CHAPTER II

SUPPOSED REMEDIES

Emigration—Valuable to the individual—Useless for the community—Assumed improvidence of early marriage—Drunkenness cause of individual poverty, not of general poverty—The amazing thrift of working people—Dangers of thrift—Observations of a sagacious Scotchman—Consumers’ Leagues—Why impracticable as remedy for underpayment—Fields in which a Consumers’ League may be of use.

The evils described in the first part of this volume are no new ones; they have been familiar for many years to many persons; a variety of remedies have been suggested and in many cases attempted. Of these remedies, only those are in any degree effectual which act as checks upon competition. One group of proposed remedies is founded upon the assumption that the country is overpopulated. This assumption, is, however, disproved by the fact (which is unquestioned) that notwithstanding the presence among us of a large class of rich non-producers, the national income has increased at a greater rate than the population of the country. Still, there are persons who believe that England has too many people and who, therefore, very logically, desire to reduce the number.

Some reformers of this way of thinking desire to see fewer births; others desire the removal, to parts of the world where population is still sparse, of those persons who, in this country, are seen to be vainly struggling for remunerative employment. Emigration has, no doubt, in many individual cases, meant a change from indigence to prosperity; but, as a remedy for general indigence, it has the fatal flaw that every worker removed is also a consumer removed, and that every consumer removed means the loss of a customer and, therefore, to that extent, a diminution of trade. The supply of labour is, indeed, lessened, but the demand for labour’s product, and thus for labour itself, is lessened too. It would be better for British trade if the emigrant could be made prosperous at home instead of being sent to seek prosperity in exile. It is, however, true that most emigrants go to British colonies, and that these colonies need them. For these reasons, emigration is, no doubt, useful, but as a remedy for general poverty at home it must always remain delusive. Moreover, so long as the immigration of foreigners is permitted, the emigration of British subjects is in effect little more than a game of “General Post.”

Another school of reformers holds the poor themselves responsible for their own poverty. “Why do they marry so young?” “Why do they drink?” “Why don’t they save?” These questions are heard at every turn; and persons who do not know the life of the poor regard them as unanswerable.

To take first the question of early marriages, a point upon which the better off are apt to judge with singular unfairness of their poorer brethren. The market value of the middle class man is probably highest after 40, certainly after 30. The market value of the average workman, on the other hand, decreases after 40, if not earlier, and, in a vast number of cases, is as high at 22 as it will ever be. Therefore, while the middle class man is in a financial sense, prudent in deferring marriage till 30 or thereabouts, the workman would be foolish indeed to delay the birth of his eldest children until within ten years or so of his own decline in market value. The workman who desires, like the middle class man, that the infancy and schooltime of his children shall coincide with his own period of greatest prosperity should marry—as in fact he does—between the ages of 20 and 24. Then, by the time that the father begins to experience increasing difficulty in getting well paid employment—or perhaps employment at all—the elder children will at least be of an age to earn for themselves. It should be remembered, too, that workpeople as a class die younger than people who are better off, so that a bricklayer, married at 20, and a barrister, married at 30, have about even chances of seeing the manhood of their elder sons—another reason why the former is wise to marry early, if at all. Early marriages, then, whether improvident or no in the case of middle class brides and bridegrooms, are not improvident in the case of working people—unless indeed it be contended that it is improvident for working people to marry at all—a contention fraught with rather alarming possibilities to the future of the race.

To the question: “Why do they drink?” the answer is not quite so simple. One may begin by remarking that there are a great many total abstainers among wage earners; one may also remark that, if drinking were as universal among wage earners as, let us say, the wearing of boots, even the lowest rate of wages would stand at a figure allowing for the purchase of drink. Economically, it is because the majority of wage earners do not drink to excess that the excessive drinker finds himself at a disadvantage. Of course, he is at a disadvantage also in various other respects, but these do not enter into the economic argument. That intemperate drinking may conduce to poverty is undeniable; but that poverty also often conduces to intemperance is no less true. Of the two kinds of drunkenness that exist among wage earners one is largely in the nature of an escape from fatigue and from despair. Of the other—the outbreak at intervals of the able, energetic and often comparatively prosperous man, I do not pretend to have fathomed the mystery; but it seems likely that the monotony of modern working life and the lack of abundant personal interests may be among the contributory causes. It may also be noted that to carouse at intervals was a deeply rooted habit among our Northern ancestors, who admired a man potent in drinking as they admired a man powerful in fight. It is at least conceivable that the energetic, capable man who “breaks out” every month or two is a survival of the old type; and it certainly seems to be the case that his type does not occur among purely Latin races. Be this as it may, experience shows convincingly that, on the whole, in this country, any and every class of workers grows by degrees more sober as its hours of work are shortened and its wages raised. Individuals of the class may still drink heavily, but the average of sobriety steadily rises with improved conditions. Moreover, in spite of the temptations presented by poverty, a steady rise in the sobriety of this country is shown by the excise returns. If poverty spreads and deepens—as I fear it does—the cause cannot be found in an increase of drunkenness; for the consumption of drink per head grows yearly less and less. Temperance is doubtless advantageous in many ways to those who practise it; but, like efficiency, it possesses a money value only while it fails to be universal. If every man were temperate, no employer would make a point of retaining his temperate “hands” when reducing his establishment.

