Chapter XI: Section IV: Poverty and Labour (4)

A “fund,” voluntary or legal--it seems to me--should represent an effort to do justice, and should follow the ways of justice. Its object should be, not to express pity, or even sympathy, and it should not ask for gratitude. Its object is to right wrong, to redress the unfairness which follows the triumph of success, and give to the weak and disherited a share in the prosperity they have done their part to create. A “fund” because its object is to do justice, ought to follow scientific lines; it ought to be guided by sound judgment; it ought to be administered by skilled officials; and it ought to do nothing which can lower any man’s strength and dignity. On the contrary, it ought to do everything to open to the lowest the way of honourable living. Its action must be just, and seem to be just; it must represent the mind, not of one class only, but of all classes.

There have been “funds” which more or less approach this ideal. The Mansion House Fund of 1903-4 issued a Report which stands as a model of what is possible; and its ideal is that of the ablest Poor Law reformers. Press funds created by excitement, and directed in a hurry, will hardly reach such an ideal. They will neither by their genesis nor by their action represent the ways of justice.

The Press, I submit, deserts its high calling when it offers itself as a means by which its readers may easily do their duty to the poor. The relief of the poor can never be easy--the easiest way is almost always the wrong way. The Press, when it makes it possible for rich people to satisfy their consciences by a donation to its “funds” lets them escape their duty of effort, of sacrifice, and of personal sympathy. It spoils the public, as foolish parents spoil children by taking away the call to effort.

The Press has great possibilities in teaching people to remember the poor. It might educate the national conscience to make a national effort to remove the causes of want of employment, physical weakness, and drunkenness. It might rouse the rich to the patriotism which the Russian noble expressed, when he said that “the rights of property must give way to national needs”. It might set the public mind to think of a heart of the Empire in which there should be no infant of days, no young man without hope, and no old man without the means of peace. The Press has done much. It seems to me a loss if, for the sake of the immediate earthly link, if for the sake of creating a “fund” to relieve present distress, it misses the eternal gain--the creation of a public mind which will prevent any distress.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

WHAT IS POSSIBLE IN POOR LAW REFORM.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

22 September, 1909.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

The Archbishop of Canterbury did good service in the House of Lords in forcing upon public attention the condition of the people as has been revealed by the Poor Law Commission. There was only a small attendance of Peers to hear his statement, and the public mind has hardly been stirred. The imagination is not trained in England. For want of it, as Lord Goschen used to say, our fathers lost America, and for want of it we are likely to blunder into social trouble. The Lords, who are so keen in defence of property, do not realize that there are greater dangers to property in the presence of the unemployed than in the weapons forged by the Budget, and the public mind forgets in the summer the “bitter cries” which every winter rise from broken homes and shattered lives.

But the facts remain as they have been stated by the Archbishop. There is poverty; there is distress; the community suffers grievous loss while strong men lose their power to work and hearts are hardened by want. All the time “out relief is administered so as to foster and encourage dirt, disease, and immorality, and the workhouse accommodation for the aged is in some cases so dreary as to be absolutely appalling, while in others it is palatial”. The Archbishop “absolutely challenged the statement that these difficulties could be met except by a new system under a new law”. The whole evidence showed that things are radically wrong, and rendered it impossible to argue that “we are getting on well enough”.

Mr. Burns rests in the progress under the Guardians’ administration during the last sixty years. “In-door pauperism has dropped from 62 to 26 per 1000, out-door pauperism from 54 to 16, and child pauperism from 26 to 7 per 1000,” while “the cost per head of in-door paupers has risen from £7 18s. to £13 5s. and out-door pauperism from £3 11s. to £6 1s. 5d.” Striking figures, but they do not alter the facts which the inquiries of the Commissioners have brought to light. There are still workhouses which are hot-beds of corruption; there are still thousands of children brought up under pauper influences, which the boasted education for a few hours a week in an elementary school cannot stem; there are still feeble-minded people of both sexes who, for want of care, increase the number of lunatics and criminals; there are still thousands of children who cannot be properly clothed or fed on the pittance of out relief; there are still strong men and women, stirred by a deterrent system to become enemies of society, and to defy, by idleness, the authority which would, by severity, force them to work. Let any one whose mind Mr. Burns’s figures satisfy dip into the pages of the Poor Law Commission Report, and certainly his heart will be indignant.

“No greater indictment” it has been truly said, “has ever been published against our civilization.”

Progress indeed cannot be judged by comparative figures. In 1850 it would have marked a great change if pauperism had dropped from 62 to 26 per 1000, but in 1910 it may be that 26 per 1000 constitutes as heavy a burden. Truth depends on relation. The social conscience has become much more sensitive. This generation cannot brook wrongs which previous generations brooked. Our self-respect is wounded by the thought of poverty which our care might remove. Poverty itself is recognized to be something worse than want of food. Every citizen is necessary, not only that he may work for the commonwealth, but that he may contribute by his thoughtful interest to make government efficient and human. The standard by which individual value is judged has been raised. Figures are not by themselves measures of progress, because every unit in the course of years changes its value, and to-day, as compared with sixty years ago, each man, woman and child may be said to have a worth which has increased tenfold. Official figures do not recognize worth and are therefore irritating; they increase and do not allay bitterness.

