Any considerable increase of the recent legislation, would of course lead to the diminution of capital, both through expenditure and through discouragement of accumulation. It would also diminish the activity of those who are able to handle capital profitably, and the consequent effect on wages would perhaps in time become apparent to even the order of intellect behind the legislation.
How far can it go without drying up the springs of charity? There is already free talk of saving income taxes out of charities.
Such legislation is certainly nursing antagonisms, and whether the spread of general intelligence can be expected to be rapid enough to prevent serious harm, is doubtful. It even sometimes appears a question whether the conflict can be settled without more serious bloodshed. Fortunately neither side has yet as much to complain of as one side had in the revolutions which cost Charles I and Louis XVI their heads; and it is doubtful whether either side has the power or coherence or disposition to drive it to arms—whether the existing sentiment in any civilized nation is longer such as to make such a consummation possible. Times are growing more peaceful. Not only has the biggest army in the world for nearly half a century been the biggest engine of peace; not only has a permanent international courthouse been built among the fortresses, after several temporary ones had already done good service; but when the brotherhood of locomotive engineers gets into conflict with their employers, instead of settling it in the freight yards with torches and brickbats, both sides go to the Waldorf-Astoria and have a judicial proceeding. For a centrifugal explosion, they substitute a centripetal adjustment. And the brawn supplies its share of the brains to do it.
The fundamental question is, of course, whether before serious harm has been done, the differences in men's fortunes which, as said at the outset, largely mean differences in men's powers, can be sufficiently decreased to leave room for little conflict.
One answer is that the equalization is already taking place at a rate that few people realize. Amid the poor, the impression that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer, is quite general, and of course is fostered by the demagogues who make their living out of the discontent—out of the justifiable discontent less perhaps than out of the unjustifiable. Worse still, perhaps, the educated whose sympathies lead them to instruct the ignorant, are to a shameful degree ignorant of the truth in this regard, and, it must be feared, of the facts of the economic situation generally: somehow the softness of heart which actuates many such well-meaning people seems often to accompany a softness of head which recoils from all hard facts that would narrow the field where they delight to exercise their sympathies.
Nobody will question the progress of the average man from status to contract—from slavery, serfdom, feudal dependence, to wage-earning; but since the time of Marx, the claim of rich richer, and poor poorer has been general—among the ignorant rich as well as the ignorant poor. Nevertheless abundant authorities prove the exact contrary.
In the "poor poorer" part of the assertion, there was undeniably much truth during the early part of the nineteenth century, especially before industry became adjusted to the new machinery, and before the rise of the trades unions and the overthrow of the laissez-faire policy in legislation. But after those changes, there was a rapid advance in wages, shortening of hours, and reduction in the price of commodities. So great was the change that even Marx himself, who had done more than any other man to spread the "increasing misery" theory, abandoned it in an address delivered in 1864. Yet he so little understood the force of admissions that he then made, that he let the elaborate a priori demonstration of the theory which he had already built up, stand in his "Capital," which he did not publish till 1867.[1] But the admissions of 1864 did not end in theory. Facts began to accumulate to confirm it. Early in the twentieth century the changed conditions had attracted attention, and there were gathered many data which proved that rapid betterment had taken place in the condition of wage-earners.
We have space for but a few of the facts, and they are not all up to date. Of the results of the Census of 1910 which bear on this subject, very few are yet published. Most of those of the Census of 1900 were not published till 1907, and it is only up to about that time that many data are at the moment available. But we hope before long to present a careful study of the conditions up to the present time. Meanwhile, it is pleasant to note the following:
In the United States wages in manufacturing industries averaged $247 in 1850, $427 in 1899, and $519 in 1909. And of course other industries could not fall very far below manufactures.
The cost of living did not begin to show any such advance. Dun's tables show that the yearly cost of living per capita in 1860, before the civil war, was $16.87 more than in 1905. For the sixteen years 1880 to 1895, inclusive, the average yearly cost was $101.65. For the ten years 1896 to 1905, inclusive, the average was $81.52, $20.13 less than for the earlier period. There has been a sharp advance since 1905, but taking the whole period from 1850 to the present time, nothing to compare with the advance in wages.