“GARRET-MASTERS.”
The Cabinet-makers, socially as well as commercially considered,
consist, like all other operatives, of two distinct classes, that is to
say, of society and non-society men, or, in the language of political
economy, of those whose wages are regulated by custom and those whose
earnings are determined by competition. The former class numbers
between 600 and 700 of the trade, and the latter between 4000 and 5000.
As a general rule I may remark, that I find the society-men of every
trade comprise about one-tenth of the whole. Hence it follows, that
if the non-society men are neither so skilful nor so well-conducted
as the others, at least they are quite as important a body, from the
fact that they constitute the main portion of the trade. The transition
from the one class to the other is, however, in most cases, of a very
disheartening character. The difference between the tailor at the
west end, working for better shops at the better prices, and the poor
wretch starving at starvation wages for the sweaters and slop-shops at
the east end, has already been pointed out. The same marked contrast
was also shown to exist between the society and non-society boot and
shoemakers. The carpenters and joiners told the same story. There were
found society men renting houses of their own--some paying as much as
70_l._ a-year--and the non-society men overworked and underpaid, so
that a few weeks’ sickness reduced them to absolute pauperism. Nor,
I regret to say, can any other tale be told of the cabinet-makers;
except it be, that the competitive men in this trade are even in a
worse position than any other. I have already portrayed to the reader
the difference between the homes of the two classes--the comfort and
well-furnished abodes of the one, and the squalor and bare walls of the
other. But those who wish to be impressed with the social advantages
of a fairly-paid class of mechanics should attend a meeting of the
Wood-carvers’ Society. On the first floor of a small private house in
Tottenham-street, Tottenham-court-road, is, so to speak, the museum
of the working-men belonging to this branch of the cabinet-makers.
The walls of the back-room are hung round with plaster casts of
some of the choicest specimens of the arts, and in the front room
the table is strewn with volumes of valuable prints and drawings in
connexion with the craft. Round this table are ranged the members
of the society--some forty or fifty were there on the night of my
attendance--discussing the affairs of the trade. Among the collection
of books may be found, “The Architectural Ornaments and Decorations of
Cottingham,” “The Gothic Ornaments” of Pugin, Tatham’s “Greek Relics,”
Raphael’s “Pilaster Ornaments of the Vatican,” Le Pautre’s “Designs,”
and Baptiste’s “Collection of Flowers,” large size; while among the
casts are articles of the same choice description. The objects of this
society are, in the words of the preface to the printed catalogue, “to
enable wood-carvers to co-operate for the advancement of their art, and
by forming a collection of books, prints, and drawings, to afford them
facilities for self-improvement; also, by the diffusion of information
among its members, to assist them in the exercise of their art, as well
as to enable them to obtain employment.” The society does not interfere
in the regulation of wages in any other way than, by the diffusion of
information among its members, to assist them in the exercise of their
art, as well as to enable them to obtain employment; so that both
employers and employed may, by becoming members, promote their own and
each other’s interests. The collection is now much enlarged, and with
the additions that have been made to it, offers aid to the members
which in many cases is invaluable. As a means of facilitating the use
of this collection, the opportunities of borrowing from it have been
made as general as possible. The meetings of the society are held at
a place where attendance is unaccompanied by expense; and they are,
therefore, says the preface, “free from all objection on account of
inducements to exceed the time required for business.” All this appears
to be in the best possible taste, and the attention of the society
being still directed to its improvement, assuredly gives the members,
as they say, “good reason to hope that it will become one of which the
wood-carver may be proud, as affording valuable assistance, both in
the design and execution of any style of wood-carving.” In the whole
course of my investigations I have never experienced more gratification
than I did on the evening of my visit to this society. The members all
gave evidence, both in manner and appearance, of the refining character
of their craft: and it was indeed a hearty relief from the scenes of
squalor, misery, dirt, vice, ignorance, and discontent, with which
these inquiries too frequently bring one into connexion, to find one’s
self surrounded with an atmosphere of beauty, refinement, comfort,
intelligence, and ease.
The public, generally, are deplorably misinformed as to the character
and purpose of trade societies. The common impression is that they are
combinations of working-men, instituted and maintained solely with the
view of exacting an exorbitant rate of wages from their employers,
and that they are necessarily connected with strikes, and with sundry
other savage and silly means of attaining this object. It is my duty,
however, to make known that the rate of wages which such societies
are instituted to uphold has, with but few exceptions, been agreed
upon at a conference of both masters and men, and that in almost
every case I find the members as strongly opposed to strikes, as a
means of upholding them, as the public themselves. But at all events
the maintenance of the standard rate of wages is not the sole object
of such societies--the majority of them being organised as much for
the support of the sick and aged as for the regulation of the price
of labour; and even in those societies whose efforts are confined
to the latter purpose alone, a considerable sum is devoted annually
for the subsistence of their members when out of work. The general
cabinet-makers, I have already shown, have contributed towards this
object as much as 1000_l._ per annum for many years past. It is not
generally known how largely the community is indebted to the trade and
friendly societies of the working classes dispersed throughout the
kingdom, or how much expense the public is saved by such means in the
matter of poor-rates alone.
