moveable propertyimmoveable.In 1835, of552mill. francs and984mill.In 1853, of820"1,176"In 1860, of1,179"1,545"
so that the preponderance of immoveable property constituted a converging series of 78, 43, and 31 per cent. (Parieu.) In North America, with its great unoccupied territory, the reverse is the case. The census of 1850 gave a moveable property of 36 per cent.; that of 1860 of only 30 per cent. According toDubost, the rent of land in Algeria was 80 per cent., a gross product of only 10-15 francs perhectare; in Corsica, 66 per cent., a gross yield of from 30-35 per cent.; in the Department du Nord, 17.5-24 per cent., a gross yield of from 500-740 francs. (Journal des Economistes, Juin, 1870, 336 ff.)
[157-4]The repeated sifting of the bran (mouture économique) had great influence in this respect. In France, in the sixteenth century, asetierof wheat gave only 144 pounds of bread. In 1767, according toMalouin, L'Art du Bonlanger, it gave 192 pounds. It now gives from 223 to 240 pounds. The gain in barley is still greater; thesetiergives 115 pounds of flour, formerly only 58. (Roquefort, Histoire de la Vie Privée des Français, I, 72 ff.Beckmann, Beitr. zur Gesch. der Erfind., II, 54.)
[157-5]In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the counties in the neighborhood of London addressed a petition to Parliament against the extension of the building of turnpike roads which caused their rents to decline, from the competition of distant districts. (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nat., I, ch. 11, 1.) CompareSir J. Stewart, Principles, I, ch. 10. Improvements in transportation which affect the longest and shortest roads to a market in an absolutely equal degree, as, for instance, the bridging of a river very near the market, leave rent unaffected. (von Mangoldt, V. W. L., 480.)
[157-6]Malthus, Principles, 231 ff. If the laboring class were to become satisfied with living on potatoes instead of meat and bread as hitherto, rents would immediately and greatly fall, since the necessities of the people might then be obtained from a much smaller superficies. But after a time, the consequent increase in population might lead to a much higher rent than before; since a great deal of land too unfertile for the cultivation of corn might be sown with potatoes, and thus the limits of cultivation be reached much later.
[157-7]In France, between 1797 and 1847, the average price of wheat did not rise at all.Hipp. Passymentions pieces of land which produced scarcely 12 hectolitres of wheat, but which now produce 20—an increased yield of 170 francs, attended by an increase in the cost of only 75 francs. (Journal des Economistes, 15 Oct., 1848.) Moreover, it may be that a not unimportant part of modern rises in the price of corn may be accounted for by the better quality of the corn caused by higher farming. (Inama Sternbeg, Gesch. der Preise, 10 seq.) Such facts, readily explainable byRicardo'stheory, remove the objection ofCarey,Banfieldand others, that the condition of the classes who own no land has, since the middle ages, unquestionably improved. Political Economy would be simply a theory of human degradation and impoverishment, if the law of rent was not counteracted by opposing causes. (Rœsler, Grundsätze, 210.) According toBerens, Krit. Dogmengeschichte, 213, the actual highness of rent is to be accounted for by the antagonism between the "soil-law (Bodengesetz) of the limited power of vegetation," and the "progress of civilization" (but surely only to the extent that the latter improves the art of agriculture). Thus, too,John Stuart Mill, Principles, I, ch. 12; II, ch. 11, 15 seq.; III, ch. 4 seq.; IV, ch. 2 ff.
[157-8]Thus, for instance, drainage works which, where properly directed, have paid an interest of from 25 to 70 per cent. per annum in England and Belgium on the capital invested.
SECTION CLVIII.
HISTORY OF RENT.—IN PERIODS OF DECLINE.
If a nation's economy be declining, in consequence of war for instance, the disastrous influence hereof on rent may be retarded by a still greater fall in wages or in the profit on capital. But it can be hardly retarded beyond a certain point.[158-1]As a rule, the decline of rents begins to be felt by the least fertile and least advantageously situated land.[158-2][158-3]
[158-1]"The falling of rents an infallible sign of the decay of wealth." (Locke.) In England, in 1450, land was bought at "14 years' purchase;" i. e., with a capital = 14 times the yearly rent paid, in 1470, at only "10 years' purchase." (Eden, State of the Poor, III, App., I, XXXV.) This was, doubtless, a consequence of the civil war raging in the meantime. The American war (1775-82) depressed the price of land in England to "23¼ years' purchase," whereas it had previously stood at 32. (A. Young.) The rent of land, in many places in France, declined from 10,000 to 2,000 livres, on account of the many wars during Louis XIV.'s reign. (Madame de Sévigné'sLettres, 25 Dec, 1689.) Even in 1677, it was only one-half of its former amount (King, Life of Locke, I, 129.) The whole Bekes county (comitat) in Hungary was sold for 150,000 florins under Charles VI.; after the unfortunate war with France. (Mailath, Oesterreich, Gesch., IV, 523.) CompareCantillon, Nature du Commerce, 248. In Cologne, a new house was sold in the spring of 1848 for 1,000 thalers, the site of which alone had cost 3,000 thalers; and there are six building lots which formerly cost over 3,000 thalers, now valued at only 100 thalers. (von Reden, Statist. Zeitschr., 1848, 366.) On the other hand, Napoleon's war very much enhanced English rents (Porter, Progress of the Nation, II, 1, 150 ff.), because it affected England's national husbandry principally by hindering the importation of the means of subsistence. (Passy, Journal des Economistes, X, 354.)