To the question: “Why do not working people save?” truth requires the paradoxical reply that they do save, and that they cannot afford to do so. As a class, working people save a larger proportion of their income than any other class of the community. The shares in Industrial Co-operative Societies amounted in 1904 to £27,739,123; the Reserve and Insurance funds of the same societies to £2,677,420. The great Friendly and Provident Societies are supported almost wholly by working class contributors; and, in addition to these, the majority of Trade Unions are also provident Societies.[75]

Of the thirty families whose household expenditure has been tabulated in Vol. I. of Mr Booth’s _Life and Labour_ (East London), only five spent nothing upon insurance or club money; and in one household this item ran up to 11½ per cent. of the whole expenditure. Considering that the weekly income, as estimated, ranged from about 10s. 3½d. to about 33s. 7d. and that the households consisted seldom of less than four, and in one case of eight persons, these contributions are by no means trifling. Yet it is probable that not two families out of the thirty were able to make anything like an adequate provision for old age. It hardly, indeed, requires demonstration that a person earning just enough to support life can only make an adequate provision for his old age by laying by 100 per cent. of his income. Upon 10s. a week, or less, the saving of money becomes something very near to a slow form of suicide. Moreover, at the risk of horrifying every middle class reader, I must frankly declare that, in my opinion, a worker does more wisely to abstain from all forms of thrift beyond participation in his trade union and his co-operative society. His union will help to keep up his wages; his co-operative society will increase their purchasing power; the return upon both these investments is immediate and certain: but anything more is apt to cost too dear. It is now a good many years since an old Scotchman of great intelligence and judgment, the secretary of his trade union, a member of the municipal council, and justly respected by his fellow townsmen of various ranks, gave me his opinion on this subject. He related to me how, as a young man, he had accompanied a benevolent gentleman to a lecture upon thrift, and how, as they afterwards walked away, the gentleman waxed eloquent upon the duty of every man to lay by. But my old friend, canny even at five-and-twenty or so, replied that he was a married man with two children, that his earnings were two pounds a week, that, if he spent less, either his children must go short of what was necessary to make them strong, healthy and well trained, or he himself must go short of what was necessary to maintain his efficiency; and that, in his belief, the best form of thrift for a man in his position was to maintain the highest standard of living which his small total income would secure. In his case the plan had fully succeeded. He was, I suppose, well over sixty, as hale, as active and as much interested in the progress of the world as any man of thirty, and a most valuable citizen. His children had both grown up healthy, capable and industrious; both were skilled workers, regularly employed and in receipt of good wages. But supposing—and his trade was one reputed unhealthy—that the father had died, leaving a widow and young children unprovided for? We may note that his risk of doing so was lessened by his being better fed and better clothed than his more sparing neighbour. Still, death is liable to seize even the best nourished and the most fitly clothed; he might have died long before his children had completed their excellent education or become capable of self support. Even in that case, however, would these orphans, in whom a foundation had been laid of good health and good teaching, have been really worse off than if, with a poorer endowment of personal advantages, they had inherited the money pittance—so sadly inadequate at best—that their father might have scraped together in his few years of life? For how miserably small is the provision that _can_, even with the utmost exercise of parsimony, be made out of a family income of two pounds a week! In their inevitably inadequate efforts to make such provision, workers too often deny themselves the absolute essentials of healthy living. To abstain from buying new shoes in order to save the price for one’s old age, and then to die of pneumonia, induced by want of sound shoes, is but a doubtful form of thrift, both for oneself and one’s nation. The interests of the nation, especially, are certainly better served by the maintenance among working class families of the highest attainable standard of life than by the accumulation of very small individual provision for possible orphans or possible old age. Even two pounds a week will not suffice (except in remote country districts—where no man earns so much) to provide really very good food, clothing and housing for four persons; and the working class family does not often consist of no more than four. The present cost of thrift, as thrift is generally understood, is too heavy and the future return too light; and the wise man is not he who saves his money, but he who spends it to the best advantage.

The supposed remedies hitherto touched upon have been measures demanding the agency of the wage earner himself; but there is another scheme, particularly attractive to the inexperienced reformer, in which the consumer is to be the active person. When men and women who are not themselves underpaid come face to face with the evil of underpayment, it is natural enough for them to resolve that henceforth the articles purchased by themselves shall be articles the makers of which have been adequately paid. From this individual resolve it is but one step to an association of persons all thus resolved, and banded together for the purposes of investigation and exclusive dealing. Such an association is a “Consumers’ League,” the aim of which is “to check unlimited competition not at the point of manufacture but at the point of sale.” Such associations, the first of which was formed, I believe, in consequence of a suggestion made by myself, many years ago, in _Longman’s Magazine_, are likely to reappear at a time like the present when many consciences are disturbed by recognition of the fact that a considerable proportion of British workers are scandalously underpaid. It seems desirable, therefore, to point out how and why a Consumers’ League must inevitably fail in its aims.