According to the last Government returns there are at present in
England, Scotland, and Ireland, upwards of 33,000 such societies,
14,000 of which are enrolled and 8000 unenrolled--the remaining 11,000
being secret societies, such as the Odd Fellows, Foresters, Druids,
Old Friends, and Rechabites. The number of members belonging to these
33,000 societies is more than three millions. The gross annual income
of the entire associations is 4,980,000_l._ and their accumulated
capital 11,360,000_l._ The working people of this country, and I
believe of this country alone, contribute therefore to the support
of their own poor nearly five millions of money every year, which is
some thousands of pounds more than was dispensed in parochial relief
throughout England and Wales in 1848. Hence it may be truly said, that
the benefits conferred by the trade and friendly societies of the
working classes are not limited to the individuals receiving them, but
are participated in by every ratepayer in the kingdom, for were there
no such institutions the poor-rates must necessarily be doubled.
I have been thus explicit on the subject of trade societies in general,
because I know there exists in the public mind a strong prejudice
against such institutions, and because it is the fact of belonging to
some such society which invariably distinguishes the better class of
workmen from the worse. The competitive men, or cheap workers, seldom
or never are members of any association, either enrolled or unenrolled.
The consequence is, that when out of work, or disabled from sickness or
old age, they are left to the parish to support. It is the slop-workers
of the different trades--the cheap men or non-society hands--who
constitute the great mass of paupers in this country. And here lies the
main social distinction between the workmen who belong to societies
and those who do not--the one maintain their own poor, the others are
left to the mercy of the parish. The wages of the competitive men
are cut down to a bare subsistence, so that, being unable to save
anything from their earnings, a few days’ incapacity from labour drives
them to the workhouse for relief. In the matter of machinery, not
only is the cost of working the engine, but the wear and tear of the
machine, considered as a necessary part of the expense of production.
With the human machine, however, it is different, slop-wages being
sufficient to defray only the cost of keeping it at work, but not to
compensate for the wear and tear of it. Under the allowance system
of the old poor-law, wages, it is well known, were reduced far below
subsistence-point, and the workmen were left to seek parish relief for
the remainder; and so in the slop part of every trade, the underpaid
workmen when sick or aged are handed over to the state to support.
As an instance of the truth of the above remarks I subjoin the
following statement, which has been furnished to me by the Chairmakers’
Society concerning their outgoings:--
“Average number of members 110.
Paid to unemployed members
from 1841 to 1850 £1256 10 0
Do. for insurance of tools 211 10 6
Do. do. loss of time by fire 19 2 8
Do. do. funerals of members 120 15 0
Do. do. collections for sick 60 4 0
“The objects which the London Chairmakers have in view by associating
in a trade society,” says the written statement from which the above
account is extracted, “is to insure, as near as possible, one uniform
price for the work they execute, so that the employer shall have a
guarantee in making his calculations that he will not be charged more
or less than his neighbours, who employ the same class of men: to
assist their members in obtaining employment, and a just remuneration
for the work they perform: to insure their tools against fire: to
provide for their funerals in the event of death: and to relieve their
members when unemployed or in sickness--the latter being effected by
paying persons to collect voluntary subscriptions for invalid members,
such subscriptions producing on an average 5_l._ in each case. The
members have, moreover, other modes of assisting each other when in
difficulties.”
I may as well here subjoin the statement I have received from this
society concerning the circumstances affecting their business.
“Our trade,” say they, in a written communication to me, “has suffered
very materially from a change which took place about 30 years ago in
the system of work. We were at that time chiefly employed by what we
term ‘trade-working masters,’ who supplied the upholsterers with the
frames of chairs and sofas; but since then we have obtained our work
directly from the sellers. At first the change was rather beneficial
than otherwise. The employer and his salesman, however, have now, in
the greater number of instances, no knowledge of the manufacturing
part of the business, and this is very detrimental to our interest,
owing to their being unacquainted with the value of the labour part
of the articles we make. Moreover, the salesman sends all the orders
he can out of doors to be made by the middlemen, though the customer
is led to believe that the work is executed on the premises, whereas
only a portion of it is made at home, and that chiefly the odd and
out-of-the-way work, because the sending of such work out of doors
would not answer the end of cheapness. The middleman, who executes the
work away from the premises, subdivides the labour to such an extent
that he is enabled to get the articles made much cheaper, as well as to
employ both unskilful workmen and apprentices.
“Placed in the position where the employer gets the credit of paying
us the legitimate price for our labour, it would appear that we have
no cause of complaint; but, owing to the system of things before
stated, as well as to the number of linendrapers, carpet-makers,
and others, who have recently entered the trade without having any
practical knowledge of the business, together with the casualty of our
employment, our social position has become scarcely any better, or so
good, as that of the unskilful or the dissipated workman, while, from
the many demands of our fellow-operatives upon us, in the shape of
pecuniary assistance, we have a severe struggle to maintain anything
like a respectable footing in the community. The principal source of
regret with us is, that the public have no knowledge of the quality of
the articles they buy. The sellers, too, from their want of practical
acquaintance with the manufacturing part of the business, have likewise
an injurious effect upon our interests, instead of seconding our
efforts to keep up a creditable position in society.
