DEAD FLIES IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
In the year 1913 Messrs. Fred. B. Smith and Raymond Robins, the
leaders of the “Men and Religion Movement” in America, paid a visit
to Australia. They were received with open arms, and everywhere they
gathered immense audiences of men to listen to their remarkable
message. Mr. Smith has, since his tour, given his impressions of the
conditions in Australia with singularly clear penetration. He says:
“Here we found that from the law-making end about everything that could
be dreamed of for the good of the people has been done. Raymond Robins
was simply overwhelmed with the magnitude of their legislation upon
these questions. They have an eight-hour day universal labour law. They
have a minimum wage law. They have an old-age pension Act. They have
stringent laws concerning the operation of dangerous machinery without
adequate protection for the workmen. There is not another land on earth
with so little poverty in it. From the material standpoint they have
reached a very high standard.”
This is true photography. Mr. Smith kept his eyes open during his stay
in the Commonwealth. But he was not blind to the other side of the
picture. He continues:
“The striking thing is that while these men have been engaged in
passing the most arbitrary industrial laws they have permitted, in many
cases, the loosest ones to exist upon the great moral questions. The
public bars are loosely run. Gambling is permitted at race tracks and
cricket matches. A people may pass laws until Doomsday, and they alone
will not make people good, righteous, nor happy. There is no other such
final evidence upon this point as that given in Australia.”
This is the problem the churches in Australia have to face. The growth
of freedom has not meant the growth of morals. On every hand we
perceive the perversion of this wonderful liberty. In this Garden of
Eden the snake has already appeared.
Thus I have learned in five years that a perfect climate, a perfect
social environment, and an almost perfect social and industrial
legislation, together fail to produce morality. When the law was passed
forbidding all work in shops, warehouses, and factories after midday
on Saturday, it was thought that the Sunday morning services in the
churches might gain as the result. At least, the ancient plea, “too
tired because of hard work until late on Saturday night,” would be
impossible. But the increased facilities for pleasure have led, in many
instances, to the entire secularisation of the Sunday. Much wanted
more, more demanded the most. And so, for very many, the Christian
Sunday has gone, being replaced by a day of pleasure, sometimes pure,
and often riotous. It is not that the people who spend the Sunday on
the Bay, or in the gully, or at the seaside, or on the golf course, or
at the picture show, have any intellectual hostility to religion--many
of them never dream of cultivating their intellectual life in any
direction whatever; they simply do not care.
This problem, newly worked out amidst ideal conditions of living,
affords food for thought for those persons who imagine that a Garden of
Eden alone can make a man what he ought to be. Australia is the place
to annihilate illusions of that kind.
Mr. Smith has put his finger upon another of Australia’s sore places
thus:
“We are all agreed that in Australia, in a larger sense than in any
other place we have ever worked, ‘Labour’ and the Church seemed
estranged. To speak of one man as a ‘Labour’ man and another as a
‘Liberal’ is almost synonymous with saying that one is an anti-Church
and the other a Church man.”
The fact is, generally speaking, undoubted, but why it should be so is
difficult to understand. The common statement made by Labour leaders
is that the Church is wholly pledged to capitalism and to the classes.
No statement is more completely false. As a matter of fact, one of the
radical causes of many troubles and injustices in our social system
(I should not be far astray if I said it was _the_ radical cause) is
the iniquitous gamble in land which Australia deliberately allowed,
and even fostered, in its early days. The vicious system of the Old
World was transferred to the new soil, with the result that the present
generation is paying usurious interest for the social sins of the
fathers. House rents are wickedly high. Many commodities cost four
times their real value because shopkeepers are compelled to pay absurd
rents for their premises.
Many of the Socialists in Australia fail to allow for this. Churchmen
are not responsible for the iniquities of the system. The greatest
sinners in the olden days were men who knew far better the interior of
a saloon than the interior of a church. And it ought to be said that
the leaders of social reform in Australia to-day are men connected with
the Church.
It is difficult to write about these things without appearing to be
unsympathetic. The present writer, therefore, may be allowed to say
that all his sympathies are with men who are struggling for justice.
Labour men in Australia are right in demanding certain readjustments
which will give them a freer manhood and a fuller share of the good
things of life; but many of them are wrong in their temper and in their
methods. Further, many of them are unfair in certain of their demands.
Take a concrete instance. A year ago there was in progress a lesser
strike, involving some sixty or eighty men in an establishment which
employs over 1,500 men. And why the strike? Will it be believed that,
put in plain terms, the men struck for _less money_? The proprietor,
who is a just and generous man, offered these particular men a new
system of piece-work, by means of which they could earn as much as 17s.
per day. It was a definite offer of advancement, yet it was refused
in favour of the old system, which fixed (I believe) 12s. per day as
a stated wage and apart from piece-work. Rather than accept the new
system the men went out upon strike. To an ordinary person this seems
an act of pure folly, going dead against the men’s interests. It is an
instance of a caucus imposing a tyranny. The first and the chief need
of Australia, from an industrial point of view, is the establishment of
friendly relations between employers and employed. At present suspicion
and acrimony reign, with disastrous results.
