Robert Giffen

“ No one can contemplate the condition of the masses of the people without desiring something like a revolution for the better. Still, the fact of progress in the last fifty years—progress which is really enormous when a comparison is made with the former state of things—must be recognized. Discontent with the present must not make us forget that things have been so much worse.
But the question is raised. Have the working-classes gained in proportion with others by the development of material wealth during the last fifty years? ”

“ To effect what they intend, the agitators must not merely seize on the property of a few, they must confiscate what are as much earnings as those of a mechanic or a laborer, and the wages of the most skilled mechanics and artisans themselves. The agitation is, in fact, to level down, to diminish the reward of laborers who receive a large wage because they can do the work the community requires, the proof being that in a market without favor they get the wage, and to increase the reward of other laborers beyond what in the same free market the community would freely give them. ”

“ The question is not one which would naturally excite much interest among those who would answer the primary question as to whether the working-classes have gained or not, as I have done, in the affirmative. Where all are getting on, it does not seem very practical in those who are getting on slowly to grudge the quicker advance of others. Usually those who put the question have some vague idea that the capitalist classes, as they are called, secure for themselves all the benefits of the modern advance in wealth; the rich, it is said, are becoming richer, and the poor are becoming poorer. ”

“ Again a proof, I think, of the greater diffusion of wealth so far as the assessment of income to income-tax under Schedule D may be taken as a sign of the person assessed having wealth of some kind, which I fear is not always the case. If the owners of this income, at least of the smaller incomes, are to be considered as not among the capitalists, but among the working-classes—a very arguable proposition—then the increase of the number of incomes from £150 up to say £1,000 a year is a sign of the increased earnings of working-classes, which are not usually thought of by that name. ”

“ One is, that, apart from all objections of principle to schemes of confiscating capital—land nationalization, or collectivism, or whatever they may be called—the masses could not hope to have much to divide by any such schemes. Taking the income from capital at £400,000,000, we must not suppose that the whole of that would be divisible among the masses if capital were confiscated. What the capitalist classes spend is a very different thing from what they make. The annual savings of the country now exceed £200,000,000, being made as a rule, though not exclusively, by the capitalist classes. ”

“ It is something to know that whether a better regime is conceivable or not, human nature being what it is now (and I am one of those who think that the régime is the best, the general result of a vast community living as the British nation does, with all the means of healthy life and civilization at command, being little short of a marvel if we only consider for a moment what vices of anarchy and misrule in society have had to be rooted out to make this marvel) ; still, whether best or not, it is something to know that vast improvement has been possible with this régime. ”

“ To conclude this part of the evidence, we find undoubtedly that in longer life, in increased consumption of the chief commodities they use, in better education, in greater freedom from crime and pauperism, and in increased savings, the masses of the people are better, immensely better, than they were fifty years ago. ”

“ The whole of Schedule A is thus assigned to capital, although it is well known that not even in Schedule A is the income obtained without exertion and care and some risk of loss, which are entitled to remuneration. In Schedule D also I have allowed that all the income from public companies and foreign investments is from idle capital, although here the vigilance necessary and the risks attendant on the business are really most serious, and part of the so-called profit is not really interest on idle capital at all, but strictly the remuneration of labor. ”

“ Now the poor-relief and other old burdens are much the same, but the total is swollen by a vast expenditure for sanitary, educational, and similar purposes, of all of which the masses of the population get the benefit. To a great deal of this expenditure we may attach the highest value. It does not give bread or clothing to the working-man, but it all helps to make life sweeter and better, and to open out careers even to the poorest. The value of the free library, for instance, in a large city, is simply incalculable. ”

“ The system under which large capitals are in a few hands may, in fact, have its good side in this, that the Jay Goulds, Vanderbilts, and Rothschilds can not spend their income. The consequent accumulation of capital is, in fact, one of the reasons why the reward for labor is so high, and the masses get nearly all the benefit of the great increase of production. The other remark I have to make is that, if the object really aimed at by those who talk of land nationalization and the like is carried out, the people who will suffer are those who receive large wages. ”

“ What we have to consider, then, is, that fifty years ago the working-man with wages, on the average, about half, or not much more than half, what they are now, had at times to contend with a fluctuation in the price of bread which implied sheer starvation. Periodic starvation was, in fact, the condition of the masses of working-men throughout the kingdom fifty years ago, and the references to the subject in the economic literature of the time are most instructive. ”

