The Principles of Economics Part 48

3. _A sudden reduction of the tariff causes local crises and may bring on a general crisis._ The repeal of the tariff works in a direction the reverse of its enactment. The benefits of the lower prices are diffused; the immediate injury is concentrated and acute. Factories are closed, capital is depreciated, labor is thrown out of employment. The organic nature of local industry causes the evil to be felt by many cla.s.ses. Merchants, professional men, servants, and skilled laborers that are tributary to the depressed industry, suffer. The effects are transmitted to commercial and financial centers and credit is shaken.

The readjustment of industry is slow and much capital is lost in the process.

[Sidenote: The two policies in political discussion]

It is rarely appreciated how great is the tactical advantage enjoyed in political contests by the advocates of a high tariff. They can so easily impress the popular judgment with the evident fruits of their own policy, and with the immediate dangers of the policy of their opponents.

The low-tariff advocates in America undoubtedly have made the mistake of underestimating or of quite overlooking these immediate effects. They have been too abstractly doctrinaire, and have argued too absolutely for the merits of free trade. They have opposed one extreme system by another, with no thought of the inexpediency and injustice of sweeping changes. There is a strong feeling among business men that any tariff, be it high or low, is better than a shifting policy. Despite the great preponderance of domestic production over foreign trade, it is perhaps too much to say that the tariff is unimportant in our present conditions. It can, however, be said that the tariff agitation has taught that radical changes, especially sudden and large reductions, are fraught with evils, and that business can adjust itself in large measure to any settled conditions. The future of the tariff discussion in America is hard to prophesy. The infant-industry argument now is of little force. With the widening of our international relations are growing interests favorable to reciprocity or to other freer trade relations.

CHAPTER 52

OTHER PROTECTIVE SOCIAL AND LABOR LEGISLATION

-- I. SOCIAL LEGISLATION

[Sidenote: City growth and new social problems]

1. _Under modern conditions many laws restricting free compet.i.tion are required to secure the health and convenience of the citizens._ The rapid growth of city populations has brought new social and economic problems. The friction in social relations is greater when men are crowded together. In 1790, three per cent. only of our population lived in cities of over eight thousand; to-day the percentage is thirty-three.

Then the city dwellers numbered one hundred and thirty-one thousand; now they number twenty-five millions. Then there were but six cities of eight thousand or over; now there are five hundred and forty-five. Then the largest city (Philadelphia) numbered fifty thousand persons; to-day the largest city (New York) numbers three millions. Many laws are survivals suited only to the older rural conditions. In London, these problems were first forced into prominence, and a law pa.s.sed after the great fire of 1665 to regulate the rebuilding of houses, streets, sidewalks, and sewers, foreshadowed alike the American law of special a.s.sessments and the modern tenement-house legislation. A ma.s.s of laws wise and foolish has resulted from the attempt to meet the new conditions. The laws of nuisance and of sanitation have been rapidly changing.

[Sidenote: Need of social regulation]

Why not leave such subjects to individuals? It is for the interest of every one that his back yard should not be a place of noisome smells and disagreeable sights. But men are at times strangely obstinate, selfish, and neglectful, and through one man's fault a whole community may suffer. The refusal of one man to put a sewer in front of his house would block the improvement of a whole street. The obstinacy of one may bring an epidemic upon an entire city. There must be a plan, and by law the will of the majority must be imposed upon the unsocial few. Where voluntary cooperation fails, compulsory cooperation often is necessary.

Thus health laws, tax laws, and improvement laws regulate many of the acts of citizens, limit the use of property, and compel men to a course against their own wishes and judgments. The justification for these limitations on the right of private property, on free choice of the individual, on "free compet.i.tion," must be found in the social result secured.

