But this is digression, and the fact remains that poverty does in the case of thousands and hundreds of thousands of families prevent the possibility of using the means necessary for the development of their capacities. A wage of 20s. a week cannot permit schooling for the children up to the age of fifteen; it will not, indeed, provide sufficient food for the healthy life even of a small family. It can give no margin for the little recreations by which the powers of the mind are renewed, and does not allow for the leisure during growing years which is necessary to the making of the mind. It leaves the breadwinner fretted by anxiety lest in days of sickness or unemployment the wolf may enter the door and destroy the home.
The mass of labourers are, in a word, too poor to be healthy or wise; they are not fit to take a part in government, and they have not the opportunity to make themselves fit. Their work is often costly though it is cheap, and their votes are worthless though gained by much canvassing. Wages which are not a living wage unfit workmen for their duty in the government of the nation.
Does this fact justify a moral claim for a living wage to be fixed and enforced by the community? Ought a wage sufficient for the support of manhood to be a first charge on the product of labour and capital? The answer has in effect been given by the establishment of Wages Boards. There are now four trades in which a wage judged by a representative committee to be a living wage is enforced, and the same principle has lately been applied to the mining industry. The extension to other trades—if the experiment succeeds—can only be a matter of time. The claim of labour has been admitted, and the immediate question is, what is likely to be the result. Employers who are forced to give a higher wage will certainly require a higher standard of work. From one point of view this is all to the good. The acceptance of low-class work is as costly to the nation as it is degrading to the worker; it is a common loss when workers make constant mistakes for want of intelligence, and prove themselves to be not worthy a living wage. Every one is the better for the discipline which is required by the service of men; it is likely to make the nation richer and the workers more self-respecting, if they are free to fit themselves to take their part in government. It will, in economic language, probably tend to decrease the cost of production, and therefore the cost of living.
But there is another point of view. The raising of the standard of work will at once throw out the less able, the unskilful, the ignorant, and the lazy. Is this for good or for evil? “For good,” is the answer I offer. It is well to face facts. Legislation and philanthropy have often done mischief by treating the unemployed as one class. If they are recognized as those not worth a living wage then it is clear that either they must be fitted to earn such a wage, or be segregated in colonies where their labour will be subsidized. They have a claim on such treatment. Some by the want of care in their youth, or by some change of fashion, have no marketable skill. It seems only fair that they should have the chance of acquiring some other skill. Some, because they are lazy and work-shy, are inclined to prey upon their poor working neighbours. It seems only fair that they should be taken off the market and shut up till they learn habits of industry. Some, because they are weak in body or mind, can never earn sufficient for their upkeep. It seems only fair that they should be kept, not in workhouses or on inadequate out relief, but in colonies where their labour would go towards their own support, and sympathetic guardianship, by necessary subsidies, prevent them from starving.
Labour has a moral claim that labourers be given the opportunity of becoming free men—free to use and enjoy their manhood. English people made great sacrifices to secure freedom for the negroes, and religious people, to accomplish this object, dared to interfere in politics. The position to-day is more serious when those who are not free are called on to be governors of the nation, and religious people may again do well to interfere in politics to secure that working men may have the opportunity of developing the capacities which they have received for the service of mankind.
Samuel A. Barnett.
OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS.[[1]]
By Canon Barnett.
February, 1913.