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} + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75467 ***</div> + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>SWEATED INDUSTRY</div> + <div>AND THE</div> + <div>MINIMUM WAGE</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c002'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c003'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>W. D. Howells.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c004'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c003'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>R. Southey.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c005'>SWEATED INDUSTRY<br> <span class='small'>AND THE</span><br> MINIMUM WAGE</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c006'> + <div>BY</div> + <div class='c007'><span class='xlarge'>CLEMENTINA BLACK</span></div> + <div class='c007'>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</div> + <div class='c007'><span class='large'>A. G. GARDINER</span></div> + <div class='c007'><span class='small'>CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SWEATING LEAGUE</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='[Logo]' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>LONDON</div> + <div>DUCKWORTH & CO.</div> + <div>3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.</div> + <div>1907</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><span class='small'><em>All rights reserved.</em></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c008'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>C. B.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c002'><em>March 1907</em></p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c009'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c010'></th> + <th class='c011'>PAGE</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>INTRODUCTION</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_ix'>ix</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>PART I</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>SWEATED INDUSTRY</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>THE POOREST OF ALL</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>WORKERS IN FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>SHOP ASSISTANTS, CLERKS, WAITRESSES</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_48'>48</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>TRAFFIC WORKERS</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>WAGE-EARNING CHILDREN</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>SUMMARY</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>HOW UNDERPAYMENT COMES</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_144'>144</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>LABOUR AS A COMMODITY</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>PART II</td></tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>THE MINIMUM WAGE</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>EXISTING CHECKS</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>SUPPOSED REMEDIES</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>THE LESSONS OF THE COTTON TRADE</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>THE MINIMUM WAGE IN PRACTICE</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>FOREIGN COMPETITION</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_260'>260</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><td class='c012' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>GAIN TO THE NATION</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_272'>272</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'> </td> + <td class='c011'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c010'>INDEX</td> + <td class='c011'><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span> + <h2 class='c009'>INTRODUCTION</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>This has happily been changed by the object +lesson presented by the Sweating Exhibition +organised by <cite>The Daily News</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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:</p> + +<p class='c014'>“We arrive, therefore, at the unexpected +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>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, +<em>in consequence of the cheapness of the usual +mode of welding by hand labour</em>, combined +with some other difficulties with which the +patentee had had to contend. But <em>the +stimulus produced by the combination of +the workmen for this advance of wages</em> +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.’”</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvii'>xvii</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“We do not sell our Prime-Ministership by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xviii'>xviii</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xix'>xix</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xx'>xx</span>trade. It is many years since there was a +serious conflict in Lancashire.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxi'>xxi</span>in falling upon the public purse, still +further depress the shopkeeper.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr><th class='c012' colspan='3'>AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF TAILORS AND TAILORESSES.</th></tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + </tr> + <tr><th class='c012' colspan='3'><span class='sc'>Statement of Prices as Agreed to between this Body and the London Master Tailors’ Association, and of the “Sweated” Rates for Similar Work.</span></th></tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th class='brt c015'></th> + <th class='c016'><span class='sc'>Trade Union.</span></th> + <th class='c016'><span class='sc'>Non-Union.</span></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Making Dress Coat</td> + <td class='c016'>£1. 5s. 6d. to £1. 7s. 6d.<br>(6d. to 7d. per hour).</td> + <td class='c016'>10s. to 16s.<br>(These are prices where middleman is employed —16s. rarely reached.)</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Gentleman’s Frock Coat</td> + <td class='c016'>Do.</td> + <td class='c016'>Do.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Dress Vest</td> + <td class='c016'>8s. to 9s. 3d.</td> + <td class='c016'>2s. 6d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Dress Trousers</td> + <td class='c016'>7s. 3d. to 8s. 5d.</td> + <td class='c016'>2s. to 4s.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxii'>xxii</span>Ladies’ Costume—</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Pressing</td> + <td class='c016'>With very little</td> + <td class='c016'>2½d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Machining</td> + <td class='c016'>extras) 30s.</td> + <td class='c016'>9d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Baisting</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'>7d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Felling</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'>1¼d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c017'>——1s. 7¾d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Ladies’ Jackets—</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Pressing</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'>1¼d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Baisting</td> + <td class='c016'>23s.</td> + <td class='c016'>3½d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Machining</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'>4½d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'>Felling</td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c016'>½d.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='brt c015'> </td> + <td class='c016'> </td> + <td class='c017'>——9¾d.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiii'>xxiii</span>“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 <cite>Daily +News</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiv'>xxiv</span>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c018'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,</div> + <div class='line'>How shall your loop’d and window’d raggedness defend you</div> + <div class='line'>From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’en</div> + <div class='line'>Too little care of this.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> + <h2 class='c009'><span class='c020'>PART I</span><br> SWEATED INDUSTRY</h2> +</div> + +<h3 class='c021'>CHAPTER I<br> <span class='c020'>THE POOREST OF ALL</span></h3> + +<p class='c022'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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:—</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.”<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c023'><sup>[1]</sup></a> 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.<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c023'><sup>[2]</sup></a> Two inquiries were also +<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>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 <cite>Women’s Work and +Wages</cite>.<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c023'><sup>[3]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>expenses of the eleven, who were buried +together.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But although matchbox-making is among +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At the <cite>Daily News</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>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.”<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c023'><sup>[4]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>The better sorts of these shirts were such +as are worn, not by poor, but by well-to-do +purchasers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>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.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In one afternoon last summer I was taken to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>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 <em>under</em> the looms, in which +three adults sleep. They cannot sit upright +in bed, as they knock against and injure the +warp.” (p. 322.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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,<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c023'><sup>[5]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>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 +<em>how</em> much, and has no means of checking the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>Tooth brushes, of which it is estimated that +a worker can make four in an hour, are paid +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>at the rate of 4d. a dozen, and best hair +brushes at 2d. each, or ¾d. for 100 holes.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br> <span class='c020'>WORKERS IN FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>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.”<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c023'><sup>[6]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>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.