[172-4]As to how many workmen in the eastern part of North America buy land in the west, and so threaten their employers with immediate emigration, seeBrentano, Arbeitergilden, II, 131. However, in Massachusetts, women's wages are in many instances so low that, considering the dearness of the means of subsistence, it is almost impossible to understand how they exist. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 236 ff.)
SECTION CLXXIII.
HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN FLOURISHING NATIONS.
A permanently[173-1]high rate of wages[173-2]is, both as cause and effect, very intimately connected with a flourishing condition of national life. It proves on the one hand, great productiveness of the public economy of the people generally: prudence, self-respect and self-control, even of the lowest classes, virtues, which, however, are found, on the whole, only where political liberty exists, and where the lowest classes are rightly valued by the higher.[173-3]On the other hand, it produces a conditionof the great majority of that portion of the population who have to support themselves on the wages they receive, worthy of human beings, a condition in which they can educate their children, enjoy the present and provide for the future. Equality before the law and participation in the affairs of government are empty phrases, and even tend to inflame the passions, where the rate of wages is not high. When the lower classes are dissatisfied, in highly civilized countries, with the sensitiveness and mobility of the whole national life, there can be no certainty of the freedom of the middle classes or of the rule of the upper. Here, in other respects, also, the philanthropy of employers harmonizes remarkably well with their reasonable self-interest. According to § 40, only the well-paid workman can accomplish anything really good, just as, conversely, only the good workman is on the whole, and in the long run, well paid. This suggests the physiological law, that where muscular activity is great, nutrition must be great, likewise; and the rapid waste and repair of tissues strengthens the muscles and gives tone to the whole physical life. With a correct insight into the relations of things, antiquity described its greatest worker, Herakles, as a great eater also. A well-paid workman, who costs and accomplishes as much in a day as two bad ones, is cheaper than they. He works much more cheerfully and faithfully, is, hence, more easily superintended, is less frequently sick, and later decrepid.[173-4]His childhood costs less, and his burial is not so expensive. In cases of need, he can more easily bear theweight of taxation or a temporary lowering of wages.[173-5]We might say of the granting of holidays and of evening leisure something similar to what we have said of the rate of wages. They are indispensable requisites to the development of a desirable individuality in the working classes; and when used for that purpose are certainly no detriment to the product of labor or to employers.[173-6][173-7]
In consideration of all the blessings attending a high rate of wages, we may well be induced to put up with a certain and frequently inconvenient external defiance of the lower classes which is wont to accompany it.[173-8]It teaches the upper classes many a moral lesson, and is surely a lesser sin in the lower, than the cowardly, malicious crimes of the oppressed. When wages are so low that they have to be supplemented by begging or public charity, the effect on morality is the same as when government officials, who cannot live on their salaries, resort to bribery or embezzlement.[173-9][173-10]
[173-1]A merely momentary rise in wages might be the result of a great calamity, destructive of human life, and might seduce workmen not intellectually prepared for it into idleness. Comparevon Taube, Beschreib. von Slavonien etc., II, § 4.
[173-2]On the necessity offreewages, that is of an excess over and above the costs of support and of maintaining one's position, seeRoesler, Grandsätze, 394.
[173-3]Dans aucune histoire on ne rencontre un seul trait, qui prouve que l'aisance du peuple par le travail a nui à son obéissance, (Forbonnais.)This is true only of well governed countries. When, in England, about the middle of the eighteenth century, a great improvement took place in the condition of the laboring classes,Postlethwayt(Great Britain's commercial Interests, 1759) was one of the first to recognize its general beneficial character; alsoTh. Mortimer. (Elements of Commerce, Politics and Finance, 1774, 82 ff.)Benjamin Franklin, before the American revolution, was of opinion that high wages made people lazy. (On the Price of Corn, 1776. On the laboring Poor, 1768.) He afterwards, however, acknowledged its generally good effect, and that even the products of labor might be cheapened thereby. (On the Augmentation of Wages, which will be occasioned in Europe by the American Revolution. Works II, 435 ff.) See further,Paoletti, Veri Mezzi di render felici le Società, ch. 15;Ricardo, Principles, ch. 5;Th. Brassey, on Work and Wages, 1872.Umpfenbach, Nat. Oek, 181, calls the costliness of labor to the purchaser of labor, "givers' wages," their purchasing power to the laborer himself, "receivers' wages," and is of opinion, that as civilization advances, the former declines and the latter rises.
[173-4]When in the department of the Tarn flesh food was introduced among journeymen smiths instead of mere vegetable diet, the sanitary improvement that followed was so great that the number of days lost by sickness in a year decreased from 15 to 3. (Moleschott.)
[173-5]In high stages of civilization, it is always more profitable, the result being the same, to keep a few well fed cattle than many poorly fed. (Roscher, Nationalök. d. Ackerbaues, § 179.)Infra, § 231. When the drainage of Oxford street in London was made while wages were rising, it happened that the cubic foot of masonry work at 10 shillings per day was cheaper than it was formerly at 6 shillings per day. (Brassey, 68 ff.)Seniorcalls it an absurdity to consider the high wages paid in England as an obstacle in the way of its successful competition with other countries. Rather would he consider it as the necessary result of the excellence of English labor. Thus, in his Lectures on the mercantile Theory of Wealth, p. 76, he says that if the English employ a part of their labor injudiciously, they must pay it not in proportion to what it really accomplishes, but to what it might do if well employed. If a man calls in a doctor to cut his hair, he must pay him as a doctor. If he puts a man to throwing silk who might earn 3 ounces of silver a week spinning cotton, he must pay him weekly 3 ounces of silver, although he may deliver no more silk within that time than an Italian who gets only 1½ ounces.
