SECT. I.—: CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH DETERMINE THE MARKET OR ACTUAL RATE OF WAGES.

The capacity of a country to support and employ labourers is not measured by advantageousness of situation, richness of soil, or extent of territory. These, undoubtedly, are cirstances of very great importance, and have a powerful influence over the rate at which a people advances, or may advance, in refinement and civilisation. But it is not on them, but on the amount of its capital applicable to the employment of labour, and on the disposition of the owners of capital so to apply it, that the capacity of a country to support work-people at any given period, and the amount of their wages, wholly depend. A fertile soil may be made to add rapidly to the means of subsistence; but that is all. Before it can be cultivated, capital must be provided for the support of the labourers employed upon it, as it must be provided for the support of those engaged in manufactures, or other departments of industry.

It is further evident, that the quantity of produce apportioned to each labourer, or his wages rated in commodities, is determined by the ratio which the capital of the country bears to its labouring population. When, on the one hand, capital is increased without an equivalent increase of population, the portions of it that go to individuals, or their wages, are necessarily augmented; and when, on the other hand, population happens to increase more rapidly than capital, the latter having to be distributed among a greater number of persons, their wages or shares are proportionally reduced.

To illustrate this, let it be supposed that the capital of a country appropriated to the payment of wages, would, if Edition: current; Page: [317] reduced to the standard of wheat, be equivalent to 10,000,000 quarters, and that it has 2,000,000 labourers: it is evident in such case that the yearly wages of each, reducing them all to the same common standard, would be five quarters; and it is further evident that this rate of wages could not be increased, unless the amount of capital were increased in a greater proportion than the number of labourers, or the number of labourers diminished more than the amount of capital. So long as capital and population march abreast, or increase or diminish in the same proportion, so long must the rate of wages, and, consequently, the condition of the labourers, continue unaffected; and it is only when the proportion of capital to population varies, by its being either increased or diminished, that wages sustain a corresponding advance or diminution. The well-being of the labouring classes is, therefore, especially dependent on the relation which they bear to capital. If they increase faster than it, their condition is deteriorated; and if they increase more slowly, it is improved. This oscillation determines “their weal and their woe.” There are no means by which the command of labourers over necessaries and conveniences can be enlarged, other than by accelerating the increase of capital as compared with population, or by retarding the increase of population as compared with capital; and we may be assured that every scheme for improving their condition which is not bottomed on this principle, or which has not an increase of the ratio of capital to population for its object, must be nugatory and ineffectual.

And yet it has been said, that an increase of capital may be hostile to the working classes, and that their interests and those of the capitalists may be, and in fact are, frequently opposed. But there is no real room or ground for any such statement. Labour and capital are alike dependent upon, and necessary to each other: without the former the latter cannot exist, and without the latter the Edition: current; Page: [318] former would be valueless. The notion that an increase of machinery, food, and clothing, (for of such articles does capital consist,) can be injurious to the labourer, is too plainly contradictory and absurd to be entitled to any notice. The truth is, that whatever tends to promote accumulation, to increase the desire for and the means of amassing additional wealth, and to give confidence and security to its possessers, contributes in the most effectual manner to advance the interests of the labourers. A capitalist cannot increase his own stock without, at the same time, and to the same extent, increasing the wealth, or the means of subsistence, of the working classes. Hoarding is no longer practised in any country in which property is protected. Wherever this is the case, all savings go to swell, directly or indirectly, the amount of the fund for the employment of labour. Industry is benefited in the same way, though not to the same extent, by the thrift of the poor widow, the savings of the retail-tradesman, and the successful enterprises of the manufacturer and merchant. An increase of capital is but another name for an increased demand for labour; and it is the only way in which it can be really and permanently increased.

But, supposing this to be admitted, it will perhaps be alleged that capitalists endeavour to reduce wages to the lowest possible limits; that, being able to stop their works for a time, they have a great advantage in the deadly struggle which they are always carrying on against the labourers, who can rarely afford to be idle—at least for any considerable period—and that, consequently, the latter are too often reduced to a state bordering on helotism and wretchedness. While, however, we admit that the condition of the labouring class is not such as it were desirable it should be, and that they have not reaped the advantages which it might have been expected they would have derived, from the extraordinary progress in arts and industry since the peace of 1815, we deny that that is in any degree owing to the efforts of the capitalists to reduce wages. These efforts hinder the work-people Edition: current; Page: [319] engaged in given employments from receiving larger wages, all things considered, than those engaged in other employments—but that is their entire effect. A capitalist has a certain sum of money to expend on wages; and it is, of course, his object to get the largest possible amount of labour in exchange. But thousands of other capitalists are in the same situation; all of them are employers of labour, and have certain sums to expend upon it. Inasmuch, however, as the supply of labour in the market is limited, wages cannot be artificially reduced. All the capital is sure, through the higgling of the market, to be equitably divided among all the labourers; and with every increase of the former, as compared with the latter, wages will necessarily rise.