“ Meat formerly was a very small part of his consumption, and allowing to house-rent a much larger share of his expenditure than it actually bore, the increase in amount would still leave the workman out of his increased wage a larger margin than he had before for miscellaneous expenditure. There is reason to believe, also, that the houses are better, and that the increased house-rent is merely the higher price for a superior article which the workman can afford. ”

“ In asking you, therefore, to look for a little at what statistics tell us of the progress of the great masses of the nation, I feel that I am selecting a subject which is connected with the special history of the society. That it happens for the moment to be attracting a considerable amount of popular attention in connection with sensational politics and sociology, with agitations for land nationalization and collectivism among pretended representatives of the working-classes, is an additional reason for our not neglecting this question ”

“ The first and most direct is to see what records there are of the money earnings of the masses now and fifty years ago, ascertain whether they have increased or diminished, and then compare them with the rise or fall in the prices of the chief articles which the masses consume. Even such records would not give a complete answer. It is conceivable, for instance, that, while earning more money, and being able to spend it to more advantage, the working-classes might be no better off than formerly. There may be masses, as there are individuals, who do not know how to spend. ”

“ Not only have fewer died, but the masses who have lived must have been healthier, and
have suffered less from sickness than they did. Though no statistics are available on this point, we must assume that like causes produce like effects; and if the weaker, who would otherwise have died, have been able to survive, the strong must also have been better than they would otherwise have been. From the nature of the figures, also, the improvement must have been among the masses, and not among a select class whose figures throw up the average. ”

“ At the same time the capitalist classes themselves have greatly increased in number, so that the amount of capital possessed among them per head has only increased 15 per cent, notwithstanding the great increase in capital itself, and the average income per head can have hardly increased at all. ”

“ Thus, builders' wages are given at the earlier date as so much weekly, whereas in the later returns a distinction is made between summer and winter wages, the hours of labor being less in winter, and as the wages are so much per hour, the week's wages being also less, so that it has been possible to strike a mean for the later period, while it does not appear that anything more is meant at the early period than the usual weekly wage, which would be the summer wage. Without making this point, however, it is obvious that in all cases there is a very great rise. ”

“ The average of a necessary of life over a long period of years may be moderate, but if in some years the actual price is double what it is in other years, the fact of the average will in no way save from starvation at certain periods the workman who may have a difficulty in making both ends meet in the best of times. ”

“ It may be pointed out, however, that houses are undoubtedly of better value all round than they were fifty years ago. More rent is paid because more capital is in the houses, and they are better houses. It appears, also, that fifty years ago there were far more exemptions than there are now, rural dwellings particularly being favored as regards exemption. The increase of rent for the same accommodation, there is consequently reason to believe, has not been nearly so great as these figures would appear to show. ”

“ When the improvements have been in existence for a longer period, so that the lives of all who are living must have been affected from birth by the changed conditions, we may infer that even a greater gain in the mean duration of life will be shown. ”

“ Those who have done some hard work in the world will, I am sure, agree with me that it is only done by virtue of the most powerful stimulants. Take away the rewards, and even the best would probably not give themselves up to doing what the community wants and now pays them for doing, but they would give themselves up either to idleness or to doing something else. ”

“ The workman may have been wise or unwise in setting much store by shorter hours in bettering himself, but the shortening of the hours of labor is undoubtedly to be counted to the good as well as the larger money return he obtains. ”

“ The explanation appears to be, however, that the increase of property in Scotland is, to some extent, only apparent, being due partly, for instance, to the fact that by Scotch law mortgages are real property, whereas in England they are personal property, so that it was necessary, in the course of administering the tax, to pass a special law enabling the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to bring Scotch mortgages into the category of personal property. ”

“ As regards the articles imported, which are also articles of home production, it has, moreover, to be noted that in several of them, bacon and hams, cheese and butter, the increase is practically from nothing to a very respectable figure. The import of bacon and hams alone is itself nearly equal to the estimated consumption among the working-classes fifty years ago, who consumed no other meat. ”

“ The increase in tea and sugar appears especially significant, the consumption per head now being four times in round figures what it was forty years ago. There could be no better evidence of diffused material well-being among the masses. The articles are not such that the increased consumption by the rich could have made much difference. It is the consumption emphatically of the mass which is here in question. ”

“ When we take things in the mass, however, we find that, however much some workmen may suffer, house-rent in the aggregate can not have gone up in a way to neutralize, to any serious extent, the great rise in the money wages of the workman. ”

“ It will be convenient, then, to examine the additional question specifically. If the answer agrees with what has already been advanced, then, as nobody doubts that material wealth has increased, all will be forced to admit that the working-classes have had a fair share. ”