THE GOLDEN AGE OF LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8392, 5 April 1907, Page 5

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LABOUR.

(To the Editor). Sir,—l must apologise to you and your readers for the delay in producing from the writings of Professor James E. Thorold Rogers (atone time a member of the House of Commons), the passage on which I based my statements regarding the condition of the British labourer" in the Middle Ages. I have had a long hunt for a copy of Mr Rogers' book in which the passage occurs. It is hardly creditable to this colony that so useful a book should not be on the bookstalls. The title of the work is, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages: The History of English Labour." It is published by W. Swan Sounenschein and Co., Paternoster Square, London. After showing that the English labourer did very well in the fourteenth century, Mr Rogers opens the twelfth chapter of his book as follows: "I have stated more than once that the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth were the golden age of the English labourer, if we are to in • terpret the wages he earned by the cost of necessaries of life. At no time were wages, relatively speak ing, so high, and at no time was food so cheap. Attempts are constantly made to reduce these wages by Act of Parliament, the Legislature frequently insisting that the Statute of Labourers should be kept. But these efforts were futile; the rate keeps steadily high, and finally becomes customary, and was recognised by Parliament. It is possible that as the distribution of land became more general, and the tenancy of land for terms of years became habitual, the phenomenon which , has often been noticed as characteristic of peasant proprietorship, a high rate of wages paid to the free labourer, may have been exhibited in the period in which I am commenting. It should be noted, too, that as the century goes on the wages of labour tend decidedly upwards. Nor is there any material difference, with one notable exception, in the payments made for labour all over England. It is equally well paid throughout the whole country. The exception»is London, where the wages were from twenty-five to thirty per cent, over the rates paid in other places. There is reason to think that these labourers were paid well because their employment was precarious. Men got just as good wages in the fifteenth century, whether they were employed for a day or a year. Nor, as 1 have already observed, were the hours long. It is plain that the day was one of eight The full price of the labourer's board was a shilling a week, often considerably less; his wages were twice or three times the cost of his maintenance under contract. The steadiness with which high relative wages were secured was in no sense due to the losses which labour suffered from pestilence. From 1455 to 1485 the country suffered from civil war. The combatants were far fewer than the narrative affirms. During the struggle between the rival houses it seems to me that the people were absolutely indifferent. The war, as I believe, was as distant from the great mass of English people, and was as little injurious in its immediate effects, as summer lightning is. It had no bearing on work and wages.'' If my memory serves me well, I think the foregoing quotation supports all I said as to the condition of the English labourer in the Dark Ages. I certainly did not suggest, as "A Worker" interpreted my remarks, that a perfectly heavenly state of things existed in the Middle Ages or in any other Ages. Terrible diseases were very prevalent in those times, and for this reason, if for no other, we should be thankful we are living in the twentieth century. But I have established my statement that more than four centuries ago, when the instruments of industry were primitive, the labourer in England was able to earn enough in a month to keep him three months. He ought to be doing much better now, because the wealth produced per worker is so much greater now than then. But the fact is that in England to-day the workers, or a great many of them, can hardly earn enough to keep bo.;- and soul together. The great onomist, John Stuart Mill, said th.-.t the vast improvements in the instruments of industry had not shortened the hours of labour ur given th.: labourer any more of the wealth he produces. My contention is that this is the result of private ownership of land and the appropriation by a few of the unimproved value of land. Tax out that value for the benefit of all, and labour would become comparatively rich, and, what is of much greater importance, as free as the air. Why is it that our legislators do not touch this greatest of all reforms? Why are they like dumb dogs in regard to a reform which would do infinitely more good to the whole people than all the measures on which they have ever been engaged. Will Mr Hornsby favour us with an answer to this question? Mr Hornsby has enlightened us on so many matters that I am hopeful he may be able to throw some light on this matter.—Yours, etc., GRACCHUS.