Something then must be done, and the debate in the House of Commons suggests something which might be done immediately. The Prime Minister and the Government might at once adopt certain recommendations on which there is general agreement, and which would not involve the immediate substitution of a new body of administration in the place of the Guardians. It might, for instance, 1. establish compulsory continuation schools; 2. make adequate provision for the feeble-minded; and 3. develop some method of training for the able-bodied and able-minded who have lost their way in the industrial world.

There is general agreement as to the treatment of the feeble-minded, as to the training of the young, and as to the way of discipline for the unemployed.

The public has hardly recognized what is involved in the neglect of the measures recommended for the care of the feeble-minded. They do not know how much crime, how much poverty, and how much drunkenness may be traced to this cause, or they would not expect the laws which assume strong-mindedness to be effective. What effect can prison have on characters too feeble to resolve on reformation? What appeal to independence can have weight with those who cannot reason? Evidence abounds in the pages of Reports, and the best thought of the times has agreed on the recommendations. If these recommendations were put into a Bill and adopted a reform would be achieved which would cut deeply into the burden of unemployment and vice under which the nation now labours.

Then again as to the training of the young. Compulsory continuation schools might be established.

It is grievous to reflect that while the country is expending £23,000,000 on education, there should be a large body of men and women without any resource other than that of the mechanical use of their hands and without any interest to satisfy their minds. It may be that something is wrong in our elementary schooling, but it is hard to realize how the boy who leaves school to-day, a good reader and writer, and of clean habits, can become the dull, ignorant, and almost helpless man of thirty or thirty-five who stands among the unemployed at the table of the Relief Committee. Nevertheless it is so, and the tale of his descent has been often told. The boy, free of school, throws off school pursuits as childish things. He will have no more to do with books or with learning. He takes a situation where he can get the largest wages, and where least call is made on mental effort. He has money to spend and he spends it on the pleasures which give the most excitement. At the age of eighteen or twenty he is no longer wanted as a boy, and he has no skill or intelligence which would fit him for well-paid work as a man. He becomes a casual labourer, or perhaps gets regular employment in some mechanical occupation. Before he is forty, he is very frequently among the “unemployed,” his hands capable only of doing one sort of work, and his head incapable of thinking out ways or means. His schooling has been practically wasted and he is again a burden on the community.

All inquiry goes to show that neglected boyhood is the chief source of “the unemployed”. Care in securing good places for boys when they leave school, and offers of technical teaching may do something, but these means do not serve to create the intelligent labourer, on whom, more than on the skilled artisan, the wealth of the country depends. “No skilled labourer,” Mr. Edison is reported to have said, “is better than the English, and no unskilled labourer is worse.” The intelligent labourer is one who does common work so as to save money; one who can understand and repeat instructions; one who can rise to an emergency; one who serves others’ interests and finds others’ interests.

Our labourers have not this intelligence because the boy’s mind, just opened at school, has been allowed to close; he has been taken away from learning just when it was becoming interesting. The obvious remedy is compulsory continuation schools, and these have been recommended again and again by investigators and committees.

Let it be enacted that young persons under eighteen cannot be employed unless their employers allow time for attendance at such schools on three days a week, and receive a certificate of attendance--let it be made obligatory on all young persons engaged in industrial work that they attend such schools. Great employers like Messrs. Cadbury have found it in their interest to make such attendance compulsory on the young persons they employ. A Departmental Committee would soon discover the best way of enforcing compulsion, and the Government by this simple means would do much to stop unemployment and poverty at its source.

Some method of training the able-bodied and able-minded unemployed might be developed.

These form a distinct class. They cannot be helped by relief, and they are demoralized by relief works. They passed through boyhood without getting the necessary equipment for life; they have, in a sort of way, a claim for such equipment, and failing such they must be a burden to the community. There are some ready to respond at once; there are others who, by long neglect, have become indolent and defiant. The first need to be put on farms or in shops where they will receive training.

Hollesley Bay is an example of such a farm, though the experiment has unfortunately been confused by the introduction of men who receive simple doles of work. But among the hundreds of married men with decent homes, and bearing good reports from employers, there are many in whom capacity is dormant. Pathetic indeed is their appeal, as worn in body and mind, ragged in clothing, they tell of work lost “because motors have taken the place of horses,” “because machinery has been introduced,” because “boys do men’s work”; pathetic is the appeal of men who, having lost their way in life, can see nothing before them but endless casual jobs, in which they will lose any strength they gain by the fresh air and food of Hollesley. If only they could be told that by learning to work and use their brains, they would be given a chance on the land or in the Colonies. If only they could realize that they might, as others have done, become fit to occupy one of the cottages on the estate, how surely they would throw their hearts into the work and feel the joy of seeing things grow under their hands. There is no need of controversial legislation. Training farms or shops could be provided, and if the decision be deferred as to whether the control of the training farm or shops should be local or national, it might be agreed that the experiment should be made by the Board of Trade or the Board of Agriculture.

