The Workman of the Towns
The condition of the Dutch urban working classes is by no means an
enviable one. Granting that wages are much higher than half a century ago,
when bread cost fivepence-halfpenny the loaf as against three halfpence
to-day, and when clothes and furniture cost fifty per cent. more than now,
the average working-man cannot be otherwise described than as distinctly
poor when compared with his English colleague. Yet it would be misleading
to judge exclusively by the scale of wages, and against making comparisons
of the kind the reader should at once be warned. The fact is that there
are very wide divergences of condition amongst the working classes of
Holland. A carpenter or a blacksmith earning from £1 to £1 10s. in weekly
wages all the year round will rank, if sober and well-behaved, as a
comparatively well-to-do workman. On the other hand, a bricklayer or a
painter, whose work in winter is very uncertain, and who earns, maybe, a
bare £1 a week during the nine months of the year wherein he can find
work, is a poor workman at the best, and his condition is greatly to be
deplored. More pitiable still, however, is the case of working-class
families in some of the manufacturing towns, where wages are still lower,
and where an even tolerable standard of life cannot be maintained unless
mother and children take their place in the factory side by side with the
head of the household as regular wage-earners.
For, as labour is cheap and families are numerous in Holland, as soon as
the boys and girls have reached the sacramental age of twelve, at which
Dutch law allows them to work twelve hours a day, they leave school, and
enter the factory and workshop.
It is no joke for these children, who have to leave their little beds,
frequently under the tiles, at 5 or 6 a.m., or earlier, summer and winter,
to gulp down some hot coffee, or what is conveniently called so, to
swallow a huge piece of the well-known Dutch 'Roggebrood,' or rye-bread,
and then to hurry, in their wooden shoes, through the quiet streets of the
town to their place of work.
Sometimes they have time to return home at 8 or 8.30 a.m. for a second
hurried 'breakfast,' which as often as not is their first, for many of
them start the day's work on an empty stomach. Those who cannot run home
and back in the half-hour usually allowed for the first 'Schaft,' or
meal-time, take their bread-and-butter with them in a cotton or linen bag,
and their milk-and-water or coffee in a tin, and so shift as well as they
can. Dinner-time, as a rule, finds the whole family united from about
twelve until one o'clock or half-past in the kitchen at home. This kitchen
is, of course, used for cooking, washing, dwelling, and sleeping purposes.
The walls are whitewashed, and the floor consists of flag-stones. Of
luxury there is none, of comfort little. Generally the fare of the day is
potatoes, with some vegetable, carrots, turnips, cabbage, or beans. A
piece of bacon, rarely some beef, is sometimes added; while mutton is
hardly ever eaten in Holland, unless by very poor people. Fish is too
expensive for most of them, except fried kippers or bloaters. If there is
time over, and the house has a little garden attached to it, the children
help by watering the vegetables growing there, should it be summer-time,
or by making themselves generally useful. But at 1 or 1.30 they have to be
back at the workshop, and until 7 p.m. the drudgery goes on again. On
Saturday evening the boy brings his sixpence, or whatever his trifling
wages may be, to his mother. Rent and the club-money for illness and
funeral expenses must be at hand when the collectors call either on Sunday
or Monday morning. As a rule, though the exceptions are numerous enough,
the father also brings his whole pay with him; but drink is the curse--a
decreasing curse, it may be, but still a curse--of many a workman's
family, and in such cases the inroads it makes in the domestic budget are
very serious.
So the boys grow up, in a busy, monotonous life, until they are called
upon to subject themselves to compulsory military service. Before they
become recruits they have usually joined various societies--debating,
theatrical, social, political, or other. Arnold Toynbee has a good many
admirers and followers in Holland, who do yeoman's work after his spirit,
and bring bright, healthy pleasure into the lives of these youthful
toilers. Divines of all denominations, Protestant and Catholic, have also
their 'At homes' and their 'Congregations,' and innocent amusement is not
unseldom mixed with religious teaching at their meetings. In this way,
too, a helpful, restraining influence is exerted upon youth. And gradually
the boy becomes a young man, associating with other young men, and, like
his wealthier neighbours, discussing the world's affairs, dreaming of
drastic reforms, and thinking less and less of the dreary home, where
father and mother, grown old before their time, are little more than the
people with whom he boards, and who take the whole or part of his wages,
allowing him some modest pocket-money for himself.
In the meantime his sisters have been living with some middle-class
family, starting as errand-girls, being afterwards promoted to the
important position of 'kindermeid' or children's maid, though all the time
sleeping out, which means that before and after having toiled a whole day
for strangers, they do part of the housework for their mothers at home.
