This constitutes the last of the four varieties of labour employed in
the cleansing of the public thoroughfares of London. I have already
treated of the self-supporting manual labour, the self-supporting
machine labour, and the pauper labour, and now proceed to the
consideration of the philanthropic labour of the streets.
In the first place, let us understand clearly what is meant by
philanthropic labour, and how it is distinguished from pauper labour on
the one hand, and self-supporting labour on the other. Self-supporting
labour I take to be that form of work which returns not less, and
generally something more, than is expended upon it. Pauper labour,
on the other hand, is work to which the applicants for parish relief
are “set,” not with a view to the profit to be derived from it, but
partly as a test of their willingness to work, and partly as a means
of employing the unemployed; while philanthropic labour is employment
provided for the unemployed with the same disregard of profit as
distinguishes pauper labour, but with a greater regard for the poor,
and as a means of affording them relief in a less degrading manner
than is done under the present Poor Law. Pauper and philanthropic
labour, then, differ essentially from self-supporting labour in being
_non-profitable_ modes of employment; that is to say, they yield so
bare an equivalent for the sum expended upon the labourers, that
none, in the ordinary way of trade, can be found to provide the means
necessary for putting them into operation: while pauper labour differs
from philanthropic labour, in the fact that the funds requisite for
“setting the poor on work” are provided by law as a matter of social
policy, whereas, in the case of philanthropic labour, the funds,
or a part of them, are supplied by voluntary contributions, out of
a desire to improve the labourers’ condition. There are, then, two
distinguishing features in all philanthropic labour--the one is, that
it yields no profit (if it did it would become a matter of trade), and
the other, that it is instituted and maintained from a wish to benefit
the labourer.
[Illustration: STREET ORDERLIES.]
The Street-Orderly system forms part of the operations on behalf of
the poor adopted by a society, of which Mr. Charles Cochrane is the
president, entitled the “National Philanthropic Association,” which is
said to have for its object “the promotion of social and salutiferous
improvements, street cleanliness, and the employment of the poor, so
that able-bodied men may be prevented from burthening the parish-rate,
and preserved independent of workhouse, alms, and degradation.” Here a
twofold object is expressed: the Philanthropic Association seeks not
only to benefit the poor by giving them employment, and “preserving
them independent of workhouse, alms, and degradation,” but to benefit
the public likewise, by “promoting social and salutiferous improvements
and street cleanliness.” I shall deal with each of these objects
separately; but first let me declare, so as to remove all suspicion
of private feelings tending in any way to bias my judgment in this
most important matter, that I am an utter stranger to the President
and Council of the Philanthropic Association; and that, whatever I may
have to say on the subject of the street-orderlies, I do simply in
conformity with my duty to the public--to state truthfully all that
concerns the labourers and the poor of the metropolis.
_Viewed economically, philanthropic and pauper work may be said to be
the regulators of the minimum rate of wages_--establishing the lowest
point to which competition can possibly drive down the remuneration
for labour; for it is evident, that if the self-supporting labourer
cannot obtain greater comforts by the independent exercise of his
industry than the parish rates or private charity will afford him, he
will at once give over working for the trading employer, and declare
on the funds raised by assessment or voluntary subscription for his
support. Hence, those who wish well to the labourer, and who believe
that cheapness of commodities is desirable “only,” as Mr. Stewart
Mill says (p. 502, vol. ii.), “when the cause of it is, that their
production costs little labour, and not when occasioned by that
labour’s being ill-remunerated;” and who believe, moreover, that
the labourer is to be benefited solely by the cultivation of a high
standard of comfort among the people--to such, I say, it is evident,
that a poor law which reduces the relief to able-bodied labourers
to the smallest modicum of food consistent with the continuation of
life must be about the greatest curse that can possibly come upon
an over-populated country, admitting, as it does, of the reduction
of wages to so low a point of mere brutal existence as to induce
that recklessness and improvidence among the poor which is known to
give so strong an impetus to the increase of the people. A minimized
rate of parish relief is necessarily a minimized rate of wages, and
admits of the labourers’ pay being reduced, by pauper competition, to
little short of starvation; and such, doubtlessly, would have been
the case long ago in the scavaging trade by the employment of parish
labour, had not the Philanthropic Association instituted the system of
street-orderlies, and by the payment of a higher rate of wages than the
more grinding parishes afforded--by giving the men 12_s._ instead of
9_s._ or even 7_s._ a week--prevented the remuneration of the regular
hands being dragged down to an approximation to the parish level.
Hence, rightly viewed, philanthropic labour--and, indeed, pauper labour
too--comes under the head of a remedy for low wages, as preventing, if
properly regulated, the undue depreciation of industry from excessive
competition, and it is in this light that I shall now proceed to
consider it.
The several plans that have been propounded from time to time, as
remedies for an insufficient rate of remuneration for work, are as
multifarious as the circumstances influencing the three requisites
for production--labour, capital, and land. I will here run over as
briefly as possible--abstaining from the expression of all opinion on
the subject--the various schemes which have been proposed with this
object, so that the reader may come as prepared as possible to the
consideration of the matter.
The remedies for low wages may be arranged into two distinct groups,
viz., those which seek to increase the labourer’s rate of pay
_directly_, and those which seek to do so _indirectly_.