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diff --git a/75467-0.txt b/75467-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbd3240 --- /dev/null +++ b/75467-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6781 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75467 *** + + + + + + SWEATED INDUSTRY + AND THE + MINIMUM WAGE + + + “The whole spectacle of poverty indeed is incredible. As soon as you + cease to have it before your eyes—even when you have it before your + eyes—you can hardly believe it, and that is perhaps why so many people + deny that it exists, or is much more than a superstition of the + sentimentalist.” + + W. D. HOWELLS. + + “The system which produces the happiest moral effects will be found + most beneficial to the interest of the individual and the common weal; + upon this basis the science of political economy will rest at last, + when the ponderous volumes with which it has been overlaid shall have + sunk by their own weight into the dead sea of oblivion.” + + R. SOUTHEY. + + + + + SWEATED INDUSTRY + AND THE + MINIMUM WAGE + + + BY + + CLEMENTINA BLACK + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + + A. G. GARDINER + + CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SWEATING LEAGUE + +[Illustration: [Logo]] + + LONDON + DUCKWORTH & CO. + 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. + 1907 + + + + + _All rights reserved._ + + + + +So many persons have kindly helped me with material for this volume that +it is impossible to name all of them; but I cannot forbear to express my +thanks to Mr W. Pember Reeves, to Mr Tom Garnett of Clitheroe, to my old +friends Mrs Bogue Luffmann and Mr H. H. Champion, who have collected +information for me in Australia, and last, but not least, to Mr Gardiner +for his valuable introduction. + + C. B. + + + _March 1907_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + INTRODUCTION ix + + PART I + SWEATED INDUSTRY + + CHAPTER I + THE POOREST OF ALL 1 + + CHAPTER II + WORKERS IN FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS 23 + + CHAPTER III + SHOP ASSISTANTS, CLERKS, WAITRESSES 48 + + CHAPTER IV + TRAFFIC WORKERS 75 + + CHAPTER V + WAGE-EARNING CHILDREN 104 + + CHAPTER VI + SUMMARY 132 + + CHAPTER VII + HOW UNDERPAYMENT COMES 144 + + CHAPTER VIII + LABOUR AS A COMMODITY 161 + + PART II + THE MINIMUM WAGE + + CHAPTER I + EXISTING CHECKS 175 + + CHAPTER II + SUPPOSED REMEDIES 195 + + CHAPTER III + THE LESSONS OF THE COTTON TRADE 212 + + CHAPTER IV + THE MINIMUM WAGE IN PRACTICE 230 + + CHAPTER V + FOREIGN COMPETITION 260 + + CHAPTER VI + GAIN TO THE NATION 272 + + INDEX 277 + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +The sweating evil has long engaged the attention of social and +industrial workers in many fields. Some have approached it from the +philanthropic point of view, and have sought a remedy in voluntary means +such as consumers’ leagues; others have approached it from the point of +view of industrial organisation, and have sought to deal with it by the +extension of trade unionism and legislative action. So far all efforts +alike have been futile. The evil is too wide-spread and too remote in +its operations to be touched by charity. It involves a class too +forlorn, too isolated, and too impoverished to be reached by trade +unionism. The cry of the victims has hitherto been too feeble and +hopeless to command the attention of Parliament. + +This has happily been changed by the object lesson presented by the +Sweating Exhibition organised by _The Daily News_ last May and opened by +the Princess Henry of Battenberg. That exhibition, held right in the +heart of West London, visited by thirty thousand people, and commanding +the attention of all serious students of our social system, brought the +question instantly into the sphere of practical politics. Sweating was +no longer a vague term concerning some more or less apocryphal wrongs. +It was made real and actual. It was seen to be not an excrescence on the +body politic, having no bearing upon its general health, but an organic +disease. It was seen to be an evil not simply affecting some obscure +lives in the mean streets of our cities, but an evil that wasted the +whole industrial physique—a running sore that affected the entire fabric +of society, a morass exhaling a miasma that poisoned the healthy +elements of industry. Its spectre haunted not only the fever dens of the +slums, but was present in the most costly garments of the most +fashionable West-End shops, in the rich embroideries of the wealthy as +well as in the household matchbox. Well dressed people who came with the +comfortable belief that sweated goods were necessarily cheap goods +realised with a shock that cheapness and sweating had no intrinsic +relationship. They saw with more or less clearness that sweating reduced +to its true meaning was not the oppression of the poor in the interests +of the poor; but the effort of an uneconomic system to extract from the +misery of the unorganised, ill-equipped worker the equivalent of +organised, well paid and well equipped industry. It was the competition +of flesh and blood with machinery. Sweating, it was seen, did not make +goods cheap: it only made human life cheap. It did not benefit the +consumer: it only benefited the man who set the slum to compete with the +workshop, the man or more often the woman and the child to compete with +the machine. It was seen that the evil lowered the whole vitality of +industry. It preyed upon the defenceless and used them to depress the +general industrial standard. It had no chance in a highly organised +community, and found its victims in the hopeless and the broken, among +the poor widows of the courts and alleys and all those who had lost +heart in the battle and were sunk into the lowest depths of the social +abyss. + +Not the least disquieting revelation that emerged from the Exhibition +and the lectures which accompanied it was the bearing of the evil upon +our collective life. The sweated reacted upon the community. It was seen +that they not only lowered the industrial standard: they were a menace +to the communal good, a drain upon the resources of society in the +interests of the people who exploited them. They provided a reserve of +incredibly cheap labour which the community had to subsidise from the +rates. Having no power of combination or resistance they were beaten +down by the employer far below the barest means of subsistence, and the +task of keeping them alive was left to the public. This was the case +even when they were employed; but in many instances the work was +seasonal and subject to long periods of unemployment. Then their whole +existence depended upon a mingling of pauperism and charity until a +fresh demand for their labour sprang up, and the public purse was +relieved of some portion of the task of keeping them alive. It was seen, +in short, that sweating meant the maintenance out of the rates of a vast +mass of low class labour which enabled the sweater to compete +successfully with high class labour. Many of the complaints of high +rates in the East End for example came from the very firms whose high +dividends were actually being paid out of the rates in the form of poor +relief to the underpaid worker. + +The bearing of the evil upon child life was made equally clear. It was +not merely that the children of the sweated were ill-nourished and +ill-clad. They were made to take their share in the incessant struggle +for food. They too became competitors with healthy industry, and by +increasing the family output actually served to still further lower the +starvation wages. For in this social morass there is no minimum. The +excess of labour is so great and the demand for food so urgent that the +tendency is constantly downward. It is a fight for bread in which the +sweater plays off the dire misery of these against the deeper misery of +those. And in this struggle the child life of the slums is used as a +counter in the game and a new generation of the physically unfit and +socially dead springs up like rank weeds to choke the hope and effort of +the future. + +Finally, it was made clear that sweating is the enemy of the development +of industry. It makes it possible to extract from the necessities of the +poor what ought to be extracted from highly developed processes. It +checks the natural evolution of commercial effort by an uneconomic +substitute. Mr Sidney Webb states this point with much force in his +“Industrial Democracy” when he says: + +“We arrive, therefore, at the unexpected result that the enforcement of +definite minimum conditions of employment positively stimulates the +invention and adoption of new processes of manufacture. This has been +repeatedly remarked by the opponents of Trade Unionism. Thus Babbage, in +1832, described in detail how the invention and adoption of new methods +of forging and welding gun-barrels was directly caused by the combined +insistence on better conditions of employment by all the workmen engaged +in the old process. ‘In this difficulty,’ he says, ‘the contractors +resorted to a mode of welding the gun-barrel according to a plan for +which a patent had been taken out by them some years before the event. +It had not then succeeded so well as to come into general use, _in +consequence of the cheapness of the usual mode of welding by hand +labour_, combined with some other difficulties with which the patentee +had had to contend. But _the stimulus produced by the combination of the +workmen for this advance of wages_ induced him to make a few trials, and +he was enabled to introduce such a facility in welding gun-barrels by +roller, and such perfection in the work itself, that in all probability +very few will in future be welded by hand-labour.’” + +The profound impression made by the Exhibition found expression in a +universal desire for action. The question one heard again and again was +“What can we do? What can we do?” It was the question which the Princess +of Wales asked as she passed round the stalls where the workers were +engaged at their various forms of slavery. It was the question which +continued like a hopeless refrain throughout the six weeks of the +Exhibition. Most people came with vague ideas of the evil and went away +with vaguer ideas of the remedy. Many of them were doubtless glad to +forget this contact with that other forlorn world which seemed such a +disquieting challenge to the splendour and luxury of the world of +society. It was a painful interlude between a visit to the shops in the +morning and a visit to the theatre in the evening. + +The general feeling however was not one of idle curiosity, but of grave +concern, and when the Exhibition closed it was felt that the public +conscience once awakened must not be allowed to go to sleep again. The +Exhibition had been an appeal to the individual; but all experience +showed that voluntary action on the part of the individual, while worthy +and desirable, would not touch the evil. Consumers’ leagues had been at +work in this country and still more in America; but they had done little +to reduce the vast sum of misery. If the Exhibition was to bear fruit it +must be in the direction of legislative action. + +The immediate outcome was the formation of the Anti-Sweating League to +secure a minimum wage, and later in the year a three days’ conference, +opened by the Lord Mayor and representing two millions organised +workers, was held at the Guildhall. This conference, which was addressed +on various aspects of the evil and its remedy by authorities like Sir +Chas. Dilke, Lord Dunraven, Mr Pember Reeves, Mr Sidney Webb, Mr J. A. +Hobson, Mr Bernard Wise, Miss Clementina Black and others, unanimously +endorsed the programme of the League which was embodied in the Bill now +before Parliament. That Bill is purely experimental. It is based upon +the lines of the Victorian Wages Board system and is applied only to a +certain group of trades which furnish the best field for an experiment +which has become firmly established and generally operative in the +Australian colony. Many authorities prefer the Arbitration system of New +South Wales and New Zealand; but the difficulty in the way of the +adoption of that system in this country is the opposition of the trade +unions. All are agreed on the principle of the minimum wage, and the +Wages Board has been accepted as the only possible legislative +expression of that principle in this country. So far as can be seen, +then, the Bill offers the one available remedy for an evil which all are +agreed must be dealt with. + +It is not necessary here to argue at length the case for the principle +of the minimum wage. Those interested in the subject will find it stated +in the addresses given at the Guildhall Conference and published in +pamphlet form by the National Anti-Sweating League, Salisbury Square, +E.C. It is forty-seven years since Ruskin shocked the economists of his +time by declaring for the regulation of wages irrespective of the demand +for labour. + +“Perhaps one of the most curious facts in the history of human error,” +he said, “is the denial by the common political economist of the +possibility of thus regulating wages; while for all the important and +much of the unimportant labour on the earth, wages are already so +regulated. + +“We do not sell our Prime-Ministership by Dutch auction; nor on the +decease of a bishop, whatever may be the general advantages of simony, +do we (yet) offer his diocese to the clergyman who will take the +episcopacy at the lowest contract. We (we exquisite sagacity of +political economy) do indeed sell commissions; but not openly, +generalships; sick, we do not inquire for a physician who takes less +than a guinea; litigious, we never think of reducing six-and-eightpence +to four-and-sixpence; caught in a shower, we do not canvass the cabmen, +to find one who values his driving at less than sixpence a mile.” + +Ruskin was duly punished. The publishers closed their magazines against +such revolutionary teaching, and Carlyle’s “ten thousand sparrows” +chirped in one furious chorus the current equivalent for “Socialism” and +“Wastrel.” + +To-day the minimum wage, like so much else of Ruskin’s teaching, is a +commonplace of the industrial system. No Government or municipality +to-day issues a contract which does not contain a fair wages clause +which is drawn up irrespective of the demand for labour, and every +healthy organised industry has a fixed scale which is dependent on +prices, it is true, but which is wholly independent of the demand and +supply of labour. The whole teaching of modern industry is that cheap +labour is dear labour, and that it is as important for successful +competition to have a well equipped human instrument as to have well +equipped machinery. + +To take the example of the cotton trade. Sixty years ago the condition +of the Lancashire trade was deplorable. It was based largely on sweated +labour, including the labour of wretched little slaves drafted in groups +from the workhouses, and kept alive on porridge, their compound a shed +or barn on the premises. To-day there is no industry more highly +organised, and no class of worker—certainly no class of female +worker—more adequately paid. Trade unionism with its fixed wage has made +the Lancashire cotton trade the most wonderful industrial organism in +the world. Four thousand miles from its raw material, ten thousand miles +from its greatest market, it yet dominates the cotton industry as +completely as our shipping trade, with all its relative advantages in +regard to raw material and geographical situation, dominates the +shipping industry of the world. Not least important is the peace which +this high state of organisation has produced in the trade. It is many +years since there was a serious conflict in Lancashire. + +The cotton trade in a word has had this enormous success not because +labour is cheap, but because labour is dear—and good; because the human +machine being kept at the highest point of perfection is the most +productive instrument of its kind in the world. It has succeeded, above +all, because the standard wage has removed the competition of low class, +sweated labour, which is not only iniquitous in itself, but which has +the effect of depreciating the whole currency of industry. + +And in depreciating the currency of industry it lowers the general +standard of the community. Where wages are low, there the poor rate is +necessarily high, and the general trader shares in the universal +impoverishment. For it must be remembered that the working classes are +the bedrock of commerce. Their condition reacts immediately upon +society. The money they receive comes back instantly in a fertilising +stream to the grocer, the bootmaker, and the clothier. These get nothing +but bad debts and insolvency from the operations of the sweater, whose +poor instruments, moreover, in falling upon the public purse, still +further depress the shopkeeper. + +What has happened in the cotton trade may be paralleled by the +experience of other trades. Wherever sweating has been eliminated by the +regulation of wages, the health of the trade is established. Wherever +the trade is only partly organised, as in the umbrella, the boot or the +tailoring trade, the wholesome part suffers by the competition of those +whose stock in trade is the misery of the unorganised poor. As an +illustration of this competition I may quote the following comparison +given by Miss Gertrude Tuckwell at the Guildhall Conference. + + AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF TAILORS AND TAILORESSES. + │ + STATEMENT OF PRICES AS AGREED TO BETWEEN THIS BODY AND THE LONDON + MASTER TAILORS’ ASSOCIATION, AND OF THE “SWEATED” RATES FOR SIMILAR + WORK. + │ + │ TRADE UNION. NON-UNION. + │ + Making Dress Coat│£1. 5s. 6d. to £1. 7s. 6d. 10s. to 16s. + │ (6d. to 7d. per hour). (These are prices where + │ middleman is employed + │ —16s. rarely reached.) + Gentleman’s Frock│ Do. Do. + Coat │ + Dress Vest │ 8s. to 9s. 3d. 2s. 6d. + Dress Trousers │ 7s. 3d. to 8s. 5d. 2s. to 4s. + Ladies’ Costume— │ + Pressing │ With very little 2½d. + Machining │ extras) 30s. 9d. + Baisting │ 7d. + Felling │ 1¼d. + │ ——1s. 7¾d. + Ladies’ Jackets— │ + Pressing │ 1¼d. + Baisting │ 23s. 3½d. + Machining │ 4½d. + Felling │ ½d. + │ ——9¾d. + +Ninepence three farthings against twenty three shillings! How is it +possible for honest industry to compete against this exploitation of +flesh and blood subsidised by the ratepayer? It was staggering facts of +this sort that induced the Guildhall Conference to go beyond the scope +of its reference by passing an amendment calling for the abolition of +the outworker in all trades and the provision of workshop accommodation. + +Trade unionism has succeeded in regulating wages in the great industries +whose operations can only be carried on on a great collective scale; but +trade unionism alone is clearly unable to destroy sweating in the many +industries in which the fabrication of the parts is let and sub-let +until the origin of the whole is found in the dim, one-roomed tenement +of the slum where the victim of the sweater carries on her tragic +struggle with famine. + +“Isn’t the remedy Protection?” was a question frequently heard at the +lectures given at the Exhibition. Most of us would agree with Mr Bernard +Shaw who, in answering such a question, said he would be ready to +protect our industry against sweated competition. But the general +operation of Protection would be wholly in the interest of the sweater. +It would put a new premium upon his vocation. And the fact remains that +sweating is more rampant in protected countries even than in our own. It +was the Berlin Exhibition which suggested the _Daily News_ Exhibition, +and since that event there has been an exhibition in Philadelphia which +has shown that the horrors of sweating in Protectionist America go +deeper even than those in Free Trade England. And it is three of our +Protectionist colonies which, realising the social menace of this trade +in misery, have indicated the true path of reform. They have realised +that the community must protect not only the individual but itself +against a traffic which is slavery in the thinnest disguise, and which +is not only cruel to the individual but destructive of honest industry +and ruinous to social health. The policy which Australia has applied +holds the field as the one effective remedy discovered for dealing with +this appalling social evil. The victims cannot protect themselves. They +are beyond the reach of organisation. In their isolation and poverty +they have no defence against the raids of the conscienceless +sub-contractor who is as literal a slave-driver as any who ever wielded +a whip in the cotton fields, a slave-driver none the less because his +whip is hunger instead of thongs. + + Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, + How shall your loop’d and window’d raggedness defend you + From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’en + Too little care of this. + +It is the State alone which can take care of them, protect them against +the rapacity of the oppressor and, in protecting them, protect itself +also. For this is primarily not a problem for pity; but a duty to the +commonwealth. No Society can be sound in health which has at its base +this undrained morass of wretchedness—a morass which charity and the +cold mercy of the Poor Law only develop and which social justice can +alone drain dry. + + + + + PART I + SWEATED INDUSTRY + + + + + CHAPTER I + THE POOREST OF ALL + + “Sweating”—General interpretation of the term—Work in the worker’s + home—Some special investigations—Characteristics of home + work—Match box making—The process—The payment—History of the + Jarvis family—Shirt making—Some individual cases—Paper-bag + making—Some cases—Some men home workers—Racquet balls—The + process—The payment—Health of home workers—The married woman and + the single woman as home workers—Brushmaking—Mrs Hogg’s + description—Tooth brushes—Other trades and rates of pay—Home work, + underpayment, and high priced goods. + + +The term “sweating,” to which at one time the notion of sub-contract was +attached, has gradually come to be applied to almost any method of work +under which workers are extremely ill paid or extremely overworked; and +the “sweater” means nowadays “the employer who cuts down wages below the +level of decent subsistence, works his operatives for excessive hours, +or compels them to toil under insanitary conditions.” It is in this wide +general sense that the word will be employed in these pages; and the +first part of this volume will be devoted to showing how wide-spread is +the prevalence of sweating throughout the whole field of British +industry. + +Probably the most completely wretched workers in our country may be +found among those who ply their toil in their own poor homes. It is by +no means the case that all home work is sweated; but it is the fact that +a good deal of home work, in this country and in others, exists solely +because the home worker can be ground down to the lowest stage of +misery. As an acute French observer writes:— + +“Home work, or at least an important fraction of that industry, is in +the odd condition of only surviving on account of its evils. Low pay and +long hours of work are among the chief conditions of its existence.”[1] +Into the conditions of women workers in this branch of industry—which, +however, is by no means confined to women—the Women’s Industrial Council +made an investigation, published in 1897.[2] Two inquiries were also +made by Miss Irwin, in Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Council for +Women’s Trades; and particulars as to the home work of women in +Birmingham appear in _Women’s Work and Wages_.[3] All these records +exhibit much the same features: unremitting toil, a high degree of +mechanical speed and accuracy, and at the same time the lowest standard +of workmanship that will pass muster; above all, a cruelly heavy burden +resting on the shoulders of the woman who tries to be at the same time +mother, housekeeper, and bread-winner, and who in return for her endless +exertion seldom receives enough even to keep her properly fed, and never +enough to satisfy her own very modest standard of comfort. + +The investigators of the Women’s Industrial Council visited personally +nearly four hundred workers. Perhaps the very poorest trade investigated +was matchbox-making, which, for the last fifteen years at least, has +occupied some hundreds of workers in East London alone. The women fetch +out from the factory or the middlewoman’s, strips of notched wood, +packets of coloured paper and sandpaper, and printed wrappers; they +carry back large but light bundles of boxes, tied up in packets of two +dozen. Inside their rooms the boxes, made and unmade and half-made, +cover the floor and fill up the lack of furniture. I have seen a room +containing only an old bedstead in the very last stage of dirt and +dilapidation, a table, and two deal boxes for seats. The floor and the +window-sill were rosy with magenta matchboxes, while everything else, +including the boards of the floor, the woodwork of the room and the +coverings of the bed, was of the dark grey of ingrained dust and dirt. +At first sight it is a pretty enough spectacle to see a matchbox made; +one motion of the hands bends into shape the notched frame of the case, +another surrounds it with the ready-pasted strip of printed wrapper, +which, by long practice, is fitted instantly without a wrinkle, then the +sandpaper or the phosphorus-paper, pasted ready beforehand, is applied +and pressed on so that it sticks fast. A pretty high average of neatness +and finish is demanded by most employers, and readers who will pass +their matchboxes in review will seldom find a wrinkle or a loose corner +of paper. The finished case is thrown upon the floor; the long narrow +strip which is to form the frame of the drawer is laid upon the bright +strip of ready-pasted paper, then bent together and joined by an +overlapping bit of the paper; the edges of paper below are bent flat, +the ready-cut bottom is dropped in and pressed down, and before the +fingers are withdrawn they fold over the upper edges of the paper inside +the top. Now the drawer, too, is cast on the floor to dry. All this, +besides the preliminary pasting of wrapper, coloured paper and +sandpaper, had to be done 144 times for 2¼d.; and even this is not all, +for every drawer and case have to be fitted together and the packets +tied up with hemp. Nor is the work done then, for paste has to be made +before it can be used, and boxes, when they are ready, have to be +carried to the factory. Let any reader, however deft, however +nimble-fingered, consider how many hundred times a day he or she could +manage to perform all these minute operations. But practice gives speed, +especially when stimulated by the risk of starvation. + +The conditions of life secured in return for this continuous and +monotonous toil are such as might well make death appear preferable. The +poor dwelling—already probably overcrowded—is yet further crowded with +matchboxes, a couple of gross of which, in separated pieces, occupy a +considerable space. If the weather be at all damp, as English weather +often is, even in summer, there must be a fire kept up, or the paste +will not dry; and fire, paste, and hemp must all be paid for out of the +worker’s pocket. From her working time, too, or from that of her child +messenger, must be deducted the time lost in fetching and carrying back +work, and, too often, in being kept waiting for it before it is given +out. The history of one matchbox-making family visited by a +representative of the Women’s Industrial Council may be given in detail, +since no single member survives. + +The Jarvis household consisted of a father, mother, and nine children. +They lived in an alley some fifty yards long and very narrow, entered +through a row of posts from a street that runs northward from +Whitechapel Road. Mr Booth’s “Poverty” map shows it coloured with the +dark blue that signifies “Very poor, casual. Chronic want.” The houses +in it, of which there were not many, were and are four-roomed cottages +of two floors, and the Jarvis family occupied the upper floor of No. 9. +Below them lived a young man with his wife and their baby, his mother, +and three sisters; sixteen persons thus inhabiting the four rooms. All +these people seem to have been industrious and respectable. Mr Jarvis, +who had poor health, worked in the last summer of his life at +matchbox-stamping, and earned “sometimes” 16s. a week. His wife worked +constantly at matchbox-making, two of the girls nearly all day, and two +of the boys out of school hours. The journey to and from the factory +took from an hour to an hour and a half. In the beginning of the winter +of 1897 the father fell ill, and had to go into the infirmary. The +mother and the children remained at home, and the combined earnings of +Mrs Jarvis and her four young helpers produced from 10d. to 1s. a day. +It was at this time that the investigator of the Women’s Industrial +Council paid her visit, and she notes in the brief space for “Remarks”: +“This house was very poor and bare.... Family is often nearly starving.” + +At about half past six on the morning after Christmas Day—a Sunday +morning, when it was freezing hard and when there was a thick fog, the +young man who lived on the ground floor awoke and got up to make tea for +his wife. He found smoke in the room, and when he opened the door of the +room in which his mother and sisters were sleeping, a burst of smoke met +him. He succeeded in getting out his own family—in their +nightdresses—sent a neighbour to call the fire engine, and tried in +vain, as did a next door neighbour, to arouse the Jarvises. The firemen +arrived within a very few minutes—three minutes, indeed, from the time +of their summons—but the house was already in a blaze, the windows gone +and the roof fallen in. The engine could not get through the posts at +the entry of the court, but while it was being taken round to the back, +a ladder was carried in, and a fireman bravely attempted to enter the +burning house. But it was too late; all ten were already dead. All had, +it was believed, been suffocated before the first call of their +neighbour from below. The children had probably passed out of life +without warning, but the mother was found lying on the floor, with her +baby of seven months old in her arms, its body so protected by hers as +to be scarcely burned at all. The father died next day in the infirmary, +without having learned what fate had overtaken his wife and children; +and their poor neighbours—for whom the weeks after Christmas are the +leanest of the year—raised a subscription to defray the funeral expenses +of the eleven, who were buried together. + +In all but its tragically sudden close the history of the Jarvis family +is the history of scores of East End households. In some there is a +husband in intermittent work; in some the mother is widowed; in all the +children, if children there are, help; in all the human beings are +slaves of the matchbox. The nine years since that December morning have +brought no change, unless it be that, impossible though it would have +appeared, pay has rather decreased than advanced, and that a recent +investigation, not yet completed, seems to reveal a higher proportion of +workers in receipt of out-relief. + +Such matchbox makers, if they worked at the same rates in the factory +during the far shorter hours permitted by the Factory Acts, would earn +no less than they do now, for they would no longer waste time in putting +together box and drawer—whereby at present some other worker also wastes +time in separating them again before they can be filled—and the employer +would pay for paste and drying. That, indeed, is really the reason why +they are working at home. + +But although matchbox-making is among the poorest of trades, there are +others but a shade better. The wages of shirtmaking, for instance, are +often extremely low, and are yet further reduced by the fact that the +home worker provides cotton for sewing. I remember seeing, seventeen +years ago, a young deserted wife who was trying to support herself and +two young children by making shirts. These were flannel shirts of a fair +quality, and were handed to her cut out. She did not sew on buttons nor +make button holes; but except for these items made the shirt throughout, +by machine, and put in a square of lining at the back of the neck. She +was paid 1s. 2d. a dozen, and bought the cotton herself. She could make +in a week “five dozen all but one”; for which the payment would be five +shillings, eightpence and a fraction of a penny, less the cost of +cotton, machine needles, oil, and perhaps hire of machine. + +At the _Daily News_ Exhibition of Sweated Industries was to be seen an +elderly Scotchwoman cutting and making shirts from the first stitch to +the last, who was a singularly intelligent, skilful, and industrious +worker. For varying styles of shirts she received from 9½d. to 1s. 9½d. +per dozen. “For the shirts paid at 1s. 9½d. per dozen the following work +is required:—Make and line yoke and bottom bands, put in four gussets, +hem skirts, run and fell side seams, make sleeves and put them in.... +The shirts paid at 9d. per dozen require her to hem necks, button-stitch +two stud holes, sew on six buttons and clip threads from all seams. The +shirts at 1s. per dozen have two rows of feather stitching, six button +holes, eight buttons, four seams bridged and eight fastenings made.”[4] + +The better sorts of these shirts were such as are worn, not by poor, but +by well-to-do purchasers. + +“Paper-bag making,” says the Factory Inspectors’ Report for 1905, “is an +industry largely carried on in homes in Glasgow, and no trade is more +disturbing to the home. The paste seems to find its way everywhere, and +many more things than the bags are found firmly pasted together. I +visited two women, who, working usually in workshops, were, during the +enforced period of absence owing to the birth of a child, given +employment as outworkers. Nothing could exceed the misery and squalor +amongst which the work was done. In both cases the workroom was also the +living room and bedroom, and the whole of the available furniture, +including the bed, was covered with damp bags, some hundreds of which +had to be removed in one home before I could be shown the baby. The +surroundings were unpleasant ones for making bags destined to hold +pastry.” (p. 322.) Of another woman it is reported that “she personally +took out work until the day before her child’s birth, and found the load +of bags which had to be carried downstairs and upstairs very heavy and +tiring. This work is poorly paid. Bags, by no means of the smallest +size, are made for 3d. to 5d. a thousand, so that it is indeed a heavy +weight which has to be carried for the daily shilling.” (p. 320.) + +Although the cases quoted hitherto are those of women, and although the +very worst instances of underpayment invariably occur among women, it +must not be supposed that all home workers are women. In the nail and +chain making districts many men as well as women work at forges in their +own backyards; and even in London there is quite a small population of +home working tailors, shoemakers, and cabinetmakers, to say nothing of +men who make toys and trifles of various sorts for hawking in the +streets. + +In one afternoon last summer I was taken to visit some men working in +their own homes, all within a very short distance. Two were toy makers, +two manufactured pipes, and another cages for parrots; one was a +shoemaker, and the last was the most skilled handweaver in London. One +toy maker was engaged upon wooden hoops with handles and beaded spokes, +for South Africa. He also made wooden engines, finding all the +materials, iron wheels included, and for these he was paid 22s. a gross. +The selling price is sixpence each. In his workshop, too, were to be +seen attractive little waggons with sacks in them; and horses of that +archaic type which has a barrel body, straight legs, and harness of red +and blue paper. The other toy maker was making little go-carts adapted +to the use of good-sized dolls. All the material was found by the maker, +and the price received by him varied from 3s. 3d. to 6s. 6d. a dozen, +according to size. Here again iron wheels had to be provided. In both +these cases the wife and some other member of the family helped. The +pipes were roughly shaped by hand, then pressed in a mould, the seam +scraped smooth, and the pipes stacked in great clay pans and fired in an +oven. They are not made to order, but sold by the maker to private +customers—generally publicans—at 2s. 6d. or 3s. a gross. The cage maker, +a consumptive man, transforms bands of tin and thick wires into domed +cages, with a speed and dexterity amazing to the beholder. I have +mislaid my note of the prices paid for this skilful work, but I know +that they were horribly low. The elderly shoemaker and his +wife—interesting, intelligent people—were full of family cares and of +curious industrial reminiscences. They are now on a dry bank, as it +were, a foot or two above the deep waters of hopeless struggle, in which +the Jarvises, their neighbours, were immersed. The weaver was a survivor +from another period, and a child of another race. Face and name alike +proclaim him a descendant of the Huguenots; and not only is he a weaver +of silk, but also one of the very, very few hand weavers of velvet still +left in our country. The coronation robe of King Edward—perhaps the +finest velvet ever woven, was his handiwork. + +Moreover, a little remnant is still left of the old silk-weaving trade +that came to Spitalfields and Bethnal Green when Louis XIV. was so ill +advised as to revoke the Edict of Nantes. Instances of man and wife +working at home together appear in the Report of the Factory Inspectors. +“Husband and wife, with two children, occupy one room only. The wife +weaves, while her husband is occupied in ‘finishing’ canvas boots in the +same room.” “Husband, wife, and six children occupy the workroom (which +contains two looms) and an attic.” “In the weaving room are three low +beds _under_ the looms, in which three adults sleep. They cannot sit +upright in bed, as they knock against and injure the warp.” (p. 322.) + +Racquet balls are articles bought mainly by persons in prosperous +circumstances, few of whom would desire that women engaged in making +their tools of play should receive less than a living wage. Yet the +rates of pay are such that probably no coverer of racquet balls ever +subsisted without aid from other sources. The cores or centres of these +balls are made of shreds of rag, much compressed, and covered with +strands of wool. These are prepared in the factory, but the covering is +done by women working at home. The coverer receives a gross of cores, +together with a gross of squares of white leather and a skein or skeins +of a special thread. The squares of leather must be damped between wet +cloths. Laying one of these damp squares on her left palm, the worker +places upon it the core, “pulls the skin tightly over it, pares off with +a pair of sharp scissors any superfluous leather, and sews together with +neat regular stitches the edges at their meeting-places. While still +damp the ball must be rolled, so as to smooth down any projection of the +seam. This rolling is best effected between two slabs of marble, the +upper one of which need be only a little larger than the ball. +Considerable pressure is necessary, but in the hands of a practised +worker the process is a quick one. These slabs of marble are not +provided by the employer, and many women roll their balls between two +plates; to do this takes rather longer, because the plate will not bear +so much pressure as the slab. The scissors also have to be provided and +kept sharp by the worker.” For covering a gross of the smallest sized +balls (sold retail at 2d. or 3d.), the usual payment is 2s. per gross; +but there is one prosperous employer who still pays only 1s. 10d. +Working steadily for eleven to twelve hours a day, a superior young +woman known to me who covered balls before her marriage used to earn +about 5s. a week. She was quick and skilful, but obviously +ill-nourished, and an accidental sprain, from which a girl in good +health would quickly have recovered, developed in her case into an +ulcer, in consequence, said the doctor who saw her, of her anæmic +condition. + +Ill-health, indeed, is the chronic state of the woman home worker. She +misses that regular daily journey to and from her work-place which +ensures to the factory worker at least a daily modicum of air and +exercise; and she misses also that element of changed scene and varied +human intercourse which makes for health and happiness. If she depends +upon her own exertions she will inevitably be ill fed and ill clothed; +and this is probably one reason for the fact, noted both by the +investigators of the Women’s Industrial Council and by Miss Irwin, that +the woman who is self-supported often earns less, even at the same rates +of pay, than the woman who is comfortably married. The half-starved and +apathetic human creature cannot maintain a high output of work; and even +the out-relief which is so frequent a factor in the income of the +widowed or single home worker, seldom suffices to keep her in more than +a half-starved condition. Her work grows, like herself, poorer and +poorer; and the employer thereupon declares that it is worth no more +than its poor price. From a national point of view it would pay better +to save the human machine from falling into that state of disrepair +wherein it ceases to be profitable. + +Tooth brushes, again, are articles purchased by the wealthy even more +frequently than by the poor, and so are household brushes of all kinds. +Of brushmaking an account was written in 1897 by the late Mrs Hogg,[5] +and being still applicable, was printed in the Handbook of the Sweated +Industries Exhibition. “The brushes are given out in dozens, ready +bored, and the worker supplied with fibre or bristles, as the case may +be. Their work consists in selecting the little bundles of bristles from +the heap, fastening them securely in the centre with wire, and then, +with a sharp pull against the edge of the table, drawing them through +the hole. They are kept in position by a wire at the back of the brush, +and each row of bristles is trimmed with a large pair of shears fastened +to a table-vice. The fingers, though protected by a leather shield, are +often badly cut with the slipping of the wire, and the constant jerk of +the drawing causes a strain to the chest. All the women complain of +this. More serious accidents occasionally happen from the shears, which +are hard to manipulate, and often beyond the strength of these +exhausted, underfed workers. Materials, with the exception of lamp-black +for painting the backs of the brushes, are provided by the shop. As +lamp-black costs something, and soot can be had for nothing, a +concoction of soot and water boiled is often used as a substitute for +the more expensive pigment. But the shears are a serious outlay, costing +from 18s. to £1, and needing constant sharpening. Many of the drawers, +never having been in possession of the capital to buy them, or being +forced by hunger to ‘put them away,’ are obliged to get their trimming +done at the shop, at the cost of terrible waste of time and of +iniquitous and capricious deductions from the price given for the work. +Deductions are also made for short returns of fibre or bristle +sweepings, where these have to be returned to the shop. The material is +weighed out and weighed in. It is calculated that if the material +weighed so much, the clippings or sweepings ought to weigh so much; but +the worker is never told _how_ much, and has no means of checking the +calculation; yet if the amount is short, she either ‘gets the sack’ or +has to pay for the deficiency. The rate of payment varies with the +number of holes and the quality of brush, bristles always commanding a +higher rate than fibre. Coarse fibre scrubbing brushes fetch anything +from 3½d. to 1s. a dozen. One woman will make brushes with 145 holes for +10d., while another will get 9d. for brushes with only 100. There is no +uniformity of payment; it all depends, they tell you, on the shop you +work for.... The fibre drawers rarely make more than 7s. to 8s. for a +week of seventy-two hours. Taking into consideration the various lets +and hindrances to which they are subject, and the time wasted at the +shop, 6s. would fairly represent the average during the season when it +suits the masters to keep them regularly employed.... It is only by +seeing the homes of the brush drawers that it is possible to realise all +that is implied in the carrying on of a trade and of the travesty of +family life in one single room, or the misery of these lives of endless +toil, where the tragedy which endures on is so much more pitiful than +the tragedy to which death brings rest from labour.” + +Tooth brushes, of which it is estimated that a worker can make four in +an hour, are paid at the rate of 4d. a dozen, and best hair brushes at +2d. each, or ¾d. for 100 holes. + +These examples might be multiplied a hundredfold. Blouse makers +(receiving from 1s. 6d. a dozen), underclothing makers, trouser +finishers (from 2½d. a pair), sack makers (at 8d. or 9d. for a “turn” of +12, 15, or 18), makers of boot boxes (at 1s. 4d. a gross), of soap boxes +and tack boxes, makers of baby clothes and of children’s shoes, +finishers of woollen gloves, tassel makers, umbrella coverers, +artificial flower makers, forgers of chains and strikers of nails, +carders of buttons (at 3s. per 100 gross), and of hooks and eyes (at 8d. +and 9d. per 24 gross), cappers of safety pins (at 1s. 6d. per 100 +gross)—all of these are busy among us hour after hour, and day after +day, for seven days a week, and are receiving in return a remuneration +ranging from ¾d. to 2d. per hour. Their work, in some shape or form, +comes into every house in this country. Our potatoes and our flour are +carried in sacks, although not perhaps to our doors; our eggs are sold +to us in cardboard boxes; our garments are fastened with buttons or with +hooks—or perchance with safety pins; the gentleman’s collar and tie and +the lady’s waist belt may probably be the handiwork of some half-starved +home worker whose life is being shortened by her poverty. Only ignorance +can flatter itself—as indeed ignorance is fond of doing—with the idea +that none but cheap goods or cheap shops are tainted with sweating. Any +person inclining to that opinion is advised to hang about the back doors +of leading shops soon after they open in the morning, or just before +they close at night, and to observe the furtive figures that pass in and +out with bundles. The taint is everywhere; there is no dweller in this +country, however well-intentioned, who can declare with certainty that +he has no share in this oppression of the poorest and most helpless +among his compatriots. + + + + + CHAPTER II + WORKERS IN FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS + + Wherein factory workers are better off than home workers—Life on five + to ten shillings a week—Health—Ancillary processes—Paper + bags—Packers—Case of a cocoa filler—Of a cartridge filler—Jam + fillers—Pay sheets of confectionery workers—Observations of an + uninstructed observer—Slack times—Long hours—Some + cases—“Emergency” processes—Discomforts—Some cases—Danger of + fire—Lead poisoning—Instances—Washing appliances—Extremes of + temperature—Fines and deductions—Divergent views of two employers + upon fines—“Earned too much”—Summary. + + +The poorer class of workers in factories and workshops are financially +little better off—if, indeed, better off at all—than the poorer sort of +home workers; but they have some other advantages. Their hours and +conditions are in some degree regulated, and at least some degree of +change and variety enters into their lives. But for them too existence +is a hard battle. Upon a wage of from five to ten shillings a week life +cannot but be narrow and stinted. Food, clothing, and lodging must all +be of the poorest; an omnibus fare, a halfpenny newspaper, a penny stamp +are luxuries in which only the thriftless indulge; and good health, as +the middle class man or woman knows it, is a treasure seldom enjoyed. +There is, indeed, no fact more painfully forced upon the middle class +observer who becomes intimately acquainted with ill paid workers than +the frequency with which they succumb to ailments that would be regarded +in the observer’s own circle as trifling. Many girls injure themselves +permanently by going to work when they are actually seriously ill. To +stay away means loss of pay and possibly loss of employment, so they +hold out to the last gasp. + +Many of the worst paid workers are engaged in various processes that +facilitate buying and selling, rather than in actual manufacture. The +paper-bags into which a civil shop assistant so obligingly pops our +small purchases are given nominally without charge to us, and are bought +in very large quantities at a very low rate by the shopkeeper, their +real cost being paid in flesh and blood by the women who make them. Some +of these women, as appears in the previous chapter, work at home; some, +possibly, in well-appointed workshops, but many, as the women factory +inspectors truly observe, “in the poorest kind of workshop, badly +lighted, ventilated, and heated. To these conditions, no doubt, the +weak, inflamed eyes so often seen among the workers are due, at least +partly. The workers themselves attribute it to the strain involved in +counting over the bags.”