Political economy Part 3

We must ascertain how it is that many of the population get so little, and some so much. Men work very hard on a farm and raise crops; the landlord comes and takes away a large part as rent, so that the labourers have barely enough to live upon. When we are able to understand why the labourer gets so little at present, we shall see, perhaps, how he might manage to get more, but in any case we shall see that it is due in great part to the laws of nature.

The part of our subject which we are now going to consider is called the #distribution of wealth#, because it teaches us how the wealth produced is distributed (Latin, _dis_, apart, and _tribuere_, to allot) between the labourers, the owners of land, the owners of capital, and the government. The part which the labourer gets is called #wages#; the share of the land owner is called #rent#; that of the capitalist is #interest#; and the government take #taxes#. We may say that, as a general rule, the produce of work is divided into four shares, which may be thus shown:

#produce = wages + rent + interest + taxes.#

#39. The Labourer's Share--Wages.# It ought to be carefully remembered that the names #wages#, #rent#, and #interest#, as here used, do not exactly agree in meaning with the names as we employ them in common life. The wages paid to workmen are sometimes more than wages, being partly interest; the rent almost always consists partly of interest; and what is called interest may in some degree be really wages or rent.

By #wages# we mean, in political economy, nothing but what goes to pay for the trouble of labour. But many workmen own their own tools; masons have a boxful of chisels, mallets, rules, &c.; carpenters often require twenty or thirty pounds' worth of planes and other implements; a pianoforte maker sometimes owns seventy pounds' worth of tools; even gardeners require spades, rakes, a barrow, scythe, or perhaps a mowing machine and a roller. Now, all such tools represent so much invested capital, and a certain amount of interest must be paid for this capital.

A pianoforte maker might expect five pounds a year as interest upon the cost of his tools. But true wages, are what remains after allowance has been made for such interest, and it would be proper to subtract also what is paid to the government as taxes.

#40. The Land Owner's Share--Rent#, the second part of the produce, means, in political economy, what is paid for the use of a natural agent, whether land, or beds of minerals, or rivers, or lakes. The rent of a house or factory is, therefore, not all rent in our meaning of the word. Capital has been spent in building the house or factory, and interest must be paid on this capital; we must then deduct this interest from what is commonly called the rent, before we can find out what is really rent. The ground rent of a house is the rent paid for the ground on which it stands, and this will be more nearly the true rent, apart from interest. Similarly, the ordinary rent of a farm will usually include interest upon the capital spent on the farm buildings, roads, gates, fences, drains, and other improvements. We shall afterwards learn exactly how true rent arises.

#41. The Capitalist's Share.# The proper share of the capitalist is #interest#; but this is usually a good deal less than what actually remains in the hands of the capitalist. Business is generally carried on by some capitalist who rents a piece of land, builds a factory, purchases machinery, and then employs men to work the machinery, paying them wages. The capitalist himself often acts as manager, and works every day almost as long as the workmen. When the goods are finished and sold, he keeps the whole of the money he gets for them; but then he has already paid out a large sum as wages, while the goods were being made; another part goes to pay the rent of the land which he has hired.

Having struck off these portions, there ought to remain a certain #profit#, part of which he uses to live upon. But even this profit consists of more than interest upon his capital. It should include also a payment for his labour in superintending the business. The manager of a factory may seldom touch the cotton, flax, iron, or other material, which is manufactured; nevertheless, he works with his head and his pen, calculating the prices at which he can produce goods, inquiring where he can buy the materials most cheaply, choosing good workmen, keeping the accounts straight, and so on. Severe mental labour is really far more difficult and exhausting than manual labour; and in raising up a good business, and carrying it through times of danger, a manager has to undergo great anxiety and mental fatigue. Thus, it is necessary that a successful manager should receive a considerable share of the produce, so as to make it worth his while to give this labour. His share is called #the wages of superintendence#, and, although usually much larger than the share of a common labourer, it is really wages of the same nature.

Another part of the capitalist's so-called profit ought to be laid aside as #recompense for risk#. There is always more or less uncertainty in trade, and even the most skilful and careful manager may lose money by circ.u.mstances over which he has no control. Sometimes, after building a factory, the demand for the goods which he is going to produce falls off; sometimes the materials cannot be bought; perhaps it is discovered, when too late, that the factory has been built in an unsuitable place; occasionally, too, the workmen are discontented, and refuse to work for such wages as the capitalist can afford to pay. Now, whenever any of these mistakes or misfortunes happen, it is the capitalist who mainly suffers, because he loses a great deal of money, on which he might otherwise have lived comfortably. Sometimes men who have worked hard all their lives, and grown rich by degrees, lose all their wealth again in the end, by some error of judgment or by some unfortunate event due to no fault of their own.

