Part 2 (1/2)
-- 4. Effect of Machinery upon the Character of Labour. Next, what is the general effect of machinery upon the character of the work done? The economic gain attending all division of labour is of course based on the improved quality and quant.i.ty of work obtained by confining each worker to a narrow range of activity. If no great inventions in machinery took place, we might therefore expect a constant narrowing of the activity of each worker, which would make his work constantly more simple, and more monotonous, and himself more and more dependent on the regular co- operation of an increasing number of other persons over whom he had no direct control. Without the growth of modern machinery, mere subdivision of labour would constantly make for the slavery and the intellectual degradation of labour. Independently of the mighty and ever-new applications of mechanical forces, this process of subdivision or specialization would take place, though at a slower pace. How far does machinery degrade, demoralize, dementalize the worker?
The constantly growing specialization of machinery is the most striking industrial phenomenon of modern times. Since the worker is more and more the attendant of machinery, does not this mean a corresponding specialization of the worker? It would seem so at first sight, yet if we look closer it becomes less obvious. So far as mere manual activity is concerned, it seems probable that the general effect of machinery has been both to narrow the range of that activity, and to take over that dexterity which consisted in the incessant repet.i.tion of a single uniform process. Very delicately specialized manipulation is precisely the work it pays best to do by machinery, so that, as Professor Marshall says, ”machinery can make uniform actions more accurately and effectively than man can; and most of the work which was done by those who were specially skilful with the fingers a few generations ago, is now done by machinery.”[15] He ill.u.s.trates from the wood and metal industries, where the process is constantly going on.
”The chief difficulty to be overcome is that of getting the machinery to hold the material firmly in exactly the position in which the machine- tool can be brought to bear on it in the right way, and without wasting meanwhile too much time in taking grip of it. But this can generally be contrived when it is worth while to spend some labour and expense on it; and then the whole operations can often be controlled by a worker, who, sitting before the machine, takes with the left hand a piece of wood or metal from a heap, and puts it in a socket, while with the right he draws down a lever, or in some other way sets the machine-tool at work, and finally with his left hand throws on to another heap the material which has been cut, or punched, or drilled, or planed exactly after a given pattern.”
Professor Marshall summarizes the tendency in the following words--”We are thus led to a general rule, the action of which is more prominent in some branches of manufacture than others, but which applies to all. It is, that any manufacturing operation that can be reduced to uniformity, so that the same thing has to be done over and over again in the same way, is sure to be taken over sooner or later by machinery. There may be delays and difficulties; but if the work to be done by it is on a sufficient scale, money and inventive power will be spent without stint on the task till it is achieved. There still remains the responsibility for seeing that the machinery is in good order and working smoothly; but even this task is often made light of by the introduction of an automatic movement which brings the machine to a stop the instant anything goes wrong.”[16]
Since the economy of production constantly induces machinery to take over all work capable of being reduced to routine, it would seem to follow by a logical necessity that the work left for the human worker was that which was less capable of being subjected to close uniformity; that is work requiring discretion and intelligence to be applied to each separate action. Although the process described by Professor Marshall a.s.signs a constantly diminis.h.i.+ng proportion of each productive work to the effort of man, of that portion which remains for him to do a constantly increasing proportion will be work of judgment and specific calculation applied to particular cases. And this is the conclusion which Professor Marshall himself a.s.serts--
”Since machinery does not encroach much upon that manual work which requires judgment, while the management of machinery does require judgment, there is a much greater demand now than formerly for intelligence and resource. Those qualities which enable men to decide rightly and quickly in new and difficult cases, are the common property of the better cla.s.s of workmen in almost every trade, and a person who has acquired them in one trade can easily transfer them to another.”
