Part 88
These soldiers and seamen cannot be said to have been _casually_ employed, but the results were the same as if they had been so employed; the money came to them in a lump at so long an interval as to appear uncertain, and was consequently squandered.
I may cite the following example as to the effects of uncertain earnings upon the household outlay of labourers who suffer from the casualties of employment induced by the season of the year. “In the long fine days of summer, the little daughter of a working brickmaker,” I was told, “used to order chops and other choice dainties of a butcher, saying, ‘Please, sir, father don’t care for the price just a-now; but he must have his chops good; line-chops, sir, and tender, please--’cause he’s a brickmaker.’ In the winter, it was, ‘O please, sir, here’s a fourpenny bit, and you must send father something cheap. He don’t care what it is, so long as it’s cheap. It’s winter, and he hasn’t no work, sir--’cause he’s a brickmaker.’”
I have spoken of the tendency of casual labour to induce intemperate habits. In confirmation of this I am enabled to give the following account as to the increase of the sale of malt liquor in the metropolis _consequent upon wet weather_. The account is derived from the personal observations of a gentleman long familiar with the brewing trade, in connection with one of the largest houses. In short, I may state that the account is given on the very best authority.
There are _nine_ large brewers in London; of these the two firms transacting the greatest extent of business supply, daily, 1000 barrels each firm to their customers; the seven others, among them, dispose, altogether, of 3000 barrels daily. All these 5000 barrels a day are solely for town consumption; and this may be said to be the _average_ supply the year through, but the public-house sale is far from regular.
After a wet day the sale of malt liquor, principally beer (porter), to the metropolitan retailers is from 500 to 1000 barrels more than when a wet day has not occurred; that is to say, the supply increases from 5000 barrels to 5500 and 6000. Such of the publicans as keep small stocks go the next day to their brewers to order a further supply; those who have better-furnished cellars may not go for two or three days after, but the result is the same.
The reason for this increased consumption is obvious; when the weather prevents workmen from prosecuting their respective callings in the open air, they have recourse to drinking, to pass away the idle time. Any one who has made himself familiar with the habits of the working classes has often found them crowding a public-house during a hard rain, especially in the neighbourhood of new buildings, or any public open-air work. The street-sellers, themselves prevented from plying their trades outside, are busy in such times in the “publics,” offering for sale braces, belts, hose, tobacco-boxes, nuts of different kinds, apples, &c. A bargain may then be struck for so much and a half-pint of beer, and so the consumption is augmented by the trade in other matters.
Now, taking 750 barrels as the average of the extra sale of beer in consequence of wet weather, we have a consumption beyond the demands of the ordinary trade in malt liquor of 27,000 gallons, or 216,000 pints. This, at 2_d._ a pint, is 3000_l._ for a day’s needless, and often prejudicial, outlay caused by the casualty of the weather and the consequent casualty of labour. A censor of morals might say that these men should go home under such circumstances; but their homes may be at a distance, and may present no great attractions; the single men among them may have no homes, merely sleeping-places; and even the more prudent may think it advisable to wait awhile under shelter in hopes of the weather improving, so that they could resume their labour, and only an hour or so be deducted from their wages. Besides, there is the attraction to the labourer of the warmth, discussion, freedom, and excitement of the public-house.
That the great bulk of the consumers of this _additional_ beer are of the classes I have mentioned is, I think, plain enough, from the increase being experienced only in that beverage, the consumption of gin being little affected by the same means. Indeed, the statistics showing the ratio of beer and gin-drinking are curious enough (were this the place to enter into them), the most gin, as a general rule, being consumed in the most depressed years.
