Knowledge is Power Part 19

[45] Morison, 'Labour and Capital,' p. 24.

CHAPTER XXV.

What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted labour--Compet.i.tion of unskilled labour--Compet.i.tion of uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of organised industry--Factory-labour and garret-labour-- Communism--Proposals for state organisation of labour-- Social publishing establishment--Practical co-operation.

There is a pa.s.sage in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' in which he describes the benevolent and philosophical hero of his poem, a pedler, listening to the complaints of poverty, and searching into the causes of the evil:--

"Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts, Huts where his charity was blest; his voice Heard as the voice of an experienced friend.

And, sometimes, where the poor man held dispute With his own mind, unable to subdue Impatience, through inaptness to perceive General distress in his particular lot; Or cherishing resentment, or in vain Struggling against it, with a soul perplex'd And finding in herself no steady power To draw the line of comfort that divides Calamity, the chastis.e.m.e.nt of Heaven, From the injustice of our brother men; To him appeal was made as to a judge; Who, with an understanding heart, allay'd The perturbation; listen'd to the plea; Resolv'd the dubious point; and sentence gave So grounded, so applied, that it was heard With soften'd spirit--e'en when it condemn'd."

The poor man is accustomed to hold dispute with his own mind; he thinks his particular lot is worse than the general lot; his soul is perplexed in considering whether his condition is produced by a common law of society, or by the injustice of his fellow-men; the experienced friend listens, discusses, argues,--but he argues in a temper that produces a softened spirit. The adviser soothes rather than inflames, by dealing with such questions with "an understanding heart." He unites the sympathising heart with the reasoning understanding.

Now, we may fairly inquire if, during the many unfortunate occasions that are constantly arising of contests for what are called the rights of labour against what is called the tyranny of capital, those who are the most immediate sufferers in the contest are addressed with the "understanding heart?" If argument be used at all, the principles which govern the relations between capital and labour are put too often dictatorially or patronisingly before them, as dry, abstract propositions. They are not set forth as matters of calm inquiry, whose truths, when dispa.s.sionately examined, may be found to lead to the conclusion that a steadily-increasing rate of wages, affording the employed a greater amount of comforts and conveniences, is the inevitable result of increasing capital, under conditions which depend upon the workers themselves. The result is generally such as took place in a recent Lancashire strike, where one of the leaders exclaimed, "The sooner we can rout political economy from the world, the better it will be for the working-cla.s.ses." It might, indeed, as well be said, the sooner we can rout acoustics from the world, the better it will be for those who have ears to hear; but the absurdity would not be corrected by a mathematical demonstration to those who did not comprehend mathematics. The same person held that political economy was incompatible with the gospel precept of doing unto others as we would be done unto, because it encourages buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest; and he necessarily a.s.sumed that political economy recommends the capitalist to buy labour cheap and sell it dear.

We have not learnt that calmly and kindly he was told, in the real spirit of political economy, that it is impossible that, by any individual or local advantage the capitalist may possess, he can long depress wages below the rate of the whole country, because other capitalists would enter into compet.i.tion for the employment of labour, and raise the average rate. If Wordsworth's experienced friend had heard this perversion of the meaning of the axiom about markets, he would have said, we think, that to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest simply means, in commerce, to buy an article where its cheapness represents abundance, and to sell it in a place where its dearness represents a want of it and a consequent demand,--even as he, the pedler, bought a piece of cloth at Kendal, where there was plenty of cloth, and sold it for a profit at Grasmere, where there was little cloth. The business of mercantile knowledge and enterprise is to discover and apply these conditions; so that, if a trader were to buy hides in Smithfield and carry them to Buenos Ayres, he would reverse these conditions,--he would buy in the dearest market and sell in the cheapest. Political economy--the declaimer against it might have been told--says that to produce cheap is essential to large demand, and constantly-increasing demand; but it does not say that cheap production necessarily implies diminished wages. It says that cheap production, as a consequence of increased production, depends upon the constantly-increasing use of capital in production, and the constantly-diminishing amount of mere manual labour compared with the quant.i.ty produced--which result is effected by the successive application of all the appliances of science to the means of production.

