Britain For The British Part 26

And don't you see that if the Lancashire workers would live upon rice and water, the masters would soon have their wages down to rice and water point?

And then the Indians would have to live on less, or work still longer hours, and so the game would go on.

And who would reap the benefit? The English masters and the Indian masters (who are often one and the same) would still take a large share, but the chief benefit of the fall in price would go to the buyers--or users, or "consumers"--of the goods.

That is to say, that the workers of India and of England would be starved and sweated, so that the natives of other countries could have cheap clothing.

If you doubt what I say, look at the employers' speeches, read the newspapers which are in the employers' pay, add two and two together, and you will find it all out for yourselves.

To return to the question of temperance and thrift. You see, I hope, that if _all_ the people were sober and thrifty they would be really worse off than they now are. This is because the workers must have work, must ask the employers to give them work, and must ask employers who, being in compet.i.tion with each other, are always trying to get the work done at the lowest price.

And the lowest price is always the price which the bulk of the workers are content to live upon.

In all foreign nations where the standard of living is lower than in England, you will find that the wages are lower also.

Have we not often heard our manufacturers declare that if the British workers would emulate the thrift and sobriety of the foreigner they might successfully compete against foreign compet.i.tion in the foreign market? What does that mean, but that thrift would enable our people to live on less, and so to accept less wages?

Why are wages of women in the shirt trade low?

It is because capitalism always keeps the wages down to the lowest standard of subsistence which the people will accept.

So long as our English women will consent to work long hours, and live on tea and bread, the "law of supply and demand" will maintain the present condition of sweating in the shirt trade.

If all our women became firmly convinced that they could not exist without chops and bottled stout, the wages _must_ go up to a price to pay for those things.

_Because there would be no women offering to live on tea and bread_; and shirts _must_ be had.

But what is the result of the abstinence of these poor sisters of ours?

Low wages for themselves, and, for others?----

A young merchant wants a dozen shirts. He pays 10s. each for them. He meets a friend who only gave 8s. for his. He goes to the 8s. shop and saves 2s. This is clear profit, and he spends it in cigars, or champagne, or in some other luxury; _and the poor seamstress lives on toast and tea._

But although I say that sobriety and thrift, if adopted by _all_ the workers, would result in lower wages, you are not to suppose that I advise you all to be drunkards and spendthrifts.

No. The proper thing is to do away with compet.i.tion. At present the employers, in the scramble to undersell each other, actually fine you for your virtue and self-denial by lowering your wages, just as the landlords fine a tenant for improving his land or enlarging his house or extending his business--fine him by raising his rent.

And now we may, I think, come to the question of imprudent marriages.

The idea seems to be that a man should not marry until he is "in a position to keep a wife." And it is a very common thing for employers, and other well-to-do persons, to tell working men that they "have no right to bring children into the world until they are able to provide for them."

Now let us clear the ground a little before we begin to deal with this question on its economic side--that is, as it affects wages.

It is bad for men and women to marry too young. It is bad for two reasons. Firstly, because the body is not mature; and secondly, because the mind is not settled. That is to say, an over-early marriage has a bad effect on the health; and since young people must, in the nature of things, change very much as they grow older, an over-early marriage is often unhappy.

I think a woman would be wise not to marry before she is about four-and-twenty; and I think it is better that the husband should be from five to ten years older than the wife.

Then it is very bad for a woman to have many children; and not only is it bad for her health, but it destroys nearly all the pleasure of her life, so that she is an enfeebled and weary drudge through her best years, and is old before her time.

That much conceded, I ask you, Mr. John Smith, what do you think of the request that you shall work hard, live spare, and give up a man's right to love, to a home, to children, in order that you may be able to "make a living"? Such a living is not worth working for. It would be a manlier and a happier lot to die.

Here is the idea as it has been expressed by a working man--

Up to now I had thought that the object of life was to live, and that the object of love was to love. But the economists have changed all that. There is neither love nor life, sentiment nor affection.

The earth is merely a vast workshop, where all is figured by debit and credit, and where supply and demand regulates everything. You have no right to live unless the industrial market demands hands; a woman has no business to bring forth a child unless the capitalist requires live stock.

I cannot really understand a _man_ selling his love and his manhood, and talking like a coward or a slave about "imprudent marriages"; and all for permission to drudge at an unwelcome task, and to eat and sleep for a few lonely and dishonourable years in a loveless and childless world.

You don't think _that_ is going to save you, men, do you? You don't think you are going to make the best of life by selling for the sake of drudgery and bread and b.u.t.ter your proud man's right to work for, fight for, and die for the woman you love?

For, having sold your love for permission to work, how long will you be before you sell your honour? Nay, is it not true that many of you have sold it already?

For every man who works at jerry work, or takes a part in any kind of adulteration, scampery, or trade rascality, is selling his honour for wages, and is just as big a scamp and a good deal more of a coward than a burglar or a highwayman.

And the commercial travellers and the canva.s.sers and the agents who get their living by telling lies,--as some of them do,--do you call those _men_?

And the gentlemen of the Press who write against their convictions for a salary, and for the sake of a suburban villa, a silk hat, and some cheap claret, devote their energies and talents to the perpetuation of falsehood and wrong--do you call _those_ men?

If we cannot keep our foreign trade without giving up our love and our manhood and our honour, it is time the foreign trade went to the devil and took the British employers with it.

If the state of things in England to-day makes it impossible for men and women to love and marry, then the state of things in England to-day will not do.

Well, do you still think that single life, a crust of bread, and rags, will alone enable you to hold your own and to keep your foreign trade?

And do you still think that poverty is a mark of unworthiness, and wealth the sure proof of merit? If so, just read these few lines from an article by a Tory Minister, Sir John Gorst--

The "won't-works" are very few in number, but the section of the population who cannot earn enough wages all the year round to live decently is very large.

Professional criminals are not generally poor, for when out of gaol they live very comfortably as a rule. There are wastrels, of course, who have sunk so low as to have a positive aversion to work, and it is people of this kind who are most noisy in parading their poverty.

The industrious poor, on the other hand, shrink from exposing their wretchedness to the world, and strive as far as possible to keep it out of sight.

Now, contrast those sensible and kindly words with the following quotation from a mercantile journal:--

The talk about every man having a right to work is fallacious, for he can only have the right of every free man to do work if he can get it.

Yes! But he has other "rights." He has the right to combine to defeat attempts to rob him of work or to lower his wages; he has the right to vote for parliamentary and munic.i.p.al candidates who will alter the laws and the conditions of society which enable a few greedy and heartless men to disorganise the industries of the nation, to keep the Briton off the land which is his birthright, to exploit the brain and the sinew of the people, and to condemn millions of innocent and helpless women and children to poverty, suffering, ignorance, and too often to disgrace or early death.

A man, John Smith, has the right to _be a man_, and, if he is a Briton, has a right to be a free man. It is to persuade every man in Britain to exercise this right, and to do his duty to the children and the women of his cla.s.s and family, that I am publishing this book.

"The right to do work if he can get it," John, and to starve if he cannot get it.

How long will you allow these insolent market-men to insult you? How long will you allow a mob of money-lending, bargain-driving, dividend-s.n.a.t.c.hing parasites to live on you, to scorn you, and to treat you as "live stock"? How long? How long?

I shall have to write a book for the women, John.