[6] This remark shows us that the simple and +time-saving plan of weighing instead of counting (which is employed for +wares so valuable as those of the Royal Mint) is not in use in paper-bag +manufactories. Packing of various kinds occupies vast numbers of women +and girls, most of whom are paid at low rates, by the dozen or the +gross, and some of whom attain a celerity almost incredible. No foreman +in the world can drive so hard as her own low wage drives the piece +worker who has to support herself and, often enough, to help to support +relatives. The most worn-out girl whom I remember ever to have seen was +engaged upon no harder task than the packing of cocoa. My attention was +called to her, in a room full of girls, by her ghastly appearance. She +may have been eighteen or nineteen; she was absolutely colourless, and +although there was no sign about her of any specific illness, seemed +exhausted literally almost to death. She sat day after day pouring +powdered cocoa into ready made square paper packets, of which she then +folded down the tops and pasted on the wrappers. She received a +halfpenny for every gross. In the week previous to that in which I saw +her she had earned 7s. Each shilling represented 24 gross of packets; +she had therefore filled, folded and pasted, in the week, 188 gross, or +21,792 packets. Her mother, who was present, said that the drive was +killing her and that she must leave. The cocoa was of a brand well known +in its day and sold in good shops, but the firm has now, I believe, +disappeared. Would that its methods had disappeared with it.[7] + +Tea packers and jam fillers often receive wages barely higher. Girls +whom I have known personally have been paid at the following rates for +filling pots with boiling jam or marmalade: 11 lb. pots (in four trays +of thirty-six pots), 2d. per gross; 2 lb. jars (in six trays of +twenty-four jars) or 3 lb. jars (in nine trays of sixteen jars), 2½d. +per gross. Two girls worked together, and my informant reckoned that the +pair could fill a gross of the largest size in about half an hour. This +would bring the wages of each to the comparatively magnificent figure of +2½d. an hour, or over 11s. a week. In some factories these heavy trays +have to be lifted and stacked by the girls, the weight of the jars being +added to that of the contents. + +I was fortunate enough, some years ago, to obtain possession of a number +of “pay sheets” showing the wages received in two consecutive weeks by +girls employed in a large London confectionery factory. For the first +week I had 107 sheets; for the second 98. Five sheets in the first week +and ten in the second were left out of my reckoning as probably not +representing a full week’s work; in each of these the total was below +4s. The highest net payment (there was a deduction for a compulsory sick +club) was, in the first week, 15s. 9½d.; in the second, 16s. 1½d. The +girls who received these wages (both well known to me) were superior +young women of from 22 to 25 years old; both helped to support widowed +mothers with younger children. There were, in the first week, 20 girls, +and in the second 24, who received from 10s. to 16s., and most of them +came much nearer to the lower than to the higher figure. In the first +week 78, and in the second 64, received from 5s. to 10s. (57 out of the +78, and 49 out of the 64 earning less than 8s.); while in the first week +9, and in the second week 10, received from 4s. to 5s. Two-thirds, +therefore, of the whole 190 sheets (excluding 15, which showed less than +4s. received) testified to a net weekly wage of less than 10s.—the +average being a fraction over 7s. 6d. a week. Yet so easy is it for the +inexperienced enquirer to be misled that a lady actually published an +account of this very factory, in which she assured the public of wages +“rising steadily to 18s. a week,” and declared that a girl, “if she +ultimately becomes a piece worker, may make as much as 24s. to 25s. a +week.” This lady was evidently not aware that piece work is not a state +“ultimately attained,” but the usual system throughout the +establishment. Nearly all—probably, indeed, every one—of those 190 pay +sheets represented piece work wages. Upon the basis of this illusory +wage of 24s. and upwards the writer proceeded to compare the payment of +confectionery “hands” with that of High School mistresses, forgetting, +however, to compare the hours of a school with those of a factory, or to +deduct those slack seasons to which the confectionery trade is so sadly +liable. A High School mistress, moreover, works forty weeks in the year +and is paid by the year; a confectionery worker often works for less +than forty weeks in the year, and since she is paid by the week her +blank weeks are blank to her exchequer, so that even if she did earn £1 +a week (which she does not) she would not earn £52 a year. +Seasonality—the word is so useful that it must be admitted—though it +falls one degree less heavily upon the factory worker than upon the +worker at home, is to her too a terrible evil. The long “slack times” of +the West-End tailor or tailoress reduce a wage that looks handsome in a +pay sheet of May or June to a very meagre annual income; and many a West +End dressmaker who has worked overtime—as often as not without extra +pay—through the long hot evenings of the London season finds herself, in +January or February, shivering, without work or pay, beside her own +empty grate. + +Long hours, which are in effect one form of low wages, have been checked +by the Factory Acts, but not yet ended. The inspector for West London +writes: “The Jew tailor of West London has an idea that seven days a +week is not too long to work his hands.”[8] + +From Birmingham a case is reported of a Christmas card maker, who had +already been cautioned for keeping “female young persons,” _i.e._ girls +under eighteen, at work till 9 of an evening. He was found to be keeping +two women and a girl at work till 6.15 on Saturday, a day on which work +should, by law, end early, and was said to be keeping his hands at work +on Sundays also—a privilege which the law allows only to the laundry +proprietor. “On the succeeding Sunday,” writes the inspector, “the place +was inspected, but with difficulty. It was only after considerable delay +that admittance was obtained, and then, although the place had every +appearance that work had been going on, no females were found. The upper +parts of the premises were in use as residence, and I had reason to +think that women had been sent up there upon my arrival, but the +occupier would not allow me to go up. It has subsequently been admitted +that eight women and two female young persons were at work and hidden as +suspected.”[9] + +That such cases would be not the exception, but the rule, if there were +no legal prohibition and no fear of fines, may be judged by the state of +things actually existing in laundries, where, although the law allows +the monstrous stretch of 14 consecutive hours of work, the permitted +hours are frequently exceeded. The report of the lady inspectors +contains a significant paragraph on this subject. “The hours worked in +London laundries by women and girls,” says Miss Vines, “seem to be +increasing in length, and to be more excessive than ever.... The firm I +prosecuted in February had employed several young women, one of them +only 17 years of age, for 28 consecutive hours, from 8 A.M. on Friday +till 12, midday, on Saturday; while their hours, including meals on the +previous days of the week, had numbered 14 on Thursday, 12 on Wednesday +and Tuesday, and 11 on Monday. The 28 hours’ period included 2½ hours’ +interval during the night, when the girls were permitted to lie on the +floor of the calendar-room with their coats for pillows ‘for a rest!’ I +prosecuted the other firm twice in June, and on the second occasion it +was proved at the hearing of the case that an ironer had been employed +for 37 consecutive hours, including meal times and short breaks, and +another, an ironer and calendar worker, 32½ hours ... 14 days previously +I had taken proceedings against the same firm.... It was then proved +that, in one week, a young packer had been employed by them, exclusive +of meal hours and absence of work, for 73½ hours; and two girls, aged +respectively 16 and 17, for 68½ hours.”[10] + +Very similar results ensue in the jam-making industry, where, on the +pretext of emergency, the law permits the working of prolonged hours. +“In more than one case,” writes the inspector, “I have found emergency +created by the simple expedient of allowing fruit to lie untouched at +the factory till the close of the normal working day, when workers from +all departments were turned on to it.”[11] + +It must be remembered that, in the case of workers paid by the day, as +is usual in dressmaking establishments, and in some departments of +laundry work, there is frequently no extra payment made for overtime. I +have indeed heard a West-End working woman declare that overtime would +cease if the law made payment for it compulsory; and although that +assertion was much too sweeping, the experience of strong trade unions +shows that when employers are compelled to pay at a higher rate for +overtime, that necessity for overtime of which so much is heard whenever +the Factory Acts are under discussion, does diminish in a very +remarkable manner. Meanwhile, the law does its best to make undue hours +of work costly by prosecuting persistent offenders. In 1905 the fines +inflicted in the North-Western district of England alone, for illegal +overtime, amounted to no less than £728, 4s. 0d., and the accompanying +costs to £627, 16s. 0d.; and this in spite of the fact that magistrates +in certain localities are decidedly hostile, and inflict derisory +penalties. When we further reflect that the North-Western district +contains both a large number of highly-organised workers, ready to +complain of any breach of law, and also a large number of exceedingly +enlightened employers who believe long hours to be inimical to their own +true interests, we may fairly infer that there are other districts in +which things are considerably worse, and in which the inspectors, +zealous though they are, fail to discover all or nearly all the +offenders. + +Sanitary conditions are still sometimes far from satisfactory, although +greatly bettered of late years. There is perhaps no point upon which the +influence of women inspectors has been more beneficial. A case is +reported to me, by a most trustworthy witness, of a box factory, where +“women and men worked together in a room in which was the lavatory, with +seldom a flush of water.” The same witness reports another case, in a +rope factory employing both men and women, the details of which are so +repulsive, that it is impossible I should print them. + +Nor are long hours and underpayment the only ills from which factory +workers suffer. In spite of laws and of inspectors, dangers and +discomforts are still prevalent in many workplaces—especially in those +where workers are ill paid. Many instances may be gathered from a single +year’s Report of the factory inspectors; and of course the inspectors +neither discover all the instances nor print all that they discover. +Looking into the Report for 1905, we find, on p. 13, an account from +Southampton of the tea-room “provided by a high class dressmaker +employing about 60 females.” This apartment was “underground with +concrete floor and walls and the ceiling only 6 feet high, with no +ventilation and no natural light.” Not a few women employed by West-End +firms may be found at the present day, not only eating, but also +working, by artificial light, in basement-rooms that are little better +than cellars, or in cramped upper rooms, from which there would be +little hope of escape in case of fire. The law, in its wisdom, does not +require a special fire escape except in places where as many as 40 +persons are at work; and certain frugal employers are careful, +therefore, to employ but 39. “In one such workshop,” writes Miss Squire, +“the condition of the 39 women working there seemed one of grave danger; +it is a large new rag sorting warehouse, so filled with bales that only +narrow passages down which one person can pass are left. On the second +floor the women rag sorters work, their tables ranged along a sort of +gallery ... the centre of the building being open for the hoisting of +bales; the only means of exit is a narrow wooden staircase with open +treads, at one end of the spacious floor. Were a fire to break out +below, all exit would be cut off very quickly. In this case the local +authority reply they have no bye-laws and can do nothing, as less than +40 persons are employed.”[12] + +Another case is reported on the same page, in which a building +originally meant for offices only has been turned into a factory and +warehouses. “There is no second staircase and no exit on to the roof, +which is higher than the adjoining houses.... The third floor is +occupied ... by a blouse manufacturer employing between 50 and 60 women. +On the top floor there is a lace warehouse where 15 women are employed +finishing laces and veilings; a large amount of light inflammable +material is stored on both these floors; there are no fire buckets or +any means kept for extinguishing fire.” Miss Squire sent a notice to the +Corporation about this building; and the Corporation replied that it +“did not see its way to making any recommendations owing to the +impossibility of providing an outside staircase.” Miss Squire and the +City Surveyor in vain pointed out how an exit could be provided; six +months later nothing had been done, and, on again approaching the +Corporation, she found that authority “of opinion that no additional +means of escape can be provided at a reasonable expense.” “The chief +officer of the Fire Brigade told me he has himself reported this +building as unsafe to the Corporation years ago in vain.” From Bristol, +Mr Pendock reports a case of a clothing factory “employing about 50 +females.” “The work is carried on, on the third and fourth floors, and +these are reached by means of an internal wooden, winding, narrow +staircase, always imperfectly lighted on account of its position.” The +local authority demanded an additional staircase. The owner, on the +strength of a decision in a previous appeal case, did nothing. +Immediately afterwards the premises were considerably damaged by fire +which, fortunately, took place in the meal time when all the workers had +left the factory. Since then work has been resumed under unimproved +conditions.[13] + +None of these are cases of ignorance, or even of carelessness; they are +instances of the deliberate disregard, for money’s sake, of danger to +the lives of fellow creatures. + +Scarcely less blameworthy is the criminal negligence shown by some +employers in carrying out those precautions prescribed by the law, +where, as in the potteries, there is a risk of lead poisoning. Thus, +Miss Vines remarks “how frequently one finds the necessary supply of +soap, nail brushes, and towels missing. Yet, when giving instructions as +to such irregularities, one is almost invariably met with an attitude of +_non possumus_. Over and over again managers defend themselves by the +assertion that these things, although provided by them, have been and +are constantly stolen by the workers.” She goes on to quote the +observation of a predecessor: “It is impossible not to believe that if +expensive and highly-finished ware disappeared from the factory with the +same speed and to the same degree that soap, nail brushes, and towels +disappear, steps would be taken to discover the offenders.”[14] + +In one instance a girl of nineteen, after no more than six weeks’ +employment at pottery dipping, suffered “acute pains, with weakness and +subsequent unconsciousness for several hours.” On the premises where she +had worked, the inspector found 17 persons engaged in dangerous +processes. “Notwithstanding, in the lavatory for their use, which was +extremely dirty, there was neither towel nor nail brush, and not more +than one tiny piece of soap. Eventually one small and very dirty towel +was discovered; this, it was stated, had been taken away by the foreman +to dry.... There was not a single clean towel in stock or in reserve on +the premises, and when I questioned the workers it appeared that this +condition of affairs was normal.”[15] + +Even where no risk of poison occurs, the provision of decent washing +appliances would, to most of us, appear an essential part of a civilised +factory. Many employers, however, hold a different opinion. The authors +of “Women’s Work and Wages” write that “regulations against washing are +still found in many factories where excellence of work does not depend +upon cleanliness of handling. Painters and japanners are generally +provided with turpentine, etc., but the rank and file are fortunate if +they can get a bucket at the sink, and there do exist places where there +is a fine of 6d. for washing.” + +I remember seeing girls, to the number of 50 or more, packing tea in a +large room where an old and grubby sink with one wash bowl and one towel +formed the sole provision for washing. Access to this room was gained by +one wooden ladder-stair. Yet the manager who exhibited this place to a +group of visitors was not only satisfied, but actually boastful. The +personal attention of the head of the firm was called to these defects, +and I am happy to say both of them have now been remedied. + +The discomfort formerly undergone in many work-rooms during winter was +extreme. Until the law required the maintenance of “a reasonable +temperature” (generally interpreted by inspectors as 60 degrees +Fahrenheit), a very large proportion of women who worked for West End +dressmakers did so in rooms absolutely unwarmed, or warmed only by the +gas jets meant for lighting the room. I knew of a shirt factory in East +London, which was a wooden edifice erected in a back yard and entirely +unprovided with any means of warming, and have known women who worked +there during the bitterest days of a particularly cold winter. + +On the other hand, some processes of manufacture are generally carried +on in overheated workplaces. “The temperature in starch drying stoves,” +says one inspector, “is the most consistently excessive I have found.... +The manager of one starch works is of opinion that women stand the heat +better than men do, but says those whom he employs are all hard +drinkers; no temperate woman will stay.[16] + +Some processes also of lacemaking and of cotton spinning are facilitated +by damp heat, and it can hardly be doubted that, but for the constant +vigilance, both of the organised workers and of the inspectors, there +would be still, as there were before the law intervened, many working +places in which such processes would be carried on without proper +ventilation or proper precautions for the health of the workers. Many +people now living have seen women and girls come out of a weaving shed +that has been kept full of steam, their clothes wet through and +presently frozen stiff upon them as they walked home through the cold +air. + +The plan of reducing wages by fines and deductions is one dear to the +low type of employer; and as long as workers remain ill paid and +desperately afraid of being out of work, the evil will probably persist +to some extent, in spite of increasingly stringent Truck Acts. There are +many factories and work-rooms in which silence is more or less rigidly +enforced, and fines are inflicted for talking or laughing. In many, +again, some part of the material used is charged to the worker. I had in +my hands, some years ago, 14 or 15 wage books belonging to skilled +machinists employed in a provincial stay factory and paid by the piece. +The following are the figures of 3 books for 3 successive weeks. _A_ +represents the highest, and _C_ the lowest sums received. + + _A._ Nominal wage 9/8½ 8/– 10/2½ + Deductions 1/4 9½ 1/6 + Wage received 8/4½ 7/2½ 8/8½ + + _B._ Nominal wage 9/2½ 8/6 8/4 + Deductions 2/2 1/7 1/11 + Wage received 7/8½ 6/11 6/5 + + _C._ Nominal wage 5/3½ 5/3 5/5 + Deductions 1/4 1/9 1/9 + Wage received 3/11 1/5 3/8 + +These deductions represent mainly material—cotton, and tools—machine +needles. Some employers oblige their workers to pay hire for the sewing +machines used in the factory, and where these machines are worked by +steam, gas, or electricity, a charge varying from a halfpenny to +sixpence “for power” is not unusual. I have known instances in which the +rent of a factory has been partly—perhaps wholly—defrayed by a charge +upon the workers, who had to pay so much a week for their places in it. +“Cleaning, as well as rent, is sometimes met in the same way by a weekly +charge of 2d. or 3d. for cleaning the workroom. I am assured that one +ingenious employer pays a man 15s. a week for performing this duty in +addition to others, while the payments made by the women amount to 30s. +In a certain provincial town in a factory which I visited, there was no +apparent method of lighting. I was informed that in the winter the women +brought their own candles. A local competitor, more acute, provides gas, +and charges each girl 3d. a week throughout the dark seasons, at which +rate, according to his fellow townsmen, he must make a profit on his gas +bill.”[17] + +In a large box factory deductions were made for glue, for gas to heat +the glue, for string to tie the boxes together, and for work +books—amounting in all to 1s. 6d. per week. + +A charge for hot water to make tea is not unusual, and is sometimes +enforced on all workers, the resulting sum, where many are employed, +being ridiculously in excess of the cost of the boiling water. One young +woman known to me paid this tax (in her case 2d. a week) for six weeks, +and never once used the hot water. + +Deductions for spoiled work or alleged damage are those which seem the +most to arouse heartburnings and that general feeling of grudge which it +is so greatly the interest of an employer to avoid arousing. Where, for +instance, glass or earthenware jars are filled with boiling preserve, +one or two jars in every few hundreds are sure to crack. “The breakage +will probably come to light under the hands of the girl who washes the +jar and sticks on the label, and in some factories she is made to pay.” +I have known a girl charged the full selling price for a seven-pound jar +from which the bits of glass were afterwards picked out and the preserve +reboiled and sold. Many instances of a similar kind from other trades +might be quoted if space allowed. + +Other deductions are in the nature of punishment; and of these it may +safely be said that the master or foreman who cannot keep order without +the use of them does not know his business. One of the best employers +and kindest men whom I ever knew said, indignantly, when I asked him +whether there were fines in his factory: “If I could not run a factory +without fines I should be ashamed to run one at all.” My real reason for +the question was that an employer of a very different stamp had within +the same week defended himself against an accusation of excessive fining +by a public declaration that unless he inflicted fines his factory would +be a “bear-garden.” The contrast between these two men—carrying on +industries not at all dissimilar—between the two factories, and, above +all, between the manners, morals, and appearance of the young women +working for the one and of those working for the other, formed one of +the most instructive object lessons which it has ever been my lot to +receive. + +Deductions for lateness are sometimes made a source of profit to the +employer. Men who pay a penny for an hour’s work will sometimes deduct +threepence for an hour’s absence; and piece workers—who, of course, lose +pay for the time of absence, are sometimes made to pay in addition. I +have seen the wage-book of an umbrella-coverer, which showed that in the +course of two years she had paid in fines (to the same employer) nearly +£6, chiefly for coming late in the morning. The case was particularly +flagrant, because she was a piece worker, and was not using a power +machine, and because work in this workshop was so irregular that when +she did come early she was often kept sitting unoccupied, while, if +orders happened to come in of an afternoon, the women were kept late to +fulfil them. Thus, although there might be no work for them, they were +fined if they came late; being piece workers, they were paid nothing for +the time spent in waiting for work, and they were paid at no extra rate +for work done late. + +Worst of all, there are factories—though I hope but very few—in which +piece workers, when they have succeeded in making up a total slightly +better than usual, are liable to have the surplus deducted. I have in my +mind a factory where the foreman frequently deducted 1s. or 2s. from a +week’s payment, on the ground that the girl who should have received it +had “earned too much.” + +To sum up then: workers in factories and workshops, although they are, +on the whole, better off in respect of hours, and although their lives +cannot at the worst, be so horribly monotonous as can that of the home +worker, are frequently exceedingly ill paid, even in trades demanding +considerable skill: not a few of them are employed in places that are +uncomfortable, unwholesome, or even actually dangerous; their poor wages +are apt to be docked by irritating fines and deductions; they have no +choice as to the companions with whom they spend their days, and they +share with the home worker the constant dread of being left without +employment and without means to pay for lodging or food. These are the +conditions in which hundreds and hundreds of young women in this country +are earning what it is customary to call “their living,” although all of +us are aware that no young woman can really live, in a large town, the +life of a civilised human being upon ten shillings a week or less. + + + + + CHAPTER III + SHOP ASSISTANTS, CLERKS, WAITRESSES + + The daily life of the shop assistant—Her bedroom—“No pictures, photos, + etc.”—“Anything so left”—The dining-room—Meals—Impossibility of + ever being alone—Long hours—Fines and rules—Examples—Some notes on + health—Baths—Payment—“Premiums” and “intro” goods—“Taking the + book”—Diminished salary with commission on sales—Case of a + milliner’s assistant—The dictum of a draper—Why not domestic + service?—The social grade—Assistants who do not “live in”—Some + Scotch cases—Trade expenses of waitresses—Breakages—Clerks and + bookkeepers—Salaries offered to a competent young woman—Some shops + in fiction—The question of morals. + + +How many of us, as we sit at ease on the customer’s side of the counter, +reflect upon the life led by the spruce, black-coated young man or the +trim, deft young woman who stands upon the other? For myself, the +elaborate hairdressing of the shop-girl—all those curls and waves and +puffs that represent so much care and time—always sets me thinking of +the same girl before her looking-glass (taking her turn, probably, with +others). The dormitory in which she occupies a place is bare and +unhomelike, all the beds, chairs, and chests of drawers of the same +pattern; the walls unadorned, for the decoration of them is forbidden. +As the rule of one large establishment says, with equal harshness and +bad grammar: “No pictures, photos, etc., allowed to disfigure the walls. +Any one so doing will be charged with the repairs.” The room is chill in +winter and stuffy at all seasons, and her companions are chosen by +chance. Amid such surroundings she combs and rolls and twists with the +skill of a practised lady’s maid, in preparation, not for an evening’s +gaiety, but for a day’s toil. Hastily she crams into the small chest of +drawers which is her sole receptacle all her little apparatus of brush +and comb and curlers and wavers. For what says the rule? “Brushes, +bottles, etc., must not be left about in the room, but put away in the +drawers. Anything so left will be considered done for.” Carefully +dressed as to the head, but very inadequately washed—for baths are too +often lacking and hot water seldom provided in the mornings—the young +lady hurries down to breakfast in a dining-room which has the same +impersonal, depressing character as the dormitory. Too often it is a +basement room, and sometimes infested by black beetles. Here, among a +crowd of companions, she takes her meal, consisting in the great +majority of cases, of bread and butter and weak tea. + +Twenty or twenty-five minutes later the assistant must be in the shop, +where, again among a crowd of fellow workers, she remains till the +midday dinner time. In many, indeed in most, shops the space behind the +counter is too narrow, and the assistant is jostled every time another +passes her. To a tired woman with aching back and feet the repetition of +this discomfort grows, towards the end of the day, almost intolerable. +The work itself is sometimes by no means light; in some departments the +boxes that have to be lifted down from high “fixtures” are of +considerable weight; the exhibiting of such things as mantles or coats +and skirts involves much carrying to and fro of heavy garments; so that +a young woman may well be physically exhausted by closing time. +Nervously exhausted she will surely be if the day has been busy, for the +whole of her occupation is a strain upon the nerves. She has to confront +strangers all day long; to touch without damaging numbers of articles, +often of a delicate kind; to fill up a number of forms, the omission of +any one of which will bring upon her reproof and probably a fine. She is +never alone. She eats her dinner to an accompaniment of clatter and +chatter in the same dull dining-room where she breakfasted. In many +shops that meal is neither good nor sufficient; and even if good the +food is monotonous. Each day of the week has generally its appointed +bill of fare. “In many houses the assistants know what the dinner will +be to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, to-morrow year. I have an +Islington shop in my mind where the menu for years past has been this:— + + Sunday: Pork. + Monday: Beef, hot. + Tuesday: Beef, cold. + Wednesday: Mutton, hot. + Thursday: Mutton, cold. + Friday: Beef, hot. + Saturday: Beef, cold, and resurrection pie. + +On Thursday there is a roly-poly pudding, or stewed fruit densely +thickened with sago. + +At a large Clapham house the week is mapped out thus:— + + Monday: Mutton, hot. + Tuesday: Beef, hot. + Wednesday: Mutton, hot. + Thursday: Beef, cold. + Friday: Fish. + Saturday: Beef.[18] + +These meals are often supplemented by private purchases; in some houses +the cook is allowed to supply extras at a price; in others the +assistants may bring in food; in yet others there is a refreshment bar +at which they may and do purchase food. In some establishments they are +actually fined for leaving any food on the plate. + +From dinner the shop assistant returns, generally after a bare half +hour, to the counter. An extra interval of even ten minutes to be passed +in rest and solitude would be precious, and even the institution-like +dormitory would be a welcome refuge. But, no; rare indeed is the “house +of business” in which the assistant is allowed to enter his or her own +bedroom during the day, except by special permission from the +shopwalker. + +For tea, which affords a welcome break at about five o’clock, a quarter +of an hour or twenty minutes will, as a rule, be allotted, and the meal +will in most cases consist of tea and ready-cut bread and butter. After +tea work will go on again till closing time. That happy hour varies +enormously according to the locality and nature of the shop. In the West +End of London most shops are closed by seven, and on Saturdays by two; +but in poorer districts shops will habitually be kept open until 9.30, +and on Saturdays until much later. + +When the shop has been cleared of customers the business of tidying up +and covering in for the night begins. After that comes supper, rather a +Spartan meal as a rule; and then—then, the assistant is free till 11 +P.M., or on Saturdays till 12. Fifteen minutes after that hour the gas +of the firm is turned out, and no private light must be kept burning. +“Any one having a light after that time will be discharged.” The “young +lady” may now sleep, if she can, in her narrow bed, with her companions +around her, until the morning’s bell calls her to rise, wash and +dress—still not alone—and begin another day like the last. + +In lower-class shops the assistant does not always have even her bed to +herself, and has, of course, no choice as to the companion who shares +it. In such shops, where the hours are long, many young women never, +except on Sundays or holidays, go out of doors in the daylight. What +wonder that they grow anæmic, that they suffer continually from +headaches and indigestion and from all the long train of woes that lie +in wait for the overworked, underfed, and shut-in women. + +In the matter of hours, of food, and of restrictions, young men are no +better off than young women. They also are subject to fines for every +petty error, and to a code of rules covering every detail of life and +work. I have inspected several such codes, and very curious reading I +have found them. I do not remember any instance in which the number of +rules was less than 50. Mr Whiteley’s, at the time when I saw them, were +159; those of another shop in the same district ran up to 198. Here are +a few sample rules, taken almost at random: “Young men coming to +business with dirty boots, soiled shirts or collars, etc., and young +ladies with soiled collars or cuffs, or otherwise appearing in business +in an untidy manner, fine 3d.” Of course the washing of these immaculate +collars, cuffs, and shirts is paid for by the wearer. “Gossiping, +standing in groups, or lounging about in an unbusinesslike manner, fine +3d.” “Assistants must introduce at least two articles to each customer, +fine 2d.” “Unnecessary talking and noise in bedrooms is strictly +prohibited, fine 6d.” “For losing copy of rules, 2d.” “For +unbusinesslike conduct, 6d.”[19] + +It is needless to dwell upon the nagging, ungenerous tone that marks +such rules as these. That their harassing character helps towards that +collapse of health and nerves which is so frequent among women shop +assistants, I feel persuaded; and it is more than probable the abolition +of “living-in” with all its accompanying petty annoyances would lead to +a marked improvement in the health of the whole class.[20] + +Here are a few notes upon the question of health made by a trustworthy +observer at close quarters.[21] + +_A._ “During the fifteen weeks I spent at ——’s, three girls in my +department had to leave on account of illness. The department was +entered through others, and had no street door. In summer it was so +oppressively hot that even customers often complained. Out of the +sixteen assistants I worked with, one was anæmic, one had varicose +veins, one had a chronic cough, one chronic indigestion; all suffered +from lassitude and headache, and four frequently lost their voices +through weakness. One of those who left broke down from extreme +weakness, and had to give up altogether. Another was the case of +varicose veins. A vein burst, and the girl was taken to the hospital, +where she was told she must not stand much. She could not give up +business, however, and now wears elastic stockings above and below the +knee on both legs. Anæmia was common. At my table at dinner there were +six persons with the same colourless lips, leaden skins, and hollow +eyes. This house compares favourably with most business houses in +London.” + +_B._ “I very clearly remember some very hot days ... behind the fancy +counter of a West-End house. The atmosphere was filled with fluff and +dust, the very board floors seemed to scorch one’s feet, and the effort +to drag a heavy lace box out of the fixtures made one faint and giddy. +One day my companion at the counter gave a little gasp and collapsed on +a heap of collar-boxes. The shopwalker carried her out of the shop to +the housekeeper’s room, and in about half an hour she regained +consciousness. In another half hour she was at the counter again. It was +only the heat and the standing! That night when we went to bed she +showed me her blistered feet and told me they had been very painful +during the day. She had been unable to bathe them for three days, for +there had only been enough water in the bedroom for washing in the +morning, and she hadn’t time to wash her feet then.” + +_C._ “Only strong girls can manage to keep a berth in this house for any +length of time. Ailments: weakness, anæmia, and fainting attacks, with +frequent headaches and other symptoms of a low state of health. +Underground dining-room lit with gas; a damp unpleasant room. In summer +it is very close and infested with black beetles. The shops are warmed +with gas in winter.” + +_D._ “The shops of this firm are bitterly cold in winter, as there is no +artificial heat. The assistants get thoroughly chilled and are not +allowed a fire in the sitting-room unless the weather is exceptionally +cold. Sanitary accommodation objectionable.” + +The hours of work are in some localities very long. I have known of +shops in poor districts that remained open on Saturdays till 11, 11.30 +or 12; and cases are cited by credible witnesses of 12.30 as the +Saturday closing time. Tobacconists’ and sweet shops are often open on +Sundays, and assistants employed in them are liable to a seven days’ +week. On the other hand, in shops that are never open on a Sunday there +is often a tendency to discourage the presence of the assistants on the +premises during Sundays. It used to be not an uncommon practice actually +to turn the assistants out, from closing time on Saturday till Sunday +night or Monday morning; but it is a good many years now since I have +met with any instance of this. The cruelty and meanness of this form of +economy are sufficiently obvious; yet I have known it practised by a +draper who was a churchwarden and who was greatly surprised at receiving +from his vicar earnest remonstrances upon the subject. + +Sad to say, a bath or bathroom is by no means regarded by employers as a +necessity. There are still houses of good repute in which the +assistants, male and female, have nothing but a basin in which to wash. +On the very day that I write these words a letter is published in the +_Daily News_ from a shop assistant who cites the case of “a large house +in the West-End where hundreds of young men and women ‘live in,’ and not +a single bath is provided for them.... When the poor assistant feels +inclined to take a bath he has to take it before the public baths close +at eight o’clock; and as there is no fire in the sitting-room he is +obliged to go straight to bed to avoid catching cold on a cold winter’s +night after taking his bath.”