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even horrible were perpetrated under it. Doubtless there was much passionate exaggeration by men smarting under its evils, as there was in respect to the abuses of the old unreformed jails; to the wrongs of American slavery; to the outrages of the Confederate prison-pens; but if the simple truth respecting truck in England in the early days of this century could be written out, it would form one of the most painful chapters in the long and dreary story of "man's inhumanity to man."

Another wrong which it is charged is done to laborers through the form of their payment, is by the so-called rental by the employer to the laborer, of the tools and machines necessary to production, the wages being stopped to the amount of the "rent." This alleged abuse attracted attention from economists and legislators in England particularly in connection with the hosiery manufacture, and we will, for brevity, draw our illustrations wholly from that branch of industry.

The system of Frame Rents, as exposed by the evidence before the Commission of 1844 and the Committee of 1855, was this:

Instead of the employer hiring laborers to work upon his own machines, paying them net wages for their service, the knitting is let out to middlemen upon contracts; "the middleman supplies the workman with frames and other machinery, sometimes belonging to himself and sometimes hired of the manufacturer or other owner, and when he settles with the workman, he deducts out of the gross price per dozen of the work performed, first, a sum

the workman to spend a large portion of his earnings in food for himself and his family.”—P. 245.

"I think the workinen in the great manufactories and collieries are just like a great ill-disciplined army. It is just as impossible to make them dispose of their money properly as it would be to provide an army with adequate subsistence if you were to abolish the commissariat and pay every man in money, and let him buy his provisions where he pleased."-Pp. 237, 238.

as rent for the use of the frame; secondly, a sum for winding the yarn, which is a necessary operation for each workman; a third sum to remunerate himself for the use of the premises where the work is performed, and for the standing-room of the frame; and a fourth for his trouble and loss of time in procuring and conveying to the workman the materials to be manufactured, for his responsibility to the manufacturer for the due return of the materials when manufactured, for superintending the work itself, and for his pains in sorting the goods when made, and in redelivering them at the warehouse of the manufacturer." The language quoted is that of the Committee of 1855.

That this system of gross wages, with deductions to be made for the use of machinery employed and on the other accounts specified, was not necessary to protect the owners of the machinery was abundantly proved by the fact that in trades requiring the use of even more costly and delicate machinery, the plan of clear net wages prevailed. The real reason for the frame-rent system, as brought out unmistakably by the evidence, was the profit to be made from the use of the frames, owned partly by the manufacturers and partly by the middlemen. This was admitted by the manufacturers themselves, who even claimed that but for this profit they could not carry on their business in a depressed condition of trade.'

'Just as Sir Archibald Alison admitted, the masters made use of the opportunities of the truck-system. Thus he speaks of "periods of great distress, when the masters are driven to be sharp with their furnishings." (Report of the Committee of 1854, p. 232.) "I have no doubt that under these circumstances, during these periods of distress, they sometimes furnish inferior articles, at least to what they have furnished before." The complaints which I have heard have almost always been complaints about measure; or, in some instances, I have heard complaints, in periods of distress, that the quali ty of the goods was inferior." . . . . I think when a master is receiving high prices for his articles, for iron and coal, then his pockets are full of money, he is in affluent circumstances, and he is not, therefore, under the necessity of being strict with his furnishings;

The fact of rents so high as to make this profit often enormous was abundantly proved. Mr. Muggeridge presented authentic accounts of transactions where the annual rent charged approached, equalled, or even exceeded the value of the frames. Thus one workman in 22 years paid as rent upon a frame worth but £8 or £9 between £170 and £180. Another paid ninepence a week for 30 years, on a frame costing at the beginning but £7, and requiring but £6 or £7 for repairs during the entire period. Still, again, Mr. William Biggs, a member of the Committee of 1855, had testified before the Commission of 1844 that during the two years 1835-36 his firin owned £8000 of frames; that the rents amounted to £5100, which, after deducting 5 per cent interest per annum on the capital invested, and the cost of all repairs and incidental expenses, left a clear profit of £1950, or 24 per cent for the two years.

