In his introduction to his work on Foreign Work and English Wages, Sir Thomas Brassey gives countenance to a theory of wages which has frequently been attributed to him, and has sometimes been accepted as a final statement of the relation of work and wages—viz., that "the cost of work, as distinguished from the daily wage of the labourer, was approximately the same in all countries." In other words, it is held that, for a given class of work, there is a fixed and uniform relation between wages and efficiency of labour for different lands and different races.

Now, to the acceptance of this judgment, considered as a foundation of a theory of comparative wages, there are certain obvious objections. In the first place, in the statement of most of the cases which are adduced to support the theory reference is made exclusively to money wages, no account being taken of differences of purchasing power in different countries. In order to establish any rational basis, the relation must be between real wages or standard of living and efficiency. Now, though it must be admitted as inherently probable that some definite relation should subsist between wages and work, or, in other words, between the standard of consumption and the standard of production, it is not a priori reasonable to expect this relation should be uniform as between two such countries as England and India, so that it should be a matter of economic indifference whether a piece of work is done by cheap and relatively inefficient Indian labour or by expensive and efficient English labour. Such a supposition could only stand upon one of two assumptions.

The first assumption would be that of a direct arithmetical progression in the relation of wage and work such as would require every difference in quantity of food, etc., consumed by labourers to be reflected in an exactly correspondent difference of output of productive energy—an assumption which needs no refutation, for no one would maintain that the standard of comfort furnished by wages is the sole determinant of efficiency, and that race, climate, and social environment play no part in economic production. The alternative assumption would be that of an absolute fluidity of capital and labour, which should reduce to a uniform level throughout the world the net industrial advantages, so that everywhere there was an exact quantitative relation between work and wage, production, and consumption. Though what is called a "tendency" to such uniformity may be admitted, no one acquainted with facts will be so rash as to maintain that this uniformity is even approximately reached.

Sec. 3. There is, then, no reason to suppose that wages, either nominal or real, bear any exact, or even a closely approximate, relation to the output of efficient work, quantity and quality being both taken into consideration. But, in truth, the evidence afforded by Sir T. Brassey does not justify a serious investigation of this theory of indifference or equivalence of work and wages. For, in the great majority of instances which he adduces, the advantage is clearly shown to rest with the labour which is most highly remunerated. The theory suggested by his evidence is, in fact, a theory of "the economy of high wages."

This theory, which has been advancing by rapid strides in recent years, and is now supported by a great quantity of carefully-collected evidence, requires more serious consideration. The evidence of Sir T. Brassey was chiefly, though by no means wholly, derived from branches of industry where muscular strength was an important element, as in road-making, railway-making, and mining; or from the building trades where machinery does not play a chief part in directing the pace and character of productive effort. It would not be unreasonable to expect that the quantitative relation between work and wages might be closer in industries where freely expended muscular labour played a more prominent part than in industries where machinery was a dominating factor, and where most of the work consisted in tending machinery. It might well be the case that it would pay to provide a high standard of physical consumption to navvies, but that it would not pay to the same extent to give high wages to factory operatives, or even to other classes of workers less subject to the strain of heavy muscular work.

In so far as the tendency of modern production is to relieve man more and more of this rough muscular work, it might happen that the true economy favoured high wages only in those kinds of work which were tending to occupy a subordinate place in the industry of the future. The earlier facts, which associated high wages with high productivity, low wages with low productivity, in textile factories and ironworks, were of a fragmentary character, and, considered as evidence of a causal connection between high wages and high productivity, were vitiated by the wide differences in the development of machinery and industrial method in the cases compared. In recent years the labours of many trained economists, some of them with close practical knowledge of the industrial arts, have collected and tabulated a vast amount of evidence upon the subject. A large number of American economists, among them General F.A. Walker, Mr. Gunton, Mr. Schoenhof, Mr. Gould, Mr. E. Atkinson, have made close researches into the relation between work and wages in America and in the chief industrial countries of Europe. A too patent advocacy of tariff reform or a shorter working day has in some cases prevented the statistics collected from receiving adequate attention, but there is no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the research.

The most carefully-conducted investigation has been that of Professor Schulze-Gaevernitz, who, basing his arguments upon a close study of the cotton industry, has related his conclusion most clearly to the evolution of modern machine-production. The earlier evidence merely established the fact of a co-existence between high wages and good work, low wages and bad work, without attempting scientifically to explain the connection. Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz, by his analysis of cotton spinning and weaving, successfully formulates the observed relations between wages and product. He compares not only the present condition of the cotton industry in England and in Germany and other continental countries, but the conditions of work and wages in the English cotton industry at various times during the last seventy years, thus correcting any personal equation of national life which might to some extent vitiate conclusions based only upon international comparison. This double method of comparison yields certain definite results, which Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz sums up in the following words:—"Where the cost of labour (i.e. piece wages) is lowest the conditions of labour are most favourable, the working day is shortest, and the weekly wages of the operatives are highest" (p. 133). The evolution of improved spinning and weaving machinery in England is found to be attended by a continuous increase in the product for each worker, a fall in piece wages reflected in prices of foods, a shortening of the hours of labour, and a rise in weekly wages. The following tables, compiled by Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz, give an accurate statement of the relations of the different movements, taking the spinning and weaving industries as wholes in England:—

SPINNING.

+ -+ -+ -+ -+ Product Number of Product Cost of Average of yarn workers per labour yearly in in spinning worker per lb. wages. 1000 lbs. mills. in lbs. + -+ -+ -+ -+ s. d. L s. d. 1819-21 106,500 111,000 968 6 4 26 13 0 1829-31 216,500 140,000 1546 4 2 27 6 0 1844-46 523,300 190,000 2754 2 3 28 12 0 1859-61 910,000 248,000 3671 2 1 32 10 0 1880-82 1,324,000 240,000 5520 1 9 44 4 0[228] + -+ -+ -+ -+

WEAVING.

+ + -+ + -+ Products Number of Product Cost of Average in workers. per worker labour yearly 1000 lbs. in lbs. per lb. income. + + -+ + -+ s. d. L s. d. 1819-21 80,620 250,000 322 15 5 20 18 0 1829-31 143,200 275,000 521 9 0 19 18 0[229] 1844-46 348,110 210,000 1658 3 5 24 10 0 1859-61 650,870 203,000 3206 2 9 30 15 0 1880-82 993,540 246,000 4039 2 3 39 0 0 + + -+ + -+

The same holds good of the growth of the cotton-weaving industry in America, as the following table shows:—

+ + -+ -+ -+ Yearly Cost of Yearly product labour earnings per worker. per yard. per worker. + + -+ -+ -+ Yards. Cents. Dollars. 1830 4,321 1.9 164 1850 12,164 1.55 190 1870 19,293 1.24 240 1884 28,032 1.07 290 + + -+ -+ -+

Of Germany and Switzerland the same holds. Every improvement of machinery increasing the number of spindles or looms a worker can tend, or increasing the pace of the machinery and thus enlarging the output per worker, is attended by a higher weekly wage, and in general by a shortening of the hours of labour.

A detailed comparison of England, the United States, and the Continent, as regards the present condition of the cotton industry, yields the same general results. A comparison between England and the United States shows that in weaving, where wages are much higher in America, the labour is so much more efficient as to make the cost of production considerably lower than in England; in spinning, where English wages are about as highly paid, the cost of production is lower than in America (p. 156). A comparison between Switzerland and Germany, England, and America, as regards weaving, yields the following results (p. 151):—

- - - Weekly product Cost Hours of Weekly per worker. per yard. labour. wage. - - - Yards. s. d. Switzerland and Germany 466 0.303 12 11 8 England 706 0.275 9 16 3 America 1200 0.2 10 20 3 - - -

The low-paid, long-houred labourers of the Italian factories are easily undersold by the higher paid and more effective labour of England or America. So also a comparison between Mulhausen and the factories of the Vosges valleys shows that the more highly-paid labour of the former is the more productive.

In Russia the better-paid labour in the factories near Petersburg and in Esthland can outcompete the lower paid labour of the central governments of Vladimir and Moscow.