[Sidenote: Tenement-house laws in cities]

[Sidenote: Interests affected]

2. _Tenement-house legislation is an important recent expression of this social protective policy._ As city population grows denser, land increases in value, and the evils of bad housing threaten the welfare of the great majority of city dwellers. Light, sun, air are shut out, and cleanliness, decency, and home life are made impossible. Two policies are open to the public. It may be left to private enterprise to solve the problem. If the tenant agrees to rent a disease-breeding house, he is the first to suffer. The interests of investors, it is said, will supply as good a house as each tenant can pay for. The other policy now adopted is to set a minimum standard of sanitation and comfort, to which all builders and owners must attain. Property owners are no longer left free to determine plans, height of building, proportion of lot built on, lighting, materials, and workmanship. Complying with the legal requirements, they are left quite free to collect whatever rent they can get. Such legislation is partly in the interest of the body of landowners as against the selfish desires of some individuals. One bad building may bring down the rent of all on the street. Partly, however, the regulation is in the interest of the tenants and of society as a whole, and against that of the landlord. The rents from slum property are threatened; hence the strong opposition always manifested against tenement-house legislation by some landlords, architects, and contractors, who fight it bitterly as an interference with their interests and as a confiscation of their property. It is not quite certain how marked will be the effect of this policy in making the rents too high for the poorer tenants and driving them into the country. But this result, predicted by the enemies of the policy, is not so undesirable, and the enlightened sentiment of the public to-day favors all efforts to destroy the breeding-places of disease, misery, and crime.

[Sidenote: Public inspection of goods used in the homes]

3. _Laws forbid adulteration of products for domestic use and provide for public inspection._ English laws of the Middle Ages forbade false measures and the sale of defective goods, and provided for the inspection of markets in the cities. Recent legislation in many lands has developed much further the policy of insuring the purity or the safety of articles consumed in the home. The oleomargarin law pa.s.sed by Congress was, however, designed as protective legislation in the interest of the farmer. Usually, the self-interest of the purchaser is the best safeguard for the quality of goods; but personal inspection by each buyer frequently is difficult and time-consuming, requiring special and unusual knowledge of the products, and special costly testing apparatus. The state undertakes, therefore, to set a minimum standard of quality, and to apply it by the economical method of social cooperation.

This policy extends only to staple products and to a comparatively few articles. It would be impossible as well as unwise to apply it to art products, except to protect the morality of the community. This inspection sometimes raises the price, but the evils are small compared with the convenience and the benefits resulting to the citizen. He is a.s.sured that the article he buys is of standard quality, and if he wishes a cheaper quality there is no law to prevent his adulterating it for his own use.

[Sidenote: State support of education]

4. _Other kinds of social amelioration undertaken by the state, through free, compulsory education, charity, and temperance legislation, are likewise interferences with compet.i.tion and freedom of contract._ Many of these are so customary that they are not thought of in this light.

Schools are productive enterprises, education is industry, and the supply of this service is always in large measure undertaken by private enterprise and could be left entirely to it. But free elementary education is the established policy, and is no longer debatable in America and France. In England the policy is still debated, much as is that of public ownership of trolley lines in America. One by one the states are pa.s.sing compulsory education laws, and thus interfering still further with the freedom of the individual. The affection of parents can in most cases be trusted to provide for the education of children, but when family affection fails, the child and the state are the victims of the resulting ignorance, crime, and pauperism. State support of higher education is more in dispute. It is a universally accepted view that social welfare requires a more generous support for higher education than could be secured if it were sold at a compet.i.tive price; but while in eastern America its provision is left mainly to private gifts, in the West and South it is undertaken largely by the state. The justification of this policy must be found, not in the benefit to the particular students, but in the benefit diffused throughout the commonwealth by the encouragement of science, arts, and letters.

[Sidenote: Public charity]

[Sidenote: Temperance legislation]

The system of public relief for the defective cla.s.ses of blind, deaf, insane, feeble-minded, and paupers, are examples of the social protective policy. The public interest undoubtedly is served by having these suffering cla.s.ses systematically relieved, but the extent and nature of the provision are questions ever in debate. Still more debated is temperance legislation, both as to licensing and as to prohibiting the liquor traffic. Nowhere is the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor treated quite like the traffic in most other goods, because it is recognized that the public interest is affected in a different way.

While it is beyond question that society should protect itself against the drunkard, it is more doubtful whether it owes to the man, for his sake, protection against his own blunders. Not even the G.o.ds can save the stupid. Temperance legislation is strongest in its social aspect.

The opponent of it usually champions the individualist view; its partisans uphold, in varying degrees, the social view.

