and to wild passion, their
frequent moroseness and intractability, and the difficulty
1 Statistical Journal, xxviii. 11, 13.
354 THE WAGES QUESTION.
of teaching them, as compared with the self-help of the
better educated, who can write and inquire for themselves,
and find out for themselves new outlets and sources of
productive employment, and who can read for themselves
and act on written or printed instructions. The really
well-trained, educated, and intelligent are the best to bear
distress ; they are the last to come upon charitable relief-
lists, and the first to leave them."
III. Sexual self-restraint. I am not speaking here in the
Malthusian sense with reference to the general supply of
labor. In Malthusianism the average number of children to
the family is the single consideration ; it matters not whether
each family have four children, or one family none, and the
next eight : the supply of labor is equally affected. Again,
while in Malthusianism the age at which marriage shall be
contracted and children produced is not a matter of in-
difference, it is only of consequence as it affects the period
within which population shall double. I here adduce the
desirableness of sexual self-restraint on an account which
is wholly additional to this namely, the influence it must
exert upon the mobility of the laborer. We have seen
the occasion in modern society for a frequent, one might
almost say an incessant, readjustment of population and
industry. It is clear, that though the laborer can never
wholly escape from this necessity, it is of peculiar im-
portance that he should be as disembarrassed as possible
during the years when he is coming to find out his own
powers and capabilities, learning how to work, and getting
into industrial relations, presumably for life. It is certain
that he can make a favorable disposition of his labor then,
if ever ; that he will never be able afterwards to seek his
market with so little of effort and so little of loss.
It is, therefore, economically desirable, without respect
to the effect his earlier marriage might have on the
general supply of labor, that at this critical period his
mobility should be at the maximum. Of course, this
proposition does not apply generally to communities in
EARLY MARRIAGES AFFECT WAGES. 355
the condition of the American colonies and the early
United States, where labor was almost painfully deficient,
and where land was abundant. A young man there could
scarcely have placed himself wrong; and any disadvan-
tage the impediments of a youthful marriage might have
occasioned him was amply compensated by the access of
productive power which his rising family soon brought
him, in a country where the condition of " diminishing
returns" had not been reached. But when settlements
became dense and production diversified, the necessity of
a precise adaptation of labor to industry, and a consequent
readjustment of population, becomes urgent, and that
urgency increases with increase of numbers and diversi-
fication of products. Hence it is that early and improv-
ident marriages, such as characterize the Irish 1 at home
and in foreign lands, influence unfavorably the rate of
wages, wholly besides their effect on the general supply
of labor. The young laborer is no longer free to abandon
the avocation his adaptation to which he finds he has
wrongly estimated, or the locality where he finds himself
crowded by equally needy competitors, and to seek the
price of his labor in a better market ; but, tied down by
the cares of family, and harassed by immediate necessi-
ties, he sinks hopelessly into what he knows to be the
wrong place for him.
But if we turn our attention from the fortunes of
the individual to those of the whole wages class, we
shall see an additional reason, in the interest of a be-
neficent distribution of the products of industry, for the
procrastination of marriage. The desideratum is, we
have seen, to secure the readjustment of population to
industry. It is clearly true that the longer marriage
is postponed, the larger the proportion of the total labor-
1 Sir Archibald Alison, writing of the Irish peasants in the days be-
fore the Famine, speaks of them as "almost always" marrying at
eighteen, and not infrequently becoming grandfathers at thirty-four.
(Hist, of Europe, xviii. 5.)
356 THE WAGES QUESTION'.
ing population which will be free, so far as domestic
incumbrances are concerned, to respond to economical
impulses suggesting a change of avocation or of residence.
It is not merely that, if they go in obedience to such sug-
gestions, they secure their own highest remuneration, but
they also relieve the market in those localities or occu-
pations which they forsake. With the disposable element
thus increased by the procrastination of marriage, the
heads of families, those who, in the words of Bacon,
" have given hostages to fortune," may to a very large ex-
tent, except only in extraordinary emergencies, be exempt
from this necessity.
The average age at which marriages are contracted
varies greatly with the industrial necessities and the social
habits of different communities. 1 In Belgium, in 21. IT
out of 100 marriages the groom is under 25 years ; in Hol-
land, 21.42; in Sweden, 21.83; in Norway, 23.95; in
Austria, 28.40 ; in France, 29.06 ; in Scotland, 41.32 ; in
England, 50.95.
IY. Legal regulations clearly correspondent to infirmi-
ties in the mass of laborers, which tend to defeat the real
freedom of choice and power of movement.
After making all allowances for the proneness of legis-
latures to meddle and blunder, and for defects in ad-
ministration of the law, it still remains true that the
wages class may, in exceptional instances, be helped for-
1 Marriages take place at a very early age in India. Mr. Beverley, the
Census Commissioner, calls attention to the fact that the religious be-
liefs of the people contribute to this result, as it is deemed highly im-
portant that the burial rites, on which the welfare of the soul after
death, according to their faith, greatly depends, should be performed
by male offspring. (Economist, May 9th, 1874, p. 555.) In Ireland early
marriages have undoubtedly been promoted by the influence of the
priesthood. (J. S. Mill's Pol. Econ. i. 345, 446 ; Alison's Hist, of Europe,
xviii. 10 ; Statistical Journal, xxii. 217, xxiii. 205 ; Prof. Senior, quoted
in the Edinburgh Review, October, 1808, p. 328, cf. p. 336.) In Eng-
land Mr. J. S. Mill charges that the policy of the Tory party has been
to encourage early marriages. (Pol. Econ., i. 426.)
LAWS PROTECTING LABOR. 357
ward in an important degree towards a real and vital com-
petition, by the exercise of the prohibitory power of the
State. During the present century, says the Duke of
Argyle, in his Reign of Law, l " two great discoveries
have been made in the science of government : the one
is the immense advantage of abolishing restrictions upon
Trade; the other is the absolute necessity of imposing
restrictions upon Labor." There is here no inconsist-
ency. I have shown in a preceding chapter that those
economists who refuse to carry into the department of
Distribution the rule of perfect freedom from restraint
which they accept in the department of Exchange, do not
abandon an economical principle, but only leave behind
a practical rule, the conditions of which no longer exist.
The possible justification of Factory Acts and kindred
legislation may be thus briefly stated. For perfect competi-
tion in wage-labor it is required that the employer and the
laborer shall each understand and pursue his own true
permanent interest. But this requirement is never com-
pletely fulfilled. The employer, on his part, is always, in
a higher or lower degree, unduly under the domination of
immediate purposes. The haste to be rich, which often
makes waste ; greed, which is always unwise ; parsimony,
which disables from business success many a man who has
every other qualification, rendering him incapable of ever
taking a large and liberal view of his industrial relations ;
rivalry, mutual jealousy among manufacturers affecting
the temper of business and warping production from its
best course these passions and infirmities among employ-
ers, quickened at times by stringent financial necessities,
must more or less make separation between their seeming
present and their true permanent interest. Thus it be-
comes possible that the employer shall seek to crowd down
wages, extend the hours of work, quicken the movement
of machinery, admit children of tender age to painful and
'Pp, 334, 335.
358 THE WAGES QUESTION.
protracted labor, 1 scrimp in the conveniences of produc-
tion, and neglect the ventilation and sanitary care of his
shop or factory, all in the effort to increase the month's
and the year's profits, though such a course is, in the long
view, prejudicial alike to himself and his hands. Perfect
competition would make the employer the guardian of the
laborer's interests. What sort of a guardian imperfect
competition makes of the employer unrestrained by law
or an active public sentiment, may be read in the official re-
ports of Great Britain, in which the condition of her
mines and mills and factories prior to their legal regulation
is described.
But the failure of true competition is, as has already
been abundantly shown, far greater on the side of the
wages class, though in this respect very wide differences
exist, due both to the industrial quality of the individual
laborer and to the nature of the occupation pursued. The
skilled workman, receiving high wages, with an ample
margin of subsistence, is always fairly able to seek his best
market. Doubtless he fails in a considerable degree, at
times, for want of apprehension, or of the spirit of enter-
prise ; but, in the main, he satisfies the condition of a
right distribution. Even the unskilled and unintelligent la-
borer, in occupations involving no extensive subdivision of
work or expensive machinery and materials, may find his
place tardily and painfully, and make his terms, though at
some loss. It is when laborers of botli sexes and all ages,
each doing some special operation a small part of a great
work are aggregated in mills and factories where costly
materials are consumed and complicated machinery is em~
ployed, that the control of the individual over his lot is
diminished to the minimum. What is the single laborer in
1 " Quand 1'enfant n'est pas extenue par un travail premature", et
quand on attend qu'il ait les forces necessaires avant de 1* astreindre au
travail, une fois parvenu a 1'age d'homme, il est meilleur ouvrier, tra-
vaille mieux, plus vite et produit davantage." M. Wolowski: Legis-
lation sur le Travail des Enfants. (MM. Tallon and Maurice, p. 233.)
ENGLISH FACTORY ACTS. 359
a cotton-mill ? "What does his will or wish stand for ? The
mill itself becomes one vast machine which rolls on in its
appointed work, tearing, crushing, or grinding its human,
just as relentlessly as it does its other, material. The
force of discipline completely subjects the interests and
the objects of the individual to the necessities of a great
establishment. Whoever fails to keep up, or faints by
the way, is relentlessly thrown out. If the wheel runs for
twelve hours in the day, every operative must be in his
place from the first to the last revolution. If it runs for
thirteen hours or fourteen, he must still be at his post. Per-
sonality disappears ; even the instinct of self-assertion is
lost ; apathy soon succeeds to ambition and hopefulness.
The laborer can quarrel no more with the foul air of his
'inventilated factory, burdened with poisons, than he can
quarrel with the great wheel that turns below.
This helplessness, this subjection to an order which the
workman has not established, and can not in one particular
change, becomes more complete in the case of women and
children, while the responsibility of the State therefor
becomes more direct and urgent.
It is on such considerations as these, that the economist
may, acting under the fullest accountability to strictly
economical principles, advocate what Mr. Newmarch calls 1
" a sound system of interference with the hours of labor."
Tlie Factory legislation of England, the necessity and
economical justification of which the Duke of Argyle
has called one of the great discoveries of the century in
the science of government, began in 1802 with the act of
42d George III., limiting the hours of labor in woolen
and cotton mills and factories to twelve, exclusive of
meal-times, imposing many sanitary regulations upon the
working and sleeping rooms of operatives, requiring the
instruction of children in letters for the first four years of
their apprenticeship, and providing an official inspection
1 Statistical Journal, xxiv. 462.
360 THE WAGES QUESTION.
of establishments for the due execution of the law.
Additional legislation was had in 1816 and 1831 ; and in
1833 was passed the important act known as 3d and 4th
William IV. (c. 103), which forbade night-work in the
case of all persons under eighteen years of age, and limit-
ed the labor of such persons to twelve hours, inclusive of
an hour and a half for meals ; prohibited the employ-
ment (except in silk-mills) of children under nine years
of age, while between the ages of nine and thirteen the
hours were reduced to eight a day (in silk-mills, ten) ;
prescribed a certain number of half-holidays in the year,
and required medical certificates of health on the admis-
sion of children to factory labor. The scope of these
provisions has been extended, successively, by legislation
in 1844, 1847, 1850, 1853, 1861, 1864, and 186T, until
they now embrace all persons engaged in processes inci-
dental to the manufacture of textile fabrics, with but slight
exception, and also to the manufacture of earthenware,
lucifer-matches, percussion-caps and cartridges, or in tlie
employments of paper-staining and fustian-cutting.
The principle of the English Factory Acts has been slow-
ly extended over a considerable portion of Europe. Before
1839 England, Prussia, and Austria had, in greater or less
degree, controlled the labor of children, 1 though to but
little effect in the last-named country, where the day of
labor was still cruelly long, frequently reaching to fifteen
hours, exclusive of meals, and sometimes to seventeen. 3
French factory legislation dates from 1841. Bj the
act of that year (March 22d) children were not to be ad-
mitted to factories under eight years of age. They were
only to work eight hours in the twenty-four up to twelve
years, and twelve hours from twelve years to sixteen.
They were not to work at night, with a few exceptions in
the case of children above thirteen, or to work at all on
1 L. Homer, Employment of Children, p. 45, cf. p. 54.
9 Ibid, p. 105.
EUROPEAN FACTORY ACTS. 3G1
Sundays or holidays. School attendance was required
up to twelve years. The number of children in 1870
working subject to this act was about 100,000, nine-tenths
of these being employed in spinning and weaving facto-
ries. 1 May 19th, 1874, a new law of much greater range
and higher efficiency was passed by the National Assem-
bly. By this act children under ten years of age can not
be admitted to work in factories, mines, or shops ; from
ten to twelve years they can work only in certain indus-
tries to be specially designated by a government commis-
sion, and they only work for six hours in the day ; from
twelve years onwards they are not to work in excess of
twelve hours a day. Until sixteen years of age they are
not to work at night. No child can be admitted to
work in mines under twelve years, and no female at
any age. Universal primary instruction is provided by
the law, and a rigid inspection of all establishments in
which children are employed. 8
In Belgium there has been no legislation protective of
children since the decree of 1813, which prohibited their
employment under ten years of age in mines.
In Germany, by the Industrial Code of April 6th, 1869
(p. 127-132), the age of admission to labor is fixed at
twelve years ; from twelve to fourteen, children can be em-
ployed but six hours a day ; from fourteen to sixteen, but
ten hours, with two intervals of rest. Night-labor is pro-
hibited. School-attendance and factory-inspection are rig-
idly enforced.
In Switzerland the age of admission varies according
to the character of the industry pursued ; in some twelve
years, in others thirteen, in others fourteen. 3
1 Report of Mr. Malet on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of
France.
2 For the text of this law see the work published by MM. Tallon
and Maurice in 1875, Legislation sur le Travail des Enfants, pp.
445-53.
3 See the work of MM. Tallon and Maurice, p. 24.
362 THE WAGES QUESTION.
In Italy there are no laws relating to the employment
of children in factories, but children under ten years are
not permitted to work in mines. 1
In Sweden, by royal statute of June 18th, 1864,
children under twelve years are not allowed to work in
factories, nor any person under eighteen years to be em-
ployed at night. 8
In Spain and Portugal no laws exist respecting the age
at which, or the number of hours in the day for which,
children shall be employed.
In Russia and in Holland there were, according to the
British Consular Reports of 1873 relative to Textile Fac-
tories, no laws regulating or restricting the labor of chil-
dren. 3 Mr. Walsham reported that in the Netherlands
children were employed so young that they could earn but
a shilling a week. Mr. Egerton reported that in Russia
thirteen hours a day was the general average of the fac-
tories, the children working as long as the men.
Y. Sympathy and respect for labor in the community.
It is at this point that we traverse most completely the
orthodox political economy. There has been no end of
contemptuous ridicule, or grave rebuke from the profes-
sors of the science, and from reviews and journals es-
pecially affecting that character, towards those who have
assumed that a friendly public opinion could effect any
substantial improvement in the condition of the work-
ing classes. " It is not unusual," says Mr. McLeod, " to
hear persons of benevolence who see the shocking misery
which even now prevails among so many in this country,
exclaim that employers ought to pay higher wages.
But all such ideas are visionary." 4
Especially has the agitation respecting the wages of
women been deprecated as useless or mischievous. "We
1 Report of Mr. Herries, 1871, p. 284.
2 Report of Mr. Gosling on Textile Factories, 1873, p. 116.
3 P. 66 (Mr. Walsham) ; p. Ill (Mr. Egerton).
4 Pol. Econ., pp. 211, 212.
PUBLIC OPINION AFFECTS WAGES. 363
are told that " the inexorable laws of supply and de-
mand" determine the rate of wages; that benevolence
has no more to do here than with the operations of the
steam-engine ; that competition is the one irresistible,
unrelenting force which overbears all considerations of
compassion or charity, and works out a predetermined re-
sult with unerring certainty. Who is not familiar with
these phrases ?
The man would be weak or ignorant who should ex-
pect that any but the most exceptional and eccentric of
mortals would at any given time pay more than the
market rate of wages, or should look upon such possible
exhibitions of disinterested philanthropy as likely to set
a fashion to be followed by the shrewd, eager, and but lit-
tle unselfish men who make up the mass of employers.
But the question is, whether the force we here invoke
may not help to fix that very market rate of wages. It is
not asserted that this sympathy and respect entertained for
labor by the general community need ever be distinctly
present in the consciousness, as a motive to individual or
class for advancing wages. But I base the proposition
that these do constitute one condition of a right distribu-
tion of the products of industry, upon accepted principles
of moral philosophy, supported by inferences, which ap-
pear to me conclusive, from economic statistics of wide
range and undoubted authority in a kindred department
of industrial contract.
First, of the reason of the case. Let us recall the prin-
ciple so frequently insisted on, that it is only as competi-
tion is perfect that the wages class have any security that
they will receive the highest remuneration which the ex-
isting conditions of industry will permit ; that in the
failure of competition they may be pushed down grade
after grade in the industrial as in the social scale, there
being almost no limit to the possible degradation of the
working classes where a free circulation of labor is
denied. Let us recall, moreover, that the failure of com-
364 THE WAGES QUESTION.
petition may be due to moral as much as to physical
causes ; that if the workman from any cause does not pur-
sue his interest, he loses his interest, whether he refrain
from bodily fear, from poverty, from ignorance, from
timidity and dread of censure, or from the effects of bad
political economy which assures him that if he does not
seek his interest, his interest will seek him. Let us bear in
mind, moreover, that it matters nothing whether compe-
tition fails in his case because he does not begin to seek a
better market, or, having begun, gives up in discourage-
ment.
Now, I ask, can it be doubtful that the respect and
sympathy of the community must strengthen the wages
class in this unceasing struggle for economical advan-
tages ; must give weight and force to all their reasonable
demands ; must make them more resolute and patient in
resisting encroachment ; must add to the confidence with
which each individual laborer will rely on the good faith
of those who are joined with him in his cause, and make
it harder for any weak or doubtful comrade to succumb
in the contest ?
And, on the other hand, will not the consciousness that
the whole community sympathize with the efforts of
labor to advance its condition by all fair means, inevit-
ably weaken the resistance of the employing class to
claims which can be conceded, diminish the confidence
with which each employer looks to his fellows to hold out
to the end, and make it easier for the less resolute to re-
tire from the contest and grant, amid general applause,
what has been demanded ? He must be more than hu-
man or less than human who is uninfluenced by the
friendly or the cold regards of men.
And if such a disposition of the public mind must con-
firm the union and exalt the courage and sustain the faith
of the party that hears everywhere approving words,
meets everywhere looks of sympathy, and must tend to
impair somewhat, at least, the mutual trust and common
POPULAR SYMPATHY WITH LABOR. 365
resolution of their opponents, who shall say that wages
may not be affected thereby ?
Let us apply these principles to an individual case.