<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c023'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c023'><sup>[8]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>From Birmingham a case is reported of a +Christmas card maker, who had already been +cautioned for keeping “female young persons,” +<em>i.e.</em> 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.”<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c023'><sup>[9]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>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 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> 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.... +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>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.”<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c023'><sup>[10]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c023'><sup>[11]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>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.”<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c023'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Another case is reported on the same page, +in which a building originally meant for offices +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>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.<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c023'><sup>[13]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>met with an attitude of <em>non possumus</em>. 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.”<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c023'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>when I questioned the workers it appeared +that this condition of affairs was normal.”<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c023'><sup>[15]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c023'><sup>[16]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Some processes also of lacemaking and of +cotton spinning are facilitated by damp heat, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>of 3 books for 3 successive weeks. <em>A</em> represents +the highest, and <em>C</em> the lowest sums +received.</p> + +<table class='table2'> + <tr> + <td class='c024'><em>A.</em></td> + <td class='c025'>Nominal wage</td> + <td class='c025'>9/8½</td> + <td class='c025'>8/–</td> + <td class='c026'>10/2½</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Deductions</td> + <td class='c025'>1/4</td> + <td class='c025'>9½</td> + <td class='c026'>1/6</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Wage received</td> + <td class='c025'>8/4½</td> + <td class='c025'>7/2½</td> + <td class='c026'>8/8½</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c026'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'><em>B.</em></td> + <td class='c025'>Nominal wage</td> + <td class='c025'>9/2½</td> + <td class='c025'>8/6</td> + <td class='c026'>8/4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Deductions</td> + <td class='c025'>2/2</td> + <td class='c025'>1/7</td> + <td class='c026'>1/11</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Wage received</td> + <td class='c025'>7/8½</td> + <td class='c025'>6/11</td> + <td class='c026'>6/5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c026'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'><em>C.</em></td> + <td class='c025'>Nominal wage</td> + <td class='c025'>5/3½</td> + <td class='c025'>5/3</td> + <td class='c026'>5/5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Deductions</td> + <td class='c025'>1/4</td> + <td class='c025'>1/9</td> + <td class='c026'>1/9</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'> </td> + <td class='c025'>Wage received</td> + <td class='c025'>3/11</td> + <td class='c025'>1/5</td> + <td class='c026'>3/8</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>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.”<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c023'><sup>[17]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br> <span class='c020'>SHOP ASSISTANTS, CLERKS, WAITRESSES</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>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:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Sunday: Pork.</div> + <div class='line'>Monday: Beef, hot.</div> + <div class='line'>Tuesday: Beef, cold.</div> + <div class='line'>Wednesday: Mutton, hot.</div> + <div class='line'>Thursday: Mutton, cold.</div> + <div class='line'>Friday: Beef, hot.</div> + <div class='line'>Saturday: Beef, cold, and resurrection pie.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>On Thursday there is a roly-poly pudding, +or stewed fruit densely thickened with sago.</p> + +<p class='c014'>At a large Clapham house the week is +mapped out thus:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Monday: Mutton, hot.</div> + <div class='line'>Tuesday: Beef, hot.</div> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>Wednesday: Mutton, hot.</div> + <div class='line'>Thursday: Beef, cold.</div> + <div class='line'>Friday: Fish.</div> + <div class='line'>Saturday: Beef.<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c023'><sup>[18]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, +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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>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.”<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c023'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c023'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>Here are a few notes upon the question of +health made by a trustworthy observer at +close quarters.<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c023'><sup>[21]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><em>A.</em> “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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'><em>B.</em> “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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'><em>C.</em> “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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'><em>D.</em> “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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <cite>Daily News</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>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.”<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c023'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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,” +<em>i.e.</em> a small commission is given to +the assistant who effects a sale of them. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>commercial truth that shops exist not to +supply the needs of the public but to fill the +pockets of the shopkeeper.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There are houses in which a list of weekly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>“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?</p> + +<p class='c014'>It is related of a certain provincial draper that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <cite>Women’s Work +and Wages</cite> truly observe has led to curious +economic anomalies, which are generally beneficial +to the employers.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c023'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>An observation somewhat to the same effect +may be found on pp. 67, 68 of <cite>Women in +the Printing Trades</cite>.<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c023'><sup>[24]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>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:—</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> to 9 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, and in some +cases to 10 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>; while they are kept open +till 11 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>are closed at 8 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> In the other the following +are the hours: open 9.30 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span>, close at +10 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> Saturdays, open at 8.30 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span>, close at +11 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>“Witness 418 had been engaged as an +assistant in a tea shop and gave the following +evidence: Her hours were from 9 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> +to 9 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, five days in the week; and from +9 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> to 11.30 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.”<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c023'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>In restaurants, both in London and elsewhere, +the hours are sometimes excessive. +I have known instances of girls who were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> to 8 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, 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 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.”<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c023'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>The nominal maximum hours in restaurants +visited by her are given by Miss Irwin as +follows:—</p> + +<table class='table2'> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>“In 3 cases</td> + <td class='c025'>16</td> + <td class='c027'>hours on one or more days in the week</td> + <td class='c011'>96 hours.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>15½</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>93 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>12 to 17</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>93 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>15</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>90 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 2 „</td> + <td class='c025'>16</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>87 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>14½</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>87 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 2 „</td> + <td class='c025'>13 to 14</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>79 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 4 „</td> + <td class='c025'>12½ to 15½</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>78 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>17</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>77 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 3 „</td> + <td class='c025'>12 to 12½</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>72 to 75 „</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c027'>„ 1 „</td> + <td class='c025'>13</td> + <td class='c027'>„ „ „</td> + <td class='c011'>70 „</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c014'>“These,” adds Miss Irwin, “are the <em>nominal</em> +hours, but ... in several cases the information +was taken from the women assistants at a later +hour than the nominal closing time.”<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c023'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>but take no share in gains seems to have +escaped the economists.