A capitalist, then, must have some inducement for running into these disagreeable risks; by lending his capital to the government he might get interest for it, and be nearly sure not to lose. If, then, he puts it into trade, and runs the risk of loss, he must have a recompense for the risk. This ought to be at least enough to make the profits of the successful business balance the losses of the unfortunate ones, so that on the average capitalists will get the interest of capital and the wages of superintendence free from loss. We may say, then, that-- profit = wages of superintendence + interest + recompense for risk.

#42. About Interest.# That which is paid for the use of capital altogether apart from what is due for the trouble and risk of the person conducting the business, is called #interest#. This interest, of course, will be greater or less according as the amount of capital is greater or less; it will also be greater or less according as the capital is employed for a longer or shorter time. Thus the rate of interest is always stated in proportion to the capital sum and to the time; _five per cent. per annum_ means that, for every hundred pounds of capital, five pounds are paid during every year in which the capital is used, and in the same proportion for longer or shorter times.

The rates of interest actually paid in business vary very much, from one or two per cent. up to fifty per cent. or more. When the rate is above five or six per cent., it will be to some extent not true interest, but compensation for the risk of losing the capital altogether. To learn the true average rate of interest, we must inquire what is paid for money lent to those who are sure to pay it back, and who give property in pledge, so that there may be no doubt about the matter. It seems probable that the true average rate of interest in England is at present about four per cent., but it varies in different countries, being lower in England and Holland than anywhere else. In the United States it is probably six or seven per cent.

The most important fact about #interest# is that #it is the same in one business as in another#. The rates of profit differ very much, it is true, but this is because the labour of superintendence is different, or because there is greater risk in one trade than another. But the true interest is the same, because capital, being lent in the form of money, can be lent to one trade just as easily as to another. There is nothing in circulating capital which fits it for one trade more than another: accordingly it will be lent to that trade which offers ever so little more interest than other trades. Thus #there is a constant tendency to the equality of interest in all branches of industry#.

CHAPTER VII.

WAGES.

#43. Money Wages and Real Wages.# Wages, as we have already learnt, are the payments received by a labourer in return for his labour. It does not matter whether these payments are received daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. A day gardener is, perhaps, paid every evening; an artisan is usually paid on Sat.u.r.day or Friday night, or sometimes fortnightly; clerks receive their salaries monthly; managers, officers, secretaries, and others, are paid quarterly, or sometimes half-yearly.

When the wages are paid monthly, or at longer intervals, they are generally called #salary# (Latin, _salarium_, money given to Roman soldiers for salt); but if the salary is paid for labour and nothing else, it is exactly the same in nature as wages.

I said, in the last chapter, that wages consist of a share of the produce of labour, land, and capital; in the preceding paragraph, I have been saying that it consists of payments. Here arises one of the great difficulties of our subject. As a matter of fact, the wages received by labourers, in the present day, consist almost always of money. A person working in a cotton mill produces cotton yarn; but he does not receive at the end of the week so much cotton yarn; he receives so many s.h.i.+llings. This is much more convenient; for if the labourer received cotton yarn, or any other commodity which he produces, he would have to go and sell it in order to buy food and clothes, and to pay the rent of his house. Instead, then, of receiving an actual share of the produce, he receives from the capitalist as much money as is supposed to be equal in value to his share.

Now, we shall see that it is requisite to distinguish between #money wages# and #real wages#. What a labourer really works for is the bread, clothes, beer, tobacco, or other things which he consumes; these form the real wages. If he gets more of these, it does not matter whether he gets more or less money wages; he cannot eat money, or use it in any way except to spend it at shops. If corn or cotton becomes dearer, the wages of every workman are really lessened; because he can buy less corn or cotton with his money wages. On the other hand, everything which makes goods cheaper, increases the real wages of workmen; because they can get more of the goods in exchange for the same money wages. People are accustomed to think far too much about the number of s.h.i.+llings they get for a day's work; they fancy that, if they get 25 per cent. more money wages, they must be 25 per cent. more wealthy. But this is not necessarily the case; for if the prices of goods on the average have also risen 25 per cent, they will be really no richer nor poorer than before.