There is a great part for the Church to play in the promotion of a
better feeling among the people, but before this can be done some
of the Socialist leaders will have to attend to a little reading,
and cease to blacken a religion the alphabet of which they do not
understand.
In point of fact, the Labour men see but two classes: the working
classes, whose interests lie in high wages, low rents, and cheap
land; and the non-working classes, whose interests lie in low wages,
high rents, and dear land. It is obvious that there is room both for
information to be imparted to, reconciliation to be effected between,
and justice accorded by these parties. The Council of Churches
has instituted a “Labour Sunday,” in which the radical principles
underlying the relation of master and man are expounded according to
Christ. There is far too much suspicion on the part of the workers
against the Churches. Perhaps “suspicion” is too mild a term to employ
in view of the following extracts taken from official Labour papers.
_The Tocsin_ said a year or two back: “Take it any road you will,
religion is a curse and a snare and a delusion and a malicious sham.”
Another Labour paper, _The Worker_, remarked: “When the Labour movement
has to turn to God for help, it will be God help it indeed.... Its (the
party’s) creed is purely materialistic, concerning no world but this
world. Labour writes on its doorposts, ‘Wanted.--A Saviour; no God need
apply.’” Ministers of religion are described as “wolves in sheep’s
clothing, Pharisees, whited sepulchres, who call themselves teachers of
Christianity, reptiles to be loathed, who, under the cloak of religious
authority or clerical superiority, help to rivet more firmly the chains
of injustice and wrong.” Of the Churches it is said: “Taking them as
a whole, they are the sanctuaries of the sweater, the oppressor, and
the Customs defrauder.” It would seem almost hopeless to reason with
men of this type. They have no discrimination. They have nothing but
opprobrium to pour upon the Churches and upon Christianity. Theirs is
a bitter and a wild crusade. It may be that certain types of religion
which have flourished, and still to an extent flourish, have irritated
them, and that with reason, but this wholesale attack is pitiful. Some
of the workers appreciate “Labour Sunday”; others regard it as an
insult. Happily, not all the Labour men outside the Churches are of
this inflammable and virulent type. The Church in Australia has all
its work cut out to reconcile the Labour party with the Evangel.
A man who speaks plainly about these things is likely to become
unpopular. Two years ago I got into trouble through telling a few cold
truths about the conditions of Australian labour. The affair came about
thus: Labour was very scarce in certain trades, notably the building
trade. Builders and contractors could not obtain nearly sufficient
men to enable them to fulfil their contracts in time. High wages were
paid and offered, but the shortage continued. Some of the men took
advantage of this fact to further their own interests. One gentleman in
particular was pointed out to me as by no means a rare case. He was in
receipt of over £4 per week. Pay-night was Friday, and this gentleman,
having received his salary, went in for a “good time” on that same
evening--so “good” that he was unable to appear at work on the
Saturday. With several cases of this order before me, I remarked to a
reporter that some Australian workmen needed to take a more honourable
view of work. They needed to learn the meaning of Mr. Ruskin’s
prophetic word concerning work as a factor in making character. Many
of the workmen simply work for their pay, and they work as badly as
they can. They have no conscience in their labour. And then I cited the
cases named above.
This is how the chief Labour paper in Australia refers to the matter:
“Work is merely a means to an end, and there is nothing in it except
for what it brings. The reason Mr. Spurr does not work is because he
gets the products of labour he requires without producing them himself.
As a matter of fact, the employing class simply want the workers to
toil like galley slaves in order that they may make huge profits--and
do no work. Manhood! Who are the men who spend their lives in arduous
toil because they have been told it is right to work hard? The workers!
Who are the unfortunates who see their wives becoming shrivelled-up
drudges, careworn and ugly in middle life--while the employer’s wife
blooms with health and good feeding? Who are the victims who watch
their sons and daughters being drawn into the drudgery of the factory
when they ought to be at school? Who are the patient slaves who toil
on, trying to prevent their daughters from being flung on the streets
after they themselves have been sucked dry in the mill of labour and
flung on the scrap-heap? The workers!”
Now, if this had been written in England, or in some parts of England,
where wages are short and hours are long, there would have been point
in the remarks. But in Australia there is an eight-hour day, and the
wages are high, being fixed by wages boards. It is not the question
of sweating nor over-work that is here raised, but the question of
remunerative labour. The sweating and the grinding employers have
no greater enemy than the present writer. But when an employer pays
(as in the case cited) a liberal wage, he has the right to expect
conscientious work from his men. And it is not conscientious when
a man, by taking a day off for drinking, hampers and harasses his
employer, who admittedly pays him well. I repeat, a number of
Australian workmen need to take a more dignified and honourable view
of work. Conditions of labour there are better than in any other part
of the world. It is a thousand pities that certain paid “leaders” are
eternally seeking to foment a bad spirit between masters and men.
The moral side of labour seems to me to be insufficiently emphasised.
