Part 10

Brain culture accordingly developed apace; but we do not yet thoroughly realize that this has itself been superseded as the “selected” attribute, by social organization. The cultivated Athenians, Saracens, and Provençals went down in the struggle for existence before their respective competitors, who, individually inferior, were in possession of a, at that time, more valuable social organization. The French nation was beaten in the last war, not because the average German was an inch and a half taller than the average Frenchman, or because he had read five more books, but because the German social organism, was, for the purposes of the time, superior in efficiency to the French. If we desire to hand on to the after-world our direct influence, and not merely the memory of our excellence, we must take even more care to improve the social organism of which we form part, than to perfect our own individual developments. Or rather, the perfect and fitting development of each individual is not necessarily the utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality, but the filling, in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social machine. We must abandon the self-conceit of imagining that we are independent units, and bend our jealous minds, absorbed in their own cultivation, to this subjection to the higher end, the Common Weal. Accordingly, conscious “direct adaptation” steadily supplants the unconscious and wasteful “indirect adaptation” of the earlier form of the struggle for existence; and with every advance in sociological knowledge, Man is seen to assume more and more, not only the mastery of “things,” but also a conscious control over social destiny itself.

This new scientific conception of the Social Organism, has put completely out of countenance the cherished principles of the Political Economist and the Philosophic Radical. We left them sailing gaily into Anarchy on the stream of _Laisser Faire_. Since then the tide has turned. The publication of John Stuart Mill’s “Political Economy” in 1848 marks conveniently the boundary of the old individualist Economics. Every edition of Mill’s book became more and more Socialistic. After his death the world learnt the personal history, penned by his own hand,[44] of his development from a mere political democrat to a convinced Socialist.

The change in tone since then has been such that one competent economist, professedly[45] anti-Socialist, publishes regretfully to the world that all the younger men are now Socialists, as well as many of the older Professors. It is, indeed, mainly from these that the world has learnt how faulty were the earlier economic generalizations, and above all, how incomplete as guides for social or political action. These generalizations are accordingly now to be met with only in leading articles, sermons, or the speeches of Ministers or Bishops.[46] The Economist himself knows them no more.

The result of this development of Sociology is to compel a revision of the relative importance of liberty and equality as principles to be kept in view in social administration. In Bentham’s celebrated “ends” to be aimed at in a civil code, liberty stands predominant over equality, on the ground that full equality can be maintained only by the loss of security for the fruits of labor. That exposition remains as true as ever; but the question for decision remains, how much liberty? Economic analysis has destroyed the value of the old criterion of respect for the equal liberty of others. Bentham, whose economics were weak, paid no attention to the perpetual tribute on the fruits of others’ labor which full private property in land inevitably creates. In his view, liberty and security to property meant that every worker should be free to obtain the full result of his own labor; and there appeared no inconsistency between them. The political economist now knows that with free competition and private property in land and capital, no individual can possibly obtain the full result of his own labor. The student of industrial development, moreover, finds it steadily more and more impossible to trace what is precisely the result of each separate man’s toil. Complete rights of liberty and property necessarily involve, for example, the spoliation of the Irish cottier tenant for the benefit of Lord Clanricarde. What then becomes of the Benthamic principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number? When the Benthamite comes to understand the Law of Rent, which of the two will he abandon? For he cannot escape the lesson of the century, taught alike by the economists, the statesmen, and the “practical men,” that complete individual liberty, with unrestrained private ownership of the instruments of wealth production, is irreconcilable with the common weal. The free struggle for existence among ourselves menaces our survival as a healthy and permanent social organism. Evolution, Professor Huxley[47] declares, is the substitution of consciously regulated co-ordination among the units of each organism, for blind anarchic competition. Thirty years ago Herbert Spencer demonstrated the incompatibility of full private property in land with the modern democratic State;[48] and almost every economist now preaches the same doctrine. The Radical is rapidly arriving, from practical experience, at similar conclusions; and the steady increase of the government regulation of private enterprise, the growth of municipal administration, and the rapid shifting of the burden of taxation directly to rent and interest, mark in treble lines the statesman’s unconscious abandonment of the old Individualism, and our irresistible glide into collectivist Socialism.

