“It would undoubtedly conduce much to the utility of these labour-yards if the guardians comprising the labour or out-door relief committee would, as they now do in some unions, frequently visit the yard, and thus by personal observation make themselves acquainted with the conduct and characters of the paupers, with the nature of the superintendence bestowed upon them, and with the manner in which the work is performed. A channel of communication may thus be formed between employers of labour when in want of hands and those unemployed workmen who may by sheer necessity have been driven to apply for and accept relief in this unpalatable form. The guardians themselves, frequently large employers of labour, are for the most part well acquainted with those who are compelled to apply for parish work; and when they see a steady and willing worker in the yard will naturally inquire into his antecedents. Where the result of these inquiries is satisfactory, they will, it may be expected, gladly avail themselves of the earliest opportunity of obtaining for such a one employment in his previous occupation, or in any other which may appear to be suited to his capacity. The personal influence and supervision of individual guardians can scarcely be overrated; and thus a bond of sympathy will gradually arise between the guardians and the deserving poor, which, coupled with the enforcement of real work, will, it may be hoped, prove not without an ultimate good effect upon even those hardened idlers who have been hitherto too often found in these yards the ringleaders in every species of disturbance.”
The above-quoted is the suggestion of the Chairman of the Poor-law Board, and well indeed would it be, for humanity’s sake, that it should be regarded. As matters are at present arranged, the labour-system is simply disgusting. Take Paddington stone-yard, for instance. Unless it is altered since last year, the peculiar method of doing business there adopted is this: a man gets an order for stone-breaking, the pay for which is, say, eighteenpence a “yard.” At most workhouses, when a man is put to this kind of labour he is paid by the bushel: and that is quite fair, because a poor fellow unused to stone-breaking usually makes a sad mess of it. He takes hammer in hand, and sets a lump of granite before him with the idea of smashing it into fragments; but this requires “knack,” that is to be acquired only by experience. The blows he deals the stone will not crack it, and all that he succeeds in doing for the first hour or two is to chip away the corners of one lump after another, accumulating perhaps a hatful of chips and dust. By the end of the day, however, he may have managed to break four bushels, and this at eighteenpence a “yard” would be valued at sixpence, and he would be paid accordingly.
But not at Paddington. I had some talk with the worthy yard-master of that establishment, and he enlightened me as to their way of doing business there. “Bushels! No; we don’t deal in bushels here,” was his contemptuous reply to a question I put to him. “I can’t waste my time in measuring up haporths of stuff all day long. It’s half a yard or none here, and no mistake.”
“Do you mean, that unless a man engages to break at least half a yard, you will not employ him?”
“I mean to say, whether he engages or not, that he’s got to do it.”
“And suppose that he fails?”
“Then he don’t get paid.”
“He doesn’t get paid for the half-yard, you mean?”
“He doesn’t get paid at all. I don’t never measure for less than a half-yard, and so he can’t be paid.”
“But what becomes of the few bushels of stone he has been able to break?”