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Act of 1833 of a provision tor State inspectors, at the suggestion probably of Mr. Chadwick, who was always a fanatic for centralisation.

Factory legislation, in truth, means the triumph of Association over Competition, of Socialism over Individualism. "It cannot be seriously denied," says Mr. Morley,1 "that Cobden was fully justified in describing the tendencies of this legislation as socialistic. It was an exertion of the power of the State in its strongest form, definitely limiting in the interest of the labourer the administration of capital. The Act of 1844 was only a rudimentary step in this direction. In 1847 the Ten Hours Bill became law. . . . In the thirty years that followed, the principle has been extended with astonishing perseverance. We have to-day a complete, minute, and voluminous code for the protection of labour; buildings must be kept pure of effluvia; dangerous machinery must be fenced; children and young persons must not clean it while in motion; their hours are not only limited but fixed; continuous employment must not exceed a given number of hours, varying with the trade, but prescribed by the law in given cases; a statutable number of holidays is imposed; the children must go to school, and the employer must every week have a certificate to that effect; if an accident happens, notice must be sent to the proper authorities; special provisions are made for bakehouses, for lace-making, for collieries, and for a whole schedule of other special callings; for the due enforcement and vigilant supervision of this immense host of minute prescriptions, there is an immense host of inspectors, certifying surgeons, and other authorities, whose business it is to speed and post o'er land and ocean' in restless guardianship of every kind of labour, from that of the woman who plaits straw at her cottage door, to that of the miner who descends into the bowels of the earth, and the seaman who conveys the fruits and materials of universal industry to and fro between the 1 The Life of Richard Cobden, vol. i. pp. 302, 303.

remotest parts of the globe. But all this is one of the largest branches of what the most importunate Socialists have been accustomed to demand; and if we add to this vast fabric of Labour legislation our system of Poor Law, we find the rather amazing result that in the country where Socialism has been less talked about than any other country in Europe, its principles have been most extensively applied.”

CHAPTER VI

MODERN ASPECTS OF COMPETITION

THE Victory of Free Trade marked the national adoption of the maxim of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, and thus closed the chapter in industrial history which Adam Smith had opened seventy years before. It was natural, therefore, that when a period of great prosperity began immediately afterwards, the whole glory of the result should be set down to the credit of Cobden, Bright, and the other heroes of that dramatic struggle. The idol of Free Competition, somewhat damaged by the assaults of the socialists, was repaired, regilded, and set up anew on a lofty pinnacle for the world to worship. Manufacturers, equipped with excellent machinery, found through free trade an outlet for their products which could not otherwise have been available, and the immediate effect on the growth of national wealth and private fortunes was perceptible to the blindest. And, by a fortunate coincidence, other events occurred which independently caused a great increase of commerce. The discoveries of gold in Australia and California hastened the settlement of the colonies and produced a rise in prices favourable to trade. Improvements in the means of communication by railways, steamships, and telegraphs widened the market, reduced expenses, and eliminated middlemen. The opening of new markets, the railway booms on the Continent and in America, and the discoveries

of new processes, all contributed their share towards the increase of British prosperity. Yet there was nothing startling about them-except in the gold-rushes: they worked, as it were, behind the scenes and in a manner obscure to the general public, and they were merged in the final cause of unlimited competition. The industrial system, as conducted by British capitalists and sanctioned by Manchester economists, accommodated itself to the public conscience by dropping much of its former violence. The growth of milder manners and the intervention of the State made most of the old horrors of the factories now impossible. Large profits made it feasible to pay the work-people better, and by degrees the manufacturers learned the economy of high wages and the wisdom of dealing less autocratically with their hands." On their side, too, the workers changed their attitude, and the reconciliation of all sections of the community seemed probable through their common union in adoration of the middle classes, the "backbone of the nation." It must further be noted that John Stuart Mill for half a century dominated the intellect of Great Britain, and the support he gave to the working classes, and his sentimental approval of their ideals, only strengthened his fervent advocacy of the detachment of the adult individual from the State. Under all circumstances there was much to be said in defence of competition, as the outcome in trade of that principle of liberty of action which was the essential mark of the free man; but when Mill welded with it that other principle of the protection of the weak, he gave to economic and political individualism a power which it had never before possessed. Lastly, Darwin seemed to add the final touch of impregnability to the doctrine of competition, when he based his theory of evolution on the "survival of the fittest," and the vulgar trade maxim became part of the great cosmic process. Later it was found out that this support was only in appearance and not in reality, but for the time being the effect was very great, for the unscientific

vagueness of the scientific phrase prevented those who made it a shibboleth from seeing that the survivor in a stye merely proved his fitness for the stye and nothing else.

We can now observe competition freely at work for something like half a century, a reasonably long period of trial, and we can dismiss from our minds those considerations of elementary humanity which governed the early reformers; for it was conceded, though on the whole grudgingly, that humanity should prevail over profit, provided that it did not act too suddenly or on too large a scale. The results expressed in bare figures are staggering. According to Sir Robert Giffen, the capital of the United Kingdom, which had been £4,000,000,000 in 1845, rose to £6,000,000,000 in 1865, to 8,500,000,000 in 1875, and to 10,000,000,000 in 1885. Judged from the standpoint of the accumulation of wealth, these figures seem to dispose of all possibility of question; but their magnitude only conceals the waste which accompanied the piling up of such stores. It is claimed for competition not only that it is the most efficient method of production, but also that it is the only equitable means for the distribution of wealth. Sir Robert Giffen's classic estimate that there are five millions of our population "whose existence is a stain on our civilisation" suggests a doubt as to the validity of that claim, which is deepened by Mr. Charles Booth's discovery that over a million people in London alone drag out their existence below the "poverty line." On seeking for a test of the satisfactoriness of competition as an instrument for securing the proper fulfilment of the nation's wants, we would naturally look for the equation of supply to demand, in the same way in which a co-operative store meets the requirements of its members. We would expect a progressive increase in business without any marked insufficiency or excess of the goods demanded. But this is just what we do not find. It is true that down at least till about 1875, and leaving out the early part of the American Civil War, we do not observe those violent and

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