It was inevitable that the Democracy should learn this lesson. With the masses painfully conscious of the failure of Individualism to create a decent social life for four-fifths of the people,[49] it might have been foreseen that Individualism could not survive their advent to political power. If private property in land and capital necessarily keeps the many workers permanently poor (through no fault of their own), in order to make the few idlers rich (from no merit of their own), private property in land and capital will inevitably go the way of the feudalism which it superseded. The economic analysis confirms the rough generalization of the suffering people. The history of industrial evolution points to the same result; and for two generations the world’s chief ethical teachers have been urging the same lesson. No wonder the heavens of Individualism are rolling up before our eyes like a scroll; and even the Bishops believe and tremble.[50]

It is, of course, possible, as Sir Henry Maine and others have suggested, that the whole experience of the century is a mistake, and that political power will once more swing back into the hands of a monarch or an aristocratic oligarchy. It is, indeed, want of faith in Democracy which holds back most educated sympathisers with Socialism from frankly accepting its principles. What the economic side of such political atavism would be it is not easy to forecast. The machine industry and steam power could hardly be dismissed with the caucus and the ballot-box. So long, however, as Democracy in political administration continues to be the dominant principle, Socialism may be quite safely predicted as its economic obverse, in spite of those freaks or aberrations of Democracy which have already here and there thrown up a short-lived monarchy or a romantic dictatorship. Every increase in the political power of the proletariat will most surely be used by them for their economic and social protection. In England, at any rate, the history of the century serves at once as their guide and their justification.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] See “Socialism in England” (American Economic Association, vol. iv, part 2, May, 1889), in which a portion of this essay has been embodied.

[13] “I am aware that there are some who suppose that our present bourgeois arrangements must be totally destroyed and others substituted almost at a blow. But however successful a revolution might be, it is certain that mankind cannot change its whole nature all at once. Break the old shell, certainly; but never forget the fact that the new forms _must_ grow out of the old” (H. M. Hyndman, “Historical Basis of Socialism,” 1883, p. 305).

[14] See the article on “Socialism in English Politics,” by William Clarke, in the _Political Science Quarterly_, December, 1888.

[15] Even Bentham said this of James Mill (Bain’s Life of J. M., p. 461), of whom it was hardly true.

[16] “Principles of Political Economy,” last edition, 1865, p. 477 (quoting from Feugueray.)

[17] Referred to in a celebrated passage by Adam Smith, “Wealth of Nations,” book 1, chap. viii.

[18] Not to mention the restrictions imposed by the law of “Settlement” (13 and 14 Charles II., chap. 12), which enabled two justices summarily to send back to his village any migrating laborer.

[19] This was noticed by Malthus, “Principles of Political Economy,” p. 225; see also Prof. Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” and “Six Centuries of Work and Wages.”

[20] Further detail will be found in the following essay. See also Arnold Toynbee’s “Industrial Revolution.”

[21] Between 1801-1845 the population of Manchester grew 109 per cent, Glasgow 108 per cent, Liverpool 100 per cent, and Leeds 99 per cent (Report of Commissioners on State of Health of Large Towns, 1843-45).

[22] W. J. Lecky, “History of the Eighteenth Century,” vol. v, p. 453.

[23] The number of registered electors at the date of the last Election (1886) was 5,707,823, out of an adult male population of over nine millions.

[24] Few, however, of Mr. Spencer’s followers appear to realize that he presupposes Land Nationalization as the necessary condition of an Individualist community (see “Social Statics,” _passim_).

[25] It is sometimes asserted nowadays that the current descriptions of factory life under the _régime_ of freedom of contract are much exaggerated. This is not the case. The horrors revealed in the reports of official enquiries even exceed those commonly quoted. For a full account of the legislation, and the facts on which it was founded, see Von Plener’s “English Factory Legislation.” The chief official reports are those of the House of Commons Committee of 1815-6, House of Lords Committee, 1819, and Royal Commission, 1840. Marx (“Capital”) gives many other references. See also F. Engels’ “Condition of the English Working Classes.”

[26] Prof. H. S. Foxwell (University College, London, p. 249 of Essay on the “Claims of Labor” (Edinburgh: Co-operative Printing Company, 1886).)

[27] This statement, though generally true of England, is not absolutely so. It needed an Act of Parliament in 1758 (32 George II, c. 61) to free the inhabitants of the “village” of Manchester from the obligation to grind all their corn and grain at the manorial watermills (Clifford’s “History of Private Bill Legislation,” vol. ii, p. 478). Even so late as 1809 they had to obtain the consent of Sir Oswald Mosley, the lord of the manor, before a company could be incorporated to provide a water supply (_Ibid._, p. 480). Leeds was theoretically compelled to grind its corn, grain and malt at the lord’s mills down to 1839, and actually had then to pay £13,000 to extinguish this feudal “due” (_Ibid._, p. 498).

[28] See its organ, the _Church Reformer_. London; 8 Duke Street, Adelphi.

[29] The beginning of factory legislation is to be found in the “Morals and Health Act,” 42 Geo. III, c. 73 (1802). Others followed in 1819, 1825, and 1831; but their provisions were almost entirely evaded owing to the absence of inspectors. After the Reform Bill more stringent enactments in 1833, 1844, and 1847 secured some improvement. The Act of 1878 consolidated the law on the subject. The Radical and Socialist proposals for further development in this direction will be found at page 55. Nearly 400 Local Improvement Acts had been passed up to 1845. In the succeeding years various general Acts were passed, which were henceforth incorporated by reference in all local Acts. The first “Public Health Act” was passed in 1848; and successive extensions were given to this restrictive legislation with sanitary ends in 1855, 1858, 1861, and 1866. Consolidating Acts in 1871, and finally in 1875, complete the present sanitary code, which now forms a thick volume of restrictions upon the free use of land and capital.

