CHAPTER XIII.

A DISCUSSION.

"I'VE a question to ask," said Roger Stevens, rising. "Holdfast said awhile since that labour is paid always at its true value. Now I don't agree to that."

"I didn't say 'always.' I said that as a rule it is," remarked Holdfast.

"Comes to pretty much the same thing, don't it?"

"No. You have to allow a time before each rise and fall, when it's not paid at its exact market value. Sometimes it's paid over its worth, and then it must soon fall. Sometimes it's paid under its worth, and then it must soon rise. But it finds its true level in time either way, and competition alone will send it up or down, without the help of strikes."

"I don't know as I hold with you," repeated Stevens.

"It's found to be true."

"Found by who?"

"Men who know a deal more of the matter than you or I. Men who have workmen in all parts of the world, and are able to compare the rise and fall of wages in different countries at the same time, noting the cause of each. These things have been watched and written about."

"And you mean to say you'd do away with strikes altogether?" asked Stevens, in a voice of dissent.

"No; I've told you already I wouldn't. But I would have them the last instead of the first resort. If you're being really paid under the fair worth of your labour, it's because the demand for that labour is increasing; and in such a case competition among the masters will soon act for you, and bring about a rise. If your labour is being paid at its fair value, no strike can bring about a lasting rise. If labour is growing more plentiful, and the demand is growing less, then, strike or no strike, your wages must fall."

"And who's to settle what the fair value of our labour is? And who's to say when we're paid over or under what's right?" A subdued stamping signified general acquiescence in this question.

"That's the difficulty, I grant you," Holdfast answered. "It's easy to say, if you and I are each on one end of a see-saw, we've just got to sit still, and let the board balance up and down till it finds its right position. We shouldn't need there to ask anybody to come and settle the slope of the board for us. The weight at each end would do that, if the board's only let alone. But it ain't so easy in the matter we're discussing; for each side is eager to grab the biggest profits, and it's hard to say how much ought justly to go to each, nor when things are fair and square. I wouldn't say no manner of pressure is ever needed on either side, to keep fair relations between employers and men—on both sides, mind!"

"But I do say it's the pressure of competition which does in the end settle the question—the competition of masters for labour, or the competition of men for work, depending on which is the more scarce. We need to look after our interests, and the masters need to look after their interests; but neither they nor we have that power over the question which some would make out. Where there's much work to be done, and few men to do it, no combining of masters can keep the wages down; and where there's little work to be done, and many men to do it, no combining of men can keep the wages up."

"Clear as daylight, ain't it?" chimed in Stuckey. "If labour's runnin' downhill, nobody can't make the wages run uphill; and if labour's runnin' uphill, nobody can't make the wages run downhill. If a rise is your due, why, you're pretty sure to get it by waitin' a bit; for it'll come in the natural course of events, like! If ye strike first, why most like ye'll wait a bit then too; and when it comes, ye'll be mighty stuck up, and think ye've won a huge victory. But fact is, you haven't got a victory at all. Ye've only half-starved your families, an' used up your savings, an' pawned your clothes, just for to get what ye'd have got in the end without all that bother, if ye'd been patient an' waited. The board's found its balance, don't ye see?—An' it's moral sure to have done that, if you hadn't given it no such shake."

"It's competition as really settles the question. If you wants to test the matter now an' agin, why, a strike's not a bad test. But it's a werry expensive one; an' it means a lot of trouble. Nor I don't see for my part as it's a great consolation to yourselves, to think that maybe you've half-ruined a master or two, as well as half-starvin' of your own little ones. I'd sooner wait a while longer sometimes, lads!"

Stuckey sat down, amid applause; but Holdfast was standing still.

"Stevens was asking just now," he said, "about the worth of labour; and about how it's commonly found in the long run to be paid at its worth. Well, there's a curious fact I came across lately, and I don't know as it mayn't be new to some of you. It is that labour, taken generally, is found to be of pretty much the same value throughout the world."

"Oh! Oh!" cried two or three voices.

"I mean what I say. Mind, I'm not giving you a hard and fast rule. I only tell you that it's been found generally, in places where capital and labour have free play, and where there ain't any extraordinary pressure from the scarcity of one or the other, that the cost of labour is wonderfully equal."

