I have thus far tried to show that the material condition of the workman is capable of improvement under present social conditions. I wish now to explain the causes which have contributed to its actual improvement since 1846. The most prominent of these causes has been Free Trade. In the first place, Free Trade has enormously increased the aggregate wealth of the country, and therefore increased the demand for labour; this is an indisputable fact. Secondly, it has created greater steadiness in trade,-a point which is often overlooked in discussions of the subject. Since 1846 workmen have been more regularly employed than in the preceding half-century. Free trade in wheat has, moreover, given us a more steady price of bread, a point of paramount importance to the labouring man; and this steadiness is continually becoming greater. From 1850 to 1860 the variation between the highest and lowest prices of wheat was 36s., between 1860 and 1870 it was 24s., and in the last decade it has been only 15s. And since the sum which the workman has spent on bread has become more and more constant, the amount which he has had left to spend on manufactured produce has also varied less, and its price in consequence has been steadier. But why then, it may be asked, the late great depression of trade since 1877? I believe the answer is, because other countries, to which we sell our goods, have been suffering from bad harvests, and have had less capacity for buying. The weavers in Lancashire have had to work less time and at lower wages because far-off nations have not been able to purchase cotton goods, and the depression in one industry has spread to other branches of trade.
The greater steadiness of wages which has been caused by Free Trade is seen even in trades where there has been no great rise. But besides the amount of the workman's wages per day we must take into consideration the number of days in the year and hours in the day, during which he works. He now finds employment on many more days (before 1846 artisans often worked only one or two days in the week), but each working day has fewer hours; so that his pay is at once steadier and more easily earned. And hence even where his daily wages have remained nearly the same, with more constant employment and with bread both cheap and fixed in price, his general position has improved.
What other agencies besides Free Trade have been at work to bring about this improvement? Factory legislation has raised the condition of women and children by imposing a limit on the hours of work, and especially the sanitary environment of the labourer; the factory laws seek to regulate the whole life of the workshop. Trades-Unions, again, have done much to avert social and industrial disorder, and have taught workmen, by organisation and self-help, to rely upon themselves. Herein lies the difference between the English and the Continental workman; the former, because he has been free from voluntary associations, does not look to the State or to revolutionary measures to better his position. For proof of this, it is enough to compare the parliamentary programme of the last Trades-Unions Congress with the proceedings of the international at Geneva. English Trades-Unions resort to a constitutional agitation which involves no danger to the State; indeed, as I have said, their action averts violent industrial dislocations. And beyond this, Trades-Unions have achieved some positive successes for the cause of labour. By means of their accumulated funds workmen have been able to hold out for better prices for their labour, and the Unions have further acted as provident societies by means of which their members can lay up sums against sickness or old age. The mischief and wastefulness of strikes is generally enough insisted on, but it is not as often remembered that the largest Unions have sanctioned the fewest strikes; the Amalgamated Engineers, who have 46,000 members, and branches in Canada and India, expended only six per cent. of their income on strikes from 1867 to 1877. The leaders of such a great Union are skilful, well-informed men, who know it to be in their interest to avoid strikes.
Lastly, we must not forget to mention the great Co-operative Societies, which in their modern shape date from the Rochdale Pioneers' Store, founded in 1844, under the inspiration of Robert Owen's teaching, though the details of his plan were therein abandoned. These, like Trades-Unions, have taught the power and merit of voluntary association and self-help. At present, however, they are only big shops for the sale of retail goods, through which the workman gets rid of the retail dealer, and shares himself in the profits of the business, by receiving at the end of each quarter a dividend on his purchases. Such stores, however useful in cheapening goods, and at the same time encouraging thrift, do not represent the ultimate object of co-operation. That object is to make the workman his own employer. Hitherto the movement has not been successful in establishing productive societies; the two great difficulties in the way being apparently the inability of a committee of workmen to manage a business well, and their unwillingness to pay sufficiently high wages for superintendence. The chief obstacles are thus moral, and to be found in the character of the workmen, and their want of education; but as their character and education improve, there is no reason why these difficulties should not vanish.
Such are the chief agencies to which we trace the improvement in the position of the labourer during the last forty years. At the beginning of this period Mill insisted on one thing as of paramount importance, namely restriction upon the increase of population, and without this he believed all improvement to be impossible. Yet we find that during this period the rate of increase has not slackened. It is nearly as great now as between 1831 and 1841. It was greater during the last decade than it had been since 1841. On the other hand, there has undoubtedly been an enormous emigration which has lightened the supply of labour. Three millions and a half of people have emigrated from Great Britain since 1846.
