Work and wages, the reward of labour and the cost of work, founded on the experiences of the late Mr. Brassey

Front matter

Cornell University Library

HC 255.B762 1916 Work and wages, the reward of labour and

3 1924 002 235 681

Contents

CHAPTER PIOK

I. Conditions op Labour 1

II. Wages and the Cost of Work .... 8

Chapter I Conditions Of Labour

It seems fitting to open with a few general remarks as to the rights and claims of workers. The present writer thankfully remembers that he was from the beginning able to take an unprejudiced view of the organisation of labour. He never shared the fears of those who thought that Trades Unions had the power to extort rates of payment on a non-remunerative basis from employers of labour.

' When,' says Adam Smith, ' in any country the demand for those who Uve by wages is continually increasing, the workmen have no occasion to combine to raise their wages. The demand increases necessarily with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it ' . . . ' It is in the progressive state, while a society is advancing to further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, and of the great body of the people, is the happiest and most comfortable. It is healthy in a stationary, and miserable in a declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state

B in all the different orders of society. The stationary is duU, the declining melancholy.'

After many bitter struggles, the right of combination for the purpose of obtaining improved terms for labour has now been conceded to the working men in every country of the civilised world. There is nothing new under the sun. The Guilds of the Middle Ages were the forerunners of the Trades Unions of to-day. The strikes of modern times have had their counterpart in the Jacquerie riots of the fourteenth century.

When we take into view the great changes brought about in the industrial organisation of this country during the last century — the substitution of steam for manual power, and of machinery for hand labour — and remember that the resources of science can be fully developed only when applied on a large scale, the reasons why workmen have gathered together in recent times, in number so vast, round our great industrial centres, are not far to seek. When operatives have been thus assembled in great numbers, under the same roof, tending the same machine, and working at the same t9,ble, is it not natural — nay, reasonable — that they should take combined action on all questions of mutual interest ? In this most legitimate maimer Trades Unions have had their origin.

The recognition of the rights of free labour came late in the history of the world. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans recognised the liberty of labour. From the third to the thirteenth century the Church was the most faithful protector of the labouring

CONDITIONS OF LABOUR 3

man. In later times, Parliaments did much to secure liberty for the labourer. Turgot, the First Minister of Louis XVI., fully appreciated the rights of free labour. In his Edict of 1776 he says : — ' Dieu, en donnant a I'homme des besoins, a fait du droit de travailler la propriete de tous les hommes, et cette propriete est la premiere, la plus sacree, et la plus imprescriptible de toutes.' This Edict, the first proclamation of the just and equitable principles now universally accepted, was cancelled in the darker times, after the faU of Turgot.

No employer, on any fair view of conditions, can object in principle to the organisation of labour. We cannot but honour and admire the sentiments of fraternal sympathy which prompt men to promote each other's advancement in hfe by that mutual aid and support which Trades Unions are intended to afford. Trades Unions, like large standing armies, may be a provocation of war ; but if a strike should unfortunately occur the conduct of the workmen will probably be as much superior to that of the rioters in the manufacturing districts in the early part of the present century as the disciphne of a standing army is superior to that of a guerilla band.

In the days when ' Work and Wages ' was first printed. Sir Francis Crossley was taking a leading and broadminded part among employers of labour. In a debate on the appointment of the Trades Unions Commission in 1867, he said there was ' a good deal of unreasonable feeling abroad that it was wrong for working mea to sell their labour at

B 2 the best price. Their labour was the only thing that they had to sell ; and the best thing to do was to leave these matters to take their natural course. It was a great mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose that the lowest priced labour was always the cheapest. If there were not so much desire to run down the price of labour, and the masters showed a more conciliatory spirit, there would be fewer strikes and outrages.'

So, too, by Mr. John Stuart Mill ; ' Wages, like other things, are regulated, either by competition or by custom. In this country there are few kinds of labour of which the remuneration would not be lower than it is if the employers took full advantage of their power.'

