Labour and the Popular Welfare

by W. H. Mallock

Of the enormous Encouragement to be derived by Labour from a true View of the Situation; and of the Connection between the Interests of the Labourer and Imperial Politics.

◆1 Let me again remind the reader of the object of this book.

◆2 It is to show that the labourer’s income depends on the general forces of production firstly, and secondly on those of distribution.

◆¹ The object of this work, as I explained in the opening chapter, is to point out to the great body of the people—that is to say, to the multitude of average men and women, whose incomes consist of the wages of ordinary Labour—the conditions which determine the possibility of these incomes being increased, and so to enable them to distinguish the true means from the false, which they may themselves adopt with a view to obtaining this result. ◆² And in order to show them how their present incomes may be increased, I have devoted myself to showing the reader how their present incomes have been obtained. I have done this by fixing his attention on the fact that their present incomes obviously depend upon two sets of causes: first, the forces that produce the aggregate income of the country; and secondly, the forces that distribute a certain portion of this amongst the labourers. And these last I have examined from two points of view; first exhibiting their results, and then indicating their nature. Let me briefly recapitulate what I have said about both subjects.

◆1 I have just shown how the normal forces of distribution are all in favour of the labourer, contrary to the vulgar view of the matter.

◆¹ I have shown that, contrary to the opinion which is too commonly held, and which is sedulously fostered by the ignorance alike of the agitator and the sentimentalist, the forces of distribution which are actually at work around us, which have been at work for the past hundred years, and which are part and parcel of our modern industrial system, have been and are constantly securing for Labour a share of every fresh addition to the total income of the nation; and have, for at all events the past fifty years, made the average income of the labouring man grow faster than the incomes of any other members of the community. They have, in fact, been doing the very thing which the agitator declared could be done only by resisting them; and they have not only given Labour all that the agitator has promised it, but they have actually given it more than the wildest agitator ever suggested to it. I have shown the reader this; and I have shown him also that the forces in question are primarily the spontaneous forces—“deep, strong, and silent,” as Professor Marshall calls them—“of normal distribution and exchange”; how that these have been, and are seconded by the deliberate action of men: by extended application of what is called the Socialistic principle, and to a far greater extent by combinations of the labourers amongst themselves.

◆1 This should encourage, and not discourage, political action on behalf of the labourers.

The practical moral of all this is obvious. As to the normal and spontaneous forces of distribution, what a study of them inculcates on the labourer is not any principle of political action, but a general temper of mind towards the whole existing system. It inculcates general acquiescence, instead of general revolt. Now temper of mind, being that from which policies spring, is quite as important as the details of any of the policies themselves. Still it must be admitted that were the normal forces of distribution the only forces that had been at work for the labourer’s benefit, the principal lesson they would teach him would be the lesson of laisser aller. But though these forces have been the primary, they have not been the only forces; and the deliberate policies by which men have controlled their operation, and have applied them, have been equally necessary in producing the desired results. The normal forces of distribution may be compared to the waters of the Nile, which would indeed, as the river rises, naturally fertilise the whole of the adjacent country, but which would do as much harm as good, and do but half the good they might do, if it were not for the irrigation works devised by human ingenuity. And what these works are to the Nile, deliberate measures have been to the normal forces of distribution. The growing volume of wealth, which is spreading itself over the fields of Labour, even yet has failed to reach an unhappy fraction of the community; the tides and currents flow with intermittent force, which is often destructive, still more often wasted, rarely husbanded and applied to the best advantage. Had it not been for the deliberate action of men,—for legislation in favour of the labourers, and their own combinations amongst themselves,—these evils which have accompanied their general progress would have been greater. ◆¹ Wise action in the future will undoubtedly make them less; and may, though it is idle to hope for Utopias in this world, cause the larger and darker part of them to disappear.

◆1 Much is to be done beyond the mere raising of the labourers’ wages; and Trade Unionism and so-called Socialism vary much.

The lesson, then, to be drawn from what I have urged in the preceding chapter is, taken as a whole, no lesson of laisser faire. Though neither Socialism nor Trade Unionism may have much, or perhaps any, efficacy in raising the maximum of the labourer’s actual income,—though this must depend on forces which are wholly different,—yet Trade Unionism, and the principle which is called Socialism, may be of incalculable service in bringing about conditions under which that income may be earned with greater certainty, and under improved circumstances, and, above all, be able to command more comforts, conveniences, and enjoyments. Thus many of these measures which I have called Socialistic under protest, may be regarded as an interception of a portion of the labourer’s income, and an expenditure of it on his account by the State in a way from which he derives far more benefit than he would, or could have secured if he had had the spending of it himself; whilst Trade Unionism, though it cannot permanently raise his wages beyond a maximum determined by other causes, may, as has been said before, raise them to this earlier than they would have risen otherwise, and prevent what might otherwise occur—a fall in them before it was imperative. ◆¹ Trade Unionism, however, has many other functions besides the raising of wages. It aims—and aims successfully—at diminishing the pain and friction caused amongst the labourers by the vicissitudes alike of industry and of life. It has done much in this direction already; and in the future it may do more.