Schulze-Gaevernitz goes so far as to maintain that under existing conditions of low wages and long hours, the Indian factories cannot undersell their Lancashire competitors, and maintains that the stringent factory laws which are demanded for India are likely to injure Lancashire,[230] instead of giving her an advantage. The most vital points of the subject are thus summarised, after an elaborate comparison of the cotton-spinning of England and of those parts of Germany which use English machinery:—

"In England the worker tends nearly twice as much machinery as in Germany; the machines work more quickly; the loss as compared with the theoretic output (i.e., waste of time and material) is smaller. Finally, there comes the consideration that in England the taking-off and putting-on from the spindles occupies a shorter time; there is less breaking of threads, and the piecing of broken threads requires less time. The result is that the cost of labour per pound of yarn—especially when the work of supervision is taken into account—is decidedly smaller in England than in Germany. So the wages of the English spinners are nearly twice as high as in Germany, while the working day occupies a little over 9 hours as compared with 11 to 11-1/2 in Germany." (P. 136.)

Sec. 4. From the evidence adduced by Schulze-Gaevernitz, modern industrial progress is expressed, so far as its effects on labour are concerned, in seven results: (a) Shorter hours of labour. (b) Higher weekly wage. (c) Lower piece-wage. (d) Cheaper product. (e) Increased product per worker. (f) Increased speed of machinery. (g) Increased number and size of machines to the worker.

All these factors must be taken into consideration before a full judgment of the net results of machinery upon the worker can be formed. The evidence above recorded, conclusive as it is regarding the existence of some causal connection between a high standard of living and high productivity of labour, does not necessarily justify the conclusion that a business, or a federation of employers, may go ahead increasing wages and shortening hours of labour ad libitum in sure and certain expectation of a corresponding increase in the net productivity of labour.

Before such a conclusion is warranted, we must grasp more clearly the nature of the causal relation between high standard of living and efficiency. How far are we entitled to regard high wages and other good conditions of employment as the cause, how far as the effect of efficiency of labour? The evidence adduced simply proves that a b c, certain phenomena relating to efficiency—as size of product, speed of workmanship, quantity of machines tended—vary directly with d e f, certain other phenomena relating to wages, hours of labour, and other conditions of employment. So far as such evidence goes, we are only able to assert that the two sets of phenomena are causally related, and cannot surely determine whether variations in a b c are causes, or effects of concomitant variations in d e f, or whether both sets of phenomena are or are not governed by some third set, the variations of which affect simultaneously and proportionately the other two.

The moral which writers like Mr. Gunton and Mr. Schoenhof have sought to extract, and which has been accepted by not a few leaders in the "labour movement," is that every rise of wages and every shortening of hours will necessarily be followed by an equivalent or a more than equivalent rise in the efficiency of labour. In seeking to establish this position, special stress is laid upon the evidence of the comparative statistics of textile industries. But, in the first place, it must be pointed out that the evidence adduced does not support any such sweeping generalisation. The statistics of Mr. Gould and Mr. Schoenhof, for instance, show many cases where higher money and real wages of American operatives are not accompanied by a correspondingly larger productivity. In such cases the "cheap" labour of England is really cheap.

Again, in other cases where the higher wages of American workers are accompanied by an equivalent, or more than equivalent, increase of product, that increased product is not due entirely or chiefly to greater intensity or efficiency of labour, but to the use of more highly elaborated labour-saving machinery. The difference between the labour-cost of making and maintaining this improved machinery, and that of making and maintaining the inferior machinery it has displaced, ought clearly to be added in, where a comparison is made between the relation of net labour-cost to product in different countries, or in different stages of industrial development in the same country. The omission of this invalidates much of the reasoning of Schulze-Gaevernitz, Brentano, Rae, and other prophets of "the economy of high wages." The direct labour-cost of each commodity may be as little, or even less, than in England, but the total cost of production[231] and the selling price may be higher. Lastly, in that comparison between England and America, which is in many respects the most serviceable, because the two countries are nearest in their development of industrial methods as well as in the character of their labourers, the difference of money and of real wage is not commonly accompanied by a difference in hours of labour.

The evidence we possess does not warrant any universal or even general application of the theory of the economy of high wages. If it was generally true that by increasing wages and by shortening working hours the daily product of each labourer could be increased or even maintained, the social problem, so far as it relates to the alleviation of the poverty and misery of the lower grades of workers, would admit of an easy solution. But though it will be generally admitted that a rise of wages or of the general standard of comfort of most classes of workers will be followed by increased efficiency of labour, and that a shortening of hours will not be followed by a corresponding diminution in output, it by no means follows that it will be profitable to increase wages and shorten hours indefinitely. Just as it is admitted that the result of an equal shortening of hours will be different in every trade, so will the result of a given rise in standard of comfort be different. In some cases highly-paid labour and short hours will pay, in other cases cheaper labour and longer hours. It is not possible by dwelling upon the concomitance of high wages and good work, low wages and bad work, in many of the most highly-developed industries to appeal to the enlightened self-interest of employers for the adoption of a general rise in wages and a general shortening of hours. Because the most profitable business may often be conducted on a system which involves high wages for short intense work with highly evolved machinery, it by no means follows that other businesses may not be more profitably conducted by employing low-paid workers for long hours with simpler machinery. We are not at liberty to conclude that the early Lancashire mill-owners adopted a short-sighted policy in employing children and feeble adult labour at starvation wages.

The evidence, in particular, of Schulze-Gaevernitz certainly shows that the economy of high wages and short hours is closely linked with the development of machinery, and that when machinery is complex and capable of being worked at high pressure a net economy of high wages and short hours emerges. In this light modern machinery is seen as the direct cause of high wages and short hours. For though the object of introducing machinery is to substitute machine-tenders at low wages for skilled handicraftsmen, and though the tireless machine could be profitably worked continuously, when due regard is had to human nature it is found more profitable to work at high pressure for shorter hours and to purchase such intense work at a higher price. It must, of course, be kept in mind that high wages are often the direct cause of the introduction of improved machinery, and are an ever-present incentive to fresh mechanical inventions. This was clearly recognised half a century ago by Dr. Ure, who names the lengthened mules, the invention of the self-acting mule, and some of the early improvements in calico-printing as directly attributable to this cause.[232]

But, admitting these tendencies in certain machine industries, we are not justified in relying confidently upon the ability of a rise of wages, obtained by organisation of labour or otherwise, to bring about such improvements of industrial methods as will enable the higher wages to be paid without injuring the trade, or reducing the profits below the minimum socially required for the maintenance of a privately conducted industry.

Our evidence leads to the conclusion that, while a rise of wages is nearly always attended by a rise of efficiency of labour and of the product, the proportion which the increased productivity will bear to the rise of wage will differ in every employment. Hence it is not possible to make a general declaration in favour of a policy of high wages or of low wages.

Sec. 5. The economically profitable wages and hours will vary in accordance with many conditions, among the most important being the development of machinery, the strain upon muscles and nerves imposed by the work, the indoor and sedentary character of the work, the various hygienic conditions which attend it, the age, sex, race, and class of the workers.

In cotton-weaving in America it pays better to employ women at high wages to tend six, seven, or even eight looms for short hours, than to pay lower wages to inferior workers such as are found in Germany, Switzerland, or even in Lancashire. But in coal-mining it appears that the American wages are economically too high—that is to say, the difference between American and English wages is not compensated by an equivalent difference of output. The gross number of tons mined by United States miners working at wages of $326 per annum is 377, yielding a cost of 86-1/2 cents per ton, as compared with 79 cents per ton, the cost of North Staffordshire coal produced by miners earning $253, and turning out 322 tons per head.[233] So also a ton of Bessemer pig iron costs in labour about 50 cents more in America than in England, the American wages being about 40 per cent. higher.[234]

It is, indeed, evident from the aggregate of evidence that no determinable relation exists between cost in labour and wages for any single group of commodities.

Just as little can a general acceptance be given to the opposite contention that it is the increased efficiency of labour which causes the high wages. This is commonly the view of those business men and those economists who start from the assumption that there is some law of competition in accordance with whose operation every worker necessarily receives as much as he is worth, the full value of the product of his labour. Only by the increased efficiency of labour can wages rise, argue these people; where wages are high the efficiency of labour is found to be high, and vice versa; therefore efficiency determines wages. Just as the advocates of the economy of high-wages theory seek by means of trade-unionism, legislation, and public opinion to raise wages and shorten hours, trusting that the increased efficiency which ensues will justify such conduct, so the others insist that technical education and an elevation of the moral and industrial character of the workers must precede and justify any rise of wages or shortening of hours, by increasing the efficiency of labour. Setting aside the assumption here involved that the share of the workers in the joint product of capital and labour is a fixed and immovable proportion, this view rests upon a mere denial of the effect which it is alleged that high wages and a rise in standard of comfort have in increasing efficiency.

