Now to return to the unemployed. Briefly they can be put into four classes:—
1. The skilled mechanic.
2. The unskilled labourer.
3. The casual worker.
4. The loafer.
Concerning the first, the Chart published in the “Labour Gazette” shows that the number approaches 7 per cent as against nearly 5 per cent last year. This is the only class about which we have accurate figures, but the returns of pauperism, and the experience of charitable agencies combine in agreeing that there is more want of employment in the other three classes than is usual at this time of the year, and that there are fewer “bits of things” to go to the pawnshop than usual, because, owing to the war, and some think to the fiscal agitation, the summer trade has been slack, and wages low and uncertain.
No one can read the daily papers without seeing how many schemes are now being put forward to aid the unemployed, and in the space of time given to me it is impossible to name all these, let alone to discriminate between them, but certain principles can be laid down. (1) The form of help should be work. (2) The work should be such as will uplift and not degrade character. (3) The work should be paid sufficiently to keep up the home and adequately feed the family. (4) The work, if it be relief work—i.e., that not required in the ordinary channels by ordinary employers—should not be more attractive than the worker’s normal labour.
It should never be forgotten that provision of work may become as dangerous to character as doles of money have proved to be. Work is of so many sorts; that which is effortful to some men may be child’s play to others, or it might be so carelessly supervised as to encourage the casual ways and self-indulgent habits which lie at the root of much poverty. Human nature in every walk of life has a tendency to take the easiest courses, and many men are tempted to relax the efforts which the higher classes of employment demand.
“Why,” I said to a butler who had taken £80 a year in service, “did you become a cabman?” “Well, madam,” he said, “in service one has always to be spruce.” In other words he had resented the control of order, and so he had sunk from a skilled trade to a grade lower.
“Why,” I asked an old friend, a Carter Paterson driver, “did you leave your regular work?” “’Tis like this,” he said, “it means being out in all weathers, now I can go home if things is too nasty outside.” He had yielded to the temptation of comfort and gone down a grade lower to casual work.