Of the Influence of Free Trade on the Earnings of the Scavagers.
As regards the influence of Free Trade upon the scavaging business, I could gain little or no information from the body of street-sweepers, because they have never noticed its operation, and the men, with the exception of such as have sunk into street-sweeping from better-informed conditions of life, know nothing about it. Among all, however, I have heard statements of the blessing of cheap bread; always cheap bread. “There’s nothing like bread,” say the men, “it’s not all poor people can get meat; but they must get bread.” Cheap food all labouring men pronounce a blessing, as it unquestionably is, but “somehow,” as a scavager’s carman said to me, “the thing ain’t working as it should.”
In the course of the present and former inquiries among unskilled labourers, street-sellers, and costermongers, I have found the great majority of the more intelligent declare that Free Trade had not worked well for them, because there were more labourers and more street-sellers than were required, for each man to live by his toil and traffic, and because the numbers increased yearly, and the demand for their commodities did not increase in proportion. Among the ignorant, I heard the continual answers of, “I can’t say, sir, what it’s owing to, that I’m so bad off;” or, “Well, I can’t tell anything about that.”
It is difficult to state, however, without positive inquiry, whether this extra number of hands be due to diminished employment in the agricultural districts, since the repeal of the Corn Laws, or whether it be due to the insufficiency of occupation generally for the increasing population. One thing at least is evident, that the increase of the trades alluded to cannot be said to arise directly from diminished agricultural employment, for but few farm labourers have entered these businesses since the change from Protection to Free Trade. If, therefore, Free-Trade principles have operated injuriously in reducing the work of the unskilled labourers, street-sellers, and the poorer classes generally, it can have done so only indirectly; that is to say, by throwing a mass of displaced country labour into the towns, and so displacing other labourers from their ordinary occupations, as well as by decreasing the wages of working-men generally. Hence it becomes almost impossible, I repeat, to tell whether the increasing difficulty that the poor experience in living by their labour, is a consequence or merely a concomitant of the repeal of the Corn Laws; if it be a consequence, of course the poor are no better for the alteration; if, however, it be a coincidence rather than a necessary result of the measure, the circumstances of the poor are, of course, as much improved as they would have been impoverished provided that measure had never become law. I candidly confess I am as yet without the means of coming to any conclusion on this part of the subject.
Nor can it be said that in the scavagers’ trade wages have in any way declined since the repeal of the Corn Laws; so that were it not for the difficulty of obtaining employment among the casual hands, this class must be allowed to have been considerable gainers by the reduction in the price of food, and even as it is, the constant hands must be acknowledged to be so.
I will now endeavour to reduce to a tabular form such information as I could obtain as to the expenditure of the labourer in scavaging before and after the establishment of Free Trade. I inquired, the better to be assured of the accuracy of the representations and accounts I received from labourers, the price of meat then and now. A butcher who for many years has conducted a business in a populous part of Westminster and in a populous suburb, supplying both private families with the best joints, and the poor with their “little bits” their “block ornaments” (meat in small pieces exposed on the chopping-block), their purchases of liver, and of beasts’ heads. In 1845, the year I take as sufficiently prior to the Free-Trade era, my informant from his recollection of the state of his business and from consulting his books, which of course were a correct guide, found that for a portion of the year in question, mutton was as much as 7½d. per lb. (Smithfield prices), now the same quality of meat is but 5d. This, however, was but a temporary matter, and from causes which sometimes are not very ostensible or explicable. Taking the butcher’s trade that year as a whole, it was found sufficiently conclusive, that meat was generally 1d. per lb. higher then than at present. My informant, however, was perfectly satisfied that, although situated in the same way, and with the same class of customers, he did not sell so much meat to the poor and labouring classes as he did five or six years ago, he believed not by one-eighth, although perhaps “pricers of his meat” among the poor were more numerous. For this my informant accounted by expressing his conviction that the labouring men spent their money in drink more than ever, and were a longer time in recovering from the effects of tippling. This supposition, from what I have observed in the course of the present inquiry, is negatived by facts.
Another butcher, also supplying the poor, said they bought less of him; but he could not say exactly to what extent, perhaps an eighth, and he attributed it to less work, there being no railways about London, fewer buildings, and less general employment. About the wages of the labourers he could not speak as influencing the matter. From this tradesmen also I received an account that meat generally was 1d. per lb. higher at the time specified. Pickled Australian beef was four or five years ago very low—3d. per lb.—salted and prepared, and “swelling” in hot water, but the poor “couldn’t eat the stringy stuff, for it was like pickled ropes.” “It’s better now,” he added, “but it don’t sell, and there’s no nourishment in such beef.”
But these tradesmen agreed in the information that poor labourers bought less meat, while one pronounced Free Trade a blessing, the other declared it a curse. I suggested to each that cheaper fish might have something to do with a smaller consumption of butcher’s meat, but both said that cheap fish was the great thing for the Irish and the poor needle-women and the like, who were never at any time meat eaters.
