I stopped a moment to listen to an argument on the Mile End Waste. It
was night-time, and they were all workmen of the better class. They had
surrounded one of their number, a pleasant-faced man of thirty, and were
giving it to him rather heatedly.
"But 'ow about this 'ere cheap immigration?" one of them demanded. "The
Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting our throats right along?"
"You can't blame them," was the answer. "They're just like us, and
they've got to live. Don't blame the man who offers to work cheaper than
you and gets your job."
"But 'ow about the wife an' kiddies?" his interlocutor demanded.
"There you are," came the answer. "How about the wife and kiddies of the
man who works cheaper than you and gets your job? Eh?
How about his
wife and kiddies? He's more interested in them than in yours, and he
can't see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour and out you go.
But you mustn't blame him, poor devil. He can't help it. Wages always
come down when two men are after the same job. That's the fault of
competition, not of the man who cuts the price."
"But wyges don't come down where there's a union," the objection was
made.
"And there you are again, right on the head. The union cheeks
competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where there are no
unions. There's where your cheap labour of Whitechapel comes in. They're
unskilled, and have no unions, and cut each other's throats, and ours in
the bargain, if we don't belong to a strong union."
Without going further into the argument, this man on the Mile End Waste
pointed the moral that when two men were after the one job wages were
bound to fall. Had he gone deeper into the matter, he would have found
that even the union, say twenty thousand strong, could not hold up wages
if twenty thousand idle men were trying to displace the union men. This
is admirably instanced, just now, by the return and disbandment of the
soldiers from South Africa. They find themselves, by tens of thousands,
in desperate straits in the army of the unemployed.
There is a general
decline in wages throughout the land, which, giving rise to labour
disputes and strikes, is taken advantage of by the unemployed, who gladly
pick up the tools thrown down by the strikers.
Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers of
the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more men to do
work than there is work for men to do. The men and women I have met upon
the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not there because as a mode
of life it may be considered a "soft snap." I have sufficiently outlined
the hardships they undergo to demonstrate that their existence is
anything but "soft."
It is a matter of sober calculation, here in England, that it is softer
to work for twenty shillings a week, and have regular food, and a bed at
night, than it is to walk the streets. The man who walks the streets
suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. I have depicted the
nights they spend, and how, driven in by physical exhaustion, they go to
the casual ward for a "rest up." Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To
pick four pounds of oakum, break twelve hundredweight of stones, or
perform the most revolting tasks, in return for the miserable food and
shelter they receive, is an unqualified extravagance on the part of the
men who are guilty of it. On the part of the authorities it is sheer
robbery. They give the men far less for their labour than do the
capitalistic employers. The wage for the same amount of labour,
performed for a private employer, would buy them better beds, better
food, more good cheer, and, above all, greater freedom.
As I say, it is an extravagance for a man to patronise a casual ward. And
that they know it themselves is shown by the way these men shun it till
driven in by physical exhaustion. Then why do they do it? Not because
they are discouraged workers. The very opposite is true; they are
discouraged vagabonds. In the United States the tramp is almost
invariably a discouraged worker. He finds tramping a softer mode of life
than working. But this is not true in England. Here the powers that be
do their utmost to discourage the tramp and vagabond, and he is, in all
truth, a mightily discouraged creature. He knows that two shillings a
day, which is only fifty cents, will buy him three fair meals, a bed at
night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would
rather work for those two shillings than for the charity of the casual
ward; for he knows that he would not have to work so hard, and that he
would not be so abominably treated. He does not do so, however, because
there are more men to do work than there is work for men to do.
When there are more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out
process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient are
crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go
up, but must descend, and continue to descend, until they reach their
proper level, a place in the industrial fabric where they are efficient.
It follows, therefore, and it is inexorable, that the least efficient
must descend to the very bottom, which is the shambles wherein they
perish miserably.