The conditions of labour, whether in regard to profits or in regard to wages, are complex in the highest degree. Bastiat, in his ' Harmonies Economiques,' said, and said truly : ' Le capital, jusqu'ou qu'il porte ses pretentions, et quelque heureux qu'il soit dans ses efforts pour les faire triompher, ne pent jamais placer le travail dans une condition pire que I'isolement. En d'autres termes, le capital favorise tou jours plus le travail par sa presence que par son absence.' This is a statement of fact which all thinkers admit. How unreasonable to expect ready assent to such a proposition from rude and untaught workers with the hand.

The energy and the enterprise for which the leaders of British industry are justly renowned, while of advantage under prosperous conditions in increasing the employment of labour, inevitably

CONDITIONS OP LABOUR 5

lead to fluctuation and trouble. Again and again production has been unduly stimulated in every branch of British industry. When the reaction has taken place and prices have fallen, from the markets being overstocked, we are told that the price of labour and foreign competition are the causes of our inevitable misfortunes. It was well said by an able and candid writer in the Leeds Mercury, ' If foreign competition were the cause of our distress, we should be justified in expecting that, in countries competing successfully with us, the manufacturers would be in a prosperous state.' This was not the case . All were caUing out at the same time that they were ruined by foreign competition.

At the date of the pubUcation of ' Work and Wages,' the Halifax Chamber of Commerce gave utterance to the well-considered opinion that ' it was demonstrable that the great cause of the depression and the unremunerative character of the worsted trade had been the too rapid increase of machinery, both in spinning and weaving, which were stimulated both by permanent and temporary causes, such as the French Treaty and the American War.'

The same remarks would apply equally to the iron trade and all the other leading industries of the country. The very spirit of enterprise which has made England prosperous tends to produce great fluctuations in the labour market. When trade is good, our ironfounders and cotton-spinners are only too ready to increase the productive resources of their estabhshments.

6 WORK AN£» WAGES

In formef days wages on the Thames were exceptionally high. In proof of the preference shown by the working classes for a more moderate rate of wage with constant employmeftt, wages in the dockyards may be compared with those paid in private shipbuilding yards. A table was compiled by Admiral King Hall, C.B., giving the rates in Sheerness Yard in the years 1849, 1859, and 1869. Tables showing the current rates at the corresponding period in the private yards on the Thames were prepared by Mr. John Hughes, sometime manager of the Millwall Works. ITiese were published in the first edition of ' Work and Wages.'

At a time when shipwrights in London were earning from 6s. 6d. to 7s. a day, the shipwrights in Sheerness Yard, men at least as skilled as those employed by the private shipbuilders, were content with 4s. Gd. Though they could at any time have put their tools into their baskets, and at the end of an hour and a half's journey by rail have obtained employment from the private shipbuilders at the higher rate of wages, they preferred more moderate wages with a certainty of employment, to highef wages imder more precarious conditions.

The rate of wages cannot long continue so high as to deprive capital of its fair return. Neither can it long continue below the amount necessary to maintain the labourer and his family. The fluctuations between the two limits depend entirely upon the varying demand for labour. To the employer, rates of wages are of small importance. The essential is to get the work in hand done for a

CONDITIONS OF LABOUR 7

certain sum of money. The scale of wages should be liberal. It should be fixed. This brings us to the plan, everjrwhere, in so far as it was practicable, adopted by the writer's father — that of payment by the piece.

Mr. Mault, Secretary to the Builders' Association of Birmingham, stated to the Trades Unions Commissioners that of the 900,000 men employed in the building trades, not more than 90,000 were members of Trades Unions and that, although aiming at securing uniformity throughout the country, the wages of masons varied in different parts from 4|d. to 7|(i. per hour, the wages of bricklayers from i^d. to 8d., and those of carpenters from 4|c?. to 8^d. These figures conclusively prove the fallacy of the idea that Trades Unions can secure for their clients uniform rates of wages.

