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Poverty; its Genesis and Exodu
t/
r.GOI
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
ACO 10 14
POVERTY:
ITS GENESIS AND EXODUS.
POVERTY
/ *
ITS GENESIS AND EXODUS
Un Snqutn? into Causes
anb tbe /Ifeetbob of tbeir IRemoval
BY
JOHN GEORGE GODARD
AUTHOR OF " GEORGE BIRKBECK, THE HONEER OF PUBLIC EDUCATION," ETC.
SECOND
EDITION.
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1S92
Printed by Caivan &* Co., Limited. Perth,
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA UBBWV
V
CONTENTS.
.
I. THE PROBLEM STATED.
Page
The Depth of Poverty—
Number of Paupers— Percentage to Population— Over-
crowding — The Death- Roll ... ... ... 1
The Nature of the Problem —
Duty of Investigation— To what is Poverty due ?— Can
it be removed ? ... ... ••• ••• ■
Definition of Poverty —
Necessaries— Minimum Requirements ... ... 5
II. THE CAUSES OF POVERTY.
There is Plurality of Causes —
Popular Misconceptions ... ... .. •-. 8
Three possible Causes of Poverty —
A Simple Illustration— The Causes may co-exist ... 10
Insufficient Production —
Th-e- National Income— Wealth Defined— The
Annual Income : Population — Average Income ... 13
Insufficient Production of Necessaries-
Luxuries— Wrong Production— 1 he Annual Saving
—The Reduced National Income ... ... 17
Waste —
Individual Waste— Idla Consumption— Excep-
tions— Meaning of ' Producer "—Amusements of
the Idle— Consumption of Luxuries— The Annual
Drink Bill 22
Industrial Waste— Loss of Capital— Speculation —
Adulteration— Strikes— Middlemen — Professional
Services ... ... ••• ••• ■■• 26
National Waste — Crime— Our Imperial Expendi-
ture—The cost of ' • Military Operations " ... 29
Unequal Distribution—
The Extent of the Inequality— Corpus— Income
— The average Share of Rich and Poor 31
The Nature and Effect of the Inequality—
Monopolists— "The Three Rents": Their Amount
— Relative Savings — Indirect Effects ... ... 33
Is the Inequality Increasing ?— Improvements
in Instruments of Production—Effect of Machinery
on Distribution and Price — Cheapening of manufac-
tured and imported Goods— Rise of Rent — Increased
cost of Food— General Results ... ... ••• 33
1928687
CONTENTS.
Page
Yet a Fourth Cause —
The Effect becomes it Cause — Poverty leads to Insuffi-
cient Production : and Waste : and Unequal Dis
tribution — How the Evil is Perpetuated .... 40
III THE PROBLEM SOLVED.
Poverty is Preventible —
Is due to Man— The Law of Nature — A Gradual Me-
thod — Obligations Recognised — Effects hitherto
dealt with ... ... ... .. ... 43
The Means of Increasing Production —
Mechanical and Scientific Aids — Machinery —
— Specialisation of Industry — Progress of Science 46
The Social Organisation of Labour — Its pre-
sent Inefficiency — Production for private Profit
— Quasi instances of Social Organisation — In ■
creased Production of Wealth ... ... ... 49
Political and Industrial Reforms — Democratis-
ing of Institutions : Extension of their Functions —
The Eight Hours Day ... ... ... 55
Increased Production of Necessaries — Cause
of Insufficiency— Demand for Luxuries : Their
Supply ... ... ... ... ... 57
Limitation of Expenditure— Saving— Selec-
tion of Investments — Foreign Supply and Demand 59
Control of Population — Increase of Wealth and
Necessaries per head — Limitation of Numbers ... 02
Restriction on Pauper Immigration — A Law
of Aliens ... ... ... ... ... 65
The Means of Preventing Waste —
Non-preventible Waste — Vis major — Instances 67
The Extinction of Idle Consumption — Funda-
mental Misconceptions — The Circulation of
Money — Making Work — Spread of Economics —
Taxation of Unearned Incomes — Noblesse oblige ... 68
The Diminution in the Consumption of
Luxuries— Temperance Reform — The Weighing
of Expenditure — Ethics of Luxuries ... ... 72
The Minimising of Loss of Capital — Avoid-
ance of Recklessness and Speculation — Social
Demand — Capitalism ... ... ... ... 75
The Extermination of Shams and Adulter-
ation — Production for Use — Saving in Advertise-
ments and Puffing ... ... ... ... 77
CONTENTS. xi
Page
The Termination of the Conflict between
Capital and Labour — The Scissors .Simile —
Avoidance of Strikes — Collective Ownership >f
Capital ... ... ... ... ... 80
The Avoidance of 'Waste in Distribution —
Its Cause and Cure— Socialised Distribution ... 82
The Desuetude of many Professional Ser-
vices — Their Origin in the Monopolistic System
—Tour of Law Courts— The Auction Mart-
Appraisers — Methods... ... ... 85
The Prevention and Repression of Crime
— Equitable Remuneration of Labour — Reforma-
tion of Society — Treatment of Criminals ... 87
The Restriction of Military Expenditure-
Cause of Evil— Adult Suffrage : Female Influence
—Reform of Military Organisation and Adminis-
tration — Commercial Embroilments — International
Conferences ... ... ■•■ ••• ••■ 90
The Means of Establishing Equitable Distribution—
Equality not Necessary — Misconceptions ... 95
Equitable Distribution— The Two Essentials :
No Idlers : To Each the Product of his Labour-
Nationalisation of Monopolies— The Cry of Con-
fiscation—Monopolist Morality ... •■ 96
Democratic Socialism — Nature of Rent — Ac-
cumulated Wealth— Future Produce — Taxation of
Monopolies— Collective Industry— Individualistic
Consumption— True Individualism ... ... 100
The Programme for To-Day— Its Nature-
Evolutionary Stages ... •• 10.3
The Transfer of Rent to the Community-
Ground- Values— Land Tax— Death Duties— Inci-
dental Reforms : Disendowment of Church — Muni-
cipalization of Land ... ... ••• ••• 107
The Transfer of Interest to the Community
— The Single Tax Examined— Differentiated
and Graduated Income Tax— Graduated Pro-
bate and Legacy Duties— Socialising of Industry-
Extension of Public Works : The Unemployed-
Position of Women Workers ... ... ... 112
The Raising of the Standard of Ability-
Analysis of the Rent : Traceable to Capital, Op-
portunity, and Merit— Levelling-up— Education-
Remaining Inequality... ... ... ... 121
The Newer Economics—
The "Dismal Science": Its New Dignity— The Spirit
of Inquiry ... ... ••■ ••• ••■ 126
xii CONTENTS.
IV. OBJECTIONS, PALLIATIVES, CONCLUSION
Page
The Individualistic Position —
"The Difficulties of Socialism" — Arguments
Examined — Lack of Novelty — Communism — Con-
fiscation — Inequality of Ability — Repression of
Originality and Invention — Adjustment of Supply
and Demand — General Criticism ... ... 130
The Individualistic Remedy— Difficulties of
Individualism — Constructive Proposals — Educa-
tion : Temperance : Prudence : Sympathy — An
Anti-Climax — The Individualist's Dream — An-
archism ... ... ... ... ... 135
Palliatives and Nostrums —
The Poor Law — Its Vices — Reform of Representa-
tion and Administration — State Pensions — London
Reforms ... ... ... ... ... 139
Philanthropy — Its Object— Misdirection — Its Sig-
nificance ... ... ... ... ... 14C
Emigration — Its Advantages and Disadvantages —
Difficulties of the Poor — General Booth's Scheme —
Expatriation... ... ... ... .. 141
Peasant Proprietorship — Extension of Monopoly
- Security of Tenure — Compensation for Improve-
ments ... ... ... .. ... 142
Leasehold Enfranchisement — A Quack Remedy
— The "Rights of Property " — Tenants' Protection
Act... .. ... ... 144
Trade Unionism — Its Object — Effect on Labour
and Consumption — Restriction of Numbers — Ex-
clusion of the Poor— Benefits ... ... ... 145
Co-Operation — Its Socialistic Principle — Its Limi-
tations — Progress of Movement — Barriers — Gene-
ral Utility 147
Summary —
Resume of Causes and Remedies— Politics : Duties of
Citizenship — Monopolists' Position ... ... 149
The Zeitgeist —
The Age of Individualism Past — Apotheosis of Laisser-
faire — The Humanitarian Revolt — Socialistic Leg-
islation of the Century— Signs of the Times — The
Onward March ... ... ... ... 152
POVERTY:
ITS GENESIS AND EXODUS.
I— THE PROBLEM STATED.
The problem o fjooverty^ i s an ever-present, a,nr l__gn_
ever-pressing problem.
JBome to us on the winds of the centuries is the sad
refrain — " For the poor always ye have with you/'
and to-day we take up the same bitter cry. Nay, it
has grown in volume as the years have sped; and
increasing prosperity seems but to accentuate it. The
nation has accumulated riches, but the poor remain ;
and the very advance of civilisation, with its diver-
sified refinements, comforts, and luxuries, its expansion
of industry and development of commerce, has given
rise to forms of poverty peculiar to itself ; and with
masses of the w r orkers has rendered their toil more
severe, their surroundings more dreary, and their lot
more depressing. " Progress and poverty " have gone
hand in hand.
THE DEPTH OF POVERTY.
"Wo may endeavour to derive consolation from the
fact that the relative number of the poor is somewhat
A
THE DEPTH OF POVERTY.
less than it was ; but as against this it must be borne
in mind that our annual wealth-production per head
has, in less than three generations, nearly doubled ;
and that " never in the whole history of England, ex-
cepting during the disastrous period at the beginning
of the century, has the absolute number of the very
poor been so great as it is now." 2
Some faint idea of the magnitude of the evil may
be gathered from the fact that nearly one-tenth of
the population are in the receipt of Poor Law relief; 3
but the idea thus conveyed is only faint; for whilst
many will die rather than enter a workhouse, many
others suffer abject want without being actually
penniless, and the great bulk of the residuum of the
wage-workers just contrive to drag on a more or less
cheerless existence by means of intense and bitter
drudgery. Said Mr. Frederick Harrison but a few
years ago : " Ninety per cent, of the actual producers
of wealth have no home that they can call their own
beyond the end of a week ; have no bit of soil, or so
much as a room that belongs to them ; have nothing
of value of any kind except as much as will go in a
cart ; have the precarious chance of weekly wages
which barely suffice to keep them in health ; are
housed for the most part in places that no man thinks
fit for his horse ; are separated by so narrow a margin
1 Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, p. 245.
2 Problems of Poverty, by John A. Hobson, p. 26. (London:
Methuen & Co. 1891.)
3 Fabian Tract, No. 17, p. 5. (London : The Fabian Society,
63 Fleet Street. 1891.)
VERCR0WD1NG— THE DEA TH-ROLL. 3
from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness,
or unexpected loss brings them face to face with
hunger and pauperism." l
The manifestations of poverty are numerous and
varied, but Mr. Harrison gives prominence to one
which should be peculiarly repugnant to English
susceptibilities: the repulsive homes — if homes they
can be called — of large masses of the people. The
Royal Commission appointed in 1884 "to inquire into
the Housing of the Working Classes " reported that
the evils of overcrowding, especially in London, were
a public scandal, and were becoming in certain locali-
ties more serious than they ever were 2 Six, nine,
and even twelve persons of both sexes inhabiting one
small room ; seven people in an underground kitchen,
six in a washhouse, thirty-eight in a small house ; two
families living together; husband, wife, four children,
and a female lodger and baby occupying a single
room; more than sixty persons in a house of nine
rooms, in none of which was more than a single bed ;
people sleeping on shelves as on ship-board ; children
sleeping under their parents' beds — such are some few
of the facts which the Commission brought to light 3
Their appalling significance, especially as regards their
influence upon the physical and moral condition of
the people, is too patent to call for comment.
The death-roll tells the same tale of wide-spreac
poverty. Out of 79,009 deaths in London in 1888,
17,GG3 occurred in public institutions; 10,170 being
1 Report of five Industrial Remuneration Conference, 1886, p
429.
2 Report, p. 4. 3 j u ; iL) pp> 7; 8> 10>
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.
in workhouses, 7,113 in hospitals, and 380 in lunatic
asylums. This showed an increasing percentage, being
22'3 as against 20'6 in the previous year. In the
richest city in the world, one out of every five persons,
or probably one of every four adults, dies a pauper's
death ! 1
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.
Investigation of the problem of poverty is thus a
solemn duty imposed upon all who share in the
benefits which progress implies. If the privileges
some of us possess are so great that to our ancestors
even the conception of them would have been well-
nigh impossible, all the more reason is there for us to
ascertain at what cost they are purchased. If in
what we deem this enlightened nineteenth century,
indigence and want can thus prevail, surely our
boasted civilisation has somehow missed its mark.
Pove rty can not be ignored by m oral men ; the pro-
blem does not admit of ev asion. We are jace to face ^
with the s tern fact that ln jllipns of our fellow-
creatures are at present doomedt o lives j rfjniservj
ministering to our wan ts, but _un able to satisfy their
own; and with little or no hope this side of the grave ,
whither the} 7- are prematurely hastening. Can we,
dare we, shut our eyes ?
Must the poor, then, be always with us ? Is poverty
due to some grim law of nature from which there is
no escape ? Is it even due to a Divine ordinance,
enunciated, as a sapient preacher once suggested, that
1 Fabian Tract, No. 17, p. 6.
DEFINITION OF POVERTY.
the rich may have scope for benevolence and philan-
thropy ? Or is it due simply to the artificial condi-
tions of society ? Must we trace it to Nature or to
Providence, and accept it as part of the inevitable ?
Or can we trace it to man, — and therefore remove
it ? And if the latter, how ?
This is the problem.
DEFINITION OF POVERTY.
As to what is meant by poverty, most people have
a more or less adequate conception — too many, as we
have seen, experimentally. But the term is not con-
vertible into the lack of any defined minimum mone-
tary income ; and some indication is desirable of the
sense in which it will be used.
Roughly, we ma}'' define poverty as " An insuffi ci^
ency of ne cess arie s"; or, m are fully, as-liAnjn^
sutncient sup ply~ofthose things which are re-
quisite ior an individual to maintain himself and
those dependent upon himln health and vigour."
And the degree of poverty "will obviously be deter-
mined by the extent of the insufficiency.
Of course, this leads to the further question as to
what things are requisite : and it must at once be
stated that there is no sharply defined line between
necessaries and unnecessaries — or luxuries. A given
article may be requisite to one man and not to an-
other, and may be requisite at one time and not at
another; whilst the requirements of an individual
that he may adapt himself to his environment natur-
ally depend upon the nature of the environment. The
REQUISITES TO HEALTHY EXISTENCE.
personality, the time, and the circumstance, have all
to be taken into account, and no general rule can
therefore be laid down.
Obviously, however, an adequate supply of whole-
some food and suitable clothing, and a sanitary
dwelling, with sufficient sleeping apartments, are
amongst the first requisites. To these must be added
the means of obtaining some amount of education.
Eecreation also, and consequently the ability to pro-
cure it, and leisure to enjoy it, are scarcely less neces-
sary to healthy existence. Medical aid and medicine
in times of sickness, and more expensive forms of
nourishment then, and during convalescence, are
equally essential. And freedom for the married
women, and -to some extent for many of the unmarried,
to devote themselves to domestic work must also be
included in our category.
All these things are " necessaries" in the case of the
very humblest members of society. Those who have
to endure the strain of town life will have increased
requirements ; and in the case of those devoted to the
more skilled branches of industry and to mental avo-
cations, if their productive powers are to be properly
utilised, the list will have to be still further augmented,
and it will include many things which for the manual
labourer would be comparatively useless or luxurious. 1
Some amount of elasticity, then, must be given to
the term " necessaries " ; and this fact is, of course, of
fundamental importance in dealing with individual
cases. Our investigations, however, will have refer-
1 See Principles of Economics, by Professor Alfred Marshall,
vol. i., book ii., chap. iv. (London : Macmillan & Co. 1890.)
NATURE OF INVESTIGATION.
ence more especially to poverty in the mass, as un-
mistakably manifested, though in varying degrees, in
the condition of the large majority of the wage-
earners; and the definition will, it is hoped, prove
adequate to the purpose.
II— THE CAUSES OF POVERTY.
Accueate diagnosis is a pre-requisite to the successful
treatment of a disease. Tfwft_wish tn removp poverty,
we must clearly ascertain from what it proceeds.
Hence/tKe first p ortion of our investigation will con-
sisTTof an inquiry into Causes.
THERE IS PLURALITY OF CAUSES.
And it is to be remarked at the outset that social
problems are almost invariably complex, and the
science of Sociology cannot approach to exactness.
Although, however, our inquiry leads us into the
domain of Sociology, it is into that part of it which
comes within the special jurisdiction of another science
more exact in its nature — namely, Economics. We
have, in the main, to deal with men as wealth-pro-
ducing animals— a side of their character in which
motives can be measured. And whilst, later on, we
must also enter the domain of Ethics, yet, so far as
our investigation of causes is concerned, the inquiry
is one purely of economic and statistical science.
But it is important at once to disabuse our minds
of the supposition that poverty can be traced to any
one cause — a supposition upon which many enthusiasts
for particular reforms frequently act. Thus, we are
oftentold that Drink is the cause of poverty ; once
POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS.
make the people sober, and all will be well, — a dictum
which overlooks the fact that many are both sober
and poor, and that many are both intemperate and
rich. O thers tell us that poverty is due to Impro-
vi dence^ the working-man has only to acquire habits
of thrift and " self-help," and he will be able to make
provision for a rainy day, — oblivious of the circum-
stance that with some almost all days are rainy, and
that the most rigid economy cannot do more than
make both ends meet. Others, again, discover that
the_cause of_ poverty is Ove r-pnpniatirm, a,r.r1 tj ia fr we
h ave merely to limit our numbers, and the problem
wil l_be solved, — f orgetful that Ireland proclaims the
futility of simply relying on a diminution of popula-
tion. And finally, Mr. Henry George appears upon
the scene, and in eloquent language traces poverty
entirely to the individual appropriation of Rent of
Land, — ignoring the fact that the private ownership of
the soil is not an isolated monopoly, and that the
economic effect of all monopolies is, undoubtedly, the
same in kind.
Now, each one of these views embodies, as we shall
see, a certain amount of truth ; but it does not con-
tain the whole truth, or even the greater part of the
truth. The mistake is in regarding drink, impro-
vidence, over-population, or rent of land, or anything
else as the cause of poverty. As a matter of fact, it
is scarcely accurate to say that any one of them is in
itself a cause ; it is only an illustration or part of a
cause, or, in other words, only one of several factors,
the sura of which is alone worthy of being dignified
by the name of a cause.
io POSSIBLE CAUSES OF POVERTY.
THREE POSSIBLE CAUSES OF POVERTY.
What we want is a classification of causes on
something like a scientific basis. If poverty consists
in an " insufficiency of necessaries," then we must
ascertain in what way an insufficiency can arise.
The first point, therefore, to ascertain, is what are
the possible causes of this insufficiency.
And we can perhaps best discover this by narrow-
ing our vision, and taking a simple hypothetical case.
If we imagine a small island inhabited by, say, only ten
people, we can without effort follow the working of
the problem. The probabilities are that in our minia-
ture State money would be unknown ; but it will
still further simplify the investigation if we reduce
the wealth of the island to English currency ; and we
will therefore premise that a sufficiency of necessaries
for each person (assuming also, for still further sim-
plicity, that each requires the same) means wealth
equivalent to not less than £50 sterling per annum.
Obviously, then, our ten people must produce £500
worth of wealth in any given year. If they produce,
say, only £400, poverty will ensue. And in that case
the poverty will be due to insufficient production. Or,
even if they produce £500, but £100 of that consists
of luxuries — articles which are not absolutely re-
quisite to any, and which usurp the place of articles
which are — poverty will still result, and will be
caused by the insufficient production of necessaries.
Or, again, if part of the £500 should be represented
INSUFFICIENT PRODUCTION— WASTE. II
by things which, though useful to the community,
have been produced at the cost of the non-production
of things which are more urgently needed, — if, for
example, a gymnasium be erected, to the neglect of
the building of requisite dwellings, — once more
poverty will be brought about, and will be due to
wrong production, or the insufficient production of the
more immediate necessaries.
Insufficient Production, then, is one possible cause
of poverty.
But our little community may produce £500 worth
of necessaries, and may recklessly consume a portion,
or allow it to spoil. They may indulge in a series of
orgies, and squander their possessions, or they may
leave them exposed to the elements or the depreda-
tions of animals. If they do, their £500 will inevit-
ably be reduced, and poverty must therefore ensue ;
but in that case it will result from what may be
termed the waste of necessaries. And if they should
be so foolish as to allow some of their number to lead
idle lives, and (out of the consequently diminished
wealth) still supply such with all they require, the
same result will follow, and from the same cause ; for
idle consumption is waste. And Ave can also classify
under this head of waste the consumption of luxuries
produced at the expense of necessaries ; for such con-
sumption indirectly leads to the misapplication of
labour; and misapplied labour is waste.
Waste, then, is another possible cause of poverty.
But again, our group of islanders may produce
-k
/:
r
12 UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION.
their £500 worth of necessaries, and they may avoid
waste ; but they may divide their wealth amongst
themselves in different proportions, with the inevit-
able result that as some get more than £50, others
get less. And since £50 is the minimum upon which
each can properly subsist, poverty will once more
ensue. And in this case it will be due to inequality
cf division.
Unequal Distribution, then, is a third possible
cause of poverty.
And these three hypotheses will, we think, be
found to cover the field of inquiry. Insufficient pro-
duction, waste, and unequal distribution are the
only possible causes of poverty. To one or more of
them can be reduced every factor which could tend to
pauperise the inhabitants of our little island.
And the causes, it will be noticed, are not antagon-
istic : they can all operate at the same time. Thus,
instead of the minimum of £500 worth of necessaries,
only £400 might be produced : of that £100 might be
wasted, reducing the available amount to £300 ; ami
this latter sum might be unequally distributed. And
in this case, evidently, poverty will be most acute.
Of course we have only dealt with the actual re-
quirements of the community, — that is to say, with the
production of necessaries to the extent of £500 in
value. If their labour can result in a larger product,
the excess need not take the form of necessaries ; it
can (however objectionable the procedure may be
from other points of view) even be wasted ; and it is
not requisite that it should be equally distributed.
IS PR OD UC TION INS UFFICIENT ? 1 3
But if ..poverty is to be avoided, the production of
luxuries or quasi-luxuries, carelessness or squandering,
and inequality of division can only be indulged in
after the real wants of everyone have been provided
for.
Thus, then, we see definitely the course our inquiry
must take. We bid farewell to our Liliputian island
with its ten inhabitants, and returning to the 120,000
square miles of territory known as the British Isles,
with their teeming millions, proceed to ascertain
whether any one or more of the three possible causes
of poverty are in actual operation in the United
Kingdom to-day.
INSUFFICIENT PRODUCTION".
The first point then to be determined is whether
sufficient wealth, and that of a suitable class, is pro-
duced. We must, therefore, endeavour to ascertain
what is the amount of the annual produce relatively
to population, and what proportion of it takes the
form of necessaries.
The National Income.
Wealth has been briefly defined as anything which
is useful and possesses an exchange-value. 1 The
1 The above definition is the one usually employed by
economists, though in varying and more elaborate forms. Pro-
fessor Marshal], however, gives the term a wider meaning by
including some non-transferable and free goods, and uses the
term "exchangeable wealth" to express the narrower meaning.
Principles of Economics, vol. i., p. 110.
14 DEFINITION OF WEALTH—INCOME.
term " useful " is employed in its widest sense, re-
gardless of the nature of the utility, which may con-
sist simply in giving pleasure, as in the case of articles
of personal adornment. And the term " exchange-
value " implies not only the existence of the quality
of transferableness, but that there has been effort in
attainment ; so that anything of which there is a free
unlimited supply (as air, for example, under ordinary
circumstances) cannot, however useful or even indis-
pensable, be regarded as wealth.
With the definition, as a definition, no fault need
be found. But, accepting it, we must the more care-
fully bear in mind that in dealing with poverty the
nature of the utility embodied in wealth is really all-
important. For a nation may be very rich and yet
very poor ; it may pile up " wealth," and at the same
time be sadly deficient in the essentials of healthy
existence. What we require in the first instance is a
sufficiency of those forms of wealth which possess
social utilities — that is, which are capable of satisfy-
ing the real wants of the community. And whilst,
therefore, it is desirable, as a starting-point, to know
the total amount of wealth which the nation pro-
duces, this is really only a starting-point.
One other preliminary observation. The wealth
which the nation produces, or in other words, its
income, consists of "commodities" and "services." The
first embrace substantially all consumable material
things (the land, to which all produce must be directly
or indirectly traced, is an " instrument of production,"
and even as an instrument it has been largely made
available by labour). The second may be seen in the
AVERAGE ANNUAL INCOME. 15
benefits- rendered, say, by a physician or a school-
master, which benefits, though they do not take the
form of material wealth, are, nevertheless, useful, and
possess an exchange-value. "No wealth whatever
can be produced without labour ; " x and in the one
case labour is devoted to the production of food,
clothes, and houses, for example ; in the other labour
is devoted to heal the body or develop the mind.
The total annual income of the United Kingdom
may be taken to be of the value, in round figures, of
£1,350,000,000 2 ; this is the money price of the com-
modities and services produced in the year. The total
population is about thirty-eight millions. 3 An equal
division of the nation's income would, therefore, give
to each person somewhere about £35 per annum 4
— in other words, that is the sum which may be said to
represent the annual income of every member of the
community on the basis of equality of distribution.
Or, if we assume a division amongst the adult males
1 Professor Fawcett. Manual of Political Economy, p. 13.
2 Mr. Giffen estimated it, in 1886, at £1,270,000,000. Essays
in Finance, vol. ii., pp. 460, 472.
8 The Census Returns for 1891 gives the number at 37,740,283
(18,319,157 males, and 19,421,126 females). If the 147,870 in-
habitants of the islands of the British seas are added, we get
37,888,153. See Preliminary Eeports. It is convenient to take
the round number of 38,000,000; and this makes no appreciable
difference to our calculations. Indeed it is probable that the
actual population is greater than that shown by the Census
Reports, as some persons elude the vigilance of the oflicials.
4 Professor Marshall gives the average annual income at
"about £33." Principles of Economics, vol. i., p. 46, foot-note.
16 INSUFFICIENT PRODUCTION OF WEALTH.
only, then (taking their number at nine millions) each
would receive about £150 per annum, subject to the
obligation of maintaining the adult females (say rather
more than nine millions) and all of both sexes who
have not arrived at maturity (say rather less than
twenty millions). These figures may not be absolutely
exact, but they at least closely approximate to ac-
curacy.
Whether an annual income, for each person, of £35,
or, for each adult male, of £150, would be sufficient to
prevent poverty, is a question upon which opinions
may differ. There are, no doubt, many to whom such
a sum would seem like affluence ; and there are, no
doubt, many others to whom it would seem like ex-
treme indigence. The probabilities are that, in the
majority of cases, it would prove sufficient to provide
all that we have comprised under the head of neces-
saries, but that in some it certainly would not. Those
whose occupations compel them to live at high tension,
and those who, on account of ill-health and infirmity,
have special wants, would undoubtedly find the
amount inadequate ; and unless, therefore, we assume
that with a sufficient number of others it would prove
more than adequate, we must come to the conclusion
that some slight amount of poverty would always
exist, unless production per head were increased.