If the latter department took charge of the Colony, admitted only unemployed men fitted for agriculture, trained them, and put them in the way of taking up holdings, an experiment would be tried of immense value for future legislature.

Then, as to the other able-bodied and able-minded unemployed who have become idle and almost enemies of society. It has long been agreed that it is necessary to detain them for periods of three or four years, during which they would be given the opportunity of learning to work. The place of detention would not be a prison, but a School of Industry, in which their capacities would be developed and their self-respect encouraged. The organization of such a place of discipline might involve thought, but its establishment need involve the Government in no long controversy. The Poor Law Commission and the Vagrancy Commission are at one in urging the necessity, and it must be obvious to anyone that until some means is discovered for removing from “the unemployed” the “idle and vagrant class,” the public mind will never AGREE TO WISE DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM.

Here then is something possible, something which even a Government so burdened as the present might accomplish. The direct effect would be great, if boys were checked on their way to the ranks of the unemployed; if some untrained men and women were taken from the streets and restored trained to the labour market; if the feeble-minded and the idle were removed from unwise sympathy and unfair abuse. The indirect effect would also be great, as the conviction would spread that the Government was indeed taking a matter in hand which has been year by year postponed. There would be more hope of peace and good-will between rich and poor. When so much is at once possible, is it reasonable that nothing should be done till a complete scheme has been devised?

It does not seem to be over-sanguine to believe that there are earnest men among the younger M.P.’s who, putting party aside, will agree to do what has been shown to be possible for the young people, the feeble-minded, and the unemployed.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

CHARITY UP TO DATE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

February, 1912.

[1] From “The Contemporary Review”. By permission of the Editor.

The tender mercies of the thoughtless, as of the wicked, are often cruel, and charity when it ceases to be a blessing is apt to become a curse; A Mansion House fund we used in old days to count among the possible winter horrors of East London. The boldly advertised details of destitution, the publication of the sums collected, the hurried distribution by irresponsible and ignorant agents, and the absence of any policy, stirred up wild expectation and left behind a trail of bitterness and degradation. The people were encouraged in deception, and were led on in the way which ends in wretchedness.

In 1903 a Committee was formed which used a Mansion House fund to initiate a policy of providing honourable and sufficiently paid work which would, at the same time, test the solid intention of unemployed and able-bodied applicants. The report of that Committee has been generally accepted, and has indeed become the basis of subsequent action and recommendations. It seemed to us East Londoners as if the bad time had been passed, and that henceforth charitable funds would flow in channels to increase fruitfulness and not in floods to make devastation.

The hope has been disappointed. Funds inaugurated by newspapers, by agencies, or by private persons have appeared in overwhelming force, and have followed in the old bad ways. The heart of the public has been torn by harrowing descriptions of poverty and suffering, which the poor also read and feel ashamed. The means of relief are often miserably inadequate. A casual dinner eaten in the company of the most degraded cannot help the “toiling widows and decent working-men,” “waiting in their desolate homes to know whether there is to be an end to their pains and privations”. Two or three hours spent in fields hardly clear of London smoke, after a noisy and crowded ride, is not likely to give children the refreshment and the quiet which they need for a recreative holiday.

Much of the charity of to-day, it has to be confessed, is mischievous, if not even cruel, and to its charge must be laid some of the poverty, the degradation, and the bitterness which characterize London, where, it is said, eight million sterling are every year given away. Ruskin, forty years ago, when he was asked by an Oxford man proposing to live in Whitechapel what he thought East London most wanted, answered, “The destruction of West London”. Mr. Bernard Shaw has lately, in his own startling way, stated a case against charity, and we all know that the legend on the banner of the unemployed, “Curse your charity,” represents widely spread opinion.

But--practically--what is the safe outlet for the charitable instinct? The discussion of the abolition of charity is not practical. People are bound to give their money to their neighbours. Human nature is solid--individuals are parts of a whole--and the knowledge of a neighbour’s distress stirs the desire to give something, as surely as the savour of food stirs appetite. But as in the one case the satisfaction of the appetite is not enough unless the food builds up the body and strength, so in the other case the charity which relieves the feelings of the giver is not enough unless it meets the neighbour’s needs. Those needs are to-day very evident, and very complex. Our rich and ease-loving society knows well that a family supported on twenty shillings a week cannot get sufficient food, and that even forty shillings will not provide means for holidays--for travel or for study. There will be children whose starved bodies will never make strong men and women; and there will be men and women who live anxious and care-worn lives, who cannot enjoy the beauties and wonders of the world in which they have been placed.

