Transcriber's note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved
to the end of the text.
Problems of Poverty
An Inquiry into the Industrial Condition of The Poor
By
John A. Hobson, M.A.
Author of "The Problem of The Unemployed,"
"International Trade," Etc.
Sixth Edition
First Published April 1891
Second Edition November 1894
Third Edition July 1896
Fourth Edition July 1899
Fifth Edition May 1905
Sixth Edition 1906
Preface
The object of this volume is to collect, arrange, and examine some of
the leading facts and forces in modern industrial life which have a
direct bearing upon Poverty, and to set in the light they afford some of
the suggested palliatives and remedies. Although much remains to be done
in order to establish on a scientific basis the study of "the condition
of the people," it is possible that the brief setting forth of carefully
ascertained facts and figures in this little book may be of some service
in furnishing a stimulus to the fuller systematic study of the important
social questions with which it deals.
The treatment is designed to be adapted to the focus of the citizen-
student who brings to his task not merely the intellectual interest of
the collector of knowledge, but the moral interest which belongs to one
who is a part of all he sees, and a sharer in the social responsibility
for the present and the future of industrial society.
For the statements of fact contained in these chapters I am largely
indebted to the valuable studies presented in the first volume of Mr.
Charles Booth's _Labour and Life of the People_, a work which, when
completed, will place the study of problems of poverty upon a solid
scientific basis which has hitherto been wanting. A large portion of
this book is engaged in relating the facts drawn from this and other
sources to the leading industrial forces of the age.
In dealing with suggested remedies for poverty, I have selected certain
representative schemes which claim to possess a present practical
importance, and endeavoured to set forth briefly some of the economic
considerations which bear upon their competency to achieve their aim. In
doing this my object has been not to pronounce judgment, but rather to
direct enquiry. Certain larger proposals of Land Nationalization and
State Socialism, etc., I have left untouched, partly because it was
impossible to deal, however briefly, even with the main issues involved
in these questions, and partly because it seemed better to confine our
enquiry to measures claiming a direct and present applicability.
In setting forth such facts as may give some measurement of the evils of
Poverty, no attempt is made to suppress the statement of extreme cases
which rest on sufficient evidence, for the nature of industrial poverty
and the forces at work are often most clearly discerned and most rightly
measured by instances which mark the severest pressure. So likewise
there is no endeavour to exclude such human emotions as are "just,
measured, and continuous," from the treatment of a subject where true
feeling is constantly required for a proper realization of the facts.
In conclusion, I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Mr. Llewellyn Smith,
Mr. William Clarke, and other friends who have been kind enough to
render me valuable assistance in collecting the material and revising
the proof-sheets of portions of this book.
Contents
I. The Measure of Poverty
II. The Effects of Machinery on the Condition of the Working-Classes
III. The Influx of Population into Large Towns
IV. "The Sweating System"
V. The Causes of Sweating
VI. Remedies for Sweating
VII. Over-Supply of Low-Skilled Labour
VIII. The Industrial Condition of Women Workers
IX. Moral Aspects of Poverty
X. "Socialistic Legislation"
XI. The Industrial Outlook of Low-Skilled Labour
List of Authorities
Problems of Poverty
Chapter I.
The Measure of Poverty.
§ 1. The National Income, and the Share of the Wage-earners.--To give a
clear meaning and a measure of poverty is the first requisite. Who are
the poor? The "poor law," on the one hand, assigns a meaning too narrow
for our purpose, confining the application of the name to "the
destitute," who alone are recognized as fit subjects of legal relief.
The common speech of the comfortable classes, on the other hand, not
infrequently includes the whole of the wage-earning class under the
title of "the poor." As it is our purpose to deal with the pressure of
poverty as a painful social disease, it is evident that the latter
meaning is unduly wide. The "poor," whose condition is forcing "the
social problem" upon the reluctant minds of the "educated" classes,
include only the lower strata of the vast wage-earning class.
But since dependence upon wages for the support of life will be found
closely related to the question of poverty, it is convenient to throw
some preliminary light on the measure of poverty, by figures bearing on
the general industrial condition of the wage-earning class. To measure
poverty we must first measure wealth. What is the national income, and
how is it divided? will naturally arise as the first questions. Now
although the data for accurate measurement of the national income are
somewhat slender, there is no very wide discrepancy in the results
reached by the most skilful statisticians. For practical purposes we may
regard the sum of £1,800,000,000 as fairly representing the national
income. But when we put the further question, "How is this income
divided among the various classes of the community?" we have to face
wider discrepancies of judgment. The difficulties which beset a fair
calculation of interest and profits, have introduced unconsciously a
partisan element into the discussion. Certain authorities, evidently
swayed by a desire to make the best of the present condition of the
working-classes, have reached a low estimate of interest and profits,
and a high estimate of wages; while others, actuated by a desire to
emphasize the power of the capitalist classes, have minimized the share
which goes as wages. At the outset of our inquiry, it might seem well to
avoid such debatable ground. But the importance of the subject will not
permit it to be thus shirked. The following calculation presents what
is, in fact, a compromise of various views, and can only claim to be a
rough approximation to the truth.
Taking the four ordinary divisions: Rent, as payment for the use of
land, for agriculture, housing, mines, etc.; Interest for the use of
business capital; Profit as wages of management and superintendence; and
Wages, the weekly earnings of the working-classes, we find that the
national income can be thus fairly apportioned--
Rent £200,000,000.