Insufficient Production of Wealth, then, may
be regarded as an actual cause of poverty, but one of
minor importance, and referred to chiefly as leading
up to the main inquiry of the present section.
PROD UC TION OF L UXURIES. 1 7
The Insufficient Production of Necessaries.
For, as has been indicated, it is not simply wealth
we require ; that wealth, in order to prevent poverty,
must take the form of necessaries.
And a very large proportion of the annual product
obviously cannot be regarded as taking this form. It
consists chiefly of commodities and services which are
wholly or partly luxuries (not being requisite at all, or
not being requisite in the quantity in which they
exist), and to some extent of commodities and services
which are wholly or partly useless and some of which
are positively deleterious. 1
We have only to stroll through some of the prin-
cipal thoroughfares of our wealthy towns to at once
realise the existence of luxury. We shall probably
discover palatial residences, which we may safely
conclude to be gorgeously furnished (oftentimes with
little regard either to comfort or to art), and to possess
well-stocked wine-cellars, and larders replete with
delicacies. Or we may descry spacious shops and
emporiums, with their glittering array of jewellery
and trinkets, their collection of sealskins, velvets, and
silks, their exhibits of special vintages, or importations
from Havana, and their display of those thousand and
one curiosities which are gathered from the four
corners of the globe. If we extend our stroll, we may,
perchance, come across some building which, under the
innocent title of the " Stock Exchange," is the daily
haunt of numbers of men who are chiefly occupied in
1 See p. 27.
B
i S PROD UC TION OF L UXURIES.
gambling for others. Or we may find ourselves at a
somewhat kindred institution where sundry " gentle-
men " are engaged in making, paying, and receiving
bets, under the guise of improving the breed of horses;
from which we may infer the nature of the services
by which this product of civilisation is maintained.
And even if we should confine our ramble to the less
attractive poorer districts, we shall discover displays
of tawdry finery, adulterated wares, goods "cheap and
nasty," and flaming gin-palaces at every few 3'ai*ds.
Now, by far the greater part, and in some cases the
whole, of each of these and many similar commodities
and services, far too numerous to tabulate, cannot
come within the most elastic definition of " necessaries."
It has even been maintained that they cannot be re-
garded as wealth, and should rather receive the desig-
nation of "illth" 1 — a suggestion provoked by the
fact that they are co- existent with extreme indigence.
Clearly, however, their value must be deducted from
our £1,350,000,000 if we wish to ascertain that por-
tion of the national income which is available for the
prevention of poverty. The precise deduction which
ought to be made it is not possible to ascertain, but
we may safely regard one-third of the total income as
represented by luxuries (the probabilities are that
this is considerably below the mark 2 ), so that the
1 Fabian Essays in Socialism, p. 22. (London : The Fabian
Society, 63 Fleet Street, 1889.)
2 "Perhaps £100,000,000 annually are spent even by the
working-classes, and £400,000,000 by the rest of the population
of England, in ways that do little or nothing towards making
life nobler or truly happier." Principles of Economics. By
Professor Marshall. Vol. i., p. 731.
wrong production: iq
annual amount of necessaries produced must be taken
as not exceeding £900,000,000 in value.
But we have seen also 1 that wealth, whilst taking
the form of useful things — articles which can fairly,
under given circumstances, come within the category
of necessaries — may be produced at the cost of things
for which there is greater need, with the result that
there is an insufficient production of the more im-
mediate necessaries. We must not, therefore, assume
that even the whole of our £900,000,000 is represented
by the most appropriate class of wealth, or is avail-
able for the prevention of poverty. On the contrary,
we know that it is not ; for the same causes (to be
investigated later on 2 ) which indirectly lead to the
production of luxuries also conduce to wrong produc-
tion even in the matter of some articles which need
not be characterised as luxuries.
Here, again, the exact extent to which this takes
place it would be difficult to ascertain, but there is
one fact which throws some light upon the subject — ■
namely, that, out of the total annual product, more
than one-seventh (of the value of £200,000,000) is
" saved," 3 the bulk of it existing in the form of new
railways, roads, houses, machinery, and other aids to
future labour. 4 These are all very useful things ; but
they form an addition to accumulated wealth, and
their consumption is necessarily extended over a long
1 Page 11.
- Sue p, 58.
8 Mr. R. Oiffen's Essays in Finance, vol. ii., p. 407.
4 Fabian Tract, No. 5, p. 3.
20 THE ANNUAL SAVING.
period. To the extent, therefore, to which this produc-
tion involves an insufficient supply of food and
clothing, for example, they are instances, for the time
being, of wrong production ; and their value must be
deducted from our £900,000,000 to arrive at the net
amount of the annual income represented by that
form of wealth which is capable of satisfying the
annual wants.
Of course that class of saving which simply consists
in storing up suitable necessaries for consumption in
the immediate future — a process which is constantly
going on, since we can only consume the products of past
labour (although much of it cannot be stored for long)
— stands on a different footing. But the greater part
of our £200,000,000 is not a mere credit of necessaries
to next year's account, corresponding to a credit
previously made to the present year's account of
necessaries now being consumed. It is largely a
pure addition to capital ; and whilst that addition is
partly required, if capital is to grow with population,
and whilst the whole of it tends to increase future
production, and is thus beneficial, the point to be
determined is whether we can afford to make it —
whether, in fact, it is not equivalent to a man going
without a dinner that he may deposit sixpence in the
savings' bank. In order to ascertain this we must
subtract from the total produce the amount that is
thus saved in excess of what is requisite for capital to
keep pace with population. If we take this latter at
£100,000,000 we shall be erring on the safe side, and
we have therefore a deduction to make from our
£900,000,000 of a like sum of £100,000,000. This
THE DIMINISHED ANNUAL INCOME. 21
will reduce to £800,000,000 the proportion of the
annual income which is available to meet the actual
necessities of the year.
Thus our £35 per head 1 dwindles down to about
£21, and our £150 per adult male 2 to about £90.
And even if we exclude from consideration the
question of wrong production lastly dealt with, and
venture to take £900,000,000 as our available annual
produce, we are still left with only about £24 per
head, or with, in round figures, £100 per adult male.
And we have little hesitation, therefore, in arriving
at the conclusion that the production of necessaries is
insufficient. An average annual income of £21, or
even of £24, would not be enough to maintain the
community in health and vigour.
Insufficient Production of Necessaries, then, is
a cause of poverty, — though we shall hereafter see it
is not the most potent cause.
WASTE.
The next point to determine is whether there is
waste ; and, if so, of what character. And we may
conveniently make the inquiry, first, as to the indi-
vidual ; secondly, as to the industrial community ;
and thirdly, as to the nation collectively; although,
of course, the division cannot be regarded as an
absolutely rigid one.
1 See p. 15. 2 See p. 16.
22 IDLE CONSUMPTION.
Individual Waste.
We commence by recalling the fact that idle con-
sumption is waste — that is to say (with the modifica-
tion to which attention will be immediately called)
not only luxuries, but the very necessaries of exist-
ence, when consumed by people who produce nothing,
are, so far as the rest of the community is concerned,
absolutely wasted ; and a part of the consumption of
the semi-idle is attended with the same result. Such
people are more or less parasites — " drones in the
hive," as the late Professor Cairnes put it, " gorging
at a feast to which they have contributed nothing,'' x
or to which they have not contributed their fair share.
From this class, however, must be excluded the
young, whom it is both cruel and impolitic to draft
into the industrial ranks before their physical and
mental powers are developed ; and the aged, whose
powers are declining, and who, after giving their best
years to the service of the State, are entitled to im-
munity from further labour ; and the sick and
afflicted, who are unable to work, and have a peculiar
claim upon the community.
Nor must we be misunderstood on another point.
Production, in the economic sense, as we may gather
from our brief analysis of wealth, 2 does not mean
the mere manufacture of material articles. For man,
in reality, makes nothing : by all his labour he cannot
add one particle to the sum of matter in the universe.
1 Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, p. 32.
2 See p. 14.
MONO POL Y OF SER VICES. 23
All he does is to "move" or alter the form of material
substances ; or, in other words, he produces simply
" utilities." But utilities may be embodied in human
beings as well as in outward objects; and everyone
who creates utilities is a producer, whether he makes
a table (to use conventional language) or causes a
blade of grass to grow, or whether he increases the
mental powers or improves the moral character of his
fellows.
Yet the fact remains, that, with these limitations,
there are tens of thousands who produce practically
nothing, and hundreds of thousands who produce far
less than the equivalent of what they consume. 1
Waste, therefore, takes place ; and unless we had, as
we have seen we have not, a superfluous production
equal to the amount squandered, this becomes a cause
of poverty.
Nor is the waste caused by the drones confined to
their personal consumption. To minister to their
pleasure they monopolise the services of large numbers
of other individuals, who, although not themselves
idle consumers, are fed, clad, and housed, simply
that they may add to the comfort of the privileged
class. Large armies of domestic servants and personal
attendants are kept, in order that magnificent estab-
1 It appears from the Census of 1881 that 407,169 adult males
returned themselves as of no occupation. (The Preliminary
Report of 1891 does not give information on this point.) The
number of those who do a few hours daily " work," after the
manner of the " Circumlocution Olliee" worthies, we can only-
guess at.
24 CONSUMPTION OF LUXURIES.
lishments may be maintained, and that their owners
may be spared exertion. And, having little or nothing
to do, they seek to " kill time " and combat ennui by
amusements of the most diversified and costly char-
acter. They must have their shooting and their
opera-boxes, their race-horses and jockeys and clubs,
their house-boats and yachts and four-in-hands, and
all the other forms of diversion which are regarded as
essential to " fashionable life."
All this represents so much waste. The consump-
tion by those who are thus engaged simply in contri-
buting to the pleasure of the idlers has the same
economic effect as the consumption of the idlers them-
selves : nothing is given to the community in exchange
for the wealth destroyed.
But, again, even with active producers not engaged
wholly or partially in ministering to those who con-
tribute little or nothing to the national income, the
consumption of luxuries has the same effect : it is
equally " unproductive consumption." 1 The guests
who assemble at the hospitable board of the Mansion
House, for example, may be highly useful members of
society ; but gorgeous civic banquets, to the extent to
which they are in excess of necessary fare, must be
condemned as waste. And the working-man Avho
squanders some of his hard-earned wages at the
public-house is contributing to the same evil. Pro-
fessor Marshall intimates that " perhaps more than
half of the consumption of the upper classes of society
1 See Principles of Political Economy. By John Stuart Mill.
Book i., chap, hi., sec. 5.
THE ANNUAL DRINK BILL. 25
in England is wholly unnecessary;" 1 and there is no
doubt that a considerable, though naturally a much
smaller, proportion of the consumption of the " lower
el isses " is equally so.
Many instances of unproductive consumption might
be cited, but we may be content with selecting the
most notorious. Our annual Drink Bill is, in round
figures, £125,000,000 — it has been more — and although
about £30,000,000 of this goes to the Government in
the shape of duties, a very large proportion of that
sum may be set off against the cost to the community
of coping with the crime, vice, and disease which are
caused by strong drink. Not, however, to overstate
the case, let us say that the consumption of alcoholic
beverages costs us £100,000,000 per annum.
The greater part of this is absolute waste. We do
not for one moment suggest that under no circum-
stances can alcohol be considered a necessary, but it
certainly is not food ; and although alcoholic beverages
contain a fractional proportion of nutriment, there
cannot be any reasonable doubt that if the amount
consumed were reduced to one-twentieth, or, say,
£5,000,000, no one would suffer, whilst we should
obviously effect an enormous saving.
The probable total amount of the wealth annually
produced, which is represented by luxuries, we have
already had occasion to refer to, 2 in order to arrive at
that portion which is represented by necessaries.
The consumption of luxuries, however, which are pro-
cured at the cost of an insufficient supply of the
1 Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. p. 124.
2 Sue p. lb.
26 LOSS OF CAPITAL— SPECULATION.
requisites of life, has naturally called for observation
under the present section.
Industrial Waste.
Passing from the individual consumer to the in-
dustrial society, we may next inquire whether waste
takes place in connection with production and dis-
tribution. And so many instances at once occur to
us, that there can be no hesitation in answering: the
question.
Perhaps the most prevalent form of industrial waste
arises from the loss of Capital. Under our system of
competition merchants embark in the most risky
enterprises; and the general public, especially that
portion with limited means, is often induced, by mis-
representation and deceit, to contribute to absolutely
worthless undertakings. The result is that much
wealth is annually lost — that is to say, it is unpro-
ductively consumed to the extent to which it is
devoted to labour that proves abortive. And even
with more reliable or bona fide commercial pursuits,
owing to the difficulty in accurately gauging demand
(especially with regard to articles which are not
absolutely requisite), to the changes in fashion, and
the ever varying caprices of the wealthy consumer,
productive waste is constantly taking place.
And Speculation, whilst also often giving rise to
direct loss of capital, in any case involves a wasteful
tax on the community, by the maintenance of numbers
of persons whose chief occupation is to promote and
protit by the speculation. Joint-stock companies,
ADUL TERA TION— STRIKES. 27
productive though they have been of great good in
many respects, have considerably extended gambling,
and have resulted in what is known as " rigging the
market," and in the buying and selling of shares
simply for an anticipated rise or fall. "Rings and
corners" are other instances of the same evil; and
although large speculators at times fulfil useful
functions, to the extent to which they are engaged in
artificially inflating or depressing prices and in con-
tributing to industrial crises, their labour and their
consumption is worse than wasted.
Capitalists, again, deliberately promote the evil.
The manufacture of practically useless articles, to be
palmed upon the purchasing public by means of
.chicanery and deceit, and adulteration, or the com-
pounding with useful articles of spurious or deleterious
ingredients, represent some of the worst forms of
waste ; for they are the outcome of deliberate fraud,
and oftentimes of a criminal disregard for health.
And they lead to further waste by the expenditure of
enormous sums in the elaborate puffing and advertising
of these objectionable wares.
In "Strikes" and "Lock-outs" we have other
instances of industrial waste. They cause machinery
to remain idle, labour to be thrown upon the streets,
industry to be suspended, and commerce to be deranged.
And these effects are very far-reaching; for, with the
intcr-dependence of the various industrial groups, a
disturbance in one trade, or even in one centre, extends
with varying intensity to many others ; and the evil
results are often felt long after the particular dispute
is settled.
28 WASTE IN DISTRIBUTION.
All this means enormous loss to the community,
though the burden, as a rule, falls most heavily upon
those least able to bear it — namely, the poorer classes.
Waste is also characteristic of our system of dis-
tribution. Commodities are filtered through numerous
channels before they reach the consumer, at the cost of
the maintenance of a large army of " middlemen, "
whose sole function it is to pass on the products of
industry from hand to hand, each one retaining a
portion, or its equivalent, for himself, in the shape of
" profit." To the extent to which their services could
be dispensed with, their labour is socially unpro-
ductive, and their consumption of wealth another in-
stance of the evil with which we are dealing.
And, once more, many professional services must
come within the same category. Our lawyers,
valuers, auctioneers, and others in the same industrial
grade, are, in the main, very estimable individuals,
(though, with regard to the first, it is customary to
give them credit for more mischief than even that
attributed to much-maligned woman); but if they
attempt to analyse — which they probably rarely do —
the nature of the services they render, they must
come to the conclusion that the less those services are
required the better it will be for the communit} 7 .
So far, therefore, as the labours of the professional
classes are rendered necessary by an undesirable
artificial condition of society — and that they are, to
no small extent, so rendered necessary will hereafter
be seen, 1 — they represent a form of industrial (though
not of individual) waste.
1 Page 85 et seq.
CRIME AS WASTE. 29
National Waste.
There are yet other manifestations of the evil to
which brief reference must be made; and, although
both individual and industrial waste necessarily affects
the community as a whole, there are some forms
which are more appropriately classified as distinctly
national.
Crime (we regard it from the economic rather than
from the moral standpoint) is waste. The criminal
is engaged in producing, not utilities, but what may
be termed " disutilities " — that is to say, he is engaged
in working mischief. He often lives on the labour of
the community, and he necessitates labour being-
devoted to thwarting his designs and keeping him in
restraint. Policemen, magistrates, gaolers, and others
have to be maintained in order to cope with him ; and
even the production of locks, bolts, and bars, and
similar safeguards, may be regarded as chiefly re-
quired for the same purpose.
From one aspect of the question the expense thus
entailed upon the community may be considered as
individual waste : its proximate cause is the vicious-
ness of individuals. But this aspect is a narrow one,
and does not embrace the cause of that viciousness.
Hereafter we shall have occasion to inquire to what
it is crime is due } and meantime we prefer to classify
this instance as one of national waste, indicating-
thereby that the ultimate responsibility rests in the
main with the community rather than with the
1 See p. 87 et seq.
30 GOVERNMENTAL WASTE.
criminal himself. But with whomsoever it rests, the
viciousness affords one of the most painful exempli-
fications of waste.
The evil is also manifested to some extent in our
Government departments, which, owing largely to the
lack of identity of interests between the officials and
the general public, are seldom conducted with a suffi-
cient regard to economy ; whilst any criticism is
often considered as satisfactorily disposed of by being
denounced as a " cheese-paring policy."
Our Imperial expenditure is about £86,000,000 per
annum ; but from this ought to be deducted some
£8,000,000, the cost of the Post and Telegraph ser-
vices, which, as a whole, constitute a well-managed
and profitable business ; thus leaving about £78,000,000
net. The mere amount, however, in itself proves no-
thing, since the necessary expense of Government
must depend on the functions it discharges. But of
the sum in question, we find that about £25,000,000
is for interest on the National Debt, " made up, for
the most part, of the cost of unnecessary wars, or
gross extravagance and corruption on the part of our
rulers of the past." 1 Another £33,000,000 goes to
the present maintenance of the Army and Navy,
devoted, not simply to self-defence, but to that ag-
gression and chastisement for insult, real or im-
aginary, which forms part of a spirited foreign policy.
And of the remaining £20,000,000, the greater part
represents the expenditure on the miscellaneous Civil
1 Financial Reform Almanack, 1891, p. 46.
MILITARY OPERATIONS. 31
Services, the costly collection of revenue by indirect
taxation, and annuities, pensions, and allowances.
That some saving could be effected in many of these
departments, without any sacrifice of efficiency, is
undoubted. But probably the only very large item
which is open to grave objection is the £33,000,000
above referred to (of which more than £17,000,000
represent the cost of our land forces), to which must
be added loans raised for similar purposes. When we
investigate 1 the motives inducing " military opera-
tions " — as the process is euphemistically termed — we
shall see that much of this expenditure is wholly un-
necessary.
Thus our second question receives on all hands an
emphatic affirmative answer.
Waste of Wealth is a cause of poverty, — though
even yet we have not seen the most potent cause.
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION.
The third and last stage of the inquiry which the
visit to our Liliputian island suggested relates to the
distribution of the products of industry.
The Extent of the Inequality.
That wealth is unequally divided is, of course, patent
to everyone. But how unequally it is divided com-
paratively few seem to realise. Yet since, as wo
shall hereafter see, 2 absolutely equal distribution is
1 Page 90 et seq. - Page 95.
32 INEQUALITY IN DIVISION OF WEAL 1H
not necessary to prevent poverty, the question of
degree becomes of importance ; and a clear concep-
tion of the extent of the inequality is, therefore,
essential.
Just a few significant illustrations.
Of the total accumulated wealth of the United
Kingdom, estimated, upon the basis of a table pre-
pared some years ago by Mr. Giffen, at over
£10,000,000,000, 1 one-half is owned by something
over a quarter of a million of persons 2 — that is, by
about a hundred and fiftieth part of the population,
or a seventieth part of the adult population ! And, of
the remaining half, only a small fraction, amounting
probably to not more than £180,000,000 3 (or a fifty-
fifth of the whole), is owned by that large number
who constitute the manual-labour class. If we in-
clude the families of the quarter of a million persons,
we shall have, in round figures, one million individuals
enjoying £5,000,000,000 accumulated wealth, giving
an average for each of £5,000 ; whilst the remaining
thirty-seven millions enjoya like sum of £5,000,000,000
accumulated wealth, giving an average for each of
£135. But of the thirty-seven millions, the weekly
wage-earners and those dependent uponthem, estimated
at thirty millions, 4 enjoy only £180,000,000; thus
givino- an average for each of £6 only. One thirty-
eighth of the population thus possess on the average
1 Fabian Tract, No. 7, p. 7.
2 Ibid., p. 9. Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, pp. 278, 9.
s Ibid., p. 9.
4 This class embraces about four-fifths of the total workers.
Professor Leoni Levi, Times, 13th January, 1885.
INEQUALITY IN DIVISION OF INCOME. 33
,£5,000 per head; and thirty thirty-eighths of the
population possess on the average £6 per head. In-
equality of distribution can scarcely be carried much
further than this.
Nor shall we now be surprised to find that gross
inequality prevails in the distribution of the national
income. The total, we have seen, is £1,350,000,000 ;
and of this, our thirty million weekly wage-earners ob-
tain £500,000,000 only ; the remaining eight million
persons thus receiving £850,000,000. This means
that the average annual income of the one class is
less than &V7 per head, and the average annual in-
come of the other class is more than £106 per head.
But, of course, the greatest inequality also prevails
amongst the members of both classes, many receiving
infinitely more than £106, and many much less than
£17.
The Nature and Effect of Unequal Distribution.
The eight million persons are monopolists ; they are
the owners, save to a trifling extent, of the instru-
ments of production; and it is to this fact that the
grave inequality in the distribution of the produce is
traceable. Because they possess such an enormous
sliare of the accumulated wealth, they are able to
c 'inmand an enormous share of the annual income.
" Unto everyone that hath shall be given."
The £850,000,000 is the amount of what are known
as the " three rents." Rent of Land (and houses) l
1 Strictly speaking, house-rent is interest on capital, but it is
generally more convenient, when dealing with land-values, to
34 THE " THREE KENTS."
annexes about £220,000,000 ; and Rent of Capital (or
interest) appropriates £270,000,000. These two sums,
amounting to £490,000,000, represent the price paid
for permission to work, and leave only £800,000,000
of the £1,350,000,000 for the workers themselves.
But of this it is estimated that Rent of Ability (or the
additional remuneration commanded by skill) absorbs
for the benefit of about one-fifth only of the industrial
group as much as £360,000,000, leaving our net sum
of £500,000,000 for the remaining four-fifths of the
workers. x
The average income of the weekly wage-earners is
thus reduced from the £35, which equal distribution
would give, to the £17 already referred to, and that
of the adult males, from £150 to about £70. If, thei*e-
f ore, any have more than this, others have less ; and,
as a matter of fact, of the number of separate incomes,
only about one-eleventh amount to £150 per annum. 2
Thus the average income of this class is even less
than it would be if the whole of that portion only of
the annual wealth-product which is represented by
necessaries were equally divided. And we, therefore,
include the buildings upon them, not upon the principle of the
old legal maxim quicquid plcmtatur solo, solo cedit, but because
we can only guess at the separate values of the land and build-
ings respectively. It makes no difference to our conclusions,
provided we exclude the value of the buildings when dealing
with capital ; since, as will hereafter appear, the economic effect
of interest is the same as that of rent. The annual rental-value
of the land alone is roughly estimated at £130,000,000.
1 The figures given in this paragraph are taken from Fabian
Tract, No. 5, where the various authorities for them are stated.
2 Mr. R. Giffen'a Essays in Finance, vol. ii., p. 467.
INDIRECT EFFECTS OF UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION. 35
arrive at the conclusion that it is the privileged mono-
polists alone who can afford to indulge in luxuries ;
and that for the masses of the people any such indul-
gence is impossible, save at the cost of a still further
diminution in their insufficient supply of necessaries.
Obviously, also, the majority of the wage-earners
can have little, if any, opportunity of " putting by for
a rainy day." Having regard to their means, however,
there is really more saving amongst the working-
classes than amongst their wealthy brethren. The
number of small deposits in savings banks afford
some indication of this ; and the membership of the
numerous benefit societies is another pertinent in-
stance. Yet, of the £200,000,000 which is annually
saved, the wage-earners contribute only an infini-
tesimal portion ; and substantially the whole of it
represents the superfluous income remaining to the
favoured plutocrats, after providing for their every
want, both natural and artificial.
And it is largely owing, be it also observed, to this
grossly unequal distribution of wealth that we have
an insufficient production of necessaries and great
waste. As we shall hereafter see, 1 the large produc-
tion of luxuries at the expense of necessaries, and
their wasteful consumption, is in part indirectly
traceable lo the fact that a section of society possesses
a greater amount of wealth than is requisite to satisfy
its actual requirements. Thus, not only is unequal
distribution a cause of poverty, but it gives latitude,
so to speak, to the other causes, and must be held
1 Page 58.
36 IS THE INEQUALITY INCREASING?
chiefly responsible for the existence of the problem we
are investigating.
Is the Inequality Increasing or Diminishing?
Special interest, therefore, attaches to the further
inquiry, whether or not the tendency is for the in-
equality to become greater.
That the rich are growing richer is sufficiently
indicated by the amount of their annual savings, to
which reference has just been made. But it is not a
necessary corollary of this that the poor are growing
poorer, since, as has been intimated, the annual
wealth-production per head has enormously increased. 1
This increase is mainly due to improvements in the
instruments of production, especially by the great
development of machinery ; and it thus becomes of
importance to ascertain what is the effect upon dis-
tribution of such improvements.
Now, it has been pointed out that substantially
the whole of the accumulated wealth is owned by a
comparatively small number of persons (half of it by
a mere fraction of the population), and that they are,
therefore, monopolists of the instruments of produc-
tion. True, these instruments must be used in order
to produce wealth ; and to use them, employment
must be given to labour. But the amount of the
produce which the labourer receives is mainly deter-
mined, not by the efficiency of the instrument or the
absolute quantity of the output, but by the ratio be-
tween the supply and demand of labour. A machine
1 Page 2.
EFFECT OF MA CHINE R Y. 37
which produces, say ten articles per hour, may be
superseded by a machine winch produces ten thou-
sand ; but if no greater labour or skill is required to
work the one than the other, the owner of the machine
will not have to pay a single penny more in wages on
account of its increased productiveness. Hence, with a
practically unlimited supply of labour — such as now
exists — and with unrestrained competition, it is
(ignoring the consumer for the moment) the mono-
polist who mainly benefits from improved methods of
industry. No doubt, to the extent to which a better
machine calls for greater ability to work it, he must
pay more wages, since the supply of skilled workmen
is much less than that of the unskilled. But so lono-
as the work is practically mechanical, the labourer
qua labourer can derive no benefit from an improved
instrument ; the diminished cost of production does
not result in lessening his toil or in raising his wages ;
on the contrary, growing competition for employment
tends to increase the first and lower the second.
