The city poor are a wandering tribe. The lack of fixed local habitation is an evil common to all classes of city dwellers. But among the lower working-classes "flitting" is a chronic condition. The School Board visitor's book showed that in a representative district of Bethnal Green, out of 1204 families, no less than 530 had removed within a twelvemonth, although such an account would not include the lowest and most "shifty" class of all. Between November 1885 and July 1886 it was found that 20 per cent. of the London electorate had changed residence. To what extent the uncertain conditions of employment impose upon the poor this changing habitation cannot be yet determined; but the absence of the educative influence of a fixed abode is one of the most demoralizing influences in the life of the poor. The reversion to a nomad condition is a retrograde step in civilization the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated. When we bear in mind that these houses are also the workshop of large numbers of the poor, and know how the work done in the crowded, tainted air of these dens brings as an inevitable portion of its wage, physical feebleness, disease, and an early death, we recognize the paramount importance of that aspect of the problem of poverty which is termed "The Housing of the Poor."
So much for the quality of the shelter for which the poor pay high prices. Turn to their food. In the poorest parts of London it is scarcely possible for the poor to buy pure food. Unfortunately the prime necessaries of life are the very things which lend themselves most easily to successful adulteration. Bread, sugar, tea, oil are notorious subjects of deception. Butter, in spite of the Margarine Act, it is believed, the poor can seldom get. But the systematic poisoning of alcoholic liquors permitted under a licensing System is the most flagrant example of the evil. There is some evidence to show that the poorer class of workmen do not consume a very large quantity of strong drink. But the vile character of the liquor sold to them acts on an ill-fed, unwholesome body as a poisonous irritant. We are told that "the East End dram-drinker has developed a new taste; it is for fusil-oil. It has even been said that ripe old whisky ten years old, drank in equal quantities, would probably import a tone of sobriety to the densely-populated quarters of East London."[[9]]
§ 6. Irregularity of work.--One more aspect of city poverty demands a word. Low wages are responsible in large measure for the evils with which we have dealt. In the life of the lower grades of labour there is a worse thing than low wages--that is irregular employment. The causes of such irregularity, partly inherent in the nature of the work, partly the results of trade fluctuations, will appear later. In gauging poverty we are only concerned with the fact. This irregularity of work is not in its first aspect so much a deficiency of work, but rather a maladjustment While on the one hand we see large classes of workers who are habitually overworked, men and women, tailors or shirt-makers in Whitechapel, 'bus men, shop-assistants, even railway-servants, toiling twelve, fourteen, fifteen, or even in some cases eighteen hours a day, we see at the same time and in the same place numbers of men and women seeking work and finding none. Thus are linked together the twin maladies of over-work and the unemployed. It is possible that among the comfortable classes there are still to be found those who believe that the unemployed consist only of the wilfully idle and worthless residuum parading a false grievance to secure sympathy and pecuniary aid, and who hold that if a man really wants to work he can always do so. This idle theory is contradicted by abundant facts. The official figures published by the Board of Trade gives the average percentage of unemployed in the Trade Unions of the skilled trades as follows. To the general average we have appended for comparison the average for the shipbuilding and boiler-making trades, so as to illustrate the violence of the oscillations in a fluctuating trade:--
| General per cent. | Ship-building, etc. | |
|---|---|---|
| 1884 | 7.15 | 20.8 |
| 1885 | 8.55 | 22.2 |
| 1886 | 9.55 | 21.6 |
| 1887 | 7.15 | 16.7 |
| 1888 | 4.15 | 7.3 |
| 1889 | 2.05 | 2.0 |
| 1890 | 2.10 | 3.4 |
| 1891 | 3.40 | 5.7 |
| 1892 | 6.20 | 10.9 |
| 1893 | 7.70 | 17.0 |
| 1894 | 7.70 | 16.2 |
| 1895 | 6.05 | 13.0 |
| 1896 | 3.50 | 9.5 |
| 1897 | 3.65 | 8.6 |
| 1898 | 3.15 | 4.7 |
| 1899 | 2.40 | 2.1 |
| 1900 | 2.85 | 2.3 |
| 1901 | 3.80 | 3.6 |
| 1902 | 4.60 | 8.3 |
| 1903 | 5.30 | 11.7 |
These figures make it quite evident that the permanent causes of irregular employment, e.g., weather in the building and riverside trades, season in the dressmaking and confectionery trades, and the other factors of leakage and displacement which throw out of work from time to time numbers of workers, are, taken in the aggregate, responsible only for a small proportion of the unemployment in the staple trades of the country.