We now begin to see that to increase the productiveness of labour is really the important thing for everybody. For if anything, such as cotton cloth, can be made with less labour, it can be sold more cheaply, and everybody can buy more of it for the same money, and thus be better clothed. If the same were the case with other goods, so that linen, stockings, boots, bricks, houses, chairs, tables, clocks, books, &c., were all made in larger quant.i.ties than before, with the same labour, everybody in the country would be better supplied with the things which he really wishes to have.

It is certain that #a real increase of wages to the people at large is to be obtained only by making things cheaply#. No doubt a tradesman gains sometimes when the goods he deals in become dearer, but to the extent that they are dearer, all consumers of the goods lose, because they can enjoy less comforts and necessaries. But, if goods are made cheaply, all consumers gain thereby, and, all people being consumers, all gain so far as they use the cheapened articles. Nor does it follow that artisans and tradespeople suffer by the cheapening of goods. If, owing to some invention, much greater quant.i.ties are made with the same labour, the artisan will probably be able to sell his share of the produce for more than before, that is, his wages will rise instead of falling by the cheapening of the produce. The tradesman, again, may gain less on each separate article that he sells, but he may sell so much more than before, that his total profits may be increased. The result to which we come is, then, that #all increase of produce, and cheapening of goods tends to the benefit of the public, and this is the true way in which people are made richer#.

#44. How Differences of Wages arise.# It is very important to understand rightly the reasons of the great differences which exist between the rates of wages paid in different occupations. Some kinds of labourers are paid a hundred or even a thousand times as much for a day's work as others, and it may seem very unfair that there should be such great differences. We must learn to see that this is the necessary result of the various characters and abilities of persons, partly arising from the actual strength of mind and body with which they were born, partly from the opportunities of education and experience which they have happened to enjoy. We are often told that all men are born free and equal; however this may be in a legal point of view, it is not true in other ways. One child is often strong and stout from its earliest years; another weakly and unfit for the same exertion. In mind there are still more remarkable differences.

The rates of wages in different employments are governed by #the laws of supply and demand# which we shall afterwards consider. Just as goods rise in price when there is little in the market and much is wanted, so the price of men's labour rises when much of any particular kind is wanted and little is to be had. It does not matter much whether we speak of demand for goods or demand for the labour, which is necessary to make the goods. If more things of a certain sort are wanted, then more men able to make them must be found. If I buy an aneroid barometer, I use up the labour of a man able to make such a barometer; if many people take a fancy to have aneroid barometers, and only a few workmen have the necessary skill to make them, they can ask a high price for their labour. It is true that people buying barometers do not usually pay the workmen for making them; a man with capital gets the barometers made beforehand and puts them in shops ready for sale. The capitalist advances the wages of the workmen, but this is only for a few weeks or months, and according as the demand for barometers is brisk or slow, he employs more or fewer workmen. Thus, #demand for commodities comes to nearly, though not quite, the same thing as demand for labour#. There is the profit of the capitalist to be considered as well; but, with this exception, #rates of wages are governed by the same laws of supply and demand as the prices of goods#.

Anything, then, which affects the numbers of men able and willing to do a particular kind of work, affects the wages of such men. Thus the princ.i.p.al circ.u.mstance governing wages is the comparative numbers of persons brought up with various degrees of strength, both of body and mind. The greater number of ordinary men, while in good health, have sufficient strength of arms and legs to do common work; the supply of such men is consequently very large, and, unless they can acquire some peculiar knowledge or skill, they cannot expect high wages. Dwarfs and giants are always much less common than men of average size; if there happened to be any work of importance which could only be done by dwarfs or giants, they could demand high wages. Dwarfs, however, are of no special use except to exhibit as curiosities; very large strong men, too, are not generally speaking of any particular use, because most heavy work is now done by machinery. They can, however, still get very high wages in hewing coal, or puddling iron, because this is work, requiring great strength and endurance, which is not yet commonly done by machinery. Iron puddlers sometimes earn as much as 250 a year.

It is great skill and knowledge which generally enable a man to earn large wages. Rich people like to get the best of everything, and thus the few people who can do things in the best possible way can ask very high prices. Almost any one can sing badly; but hardly any one can sing as well as Mr. Sims Reeves: thus he can get perhaps 20 or 30 for every song which he sings. It is the same with the best artists, actors, barristers, engineers. An artist is usually his own capitalist, for he maintains himself during many months, or even years, while he is painting a great picture; if he succeeds in doing it excellently well, he can sell the picture for thousands of pounds, because there are many rich people who wish to possess good pictures.