[22] + +The salaries both of men and women are poor. The shopwalker and the +buyer may, in some instances, receive handsome salaries; but for the +ordinary saleswoman, £35 a year is high pay; indeed, there are many +young men receiving no more than £20 or £25. Out of this income the +assistant has to keep up the required standard of appearance, providing +black coats or gowns, as the case may be, and spotless starched linen. +Often the collar and cuffs of the young lady are of a regulation pattern +that may perhaps not suit her again if she goes into another house. +Towels are not generally included in the furnishing of the bedrooms; the +purchase and washing of these come out of the assistant’s pocket. + +These wages are supposed to be supplemented by “premiums,” and the +subject of premiums is not without interest for the customer. Certain +goods, which for some reason it is particularly desired to sell, are +“premiumed,” _i.e._ a small commission is given to the assistant who +effects a sale of them. The premium, which is in proportion to the +selling price, is generally but a small sum. Half a crown is about the +highest figure, and would represent a purchase running to some pounds. +On small things the premium may be as low as a halfpenny. The existence +of premiums explains in great measure the annoyance to which all of us +have been subjected by the endeavours of an assistant to force upon us +goods for which we have not asked—goods known behind the counter as +“intro” (or introduced) goods. A rule quoted above shows that there are +shops in which an assistant is bound to press two “intro” articles, at +least, upon every customer. To dispose largely of “intro” goods is +obviously to the assistant’s interest, not only because the premiums +make a welcome addition to his small income, but also because the +disposal of these articles is viewed with favour by his superior +officers. To the customer who knows what she wants and is anxious to +spend no more than the needful time and money in getting it, “intro” +goods are an irritation and a burden—especially if she is sufficiently +behind the scenes to know their significance to the girl or youth who +compulsorily obtrudes them upon her. Such customers are apt to forget +the great commercial truth that shops exist not to supply the needs of +the public but to fill the pockets of the shopkeeper. + +Nor is the premium the only instrument of pressure applied to the shop +assistant. There is, in most establishments, an unwritten law that each +assistant must, each week, sell goods to a certain amount. That total +goes by the name of the “book”; and each young man and young woman is +aware that repeated failure to “take” his or her “book” will be followed +by dismissal. One very capable employer has a different method. He +engages the assistant at a fixed salary; and when she has been at work +for a couple of months, she is informed that for the future her salary +will be diminished by a substantial deduction, and that she will receive +a commission of 1¼ per cent. upon her sales. The assistants are said not +to keep a reckoning of their commission, but to be of opinion that they +rather gain than lose. In the “wools” department, where sales would not +generally run to high figures, £10 was deducted from the £30 a year of +one assistant, and £8 from the £28 of another. From a salary of £35 in +the underclothing showroom, no less than £23 was taken off. + +There are houses in which a list of weekly “takings” is posted up; and +some in which the names that stand low in the list are marked by the +employer with signs of disapprobation. To be a good salesman or +saleswoman is to be an adept in the art of inducing fellow creatures to +make purchases that they did not intend to make. Indeed, there are shops +where failure to effect a sale, if it occurs three times running, means +dismissal. I knew an instance (a good many years ago) in which a girl +was dismissed at a moment’s notice from a London millinery shop, because +she had failed to cajole a customer into buying any bonnet. She was +“living-in”; her home was not in London; the dismissal took place +between 5 and 6 o’clock, and she did not know of any lodging to which +she could go. Fortunately a policeman whom she consulted was able to +direct her to one of London’s many safe havens for young women. But what +of the employer, who, suddenly, and late in the day, turned a young girl +out of his house into the unknown world of London, her only fault being +that another woman had found in his shop no bonnet to suit her—and had +been resolute enough to resist buying one that did not? + +It is related of a certain provincial draper that seeing a customer +depart having made no purchase, he called up the assistant who had +waited upon her. “Why did not that lady buy anything?” “We hadn’t what +she wanted, sir.” “Anybody can sell people what they want. Remember that +I keep you to sell people what they don’t want.” That in a nutshell is +the present condition of retail shopkeeping—especially, perhaps, in the +department of drapery; and that condition is one reason why some +customers find it preferable to deal at co-operative stores. The +business of the assistant in a private shop is to sell, reluctantly +perhaps, but under stern compulsion, articles that the shopkeeper +desires sold to a customer who does not really desire to buy them. Can +any employment be imagined more straining to the nerves, or more trying +to the temper of a refined and delicate minded person? And there are +many shop assistants of refinement and of delicate feeling; some of them +daughters of clergymen and of other professional men who have died +leaving their girls unprovided for. + +At this point some reader will certainly be found to demand why these +young ladies do not, in a body, abandon the shop and enter domestic +service. The answer is a simple one enough. These girls, like the vast +majority of their compatriots, will endure much hardship rather than +lose caste; and, whatever may be the opinion of the wage-payers, there +can be no doubt that among wage-earners domestic service ranks as a +low-caste occupation. The middle class mother who will not send her +little girl to a public elementary school, the middle class father who +would rather see his son making a small income as a professional man +than a large income as a tradesman, ought rather to applaud than to +condemn the “young lady in business” who refuses to exchange her black +uniform and her title of “Miss” for the cap and apron and the name +without a handle of the domestic servant. + +The question of class distinction has, as Mr Charles Booth has pointed +out, a marked influence upon the choice of employment; and this +influence, the authors of _Women’s Work and Wages_ truly observe has led +to curious economic anomalies, which are generally beneficial to the +employers.[23] + +An observation somewhat to the same effect may be found on pp. 67, 68 of +_Women in the Printing Trades_.[24] + +In Scotland “living-in” is not customary, but the advantages of freedom +have been, in the past, sometimes counterbalanced by serious drawbacks. +Here are some instances from one of Miss Irwin’s reports:— + +“In some of these shops the girls are kept on duty continuously; this is +more especially the case where only one girl is employed.... In scarcely +any of the shops in this district is lavatory accommodation provided. +Witness said she knew of drapery shops where the hours are from 8 A.M. +to 9 P.M., and in some cases to 10 P.M.; while they are kept open till +11 P.M. and 12 midnight on Saturdays. In these shops the girls are +allowed half an hour off for breakfast and one hour for dinner. Total +hours worked per week 82 and 89 (not including meal hours). No seats are +provided and there is no sanitary accommodation. Witness stated that +there are frequent cases of girls completely breaking down in health in +these shops.” + +“Witness 504 is about 24 years of age. She is saleswoman and manager in +a confectioner’s shop and is paid 7s. per week. The shop she keeps is an +East end branch belonging to a leading firm in this trade. The shops of +this firm in better localities are closed at 8 P.M. In the other the +following are the hours: open 9.30 A.M., close at 10 P.M. Saturdays, +open at 8.30 A.M., close at 11 P.M. As witness has sole charge of the +shop she cannot leave it to take her meals, or for any other purpose. +Her dinner is brought to her and she takes it as she can; tea is taken +in the same way. Witness has in all nine holidays in the year.” + +“Witness 418 had been engaged as an assistant in a tea shop and gave the +following evidence: Her hours were from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M., five days in +the week; and from 9 A.M. to 11.30 P.M. on Saturdays. Witness had sole +charge of the shop and was not allowed to go out for meals, except on +such days as her employer, a commercial traveller, and seldom at home, +came to relieve her; frequently she was obliged to fast all day, and +finally she was obliged to leave on account of her health breaking down. +Total hours worked per day, 12; Saturdays, 14½; per week 74½ hours.”[25] + +In restaurants, both in London and elsewhere, the hours are sometimes +excessive. I have known instances of girls who were employed at the +refreshment rooms of stations who were not allowed to leave until after +the last train had gone at night—which meant that they had to walk home +every night after midnight. + +Miss Irwin, in her evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords +upon the early closing of shops, quotes a very similar instance: “In +another baker’s shop where six girls were employed, the hours were from +6.45 A.M. to 8 P.M., and to 11.30 on Saturdays. The girls had to provide +their own food, and all meals, including breakfast, were made and +partaken of on the premises, the girls having the use of the kitchen for +this. No regular time was allowed for meals, and they were kept running +backwards and forwards to the shop all the time. Very often they were +kept beyond the nominal closing hour of 11.15 P.M. and lost the last car +home. This was a great hardship to the girls who lived at a distance. My +informant said: ‘When I get home, I just sit down and cry with fatigue.’ +The firm have a number of branch shops. There are in all twenty-eight +girls employed in them.”[26] + +The nominal maximum hours in restaurants visited by her are given by +Miss Irwin as follows:— + + “In 3 cases 16 hours on one or more days in the week 96 hours. + „ 1 „ 15½ „ „ „ 93 „ + „ 1 „ 12 to 17 „ „ „ 93 „ + „ 1 „ 15 „ „ „ 90 „ + „ 2 „ 16 „ „ „ 87 „ + „ 1 „ 14½ „ „ „ 87 „ + „ 2 „ 13 to 14 „ „ „ 79 „ + „ 4 „ 12½ to 15½ „ „ „ 78 „ + „ 1 „ 17 „ „ „ 77 „ + „ 3 „ 12 to 12½ „ „ „ 72 to 75 „ + „ 1 „ 13 „ „ „ 70 „ + +“These,” adds Miss Irwin, “are the _nominal_ hours, but ... in several +cases the information was taken from the women assistants at a later +hour than the nominal closing time.”[27] + +The expenses of a waitress are often considerable; she almost always has +to pay for the washing of the aprons, collars and cuffs that are a part +of her uniform, and in most cases to provide them. As nearly every +company has its different pattern the articles are apt to become useless +when employment is changed. Moreover in some restaurants and +refreshment-rooms, all breakages, whether made by them or by customers, +are paid for by the assistants. I have known girls subject to this +deduction who complained that they received no statement as to how the +amount deducted was made up. That the sum is in some cases not trifling +is shown by a newspaper correspondence that occurred in the year 1890. A +representative of Messrs Spiers & Pond, Ltd., wrote to a newspaper +complaining that the amounts habitually deducted at Waterloo Station had +been overstated, and assigned 1s. 9½d. as the weekly average for each +assistant. This being the firm’s own estimate, there can be no injustice +in quoting it. When we remember that the wages of waitresses average, +roughly, from 7s. to 14s. a week, less 8d. or 9d. for washing, we shall +probably regard an average deduction of 1s. 9½d. a week as by no means +inconsiderable. A certain proportion of breakages is manifestly +incidental to the refreshment trade and the renewal of crockery is as +much one of its natural expenses as the renewal of fuel. Either of these +items might just as fairly be laid upon the waitresses. It is often made +a reproach to schemes of industrial partnership that the employees share +the profits without sharing the losses. This particular form of +partnership, in which employees bear losses but take no share in gains +seems to have escaped the economists. + +In the matters of poor pay, uncertainty of employment and compulsorily +“respectable” clothing, clerks and bookkeepers occupy much the same +position as shop assistants; and when their employment happens to be in +shops, their hours are equally long. A young woman known to me, a highly +competent clerk and book-keeper, showed me letters from employers with +whom she was in treaty. In one case she was to be cashier and +book-keeper in a very well known and flourishing shop; she was to be at +her post until 11 P.M. on Saturdays and until 8 (or it may have been +8.30) on other evenings. Her pay was to be 8s. a week, living out. I may +add that shortly afterwards I myself saw this shop open one evening, not +Saturday, at nearly 9 o’clock. The other post, again that of cashier and +book-keeper, was in the office of an extremely wealthy wholesale City +firm, where thousands of pounds would have passed through her hands +weekly and where the book-keeping would have been very complex. The +salary offered was 14s. a week. + +Reviewing this chapter, I see that I have dealt almost exclusively with +large establishments. In smaller ones and especially in poor districts +the food and housing may be worse, and the payment will almost certainly +be lower. On the other hand the regulations will in all likelihood be +less rigid and sometimes the relations between employer and employed +will be quite human and even homelike. + +Of the general conditions in a thoroughly low class shop, Mr Maxwell’s +_Vivien_ presents a picture faithful probably in most particulars. A +more typical case, illuminated by a spark of real genius, is portrayed +in Mr Wells’s _Kipps_; and there is an admirable vignette in Gissing’s +_The Odd Women_. + +It is only just to add that neither the somewhat exhaustive +investigations made under the auspices of the Women’s Industrial Council +nor such information as, during a considerable course of years, I have +been able to collect personally, confirm those accusations of prevalent +immorality which might be suggested by such novels as Zola’s _Au Bonheur +des Dames_, and which are freely made in some quarters. No doubt +instances must from time to time occur in which a shopwalker or an +employer makes use of his position as a weapon of seduction; but such +instances are certainly the exception. There may also possibly have +existed, somewhere, at some time, a basis of fact for that persistent +legend of the employer who offers to young women the free use of a latch +key by way of compensation for low payment. + +For the large majority of shop girls, however, the temptations of shop +life take the form not of illicit lovemaking within the shop but rather +of continued dulness, driving and discomfort, constantly pressing them +towards any offered means of escape. The passion that really prevails in +the modern shop is the passion for money, which, no less than more lurid +passions preferred by the romance writer, devours the youth and lives of +girls. It does not, however, consciously fall under the classification +of the decalogue, and the destroyers of these victims often honestly +believe themselves to be men of singular righteousness and virtue, the +pillars and bulwarks of an industrious, commercial nation. The feudal +baron, not improbably regarded himself in no very different light. + + + _Note._ The daily papers of the week in which this chapter was written + contained two cases that corroborate the statements made in it; and + that show the evils described to be by no means matters of the past. I + give them verbatim, except that in the second case I have concealed + the name of the accused lad. + + George A. Evans, coffee-shop keeper, of Goldsmith’s Row, Hackney Road, + was summoned at Old Street for breaches of the Shop Hours Act by + employing two young persons as waitresses for more than 74 hours in + any one week. + + Mr D. Carter, for the London County Council, explained that girls + under the age of 18 were denominated “young persons,” and while they + might be worked 12 hours for the first five days of the week, and 14 + hours on a Saturday, all meal times were to be counted in as part of + the employment. + + The defendant was found employing a girl aged 17 years and 7 months, + and another 16 years and 2 months, and both had in the week ending May + 26th worked 85 hours each. Further, the defendant had no notice of the + hours of labour, as allowed by the Act, exhibited in his shop. He was + also summoned for that offence. + + Defendant pleaded guilty, and Mr Dickinson imposed fines and costs + amounting to £4, 18s.—_Daily News_, 23rd August 1906. + + A well dressed clerk, named Y. Z., aged 16, was charged at Marylebone + with having embezzled £2, 2s. belonging to his employers Ryland & Co., + auctioneers of Edgeware Road. His duty was to collect rents, and it + was alleged that his defalcations amounted in all to £7, 10s. In + extenuation of the offence he pointed out that his wages only came to + 12s. a week, out of which he had to pay 4s. rent and 2s. travelling + expenses, leaving him but 6s. a week with which to clothe and feed + himself. He took the £2, 2s. intending to pay it back, but he was + found out before he could do so. His hours were from 9 to 6. Mr Paul + Taylor said he was at a loss to know how Z. could have sustained life + on the small salary he was receiving. He remanded him to give the + missionary an opportunity of seeing what could be done for + him.—_Tribune_, 24th August 1906. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + TRAFFIC WORKERS + + The traffic worker and the public safety—“Privileged + cabs”—Railway workers—The hours of signalmen—The seven day + week—“Blacklisting”—London’s omnibus men—Paying the police + for leave to work—“The rest of the evening”—What is required + of a driver—What is required of a conductor—Wages stopped + for fogs, fires and processions—Curiosities of an “Accident + Club”—How a motor man is “passed” for a licence—The “journey + system”—What it means to the passenger—What it means to the + men—Breakdowns—Wages in the garage—3d. a day for + uniform—“The bar up”—The best employer in London—Tram men + under the London County Council. + + +In these days of much journeying, there is scarcely one of us whose life +and safety do not depend, again and again, upon the skill, the +steadiness, the nerve and the judgment of the men who steer our public +conveyances. Not only in their own interests, therefore, but in the +interest of public security, it is essential that the men upon whom +rests so vast a responsibility should not be overworked, underpaid nor +harassed. The sad fact is, however, that the vast majority of them are +both overworked and harassed; and that, if not the majority, at least a +very appreciable minority are decidedly underpaid. + +Of cabmen I do not propose to speak; the subject of their hours, +conditions and rates of pay being so intricate that anything like a +general view is difficult to present. I will content myself with +indicating, by means of a paragraph from a Parliamentary Report, the +kind of exactions to which cabmen are exposed. “Privileged cabs” are +those admitted, upon payment of a fixed charge, to ply in railway +stations. It appears that the lowest charge made by any company +maintaining the privileged cab system is 1s. per week. The smallest +number of cabs is “15, at Clapham Junction, and the largest number of +cabs, 290, at Paddington, which at 3s. per week provide the Great +Western Railway with the substantial sum of £2262 per annum.”[28] + +The railway workers of Great Britain are, as a class, men of excellent +character, intelligent, careful, attentive and worthy of the trust +reposed in them. They have a strong trade union, and their secretary now +sits in Parliament. Yet this body of grown men, most of them voters, was +so unable to secure from its employers a reasonably short working day +that the legislature, unwilling though it has always shown itself to any +direct regulation of the working hours of men, felt compelled in the +interests of public safety, to intervene; and a special order of the +Board of Trade has, for many years past, limited the hours of railway +men. Yet, even now, there are porters, generally at small stations, who +are on duty for 16 hours a day; and 8 hours, which should be the longest +day of any signalman, are extended, except in the busiest boxes, to 10 +and, in some cases, to 12. Many a porter works seven days a week for +16s., perhaps at some small station where “tips” are infrequent. In this +connection it is worthy of note that such companies as pay additionally +for Sunday labour find it possible to do with much fewer workers on +Sundays. Of how much improvement the railway man’s lot is still +susceptible may be judged from the programme of the union, drawn up at +the close of 1906, and about to be submitted to the various companies. +Its demands are as follows:— + + An eight-hour day for trainmen, shunters and signalmen. + + No railway employee to work more than ten hours a day. + + + An increase of 2s. per week in the wages of all grades receiving less + than 30s. per week. + + Sunday labour to be paid for at the rate of time and a half; and + overtime at the rate of time and a quarter.[29] + +The worst form of oppression, however, to which the railway man is +exposed is one very difficult to prove and very easy to deny: +“blacklisting.” A railway servant, on leaving the employ of one company, +(whether at the company’s instance or at his own) receives no written +character, nor can he refer any intending employer to the report of his +immediate superior. Enquiry must be made at headquarters; and it seldom +happens that a man who, for whatever cause, has left the service of one +company, succeeds in getting taken on by another. The men are convinced +that a deliberate understanding exists, and this conviction leads many +of them, unwillingly subservient, to endure the ills they have, rather +than face loss of employment and of pay. Any trade that is in the +hands—as the railway industry of course is—of comparatively few and very +powerful employers is especially liable to develop the tyranny of +“blacklisting.” The existence of the practice is almost invariably +denied, and can, in the nature of things, very seldom be substantiated; +but it is possible to remark that, as a matter of experience, one +company does not engage the man who has previously worked for another. +The men know, experimentally, that to leave their present employers +means, in the great majority of cases, leaving the industry altogether. +How much such knowledge must sap a man’s independence, how much it must +try his nerves and his temper, it is, surely, unnecessary to insist. + +The railway workers have, in the course of years, conquered the immense +difficulties that beset the organising of men whose hours are long and +varying, and whose work brings them rather apart than together. Other +workers, whose employment is closely akin to theirs, are still involved +in those early struggles which seem to the men engaged in them almost +hopeless. Comparing their position with that of the railway men, we +shall see, once again, how great are the benefits which organisation can +bestow, and how powerless are even skilled and licensed workmen unless +backed by a strong union. + +The omnibus men of London form a group of workers familiar to all +London’s citizens. The most tedious of “blocks” has been enlivened for +us by their “chaff”; the blackest of fogs and the most scorching of +dog-days have failed to destroy their patience and their good temper. +With the advent of the motor omnibus, however, a change has become +apparent which fills observant Londoners with foreboding. The motor man +is, to put it plainly, snappish; he hustles his passengers in and out; +he not infrequently turns a blind eye to the breathless pursuer; and he +is apt to be caustic in remarks upon the slowness of the aged or the +unwieldy traveller. To this impatience the jarring motion and irritating +jangle of the car may perhaps contribute; but the main reason of it may, +I believe, be found in the conditions under which the drivers and +conductors of motor omnibuses mostly work. + +It may be of some interest to compare the conditions of three different +groups of men, all of whom are busied in the work of carrying London’s +inhabitants to and fro; especially since their cases exemplify a +transition which is in course of progress around us. + +All drivers and conductors are compelled to pay for leave to exercise +their calling. It is considered that the security of the passenger +requires to be safeguarded, and that no person should be allowed to +officiate upon a public conveyance unless he has been licensed to do so. +In London the ultimate licensing authority is the Home Secretary, to +whom Section 8 of the Stage and Hackney Carriages (Metropolis) Act of +1869 has allowed a power little less than autocratic. These are the +terms of it: “A licence to the driver or conductor of a hackney or stage +carriage may be granted at such price, on such conditions, be in such +form, be subject to revocation or suspension in such events and +generally be dealt with in such manner as the said Secretary of State +may by order prescribe, subject to this provision, that any licence +shall, if not revoked or suspended, be in force for a year, and there +shall be paid in respect thereof to the Receiver of the Metropolitan +Police Fund such sum not exceeding 5s. as the said Secretary of State +may prescribe.” Successive Home Secretaries have seen fit to fix the +maximum charge of 5s. for each year’s licence; and between the 1st of +April, 1905 and the 31st of March, 1906, the Commissioners of Police +received as many sums of 5s. as sufficed to make up a total of £7928, +10s.[30] + +Of the manner in which the police authorities exercise their power +something will appear later on; but, apart from any question of +administration, there is surely some injustice in taxing the men for a +licence demanded not at all in their interest, but solely in that of +their passengers. That the owners of public conveyances, who derive a +profit from running them on the public roads, and who in doing so assist +to wear out those roads, should pay for a licence may be not +inequitable; but that the paid servants of such owners should be taxed, +as a condition of entering that service, can hardly, when judicially +considered, be pronounced defensible, and it is not surprising that the +Select Committee should advise alteration. “The theory of the Home +Office,” says the Report, “seems to be that, in view of the special +benefits derived by the cab and omnibus trade from its connection with +the police, it is only fair that the trade should be specially taxed for +the maintenance of the police.... There seem, however, to be few other +classes of the community who are charged in this way for their own +police inspection, and in our opinion, the system requires +modification.”[31] + +The drivers and conductors of horse omnibuses (though there have been +changes in their conditions) are still employed upon the system which +was once the only one in vogue, and are, at least nominally, paid by the +day. The length of day varies somewhat on different routes, but the +average is about fifteen hours—or very nearly twice the length of the +working day in the best managed industries. Moreover, the omnibus man +works as a rule thirteen days in a fortnight. His share of leisure is +pretty well described by the reply of an elderly driver who, in the +hearing of my informant, was asked by a passenger, at something after 11 +P.M., whether this was the last journey. “Yes, sir,” the man answered +mildly, “this is our last journey—and the rest of the evening we have to +ourselves.” + +Out of his nominal daily wage of 7s. or 8s., the driver has to provide +rugs, capes and whips. Custom requires of him “tips” to horse-keepers, +pullers-up, &c., the total of which is estimated at not far short of a +shilling a day. In only a few cases are the men near enough to their +homes at dinner time to be met by a small son or daughter carefully +conveying “Father’s dinner” in a covered dish or basin—an economy +possible to very many cabmen. Their meal, on this account, inevitably +costs them rather more than if it could be prepared at home; and the +same increase of cost attends their tea. Less than two meals in 15 +hours, a man who works in the open air can scarcely do with. + +Superhuman punctuality is expected of the omnibus. Should it arrive two +or three minutes late—or two or three minutes early—at one of its +“points,” its driver may be suspended from work for from two to seven +days. The conductor, whose nominal wage is 6s. a day, is liable to be +suspended or discharged if his takings fall below the average. When a +journey is stopped by fog, fire or the occurrence of a procession, the +proportion of pay for that journey is deducted from the wage of driver +and conductor alike, even although they may not succeed in bringing the +omnibus into the yard until after the usual hour, or even if, as happens +occasionally, they may have to stay out all night with it. As one of the +fraternity sardonically remarked to me: “It’s a new experience for them, +that’s all.” + +At the present moment, the drivers and conductors of horse omnibuses are +face to face with the prospect of a lowered wage. On one line, there has +been a reduction of one journey _per diem_ (the working day having +previously been one of 16 hours) and a reduction in the day’s pay of 1s. +6d. for the driver (from 8s. to 6s. 6d.) and of 1s. for the conductor. +It is fully expected that men on other lines will, before long, +experience the same change. + +It will, I am sure, surprise many readers to learn that the drivers and +conductors of omnibuses are expected to defray the expenses of +accidents. The men employed by one large company subscribe to a fund for +the purpose of meeting such expenses. I cannot learn that any direct +rule obliges them to belong to this so-called “Drivers’ and Conductors’ +Accident Club,” but they are of opinion that any man who declined to +belong would not find himself, for long, in the employ of the company. I +have been fortunate enough to inspect the rules of this club, and have +carefully preserved a copy. It is a document equally remarkable for its +oppressiveness and for its grammar. The preamble runs thus: “This +Club ... is for the purpose of creating a fund by which the expenses so +frequently arising from accidental causes may be met without allowing +these expenses to fall unjustly upon the company, or subjecting the +individuals who may be the immediate cause of such expenses to perilous +and embarrassing circumstances, and, be it further understood, that each +Driver and Conductor are responsible for all damages to property or +person to the amount of Ten Pounds, and any Driver or Conductor not +conforming with the Club Rules will not be allowed any assistance from +the Funds thereof for any accident they may meet with.” Rule 1 requires +“Each Driver to pay 2s. entrance fee as soon as he is passed eligible to +drive an Omnibus belonging to the Club. Each Conductor to pay 1s. +entrance fee. Each Service Driver to pay 1s. per week contribution. Each +Service Conductor to pay 6d. per week contribution.” Rules 3 and 5 are +worth quoting. “Whatever accident may occur by any Driver and Conductor, +whether regular or spare men, he shall pay towards such accident not +less than one quarter of the amount the accident may cost the Club to +settle. If not able to pay the whole of such fourth in one payment it +must be paid by instalments of not less than 2s. 6d. per week. Should it +be further proved that such accident was brought about by intoxication +or any kind of neglect, the Committee shall, at their next meeting, have +power to levy any further sum they agree upon, and, whatever sum fixed, +may be paid by weekly instalments by such sums as may be agreed upon by +the Committee.” “Should any Member of the Club leave or be discharged +from the Company’s service within three months of his becoming a Member, +such Member shall forfeit all claims upon the Club funds.” Rule 7, after +providing for quarterly meetings, proceeds: “The fourth meeting to take +place on the most convenient date in December, when after putting away +as reserve fund, not less than £40, any surplus remaining to be equally +divided among the Members in accordance with what they may be entitled +to.” Rule 9 is, perhaps, the most remarkable piece of grammatical +construction that ever presented itself under the guise of English. “Any +Member having left the Club and is indebted thereto shall not be +entitled to share, unless all arrears be paid up. Any Member having left +the Club and is entitled to share must apply for same within the first +calendar month of the ensuing year, if not his share will be lost and +will be placed to the credit of the Club for the ensuing year.” + +Thus the nominal wage of every driver in this company’s service is +really reduced by 1s. weekly, and that of every conductor by 6d.; while +a fund of “not less than £40,” saved up out of these men’s earnings, is +held in hand to indemnify the company for possible accidents, whether +such accidents are caused by the fault of the men or not. The conductor, +indeed, can seldom be even remotely responsible for an accident; yet the +conductor, no less than the driver, is made to pay this tax. It would be +interesting to know whether the law would uphold a man who should refuse +to pay anything at all towards the cost of an accident not caused by +neglect or misconduct. He would, of course, lose all chance of further +employment in the trade; but he might conceivably put an end, once and +for all, to these exactions. + +It will hardly appear, from all that has been said, that the life of the +omnibus man is extraordinarily enviable; yet his situation is decidedly +preferable to that of the man who exchanges the society of a pair of +horses for that of a snorting and self-willed motor. Like the horse +driver, the motor driver must secure a licence, for which, when he gets +it, he must pay 5s. yearly to the Police Commissioners; and if +possessing a horse licence he desires to retain it he must pay an +additional 5s. per annum. Moreover, when he enters his application, he +has also to pay a fee of 5s. to the London County Council for +registration. The Commissioners have been known to refuse motor licences +to men who have been driving for years, but whose licence shows an +endorsement, sometimes of distant date and sometimes for an offence of +trivial character. To the lay mind it appears that a man, whose +misdemeanours were not too great to make him unfit for driving a horse +omnibus, is likely to be a safer driver for a motor than a man from some +other calling, quite inexperienced in the art of threading the maze of +London traffic. In any case it is clearly an injustice that such a man +should not be able to learn, before spending time and money upon special +training, that a licence will not be granted to him. The test of +competence applied is curious but probably effective. A certain +inspector, whose name I refrain from giving, collects a number of +candidates and places himself with one of them on the driving stand of a +motor omnibus, the remainder of the candidates occupying seats as +passengers. The driver, under orders from the inspector, steers the car +hither and thither until such time as his instructor dismisses him to +inaction, and selects another. Not until the party has returned home, +does any man learn his fate. Then the inspector remarks to each as the +case may be: “You have passed,” or “You must come up again.” The fiat of +this gentleman being unchecked, it is well that it appears to be +dictated by justice. Beloved, indeed, of his licencees he is not; but I +found myself hardly able to sympathise with complaints of his unsmiling +disposition. How should a man smile, whose calling in life it is to +imperil his existence at the hands of an endless succession of +unpractised motor drivers? A certain proportion of these candidates are +men who have never driven in the London streets—some of them never on +any road whatever. There is a legend of one, said to have been +originally a shop assistant, who entered upon his career unaware that he +was expected to drive to the left rather than to the right. I have +myself travelled in a motor omnibus the driver of which took the wrong +side of three refuges between Maida Vale and Tottenham Court Road. +Whether ignorance guided his course or a desire to achieve a full +complement of journeys _per diem_ I cannot, of course, tell. + +Having secured his licence and an engagement, the motor driver is put +upon a certain route, to perform a shift, not of so many hours, but of +so many journeys. The “journey system,” which is responsible for nearly +all the ill temper and not a few of the accidents that attend the course +of the motor omnibus, is as follows. A certain number of journeys each +day is allotted to each car. Driver and conductor are paid by the +journey, and the required number of journeys is such that only under the +most favourable possible conditions can it be completed. At least one +car in every three will fail in the task. Let us consider, for instance, +the case of certain cars which, at one period, were timed to do four +journeys, but have recently been required to make six in the day. Two +shifts are worked, each set of men being supposed to make three +journeys. Since the very barest measure of time is allowed, the men are +constantly on the strain; they are tempted to take risks, and are +unwilling to pause long enough for the picking up and setting down of +passengers. At the close of the period allowed for the first shift, the +third journey will in all probability not be finished, but it may have +been begun, and will be concluded before the car is brought in. It thus +becomes more impossible than ever for the second set of journeys to be +compressed into the shortened hours left for the second shift, the +rather that the car will very probably have suffered from the strain put +upon it in the endeavour to get out of it the utmost amount of work. Two +journeys may be achieved, in which case the driver may receive from 4s. +to 5s., and the conductor from 3s. to 4s.; or only one may be completed, +in which case the payment of each will be but half as much. Is it +wonderful that the tempers of men working under such conditions display +some uncertainty, nor that accidents are frequent especially in the +latter half of the day? The wonder is that so many cautious City +gentlemen, who obviously regard their own lives as precious, should +continue to entrust their persons to vehicles so precarious. + +On some lines, the men work early and late shifts in alternate weeks; on +others, they change twice a week. A driver, working on these terms, +explained to me how, on a certain evening in the week, he came off duty +about midnight, after which time he had to get home, to get himself +clean—no rapid process, as many an amateur motorist well knows—and to +get his supper. Soon after six, next morning, he was due at the garage +to take on his early shift, and was obliged, therefore, to leave home by +about half past five. His next leisure for a meal not arriving until +seven hours later, it behoves him to get his breakfast before he sets +out. How many hours’ rest fall to his share on such occasions, and how +fit he is, in the morning, to assume the responsibility of a motor +omnibus and its complement of passengers, readers may judge for +themselves. + +Among other evils arising from this system we may note the way in which +every man’s hand is turned against his comrade. It becomes the interest +of the first shift to snatch time enough for their own journeys, to the +loss of the second shift; while the second shift would be more than +human if they did not resent the time thus lost. The employing company +alone profits by setting up an impossible, or almost impossible, task as +the measure of the day’s payment. By pretending that three journeys +instead of two form the task of one shift of workers, the payment for +each journey can be fixed at one-third instead of at one-half of what +may be reckoned as the wage of a man’s working day. + +From the moment when the car breaks down—and how frequently it does so +our own eyes assure us—the payment of its driver and conductor cease. +They must remain by the disabled vehicle until a trolley comes to drag +it away; their period of waiting may stretch into several hours—it may +even extend through the night, but for that part of their time in which +they were not actually conveying passengers they will not receive a +penny. Some companies have indeed a rule upon their code that payment +will be made if the road engineer employed by the firm certifies that +the driver is not responsible for the accident. One can understand that +certificates, the granting of which means money out of pocket to the +company, are not likely to be very lavishly issued by an engineer in the +company’s employ; and there are men who declare that this rule is a dead +letter and that broken journeys are never paid for. Industrially +speaking, the history of the motor omnibus industry in London has been +unfortunate. One, at least, of the firms that appeared early in the +field followed the tactics rendered familiar by the example of American +trusts. It began, as the trust does, by underselling competitors, and +offered the passenger a longer journey for a penny. A hope was probably +entertained that these low fares would deter the older companies from +setting up motor conveyances. The older companies were not deterred; but +they found themselves compelled to compete on their rival’s terms; so +that, for a time, the curious alternative was offered to the Londoner, +of travelling from the Marble Arch to Victoria, either in a slow horse +omnibus, for 2d., or in a quick motor omnibus for 1d. To travel for 1d. +instead of for 2d. is the desire of every passenger; but the +gratification may be bought too dear, and danger is a high price to pay. +How much danger the passenger incurs, who travels in the motor omnibuses +of certain companies may be guessed by persons who have heard—as I +have—the drivers of these vehicles talking among themselves of the +accidents and of the hairbreadth escapes that have formed part of their +own experience. The running into the river of the Barnes omnibus was +foretold, less than a week before its occurrence, as a thing that must, +sooner or later, come to pass. The trained men who face them are fully +aware what risks they are running; and to some of them, no doubt, the +very risk is an attraction. No motor man need complain that modern life +lacks incident and adventure. The passenger, on the other hand, who, +when he sits behind a horse, can see for himself its weakness or its +restiveness, cannot possibly judge the strength or the weakness of +machinery that is not even open to his view. Some omnibuses, no doubt, +are in excellent condition; but it is equally certain that there are +others, the essential parts of which are perilously near to being worn +out. Accumulated experience has convinced even so technically unskilled +an observer as myself that there is at least one company whose vehicles +are not, in themselves, dangerous, and at least one other with whose +habitual passengers a prudent life insurance company should have nothing +to do. In the hands of an unskilled driver, or of a driver rendered +temporarily unskilled by fatigue, by too long a fast, or by too little +sleep, every motor omnibus is dangerous; and every hardship of the men +thus becomes a source of public danger. + +The frequency of breakdowns has undoubtedly been increased by the +shortsighted policy of some owners who, for economy’s sake, have +employed in the repairing shop, not qualified engineers, but merely +“fitters,” or even those humbler persons known as “fitters’ mates.” The +lesson of experience, however, seems to be teaching wisdom in this +respect; and the motor companies are learning, as other employers have +learned before them, that to entrust costly property to unskilled hands +comes expensive, however low the wages paid. Meanwhile, we are informed +by the Report of the Select Committee upon the Cabs and Omnibuses +(Metropolitan) Bill, that during the period covered by that Report, 25% +of the cars were on an average always out of use. This means, of course, +that a certain ratio of the men employed upon such cars were always out +of a job. Most of these would be set to various kinds of work in the +garage, their payment while so employed being but 3s. 6d. a day, a rate +representing, for ten hours, less than fourpence an hour. These are +truths which should be recollected when persons familiar only with the +nominal figure of a wage that can hardly ever be earned, talk of the +good pay of motor drivers. Moreover, instances are quoted in which men +have not received even this pittance for the time spent in the garage, +but have been paid only for one day instead of for two or three. By one +company a notice has been posted up that, from the day upon which these +words are written, no work done in the garage will be paid for, unless a +certificate has been obtained from the superintendent of the garage. + +It may be remarked that this principle of proportional deduction which +is so dear to the hearts of the companies is not applied in the matter +of the uniform, for which although it never becomes the wearer’s +property a charge of threepence a day is demanded, even though the day +may have been broken and the uniform worn only during an hour or two. A +tale is told of a conductor to whom, the car having come to grief early +in the shift, fourpence was handed as the fraction of wage to which he +was entitled, out of which sum he was requested to hand back threepence +in payment for his uniform. He had not presence of mind enough to reduce +this charge in proportion to the reduction of his own wages, and to +proffer a farthing as the nearest equivalent to one-fifteenth of +threepence, but weakly yielded to the demand and went away with a penny. +At threepence a day and 339 days in a year (_i.e._, deducting 26 +Sundays) each man would pay £4, 4s. 3d. for his coat, cap, &c. It would +be interesting to know what price is paid for the articles by the +company. + +Employment in the omnibus trade, whether behind a horse or behind a +motor, is thus full of discomforts and of weariness. Yet, such as it is, +the men would be thankful for any certainty of retaining it. They are +liable to discharge upon any complaint from an inspector (or possibly +from an outside person) and no opportunity is allowed of exculpating +themselves. Furthermore they are firmly convinced that a number of +spies—“spots” is their own slang term—travel to and fro in the character +of ordinary passengers and constantly present complaints, ill or well +founded as the case may be, to the companies. “There’s plenty of +people,” said one man, “who never pay their omnibus fares. They send in +their tickets to the company and get back their money.” “Of course,” +said another, “they must make plenty of complaints or the companies +wouldn’t think it worth while to keep them on.” Whether this belief is +right or wrong, its existence is, at least, highly significant of the +light in which the men regard their employers, and is, I venture to say, +a symptom of very unsatisfactory relations. + +The men are also persuaded that there exists among the Federation of +masters a tacit compact in accordance with which a man who has quitted +the service of any one of them will not, for a certain length of time, +be admitted into that of any other. In their own language “the bar is +up” against such a man. How far this opinion is well founded it is +difficult to judge; but it is unquestionably the fact that instance +after instance can be adduced of drivers, holding unendorsed licences, +who, on leaving the employment of one company, have been refused week +after week, by the others, and have been obliged at last to find some +other calling. One finds himself happier and wealthier as a street +sweeper. In at least one such case the responsible post eventually +secured is a guarantee of good character and steadiness. + +It is always instructive to compare the conditions offered by the best +and the worst employers, respectively, in the same trade. In the matter +of traffic, the best employer in London is the London County Council. To +begin with, the men who work upon its trams pay nothing for their +uniforms. Their working day is of ten hours. Time lost by such +hindrances as fog, fire and processions is paid extra (at the rate known +to the trade as “time and a half”). Work on a seventh day in the week +when it occurs is paid at time-and-a-quarter rates. Moreover any horse +driver in the Council’s service who desires to qualify as an electric +driver can be trained, free of charge, in the municipal technical +school; whereas the charge for training made by one of the private +companies is £5. Not only does the London County Council issue to its +inspectors special instructions to avoid arbitrary and domineering +treatment of subordinates; it also affords to every man accused by an +inspector the opportunity of meeting his accuser face to face, and of +telling his own story. In short, the London County Council treats those +deserving citizens who do its work, with justice and with respect; and +they, in their turn, treat the public with a degree of kindly courtesy +most refreshing after the asperities of the motor omnibus man. Nor can +it be maintained by any truthful person that the comparatively +comfortable conditions of the municipal tram men have cost the ratepayer +too dear; since the profits of the Southern tramway lines alone in the +year 1905 were assessed by the Exchequer for income tax purposes at +£203,831; while, in addition to the large profits thus indicated, the +reduction of fares on these lines must, by this time, have saved +hundreds of pounds to the travelling public. + +With the exception, then, of that fortunate minority employed by the +municipality, the workers on the public conveyances of London present no +very cheering spectacle. In the beginning of this 20th century, and in +the capital of a country that prides itself upon the freedom of its +citizens and upon the representative character of its government, we +find adult skilled male workers, performing valuable public services and +occupying positions of great responsibility, apparently as powerless as +any sweated home worker in her garret to secure for themselves either a +reasonably short working day, or equitable treatment, or payment for the +whole of the hours spent in the employer’s service. Yet one group of +them is guaranteed by the licence of a public department as efficient; +the services which they render are eagerly demanded by the public; their +industry is one in which foreign competition is impossible; and the +companies employing them are in many instances paying high dividends. +These, surely, are facts very much worth the consideration of all those +fellow citizens for whom, in the last resort, the railway man and the +omnibus man are working. + + + + + CHAPTER V + WAGE-EARNING CHILDREN + + Children and home work—Boot making—Box making—All night at match box + making—“Can do nearly everything”—A boy tooth brush maker—A boy + belt maker—Polishing “spindle legs”—Children and laundry + work—Errands—Street sellers—Boys in bakehouses—In brick + fields—Girls and heavy trays of jam—Half timers’ heavy + loads—Things as they were—Terrors of the early cotton mills—A five + year old maker of “blonde net”—Miss Edgeworth’s “Ellen”—Mrs Hogg + and wage-earning children—Children in American cotton mills—The + glass bottle works—Effects of juvenile work on health—On + education—On morals—On industrial efficiency. + + +The very worst feature of underpaid labour is that it tends to make wage +earners of children and, in so doing, deteriorates the coming generation +of adult wage earners. Where work is carried on in the home, the +temptation to press children into the service is very great. The tedious +process of fetching and carrying work from and to the factory or +workshop generally falls to their lot; indeed, workers who have no +children of their own not infrequently hire a child, for a few pence, to +perform that duty. The time of a child is considered to be of little +value—of less value than the three halfpence or twopence earned by the +home worker in the hour or more that is often spent in waiting. Not a +few children are habitually late for school, in consequence of being +thus employed. Here is an instance. + +“Jane B. Standard 6. Age 13. Father a potman at 25s. a week. Mother +machines uppers of boots; common goods, 10d. a dozen; better, 1s. 3d. a +dozen. Jane sews on buttons, cuts apart work, inks round button holes. A +little brother, aged nine, does buttons” (_i.e._, I suppose, sews them +on). “Mother, who does sometimes three dozen in a day, sometimes only +three pairs, begins work at 7 A.M. Jane begins at 7.45. She goes to the +shop for work, in the morning, and carries it in—a heavy load of three +dozen pairs sometimes—when she comes home from school. She gets late for +school, and is only in time in the afternoons.” + +At the same school, a girl of eleven, Alice J., pastes in the soles of +babies’ shoes and sews together the pairs. A sister “sews and beats.” +These are white buck shoes, and are paid at the rate of 1s. 1d. to 1s. +3d. a dozen. Two dozen can be done in a day. The father is a cabinet +maker in regular work; the mother a cleaner (apparently at an office or +warehouse). The sister, of 18 or 19, makes 10s. a week. The little Alice +works from 12 to 1, and again from 5.30 to 6.30, doing in that time a +dozen or fifteen pairs; she reckons that it takes her five minutes to +finish a pair, or perhaps twenty minutes for six pairs. + +Esther S., aged ten, and a sister aged six, help their mother at the +midday break, and also in the evening, in lining and covering boxes. 