At every step of scientific improvement there is a demand for labour of a higher character than existed without the science. At every extended organization of industry, resulting from an extended demand, not only skilled labour, but trusted labour, becomes more and more in request; and the average amount of all labour is better paid. A bricklayer is paid more than the man who mixes his mortar, because one is a skilled labourer, and has learnt his art by some expenditure of time, which is capital. The merchant's bookkeeper is paid more than his porter, because the one has an office of high trust and responsibility, and the other a duty to perform of less importance, and for which a far greater number of men wanting hire are fitted. We could wish that not only "in ragged huts," but in well-appointed houses, were the things better understood that political economy really does say.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Feed the hungry.]

The process which has been steadily going on amongst us for increasing the demand for skill and trustworthiness has no doubt produced a diminution of the funds for employ in which neither skill nor trust is required. Thus a great amount of suffering is constantly presented to our view, which benevolence has set about relieving, in our time, with a zeal which shows how fully it is acknowledged that the great principle, to "Love one another," is not to evaporate in sentiment, but is to be ripened in action. As a nation, England was never indifferent to the command, "Feed the hungry." The art of Flaxman has shown this "act of mercy" in its most direct form. But the "understanding heart" has discovered that many of the miseries of society may be relieved by other modes as effectually as by alms-giving, and perhaps much more effectually. Whether some of these efforts may be misdirected, in no degree detracts from the value of the principle which seeks the prevention of misery rather than the relief. One of the most obvious forms in which misery has presented itself in our large cities, and especially in London, has arisen from the compet.i.tion amongst labour which may be called unskilled, because there are a numerous unemployed body of labourers at hand to do the same work, in which there is no special skill. This was the case with the sempstresses of London; and the famous 'Song of the Shirt' struck a note to which there was a responding chord in every bosom. But the terrible evils of the low wages of shirt-making would not have been relieved by an universal agreement of the community to purchase none but shirts that, by their price, could afford to give higher wages to the shirt-makers. The higher wages would have infallibly attracted more women and more children to the business of shirt-making. The straw-platters, the embroiderers, the milliners would have rushed to shirt-making; and, unless there had been a constantly-increasing rate of price charged to the wearers of shirts, and therefore a constant forced contribution to the capital devoted to shirt-making, the payment to one shirt-maker would have come to be divided amongst two; and the whole body, thus doubled by a rate of wages disproportioned to the rate of other labour requiring little peculiar skill, would have been in a worse condition in the end than in the beginning.

Whatever suffering may arise out of the compet.i.tion that must exist between mere manual labour, and also between that labour which is displayed in the practice of some art easily learnt, capable of exercise by both s.e.xes, and in which very young children may readily engage--it is scarcely fair that those who witness the suffering of the employed at very low wages should instantly conclude that the employers are extortioners and oppressors. A branch of trade which seems inconsiderable as regards the article produced is often found in a particular locality, and furnishes employment to large numbers. In the London parish of Cripplegate there are great quant.i.ties of toothbrushes made. The handle is formed by the lathe, in which skilled labour is employed. The hair is cut by machinery. The holes in the handle in which the hair is inserted are also pierced by machines. But the insertion of the hair, and the fastening it by wire, are done by hand. Excellent people, who, with a strong sense of Christian duty, enter "ragged huts"

to relieve and to advise, see a number of women and children daily labouring at the one task of fastening the hair in toothbrushes; and they learn that the wages paid are miserably low. They immediately conclude that the wages should be higher; because in the difference between the retail price of a toothbrush and the manufacturing cost there must necessarily be large profits. They say, therefore, that the wholesale manufacturer is unjust in not giving higher wages. But the retail price of toothbrushes, however high, does not enable the manufacturer, necessarily, to give a payment more considerable than the average of such labour to the women and children who very quickly learn the art of fastening the hair. The price he can pay is to be measured by the average price of such labour all over the country. It is not in the least unlikely that the manufacturer in Cripplegate may not receive a fourth of the price at which a toothbrush is sold in Saint James's. The profits are determined by the average of all his transactions. He has to sell as cheaply as possible for the export trade. If he sell dear, the export-trader will see if he cannot buy a hundred thousand toothbrushes at Havre instead of London. It is nothing to the exporter whether he obtain a profit out of French or English toothbrushes. Again. The manufacturer sends a hundred thousand toothbrushes to a wholesale dealer at Glasgow, who supplies the retailers throughout Scotland. But before the Scotch warehouseman will repeat the order, he will ascertain whether he can buy the article cheaper at Birmingham; and one per cent. lower will decide against Cripplegate. Now, in all these domestic labours involving small skill, the question is whether the miserably-paid workers can do anything more profitable. Mr. Mayhew says that some large cla.s.ses "do not obtain a fair living price for their work, because, as in the case of the needle-workers and other domestic manufacturers, their livelihood is supposed to be provided for them by the husband or father; and hence the remuneration is viewed rather as an aid to the family income than as an absolute means of support." It is not what is "supposed," or what is "viewed," that determines the question. It is what really is. Such employ may, unhappily, be sought by many as "an absolute means of support." But if there be an almost unlimited number who seek it as "an aid to the family income," there is no possibility of preventing a compet.i.tion, perfectly equal as regards the wages of labour, but wretchedly unequal in the application of those wages.