There are ghastly facts behind modern unrest, which are hardly represented by tales of destitute children and the sight of ragged humanity congregated around the free shelters. The needs are obvious, and they are very complex. The man whose ragged dress and haggard face cries out for food, has within him a mind and a soul fed on the crumbs which fall from the thoughts of the times, and he is a member of society from which he resents exclusion. Relief of a human being’s need must take all these facts into account. It must not give him food, at the expense of lowering his self-respect; it must not provide him with pleasure at the expense of degrading his capacity for enjoying his higher calling as a man, and it must not be kind at the expense of making independence impossible. The man who is stirred by the knowledge of his neighbour’s needs must take a deal of trouble.

The only safe outlet for the charitable instinct is, it may be said, that which is made by thinking and study. The charity which is thoughtless is charity out of date. It is always hard to be up to date, because to be so involves fresh thinking, and it is so much easier to say what has been said by previous generations, and to imitate the deeds of the dead benefactors. They who would really serve their neighbour’s needs by a gift must bring the latest knowledge of human nature to bear on the applicant’s character, and treat it in relation to the structure of society as that structure is now understood. They must be students of personality and of the State. They must consider the individual who is in need or the charitable body which makes an appeal, as carefully as a physician considers his case; they must get the facts for a right diagnosis, and bring to the cure all the resources of civilization. The great benefactors of old days were those who thought out their actions--as, for instance, when Lady Burdett-Coutts met the need of work by building amid the squalor of East London a market beautiful enough to be a temple, or as Lord Shaftesbury when he inaugurated ragged schools--but new ages demand new actions, and the spiritual children of the great dead are not they who act as they acted, but those who give thought as they gave thought.

The charity which does not flow in channels made by thought is the charity which is mischievous. People comfort themselves and encourage their indolence by saying they would rather give wrongly in ten cases than miss one good case. The comfort is deceptive. The gift which does not help, hinders, and it is the gifts of the thoughtless which open the pitfalls into which the innocent fall and threaten the stability of society. Such gifts are temptations to idleness, and widen the breach between rich and poor. When people of good-will, in pursuit of a good object, do good deeds which are followed by cries of distress and by curses there is a tragedy.

Charity up to date, whether it be from person to person or through some society or fund, must be such as is approved by the same close thinking as business men give to their business, or politicians to their policy. The best form of giving must always, I think, be that from person to person. Would that it were more used--would that those whose feelings are stirred by the sight of many sick folk were content to try and heal one! There are always individuals in need at our own door--neighbours, workpeople, relatives, servants; there is always among those we know some one whose home could be made brighter, or whose sickness could be lightened; there are tired people who could be sent on holiday, boys or girls who could be better educated. Gifts which pass from person to person are something more than ordinary gifts. “The gift without the giver is bare,” and when the giver’s thought makes itself felt, the gift is enriched. The best form of charity, therefore, is personal, and if for some reason this be impossible, then the next best is that which strengthens the hands of persons who are themselves in touch with neighbours in need, such as are the almoners of the Society for the Relief of Distress, the members of the Charity Organization Committees, or the residents in Settlements.

The personal gift, inspired by good-will and directed by painstaking thought, is the best form of charity, but people who have learnt what organizations and associations can do will not be content unless those means also are applied to the relief of their neighbours. The consequence is the existence of numberless societies for numberless objects. “Which of them may be said to represent charity up to date?” The answer I submit is, “Those which approve themselves to thoughtful examination”.

Appeals which touch the feelings of the readers, with well-known names as patrons and hopeful forecasts, should not be sufficient to draw support. The would-be subscriber must leisurely apply his mind, and weigh the proposals in the light of modern knowledge. The giving a subscription involves a large responsibility; it not only withdraws from use money which, as wages, would have employed useful labour, but it may actually be a means of doing mischief. As one familiar with the working of many charities, I would appeal for more thoughtfulness on the part of all subscribers. People must think for themselves and judge for themselves; but perhaps, out of a long experience, I may suggest a few guiding principles.

I. Charities should aim at encouraging growth rather than at giving relief. They should be inspired by hope rather than by pity. They should be a means of education, a means of enabling the recipient to increase in bodily, mental, or spiritual strength. If I spend twenty shillings on giving a dinner or a night’s lodging to twenty vagrants, I have done nothing to make them stronger workers or better citizens, I have only kept poverty alive; but if I spend the same sum in sending one person to a convalescent hospital, he will be at any rate a stronger man, and if during his stay at the hospital his mind is interested in some subject--in something not himself--he will probably be a happier man. Societies which devote a large income to providing food and clothing do not in the long run reduce the number of those in want, while Societies which promote the clearing of unhealthy areas, the increase of open space about town dwellings, greater accessibility to books and pictures, gradually raise people above the need of gifts of food and clothing. Hospitals which do much in restoring strength to the sick would do more if they used their reputation and authority to teach people how to avoid sickness, and to make a public opinion which would prevent many diseases and accidents. The distinguished philanthropist who used to say she would rather give a poor man a watch than a coat was, I believe, wiser than another philanthropist who condemned a poor woman for spending her money on buying a picture for her room. It is more important to raise self-respect and develop taste than just to meet physical needs.

