see that he is thus aggressed upon by his fellows more seri ously than by Acts of Parliament or combinations of capital ists. And he would further see that the sentiment of justice in his own class is certainly not greater than in the classes he thinks so unjust.
The feeling which thus warps working-men's conceptions, at the same time prevents them from seeing that each of their unions is selfishly aiming to benefit at the expense of the in dustrial population at large. When an association of car penters or of engineers makes rules limiting the number of apprentices admitted, with the view of maintaining the rate of wages paid to its members — when it thus tacitly says to every applicant beyond the number allowed, "Go and ap prentice yourself elsewhere;" it is indirectly saying to all other bodies of artizans, " You may have your wages lowered by increasing your numbers, but we will not." And when the other bodies of artizans severally do the like, the general result is that the incorporated workers of all orders, say to the surplus sons of workers who want to find occupations, " We 16 226 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
will none of us let our masters employ you." Thus each trade, in its eagerness for self-protection, is regardless of other trades, and sacrifices numbers among the rising generation of the artizan-class. Nor is it thus only that the interest of each class of artizans is pursued to the detriment of the arti zan-class in general. I do not refer to the way in which when bricklayers strike they throw out of employment the labourers who attend them, or to the way in which the colliers now on strike have forced idleness on the ironworkers; but I refer to the way in which the course taken by any one set of opera tives to get higher wages, is taken regardless of the fact that an eventual rise in the price of the commodity produced, is a disadvantage to all other operatives. The class-bias, fostering the belief that the question in each case is entirely one between employer and employed, between capital and labour, shuts out the truth that the interests of all consumers are involved, and that the immense majority of consumers belong to the work ing-classes themselves. If the consumers are named, such of them only are remembered as belong to the wealthier classes, who, it is thought, can well afford to pay higher prices. Lis ten to a passage from Mr. George Potter's paper read at the late Leeds Congress: — " The consumer, in fact, in so high a civilization, so arrogant a luxuriousness, and so impatient an expectancy as characterize him in our land and age, is ever ready to take the alarm and to pour out the vials of his wrath upon those whom he merely suspects of taking a course which may keep a feather out of his bed, a spice out of his dish, or a coal out of his fire; and, unfortunately for the chances of fairness, the weight of his anger seldom falls upon the capitalist, but is most certain to come crushing down upon the lowly labourer, who has dared to stand upon his own right and independence."
From which it might be supposed that all skilled and un skilled artizans, all farm-labourers, all other workers, with all their wives and children, live upon air — need no food, no clothing, no furniture, no houses, and are therefore unaffected by enhanced prices of commodities. However fully prepared for the distorting effects of class-bias, one would hardly have expected effects so great. One would have thought it mani fest even to an extreme partizan of trades-unions, that a strike which makes coals as dear again, affects in a relatively-small degree the thousands of rich consumers above described, and is very keenly felt by the millions of poor consumers, to whom in winter the outlay for coal is a serious item of expenditure. One would have thought that a truth so obvious in this case, would be recognized throughout — the truth that with nearly all products of industry, the evil caused by a rise of price falls more heavily on the vast numbers who work for wages than on the small numbers who have moderate incomes or large incomes.
Were not their judgments warped by the class-bias, work ing-men might be more pervious to the truth that better forms of industrial organization would grow up and extinguish the forms which they regard as oppressive, were such better forms practicable. And they might see that the impracticability of better forms results from the imperfections of existing human nature, moral and intellectual. If the workers in any busi ness could so combine and govern themselves that the share of profit coming to them as workers was greater than now, while the interest on the capital employed was less than now; and if they could at the same time sell the articles produced at lower rates than like articles produced in businesses man aged as at present; then, manifestly, businesses managed as at present would go to the wall. That they do not go to the wall — that such better industrial organizations do not replace them, implies that the natures of working-men them selves are not good enough; or, at least, that there are not many of them good enough. Happily, to some extent organ izations of a superior type are becoming possible: here and there they have achieved encouraging successes. But, speak ing generally, the masses are neither sufficiently provident, nor sufficiently conscientious, nor sufficiently intelligent. Consider the evidence.