One of the speakers at an annual demonstration hinted that a six hours’
day was a desirable goal to aim at. The suggestion was received with
great applause. And the reason given was that when the actual needs of
a community have been supplied work should cease and play begin. One
speaker announced as his ideal for the twenty-four hours, eight hours’
work, eight hours’ play, and eight hours’ sleep. He left no place for
work of another kind, i.e. the work of study, of information, and of
culture. This omission is symptomatic; it represents a real omission
in the life of many young Australians. Work, play, and sleep, in the
sense intended by many out there, will not conduce to the building of a
great nation. Not so have the great world-empires been built up. Not so
has Britain risen to her supreme position. One cannot help feeling that
work is not yet invested with the dignity and sacredness which belong
to it. It is too frequently, amongst Australians, regarded as a yoke
which must, willy-nilly, be borne for a certain number of hours per
day, and which ought to be thrown off at the earliest possible moment.
The glory of work has not yet dawned upon the minds of many of this new
generation in this new country. Their fathers knew it, rejoiced in it,
and succeeded by means of it. The sons take life far too easily and
light-heartedly. It is their peril that they do so. Another thing is
that the term “worker” is too frequently restricted to one class of the
community. A “worker” is almost exclusively conceived to be a person
who toils with his hands, and soils them in the effort. Workers with
brain and pen are often spoken of contemptuously, as if they did not
know the meaning of labour. A friend of mine, a leading doctor in the
city, told me a story which is typical of the thought of many workers.
He attended a football match last season played between two teams, one
of which was the University team. As the University men emerged from
the pavilion to take the field a voice was raised in the crowd, “_Here
come the loafers_,” and the remark met with not a little laughter. And
these “loafers” are the coming physicians, journalists, and teachers
of the State! The gulf created by prejudice between toilers with the
hand and toilers with the brain needs speedily bridging. And it may be
added that for these “loafers” there is nothing so easy as an eight
hours’ day. This is a kind and sympathetic criticism, and it is not
superfluous.
As an illustration, on the other side, of what can be done and is being
done to make labour a worthy thing, so far as agriculture is concerned,
it may be well to describe some developments to which Australia is
committed. At Ballarat we saw, in full operation, the work of the
Agricultural High School. It was a perfect revelation to us. Here, for
the first time, a new type of agriculturist is being produced. The
old type, both at home and here, is well known, strong, hard-working,
dogged, and not too well educated. The new type is entirely different
from the old. This high school has been established by the Director
of Education for the purpose of giving a broad and liberal education
to the young men and women in whose hands the cultivation of the soil
rests. It is an experimental college, but its success is already so
striking that similar institutions will certainly spring up all over
the Commonwealth. It claims to be the best-equipped school for experts
in Victoria. The pile of buildings, which cost £13,000, is very
imposing, and beautifully situated on the outskirts of the city. It is
surrounded by eighty acres of land, used for experiments, as well as
for the practical purpose of supplying the institution with vegetables.
The whole land is carefully mapped out into certain lengths, upon
each of which a trial is made of the value of various phosphates
and manures. Thus, before a student passes in the work of practical
agriculture, he knows exactly what is the fertilising power of every
manure in the market. He also knows the cost of production; hence he
can tell immediately whether or not his land will pay at a certain
price.
The staff of teachers includes seven Masters of Arts, a Doctor of
Philosophy, two Bachelors of Arts, and others. The curriculum is most
thorough. The one idea of the institution is to produce intelligent
students who can unite science to labour. The course of training
includes carpentry, book-keeping, commercial correspondence, history,
botany, art, chemistry, mathematics, languages, and cooking. Think of
the old-fashioned farmer and his wife with these accomplishments! We
watched the students at work, and a healthier or more intelligent body
of maidens and youths it would be impossible to find. The girls, no
matter what their station, take their turn in cookery. Each day the
kitchen is served by these young ladies, who cook the food, serve the
meals, and then wash up. There are no servants to do the dirtier work.
Everything is done by the young ladies themselves. We had the honour of
lunching with the director and some of his staff. The meal served to us
was, he assured me, just the ordinary meal of the establishment. Not a
single extra dish had been created in honour of the visitors. It was
the daily sixpenny meal. We had for sixpence five courses, including
tomato soup, beautifully cooked fish, meat, and vegetables, a tasty
pudding, cheese, and coffee.
This combination of the literary with the practical is a splendid idea.
No student leaves the institution with only theoretical knowledge.
It ought to be said that the land upon which the experiments are made
is exceedingly poor, and this is its great advantage for purposes of
education. No poorer land is likely to be bought by these students
when they set up for themselves. They know, therefore, how to make the
best of the worst. Science pitted against a poor soil has conquered.
The introduction of artificial manures has produced the most surprising
results. The buildings of the institution are modern in every respect,
the ventilation and the lighting being perfect.
In the matter of agricultural education, as shown in the Ballarat High
School, Victoria is ahead of the Old Country. Is it not possible to
adopt the best features of this school and apply them to the conditions
in the Old Land? The soil is the radical and the burning question at
home. The congestion of England in her towns and cities can only be
relieved as the rural life of the country is revived. The poorest soil
can be made productive by the use of scientific methods. The Scottish
delegation to Australia were greatly impressed by what they saw at
Ballarat. May not the mother learn a little from her daughter? The
redemption of the land in England and Ireland would solve many of the
social difficulties at home.