“The subjoined is the amount of the capital of our society at the
present time:--
“Property in the Funds £300
Out at use 175
Other available property, in the } 200
shape of price-books, &c. }
----
£675.”
Such, then, is the state of the society men belonging to the
cabinet-makers’ trade. These, as I before said, constitute that
portion of the workmen whose wages are regulated by custom, and it now
only remains for me to set forth the state of those whose earnings
are determined by competition. Here we shall find that the wages a
few years since were from three to four hundred per cent better than
they are at present, 20_s._ having formerly been the price paid for
making that for which the operatives now receive only 5_s._, and this
notwithstanding that the number of hands in the London trade from 1831
to 1841 declined 33 per cent relatively to the rest of the population.
Nor can it be said that this extraordinary depreciation in the value of
the cabinet-makers’ labour has arisen from any proportionate decrease
in the quantity of work to be done. The number of houses built in the
metropolis has of late been considerably on the increase. Since 1839
there have been 200 miles of new streets formed in London, no less
than 6405 new dwellings having been erected annually since that time:
and as it is but fair to assume that the majority of these new houses
must have required new furniture, it is clear that it is impossible
to account for the decline in the wages of the trade in question upon
the assumption of an equal decline in the quantity of work. How, then,
are we to explain the fact that, while the hands have decreased 33 per
cent, and work increased at a considerable rate, wages a few years ago
were 300 per cent better than they are at present? The solution of the
problem will be found in the extraordinary increase that has taken
place within the last 20 years of what are called “garret-masters”
in the cabinet trade. These garret-masters are a class of small
“trade-working masters,” supplying both capital and labour. They are
in manufacture what the peasant-proprietors are in agriculture, their
own employers and their own workmen. There is, however, this one marked
distinction between the two classes,--the garret-master cannot, like
the peasant-proprietor, eat what he produces: the consequence is,
that he is obliged to convert each article into food immediately he
manufactures it, no matter what the state of the market may be. The
capital of the garret-master being generally sufficient to find him in
the materials for the manufacture of only one article at a time, and
his savings being barely enough for his subsistence while he is engaged
in putting those materials together, he is compelled the moment the
work is completed to part with it for whatever he can get. He cannot
afford to keep it even a day, for to do so is generally to remain a
day unfed. Hence, if the market be at all slack, he has to force a
sale by offering his goods at the lowest possible price. What wonder,
then, that the necessities of such a class of individuals should have
created a special race of employers, known by the significant name of
“slaughter-house men?”--or that these, being aware of the inability of
the garret-masters to hold out against any offer, no matter how slight
a remuneration it affords for their labour, should continually lower
and lower their prices until the entire body of the competitive portion
of the cabinet trade is sunk in utter destitution and misery? Moreover,
it is well known how strong is the stimulus among peasant-proprietors,
or indeed any class working for themselves, to extra production. So it
is, indeed, with the garret-masters; their industry is indeed almost
incessant, and hence a greater quantity of work is turned out by them,
and continually forced into the market, than there would otherwise be.
What though there be a brisk and a slack season in the cabinet-makers’
trade, as in the majority of others? Slack or brisk, the garret-master
must produce the same excessive quantity of goods. In the hope of
extricating himself from his overwhelming poverty, he toils on,
producing more and more; and yet the more he produces the more hopeless
does his position become, for the greater the stock that he thrusts
into the market the lower does the price of his labour fall, until at
last he and his own family work for less than he himself could earn, a
few years back, by his own unaided labour.
Another cause of the necessity of the garret-master to part with
his goods as soon as made is the large size of the articles he
manufactures, and the consequent cost of conveying them from
slaughter-house to slaughter-house till a purchaser be found. For
this purpose a van is frequently hired; and the consequence is, that
he cannot hold out against the slaughterer’s offer, even for an hour,
without increasing the expense of carriage, and so virtually decreasing
his gains. This is so well known at the slaughter-houses, that if a
man, after seeking in vain for a fair remuneration for his work, is
goaded by his necessities to call at a shop a second time to accept
a price which he had previously refused, he seldom obtains what was
first offered him. Sometimes when he has been ground down to the lowest
possible sum, he is paid late on a Saturday night with a cheque, and
forced to give the firm a liberal discount for cashing it.
