FOOTNOTES:

[4] The proportion in England for 1857, according to official figures, was 3½ times the number for one day, but whether that proportion continues still we have no means of knowing.

[5] Mr. Denny was led by subsequent experience to a much less favourable view of the efficacy of piecework as an instrument of working-class progress. He wrote me in June, 1886 (ten years after the publication of the pamphlet I have quoted above) an interesting and valuable letter on this subject, which is published in full in Dr. Bruce's biography of him ("Life of William Denny," p. 113). A larger experience of piecework, he said, had convinced him that, excepting in cases where rates can be fixed and made a matter of agreement between the whole body of the men in any works and their employers, piecework prices have not a self-regulating power, and are liable, under the pressure of competition, to be depressed below what he would consider a proper level. And this was chiefly, if not, indeed, exclusively, the case with those lump jobs which were undertaken by little copartneries of workmen, and afforded the occasions for practising co-operation from which he had drawn the hopes I have mentioned above. He came to see that in all kinds of work for which it was difficult to fix regular rates, the beneficial operation of payment by the piece on wages was much more uncertain than he previously supposed, except in the hands of a good master, who was not an absentee. But for ordinary work, I think he still adhered to his favourable opinion of the effect of the piece system in increasing the worker's earnings. He said he had nothing to modify about the figures adduced in his pamphlet, and I understood him to continue to count them representative of the general operation of pieceworking.

[6] More will be found on this subject in the chapter on "State Socialism," under the sub-heading "State Socialism and State Management."