[Sidenote: Other laws to protect public morals]

Similar questions arise regarding lotteries, gambling, betting, horse-racing, etc. When a man backs a worthless horse against the field, money probably is transferred from the stupider to the shrewder party.

The philosopher may say that the sooner a fool and his money are parted the better; but the broken gambler remains a burden and a threat to honest society. Gambling, lotteries, and speculation cause embezzlement, crime, unhappy homes, and wrecked lives. Here are to be found with difficulty the true boundaries between ethics and expediency. A busybody despotism may protect the fool, but it thereby helps to perpetuate and multiply his folly; yet if the fool is left alone, he too often is a plague to the wise and the virtuous.

[Sidenote: Usury laws as social legislation]

5. _Usury laws are found almost universally in civilized lands._ By usury was formerly meant any payment for the loan of goods or money; now it means only excessive payments. In former times moralists and lawmakers were opposed to all usury or interest. Most loans were made in times of distress. The sources of loanable capital and the chances of profitable investment were fewer in the past than to-day. For the last four centuries there has been on the question of usury a gradual change of opinion, beginning in the commercial centers and most rapid in the countries with more developed industry. A moderate rate of interest is now everywhere permitted; but in all but a few communities the rate that can be collected is limited by law, and penalties more or less severe are imposed on the usurious lender. It has been noted in another connection that usury laws are practically evaded in a number of ways within the letter of the law. Many writers maintain that usury laws do more harm than good even to the borrower, whom they are designed to protect. In a developed credit economy, where a regular money-market exists, they are superfluous, to say the least, as most loans are made below the legal rate. Such laws, however, have a partial justification.

In a small money-market they to some extent protect the weak borrower at the moment of distress from the rapacity of the would-be usurer. Their utility is disappearing, but in simpler industrial conditions usury laws are fruits of the social conscience, a recognition of the duty to protect the weaker citizen in the period of his direst need.

-- II. LABOR LEGISLATION

[Sidenote: Growth of child-labor legislation]

1. _Factory laws now limit in many ways the employment of women and children, and the hours of work._ Factory legislation began in England, early in the nineteenth century, to check some of the worst evils then showing themselves in the factories. It has since increased in England and has been copied rapidly by other countries. Some of the agricultural states of the Union have as yet no factory laws, but the states industrially more advanced have many. They are made, first, to apply to children. The evil of forcing children into factories is easily recognized. The child, subject to the commands of his parents or guardians, is not a free agent. At times a lazy father is tempted to support himself in idleness on the wages of his young children. Often poverty leads the parents to rob their children of health, of schooling, and of the joys of childhood. Child-labor depresses the wages of adults and the evil grows. Children laboring long hours in close and grimy factories, and growing into blighted and ignorant manhood, are a threat to society. In agricultural conditions, such as have prevailed generally in America, there is far less need of limiting the hours of work and the age at which children may begin to work. The barefoot boy trudging over clover-fields to carry water to the harvesters may be the happier, healthier, and better for his work.

[Sidenote: Women's work and shorter hours]

The work of women in factories tends to depress the wages of men, is inevitably harmful to family life, and, when the work is arduous and continuous, the evils are visited upon succeeding generations. In the early days of the factory system in England, the hours of work were lengthened in order to make the machinery earn as much as possible. The first laws regulating hours applied especially to women and children, limiting their work to ten or twelve hours daily. Later, this regulation was made to apply to men, and now is found in most civilized lands. In recent years the agitation has been for an eight-hour day, and doubtless it will some day be adopted in the majority of trades.

[Sidenote: The workmen's remedies for injuries]

2. _Many laws provide for the health and safety of workers in factories and mines._ Both workman and employer are in many ways interested in providing against danger from fire, bad ventilation and lighting, bad sanitation, unprotected and dangerous machinery, and bad moral conditions in the factories and other places of work. What can the workman do to protect himself? (1) He may refuse to work whenever the conditions are bad. But this requires that he inspect the factory and judge of the sanitary conditions in each case, and that he then resist the temptation to accept employment of which he may be sorely in need.

(2) He may ask higher wages to compensate for the added risk. But this is not practically possible with his insufficient knowledge of conditions, and it supposes an equal caution in many other workers. It is well that individual men are not excessively cautious, or the state would lack brave citizens and defenders. It is better that the forethought be in part exercised by the community collectively. (3) The person injured in health or limb may sue for damages. But this, with his means and knowledge, is often impossible, and is a costly process, yielding a pitiful recompense for a blighted life.