For a more detailed account, however, of the iniquities practised upon
this class of operatives, I refer the reader to the statements given
below. It will be there seen that all the modes by which work can be
produced cheap are in full operation. The labour of apprentices and
children is the prevailing means of production. I heard of one small
trade-working master who had as many as eleven apprentices at work
for him; and wherever the operative is blessed with a family they all
work, even from 6 years old. The employment of any undue number of
apprentices also tends to increase the very excess of hands from which
the trade is suffering; and thus it is, that the lower wages become,
the lower still they are reduced. There are very few--some told me
there were none, but there are a few who work as journeymen for little
masters; but these men become little masters in their turn, or they
must starve in idleness, for their employment is precarious. These
men have no time for social intercommunication: the struggle to live
absorbs all their energies, and confines all their aspirations to that
one endeavour. Their labour is devoted, with the rarest exceptions, to
the “slaughter-houses, linendrapers, ’polsterers, or warehouses.” By
all these names I heard the shopkeepers who deal in furniture of all
kinds, as well as drapery goods, designated.
These men work in their own rooms, in Spitalfields and Bethnal-green;
and sometimes two or three men in different branches occupy one
apartment, and work together there. They are a sober class of men, but
seem so perfectly subdued by circumstances, that they cannot or do not
struggle against the system which several of them told me they knew was
undoing them.
The subdivisions of this trade I need not give, they are as numerous as
the articles of the cabinet-maker’s calling.
I have mentioned that the black houses, or linendrapers at the west
end of London, were principally supplied from the east end. In the
neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road and Oxford-street, for instance,
most of my readers will have had their attention attracted by the
dust-coloured appearance of some poor worker in wood carrying along his
skeleton of an easy chair, or a sofa, or a couch, to dispose of in some
shop. Often, too, a carter has to be employed for the same purpose, at
the rate of 1_s._ 6_d._ an hour; and thus two hours will exhaust the
very fullest value of a long day’s labour. From a furniture-carter of
this description I received some most shocking details of having to
“busk” it, as this taking about goods for sale is called by those in
the trade.
From a pale, feeble-looking man whom I met on a Saturday evening at
the west end, carrying a mahogany chiffonier, I had the following
statement:--
[Illustration: GARRET-MASTER; OR CHEAP FURNITURE MAKER.
[_From a Sketch._]]
“I have dragged this chiffonier with me,” he said, “from Spitalfields,
and have been told to call again in two hours (it was then half-past
7). I am too tired to drag it to another linendraper’s, and indeed I
shouldn’t have so good a chance there; for if we go late, the manager
considers we’ve been at other places, and he’ll say, ‘You needn’t bring
me what others have refused.’ I was brought up as a general hand at
----, but was never in society, which is a great disadvantage. I feel
that now. I used to make my 25_s._ or 28_s._ a-week six or seven years
back; but then I fell out of employ, and worked at chair-making for a
slaughter-house, and so got into the system, and now I can’t get out
of it. I have no time to look about me, as, if I’m idle, I can’t
get bread for my family. I have a wife and two children. They’re too
young to do anything; but I can’t afford to send them to school, except
every now and then 1_d._ or 2_d._ a-week, and so they may learn to
read, perhaps. The anxiety I suffer is not to be told. I’ve nothing
left to pawn now; and if I don’t sell this chiffonier I must take it
back, and must go back to a house bare of everything, except, perhaps,
3_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ my wife may have earned by ruining her health
for a tailor’s sweater; and 1_s._ 6_d._ of that must go for rent. I
ought to have 2_l._ for this chiffonier, for it’s superior mahogany to
the run of such things; but I ask only 35_s._, and perhaps may be bid
28_s._, and get 30_s._; and it may be sold, perhaps, by the linendraper
for 3_l._ 3_s._ or 3_l._ 10_s._ Of course we’re obliged to work in the
slightest manner possible; but, good or bad, there’s the same fault
found with the article. I have already lost 3-1/2 hours; and there’s my
wife anxiously looking for my return to buy bread and a bit of beast’s
head for to-morrow. It’s hard to go without a bit o’ meat on Sundays;
and, indeed, I must sell at whatever price--it don’t matter, and that
the linendraper depends upon.”
I now subjoin a statement of a garret-master--a maker of loo
tables--who was endeavouring to make a living by a number of
apprentices:--
“I’m now 41,” he said, “and for the last ten or twelve years have been
working for a linendraper who keeps a slaughter-house. Before that I
was in a good shop, Mr. D----’s, and was a general hand, as we were in
the fair trade. I have often made my 50_s._ a-week on good work of any
kind: now, with three apprentices to help me, I make only 25_s._ Work
grew slack; and rather than be doing nothing, as I’d saved a little
money, I made loo tables, and sold them to a linendraper, a dozen years
back or so, and so somehow I got into the trade. For tables that,
eighteen years ago, I had in a good shop 30_s._ for making, now 5_s._
is paid; but that’s only in a slaughterer’s own factory, when he has
one. I’ve been told often enough by a linendraper, ‘Make an inferior
article, so as it’s cheap: if it comes to pieces in a month, what’s
that to you or me?’ Now, a 4-foot loo is an average; and if for profit
and labour--and it’s near two days’ work--I put on 7_s._, I’m bid 5_s._
less. I’ve been bid less than the stuff, and have on occasions been
forced to take it. That was four years ago; and I then found I couldn’t
possibly live by my own work, and I had a wife and four children to
keep; so I got some apprentices. I have now three, and two of them are
stiff fellows of 18, and can do a deal of work. For a 4-foot loo table
I have only 1_l._, though the materials cost from 11_s._ to 13_s._,
and it’s about two days’ work. There’s not a doubt of it that the
linendrapers have brought bad work into the market, and have swamped
the good. For work that, ten or twelve years ago, I had 3_l._ 5_s._ to
3_l._ 10_s._ from them, I have now 30_s._ Of course, it’s inferior in
quality in proportion, but it doesn’t pay me half as well. I know that
men like me are cutting one another’s throats by competition. Fourteen
years ago we ought to have made a stand against this system; but, then,
we must live.”