Interest £450,000,000.
Profits £450,000,000.
Wages £650,000,000.[1]
Total £1750,000,000.
Professor Leone Levi reckoned the number of working-class families as
5,600,000, and their total income £470,000,000 in the year 1884.[2] If
we now divide the larger money, minus £650,000,000, among a number of
families proportionate to the increase of the population, viz.
6,900,000, we shall find that the average yearly income of a working-
class family comes to about £94, or a weekly earnings of about 36s. This
figure is of necessity a speculative one, and is probably in excess of
the actual average income of a working family.
This, then, we may regard as the first halting-place in our inquiry. But
in looking at the average money income of a wage-earning family, there
are several further considerations which vitally affect the measurement
of the pressure of poverty.
First, there is the fact, that out of an estimated population of some
42,000,000, only 12,000,000, or about three out of every ten persons in
the richest country of Europe, belong to a class which is able to live
in decent comfort, free from the pressing cares of a close economy. The
other seven are of necessity confined to a standard of life little, if
at all, above the line of bare necessaries.
Secondly, the careful figures collected by these statisticians show that
the national income equally divided throughout the community would yield
an average income, per family, of about £182 per annum. A comparison of
this sum with the average working-class income of £94, brings home the
extent of inequality in the distribution of the national income. While
it indicates that any approximation towards equality of incomes would
not bring affluence, at anyrate on the present scale of national
productivity, it serves also to refute the frequent assertions that
poverty is unavoidable because Great Britain is not rich enough to
furnish a comfortable livelihood for everyone.
§ 2. Gradations of Working-class Incomes.--But though it is true that an
income of 36s. a week for an ordinary family leaves but a small margin
for "superfluities," it will be evident that if every family possessed
this sum, we should have little of the worst evils of poverty. If we
would understand the extent of the disease, we must seek it in the
inequality of incomes among the labouring classes themselves. No family
need be reduced to suffering on 36s. a week. But unfortunately the
differences of income among the working-classes are proportionately
nearly as great as among the well-to-do classes. It is not merely the
difference between the wages of skilled and unskilled labour; the 50s.
per week of the high-class engineer, or typographer, and the 1s. 2d. per
diem of the sandwich-man, or the difference between the wages of men and
women workers. There is a more important cause of difference than these.
When the average income of a working family is named, it must not be
supposed that this represents the wage of the father of the family
alone. Each family contains about 2¼ workers on an average. This is a
fact, the significance of which is obvious. In some families, the father
and mother, and one or two of the children, will be contributors to the
weekly income; in other cases, the burden of maintaining a large family
may be thrown entirely on the shoulders of a single worker, perhaps the
widowed mother. If we reckon that the average wage of a working man is
about 24s., that of a working woman 15s., we realize the strain which
the loss of the male bread-winner throws on the survivor.
In looking at the gradations of income among the working-classes, it
must be borne in mind that as you go lower down in the standard of
living, each drop in money income represents a far more than
proportionate increase of the pressure of poverty. Halve the income of a
rich man, you oblige him to retrench; he must give up his yacht, his
carriage, or other luxuries; but such retrenchment, though it may wound
his pride, will not cause him great personal discomfort. But halve the
income of a well-paid mechanic, and you reduce him and his family at
once to the verge of starvation. A drop from 25s. to 12s. 6d. a week
involves a vastly greater sacrifice than a drop from £500 to £250 a
year. A working-class family, however comfortably it may live with a
full contingent of regular workers, is almost always liable, by
sickness, death, or loss of employment, to be reduced in a few weeks to
a position of penury.
§ 3. Measurement of East London Poverty.--This brief account of the
inequality of incomes has brought us by successive steps down to the
real object of our inquiry, the amount and the intensity of poverty. For
it is not inequality of income, but actual suffering, which moves the
heart of humanity. What do we know of the numbers and the life of those
who lie below the average, and form the lower orders of the working-
classes?
Some years ago the civilized world was startled by the _Bitter Cry of
Outcast London_, and much trouble has been taken of late to gauge the
poverty of London. A host of active missionaries are now at work,
engaged in religious, moral, and sanitary teaching, in charitable
relief, or in industrial organization. But perhaps the most valuable
work has been that which has had no such directly practical object in
view, but has engaged itself in the collection of trustworthy
information. Mr Charles Booth's book, _The Labour and Life of the
People_, has an importance far in advance of that considerable attention
which it has received. Its essential value is not merely that it
supplies, for the first time, a large and carefully collected fund of
facts for the formation of sound opinions and the explosion of
fallacies, but that it lays down lines of a new branch of social study,
in the pursuit of which the most delicate intellectual interests will be
identified with a close and absorbing devotion to the practical issues
of life.
In the study of poverty, the work of Mr. Booth and his collaborators may
truly rank as an epoch-making work.
For the purpose we have immediately before us, the measurement of
poverty, the figures supplied in this book are invaluable.
Considerations of space will compel us to confine our attention to such
figures as will serve to mark the extent and meaning of city poverty in
London. But though, as will be seen, the industrial causes of London
poverty are in some respects peculiar, there is every reason to believe
that the extent and nature of poverty does not widely differ in all
large centres of population.
