Earl Dii'hy on Labour and Wages 



267 



greater degree than before. We could not 

 escape from the effect of economical laws 

 merely by ignoring and refusing to acknowledge 

 them. If there v.-as any truth or meaning in 

 those laws, dear labour would lead to diminished 

 consumption ; diminished consumption would 

 tend to check production ; diminished pro- 

 duction would in its turn cause a decrease in 

 the demand for labour, and so, unless other 

 influences interfered, the tendency of wages 

 would be to fall again, he did not say to, but 

 towards their old level. The simple explana- 

 tion of the economical state of things which 

 we saw around us was that the demand for 

 labour in all industrial pursuits at present 

 greatly exceeded the supply. Suppose, for 

 argument sake, it was possible that a million 

 or even half a million working men could be 

 suddenly added to the population, he appre- 

 hended that in that case we would see within 

 a few days or weeks there would be no more 

 strikes, and no more demand for higher rates 

 of wages. Of course, that increase of popula- 

 tion he had supposed could not happen in a 

 few days, or in a few months, but it was another 

 question whether it would not take place a few 

 years hitherto, judging by our former experience. 

 In England high wages amongthelabouring popu- 

 lations had inevitably brought about early mar- 

 riages, and, consequently, an increase in the 

 number of births. Probably the same cause 

 would still have the same effect. In addition to 

 that, the tendency of greater comforts being 

 obtained by the poorer classes at home would 

 be to check that emigration which was now 

 taking place to foreign countries. With the 

 growth of those sanitary improvements which 

 we all talked about, we would have a great 

 diminution in the infant mortality among the 

 working class, which mortality, at least in great 

 towns, was at present excessive. Again, we 

 should have, as in the United States and the 

 colonics, an increased development of labour- 

 saving machinery, by which one pair of hands 

 would be enabled to do the work of two or 

 three. We would probably have in many 

 branches of industry increased foreign com- 

 petition, and in some rural districts at least it 

 seemed to him that advanced rates of wages 

 were not unlikely to lead now, as they led 

 iJiree hundred years ago, to a considerable 

 substitution of pasture for tillage, especially if 

 the price of meat continued at anything like 

 its present rate. He thought they would agree 

 with him that it was at least uncertain whether 

 the present condition of the labour market 



could be assumed to be likely to be its 

 permanent condition. The practical inference 

 he drew was this, if that was a matter of doubt, 

 those who might have or might seem to have the 

 command of the market now in theirhands would 

 do well to use their power with moderation, and 

 those who were now inclined to complain and to 

 despond would do well if they thought twice be- 

 fore they gave up. Again, if he were talking 

 there to agricultural labourers meditating either 

 a strike or a demand for considerably increased 

 rates of pay, he should try to impress upon them 

 in their own interests that it did not necessarily 

 follow, because they could pretty well make their 

 own terms in harvest time, that, therefore, they 

 would be equally able to do so in the winter 

 months. He would remind them that they could 

 not at the same time stand upon their extreme 

 rights and yet ask or expect from einployers 

 things which were not a matter of bargain, but a 

 favour. He would suggest to them that under 

 most landlords they enjoyed advantages in the 

 shape of cottages at half rents, gardens, of al- 

 lotments, of constant employment through the 

 winter and in bad weather, and in various other 

 ways, all which advantages, if it came to a 

 matter of bargain, it was open to the employer 

 to withdraw, and all which, though it was taken 

 by itself to be small, yet did collectively come 

 to a very substantial addition to wages. If, on 

 the other hand, he were addressing employers, 

 he would tell them that, accepting as we all did 

 the principle of competition in life, and the very 

 essence of competition in life being that every 

 man within certain recognised limits had a right 

 to struggle for his own success, even at the ex- 

 pense of inconvenience or failure to others, that 

 being so, they had no right to find fault or to 

 complain with the men whom they employed for 

 trying to better their condition. But he should 

 go on to say, assuming it to be so, that the pre- 

 sent demands made upon them were excessive, 

 there were perfectly legitimate and unobjection- 

 able ways in which those demands might be 

 made. He perceived lately that a large number 

 of persons in some of the northern towns, think- 

 ing the price of butchers'^ meat unreasonably 

 high, had met together and agreed to abstain 

 from the use of meat for a considerable period, 

 unless in the meanwhile the price should have 

 come down. He did not know whether those 

 people kept, or were likely to keep, their engage- 

 ment, but he did know that wastefulness was in 

 pretty well all classes one of our great English 

 faults, and that there was in almost everybody's 

 expenditure above the very poorest class a great 