The miseries that are so frequently resulting from the compet.i.tion of unskilled labour are also results from what we will venture to call uncapitalled labour, attempting to unite wages with profits. Upon a large scale, the miseries of Ireland, which finally collapsed in the terrible famine, were produced by labour trenching upon the functions of capital without possessing capital. In 1847 there were in Ireland five hundred thousand acres of land in more than three hundred thousand holdings, thus supplying the only means of maintenance to three hundred thousand male labourers and their families, but averaging little more than an acre and a half to each tenant. There are not more than nine hundred thousand labourers and farmers to the twenty-five million cultivated acres in England and Wales--about one labourer to every thirty-eight acres, and about one farmer capitalist to every hundred and ten acres. Nor is the effect of uncapitalled and unskilled labour--for uncapitalled labour is for the most part unskilled--less remarkable in manufactures than in agriculture. Many are familiar with the minute details of low wages and suffering--of the oppressions attributed to masters and middle-men--which are contained in a series of papers by Mr.

Henry Mayhew, published in '_The Morning Chronicle_' in 1849-50, under the t.i.tle of 'London Labour, and London Poor.' Nothing could be more laudable than the general object of these papers, which, in the preface to a collected edition of a portion of them, was "to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under these sufferings, of the poor;" and to cause those "of whom much is expected, to bestir themselves to improve their condition." But, at the same time, it would be difficult to say how the condition of particular cla.s.ses of these sufferers was to be improved, except by such general efforts as would raise up the whole body of the people in knowledge and virtue, and by directing the labours of those who, without skill or capital, were struggling against skill and capital, into courses of industry more consonant with the great modes of productiveness all around them. One example may ill.u.s.trate our meaning--that of "the garret-masters of the cabinet-trade." The writer we have mentioned says that wages had fallen 400 per cent. in that trade, between 1831 and 1850; but he also says that the trade was "depressed by the increase of small masters--that is to say, by a cla.s.s of workmen possessed of just sufficient capital to buy their own materials, and to support themselves while making them up." Taking the whole rate of wages,--the payment to the unskilled as well as the skilled workmen--it would be difficult not to believe that the average reduction was quite as great as represented. A cabinet-maker tells this tale:--

"One of the inducements," he said, "for men to take to making up for themselves is to get a living when thrown out of work until they can hear of something better. If they could get into regular journeywork there a'n't one man as wouldn't prefer it--it would pay them a deal better. Another of the reasons for the men turning small masters is the little capital that it requires for them to start themselves. If a man has got his tools he can begin as a master-man with a couple of shillings. If he goes in for making large tables, then from 30_s._ to 35_s._ will do him, and it's the small bit of money it takes to start with in our line that brings many into the trade who wouldn't be there if more tin was wanted to begin upon. Many works for themselves, because n.o.body else won't employ them, their work is so bad. Many weavers has took to our business of late. That's quite common now--their own's so bad; and some that used to hawk hearthstones about is turned Pembroke tablemakers." Whether the mode in which this workman expresses himself correctly indicates, or not, the amount of his education, it is quite certain that he had got to the root of the evil of which he complains.