[173-6]Norfolk country workmen never worked more than 10 hours a day except in harvest and seed time. But a plowman there accomplished as much in 5 days as another in 8. (Marshall, Rural Economy of N., 138.) In southwestern Germany, the country working day is from 2 to 4 hours shorter than in the northeast, and yet just as much is accomplished in the former quarter. (von der Goltz, Ländl. Arbeiterfrage, 88, 131.) Thus the coal diggers of South Wales work 12 hours a day, those of Northumberland, 7; and yet the same achievement is 25 per cent. dearer in case of the former. In the construction of the Paris-Rouen Railroad, the English achieved more than the French, although the former worked from 6 A. M. to 5:30 P. M., and the latter from 5 A. M. to 7 P. M. (Brassey, 144 ff.) Examples from English manufactories inMarx, Kapital, I, 401 seq. In an English factory the hours worked were 12, and afterwards, 11. This caused the number of attendants of the evening school to grow from 27 to 98. (Horner.)Dollfuss, in Mühlhausen, reduced the number of hours worked from 12 to 11, and let the wages remain the same as before. The result was besides a great saving made in fuel and light, a surplus product of at least 1-2/3 per cent. Something similar observed byM. Chevalier, Cours, I, 151.
HenceJ. Möser, Patr. Ph., III, 40, desired, on this account, that work in the evening should be prohibited by law. In England, not only the moral necessity, but also the economic general utility of leisure time of workmen has been defended, among others byPostlethwayt, Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, I, prelim. Discourse, 1751. A beautiful law, V Moses 24, 15. Only, care must be taken not to go to the other extreme, which is still more detrimental to personality. The North American ideal of 8 hours a day for work, 8 for eating, sleeping, etc., and 8 for leisure, would be injurious except to workmen intellectually very active. But the provision to be met with in many states of the Union and in the arsenal employ of the government, that in case of doubt, the work day is to be tacitly assumed as of 8 hours, has, it is said, correspondingly lowered wages. Seesupra, § 168.
[173-7]In India, where the institution of caste is found, nearly half the year is made up of feast days, while in rationalistic China there is no Sunday and very few general holidays. (Klemm, A. Kulturgeschicht. VI, 425.Wray, The practical Sugar Planter, 1849.) The Judaic-Christian sanctification of the seventh day is a happy medium between these two extremes. Recuperation and collectedness get their due without its costing too much to action.Ora et labora!CompareSismondi, N. P. II, ch. 5. Which is best, traveling on foot, to drag along all the time, or to walk decently and rest properly between times? The rest of Sunday, even leaving the work of recuperation and edification out of account, is necessary in the interests of the family and of cleanliness. The Frenchdecadisaccomplished materially even too little:ils ont à faire à deux ennemis, qui ne cèderont pas, la barbe et la chemise blanche. (B. Constant.) Hence, an English prize essay on the material advantages of Sunday found 1,045 competitors among English working men. (Tübinger Zeitschr., 1851, 363.)
[173-8]ThusParkinson, A Tour in America, complains that with four servants in the house, he was obliged to polish his own shoes, and with his wife and children to milk the cows, while his people were still asleep. Strange servants bringing a message, come in with their hats on. All domestics are called mister or misses. Servant maids are called "helps," and their masters, "employers." If a person at a hotel asks for a laundress, he is answered: "Yes, man, I will get a lady to wash your clothes." Similarly inFowler, Lights and Shadows,... three Years' Experience in Australia. But, at the same time, it is remarkable how seldom a native born white American accepts a fee. On the other hand, Russia is the classic land of fees. There is a popular story in that country to the effect that when God divided the earth among the different nations, they were all satisfied except the Russians, who begged a little drink-money or fee in addition, (von Haxthausen, Studien, I, 70.) Similarly in Egypt. (Ebers, Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 1873, 31 seq.) The system of feeing servants holds a middle place between the modern system of paying for everything lawfully and the medieval system in which people either rob, donate or beg.
[173-9]CompareGarveinMacfarlan, 90. The wages of English wool workers in 1831 amounted to:
InTax per capita of thepopulation forsupport of the poor.Leeds,22—22½s.5s. 7d.Gloucester,13—15¼s.8s. 8d.Somerset,16¾—19¾s.8s. 9d.Wilts,13-7/12—15-5/12s.16s. 6d.
Ure, Philosophy of Manufactures, 476. After an enthusiastic eulogy of high wages,McCullochremarks especially that the English poor rates cost more than if the laborers were obliged to provide for themselves by getting higher wages. (Principles, III, 7.) Sad results of the system which came into vogue in the South of England in 1795, to supplement wages according to the price of corn and the number of children. Previously the laboring classes married only after the age of 25 and even at 35, and not until they had saved from £40 to £50. After the above mentioned system was adopted, even minors married. (Edinburg Review, LIII, 4, 7.)
[173-10]Von Thünen, Isolirte Staat., II, 1, 154, gives the following formula as the expression of ideal wages: √ap, in which a = the necessary requirement for maintenance of the workmen, and p = the aggregate product of his labor.von Thünenattached so much importance to this formula that he had it engraved on his tomb-stone. But even if it were possible to reduce capital-generating labor and wage-labor to a common denominator, it would not be possible nor equitable to maintain the same dividing measure when capital and labor contributed in very different amounts to the production of the common product. An artist, for instance, who could make costly vessels out of very cheap clay and with cheap fuel would get too little byvon Thünen'slaw; a mechanic who used a very efficient and costly machine, too much. The fundamental defect in his theory,von Thünenhimself seems to have obscurely felt. Compare the letter in his Lebensbeschreibung, 1868, 239 andRoscher, Geschichte der Nat. Oek., in Deutschland, 895 ff.
SECTION CLXXIV.
HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN DECLINING COUNTRIES AND TIMES.