Suppose that the stock of any single capitalist, or of a number of capitalists, is increased—that increased amount is of no value till it has been made available in the employment of additional labour. And how is that to be effected? Plainly by its owner or owners offering such an increased rate of wages as may suffice to draw the required supply of labour from other employments. But the amount of the labour engaged in the various departments of industry being limited to that which is necessary to carry them on, a heavy loss would be entailed on their undertakers were the numbers of their work-people materially diminished; and, to avert this result, they would, under the supposed circumstances, offer them higher wages. It is idle, therefore, to suppose that the efforts of capitalists to cheapen labour can have the smallest influence over its medium price. The customers of bakers, butchers, grocers, and other tradesmen, are all most anxious to cheapen the articles they buy of them. But every one knows that this anxiety has no effect, save only to keep the prices of different tradesmen at or about, all things considered, the same level; and that the prices of the articles in which they deal depend on wholly different principles. And such, also, is the case with the price of labour. It depends on the Edition: current; Page: [320] number of labourers seeking employment, compared with the capital or fund which is to pay their wages, and is independent alike of the schemes and combinations of the buyers, and of those of the sellers.

It may, probably, be said, that an increase of capital is not always synonymous with an increase of the means of employing labour; and that, on the contrary, it may consist of machines, by the introduction of which labour may be superseded. But it is unnecessary again to repeat what we have previously stated, perhaps at too great length, in regard to the employment of machinery, (see ante, p.p. 142-164). Here it is enough to observe, that its introduction and improvement is in every case advantageous to the labouring classes; that it uniformly increases the aggregate demand of the society for labour and the rate of wages; and that, while it does this, it reduces the cost and price of commodities, and makes indefinite additions to the wealth, comforts, and enjoyments of all ranks and orders of the community.

The wages of labourers being most commonly paid and estimated in money, it may be thought that they will depend more on the amount of money in circulation than on the amount of capital. It is, however, nearly indifferent to the labourer whether the sum of money he receives as wages be great or small. He always receives such a sum as suffices to put him in possession of the portion of capital or produce falling to his share. Men cannot subsist on coin or paper. Labourers whose wages are paid in money, immediately exchange it for necessaries and conveniences; and it is by the quantity of these, and not of the money paid them, that their wages are to be measured. If the money in Great Britain were reduced a half, the rate of wages, estimated in money, would decline in the same proportion; but unless some change were, at the same time, made in the magnitude of that portion of our capital which consists of food, clothes, and other articles consumed by the labourer, he would continue in substantially the same situation. He would carry fewer pieces of gold and Edition: current; Page: [321] silver to market; but these would exchange for the same quantity of commodities as previously.

Whatever, therefore, may be the rate of money wages—whether they fall to 1s. or rise to 5s. a-day—if capital and population continue the same, or increase or diminish in the same proportion, no real variation will take place in the amount of wages estimated in produce. These never really rise unless the proportion of capital to population be enlarged; and they never really fall unless that proportion be diminished.

The influence of the varying ratios of the increase of capital and population over the lower classes, may be strikingly exemplified by comparing the increase and condition of the people of Great Britain with the increase and condition of the people of Ireland. There can be no doubt that the capital of Ireland increased considerably during the century ending with 1831: though no one, in any degree acquainted with the circumstances, has ever pretended that this increase amounted to a half, or even to a third part of the corresponding increase of capital in England and Scotland during the same period. But notwithstanding this difference in the increase of their means of supporting inhabitants, the population of Ireland increased, during the century in question, nearly twice as fast as that of Great Britain. According to the tables given in the Parliamentary Returns, the population of this part of the empire amounted, in 1731, to about 7,000,000, and in 1831 it amounted to 16,539,318, having increased 2⅓ times in the course of the century; while it appears, from the same returns, that the population of Ireland, whose capital had increased so very slowly, amounted to little more than two millions in 1731, and to 7,767,401 in 1831; having nearly quadrupled in the same time that the population of Britain had little more than doubled. In 1841 the population of Ireland had increased to 8,175,124.