[158-2]Thus the price of lands, in Mecklenburg, between 1817 and 1827, fell 30 to 40 per cent. in the least fertile quarters; in the better, from 15 to 20 per cent. (von Thünen, inJacob, Tracts relating to the Corn Trade, 40, 187.)Per contra, see Hundeshagen Landwirthsch. Gewerbelehre, 1839, 64 seq., andCarey, Principles, I, 354.
[158-3]The average rent in England was, in 1815, 17s. 3d. In the counties, it was highest in Middlesex, 38s. 9d.; in Rutland, 38s. 2d.; Leicester, 27s. 3d.; lowest in Westmoreland, 9s. 1d. In Wales, the average was 7s. 10d.; highest in Anglesea, 19s.; lowest in Merioneth, 4s. 8d. In Scotland the average was 5s. 1½d.; highest, Midlothian, 24s. 6½d.; lowest, Highland Caithness, Cromarthy, Inverness and Rosse, from 1s. 1d. to 1s. 5d.; Orkneys, 8½d.; Sutherland, 6d.; Shetlands, 3d. In Ireland, the average was 12s. 9d.; highest in Dublin, 20s. 1½d.; lowest, Donegal, 6s. (McCulloch, Stat., I, 544 ff.; Yearbook of general Information, 1843, 193.) In France,Chaptal, De l'Industrie Fr., 1819, I, 209 ff., estimates the average yield perhectareat 28 francs; in the Department of the Seine, 216; Nord, 69.56; Lower Seine, 67.85; in the upper Alps, 6.2; in the lower Alps, 5.99: in the Landes, 6.25. While in the Landes, only 20 francs ahectareare frequently paid, the purchase price in the neighboring Medoc is sometimes 25,000 francs. (Journal des Economistes, Jan. 15, 1851.) In Belgium, the average price of agricultural land is 52.46; in East Flanders, 53.19; in Namur, 29.24. (Heuschling, Statistique, 77.)
SECTION CLIX.
HISTORY OF RENT.—RENT AND THE GENERAL GOOD.
We so frequently hear rent called the result of the monopoly[159-1]of land, and an undeserved tribute paid by the whole people to landowners, that it is high time we should call attention to the common advantage it is to all. There is evidently danger that, with the rapid growth of population, themass of mankind should yield to the temptation of gradually confining themselves to the satisfaction of coarse, palpable wants; that all refined leisure, which makes life and the troubles that attend it worth enduring, and which is the indispensable foundation of all permanent progress and all higher activity, should be gradually surrendered. (See § 145.) Here rent constitutes a species of reserve fund, which grows greater in proportion as these dangers impend by reason of the decline of wages and of the profit of capital, or interest.[159-2]Besides, precisely in times when rent is high, the sale and divisibility of landed estates act as a beneficent reaction against the monopoly of land, which is always akin to the condition of things created by rent.
But it is of immeasurably greater importance that high rents deter the people from abusing the soil in an anti-economic way; that they compel men to settle about the centers of commerce, to improve the means of transportation, and under certain circumstances to engage in the work of colonization; while, otherwise, idleness would soon reconcile itself to the heaping together of large swarms of men.[159-3]The anticipation of rent may render possible the construction of railroads, which enable the land to yield that very anticipated rent.
[159-1]"Rent is a tax levied by the landowners as monopolists." (Hopkins, Great Britain for the last forty Years, 1834.) For a very remarkable armed and successful resistance of farmers in the state of New York to the claims for rent of the Rensselaer family, represented by the government, seeWappäusNord Amerika, 734.
[159-2]Malthus, Additions to the Essay on Population, 1817, III, ch. 10; compare alsoVerri, Meditazioni, XXIV, 3. The Physiocrates call the landownersclasse disponible, since, as they may live without labor, they are best adapted to military service, the civil service, etc., either in person or by defraying the expenses of those engaged in them. (Turgot, Sur la Formation etc., § 15; Questions sur la Chine, 5.)