The area which Mr. Booth places under microscopic observation covers
Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George's in the East,
Stepney, Mile End, Old Town, Poplar, Hackney, and comprises a population
891,539. Of these no less than 316,000, or 35 per cent, belong to
families whose weekly earnings amount to less than 21s. This 35 per
cent, compose the "poor," according to the estimate of Mr. Booth, and it
will be worth while to note the social elements which constitute this
class. The "poor" are divided into four classes or strata, marked A, B,
C, D. At the bottom comes A, a body of some 11,000, or 1¼ per cent, of
hopeless, helpless city savages, who can only be said by courtesy to
belong to the "working-classes" "Their life is the life of savages, with
vicissitudes of extreme hardship and occasional excess. Their food is of
the coarsest description, and their only luxury is drink. It is not easy
to say how they live; the living is picked up, and what is got is
frequently shared; when they cannot find 3d. for their night's lodging,
unless favourably known to the deputy, they are turned out at night into
the street, to return to the common kitchen in the morning. From these
come the battered figures who slouch through the streets, and play the
beggar or the bully, or help to foul the record of the unemployed; these
are the worst class of corner-men, who hang round the doors of public-
houses, the young men who spring forward on any chance to earn a copper,
the ready materials for disorder when occasion serves. They render no
useful service; they create no wealth; more often they destroy it."[3]
Next comes B, a thicker stratum of some 100,000, or 11½ per cent.,
largely composed of shiftless, broken-down men, widows, deserted women,
and their families, dependent upon casual earnings, less than 18s. per
week, and most of them incapable of regular, effective work. Most of the
social wreckage of city life is deposited in this stratum, which
presents the problem of poverty in its most perplexed and darkest form.
For this class hangs as a burden on the shoulders of the more capable
classes which stand just above it. Mr. Booth writes of it--
"It may not be too much to say that if the whole of class B were swept
out of existence, all the work they do could be done, together with
their own work, by the men, women, and children of classes C and D; that
all they earn and spend might be earned, and could very easily be spent,
by the classes above them; that these classes, and especially class C,
would be immensely better off, while no class, nor any industry, would
suffer in the least." Class C consists of 75,000, or 8 per cent.,
subsisting on intermittent earnings of from 18s. to 21s. for a moderate-
sized family. Low-skilled labourers, poorer artizans, street-sellers,
small shopkeepers, largely constitute this class, the curse of whose
life is not so much low wages as irregularity of employment, and the
moral and physical degradation caused thereby. Above these, forming the
top stratum of "poor," comes a large class, numbering 129,000, or 14½
per cent., dependent upon small regular earnings of from 18s. to 21s.,
including many dock-and water-side labourers, factory and warehouse
hands, car-men, messengers, porters, &c. "What they have comes in
regularly, and except in times of sickness in the family, actual want
rarely presses, unless the wife drinks."
"As a general rule these men have a hard struggle, but they are, as a
body, decent, steady men, paying their way and bringing up their
children respectably" (p. 50).
Mr Booth, in confining the title "poor" to this 35 per cent. of the
population of East London, takes, perhaps for sufficient reasons, a
somewhat narrow interpretation of the term. For in the same district no
less than 377,000, or over 42 per cent. of the inhabitants, live upon
earnings varying from 21s. to 30s. per week. So long as the father is in
regular work, and his family is not too large, a fair amount of material
comfort may doubtless be secured by those who approach the maximum. But
such an income leaves little margin for saving, and innumerable forms of
mishaps will bring such families down beneath the line of poverty.
Though the East End contains more poverty than some other parts of
London the difference is less than commonly supposed. Mr Booth estimated
that of the total population of the metropolis 30.7 per cent. were
living in poverty. The figure for York is placed by Mr Seebohm
Rowntree[4] at the slightly lower figure of 27.84. These figures (in
both cases exclusive of the population of the workhouses and other
public or private institutions) may be taken as fairly representative of
life in English industrial cities. A recent investigation of an ordinary
agricultural village in Bedfordshire[5] discloses a larger amount of
poverty--no less than 34.3 per cent. of the population falling below the
income necessary for physical efficiency.
§ 4. Prices for the Poor.--These figures relating to money income do not
bring home to us the evil of poverty. It is not enough to know what the
weekly earnings of a poor family are, we must inquire what they can buy
with them. Among the city poor, the evil of low wages is intensified by
high prices. In general, the poorer the family the higher the prices it
must pay for the necessaries of life. Rent is naturally the first item
in the poor man's budget. Here it is evident that the poor pay in
proportion to their poverty. The average rent in many large districts of
East London is 4s. for one room, 7s. for two. In the crowded parts of
Central London the figures stand still higher; 6s. is said to be a
moderate price for a single room.[6] Mr. Marchant Williams, an Inspector
of Schools for the London School Board, finds that 86 per cent. of the
dwellers in certain poor districts of London pay more than one-fifth of
their income in rent; 46 per cent. paying from one-half to one-quarter;
42 per cent. paying from one-quarter to one-fifth; and only 12 per cent.
paying less than one-fifth of their weekly wage.[7] The poor from their
circumstances cannot pay wholesale prices for their shelter, but must
buy at high retail prices by the week; they are forced to live near
their work (workmen's trains are for the aristocracy of labour), and
thus compete keenly for rooms in the centres of industry; more important
still, the value of central ground for factories, shops, and ware-houses
raises to famine price the habitable premises. It is notorious that
overcrowded, insanitary "slum" property is the most paying form of house
property to its owners. The part played by rent in the problems of
poverty can scarcely be over-estimated. Attempts to mitigate the evil by
erecting model dwellings have scarcely touched the lower classes of
wage-earners. The labourer prefers a room in a small house to an
intrinsically better accommodation in a barrack-like building. Other
than pecuniary motives enter in. The "touchiness of the lower class"
causes them to be offended by the very sanitary regulations designed for
their benefit.
