CHAPTER XII
WAGES[[6]]
How shall we better distribute the product of industry, and allay the unrest of which we hear so much? There's only one way—by improving our methods of production. To effect this the earnest and active co-operation between those engaged in industry must be employed.
... No longer must a man be supported by his union when he refuses to mind two lathes because the custom of the factory confines him to one. No longer must an employer assign as a reason for cutting prices that the man's wages are too high.... Each side must endeavour better to understand the outlook of the other.—SIR HUGH BELL.
The second grievance mentioned in the Quarterly article already referred to is: "The wages are too low." To remedy this grievance, increased productivity, along with greater economy in working, is the first essential in order to obtain the funds out of which higher wages can be paid; the second, to get a fair allocation and distribution of the profit made. Increased benefit will also be a stimulus to better work.
For a crowded country like ours to maintain a leading position in industry is obviously a necessary condition either of welfare or progress. It is of first importance to secure work of high quality. A highly civilised and trained nation must hold its own by the superior quality of the articles produced as well as by being able to supply both its own needs and to compete in prices with others by the quantity of output. It may be possible, for example, to hold the market for fine spinning when other countries are well able to supply coarse yarns from their own factories.
Hitherto this country has been able to maintain a lead in industry largely through causes which are no longer operative. Thus, we had (1) a settled Government when Germany and Italy were divided into a number of small and inefficient and often very badly governed States, when France was exhausted and unsettled, and when America was only in its infancy; and (2) the advantage due to the fact that the great discoveries and inventions which advanced industry were mostly made in Britain, when industry was developing at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Many of these inventions were made by manual workers who, by intuitive genius, saw what was needed to meet the requirements that arose in practice. There was not then that fund of accumulated scientific knowledge and experience in existence which anyone must have before he can make any advance or improvement to-day. There was an interesting print published some forty years ago giving portraits of the Englishmen who had made contributions to practical science and who might have been assembled together in one room in 1808. It included many who made their inventions as manual workers. Murdock, who invented a new lathe, and developed the use of coal gas, worked until over forty years old for a wage of a pound a week; Davy had been apprenticed to an apothecary; Bramah, who invented a new hydraulic press, once worked with a village carpenter; Bolton and Watt and Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, were practical engineers. Never in the world's history has there been such a galaxy of practical talent and inventive power as those whose portraits are shown in this picture. Now a larger amount of preliminary knowledge as to what has already been done and of the sciences is necessary, in most cases at least, before useful inventions can be made. The more widely this scientific knowledge can be made available throughout all classes in the country the greater is the possibility of maintaining our lead. It is also important to maintain, so far as technical education can give it,
skill in carrying out methods already established and improving them, and also in making the worker more adaptable to new conditions and altered circumstances instead of being a mere machine able to do one class of work only, and adhering simply to the one rigid method which he may have learnt. But knowledge and training are not all that is wanted. It is essential that all classes connected with industry should realise that increased production in established and well-understood industries is essential, and that it can only be obtained, first, by willing and vigorous work on the part of the workman, aiming at producing as much as possible in the hours during which labour can be efficiently carried on without detriment to health or depriving the labourer of the opportunities of enjoying a life outside his daily routine; and, secondly, by the increased use of the best machinery and labour-saving appliances and working such machinery to its fullest capacity. Instead of that, it has often been the policy to restrict the production of each man's labour, one reason being lest there should not be enough employment to go round, and also to view the introduction of machinery which might displace labour with hostility and suspicion. In order to give the leisure which the workman needs for a full and healthy life, and to provide a wage which will enable him to secure the comforts which he rightly desires, as well as to obtain adequate remuneration for those who manage businesses, and interest on their money for those whose capital is to be embarked in them, increased production is necessary; but it cannot be expected that workmen will realise this or desire the result unless they know certainly that they will obtain at once a benefit from it. It has too often been the case that where some new invention has been made, or new machinery introduced, or the conditions of trade have enabled an industry to be more profitable, the workman has not shared in the benefits obtained until he has pressed for an increase of wages, even to the extent of striking or threatening to strike. The faults and jealousies leading to re
stricted production are not all on one side. Cases have arisen when a manager has let out a piece of work to a group of workmen at a price which has resulted in a larger output in a given time at less cost, though the amount paid to each man has been higher owing to increased diligence, yet the employers raised objections, because the wages earned were "more than such men ought to have."