A pale young man, working in a room with two others, but in different
branches, gave me the following account:--
“I have been two years making looking-glass frames. Before that I was
in the general cabinet line, but took to this when I was out of work. I
make frames only; the slaughter-houses put in the glasses themselves.
If I had other work I couldn’t afford to lose time going from one
to another that I wasn’t so quick at. I make all sizes of frames,
from nine-sevens to twenty-four-eighteens (nine inches by seven, and
twenty-four inches by eighteen). Nine-sevens are most in demand; and
the slaughter-houses give 10_s._ 6_d._ a-dozen for them. Two years back
they gave 15_s._ All sizes has fallen 3_s._ to 4_s._ a-dozen. I find
all the material. It’s mahogany veneered over deal. There’s only five
or six slaughter-houses in my way; but I serve the Italians or Jews,
and they serve the slaughter-houses. There’s no foreigners employed
as I’m employed. It’s not foreign competition as harms us--it’s home.
I almost ask more than I mean to take, for I’m always bid less than a
fair price, and so we haggle on to a bargain. The best weeks I have had
I cleared 25_s._; but in slack times, when I can hardly sell at all,
only 12_s._ Carrying the goods for sale is such a loss of time. Things
are very bad now; but I must go on making, and get a customer when
trade is brisker if I can. Glass has rose 1_s._ a-foot, and that’s made
a slack in the trade, for my trade depends greatly on the glass trade.
I know of no women employed in my trade, and no apprentices. We are all
little masters.”
I shall now proceed to the other branch of the trade. The remarks I
have made concerning the wretched social condition and earnings of
fancy cabinet-makers who are in society, apply even more strongly
to the non-society men. The society men are to be found chiefly in
Clerkenwell; the non-society men in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green.
With these unfortunate workmen there is yet a lower deep. The underpaid
men of Clerkenwell work generally to order, if the payment be never
so inadequate. But the still more underpaid men of Spitalfields work
almost universally on speculation. The Spitalfields cabinet-maker
finds his own material, which he usually purchases of the great
cabinet-makers or the pianoforte-makers, being the veneers which are
the refuse of their work. The supply of the east-end warehousemen is
derived from little masters--men who work at their own abodes, and have
the assistance of their wives and children. It is very rarely that
they, or their equally underpaid fellows in the general cabinet trade,
employ an active journeyman. Almost every man in the trade works on
his own account, finds his own material, and goes “on the busk to the
slaughter-houses” for the chance of a customer.
I found the fancy cabinet-makers certainly an uninformed class, but
patient, temperate, and resigned. Some few could neither read nor
write, and their families were growing up as uninformed as the parents.
The hawking from door to door of workboxes made by some of the men
themselves, their wives assisting them with hawking, was far commoner
than it is now; but it is still practised to a small extent.
I called on an old couple to whom I was referred, as to one of the few
parties employed in working for the men who supplied the warehouses.
The man’s appearance was gaunt and wretched. He had been long unshorn;
and his light blue eyes had that dull, half-glazed look, which is
common to the old when spirit-broken and half-fed. His room, a small
garret in Spitalfields, for which he paid 1_s._ 3_d._ a-week, was bare
of furniture, except his work-bench and two chairs, which were occupied
by his wife, who was at work lining the boxes her husband was making.
A blanket rolled up was the poor couple’s bed. The wife was ten years
younger than her husband. She was very poorly clad in an old rusty
black gown, tattered here and there; but she did not look very feeble.
