DEFENCE OF THE TRUCK SYSTEM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
SIR—Residing in the neighbourhood of the district where the Truck System is in operation, and having had occasion to examine its effects, I am enabled to state that this system of paying wages, in goods instead of money, far from injuring the working classes, is productive of the most striking benefits to them ; and that its suppression would, if carried into effect, be attended with the most disastrous consequences,—throwing thou- sands of men out of employment altogether, reducing the wages of the remainder, bringing the master of limited capital to absolute ruin, and, by raising the price of the material produced, reducing the amount of its consumption, and injuring all who may purchase it. If I could hope that you would grant me sufficient space in your power- ful journal to examine this question thoroughly, and to bring forward the facts with which I have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted, I should be most happy to enter into such examination, and to point out the numerous fallacies and erroneous conclusions contained in the speech with which Lord WHARNCLIFFE introduced his bill for visiting with severe punishment that which I am firmly convinced deserves the hearty sanction of the Legislature, as tending, in a variety of ways, to elevate the condition of the working man. As however I cannot expect the in- dulgence I have mentioned, I must confine myself to the enumeration of a few observations, the result of a personal investigation of the subject on the spot where the system is at work, and an examination of two or three of the grounds on which the interference of the Legislature is attempted to be justified. By Lord WHARNCLIFFE'S own admission, the masters who pay in goods are enabled to obtain adequate profits by their trade (his Lordship asserts that they make immense profits), and that nevertheless the selling price of the article produced is very low. So that by his Lordship's own state- ment, two out of the three parties I have mentioned, namely, the manu- facturer and the consumer, are benefited by the existence of the Truck system ; and therefore, as far as Lord WHARNCLIFFE'S statements and arguments are concerned, the question is settled, if it can be proved that the wages of the workmen rise and fall with the profits of the master and the demands of the consumer. But surely, in the present state of the knowledge of the science of political economy, it cannot be necessary to enter into a demonstration of so elementary a proposition as the one, that the greater the demand for an article, and the greater the profits of the .manufacturer, the greater will be the wages of the workmen ?
Nothing can be more notorious than the fact, that a manufacturer can- not increase his own profits without giving a share of that increase to his workmen. No sooner did the news arrive at Birmingham of the large 'foreign orders for fire-arms last autumn, than the workmen engaged in the trade demanded and obtained an advance in their wages;—the cost of labour, like that of every other commodity, being regulated by the ex- tent of the demand compared with the supply.
Either, then, must the existence of this law be denied, or—the facts ad- vanced by Lord WHARNCLIFFE being assumed, namely, that the article produced under the Truck system is cheaper than it would otherwise be, and that the master obtains great profits by it—the increase in the real wages of the workmen must be admitted. I venture to assert, that an examination into the facts of the case will show that the wages of the workmen in the iron districts in this neigh- bourhood, where the Truck system is in operation, are much higher than they would be if the Truck system were abolished. And I assert* moreover, from personal inquiry and an examination of some of the workmen themselves, that indirectly as well as in a direct form, the men, their wives, and their families, are benefited by it in several very import. ant particulars; that being no longer exposed to the same extent to the temptations which the possession of ready money affords, the men are less addicted to drunkenness than formerly, and that they are more regu- lar in their attendance at the works ; also that the habit of getting into debt has been greatly checked by the introduction of the Truck system. i
The master is too directly interested in keeping his men honest, regu. lar, and industrious, to allow them to get into debt ; whereas to the shop- keeper the ruin of the man's moral character is productive of but little injury. If the man wants to have goods upon credit, and is willing to pay somewhat higher for them as a compensation for the risk which the shop- keeper runs, the latter can have no interest in refusing to allow him to have the goods : and thus the man is tempted to forestal his means. But the master knows, that to allow a man to get into debt is the surest way of spoiling him as a sober, industrious workman ; he therefore has a direct interest in refusing to allow his men to overdraw their accounts. And it is a fact, as I have already stated, that the pernicious habit of running into debt has been greatly checked by the introduction of the • Truck system ; as is shown by the decrease in the number of suits for the recovery of debts in the district where this system now prevails. • The strong interest which the master has in having around him an or- derly, industrious, and happy set of workmen, independently of the high gratification which such a spectacle must be to a man of ordinary feel- ings and sympathies, is a far better guarantee for his dealing fairly with his men, and encouraging them to purchase that which will really conduce to their own comfort and the comforts of their wives and children, than exists in the case of the shopkeeper. While the certainty and regularity of the sales at the shop of the master, the exemption from the high rents paid by shopkeepers, in order to obtain public and conspicuous situations for their shops, exemption too from the expense of advertisements and the ether costly means for attracting public attention, enable the master to supply his men with goods quite equal to those of the ordinary shop- keeper and at the same prices, and yet to derive a greater profit himself by their sale ; and we have already seen that the workman must always share in any increase in the profits of the master.
