£. _s._ _d._
averaging 0 11 10 per week
„ 1 6 5 „
„ 0 17 1-3/4 „
----------------
„ £2 15 4-3/4 „
If, then, 13_s._ be the average amount of weekly earnings by the most
provident, industrious, and fortunate of the casual labourers at the
docks--and that at the best season--it may be safely asserted that the
lowest grade of workmen there do not gain more than 5_s._ per week
throughout the year. It should be remembered that the man himself
says “some don’t get half what he does,” and from a multiplicity of
inquiries that I have made upon the subject this appears to be about
the truth. Moreover, we should bear in mind that the average weekly
wages of the dock-labourer, miserable as they are, are rendered even
more wretched by the uncertain character of the work on which they
depend. Were the income of the casual labourer at the docks 5_s._ per
week from one year’s end to another the workman would know exactly
how much he had to subsist upon, and might therefore be expected to
display some little providence and temperance in the expenditure of his
wages. But where the means of subsistence occasionally rise to 15_s._
a-week, and occasionally sink to nothing, it is absurd to look for
prudence, economy, or moderation. Regularity of habits are incompatible
with irregularity of income; indeed, the very conditions necessary
for the formation of any habit whatsoever are, that the act or thing
to which we are to become habituated should be repeated at frequent
and regular intervals. It is a moral impossibility that the class of
labourers who are only occasionally employed should be either generally
industrious or temperate--both industry and temperance being habits
produced by constancy of employment and uniformity of income. Hence,
where the greatest fluctuation occurs in the labour, there, of course,
will be the greatest idleness and improvidence; where the greatest
want generally is, there we shall find the greatest occasional excess;
where from the uncertainty of the occupation prudence is most needed,
there, strange to say, we shall meet with the highest imprudence of
all. “Previous to the formation of a canal in the north of Ireland,”
says Mr. Porter, in “The Progress of the Nation,” “the men were
improvident even to recklessness. Such work as they got before came
at uncertain intervals, the wages insufficient for the comfortable
sustenance of their families were wasted at the whiskey-shop, and the
men appeared to be sunk in a state of hopeless degradation. From the
moment, however, that work was offered to them which was constant in
its nature and certain in its duration, men who before had been idle
and dissolute were converted into sober, hard-working labourers, and
proved themselves kind and careful husbands and fathers; and it is said
that, notwithstanding the distribution of several hundred pounds weekly
in wages, the whole of which must be considered as so much additional
money placed in their hands, the consumption of whisky was absolutely
and permanently diminished in the district.” Indeed it is a fact worthy
of notice, as illustrative of the tendency of the times of pressure,
and consequently of deficient and uncertain employment, to increase
spirit-drinking, that whilst in the year 1836--a year of the greatest
prosperity--the tax on British spirits amounted only to 2,390,000_l._;
yet, under the privations of 1841, the English poorer classes paid no
less than 2,600,000_l._ in taxes upon the liquor they consumed--thus
spending upwards of 200,000_l._ more in drink at a time when they were
less able to afford it, and so proving that a fluctuation in the income
of the working-classes is almost invariably attended with an excess
of improvidence in the expenditure. Moreover, with reference to the
dock-labourers, we have been informed, upon unquestionable authority,
that some years back there were near upon 220 ships waiting to be
discharged in one dock alone; and such was the pressure of business
then, that it became necessary to obtain leave of Her Majesty’s Customs
to increase the usual time of daily labour from eight to twelve hours.
The men employed, therefore, earned 50 per cent more than they were in
the habit of doing at the briskest times; but so far from the extra
amount of wages being devoted to increase the comforts of their homes,
it was principally spent in public-houses. The riot and confusion thus
created in the neighbourhood were such as had never been known before,
and indeed were so general among the workmen, that every respectable
person in the immediate vicinity expressed a hope that such a thing as
“overtime” would never occur again.
It may then be safely asserted, that though the wages of the casual
labourer at the docks average 5_s._ per week, still the weekly
earnings are of so precarious and variable a nature, that when the
time of the men is fully employed, the money which is gained over
and above the amount absolutely required for subsistence is almost
sure to be spent in intemperance, and that when there is little or no
demand for their work, and their gains are consequently insufficient
for the satisfaction of their appetites, they and those who depend
upon their labour for their food must at least want, if not starve.
The improvidence of the casual dock-labourer is due, therefore, not
to any particular malformation of his moral constitution, but to
the precarious character of his calling. His vices are the vices
of ordinary human nature. Ninety-nine in every hundred similarly
circumstanced would commit similar enormities. If the very winds could
whistle away the food and firing of wife and children, I doubt much
whether, after a week’s or a month’s privation, we should many of us be
able to prevent ourselves from falling into the very same excesses.
It is consoling to moralise in our easy chairs, after a good dinner,
and to assure ourselves that we should do differently. Self-denial is
not very difficult when our stomachs are full and our backs are warm;
but let us live a month of hunger and cold, and assuredly we should be
as self-indulgent as they.
I have devoted some time to the investigation of the state of the
casual labourers at the other docks, and shall now proceed to set forth
the result of my inquiries.