The compet.i.tion that is only limited by the capacity of endurance between the unskilled workman and the uncapitalled workman--each striving against the other, and striving, in vain against capital and skill--has been going on for centuries in the distribution of commodities. The retailer with small capital has always had to carry on an unequal contest with the retailer with large capital. In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof--from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many compet.i.tors.

But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. It is easy to understand that the larger profits of the small retailer have very little chance of acc.u.mulation against the smaller profits of the large retailer.

But this contest of small capital against large was formerly carried on in the struggle of the itinerant traders against the shopkeepers. It is now carried on in a struggle amongst themselves. The census returns show seven thousand costermongers, hucksters, and general-dealers. Mr.

Mayhew says there are ten thousand in London.[46]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Costermonger.]

The costermonger is a travelling shopkeeper. We encounter him not in Cornhill, or Holborn, or the Strand: in the neighbourhood of the great markets and well-stored shops he travels not. But his voice is heard in some silent streets stretching into the suburbs; and there his donkey-cart stands at the door, as the dingy servant-maid cheapens a bundle of cauliflowers. He has monopolized all the trades that were anciently represented by such "London cries" as "_Buy my artichokes, mistress_;" "_Ripe cowc.u.mbers_;" "_White onions, white St. Thomas'

onions_;" "_White radish_;" "_Ripe young beans_;" "_Any baking pears_;"

"_Ripe speragas_." He would be indignant to encounter such petty chapmen interfering with his wholesale operations. Mr. Mayhew says that "the regular or thoroughbred costermongers repudiate the numerous persons who only sell nuts or oranges in the streets." No doubt they rail against these inferior compet.i.tors, as the city shopkeepers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries railed against itinerant traders of every denomination. In the days of Elizabeth, they declare by act of common council, that in ancient times the open streets and lanes of the city have been used, and ought to be used, as the common highway only, and not for hucksters, pedlers, and hagglers, to stand and sit to sell their wares in, and to pa.s.s from street to street hawking and offering their wares. In the seventh year of Charles I. the same authorities denounce the oyster-wives, herb-wives, tripe-wives, and the like, as "unruly people;" and they charge them, somewhat unjustly as it must appear, with "framing to themselves a way whereby to live a more easy life than by labour."

"How busy is the man the world calls idle!"

The evil, as the citizens term it, seems to have increased; for in 1694 the common council threatened the pedlers and petty chapmen with the terrors of the laws against rogues and st.u.r.dy beggars, the least penalty being whipping, whether for male or female. The reason for this terrible denunciation is very candidly put: the citizens and shopkeepers are greatly hindered and prejudiced in their trades by the hawkers and pedlers. Such denunciations as these had little share in putting down the itinerant traders. They continued to flourish, because society required them; and they vanished from our view when society required them no longer. In the middle of the last century they were fairly established as rivals to the shopkeepers. Dr. Johnson, than whom no man knew London better, thus writes in the 'Adventurer:' "The attention of a newcomer is generally first struck by the multiplicity of cries that stun him in the streets, and the variety of merchandise and manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on every hand." The shopkeepers have now ruined the itinerants--not by putting them down by fiery penalties, but by the compet.i.tion amongst themselves to have every article at hand, for every man's use, which shall be better and cheaper than the wares of the itinerant.

A curious parallel might be carried out between the itinerant occupations which the progress of society has imperfectly suspended, and those which even the most advanced civilization is compelled to retain.

For example,--the water-carrier is gone. It is impossible that London can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two enormous pails, vociferating "_New River Water_." But the cry of "_Milk_," or the rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was, "_Any milk here_?" and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of "_Fresh cheese and cream_;" and it then pa.s.sed into "_Milk, maids, below_;" and it was then shortened into "_Milk below_;" and was finally corrupted into "_Mio_," which some wag interpreted into _mi-eau--demi-eau_--half-water. But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The days are long since past when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, and St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St.

