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:--
“The way in which the work is done is mostly by letting and subletting.
The masters usually prefer to let work, because it takes all the
trouble off their hands. They know what they are to get for the job,
and of course they let it as much under that figure as they possibly
can, all of which is clear gain without the least trouble. How the
work is done, or by whom, it’s no matter to them, so long as they can
make what they want out of the job, and have no bother about it. Some
of our largest builders are taking to this plan, and a party who used
to have one of the largest shops in London has within the last three
years discharged all the men in his employ (he had 200 at least),
and has now merely an office, and none but clerks and accountants in
his pay. He has taken to letting his work out instead of doing it at
home. The parties to whom the work is let by the speculating builders
are generally working men, and these men in their turn look out for
other working men, who will take the job cheaper than they will; and
so I leave you, sir, and the public to judge what the party who really
executes the work gets for his labour, and what is the quality of work
that he is likely to put into it. The speculating builder generally
employs an overlooker to see that the work is done sufficiently well
to pass the surveyor. That’s all he cares about. Whether it’s done by
thieves, or drunkards, or boys, it’s no matter to him. The overlooker,
of course, sees after the first party to whom the work is let, and this
party in his turn looks after the several hands that he has sublet it
to. The first man who agrees to the job takes it in the lump, and he
again lets it to others in the piece. I have known instances of its
having been let again a third time, but this is not usual. The party
who takes the job in the lump from the speculator usually employs a
foreman, whose duty it is to give out the materials and to make working
drawings. The men to whom it is sublet only find labour, while the
‘lumper,’ or first contractor, agrees for both labour and materials.
It is usual in contract work, for the first party who takes the job
to be bound in a large sum for the due and faithful performance of
his contract. He then, in his turn, finds out a sub-contractor, who
is mostly a small builder, who will also bind himself that the work
shall be properly executed, and there the binding ceases--those parties
to whom the job is afterwards let, or sublet, employing foremen or
overlookers to see that their contract is carried out. The first
contractor has scarcely any trouble whatsoever; he merely engages a
gentleman, who rides about in a gig, to see that what is done is likely
to pass muster. The sub-contractor has a little more trouble; and so it
goes on as it gets down and down. Of course I need not tell you that
the first contractor, who does the _least_ of all, gets the _most_ of
all; while the poor wretch of a working man, who positively executes
the job, is obliged to slave away every hour, night after night, to get
a bare living out of it; and this is the contract system.”
A tradesman, or a speculator, will contract, for a certain sum, to
complete the skeleton of a house, and render it fit for habitation.
He will sublet the flooring to some working joiner, who will, in very
many cases, take it on such terms as to allow himself, by working early
and late, the regular journeymen’s wages of 30_s._ a week, or perhaps
rather more. Now this sub-contractor cannot complete the work within
the requisite time by his own unaided industry, and he employs men to
assist him, often subletting again, and such assistant men will earn
perhaps but 4_s._ a day. It is the same with the doors, the staircases,
the balustrades, the window-frames, the room-skirtings, the closets; in
short, all parts of the building.
The subletting is accomplished without difficulty. Old men are
sometimes employed in such work, and will be glad of any remuneration
to escape the workhouse; while stronger workmen are usually sanguine
that by extra exertion, “though the figure is low, they may make a tidy
thing out of it after all.” In this way labour is cheapened. “Lump”
work, “piece” work, work by “the job,” are all portions of the contract
system. The principle is the same. “Here is this work to be done, what
will you undertake to do it for?”
In number after number of the _Builder_ will be found statements
headed “Blind Builders.” One firm, responding to an advertisement for
“estimates” of the building of a church, sends in an offer to execute
the work in the best style for 5000_l._ Another firm may offer to do
it for somewhere about 3000_l._ The first-mentioned firm would do the
work well, paying the “honourable” rate of wages. The under-working
firm _must_ resort to the scamping and subletting system I have
alluded to. It appears that the building of churches and chapels, of
all denominations, is one of the greatest encouragement to slop, or
scamp, or under-paid work. The same system prevails in many trades with
equally pernicious effects.
