It would seem superfluous to repeat for other towns the statistical evidence in support of this statement which was given in the case of London. “Blind-alley” occupations and troubled passage to manhood necessarily go together. Mr. Tawney’s researches in Glasgow indicate clearly the difficulties of this transition period. A single quotation must suffice: “A district secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers says of a world-famous firm which employs several thousand men making a particular kind of domestic machine: ‘It is a reception home for young bakers and grocers. Boys go to it from other occupations to do one small part of the machine.... When they leave they are not competent engineers, and find it difficult to get work elsewhere.’”[162] Detailed figures for the country as a whole in respect of certain trades may be found in Mr. Jackson’s Report on Boy Labour. All evidence, from wheresoever collected, goes to show the existence of the break between the work of the boy and the work of the man.
It is trusted that sufficient evidence has been produced to prove conclusively that the conditions of boy labour in London do not differ essentially from the conditions of boy labour in other towns. The evidence could have been multiplied indefinitely and, what is most striking, among the mass of witnesses forthcoming there is none found to venture a contrary opinion. We may take it, then, as a well-established fact that in other towns besides London, supervision, training, and the provision of an opening are alike gravely and progressively defective. In other words, among the urban districts of the country no true apprenticeship system exists or is in course of creation.
§ 3. RURAL DISTRICTS.
No comprehensive inquiry has been made into the conditions of boy labour in rural districts and small towns. A few studies of individual villages exist—as, for example, “Life in an English Village,” by Miss Maude Davies—but these are not sufficiently numerous to justify any general conclusions. The return on Children Working for Wages, made to the House of Commons in 1899, gives certain statistics. From the returns on pages 21 and 23 we see that for England and Wales some 5·2 per cent. of children above Standard I. were working for wages. The percentage for boys alone would be 8·5 per cent., or for boys eleven years and upwards about 17 per cent., compared with 24 per cent. for London alone. These figures would seem to show that, while common, work among school-children over the country as a whole does not quite reach the London level. So far as can be gathered from the returns, it is in towns that the employment of school-children is most frequent, though in rural districts it is frequent enough to constitute a grave evil.
The same return gives the occupation of children as they leave school. On page 163 is the summary.
The table is incomplete: “In London the proportion of children is no less than 94 per cent.; in the group of large urban districts, 72 per cent.; while in the rest of England and Wales, including the rural districts and small towns, the percentage sinks to 47.”[163] Without a careful analysis, such as only local knowledge could supply, it would be dangerous to give much weight to the return. It does, however, appear from the summary that “blind-alley” occupations bear a close relation to urbanization, and that the two increase together. Or looking at the question from another point of view, a boy in rural districts enjoys greater opportunities of continuity of employment in the passage from youth to manhood than he does in the towns.
OCCUPATIONS OF BOYS ON LEAVING SCHOOL IN (1) LONDON, (2) LARGE URBAN AND MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS, AND (3) RURAL AND SMALL URBAN DISTRICTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES.[164]
| Occupation. | London. | Large Urban and Manufacturing Districts. | Rural and Small Urban Districts. | |||
| No. | % | No. | % | No. | % | |
| Agriculture | 101 | — | 730 | 2 | 17,950 | 26 |
| Building | 787 | 3 | 1,973 | 4 | 3,744 | 5 |
| Woodworking | 905 | 4 | 591 | 1 | 661 | 1 |
| Metal, engineering, and shipbuilding | 949 | 4 | 4,090 | 8 | 3,119 | 4 |
| Mining and quarrying | — | — | 1,584 | 3 | 6,510 | 9 |
| Textile | 49 | — | 6,046 | 13 | 5,522 | 8 |
| Clothing | 665 | 3 | 1,634 | 3 | 1,612 | 2 |
| Printing and allied trades | 1,121 | 4 | 868 | 2 | 680 | 1 |
| Clerical | 2,060 | 8 | 5,666 | 12 | 2,727 | 4 |
| In shops | 3,584 | 14 | 6,084 | 13 | 7,045 | 10 |
| Errand, cart, boat, etc., boy | 10,283 | 40 | 10,496 | 22 | 9,917 | 14 |
| Newsboy and street vendor | 964 | 4 | 1,472 | 3 | 1,223 | 2 |
| Teaching | 120 | — | 430 | 1 | 557 | 1 |
| Domestic service | 301 | 1 | 173 | — | 1,090 | 2 |
| Miscellaneous and indefinite | 2,256 | 9 | 4,159 | 9 | 4,817 | 7 |
| Total occupied | 24,145 | 94 | 45,996 | 96 | 67,174 | 96 |
| No reported occupation | 1,623 | 6 | 2,097 | 4 | 2,765 | 4 |
| Grand total | 25,768 | 100 | 48,093 | 100 | 69,939 | 100 |
There is good reason to believe that the prospects of an all-round training are more favourable in a village than in a town. The fact, already mentioned, that immigrants from rural districts obtain the better positions in London trades, especially in the building trades, would seem to justify this conclusion. There is also the general consideration that rural districts are always nearly a century behind the industrial development of the towns, and represent therefore an older condition of affairs. Workshops are smaller, the gulf between man and employer less impassable, and the old paternal relation between boy and master more possible of attainment. We may therefore assume, without much risk of error, that training is better in rural districts than in towns.