" Hitherto," said John Stuart Mill, not so many } T ears
ago, " it is questionable if all the mechanical inven-
tions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any
human being;" significantly adding, "they have
enabled a greater population to live the same life of
drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number
of manufacturers and others to make fortunes." l
But if there is competition among the labourers,
there is also competition amongst the capitalists ; and
hence they cannot for long make an abnormal profit,
1 Principles of Political Economy, book iv., chap, vi., sec. ii.
3S DIVERSITY IN CONSUMPTION.
so that a diminished cost of production eventually
lowers prices, and the consumer benefits. And be-
cause we are all consumers it is a very common, but
very erroneous, assumption that we all substantially
benefit ; and that the labourer in this way obtains his
full share of the productive gain resulting from im-
provements in machinery. True, we are all consumers,
but we are not all consumers to the same extent, or
even of the same class of commodities. The consump-
tion of the poorer classes is necessarily meagre, and it
chiefly consists of those things which are directly
traceable to the land ; whilst, in the main, it is the
price of manufactured goods which machinery lowers.
The primary essentials of existence are food and
dwelling ; and mechanical inventions have not suc-
ceeded in reducing the cost of many of the staple
articles of diet, nor can they enlarge the area of
Bethnal Green or other localities where the poor
congregate. Meat, vegetables, butter, eggs, and other
food-stuffs are much dearer than they formerly were ;
and. house-rent has enormously risen. By opening
our ports to foreign grain we have secured the boon
of a cheap loaf ; and clothes are also less costly, but
the poor are not given to fastidiousness in dress. In
short, it is principally manufactured and imported
goods which are cheaper; and these are the goods which
are consumed mainly by the upper and middle classes,
and upon which (with the exception of corn) the
bulk of the poor spend but a comparatively small
portion of their scanty earnings, for the simple reason
that the greater part of those earnings are absorbed in
the satisfaction or attempted satisfaction of prior wants.
EFFECTS OF POVERTY. 41
constitute a body of able workers ; and though
they may plod through a certain amount of me-
chanical drudgery, even this will be laboriously and
slowly performed, and much productive power will
be frittered away. If a man is to be an efficient pro-
ducer, his soul must be in his work ; but when the
body is pinched the soul shrivels; and hence the
victim of poverty often displays less intelligence than
the horse, owing to the fact that he lacks the material
comforts the average horse enjoys.
Again, if Waste is a cause of Poverty, Poverty is a
cause of Waste. Improvidence and recklessness are
not unfrequently engendered by indigence. x\n en-
feebled mind is not conducive to habits of foresight
or thrift, even when an occasional opportunity for
their cultivation exist. If an extra shilling is earned
it is too often squandered ; pleasure is chiefly identi-
fied with the gratification of appetite, and intemper-
ance is thus promoted. Moreover, it is the poverty of
the poor which permits of the extravagance of the
rich : they are able to indulge in prodigality because
others are doomed to penury. Profusion and wanton
self -gratification are only possible to those who
possess considerably more than a sufficiency of
wealth ; and they possess this mainly because others
cannot command a sufficiency. The greater part,
therefore, of all wasteful expenditure can be indirectly
traced to the existence of poverty.
And, once more, if Unequal Distribution produces
Poverty, Poverty leads to Unequal Distribution. The
more abject the want of the labourer, the greater is
his anxiety to obtain work, and the lower, therefore,
42 PO VERTY BREEDS PO VERTY.
the price he will accept for his services ; whilst the
restrictions placed upon his productive powers by
infirm physical and mental stamina also make his
labour less remunerative. Moreover, his comparative
ignorance and want of means prevent his effective
organisation ; and without organisation he cannot
hope to improve his position. Poverty, thus, in
various ways, conduces to a continued and increasing
disparity in the division of the produce of labour.
It is easy to sink to the bottom of the social scale:
Facilis est descensus Averni. To ascend the ladder is
often an arduous undertaking; to slide down it
requires no effort. And large numbers never have
the opportunity of placing their feet on the lowest
rung. For with the absence of prudence and self-
restraint, which control those who have a standard of
comfort to maintain, the poor often marry early and
have large families ; with the result that thousands are
born into the most abject poverty, and never even
have a fair start. And thus the disease is constantly
fed. Everything seems to combine to keep down the
poor, and to recruit the army of paupers ; and though
some of them possess that ability which in others com-
mands special rewards, comparatively few find oppor-
tunity to develop or utilise it.
"Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed."
Poverty, then, is a cause of poverty ; and this its
incidental effect has, not less than have its primary
causes, an important bearing on our problem.
III.— THE PROBLEM SOLVED.
Having ascertained the genesis of poverty, we have
to put to ourselves the crucial question — "Are we
justified in predicting its exodus ? " Unless there is a
solution to the problem, the suggested duty of investi-
gation might well be met with a " cui bono?" The
plutocracy must be regarded with the envy of
despair ; the toilers regaled with moral reflections on
the dignity of labour, the reward of virtue, and other
cold scraps of philosophy ; and the " submerged tenth "
exhorted to pray diligently and fervently for speedy
euthanasia.
POVERTY IS PItEVENTIBLE.
But our research, though gloomy in its character,
has been encouraging. We have not discovered any
stern law of nature proclaiming poverty to be in-
evitable. We have seen no trace of a Divine ordinance
which decrees that the many shall always be poor.
But we have, on the contrary, clearly discerned that
poverty is due to man, and need not, therefore, be
perpetuated.
Necessaries, it is true, can only be procured by
labour ; and nature does emphatically proclaim what
the moral law has enunciated, " that if any would not
work, neither should he eat." Some have contrived
43
44 A GRADUAL METHOD.
to cheat nature, and have broken the moral law, by
eating without working — and there has been vicarious
atonement for their sins. But under an altered con-
dition of things — a condition which we are warranted
in believing can be brought about — none who are
able and willing to work would lack the necessaries
of life.
The poor, then, need not be always with us — the
problem can be solved.
But poverty will not be exterminated in a day.
The method of extermination can be clearly appre-
hended ; its practicability readily demonstrated ; its
ethical justification fully established ; but its actual
adoption can only be gradual. A sudden revolution
in the industrial organisation is not possible ; and if
it were, would be productive of catastrophe. Hence,
whilst the extinction of the causes is the ultimate
object, this can only be attained by continuously
diminishing their power. Every step in the right
direction is so much gain ; and although the abolition
of poverty must necessarily be a work of time, each
decade may witness its appreciable decline if we keep
the goal steadily in view.
It must not be forgotten that we have for long
recognised some obligation in the matter. Theoreti-
cally no one is allowed to be reduced to absolute
starvation. As an actuality we have in one year a
hundred deaths recorded as clue to this cause ; x and if
we could get at the truth we might doubtless multiply
1 Problems of Poverty (note, ante p. 2), p. 18.
NATURE OF THE SOLUTION. 45
the number by itself. And the reason is that we
have given comparatively so little thought to causes,
and have so largely limited our attention to effects.
During the last half-century certain phases of the
evil, as they have become painfully prominent, have
been dealt with by legislation (which, whilst bene-
ficent in itself, has had the scarcely less important
result of establishing valuable precedents for more
extended action) ; but there has been no wide-spread
recognition of the problem as a whole, and our one
systematised effort is still directed not to prevention,
but to relief — and that of an inadequate and de-
moralising character. It is the fans et origo mali
that we have yet to suppress.
The solution of our problem, therefore, consists in
the discovery of practical methods for the removal of
the causes of poverty ; and hence we have once again
to make a threefold investigation.
THE MEANS OF INCREASING PRODUCTION.
It may at first glance seem that production cannot
be increased. With the wheels of industry constantly
revolving; with the return to labour nearly doubled
in less than a century ; what more, it may be asked,
can possibly be done ? Machinery has been de-
veloped to an extent which can only be described as
marvellous ; year after year has science exacted
further tribute from nature ; and " Tools and the
man" is the epic of this practical nineteenth century.
46 AIDS TO rRODUCTION.
Mechanical and Scientific Aids.
Enormously, however, as discovery and invention
have increased our productive power, to their triumphs
there is no discernible finality.
Sooner or later, as Professor Marshall tells us, " any
manufacturing operation that can be reduced to uni-
formity, so that exactly the same thing has to be
done over and over again in the same way," is sure to
be taken over by machinery. 1 And we have now
entered upon what he terms " the new era of Inter-
changeable Parts ; " 2 an era when machinery is ex-
tensively employed in the manufacture of machinery ;
with the result that every piece in the intricate
mechanism can be duplicated with absolute exactness,
and replaced therefore at trivial cost ; and there are,
he considers, many signs that this principle " will do
more than any other to extend the use of machine-
made machinery to every branch of production, in-
cluding even domestic and agricultural work." 3 In
short, we may safely predict a larger return to labour
by the further development of labour-saving appli-
ances.
And all this is productive gain. It is quite true, as
was previously pointed out, 4 that improved methods
of industry have hitherto been of little benefit to the
poor ; and that in the main they have merely added
to the luxuries of the rich and the comforts of the
1 Principles of Economics, vol i., p. 315.
2 Ibid., y>. 317. 3 Ibid., -p. 318.
4 Page 37, et seq.
MACHINERY— INDIRECT GAIN. 47
middle classes. But this is obviously not an inherent
vice of machinery itself: mechanical inventions can
be utilised for the good of all, and the simple fact is,
as John Stuart Mill himself tells us in continuation of
the passage already quoted, that "they have not yet
begun to effect those great changes in human destiny,
which it is in their nature and in their futurity to ac-
complish." x Hereafter, we shall endeavour to show
how these changes are to be brought about ; but before
we can have an equitable distribution of produce, we
must have the produce itself ; and any means there-
fore by which it is increased in proportion to the
capital and labour employed (or, in other words, by
which the cost of production is diminished) ought to
be heartily welcomed.
Nor is it by the mere additional output directly
traceable to machinery that productive gain arises.
There is a greater return to labour in various other
directions. For production can be carried on upon a
much larger scale ; and, indeed, must be so carried on
to profitably employ some of the very elaborate and
more costly forms of machinery ; and this leads to
economy of material and skill. Moreover, industry
becomes more specialised and localised ; and full
advantage can be taken of physical conditions, such as
climate, soil, and facilities of water-transit ; whilst a
local market is established for special skill, which thus
becomes almost hereditary ; and subsidiary trades
spring up in the neighbourhood conducing to further
economy. Thus labour is employed under the most
favourable conditions ; and by these methods also we
1 Note, p. 37.
48 SCIENTIFIC AIDS— ED UCA TION.
may look for its return being continuously en-
hanced. 1
And science will still further come to our aid.
Many as are the secrets she has wrested from nature,
each generation will doubtless see her crowned with
new laurels, as she increasingly subdues the forces of
the universe to the service of man.
By bringing to light additional agencies for pro-
moting the fertility of the soil and improving the
methods of agriculture ; by new discoveries which
shall result in the still greater utilization of what were
previously waste products ; by enabling us to yet more
effectually grapple with disease, and extend our
sanatory resources ; and especially by conducing to the
further subjugation of the marvellous power of
electricity, men of science and research will maintain
their honourable position as benefactors of the race,
and render less arduous the satisfaction of our material
wants.
None of these methods of increasing production,
however, call for defence or advocacy. Unlike the
means we have yet to consider, they provoke no
hostility, and give rise to little, if any, difference of
opinion. The one point which requires to be empha-
sised is, that to promote the development of these
mechanical and scientific aids we must be lavish in
our Education of the people, and give every facil-
ity for technical training and the development of
1 Professor Marshall's Principles of Economics, vol. i., book
iv., chaps, x. and xi., from which this paragraph is substantially
epitomised.
ORGANISATION OF LABOUR. 49
latent talent. If in the little country churchyard
some "mute inglorious Milton" may rest, who can
say what inventive geniuses have not lain buried
and neglected in the smoke and grime of our large
cities ? Only by affording to all the means of acquir-
ing knowledge, and by giving special opportunities
to those who exhibit constructive powers and origin-
ality of ideas, can we hope to obtain the full harvest
which science and art offer to the skilled husbandmen.
The Social Organisation of Labour.
But the one industrial factor to which we must
look for an increased production is obviously Labour.
To it, as we have seen, all the produce is due. Of
the instruments of production even, Capital is en-
tirely the result of labour, and the Land has received
much of its potentiality from the same source ; whilst
neither capital nor land will yield its fruits to man
unless he put forth his strength. The efficiency of
labour, therefore, and its effective organisation as a
means of securing this efficiency, become of paramount
importance. Yet, strange to say, these are matters,
which, from the national point of view, receive as a
rule but scant consideration.
At any moment we are confronted with the as-
tounding anomaly of large numbers of men being
reduced by incessant toil to a condition akin to that
iii' abject slavery, and of large numbers of men being
unable to find any place in the industrial ranks.
Civilisation presents the strange spectacle of practi-
cally dividing the great bulk of those who belong to
50 LABOUR ANOMALIES.
the manual-labour class into the Overworked and
the Out-of-work! Men are kept at the treadmill
until they almost drop from exhaustion : and men are
soliciting alms because the}^ cannot procure employ-
ment. Whilst, on the one hand, we have an over-
whelming majority of the national workers engaged in
prolonged toil, in some cases extending to a hundred
hours per week ■} we have, on the other, an average
of about fifteen per cent, subjected to enforced idle-
ness. 2 Even of men belonging to the more skilled
branches of industry, and protected by the powerful
Trades Unions, whilst the average hours of labour are
excessive, the number of the unemployed is nine per
cent. ; 3 and at some periods it has been three times as
great. 4 These men practically represent the aristo-
cracy of manual labour ; and the percentage is,
naturally, less than the total average ; the percentage
amongst the competing unskilled workmen and those
outside the Trades Unions being correspondingly in-
creased. But of the total thirteen millions belonging
to the industrial ranks, we tax the powers of the
majority beyond their strength ; and we allow pro-
bably some two millions 5 to subsist as best they can
on parish or charitable doles, unless they prefer to
starve outright.
And so accustomed are we to this condition of things
1 See The Eight Hours Day, by Sidney Webb and Haruld
Cox (London : Walter Scott. 1891). Appendix i.
2 Problems of Poverty (note, ante p. 2) p. 16.
3 The Eight Hours Day, pp. 169, 170.
4 Problems of Poverty, p. 16.
5 Ibid., p. 17.
WASTE OF PRODUCTIVE POWER. 51
that it never seems to present itself to us as a mani-
festation of pure imbecility. Yet this is what it in
fact is; for, if it means anything, it means plainly and
unmistakably an absohite waste of productive power.
To keep one man idle all the clay, while we work
another for sixteen hours, is not simply cruel to both,
but, from the national point of view, is industrial
lunacy. It needs no profound insight to see that if
we employed both for eight hours the productive gain
must in many industries be enormous. Instead of
having a jaded, spiritless worker, and a despairing,
importunate idler, we should have two comparatively
cheerful and healthy producers. And the efficiency
of labour would be enhanced, not only by the utilizing
of the maximum ability of the labourer, but by an in-
crease of the ability itself. For the ranks of the
'Overworked" and the "Out-of-work" are not con-
tinuously composed of the same men ; a migration
from one group to the other is constantly going
on, with the result that some of the skill which
accrues from uninterrupted practice is lost, and that
many of those for the time being engaged in produc-
tion are less competent than they would otherwise be.
It is a physical law that powers develop or deteriorate
according to their reasonable use or their neglect;
muscles become sinewy or flabby in proportion to the
energy or lethargy displayed; and "new men" are
rarely as able as are " old hands." It would therefore
seem that we do our best to obtain a minimum return
to labour.
The reason that we adopt this eminently irrational
52 EFFECT OF CAPITALISM.
course is to be found in the fact that the motive for
production is private profit. It is not that the
workers deliberately choose now to resort to excessive
toil, and now to indulge in absolute idleness : they
cannot help themselves under a competitive system.
Many no doubt will work " overtime " in order to
obtain increased wages ; and some few are loafers who
will never work, if they can exist without it. But the
bulk of those who labour the lono*est have no choice in
the matter, and obtain at the best a bare subsistence
wage ; and the bulk of those who lack employment
are only too anxious to obtain it. 1
It is the subserviency of production to the personal
gain of the monopolist that gives rise to the anomaly.
Two men working half the time of one, or three men
working a third less of the time of two, would gene-
rally be far more productive ; but they would not be
so productive to the employer — or, at any rate, so he
thinks — for they would command a larger portion of
the produce ; and, although the total would be more,
his proportion would in some cases be less. 2 And,
since with all of us self-regarding motives largely
prevail, the inquiry of the typical capitalist is, not
what is best for the workers, still less what is best for
the community, bat what is best for himself. So long
1 " The fact that in 1890 the mass of unemployed was almost
absorbed disposes once for all of the allegation that the un-
employed in times of depression consist of idlers who do not
choose to work." Problems of Poverty, p. 16. And of cases of
extreme poverty in the East End of London, investigated by Mr.
Charles Booth, he attributes only 18 per cent, to voluntary idle-
ness, drink, and thriftlessness.
2 See The Eight Hours Day, pp. 121, 122.
SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF LABOUR. 53
as he finds it more profitable to work one man into
the grave whilst another is left to starve or go to the
union, so long will he pursue this course, without the
slightest qualms of conscience, and in the blissful
belief that he is merely exercising the just rights of a
free-born citizen of that glorious State whose watch-
word is Liberty. Of course the effect of his conduct
is seldom seen by him in the nakedness in which it is
here presented ; and on the other hand instances are
not wanting of praiseworthy emploj-ers who treat
their men with genuine consideration — some of whom
have discovered that a shorter labour day does not
necessarily mean a diminished output. x But the
general tendency of Capitalism is undoubtedly anti-
social.
And this suggests the remedy for the evil. It is
not much use condemning the individual capitalists :
nay, in many instances, they cannot justly be held
responsible; for they can scarcely help themselves.
Despite their boasted freedom, they too are the slaves
of competition, and are bound to buy their labour in
the cheapest market or be driven out of the field. It
is the system which is vicious, and it is the system
which must be altered. " The mere conflict of private
interests will never produce a well-ordered common-
weath of labour ; " 2 and, hence, it is the social
organisation of labour which must be brought
about. In superseding private capitalists by the State,
1 The Eiqht Hours Day, appendix ii.
2 Dr. J. K. Ingram in the Encyclojxxdia Britannica, vol. xix.
188G, p. 382.
54 STATE AND MUNICIPAL INDUSTRIES.
or by local representative bodies, the workers would
become both employers and employed ; mutual depen-
dence and support would be established ; and it would
be to the interest of all to promote economy and
efficiency.
The organisation, then, of labour by the labourers
themselves through their elected representatives is the
most effectual method of increasing the production of
wealth. We have scarcely any true instance of such
organisation at present, for large masses of the wage-
earners are still practically excluded from the fran-
chise. 1 But we have quasi-instances in the Imperial
Post Office, and in certain municipal undertakings;
and, capable though these organisations are of im-
provement, they are an immense advance on private
enterprise. The penny postage — the benefits of which
it would scarcely be possible to over-estimate — could
never have been obtained without the aid of the
State ; and the normal day of post-office officials is
one of eight hours, though it is spread over a longer
period, and sometimes shows an undesirable elasticity.
The London County Council, which has already accom-
plished wonders, has set a good example in the length of
the labour day of its employes; and whilst private tram
and omnibus companies work their servants for about
fourteen hours per diem, the Huddersfield Town
Council manages its tram-ways by a system of shifts,
1 The number of registered electors (excluding duplicate
registrations) is still only about 5,800,000 — about 3,000,OUO less
than the total number of adult males. Numbers of the working
classes are excluded owing to the length of the residential
qualification.
ELECTORAL REFORMS. 55
and grants its workmen the boon of an eight hours
day. Some of these instances, however, are not those
of employments where a reduction of the hours of
individual labour affords special facilities for increased
efficiency, but such redaction at least has the effect of
drawing from the ranks of the " Out-of-work " by
creating a larger demand for labour, and it thereby
indirectly tends to diminish " Overwork " in other
branches. But the instances are at present too few to
have any very substantial effect upon the solid mass
of the unemployed.
Political and Industrial Reforms.
To secure the social organisation of labour, a two-
fold method must be employed. Our institutions
must be thoroughly democratised, in order that they
may be really representative of labour ; aud their
functions must be gradually extended in the direction
of increased control of industrial enterprise. '
Hence Electoral Reform, both in connection with
Parliamentary and municipal representation, occupies
a prominent place in our programme. Adult Suffrage,
with the abolition of plural voting for Parliament,
and a short residential qualification, so that none may
be disfranchised, are the first requisites. To avoid
disturbing elements and prolonged agitation, elections
should be held on the same day ; and, to insure the
representation of majorities, the principle of the
Second Ballot should be adopted. To give no undue
advantage to wealth, the official expenses of the
election should fall upon the rates, and members
SOCIALISING OF INDUSTRY.
should be paid a reasonable sum for their services.
To keep the representatives in touch with the elector-
ate, and prevent the abuse of power, there should be
an appeal to the constituencies at intervals of not
more than three years. " Home Rule " must be
granted to the various nationalities of the kingdom,
and the business of the Imperial Parliament ultimately
limited to Imperial affairs. And the anomaly of a Second
Chamber, vetoing or emasculating popular measures
must, of course, be brought to an end. This is a pro-
gramme, which a generation ago would have been
regarded as Utopian ; to-day men look forward with
confidence (or with dread) to its adoption in the not
very distant future.
Simultaneously we must extend the Socialising of
industry by vesting in the State or municipalities
various national and local undertakings. To a branch
of the Government will be best entrusted the manage-
ment of the railways and other means of transit, as
also enterprises not distinctly local in their character.
Upon the municipalities will fall the duty — already
undertaken by several of them — of supplying water,
gas, electric-lighting, and means of urban transit ; to
be followed by an extension of the principle to other
large industrial enterprises.
The end in view will also be promoted by the im-
position of further restrictions on monopolistic pro-
duction. The extension of the Factory Acts — only
recently undertaken by the Government, though not
in a very vigorous manner — the determined grappling
with the evils of sweating, and the general curtail-
AN EIGHT HOURS DA Y. 57
ment oLthe power of Capitalism will all be steps in
the right direction.
One practical proposal, which is rapidly growing in
favour, is to secure an Eight Hours Working Day 1
as a statutory maximum, though subject probably in
many industries to the principle of Trade Option.
From a priori reasoning we have had little difficulty
in arriving at the conclusion that this must result in
more efficient labour and increased production. But
our conclusion is confirmed by inductive inquiry. In
the course' of a valuable article dealing with Victoria,
Mr. John Rae intimates it is, he thinks, "beyond
question that the shortening of the day to eight hours
has improved the efficiency of labour during the time
employed both as to quantity and quality." 2 And in
their recently published exhaustive treatise on the
subject, Messrs. Sidney Webb and Harold Cox present
us with numerous instances of the beneficial effect, in
this amongst other directions, of a reduction in the
length of the labour day:
,3
The Increased Production of Necessaries.
We have dwelt at some length on the means of in-
creasing the production of wealth, since, although what
1 There is no magic in the figure eight ; but the period named
cannot in the majority of callings be exceeded, consistently with
the due development of the physical, mental, and moral powers
of the workers, and therefore with the maximum efficiency of
labour.
2 The Eight Hoxirs Day in Victoria, Economic Journal, vol. i.
p. 37.
3 2Vte Eifjht Hours Day, chap. iv. see. 2, and appendix ii.
5S INCREASED PRODUCTION OF NECESSARIES.
we chiefly require is not so much more wealth as that
wealth should more largely take the form of neces-
saries, any increase in our productive powers would
obviously permit of more necessaries being produced.
But it does not follow that they would be produced ;
and the investigation must, therefore, be pursued.
Since poverty is in part traceable to the insufficient
production of necessaries, and is probably to a further
extent due to wrong production, even in the case of
articles which are not luxuries, we have still to con-
sider how to bring about such an exercise of our
industrial powers as shall result in the satisfaction of
the urgent wants of the community. What we re-
quire is, not merely that labour should be more
efficient, but that it should be more wisely applied.
The production of gold-lace, or even of a new church,
when men are lacking food or healthy dwellings, is
another instance of industrial aberration.
And should there be any lingering doubt as to the
power to produce a greater amount of wealth, there
can be none as to the power to produce a considerably
greater amount of necessaries. That more are not
produced is due to the fact that a demand for luxuries
is created, owing to large numbers of individuals pos-
sessing a superfluity of purchasing power, and that
under a system of production for private profit
capitalists will satisfy any demand if it pays them
to satisfy it. So long as men have a superabundance
of wealth, they will ever be devising new wants, and
others will readily gratify those wants, since by so
doing they can add to their own store of wealth. It
matters not to the capitalist what he produces, pro-
CAUSE OF PRODUCTION OF LUXURIES. 59
vided he can make a profit ; and it is the expectation
of the profit and not the utility of the product which
determines his action. Demand a dog-collar made of
gold and inlaid with diamonds, and, if you are re-
garded as solvent, it will be forthcoming, though its
cost equal that of a year's necessaries for a hundred
workmen. So that the same cause which leads to
less efficiency of labour and consequently less produc-
tion of wealth — namely, an industrial system based
upon individual rather than communal gain — leads to
luxuries being produced at the expense of necessaries. 1
It follows, therefore, that the remedy (or at any
rate one remedy) lies in the same direction. As the
result of the political and industrial reforms to which
reference has been made, 2 not only would there be
an increased productivity, but, in consequence of the
power the workers would possess of commanding a
larger portion of the produce, and of, therefore, more
effectually controlling its form, there would be a
gradual increase in the production of necessaries.
But we can also contribute to this result in other
ways, which have yet to be pointed out.
Limitation of Expenditure. — Saving.
If the nature of supply is indirectly determined
by the nature of demand, then our individual demand
1 The same cause is also in another way indirectly responsible
for less necessaries being produced, since capital and labour are
employed in the production not only of luxuries, but of spurious,
adulterated, and partly useless commodities. This is more fully
considered when dealing with Waste. Page 77 et seq.
- Page 55 et seq.
6o LIMIT A TION OF EXPENDITURE.
is all-important. By abstaining from purchasing
articles we can do without, we add to our savings,
and therefore to capital, and therefore to the demand
for labour, and therefore to the labourer's wage, and
therefore to the effective demand for necessaries.
Capital will thus be diverted from the production of
comparatively useless to that of substantially useful
things ; so that even under the present system of
profit-mongering more of the requisites of life will be
produced, and will take the form most appropriate to
the actual needs for the time being. But it should be
remembered that if the additional capital should be
lost by being devoted to speculative or risky enter-
prises, or if the promise of higher profit should cause
it to gravitate to the less desirable industries, the
community will be deprived of the whole or some of
the benefit which would otherwise accrue ; and it is,
therefore, of importance that we should see our
savings are employed to the greatest advantage by
investing them in sound and useful undertakings. 1
One of the means, then, of increasing the produc-
tion of necessaries consists in a diminution of ex-
penditure on luxuries; but the consumption of
luxuries will call for further examination when deal-
ing with the means of preventing waste. 2
It ought, perhaps, to be here mentioned that we do
1 Municipal trusts, for example, might wisely be selected.
The extension of the powers and functions of the municipal
bodies would, of course, lead to their requiring more capital.
Page 102.