But "shelter" is not the only thing for which the poor pay high.
Astounding facts are adduced as to the prices paid by the poor for
common articles of consumption, especially for vegetables, dairy
produce, groceries, and coal. The price of fresh vegetables, such as
carrots, parsnips, &c., in East London is not infrequently ten times the
price at which the same articles can be purchased wholesale from the
growers.[8]
Hence arises the popular cry against the wicked middleman who stands
between producer and consumer, and takes the bulk of the profit. There
is much want of thought shown in this railing against the iniquities of
the middleman. It is true that a large portion of the price paid by the
poor goes to the retail distributor, but we should remember that the
labour of distribution under present conditions and with existing
machinery is very great. We have no reason to believe that the small
retailers who sell to the poor die millionaires. The poor, partly of
necessity, partly by habit, make their purchases in minute quantities. A
single family has been known to make seventy-two distinct purchases of
tea within seven weeks, and the average purchases of a number of poor
families for the same period amounted to twenty-seven. Their groceries
are bought largely by the ounce, their meat or fish by the half-
penn'orth, their coal by the cwt., or even by the lb. Undoubtedly they
pay for these morsels a price which, if duly multiplied, represents a
much higher sum than their wealthier neighbours pay for a much better
article. But the small shopkeeper has a high rent to pay; he has a large
number of competitors, so that the total of his business is not great;
the actual labour of dispensing many minute portions is large; he is
often himself a poor man, and must make a large profit on a small turn-
over in order to keep going; he is not infrequently kept waiting for his
money, for the amount of credit small shopkeepers will give to regular
customers is astonishing. For all these, and many other reasons, it is
easy to see that the poor man must pay high prices. Even his luxuries,
his beer and tobacco, he purchases at exorbitant rates.
It is sometimes held sufficient to reply that the poor are thoughtless
and extravagant. And no doubt this is so. But it must also be remembered
that the industrial conditions under which these people live,
necessitate a hand-to-mouth existence, and themselves furnish an
education in improvidence.
§ 5. Housing and Food Supply of the Poor.--Once more, out of a low
income the poor pay high prices for a bad article. The low physical
condition of the poorest city workers, the high rate of mortality,
especially among children, is due largely to the _quality_ of the food,
drink, and shelter which they buy. On the quality of the rooms for which
they pay high rent it is unnecessary to dwell. Ill-constructed,
unrepaired, overcrowded, destitute of ventilation and of proper sanitary
arrangements, the mass of low class city tenements finds few apologists.
The Royal Commission on Housing of the Working Classes thus deals with
the question of overcrowding--
"The evils of overcrowding, especially in London, are still a public
scandal, and are becoming in certain localities a worse scandal than
they ever were. Among adults, overcrowding causes a vast amount of
suffering which could be calculated by no bills of mortality, however
accurate. The general deterioration in the health of the people is a
worse feature of overcrowding even than the encouragement by it of
infectious disease. It has the effect of reducing their stamina, and
thus producing consumption and diseases arising from general debility of
the system whereby life is shortened." "In Liverpool, nearly one-fifth
of the squalid houses where the poor live in the closest quarters are
reported to be always infected, that is to say, the seat of infectious
diseases."
To apply the name of "home" to these dens is a sheer abuse of words.
What grateful memories of tender childhood, what healthy durable
associations, what sound habits of life can grow among these unwholesome
and insecure shelters?
The city poor are a wandering tribe. The lack of fixed local habitation
is an evil common to all classes of city dwellers. But among the lower
working-classes "flitting" is a chronic condition. The School Board
visitor's book showed that in a representative district of Bethnal
Green, out of 1204 families, no less than 530 had removed within a
twelvemonth, although such an account would not include the lowest and
most "shifty" class of all. Between November 1885 and July 1886 it was
found that 20 per cent. of the London electorate had changed residence.
To what extent the uncertain conditions of employment impose upon the
poor this changing habitation cannot be yet determined; but the absence
of the educative influence of a fixed abode is one of the most
demoralizing influences in the life of the poor. The reversion to a
nomad condition is a retrograde step in civilization the importance of
which can hardly be exaggerated. When we bear in mind that these houses
are also the workshop of large numbers of the poor, and know how the
work done in the crowded, tainted air of these dens brings as an
inevitable portion of its wage, physical feebleness, disease, and an
early death, we recognize the paramount importance of that aspect of the
problem of poverty which is termed "The Housing of the Poor."