Charities intruding themselves upon the intimacies of domestic life have by their patronage often dwarfed the best sort of growth. Warnings against patronizing the poor are frequent, but many charities are by their very existence “patronizing,” and many others, by sending people to collect votes, by requiring expressions of their gratitude, and by the attitude of their agents, do push upon the poor reminders of their obligations. They belong to a past age, and have no place in the present age, where they foster only a cringing or rebellious attitude. It has been well said that, “a new spirit is necessary in dealing with the poor, a spirit of humility and willingness to learn, rather than generosity and anxiety to teach”. This is only another form of saying that charities must be educational, because no one can educate who is not humble. Our schools, perhaps, will have further results when the teachers cease to call themselves “masters!”

II. Charities should, I think, look to, if not aim at, their own extinction. Their existence, it must be remembered, is due to some defect in the State organization or in the habits of the people. Schools, for instance, were established by the gifts of good-will to meet the ignorance from which people suffered, and when the State itself established schools the gifts have been continued for the sake of methods and experiments to meet further needs which the State has not yet seen its way to meet. Charities, in this case, have looked, or do look, to their own extinction when the State, guided by their example, may take up their work. They have been pioneers, original, daring by experiment to lead the way to undiscovered good. Relief societies have, in like manner, shown how the State may help the poor by means which respect their character, by putting work within their reach, by emigrating those fit for colonial life, by giving orphan children more of the conditions of a family home. There are others which have looked, or still look, to their extinction, not in State action, but in co-operation with other societies with which they now compete. Competition may be the strength of commerce, but co-operation is certainly the strength of charity, and wise are those charities which are content to sink themselves in common action and die that they may rise again in another body. The Charity Organization Societies in some of the great cities have in this way lost themselves, to live again in Social Welfare Councils and Civic Leagues. There are, finally, other charities which, by their own action, tend to make themselves unnecessary. The Children’s Country Holiday Fund, for instance, by giving country holidays to town children, and by making the parents contribute to the expense, develop at once a new desire for the peace and beauty of the country and a new capacity for satisfying this desire. When parents realize the necessity of such holiday and know how it can be secured, this Fund will cease to have a reason for existence.

Charities are many which fulfil this condition, but charities also are many which do not fulfil it. They seem to wish to establish themselves in permanence, and go on in rivalry with the State and with one another. There is waste of money, which might be used in pioneer work, in doing what is equally well done by others; there is competition which excites greed and imposition, and there is overlapping. Very little thought is wanted to discover many such charities which now receive large incomes from the public.

A wise observer has said: “A charity ought every twenty-five years to head a revolution against itself”. Only by some such means can it be brought into adjustment with the new needs of a new time, only by some such means will it clear off excrescences and renew its youth. But, failing such power of self-reform, it is worthy of consideration whether every twenty-five years each charity should not be compelled to justify its existence before some State Commission.

III. Charities should keep in line with State activities. The State--either by national or by municipal organization--has taken over many of the duties which meet the needs of the people. Ignorance, poverty, disease and dullness have all been met, and the means by which they are being met are constantly developed. The Church, it may be said, has so far converted the State, and a cheerful payer of rates may perhaps deserve the same Divine commendation as the cheerful giver. But State organizations, however well considered and well administered, will always want the human touch. They will not, like the charities, be fitful because dependent on subscribers and committees, but they will not, like charities, temper their actions to individual peculiarities and feelings. Charities, therefore, I think, do well when they keep in line with State activities. They may, for instance, working in co-operation with the Guardians, undertake the care of the families when the bread-winner is in the infirmary, or superintend the management of industrial colonies to which the unemployed may be sent, or provide enfeebled old people with pensions until the age when they are eligible for the State pension. They may, in connexion with the School and Education authorities, support the Care Committees who look after the interest of children in elementary schools, or, like Mrs. Humphry Ward’s society, give guidance in play during the children’s leisure hours. They may also, in conjunction with the Sanitary Authorities, work for the increase of health and the wiser use of playgrounds and means of recreation. Men and women of good-will may, I believe, find boundless opportunities if they will serve on Municipal bodies or on the Committees appointed by such bodies to complement their work.

It may, indeed, be a further indictment against charities that much of the good-will which might have improved and humanized State action has by them been diverted. If, for instance, the passion of good-will which now finds an outlet in providing free shelters and dinners for the starving, or orphanages for destitute children, had gone to improve Casual Wards and Barrack Schools, many evils would have been prevented. At any rate, it may be said that charities working alongside of the State organizations would become stronger, and State organizations inspired by the charities would become more humane. It costs more, doubtless, to work in co-operation with others, and to subject self-will to the common will as a member of a Board of Guardians, than to be an important member of a charitable committee, but in charity it is cost which counts.