From respectable bakers I ascertained that bread might be considered 1d. a quartern loaf dearer in 1845 than at present. Perhaps the following table may throw a fuller light on the matter. I give it from what I learned from several men, who were without accounts to refer to, but speaking positively from memory; I give the statement per week, as for a single man, without charge for the support of a wife and family, and without any help from other resources.
| Before Free Trade. | After Free Trade. | Saving since Free Trade. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 1s. 6d. | 1s. 6d. | ... |
| Bread (5 loaves) | 2s. 11d. | 2s. 6d. | 5d. |
| Butter (½ lb.) | 5d. | 5d. | ... |
| Tea (2 oz.) | 8d. | 8d. | ... |
| Sugar (½ lb.) | 3d. | 2d. | 1d. |
| Meat (3 lb.) | 1s. 6d. | 1s. 3d. | 3d. |
| Bacon (1 lb.) | 5d. | 5d. | ... |
| Fish (a dinner a day, 6 days) | 3d., or 1s. 6d. weekly. | 2d., or 1s. weekly. | 6d. |
| Potatoes or Vegetables (½d. a day) | 3½d. | 3½d. | ... |
| Beer (pot) | 3½d. | 3½d. | ... |
| Total saving, per week, since Free Trade | 1s. 3d. | ||
In butter, bacon, potatoes, &c., and beer, I could hear of no changes, except that bacon might be a trifle cheaper, but instead of a good quality selling better, although cheaper, there was a demand for an inferior sort.
In the foregoing table the weekly consumption of several necessaries is given, but it is not to be understood that one man consumes them all in a week; they are what may generally be consumed when such things are in demand by the poor, one week after another, or one day after another, forming an aggregate of weeks.
Thus, Free Trade and cheap provisions are an unquestionable benefit, if unaffected by drawbacks, to the labouring poor.
The above statement refers only to a fully employed hand.
The following table gives the change since Free Trade in the earnings of casual hands, and relates to the past and the present expenditure of a scavager. The man, who was formerly a house painter, said he could bring me 50 men similarly circumstanced to himself.
| In 1845, per Week. | In 1851, per Week. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | s. | d. | ||
| Rent | 1 | 4 | Rent | 1 | 8 |
| 5 loaves | 2 | 11 | 4 loaves | 2 | 0 |
| Butter | 0 | 5 | Butter | 0 | 5 |
| Tea | 0 | 6 | Tea | 0 | 5 |
| Meat (3 lbs.) | 1 | 6 | Meat (3 lbs.) | 1 | 0 |
| Potatoes | 0 | 3 | Potatoes | 0 | 2 |
| Beer (a pot) | 0 | 4 | Beer (a pint) | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | 3 | 5 | 10 | ||
Here, then, we find a positive saving in the expenditure of 1s. 5d. per week in this man’s wages, since the cheapening of food.
His earnings, however, tell a different story.
| 1845. | 1851. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | s. | d. | |
| Earnings of 6 days | 15 | 0 | ||
| Ditto 3 days | 7 | 6 | ||
| Weekly Income | 15 | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| Expenditure | 7 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| Difference | 7 | 9 | 1 | 8 |
Thus we perceive that the beneficial effects of cheapness are defeated by the dearth of employment among labourers.
It is impossible to come to precise statistics in this matter, but all concurrent evidence, as regards the unskilled work of which I now treat, shows that labour is attainable at almost any rate.
Another drawback to the benefits of cheap food I heard of first in my inquiries (for the Letters on Labour and the Poor, in the Morning Chronicle) among the boot and shoemakers—their rents had been raised in consequence of their landlords’ property having been subjected to the income tax. Numbers of large houses are now let out in single rooms, in the streets off Tottenham-court-road, and near Golden-square, as well as in many other quarters—to men, who, working for West-end tradesmen, must live, for economy of time, near the shops from which they derive their work. Near and in Cunningham-street and other streets, two men, father and son, rent upwards of 30 houses, the whole of which they let out in one or two rooms, it is believed at a very great profit; in fact they live by it.
The rent of these houses, among many others, was raised when the income tax was imposed, the sub-lettors declaring, with what truth no one knew, that the rents were raised to them. It is common enough for capitalists to fling such imposts on the shoulders of the poor, and I heard scavagers complain, that every time they had to change their rooms, they had either to pay more rent by 2d. or 3d. a week, or put up with a worse place. One man who lived at the time of the passing of the Income Tax Bill in Shoe-lane, found his rent raised suddenly 3d. a week, a non-resident landlord or agent calling for it weekly. He was told that the advance was to meet the income tax. “I know nothing about what income tax means,” he said, “but it’s some —— roguery as is put on the poor.” I heard complaints to the same purport from several working scavagers, and the lettors of rooms are the most exacting in places crowded with the poor, and where the poor think or feel they must reside “to be handy for work.” What connection there may be between the questions of Free Trade and the necessity of the income tax, it is not my business now to dilate upon, but it is evident that the circumstances of the country are not sufficiently prosperous to enable parliament to repeal this “temporary” impost.
From a better informed class than the scavagers, I might have derived data on which to form a calculation from account books, &c., but I could hear of none being kept. I remember that a lady’s shoemaker told me that the weekly rents of the ten rooms in the house in which he lived were 4s. 3d. higher than before the income tax, which “came to the same thing as an extra penny on over 50 loaves a week.” It is certain that the great tax-payers of London are the labouring classes.
I have endeavoured to ascertain the facts in connection with this complex subject in as calm and just a manner as possible, leaning neither to the Protectionist nor the Free-Trade side of the question, and I must again in honesty acknowledge, that to the constant hands among the scavagers and dustmen of the metropolis, the repeal of the Corn Laws appears to have been an unquestionable benefit.
I shall conclude this exposition of the condition and earnings of the working scavagers employed by the more honourable masters, with an account of the average income and expenditure of the better-paid hands (regular and casual, as well as single and married), and first, of the unmarried regular hand.