The relation between wages and other conditions of employment, on the one hand, and efficiency of labour or size of product on the other, is clearly one of mutual determination. Every rise in wages, leisure, and in general standard of comfort will increase the efficiency of labour; every increased efficiency, whether due directly to these or to other causes, will enable higher wages to be paid and shorter hours to be worked.

Sec. 6. One further point emerges from the evidence relating to efficiency and high wages. According to Schulze-Gaevernitz's formula, every fall in piece wages is attended by a rise in weekly wages. But it should be kept in mind that a rise in time wages does not necessarily mean that the price of labour measured in terms of effort has been raised. Intenser labour undergone for a shorter time may obtain a higher money wage per unit of time, but the price per unit of effort may be lower. It has been recognised that a general tendency of the later evolution of machinery has been to compress and intensify labour. In certain classes of textile labour the amount of muscular or manual labour given out in a day is larger than formerly. This is the case with the work of children employed as piecers. In Ure's day (1830) he was able to claim that during three-fourths of the time spent by children in the factory they had nothing to do. The increased quantity of spindles and the increased speed have made their labour more continuous. The same is true of the mule spinners, whose labour, even within the last few years, has been intensified by increased size of the mule. Though as a rule machinery tends to take over the heavier forms of muscular work, it also tends to multiply the minor calls upon the muscles, until the total strain is not much less than before. What relief is obtained from muscular effort is compensated by a growing strain upon the nerves and upon the attention. Moreover, as the machinery grows more complex, numerous, and costly, the responsibility of the machine-tender is increased. To some considerable extent the new effort imposed upon the worker is of a more refined order than the heavy muscular work it has replaced. But its tax upon the physique is an ever-growing one. "A hand-loom weaver can work thirteen hours a day, but to get a six-loom weaver to work thirteen hours is a physical impossibility."[235] The complexity of modern machinery and the superhuman celerity of which it is capable suggest continually an increased compression of human labour, an increased output of effort per unit of time. This has been rendered possible by acquired skill and improved physique ensuing on a higher standard of living. But it is evident that, where it appears that each rise in the standard of living and each shortening of the working-day has been accompanied by a severer strain either upon muscles, nerves, or mental energy during the shorter working day, we are not entitled to regard the higher wages and shorter hours as clear gain for the worker. Some limits are necessarily imposed upon this compressibility of working effort. It would clearly be impossible by a number of rapid reductions of the working day and increases of time wages to force the effectiveness of an hour's labour beyond a certain limit for the workers. Human nature must place limits upon the compression. Though it may be better for a weaver to tend four looms during the English factory day for the moderate wage of 16s. a week than to earn 11s. 8d. by tending two looms in Germany for twelve hours a day, it does not follow that it is better to earn 20s. 3d. in America by tending six, seven, or even eight looms for a ten-hours day,[236] or that the American's condition would be improved if the eight-hours day was purchased at the expense of adding another loom for each worker.

The gain which accrues from high wages and a larger amount of leisure, over which the higher consumption shall be spread, may be more than counteracted by an undue strain upon the nerves or muscles during the shorter day. This difficulty, as we have seen, is not adequately met by assigning the heavier muscular work more and more to machinery, if the possible activity of this same machinery is made a pretext for forcing the pace of such work as devolves upon machine-tenders.

In many kinds of work, though by no means in all, an increase of the amount of work packed into an hour could be obtained by a reduction of the working-day; but two considerations should act in determining the progressive movement in this direction: first, the objective economic question of the quantitative relation between the successive decrements of the working-day and the increments of labour put into each hour; second, the subjective economic question of the effect of the more compressed labour upon the worker considered both as worker and as consumer.

There is not wanting evidence to show that increased leisure and higher wages can be bought too dear.

In drawing attention to this consideration it must not, however, be assumed that the increase of real wages and shortening of hours traced in progressive industries are necessarily accompanied by a corresponding increase in the compression of labour. In the textile and iron industries, for example, it is evident (pace Karl Marx) that the operatives had obtained some portion of the increased productivity of improved machinery in a rise of wages. Even where more machinery is tended we are not entitled to assume a correspondent increase in felt effort or strain upon the worker. A real growth of skill or efficiency will enable an increased amount of machinery to be tended with no greater subjective effort than a smaller amount formerly required. But while allowance should be made for this, the history of the factory system, both in England and in other countries, clearly indicates that factory labour is more intense than formerly, not, perhaps, in its tax upon the muscles, but in the growing strain it imposes upon the nervous system of the operatives.

The importance of this point is frequently ignored alike by advocates of a shorter working-day and by those who insist that the chief aim of workers should be to make their labour more productive. So far as the higher efficiency simply means more skill and involves no increased effort it is pure gain, but where increased effort is required the question is one requiring close and detailed consideration.

Sec. 7. Another effect of over-compressed labour deserves a word.

The close relation between higher wages and shorter hours is generally acknowledged. A rise of money wages which affects the standard of living by introducing such changes in consumption as require for their full yield of benefit or satisfaction an increase of consuming-time can only be made effective by a diminution in the producing time or hours of labour. When, for example, the new wants, whose satisfaction would be naturally sought from a rise of the standard living, are of an intellectual order, involving not merely the purchase of books, etc., but the time to read such books, this benefit requires that the higher wages should be supplemented by a diminution in the hours of labour in cases where the latter are unduly long. But it is not so clearly recognised that such questions cannot be determined without reference to the question of intensity of labour. Yet it is evident that an eight-hours day of more compressed labour might be of a more exhausting character than a ten-hours day of less intense labour and disqualify a worker from receiving the benefits of the opportunities of education open to him more than the longer hours of less intense labour. The advantage of the addition of two hours of leisure might be outweighed by the diminished value attached to each leisure hour. In other words, the excess of intense work might be worse in its effects than the excess of more extended work. This possibility is often overlooked in the arguments of those who support the movement towards a shorter working-day by maintaining that each unit of labour-time will be more productive. When the argument concerns itself merely with alleging the influence of higher wages, without shorter hours, upon the efficiency of labour, this neglect of the consideration of intense labour has a more urgent importance. It may be gravely doubted whether the benefit of the higher wages of the Massachusetts weavers is not overbalanced by the increased effort of tending so large a number of looms for hours which are longer than the English factory day. The exhausting character of such labour is likely to leave its mark in diminishing the real utility or satisfaction of the nominally higher standard of living which the high wages render possible. Where the increased productivity of labour is largely due to the improved machinery or methods of production which are stimulated by high wages without a corresponding intensification of the labour itself, the gain to labour is clear. But the possibility that short hours and high wages may stimulate an injurious compression of the output of productive effort is one which must not be overlooked in considering the influence of new industrial methods upon labour.

Sec. 8. Duration of labour, intensity of labour, and wages, in their mutual relations, must be studied together in any attempt to estimate the tendencies of capitalist production. Nor can we expect their relations to be the same in any two industries. Where labour is thinly extended over an inordinately long working-day, as in the Indian mills, it is probable that such improvements of organisation as might shorten the hours to those of an ordinary English factory day, and intensify the labour, would be a benefit, and the rise of wages which might follow would bring a double gain to the workers. But any endeavour to further shorten and intensify the working-day might injure the workers, even though their output were increased. Such an instance, however, may serve well to bring home the relativity which is involved in all such questions. The net benefit derived from a particular quantitative relation between hours of labour, intensity, and earnings would probably be widely different for English and for Indian textile workers. It would, a priori, be unreasonable to expect that the working-day which would bring the greatest net advantage to both should be of the same duration. So also it may well be possible that the more energetic nervous temperament of the American operative may qualify him or her for a shorter and intenser working-day than would suit the Lancashire operative. It is the inseparable relation of the three factors—duration, intensity, and earnings—which is the important point. But in considering earnings, not merely the money wage, nor even the purchasing power of the money, but the net advantage which can be obtained by consuming what is purchased must be understood, if we are to take a scientific view of the question.

