A living wage?

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane March 3, 1894

WHAT IS “ A LIVING WAGE? ”

It is scarcely necessary to remind the constant reader of the WORKER that the producer is justly entitled to all that he producers, not merely to what is termed “a living wage.” The extracts of opinions on this question of some leading English public men are reprinted here to show that even in old Tory England public opinion on wages, trade unionism, the social condition of the wage-earners, the relationship and responsibilities of capitalists, employers and legislatures is much more advanced than is, I believe, generally supposed, especially by those who do not watch the course of events and the signs of the times. A most striking characteristic is the recognition of the duty of the State to interfere in the interests of the workers, and to protect them against the cut-throat competition of unscrupulous employers.

ANOTHER FEATURE OF THERE OPINIONS

is the unanimous recognition of the fact that the iron law of supply and demand, depressing wages to the margin of starvation, is unjust in its incidence and totally inadequate to do anything like justice to the wage-earner. Still another and a very encouraging characteristic is that all are practically agreed wages should be above a bare subsistence, and one which would enable the worker – unskilled as well as skilled – to not only live in comfort but afford him opportunities to develop and unfold the real man and to provide against a “rainy day.” This is a pleasing and a pregnant sign of the times and, while it more than encourages Social – Democrats to keep persistently agitating, it also demonstrates that the leading statement, ministers and journalists of Australia, as a section of these growing communities, are woefully behind in social and political reform. An intelligent analysis of the reform movement of these continental colonies, as well as of the insular colonies, will prove that the Labour agitator has in most instances been the pioneer, and from present appearance is still likely to be.

THOSE INTERESTING EXCERPTS

have another value, at least in my opinion. They bring out in bold relief the utter callousness and brutality of the doctrine that the wage-earners of Australia must accept even a lower wage than they now receive in order to “restore confidence” and create prosperity. The true prosperity and real progress of a nation is measured by the condition – socially and politically – of the individual and not by statistics. The capitalist sub – committees who have monopolised the Government of these colonies and their hireling scribes and platform advocates, place the accumulation of money by the few before the prosperity and real progress of the people. To be working all the year round for a subsistence – just sufficient to enable them to work, no time for true development and real enlightenment, no means to make home a city of refuge and place of comfort and the centre of elevating and refining thoughts and influences, no opportunity to provide for the inevitable “rainy day” when physical and mental inertia approaches . No! Only a bare subsistence, that and nothing more is the furthest advance capitalists and employers have made in that direction. They frantically strive to monopolise all the opportunities, conditions and environments which are favourable to the greatest comfort, case and the exercise of a dominant power over the working class. Incessant toil under conditions detrimental to health and intellectual evolution and which preclude reasonable chances for rising above and conquering the annual man, is the lot of the real creators of wealth – the busy bees of the industrial hive, who have not even the marvellous instinct of the gatherers of honey to oust the drones from the hive.

The extracts in question will, I feel sure, indicate that unless the condition of the wage – earners and their reward for their just share of production over and above a mere subsistence wage (vide S. W. Griffith's “ Wealth and Want ”) are improved and acknowledged, a terrible retribution awaits the neglect of that duty. Lastly, these “opinions” are more proof of the wisdom of Carlyle's statement, viz., that the Condition-of-the-people-of-England question is the most burning one of the day and also that the Labour problem is the most pressing and absorbing one.

Why should the working man toil without ceasing,

Chained like a galley – slave fast to his oar?

Why should the wealthy still go on fleecing?

Why should they thrive on the groans of the poor?

By the by is it not suggestive that the Australian capitalist press, especially the parson edited section, have not made “copy” of nine columns of opinions on the above question published in the Christian World? J. M. C.

=======

The opinions of some leading English statesmen, ministers and journalists, taken from the Christian World of Nov. 30, 1893:

Mr. Sydney Buxton, M.P., Under Secretary of State for the Colonies:

“ Much could be done by giving unionism a free hand – by protecting it from the unjustified attacks of certain employers. A promising step had been taken by the State in the pledge given by himself, and by Sir John Hibbert on behalf of the Treasury, that in the case of Government contracts the contractor should be prohibited from making any invidious distinction between union and non – union men.”

(Will the Queensland Government follow the example of the British Executive in preventing contractors victimising and boycotting men because they exercised their inalienable right to combine against the oppression of employers? The pastoralists of Australia ought to cut the above extract out and pin it in their hats.)

Mr. George Russell, M.P., Under Secretary of State for India:

“But the Christian economy, as I understand it, declares that you have no right to take advantage of circumstances in order to pay a man less than he can live upon decently, and no laws of supply and demand can give you such a right.”

Mr. Henry Broadhurst, Parliamentary Secretary Trades Union Congress:

“But what the State had to do to-day was to set an example to private employers by paying a fair and honourable wage to its own servants.”

Mr. William Allen, M.P. (not the President of the Australian Pastoralists' Association – not much):

“To me the great Creator never meant life to be other than pleasant and happy. All happiness depends greatly on the adequate means of existence. Without adequate means for existence life becomes a weary round of suffering. There-fore this penalty of preventable suffering can only be allayed by adequate means of subsistence.”