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Reviewing this chapter, I see that I have +dealt almost exclusively with large establishments. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Of the general conditions in a thoroughly +low class shop, Mr Maxwell’s <cite>Vivien</cite> 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 <cite>Kipps</cite>; and there is an admirable +vignette in Gissing’s <cite>The Odd Women</cite>.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <cite><span lang="fr">Au Bonheur des +Dames</span></cite>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c002'><em>Note.</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>in the second case I have concealed the name of the accused +lad.</p> + +<p class='c004'>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.</p> + +<p class='c004'>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.</p> + +<p class='c004'>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.</p> + +<p class='c004'>Defendant pleaded guilty, and Mr Dickinson imposed fines +and costs amounting to £4, 18s.—<cite>Daily News</cite>, 23rd August +1906.</p> + +<p class='c004'>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.—<cite>Tribune</cite>, +24th August 1906.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br> <span class='c020'>TRAFFIC WORKERS</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>not the majority, at least a very appreciable +minority are decidedly underpaid.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c023'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>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:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>An eight-hour day for trainmen, shunters and signalmen.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>No railway employee to work more than ten hours a day.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>An increase of 2s. per week in the wages of all grades receiving less than 30s. per week.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Sunday labour to be paid for at the rate of time and a half; and overtime at the rate of time and a quarter.<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c023'><sup>[29]</sup></a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>skilled and licensed workmen unless backed +by a strong union.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>a transition which is in course of progress +around us.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>of March, 1906, the Commissioners of Police +received as many sums of 5s. as sufficed to +make up a total of £7928, 10s.<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c023'><sup>[30]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>other classes of the community who are +charged in this way for their own police +inspection, and in our opinion, the system +requires modification.”<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c023'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>sardonically remarked to me: “It’s a new +experience for them, that’s all.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <em>per diem</em> (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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>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 <em>per diem</em> I cannot, of course, tell.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The frequency of breakdowns has undoubtedly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>penny. At threepence a day and 339 days in +a year (<em>i.e.</em>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>regard their employers, and is, I venture +to say, a symptom of very unsatisfactory +relations.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br> <span class='c020'>WAGE-EARNING CHILDREN</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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” (<em>i.e.</em>, I suppose, sews them on). +“Mother, who does sometimes three dozen in a +day, sometimes only three pairs, begins work +at 7 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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). +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Another little girl sews and opens Japanese +fish and poultry baskets, and sews the handles +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Cases like these might be multiplied almost +indefinitely.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.”<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c023'><sup>[32]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>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.<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c023'><sup>[33]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>Several children under 13 years of age were +found working full time in brick fields.<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c023'><sup>[34]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> on a +certain Monday morning and continued working +till 6 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span> on the following Tuesday. During +this period he only left the works for one +hour, viz., 5 till 6 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>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<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c023'><sup>[35]</sup></a> 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.”<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c023'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>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.”<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c023'><sup>[37]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c023'><sup>[38]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Nor was there any limit as to the earliness +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>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 +<cite>Rosamond</cite>—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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>the bettermost stratum of contemporary +sentiment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“‘Laura, Laura, look at this girl! What +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>a good countenance she has,’ said Rosamond, +‘and how fond the little children seem of +her!’</p> + +<p class='c014'>“‘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.’”</p> + +<p class='c014'>He then relates how a good clergyman, who +had taught the children and won their grateful +affection, had been appointed to a post +elsewhere.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“‘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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“‘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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“‘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.”’”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>hours either in their own homes or for +outside employers.<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c023'><sup>[39]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c023'><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Boys of twelve may still legally work in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>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.”<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c023'><sup>[41]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c023'><sup>[42]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>“There was no restriction upon night work +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>and pitifully little children were found at +work at two o’clock in the morning.”<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c023'><sup>[43]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.”<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c023'><sup>[44]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Significant is the remark of a mother quoted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>in one of the articles in <cite>Child Labor</cite>: +“‘When Charley works on the night shift, he +hasn’t any appetite.’” (p. 303.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>their appearance unhealthy and their expression +of face abnormal.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c023'><sup>[45]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>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.<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c023'><sup>[46]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c023'><sup>[47]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>Very similar evidence may be found in the +pages of Mrs Kelley’s volume, in those of +<cite>Child Labor</cite>, and in the Report of the +American Consumers’ League. On p. 297 of +<cite>Child Labor</cite> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c023'><sup>[48]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.”<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c023'><sup>[49]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>When we remember that the Inter-Departmental +Committee on the employment +of school children—a cautious official body—estimated +the <em>minimum</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>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.<a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c023'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.’”<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c023'><sup>[51]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Street occupations on the farther as on the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>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.”<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c023'><sup>[52]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.”<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c023'><sup>[53]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>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.”<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c023'><sup>[54]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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,<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c023'><sup>[55]</sup></a> and it also retards the +progress of every trade in which it occurs, for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>as Mr Schoenhof says: “The cheapness of +human labour where it prevails is the greatest +incentive for the perpetuation of obsolete +methods.”<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c023'><sup>[56]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br> <span class='c020'>SUMMARY</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>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.<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c023'><sup>[57]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>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, <em>at least</em> +200,000 school children working for wages, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII<br> <span class='c020'>HOW UNDERPAYMENT COMES</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>“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.’”