The following is an estimate of the income and expenditure of an unmarried operative scavager regularly employed, working for a large contractor:—
| WEEKLY INCOME. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| Constant Wages. | Rent | 0 | 2 | 0 | |||
| Nominal weekly wages | 0 | 16 | 0 | Washing and mending | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Perquisites | 0 | 2 | 0 | Clothes, and repairing ditto | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Actual weekly wages | 0 | 18 | 0 | Butcher’s meat | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| Bacon | 0 | 0 | 8 | ||||
| Vegetables | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Cheese | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Beer | 0 | 3 | 0 | ||||
| Spirits | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||||
| Tobacco | 0 | 0 | 10½ | ||||
| Butter | 0 | 0 | 7½ | ||||
| Sugar | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Tea | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Coffee | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Fish | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Soap | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||
| Shaving | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| Fruit | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Keep of 2 dogs | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||||
| Amusements, as skittles, &c. | 0 | 1 | 9 | ||||
| 0 | 18 | 0 | |||||
The subjoined represents the income of an unmarried operative scavager casually employed by a small master scavager six months during the year, at 15s. a week, and 20 weeks at sand and rubbish carting, at 12s. a week.
| Casual Wages. | £ | s. | d. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominal weekly wages at scavaging, 16s. for 26 weeks during the year | 20 | 16 | 0 |
| Perquisites, 2s. for 26 weeks during the year | 2 | 12 | 0 |
| Actual weekly wages for 26 weeks during the year | 0 | 16 | 0 |
| Nominal and actual weekly wages at rubbish carting, 12s. for 20 weeks more during the year | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Average casual or constant weekly wages throughout the year | 0 | 15 | 4½ |
The expenditure of this man when in work was nearly the same as that of the regular hand; the main exceptions being that his rent was 1s. instead of 2s., and no dogs were kept. When in work he saved nothing, and when out of work lived as he could.
The married scavagers are differently circumstanced from the unmarried; their earnings are generally increased by those of their family.
The labour of the wives and children of the scavagers is not unfrequently in the capacity of sifters in the dust-yards, where the wives of the men employed by the contractors have the preference, and in other but somewhat rude capacities. One of their wives I heard of as a dresser of sheep’s trotters; two as being among the most skilful dressers of tripe for a large shop; one as “a cat’s-meat seller” (her father’s calling); but I still speak of the regular scavagers—I could not meet with one woman “working a slop-needle.” One, indeed, I saw who was described to me as a “feather dresser to an out-and-out negur,” but the woman assured me she was neither badly paid nor badly off. Perhaps by such labour, as an average on the part of the wives, 9d. a day is cleared, and 1s. “on tripe and such like.” Among the “casual’s” wives there are frequent instances of the working for slop shirt-makers, &c., upon the coarser sorts of work, and at “starvation wages,” but on such matters I have often dwelt. I heard from some of these men that it was looked upon as a great thing if the wife’s labour could clear the week’s rent of 1s. 6d. to 2s.
The following may be taken as an estimate of the income and outlay of a better paid and fully employed operative scavager, with his wife and two children:—
| WEEKLY INCOME OF THE FAMILY. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF THE FAMILY. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| Nominal weekly wages of man, 16s. | Rent | 0 | 3 | 0 | |||
| Perquisites, 2s. | Candle | 0 | 0 | 3½ | |||
| Actual weekly wages of man | 0 | 18 | 0 | Bread | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Nominal weekly wages of wife, 6s. | Butter | 0 | 0 | 10 | |||
| Perquisites in coal and wood, 1s. 4d. | Sugar | 0 | 0 | 8 | |||
| Actual weekly wages of wife. | 0 | 7 | 4 | Tea | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Nominal weekly wages of boy. | 0 | 3 | 0 | Coffee | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| 1 | 8 | 4 | Butcher’s meat | 0 | 3 | 6 | |
| Bacon | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Potatoes | 0 | 0 | 10 | ||||
| Raw fish | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Herrings | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Beer (at home) | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||||
| „ (at work) | 0 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| Spirits | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||||
| Cheese | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||||
| Flour | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Suet | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Fruit | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Rice | 0 | 0 | 0½ | ||||
| Soap | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||||
| Starch | 0 | 0 | 0½ | ||||
| Soda and blue | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| Dubbing | 0 | 0 | 0½ | ||||
| Clothes for the whole family, and repairing ditto | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||||
| Boots and shoes for ditto, ditto | 0 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| Milk | 0 | 0 | 7 | ||||
| Salt, pepper, and mustard | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| Tobacco | 0 | 0 | 9 | ||||
| Wear and tear of bedding, crocks, &c. | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Schooling for girl | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Baking Sunday’s dinner | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||
| Mangling | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Amusements and sundries | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||||
| 1 | 7 | 6 | |||||
The subjoined, on the other hand, gives the income and outlay of a casually employed operative scavager (better paid) with his wife and two boys in constant work:—
Of the Worse Paid Scavagers, or those working for Scurf[18] Employers.
There are in the scavagers’ trade the same distinct classes of employers as appertain to all other trades; these consist of:—
- 1. The large capitalists.
- 2. The small capitalists.