Martin's was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked clay stride over the clover and the b.u.t.tercup; and yet every family in London may be supplied with milk by eight o'clock every morning at their own doors. Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous ma.s.ses in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture in the fields which lie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,

"When proud pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,"

yet for the rest of the year the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s is carted to their stalls, or they devour what the breweries and distilleries cannot extract from the grain-harvest. Long before "the unfolding star wakes up the shepherd" are the London cows milked; and the great wholesale venders of the commodity bear it in carts to every part of the town, and distribute it to hundreds of itinerants, who are waiting like the water-carriers at the old conduits. But the wholesale venders have ceased to depend upon the suburban cows. The railways bring milk in enormous cans to every station. The suburb has extended, practically, to a circle of fifty miles instead of five. It is evident that a perishable commodity which every one requires at a given hour must be rapidly distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. Misson, in his 'Travels,' published at the beginning of the last century, tell us of the May-games of "the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk." Alas! the May-games and pretty young country girls have both departed, and a milkwoman has become a very unpoetical personage. There are few indeed of milkwomen who remain. So it is with most of the occupations that a.s.sociate London with the country. The cry of "_Water-cresses_" used to be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her feet into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the citizens' breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now grown like cabbages in gardens.

Of the street trades that are past and forgotten, the small-coal man was one of the most remarkable. He tells a tale of a city with few fires; for who could now imagine a man earning a living by bawling "_Small coals_" from door to door, without any supply but that in the sack which he carries on his shoulders? His cry was, however, a rival with "_Wood to cleave_." In a metropolis full of haberdashers, large and small, what chance would an aged man now have with his flattering solicitation of "_Pretty pins_, _pretty women_?" He who carries a barrel on his back, with a measure and funnel at his side, bawling "_Fine writing-ink_," is wanted neither by clerks nor authors. There is a grocer's shop at every turn; and who therefore needs him who salutes us with "_Lily-white vinegar_?" The history of "cries" is a history of social changes. The _working_ trades, as well as the venders of things that can be bought in every street, are now banished from our thoroughfares. "_Old chairs to mend_" still salutes us in some retired suburb; and we still see the knife-grinder's wheel; but who vociferates "_Any work for John Cooper_?"

or "_A bra.s.s pot or an iron pot to mend_?" The trades are gone to those who pay scot and lot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pots to mend.]

There are some occupations of the streets, however, which remain essentially the same, though the form be somewhat varied. The sellers of food are of course amongst these. "Hot peascods," and hot sheep's-feet, are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. "_Hot wardens_,"

and "_Hot codlings_," are not the "cries" which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with savoury salt-b.u.t.ter to put between the "fruit" when it is cut; and chestnuts roasted; and greasy sausages, redolent of onions and marjoram; and crisp brown flounders; and the mutton-pie-man, with his "toss for a penny." Rice-milk, furmety, barley-broth, and saloop are no longer in request. The greatest improvement of London in our own day has been the establishment of coffee-shops, where the artisan may take his breakfast with comfort, and even with luxury; where a good breakfast may be had for three-pence; where no intoxicating liquors are sold; and where the newspapers and the best periodical works may be regularly found.

If we lament over the general decay of the itinerant traders--their uncertain gains, their privations from constant exposure, their want of home comforts, their temptation to drive their children into the streets to make more sales--we lament over what is an inevitable consequence of the general progress of society. Can we correct these evils by saying that the profits of the itinerant traders ought to be raised? Their low condition is a necessary consequence of their carrying on a system of industry which is at variance with the general system of civilization.

They may have their uses in districts with a scattered population, because they bring articles of consumption to the door of the consumer.

But in densely populated districts they must inevitably be superseded by the shopkeepers. They carry on their industry by a series of individual efforts, which are interfered with by numerous chances and accidents. We are told that the cla.s.s is extending yearly. But it cannot extend profitably. In many cases it a.s.sumes only another form of mendicity. It is a precarious occupation. It can count upon no regular returns. Its gains, such as they are, are like all other uncertain gains--the impulse to occasional profligacy in connection with habitual misery. The costermongers, according to Mr. Mayhew, are drunkards and gamblers,--living without religion or the family ties. Their children are wholly uneducated. These are brought up to a.s.sist very early in obtaining their precarious living; and they cleave to a wandering in place of a settled life. Dissociated, thus, from all regular industry, they become the outcasts of the people; and go on swelling the number of those who, in France, are called "the dangerous cla.s.ses." All cla.s.ses are dangerous in whom there is none of that self-respect which goes along with domestic comfort--with sobriety, with cleanliness, with a taste for some pursuit that has a tincture of the intellectual. How is such a cla.s.s to be dealt with? The adult are almost past hope; the young, taken early enough, may be trained into something better. But the very last thing that society has to do is to encourage, by any forced and unnatural process, the accession of numbers to the body, always deriving new compet.i.tors from the unfortunate and the idle who have fallen out of regular occupation. Those who learn the necessity of being provident cease to be costermongers. With some, indeed, the profitable sale of an article in the streets may be the first step in an acc.u.mulation which will lead to the more profitable sale of an article at a stall, and thence, onward, to the possession of a shop. There have been such instances; and we knew of a remarkable one in a boy who went to a tea-dealer, and said if he could be trusted with one pound of tea he could make a living. He was trusted. In time he wanted no credit, and was a regular and valuable customer to his first patron. He pa.s.sed out of the itinerant life into the settled; and ultimately became a flourishing shopkeeper.