Charity--to sum up my conclusion--represents a very important factor in the making of England of to-morrow. The outbreak of giving, of which there has been ample evidence this Christmas, may represent increased good-will and more vivid realization of responsibility for those afflicted in mind, body, or estate, or it may represent the impatience of light-hearted people anxious to relieve themselves and get on to their pleasures. Society is out of joint because the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor have been brought into so great light. It seems intolerable that when wealth has to invent new ways of expenditure, there should be families where the earnings are insufficient for necessary food, where the children cannot enjoy the gaiety of their youth, where the boys and girls pass out through unskilled trades to pick up casual labour and casual doles. The needs are many, but the point I wish to urge is that charity which intends to help may hinder. No gift is without result, and some of the gifts are responsible for the suffering, carelessness, and bitterness of our times. Charity up to date is that which gives thought as well as money and service. The cost is greater, and many who will even deny themselves a pleasure so as to give a generous cheque cannot exercise the greater denial of giving their thought. “There is no glory,” said Napoleon, “where there is no danger;” and we may add, there is no charity where there is no thought, and thought is very costly.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

WHAT LABOUR WANTS.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

May, 1912.

[1] From “The Daily News”. By permission of the Editor.

Working men have become, we are often told, the governing class. They form a large part, perhaps the majority, of the electorate, and theirs is the obligation of making the laws and directing the policy on which depend the safety and honour of the nation. They have come into an inheritance built up at great cost, and on them lies the responsibility for its care and development.

Working-men, in order that they may fulfil their obligation and deliver themselves of their responsibility, may rightly, I think, urge a moral claim on the community for the opportunities by which to fit themselves for the performance of their duties. They enjoy by the sacrifice of their ancestors the inestimable privilege of freedom, but the value of freedom depends on the power to take advantage of its possibilities: the right to run in a race is all very well, but it is not of great use if the runner’s legs and arms are crippled. Freedom, in fact, implies the capacity to do or enjoy something worth doing or enjoying. The working classes, who, as members of a free nation, have been entrusted with the government of the nation, cannot do what is worth doing or what they are called to do if their bodies are weakened by ill health and their minds cribbed and cabined by ignorance. How can they whose childhood has been spent in the close, smoky, and fœtid air of the slums, whose bodies have been weakened in unhealthy trade, take their share in the support or defence of the nation? How can they who have learned no history, whose minds have had no sympathetic training, whose eyes have never been opened to the enjoyment of beauty, understand the needs of the people or grasp the mission of the Empire? Working men have thus a moral claim that they shall have the opportunity to secure health and knowledge, sanitary dwellings, open spaces, care in sickness and the prevention of disease, schools, university teaching, and easy access to all those means of life which make for true enjoyment.

But when such opportunities have been provided, poverty often prevents their use. This excuse does not, indeed, hold universally, and it is much to be wished that the Labour Press and other makers of Labour opinion would more often urge the importance of taking advantage of the provided means for health and knowledge. They may have reason for stirring men against the unfairness of an economic system and uniting them in a strike against the ways of capital, but success would be of little value unless the men themselves become stronger and wiser. Many workmen--for example, those engaged in the building trades--have abundant leisure during the winter. It would be well, if they, as well as those who consume hours in attending football matches, would spend some time in developing their capacities of mind and body. Labour indeed needs a chaplain who will preach that power comes from what a man is, and not only from what a man has. The Labour Press, with its voice reiterating complaints, and its eyes fixed on “possessions,” makes reading as dreary as the pages of a society or financial journal.

But this is digression, and the fact remains that poverty does in the case of thousands and hundreds of thousands of families prevent the possibility of using the means necessary for the development of their capacities. A wage of 20s. a week cannot permit schooling for the children up to the age of fifteen; it will not, indeed, provide sufficient food for the healthy life even of a small family. It can give no margin for the little recreations by which the powers of the mind are renewed, and does not allow for the leisure during growing years which is necessary to the making of the mind. It leaves the breadwinner fretted by anxiety lest in days of sickness or unemployment the wolf may enter the door and destroy the home.

The mass of labourers are, in a word, too poor to be healthy or wise; they are not fit to take a part in government, and they have not the opportunity to make themselves fit. Their work is often costly though it is cheap, and their votes are worthless though gained by much canvassing. Wages which are not a living wage unfit workmen for their duty in the government of the nation.