Hodge thinks Hodge is a ploughman, and has been get-
ting twelve shillings a week that he ought to have more
wages ; or, rather for Hodge would scarcely put it so
abruptly he feels that it is dreadfully hard to live on
twelve shillings. He has attended a lecture delivered by
Mr. Joseph Arch, from a wagon on the green. He is
uneasy, and wants to improve his condition. So far,
then, he is a hopeful subject economically. The desire
to improve one's condition is the sine qua non of compe-
tition. Will these stirrings of industrial ambition come
to any thing ? Will this little leaven of unrest leaven the
whole of the very lumpish lump christened Hodge ?
Will the discontented ploughman seek and find his bet-
ter market ? This is a great question, for upon the an-
swer to it depends the future of Hodge, and perhaps of his
sons and grandsons. Let the Spectator 1 tell how he is
assisted on his way and encouraged in his weak, ignorant,
doubting mind by landlord, bishop, and judge.
" The man has been, so to speak, morally whipped for
six months. He has found no friend anywhere, except in
a press he can neither read nor understand. The duke
has deprived him of his allotment ; the bishop has rec-
ommended that his instructor should be ducked; the
squire has threatened him with dismissal in winter ;
the magistrate has fined him for quitting work, which is
just, and scolded him for listening to lectures, which is
tyranny ; the mayor at Evesham has prohibited him from
meeting on the green ; and the lawyer witness a re-
cent case near Chelmsford has told him that any one
who advises and helps him to emigrate is a hopeless
rascal.**
Now, I ask, is Hodge quite as likely to pursue his in-
August 4t\\, 1873.
366 THE WAGES QUESTION.
terest and persist in whatever that requires, as if his
social superiors and the men who should be his instructors
and helpers were encouraging him to better his fortune
if he finds a chance, instead of telling him that if he de-
mands more wages, he is kicking against the wage-fund,
and that if lie kicks against the wage-fund, he is defying
an ordinance of heaven ; or as if the law were adminis-
tered occasionally by men indifferent 1 in the dispute
between himself and his employer ; as if the shop-keeper
and the publican and the lawyer and the rector were not
all ranged against him ? Is it not possible that, for the
lack of a little fanning, the feeble flame in Hodge's breast
may die out, and he, giving up all thoughts of seeking
his fortune elsewhere, return to his furrow, never to stray
from it again ? And so vale, Hodge !
Political economy, says Mr. Mill, is concerned with man
" solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who
is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of
means for obtaining that end. ... It makes entire abstrac-
tion of every other human passion or motive except those
which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing prin-
ciples to the desire of wealth namely, aversion to labor
and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences."
Among beings thus constituted, doubtless competition
would prove " inexorable." But, surely, economists should
be careful how they apply to mankind as they are, conclu-
sions which they have deduced from the study of such a
monstrous race, made up entire of laziness and greed, in-
capable of love or hate or shame.
Abstract every other human passion and motive ! elimi-
nate respect and sympathy! Why, who can say how
largely THIS VERY LOVE OF WEALTH is due to the unwilling-
ness to be thought meanly of by our fellow-men, or the
more positive desire to excite their envy or admiration ?
*As I understand it, no man in England can be a justice of the
peace unless he have an estate of 100 a year in land.
PUBLIC OPINION INFLUENCES RENTS. 367
And if regard for the opinions of others may be a suffi-
cient reason, as we know it is, for men to exert themselves
laboriously and painfully, why may it not be a reason for
men to forbear ' to press their power and their undoubted
rights to the point of cruelty ?
As this subject is of prime importance, I beg nr
reader's indulgence in making an excursion into another
department of political economy namely, that of rent to
see if we may not find there evidence of the influence of
this very cause which we have invoked in aid of labor.
If competition is " inexorable ;" if the laws of supply
and demand are " immutable ;" if the desire of gain is an
all-controlling passion, these things ought to be found so
in the department of rent as truly as in the department of
wages. As we must make a selection, let us take three
countries whose land systems have been carefully studied ;
countries in which peasant proprietorship is found in an
exceptionally small degree, and where, consequently, the
question of rent becomes of the highest importance to the
welfare of the people. These are England, Italy, and
Ireland.
In England, Prof. Thorold Rogers declares, rents have
remained at a point much below that to which com-
petition alone would carry them. The vaunted gene-
rosity of land-owners is, he says, " really the necessity of
the situation. Englishmen would not tamely acquiesce
in a practice which continually revalued their occupancies
and made their own outlay the basis for an enhanced rent.
The rent of agricultural land is therefore seldom the
maximum annual value of the occupancy ; in many cases,
is considerably below such an amount." 2 Again he says :
1 Mr. Tremenlieere, in his testimony on truck before the Committee
of 1854 on the Payment of Wages, says : "I believe, from all that I
have heard in different mining-districts, that, as a rule, the large com-
panies, and the persons who are amenable to public opinion among gen-
tlemen, do not resort to those petty and indirect modes of cheating their
workmen." (Report, p. 40.)
2 Cobden and Political Opinion, p. 94.
368 THE WAGES QUESTION.
" The tenant is virtually protected by the disreputable
publicity which would be given to a sudden eviction or a
dishonest appropriation of the tenant's improvements." 1
In Italy we find local usages respecting land nearly all-
powerful, though exceptions exist of provinces where
competition 2 has entered to enhance rents. " The same
misfortune," says Sismondi, in writing of Tuscany,
" would probably have befallen this people if public opinion
did not protect the cultivator ; but a proprietor would not
dare to impose conditions unusual in the country ; and
even in changing one metayer for another, he alters no-
thing of the terms of the engagement."
The third country I have taken is probably the only one
of "Western Europe to which we could turn as affording
an example of rents kept at the point to which unre-
strained competition would carry them. And if we ask
why it was that the " laws of supply and demand " proved
here indeed " inexorable," we find not contradiction but
corroboration of our principle. It is not necessary to go
far back in the history of Ireland to show why it was that
nothing intervened here to prevent the tenantry from be-
ing ground down by unintermitted competition. It was
because sympathy and confidence and mutual respect 3
'Pol. Econ., p. 184.
2 Is it said, You are speaking of a failure of competition as if it
were favorable to a beneficial distribution of property ? I answer,
Absolute competition, equal on both sides, is the single condition of a
perfect distribution. But if the laborers are disabled from competition
by ignorance, poverty, or other cause as the laborers of so many coun-
tries are, in the mass then it is merciful that public opinion or the
force of law enters to prevent them from being crushed, as they would
be, in their inertia if competition remained in full force on the mas-
ter's side. Competition to be beneficial must be exerted like the pres-
sure of the atmosphere everywhere and uniformly.
3 " The landlord of an Irish estate inhabited by Roman Catholics is
a sort of despot who yields obedience, in whatever concerns the poor,
to no law but that of his will. . . . Nothing 1 satisfies him but an
unlimited submission. Disrespect, or any thing tending toward sauci-
ness, he may punish with his cane or his horse-whip with the most
RENTS IN IRELAND. 369
were unknown between the two classes of the population.
It was not merely that the land-owners of Ireland and its
peasantry were of different races, of different religions, 1
and, to no small degree, of different speech distinctions
in themselves of tremendous moment. There was more
than this and worse than this in Ireland. The title of the
landlord was from conquest and confiscation, and to sus-
tain an original wrong had required a system of legal
discrimination and proscription, of which the judicious
Hallam says: "To have exterminated the Catholics by
the sword, or expelled them like the Moriscoes of Spain,
would have been little more repugnant to justice and hu-
manity, but incomparably more politic." a
It is thus that Macaulay describes the relations of the
Saxon and the Celtic inhabitants of Ireland in 1685 : " On
the same soil dwelt two populations locally intermixed,mor-
ally and politically sundered. The difference of religion
was by no means the only difference, or even the chief
difference. They sprang from different stocks; they
spoke different languages. They had different national
characters, as strongly opposed as any two national charac-
ters in Europe. They were in widely different stages of
civilization. Between two such populations there could
be little sympathy ; and centuries of calamities and wrongs
had generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which
the minority stood to the majority resembled the relation
in which the followers of "William the Conqueror stood to
perfect security. A poor man would have his bones broken if he
offered to lift his hands in his own defence. . . . The execution of
the laws lies very much in the hands of justices of the peace, many of
whom are drawn from the most illiberal class in the kingdom" Ar-
thur Young, Tour ia Ireland (Pinkerton's Travels, iii. 837, cf. p. 816.)
1 Of three great divisions of Ireland Leinster, Munster, and Con-
naught Mr. O'Connor Morris says: " Probably seven eighths of the
land belong to a proprietary of Protestants, and perhaps even a greater
proportion of the occupiers are Roman Catholics." (The Land Ques-
tion of Ireland, p. 231.)
a Constitutional F'story of England, iii. 883.
370 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
the Saxon churls, or the relation in which the followers
of Cortes stood to the Indians of Mexico." 1
This truly is a state of things in which we might look
with confidence to find the law of supply and demand
" inexorable," and so, in these circumstances, it proved.
The improvidence and ignorance of the peasantry concur-
ring, rents were advanced by the acquisitive and aggres-
sive passion of the land-holding class, unchecked by public
sentiment or generally by individual kindness, until Lord
Devon's commission, in 1844, found that in numerous
cases the nominal rent of land was greater than the money
value of the annual produce, the tenant being kept there-
by perpetually in debt to the landlord, whose interest it
became to allow him, thus involved, to remain upon the
soil. 2
Now, I desire not to disparage the influence of other
causes in bringing about this result, but I can not think that
the history of the land in Ireland would have been what
we know it was, had the landlord and tenant classes con-
stituted one proper population, with ties of a common
speech, faith, and blood, having equal rights before the
law, and with those kindly feelings which, for all that is
evil in us, are more natural between men and classes of
men, than distrust and dislike. And even with such a
miserable relation as existed between the two classes of
the Irish population, I, for one, do not believe that such a
miserable result would have been possible, had not so large
a portion of the land-owners been absentees, 3 conducting
their exactions through agents selected and rewarded for
their success in wringing money from the soil, seeing and
1 History of England, chap. vi.
2 " The Irish peasantry were incomparably worse off than the French
peasantry were before the Revolution." Prof. Rogers, Pol. Econ. 180.
3 "I am aware that, iu the view of political economy as taught by
writers of the hypothetical school, an absent landlord is identical with
a landlord present ; just as, by Mr. Mill's definition, Simon Magus
and Simon Peter, John of Cappadocia and John the Baptist, are exact
economical equivalents " Address at Amherst, 1874.
RESPECT AND SYMPATHY FOR LABOR. 371
hearing nothing of the wretchedness they caused, and
drowning all misgivings in the revelry of foreign capitals.
Time would fail to trace the course of that improve-
ment in the condition of the people which, by general
admission, has taken place in Ireland since 1850. Here,
again, I desire not to disparage the influence of other causes,
but I can not doubt that some part of the beneficial result
observed has been due, first, to the great liberalizing and
ameliorating movement throughout the kingdom, which
threw down so many of the old hateful distinctions of faith
and class ; a movement in which the reform of the crimi-
nal code, Catholic emancipation, the suffrage act of 1832,
the repeal of the penal acts against Jews and Dissenters,
and the abolition of the corn-laws each was at once effect
and cause of new effects ; a movement which was felt
latest in Ireland because Ireland had been so widely and
deeply sundered in interest and feeling ; and, secondly, to
the remorse and shame and pity which were awakened by
the disclosures of Lord Devon's commission, followed
close by that horrible and sickening demonstration, the
Famine of 1846 T, which brought home to every man and
woman in the United Kingdom, in images never to fade
from view, the wrongs and miseries of Ireland. If the
peasantry of the Green Isle are better off to-day than a
generation ago, it is due, not alone to the general indus-
trial advances of the intervening period, or to the migra-
tion of surplus labor, if, indeed, that labor was ever truly
in excess, but also, and in no small part, to the happy
change which has passed over the moral relations of land-
lord and tenant.
If, then, after so brief a survey we find public opinion
operating thus powerfully in the department of Rent, are
we not justified in the assertion that it must also be opera-
tive in some degree in Wages ?
I do not, be it observed, claim that wages can be en-
hanced by any but economical causes ; I merely assert that
respect for labor and sympathy with the body of laborers.
372 THE WAGES QUESTION.
on the part of the general community, constitute an eco-
nomical cause, in just so far as they strengthen the laborer
in his pursuit of his own interest, thus making competi-
tion on his part more effective, and in just so far as they
take something from the severity with which the employer
insists upon his immediate interest, thus reducing the
force of competition on that side, making it more nearly
equal to that which the laborer, poor, fearful, and ignorant,
may be able to oppose.
It is in the partial failure of the condition on which I
have here dwelt so much at length that we find one impor-
tant cause of the inadequate wages of women.
But first as to the fact of wages inadequate to the ser-
vice performed. Nothing is more common than the asser-
tion, in print, that women are paid but one half or one
third as much as men for performing the same work.
Such assertions are generally based on a misconception of
the actual constitution of industrial society. Because a
woman working in a woollen factory receives but twelve
shillings a week while a man gets twenty-four, it can not
properly be said that the latter receives twice as much for
doing the same work, since the work done in a factory is
of many kinds, making very different demands upon the
operatives in the respects of strength, skill, and intelli-
gence, and hence justly remunerated at very different
rates, from threepence a day, it may be, to as many shil-
lings. And if we inquire, we shall find that women in a
woollen factory are in fact rarely engaged upon the same
kind of work as the men. Thus in an account of the organi-
zation of a representative establishment given in the Sta-
tistical Journal, where the number and sex of the opera-
tives of each class are stated, and the wages paid to each,
I note that all the hand-loom weavers are men, all the
power-loom weavers women. And I also note what is
significant, that the wages of the men employed as hand-
WOMAN'S WAGES. 373
loom weavers are much nearer women's wages than the
wages of the men employed in any other department of
the factory.
In the same way, in his history of the cotton manu-
facture, published a generation ago, Mr. Baines stated
that large departments were then entirely given up to
women and children. Now, clearly, as Mr. Baines re-
marks, " that which is only a child's labor can be remuner-
ated only by a child's wages." We have seen that the
employer can not pay in wages more than he may fairly
look to get back in the price of his products. Hence the
fact that a woman may require more to subsist upon than
a twelve-year-old boy affords no economical reason why
she should receive more wages if she only does the same
kind of work.
But even though women performed the same kind of
work as men, receiving therefor wages less than men, it
would not follow, as of course, that their wages were in-
adequate to their service. The differences existing in re-
spect to the efficiency of labor, both on the side of w r ork
and on the side of waste, have been seen (Chapter III.) to
be very great as between laborers actually employed in
the same operation. Hence it might be true that a man
and a woman working at the same table, upon the same
material, with the same implements, or laboring side by
side in the fields, 1 should receive wages in very dif-
ferent amounts, and yet their respective services be most
exactly recompensed.
Now, there are reasons, some of a social and some of a
physiological nature, for the services of women, as a body,
being in a degree less desirable to employers than those of
men. The physiological reasons have been well stated by
Dr. Ames in his recent book, Sex in Industry. These
are sufficient totally to debar women from many occupa-
1 It may fairly be assumed, for instance, that the ratio between the
average value of male and of female serfs in Russia employed in agri-
culture before the emancipation namely, 50 and 17 respectively
(Statistical Journal, xxiii. 379) fairly represented the relative worth to
the owner of the two kinds of labor.
374 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tior.s, and greatly to reduce their efficiency in others. 1
Among social reasons we may adduce the generally less
practical education which girls receive as compared with
that given to boys, and the almost universal expectation of
domesticity which is inherent and ineradicable in the con-
stitution of woman, interfering not only with her prepara-
tion for active pursuits, but also with her prosecution of
them, because it reduces the singleness of purpose and in-
terest with which her duties are discharged, and depreci-
ates in the eyes of her employer, and justly so, the value
of services which may abruptly be terminated by mar-
riage. Nor are these industrial disabilities to be wholly
cured by any cause that shall not disrupt and destroy so-
ciety. Just so long as girls grow up in the belief that their
mission is not to work in a shop, but to adorn a home,
their education will take shape accordingly. Parents and
school-boards may lay out courses of study with never so
much of utilitarian intention, the mind of the girl will se-
crete sweetness and grace from whatever food is offered
it. And just so long as the same tender illusion lasts and
we know it will outlast much bitter experience woman
will serve distraite, if not unhappy, as one who has a
name she has not yet taken, a city to which she has not
come. If a man marries, he as a rule becomes a better
and more stable workman on that account. If a woman
marries, it is most probable that she will leave her employ-
ment ; it is almost certain that if she remains she will be
a less desirable laborer than before. This expectation
of domesticity is always likely to exist with greater or less
force in the female mind, and will inevitably, wherever it
exists, reduce the efficiency of female labor.
Yet though there is thus much misapprehension of the
relation between the wages of women and those of men,
there can, I think, be no question that the wages of the
1 Mr. Brassey states that in the construction of the Lemberg and
Czernowitz railway, in some places half the people t-mployed were wo-
men, who earned 1.60 francs a day, while the men earned from two to
three francs. (Work and Wages, p. 105.)
WOMAN'S WAGES. 375
former 1 are in a degree inadequate to the service rendered,
after due allowance for all differences of amount and
quality. If there be such inadequacy, the sole cause
must, as we have seen (Chapter X.), be found in the fail-
ure of competition.
Inasmuch as the failure of competition comes mainly
through the immobility of labor, let us inquire whether
female labor is under any exceptional disabilities in respect
to movement.
In the first place, it needs to be observed that women
have far more occasion, relatively, to move to the labor-
market than men, and have need, therefore, to be far
more mobile and active. This is due to the fact that the
industries for which women are physiologically suited are
highly localized. Wherever there is population, there are
women who feel the necessity of working outside their
own families for subsistence : yet the opportunities
for their employment in mechanical work are found
only here and there. Thus, in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania, we find that there were in 1870 2 29,139
men employed in mechanical labor, and but 1723
women ; in Erie County, New- York, 11,357 men and but
960 women ; in Wayne County, Michigan, 11,543 men
and but 1454 women ; in St. Louis County, Missouri,
32,484 men and but 3455 women ; in Cook County, Il-
linois, 24,705 men and but 4652 women ; in Cuyahoga
County, Ohio, 8698 men and but 791 women. On the other
hand, there were 5887 women employed in Hillsborough
County, New-Hampshire, against 7627 men ; in Andros-
coggin and York Counties, Maine, respectively 4:045 and
4512 women against 3908 and 3689 men. These are only
1 " It is a curious fact that in the great majority of occupations, the
average wages of a boy, a woman, and a girl added together amount
to those of a man." Dudley Baxter, National Income, p. 49.
Lord Brabazon gives the average daily pay of French day -In borers in
agriculture as one franc seventy-five centimes for men, eighty-five cen-
times for women, and sixty -three centimes for children ; but women
and children are employed for only a fraction of a year.
2 Ninth census of the United States (Industry and Wealth, table
ix. A).
376 THE WAGES QUESTION.
given as instances to show how irregularly and how rarely
at the best, the opportunities for the employment of
women in mechanical industry occur. An examination
of the statistics of industry in the United States discloses
that of the women employed in mechanical pursuits, forty-
two per cent are found in only seven counties, comprising
but seven per cent of the population of the country.