* * * * *
“If you will allow me,” says a correspondent, “I would state that
there is one cause of hardship and suffering to the labouring
or handicraftsman, which, to my mind, is far more productive of
distress and poor-grinding than any other, or than all other causes
put together: I allude to the _contract_ system, and especially in
reference to printing. Depend upon it, sir, the father of wickedness
himself could not devise a more malevolent or dishonest course than
that now very generally pursued by those who should be, of all others,
the friends of the poor and working man. The Government and the great
West-end clubs have reduced their transactions to such a low level
in this respect that it seems to be the only question with them, Who
will work lowest or supply goods at the lowest figure? And this, too,
totally irrespective of the circumstance whether it may not reduce
wages or bankrupt the contractor. No matter whether a party who has
executed the work required for years be noted for paying a fair and
remunerating price to his workmen or sub-tradesmen, and bears the
character of a responsible and trustworthy man--all this is as nothing;
for somebody, who may be, for aught that is cared, deficient in all
these points, will do what is needful at _so much_ less; and then,
unless willing to reduce the wage of his workpeople, the long-employed
tradesman has but the alternative of losing his business or cheating
his creditors. And then, to give a smack to the whole affair, the
‘Stationery Office’ of the Government, or the committee of the club,
will congratulate themselves and their auditors on the fact that a
diminution in expenses has been effected; a result commemorated perhaps
by an addition of salary to the officials in the former case, and of a
‘cordial vote of thanks’ in the latter. I do not write ‘without book,’
I can assure you, on these matters; for I have long and earnestly
watched the subject, and could fill many a page with the details.”
* * * * *
Of the ruinous effects of the contract system in connection with the
army clothing, Mr. Pearse, the army clothier, gave the following
evidence before the Select Committee on Army and Navy Appointments.
“When the contract for soldier’s great coats was opened, Mr. Maberly
took it at the same price (13_s._) in December, 1808; this shows the
effect of wild competition. In February following, Esdailes’ house,
who were accoutrement makers, and not clothiers, got knowledge of
what was Mr. Maberly’s price, and _they_ tendered at 12_s._ 6-1/2_d._
a month afterwards; it was evidently then a struggle for the price,
and how the quality the least good (if we may use such a term) could
pass. Mr. Maberly did not like to be outbidden by Esdailes; _Esdailes
stopped subsequently_, and Mr. Maberly bid 12_s._ 6_d._ three months
after, and Mr. Dixon bid again, and got the contract for 11_s._ 3_d._
in October, and in December of that year another public tender took
place, and Messrs. A. and D. Cock took it at 11_s._ 5-1/2_d._, _and
they subsequently broke_. It went on in this sort of way,--changing
hands every two or every three months, by bidding against each other.
Presently, though it was calculated that the great coat was to wear
four years, it was found that _those great coats were so inferior
in quality, that they wore only two years_, and representations were
accordingly made to the Commander-in-Chief, when it was found necessary
that great care should be taken to go back to the original good quality
that had been established by the Duke of York.”
Mr. Shaw, another army clothier, and a gentleman with whose friendship,
I am proud to say, I have been honoured since the commencement of
my inquiries--a gentleman actuated by the most kindly and Christian
impulses, and of whom the workpeople speak in terms of the highest
admiration and regard; this gentleman, impressed with a deep sense of
the evils of the contract system to the under-paid and over-worked
operatives of his trade, addressed a letter to the Chairman of the
Committee on Army, Navy, and Ordnance Estimates, from which the
following are extracts:--
“My Lord, my object more particularly is, to request your lordship will
submit to the committee, _as an evidence of the evils of contracts_,
the great coat sent herewith, made similar to those supplied to the
army, and I would respectfully appeal to them as men, gentlemen, _as
Christians_, whether _fivepence_, the price now being given to poor
females for making up those coats, is a fair and just price for six,
seven, and eight hours’ work.... My Lord, _the misery amongst the
workpeople is most distressing_--of a mass of people, _willing to
work_, who cannot obtain it, and of a mass, especially women, most
iniquitously paid for their labour, who are in a state of oppression
disgraceful to the Legislature, the Government, the Church, and the
consuming public.... I would, therefore, most humbly and earnestly
call upon your lordship, and the other members of the committee, to
recommend an _immediate stop to be put to the system of contracting_
now pursued by the different government departments, as being one of
false economy, as a system most _oppressive to the poor_, and _being
most injurious_, in every way, to the best _interests of the country_.”