It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labor. 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 labor 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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Wages.
Some sell their lives for bread;
Some sell their souls for gold;
Some seek the river bed;
Some seek the workhouse mold.
Such is proud England’s sway,
Where wealth may work its will;
White flesh is cheap to-day,
White souls are cheaper still.
-FANTASIAS.
WHEN I LEARNED THAT IN Lesser London there were 1,292,737 people who received 21 shillings or less a week per family, I became interested as to how the wages could best be spent in order to maintain the physical efficiency of such families. Families of six, seven, eight, or ten being beyond consideration, I have based the following table upon a family of five, a father, mother, and three children; while I have made 21 shillings equivalent to $5.25, though actually, 21 shillings are equivalent to about $5.11.
Rent ………………………. $1.50
Bread ………………………. 1.00
Meat ………………………… .87 1/2
Vegetables …………………… .62 1/2
Coals ……………………….. .25
Tea …………………………. .18
Oil …………………………. .16
Sugar ……………………….. .18
Milk ………………………… .12
Soap ………………………… .08
Butter ………………………. .20
Firewood …………………….. .08
Total ……………… $5.25
An analysis of one item alone will show how little room there is for waste. Bread, $l: for a family of five, for seven days, one dollar’s worth of bread will give each a daily ration of 2 6/7th cents; and if they eat three meals a day, each may consume per meal 9 1/2 mills’ worth of bread, a little less than one cent’s worth. Now bread is the heaviest item. They will get less of meat per mouth each meal, and still less of vegetables; while the smaller items become too microscopic for consideration. On the other hand, these food articles are all bought at small retail, the most expensive and wasteful method of purchasing.
While the table given above will permit no extravagance, no overloading of stomachs, it will be noticed that there is no surplus. The whole $5.25 is spent for food and rent. There is no pocket money left over. Does the man buy a glass of beer, the family must eat that much less; and in so far as it eats less, just that far will it impair its physical efficiency. The members of this family cannot ride in buses or trams, cannot write letters, take outings, go to a ‘tu’penny gaff’ for cheap vaudeville, join social or benefit clubs, nor can they buy sweetmeats, tobacco, books, or newspapers.
And further, should one child (and there are three) require a pair of shoes, the family must strike meat for a week from its bill of fare. And, since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and five heads requiring hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and since there are laws regulating indecency, the family must constantly impair its physical efficiency in order to keep warm and out of jail. For notice, when rent, coals, oil, soap, and firewood are extracted from the weekly income, there remains a daily allowance for food of 9 cents to each person; and that 9 cents cannot be lessened by buying clothes without impairing the physical efficiency.
All of which is hard enough. But the thing happens; the husband and father breaks his leg or his neck. No 9 cents a day per mouth for food is coming in; no 9 1/2 mills’ worth of bread per meal; and, at the end of the week, no $1.50 for rent. So out they must go, to the streets or the workhouse, or to a miserable den, somewhere, in which the mother will desperately endeavor to hold the family together on the 10 shillings she may possibly be able to earn.
While in Lesser London there are 1,292,737 people who receive 21 shillings or less a week per family, it must be remembered that we have investigated a family of five living on a 21-shillings basis. There are larger families, there are many families that live on less than 21 shillings, and there is much irregular employment. The question naturally arises, How do they live? The answer is that they do not live. They do not know what life is. They drag out a subter-bestial existence until mercifully released by death.
Before descending to the fouler depths, let the case of the telegraph girls be cited. Here are clean, fresh, English maids, for whom a higher standard of living than that of the beasts is absolutely necessary. Otherwise they cannot remain clean, fresh English maids. On entering the service, a telephone girl receives a weekly wage of $2.75. If she be quick and clever, she may, at the end of five years, attain a maximum wage of $5.00. Recently a table of such a girl’s weekly expenditure was furnished to Lord Londonderry. Here it is:
Rent, fire, and light ……….. $1.87 1/2
Board at home ………………… .87 1/2
Board at the office ………….. 1.12 1/2
Street car fare ………………. .37 1/2
Laundry ……………………… .25
Total ………………. $4.50
This leaves nothing for clothes, recreation, or sickness. And yet many of the girls are receiving, not $4.50, but $2.75, $3, and $3.50 per week. They must have clothes and recreation, and-
Man to Man so oft injust,
Is always so to Woman.
At the Trades Union Congress now being held in London, the Gasworkers’ Union moved that instructions be given the Parliamentary Committee to introduce a bill to prohibit the employment of children under fifteen years of age. Mr. Shackleton, Member of Parliament and a representative of the Northern Counties’ Weavers, opposed the resolution on behalf of the textile workers, who, he said, could not dispense with the earnings of their children and live on the scale of wages which obtained. The representatives of 514,000 workers voted against the resolution, while the representatives of 535,000 workers voted in favor of it. When 514,000 workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labor under fifteen, it is evident that a less-than-living wage is being paid to an immense number of the adult workers of the country.
I have spoken with women in Whitechapel who receive right along less than 25 cents for a twelve-hour day in the coat-making sweat shops; and with women trousers finishers who receive an average princely and weekly wage of 75 cents to $1.
A case recently cropped up of men, in the employ of a wealthy business house, receiving their board and $1.50 per week for six working days of sixteen hours each. The sandwich men get 27 cents per day and find themselves. The average weekly earnings of the hawkers and costermongers are not more than $2.50 to $3. The average all common laborers, outside the dockers, is less than $4 per week, while the dockers average from $2 to $2.25. These figures are taken from a royal commission report and are authentic.
Conceive of an old woman, broken and dying, supporting herself and four children, and paying 75 cents per week rent, by making match boxes at 4 1/2 cents per gross. Twelve dozen boxes for 4 1/2 cents, and, in addition, finding her own paste and thread! She never knew a day off, either for sickness, rest, or recreation. Each day and every day, Sundays as well, she toiled fourteen hours. Her day’s stint was seven gross, for which she received 31 1/2 cents. In the week of ninety-eight hours’ work, she made 7066 match boxes, and earned $2. 20 1/2, less her paste and thread.
Last year, Mr. Thomas Holmes, a police court missionary of note, after writing about the condition of the women workers, received the following letter, dated April 18, 1901: