In relation to the trades which supply the materials of clothing the census returns give evidence that our industries are not developing healthily. It should be remembered, however, that it is impossible to measure the growth of luxury by the census returns, although it makes a certain impression in them. The labour of tens of thousands who follow nominally useful occupations is actually devoted to waste. This may be illustrated by two typical cases which recently were brought to the notice of the public. On February 8th, 1905, in the King's Bench Division, a millionaire, well-known in financial circles (his name matters not, for I take the case not to reproach an individual but because it is a typical one) sued a West-End firm of contractors and caterers for damages. It appears that in July 1903 he gave a dinner party with a concert and supper, and engaged the defendant firm to erect behind his residence in Grosvenor Square a temporary supper-room for the occasion. He gave instructions that "no expense was to be spared." The electric light was installed in the temporary structure, and from this or another cause, a fire occurred, and the temporary structure perished a few hours before its time. Out of this arose the claim for damages, which failed, the jury awarding the contractors their counter-claim for the work done.

It is not the merits of the action to which I direct the reader's attention. What would the mere statistics tell us of the men who were engaged in erecting the temporary supper-room "regardless of expense"? We should find them described as following quite useful occupations:

As a matter of fact the skill and labour of these honourable callings were turned to sheer waste at the command of the millionaire financier. With the same expenditure of time and effort, and with the same consumption of material, those men might have decently housed one or two families for life. Had they been free to choose between the housing of a poor family and the carrying out of a rich man's caprice, can we doubt which work they would have chosen? But they were not free to choose, and inquiry would probably show that they are constantly employed to do similar work in rich men's houses. Their lives are wasted to the nation at large, and devoted to the fancies of a few. In return, they are handed wage-money which is too often unearned by those who pay the bills. Thus A the financier commands B to waste his precious skill, and at the same time commands certain other persons, C and D, to devote part of their labour to sustaining B while he wastes his time and does nothing for them in return.

Let me give another pertinent illustration:

In July, 1904, a great deal of attention was aroused by a case in which a West-End dressmaker was fined for working her girls at illegal hours. Her excuse was that she was compelled to get finished at very short notice a frock to be worn at Ascot by a certain rich lady. Considerable comment was aroused by the case, especially in view of the fact that a play with a purpose in which a similar incident was introduced was being played at the time in a London theatre.[36] I was particularly struck with the fact that the fashionable customer who caused the trouble was chiefly censured for her dilatoriness and want of consideration in ordering her frock at the last moment. But the gravamen of the offence lay not in ordering the frock late but in ordering it at all. The chief point is not one within the scope of the consolidated Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, but a much greater one, which goes deep down into the roots of the problem of want and poverty in the richest country in the world. For the special Ascot frock, the garment costing anything from 10 to 50 guineas, made to be worn once and then cast aside, is a perfect illustration of the misdirection of life and waste of labour which is caused by the error in the distribution of the national income. For every special Ascot frock worn by one woman, whether that frock be made in legal or illegal hours, a number of other women go insufficiently clad.

Such illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely. At the great Albert Hall Charity Bazaar held in 1904 a titled lady present wore a magnificent dress which had been completed literally at the eleventh hour of the previous evening by a number of young women whose economic condition is such that only the best of health and the best of fortune can save them from becoming the objects of "charity" in the time to come. As in the case of the temporary supper-room, these girls, to judge by the census of occupations, would appear as following useful occupations. From the point of view of the national welfare, they had better be paid wages for digging holes and filling them up again.

While the rich consume the means of living of the poor we need not be surprised if useful trades languish. A rich person can but consume a limited quantity of useful commodities. After that consumption, having still a great superfluity, he seeks other diversions, and the orders go forth which swell the ranks of the wrongfully employed.

At the other end of the scale, what is the possible expenditure upon goods by the poor? The answer which has been given to this question by the researches of Mr Charles Booth in London and of Mr Seebohm Rowntree in York is seen to be one which can only be regarded as inevitable in view of the figures we have examined. Mr Booth concluded that 30.7 per cent., or nearly one-third of the population of London were probably living in "poverty." Mr Rowntree found that in York, a typical provincial city, in a year of good trade, 7,230 persons, representing 15½ per cent. of the working classes, or 10 per cent. of the entire population of York, were living below a primary poverty line drawn at an income of 21s. 8d. per week for a family of five persons paying only 4s. per week for rent. Mr Rowntree also found 13,072 persons living in York under conditions which were but little above the primary line, making a total of 20,302 persons, or 28 per cent. of the population of York, living in want.

Mr Rowntree's primary poverty line of 21s. 8d. per week was arrived at thus.[37] He considered necessary expenditure under the three heads: (1) Food, (2) Rent, (3) Clothes, fuel and other necessaries. To begin with food, he framed a dietary which contained no butcher's meat or butter, and allowed such a luxury as tea but once a week. The only meat was bacon and very little of that. It was a dietary "more stringent than would be given to any able-bodied pauper in any workhouse in England or Wales." Taking the lowest co-operative store prices, he found that this dietary would cost 3s. each for the adults and 2s. 3d. each for the children per week. Thus the cost of food alone would be 12s. 9d. per week. Allowing for rent and rates 4s., we arrive at 16s. 9d. per week. To this Mr Rowntree added for clothing, fuel, and all other necessaries 4s. 11d. per week, making, in all, the 21s. 8d. referred to. Here is the estimate in detail:—