2 Page 72 et seq.
EFFECT OF FOREIGN TRADE. 61
not overlook the influence of Foreign trade. A large
portion of our necessaries comes from abroad; and
from the purely insular point of view it makes no
difference what we produce in exchange, so long as
we can obtain the desired imports. Poverty, how-
ever, is not a local but an almost universal problem ;
though there are some provinces, with boundless
tracks of fertile land, where at present it need give
little concern. But, even if we ignore the fact that
the principles involved are of very wide application,
and look only to their bearing upon ourselves, our
deductions remain the same. It is quite true that,
unless other countries made equal progress, it would
not be essential to an increase in the supply of neces-
saries that such a change should be made in our home
industries as would be requisite if international trade
did not exist — though some change would undoubtedly
be called for. But this would not make the less
beneficial a limitation of individual expenditure, and
the wise investment of what is thereby saved. To
the extent to which the consequent diminution in the
demand for luxuries and increase in the demand
for necessaries called for an alteration in the nature
of our own production, it would certainly come about,
for supply and demand always tend to an equilibrium ;
but since foreign supply and foreign demand alike
affect us, the adjustment would partly take place
through the complicated mechanism of international
exchange. To follow the operations of this, however,
would be an elaborate task, and at the same time a
work of supererogation so far as the present inquiry
is concerned
62 THE POPULATION QUESTION.
Control of Population.
Yet another point. What we requireis not essentially
an increased production, whether of all forms of wealth
or only of necessaries, but simply an increased pro-
duction/^ head. And there are of course two ways
of enlarging a quotient — by adding to the dividend
and by diminishing the divisor. That we can increase
the dividend we have already seen ; can we not also
lessen the divisor ? If we can control production, can
we not control population ?
There is an old saying that God never sends mouths
but what He sends food. This confident assertion may
be indicative of piety, but it certainly is not of perspi-
cacity. To shift on to Providence man's responsibility
is no doubt extremely comforting ; but, as has been
remarked, there is an unfortunate tendency for the
mouths to come to one door and the food to -another ;
and it therefore becomes worthy of consideration
whether (at any rate so long as the tendency exists)
it would not be wise to have fewer mouths. There is
no necessity to commit either suicide or murder —
Father Time with his scythe is constantly mowing us
down ; and it is merely a question affecting the birth-
rate.
With a smaller population we could undoubtedly
obtain a larger product per head. Without dwelling
on the "Law of a diminishing return" 1 (which is ad-
1 Principles of Political Economy, by J. S. Mill, book i., chap,
xii., sec. 2, where the law is thus stated : "After a certain, and
not very advanced, stage in the progress of agriculture, it is the
EFFECT OF DIMINUTION OF NUMBERS. 63
mittedly more or less in operation in all old countries),
we can discover this by recalling the fact of there
being a large body of idlers, either from choice or
necessity — men who will not work, or who are unable
to obtain work, but who nevertheless possess mouths.
In other words, our present produce is the result of the
labour of a portion only of the population ; so that the
same produce could be obtained although population
declined. Therefore, until such time, at any rate, as
we compel or enable all to work, a diminution of
numbers would conduce to a larger production per
head. And not only this — a greater proportion of the
product would take the form of necessaries. For a
reduction in the ranks of those competing for employ-
ment would lead to a rise in wages, and thus increase
the effective demand for the essentials of existence,
the result of which demand we have already seen. 1
Again, it is unfortunately the poorest classes who
are the most prolific — owing, as has been previously in-
dicated, 2 to the very fact that they are poor, and
law of production from the land that, in any given state of
agricultural skill and knowledge, by increasing the labour, the
produce is not increased in an equal degree."
Professor Marshall states the law, provisionally in a short,
and ultimately in an elaborate form, and qualifies it by a refer-
ence to improvements in the arts of agriculture, notably "an
increase in the skill of the individual cultivator." Principles oj
Economics, vol. i., book iv., chap. iii. This qualification, how-
ever, is practically synonymous with what Mill describes as the
ncy in habitual antagonism to the law,'' and which he
generalises under the description of "the progress of civilisa-
tion." Principles of Political Economy, book i., chap, xii., sec. 3.
1 Page GO. - Page 42.
(j 4 LLM1TA TION OF NUMBERS.
therefore (not being able to sink lower) lack the
prudence which actuates men who have a standard of
comfort to maintain. And thus we are propagating
from our weakest stem — though we endeavour to
minimise this evil by killing off the children of the
humbler classes at about three times the rate nature
carries off those of the rich — and are once again con-
fronted with less efficient labour, and consequently less
production. So that over-population leads to a smaller
product per head in two ways : the return to labour is
less and there are more heads ; whilst of the wealth
that is produced a smaller proportion takes the form
of necessaries.
We have, then, another remedy for insufficient pro-
duction, particularly of necessaries, namely a prudential
limitation of numbers. And this should especially
be brought home to the unskilled labourers. It is easy
to enlist their sympathies for those reforms which aim
at curtailing for the good of the community the license
of the privileged classes ; but we should not, in our
sympathy for the oppressed, omit to point out that
the} r themselves, under the existing conditions of in-
dustrial organisation, to some extent intensify the
evil ; and that, although when the evil is once removed,
the mere fact of their then having a standard of com-
fort to maintain will itself exercise a controlling: in-
fiuence, whilst owing to their labour being more
efficient there will be less need for the same control,
they can in the meantime do something to increase the
production of necessaries, and thus contribute to the
diminution of their own poverty.
PAUPER IMMIGRATION. 6^
Restriction on Pauper Immigration.
At the same time, so largely does the necessity for
collective action, operating through representative
institutions, meet us at every stage of our industrial
problems, that even in the control of population we
may have to do more than appeal to individual
prudence. Numbers can be inflated, not simply by
multiplication at home, but also by importation from
abroad ; and it is to be observed that the greater the
reward which labour is able to command in England,
the more will the labourers of other countries be
attracted to our shores, unless equal progress be made
in their own institutions. And whilst we deplore the
condition of the poor in foreign lands not less than in
our own, and welcome such signs of joint action as are
manifested by International Labour Conferences, we
cannot but see that each country must in the main
work out its own salvation. Our colonies very pro-
perly protested on moral grounds against being made
a settlement for the refuse of our own population, and
we on economic grounds may be driven to take
measures to prevent the constant influx of pauper
labour, gladly though we would lend a helping hand
to all.
Hence a Law of Aliens may become a political
necessity. It would be a misfortune, and the measure
should only be passed after the fullest consideration,
and then with great caution ; for it would not tend to
increase international amity; and to obtain from it the
maximum of gain with the minimum of loss, it would
66 LA W OF ALIENS.
have to be framed with more care than is bestowed
on many of our Acts of Parliament. Needless to say,
there must be no support of foreign tyranny by a
refusal to grant an asylum to political refugees. And
to the unfortunate paupers of other lands we must
extend what aid we can, short of endeavouring to raise
them by depressing our own workers. But if we
cannot lift all from the gutters, it is suicidal to lie
down by the side of those who remain.
No doubt proposals of this character would be
met with considerable opposition, and invocations to
Liberty would not be lacking. The Factory Acts
were resisted as a restriction of freedom ; a legal
limitation of the hours of labour is regarded as a
sapping of the manly independence of the worker;
and a prohibition of pauper immigration might even
be denounced as a return to Protection. Protection
in a sense it undoubtedly would be, but not in the
accepted economic connotation of the term. It would
not be a diminution of the advantages of international
barter; it would not be a taxation of the community
for the benefit of the monopolists : on the contrary, it
would be a simple extension of the principle of Free-
trade ; namely an endeavour to obtain the greatest
return from labour, and a recognition of the interests
of the consumer as opposed to those of a section of
favoured capitalists and landlords.
Fortunately, however, the Labour movement is ad-
vancing in many countries — in some more rapidly
than in our own — and we may still indulge the hope
that any grave necessity for action of the character
referred to will not arise. But if the evil, from
NON-PREVENTIBLE WASTE. 67
which we are already suffering, and which is especially-
manifest in the East End of London, should with the
accomplishment of further reforms at home threaten
to deprive us of their fruits, we must face the fact and
act accordingly.
THE MEANS OF PKEVENTING WASTE.
We pass now to the consideration of the method of
dealing with the cause of poverty secondly referred
to. The individual, the industrial community, and
the nation collectively, are, we found, alike guilty of
great waste ; of which numerous instances were given.
How, then, is this waste to be prevented ?
Before attempting to answer the question, one fact
ought to be referred to.
Non-preventible Waste.
There is no doubt a certain class of waste for which
man cannot be held responsible — waste which must
be attributed to a " Vis major!"
The blighting of crops and the devastation caused
by tempest, for example, are due to natural as dis-
tinguished from artificial causes ; and, although these
can in some measure be combated, to the extent to
which they cannot we must bow to the inevitable. Our
only duty is to take what precautionary and remedial
measures are open to us, and to philosophically bear,
as one of the conditions of existence, the loss we cannot
prevent.
Then there are other cases where, although man is
68 EXTINCTION OF IDLE CONSUMPTION.
not wholly free from blame, no severe stricture can
be passed. Conflagrations, for instance, which often
cause great loss, could in many cases be averted ; but
they generally arise from thoughtlessness or careless-
ness, rather than from culpable overt acts. So far,
therefore, as it cannot be arrested, waste of this kind
must also be regarded as one of the incidents in the
lives of imperfect beings.
At the same time there must be no excuses for nesr-
lecting any means in our power. Every stride which
science makes, whereby we obtain increased mastery
over the forces of nature, and every growth in indi-
vidual habits of foresight and prudence, tend to the
diminution of this class of waste ; and if we utilize
all our resources, the non-preventible loss of wealth
will not be a matter for supreme anxiety.
The Extinction of Idle Consumption,
But the bulk of the enormous waste of wealth is
preventible. And our first step towards prevention is
to clearly and fully appreciate this. For so long as
men are unconscious of the evil, or, realising it, con-
sider it inevitable, they will naturally do nothing
towards its removal.
At present there is but a very limited apprehension
of the facts. They scarcely ever enter the mind of
the average man ; and when they do the impressions
conveyed are of a very hazy description ; nay, in some
instances, he even regards as benevolent the very
conduct which conduces to the mischief.
The purposely idle or semi-idle class appear not to
POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS. 69
have the slightest idea that the community would be
better without them — that they are of less use than
the rodents who play havoc with our grain, and are
simply living embodiments oi' waste. Indeed, so
curiously warped are their moral notions, that they
even think they serve a most useful purpose ; and
tell us that they give employment to labour, and are
therefore the benefactors of the poor. Their idleness
is so complete that they have not even taken the
trouble to educate themselves. They know that they
consume wealth, and that wealth is produced by
labour ; but they imagine that labour is the end of
(other people's) existence, and not the means, and
conclude therefore that by rendering more work neces-
sary they are conferring benefits upon the workers.
Perhaps, in these circumstances, it is not surpris-
ing that the bourgeois class and the proletariat should
fall into the same error. Lavish expenditure is re-
garded with satisfaction on the ground that it "makes
money circulate," and is " good for trade " ; and the
labourer, not unnaturally, welcomes any demand
which seems the proximate cause of giving him em-
ployment.
The fact is that only one side of the phenomenon is
seen. The immediate result, namely the transference
of money, is perfectly apparent; but the total economic
effect is not visible to the superficial observer.
Yet a prolonged observation is not necessary to
discover that it must be a loss, and not a gain, to the
worker to yield a part of the produce to those who
render nothing in return. He does so, because, at
70 FALLACY OF " MAKING WORK"
present, owing to the monopoly of the instruments of
production, be cannot otherwise produce at all ; and
unless he produce, he starves. But the appropriation
of wealth by others can never benefit him ; and so far
as the community of labour is concerned, the fruits of
industry might as advantageously be cast into the sea
as consumed by an idle class.
The fallacy in question is a very venerable one, and
is the basis of the old argument for "making work;"
the rcductio ad absurdum of which would be the de-
struction of all property, that labour might be em-
ployed to replace it ; and the incidental deification of
war, tempest, fire, dynamite, et hoc genus omne. We
need never be afraid of having a scarcity of work ;
what we have to aim at is to diminish and not increase
our toil. We simply work to obtain the means of
satisfying our wants ; and we can very gratefully
dispense with the services of those who are merely
" patent digesters " of the products of our industry.
Education, then, though not in itself a remedy
for the evil, is necessary to its realisation. Men may
sin against knowledge ; they must more or less err
when ignorant ; and hence the importance of an in-
creased diffusion of the truths of economic science.
And next the moral sentiment must be appealed to ;
and to " go gracefully idle in Mayfair " must be un-
equivocally branded as a vice. It is not a crime, since
the law sanctions it ; but men are daily sent to prison
for offences which, are far less injurious to their
fellows.
But whilst we should spare no effort to subjectively
TAXATION OF UNEARNED INCOMES. 71
reform the idle consumer, it is to be feared that the
progress made in this direction will not, for some
time at any rate, be phenomenal. We must therefore
also adopt objective remedies; and the most effective
of these will be a heavy Taxation of unearned
incomes, to the lightening of the burdens imposed
upon the workers ; and ultimately such a radical
alteration in our industrial system as that every one
shall be secured an approximate equivalent to the
produce of his labour, by which means absolutely idle
consumption by capable adults must necessarily cease. 1
With regard to the incidental waste due to the
monopoly of the services of numerous other indi-
viduals by the idle or comparatively idle, in order
that they may be spared exertion or supplied with
amusement, the remedies, of course, are of the same
character, and the point therefore need not be elabor-
ated. But it must not be forgotten that the loss to
the community from this cause is very real and very
extensive.
The comparatively recent revelations of the manner
in which the Heir to the Throne and his bosom friends
dispose of some of their time are not of a very grati-
fying character ; but it is illustrative of the vagaries
of society morals that so much importance should
have been attached to this item of fashionable in-
telligence, whilst gambling in many other forms, and
pleasures equally reprehensible, are openly recognised
as the daily incidents of high life. It is a good thing
to have a code of honour, but one must regret that it
1 Page 100 et seq. for a detailed consideration of these reforms.
72 TEMPERANCE REFORM.
should have so limited an application ; and any pro-
gress in public opinion which shall induce " our old no-
bility " to give a wider interpretation to " noblesse
oblige " will not only be conducive to morality, but
also to the removal of poverty.
The Diminution in the Consumption of Luxuries.
Idle consumption, however, is not the only form of
individual waste we discovered ; for the workers
themselves are not guiltless in the matter. In fact
there are very few who do not to some extent con-
tribute to the evil.
And we saw that the most glaring instance is the
enormous expenditure on alcoholic beverages ; so that
we must give Temperance Reform a prominent
place in our programme. We make no comment here
as to the moral cost of drink to the community ; we
are merelj 7 dealing with the waste of labour and
material wealth, and from this point of view alone
the appropriation of about one-thirteenth of the in-
adequate national income to a single form of luxury
calls for grave condemnation.
Of course a considerable portion of this is con-
sumed by the idle rich ; and it is only the compara-
tively wealthy who can indulge in the more costly
beverages. But for a large portion the industrial
classes must be held responsible ; and of this, it is to
be observed, the greater part is chargeable to the
respectable " moderate drinkers." Doubtless there is a
tendency for the very poor to seek to drown their
misery in drink ; but the actual amount of poverty
MODERATE DRINKING. 73
traceable to intemperance on the part of the victims
of poverty themselves is not so great as might be
supposed. Mr. Charles Booth, as the result of his
investigation of cases of extreme destitution already
referred to, 1 only attributes fourteen per cent, to the
combined causes of drink and thriftlessness. It is
not the " habitual drunkards " but the habitual
drinkers — men who do not exceed what is regarded as
moderation — who are mainly responsible for this great
waste.
Hence, it is not merely against intemperance, but
against so-called moderate drinking also (in which
term, of course, we do not include the occasional
employment of alcohol medicinally), that war must be
declared. Temperance reformers are often rebuffed
when they assume a high moral tone : possibly
economic considerations may have more weight ; and
when the question is reduced to one of waste and re-
sultant poverty a new light may dawn upon the
minds of some. In any case, however much the less
cultured advocates of total abstinence may lack dis-
cretion, they are really engaged in a noble work ; and
whilst they sometimes give scope to an accusation of
fanaticism, there is very often more fanaticism dis-
played by those who make it — and displayed with
less justification.
Of course instances of individual waste misrht be
multiplied almost ad infinitum ; but one illustration
is as good as a dozen. Everyone can readily deter-
mine for himself to what extent and in what wa}' he
1 Note p. 52.
74 ETHICS OF LUXURIES.
must be regarded as an offender ; and sufficient has
been said to show that it is our duty to carefully
weigh our expenditure.
We pass no sweeping condemnation on the indul-
gence in luxuries. Many may be inclined to think
that if they are to be deprived of everything which
cannot be regarded as essential, life would not be
worth living ; and it is difficult to muster up courage
tc preach such asceticism as this — nor would it in fact
be called for under an altered condition of industrial
society.
Yet, let us never forget that this life, which to us
would not be worth living — nay, an infinitely more
cheerless life — is one to which legions of our fellow-
creatures are doomed ; and that they are so doomed
partly on account of our own excessive indulgence.
For this reason, therefore, rather than from the un-
healthy sentiment that strict discipline and personal
penance are good things in themselves, are we called
upon to exercise some amount of self-abnegation.
And though we may not be cast in such a heroic
mould as to be able to take part in feeding the
hungry and clothing the naked at the sacrifice of our
cigars or our billiards, surely we need not be the less
happy if we diminish vain display and wanton extra-
vagance, and occasionally give a practical thought to
the price which others pay for our pleasures. " Wil-
ful waste makes woeful want " — the proverb is a true
one, but seldom correctly applied. In a nation it is
invariably exemplified ; but in the individual retribu-
tion very often fails to overtake the offender ; and it
is the innocent who suffer for the guilty.
WASTE FROM CAPITALISM. 75
The Minimising of Loss of Capital.
The remedies for industrial waste have next to be
considered, commencing with that which is incident to
the process of production.
Instances were seen in the loss of capital embarked
in enterprises of great risk, or in manufactures where
the demand is of a variable and uncertain character;
and in the cost of the maintenance of financiers and
speculators, who frequently exercise an injurious in-
fluence.
Waste of this character is an inherent defect of our
capitalistic system. It is part of the price we pay for
allowing private profit to be the main object of pro-
duction. It is not the full price ; for we have seen
that inefficiency of labour 1 and an insufficient supply
of necessaries 2 are traceable to the same cause ; and
we shall hereafter see that to it other grave evils are
also due.
The temptation to make additional " profits " often
induces even private merchants and firms to throw
prudence to the winds ; and with regard to the in-
vesting public generally, there are always large num-
bers ready to be victimised by specious promises of
high dividends. Sound securities only yield interest
at the rate of from three to four per cent. : yet
traders aim at quadrupling this ; 3 and prospectuses of
1 Page 52. 2 Page 58.
3 We are speaking of the " return to capital" and not of the
remuneration for their time, for which, as " wages of superin-
tendence," a fair sum must be charged before " net profits ''
can be ascertained.
76 THE MACHINERY OF CAPITALISM.
public companies are daily issued showing con-
clusively (on paper) that six, eight, ten, and even
twenty per cent, will be paid, and that the shares will
inevitably rise in value. In some cases the prospects
are more or less realised ; and faith or credulity is
thereby prevented from waning. And so — bank-
ruptcies and liquidations notwithstanding — the game
goes merrily on, with the result that a large amount
of wealth is annually lost by the expenditure of
labour to which there is little or no return. Such is
the spell worked by the magic word, " profit."
And the process has called into existence various
bodies of men who act as agents, or direct operations
from behind the scenes, and some of whom contribute
to the ultimate catastrophe. At times they indulge
in speculation on their own account ; but they more
often stand on the safer ground of carrying out or in-
fluencing the speculations of others, with advantage
to themselves in any event. Brokers and jobbers,
" bulls and bears," company-promoters and under-
writers, moneylenders and financial agents, although
more or less engaged in legitimate occupations (not
always, however, legitimately pursued), are simply
part of the machinery of Capitalism. They are the out-
come of the system to which private profit is the key ;
and the loss of wealth which is traceable to their in-
fluence, and a large portion of the cost they entail upon
the community, is pure industrial waste.
No doubt, under the most perfect form of production
which men could devise, some loss of capital would
be inevitable. Many necessaries are of a perishable
THE ABOLITION OF CAPITALISM. 77
character ; and a twenty minutes' thunderstorm, for
example, may upset the most sage calculations. But
the bulk of the loss which now takes place could be
prevented. Once make social gain instead of private
profit the object of production, and the risk would
immediately be minimised ; for the inducement to em-
bark in hazardous enterprises and to satisfy varying
capricious demands, and the motives for speculation
and fraud would straightway disappear. The mini-
mum requisites of healthy existence are to a large ex-
tent of the same character in all cases ; and the de-
mand for necessaries could therefore be foreseen with
tolerable accuracy ; but the commercial barometer of
to-day can seldom do more than feebly prognosticate
the variation in those fanciful requirements which the
private capitalist endeavours (often so unsuccessfully)
to turn to his advantage. And with regard to the
army of financiers of all types, substantially their
occupation would be gone ; and they would be set free
to join the rcvnks of useful producers.
Hence our ultimate remedy must consist in the
abolition of the system of Capitalism ; and we
shall be gradually journeying towai'ds this goal by the
inauguration of those political and industrial reforms
already referred to, 1 and by others to be hereafter
enumerated. 2
The Extermination of Shams and Adulteration.
It is to this remedy also that we must look for the
prevention of another form of waste incident to our
system of production.
1 Page 55 et seq. 2 Page 105 et seq.
78 EXTERMINA TION OF COMMERCIAL ERA UD.
Since capitalists will embark in any enterprise that
promises to pay them, quite irrespective of its being
adapted tc satisfy the real wants of the community,
they produce, not only every form of luxury, but also,
as has been indicated, articles which are practically
useless for any purpose, and some of which are posi-
tively deleterious — articles which none would know-
ingly buy or consume. There is no demand for these
things — the demand is for something else — but the
unscrupulous respond to this latter demand by a
supply of spurious commodities, and thus make
greater profits for themselves.
The tale of the razors made, not to cut, but to sell,
embodies a profound truth. There are any number
of wares that have either no utility whatever, or the
utility of which is only fractional, but for which by
sedulous puffing and chicanery purchasers are neverthe-
less found. " Patent Medicines " afford an almost un-
limited field for fraud of this character ; for everyone
is liable to illness, and is inclined to try anything that
promises relief. Similarly we have the adulteration
of useful articles in order to enchance profits ; and
here the process is often attended with more disastrous
results, for not only does waste take place, but there
is a positive injury to health. The man who does not
hesitate to impose worthless or inferior goods upon the
public is not over scrupulous as to the method em-
ployed : if it is necessary to knock you down in order
to pick your pocket, well — down you must go.
And the waste, as we also indicated, does not stop
here. In order to dispose of his spurious goods, the
manufacturer or seller has not merely to cultivate
MORALITY OF THE MARKET-PLACE. 79
" lying as a fine art," but has to insure that his artistic
mendacity shall reach the purchasing public. Hence
vast sums are expended in advertisements and other
forms of puffing. Labour has to be employed, not
simply in the manufacture of the wares, but in obtain-
ing for them notoriety ; l and in this way the prime
cost is often enhanced tenfold. And with some new
joint-stock enterprises "blackmail," as it is termed, is
levied, and enormous sums are paid in order to prevent
adverse (and often justly adverse) criticism. All this
labour is devoted in the main to inducing us to buy
things we should be better without, and things which
we certainly should not buy but for the deceit practised
upon us. It is really criminal waste.
Yet it is a significant fact that the imposition, unless
exceptionally flagrant, is practically winked at. So
accustomed are we to dishonesty in business trans-
actions that we have really a separate commercial
code of morality, under which candour would almost
be regarded as a vice. Men who would scorn to
deceive in private life unhesitatingly misrepresent the
quality of their merchandise ; and although they
would not think of " stealing " a sovereign, they have
no scruple in robbing a customer of a shilling.
" Tricks of the trade " are taken as a matter of course :
with the seller caveat emptor is the maxim ; and the
buyer, on discovering the imposition, generally calls
himself a fool.
When a system reaches this condition, the only cure
1 This class of waste also takes place in pushing the sale of
articles which in themselves are unobjectionable.
So REMEDY FOR COMMERCIAL FRAUD.
is eradication. There is but one remedy for waste so
flagrant — one which will continually confront us —
namely the abolition of production for Private
Profit. Men will make razors to sell and not to cut ;
they will mix useless or deleterious compounds and
boldly advertise them as panaceas, so long as it pays
them to do so. Adulteration Acts and occasional pro-
secutions in the grosser cases of deceit to some extent
act as a check on the evil; but they also tend to develop
additional astuteness in dishonesty. It is only by
withdrawing the premium placed on fraud that we
can hope to prevent the enormous loss and injury
which, in this one direction alone, proflt-mongering
entails upon the country.
The Termination of the Conflict between Capital and
Labour.
There is still, as was briefly pointed out, another
manifestation of the evil, as seen in the process of
production.
Capital and Labour have been compared to the
blades of scissors — each of which is practically useless
without the other. The simile holds good to a certain
extent ; but like most similes it will not allow of too
rigid an application. For the t} T pical scissors have an
individual owner, who is desirous of cutting the cloth
to the best advantage ; whereas each of the two blades
of our symbolic scissors has generally a separate
owner, who is anxious to cut the cloth to his advan-
tage ; the result of the conflicting interests being that
a zigzag course is often pursued, and much of the cloth
LABOUR CONFLICTS. 81
is wasted. And there comes a time, sooner or later,
when the capitalist or the labourer — but far more
frequently the latter — finding that his share of the
cloth is not so great as he thinks it should be, ab-
solutely declines to give the use of his blade without
a readjustment. The scissors remain idle, the cloth is
uncut, and waste of a graver character is the result.
" Strikes " are too often the only method by which
labour can hope to check the avarice of capital ; and
they sometimes lead to retaliation in the form of
" lock-outs." Strikes do not always succeed : they
may in some instances be very unwise ; and in others
they may even be reprehensible. But whether or not
they succeed, or are unwise, or are reprehensible, they
always mean, not merely loss to the capitalist and
privation to the labourer, but waste to the community
at large. Industry is disorganised, production is
diminished, and cost increased.
" But these inconveniences," says Mr. Gladstone,
" may be, and to a vast extent have been, the price
paid for the avoidance of a greater evil, such as is de-
priving the labourer of his just hire." 1 Quite true —
but what a sad truth ! Why did it not suggest to the
venerable and acute statesman some more practical
reflection than to " bid the labourers God-speed, and
heartily to wish that by their high standard of
conduct, their wise choice of calling, and their equal
and liberal respect for the rights of all men, or rather
all human beings, the}' may be enabled progressively
to consolidate the position they have gained, and, so
1 The Rights and Responsibilities of Labour. Lloyd's Nows,
4th May, 1800.
F
82 REMEDY FOR LABOUR CONFLICTS.
far as justice may recommend, to improve it ? " Why
did it not suggest to him to inquire whether the price
must be paid — whether the evil cannot be avoided
without, what he mildly calls, " these inconveniences " ?
The conflict is a species of civil war; but — and here
once more is the important point — it is inherent in our
system of production. Capital and labour ought to
work harmoniously together ; their true interests are
identical; but they will never work with uninter-
rupted harmony, their immediate interests will never
be regarded as identical, so long as capital is a
monopoly, and private profit the object of production.
No reform, short of the abolition of the system, can
prevent this great waste. Schemes of co-operative
industry and profit-sharing, to the extent to which
they succeed, may diminish but cannot exterminate
it. 1 They are beneficial to some; but what we require
is that all the workers shall be capitalists. Monopoly
must be extended until it shall cease to be monopoly
by taking in the entire industrial army.