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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.’”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>this descends by another sixpence or another +shilling.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The home worker, when he thus suffers +diminution of an already insufficient wage, +tries to increase output by setting his children +to work.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>paid branches of home work, subsistence becomes +almost impossible unless the work of +children is called in.”<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c023'><sup>[58]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>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%.<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c023'><sup>[59]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c023'><sup>[60]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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).<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c023'><sup>[61]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Mr John Mitchell, President of the United +Mine Workers, says, in a passage quoted by +Professor Ryan: “In cities of from five +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>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.”<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c023'><sup>[62]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>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 “<em>possibly</em> 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 <em>not</em> a +Living Wage.”<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c023'><sup>[63]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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%.<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c023'><sup>[64]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>And it must be remembered that in America +as in England there are few manufacturing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>industries in which wage earners are in full +work throughout the year.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>the cost of livelihood; and the individual +worker is absolutely powerless by himself to +increase them.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>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” (<em>i.e.</em> +“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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>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.”<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c023'><sup>[65]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c023'><sup>[66]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Thus efficiency, however desirable upon +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII<br> <span class='c020'>LABOUR AS A COMMODITY</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the enquirer’s mind two questions +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>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.”<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c023'><sup>[67]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>differs from every other commodity, and the +reason for which it should not be treated in +the same way as other commodities.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>obvious that some one else is in part supporting +him.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The individual worker whose skill is but +the dexterity born of constant practice—the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>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.<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c023'><sup>[68]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span> + <h2 class='c009'><span class='c020'>PART II</span><br> THE MINIMUM WAGE</h2> +</div> + +<h3 class='c021'>CHAPTER I<br> <span class='c020'>EXISTING CHECKS</span></h3> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>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,<a id='r69'></a><a href='#f69' class='c023'><sup>[69]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The great movement known as Industrial +Co-operation has two forms: (<em>a</em>) Associations +of Consumers; (<em>b</em>) Labour Copartnerships.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>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.”<a id='r70'></a><a href='#f70' class='c023'><sup>[70]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <cite>Industrial Co-operation</cite>.<a id='r71'></a><a href='#f71' class='c023'><sup>[71]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Nor is industrial co-operation the only part +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>The avowed aim of trade unions is to +check freedom of competition, with the object +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>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.”<a id='r72'></a><a href='#f72' class='c023'><sup>[72]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There may, indeed, have been cases—I +believe there has, in our own day and country, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Not all the checks, however, in the course +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>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.<a id='r73'></a><a href='#f73' class='c023'><sup>[73]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>of free competition and to prevent the extremity +of underpayment.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r74'></a><a href='#f74' class='c023'><sup>[74]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In spite of all these steps and all these consequences, +the vast majority of English people +still believe themselves to be living under +a <em>régime</em> of pure competition and are ready +to declare such a <em>régime</em> not only beneficial +but inevitable. In fact, however, modern life, +even in our own small islands, comprises not +one <em>régime</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br> <span class='c020'>SUPPOSED REMEDIES</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>To the question: “Why do not working +people save?” truth requires the paradoxical +<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>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.<a id='r75'></a><a href='#f75' class='c023'><sup>[75]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Of the thirty families whose household +expenditure has been tabulated in Vol. +I. of Mr Booth’s <cite>Life and Labour</cite> (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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>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 +<em>can</em>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>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 <cite>Longman’s Magazine</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r76'></a><a href='#f76' class='c023'><sup>[76]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br> <span class='c020'>THE LESSONS OF THE COTTON TRADE</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>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?</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Before entering upon this, let me point +out how very remarkable a phenomenon it is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>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.<a id='r77'></a><a href='#f77' class='c023'><sup>[77]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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%.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>On p. 61 of the pamphlet written by +Professor S. J. Chapman for the Free Trade +League<a id='r78'></a><a href='#f78' class='c023'><sup>[78]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>are men of a better class than their predecessors, +and among the most enlightened of British +employers.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>the product of fair wages, healthy surroundings +and reasonable leisure.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>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.<a id='r79'></a><a href='#f79' class='c023'><sup>[79]</sup></a> 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.”<a id='r80'></a><a href='#f80' class='c023'><sup>[80]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>In this particular industry of cotton, other +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>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!”<a id='r81'></a><a href='#f81' class='c023'><sup>[81]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>World wide indeed—not as to national +trade only, but as to national happiness.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br> <span class='c020'>THE MINIMUM WAGE IN PRACTICE</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>Sweating not unknown in the colonies—Instances published by +<cite>Otago Daily Times</cite>—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 <cite>Age</cite>—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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>summer of 1906, were to be found in New +Zealand, in South Australia and in Victoria.</p> + +<p class='c014'>There, as here, newspapers called attention +to the facts, and aroused the public conscience. +In January 1889, the <cite>Otago Daily +Times</cite>, “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.”<a id='r82'></a><a href='#f82' class='c023'><sup>[82]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>“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”<a id='r83'></a><a href='#f83' class='c023'><sup>[83]</sup></a> and that she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>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.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>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.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>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.)</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>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.”<a id='r84'></a><a href='#f84' class='c023'><sup>[84]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, <em>if they knew themselves +protected from dismissal</em>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>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.”<a id='r85'></a><a href='#f85' class='c023'><sup>[85]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>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.<a id='r86'></a><a href='#f86' class='c023'><sup>[86]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <cite>Age</cite>, 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 <cite>Age</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>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.”<a id='r87'></a><a href='#f87' class='c023'><sup>[87]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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<a id='r88'></a><a href='#f88' class='c023'><sup>[88]</sup></a> declaring it is expedient to +appoint such a Board.”