Lord WHARNCLIFFE asserts that the master forces upon his men arti- cles v.hich are of no value to them. This is really to suppose that the masters are the veriest dunces in Christendom ; for the men will of course count as nothing such part of their wages as is so paid in articles of this description, and therefore the remaining part of their wages must be equal to what alone the men would be content to work for.
There may be cases of extortion, and I dare say there are ; and proba- bly they are about as numerous with the masters who pay in goods, as with the money-paying masters. To show, however, that extortion and imposition are not of every-day occurrence with the masters who use the Truck system, I will mention, that an actin magistrate of the neigh- bouring town of Walsall assured me, within these few days, that he never had a single instance of the kind brought before him, though the men are there, as elsewhere, in the habit of applying to the magistrates when they conceive themselves aggrieved by their masters.
I lately visited some extensive iron-works in this neighbourhood, where the Truck system is in operation. I passed through the master's shop, or the tonimy shop as it is called, and I had a good deal of conversation with the workmen. The result was a very favourable impression on my mind of the state of the workmen, their wives, and their families. Better goods of every description than those I saw at the shop, I never met with ; and of bad articles, whether of food or clothing, there were none. I ate of the food, and could not wish for better fare. The shop was a busy scene ; and I was much struck with the neat and clean appearance of the work- men's wives, who were procuring what they required. The wives are de- lighted with the change which the Truck system has wrought: because .to them and to their children it is an unmixed benefit ; they having now the management of nearly the whole income of their husbands, instead of (in too many instances) the poor pittance which the husband had by ex- perience found to be just sufficient to furnish the absolute necessaries of life, and which he therefore set aside from the sum to be expended in drink.
I have already trespassed too far on your valuable columns ; but allow me to say, before concluding, that if it were true that the master had it in his power to depress wages, according to his own will and pleasure, and that, as Lord WHARNCLIFFE says," the masters could, by their superior means, so entangle the workmen that the latter must deal, with them," it would be necessary to return to the exploded system of fixing the amount of wages to be paid to the workmen. Moreover, if it is just and politic for the Legislature to say to the ironmaster—" Here is the current coin of the realm ; we insist on your paying your workmen in that medium," it is just and politic for the Legislature to say the same thing to every no- bleman as regards his domestic servants. How far Lord WHARNCLIFFE would thank the Legislature for such an interference in the concerns of his household, or how far either his servants or his Lordship would be benefited by such a proceeding, I must leave for his Lordship's decision. Notwithstanding all that has been urged on the opposite side, I must still maintain that the workman is a free agent in the matter. The . moment a workman who is paid in goods is convinced that he is worse off than the workman who receives his wages in money, he will go and offer himself to the master who pays in money, for a trifle less than the wages which such master is then paying, and he will obtain a situation ; but, for the reasons which I have given, every man who has sufficient self- control to withstand the charm which ready money presents, will, in all probability, make a wise choice by seeking a situation under a master who does not present him every week with the means of sacrificing the com- forts of his wife and family, and his own health and self-respect, by the indulgence of his sensual appetites. To many of the advocates of legislative interference in the payment of wages in goods, I have no doubt that no impure motive can be assigned, and in all probability Lord WHARNCLIFFE is of this number. But I have no hesitation in saying, that many are swayed by private interests in their opposition to the Truck system. This system enables men of limited capital to enter the iron-trade and to maintain themselves re- spectably in it. And it is the desire of driving these persons out of the trade, that urges many of the great masters, as they are termed, to attack the system by which the former hold their footing. On the part of some of the great masters, this is the avowed motive. This cause, and the in- terest which the shopkeepers and their landlords have in the suppression of the system, are, I believe, those which act most powerfully in this dis- trict in exciting opposition to the much-abused Truck system.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
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