After some time, however, they find employment as housemaids, or in other
domestic positions. If they have the good fortune to find considerate yet
strict and conscientious mistresses, the best time of their life now
begins; there is no exhaustion from work, yet good food, good lodging, and
kind treatment. Should they care to cultivate the fine art of cooking,
they get instruction in that line, and are in most cases allowed to work
independently, and even, when reliable and trustworthy, to do the buying
of vegetables, etc., by themselves in the market-places, which all Dutch
towns boast of, and in which the produce of the land is offered for sale
in abundance and appetizing freshness. All this tends to teach a
servant-girl how to use alike her eyes, hands, and brain, and to educate
her into a thrifty, industrious, and tidy workman's wife, who will know
how to make both ends meet, however short her resources may be. This is
one of the reasons why so many Dutch workmen's homes, notwithstanding the
low wages, have an appearance of snug prosperity--the women there have
learned how to make a little go a long way.
And how about their future husbands? Have they, too, learned their trade?
Perhaps; if they are particularly strong, shrewd, industrious, and
persevering, though technical education ('ambachtsonderwys') is much a
thing of the future in Holland.
In the general course of life a boy goes to a trade which offers him the
highest wages. If he can begin by earning eightpence a week, he will not
go elsewhere to earn sixpence if the wear and tear of shoes and clothes is
the same in both cases, although the sixpenny occupation may perhaps be
better suited to his tastes, ability, and general aptitude. To his mother
the extra two pence are a consideration; they may cover some weekly
contribution to a necessary fund. Running errands is his first work, until
accidentally some workman or some apprentice leaves the shop, in which
case he is moved up, and a new boy has the errands to do. But now he must
look out for himself; his master is not over-anxious to let him learn all
the ins and outs of the work, for as soon as his competitors hear that he
has a very clever boy in his shop, he is sure to lose that boy, who is
tempted away by the offer of better pay. Nor are the workmen greatly
inclined to impart their little secrets, to explain this thing and that,
and so help the young fellow on. Why should they? Nobody did it for them;
they got their qualifications by their own unaided exertions--let the boy
do the same. Moreover, the 'baas,' or chief, does not like them to 'waste
their time' in that manner, and the 'baas' is the dispenser of their
bread-and-butter; so the boy is, as a rule, regarded merely as a nuisance.
There are workshops, first-class workshops, too, where no apprentices have
been admitted for dozens of years, simply because the employers do not see
their way to make an efficient agreement with the boys or their parents
which would prevent them from letting a competitor enjoy the results of
their technical instruction. One would not be astonished that in these
circumstances all over Holland the want of technical schools is badly
felt, and that agitation for their provision is active. Only some
twenty-four such schools exist at present; the oldest, that at Amsterdam,
dates from 1861, and the youngest, that of Nymegen, was established in
1900. Partly municipal schools, partly schools built by the private effort
of citizens, they all do their work well. It is only during the last few
years that the nation has begun to ask whether technical education ought
not to be taken up by the State. The Dutch like private enterprise in
everything, and are always inclined to prefer it to State or municipal
action; but they have come to recognize that technical schools may be good
schools, and may do good work on behalf of the much-needed improvement of
handicraft, even though not private ventures, and that so far this branch
of national education has not kept up with the times.
The idea which will probably in the end gain the day, is that the
Technical Schools should be managed by the town councils and subsidized by
the State, who in return would receive the right of supervision and
inspection, and of laying down general rules for their curricula. For the
present, however, there is no law settling the question, and the
apprentices are the sufferers by the lack, since the employers shrink from
employing their means, time, and knowledge on behalf of unscrupulous
competitors.
In general the life of an urban working-man is a constant struggle against
poverty and sickness. Children come plentifully, rather too much so for
the unelastic possibilities of their parents' wages. The young wife does
not get stronger by frequent confinements; and the fare is bound to get
less nourishing as the mouths round the domestic board increase--always
simple, it often becomes insufficient. The mother, working hard already,
has to work harder still and to do laundry work at home or go out as a
charwoman, in order to increase the modest income. In industrial centres
women frequently work in the factories as well, though the law does at
least protect them against too long hours and premature work after
confinement.
Thanks to the Dutch thrift, burial funds and sickness funds come promptly
to the rescue when death lays his iron grip on the wasted form of the poor
town-bred babies, when illness saps the man's power to earn his usual
wages, and the family's income is for the time cut off. Of these benefit
funds there are about 450 in Holland, distributed amongst some 150 towns.