</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 <a id='t251'></a>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>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.<a id='r89'></a><a href='#f89' class='c023'><sup>[89]</sup></a> Worse still is the case of the jam +trade in which the minimum for “females of +18 years and upwards” is but 14s.<a id='r90'></a><a href='#f90' class='c023'><sup>[90]</sup></a> 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.”<a id='r91'></a><a href='#f91' class='c023'><sup>[91]</sup></a> Yet the trade steadily grows, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>number of persons employed rising from 758 +in 1901 to 1410 in 1904.</p> + +<p class='c014'>Dressmakers, however, who work under a +determination, average 12s. 3d.<a id='r92'></a><a href='#f92' class='c023'><sup>[92]</sup></a> 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.<a id='r93'></a><a href='#f93' class='c023'><sup>[93]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>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.<a id='r94'></a><a href='#f94' class='c023'><sup>[94]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r95'></a><a href='#f95' class='c023'><sup>[95]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r96'></a><a href='#f96' class='c023'><sup>[96]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>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.”<a id='r97'></a><a href='#f97' class='c023'><sup>[97]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>Miss Cuthbertson, on the same page, says: +“The tendency in all trades is to get the work +done in factories, where the supervision is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br> <span class='c020'>FOREIGN COMPETITION</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>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.<a id='r98'></a><a href='#f98' class='c023'><sup>[98]</sup></a> Yet +the factory pays and has done so for many +years.<a id='r99'></a><a href='#f99' class='c023'><sup>[99]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>would be that none of us would, any longer, +be buying shirts at which some woman had +sewn, as Hood said,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c018'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'>“with a double thread</div> + <div class='line'>At once a shirt and a shroud.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>the nation suffers most whose standards are +highest.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.<a id='r100'></a><a href='#f100' class='c023'><sup>[100]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>But in cases where the continuance of a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span> + <h3 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br> <span class='c020'>GAIN TO THE NATION</span></h3> +</div> + +<p class='c022'>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.</p> + +<p class='c013'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c014'>In the earnest hope that such an endeavour +may be made, quickly, yet not hastily, by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span> + <h2 class='c009'>INDEX</h2> +</div> + +<ul class='index c006'> + <li class='c028'>Adler: Miss Nettie, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Aftalion: A., <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Alien immigration, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> + <li class='c028'>America: Children’s work in, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>–122, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>; + <ul> + <li>“sweating” in, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;</li> + <li>a living wage in, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>–151;</li> + <li>low cost of production, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>;</li> + <li>cotton trade, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>;</li> + <li>child labour in cotton mills, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>;</li> + <li>southern states, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Anti-Sweating league: in Melbourne, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Apprentices, parish: Act of, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Arbitration Courts in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Army and Navy Stores, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Australia: wage board in Victoria, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>; + <ul> + <li>in Melbourne, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> + <li>minimum wage in Melbourne, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>;</li> + <li>legislation in New South Wales, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Babies’ shoe making, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Bake houses: boys working in, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Ball covering, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Bird cage making, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Boot finishing, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Boot making, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Booth: Chas., <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Bosanquet: Mrs, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Box making: children’s work, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Brickfields: children working in, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Cabmen, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Cabs and Omnibuses Bill: report of select committee, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Cadbury: Edward, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Case for the Factory Acts: The,” <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Chapman: Prof. S. J., <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Child Labour” (<cite>No. 93, Annals</cite> <em>of American Academy</em>), <a href='#Page_119'>119</a> 120–122, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>–130</li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>Children: as home workers, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>; + <ul> + <li>unpunctual at school through home work, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</li> + <li>babies’ shoe making, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>dodging educational authorities, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>;</li> + <li>working all night, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>;</li> + <li>match box making, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>string bag making, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</li> + <li>tooth brush making, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</li> + <li>kid belt making, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</li> + <li>wood chopping, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</li> + <li>wood polishing, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</li> + <li>steel covering, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>fish basket sewing, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>in small laundries, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>half timers, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</li> + <li>errand boys, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>Saturday and evening boys, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>barbers’ lather boys, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>matching girls, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;</li> + <li>street trading, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;</li> + <li>their labour of little use to them later in life, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;</li> + <li>boys working in bake houses, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;</li> + <li>in brick-fields, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>;</li> + <li>heavy loads, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111;</li> + <li>in textile trades, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</li> + <li>in the potteries, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks on child labour, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Civil Service Stores, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Clerks and Bookkeepers, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Committee on wage-earning children, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Competition, free: its effect upon labour, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>; + <ul> + <li>checks upon, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Confectionery, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Consumers: Associations of, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Consumers’ League, A: impractibility of, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>–211; + <ul> + <li>in America, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>;</li> + <li>influence on public opinion, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Co-operation: Industrial, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Co-operative Stores, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Co-operative Union, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>Cost of labour: recognition of its true cost, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Cotton mills: children’s work, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>–113</li> + <li class='c028'>Cotton trade: not natural to Britain, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>–217; + <ul> + <li>condition of workers in 1830, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>;</li> + <li>prosperity increased under higher wages, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>;</li> + <li>in Bristol, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>“Cotton Trade Circular,” <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Cotton workers: educational improvement of, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Crabtree: Mr, Inspector of Factories, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Cuthbertson: Miss, Inspector of Factories, Victoria, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + <li class='c006'><cite>Daily News</cite>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Daily News</cite>: Sweated Industries Exhibition, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Danger of Fire, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Dockers’ Union, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Dressmaking, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Drink and Poverty: some facts about, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>; + <ul> + <li>lessened by shorter hours, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Early marriages: reason for, among working class, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Economy of high wages, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Edgworth: Maria, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Education: effect of child labour on, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Efficiency: remarks on, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Emigration, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Employers: responsibility for strikes, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; + <ul> + <li>duty to pay a fair wage, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>;</li> + <li>in cotton trade, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>;</li> + <li>in Bristol, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Errand boys, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>; + <ul> + <li>Saturday and evening workers, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>barbers’ lather boys, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Factories: reports of chief inspector, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>–111, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>; + <ul> + <li>in Australia, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>–254, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Factory Acts: beneficial effects, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>; + <ul> + <li>in Australia, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> + <li>evasion of, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Factory girls: an appreciation of, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>; + <ul> + <li>manners of, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>;</li> + <li>code of honour, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>Factory work: general remarks on, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Factory workers: their condition compared with home workers, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Fair wage, a: what is a fair wage, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>; + <ul> + <li>pessimist view, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>–214</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Fines and deductions, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Fish basket sewing, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Foreign Competition: effect on a minimum wage, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Free Libraries, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Free Trade League</cite>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Gaskell: P, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Germany, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>; + <ul> + <li>cotton trade in, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>;</li> + <li>possibility of legislation to curtail sweating, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Gissing: Geo., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Glass works in America, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>–121</li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Guardian: The</cite>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Half timers, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Health: of home workers, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>; + <ul> + <li>of factory workers, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>;</li> + <li>of shop assistants, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>;</li> + <li>of child workers, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>–125</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Heavy loads, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111</li> + <li class='c028'>High wages and cheap production, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Historical Development of the Factory Acts,” <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Hogg: Mrs, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Home Industries for women: report on, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Home Office enquiry, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Home work: report on, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; + <ul> + <li>in Birmingham, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>;</li> + <li>match box making, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>;</li> + <li>shirt making, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>;</li> + <li>paper-bag making, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>;</li> + <li>toy making, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>;</li> + <li>pipe making, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>;</li> + <li>bird cage making, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>;</li> + <li>weaving, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>;</li> + <li>boot finishing, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</li> + <li>ball covering, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>;</li> + <li>tooth brush making, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>;</li> + <li>miscellaneous trades, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Home workers: Condition of, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>; + <ul> + <li>general remarks on, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>;</li> + <li>impossibility of organisation, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Hours of work: piece work, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>; + <ul> + <li>long hours in factories, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>;</li> + <li>shop assistants, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>;</li> + <li>in Scotland, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>;</li> + <li>waitresses, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>;</li> + <li><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>railway men, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>;</li> + <li>omnibus men, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> + <li>motor omnibus men, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li> + <li>children’s hours of work at home, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li> + <li>in tin works, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>;</li> + <li>work at home after closing hours, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>;</li> + <li>women in textile trades, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>House of Lords Committee on Early Closing of Shops, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Hutchins: Miss B. L., <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Industrial efficiency: effect of Child Labour on, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>–131; + <ul> + <li>caused by fair wages, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Industrial Unions of New Zealand, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Ireland: copartnership in, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Ironing, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Irwin: Miss, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Jackman: Marshall, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Jam-making. <em>See</em> Confectionery</li> + <li class='c028'>Jarvis family: History of, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Johnson: Dr, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Juvenile wage earners and their work,” <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Kelley: Mrs Florence, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Kid belt making, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Labour and other commodities: difference in essence between, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Labour co-partnerships, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>; + <ul> + <li>in Ireland, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Laundries: long hours in, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Laundry work, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Lead poisoning: risk of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Legislation for a minimum wage: need of, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Living wage: estimate of, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> + <li class='c028'>London County Council: as employer, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>; + <ul> + <li>contrasted with private companies, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>;</li> + <li>bye-laws relating to child labour, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>;</li> + <li>Medical Officer’s report, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Longman’s Magazine</cite>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li> + <li class='c006'>MacDonald: J. Ramsay, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Manchester physicians’ report on child labour in 1784, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“Manufacturing population of England,” <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Martindale: Miss, Inspector of Factories, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Match box making, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>; + <ul> + <li>child workers, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Matching girls, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Matheson: M. Cécile, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Maxwell: Mr, Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Maxwell: W. B., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Melbourne Age: The</cite>; crusade against sweating, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Minimum wage: legislation in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>–246; + <ul> + <li>in Australia, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>–258;</li> + <li>practicability of legislation in England, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>–259;</li> + <li>effect of a minimum wage, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Miscellaneous trades, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Mitchell: John, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>–151</li> + <li class='c028'>Moral aspect of shop assistant’s life, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Moral effect of child labour, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>–131</li> + <li class='c006'>Nail and chain making, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> + <li class='c028'>National Anti-Sweating League, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> + <li class='c028'>National aspect of better conditions, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> + <li class='c028'>National income, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> + <li class='c028'>National Union of Shop Assistants, etc., <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> + <li class='c028'>New Zealand: state arbitration, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>–239; + <ul> + <li>industrial unions of, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;</li> + <li>arbitration court, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</li> + <li>wages in, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Non-competitive systems, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Non-producers, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Novels: showing shop assistant’s life, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Old