264 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



showing, not necessarily on which side in every instance right now 

 lies, but on which side strength is steadily increasing, and in which 

 direction altered conditions of life are powerfully pushing things. 

 When Adam Smith and J. S. Mill wrote about labour, the employer 

 was unquestionably in the long run the stronger party. The labour- 

 ing man wanted employment to keep body and soul together, and 

 must have it, whether the remuneration accorded to him was 

 sufficient to maintain life for himself and his family, whether 

 it were adequate as representing a fair return for his labour or 

 not. Under such circumstances it was the market, the mere harsh 

 rule of supply and demand, which regulated the relations between 

 one party and the other. Every now and then a time would come 

 when, in the words of the old economists, there were two or three 

 employers running after one man. And then a gain would be scored 

 on the workmen's side — which gain was scarcely ever surrendered, 

 not necessarily because supply of labour did not become more 

 plentiful, but in the main because human feeling, strongly supported 

 by public opinion, was arrayed against a lowering of the workmen's 

 standard of life. Substantially, however, the relative positions 

 continued the same. The employer remained the stronger. Almost 

 naturally he judged the question, not from the workman's point of 

 view, but from his own. Labour was to him a commodity, which 

 must be bought in the cheapest market. It was the cheapness of 

 the commodity, in this case of labour, which determined the degree 

 of success of his business. The workman was to him, generally 

 speaking, only, in Roman phrase, an "implement endowed with 

 speech." Labour commanded just the price which in the competi- 

 tion of the market it would fetch, and was appraised by the employer 

 as such. He regarded not the man, but his service. And that 

 service was day-service. Good work or indifferent, the day was the 

 measure for its remuneration. And the force relied upon to exact 

 fair work was urging and punishing. 



Something of a change came over those relations when — so far as 

 was practicable and agreed to — still mainly on the employer's side, 

 yield was substituted for time, accordingly work for " service," as the 

 measure by which to apportion remuneration. " Give us more 

 work, and we will give you more money." That was undoubtedly 

 a move in the right direction. But it still regarded labour as a 

 mere dead commodity, without flesh or blood and soul behind it. 

 And it was found liable to the same abuses that day work had been 

 under the old rule of mere supply and demand. We have had 

 complaints, even in the ultra-socialist society of the Vooruit — 



