Look to the beginning of the second chapter in the last edition of Professor Fawcett’s Manual of Political Economy, (Macmillan, 1869, p. 105). The chapter purports to treat of the “Classes among whom wealth is distributed.” And thus it begins:—
We have described the requisites of production to be three: land, labour, and capital. Since, therefore, land, labour, and capital are essential to the production of wealth, it is natural to suppose that the wealth which is produced ought to be possessed by those who own the land, labour, and capital which have respectively contributed to its production. The share of wealth which is thus allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent; the portion allotted to the labourer is termed wages, and the remuneration of the capitalist is termed profit.
You observe that in this very meritoriously clear sentence both the possessor of the land and the possessor of the capital are assumed to be absolutely idle persons. If they contributed any labour to the business, and so confused themselves with the labourer, the problem of triple division would become complicated directly;—in point of fact, they do occasionally employ themselves somewhat, and become deserving, therefore, of a share, not of rent only, nor of profit only, but of wages also. And every now and then, as I noted in my last letter, there is an outburst of admiration in some one of the ninety-two newspapers, at the amount of “work” done by persons of the superior classes; respecting which, however, you remember that I also advised you that a great deal of it was only a form of competitive play. In the main, therefore, the statement of the Cambridge Professor may be admitted to be correct as to the existing facts; the Holders of land and capital being virtually in a state of Dignified Repose, as the Labourer is in a state of—(at least, I hear it always so announced in the ninety-two newspapers)—Dignified Labour.
But Professor Fawcett’s sentence, though, as I have just said, in comparison with most writings on the subject, meritoriously clear, yet is not as clear as it might be,—still less as scientific as it might be. It is, indeed, gracefully ornamental, in the use, in its last clause, of the three words, “share,” “portion,” and “remuneration,” for the same thing; but this is not the clearest imaginable language. The sentence, strictly put, should run thus:—“The portion of wealth which is thus allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent; the portion allotted to the labourer is termed wages; and the portion allotted to the capitalist is termed profit.”
And you may at once see the advantage of reducing the sentence to these more simple terms; for Professor Fawcett’s ornamental language has this danger in it, that “Remuneration,” being so much grander a word than “Portion,” in the very roll of it seems to imply rather a thousand pounds a day than three-and-sixpence. And until there be scientific reason shown for anticipating the portions to be thus disproportioned, we have no right to suggest their being so, by ornamental variety of language.
Again, Professor Fawcett’s sentence is, I said, not entirely scientific. He founds the entire principle of allotment on the phrase “it is natural to suppose.” But I never heard of any other science founded on what it was natural to suppose. Do the Cambridge mathematicians, then, in these advanced days, tell their pupils that it is natural to suppose the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones? Nay, in the present case, I regret to say it has sometimes been thought wholly unnatural to suppose any such thing; and so exceedingly unnatural, that to receive either a “remuneration,” or a “portion,” or a “share,” for the loan of anything, without personally working, was held by Dante and other such simple persons in the middle ages to be one of the worst of the sins that could be committed against nature: and the receivers of such interest were put in the same circle of Hell with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And it is greatly to be apprehended that if ever our workmen, under the influences of Mr. Scott and Mr. Street, come indeed to admire the Abbot’s Chapel at Furness more than the railroad station, they may become possessed of a taste for Gothic opinions as well as Gothic arches, and think it “natural to suppose” that a workman’s tools should be his own property.
Which I, myself, having been always given to Gothic opinions, do indeed suppose, very strongly; and intend to try with all my might to bring about that arrangement wherever I have any influence;—the arrangement itself being feasible enough, if we can only begin by not leaving our pickaxes behind us after taking Sabbatical refreshment.
But let me again, and yet again, warn you, that only by beginning so,—that is to say, by doing what is in your own power to achieve of plain right,—can you ever bring about any of your wishes; or, indeed, can you, to any practical purpose, begin to wish. Only by quiet and decent exaltation of your own habits can you qualify yourselves to discern what is just, or to define even what is possible. I hear you are, at last, beginning to draw up your wishes in a definite manner; (I challenged you to do so, in ‘Time and Tide,’ four years ago, in vain), and you mean to have them at last “represented in Parliament;” but I hear of small question yet among you, whether they be just wishes, and can be represented to the power of everlasting Justice, as things not only natural to be supposed, but necessary to be done. For she accepts no representation of things in beautiful language, but takes her own view of them, with her own eyes.
I did, indeed, cut out a slip from the ‘Birmingham Morning News,’ last September, (12th,) containing a letter written by a gentleman signing himself “Justice” in person, and professing himself an engineer, who talked very grandly about the “individual and social laws of our nature:” but he had arrived at the inconvenient conclusions that “no individual has a natural right to hold property in land,” and that “all land sooner or later must become public property.” I call this an inconvenient conclusion, because I really think you would find yourselves greatly inconvenienced if your wives couldn’t go into the garden to cut a cabbage, without getting leave from the Lord Mayor and Corporation; and if the same principle is to be carried out as regards tools, I beg to state to Mr. Justice-in-Person, that if anybody and everybody is to use my own particular palette and brushes, I resign my office of Professor of Fine Art. Perhaps, when we become really acquainted with the true Justice in Person, not professing herself an engineer, she may suggest to us, as a Natural Supposition,—“That land should be given to those who can use it, and tools to those who can use them;” and I have a notion you will find this a very tenable supposition also.