Does this fact justify a moral claim for a living wage to be fixed and enforced by the community? Ought a wage sufficient for the support of manhood to be a first charge on the product of labour and capital? The answer has in effect been given by the establishment of Wages Boards. There are now four trades in which a wage judged by a representative committee to be a living wage is enforced, and the same principle has lately been applied to the mining industry. The extension to other trades--if the experiment succeeds--can only be a matter of time. The claim of labour has been admitted, and the immediate question is, what is likely to be the result. Employers who are forced to give a higher wage will certainly require a higher standard of work. From one point of view this is all to the good. The acceptance of low-class work is as costly to the nation as it is degrading to the worker; it is a common loss when workers make constant mistakes for want of intelligence, and prove themselves to be not worthy a living wage. Every one is the better for the discipline which is required by the service of men; it is likely to make the nation richer and the workers more self-respecting, if they are free to fit themselves to take their part in government. It will, in economic language, probably tend to decrease the cost of production, and therefore the cost of living.

But there is another point of view. The raising of the standard of work will at once throw out the less able, the unskilful, the ignorant, and the lazy. Is this for good or for evil? “For good,” is the answer I offer. It is well to face facts. Legislation and philanthropy have often done mischief by treating the unemployed as one class. If they are recognized as those not worth a living wage then it is clear that either they must be fitted to earn such a wage, or be segregated in colonies where their labour will be subsidized. They have a claim on such treatment. Some by the want of care in their youth, or by some change of fashion, have no marketable skill. It seems only fair that they should have the chance of acquiring some other skill. Some, because they are lazy and work-shy, are inclined to prey upon their poor working neighbours. It seems only fair that they should be taken off the market and shut up till they learn habits of industry. Some, because they are weak in body or mind, can never earn sufficient for their upkeep. It seems only fair that they should be kept, not in workhouses or on inadequate out relief, but in colonies where their labour would go towards their own support, and sympathetic guardianship, by necessary subsidies, prevent them from starving.

Labour has a moral claim that labourers be given the opportunity of becoming free men--free to use and enjoy their manhood. English people made great sacrifices to secure freedom for the negroes, and religious people, to accomplish this object, dared to interfere in politics. The position to-day is more serious when those who are not free are called on to be governors of the nation, and religious people may again do well to interfere in politics to secure that working men may have the opportunity of developing the capacities which they have received for the service of mankind.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

February, 1913.

[1] From “The Nineteenth Century and After”. By permission of the
Editor.

“History,” we are told, “has often been the record of statesmen’s illusions,” and to one into whose mind over thirty years’ memories of East London have been burnt, it seems as if this generation concerning itself about foreign aggression, and the grouping of European Powers, were walking in the vain shadow of such an illusion. It is spending millions annually on armaments against a possible enemy, and grudges a comparatively small sum against the evils which are even now eating into the strength of the nation.

Strikes and rumours of strikes are shaking the foundations of the wealth by which our Dreadnoughts are built and our great Empire secured--political apathy and indifference to the commonwealth mock fervid appeals for patriotic self-sacrifice--railing accusations are hurled by the rich that workmen loaf and drink, and by the tyranny of trades unions ruin trade; and the equally railing accusations are urged by workmen that the rich in their luxury are content to plunder the poor and live in callous indifference to the wrongs they see; and to crown all the other evidences of discontent, violent speeches and lawless conduct are weakening the old calm confidence in the stability of the social structure which has been built up by the elaborate care of many generations.

An enemy has got a footing in the heart of the Empire, and is causing this disturbance. He has evaded our fleet and our forts, and he has the power to destroy our power. The nation, like a dreamer awakening, is shaking itself as it becomes conscious of another danger than that of foreign fleets and armies. It is beginning to be anxious about its social condition and is asking somewhat fitfully, What is to be done? What is the cause of the present discontent? What are the remedies?

Many causes are suggested. It may be that education, having developed the people’s capacities for enjoyment, has increased the area of discontent, and those who used to sit placidly in the shadow now demand a ray of the abundant sunshine. It may be that the frantic pace at which the modern world moves has stimulated the demand for excitement and made men impatient for change; it may be that the popular philosophy of the street and the Press, eclipsing older philosophies of the Church and the chair, impels men and nations to put their own interests before other interests--to retaliate blow for blow, and to become proud of pride. When nations, classes, or individuals seek first to protect themselves, then the other things, greed, panic, suspicion, and strife, are soon added.

All these causes may operate, but they would not, I think, be dangerous, if it were not for the fact of poverty. Ideas, philosophies, and feelings have only stirred mankind when they have been able to appeal to facts, and agitators would now agitate in vain if conditions did not agitate more eloquently. Mean streets and ailing bodies jar upon the more widely spread sense of joy, and the long hours of labour and the small wages stir an anger which becomes ready to upset society in order that the greater number might profit in the scramble. Poverty, as far as I can see, is the root cause of the prevailing discontent, the door by which the enemy enters and the fortress from which he sends out suspicion and strife to compass the nation’s ruin. Poverty! And our national income is £1,844,000,000, and the nation’s accumulated wealth is the almost inconceivable sum of £13,762,000,000.