The question which now most deeply concerns us is, Will the same causes operate in the future? Will Free Trade continue to be beneficial? Will our wealth continue to increase and our trade to expand? On this point a decided prediction is of course impossible. Competition in neutral markets is becoming keener and keener, and we may be driven out of some of them, and thus the national aggregate of wealth be lessened. But, on the other hand, we have reason to believe that increased supplies of corn from America and Australia will give an enormous impetus to trade. As in the past so in the future corn is the commodity of most importance to the labourer; and if the supply of corn becomes more constant, trade will be steadier and wages will probably rise. Besides, cheap corn means that all over the world the purchasing power of consumers is increased, and this again will stimulate trade. So that in this respect the labourers' outlook is a hopeful one. As to emigration also, there is no reason to suppose that there will be any check on this relief to the labourer for the next fifty years at least. Again, there is every prospect of co-operation and even productive co-operation making great progress in the future, though I do not think that the latter is likely for some time to be an important factor in improving the status of the workmen. The moral obstacles to cooperative production which I mentioned will disappear but slowly. In certain directions, however, it is likely to develop; I mean in the direction of manufacturing for the great Wholesale Co-operative Societies, because here the market is secured. Trades-Unions too are likely to expand.
Turning to the moral condition of the workpeople, we find an improvement greater even than their material progress. When we see or read of what goes on in the streets of our great towns, we think badly enough of their morality; but those who have had most experience in manufacturing districts are of opinion that the moral advance, as manifested, for example, in temperance, in orderly behaviour, in personal appearance, in dress, has been very great. For the improvement in the inner life of workshops as early as 1834, take the evidence of Francis Place, a friend of James Mill, before a Committee of the House of Commons in that year. He told the Committee that, when he was a boy, he used to hear songs, such as he could not repeat, sung in respectable shops by respectable people; it was so no longer, and he was at a loss how to account for the change. Similar statements are made by workmen at the present day. Conversation, they say, is bad at times, but opinion is setting more and more against immoral talk. The number of subjects which interest workpeople is much greater than before, and the discussion of the newspaper is supplanting the old foul language of the workshop. We have here an indirect effect of the extension of the suffrage. Add to this the statistics of drunkenness. In 1855 there were nearly 20,000 persons convicted for drunkenness, in 1880 there were not many more than 11,000.
Again, the relations between workmen and employers are certainly much better. The old life, as described by Owen and Cobbett, of an apprentice in the workshop, or a boarded labourer in the farmhouse, is at first sight most attractive; and the facts told to the Commission of 1806 seem to realise the ideal life of industry. The relations between masters and workmen were then extremely close, but this close relationship had its bad side. There was often great brutality and gross vice. The workman was at his employer's mercy. In Norfolk the farmer used to horsewhip his labouring men, and his wife the women. There existed a state of feudal dependence, which, like all feudalism, had its dark and light sides. The close relationship was distinctly the result of the small system of industry, and hence it was shattered by the power-loom and the steam-engine. When huge factories were established there could no longer be a close tie between the master and his men; the workman hated his employer, and the employer looked on his workmen simply as hands. From 1800 to 1843 their mutual relations, as was admitted by both parties, were as bad as they could be. There could be no union, said employers, between classes whose interests were different, and farmers, contrary to ancient usage, ruthlessly turned off their men when work was slack. The 'cash nexus' had come in, to protest against which Carlyle wrote his Past and Present; but Carlyle was wrong in supposing that the old conditions of labour could be re-established. Feudalism, though it lingers in a few country places, has virtually disappeared alike in agriculture and in trade. The employer cannot offer and the workman cannot accept the old relations of protection and dependence: for, owing to the modern necessity of the constant movement of labour from place to place and from one employment to another, it has become impossible to form lasting relations, and the essence of the old system lay in the permanency of the workmen's engagements. Trades-Unions too have done much to sever what was left of the old ties. Workmen are now obliged, in self-defence, to act in bodies. In every workshop there are men who are attached to their masters, and who on occasion of a strike do not care to come out, but are yet compelled to do so in the common interest. Before this obligation was recognised by public opinion, the effect of Unions was, no doubt, to embitter the relations between masters and men. This was especially the case between 1840 and 1860.