“It is a fact worth notice,” said a statistical journal, entitled “Facts and Figures,” published in 1841, “as illustrative of the _tendency of the times of pressure to increase spirit drinking_, that whilst under the privations of last year (1840) the poorer classes paid 2,628,286_l._ tax for spirits; in 1836, a year of the greatest prosperity, the tax on British spirits amounted only to 2,390,188_l._ _So true is it that to impoverish is to demoralise._”
The numbers who imbibe, in the course of a wet day, these 750 barrels, cannot, of course, be ascertained, but the following calculations may be presented. The class of men I have described rarely have spare money, but if known to a landlord, they probably may obtain credit until the Saturday night. Now, putting their _extra_ beer-drinking on wet days--for on fine days there is generally a pint or more consumed daily per working man--putting, I say, the _extra_ potations at a pot (quart) each man, we find _one hundred and eight thousand_ consumers (out of 2,000,000 people, or, discarding the women and children, not 1,000,000)! A number doubling, and trebling, and quadrupling the male adult population of many a splendid continental city.
Of the data I have given, I may repeat, no doubt can be entertained; nor, as it seems to me, can any doubt be entertained that the increased consumption is directly attributable to the casualty of labour[55].
OF THE SCURF TRADE AMONG THE RUBBISH-CARTERS.
Before proceeding to treat of the cheap or “scurf” labourers among the rubbish-carters, I shall do as I have done in connection with the casual labourers of the same trade, say a few words on that kind of labour in general, both as to the means by which it is usually obtained and as to the distinctive qualities of the scurf or low-priced labourers; for experience teaches me that the mode by which labour is cheapened is more or less similar in all trades, and it will therefore save much time and space if I here--as with the casual labourers--give the general facts in connection with this part of my subject.
In the first place, then, there are but two direct modes of cheapening labour, viz.:--
1. By making the workmen do _more_ work for the _same_ pay.
2. By making them do the _same_ work for _less_ pay.
The first of these modes is what is technically termed “_driving_,” especially when effected by compulsory “overwork;” and it is called the “economy of labour” when brought about by more elaborate and refined processes, such as the division of labour, the large system of production, the invention of machinery, and the _temporary_, as contradistinguished from the _permanent_, mode of hiring.
Each of these modes of making workmen do _more_ work for the _same_ pay, can but have the same depressing effect on the labour market, for not only is the _rate_ of remuneration (or ratio of the work to the pay) reduced when the operative is made to do a greater quantity of work for the same amount of money, but, unless the means of disposing of the extra products be proportionately increased, it is evident that just as many workmen must be displaced thereby as the increased term or rate of working exceeds the extension of the markets; that is to say, if 4000 workpeople be made to produce each twice as much as formerly (either by extending the hours of labour or increasing their rate of labouring), then if the markets or means of disposing of the extra products be increased only one-half, 1000 hands must, according to Cocker, be deprived of their ordinary employment; and these competing with those who are in work will immediately tend to reduce the wages of the trade generally, so that not only will the _rate_ of wages be decreased, since each will have more work to do, but the actual earnings of the workmen will be diminished likewise.
Of the economy of labour itself, as a means of cheapening work, there is no necessity for me to speak here. It is, indeed, generally admitted, that to economize labour without proportionally extending the markets for the products of such labour, is to deprive a certain number of workmen of their ordinary means of living; and under the head of casual labour so many instances have been given of this principle that it would be wearisome to the reader were I to do other than allude to the matter at present. There are, however, several other means of causing a workman to do more than his ordinary quantity of work. These are:--
1. By extra supervision when the workmen are paid by the day. Of this mode of increased production an instance has already been cited in the account of the strapping-shops given at p. 304, vol. ii.
2. By increasing the workman’s interest in his work; as in piece-work, where the payment of the operative is made proportional to the quantity of work done by him. Of this mode examples have already been given at p. 303, vol. ii.
3. By large quantities of work given out at one time; as in “lump-work” and “contract work.”
4. By the domestic system of work, or giving out materials to be made up at the homes of the workpeople.
5. By the middleman system of labour.
6. By the prevalence of small masters.
7. By a reduced rate of pay, as forcing operatives to labour both longer and quicker, in order to make up the same amount of income.