When, circumstances being otherwise unaltered, the aggregate income of a nation decreases, the wages of labor are wont to be lower in proportion as the points above mentioned, andwhich are unfavorable to the laborer in his competition, appear.[174-1]The worse distribution, also, of the national resources, when, instead of a numerous middle class, a few over-rich people monopolize all that is to be possessed, diminishes the wages of common labor and thus again produces a worse distribution than before.[174-2]In a similar way, wages must decline when the mode of life of the laboring class, or the quality of their work, has deteriorated. Some of these causes may exist transitorilyeven among otherwise flourishing nations; as, for instance, in war times,[174-3]or when population for a while grows more rapidly than national wealth. But among nations universally declining, they are all wont to meet, and one strengthens the other.[174-4]One of the saddest symptoms of such a condition is the low value here put upon the life and strength of workmen. The cheapness of labor has indeed a charm for enterprising spirits,which induces them to employ human labor even where machinery, beasts, etc., would economically be better adapted to the performance of the work.[174-5]Day-laborers are, on this account, more profitable to persons of enterprise (Unternehmer=undertaker) because they can more easily rid themselves of them. But such egotistic calculation should have no place even in the case of actual slaves.[174-6]
Besides, it not unfrequently happens, that the laboring class seek to oppose the decline of wages by increasing their industry, shortening their holidays and leisure, and by drawing their wives and children into their work. This may, under certain circumstances, result in an increase of the national income, and thus constitute a transition to the restoration of high wages, especially if beforehand there was reason to complain of the idleness of the working class. But if the other circumstances of competition are unfavorable to the working class, if especially they used their personally increased income to add to the population, it would not be long before they fell back to their previous state. In such case, the consequence is, that the same quantity of labor has become cheaper; that all permanent profit falls to the capitalists and landowners, andall that remains to the laboring class is only greater toil, a sadder home-life, and sadder children. The danger of such an issue is all the greater, because few things so much contribute to reckless marriages and the thoughtless procreation of children, as the industrial coöperation of wife and child.[174-7][174-8]
[174-1]HenceAdam Smithsays that it is not the richest countries in which wages are highest, but those which are becoming rich most rapidly.
[174-2]The classic lands of low wages and pauperism are especially the East Indies and China. A minister of Kienlong was punished after he had extorted about 20,000,000 thalers. (Barrow, II, 149.) In the confiscation of the well knownKeschen, the authorities, according to their own accounts, found 682 pounds of gold and more than 6,000,000 pounds in silver. Considering the colossal[TN 12]banquets of the rich, embracing several hundred courses, of whichMeyen, Reise um die Erde, II, 390, describes an example, the wretched food of the poor is doubly striking. CountGörtzrelates that in Canton, rats and serpents are regularly exposed for sale. (Reise, 445.) The lowness of wages appears from the fact—one of many—that servants frequently get nothing but their board. (Haussmann, Voyage en Chine, etc.) In the cities, tradesmen with their tools run hither and thither about the streets begging for employment in the most imploring manner. Thousands live all their lives on rafts. Numberless instances of infanticide from want of food, (§ 251.) The influence of these circumstances on the morality of the people is best illustrated by the fact thatKeschen, when he was ambassador to Thibet, preferred to confide his newly collected treasures to the escort of the French missionaries he persecuted rather than to the mandarins named by himself, so much more highly did he estimate European than Chinese honesty. (Edinburg Rev., 1851, 425 ff.) In the Chinese picture-writing, the word happiness was designated by a mouth well corked with rice. Chinese statisticians speak of mouths (Maul) where ours treat of the number of heads or souls.Ritter, Erdkunde, II, 1060. More favorable accounts inPlath, Münch. Akad., 1873, 784, 788 seq.
In the East Indies, a great many of the rejected castes live on carrion, dead fish, noxious insects, and even the middle class find wheat flour too dear, and therefore mix it with peas, etc. (Ritter, VI, 1143.) It is said that Bengal, in the famine of 1770, lost more than one-third of its inhabitants. (Mill, History of British India, III, 432.) Eloquent description of misery inRickard, India, or Facts submitted to illustrate the Character and Condition of the native Inhabitants, II, London, 1832. An immense number of badly paid servants of whom it may however be said that each one accomplishes very little. The Pindaries may pass for an extreme of Indian pauperism, corresponding to the pirate-calamity during the later Roman Republic. (Quarterly Review, XVIII, 466 ff.;Ritter, VI, 394 ff.)
[174-3]Thus, in England, during the last great war, wages rose less than the price of corn, and sank less after it. About 1810, wages were nearly 100 per cent. higher than in 1767; but, on the other hand, the price of wheat, 115; of meat, 146; of butter, 130, and of cheese, 153 per cent. (Edinburg Rev., XL., 28.) If it has some times been observed that crime, communistic machinations and revolutionary movements grow less frequent in times of war, the fact is not to be ascribed necessarily to a better condition of the laboring class. It might possibly be the consequence of the strongest and wildest elements of the laboring class finding some other career.
[174-4]Adam Smith, loc. cit., on this point describes China as a stationary country (according toR. Fortune, Wanderings in China, 1847, 9, a decided decline has been noticeable there for a long time), and Bengal as a declining one. On the condition of wages among the Romans,Juvenal, III, 21 ff., is one of the principal sources. Hence the desire to emigrate because honest labor had no longer any foothold (23 ff.). Poor dwellings of the laboring class, dark, exposed to danger from fire (166, 190 ff., 225), and yet comparatively dear (223 seq.). Numerous crowds of robbers and beggars (302 ff.; IV, 116 ff.; V, 8; XIV, 134). On beggary, seeSeneca, Controv., V, 33. De Element., II, 6. De Vita beata, 25 ff.Martial, V, 81, XIV, 1, complains of the absence of outlook among the poorer classes.Horace, too, is rich in passages which might be appropriately cited in this connection. Characteristic question of the nabobs, inPetron., 48, 5: What on earth is that thing called a pauper?
[174-5]Thus, in China, the East Indies, etc., people travel in palanquins borne by men; in a multitude of cases, Chinese commodities are carried in wheelbarrows; and a great many roads are constructed, in reference not to wagons, properly so-called, but to this species of vehicle. How heartless the Chinese, who, before they save a drowning man, first higgle about the reward, and take pleasure in pestilence, famine, etc., because those who survive profit by them. SeeFinlaison, Journey of the Mission to Siam, 1826, 62 ff.
[174-6]HenceMenander(342-290 before Christ) says it is better to be the slave of a good master than to live wretched in freedom. (Stobœus, Flor., 62, § 7.Meinecke, Fr. com. Gr., IV, 274.)Libanios, too, (Tom., 483, Reiske), in his "Blame of Poverty," represents slavery as better cared for, and freer from worry. Horrible contracts made even in Cæsar's time, from want, by freemen, to become gladiator-slaves.Cicero, pro Roscio, Am. 6;Horat., Serm., II, 7, 58 ff.;Petron., 117;Seneca, Epist., 37. And so by Justinian, cases of declined freedom are supposed. (L. 15,Justin., Cod., VII, 2.) "Dans une armée on estime bien moins un pionnier, qu'un cheval de caisson, parce que le cheval est fort cher, et qu'on a le pionier pour rien. La suppression de l'esclavage a fait passer ce calcul de la guerre dans la vie commune." (Linguet.)
