Britain For The British Part 8

Surely that is just and reasonable. And that is what Socialists advise.

A capitalist owns a large factory and manages it. He pays his spinners fifteen shillings a week; he sells his goods to the public at the best price he can get; and he makes an income of 10,000 a year. He makes his money fairly and lawfully.

But if the workers and the users of yarn can find their own capital, build their own factory, and spin their own yarn, they have a perfect right to set up on their own account.

And if by so doing they can pay the workers better wages, sell the yarn to the public at a lower price, and have a profit left to build other factories with, no one can accuse them of doing wrong, nor can anyone deny that the workers and the users have proved that they, the producers and consumers, have done better without the capitalist (or middleman) than with him.

But there is another kind of capitalist--the shareholder. A company is formed to manufacture mouse-traps. The capital is 100,000. There are ten shareholders, each holding 10,000 worth of shares. The company makes a profit of 10 per cent. The dividend at 10 per cent. paid to each shareholder will be 1000 a year.

The shareholders do no more than find the capital. They do not manage the business, nor get the orders, nor conduct the sales, nor make the mouse-traps. The business is managed by a paid manager, the sales are conducted by paid travellers, and the mouse-traps are made by paid workmen.

Let us now see how it fares with any one of these shareholders. He lends to the company 10,000. He receives from the company 10 per cent.

dividend, or 1000 a year. In ten years he gets back the whole of his 10,000, but he still owns the shares, and he still draws a dividend of 1000 a year. If the company go on working and making 10 per cent. for a hundred years they will still be paying 1000 a year for the loan of the 10,000. It will be quite evident, then, that in twenty years this shareholder will have received his money twice over; that is to say, his 10,000 will have become 20,000 without his having done a stroke of work or even knowing anything about the business.

On the other hand, the manager, the salesman, and the workman, who have done all the work and earned all the profits, will receive no dividend at all. They are paid their weekly wages, and no more. A man who starts at a pound a week will at the end of twenty years be still working for a pound a week.

The non-Socialist will claim that this is quite right; that the shareholder is as much ent.i.tled to rent on his money as the worker is ent.i.tled to wages for his work. We need not contradict him. Let us keep to simple facts.

Suppose the mouse-trap makers started a factory of their own. Suppose they fixed the wages of the workers at the usual rate. Suppose they borrowed the capital to carry on the business. Suppose they borrowed 100,000. They would not have to pay 10 per cent. for the loan, they would not have to pay 5 per cent. for the loan. But fix it at 5 per cent. interest, and suppose that, as in the case of the company, the mouse-trap makers made a profit of 10 per cent. That would give them a profit of 10,000 a year. In twenty years they would have made a profit of 200,000. The interest on the loan at 5 per cent. for twenty years would be 100,000. The amount of the loan is 100,000. Therefore after working twenty years they would have paid off the whole of the money borrowed, and the business, factory, and machinery would be their own.

Thus, instead of being in the position of the men who had worked twenty years for the mouse-trap company, these men, after receiving the same wages as the others for twenty years, would now be in possession of the business paying them 10,000 a year over and above their wages.

But, the non-Socialist will object, these working men could not borrow 100,000, as they would have no security. That is quite true; but the Corporation of Manchester or Birmingham could borrow the money to start such a work, and could borrow it at 3 per cent. And by making their own mouse-traps, or gas, or bread, instead of buying them from a private maker or a company, and paying the said company or maker 10,000 a year for ever and ever amen, they would, in less than twenty years, become possessors of their own works and machinery, and be in a position to save 10,000 a year on the cost of mouse-traps or gas or bread.

This is what the Socialist means by saying that the capitalist is unnecessary, and is paid too much for the use of his capital.

Against the capitalist or landlord worker or manager the same complaint holds good; the large profits taken by these men as payment for management or direction are out of all proportion to the value of their work. These profits, or salaries, called by economists "the wages of ability," are in excess of any salary that would be paid to a farmer, engineer, or director of any factory either by Government, by the County Council, by a Munic.i.p.ality, or by any capitalist or company engaging such a person at a fixed rate for services. That is to say, the capitalist or landlord director is paid very much above the market value of the "wages of ability."