While women have thus far more occasion relatively to
move to their market than men, we find them disabled
therefrom, in a great measure, by physical weakness, by
timidity, and by those liabilities to misconstruction, insult,
and outrage which arise out of their sexual characteris-
tics. Having more need than men to be free to move
from place to place, they have far less ability to do so. It
must be remembered that it is not a question merely of
taking a journey from home to a place where a " situation"
has already been engaged, but, it may be, of seeking out
employment from street to street, and from shop to shop,
by repeated inquiries, and often through much urgency
and persistency of application. This is what men have to
do to " get a place," often going into doubtful localities,
freely encountering strangers, and sleeping in casual com-
pany. These, with men, are among the conditions of the
mobility of labor which not only secures employment for
the individual applicant, but relieves the pressure upon
the market elsewhere, and oftentimes prevents that pain-
ful or fatal "congestion of labor" which breaks down
wages, crushes the hopefulness and self-respect of the ope-
rative class, and engenders habits of laboring and living
which it may take long, even under favorable conditions, to
wear out of the industrial body.
To state these conditions is to show some of the disad-
vantages under which women have labored in the past
from their natural indisposition and disqualification to en-
counter strangers and make terms for themselves. I
would not seek to idealize the sex in dealing with so plain
and practical a matter. No one who has had to do with
book-agents of both sexes would unhesitatingly award the
palm for persistency and assurance to the man ; while it
WOMAN'S WAGES. 377
is proverbial that female venders of fish, in all countries
and ages, have succeeded so far in overcoming their native
meekness and bashf ulness as to qualify them fully to hold
their own whether in a bargain or in a wrangle. Nor would
it be just to speak of female labor anywhere as if it were ab-
solutely immobile. Country girls have always gone to the
city to find employment in shops and stores ; while the
cotton factories and the boot and shoe shops of Massa-
chusetts and Rhode Island have always been filled with
women from the rural parts of New-England and even
from the British Provinces.
Yet, after all allowances that require to be made, it re-
mains true that while, from the specialization and localiza-
tion of the industries in which female labor is employed,
women have far more occasion than men to keep them-
selves free to seek their own market, they are in fact, from
many causes, under serious disabilities in respect to move-
ment from place to place, 1 with all which that implies for
females poor and unprotected, and, it may be, also igno-
rant and fearful.
While much of this disqualification of woman for seeking
the labor-market arises out of her physiological conditions,
and is not to be cured by law or opinion, it is aleo true
that no inconsiderable part has been due, in the past, to a
lack of respect and sympathy for her in her capacity as a
laborer, if not to positive prejudice and even to actual phy-
sical obstruction 2 offered to her industrial movements.
1 The disability which women suffer on account of their sex, when
the conditions of industry require emigration from the country of their
birth, may be seen from the following facts brought out by the Scotch
census of 1871. Between 15 and 25 years of age there are 105.4 fe-
males for every 100 males ; between 25 acd 30 years there are 119.7 fe-
males for every 100 males. (Report, pp. xvi, xvii.)
a We can no forget that some years ago certain trades-unionists in
the potteries imperatively insisted that a certain rest for the arm which
they found almost essential to their work, should not be used by wo-
men engaged in the same employment. Not long since, the London
tailors, when on a strike, having never admitted a woman to their
union, attempted to coerce women from availing themselves of the
remunerative employment which was offered in consequence of the
strike. But this jealousy of women's labor has not been entirely con'
378 THE WAGES QUESTION.
Of the insults and violence not infrequently offered to
women seeking employment in departments of industry
which men have chosen to regard as exclusively their
own, it is not necessary to speak. Women scarcely need this
to restrain them from pursuing their economical interests.
Intensely sensitive to opinion, 1 they shrink from the faint-
est utterances of blame ; while coldness and indifference
alone are often sufficient to 'repress their impulses to
activity.
fined to workmen. The same feeling has extended itself through every
class of society. Last autumn a large number of Post- Office clerks ob-
jected to the employment of women in the Post-Office. " Henry Faw-
cett, House of Commons, July 30th, 1873. (Speeches, p. 133, 134.)
" An important strike is now going on in the town of Leicester, and
what is the cause of it ? Certain manufacturers wished to introduce
women into their factories, and the men claimed a right not only to
determine the price of labor, but also on what conditions women should
be permitted to work. Nor is this all. Within the last fortnight
there has been a great meeting of delegates of the Agricultural Labor-
ers' Union. Women were not admitted. Why? On the express ground
that the agricultural laborers of this country do not wish to recognize
the labor of women." Ibid, June 23d, 1874. (TheNews* Report.)
1 In their report made to the Local Government Board in 1873, Dr.
Brydges and Mr. Holmes take note of the peculiar sensitiveness of
female laborers to the praise or blame of their employers or overseers :
" It would appear, from statements made to us which we have reason
to think accurate, that it is very much easier to bring pressure to bear
upon the energies of female operatives than of male. It is well known
that with many workmen, especially if they be members of trades-
unions, the consciousness that their fellow-workmen are present and
are watching their work, tends rather to moderate than to intensify
their zeaL Animated by the common object of selling their labor
dear, they are apt to think an exceptionally zealous workman a traitor
to the cause of labor. With women the reverse would seem to be the
case. Less able to fix their eyes upon a distant object, less apt to enrol
themselves in a well-drilled organization for which sacrifices are to be
made, the ultimate compensation for which themselves and those im-
mediately connected with them may never, or not for a long time,
touch, they are far more keenly sensitive to the motives of approbation
and vanity, and also to those of immediate tangible reward. It would
seem to be as easy to goad women as it would be difficult to goad men
into doing the greatest amount of piece-work in a given time. The
admiration of their companions and the approbation of the overlooker
appear to be at least as powerful inducements as the increase of theif
wages." (Report, p. 20.)
WOMAN'S WAGES. 879
This unfortunate result namely, a public opinion un-
favorable, or less favorable than is desirable, to the exten-
sion of female labor is doubtless due in some part to the
comparative newness of the occasion which women have to
enter the general market of labor, from which it results
that their entrance is not unnaturally greeted by the body
of male laborers interested 'therein as an intrusion threat-
ening a reduction of their own wages, while the outside
community, though disinterested, remains indifferent, not
having been educated up to the point of giving w r omen a
warm and strong moral support in their efforts to find em-
ployment, and of providing adequate protection to them
in the casual and often rude encounters which the search
for employment may involve.
The necessity for the employment of women in wage-
labor not agricultural, in any thing like the extent which
exists at present, dates from the decay of the system of
domestic manufactures which followed the extensive intro-
duction of machinery in the latter part of the eighteenth
century. " The original artisans," says Mr. Mill, " were
either slaves or the women of the family." ' It was the
women who wove and spun, fashioned and sewed, tLe gar-
ments, the blankets, and the nets of our ancestor's. Jt id
true we occasionally find record of women earning wages
in other occupations. 8 Prof. Rogers has pointed out that,
in the fourteenth century, the thatcher's lielp, or " homo,"
was generally a woman. 3 But, speaking broadly, there
was, until the inventions of Watt, H^rgreaves, and
Arkwright antiquated the distaff and tho fop inning- wheel,
work enough within the house for all the women of tha
family if we except the harvest season, when agriculture
was, as it is to-day in Europe, the occupation, and in
Russia the equal occupation, of both sexes. 4
1 Pol. Econ., i. 285.
2 Brewing and baking were formerly purely domestic operations,
and hence were performed by women, as the feminine termination o\
the words brew-ster and back-ster, like web-ster and spin-ster, indicates.
3 By 37th Edward III. women were exempted from the prohibition
against exercising more than one craft.
4 In European Russia exclusive of the Baltic Province* the number
380 THE WAGES QUESTION.
But no longer can the wife and daughter, in a family
where children must needs go mainly uncared for, and
housekeeping becomes reduced to the minimum by the
scantiness at once of space and of food, do their equal
share, or at any rate seem to do their equal share, in the
support of the household, within the house. All which
now enters into domestic consumption must come in from
without ; and so wife and daughter must, or think they
must, go out and bring in a part of it. At the same time
the extension of water and steam-power has made the labor
of women useful in a thousand operations for which their
strength was formerly inadequate. 1 This it is which has
driven women into the labor-market. In families where
bread comes hardly, the services of the house are fore-
gone, and wife and daughter, no longer working as of
of females engaged in agriculture is reported as 12,917,503 against
13,444,842 males. In Prussia the number of farm-laborers was re-
ported, in 1867, as follows : 1,054,213 females, 2,232,741 males. In
England the census-tables show the following proportion between the
sexes in agriculture : 183,450 females, 1,264,031 males. In Scotland
the numbers are as follows : 50,464 females, 184,301 males. In the
United States it is only among the late servile population of the South,
and occasionally among recently-arrived foreigners at the extreme
West, that women are seen laboring in the fields, even during ihe
height of the harvest season. But women are probably nowhere em-
ployed through so long a period in the year as men. Lord Brabazon
(Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1872, p. 44) gives
the number of days on which men are employed in France at day labor
in agriculture, as 200 ; for women the number of days is but 120. In
England, as Mr. Purdy says, women in agriculture are " employed as
supernumeraries to the men, and are only taken on at bupy times."
Arthur Young gives the following account of the Palatines settled in
Ireland : " The women are very industrious, reap the corn, plough tlie
ground sometimes, and do whatever work may be going on ; they also
spin and weave, and make the children do the same. . . . The industry
of the women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who
can not be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not
being the custom of the country ; yet they bind corn and do other work
more laborious." (Pinkerton, iii. 849, 850.)
1 "Whereas the workman," says M. Jules Simon, in L'Ottvriere,
" was once an intelligent force, he is now only an intelligence direct-
ing a force that of steam and the immediate consequence of the
change has been to replace men by women, because women are cheaper
and can direct the steam force with equal efficiency."
WOMAN'S WAGES.
881
old for the head of the house, go out to seek strange em-
ployers and be jostled in public places. Shame on the
man, if he be man, who will not gladly give them room !
Coincidently with this great industrial change, involv-
ing the necessity of wives and daughters contributing
by wage labor to the support of the family, have oc-
curred social changes, of scarcely less importance, which
have resulted in a steady increase in the proportion 1 of
women who are wholly dependent on themselves for main-
tenance. What these social changes are I need not point
out ; the result itself is patent, palpable, and needs no prool
I have spoken of wife and daughter entering the mar-
ket of wage labor, as a necessity resulting from the social
and industrial changes indicated. And so, in a melan-
choly proportion of cases, it is. Yet there can be little
doubt that it is sometimes accepted as a necessity where
more courage and patience and a broader view of self-
interest would prove that this might be avoided ; and in
such a case it would often be truer economy to forego
wages to be earned at the expense of leaving the house
uncared for. " I find," says Mr. Eraser, Assistant Com-
missioner on the Employment of Women and Children in
Agriculture, " that in my own parish, in Berkshire, the
women have a sort of proverb that ' there's only four-
pence a year difference between what she gets who goes
1 These causes operate with much greater force in some countries
than in others. The following table shows the number of spinsters
in each 100,000 women in England and in Scotland severally, as by
the census of 1871. I only insert the figures for the period 20-65.
Period of Life.
England.
Scotland.
Period of Life.
England.
Scotland.
20-25
65,160
73,790
45-50
12,373
20,150
25-30
35,622
44,290
50-55
11,694
19,917
3(>-35
22,365
30,145
55-60
10,884
19,211
35-40
16,844
25,011
60-65
10,905
20,343
40-45
14,150
21,866
England annually celebrates 83 marriages for every 10,000 inhabi*
tants ; Scotland only 70.
382 TEE WAGES QUESTION.
out to work and wliat she gets who stays at home, and
she who stays at home wins it? " '
"With something of exaggeration there is, no doubt,
much of truth in this proverb of the Berkshire women.
In the eagerness to increase the family income it is not
sufficiently considered that, in the absence of the wife and
mother, great loss must necessarily be sustained in the
expenditure of that income ; and secondly, that the ill-
effects on the health of the family, on the duration of the
laboring power, and on the moral elements of industry
may be sufficient in many cases to offset the nominal gain
achieved by stripping the house of its service and depriv-
ing the household of their proper care. The failure to
appreciate that a penny saved is a penny earned, lies at
the bottom of many a far-reaching mistake in domestic
life as in productive industry. Waste in food, clothing,
and utensils ; waste in laboring force through ill-prepared
and ill-preserved food ; waste of the vital endowment of
the rising generation through lack of that constant care
which is the essential condition of well-being in child-
hood ; waste of character and the formation of indolent
and vicious habits through neglect to instruct and train
the young, and through making the house cheerless and
distasteful to the mature : the waste in these and many
other forms which the entry of the wife and daughter on
wage labor necessarily implies, in greater or less degree,
will surely balance the addition of many shillings a week
to the family income. 8
1 Report of 1867-8, p. 17, n.
" The wear and tear of a neglected home," says Mr. R. Smith Baker,
" is greater than the income which the wife's labor adds to the weekly
means ; and he who can earn enough and to spare ought to feel it a
degradation for the wife of his bosom to mingle in these dangerous
assemblies. Moreover, a workingman's family is his wealth when
well brought up ; his bane when sickly and unhealthy."
2 The disposition to allow married women to undertake paid labor
in public places varies greatly in different communities. Mr. Carey in
his Essay on Wages (1835) states that out of one thousand females in
the Lawrence Factory at Lowell, there were but eleven married wo-
WOMAN'S WAGES. 383
Yet, after all, there is an increasing multitude of women
who, through having no house to keep, or through the
straitness of the family means, have no choice but to en-
ter the mill or the shop, and submit to the rude bustlings
of the market-place and room has not been made for
them.
It may sound strangely that even in the United States,
where it is of general consent that women are treated
with higher relative consideration than in any other coun-
try in the world, respect and sympathy for them are want-
ing in such a degree as to deprive them ot any part of
their equitable wages. I speak, however, of respect and
sympathy for women as laborers. In their " sphere," to
use the phrase which so exasperates the advocates of
suffrage without regard to sex, women have always re-
ceived homage and service, but as wage-laborers in the
public market they have suffered not a little in the past.
This has not been from want of chivalry, but from defects
men (p. 88, n.) The proportion in these later days is much greater. I
am indebted to tLe Hon. Wm. P. Haines for the information that of
1506 and 1203 persons employed respectively by the Pepperell Manu-
facturing Company and by the Laconia Company, both of Biddeford,
Me., engaged in cotton-spinning, 105 in the former and 135 in the lat-
ter were married women.
Much indisposition to allow the wife to go into the mill is seen in
the flax and jute districts of Scotland. Of 784 women employed in the
mills at Arbroath, only 5 per cent were married. " It appears," say
the commissioners of the Local Government Board (1873), " to be con-
sidered somewhat discreditable for a woman to work in a factory after
her marriage, and she does so only under the pressure of a stern ne-
cessity." At the same time almost 28 per cent of the females of Scotland
were actually bread-winners. This is due to the excess of spinsters
previously noted. The married women employed in the textile manu-
factories of England and Wales are estimated by Mr. W. C. Taylor,
Inspector of Factories, at about 150,000 (Soc. Sc. Trans., 1874, p. 571).
" Married women in factories are exceptional," says Mr. Phipps in his
Report of 1870 on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Wurtem-
burg (p. 223).
M. LePlay, in his work on the Organization of Labor, dwells strongly
on the economical advantages of leaving the mother and daughter at
the fireside.
884 THE WAGES QUESTION".
of education. The need that woman is coming to have, in
modern life, to enter the competitions of industry, has not
become sufficiently familiar to the public mind ; the idea
lias been strange, her image in such garb unwelcome. 1
That public opinion which should open to her avenues of
employment ; which should be a strong support to her in
her demands for fair remuneration ; which should be a de-
fence to her in her close pursuit of employment, in her
urgent and persistent application for work, in her neces-
sary exposure to gaze and comment, and in her contact
with much that is strange and rude, lias not yet been cre-
ated in such a degree as to give to the sex all that freedom
of industrial movement which might be consistent with
feminine purity and delicacy. We have not yet come to
appreciate the obligation which their necessity imposes upon
us, as men and gentlemen, to follow them with our ear-
nest, active sympathy, and to protect and champion them
not less in their labor than at dance or festival.
And what is the remedy ? Agitation and the diffusion
of correct ideas. Let gifted women continue, as in the
past, to appeal for public respect and sympathy for their
sisters in their work ; let the schools teach that public opin-
ion may powerfully affect wages, and that nothing which
depends on human volition is " inexorable ;" let the sta-
tistics of women's wages be carefully gathered and persist-
ently held up to view. Efforts like these will not fail to
strengthen and support woman in her resort to market,
thus enabling her the better to realize the condition upon
which alone she can expect to receive the highest wages
which the existing state of industry will allow.
J " Fancy," says Miss Emily Faithfull, "a gentleman seeking remu-
nerative work sub rosa ! And yet this is the state of mind in which so
many ladies come to our Industrial and Educational Bureau, that they
even refuse to state their requirements to the lady manager, but insist
upon seeing me personally on ' strictly private and confidential business.'
Public opinion is to be blamed for this ; and unless the press will help
us to strike a blow at the false pride now in our midst, parents will still
neglect to place their daughters in honorable independent positions."
Letter to the London Times, 1876.
CHAPTER XIX.
MAT ANT ADVANTAGE BE ACQUIRED BT THE WAGES CLASS
THROUGH STRIKES OR TRADES-UNIONS?
IT was Been in our analysis of the operation of competi-
tion (Chapter X.) that the members of the wages class on
their side, and the members of the employing class on
theirs, act singly, each for himself, with individual spon-
taneity ; and that out of this complete mobility of the
individual, in subjection only to his own sense of his
own interest, issue the highest conceivable industrial
order and an absolutely right division of burdens and
diffusion of benefits.
The question in the present chapter is, whether, there
being an acknowledged failure of competition, greater or
less, on the side of the wages class, from ignorance, inertia,
poverty, or the undue anxiety of individuals to snatch,
each for himself, at the first employment offered, any
thing can be added to the real power of this class in com-
petition, through restraints voluntarily adopted. The
perfect reasonableness of supposing that some advantage
might be derived by the wages class from such arrange-
ments, will be seen if we compare their situation with
that of an audience seeking to escape from a crowded the-
atre which has taken fire. There may be time enough to
allow the safe discharge of every soul, and in that case
the individual interest of each person clearly coincides
386 THE WAGES QUESTION.
with the interest of the audience taken collectively
namely, that he should fall-in precisely according to his
present situation relative to the common place of exit.
Yet we know that, human nature being what it is, panic
is likely to arise and a crazy rush ensue, each trying to
get before his neighbor, with the certain result that the
discharge of the whole mass will be impeded, and the
strong probability that not a few will be trampled to
death. If now, upon men in such a situation, discipline
can be imposed, and the procedure which is for the inte-
rest alike of each and of all can be allowed to go forward
steadily, swiftly, and surely under authoritative direction,
a great deal of misery may be prevented. Discipline, re-
straint, create no force, but they may save much waste.
In just such a situation, say those who are the professed
advocates of the " cause of labor," is the wages class in
many if not in most communities. Grant that the true
interest of each member consists with the interest of the
whole, no one will assert that each man's interest, as he
may understand it and be prepared to act on it, neces-
sarily consist^ with the good of all. When industry
slackens and employment becomes scarce, there is the
same danger to the mass, from the headlong haste and
greed of individuals, as in the case of the theatre just re-
ferred to. A mistaken sense of self-interest may even
pervert competition from its true ends, and make its force
destructive. If, then, it is urged, bodies of labor can be
put under discipline so that they shall proceed in order and
with temper, great injury may be averted : injury which
once wrought may become permanent.
