Part 17 (1/2)
It was of no use. The men's wages went up twenty per cent.; and there was an end of the bonuses. The coal famine continued. The masters, instead of making profits, made immense losses. The price of iron went down. The mills stood idle for two months. The result was, that when the masters next met the workmen in public meeting, Mr. Waterhouse, the auditor, reported that ”while the gross earnings of the year have exceeded the expenditure on materials, wages, and trade charges, they have been insufficient to cover the full amounts to be provided under the co-operative scheme for interest on capital, depreciation, and the reserve for bad debts; and that consequently it was his duty to declare that no amount was at present payable as bonus either to employers or employed.” No further report was issued in 1875, excepting an announcement that there was no dividend, and that the firm did not intend to continue the co-operative scheme any longer. During the time that it lasted, the _employes_ had received about eight thousand pounds in bonuses.
Since then, Sir Joseph Whitworth has announced his intention of giving his workmen a bonus upon his profits; but the principle of the division has not yet been announced. On hearing of his intention, Mr. Carlyle wrote the following letter to Sir Joseph:--
”Would to heaven that all the captains of industry in England had a soul in them such as yours. The look of England is to me at this moment abundantly ominous, the question of capital and labour growing ever more anarchic, insoluble altogether by the notions. .h.i.therto applied to it--pretty sure to issue in petroleum one day, unless some other gospel than that of the 'Dismal Science' come to illuminate it. Two things are pretty sure to me. The first is that capital and labour never can or will agree together till they both first of all decide on doing their work faithfully throughout, and like men of conscience and honour, whose highest aim is to behave like faithful citizens of this universe, and obey the eternal commandments of Almighty G.o.d, who made them. The second thing is, that a sadder object than even that of the coal strike, or any other conceivable strike, is the fact that--loosely speaking--we may say all England has decided that the profitablest way is to do its work ill, slurily, swiftly, and mendaciously. What a contrast between now and say only a hundred years ago! At the latter date all England awoke to its work--to an invocation to the Eternal Maker to bless them in their day's labour, and help them to do it well. Now, all England--shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of competing labourers--awaken as with an unspoken but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub,--'Oh, help us, thou great Lord of Shoddy, Adulteration, and Malfeasance, to do our work with the maximum of sluriness, swiftness, profit, and mendacity, for the devil's sake.
Amen.'”
Fortunately, there is not a great deal of truth in this letter, nor in the ”heartfelt prayer” to Shoddy. The Right Hon. Mr. Forster ought to know something of labour and capital, and at a recent meeting of the Cobden Club he stated that ”they were often told that they had a war within their borders between labour and capital; but as an employer of labour ever since he came to manhood, he would only say that he never knew a time in which employer and employed were on better terms.”
The late Sir Francis Crossley observed that there was a good deal of unreasonable feeling abroad. It was held by some that it was wrong for working men to sell their labour at the best price; but it must be remembered that their labour was the only thing they had to sell; and the best thing to do was to leave those matters to take their natural course. It was a great mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose that the lowest-priced labour was always the cheapest. If there was not so much desire to run down the price of labour, and the masters showed a more conciliatory spirit, there would be fewer strikes and outrages.
”What a contrast between now and say only a hundred years ago!”
Certainly there is a very great contrast. England was not a manufacturing country a hundred years ago. We imported nearly everything, except corn, wool, and flax. We imported the greatest part of our iron from Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Russia. We imported our pottery from Holland, our hats from Flanders, our silk from France, our cloth and carpets from Belgium. Our cotton manufactures, our woollen and flax manufactures, our machine manufactures, could scarcely be said to exist. Coal could scarcely be had, for the coal-pits could not be kept clear of water.
A hundred years ago, we could not build a steam-engine; we could scarcely build a bridge. Look at the churches built a hundred years ago, and behold the condition of our architecture. A hundred years ago, we had fallen to almost the lowest condition as a nation. We had not a harbour; we had not a dock. The most extensive system of robbery prevailed on the River Thames. The roads, such as they were, swarmed with highwaymen; and black-mail was levied by the Highlanders upon the Lowland farmers, down to the middle of last century.
A hundred years ago, our s.h.i.+ps were rotten; they were manned by prisoners taken from the hulks, or by working men pressed in the streets in open day. When James Watt was learning his trade of an instrument maker in London, a hundred years ago, he durst scarcely walk abroad lest he should be seized and sent to India or the American plantations. Less than a hundred years ago, the colliers and salters of Scotland were slaves. It is not forty years since women and children worked in coalpits. Surely we are not to go down upon our knees and pray for a restoration of the horrible things that existed a hundred years ago.
A hundred years ago, Ireland was treated like a conquered country; and hangings and shootings of rebels were frequent. The fleet at the Nore mutinied; and the mutiny was put down by bloodshed and executions. Towns and cities swarmed with ruffians; and brutal sports and brutal language existed to a frightful degree. Criminals were hanged, five or six together, at Tyburn. Gibbets existed at all the cross-roads throughout the country. The people were grossly ignorant, and altogether neglected.
Scepticism and irreligion prevailed, until Wesley and Whitfield sprang up to protest against formalism and atheism. They were pelted with rotten eggs, sticks, and stones. A Methodist preacher was whipped out of Gloucester.
A hundred years ago, literature was at a very low ebb. The press was in a miserable state. William Whitehead was Poet Laureate! Who knows of him now? Gibbon had not written his ”Decline and Fall.” _Junius_ was the popular writer. Political corruption was scarified in his letters. The upper cla.s.ses were coa.r.s.e, drunken, and ill-mannered. Bribery and corruption on the grossest scale were the princ.i.p.al means for getting into Parliament. Mr. Dowdeswell, M.P. for Worcesters.h.i.+re, said to the Commons, ”You have turned out a member for impiety and obscenity. What halfdozen members of this House ever meet over a convivial bottle, that their discourse is entirely free from obscenity, impiety, or abuse of Government?”