[159-3]Well discussed bySchäffle, Theorie, 65, 72, 83.Malthusconsiders the capital and labor expended in agriculture more productive than any other, because they produce not only the usual interest and wages, but also rent. If, therefore, the manufacturing and commercial profit of a country = 12 per cent., and the profit of capital employed in agriculture = 10 per cent., a corn law which compelled the capital engaged in manufactures and commerce to be devoted to agriculture would be productive of advantage to the national husbandry in general, if the increase in rent should amount to about 3 per cent. (On the Effects of the Corn Laws and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and the general Wealth of the Country, 1815. The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn, 1815.) Comparesupra, § 55, and the detailed rectification inRoscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, etc., § 159 ff.
SECTION CLX.
THE PRICE OF COMMON LABOR.
Like the price of every commodity, the immediate wages of common labor is determined by the relation of the demand and supply of labor. Other circumstances being the same, every great plague[160-1]or emigration[160-2]is wont, by decreasing the supply, to increase the wage's of labor; and a plague, the wages of the lowest kind of labor most.[160-3]And so, the increaseddemand, in harvest time, is wont to increase wages; and even day board during harvest time is wont to be better.[160-4][160-5]In winter the diminished demand lowers wages again.[160-6]Among the most effective tricks of socialistic sophistry is, unfortunately, to caricature the correct principle: "labor is a commodity," into this other: "the laborer is a commodity."
Moreover, common labor has this peculiarity, that those who have it to supply are generally much more numerous than those who want it; while the reverse is the case with most other commodities. Another important peculiarity of the "commodity" labor, is, that it can seldom be bought, without at the same time reducing the person of the seller to a species of dependence. Thus, for instance, the seller cannotbe in a place different from that in which his commodity is. Hence a change in the person, etc. of the buyer very readily necessitates in the workman a radical change of life, and that the levelling adjustment of local excess and want is rendered so difficult in the case of this commodity.[160-7]Hence, it is that, if in the long run the exchange of labor against wages is to be an equitable one (§ 110), the master of labor must, so to speak, incorporate part of his own personality into it, have a heart for faithful workmen and thus attach them to himself.[160-8]
[160-1]High rate of Italian wages after the plague in 1348, but also many complaints of the indolence and dissoluteness of workmen. (M. Villani, I, 2 ff., 57 seq.Sismondi, Gesch. der ital. Republiken in Mittelalter, VI, 39.) In England, the same plague increased the wages of threshers from an average of 1.7 d. in 1348, to 3.3 d. in 1349. Mowers received, during the 90 years previous, 1/12 of a quarter of wheat per acre; in 1371-1390, from 1/7 to 1/6. The price of most of their wants was then from 1/8 to 1/12 as high as inA. Young'stime, and wages ¼ as high. (Rogers, I, 306, 271, 691.) The great earthquake in Calabria, in 1783, produced similar effects. (Galanti, N. Beschreiburg von Neapel, I, 450.) CompareJesaias, 13, 12. On the other hand, depopulation caused by unfortunate wars is not very favorable to the rate of wages; instance, Prussia in 1453 ff., after the Polish struggle, and Germany, after the Thirty Years' War.
[160-2]How much it contributes to raise wages that workmen can, in a credible way, threaten to move to other places, is illustrated by the early high wages and personal freedom of sailors. CompareEden, State of the Poor, I, 36. In consequence of the recent great emigration from Ireland, the weekly wages of farm hands in that country was 57.4 per cent. higher than in 1843-4. In Connaught, where the emigration was largest, it was 87 per cent. higher. (London Statist. Journ., 1862, 454.)
[160-3]CompareRogers, I, 276, andpassim.
[160-4]And this in proportion as the uncertainty of the weather causes haste. In England, the harvest doubles wages. (Eden.) In East Friesland, it raises it from 8-10 ggr. to 2 thalers sometimes (Steltzner); in the steppes of southern Russia, from 12-15, to frequently 40-50kopeks. This explains why the country people who come into the weekly market are anxious, during harvest time, to get rid of their stocks as fast as possible. According to the Statist. Journal, 1862, 434, 448, the average wages in harvest and other times, amounted to:
In harvest time.Other times.In Scotlandformales,18s.7d.12s.11½d.""females,11s.4d.5s.7d.In Ireland"males,12s.9d.6s.11½d.""females,8s.3d.3s.9d.""males,15s.4d.7s.1¼d.""females,7s.1¾d.3s.11d.