#45. Adam Smith on Wages.# There are, however, various circ.u.mstances which cause wages in any particular employment to be higher or lower than in other employments, and we had better attend to what Adam Smith has said on this subject. He mentioned five princ.i.p.al circ.u.mstances which make up for small wages in some occupations, and balance great wages in other ones, as follows:

(1.) #The Agreeableness or Disagreeableness of the Employments themselves.# If an employment is in itself comparatively pleasant, it attracts many who would not otherwise go into it at the current wages.

Thus, officers of the army and navy are not on the average highly paid; but there is never any difficulty in finding men willing to be officers, because the work is thought to be easy, and there is honour and power attaching to it. On the other hand, a good butcher makes high wages, because his business is a greasy one, besides being thought to be cruel, and a clever man must be attracted to it by good earnings.

(2.) #The Easiness and Cheapness, or the Difficulty and Expense of learning the Occupation.# This circ.u.mstance always has much importance, because the greater number of the people are poor, and are consequently unable to give their children a long good education. Thus, the larger part of the young men who grow up are only fit for common manual employments, and therefore get low wages. To learn a profession, like that of an architect or engineer, it is requisite to pay a high premium, and become a pupil in a good office, and then there are many years to be spent in practising and waiting before profit begins to be made. Hence the comparatively few who succeed in the difficult professions gain very high wages.

(3.) #The Constancy or Inconstancy of Employment.# When a man is sure of being employed and paid regularly all the year round, he is usually willing on that account to accept a less rate of wages. Thus, there is little difficulty in finding men to be policemen at about 25 s.h.i.+llings a week; for though they have to go on duty at night, and their work is often tedious and disagreeable, yet policemen are nearly sure to have employment as long as they behave well. A carpenter or bricklayer, on the contrary, is sometimes thrown out of work, and becomes anxious as to the means of keeping his family. Masons and bricklayers, who cannot work during frosty weather, ought of course to have higher wages during the rest of the year, so as to make up a good average. Dock-labourers, who are simply strong men without any particular skill, earn large wages when trade is brisk and many s.h.i.+ps come into the docks; at other times, when trade is slack, or when contrary winds keep s.h.i.+ps out of port, they often fall into dest.i.tution through want of employment.

(4.) #The Small or Great Trust which must be reposed in those who exercise the Employments.# This circ.u.mstance considerably affects the supply of people suitable for certain occupations. A man cannot expect to get employment in a bank, or in a jeweller's shop, unless he has a good character. Nothing is more difficult than for a person convicted of dishonesty to find desirable employment. Thus, a good character is often worth a great deal of money. Honesty, indeed, is so far common that it does not alone command high wages; but it is one requisite. The cleverest man would never be made the manager of a large business, if there was reason to think that he had committed fraud.

(5.) Lastly, #The Probability or Improbability of Success in Employments greatly affects the Wages of those who succeed#. In some cases, a man can hardly avoid succeeding; if he once enlists, he is made into a soldier whether he likes it or not. Almost all, too, who become clerks in banks, counting-houses, or public offices, can succeed in doing some of the work required in such offices. Accordingly clerks are seldom highly paid. But of those who become barristers, only a few have the peculiar knowledge, tact, and skill required to make them successful; these few make very large gains, and the unsuccessful men have to seek for other employments.

Some occupations are very badly paid, because they can be taken up by men who fail in other work. Frequently a person who has learnt a trade or profession finds that he is unfit for it; in other cases, there is a failure in the demand for a commodity, which obliges its manufacturers to seek other work. Such people are usually too old and too poor to begin again from the beginning, and learn a new difficult trade. Thus they have to take to the first work they can do. Educated men who have not been successful become secretaries, house-agents, insurance-agents, small wine merchants, and the like. Uneducated men have to drive cabs, or go into the army, or break stones; poor women become seamstresses, or go out charing. Here again we see the need of leaving everybody at perfect liberty to enter any trade which he can manage to carry on; it is not only injurious to the public, but it is most unfair to people in misfortune, if they are shut out of employments by the artificial restrictions of those who already carry on those employments.