“I am 63,” the man said, and he looked 80, “and was apprenticed in my
youth to the fancy cabinet trade. I could make 4_l._ 4_s._ a-week at
it by working long hours when I was out of my time, forty-two years
back. I have worked chiefly on workboxes. I didn’t save money--I
was foolish; but it was a hard-living and a hard-drinking time. I’m
sorry for it now. Thirty years ago things weren’t quite so good, but
still very good; and so they were twenty years back. But since the
slaughter-houses came in, men like me has been starving. Why here, sir,
for a rosewood workbox like this, which I shall get 6_d._ for making,
I used to give a brother of mine 6_s._ 6_d._ for making twenty years
ago. I’ve been paid 22_s._ 6_d._ years ago for what I now get 2_s._
6_d._ for. The man who employs me now works for a slaughter-house; and
he must grind me down, or he couldn’t serve a slaughter-house cheap
enough. He finds materials, and I find tools and glue; and I have 6_s._
a-dozen for making these boxes, and I can only make a dozen a-week, and
the glue and other odds and ends for them costs me 6_d._ a-dozen. That,
with 9_d._ or 10_d._ a-week, or 1_s._, that my wife may make, as she
helps me in lining, is all we have to live on. We live entirely on tea
and bread and butter, when we can get butter; never any change--tea,
and nothing else all day; never a bit of meat on a Sunday. As for beer,
I haven’t spent 4_s._ on it these last four years. When I’m not at
work for a little master, I get stuff of one, and make a few boxes on
my own account, and carry them out to sell. I have often to go three
or four miles with them; for there’s a house near Tottenham-court-road
that will take a few from me, generally out of charity. When I’m past
work, or can’t meet with any, there’s nothing but the workhouse for me.”
The decline which has taken place within the last twenty years in
the wages of the operative cabinet-makers of London is so enormous,
and, moreover, it seems so opposed to the principles of political
economy, that it becomes of the highest importance in an inquiry like
the present to trace out the circumstances to which this special
depreciation is to be attributed. It has been before shown that the
number of hands belonging to the London cabinet trade decreased
between 1831 and 1841 33 per cent in comparison with the rest of the
metropolitan population; and that, notwithstanding this falling off,
the workman’s wages in 1831 were at least 400 per cent better than
they are at present; 20_s._ having formerly been paid for the making
of articles for which now only 5_s._ are given. To impress this fact,
however, more strongly upon the reader’s mind, I will cite here a few
of many instances of depreciation that have come to my knowledge.
“Twenty years ago,” said a workman in the fancy cabinet line, “I had
6_d._ an inch for the making of 20-inch desks of solid mahogany;
that’s 10_s._ for the entire article: now I get 2_s._ 3_d._ for the
same thing. Smaller desks used to average us 6_s._ each for wages: now
they don’t bring us more than 1_s._ Ladies’ 12-inch workboxes twenty
years ago were 3_s._ 6_d._ and 4_s._ a-piece making; now they are 5_d._
for the commoner sort and 7_d._ for those with better work.” “I don’t
understand per cents,” said another workman, “but this I _do_ know, the
prices that I get have within this twenty years fallen from 4_s._ to
5_d._, and in some cases to 4-1/2_d._”
Here, then, we find that wages in the competitive portion of the
cabinet trade--that is among the non-society hands--(the wages of the
society men I have before explained are regulated, or rather fixed
by custom)--were twenty years ago 400 per cent better in some cases,
and in others no less than 900 per cent higher than they are at
present, and this while the number of workmen has decreased as much as
one-third relatively to the rest of the population. How, then, is this
extraordinary diminution in the price of labour to be accounted for?
Certainly not on the natural assumption that the quantity of work has
declined in a still greater proportion than the number of hands to do
it, for it has also been proved that the number of new houses built
annually in the metropolis, and therefore the quantity of new furniture
required, has of late years increased very considerably.
In the cabinet trade, then, we find a collection of circumstances at
variance with that law of supply and demand by which many suppose that
the rate of wages is invariably determined. Wages, it is said, depend
upon the demand and supply of labour; and it is commonly assumed that
they cannot be affected by anything else. That they are, however,
subject to other influences, the history of the cabinet trade for the
last twenty years is a most convincing proof, for there we find, that
while the quantity of work, or in other words, the demand for labour,
has increased, and the supply decreased, wages, instead of rising, have
suffered a heavy decline. By what means, then, is this reduction in
the price of labour to be explained? What other circumstance is there
affecting the remuneration for work, of which economists have usually
omitted to take cognizance? The answer is, that wages depend as much on
the distribution of labour as on the demand and supply of it. Assuming
a certain quantity of work to be done, the amount of remuneration
coming to each of the workmen engaged must, of course, be regulated,
not only by the number of hands, but by the proportion of labour done
by them respectively; that is to say, if there be work enough to employ
the whole of the operatives for sixty hours a-week, and if two-thirds
of the hands are supplied with sufficient to occupy them ninety hours
in the same space of time, then one-third of the trade must be thrown
fully out of employment: thus proving that there may be surplus labour
without any increase of the population. It may, therefore, be safely
asserted, that any system of labour which tends to make the members
of a craft produce a greater quantity of work than usual, tends at
the same time to over-populate the trade as certainly as an increase
of workmen. This law may be summed up briefly in the expression that
over-work makes under-pay.