That they are not provident enough they show both by wasting their higher wages when they get them, and by neg lecting such opportunities as occur of entering into modified forms of co-operative industry. When the Gloucester Wag gon Company was formed, it was decided to reserve a thou sand of its shares, of £10 each, for the workmen employed; and to suit them, it was arranged that the calls of a pound each should be at intervals of three months. As many of the 228 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
men earned £2 10s. per week, in a locality where living" was not costly, it was considered that the taking-up of shares in this manner would be quite practicable. All the circumstances were at the outset such as to promise that prosperity which the company has since achieved. The chairman is no less re markable for his skill in the conduct of large undertakings than for that sympathy with the working-classes which led him to adopt this course. The manager had been a working- man; and possessed the confidence of woi'king-men in so high a degree, that many migrated with him from the Midland counties when the company was formed. Further, the man ager entered heartily into the plan — telling me himself, that he had rejoiced over the founding of a concern in which those employed would have an interest. His hopes, however, and those of the chairman, were disappointed. After the lapse of a year not one of the thousand shares was taken up; and they were then distributed among the proprietors. Doubt less, there have been in other cases more encouraging results. But this case is one added to others which show that the proportion of working-men adequately provident is not great enough to permit an extensive growth of better industrial organizations.1 Again, the success of industrial organizations higher in type, requires in the members a nicer sense of justice than is at present general. Closer co-operation implies greater mutual trust; and greater mutual trust is not possible without more respect for one another's claims. When we find that in sick- clubs it is not uncommon for members to continue receiving aid when they are able to work, so that spies have to be set to check them; while, on the other hand, those who administer the funds often cause insolvency by embezzling them; we cannot avoid the inference that want of conscientiousness pre vents the effective union of workers under no regulation but their own. When, among skilled labourers, we find a certain rate per hour demanded, because less " did not suffice for their natural wants," though the unskilled labourers working under them were receiving little more than half the rate per hour, and were kept out of the skilled class by stringent rules, we do not discover a moral sense so much above that shown by employers as to promise success for industrial combinations THE CLASS-BIAS. 229 THE CLASS-BIAS. 229 superior to our present ones. While workmen think them selves justified in combining- to sell their labour only on cer tain terms, but think masters not justified in combining1 to buy it only on certain terms, they show a conception of equity not high enough to make practicable a form of co-operation requiring that each shall recognize the claims of others as fully as his own. One pervading- misconception of justice be trayed by them would alone suffice to cause failure— the mis conception, namely, that justice requires an equal sharing- of benefits among producers, instead of requiring-, as it does, equal freedom to make the best of their faculties. The gen eral policy of trades-unionism, tending everywhere to restrain the superior from profiting by his superiority lest the inferior should be disadvantaged, is a policy which, acted out in any industrial combinations, must make them incapable of com peting with combinations based on the principle that benefit gained shall be proportioned to faculty put forth.
Thus, as acting on the employed in general, the class-bias obscures the truth, otherwise not easy to see, that the existing type of industrial organization, like the existing type of polit ical organization, is about as good as existing human nature allows. The evils there are in it are nothing but the evils brought round on men by their own imperfections. The rela tion of master and workman has to be tolerated, because, for the time being, no other will answer as well. Looked at apart from special interests, this organization of industry we now see around us, must be considered as one in which the cost of regulation, though not so great as it once was, is still exces sive. In any industrial combination there must be a regulat ing agency. That regulating agency, whatever its nature, must be paid for — must involve a deduction from the total proceeds of the labour regulated. The present system is one under which the share of- the total proceeds that goes to pay for regulation, is considerable; and under better systems to be expected hereafter, there will doubtless be a decrease in the cost of regulation. But, for the present, our comparatively- costly system has the justification that it alone succeeds. Reg ulation is costly because the men to be regulated are defec tive. With decrease of their defects will come economy of reg ulation, and consequently greater shares of profit to themselves.
230 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
Let me not be misunderstood. The foregoing criticism does not imply that operatives have no grievances to com plain of; nor does it imply that ti'ade-combi nations and strikes are without adequate justifications. It is quite possible to hold that when, instead of devouring their captured enemies, men made slaves of them, the change was a step in advance; and to hold that this slavery, though absolutely bad, was relatively good — was the best thing practicable for the time being. It is quite possible also to hold that when slavery gave place to a serfdom under which certain personal rights were recognized, the new arrangement, though in the abstract an inequitable one, was more equitable than the old, and constituted as great an amelioration as men's natures then permitted. It is quite possible to hold that when, instead of serfs, there came free men working for wages, but held as a class in extreme sub ordination, this modified relation of employers and employed, though bad, was as good a one as could then be established. And so it may be held that at the present time, though the form of industrial government entails serious evils, those evils, much less than the evils of past times, are as small as the average human nature allows— are not due to any special injustice of the employing class, and can be remedied only as fast as men in general advance. On the other hand, while contending that the policy of trades-unions and the actions of men on strike, manifest an injustice as great as that shown by the employing classes, it is quite consistent to ad mit, and even to assert, that the evil acts of trade-combina tions are the unavoidable accompaniments of a needful self- defence. Selfishness on the one side resisting selfishness on the other, inevitably commits sins akin to those it complains of — cannot effectually check harsh dealings without itself using harsh measures. Further, it may be fully admitted that the evils of working-class combinations, great as they are, go along with certain benefits, and will hereafter be followed by greater benefits — are evils involved by the transition to better arrangements.