If this is true, it signifies that the formal specialization of the worker, which comes from his attendance on a more and more specialized piece of machinery, does not really narrow and degrade his industrial life, but supplies a certain education of the judgment and intelligence which has a general value that more than compensates the apparent specialization of manual functions. The very fact that the worker's services are still required is a proof that his work is less automatic (i.e. more intelligent) than that of the most delicate machinery in use; and since the work which requires less intelligence is continually being taken over by machinery, the work which remains would seem to require a constantly higher average of intelligence. It is, of course, true that there are certain kinds of work which can never be done by machinery, because they require a little care and a little judgment, while that care and judgment is so slight as to supply no real food for thought, or education for the judgment. No doubt a good deal of the less responsible work connected with machinery is of this order. Moreover, there are certain other influences to be taken into account which affect the net resuit of the growth of machinery upon the condition of the workers. The physical and moral evils connected with the close confinement of large bodies of workers, especially in the case of young persons, within the narrow unwholesome limits of the factory or mill, though considerably mitigated by the operation of factory legislation, are still no light offset against the advantages which have been mentioned. The weakly, ill-formed bodies, the unhealthy lives lived by the factory-workers in our great manufacturing centres are facts which have an intimate connection with the growth of machinery. But though our agricultural population, in spite of their poverty and hard work, live longer and enjoy better physical health than our town-workers, there are few who would deny that the town-workers are both better educated and more intelligent. This intelligence must in a large measure be attributed to the influences of machinery, and of those social conditions which machinery has a.s.sisted to establish. This intelligence must be reckoned as an adequate offset against the formal specialization of machine- labour, and must be regarded as an emanc.i.p.ative influence, giving to its possessor a larger choice in the forms of employment. So far as a man's labour-power consists in the mere knowledge how to tend a particular piece of machinery he may appear to be more ”enslaved” with each specialization of machinery; but so far as his labour-power consists in the practice of discretion and intelligence, these are qualities which render him more free.
Moreover, as regards the specialization of machinery, there is one point to be noticed which modifies to some considerable extent the effects of subdivision upon labour. On the one hand, the tendency to split up the manufacture of a commodity into several distinct branches, often undertaken in different localities and with wholly different machinery, prevents the skilled worker in one branch from pa.s.sing into another, and thus limits his practical freedom as an industrial worker. On the other hand, this has its compensating advantage in the tendency of different trades to adopt a.n.a.logous kinds of machinery and similar processes.
Thus, while a machinist engaged in a screw manufactory is so specialized that he cannot easily pa.s.s from one process to another process in the screw trade, he will find himself able to obtain employment in other hardware manufactures which employ the same or similar processes.
-- 5. Are all Men equal before the Machine?--It is sometimes said that ”all men become equal before the machine.” This is only true in the sense that there are certain large cla.s.ses of machine-work which require in the worker such attention, care, endurance, and skill as are within the power of most persons possessed of ordinary capacities of mind and body. In such forms of machine-work it is sometimes possible for women and children to compete with men, and even to take their places by their ability to offer their work at a cheaper price. The effect of machinery development in thus throwing on the labour-market a large quant.i.ty of women and children compet.i.tors is one of those serious questions which will occupy our attention in a later chapter. It is here sufficient to remember that it was this effect which led to a general recognition of the fact that machinery and the factory system could not be trusted to an unfettered system of _laissez faire_. The Factory Acts, and the whole body of legislative enactments, interfering with ”freedom of contract”
between employer and employed, resulted from the fact that machinery enabled women and children to be employed in many branches of productive work from which their physical weakness precluded them before.
-- 6. Summary of Effects of Machinery on the Condition of the Poor.--To sum up with any degree of precision the net advantages and disadvantages of the growth of machinery upon the working cla.s.ses is impossible. If we look not merely at the growth of money incomes, but at the character of those products which have been most cheapened by the introduction of machinery, we shall incline to the opinion that the net gain in wealth- producing power due to machinery has not been equally shared by all cla.s.ses in the community.[17]
The capitalist cla.s.ses, so far as they can be properly severed from the rest of the community, have gained most, as was inevitable in a change which increased the part played by capital in production. A short-timed monopoly of the abnormal profits of each new invention, and an enormous expansion of the field of investment for capital must be set against the gradual fall in the interest paid for the use of each piece of capital.
But as the advantage of each new invention has by the compet.i.tion of machinery-owners been pa.s.sed on to the consumer, all other cla.s.ses of the community have gained in proportion to their consumption of machinery-produced commodities. As machinery plays a smaller part in the production of necessaries of life than in the production of comforts and luxuries, it will be evident that each cla.s.s gain as consumers in proportion to its income. The poorest cla.s.ses, whose consumption of machine-productions is smallest, gain least. It cannot, however, be said, that there is any cla.s.s of regular workers who, as consumers, have been injured by machinery. All have gained. The skilled workmen, the aristocracy of labour, have, as has been shown, gained very considerably. Even the poor cla.s.ses of regular unskilled workmen have raised their standard of comfort.
It is in its bearing on the industrial condition of the very poor, and those who are unable to get regular work at decent wages, that the influence of machinery is most questionable. Violent trade fluctuations, and a continuous displacement of hand-labour by new mechanical inventions, keep in perpetual existence a large margin of unemployed or half-employed, who form the most hopeless and degraded section of the city poor, and furnish a body of reckless, starving compet.i.tors for work, who keep down the standard of wages and of life for the lower grades of regular workers affected by this compet.i.tion.
Chapter III.