The reason why the wages of females rises more in harvest time than the wages of males may be the same that in many places in Ireland has made emigration more largely increase the wages of women. (l. c., 454.) Every excess of workmen depresses, and every scarcity of workmen enhances the wages of the lowest strata relatively most.
[160-5]The wages of English sailors was usually 40-50 shillings a month. During the last naval war, it rose to from 100 to 120, on account of the great demand created by the English fleet. (McCulloch, On Taxation, 40.)
[160-6]The winter wages of German agricultural laborers varies between 6.1 and 20 silver groschens; summer wages between 7.9 and 27.5 silver groschens.Emminghaus, Allg. Gewerbelehre, 81, therefore, advises that in winter the meal time of workmen in the fields should be postponed to the end of the day, and winter wages then made less low than at present.
[160-7]W. Thornton, On Labour, its wrongful Claims and rightful Dues, its actual, Present and possible Future, 1869, II, ch. 1.Harrison, Fortnightly Review, III, 50.
[160-8]Just as the husband binds himself in marriage. While in concubinage there is apparent equality, it costs the woman a much greater sacrifice than the man.
SECTION CLXI.
WAGES OF LABOR.—THE MINIMUM OF WAGES.
Human labor cannot, any more than any other commodity, be supplied, in the long run, at a price below the cost of production.[161-1][161-2]The cost of production here embraces not only the necessary or customary means of subsistence of the workman himself, but also of his family; that is, of the coming generation of workmen. The number of the latter depends essentially on the demand for labor. If this demand be such that it may be satisfied by an average of six children to a family, the rate of wages must be such as to support the workman himself and to cover the cost of bringing up six children.[161-3]Where it iscustomary for the wife and child, as well as for the father, to work for wages, the father does not need to earn the entire support of the family, and hence individual wages may be smaller.[161-4]But if it were to fall below the cost mentioned above, it would not be long before increased mortality and emigration, and a diminution of marriages and births would produce a diminution of the supply; the result of which would be, if the demand remained the same, a renewed rise of wages.
Conversely, it would be more difficult for the rate of wages to be maintained long much above that same cost, in proportion as the gratification of the sexual appetite was more generally considered the highest pleasure of sense, and the love of parentsfor their children as the most natural human duty. As Adam Smith says, where there is a great demand for men, there will always be a large supply of them.[161-5]
[161-1]CompareEngel'sbeautiful lecture on the cost of labor to itself (Selbstkosten=self-cost), Berlin, 1866.
[161-2]Wolkoffzealously and rightly argues, that the minimum wages is not thetaux naturelof wages. (Lectures, 118 ff., 284.)von Thünenalso divides wages into two component parts—that which the workman must lay out in his support in order to continue able to work, and that which he receives for his actual exertion. (Isolirter Staat., II, 1, 92 seq.)
[161-3]Gasparindistinguishes five periods in the career of a workman generally: a, he is supported by his parents; b, he supports himself and is in a condition to save something; c, he marries, and supports his children with trouble; d, the children are able to work, and the father lives more comfortably; e, his strength and resources decline. (Villermé, Tableau de l'État physique et moral des Ouvriers, 1840, II, 387.)
[161-4]Cantillon, Nature du Commerce, etc., 1755, is of opinion that a day laborer, to bring up two children until they are grown, needs about as much as he does for his own support; and that his wife may, as a rule, support herself by her own work. (42 ff.) In Germany, it is estimated that, in the case of day laborers, a woman can earn only from 1/3 to ½ of what her husband does; mainly because she is so frequently incapacitated for work by pregnancy, nursing, etc. (Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 190.) In France, in 1832, a man working in the fields earned, on an average, 1¼ francs a day, the wife ¾ of a franc (200 days to the year), the three children 38/100 francs (250 days to the year), an aggregate of 650 francs per annum. (Morogues.) In England, the average amount earned in the country was for males, per annum, £27 17s.; (munications[TN 6]relative to the Support and Maintenance of the Poor, 1834, p. LXXXVIII.) The wife of an English field hand, without children, earns 1/3 more than one with children. In the case of mothers, a difference of fewer or more children is unnoticeable in the effects on wages. (London Statist. Journal, 1838, 182.) In the spinning factories in Manchester, in 1834, children between 9 and 10 years of age were paid, weekly, from 2s. 9d. to 2s. 10d.; between 10 and 12, from 3s. 6d. to 3s. 7d.; between 12 and 14, from 5s. 8d. to 5s. 9d.; between 14 and 16, from 7s. 5d. to 7s. 6d. (Report of the Poor Commissioners, 204.) Those manufactures which require great physical strength, like carpet and sail-cloth weaving, and those carried on in the open air and in all kinds of weather, allow of no such family competition and debasement of wages. (Seniorin the Report of the parliamentary Committee on Hand Weavers, 1841.)