Hence the next point in the inquiry is as to the means by which the
productiveness of operatives is capable of being extended. There are
many modes of effecting this. Some of these have been long known to
students of political economy, while others have been made public for
the first time in these letters. Under the former class are included
the division and co-operation of labour, as well as the “large system
of production;” and to the latter belongs “the strapping system,” by
which men are made to get through four times as much work as usual,
and which I have before described. But the most effectual means of
increasing the productiveness of labourers is found to consist, not in
any system of supervision, however cogent, nor in any limitation of
the operations performed by the work-people to the smallest possible
number, nor in the apportionment of the different parts of the work
to the different capabilities of the operatives, but in connecting
the workman’s interest directly with his labour; that is to say, by
making the amount of his earnings depend upon the quantity of work done
by him. This is ordinarily effected in manufacture by means of what
is called piece-work. Almost all who work by the day, or for a fixed
salary--that is to say, those who labour for the gain of others, not
for their own--have, it has been well remarked, “no interest in doing
more than the smallest quantity of work that will pass as a fulfilment
of the mere terms of their engagement.” Owing to the insufficient
interest which day-labourers have in the result of their labour, there
is a natural tendency in such labour to be extremely inefficient--a
tendency only to be overcome by vigilant superintendance (such as is
carried on under the strapping system among the joiners) on the part
of the persons who are interested in the result. The master’s eye is
notoriously the only security to be relied on. But superintend them
as you will, day labourers are so much inferior to those who work by
the piece, that, as we before said, the latter system is practised in
all industrial occupations where the work admits of being put out in
definite portions, without involving the necessity of too troublesome
a surveillance to guard against inferiority (or scamping) in the
execution. But if the labourer at piece-work is made to produce a
greater quantity than at day-work, and this solely by connecting his
own interest with that of his employer, how much more largely must the
productiveness of workmen be increased when labouring wholly on their
own account! Accordingly, it has been invariably found, that whenever
the operative unites in himself the double function of capitalist and
labourer, making up his own materials or working on his own property,
his productiveness single-handed is considerably greater than can be
attained under the large system of production, where all the arts and
appliances of which extensive capital can avail itself are brought into
operation.
Of the industry of working masters or trading operatives in
manufactures there are as yet no authentic accounts. We have, however,
ample records concerning the indefatigability of their agricultural
counterparts--the peasant-proprietors of Tuscany, Switzerland, Germany,
and other countries where the labourers are the owners of the soil
they cultivate. “In walking anywhere in the neighbourhood of Zürich,”
says Inglis, in his work on Switzerland, the South of France, and
the Pyrenees, “one is struck with the extraordinary industry of the
inhabitants. When I used to open my casement, between four and five
o’clock in the morning, to look out upon the lake and the distant Alps,
I saw the labourer in the fields; and when I returned from an evening
walk, long after sunset, as late perhaps as half-past eight, there was
the labourer mowing his grass or tying up his vines.” The same state of
thing exists among the French peasantry under the same circumstances.
“The industry of the small proprietor,” says Arthur Young, in his
“Travels in France,” “were so conspicuous and so meritorious, that no
commendation would be too great for it. It was sufficient to prove
that property in land is, of all others, the most active instigator to
severe and incessant labour.” If, then, this principle of working for
one’s self has been found to increase the industry, and consequently
the productiveness of labourers, to such an extent in agriculture,
it is but natural that it should be attended with the same results
in manufactures, and that we should find the small masters and the
peasant-proprietors toiling longer and working quicker than labourers
serving others rather than themselves. But there is an important
distinction to be drawn between the produce of the peasant-proprietor
and that of the small master. Toil as diligently as the little farmer
may, since he cultivates the soil not for profit, but as a means of
subsistence, and his produce contributes directly to his support, it
follows that his comforts must be increased by his extra-production;
or, in other words, that the more he labours, the more food he obtains.
The small master, however, producing what he cannot eat, must carry his
goods to market and exchange them for articles of consumption. Hence,
by over-toil he lowers the market against himself; that is to say, the
more he labours the less food he ultimately obtains.
But not only is it true that over-work makes under-pay, but the
converse of the proposition is equally true, that under-pay makes
over-work; that is to say, it is true of those trades where the system
of piece-work or small mastership admits of the operative doing the
utmost amount of work that he is able to accomplish, for the workman
in such cases seldom or never thinks of reducing his expenditure to
his income, but rather of increasing his labour, so as still to bring
his income, by extra production, up to his expenditure. This brings us
to another important distinction which it is necessary to make between
the peasant-proprietor and the small master. The little farmer cannot
increase his produce by devoting a less amount of labour to each of the
articles; that is to say, he cannot scamp his work without diminishing
his future stock. A given quantity of labour must be used to obtain a
given amount of produce. None of the details can be omitted without
a diminution of the result: scamp the ploughing and there will be a
smaller crop. In manufactures, however, the result is very different.
There one of the principal means of increasing the productions of a
particular trade, and of the cabinet trade especially, is by decreasing
the amount of work in each article. Hence, in such cases, all kinds
of schemes and impositions are resorted to to make the unskilled
labour equal to the skilled, and thus the market is glutted with slop
productions till the honourable part of the trade, both workmen and
employers, are ultimately obliged to resort to the same tricks as the
rest.