#46. What is a Fair Day's Wages?# It is a favourite saying that #a man should have a fair day's wages for a fair day's work; but this is a fallacious saying#. Nothing, at first sight, can seem more reasonable and just; but when you examine its meaning, you soon find that there is no real meaning at all. It amounts merely to saying, that #a man ought to have what he ought to have#. There is no way of deciding what is a fair day's wages. Some workmen receive only a s.h.i.+lling a day; others two, three, four, or five s.h.i.+llings; a few receive as much as ten, or even twenty s.h.i.+llings a day; which of these rates is fair? If the saying means that all should receive the _same_ fair wages, then all the different characters and powers of men would first have to be made the same, and exactly equalised. We have seen that wages vary according to the laws of supply and demand, and as long as workmen differ in skill, and strength, and the kind of goods they can produce, there must be differences of demand for their products. Accordingly, there is no more a fair rate of wages than there is a fair price of cotton or iron. It is all a matter of bargain; he who has corn or cotton or iron or any other goods in his possession, does quite right in selling it for the best price he can get, provided he does not prevent other people from selling their goods as they think best. So, any workman does quite right in selling his labour for the highest rate of wages he can get, provided that he does not interfere with the similar right of other workmen to sell their labour as they like.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRADES-UNIONS.

#47. The Purposes of Trades-Unions.# Working-men commonly think that the best way to raise their earnings is to form trades-unions, and oblige their employers to pay better wages. #A trades-union is a society of men belonging to any one kind of trade, who agree to act together as they are directed by their elected council, and who subscribe money to pay the expenses.# Some trades-unions are very different from others, and they are not all well conducted nor all badly conducted, any more than people are all well behaved or all badly behaved. Moreover, the same trades-union often does different kinds of business. Usually they act as benefit or friendly societies, that is to say, if a member of a trades-union pays his subscription of say one s.h.i.+lling weekly, together with an entrance-fee and other small payments, he has a right, after a little time, to receive say twelve s.h.i.+llings a week in case of illness; he gets back the value of his tools if they should happen to be burnt or lost; when thrown out of work he will enjoy say ten s.h.i.+llings a week for a certain length of time; if he is so unfortunate as to be disabled by accident, he receives a good sum of money as an accident benefit; and when he dies he is buried at the expense of the union. All these arrangements are very good, for they insure a man against events which are not usually under his own control, and they prevent workmen from becoming paupers. So far as trades-unions occupy themselves in this way, it is impossible not to approve of them very warmly.

Then, again, trades-unions are able to take care of their members by insisting that employers shall make their factories wholesome and safe.

If a single workman were to complain that the workshops were too hot, or that a machine was dangerous, or a mine not properly ventilated, he would probably not be listened to, or would be told to go about his business. But if all the workmen complain at once, and let it be known that they do not intend to go on working unless things are made better, the employer will think about the matter seriously, and will do anything that is reasonable to avoid disputes and trouble. Everybody is justified in taking good care of his own life and health, and in making things as convenient to himself as possible. Therefore we cannot find fault with workmen for discussing such matters among themselves, and agreeing upon the improvements they think right to demand. It is quite proper that they should do so.

But n.o.body is perfectly wise, and those who have not much time to get knowledge, and learn science and political economy, will often not see the effects of what they demand. They may ask for something which is impossible, or would cost so much as to stop the trade altogether. In all such matters, therefore, working-men should proceed cautiously, hearing what their employers have to say, and taking note especially of what the public opinion is, because it is the opinion of many who have nothing to lose or gain in the matter.

#48. The Regulation of Hours.# One of the princ.i.p.al subjects of dispute is usually the number of hours in the day that a workman should work. In some trades a man is paid by the hour or by the work done, so that each man can labour a longer or shorter time as he prefers. When this is the case, each man is the best judge of what suits him, and no trades-union ought to interfere. But in factories, generally speaking, it would not do to let the men come and go when they liked; they must work while the engines and machines are moving, and while other men need their a.s.sistance. Accordingly, somebody must settle whether the factory is to work for twelve, or ten, or nine, or eight hours a day. The employer would generally prefer long hours, because he would get more work and profit out of his buildings and machines, and he need not usually be on the spot all the time himself. It seems reasonable, then, that the workmen should have their opinion, and have a voice in deciding how long they will work.

But workmen are likely to be mistaken, and imagine that they may get as much wages for nine hours' work as for ten. They think that the employer can raise the price of his goods, or that he can well afford to pay the difference out of his own great profits. But if political economy is to be believed, the wages of workmen are really the value of the goods produced, after the necessary rent of land and interest of capital have been paid. If factories, then, produce less goods in nine hours than in ten, as is usually the case, there cannot, in the long run, be so much wages to receive. On the other hand, as machinery is improved, labour becomes more productive, and it is quite right that those who are sufficiently well paid should prefer, within reasonable limits, to lessen their hours of work rather than increase their earnings. This is a matter which depends upon many considerations, and it cannot be settled in this Primer. What I should conclude is, that when workmen want to lessen their hours of work, they ought not to ask the same wages for the day's work as before. It is one thing to lessen the hours of work; it is another thing to increase the rate of wages per hour, and though both of these things may be rightly claimed in some circ.u.mstances, they should not be confused together.