[161-5]Similarly,J. Möser, Patriot. Phant., I, 40.Adam Smithinfers from the following symptoms in a country that wages are higher there than the indispensable minimum, viz.: if wages in summer are higher than in winter, since it is seldom that enough is saved in summer to satisfy the more numerous wants of winter; if wages vary less from year to year and more from place to place than the means of subsistence, it they are high even where the means of subsistence are cheapest. (Wealth of Nat., I, ch. 8.)
SECTION CLXII.[TN 7]
COST OF PRODUCTION OF LABOR.
The idea conveyed by the expression necessaries of life is, within certain limits, a relative one. In warm countries, a workman's family needs less clothing, shelter, fuel and even food[162-1]than in cold countries. This difference becomes still more striking when the warm countries possess absolutely cheaper food as, for instance, rice, Turkish wheat, bananas etc. Here, evidently, other circumstances being the same, the rate of wages may be lower.[162-2]The cultivation of the potato has operated in the same direction; since an acre of land planted with potatoes yields, on an average, twice as much food as the same acre planted with rye.[162-3]In France, two-thirdsof the population lived almost without animal food, on chestnuts, Indian corn, and potatoes (Dupin), while in England, malt, hops, sugar, brandy, tea, coffee, tobacco, soap, newspapers, etc. are described as "articles chiefly used by the laboring classes." (Carey.)
The standard of decency of the working class also has great influence here. The use of blouses in Paris has nothing repulsive, nor that of wooden shoes in many of the provinces of France, nor the absence of shoes in lower Italy; while the English workman considers leather shoes indispensable, as he did only a short time ago a cloth coat. Compareinfra, § 214.[162-4]
[162-1]Explained sinceLiebig'stime by the fact that a part of food is consumed to preserve animal heat: means of respiration in contradistinction to means of nutrition. Recent research has shown that in cold weather more urea and also more carbonic acid are given off; hence the means of supplying this deficit should be greater in cold weather than in warm. This more rapid transformation is wont, when nutrition is sufficient, to be accompanied by more energetic activity. (Moleschott, Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, 1850, 47, 50, 83.)
[162-2]This is opposed in part by the fact that a hot climate induces indolence, and that therefore he needs a greater incentive to overcome his disposition to idleness. Thus, in the cooler parts of Mexico, the rate of wages was 26 sous a day, in the warmer, 32 sous. (Humboldt, N. Espagne, III, 103.)
[162-3]According toEngel, Jahrbuch für Sachsen, I, 419, on acres similarly situated and under similar conditions, the lowest yielded:
OfWatery contentsincluded.Watery contentsexcluded.wheat,1,881 lbs.1,680 lbs.rye,1,549 lbs.1,404 lbs.pease,1,217 lbs.1,095 lbs.potatoes,21,029 lbs.5,257 lbs.
The dry substance of these products yielded:
AzotizedSubstance.Fecula.MineralMatterWheat,282 lbs.879 lbs.49 lbs.Rye,243 lbs.661 lbs.34 lbs.Pease,309 lbs.431 lbs.33 lbs.Potatoes,525 lbs.3,785 lbs.178 lbs.
In Saxony, from 1838 to 1852, the average prices stood as follows:
Of Rye.Of Wheat.Of Potatoes.One lb. of dry substance,11.28.95One lb. of protein substance,11.111.78One lb. of fecula,11.140.72
(loc. cit.) The high price of protein in wheat depends probably on the more agreeable appearance and pleasanter taste of wheat flour; the still higher price of potato protein on the exceedingly easy mode of its preparation.
[162-4]As regards food alone, the cost of the support of a plowman on Count Podewil's estate, reduced byRau, Lehrbuch, § 191, to the unit of rye, is annually 1,655 lbs. of rye. According toKoppe, it is 1,952 lbs.; toBlock, 2,300 lbs.; toKleemann, from 1,888 to 2,552 lbs.; toMöllenger, 2,171 lbs. The first three estimate the cost in meat at 78, 160 and 60 pounds. CompareBlock, Beitr. Z. Landgüterschätzungskunde, 1840, 6. Exhaustive estimates for all Prussian governmental districts invon Reden, Preussische Erwerbs, und Verkehrsstatistik, 1853, I, 177 ff., according to which the requirement, per family, varies between 71 thalers in Gumbinnen and 204 thalers in Coblenz, the average being 105 thalers. According to more recent accounts, a laborer's family in East Prussia, gangmen not included, get along very well on 177 thalers per annum. (von der Goltz, Ländl. Arbeiterfrage, 1872, 9 ff.) In Mecklenburg, omittingHofgänger, on 183 thalers. (Ann. des. patr. Vereins, 1865, No. 26.)
