London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (81 page)

To the latter part of the above classification, I regret to say I cannot assent. Surely the property of being in the place where they are wanted, which carriers and distributors are said to confer on external objects, cannot be said to be fixed – if, indeed, it be strictly
embodied
in the objects, since the very act of distribution consists in the alteration of this local relation, and transferring such objects to the possession of another. Is not the utility which the weaver fixes and embodies in a yard of cotton, a very different utility from that effected by the linendraper in handing the same yard of cotton over the counter in exchange for so much money? and in this particular act, it would be difficult to perceive what is fixed and embodied, seeing that it consists essentially in an exchange of commodities.

Mr Mill’s mistake appears to consist in not discerning that there is another class of labour besides that employed in producing utilities
directly
, and that occupied in
fitting other things
to afford utilities: viz., that which is engaged in
assisting
those who are so occupied in fitting things to be useful. This class consists of such as are engaged in aiding the producers of permanent material utilities either
before
or during production, and such as are engaged in aiding them
after
production. Under the first division are comprised capitalists, or those who supply the materials and tools for the work, superintendents and managers, or those who direct the work, and labourers, or those who perform some minor office connected with the work, as in turning the large wheel for a turner, in carrying the bricks to a bricklayer, and the like; while in the second division, or those who are engaged in assisting producers
after
production, are included carriers, or those who remove the produce to the market, and dealers and shopmen, or those who obtain purchasers for it. Now it is
evident that the function of all these classes is merely
auxiliary
to the labour of the producers, consisting principally of so many modes of economizing their time and labour. Whether the gains of some of these auxiliary classes are as disproportionately large, as the others are disproportionately small, this is not the place to inquire. My present duty is merely to record the fact of the existence of such classes, and to assign them their proper place in the social fabric, as at present constituted.

Now, from the above it will appear, that there are four distinct classes of workers:

I.
Enrichers
, or those who are employed in producing utilities fixed and embodied in material things, that is to say, in producing exchangeable commodities or riches.

II.
Auxiliaries
, or those who are employed in aiding the production of exchangeable commodities.

III.
Benefactors
, or those who are employed in producing utilities fixed and embodied in human beings, that is to say, in conferring upon them some permanent good.

IV.
Servitors
, or those who are employed in rendering some service, that is to say, in conferring some temporary good upon another.

Class
1 is engaged in investing
material
objects with qualities which render them serviceable to others.

Class 2
is engaged in aiding the operations of Class 1.

Class
3 is engaged in conferring on
human beings
qualities which render them serviceable to themselves or others.

Class
4 is engaged in giving a pleasure, averting a pain (during a longer or shorter period), or preventing an inconvenience, by performing some office for others that they would find irksome to do for themselves.

Hence it appears that the operations of the first and third of the above classes, or the
Enrichers
and
Benefactors
of Society, tend to leave some
permanent acquisition
in the improved qualities of either persons or things, – whereas the operations of the second and fourth classes, or the
Auxiliaries
and
Servitors
, are limited merely to promoting either the labours or the pleasures of the other members of the community.

Such, then, are the several classes of Workers; and here it should be stated that, I apply the title Worker to all those who do
anything
for their living, who perform any act whatsoever that is considered worthy of being paid for by others, without regard to the question whether such labourers tend to add to or decrease the aggregate wealth of the community. I
consider all persons doing or giving something for the comforts they obtain, as self-supporting individuals. Whether that something be really an equivalent for the emoluments they receive, it is not my vocation here to inquire. Suffice it some real or imaginary benefit is conferred upon society, or a particular individual, and what is thought a fair and proper reward is given in return for it. Hence I look upon soldiers, sailors, Government and parochial officers, capitalists, clergymen, lawyers, wives, &c., &c., as self-supporting – a certain amount of labour, or a certain desirable commodity, being given by each and all in exchange for other commodities, which are considered less desirable to the individuals parting with them, and more desirable to those receiving them.

Nevertheless, it must be confessed that, economically speaking, the most important and directly valuable of all classes are those whom I have here denominated
Enrichers
. These consist not only of Producers, but of the Collectors and Extractors of Wealth, concerning whom a few words are necessary.

There are three modes of obtaining the materials of our wealth – (1) by collecting, (2) by extracting, and (3) by producing them. The industrial processes concerned in the collection of the materials of wealth are of the rudest and most primitive kind – being pursued principally by such tribes as depend for their food, and raiment, and shelter, on the spontaneous productions of nature. The usual modes by which the collection is made is by gathering the vegetable produce (which is the simplest and most direct form of all industry), and when the produce is of an animal nature, by hunting, shooting, or fishing, according as the animal sought after inhabits the land, the air, or the water. In a more advanced state of society, where the erection of places of shelter has come to constitute one of the acts of life, the felling of trees will also form one of the modes by which the materials making up the wealth of the nation are collected. In Great Britain there appears to be fewer people connected with the mere
collection
of wealth than with any other general industrial process. The fishermen are not above 25,000, and the wood-cutters and woodmen not 5,000; so that even with gamekeepers, and others engaged in the taking of game, we may safely say that there are about 30,000 out of 18,000,000, or only one-six hundredth of the entire population, engaged in this mode of industry – a fact which strongly indicates the artificial character of our society.