In striking contrast to the various forms of unskilled labour and irregular trading which we have noticed, may be mentioned an industry which in London has a very perfect organization. In Clerkenwell and the neighbouring parish of Saint Luke's, there are sixteen hundred watchmakers. These are not the artisans whom we see as we pa.s.s along the streets of the metropolis, and of the provincial towns, sitting in front of the shop-window diligently repairing or putting together the works of a watch, by the light of day or of a brilliant lamp, each with a magnifying gla.s.s pressed under his eyebrow. Nor are they the workers in metal who manufacture the movements,--that is, the wheels--of a watch, for these chiefly dwell in Lancashire. The London watchmakers, thus closely packed in a district which is small compared with the whole area of the metropolis, are those who put the movements together, and supply all the delicate parts of the mechanism, such as the spring and the escapement. They provide also the case and the dial-plate. The degree of the skilled labour employed in these several branches necessarily varies, according to the quality of the instrument to be produced, from the ordinary metal watch to the most luxurious repeater. With some exceptions, the artisans do not work in large factories. They are subdivided according to their respective qualities, amongst small establishments, where a master has several men receiving wages for performing one particular branch of work; or the artisan himself, in his own home, may be an escapement-maker, a spring-maker, a fusee-maker, a maker of hands, an enameller, an engine-turner, a jewelled pivot-hole maker. All this beautiful subdivision of employments has been found necessary for the perfection and the cheapness of watches. The capitalist, who is essentially the watch manufacturer, organizes all these departments of industry. English watches, by this economical system of production, keep their place against the compet.i.tion of foreign watches; of which we imported, in 1853, fifty-four thousand. The skilled workmen, in all the various subdivisions of the manufacture, are well paid, and take their due rank amongst the great and increasing body of intelligent mechanics.

Within these few years American clocks have been extensively sold in this country. People would once have thought that the business of clockmaking in England would be at an end, if it had been predicted that in 1853 we should import, as we did, a hundred and forty thousand clocks. The goodness and cheapness of American clocks have carried a clock into many a house, that without them would have been deficient of this instrument for keeping all industry in accordance with the extraordinary punctuality which has been forced upon us as an indispensable quality. We owe the general exercise of this virtue to the post and the railroads. No one needs now to be told, as our grandfathers were somewhat roughly told by the sun-dial in the Temple, "Be gone about thy business." The American clocks are produced by factory labour. In Connecticut two hundred and fifty men are employed in one establishment, in making six hundred clocks a-day, the price varying from one dollar to ten, and the average price being three dollars. Each clock pa.s.ses through sixty different hands; but in every stage the most scientific applications of machinery chiefly produce the excellence and the cheapness.

Between the factory-labour required to produce an American clock, which labour affords ample wages to every labourer employed, and ample security to the capitalist that he will not establish expensive machinery, and pay constant wages, without profit,--between this factory-labour, and the "garret-labour" which produces a rickety Pembroke-table, with bad materials and imperfect tools, at the lowest rate of profit to the workman,--the difference really consists in the application or non-application of capital. The theorist then steps in at this stage of the evidence, and says that the garret-labourer ought to be provided with capital. His theory resolves itself into what is called Communism; and it seeks to be maintained by exhibiting the aggregate evils of Compet.i.tion. The theorist does not deny that compet.i.tion has produced an immense development of wealth; but he affirms that the result of the struggle has been, to fill the hands that were already too full, and to take away from the hands that were already nearly empty. He maintains that the labouring cla.s.ses have been more and more declining with every increase of the general riches; and that, at every stop in which industry advances, the proportion of the wretched to the great ma.s.s of the population as certainly increases. We shall not attempt to reply to these declamations by any counter declamation. We point to the great body of facts contained in this volume; and upon them rests our unqualified a.s.sertion that the doctrines of Communism are wholly untrue, and are opposed to the whole body of evidence that enables us to judge of the average condition of the people, past and present.

