I shall now pass to the labourers at the docks. This transition I am
induced to make, not because there is any affinity between the kinds
of work performed at the two places; but because the docks constitute,
as it were, a sort of home colony to Spitalfields, to which the
unemployed weaver migrates in the hope of bettering his condition.
From this it would be generally imagined that the work at the docks
was either better paid, less heavy, or more easily, and therefore more
regularly, obtained. So far from such being the fact, however, the
labour at the docks appears to be not only more onerous, but doubly as
precarious as that of weaving; while the average earnings of the entire
class seems to be less. What, then, it will be asked, constitutes the
inducement for the change? Why does the weaver abandon the calling of
his life, and forsake an occupation that at least appears to have, and
actually had in the days of better prices, a refining and intellectual
tendency? Why does he quit his graceful art for the mere muscular
labour of the human animal? This, we shall find, arises purely from
a desire for some out-of-door employment. And it is a consequence of
all skilled labour--since the acquirement of the skill is the result
of long practice--that if the art to which the operative has been
educated is abandoned, he must take to some unskilled labour as a means
of subsistence. I pass, then, to the consideration of the incomings
and condition of the dock-labourers of the metropolis, not because
the class of labour is similar to that of weaving, but because the
two classes of labourers are locally associated. I would rather have
pursued some more systematic plan in my inquiries; but in the present
state of ignorance as to the general occupation of the poor, system
is impossible. I am unable to generalise, not being acquainted with
the particulars; for each day’s investigation brings me incidentally
into contact with a means of living utterly unknown among the well-fed
portion of society. All I can at present assert is, that the poor
appear to admit of being classified according to their employments
under three heads--artizans, labourers, and petty traders; the first
class consisting of skilled, and the second of unskilled workmen;
while the third comprises hawkers, costermongers, and such other small
dealers, who are contradistinguished from the larger ones by bringing
their wares to the consumer instead of leaving the consumer to seek the
wares. Of the skilled workmen few are so poorly paid for their labour
as not to obtain a sufficiency for the satisfaction of their wants.
The amount of wages is generally considered above the sum required
for the positive necessaries of life; that is to say, for appeasing
an appetite or allaying a pain, rather than gratifying a desire. The
class of Spitalfields weavers, however, appear to constitute a striking
exception to the rule, from what cause I do not even venture to
conjecture. But with the unskilled labourer the amount of remuneration
is seldom much above subsistence-point, if it be not very frequently
below it. Such a labourer, commercially considered, is, as it were, a
human steam-engine, supplied with so much fuel in the shape of food,
merely to set him in motion. If he can be made to perform the same
amount of work with half the consumption, why a saving of one-half the
expense is supposed to be effected. Indeed, the grand object in the
labour-market of the present day appears to be to economise human fuel.
If the living steam-engine can be made to work as long and as well with
a less amount of coal, just so much the better is the result considered.
The dock-labourers are a striking instance of mere brute force with
brute appetites. This class of labour is as unskilled as the power
of a hurricane. Mere muscle is all that is needed; hence every human
locomotive is capable of working there. All that is wanted is the power
of moving heavy bodies from one place to another. Mr. Stuart Mill tells
us that labour in the physical world is always and solely employed in
putting objects in motion; and assuredly, if this be the principle of
physical labour, the docks exhibit the perfection of human action.
Dock-work is precisely the office that every kind of man is fitted to
perform, and there we find every kind of man performing it. Those who
are unable to live by the occupation to which they have been educated,
can obtain a living there without any previous training. Hence we
find men of every calling labouring at the docks. There are decayed
and bankrupt master-butchers, master-bakers, publicans, grocers,
old soldiers, old sailors, Polish refugees, broken-down gentlemen,
discharged lawyers’ clerks, suspended government clerks, almsmen,
pensioners, servants, thieves--indeed, every one who wants a loaf, and
is willing to work for it. The London Dock is one of the few places in
the metropolis where men can get employment without either character
or recommendation, so that the labourers employed there are naturally
a most incongruous assembly. Each of the docks employs several hundred
hands to ship and discharge the cargoes of the numerous vessels that
enter; and as there are some six or seven of such docks attached to the
metropolis, it may be imagined how large a number of individuals are
dependent on them for their subsistence. At a rough calculation, there
must be at least 20,000 souls getting their living by such means.