age pension: in Australia, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Omnibus men: drivers and conductors; licences, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>; + <ul> + <li>wages, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> + <li>expenses, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> + <li>liability for accidents, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</li> + <li>drivers and conductors of motor omnibuses;</li> + <li>hours of work, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li> + <li>wages, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li> + <li>breakdowns, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li> + <li>uniform, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</li> + <li>spies, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>“Organised labour,” <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Ormsby: Sir Lambert, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Over population, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Packing and filling: cocoa, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>; + <ul> + <li>tea, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>;</li> + <li>jam, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>;</li> + <li>cartridges, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Paper-bag making, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Payment, <em>See</em> Wages</li> + <li class='c028'>Peel: Sir Robert, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Physical deterioration, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Pipe making, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Potteries: children working in, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Poverty: investigations into, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>–149; + <ul> + <li>physical and mental effects on the individual, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>–274</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Railway workers: hours, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>; + <ul> + <li>porters’ wages, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>;</li> + <li>“blacklisting,” <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks on, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Reeves, W. Pember, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Rochdale pioneers, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Romilly: Sir Samuel, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Rowntree: Seebohm, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Ryan: Father, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Sanitary Acts: competition checked by, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Sanitary conditions: of factories, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>; + <ul> + <li>shop assistants’ quarters, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>;</li> + <li>high standard in cotton factories, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Schoenhof: J., <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Scottish Council for Women’s Trades, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Shann: Geo., M.A., <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Shirt making, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Shop assistants: living in, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>; + <ul> + <li>code of rules, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>;</li> + <li>wages, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>;</li> + <li>“premiums,” <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>;</li> + <li>commissions, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>;</li> + <li>condition in Scotland, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Small: Prof. Albion, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Spiers & Pond, Ltd., <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Squire, Miss: Inspector of Factories, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li> + <li class='c028'>State arbitration in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>; + <ul> + <li>success of, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Steel covering, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> + <li class='c028'><span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>Street trading by children, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Strikes, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; + <ul> + <li>in the colonies, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>String bag making, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Sweating”: definition of the term, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; + <ul> + <li>not confined to cheap goods, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;</li> + <li>not unknown in the colonies, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>;</li> + <li>a source of weakness to nations, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>–269</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Tailoring, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>; + <ul> + <li>wages in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Tariff Commission, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Tattersall: Mr W., <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Temperance, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Temperature: extremes of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>; + <ul> + <li>in cotton factories, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>–224</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Textile trades: Children’s work, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>–113</li> + <li class='c028'>Thear: Miss, Inspector of Factories, Victoria, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Thomas: Dr, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Thrift among working classes, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>; + <ul> + <li>not advisable, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>–205</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Tooth brush making, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Toy making, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Trade unions, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; + <ul> + <li>mistakes of, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>;</li> + <li>as provident societies, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>;</li> + <li>in cotton trade, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>;</li> + <li>lack of trade organisation in Bristol cotton mills, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>;</li> + <li>in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c006'>Underpaid worker: cost to the nation, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>–171</li> + <li class='c028'>Underpayment: how it comes about, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>–160; + <ul> + <li>not caused by inefficiency, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>United States: <em>see</em> America</li> + <li class='c006'>Ventilation, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Verney, Mr: Inspector of Factories, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Vines, Miss: Inspector of Factories, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Wages: match box making, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>; + <ul> + <li>shirt making, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>–145;</li> + <li>paper-bag making, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>;</li> + <li>toy making, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>;</li> + <li>clay pipe making, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>;</li> + <li>ball covering, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>;</li> + <li>brush making, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>;</li> + <li>miscellaneous trades, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>;</li> + <li><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>packing and filling, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>;</li> + <li>machinists, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>;</li> + <li>shop assistants, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>;</li> + <li>waitresses, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>;</li> + <li>female clerks and bookkeepers, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>;</li> + <li>railway porters, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>;</li> + <li>omnibus men, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> + <li>motor omnibus men, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li> + <li>children’s wages for home work, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>–106;</li> + <li>wages, how determined, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>;</li> + <li>what is a fair wage, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>;</li> + <li>articles of dress, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>;</li> + <li>textile workers, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>–219;</li> + <li>tailoresses in New Zealand, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>;</li> + <li>factory wages in Australia, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>–254;</li> + <li>high wages and cheap production, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>–261</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Waitresses: in restaurants, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>; + <ul> + <li>in railway stations, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> + <li>hours of work, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> + <li>expenses of, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>;</li> + <li>general remarks on, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c028'>Washing appliances, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Watts: Alderman; of Manchester, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Weaving, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Webb: Catherine, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Webb: Mrs Sydney, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Wells: H. G., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Whiteley’s, Ltd.: William, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Women in the printing trades, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Women’s Co-operative Guild</cite>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Women’s employment in shops,” <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li class='c028'><cite>Women’s Industrial Council</cite>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></li> + <li class='c028'>“Women’s work and wages,” <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Women workers: difficulty of organisation, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Wood chopping, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Wood polishing, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Woodward: S. W., <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Work done below cost price, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a></li> + <li class='c028'>Worth: meanings of, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></li> + <li class='c006'>Zola: E., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> +</ul> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c006'> + <div><span class='small'>PRINTED BY</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>TURNBULL AND SPEARS,</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>EDINBURGH</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class='c029'> +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. <span lang="fr">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.