As a rule (with some few honourable and dishonourable exceptions, it is true) I find that the large capitalists in the several trades are generally the employers who pay the higher wages, and the small men those who pay the lower. The reasons for this conduct are almost obvious. The power of the capital of the “large master” must be contended against by the small one; and the usual mode of contention in all trades is by reducing the wages of the working men. The wealthy master has, of course, many advantages over the poor one. (1) He can pay ready money, and obtain discounts for immediate payment. (2) He can buy in large quantities, and so get his stock cheaper. (3) He can purchase what he wants in the best markets, and that directly of the producer, without the intervention and profit of the middleman. (4) He can buy at the best times and seasons; and “lay in” what he requires for the purposes of his trade long before it is needed, provided he can obtain it “a bargain.” (5) He can avail himself of the best tools and mechanical contrivances for increasing the productiveness or “economizing the labour” of his workmen. (6) He can build and arrange his places of work upon the most approved plan and in the best situations for the manufacture and distribution of the commodities. (7) He can employ the highest talent for the management or design of the work on which he is engaged. (8) He can institute a more effective system for the surveillance and checking of his workmen. (9) He can employ a large number of hands, and so reduce the secondary expenses (of firing, lighting, &c.) attendant upon the work, as well as the number of superintendents and others engaged to “look after” the operatives. (10) He can resort to extensive means of making his trade known. (11) He can sell cheaper (even if his cost of production be the same), from employing a larger capital, and being able to “do with” a less rate of profit. (12) He can afford to give credit, and so obtain customers that he might otherwise lose.
The small capitalist, therefore, enters the field of competition by no means equally matched against his more wealthy rival. What the little master wants in “substance,” however, he generally endeavours to make up in cunning. If he cannot buy his materials as cheap as a trader of larger means, he uses an inferior or cheaper article, and seeks by some trick or other to palm it off as equal to the superior and dearer kind. If the tools and appliances of the trade are expensive, he either transfers the cost of providing them to the workmen, or else he charges them a rent for their use; and so with the places of work, he mulcts their wages of a certain sum per week for the gas by which they labour, or he makes them do their work at home, and thus saves the expense of a workshop; and, lastly, he pays his men either a less sum than usual for the same quantity of labour, or exacts a greater quantity from them for the same sum of money. By one or other of these means does the man of limited capital seek to counterbalance the advantages which his more wealthy rival obtains by the possession of extensive “resources.” The large employer is enabled to work cheaper by the sheer force of his larger capital. He reduces the cost of production, not by employing a cheaper labour, but by “economizing the labour” that he does employ. The small employer, on the other hand, seeks to keep pace with his larger rival, and strives to work cheap, not by “the economy of labour” (for this is hardly possible in the small way of production), but by reducing the wages of his labourers. Hence the rule in almost every trade is that the smaller capitalists pay a lower rate of wages. To this, however, there are many honourable exceptions among the small masters, and many as dishonourable among the larger ones in different trades. Messrs. Moses, Nicoll, and Hyams, for instance, are men who certainly cannot plead deficiency of means as an excuse for reducing the ordinary rate of wages among the tailors.
Those employers who seek to reduce the prices of a trade are known technologically as “cutting employers,” in contradistinction to the standard employers, or those who pay their workpeople and sell their goods at the ordinary rates.
Of “cutting employers” there are several kinds, differently designated, according to the different means by which they gain their ends. These are:—
1. “Drivers,” or those who compel the men in their employ to do more work for the same wages; of this kind there are two distinct varieties:—
a. The long-hour masters, or those who make the men work longer than the usual hours of labour.
b. The strapping masters, or those who make the men (by extra supervision) “strap” to their work, so as to do a greater quantity of labour in the usual time.
2. Grinders, or those who compel the workmen (through their necessities) to do the same amount of work for less than the ordinary wages.
The reduction of wages thus brought about may or may not be attended with a corresponding reduction in the price of the goods to the public; if the price of the goods be reduced in proportion to the reduction of wages, the consumer, of course, is benefited at the expense of the producer. When it is not followed by a like diminution in the selling price of the article, and the wages of which the men are mulct go to increase the profits of the capitalist, the employer alone is benefited, and is then known as a “grasper.”
Some cutting tradesmen, however, endeavour to undersell their more wealthy rivals, by reducing the ordinary rate of profit, and extending their business on the principle of small profits and quick returns, the “nimble ninepence” being considered “better than the slow shilling.” Such traders, of course, cannot be said to reduce wages directly—indirectly, however, they have the same effect, for in reducing prices, other traders, ever ready to compete with them, but, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to accept less than the ordinary rate of profit, seek to attain the same cheapness by diminishing the cost of production, and for this end the labourers’ wages are almost invariably reduced.
Such are the characteristics of the cheap employers in all trades. Let me now proceed to point out the peculiarities of what are called the scurf employers in the scavaging trade.
The insidious practices of capitalists in other callings, in reducing the hire of labour, are not unknown to the scavagers. The evils of which these workmen have to complain under scurf or slop masters are:—
1. Driving, or being compelled to do more work for the same pay.
2. Grinding, or being compelled to do the same or a greater amount of work for less pay.
1. Under the first head, if the employment be at all regular, I heard few complaints, for the men seemed to have learned to look upon it as an inevitable thing, that one way or other they must submit, by the receipt of a reduced wage, or the exercise of a greater toil, to a deterioration in their means.
The system of driving, or, in other words, the means by which extra work is got out of the men for the same remuneration, in the scavagers’ trade is as follows:—some employers cause their scavagers after their day’s work in the streets, to load the barges with the street and house-collected manure, without any additional payment; whereas, among the more liberal employers, there are bargemen who are employed to attend to this department of the trade, and if their street scavagers are so employed, which is not very often, it is computed as extra work or “over hours,” and paid for accordingly. This same indirect mode of reducing wages (by getting more work done for the same pay) is seen in many piece-work callings. The slop boot and shoe makers pay the same price as they did six or seven years ago, but they have “knocked off the extras,” as the additional allowance for greater than the ordinary height of heel, and the like. So the slop Mayor of Manchester, Sir Elkanah Armitage, within the last year or two, sought to obtain from his men a greater length of “cut” to each piece of woven for the same wages.