Since the latter date, however, Trades-Unions have distinctly improved the relations between the two classes. Employers are beginning to recognise the necessity of them, and the advantages of being able to treat with a whole body of workmen through their most intelligent members. Boards of Conciliation, in which workmen and employers sit side by side, would be impossible without Unions to enforce obedience to their decisions. In the north of England, at the present moment, it is the non-unionists who are rejecting arbitration. And the reason why such Boards have succeeded is, because the employers have of their own accord abandoned all ideas of the feudal relation. They used to say that it would degrade them to sit at the same board with their workmen; but it is noticeable that directly the political independence of the latter was recognised, as soon as he possessed the franchise, these objections began to disappear. The new union of employers and workmen which is springing up in this way, is based on the independence of both as citizens of a free state. The employers meet their workmen also in political committees, on School Boards and similar bodies, and the two classes are learning to respect one another. Thus this new union bids fair to be stronger than the old one.
Still the question remains, Can this political independence of the workman be combined with secure material independence? Until this is done he will be always at the mercy of his employer, who may practically stultify his political power by influencing his vote, as Mr George asserts is done in New England. Among the many solutions of this problem proposed in our own country two deserve especial prominence. The first is that of the English Positivists. Comte, although he had but a glimpse of the English Trades-Unions, understood the meaning of them far better than Mill. Inspired by him, Mr Frederic Harrison and his friends deny the possibility of solving the labour question by co-operative production or any such schemes. They rely on a gradual change in the moral nature of capitalists; not that they expect the old system of feudal protection to return, but they hope that the 'captains of industry' of the future will rise to another conception of their position, will recognise the independence of the workman, and at the same time be willing to hand over to him an increased share of their joint produce. This belief may seem ridiculous, and we must expect for a long time yet to see capitalists still striving to obtain the highest possible profits. But observe, that the passion for wealth is certainly in some senses new. It grew up very rapidly at the beginning of the present century; it was not so strong in the last century, when men were much more content to lead a quiet easy life of leisure. The change has really influenced the relations between men; but in the future it is quite possible that the scramble for wealth may grow less intense, and a change in the opposite direction take place. The Comtists are right when they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral revolution as the Comtists hope for is not possible within a reasonable space of time.
I should have more hope of industrial Partnership as elaborately described by Mr Sedley Taylor. This also implies a certain change in the moral nature of the employers, but one not so great as the alternative system would require. It has been adopted in over a hundred Continental workshops, though the experiment of Messrs Briggs in England ended in failure. There is hope of its being more successful in the future, because by promoting the energy of the workmen and diminishing waste, it coincides with the interest of the employer. I think that in some industries it will extend, but that it will not be generally adopted.
There remains the ordinary Communist solution. This has taken various forms; the simplest being a voluntary association of individuals based on the principle of common property, and in which every person works for the community according to fixed rules. There are many successful instances of this, on a small scale, in the United States, but we cannot suppose such a solution to be possible for society as a whole. It has only been tried with picked materials, whereas our object is rather to improve the great mass of the population. The Communism of recent European theorists, of whom the best known is Lassalle, presents a somewhat different aspect. It aims at the appropriation of all instruments of production by the State, which is to take charge of the whole national industry and direct it. But the practical difficulty of such a scheme is obviously overwhelming. The objections to a Communistic solution do not apply to Socialism in a more modified shape. Historically speaking, Socialism has already shown itself in England in the extension of State interference. It has produced the Factory Laws, and it is now beginning to advance further and interfere directly in the division of produce between the workmen and their employers. The Employers' Liability Act recognises that workmen, even when associated in Trades-Unions, cannot without other aid secure full justice, and in the name of justice it has distinctly handed over to the workmen a certain portion of the employers' wealth. The extension of relative interference however, though it is to be expected in one or two directions, is not likely to be of much further importance. With regard to taxation, on the other hand, Socialist principles will probably attain a wide-reaching application, and here we shall see great changes.
The readjustment of taxation would enable the State to supply for the people many things which they cannot supply for themselves. Without assuming the charge of every kind of production, the State might take into its hands such businesses of vital importance as railways, or the supply of gas and water. And should not the State attempt in the future to grapple with such questions as the housing of the labourers? Municipalities might be empowered to buy ground and let it for building purposes below the full competition market value. I think that such a scheme is practicable without demoralising the people, and it would attack a problem which has hitherto baffled every form of private enterprise; for all the Societies put together, which have been formed in London with this object since 1842, have succeeded in housing only 60,000 persons. And this brings up the whole question of public expenditure for the people. A new form of association, which has become common of late years, is that of a certain number of private individuals combining to provide for some want of the public, such as Coffee Taverns, or Artisans' Dwellings, or cheap music. Such Societies are founded primarily with philanthropic objects, but they also aim at a fair interest on their capital. Might not municipalities seek in a similar way to provide for the poor? In discussing all such schemes, however, we must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man - for that has to a certain extent been attained already - but how to secure his complete material independence.
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