RUSKIN AND MODERN BUSINESS.
WE imagine that there is much vagueness of thought on the part of many who sympathise with the economic teachings of the late Mr. Ruskin, as there is also no little ignorance of what he really meant on the part of those who opposed him. We can hardly hold Ruskin himself responsible for this, since very few writers have ever used clearer language, and since his mind, fortified by an immense store- house of facts, was, as he was proud to think, of high analytic power. There is one point on which his economic gospel was attacked, first by political economists, and then, when their opposition had slackened, by a kind of combina- tion of Podenap and Gradgrind,—it had no relation to the facts of the business situation, and could not be adjusted to the demands of British commerce. Seeing that the essence of Mr. Ruskin's gospel, as distinct from its vagaries, was a simple demand for honesty in the first place, and for the relation of economic production to the wider aims of human life, these objections seemed to reflect on British commerce and the business situation, as implying that they could not quite be conformed to honest dealing, or that buying and selling were things by themselves, having no relation to all the other aspects of human life. Now, if Ruskin had merely evolved some new scheme of industry or trading out of his moral consciousness and without reference to human nature as we know it, we might be tempted for once to agree with Poch:map and Gradgrind and wave the vague theory aside as unfit for this world, however it might snit a New Atlantis or a City of the Sun. But, as we shall show immediately, Mr. Ruskin's work in economics, while recognised (as the new "Dictionary of Political Economy" shows) by professed economic thinkers, has been taken up by eager and intelligent business men with the happiest results- Ruskin, with a modesty which he did not always exhibit, derived his ideas on social questions from Carlyle. Now, in economics Carlyle's great remedy for the evils of society was to get the great "captains of industry" to be really captains, to lead their battalions of workers, to sympathise with them, to care for them, while commanding them in their conflict with the forces of Nature. From that simple germinal idea Ruskin deduced a kind of " whole duty of man " in regard to economics, and so evolved a new system of industry based not, as is ignorantly supposed, on the abolition of machinery, but on the two-fold principle of complete honesty and veracity in production and exchange, and in a due subordina- tion of the production of wealth to the wider aims of man. The question is whether this is feasible ?
That question has been answered by the report, balance sheets, and statement of accounts, of the firm of Messrs. William Thomson and Sons, of Huddersfield, which lie before us. This is a woollen firm employing one hundred and fifty persons, and reorganised on what may broadly be called Ruskinian principles. The prime agent in the conversion of the firm, Mr. George Thomson, is both a sincere and intelli- gent disciple of Ruskin, his moral nature grasping Ruskin's essential ideas,and his business instinct knowing what to reject as impracticable or unimportant. We must premise, however, that this method is not one for realising a big fortune,—that, indeed, is its merit. The heads of the business can live, and live well, but they cannot be, as they do not wish to be, millionaires. In this, as in everything else, "ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Those who think that the adoption of Ruskin's ideas means a more subtle way of making one's pile may pass on ; this is not for them. The essence of the scheme is co-partnership, every person consciously and willingly co- operating to a worthy end, viz., the production of the best and most honest article that can be produced in the trade. When the business changed over it was registered under the Friendly Societies Act, and there was a public inaugural ceremony. A storm was raised by customers, but Mr. Thom- son stood to his guns, and the opposition has now largely died away. During the thirteen or fourteen years which have elapsed since the industrial partnership was established, the firm has sold high-class gcods (all wool—no shoddy) worth £354,931, and has always paid 5 per cent. interest on capital. On two occasions the profits did not really allow of this, but it was paid all the same by the workers in the first instance, quite spontaneously, while in the second instance half was paid by the workers and half was taken from the reserve fund. Even the most blear-eyed disciple of Podsnappery must admit that this is as superior to, as it is different from, the normal jealousy of the average capitalist and workman, each ready for lock-out or strike, and each only too eager to make as much out of the other while giving as little in return. Now, in addition to the total sales that have been effected, it may be said that the original cost of the plant has been written off, a reserve fund provided for, and a sick pay and pension fund introduced, from which workers are paid half their wages until convalescent, and aged people who have retired about the same. So the old- age pension scheme is solved there,—as it might be in many another place if only the basic principles of honesty and humane consideration obtained.
But this Huddersfield concern has gone farther still in Rnskinian economics, adopting not only the eight-hour day, but the principle of fixed wages for all, employer and employed, so that it is really a working or industrial partner- ship ; and this is so successful that it is no longer an experiment, but a finally established fact. The piece-workers were averaged for two previous years, and all were fixed at the average. As regards the profits, shares are credited to the workers at 5 per cent., and Mr. Thomson's own propor- tion of the profit is upon his salary or wage. If ls. 6d. in the £ is declared on wages, each takes in proportion, whether he is receiving £10 per week or 10s. ; the former 15s., the latter 9d. The result of the adoption of the eight-hour day has been to give this firm some of the healthiest and best workers of any place in England. In a word, all the workers are satisfied and none would go back to the precarious and non- ethical conditions which obtain generally in industrial life. Some of Ruskin's business methods, at any rate, pay in the truest sense of the word, even if you cannot turn yourself into a millionaire by their adoption, and it is well that this should be proved.
For, if we had to admit that Ruskin's ethical principles (which are but the partial application of the teachings of a greater than Ruskin) were useless in the business of life, we should have to admit that the tremendous problem of capital and labour can never be solved, but that society must look forward to more and more frightful convulsions until its very foundations were well-nigh wrecked. If the Haves and the Have-nots are to scramble between them for an unallotted surplus with threats and blows, or by the cajolery of politicians who will take this or that side, according as the cat seems about to jump, then the outlook is black indeed ; for all that implies mere force and the absence of the determining moral factor. In a sense, Ruskin was certainly a great revolutionary thinker; but his revolution was to be accomplished by moral evolution, by living and doing the right. If that does not succeed—
"The pillar'd firmament is rottenness, And Earth's base built on stubble."
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