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TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
FOR THE
PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.
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SHEFFIELD MEETING, 1865.
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EDITED BY
GEORGE W. HASTINGS, LL.B.,
GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION.
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EXCLUDED EVIDENCE.
In addition to the paper by Dr. Waddilove, printed at p. 133, MR. G. J.
HOLYOAKE read a paper which dealt with evidence,
excluded through conscientious inability to take an oath. The
following is an abstract of the paper: — Christians having a "religious"
objection to the oath can make affirmation, but those who are not
Theists and have a secular objection to the oath as implying a faith
they do not hold, cannot make affirmation at all. Those who
believe in the creed upon which the oath is based, are not obliged to
take it, if they have some slight doctrinal objection to it, but those
who cannot believe in the creed at all, are obliged to take it or are
denied justice. In the higher courts the oath-taker is obliged to
swear upon the New Testament, the truth of which he is, by that act,
assumed solemnly to admit, and he is required to believe in a God who
will punish perjury in this life. On the magistrate's bench the
oath is a larger, clumsier, and more degrading instrument. At
Quarter Sessions a witness may be questioned and denounced, and to
scruple about taking an oath, is a wanton perversity and a misdemeanour,
punishable with imprisonment at the pleasure of the court. A man
who doubts either the truth of the Bible, or the existence of an
avenging Deity, however sincere his doubts may be, must lie in the
presence of his neighbour, or be dismissed from the court as one
incapacitated for promoting the ends of justice. There were two
classes of persons, the writer contended, who might decently, and ought
fairly to be exempted from the rule. First, the class who consider
that the hateful consequences of lying are inseparably connected with
its commission; that there is personal infamy in the very act; that its
punishment has commenced in the degradation of the mind in which it is
possible; and that it is libellous of the moral government of the world
to suppose otherwise. Of this class are the men who maintain that
it is insulting God's majesty to believe that He personally assists
magistrates and policemen in ascertaining the truth as it is in petty
larceny or street brawls, by engaging to issue celestial execution on
common liars. Of this class was that intrepid and right-minded
Lady, who, a short time ago, refused to be sworn to prove a debt of £15,
saying — "I will give my word, but I will take no oath. I think it
would be a desecration of God's name in such a case;" and was ordered by
the pious County Court judge to leave the court "as a sad example to
those in more humble stations in society." The second class who
should be exempted are — Atheists or those who believe that human
faculties can but inform us of what is, and not why it is, or how it is,
and having endeavoured to found religion on theological principles, have
failed. They do not deny that God is; but, not understanding
whether ho be a personal or impersonal entity keep a reverent silence
upon what they do not know. Such men are not unmindful of the
truth, it is with them not only a point of honour; it is also a point of
interest. Knowing that society cannot exist without justice, and
that justice cannot proceed except upon truth, the Atheist is jealous of
its infraction, not only as a sin, but as a danger. But for that
very reason he shrinks from taking an oath, for in the very act of
taking it he tells the lie which he abhors. The writer proceeded
to show, by a number of recent cases in our courts, that the present
position of persons belonging to these two classes is one of great
hardship and injustice. They must either resign their rights or
their conscience, for they are not allowed, as the Christian objectors
to an oath, to make a simple affirmation. If they decline the
oath, they are treated as utterly unworthy of credit, and are, in fact,
at the mercy of all who like to ill-treat, rob, or insult them.
For such persons it is not unreasonable to claim the simple justice of
conceding to them the privilege of the Christian objector to an oath,
and relieve them from their equally conscientious objection to taking
it. The same affirmation, attended of course with the same civil
penalties for its violation, should be allowed to both, and would
certainly be as binding upon both.
______________
CO-OPERATION.
Partnerships of Industry. By G. J. HOLYOAKE.
