Wages in 1873: Address read before the Social Science Association at Norwich

by Earl Thomas Brassey Brassey

Arbitration.

The results which have followed from the reference of disputes relating to wages to arbitration are a sign of the happiest augury for the future relations between employers and employed. It has been urged, on the part of the employers, that the working class will only accept the decision of arbitrators, when it is favourable to themselves. But in this, as in many other respects, the organisation of the trades unions, and the influence which the more enlightened workmen, acting as members of the executive committees of the unions, possess over their less-instructed fellow-workmen, have been the means of securing obedience to every decision arrived at after careful investigation, conducted in an impartial spirit. Such influence becomes more important when the members of the trades unions are for the most part uneducated men. It is always more difficult for an employer to negotiate or to argue with a boiler-maker than with a fitter. The executive councils of the unions have entitled themselves to the gratitude of the employers of labour, by accepting the use of machinery, the substitution of which for manual labour becomes more and more indispensable with every advance in the standard of wages.

Legitimate province of the trades unions.

It is not by encouraging useless strikes, or by making an attempt, which in the end must always be defeated, to sustain a vast body of workmen and their families, when not in the receipt of wages, that the wire-pullers of the trades unions will best serve the interests of their clients, or enhance their personal influence among them. But there is a wide field of usefulness open to these captains of our great hosts of workmen, in which success is to be attained, not by war, but by diplomacy. The state of the trades, in which their clients are employed, should be carefully watched, and every variation in the prices quoted, every fluctuation in the cost of the raw materials should be noted. And here I may frankly admit that the proposal of the International for a universal strike contained a few grains of wisdom; for it is clear that, if the cost of producing an article in England were so much enhanced by an advance of wages, that the foreign manufacturer would be enabled to undersell us in every market, it would be an act of self-destruction for English workmen to insist upon a rise, which would have the inevitable effect of depriving them of employment.

In such a case, unless the workmen in the competing countries can agree to act in concert, an advance is impossible; unless by superior skill or machinery the more highly paid workman is able to turn out a larger amount of work.

Foreign competition.

It has been already pointed out that in England we have to contend against competition of two kinds—against the cheaper labour of the Continent on the one side, and against the superior natural resources of America on the other. While we occupy at the present time a highly favoured position, which has been attained not merely by the skill of our workmen, but by the administrative skill of their employers, and the gradual accumulation of an ample capital in their hands, the race with other great manufacturing countries is very close. The Swiss have entered into competition with our own manufacturers, both in the home and foreign trades. The exports of textile fabrics from Switzerland, as we learn from Mr. Gosling’s report, have risen from £12,485,000 in 1860, to £26,464,000 in 1871, an advance of 112½ per cent. In this total the exports to the United States have risen from £509,000 in 1862, to £2,159,000 in 1872, in other words, over 324 per cent. In cheap silks and ribbons the Swiss are able to compete with the British producer in the English market; and, to sum up the case in the words of Mr. Gosling, ‘The advantages of Switzerland in competition with Great Britain are the use of water power as a substitute for steam power to the extent of upwards of 80 per cent., low wages, long hours of labour, and a minimum expenditure for management.’ On the other hand, as an inland country, Switzerland has to pay heavy freights, the workmen are inferior in activity to our own, buildings for machinery are more costly, and from want of capital, production is on a smaller scale than here. The balance, however, seems to be greatly in favour of Switzerland, and cannot fail to become greater from day to day.

Such being the case as regards textile industry, Mr. Lothian Bell has recently pointed out, that, in ores of the finer descriptions, the resources of the United States are unlimited, while in coal our own wealth is, in comparison, poverty. There is but one bar to the boundless production of minerals in the New World, that is to say, the want of hands to manufacture them.

Communism in Germany.

A large number of the working class in Germany have been fascinated by the fanciful theories of Lassalle. His system is founded entirely upon the pernicious principle that the State is to do everything, and the people nothing for themselves. Karl Marx, as the successor of Lassalle, is the ruling spirit of the German socialists, and has become a prominent figure from his connection with the International. The socialist journals in Germany delight to reproduce the programme and doctrines of that society. They make noisy professions of atheism. They applauded the insurrection of the Commune in Paris. They have a collection of songs of their own. They disavow the warlike policy of Germany, and have endeavoured to substitute the community of class interests for the community of race, language, and country. It must not, however, be supposed that the number of these unpractical visionaries is proportionate to the noise, which they make in the world. The influence of socialistic doctrines is not so great in England as on the Continent, and it is weaker in America than in England. I hope, therefore, that no disposition may be manifested here to abandon the hopeful work of social, moral, and material progress for the pursuit of visionary and impossible schemes.