of Coventry.[1] Piece-wage is finally one of the chief supports of the hour-system described in the preceding chapter.[2]
From what has been shown so far, it follows that piece-wage is the form of wages most in harmony with the capitalist mode of production. Although by no means new—it figures side by side with time-wages officially in the French and English labour statutes of the 14th century—it only conquers a larger field for action during the period of Manufacture, properly so-called. In the stormy youth of Modern Industry, especially from 1797 to 1815, it served as a lever for the lengthening of the working day, and the lowering of wages. Very important materials for the fluctuation of wages during that period are to be found in the Blue-books: “Report and Evidence from the Select Committee on Petitions respecting the Corn Laws,” (Parliamentary Session of 1813-14), and “Report from the Lords’ Committee, on the state of the Growth, Commerce, and Consumption of Grain, and all Laws relating thereto,” (Session of 1814-15). Here we find documentary evidence of the constant lowering of the price of labour from the beginning of the Anti-Jacobin War. In the weaving industry, e.g., piece-wages had fallen so low that in
- ↑ “Le travail des Compagnons-artisans sera réglé à la journée ou à la pièce.… Ces maitres-artisans savent à pen près combien d’ouvrage un compagnon-artisan peut faire par jour dans chaque métier, et les payent sonvent à proportion de l’ouvrage qu’ils font; ainsi ces compagnons travaillent autant qu’ils peuvent, pour leur proper intérêt, sans autre inspection.” (Cantillon, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en général, Amst. Ed., 1756, pp. 185 and 202. The first edition appeared in 1755.) Cantillon, from whom Quesnay, Sir James Steuart & A. Smith have largely drawn, already here represents piece-wage as simply a modified form of time-wage. The French edition of Cantillon professes in its title to be a translation from the English, but the English edition: “The analysis of Trade, Commerce, etc., by Philip Cantillon, late of the city of London, Merchant,” is not only of later date (1759), but proves by its contents that it is a later and revised edition; e.g., in the French edition, Hume is not yet mentioned, whilst in the English, on the other hand, Petty hardly figures any longer. The English edition is theoretically less important, but it contains numerous details referring specifically to English commerce, bullion trade, etc., that are wanting in the French text. The words on the title-page of the English edition, according to which the work is “Taken chiefly from the manuscript of a very ingenious gentleman, deceased, and adapted, etc,” seem, therefore, a pure fiction, very customary at that time.
- ↑ “Combien de fois n’avons-nous pas vu, dans certains ateliers, embaucher beaucoup plus d’ouvriers que ne le demandait le travail à mettre en main? Souvent, dans la prévision d’un travail aléatoire, quelquefois même imaginaire, on admet des ouvriers: comme on les paie aux pièces, on se dit qu’on ne court anoun risqne, parceque toutes les pertes de temps seront à la charge des inoccupés.” (H. Grégoir: “Les Typographes devant le Tribunal correctionnel de Bruxelles,” Bruxelles, 1865, p. 9)
