TRADE-i'XIONS 51 



prefer a contract to a salary. Xo general rule about piece-work 

 can be laid down. Where articles are made by thousands, not 

 by tens, piece-work tends to raise wages. Men become very ex- 

 pert, so that their labour is worth more ; they do work at home 

 also, and keep their tools and inventions secret ; and the master 

 well knows that paying by the day he would get less for his 

 money, even if the earnings of the workmen were less per week. 

 In these cases piece-work is the rule, not the exception ; and 

 y^r it has some very bad effects. It prevents any modification 

 in the design and pattern of the articles produced. The workmen 

 either flatly refuse to make the new design, or finding by a few 

 trials how much longer it takes them to make than the old form, 

 they demand such an exorbitant price that the manufacturer 

 prefers to keep in the old rut. Birmingham is, we believe, 

 losing her pre-eminence in the hardware market partly if not 

 mainly in consequence of this vicious system of payment re- 

 straining invention and progress, while both in America and on 

 the Continent the quality of work and the patterns used have 

 greatly improved. Thus in laying down the law about piece- 

 work, general rules must be avoided, and the attention directed 

 to the special customs of each trade. 



As an instance of misconception due to ignorance of special 

 customs, we may remind our readers of a paragraph which 

 went the round of the papers, stating that the union of engineers 

 had a rule under which a man making any extra profit by piece- 

 work was forced to share that profit among all his mates, though 

 they were simply receiving daily wages. What a picture this 

 raised of a hard-working man who, before he could make one 

 shilling for himself, had to gain a pound for twenty other idle 

 people ! The explanation turns upon a special form of contract 

 devised for the convenience of men and masters, and applicable, 

 for instance, to the erection or putting together of a locomotive 

 engine, the parts of which have been prepared in the fitting- 

 shop and boiler-shed. A gang of half a dozen men may be em- 

 ployed to erect the engine, and these work under a leading hand. 

 The employer finds it his interest to let the erection of the 

 engine as a contract to this gang, who undertake to finish the 

 work for a fixed sum, say 50/. The contract is not, however, 

 made in form between the half-dozen men, who have no cor- 



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