There is, surely, nothing unreasonable in this claim.
Let us, therefore, without prejudice proceed to consider
the agencies by which, under this plan, it is proposed to
meet the infirmities of the laboring classes.
The issue is not whether joint action is superior to the
individual action of persons enlightened as to their indus-
trial interests, but whether joint action may not be better
STRIKES AND THE WAGE-FUND. 387
than the tumultuous action of a mass, each pursuing his
individual interest with more or less of ignorance, fear,
and passion.
The question of strikes has generally been disposed of by
economists with a summary reference to the doctrine of the
wage-fund. Strikes could not increase the wage-fund,
therefore they could not enhance wages. If they should ap-
pear to raise the rate in any trade, this must be due either
to a corresponding loss in the regularity of employment
or to an equivalent loss, in regularity or in rate, by
some other trade or trades occupying a position of econo-
mical disadvantage. Hence, strikes could not benefit the
wages class. But we have rid ourselves of the incubus of
the wage-fund; and the question of strikes is, therefore,
with us an open question as yet. "We have seen 1 that the
amount of wages received by the laborer may be insuffi-
cient to furnish the food necessary to his maximum effi-
ciency, and that an increase of wages might, by increasing
his laboring power, increase the product not only propor-
tionally, but even more than proportionally, under-feeding,
whether of men or cattle, being admittedly false economy.
If a strike should enable a body of laborers to secure such
an advance against the reluctance of their employers, it
might easily turn out that the masters would not only not
be injured, but would be benefited in the result. The
same would be true of an advance of wages which allow-
ed the workmen to obtain more light and warmth and bet-
ter air in more commodious dwellings. The same might
prove to be the case with an advance of wages which
merely stimulated the social ambition of the workmen, the
wages of labor being, in the language of Adam Smith,
" the encouragement of industry, which, like every other
human quality, improves in proportion to the encourage-
ment it receives." The same would probably be the re-
sult, though after some delay, of an advance of wages
1 Pp. 53-58
388 THE WAGES QUESTION.
which enabled workmen to send their children to school,
thus bringing them into the mill or shop, a few years later,
far more intelligent and physically more capable than if
they had been put at work at seven or eight years of age.
It might easily prove, according to the principles which
have been laid down respecting the efficiency of labor, that
such expenditures would be found to be the best invest-
ment which the employer ever made of the same amount
of money, giving him industrial recruits of a much higher
order.
I might multiply illustrations showing how an advance
of wages which masters were unwilling to concede, and
which workmen through their isolated and mutually jea-
lous and suspicious action would be unable to command,
if effected through united action might prove to be for
the interest of both masters and men.
By others, again, the question of strikes is dismissed
with the assertion that they generally fail of their objects.
"Never, in any case," says Mr. R. W. Hopper, "has an
extensive strike resulted in an advance of wages." 1 To
a request to act in a mediation between masters and men,
Lord Cranworth replied, " In the game, so to say, of com-
bination the workmen eventually fail." 2 M. Theodore
Fix, in his work Les Classes Ouvrieres* writes : " After
1 Fortnightly Review, August, 1865.
5 Statistical Journal, xxx. 5.
8 P. 194.
Doubtless a much larger proportion of the earlier than of the
later strikes in England were attended by immediate success. The
reason may be presumed to be that, after the repeal of the Combinations
Acts in 1824, the workmen struck simply for bread enough to eat.
They had been held down by law and ground by an unequal competi-
tion till they were reduced below the economical point of subsistence.
As to this the testimony of all reports is unanimous. Strikes made
for such a palpable cause are more likely to succeed than those which
are made, as many of the later ones have been, for doubtful reasons,
on ill-chosen occasions, or for the enforcement of trades-unions rules
ARE STRIKES SUCCESSFUL? 389
making vast sacrifices, the workmen almost invariably
succumb."
Granting that this is so in the sense in which the terms
are used that is, that in the great majority of cases work-
men making a demand and seeking to enforce it by a strike,
are beaten, and, after the exhaustion of their resources, have
to go to work again on their master's terms 1 is this quite
conclusive of the whole question ? The argument used
against strikes is, it will be observed, much the same as that
which was formerly employed by reactionary essayists, and
even admitted with reluctance by many liberal writers, in
proof of the failure of the French Revolution. The States-
General had been succeeded by the Assembly ; the Assembly
by the Convention ; the Convention by the Directory ; the
Directory had been turned out by the First Consul ; the
First Consul had been made Consul for life ; the Consul
had become Emperor ; the Emperor had been driven from
France ; and after an interval of insolent foreign domina-
tion, a legitimate prince, unrestrained by a single constitu-
tional check, untrammelled by a single pledge, led back
priest and noble, unforgiving and unforgetting, to resume
their interrupted license. There had been revolution after
revolution ; constitution after constitution ; there had been
proscriptions, confiscations, and massacres ; there had been
untold loss of blood and treasure ; and in the end a king
had returned who did not accept a constitution, but con-
ferred a charter.
It is not an inspiring thought that arguments like these
were for a whole human generation held sufficient to prove
that the French Revolution was a mistake and a failure ;
which must appear to any disinterested person as void of sense and
against common justice.
1 Prof. Fawcett, in his Political Economy, has collected a number of in-
stances of strikes immediately successful. The best succinct account of
the strike-movement in England which we have met is contained in
Ward's Workmen and Wages. The same work also contains much infor-
mation respecting strikes and trades-unions on the Continent of Europe,
390 THE WAGES QUESTION.
for we know now that the Bourbons were restored only in
seaming ; that the restoration of the old regime was for-
ever impossible. The king and the princes had indeed
returned, the same race besotted with the vain conceit of
divine right; they led back, indeed, the same train of
priests and nobles, untaught and incapable of learning ;
but they came back, not to the same, but to another
France. Is it not conceivable that those who look on the
submission of a body of laborers after a strike as a proof
that their entire effort has been fruitless, may commit the
same mistake as those who looked 011 the return of
Louis X VIII. as the restoration of the Bourbons ? But
perhaps another insurrection, political in form but indus-
trial in origin, may even better illustrate this point. I refer
to the rising of the peasantry of England in the reign of
Richard II. " The rebellion ,'' says Prof. Rogers, 1 " was put
down, but the demands of the villains were silently and
effectually accorded ; as they were masters for a week of
the position, the dread of another servile war promoted
the liberty of the serf?
Strikes are the insurrections of labor. Like insurrec-
tions in the political body, they are a purely destructive
agency. There is no creative or healing virtue in them.
Yet, as an insurrection may destroy political institutions
which have outlived their usefulness, and have become
first senseless and then pernicious, thus clearing the way
for an after-work of harmonious construction, so a strike
may have the effect to break up a crust of custom which
has formed over the remuneration of a class of laborers,
or to break through a combination of employers to with-
stand an advance of wages, where the isolated efforts of
the individuals of the wages class, acting with imperfect
knowledge and under a fear of personal proscription,
would be wholly inadequate to accomplish those objects,
1 Hist. Agr. and Prices, i. 8.
JUSTIFICATION OF STRIKES. 391
But a strike can only justify itself by its results. l Unless
it is to make way for a better order, it is waste, and waste
of the worse sort, since not only is a great loss of pro-
duction incurred, 2 but bad habits are likely to be formed
in a period of enforced idleness, and bad blood certain to
be generated by the contest.
Insurrections mark the first stages of the movement
towards political freedom. Happy are the people who
have got past insurrections, and can make their further
progress " with even step and slow." Strikes are only of
unquestionable utility in the first stages of the elevation
of masses of labor long abused and deeply abased. Happy
is the wages class when it has acquired that individual
and mutual intelligence and that activity of industrial
movement which put them beyond the necessity of such
a brutal resort! Yet I can not conceive how one can
look at the condition of the manufacturing operatives as
they were left at the repeal of the iniquitous Combina-
tions acts in 1824, and question that the early strikes in.
England were essential to the breaking up of the power
of custom and of fear over the minds of the working
classes, habituated to submission under the terror of laws
now universally recognized as oppressive, unaccustomed
to concerted action, illiterate, jealous, suspicious, tax-
ridden, and poverty-stricken. "What but some great strug-
gle could have taught them the self-confidence and readi-
ness for self-assertion which should overcome that fearful
inertia ? What else would have impressed the employing
1 Not necessarily, as we have shown on a preceding page, by its im-
mediate results.
2 The loss to production by strikes is often grossly overestimated.
Not a few strikes take place because of a threatened reduction of
wages in consequence of previous over-production, and the strike re-
sults in clearing the market more thoroughly than would be done
otherwise. Then, again, the enforced inactivity of a strike for higher
wages is often succeeded by an increased activity, which does some-
thing to make good the loss of time.
392 THE WAGES QUESTION.
classes witli a due respect for their laborers, or inspired
that lively sense of the possible consequences of with-
standing a just demand which is essential to competition
in any true sense ? " Masters are always and everywhere
in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination
not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate." 1
It is well enough for the peace of industrial society and
the mutual understanding of all parties, that masters
should be made to know that two can play at that game.
There is nothing to quicken the sense of justice and
equity like the consciousness that unjust and inequitable
demands or acts are likely to be promptly and fearlessly
resisted or resented.
LEGISLATION AGAINST STRIKES AND COMBINATIONS.
"We have seen that by the Statute of Laborers in Eng-
land, workmen were not allowed to ask or receive wages
above a fixed amount, not even, on pain of imprisonment,
to accept " meat, drink, or other courtesy" (25th Edward
III.) in addition to the stipulated sum. It will readily
be believed that combinations of workmen for increase of
wages were not favored of the law. By statute of 2d and
3d Henry YL, it was premised that " artificers, handi-
craftsmen, and laborers have made confederacies and
promises, and have sworn mutual oaths not only that they
should not meddle one with another's work, and perform
and finish that another hath begun, but also to constitute
and appoint how much work they shall do in a day, and
what hours and times they shall work ;" and therefore it
was enacted that " if any artificers, workmen, or laborers
do conspire, covenant, or promise together, or make
oaths that they shall not make or do their works but at
a certain price and rate, or shall not enterprise or take
upon them to finish that another had begun, or shall do
1 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, ii., 70.
LAWS AGAINST COMBINATIONS. 393
but a certain work in a day, or shall not work but at cer-
tain hours and times," every person so offending should be
visited in severe penalties, the punishment for the third
offence being loss of ears and infamy. This statute was
followed thick by others, so that the act of 1824 which
exempts from criminal responsibility 1 meetings and com-
binations for fixing wages and altering the hours of work,
provided no violence, threats, intimidation, molestation,
or obstruction be done or offered towards masters or
other workmen, repeals, if I have rightly counted them,
twenty-eight acts, representing the wisdom of Parliaments
in the reigns of ten different kings or queens.
While the law of England thus, by direct inhibition,
sought to reduce to the minimum competition for labor,
no statute, so far as I have observed, made even the de-
cent pretence of restraining masters from combinations,
until the beginning of the present century. u We have
no acts of Parliament against combining to lower the
price of work," 2 said Adam Smith, " but many against
combining to raise it." By statute of 40th George III.
(c. 106), however, "all contracts, covenants, and agree-
ments whatever, in writing or not in writing, made or to
be made, by or between any masters or other persons, for
reducing the wages of workmen, or adding to or altering
the usual hours or time of working, or for increasing the
quantity of work," were declared unlawful, under a
penalty of 20.
This act is also specially noticeable for two provisions :
one, that no master should act as justice of the peace
'"Yet they were not made lawful." Sir William Erie, Trades-
Unions, p. 26.
A combination of workmen is thus, in England, still to be held to
examination in the light of the general principles of the law by which
unreasonable restraint of trade is prohibited. ' The practical applica-
tion of these principles," Sir William remarks, " lies in indictment for
violation of duty towards the public, or in action for violation of a
private right." (Ibid.)
3 Wealth of Nations, i. 70.
394 THE WAGES QUESTION.
for executing any of its provisions (sec. xvi.), a conces-
sion not yet made in respect to disputes between agri-
cultural laborers and their employers ; the other, that
" whereas it will be a great convenience and advantage to
masters and workmen engaged in manufactures that a
cheap and summary mode be established for settling all
disputes that may arise between them respecting wages
and work," arbitrators should be appointed, under legal
sanction, for determining the respective rights of the two
parties in case of controversy. This last well-intentioned
provision was, however, admitted by an act of four years
later (44th George III.,c. 87) to have failed of its purpose.
But in 1824 (5th George IV., c. 95) Parliament repealed
all the statutes which prohibited combinations of work-
men. In 1825 this measure was perfected (6th George IT.,
c. 129) under the lead of Huskisson, who announced the
broad principle that " every man is entitled to carry that
talent which nature has given him, and those acquire-
ments which his diligence has obtained, to any market in
which he is likely to obtain the highest remuneration."
In France, combinations of workmen for the purpose of
influencing wages were prohibited with great severity by
the Penal Code of 1810, which also punished, though with
less severity, combinations of employers for the purpose
of unjustly depressing wages. By the law of 1849 the
penalties decreed against combinations of masters and of
workmen were equalized. By the law of May 25th,
1864, combinations free from violence or show of vio-
lence were sanctioned. " Le point de depart de la loi,"
said M. Ollivier, who reported the bill, " est celui-ci :
Liberte absolue des coalitions, repression rigoureuse de
la violence et de la fraude." 1 The act of 1864 did not
fail of its purpose through being neglected by the work-
ing classes, who seemed to accept the permission to strike
as a sort of legislative recommendation.
'Chapter xii. of the report of M. Ducarre, already cited, contains
the text of the laws of 1810, 1849, and 1864 relating to combinations.
STRIKES IN EUROPE. 395
" There is scarcely a trade in France," said Mr. Ward,
writing in 1868, " of which, during the last three years,
the members have not combined for the purpose of in-
creasing the rate of wages and diminishing the hours of
labor, and their efforts to this end have usually met with
success." J
In Belgium, strikes are freely resorted to, especially in
Brussels, 2 yet perhaps nowhere is the workman's indus-
trial responsibility for the abuse of this power more direct
and certain than in this kingdom, owing to its geographi-
cal position and its peculiar commercial relations.
From the Netherlands M. Locock reports : " Such a
thing as a strike is here almost unknown. Once or twice,
indeed, it has been attempted, but it met with little sym-
pathy, and was speedily suppressed." 3 The reason for the
non-appearance of the strike movement in this kingdom
is found in the fact that the provisions of the Penal Code
of 1810 prohibitory of combinations (arts. 415 and 416),
which we have seen were repealed in France by the law of
25th May, 1864, are still in force here.
Throughout North Germany liberty to combine was
granted by articles 152 and 153 of the Industrial Code
(Gewerbe-Ordnung 4 ) of June 21st, 1869, and the same
provisions have since been extended throughout the
Empire : a vast change, whether we consider the extent of
territory and of population affected, or the severity of the
regime abolished by the Code of 1869. 5
Jn Austria strikes are prohibited, and rarely occur.
Ringleaders may, by the Code (art. 481), be punished
with imprisonment, or expelled from the empire.
1 Workmen and Wages, p. 255.
2 Mr. J. G. Kennedy's report (Textile Factories, 1873, p. 24, 25).
8 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 25.
4 The full text of this Code will be found (in translation) in the Re-
port on the Condition of the Industrial Classes of Prussia, 1870, ppt
101-141.
6 1 speak generally. As I understand the matter, combinations had
been legalized in Prussia four or five years previously.
396 THE WAGES QUESTION.
From Norway, II.B.M. Consul-General Crowe reports :
" No instance is on record of any combination having
occurred to coerce masters with the view to obtain higher
wages." 1
In Denmark, Mr. Strachey reports that strikes seldom
occur. " In 1848 the printers struck and received an ad-
vance in wages ; in 1865 the bricklayers and carpenters
struck for ten days ; in 1867 the carpenters again struck,
with the result of an additional twopence per week for
their trouble." 2
In Italy, the Penal Code is stringently prohibitive of
combinations and strikes, the penalty being three months'
imprisonment to all participants, and six months' to ring-
leaders. 3 Strikes, however, occur in spite of the law.
Mr. Ward gives a short list 4 of them, some successful,
some unsuccessful, some resulting in compromise. The
more recent statements of Mr. Herries 6 show no tendency
to an increase in their number or severity.
In Russia, though there is no general organization of
the laboring classes, Mr. Egerton 6 reports : " Strikes are
by no means unusual"
TRADES-UNIONS.
The expediency of trades-unions is usually discussed as
if connected with the expediency of strikes so directly and
intimately that a decision upon one would be conclusive
in respect to the other. Thus, many persons, having
proved to their own satisfaction that strikes have had a
great agency in advancing wages, have assumed that the
existence of trades-unions is thereby justified. Others,
1 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1871, p. 379.
2 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 507.
8 H.B.M. Consul Colnaghi's Report, 1871, p. 284 (articles 385-7 of the
Code).
4 Workmen and Wages, p. 283.
1871, pp. 209-248.
1873, Textile Factories, p. 112.
TRADES -UNIONS AND STRIKES. 397
having demonstrated, as they think, the mischievous ton-
dency of trades-unions, 1 have carried their conclusions out
against strikes as if there were a vital connection be-
tween the two systems. No such relation in principle
exists. Strikes are, as has been said, of the nature of in-
surrection. Trades-unions are associations for facilitating
insurrection, like secret political clubs, and the desirability
of these may well be regarded as a different question.
The virtue of an insurrection is that it comes because it
must come comes because evils have grown intolerable,
and to destroy is better than to conserve. We may rec-
ognize the office of violence in breaking up an utterly
outworn order and clearing the ground for a reorganiza-
tion of society and industry, yet fail to recognize an
advantage in making systematic provision, in advance, for
the easy resort to violence. Doubtless we might say, not
only that, of all successful insurrections, those have been
most beneficent in their results which have broken forth
unprepared, out of the indignant sense of wrongs suffered
and of burdens borne past patience, but also that, as a
rule, insurrections are more likely to be successful when
in the main spontaneous. It is not meant that any popu-
lar rising was ever unpreceded by more or less of con-
ference among the natural leaders of the injured classes.
But I apprehend that those risings which have been most
elaborately devised, and in which the machinery of insur-
rection has been most extensively employed, are generally
those which have most signally and often ignominiously
failed. There is a double reason for this : on the one
hand, there is a concert in the common sense of injury
which gives a wonderful instantaneousness to the action of
outraged masses ; on the other hand, there is often a singu-
lar impotence in conspiracy. But this is by the way. The
1 " Worse even than plague, pestilence, or famine, combinations
among workmen are the greatest social evil which, in a manufacturing
or mining community, afflicts society." Sir A. Alison (History of
Europe, xx. 206.)
398 THE WAGES QUESTION.
comparison lias been introduced only to enforce the
thought that the proved expediency of strikes would not
carry with it the expediency of the permanent organiza-
tion of labor for the initiation and conduct of strikes.