Of several of these modes of work I have already spoken, citing facts as to their pernicious influence upon the greater portion of those trades where they are found to prevail. I have already shown how, by extra supervision--by increased interest in the work--as well as by decreased pay, operatives can be made to do more work than they otherwise would, and so be the cause, unless the market be proportionately extended, of depriving some of their fellow-labourers of their fair share of employment. It now only remains for me to set forth the effect of those modes of employment which have not yet been described, viz., the domestic system, the middleman system, and the contract and lump system, as well as the small-master system of work.
Let me begin with the first of the last-mentioned modes of cheapening labour, viz., _the domestic system of work_.
I find, by investigation, that in trades where the system of working on the master’s premises has been departed from, and a man is allowed to take his work home, there is invariably a tendency to cheapen labour. These home workers, whenever opportunity offers, will use other men’s ill-paid labour, or else employ the members of their family to enhance their own profits.
The domestic system, moreover, naturally induces _over-work and Sunday-work, as well as tends to change journeymen into trading operatives, living on the labour of their fellow-workmen_. When the work is executed off the master’s premises, of course there are neither definite hours nor days for labour; and the consequence is, the generality of home workers labour early and late, Sundays as well as week-days, availing themselves at the same time of the co-operation of their wives and children; thus the trade becomes overstocked with workpeople by the introduction of a vast number of new hands into it, as well as by the overwork of the men themselves who thus obtain employment. When I was among the tailors, I received from a journeyman to whom I was referred by the Trades’ Society as the one best able to explain the causes of the decline of that trade, the following lucid account of the evils of this system of labour:--
“The principal cause of the decline of our trade is the employment given to workmen at their own homes, or, in other words, to the ‘sweaters.’ The sweater is the greatest evil in the trade; as the sweating system increases the number of hands to an almost incredible extent--wives, sons, daughters, and extra women, all working ‘long days’--that is, labouring from sixteen to eighteen hours per day, and Sundays as well. By this system two men obtain as much work as would give employment to three or four men working regular hours in the shop. Consequently, the sweater being enabled to get the work done by women and children at a lower price than the regular workman, obtains the greater part of the garments to be made, while men who depend upon the shop for their living are obliged to walk about idle. A greater quantity of work is done under the sweating system at a lower price. I consider that the decline of my trade dates from the change of day-work into piece-work. According to the old system, the journeyman was paid by the day, and consequently must have done his work under the eye of his employer. It is true that work was given out by the master before the change from day-work to piece-work was regularly acknowledged in the trade. But still it was morally impossible for work to be given out and not be paid by the piece. _Hence I date the decrease in the wages of the workman from the introduction of piece-work, and giving out garments to be made off the premises of the master._ The effect of this was, that the workman making the garment, knowing that the master could not tell whom he got to do his work for him, employed women and children to help him, and paid them little or nothing for their labour. This was the beginning of the sweating system. The workmen gradually became transformed from journeymen into ‘middlemen,’ living by the labour of others. Employers soon began to find that they could get garments made at a less sum than the regular price, and those tradesmen who were anxious to force their trade, by underselling their more honourable neighbours, readily availed themselves of this means of obtaining cheap labour.”
* * * * *
The _middleman system of work_ is so much akin to the domestic system, of which, indeed, it is but a necessary result, that it forms a natural addendum to the above. Of this indirect mode of employing workmen, I said, in the _Chronicle_, when treating of the timber-porters at the docks:--
“The middleman system is the one crying evil of the day. Whether he goes by the name of ‘sweater,’ ‘chamber-master,’ ‘lumper,’ or contractor, it is this _trading operative_ who is the great means of reducing the wages of his fellow working-men. To make a profit out of the employment of his brother operatives he must, of course, obtain a lower class and, consequently, cheaper labour. Hence it becomes a _business_ with him to hunt out the lowest grades of working men--that is to say, those who are either morally or intellectually inferior in the craft--the drunken, the dishonest, the idle, the vagabond, and the unskilful; these are the instruments that he seeks for, because, these being unable to obtain employment at the regular wages of the sober, honest, industrious, and skilful portion of the trade, he can obtain their labour at a lower rate than what is usually paid. Hence drunkards, tramps, men without character or station, apprentices, children--all suit him. Indeed, the more degraded the labourers, the better they answer his purpose, for the cheaper he can get their work, and consequently the more he can make out of it.