Here my purpose is neither to condemn nor to applaud the ideas and actions of the employed in their dealings with em ployers; but simply to point out how the class-bias warps working-men's judgments of social relations — makes it diffi- THE CLASS-BIAS. 231 cult for working-men to see that our existing industrial sys tem is a product of existing human nature, and can be im proved only as fast as human nature improves.
The ruling and employing classes display an equally-strong bias of the opposite kind. From their point of view, the be haviour of their poorer fellow -citizens throughout these strug gles appears uniformly blarnable. That they experience from a strike inconvenience more or less considerable, sufficiently proves to them that the strike must be wrong. They think there is something intolerable in this independence which leads to refusals to work except at higher wages or for shorter times. That the many should be so reckless of the welfare of the few, seems to the few a grievance not to be endured. Though Mr. George Potter, as shown above, wrongly speaks of the consumer as though he were always rich, instead of being, in nine cases out of ten, poor; yet he rightly describes the rich consumer as indignant when operatives dare to take a course which threatens to raise the prices of necessaries and make luxuries more costly. This feeling, often betrayed in private, exhibited itself in public on the occasion of the late strike among the gas-stokers; when there were uttered pro posals that acts entailing so much annoyance should be put down with a strong hand. And the same spirit was shown in that straining of the law which brought on the men the pun ishment for conspiracy, instead of the punishment for breach of contract; which was well deserved, and would have been quite sufficient.
This mental attitude of the employing classes is daily shown by the criticisms passed on servants. Read The Great est Plague in Life, or listen to the complaints of every house wife, and you see that the minds of masters and mistresses are so much occupied with their own interests as to leave little room for the interests of the men and maids in their service. The very title, The Greatest Plague in Life, implies that the only life worthy of notice is the life to which servants minister; and there is an entire unconsciousness that a book with the same title, written by a servant about masters and mistresses, might be filled with equally-severe criticisms and grievances far more serious. The increasing independence of servants is 232 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
enlarged upon as a change greatly to be lamented. There is no recognition of the fact that this increasing independence implies an increasing prosperity of the classes from which servants come; and that this amelioration in the condition of the many is a good far greater than the evil entailed on the few. It is not perceived that if servants, being in great demand and easily able to get places, will no longer submit to restrictions, say about dress, like those of past times, the change is part of the progress towards a social state which, if apparently not so convenient for the small regulating classes, implies an eleva tion of the large regulated classes.
The feeling shown by the rich in their thoughts about, and dealings with, the poor, is, in truth, but a mitigated form of the feeling which owners of serfs and owners of slaves dis played. In early times bondsmen were treated as though they existed simply for the benefit of their owners; and down to the present time the belief pervading the select ranks (not in deed expressed but clearly enough implied) is, that the con venience of the select is the first consideration, and the welfare of the masses a secondary consideration. Just as an Old-Eng lish thane would have been astonished if told that the only justification for his existence as an owner of thralls, was that the lives of his thralls were on the whole better preserved and more comfortable than they would be did he not own them; so, now, it will astonish the dominant classes to assert that their only legitimate raison d'etre is that by their instrumen tality as regulators, the lives of the people are. on the average, made more satisfactory than they would otherwise be. And yet, looked at apart from class-bias, this is surely an undeniable truth. Ethically considered, there has never been any war rant for the subjection of the many to the few, except that it has furthered the welfare of the many; and at the present time, furtherance of the welfare of the many is the only war rant for that degree of class-subordination which continues. The existing conception must be, in the end, entirely changed. Just as the old theory of political government has been so transformed that the ruling agent, instead of being owner of the nation, has come to be regarded as servant of the nation; so the old theory of industrial and social government has to underg-o a transformation which will make the regulating THE CLASS-BIAS. 233 classes feel, while duly pursuing their own interests, that their interests are secondary to the interests of the masses whose labours they direct.