Without entering upon any lengthened inquiries respecting the causes of this difference, it may be observed that, on the Edition: current; Page: [322] first introduction of the potato into Ireland, in 1610, the peasantry, then very much degraded, and without any elevated notions of what was necessary for comfort or subsistence, eagerly resorted to so cheap a species of food; and, owing to their habitual improvidence, and to the unfortunate circumstances under which they have since been placed, they have never endeavoured to attain to anything higher. Provided they have had sufficient supplies of potatoes, they have been content to vegetate, for they can hardly be said to live, in rags and wretchedness. But whatever may have been the causes which occasioned the disparity in the increase of population in Great Britain and Ireland, as compared with the increase of their capitals, there cannot, we believe, be the shadow of a doubt that its excessive augmentation in the latter was the immediate cause of the limited demand for labour in that country, and of the misery and extreme poverty of the people. The number of persons soliciting employment, contrasted with the means of employing them, was so very great, that wages were reduced to the lowest pittance that would afford a scanty supply of the coarsest and cheapest variety of food capable of supporting human life. The condition of the peasantry was in the last degree wretched. Their cabins, which were of the most miserable description, were mostly unprovided with anything that could be called furniture; many families had no such things as bed-clothes; in some instances, the children had not a single rag to cover their nakedness; the corn which they may have grown, and their pigs, always went to the owners of the soil, as rent: so that whenever the potato crop was even in a slight degree deficient, the scourge of famine and disease was felt in every corner of the island.

This state of things, which had continued for a lengthened period, and had in 1741, 1817, and 1821 overspread the whole island with misery and famine, at length attracted the serious attention of the Legislature, and various efforts were made to prevent that sub-division of the land which was one Edition: current; Page: [323] of its most powerful causes. They, however, were not very successful, and the evil went on increasing until it was arrested in 1846-47 by the failure of the potato crop. That event produced an unparalleled degree of distress. The food of fully two-thirds of the population suddenly failed; and that food having been the cheapest used in Europe, and the wages of the labouring poor having been accommodated to the low rates required to enable them to obtain supplies of it, they could neither fill its place, when it ceased to be supplied by resorting to cheaper varieties, nor afford to buy those that were more expensive. It is also to be observed that when this failure of the potato took place, it was not in excess anywhere else; and even had such been the case, the cost of conveying so heavy and bulky an article from a foreign country to Ireland, would have added so greatly to its price, as to place it beyond the means of the peasantry. In this emergency it was impossible to estimate how far the ravages of famine and disease might have extended, had not the Government and people of Great Britain made the greatest exertions, by furnishing supplies of Indian corn and other grain, to compensate for the failure of the potato. But however great, even these efforts were inadequate fully to meet the evil, so that considerable numbers of the population suffered the extremity of want, while many more fell a sacrifice to diseases originating in the deficiency and bad quality of their food.

This tremendous visitation having awakened the attention of the peasantry to their perilous situation, an immense emigration began soon after to take place; and this exodus being well fitted to promote the interests of the principal landlords, it has been largely promoted by the bounties of some, and the evictions of others. Hence there has been an extraordinary falling off in the population since 1841, the census of 1851 giving a return of only 6,551,970, and that of 1861 of 5,792,055 souls. And the emigration is still going on. Apprehensious have indeed been expressed in various Edition: current; Page: [324] quarters of its being carried to excess; but of this there is not the smallest chance. Ireland is not a country that has any facilities for the successful prosecution of manufactures, and her climate is too moist for the advantageous raising of corn. But she is admirably fitted for a grazing country, and her population is still far in excess of what would be required for the carrying on of that branch of industry. Whenever wages rise to a reasonable height, emigration will cease, and its continuance till then will be advantageous.

It is obvious from these statements, that that degraded state of the Irish peasantry, from which they have only begun of late to escape, is a necessary consequence of their increasing more rapidly than the capital that was to feed and employ them, or than the effectual demand for their services. And such will most likely be the case wherever there is a low standard of comfort, and little prudence or forethought exercised in the formation of matrimonial connexions.