[Sidenote: Factory laws to reduce accidents]

The employer is interested in attracting better workmen at lower wages, and in avoiding damages by making the conditions of work favorable. The law seeks the same end by more economical ways when it sets a minimum standard. Experience shows that certain safety appliances should always be present to prevent the evils; for a state to leave their provision to self-interest, is to trifle with the welfare of its citizens. Factory legislation usually is opposed by employers because of the expense it causes; but if the regulations apply to all factories, the expense becomes a part of the cost of production and is shifted, like the other expenses of production, to the general body of consumers, of which the employers form only a small part.

[Sidenote: Legal regulation of wage-payment]

3. _Laws regulate the form, time, and methods of payment in manufactures and mining._ Companies sometimes keep stores and pay the workers in mines and factories in goods, instead of money. Such a store in the hands of a philanthropic employer might easily be made, without expense to himself, a great boon to his workmen, giving them more than the benefits of consumers' cooperation. But the usual result is told by the fact that such stores are known as "truck stores," "pluck-me stores."

They are most often found where some one large corporation dominates in the community, as in mines, where the workers are in a very dependent condition. If the higher prices demanded practically lower real wages, it would seem that the worker had an immediate remedy in his power to demand higher money-wages. Recognizing that this is for the most part an illusion--for it is just in such places that the conditions for free compet.i.tion are least present--the law in many states prohibits these stores. It regulates also the measuring of work, fixing the size of screens and of cars used in coal-mining. The law is especially favorable to the hand-laborer in regard to the collection of his wages, requiring regular monthly or fortnightly or sometimes weekly payments. Mechanics'

liens give to workmen in the building trades the first claim on the products of their labor.

[Sidenote: Limitation of freedom of contract]

4. _In some cases the law forbids "contracting out," and the courts fix the terms of the contract._ In general, the law does not interfere with the right of the citizen to make any formal contract he chooses. It confines itself to providing rules and agencies for interpreting and enforcing the contracts when made. Employers often compel workmen to sign a release from damages in case of accident. This practice was forbidden even by common law, and many recent statutes have specifically provided that employers cannot "contract out" of the right to claim damages. The courts are particularly watchful of the interests of children, who are usually deemed incapable of entering into contracts binding them to their injury. Sailors, likewise, have long been protected and guarded by the law, because, journeying far from home, they are peculiarly in the power of their employers. The English courts may even change the contract if the sailors have been coerced by their masters. The rights of married women to mortgage their property is limited in some states in recognition of the undue influence that may be exercised by their husbands. The attempts in the last twenty years to settle the Irish land-question have resulted in a steady increase of the interference of law and courts with the freedom of contract between tenant and landlord. Though in many ways freedom of contract is thus limited, compet.i.tion is not entirely destroyed; it is turned in other and usually better directions.

[Sidenote: General nature of this social legislation]

[Sidenote: Economic or moral objects primary]

5. _This group of social laws resembles protective tariffs in preventing free compet.i.tion, but differs from them in varying ways and degrees._ Writers cla.s.s all such laws as protective legislation, in that they depart from the rule of free trade taken in its broadest sense. It does not follow, however, that all these laws stand or fall together,--that if the protective tariff is wrong, all are wrong. The justification of every such measure is limited and relative, and therefore of varying strength. All protective measures are alike in that the free choice of the citizen is forbidden by law. The argument for the tariff is economic and political. The tariff does not seek to prevent a moral evil; foreign trade is morally as good as other trade. In a large majority of social laws the moral purpose is fundamental. It is the demand of humanity that compet.i.tion be placed on a higher plane. Tariff legislation is primarily in the interest of a special well-to-do cla.s.s, with which other citizens are compelled unwillingly to trade. Most social legislation is to protect the weak from being forced into contracts injurious to their welfare and happiness. In any case, social legislation is not to be justified by any but the most general abstract principle,--the attainment of the best social result. The best test of social protective laws is their contribution to a higher independence and to a freer compet.i.tion on a higher, more worthy, and more humane plane.