NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I have kept by me, and now reprint from the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ of July 6th, 1868, the following report of a meeting held on the Labour Question by the Social Science Association in the previous week. It will be seen that it contains confirmation of my statement in p. 4 of the text. The passage I have italicized contains the sense of the views then entertained by the majority of the meeting. I think it desirable also to keep note of the questions I proposed to the meeting, and of the answers given in the ‘Gazette.’ I print the article, therefore, entire:—
THE SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION ON THE LABOUR QUESTION
There would be something touching in the way in which people discuss the question of labour and wages, and in the desperate efforts made by Mr. Gladstone and other persons of high position to make love to the workmen, if there was not almost always a touch of absurdity in such proceedings. Mr. Gladstone, in particular, never approaches such subjects without an elaborate patting and stroking of the working man, which is intelligible only upon the assumption that primâ facie the labourer and the gentleman are natural enemies, and that they must be expected to regard each other as such, unless the higher class approaches the lower with the most elaborate assurances of goodwill and kindness. Such language as the following appears to us very ill-judged. After condemning in strong terms the crimes committed by some trade unions, Mr. Gladstone went on to say:—“Some things the working men required at their hands. In the first place, it was required that they should be approached in a friendly spirit, that they should feel that they were able to place confidence in their good intentions, that they should be assured that they were not approached in the spirit of class, but in the spirit of men who were attached to the truth,” etc., etc. What can be the use of this sort of preaching? Does any human being suppose that any kind of men whatsoever, whether working men or idle men, are indifferent to being approached in an unfriendly spirit; or are disposed to deal with people whom they believe to entertain bad intentions towards them, or to be utterly indifferent to their interests, or to be actuated by interests opposed to their own? Such protestations always appear to us either prosy, patronizing, or insincere. No one suspects Mr. Gladstone of insincerity, but at times he is as prosy as a man must be, who, being already fully occupied with politics, will never miss an opportunity of doing a little philanthrophy and promoting peace and goodwill between different classes of the community. Blessed no doubt are the peacemakers, but at times they are bores.
After Mr. Gladstone’s little sermon the meeting proceeded to discuss a variety of resolutions about strikes, some of which seem very unimportant. One piece of vigorous good sense enlivened the discussion, and appears to us to sum up pretty nearly all that can be said upon the whole subject of strikes. It was uttered by Mr. Applegarth, who observed that “no sentiment ought to be brought into the subject. The employers were like the employed in trying to get as much as possible for as little as they could” Add to this the obvious qualification that even in driving a bargain it is possible to insist too strongly upon your own interest, and that it never can be in the interest either of masters or of men that the profits of any given trade to the capitalist should be permanently depressed much below the average profits of other trades; and nearly all that can be said upon the subject will have been said. If, instead of meeting together and kissing each other in public, masters and men would treat each other simply as civilized and rational beings who have to drive a bargain, and who have a common interest in producing the maximum of profit, though their interests in dividing it when it is produced are conflicting, they would get on much better together. People can buy and sell all sorts of other things without either quarrelling or crying over the transaction, and if they could only see it, there is no reason why they should not deal in labour just as coolly.
The most remarkable feature of the evening was the attack made by Mr. Ruskin on this view of the subject. Replying to Mr. Dering, who had said that whenever it was possible “men would seek their own interests even at the expense of other classes,” he observed5 that many students of political economy “looked upon man as a predatory animal, while man on the contrary was an affectionate animal, and until the mutual interest of classes was based upon affection, difficulties must continue between those classes.” There are, as it appears to us, several weak points in this statement. One obvious one is that most animals are both predatory and affectionate. Wolves will play together, herd together, hunt together, kill sheep together; and yet, if one wolf is wounded, the rest will eat him up. Animals, too, which as between each other are highly affectionate, are predatory to the last degree as against creatures of a different species or creatures of their own species who have got something which they want. Hence, if men are actuated to some extent at some times, and towards some persons, by their affections, and to a different extent at other times towards the same or other persons by their predatory instincts, they would resemble other animals. Mr. Ruskin’s opposition between the predatory and affectionate animal is thus merely imaginary. Apart from this, the description of man as “an affectionate animal” appears to us not merely incomplete but misleading. Of course the affections are a most important branch of human nature, but they are by no means the whole of it. A very large department of human nature is primarily self-regarding. A man eats and drinks because he is hungry or thirsty, and he buys and sells because he wants to get gain. These are and always will be his leading motives, but they are no doubt to a certain extent counteracted in civilized life by motives of a different kind. No man is altogether destitute of regard for the interests and wishes of his neighbours, and almost every one will sacrifice something more or less for the gratification of others. Still, self-interest of the most direct unmistakable kind is the great leading active principle in many departments of life, and in particular in the trading department: to deny this is to shut one’s eyes to the sun at noonday. To try to change is like trying to stop the revolution of the earth. To call it a “predatory” instinct is to talk at random. To take from a man by force what he possesses is an essentially different thing from driving the hardest of hard bargains with him. Every bargain is regarded as an advantage by both parties at the time when it is made, otherwise it would not be made at all. If I save a drowning man’s life on condition that he will convey to me his whole estate, he is better off than if I leave him to drown. My act is certainly not affectionate, but neither is it predatory. It improves the condition of both parties, and the same is true of all trade.
