business principles, it would come in competition with the same kind of work under private enterprise, in which case it would to the extent it succeeded create as many fresh unemployed as it had set to work.

"The Government cannot, then, guarantee you work; but it accepts the responsibility of trying to make the total field of industry as wide as possible for you; of giving to all citizens in future more and fairer chances of helping themselves, by educational facilities and in other ways. The State can reform unwise laws or unjust laws that may have injured the labouring classes. It will interfere to protect your life, your property, your health. It can readjust the burden of taxation, perhaps, a little more equitably, and in your favour. In these and other ways within the understood limits, the State can help to place labourers in a better and a fairer position, after which their fate must be left to themselves, our Government not being a paternal one, and its policy having had for aim the making of self-reliant, prudent, and persevering men rather than grown children; though even if the State could make all its citizens comfortable, provide for all their wants, and remove all risk and danger, such a consummation would be dearly purchased by the sapping of the high virtues of selfdependence and forethought: which would be the only sure result of the otherwise futile and impossible aim.

"As for the existing unemployed, whose case we sincerely deplore, the State or the municipalities will do what is possible within the limits laid down to mitigate temporary hardships. Relief work of a

useful nature, in which there is no danger of competing with private enterprise, will be undertaken in supplement to private benevolence. More the State cannot promise without changing its functions, without entering on new paths fraught with risk to national interests, and especially the material and moral interests of the working classes themselves."

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CHAPTER X.

ON SOME SPECIFIC REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES AND UNEMPLOYED LABOUR,

I.

BUT besides labourers temporarily unemployed from depressed trade or other causes, whose case we have just considered, there are labourers regularly employed at long hours, and others again regularly but intermittently employed at wages not rising above Ricardo's minimum, corresponding to a low standard of comfort, and sometimes, though not in relatively many cases, falling below it; while, worse yet, there is a mass of casual labourers, including many degraded ones, whether from bad character or chance, who are in receipt of still less wages for such services as they render.

We are here concerned with the first class, the case of common, unskilled or but slightly skilled labourers at low wages or bare subsistence wages, and the question arises whether the State could do anything to raise the wages, or whether the labourers. themselves by Trades Unionism, or any other agency, might hope to do so; in short whether there is any, and, if so, what cure for low wages, short of Socialism, which would make all wages depend on hours of average work.

The State could indeed fix a minimum wage, as at present recommended by some Socialists as a provisional measure; it could compel an employer to pay all labourers that he actually employed not less than a certain wage,' but it could not compel him to employ more at that wage than he thought would be profitable for himself. The result (apart from possible collusions to evade the law) would be that he would, in general, employ fewer labourers, and in certain cases, where profits would be greatly reduced, none at all after a time. The State would thus have done injury to the labourers that its action had driven out of employment, unless it followed up its benevolent intentions either by itself employing such, by supporting them without employment, or by supplying them with the means of emigration, in case they were inclined to emigrate. Of these three courses, the two last would hardly be recommended, or the last only in certain cases; and the consequences of the former we have already considered. The Socialists are indeed consequent in urging it, because it would be an important step in the direction of Socialism, and one which would necessitate further steps.

But could not labourers at low wages, by forming Trades Unions, and by refusing to sell their labour for less than a certain amount, themselves effectually fix a minimum wage? They certainly could in most cases form Trades Unions, and they could compel the employer to pay such higher wage if he employed

1

Though it would be difficult to prevent evasions of the law in those cases where labourers would prefer lower wages than the legal minimum to none.

any of them; but such unions would be extremely unlikely to embrace all the labourers, many of whom would merely have shut themselves out of the particular employment, and, if such Trades Unions were universal over the country, out of any similar employment elsewhere, by insisting on the higher wages. Higher wages they might, and in most cases probably could secure for the better labourers, supposing a certain quantity of the labour indispensable. They could not secure it for all without lowering employers' profits, unless in those cases where the demand was constant, and where consequently the price of the commodity produced (or the service done) by the labourer could be raised on the consumer or final purchaser, which, speaking generally, it could not. Some of the labourers would therefore be thrown out of employment, and if such Trades Unions, embracing all unskilled labourers, were universal, and all tried to raise wages, a certain proportion of them, increasing with the amount of increase demanded, would be thrown out of work everywhere. One-half or twothirds of them might secure a rise of wages, the remainder being dispensed with. The latter would be thrown on some form of public charity, and the ultimate result would probably be that they would be glad to take the low wage rather than alms or out-door relief. There are, indeed, some who say that it would be better for the labourers in such cases, and in all cases where wages fall below the minimum, to stand out for at least enough wages to live upon; perhaps they should do so: the result would then be that all who were employed at all would have sufficient wages, and