"I don't see that at all," Stevens observed.

"Maybe not; but it's worth your going into and reading about. It's been found by employers, with contracts in all parts of the world, that though the wages of the men in each place were different, the actual cost of the labour was much the same."

"But I say," broke in a voice, "if the cost was different, how could it be the same?"

"I said the wages were different, but the cost of the labour was equal. That's easy enough to understand. I'll give you two instances. There was a London bricklayer working beside a country one. The country bricklayer was paid three-and-sixpence a day for his work; the London chap five-and-sixpence. D'you suppose he was paid more because he was a Londoner? Of course not! He was paid more because his work was worth more. It was found that in one day he laid near upon twice as many bricks as the countryman. Would you say that his labour was the more expensive of the two?"

"No, no," Stevens answered.

"Well, and in some works on a French railway the French navvies were paid at the rate of two-and-sixpence a day, the English navvies at the rate of five shillings a day. It wasn't out of politeness to your country, you may be sure of that! It was because their labour was worth more. It was found, on comparison, that the work done by the English at five shillings a day was positively cheaper labour than the work done by the French at two-and-sixpence."

A cheer interrupted John.

"Yes; that was good. English workmen have had that pre-eminence! But will they keep it?" asked Holdfast steadily. "There's a spirit among us now that makes one fear for the future of English trade."

"Well, you see how it may be that labour, taken all round, is more equally paid than shows on the surface. It's the better workmen the better pay; just because he is a better workman. But the cost of work, done by the good workman at high pay, or done by the poor workman at low pay, is found to come to much the same in the end."

"I don't know as this question of the equality of the cost of labour has so much to do with us men as with the masters. It's a question that affects their pockets. But it's worth our knowing too; for it bears on the truth of labour being paid at its worth; and it tells us of forces which will have their way, and which masters nor men can't control."

"Any way, you'll do well to hold back from vain struggles which can't profit you—struggles to bring about a rate of wages beyond the real worth of your labour. For you might as well try to force a river to run uphill."

"And yet—" Holdfast spoke slowly—"and yet there are times, and no use to deny it, when things ain't fair, and the men have real good reason to know it—reason beyond the empty talk of clap-trap blusterers—and the question is, what's to be done?"

"I don't say it's often so. There's a deal of ignorance on such points; and sometimes there's unfair accusations; and many a strike fails of its object just because it deserves to fail. But for all that there are times, now in one trade, now in another, when a rise is known on all sides and acknowledged by good judges to be the real due of the men, and yet it's withheld."

"It'll come in the end, no doubt. Sooner or later the pressure can't be resisted. But long waiting means loss; and when men have got big families and small means, it stands to reason they do want to get their due. Right they should too."

"Well, even then, I still say, let the strike be your last resort, men! Don't fly to it at once. I do think a deal might be done first. For a strike itself means trouble and loss; and it does harm to yourselves and your families, harm to your trade and your country."

"Why shouldn't masters and men meet in a kindly spirit, each acknowledging the rights of the other, to discuss the question? For each side has its rights, and each side has its difficulties; and there's no such thing as smooth sailing for masters any more than for men. I can't and don't see, for my part, why capital and labour need be at daggers drawn; seeing that each is needful for the life of the other, and seeing too that we're a Christian country."

"There'd ought to be some way of getting at the truth of things, in this land, short of fighting. A strike means loss to masters and to men; and many a strike, it's found later, need never have taken place at all."

"I'd have you all think for the future whether arbitration isn't sometimes a thing possible. Couldn't able and honourable men be found, who'd look into the state of the matter, and tell us in honest truth whether a rise is our just due—men who could be trusted by employers and workmen alike? Wouldn't sometimes a calm and temperate demand for a rise, backed by a real knowledge of the justice of it, be as likely to bring about what's wanted as all the anger and bitterness of a strike?"

"Well—that's for another time. You've got to decide now for the present. An offer has come, meeting you half-way. Seems to me, we ought to go the other half to meet 'em. As friend Stuckey says, that's a tolerable fair ending to a struggle, each side yielding half."

"Any way, I'm meaning to be at work again next week. I'd have been sooner, if it wasn't for a lame arm. I hope to see all of you at work too."

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