Foreign trade and the workers

On every conceivable occasion the Labour Government has urged the workers to work harder to wipe out the gap between imports and exports. “When this gap has been closed,” says the Government, “Britain will again be prosperous; there will be plenty to buy in the shops, and the workers will no longer suffer the shortages and restrictions of the present day.”

A glance at history is sufficient to show the fallacy of these claims as far as better working-class conditions are concerned.

The closing years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth found British capitalism enjoying unparallelled prosperity. Exports, profits on shipping, and returns on foreign investments more than balanced the value of imports. Looked upon as “the workshop of the world” Britain had rich and plentiful rewards for those who invested in her industries. An idea of the wealth being acquired by the British capitalists at that time can be gained by a glance at the estates upon which death duties were levied in 1903. According to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904 (page 270) five millionaires left estates totalling nearly eight million pounds, whilst two hun dred and nineteen further members of the comparatively small capitalist class left a total of nearly forty-nine million pounds.

Yes! England was certainly a, rich country at that time—yet, for the workers, where was the freedom from shortage which, according to the Labour Government, comes with this national prosperity?

Let us refer to a writer of the time, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet. Imbued with immense but ill-founded optimism, Mrs. Bosanquet and other philanthropists mistakenly imagined that help from the rich could reduce the poverty of the workers. Yet, so bad were working-class conditions, that even Mrs. Bosanquet’s great optimism became depleted and we find her writing in her hook, “Rich and Poor” (published 1896) : —

“Of other charities it would take too long to speak. The parish is beset with them at certain seasons of the year; and money is flung in amongst us much as nuts are flung to boys to scramble for. Soup-kitchens, philanthropic societies, country holiday funds, ragged school funds, funds from all the enterprising newspapers, and funds from all the political clubs in the district; church funds and chapel funds, missions and mothers’ meetings, all are engaged in pouring money into a slough of poverty which swallows it up and leaves no trace of improvement.” (Page 37.) (Our italics.)

Let us revert to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904. On page 141 we find that the number of people seeking poor relief in the year 1900 was 1,882,000, and when referring to the unemployed in 1903 Mrs. Bosanquet said :

“They seem to increase year by year, and the next trade depression will probably show them in formidable numbers.” (Page 9.)

Page 246 tells us that a Professor Vort gave the minimum cost of the diet required by an average working man, his wife and three children as twelve shillings to thirteen shillings and sixpence per week. This diet was so stringent that it did not allow for tea or cocoa—only water. Looking then at the wages of agricultural workers (same page) we are informed that in England the average weekly pay was 17s. Id., whilst in Wales and Scotland the averages were 16s. 5d. and 18s. 2d. respectively.

Eighteen shillings per week in wages when the weekly cost of the barest food necessities for a man, wife and three children was round about thirteen shillings. Five shillings left over for the provision of rent, clothing, insurances, etc. ! And what of those married workers who had more than three children to support?

The “Twelfth Abstract of Labour Statistics,” issued forty years ago by the Board of Trade, gives us further information. It states that “on every day throughout the year 1892 the average number of persons in receipt of poor relief was 953,719, this number rising steadily each year with but very slight fluctuation to 1,103,724 in 1906, being an increase not only in the number, but also relatively to the increase of population.”

Such was the prosperity of many workers during the Golden Age of British Capitalism when the export trade was said to be in a highly flourishing condition.

Experience shows that whilst the capitalist class is endeavouring to sate the world’s markets it will keep wages as low as possible, for only by doing this can commodities be produced at a price that will allow the undercutting of rival competitors.

On the other hand, as soon as the markets are filled and commodities can no longer be sold profitably, production is curtailed and large numbers of workers are thrown out of work. The capitalist class does not employ workers out of benevolence, but for the express purpose of amassing profits from products that will sell. When commodities cannot be sold it is useless, as far as the capitalist class is concerned, to retain workers in commodity production.

Thus it is seen that whether trade is balanced, or whether there is a gap between imports and exports, the lot of the workers, as a class, remains much the same.

Only Socialism will end commodity production with its wage-cutting;, “sweating,” unemployment, and wars over markets, etc. Only Socialism, wherein the means of production and distribution will be commonly owned, will bring production for use and not for sale. Only within Socialism will production bring plenty to every man, woman and child.

F. W. HAWKINS.

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