Labour and the Popular Welfare

by W. H. Mallock

When Watt had perfected his steam-engine in structure, design, and principle, and was able to make a model which was triumphantly successful in its working, he encountered an obstacle of which few people are aware, and which, had it not been overcome, would have made the development of steam-power, as we know it now, an utter impossibility. It was indeed, in the opinion of the engineer Smeaton, fatal to the success of Watt’s steam-engine altogether. This obstacle was the difficulty of making cylinders, of any useful size, sufficiently true to keep the pistons steam-tight. Watt, with indomitable perseverance, endeavoured to train men to the degree of accuracy required, by setting them to work at cylinders, and at nothing else; and by inducing fathers to bring up their sons with them in the workshop, and thus from their earliest youth habituate them to this single task. By this means, in time, a band of labourers was secured in whom skill was raised to the highest point of which it is capable. ◆¹ But not even all the skill of those carefully-trained men—men trained by the greatest mechanical genius of the modern world—was equal to making cylinders approaching the standard of accuracy which was necessary to render the steam-engine, as we now know it, a possibility. But what the Labour of the cleverest labourer could never be brought to accomplish, was instantly and with ease accomplished by the action of Ability. Henry Maudslay, by introducing the slide-rest, did at a single stroke for all the mechanics in the country what Watt, after years of effort, was unable to do for any of them. The Ability of Maudslay, congealed in this beautiful instrument, took the tool out of the hands of Labour at the turning-lathe, and held it to the surface of the cylinder, whilst Labour looked on and watched. With this iron “mate” lent to him,—this child of an alien brain,—the average mechanic was enabled to accomplish wonders which no mechanic in the world by his own skill could approach. The power of one man descended at once on a thousand workshops, and sat on each of the labourers like the fire of an industrial Pentecost; and their own personal efficiency, which was the slowly-matured product of centuries, was, by a power acting outside themselves, increased a hundredfold in the course of a few years.

◆1 There is, however, a plausible objection to this view which we must consider.

◆¹ Illustrations of this kind might be multiplied without limit; but nothing could add to the force of the one just given, or show more clearly how the productivity of Labour is fixed, and the power of Ability, and of Ability alone, is progressive. There is, however, a very important argument which objectors may use here with so much apparent force that, although it is entirely fallacious, it requires to be considered carefully.

CHAPTER II

That the Ability which at any given period is a Producing Agent, is a Faculty residing in and belonging to living Men.

It may amuse the reader to hear this argument stated—forcibly, if not very fully—by an American Socialist, in an anonymous letter to myself. I had published an article in The North American Review, giving a short summary of what I have said in the preceding chapters with regard to the part played by Ability in production; and the letter which I will now give was sent me as a criticism on this:

◆1 The objection is thus put by an American Socialist: that it is absurd to say that primæval inventors, such as the inventor of the plough, are still producing wealth by their ability; and if absurd in this case, then in all cases.

◆¹ Sir—Your article in the current number of The North American Review on “Who are the Chief Wealth Producers?” in my judgment is the crowning absurdity of the various effusions that parade under the self-assumed title of political economy. In the vulgar parlance of some newspapers, it is hog-wash. It is utterly senseless, and wholly absurd and worthless. You propose to publish a book in which you will elaborate your theory. Well, if the book has a large sale, it will not be because the author has any ability as a writer on economical subjects, but rather that the buyers are either dupes or fools. All the increase in wealth that has resulted by reason of men using ploughs was produced by the man who invented the plough—eh? The total amount of the wealth produced by men by reason of their using certain appliances in the form of tools or machines is produced by the man who invented the tool or machine—eh? perhaps some one in Egypt thousands of years ago? Such stuff is not only worthless hog-wash: it is nauseating, is worthy of the inmate of Bedlam.

◆1 To this there are two answers. The first is that the simpler inventions are probably due, not to Ability at all, but to the common experience of the average man;

◆2 And, like Labour itself, they have remained unchanged up till quite recent times.