The most singular part of Mr. Ruskin’s address consisted of a catechism which appears to us to admit of very simple answers, which we will proceed to give, as “the questions were received with much applause,” though we do not appreciate their importance. They are as follows:—
Question.—“1. It is stated in a paper read before the jurisprudence section of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and afterwards published at their office, that ‘without the capitalist labour could accomplish nothing,’ (p. 4). But for long periods of time in some parts of the world the accumulation of money was forbidden, and in others it was impossible. Has labour never accomplished anything in such districts?”
Answer.—Capital is not merely “an accumulation of money.” It is a general name for the whole stock by and out of which things are made. Labour never accomplished anything without materials or anything important without tools, and materials and tools are capital.
Question.—“2. Supposing that in the present state of England the capital is necessary, are capitalists so? In other words, is it needful for right operation of capital that it should be administered under the arbitrary power of one person?”
Answer.—Yes, it is, unless you do away with the institution of private property. It is necessary for the right operation of capital that some one or other should have arbitrary power over it, and that arbitrary power must either be lodged in individuals, who thereupon become capitalists, or else in the public or its representatives, in which case there is only one capitalist—the State.
Question.—“3. Whence is all capital derived?”
Answer.—From the combination of labour and material.
Question.—“4. If capital is spent in paying wages for labour or manufacture which brings no return (as the labour of an acrobat or manufacturer of fireworks), is such capital lost or not? and if lost, what is the effect of such loss on the future wages fund?”
Answer.—In the case supposed the capital ceases to exist as capital, and the future wages fund is diminished to that extent; but see the next answer.
Question.—“5. If under such circumstances it is lost, and can only be recovered (much more recovered with interest) when it has been spent in wages for productive labour or manufacture, what labours and manufactures are productive, and what are unproductive? Do all capitalists know the difference, and are they always desirous to employ men in productive labours and manufactures, and in these only?”
Answer.—Generally speaking, productive labour means labour which produces useful or agreeable results. Probably no paid labour is absolutely unproductive; for instance, the feats of the acrobat and the fireworks amuse the spectators. Capitalists in general desire to employ men in labours and manufactures which produce gain to the capitalists themselves. The amount of the gain depends on the relation between the demand for the product and the cost of production; and the demand for the product depends principally upon the extent to which it is useful or agreeable—that is, upon the extent to which the labour is productive or unproductive. In this indirect way capitalists are generally desirous to employ men in productive labours and manufactures, and in them only.
Question.—“6. Considering the unemployed and purchasing public as a great capitalist, employing the workmen and their masters both, what results happen finally to this purchasing public if it employs all its manufactures in productive labour? and what if it employs them all in unproductive labour?”
Answer.—This is not the light in which we should consider the “unemployed and purchasing public.” But if they are all to be considered in that light, it is obvious that the result of employing all manufacturers in doing what is useless or disagreeable would be general misery, and vice versâ.
Question.—“7. If there are thirty workmen, ready to do a day’s work, and there is only a day’s work for one of them to do, what is the effect of the natural laws of wages on the other twenty-nine?”
Answer.—The twenty-nine must go without work and wages; but the phrase “natural law” is not ours.
Question.—“8. (a) Is it a natural law that for the same quantity or piece of work, wages should be sometimes high, sometimes low? (b) With what standard do we properly or scientifically compare them, in calling them high or low? (c) And what is the limit of their possible lowness under natural laws?”
Answer.—(a) It is an inevitable result from the circumstances in which mankind are placed, if you call that a natural law.
(b) High wages are wages greater than those which have been usually paid at a given time and place in a given trade; low wages are the reverse. There is no absolute standard of wages.
(c) The limit of the possible lowness of wages is the starvation of the workman.
Question.—“9. In what manner do natural laws affect the wages of officers under Government in various countries?”
Answer.—In endless ways, too long to enumerate.
Question.—“10. ‘If any man will not work, neither should he eat.’ Does this law apply to all classes of society?”
Answer.—No; it does not. It is not a law at all, but merely a striking way of saying that idleness produces want.
3 See Miss Edgeworth’s Story, ‘Forgive and Forget,’ in the ‘Parents’ Assistant.’ ↑
4 21st March: one just received, interesting, and to be answered next month. ↑
5 I observed nothing of the kind. It was the previous speaker (unknown to me, but, according to the ‘Pall Mall’ Mr. Dering) who not merely ‘observed’ but positively affirmed, as the only groundwork of sound political economy, that the nature of man was that of a beast of prey, to all his fellows. ↑
FORS CLAVIGERA.