The necessary outlay of the family of an agricultural day laborer in England, in 1762, was estimated as follows: for bread and flour, £6 10s. per annum; for vegetables and fruit, £1 1-2/3s.; for fuel, light and soap, 2-9-5/6s.; for milk, butter and cheese, £1 1-6-5/6s.; for meat, £1 6s.; for house-rent, 1-6s.; for clothing, bedding, etc., 2-16-1/3s.; for salt, beer and colonial wares, 1-16-5/6s.; for medicine, expenses attending confinement of wife, etc., 1-6½s. (J. Wade, History of the middle and working Classes, 1853, 545.) Concerning 1796, compareSir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, I, 660, 1823;Lowe, on the present Condition of England. Compare on the receipts and expenses of ten working families in and about Mühlhausen, the tables in the Journal des Economistes, October, 1861, 50; and furtherDucpétiaux, Budgets économiques des Classes ouvrières en Belgique, 1855. According toPlayfairinKnop, Agriculturchemie, I, 810, ff., different classes of grown men need daily food.
Grammes.1.2.3.4.5.Plastic material,56.7070.87119.07155.92184.27Fat,14.7028.3551.0370.8770.87Starch,340.20340.20530.15567.00567.00
Here 1 stands for a convalescent who can bear only enough to preserve life; 2, the condition of rest; 3, moderate motion of from 5 to 6 English miles' walk daily; 4, severe labor = a walk of 20 English miles daily; 5, very severe labor = to a day's walk of 14 English miles, with a load weighing 60 lbs. If the fat be given in terms of starch, the aggregate need of both substances in the case of 1 is 6.6 times as great as the need of plastic substance; in the case of 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively 5.7, 5.2, 4.8 and 4.0 times as much.
A Dutch soldier doing garrison duty receives daily, in times of peace, 0.333 kilogrammes of wheat flour, 0.125 of meat, 0.850 of potatoes, 0.250 of vegetables, containing in the aggregate 60 grammes of albumen. In forts, where the service is more severe, he receives 0.50 kilogrammes of wheat flour, 0.06 of rice or groats, with an aggregate amount of 116 grammes of albumen. (Mulder, Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeiste, übersetztvon Molecshott, 1847, 58 seq.) According to the researches of Dr. Smith, in order to avoid the diseases caused by hunger, a man needs, on an average, to take 4,300 grains of carbon and 200 grains of nitrogen in his daily food; a woman 3,900 grains of carbon and 180 grains of nitrogen. In 1862, the workmen in the famishing cotton industries of Lancashire were actually reduced to just about this minimum. (Marx, Kapital, I, 642.) Death from starvation occurs in all vertebrates when the loss of weight of the body, produced by a want of food, amounts to between two-fifths and one-half of what it was at the beginning of the experiment. (Chossat, Recherches expérimentales sur l'Inanition, 184, 3.)
SECTION CLXIII.
WAGES OF LABOR.—POWER OF THE WORKING CLASSES OVER THE RATE OF WAGES.
In this way, the working classes hold in their own hands one of the principal elements which determine the rate of wages; and it is wrong to speak of an "iron law" which, underthe control of supply and demand, always reduces the average wages down to the means of subsistence.[163-1]For the moment, indeed, not only individual workmen, but the whole working class is master of the supply of its commodity only to a very small extent; since, as a rule, the care for existence compels it to carry, and that without interruption, its whole labor-power to market. But it is true that the future supply depends on its own will; since, with an increase or decrease in the size of the families of workingmen, that supply increases or diminishes. If, therefore, by a favorable combination of circumstances, wages have risen above the height of urgent necessity, there are two ways open to the working class to take advantage of that condition of things. The workman either raises his standard of living, which means not only that his necessary wants are better satisfied, his decencies increased and refined, but also and chiefly, that the intellectual want of a good prospect in the future, which so particularly distinguishesthe honorable artisan from the proletarian is taken into consideration. And it is just here that a permanent workingmen's union, which should govern the whole class, might exert the greatest influence. Their improved economic state can be maintained only on condition that the laboring class shall create families no larger than they hope to be able to support consistently with their new wants.[163-2]
Or, the laboring class continues to live on as before, from hand to mouth, and employ their increased resources to gratify their sexual appetite earlier and longer than before, thus soon leading to an increase of population.