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. “Home Industries of Women in London.” Report of an +Inquiry in thirty-five trades.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. “Women’s Work and Wages.” A phase of life in an industrial +city. By Edward Cadbury, M. Cécile Matheson and +George Shann, M.A.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Handbook to the Exhibition, p. 139.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. Report of the Chief Inspector, 1905, pp. 297–98.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. 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.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Report of the Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 50.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 99.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 300.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 302.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 290.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 34.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 292.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 293.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 280.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. The article from which this is an extract was published +(in the <cite>New Review</cite>) in September 1891; but the practices +described, are, I fear, not yet extinct, though the law is succeeding +by degrees in making them risky.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. “Life in the Shop.” A series of articles reprinted from +the <cite>Daily Chronicle</cite>, pp. 5 and 6.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. <cite>Daily News</cite>, 25th August, 1906. Letter signed “Onesimus.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. Women’s Work and Wages, p. 47, note.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. Edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald. P. S. King & Son.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. Women’s Employment in Shops, p. 6.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses +(Metropolis) Bill, 1906, p. 5, par. 31.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses +(Metropolis) Bill, 1906, p. 4, par. 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. Report of Select Committee on the Cabs and Omnibuses +(Metropolis) Bill, 1906, p. 4, par. 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. Juvenile wage earners and their work. By Nettie Adler, +hon. Sec. Committee on Wage-Earning children. Progress, +July 1906.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. Report for 1905, p. 52.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. Report for 1905, p. 52.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. A “young person” means, according to the Factory Acts, +one under 18.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. Report for 1905, p. 296.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. Case for the Factory Acts, pp. 82–3.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. <cite>Child Labor.</cite> 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. <cite>Child Labor</cite>, p. 293.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Some ethical gains through legislation. By Florence +Kelley, p. 44.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 45.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 49.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Juvenile wage earners. By Nettie Adler, Hon. Sec. +Committee on Wage earning children. <cite>Progress.</cite> July 1906.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. Minutes of Evidence. Questions 12644, 12758.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. These facts and more to the same purpose may be found +in an article by Miss Adler in the <cite>Guardian</cite> of May 9, 1906.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 86.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. Pp. 12, 13, 14.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. Inter-Departmental Committee on the employment of +school children. Minutes of Evidence, pp. 275, 455, 471.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. Child Labor, p. 302.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. Child Labor, p. 275.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 17.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. Some ethical gains through legislation, p. 42.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. J. Schoenhof. Economy of High Wages, p. 38.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. Handbook to Sweated Industries Exhibition, p. 23.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. Poverty. By J. Seebohm Rowntree, p. 229.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. A Living Wage: Its ethical and economic aspect. +Macmillans. New York, April 1906.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, 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.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. A Living Wage, p. 150.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 164.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. The Strength of the People. By Helen Bosanquet, p. 114.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. Of course efficiency is valuable for other than financial +reasons; but we are dealing now only with the question of +payment.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. Economy of high wages, p. 392.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f69'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. Industrial Co-operation. Edited by Catherine Webb, p. 242.</p> + +<p class='c014'>These figures do not include middle class joint stock +associations, such as the Army and Navy Stores.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f70'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. Industrial Co-operation, p. 80.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f71'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f72'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. Economy of high wages, p. 63.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f73'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f74'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f75'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f76'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. This explanation of the impracticability of a Consumers’ +League is reprinted, with the alteration of a few words, from +the Supplement to the <cite>Guardian</cite>, the Editor of which has +given me leave to reproduce it in this chapter.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f77'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. A prominent employer writes to me in December 1906 +that wages have since risen 2½ per cent.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f78'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f79'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f80'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. Economy of High Wages, p. 66.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f81'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. Economy of High Wages, p. 398.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f82'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f83'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f84'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. W. Pember Reeves. State Experiments in Australia and +New Zealand. Vol. ii. pp. 111–112.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f85'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. Journal of the Department of Labour. New Zealand. Vol. +XI. pp. 267–268.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f86'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. Journal of the Department of Labour. New Zealand. Vol. +XIV. pp. 70–76.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f87'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f88'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. A resolution of both Houses is now required.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f89'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories, work-rooms +and shops. Victoria, 1905, p. 62.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f90'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, p. 68.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f91'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 43.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f92'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, p. 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f93'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 63.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f94'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, p. 58.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f95'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, +1905, p. 60.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f96'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 14.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f97'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. Report of Chief Inspector of Factories. Victoria, 1905, +p. 39.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f98'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f99'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f100'> +<p class='c014'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. 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.</p> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c007'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c027'>Page</th> + <th class='c027'>Changed from</th> + <th class='c030'>Changed to</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c024'><a href='#t251'>251</a></td> + <td class='c025'>vary to a remarkable decree, and it is to be</td> + <td class='c026'>vary to a remarkable degree, and it is to be</td> + </tr> +</table> + + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + + </li> + <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75467 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-02-03 23:09:25 GMT --> +</html> + diff --git a/75467-h/images/cover.jpg b/75467-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0f4f72 --- /dev/null +++ b/75467-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75467-h/images/i_title.jpg b/75467-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..04e7eb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/75467-h/images/i_title.jpg |
