of wages on population, will arise among the labouring classes; and by what means such opinions and feelings can be called forth. Before considering the grounds of hope on this subject, a hope which many persons, no doubt, will be ready, without consideration, to pronounce chimerical, I will remark, that unless a satisfactory answer can be made to these two questions, the industrial system prevailing in this country, and regarded by many writers as the ne plus ultra of civilizationthe dependence of the whole labouring class of the community on the wages of hired labour-is irrevocably condemned. The question we are con If a with all the physical suffering and at least a full share of the privations) the whole of the intolerable domestic drudgery resulting from the excess. To be relieved from it would be hailed as a blessing by multitudes of women who now never venture to urge such a claim, but who would urge it, if supported by the moral feelings of the community. Among the barbarisms which law and morals have not yet ceased to sanction, the most disgusting surely is, that any human being should be permitted to consider himself as having a right to the person of another. If the opinion were once generally established among the labouring class that their welfare required a due regu-sidering is, whether, of this state of lation of the numbers of families, the things, over-population and a degraded respectable and well-conducted of the condition of the labouring class are body would conform to the prescrip- the inevitable consequence. tion, and only those would exempt prudent regulation of population be themselves from it, who were in the not reconcilable with the system of habit of making light of social obliga- hired labour, the system is a nuisance, tions generally; and there would be and the grand object of economical then an evident justification for con- statesmanship should be (by whatever verting the moral obligation against arrangements of property, and alterabringing children into the world who tions in the modes of applying industry), are a burthen to the community, into to bring the labouring people under the a legal one; just as in many other influence of stronger and more obvious cases of the progress of opinion, the inducements to this kind of prudence, law ends by enforcing against recal than the relation of workinen and citrant minorities, obligations which to employers can afford. be useful must be general, and which, from a sense of their utility, a large majority have voluntarily consented to take upon themselves. There would be no need, however, of legal sanctions, if women were admitted, as on all other grounds they have the clearest title to be, to the same rights of citizenship with men. Let them cease to be confined by custom to one physical function as their means of living and their source of influence, and they would have for the first time an equal voice with men in what concerns that function and of all the improvements in reserve for mankind which it is now possible to foresee, none might be expected to be so fertile as this in almost every kind of moral and social benefit. It remains to consider what chance there is that opinions and feelings, grounded on the law of the dependence But there exists no such incompatibility. The causes of poverty are not so obvious at first sight to a popu lation of hired labourers, as they are to one of proprietors, or as they would be to a socialist community. They are, however, in no way mysterious. The dependence of wages on the number of the competitors for employment, is so far from hard of comprehension, or unintelligible to the labouring classes, that by great bodies of them it is already recognised and habitually acted on. It is familiar to all Trades Unions; every successful combination to keep up wages, owes its success to contrivances for restricting the number of the competitors; all skilled trades are anxious to keep down their own num bers, and many impose, or endeavour to impose, as a condition upon employers, that they shall not take more than a prescribed number of appren 230 This is not the place for discussing, tices. There is, of course, a great even in the most general manner, difference between limiting their numbers by excluding other people, and either the principles or the machinery doing the same thing by a restraint of national education. But it is to be imposed on themselves: but the one hoped that opinion on the subject is as much as the other shows a clear advancing, and that an education of perception of the relation between mere words would not now be deemed their numbers and their remuneration. sufficient, slow as our progress is toThe principle is understood in its ap- wards providing anything better even plication to any one employment, but for the classes to whom society pronot to the general mass of employment. fesses to give the very best education it can devise. Without entering into For this there are several reasons: first, the operation of causes is more disputable points, it may be asserted without scruple, that the aim of all ineasily and distinctly seen in the more circumscribed field: secondly, skilled tellectual training for the mass of the artizans are a more intelligent class people, should be to cultivate common than ordinary manual labourers; and sense; to qualify them for forming a the habit of concert, and of passing in sound practical judgment of the circumstances by which they are surreview their general condition as a trade, keeps up a better understanding rounded. Whatever, in the intellectual of their collective interests: thirdly and department, can be superadded to lastly, they are the most provident, this, is chiefly ornamental; while this Let this because they are the best off, and have is the indispensable groundwork on What, how- which education must rest. the most to preserve. ever, is clearly perceived and admitted object be acknowledged and kept in in particular instances, it cannot be view as the thing to be first aimed at, hopeless to see understood and acknow- and there will be little difficulty in deledged as a general truth. Its recog-ciding either what to teach, or in what nition, at least in theory, seems thing which must necessarily and immediately come to pass, when the minds of the labouring classes become nal view of capable of taking any tion. Of