Some master scavagers or contractors, moreover, reduce wages by making their men do what is considered the work of “a man and a half” in a week, without the recompense due for the labour of the “half” man’s work; in other words, they require the men to condense eight or nine days’ labour into six, and to be paid for the six days only; this again is usual in the strapping shops of the carpenters’ trade.
Thus the class of street-sweepers do not differ materially in the circumstances of their position from other bodies of workers skilled and unskilled.
Let me, however, give a practical illustration of the loss accruing to the working scavagers by the driving method of reducing wages.
A is a large contractor and a driver. He employs 16 men, and pays them the “regular wages” of the honourable trade; but, instead of limiting the hours of labour to 12, as is usual among the better class of employers, he compels each of his men to work at the least 16 hours per diem, which is one-third more, and for which the men should receive one-third more wages. Let us see, therefore, how much the men in his employ lose annually by these means.
| Sum received per Annum. | Sum they should receive. | Difference. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | £ | s. | £ | s. | |
| 4 Gangers, at 18s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 140 | 8 | 210 | 12 | 70 | 4 |
| 12 Sweepers, at 16s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 374 | 8 | 499 | 4 | 124 | 16 |
| Total wages per Ann. | 514 | 16 | 709 | 16 | 195 | 0 |
Here, then, we find the annual loss to these men through the system of “driving” to be 195l. per annum.
But A is not the only driver in the scavagers’ trade; out of the 19 masters having contracts for scavaging, as cited in the table given at pp. [213, 214], there are 4 who are regular drivers; and, making the same calculation as above, we have the following results:—
| Sum received per Annum. | Sum they should receive. | Difference. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | £ | s. | £ | s. | |
| 26 Gangers, at 18s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 912 | 12 | 1216 | 16 | 304 | 4 |
| 80 Sweepers, at 16s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 2496 | 0 | 3328 | 0 | 832 | 0 |
| 3308 | 12 | 4544 | 16 | 1136 | 4 | |
Thus we find that the gross sum of which the men employed by these drivers are deprived, is no less than 1136l. per annum.
2. The second or indirect mode of reducing the wages of the men in the scavaging trade is by Grinding; that is to say, by making the men do the same amount of work for less pay. It requires nothing but a practical illustration to render the injury of this particular mode of reduction apparent to the public.
B is a master scavager (a small contractor, though the instances are not confined to this class), and a “Grinder.” He pays 1s. a week less than the “regular wages” of the honourable trade. He employs six men; hence the amount that the workmen in his pay are mulct of every year is as follows:—
| Sum received per Annum. | Sum they should receive. | Difference. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | £ | s. | £ | s. | |
| 6 men, at 15s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 175 | 10 | 187 | 4 | 11 | 14 |
Here the loss to the men is 11l. 14s. per annum, and there is but one such grinder among the 19 master scavagers who have contracts at present.
3. The third and last method of reducing the earnings of the men as above enumerated, is by a combination of both the systems before explained, viz., by grinding and driving united, that is to say, by not only paying the men a smaller wage than the more honourable masters, but by compelling them to work longer hours as well. Let me cite another illustration from the trade.
C is a large contractor, and both a grinder and driver. He employs 28 men, and not only pays them less wages, but makes them work longer hours than the better class of employers. The men in his pay, therefore, are annually mulct of the following sums.
| SUMS THE MEN RECEIVE. | SUMS THEY SHOULD RECEIVE. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| 7 Gangers, at 16s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 218 | 8 | 0 | 7 Gangers, at 18s. a week, for 9 months in the year | 245 | 14 | 0 |
| 21 Sweepers, at 15s. a week | 614 | 5 | 0 | Over work, 4 hours per day | 61 | 8 | 6 |
| 832 | 13 | 0 | 21 Sweepers, at 16s. a week, 12 hours a day | 655 | 4 | 0 | |
| Over work, 4 hours a day | 163 | 6 | 0 | ||||
| 1125 | 12 | 6 | |||||
Here the annual loss to the men employed by this one master is 292l. 19s. 6d.
Among the 19 master scavagers there are altogether 7 employers who are both grinders and drivers. These employ among them no less than 111 hands; hence, the gross amount of which their workmen are yearly defrau—no, let me adhere to the principles of political economy, and say deprived—is as under:—
| SUM THE MEN ANNUALLY RECEIVE. | SUM THEY SHOULD ANNUALLY RECEIVE. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| 28 Gangers, at 16s. a week, employed for 9 months in the year | 873 | 12 | 0 | 28 Gangers, at 18s. a week (12 hours a day), for 9 months in the year | 982 | 16 | 0 |
| 83 Sweepers, at 15s. a week, employed for 9 months in the year | 2427 | 15 | 0 | Over work, 4 hours per day | 245 | 14 | 0 |
| 3301 | 7 | 0 | 83 Sweepers, at 16s. a week, 12 hours a day | 2589 | 12 | 0 | |
| Over work, 4 hours per day | 647 | 8 | 0 | ||||
| 4465 | 10 | 0 | |||||
Here we perceive the gross loss to the operatives from the system of combined grinding and driving to be no less than 1164l. 3s. per annum.