Being a destructive agency, these should never be resorted
to except in a real and serious exigency which would,
among any generous and manly class under a free govern-
ment, furnish an organization for the occasion more
vital and apt than any derived from a state of industrial
peace.
But this assumes that the body of the working classes are
at least tolerably intelligent, understanding their own in-
terests and the conditions of their industry, having among
them men of natural leadership, capable of uniting for a
common cause, and of remaining firm and true to each
other in enforcing their demands. It assumes, moreover,
that a considerable proportion, at least, of these classes
have something in the way of accumulations from past in-
dustry, and, as a consequence of this, have also a certain
degree of credit with the trading class. But if, as is the
melancholy fact in many countries of Europe, the body of
laborers are found in a condition, no matter how induced,
of dense ignorance, unaccustomed to the communication
of thought, and to association for political or other pur-
poses, with only here and there a laborer so fortunate or
so wise as to have saved any thing from the avails of past
labor : then doubtless they must be long drilled to subor-
dination and concert of action in associations permanently
maintained, and the funds requisite for the initiation and
conduct of strikes must be accumulated in advance by the
painful exactions of " the society " out of scant weekly
earnings.
And it w^ill be among the infelicities of such a situation,
that these organizations will be dragged into strikes
founded on demands which can not be maintained, which
ignorance or passion on the part of the members it may be
of a bare majority only or meddlesomeness and arrogance
OTHER OFFICES OF TRADES -UNIONS. 399
on the part of officers and managers, have caused to be
put forward without due consideration of the state of the
market or the equities of distribution : demands which,
by reason of their off en si ven ess or their extravagance, mas-
ters would not, without terrible punishment, concede if they
could, and perchance could not if they would concede
without ultimately checking production and diminishing
employment. Such demands workmen would be much less
likely to make if they had to combine especially for the pur-
pose. The reason of the case would have to be shown very
clearly to overcome the doubts of the cautious or the more
experienced. There would be deliberation, the weighing
of the cause, and the counting of the cost. But where a
discipline approaching military perfection has already
been established, where authority has been erected, and
men have come, more or less voluntarily, but most ex-
plicitly, under obligation to obey the decrees of that au-
thority, action upon claims of doubtful legality or expedi-
ency is likely to be prompt and peremptory.
I have thus far spoken of trades-unions as if they were
maintained only for the purpose of initiating and conduct-
ing strikes, for increase of wages or reduction in the hours
of labor. Trades-unions do, however, perform three other
offices : first, as friendly societies ; secondly, as sequester-
ing trades and limiting their membership ; thirdly, in
legislating upon the methods of industry.
Of trades-unions as friendly societies insuring their
members against the contingencies of sickness, loss of
tools, involuntary loss of employment, or providing the
rites of burial and a pension to the widow or to dependent
children, 1 it is not needful to speak here at any length.
1 The objects of the " Amalgamated Society of Carpenters," com-
prising 190 branches and 8261 members, were thus stated by Mr.
Applegarth, the Secretary, before Sir W. Erie's Commission : " To
raise funds for the mutual support of its members in case of sickness, ac-
cident, superannuation ; for the burial of members and their wives ;
emigration, loss of tools by fire, waste, or theft, and for assistance to
400 THE WAGES QUESTION.
A controversial advantage might be taken, by one inimi-
cally disposed, of the fact, brought so startlingly to light by
recent actuarial inquiry, that nearly all the friendly soci-
eties of Great Britain have been conducting their business
on an unsound basis, and that, in consequence, they have
involved themselves in obligations which their realized and
anticipated funds will be inadequate to meet; 1 but it
ought, in fairness, to be remembered, in extenuation, that
the British Government was in 1819 discovered, by Mr.
members out of work ; also, for granting assistance in cases of extreme
distress not otherwise provided for by the rules." The proposed mem-
ber " must be in good health, have worked five years at the trade, be
a good workman, of steady habits, of good moral character, and not
more than forty-three years of age." The admission-fee is 2s. 6d. ; the
weekly payment Is. The several benefits are as follows: "Donation
benefit for 12 weeks, 10s. per week ; for another 12 weeks, 6s. per
week ; for leaving engagement satisfactory to branch and executive
council, 15s. ; tool benefit, to any amount of loss (or when a man has
been a member for only six months, 5) ; sick benefit for 28 weeks,
12s. per week, and then 6s. per week so long as his illness continues ;
funeral benefit, 12 (or 3 10s. when a six-months' member dies) ; acci-
dent benefit, 100 ; superannuation benefit for life : if a member 25
years, 8s. per week ; if a member 18 years, 7s. ; if a member 12 years,
5s. The emigration benefit is 6, and there are benevolent grants, ac-
cording to circumstances, in cases of distress."
The following is the exhibit of the liabilities and assets of the " Man-
chester Unity," an association numbering 426,663 members, and hav.
ing 3488 places of business :
LIABILITIES.
Present value of Sick Benefits 8,548 592
" " Funeral Benefits to members 1,775 162
to wives. . 444 086
10,767 840
ASSETS.
Present value of contributions 6,473 531
of additional resources 392 127
Capital 2,558 735
9,424 393
Deficiency 1,343 447
FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 401
Finlaison, to have been for twelve years doing quite as
foolish a thing in the sale of its annuities. 1 The friendly
societies have, so far as appears, shown every disposition
to correct an error which it has taken the actuaries of Eng-
land some time to discover.
Of the advantages of making the trade the unit of life
and health insurance, much could be said. Only two
points need be mentioned : first, it affords the very per-
fection of advertisement and agency. This is the weak
point of life insurance as it exists outside of natural associ-
ations, like trades and professions. The report of the In-
surance Commissioners of Massachusetts for 1870 shows
that, of the companies doing business in that State, seven-
teen per cent of the gross receipts went to expenses ; and
of this, ten and a half per cent went in commissions to
agents. But this is not all. Even agencies sustained at
such an expense fail to give the system of life insurance any
thing like the extension which its economical advantages
deserve, while among the working classes who especially
need insurance, since calamities with them cut so deep
into the quick and work such lasting injury, the ordi-
nary sort of life insurance performs scarcely an appreciable
office. But a friendly society, confined to a particular
trade, having a natural constituency more or less bound
together by personal acquaintance and common interests,
and actually managed by its contributors, furnishes, as has
been said, the very perfection of advertisement and
agency. Secondly, to make the trade the unit of life and
health insurance, affords the most equitable rule of contri-
bution. Wide differences exist as to the healthf ulness and
longevity of occupations, as has been shown by some in-
stances previously cited. 2 In the friendly society men
1 The loss to the government was estimated by Mr. Finlaison at
95,000 a year.
8 Pp. 36-38. Speculators in British annuities under the bill of 1808
had a pencfiant for Scotch gardeners, these appearing to constitute the
longest-lived class recognized in the statistical tables.
402 THE WAGES QUESTION.
who belong to long-lived and healthy trades, and whoso
money wages are perhaps considerably reduced in conse-
quence thereof, are not obliged to pay for the sickness and
the premature mortality of members of other trades, who
are perhaps paid much higher rates, in compensation for
the dangers and hardships of their work.
But of trades-unions as friendly societies it is enough
here to say that these humane and useful provisions can be
better accomplished by associations which do not assume
or attempt to legislate on the methods of industry, or to
dictate terms to employers, than by societies which are lia-
able at any time to be dragged into protracted and ex-
hausting contests, and compelled to expend in industrial
warfare the funds long and painfully gathered against the
providential necessities of labor. The trade-clubs of Den-
mark and the Netherlands and the " artels" of Russia are
examples of friendly societies which avoid this dangerous
confusion of functions. The distinction between trade-so-
cieties and benefit-societies is also very strongly marked in
Prussia. In 1860 the relief-societies amounted to 3644,
with an aggregate membership of 427,190 and an annual
income of nearly one million dollars. 1
In France these societies are, under the decree of 1852,
classified as " approved " or " authorized." The total
number in 1867 was 5829, of which 4127 were approved
and 1702 authorized. Those which are approved conform
to the requirements of the statutes, and enjoy certain privi-
leges in consequence. The funds of the societies at the
close of 1867 amounted to forty-six millions of francs, the
annual receipts rising to fourteen millions. Members had
received sick-allowances during that year to the extent of
3,998,216 days. The total membership of both classes of
societies reached 750,590, of whom 120,387 were women. 9
In Denmark, Mr. Strachey reports not more than one
1 Ward's Workmen and Wages, p. 209.
3 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, pp. 479-482.
FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 403
workman in fifteen, or at the outside one in ten, as sub-
scribing to sick-clubs. 1 In Italy, Mr. Herries reports about
600 friendly societies, with a membership not ascertained.*
In Russia the only species of friendly societies existing is
the " artel," a small club rarely of more than thirty or
forty members, more often of but ten to twenty. 8
It is in Great Britain that we find friendly societies
most widely spread and taking deepest root among the
working classes. The Commissioners in their Fourth He-
port (1874) estimate that in England and Wales there are
32,000 such societies, with an aggregate of four million
members and an accumulation of funds in hand in excess
of fifty-five millions of dollars. They add an estimate that
these societies save to the poor-rates ten million dollars a
year. 4
But, secondly, besides the offices already indicated,
trades-unions effect the object, whether desirable or not,
of sequestering 5 their respective trades, reducing the ac-
cessions by apprenticeship to the minimum, and practical-
ly prohibiting all accessions to their number, after the
first general muster, except through the door of appren-
ticeship, thereby strictly limiting the number of workmen
in each occupation and keeping the price of their services
artificially high.
By what means the constant warfare upon non-society
men is carried on; by what arguments and appliances
able w r orkmen are convinced that it would be for their
interest to enter these close labor-corporations; to what
shifts the excluded are put for employment in the pres-
ence of powerful societies, proscribing them and all who
1 Report on the Condition of the Industrial Classes, 1870, p. 509.
Report for 1871, p. 290.
3 Mr. Egerton's Report of 1873.
4 Report, pp. xvi, xvii.
6 This appears to be the sole office of the associations of artisans
("esnaf") in European Turkey. Mutual succor is an object which
scarcely appears in their organizations.
404 THE WAGES QUESTION.
shall employ them, or on what terms of humiliation they
are at times tolerated, it is not my purpose to speak in de-
tail here. To the objection that, by the organization of
such close industrial corporations, the great body of labor-
ers are, in a degree, shut out from the benefits of employ-
ment, while the enhanced prices of labor, thus protected
f rom competition, are in a great measure paid by the un-
protected wage-laborers, whose condition is rendered only
the more miserable, the advocates of trades-unions make
in substance these answers :
First, that without such restrictions the increase of un-
instructed and unprovided labor would cause every trade
to be overrun in turn, the wages in each being slowly but
surely brought down, and the whole body of workmen de-
graded to the lowest level of mere animal subsistence ; that
nearly all the trades in England were in that condition
when the unions undertook the work of restriction ; that
for those trades which are now happily rescued from such
a condition and lifted to a position of industrial independ-
ence, to remove their barriers out of sympathy with the
general mass of labor and admit all freely into competi-
tion, would afford but the briefest relief, inasmuch as the
improvidence of the ignorant, weak, and vicious would
soon fill the space thus opened with just as hungry and
wretched a crowd as now surges outside the barriers, and
the sole effect would thus be to ruin the privileged trades
without helping their less fortunate brethren, as a drown-
ing man catches and drags down one w r ho might swim and
save himself.
Secondly, that instead of the associated trades throwing
themselves thus away in a delusive Quixotism, they do in
effect accomplish a much better result for the less skilled
laborers by maintaining a high standard of work and
wages, and by acting, in their strong estate, as a bulwark
against the invasions of " capital," affording example and
opportunity to all inferior bodies of labor to associate and
govern themselves by similar methods.
TRADE -UNION EXCLUSIVE NESS. 405
Thirdly (what has been intimated above), that there is
really no limit to the principle of association among
wage-laborers, and no reason, in the nature of the case,
why every branch of industry, even to the day-laboring
class, should not be protected by similar organizations and
regulations. The recent extension of agricultural unions
among the scattered farm-laborers of England is pointed
to with not a little force as proving the adaptation of
the system of industrial federation to conditions the least
favorable. When, then, it is said all industries are thus
organized and established, none will be at advantage or
disadvantage relatively to another, but all will be at an
advantage with respect to the employing class. Mean-
while the result of universal federation would not be
hastened but retarded by our relaxing our restrictions
and abandoning the good principle. It is wholesome
rigor which we exercise ; our measures seem seliish, and
indeed they are taken with consideration only of our own
interests, but the results are sure to favor the whole
cause of labor.
In each and all these claims there is enough of truth
to entitle them to somewhat more respectful treatment
than has been accorded them. The student of history
recognizes that the ancient guilds of which the trades-
unions are the indirect successors performed a high office
in their time. 1 Selfish as were the aims arid prescriptive
as were the methods of the guild, it had yet its part to
play in the strife of the people against king and priest
and noble ; and it played that part, on the whole, well.
Selfish and proscriptive as the modern trade-union has
1 " Although it is undoubtedly true that in a normal condition of
society the system of protection and monopoly, of which the corpora-
tions were the very ideal, is extremely unfavorable to production, in
the anarchy of the Middle Ages it was of very grea- use in giving the
trading classes a union which protected them from plunder and en-
abled them to incline legislation in their favor." Lecky's History of
Rationalism, ii. 240.
406 THE WAGES QUESTION.
been, it has curbed the authority of the employing class
which sought to domineer not in their own proper
strength, but through a cruel advantage given them by
class legislation, by sanitary maladministration, and by
laws debarring the people in effect from access to the
soil. My difference with such defenders of trades-unions
as Mr. Thornton is merely as to the time when these
should be put away as an outgrown thing. I find no
ground for expecting any benefit to the wages class as a
whole, from restricting the access to professions and trades
in any country where education is general, where trade is
free, where there is a popular tenure of the soil, and
where full civil rights, with some measure of political
franchises, are accorded to workingmen.
But it is as associations for legislating respecting the
methods and courses of industry, that trades-unions acquire
their highest importance.
Strong as the passion of meddling is in all political
communities, it appears nowhere so strong as in organiza-
tions of workingmen ; mischievous as have been the re-
strictions upon trade and industry, imposed in the past
by governments, it would be difficult to match some of the
latest trades-union edicts out of the statutes of Edward III.
and Richard II.
The Reports of the British Commissioners (Sir William
Erie, chairman) of 1867 show that there were in force
among trades-unions rules like the following, to be enforced,
wherever the unions should find themselves strong
enough, by fines levied on the masters, or by strikes :
Prohibiting a man from employing his own brother or
son, or even from laboring with his own hands at his own
work, unless duly admitted to membership of the proper
trade society.
Prohibiting a workman to work out of his trade, so that
a mason may not, for the shortest time, do the least part of
TRADE. UNION R ULES. 407
the work of a bricklayer, or a bricklayer undertake the
smallest casual patch of plastering or of stone -lay ing, or
a carpenter finish a remnant of bricklayer's or mason's
work, and if called in to fit a door or set a post, he may
not, if he find the space accidentally left too small, remove
so much as one loose brick, but must wait for the appro-
priate artisan to be summoned.
Prohibiting a workman, where an assistant is usually re-
quired, to be his own assistant, for never so small a job or
short a time, so that a plasterer, called to a piece of work
where an assistant would not be actively employed for one
eighth of the time, must still come attended by his " homo,"
who, if he can not be kept usefully busy, will, for the
good of the craft, remain dignifiedly lazy during the
whole operation.
Prohibiting any one to be known as an exceptionally
good workman in his trade ; against walking fast to the
place of work when in the employer's time ; against carry-
ing more than a certain load, as eight brick at a time in
Leeds, ten brick in London, or twelve brick in Liverpool.
Prohibiting use to be made or advantage taken of na-
tural agents, of improved machinery, or of special local
facilities. Thus we have regulations against brick being
wheeled in a barrow instead of being carried in a hod, for
no other reason alleged than that brick can be wheeled
more easily than carried ; against brick being made by ma-
chinery or stone dressed by machinery, so that inventions
of vast capability remain almost unused in England ;
against stone being dressed, even by hand, at the quarry
where it is soft and can be easily worked.
Prohibiting with more than Chinese intolerance the
use within small districts, arbitrarily circumscribed, of
material produced outside, so that brick can not be carried
into Manchester from brickyards distant only four miles
without the certainty of a strike ; prohibiting an employer
from taking a job outside the place of his own residence, un-
less he shall take with him at least one half the workmen to
408 THE WAGES QUESTION.
be employed ; prohibiting members to u work for any gen-
tleman, at any job whatever, who finds his own materials
or does not employ a regular master in the trade to find
the same ;" and, finally, making war at every stage upon
" piece-work."
It is not to be understood that any one society has
adopted all these rules, or that all societies have adopted
any one of them ; but, to a very great extent, rules like
those recited, and many others quite as minutely restric-
tive, are enforced by the whole striking-power of the trade.
All such regulations and restrictions must clearly be
judged by the principle which has been applied to State
legislation on similar subjects. If they can be shown, be-
yond any reasonable doubt, to be correspondent to human
infirmities in such a way that labor, on the whole and in
the long run, has actually a freer resort to its best market
by reason of them, then they stand justified on economical
grounds. But if they are not thus required to correct lia-
bilities which threaten the mobility of labor, they must be
pronounced as mischievous as they are irritating and insult-
ing. And this liability and strong proclivity of associa-
tions of workingmen to intermeddle and dictate concern-
ing the methods and courses of industry must be accepted
as a valid, practical argument from human nature against
trades-unions.
CONCLUDING EEMAEKS.
THROUGHOUT the foregoing discussions I have written un-
der a constant sense of my accountability as a teacher of
political economy. I have adduced no causes, recognized
no objects, but such as 1 deemed to be strictly economical.
ISTo ethical or social considerations have moved me con-
sciously in the composition of this work. Causes have, it
is true, been here adduced which are not commonly recog-
nized as economical, but it has only been where reasons
could be shown sufficient, in my judgment, for attributing
to these causes, which are perhaps primarily ethical or so-
cial, a clear potency within the field of industry, affecting
either the production or the distribution of wealth ; for I
hold that it can not be questioned that whatever affects
either of these is, in just so far, an economical cause.
Thus, sympathy for labor (pp. 362-372), if it serves in any
degree to make competition on the side of the laboring
class more active and persistent ; if it takes any thing from
the activity and persistency with which the employing
class use the means in their power to beat down wages, or
lengthen the hours of work, or introduce young children
into painful and protracted labor, becomes, in just so far
as it has such an effect, a strictly economical cause, to be
recognized, and, so far as may be, its force measured, by
the writer on the distribution of wealth. The economist
recognizes indolence (pp. 174, 175), the indisposition to
labor, as an economical cause, holding men back from the
acquisition of wealth which they might obtain but for the
force of this principle. Why is not public opinion, re-
straining men, as it so largely does, from the acquisition
of wealth by means held to be dishonorable or oppressive
to the weaker classes of the community, also and equally
to be recognized as an economical cause ?