These facts generally escape the notice of the worker. As a rule his attention is confined to his own wages, and he thinks himself well off or ill off as his wages are what he considers high or low. But there are two sides to the question of wages. It is not only the amount of wages received that matters, but it is also the amount of commodities the wages will buy. The worker has to consider how much he spends as well as how much he gets; and if he can got as much for 15s. as he used to get for 1, he is as much better off as he would be were his wages raised 25 per cent.

Now on every article the workman uses there is one profit or a dozen; one charge or many charges placed upon his food, clothing, house, fuel, light, travelling, and everything he requires by the landlord, the capitalist, or the shareholders.

Take the case of the coal bought by a poor London clerk at 30s. a ton.

It pays a royalty to the royalty owner, it pays a profit to the mine owner, it pays a profit to the coal merchant, it pays a profit to the railway company, and these profits are over and above the cost in wages and wear and tear of machinery.

Yet this same London clerk is very likely a Tory, who says many bitter things against _Socialism_, but never thinks of resenting the heavy taxes levied on his small income by landlords, railway companies, water companies, building companies, ship companies, and all the other companies and private firms who live upon him.

Imagine this poor London clerk, whose house stands on land owned by a peer worth 300,000 a year, whose "boss" makes 50,000 a year out of timber or coals, whose pipe pays four shillings taxes on every shilling's worth of tobacco (while the rich man's cigar pays a tax of five shillings in the pound), whose children go to the board school, while those of the coalowner, the company promoter, the railway director, and the landlord go to the university. Imagine this man, anxious, worried, overworked, poor, and bled by a horde of rich parasites. Imagine him standing in a well-dressed crowd, amongst the diamond shops, fur shops, and costly furniture shops of Regent Street, and asking with a bitter sneer where John Burns got his new suit of clothes.

Is it not marvellous? He does not ask who gets the 4s. on his pound of smoking mixture! Nor why he pays 4s. a thousand for bad gas (as I did in Finchley) while the Manchester clerk gets good gas for 2s. 2d.! Nor does he ask why the Duke of Bedford should put a tax on his wife's apple pudding or his children's bananas! He does not even ask what became of the 80,000,000 which the coal-owners wrung out of the public when he, the poor clerk, was paying 2s. per cwt. for coal for his tiny parlour grate! No. The question he asks is: Where Ben Tillett got his new straw hat!

How the Duke, and the Coalowner, and the Money-lender, and the Jerry-builder must laugh!

Yet so it is. It is not the landlord, the company promoter, the coalowner, the jerry-builder, and all the other useless rich who prey upon his wife and his children whom he mistrusts. His enemies, poor man, are the Socialists; the men and women who work for him, teach him, sacrifice their health, their time, their money, and their prospects to awaken his manhood, to sting his pride, to drive the mists of prejudice from his worried mind and give his common sense a chance. _These_ are the men and women he despises and mistrusts. And he reads the _Daily Mail_, and shudders at the name of the _Clarion_; and he votes for Mr.

Facing-both-ways and Lord Plausible, and is filled with bitterness because of honest John's summer trousers.

Again I tell you, Mr. Smith, that I do not wish to stir up cla.s.s hatred.

Lady Dedlock, wife of the great ground landlord, is a charming lady, handsome, clever, and very kind to the poor.

But if I were a docker, and if my wife had to go out in leaky boots, or if my delicate child could not get sea air and nourishing food, I should be apt to ask whether his lordship, the great ground landlord, could not do with less rent and his sweet wife with fewer pearls. I should ask that. I should not think myself a man if I did not ask it; nor should I feel happy if I did not strain every nerve to get an answer.

Non-Socialists often reproach Socialists for sentimentality. But surely it is sentimentality to talk as the non-Socialist does about the personal excellences of the aristocracy. What have Lady Dedlock's amiability and beauty to do with the practical questions of gas rates and wages?

I am "setting cla.s.s against cla.s.s." Quite right, too, so long as one cla.s.s oppresses another.

But let us reverse the position. Suppose you go to the Duke of Hebden Bridge and ask for an engagement as clerk in his Grace's colliery at a salary of 5000 a year. Will the duke give it to you because your wife is pretty and your daughter thinks you are a great man? Not at all. His Grace would say, "My dear sir, you are doubtless an excellent citizen, husband, and father; but I can get a better clerk at a pound a week, sir; and I cannot afford to pay more, sir."