[174-7]Sismondiis guilty, however, of a philanthropic exaggeration when he says that the labor of children is always fruitless to the laboring classes. (R. P. I., 235.)
[174-8]The bringing into juxtaposition of the rates of wages in different countries is doubtless one of the most important objects of comparative statistics. Only it is necessary not to confine it to the money amount of wages, but to make it embrace the prices of the principal means of subsistence. Thus, in France, before the outbreak of the French Revolution, a French workman earned a cwt. of bread on an average of 10.5 days; one of meat in 36.8; an English workman, in 10.4 and 25.3 days. (A. Young.) In the interior of Russia, a female weaver earns, in a day, almost one Prussianscheffelof rye, in Bielefeld, only about one-tenth of ascheffel; a table-cloth weaver, in the former place, 18 silver groschens, while thescheffelcosts from 12 to 15 silver groschens. (von Haxthausen, Studien, I, 119, 170.) According toHumboldt, the money-wages paid in Mexico were twice as high, and the price of corn two-thirds as dear, as in France. (N. Espagne, IV, 9.) According toRau, Lehrbuch, I, § 180, the procuration of the following means of subsistence required in day labor in:
Column code:A = Manchester. B & C = Hanover. D = Upper Canada. E = Brandenburg. F = Gratz.
A.B.C.D.E.F.Cwt.1810-201700[TN 13]182718301820-331826-45beef,26.0033.035.06.634.036.00potatoes,1.85———1.002.68wheat,5.50——2.07.611.00rye,—6.58.71.55.48.60butter,42.3087.064.022.083.084.00sugar,96.00181.0128.0———
Estimated in silver, the East Indian laborer earns from £1 to £2 a year; the English, £9 to £15; the North American, £12 to £20. (Senior.)Hildebrand, Nat-Oek., I, 195 ff., assures us that the average rate of wages in Germany, in 1848, amounted to 400 thalers a year; in England, to 300 thalers; and that the prices of the means of subsistence in the latter country were 1½ times higher than in the former.Engel, Ueber die arbeitenden Klassen in England, 1845, shows only the dark side of a real picture, and is silent on the other, and is well corrected byHildebrand, I, 170 ff. Excellent statistics inSir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, I, 491-589. On the more recent times, compare the Edinburgh Review, April, 1851, April, 1862; Quarterly Rev., Oct., 1859, July, 1860.LudlowandJones, loc. cit. On the situation in France, seeBlanqui'sreport in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 7.Leplay, Les Ouvriers des deux Mondes, II, 1858. Very important are the "Reports from Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular Agents abroad respecting the Condition of the industrial Classes, and the Purchase-power of money in foreign Countries." (1871.)
SECTION CLXXV.
WAGE POLICY.—SET PRICE OF LABOR.
Among the artificial means employed to alter the existing rate of wages, we may mention first, a rate of wages fixed by governmental authority. These have, in many places, constituted an intermediate step between serfdom and the free wage-system. In most cases, this measure was intended in the interest of the upper classes to prevent the lower obtaining the full advantage of their freedom under the favoring circumstances of competition.[175-1]In later times, another cause hasfrequently been added to this, viz.: by diminishing the cost of production to increase foreign sales. (See § 106.) In the higher stages of civilization, nations will scarcely look with favor on the diminution of the rightful, for the most part, individually small gains of the most numerous, the poorest and most care-worn class of the community.[175-2]The purchasers of labor would, in consequence, be badly served, since they would have lost the possibility of obtaining better workmen by paying higher wages. Hence, there would, probably, be none but mediocre labor to be found.[175-3]On the other hand, fixed rates which keep within the limits described in § 114are, under certain circumstances, desirable. This is especially the case where the purchasers of labor on the one hand, and the buyers of labor on the other, have formed themselves into united groups, and where the rate fixed is only in the nature a treaty of peace under governmental sanction, when a war over prices had either broken out actually or there was danger to fear that one would break out. It must not be forgotten, that thus far common labor has scarcely had any thing similar to an "exchange."[175-4]
[175-1]The plague known as the black death of 1348, which devastated the greater part of Europe, was followed by many complaints on the part of the buyers of labor, of the cupidity and malicious conspiracies of the working classes. (Seesupra§ 160.) Fixed rates of wages under Peter the Cruel of Castile, 1351; contemporaneously in France, Ordonnances, II, 350, and in England, 25 Edw. III, c. 2; 37 Edw. III, c. 3. In France, the wages of a thresher were fixed at the one-twentieth or the one-thirtieth of ascheffel, while in present Saxony it is from one-fourteenth to one-twelfth. In England, under the same ruler, who had seen his castle at Windsor built, not by day laborers for wages, but by vassal masons, vassal carpenters, etc., whom he got together from all parts of the kingdom. That the rates might not be evaded, the succeeding king forbade both the leaving of agriculture for industry and change of domicile[TN 14]without the consent of a justice of the peace. (12 Richard II., c. 3.) All such provisions were little heeded in the 16th century. (Rogers, the Statist. Journal, 1861, 544 ff.)
Fixed rates of wages under Henry VII. and Henry VIII., in the interest of workmen. (Gneist, Verwaltungsrecht, II, Aufl., 461 ff.) The fact that in 5 Elizabeth, c. 4, another attempt was made to fix the rate of wages by governmental provisions, in which the person paying more than the sum fixed was threatened with 10 days' imprisonment, and the person receiving less with 12, was in part akin to the English poor laws. If a poor man had the right to be eventually employed and supported by the community, it was, of course, necessary that the justice of the peace should be able to determine at what wages anybody should be prepared to work before he could say: I can find no work. Extended by 2 James I., c. 6, to all kinds of work for which wages were paid. (Eden, State of the Poor, V, 123 ff., 140.) The buyers of labor in the eighteenth century frequently complained that these fixed wages were more to the advantage of workmen than of their masters. (Brentano, English Guilds., ed. byToulmin Smith, 1870, Prelim. CXCI.)