[30] The _minimum_ income chargeable to Income Tax (£150) closely corresponds with the _average_ family income. See Fabian Tract, No. 5, “Facts for Socialists.”

[31] See “The Progress of Socialism.” (London: The Modern Press, 13 Paternoster Row, E. C. Price One Penny.)

[32] See “Capital and Land” (Fabian Tract, No. 7), page 7.

[33] Government Return for 1887-8, see “Board of Trade Journal,” January, 1889, pp. 76-8.

[34] It is not generally known that the Corporation of London actually carried on the business of fire insurance from 1681 to 1683, but was compelled to abandon it through the opposition of those interested in private undertakings, who finally obtained a mandamus in the Court of King’s Bench to restrain the civic competitor (Walford’s Insurance Cyclopædia, vol. iii, pp. 445-446).

[35] C--5550, p. 436. This, by the way, is just about one year’s rental. We pay every year to the landlords for permission to live in England as much as the whole outstanding cost of the magnificent property of the local governing authorities.

[36] See “The Government Organization of Labor,” Report by a Committee of the Fabian Society, 1886.

[37] See Report of the Annual Meeting at Birmingham, September, 1888.

[38] See resolutions adopted by the Council, at the instance of the Executive and General Committee, February 8th, 1889. (_Daily News_, 9th February.) Professor Stuart, M.P., has now introduced a Bill embodying these astonishing proposals.

[39] It is interesting to compare this programme, with its primary insistence on economic and social reform, with the bare political character of the “Five Points” of the Chartists, viz., Manhood Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Payment of Members relieved from the property qualification, and Equal Electoral Districts.

[40] It need hardly be said that schemes of “free land,” peasant proprietorship, or leasehold enfranchisement, find no place in the modern programme of the Socialist Radical, or Social Democrat. They are survivals of the Individualistic Radicalism which is passing away. Candidates seeking a popular “cry” more and more avoid these reactionary proposals.

[41] “Autobiography,” p. 231-2. See also Book IV. of the “Principles of Political Economy” (Popular edition, 1865).

[42] For a forecast of the difficulties which this programme will have to encounter as its full scope and intention become more clearly realized, see the eighth essay in this volume, by Hubert Bland.

[43] See “Darwinism and Politics,” by D. G. Ritchie, Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford (London: Swan, Sonneshein & Co., 1889).

[44] “Autobiography,” pp. 231-2.

[45] Rev. F. W. Aveling, Principal of Taunton Independent College, in leaflet “Down with the Socialists,” August, 1888. See also Professor H. Sedgwick on “Economic Socialism,” _Contemporary Review_, November, 1886.

[46] That is to say, unfortunately, in nearly all the utterances which profess to guide our social and political action.

[47] _Contemporary Review_, February, 1888.

[48] “Social Statistics,” _passim_.

[49] See Professor Leone Levi’s letter to the _Times_, 13th August, 1886, and Mr. Frederic Harrison’s speech at the Industrial Remuneration Conference held in January, 1885 (Report, p. 429).

[50] See Report of the Lambeth Episcopal Conference, 1888; subject, “Socialism”: also the proceedings of the Central Conference of Diocesan Councils, June, 1889 (paper on Socialism by Canon Furse).

INDUSTRIAL.

BY WILLIAM CLARKE, M.A.

My object in the following paper is to present a brief narrative of the economic history of the last century or century and a half. From this I wish to draw a moral. That moral is that there has been and is proceeding an economic evolution, practically independent of our individual desires or prejudices; an evolution which has changed for us the whole social problem by changing the conditions of material production, and which _ipso facto_ effects a revolution in our modern life. To learn clearly what that revolution is, and to prepare ourselves for taking advantage of it in due course--this I take to be briefly what is meant by Socialism. The ignorant public, represented by, let us say, the average bishop or member of Parliament, hears of the “Social Revolution” and instantly thinks of street riots, noyades, with a _coup d’état_: a 10th of August, followed perhaps by its Nemesis in an 18th Brumaire. But these are not the Social Revolution. That great change is proceeding silently every day. Each new line of railway which opens up the trackless desert, every new machine which supplants hand labor, each fresh combination formed by capitalists, every new labor organization, every change in prices, each new invention--all these forces and many more are actually working out a social revolution before our eyes: for they are changing fundamentally the economic basis of life. There may possibly come some one supreme moment of time in which a great dramatic incident will reveal to men the significance of the changes which have led up to it, and of which it is merely the final expression. And future historians may write of that as The Revolution just as historians now write of the fall of the Bastille, or the execution of Louis XVI, as though these events constituted the French Revolution, instead of being the final terms in a long series of events which had been loosening the fabric of French feudalism through several generations. The true prophet is not an ignorant soothsayer who foretells some Armageddon, but rather he who perceives the inevitable drift and tendency of things. Somewhat in this spirit we may consider the economic history of the modern industrial era in order to discern its meaning, to see what it has led up to, and what, consequently, are the problems with which we find ourselves confronted to-day.