Organisation may lead to an advance of wages at a somewhat earher date. Competition among employers would be equally beneficial to the working people. Mr. Robinson, Managing Director of the Atlas Works, Manchester, said in his evidence before the Trades Unions Commissioners : ' I do not think the Unions have altered the rate of wages. The changes are rather due to the demand for labour in particular branches. Between 1851 and 1861 no advance took place in the wages of the engineers, though theirs is the most powerful of the Trades Societies ; in the case of the boiler makers, Tvithout the aid of labour organisation wages rose from 265. to 325. 6d.'

Chapter II Wages And The Cost Of Work

Daily wages afford no real measure of the actual cost of work. Let us take examples near home. At the commencement of the construction of the North Devon Railway the wages of the labourers were 25. a day. During the progress of the work their wages were raised to 25. 6d. and 3s. a day. The work was executed more cheaply when the men were earning the higher rate of wage than when they were paid at the lower rate. Again, in London, in carrying out a part of the Metropolitan Drainage Works in Oxford Street, the wages of the bricklayers were gradually raised from 65. to 10s. a day ; the brickwork was constructed at a cheaper rate per cubic yard after the wages of the workmen had been raised to 10s. than when they were paid at the rate of 6s. a day.

On the Grand Trunk Railway a number of French-Canadian labourers were employed. Their wages were 3s. 6d. a day, while the Englishmen received from 5s. to 6s. a day. The English did the greatest amount of work for the money.

The wages of the I^utchmen engaged in the construction of the Dutch Rhenish Railway varied from Is. 6d. to Is. 8d. a day, when paid by the day. At piecework they could earn 2s. or 2s. 6d. Good

WAGES AND THE COST OP WORK 9

workmen from the Lincolnshire fens would have made 3s. &d. at similar work.

Both EngMsh and French masons were employed in large numbers on the Aldemey Breakwater in 1852. The EngHshmen earned 5s. 6d. to 6s. ; the Frenchmen 4s. a day.

An opportunity occurred during the building of the refreshment-room at Basingstoke for testing the cost of work with great accuracy. On one side of the station a London bricklayer was employed at 5s. &d. a day, and on the other two country bricklayers at 3s. &d. a day. It was found, by measuring the amount of work performed, without the knowledge of the men employed, that the London bricklayer laid, without undue exertion, more bricks in a day than his two less skilful coimtry fellowlabourers.

In the construction of the Paris and Rouen Railway in 1842 an opportunity was afforded of comparing British and foreign wages and cost of work. This Railway was the first large work executed on the Continent. About 10,000 men were employed in its construction, of whom upwards of 4000 were Englishmen. Such an exodus of English labour to continental Europe never before occurred. A special effort was made to secure the services of Enghsh workmen on this particular contract. It was a question whether native workmen could be obtained in sufficient numbers, and it was still more doubtful whether they would • possess the necessary skill and experience for carrying out railway works, at that period a novelty, even to English engineers, and entirely unknown on the Continent. Under these exceptional circumstances a large body of Englishmen were sent over to Normandy.

The contractors sought by every possible means to mitigate the inconveniences of residence in a foreign country. They estabhshed schools and provided clergjrmen. An English physician was appointed as superior medical attendant for the whole of the works. Resident surgeons attended the sick and wounded, and also the wives of the workmen. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the employment of Enghsh manual labour abroad must always be costly, and a somewhat doubtful policy. In this particular case it was not foUnd to be disadvantageous from a pecuniary point of view.

The contract for the Paris and RoUen line included some difficult works. There were four bridges across the Seine, and four tunnels, one of them one mile and five-eighths in length, passing through hard limestone. The English were chiefly employed on the difficult work. The French labourers drew away the stuff, or wound it up the shafts. The mining was done by Englishmen. In the tunnels the skilled work was all carried out by them. At one time there were five himdred Englishmen living in the village of RoUebois, most of whom were employed in the adjacent tunnel. These English navvies earned ds. a day ; the Frenchmen 25. 6d. a day. On comparing the cost of two adjacent cuttings in precisely similar circumstances, the excavation was made at a lower cost per cubic

WAGES AND THE COST OP WORK 11

yard by the English naWies thah by the French labourers.