5d. +a gross is paid for the smaller sort; 1s. 9d. for the larger sort. The +work of the children is said to be absolutely necessary. “Dreadful home; +nice woman,” is the observation of the visitor whose notes I have been +permitted to use. + +A schoolfellow of Esther’s, Sarah W., is thirteen years old and in +Standard 4. Her father was in prison. Her mother drinks. These parents +hid their children for eight months, and the educational authorities had +great difficulty in finding them. This child, “a very bright girl,” used +to stay up all night making match boxes, so as to get them taken in by +11 the next morning. She now works, between school times, at capping +sticks. + +Another little girl sews and opens Japanese fish and poultry baskets, +and sews the handles upon string bags; she also sometimes makes the +bags. She does not like the work, because it makes her hands sore and is +hard work. “I can do nearly everything,” this person of thirteen is +reported as saying. + +Employment out of school hours is not of course confined to girls. +Stanley G., aged eleven, works from 5 to 7, wiring tooth brushes, and +can do seven in an hour; 3½d. a dozen is paid for them. The visitor +notes that he had a sore face. + +Alfred D., age 13, Standard 7, helps in making white kid belts, receives +1d. in the dozen, and can do fifteen or sixteen dozen in the week. + +George W., who is thirteen years old, and only in Standard 3, does wood +chopping and dislikes it, because it hurts his hands. His mother “does +frame work,” and his father, looking glasses. + +Thomas P., who is thirteen, and in Standard 5, polishes spindle legs for +a cabinet maker, from 5 to 8 every evening, and from 9 to 2 on +Saturdays. He receives 2s. 6d. a week; and announces that he is going to +be a tobacconist—a calling for which the polishing of furniture legs +hardly seems a valuable preparation. + +Cases like these might be multiplied almost indefinitely. + +“At a recent enquiry during the spring of this year, it was found that +in a Hackney school one-fourth of the girls were engaged in match box +making, steel covering, baby shoe making and fish basket sewing. This +latter work is of a specially disagreeable character, and little girls +often complain that the manipulation of the reeds is a most painful +process. Children working with their parents at home are frequently kept +at their sewing or pasting until ten or eleven o’clock at night. They +are sent to “shop” before coming to school in the morning, and many of +them are never marked for regular attendance. Particularly severe is the +lot of the children of small laundresses, who are often employed, both +in housework and in ironing in a steam laden atmosphere, two or three +nights weekly till ten o’clock, and all day Saturday.”[32] + +Other children are employed by shopkeepers; milk and newspapers are +delivered before and after school, boys are employed by grocers, +greengrocers, &c., to carry out goods, and—sometimes for incredibly long +hours—by barbers. Girls run errands and match stuffs and trimmings. In +the Parliamentary Return obtained from school teachers by Sir John Gorst +in 1899, out of 144,026 children, about 12% were described as engaged in +street trading, exposed inevitably to every inclemency of weather and to +all the hazards of promiscuous companionship, while acquiring habits +that unfit them for regular work later in life. Moreover, the street +seller, juvenile no less than adult, is apt to seek for customers in the +public house. Very few, comparatively, of employed children are engaged +in work that is likely to be of use to them industrially in their +maturer life; and even of those few, some are working under bad +conditions. The Factory Inspectors’ Reports are seldom free from +instances of the overwork of children. In last year’s, for example, +mention is made of boys under thirteen years of age, and even under +twelve, being found, on several occasions, at work in bakehouses. One +boy of twelve, who was found by the inspector clearing ashes from the +oven, before 6 in the morning, had for two or three years been employed, +before school, in delivering rolls, and at the midday break, as well as +after school, in running errands.[33] + +Several children under 13 years of age were found working full time in +brick fields.[34] + +A bad case is noted on p. 99: “A lad of 15, employed in a large tin +works in West Wales, had started work at 6.30 A.M. on a certain Monday +morning and continued working till 6 A.M. on the following Tuesday. +During this period he only left the works for one hour, viz., 5 till 6 +P.M. on Monday, when he went home and took a short rest. He had +therefore worked during the whole twenty-four hours with only about one +hour’s rest.” + +The chief lady Inspector says, on pp. 302–3, “Carrying of jam and of +jam-pots, empty or full, is still done largely by women and girls, and I +have cautioned several occupiers about the weights I have found little +girls lifting. A 40-pound tray is a heavy load for a girl of fourteen, +and the repeated carrying of such trays all day long must have a bad +effect.” + +Nor are jam makers the only employers who offend in this way. Cases have +occurred in “textile factories, the places where one most expects to +find labour-saving methods, but undoubtedly whenever there is a fairly +abundant supply of young, cheap labour, there is less anxiety to +introduce these, and carrying, pushing or pulling heavy weights is one +of the duties of the apprentice in almost every trade. In a cotton +weaving factory in Lancashire I found children and young persons[35] +carrying cloth from the shed to the warehouse in an upper floor. One +bundle was proved to weigh 44 lbs. and another 40 lbs. In a similar +factory, also in Lancashire, I was not able to have weighed any of the +tins of weft which children were found carrying to the looms, but from +the evident effort it was to raise the tin to the shoulder, it was clear +that the weight was too great. In both cases the entire weight was on +one shoulder, and it was pitiful to see the twisted little figures of +the children doing their best to accomplish more than they were +physically fit for.”[36] + +On the same page Miss Martindale speaks of a boy whom she saw in 1903 +carrying a piece of clay “weighing 69 lbs., his own weight being 77 lbs. +During the two years which has elapsed he has hardly grown, and he +informed me that he weighs at the present time 81 lbs., showing an +increase of only four lbs.” + +While it is reported that in Scotland “the half time system has almost +ceased to exist,” there has recently been in some districts of England, +a marked increase in the number of half timers, owing to the unexampled +prosperity of the cotton trade, and the difficulty of satisfying the +demand for labour in that industry. In a good many districts, a half +timer may be as young as twelve years old. + +What the conditions of children’s employment would be, if there were no +Factory Acts, may be guessed by the nature of the first Act of +Parliament passed in their interests. In 1784 certain Manchester +physicians investigated an outbreak of fever. They failed to discover +its primary cause, but reported that “we are decided in our opinion that +the disorder has been supported, diffused and aggravated by the ready +communication of contagion ... and by the injury done to young persons +through confinement and too long continued labour, to which several +evils the cotton mills have given occasion.” They went on to say that +they regarded a longer recess at noon and a shorter working day as +“essential to the present health and future capacity for labour of those +who are under the age of fourteen; for the active recreations of +childhood and youth are necessary to the right growth and conformation +of the human body.” The Manchester magistrates, who had asked for this +report, resolved not to allow in future “indentures of Parish +Apprentices whereby they shall be bound to owners of cotton mills and +other works in which children are obliged to work in the night or more +than ten hours in the day.” + +The condition of these unfortunate pauper children was wretched in the +extreme. They were “sent down from the workhouses of London and other +great towns to any manufacturer who would take them, a small premium +being usually paid as an inducement. There was no system of control or +inspection from outside; the factories were frequently set up in some +remote glen or lonely valley where a waterfall or stream provided cheap +power for the machinery and where the restraint of public opinion and +observation was almost entirely absent. There can be no reasonable doubt +that these unhappy children were often worked almost or entirely to +death by their masters or by their overseers whose interest it was to +work the apprentices to the utmost, their pay being in proportion to the +labour they could extract. Sir Samuel Romilly says in his diary that he +had known cases where the apprentices had been actually murdered by +their masters in order to get fresh premiums with new apprentices.”[37] + +The Act of 1802, the first on this subject, dealt only with apprentices +and only with the textile trades. It limited the hours of work to twelve +a day, forbade night work, and required a modicum of elementary +instruction; moreover it provided for inspection. + +By and by, it became apparent that the evils at which this measure had +been aimed were not confined to any one group of child workers. As late +as 1844, Sir Robert Peel told the House of Commons that in the +potteries, “children worked in a temperature of from 100 to 130, +carrying pieces weighing 3 lbs, and each child carrying two pieces at a +time. The calculation is that the child will carry per day some +thousands of pounds weight. In manufactures other than cotton, work +might sometimes be continued thirteen, fifteen, even seventeen or +eighteen hours consecutively.”[38] + +Nor was there any limit as to the earliness of the age at which a child +might be set to work. About five or six seems to have been a common age +for beginning. I have, myself, been acquainted with a woman of about +eighty years old who told me that as a child of five, when she was too +little to reach the work table and had to stand upon a stool, she was +employed all day long in “running blonde net.” Evidence was brought +forward—exactly as similar evidence is brought forward to-day in +America—to show that it was not really injurious to children of nine +years old and under to be kept working for 14 or 15 hours daily; and, no +doubt, there were persons not in the least inhumane who really thought +so. The best of us are liable to social blindness, and able to see but a +small part of contemporary evils that become plainly visible and +unendurable to succeeding generations. An instance of such blindness, in +the case of the disinterested and open minded Maria Edgeworth, may be +found in the pages of her _Rosamond_—that delightful children’s book too +little known to the modern child. In reading the passage it should be +remembered that the whole Edgeworth family were persons of unusual +enlightenment and benevolence, and that the view presented probably +typifies the bettermost stratum of contemporary sentiment. + +Rosamond, with her parents, goes to visit a cotton mill conducted by “a +very sensible, humane man, who did not think only of how he could get so +much work done for himself, but also how he could preserve the health of +those who worked for him; and how he could make them as comfortable and +happy as possible.” This good employer was in all probability drawn from +some member of the Strutt family. By and by, while the visitors are +resting and eating “cherries, ripe cherries, strawberries and cream,” +provided by “this hospitable gentleman,” Godfrey calls to his parents to +“‘look out of this window.... All the people are going from work. Look +what numbers of children are passing through this great yard!’ + +“The children passed close by the window at which Godfrey and Rosamond +had stationed themselves. Among the little children came some tall girls +and among these there was one, a girl about twelve years old, whose +countenance particularly pleased them. Several of the younger ones were +crowding round her. + +“‘Laura, Laura, look at this girl! What a good countenance she has,’ +said Rosamond, ‘and how fond the little children seem of her!’ + +“‘That is Ellen. She is an excellent girl,’ said the master of the +manufactory, ‘and those little children have good reason to be fond of +her.’” + +He then relates how a good clergyman, who had taught the children and +won their grateful affection, had been appointed to a post elsewhere. + +“‘All the children in the manufactory were sorry that he was going away, +and they wished to do something that should prove to him their respect +and gratitude. + +“‘They considered and consulted among themselves. They had no money, +nothing of their own to give, but their labour; and they agreed that +they would work a certain number of hours beyond their usual time, to +earn money to buy a silver cup, which they might present to him the day +before that appointed for his departure. They were obliged to sit up a +great part of the night to work to earn their shares. Several of the +little children were not able to bear the fatigue and the want of sleep. +For this they were very sorry, and when Ellen saw how sorry they were, +she pitied them, and she did more than pity them. After she had earned +her own share of the money to be subscribed for buying the silver cup, +she sat up every night a certain time to work, to earn the shares of all +these little children. + +“‘Ellen never said anything of her intentions, but went on working +steadily, till she had accomplished her purpose. I used to see her night +after night, and used to fear she would hurt her health, and often +begged her not to labour so hard, but she said, “It does me good, +sir.”’” + +The modern reader will sigh to think of what the admirable Ellen’s +health and strength would probably be at thirty, and will find it +difficult to forgive the complacency of the employer in whose mill she +was permitted so to squander her physical resources. + +In our own country the general development of factory legislation has +gone far towards stopping the overwork of children in mills and +factories; though it is only of late years, and thanks to the exertions +of Mrs Hogg, that the law has begun to attempt the regulation of +children’s labour out of school hours either in their own homes or for +outside employers.[39] + +In the United States, however, where each State is free to make its own +regulations, there is, at this present day, one State (Georgia) in which +the work of children is absolutely unrestricted, and several in which +the practical limitation is extremely small. Children of any age may be, +and actually are, kept at work in the cotton mills of the Southern +States, precisely as they used to be in the mills of Lancashire and +Yorkshire. “Only last year, in North Carolina, the testimony of two +doctors was introduced to show that there was no need from a hygienic +point of view, for a law forbidding girls under fourteen to stand at +their work for twelve hours a day, or for boys or girls under fourteen +to work a twelve-hour night.”[40] + +Boys of twelve may still legally work in the coal mines of Kansas and in +all mines in Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina; and do so work. “No +colliery has been visited in which children have not been found employed +at ages prohibited by the law of the State.”[41] + +In some American glass bottle works, quite small boys are kept running +to and fro with loads of hot glass all through the day or the night as +the case may be. Mrs Kelley, reporting personal visits of inspection, +says that she found it impossible to get from any boy “a consecutive +statement as to his name, address or parentage. A boy would say, ‘My +name is Jimmie’; and then trot to the cooling oven with his load of +bottles; and returning would say, in answer to a fresh question, ‘I live +in a shanty boat,’ then trot to the moulder for another load of bottles; +and returning say, ‘I’m going to be eight next summer,’ and so on. Among +twenty-four lads questioned during one night inspection, not one +ventured to pause long enough to put together two of the foregoing +statements.”[42] + +“There was no restriction upon night work and pitifully little children +were found at work at two o’clock in the morning.”[43] + +Some of these children are directly imported—as the little serfs in +English cotton mills often were—from other districts; and in these +States of America, as in England once, not only ruthless employers but +worthless adults of their own class, parents and others, make profits +out of the toil of half grown children. + +“A worn out and dissolute glass blower, who had a pension of $8 a month +and five children under the age of fourteen years had recently married a +widow with six children under fifteen years. Father, mother and the +eleven children were living in a tent between the river and the works +where several of the children were employed, some by night and some by +day, so that the beds in the tent were used by different children, one +set rising to go to work when the others returned to sleep.”[44] + +Upon the future of these poor children the effect of this early toil is +most injurious. Physically, mentally and morally, the children—the +citizens of the next generation—are damaged. + +Significant is the remark of a mother quoted in one of the articles in +_Child Labor_: “‘When Charley works on the night shift, he hasn’t any +appetite.’” (p. 303.) + +Doubtless the half timers in a good English mill are examples of +children working under the best of existing conditions; and +manufacturers are fond of assuring us how good these conditions are. Yet +I shall never forget the painful impression made upon myself by the +peculiar mixture of pallor and eagerness on the faces of the little half +timers, the first time that I went over a weaving mill. The working +place was light and airy, and the situation, just outside a healthy +Northern town, was admirable; the work was not physically hard, and the +management, as I was assured by a trustworthy witness, who was himself +at work there, considerate. He, for his part, seemed unaware that the +children looked ill. Incidentally, however, he mentioned that a large +proportion of his fellow workers drank; and I felt that it would be +interesting to know how many of them had been half timers, and whether +early exhaustion might not lie at the root of their intemperance. As to +the children, I am quite sure that any London doctor, or any woman +accustomed to the care of children, would have thought their appearance +unhealthy and their expression of face abnormal. + +Evidence more valuable than any untrained observer’s impression is on +record in regard to London school children. Dr Thomas, assistant Medical +Officer of Health to the London County Council, in investigating the +physical condition of 2000 school children, in 14 different schools, +gave special attention to 384 wage earners among the boys. “Of this +number 233 showed signs of fatigue, 140 were proved to be anæmic, 131 +had severe nerve signs, 64 were suffering from deformities resulting +from the carrying of heavy weights, and 51 had severe heart signs. +Barbers’ boys were found to suffer most in physique, 72 per cent being +anæmic, 63 per cent showing severe nerve strain, and 27 per cent severe +heart affection.”[45] + +Before the Inter-Departmental Committee on the employment of school +children, appointed in 1901, evidence was given by Alderman Watts, of +Manchester, of the abnormal death-rate among children in industrial +schools, many of whom had drifted thither from the streets; and in 1904 +Sir Lambert Ormsby, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, of +Dublin, gave to the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical +Deterioration, particulars of the miserable physique of the little +street sellers and of the many cases of pneumonia among them which had +been brought to his notice in the children’s hospitals.[46] + +In July 1905, when an inquiry was held by the Home Office into the +Bye-laws for the Employment of Children proposed by the London County +Council, Mr Marshall Jackman, of the Michael Faraday School, Walworth, +gave evidence that, out of 227 boys in that school, 27 were at work of +whom 13 were employed more than eight hours a day, and 13 after nine +o’clock at night. All except six were in poor health. One had broken +down altogether; one had a weak circulation; one had fainted in school +during the previous week; yet another had a defective circulation. In +one single week, nine boys who worked out of school hours were taken ill +in school, were obliged to leave the class and suspend lessons for the +rest of the afternoon.[47] + +Very similar evidence may be found in the pages of Mrs Kelley’s volume, +in those of _Child Labor_, and in the Report of the American Consumers’ +League. On p. 297 of _Child Labor_ appears the following paragraph which +should make every British reader thankful for the comparative stringency +of our own Factory Acts: “A recent study of the reports of factory +inspectors in several of our industrial States shows a remarkable +uniformity in the percentage of accidents. We find in the textile mills, +foundries and iron mills, glass houses and machine shops employing +children that, in proportion to the number of children employed, +accidents to children under sixteen years of age are from 250 to 300% +more frequent than to adults.” + +Educationally, the results of early industrial labour are naturally +disastrous. “In none of the great Southern States,” writes Mrs Kelley, +“in which young children are employed in manufacture are 80% of the +children between 10 and 14 years of age able to read and write.”[48] + +At the Home Office enquiry, Mr Marshall Jackman stated that although the +boys who worked out of school hours were of more than average mental +capacity, they were more than twelve months behind the average of the +whole school in educational standing, and moreover were low down even in +their lower classes. Of the 27 boys in his school who were employed, +eleven were one standard below the average, two, two standards below; +four, three standards below; and one, four standards below the general +average. + +A report prepared in 1901 for the Scottish Council for Women’s Trades +gives the opinions of 14 head masters, who are practically unanimous as +to the detrimental effect upon the children’s progress of long hours of +work out of school. No. 3 says: “I consider this exploiting of children +is one of the greatest crimes against the children themselves, and the +greatest possible hindrance to their education.” No. 6 thinks “there can +be no doubt that children who have such long spells of employment are +heavily handicapped”; and No. 7 says: “There is no doubt whatever that +these long hours stand very much in the way of educational progress.” +“Message running,” says No. 14, “certainly tends to sharpen intelligence +of a superficial kind but weakens the power of sustained attention and +vigorous mental work in school.”[49] + +When we remember that the Inter-Departmental Committee on the employment +of school children—a cautious official body—estimated the _minimum_ +number of school children employed in the United Kingdom at 200,000, and +that there is no reason to suppose that number materially lessened, we +perceive that the deterioration of national education from this cause +alone must be by no means trifling. + +Of moral injury, especially from street selling, there is abundant +evidence, both in our own country and in the United States. The +committee of 1901 received a statement from the Town Clerk of Newcastle +on Tyne that children had been found in the streets afraid to go home, +lest they should be punished for not bringing in enough money. The +children often, in consequence, slept out, gambled or stole, the girls +sinking lower yet in order to procure sufficient money to take home. The +number of such children he reported to have increased greatly of late +years, and many of them were, he feared, on the threshold of a life of +vice and crime. The Chief Constable of Manchester presented a list of 16 +women known as degraded characters, who had formerly been street +sellers. The Chief Constable of Birmingham produced tables showing that +of 713 children engaged in street trading during July 1901, 458 had been +prosecuted for various offences during the previous six months. 163 of +the number were girls.[50] + +Boys in American glass works are almost proverbially ill conducted. One +manufacturer, in Ohio, said, in answer to an appeal for the education of +the boys: “You can’t do anything for them. The little devils are vicious +from their birth.” Statements of the same kind used to be made about the +poor little victims in the English mills but it is not observed that the +modern half timer, whose hours and health are protected by law, is any +more vicious than other children. The principal of a Pennsylvanian +school sets the corruption of the boys at a much later date than +infancy. He says: “‘My observation is that when a boy leaves school and +goes into the factory at twelve or thirteen, by the time he is fifteen +or sixteen he is too foul-mouthed to associate with decent people.’”[51] + +Street occupations on the farther as on the hither side of the Atlantic +are shown to form an easy avenue to worse things. “Although the street +trades in Washington engage only one-fourth of the total number of +children engaged in all occupations, yet of the number of children under +15 who have gone to the reform school, or who have been turned over by +the courts to the care of the probation officers, over two-thirds have +come from the ranks of the children engaged in the street trades.”[52] + +“A judge told the writer that one-third of all the delinquent boys +brought before him had at one time or another served the public as +messenger boys.”[53] + +Nor are those children of school age who go to work often found to be +acquiring any sort of technical training or industrial skill. On the +contrary, indeed; their employment is almost always of a kind that +rather unfits them than prepares them to become industrially efficient. +Sadly true are the words written by Mrs Kelley out of prolonged and wide +experience. “The State which accepts the plea of poverty and permits the +children of the poorest citizens to labour prematurely, accepts the +heritage of new poverty flowing from two sources; namely, on the one +hand, the relaxed efforts of fathers of families to provide for them, +and on the other hand the corruption of weak children by inappropriate +occupations which involve temptations beyond the child’s power of +resistance and the exhaustion of strong children by overwork. It is +exactly the most conscientious and promising children who are worked +into the grave or into nervous prostration, or into that saddest state +of all, the moral fatigue which enables a man to sit idly about for +years while his wife or his sister or his children support him.”[54] + +Thus the employment of the young which is generally regarded as a result +of poverty is really one of the causes of poverty, and that for several +reasons. It tends to lower the wages of the adult worker and tends to +make the family, instead of the father, the industrial unit; it +diminishes the adult working power of the child itself,[55] and it also +retards the progress of every trade in which it occurs, for as Mr +Schoenhof says: “The cheapness of human labour where it prevails is the +greatest incentive for the perpetuation of obsolete methods.”[56] + +Thus, in every respect, the industrial employment of children is an +injury to the community; and it is more than possible (I am not +recommending the course as a practicable one) that, in the long run, the +nation would save money by undertaking the whole support and education +up to the age of sixteen of every child who now works for wages. Short +of this extreme measure, however, there is little doubt that, except for +the fear lest hardships might be intensified, public opinion is ready +for far more stringent limitation of child labour. If it were known that +the wages of parents were, even approximately, adequate (as they would +be under a Minimum Wage Law) most of the objections now made to the +restriction of child labour would die away. That fact alone is no +inconsiderable argument in favour of a Minimum Wage Law. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + SUMMARY + + Home work—Factory work—The working girl—Her manners, virtues and + code of honour—The woman into whom she developes—Shop + assistants—Traffic workers—Children—“Sweated” workers often + producing high priced goods—Not drunken—Not idle—Not + unskilful—Men as helpless, economically, as women—Sweating an + invariable accompaniment of unregulated labour. + + +The preceding chapters do not profess to give anything like a general +survey of the whole field of British labour. It has seemed wise for many +reasons to confine myself to aspects with which I am, in a greater or +less degree, personally familiar; and therefore the work of women, and +of London women especially, looms rather large. But I hope that I have +shown, by a sufficient range of instances, certain general truths. In +trade after trade, men, women and children are exhibited working in the +conditions which are indicated, comprehensively but vaguely, by the term +“sweating.” We have seen the dwelling of the home worker robbed of every +feature that makes a home, its narrow space littered with match boxes, +or with shirts or trousers or paper-bags—in any case transformed into +one of the most comfortless of workshops. In some homes the rattle of +the sewing machine forms a ceaseless accompaniment to the whole course +of family life; in others, meals, such as they are, are eaten in the +immediate neighbourhood of the glue pot or the paste pot; the smell of +new cloth, the dust and fluff of flannelette pervade the room of the +“finisher”; damp paper-bags or damp cardboard boxes lie piled on beds; +home, parents and children are all subservient to unintermittent and +most unremunerative labour. + +One step, but only one step, higher comes the factory “hand.” We have +seen girls filling pots with boiling jam, carrying to and fro heavy +trays and stacking these trays in piles, two together raising, sometimes +to above the height of their own heads, trays some of which weigh well +over half a hundredweight. We have seen them, even when their work was +not in itself heavy, worn out by the rapidity with which they repeat +endlessly, day after day, and week after week, operations of mechanical +monotony. Some glimpse has been given of those horrible intervals in +which the semistarvation of “full work” gives place to the acute +privation of “slack time.” The dangers, discomforts, hardships and +exactions that must be borne if an employer chooses to inflict them, +have been indicated, though but very inadequately; and the example of +laundries and jam factories has served to suggest how far worse yet +would be the conditions of factory operatives if the law did not +intervene for their protection. + +One thing I have not succeeded in picturing—and it is the thing which +seems to me perhaps the most terrible of all: the change of the working +girl into the working woman. I have not drawn the factory girl as I have +known her and delighted in her, gay to “cheekiness,” staunchly loyal, +wonderfully uncomplaining, wonderfully ready to make allowances for “the +governor” as long as he speaks her fair and shows consideration in +trifles, but equally resolute to “pay him out,” when once she is +convinced of his meanness or spitefulness. Her language is devoid, to a +degree remarkable even in our undemonstrative race, of any tenderness or +emotion. She accepts an invitation with the ungracious formula: “I don’t +mind if I do.” Upon the “mate” of her own sex, to whom she is so much +more warmly devoted than to her “chap,” she never bestows a word of +endearment. “Hi, ‘Liza, d’y’ think I’m going to wait all night for you?” +is the tone of her address to the friend with whom she will share her +last penny or for whom she will pawn her last item of pawnable property. +She speaks roughly to her relatives and aggressively to the world at +large; she is no respecter of persons, and her eye for affectation or +insincerity is unerring. Condescend to her and she will “chaff” you off +the field. But meet her on equal terms, help her without attempting to +“boss” her, and within a month or two you will have won her unalterable +allegiance; her face will light up at your coming; she will bear the +plainest speech from you, and on occasion of emergency will obey +implicitly your every command. Nor is she lacking in the fundamental +parts of politeness. Here is an instance. Years ago, in the days when +some of us still believed in the possibility of organising unskilled +women, a member of the Dockers’ Union sent me word that I should find it +possible to walk at dinner time straight into the dining-room of a +certain factory and talk to the workers undisturbed, since at that hour +both the foreman and the porter went home to their own meals. I went, +accordingly, though I confess that I felt myself very much of a +trespasser. As I mounted the extremely grimy stair to the dining-room, I +heard the loud voices of the girls. Their language was singularly vile. +It did not, no doubt, mean very much to them; they used horrible words +as the young of another class use slang. I went in and said my little +say. After the first few words, most of them listened; several asked +questions; a certain amount of conversation continued to go on. But +while I was in the room—and, remember, I was a complete stranger to all +of them—not one word was spoken which I could justly have felt to be +offensive. I distributed my handbills, told them I hoped they would come +to the meeting, and departed. As I went downstairs, I heard them +relapsing into their hideous vernacular. But I could not help reflecting +that they had shown the essence of good manners; and also that, if the +literature of the eighteenth century is to be trusted, the same form of +good manners was far from being universal among those swearing country +gentlemen who were the great grandfathers of our smooth spoken +generation.[57] + +The factory girl’s code of honour is curiously like that of the school +boy. In no circumstances will she denounce a companion. To the governor +or to the forewoman she will lie freely if occasion demands. To those +whom she recognises as allies, she is truth itself. I do not recall one +single instance, in disputes between workers and employers, in which the +tale told by working girls has not been proved true in every detail. +With employers, I am sorry to say, this has often been by no means the +case. Two qualities, in particular, mark the factory girl of from +sixteen to twenty: her exuberant spirits and energy, and the invariable +improvement in manner and language that follows upon any sort of +amelioration in her position. To watch the rapid development of +refinement and gentleness consequent upon joining a good club is to feel +how sound is the national character and how lamentable the yearly waste +of admirable human material. + +A few years pass, a very few, and these bright girls become apathetic, +listless women of whom at 35 it is impossible to guess whether their age +is 40 or 50. They are tired out; they toil on, but they have ceased to +look forward or to entertain any hopes. The contrast between the factory +girl and her mother is perhaps the very saddest spectacle that the +labour world presents. To be the wife of a casual labourer, the mother +of many children, living always in too small a space and always in a +noise, is an existence that makes of too many women, in what ought to be +the prime of their lives, mere machines of toil, going on from day to +day, with as little hope and as little happiness as the sewing machine +that furnishes one item in their permanent weariness. + +We ascend another step and come to the shop assistants, the clerks and +the waitresses in restaurants. We find that these dapper young men and +trim young women whose hands and faces are so much cleaner and whose +speech and manners are so much smoother than those of the factory +worker, are scarcely better off in the matter of pay, and often +absolutely worse off in the matter of working conditions. The factory +worker is at least free after the factory closes, and, except in +laundries, the law generally succeeds in bringing down the hours of work +to something near a reasonable limit. + +But the shop assistant is subject to rule during practically the whole +of his or her working life; food, companions, dress, sleeping +arrangements, hours of going to bed and of getting up, nay, the very +medical man to be consulted in case of illness are thrust upon him +without any choice of his own. The privilege, so dear to the natural +man, of wearing an old coat and old slippers in the hours of relaxation, +is not for the shop assistant; nor the modern diversion of experimenting +with new and strange foods, nor the right of voting at elections, either +municipal or parliamentary. The position combines, in short, the +disagreeables of boarding school with those of domestic service, while +failing to offer the pleasant features of either. It is indeed a moot +point in my own mind whether it is not worse to be a shop assistant than +a home worker, supposing the home worker to be a single woman. +Personally, I would rather make cardboard boxes in silence and solitude, +and buy for myself my own inferior bread and cheap tea. + +Chapter IV. brings us to the case of workers who are all men, who are +engaged in a most necessary public service and employed for the most +part by rich companies paying high dividends. Here the inexperienced +would expect to find high wages and good conditions prevailing. In fact, +however, we find, in the case of railway servants, that the hours of +work imposed were so excessive as to constitute a public danger and to +demand the intervention of the law. The drivers and conductors of trams +and omnibuses have been shown to be in a large measure enslaved by the +companies for which they work, their hours often cruelly long, their pay +often reduced from a decent nominal to a quite inadequate actual wage, +their conditions of work, in many cases, singularly oppressive and their +liberty of passing into fresh employment, although not so completely +barred as the railway servant’s, yet very seriously hampered and +restricted. In short we behold a body of grown men, skilled and of good +character, almost as unable as the isolated home worker to defend +themselves against a strong and tyrannical employer. + +Last of all, we come to the children. In these days we are continually +talking in tones of alarm about a declining birth rate and are at last +seriously considering how to check the appalling infant mortality that +makes an annual massacre of the innocents; but most of us are still very +little awake to the sacrifice of childhood that is daily being made in +our midst. We pass a pale child in the street, carrying a long bundle in +a black wrapper, and the sight makes no impression. But, to those of us +who have seen the under side of London, that little figure is a type of +unremunerative toil, of stunted growth, of weakened vitality and of +wasted school teaching: an example of that most cruel form of +improvidence described by the French proverb as “eating our wheat as +grass.” Labour in childhood inevitably means, in nine cases out of ten, +decadence in early manhood or womanhood; and the prevalence of it among +ourselves is perhaps the most serious of national dangers. There is +probably no branch of home work in which child labour is not involved, +and but very few branches of retail trade. Our milk, our newspapers, our +greengrocery are brought to us by small boys; young boys are out at all +hours and in all weathers with parcel-delivering vans; and many and many +a perambulator is pushed by a small girl whose chin is on a level with +the handle. If, in 1901, there were, as the Interdepartmental Committee +declared, _at least_ 200,000 school children working for wages, and if, +as seems practically certain, the number is larger now, can we wonder +that so many grown up workers have remained inefficient, incompetent and +listless? We cannot have grain, if we choose to eat the wheat in the +blade. + +We see, then, that large bodies of British workpeople are, in these +early years of the twentieth century, extremely overworked and +underpaid. These evils are not, as is so often declared, a result of +cheap selling. One of the worst examples of underpayment in the Sweated +Industries Exhibition was a lady’s combination garment, of nainsook, the +selling price of which was 22s.; and much of the work produced by the +underpaid is sold at a good price to the well-to-do. On the other hand, +under a well organised factory system, goods that are sold at a very low +price are sometimes produced by workers receiving comparatively high +wages. Nor is it true that any large proportion of these ill paid +workers are either drunken or idle, or yet incompetent. Incompetent, +indeed, they eventually become, if they are starved, physically and +mentally, for a long enough period; but many of them remain competent +for a surprising number of years. Very many of them are pathetically +industrious, and by no means all are unskilled. Neither my reader nor I, +for instance, could cover a racquet ball so that it would pass muster +when inspected by the paymaster; it is improbable that either of us +could cover an umbrella, and pretty certain that neither could make a +passable artificial rose of even the poorest description. The driver of +a motor omnibus is—in theory at least, and often in practice—a highly +skilled mechanic; but his skill does not enable him (his trade union +being still comparatively young and weak) to retain his freedom of +action nor to resist the most exhausting and harassing conditions of +labour. + +The evil is thus not confined to women, nor to home workers, nor to any +class or trade. Nor is it confined to any one country. Nearly every +instance quoted could be matched from Germany and from America. +“Sweating,” in short, invariably tends to appear wherever and whenever +industry is not either highly organised or else stringently regulated by +law. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + HOW UNDERPAYMENT COMES + + A shirtmaker’s story—The “higgling of the market” as seen at the + factory gate—Mr Booth’s percentage of poverty—Mr Rowntree’s—The + living wage in America—How wages are determined—By relative + needs—Not by efficiency—Mr Bosanquet’s fundamental + fallacy—Ambiguity of word “earn”—Effect upon the poor of the + pressure of the poorer—Efficiency only of pecuniary value while + rare—Not inefficiency but poverty the real disease. + + +More than seventeen years ago I sat in the neat but poverty stricken +room of a most respectable family and listened to the pathetic, +uncomplaining words of an admirable woman who, together with her sister, +had, for years, helped to support an early widowed sister-in-law and her +three children. All three women worked at home at shirtmaking, and this +one of the aunts had certainly gone short of food. It was not she who +told me of her good deeds. She was showing me, at my request, the shirts +that they were at that time making for a payment of 1s. 2d. a dozen. I +continue in the words of my own report, written immediately afterwards. + +“These shirts are of fair average quality and are striped in gay +colours. They have to be fetched ready cut out but not folded; all the +sewing has to be done to them, including a square of lining at the back +of the neck but not the button holes.... ‘Has the price gone down much?’ +I asked. ‘Oh, yes’ said Miss Y.; ‘my sister and I used to get sixpence +apiece. But that was for rather better shirts than these. We worked for +B.’s then. One day my sister was there, waiting for the work, and a +gentleman came in and said to Mr B., “I’ll take the whole lot at 4s. 6d. +a dozen”; and Mr B. said to my sister: “Miss Y., will you take the work +at that, or must I give it all to this gentleman?” And my sister +thought, if we stood out for the price, they would come round to us, and +she said, “No,” she would not take it, and so he gave it to the +gentleman and we were thrown out; and instead of coming round to +sixpence again, that work has gone down to 2s. 6d. a dozen, and even +lower than that. I know of people who do the very cheapest cotton shirts +at 9d. or even 7d. a dozen.’” + +Miss Y.’s little story is the story of work in hundreds—nay in +thousands—of work places. Sometimes it is at the factory gate that the +cheapening process goes on. Towards the end of those bitter weeks, “the +slack time,” there will be scores of factory girls, pale and pinched +under their shabby feathered hats, going from firm to firm and asking +whether hands are wanted. At last word will go round that X.’s are +“taking on” on Monday morning. Before the opening hour on Monday +morning, the entrance to Mr X.’s factory will look like the pit door of +a popular theatre. Often have I heard girls describe the dialogue that +follows. + +“The foreman says to a young girl in front of me: ‘What wages do you +want?’ And she says: ‘Eight shillings.’ And he told her: ‘No, she could +go.’ So when he come to me, I knew it was no good to say, ‘Eight’; so I +said: ‘Seven and six.’” + +At seven and sixpence, perhaps, she gets taken on; and when, presently, +the slack time comes again, the girls weeded out, to be first +discharged, are those who have been receiving eight shillings weekly +ever since their engagement in the previous season. Seven shillings and +sixpence a week (translated or not, according to the custom of the +factory, into terms of piece work) now becomes the usual wage; and next +season this descends by another sixpence or another shilling. + +Below six shillings or five shillings, an employer or foreman seldom +tries to drive the time wage, even of girls, unless, indeed, he can +salve his conscience by regarding them as learners. Yet I have known a +wealthy employer admit without any signs of compunction, both that +certain girls in his employ were paid four shillings a week, and that +they could not live on that sum. + +The home worker, when he thus suffers diminution of an already +insufficient wage, tries to increase output by setting his children to +work. + +“The same pressure that leads to the employment of the children +presently leads, in a slack time, to the acceptance of yet lower pay for +the sake of securing work. The poorer the worker the less possible is +any resistance to any reduction in pay. Thus, by and by, mother and +children, working together, come to receive no more than did the mother +working alone. The employer—and eventually in all probability the +public—has in fact obtained the labour of the children without extra +payment. To such an extent has this process been carried that in the +worst paid branches of home work, subsistence becomes almost impossible +unless the work of children is called in.”[58] + +It is thus true that, economically, a man’s enemies are those of his own +household; and that, wherever workers are not protected by organisation +or by special laws, the wage, first of the individual and then of the +family, tends to be brought down to the lowest possible level of +subsistence, and even, possibly if a poor-law subsidy can be obtained, +below it. It is not by chance, nor because their work is of little +value, nor because they are contented to take little pay, that all these +many households of workers are living lives so cruelly straitened by +poverty. Nor is it a mere effect of chance that in other countries as +well as in our own, national wealth is beheld increasing side by side +with extreme poverty on the part of those citizens who toil most +incessantly. + +In our own country, the investigations of Mr Charles Booth and of Mr +Seebohm Rowntree, carried out independently and on slightly differing +methods, the one in London, the other in York, have resulted in figures +strikingly similar. Mr Booth puts the proportion living in poverty, of +the whole population of London, at 30·7%; Mr Rowntree, that of the whole +population of York, at 27·84%.[59] + +In America the same problem has received the attention of various +careful enquirers, the most recent of whom, perhaps, is Father Ryan, +Professor of ethics and economics in the St Paul Seminary, +Minnesota.[60] + +In this volume may be found a careful estimate of the figure that may be +taken as affording a “living wage” in different parts of the United +States. Professor Albion Small, head of the Department of Sociology at +the University of Chicago, is quoted as having said “a few years ago” +that “No man can live, bring up a family, and enjoy the ordinary human +happiness on a wage of less than one thousand dollars a year” +(£200).[61] + +Mr John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Workers, says, in a +passage quoted by Professor Ryan: “In cities of from five thousand to +one hundred thousand inhabitants, the American standard of living should +mean, to the ordinary unskilled workman with an average family, a +comfortable house of at least six rooms. It should mean a bathroom, good +sanitary plumbing, a parlour, dining-room, kitchen and sufficient +sleeping room that decency may be preserved and a reasonable degree of +comfort maintained. The American standard of living should mean, to the +unskilled workman, carpets, pictures, books and furniture with which to +make his home bright, comfortable and attractive for himself and his +family, an ample supply of clothing suitable for winter and summer and +above all a sufficient quantity of good, wholesome, nourishing food at +all times of the year. The American standard, moreover, should mean to +the unskilled workman that his children should be kept at school until +they have attained the age of sixteen at least, and that he is enabled +to lay by sufficient to maintain himself and his family in times of +illness or at the close of his industrial life, when age and weakness +render further work impossible, and to make provision for his family +against premature death from accident or otherwise.”[62] + +The minimum wage upon which a family could be supported, in towns of the +size named, was estimated by Mr Mitchell in 1903 at $600 a year (£120). +In larger cities the cost would, he considered, be higher. Professor +Ryan is, no doubt, right in saying that “the irreducible minimum of +necessaries and comforts” could not “now” (he was writing in October +1905) be obtained in any city of the United States for less than $600, +and that though that sum might be “_possibly_ a Living Wage in the +moderately sized cities of the West, North and East ... in some of the +largest cities of the last-named regions, it is certainly _not_ a Living +Wage.”[63] + +Having established this figure for annual income Professor Ryan goes out +to enquire into its actual prevalence and from various official reports +and statistics draws the conclusion that, “the number of male adults +receiving less than $12.50 (£2, 10s.) per week, in 34 manufacturing +industries was, in 1890, 66%, and, in 1900, 64%.[64] + +And it must be remembered that in America as in England there are few +manufacturing industries in which wage earners are in full work +throughout the year. + +Thus it appears that, in the two great English speaking empires, a +considerable proportion, even of the upper working classes, do not +receive remuneration that allows to them and to their families that +minimum of space, food, clothing and recreation which at the present day +are esteemed essential to civilised life. + +The reason of this state of things is a fairly simple one. Wages, in a +state of free competition, are determined not by the intrinsic cost of +the work performed but by the relative needs of the worker to sell and +of the paymaster to buy. Where there are many workers able to offer the +same service and comparatively few buyers, the work will be paid for at +a low rate, however excellent; where would-be buyers’ workers are few +and would-be buyers many, the work will be highly paid, however ill +done. Among ourselves the numbers competing for manual work are very +large, and the need of each particular workman for employment far +greater and more pressing than the need of any employer for any +particular man. Consequently, the wages of the manual worker are low in +proportion to the cost of livelihood; and the individual worker is +absolutely powerless by himself to increase them. + +These facts are so familiar, and, when definitely stated, so universally +admitted, that it almost seems necessary to apologise for reiterating +them. Yet they are continually ignored by ordinary middle class people +in conversing upon labour questions, and not infrequently even by +writers of some standing. Categorically, they are not—and doubtless +would not be—denied; but whole volumes are founded upon the basis of +their falsity. The entire constructive argument, for instance, of Mrs +Bosanquet’s “The Strength of the People,” a book which, having gone into +a second edition, may be supposed to have influenced a good many +readers, rests upon a tacit assumption that payment is determined by +quality of work: an assumption masked by the ambiguous character of the +word “earn,” which at one moment is used in the sense of “deserve” and +at another in the sense of “receive.” Mrs Bosanquet—except indeed when +dealing with the old Poor Law—cheerfully ignores the painful law that +wages are determined by the conflict of needs, and writes, throughout, +as though the manual worker who does good work were sure of being well +paid. From this assumption she goes on, very logically, to suppose that +the cure for a man’s poverty is to make him do good work. Many persons +who are not themselves exposed to the pinch of competition may be found +expressing the same view, which obtains apparent support from the fact +that the very ill paid are observed not to be producing good work. For, +although it is unfortunately not true that good work always “earns” good +wages, it is true that bad pay, sooner or later, but quite inevitably +leads to bad work. Without a certain modicum of food, comfort, good +clothing, leisure and ease of mind, no human being long remains capable +of producing good work. The father of a family who receives 18s. a week +and pays 7s. for lodging cannot, if he also feeds his wife and children, +either remain or become a very good workman. Before he can do better +work he must be better paid. + +Mrs Bosanquet thinks otherwise. Efficiency and consequently prosperity +might, she appears to believe, be enforced upon the poor by the +withdrawal of such help as is now accorded them. The prospect of that +beloved refuge, the workhouse, prevents them from providing for their +old age; but the prospect of literal starvation would probably be more +effective. The hunger and hardship of their daily lives do not furnish +an adequate spur; but perhaps despair might do so. We seem to hear Mrs +Chick exhorting the dying Mrs Dombey to “make an effort.” + +Again, that terrible pressure of the poorer upon the poor which Mr Booth +regards as so serious an evil appears to Mrs Bosanquet an element of +hope and strength. Morally, the charity of the poor to one another is +undoubtedly a beautiful thing; economically, it is assuredly one of the +causes that increase and aggravate poverty; and such diminution of +pauperism as is produced by the maintenance out of the workhouse of an +aged or sick relative may, in the long run, lead to the destitution of a +whole family. The last result of such maintenance may, if wide-spread, +be far more nationally expensive than if all the sick and aged were +supported out of the public purse. + +Let us see, in an example of the commonest kind, how this mutual help +works out. Smith and Brown, manual labourers, are working side by side +at a wage of £1 a week or thereabouts. Both are married men with +children. Both are contributing to a provident society which, if they +survive the age of sixty, will furnish a small pittance to their +declining years. Slack times come; Smith is discharged; Brown is +retained. Within a fortnight, Smith, with his wife and children, begins +to suffer hardship; the household property goes, piecemeal, to the +pawnshop; the “club money” is no longer forthcoming, and Smith’s +provision for his old age lapses. Brown, whose pound a week affords, as +may be supposed, no great superfluity for him and his, finds himself +unable to see his “mate” and his mate’s children in want of bread; +Brown’s club money and a good deal more which can ill be spared goes to +their assistance, and Brown’s provision for old age lapses. + +The Smith family, it is true, has been kept from the workhouse—at the +cost, not improbably, of some weakly little Smith’s life—but has not +this result been bought too dear? Do not justice and good sense alike +suggest the unfitness of leaving the burden of maintaining the Smith +family to rest upon precisely that class of the community which is least +able to support it? The maintenance of those who cannot maintain +themselves by those who can barely maintain themselves keeps both groups +upon a dead level of destitution. If our aim is really the strengthening +of the people we must not begin by increasing the burdens of the +weakest—burdens borne often at so cruel a sacrifice of health and life, +and with so amazing an absence of complaint. The Smith family and the +Brown family alike are suffering because their income is barely adequate +to their elementary current needs; and their troubles will only be cured +by the possession of a larger real income. This, indeed, Mrs Bosanquet +sees plainly enough. “How can we bring it about,” she asks, “that they” +(_i.e._ “those whom we may call the very poor”) “shall have a +permanently greater command over the necessaries and luxuries of life?” +Gifts she perceives to be no true remedy, though she fails to assign the +economic reason, which is that the possession of outside resources +enables the recipient to “go one lower” than his unendowed competitor in +the battle for employment. The same objection does not apply to the +workhouse, which withdraws the pauper from the battle altogether, but it +does apply to outdoor relief, and is the one valid economic argument +against it. The best charity—as Dr Johnson long ago pointed out—indeed, +the only effectual charity, is to set a man to work at good wages. This +is not, however, Mrs Bosanquet’s plan. “The less obvious, but more +effective remedy is to approach the problem by striking at its roots in +the minds of the people themselves; to stimulate their energies, to +insist upon their responsibilities, to train their faculties. In short, +to make them efficient.”[65] + +Unfortunately the ill-nourished, ill clothed and ill taught cannot be +made efficient. Moreover if we could make every one of them efficient, +they would be no better off, financially in their efficient state than +they are now, in their incompetence.[66] While rare, efficiency, like a +tenor voice, commands a monopoly price; if universal, its money worth +would be no higher than that of the ability to read, which in the Middle +Ages was a commercial asset of value. Furthermore, since extreme poverty +destroys efficiency, these ill paid efficient persons would presently +become, like our poorer manual labourers of to-day, weak of brain and of +body, dull, languid, inert and therefore bad workers. + +Thus efficiency, however desirable upon other grounds, is no economic +remedy for underpayment. Not inefficiency but poverty is the real +disease, and since poverty is an inevitable result of unlimited +competition in labour, the disease can only be cured by some +interference with the free course of competition. How to apply such +interference effectually is the real problem which organised society has +to solve. Towards its solution Mrs Bosanquet, able though she is, offers +no assistance, because she never acknowledges the character of the +problem. For her there are only inefficient people to be taught better, +not underpaid people to be paid better. In this respect she represents a +considerable school of thought and therefore it has seemed worth while +to examine her thesis at some length; especially since any writer is +pretty sure of welcome who preaches a doctrine so soothing to the +general conscience. Much sympathetic distress would be spared to all of +us, and much racking of anxious brains to a few, if it were but possible +to believe with Mrs Bosanquet that the poor are themselves the +architects of their own poverty and that they must themselves be its +physicians. Unfortunately this is not the case. The process of +cheapening described above is, in a state of unlimited competition, +absolutely inevitable; and neither talent nor industry can exempt from +it any isolated worker whose qualifications do not create for him some +sort of monopoly. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + LABOUR AS A COMMODITY + + What is a “fair wage”—Two meanings of “worth”—What work costs to the + worker—Work done below cost price—How the worker may lose upon his + work—The effect upon commodities in general of free + competition—The effect upon labour—The robber employer—Eventual + powerlessness of the single employer—Cost to the nation of the + underpaid worker—Difference in essence between labour and other + commodities—Ambiguity of word “law”—Recognition of the true cost + of labour the basis of reform. + + +There are few phrases more current than those which include the +expression “a fair wage.” All workers conceive that they have a right to +it; and I never met an employer who did not maintain that he paid +it—although I have met more than one who admitted that his “fair wage” +was one upon which the worker who received it could not live. To any +enquirer venturing to point out this peculiarity, the reply is given: +“But the work is not worth more,” and the reply generally silences the +enquirer for the moment—whereby the employer comes to believe it +unanswerable. + +In the enquirer’s mind two questions eventually arise: “Can a wage be +fair upon which the worker cannot live?” and: “Has labour a worth +measurable otherwise than by the market price?” + +We begin presently to perceive that there are two faces to that word +“worth”; that it represents sometimes the price to the buyer and +sometimes the cost to the worker. The price to the buyer—the “worth” of +the work in the answer quoted above—is neither more nor less than its +market price, or, in other words, the price brought about by the balance +of competition between those who want to buy labour and those who want +to sell it. This price is regulated solely by the numbers competing on +either hand and by their greater or less degree of combined action. But +the cost of work to the worker is the expenditure of energy which he has +made upon it. Every hour’s work of a man or woman takes out of that man +or that woman a certain fixed amount of strength, of energy,—in short, a +certain amount of life. When we work, we spend, literally, something of +our substance. To make up that expenditure, we must have both a certain +amount of nourishment and a certain amount of rest. If our work is not +paid at such a rate as to give us that, we lose something in every hour +we work. We spend a little more life than is restored to us. Even if we +are paid at a rate that enables us just to make up what we have spent, +we have earned nothing—we have only had our outlay repaid to us. The +purchaser who pays a worker just enough to make him as fit for work +afterwards as before, has only paid the worker’s expenses; he has not +yet begun to pay him for his work. The worker in such a case is +precisely in the position of a capitalist who has lent money, and got it +back, but has made no profit on its use. + +The wage of much labour in this and in other countries is on that scale. +So accustomed, indeed, are we to this state of things that many of us +think a worker quite well paid if he receives enough to keep him in good +bodily condition. Yet the same people who hold this opinion in regard to +that labour which is the sole capital of the worker, consider themselves +to have made a very bad bargain if they so invest their pecuniary +capital as to receive no interest upon it. It would be well if we should +bear in mind that the worker who receives no more than enough to make up +the strength expended, is in exactly that financial position. + +But there is a financial stage lower than this: the stage of the worker +who not only gets no interest upon his capital, but does not get even +back the whole of his capital. That labour is so often yielded for less +than its cost is one reason why a working man’s expectation of life is +considerably less than that of a professional man; or, to put it in +other words, why the dock labourer and the omnibus conductor die younger +than the lawyer and the clergyman. + +There are two ways in either (or both) of which any worker may lose upon +his work, and the names of them are Long Hours and Low Wages. For +instance, a railway company or an omnibus company that keeps a man at +work for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four uses up more of that man’s +vitality than the other eight hours can restore. Though he were to be +paid, like Miss Edna May, at a salary of £200 a week he would still lose +on the bargain. At no price can his employers repay him. They have +consumed some of his capital, and capital of that sort when once spent +is spent for ever. + +Or the worker may receive for each hour’s work, even though the stretch +of hours be not unduly long, too little money to pay for those +necessaries by which alone his outlay can be made up. On each +transaction he pays out a little more than is returned to him. He +becomes, at each step, a little poorer in bodily resources; he is never +quite sufficiently fed, never quite sufficiently clothed nor healthily +housed, and he never has that reasonable certainty of to-morrow’s +provision which goes so far towards giving peace of mind and health of +body. Finally, like other persons who spend more than they receive, he +becomes bankrupt; that is to say, he either dies several years earlier +than the average of men who are better paid, or he sinks into the +invalid condition of the pauper. “Labour,” says Mr Schoenhof, “is an +expenditure of vital force. Unless this is replaced by wholesome +nutrition (air, light, sanitation and even cheerful surroundings are +part of wholesome nutrition) the frame will work itself out and the +labour will become economically of smaller and smaller value.”[67] + +The cost, then, of labour as a commodity is the cost of the worker’s +existence, a cost paid by the worker not in money, but in exhaustion, in +hunger, in actual flesh and blood. This is the point in which labour +differs from every other commodity, and the reason for which it should +not be treated in the same way as other commodities. + +In regard to all commodities, the tendency of free competition is, as we +all know, to bring down the selling price to a figure very little above +the cost of production; and in regard to all commodities other than +labour, it is easy enough to see that this result is advantageous to the +buyer. It is less easy to see, but is probably no less true that, in the +long run, it is advantageous also to the seller, and that every +hindrance to free competition in goods tends to diminish the volume of +production and consequently that of human enjoyment. + +But when we come to consider that exceptional commodity, labour, we find +a different result ensuing from free competition; we find the inevitable +consequences to be impoverishment of the seller, deterioration of the +product and increase of human misery. The underpaid worker is not only +inevitably wretched and inevitably unhealthy; he is also a danger and a +burden to the country in which he lives. Since he—or more often +she—receives less than a living wage for his work, and since he +continues to live, it is obvious that some one else is in part +supporting him. + +I can never forget the impression made upon me in the first factory +which I ever visited by a little scene of which I was a silent witness. +The head of the firm had shown us over various departments, and +incidentally had talked of how some of his children had just gone to the +other side of the world in a yacht. He was himself a man beginning to be +elderly, well grown, well groomed, fresh coloured, speaking with an +educated accent and presenting that air of prosperous content which is +common with elderly business men who are making money. He presently took +us into a department where very young and very poor-looking little girls +were employed; and one of our party shyly asked what were their wages. +“Four shillings a week,” was the answer. The first speaker, himself an +employer who pays high wages by choice, said deprecatingly: +“But—surely—they can’t live on that!” “Oh, no!” returned their employer, +cheerfully. “They live at home with their parents.” And I, new, then, to +the facts of commercial life, stood staring, silent, at this well fed +gentleman, with sons and daughters of his own, who frankly confessed +that poor men’s daughters had to be supported by their parents in order +that he might have their work for less than it cost. He seemed to me to +be owning himself a thief. And that, indeed, was exactly what he +was—although, strangely enough, he failed to perceive the fact. He was +committing a daily robbery upon persons too weak to withstand his +demands. His being, however, a variety of robbery not recognised by the +laws, he pursued his course not only unremorseful and unpunished, but +with great profit, and died, leaving behind him a large fortune which +only a small minority of his fellow countrymen consider to have been +disgracefully acquired. Yet his course was attended with much more +suffering to other people than that of any highwayman. It was akin +rather to that of the mediæval baron who by force of arms extracted a +reluctant toll from all his poorer neighbours. The girls submitted to +the extortion because it is even worse to starve than to be robbed, and +because they lacked the combination that might have enabled them to +resist both robbery and starvation. + +The individual worker whose skill is but the dexterity born of constant +practice—the worker, that is to say, who has no sort of monopoly—is no +more able to regulate the payment of his services than an apple or a +sack is able to regulate its market price. Nor, at a certain stage of +the downward course, is any individual employer able to regulate it. It +is, for instance, probable enough that at the present moment not the +Brothers Cheeryble themselves could sell safety pins at a profit if they +paid a living wage to the women who “cap” them.[68] + +For, in the long run, the process of competition generally succeeds in +filching from the employer that unfair profit which he had originally +filched from the worker. It is now the public at large which, by paying +for safety pins a fraction less than they really cost, pockets the +balance of the worker’s living wage. For the manufacturer who desires to +pay his workers better there are now two courses open; he must either, +if he can, find out some improved method, which, by diminishing his +other expenses, will allow him to pay higher for labour, or must combine +with his fellow manufacturers to raise the selling price. In practice, +he generally does neither of these things, but continues to take +advantage of his workers and to say—not without some show of +justification—that he cannot help it, and that they would be worse off +if he gave up business. The public at large, meanwhile, though it +automatically pockets the unfair profits, does not, in the long run, +gain by the transaction. For the underpaid worker who fails to be wholly +supported by the proceeds of his own labour is inevitably supported in +part out of the pocket of some other person or persons. Moreover, both +the health and the work of the underpaid worker presently deteriorates. +He contributes less than he might and ought to the general wealth, and, +by and by, when his health fails sufficiently, he becomes a charge upon +the public. Finally, he dies before his natural time, so that his +country fails to receive the full natural return for those costly and +unproductive years of childhood during which he was supported. +Furthermore, his working life is one of continued hardship, fatigue and +suffering. His existence is not an addition to, but a deduction from, +the total general happiness, the rather that underpayment is a burden +not only to its victim but also to the onlooker. No person of ordinary +sensibilities can fail to be depressed by the knowledge that large +numbers of his fellow citizens are struggling, to their physical, moral +and mental detriment, in hopeless poverty. Yet this state of things +arises inevitably if labour is left, like any other commodity, at the +mercy of unrestricted competition. + +This difference in kind, between labour and other commodities, is the +justification of trade unionism, and the explanation of how it is that a +man can logically be at the same time a free trader and a trade +unionist. Except the trade unionists and the professed socialists, +however, no great body of persons seems to have perceived this +peculiarity of labour; and while underpayment is very generally +deplored, the various efforts of the benevolent are mostly directed +either towards supplementing inadequate wages or towards transferring +the underpaid to other branches of work, rather than towards securing +better payment for the work at present done. In the eyes of the average +Briton, the settling of wages by free competition appears, for some +unexplained reason, as a sacred and permanent principle. Perhaps, if +this attitude could be exhaustively analysed, we should find at its root +a vague respect for “the laws of political economy,” which respect is, +in the last resort, but the result of a confusion of mind about two +aspects of the word “law.” Laws in the moral world are, of course, +different from laws in the scientific world. The moral (or social) law +is a command; the scientific law merely a statement of effects. This we +see, plainly enough, when the effects are material and immediate. We do +not dream of regarding the law that fire burns as a command to put our +fingers in the flame. But when we come to consider the results of +wide-spread human action, we seem to ourselves to be in the region +rather of morals than of science, and without clearly realising our +attitude, we begin, many of us, to regard the laws that govern these +matters rather as precepts to be obeyed than as sequences to be avoided. +The law that free competition in labour leads to starvation wages is a +law of the same kind as the law that a dose of prussic acid leads to +death; and the conclusion to be drawn in each case is that if we wish to +avoid the result we must avoid the cause. Persons who are not desirous +of committing suicide must abstain from prussic acid; persons who desire +to see underpayment vanish must resist free competition in labour. + +If the nature of labour were as generally apprehended as is the nature +of prussic acid, the laws of our country (which are laws of the other +kind—laws of command) would gradually be so altered as to prevent and +punish that kind of robbery which was practised, for years, by that +prosperous gentleman who, year after year, paid girls for their work at +a trifle under a penny an hour, and died thereafter wealthy and highly +respected. It is more than conceivable that persons now living may +survive to a day in which wealth so accumulated will be held as +discreditable as wealth accumulated by slave trading, and when the +stealing of labour will be held no less criminal than the stealing of +cash. The foundation upon which any such reform must rest will be the +recognition that labour is a commodity differing in its nature from +every other commodity; and that while there is, intrinsically, no such +thing as a fair price, there is, intrinsically, and in every case, such +a thing as a fair wage. + + + + + PART II + THE MINIMUM WAGE + + + + + CHAPTER I + EXISTING CHECKS + + How it is that some workers are not “sweated”—Non-competitive + systems—Co-operation—Public services—Trade unions—Who is to blame + for strikes?—How trade unions promote trade—Limits of their + success—Factory Acts—How restriction raises wages—An example—How + restriction drives the employer into better ways—Limit of legal + restrictions in Great Britain. + + +If it be true that unlimited competition tends to reduce the wage earner +to the lowest possible rate of subsistence, how does it happen, some +reader may enquire, that under our present competitive system all wage +earners are not, in fact, at that low level, but that, on the contrary, +there are occupations in which wages tend steadily to rise. + +The answer is that the course of competition among ourselves is not +unchecked, and that, wherever concerted human action has interposed a +check, the downward course of wages has been stayed. Nor, indeed, is the +competitive system, though the most widely prevalent, the only system in +existence among us. + +A very considerable proportion of the trade of these islands is carried +on not upon a competitive but upon a co-operative basis. The actual +sales of goods made by industrial co-operative societies in the year +1904 amounted to £90,681,406,[69] and this total was “exclusive of the +sums (amounting to £11,874,643 in 1904) representing the value of the +goods produced by the productive departments of the wholesale and retail +societies and transferred to their distributive departments.” The +membership of the various societies included in 1904 no less than +2,103,113 persons, an appreciable fraction of the population. + +The great movement known as Industrial Co-operation has two forms: (_a_) +Associations of Consumers; (_b_) Labour Copartnerships. + +The theory of Associations of Consumers is simple in the extreme. It +consists in the elimination and reduction of intermediate profits, and +the purchase by the retail customer of goods as nearly as possible at +prime cost. The method employed is to sell at the usual market price and +to return the surplus in the form of a percentage upon the total of +purchases—which percentage is usually called a dividend. The fund from +which such payments are paid is “the fund commonly known as profit,” and +commonly retained under that name by the individual employer. Some +writers have pointed out that this fund is in truth not profit but only +savings. “‘Wealth is not created, it is only economised by +distribution’; but in co-operative distribution it is economised to such +effect that, for the workers at any rate, it has appeared to create +wealth where none existed nor could exist for them under the old system +of competitive trading.”[70] The “fund commonly called profit” is in +fact “the margin between the prime cost of an article and the price paid +for it over the counter by the individual customer.” The appropriation +of this margin, or of a considerable part of it, to the customer is a +feature not only of stores belonging to working class members but also +of such undertakings as the Civil Service or the Army and Navy Stores. +In these instances, however, the method adopted is to diminish the +selling price; and this slight difference of procedure has led to a wide +difference of results. The ordinary customer of the middle class stores +feels himself, for the most part, but a purchaser at an exceptionally +good and cheap shop; the customer at a store that follows the plan of +the original Rochdale Pioneers feels himself the member of a community +and the inheritor of a tradition. The fund, being collected in the hands +of the society at large, is recognised more clearly as the property of +all members alike; its destination is regulated by the governing body +whom those members elect; and it forms a continual object lesson in +political economy. + +In these cases, it is clear to all persons who understand the processes, +that competition has been checked. The margin no longer goes into an +employer’s pocket but returns to the customer; and since the working +classes are the largest customers, most of it returns to them. In nearly +all instances, however, a part of the fund is retained for public uses; +few, indeed, are the societies that contribute nothing towards +educational or federal purposes. + +The other group of co-operators views its members not as consumers but +as producers, and by this very fact narrows its range, since every human +being is a consumer, but not all of us are, or can be, in the strict +sense, producers. There must be clerks, distributors of all kinds, +policemen, organisers. The work of such persons is necessary and useful, +but it does not produce, like that of the weaver or the engineer, an +immediate and apparent increase in the wealth of the world. In theory, +the early associations of producers were workers who combined themselves +into self governed workshops and divided the profits of their labours. +But this ideal is applicable only to industries demanding but a small +outlay of capital, and such industries are always growing fewer. “The +ideal ... was modified; individual sympathisers outside the workshop +were admitted as members ... so too were societies of consumers. Thus, +in place of the old self governing workshop, the modern copartnership +workshop developed.” Associations of this type have been rapidly growing +in the last ten or twelve years, and during the last two or three have +spread amazingly in Ireland. All sorts of industries are represented: +baking, weaving (of cotton, wool and silk), spinning, building, +printing, quarrying, dairying, sick nursing, typewriting, cab-driving +and bookbinding among them; there are societies that make wearing +apparel of various sorts, pianos, harness, nails, mineral waters, +photographs, brushes, watches, cutlery, padlocks and bricks. +“Desborough, with its two important productive societies and its +flourishing store which owns much of the land and has built most of the +houses, is almost a co-operative community.” + +Of the great English and Scotch Wholesale Societies made up of +federations of societies, of the annual conferences, the annual +festivals, the Women’s Co-operative Guild—that greatest and most +interesting of working women’s associations—it is not my business here +to speak in detail. Readers who desire to become acquainted with +co-operation as it exists to-day should procure _Industrial +Co-operation_.