They cannot work at their own calling or craft, for one reason, because they have no capital; they must, then, either be set to work by the Government or by local authorities. But neither of these can employ them at their own craft, because, amongst other reasons, they would then be in competition with other labourers in their own industry and would injure them (a point to be more fully considered presently). They can only be set to some kind of useful public work requiring only rude labour of a general kind; with of course economic loss, and waste of skilled labour.

In parts of France the artisan has often a plot of land, perhaps an acre or two, and that solves the problem; the like is true in parts of Switzerland. They work on the land when not otherwise employed. Perhaps something in the same direction might be done for our artisans to the benefit of their health, as well as the increase of their resources. It would also somewhat ease the public conscience, as well as be a guarantee of public tranquillity, and most certainly something of this kind should be tried. It will, however require the landlord and the municipality to address themselves to the problem in the right frame of mind. Perhaps it will require the reformed local government so long promised before anything considerable can be done.9

• Written before the Local Government of 1888 was passed, which does give certain powers of the kind required to the County Councils.

VII.

BUT can society not assure to the labourer work; recognize the right to labour as an inherent right of the working man? It seems at first sight a reasonable demand that the worker should be assured of work, especially as the State has already guaranteed to him the necessaries of life if he is out of work and in want.

It seems at first sight a small thing; but in reality the right to labour recognized would be a very great thing, involving wide-reaching and momentous consequences. The following is the first, according to most economists, including J. S. Mill:-If work, with wages, were assured to all who asked for them, not merely to-day but in future, there would be such a premium put on population, there would come such an ever-increasing throng of claimants, that profitable work could not after a time be found for all: the results of their work would not be worth their wages in the case of an increasing number of labourers, and as the right to work would involve the right to at least necessaries so long as society possessed reserved means, the increasing deficiency in the results of inferior labour would have to be made up by increasing taxation of the wealthier members, until at last the whole annual income of the country would barely afford subsistence to the population. The tax for the support of the poor would engross the whole net produce of the country, the payers and receivers having at last reached equality in a universal poverty. At that point, according to Mill, the check on popu

Y

lation could no longer be postponed; it would have to be applied, or the increased numbers would die of starvation; it would have to be applied suddenly, civilization, culture, and everything that places mankind above a nest of ants or a colony of beavers having been sacrificed in the interval, for the sorry result of a large population whose sole care is to have sufficient food.

If the morrow were perfectly assured, if work were certain or, work failing, if subsistence were assured on conditions not somewhat disagreeable, there would be no restraint, Mill contends, on population. At present there is a natural restraint from the difficulty of finding employment, and the moderate wages paid to those employed. Life must not be too pleasant nor too sure, or else increased throngs would soon come to share the banquet, which would soon become a sorry one for all at the board. Such is the view of Mill and most English political economists. There are those who deny that certainty of work would cause labourers to marry earlier and to have larger families, who say that the more the morrow is assured and the better their condition grows, the less children are the result; that poverty makes the poor reckless and at the same time prolific, that if their condition were first raised and assured, the danger from over-population would cease. This is M. de Laveleye's opinion, whose contention is that "misery and ignorance" are the causes of too many children, while diffused education and moderate comfort make men provident. It is not perfectly certain, then, that if subsistence

were certain, or it work were assured to all who claimed it, the population would increase to the alarming extent dreaded by Mill, because if food were as certain as air, and as easily obtained, labourers might come to think that still life was not so fine a thing as to justify their calling in ever increased numbers. If food were assured, other things. that were not assured would perhaps grow desirable, and be regarded as necessaries; in other words, their standard of comfort or of what was necessary for a life worth living might rise. This is no doubt sustainable; but probably full assurance of the future in the existing lowest grades of labour would be a source of danger, because the evil consequences of over-population would be distant, and the brunt of the danger would be borne by the rich when it did come. The evils would fall on the rich, who could and, in the opinion of the poorer classes, should bear them; the pleasure and gratification would be their own.

It must, however, be observed that if the fear of a superabundant population were the sole objection to the allowance of the right to labour, it can hardly be doubted that means could be devised to restrain population, if the disagreeable necessity were forced on society. But there are other objections to the right to labour besides the possible swamping of society's ship through sheer numbers. The right being re

cognized, the State or the municipalities or the county authorities would have to provide work, as well as recognize the right to work, in case private enterprise failed to provide it; that is to say, the

State would have to start at once on the lines of advanced Socialism, and this it is by no means. ready to do. The statesman at present says to the labourer out of work, "The State cannot undertake to find work for you; if it did find really paying work for you, such as you have been doing, it would be at the expense of your comrades now employed; and if it were not paying work, if the results would not support you, the taxpayers would have to make it up, and the more of you that came, the more they would have to contribute. The reason you are now out of work is because your work was not sufficiently profitable to your late employer; the reason this work which you ask the State to undertake was not undertaken is because it would not pay current profits, at least in most cases. Why, then, should the Government undertake it? And if it did, you are not exactly the class of workers that it would prefer to employ. Possibly with select workers and good superintendents it might make the work commercially paying, but hardly with you, if it may be said without offence. But there is a stronger reason against its undertaking such work. The State, the Government, does not consider it amongst its functions or duties to find work for all citizens, and then to set them at it; it is not at present constituted for such a purpose, and, to say the truth, is not well suited for it. Neither, for that matter, is the local authority. It cannot, then, do what you want, start the work you recommend, without working at a loss to be borne by other citizens, while even if working successfully and on