It should be clearly recognised that in the consideration of all practical reforms affecting the conditions of labour, the "wages" question cannot be dissociated from the "hours" question, nor both from the "intensity of labour" question; and that any endeavour to simplify discussion, or to facilitate "labour movements," by seeking a separate solution for each is futile, because it is unscientific. When any industrial change is contemplated, it should be regarded, from the "labour" point of view, in its influence upon the net welfare of the workers, due regard being given, not merely to its effect upon wage, hours, and intensity, but to the complex and changing relations which subsist in each trade, in each country, and in each stage of industrial development between the three.

But although, when we bear in mind the effects of machinery in imparting intensity and monotony to labour, in increasing the number of workers engaged in sedentary indoor occupations, and in compelling an ever larger proportion of the working population to live in crowded and unhealthy towns, the net benefit of machinery to the working classes may be questioned, the growth of machinery has been clearly attended by an improved standard of material comfort among the machine-workers, taking the objective measurement of comfort.

Whatever allowance may be made for the effects of increased intensity of labour, and the indirect influences of machinery, the bulk of evidence clearly indicates that machine-tenders are better fed, clothed, and housed than the hand-workers whose place they take, and that every increase in the efficiency and complexity of machinery is attended by a rise in real wages. The best machinery requires for its economical use a fair standard of living among the workers who co-operate with it, and with the further development of machinery in each industry we may anticipate a further rise of this standard, though we are not entitled to assume that this natural and necessary progress of comfort among machine-workers has no fixed limit, and that it is equally applicable to all industries and all countries.

It might, therefore, appear that as one industry after another fell under machine-production, the tendency of machine-development must necessarily make for a general elevation of the standard of comfort among the working classes. It may very well be the case that the net influence of machinery is in this direction. But it must not be forgotten that the increased spread of machine-production does not appear to engage a larger proportion of the working population in machine-tending. Indeed, if we may judge by the recent history of the most highly-evolved textile industries, we are entitled to expect that, when machinery has got firm hold of all those industries which lend themselves easily to routine production, the proportion of the whole working population engaged directly in machine-tending will continually decrease, a larger and larger proportion being occupied in those parts of the transport and distributing industries which do not lend themselves conveniently to machinery, and in personal services. If this is so, we cannot look upon the evolution of machinery, with its demand for intenser and more efficient labour, as an adequate guarantee of a necessary improvement in the standard of comfort of the working classes as a whole. To put the matter shortly, we have no evidence to show that a rise in the standard of material comfort of shopmen, writing clerks, school-teachers, 'busmen, agents, warehousemen, dockers, policemen, sandwich-men, and other classes of labour whose proportion is increasing in our industrial society, will be attended by so considerable a rise in the efficiency of their labour as to stimulate a series of such rises. The automatic movement which Schulze-Gaevernitz and others trace in the typical machine-industries is not shown to apply to industry as a whole, and if the tendency of machine-development is to absorb a larger proportion of the work but a smaller proportion of the workers, it is not possible to found large hopes for the future of the working classes upon this movement of the earning of high wages in machine-industry.

Sec. 9. But though the individual self-interest of the producer cannot be relied upon to favour progressive wages, except in certain industries and up to a certain point, the collective interest of consumers lends stronger support to "the economy of high wages." We have seen that the possession of an excessive proportion of "power to consume" by classes who, because their normal healthy wants are already fully satisfied, refuse to exert this power, and insist upon storing it in unneeded forms of capital, is directly responsible for the slack employment of capital and labour. If the operation of industrial forces throw an increased proportion of the "power to consume" into the hands of the working classes, who will use it not to postpone consumption but to raise their standard of material and intellectual comfort, a fuller and more regular employment of labour and capital must follow. If the stronger organisation of labour is able to raise wages, and the higher wages are used to demand more and better articles of consumption, a direct stimulus to the efficiency of capital and labour is thus applied. The true issue, however, must not be shirked. If the power of purchase now "saved" by the wealthier classes passed into the hands of the workers in higher money wages, and was not spent by them in raising their standard of comfort, but was "invested" in various forms of capital, no stimulus to industry would be afforded; the "savings" of one class would have fallen into the hands of another class, and their excess would operate to restrict industry precisely as it now operates. Though we would gladly see in the possession of the working classes an increased proportion of those forms of capital which are socially useful, this simple act of transfer, however brought about, would furnish no stimulus to the aggregate industry. From the standpoint of the community nothing else than a rise in the average standard of current consumption can stimulate industry. When it is clearly grasped that a demand for commodities is the only demand for the use of labour and of capital, and not merely determines in what particular direction these requisites of production shall be applied, the hope of the future of our industry is seen to rest largely upon the confident belief that the working classes will use their higher wages not to draw interest from investments (a self-destructive policy) but to raise their standard of life by the current satisfaction of all those wholesome desires of body and mind which lie latent under an "economy of low wages." The satisfaction of new good human desires, by endowing life with more hope and interest, will render all intelligent exertion more effective, by distributing demand over a larger variety of commodities will give a fuller utilisation both of natural and human resources, and by redressing the dislocated balance of production and consumption due to inequality of purchasing power, will justify high wages by increased fulness and regularity of work. But it must be clearly recognised that however desirable "saving" may seem to be as a moral virtue of the working classes, any large practice of saving undertaken before and in preference to an elevation of current consumption, will necessarily cancel the economic advantages just dwelt upon. Just as the wise individual will see he cannot afford to "save" until he has made full provision for the maintenance of his family in full physical efficiency, so the wise working class will insist upon utilising earlier accesses of wages in promoting the physical and intellectual efficiency of themselves and their families before they endeavour to "invest" any considerable portion of their increased wages. Mr. Gould puts this point very plainly and convincingly: "Where economic gains are small, savings mean a relatively low plane of social existence. A parsimonious people are never progressive, neither are they, as a rule, industrially efficient. It is the man with many wants—not luxurious fancies, but real legitimate wants—who works hard to satisfy his aspirations, and he it is who is worth hiring. Let economists still teach the utility and the necessity of saving, but let the sociologist as firmly insist that to so far practise economy as to prevent in the nineteenth century a corresponding advance in civilisation of the working with the other classes is morally inequitable and industrially bad policy. I am not sorry that the American does not save more. Neither am I sure but that if many working-class communities I have visited on the Continent were socially more ambitious, there would not be less danger from Radical theories. One of the most intelligent manufacturers I ever met told me a few years ago he would be only too glad to pay higher wages to his working people, provided they would spend the excess legitimately and not hoard it. He knew that in the end he should gain thereby, since the ministering to new wants only begets others."[237] If there are theoretic economists who still hold that "a demand for commodities is not a demand for labour," they may be reminded that a paradox is not necessarily true. In fact, this particular paradox is seen to be sustained by a combination of slipshod reasoning and moral prejudice. The growing opinion of economic students is veering round to register in theory the firm empirical judgment from which the business world has never swerved, that a high rate of consumption is the surest guarantee of progressive trade. The surest support of the "economy of high wages" is the conviction that it will operate as a stimulus to industry through increased consumption. The working classes, especially in the United States and in England, show a growing tendency to employ their higher wages in progressive consumption. Upon the steady operation of this tendency the economic future of the working classes, and of industry in general, largely depends.

FOOTNOTES:

[225] Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 86.

[226] Cf. Northern Tour, vol. ii. p. 86.

[227] It is true that out-and-out defenders of the factories against early legislation sometimes had the audacity to assert the "economy of high wages," and to maintain that it governed the practice of early mill-owners. So Ure, "The main reason why they (i.e. wages) are so high is, that they form a small part of the value of the manufactured article, so that if reduced too low by a sordid master, they would render his operatives less careful, and thereby injure the quality of their work more than could be compensated by his saving in wages. The less proportion wages bear to the value of the goods, the higher, generally speaking, is the recompense of labour. The prudent master of a fine spinning-mill is most reluctant to tamper with the earnings of his spinners, and never consents to reduce them till absolutely forced to it by a want of remuneration for the capital and skill embarked in his business" (Philosophy of Manufactures, p. 330). This does not, however, prevent Dr. Ure from pointing out a little later the grave danger into which trade-union endeavours to raise wages drive a trade subject to the competition of "the more frugal and docile labour of the Continent and United States" (p. 363). Nor do Dr. Ure's statements regarding the high wages paid in cotton-mills, which he places at three times the agricultural wages, tally with the statistics given in the appendix of his own book (cf. p. 515). Male spinners alone received the "high wages" he names, and out of them had to pay for the labour of the assistants whom they hired to help them.