THE Partnership of
Labour is the name given to a new relation between capitalists and
producers, under which workmen receive, in addition to their wages, a
share of the extra profits they create. The hitherto existing
system of remunerating industry is to hire labour at the lowest rate of
wages the labour can be obtained for: the workman giving in return the
least amount of work which he can get accepted. However profitable
the business may be at which he works, however rich his employer may
become, the workman has no claim to any share in it beyond his
stipulated wages. The general consequences are that he requires to
be timed and watched; he adopts the easiest processes; he cares nothing
to economise material; he has small pride in his work, and little
concern for the reputation or fortune of the firm in whose employ he is.
He changes his situation whenever he can better himself, leaving his
master to supply his place as he may, by a strange hand who loses time
in familiarising himself with the arrangements of a workshop new to him,
or blunders or destroys property for the want of special local
experience. If the workman has no chance of changing his place for
a better, he engages in strikes, wastes his own earnings in that
expensive experiment, perils the capital and endangers the business of
his master. If his strike succeeds, his master dislikes him
because of the loss and humiliation the strike has occasioned. If
his strike fails, the workman is poorer in means and sourer in spirit.
He works only from necessity; he hates his employer with all his heart,
he does him all the mischief, and makes all the waste, he safely can.
He gives his ear to alien counsellors and conspires for the day when he
can strike again with more success. Thus there exists a chronic
war of industry in every town in the land. The workman has no
respect for his master, who devotes his genius and enterprise to
building up a great business, who risks his capital, and lives under the
slavery of anxious thought, in order to increase his own and the public
wealth, and raise the national character for excellence of manufacture.
A proud desire to co-operate with his employer seldom enters the
workman's mind. Worse than this, he has little pride in his own
handicraft; he does not care to do the best he can, and perhaps feels no
shame when any piece of work leaves his hand bearing no impress of his
thought, truth, or skill. On the other hand, his master as rarely
understands that he should see in his workman a man. He forgets
that an employer should be a gentleman, and friend of his workman, that
it is part of his honour that his people should do well and look well;
should be content and proud to serve him, that they should have the
means to dress cleanly and comfortably, and live in houses which render
themselves and families healthy. An employer should be as proud to
show his men as to show his machinery. He should wish to satisfy
them that the common profits of the concern to which they are asked to
give their toil and skill, shall be shared with them in proportion to
their confidence and trust, their economy and industry, their ingenuity
and success.
This state of things is likely to come about. The first
indications are springing up. This great country is full of
employers as nobly disposed as any workmen. It has long been known
that many masters were willing to institute partnerships between labour
and capital if any practical plan could be devised for doing it.
Earl Grey, several years ago, took pains to inquire for such plans, that
he might commend them to adoption.
Because sentimental people were in favour of these
partnerships, it was hastily concluded that there could be none save a
sentimental way of working out the principle, whereas it is founded upon
a new and shrewd perception of business profits.
It is well known that if each workman gave his mind to his
work, and put his goodwill into it, for the benefit of his employers,
they could together create a new amount of profit. Take one
instance. It has been calculated that the working colliers at
Whitwood and Methley could, by simply taking the trouble to get the coal
in large lumps, and reducing the proportions of slack, add to the
colliery profits £1,500 a year. If they would further take a
little extra care below ground, in keeping the best coal separate from
the inferior, they could add another £1,500 to the profits. In
these two instances alone, men working — not with good will instead of
bad will, but with good will instead of no will, could create £3,000 a
year.
Now, a man of original business sagacity, looking at these
facts, which are true less or more in all trades, would say — "I
discover herein a new method of making money. I see my men can, if
they had a motive to do it, create for me £3,000 a year. If I gave
them £1,500 of it, they would have that motive, they would be delighted
— I should appear a great benefactor in their eyes; and I should be a
benefactor, too, for I should put in their way, and place it within
their power to add £1,500 a year to their wages. We should be on
good terms after this. They would not strike after this, for they
would get more on this plan than they could by striking, and loss,
discredit, and discomfort on both sides would be avoided. Trades'
unions could have no motive for opposing this plan, since it establishes
the very thing they are formed to obtain, the recognition of labour as
property. Besides, the plan would cost me nothing, and I should
merely be giving the workmen back the money they have created.