410 THE WAGES QUESTION.
I regret that this treatise should be so strongly contro-
versial in form ; but the fact is, certain doctrines which I
deem to be wholly unfounded have become so widely
spread that one can make no progress, by so much as a
step, towards a philosophy of wages without encounter-
ing them. These doctrines are :
1st (pp. 136-140). That there is a wage-fund irrespec-
tive of the numbers and industrial quality of the laboring
population, constituting the sole source from, which wages
can at any time be drawn.
2d (pp. 161-165). That competition is so far perfect that
the laborer, as producer, always realizes the highest wages
which the employer can afford to pay, or else, as consum-
er, is recompensed in the lower price of commodities for
any injury he may chance to staffer as producer.
3d (pp. 243-246). That, in the organization of modern
industrial society, the laborer and the capitalist are toge-
ther sufficient unto production, the actual employer of
labor being regarded as the capitalist, or else as the mere
stipendiary agent and creature of the capitalist, receiving
a remuneration which can properly be treated like the
wages of ordinary labor.
These doctrines I have found it necessary to contro-
vert ; and in so doing have not cared to mince matters or
pick phrases. For any excess of controversial zeal I shall
easily be justified, if I have substantiated the positions I
have taken ; on the other hand, if I have been unduly
presumptuous in assailing doctrines sanctioned by such
high authority, a little too much harshness in argument
will not add appreciably to my offence.
It may, perhaps, be well to guard against misconstruc-
tion on a single point. In getting rid of the wage-fund,
we have not reached the result that wages can be in-
creased at any time or to any amount whatever. We
have merely cast aside a false measure of wages. Wages
still have their measure and their limits, and no increase
can take place without a strictly economical cause.
CONCLUDING KEMAEK8. 4U
Wages can not be larger than the product except by force
of pre-existing contract. Wages must, in the long run,
be less than the product by enough to give the capitalist
his due returns, and the employer his living-profits.
What then has been effected by doing away with the
wage-fund? We have shown (Chapter YIII.) that the
remuneration of hired labor finds its measure not in a
past whose accumulations have been plundered by class
legislation and wasted by dynastic wars, but in the pre-
sent and the future, always larger, freer, and more fortu-
nate. If capital furnishes the measure of wages, then
that measure is derived from the past, such as it has been,
and no increase of energy, intelligence, and enterprise
on the part of the laboring class can add to, as no failure
on their part can take from, their present remuneration,
which is determined wholly by the ratio existing between
capital and population. If production furnishes the
measure of wages, as is here maintained, then the wages
class are entitled to the immediate benefit of every im-
provement in science and art, every discovery of re-
sources in nature, every advance in their own industrial
character (Chapter IX.). Surely it is not a small matter
that the laborer should find the measure of his wages in
the present and the future, rather than in the past !
But that portion of this treatise on which I should be
disposed most strongly to insist, as of extended conse-
quence in the philosophy of wages, is the doctrine that
if the wage laborer does not pursue his interest, he loses
his interest (Chapter X.) in opposition to the view so
generally maintained by economists, that if the wage
laborer does not seek his interest, his interest will seek
him ; that economical forces are continually operating to
relieve and repair the injuries of labor ; and, specifically,
that all sums taken in excessive profits, or for the exces-
sive remuneration of capital, whether through combina-
412 THE WAGES QUESTION.
tions of employers or capitalists or through the disabili-
ties of the working class, are sure to be restored to wages.
To the contrary, I have sought to show that, in a state
of imperfect competition :
First, wages may be reduced without any enhancement
of profits, the difference being, not gain to the employer,
but loss to mankind through the industrial degradation of
the laborer (Chapter IV.) Secondly, for so much of the
sums taken from the laboring class by reduction of wages
as the employers or capitalists may at the time secure in
excessive profits or excessive interest, there exists no
adequate security, under the operation of strictly economi-
cal forces, that it will be fully returned to the wages
class in a quickened demand for their labor, inasmuch as
luxuriousness and indolence (pp. 237-40, 251) will in-
evitably enter, among the majority of employers, to waste
in self-indulgence a portion of the profits so acquired, or
to take something from the activity and the carefulness
with which future production will be pursued. Thirdly,
in respect to such industrial injuries as have just been de-
scribed, economical forces by themselves tend (pp. 165, 166)
to perpetuate and continually to deepen the injury, put-
ting the laborer at a constantly increasing disadvantage
in the exchange of his services.
If these three propositions have been substantiated, it
follows with absolute certainty that the doctrine of the
schools, that in a state of imperfect competition the em-
ployer and the capitalist are the guardians of the laborer's
interests and the trustees of his wages, is most fallacious,
those interests being, in truth, only secured when placed in
his own keeping (pp. 241, 242), those wages being only his
own when paid into his hands, and that, to enable him thus
to maintain his rights in the distribution of the product of
industry, he must be qualified by an education which is
wholly extra-economical, for which the community,
through either its social or its political agencies, must
make provision.
CONCLUDING EEMARKS. 413
This brings us face to face with the doctrine of Laissez
faire, which teaches that the spontaneous action of in-
dividuals, each seeking his own interest on his own in-
stance, guided and helped at most by the purely social
forces of the community, will achieve the best possible
industrial results; and that the interference of govern-
ment, operating by constraint and compulsion, under the
sanction of law, can only be mischievous. Reasons have
been shown for believing that Laissez faire, so long and
loudly proclaimed a principle of universal application,
is nothing but a rule of conduct (pp. 162-4) applicable in
certain conditions ; a rule very useful, indeed, when duly
subordinated to higher considerations, but mischievous
when allowed to bar the way to clear, practical oppor-
tunities for advancing the industrial condition of man-
kind ; a rule, in short, which, like fire or water, is a good
servant but a bad master.
Yet, in reducing Laissez faire from the rank assigned
it in most economical treatises, to its true grade of a prac-
tical rule, good in certain conditions only, we have not
reached the result that State interference is therefore desi-
rable at any and every point where the spontaneous action
of individuals shall be seen to be inadequate to achieve
the highest good of all classes. We have merely put the
objection to paternal government on grounds which will
bear examination. State interference, however well in-
tended, however clear the occasion, is certain in some
degree to miss its mark, and to work more or less of posi-
tive mischief in any attempt to remove the evils incident to
individual action. Legislation is always more or less un-
wise ; administration always falls in some degree short of
its intent (pp. 172, 173). Certainly no one can entertain a
stronger sense of the evils of the regulation by law of the
industrial concerns of the people than the writer of this
treatise. State interference with industry is only justi-
fied where the admitted mischiefs of restriction are heavily
overborne by an urgent occasion for preventing the per-
414 THE WAGES QUESTION.
manent degradation of the laboring classes through the
operation of economical forces which the individual is
powerless to resist.
Admitting, then, that it is eminently desirable to reduce
the action of the organized public force to the minimum
consistent with the above object, shall we not say that
government can not relieve itself from the necessity of
frequent and minute interferences with industry in any
other way to so great an extent as by, 1st, insisting on the
thorough primary education of the w r hole population ; 2d,
providing a strict system of sanitary administration ; 3d,
securing by special precautions the integrity of banks of
savings for the encouragement of the instincts of frugality,
sobriety, and industry ?
Each of these things is contrary to the doctrine of Laissez
faire ; yet I, for one, can not find room to doubt that, on
purely economical grounds, the action of the State herein
is not only justifiable but a matter of elementary duty.
A little interference with the freedom of individual action
here will save the necessity of a great deal of interference
elsewhere. If the State will see to it that the whole body
of the people can read and write and cipher ; that the
common air and common water, which no individual vigi-
lance can protect, yet on which depends, in a degree which
few even of intelligent persons comprehend, the public
health and the laboring-power of a population, are kept
pure ; and that the first feeble efforts of the poor at better-
ing their condition and saving "for a rainy day" are
guarded against official frauds and speculative risks, it
may take its hands off at a hundred other points, and
trust its citizens, in the main, to do and care for them-
selves. These things therefore are demanded by the true
economy of State action.
But, even so, I find to my own satisfaction at least a
present necessity for legislation and administration in the
interest of health, in the case of all industries where large
numbers of laborers of differing sexes, ages, and degrees
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 415
are aggregated, especially where other than manual power
is employed. Factory acts prohibiting labor for all
classes beyond the term which physiological science ac-
cepts as consistent with soundness and vigor ; restricting
within limits carefully adapted to the average capability of
effort and endurance the employment of children and of
women also, so long at least as women are denied suffrage
on the ground either of mental inferiority or sexual un-
iitness for contact with what is rough and vile ; and pro-
viding a full and frequent sanitary inspection of air and
water, from garret to cellar, in all buildings thus occupied:
acts like these seem, at least in the present, to be justified
and demanded, not more by social and moral than by
economical considerations (pp. 357-9). For it must ever
be borne in mind, in such discussions, that those things are
economically justified which can reasonably be shown to
contribute, on the whole and in the long run, to a larger
production, or, production remaining the same, to a more
equable distribution of wealth.
INDEX.
Adams, John, the paper money of the
American Revolution, 16.
Agricultural wages paid largely in
kind, 20-4; agricultural laborers in
England crippled early by rheuma-
tism, 38 ; agricultural truck not for-
bidden in England, 327.
Agriculture, great irregularity of em-
ployment in, 27, 28, 32, 33 ; law of
"Diminishing Returns" in, chap. v. ;
difficulty of applying co-operation to,
280, 281.
Air, purity of the, affecting the effi-
ciency of labor, 60-4.
Alison, Sir Archibald, History of
Europe. 54, 75rc., 118n., 1337*.,
180w., 2687*., 317, 318, 355, 397ra. ;
(Report on the Payment of Wages
Bill, 1854), testimony respecting
truck, 331-333.
Allotment system, the, 25.
Ames, Dr., Sex in Industry, 373.
Annuities, mistake of the British
Government respecting sale of, 400,
401.
Applegarth, William, objects and
methods of the Amalgamated Soci-
ety of Carpenters, 399.
Apprentices, statute of (England),
306,307.
Apprenticeship made the condition of
entrance to many trades by union
regulations, 403-5.
Arbitration, 394.
Argyle, Duke of, famine in India,
118rc.: necessity for restrictions
upon labor, 357.
Arithmetical increase of subsistence,
102.
Ashworth, Mr., comparative cost of
clothing from cotton, wool, and flax,
12271.
Austria, co-operation in, 288; restric-
tions upon industry, 309, 810;
marriage statistics, 356; factory
legislation, 360 ; strikes, 395.
Avarice, in masters and employers,
opposes true self-interest, 59.
164.
Babbage, Charles, Economy of Man-
" ufactures, 98, 257, 279., 28071.,
2S2n.
Bagehot, Walter, varying efficiency of
labor, 47 Lombard Street, 230.
Baines, Mr., improvidence of the
cottage population of Leeds,
350ra.
Baker, R. Smith, false economy of
the labor of married women in fac-
tories, 383/>.
Bastiat, Fred'k., Harmonies ofPolit-
cal Economy, 159w.
Batbie, M., Nouvcau CoursdeVEcon-
omie, 447i., 49?i., 54, 65.
Baxter, R. Dudley, National Income.
307i., 31, 32, 38, 37571. ; Local Taxa-
tion, 323.
Bazley, Sir Thomas, accidents in
mining in England, 36/i.
Beaulieu, M., Les Populations Ouv-
rieres, 78.
Belgium, statistics of height and
weight, 50, 51 ; intemperance in,
78/i.; ratio of bread-winners to de-
pendents, 12671. ; proportion of for-
eigners in the population, 184 ; co-op-
eration in, 287 ; marriage statistics
of, 356; no factory legislation in,
361 ; laws against strikes and com-
binations in, 395.
Beverley,Mr. , marriages early in India,
35671.
Biggs, Wm., testimony respecting
frame rents, 334.
Birth-rate, within different occupa-
tions, 191 ; effect of injudicious poor
laws upon, 322, 323.
"Black Death," the, industrial conse-
quences of, 304. ,
Blanqui, M., Cours ef Economic 7i*.
dustrielle, 59n. 27471.
118
INDEX.
Board, to agricultural labours, 20, 21.
Bodio, 1iouis,Cassedifiisparmio, 350.
Bonar, Mr., relation of employers and
laborers in Switzerland, 260n.
Boot and shoe manufacture, irregu-
larity of employment in, 30 ; intro-
duction of machinery into, 189.
Brabazon, Lord, payment of agricul-
tural wages in Prance, 2Qn. ; food
of the laboring population, 56., 78;
town and country rents, 118w. ;
wages of women and men in agricul-
ture, 37oi., 380w.
Brassey, Thomas, Work and Wages,
efficiency of labor among various
nationalities, 45, 46, 73; diet of
East Indians, llSn. ; payment of
wages to French laborers, 350w. ;
women in railway construction,
374ra.; Address at Halifax, 277-278.
Bread winners, ratio to dependents,
I26n., 191.
Brewster, Messrs. , co-operative enter-
prise, 283w.
Briggs, Messrs., co-operative enter-
prise, 282.
Brickmaldng, irregularity of employ-
ment in, 28 ; employment of women
and children in, 52, 202.
Brittany, low stature of peasantry of,
50 ; language of, 175?z.
Britton, J. W., co-operative enterprise,
283 n,
Cairnes, J. E., Essays in Political
Economy, effects of the gold dis-
coveries on prices, ~L4n. ; the doc-
trine of laistez faire, 162n, 168, 173 ;
insufficiency of the employers' sense
" of self-interest, 164 ; The Slave Pow-
er, inefficiency of slave labor, 72 ;
The logical Method of Political
Economy, (Ed. 1875) the law of dim-
inishing returns in agriculture, 94.
lOOn ; ratio between population and
subsistence, 119 ; the office of econo-
mic definition, 218 ; Some Leading
Principles of Political Economy,
etc., 137?i., 184; theory of "non-
competing groups," 195-7; profits
the reward of abstinence, 231 ;
profits at or near the minimum,
233 ; excessive profits restored to
wages, 237, 238, 253 ; co-operation,
264-265; are strikes &uccessful?
298ra.; excessive friction of retail
trade, 314, 315.
Caird, James, dwellings in Scotland,
61 ; Prairie Farming, 91n.;
Canada, efficiency of labor in, 45.
CantiUon, M., ratio of breadwinners
to dependents, 126w.
Capital, often supplied by the persons
who perform labor in production,
8 ; does not f urnish the measure of
18*
wages, ; 130, 181 ; yet wages are
largely advanced out of capital ;
does capital include land ? 224-5 ;
are the returns of capital at the
minimum or not ? 233, 237 ; does it
make any difference to the wages
class whether the returns of capital
are at the minimum or not ? 237-41.
Capitalist class, the, chap. xiii. ; not
coincident with employing class,
229, 244, 245; dependent equally
with the laboring class, on the em-
ploying class, 290, 291.
Carey, H. C., Essay on Wages, 141,
Carpentering trade, irregularity of
employment in, 28, 32.
Carpenters, the Amalgamated Socie-
ty of, 399.
Catholic countries, holidays in, 29;
priesthood, influence in favor of
early marriages, 358ra.
Census, United States, 1870, 66, 180,
375 ; Ireland, 1851, 111 ; Scotland.
1871, 175w., 191, 377.
Chadwick, Edwin, cost of rearing a
child, 33ra.; employers prefer high-
priced labor, 41 n.; effects of drill
upon laborers ; 72 ; difficulty of re-
moving laborers, 185, 257 ; effects
of education upon the condition of
the laboring class, 353.
Chalmers, Thomas, Political Econo-
my, 322//.
Chamberlain, E. M., Sovereigns of In-
dustry, 288^.
"Channel Islands," the, tenure of
land in, 208.
Charles II. (England), industrial legis-
lation of his reign, 308.
Chateaubriand, M. , wages a later form
of slavery, 295.
Cherbuliez, A. E., Precis de la Science
Economique, 131.
Cheerfulness in labor, 72-77.
Chevalier, M., Lectures, 99, 105n. 156,
170 ; Travels in the United States.
180*.
Children, irregularity of their employ-
ment in agriculture, 33 ; employed
on work unsuited to their strength,
52, 53, 167, 168, 201-3 ; legislation
respecting the employment of, 356-
62.
China, food habits of the people, 118 $
immobility of the population, 176.
China scourers, excessive mortality
among, 37.
Cider truck, 23, 327.
^Cleanliness of person, affecting efficien-
cy of labor, 60, 61.
Clerical profession, duration of life in,
37.
Clifford, Frederick, The Agricultural
Lock-out c/1874, 47rc M 117, 118n.
INDEX.
419
Clipperton, Consul, speech differences
among population of France, 175/i.
jClothing, its importance to the effi-
ciency of the laborer, 58 ; relative
expenditure of different classes for,
117n. ; is cheap clothing desirable ?
1253 ; comparative cost of clothing
from cotton, wool, and flax, 122/3.
Coinage, changes in, affecting nominal
wages, 13
Cobden, R., English peasantry di-
vorced from the soil, 20Sn.
Colwell, Stephen, Ways and Means of
Payment : , 13n.
Competition, when perfect, secures an
absolutely right distribution of
wealth, 157 ; imperfect or unequal
competition may depress and de-
grade the laboring class, 165, 166,
220, 221,239-41, 8G8w, 385, 386 ; Prof.
Cairnes' theory of "Non-competing
Groups," 195, 202, 221, 222; compe-
tition opposed by the force of cus-
tom, 311.
Communal property in Switzerland,
351.
Consumption of wealth defined, 4.
Consumptive co-operation, 283-8.
Co-operation, defined, 247; erroneous
characterization of ,by Prof. Cairnes,
262-5 ; its real object is to get rid of
the employing class, 265-8 ; antici-
pated advantages of, 268-72 ; its lim-
ited success, 272-75 ; its difficulties,
275-80; applied to agriculture, 281;
partial co-operation, 282-3; consump-
tive co-operation subject to fewer
difficulties, 283-4; anticipated ad-
vantages of, 2S4-6; statistics of,
287-8.
Continuity of employment, the em-
ployer's interest in, 300-2
Continuity of production, the employ-
er's interest in, 298-9.
Corn Laws, repeal of, effect on English
agriculture, 258.
Corsica, annual migration into, from
France, I87n.
Cotter tenancy, 9, 212.
Cotton manufacture, irregularity of
employment in, 30.
Cotton goods, cost of, compared with
woollens, 122n.
Courcelle-Seneuil, M., Operations de
Banque, 252.
Cowell, Mr., effect of English poor laws
on female chastity, 322.
Cow-land, concession of, 23 ; profits
estimated, 24.
Coxe, Wm. , Travels, the bearing of the
Swiss peasantry, 260.
Cranworth, Lord, strikes always futile, !
388.
Crowe, H. B. M. Consul - General,
strikes in Norway, 396. i
Currency, fictitious, effects npon wage
labor, 310-3.
Custom, its office in protecting the
weaker classes against unequal com-
petition, 311.
Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Spe-
cies, 104.
Debts, small: shall they be protect-
ed by law ? 350rc.
Definitions in political economy, 218.
Degradation of labor, the, chap. iv.
Denmark, proportion of foreigners in
the population, 184 ; co-operation in,
287, 288 ; restrictions upon industry
removed, 309; savings-banks sta-
tistics, 350/1. ; strikes, 396 ; trade
clubs, 402.
Dependents, ratio to breadwinners,
126?i. 191.