The complexities of modern commerce are such that it is absolutely impossible for any group of purchasers, however large and however earnest, to attain that accurate knowledge of myriads of facts which would be necessary; or, even, supposing such knowledge to have been once obtained, to keep abreast of the unceasing changes. Let us take the comparatively elementary problem of the large retail drapery shops. It appears to be the general practice in such establishments for each separate department to be under separate management, and for the head of each department to have a free hand, subject to the one condition of producing a certain percentage of profit. The ability to manage successfully and develop a large branch of trade is not, as may well be believed, very common, and one part of the payment that it demands is freedom to do its work in its own way. Thus it is not uncommon for one department of a large business to be conducted in a spirit of justice and consideration, while another is marked by the total lack of such a spirit. For instance, there was at one time, in a certain firm, a manager of the mourning department who was among the best employers in the London trade; but at the same time, the man in charge of the workshop in which certain garments were made up or altered, was a cutter-down of wages, rude and bullying in his behaviour to the workers and entirely inconsiderate of their comfort. What reply, in a case like this, can be given to a lady who asks: “Can I safely go to X’s shop?” How, if she is furnished with the information just given, can she discriminate, or how, even if she did, can she or her informant be sure of the continuance of these conditions? Six months later, the one manager may have taken a better post, and the other have been dismissed. The new man at the workshop may be an enlightened organiser, who introduces improved machinery and methods, knows the value of contented and well fed workers, and raises wages; while the new man at the mourning department may have been trained in the ways of “a driving trade,” and may believe good management to consist in harrying his employees, in nibbling at their wages and in “cribbing” their leisure. If we multiply these facts by the number of shops or departments touched by the weekly purchases of any well-to-do customer, we shall begin to have some conception of the scale upon which a Consumers’ League would have to conduct its investigations.

Moreover, all this is only on the uppermost plane. Few of these retailers manufacture the goods sold. In regard to every single article it becomes necessary to trace every step of production and transmission. A pair of shoes cannot be satisfactorily guaranteed until we have discovered the wages and conditions of employment not only of every person who has worked upon the actual shoe, but also of the tanner, the thread weaver and winder, the maker of eyelets, the spinner and weaver of the shoe-lace and the various operatives engaged upon the little metal tag at the shoe-lace’s end. Nor is the matter finished even then. At every stage of its evolution, a shoe requires the services of clerks, bookkeepers, office-boys, warehousemen, packers, boxmakers, carmen, railway servants &c., and each new service introduces other material and other service—paper, ink, ledgers, harness, stable fittings, cardboard, string, glue, iron, coal—the series is endless. Yet compared with a woman’s completed gown, or a man’s suit of clothes, how simple a product is a pair of shoes. The fact is that even the most apparently simple of commercial acts is but one link in a network that spreads over the whole field of life and labour; and the fabric of that network is not woven once and for ever, but is in continual process of change.

At the present stage, then, of our commercial development it appears absolutely impossible for a Consumers’ League to fulfil its aims. If labour were thoroughly organised in every branch, so that a strong trade union existed in every trade, capable of giving information upon every point, then indeed a Consumers’ League might become truly efficient, but it would become proportionately superfluous.[76]

The cure of underpayment needs to be applied at the point of payment; and the establishment of a legal minimum wage is the most direct method of application.

But although a Consumers’ League can never hope to counteract the results of unlimited competition, it may, as the National Consumers’ League of America shows, exert a valuable influence upon public opinion, and may succeed in remedying certain industrial scandals. The Report of that body for the year 1905–6 (up to March 6, 1906) is a most interesting pamphlet, full of details that show how useful may be the work, as industrial detectives and agitators, of a group of citizens, banded together for the purpose of exposing and abolishing oppressive and insanitary conditions of labour. In a country where public feeling is not yet nearly ready for the enactment of a minimum wage, the formation of a Consumers’ League may possibly be the best step forward. An effectual remedy it cannot be; but it undoubtedly affords means of education, both for its members and for the community at large. In our own country, however, where the evils are already more or less generally recognised, and where an increasing number of persons are already beginning to hope for a minimum wage, the Consumers’ League marks a stage that has been left behind.

We see, then, that emigration, though it may help the individual, can but affect the trade of the country injuriously; that temperance, while eminently desirable on other grounds, is only of any economic value because it is still not universal; that effectual thrift is absolutely impossible for the underpaid, and that the exercise of even an illusory thrift can only be achieved by a sacrifice of things essential to good health. We see, furthermore, that a Consumers’ League may be a valuable social agency, but can never hope to be an economic remedy for underpayment. Having looked up all these turnings and found all of them blind alleys, we now proceed to examine a road along which younger sisters of ours have travelled already, and at the end of which a ray of hope seems to be shining. But before entering upon this examination we will pause to consider the lesson of facts as presented in the history of our own cotton trade.