Indeed, they would be also adding to my profits £1,500, for having had
the sagacity to see the advantage and the good feeling to act upon the
plan. Decidedly, this is a new element in the economy of
production. Humanity pays. I have been told that this plan
was mere impracticable, costly sentimentality. I find it is a plan
of profit as well as of credit and peace. There will be little
trouble in devising regulations for carrying this plan out. I have
only to fix upon that percentage of profit which pays me to carry on my
business, and to say to my men I expect and require to make 10 per cent,
(or 20 per cent., as the risk may be), such is now my average paying
profit, and for the future all we make above this by your co-operation,
good will, prudence, care, and skill in working, I will divide with you
and add to your wages." This is the theory of the partnerships of
industry, cleared of all sentimentality and the confusion of ideas which
surround new discoveries in economical science.
It is simply a wholesome utilitarian principle applied to
industry. These partnerships are based on a principle from which
all new civilisation has sprung — a principle of intelligent
selfishness. Self-interest which seeks its ends through a liberal
consideration of the interests of others, pays far better than the
savage covetousness which impatiently picks the bones of labour.
Good feeling alone will not conduct a large commercial concern — there
needs self-interest tempered by good sense, and this good sense now
perceives that a thousand workmen will produce far more profit if they
have an interest in what they are doing, and have a motive to avoid
waste of material, loss of time, and to work with all their skilfulness. The workmen who can be induced to act in this way, create in a year an
additional sum of money for their employer. And if the employer divides
this new profit with his men, he benefits the men as they were never
benefited before, and employers obtain half the new profit thus created
as an additional bonus to themselves, as a reward for their trust in the
men, and for their own sagacity and good sense.
The credit among the master class, of being first to set the example of
improving the relations of employer and producers, is due to the eminent
firm of Sir Francis and John Crossley, names distinguished for local
munificence to the town of Halifax. Their carpet works cover eighteen
and a half acres of flooring, and represent a million and a half of
capital. This great private business they have converted into a public
company, and have made all their workpeople, amounting to 4,500 men,
women, and children, even minors and married women, all eligible to
invest their savings as shareholders; thus giving to every producer an
opportunity of exchanging the servile position of a hired labourer for
that of the dignity of a joint possessor of the mill floor on which he
treads, and sharing the renown and profits of the firm to which his toil
and skill contribute. This great example is entitled to honour.
The Messrs. Henry Briggs and Son, proprietors of the Whitwood and
Methley Collieries, have had the distinction of carrying the principle
of industrial partnership further, and of being the first employers to
recognise labour as property entitled to profits.
Taking the average profits their capital ought to produce, they fix upon
10 per cent, as the amount that must be realised, they have converted
their business into a company, and admit, like the Messrs. Crossleys,
all their workmen who choose to invest their savings in shares. And if
any do not or cannot, it is provided that all profits over 10 per cent,
shall be divided between the shareholders who have risked their capital
in the business, and the workmen whose devotion and skill have produced
the profit — in the ratio of two-thirds to shareholders and one-third to
workmen. This is the first time any employers have thus formally
recognised the poor man's labour as property. This is a distinction not
to be mentioned without gratitude, and of immense significance in the
industrial progress of the future. I have visited the Whitwood Colliery,
as I wished to see for myself the spot where this sacred change has
begun. I was allowed to descend into the pits, as I wished to judge of
the security for life for which these collieries are known. Being
invited by the men to make a speech to them, I addressed them as "The
first Englishmen whose labour employers had recognised as their
property; and counselled them to err for the first time on the side of
confidence, to listen to no suspicions, to abate no exertion, that this
new compact of capital with industry might succeed for the sake of their
brethren — to respect themselves, to entertain no uncomfortable or
ungenerous criticism of their master's motives; but, like men of sense
in the middle class, to fix their attention on the tendency of the
scheme to promote their own benefit, and give their employers honourable
credit for a proposal whose tendency is the workman's advantage. Made in
the face of the nation, applauded by the most eminent friends of labour,
the compact could never go back if they were faithful to it; and the
noblest experiment commenced in our time would be dated from those pits
in which they worked. It was now in their power not only to raise their
wages, but to raise their order." I can bear my testimony, from
examination, that the system of accounts devised by the Messrs. Briggs
for enabling the men to secure the profit that may accrue to them is
simple, accessible, and satisfactory. The experiment bids fair to
succeed, as more coal has been worked since it was commenced than has
been worked before in the same time.
With that commercial sagacity which belongs to Manchester, the new
principle of partnership of industry has been quickly appreciated by the
financial agents, Messrs. Greening and Co., who advise its introduction
into new companies. A now company, entitled the Clayton Plate and Bar
Iron Company, includes among its directors names honoured in the ranks
of labour, those of Jacob Bright, Alderman Abel Heywood, and Dr. John
Watts. This company carries the new principle of partnership further
than the Messrs. Briggs, and includes, like a co-operative store, the
customer in the division of profits. After 10 per cent, has been
realised for the capitalists, the sum of profit in excess is divided
into three equal parts — one-third to the purchasers from the company
during the year, in proportion to the sums paid by each for goods;
one-third to the shareholders, according to the shares held by each;
one-third to the officers, clerks, and workmen, according to the
salaries or wages of each of them during the year. This is the most
perfect approach to that definition of co-operation which Mr. J. S. Mill,
M.P., gave at the Whittington Club, London, in 1864. His words were —
"It is not co-operation where a few persons join for the purpose of
making a profit from cheap purchases, by which only a portion of them
benefit. Co-operation is where the whole of the produce is divided. What
is wanted is that the whole of the working classes should partake of the
profits of labour. We want that the whole produce of labour shall, as
far as the nature of things permit, be divided among the contributors
and producers."
Thus, on this shrewd system of the Partnership of Industry, the
customers who keep the works always going by the continuity of their
orders, save waste and delay, and create more than the return they
receive. The workmen, by their intelligent faithfulness, create more
than the addition to their wages awarded to them, and the capitalist not
only secures his percentage of interest, but new additions which
otherwise would never exist. Only two firms at present appear to
understand this — the Whitwood and Clayton Companies. Even the Colliery
Guardian, which should understand the interest of the coal and iron
masters, indulges in demented ridicule of "the sanguine expectations of
the benevolent gentlemen who penned the prospectus of the Clayton Plate
Company." Because philanthropists have an earlier sense of justice than
other men, and are first inclined to an equitable scheme, the mere
trading spectator sees nothing but philanthropy in it, and overlooks the
clement of industrial equity in it, and does not know that equity always
pays.
Owing to the confusion of ideas that attends all new subjects, even the
workmen everywhere damage their own case, and consent to describe this
division of new profits as a "bonus to labour," whereas it is really a
new bonus to capital. Even in Rochdale, where good sense is prevalent,
the co-operators will call it a "bonus to labour," which gives a false
idea to capitalists — obscures in their mind what they are called upon
to agree to, and gives them the impression that they are required, on
grounds of philanthropy, to relinquish a portion of their profits as
capitalists in favour of workmen who have no capital themselves. It was
this confusion of ideas that caused the Rochdale Manufacturing Society
to retrace its steps and blunder back into the old system of care and
loss; which appears to gain all while it loses half. The Manufacturing
Society of Rochdale gave up their plan not, as the London Spectator
said, because it failed — they gave it up before they tried it. The
majority never understood the principle of it. They said, "Why should we
give a portion of our profits to workmen? Other employers do not." They
did not see that instead of giving profits they would gain more profits. They did not see that the profits proposed to be divided were extra
profits — new profits which would never exist but by this arrangement;
and the wiser minority who did understand it were not allowed to raise
this issue, and it was predicted at the time by the present reader, in a
paper contributed to the Morning Star, that shrewd masters would
be the first to see their way to it.
