DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0198
182 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
which, imperfect as it yet is, I feel a strong satisfaction. The
Amalgamated Society of Engineers is an association which fought
with determination for its ends, enrolled nearly all the artisans
which come under the definition of engineers, and, after a pro-
longed struggle, succeeded in all they claimed. For as time goes
on the strike, which is the last expedient in this social warfare,
becomes rarer. They are far commoner in the United States than
with us, and far bitterer, as the Government returns show.' For
the possibility of such an expedient becomes ultimately as great
a deterrent to unfair advantage as the reality of it, and arbitration
is seen to be a far more rational expedient than a quarrel. In
many cases already a sliding scale, based on the two elements of
cost and price, is adopted. Of course the cost is that which is
general in the calling. No one can by any action intercept the
reduction of cost which comes from the improvement in a process
as long as the producer is guaranteed by a patent. For, as I have
stated to you before, the benefit of improvement to the workman
and the consumer comes slowly, to the rent receiver last of all, and
only when the new process is disfused. When that happens he gets
his turn, and, as some people think, gets far more than he deserves.
I have already stated in another lecture, and must here restate,,
for economical facts are manysided, and therefore illustrate various
economical principles, that I never saw a district in which the
absence of all labour partnerships have so markedly an injurious
effect on the wages of labour as in the Cornish mining district.
The wages of workmen in this district are, I believe, taking the
calling and all its dangers into account, lower than in any other
English industry. Trade unions are entirely unknown, and the
workmen, though massed together, are oppressed in detail. The
industry they represent is one of singular significance, for the
economical importance of the metal which they chiefly produce, tin,
is great and permanent. It is at any rate clear that organization
among the workmen would secure far better terms to them than they
now get, and probably would lead to economies in the separation
and reduction of the metal, the process now being excessively rude
and wasteful, and the industry being carried on under conditions
so noxious that nothing but the oppression of the miners could
render them possible and continuous.
which, imperfect as it yet is, I feel a strong satisfaction. The
Amalgamated Society of Engineers is an association which fought
with determination for its ends, enrolled nearly all the artisans
which come under the definition of engineers, and, after a pro-
longed struggle, succeeded in all they claimed. For as time goes
on the strike, which is the last expedient in this social warfare,
becomes rarer. They are far commoner in the United States than
with us, and far bitterer, as the Government returns show.' For
the possibility of such an expedient becomes ultimately as great
a deterrent to unfair advantage as the reality of it, and arbitration
is seen to be a far more rational expedient than a quarrel. In
many cases already a sliding scale, based on the two elements of
cost and price, is adopted. Of course the cost is that which is
general in the calling. No one can by any action intercept the
reduction of cost which comes from the improvement in a process
as long as the producer is guaranteed by a patent. For, as I have
stated to you before, the benefit of improvement to the workman
and the consumer comes slowly, to the rent receiver last of all, and
only when the new process is disfused. When that happens he gets
his turn, and, as some people think, gets far more than he deserves.
I have already stated in another lecture, and must here restate,,
for economical facts are manysided, and therefore illustrate various
economical principles, that I never saw a district in which the
absence of all labour partnerships have so markedly an injurious
effect on the wages of labour as in the Cornish mining district.
The wages of workmen in this district are, I believe, taking the
calling and all its dangers into account, lower than in any other
English industry. Trade unions are entirely unknown, and the
workmen, though massed together, are oppressed in detail. The
industry they represent is one of singular significance, for the
economical importance of the metal which they chiefly produce, tin,
is great and permanent. It is at any rate clear that organization
among the workmen would secure far better terms to them than they
now get, and probably would lead to economies in the separation
and reduction of the metal, the process now being excessively rude
and wasteful, and the industry being carried on under conditions
so noxious that nothing but the oppression of the miners could
render them possible and continuous.