Moral Aspects of Poverty.
§ 1. "Moral" View of the Causes of Poverty.--Our diagnosis of "sweating"
has regarded poverty as an industrial disease, and we have therefore
concerned ourselves with the examination of industrial remedies, factory
legislation, Trade Unionism, and restrictions of the supply of unskilled
labour. It may seem that in doing this we have ignored certain important
moral factors in the problem, which, in the opinion of many, are all
important. Until quite recently the vast majority of those philanthropic
persons who interested themselves in the miserable conditions of the
poor, paid very slight attention to the economic aspect of poverty, and
never dreamed of the application of economic remedies. It is not
unnatural that religions and moral teachers engaged in active detailed
work among the poor should be so strongly impressed by the moral
symptoms of the disease as to mistake them for the prime causes. "It is
a fact apparent to every thoughtful man that the larger portion of the
misery that constitutes our Social Question arises from idleness,
gluttony, drink, waste, indulgence, profligacy, betting, and
dissipation." These words of Mr. Arnold White express the common view of
those philanthropists who do not understand what is meant by "the
industrial system," and of the bulk of the comfortable classes when they
are confronted with the evils of poverty as disclosed in "the sweating
system." Intemperance, unthrift, idleness, and inefficiency are indeed
common vices of the poor. If therefore we could teach the poor to be
temperate, thrifty, industrious, and efficient, would not the problem of
poverty be solved? Is not a moral remedy instead of an economic remedy
the one to be desired? The question at issue here is a vital one to all
who earnestly desire to secure a better life for the poor. This "moral
view" has much to recommend it at first sight. In the first place, it is
a "moral" view, and as morality is admittedly the truest and most real
end of man, it would seem that a moral cure must be more radical and
efficient than any merely industrial cure. Again, these "vices" of the
poor, drink, dirt, gambling, prostitution, &c., are very definite and
concrete maladies attaching to large numbers of individual cases, and
visibly responsible for the misery and degradation of the vicious and
their families. Last, not least, this aspect of poverty, by representing
the condition of the poor to be chiefly "their own fault," lightens the
sense of responsibility for the "well to do." It is decidedly the more
comfortable view, for it at once flatters the pride of the rich by
representing poverty as an evidence of incompetency, salves his
conscience when pricked by the contrast of the misery around him, and
assists him to secure his material interests by adopting an attitude of
stern repression towards large industrial or political agitations in the
interests of labour, on the ground that "these are wrong ways of
tackling the question."
§ 2. "Unemployment" and the Vices of the Poor.--The question is this,
Can the poor be moralized, and will that cure Poverty? To discuss this
question with the fullness it deserves is here impossible, but the
following considerations will furnish some data for an answer--
In the first place, it is very difficult to ascertain to what extent
drink, vice, idleness, and other personal defects are actually
responsible for poverty in individual cases. There is, however, reason
to believe that the bulk of cases of extreme poverty and destitution
cannot be traced to these personal vices, but, on the other hand, that
they are attributable to industrial causes for which the sufferer is not
responsible. The following is the result of a careful analysis of 4000
cases of "very poor" undertaken by Mr. Charles Booth. These are grouped
as follows according to the apparent causes of distress--
4 per cent, are "loafers."
14 " " are attributed to drink and thriftlessness.
27 " " are due to illness, large families, or other misfortunes.
55 " " are assigned to "questions of employment."
Here, in the lowest class of city poor, moral defects are the direct
cause of distress in only 18 per cent. of the cases, though doubtless
they may have acted as contributory or indirect causes in a larger
number.
In the classes just above the "very poor," 68 per cent. of poverty is
attributed to "questions of employment," and only 13 per cent. to drink
and thriftlessness. In the lowest parts of Whitechapel drink figures
very slightly, affecting only 4 per cent. of the very poor, and 1 per
cent. of the poor, according to Mr. Booth. Even applied to a higher
grade of labour, a close investigation of facts discloses a grossly
exaggerated notion of the sums spent in drink by city workers in receipt
of good wages. A careful inquiry into the expenditure of a body of three
hundred Amalgamated Engineers during a period of two years, yielded an
average of 1s. 9d. per week spent on drink.