Now let us see what is the aggregate loss to the working men from the several modes of reducing their wages as above detailed.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Loss to the working scavagers by the “driving” of employers | 1136 | 4 | 0 |
| Ditto by the “grinding” | 11 | 14 | 0 |
| Ditto by the “grinding and driving” of employers | 1164 | 3 | 0 |
| Total loss to the working scavagers per annum | 2312 | 1 | 0 |
Now this is a large sum of money to be wrested annually out of the workmen—that it is so wrested is demonstrated by the fact cited at p. [174] in connection with the dust trade.
The wages of the dustmen employed by the large contractors, it is there stated, have been increased within the last seven years from 6d. to 8d. per load. This increase in the rate of remuneration was owing to complaints made by the men to the Commissioners of Sewers, that they were not able to live on their earnings; an inquiry took place, and the result was that the Commissioners decided upon letting the contracts only to such parties as would undertake to pay a fair price to their workmen. The contractors accordingly increased the remuneration of the labourers as mentioned.
Now political economy would tell us that the Commissioners interfered with wages in a most reprehensible manner—preventing the natural operation of the law of Supply and Demand; but both justice and benevolence assure us that the Commissioners did perfectly right. The masters in the dust trade were forced to make good to the men what they had previously taken from them, and the same should be done in the scavaging trade—the contracts should be let only to these masters who will undertake to pay the regular rate of wages, and employ their men only the regular hours; for by such means, and by such means alone, can justice be done to the operatives.
This brings me to the cause of the reduction of wages in the scavaging trade. The scurf trade, I am informed, has been carried on among the master scavagers upwards of 20 years, and arose partly from the contractors having to pay the parishes for the house-dust and street-sweepings, brieze and street manure at that period often selling for 30s. the chaldron or load. The demand for this kind of manure 20 years ago was so great, that there was a competition carried on among the contractors themselves, each out-bidding the other, so as to obtain the right of collecting it; and in order not to lose anything by the large sums which they were induced to bid for the contracts, the employers began gradually to “grind down” their men from 17s. 6d. (the sum paid 20 years back) to 17s. a week, and eventually to 15s., and even 12s. weekly. This is a curious and instructive fact, as showing that even an increase of prices will, under the contract system, induce a reduction of wages. The greed of traders becomes, it appears, from the very height of the prices, proportionally intensified, and from the desire of each to reap the benefit, they are led to outbid one another to such an extent, and to offer such large premiums for the right of appropriation, as to necessitate a reduction of every possible expense in order to make any profit at all upon the transaction. Owing, moreover, to the surplus labour in the trade, the contractors were enabled to offer any premiums and reduce wages as they pleased; for the casually-employed men, when the wet season was over, and their services no longer required, were continually calling upon the contractors, and offering their services at 2s. and 3s. less per week than the regular hands were receiving. The consequence was, that five or six of the master scavagers began to reduce the wages of their labourers, and since that time the number has been gradually increasing, until now there are no less than 21 scurf masters (8 of whom have no contracts) out of the 34 contractors; so that nearly three-fifths of the entire trade belong to the grinding class. Within the last seven or eight years, however, there has been an increase of wages in connection with the city operative scavagers. This was owing mainly to the operatives complaining to the Commissioners that they could not live upon the wages they were then receiving—12s. and 14s. a week. The circumstances inducing the change, I am informed, were as follows:—one of the gangers asked a tradesman in the city to give the street-sweepers “something for beer,” whereupon the tradesman inquired if the men could not find beer out of their wages, and on being assured that they were receiving only 12s. a week, he had the matter brought before the Board. The result was, that the wages of the operatives were increased from 12s. to 15s. and 16s. weekly, since which time there has been neither an increase nor a decrease in their pay. The cheapness of provisions seems to have caused no reduction with them.
Now there are but two “efficient causes” to account for the reduction of wages among the scurf employers in the scavagers’ trade:—(1) The employers may diminish the pay of their men from a disposition to “grind” out of them an inordinate rate of profit. (2) The price paid for the work may be so reduced that, consistent with the ordinary rate of profit on capital, and remuneration for superintendence, greater wages cannot be paid. If the first be the fact, then the employers are to blame, and the parishes should follow the example of the Commissioners of Sewers, and let the work to those contractors only who will undertake to pay the “regular wages” of the honourable trade; but if the latter be the case, as I strongly suspect it is, though some of the masters seem to be more “grasping” than the rest—but in the paucity of returns on this matter, it is difficult to state positively whether the price paid for the labour of the working scavager is in all the parishes proportional to the price paid to the employers for the work (a most important fact to be solved)—if, however, I repeat, the decrease of the wages be mainly due to the decrease in the sums given for the performance of the contract, then the parishes are to blame for seeking to get their work done at the expense of the working men.
The contract system of work, I find, necessarily tends to this diminution of the men’s earnings in a trade. Offer a certain quantity of work to the lowest bidder, and the competition will assuredly be maintained at the operative’s expense. It is idle to expect that, as a general rule, traders will take less than the ordinary rate of profit. Hence, he who underbids will usually be found to underpay. This, indeed, is almost a necessity of the system, and one which the parochial functionaries more than all others should be guarded against—seeing that a decrease of the operative’s wages can but be attended with an increase of the very paupers, and consequently of the parochial expenses, which they are striving to reduce.