[71] + +It must be enough to say that in the ocean of commercial competition, +co-operation lies like a fertile island inhabited by workers who are +putting into their own pockets the profits of their buying and selling, +and very often also of their labour. + +Nor is industrial co-operation the only part of the nation’s business +carried on, in part at least, upon non-competitive principles. The whole +civil service of any country, the army, navy, hospitals, museums, +prisons, endowed schools and municipal undertakings of all kinds are +examples of enterprises established on a non-competitive basis, although +often influenced as regards internal management by competitive methods. +In many of these cases, the payment of workers is fixed otherwise than +by competition. Military and naval officers are not asked what is the +lowest figure at which they will consent to serve their country; nor do +we find in advertisements for town clerks or borough surveyors that +preference will be given to candidates willing to accept a reduction of +salary. + +Even in the wider labour market, competition has not entirely a free +course. It is checked by trade organisations, by Factory Acts and by +Sanitary Acts. It is even checked in some slight degree by an uneasy +feeling that it is not decent to let people work for us in return for +obviously inadequate payment. + +The avowed aim of trade unions is to check freedom of competition, with +the object of obtaining or maintaining for the workers a high level of +pay and of comfort. Their attempted method has been, almost invariably, +the establishment not of a fixed wage but of a minimum wage. A +misconception upon this point is so deeply engrained in the mind of the +ordinary middle class Briton that I entirely despair of being believed +when I make this statement. If I should live to celebrate a hundredth +birthday, I should expect still to hear in the last year of my life the +words: “What I really can’t bear about trade unions is that they insist +upon all men being paid alike.” Let it be repeated, once again, however +vainly, that trade unions do not so insist. I have never known, nor +heard of, any trade union that objected to any of its members getting +paid as much above the minimum rate as they possibly could. What the +union does forbid is the taking of wages below the minimum; and the +reason of this prohibition will be clear to any person who has read the +chapter: “How Underpayment Comes.” + +The means employed by trade unions for securing a minimum wage is the +combined refusal of all members to work at any lower rate. In trades of +skill, as distinguished from trades of mere practice—trades that is to +say which possess in some degree a natural monopoly—unions have often +attained considerable success; and wherever they have done so, poverty +has been in a measure checked. Not only have the members of the union +themselves been comparatively well paid, but the fact of their being so +has helped to raise the level around them. Thus, since national poverty +is the greatest enemy of trade, the unions have almost invariably, and +indeed inevitably, been promoters of trade and prosperity. + +At this point the question “How about strikes?” becomes almost +physically audible. Certainly, a strike, during its continuance, hinders +trade and prosperity in exactly the same way as warfare does. It is in +fact warfare on a lesser scale and—in our country—with restrictions upon +the weapons that may be employed; and war is always an evil, though +sometimes the lesser of two evils. In a strike, as in greater wars, +responsibility rests upon both parties, but seldom in equal degrees. The +apportionment of blame must largely depend upon the cause in which each +is fighting. The employer, in nine cases out of ten, is fighting for +cheap labour; the union primarily for access to amenities of life which +the employer enjoys already. In nine cases out of ten, therefore, the +union is really fighting the battle of the whole nation, while the +employer is fighting against it. Mr Schoenhof, a grave State official, +sent by his own government to examine economic questions in Europe, +declares of the acts of British trade unions that: “economically these +acts speak of a high degree of wisdom. On the other hand the attempts of +the employing classes to depress the rate of wages show frequently an +entire misapprehension of the principles under which production is +conducted. Most of the strife would disappear if it were more fully +recognised that a high rate of wages has all the time been the powerful +lever to reaching the low cost of production which practically rules +to-day in the industries of the United States.”[72] + +If therefore that combatant is to be held most responsible who is +fighting in the worse cause, it is not the trade unionist but the +employer, who, on the whole, is chiefly to be blamed for the occurrence +of strikes. + +There may, indeed, have been cases—I believe there has, in our own day +and country, been at least one—in which a union has followed a mistaken +course, has restricted output, and so lessened the volume of trade, and +to that degree injured the country. In so far as unions have +occasionally done this, they have been blind to the larger issues; but +not so blind, even thus, as those employers who thought to cheapen +production by lowering wages. Poverty, always and everywhere, hinders +production; the wise employer desires to see more money in the pockets +of working class purchasers, and the wise statesman more money in the +pockets of working class taxpayers. Some day, when the history of Great +Britain comes to be seen in the truer perspective of retrospect, it will +be the leaders of trade unionism and the promoters of Factory Acts who +will stand out among the real makers of this nation’s wealth. + +But trade unions have seldom been really successful among unskilled +workers—precisely those who, having no natural monopoly, are most liable +to the pressure of economic competition and most likely to be underpaid. +Women workers, too, have always been difficult to organise; not +primarily, as is sometimes supposed, because they are women; but partly +because women, in our present social state, expect to leave the labour +market upon marriage, and therefore are comparatively indifferent about +earning high wages; and partly because women have, as a rule, less of +companionship with one another and of common social life out of working +hours than men, and therefore less opportunity of that “talking over” of +affairs out of which concerted action grows. Home workers are, of +course, especially isolated; and the successful organisation of a union +among unskilled female home workers would be an industrial miracle not +looked for by the most sanguine toiler in the industrial field. + +Co-operation and trade unionism have both been, in the main, working +class movements, and both are examples of that curious inarticulate +instinct for right collective action which seems to be inherent in the +English democracy. From an assembly of average English artisans—I say, +English, not British—you will not get logically reasoned statements; you +will very seldom get a clear exposition of principles; but you will, +very generally, get that main line of conduct which true principles and +sound logic would dictate. + +Not all the checks, however, in the course of free competition have come +from the workers. The direct interposition of the law was invoked and +secured by men whose personal concern in the question was only that of +fellow citizens. These men were actuated by a horror of the sufferings +undergone by the poorest workers; they felt that moral order was +outraged and the nation disgraced by the existing industrial conditions. +Restriction of hours was the first check imposed by British law, which +has shrunk hitherto from directly fixing a rate of wages.[73] + +But since prolonged hours of labour are in fact but a form of diminished +wages, the law has, as it were despite itself, led to a real, and often +also to a nominal, rise of wages. The way in which this comes about was +exemplified with singular completeness in a case that occurred some +years ago in London. The managers of a girl’s club, enquiring into the +non-attendance of a certain member of the club, learned that her +employer was giving every day to her and to her fellow workers a +considerable number of articles to be made at home after the closing of +the work room and to be brought in next morning. In order to complete +this task, she was often, she declared, obliged to work till two in the +morning. The articles were accessories of dress, and were paid for, by +the dozen, at such a rate that the girls (there were seven of them) +earned each about seven shillings a week, or about 1s. 2d. a day for a +working day of from 14 to 16 hours. The ladies of the club reported the +case to the Women’s Industrial Council, the members of which knew—as the +girls did not—that the Factory Act forbade such employment at home after +a working day on the employer’s premises. Now this, it will be seen, was +just the kind of case in which, to people who have but little industrial +experience, the interference of the law seems harsh, and its strict +enforcement disastrous. If, working 14 to 16 hours a day, these poor +girls earned but 1s. 2d., how cruel to let them work but 10 hours, and +so earn but ninepence or tenpence! The Women’s Industrial Council, +however, ruthlessly reported the facts to the Factory inspectors; and +one evening, shortly afterwards, a lady inspector appeared at the +workshop door just as the girls were leaving. Each girl carried a +parcel. The inspector enquired the contents, and on learning them, +turned the girls back and made each leave behind her the work which +should have occupied her until after midnight. She herself interviewed +the employer and no doubt expounded to him the provisions of the Act. +Next morning—or possibly a day or two later—this ingenious gentleman +presented to his employees a statement for their signature which +declared that they carried home work to be done, not by themselves but +by their relatives. They all signed; girls who work part of the night as +well as all day and who receive but seven shillings a week are not +persons likely to have spirit for much resistance. But they told the +club leaders, and the club leaders told the Women’s Industrial Council, +and the Industrial Council hastened to tell the Factory inspectors. +Again the lady inspector appeared and met the girls coming out with +parcels. Again she bade them return the work, and again she went in and +saw their employer. What she said to him can only be surmised; for +neither Factory inspectors nor employers report these things to the +outer world. Whatever it may have been, it was effectual. No more work +was given out to be carried home and the girls were thenceforward able +to spend their evenings, if they chose, at the club and their nights in +sleep. But, at the week’s end, every girl had done much less work, and +being paid at the usual piece work rate, received considerably less than +her weekly average. Thereupon, they represented to their employer their +hard case. The inspector had forbidden them to work at night, and they +could not live upon the proceeds of their work by day. Would he +therefore be pleased to raise their pay; otherwise, they would be +obliged to seek work elsewhere. The employer did raise their wages, +paying them at a rate per dozen which, while still but a very few pence, +was yet somewhere between 40 and 45 per cent. higher than he had paid +before. Nor was this all. Finding that seven girls were now unable to +accomplish all his work, he enlarged his workshop and took on six more. +There were now therefore thirteen girls at work instead of seven, and +all thirteen were receiving wages a shade higher for ten hours’ work +than the seven had received for about fifteen hours. Nor did the retail +selling price of the goods advance by so much as the fraction of a +penny. In such ways as this do legal checks tend to impede the course of +free competition and to prevent the extremity of underpayment. + +It is not, however, only by preventing undue hours of labour but also by +insisting upon reasonable sanitary conditions that the law promotes +better wages and improved trade. An employer who can no longer either +overwork or overcrowd his “hands” is driven to seek other channels of +saving. He demands some method of getting more work done in an hour, and +finds it worth his while to pay for the best possible machinery. All +sorts of improved processes are introduced, some of which may demand +increased skill and attention from the workers. The workers as soon as +they have leisure enough to think, and health enough to develop +initiative, begin to insist upon better payment, and because they are +better paid are able to respond to demands for better work. The improved +methods of production, where introduced, lead to an increase of +production which renders possible a lowering of selling price, while the +rise in wages at the same time increases the buying power of the +workers. Trade expands and finds a ready outlet.[74] + +The profits of the manufacturer, in these circumstances, are greatly +increased, no longer at the cost of increased hardship to the workers +but with advantage to the whole community. Thus the law has already, in +various ways, interfered with the free course of competition, and its +interference has been beneficial all round. The grounds of its +intervention have always been moral; legislators and constituents alike +have felt that certain evils must be suppressed at whatever loss of +profits or of trade. But the results have been, not only morally but +also economically, of immense national benefit. Slowly the great truth +is emerging into recognition that the enforcement of good conditions and +good payment for the workers of a nation is not only the humane but also +the profitable policy. Slowly, step by step, in that piecemeal, groping +and wasteful manner which seems to be a part of the English nature, and +which, while so maddening to some of us who happen to possess an +infusion of more logical but hotter blood, yet, on the whole, works out +so well in practice, the British law goes forward, setting check after +check in the path of unlimited competition. Almost every step has been +taken amid outcries of opposition and prophecies of ruin. At every +advance, the “practical man” has assured the government of the day, +beforehand, that his particular trade would be destroyed, and, +afterwards, that he had lost nothing. + +In spite of all these steps and all these consequences, the vast +majority of English people still believe themselves to be living under a +_régime_ of pure competition and are ready to declare such a _régime_ +not only beneficial but inevitable. In fact, however, modern life, even +in our own small islands, comprises not one _régime_ only but many. +Every stage, from a modified feudalism up to an almost undiluted +socialism, is represented by existing conditions in Great Britain. Some +stages are dwindling; some are growing; and it is well within the power +of concerted human action to determine which shall grow and which shall +dwindle. + +As far as we have gone, our law has directly stopped many gross forms of +overwork and oppression. The home worker it has helped, if at all, only +in so far as it has enforced certain provisions as to housing and +sanitation. Indirectly, the Factory Acts have served to raise wages by +forming a basis of minimum comfort upon which trade union organisation +could be built. In Great Britain, the law has never yet intervened, +directly and of set purpose, to raise wages. In parts indeed of Greater +Britain the law has directly so intervened; but the history of that +intervention belongs to another chapter. + + + + + CHAPTER II + SUPPOSED REMEDIES + + Emigration—Valuable to the individual—Useless for the + community—Assumed improvidence of early marriage—Drunkenness cause + of individual poverty, not of general poverty—The amazing thrift + of working people—Dangers of thrift—Observations of a sagacious + Scotchman—Consumers’ Leagues—Why impracticable as remedy for + underpayment—Fields in which a Consumers’ League may be of use. + + +The evils described in the first part of this volume are no new ones; +they have been familiar for many years to many persons; a variety of +remedies have been suggested and in many cases attempted. Of these +remedies, only those are in any degree effectual which act as checks +upon competition. One group of proposed remedies is founded upon the +assumption that the country is overpopulated. This assumption, is, +however, disproved by the fact (which is unquestioned) that +notwithstanding the presence among us of a large class of rich +non-producers, the national income has increased at a greater rate than +the population of the country. Still, there are persons who believe that +England has too many people and who, therefore, very logically, desire +to reduce the number. + +Some reformers of this way of thinking desire to see fewer births; +others desire the removal, to parts of the world where population is +still sparse, of those persons who, in this country, are seen to be +vainly struggling for remunerative employment. Emigration has, no doubt, +in many individual cases, meant a change from indigence to prosperity; +but, as a remedy for general indigence, it has the fatal flaw that every +worker removed is also a consumer removed, and that every consumer +removed means the loss of a customer and, therefore, to that extent, a +diminution of trade. The supply of labour is, indeed, lessened, but the +demand for labour’s product, and thus for labour itself, is lessened +too. It would be better for British trade if the emigrant could be made +prosperous at home instead of being sent to seek prosperity in exile. It +is, however, true that most emigrants go to British colonies, and that +these colonies need them. For these reasons, emigration is, no doubt, +useful, but as a remedy for general poverty at home it must always +remain delusive. Moreover, so long as the immigration of foreigners is +permitted, the emigration of British subjects is in effect little more +than a game of “General Post.” + +Another school of reformers holds the poor themselves responsible for +their own poverty. “Why do they marry so young?” “Why do they drink?” +“Why don’t they save?” These questions are heard at every turn; and +persons who do not know the life of the poor regard them as +unanswerable. + +To take first the question of early marriages, a point upon which the +better off are apt to judge with singular unfairness of their poorer +brethren. The market value of the middle class man is probably highest +after 40, certainly after 30. The market value of the average workman, +on the other hand, decreases after 40, if not earlier, and, in a vast +number of cases, is as high at 22 as it will ever be. Therefore, while +the middle class man is in a financial sense, prudent in deferring +marriage till 30 or thereabouts, the workman would be foolish indeed to +delay the birth of his eldest children until within ten years or so of +his own decline in market value. The workman who desires, like the +middle class man, that the infancy and schooltime of his children shall +coincide with his own period of greatest prosperity should marry—as in +fact he does—between the ages of 20 and 24. Then, by the time that the +father begins to experience increasing difficulty in getting well paid +employment—or perhaps employment at all—the elder children will at least +be of an age to earn for themselves. It should be remembered, too, that +workpeople as a class die younger than people who are better off, so +that a bricklayer, married at 20, and a barrister, married at 30, have +about even chances of seeing the manhood of their elder sons—another +reason why the former is wise to marry early, if at all. Early +marriages, then, whether improvident or no in the case of middle class +brides and bridegrooms, are not improvident in the case of working +people—unless indeed it be contended that it is improvident for working +people to marry at all—a contention fraught with rather alarming +possibilities to the future of the race. + +To the question: “Why do they drink?” the answer is not quite so simple. +One may begin by remarking that there are a great many total abstainers +among wage earners; one may also remark that, if drinking were as +universal among wage earners as, let us say, the wearing of boots, even +the lowest rate of wages would stand at a figure allowing for the +purchase of drink. Economically, it is because the majority of wage +earners do not drink to excess that the excessive drinker finds himself +at a disadvantage. Of course, he is at a disadvantage also in various +other respects, but these do not enter into the economic argument. That +intemperate drinking may conduce to poverty is undeniable; but that +poverty also often conduces to intemperance is no less true. Of the two +kinds of drunkenness that exist among wage earners one is largely in the +nature of an escape from fatigue and from despair. Of the other—the +outbreak at intervals of the able, energetic and often comparatively +prosperous man, I do not pretend to have fathomed the mystery; but it +seems likely that the monotony of modern working life and the lack of +abundant personal interests may be among the contributory causes. It may +also be noted that to carouse at intervals was a deeply rooted habit +among our Northern ancestors, who admired a man potent in drinking as +they admired a man powerful in fight. It is at least conceivable that +the energetic, capable man who “breaks out” every month or two is a +survival of the old type; and it certainly seems to be the case that his +type does not occur among purely Latin races. Be this as it may, +experience shows convincingly that, on the whole, in this country, any +and every class of workers grows by degrees more sober as its hours of +work are shortened and its wages raised. Individuals of the class may +still drink heavily, but the average of sobriety steadily rises with +improved conditions. Moreover, in spite of the temptations presented by +poverty, a steady rise in the sobriety of this country is shown by the +excise returns. If poverty spreads and deepens—as I fear it does—the +cause cannot be found in an increase of drunkenness; for the consumption +of drink per head grows yearly less and less. Temperance is doubtless +advantageous in many ways to those who practise it; but, like +efficiency, it possesses a money value only while it fails to be +universal. If every man were temperate, no employer would make a point +of retaining his temperate “hands” when reducing his establishment. + +To the question: “Why do not working people save?” truth requires the +paradoxical reply that they do save, and that they cannot afford to do +so. As a class, working people save a larger proportion of their income +than any other class of the community. The shares in Industrial +Co-operative Societies amounted in 1904 to £27,739,123; the Reserve and +Insurance funds of the same societies to £2,677,420. The great Friendly +and Provident Societies are supported almost wholly by working class +contributors; and, in addition to these, the majority of Trade Unions +are also provident Societies.[75] + +Of the thirty families whose household expenditure has been tabulated in +Vol. I. of Mr Booth’s _Life and Labour_ (East London), only five spent +nothing upon insurance or club money; and in one household this item ran +up to 11½ per cent. of the whole expenditure. Considering that the +weekly income, as estimated, ranged from about 10s. 3½d. to about 33s. +7d. and that the households consisted seldom of less than four, and in +one case of eight persons, these contributions are by no means trifling. +Yet it is probable that not two families out of the thirty were able to +make anything like an adequate provision for old age. It hardly, indeed, +requires demonstration that a person earning just enough to support life +can only make an adequate provision for his old age by laying by 100 per +cent. of his income. Upon 10s. a week, or less, the saving of money +becomes something very near to a slow form of suicide. Moreover, at the +risk of horrifying every middle class reader, I must frankly declare +that, in my opinion, a worker does more wisely to abstain from all forms +of thrift beyond participation in his trade union and his co-operative +society. His union will help to keep up his wages; his co-operative +society will increase their purchasing power; the return upon both these +investments is immediate and certain: but anything more is apt to cost +too dear. It is now a good many years since an old Scotchman of great +intelligence and judgment, the secretary of his trade union, a member of +the municipal council, and justly respected by his fellow townsmen of +various ranks, gave me his opinion on this subject. He related to me +how, as a young man, he had accompanied a benevolent gentleman to a +lecture upon thrift, and how, as they afterwards walked away, the +gentleman waxed eloquent upon the duty of every man to lay by. But my +old friend, canny even at five-and-twenty or so, replied that he was a +married man with two children, that his earnings were two pounds a week, +that, if he spent less, either his children must go short of what was +necessary to make them strong, healthy and well trained, or he himself +must go short of what was necessary to maintain his efficiency; and +that, in his belief, the best form of thrift for a man in his position +was to maintain the highest standard of living which his small total +income would secure. In his case the plan had fully succeeded. He was, I +suppose, well over sixty, as hale, as active and as much interested in +the progress of the world as any man of thirty, and a most valuable +citizen. His children had both grown up healthy, capable and +industrious; both were skilled workers, regularly employed and in +receipt of good wages. But supposing—and his trade was one reputed +unhealthy—that the father had died, leaving a widow and young children +unprovided for? We may note that his risk of doing so was lessened by +his being better fed and better clothed than his more sparing neighbour. +Still, death is liable to seize even the best nourished and the most +fitly clothed; he might have died long before his children had completed +their excellent education or become capable of self support. Even in +that case, however, would these orphans, in whom a foundation had been +laid of good health and good teaching, have been really worse off than +if, with a poorer endowment of personal advantages, they had inherited +the money pittance—so sadly inadequate at best—that their father might +have scraped together in his few years of life? For how miserably small +is the provision that _can_, even with the utmost exercise of parsimony, +be made out of a family income of two pounds a week! In their inevitably +inadequate efforts to make such provision, workers too often deny +themselves the absolute essentials of healthy living. To abstain from +buying new shoes in order to save the price for one’s old age, and then +to die of pneumonia, induced by want of sound shoes, is but a doubtful +form of thrift, both for oneself and one’s nation. The interests of the +nation, especially, are certainly better served by the maintenance among +working class families of the highest attainable standard of life than +by the accumulation of very small individual provision for possible +orphans or possible old age. Even two pounds a week will not suffice +(except in remote country districts—where no man earns so much) to +provide really very good food, clothing and housing for four persons; +and the working class family does not often consist of no more than +four. The present cost of thrift, as thrift is generally understood, is +too heavy and the future return too light; and the wise man is not he +who saves his money, but he who spends it to the best advantage. + +The supposed remedies hitherto touched upon have been measures demanding +the agency of the wage earner himself; but there is another scheme, +particularly attractive to the inexperienced reformer, in which the +consumer is to be the active person. When men and women who are not +themselves underpaid come face to face with the evil of underpayment, it +is natural enough for them to resolve that henceforth the articles +purchased by themselves shall be articles the makers of which have been +adequately paid. From this individual resolve it is but one step to an +association of persons all thus resolved, and banded together for the +purposes of investigation and exclusive dealing. Such an association is +a “Consumers’ League,” the aim of which is “to check unlimited +competition not at the point of manufacture but at the point of sale.” +Such associations, the first of which was formed, I believe, in +consequence of a suggestion made by myself, many years ago, in +_Longman’s Magazine_, are likely to reappear at a time like the present +when many consciences are disturbed by recognition of the fact that a +considerable proportion of British workers are scandalously underpaid. +It seems desirable, therefore, to point out how and why a Consumers’ +League must inevitably fail in its aims. + +The complexities of modern commerce are such that it is absolutely +impossible for any group of purchasers, however large and however +earnest, to attain that accurate knowledge of myriads of facts which +would be necessary; or, even, supposing such knowledge to have been once +obtained, to keep abreast of the unceasing changes. Let us take the +comparatively elementary problem of the large retail drapery shops. It +appears to be the general practice in such establishments for each +separate department to be under separate management, and for the head of +each department to have a free hand, subject to the one condition of +producing a certain percentage of profit. The ability to manage +successfully and develop a large branch of trade is not, as may well be +believed, very common, and one part of the payment that it demands is +freedom to do its work in its own way. Thus it is not uncommon for one +department of a large business to be conducted in a spirit of justice +and consideration, while another is marked by the total lack of such a +spirit. For instance, there was at one time, in a certain firm, a +manager of the mourning department who was among the best employers in +the London trade; but at the same time, the man in charge of the +workshop in which certain garments were made up or altered, was a +cutter-down of wages, rude and bullying in his behaviour to the workers +and entirely inconsiderate of their comfort. What reply, in a case like +this, can be given to a lady who asks: “Can I safely go to X’s shop?” +How, if she is furnished with the information just given, can she +discriminate, or how, even if she did, can she or her informant be sure +of the continuance of these conditions? Six months later, the one +manager may have taken a better post, and the other have been dismissed. +The new man at the workshop may be an enlightened organiser, who +introduces improved machinery and methods, knows the value of contented +and well fed workers, and raises wages; while the new man at the +mourning department may have been trained in the ways of “a driving +trade,” and may believe good management to consist in harrying his +employees, in nibbling at their wages and in “cribbing” their leisure. +If we multiply these facts by the number of shops or departments touched +by the weekly purchases of any well-to-do customer, we shall begin to +have some conception of the scale upon which a Consumers’ League would +have to conduct its investigations. + +Moreover, all this is only on the uppermost plane. Few of these +retailers manufacture the goods sold. In regard to every single article +it becomes necessary to trace every step of production and transmission. +A pair of shoes cannot be satisfactorily guaranteed until we have +discovered the wages and conditions of employment not only of every +person who has worked upon the actual shoe, but also of the tanner, the +thread weaver and winder, the maker of eyelets, the spinner and weaver +of the shoe-lace and the various operatives engaged upon the little +metal tag at the shoe-lace’s end. Nor is the matter finished even then. +At every stage of its evolution, a shoe requires the services of clerks, +bookkeepers, office-boys, warehousemen, packers, boxmakers, carmen, +railway servants &c., and each new service introduces other material and +other service—paper, ink, ledgers, harness, stable fittings, cardboard, +string, glue, iron, coal—the series is endless. Yet compared with a +woman’s completed gown, or a man’s suit of clothes, how simple a product +is a pair of shoes. The fact is that even the most apparently simple of +commercial acts is but one link in a network that spreads over the whole +field of life and labour; and the fabric of that network is not woven +once and for ever, but is in continual process of change. + +At the present stage, then, of our commercial development it appears +absolutely impossible for a Consumers’ League to fulfil its aims. If +labour were thoroughly organised in every branch, so that a strong trade +union existed in every trade, capable of giving information upon every +point, then indeed a Consumers’ League might become truly efficient, but +it would become proportionately superfluous.[76] + +The cure of underpayment needs to be applied at the point of payment; +and the establishment of a legal minimum wage is the most direct method +of application. + +But although a Consumers’ League can never hope to counteract the +results of unlimited competition, it may, as the National Consumers’ +League of America shows, exert a valuable influence upon public opinion, +and may succeed in remedying certain industrial scandals. The Report of +that body for the year 1905–6 (up to March 6, 1906) is a most +interesting pamphlet, full of details that show how useful may be the +work, as industrial detectives and agitators, of a group of citizens, +banded together for the purpose of exposing and abolishing oppressive +and insanitary conditions of labour. In a country where public feeling +is not yet nearly ready for the enactment of a minimum wage, the +formation of a Consumers’ League may possibly be the best step forward. +An effectual remedy it cannot be; but it undoubtedly affords means of +education, both for its members and for the community at large. In our +own country, however, where the evils are already more or less generally +recognised, and where an increasing number of persons are already +beginning to hope for a minimum wage, the Consumers’ League marks a +stage that has been left behind. + +We see, then, that emigration, though it may help the individual, can +but affect the trade of the country injuriously; that temperance, while +eminently desirable on other grounds, is only of any economic value +because it is still not universal; that effectual thrift is absolutely +impossible for the underpaid, and that the exercise of even an illusory +thrift can only be achieved by a sacrifice of things essential to good +health. We see, furthermore, that a Consumers’ League may be a valuable +social agency, but can never hope to be an economic remedy for +underpayment. Having looked up all these turnings and found all of them +blind alleys, we now proceed to examine a road along which younger +sisters of ours have travelled already, and at the end of which a ray of +hope seems to be shining. But before entering upon this examination we +will pause to consider the lesson of facts as presented in the history +of our own cotton trade. + + + + + CHAPTER III + THE LESSONS OF THE COTTON TRADE + + The pessimist view—False assumption on which it rests—Cotton trade not + natural to Britain—Climate—Temperature—Fallacy of inherited + skill—Cotton workers as they were—Advancing legal + restrictions—Rise of wages—Amazing development and prosperity of + the British trade—Change in the mills—Change in the workers—Change + in the employers—The case of Bristol—The verdict of Mr Schoenhof. + + +Many people who would gladly see working people better paid, honestly +believe that a general rise in wages is not commercially possible. Any +attempt at giving a fair wage all round would, they declare, so diminish +trade as to throw out of work an additional number of persons whose +added competition would inevitably reduce the average wage to below its +original level: or who, if their competition were effectually barred by +the existence of a legal minimum wage, would be left without employment, +in a state more wretched than before. It may be remarked that this view +involves an admission that we live under commercial conditions which +render dishonesty not only the best, but actually the only possible, +policy. Such a belief would appear to furnish an unanswerable argument +in favour of the destruction of such commercial conditions, and it is +difficult to understand how any human being can hold it and not become a +convinced revolutionist. Yet, strange to say, it is from the mouth of +upholders of things as existing, that this doctrine is most frequently +heard. In some quarters, indeed, there would seem to be actual hostility +to the idea of bettering the workman’s lot, an inclination to grudge him +any greater share than he now possesses of the comforts and conveniences +of modern life. This attitude—to some extent, it must be supposed, a +feudal survival—indicates a very ugly spirit of class selfishness which +may possibly be dangerous, and is certainly ignorant. Dull, indeed, must +be the man or woman upon whom modern conditions of life do not impress +the closeness of human interdependence. Never, since the beginnings of +history, has the daily life of every man been so wonderfully interwoven +with that of all his fellows: never was there a time when the deeds of +each were so much a part of his neighbour’s pains or pleasures. Consider +for a single moment how changed would be one’s own life, if there were +no longer in Great Britain any person very poor, very dirty or very ill +mannered, if, in short, no one fell below the standard of that skilled +artisan class which is not only the most solidly virtuous, but also, in +essentials, the most truly courteous section of our society. Is there +one of us, however selfish, however callous, from whose daily existence +a burden would not be lifted? + +Yes, the pessimist will say, the change would be delightful, but it is +not possible. That very interdependence of which you speak makes the +whole world but one market, and renders it impossible for any one +country to raise wages while other countries keep theirs low. This +alleged impossibility rests, it will be observed, upon the assumption +that higher wages conduce to higher selling prices, an assumption which +experience shows to be fallacious. And since it is always more +convincing, especially, perhaps, to the British mind, to narrate what +has happened than to declare what must happen, the purposes of my +argument will be best served by a brief account of the English cotton +trade. + +Before entering upon this, let me point out how very remarkable a +phenomenon it is that there should exist an English cotton trade at all. +We cannot grow the required material: every ounce of raw cotton has to +be imported at a price, imported too from a great distance, and owing to +its bulky nature, at comparatively a high heavy cost. Originally the +possession of coal, iron and a seaboard gave advantages to England: the +factory system developed early with us, and we manufactured cotton, as +we manufactured other goods, because our energies were turned towards +manufacture in general. But the same influences which caused mechanical +production to begin here have caused it to arise elsewhere, and the +natural development of industry must, one would suppose, eventually +carry the manufacture of cotton to regions where cotton can be grown, +especially if they happen also to possess the means of motive power. The +Southern States of America, where cotton grows, where coal and water +power are plentiful, and where population is no longer sparse, would +seem to be marked out by nature as the home of the cotton industry. And +in fact mills are rapidly rising in that region. Not only so, but the +workers in them are employed for much longer hours and paid at a far +lower rate per hour than English cotton workers. Readers of the chapter +upon child labour, in Part I. of this volume, will be aware that +children are working, both by day and by night, in these mills, whereas +no child may work full time in any English mill, nor any child or woman +at night. Yet these Southern mills, with every advantage of position, +with cheap labour, and comparatively cheap land, have not succeeded, and +are not succeeding, in winning from the English their immense +preponderance in the markets of the world. This undeniable fact is +explained in some quarters as being due to our much abused English +climate, which is said to provide exactly the degree of temperature and +humidity most favourable to the manipulation of cotton yarn. That a very +dry atmosphere will not suit some processes of the trade seems to be +generally acknowledged, and if England were the only damp country in the +world, or even the dampest, we might perhaps regard ourselves as +possessing a sort of monopoly advantage. If, however, there be any one +state of the atmosphere more favourable than any other for the +manufacture of cotton, then it is quite impossible that our notoriously +variable climate can always present it. Moreover, it seems to be the +case that for some processes at least, a combination of dampness with +great heat is desirable: and this combination, natural to some +countries, is actually forbidden by the English law. Countries +possessing a climate at once hot and damp must, it would seem, have a +natural advantage over us, and here again, the Southern States are +favoured by nature. + +Another explanation sometimes put forward is that the English workers, +among whom the manufacture was first established, possess a hereditary +skill of manipulation. The physiological possibility of such inheritance +seems to be questionable: and, considering the great changes undergone +by the machinery employed, the existence of it would be, at least, very +surprising. Moreover, this supposed hereditary dexterity would require +to have grown up in strangely few generations, since, in 1830 or so, the +cotton workers of England are described as being deplorably poor +workers, degenerate, physically and morally. Their condition, at that +time and for a good many years afterwards, was appalling. A more +horrible picture than that presented in Mr P. Gaskell’s “Manufacturing +Population of England,” published in 1833, can hardly be conceived. +These cotton operatives were, in short, as unpromising in physique, in +character and in industrial efficiency as any group of casual, +irregularly employed labourers that could be selected to-day from the +ranks of unorganised industry: as ill paid, as wretched and as much +oppressed as any sweated home worker in a slum garret. + +By slow degrees, from that first Act which, in 1802, made some faint +attempt at shortening the hours of the unhappy parish apprentices, the +law has gone on, steadily diminishing hours of work. From 1854 onward, +the working week for women in textile trades became one of 60 hours. +Within a few years later, these hours were reduced to 56½; and now, the +legal week in the textile trades is one of 55½ hours. At all these +stages, the regulations, though nominally affecting only women, have, in +practice, decided the hours of men also. Thus, the British textile +worker is employed for fewer hours than any foreign competitor. Wages, +though not high for the individual, are, owing to the fact that nearly +all its members work in the trade, high for the family. Rates of pay +have steadily risen; the average nominal wage of 24s. 9d. for men in +1881—itself an immense advance upon the starvation rates of the +thirties—had risen, in 1902, to 27s. 3d. For later years I cannot cite +figures, but the amazing prosperity of the trade during the last year or +two can hardly have failed to affect wages favourably.