Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform

by S. A. Barnett; Mrs. S. A. Barnett

The facts, however, remain that the poor are very poor, and that the fund failed as a means of relief; and these facts must be faced if a lesson is to be learnt from the past, and a way discovered through the perils of the future. The policies which occupy the leaders’ minds, the interests of business, the theologies, the fashions, are but webs woven in the trees while the storm is rising in the distance. Sounds of the storm are already in the air, a murmuring among those who have not enough, puffs of boasting from those who have too much, and a muttering from those who are angry because while some are drunken others are starving. The social question is rising for solution, and, though for a moment it is forgotten, it will sweep to the front and put aside as cobwebs the ‘deep’ concerns of leaders and teachers. The danger is lest it be settled by passion and not by reason, lest, that is, reforms be hurriedly undertaken in answer to some cry, and without consideration of facts, their weight, their causes, and their relation.

The study of the condition of the people receives hardly as much attention as that which Sir J. Lubbock gives to the ants and the wasps. Bold good men discuss the poor, and cheques are given by irresponsible benefactors; but there are few students who reverently and patiently make observations on social conditions, accumulate facts, and watch cause and effect. Scientific method is supreme everywhere except in those human affairs which most concern humanity.

Ten years ago Arnold Toynbee demanded a ‘body of doctrine’ from those who cared for the poor. He sought an intellectual basis for moral fervour, and yet to-day what a muck-heap is our social legislation, what a confusion of opinion there exists about the poor law, education emigration, and land laws! All reformers are driving on; but what is each driving at? Sometimes the same driver has aims obviously incompatible, as when the Lord Mayor one day signs a report which says that, ‘the spasmodic assistance given by the public in answer to special appeals is really useless,’ and another day himself inaugurates a relief fund by a special appeal.

One of the facts made evident last winter is the poverty of the poor, and it is a fact about which the public mind is uncertain.

The working men when they appear at meetings seem to be well dressed in black cloth, the statistics of trades-unions, friendly, co-operative, and building societies show the members to be so numerous, and the accumulated funds to be so far above thousands and so near to millions sterling, that the necessary conclusion is, ‘There is no poverty among the poor.’ But then the clergy or missionaries echo some ‘bitter cry,’ and tell how there are thousands of working folk in danger of starvation, thousands without warmth or clothing, and the necessary conclusion is, ‘All the poor are poverty-stricken.’ The public mind halts between these two conclusions and is uncertain.

The uncertainty is due partly to the vague use of the term ‘poor,’ by which is generally meant all those who are not tradespeople or capitalists, and partly to an inability to appreciate the size of London. The poor, it is obvious, form only a minority in the community, and a minority suggests something unimportant, and notwithstanding the size of London, it is regarded as a small and manageable body.

Last winter’s experience clears away all uncertainty, and shows that there is a vast mass of people in London who have neither black coats nor savings, and whose life is dwarfed and shortened by want of food and clothing. In Whitechapel there is a population of 70,000: of these some 20 per cent., exclusive of the Jewish population, applied at the office of the Mansion House Relief Fund during the three months it was opened. In St. George’s, East, there is a population of 50,000, and of these 29 per cent. applied. Among all who applied the number belonging to any trades-union or friendly society was very few. In Whitechapel only six out of 1,700 applicants were members of a benefit club. In St. George’s only 177 out of 3,578 called themselves artisans. In Stepney 1,000 men applied before one mechanic came, and only one member of a trades-union came under notice at all. In the Tower Hamlets division of East London out of a population of 500,000, 17,384 applied, representing 86,920 persons. It may be safely assumed that all in need did not apply, and that many thousands were assisted by other agencies. The reports of some of the visitors expressly state that the numbers they give are exclusive of many referred to the Jewish Board of Guardians, the clergy, and other agencies, while numbers of those who did apply either did not wait to have their names entered or were so manifestly beyond the reach of money help that they were not recorded among applicants. Especially noteworthy among the remarks of the visitors is one, that all who applied would at any season of the year apply in the same way and give the same evidence of poverty. ‘If a fund was advertised as largely as this fund has been in summer, and when trade was at its best, precisely the same people would apply.’ The truth of the remark has been put to the test, and during the summer a large number of those relieved in the winter have been visited, with the result that they have been found apparently in like misery and equally in need of assistance.

Of the poverty of those who made application there has been no question. Some may have brought it on themselves by drink or by vice, some may have been thriftless and without self-control; but all were poor, so poor as to be without the things necessary for mere existence. The men and women who crowded the relief offices had haggard and drawn faces, their worn and thin bodies shivered under their rags of clothing, and they gave no sign of strength or of hope. Their homes were squalid, the children ill-fed, ill-clad, and joyless, their record showed that for months they had received no regular wage, and that their substance was more often at the pawnbroker’s than in the home.

Last winter’s experience shows that outside the classes of regular wage-earning workmen, who are often included among ‘the poor,’ is a mass of people numbering some tens of thousands who are without the means of living. These are the poor, and their poverty is the common concern.

Statistics prove what has long been known to those whose business lies in poor places, and to them the reports of the increased prosperity of the country have been like songs of gladness in a land of sorrow. They know the streets in which every room is a home, the homes in which there is no comfort for the sick, no easy-chair for the weary, no bath for the tired, no fresh air, no means of keeping food, no space for play, no possibility of quiet, and to them the news of the national wealth and the sight of fashionable luxury seem but cruel satire. The little dark rooms may bear traces of the man’s struggle or of the woman’s patience, but the homes of the poor are sad, like the fields of lost battles, where heroism has fought in vain. By no struggle and by no patience can health be won in so few feet of cubic air, and no parent dares to hope that he can make the time of youth so joyful as to for ever hold his children to pleasures which are pure. The homes of the poor are a mockery of the name, but yet how many would think themselves happy if even such homes were secure, and if they were able to look to the future without seeing starvation for their children and the workhouse for themselves! One example will illustrate many. The Browns are a family of five; they occupy one room. The man is a labourer, London-born, quick-witted and slow-bodied, and, as many labourers do, he fills up slack time with hawking; the woman takes in her neighbours’ washing. Their room, twelve feet by ten feet, is crowded with two bedsteads, the implements for washing, the coal-bin, a table, a chest, and a few chairs; on the walls are some pictures, the human protest against the doctrine that the poor can ‘live by bread alone.’ The man earns sometimes 3s., often nothing, in the day; and his wife brings in sometimes 6d. or 9d. a day, but her work fills the room with damp and discomfort, and almost necessarily keeps the husband out of doors. Both man and woman are still young, but they look aged, and the children are thin and delicate. They seldom have enough to eat and never enough to wear, they are rarely healthy, and are never so happy as to thank God for their creation. Hard work will make these children orphans, or bad air, cold, and hunger will make these parents childless.