[228] Der Grossbetrieb, p. 132. In regarding the advance of recent average wages it should be borne in mind that the later years contain a larger proportion of adults. In considering the net yearly wages a deduction for unemployment should be made from the sums named in the table.

[229] Account must be taken of the depressed condition of hand-loom weavers, who had not yet disappeared.

[230] Here Schulze-Gaevernitz appears to strain his argument. Though official reports lay stress upon the silver question as an important factor in the rise of Bombay mills, there seems no doubt of the ability of Bombay cheap labour, independently of this, to undersell English labour for low counts of cotton in Asiatic markets. Brentano in his work, Hours and Wages in Relation to Production, supports Schulze-Gaevernitz.

[231] Mr. Gould's general conclusion, from his comparison of American and European production, is "that higher daily wages in America do not mean a correspondingly enhanced labour-cost to the manufacturers" (Contemporary Review, Jan. 1893). This he holds to be partly due to superior mechanical agencies, which owe their existence to high wages, partly to superior physical force in the workers. But Mr. Gould's evidence and his conclusion here stated, taken as testimony to the "economy of high wages," are insufficient, for they only show that high wages are attended by increased output of labour, not by an increase correspondent to this higher wage.

[232] Ure's Philosophy of Manufactures, pp. 367-369. Dr. Ure regarded mechanical inventions as the means whereby capital should keep labour in subjection. In describing how the "self-acting mule" came into use he adds triumphantly: "This invention comprises the great doctrine already propounded, that when capital enlists science in her service the refractory hand of labour will always be taught docility" (p. 368).

[233] "No. 64 Consular Report" (quoted Schoenhof, p. 209).

[234] Schoenhof, p. 216.

[235] Der Grossbetrieb, p. 167.

[236] Vide supra, p. 269. These wages, however, are the average of all the labour employed in the weaving-sheds, not of "weavers" alone.

[237] E.R.L. Gould, Contemporary Review, January 1893.



CHAPTER XI.

SOME EFFECTS OF MODERN INDUSTRY UPON THE WORKERS AS CONSUMERS.

Sec. 1. How far the different Working Classes gain from the Fall of Prices. Sec. 2. Part of the Economy of Machine-production compensated by the growing Work of Distribution. Sec. 3. The Lowest Class of Workers gains least from Machine-production.

Sec. 1. In considering the effect of machine-production upon a body of workers engaged in some particular industry we are not confined to tracing the effects of improvements in the arts and methods of that single branch of production. As consumers they share in the improvements introduced into other industries reflected in a fall of retail prices. Insomuch as all English workers consume bread they are benefited by the establishment of a new American railway or the invention of new milling machinery which lowers the price of bread; as all consume boots the advantage which the introduction of boot-making machinery confers upon the workers is not confined to the higher wages which may be paid to some operatives in the boot factory, but is extended to all the workers who can buy cheaper boots.

How far do methods of modern capitalist production tend to benefit the labourer in his capacity as consumer?

Economic theory is in tolerably close accord with experience in the answer it gives to this question. Each portion of the working classes gains in its capacity of consumer from improved methods of production in proportion to the amount by which its income exceeds the bare subsistence wage of unskilled workers. The highly-paid mechanic gains most, the sweated worker least. The worker earning forty shillings per week gains much more than twice as much as the worker earning twenty shillings from each general cheapening in the cost of production. There are several reasons why this is so.

1. Where there exists a constant over-supply of labour competing for what must be regarded at any particular time as a fixed quantity of employment, wages are determined with tolerably close reference to the lowest standard of living among that class of workers, and not by any fixed or customary money wage. This is particularly the case in the "sweating" trades of large towns. Here such improvements in machinery and methods of industry as lower the price of articles which fall within the "standard of living" of this class are liable to be speedily reflected in a fall of money wages paid for such low-skilled work. In other words, a "bare subsistence wage" does not gain by a fall in the price of the articles which belong to its standard of comfort.

Even in the lowest kinds of work there is no doubt some tendency to stick to the former money wage and thus to raise somewhat the standard of real wages, but where the competition is keenest this vis inertiae is liable to be overborne, and money wages fall with prices. As we rise to the more highly skilled, paid, and organised grades of labour, we come to workers who are less exposed to the direct constant strain of competition, where there is not a chronic over-supply of labour. Here a fall of retail prices is not necessarily or speedily followed by any corresponding fall of money wages, and the results of the higher real wages enjoyed for a time impress themselves in a higher habitual standard of comfort and strengthen the resistance which is offered to any attempt to lower money wages, even though the attempt may be made at a time when an over-supply of labour does exist.

In proportion as a class of workers is highly paid, educated, and organised, it is able to gain the benefit which improved machinery brings to the consumer, because it is better able to resist the economic tendency to determine wages by reference to a standard of comfort independent of monetary considerations. So far as the lowest waged and most closely competing labourers have gained by the fall of prices, it has been due to the pressure of sentiment on the part of the better class of employers and of the public against the lowering of money wages, even where the smaller sum of money will purchase as much as a larger sum previously.

2. The smaller the income the larger the proportion of it that is spent upon commodities whose expense of production and whose price is less affected by machinery. Machine-production, by the fall of prices it brings, has benefited people in direct proportion to their income. The articles which have fallen most rapidly in price are those comforts and luxuries into which machine-production enters most largely. The aristocracy of the working classes, whose standard of comfort includes watches, pianos, books, and bicycles, has gained much more by the fall of prices than those who are obliged to spend all their wages on the purchase of bare necessaries of life. The gain of the former is manifold and great, the benefit of the latter is confined to the cheapening of bread and groceries—a great benefit when measured in terms of improved livelihood no doubt, but small when compared with the increase of purchasing power conferred by modern production upon the Lancashire factory family, with its L3 or L4 a week, and in large measure counterbalanced by the increased proportion of the income, which, in the case of town operatives, goes as rent and price of vegetables, dairy produce, and other commodities which have risen in price.

3. The highly-paid operatives generally work the shortest hours, the low-paid the longest. So far as this is not compensated by an increased intensity of labour on the part of those working short hours, it implies an increased capacity of making the most out of their wages. Longer leisure enables a worker to make the most of his consumption, he can lay out his wages more carefully, is less tempted to squander his money in excesses directly engendered by the reaction from excessive labour, and can get a fuller enjoyment and benefit from the use of the consumables which he purchases. A large and increasing number of the cheapest and the most intrinsically valuable commodities, of an intellectual, artistic, and spiritual character, are only open to the beneficial consumption of those who have more leisure at their command than is yet the lot of the low-skilled workers in our towns.

Sec. 2. If we compare the statistics of wages we shall find that the largest proportionate rise of money wages has been in the highly-organised machine industries, and that the benefit which machinery confers upon the workers in the capacity of consumers falls chiefly to the same workers.

It must not, however, be assumed that improved methods of production yield their full benefit through competition to the consuming public. On the contrary, much of the economy of machine-production fails to exercise its full influence upon retail prices. There are two chief reasons for this failure. To one of these adequate attention has been already drawn, the growth of definite forms of capitalist monopoly, which secure at some point or other in the production of a commodity, as higher profits, that which under free competition would pass to the consumer through lower shop prices. The second consists in the abnormal growth of the distributive classes, whose multiplication is caused by the limitation which the economy of machinery imposes upon the amount of capital and labour which can find profitable employment in the extractive and manufacturing processes. A larger and larger number of industrial workers obtain a living by a subdivision of the work of distribution carried to a point far beyond the bounds of social utility. For, on the one hand, when competition of manufacturers and transporters is more and more confined to a small number of large businesses which, because their united power of production largely transcends the consumption at profitable prices, are driven into closer competition, a larger amount of labour is continually engaged in the attempt of each firm to secure for itself the largest share of business at the expense of another firm. On the other hand, shut out from effective or profitable competition in the manufacturing industries, a larger amount of capital and labour seeks to engage in those departments of the distributive trade where new-comers have a better chance, and where by local settlement or otherwise they have an opportunity of sharing the amount of distribution that is to be done. Hence a fall of wholesale prices is usually not reflected in a corresponding fall of retail prices, for competition in retail trade, as J.S. Mill clearly recognised, "often, instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gains of the high price among a greater number of dealers."[238]

Sec. 3. The wide difference between the economic position of the skilled mechanic and the common labourer shows how fallacious is that treatment of the influence of machinery upon the condition of the working classes which is commonly found in treatises of political economy. To present a comparative picture of the progress of the working classes during the last half century, which assigns to them an increase of money wages, obtained by averaging a number of rises in different employments, and reduces this increase to real wages without any reference to the different use of wages by different classes, is an unscientific and mischievous method of dealing with one of the most important economic questions. The influence of machine-production appears to be widely different upon the skilled mechanic and the common labourer considered both as producers and consumers, and tends to a wide difference in standard of comfort between the two classes. This difference is further enhanced by the indirect assistance which machinery and large-scale industry gives to the skilled workers to combine and thus frequently to secure wages higher than are economically requisite to secure their efficient work. On the other hand, growing feelings of humanity and a vague but genuine feeling of social justice in an ever larger portion of the public often enable the low-skilled worker to secure a higher standard of comfort than the operation of economic competition alone would enable him to reach. But after due allowance is made for this, the conclusion is forced upon us that the gain of machine-production, so far as an increase in real wages is concerned, has been chiefly taken by the highly-skilled and highly-waged workers, and that as the character of work and wages descends, the proportionate gain accruing from the vast increase of productive power rapidly diminishes, the lowest classes of workers obtaining but an insignificant share.

