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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

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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

all the rest would be out of employment, living on alms or on the poor-rates, and the thinking public and the labourers themselves might then be led to inquire into the causes of the previous low wages, and thereafter to find the possible remedies.

It is not in general because employers are getting excessive profits that wages are low, because unless where there is monopoly or combination, or where the profits are known only to the employer, competition reduces the profits to the ordinary level. High profits cannot be the cause of low wages in most cases, though they may be in a considerable proportion of cases, and here Trades Unions might help to lower them. What then is the cause of low wages where they do exist, or on what do the wages depend? The wages of common labour, as the wages of skilled labour, depend on a variety of considerations, the chief of which is, no doubt, the demand, the amount of need of the general public for their services in comparison with the number of the labourers. It is not the absolute number of the labourers, but the ratio, the proportion between the numbers and the need for them, and this need or demand is partly a fixed amount, as in the case where the labour is related to necessary commodities or services, partly it is variable. In Australia and America the wages of common labour are high, in Ireland low, in some parts of England higher than others, on account of this proportion varying in favour of the labourer or against him. The wages also depend on the comparative amount of capital in a country, both fixed and circulating, and on the proportion between these two parts; on

the proportion of capital retained at home as compared with the amount that is invested abroad; the amount of capital depending on the saving habits and security in the country. Wages depend, too, on whether employers can find profitable fields of enterprise, and on the nature of such; whether they supply necessaries or an old and general want more cheaply, or merely minister to a luxurious want or a wholly new want, in the former case profiting labourers, in the latter not; and all this depends on the consumers. The wages of common labour depend to a considerable extent on the kind of expenditure of rich or wellto-do people, as well as on the amount of it, and on the proportion between saving and expenditure. They depend on the relative number of the class of labourers, which depends partly on their habits with respect to marriage; on whether they had chances when young of learning any art or craft that would have enabled them to rise out of the class, and thereby lessen its numbers; on the degree of their attachment to their place of birth or country, that is, on their willingness or the contrary to emigrate and thereby lessen the numbers; again, on whether the numbers have been increased without their will or consent by foreign immigrants, or by degraded labourers of their own countrymen dropping down into their class, or by a layer of temporarily unemployed labourers being added to it; again, on the number of deserters and social malingerers who pass out of their ranks into a lower deep because work is disagreeable. All these things have to do with the amount of wages of common labourers; but above all it depends, capital being