So much for the quality of the shelter for which the poor pay high
prices. Turn to their food. In the poorest parts of London it is
scarcely possible for the poor to buy pure food. Unfortunately the prime
necessaries of life are the very things which lend themselves most
easily to successful adulteration. Bread, sugar, tea, oil are notorious
subjects of deception. Butter, in spite of the Margarine Act, it is
believed, the poor can seldom get. But the systematic poisoning of
alcoholic liquors permitted under a licensing System is the most
flagrant example of the evil. There is some evidence to show that the
poorer class of workmen do not consume a very large quantity of strong
drink. But the vile character of the liquor sold to them acts on an ill-
fed, unwholesome body as a poisonous irritant. We are told that "the
East End dram-drinker has developed a new taste; it is for fusil-oil. It
has even been said that ripe old whisky ten years old, drank in equal
quantities, would probably import a tone of sobriety to the densely-
populated quarters of East London."[9]
§ 6. Irregularity of work.--One more aspect of city poverty demands a
word. Low wages are responsible in large measure for the evils with
which we have dealt. In the life of the lower grades of labour there is
a worse thing than low wages--that is irregular employment. The causes
of such irregularity, partly inherent in the nature of the work, partly
the results of trade fluctuations, will appear later. In gauging poverty
we are only concerned with the fact. This irregularity of work is not in
its first aspect so much a deficiency of work, but rather a
maladjustment While on the one hand we see large classes of workers who
are habitually overworked, men and women, tailors or shirt-makers in
Whitechapel, 'bus men, shop-assistants, even railway-servants, toiling
twelve, fourteen, fifteen, or even in some cases eighteen hours a day,
we see at the same time and in the same place numbers of men and women
seeking work and finding none. Thus are linked together the twin
maladies of over-work and the unemployed. It is possible that among the
comfortable classes there are still to be found those who believe that
the unemployed consist only of the wilfully idle and worthless residuum
parading a false grievance to secure sympathy and pecuniary aid, and who
hold that if a man really wants to work he can always do so. This idle
theory is contradicted by abundant facts. The official figures published
by the Board of Trade gives the average percentage of unemployed in the
Trade Unions of the skilled trades as follows. To the general average we
have appended for comparison the average for the shipbuilding and
boiler-making trades, so as to illustrate the violence of the
oscillations in a fluctuating trade:--
General per cent. Ship-building, etc.
1884 7.15 20.8
1885 8.55 22.2
1886 9.55 21.6
1887 7.15 16.7
1888 4.15 7.3
1889 2.05 2.0
1890 2.10 3.4
1891 3.40 5.7
1892 6.20 10.9
1893 7.70 17.0
1894 7.70 16.2
1895 6.05 13.0
1896 3.50 9.5
1897 3.65 8.6
1898 3.15 4.7
1899 2.40 2.1
1900 2.85 2.3
1901 3.80 3.6
1902 4.60 8.3
1903 5.30 11.7
These figures make it quite evident that the permanent causes of
irregular employment, e.g., weather in the building and riverside
trades, season in the dressmaking and confectionery trades, and the
other factors of leakage and displacement which throw out of work from
time to time numbers of workers, are, taken in the aggregate,
responsible only for a small proportion of the unemployment in the
staple trades of the country.
The significance of such figures as these can scarcely be over-
estimated. Although it might fairly be urged that the lowest dip in
trade depression truly represented the injury inflicted on the
labouring-classes by trade fluctuations, we will omit the year 1886, and
take 1887 as a representative period of ordinary trade depression. The
figures quoted above are supported by Trade Union statistics, which show
that in that year among the strongest Trade Unions in the country,
consisting of the picked men in each trade, no less than 71 in every
1000, or over 7 per cent., were continuously out of work. That this was
due to their inability to get work, and not to their unwillingness to do
it, is placed beyond doubt by the fact that they were, during this
period of enforced idleness, supported by allowances paid by their
comrades. Indeed, the fact that in 1890 the mass of unemployed was
almost absorbed, disposes once for all of the allegation that the
unemployed in times of depression consist of idlers who do not choose to
work. Turning to the year 1887, there is every reason to believe that
where 7 per cent, are unemployed in the picked, skilled industries of a
country, where the normal supply of labour is actually limited by Union
regulations, the proportion in unskilled or less organized industries is
much larger. It is probable that 12 per cent, is not an excessive figure
to take as the representative of the average proportion of unemployed.
In the recent official returns of wages in textile industries, it is
admitted that 10 per cent, should be taken off from the nominal wages
for irregularity of employment. Moreover, it is true (with certain
exceptions) that the lower you go down in the ranks of labour and of
wages, the more irregular is the employment. To the pressure of this
evil among the very poor in East London notice has already been drawn.
We have seen how Mr. Booth finds one whole stratum of 100,000 people,
who from an industrial point of view are worse than worthless. We have
no reason to conclude that East London is much worse in this respect
than other centres of population, and the irregularity of country
employment is increasing every year. Are we to conclude then that of the
thirteen millions composing the "working-classes" in this country,
nearly two millions are liable at any time to figure as waste or surplus
labour? It looks like it. We are told that the movements of modern
industry necessitate the existence of a considerable margin supply of
labour. The figures quoted above bear out this statement. But a
knowledge of the cause does not make the fact more tolerable. We are not
at present concerned with the requirements of the industrial machine,
but with the quantity of hopeless, helpless misery these requirements
indicate. The fact that under existing conditions the unemployed seem
inevitable should afford the strongest motive for a change in these
conditions. Modern life has no more tragical figure than the gaunt,
hungry labourer wandering about the crowded centres of industry and
wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that industry, and to
contribute to that wealth; asking in return not the comforts and
luxuries of civilized life, but the rough food and shelter for himself
and family, which would be practically secured to him in the rudest form
of savage society.