So, too, in the cases brought to the notice of the Lords' Committee,
drink and personal vices do not play the most important part. The Rev.
S. A. Barnett, who knows East London so well, does not find the origin
of poverty in the vices of the poor. Terrible as are the results of
drunkenness, impurity, unthrift, idleness, disregard of sanitary rules,
it is not possible, looking fairly at the facts, to regard these as the
main sources of poverty. If we are not carried away by the spirit of
some special fanaticism, we shall look upon these evils as the natural
and necessary accessories of the struggle for a livelihood, carried on
under the industrial conditions of our age and country. Even supposing
it were demonstrable that a much larger proportion of the cases of
poverty and misery were the direct consequence of these moral and
sanitary vices of the poor, we should not be justified in concluding
that moral influence and education were the most effectual cures,
capable of direct application. It is indeed highly probable that the
"unemployed" worker is on the average morally and industrially inferior
to the "employed," and from the individual point of view this
inferiority is often responsible for his non-employment. But this only
means that differences of moral and industrial character determine what
particular individuals shall succeed or fail in the fight for work and
wages. It by no means follows that if by education we could improve all
these moral and industrial weaklings they could obtain steady employment
without displacing others. Where an over-supply of labour exists, no
remedy which does not operate either by restricting the supply or
increasing the demand for labour can be effectual.
§ 3. Civilization ascends from Material to Moral.--The life of the
poorest and most degraded classes is impenetrable to the highest
influences of civilization. So long as the bare struggle for continuance
of physical existence absorbs all their energies, they cannot be
civilized. The consideration of the greater intrinsic worth of the moral
life than the merely physical life, must not be allowed to mislead us.
That which has the precedence in value has not the precedence in time.
We must begin with the lower life before we can ascend to the higher. As
in the individual the _corpus sanum_ is rightly an object of earlier
solicitude in education than the _mens sana_, though the latter may be
of higher importance; so with the progress of a class. We cannot go to
the lowest of our slum population and teach them to be clean, thrifty,
industrious, steady, moral, intellectual, and religious, until we have
first taught them how to secure for themselves the industrial conditions
of healthy physical life. Our poorest classes have neither the time, the
energy, or the desire to be clean, thrifty, intellectual, moral, or
religious. In our haste we forget that there is a proper and necessary
order in the awakening of desires. At present our "slum" population do
not desire to be moral and intellectual, or even to be particularly
clean. Therefore these higher goods must wait, so far as they are
dependent on the voluntary action of the poor. What these people do want
is better food, and more of it; warmer clothes; better and surer
shelter; and greater security of permanent employment on decent wages.
Until we can assist them to gratify these "lower" desires, we shall try
in vain to awaken "higher" ones. We must prepare the soil of a healthy
physical existence before we can hope to sow the moral seed so as to
bring forth fruit. Upon a sound physical foundation alone can we build a
high moral and spiritual civilization.
Moral and sanitary reformers have their proper sphere of action among
those portions of the working classes who have climbed the first rounds
in the ladder of civilization, and stand on tolerably firm conditions of
material comfort and security. They cannot hope at present to achieve
any great success among the poorest workers. The fact must not be
shirked that in preaching thrift, hygiene, morality, and religion to the
dwellers in the courts and alleys of our great cities, we are sowing
seed upon a barren ground. Certain isolated cases of success must not
blind us to this truth. Take, for example, thrift. It is not possible to
expect that large class of workers who depend upon irregular earnings of
less than 18s. a week to set by anything for a rainy day. The essence of
thrift is regularity, and regularity is to them impossible. Even
supposing their scant wage was regular, it is questionable whether they
would be justified in stinting the bodily necessities of their families
by setting aside a portion which could not in the long run suffice to
provide even a bare maintenance for old age or disablement. To say this
is not to impugn the value of thrift in maintaining a character of
dignity and independence in the worker; it is simply to recognize that
valuable as these qualities are, they must be subordinated to the first
demands of physical life. Those who can save without encroaching on the
prime necessaries of life ought to save; but there are still many who
cannot save, and these are they whom the problem of poverty especially
concerns. The saying of Aristotle, that "it is needful first to have a
maintenance, and then to practise virtue," does not indeed imply that we
_ought_ to postpone practising the moral virtues until we have secured
ourselves against want, but rather means that before we can live well we
_must_ first be able to live at all.