Once again, then, we arrive at our now familiar
remedy; a many-sided one, of which the feature to
which we must here give prominence is the Collective
ownership of Capital — the method of accomplishing
which will be hereafter dealt with. 2
The Avoidance of Waste in Distribution.
But commodities have not only to be produced ;
they must be transferred from the manufacturer to
1 Co-operation is more fully considered at p. 147. 2 See p. 102.
WASTE IN DISTRIBUTION. 83
the consumer ; and waste, we have seen, attends this
process also.
Distribution, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, is
scarcely less important than production, and in many
cases its cost is as great, in some even greater. Coal
at the pit's mouth will not warm us ; some machinery
is required whereby it can be made available for the
domestic f.re. And obviously there is sometimes an
economy of labour in conveying commodities through
intermediate channels. The pit-owner could scarcely
satisfactorily discharge the function of delivering the
coal in separate tons to individual households; far less
in the small quantities in which many are un-
fortunately compelled to buy it, Much of the labour
employed in distribution is, and under any circum-
stances would be, valuable and even essential.
On the other hand, it is a notorious fact that we
have too many middlemen. Even raw material will
often pass through several hands before it is manu-
factured; and the process is repeated with the finished
commodity. Each intermediary has to be remunerated
for his labour, or in other words maintained ; and the
cost of course falls upon the consumer — and with
especial severity upon the poor. The well-to-do
classes who can purchase their commodities in sub-
stantial quantities of the large firms, buy at much
lower prices than can the wife of the dock labourer
who lays out her few shillings with the little shop-
keeper in obtaining driblets of the necessaries of life. 1
Waste in distribution, therefore, can in part onlybe
This is an illustration of poverty being a cause of poveity.
84 THE SOCIALISING OF DISTRIBUTION.
prevented by the removal of poverty itself. The
purchaser of half an ounce of tea must necessarily
buy in a dearer market than the purchaser of a
pound ; and the cost of the additional conduit-pipes is
unavoidable. But the evil is also in part traceable to
other causes. Distribution, like production, has the
vice of Capitalism ; that is to say, the controlling
principle is not the good of the community but private
profit. Hence we have speculation, rashness, deceit,
fraud, labour conflicts, and all the other forms of
industrial waste attending on the one process as on the
other. Combinations are effected to buy up goods, so
that prices may be inflated and profits enhanced. In
some instances — as for example in the case of agricul-
tural produce — owing to the monopolies of markets,
the middlemen occupy a far superior position to that
either of the producer or of the retailer; whilst in
other instances goods are bought and sold without
ever being seen, the delivery being direct from the
original vendor to the ultimate purchaser, although the
transaction (with its contingent profit or " commission")
is carried through by means of one or more agent or
agents.
Of late years there has undoubtedly been a growing
tendency to make distribution more direct, and Co-
operation has also been introduced with beneficial but
necessarily limited results. But that portion of this
class of waste which is due to the capitalistic system
can only be prevented by the Socialising of Distri-
bution. 1 When private profit is no longer the con-
trolling power, it will be to the interest of all to make
1 See p. 103.
WASTE OF PROFESSIONAL LABOUR. 85
the transfer of commodities to the consumer through
the most direct channel possible.
The Desuetude of many Professional Services.
There is yet, as we saw, one other class of indus-
trial waste, namely that represented by the labour of
many of the professional classes. The fault is not
theirs : under existing conditions they render un-
doubted services ; and it is only when we see that
these conditions could be altered with advantage to
the community that we realise the nature of the
waste.
Some labour of this character would, however,
always be requisite. We shall never, for instance, so
far as we can foresee, be able to dispense with the aid
of those who devote themselves to the noble work of
alleviating physical pain and assisting in the restora-
tion to health. But the professional classes are to a
larsfe extent the outcome of that artificial condition of
society which gives rise to so much waste.
We referred in particular to lawyers, valuers, and
auctioneers. An hereditary plutocracy and a mono-
polistic system have called into existence a multitude
of laws for the " protection of property," and an
elaborate machinery for effecting its exchange. And
these laws can practically only be interpreted and
enforced, and this machinery set in motion, by means
of specialists, who require a more or less expensive
education, and are accordingly able to command a
hi<di renumeration.
Make the tour of our Courts of Justice, as they are
86 EPISODES OF PROPERTY.
called, spending a few minutes in each, and you will
find that " property " is the burden of at least nine
out of ten of the cases that are being tried. In one
the question will be a disputed account or a breach of
contract ; in another the infringement of a trade-
mark or the validity of a patent ; in a third the
defects of a bill of sale or some flaw in the title to
land. Here it takes the form of an action for tres-
pass or illegal distraint ; there for breach of warranty
or fraud by directors. Now it is the construction of a
will or the administration of a deceased's estate, now
the bankruptcy of a trader or the winding up of a
company. The aspects are varied, but the subject is
the same.
Or, leaving " the sacred precincts of the law," stroll
into the city auction mart, or make the acquaintance
of some firm of appraisers. Again will you be con-
fronted with " property." Large estates are changing
hands ; mortgage securities are being brought to the
hammer ; executors are realising assets. Or you may
learn how fixtures are valued " in the usual way " —
namely, by two skilled partisans with an ultimate
referee — that reversionary interests have to be ap-
praised, and valuations for probate are required. And
so on.
Professional services of this character are rendered ne-
cessary, not by the existence of property — if they were,
they would not be waste — but mainly by the mode of
acquisition of property. It is because individuals have
the control of wealth due not to their own exertions
but to the labours of their fellows, that this elaborate
THE CAUSE OF CRIME. 87
machinery has been called into being. Under an
altered condition of industrial society, such as we
shall hereafter refer to, 1 whereby no one should be
able to appropriate the fruits of another's toil, we
should be able to disband a considerable part of these
large armies, and leave those who would otherwise
have enlisted in them free to devote their talents to
the production of social utilities. At present the
legalised exploitation of labour necessitates an enor-
mous expenditure to maintain and regulate the
anomalies to which it gives rise ; and this is waste.
The Prevention and Repression of Crime.
The List class of waste to which reference was made
was regarded as more especially national in its
character.
And the expense which Crime entails upon the
community was the first instance cited — this expense
being, not only the maintenance of the criminal (in
any case whilst he is kept in restraint, and in many
cases — as where he lives by depredation on the com-
munity — during the whole or greater part of his life),
but also the maintenance of a large body of men en-
gaged in the work of punishment and protection.
Crime may be broadly divided into two classes :
offences against the person and offences against pro-
perty. The latter largely predominates, and, in fact,
to it the former is often only incidental. The vast
majority of criminal acts proceed directly or in-
directly from a desire to obtain or keep possession
1 Page 100 ft seq.
PREVENTION OF CRIME.
of wealth. And for this society is largely responsible.
We positively place a premium on dishonesty by the
meagre reward we offer to honest toil : we legalise the
appropriation of the produce of labour, and allow men
to lead idle lives of luxury. And then we are filled
with virtuous indignation when some unfortunate
pariah, at great personal trouble and risk, contrives
to filch a purse or possibly abstract a few turnips. We
doom men to such wretched existences that the marvel
is so comparatively few should diverge from the path
of rectitude j and we provide an effectual recruiting
ground for crime by permitting the young to be
brought up amidst the most vicious surroundings.
If we are really anxious to abolish the evil, we shall
proceed to remove these potent causes. The only
remedy of any great and permanent value is the
equitable remuneration of Labour. Once brino-
about such a condition of society as that everyone
shall have an opportunity to engage in honest work ;
whilst
— " That which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed ; "
and more will be done in a single generation to
diminish crime than the whole army of judges and
bench of bishops will accomplish in an eternity under
the existing system. Withdraw the legal sanction
which is given to some to lead parasitic lives, and then
the majority of the temptations to which others are
exposed will disappear ; and in time the conditions
under which the young are reared will be incidentally
altered, and the evil thus arrested at its source.
REPRESSION OF CRIME.
We are not vindicating the criminal ; although one
can understand the veneration entertained for the
highwaymen of old who took from the rich and gave
to the poor — assuming them to be correctly credited
with the latter virtue. But it is essential to realise
that the criminal is not the only, or in some cases
even the worst, offender ; that society at large also
stands arraigned. We seek a more extended reforma-
tion than that which takes cognisance only of the
conventional law-breakers. A wider meaning must be
given to crime; it must embrace all acts which are anti-
social, by whomsoever committed. We want no scape-
goats ; and, by abolishing all excuse for wrong-doing,
must fix direct responsibility upon the wrong-doer.
And having thereby largely diminished crime,
where it still occurs, our aim will be not to punish
but to cure. The criminal will then be regarded as
the victim of a moral disease ; and whilst we shall
take measures to prevent him doing mischief, we shall
not foster his vices or breed revenge by a system of
organised brutality. Cruelty has failed in the past,
it fails to-day, and it will always fail. Our criminal
code has been a disgrace to a professedly civilised
nation. The propertied class has enacted Draconian
laws to protect property ; and to-day it often metes
out greater punishment for a petty theft than for a
bodily assault. Secure in the freedom from tempta-
tion to which its victims are exposed, it reads moral
homilies and passes vindictive sentences, in compla-
cent ignorance of its own sins. In the method of the
repression, not less than in the method of the preven-
tion, of crime reforms are urgently needed.
90 CAUSES OF MILITARISM.
The Restriction of Military Expenditure.
One other prominent instance of national waste
was referred to : namely, that clue to war and the war-
like spirit.
Bloated armaments and huge battalions indicate a
vast amount of misapplied labour. Some defensive
and precautionary measures must of course be taken ;
and until international morality reaches a higher
standard we cannot exactly afford to beat our swords
into ploughshares and our spears into pruning-hooks.
But there is no reasonable doubt that we undulv
mi
foster the military spirit ; and that this spirit leads to
acts of aggression which must be condemned by
economics not less than I33 7 morality. The private
soldier has no voice in the matter ; but his commander
pants for glory, and does not give the most peaceful
counsel ; whilst many civilians have the lust for terri-
torial aggrandisement, and " British pluck " more or
less throws a glamour over all. The capitalist again,
anxious (Aristotle notwithstanding) to make money
breed as fast as possible, has no hesitation in bolster-
ing up vicious foreign governments ; the financier sees
in the negotiation of loans an opportunity to obtain a
share of the plunder ; and then when loss is threat-
ened or sustained, we are told that "British interests"
are at stake, and militaiy expeditions, often leading
to costly annexation, are the result. Here, again, the
capitalist sees his opportunity ; trade is brisk for
the time being ; new markets are opened out ; and for
tiiese reasons there are even found men sufficiently
brutal to advocate a " good war."
DEPRESSION OF MILITARISM. 91
As -the effect of these combined influences, we have
since the Crimean blunder (which cost us £70,000,000,
£34,000,000 of this being added to our monumental
National Debt) indulged in a series of " little wars,"
most of which were entirely uncalled for, and have
thereby enormously added to our burdens ; and al-
though at times there is a lull, the process goes on
with more or less intermission.
And the waste is increased by inefficienc}^. Ex-
travagance and jobbery characterise our military
expenditure to such an extent that our comparatively
small and less effectively organised forces involve a
burden on the tax-payers nearly as great as that
borne by some of the powerful continental nations for
much larger and more perfectly equipped armies. If
this meant that we paid more regard to the comforts of
the rank and file, and recognised that those who fight
our battles deserve at least a liberal recompense, little
would have to be said on this point. But, as usual,
those who endure the greatest hardships receive the
least reward. Upon the favoured few are bestowed
salaries, pensions, and allowances, totally dispropor-
tionate to the services they render ; and for humble
" Tommy Atkins " a few pence a day must suffice.
With regard to the remedies for the evil, one of the
means of holding the military spirit in check will be
found in the adoption of those Electoral Reforms 1
already referred to. The Government must be made
more directly responsible to the people, so that those
upon whom the burden falls may have an effectual
1 See p. 55.
9 2 REFORM OF MILITA R Y ADMIN J S TRA TION.
voice in its creation. No doubt there have been
popular wars ; and if the bulk of the community
choose to indulge in this costly pastime, they cannot
grumble at having to pay the piper. But at present
large numbers have a legitimate grievance ; and hence
by another road, Adult Suffrage is the destination at
which we arrive. And we say " Adult," and not " Man-
hood " Suffrage ; for whilst women are equally in-
terested with men in all questions affecting their lives
as citizens, they have a peculiar and melancholy claim
to be considered in connection with warfare. The
ghastly battle-field means suffering enough for the
men ; but it means prolonged untold anguish for the
women : it throws heavy burdens upon the male
workers, but it also dooms emaciated wives to listen
to the pitiable wailing of their pining offspring. If
we wish to bring the most potent restraining influence
to bear upon this national waste, we must give to
every man and woman a voice in the Government.
And the Reform of military organisation and
administration is also requisite. If the sinecures'
extravagance and inefficiency of the " services " are to
be abolished, they must be no longer happy hunting-
grounds for a favoured section of society, but the
highest offices must be open to all ; and merit, and
merit only, must be the qualification for promotion.
And estimates must be so framed as to fully disclose
and not conceal the facts ; and a resolute endeavour
made to put down jobbery in all its many forms. Of
course, under existing conditions, there is little chance
of any of these improvements being effected ; and we
have once again to rely upon broadening the basis of
REMEDY FOR CAPITALISTIC WARS. 93
Government and making it more thoroughly repre-
sentative.
And to the Collective organisation of industry,
to which we have so constantly to refer, we must also
partly look for the prevention of those uncalled-for
acts of aggression which, without counting the sacrifice
of human life, entail such waste upon the community.
If so many wars are directly or indirectly traceable to
Capitalism and financial manoeuvring, we can only
avoid their repetition by striking at the root of the evil.
So long as production is carried on for private profit,
with the result that the produce of exploited labour
is constantly seeking new fields for greater exploitation,
so long shall we see the war spirit rampant, and be in
constant danger of embroilments with petty and em-
barrassed States ; and so long shall we be confronted
with the anomaly of national wealth being recklessly
squandered in order to protect private property. But
when the object of production is to satisfy the wants
of the community, and not the avarice of a section, we
shall be less keen on purchasing markets at a ruinous
expenditure, and of playing into the hands of foreign
despots, and far more inclined to count the cost of
military expeditions.
At the same time it must be confessed that war is a
matter which no single nation can entirely control.
Unjustifiable attacks are sometimes made, and must
be resisted if national life is to be preserved. Hence,
though our first duty is to put a check on our own
warlike spirit, and aim at eradicating the causes to
what it is due, we must not overlook the fact that a
94 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES.
strong State can by judicious negotiations with foreign
powers do something to promote the cause of peace.
International conferences on questions of disarmament,
arbitration where practicable in the case of disputes,
and other steps of this character, are all in the right
direction ; though it is not probable they will be pro-
ductive of the great results some anticipate. More
will probably be achieved by the general promotion
of those political and industrial reforms which we have
seen are calculated to exercise so beneficial an influence
in our own case ; and a Labour Conference is a more
hopeful sign than is a Peace Conference itself. Capi-
talistic rivalry amongst nations, each anxious to secure
the best markets, for the purpose, not of promoting
the welfare of their workers, but of enhancing the
gains of their monopolists, is a powerful factor in the
promotion of national antipathy ; and the " trade-
folio ws-the-rlag " policy has much to answer for.
THE MEANS OF ESTABLISHING EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION.
The reader will probably by this time have realised
how numerous and diversified are the manifestations
of the evils to which poverty is due. Yet the most
important features of the solution of our problem have
still to be considered. For we saw that it is the gross
inequality in the distribution of the national produce
which is the most potent cause of poverty ; and that
to this, in fact, must indirectly be traced part of the
production of luxuries at the expense of necessaries,
and much wasteful consumption. The culminating
stao-e of our investigation is now, therefore, reached.
MONOPOLIST MISCONCEPTIONS. 95
Equality not Necessary.
One disclaimer at the outset. The removal of
poverty does not require that there should be an ab-
solute equality in the distribution of wealth. If it did
we might indeed despair, for the task would be well-
uigh impossible. We could not, even by periodical
distribution, do more than approximate to equality ;
and within twenty-four hours our work would be un-
done, for some would already have largely dissipated
their share.
This latter fact is one upon which the upholders of
the present system glory in dilating, and in which
they flatter themselves they have a complete justifica-
tion of the monopolies they enjoy. Periodical redis-
tribution seems to be a fixed idea with them ; and
they like to regard all schemes of collectivism simply
as a means of compelling the virtuous and industrious
to share with the idle and vicious. And in their haste
to triumph over their opponents, they overlook the
fact that they really pronounce their own condemna-
tion. For the fatal objection which they discover,
whilst it has no application to the reforms they op-
pose, does apply to the existing order of things. All
produce comes from labour ; and to-day the inordinate
inequality in the distribution of wealth arises from
the fact that one class of men, and that the most
virtuous and industrious, as well as the largest, are
compelled to share with another class, which embraces
many of the idle and vicious.
It does not, therefore, lie in the mouths of the
96 REQUISITES OF EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION.
monopolists to prate about the immorality of equal
distribution. But it must be admitted at the same
time that a certain amount of immorality might, and
probably would, attend the process ; and that would
be a poor reform which should be open to the same
ethical objections as apply to the state of things it is
proposed to remedy. It is because this cause of
poverty arises from a vicious condition of society that
we are justified in condemning it; and clearly we
must avoid a remedy which should be open to the
criticism that it partook of the same vice.
Equitable Distribution.
What is essential is, not that wealth should be
equally divided, but merely that there should be such
a distribution as shall secure to each a sufficient
supply of " necessaries." If we can legitimately bring
about even a greater approach to equality than this, so
much the better; but it is not requisite that we should
do so in order to banish poverty. Absolute equality
is not requisite to happiness, but the removal of the
present gross inequality is ; for whilst a superfluity of
wealth is attended with little solid pleasure, an in-
sufficiency of wealth does result in intense misery, and
no one can enjoy life unless his material wants are
provided for.
And to induce such a distribution of wealth as is
called for, two things are requisite: first, every capable
adult must work ; and secondly, each must be in-
sured the results of his work. If all the members
of the community (save of course the young, the aged,
MO D1F YING FA C TORS. 97
and the infirm *) bore their fair share of the industrial
burden, and each one received the fair recompense,
there would be little fear of poverty, and none at all
if the other remedies to which reference has been made
were also adopted.
Of course we do not mean that there should be
secured to each an absolutely exact equivalent to the
utilities he produces. For in the first place the
maintenance of those unable to work would of neces-
sity fall upon the workers ; and in the second place
the " value in use " of commodities as distinguished
from their mere cost of production would affect the
ratio of their exchange. We can only therefore ap-
proximate — but that very closely — to the realisation
of the principle, " To each the products of his
labour'' ; but we can absolutely remove that inequal-
ity of distribution which arises from the grave in-
fringement of this principle, and which we have seen
to be the chief cause of poverty.
That we have on the one hand an idle or semi-idle
class, and on the other a large body of workers who
are very far from obtaining a fair recompense, is, we
have found, due to the existence of monopolies 2 —
monopolies of the instruments of production. And
" monopoly in all its forms," says John Stuart Mill,
" is the taxation of the industrious for the support of
indolence, if not of plunder." 3 The receivers of Rent,
whether of land or of capital, and to some extent even
of ability, annex a large portion of the produce of
1 Page 22. 2 Rage 33.
8 Principles of Political Economy, book iv. , chap, vii., sec. 7.
Q
9 8 THE CRY OF " CONFISCATION."
others' labour. One day's work in six is exacted by
the ground-landlord for the permission to use the
soil of what we sarcastically call God's free earth.
Rather more than another day's work in six is exacted
by the interest-receiver for permission to use the
capital which the labourers have produced. And yet
considerably more than another day's work in six is
exacted by an abler class for permission to obtain
those services which, owing largely to superior oppor-
tunities, 1 they alone are able to render. In all nearly
four days out of six are spent by the unskilled
labourer in work for the benefit simply of others ;
and the value of the produce of the remaining two
days and a fraction is all that is left to himself as the
reward of his industry.
This, therefore, is the condition of things we have
to alter.
Of course the monopolists will cry " confiscation."
For it is part of the outcome of privilege that its
possessors consider they have a vested interest in its
continuance. The man who has systematically lived
on the labour of others imagines that he has a right
to command that labour for all his life, and to be-
queath to his children a similar right. Immorality
produces immorality ; and in time actually comes to
be looked upon as morality by those who benefit
from it. Hence the monopolists are never so virtuous
as when they preach the sacredness of property and
the sanctity of contract. " Has not a man a right to his
1 See page 123.
THE SYSTEM RESPONSIBLE. 99
own f Cannot be make what bargain be pleases ? " — ■
positively regarding as bis own the fruits of another's
toil, and claiming an equity to bargain that he sbould
reap where he has not sown.
We must not, however, be indignant with the men :
the system has come down to them from their an-
cestors ; they have grown up under it ; the law
(largely, though, be it said, made by those of their own
class) has sanctioned it, and they have always been
taught to regard it as just. And although during the
last half century some rude shocks have been ad-
ministered to them by fiscal reforms which it is diffi-
cult to harmonise with the " sacredness of property,"
and by restrictive legislation which has ruthlessly
brushed aside the " sanctity of contract," x these
measures have met with the most vigorous protests,
and have been regarded even by their own supporters
rather as removing abuses of the system than as an
attack on the system itself. The individual mono-
polists, therefore, can scarcely be held morally re-
sponsible for the existence of the evil ; where they
are to blame is in opposing any effort to remove it.
This, however, largely proceeds from ignorance — ■
oftentimes wilful, it must be admitted — and to Educa-
tion, therefore, we must once more look. The
wealthy classes doubtless display great erudition, but
of Social Science and the ethics of distribution they
are woefully ignorant, and though their ignorance is
no doubt bliss to them, we must do our best to dispel
it.
1 See page 153.
ioo THE NATURE OF RENT.
Democratic Socialism.
But the actual method of bringing about an equitable
distribution of the products of labour can only be found
in the re-organisation of industrial society. Grave
evils require drastic remedies ; and when a system is
incurably bad it must give place to another. Mono-
polies can only be reformed by being reformed out of
existence.
Rent itself will always exist, call it by what name
you will ; for it is simply the produce which labour
commands under any given circumstances beyond that
which it can obtain when carried on under the most
disadvantageous conditions. The man who works on
the worst soil, with, say a spade, as his sole capital,
and with the minimum of ability, is on the " margin of
cultivation " ; and all produce which is yielded to the
equal labour of another in excess of that obtained by
the first — whether due to more advantageous soil,
larger capital, or to greater ability — is Eent. And it
is this Rent (save as to a portion of that due to ability,
to which we shall presently refer x ) which should be
utilised for the common good.
With the disposal of the present hoard of accumu-
lated wealth, or its quid pro quo, we need not interfere.
Although it has been acquired by the labour of others,
its appropriation by certain individuals has been
sanctioned by the law ; and whilst the law itself was
unjust, there would be some harshness in retrospective
legislation. All we need aim at is, not to remedy past
1 Page 121 et seq.
THE SOCIALISING OF MONOPOLIES. ioi
injustice, but to prevent its continuance by rendering
impossible the exploitation of labour in the future. In
other words, we need not divert to the State the
present value of the Land and Capital; what we want
to obtain is the future Rent and Interest. The exist-
ing owners of wealth may be left to consume that
wealth ; but they must eventually be deprived of the
power it now gives them both of continuously annex-
ing the products of industry and of retaining intact
their present store. If a man possess say £10,000, he
would be allowed to draw upon the community in
consumable goods to that extent, but he would not be
allowed to exact, by virtue of his ownership, some
£400 or £500 per annum from labour, and still retain
his £10,000, with power to pass it on to his descendants,
so as to enable them to make a like exaction. Every
£1 of produce he would receive — unless as the result
of his own labour — would go in reduction of the
£10,000 : he must eat his own large cake, and not be
permitted, because he or his ancestors succeeded in
hlching this, to continue to filch a small cake every year
from others. If he be, the problem of poverty will
never be solved otherwise than on paper, and injustice
and immorality will continue.
And how is the socialising of monopolies to be ac-
complished — how is rent to be diverted from the
pockets of a few to the pockets of all ?
The answer is — by the adoption of a complete
system of Collective production and distribution,
gradually brought about by the Taxation of the mono-
polists. The land should be bought by degrees at a
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIRRARY
102 SOCIALISED INDUSTRY.
fair price, but without compensation for compulsory
purchase, or for houses (save to the value of materials,
less cost of removal) condemned as being in a
flagrantly unsanatory condition ; and industry should
be organised on socialistic principles. The necessary
purchase money and capital would be obtained in the
first instance by loans (thus affording additional
opportunities for investments in a form most calcu-
lated to benefit the community), the interest on which
would be paid out of taxes levied on the incomes de-
rived from monopoly. 1 And as socialised industry
extended, production for private profit would
necessarily diminish, until ultimately it disappeared,
save in the case of those utilities which take the form
of " services " of a purely personal character (such as
are rendered by a physician, for example) and not
depending on a nionopoty of the instruments of pro-
duction. This would result in the gradual lowering
of the rate of interest, for as the opportunities for the
profitable employment of capital by private indivi-
duals diminished, the return to it would also diminish ;
and although higher interest might (as now) be
offered by foreign Governments, save where the same
reforms were in progress, this would simply mean
increased risk. Indeed, it is probable that in time
individuals would be glad to regard the Government
1 Of course, this would also diminish the value of the monopolies,
and thus indirectly annex part of land and capital. But, owing
to the operation necessarily being of a protracted character, the
monopolists would still, with the future rent and interest they
would receive, obtain the full present value of their land and
capital.
ESTABLISHMENT OF EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION. 103
simply as bankers upon whom they had a drawing
account ; and, at length, the loans would be wiped
out by payment in consumable goods, as they were
demanded. Simultaneously the skill and efficiency of
the workers would be increased by giving to all equal
opportunities of acquiring knowledge. And payment
for labour would be affected by tokens, not necessarily
in the form of money (for the cost of obtaining the
precious metals would be largely saved), but probably
in the form of paper currency, which would be ex-
changed against commodities, having regard to their
value in use.
In this way the community would acquire the
ownership of the land and capital ; rent and interest
would cease to be a tax on labour ; ability and skill
would be more general, and the reward of labour
therefore less disproportionate; the workers would
receive the approximate equivalent of the products of
their industry ; everyone would have to work or pay
the penalty of idleness ; equitable distribution would
be established, and the main cause of poverty would
be eradicated.
With individual consumption there would be no
interference, unless it be considered an interference to
provide everyone with the means of consumption.
Many of the fanciful wants to which a superfluity of
wealth gives rise would, of course, disappear ; and the
production of some articles would, therefore, be
diminished or abandoned ; but subject to this, each
worker would be able to obtain in exchange for his
labour what commodities he desired (though he would
104 TRUE INDIVIDUALISM.
naturally demand, in the first instance, some of the
more general forms of " necessaries "), and, if so in-
clined, could produce for his own use. Nay, there
need be no restriction placed on individualistic pro-
duction : a man might not only make his own bread,
he could keep a baker's shop if he pleased. But he
would not please, because his own labour would
thereby be less productive, and he would be unable to
exploit the labours of others. According to his
inclination and taste, however, his leisure would, no
doubt, be partly devoted to what ma}' be called
artistic production ; and there would be no restraint
on freedom of exchange, gift, and bequest. Saving
could also take place, for consumption need not pro-
ceed pari passu with production ; it could in part
be postponed ; and it might under certain circum-
stances in part even be anticipated. Individual
freedom in the choice of work would be greater than
now ; for at present the only freedom which large
masses possess is to choose between one form of
drudgery and another. That class of work which,
though not calling for more than average skill, is,
when prolonged, very detrimental to health, or is of a
specially distasteful character, would be appraised so
as to secure an exceptional mitigation of the hours of
labour ; whilst it is also to be anticipated that, with
the progress of science, the volume of such work would
be considerably diminished.