While the bias of rulers and masters makes it difficult for them to conceive this, it also makes it difficult for them to con ceive that a decline of class-power and a decrease of class-dis tinction may be accompanied by improvement not only in the lives of the regulated classes, but in the lives of the regulating classes. The sentiments and ideas proper to the existing social organization, prevent the rich from seeing that worry and weariness and disappointment result to them indirectly from this social system apparently so conducive to their welfare. Yet, would they contemplate the past, they might find strong reasons for suspecting as much. The baron of feudal days never imagined the possibility of social arrangements that would serve him far better than the arrangements he so strenuously upheld; nor did he see in the arrangements he upheld the causes of his many sufferings and discomforts. Had he been told that a noble might be much happier with out a moated castle, having its keep and secret passages and dungeons for prisoners — that he might be more secure without drawbridge and portcullis, men-at-arms and sentinels — that he might be in less danger having no vassals or hired mercenaries — that he might be wealthier without possessing a single serf; he would have thought the statements absurd even to the ex tent of insanity. It would have been useless to argue that the regime seeming so advantageous to him, entailed hardships of many kinds — perpetual feuds with his neighbours, open at tacks, surprises, betrayals, revenges by equals, treacheries by inferiors; the continual carrying of arms and wearing of armour: the perpetual quarrellings of servants and disputes among vassals; the coarse and unvaried food supplied by an unprosperous agriculture; a domestic discomfort such as no modern servant would tolerate; resulting in a wear and tear that brought life to a comparatively-early close, if it was not violently cut short in battle or by murder. Yet what the class- bias of that time made it impossible for him to see, has become to his modern representative conspicuous enough. The peer of our day knows that he is better off without defensive ap pliances and retainers and serfs than his predecessor was with 234 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
them. His country-house is more secure than was an embat tled tower; he is safer among his unarmed domestics than a feudal lord was when surrounded by armed guards; he is in less danger going about weaponless than was the mail-clad knight with lance arid sword. Though he has no vassals to fight at his command, there is no suzerain who can call on him to sacrifice his life in a quarrel not his own; though he can compel 110 one to labour, the labours of freemen make him immensely more wealthy than was the ancient holder of bondsmen; and along with the loss of direct control over workers, there has grown up an industrial system which sup plies him with multitudinous conveniences and luxuries un dreamt of by him who had workers at his mercy.
May we not, then, infer that just as the dominant classes of ancient days were prevented by tho feelings and ideas appro priate to the then-existing social state, from seeing how much evil it brought on them, and how much better for them might be a social state in which their power was much less; so the dominant classes of the present day are prevented from seeing how the existing forms of class-subordination redound to their own injury, and how much happier may be their future rep resentatives having social positions less prominent? Occa sionally recognizing, though they do, certain indirect evils attending their supremacy, they do not see that by accumula tion these indirect evils constitute a penalty which supremacy brings on them. Though they repeat the trite reflection that riches fail to purchase content, they do not draw the inference that there must be something wrong in a system which thus deludes them. You hear it from time to time admitted that great wealth is a heavy burden: the life of a rich peer being described as made like the life of an attorney by the extent of his affairs. You observe among those whose large means and various estates enable them to multiply their appliances to gratification, that every new appliance becomes an additional something to be looked after, and adds to the possibilities of vexation. Further, if you put together the open confessions and the tacit admissions, you find that, apart from these anxie ties and annoyances, the kind of life which riches and honours bring is not a satisfactory life — its inside differs immensely from its outside. In candid moments the " social treadmill " THE CLASS-BIAS. 235 is complained of by those who nevertheless think themselves compelled to keep up its monotonous round. As everyone may see, fashionable life is passed, not in being happy, but in playing1 at being happy. And yet the manifest corollary is not drawn by those engaged in this life.
To an outsider it is obvious that the benefits obtained by the regulative classes of our day, through the existing form of social organization, are full of disguised evils; and that this undue wealth which makes possible the passing of idle lives brings dissatisfactions in place of the satisfactions expected. Just as in feudal times the appliances for safety were the ac companiments to a social state that brought a more than equivalent danger; so, now, the excess of aids to pleasure among the rich is the accompaniment of a social state that brings a counterbalancing displeasure. The gratifications reached by those who make the pursuit of gratifications a business, dwindle to a minimum; while the trouble, and weariness, and vexation, and jealousy, and disappointment, rise to a maximum. That this is an inevitable result any