A labourer, in order to be self-supporting and avoid becoming a “burden” on the parish, requires something more than bare subsistence-money in remuneration for his labour, and yet this is generally the mode by which we test the sufficiency of wages. “A man can live very comfortably upon that!” is the exclamation of those who have seldom thought upon what constitutes the minimum of self-support in this country. A man’s wages, to prevent pauperism, should include, besides present subsistence, what Dr. Chalmers has called “his secondaries;” viz., a sufficiency to pay for his maintenance: 1st, during the slack season; 2nd, when out of employment; 3rd, when ill; 4th, when old[19]. If insufficient to do this, it is evident that the man at such times must seek parochial relief; and it is by the reduction of wages down to bare subsistence, that the cheap employers of the present day shift the burden of supporting their labourers when unemployed on to the parish; thus virtually perpetuating the allowance system or relief in aid of wages under the old Poor Law. Formerly the mode of hiring labourers was by the year, so that the employer was bound to maintain the men when unemployed. But now journey-work, or hiring by the day, prevails, and the labourers being paid—and that mere subsistence-money—only when wanted, are necessitated to become either paupers or thieves when their services are no longer required. It is, moreover, this change from yearly to daily hirings, and the consequent discarding of men when no longer required, that has partly caused the immense mass of surplus labourers, who are continually vagabondizing through the country begging or stealing as they go—men for whom there is but some two or three weeks’ work (harvesting, hop-picking, and the like) throughout the year.
That there is, however, a large system of jobbing pursued by the contractors for the house-dust and cleansing of the streets, there cannot be the least doubt. The minute I have cited at page [210] gives us a slight insight into the system of combination existing among the employers, and the extraordinary fluctuations in the prices obtained by the contractors would lead to the notion that the business was more a system of gambling than trade. The following returns have been procured by Mr. Cochrane within the last few days:—
| “Average yearly cost of cleansing the whole of the public ways within the City of London, including the removal of dust, ashes, &c., from the houses of the inhabitants, for eight years, terminating at Michaelmas in the year 1850 | £4,643 |
| Square yards of carriage-way, estimated at | 430,000 |
| Square yards of footway, estimated at | 300,000 |
A more specific and later return is as follows:—
| Received for Dust. | Paid for cleansing, &c. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| 1845 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2833 | 2 | 0 | Streets not cleansed daily. |
| 1846 | 1354 | 5 | 0 | 6034 | 6 | 0 | Streets cleansed daily. |
| 1847 | 4455 | 5 | 0 | 8014 | 2 | 0 | |
| 1848 | 1328 | 15 | 0 | 7226 | 1 | 6 | |
| 1849 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7486 | 11 | 6 | |
| 1850 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6779 | 16 | 0 | |
“From the above return,” says Mr. Cochrane, “it may be inferred that the annual sums paid for cleansing in each year of 1844 and 1843 did not exceed 2281l., as this would make up the eight years’ average calculation of 4643l.”
Since the streets have been cleansed daily, it will be seen that the average has been 7188l. The smallest amount, in 1846, was 6034l.; and the largest, in 1847, 8014l.; which was a sudden increase of 1980l.
Here, then, we perceive an immediate increase in the price paid for scavaging between 1846 and 1847 of nearly 33 per cent., and since the wages of the workmen were not proportionately increased in the latter year by the employers, it follows that the profits of the contractors must have been augmented to that enormous extent. The only effectual mode of preventing this system of jobbing being persevered in, at the expense of the workmen, is by the insertion of a clause in each parish contract similar to that introduced by the Commissioners of Sewers—that at least a fair living rate of wages shall be paid by each contractor to the men employed by him. This may be an interference with the freedom of labour, according to the economists’ “cant” language, but at least it is a restriction of the tyranny of capital, for free labour means, when literally translated, the unrestricted use of capital, which is (especially when the moral standard of trade is not of the highest character) perhaps the greatest evil with which a State can be afflicted.
Let me now speak of the Scurf labourers. The moral and social characteristics of the working scavagers who labour for a lower rate of hire do not materially differ from those of the better paid and more regularly employed body, unless, perhaps, in this respect, that there are among them a greater proportion of the “casuals,” or of men reared to the pursuit of other callings, and driven by want, misfortune, or misconduct, to “sweep the streets;” and not only that, but to regard the “leave to toil” in such a capacity a boon. These constitute, as it were, the cheap labourers of this trade.
Among the parties concerned in the lower-priced scavaging, are the usual criminations. The parish authorities will not put up any longer with the extortions of the contractors. The contractors cannot put up any longer with the stinginess of the parishes. The working scavagers, upon whose shoulders the burthen falls the heaviest—as it does in all depreciated tradings—grumble at both. I cannot aver, however, that I found among the men that bitter hatred of their masters which I found actuating the mass of operative tailors, shoemakers, dressmakers, &c., toward the slop capitalists who employed them.
I have pointed out in what the “scurf” treatment of the labourers was chiefly manifested—in extra work for inferior pay; in doing eight or nine days’ work in six; and in being paid for only six days’ labour, and not always at the ordinary rate even for the lighter toil—not 2s. 8d., but 2s. 6d. or even 2s. 4d. a day. To the wealthy, this 2d. or 4d. a day may seem but a trifling matter, but I heard a working scavager (formerly a house-painter) put it in a strong light: “that 3d. or 4d. a day, sir, is a poor family’s rent.” The rent, I may observe, as a result of my inquiries among the more decent classes of labourers, is often the primary consideration: “You see, sir, we must have a roof over our heads.”
A scavager, working for a scurf master, gave me the following account. He was a middle-aged man, decently dressed, for when I saw him, he was in his “Sunday clothes,” and was quiet in his tones, even when he spoke bitterly.