There were, about twenty years ago, a numerous body of tradesmen, who
were employers, though not workmen to the general public, known as
“trade-working masters.” These men, of whom there are still a few,
confined their business solely to supplying the trade. They supplied
the greater establishments where there were showrooms with a cheaper
article than the proprietors of those greater establishments might
be able to have had manufactured on their own premises. They worked
not on speculation, but to order, and were themselves employers. Some
employed, at a busy time, from twenty to forty hands, all working on
their premises, which were merely adapted for making, and not for
selling or showing furniture. There are still such trade-working
masters, the extent of their business not being a quarter what it was;
neither do they now generally adhere to the practice of having men to
work on their premises, but they give out the material, which their
journeymen make up at their own abodes.
“About twenty years ago,” said an experienced man to me, “I dare say
the small masters formed about a quarter of the trade. The slacker
trade becomes, the more the small masters increase; that’s because
they can’t get other work to do; and so, rather than starve, they
begin to get a little stuff of their own, and make up things for
themselves, and sell them as best they can. The great increase of
the small masters was when trade became so dead. When was it that we
used to have to go about so with our things? About five years since,
wasn’t it?” said he, appealing to one of his sons, who was at work in
the same room with him. “Yes, father,” replied the lad, “just after
the railway bubble; nobody wanted anything at all then.” The old man
continued to say,--“The greater part of the men that couldn’t get
employed at the regular shops then turned to making up things on their
account; and now, I should say, there’s at least one half working for
themselves. About twelve years ago masters wanted to cut the men down,
and many of the hands, rather than put up with it, took to making up
for themselves. Whenever there’s a decrease of wages there’s always
an increase of small masters; for it’s not until men can’t live
comfortably by their labour that they take to making things on their
own account.”
I now come to the amount of capital required for an operative
cabinet-maker to begin business on his own account.
To show the readiness with which any youth out of his time, as it is
called, can start in trade as a garret cabinet master, I have learned
the following particulars:--This lad, when not living with his friends,
usually occupies a garret, and in this he constructs a rude bench out
of old materials, which may cost him 2_s._ If he be penniless when
he ceases to be an apprentice, and can get no work as a journeyman,
which is nearly always the case, for reasons I have before stated, he
assists another garret-master to make a bedstead, perhaps; and the
established garret-master carries two bedsteads instead of one to the
slaughter-house. The lad’s share of the proceeds may be about 5_s._;
and out of that, if his needs will permit him, he buys the article, and
so proceeds by degrees. Many men, to start themselves, as it is called,
have endured, I am informed, something like starvation most patiently.
The tools are generally collected by degrees, and often in the last
year of apprenticeship, out of the boy’s earnings. They are seldom
bought first-hand, but at the marine-store shops, or at the second-hand
furniture brokers’ in the New Cut. The purchaser grinds and sharpens
them up at any friendly workman’s where he can meet with the loan of
a grindstone, and puts new handles to them himself out of pieces of
waste wood. 10_s._ or even 5_s._ thus invested has started a man with
tools, while 20_s._ has accomplished it in what might be considered
good style. In some cases the friends of the boy, if they are not
poverty-stricken, advance him from 40_s._ to 50_s._ to begin with, and
he must then shift for himself.
When a bench and tools have been obtained, the young master buys such
material as his means afford, and sets himself to work. If he has a few
shillings to spare he makes himself a sort of bedstead, and buys a rug
or a sheet and a little bedding. If he has not the means to do so he
sleeps on shavings stuffed into an old sack. In some few cases he hires
a bench alongside some other garret-master, but the arrangement of two
or three men occupying one room for their labour is more frequent when
the garrets where the men sleep are required for their wives’ labour
in any distinct business, or when the articles the men make are too
cumbrous, like wardrobes, to be carried easily down the narrow stairs.
A timber merchant, part of whose business consists in selling material
to little masters, gave me two instances, within his own knowledge, of
journeymen beginning to manufacture on their own account.
A fancy cabinet-maker had 3_s._ 6_d._ at his command. With this he
purchased material for a desk as follows:--
3 ft. of solid 5/8 mahogany 1_s._ 0_d._
2 ft. of solid 3/8 cedar for bottom, &c. 0 6
Mahogany top 0 3
Bead cedar for interior 0 6
Lining 0 4
Lock and key (no ward to lock) 0 2
Hinges 0 1
Glue and springs 0 1-1/2
------------
2 11-1/2
The making of the desk occupied four hours, as he bestowed extra pains
upon it, and he sold it to a slaughterer for 3_s._ 6_d._ He then broke
his fast on bread and water, bought material for a second desk and
went to work again, and so he proceeds now; toiling and half-starving,
and struggling to get 20_s._ a-head of the world to buy more wood
at one time, and not pause so often in his work. “Perhaps,” said my
informant, “he’ll marry, as most of the small masters do, some foolish
servant-of-all-work, who has saved 3_l._ or 4_l._, and that will be his
capital.”
Another general cabinet-maker commenced business on 30_s._, a part of
which he expended in the material for a 4-foot chest of drawers.