Occasionally one of these sensational stories breaks into the light of
day, through the public press, and shocks society at large, until it
relapses into the consoling thought that such cases are exceptional. But
those acquainted closely with the condition of our great cities know
that there are thousands of such silent tragedies being played around
us. In England the recorded deaths from starvation are vastly more
numerous than in any other country. In 1880 the number for England is
given as 101. In 1902 the number for London alone is 34. This is, of
course, no adequate measure of the facts. For every recorded case there
will be a hundred unrecorded cases where starvation is the practical
immediate cause of death. The death-rate of children in the poorer
districts of London is found to be nearly three times that which obtains
among the richer neighbourhoods. Contemporary history has no darker page
than that which records not the death-rate of children, but the
conditions of child-life in our great cities. In setting down such facts
and figures as may assist readers to adequately realize the nature and
extent of poverty, it has seemed best to deal exclusively with the
material aspects of poverty, which admit of some exactitude of
measurement. The ugly and degrading surroundings of a life of poverty,
the brutalizing influences of the unceasing struggle for bare
subsistence, the utter absence of reasonable hope of improvement; in
short, the whole subjective side of poverty is not less terrible because
it defies statistics.
§ 7. Figures and Facts of Pauperism.--Since destitution is the lowest
form of poverty, it is right to append to this statement of the facts of
poverty some account of pauperism. Although chiefly owing to a stricter
and wiser administration of the Poor Law in relation to outdoor relief,
the number of paupers has steadily and considerably decreased, both in
proportion to the population and absolutely, the number of those unable
to support themselves is still deplorably large. In 1881 no less than
one in ten of the total recorded deaths took place in workhouses, public
hospitals, and lunatic asylums. In London the proportion is much greater
and has increased during recent years. In 1901 out of 78,229 deaths in
London, 13,009 took place in workhouses, 10,643 in public hospitals, and
349 in public asylums, making a total of 24,001. Comparing these figures
with the total number of deaths, we find that in the richest city of the
world 32.5 per cent., or one in three of the inhabitants, dies dependent
on public charity. This estimate does not include those in receipt of
outdoor relief. Moreover, it is an estimate which includes all classes.
The proportion, taking the working-classes alone, must be even higher.
Turning from pauper deaths to pauper lives, the condition of the poor,
though improved, is far from satisfactory. The agricultural labourer in
many parts of England still looks to the poorhouse as a natural and
necessary asylum for old age. Even the diminution effected in outdoor
relief is not evidence of a corresponding decrease in the pressure of
want. The diminution is chiefly due to increased strictness in the
application of the Poor Law, a policy which in a few cases such as
Whitechapel, Stepney, St. George-in-the-East, has succeeded in the
practical extermination of the outdoor pauper. This is doubtless a wise
policy, but it supplies no evidence of decrease in poverty. It would be
possible by increased strictness of conditions to annihilate outdoor
pauperism throughout the country at a single blow, and to reduce the
number of indoor paupers by making workhouse life unendurable. But such
a course would obviously furnish no satisfactory evidence of the decline
of poverty, or even of destitution. Moreover, in regarding the decline
of pauperism, we must not forget to take into account the enormous
recent growth of charitable institutions and funds which now perform
more effectually and more humanely much of the relief work which
formerly devolved upon the Poor Law. The income of charitable London
institutions engaged in promoting the physical well-being of the people
amounted in 1902-3 to about four and a half millions. The relief
afforded by Friendly Societies and Trade Unions to sick and out-of-work
members, furnishes a more satisfactory evidence of the growth of
providence and independence among all but the lowest classes of workers.
The improvement exhibited in figures of pauperism is entirely confined
to outdoor relief. The number of workers who, by reason of old age or
other infirmity, are compelled to take refuge in the poorhouses, bears a
larger proportion to the total population than it did a generation ago.
In 1876-7 the mean number of indoor paupers for England and Wales was
130,337, or 5.4 per 1000 of the population; in 1902-3 the number had
risen to 203,604, or 6.2 per 1000 of the population. This rise of indoor
pauperism has indeed been coincident with a larger decline of outdoor
pauperism through this same period. But the growth of thrift in the
working-classes, the increase of the machinery of charity, the rise of
the average of wages--these causes have been wholly inoperative to check
the growth of indoor pauperism. Nor, if one may trust so competent an
authority as Mr Fowle, is this explained by any tendency of increased
strictness in the administration of outdoor relief, to drive would-be
recipients of outdoor relief into the workhouse.
The figures of London pauperism yield still more strange results. Here,
though the percentage of paupers to population has shown a steady
decline, the process has been so much slower than in the country that
there has been no actual fall in the number of paupers. Throughout the
whole period from 1861 to 1896 the numbers have remained about
stationary, after which they show a considerable rise. The alarming
feature in this table is the rapid rise of indoor pauperism, far more
rapid than the growth of London's population. From 1861-2 the number of
indoor paupers has grown by steady increase from 26,667 to 61,432 in
1902-3, or from a ratio of 9.5 to one of 13.4 per 1000. While the
proportion of outdoor paupers per 1000 is little more than half that of
the country as a whole, the proportion of indoor paupers is more than
twice as great. Roughly speaking, London, with less than one-sixth of
the population of the country, contains nearly one-third of the indoor
pauperism. This fact alone throws some light upon the nature of city
life. A close analysis of metropolitan workhouses discloses the fact
that the aged, infirm, and children composed the vast majority of
inmates. A very small percentage was found to be capable of actual work.