In Germany, the depopulation caused by the Thirty Years' War explains why, before and after the peace of Westphalia, so many diets were concerned with fixing the rate of wages of servants. CompareSpittler, Gesch., Hanovers, II, 175. Among the most recent instances of English fixed rates of wages, is 8 George III., for London tailors, and the Spitalfields Act of 1773, for silk weavers who had, a short time before, revolted. Also in New South Wales, about the end of the last century, on account of the high rate of colonial wages. (Collins, Account of the English Colonies of New South Wales, 1798.) Later,Mortimer, Elements of Politics, Commerce and Finance, 1174, 72, maintains fixed rates of wages to be necessary. In Germany the imperial decree of 1830, tit., 24, and again the ordinance of Sept. 4, 1871, provide that each magistrate shall fix the rate of wages in his own district.Chr. Wolf, Vernunftige Gedanken vom gesellsch. Leben der Menschen, 1721, § 487, would have the rates so fixed that the laborers might live decently and work with pleasure.
[175-2]Proposal for a fixed sale of wages in the protocols of the Chamber of Lords of Nassau, 1821, 12.
[175-3]The Spitalfields Act was repealed in 1824, for the reason that the manufacturers themselves attributed the stationary condition of their industries for a hundred years to the fact that they were hampered by that act.Ricardo'sandHuskisson'sprophecies, on this occasion, fulfilled by the great impulse which the English silk industries soon afterwards received.
[175-4]CompareBrentano, Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart, II, 288. However, fixed rates of wages equitably arranged, in the establishment of which neither party has been given an advantage over the other, have continued to exist much longer than our distrustful and novelty-loving age would think possible. Thus compositors' wages in London, from 1785 to 1800, from 1800 to 1810, from 1810 to 1816, and from 1816 to 1866, remained unaltered; those of London ship builders, from 1824 to 1867; of London builders, from 1834 to 1853, and from 1853 to 1865. (BrentanoII, 213. Compare II, 250, 267 ff.)
SECTION CLXXVI.
WAGES-POLICY.—STRIKES.
Where the wages-receiving class feel themselves to be a special class,vis-a-visof the purchasers of their labor, they have frequently endeavored, by the preconcerted suspension of labor upon a large scale, to force their masters to pay them higher wages, or grant them some other advantage.[176-1]It ishard to say whether such strikes have more frequently failed or succeeded.[176-2]
As a rule, a war over prices, carried on by such means, and without force on either side, must generally issue in the victory of the richer purchasers of labor.[176-3]The latter require theuninterrupted continuation of labor for their convenience and profit; but the workmen need it to live. It is but seldom that the workmen will be in a condition to stop work for more than a few months, without feeling the sting of hunger. The purchaser of labor can live longer on his capital; and the victory here belongs to the party who, in the struggle, holds out longest. Hence, a strike that lasts more than six weeks may, for that reason alone, be considered a failure. The employers of labor, on account of their smaller number and greater education, make their counter-coalition much more secret and effective. How many instances there are in which labor-saving machines have come into use more rapidly than they otherwise would have come but for the influence of these coalitions![176-4]
On the other hand, it cannot be ignored that a host of workmen, by means of an organization which provides them with a unity of will, such as the heads of great enterprises naturally possess, must become much better skilled in carrying on a struggle for higher wages. Where wages in general tend to rise, but by force of custom, which is specially powerful here (§ 170), are kept below their natural level, a strike may very soon attain its end. And workmen are all the more to be wished God-speed here in proportion as employers are slow to decide of their own motion upon raising wages, and where, undercertain circumstances,[176-5]a single cold-hearted master might force all his competitors to keep wages down. If even the entire working class should follow the example of the strikers, so that all commodities, in so far as they are products of labor, should grow dearer to an extent corresponding to the rise in wages, there would still remain an improvement of the condition of the working class at the cost of the interest paid on capital and the profits of enterprise. It is, of course, otherwise with the struggle of workmen against the natural conditions which determine the rate of their wages (§§ 161-166) in which they might, in turbulent times, possibly succeed[176-6]temporarily, but would, in the long run, have to fail.[176-7]
The working class will be best fortified in such a struggle for higher wages when their organization is a permanent one, and when they have taken care, during good times, to collect a certain amount of capital to protect their members, during their cessation from work, against acute want. This is the object of the trades-unions as they have grown up in England, especially since the total decline of the guild system and of governmental provisions relating to apprentices, fixed rates of wages[176-8]etc. But it cannot be denied that these unions, althoughdemocratic in form, often exercise a very despotic sway over their members;[176-9]that they have, so far as the employers of labor are concerned, and the non-union laborers, gone back to a number of measures, outgrowths of the guild and embargo systems, which it was fondly hoped had been forever banished by the freedom of industry.[176-10]What manyof the friends of this system hope it may accomplish in the future, viz.: regulate the whole relation between capital and labor, and thus, on the whole, control the entire public economy of a people,[176-11]is, fortunately, all the more certainly a chimera, as any national or universal approximation to this end would be the most efficacious way to compel employers of labor to the formation of corresponding and probably far superior opposing unions. Notwithstanding this, however, I do not doubt that the recent development of trades-unions in England is both a cause and an effect of the rise in wages in the branches of industry in question, as well as of the moral elevation of the condition of the working class which has simultaneously takenplace.[176-12]The mere possibility of a strike is of itself calculated, in the determination of the rate of wages, to procure for the equitable purchaser of labor the desirable preponderance over the inequitable.[176-13]
[176-1]EvenBoisguillebert, Traité des Grains, was acquainted with instances of this kind in which from 600 to 800 workmen simultaneously left their masters. There are much earlier instances in Italy. Thus, in Sienna, in 1381 and 1384, in which the nobility sided with the workmen. (Rerum Ital. Scriptores, XV, 224, 294.) Strikes of journeymen began to be much more frequent in Germany in the guilds, from the time of the prospect of their becoming masters themselves, and of their living in the family of the masters had decreased. On similar strikes at Spires,[TN 15]in 1351, at Hagenau in 1409, and Mainz in 1423, seeMone's, Zeitschrift, XVII, 56; XIII, 155, andHegel,Strassb. Chr., II, 1025. A remarkable strike of the Parisian book printers under Francis I. (Hildebrand'sJahrb., 1873, II, 375 ff.) In so-called "home manufactures," where the "manufacturer" is both orderer, preparer and seller, but strikes are scarcely possible without much fixed capital. The strike of the factory spinners in Lancashire in 1810 caused 30,000 workmen to stop work for four months.
