Having finished with the different classes of coal-labourers in London—the whippers, backers, pull-backs, trimmers, and waggoners—I purpose now dealing with the ballast-men, including the ballast-getters, the ballast-lightermen, and the ballast-heavers of the metropolis. My reason for passing from the coal to the ballast-labourers is, because the latter class of the work-people are suffering under the same iniquitous and pernicious system of employment as that from which the coal-labourers have recently been emancipated, and the transition will serve to show not only the present condition of the one class of men, but the past state of the other.
After treating of the ballast-labourers, I purpose inquiring into the condition and income of the stevedores, or men engaged in the stowing or unstowing of vessels; and of the lumpers and riggers, or those engaged in the rigging and unrigging of them. It is then my intention to pass to the corn-labourers, such as the corn-porters, corn-runners, and turners, touching incidentally upon the corn-meters. After this, I mean to devote my attention to the timber-labourers engaged at the different timber-docks—as, for instance, the Commercial, the Grand Surrey, and the East Country Docks. Then, in due course, I shall come to the wharf-labourers and porters, or men engaged at the different wharfs in London; thence I shall digress to the bargemen and lightermen, or men engaged in the transit of the different cargoes from the ships to their several points of destination up or down the river; and finally, I shall treat of the watermen, the steamboat-men, and pier-men, or those engaged in the transit of passengers along the Thames. These, with the dock-labourers, of whom I have before treated, will, I believe, exhaust the subject of the long-shore labourers; and the whole will, I trust, form, when completed, such a body of facts and information, in connexion with this particular branch of labour, as has never before been collected. I am happy to say, that, with some few exceptions, I have received from the different official gentlemen not only every courtesy and consideration, but all the assistance and co-operation that it lay in their power to afford me. Every class seems to look upon the present inquiry as an important undertaking, and all, save the Clerk of the Coal Exchange and the Deputy-Superintendent of the London Docks, have shown themselves not only willing, but anxious, to lend a hand towards expediting the result.
Before quitting the subject of the coal-market, let me endeavour to arrive at an estimate as to the amount of wealth annually brought into the port of London by means of the colliers, and to set forth, as far as possible, the proportion in which it is distributed. I have already given some statistics, which, notwithstanding the objections of a coal-merchant, who, in a letter to a journal, stated that I had reckoned the number of ships at twice the real quantity, were obtained from such sources, and, I may add, with so much care and caution, as to render them the most accurate information capable of being procured at present on the subject. The statistics of the number of tons of coals brought into the port of London in the year 1848, the number of vessels employed, of the voyages made by those vessels collectively, and of the seamen engaged in the traffic, were furnished by the Clerk of the Coal Exchange at the time of the opening of the new building. Had the coal-merchant, therefore, made it his duty to devote the same time and care to the investigation of the truth of my statements that I have to the collection of them, he would not only have avoided committing the very errors he condemns, but would have displayed a more comprehensive knowledge of his business.
In 1848 there were imported into the London coal market 3,418,340 tons of coal. These were sold to the public at an average rate all the year round of 22s. 6d. a ton. Hence the sum expended in the metropolis for coal in that year was 3,845,632l. 10s.
| There are 21,600 seamen engaged in the coal trade, and getting on an average 3l. 10s. per man per voyage. Each of these men makes between 4 and 5 voyages in the course of the year. Hence the average earnings of each man per year will be 15l. 18s., exclusive of his keep; calculating that at 5s. per week, or 13l. per year, we have 28l. 18s. for the expense of each of the seamen employed. Hence, as there are 21,600 sailors in the coal trade, the total yearly cost would be | £624,240 0 0 |
| There are 170 coal-meters, earning, on an average, 2l. per week, or 104l. per year each man. This would make the total sum paid in the year to the coal-meters | 17,680 0 0 |
| There are 2000 coal-whippers, earning 15s. 1½d. each per week, or 39l. 6s. 6d. per man. Hence the total sum paid in the course of last year to the coal-whippers was | 78,650 0 0 |
| There are 3000 coal-porters earning, on an average, 1l. per week, or 52l. per year per man, so that they receive annually | 156,000 0 0 |
| Hence the total amount paid per year to the working-men engaged in bringing and delivering coals in the London market is | £876,570 0 0 |
The area of all the coal-fields of Great Britain has been roughly estimated at 9000 square miles. The produce is supposed to be about 32,000,000 tons annually, of which 10,000,000 tons are consumed in the iron-works, 8,500,000 tons are shipped coastwise, 2,500,000 tons are exported to foreign countries, and 11,000,000 tons distributed inland for miscellaneous purposes. Near upon 4,000,000 tons were brought to London by ships and otherwise in the year 1848, and it is computed that about one-eighth part of this, or 500,000 tons, were consumed by the gas-works.
The price of coals as quoted in the London market is the price up to the time when the coals are whipped from the ships to the merchants’ barges. It includes, 1st. the value of the coals; 2d. the expense of transit from the pit to the ship; 3d. the freight of the ship to London; 4th. the Thames’ dues; and 5th. the whipping. The difference between the market price and that paid by the consumer is made up of the expense incurred by the coal-merchant for barges, wharfs, waggons, horses, wages, coal-porters, &c., to his profit and risk. In 1836 the expenses incurred by the merchant from the time he bought a ship-load of coals to the deposition of them in the cellars of his customers amounted, on an average, it was said, to 7s. a ton. These expenses comprise commission, lighterage, porterage, cartage, shooting, metage, market-dues, land-metage, and other items. At the present time the expenses must be considerably lower, the wages of the labourers and the meters having been lowered full 50 per cent, though the demand for and consumption of coal has increased at nearly the same rate; indeed the law of the coal-market appears to be, that in proportion as the demand for the article rises, so do the wages of the men engaged in the supply of it fall.
As the ballast-heavers are under the thraldom of the same demoralising and oppressive system as that which the coal-whippers recently suffered under, it may be as well, before going further, to lay before the reader the following concise account of the terms on which the latter were engaged before the Coal-whippers’ Office was established.
Until the last few years the coal-whippers suffered themselves to be duped in an extraordinary way by publicans and petty shopkeepers on shore. The custom was, for the captain of a coal-ship, when he required a cargo to be whipped, to apply to one of these publicans for a gang; and a gang was accordingly sent from the public-house. There was no professed or pre-arranged deduction from the price paid for the work; the captain paid the publican, and the publican paid the coal-whippers; but the middleman had his profit another way. The coal-whipper was expected to come to the public-house in the morning; to drink while waiting for work, to take drink with him to the ship, to drink again when the day’s work was over, and to linger about and in the public-house until almost bed-time before his day’s wages were paid. The consequence was, that an enormous ratio of his earnings went every week to the publican. The publicans were wont to divide their dependants into two classes—the constant men and the stragglers, of whom the former were first served whenever a cargo was to be whipped; in return for this they were expected to spend almost the whole of their spare time in the public-house, and even to take up their lodgings there.
The captains preferred applying to the publicans to engaging the men themselves, because it saved them trouble; and because (as was pretty well understood) the publicans curried favour with them by indirect means; grocers and small shopkeepers did the same, and the coal-whippers had then to buy bad and dear groceries instead of bad and dear beer and gin. The Legislature tried by various means to protect the coal-whippers, but the publicans contrived means to evade the law. At length, in 1843, an Act was passed, which has placed the coal-whippers in a far more advantageous position.