The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 52
Chapter III. the Future Under Existing Conditions
Chapter III. the Future Under Existing Conditions.
The records of experience and history will, properly applied, teach us all that we can hope to conjecture of the future. I see no foundation for the theory propounded by Herbert Spencer that the nature and character of man improves through the course of the ages. Some softening of manners, no doubt exists owing to our more complete civilisation. The religion of Christ also has, without doubt, pervaded, and does increasingly pervade, our national life with a gentle influence wanting in olden days. But, naturally, man is the same to-day as when Nero fiddled by the light of burning Rome, when the Babylonish King exclaimed:—"This is great Babylon which I have builded," or when the people mocked at Noah as he framed the Ark.
Were it otherwise there could be, indeed, no study of sociology as a science. Because man, the prime factor, continually changing, the events of the past would be no guide to those of the future. We may safely believe that, given the same circumstances now as existed at any period of by-gone time, in the same races or cognate races of men, and substantially the same results will follow.
We may then reasonably suppose that the same results which have happened in England will, under existing circumstances, happen here. The social condition of the bulk of the population of Great Britain at the present day is one of degradation and want. That condition has been gradually evolved by changing circumstances, by the increase of artificial power in machinery, by the gradual subjugation of natural forces to human use, and by the unprecedented increase of wealth in the hands of the propertied classes. Perhaps the keenest observer of change in the social world is the author of "Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems," Mr. Henry George, whose writings and speeches are daily strengthening his hold upon the masses of the English-speaking races. This is what he says upon the matter:—"There is in all the past nothing to compare with the rapid changes now going on in the civilised world. It seems as though in the European race and in the 19th century man was just beginning to live, just grasping his tools and becoming conscious of his powers. A snail's pace of crawling ages has suddenly become the head-long rush of the locomotive, speeding faster and faster. This rapid progress is primarily in industrial methods and material powers. But industrial changes imply social changes and necessitate political changes. Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes. Social progress always requires greater intelligence in the management of public affairs; but this the more as progress is rapid and change quicker.
"And that the rapid changes now going on are bringing up problems that demand most earnest attention may be seen on every hand. Symptoms of danger, premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the civilised world. Creeds are dying, beliefs are changing; the old forces of conservatism are melting away. Political institutions are failing, as clearly in democratic America as in monarchical Europe. There is growing unrest and bitterness among the masses, whatever be the form of government, a blind groping for escape from conditions becoming intolerable. To attribute all this to the teachings of demagogues is like attributing the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the new wine beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put into a sailing-ship the powerful engines of a first-class ocean steamer would be to tear her to pieces with their play. So the new powers rapidly changing all the relations of society must shatter social and political organisations not adapted to meet their strain.
"To adjust our institutions to growing needs and changing conditions is the task which devolves upon us. Prudence, patriotism, human sympathy, and religious sentiment, alike call upon us to undertake it. There is danger in reckless change; but greater in blind conservatism. The problems beginning to confront us are grave—so grave that there is fear they may not be solved in time to prevent great catastrophes. But their gravity comes from indisposition to frankly recognize and boldly grapple with them."
So, too, the efforts and teachings of the socialists—especially since the better sides of those efforts and teachings have been adopted by men like Frederick Denison Maurice, Thomas Hughes, and Charles Kingsley—added to the dreadful history of the nation's sufferings and want laid bare by Parliamentary reports, and the observations of the humane and philanthropic, all teach us not merely that grevious public wrongs are being continually perpetrated by the operation of present social laws, but that great dangers to the State are steadily growing as their result.
Do not let us believe that these things happen as part of a determined plan, for the heart of the English people revolts at the poverty which accompanies their prosperity, and at the ghastly spectacle of multitudes of their fellow-countrymen toiling to produce boundless stores of wealth for the enjoyment of others.
What reason, then, have we to suppose that the future condition of our people will, under existing economic laws, present features in any degree different from the state of Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen in the United Kingdom? Clearly none at all.
In the meatime, neither in England nor the colonies is any adequate plan suggested which shall change either the operation of the economic laws or those laws themselves, in order to prevent that oppressive distribution of wealth which at present makes the rich more wealthy and the poor still poorer. So deeply indeed has the injustice of the present order of things been felt by the coldest and most dispassionate of men, that they have been willing to pass into the deepest shades of Communism rather than endure the dreadful evils of the present, if no other means of ameliorating the condition of the labouring classes could be found out."