About one-third of the paupers are children, about one-tenth lunatics,
about one-half are aged, infirm, or sick. This leaves one-fifteenth as
the proportion of able-bodied male and female adults. As a commentary on
the administration of the Poor Law, these figures are eminently
satisfactory, for they prove that people who can support themselves do
not in fact obtain from public relief. But the picture has its dark
side. It shows that a very large proportion of our workers, when their
labour-power has been drained out of them, instead of obtaining a well-
earned honourable rest, are obliged to seek refuge in that asylum which
they and their class hate and despise. Whereas only 5 per cent of the
population under 60 years are paupers, the proportion is 40 per cent in
the case of those over 70. Taking the working-class only out of a
population of 952,000 above the age of 65, no fewer than 402,000, or
over 42 per cent, obtained relief in 1892. In London 22½ per cent of the
aged poor are indoor paupers. The hardness of the battle of life is
attested by this number of old men, and old women, who in spite of a
hard-working life are compelled to end their days as the recipients of
public charity.
§ 8. The Diminution of Poverty in the last half century.--In order to
realize the true importance of our subject, it is necessary not only to
have some measurement of the extent and nature of poverty, but to
furnish ourselves with some answer to the question, Is this poverty
increasing or diminishing? Until a few years ago it was customary not
only for platform agitators, but for thoughtful writers on the subject,
to assume that "the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting
poorer." This formula was ripening into a popular creed when a number of
statistical inquiries choked it. Prof. Leone Levi, Mr. Giffen, and a
number of careful investigators, showed a vast improvement in the
industrial condition of the working-classes during the last half
century. It was pointed out that money wages had risen considerably in
all kinds of employment; that prices had generally fallen, so that the
rise in real wages was even greater; that they worked shorter hours;
consumed more and better food; lived longer lives; committed fewer
crimes; and lastly, saved more money. The general accuracy of these
statements is beyond question. The industrial conditions of the working-
classes as a whole shows a great advance during the last half century.
Although the evidence upon this point is by no means conclusive, it
seems probable that the income of the wage-earning classes as an
aggregate is growing even more rapidly than that of the capitalist
classes. Income-tax returns indicate that the proportion of the
population living on an acknowledged income of more than £150 a year is
much larger than it was a generation ago. In 1851 the income-tax-paying
population amounted to 1,500,000; in 1879-80 the number had risen to
4,700,000. At the same time the average of these incomes showed a
considerable fall, for while in 1851 the gross income assessed was
£272,000,000, in 1879-80 it had only risen to £577,000,000.
Though the method of assessing companies as if they were single persons
renders it impossible to obtain accurate information in recent years as
to the number of persons enjoying incomes of various sizes, a comparison
made by Mr Mulhall of incomes in 1867 and 1895 indicates that, while the
lower middle-class is growing rapidly, the number of the rich is growing
still more rapidly. While incomes of £100 to £300 have grown by a little
more than 50 per cent., those from £300 to £1000 have nearly doubled,
those between £1000 and £5000 have more than doubled, and incomes over
£5000 have more than trebled.
But though such comparisons justify the conclusion that the upper grades
of skilled labour have made considerable advances, and that the lower
grades of regular unskilled labourers have to a less degree shared in
this advance, they do not warrant the optimist conclusion often drawn
from them, that poverty is a disease which left alone will cure itself,
and which, in point of fact, is curing itself rapidly. Before we consent
to accept the evidence of improvement in the average condition of the
labouring classes during the last half century as sufficient evidence to
justify this opinion we ought to pay regard to the following
considerations--
1. It should be remembered that a comparison between England of the
present day with England in the decade 1830-1840 is eminently favourable
to a theory of progress. The period from 1790 to 1840 was the most
miserable epoch in the history of the English working-classes. Much of
the gain must be rightly regarded rather as a recovery from sickness,
than as a growth in normal health. If the decade 1730-1740, for example,
were to be taken instead, the progress of the wage-earner, especially in
southern England, would be by no means so obvious. The southern
agricultural labourer and the whole body of low-skilled workers were
probably in most respects as well off a century and a half ago as they
are to-day.
2. The great fall of prices, due to cheapening of production and of
transport during the last twenty years, benefits the poor far less than
the rich. For, while the prices of most comforts and luxuries have
fallen very greatly, the same is not true of most necessaries. The gain
to the workers is chiefly confined to food prices, which have fallen
some 40 per cent since 1880. Taking the retail prices of foods consumed
by London working-class families we find that since 1880 the price of
flour has fallen about 60 per cent., bread falling a little more than
half that amount; the prices of beef and mutton have fallen nearly to
the same extent as flour, though bacon stands in 1903 just about where
it stood in 1880. Sugar exhibits a deep drop until 1898, rising
afterwards in consequence of the war tax and the Sugar Convention; tea
shows a not considerable drop. Other groceries, such as coffee and
cocoa, and certain vegetables are cheaper. A careful inquiry into
clothing shows a trifling fall of price for articles of the same
quality, while the introduction of cheaper qualities has enabled workers
to effect some saving here. Against these must be set a slight rise in
price of dairy produce, a considerable rise in fuel, and a large rise in
rent. A recent estimate of the Board of Trade, having regard to food,
rent, clothing, fuel, and lighting as chief ingredients of working-class
expenditure, indicates that 100 shillings will in 1900 do the work for
which 120 shillings were required in 1880. The great fall of prices has
been in the period 1880-1895, since then prices all round (except in
clothing) show a considerable rise.