The duke would be quite correct. He could get a better clerk for 1 a week. And as for the amiability of your family, or your own personal merits, what have they to do with business?

As a business man the duke will not pay 2 a week to a clerk if he can get a man as good for 1 a week.

Then why should the clerk pay 4s. a thousand for his gas if he can get it for 2s. 2d.? Or why should the docker pay the duke 5s. rent if he can get a house for 2s. 6d.?

Should I be offended with the duke for refusing to pay me more than I am worth? Should I accuse him of cla.s.s hatred? Not at all. Then why should I be blamed for suggesting that it is folly to pay a duke more than he is worth? Or why should the duke mutter about cla.s.s hatred if I suggest that we can get a colliery director at a lower salary than his Grace? Talk about sentimentality! Are we to pay a guinea each for dukes if we can get them three a penny? It is not business.

I grudge no man his wealth nor his fortune. I want nothing that is his.

I do not hate the rich: I pity the poor. It is of the women and children of the poor I think when I am agitating for _Socialism_, not of the coffers of the wealthy.

I believe in universal brotherhood; nay, I go even further, for I maintain that the sole difference between the worst man and the best is a difference of opportunity--that is to say, that since heredity and environment make one man amiable and another churlish, one generous and another mean, one faithful and another treacherous, one wise and another foolish, one strong and another weak, one vile and another pure, therefore the bishop and the hooligan, the poet and the boor, the idiot, the philosopher, the thief, the hero, and the brutalised drab in the kennel _are all equal in the sight of G.o.d and of justice_, and that every word of censure uttered by man is a word of error, growing out of ignorance. As the sun shines alike upon the evil and the good, so must we give love and mercy to all our fellow-creatures. "Judgment is mine, saith the Lord."

But that does not prevent me from defending a brother of the East End against a brother of the West End. Truly we should love all men. Let us, then, begin by loving the weakest and the worst, for they have so little love and counsel, while the rich and the good have so much.

We will not, Mr. Smith, accuse the capitalist of base conduct. But we will say that as a money-lender his rate of interest is too high, and that as a manager his salary is too large. And we will say that if by combining we can, as workers, get better wages, and as buyers get cheaper goods, we shall do well and wisely to combine. For it is to our interest in the one case, as it is to the interest of the capitalist in the other case, to "buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest."

So much for the capitalist; but, before we deal with the landlord, we have to consider another very important person, and that is the inventor, or brain-worker.

CHAPTER IV

THE BRAIN WORKER, OR INVENTOR

It has, I think, never been denied that much wealth goes to the capitalist, but it has been claimed that the capitalist deserves all he gets because wealth is produced by capital. And although this is as foolish as to say that the tool does the work and not the hand that wields it, yet books have been written to convince the people that it is true.

Some of these books try to deceive us into supposing that capital and ability are interchangeable terms. That is to say, that "capital," which means "stock," is the same thing as "ability," which means cleverness or skill. We might as well believe that a machine is the same thing as the brain that invented it. But there is a trick in it. The trick lies in first declaring that the bulk of the national wealth is produced by "ability," and then confusing the word "ability" with the word "capital."

But it is one thing to say that wealth is due to the man who _invented_ a machine, and it is quite another thing to say that wealth is due to the man who _owns_ the machine.

In his book called _Labour and the Popular Welfare_, Mr. Mallock a.s.sures us that ability produces more wealth than is produced by labour.

He says that two-thirds of the national wealth are due to ability and only one-third to labour. A hundred years ago, Mr. Mallock says, the population of this country was 10,000,000 and the wealth produced yearly; 140,000,000, giving an average of 14 a head.

The recent production is 350,000,000 for every 10,000,000 of the population, or 35 a head.

The argument is that _labour_ is only able to produce as much now as it could produce a hundred years ago, for labour does not vary. Therefore, the increase from 14 a head to 35 a head is not due to labour but to machinery.

Now, we owe this machinery, not to labour, but to invention. Therefore the various inventors have enabled the people to produce more than twice as much as they produced a century back.