Devon, Lord, his commission on the
condition of Ireland, 370.
Diffusion theory of taxation, 160, 316-8.
4 ' Diminishing Returns" in agriculture,
law of, chap. v. : does not apply to
mechanical industry, 98; affecting
wages, 150.
Distribution of wealth defined, 4 ; il-
lustrated, 5, 6 ; in treating thf ques-
tions of distribution we have to do
with industrial classes, not func-
tions, 7 ; the problem of distribution,
chap. x. ; deemed by Chevalier less
important and difficult than the
problem of production, 156.
Distributed exchanged for undistri-
buted wealth, the effect on wages,
219-223.
Division of labor always a source of
mechanical advantage, 90, 95 ; up to a
certain point tends to increase agri-
cultural wages, 147-9.
Ducarre, M., tiala-ires et Rapports
entre Ouvriers et Patrons (1875),
87, 187 n., 274, 309n., 341 n., 394n.
Dupin, M. , his researches into French
industry, 47.
u Dusty Trades," mortality of, 36.
Dwellings, laborers', often unfit for
habitation, 61-4 ; effects of unsani-
tary and inadequate habitation on
the moral elements of industry, 86 ;
proportional expenditure of different
classes on lodging, 117.
Earnings, extra, in trades, 24, 25 ;
harvest, in agriculture, 26 n.
Eden, Sir F. M., Hi$lory<f the Poor,
Education, influence on efficiency ot
labor, 05-7 ; relative expenditure
of different classes, for, 117?t.; loss
of wages involved in, 123.
Edward III., industrial legislation oi
his reign, 304, 305, 307, 379.
420
INDEX.
Edward IV., law against truck, 326.
Edward VI., pauper legislation, 307,
o30.
Bgerton, H. B. M. Consvil, inefficiency
of Russian labor, 44 ; irregularity of
factory attendance, 48 ; feebleness
of the industrial desires of the Rus-
sian peasantry, 127/i.; no factory
legislation in Russia, 362 ; strikes in
Russia, 396 ; " artels," 403.
Elizabeth, Qaeen, industrial legislation
of her reign, 306, 307, 320.
Emigration of artisans from Great Bri-
tain forbidden by law prior to 1824,
307.
Employers of labor sometimes working
at their trades, or personally super-
vising the laborers, 10 ; the sense of
their self-interest not always suffi-
cient, 59, 60, 164 ; profits their ob-
ject in production, 129, 130 ; em-
ployers a distinct industrial class,
227, 228 ; not necessarily capitalists,
228, 229 ; under imperfect competi-
tion employers are not the guardians
^ of the laborers' interests, 239, 240,
358 ; the employer the master of the
situation, 290, 291 ; incapable em-
ployers live at the expense of the
laboring class, 254-6 ; employers
stimulated by increased competition
on the side of the laboring class,
256-8 ; paid in some degree in honor
and social distinction, 259 ; said by
Adam Smith to be always in combi-
nation to lower wages, 393.
Employing class, the, chap. xiv. ; to
be distinguished from the capitalist
class, 244, 245 ; a false employing
class, 247-50 ; characteristics of the
true employing class, 251, 252 ; this
class in Switzerland, 259, 260 ; it is
the object of co-operation to get rid
of the employing class, 262-8 ; has
either the employed or employing
^class an economical advantage over
the other ? chap. xvL
Employed, the, none others belong to
the wages class, 206, 207 ; the dis-
tinction between the employed and
the non-employed the greatest struc-
tural fact of industrial society, 221.
Employment,, the question of, is the
true wages question, 269, 270, 290,
.291 ; regularity of, affecting real
wages, 26-33 ; continuity -of, the em-
ployers' interest in, 300-2.
England, payment of agricultural
wages, 20 ; duration of laboring
power, 34, 35 ; efficiency of labor j
^compared with that of India, 42 ; of
various European countries, 43-6 ;
north and south of England, relative
efficiency of labor of, 47 ; statistics
of height and weight, 50, 51 ; food
of laborers, 54 ; degradation of thar
laboring population, how effected,!
82-4; food habits of the people,
118, 120, 124n ratio of breadwin-
ners to dependents, 126?*.; rise of
the wages-fund doctrine, 140 ; the
peasantry divorced from the soil
208, 211 n.\ effect on agriculture ot
the repeal of the corn laws, 258 ;
co-operation in England, 272, 273,
282, 28t5, 287 ; laws iu restraint of la-
bor, 304-9 ; poor laws, 319-24 ; mar-
riage statistics, 356, 381n.; factory
laws, 359, 360 ; rents influenced by
public opinion, 367; legislation
against strikes and combinations,
892, 393 ; friendly societies, 403.
Engel, Dr., relative expenditure of
families on food, clothing, etc., 116,
117.
Entrepreneur, the, (see Employing
Class).
Erie, Sir Wm., the 1'aw of strikes,
393 ; report of his commission on
Trade Unions, 399, 406.
Exchange of Wealth defined, 4 ; illus-
trated, 5, 6.
Exchange of distributed for undis-
tributed wealth, its effect on wages,
6, 219, 220.
Factory legislation in England op-
posed by political economists, 162 ;
its economical justification, 167, 175;
its history in Europe, 356-62.
Faithfull, Miss, public opinion un-
friendly to female labor, 384.
Famine, restricting population, 111,
112; periodical in India, 118n.; Irish
famine of 1846-7, 121.
Farmer, the American, 5, 9, 227.
Fashion, changes in, working import-
ant effects on industry, 178-179.
Fawcett, Henry, Political lilconomy
(McMillan, 186d),the Allotment sys-
tem, 25w.; food of the laborers of
the West of England, 56; wages are
to be increased at the expense of
^profits, 57rc., 233, 234; equivalency
of subsistence and wages, 133w. ;
differences in local wages in England,
187 ; transfer of labor from agricul-
ture to manufactures, 204 ; co-opera-
tion in agriculture, 281; strikes some-
times successful, 389. The Econom-
ic Position of the British Laborer,
laboring class insufficiently clothed,
58; statement of the wage-fund
doctrine, 139; Speeches } truck, 336;
opposition to the extension of female
labor, 377. 378 n. ; Daily News, con-
dition of agricultural laborers near
Salisbury, 346.
Ff rench, Mr. , higgling in Spanish retail
trade, 3
INDEX.
"Fellows, J. testimony respecting
truck, 331*i.
Finlaison, A. G., statistics of loss of
time by sickness, 2Sw.; discovers
error of British Government in sale
of annuities, 400, 401.
Finnie, Mr. comparison of American
Negro and East Indian laborer, 4:2n.
Fii. Theodore, Lcs Glasses Ouvri&rcs.
Mining accidents rare in France,
3~m.; ill-success of strikes, 388.
Food, in its relation to laboring force,
53-8 ; relative expenditure of dif-
ferent classes for, 117..; habits in
respect to, of various nations, 118-24;
is cheap food desirable? 121-4.
France, payment of agricultural wages
in, 20 ; of mechanical wages, 21 ; du-
ration of the laboring power of the
population, 84, 35 ; efficiency of la-
bor compared with other countries,
43, 44, 46; North and South of,
varying efficiency of labor, 47 ; sta-
tistics of height and weight, 51 ; food
of the laboring population, 54 ; town
and country rents, 118??-.; speech-dif-
ferences among population, 175ra.;
proportion of foreigners, 184 ; peas-
ant proprietorship general, 209;
frugality of the peasantry, 235 ; co-
operation in France, 274, 282, 287 ;
comparative freedom of industry,
309 ; taxation under the old regime,
317 ; marriage statistics, 356 ; factory
legislation, 360, 361 ; laws against
strikes and combinations, 394, 395 ;
friendly societies, 402.
Francis, Sir P. , good work not appre-
ciated in Turkey, 60n.
Fraser, Mr., economy of woman's
labor, 381.
Free- Traders, distinguished from the
"Manchester" school, 161, 162.
Frugality, amongst Irish in America,
124 ; proportionately greater among
laborers than among employers, 235;
not encouraged by large and sudden
rise of wages, 236; encouraged by
co-operation, 271, 272; giving the
wages class an advantage in compe-
tition for the product of industry,
345-8
Gairdner, Prof, unsanitary condition
of Glasgow, 61.
Gallatin, Albert, the industrial free-
dom of the United States, 181 n.
Gangs, agricultural, in Bugland, 201.
Gardeners, longevity of, 37, 401a.
Gamier, Jos., Traite d* Economic Poli-
tique, 34/i.
Geometrical increase of population,
102.
George III., industrial legislation of
his reign, 306, 320, 359, 593, 391.
George IV., industrial legislation of
his reign, 394.
Germany, payment of agricultural
wages in, 20 : industrial code re-
quires payment of mechanics' wagea
in money, 21 ; food habits of people,
118; peasant proprietorship general,
209 ; co-operation in Germany, 274,
287; restrictions on industry, 309;
factory legislation, 360 ; strikes,
395.
Germans easily adapting themselves
to the ways of other people, 187 n.
Gibbon, 29w., 257.
Gilbert's act (English Poor Law), 320,
321.
Gleaning of fields, in part payment of
wages, 22.
Girdlestone, Canon, the agricultural
laborers of England, 38; food of
Devon peasant, 56 ; unsanitary con-
dition of dwellings in Devonshire, 61.
Golta, Th. Frh, von der, Die Lage
derLandlichenArbeiter im Deutschen
Jteich, 20
Gould, H. B. M. Consul ; efficiency of
Swiss factory labor, 44w. ; loss of
wages by school attendance, 123 ;
industrial desires of the Swiss
peasantry, I27n. ; character of Swiss
employers, 259, 260 ; co-operation in
Switzerland, 274, 282.
Grattan, Consul, intemperance in
Belgium, 78rc.
Great Britain, consumption of liquors,
349; savings bank statistics, 350;
friendly societies, 403.
Greece, holidays in, 29 ; efficiency of
laborers, 44?i.
Greek Church, holidays in, 29.
Greenhow, Dr., the effects on health
of dry-grinding the metals, 36 : the
heat in copper mines, 88?i.
Greg, W. R, Social Enigmas, 103.
Guilds, predecessors of the modern
Trades Unions, 228 ; remains of, in
Europe, 309 ; their benelicial influ-
ence, 405.
Hallam, Henry, Constitutional llistoi*y
of England, 369ra.
Haines, W. P., married women in
factories, 383?i.
Harmonies, the Economic, 160, 197,
220, 231, 240, 316.
Harrison, Frederick, 183, 272, 277.,
279n., 291 n.
Hastings, Geo. W., facility of the
poor in becoming paupers, 3-4.
Head, Mr. , statistics of retail trading,
285.
Hearn, Prof. Philology, 27, 67, 76.
195, 196, 246.
Heath, Mr., English Peasantry, 21 *
23,24.
INDEX.
Henry VI, industrial legislation of
his reign, 392.
Henry VIII., industrial legislation of
his reign, 320
Herries, Mr., payment of wages in
Italy, 2 1 ; co-operation, 283 ; factory
legislation, 362; strikes, 396;
friendly societies, 4C3.
Hindoos, loss of time by holidays, 29 ;
inefficiency of labor, 42.
Hirt, Dr. , Krarikheiten der Arbeiter,
36.
Holidays, loss of time by, 29 ; pre-
scribed by factory legislation, 360,
361.
Holmes, H. B. M. Consul, good work
not appreciated in Bosnia, 60?i.
Holyoake, George J., extent of waste
in production, 4Sra; co-operation,
286..
Hopefulness in labor, 72-7.
Hopper, R. W., strikes never success-
ful, 388.
Horner, L., Employment of Children
in Factories, 167, 360.
Hours of labor, 167, 168, 359-63
Hungary, the nobles of, freeing their
serfs, 74, 75 ; taxation under the old
regime, 318.
Hunter, Dr., Famine Aspects of India,
111, 112.
Huskisson, Mr., free trade in labor,
Immigrants into the United States,
accidents of their location, 181-3 ;
into France, Macedonia, and Corsica,
187n.
Improvements, unexhausted, in agri-
culture, 281ri.
Jjadia, efficiency of labor in, 42 46 ;
ineffective machinery employed, 67 ;
famines, 112; food habits of the
people, 118; immobility of the pop-
ulation, 177.
Industry, manufacturing, incessant
movement of, 178.
Tnglis, H.,24, 61, 76.
Insurance, Life, is expensive and fails
to reach the working classes,
,' 401.
Intelligence, a factor of the laborer's
efficiency in production, 65-7 ; in-
fluences the distribution of the pro-
duct, 352-4,
Ireland, the pig formerly paying the
rent, 24 ; duration of the laboring
power in, 34, 35 ; inefficiency of laboi
before the famine, 43, 45, 46 ; sta-
tistics of height and weight, 50 ; food
of the laboring population, 55 ; un-
sanitary condition of dwellings, 61 ;
proverbial indolence of the popula-
tion accounted for, 76; the famine
of 1846-7, 111 ; food habits of the
people, 118 ; tenure of the soil, 213 ;
relations between landlord and ten-
ant influencing rents, 368-7.
Irish, in America, their frugality, 124 ;
their accidental location, 182; in
England, jealousy of, 176n; their
early marriages at home and abroad.
355.
Italy, payment of wages in sulphur-
mining, 21 ; peasant proprietorship
increasing, 209 ; public sentiment
protects the cultivator, 21ln\
co-operation, 282; factory legislation,
362 ; rents influenced by public
opinion, 368 ; strikes, 396 ; friendly
societies, 403.
Jarvis, Edward, cost of rearing chil-
dren to be charged against their
wages, 33w., 34w.
Jefferson, Th., the paper money of tho
American revolution, 16.
Johnson, Dr. , eggs and pence in the
Highlands, 17.
Johnston, Prof., Notes on North Amer-
ica, 92 n.
Jones, Richard, Political Economy, 43,
125., 208, 211., 21 3w., 215, 217.
Justices of the peace (England), em-
powered to fix the rates of wages,
306 ; must be landed proprietors, 366.
Kane, Dr., Industrial Resources of
Ireland, 43, 79, 80.
Kennedy, John, manufacturing im-
provements stimulated by industrial
distresses, 257.
Kennedy, J. G., strikes in Belgium,
395.
Labor, often performed by the person
who supplies capital in production,
8 ; mobility of labor essential to com-
petition, 163 ; can labor be accumu-
lated and saved ? 292-4.
Intemperance lowers the efficiency of Labor, cost of, real distinguished from
labor, 78, 87; the great foe to fru-
gality, 349, 350.
Interest, the term used in this treatise
only of sums paid for capital actual-
ly loaned, 225, 226 ; is interest at
the minimum ? 234.
Inventions constitute an economical
reason for increase of wages,
146, 147.
nominal, 40 ; efficiency of, causes of
^lifterences in the, chap. iii. ; in con-
nection wibh natural agents deter-
mines the amount that can be paid
in wages, 131.
Labor-power, its durat'on an element
in determining wages, 33, 402 ; cost
of rearing children to age to labor.
33,34,
INDEX.
428
Labor question, not identical with the
wages question, 206.
Laborers, the several classes of, 9 ; the
statute of, 305, 392.
Laing, Samuel, Notes of a Traveller,
71 ; Denmark and the Duchies, 309 ;
Tour in Sweden, 310.
Laissez Faire, a practical rule, not a
principle of universal application,
162, 168 ; applied to truck, 336 ; to
factory legislation, 357-9 ; to strikes
and trades unions, 385, 386.
Lamport, Charles, effect of unsanitary
conditions upon life and laboring
power, 65/i.
Land, tenure of, in different countries,
207-13.
Laveleye, E. de., the orthodox political
economy, 155.
Lecky, History of nationalism in Eu-
rope, 29ra., 405/1.
Legal profession, duration of life in,
37.
Legislation in aid of labor, 168-73,
356-62 ; in restraint of labor, 302-9.
Leighton, Sir B., concession of Cow-
land, 24.
Leslie, T. E. Cliffe, Land Systems of
Ireland and the Continent, 213/t.
Lsvi, Leone, estimated number of
working days in the year, 31.
Liquors, consumption of, in Great
Britain, 349, 350.
Lock-outs affecting the regularity of
employment, 30.
Locock, Mr. , food of the laboring pop-
ulation of the Netherlands, 56/z. ;
strikes, 395.
Longe, P. D., Refutation of the Wage
Fund, etc., I32n.
Lytton, Mr., cooperation in Austria,
288 ; the corporation system, 310.
Macadam, Dr. S., analyses of drink-
ing water, 65.
Macaulay, T. B., History of England,
369, 370.
Macedonia, its winter population aug-
mented by immigration, 187/1.
Mahon, Lord, History of England,
41.
Machinery, waste of, with ignorant
-r 1ahnr 1 67; disturbances introduced
by machinery into labor, 178, 189.
Malet, Mr., factory legislation in
France, 361.
Malthusianism, chap, vi., cf. p. 857.
Manchester School of Political Econ-
omy, 161, 162, 336.
" Manchester Unity," the, its financial
condition, 400.
Mansfield, Lord, the incidence of taxa-
tion, 316.
Martineau, H., History of England,
30, 176?i., 822.
Marriage, procrastination of, 354, 355;
statistics of age at marriage, 356;
effects of recent social causes in
diminishing marriage, 381.
Massachusetts Colony, industrial legis-
lation of, 305, 306, 327.
Maurice (and Tallon), Legislation sur
le Travail des Eni'ants, 361.
McCuDoch, J. R. Political Economy,
105, 109rc., 120/1., 121w.; Commer-
cial Dictionary, 350/1.
McDonnell, Survey of Political
Economy, 282.
Medical profession, duration of life in
the, 37.
Metayer tenancy, 211, 212.
Mill, James, Political Economy, 144/1*
Mill, John Stuart, Political Economy
(Little & Brown, 1848), the allot-
ment system, 25w. ; influence of the
imagination in economics, 77n.; the
degradation of the English laboring
population, 82n., 83n.; "diminish-
ing returns" in agriculture, 96/i.;
working-classes as consumers of
manufactured goods, 1'35.M ; the
wage fund doctrine, 143".; tiie law
of international values, 196, 197 ;
co-operation, 282 ; the office of cus-
tom, 311, 313, 314 ; small means
produce no effect in elevating a peo-
ple, 345w. ; effect on wages of the
ownership of property by the wages
class, 348 ; women as artisans, 379 ;
Some Unsettled Questions of Politi-
cal Economy, the economic man,
174, 175 ; The Fortnightly Review,
wage fund doctrine, 139, 140.
Mining, accidents in, to be considered
in computing the wages paid, 36n.;
Bulphur,inltaly,paymentof wages,21.
Mobility of labor essential to competi-
tion, 163 ; actual mobility of labor,
chap, xi.; interference by law with,
307-9 ; (see chaps, xviii., xix. , pas-
sim}] diminished in the case of wo-
men by physiological causes, and by
their failure to receive the support
of public opinion, 377-8.
Money, the purchase-power of, affect-
ing nominal wages, 13.
Morris, O'Connor, religious differ-
ences in Ireland, 369?t.
Muggeridge, Mr. , immobility of Eng-
lish labor, 185 ; testimony respect-
ing frame-rents, 334, 335.