[77] + +Moreover, these rises have coincided with a fall in the price of food so +marked that the increase in average real wages, between 1881 and 1902, +is reckoned to be more than 36%. + +The number of persons employed has also steadily grown, and the returns +of the Chief Inspector of Factories show that in 1901 the industry gave +occupation to 513,000 persons. The increase in the number of spindles +and of looms, however, has been far greater than the increase in the +number of hands. Machinery has made vast strides and becomes daily +swifter and more economical of labour; so that the total growth of the +trade, since the days of employers who vowed that a ten-hour day would +ruin them, almost passes calculation. Moreover, the development of the +industry tends more and more towards those branches which demand most +skill. Our exports increase more largely in fabrics than in yarn, and +most of all in coloured fabrics, the prices of which are rising. We are +in short “specialising in the more expensive and difficult work.” We are +producing those really exquisite coloured cotton stuffs which under +various fancy names have, during the last few years, made summer dresses +so attractive, and which are well worth the comparatively high price at +which they are bought. + +On p. 61 of the pamphlet written by Professor S. J. Chapman for the Free +Trade League[78] may be found a most interesting table of the +comparative increase, all over the world, in the number of spindles, +between the years 1870 and 1903. We find that “about a fifth of the +total increase in the world’s spindles in a third of a century has +fallen to the United Kingdom. The whole of Europe, taken together in a +period of industrial awakening, cannot boast a growth of cotton spindles +more than twice as great as that which has taken place in this country +alone, though in 1870 Europe was almost at the beginning of her cotton +spinning, and has since then been fostering it.... In 1870 the American +nation had a fifth as many spindles as the United Kingdom, and to-day +she does not possess half as many as the United Kingdom.” And this in +spite of the fact that the population of the United States is so much +larger than ours. + +Another table (on p. 66) deals with exports of manufactured cotton +goods, and compares the average annual exports, from 1891 to 1902, of +Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, the United States, and +the United Kingdom. The absolute increase of British exports in the year +1901–2 was £8,170,000; that of Germany, £4,100,000; and that of the +United States, £325,000. All the remaining countries together totalled +an increase of only £13,450,000, as against Britain’s £8,170,000. The +increase in German exports, which comes nearest to our own, is but +slightly more than half of it. “Of the total trade (exporting) done by +the chief Western trading nations, Great Britain accounts for 62·5%; +Germany stands next with 12%.” Moreover, these figures, reaching only to +1902, take no account of the vast prosperity of the cotton trade in +Great Britain since: a prosperity of which some indication is given in +the Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1905. From Oldham, Mr +Crabtree reports that “About 20 new mills have been erected or are in +course of erection for the cotton spinning trade alone. These will +contain about 2,000,000 spindles.” (p. 147.) Mr Verney reports that “in +the Rochdale district alone three new mills containing 220,000 spindles +started in 1905, and at the end of the year there were nine more in +course of construction to be equipped with 770,000 spindles. The total +number of new mills which have commenced to run in 1905 and which are in +course of erection throughout Lancashire is no less than 57, with +5,000,000 spindles. The signification of these figures may be better +appreciated when it is remembered that in the whole of France there are +but 6,000,000 spindles, and in Germany less than 9,000,000.” (p. 147.) +On the same page the following declaration, by Mr W. Tattersall, is +quoted from “The Cotton Trade Circular”: “The year’s trading has been +the most prosperous in the history of Lancashire.” + +On the whole, the story of the British cotton trade—a trade, be it +remembered, the very existence of which is surprising—is the story of +one of the most amazing developments in industrial history. Raw material +that can only be grown in distant countries is brought, naturally +enough, at first, to a land of coal and iron, the cradle of the factory +system. By and by, other countries, including some in which the raw +material can be produced, begin, in their turn, to adopt the factory +system and to manufacture cotton. What would naturally follow? Surely, +the absorption of the English trade by the foreign competitor whom +nature favours. Moreover, Britain, already handicapped by nature, had +further handicapped herself by restricting hours of work and by imposing +high and expensive standards of sanitation and safety. Yet what is seen +to occur? England’s trade goes on steadily expanding, year by year; +wages rise, both nominally and, to a greater degree, really; and in the +course of last year (1905) not only was all the available adult labour +employed, but it was not possible to get enough of it, so that there was +actually some increase in half time labour, which previously had +steadily declined. + +Nor is the contrast less if we consider the mills themselves or the men +and women connected with them. In the first third of the last century, +the mills were, in general, dirty, ill ventilated, ill provided with +sanitary accommodation, frequently overcrowded, the machinery unguarded +and the temperature unregulated, so that the operatives suffered from +extremes both of heat and of cold. At the present day, there must be a +certain cubic space for every worker, there must be proper sanitary +accommodation, moderate temperature and—most important of all, perhaps, +in this industry—there must be proper ventilation for carrying off the +dust and fluff by which the lungs of so many cotton operatives have been +injured. The old mills were full of overworked, underpaid children, +stunted, wizened, and, if their contemporaries are to be credited, +precociously vicious; children who dropped asleep at their looms, and +had to be dragged, crying with sleepiness, from their beds to begin work +again in the morning, while another relay of little serfs were actually +waiting to enter the beds left vacant. The mills ran till late at night, +sometimes all night long. Diseases of many kinds, especially phthisis +and spinal deformities were rife; while drunkenness and immorality seem +to have been rampant. The masters, many of whom were self made men, of +little education, vowed that their profits were not large, and that any +restriction of the hours of labour would inevitably land them in the +Bankruptcy Court. The operatives, however, persisted in clamouring for +relief; parliament granted it; and strange to say, instead of being +ruined, the trade grew better and better. The workers, seizing their +chance, developed strong trade unions that included both men and women, +and thus secured themselves against the disastrous results of free +competition. Their union helped them to gain better wages; the law +helped them to health and to leisure. In less than three generations, +the cotton workers of North Western England have become intelligent, +independent citizens. They are no longer oppressed, no longer illiterate +and no longer vicious. Free libraries and co-operative stores grow and +flourish, and the old English passion for music, still dormant in the +South, is well awake in the large cotton towns of the North. In +industrial efficiency the English spinners and weavers of cotton have no +rivals. As the Tariff Commission reported, “Nearly every mill started +abroad with English machinery requires a certain amount of British +workpeople and overlookers to start it and to train up native labour.” +(Sec. 205.) This increase of skill, dependent very largely upon an +improved standard of life, has rendered possible a vast improvement in +methods of production, with the usual consequence of a greatly enlarged +output. The masters, from whom the increasing stringency of the law has +demanded an ever rising standard of capacity, are men of a better class +than their predecessors, and among the most enlightened of British +employers. + +Meanwhile, in other countries, many of the evils which Lancashire has +left behind, still prevail. Children toil to-day in certain American +mills, as they toiled once in ours; in many European countries, hours +are still injuriously long and wages inadequate to the demands of a +civilised life. Yet employers of this cheap labour cannot produce so +profitably as Lancashire can. “On the general efficiency of British +labour as compared with that of any foreign country witnesses are +practically unanimous,” says the Report of the Tariff Commission. (Sec. +89.) In short, the English cotton manufacturer produces more cheaply and +more profitably, upon the whole, than any competitor, and in the highest +branches of the trade, can hardly be approached. The reasons of this +pre-eminence are that the good conditions enforced by law and the +comparatively high wage enforced by the trade unions combine to create +for him the most efficient body of cotton workers in the world. Once +more, the facts of industrial history proclaim the truth that efficiency +is not the cause but the product of fair wages, healthy surroundings and +reasonable leisure. + +Do not let us be deceived into supposing that, apart from these factors, +there is any peculiarity in the cotton trade to account for these +developments. If there were, we should behold the ill paid and +overworked cotton workers of the Southern States, many of whom are of +the same race as ourselves, producing fabrics as good as ours, at the +same speed, and equal profit. Indeed, we need not go so far as America +for our object lesson. The South West of our own country may provide it. +Bristol, no less than the more northerly parts of the island, had its +cotton mills. The same advantages were presented: the port open to the +Atlantic, the moist westerly climate, the plentiful supply of labour. +The same factory law applies, the same hours and conditions are +enforced; the employers, of late years at any rate, have been men of +capital and of intelligence. One factor only has been absent: the +powerful organisation of workers. Because of its absence, wages have +fallen to the level of unskilled trades in the district. Men do not work +in the cotton trade in Bristol, nor adult women. The employees are +girls, earning the low wage of a Bristol factory girl. Of profits there +have, for years, been practically none. No employer can afford to make +improvements in methods of production; and at the present moment it is, +I believe, an open secret that the one remaining mill is only kept open +because its owner is unwilling to turn away the hands.[79] But for the +strong trade unions of the northern operatives, the whole of England’s +cotton trade at the present day might be in the position of Bristol’s +cotton trade, and the Lancashire worker might be toiling for as many +hours and as small a wage as his German competitor. To the organisation +of the workers, English labour owes that comparatively fortunate +position which is, as Mr Schoenhof, years ago, perceived, “the only +vantage ground which England possesses and which secures to her the safe +and indisputable rulership of the commerce of the world.”[80] + +In this particular industry of cotton, other nations, as he points out, +whose labour is ill paid and whose hours of work are long, are trying to +defend themselves by a high protective tariff “against the results of +England’s high pay and short hours.”... “Yet it is all machine work +driven by steam power and conducted in factories under the best +intellectual management which the countries afford. But how world wide +the difference in the results!”[81] + +World wide indeed—not as to national trade only, but as to national +happiness. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + THE MINIMUM WAGE IN PRACTICE + + Sweating not unknown in the colonies—Instances published by _Otago + Daily Times_—Underpaid workers in 1895—Epidemic of strikes—State + arbitration proposed in New Zealand—Conciliation Boards and Court + of Arbitration—Details of New Zealand law—Objections raised by + critics in England—Difference in position of British and of New + Zealand trade unions—New Zealand freed from strikes—The question + of the poorest workers—Wellington match makers—Tailoresses under + an agreement and tailoresses under an award—The under rate + worker—Victoria and Wage Boards—Campaign of the _Age_—Factory Act + of 1896—Details of Wage Board scheme—The first six Boards—Boards + in 1905—Several instances of the “determinations” of Wage + Boards—Effect on home work—The case of New South Wales—Summing up. + + +The evils of underpayment, being the invariable result of unlimited +competition, inevitably show themselves in any country where trade has +come into existence. The oversea colonies of Britain are not +overcrowded, are naturally rich, and ought to be free from evils +accumulated during an old civilisation. Yet, thirty years ago, instances +of underpayment, exactly on all fours with those exhibited in the +Queen’s Hall in the summer of 1906, were to be found in New Zealand, in +South Australia and in Victoria. + +There, as here, newspapers called attention to the facts, and aroused +the public conscience. In January 1889, the _Otago Daily Times_, “a +journal distinguished amongst its fellows for caution and restraint of +language,” published a series of articles about underpaid labour in +Dunedin. “One woman deposed that she might make 3s. 6d. on a good day +but it would be by stitching from half past eight in the morning until +eleven at night.”[82] + +“Yet she counted her lot at that time almost happy, for she had lately +escaped from a factory where, do what she would, she could not earn more +than eighteenpence daily by working until all hours of the night.” +Another woman reported that she “finished cotton shirts at 1s. 6d. a +dozen”[83] and that she could “get through a dozen and a half in the +factory between nine o’clock and six in the evening; then she carried a +dozen more home and sat up sewing by lamplight until they were +finished.... On one of these evenings she had a stroke of good luck; she +was allowed to take away a dozen flannels as well as her dozen shirts. +Both bundles were done when she went to bed—at three o’clock in the +morning—and by that night’s work she earned a whole shilling.” (p. 30.) + +Individual and combined action followed these revelations. A union of +tailoresses was formed and an effective factory law passed. Wages, +however, continued upon a downward course, and in 1895 “there were in +the colony 591 factory girls who were getting no pay for their work, and +175 who were paid half a crown a week or less.” (p. 34.) Such facts as +these were enough to show to thoughtful observers that, unless special +measures were introduced, the evils of European countries would grow +with the growth of the colonies. Another series of events helped to +focus attention upon labour problems. This was the epidemic of unusually +wide-spread and bitter strikes which ran through the various colonies in +the early nineties. Into the details of these it is unnecessary to +enter. It is enough to say that, in at least one instance, associated +workers demanded what they had no right to demand and that, in at least +three instances, associated employers refused even to confer upon the +demands of the workers. The mining companies, for example, declared in a +public manifesto that “The mining companies claim the right to work the +mines as they deem best and cannot refer this right to arbitration.” (p. +95.) Acts of violence were committed; the public was greatly +inconvenienced; much money was lost; and people began to look about for +some legislation that would obviate similar troubles in the future. + +This was the opportunity of Mr Reeves, at that time Minister of Labour +in New Zealand. He saw that the path of progress lay along the line of +organisation; and that the field of State Arbitration is not between man +and man, but between association and association. He recognised that +organised society has a right to demand of its different sections that +degree of class organisation which renders possible the application of a +common law. Hitherto, sectional combination had been used principally as +a basis for organised war; in Mr Reeves’s plan, it was to furnish the +basis of an organised peace. Following out the stages by which +industrial disputes develop into strikes, he substituted for each a more +peaceful step. His Bill, respecting the divisions of the colony into +districts, allowed the creation in any district of a local Conciliation +Board, and established a supreme Court of Arbitration. The Conciliation +Boards were to come into existence “if petitioned for,” and were to be +“composed of equal numbers of masters and men, with an impartial +chairman.” (p. 101.) The right of electing representatives to serve on +these Boards was given not to individuals but solely to such bodies of +employers or of workers (men or women) as registered themselves under +the Act. An association of as few as seven workers may, at the present +time, claim registration. When registered, such associations are called +Industrial Unions, and become corporations “with power to hold land, to +sue and be sued, and to recover dues from their members.” (p. 103.) + +The functions of a Conciliation Board are as follows: On receiving a +request from any party to an industrial dispute, it calls before it the +other parties concerned, hears, examines and awards. No strike or +lock-out is permitted while the case is under hearing. The Board has +full power to take evidence and to compel attendance. At first, the +awards of the Conciliation Boards had no legal force but, in 1900, the +amended Act made these awards “final and legally binding unless appealed +against within a month.” (p. 127.) + +The higher tribunal, the Court of Arbitration, consists of “a president +with two assessors, one selected by associations of employers the other +by federations of trade unions.” (p. 102.) The three members of the +Court are appointed for three years and, unless bankruptcy, crime or +insanity intervenes, cannot be removed except by a vote of both Houses +of Parliament. The Court is not fettered by precedent, settles its own +procedure and may take any evidence that it chooses, “whether strictly +legal evidence or not.” It may hear cases publicly or privately at its +discretion. Its award is given by the majority of the three members, and +they may decide whether the award is to have the force of law or “merely +to be in the nature of good advice.” If it is to have legal force it +must be filed in the Supreme Court and after that any party to it may be +prosecuted for a breach of it. The penalty payable by a single employer +or trade union is limited to £500; and in case of a union’s possessing +insufficient funds to meet the penalty every member is liable up to £10. +The award cannot be appealed against nor quashed by any other tribunal, +nor can the proceedings be carried into any other court. On the other +hand, awards remain in currency only for a fixed period, which need not +be longer than three years at the outside, and at the end of which the +matter may be reopened. + +Though only registered unions of masters and of workers can elect the +officials of the Boards and of the Court, yet the jurisdiction of these +tribunals extends to all employers and to all workers whether registered +under the Act or not. In any district where there is a duly registered +body of workers but none of employers the Governor in Council may +nominate the conciliators required to make up a Board. + +Such were the general features of the Act that after three years of +endeavour was passed at the end of 1894 and came into force in 1895. It +passed amid steady opposition from employers and with extremely little +support from public opinion. In 1900, after five years’ experience of +its workings, when a consolidated and amended Act was introduced, only +one voice was lifted to attack its general principle. Not from its +neighbours, who are intimate with the workings of it, but from this side +of the ocean have come the attacks to which it has been exposed. It has +been contended, again and again, by English newspapers that the measure +is unduly favourable to trade unions, a contention much strengthened in +appearance by the fact that in various trades awards have been made +requiring employers to give preference to unionists, so long as the +union can supply men qualified and ready to fill vacancies. Such awards, +however, are by no means invariable; each case is tried on its merits, +and the Court is largely guided by the general custom of each trade. It +must be borne in mind also that the position of a New Zealand union is +very different from that of a British union, and that this difference +has been largely brought about by the colonial law, in the interest not +of the union but of public peace and convenience. As Mr Reeves justly +remarks: “In New Zealand the community, mainly for the purpose of self +protection, has deprived trade unionists of the right of striking—of the +sacred right of insurrection to which all workmen rightly or wrongly +believe that they owe most of what lifts them above serfdom. The +Arbitration Act, moreover, deliberately encourages workmen to organise. +When, in obedience to the law, they renounce striking and register as +industrial unions, it does not seem amiss that they should receive some +special consideration. Their exertions and outlay in successfully +conducting arbitration cases benefit non-unionists as well as +themselves, though the non-unionists have done nothing to help them. Nor +need the preference entail any hardship to their employers. Non-unionist +labour is usually valued either because it is cheaper or because it is +more peaceable. But under the Arbitration law non-unionists must get the +same pay as unionists, and unionist strikes are abolished. It is only +the non-unionists (in a trade where there is no award in force) who can +strike, and who—though rarely and then only in petty groups—do. They +are, therefore, to that extent, the more dangerous servants of the two. +Nor, be it noted, does an employer who has only non-union men in his +factory stand clear of the Act. Nor again can he take himself out of it +by discharging his union hands and pleading that he has none in his +employ. If an award has been made dealing with the trade in his +district, he is bound by it as much as his competitors who employ union +labour.”[84] + +In short, New Zealand has taken out of the hands of organised labour its +principal weapon and has placed that weapon in the hand of the state. +The right of waging industrial war is, now, in New Zealand denied to +unions either of workers or of employers. To have enforced this denial +without loss to either side and at the same time to have encouraged +organisation is a feat that any British minister may reasonably desire +to emulate. + +It is quite certain that, without the Arbitration Act, New Zealand would +not have enjoyed that immunity from labour battles which in fact it has +enjoyed. The use of the Act happened to coincide, as its author points +out, with a revival of trade; and a revival of trade is, as every +experienced trade unionist knows, the period in which strikes may hope +to be successful. “Instead, however, of striking on a rising market, as +the traditional custom of trade unionism has been, the New Zealand +unions were able to arbitrate upon it”—to the saving of much money, much +suffering and much ill feeling. + +Other objectors complain that the Arbitration Act does nothing to help +the unorganised—always the most helpless—workers. Those who make this +complaint have failed to appreciate the value of that important +provision according to which a group of as few as seven (originally as +few as five) workers in any industry are allowed to register themselves +as an industrial union. Even in the poorest and most scattered of +English trades it would be an easy matter to collect seven persons who, +_if they knew themselves protected from dismissal_, would be willing to +appeal for improved conditions to a Conciliation Board. So far from +shutting out the unorganised, the Industrial Arbitration law opens to +them a door by which they may share in all the advantages of +organisation without waiting for a preliminary improvement in their +conditions; and, at the same time that it holds out to them a powerful +helping hand, makes them not merely passive recipients of a benefit, but +active agents in their own emancipation. + +Would that the same door were open to our poorest workers on this side +of the ocean; that the worser paid of English factory workers could, by +registering some seven of their number, present their case to a court +or, with the support of the court behind them, form such an agreement as +was made with their employers by the Wellington match-factory employees +in November 1902, and brought into court for registration. The schedule +of this agreement contains but five clauses and is a model of brevity +and directness. Clause I. settles the working hours, on the basis of a +45 hours week. Clause II. fixes (in 52 words) the piece work rates of +pay for five different branches of work. Clause III. deals with the +question of union and non-union labour, and requires “the company” +(there was but the one employing company, apparently, in the district) +“when engaging a worker or workers” to “employ a member or members of +the union in preference to non-members, provided there are members of +the union equally qualified with non-members to perform the particular +work required to be done, and ready and willing to undertake it; +provided, further, that any person now employed in this industrial +district in this trade, and any other person desirous of entering the +trade now residing or who may hereafter reside in this industrial +district, may become a member of the union upon payment of an entrance +fee not exceeding 5s., and of subsequent contributions, whether payable +weekly or not, not exceeding 6d. per week, upon the written application +of the persons so desiring to join the union, without ballot or other +election.” Clause IV. requires the executive of the union to keep an +“employment book” containing the names, addresses and employers during +the previous six months of members wanting to be employed; the book to +be “open to the company and its servants without fee or charge during +all working hours on every working day.” Clause V. runs as follows: +“When members of the union and non-members are employed together, there +shall be no distinction between members and non-members, and both shall +work together in harmony and shall receive equal pay for equal +work.”[85] + +I have thought it worth while to quote these clauses in some detail +because they are typical and illustrate the safeguards both to the +employer and to the non-union worker by which a preference clause is +generally accompanied. The whole schedule occupies only 46 lines of +print—exactly one page of the volume in which it appears. + +We see, by this example, that the Arbitration Act does not exclude +collective bargaining between workers and employers but allows the +registration and enforcement of terms to which the representatives of +both parties have agreed. Thus the field of legitimate activity is still +left open to organisations both of employers and of workers: the Act +merely provides for peaceable and equitable settlement in cases where +the parties fail to settle matters for themselves. An instance occurs in +the history of the tailoresses in which one district was governed by an +agreement, and another by an award. The employers in the latter district +complained that the employers in the former were allowed to compete with +them on unfair terms; and the court having compared the terms of the +agreement with those of the award, found that the agreement was actually +in some instances the higher of the two and that, in the instances where +it was lower, the wages actually paid were double those set down. This +was in 1903. In 1905 the trade was once more in court asking for the +establishment of a weekly wage. The court, acceding to what it declares +to have been a general wish, did fix a weekly wage, but made the award +for a year only, from Jan. 1906 to Jan. 1907. The schedule—rather a long +one—fixes the terms of apprenticeship to each class of work, the wages +of apprentices (5s. a week, rising at fixed intervals by 2s. 6d. at a +time); defines, according to the length of her experience in her special +department, a first-class and a second-class “improver,” a “journey +woman, and an under rate worker,” and fixes minimum rates for all but +the last named. Improvers in coat and vest work are to receive, for +second class hands (girls just out of apprenticeship) a minimum of 17s.; +first class hands (with another year’s experience) one of £1, 0s. 6d.; +journey women are to be paid not less than £1, 5s. 0d.[86] An under rate +wage, for old, infirm or incompetent persons, may be fixed by the worker +concerned and the trade union, by the Chairman of the Conciliation Board +or by any person appointed by the Board. Such settlements of under rate +wages continue for only six months, and opportunity is given to the +union and to the applicant of “calling evidence and adducing arguments” +before the adjudicator. In the four districts to which this award +applies a tailoress, who is a “full hand” and a competent worker, can +now be sure that her week’s work will not be paid at a lower rate than +25s. a week. There is no prohibition of home work; but the home worker +must be paid at the established piece work rates, and an employer paying +less exposes himself to fines up to the sum of £100. Thus, in district +after district, and in trade after trade, a system has been established +which combines the apparently contradictory virtues of uniformity and +elasticity. + +The scene of a sitting of the Court of Arbitration can easily be called +up from newspaper descriptions. The room is plain and not large. At the +upper end, between the two arbitrators, sits the judge in wig and gown. +Men and masters, easily distinguishable by differences of dress, manner +and speech, face each other across a table; in the body of the room +reporters and a sprinkling of spectators are gathered to listen. The +matter in hand is stated; then the representative of the men’s union or +of the associated masters sets forth the plea of his clients, no counsel +being employed except by agreement of both parties. The cost and the +duration of proceedings are, no doubt, both lessened by this provision; +and it is said that the unprofessional advocates on the two parts often +show remarkable ability in the conduct of the case. + +In Victoria a different method of fixing a minimum wage has been +adopted; the method not of the Conciliation Board and Court of +Arbitration but of the Wage Board. The mechanism of the Wage Boards is +much more easily described and understood than that of the New Zealand +Boards and Court; and it is, no doubt, partly, though not wholly, upon +this account that advocates of the minimum wage are apt to propose the +Victorian rather than the New Zealand model for imitation. Personally, +however, considerable study of both plans has convinced me that the New +Zealand method is, in practice, the less cumbrous, and that it includes +features of great value that are lacking in the Victorian system. + +Especially valuable seems to be the singular ease with which its +machinery can be brought to bear upon the poorest workers. Were the law +of New Zealand also the law of England I would myself engage to collect, +within six months, from each of half a dozen underpaid women’s trades +the seven workers necessary to form the required unions, and so to bring +these half dozen trades within the purview of a Conciliation Board. Such +Boards are established upon being asked for by a registered association +of workers (or of employers), whereas the Victorian Wage Boards can only +be established in any trade by a resolution of both Houses of +Parliament; and, on this side of the ocean at least, Parliaments are apt +to require much moving before they can be made to act. + +In Melbourne, as in New Zealand, the first impulse towards the legal +fixing of a minimum wage came from a newspaper. That powerful organ, the +_Age_, for many years continued to print articles on the subject of +underpayment and bad conditions of work. A Royal Commission was +appointed and made a Report as early as 1884, but no practical reforms +were attempted. The _Age_ continued its crusade. In 1893 a Board of +Inquiry was appointed and the evidence taken by that body showed the +state of the workers in several trades to be deplorable. In 1895 an +Anti-Sweating League was formed and, finally, in 1896, a new Factory and +Shops Act was passed, of which the most remarkable clauses were those +dealing with the establishment of Wage Boards. Provision was made for +the appointment of special boards “to fix wages and piece work rates for +persons employed either inside or outside factories in making clothing +or wearing apparel or furniture, or in bread making or baking, or in the +business of a butcher or seller of meat.”[87] + +Permission was also given by the Act for the appointment of similar +boards in other trades “provided a resolution has been passed by either +House[88] declaring it is expedient to appoint such a Board.” + +These Boards consist of not less than four nor more than ten members, +half of whom are elected by employers and half by employees, or, failing +election, are appointed by the Governor in Council. + +The methods by which the members of Wage Boards are elected is +extraordinarily cumbrous and could scarcely be imitated in any large +industrial community. The latest regulations for such elections (dated +Feb. 19, 1906) are embodied in no less than 28 clauses. In each +specified trade two electoral rolls must be prepared by the factory +inspectors, the one including names and addresses of all workers, the +other those of all employers. In order to facilitate the compilation of +this trade census, all employers are required to send to the inspectors +lists of the workpeople employed by them. Candidates must be nominated +by 10 employers or by 25 employees; and voting papers are printed +containing the names of all the candidates. + +“The Chief Inspector shall cause every voting paper to be posted at +least four days prior to the date of such election to every elector +whose name and address is on the roll of electors for the special +board.” The elector must strike out the names of all but those +candidates for whom he desires to vote and must return the paper by 4 +o’clock on the day of election. Imagine such a process as this in one of +our own ill paid trades! The workers in such trades are migratory in the +highest degree; by the time that the addresses of all qualified electors +had been collected, one third of them, at least, would have ceased to be +accurate. This fact alone would lead both to omissions and to +duplications. The clerical labour and postage would be so heavy as to be +a serious national expense; and the magnitude of the enumeration would +render its completion a work of time. I doubt whether a Board to deal +with any larger British trade could possibly be elected in less than a +twelvemonth; and even such expedition as this would demand the +employment of an extensive special staff. + +The members of the Board, when it has at last been formed may elect an +outside chairman, and if they fail to do so, the Governor in Council may +appoint one. The Boards may fix “either wage rates or piece work rates, +or both; must also fix the hours for which the rate of wage is fixed and +rate of pay for overtime.” They may also fix the proportions of +apprentices and improvers to be employed; and may “determine that +manufacturers may be allowed to fix piece work rates based on the +minimum wage.... The Chief Inspector may, however, challenge any rate so +paid, and the employer may have to justify it before the Board.” The +power to grant a licence to any aged or infirm worker to work at less +than the established minimum wage rests with the Chief Inspector. + +The first Boards were only six in number. Several of these had much +difficulty in arriving at a “Determination.” The Men’s and Boys’ +Clothing Board, for instance, occupied nine months in drawing up theirs, +and finally established both time and piece rates. With the idea of +compensating the home worker for incidental expenses and loss of time, +the piece work rates were fixed a shade higher than the time rate—with +the result that employers ceased to send work out. In other instances +where there has been no such difference, the compulsion to pay home +workers at something near a living wage has tended in the same +direction. + +Though the number of Boards was steadily enlarged, the legislation +allowing their formation was for some years persistently held as +experimental, and not until 1904, after eight years of experience were +they made a permanent part of the law of Victoria. + +There were at the end of 1905—the latest date for which the Report of +the Factory Inspectors is available—38 Boards the determinations of +which were in force. The wages and conditions fixed by these Boards vary +to a remarkable decree, and it is to be regretted that the smallest +advances seem in general to have been granted in the worst paid trades. +In some cases the established minimum for a competent adult worker is +sadly low. For instance the female chocolate coverer of over 21 has a +minimum of only 17s. weekly, while her fellow worker who is under 21 but +over 18 may be paid as little as 14s. a week. The minimum for a youth of +the same age is also 14s. but the adult male chocolate coverer (a person +whom I have never found in England) must be paid not less than 30s.[89] +Worse still is the case of the jam trade in which the minimum for +“females of 18 years and upwards” is but 14s.[90] Such determinations as +these point to a desire on the part of the Board rather to prevent a +further drop of wages than to effect a rise to what may be esteemed a +“living wage.” Still, even to arrest the downward course is a step in +the right direction, and the example of the millinery trade, in which +there is no Board, shows that the jam maker at 14s. is probably better +off than she would be were there no determination at all in her trade. +Miss Cuthbertson reports that in 1901 the average wage for milliners was +11s. 4d. per week per individual. “In 1902 the average fell to 11s. 1d.; +in 1903 to 10s. 4d.; in 1904 to 9s. 10d.;—and possibly this year will +witness a further fall.”[91] Yet the trade steadily grows, the number of +persons employed rising from 758 in 1901 to 1410 in 1904. + +Dressmakers, however, who work under a determination, average 12s. +3d.[92] The determination in this trade did not come into force until +September 1904; and in 1903 the average wage of dressmakers in Victoria +was 11s. 11d. These averages, of course, include apprentices and +learners. The established minimum for a competent dressmaker is now 16s. +per week.[93] + +This contrast serves to suggest how valuable has been the influence of +the Boards in checking the fall of wages. An average weekly difference +of half a crown between the wages of dressmakers and of milliners would +scarcely have arisen of itself, especially in a comparatively small +industrial community. Some Boards have evidently been timid; and some +have shown—to put the matter mildly—no strong desire to approximate the +wages of women to those of men engaged in very similar work. The +difference between 17s. and 30s. in the case of chocolate coverers may +serve as an instance. On the other hand, the Bootmaking Board and the +Brushmaking Board have courageously enacted that women employed in +certain branches shall have “the same rate as males.” Thus a woman in +the bootmaking trade who is engaged in “making, finishing or clicking +(but not skiving or trimming) insides or outsides or stuff cutting by +hand” must receive a minimum of 40s. a week; while for women in some +other branches of the same industry the minimum is fixed at 20s.[94] + +The Brushmaking determination, even bolder, runs thus: “Any females +employed in any of the above classes of work to be paid at the same +rates as males.” These rates vary from a minimum of 21s. a week to one +of 64s.[95] + +Even the lowest of these minima would be an advance of at least 25% on +the wages of most home working brushmakers in London. In Victoria the +average throughout the whole trade was, in 1905, £1, 9s. 2d.[96] + +Some Boards have been less successful than others. The mingled +ignorance, astuteness and bland mendacity of the Chinese furniture +makers appear to have baffled the Furniture Board, as far as the Chinese +department of the trade is concerned; and as the figures quoted show, +the minimum fixed in some women’s trades is far too low. But, looking at +the Report of the Chief Inspector—a most interesting document—it seems +impossible to doubt that the Boards have, in trade after trade, both +arrested the fall of wages and (not always but often) effected a rise. +No doubt the determinations are sometimes evaded; so, in our own +country, are the Factory Acts sometimes evaded, yet the general +influence for good of the Factory Acts is no longer a matter of doubt. +That neither the Industrial Arbitration Act nor the Wage Boards have by +their action checked the trade of the colonies in which they exist seems +to be established beyond question. The Wage Boards, without any other +prohibitory effort, seem by the mere process of forbidding underpayment +to have imposed a check upon the most unsatisfactory sorts of home work. +As M. Aftalion has pointed out, home work, in large part, subsists +solely on account of its evils. Work given out only because it might be +sweated naturally ceases to be given out when sweating is stopped. On +the other hand, home work of a better kind, the home work that is +harmful neither to the worker nor to the community, is not checked +merely by a provision that it shall be properly paid. While it is very +desirable that no person shall work at home for very poor pay or under +very bad conditions, it is emphatically not desirable that no person +whatever shall be allowed to work at home for money. Miss Thear, one of +the Victorian inspectors, reports a considerable decrease in home work +in the shirt trade, the tasks formerly performed by outdoor hands “and +in some cases by elderly women who are now recipients of the old age +pension” are now being performed in the factories by herring-boning, +button-hole and button sewing machines. “In addition to getting the old +age pension and going to work inside of factories, other means of +employment seem to have opened up for others who were formerly out +workers. Some have boarded-out children to care for, and some are +registered under the Infant Life Protection Act.”[97] + +Miss Cuthbertson, on the same page, says: “The tendency in all trades is +to get the work done in factories, where the supervision is closer, and +where, with improved machinery, work can be turned out much more +cheaply.” The minimum wage law has, in fact, hastened the course of that +development upon which most trades, and the clothing trades, perhaps, +especially, had already entered. + +Legislation of a similar character to that of the sister colonies has +been established in New South Wales, and the kindness of friends in +Sydney has supplied me with much matter published and unpublished; but, +after careful consideration, I have decided not to attempt any account +of the minimum wage law of New South Wales. The reasons for this +abstention are twofold. In the first place the Act is but five years +old, and its history, therefore, is far less instructive than that of +the legislation in New Zealand and in Victoria. In the second place the +accounts received point some one way and some another, so that it is +difficult to draw from them any plain conclusion. I am well aware that +by passing over the case of New South Wales I expose myself to the +accusation of adducing only the favourable examples and of disregarding +those that have not succeeded. To this it may fairly be replied that +although the New South Wales law has not apparently fully succeeded, +neither has it entirely failed. It is still in a stage of probation, and +therefore of far less value to the student than such laws as have +progressed beyond that stage. Moreover, even if it were true—as most +emphatically it is not—that the Colonial experiments had all completely +failed, it would by no means follow that to devise a successful minimum +wage law was a task beyond the wit of man. + +In fact, however, both forms of minimum wage law—the Arbitration Court +and the Wage Boards—have demonstrably helped to raise wages and to +diminish underpayment within their jurisdiction. The Industrial +Arbitration Act, in particular, is a very remarkable piece of +constructive legislation, the full scope of which will probably be more +and more perceptible with the development of the land to which it +belongs. Its balance, its wide applicability, the simplicity and +promptitude of its working deserve to be better comprehended. The Wage +Board, by comparison, lacks originality, flexibility and ease. + +Both examples have great value for British students; yet it does not +follow that either, in precisely its Colonial form, is altogether suited +to the industrial needs of Britain. A prejudice against compulsory +arbitration—a prejudice which I venture to think rests in some degree +upon imperfect comprehension of the New Zealand law—is strong among +British trade unionists, and the work of dispelling this would be long +and arduous. On the other hand, the comparative slowness and +cumbrousness of the Wage Board system and the absence of any means by +which the workers can claim the help of the Board are features only too +much in accord with English inertness and officialdom. It seems much to +be desired that, if Wage Boards should come to be created in this +country, the appointment of them should be effected in the same manner +as the appointment of the New Zealand Conciliation Boards: i.e., on the +request of seven or more associated workers; and it is quite imperative +that some simpler and less costly method of choosing the representatives +of labour and of capital, respectively, should be devised. To establish +in this country a system which proved to be almost unworkable or of +which the machinery moved so slowly as to be always in arrear of actual +conditions would tend to promote rather than to abate the evil of +sweating. + + + + + CHAPTER V + FOREIGN COMPETITION + + High wages and high prices not necessarily connected—Effect of + increased wages in different groups of trades—Trades in which + there is a margin for increase—Varying wages in the same + trade—Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society’s shirt + factory—Trades in which higher wages would lead to improved + methods—Displacement of workers—Cheapened production—Increased + demand and increased employment—Trades in which higher wages would + lead to higher prices—Foreign legislation against sweating—Effect + of higher wages upon home market—Valuelessness to the country of + very ill paid trades—The two lines along which trade may + develop—The line of cheap labour—Consequences to the British + worker—The line of good work—Summing up. + + +The foregoing chapters will have been written in vain if they have not +succeeded in showing that there is no necessary connection between high +wages and high selling prices; but that, on the contrary, high wages, in +the great majority of cases, actually conduce to cheap production. Were +this invariably the case, it is obvious that a general rise of wages, +far from encouraging foreign competition, would rather form a barrier +against it. And this, in fact, would be—as it is in some instances +already—the case in many trades. + +It may be well briefly to consider the various groups of cases that +would arise in consequence of a general rise in the remuneration of +labour. There exists, in the first place, a considerable group of trades +in which, for similar work in respect of goods sold at the same price, +different employers pay very different rates of wage. A very remarkable +instance is furnished, in one of the worst paid trades, by the shirt +factory of the Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society. In that +establishment, turning out goods for working class customers, women have +for years received about double the wages of the average home working +shirt maker, they not providing, as does she, the sewing cotton used. In +October 1906 the average wage paid to workers in this factory was 18s. +3d. per week, and their week was one of 44 hours.