Labour and the Popular Welfare

by W. H. Mallock

◆1 What is called Socialism in this country is a necessary part of every State;

◆2 And the principle may probably be extended with good results, if not pushed too far.

◆¹ If, then, we agree to call those measures Socialistic to which the word is popularly applied at present, Socialism, instead of being opposed to Individualism, is its necessary complement, as we may see at once by considering the necessity of public roads and a police force; for the first of these shows us that private property would be inaccessible without the existence of social property; and the second that it would be insecure without the existence of social servants. The good or evil, then, that will result from Socialism, as understood thus, depends altogether on questions of degree and detail. There is no question as to whether we shall be Socialistic or no. ◆² We must be Socialistic; and we always have been, though perhaps without knowing it, as M. Jourdain talked prose. The only question is as to the precise limits to which the Socialistic principle can be pushed with advantage to the greatest number.

◆1 That it can easily be pushed too far is obvious.

What these limits may be it is impossible to discuss here. Any general discussion of such a point would be meaningless. Each case or measure must be discussed on its own merits. But, though it is impossible to state what the limits are, it is exceedingly easy to show on what they depend. They depend on two analogous and all-important facts, one of which I have already explained and dwelt upon, and which forms, indeed, one of the principal themes of this volume. This is the fact, that the most powerful of our productive agents, namely Ability, cannot be robbed, without diminishing its productivity, of more than a certain proportion of the annual wealth produced by it; and, as it is from this wealth that most of the Socialistic fund must be appropriated, Socialistic distribution is limited by the limits of possible appropriation. The other fact—the counterpart of this—is as follows. Just as Ability is paralysed by robbing it of more than a certain portion of its products, Labour may equally be paralysed by an unwise distribution of them; and thus their continued production be at last rendered impossible. ◆¹ For instance, quite apart from any initial difficulty in raising the requisite fund from the wealthier class of tax-payers, the providing of free meals for children in Board Schools is open to criticism, on account of the effect which it might conceivably have upon parents, of diminishing their industry by diminishing the necessity for its exercise. Whether such would be the effect really in this particular case, it is beside my purpose to consider; but few people will doubt that if such a provision were extended, and if, even for so short a time as a single six months, free meals were provided for the parents also, half the Labour of the country would be for the time annihilated. Labour, however, is as necessary to production as is Ability, even though, under modern conditions, it does not produce so much; and it is therefore perfectly evident that there is a limit somewhere, beyond which to relieve the individual labourer of his responsibilities by paying his expenses out of a public fund will be, until human nature is entirely changed, to dry up the sources from which that fund is derived.

◆1 The sort of natural limit that there is to its beneficial effects is shown by the history of our Poor Laws.

◆2 Such Socialism, whatever good it may do, can never do much in the way of raising money wages.

As I have said already, it is impossible, in any general way, to give any indication of what this limit is; but the industrial history of this country supplies a most instructive instance in which it was notoriously overpassed, and what was meant as a benefit to Labour, under circumstances of exceptional difficulty, ended by endangering the prosperity of the whole community. I refer to our Poor Law at the beginning of this century, the effects of which form one of the most remarkable object-lessons by which experience has ever illustrated a special point in economics. ◆¹ That Poor Law, as Professor Marshall well observes, “arranged that part of the wages [of the labourers] should be given in the form of poor relief; and that this should be distributed amongst them in the inverse proportion to their industry, thrift, and forethought. The traditions and instincts,” he adds, “which were fostered by that evil experience are even now a great hindrance to the progress of the working classes.”[56] Now that particular evil on which Professor Marshall comments,—namely, that the part of the wages coming through this Socialistic channel were in the inverse proportion to what had really been produced by the labourer—is inherent in all Socialistic measures, the principal object of which is to raise or supplement wages; as is clearly enough confessed by the Socialistic motto, “To every man according to his needs.” ◆² It may accordingly be said that, absolutely necessary as the Socialistic principle is, and much as may be hoped from its extension in many directions, it neither has been in the past, nor can possibly be in the future, efficacious to any great extent in increasing the actual income of the labourer.[57]

◆1 Trade Unionism in this way can do far more. We will see first how, and then within what limits.

◆¹ Such being the case, then, let us now turn our attention to another principle of an entirely different kind, which, so far as regards this object, is incalculably more important, and which has constantly operated in the past, and may operate in the future, to increase the labourer’s income, without any corresponding disadvantages. I mean that principle of organisation amongst the labourers themselves which is commonly called Trade Unionism; and which directly or indirectly represents the principal means by which Labour is attempting, throughout the civilised world, to accelerate and regulate the natural distribution of wealth. I will first, in the light of the conclusions we have already arrived at, point out to the reader what, speaking generally, is the way in which Trade Unionism strengthens the hands of Labour; and then consider what is the utmost extent to which the strength which Labour now derives from it may be developed.