Such was the system by the admission of those interested in its maintenance. But there can be no question that abuses were easily perpetrated under it. "The amount of this deduction," says Mr. Muggeridge,' “is regulated by no fixed rule or principle whatever; it is not dependent upon the value of the frame, upon the amount of money earned on it, or on the extent of the work made; it has differed in amount at different times, and now does so in different places; the youthful learner or apprentice pays the same rate from his scanty earnings as

that is to say, when trade is good, he gives good measure, he gives the best articles, and is liberal with his workmen; he does not feel the pressure himself. If in bad times he is out at elbow and feels the pressure, as he always does in a monetary crisis, then he is obliged to be more strict with his workmen, and then complaints are made." There is something beautiful in this Tory confidence in human nature, leading to the assurance that masters will never cheat their workmen in measure or quality unless it is positively necessary to save themselves.

Report of the Committee of 1855, p. 160. 2 Ibid.

the most expert and skilful workman in the trade from his of four-fold the amount." Moreover, the workman, obliged to hire the machine if he would have employment at all, was compelled, not infrequently, to pay the rent not only when prevented by sickness from labor, but also when no work was furnished him by the middleman, who had a direct interest not only in "spreading the work over a greater number of frames than were requisite," the amount given out being, accordingly, in some cases, "what would be three full days' work in a week, in others four, in some as little as two," but also in keeping inferior machines of antiquated pattern worn to the very edge of absolute inefficiency, since the less each machine could perform, the larger the number which would be required; and the more hands he could hold in dependence on him for an inadequate occupation, the more complete his control over these unfortunates; the more meagre the living they were able to get off their frames, the less likely they were to have either the spirit or the material means to remove.

I have given so much space to the questions of Truck and Frame Rents, both because of their prominence in the history of labor and in economical literature, and because they afford illustrations of certain very important principles in the philosophy of wages.

To the appeals of the working classes for legislation abolishing these systems, the economists of the Manchester school have replied with the doctrine of laissez faire. Asserting, as they did in their contest for free trade, the self-sufficiency of capital, they felt bound to vindicate their consistency by asserting the self-sufficiency of labor. To them truck and frame-rents were a mode of ascertaining the wages of labor; and they deemed the hours and me

1 Report of the Committee of 1855, pp. 163, 164, cf. p. 22.
Ibid., p. 163, cf. p. 24.

thods of labor and the amount and kind of wages matters to be left to employers and employed,1 subject only to the "law of supply and demand." By the operation of this law, they claimed, the employer gets the laborer's services for the least sum possible under the conditions of supply; and on the other, the laborer secures the greatest sum for his services consistent with the existing demand. The employer's least price and the laborer's greatest price are therefore the same, and no injustice can be done so long as both parties are left free by law.

It is, however, fairly a question whether the writers and statesmen of this school, in their valorous disposition to stand by their principle in every case where issue on it might be joined, have not mistaken their ground in the matter of frame-rents and truck. Surely, freedom of contract, on which the Manchesterians insist so strongly, does not involve freedom to break contracts or to evade contracts; nor does the most advanced advocate of laissez faire propose that breach of contract shall be left to be punished by natural causes-that is, by the loss of business repu tation, by the withdrawal of confidence, or by public reprobation. But if exactitude of performance may be enforced by law without any interference with industrial freedom, why, pray, may not precision in terms be required by the law, as the very first condition of a due and just enforcement of contracts? Precision in terms is, however, manifestly incompatible, in the very nature of the case, with truck; for if the employer says to the laborer, "I will pay you for your work twenty shillings a week, but you shall take it in commodities at my prices," he does not in fact agree how much he will pay the laborer; the use of the term twenty shillings becomes purely deceptive: it may mean more or less according as the employer chooses to fix his prices at the time; the laborer can not tell what his wages really are; the law can not tell, and therefore can not enforce

1 Fawcett's Speeches, p. 130.

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