The significance of such figures as these can scarcely be over-estimated. Although it might fairly be urged that the lowest dip in trade depression truly represented the injury inflicted on the labouring-classes by trade fluctuations, we will omit the year 1886, and take 1887 as a representative period of ordinary trade depression. The figures quoted above are supported by Trade Union statistics, which show that in that year among the strongest Trade Unions in the country, consisting of the picked men in each trade, no less than 71 in every 1000, or over 7 per cent., were continuously out of work. That this was due to their inability to get work, and not to their unwillingness to do it, is placed beyond doubt by the fact that they were, during this period of enforced idleness, supported by allowances paid by their comrades. Indeed, the fact that in 1890 the mass of unemployed was almost absorbed, disposes once for all of the allegation that the unemployed in times of depression consist of idlers who do not choose to work. Turning to the year 1887, there is every reason to believe that where 7 per cent, are unemployed in the picked, skilled industries of a country, where the normal supply of labour is actually limited by Union regulations, the proportion in unskilled or less organized industries is much larger. It is probable that 12 per cent, is not an excessive figure to take as the representative of the average proportion of unemployed. In the recent official returns of wages in textile industries, it is admitted that 10 per cent, should be taken off from the nominal wages for irregularity of employment. Moreover, it is true (with certain exceptions) that the lower you go down in the ranks of labour and of wages, the more irregular is the employment. To the pressure of this evil among the very poor in East London notice has already been drawn. We have seen how Mr. Booth finds one whole stratum of 100,000 people, who from an industrial point of view are worse than worthless. We have no reason to conclude that East London is much worse in this respect than other centres of population, and the irregularity of country employment is increasing every year. Are we to conclude then that of the thirteen millions composing the "working-classes" in this country, nearly two millions are liable at any time to figure as waste or surplus labour? It looks like it. We are told that the movements of modern industry necessitate the existence of a considerable margin supply of labour. The figures quoted above bear out this statement. But a knowledge of the cause does not make the fact more tolerable. We are not at present concerned with the requirements of the industrial machine, but with the quantity of hopeless, helpless misery these requirements indicate. The fact that under existing conditions the unemployed seem inevitable should afford the strongest motive for a change in these conditions. Modern life has no more tragical figure than the gaunt, hungry labourer wandering about the crowded centres of industry and wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that industry, and to contribute to that wealth; asking in return not the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, but the rough food and shelter for himself and family, which would be practically secured to him in the rudest form of savage society.
Occasionally one of these sensational stories breaks into the light of day, through the public press, and shocks society at large, until it relapses into the consoling thought that such cases are exceptional. But those acquainted closely with the condition of our great cities know that there are thousands of such silent tragedies being played around us. In England the recorded deaths from starvation are vastly more numerous than in any other country. In 1880 the number for England is given as 101. In 1902 the number for London alone is 34. This is, of course, no adequate measure of the facts. For every recorded case there will be a hundred unrecorded cases where starvation is the practical immediate cause of death. The death-rate of children in the poorer districts of London is found to be nearly three times that which obtains among the richer neighbourhoods. Contemporary history has no darker page than that which records not the death-rate of children, but the conditions of child-life in our great cities. In setting down such facts and figures as may assist readers to adequately realize the nature and extent of poverty, it has seemed best to deal exclusively with the material aspects of poverty, which admit of some exactitude of measurement. The ugly and degrading surroundings of a life of poverty, the brutalizing influences of the unceasing struggle for bare subsistence, the utter absence of reasonable hope of improvement; in short, the whole subjective side of poverty is not less terrible because it defies statistics.
§ 7. Figures and Facts of Pauperism.--Since destitution is the lowest form of poverty, it is right to append to this statement of the facts of poverty some account of pauperism. Although chiefly owing to a stricter and wiser administration of the Poor Law in relation to outdoor relief, the number of paupers has steadily and considerably decreased, both in proportion to the population and absolutely, the number of those unable to support themselves is still deplorably large. In 1881 no less than one in ten of the total recorded deaths took place in workhouses, public hospitals, and lunatic asylums. In London the proportion is much greater and has increased during recent years. In 1901 out of 78,229 deaths in London, 13,009 took place in workhouses, 10,643 in public hospitals, and 349 in public asylums, making a total of 24,001. Comparing these figures with the total number of deaths, we find that in the richest city of the world 32.5 per cent., or one in three of the inhabitants, dies dependent on public charity. This estimate does not include those in receipt of outdoor relief. Moreover, it is an estimate which includes all classes. The proportion, taking the working-classes alone, must be even higher.
Turning from pauper deaths to pauper lives, the condition of the poor, though improved, is far from satisfactory. The agricultural labourer in many parts of England still looks to the poorhouse as a natural and necessary asylum for old age. Even the diminution effected in outdoor relief is not evidence of a corresponding decrease in the pressure of want. The diminution is chiefly due to increased strictness in the application of the Poor Law, a policy which in a few cases such as Whitechapel, Stepney, St. George-in-the-East, has succeeded in the practical extermination of the outdoor pauper. This is doubtless a wise policy, but it supplies no evidence of decrease in poverty. It would be possible by increased strictness of conditions to annihilate outdoor pauperism throughout the country at a single blow, and to reduce the number of indoor paupers by making workhouse life unendurable. But such a course would obviously furnish no satisfactory evidence of the decline of poverty, or even of destitution. Moreover, in regarding the decline of pauperism, we must not forget to take into account the enormous recent growth of charitable institutions and funds which now perform more effectually and more humanely much of the relief work which formerly devolved upon the Poor Law. The income of charitable London institutions engaged in promoting the physical well-being of the people amounted in 1902-3 to about four and a half millions. The relief afforded by Friendly Societies and Trade Unions to sick and out-of-work members, furnishes a more satisfactory evidence of the growth of providence and independence among all but the lowest classes of workers.
The improvement exhibited in figures of pauperism is entirely confined to outdoor relief. The number of workers who, by reason of old age or other infirmity, are compelled to take refuge in the poorhouses, bears a larger proportion to the total population than it did a generation ago. In 1876-7 the mean number of indoor paupers for England and Wales was 130,337, or 5.4 per 1000 of the population; in 1902-3 the number had risen to 203,604, or 6.2 per 1000 of the population. This rise of indoor pauperism has indeed been coincident with a larger decline of outdoor pauperism through this same period. But the growth of thrift in the working-classes, the increase of the machinery of charity, the rise of the average of wages--these causes have been wholly inoperative to check the growth of indoor pauperism. Nor, if one may trust so competent an authority as Mr Fowle, is this explained by any tendency of increased strictness in the administration of outdoor relief, to drive would-be recipients of outdoor relief into the workhouse.