Chapter X: Socialism and the Social Question (3)

Socialists would no doubt condemn all such investments for the same reason as they generally condemn the co-operative movement, because they would tend to create "a new class with one foot in the camp of the _bourgeoisie_ and the other in the camp of the proletariat." But that is precisely one of their chief advantages, and in making this objection socialists only betray how completely they ignore the operation of those portions of human nature that are the real forces and factors of social progress. It is only by linking a lower class to a higher that you can raise the level of the whole, and every pathway the working class makes into a comfortable equality with the lower _bourgeoisie_ will constitute at once an opportunity and a spur for others to follow them, which will exercise an elevating effect upon the entire body. If it were generally open to all the labouring classes to begin by being wage-labourers and end by sharing in some degree in the industrial capital of the country, this would raise the level of the whole--of those who after all remained wage-labourers still, as well as of those who succeeded in gaining a better competency. It would give them all something to keep looking forward to during their working life, something to save for and strive after, and a higher standard of comfort would get diffused and considered necessary in the class generally through the example of the better off. For the more comfortably situated working men--whether they have won their comfort by co-operation or otherwise--have not passed out of their class. They have, as is alleged, one foot in the camp of the proletariat still. They live and move and have their being among working people, and constitute by their presence and social connections a stimulating and elevating agency. It is through connections like these that the ideas of comfort and culture that prevail among an upper class permeate through to a lower, and thus elevate the general standard of living upon which the level of wages so much depends. Even the minor inequalities in the ranks of the working class are not without their use in quickening their exertions to maintain the standard of respectability which they have won or inherited. Economists were not wrong in ascribing so much influence as they always have done to men's tenacity in adhering to their customary standard of life. Many striking illustrations of its beneficial operation might be mentioned. I select one, because it concerns an aspect of the condition of the labouring classes of this country that is at present attracting much attention--their house accommodation. In all our large cities, the house accommodation of the working class has hitherto been about as bad as bad could be, but there is one singular exception--it is Sheffield. Porter drew attention to the fact many years ago. "The town itself," he says, "is ill built and dirty beyond the usual condition of English towns, but it is the custom for each family among the labouring population to occupy a separate dwelling, the rooms of which are furnished in a very comfortable manner. The floors are carpeted, and the tables are usually of mahogany. Chests of drawers of the same material are commonly seen, and so in many cases is a clock also, the possession of which article of furniture has often been pointed out as the certain indication of prosperity and of personal responsibility on the part of the working man." ("Progress of the Nation," p. 523.) The same condition of things still prevails, for at the meeting of the British Association in Sheffield in 1879 Dr. Hime read a paper on the vital statistics of the town, in which he says:--"Although handsome public buildings are not a prominent feature in the town, still there are few towns in England where the great bulk of the population is so well provided for in the way of domestic architecture. Overcrowding is very rare; cellar dwellings are unknown; and almost every family has an entire house, a most important agent in securing physical as well as moral health." (Transactions of British Association, 1879.) Now this is a fact of the highest interest, and we naturally ask what peculiarity there is in the trade or circumstances of Sheffield, in the first place, to create such an exceptional excellence in the standard of working class house accommodation, and, in the next place, to maintain it. One thing is certain: it is not due to better wages. There are trades in Sheffield very highly paid, but the labourers belonging to them are described by the anonymous author of "An Inquiry into the Moral, Social, and Intellectual Condition of the Industrious Classes of Sheffield" (London, 1839), as being much less comfortable in their circumstances than the others. This writer speaks of some trades in which "the workmen are steady, intelligent, and orderly, seldom the recipients of charity or parochial relief. They depend on their own exertions for the respectable maintenance of their families, and when trade is depressed they strive to live on diminished wages, or fall back on resources secured by industry and economy. This healthy and vigorous condition is not attributable to high wages. The workmen in the edge-tool trade are extravagantly remunerated, and yet, as a body, they are perhaps as irregular and dissipated in their habits as any in the town. Their families, in time of good trade, feel few of the advantages of prosperity, and when labour is little in demand, they are the first to need the aid of charity. These differences are familiar to the most superficial observer of the social and moral condition of the workmen in the several branches" (p. 14). But the same writer mentions a peculiarity in the trade of Sheffield which, he says, marks it off from every other manufacturing town, and that peculiarity may serve to provide us with the explanation we are seeking. "With us," he says, "the distinctions between masters and men are not always well marked. Persons are to a great extent both. The transition from the one to the other is easy and frequent in those branches where the tools are few and simple, and the capital required extremely small, which applies to the whole of the cutlery department." "The facility with which men become masters causes extraordinary competition, and its inevitable result, insufficient remuneration." "Here merchants and manufacturers cannot become princes.... There is not sufficient play for large fortunes. The making of fortunes is with us a slow process. It is, however, far from being partial.... The longer period required in the making of them allows the mind time to adapt itself to its improved circumstances, not merely the speculative and money-getting part of the understanding, but the whole of its social, moral, and intellectual powers, without which means are a questionable good. Wealth and intelligence are accordingly with us more generally associated than in towns where immense fortunes are rapidly made. In the latter case, there is no time for adaptation, nor is it deemed necessary or at all important, where money is the measure by which all things are estimated. Another evil dependent on this sudden elevation in life is the great distance which is immediately placed between employer and employed" (p. 15). Class and class are thus better knit together in Sheffield than elsewhere. The exceptional facility of becoming masters seems to be the particular instrumentality which has brought down the ideas and habits of comfort of the _bourgeoisie_ and spread them among the working class, and which has always prevented the great mass of the latter from sinking contentedly into a lower general standard of life. It introduced among them that social ambition, which is the most effective spur to progress, and the best preservative against decline. The fact that the exceptionally good house accommodation which prevails among the labouring population of Sheffield is not owing to exceptional, or even at all superior, wages, is one of much hope and encouragement. What is possible in Sheffield cannot be impossible elsewhere; and what is possible in the matter of house accommodation cannot be hopeless in other branches of consumption.

I shall be told that in all this I am only repeating the foolish idea of the French princess, who heard the people complain they could not get bread, and asked why then they did not buy cake. Where combinations are possible, it will be said, investments may be also possible; but the great majority of the working class are not in a position to combine, and it is mere mockery to tell people to save and invest who can hardly contrive to cover their backs. To this I reply, that there is no reason to assume that trade unions have reached the utmost extension of which they are susceptible, or to despair of their introduction into the hitherto unorganized trades. It was only lately common to deny the possibility of combination among agricultural labourers, and yet, scattered as they are, they have shown themselves not only able to combine, but to raise wages effectively by means of their combinations. We have now very powerful unions of unskilled day labourers, and a beginning has been made of an efficient organization even among needlewomen. It is true that, even when organization has spoken its last word, much of the distressing poverty that now exists would probably still remain, because we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that much of that poverty is the direct fruit of vice, disease, or indolence. But socialism could not cope with this mass of misery any better than the present system, for men don't drink and loaf and enter into improvident marriages or illicit alliances because they happen to be paid for their labour by contract with a capitalist instead of valuation by a State officer, and they certainly would not cease doing any of these things because an indulgent State undertook to save them from the natural penalties of doing them.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The proportion in England for 1857, according to official figures, was 31/2 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."