their own aggregat them have this the great major either from until now been incapa the uncultivated state of their intelligence, or from poverty, which leaving them neither the fear of worse, nor the smallest hope of better, makes them careless of the consequences of their actions, and without thought for the future. a § 3. For the purpose therefore of altering the habits of the labouring people, there is need of a twofold action, directed simultaneously upon their intelligence and their poverty. An effective national education of the children of the labouring class, is the first thing needful: and, coincidently with this, a system of measures which shall (as the Revolution did in France) extinguish extreme poverty for one whole generation. manner to teach it. An education directed to diffuse good sense among the people, with such knowledge as would qualify them to judge of the tendencies of their actions, would be certain, even without any direct inculcation, to raise up a public opinion by which intemperance and improvidence of every kind would be held discreditable, and the improvidence which overstocks the labour market would be severely condemned, as an offence against the common weal. But though the sufficiency of such a state of opinion, supposing it formed, to keep the increase of population within proper limits, cannot, I think, be doubted; yet, for the forma tion of the opinion, it would not do to trust to education alone. Education is not compatible with extreme poverty. It is impossible effectually to teach an indigent population. And it is diffi cult to make those feel the value of comfort who have never enjoyed it, or those appreciate the wretchedness of a precarious subsistence, who have been made reckless by always living from hand to mouth. Individuals often struggle upwards into a condition of ease; but the utmost that can be expected from a whole people is to maintain themselves in it; and improvement in the habits and requirements of the mass of unskilled day-labourers will be difficult and tardy, unless means can be contrived of raising the entire body to a state of tolerable comfort, and maintaining them in it until a new generation grows up. Towards effecting this object there are two resources available, without wrong to any one, without any of the liabilities of mischief attendant on voluntary or legal charity, and not only without weakening, but on the contrary strengthening, every incentive to industry, and every motive to forethought. income of the country which is habitually ineffective for any purpose of benefit to the labouring class, would bear any draught which it could be necessary to make on it for the amount of emigration which is here in view. The second resource would be, to devote all common land, hereafter brought into cultivation, to raising a class of small proprietors. It has long enough been the practice to take these lands from public use, for the mere purpose of adding to the domains of the rich. It is time that what is left of them should be retained as an estate sacred to the benefit of the poor. The machinery for administering it already exists, having been created by the General Inclosure Act. What I would propose (though, I confess, with small hope of its being soon adopted) is, that in all future cases in which common § 4. The first is, a great national land is permitted to be enclosed, such measure of colonization. I mean, a portion should first be sold or assigned grant of public money, sufficient to as is suflicient to compensate the remove at once, and establish in the owners of manorial or common rights, colonies, a considerable fraction of the and that the remainder should be youthful agricultural population. By divided into sections of five acres or giving the preference, as Mr. Wake- thereabouts, to be conferred in absofield proposes, to young couples, or lute property on individuals of the when these cannot be obtained, to labouring class who would reclaim and families with children nearly grown bring them into cultivation by their up, the expenditure would be made to own labour. preference should go the farthest possible towards accom- be given to abourers, and there plishing the end, while the colonies are many of as had saved enough would be supplied with the greatest to maintain the until their first crop amount of what is there in deficiency was got in, or whose character was and here in superfluity, present and such as to induce some responsible prospective labour. It has been shown person to advance to them the requisite by others, and the grounds of the opi- amount on their personal security. nion will be exhibited in a subsequent The tools, the manure, and in some part of the present work, that coloni- cases the subsistence also, might be zation on an adequate scale might be supplied by the parish, or by the state; so conducted as to cost the country interest for the advance, at the rate nothing, or nothing that would not yielded by the public funds, being laid be certainly repaid; and that the funds on as a perpetual quit-rent, with power required, even by way of advance, to the peasant to redeem it at any time would not be drawn from the capital for a moderate number of years puremployed in maintaining labour, but chase. These little landed estates from that surplus which cannot find might, if it were thought necessary, be employment at such profit as consti- made indivisible by law; though, if the tutes an adequate remuneration for plan worked in the manner designed, the abstinence of the possessor, and I should not apprehend any objectionwhich is therefore sent abroad for in-able degree of subdivision. In case of vestment, or wasted at home in reck-intestacy, and in default of amicablo less speculations. That portion of the arrangement among the heirs, they might be bought by government at their value, and regranted to some other labourer who could give security for the price. The desire to possess one of these small properties would probably become, as on the Continent, an inducement to prudence and economy pervading the whole labouring population; and that great desideratum among a people of hired labourers would be provided, an intermediate class between them and their employers; affording them the double advantage, of an object for their hopes, and, as there would be good reason to anticipate, an