I have thus far tried to show that the material condition of the workman is capable of improvement under present social conditions.I wish now to explain the causes which have contributed to its actual improvement since 1846.The most prominent of these causes has been Free Trade.In the first place,Free Trade has enormously increased the aggregate wealth of the country,and therefore increased the demand for labour;this is an indisputable fact.Secondly,it has created greater steadiness in trade,-a point which is often overlooked in discussions of the subject.Since 1846 workmen have been more regularly employed than in the preceding half-century.Free trade in wheat has,moreover,given us a more steady price of bread,a point of paramount importance to the labouring man;and this steadiness is continually becoming greater.From 1850 to 1860 the variation between the highest and lowest prices of wheat was 36s.,between 1860 and 1870 it was 24s.,and in the last decade it has been only 15s.And since the sum which the workman has spent on bread has become more and more constant,the amount which he has had left to spend on manufactured produce has also varied less,and its price in consequence has been steadier.But why then,it may be asked,the late great depression of trade since 1877?I believe the answer is,because other countries,to which we sell our goods,have been suffering from bad harvests,and have had less capacity for buying.The weavers in Lancashire have had to work less time and at lower wages because far-off nations have not been able to purchase cotton goods,and the depression in one industry has spread to other branches of trade.
The greater steadiness of wages which has been caused by Free Trade is seen even in trades where there has been no great rise.
But besides the amount of the workman's wages per day we must take into consideration the number of days in the year and hours in the day,during which he works.He now finds employment on many more days (before 1846 artisans often worked only one or two days in the week),but each working day has fewer hours;so that his pay is at once steadier and more easily earned.And hence even where his daily wages have remained nearly the same,with more constant employment and with bread both cheap and fixed in price,his general position has improved.
What other agencies besides Free Trade have been at work to bring about this improvement?Factory legislation has raised the condition of women and children by imposing a limit on the hours of work,and especially the sanitary environment of the labourer;the factory laws seek to regulate the whole life of the workshop.
Trades-Unions,again,have done much to avert social and industrial disorder,and have taught workmen,by organisation and self-help,to rely upon themselves.Herein lies the difference between the English and the Continental workman;the former,because he has been free from voluntary associations,does not look to the State or to revolutionary measures to better his position.For proof of this,it is enough to compare the parliamentary programme of the last Trades-Unions Congress with the proceedings of the international at Geneva.English Trades-Unions resort to a constitutional agitation which involves no danger to the State;indeed,as I have said,their action averts violent industrial dislocations.And beyond this,Trades-Unions have achieved some positive successes for the cause of labour.By means of their accumulated funds workmen have been able to hold out for better prices for their labour,and the Unions have further acted as provident societies by means of which their members can lay up sums against sickness or old age.
The mischief and wastefulness of strikes is generally enough insisted on,but it is not as often remembered that the largest Unions have sanctioned the fewest strikes;the Amalgamated Engineers,who have 46,000 members,and branches in Canada and India,expended only six per cent.of their income on strikes from 1867 to 1877.The leaders of such a great Union are skilful,well-informed men,who know it to be in their interest to avoid strikes.
Lastly,we must not forget to mention the great Co-operative Societies,which in their modern shape date from the Rochdale Pioneers'Store,founded in 1844,under the inspiration of Robert Owen's teaching,though the details of his plan were therein abandoned.These,like Trades-Unions,have taught the power and merit of voluntary association and self-help.At present,however,they are only big shops for the sale of retail goods,through which the workman gets rid of the retail dealer,and shares himself in the profits of the business,by receiving at the end of each quarter a dividend on his purchases.Such stores,however useful in cheapening goods,and at the same time encouraging thrift,do not represent the ultimate object of co-operation.That object is to make the workman his own employer.Hitherto the movement has not been successful in establishing productive societies;the two great difficulties in the way being apparently the inability of a committee of workmen to manage a business well,and their unwillingness to pay sufficiently high wages for superintendence.The chief obstacles are thus moral,and to be found in the character of the workmen,and their want of education;but as their character and education improve,there is no reason why these difficulties should not vanish.