John Stuart Mill, one of the clearest, most comprehensive, and impartial writers of modern times, speaks thus:—"If, therefore, the choice were to be between Communism, with all its chances, and the present state of society, with all its sufferings and injustices—if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it, as a consequence, that the produce of labour should be apportioned, as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour, the largest portion to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life—if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be as dust in the balance."
With equal energy speaks another great writer and thinker of the present day, one truly of greater warmth and enthusiasm than our own great countryman, the celebrated Belgian economist, M. Emile de Lavaleye:—"When we look with an unprejudiced eye at the present division of this world's goods, and see, on the one hand, the labourer earning for his daily bread barely what is needful,—less, indeed, than the wherewithal to live if there be the slightest possible crisis,—and then turn our eyes to the other side of the picture, and see the owners of property yearly adding to their estates, and living in ever-increasing ease and comfort, it is quite impossible to bring this into conformity with notions of justice, and one can but exclaim with Bossuet: 'The complaints of the poor are just. Wherefore this inequality?'"
Hear also the verdict of another great Englishman, John Buskin: "For most of the rich men of England it were indeed to be desired that the Bible should not be true, since against them these words are written in it: 'The rust of your gold and silver shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.'"
Yet, amid all this sorrow, no plan is propounded for its alleviation, save that proposal made by Mr Henry George for the nationalisation of the land. This would be ineffectual for the purpose proposed, because it would but shift taxation from men to land, which, though in itself proper and desirable, could not make nor distribute wealth among the people. If all the land in the United Kingdom were nationalised to-morrow, and the social and economic laws left untouched, poverty would still accompany progress; labour would got but the bare wages of subistence, and all created wealth, over and above the mere payment of labour, would go to the capitalist class. In all the colonies the land is or has been practically nationalised. In all great part of it still is. No state treatment of that land will make wealth which can be distributed amongst the people. Besides, each man can only claim what he earns and deserves. How much the writers on political economy and social science are to blame in not having as yet laid down any foundation whatever for the amendment of those laws which produce results so terrible it is not for me to say. But this is certain, that while all acknowledge that those laws are faulty, that they have led to suffering and revolution, and are still leading to suffering and revolution, not one points distinctly to the errors themselves, much less proposes any reasonable amendment.
They reason through numberless pages upon the meaning of terms, the law of supply and demand, what constitutes "capital," in what "profit" consists and in what "value," the fund from which wages are drawn, what constitutes wealth, the law of wages, and the laws of rent and exchange, until the mind becomes wearied with endless distinctions and technical jargon. For all practical purposes a hungry man, before participating in a good meal, might as well reason upon the meaning of the term "food," or the jaded merchant or lawyer or workman, before sitting down at his own comfortable fireside after a hard day's work, be called upon to define the meaning of the term "comfort." I do not overlook the ever-increasing public opinion in England in favour of emigration as a panacea for the sufferings of the poor. But emigration, unless social conditions be altered, is simply changing the scene—to a more favourable one, indeed, for a time—until under the same conditions the same results must ultimately accrue in new countries as in old. In the condition of men as at present existing we see vast wealth being accumulated by the ceaseless toil of busy multitudes, wealth which is accumulated, not for those who create it, but for strangers. We see this social robbery producing poverty, drunkenness, shame, disease, ignorance, and immorality. We know that it is sowing the seeds of discontent and revolution.
How is it then that our philosophers, patriots, economists, and legislators do not enquire for the cause of such baneful consequences and remove it? For it is not very difficult to trace these evils to their source, nor will it be impossible to men who desire the welfare of their fellow-men to destroy them. Parliamentary commissions sit now-a-days upon the most trivial subjects. Societies of the great and learned meet in every part of the Empire and in the States to enquire into the cause and effect, the nature and operations, of everything in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. Yet here is a subject, fraught with the destiny of nations and of civilisation—a matter touching the happiness and temporal salvation of countless millions—which is scarcely alluded to but in contemptuous pity. War, famine, and the pestilence are the events which, by poets and historians, are spoken of to with horror and clothed in the ghastly cerements of the grave. But what wars, or famines, or plagues ever inflicted such continuous anguish upon the human race as the unjust taking by the owners of property of all the wealth of every civilised land—save, indeed, that small part which gives the bare means of subsistence to the sorrowful multitudes who build the fortunes of their tyrants. We paid twenty millions to abolish slavery. Our brethren in America, when at length they were compelled to face the deadly thing which raised its hellish front against the State, gave a thousand millions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of its best and bravest sons. But even that slavery was more merciful than the long agony of the generations of our people, hungry, almost naked, and hopeless, an agony that weeps tears of blood and thrills the heart with its pitiful wailings. In the olden countries, the day speeds on when a radical change must come—or revolution. In these colonies those who aspire to lead the people and to guide the destinies of young nations should make every effort to avert the existence of such a state of things as is now seen in Great Britain. The laws which govern the production and distribution of wealth can be simply stated and easily understood. There are, in the language of political economy, three factors of production—Land, Labour, and Capital. Land includes all the powers and processes of nature. Labour includes all human effort, whether of mind or hand. It would be perhaps more simple to include land which is one form of capital under that term—but it is not material. To create wealth, all these factors are used. Sometimes they all belong to the same individual or family, as when a man of means cultivates his freehold farm with his own hands, aided perhaps by his children. Sometimes they belong to different individuals, but are used upon terms by another—as when, by hired labour, with borrowed money, a man cultivates a farm which he rents. The different positions which a man can occupy can easily be seen, whether in agricultural or manufacturing or trading pursuits.