Precisely the same is true of the "inefficiency" of the poor. Nothing is
more common than to hear men and women, often incapable themselves of
earning by work the money which they spend, assigning as the root of
poverty the inefficiency of the poor. It is quite true that the "poor"
consist for the most part of inefficient workers. It would be strange if
it were not so. How shall a child of the slums, ill-fed in body and
mind, brought up in the industrial and moral degradation of low city
life, without a chance of learning how to use hands or head, and to
acquire habits of steady industry, become an efficient workman? The
conditions under which they grow up to manhood and womanhood preclude
the possibility of efficiency. It is the bitterest portion of the lot of
the poor that they are deprived of the opportunity of learning to work
well. To taunt them with their incapacity, and to regard it as the cause
of poverty, is nothing else than a piece of blind insolence. Here and
there an individual may be to blame for neglected opportunities; but the
"poor" as a class have no more chance under present conditions of
acquiring "efficiency" than of attaining to refined artistic taste, or
the culminating Christian virtue of holiness. Inefficiency is one of the
worst and most degrading aspects of poverty; but to regard it as the
leading cause is an error fatal to a true understanding of the problem.
We now see why it is impossible to seriously entertain the claim of Co-
operative Production as a direct remedy for poverty. The success of Co-
operative schemes depends almost entirely upon the presence of high
moral and intellectual qualities in those co-operating--trust, patience,
self restraint, and obedience combined with power of organization,
skill, and business enterprise. These qualities are not yet possessed by
our skilled artisan class to the extent requisite to enable them to
readily succeed in productive co-operation; how can it be expected then
that low-skilled inefficient labour should exhibit them? The
enthusiastic co-operator says we must educate them up to the requisite
moral and intellectual level. The answer is, that it is impossible to
apply such educating influences effectually, until we have first placed
them on a sound physical basis of existence; that is to say, until we
have already cured the worst form of the malady. From whatever point we
approach this question we are driven to the conclusion that as the true
cause of the disease is an industrial one, so the earliest remedies must
be rather industrial than moral or educational.
§ 4. Effects of Temperance and Technical Education.--Again, we are by no
means justified in leaping to the conclusion that if we could induce
workers to become more sober, more industrious, or more skilful, their
industrial condition would of necessity be improved to a corresponding
extent. If we can induce an odd farm-labourer here and there to give up
his "beer," he and his family are no doubt better off to the extent of
this saving, and can employ the money in some much more profitable way.
But if the whole class of farm-labourers could be persuaded to become
teetotalers without substituting some new craving of equal force in the
place of drink, it is extremely probable that in all places where there
was an abundant supply of farm-labourers, the wage of a farm-labourer
would gradually fall to the extent of the sum of money formerly spent in
beer. For the lowest paid classes of labourers get, roughly speaking, no
more wages than will just suffice to provide them with what they insist
on regarding as necessaries of life. To an ordinary labourer "beer" is a
part of the minimum subsistence for less than which he will not consent
to work at all. Where there is an abundance of labour, as is generally
the case in low-skilled employments, this minimum subsistence or lowest
standard of comfort practically determines wages. If you were merely to
take something away from this recognized minimum without putting
something else to take its place, you would actually lower the rate of
wages. If, by a crusade of temperance pure and simple, you made
teetotalers of the mass of low-skilled workers, their wages would
indisputably fall, although they might be more competent workers than
before. If, on the other hand, following the true line of temperance
reform, you expelled intemperance by substituting for drink some
healthier, higher, and equally strong desire which cost as much or more
to attain its satisfaction; if in giving up drink they insisted on
providing against sickness and old age, or upon better houses and more
recreation and enjoyment, then their wages would not fall, and might
even rise in proportion as their new wants, as a class, were more
expensive than the craving for drink which they had abandoned.
