Chapter XIV, Facts Compared with Socialist Statements.

Surplus Labour and the Salting Works at Chicago—Profit and Loss in Mines—Overproduction and Fall in Wages—The Iron Law and Comparison of the Rates of Wages—The Iron Law and the Fall in Price of Useful Goods—Progress of Wages—Metallurgy—Cotton Goods—Miners—Shortening of the Hours of Labour—Textile Industry in Italy—Table of Rates of the City of Paris and Equality of Wages—Increase of Comfort—Bastiat’s Law—Mr. Atkinson—Law of Labour.

Karl Marx asserts that capital is only the product of surplus work: and that consequently all capital has been stolen from the labourer.

In an examination made by the Labour Bureau of the State of Illinois, of twenty-six industries representing two-thirds of the capital and workmen employed in that State, they have established the connection between the wages of the workmen and of products.

It is found that for 54 salting-houses, representing 53 millions of capital, and employing 10,212 hands, the gross returns are 46,060 francs, as against 1,930 francs wages.

Socialists of the school of Lassalle will not fail to exclaim that this difference between the gross returns and the wages of the workmen, shows all the surplus value of labour by which the master profits.

To this lovely argument there is only one drawback, and here it is:—

These salting works show, not a profit, but a loss of more than 6 millions, which, per workman, may be assessed as follows:—

The famous surplus value is here a minus value; and in how many industries is not this the case?

In 97 flour-mills, we see the same phenomena. Wages, 2,655 francs; gross returns, 64,250; but deduction being made for raw materials, wages, and other expenses, the loss is 3,400,000 francs, which, divided amongst the 1,838 workmen, represents a loss upon each man of more than 2,000 francs.

In France, when people talk of miners they imagine that in order to grow rich it is only necessary to dig a hole in the earth. But, without mentioning the abandoned grants which represent nearly two-thirds of the mines that have been worked, and which no one will now take over, it is sufficient to glance over the statistics of the Minister of Works to see how the matter stood in 1891:—

In these unprofitable mines workmen have received wages: where is the surplus work given to capital? I know a mine in the Loire, which has not only not yielded a halfpenny’s profit, but not even a halfpenny’s interest, since 1836, upon all the millions which have been swallowed up in it. Where is the surplus-work which Karl Marx and his disciples discover all over the country, feeding the vampire known as capital?

In 1892, M. Lalande wrote a monograph on the porcelain and crockery manufactories of Bacalan, founded in 1782. He showed that the share of capital had been 1,100,000 francs, and the share of labour 37,700,000 francs. Where is the surplus-work?

If over-production were a cause of ruin to the labourers, wages ought to have constantly fallen for the last three quarters of a century, during which time, production has been constantly on the increase. If the Iron Law of Wages were true, wages ought to have steadily fallen for the last thirty years, since the price of the necessaries of life, excepting rent, have steadily fallen.

Now, during the last few years, special inquiries have been made into the position of labourers during different periods and in different countries; and if these inquiries, invalidate, in the distinctest manner the à priori statements of the doctors of Socialism, have we not the right to put this dilemma before them: that either they are speaking in bad faith or in ignorance?

According to E. R. J. Gould’s Labour Table VIII. (January 1893, Baltimore), drawn up after a most minute inquiry into the conditions of labour in the United States and Europe, here is a schedule of the average household expenses of the working miners and metallurgists, collected together and classed according to their nationalities.

These figures prove that the proportion for food is not the same in all countries, any more than is the proportion paid in rent, clothing, or drink. Finally, it is not true, as the last column shows, that wages remain rigorously at the rate necessary for the existence of each labourer, as the Frenchman saves 12 per cent. of his earnings, the American 10·5, the Englishman 8·1. If for the German the rate of saving falls to less than 1 per cent., what does it prove? That wages there are not so high as in the countries more advanced in economic evolution, and that though the German spends less than the American, English, or French workman, he nevertheless sees nearly the whole of his wages absorbed by the necessaries of life. If the Iron Law were true, when those articles which are the most necessary to life fall in price, wages ought to fall too.

If we look at the wholesale price of 17 articles of first necessity in England, these are the returns we find:—