Most of us will be inclined to think that Mr. Rountree must exaggerate, and what he calls poverty most of us would doubtless be inclined to think a modest competency a little below respectability. He fixed the standard of twenty-one shillings eight pence ($5.25) a week as a necessary one for a family of ordinary size. He says:
"A family living upon the scale allowed for in this estimate, must never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus. They must never go into the country unless they walk. They must never purchase a half-penny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket for a popular concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute anything to their church or chapel, nor give any help to a neighbor which costs them money. They cannot save, nor can they join sick club or trade union, because they cannot pay the necessary subscription. The children must have no pocket money for dolls, marbles or sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco nor drink no beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for herself or for her children, the character for the family wardrobe, as for the family diet, being governed by the regulation, 'Nothing must be bought but that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of physical health, and that which is bought must be of the plainest and most economical description.' Should a child fall ill, it must be attended by the family parish doctor; should it die, it must be buried by the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent from his work for a single day."
More than one in four of the population living below this scale!
Conditions are, if anything, worse on the Continent. In Germany, industry is at the best. Conditions in Berlin have been recently reported in the Daily Consular Reports by a U. S. Government official. Of the somewhat more than two millions of people who live in Berlin, 1,125,000 have an income. Nearly one-half of the incomes, however, are exempt from taxation because they do not amount to the minimum taxable income, though that is only $214—$4 per week. Of the 600,000 who have taxable incomes, nearly 550,000 have less than $700 a year; that is, get about $2 a day or less. Less than sixty thousand out of the total population get more than $2 a day. It is easy to say, but hard to understand, that this is a living wage, because things are cheaper in Germany. Meat is, however, nearly twice as dear; sugar is twice as dear; bread is dearer than it is in this country; coffee is dearer; and only rent is somewhat cheaper.
It is easy to talk about the spread of comfort among the people of our generation and the raising of the standard of living, but if one compares these wages with the price of things as they are now, it is hard to understand on just what basis of fact the claim for betterment in our time, meaning more general comfort and happiness, is made.
People always refuse to believe that conditions are as bad as they really are in these matters. Americans will at once have the feeling, on reading Mr. Hunter and Mr. Rountree's words and the account of the American Consul at Berlin, that this may be true for England and Germany, but that of course it is very different here in America. It is extremely doubtful whether it is very different here in America. In this matter, Mr. Hunter's opinion deserves weight. He has for years devoted himself to gathering information with regard to this subject. He seems to be sure that one in seven of our population is in poverty. Probably the number is higher than this. Here is his opinion:
"How many people in the country are in poverty? Is the number yearly growing larger? Are there each year more and more of the unskilled classes pursuing hopelessly the elusive phantom of self-support and independence? Are they, as in a dream, working faster, only the more swiftly to move backward? Are there each year more and more hungry children and more and more fathers whose utmost effort may not bring into the home as much energy in food as it takes out in industry? These are not fanciful questions, nor are they sentimental ones. I have not the slightest doubt that there are in the United States ten million persons in precisely these conditions of poverty, but I am largely guessing, and there may be as many as fifteen or twenty millions!"
Perhaps Mr. Hunter exaggerates. As a physician, I should be inclined to think not; but certainly his words and, above all, the English statistics will give any one pause who is sure, on general principles, that the great mass of the people are happier now or more comfortable, above all, in mind—the only real happiness—than they were in the Thirteenth Century. After due consideration of this kind, no one will insist on the comparative misery and suffering of the poor in old times. England had less than 3,000,000 in the Thirteenth Century, and probably there was never a time in her history when a greater majority of her people fulfilled Ruskin's and Morris' ideals of happy-hearted human beings. The two-handed worker got at least what the four-footed worker, in Carlyle's words, has always obtained, due food and lodging. England was not "a nation with sleek, well-fed English horses, and hungry, dissatisfied Englishmen."
COMFORT AND HAPPINESS.
There is another side to the question of comparative happiness that may be stated in the words of William Morris, when he says, in "Hopes and Fears for Art," that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time (and of course a fortiori a medieval of the Thirteenth Century) would [{476}] stare astonished could he be brought back again and shown the comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house. This expression is often re-echoed, and one is prone to wonder how many of those who use it realize that it is a quotation, and, above all, appreciate the fact that Morris made the statement in order to rebut it. His answer is in certain ways so complete that it deserves to be quoted.