To remedy the evils which it alleges to exist, Communism proposes a.s.sociations working upon a common capital, and dividing the produce of all the labour of the community. To make a whole country labour in this way, by a confiscation of all the capital of the country, presents, necessarily, great difficulties; and therefore there must be smaller communities in particular localities. But these communities must produce everything within themselves, or they must deal with other communities.

There would be compet.i.tion in these communistic dealings between one community and another. Even if the whole world were to become communistic, there would be compet.i.tion between one nation and another nation.

The main objection to the theory of Communism (the objections to its application are obvious enough) is that, in proposing to have a common fund for all labour, it wars against the natural principle of individuality, and destroys the efficiency of production, by confounding the distinctions between the various degrees of skill and industry. If it give higher rewards to skilled labour than to unskilled, it does exactly what is done in the present state of society. If the unskilled and idle were the larger number under a system of Communism, they would soon degrade the skilled and the industrious to their own level. If they were the less powerful number, the skilled and the industrious would soon bring back the law of compet.i.tion, and drive the unskilled and idle to the minimum point of subsistence.

But Communism, to meet such difficulties, sets up a system of expedients. It invokes the aid of the State as a regulating power; and, having maintained that the State is bound to find employ for every one willing to labour, however inefficiently, and to supply the necessary funds for all labour, it makes the State the great healer of differences, even as Mr. Sergeant Thorpe held that the State could provide "a salve for every sore." Let us take one example of the mode in which Communism proposes to discharge its functions.

There is a little treatise, in Italian, by Count Pecchio, on the Application of the General Laws of Production to Literary and Scientific Publications. It considers that literary-labour is governed by the same laws as any other labour; that the capital of a man of letters consists in his stores of acquired knowledge; that, as there is no equality in literary talent--as there is a great range of talent between the most skilled and the least skilled literary labourer--so the rewards of literary industry are proportionally unequal; that the wages of literary labour depend upon the usual conditions of demand and supply; that, under a system of compet.i.tion in an open market, the literary labourer is more sure of his reward, however large may be the number of labourers, than in the old days of patronage for the few; that State encouragement is not necessary to the establishment of a high and enduring literature; that when literary industry is free--when it is neither fostered by bounties, nor cramped and annihilated by prohibitions--when there is neither patronage nor censorship--it is in the most favourable condition for its prosperous development. These principles, applied to literary production, are in many respects applicable to all production.

Every one has heard of the 'Organization of Labour,' which some philosophers of a neighbouring country were attempting to transfer from the theories of the closet to the experiments of the workshop, in 1848.

It is not our object, as we have said, to discuss whether a vast system of national co-operation for universal production be a wise thing or a practical thing. Let us state only a small part of that system, as exhibited in the 'Organisation du Travail,' by Monsieur Louis Blanc, the second part of which is devoted to the question of literary property.

All the beneficial results contemplated by the organizers of a universal social industry are to be obtained for literary industry, according to this system, by the foundation of a Social Publishing Establishment, which is thus described: It would be a literary manufacture belonging to the State without being subject to the State. This inst.i.tution would govern itself, and divide amongst its members the profits obtained by the common labour. According to its original laws, which would be laid down by the State, the Social Publishing Establishment would not have to purchase any author's right in his works. The price of books would be determined by the State, with a view to the utmost possible cheapness; all the expenses of the impression would be at the charge of the Social Establishment. A committee of enlightened men, chosen and remunerated by the Social Establishment, would receive the works. The writers whose works the Social Establishment would publish would acquire, in exchange for their rights as authors, which they would wholly resign, the right of exclusively competing for national recompenses. There would be in the annual national budget, a fund provided for such recompense, for authors in every sphere of thought. Every time the first work of an author was deemed worthy of a national recompense, a premium would also be given to the Social Establishment, that it might be indemnified for the possible loss which it had sustained in giving its support to youthful talent.

