Britain For The British Part 25

But the M.P.'s crossing-sweeper's son has to enter a race where there are millions of starters, and where the race is a _handicap_ in which he is on scratch, with thousands of men more than half the course in front of him.

For don't you see that this race which the lucky or successful men tell us we can _all_ win is not a fair race?

The son of the crossing-sweeper has terrible odds against him. The son of the gentleman has a long start, and carries less weight.

What are the qualities needed in a race for the Chancellors.h.i.+p? The boy who means to win must be marvellously strong, clever, brave, and persevering.

Now, will he be likely to be strong? He _may_ be, but the odds are against him. His father may not be strong nor his mother, for they may have worked hard, and they may not have been well fed, nor well nursed, nor well doctored. They probably live in a slum, and they cannot train, nor teach, nor feed their son in a healthy and proper way, because they are ignorant and poor. And the boy gets a few years at a board school, and then goes to work.

But the gentleman's son is well bred, well fed, well nursed, well trained, and lives in a healthy place. He goes to good schools, and from school to college.

And when he leaves college he has money to pay fees, and he has a name, and he has education; and I ask you, what are the odds against the son of a crossing-sweeper in a race like that?

Well, there is not a single case where men are striving for wealth or for place where the sons of the workers are not handicapped in the same way. Now and again a worker's son wins. He may win because he is a genius like Stephenson or Sir William Herschel; or he may win because he is cruel and unscrupulous, like Jay Gould; or he may win because he is lucky.

But it is folly to say that there is "nothing to prevent him" from winning. There is almost everything to prevent him. To begin with, his chances of dying before he's five years old are about ten times as numerous as the chances of a rich man's son.

Look at Lord Salisbury. He is Prime Minister of England. Had he been born the son of a crossing-sweeper do you think he would have been Prime Minister?

I would undertake to find a hundred better minds than Lord Salisbury's in any English town of 10,000 inhabitants. But will any one of the boys I should select become Prime Minister of England? You know they will not. But yet they ought to, if "there is nothing to prevent them."

But there is something to prevent them. There is poverty to prevent them, there is privilege to prevent them, there is sn.o.bbery to prevent them, there is cla.s.s feeling to prevent them, there are hundreds of other things to prevent them, and amongst those hundreds of other things to prevent them from becoming Prime Ministers I hope that their own honesty and goodness and wisdom may be counted; for honesty and goodness and true wisdom are things which will often prevent a poor boy who is lucky enough to possess them from ever becoming what the world of politics and commerce considers a "successful man."

Do not believe the doctrine that the rich and poor, the successful and the unsuccessful, get what they deserve. If that were true we should find intelligence and virtue keeping level with income. Then the mechanic at 30s. a week would be half as good again as the labourer at 20s. a week; the small merchant, making 200 a year, would be a far better man than one mechanic; the large merchant, making 2000 a year, would be ten times as good as the small merchant; and the millionaire would be too intellectual, too n.o.ble, and too righteous for this sinful world.

But don't you know that there are stupid and drunken mechanics, and steady and intelligent labourers? And don't you know that some successful men are rascals, and that some very wealthy men are fools?

Take the story of Jacob and Esau. After Jacob cheated his hungry brother into selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, Jacob was rich and Esau poor. Did each get what he deserved? Was Jacob the better man?

Christ lived poor, a homeless wanderer, and died the death of a felon.

Jay Gould made millions of money, and died one of the wealthiest men in the world. Did each get what he deserved? Did the wealth of Gould and the poverty of Christ indicate the intellectual and moral merits of those two sons of men?

Some of us would get whipped if all of us got our deserts; but who would deserve applause and wealth and a crown?

In a sporting handicap the weakest have the most start: in real life the strongest have the start and the weakest are put on scratch.

And I _have_ heard it hinted that the man who runs the straightest does not always win.