The head of a family who observes what takes place in his own house,
knows enough to understand this question. Good servants are so scarce
that few householders have the good fortune to meet with them. An
educated, managing, economical, trusty servant or nurse, will always
save more than her wages and cost. You never care to a guinea or two
what wages you pay her. You do not give it to her, she gives to you more
than that, by her personal economy, by the example she sets, and the
peace which she diffuses around her; by the absence of superstitious
tales, coarse habits, and ignorant speech, which otherwise would
contaminate your family, who must in their childhood come in contact
with her. And in great commercial undertakings, what high salaries are
given to managers of ability and trust, who can think for themselves,
and think to some purpose, and by their care, foresight, judgment, and
administrative talent, increase the reputation and profits of the
concern. This quality of men is very rare. A manager whose mind and
disposition is wholesome and genial, who can be busy without being
petulant, active without being tyrannical, and display with all a
creative business capacity, earn their high salaries many times over. The munificent remuneration they receive is never spoken of as a bonus
to servants. It is well understood economy to pay them well.
The same rule holds good in the Partnerships of Labour. They are not
devised as philanthropic plans. They arise in an extension of commercial
sagacity. These gentlemen who take the lead, foresee that if it is
economy to give the leading servants in a firm an interest in what they
are doing — it must be equally an net of economy to give the whole body
an interest in what they are doing. If anyone writes to Mr. Mill,
Professor Fawcett, or Louis Blanc, and solicits notice of this step from
these distinguished authorities, whose word of approval is reputation —
if Mr. Mill does, as he has done in his new edition of his "Political
Economy," publish words of priceless distinction of the Messrs. Briggs'
proposal — it is done because they were the first to adopt a plan of a
new and enlightened form of self-interest, which includes with their own
benefit also the benefit of the workman. But when the public begin to
understand what really takes place, they will cease to regard this new
plan of the Partnership of Labour as a philanthrophic one; they will
estimate it as a new form of enlightened commercial shrewdness which
pays.
The fact is, Political Economy — that unrecognised benefactor of the
working classes — is apt to mistake the mechanic for the machine. It
sees that the workman must have average wages, or he will go elsewhere;
but it does not otherwise see that the workman is a live thing, and that
he has within him a brain and will, which, if purchased, will also
produce profit. The old system of mastership merely buys his stomach —
the new Partnership of Industry buys his thought and energy, and this
new investment will pay better than the old. The scheme will not at
first advance rapidly, because workmen are often incapable of enduring
any plan by which an employer profits; and will rather forego a great
addition to their own wages than see him gain by it. I could tell of
scores of schemes, in which gentlemen have risked their fortunes to
benefit workmen, who as soon as they saw that their intending
benefactors expected to gain a profitable investment for their money by
it, these scoundrel workmen — as they would deserve to be called had
they sense enough to see what they were doing — ceased to support it,
and caused the ruin of the generous projectors. Whereas it was to the
interest of the workmen that these capitalists should benefit, and be
known to benefit most, when they included in their schemes the benefit
of the workmen. No fear that these Partnerships of Industry will advance
too fast. They are too good for that. If it be true that nothing
succeeds like success, it is more true that nothing progresses so slowly
as progress.
It would however be ingratitude to conclude this subject without
acknowledgments to Mr. Scholefield, M.P. for Birmingham, for the Bill he
introduced, and to Mr. Milner Gibson, who, on the part of the
Government, have carried it through Parliament — making it legal for
employer or shopkeeper to pay his workmen or servants with a proportion
of his profit, without making the workman or servant a partner, and
placing the whole property of the concern at his mercy. We owe thanks to
that great Lord Chancellor who lately occupied the woolsack for his
powerful and sagacious support of this Bill in the House of Lords, who
confuted the ancient fallacies of commercial authorities, and rendered
these Partnerships of Industry legal in England.
