"I will take a good average instance (and a very large one) of the way in which wages are earned in the building trades. These trades form a whole, and include carpenters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, painters, and plumbers, and number in England and Wales, about 387,000 men above 20 years of age. In London their full time wages average 36s. a week. In the country they are lower, 30s. to 28s. or 26s.; growing less the farther we go northward. The full-work average may be taken at 30s. But it is only the best men, working for the best masters, that are always sure of full time. These trades work on the hour system, introduced at the instance of the men themselves, but a system of great precariousness of employment. The large masters give regular wages to their good workmen, but the smaller masters, especially at the East End of London, engage a large proportion of their hands only for the job, and then at once pay them off. All masters, when work grows slack, immediately discharge the inferior hands, and the unsteady men, of whom there are but too many even among clever workmen, and do not take them on again till work revives. In bad times there are always a large number out of employment. In prosperity much time is lost by keeping Saint Monday, and by occasional strikes. There are also 40,000 men between 55 and 65 years of age, who, in the building trade, are considered as past hard work, and who suffer severely by want of employment....
"Let us turn to another great branch of industry, the Agricultural Labourers: whose numbers are, men, 650,000; boys, 190,000; women, 126,000; and girls, 36,000. Continuous employment has largely increased since the New Poor Law of 1834, and good farmers now employ their men regularly. But in many places such is not the custom. Near Broadstairs, in Kent, I was told that, on an average, labourers are only employed 40 weeks in the year.... Turn next to the cotton manufacture, including 143,000 men, 82,000 boys, 150,000 women, and 121,000 girls; altogether, 496,000. We all know their periodical distresses. It may be said that these were accidents. They are not mere accidents, but incidents, natural incidents, of our manufacturing economy. They are sure to recur under different forms; either from gluts, or strikes, or war; and they must be allowed for in computations of earnings.
"I come lastly to instances from trades at the East End of London, where I have lately had a great deal of experience. It is there that the struggle for existence is most intense, from London being the resort and refuge of the surplus population of other parts of the country. The London Dock Labourers earn, when on full time, 15s. a week; but so great is the competition that even in ordinary years they are employed little more than half their time. During the past year 5s. a week has been considered tolerably lucky....
"Cabinet-makers stand well in the lists of trades, their nominal wages for the Kingdom being set down at 30s. a week. But the cabinet-makers at the East End, a very numerous body, are in what is called the 'slop trade,' and are ground down by the dealers, who own what are called 'slaughter-houses,' in which they take advantage of the necessities of the small manufacturers (expressively called 'garret masters') and compel them to sell their upholstery at little above the cost of materials. Between dealers and want of work, I am told that numbers of the 'slop' cabinet-makers are not earning 7s. 6d. a week.
"None but those who have examined the facts can have any idea of the precariousness of employment in our large cities, and the large proportion of time out of work, and also, I am bound to add, the loss of time in many well paid trades from drinking habits. Taking all these facts into account, I come to the conclusion, that for loss of work from every cause, and for the non-effectives up to 65 years of age, who are included in the census, we ought to deduct fully 20 per cent. from the nominal full time wages.
"I will cite one more fact in confirmation. The average number of paupers at one time in receipt of relief in 1866 was 916,000, being less than for any of the four preceding years. The total number relieved during 1866 may, on the authority of a Return of 1857, be calculated at 3½ times that number, or 3,000,000.[64] All these may be considered as belonging to the 16,000,000 of the Manual Labour Classes, being as nearly as possible 20 per cent. on their numbers. But the actual cases of relief give a very imperfect idea of the loss of work and wages. A large proportion of the poor submit to great hardships, and are many weeks, and even months, out of work before they will apply to the Guardians. They exhaust their savings, they try to the utmost their trade unions or benefit societies; they pawn little by little all their furniture; and at last are driven to ask for relief. I am not astonished at their reluctance, for what do they get? After waiting in a crowd and in the most humiliating publicity, they get an order for the stoneyard, with 6d. a day, and a loaf per week of bread for each of their family. Sometimes, rather than accept the relief, they die of starvation."
These words were written over forty years ago, but it would need little emendation to give them application to-day. The growing strenuousness of modern industry makes it more and not less difficult for the ageing to earn a living. The increased use of machinery and the greater division of labour have made experience of less value than of yore. The ageing man resorts to hair dye to conceal the honourable age which is to rob him of his livelihood. Baxter's remarks about the building trades are absolutely true of to-day, but they now apply not to 400,000 men, but to 1,000,000. "All masters, when work grows slack, immediately discharge the inferior hands.... In bad times there are always a large number out of employment." The position of agricultural labourers has improved, but chiefly because their rapidly decreasing numbers have placed a premium upon their services. Even so, in parts of the country removed from coal-mines, the most pitiable conditions prevail. Kettle broth is still part of the menu of the Wiltshire labourer.
In the East End of London the economic position of the dock and riverside labourers is much the same as Baxter described it, while in the furniture trade the "garret masters" are still with us. True—most honourably true—it is also that still the workers endure great hardships before they will apply to the Guardians. "They exhaust their savings, they try to the utmost their trade unions or benefit societies; they pawn little by little all their furniture; and at last they are driven to ask for relief."
The Board of Trade, after a careful examination of the question of unemployment in 1904, arrived at the general conclusion that "The average level of employment during the past four years has been almost exactly the same as the average of the preceding forty years" (Cd. 2,337). The conditions of employment, the want of security of tenure, are very much what they were in 1867.
As for pauperism, it is difficult to congratulate ourselves upon improvement since 1867 when we remember that in England and Wales alone 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 persons are in receipt of relief in the course of a single year. This statement rests upon ascertained facts, as will be found by reference to the statistics given in our examination of the question of Old Age Pensions. The population of England and Wales being about 36,000,000 (1910) this means that one person in every twenty has recourse to the Poor Law Guardians during a single year.