In the same quarry, at Bonnieres, in which Frenchmen, Irishmen, and Enghshmen were employed side by side, the Frenchmen received three francs, the Irishmen four, and the Enghshmen six francs a day. The Jlnghshman was the most advantageous workman of the three.

It may be gathered from the experience obtained on my father's Continental contracts that, as a general rule, the superiority of Enghsh workmen was most conspicuous when they first commenced work in a country in which no railways had been previously constructed. The inexperience of the French in large engineering works is proved conclusively by the fact that the works on the Paris and Rouen hue haAring been divided into innumerable separate contracts, for each of which a separate tender was made, in every case the tender of Messrs. Brassey and Mackenzie was fifty per cent. under the lowest tender of the French contractors. Increased experience enabled the French workmen to earn higher wages, and, on the other hand, closer contact with men of less vigorous habits gradually diminished the energy of the Enghsh labourers. Fo* ordinary work. Frenchmen soon become almost as efficient as Enghshmen, as the following dialogue with Mr. Mikoy, a member of my father's staff, clearly explains : —

* In the particular work you have been speaking of, the two great trades employed were masons and carpenters ? ' Mr. Milroy : ' Yes, I found plenty of good masons and carpenters in France. The latter are, in my opinion, superior for such works to EngUsh carpenters, both in the quality of the work done and in the price at which they do it. Their tools also are particularly well adapted to the work. This may arise from Paris having been, in a great measure, built of timber, filled in between with small rubble stones and stucco, and then plastered outside. The men seemed to have acquired a speciaUty for that work, and could do it better than any carpenters I have ever seen. What I have stated was proved in 1853, when I went back. I then went on to the Caen and Cherbourg line. There was only a sprinkling of Englishmen then. The agents and sub-contractors, who went out with me, had acquired the language sufficiently, when formerly engaged in France, to carry on their communications with the French workmen without interpreters. Upon the Paris and Rouen line we had a large proportion of English labourers, but on the Caen and Cherbourg line a very small proportion ; yet the one line was constructed quite as cheaply as the other.'

And now let us turn to leading foreign authorities on the relative value of English and French labour. The speeches of M. Thiers and the protectionists in the French Chamber described the condition of French industry in years long past in terms which give little occasion for envious feelings in the EngUsh reader. They say that in mixed woollen and cotton stuffs England had beaten France ; that we produced 10,000,000 tons of iron as contrasted with an

WAGES AND THE COST OP WORK 13

annual production of 1,000,000 tons in France ; that the French had no heavy goods to export ; that having given up differential rates, they had to import aU their colonial and eastern produce from England ; and that the merchant navy was rapidly decaying. Comparing the relative positions of England and France, in reference to cotton manufactures, M. Thiers stated that while England worked up 3,000,000, France only worked up from 600,000 to 700,000 bales, and that the cost of production was from 15 to 20 per cent, less in England than in France. ' It was,' he said, ' the cheap industry of Rouen which suffered most from EngHsh competition. The genius of England was for cheapness — that of France for quality.'

The relative importance of the cotton manufacture in the different countries of Europe was also compared by M. de Forcade in the course of the same debate. His statement gave the following results : that England had 30,000,000 spindles, France 6,800,000, theZollverein 2,500,000, Russia 1,800,000, Austria 1,700,000, Switzerland 1,500,000, Belgium 600,000, and Italy 450,000 spindles. It is well here to remind the reader that the statistics quoted represent the state of things fifty years ago.

As in these later days so in earher times costs of work have been reduced by improved methods, and by the greatly extended use of machines.