(The member for Cuningham (Q) will be benefited by contrasting the “weary round of suffering” which the bush workers endure with the state of things which his namesake of England suggests. Will the pastoralists and other employers allay these too-long-endured sufferings “by adequate means of subsistence,” instead of intensifying the agony of life by a reduction in wages and harassing conditions as to work?)

Mr. Samuel Woods, M.P.:

“Unionism, support by the triumph of the colliers' organisation, would probably be well able in the future to insist upon the payment of a “living wage.” 'Where,' said Mr. Woods, with pardonable pride, 'can you find any other influence that could keep a huge body of men in such splendid discipline for sixteen weeks of starvation.' ”

(The bushmen during the late Western lockout earned praise even more emphatic than that, and deserved it too.)

(To be continued.)

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane March 10, 1894

WHAT IS “ A LIVING WAGE? ”

Opinion Collected by J. M. C.

Continued from our last.

Sir John Lang, M.P. Proprietor of the Dundee Advertiser and People's Journal:

“The people who raised most objection to the living wage claim were those who were not directly interested themselves, and chiefly professional men – lawyers and doctors, who had fixed scales and fees; writers of leading articles, who were paid at a fixed rate per column or contribution; military and naval officers, who were paid so much a day, and were secured half pensions long before most of them were actually unfit for work. The very classes of men who were best able to protect themselves by securing 'living wages' for themselves were the classes who contend that working men could not be assured such wages. . . . The mischief was done by cut-throat competition. Unprincipled men, acting on the rule 'every man for himself,' took big contracts for long terms at rates calculated on extremely low wages, and the process went on till the workmen was compelled in self-defence to resist.”

(The italics are mine and used to emphasise the truism that strikes are forced every time on the workers. It is the employers who bring about industrial and social anarchy, and in Queensland have in two glaring instances received the assistance of the Government, who are practically the same to-day, and who through the mouth of Colonial Secretary Tozer threaten to repeat that outage on representative rule.)

Mr. Augustine Bibrell, M.P.

“ Nobody is entitled to a ha'p'orth of profit until the actual producer has received a living wage.”

Mr. Albert Spicer, M.P., Chairman of the Congregational Union.

“ Mr. Spicer pointed out that the possibility of fixing a 'living' wage had been conclusively shown in the fact that no less than 140 municipalities or local authorities had adopted a 'wage clause,' necessitating in most cases the payment of Union wages by their contractors. . . . Everything should suffer before the wages of the worker was touched.”

Mr. Keir-Hardie, M.P.:

“He accepted Adam Smith's definition of a 'wage' as 'the whole of the produce of labour,' without which they would not rest satisfied. . . . It was just possible, therefore, that there would be more men out of work, as a result of the 'living wage,' than before its attainment. But the living wage was worth getting, in spite of that. The problem of the unemployed as well as of the idle class would have to be dealt with in another way and also by the State, working through local administrative bodies.”

Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P.:

“Wages must not be allowed to alone bear the burden of diminished demand.”

Mr. Manfield, M.P.:

“As a rule, the demands made by labour through its unions were fair and just, whether they related to payment or conditions of labour. . . . As regarded the payment of wages generally, the only chance of industrial peace was to be found in giving the working man an opportunity of raising wages from times to time, such as had been given him by the forming of the boot trade. Under its regime (or operations) wages had gradually and comfortably risen since the time of its formation.”

Mr. B. F. C. Costelloe, Chairman of the Local Government Committee of the London Country Council:

“ I think it not only immoral and irreligious, but inhuman, for any society to ever assent to a political economy which teaches that a man may be hired for just as little as he will take. . . Now, I cannot see, for my part, why, if Government may prevent a village being built upon a cesspool, or a city street being left undrained, it cannot prevent the employment of men at a rate which will scarcely allow them to exist.”

Mr. Walter Besant (novelist):

“On one thing, however, I am quite clear; It is that the producer and the employer must, before long, agree to play the game with open books, so that the former (the wage earner) shall know what the latter makes. I do not hope to convert anyone to my opinions, but I think that all capital should be restricted to a certain percentage and that surplus moneys, when the men have been fairly paid, should form a fund for slack times and bad times.”

Sir Edward Russell, editor of the Liverpool Post:

“The essential principles are: First, that the reasonable permanent standard of comfort of the working class must be a criterion of the minimum wage; and, secondly, that bad times must be borne by masters as well as by men,”

Sir John Rolmson, editor of the Daily News:

“The living wage has always been recognised by every economist of repute as a governing factor in the remuneration of labour.” - Daily News, Nov. 17^th, 1893.

Mr. A. E. Fletcher, editor of the Daily Chronicle :

“ The same pay for the same work and for good and bad workmen alike. [ Mr. Fletcher had previously illustrated his argument at a living wage conference by that wonderful story of the lord of the vineyard.] That is the way to secure the living wage, and that is the principle that must be insisted upon by your Boards of Conciliation. Just as you pay your archbishops 15,000 pounds a year whether they reach gospel of the poor or elect to be the champions of the rich; just as you hand your two guineas to your physician whether he cures or kills you; just as you pay your solicitor or counsel the regulation honorarium whether he saves you from the gallows or hangs you; so you must pay the regulation wage to the man who raises your local coal or shoes your horses or mends your kettle, whether he does the work well or ill. You have your choice of workmen, and it is your own fault if you choose a bad one. What you want to prevent is not only reckless competition amongst employers, but equally disastrous competition amongst workers.”