In turning from the working-classes as a whole to the poor, it becomes
evident that the most substantial benefit they have received from
falling prices is cheap bread. Cheap groceries and lighting are also
gains, though it must be remembered that the modes of purchase to which
the very poor are driven to have recourse minimize these gains. On
clothes the poor spend a very small proportion of their incomes, the
very poor virtually nothing. In the case of the lowest classes of the
towns, it is probable that the rise in rents offsets all the advantages
of cheapened prices for other commodities.
The importance of the bearing of this fact is obvious. Even were it
clearly proved that the wages of the working-classes were increasing
faster in proportion than the incomes of the wealthier classes, it would
not be thereby shown that the standard of comfort in the former was
rising as fast as the standard of comfort in the latter. If we confine
the term "poor" to the lower grades of wage-earners, it would probably
be correct to say that the riches of the rich had increased at a more
rapid rate than that at which the poverty of the poor had diminished.
Thus the width of the gap between riches and poverty would be absolutely
greater than before. But, after all, such absolute measurements as these
are uncertain, and have little other than a rhetorical value. What is
important to recognize is this, that though the proportion of the very
poor to the whole population has somewhat diminished, never in the whole
history of England, excepting during the disastrous period at the
beginning of this century, has the absolute number of the very poor been
so great as it is now. Moreover, the massing of the poor in large
centres of population, producing larger areas of solid poverty, presents
new dangers and new difficulties in the application of remedial
measures.
However we may estimate progress, one fact we must recognize, that the
bulk of our low-skilled workers do not yet possess a secure supply of
the necessaries of life. Few will feel inclined to dispute what
Professor Marshall says on this point--
"The necessaries for the efficiency of an ordinary agricultural or of an
unskilled town labourer and his family, in England, in this generation,
may be said to consist of a well-drained dwelling with several rooms,
warm clothing, with some changes of underclothing, pure water, a
plentiful supply of cereal food, with a moderate allowance of meat and
milk, and a little tea, &c.; some education, and some recreation; and
lastly, sufficient freedom for his wife from other work to enable her to
perform properly her maternal and her household duties. If in any
district unskilled labour is deprived of any of these things, its
efficiency will suffer in the same way as that of a horse which is not
properly tended, or a steam-engine which has an inadequate supply of
coals."[10]
There is one final point of deep significance. So far we have
endeavoured to measure poverty by the application of a standard of
actual material comfort. But this, while furnishing a fair gauge of the
deprivation suffered by the poor, does not enable us to measure it as a
social danger. There is a depth of poverty, of misery, of ignorance,
which is not dangerous because it has no outlook, and is void of hope.
Abate the extreme stress of poverty, give the poor a glimpse of a more
prosperous life, teach them to know their power, and the danger of
poverty increases. This is what De Tocqueville meant when writing of
France, before the Revolution, he said, "According as prosperity began
to dawn in France, men's minds appeared to become more unquiet and
disturbed; public discontent was sharpened, hatred of all ancient
institutions went on increasing, till the nation was visibly on the
verge of a revolution. One might almost say that the French found their
condition all the more intolerable according as it became better."[11]
So in England the change of industrial conditions which has massed the
poor in great cities, the spread of knowledge by compulsory education,
cheap newspapers, libraries, and a thousand other vehicles of knowledge,
the possession and growing appreciation of political power, have made
poverty more self-conscious and the poor more discontented. By striving
to educate, intellectually, morally, sanitarily, the poor, we have made
them half-conscious of many needs they never recognized before. They
were once naked, and not ashamed, but we have taught them better. We
have raised the standard of the requirements of a decent human life, but
we have not increased to a corresponding degree their power to attain
them. If by poverty is meant the difference between felt wants and the
power to satisfy them, there is more poverty than ever. The income of
the poor has grown, but their desires and needs have grown more rapidly.
Hence the growth of a conscious class hatred, the "growing animosity of
the poor against the rich," which Mr. Barnett notes in the slums of
Whitechapel. The poor were once too stupid and too sodden for vigorous
discontent, now though their poverty may be less intense, it is more
alive, and more militant. The rate of improvement in the condition of
the poor is not quick enough to stem the current of popular discontent.
Nor is it the poor alone who are stricken with discontent. Clearer
thought and saner feelings are beginning to make it evident that in the
march of true civilization no one class can remain hopelessly behind.
Hence the problems of poverty are ever pressing more and more upon the
better-hearted, keener-sighted men and women of the more fortunate
classes; they feel that _they_ have no right to be contented with the
condition of the poor. The demand that a life worth living shall be made
possible for all, and that the knowledge, wealth, and energy of a nation
shall be rightly devoted to no other end than this, is the true measure
of the moral growth of a civilized community. The following picture
drawn a few years ago by Mr. Frederick Harrison shows how far we yet
fall short of such a realization--"To me at least, it would be enough to
condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if
the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we now behold;
that 90 per cent, of the actual producers of wealth have no home that
they can call their own beyond the end of a week; have no bit of soil,
or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any
kind except as much as will go in a cart; have the precarious chance of
weekly wages which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed for
the most part in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are
separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad
trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger
and pauperism."[12]