FOOTNOTES:

[238] Principles of Political Economy, Bk. ii., chap. iv. Sec. 3.



CHAPTER XII.

WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY.

Sec. 1. Growing Employment of Women in Manufacture. Sec. 2. Machinery favours Employment of Women. Sec. 3. Wages of Women lower than of Men. Sec. 4. Causes of Lower Wages for Women. Sec. 5. Smaller Productivity or Efficiency of Women's Labour. Sec. 6. Factors enlarging the scope of Women's Wage-work. Sec. 7. "Minimum Wage" lower for Women—Her Labour often subsidised from other sources. Sec. 8. Woman's Contribution to the Family Wages—Effect of Woman's Work upon Man's Wages. Sec. 9. Tendency of Woman's Wage to low uniform level. Sec. 10. Custom and Competition as determinants of Low Wages. Sec. 11. Lack of Organisation among Women—Effect on Wages. Sec. 12. Over-supply of Labour in Women's Employments the root-evil. Sec. 13. Low Wages the chief cause of alleged Low "Value" of Woman's Work. Sec. 14. Industrial Position of Woman analogous to that of Low-skilled Men. Sec. 15. Damage to Home-life arising from Women's Wage-work.

Sec. 1. Modern manufacture with machinery favours the employment of women as compared with men. Each census during the last half century shows that in England women are entering more largely into every department of manufacture, excepting certain branches of metal work, machine-making and shipbuilding, etc., where great muscular strength is a prime factor in success.

The following table,[239] indicating the number of males and females employed in the leading groups of manufactures at decennial points since 1841, clearly indicates the nature and extent of the industrial advance of woman.

MALE AND FEMALE EMPLOYMENT IN MANUFACTURES, 1841-91.

- + M. 1841. F. M. 1851. F. -+ Earthenware 23,600 7,400 34,800 11,700 Fuel, Gas, Chemicals 5,800 300 16,400 1,700 Fur, Leather, Glue 31,600 2,400 44,500 6,500 Wood Furniture, Carriages, etc. 147,500 4,900 180,200 8,900 Paper, Floorcloth, Waterproof, etc. 8,900 3,200 13,600 8,300 Textiles, Dyeing 346,200 257,600 462,400 472,100 Dress 343,600 177,200 397,500 471,200 Food, Drink, Smoking 82,700 8,000 120,900 12,400 Watches, Instruments, Toys 19,600 800 23,500 1,300 Printing, Bookbinding, etc. 21,100 1,800 30,400 3,800 - + TOTAL 1,030,600 463,600 1,324,200 997,900 -+

- + M. 1861. F. M. 1871. F. -+ Earthenware 42,500 13,400 49,700 17,700 Fuel, Gas, Chemicals 24,800 1,500 34,900 4,100 Fur, Leather, Glue 47,300 8,300 49,400 10,200 Wood Furniture, Carriages, etc. 202,200 14,100 214,200 19,500 Paper, Floorcloth, Waterproof, etc. 14,600 10,700 20,300 13,400 Textiles, Dyeing 439,700 526,500 414,500 555,500 Dress 378,600 550,900 363,300 552,700 Food, Drink, Smoking 133,400 15,600 145,700 18,500 Watches, Instruments, Toys 32,800 2,900 35,900 3,000 Printing, Bookbinding, etc. 41,300 6,200 57,600 8,600 - + TOTAL 1,357,200 1,150,100 1,385,500 1,203,200 -+

- + M. 1881. F. M. 1891. F. -+ Earthenware 52,200 19,700 64,300 23,800 Fuel, Gas, Chemicals 44,000 4,000 66,400 6,300 Fur, Leather, Glue 49,400 13,300 59,100 18,200 Wood Furniture, Carriages, etc. 221,600 18,400 253,600 23,300 Paper, Floorcloth, Waterproof, etc. 24,600 23,200 28,600 34,200 Textiles, Dyeing 396,400 566,200 430,500 585,600 Dress 344,700 609,300 353,800 681,300 Food, Drink, Smoking 152,300 28,900 173,100 50,200 Watches, Instruments, Toys 41,700 3,400 44,600 5,500 Printing, Bookbinding, etc. 75,000 13,100 102,100 19,100 - + TOTAL 1,401,900 1,299,500 1,576,100 1,447,500 -+

From this table we perceive that while the number of males engaged in these manufactures has increased by 53 per cent. during the half century 1841 to 1891, the number of females has increased by 221 per cent. This movement, which must be regarded partly as a displacement of male by female labour, partly as an absorption of new manufactures by female labour, proceeded with great rapidity from the beginning of the period up to 1881. The check apparent in the last decennium, in which the number of males employed seems to have increased faster than that of the females, does not, however, indicate a reversal or even a suspension of the industrial movement. It is attributable to an abnormal change in a single great industry—the cotton trade; excluding this, the employment of females in each group of manufactures has grown faster than that of males.



If we confine our survey to adults (excluding males and females below fifteen) the rapid and regular advance of female employment as compared with male is still more striking.



When we turn to the textile industries and to dress, the change of proportionate employment among the sexes is very noteworthy. In textiles and dyeing there was a continuous decline in the absolute numbers of adult male workers and a continuous increase of female workers up to 1881. In 1851 there were 394,400 men employed, in 1881 the number had fallen to 345,900, while the women had risen during the same period from 390,800 to 500,200. The census figures for 1891 mark a decided check in this movement. Adult male workers show an increase of 34,000 upon the 1881 figures in the textile industries, while the increase of female workers is only 15,000. This is due, on the one hand, to the feverish and disordered expansion of the cotton industry, which offers a larger proportion of male employment than other textile branches; on the other hand, to the alarming decay of the lace and linen industries, which show an absolute decline of female employment amounting to nearly 13,000. So likewise in the dress industries 377,400 men were employed in 1851, and 335,900 in 1881, while the number of women employed had increased from 441,000 to 589,000.[240]



These figures chiefly indicate a displacement of male by female labour. But the movement is by no means peculiar to the textile and dress industries which may appear specially adapted to the faculties of women. Wherever women have got a firm footing in a manufacture a similar movement is traceable; the relative rate of increase in the employment of women exceeds that of men, even where the numbers of the latter do not show an absolute decline. Such industries are wood furniture and carriages; printing and bookbinding; paper, floorcloths, waterproof; feathers, leather, glues; food, drink, smoking; earthenware, machinery, tools.[241] Women have also obtained employment in connection with other industries which are still in the main "male" industries, and in which no women, or very few, were engaged in 1841. Such are fuel, gas, chemicals; watches, instruments, toys. The only group of machine industries in which their numbers have not increased more rapidly than those of men since 1851 are the metal industries. Over some of these, however, they are obtaining an increased hold. In the "more mechanical portions" of the growing "cycle" industry, hollow-ware, and in certain departments of the watchmaking trade, they are ousting male labour, executing with machinery the work formerly done by male hand-workers.[242]

From this and similar evidence relating to the statistics of employment in modern industrial countries, the following conclusions seem justified:—

(1.) That the tendency of modern industry is to increase the quantity of wage-work given to women as compared with that given to men.