Among the next following coalitions of labor, those of the Glasgow weavers in 1812 and 1822 were very important. In the latter, two workmen who would not participate with the strikers were blinded with sulphuric acid. In 1818, great strike by the Scotch miners. The Preston strike of 1853 lasted 36 weeks. It is said that 6,200 male and 11,800 female working people took part in it. (Athenæum, 30 Sept., 1854.) CompareMorrison, Essay on the Relations between Labor and Capital, 1854. For a history of Swiss strikes, especially of the Zürich compositors' strike in 1873, seeBöhmert, Arbeiterverhältnisse, II, 287 ff. Comic type of a strike of married women inAristophanes, Lysistrata. A practical one in Rome at the departure of the plebeians for the holy mountains, 492 before Christ. (Livy, II, 32,) then, on a small scale, on the removal of the pipers after Tiberius, 311 before Christ. (Liv., IX, 30.)
[176-2]Instances of successful strikes: Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1865. Similarly in Germany, in 1865; but there, in truth, many strikes were only defensive and intended to restore the former thing-value of the declined money (Werke, XIII, 151). The English strikes, in 1866 and 1867, failed nearly all, so that wages again declined to their level in 1859, and in many places, to what they had been in the crisis-year 1857. (Ausland, 16 April, 1868.) As to how even in Victoria, strikes which opposed a decline of wages from 16 to from 8 to 10 shillings a day failed, after doing great injury, see Statist. Journ., 1861, 129 ff.
[176-3]The Preston strikers of 1853 got even from their non-striking colleagues, £30,000. Had their masters prevented this, the affair would have been terminated much sooner. (Quart. Rev., Oct. 1859.) But employers are much more frequently divided by rivalries than workmen, especially in strikes against new machines or when a manufacturer, who has too large a supply of goods on hand, desires a strike himself. On account of their smaller number, too, they are less in a condition to declare a recusant colleague in disgrace.Adam Smith'sremark that coalitions of capitalists are much more frequent than those of workmen, only that much less is said of them, is hardly applicable to our time. (Wealth of Nat., I, ch. 8, p. 100, ed. Bas.) But, since the strike of the London builders in 1859, capitalists have begun to form more general opposing unions. On a very energetic one among the ship builders on the Clyde, seeCount de Paris, Les Associations ouvrières en Angleterre, 1869, ch. 7. Examples on a smaller scale, Edinburg Review, LXXXIX, 327 ff. On the other hand, a "lock-out" on the part of capitalists is very difficult, from the fact that it is impossible to prevent idle workmen from being supported from the poor fund. Moreover, there can be no greater folly than for the workmen to add insult to their masters to their demand for higher wages, because then the limits within which the latter are willing to continue the business at all, are made much narrower, than they would be on a merely economic estimate.
[176-4]Thus the "iron man," by which a single person can put from 1,500 to 3,000 spindles in motion; also an improved plane-machine, by means of which several colors can be printed at once. (Ure, Philosophy of Manufactures, 366 ff.) Machines for riveting cauldrons. (Dingler, Polytechnisches Journal, LXXV, 413.)
[176-5]Compare the statements in the Statist. Journal, 1867, 7.
[176-6]Thus in several places in 1848, and in Paris in 1789, where even the lackeys and apothecary clerks formed such unions. (Wachsmuth, Gesch. Frankreichs im Revolutionszeitalter, I, 178.) Similarly, frequently in isolated factories.
[176-7]Thorntonmentions six instances in which strikes and strike-unions may permanently raise wages: a, when those engaged in an enterprise have a virtual monopoly in their own neighborhood; b, when the country has, for the industry in question, great advantage over other lands; c, when the demand for the product of the industry is necessary on account of an increasing number and increasing capacity to pay of customers; d, when the progress of the arts, especially of machinery, makes the industry more productive; e, when the rise in the rate of wages affects all branches of industry to the same extent, and at the same time; f, when the industry is carried on on so large a scale that it yields greater profit, even while paying a smaller percentage than other industries. (On Labour, III, ch. 4.) It is easy to see that many of these conditions meet in the building industries in large cities.
[176-8]CompareBrentanoin the Preliminary Essay toT. Smith'sEnglish Guilds, ch. LXXII ff. The same author's Die Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart Bd., I, 1871.
[176-9]The greater number of strikes begin with a small minority, generally of the best paid workmen, whom the others follow unwillingly but blindly. (Edinb. Rev., 149, 422.) The despotic power of the Unions over their members depends principally on the fact that their treasury serves not only to maintain strikes but at the same time as an insurance fund for old age and sickness, and that every case of disobedience of a member is punished by expulsion, i. e., with the loss of everything he has contributed. Hence the Quart. Rev., Oct., 1867, advises that these two purposes which are so hard, technically speaking, to reconcile with each other, should be required to be kept separate, especially as most of the unions, considered as benevolent associations, are really insolvent. (Edinb. Review, Oct., 1867, 421 ff.) On the other hand, both theCount of Paris, ch. 3, andThorntonare favorable to the admixture of humane and offensive objects in the trades-unions, because the former contribute to make the latter milder.Brentano, I, 153, has no great objection to the insolvency shown by the books of the unionsvis-a-visof their duties as insurers, since, hitherto, the subscription of an extraordinary sum has never failed to make up the deficit. A strike is detrimental in proportion as the striking workmen represent more of the previous preliminary operations that go to finish a product; as when, for instance, the 50 or 60 spinners in a factory strike, and in consequence, from 700 to 800 other workmen are thrown out of employment and forced into idleness against their will. What might not have been the consequence of the great union of the coal miners of Durham and Northumberland, the members of which numbered 40,000 men, and stopped work from April to the beginning of September, 1864, so that at last it became necessary to carry Scotch coal to Newcastle! CompareEngels, Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England, 314 ff.
