Part 4

At Hamilton, in Upper Canada, the wages for artisans are 8_s._ a day. House-rent is about 28_s._ a month. The expense of fuel in winter is nearly equal to the sum paid for house-rent. Food is cheap. A stock of salt beef can be laid down for the winter at the price of 1½_d._ a pound. The agriculturists in the Hamilton district are in a prosperous condition. Every settler travels in a light waggon, drawn by a pair of serviceable horses. The population seemed robust and healthy.

In other settlements forming part of the Dominion, the appearance of the people was less satisfactory. At Charlottetown, in Prince Edward’s Island, the universal vehicle is drawn by one horse instead of two, as at Hamilton. It was sad to see the population generally so pale and thin, and, in appearance, sickly and out of health. It is hard to find a reason for this marked physical deterioration of the descendants of Scotch, Irish, and English settlers. Probably the long winter is, to a great extent, the cause. The impossibility of active outdoor operations at that season, and the consequent temptation to spend the day in smoking and drinking in over-heated rooms, is extremely prejudicial to the health of the population. At Picton, in Nova Scotia, the inhabitants appeared more robust. The wages for ordinary shipwrights are 8_s._ a day, and taking into consideration the cost of living, the working classes are as well off as in any part of Canada.

In comparing the American and English operatives, or, rather, the English operatives, when transplanted to the States, with the hands who have remained in the Old Country, it would seem that there is, as a rule, a higher development of skill in the individual operatives. The difference is attributable to the conviction that the present high rate of wages in the States could not be maintained; unless the utmost skill and diligence were put forth.

Arbitration.

The results which have followed from the reference of disputes relating to wages to arbitration are a sign of the happiest augury for the future relations between employers and employed. It has been urged, on the part of the employers, that the working class will only accept the decision of arbitrators, when it is favourable to themselves. But in this, as in many other respects, the organisation of the trades unions, and the influence which the more enlightened workmen, acting as members of the executive committees of the unions, possess over their less-instructed fellow-workmen, have been the means of securing obedience to every decision arrived at after careful investigation, conducted in an impartial spirit. Such influence becomes more important when the members of the trades unions are for the most part uneducated men. It is always more difficult for an employer to negotiate or to argue with a boiler-maker than with a fitter. The executive councils of the unions have entitled themselves to the gratitude of the employers of labour, by accepting the use of machinery, the substitution of which for manual labour becomes more and more indispensable with every advance in the standard of wages.

Legitimate province of the trades unions.

It is not by encouraging useless strikes, or by making an attempt, which in the end must always be defeated, to sustain a vast body of workmen and their families, when not in the receipt of wages, that the wire-pullers of the trades unions will best serve the interests of their clients, or enhance their personal influence among them. But there is a wide field of usefulness open to these captains of our great hosts of workmen, in which success is to be attained, not by war, but by diplomacy. The state of the trades, in which their clients are employed, should be carefully watched, and every variation in the prices quoted, every fluctuation in the cost of the raw materials should be noted. And here I may frankly admit that the proposal of the International for a universal strike contained a few grains of wisdom; for it is clear that, if the cost of producing an article in England were so much enhanced by an advance of wages, that the foreign manufacturer would be enabled to undersell us in every market, it would be an act of self-destruction for English workmen to insist upon a rise, which would have the inevitable effect of depriving them of employment.

In such a case, unless the workmen in the competing countries can agree to act in concert, an advance is impossible; unless by superior skill or machinery the more highly paid workman is able to turn out a larger amount of work.

Foreign competition.

It has been already pointed out that in England we have to contend against competition of two kinds—against the cheaper labour of the Continent on the one side, and against the superior natural resources of America on the other. While we occupy at the present time a highly favoured position, which has been attained not merely by the skill of our workmen, but by the administrative skill of their employers, and the gradual accumulation of an ample capital in their hands, the race with other great manufacturing countries is very close. The Swiss have entered into competition with our own manufacturers, both in the home and foreign trades. The exports of textile fabrics from Switzerland, as we learn from Mr. Gosling’s report, have risen from £12,485,000 in 1860, to £26,464,000 in 1871, an advance of 112½ per cent. In this total the exports to the United States have risen from £509,000 in 1862, to £2,159,000 in 1872, in other words, over 324 per cent. In cheap silks and ribbons the Swiss are able to compete with the British producer in the English market; and, to sum up the case in the words of Mr. Gosling, ‘The advantages of Switzerland in competition with Great Britain are the use of water power as a substitute for steam power to the extent of upwards of 80 per cent., low wages, long hours of labour, and a minimum expenditure for management.’ On the other hand, as an inland country, Switzerland has to pay heavy freights, the workmen are inferior in activity to our own, buildings for machinery are more costly, and from want of capital, production is on a smaller scale than here. The balance, however, seems to be greatly in favour of Switzerland, and cannot fail to become greater from day to day.

Such being the case as regards textile industry, Mr. Lothian Bell has recently pointed out, that, in ores of the finer descriptions, the resources of the United States are unlimited, while in coal our own wealth is, in comparison, poverty. There is but one bar to the boundless production of minerals in the New World, that is to say, the want of hands to manufacture them.

Communism in Germany.

A large number of the working class in Germany have been fascinated by the fanciful theories of Lassalle. His system is founded entirely upon the pernicious principle that the State is to do everything, and the people nothing for themselves. Karl Marx, as the successor of Lassalle, is the ruling spirit of the German socialists, and has become a prominent figure from his connection with the International. The socialist journals in Germany delight to reproduce the programme and doctrines of that society. They make noisy professions of atheism. They applauded the insurrection of the Commune in Paris. They have a collection of songs of their own. They disavow the warlike policy of Germany, and have endeavoured to substitute the community of class interests for the community of race, language, and country. It must not, however, be supposed that the number of these unpractical visionaries is proportionate to the noise, which they make in the world. The influence of socialistic doctrines is not so great in England as on the Continent, and it is weaker in America than in England. I hope, therefore, that no disposition may be manifested here to abandon the hopeful work of social, moral, and material progress for the pursuit of visionary and impossible schemes.