In qualification of this tendency consideration should be taken of the greater irregularity of women's work, and of the fact that a large number of women returned as industrial workers give only a portion of their working-day to industry.

(2.) That this tendency is specially operative in manufacturing industries. The increase of female employment in the "dealing" industries and in "industrial service" is not larger than the increase of male employment between 1851 and 1881.

(3.) That in the manufacturing industries, omitting a few essentially male industries where even under machinery the muscles are severely taxed, the increased rate of female employment is greatest in those industries where machinery has been most highly developed, as for example in the textile industries and dress.

Out of 1,840,898 women placed in the industrial class in 1891 no fewer than 1,319,441 were engaged in textile industries and dress, though under the latter head there is of course still a good deal of hand industry.

It seems evident that modern improvements in machinery under normal circumstances favour the employment of women rather than of men. There is some reason to suppose that machinery also favours the employment of children as compared with adults, where the economic forces are allowed free play. In the textile industries of the United States the work of women and children predominates even more largely than in England; in 1880 the number of women and children employed were 112,859 as compared with 59,685 men, while in Massachusetts out of 61,246 work-people only 22,180 were adult males. So far as legislation and public opinion do not interfere, the tendency is strongly in favour of employing children. Mr. Wade says, in Fibre and Fabric, "The tendency of late years is towards the employment of child labour. We see men frequently thrown out of employment owing to the spinning mule being displaced by the ring-frame, or children spinning yarn which men used to spin. In the weave-shops, girls and women are preferable to men, so that we may reasonably expect that in the not very distant future all the cotton manufacturing districts will be classed in the category of she-towns."[243]

Sec. 2. In modern machinery a larger and larger amount of inventive skill is engaged in adjusting machine-tending to the physical and mental capacity of women and children. The evolution of machinery has not moved constantly in this direction. In cotton-spinning, for example, the earlier machines—Hargreave's jennies and Arkwright's water-frames—were generally worked by women and children, the women who had been engaged in the use of the older instruments—the distaff, spindle, hand-wheel—coming into the mills. But the growing complexity and size of the mule made it too cumbrous for women and children, and spinning for a while became a male occupation in England. In the United States the difficulty of procuring male labour stimulated the invention of the ring spinning-frame, some sixty years ago, which could be worked by woman's labour. The limitations and imperfections of this mode of spinning retarded its adoption in England for upwards of half a century. But recent improvements have led to a rapid increase of the adoption of the ring-frame in Lancashire. In the low medium and low counts it is rapidly displacing the mule, and in countries where fine counts are little spun it will probably be the dominant machine.[244] In Lancashire it does not, however, seem at all likely to be rendered capable of displacing the mule in finer counts. The ring-frame throws spinning once more into the hands of women and of children, who in some Lancashire towns are quickly displacing the labour of the men.

So far as children are concerned, the economic tendency to adjust machine-tending to their limited strength is in some measure defeated by the growth of strong public feeling and legislative protection of younger children. Had full and continued licence been allowed to the purely "economic" tendencies of the factory system in this country and in America, there can be little doubt but that almost the whole of the textile industry and many other large departments of manufacture would be administered by the cheap labour of women and young children. The profits attending this free exploitation of cheap labour would have been so great that invention would have been concentrated, even more than has been the case, upon spreading out the muscular exertion and narrowing the technical skill so as to suit the character of the cheaper labour. It is quite possible that some of the oppressive conditions of our early factory system, the exhausting hours of labour, the cruelty of overseers, the utter neglect of all sanitation, the bad food, might have been found opposed to the true interests of economy and efficiency, and that the more developed factory might have been managed more humanely. But if we may judge by the progress made in the employment of weaker labour where it has had free scope, it seems reasonable to believe that, had no Factory Acts been passed, and had public feeling furnished no opposition, the great mass of the textile factories of this country would have been almost entirely worked by women and children.

We have seen already that the advantages attending efficient labour furnish no guarantee that it will be most profitable to employ the most efficient labour at the highest wages. The evidence of industrial history shows that it will often be most profitable to employ less efficient labour provided that labour can be got "cheap." The increasing employment of women in machine-industry is in nearly all cases directly traceable to the "cheapness" of woman's labour as compared with man's.

Sec. 3. Thus we are brought to the discussion of the important question which underlies all understanding of the position of woman in modern industry—"Why are women paid less wages than men?"

In almost all kinds of work in which both men and women are engaged, the women earn less than the men. Where men and women are engaged in the same industries but in different branches, the wage level of the woman's work is nearly always lower than that of the men. A general survey of industry shows that the highly-paid industries are almost invariably monopolised by men, the lowly-paid industries by women. This applies not only to unskilled and skilled manual work, but to routine-mental, intellectual, and artistic work,[245] wherever custom or competition are the chief direct determinants of wages. Certain exceptions to this rule, which readily suggest themselves, are explained by the fact that the wages of the labour in question are determined not by custom or competition, but by some other law. Where the product is of the highest intellectual or artistic quality, sex makes no difference in the price; "the rent of ability" of George Eliot or Madame Patti is determined by the law of monopoly values. In certain employments, as, for instance, the stage, sexual attractions give women a positive advantage, which in certain grades of the profession assist them to secure a high level of remuneration. So also in a few cases governments or private employers pay women as highly as men for the same work, though women could be got to work for less. But even in those occupations where women would seem to be most nearly upon an economic equality with men, in literature, art, or the stage, the scale of pay for all work, save that where special skill, personal attraction, or reputation secures a "fancy" price, is lower for women than for men.

Sec. 4. It is easy to find answers to the question, "Why are women paid less than men?" which evidently contain an element of truth. Three answers leap readily to the lips: "Because women cannot work so hard or so well," "Because women can live upon less than men," "Because it is more difficult for a woman to get wage-work." Each of these answers comprises not one reason but a group of reasons why women get low wages, and the difficulty lies in relating the different reasons in these different groups so as to yield something that shall approach an accurate solution of the problem. Setting these groups in somewhat more exact language, we may classify the causes as—

a. Causes relating to "productivity" or efficiency of labour.

b. Causes relating to "needs" or standard of comfort.

c. Causes relating to character and intensity of competition.

Sec. 5. a. Women do not on the average work so hard or so well as men, so that if wages were paid with sole reference to quantity and quality of the product of labour women would get less. This inferiority in the net efficiency of women's labour is partly due to physical, partly to social causes. The following are the leading factors in this inferiority of efficiency:—

(1) The physical weakness of woman, as compared with man, closes many occupations to her. In manufactures the metal industries have been almost entirely closed to women, and most branches of the mining and railway industries. In England and America the rougher work of agriculture is almost wholly given over to male labour, and in several continental countries there is a growing tendency to spare women the kinds of labour which tax the muscular forces most severely. The growing consideration for the duties of maternity, operating through public opinion and legislation, favour this curtailment of woman's sphere of activity. Further, in all employments where physical strength is an important factor, the net productivity of woman's labour tends to fall below man's, although in some cases superior deftness or lightness of hand related to physical fragility may compensate. Even in modern textile factories the superior force of man's muscles often gives him a great advantage. In fustian and velvet cutting, where the same piece-wages are paid to men and women, the actual takings of the men are about double. "Every person has two long frames upon which the cloth is stretched ready for cutting, and while women are unable to cut more than one piece at a time, men can cut two pieces without difficulty."[246]

Where physical strength is not a prime factor it may enter incidentally. So even in weaving women are under some disadvantage through inability to work the heavy Jacquard looms, and to "tune" their looms.[247]

Where manual work is concerned brute strength and endurance form an important ingredient in what is called manual skill, and affect the quality of the work as well as the pace and regularity of the output. Though, as we have seen, a chief object of modern machinery is to diminish the importance of this element, it plays no inconsiderable part in affecting the quantity of work turned out by women as compared with men even in industries where the direct strain upon the muscles is less severe.

(2) But even when we take those kinds of work where skill seems least dependent upon physical force, men have generally some advantage in productivity, though a smaller one. There are cases in which this does not seem to be the case, as in the weaving industries of Lancashire and part of Yorkshire, where women not merely receive the same piece wages, but earn weekly wages which, after making allowance for sickness and irregularity, indicate that in quantity and quality of work they are upon a level with the men.[248] In certain branches of low-skilled mental work the same holds true, as in the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office. But generally, even where the "skill" is of a purely technical order, the man has the advantage. Where the elements of design, resource, judgment, enter in, the superiority of male labour is unquestioned, and in occupations which demand these qualities women are confined generally to the lower routine portions of the work. This is the case in the Post Offices where women are largely used as sorting clerks and telegraphists, and in numerous offices of private business firms. How far these defects of manual and intellectual skill, which generally prevent women from successfully competing in the higher grades of labour, are natural, how far the results of defective education and industrial training, we are not called upon here to consider. The fact stands that women do not work so well.