Mr. Nasmyth, in his evidence before the Trades Unions Commissioners, described how the long strike of 1851 developed to the utmost the use of labour-saving machinery. ' The great feature,' he said, ' of our modern mechanical improvemeiit has been the introduction of s^lf-acting tools. All that a mechanic has to do, and which any lad is able to do, is, not to labour, but to ^yatch the beautiful functions of the machine. AH that class of men who depended upon mere dexterity are set a8id,e altogether. I had four boys to one mechanic. By these mechanical contrivances I reduced the nurjiber of men in my employ, 1500 hands, fully one half. The result was that my profits were much increased.'

' In the cotton mill of Messrs. Houldsworths, in Glasgow, a spinner employed on a mule of 3360 spindles and spinning cotton 120 hanks to the pound, produced, in 1823, working 74 J hours in the week, 46 pounds of yarn, his nett weekly earnings for which amounted to 26s, Id, In 1833, the rate of wages having in the meanwhile been reduced 13g^ per cent., and the time of working having been lessened to 69 hours, the spinner was enabled by the greater perfection of the machinery to produce, on a mule of the same number of spindles, 52| pounds of yarn of the same fineness, and his nett weekly earnings were advanced to 29^. 10^!.'

A much more considerable economy than this was effectpd by increasing the size of the mules. Mr. CoweU, in the Supplementary Report of the Factory Commissioners, gave the following example of the effect on the spinner's earnings : — ' In the early part of last year a spinner produced 16 pounds of yarn of No. 200 from mules of the power of 300 to 324 spindle§. Consulting the list of prices, I percpive

WAGES AND THE COST OF WORK 15

that in May he was paid 3s. 6d, a pound ; this gives 54s. for his gross receipts, out of which he had to pay 13s. for assistants. This leaves him with 41s. earnings. His mules are now converted into mules of the power of 648 ; he is paid 2s, 5d. a pound instead of 3s. 6d. ; but he produces 32 pounds of yarn of the fineness of 200 hanks to the pound in 69 hours. His gross receipts are immediately raised to 77s. id. He requires five assistants to help him ; but deducting 27s. for their pay from his gross receipts, there remains a sum of 50s. 4:d. for his net earnings for 69 hours' work, instead of 41s., an increase of more than 20 per cent., while the cost of the yarn is reduced I3d. per pound.'

Mr. Alfred Field describing, as must often be repeated, the state of things fifty years ago, told the Committee on Scientific Education that, in the United States, a workman in the hardware trade earned double the daily wages of an English workman ; but labour-saving appHances had been brought to such perfection that in twenty-five classes of hardware goods the United States were able to export largely into countries in which the pay of artisans is scarcely a quarter of the wage paid in America. They sent their spades, shovels, axes, coopers' tools, and pumps to England ; although raw material and wages were twice as dear in the United States as in England.

It is by improved methods of husbandry and by superior machinery alone that agriculturists are enabled to pay higher wages and higher rents and yet obtfiin a moderate return on their capital, and some remuneration for their scientific education and personal attention to their business.

As an instance of the incapacity of unskilled men in its most exaggerated form, I may mention a case which occurred in Jamaica, on the only railway which had been executed in that Island. The usual plant required for the construction of the railway had been sent out, and the native labourers were suppHed with barrows for the purpose of removing the earth. When these men began to work they were so ignorant of the mechanical advantages to be derived from the use of the barrow that they placed these vehicles, laden with earth, upon the top of their heads ; and it was not without much expostulation that the Enghsh foremen were enabled to induce them to try the efEect of placing the barrow on a plank, and wheeling instead of carrying the load.

A few remarks may now be offered, showing, in numerous instances, that low rates of wages by no means ensure low cost of work. The examples quoted are taken mainly from official reports from Russia, Eastern Europe, Belgium, America, India. First let us take a report by Mr. MicheU as to economic conditions in Russia at the date when he wrote.