The amelioration of the condition of the poor is not to be brought about by destroying the ancient fabric and foundations of our social and political system. It is easy to destroy but most difficult to restore the institutions created by past generations, in which there lived men not less great, and wise, and good than the most gifted of our own contemporaries. Mr. Ruskin, a devoted friend of the working classes, in a passage of more than ordinary eloquence, has truly said, ‘This is the thing, which I know, and which, if you labour faithfully, you shall know also,—that in Reverence is the chief power and joy of life;—Reverence, for what is pure and bright in your own youth; for what is true and tried in the age of others; for all that is gracious among the living, great among the dead, and marvellous in the Powers that cannot die.’

Co-operation.

Our artisans may believe that the profits of former days were so large that employers can afford to pay the present rates of wages, without raising their charges to the consumers. There is but one means, by which this fallacy can be exposed. The workmen must become to a certain extent their own employers. In a co-operative establishment, created in part by his own hardly-earned savings, the handicraftsman will find himself called upon to apportion equitably the earnings of his business between labour and capital. In this double relation he will learn how great are the difficulties, which beset the employment of capital in productive industry in a country, in which competition is so keen as it is in England. In no other country does capital command so low a rate of interest; and, if large accumulations of capital have been made, and money is therefore cheap, it should not be inferred that the rate of profit has been high by comparison with other countries, but rather that our employers of labour, as a class, have been distinguished by their frugality, their perseverance, and their enterprise. I am grateful, therefore, to Mr. Holyoake, for his vindication of their claims at the recent Co-operative Congress. He justly said that capital was the enemy of nobody, but rather the nursing mother of production.

The co-operative principle, in its application to the business of distribution, has been already most successfully developed. My desire is to encourage working men to create co-operative establishments for the purposes of production. The accumulation of the necessary capital is an obvious difficulty; but as wages were never so high as at present, so this obstacle can be more easily surmounted now than at any former time. Some men may object to recognise the special responsibilities of a fellow-workman holding the office of manager of a large business, by giving a proportionate salary. It is because the recognition of authority is essential, whenever anything practical is to be done, that the International Society has shown such uncompromising hostility to the co-operative principle. The denial of a proportionate reward for superior intelligence or industry is the first article of its catechism. The absurdity of attempting to combine the energies of the men for any definite object, without placing a competent chief at their head, has been humorously exposed by Mr. Carlyle. ‘Ships,’ he said, ‘did not use the ballot-box at all, and they rejected the phantasm species of captains. Phantasm captains with unanimous votings! These are considered to be all the law and prophets at present. If a man shake out of his mind the universal noise of political doctors in this generation, and in the last generation or two, and consider the matter face to face with his own sincere intelligence looking at it, I venture to say he would find this a very extraordinary method of navigating, whether in the Straits of Magellan, or the undiscovered sea of time.’

English workmen are less easily deluded by tall talk and sophistry than the more excitable populations of the Latin race; and I would earnestly invite them to apply their practical sagacity to the difficult yet hopeful experiment of co-operative industry.

Demand and supply determine wages.

I must once more repeat the familiar axiom, that the price of labour, like that of every other commodity, must mainly depend upon the relation between supply and demand. The wages of skilled workmen have risen, because skilled workmen are scarce. How shall we increase their number, and improve their skill? My answer is, by bringing recruits into our industrial army from a class of society, which has hitherto exhibited too strong a prejudice against manual labour. The same aversion to handicraft of every kind exists in the United States and Canada. In America a skilled workman earns 30 dollars, a clerk only 15 dollars a week; and, while it is almost as difficult for a clerk to obtain a situation in New York as in London, a skilled workman can always command employment. It is unnecessary to dwell on the evils that must ensue from a disproportionate increase in the non-productive classes of the community. Lord Bacon has truly said, that a population is not to be reckoned only by numbers, for a smaller number that spend more and earn less do wear out a greater number that live lower and get more. My father’s advice was often sought by parents anxious for the future of their sons. His counsel always was, that a young man, whose destiny it must be to make his way, unaided, through the world, should begin by learning a trade. It is a laudable ambition in a parent to endeavour to raise his family to a better station in life. He cannot bestow on his children too high an education. But a wise man will be on his guard, lest the enjoyment of such advantages should render those occupations distasteful, which afford the most secure and ample livelihood to those whose lot it is to labour. When justly appreciated, the condition of the skilled artisan should be as much esteemed as that of any other class of the community. He whose life is passed in performing such needed services for his fellow-men, whatever his special calling, holds an honorable station, and social dignity will ever be most effectually maintained by those who are the least dependent upon the favours of others.

Forethought.

In conclusion, I would tender a few words of advice to my fellow-countrymen of the so-called working classes, for whose welfare I am bound to feel the deepest solicitude. Their just claim to share in the benefits arising from a thriving industry has of late been liberally recognised. The earnings in many trades have been unprecedented. It should not be forgotten that forethought is an especial duty in a time of prosperity. At no distant period, the progress of our commerce may sustain at least a temporary check. It will be sad indeed if the receding tide leaves behind it multitudes of our highly-paid workmen without the slightest provision to meet a period of adversity.

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_Spottiswoode & Co._, _Printers_, _New-street Square_, _London_.