LABOUR AND PROTECTION.*

Tiers very valuable series of studies—to which for the pur- poses of review we have added Mr. John Burns's excellent pamphlet entitled Labour and Free Trade—is worthy of the closest attention, for it exhibits in a masterly way the fact

that Protection inevitably involves degraded and degrading conditions of labour. In his interesting preface Mr. Massing.

ham points out that "Professor Thorold Rogers's elaborate examination of the history, of prices in England led hini emphatically to deny the co-existence of high prices and high wages." We, indeed, should recommend those who feel the

vital importance of the present controversy to examine care- fully on this point the final volumes of prices dealing with the eighteenth century recently issued. A great part of Mr. Chamberlain's case rests on the assumption that high prices mean high wages, yet the entire testimony of English economic history is against him.

The first point we shall notice in these essays is the evidence of that veteran, Mr. George Jacob Holyoake (born in. 1817), as to the conditions of life and labour before the Free-trade movement began to operate,—a passage which, if it is wise, the Unionist Free-Food League will circulate in a leaflet by the million :-

"In the days of Protection as I knew them, the industrial world was a dead world. There was neither animation nor hope

in it Bread was dear, meat was seldom attainable. The young were underfed, undergrovrn It seems incredible now, and will be to many of this generation, what the condition and dietary of the poor were under Protection. Barley, swede turnips and such like substitutes for wheat, composed much of the distasteful bread the poor were obliged to eat. Dark, leaden- looking loaves, of the flavour of sawdust and texture of boot- leather on a rainy day, fell to the lot of the poor, and thousands thought themselves well off when they got that sort of diet. Agricultural labourers had to support families on 7s., and the more fortunate on 9s. a week The stomach of the poor was regarded as the waste-paper basket of the State, into which the refuse of shops and markets was consigned. Parents were lean, and their pinched children lived out but half their

days Lady Trelawny once asked me, at a Greenwich dinner, what features of the people had struck me most in my time. I answered the increased comeliness in girls and hand- someness in women. The gaunt angularity of lean Corn Law years had been succeeded by rounded buxomness. Protection generated ugliness ; Free Trade, by its plenty, brought beauty."

The fact now to be realised is that a very slight fall in wages or a slight rise in prices would plunge us back into those times, for it is unfortunately true that, immensely better as are conditions now than. the conditions of 1830-40, yet vast multitudes still live without a possible margin. The standard of industrial life before 1840 was so low that doubled wages and cheapened food have only had the effect of bringing the mass of the people to that stage of social development, when a sufficiency of good food is just possible. Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree deals with these "people on the margin." His well-known researches into social conditions at York enable him to speak with authority. Mr. Rowntree presents us with the minimum necessary dietary. It "is more stringent than would be given to any able-bodied pauper in any work- house in England or Wales." It contains no butcher's meat, and allows tea only once a week. It allows nothing extra for "beer, tobacco, sweets, toys for children, newspapers, postage- stamps, &c., nor does it allow anything for medical attendance, insurance, or Trade-Union subscriptions. In making the estimate everything has been sternly ruled out of court which was not absolutely necessary for the maintenance of bare animal efficiency." This "minimum necessary expenditure for food worked out at an average of 3s. each for adults, and of 2s. 3d. each for children per week." To this has to be added the cost of rent, clothes, fuel, and household sundries.

"Working upon these lines, we arrive at 21s. 8d. per week as a 'living wage' for a man, wife, and three children, paying 4e. for rent and rates." In order to make it a "living wage" the money must be spent, "not only

• (1) Labour and Protection: a Series of Studies. Edited by H. W. liangbam. London T. Fisher Assyria. Ifiel--(2) labour and Free Trade. ByJohn Burns, M.P. London: Sizupkin, Barshall, and Co. Lid.]

with the utmost regard to economy but with a scientific knowledge of the dietetic value of different food-stuffs." Mr. Rowntree calls poverty " primary " where wages do not reach "living wage" on the above basis, and " secondary " where wages are enough but are spent on wasteful or useless objects. In York Mr. Rowntree ascertained that 154 per cent. of the working classes (or 10 per cent. of the whole population) were in 1899 living below the " primary " poverty-line, and that 18 per cent. of the whole population were living below the " secondary " poverty-line,-28 per cent. in all. Now Mr. Charles Booth has shown "that 30.7 per cent. of the popula- tion of London were probably living in poverty." Mr. Booth, writing to Mr. Rowntree on July 25th, 1901, said :-" I have, indeed, long thought that other cities, if similarly tested, would show a percentage of poverty not differing greatly from that existing in London. Your most valuable inquiry confirms me in this opinion." Hence it is reasonable to suppose that there are large numbers in the United Kingdom below both the secondary and primary poverty-lines. The smallest fall in wages or rise in prices would plunge innumerable families below the primary line, and the conditions of 1840 would be rapidly reproduced, for the cheap labour of women and children would once more become universally

eess,.v in order to provide sufficient food. The numbers ta eine tre poverty-line have already a high death-rate, and are nhysically weak and inefficient. Further deterioration means a national disaster, and it is necessarily involved in Mr. Chamberlain's proposals. Miss Rosalind Nash, applying the Glasgow proposals to actual working-class budgets supplied from Oldham and elsewhere, finds that the proposals would result in a loss of about 25s. a year, or say 6d. a week, on an income of 24s. a week. This would be the opening loss through Protection at the top of the inclined plane.