Half of them are burial funds, and half mixed burial and sickness funds;
their members number about two millions; yet, although they certainly do
much to prevent extreme poverty, they do it in a manner which in many
cases is little short of a scandal. Their legal status is rather
uncertain, and in consequence many managers do as they like, and make a
good thing for themselves out of their duty to the poor. Too often these
managers are supreme controllers of the funds, and the members have no
influence whatever. In many cases the only official the latter know is the
collector, who calls at their houses for the weekly contributions. This
official frequently resorts to questionable tricks for extorting money
from the poor helpless members, who simply and confidently pay what they
are told to pay--small sums, of course, a few cents or pence, it may be,
but still 'adding up' in the long run--and when sorrow and death enter
their humble dwellings they are easily imposed upon by cool scoundrels,
who trade on their disinclination to quarrel about money when there is a
corpse in the house.
Another danger of the irregular condition of these funds lies in the fact
that outsiders may take out policies on the lives of certain families. A
few years ago the country was shocked by the alarming story of a woman who
had poisoned a series of persons merely to be able to get the funeral
expenses paid to herself, while many a wretched little baby has in this
manner been the horrible investment of heartless neighbours, who, knowing
the poor thing was dying, took out policies for its funeral. For medical
examination is not required for these beautifully managed associations.
Their premiums are, however, so high that this detail does not materially
affect their sound financial position; and this being the case, it cannot
be denied that the absence of such examinations considerably increases
their general utility for the labouring classes.
[Illustration: A Dutch Street Scene.]
The clubs for preventing financial loss by illness do require a medical
examination. They number in Holland nearly 700, distributed in over 300
towns. Some allow a fixed sum of money during illness, others provide
doctor and medicines, others do both. But the same objections and
grievances which workmen entertain against burial funds apply likewise to
these latter clubs. The curious thing is that, instead of grumbling, the
workman does not make up his mind to mend matters by insisting on having a
share in the management of societies and funds to which he has contributed
so large a part of his earnings. As yet, however, the Dutch labouring
classes have not found the man who is able to organize them for this or
other purposes. They have able advocates, eloquent, passionate reformers,
straightforward, honest friends, but the work of these is more destructive
criticism than constructive organization. Where organization exists, it is
political, social, religious, but not industrial--local, but not
universal, and it often has the bitter suggestion of charity. On the other
hand, the poor fellows have so often been imposed upon that they feel very
little confidence in each other and in the wealthier classes who profess
deep interest in their woes and sorrows. There are no very large
industrial centres in Holland; the wages are so low that most workmen are
obliged to find supplementary incomes, either by doing overtime, or by
doing odd jobs after the regular day's work is over. Hence there is not
much time or energy left for the common cause. Some great employers, like
Mr. J.C. van Marken, of Delft, and Messrs. Stork Brothers, of Hengeloo,
have organizations of their own, by which important ameliorations are
obtained; but smaller employers hear the labour leaders constantly
deprecating such efforts and preaching the blessings of Social Democracy
as the true panacea, so they do not see why they should put themselves to
any inconvenience or expense for the sake of earning abuse and
ingratitude.
Moreover, many of these employers adhere to the obsolete maxim of the
Manchester economists, that labour is merely a sort of merchandise, of
which the workman keeps a certain stock-in-trade, and that the
capitalist's simple task, as a man of business, is to buy that labour as
cheaply as possible, and that he has done with the seller as soon as his
stock-in-trade is exhausted. Happily, a good many others understand now
that in the long run this ridiculous theory is quite as bad for the State
as killing was for the fowl which laid the golden eggs.
At all events, the feelings of the workman for his 'patroon,' as the old
name still in use calls the employer, are none of the kindest. Sweating is
a much less common occurrence in Holland than it was some twenty years
ago; but while it would be mere demagogic clap-trap to speak of the
remorseless exhaustion of labour by capital, there is nevertheless room
enough for the cultivation of greater amenity between the two. And so it
will remain for some time to come. Social legislation may do a great deal
in the course of time, but it cannot do everything, and at best it must
follow the awakening of the popular conscience. Hence progress must be
made step by step, for nothing is so menacing to the stability of the
social fabric as sudden changes, and a wise statesman prefers to let every
one of his acts do its own work, and produce its own consequences, before
he risks the next move. The disintegration of social life is much worse
than social misery, for disintegration makes misery universal, and throws
innumerable obstacles in the way towards restoration.
And, however much the Dutch understand the workman's feelings and
position, however much they all long to see the latter improved, they also
have learned enough of social and political history to know that for the
community in general the only wise and safe principle of action is
progress by degrees--evolution, not revolution.