Every year the representatives of the people would name, for every branch of intellectual exertion, a citizen who would examine the works issuing from the social presses. He would have a whole year to examine them thoroughly; to read all the criticisms upon them; to study the influence which they had produced upon society; to interrogate public opinion through its organs, and not judge by the blind mult.i.tude of buyers; and finally to prepare a report. The national rewards would then be distributed in the most solemn manner.

We thus state briefly but fairly the plan which is to put an end to that literary compet.i.tion which it is proclaimed "commences in dishonour and ends in misery;" which is to destroy bad books and encourage good; which, it is affirmed, is "no longer to make the publication of good books depend upon the speculators, who have rarely any other intelligence than a commercial apt.i.tude, but upon competent men, whom it interests in the success of every useful and commendable work." We truly believe that this would be a practicable plan--provided two conditions were secured, which at present seem to be left out of the account. They are simply these--that there should be unlimited funds at hand for the purpose of rewarding authors, and unlimited wisdom and honesty in their administrators. But unhappily, as we understand it, the entire plan is a confusion of principle--rejecting much that is valuable in compet.i.tion, and adopting much that is positively harmful in co-operation. Those authors who are profiting largely by the compet.i.tive system are to give up their profits to the common fund, which is to support those who could not make profits under that system. This is the social workshop notion of equality. But in the literary workshop the State is to step in and restore the ancient condition of inequality, by exclusive rewards to the most deserving of the compet.i.tors. It is a practical satire upon the whole scheme of a new social arrangement.

With a sincere disposition to speak favourably of every plan for promoting the welfare of our fellow-creatures which is not founded upon a destruction of the security of property, we have no desire to maintain that all the denouncers of compet.i.tion are weak and dangerous advisers of the great body of working people. We believe that the entire system of any proposed co-operation that would set aside compet.i.tion is a delusion,--out of which, indeed, some small good might be slowly and painfully evoked, but which can never mainly affect the great workings of individual industry, whilst its futile attempts may relax the springs of all just and honest action. But we do not in any degree seek to oppose any practical form of co-operation that is built upon the natural and inevitable workings of capital, tending to produce, in a manner not less favourable for production than a system entirely compet.i.tive.

Co-operation is not a new thing in England. Two centuries and a half ago, Shakspere became a considerable land-proprietor at Stratford, out of his share of the profits of a co-operative enterprise; and, in the same profession of a player, Allen acquired a sufficient fortune to found Dulwich College. In those companies of players of the Elizabethan era there were shareholders with varying interests--some having a capital in the building and properties of a theatre, combined with their other capital of histrionic skill. The joint proprietors lived in great harmony together, and treated each other with affection as friends and fellows.

The co-operation which many earnest thinkers hold to be desirable to establish in England is precisely this sort of united industry. They have no desire to attempt the introduction of a fallacious equality, such as communism proposes; but they ask to have the legal power of combining men in common labours, according to their respective degrees and qualifications. He who brought to the undertaking capital only should receive a share of profits proportioned to its value and hazard--the wear and tear of implements--the deterioration of stock. He who brought great administrative skill, and took the higher office of trust and responsibility, should also receive a share in proportion to the rarity of these qualities; and so of those who were skilful and trustworthy in a lesser degree. The great body of the workers would receive their due shares under a scale founded upon experience. But capitalist, inventor, manager, and labourers,--all would have some ultimate interest in reference to profits.

The Queen, in opening the Session of Parliament in 1856, announced that a measure would be brought forward for amending the law relating to Partnership. During that Session "The Joint-Stock Companies Act" was pa.s.sed, by which it was provided that seven or more a.s.sociated persons, by complying with the forms of the Act with regard to Registration, might form themselves into an Incorporated Company, with or without limited liability. Under this act many Companies have been formed; and, as might have been expected, various crude projects have thus been born--quickly to die. A bill for amending the law of Partnership was brought forward; but it met with so much opposition that it was withdrawn. Without the machinery of a Joint-Stock Company, partnership liability remains as before.