A glance at the confirmed inefficients at the bottom demonstrates that
they are, as a rule, mental, physical, and moral wrecks.
The exceptions
to the rule are the late arrivals, who are merely very inefficient, and
upon whom the wrecking process is just beginning to operate. All the
forces here, it must be remembered, are destructive.
The good body
(which is there because its brain is not quick and capable) is speedily
wrenched and twisted out of shape; the clean mind (which is there because
of its weak body) is speedily fouled and contaminated.
The mortality is excessive, but, even then, they die far too lingering
deaths.
Here, then, we have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles.
Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is going
on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward.
Various things
constitute inefficiency. The engineer who is irregular or irresponsible
will sink down until he finds his place, say as a casual labourer, an
occupation irregular in its very nature and in which there is little or
no responsibility. Those who are slow and clumsy, who suffer from
weakness of body or mind, or who lack nervous, mental, and physical
stamina, must sink down, sometimes rapidly, sometimes step by step, to
the bottom. Accident, by disabling an efficient worker, will make him
inefficient, and down he must go. And the worker who becomes aged, with
failing energy and numbing brain, must begin the frightful descent which
knows no stopping-place short of the bottom and death.
In this last instance, the statistics of London tell a terrible tale. The
population of London is one-seventh of the total population of the United
Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every four
dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, the hospital, or the
asylum. When the fact that the well-to-do do not end thus is taken into
consideration, it becomes manifest that it is the fate of at least one in
every three adult workers to die on public charity.
As an illustration of how a good worker may suddenly become inefficient,
and what then happens to him, I am tempted to give the case of M'Garry, a
man thirty-two years of age, and an inmate of the workhouse. The
extracts are quoted from the annual report of the trade union.
I worked at Sullivan's place in Widnes, better known as the British
Alkali Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had to cross
the yard. It was ten o'clock at night, and there was no light about.
While crossing the yard I felt something take hold of my leg and screw
it off. I became unconscious; I didn't know what became of me for a
day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and
found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what was to do with
my legs, and she told me both legs were off.
There was a stationary crank in the yard, let into the ground; the
hole was 18 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 15
inches wide. The
crank revolved in the hole three revolutions a minute. There was no
fence or covering over the hole. Since my accident they have stopped
it altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet
iron. . . . They gave me 25 pounds. They didn't reckon that as
compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of that I
paid 9 pounds for a machine by which to wheel myself about.
I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four
shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I used
to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to be
picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at the
hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked him if he
would be able to find me a job. He told me not to trouble myself, as
the firm was not cold-hearted. I would be right enough in any case .
. . Mr. Manton stopped coming to see me; and the last time, he said he
thought of asking the directors to give me a fifty-pound note, so I
could go home to my friends in Ireland.
Poor M'Garry! He received rather better pay than the other men because
he was ambitious and took shifts, and when heavy work was to be done he
was the man picked out to do it. And then the thing happened, and he
went into the workhouse. The alternative to the workhouse is to go home
to Ireland and burden his friends for the rest of his life. Comment is
superfluous.
It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers
themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour.
If three men
seek one position, the most efficient man will get it.
The other two, no
matter how capable they may be, will none the less be inefficients. If
Germany, Japan, and the United States should capture the entire world
market for iron, coal, and textiles, at once the English workers would be
thrown idle by hundreds of thousands. Some would emigrate, but the rest
would rush their labour into the remaining industries.
A general shaking
up of the workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium
had been restored, the number of the inefficients at the bottom of the
Abyss would have been increased by hundreds of thousands. On the other
hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers doubling their
efficiency, there would still be as many inefficients, though each
inefficient were twice as capable as he had been and more capable than
many of the efficients had previously been.
When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, just as
many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as
inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It
shall be the aim of future chapters to show, by their work and manner of
living, not only how the inefficients are weeded out and destroyed, but
to show how inefficients are being constantly and wantonly created by the
forces of industrial society as it exists to-day.