――――♦――――
THE DEMAND FOR WORKMEN'S
TRAINS.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Friday, Mar 10, 1899.
Sir,—For several years there has been a growing desire in
London and elsewhere to procure an increase in workmen's trains and
cheaper fares. Of the desirableness and necessity of these objects
there is no difference of opinion. But it is strange to notice no
one betrays any consciousness that compliance with these demands must
depend upon the power of railway companies to meet them. They are
all under obligation to their shareholders, whose money they have received
on an engagement of returning a reasonable interest for its use.
Besides, companies are harassed by a capricious taxation from which stage
coaches, omnibuses, tramcars, and light railways are exempt, and have
further imposed upon them the duties of tax-collectors, of which they have
to defray all the expenses of clerkage. No one would think of
bringing a bill into Parliament to compel bankers to sell 12 penny loaves
for 10d. Is a Bill to compel a railway to do a similar thing less
unjust? If this be not intended, should it not be made plain that
the new demands are founded upon the ascertained financial capacity of the
companies to meet it? No one supposes that Mr. Buxton, whose name is
on the new Bill, is a partisan of confiscation. Nor is Mr. Maddison
(whose name is also on the back of the Bill), who, as editor of the
Railway Review, gave disinterested proof of his attachment to prudence
and justice, open to even the suspicion of being indifferent as to equity
to public companies. But this agitation for cheaper trains is made
in the name of the working class, and it is unfair to them to leave it to
be supposed that they are ready to put their own interests first and other
people's rights second.
I know that is may be pleaded that the Board of Trade is
sufficient security that no unfair claim shall be enforced without its
authority. The Board of trade will know how to take care of its own
honour. Let the working class take care of theirs; let no claim be
made in their name that is not obviously honest. Whoever may need
the Board of Trade to protect the public from their demands it should not
be the working class.
For more than 20 years I have been chairman of the Travelling
Tax Abolition Committee—representing the interests of the "poorer class of
travellers," as an early Act of Parliament describes them. Our
sympathy has always been with cheaper fares and increased conveniences for
working people, but we felt that no demands could be made fairly upon the
railway companies so long as we acquiesced in the disabling taxation to
which they are subjected. To this end we were the most persistent
applicants to Mr. Childers, who repealed the penny-a-mile duty, which
reduced the taxation of the working class traveller more than £400,000 a
year. Sir Stafford Northcote told us he would repeal the tax were he
sure it would not go into the pockets of the companies. This fear
was groundless, as is shown in the reduction of fares since, far below the
stipulation of any Act of Parliament, with an increase of facilities
beyond any requirement of the Board of Trade, who would have gone further
had the Inland Revenue Board concurred. The Board of Trade has
always been, like the first Sir Robert Peel, the friend of the industrial
passenger, as we have often had occasion to acknowledge. If
railways, as is now alleged, are in receipt of fabulous millions since Mr.
Childers reduction of the tax, how is it that average receipts to paid-up
capital, which before the repeal in 1882 were 4.32 per cent., have fallen
in 1896 to 3.88?
The continuance of the tax upon second and first class fares
is a perpetual embarrassment in railway management—restricting
conveniences and advantages which might have been conceded to labour
travellers. Parliament does not attempt to tax tramway passengers,
as it would restrict the cheapness and convenience of all, and put an end
to the existence of many. Parliament has refused to tax light
railways, which in most cases would prevent them from being brought into
existence. The public can see in all the manner in which the
travelling tax has always impaired the efficiency of railways.
Is it reasonable to expect much from railways when they are
thus hampered? Is it fair to ask Parliament to impose upon them new
conditions to service unaccompanied by demand that the railway should be
relieved from disabling taxation?
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
Eastern-lodge, Brighton.
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