Each of these factors has a periodic or yearly value—I say yearly because a year is a complete period of time. The yearly value of, or recompense for the use of, land we may call rent, because, if the owner leases it, he receives rent; if he use it himself, he expects to obtain a return in his opinion equal in value to its rent. So the yearly value of or payment for capital is interest, and the yearly value of or payment for labour, whether mental or bodily, is wages. These, of course, all vary in different lands and places, and also under different circumstances and at different times. But the same names always represent the same things. The landowner then receives his rent, the capitalist his interest, and the labourer his wages. The result of the co-operation of these three factors—after the payment of the yearly charges, rent, interest, and wages—is the accumulated wealth of the community. Land has increased in value, commerce and manufactures have extended, buildings have been erected, works public and private have been undertaken, fields have been cultivated, harvests have been reaped, flocks and herds have become more numerous, population has increased, the wilderness has become a location of scattered farms, the scattered farms a hamlet, the hamlet a town, the town a city. All this permanent result of the co-operation of Land, Labor, and Capital is wealth. That is production—all have aided in producing. The landowner has given his land, for which he received the annual payment; the capitalist his money, for which his return has been received; the labourer his toil—most important of all—for which wages have been paid. All cities and communities have grown in this manner—Melbourne, Chicago, San Francisco, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. In Melbourne allotments sold less than fifty years ago for a few pounds, have recently sold for over two hundred thousand sovereigns. What was the value fifty years ago of land in Queen-street, Auckland, or Princes-street, Dunedin? All the value, whether the unearned increment or the improved value, have been given by the co-operation of Land, Labor, and Capital. And of all the wealth thus created, Labor gets nothing. All accumulated wealth—that is, wealth after the payment of rent, interest, and wages—is appropriated by the owners of land and the owners of money. By no chance, by no possibility, does one solitary farthing of this created wealth go to the labouring class, which has borne incomparably the most important part in its production. This is the injustice under which the labourer suffers—this is the certain cause of misery to multitudes. The labourer may, and in new countries, where wages are high, often does, save part of his wages, and becomeing so far a capitalist or landowner—some portion of the growing wealth will belong to him; but as a labourer—nothing. The landowner may spend his rent, the capitalist his interest, and still the propertied classes grow wealthier, without toil and without trouble; but let the labourer expend his wages and some crisis throw him out of employment, he must starve or accept a pauperising charity. This is the wrong. There is one remedy, and one only. Let the labourer share in this accumulated wealth. That is the solution of the social question. Directly the labourer, besides his wages, shares equally in just proportion with the landowner and the capitalist in that wealth which remains after rent, and interest, and wages have been paid, the problem will be solved. When that time arrives, and it need not be far distant, the dawn of hope will rise upon the toilers of the world, and the answer will be to some extent vouchsafed to that glorious portion of our Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come."
But if we continue the progress of our colonisation and social and industrial life upon that basis which ever since the dawn of civilization has, through the payment of labour by wages only, given to the owners of property and denied to the owners of labour the growing wealth of every community, then our increasing population and increasing prosperity will simply ensure some violent catastrophy. The swifter our progress the speedier will be this end. The people, having all political power and beholding at last clearly the reason and source of their impoverished condition, will organise themselves for the purpose of obtaining those rights of which an iniquitous social system has deprived them.
Not by a revolution of fire and sword will they thus claim and obtain justice, but by the passing of such laws as, in their opinion, will secure to them, both for the past and the future, such portion of the national wealth and property as they consider to be the reward of toil.