SECTION CLXXIV.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.--IN DECLINING COUNTRIES AND TIMES.

When, circumstances being otherwise unaltered, the aggregate income of a nation decreases, the wages of labor are wont to be lower in proportion as the points above mentioned, and which are unfavorable to the laborer in his competition, appear.[174-1] The worse distribution, also, of the national resources, when, instead of a numerous middle class, a few over-rich people monopolize all that is to be possessed, diminishes the wages of common labor and thus again produces a worse distribution than before.[174-2] In a similar way, wages must decline when the mode of life of the laboring class, or the quality of their work, has deteriorated. Some of these causes may exist transitorily even among otherwise flourishing nations; as, for instance, in war times,[174-3] or when population for a while grows more rapidly than national wealth. But among nations universally declining, they are all wont to meet, and one strengthens the other.[174-4] One of the saddest symptoms of such a condition is the low value here put upon the life and strength of workmen. The cheapness of labor has indeed a charm for enterprising spirits, which induces them to employ human labor even where machinery, beasts, etc., would economically be better adapted to the performance of the work.[174-5] Day-laborers are, on this account, more profitable to persons of enterprise (Unternehmer=undertaker) because they can more easily rid themselves of them. But such egotistic calculation should have no place even in the case of actual slaves.[174-6]

Besides, it not unfrequently happens, that the laboring class seek to oppose the decline of wages by increasing their industry, shortening their holidays and leisure, and by drawing their wives and children into their work. This may, under certain circumstances, result in an increase of the national income, and thus constitute a transition to the restoration of high wages, especially if beforehand there was reason to complain of the idleness of the working class. But if the other circumstances of competition are unfavorable to the working class, if especially they used their personally increased income to add to the population, it would not be long before they fell back to their previous state. In such case, the consequence is, that the same quantity of labor has become cheaper; that all permanent profit falls to the capitalists and landowners, and all that remains to the laboring class is only greater toil, a sadder home-life, and sadder children. The danger of such an issue is all the greater, because few things so much contribute to reckless marriages and the thoughtless procreation of children, as the industrial coöperation of wife and child.[174-7] [174-8]

In the East Indies, a great many of the rejected castes live on carrion, dead fish, noxious insects, and even the middle class find wheat flour too dear, and therefore mix it with peas, etc. (Ritter, VI, 1143.) It is said that Bengal, in the famine of 1770, lost more than one-third of its inhabitants. (Mill, History of British India, III, 432.) Eloquent description of misery in Rickard, India, or Facts submitted to illustrate the Character and Condition of the native Inhabitants, II, London, 1832. An immense number of badly paid servants of whom it may however be said that each one accomplishes very little. The Pindaries may pass for an extreme of Indian pauperism, corresponding to the pirate-calamity during the later Roman Republic. (Quarterly Review, XVIII, 466 ff.; Ritter, VI, 394 ff.)]

==============+============+=========+========== | | | | |Manchester.|Hanover.|Hanover.| | | | | | 1810-20 | 1700 | 1827 | --------------+------------+---------+---------- Cwt. beef, | 26 | 33 | 35 | " potatoes,| 1.85 | ---- | ---- | " wheat, | 5.5 | ---- | ---- | " rye, | ---- | 6.5 | 8.7 | " butter, | 42.3 | 87 | 64 | " sugar, | 96 | 181 | 128 | ==============+============+=========+========== |Upper | | | |Canada. |Brandenburg.| Gratz. | | | | | | 1830 | 1820-33 |1826-45_ | --------------|--------+-------------+---------- Cwt. beef, | 6.6 | 34 | 36 | " potatoes,| ---- | 1 | 2.68 | " wheat, | 2 | 7.6 | 11 | " rye, | 1.5 | 5.4 | 8.6 | " butter, | 22 | 83 | 84 | " sugar, | ---- | ---- | ---- | ==============+============+=========+==========

Estimated in silver, the East Indian laborer earns from £1 to £2 a year; the English, £9 to £15; the North American, £12 to £20. (Senior.) Hildebrand, Nat-Oek., I, 195 ff., assures us that the average rate of wages in Germany, in 1848, amounted to 400 thalers a year; in England, to 300 thalers; and that the prices of the means of subsistence in the latter country were 1-1/2 times higher than in the former. Engel, Ueber die arbeitenden Klassen in England, 1845, shows only the dark side of a real picture, and is silent on the other, and is well corrected by Hildebrand, I, 170 ff. Excellent statistics in Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, I, 491-589. On the more recent times, compare the Edinburgh Review, April, 1851, April, 1862; Quarterly Rev., Oct., 1859, July, 1860. Ludlow and Jones, loc. cit. On the situation in France, see Blanqui's report in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 7. Leplay, Les Ouvriers des deux Mondes, II, 1858. Very important are the "Reports from Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular Agents abroad respecting the Condition of the industrial Classes, and the Purchase-power of money in foreign Countries." (1871.)]