Various Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420 / Volume 17, New Series, January 17, 1852
HOW IS THE WORLD USING YOU?
Men are of course prevented from going through this process by their self-love. Unwillingness to see or own their shortcomings, keeps them in a sort of delusion on the subject. Well, I do not hope to make an extensive change upon them in this respect; but perhaps it may not be impossible to rouse one here and there to the correct view, and thus accomplish a little good.
Let us address ourselves to commercial life first, for the labour by which man lives is at the bottom of everything. Here we meet the now well-recognised principle in political economy, that generally wages, salaries, remunerations of all kinds, are in pretty exact relation to the value of the services performedthis value being of course determined, in a great degree, by the easiness or difficulty of the work, the commonness or rarity of the faculties and skill required for it, the risk of non-success in the profession, and so forth. Many a good fellow who feels that his income is inconveniently small, and wonders why it is not greater, might have the mystery solved if he would take a clear, unprejudiced view of the capacity in which he is acting towards the public. Is he a slave of the desk, in some office of routine business? Then let him consider how many hundreds of similar men would answer an advertisement of his seat being vacant. The fatal thing in his case evidently is, that the faculties and skill required in his situation are possessed by so many of his fellow-creatures. Is he a shopkeeper in some common line of business?say a draper. Then let him consider how easy it is to be a draper, and how simple are the details of such a trade. While there are so many other drapers in the same street, his going out of business would never be felt as an inconvenience. He is perhaps not doing any real good to the public at all, but only interloping with the already too small business of those who were in 'the line' before him. Let him think of the many hours he spends in idleness, or making mere appearances of business, and ask if he is really doing any effective service to his fellow-creatures by keeping a shop at all. It may be a hardship to him to have failed in a good intention; but this cannot be helped. He may succeed better in some other scheme. Let him quit this, and try another, or set up in a place where there is what is called 'an opening'that is, where his services are requiredthe point essential to his getting any reward for his work. We sometimes see most wonderful efforts made by individuals in an overdone trade; for example, those of a hatter, who feels that he must give mankind a special direction to his shop, or die. Half-a-dozen tortoise-like missionaries do nothing but walk about the streets from morning to night, proclaiming from carapace and plastron, that there are no hats equal to those at No. 98 of such a street. A van like the temple of Juggernauth parades about all day, propagating the same faith. 'If you want a good hat,' exclaims a pathetic poster, 'try No. 98.' As you walk along the street, a tiny bill is insinuated into your hand, for no other purpose, as you learn on perusing it, but to impress upon you the great truth, that there are no hats in the world either so
good or so cheap as those at No. 98. The same dogma meets you in omnibuses, at railway platforms, and every other place where it can be expected that mankind will pause for a moment, and so have time to take in an idea. But it is all in vain if there be a sufficient supply of good and cheap hats already in that portion of the earth's surface. The superfluous hatter must submit to the all-prevailing law, that for labours not required, and an expenditure of capital useless as regards the public, there can be no reward, no return.
Sometimes great inconveniences are experienced in consequence of local changes; such as those effected by railways, and the displacement of hand-labour by machinery. A country inn that has supplied post-horses since the days of the civil war, is all at once, in consequence of the opening of some branch-line, deserted by its business. It is a pitiable case; but the poor landlord must not attempt to be an innkeeper without business, for then he would be a misapplied human being, and would starve. Now the world uses him a little hardly in the diversion of his customers; that may be allowed: we must all lay our account with such hardships so long as each person is left to see mainly after himself. But if he were to persist in keeping his house open, and thus reduce himself to uselessness, he would not be entitled to think himself ill-used by reason of his making no profits, seeing that he did nothing for the public to entitle him to a remuneration. The poor handloom weaversI grieve to think of the hardships they suffer. Well do I remember when, in 1813 or 1814, a good workman in this craft could realise 36s. a week. There were even traditions then of men who had occasionally eaten pound-notes upon bread and butter, or allowed their wives to spend L.8 upon a fine china tea-service. There being a copious production of cotton-thread by machinery, but no machinery to make it into cloth, was the cause of the high wages then given to weavers. Afterwards came the powerloom; and weavers can now only make perhaps 4s. 6d. per week, even while working for longer hours than is good for their health. The result is most lamentable; but it cannot be otherwise, for the public will only reward services in the ratio of the value of these services to itself. It will not encourage a human being, with his glorious apparatus of intelligence and reflection, to mis-expend himself upon work which can be executed equally well by unthinking machinery. Were the poor weavers able so far to shake themselves free from what is perhaps a very natural prejudice, as to ask what do we do to entitle us to any better usage from the public, they would see that the fault lies in their continuing to be weavers at all. They are precisely as the innkeeper would be, if he kept his house open after the railway had taken all his customers another way.