But Protection involves other losses than the mere certain financial loss. Protection, Mr. Burns declares, would attract aliens in greater numbers. But the chief evil that Mr. Barns sees ahead is political corruption. He quotes an American writer as saying that "a more stupendous instrument of corruption was never conceived by the perverse ingenuity of man than this power conferred upon Congress " ; he quotes Professor Goldwin Smith as declaring that "a group of log-rolling monopolies has complete control of the Senate and legislates in its own commercial interests without regard to the general welfare, or, as in the Cuban sugar case, even to the honour of the nation"; and he quotes Mr. Arthur Chamberlain as saying: " I could make more money in an evening in the House of Commons by arranging for the taxation of my opponent's necessities and for the maintenance of a free market for myself than I could make by honest industry in a month." Whole trades could, and would, be crushed out of existence by " lobbying " in the House of Commons. Labour would indeed become vitally interested in Protection.

The greatest woe among many woes that Protection in- evitably inflicts upon the industrial classes-who form 70 per cent. of the population of the United Kingdom-is, however, the degradation of labour. Mr. W. Harbutt Dawson in his essay, "An Object-Lesson from Germany," shows us some aspects of this. In Germany the taxation on corn at present -and the tax is now low-" represents a tribute to the State and the corn-growers from this tax alone of 7s. per head of the entire population, or £1 15B. per family." It is quite clear from what has been said above that England could not afford that. How Germany bears it it is difficult to understand. It certainly explains the widespread social discontent. A German economist. Herr Mombert, has shown that the Corn- -duties absorb in some cases a tenth of the annual income. The average German working-class family is far worse fed than an English working-class family ; and yet with us -millions are on the margin of efficient subsistence. Herr Mombert declares that "already in a majority of working men's families a dangerous under-consumption of food is the rule." The German factory inspectors report in the most depressing language upon the deplorable conditions of the workers. Moreover, the German workman as a general rule works 15 to 25 per cent. longer than the English, and in some States Sunday work is still common. In 506 out of 517 Trade-Union returns dealing with the Silesian metal trades we find eleven, twelve, and thirteen hours a day mentioned as usual. In the Krupp Ordnance Works wages have risen in thirty years from 19s. 21d. to 28s. 100. a week, but it is a unique case, and no refutation of. the general lowness of wages. The Krupp increase, besides, in no way equals the English increase in the engineering trades. In the period 1875 to 1900 Krupp's wages have increased from 23s. to 28s. 7d. ; while Glasgow fitters' wages have increased from 27s. to 36s., and Leeds ironfounders' from 30s. to 38s. Mr. Burns in his pamphlet tells us that "from 1886 to 1902 the average weekly wages for all classes of workers in and about mines in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands have risen from 22s. to 33s. 3d. ; in Northumberland from 21s. 11d. to 27s. 8d.; in Durham from 21s. lid. to 28s. 3d. ; in Scotland from 20s. 2d. to 30s. 11d." Furthermore, agricultural wages have gone up from 50 to 100 per cent., and the rise in the skilled trades has been very great. On the other hand, Mr. Dawson shows from the German official figures that 85.5 per cent, of the German workers earn under £1 a week, and that four million workers are returned as earning under 15s. a week. Sir John Brunner has pointed out that in the alkali trade the German "bas to work 52 weeks 12 hours a day to get 78 per cent, of the wage of the Englishman working 51 weeks 8 hours a day." The wages of women are cruelly low, varying from 5s. to 108. for a week of long hours, and the labour of married women is encouraged, with the most appal- ling results in infant death-rate. Moreover, the law as to child labour is flagrantly defied.

Some reference may be made here to statistics not contained in the book under review, but which are powerful additional evidence that Protection involves degraded industrial condi- tions. The current number of the Journal of Comparative Legislation shows us that in textile factories in England children can only work 321 hours a week and women 551 hours, and the law is absolutely enforced. In Massachusetts, France, and Belgium children and women can work 58, 60 to 66, and 671 to 72 hours respectively per week. A German woman over sixteen years may work 65 hours, as against 551 in England. The Board of Trade Returns show us that in the Silesian coal mines (surface work) boys work at id., and women at a small fraction over id., an hour. In the textile trades in France out of Paris the average female wage is 11d. an hour. The average earnings of men, women, and children in the Connecticut cotton mills are 51d. an hour. The wage per hour of the children must, therefore, be very low. In the textile trades in Massachusetts there are 22,235 women and 13,139 men earning under $5 per head per week. It may be said generally, from the evidence of the Board of Trade Returns, that the wages in textile factories per hour of women and children in England are at least double those earned on the Continent, and much higher than the wages earned in America, while the English physical conditions of labour are incomparably superior. Wherever we go the fact of debased industrial conditions haunts Protection like a shadow. It is a fact that should decide the present controversy.