Chapter V. On The Possible Futurity Of The Laboring-Classes.

§ 1. The possibility of improvement while Laborers remain merely receivers of Wages.

There has probably never been a time when more attention has been called to the material and social conditions of the working-classes than in the last few years. The great increase of literature and the extension of the newspaper has brought to every reader, even where public and private charities have not sent eye-witnesses into direct contact with distress, a more explicit knowledge of the working-classes than ever before. The revelation of existing poverty and misery is, often wrongly, taken to be a proof of the increasing degradation of the working-men, and the cause has been ascribed to the grasping cruelty of capitalists. Instances of injustice arising from the relations of employers and employed will occur so long as human nature remains imperfect. But the world hopes that some other relation than that of master and workman may be evolved in which not only many admitted wrongs may be avoided, but also new forces may be applied to raise the laborer out of his dependence on other classes in the community.

We are, at present, living under a régime of private property and competition. But certainly the progress of the laborer is not that which can excite enthusiastic hopes for the future, so long as he remains a mere receiver of wages. The progress of industrial improvements has resulted, says Mr. Cairnes, in “a temporary improvement of the laborer's condition, followed by an increase of population and an enlarged demand for the cheapened commodity.... Laborers' commodities, however, are for the most part commodities of raw produce, or in which the raw material constitutes the chief element of the value (clothing is, in truth, the only important exception); and of all such commodities it is the well-known law that an augmentation of quantity can only be obtained, other things being the same, at an increasing proportional cost. Thus, it has happened that the gain in productiveness obtained by improved processes has, after a generation, to a great extent been lost—lost, [pg 519] that is to say, for any benefit that can be derived from it in favor of wages and profits.... The large addition to the wealth of the country has gone neither to profits nor to wages, nor yet to the public at large [as consumers], but to swell a fund ever growing even while its proprietors sleep—the rent-roll of the owners of the soil.... The aggregate return from the land has immensely increased; but the cost of the costliest portion of the produce, which is that which determines the price of the whole, remains pretty nearly as it was. Profits, therefore, have not risen at all, and the real remuneration of the laborer, taking the whole field of labor, in but a slight degree—at all events in a degree very far from commensurate with the general progress of industry.”[306]

Under these conditions, it seems that the only hope of an improvement for the laboring-classes lies in the limitation of population—or at least in an increase of numbers less than the increase of capital and improvements. It is possible, however, that Mr. Cairnes, with many others, has failed to recognize the full extent of the improvement which is taking place in the wages of the laborer under the existing social order. Although we hear much of the wrongs of the working-men—and they no doubt exist—yet it is unquestionable that their condition has vastly improved within the last fifty years; largely, in my opinion, because improvements have outstripped population, and because wide areas of fertile land in new and peaceful countries have drawn off the surplus population in the older countries, and because the available spots in the newer countries like the United States have not yet been covered over with a population sufficiently dense to keep real wages anything below a relatively high standard. The facts to substantiate this opinion, so far as regards Great Britain, are to be found in a recent investigation[307] by Mr. Giffen, the statistician of the English Board of Trade. For a very considerable reduction in hours of daily labor, the workman now receives wages on an average about 70 per cent higher than fifty years ago, as may be seen by the following table:

Occupation.Place.Wages fifty years ago, per week.Wages, present time, per week.Increase or decrease, amount, per cent.
CarpentersManchester24 034 010 0 (+) 42
Glasgow14 026 012 0 (+) 85
BricklayersManchester[308]24 036 012 0 (+) 50
Glasgow15 027 012 0 (+) 80
MasonsManchester[309]24 029 105 10 (+) 24
Glasgow14 023 89 8 (+) 69
MinersStaffordshire2 8[310]4 0[311]1 4 (+) 50
Pattern-weaversHuddersfield16 025 09 0 (+) 55
Wool-scourers"17 022 05 0 (+) 30
Mule-spinners"25 630 04 6 (+) 20
Weavers"12 026 014 0 (+) 115
Warpers and beamers"17 027 010 0 (+) 58
Winders and reelers"6 011 05 0 (+) 83
Weavers (men)Bradford8 320 612 3 (+) 150
Reeling and warping"7 915 67 9 (+) 100
Spinning (children)"4 511 67 1 (+) 160

With increased wages, prices are not much higher than fifty years ago. But the clearest evidence as to their bettered material condition is to be found in the following table, which shows the amount of food consumed per head by the total population of Great Britain:

Articles.1840.1881.
Bacon and hams, Pounds.0.0113.93
Butter, Pounds.1.056.36
Cheese, Pounds.0.925.77
Currants and raisins, Pounds.1.454.34
Eggs, No.3.6321.65
Potatoes, Pounds.0.0112.5
Rice, Pounds.0.9016.32
Cocoa, Pounds.0.080.31
Coffee, Pounds.1.080.89
Corn, wheat, and wheat-flour, Pounds.42.47216.92
Raw sugar, Pounds.15.2058.92
Refined sugar, Pounds.Nil.8.44
Tea, Pounds.1.224.58
Tobacco, Pounds.0.861.41
Wine, Gallons.0.250.45
Spirits, Gallons.0.971.08
Malt, Bushels.1.591.91[312]