Or, again, take the case of technical or general education. In so far as
technical education enabled a number of men who would otherwise have
been unskilled labourers, to compete for skilled work, it will no doubt
enable these men to raise themselves in the industrial sense; but the
addition of their number to the ranks of skilled labour will imply an
increase in supply of skilled labour, and a decrease in supply of
unskilled labour; the price or wage for unskilled labour will rise, but
the wage for skilled labour will fall assuming the relationship between
the demand for skilled and unskilled labour to remain as before. A mere
increase in the efficiency of labour, though it would increase the
quantity of wealth produced, and render a rise of wages possible, would
of itself have no economic force to bring about a rise. No improvement
in the character of labour will be effectual in raising wages unless it
causes a rise in the standard of comfort, which he demands as a
condition of the use of his labour. If we merely increased the
efficiency of labour without a corresponding stimulation of new wants,
we should be simply increasing the mass of labour-power offered for
sale, and the price of each portion would fall correspondingly. It would
confer no more _direct_ benefit upon the worker as such, than does the
introduction of some new machine which has the same effect of adding to
the average efficiency of the worker. Those who would advocate technical
and general education, with a view to the material improvement of the
masses, must see that this education be applied in such a way as to
assist in implanting and strengthening new wholesome demands in those
educated, so as to effectively raise this standard of living. There can
be little doubt but that such education would create new desires, and so
would indirectly secure the industrial elevation of the masses. But it
ought to be clearly recognized that the industrial force which operates
_directly_ to raise the wages of the workers, is not technical skill, or
increased efficiency of labour, but the elevated standard of comfort
required by the working-classes. It is at the same time true, that if we
could merely stimulate the workers to new wants requiring higher wages,
they could not necessarily satisfy all these new wants. If it were
possible to induce all labourers to demand such increase of wages as
sufficed to enable them to lay by savings, it is difficult to say
whether they could in all cases press this claim successfully. But if at
the same time their efficiency as labourers likewise grew, it will be
evident that they both can and would raise that standard of living.
In so far as the results of technical education upon the class of low-
skilled labourers alone is concerned, it is evident that it would
relieve the constant pressure of an excessive supply. Whatever the
effect of this might be upon the industrial condition of the skilled
industries subjected to the increased competition, there can be no doubt
that the wages of low-skilled labour would rise. Since the condition of
unskilled or low-skilled workers forms the chief ingredient in poverty,
such a "levelling up" may be regarded as a valuable contribution towards
a cure of the worst phase of the disease.
This brief investigation of the working of moral and educational cures
for industrial diseases shows us that these remedies can only operate in
improving the material condition of the poorest classes, in so far as
they conduce to raise the standard of living among the poor. Since a
higher standard of comfort means economically a restriction in the
number of persons willing to undertake work for a lower rate of wage
than will support this standard of comfort, it may be said that moral
remedies can be only effectual in so far as they limit the supply of
low-skilled, low-paid labour. Thus we are brought round again to the one
central point in the problem of poverty, the existence of an excessive
supply of cheap labour.
§ 5. The False Dilemma which impedes Progress.--There are those who seek
to retard all social progress by a false and mischievous dilemma which
takes the following shape. No radical improvement in industrial
organization, no work of social reconstruction, can be of any real avail
unless it is preceded by such moral and intellectual improvement in the
condition of the mass of workers as shall render the new machinery
effective; unless the change in human nature comes first, a change in
external conditions will be useless. On the other hand, it is evident
that no moral or intellectual education can be brought effectively to
bear upon the mass of human beings, whose whole energies are necessarily
absorbed by the effort to secure the means of bare physical support.
Thus it is made to appear as if industrial and moral progress must each
precede the other, a thing which is impossible. Those who urge that the
two forms of improvement must proceed _pari passu, _do not precisely
understand what they propose.
The falsehood of the above dilemma consists in the assumption that
industrial reformers wish to proceed by a sudden leap from an old
industrial order to a new one. Such sudden movements are not in
accordance with the gradual growth which nature insists upon as the
condition of wise change. But it is equally in accordance with nature
that the material growth precedes the moral. Not that the work of moral
reconstruction can lag far behind. Each step in this industrial
advancement of the poor should, and must, if the gain is to be
permanent, be followed closely and secured by a corresponding advance in
moral and intellectual character and habits. But the moral and religious
reformer should never forget that in order of time material reform comes
first, and that unless proper precedence be yielded to it, the higher
ends of humanity are unattainable.