CHAPTER XIV

TEMPERANCE AND THRIFT

I said in the previous chapter that if _all_ the workers were very thrifty, sober, industrious, and abstemious they would be worse off in the matter of wages than they are now.

This, at first sight, seems strange, because we know that the sober and thrifty workman is generally better off than the workman who drinks or wastes his money.

But why is he better off? He is better off because, being a steady man, he can often get work when an unsteady man cannot. He is better off because he buys things that add to his comfort, or he saves money, and so grows more independent. And he is able to save money, and to make his home more cosy, because, while he is more regularly employed than the unsteady men, his wages remain the same, or, perhaps, are something higher than theirs.

That is to say, he benefits by his own steadiness and thrift because his steadiness makes him a more reliable, and therefore a more valuable, workman than one who is not steady.

But, you see, he is only more valuable because other men are less steady. If all the other workmen were as steady as he is he would be no more valuable than they are. Not being more valuable than they are, he would not be more certain of getting work.

That is to say, if all the workers were sober and thrifty, they would all be of equal value to the employer.

But you may say they would still be better off than if they drank and wasted their wages. They would have better health, and they would have happier lives and more comfortable homes.

Yes, so long as their wages were as high as before. But their wages would _not_ be as high as before.

You must know that as things now are, where all the work is in the gift of private employers, and where wages and prices are ruled by compet.i.tion, and where new inventions of machinery are continually throwing men out of work, and where farm labourers are always drifting to the towns, there are more men in need of work than work can be found for.

Therefore, there is always a large number of workers out of work.

Now, under compet.i.tion, where two men offer themselves for one place, you know that the place will be given to the man who will take the lower wage.

And you know that the thrifty and the sober man can live on less than the thriftless man.

And you know that where two or more employers are offering their goods against each other for sale in the open market, the one who sells his goods the cheapest will get the trade. And you know that in order to sell their goods at a cheaper rate than other dealers, the employers will try to _get_ their goods at the cheapest rate possible.

And you know that with most goods the chief cost is the cost of the labour used in the making--that is to say, the wages of the workers.

Very well, you have more workers than are needed, so that there is compet.i.tion amongst those workers as to who shall be employed.

And those will be employed who are the cheapest.

And those who can live upon least can afford to work for least.

And all the workers being sober and thrifty, they can all live on less than when many of them were wasteful and fond of drink.

Then, on the other hand, all the employers are competing for the trade, and so are all wanting cheap labour; and so are eager to lower wages.

Therefore wages will come down, and the general thrift and steadiness of the workers will make them poorer. Do you doubt this? What is that tale the masters so often tell you? Do they not tell you that England depends upon her foreign trade for her food? And do they not tell you that foreign traders are stealing the trade from the English traders?

And do they not tell you that the foreign traders can undersell us in the world's markets because their labour is cheaper? And do they not say that if the British workers wish to keep the foreign trade they will have to be as thrifty and as industrious and as sober as the foreign workers?

Well, what does that mean? It means that if the British workers were as thrifty and sober and industrious as the foreign workers, they could live on less than they now need. It means that if you were all teetotalers and all thrifty, you could work for less wages than they now pay, and so they would be able to sell their goods at a lower price than they can now; and thus they would keep the foreign trade.

Is not that all quite clear and plain? And is it not true that in France, in Germany, and all other countries where the workers live more sparely, and are more temperate than the workers are in England, the wages are lower and the hours of work longer?

And is it not true that the Chinese and the Hindoos, who are the most temperate and the most thrifty people in the world, are always the worst paid?

And do you not know very well that the "Greeners"--the foreign Jews who come to England for work and shelter--are very sober and very thrifty and very industrious men, and that they are about the worst-paid workers in this country?

Take now, as an example, the case of the cotton trade. The masters tell you that they find it hard to compete against the Indian factories, and they say if Lancas.h.i.+re wants to keep the trade the Lancas.h.i.+re workers must accept the conditions of the Indian workers.

The Indian workers live chiefly on rice and water, and work far longer hours than do the English workers.