[98] Yet the factory +pays and has done so for many years.[99] + +It is therefore clear that even in the ready made shirt trade it is +possible to pay reasonably good wages, to compete with the “sweater,” +and yet to make a profit. Thus the enforcement of a minimum weekly wage +very near the level of Mr Maxwell’s 18s. 3d. would neither kill the +trade nor stimulate the importation of foreign shirts. It would merely +impose upon other employers that standard of management and methods +which Mr Maxwell has chosen voluntarily to adopt. Those employers who +lacked intelligence or flexibility to carry on a factory on these terms +would, it is true, be driven out of business; but their customers would +not cease to buy nor to be supplied at the old price. The only change +would be that none of us would, any longer, be buying shirts at which +some woman had sewn, as Hood said, + + “with a double thread + At once a shirt and a shroud.” + +There are other groups of trades in which the history of the cotton +trade would be repeated, that is to say, the employer who found himself +compelled to pay higher wages would at once introduce better +machinery—either in the narrow sense of actual appliances or in the +wider sense of improved organisation and management. Such an employer +would also, as the cotton masters have done, demand better work from his +employees, and would get it. At first there might be a diminution in the +number of hands employed; but if, as almost always happens, the improved +methods led to a considerable reduction in the cost of production and +consequently to a lowered selling price, demand would immediately +increase, and more workers would again be wanted. There is no reason in +the nature of things why a rise of wages and a powerful labour +organisation should not do for the silk trade and the woollen trade of +Britain what they have already done for the cotton trade. + +In the first group of these trades, then, no workers would be displaced, +and the conditions of the market would remain unaltered; in the second, +there would, at first, probably be a displacement and afterwards, +probably, a renewed, or even an increased demand for workers. + +We come next to a group of trades which may exist, but of the existence +of which I personally am somewhat sceptical. These are the trades in +which there is neither margin of profit nor room for improvements that +might make up for the additional outlay upon heightened wages. In these +trades—if such there be—it is undeniable that if British wages rose +while foreign wages remained stationary the foreigner would be extremely +likely to capture the market. + +But there are various matters that must be set down upon the other side +of the account. To begin with, our foreign competitors are themselves +uneasy about the existence of sweating within their borders. It is +almost certain that German legislation directed against this evil will +precede legislation in this country; while in America, as may indeed be +judged by the quotations from recent American books that appear in these +pages, there are many persons much concerned with the problem of +underpaid labour. If our foreign competitors should keep step with +ourselves in the prohibition of extreme underpayment, the balance of +international trade would be in no way disturbed. Nay, if only Germany +should do so, the disturbance to the English market would not be +serious. + +Moreover, the payment of high wages to working people has, in itself, a +beneficial effect upon the home market. Some people write and speak as +though money when it once passed into the hands of a wage earner passed +out of existence. But in fact it almost always returns very quickly into +active circulation and thus quickens the national turnover. As a general +rule a workman, when his wages rise, spends his extra money upon +additional comfort for himself and his family; buys more and better +food, more and better clothes, more and better furniture; often he moves +to a better dwelling and almost always he extends his recreations. The +chances are that he will spend something in belonging to a club or a +friendly society. He will not, however, as his enemies are fond of +asserting, generally drink more; it is to the man who lives with his +family in one room, not to the man who has a comfortable parlour, that +the public-house looks so attractive. We may say without much doubt that +these will be his modes of expenditure because we have among us plenty +of well paid artisans, and observation teaches that these are in fact +the ways in which they spend their money. Now, many of these channels of +expenditure are practically not open to foreign competition. Bread for +English eating must be baked in English bakehouses: milk is not yet +imported: the retail shopkeeper, the bricklayer, the omnibus driver and +the railway servant must follow their avocations on the hither side of +the sea. The better paid worker thus, without any premeditation or +patriotic design, tends, by the mere process of buying what he wants, to +set his fellow countrymen working. It is quite possible that the +increase of demand thus created would more than counterbalance the loss +of any trade the retention of which depends upon the continuance of +underpayment. Nor is this all. It is a question whether any trade in +such a condition is either worth keeping or capable of being kept. An +experienced employer who is at the head of a large and successful +enterprise writes to me: “Broadly speaking, I am convinced that an +occupation which does not admit of a decent living wage is an occupation +we are better without and one which in due time will die. I mean that +the requirements of the Factories and Workshops Act must kill it. A +trade which can only live by means of inadequate wages and cheap squalid +unhealthy buildings is doomed.” Such a trade while it still endures is +not really a source of national profit. The workers whose lives it +drains, not being supported by the price paid for their labour, must +come eventually to be partly or wholly supported by other people. They +are, in fact, a national burden, whether the charge is nominally borne +by the State or by private citizens. Poverty, dirt and disease are very +costly to the country in which they prevail; and they are inevitable +results of underpayment. + +We may seek the development of our trade along either of two lines—we +may aim either at underselling our competitors or at surpassing them. If +we elect to take the line of cheapness, and also determine to seek that +cheapness by paying very low wages, we must confine ourselves to goods +that demand neither very high skill nor very elaborate machinery. But +these are precisely the sort of goods that can best be produced by +nations upon a lower level than ourselves, by peasants and by dwellers +in genial climates where comparatively little food and clothing and +practically no heating are required. With workers such as these we can +never compete on equal terms, and we should be wiser not to try. We can +never bring down an Englishman to the standards of the Chinaman or of +the Hindoo. But we can, in making the attempt, create among ourselves a +class of helots, degraded labour slaves, living on a level that shocks +our national conscience. To do this is to keep open a sore in our midst +and to run a constant risk of those revolts and disturbances which are +the greatest possible danger and interruption to the regular course of +trade—a greater danger perhaps than that of being undersold by +foreigners. For the long-suffering of the English poor, though amazing, +is not probably quite unlimited. No national life can be stable while +large numbers of the people live in great misery. The best safeguard of +national peace is a general distribution of comfort and independence. +And the safest paths towards this state of security are good education +and good payment for the workers. Low wages lead by a path of +intolerable suffering to an inevitable downfall. On the ascending path +too there may be dangers—but they are the less dangers, and they will be +faced by citizens fitter to meet them. + +After all, even Great Britain cannot expect to hold all the trade of the +world. What she may expect, what she can have if she will, is the +commercial leadership of the world. She may show in other departments, +as she has shown in cotton and in iron, that her race can produce the +best workers living, and the best organisers of work; and she can +continue the great lesson which others have learned from her history, +but which she herself does not always remember, the lesson that, other +things being equal, that nation becomes wealthiest which pays its +workers best. Health, skill, intelligence: these are the true bulwarks +of national prosperity; and the price of these is liberal payment for +labour. Nor does the prosperity which rests upon these things injure +those neighbouring nations amid which it develops. Rivalry upon the +up-grade educates and improves all alike; rivalry upon the down-grade +injures and degrades all, but not all alike. In that competition the +nation suffers most whose standards are highest. + +To sum up in a few words: in many trades, wages could be raised out of +profits without change of selling price; in some a rise of wages would +lead to improvements of method, to cheapening of production and probably +to a fall of selling price; in some, though probably not in many, a rise +of wages would necessitate a rise of prices; and of these there may be +some (it is not proved that there are) the retention of which absolutely +depends upon the payment of excessively low wages.[100] + +In regard to the first two groups, which together cover the greater part +of the industrial field, improved payment at home would certainly give +no advantage to the foreign competitor and might in some cases rather be +disadvantageous to him. + +In the other group, a rise of wages would probably, wherever the nature +of the industry admitted of importation, lead to an increase of +importation as against home production. + +But in cases where the continuance of a trade actually depends upon +aggravated underpayment the trade is shown, by that very fact, to be +already in a declining state, and unable to support its own cost; and no +trade that is in a declining state and that offers no possibility of +bettered conditions can be regarded as a valuable national asset. On the +other hand, of every additional shilling paid in wages, at least +sixpence is spent in employing British labour, so that if, owing to a +general rise of wages, we were to lose entirely the third and lesser +group of industries, we should still enjoy a greater volume of trade +than before wages were raised. + +Thus, when we look it squarely in the face, we perceive that the bogie +of foreign competition is a bogie indeed; and that British workers well +paid would have less ground than British workers ill paid to fear that +their trade would be taken from them. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + GAIN TO THE NATION + + Desirability of better pay to the underpaid—Report of + Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration—Its hopeful + side—No degenerate class—Physical and mental effects of poverty on + the individual—The better paid artisan—Conclusion. + + +If, then, without seriously diminishing the trade of the country or the +volume of employment, it is possible gradually to raise the wage of all +ill paid workers to a level that will allow them something like a +civilised existence, how desirable and how urgent is legislation that +will bring about this result. No person, indeed, disputes the +desirability of the change; the only point in question is its +feasibility. To prove that the change is feasible and is impossible to +be effected except by law has been the whole purpose of this volume. +Now, in these last pages, it may be permissible to glance at the immense +gain to the nation that would arise from a general increase in the pay +of such British workers as are now grossly underpaid. + +Physically, no person familiar with the poorer quarters of any +industrial district can doubt that such workers are suffering seriously. +The whole report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical +Deterioration is little more than a report of the results of extreme +poverty. Amid the accumulation of melancholy facts, however, is to be +found evidence of a most hopeful kind. In our own country, at least, its +seems to be true that the physical deterioration which comes of poverty +(as distinguished from that which comes of vice) is rather personal than +hereditary, and that the starved child will regain health and normality +amid better conditions; so that even in a single generation any group of +British people suffering from the effects of poverty may be restored to +the average standard of the race if properly fed, properly clothed, +properly housed, not overworked, and allowed plenty of air. The higher +death rate, the inferior physique, the poorer vitality of the ill paid +mark tendencies not inborn but acquired, all of which might and would +disappear with the diminution of poverty and of that ignorance which is +one outcome of poverty, and also, by reaction, one of the contributory +causes of poverty. Degeneracy exists; but not a degenerate class; the +class which we sometimes call degenerate is, as a class, merely starved. +In short all that waste of human life, of human energy and of human +happiness which is going on daily around us and is causing to the +country a daily loss heavier than that of any campaign, is neither +inevitable nor incurable. This misery might be sensibly diminished +within three years, and might be ended within the lifetime of children +already born. + +Nor is it the body alone that suffers the deterioration of poverty. The +underfed brain too, remains stunted; and to be constantly hungry is to +be constantly apathetic. Lassitude, inertia, the mental dulness that +knows no pleasure except of the senses, no personal initiative and no +activity save in response to external stimulus, these are the +characteristics of the adult whose childhood has been passed in +overcrowded rooms, whose food has been insufficient, his clothing +inadequate, and to whom no wider horizons have ever been opened. Such an +individual knows nothing of the real joys of life; he is a valueless +citizen, consuming more than he produces, a poor worker, and even when +not personally vicious, an influence rather towards degradation than +towards progress. + +But taken early enough and fed, clothed and housed like the children of +the better paid artisan, the same man might have become healthy of body +and alert of mind; a reader of books, a player of outdoor games, a +skilled craftsman taking delight in his good work, a citizen rendering +intelligent public service, a parent of healthy hopeful children, +enjoying and creating prosperity. There are hundreds of such men among +the superior artisans of this country. It has been my lot to know many +of them, and it is my belief that on the whole they and their families +form the happiest, the most valuable and the best conducted portion of +our nation. To bring up into that class those compatriots of theirs and +ours who now, by no fault of their own, suffer not only the privations +but also the degradations of extreme poverty is no impossible feat, and +would be the greatest possible of national services. Happily there are +signs of a growing public desire to remedy the appalling evils vaguely +summarised under the word “sweating,” and of a growing inclination to +seek the remedy along the lines of endeavour marked out by our colonial +brethren. + +In the earnest hope that such an endeavour may be made, quickly, yet not +hastily, by the law of Great Britain, and that these chapters may as +soon as possible become out of date, I offer to my fellow countrymen the +conclusions gradually shaped in my own mind by nearly twenty years of +work among industrial problems. + + + + + INDEX + + + Adler: Miss Nettie, 108, 123, 124 + + Aftalion: A., 2, 255 + + Alien immigration, 197 + + America: Children’s work in, 115, 119–122, 128; + “sweating” in, 143; + a living wage in, 149–151; + low cost of production, 184; + cotton trade, 221; + child labour in cotton mills, 226; + southern states, 227 + + Anti-Sweating league: in Melbourne, 247 + + Apprentices, parish: Act of, 218 + + Arbitration Courts in New Zealand, 235, 236 + + Army and Navy Stores, 176, 177 + + Australia: wage board in Victoria, 246; + in Melbourne, 247; + minimum wage in Melbourne, 251; + legislation in New South Wales, 257 + + + Babies’ shoe making, 105 + + Bake houses: boys working in, 109 + + Ball covering, 15 + + Bird cage making, 14 + + Boot finishing, 15 + + Boot making, 105 + + Booth: Chas., 6, 65, 148, 155, 201 + + Bosanquet: Mrs, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159 + + Box making: children’s work, 106 + + Brickfields: children working in, 110 + + + Cabmen, 76 + + Cabs and Omnibuses Bill: report of select committee, 82, 83, 97 + + Cadbury: Edward, 3 + + “Case for the Factory Acts: The,” 114 + + Chapman: Prof. S. J., 220 + + “Child Labour” (_No. 93, Annals_ _of American Academy_), 119 120–122, + 125, 128–130 + + Children: as home workers, 104; + unpunctual at school through home work, 105; + babies’ shoe making, 105, 108; + dodging educational authorities, 106; + working all night, 106; + match box making, 106, 108; + string bag making, 107; + tooth brush making, 107; + kid belt making, 107; + wood chopping, 107; + wood polishing, 107; + steel covering, 108; + fish basket sewing, 108; + in small laundries, 108; + half timers, 112; + errand boys, 108; + Saturday and evening boys, 108; + barbers’ lather boys, 108; + matching girls, 109; + street trading, 109; + their labour of little use to them later in life, 109; + boys working in bake houses, 109; + in brick-fields, 110; + heavy loads, 110–111; + in textile trades, 110–111, 112; + in the potteries, 114; + general remarks on child labour, 140 + + Civil Service Stores, 177 + + Clerks and Bookkeepers, 71, 138 + + Committee on wage-earning children, 108 + + Competition, free: its effect upon labour, 166; + checks upon, 195 + + Confectionery, 29, 32, 110 + + Consumers: Associations of, 176 + + Consumers’ League, A: impractibility of, 205–211; + in America, 210; + influence on public opinion, 210 + + Co-operation: Industrial, 176, 177, 180 + + Co-operative Stores, 201, 202 + + Co-operative Union, 180 + + Cost of labour: recognition of its true cost, 173 + + Cotton mills: children’s work, 110–111, 112–113 + + Cotton trade: not natural to Britain, 214–217; + condition of workers in 1830, 217; + prosperity increased under higher wages, 219; + in Bristol, 227 + + “Cotton Trade Circular,” 222 + + Cotton workers: educational improvement of, 225 + + Crabtree: Mr, Inspector of Factories, 221 + + Cuthbertson: Miss, Inspector of Factories, Victoria, 256 + + + _Daily News_, 59, 60 + + _Daily News_: Sweated Industries Exhibition, 10, 18, 142, 148 + + Danger of Fire, 35 + + Dockers’ Union, 135 + + Dressmaking, 29, 32 + + Drink and Poverty: some facts about, 198; + lessened by shorter hours, 200 + + + Early marriages: reason for, among working class, 197 + + Economy of high wages, 165, 184, 228 + + Edgworth: Maria, 115 + + Education: effect of child labour on, 125 + + Efficiency: remarks on, 158 + + Emigration, 196, 211 + + Employers: responsibility for strikes, 184; + duty to pay a fair wage, 187; + in cotton trade, 225; + in Bristol, 227 + + Errand boys, 108; + Saturday and evening workers, 108; + barbers’ lather boys, 108 + + + Factories: reports of chief inspector, 25, 29, 32, 37, 38, 39, 109–111, + 221; + in Australia, 252–254, 256 + + Factory Acts: beneficial effects, 181, 188, 194, 224, 267; + in Australia, 247; + evasion of, 255 + + Factory girls: an appreciation of, 134; + manners of, 136; + code of honour, 137 + + Factory work: general remarks on, 133 + + Factory workers: their condition compared with home workers, 23, 46 + + Fair wage, a: what is a fair wage, 161; + pessimist view, 212–214 + + Fines and deductions, 39, 41, 54 + + Fish basket sewing, 108 + + Foreign Competition: effect on a minimum wage, 271 + + Free Libraries, 225 + + _Free Trade League_, 220 + + + Gaskell: P, 217 + + Germany, 143; + cotton trade in, 221; + possibility of legislation to curtail sweating, 264, 265 + + Gissing: Geo., 72 + + Glass works in America, 120–121 + + _Guardian: The_, 210 + + + Half timers, 112 + + Health: of home workers, 17; + of factory workers, 25; + of shop assistants, 55; + of child workers, 115, 121–125 + + Heavy loads, 110–111 + + High wages and cheap production, 260 + + “Historical Development of the Factory Acts,” 114 + + Hogg: Mrs, 18, 118 + + Home Industries for women: report on, 2 + + Home Office enquiry, 125 + + Home work: report on, 2; + in Birmingham, 3; + match box making, 3; + shirt making, 10; + paper-bag making, 11; + toy making, 13; + pipe making, 13; + bird cage making, 14; + weaving, 14; + boot finishing, 15, 105; + ball covering, 15; + tooth brush making, 18, 20; + miscellaneous trades, 21 + + Home workers: Condition of, 17; + general remarks on, 132; + impossibility of organisation, 186 + + Hours of work: piece work, 16; + long hours in factories, 29, 30, 31; + shop assistants, 53, 58; + in Scotland, 66; + waitresses, 69; + railway men, 77; + omnibus men, 83; + motor omnibus men, 92; + children’s hours of work at home, 108; + in tin works, 110; + work at home after closing hours, 188; + women in textile trades, 218 + + House of Lords Committee on Early Closing of Shops, 68 + + Hutchins: Miss B. L., 114 + + + Industrial efficiency: effect of Child Labour on, 130–131; + caused by fair wages, 227 + + Industrial Unions of New Zealand, 234 + + Ireland: copartnership in, 179 + + Ironing, 108 + + Irwin: Miss, 3, 17, 66, 67, 68, 69 + + + Jackman: Marshall, 124, 125 + + Jam-making. _See_ Confectionery + + Jarvis family: History of, 7 + + Johnson: Dr, 157 + + “Juvenile wage earners and their work,” 108, 123 + + + Kelley: Mrs Florence, 120, 125, 129 + + Kid belt making, 107 + + + Labour and other commodities: difference in essence between, 171 + + Labour co-partnerships, 176; + in Ireland, 179 + + Laundries: long hours in, 31 + + Laundry work, 108 + + Lead poisoning: risk of, 37 + + Legislation for a minimum wage: need of, 272 + + Living wage: estimate of, 149 + + London County Council: as employer, 100; + contrasted with private companies, 101; + bye-laws relating to child labour, 119, 124; + Medical Officer’s report, 123 + + _Longman’s Magazine_, 206 + + + MacDonald: J. Ramsay, 65 + + Manchester physicians’ report on child labour in 1784, 112 + + “Manufacturing population of England,” 217 + + Martindale: Miss, Inspector of Factories, 111 + + Match box making, 3, 7; + child workers, 106 + + Matching girls, 109 + + Matheson: M. Cécile, 3 + + Maxwell: Mr, Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, 261, 262 + + Maxwell: W. B., 72 + + _Melbourne Age: The_; crusade against sweating, 247 + + Minimum wage: legislation in New Zealand, 231–246; + in Australia, 246–258; + practicability of legislation in England, 258–259; + effect of a minimum wage, 271 + + Miscellaneous trades, 21 + + Mitchell: John, 149–151 + + Moral aspect of shop assistant’s life, 72 + + Moral effect of child labour, 127–131 + + + Nail and chain making, 12 + + National Anti-Sweating League, 261 + + National aspect of better conditions, 192 + + National income, 195 + + National Union of Shop Assistants, etc., 55 + + New Zealand: state arbitration, 231–239; + industrial unions of, 234; + arbitration court, 235, 236; + wages in, 244 + + Non-competitive systems, 176 + + Non-producers, 195 + + Novels: showing shop assistant’s life, 72 + + + Old age pension: in Australia, 256 + + Omnibus men: drivers and conductors; licences, 81; + wages, 83; + expenses, 83; + liability for accidents, 85; + drivers and conductors of motor omnibuses; + hours of work, 92; + wages, 92; + breakdowns, 94; + uniform, 98; + spies, 99; + general remarks, 140, 143, 164 + + “Organised labour,” 151 + + Ormsby: Sir Lambert, 124 + + Over population, 195 + + + Packing and filling: cocoa, 25; + tea, 26; + jam, 26; + cartridges, 26 + + Paper-bag making, 11, 24 + + Payment, _See_ Wages + + Peel: Sir Robert, 114 + + Physical deterioration, 273 + + Pipe making, 13 + + Potteries: children working in, 114 + + Poverty: investigations into, 148–149; + physical and mental effects on the individual, 273–274 + + + Railway workers: hours, 77; + porters’ wages, 77; + “blacklisting,” 78; + general remarks on, 140, 164 + + Reeves, W. Pember, 231, 233, 237, 239, 248 + + Rochdale pioneers, 178 + + Romilly: Sir Samuel, 113 + + Rowntree: Seebohm, 148, 149 + + Ryan: Father, 149, 151 + + + Sanitary Acts: competition checked by, 181, 191, 194 + + Sanitary conditions: of factories, 33; + shop assistants’ quarters, 58; + high standard in cotton factories, 223 + + Schoenhof: J., 131, 165, 184, 228 + + Scottish Council for Women’s Trades, 3, 126 + + Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, 261 + + Shann: Geo., M.A., 3 + + Shirt making, 10, 144 + + Shop assistants: living in, 48; + code of rules, 54; + wages, 60; + “premiums,” 60; + commissions, 62; + condition in Scotland, 66; + general remarks, 138 + + Small: Prof. Albion, 149 + + Spiers & Pond, Ltd., 70 + + Squire, Miss: Inspector of Factories, 35, 36 + + State arbitration in New Zealand, 231; + success of, 239 + + Steel covering, 108 + + Street trading by children, 109 + + Strikes, 183, 184; + in the colonies, 232 + + String bag making, 107 + + “Sweating”: definition of the term, 1; + not confined to cheap goods, 22, 142; + general remarks, 132, 143; + not unknown in the colonies, 230; + a source of weakness to nations, 266–269 + + + Tailoring, 29; + wages in New Zealand, 244 + + Tariff Commission, 220, 225, 226 + + Tattersall: Mr W., 222 + + Temperance, 198, 211 + + Temperature: extremes of, 40; + in cotton factories, 223–224 + + Textile trades: Children’s work, 110–111, 112–113 + + Thear: Miss, Inspector of Factories, Victoria, 256 + + Thomas: Dr, 123 + + Thrift among working classes, 201; + not advisable, 202–205 + + Tooth brush making, 18, 20, 107 + + Toy making, 12 + + Trade unions, 182, 184; + mistakes of, 185; + as provident societies, 201, 202; + in cotton trade, 225, 226; + lack of trade organisation in Bristol cotton mills, 227, 228; + in New Zealand, 237 + + + Underpaid worker: cost to the nation, 170–171 + + Underpayment: how it comes about, 144–160; + not caused by inefficiency, 159 + + United States: _see_ America + + + Ventilation, 224 + + Verney, Mr: Inspector of Factories, 222 + + Vines, Miss: Inspector of Factories, 31, 37 + + + Wages: match box making, 5, 7; + shirt making, 10, 144–145; + paper-bag making, 12; + toy making, 13; + clay pipe making, 14; + ball covering, 16; + brush making, 20; + miscellaneous trades, 21; + packing and filling, 23, 26, 27, 28; + machinists, 41; + shop assistants, 60; + waitresses, 70; + female clerks and bookkeepers, 71; + railway porters, 77; + omnibus men, 83; + motor omnibus men, 92; + children’s wages for home work, 105–106; + wages, how determined, 152; + what is a fair wage, 161; + articles of dress, 188; + textile workers, 218–219; + tailoresses in New Zealand, 244; + factory wages in Australia, 252–254; + high wages and cheap production, 260–261 + + Waitresses: in restaurants, 67; + in railway stations, 68; + hours of work, 67, 68; + expenses of, 69; + general remarks on, 138 + + Washing appliances, 37 + + Watts: Alderman; of Manchester, 123 + + Weaving, 14 + + Webb: Catherine, 176 + + Webb: Mrs Sydney, 114 + + Wells: H. G., 72 + + Whiteley’s, Ltd.: William, 54 + + Women in the printing trades, 65 + + _Women’s Co-operative Guild_, 180 + + “Women’s employment in shops,” 67, 69 + + _Women’s Industrial Council_, 2, 3, 6, 7, 17, 56, 72, 188, 189 + + “Women’s work and wages,” 3, 39, 65 + + Women workers: difficulty of organisation, 185, 186 + + Wood chopping, 107 + + Wood polishing, 107 + + Woodward: S. W., 130 + + Work done below cost price, 164 + + Worth: meanings of, 162 + + + Zola: E., 72 + + + PRINTED BY + TURNBULL AND SPEARS, + EDINBURGH + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + A. Aftalion, “Le developpement de la fabrique et le travail à domicile + dans les industries de l’habillement.” Paris. Librairie du recueil J. + B. Sirey et du Journal du Palais. + +Footnote 2: + + “Home Industries of Women in London.” Report of an Inquiry in + thirty-five trades. + +Footnote 3: + + “Women’s Work and Wages.” A phase of life in an industrial city. By + Edward Cadbury, M. Cécile Matheson and George Shann, M.A. + +Footnote 4: + + Handbook to the Exhibition, p. 139. + +Footnote 5: + + Mrs F. G. Hogg was one of the most valued members of the Women’s + Industrial Council. Her ability, judgment, perseverance, and devotion + were all admirable, and her early death has left in the memories of + those who worked with her a blank that can never be filled up. + +Footnote 6: + + Report of the Chief Inspector, 1905, pp. 297–98. + +Footnote 7: + + A friend has just sent me a note of a similar case, that of a + cartridge filler, who received 1d. for filling 1000 cartridges. She + said that she could fill 25,000 a day, when busy. “But,” adds my + friend, “she is a physical wreck, having worked at this for ten + years.” + +Footnote 8: + + Report of the Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 50. + +Footnote 9: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 99. + +Footnote 10: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 300. + +Footnote 11: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 302. + +Footnote 12: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 290. + +Footnote 13: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 34. + +Footnote 14: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 292. + +Footnote 15: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 293. + +Footnote 16: + + Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 280. + +Footnote 17: + + The article from which this is an extract was published (in the _New + Review_) in September 1891; but the practices described, are, I fear, + not yet extinct, though the law is succeeding by degrees in making + them risky. + +Footnote 18: + + “Life in the Shop.” A series of articles reprinted from the _Daily + Chronicle_, pp. 5 and 6. + +Footnote 19: + + The National Union of Shop Assistants, Clerks, and Warehousemen, now + growing very powerful, and guided by able, experienced and energetic + officials, has of late done much towards inducing employers to abolish + or diminish some of their fines. + +Footnote 20: + + A peculiarly shocking example of the abuses that may arise from a + system of fining was lately brought to my knowledge. It is not recent, + and must, I think and hope, be unique. I have found no witness who has + ever heard of a similar instance. Of its truth, however, the source + from which it comes forbids doubt. These are the facts. In a certain + retail shop selling drapery and fancy goods the foreman, whose + business it apparently was to collect fines, was required to make up a + fixed sum of money from this source every week; and being a man with + wife and children, afraid above all things of being left without + employment, was accustomed to inflict sufficient fines to make up this + total. Two girls, whose weekly wage of 11s. he had thus reduced, on + one occasion, to 4s., took to evil courses; and the foreman when dying + (in a hospital) told a lady visitor the circumstances, and said that + he felt himself responsible for the downfall of the girls. The lady + (an experienced worker in a girls’ club) made enquiries, which + confirmed the startling tale. She followed up the girls, reclaimed one + and put her into respectable employment, but failed with the other and + was unable to keep sight of her. + +Footnote 21: + + These cases are taken from the reports of an investigator employed + some years ago by the Women’s Industrial Council. This lady, who was + an experienced assistant, spent over two years in passing from shop to + shop, remaining long enough in each to obtain complete information as + to wages, conditions, food, rules, etc. + +Footnote 22: + + _Daily News_, 25th August, 1906. Letter signed “Onesimus.” + +Footnote 23: + + Women’s Work and Wages, p. 47, note. + +Footnote 24: + + Edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald. P. S. King & Son. + +Footnote 25: + + Women’s Employment in Shops. Report of an enquiry conducted for the + National Federal Council of Scotland for Women’s Trades; by Margaret + Irwin, p. 7. + +Footnote 26: + + Women Shop Assistants. The evidence given by Miss Irwin before the + Select Committee of the House of Lords on Early Closing of Shops, p. + 5. + +Footnote 27: + + Women’s Employment in Shops, p. 6. + +Footnote 28: + + Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses (Metropolis) + Bill, 1906, p. 5, par. 31. + +Footnote 29: + + As these terms may possibly be unfamiliar to some readers, it may be + as well to explain that, on a time and a half rate, every penny of the + ordinary wage becomes a penny-halfpenny; and that, on a time and a + quarter rate, every such penny becomes a penny-farthing. + +Footnote 30: + + Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses (Metropolis) + Bill, 1906, p. 4, par. 19. + +Footnote 31: + + Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses (Metropolis) + Bill, 1906, p. 4, par. 19. + +Footnote 32: + + Juvenile wage earners and their work. By Nettie Adler, hon. Sec. + Committee on Wage-Earning children. Progress, July 1906. + +Footnote 33: + + Report for 1905, p. 52. + +Footnote 34: + + Report for 1905, p. 52. + +Footnote 35: + + A “young person” means, according to the Factory Acts, one under 18. + +Footnote 36: + + Report for 1905, p. 296. + +Footnote 37: + + The Case for the Factory Acts. Edited by Mrs Sidney Webb. Chapter II. + The Historical Development of the Factory Acts. By Miss B. L. + Hutchins, pp. 80–81. + +Footnote 38: + + Case for the Factory Acts, pp. 82–3. + +Footnote 39: + + Bye-laws under the Employment of Children Act have now been passed in + many towns, and the London County Council has at last been permitted + by the Home Office to establish a fairly satisfactory code. Really + satisfactory no code can be which sanctions any employment of children + during school years, but in this department, as in others, the + interposition of the law has done something to check glaring + industrial evils. + +Footnote 40: + + _Child Labor._ A menace to industry, education and good citizenship + (No. 93 of the Annals of the American Academy of political and social + science. March 1906.) p. 318. + +Footnote 41: + + _Child Labor_, p. 293. + +Footnote 42: + + Some ethical gains through legislation. By Florence Kelley, p. 44. + +Footnote 43: + + _Ibid._, p. 45. + +Footnote 44: + + _Ibid._, p. 49. + +Footnote 45: + + Juvenile wage earners. By Nettie Adler, Hon. Sec. Committee on Wage + earning children. _Progress._ July 1906. + +Footnote 46: + + Minutes of Evidence. Questions 12644, 12758. + +Footnote 47: + + These facts and more to the same purpose may be found in an article by + Miss Adler in the _Guardian_ of May 9, 1906. + +Footnote 48: + + Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 86. + +Footnote 49: + + Pp. 12, 13, 14. + +Footnote 50: + + Inter-Departmental Committee on the employment of school children. + Minutes of Evidence, pp. 275, 455, 471. + +Footnote 51: + + Child Labor, p. 302. + +Footnote 52: + + Child Labor, p. 275. + +Footnote 53: + + Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 17. + +Footnote 54: + + Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 42. + +Footnote 55: + + Mr S. W. Woodward, of the firm of Woodward and Lathrop, Washington, in + a short paper called: “A Business Man’s View of Child Labour,” writes: + “It may be stated as a safe proposition that for every dollar earned + by a child under 14 years of age tenfold will be taken from their + earning capacity in later life.” Child Labor, p. 362. + +Footnote 56: + + J. Schoenhof. Economy of High Wages, p. 38. + +Footnote 57: + + It must not be assumed from the above anecdote that all factory girls + are foul-mouthed. This was by no means true even in the year after the + Dock strike, and is much less true now. But I have no doubt there are + still factories in which the habit of foul speech is a sort of + fashion. + +Footnote 58: + + Handbook to Sweated Industries Exhibition, p. 23. + +Footnote 59: + + Poverty. By J. Seebohm Rowntree, p. 229. + +Footnote 60: + + A Living Wage: Its ethical and economic aspect. Macmillans. New York, + April 1906. + +Footnote 61: + + _Ibid._, p. 136. I must not be understood as committing myself to + these figures, which apply to America. They are employed here to show + that a large proportion of American wage earners do not receive the + sum considered by experts as affording a “Living Wage.” + +Footnote 62: + + I have not personally referred to Mr Mitchell’s book, the title of + which is “Organised Labour.” Professor Ryan gives the pages from which + this extract comes: pp. 116, 117. + +Footnote 63: + + A Living Wage, p. 150. + +Footnote 64: + + _Ibid._, p. 164. + +Footnote 65: + + The Strength of the People. By Helen Bosanquet, p. 114. + +Footnote 66: + + Of course efficiency is valuable for other than financial reasons; but + we are dealing now only with the question of payment. + +Footnote 67: + + Economy of high wages, p. 392. + +Footnote 68: + + If, at this point, any reader should pause to ask: “What, then, ought + the Brothers Cheeryble to do? Ought they to leave the selling of + safety pins to some less scrupulous persons? Or ought they to go on + underpaying the cappers?” I reply that the worthy twins should follow + neither of these courses, but should bend their minds to inventing or + getting invented a machine that would cap the pins even more cheaply, + because much more expeditiously, than the hand workers. The reduction + in the cost of production would then allow the payment of decent wages + to the operators. Mechanical operations should be done by machines, + and hand work should be reserved for those which demand individual + variation or peculiar and special perfection. The capping of safety + pins, which falls under neither of these heads, is emphatically an + operation to which the human brain and hand should not be put. + +Footnote 69: + + Industrial Co-operation. Edited by Catherine Webb, p. 242. + + These figures do not include middle class joint stock associations, + such as the Army and Navy Stores. + +Footnote 70: + + Industrial Co-operation, p. 80. + +Footnote 71: + + In order to do so readers must address themselves to the Co-operative + Union, 2 Nicholas Croft, High St., Manchester. It is much to be + regretted that so valuable and informing a work should be published in + a manner that almost restricts its influence to persons who are + already convinced co-operators. The outer world of readers who badly + need to understand the facts and meanings of the great co-operative + movement have no opportunity of meeting with the one volume that + compendiously explains the existing conditions. + +Footnote 72: + + Economy of high wages, p. 63. + +Footnote 73: + + Of course a minimum rate of wages and sometimes indeed a complete + scale of wages has often been fixed by various local bodies or + departments; but only when such bodies have been, directly or + indirectly, employers of labour. Thus the duty of employers to pay a + fair wage has been recognised, but not, as yet, the duty or the right + of the State to enforce the payment. + +Footnote 74: + + It may be worth noting here—though the point lies outside the scope of + this chapter—that an expansion of trade when wages do not rise leads + to the extraordinary state known as overproduction, in which producers + complain that they cannot find a market for their wares, at the same + time that hundreds of fellow citizens are seen to be in crying need of + these same wares. + +Footnote 75: + + Mr Charles Booth’s tables show that in 1889, out of a population of + 891,539, in East London, there were no less than 47,225 members of + various Friendly Societies. + +Footnote 76: + + This explanation of the impracticability of a Consumers’ League is + reprinted, with the alteration of a few words, from the Supplement to + the _Guardian_, the Editor of which has given me leave to reproduce it + in this chapter. + +Footnote 77: + + A prominent employer writes to me in December 1906 that wages have + since risen 2½ per cent. + +Footnote 78: + + A Reply to the Report of the Tariff Commission on the Cotton Trade. + Written for the Free Trade League by S. J. Chapman, M.A., Professor of + Political Economy at the University of Manchester. + +Footnote 79: + + Since writing these lines I have been informed that improved machinery + and management have been introduced, and that the outlook has + consequently improved also. But it is safe to prophesy that unless her + wages should rise very substantially, the Bristol worker will not + reach the standard of the Lancashire worker. + +Footnote 80: + + Economy of High Wages, p. 66. + +Footnote 81: + + Economy of High Wages, p. 398. + +Footnote 82: + + W. Pember Reeves. State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand. Vol. + ii. p. 29. To this volume I am indebted for the account of all the + facts preceding and accompanying the enactment of the earliest laws + under which a minimum wage could be legally fixed in the colonies. Any + reader desiring fuller details of these most interesting developments + should refer to Mr Reeves’s second volume. + +Footnote 83: + + It seems from the context that 1s. 6d. was the price paid for making + the dozen shirts throughout, and that the finisher’s share was but a + part of this, since a night’s work, in which she did a dozen shirts + and something more, only brought her one shilling. + +Footnote 84: + + W. Pember Reeves. State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand. Vol. + ii. pp. 111–112. + +Footnote 85: + + Journal of the Department of Labour. New Zealand. Vol. XI. pp. + 267–268. + +Footnote 86: + + Journal of the Department of Labour. New Zealand. Vol. XIV. pp. 70–76. + +Footnote 87: + + This account of the establishment of the first Wage Boards is derived + from Mr Reeves’s State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand, vol. + ii. chap. 1. + +Footnote 88: + + A resolution of both Houses is now required. + +Footnote 89: + + Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories, work-rooms and shops. + Victoria, 1905, p. 62. + +Footnote 90: + + Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, p. 68. + +Footnote 91: + + Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 43. + +Footnote 92: + + Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 19. + +Footnote 93: + + _Ibid._, p. 63. + +Footnote 94: + + Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, p. 58. + +Footnote 95: + + Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 60. + +Footnote 96: + + _Ibid._, p. 14. + +Footnote 97: + + Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 39. + +Footnote 98: + + See the speech of Mr Maxwell (to whom personally, it may be added, + this excellent state of things is due) on p. 38 of the National + Anti-Sweating League’s Report of a Conference on the Minimum Wage. + +Footnote 99: + + A very strange instance of divergence of wages in one factory came + under my notice some 15 or 16 years ago. This also was in the shirt + trade. A strike arose in a large factory, and when a register came to + be taken of the wages received by the various women it was + discovered—greatly to the surprise of the workers concerned—that there + was a difference of almost 50 per cent. between the rates paid in one + workroom and those paid in another, both being under the same roof, + and the work being so absolutely identical that the two groups were + frequently engaged upon garments cut by the same stroke from the same + roll of material. The one room was superintended by a forewoman who + resisted any attempt to lower wages, and who, being a valuable + official, was able to impose her wishes; in the other the forewoman + meekly accepted any reductions proposed by the firm. I need hardly add + that the young women who worked in the former room were markedly + superior in appearance, in manners and in intelligence to those + belonging to the latter. Those who worked under the good forewoman + were, indeed, some of the best looking and most agreeable girls with + whom I have ever been brought into contact. + +Footnote 100: + + There are no doubt plenty of industries of which employers engaged in + them would declare beforehand that wages could not possibly be raised + without the ruining of the trade. But employers in the cotton trade + were of the same opinion and experience has shown that they were + mistaken. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Page Changed from Changed to + + 251 vary to a remarkable decree, and vary to a remarkable degree, and + it is to be it is to be + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75467 *** |