The
production
of the materials of wealth, which indicates a far higher state of civilization and which consists in the several agricultural and farming processes for increasing the natural stock of animal and vegetable
food, employs upwards of one million; while those who are engaged in the
extraction
of our treasures from the earth, either by mining or quarrying, both of which processes – depending, as they do, upon a knowledge of some of the subtler natural powers – could only have been brought into operation in a highly advanced stage of the human intellect, number about a quarter of a million. Altogether, there appear to be about one million and a half of individuals engaged in the industrial processes connected with the collection, extraction, and production of the materials of wealth; those who are employed in operating upon these materials, in the fashioning of them into manufactures, making them up into commodities, as well as those engaged in the distribution of them – that is to say, the transport and sale of them when so fashioned or made up – appear to amount to another two millions and a half, so that the industrial classes of Great Britain, taken altogether, may be said to amount to four millions. For the more perfect comprehension, however, of the several classes of society, let me subjoin a table in round numbers, calculated from the census of 1841, and including among the first items both the employers as well as employed;

Now, of the 5,250,000 individuals engaged in Agriculture, Mining, Transit, Manufacture and Trade, it would appear that about one million
and a quarter may be considered as employers; and, consequently, that the remaining four millions may be said to represent the numerical strength of the operatives of England and Scotland. Of these about one million, or a quarter of the whole, may be said to be engaged in producing the materials of wealth; and about a quarter of a million, or one-sixteenth of the entire number, in extracting from the soil the substances upon which many of the manufacturers have to operate.

The artizans, or those who are engaged in the several handicrafts or manufactures operating upon the various materials of wealth thus obtained, are distinct from the workmen above-mentioned, belonging to what are called skilled labourers, whereas those who are employed in the collection, extraction, or growing of wealth, belong to the unskilled class.

An artisan is an
educated
handicraftsman, following a calling that requires an apprenticeship of greater or less duration in order to arrive at perfection in it; whereas a labourer’s occupation needs no education whatever. Many years must be spent in practising before a man can acquire sufficient manual dexterity to make a pair of boots or a coat; dock labour or porter’s work, however, needs neither teaching nor learning, for any man can carry a load or turn a wheel. The artisan, therefore, is literally a handicraftsman – one who by practice has acquired manual dexterity enough to perform a particular class of work, which is consequently called ‘skilled’. The natural classification of artisans, or skilled labourers, appears to be according to the materials upon which they work, for this circumstance seems to constitute the peculiar quality of the art more than the tool used – indeed, it appears to be the principal cause of the modification of the implements in different handicrafts. The tools used to fashion, as well as the instruments and substances used to join the several materials operated upon in the manufactures and handicrafts, differ according as those materials are of different kinds. We do not, for instance, attempt to saw cloth into shape nor to cut bricks with shears; neither do we solder the soles to the upper leathers of our boots, nor nail together the seams of our shirts. And even in those crafts where the means of uniting the materials are similar, the artisan working upon one kind of substance is generally incapable of operating upon another. The tailor who stitches woollen materials together would make but a poor hand at sewing leather. The two substances are joined by the same means, but in a different manner, and with different instruments. So the turner, who has been accustomed to turn wood, is unable to fashion metals by the same method.

The most natural mode of grouping the artisans into classes would
appear to be according as they pursue some
mechanical
or
chemical
occupation. The former are literally mechanics or handicraftsmen – the latter chemical manufacturers. The handicraftsmen consist of (i) The workers in silk, wool, cotton, flax, and hemp – as weavers, spinners, knitters, carpet-makers, lace-makers, rope-makers, canvas-weavers, &c. (2) The workers in skin, gut, and feathers – as tanners, curriers, furriers, feather dressers, &c. (3) The makers up of silken, woollen, cotton, linen, hempen, and leathern materials – as tailors, milliners, shirt-makers, sail-makers, hatters, glove-makers, saddlers, and the like. (4) The workers in wood, as the carpenters, the cabinet-makers, &c. (5) The workers in cane, osier, reed, rush, and straw – as basket-makers, straw-plait manufacturers, thatchers, and the like. (6) The workers in brick and stones – as bricklayers, masons, &c. (7) The workers in glass and earthenware – as potters, glass-blowers, glass-cutters, bottle-makers, glaziers, &c. (8) The workers in metals – as braziers, tinmen, plumbers, goldsmiths, pewterers, coppersmiths, iron-founders, blacksmiths, whitesmiths, anchorsmiths, locksmiths, &c. (9) The workers in paper – as the paper-makers, cardboard-makers. (10) The chemical manufacturers – as powder-makers, white-lead-makers, alkali and acid manufacturers, lucifer-match-makers, blacking-makers, ink-makers, soap-boilers, tallow-chandlers, &c. (11) The workers at the superlative or extrinsic arts – that is to say, those which have no manufacture of their own, but which are engaged in adding to the utility or beauty of others – as printing, bookbinding, painting, and decorating, gilding, burnishing, &c.