In short, Socialism is true Individualism ; and the
latter is impossible without the former. To-day what
we call Individualism means the license of the few
and the bondage of the many. Under industrial
N
THE PRACTICAL PROGRAMME. 105
collectivism, we should abolish both these evils, and
establish in their place the liberty of all ; the only-
restriction on that liberty being the one due to the
natural law of nihil sine labore.
The Programme for To-Day.
The foregoing is, of course, but a very brief and
necessarily imperfect outline of the method by which
alone equitable distribution can be brought about.
For it does not come within the scope of the present
treatise to enter into the minutiae of a scheme which
requires a volume to itself, and which has been ex-
haustively treated by many able writers, whom the
reader desirous of pursuing the subject can readily
consult. 1 Our only aim has been to indicate, as
clearly as brevity permits, the main features of that
radical industrial reform by which the most potent
cause (and to a large extent the less potent causes)
of poverty will be removed ; and it is the earlier
stages of the process that we are more especially con-
cerned to examine in detail.
For one fact is apparent — this radical reform can
only be accomplished by degrees. We cannot annex
rent and interest and socialise our industries in a day.
By physical force the workers might (always assum-
ing they were not first bludgeoned or shot) succeed in
pulling down ; but they would be quite unable at a
moment's notice to build up ; and mere destruction
1 See, for example, The Quintessence of Socialism, by Dr. A.
Shaffle (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1889) ; and
Fabian Essays in Socialism (note, ante p. 18).
1 06 THE E VOL UTIONAR Y ME THOD.
without reconstruction would simply mean chaos.
Some few daring spirits, keenly stung by the injustice
of the present system, and lacking philosophical train-
ing, may be anxious to make the grand coup ; but any
one who soberly studies the problem in all its bear-
ings will readily see that the procedure must take
the less heroic form of a gradual transition from the
old order to the new ; a simultaneous contraction of
individual license and expansion of social freedom.
The ultimate goal is, we have seen, the revolution of
our industrial organisation ; so as to perfect that
revolution to socialised production which machinery
inaugurated 1 (only to be accompanied by a rapid
growth of monopoly and of individualised exchange),
and bring about complete socialised distribution — but
it must be accomplished by evolutionary methods.
Hence we want a programme for to-day — one which,
whilst keeping the goal steadily in view, and not
sacrificing any ultimate and permanent gain to some
mere partial or transitory advantage, shall proceed on
perfectly practical lines ; shall command the approval
of the democracy, and thus ensure its adoption by
constitutional means ; and shall have a complete
ethical justification, so as to have no demoralising
effect upon the nation. Such a programme has
already been formulated, and many of its leading
features have been endorsed (if, indeed, not initiated)
by a large class of earnest politicians, of whom many
seem, in the concentration of their activities on the
immediate present, scarcely conscious of the direction
1 See The Ethics of Socialism, by E. Belfort Bax (London :
Swan Sonnenschein & Co.), second edition, pp. 36 and 37.
TAXES ON LAND. 107
in which they are travelling. In the main it consists
of such an alteration of the incidence of taxation as
shall relieve labour by the transfer to the shoulders
of the landlords and capitalists of the burdens they
have so largely evaded, and in the gradual extension
of the functions of government, so as to secure to the
workers an increasing share of the produce.
The Transfer of Rent to the Community.
With regard to Land, the fiscal reforms proposed
are the Taxation of Ground Values by the local
authorities, a Land Tax for imperial purposes, and
the readjustment of the Death Duties, with a
partial grant to municipal bodies.
At present, in London alone, we make an annual
gift to the ground landlords of between four and five
million pounds: 1 that is to say, the capitalised value
of the land is that much more at the end of a year
than it was at the be^inninsf. This arises from
improvements paid for out of the rates, and from the
increased demand for land created by the growth and
immigration of population ; and not one penny of it
is due to any expenditure or exertion on the part of
the landlords, as such. To divert, therefore, from the
individual to the community the "unearned incre-
ment," as it is called (by which is meant, not that
something is evolved out of nothing, but that it is not
earned by the men who receive it), cannot be con-
sidered a process of taxation at all ; and although to
obtain it the same machinery will be employed as that
1 Fabian Tract, No. 8, p. 11.
io8 LAND TAX ANOMALIES.
by which local revenue is raised, it will, in reality,
simply be the discontinuance of a system of bounties.
The present Land Tax, again, of four shillings in the
pound, is levied (where not altogether commuted) on
an assessment made two hundred years ago ; and the
result is that it brings in a little over £1,000,000,
whereas if assessed on the " true annual value," 1 it
would bring in about £40,000,000. But by retaining
the old assessment, whilst other property is periodically
re-valued, parliaments of landlords have contrived to
transfer this State rent to themselves ; so that they
have not only gained the unearned increment on the
four-fifths of the land they possessed, but have an-
nexed the portion which has accrued on the fifth the
community once enjoyed. Moreover, in the case of
vacant land they have evaded all imposts; although
such land is frequently kept vacant, to the detriment
of the community generally, with a view to obtain
that enormously increased value — the most startling
instance of the unearned increment — which attaches
to ground when required for building purposes.
And once more, whilst there is a Probate Duty of
three per cent, payable in respect of personal property,
no such burden is imposed upon land ; and whilst
there is a further Legacy Duty payable in one sum
on the capitalised value of personalty, the correspoml-
1 This includes the value of buildings, note ante p. 33.
The tax, however, was imposed "not as a Land Tax at all, but as
part of a general tax of four shillings in the pound on the
annual value of all realised property and saleable interests, farm
stock and household furniture alone exempted." Fabian Tract,
No 7, p. 8.
REFORMS IN LAND TAXATION. 109
ing Succession Duty on realty is payable by instal-
ments and is calculated on the value of the successor's
life-interest only. A half-hearted reform, however,
was made in 1888 by the raising of the rates of the
Succession Dut}^ ; but this was accomplished in so
bungling a manner as to give the maximum of trouble,
and practically to necessitate the insertion of an
additional clause in all wills. And, although another
step was taken in 1889 by the establishment of an
" Estate-Duty " of one per cent, on all property above
the value of £10,000, a new anomaly was intro-
duced ; for whilst this Duty is payable on personalty
irrespective of the mode of its distribution, land
escapes unless the value of the amount descending to
a single heir is above the sum stated ; and the most
important feature of the new impost is that it
emphasises the principal of graduation previously
recognised in the Probate Duty as to property under
the value of £1000. x
Our practical programme, then, comprises the im-
position of a portion of the Local Rates on the owner
of the soil, a Land Tax based on periodical valuation,
and an equitable adjustment of the Death Duties. 2
Apart from the broader principles which have been
discussed, no one can possibly have a vested interest
in any given system of taxation ; on the contrary, it
1 For full information as to the Death Duties and their anoma-
lies, see Messrs. Sydney Buxton and G. S. Barnes' Handbook
(London : John Murray, 1890).
2 Mining Royalties are substantially governed by the same
principles as Rent of Land and should be taxed accordingly.
no D IS ENDOWMENT OF THE CHURCH.
is the duty of a Government to adjust the national
burdens in the most equitable manner; and, indeed,
nearly every }^ear has witnessed some alteration
effected.
With regard to the imposts affecting income, there
must be a statutory provision, similar to that applying
to the present Property Tax, 1 whereby the landlords
shall be prevented from transferring the obligation to
the tenant ; and with regard to those affecting corpus,
the present anomalies must be swept away by the
simple expedient of making all classes of property vest
at death in the same legal representative, and subject
to the same duties ; 2 whilst, in addition, the cumulative
principle should be extended by making the rate con-
tinuously increase in proportion to the amount of
inherited wealth. 3
Other incidental reforms mis^ht be mentioned, but
it will suffice if we refer to one of the most important,
namely, the Disendowment of the Church. This
(after making ample provision for compensation in
respect of individual life-interests and the ownership
of advowsons, etc.) would liberate about £100,000,000
of national wealth, now applied for sectarian purposes.
The income of the Church is chiefly derived from
1 This would cease to be levied on land if a separate Land
Tax were imposed. But it might be more convenient that
revenue from land should be taxed in the same way as revenue
from capital. See p. 114.
2 The Intestate Estates Act, 1890, provides that in certain
events real and personal estate shall belong absolutely to the same
person — the widow.
3 See p. 115 as to the incidence of the Death Duties.
A CQ UISITION OF LAND— BE TTERMEN1 '. 1 1 1
Tithe Rent Charge, or toll levied on present labour ; the
power to levy it has been acquired from the State ;
the legal ownership of all the property is vested in the
State (the. Church, indeed, lacking the first requisite
of such legal ownership, namely, a corporate exist-
ence), and many of its eminent members have candidly
recognised the fact that so-called Church property is
national property. Were it the duty of the State to
teach religion — or ratherto teach Episcopalianism — the
Church of England would be a good instance of u
socialistic institution ; but as it simply provides
spiritual ministrations of which the majority do not
avail themselves, and which large numbers entirely
repudiate, another instance of a monopoly is afforded.
Simultaneously with these fiscal reforms, which will
result in the gradual diversion of Rent to the com-
munity, we can proceed with the direct acquisition
Of the land itself; by which not only the ultimate
object will be promoted, but much immediate benefit
will accrue to the poorer classes. Some of the
provincial municipalities have already made rapid
strides in this direction ; and London has at length
awakened to a sense of its responsibility. 1
And by the adoption of the principle of " Better-
ment" or "Recoupment," we can secure to the citizens
the full advantages arising from some class of im-
provements made out of the rates. The obvious effect
of widening a thoroughfare or making a park is to
enormously enhance the value of the abutting or
surrounding property ; and this is one of the ways in
1 See p. 153 et scq, as to what has as yet been accomplished.
H2 AGRICULTURAL ALLOTMENTS.
which we have enriched the owners of the soil at the
expense of the ratepayers — taxing the householders
to " better " the property of the landlords. But by
adopting the expedient, when land is required for a
given improvement, of imposing a special rate on
that which by its proximity is incidentally improved,
or of acquiring such land itself, the full benefit of the
expenditure is retained for those who make it, and by
the latter method Land Nationalisation is promoted
at the same time.
The acquisition of agricultural areas by public
bodies, and the grant of allotments to labourers, are
also steps in the direction of securing to the com-
munity the rent of the soil, and to the workers the
products of their industry ; and will promote agricul-
ture, and tend to relieve the pressure on town popula-
tion. But the allotments must be by lease only ; and
whilst the principle of compensation for improvements
must receive full recognition, the municipality, once
having obtained a grip upon any portion of the soil,
must never relax it, or monopoly instead of being
abolished will be strengthened. 1 And even leases
would be incident only to the transition period ; for
under a socialistic regime the agricultural labourer, in
common with all the workers, would be insured the
full reward of his industry.
The Transfer of Interest to the Community.
Passing on to the consideration of Rent of Capital,
we must make one preliminary observation, namely
1 The infringement of this principle is one of the vices of the
Irish Land Act of 1891. See p. 142 " Peasant Proprietorship."
OBJECTIONS TO " THE SINGLE TAX." n
that it is imperative such rent should be dealt with
simultaneously with that of land.
Whilst all monopolies are bad, it would be grossly
unfair to make scapegoats of one particular class of
monopolists. Hence we can have nothing to do with
Mr. Henry George's proposal of a single tax levied on
ground-landlords. It is impossible to justify such
partiality as would be involved in the heavy taxation
(avowedly with the object of annexing the whole
economic rent) of a man who had inherited or invested
his wealth in the form of Land, whilst the fortunate
individual whose inheritance or investments took the
form of Consols was allowed to escape. If the owner
of land has no moral right to future rent, neither has
the owner of capital any moral right to future interest.
In principle the economic effect of each monopoly is
the same, namely an abstraction of a portion of the
produce of labour (although, no doubt, the tendency
of rent as a whole is to rise, 1 and the tendency of
interest to diminish 2 — for the reason that the land is
circumscribed, but capital is augmented every year).
And in remedying injustice we must aim at being
scrupulously just; and if no one has the right to
appropriate the fruits of another's industry, some
offenders would have reasonable grounds to complain
of harshness if they had to answer not only for
1 Under a Free-Trade regime, agricultural rent has fallen,
since the importation of corn is equivalent to an extension of
the land. But ground-rents have enormously risen; for we
cannot import building land.
2 By this of course is meant the rate of interest, and not its
aggregate amount.
H
ii 4 INCOME TAX REFORM.
their own offences but for those of others equally
culpable.
Nor would our problem be solved by such a partial
procedure. If the most potent cause of poverty is
the grave inequality in the distribution of wealth, we
must abolish all the monopolies from which such in-
equality proceeds before we can entirely eradicate
this cause. The mere transfer of rent of land to the
community, whilst it would do something, would not
do everything; 1 and each step which we take to retain
for the workers a portion of the produce which the
landlords absorb should be accompanied by a step
which shall retain for the workers a portion of the
produce which the capitalists absorb.
One of the most effectual fiscal reforms in the
direction of effecting a transfer of interest to the
community is a Differentiated and Graduated
Income Tax. The principle is to some extent em-
bodied in our present tax on income, which, though
far from ideal, is perhaps the nearest approach we
have made to an equitable method of raising revenue.
By the exemption of small incomes, and the rebate in
respect of the compai^atively small, we have in some
slight measure recognised the injustice of allowing the
cost of Government to fall upon those who are already
so heavily taxed by the monopolist classes, and have
made some feeble approach towards equitable distri-
bution. But as yet we have introduced no distinction
1 Of the £850,000,000, the total of the "three rents," a tax
of 20j- in the £ on the land alone (Mr. George would exclude
the buildings) would only annex about £130,000,000. Note p. 34.
DEA TH D UTIES ON PERSONAL TY. 115
between earned and unearned incomes ; and the idle
dilettante and the man of business stand precisely
upon the same footing. What therefore we require
(until such time as we can annex tht; whole of the
interest) is, in the first place a differentiation of
revenue, according as it is derived from investments
and from industrial pursuits, and an exemption in the
latter case of a sum equal to fair wages of superinten-
dence ; and in the second place an upward graduation
in the rate of the tax, according to the amount of the
income enjoyed. In this way we should deal equitably
between the landlords and capitalists ; and should
grapple as effectually with the second as with the first
of the monopolies from which unjust distribution arises.
One other fiscal reform, namely a Graduated Pro-
bate and Legacy Duty on personalty, the rate
increasing in proportion to the amount of inherited
wealth, would of course be involved in the equalisa-
tion of the Death Duties and the introduction of the
cumulative principle already referred to ; and indeed
in this respect no distinction between real and per-
sonal property would be recognised. Taxes payable
on the decease of owners of property have the peculiar
advantage that they in one sense come out of nobody's
pocket. The dead man can be deprived of nothing ;
and those who succeed him are merely the recipients
of gifts ; so that the tax really acts as a mere limita-
tion of the power of bequest, and is equivalent to a
transfer of wealth to the State at a period when he
who owned it can no longer enjoy it.
We have already referred, when dealing with the
1 1 6 MUNICIPALISA TlON OF LIQ UOR TRAFFIC.
means of increasing production, to the acquisition by
the State or municipalities of railway, tram, gas,
water, and other large industrial enterprises; 1 and
this of course will also transfer to the community
part of the rent of capital. Municipal bodies might
also, with similar beneficial result, take over the entire
Liquor Traffic — a traffic which is a pure monopoly
(though its tenure may be regarded as precarious,
after the recent declaration of the law 2 ), which yields
an enormous profit, and which is perhaps the least
defensible of all monopolies since it chiefly thrives at
the cost of the material and social degradation of the
people. 3
The extension of useful public works by muni-
cipal bodies should also be promoted, especially during
periods of distress, if only with the object of dealing
more satisfactorily with the unemployed than by
affording them meagre Poor Law relief. With the
complete nationalisation of the instruments of pro-
duction and the social organisation of labour, the en-
forced idleness to which capitalism has given rise will
of course disappear ; but during the transition period
1 See p. 56.
2 Decision of the House of Lords on 20th March, 1891, in the
case of SJiarpe v. Wakefield, that the Licensing Justices have an
absolute judicial discretion to grant or refuse an application for
the renewal of a licence.
3 There is little doubt that this would also lead to a diminu-
tion in the consumption of drink ; and consequently to an
enormous moral gain. During tours in Sweden and Norway
where the " Gothenburgh System " prevails, or types of it exist,
the present writer discovered scarcely any manifestation of
drunkenness.
PUBLIC WORKS. 117
we can only approximate to the desired end ; and
whilst some of the reforms already referred to, such
as an eight hours day, will lead to the absorption of
many of the unemployed, other means are also re-
quired ; and by the method indicated we shall be
travelling towards our ultimate destination. Ob-
viously capital and organisation are all that is neces-
sary, since those who now lack employment could
then be engaged in supplying their own wants, either
directly, or indirectly by the exchange of their pro-
duce. This latter fact appears to be overlooked by
those who fear that public workshops would lower
wages generally. They assume apparently that the
demand for produce would remain the same ; and con-
clude, therefore, that as there would be an addition to
the ranks of those who create the supply, there must
be a fall in wages ; losing sight of the circumstance
that the new men themselves increase the effective de-
mand.
By the expansion in these various directions of
municipal activity the way will be paved for the
gradual acquisition of the larger Commercial Trusts
and Joint-Stock Companies, the transfer of which
would be effected with scarcely any greater inter-
ference with business than is involved in a merchant's
annual stock-taking. The capitalists in fact have
themselves made manifest many of the advantages of
collectivism ; they have long been engaged in the
agreeable process of destroying individualistic pro-
duction, and of swallowing up the smaller manu-
facturers and merchants, in charming unconsciousness
of the fact that they have been thereby advancing
n8 WOMEN WORKERS.
socialistic production, and will in due course them-
selves be swallowed up. This may enable us for the
time to bear with them more patiently than would
otherwise be possible, since we can calmly look for-
ward to the end. " The expropriation of the many
by the few " culminates, by the process of evolution,
in " the expropriation of the few by the many.''
But meanwhile there is amongst the expropriated
many, one class who have a peculiar claim upon our
sympathies, and with regard to whom a special word
should be said— the Women Workers.
It is a trite saying that a woman's place is in her
home, though it is generally used as a sneer at those
women arho have some conception of the duties of
citizens, and who venture to form an opinion on the
laws by which they are governed. The saying, how-
ever, is largely true in itself, abused though it may be
in its application. A home without a woman's con-
stant care is not an attractive spot ; and whilst her
husband or brother must go forth into the world to
find his work, in her case domestic duties have the
first claim — though neither male nor female should be
neglectful of social obligations.
But unfortunately, under existing conditions there
are numbers of women 1 whom dire necessity compels
to go out to work. That those who are free from
domestic cares should engage in some suitable business
occupation is of course very desirable, for the vice of
idle-consumption does not depend upon sex. That
1 The number of female wage-earners is estimated at over four
millions.
WOMEN'S WAGES. 119
wives should have no choice but to eke out their
husband's scanty earnings, and widows should have to
toil for a miserable pittance to maintain their children,
is deplorable. And that, having to assist or constitute
themselves the bread-winners, their work should in
some cases be more badly paid than that of men,
although equally efficient, is another blot on our in-
dustrial S3'stem. To-day there are many women
whose labour does not command an appreciably higher
remuneration than does that of an office boy. 1 The
" sweating system " seems to have singled them out as
its special victims ; a large class of them are outside
the scope of the Factory Acts, and work twelve,
fourteen, and even sixteen hours a day ; and their
employment is more irregular and fluctuating than
that of men, partly owing to the fact that with
numbers maternity prevents them engaging in those
occupations where uninterrupted service is required.
Woman, in short, is in more senses than the physical,
the weaker vessel ; and it is the weakest who go to
the wall.
With unrestrained competition this is inevitable.
Employers will not as a rule pay more than the
market rate of wages ; and the rate with women is
lower than with men for several reasons. They are
unable to effectively organise ; they can contrive to
1 Improvement, however, is taking place ; and some classes of
female labour are better (or, rather, less badly) remunerated;
and the avenues open to women are being extended. But, hero
again, it is with the skilled branches that the improvement is
marked, and few signs of it are seen in the case of unskilled
female labour.
120 EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.
subsist upon less than can a man ; when they have
husbands whose incomes are inadequate they are con-
tent to accept any remuneration which means a small
addition to the family purse ; and some who are not
dependent on their earnings for their support engage
in occupations which, though inadequately remunerated,
are not uncongenial in themselves, and supply them
with the means of obtaining comforts or luxuries they
would not otherwise command.
The evil, therefore, will never be entirely banished
until we attain to that brighter condition of industrial
society when labour shall have its full reward ; and
when it is realised that the " utilities " resulting from
domestic work are part of the necessaries of healthy
existence, and that it is of the first importance, not
only to the morality but to the industrial efficiency of the
community, that those upon whom devolves the care
of the young should in the main be free to devote
themselves to the efficient discharge of their maternal
duties. But in the meantime it may be pointed ou.t
that all those measures which have been advocated as
tending to raise the condition of the male workers must
indirectly be beneficial to their female relatives (and
therefore to the future generation), by more or less
relieving them from the necessity of engaging in wage-
work, and thereby allowing them to devote more
attention to their homes. And this will also benefit
those women who still have to seek for employment,
by reducing the number and consequent competition ;
thus enabling them to command a higher wage. And
by restrictive legislation, which shall extend the
principle of the Factory Acts to employments now
INCREASE OF ABILITY. 121
untouched, and reduce the maximum working-day,
and especially by a more efficient supervision where-
by the evasion of the law shall be less easy than now,
the female workers will obtain the beneficial results
we have seen flow from measures of this character.
That such measures may be promoted is another
reason why the franchise should be extended to
women — who form the majority of the community ;
and, until adult suffrage is obtained, those who have
the vote should, not only from feelings of chivalry to
the other sex, but from a sense of that duty which is
imposed upon the strong to protect the weak, do their
utmost to promote such legislation as will assist in
rescuing their sisters from the cruel drudgery to which
so many of them have been doomed by a pitiless
capitalism.
The Raising of the Standard of Ability.
We reach at length the consideration of the remedies
for the evils arising from the last of our three rents
— that of Ability.
And here the objection may be taken that at least
this rent is the reward of labour ; and that, therefore,
if our only aim is to secure to each the products of his
industry, this third monopoly must remain untouched.
The objection is plausible, but it is based upon a half
truth ; and a careful analysis is necessary before we
can appreciate the actual facts.
In the first place, it is to be observed that a large
portion of what is called the remuneration of skill is
1 22 ANAL YSIS OF ' ' PROF] TS. "
obtained, not from labour, but from capita/. A
successful merchant may "make" £10,000 or £20,000
per annum, and after debiting five per cent, on the
money invested in his business, he considers the
balance is the result of his industry. As a matter of
fact no single individual can possibly produce in a
year utilities of the value of several thousand pounds j 1
and that any are able to obtain such an income from
business, whilst due partly to their skill in organisa-
tion, largely arises from the power which the posses-
sion of capital — or credit (which is practically the
same thing) — gives them of appropriating a portion
of the fruits of the labour of others. To a man em-
ploying thousands of workmen, a very small profit
obtained from each makes a goodly pile for himself ;
and even after deducting losses and insurance for
business risk, it is possible for him to derive a princely
income. Obviously, however, he has not himself
" earned " this income.
No special justification therefore is necessary for the
acquisition by the community of that portion of pro-
fits which is due to the private ownership of capital,
nor is any special method of acquisition required.
The income so obtained, although usually considered
1 We are here dealing with the production of material wealth.
With regard to utilities which take the form of specialised ser-
vices that only a limited few can perform, they have a pure
monopoly value, and it is impossible to fix any practical limit.
The Rent of Ability of a skilled physician, an Attorney-General,
or a prima-donna, finds its maximum only in the highest price
the community is willing to pay rather than dispense with their
services. But with the gradual disappearance of a plutocracy
such price will gradually fall.
ABILITY DUE TO OPPORTUNITIES. 12?
the reward of skill, is more properly rent of capital
than of ability ; and as such it will be justly reached
by those means for affecting a transfer of interest to
the community which have already been pointed out.
But further, all ability is largely traceable to
superior opportunities. For a man, born of cul-
tivated parents, and gifted with great mental powers,
whose body has been carefully nourished, and whose
mind has been stored with knowledge, to claim as of
right all the wealth his ability enables him to acquire
in excess of that which can be commanded by a man,
sprung from an ignorant stock and of low intellectual
calibre, who has been brought up in poverty and lacks
education, presents a confusion of moral ideas charac-
teristic of a monopolist. Such an individual is not
virtuous because he produces greater utilities than his
humble brother, Hnd from an ethical point of view is
not entitled to a greater reward. No man can do more
than his best, and it may be that of the two the lowly
labourer is the nobler character. " Unto whomsoever
much is given, of him shall much be required."
Personal merit, however, does enter in. That a
man has availed himself of his opportunities by devel-
oping his faculties, and is industrious and persever-
ing, is undoubtedly to his credit ; and whilst to a
great extent the opportunities themselves are not of
his own creating, he occupies a higher plane than the
man who is negligent and slothful, and to that extent
he is entitled to the remuneration his skill commands.
Ability, then, is partly due to objective causes, and
as such has no special claim to be rewarded ; and is
124 LE FELLING- UP.
partly due to subjective causes, and as such stands on
a different basis. An exact apportionment need not
be attempted, since it is not proposed to nationalise
skill by dividing all produce equally amongst the
population, or even by imposing a special tax on rent
of ability. As it forms a portion of the individual
income it will, of course, be partly reached by an in-
come tax (as it is at the present time), but a differ-
entiated income tax will really tend to the exemption
of the rewards of that ability which is due to subjec-
tive causes. And when rent of ability is invested
in land and capital, it will become subject to whatever
burdens are imposed on land and capital ; but this
simply means that the rent has been capitalised, and
that it is not the original rent, but the new rent which
that is now producing which is being taxed.
Our remedy for the present inequality should
lather take the form of levelling up, by affording to
all the opportunities of becoming able. Free (we use
the conventional term, although the cost of course
ultimately falls upon labour) and thoroughly efficient
education, 1 including physical and manual training,
should be given to everyone ; and, to secure satis-
factory administration, all rate-aided schools should
be subject to popular control ; adequate provision
should be made for advanced and technical instruc-
tion, and public scholarships should be awarded, thus
enabling every individual to develop to the full the
faculties he or she may possess, and removing the
veto which poverty now frequently places on the
1 The Act of X891 is an important step in this direction.
DE VEL OPMENT OF ABILITY. 1 25
cultivation of special gifts. 1 In this way not only-
will much of the resources of the nation, hitherto
wasted, be available for the common good, but rent of
ability will be diminished without giving rise to fears
(groundless though they be) that able men would
sulk or leave the country ; the result being brought
about by the happy expedient of " raising the margin
of cultivation," or, in other words, raising the com-
paratively low standard of ability, and thereby
diminishing that disparity to which, as we have seen,
the rent is traceable.