(3) The reluctance of male workers to allow women to qualify for and to undertake certain kinds of work which men choose to regard as "their own," though sometimes defensible when all the terms of competition are taken into account,[249] must be held to confine and lessen the average productivity of female labour in certain departments of industry. Closely allied to this is the social feeling, partly based upon the recognition of a real difference of physical and mental vigour, partly upon prejudice, which bars women from the highly-paid and responsible posts of superintendence and control in industries where both sexes are employed. In a general comparison of the male and female wage in a highly organised industry, the fact that women are held disqualified for all posts of high emolument and responsibility has a material effect upon the average of wages. Where men and women work in the same industry, the women are commonly confined to the less productive work, and where they do the same work they seldom reach man's level in quantity and quality.

(4) This inferior efficiency is not solely attributable to these reasons. Woman's incentive to acquire industrial efficiency is not so great as man's. A large number of women-workers do not enter an industrial occupation as the chief means of support throughout their life. The influence of matrimony and domestic life operates in various ways upon women's industry. The expectation of marriage and a release from industrial work must lessen the interest of women in their work. The fact that even while unmarried a large proportion of women-workers are not dependent upon their earnings for a livelihood will have the same result. A larger proportion of the woman's industrial career is occupied in acquiring the experience which makes her a valuable worker, and the probability that, after she has acquired it, she may not need to use it, diminishes both directly and indirectly the net value of her industrial life; the element of uncertainty and instability prevents the advancement of competent women to posts where fixity of tenure is an important factor.

Where married women are engaged in industrial work either in factories or at home, domestic work of necessity engages some of their strength and interest, and is liable to trench upon the energy which otherwise might go into industry. Even unmarried women have frequently some domestic work to do which is added to their industrial work. Thus the incentive to efficiency is weaker in woman, her industrial position is less stable and her industrial life shorter, while part of her energy is diverted to other than industrial channels.

(5) There is conclusive evidence to show that women are more often absent from work owing to sickness and other claims upon their time than men.[250] Though closely related to the former factors this may be treated separately in assessing the net productiveness of women, because it is distinctly measurable. But in touching this point it should be remarked that weaker muscular development does not necessarily imply more sickness. The loss of working time sustained by women could probably be reduced considerably by more attention to physical training and exercise and by a higher standard of diet.

(6) Although the limitations of law and custom, which limit the hours of labour for women in many of their industrial occupations and forbid them to undertake night-work, cannot be reasonably held to reduce the net efficiency of women's labour taken as an aggregate, they must be allowed to diminish the direct net productiveness of women in certain employments as compared with men, and either to bar them out of these employments or engage them upon lower wages. In certain textile factories where goods of some special pattern are woven at short notice, and where overtime is essential, women cannot be employed. In the Post Office, where night-work is required at certain seasons, women are at a disadvantage, which is doubtless reflected in the lower wages they receive.

(7) Lastly, the inferior mobility of woman as compared with man has an influence in reducing the average efficiency of her labour. On the one hand, women are more liable to have the locality of their home fixed by the requirements of the male worker in the family; on the other hand, they are physically less competent to undertake work far from their home. Hence they are far more narrowly restricted in their choice of work than men. They must often choose not that work they like best, or can do best, or which is most remunerative, but that which lies near at hand. This restriction implies that large numbers of women undertake low-skilled, low-paid, ineffective, and irregular work at their own homes or in some neighbouring work-room, instead of engaging in the more productive and more remunerative work of the large factories. Every limitation in freedom of choice of work signifies a reduction in the average effectiveness of labour.

Sec. 6. These elements of inferior physique and manual skill, lower intelligence and mental capacity, lack of education and knowledge of life, irregularity of work, more restricted freedom of choice, must in different degrees contribute to the inferior productivity of woman's industrial labour.

In regarding this influence the experienced student of industrial questions hardly requires to be reminded that these must be regarded not merely as causes of low wages, but also as effects. This constant recognition of the interaction of the phenomena we are regarding as cause and effect is essential to a scientific conception of industrial society. Women are paid low wages because they are relatively inefficient workers, but they also are inefficient workers because they are paid low wages.

While this smaller productivity diminishes the maximum wage attainable by women as compared with men, it is evident that many forces are at work which tend to equalise the productivity of men and women in industry: the evolution of machinery adapted to the weaker physique of women; the breakdown of customs excluding women from many occupations; the growth of restrictions upon male adult labour with regard to the working-day, etc., correspondent with those placed upon women; improved mobility of women's labour by cheaper and more facile transport in large cities; the recognition by a growing number of women that matrimony is not the only livelihood open to them, but that an industrial life is preferable and possible. These forces, unless counteracted by stronger moral and social forces, seem likely to raise the average productivity of women's industrial labour, and to incite her more and more to undertake industrial wage-work.

Sec. 7. As the maximum wage may be said to vary with productivity, so the minimum wage is said to vary with the "wants" of the worker. Women are said to "want" less than man, and therefore the stress of competition can drive their wages to a lower level. It is possible that a woman can sustain the smaller quantity of physical energy required for her work somewhat more cheaply than a man can sustain the energy required for his work, and that the early increments of material comfort above the bare subsistence line may be attended by a larger increase of productivity in the man than in the woman. If this is so, then the minimum subsistence wage and the wage of true economic efficiency, the smallest wage a wise employer in his own interest will consent to pay, are lower in the case of women than of men. But this difference furnishes no adequate explanation of the difference between the male and the female minimum wage. The wage of the low-skilled male labourer enables him to consume certain things which do not belong strictly to his "subsistence"—to wit, beer and tobacco; the wage of the low-skilled female labourer often falls below what is sufficient with the most rigid economy to provide "subsistence." We are not then concerned with a difference which refers primarily to the quantity of food, etc., required to support life. The wages of the low-skilled labourer in regular employ would, if properly used, suffice to furnish him more than a bare physical subsistence; the wages of the lowest-paid women workers in factories would not suffice to maintain them in the physical condition to perform their work.[251]

It is not then precisely with the "standard of comfort" of male and female workers that we are concerned. The economic relation in which men and women workers stand to other members of their family is a more important factor. The wage of a male worker must be sufficient to support not only himself but the average family dependent upon him, in the standard of comfort below which he will not consent to work. When little work is available for his wife and children, or where his "standard of comfort" requires them not to undertake wage-work, his minimum wage must suffice to keep some four persons. His standard of comfort may be beaten down by stress of circumstances, his family may be driven to take what work they can get, but in any case his wage must be above the "subsistence" of a single man. When the man is the sole wage-earner, or is only assisted slightly by his family, as, for example, in the metal and mining and building industries, average male wages are much higher than in the textile industries, where the women and children share largely in the work.[252]

Women workers, on the other hand, have not in most cases a family to support out of their wages. In the majority of instances their own "sustenance" does not or need not fall entirely upon the wages they earn. They are partly supported by the earnings of a father or a husband or other relative, upon some small unearned income, upon public or private charity. Where married women undertake work in order to increase the family income, or where girls not obliged to work for a living enter factories or take home work to do, there is no ascertainable limit to the minimum wage in an industry. Grown-up women living at home will often work for a few shillings a week to spend in dress and amusements, utterly regardless of the fact that they may be setting the wage below starvation-point for those unfortunate competitors who are wholly dependent on their earnings for a living. Even where girls living at home pay to their parents the full cost of their keep, the economy of family life may enable them to keep down wages to such a point that another girl who has to keep herself alone may be sorely pressed, while a woman with a family to support cannot get a living.

Miss Collet, in her investigation of women workers in East London, remarked of the shirt-finishers, one of the lowest-paid employments—"These shirt-finishers nearly all receive allowances from relatives, friends, and charitable societies, and many of them receive outdoor relief."[253] This is true of most of the low-paid work of women. Even in the textile factories, with the exception of weaving, most of the scales of wages are below what would suffice to keep the recipient in the standard of comfort provided by the family wage.