Had we visited a village or small town in England where industrial operations were going on one hundred and fifty years ago, what should we have found? No tall chimney, vomiting its clouds of smoke, would have been visible; no huge building with its hundred windows blazing with light would have loomed up before the traveller as he entered the town at dusk; no din of machinery would have been heard; no noise of steam hammers; no huge blast furnaces would have met his eye, nor would miles of odors wafted from chemical works have saluted his nostrils. If Lancashire had been the scene of his visit he would have found a number of narrow red-brick houses with high steps in front, and outside wooden shutters such as one may still see in the old parts of some Lancashire towns to-day. Inside each of these houses was a little family workshop, containing neither master nor servant, in which the family jointly contributed to produce by the labor of their hands a piece of cotton cloth. The father provided his own warp of linen yarn, and his cotton wool for weft. He had purchased the yarn in a prepared state, while the wool for the weft was carded and spun by his wife and daughters, and the cloth was woven by himself and his sons. There was a simple division of labor in the tiny cottage factory; but all the implements necessary to produce the cotton cloth were owned by the producers. There was neither capitalist nor wage-receiver: the weaver controlled his own labor, effected his own exchange, and received himself the equivalent of his own product. Such was the germ of the great English cotton manufacture. Ferdinand Lasselle said: “Society consists of ninety-six proletaires and four capitalists. That is your State.” But in old Lancashire there was neither capitalist nor proletaire.

Or even much later had one visited--Stafford, let us say, one would not have found the large modern shoe-factory, with its bewildering variety of machines, each one with a human machine by its side. For shoemaking then was a pure handicraft, requiring skill, judgment and some measure of artistic sense. Each shoemaker worked in his own little house, bought his own material from the leather merchant, and fashioned every part of the shoe with his own hand, aided by a few simple and inexpensive tools. He believed there was “nothing like leather,” and had not yet learned the art of putting on cheap soles, _not_ made of leather, to cheap boots, which, in a month’s time, will be almost worn out. Very likely the shoemaker had no vote; but he was never liable to be locked out by his employer, or to be obliged to go on strike against a reduction of wages, with his boy in prison for satisfying hunger at the expense of the neighboring baker, or his girl on the streets to pay for her new dress. Such was the simple industrialism of our great-great-grandfathers. But their mode of life was destined to change. All progress, says Mr. Herbert Spencer, is differentiation; and this formidable factor began to appear in the quiet, sleepy, English country. About 1760 a large share of calico-printing was transferred from London to Lancashire, where labor was then cheaper. There was a consequent fall in prices, and an increased demand for calicoes of linen warp and cotton weft. Then the Manchester dealers, instead of buying fustians and calicoes from the weaver, began to furnish him with the materials for his cloth, and to pay him a fixed price per piece for the work when executed. So the Manchester dealer became what the French call an _entrepreneur_; and the transformation of the independent weaver into a wage receiver began. The iron law of wages and the unemployed question also began to loom dimly up. For as the weaver came to hire himself to the dealer, so the weaver let out part of his work; and it frequently happened that the sum which the master weaver received from his employer was less than what he found himself compelled to pay to those whom he employed in spinning. “He durst not, however, complain,” says Mr. Watts in his article on cotton (Encyclopædia Britannica), “much less abate the spinner’s price, lest his looms should be unemployed.” The quantity of yarn producible under this simple system by the aid of the one-thread wheel was very small. The whole did not exceed in quantity what 50,000 spindles of our present machinery can yield. As one man can now superintend 2,000 spindles, it will be seen that twenty-five men with machinery can produce as much as the whole population of old Lancashire. In 1750 the first important invention in the cotton industry was made in the shape of the fly-shuttle, invented by Kaye of Bury. In 1760 improvements were made in the carding process. In 1767 the spinning-jenny was invented by Hargreaves, and this was at length brought to work as many as eighty spindles. The ingenious Hargreaves had ample opportunity for practical study of the “unemployed” question; for the spinners, some of whom were forced into idleness by the new invention, broke into his house and destroyed his machine. Shortly after, there was a general rising over industrial Lancashire: the poor hand-workers, whose prophetic souls were evidently dreaming on things to come, scouring the country and breaking in pieces every carding and spinning machine they could find.