And thus we shall approximate to a nationalisation
of that portion of rent of ability which is now due to
superior advantages. That which is due to personal
merit will remain to the individual — and also (since
natural capacities will always differ) something over.
This latter, however, will not be so much as might at
first sight appear ; for the most important form of
rent of ability is the profit on industrial management,
and when thousands possess the necessary cpialification
in lieu of hundreds, such rent must considerably
fall. Moreover, if, even in this age of competition
and profit-mongering, we have successful merchants
devoting large portions of their gains to the benefit
of the community, as by the establishment of public
libraries, and similar beneficent institutions, we may
1 The misapplied Metropolitan Endowments could be very
properly devoted to some of these objects. The Royal Com-
mission appointed in 1880 reported that the funds of the City
Guilds were available for the public purposes of the people of
London, and recommended that they should, amongst other
purposes, be applied to Education.
126 DIFFERENCE IN NORMAL ABILITY.
well believe that with the closer bond of union which
collectivism must necessarily establish, a greater por-
tion of such rent as ability would still command would
be voluntarily yielded for communal purposes.
But in any case the inequality which will remain is
not a matter to be deplored. It might be if individual
happiness were in proportion to individual riches,
and if, therefore, the one end and aim of life were the
acquisition of wealth. There are few, however, who
have not a higher conception of existence than this ;
and contrast, individuality and even idiosyncrasies are
valuable qualities. Our problem is, not how to bring
about an absolutely equal distribution of wealth, but
how to secure a sufficiency for every one ; and our
solution is not communistic but socialistic. Re-
move that preponderating proportion of the present
inequality which is clue to the artificial conditions of
society, and the small remaining proportion is im-
material. It is the monopolies of man's creation that
cause the mischief; and the mere difference in what
may be termed normal ability leads to that variety
of type, which, under a collectivist regime, would add
to and not detract from the sum of human happiness.
THE NEWER ECONOMICS.
Such, we venture to think, is the sunny vista which
the " dismal science " opens out to view.
Political Economy is still in its infancy, but it has
made rapid strides, and is obtaining a wider recogni-
tion for the truths it unfolds. Regarded as the
science of wealth, it has been slighted by many
thoughtful minds as unworthy of their consideration,
THE NEWER ECONOMICS. 127
and has been illogical ly condemned by others who
have a just contempt for the worship of mammon.
But when we once realise that there is a converse
side to the picture, and that to solve the problem of
poverty is the noblest present function of Economics ;
and when we see its searching rays brought to bear
upon each new phenomenon which characterises the
evolution of industrial society, then the " dismal "
becomes transformed into the inspiriting, the " grab-
all " becomes the save-all, and the science is invested
with a dignity which renders it worthy of cultivation
by the worthiest of men.
To a dawning appreciation of this we may perhaps
trace the change which is coming over the community.
Habits which are the growth of generations are not to
be eradicated in a day, but they are gradually losing
their hold. So difficult is it for men to escape from
their surroundings that Aristotle regarded slavery as
essential to the existence of society. To us a miser-
able proletariat, now clamouring for work, and now
toiling for bare subsistence wage, has seemed equally
essential to national prosperity.
But " now, at last," says Professor Marshall, " we
are setting ourselves seriously to inquire whether it is
necessary that there should be any so-called ' lower
classes ' at all : that is, whether there need be large
numbers of people doomed from their birth to hard
work in order to provide for others the requisites of a
refined and cultured life ; while they themselves are
prevented by their poverty and toil from having any
share or part in that life." 1
1 Principles of Economics, vol. i., p. 3.
1 28 THE NE W SPIRIT.
Such is the spirit of the Newer Economics. Such
is the spirit which has given rise to the Newer
Liberalism. Of that spirit we can all with safety
drink deeply. It will elevate but not intoxicate us •
and it will help us to elevate our fellows.
IV.— OBJECTIONS— PALLIATIVES— CON-
CLUSION.
A udi alteram partem. It still remains to bring the
solution of the problem to the test of hostile criti-
cism ; and counter-proposals must be weighed in the
balances.
With regard to the genesis of poverty, to discover
this we have had in the main simply to chronicle
facts. And even with regard to the method of its
exodus, recent history and experience are on our side.
At the same time, in the comparatively early stages of
the evolutionary process, we are necessarily largely
dependent upon ratiocination ; and, hence, the neces-
sity of taking cognizance of the opposing school of
thought.
THE INDIVIDUALISTIC POSITION.
It is, of course, tolerably easy to plausibly criticise
a movement towards the reconstruction of society.
There is no reform that has ever been accomplished to
which objection, and sometimes weighty objection, has
not been taken ; and having regard to the magnitude
of the change involved in the organisation of industry
on collectivist principles, it would not be surprising
if very formidable difficulties in its accomplishment
should be discovered.
i
130 THE POSITION OF THE CRITIC.
Yet in truth, if we bear in mind the unique gravity
of the evil, the objections taken to the method of its
removal sink into insignificance. But in dealing with
them we must permit no evasion of the problem. Not
unfrequently adverse criticism is based on the tacit
assumption that the existing condition of things is, on
the whole, satisfactory ; and no solution, therefore,
being called for, an apparent victory is gained by a
prima facie demonstration that inconvenience would
arise from the change proposed. The fact is that the
abolition of poverty would be worth any amount of
inconvenience; and what the critic has to show is that
the solution offered is one in name only, or that it
would give rise to greater evils than it would remove,
or that a better solution can be found.
" The Difficulties of Socialism?
And to what do the objections amount ? In varying
garbs they are constantly presenting themselves — a
fact in itself significant — and no pretence will be made
to deal with them exhaustively. Recently they have
been formulated in an article by Mr. Leonard
Courtney; 1 and as it is to be presumed the individual-
istic school would accept him as an able exponent of
their views, no apology is needed for regarding him
as the typical critic.
The article is penned in a moderate and courteous
spirit; yet even this kindly opponent can scarcely
repress a paternal smile at the enthusiasm and im-
1 The Difficulties of Socialism. Economic Journal, vol. i.,
p. 174.
PAST EXPERIMENTS— COMMUNISM. 1 3 1
petuosity of youth, and seems to suggest that the
collectivist's aspirations must be born of indignation
rather than of judgment. He of course discovers lack
of novelty, " the succession of Socialist visions has
been endless," x and all the plans have failed ; though
the exact relevancy of this is not apparent, seeing he
admits that they possessed one characteristic " separa-
ting them wholly from recent proposals." 2 But whilst
he recognises that the experiments of the past " are
all examples of small families separated from the
world" 3 — that they were attempts to lead the ideal
life after the manner of the recluse — he has not the
same perception of the fact that Social Democracy is
a movement growing from within, aiming, not at an
immediate accomplishment of the ideal on a small
scale, but at the gradual advance of the nation to-
wards that ideal. For when he comes to consider
"wider schemes," 4 the "vision" which he sees is no
longer a socialistic one ; and his mind is immediately
overshadowed by the popular delusion that the col-
lective organisation of industry means Communism
pure and simple.
That some property, and doubtless an increasing
amount, would be held upon communistic principles
is, of course, perfectly true ; and, even under what our
critic would describe as the present individualistic
regime, we have the same tenure existing in the case
of our public thoroughfares, bridges, and national
museums, not to multiply instances. But underlying
his conception of Socialism is the idea, not of securing
i Ibid. p. 175. a Ibid. p. 177.
» ibid. p. 177. 4 Ibid. p. 178.
132 " THE PRINCIPLE OP CONFISCATION."
to each man the equivalent of the produce of his
labour, but of "the outcome of the whole" being
"redistributed again with an utter absence of jealous
greed, to the satisfaction of every member of the
redeemed universal family," * and the converting of
"a preponderant mass of the possessors of political
power to the principle of a community of goods " 2 —
a fundamental misconception which has already been
dealt with. 3
Nor can the champion of individualism rid himself
of "the principle of confiscation;'' and whilst he dis-
covers that when law has for generations sanctioned the
private ownership of property, " it will be very diffi-
cult indeed to affirm the right of the community to
resume without full recompense such ownership, 4
except upon principles which would justify the con-
fiscation by the community of all possessions," he
does not tell us whether, if the workers succeed in
altering the law so as to secure to themselves the full
products of their future industry, this also would come
under "the principle of confiscation;" nor does he
seem to realise that he is himself pronouncing con-
demnation on the claim of a favoured section to
appropriate for all time more than half of the produce
of others' labour. He propounds the same "moral
difficulty" as attending on the "confiscation of all
the superior results arising from the differentiated
superiorities of different men" 5 — which, however,
1 Economic Journal, vol. i., p. 176. 2 Ibid. p. 178.
3 Ante pp. 95-105.
4 This view again is based upon a misconception. Ante pp.
100-1.
6 Economic Journal, vol. i. p. 180.
VENERABLE BOGIES. 133
Socialism does not, 1 as lie imagines, involve " con-
fessedly " or otherwise (save on the assumption that
it is confiscation of rent of ability to give equal
opportunities to all), and to which indeed the principle
of " to each the products of his labour " is in direct
antagonism.
That, wandering in these obscui'e paths in his search
for robbers, the worthy knight should meet with the
venerable bogies of the " repression of originality," 2
the impossibility of " freedom of selection," 3 and the
discouragement of the inventive faculty, 4 is not sur-
prising. With a narrowed vision and a diminished
sense of proportion, he fails to realise that a variation
in the amount of a man's " personalty " does not
obliterate his " personality " (though it must be ad-
mitted that when the former reaches an irreducible
minimum the latter has not a very attractive guise) ;
or that the " law of fashion " 5 is not a matter for
supreme anxiety, and, so long as our common needs
are supplied, we can afford to risk (as indeed we now
have to G ) a failure to immediately gratify some of
those fanciful wants which the disappearance of a
plutocracy would so largely diminish ; or that even a
" bureau of inventions " (which we venture to suggest
would not long be characterised by "lethargy" 7 ) might
1 Ante, p. 121 et seq. 2 Economic Journal, vol. i. p. 186.
3 Ibid. p. 184. 4 Ibid. p. 183. 5 Ibid, p. 184. 6 Ante p. 77.
7 It seems commonly supposed that the defects of present
public administration would characterise socialistic institutions.
But to-day there is scarcely any inducement to Government em-
ploye's to do their best for the community, whereas under a
system of collective production there would be a community of
interest amongst the workers. Moreover, many existing State
i 3 4 REGULA TION OF SUPPL Y.
not present a greater impediment to a man of origin-
ality of ideas than the existing absence of means
frequently does, whilst it is just possible the work-
man would meet with a little better reward than that
of seeing his discovery patented by his employer, and
a powerful stimulus would be found in the existence
of a common interest to increase the productivity of
labour. 1
And with regard to the general regulation of supply,
and the adjustment of international exchanges, whilst
these are complex problems into which the general
reader would scarcely care to follow us, it may be re-
peated 2 that the common wants of the million — unlike
the ever varying cravings of the satiated few — can
always be foreseen with approximate exactness ; and
we can discover no reason why a " Local Government
Board " should command less statistical information
or prove less effective than a " Board of Directors "
(who, by the way, do occasionally make mistakes), or
why it should be more difficult to gauge the demand
for " raw sugar " when the article has to be imported
by a branch of the Government, instead of by trading
companies or private merchants (although it may be
granted that there might be a falling off in the supply
of the typical sand). 3
and municipal industries are managed as well as, if not better
than, private enterprises. See Quintessence of Socialism, pp. 53,
54.
1 We have already seen (page 37) that this is not the case
now ; and that under the existing system of production, inven-
tions in the main benefit the monopolists, and the position of the
labourer is seldom improved.
2 Ante p. 77. 3 Ante p. 78.
THE CRITIC'S OBLIGATION. 135
Yet these are the only " difficulties of Socialism "
to which our critic appears to attach any importance ;
and presumably he considers them fatal to our solu-
tion of the problem of poverty. Starting from a
series of misconceptions and misapprehensions ; at-
taching an exaggerated importance to insignilicant or
minor points, whilst ignoring great central truths ;
unconsciously engaged in the futile attempt to stem
the rising tide of democracy, to whose advance he has
himself contributed ; he has done not a little to pro-
mote the growth of the principle against which be is
contending, by showing the feebleness of the criticism
a man of marked ability can offer.
The Individualistic Remedy.
But, as has been intimated, it is not enough to
point out disadvantages, even if real ; and were the
"difficulties" as substantial as they are chimerical, they
would really count for little. We are confronted
with a terrible evil — an evil with which we have un-
fortunately been confronted so long that we have
almost forgotten it is terrible ; and the " young man "
may therefore be forgiven if " the complacency of his
seniors irritates him." 1 Unless the individualist con-
tends that poverty is right, he must not be satisfied
with mere destructive criticism, even if effective, but
must himself submit a constructive remedy.
Yet upon this point we only get a few closing
words from Mr. Courtney. Of the " difficulties " of
his own position he has nothing to say. Whilst the
1 Economic Journal, vol. i. n. 175.
136 THE ALTERNATIVE REMEDY.
stormy seas upon which he descries the Socialistic
hark prove to be but painted billows, he leaves us to
imagine that the Individualistic craft cruises only in
tranquil waters. Of the swift under-current, of the
rocks ahead, of the deserting crew, of the ultimate
shipwreck, which many think they can clearly dis-
cern, he is blissfully unconscious. But he does faintly
realise that there is a desired haven, and with more
courage than prudence promises to steer us to it.
"If we are to judge aright," he tells us, "the pro-
gramme of Socialist promise, we must compare it not
merely with the society that exists, but with society
as it too might become, though remaining based on the
principles that now underlie it, as its units grew in
morality and wisdom." 1 And then he proceeds in
some half-dozen sentences to explain how indigence is
to be banished. After recognising that " man is a
social animal," and that " his career is only possible
through a participation in labour, an interchange in
services, a co-operation in toil with his fellow-men," 2
(without indicating in what way the unproductive
consumer displays these attributes), he inquires " what
might not the race become through the education of
the individual man thus endowed with complete
personal freedom, and using that freedom as his reason
directs, now to work apart and then in union with his
fellow or his fellows ? " 3 (why not add, " and then to
live on them without doing any work ? "), and next
bids us " consider what might be accomplished through
a growth in temperance, prudence, and the gift of
sympathy." 4
1 Economic Jonmal,vol.i., p. 187. 2 Ibid. s Ibid. i Ibid. v.lSS.
THE INDIVIDUALIST'S DREAM. 137
And* this is his solution of the problem, for he
gravely goes on to announce, that " the world would
be transformed without any invasion of personal
liberty," and (we venture to italicise this remarkable
prophecy), " Poverty, as we understand it, would dis-
appear ! " x
Such is the alternative to " Socialist visions " pro-
pounded by one who is too practical to be influenced
by the " fascination of a dream," and who tells us that
" any scheme of social order which is not wide enough
to absorb and renovate society as a whole must be
put aside as incurably faulty." 2 The world is to be
transformed, and poverty is to disappear, not by the
invasion of personal liberty (to appropriate the fruits
of others' industry), but by the gift of sympathy
(which shall lead to the voluntary restoration of what
liberty has allowed to be annexed).
Was there ever " Socialist vision " so extravagant
as this ? Well may the individualistic seer declare else-
where that he " would rather not set a limit to the ex-
tent to which the doctrine of renunciation may be
carried." 3 For he himself relies on its being limitless,
and succumbs to the " fascination of a dream." But it
is not the dream which illumines the Socialist's couch :
it is the vision, beautiful, yet not of this world, which
lightens up the Anarchist's pillow — a vision of a mil-
lennium of universal brotherhood, when there shall be
no need of law, for each man shall love his neighbour
as himself. We would not have it fade entirely away,
for it is born of noble aspirations ; but it is time that
1 Ibid. p. 188. - Ibid. p. 178. 3 Ibid. p. 178.
138 THE FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALISM.
more of us awoke to the stern realities of life. We too
can work for " the education of the individual man,"
and for the promotion of "temperance, prudence and
the gift of sympathy " — for monopolies have not yet
invaded the moral region. Nay, Collectivism has a
nobler ethical code ; for whilst Individualism sees no
vice in eating without working, or in the appropriation
of the produce of others' toil, Socialism is distinctly
based on the principle of the brotherhood of man and
the solidarity of the race. But at the same time we
sadly realise that the solution of our problem cannot
be found in a simple appeal to those who are in pos-
session. With the records of centuries open before
us we know too well that by this method alone, limit-
less though the doctrine of renunciation may be,
Poverty, as we understand it, (whatever the qualifying
phrase may mean) will not disappear. And until the
critic shall show unto us a more excellent way of
solving the problem, we may be pardoned for adhering
to the solution propounded in these pages, believing it
to be the only possible solution — one based on Econo-
mic truth and on the eternal principles of Justice.
PALLIATIVES AND NOSTRUMS.
But without relaxing our efforts to eradicate the
causes of Poverty, we must, so long as the causes exist,
continue to devote attention to effects. Since the cure
of the disease is a work of time, anodynes must mean-
while be employed.
It is essential, however, that this treatment should
be subsidiary and not primary, and that nothing should
POOR LA W REFORM. 139
be done which will retard the cure. Hence, whilst
some of the remedies now prescribed will continue to
be useful, it will be recognised that they are pallia-
tives and not specifics ; whilst others will be un-
hesitatingly rejected as injurious nostrums.
The Poor Law.
Some organised method of affording relief is
absolutely necessary ; but our present Poor Law system
is, as has been said, inadequate and demoralising. It
does not aim at being even an efficient palliative ; but*
on the contrary, whilst affording some mitigation of
pain in one direction, often gives rise to pain in another;
so much so that many endure their present sufferings
in preference to those which the parish inflicts. Our
administration is so erratic, and accompanied with
such an amount of harshness, that rather than become
subject to it some of the poor prefer to die, and others
procrastinate with fatal results.
The first thing to recognise is that poverty, as a
rule, is not a vice, but a misfortune ; that it is due
not to the transgression of the individual, but to the
sins of society. Guided by this principle, we see that
a thorough revision of the system is necessary. We
want more efficient bodies, elected on a thoroughly
democratic basis, and directly responsible to the people.
And we want an administration which shall tend to
depauperise the deserving poor, and which shall not
discourage thrift by refusing relief to those who have
made some little saving out of their scanty earnings.
And instead of the present grudging and repelling
MO POOR LA W REFORM.
provision for such as, after lives of toil, find them-
selves without any means of subsistence, we want
State pensions for the aged, as a practical recognition
that prolonged service tc the community carries with
it the right to at least the ordinary comforts of exis-
tence in declining years. The cost need not be
thereby increased, for inefficiency does not mean
economy ; but, even if additional expense were en-
tailed, we ought cheerfully to bear it, remembering
that all we have comes from labour, and that the poor
are generally the hardest workers.
In London we also require a single Poor Law Council
and an Equalisation of the Poor Rate. At present the
only central body is the Metropolitan Asylums' Board ;
and we have thirty Boards of Guardians for the
various parishes or groups of small parishes ; whilst
the rates may vary from eighteenpence to three
shillings in the pound. Uniformity of administration
is impossible under these conditions ; and the un-
equally apportioned burden falls with especial severity
on the poorer classes ; for it is, of course, the wealthier
districts which enjoy the advantage of the lower rate.
PJi ila n th ropy.
Another palliative — it is nothing more — is found m
Philanthropy. It must not be undervalued ; but it
may be compared to brandy, useful to tide over a
crisis, but useless to effect a cure. If we find a man
dying for want of food, it will not help him to devote
our energies to altering the conditions of society by
which starvation becomes possible. Prompt measures
are necessary ; and here benevolence comes in.
PHILANTHROPY— EMIGRA T10N. 141
More discrimination, however, is necessary. Charity-
is at present often a bane rather than a benefit, be-
cause it is aimless or misdirected. And this generally
ai'ises from laziness on the part of the bestower, whose
motive is often the pacification of his own conscience.
Benevolence can be egoistic as well as altruistic : and,
as a rule, comparatively little effort is made to ascer-
tain the fitness of its object. The most deserving
are generally the least pertinacious ; and fawning
servility often succeeds at the expense of unob-
trusive merit. Great care is, therefore, required in
rendering assistance; and when rendered it should be
in a way least calculated to wound the feelings of the
recipient.
And with all our philanthropy, let us never forget
that we are simply giving back some small portion of
what we have received — that we are in a position to
be philanthropic because others have been labouring
for us. If the poor had justice they would not require
charity.
Emigration.
Some relief can also be afforded by assisting the
poor to find a home beyond the seas ; but necessitous
emigration is not very fascinating.
To the extent to which the worker can obtain a
higher reward for his labour, and escape from the
unsanitary conditions of slum life, he, of course, derives
real benefit ; and by lessening the pressure at home
there is gain to those who remain. Nor do the dis-
advantages which attend on immigration to densely
populous countries apply to many parts of the globe,
142 EMIGRATION.
where, indeed, additional labour is often an acquisi-
tion.
But the people who suffer most from poverty are
precisely the people who have little chance of emi-
grating. The skilled labourer may save sufficient to
pay for his passage to some of the new worlds ; but
his withdrawal is a loss to the old country, unless we
can simultaneously increase the efficiency of those
lower in the ranks. The latter unaided can do
practically nothing ; and hitherto outside agencies
have made no appreciable diminution in their numbers.
The wider scheme of General Booth (which, amongst
its numerous features, presents us with " the colony
over sea ") though marred by many defects — such as
the autocratic rule, the subjugating discipline, and
the indirect theological propaganda — is the outcome
of noble impulses and great constructive talent, and
may eventually prove a potent palliative. But it is
important to remember that it can never effect a cure,
and that new generations of paupers will arise so long
as the causes of poverty remain.
And the expatriation of the worker is, at the best,
a sorry method of mitigating the evils of a defective
industrial organisation. Free intercourse between
nations, and the opening up of new sources of wealth,
are things desirable in themselves ; but the exodus of
the poor is a confession of failure, and only by the
exodus of poverty will success be proclaimed.
Peasant Proprietorship.
Those who have once realised the evils of land
monopoly will have little sympathy with schemes
PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP. 143
for enlarging the number of the individual land-
lords.
The praises of Peasant Proprietorship have been
sung by many, including the older economists ; but
the effect of such a s} T stem is simply to swell the
ranks of the monopolists. The extension of privilege,of
course, benefits those to whom it is extended ; but the
fact remains that privilege can only be purchased at
the expense of those who do not possess it ; and, since
there are necessarily very rigid limits to the multi-
plication of individual landowners, this method of
procedure is inherently vicious.
The proposal has been frequently advocated from
feelings of genuine sympathy with the humble tillers
of the soil, who see the greater part of the fruits of their
labour appropriated by their landlord for his personal
benefit. But to remedy this, we must not in turn
consolidate and perpetuate the system by making the
peasant himself a freeholder. 1
What the worker on the land requires, until such
time as he shall otherwise be assured the products of
his industry, is reasonable security of tenure at fair
(or economic) rent, and compensation for unexhausted
improvements. And this can best be promoted by the
acquisition of land by municipal bodies, and the grant-
ing of leasehold allotments to the labourers upon
equitable terms. By these means the latter will be
able to obtain the full benefit of their labour ; whilst
at the same time the community (of which they, of
1 Hence the recent Irish Land Purchase Act (which might be
more fittingly entitled "The Irish Landlord Relief Act ,: ) is a
retrograde measure. See note p. 112.
144 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT.
course, form a part) will secure the economic rent,
including any future unearned increment.
Leaseliold Enfranchisement.
The favourite middle-class measure for converting
leaseholders into freeholders is open to the same objec-
tion as the scheme of peasant proprietorship, without
having the same excuse, and must be emphatically
proclaimed a quack remedy. It would not effect the
slightest improvement in the condition of the poor —
and, indeed, to do them justice, its advocates seldom
contend that it would — but it would enable the villa
residents and shopkeepers to join the ranks of the
landed monopolists and tend to a perpetuation of the
evil.
When we find, of all others, the "United Property
Owners Association " publicly recognising in Lease-
hold Enfranchisement a strengthening of the defences
of the "rights of property," we need not seek any
more effective condemnation of the measure ; for we
know what is meant by the "rights of property," and
we give this worthy association of expropriators
credit for being good judges of their own interests.
No doubt, however, the leaseholders have legitimate
grievances, particularly in the existence of the power
their landlords now possess of annexing the full value
of business good-will created by the industry of the
tenant. But the remedy lies in the direction already
pointed out. A "Tenants Protection Act," which shall
secure compensation for reasonable unexhausted im-
provements, and for injury to good-will in case of
TRADE UNIONISM. 145
wanton disturbance, is all that is required — and that
only so long as the private ownership of land and
capital continues.
Trade Unionism.
We pass on to notice a movement which is of a
different character, but which nevertheless partakes
of the vice of seeking less to abolish plunder than to
share in the spoil.
The chief object of Trade Unionism is, by combina-
tion of the workers, to raise and maintain a standard
rate of wages. As a weapon of defence against
capital it is legitimate enough ; but, unfortunately it
becomes a weapon of attack upon labour and con-
sumption ; for, as a rule, any benefit which is secured
is obtained not by lowering profits, but by limiting
numbers and by raising price. No doubt where a
particular trade becomes increasingly prosperous, the
workers may by combination secure a rise in wages
at the expense of profits; whilst there are other cases
where cheap goods are dearly bought at the cost of a
terrible degradation of the workers. But the general
tendency of the action of Trades Unions is to establish
a new monopoly. For their power depends upon their
exclusiveness j 1 and their members but too often raise
themselves by depressing those outside their ranks.
And the classes to whom Trades Unions can offer
little consolation are precisely the classes with whose
condition we are concerned. The bulk of the mem-
1 Only one in nine of the wage-workers belong to Trades
Unions. The Bight Hours D<iy, p. 107-
K
146 INDIRECT VALUE OF TRADES UNIONS.
bers of these powerful organisations can scarcely be
regarded as victims of poverty. The poor, as a rule,
cannot combine, for the simple reason that they lack
the ability and means of organising. When they
have succeeded in obtaining any benefits for them-
selves, it is because they have been marshalled by
powerful leaders and have been backed up by public
opinion — as in the case of the Dockers and the Match
Girls. But spirited leaders are not always forthcom-
ing, and public support is intermittent.
Hence, Trades Unions can afford no direct assistance
in the solution of our problem, and in some respects
have a tendency to add to its gravity. Yet, indi-
rectly they are of value. They are a standing pro-
test against unrestrained capitalism ; they focus the
opinion of important sections of the labour world ;
they offer powerful centres for the organisation of
workers ; and, above all, now that they are acquiring
a more just appreciation of the nature of industrial
problems, they can, and doubtless will, materially ad-
vance democratic legislation and promote the growth of
Collectivism. Statesmen are beginning to realise that
they are not so much educating as being educated by
their " masters," and even the party of privilege has
discovered that it is expedient to play to the gallery ;
so that, whilst on the one hand we have the Liberals
pledged to an elaborate Socialistic programme, on the
other we have the edifying spectacle of the Tories
deserting their publican allies in obedience to a popu-
lar rising, accepting paternal responsibility for a
scheme of Free Education, and appointing a Royal
Commission on Labour. Ttmpora mutantur.
CO OPERATION— ITS CHARACTERISTICS, 147
Co-operation.