[176-10]The English unions even forbid their members to exceed the established time of work, or the established task. Thus, for instance, a penalty of one shilling for carrying at any time more than eight bricks in the case of masons, and a similar penalty inflicted on the person's companions who witness the violation of the rule and do not report the guilty party. Equality of wages for all members; piece-wages allowed only when the surplus earned is divided among one's companions. Hence the complete discouragement of all skill or industry above the average. If an employer exceeds the prescribed number of apprentices; if he engages workmen not belonging to the union; if he introduces new machines, a strike is ordered. With all this the severest exclusion respectively of one class of tradesmen by the other. If a carpenter lays a few stones, a strike immediately! (Quart. Rev., October, 1867, 363, 373.) Rigid shutting out of the products of one district from another. (Edinburg Rev., October, 1867, 431.) The poor hand-weavers were thus prevented going from their over-crowded trade into another. (J. Stuart Mill, Principles, II, ch. 14, 6.) However, many trades-unions still seem to be free from these degenerations, and the most influential unions the most moderate in their proceedings. (Count de Paris, ch. 8, 9;Thornton, III, ch. 2.)Brentanoexpressly assured us that such degeneration of the unions in England is confined to the building trades-unions. (I, 68, 188.)
[176-11]"They have no notion of contenting themselves with an equal voice in the settlement of labor questions; they tell us plainly that what they aspire to is to control the destinies of labor, ... to dictate, to be able to arrange the conditions of employment at their own discretion." (Thornton, III, ch. 1.) The membership of the English trades-unions was estimated, at the Manchester Congress, June, 1868, at 500,000 by some, and at 800,000 by others.Brentano, II, 310, speaks of 960,000. Since 1830, there have been frequent endeavors to effect a great combination, with special organizations of the different trades. During recent years, there have been even beginnings of an international organization, although in Germany, for instance, at the end of 1874, there were 345 trades-unions, with a membership of over 21,000. (M. Hirsch.) A formal theory of workmen's unions to culminate in popular representation, inDühring, Arbeit und Kapital, 1866, especially, p. 233; while the AmericanWalkeraccuses all such combinations, which used compulsion on any one, of moral high treason against republican institutions. (Science of Wealth, 272.)
[176-12]The former view, for instance, ofHarriet Martineau, "The tendence of strikes and sticks to produce low wages" (1834) is now unconditionally shared only by few. WhenSterlingsays that the momentary success of a strike is followed by a two-fold reaction which restores the natural equilibrium, viz.: increase of the number of workmen and decrease of capital (Journal des Econ., 1870, 192), he overlooks not only the length of the transition time which would certainly be possible here, but also that an altered standard of life of the workmen prevents the former, and one of the capitalists the latter. TheCount of ParisandThorntondo not doubt that the elevation of the condition of the English working classes, as proved byLudlowandJones, is to be ascribed, in part, to the effect of the trades-unions. Many of the unions work against the intemperance and quarrelsomeness of their members. The people's charter of 1835, came from the London "workingmen's association."
[176-13]On the great utility of the arbitration courts between masters and workingmen, by which the struggle for wages is terminated in a peaceable manner and without any interruption of work, seeSchäffle, Kapitalismus and Socialismus, 659. More minutely inThornton, III., ch. 5.Faucher, Vierteljahrsschr., 1869, III, 302, calls attention to the fact that such "boards" may be abused to oppress small manufacturers.
SECTION CLXXVII.
WAGES-POLICY.—STRIKES AND THE STATE.
Should the state tolerate the existence of strikes or strike-unions? Legislation in the past most frequently gave a negative answer to the question, as well from a repugnance for high wages as for the self-help of the masses.[177-1]But even leavingthe above reasons out of consideration, every strike is a severe injury to the national resources in general,[177-2]one which causes that part especially to suffer from which those engaged in the various enterprises and the working class draw their income. And, even for the latter, the damage endured is so great that it can be compensated for only by very permanently high wages.[177-3]How many a weak man has been misled by a long cessation from work during a strike, which ate up his savings, into lasting idleness and a devil-may-care kind of life. When employers, through fear of strikes, keep alllarge orders, etc. secret, the workmen are not in a condition to forecast their prospects and condition even for the near future. And in the end a dread of the frequent return of such disturbances may cause capital to emigrate.[177-4]
However, where there exists a very high degree of civilization, there is a balance of reasons in favor of the non-intervention of governments,[177-5]but only so long as the striking workmen are guilty of no breach of contract and of no crime. Where every one may legally throw up his employment, there is certainly no plausible legal objection to all of them doing so at once, and then forming new engagements. Coalitions of purchasers of labor for the purpose of lowering wages, which are most frequent though noiselessly formed, the police power of the state cannot prevent. If now it were attempted to keep the working class alone from endeavoring to correspondingly raise their wages, the impression would become general, and be entertained with right, that the authorities were given to measuring with different standards. Where the working classes so sensitively feel the influence of the government on the state of their wages, they would be only too much inclined to charge every chance pressure made by the circumstances of the times to the account of the state, and thus burthen it with a totally unbearable responsibility. Since 1824, freedom of competition has prevailed in this matter on both sides in England.[177-6]Thedark side of the picture would be most easily brightened by a longer duration of contracts of labor.[177-7]
Whether the trades-unions, when they shall have happily withstood the fermentative process now going on, shall be able to fill up the void created by the downfall of the economically active corporations of the latter part of the middle ages, we shall discuss in our future work, Die Nationalökonomik des Gewerbfleisses. One of the chief conditions precedent thereto is the strict justice of the state, which should protect members of the unions from all tyranny by their leaders, and from violations of the legal rights of non-members.[177-8]
[177-1]Thus even 34 Edw. III., c. 9. Journeymen builders were forbidden by 3 Henry VI., c. 1, to form conspiracies to enhance the rate of wages, under pain of felony. Finally, 39 and 40 George III., c. 106, threatened any one who, by mere persuasion, should induce a workman to leave his master's service, etc., with 2 months in the work-house, or 3 months' imprisonment. In France, as late as June and September, 1791, all conspiracies to raise wages were prohibited under penalty, the incentive to such prohibition being the opposition to allintérêts intermédiariesbetween theintérêts particulier; and theintérêt generalwhich is characteristic of the entire revolution. Compare the law of 22 Germinal, 11. The German Empire on the 16th of August, 1731, threatened journeymen strikers even with death, "when accompanied by great refractoriness and productive of real damage." (Art. 15.)
