CAPITAL AND CA' CANNY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Stu,—Lord Leverhulme'g article on "Capital and Ca' Canny" is a valuable Contribution. I believe if he would take steps to distribute a reprint widely amongst the working classes it would go a long way to check the growth of Socialism. When I contested the Partick Division of Glasgow I found Socialism rampant. The Scottish people are great hecklers at elections, they have local schools for teaching the art of interrupting speakers by questions, and if one keeps his temper there is nothing to complain of ; indeed, I always enjoy it. Many of my colleagues had in the course of a serious address to put up with irrelevant interruptions such as the following :—
" The poor are poor, because the rich are rich, under a Capitalist system must this not always be so?" or "Why should we have increased output, does it not result in inferior workmanship " The writer had ready for his opponents the following home truth which may interest your readers, and for which he is indebted to a copy of the Spectator of many years ago :— "If one man earns Is. for each article he makes, and he makes ten articles in the day, he will obviously earn 10s. per day. Ten men, at the same rate, will earn 100s. or £5 per day. If the Raw Material used for making each article costs Is., ten men making ten articles each will make 100 articles per day at a total cost of 100s., or £5. If the cost of Overhead Charges—Rent, Interest on Capital, Management, Power, Insurance and Rates, &e., comes to Is. per day for each of these 100 articles, the Overhead Charges will be 100s., or £5 per day. We therefore have a total outlay of :—
£5 .. in wages. 15 .. for Raw Material.
15 .. for Overhead Charges.
115 £15 divided by the 100 articles produced shows the cost of each article to be 3s.
Now, suppose each man either works a little longer or a little harder for the same wage, i.e., 1s. per article, and instead of making ten articles per day makes fifteen, the total output from the ten men per day will be 150 articles instead of 100. Each man will (at 1s. an article) earn 15s. per day instead of 10s. The ten men will therefore earn £7 10s. in wages per day instead of 15. The Raw Material will, of course, be at the same rate, but more will be used, and the employer will spend on it 150s. instead of 100s. per day—i.e., he now spends 17 10s. per day. The Overhead Charges —Rent, Interest on Capital, Rates, &c. (and this is. my whole point) will not be materially increased. The total outlay now will be as follows :—
£7 10s. in wages. £7 10s. .. Raw Material.
15 Os. .. Overhead Charges.
120 Os.
£20 divided by the 150 articles produced shows the cost of each
article to be a trifle over 2s. 8d. as against 8s. in the first case. Thus by increasing the individual output, the men increase their wages, decrease the cost of production, and enable the employer to keep out foreign competition, and, above all, to keep his works open."
Working men are quite capable of understanding such simple calculations as the above if they are explained to them slowly and step by step. Further, I believe if it were put in language intelligible to them, they could be got to appreciate that Capitalism is not a system but a practice, that if it were destroyed one day it would reconstitute itself the next, as it rests on the right of every individual to possess private
iimperty.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN COLI1E.
22 Porchester Terrace, Hyde Park, W. 2.
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