Chapter XIII

Of Economy--The Englishman's Wastefulness--Its Good Side--Its
Excess--Difficulties--A Calculation--Remedies.

Those who know work in various countries must surely have arrived at the conclusion that the Englishman is the most wasteful being on the face of the globe! He only thinks of getting through the work, or whatever it may be, that he has purposed to himself, attaining the end immediately in view in the speediest manner possible without regard to anything else, lavish of himself and of the stuff he works with. The picture drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island" of John Silver and his pirates, when about to start on their expedition, throwing the remainder of their breakfast on the bivouac fire, careless whence fresh supplies might come, is "English all over." This is the character of the race. It has its good side, this grand disdain--it wins Battles, Victoria Crosses, Humane Society's medals, and other things well worth the winning; brings into port many a ship that would else be lost or abandoned, and, year in, year out, sends to sea the lifeboats on our restless line of coast. It would be something precious indeed that would be worth the loss of it; but there is a medium in all things, and when a master sees--as one now at rest once told me he often had seen--a cutter draw his diamond down a bit of the margin out of which he had just cut his piece, in order to make it small enough to throw away, without being ashamed, under the bench, he must sometimes, I should think, wish the man were employed on some warlike or adventurous trade, and that he had a Hollander or Italian in his place, who would make a whole window out of what the other casts away.

At the same time, it must be confessed that this is a very difficult matter to arrange; and it is only fair to the workman to admit that under existing conditions of work and demand, and even in many cases of the buildings in which the work is done, the way does not seem clear to have the whole of what might be wished in this matter. I will point out the difficulties against it.

First, unless some system could be invented by which the amount of glass issued to any workman could be compared easily and simply with the area of glazed work cut from it, the workman has no inducement to economise; for, no record being kept of the glass saved, he knows that he will get no credit by saving, while the extra time that he spends on economy will make him seem a slower workman, and so he would be blamed.

Then, again, it is impossible to see the colour of glass as it lies on the bench; he has little choice but to cut each piece out of the large sheet; for if he got a clutter of small bits round him till he happened to want a small bit, he would never be able to get on.

There is no use, observe, in niggling and cheese-paring. There should be a just balance made between the respective values of the man's time and the material on which it is spent; and to this end I now give some calculations to show these--calculations rather startling, considered in the light of what one knows of the ordinary practices and methods.

The antique glasses used in stained-glass work vary in price from 1s. a foot to 5s., the weight per foot being about 32 oz.

The wage of the workmen who have to deal with this costly material varies from 8d. to 1s. per hour.

The price of the same glass thrown under the bench, and known as "cullet," is L1 per TON.

Let us now do a little simple arithmetic, which, besides its lesson to the workers, may, I think, come as a revelation even to some employers who, content with getting work done quickly, may have hardly realised the price paid for that privilege.

1 ton = 20 cwt.
x 4
--
80 qrs.
x 28
---
640
32 oz. = 2 lb., 160
-----
therefore / 2) 2240 lbs.
-----
1120 = number of square feet in a ton.

The worth of this at 1s. a foot (whites) is:--

/ 20) 1120 ( L56 PER TON.
100
----
120
120

At 2s. 6d. per foot (the best of pot-metal blues, and rubies generally):--

56
56
28
---
2-1/2 times 56 = 140 L140 PER TON.

At 5s. a foot (gold-pink, and pale pink, venetian, and choice glasses generally):--

56
x 5
---
L280 PER TON.

Therefore these glasses are worth respectively--56 times, 140 times, and 280 times as much upon the bench as they are when thrown below it! And yet I ask you--employer or employed--is it not the case that, often--shall we not say "generally"?--in any given job as much goes below as remains above if the work is in fairly small pieces? Is not the accompanying diagram a fair illustration (fig. 63) of about the average relation of the shape cut to its margin of waste?

Employers estimate this waste variously. I have heard it placed as high as two-thirds; that is to say, that the glass, when leaded up, only measured one-third of the material used, or, in other words, that the workman had wasted twice as much as he used. This, I admit, was told me in my character as _customer_, and by way of explaining what I considered a high charge for work; but I suppose that no one with experience of stained-glass work would be disposed to place the amount of waste lower than one-half.

Now a good cutter will take between two and three hours to cut a square foot of average stained-glass work, fairly simple and large in scale; that is to say, supposing his pay one shilling an hour--which is about the top price--the material he deals with is about the same value as his time if he is using the cheapest glasses only. If this then is the case when the highest-priced labour is dealing only with the lowest-priced material, we may assume it as the general rule for stained-glass cutting, _on the average_, that "_labour is less costly than the material on which it is spent_," and I would even say much less costly.

But it is not to be supposed that the little more care in avoiding waste which I am advocating would reduce his speed of work more than would be represented by two pence or three pence an hour.

But I fear that all suggestions as to mitigating this state of things are of little use. The remedy is to play into each other's hands by becoming, all of us, complete, all-round craftsmen; breaking down all the unnatural and harmful barriers that exist between "artists" and "workmen," and so fitting ourselves to take an intelligent interest in both the artistic and economic side of our work.

The possibility of this all depends on the personal relations and personal influence in any particular shop--and employers and employed must worry the question out between them. I am content with pointing out the facts.