“My father,” he said, “was once in business as a butcher, but he failed, and was afterwards a journeyman butcher, but very much respected, I know, and I used to job and help him. O dear, yes! I can read and write, but I have very seldom to write, only I think one never forgets it, it’s like learning to swim, that way; and I read sometimes at coffee-shops. My father died rather sudden, and me and a brother had to look out. My brother was older than me, he was 20 or 21 then, and he went for a soldier, I believe to some of the Ingees, but I’ve never heard of him since. I got a place in a knacker’s yard, but I didn’t like it at all, it was so confining, and should have hooked it, only I left it honourable. I can’t call to mind how long that’s back, perhaps 16 or 18 years, but I know there was some stir at the time about having the streets and yards cleaner. A man called and had some talk with the governor, and says he, says the governor, says he, ‘if you want a handy lad with his besom, and he’s good for nothing else’—but that was his gammon—‘here’s your man;’ so I was engaged as a young sweeper at 10s. a week. I worked in Hackney, but I heard so much about railways, that I saved my money up to 10s., and popped [pledged] a suit of mourning I’d got after my father’s death for 22s., and got to York, both on foot and with lifts. I soon got work on a rail; there was great call for rails then, but I don’t know how long it’s since, and I was a navvy for six or seven years, or better. Then I came back to London. I don’t know just what made me come back, but I was restless, and I thought I could get work as easy in London as in the country, but I couldn’t. I brought 21 gold sovereigns with me to London, twisted in my fob for safeness, in a wash-leather bag. They didn’t last so long as they ought to. I didn’t care for drinking, only when I was in company, but I was a little too gay. One night I spent over 12s. in the St. Helena Gardens at Rotherhithe, and that sort of thing soon makes money show taper. I got some work with a rubbish carter, a regular scurf. I made only about 8s. a week under him, for he didn’t want me this half day or that whole day, and if I said anything, he told me I might go and be d——d, he could get plenty such, and I knew he could. I got on then with a gangsman I knew, at street-sweeping. I had 15s. a week, but not regular work, but when the work wer’n’t regular, I had 2s. 8d. a day. I then worked under another master for 14s. a week, and was often abused that I wasn’t better dressed, for though that there master paid low wages, he was vexed if his men didn’t look decent in the streets. I’ve heard that he said he paid the best of wages when asked about it. I had another job after that, at 15s., and then 16s. a week, with a contractor as had a wharf; but a black nigger slave was never slaved as I was. I’ve worked all night, when it’s been very moonlight, in loading a barge, and I’ve worked until three and four in the morning that way, and then me and another man slept an hour or two in a shed as joined his stables, and then must go at it again. Some of these masters is ignorant, and treats men like dirt, but this one was always civil, and made his people be civil. But, Lord, I hadn’t a rag left to my back. Everything was worn to bits in such hard work, and then I got the sack. I was on for Mr. —— next. He’s a jolly good ’un. I was only on for him temp’ry, but I was told it was for temp’ry when I went, so I can’t complain. I’m out of work this week, but I’ve had some jobs from a butcher, and I’m going to work again on Monday. I don’t know at what wages. The gangsmen said they’d see what I could do. It’ll be 15s., I expect, and over-work if it’s 16s.
“Yes, I like a pint of beer now and then, and one requires it, but I don’t get drunk. I dusted for a fortnight once while a man was ill, and got more beer and twopences give me than I do in a year now; aye, twice as much. My mate and me was always very civil, and people has said, ‘there’s a good fellow, just sweep together this bit of rubbish in the yard here, and off with it.’ That was beyond our duty, but we did it. I have very little night-work, only for one master; he’s a sweep as well. I get 2s. 6d. a job for it. Yes, there’s mostly something to drink, but you can’t demand nothing. Night-work’s nothing, sir; no more ain’t a knacker’s yard.
“I pay 2s. a week rent, but I’m washed for and found soap as well. My landlady takes in washing, and when her husband, for they’re an old couple, has the rheumatics, I make a trifle by carrying out the clothes on a barrow, and Mrs. Smith goes with them and sees to the delivery. I’ve my own furniture.
“Well, I don’t know what I spend in my living in a week. I have a bit of meat, or a saveloy or two, or a slice of bacon every day, mostly when I’m at work. I sometimes make my own meals ready in my room. No, I keep no accounts. There’d be very little use or pleasure in doing it when one has so little to count. When I’m past work, I suppose I must go to the workhouse. I sometimes wish I’d gone for a soldier when I was young enough. I shouldn’t have minded going abroad. I’d have liked it better than not, for I like to be about; yes, I like a change.
“I go to chapel every Sunday night, and have regularly since Mr. —— (the butcher) gave me this cast-off suit. I promised him I would when I got the togs.
“Things would be well enough with me if I’d constant work and fair pay. I don’t know what makes wages so low. I suppose it’s rich people trying to get all the money they can, and caring nothing for poor men’s rights, and poor men’s sometimes forced to undersell one another, ’cause half a loaf you know, sir, is better than no bread at all” (a proverb, by the way, which has wrought no little mischief).
In conclusion, I may remark, that although I was told, in the first instance, there was sub-letting in street sweeping, I could not hear of any facts to prove it. I was told, indeed, by a gentleman who took great interest in parochial matters, with a view to “reforms” in them, that such a thing was most improbable, for if a contractor sub-let any of his work it would soon become known, and as it would be evident that the work could be accomplished at a lower rate, the contractor would be in a worse position for his next contract.