Mulholland, John, comparative cost
of clothing from cotton and from
flax, 122n.
Mundella, A. J., superior efficiency of
North of England laborers, 47.
Napier and Ettrick, Lord, intellectual
relations of England and America,
142n.
434
INDEX.
Nationality, affecting the efficiency of
labor, 43-6.
44 Necessary Wages," the doctrine of,
chap, vii
Neison, Dr., statistics of mortality in
various trades, 37.
Netherlands, the food of the laboring
population of, 56 ; habits respecting
dwellings, 118ft. ; proportion of for-
eigners, 184; marriage statistics,
356 ; absence of factory legislation,
362 ; strikes but little known, 395 ;
trade clubs, 402.
New England, food habits of the peo-
ple, 133, 124.
Newmarch, Win., factory legislation,
359.
Newman, F. W., lectures on Political
Economy, 158;i.
Nicholls, Sir George, History of the
English Poor Laws, 321.
Nominal distinguished from real
wages, 12 ; causes which produce the
divergence, 13 et seq.
Nominal distinguished from real cost
of labor, 40 ; causes which produce
the divergence, 41 et seq.
Normandie, M., report on savings
banks in Europe, 350.
Northcote, Sir Stafford, real distin-
guished from nominal wages, 38, 39.
Norway, marriage statistics, 356:
strikes, 396.
Norwegians in the United States, 182.
Occupation, change of, frequent ne-
cessity for, 178 ; Adam Smith's view,
192, 193 ; Prof. Cairnes' view, 193 ;
his theory of " Non-Competing
Groups," 195-202 ;change of occupa-
tion formerly forbidden or restricted
by law in England, 306, 307 ; women,
by 37 Edward HI., allowed to inter-
change trades, 379ft. ; access to trades
restricted by "union" regulations,
403, 404.
Ollivier, M., the act (France) of May
25, 1864, 394.
Opinion, public, influential in deter-
mining wages, 362-69 ; in determin-
ing rents, 369-72.
Organization of industry conducing
to efficiency, 67-72.
Painting, house, irregularity of em-
ployment in, 28, 32.
Pakenham, Mr., the food of Belgian
laborers, 56ft.
Palgrave, Consul, good work not ap-
preciated in Anatolia, 60n.
Palmer, C. M., the removal of labor-
ers, 346.
Paper money, changes in circulation
affecting nominal wages, 14 ; of the
American Revolution, 16; fluctua-
tions in paper money placing tht
wages class at a disadvantage, 310-3.
Parsimony of employers opposed to
true economy, 58, 59, 164.
Payment of wages, variety in form of,
19 ; payments in kind, 324-7.
Paupers in England in 1833 better fed
than independent laborers, 57; labor-
ers, once become paupers, seldom
recover tone, 88; English laws of
pauper settlement, 308, 309.
Peasant proprietorship of land, 5, 9,
207-9, 243.
Pennant, Th., Tour in Scotland, 324.
Perry, A. L., Political Economy, 138,
139, 143 ; The Financier, 81, 82, 253.
Peto, Sir M., testimony respecting
truck, 329.
Petre, Mr., payment of agricultural
wages in Prussia, 20ft. ; the practice
of "wandering" in manual trades in
Germany, 187ft.
Phipps, Mr., married women but littlo
employed in factories in Wurtem-
berg, 383ft.
Piece-work, how to compute the wages
of, 13ft.
Pig, permission to keep, 23 ; formerly
paying the rent in Ireland, 24.
Political Economy, the orthodox, 155
the d priori school, 175.
Poor Laws. English, 308, 309 ; effect
on wage labor, 819-22.
Population, Malthus' law of, chap, vi
Porter, G. R., The Progress of the
Nation, 12 ; Statistical Journal, 350.
Potato, the, its use as the sole article
of food, 121-4.
Poverty the curse of the poor, 166.
Prices and Wages. 13 ; differences in
local prices introduce great complex-
ity into computations of wages, 17.
Production furnishes the measure of
wages, chap, viii.; continuity of,
the employer's interest in, 298, 299.
Profits, certain classes of laborers paid
from profits, not from revenue, 9 ;
profits, the object in giving employ-
ment, 128-80, 291; the expectation
of profits the test of wage labor, 216,
the term made by some economists
to include the wages of supervision
and management, 10 ; in this treatise
it signifies the gains of the employer,
aside from the returns of capital, 230 ;
are excessive profits restored to
wages? 237-9; are profits at the
minimum ? 252-61 ; rates of profit,
268.
"Protective" Tariffs supported by ar-
guments which confound wages
and the cost of labor, 41.
Prussia, relative expenditure of differ-
ent classes for food, clothing, etc.,
117w.; factory legislation, 360, 361;
INDEX.
425
women in agriculture, 380w.; strikes,
395 w.; trades unions and friendly
societies, 402.
Purely, Fred'k, payment of wages in
Wales, 20n.; in England, 2ln.; har-
vest wages in Ireland, 26. ; irregu-
larity of agricultural wages, 27/i.;
substitution of corn-meal for the
potato in Ireland, J20w.; difference
in local agricultural wages, 186/1.;
division of the annual product of land
in England, 269fl,.; cider and beer
payments in English agriculture,
327 ; women in agriculture, 380ft.
Quarrying, irregularity of employment
in, 28.
Quetelet, A., statistics of height and
weight, 50, 51.
Real, distinguished from nominal
wages, 12.
Real, distinguished from nominal cost
of labor, 40.
Rent, in part payment of wages, 21 :
Ricardo's theory of rent, 224, 225 ;
the term only used in this treatise
of sums paid tor land actually leased,
225, 226 ; rates of rent influenced
greatly by public opinion, 367-72 ;
rental of machines, 332-5
Report (House of Commons), Employ-
ment of women and children in agri-
culture, 20., 22, 24, 47, 52, 53, 72,
176n.; 201, 202, 382.; Friendly So-
cieties (1874), 403; Railway laborers
(1846), 176, 329 ; Poor Law Com-
missioners (1831), 3^2n.; (1832),
322w.; (1833), 57, 86??,.; (1842), 34, 37,
62, 64, 85 ; stoppage of wages, 1867 ;
Payment of Wages Bill (1854), 21rc.;
255re., 256?*., 329; to Local Govern-
ment Board (1873), 52, 69, 378n.
Respect and sympathy for labor, influ-
ential in determining wages, 362-72 ;
wanting in the case of women as la-
borers, 883, 384.
Retail trade, failure of competition
in, 311-5.
Returns of capital, the term how used
in this treatise, 225, 231, 232.
Revenue, certain classes of laborers
paid from the revenue of their em-
ployer, and not from profits, 9.
Ricardo, David, his theory of rent,
2:24n. ; definition of the banking func-
tion, 228.
Richard II. (England), industrial
legislation of his reign, 305, 307 ;
insurrection of the serfs, 390.
Rickards, Prof., the doctrine of Mai-
thus, 195.
Riesbach, Baron, habits respecting
dress of North and South Germans,
117.
Rogers, J. E. ThoroH, Political Econ*
omy, 66; increased productiveness
of English agriculture, 93ra. ; cheap
food undesirable, 121 ; effects of
fashion on manufacturing industry,
179n. ; popular tenure of the soil,
211 w. ; profits interest, 231w., 233 ;
co-operation defined, 267n. ; the
English law of pauper settlement,
308 ; competition in retail trade, 315;
frugality of Cumberland and West-
moreland peasantry, 347; rents in
England, 368 ; the condition of the
Irish peasantry before the famine,
370w. ; History of Agriculture anA
Prices in England, freedom of labor
movement, 13th to 15th century,
187w. ; peasantry divorced from the
soil, 222, 223 ; industrial legislation
following the Black Death, 304 ; wo-
men in trades, 379 ; the servile insur-
rection, 390 ; Cobdcn and Political
Opinion, the incidence of taxation,
316; rents in England influenced by
public opinion, 367; Notes to Adam
/Smith' 's Wealth of Nations, 317.
Rose, Edwin, superiority of English
labor, 43, 68.
Rumford, Count, Essays, 166n.
Russia, holidays in, 29; inefficiency
of labor, 43 ; irregularity in factory
attendance, 48n. ; feebleness of the
industrial desires of the peasantry,
127/1. ; mobility of the laboring
population, 180 ; peasant proprietor-
ship increasing, 209 ; savings banks
statistics, 350ra. ; absence of factory
legislation, 362; value of serf a
before emancipation, 373 ; women
in agriculture, 379w. ; strikes, 396 ;
" artels, "403.
Ryot tenancy, 9, 212.
Salary or stipend class, not wage-
laborers, 215, 247, 296?i.
Sanitary Commission of the U. S.,
/Statistical Memoirs, 51.
Savings banks statistics, 347, 349,
350.
Say, J. B.,166, 167w.
Scotland, payment of agricultural
wages in, 20 ; efficiency of labor, 47 ;
statistics of height, 50 ; former
indolence of the population, 76 ;
food habits of the people, 118,
I20n. ; speech differences among the
population affecting the mobility
of labor, 175n. ; proportion of bread-
winners to dependents, 191; tenure
of laud, 208 ; marriage statistics, 356,
881 rc. ; women in agriculture, 381 n.
Scott, H. B. M. Consul, expenditures
of different classes in Wurtcmburg,
I18n. ; women in manufacturing
industry, 383n.
428
INDEX.
Sedgwick, T., Political Economy, 5.
Senior, Nassau W., Political Economy.
4, 9ft., 43, 97, 104, 124n., 125*., 184,
185, 268/?.., 269/1. 356rc. ; Lectures on
^ Wag^s, 25, 26 ; Foreign Poor Laws.
323.
Settlement, English law of pauper,
Sexual restraint, influence on wages,
354-6.
Shaftesbury, Earl of, laborers' cot-
tages, 23.
Shares, laborers hired on, not properly
wage-laborers, 214.
Sickness, loss of time by, an element
in determining real wages, 28;
statistics of, 66 ; friendly societies
insuring against, 399, 402.
Simon, Jules, L'Otwridre, 380/i.
Sismondi, land the true savings bank,
348; public opinion influencing
rents in Italy, 3(38.
Slavery, the master's interest not
preventing abuse or neglect, 59.
Slave labor, always ineffective, 73, 74.
"Sliding Scale," in wages, 270,
Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations
(Rogers' edition), ineffectiveness of
slave labor, 73; wages the encour-
agement of industry, 80 ; habits of
various nations respecting clothing,
124?i. ; proportion of bread-winners
to dependents, 125/i. ; the immobility
of labor, 18o ; changes of occupation,
192 ; the salary or stipend class, 215,
316; the ordinary rate of profit,
268/1. ; combination of masters to
lower wages, 393.
Smith, Angus, carbonic acid gas in
mines, 37.
Smith, E. Peshine, Political Economy.
58, 141.
Smith, George, excessive labor of
children in brickyards, 52.
Social Science Transactions, 1864, 286 ;
1865, 37, 48; 1886, 23, 61 ; 1867, 55,
65, 122. ; 1808, 47 ; 1869, 38, 39 ;
1870,53,65; 1871, 274, 324; 1872,
24, 142.,25; 1874 202.
Southern States (U. S.), payment of
agricultural wages in, 20.
Spain, higgling in retail trade, 315/1 ;
absence of factory legislation,
362.
Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Biol-
ogy, 259rc.
Spender, Edward, cider truck in Eng-
land, 337.
Spinsters, proportional number in
England and Scotland, 381n.
Bpital fields, the condition of the pop-
ulation, 85
Btanhope, Edward, laborers' cottages,
22n.
Statistical Journal, rii., 350; rs.
184; xxii., 350; xxiii., 375; xxiv.,
20, 21, 30, 178, 186/1, 187n, WT.
359; xxv., 26/i., 33 n. ; xxvi. 122n. ;
xxvii., 33/i., 327; xxviii., 48, 72,
178, 185, 257, 353 ; xxx., 388.
" Statute of laborers," 305, 392.
Strachey, Mr., Germans easily adapting
themselves to the v/ays of other
peoples, 187/z.. ; cooperation in Den-
mark, 287, 2$9 ; restrictions on in-
dustry removed in Denmark, 309 ;
strikes, 396 ; trade clubs, 40*.
Strikes, loss of time by, 30 ; dura-
tion of, 31 ; cooperation would abol-
ish, 271 ; when strikes may be re-
garded as unsuccessful, 298/i."; strikes
against the labor of women, B7Sn. ;
the possible utility of strikes often
decided against, on grounds of the
wage fund, 385, 386 ; on the
ground that they always fail, 388,
is this conclusive ? 389 ; strikes are
the insurrections of labor ; may be
justified by ultimate results, 390-392 ;
legislation against strikes in Eng-
land, 393 ; in Europe, 395, 396.
Stuart, Consul, holidays in the Eastern
church, 29/i. ; lack of machinery
in Epirus, 67.
Subsistence, tends to increase more
slowly than population, 102-5; the
condition precedent of production,
132, 133.
Sweden, duration of the laboring
power in, 34, 35 ; marriage statistics
356, factory legislation, 362.
Swedes in the United States,
183.
Switzerland, efficiency of labor in,
45/i. ; industrial desires of the peas-
antry, 127/i. ; character of the em-
ploying class 259, 300 ; cooperation,
274, 283 ; savings banks statistics,
350 ; division of landed property
351, factory legislation, 361.
Sykes-, Col., the dwellings of Lanca-
shire, 61.
Sympathy, public, influential in de-
termining wages, 36:3-9 ; in deter-
mining rents, 369-73 ; wanting in
the case of women as laborers. 383,
384.
Talion and Maurice, Legislation snr le
Travail des Enfants, 361.
Taylor, H. B. M. Consul, Eastern mar-
rjage customs, 116.
Taylor, W. C., married women in
factories in England, 383n.
Taxation, under perfect competition,
is diffused equitably, 1 60 ; under im-
perfect competition the wages class
may be put at disad vantage by its
incidence, 315-18.
INDEX.
427
Thompson, Mr., superiority of English
labor, 69.
Thompson, J., Perronet, food habits
of the Irish and the English, USn.
Thornton, Over-Population, 25n.
On Labor, 50ra, 279 w, 293-5.
Tory Party, of England, influence in
favor of early marriages, 356??,.
Trades Unions, not to be condemned
simply because they are restrictive,
172 ; their economical nature, 396 ;
as friendly societies, 399.
["ruck-payments make it difficult to
compute real wages, 20 ; truck de-
fined and described, 824-7 ; English
legislation respecting, 327 ; reasons
for truck, 328, 329 ; profits of, 330,
331 ; abuses of, 831, 332 ; economical
nature of, 335-344; controlled by
public opinion, 367w.
Tuffnell, Carleton, inefficient labor not
wanted at any price, 49w.
Turkey, holidays in, 29; good work
not appreciated, 60 /i. ; marriage
customs, 116.
United States, difficulty of computing
real wages, 19 ; payment of agricul-
tural wages, 20 ; agricultural wages
prior to 1850, paid largely in kind,
21 ; duration of the laboring power,
34, 35; statistics of height and
weight, 51 ; food habits of the peo-
ple, 123, 124 ; ratio of breadwinners
to dependents, I2('m. ; wages paid
directly out of the product of labor,
135, l-!6 ; prevalence of the wage
fund doctrine explained, 140-42 ; in-
crease in the number of laborers
bringing increase of wages, 149 ;
Chinese in the United States, 176;
mobility of the laboring population,
180, 181; foreigners in the United
States, 181, 183 ; tenure of the land,
227 ; cooperation, 228 ; great ex-
tension of retail trading 1860-70,
313; savings banks statistics, 351,
352 ; early marriages, 355 ; great
irregularity in the distribution of
female industries, 375 ; women in
agriculture, 380n. ; women in manu-
factures, 382, 3S3.
Vauban, Marshal, loss of time by holi-
days, 29.
Veth'ake, H.. Political Economy, 141.
Victoria, industrial legislation of her
reign, 360.
Villermfi, M., statistics of height and
weight, 50, 51 ; excessive labor of
children, 167, 168.
Wages affected by the xchange of
di stributed for undistributed wealth,
6, 266 ; made by some economists to
include the remnncTation of five
classes of laborers, 10 ; nomi-
nal distinguished from real wages,
12 (chap, ii.); distinguished from
cost of labor, 40; measured by the
product of industry, chap. viii. ;
affected by causes which influence
the efficiency of labor, 145 ; by in-
ventions and improvements, 146,
147 ; large and sudden rise of, not
promotive of frugality, 235 ; laws
fixing wages, 304-6 ; wages of wo-
men, 372-384.
Wages-class, chap. xii. ; has either
the wages or the employing class an
advantage over the other ? chap,
xvi. ; how the wages class may be
put at disadvantage in competition
with employers, chap. xvii. ; what
may help them in competition, chap,
xviii. ; may any advantage be
given them through strikes or trades
unions ? chap. xix.
Wage-laborers less industrious than
those working on their own account,
75-7 ; less frugal, 271, 272.
Wage-fund, the doctrine of, chap,
ix. ; stated, 138-40 ; its prevalence
accounted for, 143 ; refuted, 144-50;
made use of by some economists to
settle the question of strikes, 385.
386.
Wales, payment of agricultural wages,
20n.
Welsh in the United States, 183.
Walker Amasa, Science of Wealth,
14174., 231/1.
Walsnam, Mr., employment of chil-
dren in factories in the Nether-
lands, 362.
Ward, J., Workmen and Wages,
T3n., 389??,., 395, 396, 402.
Waste, an element in all work, 48, 66;
encouraged by excessive profits, 257,
258.
Watts, John, loss of time by strikes,
30.
Water, impurity of, affecting the
efficiency of labor, 60, 65.
Wayland Francis, Political Economy,
141?*.
Wells, David A., Reports on U. S.
Revenue, 44., 45n.
Wheeler, Mr., Cotton Cultivation,
42??,., 67.
Whewell, Dr., the economic man, 175.
White, J. E. , steel dust in needle fac-
tories, 32 ; excessive labor of chil-
dren in factories, 53, 53, 201, 202.
Whitworth, Sir Jos., false economy of
employing cheap labor, 4ln. ; of
underfexding, 58?i. ; discipline an
element of efficiency, 98ra.
William IV., industrial legislation of
his reign, 322, 327, 328, 360.
423
INDEX.
Winthrop, Governor, History of New
England, 240, 241, 342.
Wolowski, M., restrictions on the
labor of children, 358%.
Women, irregularity in the employ-
ment of, in agriculture, 33 ; work
unstated to their sex, 52; their
wages inadequate to their service,
372, 373 ; have especial need to
move to the labor market, 375, 376 ;
but are peculiarly disabled therein,
376-8 ; by actual obstruction on the
part of men, 377, 378; by lack of
public sympathy and support, 379 ;
their ned tc enter the labor market
comparatively modern, 379-81 ; th
supposed necessity often not a real
one, 381 ; loss and waste in the
family by reason of the absence of
the wife and daughter, 382,
883.
Workhouse test for able-bodied pau-
pers, 370-4.
Wiirtemburg, expenditures of different
classes, HSn. ; married women in
factories, 383w.
Young, Arthur, Travels in Ireland, 43.
76, 183, 339, 368, 369, 380n. ; Travel*
in France, 75, 227.
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