The English took the former course in the second quarter of the last century, when English national economy received a powerful impetus, and the large demand for labor rapidly enhanced the rate of wages. The Scotch did in like manner a generation later. The second alternative was taken by the Irish, when the simultaneous spread of the cultivation of the potato[163-3]and the union with England, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave an extraordinary extension to their resources of food. While the population of Great Britain, between 1720 and 1821, did little more than double, the population of Ireland increased from 2,000,000 to nearly 7,000,000 between 1731 and 1821. No wonder, therefore, that the average wages of labor was twenty to twenty-four pence per day in the former, and in the latter only five pence. (MCCulloch.)[163-4]
Naturally enough, this difference of choice by the two peoplesis to be explained by the difference in their previous circumstances. The Irish people, robbed by violence of their own higher classes, and, therefore, and on this account precisely, almost entirely destitute of a middle class, had lost the check on increase they possessed in the middle ages, without having as yet assimilated to themselves[TN 8]the checks which come with a higher stage of culture. Their political, ecclesiastical and social oppression allowed them no hope of rising by temporary sacrifices and energetic efforts permanently to a better condition as citizens or gentlemen. Only the free man cares for the future. Hence, the sexual thoughtlessness and blind good nature, the original tendencies of the Irish people, necessarily remained without anything to counterbalance them. It always supposes a high degree of intelligence and self-restraint among the lower classes, when an increase in the thing-value, or the real value of wages, does not produce an increase in the number of workmen, but in their well-being. The individual is too apt to think that it matters little to the whole community whether he brings children into the world or not, a species of egotism which has done most injury to the interests in common of mankind. As a rule, it requires a great and palpable enhancement of wages to make workmen, as a class, raise their standard of living.[163-5][163-6]
[163-1]CompareLassalle, Antwortschreiben an das Central Comite zur Berufung eines allg. deutschen Arbeitercongresses, 1863, 15; alsoTurgot, sur la Formation etc., § 6. WhenLassallesays that when a varied standard of living has become a national habit it ceases to be felt as an improvement, he says what is in a certain sense true. But is the man to be pitied who, absolutely speaking, is getting on well enough; relatively speaking, better off than before; but who is only not better off than other men?
[163-2]A case in Holstein, in which, in the first half of the eighteenth century, the serfs of a hard master conspired together not to marry, and thus soon forced him to sell his estate. (Büsch, Darstellung der Handlung, V, 3, II.)
[163-3]On the otherwise remarkable economic advance in Ireland about 1750, seeOrrey, Letters concerning the Life and Writings of Swift, 1751, 127;Anderson, Origin of Commerce, a., 1751.
[163-4]Compare especiallyMalthus, Principles, ch. 4, sec. 2. How little Adam Smith dreamt of this may be best seen in I, 115, Bas. Recently, the average wages per week amounted in England to 22½s., in Scotland to 20½s., in Ireland to 14¾s. (Levi, Wages and Earnings of the working Classes, 1866.)
[163-5]Thus the unheard of long series of excellent harvests in England, between 1715 and 1765, contributed very largely to this favorable transformation. Day wages expressed in wheat, between 1660 and 1719, amounted on an average to only about 2/3 of a peck; between 1720 and 1750, to an entire peck. In the fifteenth century, a similar series of good harvests contributed very much to the flourishing condition of the "yeomanry." Under Henry VII., workmen earned from two to three times as much corn as they did a century later. And so in France, the great Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, by setting free a vast quantity of hitherto bound-up force, enhanced the productiveness of the entire economy of the nation, and made the division of the national income more nearly equal. There is an essential connection here between the rapidity of the transition and the facts, that the habits of consumption of the working class received a powerful impulse, and that population increased much less rapidly than the national income. CompareJohn Stuart Mill, Principles, II, ch. 11, 2. In our own days again, English workmen had a splendid opportunity to raise their standard of life. Emigration to Australia, etc. preponderated over the natural increase of population to such an extent that, in 1852, for instance, only 217,000 more human beings were born in England and Wales than died, and 368,000 emigrated. At the same time, exports increased: in 1849, they were £63,000,000; in 1850 £71,000,000; about the end of 1853, something like £90,000,000.
This golden opportunity was used by the English laboring classes to both largely multiply marriages and to enhance the rate of wages. The number of marriages contracted in England yearly, from 1843 to 1847, was 136,200; from 1853 to 1857, 159,000. The number of births annually, from 1843 to 1847, was 544,800; from 1853 to 1857, 640,400. And wages, in a number of industries, rose, between 1839 and 1859, from about 18 to 24 per cent. (Quarterly Review, July, 1860, 86), while the prices of most of the necessaries of life declined. That, in the same time, the condition of English laborers was elevated, both intellectually and morally, is proved by many facts cited inJones' and Ludlow'swork on the social and political condition of the laboring classes in England. In Germany, the recent establishment of peace on a firm footing and the French war contributions have given the country an impulse which might be taken advantage of by the laboring class with the happiest results if they would accustom themselves to more worthy wants and at the same time preserve their accustomed industry.