“‘Boy labour or thief labour,’ said a middleman, on a large scale, to me, ‘what do I care, so long as I can get my work done cheap?’ That this _seeking out_ of cheap and inferior labour really takes place, and is a necessary consequence of the middleman system, we have merely to look into the condition of any trade where it is extensively pursued. I have shown, in my account of the tailors’ trade printed in the _Chronicle_, that the wives of the sweaters not only parade the streets of London on the look-out for youths raw from the country, but that they make periodical trips to the poorest provinces of Ireland, in order to obtain workmen at the lowest possible rate. I have shown, moreover, that foreigners are annually imported from the Continent for the same purpose, and that among the chamber-masters in the shoe trade, the child-market at Bethnal-green, as well as the workhouses, are continually ransacked for the means of obtaining a cheaper kind of labour. All my investigations go to prove, that it is chiefly by means of this middleman system that the wages of the working men are reduced. It is this contractor--this trading operative--who is invariably the prime mover in the reduction of the wages of his fellow-workmen. He uses the most degraded of the class as a means of underselling the worthy and skilful labourers, and of ultimately dragging the better down to the abasement of the worst. He cares not whether the trade to which he belongs is already overstocked with hands, for, be those hands as many as they may, and the ordinary wages of his craft down to bare subsistence point, it matters not a jot to him; _he_ can live solely by reducing them still lower, and so he immediately sets about drafting or importing a fresh and cheaper stock into the trade. If _men_ cannot subsist on lower prices, then he takes apprentices, or hires children; if women of chastity cannot afford to labour at the price he gives, then he has recourse to prostitutes; or if workmen of character and worth refuse to work at less than the ordinary rate, then he seeks out the moral refuse of the trade--those whom none else will employ; or else he flies, to find labour meet for his purpose, to the workhouse and the gaol. Backed by this cheap and refuse labour, he offers his work at lower prices, and so keeps on reducing and reducing the wages of his brethren, until all sink in poverty, wretchedness, and vice. Go where we will, look into whatever poorly-paid craft we please, we shall find this _trading operative_, this _middleman_ or contractor, at the bottom of the degradation.”
The “contract system” or “lump work,” as it is called, is but a corollary, as it were, of the foregoing; for it is an essential part of the middleman system, that the work should be obtained by the trading operative in large quantities, so that those upon whose labour he lives should be kept continually occupied, and the more, of course, that he can obtain work for, the greater his profit. When a quantity of work, usually paid for by the piece, is given out at one time, the natural tendency is for the piece-work to pass into lump-work; that is to say, if there be in a trade a number of distinct parts, each requiring, perhaps, from the division of labour, a distinct hand for the execution of it, or if each of these parts bear a different price, it is frequently the case that the master will contract with some one workman for the execution of the whole, agreeing to give a certain price for the job “in the lump,” and allowing the workman to get whom he pleases to execute it. This is the case with the piece-working masters in the coach-building trade; but it is not essential to the contract or lump system of work, that other hands should be employed; the main distinction between it and piece-work being that the work is given out in large quantities, and a certain allowance or reduction of price effected from that cause alone.
It is this contract or lump work which constitutes the great evil of the carpenter’s, as well as of many other trades; and as in those crafts, so in this, we find that the lower the wages are reduced the greater becomes the number of trading operatives or middlemen. For it is when workmen find the difficulty of living by their labour increased that they take to scheming and trading upon the labour of their fellows. In the slop trade, where the pay is the worst, these creatures abound the most; and so in the carpenter’s trade, where the wages are the lowest--as among the speculative builders--there the system of contracting and sub-contracting is found in full force.
Of this contract or lump work, I received the following account from the foreman to a large speculating builder, when I was inquiring into the condition of the London carpenters:--