The voice of the times--would that it had a Gladstone for its interpreter--is one that calls every one, be he patriot or business man, or even a pleasure-lover, to set himself to help in the eviction of poverty. If there be any fighting spirit--any chivalry left, here is the object for its attack; if there be any enlightened selfishness, here is the field for its exercise. Poverty, if it be not destroyed, will destroy the England of our hopes and our dreams.

The curious thing is that the public mind which speaks through the Press hardly realizes what is meant by poverty. There is much talk on the subject--numberless volumes are issued, and charities are multiplied, but what is in the minds of speakers, writers, and givers is obviously destitution. They think of the ragged, broken creatures kept waiting outside the doors of the shelter, and they have mental pictures of squalid rooms and starving children. Many and many a time visitors have come to Whitechapel expecting to see whole streets occupied by the ragged and the wretched, and they have been almost disappointed to find such misery the exception. There are, indeed, many thousands of people destitute, but they form only a fraction of the poor, and could, as the Poor Law Commissioners have shown, be lifted out of the condition by action at once drastic and humane. Why that action has not even been attempted is one of the many questions which the Local Government Board has to answer. But my present point is that, if all the destitute were removed, the poverty which is at the back of our present discontent would remain.

Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, whose opinion has been supported by subsequent social explorers and by scientific research, concludes that 3s. a week for an adult and 2s. 3d. for a child is necessary to keep the body in physical repair, the food being chosen simply to get the most nutrition for the least money, without any regard to appetite or pleasure. The rent for a family, even if one room be considered sufficient, can hardly be less than 4s. a week in a town, and if household sundries are to include fuel, light, and clothing for a family of five persons, 4s. 11d. is a moderate sum. It thus seems as if the smallest income on which it would be possible for an average family to exist is 21s. 8d. a week.

Mr. Charles Booth, Mr. Rowntree, and other subsequent investigators have shown that 30 per cent. of the town population have an income below or hardly above that sum, and as the wages of agricultural labourers average in England 18s. 3d. a week, in Scotland 19s. 3d., and in Ireland 10s. 11d., it is fair to conclude that the estimate of the towns may be applied to the whole kingdom, and that at least 12,000,000 of the 45,000,000 people are living on incomes below the poverty line.

Mr. Chiozza Money, in his “Riches and Poverty” approaching the subject from another side, justifies the conclusion. He shows that a population amounting to 39,000,000 persons is dependent on incomes of less than £160 a year--say 60s. a week, and absorbs £935,000,000 of the national income; that 4,100,000 persons depend on incomes between £160 and £700 per annum, and absorb £275,000,000 of the national income; and that the comparatively small number of 1,400,000 dependent on incomes over £700 a year absorb the mighty sum of £634,000,000. In other words, more than one-third of the entire income of the United Kingdom is enjoyed by one-thirtieth of its people.

In the light of these facts it is not incredible that 30 per cent of the population live in the grip of actual poverty. “The United Kingdom contains,” it may be said in truth and shame, “a great multitude of poor people veneered with a thin layer of the comfortable and rich.”[2]

The broad fact which stands out of these figures is that, when 21s. 8d. is taken as the sum necessary so that an average family may keep body and soul together, 12,000,000 people must give up in despair, and many other millions, depending on wages of 30s. or even 40s. a week, live anxious days. And this despair or anxiety is not on account of life, in all its multitudinous aspects, but only as to the maintenance of simple physical efficiency.

[2] These and other figures are put together very lucidly by Mr. Will Reason in a little shilling book, “Poverty” published by Headly Bros., which I commend to all as a good introduction to the subject.

Let us, says Mr. Rowntree, clearly understand what physical
efficiency means. A family living upon the scale allowed for in
this estimate must never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus.
They must never go into the country unless they walk. They must
never purchase a halfpenny newspaper or buy a ticket for a popular
concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they
cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute
anything to their church or chapel or give any help to a neighbour
which costs them money. They cannot save nor can they join sick
clubs or trade unions, because they cannot pay the necessary
subscriptions. The children must have no pocket-money for dolls,
marbles, and sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco and must
drink no beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for
herself or for her children. Should a child fall ill, it must be
attended by the parish doctor; should it die, it must be buried by
the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent from his
work for a single day.

A few parents of heroic mould may have succeeded in bringing up children to healthy and useful manhood and womanhood on small wages. Tales of such are repeated in select circles, but these families generally belong to a generation less open to temptation than the present. There are now few, very few, parents who, with an uncertain wage of 30s. a week, never spend a penny for the sake of pleasure, taste, or friendship. The result is that their own or their children’s physical health and well-being are sacrificed. The boys are rejected when they offer themselves as soldiers, the infant mortality is high, and the girls unprotected are more ready to become the victims of vice. The saddest of all experiences of life among the poor is the gradual declension of respectable families into the ranks of the destitute, when loss of work finds them without resources in body or skill.