Though drunkenness is bad enough now, it was infinitely worse a hundred years ago. The publican's signboards announced, ”You may here get drunk for a penny, dead-drunk for twopence, and have clean straw for nothing.”
Drunkenness was considered a manly vice. To drink deep was the fas.h.i.+on of the day. Six-bottle men were common. Even drunken clergymen were not unknown.
What were the popular amus.e.m.e.nts of the people a hundred years ago? They consisted princ.i.p.ally of man-fighting, dog-fighting, c.o.c.k-fighting, bull baiting, badger-drawing, the pillory, public whipping, and public executions. Mr. Wyndham vindicated the ruffianism of the Ring in his place in Parliament, and held it up as a school in which Englishmen learnt pluck and ”the manly art of self-defence.” Bull-baiting was perhaps more brutal than prize-fighting, though Wyndham defended it as ”calculated to stimulate the n.o.ble courage of Englishmen.” The bull was secured to a stake in the market-place or the bull-ring (the name still survives in many towns), and there the animal was baited by the rabble dogs of the neighbourhood. One can scarcely imagine the savageness of the sport--the animal mutilations, the imprecations of ruffians worse than brutes, the ferociousness and drunkenness, the blasphemy and unspeakable horrors of the exhibition. The public mind of this day absolutely revolts at such brutality. Yet, less than a hundred years ago--on the 24th of May, 1802,--a Bill for the abolition of bull-baiting was lost in the House of Commons by sixty-four to fifty-one,--Mr.
Wyndham contending that horse-racing and hunting were more cruel than bull-baiting or prize-fighting!
The pillory was one of our time-honoured inst.i.tutions fifty years ago, and men and women used to be placed there for offences, such as a wise legislature would have endeavoured to conceal from public consideration.
The horrid scenes which then took place, when men, women, and children collected in crowds to pelt the offenders with missiles, were so disgusting, that they cannot be described. Not more seemly were the public whippings then administered to women in common with the coa.r.s.est male offenders. The public abominations and obscenities of the ”good old times” would almost have disgraced the days of Nero.
But bull-baiting, c.o.c.k-fighting, and other ferocious amus.e.m.e.nts, have now departed. Even the village stocks have rotted out. Drunkenness has become disreputable. The ”good old times” have departed, we hope never to return. The labourer has now other resources beside the public-house.
There are exhibitions and people's parks, steamboats and railways, reading-rooms and coffee-rooms, museums, gardens, and cheap concerts. In place of the disgusting old amus.e.m.e.nts, there has come a healthier, sounder life, greater enlightenment, more general sobriety, and a humaner spirit. We have in a hundred years outgrown many of our savage tendencies. We are not less brave as a people, though less brutal. We are quite as manly, though much less gross. Manners are more refined, yet as a people we have not lost our pluck, energy, and endurance. We respect ourselves more, and as a nation we have become more respected.
We now think with shame of the manners of a hundred years ago.
The achievements of which England has most reason to be proud, have been accomplished during the last hundred years. English slaves have been emanc.i.p.ated, both at home and abroad. Impressment has been done away with. Parliamentary representation has been conferred upon all cla.s.ses of the people. The Corn Laws have been abolished. Free trade has been established. Our ports are now open to the whole world.
And then, see what our inventors have accomplished! James Watt invented the steam-engine, which in a few years created a large number of new industries, and gave employment to immense numbers of people. Henry Cort invented the puddling-process, and enabled England to rely upon its own stores of iron, instead of depending upon foreign and perhaps hostile countries. All the docks and harbours round the English coast have been formed during the present century. The steamboat, the railway, and the telegraph have only been invented and applied during the last fifty years.
With respect to the charge made against the English workman as to the ”sluriness, swiftness, and mendacity” of his work, it is simply impossible that this should be so. Our ports are free and open to the world; and if Frenchmen, Germans, Belgians, or Americans could execute better work than Englishmen, we should not only cease to export, but also lose our home trade. The foreigner is now free to undersell us, if he can, in our own markets.
It was in the perfect confidence that Englishmen were the best and most honest workers in the world, that free trade was established. Should we ever become a shoddy manufacturing people, free trade will probably be abolished; and we shall then impose prohibitory duties upon foreign manufactures. But is it not the fact that every year sees an increase in the exports of English goods,--that English workmans.h.i.+p is not considered the worst, but the best, in the general markets of the world,--and that numerous foreign makers place an English mark upon their productions in order to ensure their sale?
It is by means of English workmen and English tools and machines that continental manufactories themselves have been established; and yet, notwithstanding their cheaper labour, we should command the foreign market, but for the prohibitory duties which foreigners impose upon English manufactures. Mr. Bra.s.sey, in his book on _Work and Wages_, says, ”It may be affirmed that as practical mechanics the English are unsurpa.s.sed. The presence of the English engineer, the solitary representative, among a crew of foreigners, of the mechanical genius of his country, is a familiar recollection to all who have travelled much in the steamers of the Mediterranean. Consul Lever says that in the vast establishment of the Austrian Lloyds at Trieste, a number of English mechanical engineers are employed, not only in the workshops, but as navigating engineers in the company's fleet. Although there is no difficulty in subst.i.tuting for these men Germans or Swiss, at lower rates of payment, the uniform accuracy of the English, their intelligence, their consummate mastery of all the details of their art, and their resources in every case of difficulty, have entirely established their superiority.”[1]
[Footnote 1: _Work and Wages_, p. 114.]