[163-6]The cheapening of the necessaries of life, experience shows, is more likely to lead to an increase of population; that of luxuries, to a raising of the standard of life or of comfort.
SECTION CLXIV.
WAGES.—COST OF PRODUCTION OF LABOR.
As the cheapening of the means of subsistence, when the circle of wants of the laboring class has not correspondingly increased, leads to a decline of wages, so an enhancement of their price must, when wages are already so low as only to be able to satisfy indispensable wants, produce an increase in the rate of wages. The transition in the former case is as pleasing as in the latter it is replete with the saddest crises.[164-1]Theslower the rise in the price of the means of subsistence is, the more it is to be feared that the working classes will seek to meet it, not by emigration or by a diminished number of marriages, but by decreasing the measure of their wants, the introduction of a poorer quality of food, etc.[164-2]
However, all this is true only of permanent changes in the average price of the means of subsistence, such as are produced, for instance, by the development of agriculture, by taxation etc. Transitory fluctuations, such as result, for instance, from a single good or bad harvest, cannot have this result.[164-3]It is, in poor countries at least, one of the worst effects of a bad harvest, that it tends to positively lower the rate of wages. A multitude of persons who would otherwise be able to purchase much labor are now deterred from doing so, by the enhancement of the price of food.[164-4]On the other hand, the supply increases:many men who before would not work even for money, see themselves now compelled to do so. Those who have been workmen hitherto are compelled by want to make still greater exertions.[164-5]
In very cheap years, all this is naturally reversed.[164-6]
[164-1]According toMcCulloch, Edition ofAdam Smith, 472, the food of a day laborer's family constitutes between 40 and 60 per cent. of their entire support. In the case of Prussian field hands, it is generally 54 per cent. greatest in the province of Saxony, viz., 58 per cent. and lowest in Posen, 43 per cent. CompareRau, Lehrbuch, I, § 191. This may serve as a point of departure, from which to measure the influence of a given enhancement of the price of corn. In opposition toBuchanan(Edition ofAdam Smith, 1817, 59), who had denied the influence of the price of the means of subsistence on the rate of wages, seeRicardo, Principles, ch. 16.
[164-2]How easily English farmers have accustomed themselves to the consequences of momentary calamities, may be seen fromJohn Stuart Mill, Principles, II, ch. 11, 5 seq.;Thornton, Population and its Remedy, 1846, passim.Malthus, Principles, sec. 8, shows in opposition toRicardo, Principles, ch. 8, that it is not all one to the laboring classes whether their wages rise while the price of the means of subsistence remains the same, or whether the rate of wages remaining nominally the same, the commodities to be purchased decline in price. If for instance, potato-food, physiologically considered, was just as good as flesh-food and wheat bread, yet an unmarried workman or a father with a number of children below the average would be able to save less from the former for the reason that it possesses less value in exchange. (Edinburg Rev., XII, 341.) Thus, e. g., in Ireland, betweenA. YoungandNewenham(1778-1808), the rate of wages increased more than the price of potatoes, but all other means of subsistence in a still greater ratio. (Newenham, A view of Ireland, 1808.) CompareMalthus, On the Policy of Restricting the Importation of foreign Corn, 1815, 24 ff.; contra.Torrens, on the Corn trade, 1820, 374 ff.
[164-3]CompareGarveinMacFarlan, On Pauperism, 1785, 77. Thus, in the United States, the same quantities of coffee, leather, pork, rice, salt, sugar, cheese, tobacco, wool, etc., could be earned in 1836 by 23.5 days' labor; in 1840, by 20.75; in 1843, by 14.8; in 1864, by 34.6. (Walker, Science of Wealth, 256.)
[164-4]The person who formerly consumed perhaps four suits of clothes in a year now limits himself to two, and forces the tailor to dismiss one journeyman. In Bavaria, the dear times, 1846-47, and probably also the disturbances of 1848-49, caused officials, pensioners, annuitants and professional men to discharge one-tenth of the female domestics they employed in 1840. (Hermann, Staatsw. Unters, II, Aufl., 467.)
[164-5]The labor of digging during the time of scarcity in England was paid one-third of the price usually paid in good years. (Porter, Progress of the Nation, III, 14, 454.) On the Slavic[TN 9]portions of Silesia, seeHildebrand'sJahrb., 1872, I, 292. According toRogers, I, 227 ff., 315 ff., and the table of prices in the appendix toEden, State of the Poor, the price in England of a quarter of wheat and a day's wages was, in—