An apprehension of the military power of Russia, which a certain school of poUticians are too ready to entertain, might, perhaps, be changed to pity if they knew the condition of the Russian peasantry, and their inabiUty to bear the strain of a long protracted war. Even in peace they were engaged throughout their lives in an exhausting struggle

WAGES AND THE COST OP WORK 17

for bare existence. From abject poverty the women were compelled to share unceasingly in the outdoor labours of the men. The infant mortality in Russia in years gone by was appalling. The peasant women of Russia gave birth to their offspring under circumstances equally perilous to the life of the mother and the child. Their confinement often took place in a barn or a stable. They had no medical attendance, and in three days at the utmost they were once more employed in hard field labour. The result of such privation and suffering was that a large proportion of infants died within a week after their birth. The number of males living at the age of five years, in proportion to the total number of the population, was 20| per cent, less in Russia than in Great Britain, France, and Belgium. The shortness of the average duration of Hfe in Russia was equally lamentable. In the North-West Provinces, the average limit of life was between twentytwo and twenty-seven. In the Volga basin and South-Eastern Provinces it was twenty years ; in Viatka, Perm, and Orenburg, only fifteen years.

The Blue Book on the Tenure of Land in Foreign Countries did honour to our diplomatic service. Numerous examples were given, showing that where labour is cheapest, the indifference to labour-saving machinery was most conspicuous ; and that where labour was dearest it was most effectually economised. These axioms were strikingly illustrated by a comparison of the agriculture of Russia and Prussia with the agriculture of the United States and of those European countries in which labour was most liberally paid.

18 WORK ANP WAGES

In Russia the day labourer's wages ranged from M. to Is. id. with food, the cost of which was from 2d. to 3d. a day. The average pay of the female labourer was G^d. a day, with the addition of food. During harvest, the male labourer could command from Is. 4d. to 2s. 8d. a day with food ; the female labourer from Q^d. to 2s. 8d. a day with food. The yield of crops in Russia was said by Mr. JVIichell to be less than half the jdeld obtained in England or Saxony, and smaller than in any other country in Europe.

The miserable pay of the women employed in the manufactories of Russia suggests some observations as to the evils which necessarily arise from sub^ jeoting the female population to excessive manual labour. Iii all the less ciyiUsed countries of Europe women are compelled to share in the manual labours of men. This practice is in a large degree the cause of that very poverty which it is intended to alleviate, The introduction of so many additional hands into the labour market has a marked effect in diminishing the reward of labour. On the Lemberg-Czemowitz line, in some places, half the people employed were women. They earned 1.60 franc a, day, and the men from 2 to 3 francs a day.

Mr. Mill in his ' PoUtical Economy ' quotes a statement by Professor Jones, in which he said that the Russians, or rather those German writers who have observed the manners and habits of Russia, supply some remarkable facts : ' Two Middlesex mowers,' they say, ' will mow in a day as much grass as six Russian serfs, and in spite of the deamess of

WAGES AND THE COST OF WORK 10

provisions in England and their cheapness in Russia, the mowing of a quantity of hay, which would cost the English farmer half a copeck, will cost the Russian proprietor three or four copecks.' The Prussian Councillor of State, Jacobi, is considered to have proved that in Russia, where everything is cheap, the labour of the serf was twice as expensive as that of the labourer in England. In Austria the labour of a serf was one-third of that of a free hired labourer.

Let us turn from Russia to Eastern Europe. On the Bukovina hne the wages of the men for picking were Is. 6d. per day, while the women, who worked only with the shovel, earned about 6d. a day less than the men. The cost of living for a man and his wife and three children in Hungary may be stated approximately at Is. a day. In those countries the cost of unskilled labour is small. The struggle for life is so severe that every child, the moment it can add the smallest fraction to the earnings of the family, is sent into the fields. The sacrifice of these earnings, however scanty, for a few years, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of a skilled trade, is impossible with a peasantry so destitute. The cost of skilled labour is thus disproportionately high.

Speaking of Ireland — the Ireland of over half a century ago — ^Mr. Joseph Hume, in a speech on the Combination Laws, delivered in the House of Commons on June 29, 1825, said that he had heard it stated ' that low wages were a good thing. That he denied. Low wages tended to degrade the labourer,