example for their imitation. It would, however, be of little avail that either or both of these measures of relief should be adopted, unless on such a scale, as would enable the whole body of hired labourers remaining on the soil to obtain not merely employment, but a large addition to the present wages-such an addition as would enable them to live and bring up their children in a degree of comfort and independence to which they have hitherto been strangers. When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people, small means do not merely produce small effects, they produce no effect at all. Unless comfort can be made as habitual to a whole generation as indigence is now, nothing is accomplished; and feeble half-measures do but fritter away resources, far better reserved until the improvement of public opinion and of education shall raise up politicians who will not think that merely because a scheme promises much, the part of statesmanship is to have nothing to do with it. I have left the preceding paragraphs as they were written, since they remain true in principle, though it is no longer urgent to apply their specific recommendations to the present state of this country. The extraordinary cheapening of the means of transport, which is one of the great scientific achievements of the age, and the knowledge which nearly all classes of the people have now acquired, or are in the way of acquiring, of the condition of the labour market in remote parts of the world, have opened up a spontaneous emigration from these islands to the new countries beyond the ocean, which does not tend to diminish, but to increase; and which, without any national measure of systematic colonization, may prove sufficient to effect a material rise of wages in Great Britain, as it has already done in Ireland, and to maintain that rise unimpaired for one or more generations. Emigration, instead of an occasional vent, is becoming a steady outlet for superfluous numbers; and this new fact in modern history, together with the flush of prosperity occasioned by free trade, have granted to this overcrowded country a temporary breathing time, capable of being employed in accomplishing those moral and intellectual improvements in all classes of the people, the very poorest included, which would render improbable any relapse into the overpeopled state. Whether this golden opportunity will be properly used, depends on the wisdom of our councils; and whatever depends on that, is always in a high degree precarious. The grounds of hope are, that there has been no time in our history when mental progress has depended so little on governments, and so much on the general disposition of the people; none in which the spirit of improvement has extended to so many branches of human affairs at once, nor in which all kinds of sugges tions tending to the public good, in every department, from the humblest physical to the highest moral or intellectual, were heard with so little prejudice, and had so good a chance of becoming known and being fairly con sidered. H CHAPTER XIV. OF THE DIFFERENCES OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS, 1. Is treating of wages, we have hitherto confined ourselves to the causes which operate on them generally, and en masse; the laws which govern the remuneration of ordinary or average labour: without reference to the existence of different kinds of work which are habitually paid at different rates, depending in some degree on different laws. We will now take into consideration these differences, and examine in what manner they affect or are affected by the conclusions already established. A well-known and very popular chapter of Adam Smith contains the best exposition yet given of this portion of the subject. I cannot indeed think his treatment so complete and exhaustive as it has sometimes been considered; but as far as it goes, his analysis is tolerably successful. hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonourableness of the employment. Thus, in most places, take the year round, a journeyman tailor earns less than a journeyman weaver. His work in much easier." Things have much altered, as to a weaver's remuneration, since Adam Smith's time; and the artizan whose work was more difficult than that of a tailor, can never, I think, have been the common weaver. "A journeyman weaver earns less than a journeyman smith. His work is not always easier, but it is much cleanlier." A more probable explanation is, that it requires less bodily strength. "A journeyman blacksmith, though an artificer, seldom earns so much in twelve hours as a collier, who is only a labourer, does in eight. His work is not quite so dirty, is less The differences, he says, arise partly dangerous, and is carried on in dayfrom the policy of Europe, which no light, and above ground. Honour where leaves things at perfect liberty, makes a great part of the reward of and partly "from certain circumstances all honourable professions. In point in the employments themselves, which of pecuniary gain, all things consieither really, or at least in the imagi- dered," their recompense is, in his opinations of men, make up for a small nion, below the average. "Disgrace pecuniary gain in some, and counter- has the contrary effect. The trade of balance a great one in others." These a butcher is a brutal and an odious circumstances he considers to be business; but it is in most places more First, the agreeableness or disagree-profitable than the greater part of ableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great. trust which must be reposed in those who exercise, them; and fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them." Several of these points he has very copiously illustrated: though his examples are sometimes drawn from a state of facts now no longer existing. "The wages of labour vary with the ease or Wealth of Nations, book i. ch. 10. common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever." One of the causes which make hand-loom weavers cling to their occupation in spite of the scanty remuneration which it now yields, is said to be a peculiar attractiveness, arising from the freedom of action which it allows to the workman. "He can play or idle," says a recent authority, "as feeling or inclination lead him; rise * Mr. Muggeridge's Report to the Handloom Weavers Inquiry Commission. |