Page images
PDF
EPUB

Since 1873 though the average real income of the population of England has indeed been increasing, its rate of increase has been less than in the preceding years. But meanwhile there has been a great fall of prices, and consequently a great fall in the money-incomes of many classes of society; and people are governed in their calculations as to whether they can afford to marry or not, more by the money income which they expect to be able to get, than by elaborate calculations of changes in its purchasing power. The standard of living therefore among the working classes has been rising rapidly, perhaps more rapidly than at any other time in English history: their household expenditure measured in money has remained about stationary, and measured in goods has increased very fast. The English marriage-rate fell from 8.8 per 1000 in 1873, to 7.1 in 1886, the lowest rate that has occurred since civil registration began; and the census of 1891 shows a great falling off in the rate of increase of the population of England'.

1 The latter half of Principles IV. iv. contains a good many statistical tables relating to the growth of population in England, and to a comparison of the birth, death, and marriage rates of different countries of the Western world.

CHAPTER V.

THE SUPPLY OF LABOUR, CONTINUED.

STRENGTH.

HEALTH AND

The basis of

ciency.

§ 1. WE have next to consider the conditions on which depend health and strength, physical, mental and moral. They are the basis of industrial effici- industrial effiency, on which the production of material wealth depends; while on the other hand the chief importance of material wealth lies in the fact that, when wisely used, it increases the health and strength, physical, mental and moral of the human race.

In many occupations industrial efficiency requires little else than physical vigour; that is, muscular strength, Physical a good constitution and energetic habits. In strength. estimating muscular, or indeed any other kind of strength for industrial purposes, we must take account of the number of hours in the day, of the number of days in the year, and the number of years in the lifetime, during which it can be exerted. But with this precaution we can measure a man's muscular exertion by the number of feet through which his work would raise a pound weight, if it were applied directly to this use; or in other words by the number of "foot pounds" of work that he does1.

1 This measure can be applied directly to most kinds of navvies' and porters' work, and indirectly to many kinds of agricultural work. In a controversy that was waged after the great agricultural lock-out as to the relative efficiency of unskilled labour in the South and North of England, the most trustworthy measure was found in the number of tons of material that a man would load into a cart in a day.

In backward countries, particularly where there is not much use of horses or other draught animals, a great part of men's and women's work may be measured fairly well by the muscular exertion involved in it. But in England less than one-sixth of the industrial classes are now engaged on work of this kind; while the force exerted by steam-engines alone is more than twenty times as much as could be done by the muscles of all Englishmen.

Although the power of sustaining great muscular exertion General seems to rest on constitutional strength and other vigour. physical conditions, yet even it depends also on force of will, and strength of character. Energy of this kind, which may perhaps be taken to be the strength of the man, as distinguished from that of his body, is moral rather than physical; but yet it depends on the physical condition of nervous strength'. This strength of the man himself, this resolution, energy and self-mastery, or in short this "vigour" is the source of all progress: it shows itself in great deeds, in great thoughts and in the capacity for true religious feeling.

§ 2. In discussing the growth of numbers a little has been said incidentally of the causes which determine length of life but they are in the main the same as those which determine constitutional strength and vigour, and they will occupy our attention again in the present chapter.

climate.

The first of these causes is the climate. A warm climate Influence of is not altogether hostile to high intellectual and artistic work but it prevents people from being able to endure very hard exertion of any kind continued for a long time.

Climate has also a large share in determining the neces

The necessaries of life.

saries of life; the first of which is food. Food must supply the nitrogenous and other elements that

1 This must be distinguished from nervousness, which, as a rule, indicates a general deficiency of nervous strength; though sometimes it proceeds from nervous irritability or want of balance.

are required to build up growing tissues and to repair the waste of the body. It must also afford heat, some of which can be converted into muscular force; and for this purpose carbonaceous food, when it can be properly digested, is the cheapest'. Much also depends on the proper preparation of food, and a skilled housewife with ten shillings a week to spend on food will often do more for the health and strength of her family than an unskilled one with twenty. The great infant mortality among the poor is largely due to the want of care and judgment in preparing their food; and those who do not entirely succumb to this want of motherly care often grow up with enfeebled constitutions. And though in England now want of food is scarcely ever the direct cause of death, yet it is a frequent cause of that general weakening of the system which renders it unable to resist disease; and it is a chief cause of industrial inefficiency.

We have already seen that the necessaries for efficiency vary with the nature of the work to be done, but we must now examine this subject a little more closely.

As regards muscular work in particular, there is a close connection between the supply of food that a man has, and his available strength. If the work is intermittent, as that of some dock labourers, a cheap but nutritious grain diet is sufficient. But for very heavy continuous strain, such as is involved in puddlers' and the hardest navvies' Other material work, food is required which can be digested and necessaries. assimilated even when the body is tired. This quality is still more essential in the food of the higher grades of labour which involve increased nervous strain, though the quantity required is generally small.

1 The nitrogenous elements are most easily got from animal food. They exist also in vegetable foods; but not in a form that is so easily digested and assimilated. The supply of it is most abundant in beans, peas, lentils &c., and to a less extent in cereals; but in these it is found chiefly in the outer parts of the grain, which are preserved in wholemeal flour, and are thrown away when white flour is made. Vegetable food generally, but especially the cereals, and potatoes give abundant supplies of the carbonaceous or starch elements.

After food, the next necessaries of life and labour, are clothing, house-room and firing; when they are deficient, the mind becomes torpid, and ultimately the physical constitution is undermined.

and change.

§ 3. Next come three closely allied conditions of vigour, Hope, freedom namely, hopefulness, freedom, and change. All history is full of the record of inefficiency caused in varying degrees by slavery, serfdom, and other forms of civil and political oppression and repression. Freedom and hope increase not only man's willingness but also his power for work; physiologists tell us that a given exertion consumes less of the store of nervous energy if done under the stimulus of pleasure than of pain: and without hope there is no enterprise. Security of person and property are two conditions of this hopefulness and freedom; but security always involves restraints on freedom, and it is one of the most difficult problems of civilization to discover how to obtain the security, which is a condition of freedom, without too great a sacrifice of freedom itself.

Changes of work, of scene, and of personal associations bring new thoughts, call attention to the imperfections of old methods, stimulate a "divine discontent," and in every way develop creative energy. A shifting of places enables the more powerful and original minds to find full scope for their energies and to rise to important positions: whereas those who stay at home are often over much kept in their places. Few men are prophets in their own land; neighbours and relations are generally the last to pardon the faults and to recognize the merits of those who are less docile and more enterprising than those around them. It is doubtless chiefly for this reason that in almost every part of England a disproportionately large share of the best energy and enterprise is to be found among those who were born elsewhere.

Freedom so far has been regarded as freedom from external bonds. But that higher freedom, which comes of self

« PreviousContinue »