#49. The Raising of Wages.# The princ.i.p.al object of trades-unions, however, is to increase the rate of wages. Working men seem to believe that, if they do not take care, their employers will carry off the main part of the produce, and pay very low wages. They think that capitalists have it all their own way unless they are constantly watched, and obliged to pay by fear of strikes. Employers are regarded as tyrants who can do just as they like. But this is altogether a mistake. No capitalists can for more than a year or two make unusual profits, because, if they do, other capitalists are sure to hear of it, and try to do likewise. The result will be that the demand for labourers in that kind of trade will increase; the capitalists will bid against each other for workmen, and they will not, generally speaking, be able to get enough without raising the rate of wages.

There is no reason whatever to think that trades-unions have had any permanent effect in raising wages in the majority of trades. No doubt wages are now much higher than they were thirty or forty years ago; but to a certain extent this is only a rise of money wages, due to the abundance of gold discovered in California and Australia. The rest of the increase can be easily accounted for by the great improvements in machinery, and the general prosperity of the country. It is certain, too, that the increase of wages is not confined to those trades which have unions; even common labourers who have no unions receive considerably more money wages than they did, and domestic servants, who never strike in a body, but simply leave one place when they can get a better, have raised their own wages quite as much as any union could have done it for them.

#50. Strikes and Lockouts.# #Workmen are said to strike, that is, to strike work, when a number of them agree together to cease working on a certain day for certain employers#, in order to oblige these employers to pay better wages, or in some way to yield to their demands. When one or more employers suddenly dismiss their workpeople altogether, in order to oblige them to take lower wages, or agree to some alteration of work, it is called #a lockout#, and a #lockout is nearly the same as a strike of the employers#. Strikes sometimes last for many months, the workmen living on what savings they have, and on contributions sent to them by workmen or unions in the same or other trades. The employers at the same time lose much money by their factories standing still, and they sometimes receive aid from other employers.

There is nothing legally or morally wrong in a strike or lockout when properly conducted. A man, when free from promises or contracts, has a right to work or not to work, as he thinks best, that is to say, the law regards it as beneficial to the country, on the whole, that people should be free to do so. Similarly, employers are free to work their mills or not as they like. Neither employers nor employed, indeed, must break engagements; men who have promised to work to the end of the week must of course do so; they are not free till their promise is performed.

Again, n.o.body should be allowed suddenly to stop work in a way endangering other people. Enginedrivers and guards in America sometimes strike when a train is halfway on its journey, and leave the pa.s.sengers to get to the next town as they best can. This is little better than manslaughter. Neither the owners nor the workmen in gasworks, waterworks, or any other establishment on which the public depends for necessaries of life, should be allowed suddenly to stop work without notice. The safety of the public is the first consideration. The law ought therefore to punish those who make such strikes.

#51. The General Effect of Strikes.# There is not s.p.a.ce in this little work to argue the matter out in detail, but I have not the least doubt that #strikes, on the whole, produce a dead loss of wages to those who strike, and to many others#. I believe that if there had not been a strike during the last thirty years, wages would now be higher in general than they are, and an immense amount of loss and privation would also have been saved. It has, in fact, been shown by Dr. John Watts of Manchester, in his "Catechism of Wages and Capital," that even a successful strike usually occasions loss. He has said, "Allowing for accidental stoppages, there will not be in the most regular trades above fifty working weeks in the year, and one week will therefore represent two per cent. of the year. If a strike for four per cent. rise on wages succeeds in a fortnight, it will take twelve months' work at the improved rate to make up for the lost fortnight; and if a strike for eight per cent. lasts four weeks, the workmen will be none the richer at the end of twelve months; so that it frequently happens that, even when a strike succeeds, another revision of wages takes place before the last loss is made up; a successful strike is, therefore, like a successful lawsuit--only less ruinous than an unsuccessful one." If we remember that a large proportion of strikes are unsuccessful, in which case of course there is simple loss to every one concerned; that when successful, the rise of wages might probably have been gradually obtained without a strike; that the loss by strikes is not restricted to the simple loss of wages, but that there is also injury to the employers' business and capital, which is sure to injure the men also in the end; it is impossible to doubt that the nett result of strikes is a dead loss. The conclusion to which I come is that, #as a general rule, to strike is an act of folly#.