Mr. A. J. Wilson, city editor of the Standard and editor of the Investors' review :

“ He looked upon the demand for a living wage as a signal of revolt against the hitherto all-swallowing demands of the capitalists. . . . The demands of the capitalist have been sustained by preacher and economist alike, to the utter oblivion of those of the capital maker. . . Where would our industries be, and the royalties and rents of our land – owners and the freights of the railways companies if the workmen were to take it into their heads to organise a system of migration instead of wasting their money on strikes and other brutal forms of social war! They will do that one of these days if still trampled on and scorned as they have been.”

(The italics in these and all other cases are mine. What is the New Australia Movement and similar Socialistic emipration movements, but a liberal fulfilment of Mr. Wilson's prophecy? It is because of fear of losing “royalties,” “rents,” and “freights,” which caused the N.S.W. Government to badger and obstruct the departure of the first batch of Paraguayan pioneers by the Royal Tar from Sydney. And that sort of emigration is on the increase. The workmen have taken it into their heads.)

Mr. E. T. Cook, editor of the Westminster Gazette:

“ Professor Marshall has reminded us that even Ricardo, the reputed author of the so-called 'iron law' of wages, was keenly sensitive to the importance of a higher standard of living. ' The friends of humanity,' he wrote, 'cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in their exertions to procure them.'”

Mr. William Morris (artist, Socialist, and poet, who was named as a likely successor to Tennyson as Poet Laureate):

“ Mr. Morris looked upon the demand for a 'living wage' as indicating that the workmen of this country had determined to be treated as citizens, and the dignities of citizenship. He did not anticipate that the fixing of a minimum wage, however modest, would solve the social problem. On the contrary it would probably increase it by making the problem more acute. But that, he thought, would indirectly be a good thing, as it would show us exactly where we stood socially.”

Mr. Tom Mann, one of the foremost of Labour leaders:

“ He was pleased to note so much of an improvement upon the still more prevalent policy of obtaining labour force as cheaply as possible, without regard to a sufficient wage for the maintenance of life. But it is necessary to remind all concerned that a 'living wage' policy is compatible with the most iniquitous exploitation. Thus, if in a given industry the standard at which the living wage be fixed is 25s. Weekly, and the value of labour per person 50s. Weekly, a living wage moralist would allow the surplus 25s. Weekly to go elsewhere than to the person who produced it. This may be a hard saying, but religion demands it: those who dare not face it should stop talking about religion.”

The Ven. W. M. Sinclair, Archdeacon of London:

“In productive co-operation lies the remedy of a very large amount of the difficulties between capital and labour, and which tend to exclude Christian principles from business relation, and which lead to civil war between class and class. . . . If once the men in a manufactory had a proportional share in the profits we should hear little more of strikes and lockouts.”

Rev. Henry Scott-Holland, M. A., Canon of St. Paul's:

“Where Unionism had got to work it had usually solved the problem of a living wage. It was in the unskilled trades, in which the mass of the unemployed flung themselves, that unionism could do little or nothing, and it seemed absolutely necessary that Government should in such trades interfere.”

Rev. John Clifford, D. D.:

“But it is not difficult to say what is not a living wage. If a man's wages are not enough to enable him to save enough to enrich and complete his home gradually with more delicate and substantial comforts; and to lay by such store as shall be sufficient for the happy maintenance of his old age (rendering him independent of the help provided for the sick and indigent by the arrangement pre-supposed) and sufficient also for the starting of his children in a rank of life equal to his own – if his wages are not enough to enable him to do this, they are unjustly low.” - RUSKIN'S “Crown of Wild Olive.”

Dr. R. F. Horton:

“We must teach that an employer had not the right to employ a man at a starvation wage because there was a supply of labour beyond the demand.”

Rev. Dr. Lunn:

“There was neither humanity nor justice in the idea that the employer had a right to employ men at starvation wages. Such employers were worse than the old slave-holders. . . Of many a modern employer it could not even be said that he treated his men

Something better than his dog,

A little dearer than his horse.”

Rev. Charles F. Aked, of Liverpool:

“He thought the living wage movement a far-reaching and profoundly important one. It fastens a check upon competition; it limits a selfish individualism; it opposes to vices and scandals of sweating the solid block of an irreducible minimum of the cost of production. He was not clear that it is our business, once sure of the righteous-ness of the case, to consider temporary effects. He should be inclined to plead for a little healthy recklessness. The cold blooded calculator is so often wrong; the enthusiant who throws himself on God is so often right.”

(These opinions are but the crests of the waves of the rising tide of Democracy, and I think they ought to make us in Australia be of good cheer and to keep pegging away for the triumph of Social-Democracy. - J. M. C.)