Labour and the Popular Welfare

by W. H. Mallock

◆2 Ability does not improve the products of Labour, but multiplies them.

◆¹ And now let me pause to point out to the reader that to insist thus on the subordinate position of Labour as a productive agent is to insist on nothing that need wound the self-love of the labourers. In asserting that a man who can produce wealth only by Labour is inferior to a man who can produce ten times the amount by Ability, we assert his inferiority in the business of production only. In other respects he may be the better, even the greater man of the two. Shakespeare or Turner or Beethoven, if employed as producers of commodities, would probably have been no better than the ordinary hands in a factory, and far inferior to many a vulgar manufacturer. Again,—and it is still more important to notice this,—if we confine our attention to single commodities, many commodities produced by Labour[60] alone are better and more beautiful than any similar ones produced by Labour under the direction of Ability. ◆² Of some the reverse is true—notably those whose utility depends on their mechanical precision; but of others, in which beauty or even durability is of importance, such as fine stuffs or carpets, fine paper and printing, carved furniture, and many kinds of metal work, it is universally admitted that the handicraftsman, working under his own direction, was long ago able to produce results which Labour, directed by Ability, has never been able to improve upon, and is rarely able to equal. What Ability does is not to improve such commodities, but to multiply them, and thus convert them from rare luxuries into generally accessible comforts. A paraffin lamp, for instance, cast or stamped in metal, and manufactured by the thousand, might not be able to compare for beauty with a lamp of wrought iron, made by the skill and taste of some single unaided craftsman; but whereas the latter would probably cost several guineas, and be in reach only of the more opulent classes, the former would probably cost about half a crown, and, giving precisely as much light as the other, would find its way into every cottage home, and take the place of a tallow dip or of darkness. Now since what the labouring classes demand in order to improve their position is not better commodities than can be produced by hand, but more commodities than can be produced by hand, Ability is a more important factor in the case than Labour; but none the less, from an artistic and moral point of view, the highest kind of Labour may stand higher than many of the most productive kinds of Ability.

◆1 Ability, in yielding up part of its proceeds to Labour, is discharging a moral debt.

◆¹ Nor, again, do we ascribe to Labour any undignified position in insisting that much of its present income, and any possible increase of it, is and must be taken from the wealth produced by Ability. For even were there nothing more to be said than this, Labour is in a position, or we assume it will be, to command from Ability whatever sum may be in question, and can be neither despised nor blamed for making the best bargain for itself that is possible. But its position can be justified on far higher grounds than these. In the first place, Labour, by submitting itself to the guidance of Ability,—no matter whether the submission was voluntary, which it was not, or gradual, unconscious, and involuntary, which it was,—surrendered many conditions of life which were in themselves desirable, and has a moral claim on Ability to be compensated for having done so; whilst Ability, for its part, owes a moral debt to Labour, not upon this ground only, but on another also—one which thus far has never been recognised nor insisted on, but out of which arises a yet deeper and stronger obligation. I have shown that of the present annual wealth of the nation Ability creates very nearly two-thirds. But it may truly be said to have created far more than this. It may be said to have created not only two-thirds of the income, but also to have created two-thirds of the inhabitants. If the minority of this country, in pursuit of their own advantage, had not exercised their Ability and increased production as they have done, it is not too much to say that of our country’s present inhabitants twenty-four millions would never have been in existence. Those, then, who either contributed to this result themselves, or inherit the Capital produced by those who did so, are burdened by the responsibility of having called these multitudes into life; and thus when the wages of Labour are augmented out of the proceeds of Ability, Ability is not robbed, nor does Labour accept a largess, but a duty is discharged which, if recognised for what it is, and performed in the spirit proper to it, will have the effect of really uniting classes, instead of that which is now so often aimed at—of confusing them.

◆1 But Labour must not forget that it owes a debt to Ability;

◆2 And that this debt will grow heavier as the national wealth increases.

◆¹ The labourers, on the other hand, must remember this: that having been called into existence, no matter by what means, and presumably wishing to live rather than be starved to death, they do not labour because the men of Ability make them, but—as I have before pointed out—because imperious Nature makes them; ◆² and that the tendency of Ability is in the long run to stand as a mediator between them and Nature, and whilst increasing the products of their Labour, to diminish its duration and severity.

There are two further points which yet remain to be noticed.

I have hitherto spoken of the increase of wealth and wages, as if that were the main object on which the labourers should concentrate their attention, and which bound up their interests so indissolubly with those of Ability. But it must also be pointed out that were Ability unduly hampered, and its efficacy enfeebled either by a diminution of its rewards, or by interference with its action, the question would soon arise, not of how to increase wages, but of how to prevent their falling. This point I have indeed alluded to already; but I wish now to exhibit it in a new light. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, of the inhabitants of this country, who are something like thirty-eight millions in number, twenty-six millions live on imported corn, and about thirteen millions live on imported meat; or, to put it in another way, we all of us—the whole population—live on imported meat for nearly five months of the year, and on imported corn for eight months; and were these foreign food supplies interfered with, there are possibilities in this country of suffering, of famine, and of horror for all classes of society, to which the entire history of mankind offers us no parallel. This country, more than any country in the world, is an artificial fabric that has been built up by Ability, half of its present wealth being,—let me repeat once more,—the marvellous product of the past fifty years; and the constant action of Ability is just as necessary to prevent this from dwindling as it is to achieve its increase. But in order that Ability may exert itself, something more is needed than mere freedom from industrial interference, or security for its natural rewards; and that is the maintenance of the national or international position which this country has secured for itself amongst the other countries of the world.

◆1 And this brings us round to what is commonly called Politics; which have, as this book will show, a far closer interest for the labourer than is commonly thought.