If Trade Unionism aims at raising wages, in Co-
operation we have a far more ambitious scheme ; its
object being to annex or eliminate " profits " alto-
gether.
Co-operation, in fact, strikes a distinctly socialistic
chord ; it seeks to prevent the exploitation of labour,
and it aims at this by means of the collective control
of industry. It is not, therefore, surprising that the
man who projected the co-operative ideal — Robert
Owen — should have been called " the Father of Ensr-
lish Socialism." 1 But, whilst there is this similarity
between Co-operation and Socialism, there is also this
great difference, that the sphere of the one has very
clearly defined limits, and the sphere of the other is
practically unlimited. And the difference is funda-
mental ; for a scheme which cannot embrace all is a
mere development of the capitalistic principle ; it may
spread monopoly over a larger field, but it offers little
consolation to those who are excluded.
No doubt in the comparatively brief period — less
than fifty years — since the Rochdale Pioneers " suc-
cessfully grafted certain portions of Robert Owen's
Co-operative ideal on a vigorous democratic stock,"
the progress made has been remarkable ; and to-day
Co-operative Associations can boast of a " million
members, thirty-six millions of annual trade, three
millions of yearly 'profits' and twelve millions of
1 The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain. By Beatrice
Potter (London : Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), p. 16.
i 4 8 LIMITS TO CO-OPERATION.
accumulated capital." x Nor is there any foundation
for the common idea that it is only as distributers
co-operators have succeeded ; and, indeed, the previ-
ously uninformed reader of Miss Potter's interesting
and able work on the subject will probably be
astonished at the extent to which co-operative pro-
duction is being carried on. This progress, however,
cannot be taken as an indication that the principle
admits of indefinite application.
For there are two very rigid limits to the exten-
sion of the co-operative movement ; one of which is
found in the very nature of many of the most im-
portant industries ; and the other of which is seen in
the conditions of life of vast masses of the people.
The " Co-operative State " cannot administer large
national undertakings, or carry on the export trade ;
and it is practically restricted to the production and
distribution of commodities for the personal con-
sumption of its members. And it cannot bring with-
in its dominion that poverty-stricken and migratory
class who lack the pre-requisites of effective combina-
tion, and to whom sermons on '• self-help " are idle
mockery. 2 Whilst the voluntary associations may,
not altogether unjustly, be proud of their twelve
millions of capital, the municipalities already ad-
minister upwards of three hundred millions, and the
total capital of the country is estimated at ten
thousand millions. 3 And if a membership of a
million is a satisfactory record, the fact remains that
about six-sevenths of the male wage-earners (and
1 TJie Co-operative Movement in Great Britain, p. 59.
2 See Ibid. chap. viii. a See Ante p. 32.
VALUE OF CO-OPERATION. 149
about ten-elevenths of the total wage-earners) are out
in the cold.
Co-operation, then, can never solve — nor is it pre-
tended it can solve — the problem of poverty. But it
is a movement of immense value. To those who can
be brought within its scope, it is, of course, of great
benefit, and indirectly it is a national power. Not
only will Co-operative Associations ultimately lend
themselves to municipal absorption more readily than
will private businesses ; but, meanwhile, they de-
monstrate the feasibility and gain of collective
production and distribution ; develop habits of self-
reliance, whilst asserting the principle of intercom-
munity of interest ; afford a desirable avenue for the
investment of small savings, and promote the growth
of democratic power, and the extension of municipal
activity. Like Trades Unions, they are also centres of
political strength, and supply the means of federation to
masses of the workers; and when the future historian
shall trace the growth and chronicle the triumph of
Social Democracy, he will not omit to pay a tribute
to the benefits conferred by the Co-operative move-
ment.
SUMMARY.
Along this road, then, have we travelled.
Poverty, we have found, arises from Insufficient
Production, from Waste, and, above all, from grossly
Unequal Distribution — and these, in turn, are intensi-
fied by Poverty itself. And the remedies are to be
found, partly in the individual ordering of our own
150 SUMMARY.
lives, partly in the wise exercise of the influence over
others we all possess, and especially in the extensive
and thorough democratising of our representative
institutions, and the gradual enlargement of their
functions. By these means, and by these means
only, can poverty be banished. They have been
brought to the test of adverse criticism ; counter-
proposals have been weighed in the balances and
found wanting ; and the limited sphere of palliatives
has been seen.
Democratic Socialism, or the ownership by the
community of the instruments of production and the
organisation of labour by representative bodies, so as
to bring about increased productivity, a minimising of
waste, and an equitable distribution, — this, combined
with the loftier conception of Ethics involved in the
process, is the culminating stage of the present
evolution of industrial society. And our practical
programme for to-day comprises the extension of the
Suffrage and other Electoral Reforms ; the further
development of the National Education movement ; a
wider dissemination of the truths of Economics ; a
diminution in the consumption of Luxuries, and
especially of Alcoholic Beverages; a judicious control
of Population, an Eight Hours Labour Day ; an in-
creased and cumulative Taxation of Land Values •
a differentiated and graduated Income-Tax ; an
equalisation and graduation of the Death Duties; a
radical reform of the Poor Law system ; the in-
creased acquisition of Land and Capital by the State
and Municipalities ; and the gradual extension of
Industrial Collectivism.
THE DUTIES OF CITIZENS. 151
It is, therefore, chiefly by means of our representa-
tive institutions that we must work for the removal
of poverty. And hence, the political indifference or
apathy so many display, stands unequivocally con-
demned. No justification can ever exist for the
absolute neglect of the duties of citizenship ; but when
it is once realised that unless they are efficiently dis-
charged we cannot hope to remove the terrible evils
which abound in our midst, the claims of politics can
only be ignored at the cost of our moral deterioration.
The individual who fails to fulfil, according to oppor-
tunity and capacity, his or her obligation to the
community, is emphatically a bad citizen ; and, when
transgressing in the light of knowledge, stands con-
victed, however virtuous in private life, of flagrant
social immorality.
All classes then can do something towards the
abolition of poverty. We do not suggest that in-
dividual landlords, capitalists, and men of ability
should forego their rent, interest and remuneration
(save to the extent to which it is obtained by extortion
or harshness not necessarily characteristic even of a
monopolistic system), for this would simply mean
private philanthropy, and that in the main very un-
wisely applied. So long as the system continues, the
monopolists, although they can do much to mitigate
its horrors, cannot by isolated individual renunciation
bring about a radical reform. But what they can do
is to join with the humblest toiler in working for an
alteration of the system, and in thus hastening the
end. If they will not, it only remains for the toilers
to bund themselves together the more earnestly, and
152 APOTHEOSIS OF LAISSER-FAIRE.
to strive with patience, knowing that time is on their
side and that the doom of privilege has been pro-
nounced.
THE ZEITGEIST.
For a. brighter day is dawning — has already
dawned. The age of pure Individualism and unre-
strained Capitalism is past. Whether we realise it or
not, whether we welcome it or not, Social Democracy
is making rapid strides — without so much as turning
aside a hair's breadth, or even blinking, at the sight
of the ghosts which the critic darts across its path.
The history of the last fifty or sixty years is largely
the history of the unconscious growth of Socialism
Laisser-faire had reached its apotheosis. The wheels
of the capitalistic Juggernaut car were revolving to
the triumphant strains of the March of Liberty ,
hecatombs of victims strewed the road ; and men,
women, and little children were being mangled and
crushed out of existence. At length a revulsion of
feeling arose : if this were the price of liberty, then,
said some, liberty was dearly purchased. The cry of
the children took concrete form in Miss Barrett's 1
beautiful poem ; and humane men, like the late Lord
Shaftesbury, were moved to arouse the public con-
science. To talk of freedom of contract between a
powerful capitalist and a puny child, or even a helpless
woman, was, they realised, an idle mockery • and al-
though they did not get the length of discovering that
with a monopoly of the instruments of production the
proletariat must necessarily be more or less in a con-
1 Afterwards the wife of Robert Browning.
SOCIAL I STIC LEGISLA TION. 1 53
dition of slavery, they were the true pioneers of
Socialism. They sought a practical remedy for the
more glaring evils they saw around them ; and per-
severed in their course amidst much opposition, yet
all unconscious of the fact that they were inaugurat-
ing an industrial revolution..
There had been some restrictive measures en-
acted in the early part of the century; and the
reformed Parliament of 1833 struck the first sub-
stantial blow at the " liberty of the subject" by the
passing of the Factory Act of that year. In 1842,
1844, and 1847 Lord Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley)
succeeded in adding to the statute book enactments
still further restricting in the interest of the workers
the so-called freedom of contract The Mining Act of
1842 had been a step in the same direction ; and this
year also saw the Income Tax established — an impost
which on individualistic principles is absolute con-
fiscation, being simply the socialising of a portion of
the rent alike of land, capital, and ability. A vast
number of " Local Improvement Acts '' had the effect
of imposing restrictions on the free user of private
property ; and the Public Health Act of 1875, which
ultimately consolidated the law on the subject, is
purely socialistic in its provisions. The Municipal
Corporations Act of 1835 had created the machinery
for collective organisation of local affairs; and we now
have the extensive municipalisationof gas, water, trams,
artisans' dwellings, lodging-houses, baths, wash-houses,
libraries, museums, parks, etc. Year after year new
restraints have been imposed on Capitalism, in the
form of Truck Acts, Adulteration Acts, Employers'
154 SOCIALISTIC LEGISLATION.
Liability Acts, Merchant Shipping Acts, and other
measures, too numerous to mention, regulating the
majority of large trades ; some of the later specimens
being the Shop Hours' Regulation Act, the Margarine
Act, and the Merchandise Marks Acts. x It is under
Mr. Courtney's "individualistic" regime that a man
is prohibited from selling " Butterine," and that " A
present from Snowdon " is branded as " Made in
Germany " !
Simultaneously there has been accomplished a large
number of fiscal reforms ; and the progress made in
this direction only seems insignificant when compared
with what remains to be done. The abolition of the
taxes on knowledge gave us the boon of a cheap
press; and the Education Act of 1870, despite its
compromising principles, was a revolution in itself —
the twenty-first anniversary of which has been
fittingly celebrated by a legislative extension of its
principles. And the workers have acquired an in-
creasing voice in theGovernment, — the last two Reform
Bills, unlike their predecessor of 1832, being really
democratic measures.
We have thus made a fair start on the road to
Social Democracy. It is only a start ; and, as we
have seen, 2 the growth of population has, under our
system of land tenure, led to so enormous a rise in
rents, and under our system of production for private
1 For a detailed account of the progress of Socialistic legisla-
tion, see Socialism in England by Sidney Webb (London :
Swan Sonnenschein & Co.) chap. vii.
- Ante p. 38 ct seq.
THE ZEITGEIST. 155
profit so vastly added to the power of capital, that
the counteracting influences brought to bear on the
operation of the law of monopoly have not as yet been
sufficiently powerful to produce very appreciable
results.
But the schoolmaster is abroad ; and all the signs of
the times are in the direction of progress towards the
ideal. Our practical programme is now substantially
" the authorised programme " of the Liberals, whilst
the Tories are becoming increasingly adept in the
interesting game known as "Dishing the Whigs."
" Problems of collective production, collective owner-
ship, and collective consumption are entering on a
new phase." l And men of marked ability, themselves
belonging to the monopolist classes, are zealously
working for the regeneration of society by the means
of which a brief outline has here been given.
In short, we have resolutely turned our backs on
the flesh-pots of Egypt, and are boldly marching
forward to the promised land. We may not reach it ;
our children may not reach it ; but they shall start,
with all the energy of youth, from the spot where our
pilgrimage ends ; and so with their children, until the
earthly paradise is won. And for us, and for them,
and for all who bear the heat and burden of the
march, there are Pisgah heights, around which blow
the cool refreshing breezes, and from which is obtained
a glorious vision of the Canaan beyond.
1 Principle of Economics by Professor Marshall, vol. i., p. 46.
THE END.
IN DEX.
-:o:-
PAGE
Ability .. {see Rent of Ability
Adulteration . . . . 27, 59, 77-SO, 134
Adulteration Acts .. .. SO, 153
Adult Suffrage . . . . 55, 92
Advertising 27.79
Alcoholic Drinks .. ..25,72-3,150
Aliens, Law of 65
Allotments 112,143
Anarchism .. .: .. .. 137
Arbitration, International .. 94
Aristotle 90, 127
Army, Cost of . . . . 30, 31
Ashley, Lord 153
Auctioneers 28, S5, SC
Barnes, G. S 109
Barrett, Elizabeth 152
Bax, E. Belfort 106
Betterment 111,112
Booth, Charles . , . . 52, 73
Booth, General 142
Browning, Robert .. .. .. 152
Buxton, Sydney 109
Cairnes, Professor .. .. 22
Capital :
And Labour 80-S2
Due to Labou . . . . 49, 95, 98
Loss of 26,75-77
Bent of . . (see Rent of Capital)
Socialising of . . 82, 102-3, 114-118
Capitalism :
Abolition of . . 77, 80, 93, 103
Effects of . . 52, 58, 75-6, 78, 84, 90
116. 117, 121
Restraint of ..57,99,145-6,153
Causes of Poverty (see Contents ii.)
Census Reports . . . , 15, 23
Church. l)isendowment of 110, 111
City Guilds 125
Collectivism.. .. (see Socialism)
Communism.. .. .. 126,131
Companies, Joint Stock .. 26, 76, 117
Compensation .. 110, 112, 1 1:-; 4
Competition .. ..39, 53, 63, 94, 119
Confiscation 98, 132
Conservatives .. .. 146,155
Consumer .. .. 38,83,103,145
Consumption :
Idle .. 11,22-24,68-71,118,136
Luxuries, of .. (see Luxuries)
Under Socialism 103
page
Co-operation.. .. 82, 84, 147-9
Co-operative Movement, The . .147-S
County Council, London ., .. 54
Courtney, Leonard, M.P. 130-138, 154
Cox, Harold, B. A 50,57
Credit 122
Crime 29, 87-89
Crimean War 91
Death Duties .. 107,109,115,150
Death-Roll 3, 4, 44, 64
Demand .. .. 26,78,117,133-4
Foreign .. .. .. .. 61
Luxuries, for . . . . 58-59, 77
Necessaries, for .. 60,63,77,104
Difficulties of Individualism .. 135-8
,, Socialism .. ..130-5
Diminishing Return, Law of .. 62-3
Disendowment of Church 110-111
Distribution :
Equal unnecessary .. ..32,95
Equitable . . . . 96-99, 103, 150
Socialised 84, 101, 106
Unequal (see Unequal Distribution)
"Waste in 28,82-85
Dockers .. .. .. .. 14*1
Driuk s, 25, 72-73
Economic Journal . . 57, 130-137
Economics .. 8,70,126-128,138,150
Economics, Principles of (see Marshall)
Education .. 70, 99, 136, 138, l r .0
,, Popular .. 48, 124-5, 150, 154
Eight Hours Day, An .. 57, 117, 150
Eight Hours Day, The 50, 52, 53, 57,145
,, ,, ,, In Victoria . . 57
Electoral Reform . . . . 55, 91, 150
Electors, Number of .. .. 54
Emigration 141,112
Employers' Liability Acts .. 153
/'., vclopcea .1 Britannica., . . 53
Episcopalianism .. ,. .. ni
Estate Duty 109
Ethj< is:
Commercial .. .. .. 79
Of Luxuries .. .. .. 74
Monopolistic .. 95,98,123,138
Social . . . . 8, 138, 150-1
01 iily 71, Si)
s of Socialism .. .. 100
Evolution 100,118
153
INDEX.
PAGE
Fabian Essays in Socialism 18, 105
Fabran Tiacts 2, 4, 19, 32, 34, 107, 108
Factory Acts 56, 66 119, 120, 153
Fashion, Law of .. .. .. 133
Fawcett, Professor .. .. .. 15
Female Labour .. .. 118121
,, Suffrage .. .. 92, 121
Finance, Essays in . . . . 15, 19, 34
Financial Reform Almanack .. 30
Financiers .. .. .. 26,76,90
Fiscal Reform . . . . 99, 107, 154
,, ,, {and see Taxation) j
Food, Rise in Frice .. .. 38
,, (and see Necessaries)
Foreign Trade 61. 66, 90, 134, 148
Free Trade 06
George, Henry .. .. 9,113
Giffen, R 15,19,32,34
Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E. .. 8L
Goodwill, business .. .. .. 144
Gothenburgli System .. .. 116
Government :
Cost of 30, 91
Functions of .. 30, 53, 56, 77, 134
Representative .. .. 54,55,151
Graduated Taxes 109, 110, 114, 115, 150
Ground values, Taxation of 107, 1"9, 112
Guardians, Poor Law . . . . 140
Handbook to Death Duties 109
Harrison, Frederick .. ..2,3
Hobson, J. A., M,A. 2, 40, 44, 50, 52
Home Rule .. .. .. .. 56
Hours of Labour .. (see Labou>)
House of Lords .. .. ..56,116
Housing of the People . . 3, 153
Huddersfield Town Council . . 54
Idle Consumption (see Consumption)
Immigration . . . . . . 65, 141
Improvidence .. ..9,41,52,73
Income :
Average . . . . 15, 21, 33-34
National 13-16,133 4
Tax .. 71,110,114,124,150,153
Individualism .. 104,129-138,152
Individualistic Remedy .. 135-138
Industrial Remuneration Conference 3
Inequality 126
(and see Unequal Distribution)
Ingram, J. K. .. .. .. 53
Instruments of Production ( (see Pro-
Insufficient Production \ duction)
Interchangeable Parts, Era of .. 46
Interest :
Amount of .. .. 34
Rate of 75, 102
Socialising of .. .. 112-118
International Trade (see Foreign)
Intestates Estates Act .. .. 110
Invention .. .. 37,47,49,133-4
Investment 60, 102
Irish Land Act .. .. 112,143
PAGE
Joint Stock Companies 26, 76, 117
Justices, Licensing 116
Knowledge, Taxes on . . . . 134
, , (and see Education)
Labour ;
Conferences .. .. 65,94
Conflicts .. .. 27,80,82,84
Exploitation of 34, 53, 69, 81, 87, 93
97, 101, 114, 118, 120, 132, 137
Female 118-121
Hours of .. .. 50, 54, 57, 119
Organisation of 49 51, 81, 104, 116, 145
Professional . . . . 28, 85-87
Remuneration of.. ..(see Wages)
Skilled 39, 50, 103, 119, 121-123, 142
Source of Wealth . . 15, 42, 63
Supply of . . .. 36, 39, 65, 119
Laisser/aire .. .. .. 152
Land :
Area of 13
Nationalisation of . . 103, 111-112
Potentiality of .. .. .. 14
Rent of .. .. .. (see Rent)
Taxes on 107-110,150
Vacant 108
Law Courts .. .. .. ..85-86
,, of Aliens .. .. .. 65
Lawyers 28, 85-?6
Leasehold Enfranchisement .. 144
Leases 112,143
Legacy Duty 108,115
Legislation, past .. 45, 99, 153-4
Levelling up . . .. .. .. 124
Levi, Professor . . . . . . 32
Liberalism .. .. .. ,. 128
Liberals 146,155
Liberty . . 53, 66, 105, 137, 152
Liquor Traffic .. ..25,72-3,116
Local Improvement Acts . . . . 153
Lock-outs 27, 81
London 3, 107, 140
„ County Council .. .. 54
Luxuries :
Amount of .. .. .. 19
Consumption of 11, 24-25, 35, 72-74, 150
Defined 5,10,17
Ethics of 60, 74
Production of . . 10, 17, 58, 127
Machinery 36-38,45-47
Making Work 70
Margarine Act . . . . . . 154
Margin of Cultivation . . 40, 125
Marshall, Professor 6, 13, 15, 18, 24
40, 46, 48, 63, 127, 155
Match Girls 146
Merchandise Marks Act . . . . 154
Merchant Shipping Acts .. .. 154
Merit 92, 123
Metropolitan Asylums Board .. 140
,, Endowments .. 125
Middlemen 28, 83-84
INDEX.
»59
p • < : ",
Mill, J. S. . . 24, 37, 47, 02. 63, 97
Militarism 31,90-94
Mining Act 153
„ Royalties .. .. .. 109
Moderate Drinking .. 72,73
Monopolies :
Effect of .. ..33, 84, 95, 98, 123
Nature of .. 33, 36, 98, 111, 110. 121
13S. 143, 145, 146
Socialising of . . 82, 101-2, 114, 116
Morals .. .. . .{see Ethics)
Mortality 3,4,44
,, Infant .. .. .. 04
Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics 2, 32
Municipal Corporation Act .. 153
MUSICIPALISATION OF INDUSTRY :
Present .. .. 54,50,111,134
Prospective 56, 60, 112, 116, 143, 150
National Debt . . . . 30, 91
N avy 30
Necessaries, Defined . . . . 5, 6
{and see Insufficient Production ;
Waste and Unequal Distribution)
Noblesse oblige .. .. . . 72
Nostrums and Palliatives 138-149
Numbers, Limitation of .. ..64-07
Opportunities
Over-crowding
Over-population
Over-worked, The . .
Owen, Robert
Palliatives
Parliaments, Triennial
Patent Medicines ..
Peace Conferences . .
Peasant Proprietorship
Pensions
Philanthropy
98, 123
3
9, 02-07
49-53, 55, 119
..147
138-149
..56
..78
..94
..142-4
.. 31, 91, 140
5, 140-1, 151
Political Economy . . {see Economics)
1 \ 'litical Economy :
Cairaes' 22
Fawcett's 15
Marshall's.. .. {see Marshall)
.Mill's .. 24, 25, 37, 62, 0:5, 97
Politics .. 55, 92, 100, 118, 151
Poor Law .. 2,45,110,139-140,150
Population .. .. 15,42,02-07,10
Post-Oflice 30, 54
1 'otter, Beatrice 147-8
P<>\ kkty :
1 auses of .. . (see Contents, ii.J
Continuance' of .. . . . . J
Definition of . . .. .. 5
Depth of 1-4
Effects of .. .. 40,42,63,72,83
Problem of . .(see Content s, i. & Hi.)
Private 1' roli t .. (see Production)
Probate Duty .. L08, 109, 115
Problem Of Poverty.. (see Contents)
Problems of Poverty. . 2, 40, 44, 50, 52
PAGE
Production :
Collective 54, 56, SO, 93, 101, 116, 148,
Defined 22
Increase of . . .. .. 45-66
Instruments of 14, 33. 36, 19, 7m. 97
Insufficient .. 10,13-21,35,40,149
Luxuries, of .. 10,17,18,35
Private Profit, for 52. 59, 75, 77, 78
80, 82, 95, 102
Wrong .. .. 11,19,21,58
Professional Services 28, 85-87, 102, 122
Profit, Private .. {see Production)
Proletariat . . . . 40, 69, 127
,, ..{and see Wage-earners)
Property :
Episodes of .. .. £5,86,93
Communistic .. .. .. 131
Tax 110
United, Owners' Association .. 144
Protection .. .. .. .. 66
Publicans 116, 146
Public Libraries .. .. .. 125
Public Works 116
Puffing 27, 79
Quintessence of Socialism 105, 134
Rae, John, M.A 57
Recoupment .. .. ..Ill
Reform Bills 154
Reforms {see Electoral and Fiscal)
Rent :—
Abilitv, of .. 34, 98, 121-120, 133
Amount of 34,114
Capital, of . . 34, 98, 103, 112-118, 122
Economic effect of .. ..9, 34
Land, of 9, 33, 98, 103, 107-112, 114
Monopoly of . . 33, 97, 113, 121
Nature of .. .. .. ..100
Rise in 38,113,154
Socialising of 100-101 , 107, 1 11 , 116, 153
Rents, the Three .. .. 33,114
Revolution, Industrial .. 44, 106, 153
Rights &* Responsibilit. cs of Labour 81
Risk, Business .. 26, 75-77, 122, 134
Rochdale Pioneers 117
Royal Commissions . . 3, 125, 146
Saving :
Effect of 60
Under Socialism 104
Savings :
Amount of 19,35
Nature of 20
Small 35, 149
Science .. .. 45, 48, 08, 104
Economic .. .. {see Econom.cs)
Social 8, 99
Second Ballot 55
Self-bel] 9, 64, 148
Si rvtces:
Arc Wealth 14
Monopolist d .. .. ..23,71
Professional . . 28, 85-87, 102, 122
i6o
INDEX.
PAGE
PAGE
Shame, Dr. A.
105,134
Unemployed .. 49-53,116-117
Shaftesbury, Lord ..
. . 152-3
Unequal Distribution :
Shams
. . 27, 77-80
Cause of 41, 97
Sharpe v. Wakefield
..116
Effect of .. 12, 33-35, 40, 97, 14!)
Skill . .. (see Labour Skilled)
Extent of 32-33
Socialising :
Increase of .. .. .. 39
Ability, of . .
103, 125, 133
Nature of 33
Capital, of .. 71, 77
, 82, 102, 116, 122
Remedies for . . . . 100-120
Industry, of 53, 59,
71, 84, 88, 93, 102
United Property Owners 144
116, 120
Utilities 14, 23, 29, 87, 102, 120, 122, 123
Land of
101, 111-112, 116
Socialism :
Value :
Democratic
100-105, 126, 150
Difficulties of
. . 130-5
Effects of ..
87, 103, 105, 154
Ethics of . .
138, 150, 151
Valuers 28, ir5, 86
Liberty and
105, 137
Victoria . . . . . . . . 57
Nature of ., 101,
103, 131, 147, 150
Vis major .. .. .. .. 07
Pioneers of
147,153
Wage Earners 32-5, 50, 81, 119, 145
Speculation . .
26, 70
Wages :
Strikes
27, 81
Amount of .. .. ..34
Succession Duty
. . 109
How Determined . . . . 36-7, 39, 03
Suffrage Adult
.. 55, 92, 150
Standard . . . . . . . . 145
,, Female ..
92, 121
Subsistence .. .. 39, 52, 88
149-152
Superintendence, of . . 75, 115
Supply :
Waste :
Foreign
61,134
Cause of 41, 75, 81
Labour, of . .
36, 39, 65, 119-120
Effect of .. ..11, 31, 41, 74, 90
Luxuries, of
. . 5S-59
Industrial 26-2S, 75-87
Necessaries, of 59, 63,
Individual . . . . 22, 26, 68-74
Sweating System
. . 119
Labour, of .. 11, 27, 51, 76. 79, S5. 90
National 29 31,87-94
Tax, the Single
113,114
Taxation :
Prevention of .. .. 67-94,150
Income, of 71, 114-11,
War 30, 90-': 4
Monopolies, of
101, 102, 107
Wealth :
Kent, of
107-109, 150
Amount of .. .. 2,15,32
Taxes, Amount of ..
.. 30
Defined 13
,. on Kn nvledge
..154
Science of 126
Telegraph Services . .
. . 30
(And see Production, Waste, and Un-
Temperance
72, 116, 136, 13S
equal Distribution)
Tenants' Protection
143-144
Webb, Sidney, LL.B, . . £0, 57, 154
Tithe Rent Charge . .
..111
Women Workers .. .. 118-121
Tories
146, 155
Work . . 43, 96, 136 {and see Labour)
Trades Unions
50, 145-6, 149
Wrong Production {see Production)
Truck Acts ..
.. 153
Youth .. .. 131,135,155
Unearned Incomes
.. 71
, Increment .. 107, 112
Zeitgeist, The ... ., 152-155
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