The Influx of Population into Large Towns.
-- 1. Movements of Population between City and Country. The growth of large cities is so closely related to the problems of poverty as to deserve a separate treatment. The movements of population form a group of facts more open than most others to precise measurement, and from them much light is thrown on the condition of the working cla.s.ses. That the towns are growing at the expense of the country, is a commonplace to which we ought to seek to attach a more definite meaning.
We may trace the inflow of country-born people into the towns by looking either at the statistics of towns, or of rural districts. But first we ought to bear in mind one fact. Quite apart from any change in proportion of population, there is an enormous interchange constantly taking place between adjoining counties and districts. The general fluidity of population has been of course vastly increased by new facilities of communication and migration; persons are less and less bound down to the village or county in which they were born. So we find that in England and Wales, only 739 out of each 1000 persons were living in their native county in 1901. In some London districts it is reckoned that more than one quarter of the inhabitants change their address each year. So that when we are told that in seven large Scotch towns only 524 out of each 1000 are natives, and that in Middles.e.x only 35 per cent. of the male adult population are Middles.e.x by birth, we are not thereby enabled to form any conclusion as to the growth of towns.
To arrive at any useful result we must compare the inflow with the outflow. Most of the valuable information we possess on this point applies directly to London but the same forces which are operating in London, will be found to be at work with more or less intensity in other centres of population in proportion to their size. Comparing the inflow of London with its outflow, we find that in 1881 nearly twice as many strangers were living in London as Londoners were living outside; in other words, that London was gaining from the country at the rate of more than 10,000 per annum. So far as London itself is concerned, the last two censuses show a cessation of the flow, but the enormous growth of Middles.e.x outside the metropolitan boundaries indicates a continuance of the centripetal tendency.
Now what does London do with this increase? Is it spread evenly over the surface of the great city?
Certainly not. And here we reach a point which has a great significance for those interested in East London. It is clearly shown that none of this gain goes to swell the numbers of East London. Many individual strangers of course go there, but the outflow from East London towards the suburban parts more than compensates the inflow. By comparing the population of East London in 1901 with that in 1881, it is found that the increase is far less than it ought to be, if we add the excess of births over deaths. How is this? The answer is not far to seek, and stamps with fatal significance one aspect of Poverty, namely, overcrowding. East London does not gain so fast as other parts, because it will not hold any more people. It has reached what is termed ”saturation point.” Introduce strangers, and they can only stay on condition that they push out, and take the place of, earlier residents.
So we find in all districts of large towns, where poverty lies thickest, the inflow is less than the outflow. The great stream of incomers goes to swell the population of parts not hitherto overcrowded, thus ever increasing the area of dense city population. Districts like Bethnal Green and Mile End are found to show the smallest increase, while outlying districts like West Ham grow at a prodigious pace.
-- 2. Rate of Migration from Rural Districts.--But perhaps the most instructive point of view from which to regard the absorption of country population by the towns is not from inside but from outside.
Confining our attention for the present to migration from the country to the town, and leaving the foreign immigration for separate treatment, we find that the large majority of incomers to London are from agricultural counties, such as Kent, Bucks, Herts, Devon, Lincoln, and not from counties with large manufacturing centres of their own, like Yorks.h.i.+re, Lancas.h.i.+re, and Ches.h.i.+re. The great manufacturing counties contribute very slightly to the growth of London. While twelve representative agricultural counties furnished sixteen per 1000 of the population of London in 1881, twelve representative manufacturing counties supplied no more than two-and-a-half per 1000.
Respecting the rate of the decline of agricultural population exaggerated statements are often made. If we take the inhabitants of rural sanitary districts, and of urban districts below 10,000 as the rural population, we shall find that between 1891 and 1901 the growth in the rural districts is 5.3 per cent. as compared with 15.8 per cent. for the centres of population. Even if the urban standard be placed at a lower point, 5000, there is still an increase of 3.5 per cent. in the rural population. If, however, we eliminate the ”home” counties and other rural districts round the large centres of population, largely used for residential purposes, and turn to agricultural England, we shall find that it shows a positive decline in rural population. In the period 1891-1901 no fewer than 18 English and Welsh counties show a decrease of rural inhabitants, taking the higher limit of urban population. This has been going on with increasing rapidity during the last forty years. Whereas, in 1861, 37.7 per cent. of the population were living in the country, in 1901 the proportion has sunk to 23 per cent.
What these figures mean is that almost the whole of the natural increase in country population is being gradually sucked into city life. Not London alone, of course, but all the large cities have been engaged in this work of absorption. Everywhere the centripetal forces are at work.