[177-2]The strike of the spinners of Preston, to compel equal wages with those of Bolton, lasted from October to the end of December, 1836. The spinners got from their treasury 5 shillings a week (previously 22½ shillings wages); twisters, 2 to 3 shillings; carders and weavers lived on alms. In the middle of December, the funds of the union were exhausted. Altogether, the workmen lost 400,000 thalers; the manufacturers, over 250,000; and many merchants failed. (H. Ashworth, Inquiry into the Origin and Results of the Cotton Spinners' Strike.) The Preston strike of 1853 cost the employers £165,000, the workmen, £357,000. (Edinburgh Rev., July, 1854, 166.) The North-Stafford puddlers' strike, in 1865, cost the workmen in wages alone £320,000. Concerning 8 strikes that failed, mostly between 1859 and 1861, which cost in the aggregate £1,570,000, of which £1,353,000 were wages lost, see Statist. Journ., 1861, 503. A great mortality of the children of workingmen observed during strikes!
[177-3]Wattsassumes that the strikers seek to attain, on an average, an advance in their wages of five per cent. Now, a week is about equivalent to two per cent. of the year. If, therefore, a strike lasted one month, the increase of wages it operates must last one and three-fifths years to compensate the workmen for their loss. A strike that lasts 12½ months would require 20 years to effect the same, and this does not include interest on lost wages. (Statist. Journal, 1861, 501 ff.) However, it is possible that the striking workingmen themselves should lose more than they gained, but that, for the whole working class, the gain should exceed the loss; since those who had not participated in the strike would participate in the increased wages.Thorntonis of opinion that employers have won in most strikes, but surrendered in the intervals between strikes, so that now English workmen receive certainly £5,000,000 more in wages than they would be getting were it not for the trades-unions. (III, ch. 3-4.)
[177-4]By the Norwich strike, about the beginning of the fourth decade of this century, what remained of the industrial life of that city disappeared. (Kohl, Reise, II, 363 ff.) Similarly in Dublin. (Quart. Rev., October, 1859, 485 ff.) In Cork, the workingmen's union, in 1827, allowed no strange workmen to join them, and, it is said, committed twenty murders with a view to that end. The builders demanded 4s. 1d. a day wages. This discouraged the erection of new buildings, and it frequently happened that they found employment only one day in two weeks. (Edinb.[TN 16]Rev., XLVII, 212.) When workingmen struggle against a natural decline of the rate of wages, they, of course, add to their misfortune.
[177-5]The grounds on whichBrentano, followingLudlowandHarrison, justifies the intervention of the state, have a very dangerous bearing, inasmuch as they do not suppose, as a condition precedent, a perfectly wise and impartial governmental authority.
[177-6]5 George IV., c. 95: "provided no violence is used." Further, 6 George IV., c. 129, and 122 Vict., c. 34. The law of 1871 declares the trades-unions lawful, allows them the right of registration, and thus empowers them to hold property. In France, the law of May 25, 1864, alters articles 414 to 416 of theCode pénalto the effect that only such strikes shall be punished as happenà l'aide de violences, voies de fait, manœuvres frauduleuses; also coalitions against thelibre exercise du travail à l'aide d'amendes, défenses, proscriptions, interdictions. But these amendments were rendered rather inoperative by the fact that meetings of more than 20 persons could be held only by permission of the police.
[177-7]As, for instance, the coal workers in the north of England required a half year's service. So long as the trades-unions consider themselves, by way of preference, as instruments of war, it is conceivable how they oppose all binding contracts for labor. So now among the German journeymen book-printers, and so, also, for the most part, in England. (Brentano, II, 108.) In quieter times, when the trades-unions shall have become peace institutions, this will be otherwise. We cannot even enjoy the bright side of the freedom of birds without enduring its dark side! In Switzerland, breaches of contract by railroad officers are guarded against by their giving security beforehand; in manufactures, by the holding back of from 3 to 14 days' wages. (Böhmert, Arbeiterverhältnisse, II, 91, 388 ff.)
[177-8]In Switzerland, the trades-unions have shown themselves very powerful against the employers of tradesmen, but rather powerless against manufacturing employers, and thus materially increased the already existing inferiority of the former. (Böhmert, II, 401.) They may, however, by further successful development, constitute the basis of a new smaller middle class, similar to the tradesmen's[TN 17]guilds at the end of the middle ages; and indeed by a new exclusiveness, in a downward direction. This would be a bulwark against the destructive inroads of socialism similar to that which the freed peasantry in France were and still are. While this is alsoBrentano'sview,R. Meyer, Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, 1874, I, 254 ff., calls the trades-unions a practical preparation for socialism to which the English "morally went over" in 1869 (I, 751); which indeed loses much of the appearance of truth from the fact thatMarx(Brentano, Arbeitergilden, II, 332) and the disciples ofLassalle(Meyer, I, 312) hold the trades-unions in contempt.John Stuart Millapproves of all trades-unions that seek to effect the better remuneration of labor, and opposes all which would bring the wages paid for good work and bad work to the same level. (Principles, II, ch. 14, 6; V, ch. 10, 5.) CompareTooke, History of Prices, VI, 176. Reports of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Organization and Rules of Trades-Unions, 1857.
SECTION CLXXVIII.
WAGES-POLICY.—MINIMUM OF WAGES.
The demand[178-1]so frequently heard recently, that the state should guaranty an "equitable" minimum of wages, could be granted where the natural rate of wages has fallen below that minimum, only on condition that some of the working class in the distribution of the wages capital (no longer sufficient in all the less profitable branches of business) should go away entirely empty handed. Hence, as a rule, in addition to that wages-guaranty, the guaranty of the right to labor is also required. But as useful labor always finds purchasers (the word "useful" being here employed in the sense of the entire economy of a people, and understood in the light of the proper gradation of wants and the means of satisfying them), such a right to labor means no more and no less than that the state should force labor which no one can use, upon others.[178-2]Somethingsimilar is true of Louis Blanc's proposition that the rate of wages of the workmen should be determined and regulated by their own votes and among themselves.[178-3]