CHAPTER XV

THE STANDARD OF COMFORT

In his book, “The Living Wage,” published in 1912, Mr. Philip Snowden devotes the third chapter to an estimation of the number of adult men, employed in the principal trades of the United Kingdom, who are getting less than 25s. a week. He quotes Professor Bowley, who in 1911 announced that 2,500,000 adult men were getting less than 25s. a week when working full time. This number, he explains, would be considerably increased were the figures based on actual earnings, as in almost every trade men occasionally, or even habitually, work short weeks, and get short pay during some part of the year.

Mr. Snowden, moreover, considers that Professor Bowley had under-estimated the number of adult men who, at full rates of pay, were earning less than 25s. a week. He takes Board of Trade returns, which show that in the cotton industry, which is one of the best paid of our great trades, 40 per cent. of adult men earned less than 25s. a week; that in the wool-combing industry the average wage for adult men on full time was 17s. 6d. a week; that in the linen industry 44 per cent. of the adult men earned less than 20s. a week, and 36 per cent. earned between 20s. and 30s.; that in the jute industry 49 per cent. of the adult men earned less than 20s. a week, and 36 per cent. earned between 20s. and 30s.; that in the silk industry 19 per cent. of the adult men earned less than 20s. a week, and 54 per cent. earned between 20s. and 30s.; and he took also a summary of the _actual_ earnings of the adult men in the textile trades of the United Kingdom, which shows that for one week of September, 1906, 48 per cent. earned less than 25s. a week.

For other occupations, Mr. Snowden, still quoting Board of Trade figures, says that in the clothing trade 7 per cent. of adult men earned less than 20s. a week, and 27 per cent. between 20s. and 30s.

Of bricklayers’ labourers 55.9 per cent. earned under 25s. a week.

Of masons’ labourers 67 per cent. earned under 25s. a week.

Of plumbers’ labourers 54 per cent. earned under 25s. a week.

Of painters’ labourers 33 per cent. earned under 25s. a week.

Of builders’ labourers 51 per cent. earned under 25s. a week.

A still later return of the Board of Trade gives information as to the wages of railway men in 1911. The figures show that 63 per cent. of the adult men got less than 25s. a week. The earnings of agricultural labourers, as given by the Board of Trade, for 1907 were 15s. 2d. a week in cash, or 18s. 4d. a week, counting all allowances. Mr. Snowden sums up the clearly set out facts given in his chapter thus:

“The facts cited in this chapter show that on the average something like one-half of the adult men, most of whom have a family dependent upon their earnings, do not earn 25s. 9d. a week, and that of this half, a very considerable proportion receive very much less than a pound a week. When we have considered the cost of living, it will be seen how wholly inadequate these wages are, and how inevitable it is that the consequences of this insufficiency should show themselves in the physical and social conditions of the wage-earning classes.”

In his estimate, Professor Bowley calculated that about 8,000,000 adult men were employed in regular occupations in the United Kingdom, and that of these 32 per cent., or nearly one-third, were earning, at full-time work, less than 25s. a week. As we see, Mr. Snowden comes to a different conclusion, and reckons that 50 per cent. of the adult men in regular employment are getting less than 25s. a week. If we take the smaller of these two estimates and reckon that one-fifth of the adult men are unmarried, we get something like 2,000,000 families living on a wage which is under 25s. a week. Again, to quote from Mr. Snowden, “Sir Robert Giffen estimated twenty years ago that there were 2,000,000 families where the total income did not exceed a pound a week.” Allowing that the average family consists of a man and his wife and two children, we get 8,000,000 persons who are living more or less as are the people whose daily life has been described in the previous chapters of this book, while, if we take Mr. Snowden’s own estimate, the number is far greater. That means that the great bulk of this enormous mass of people are under-fed, under-housed, and insufficiently clothed. The children among them suffer more than the adults. Their growth is stunted, their mental powers are cramped, their health is undermined.

A hundred years ago their fathers would have regarded these children as economic assets, and the family income would have been produced by every member who was over a very tender age. During the last century the State prohibited the employment of children under a certain age—an age which, as wisdom grows, tends to become higher and higher. By this necessary action the State formally invested itself with the ultimate responsibility for the lives and welfare of its children, and the guardianship thus exercised has continually been enlarged in scope until it has assumed supreme control of the nurture and training of the youth of the nation. A birth now means that a new human being must be fed, clothed, and housed in a manner which the State as guardian considers sufficient, for a period which we now hope to raise to sixteen years. If a man in these days sets his young children to earn money, or, if they be not fed, clothed, cared for, and sent regularly to school, he can be put in prison. If the children’s mother be a wage-earner, she can also be sent to prison if her children are not sufficiently cared for. Even the non-earning mother who has only what her husband chooses to give her can be imprisoned if a magistrate decide that any child-neglect is chargeable to her. It would seem reasonable to expect that when the ultimate responsibility for their welfare is undertaken by a rich and powerful State, children should at least be in receipt of sufficient food, shelter, warmth, and clothing.

Instead, however, of co-operating with parents and seeing to it that its wards are supplied with such primary necessaries, this masculine State, representing only male voters, and, until lately, chiefly those of the richer classes, has been crude and unwise in its relations with all parents guilty of the crime of poverty. With the best intentions it has piled upon them responsibilities which it has left them to cope with unaided. We still have the children of sober, industrious men and women living lives which maim and stunt them and make of them a handicap for the very State of which they are part. And we have parents whose wages are insufficient for their own needs spending themselves to perform the impossible, and, while they fail, the State—their partner in responsibility—looks the other way.

The first remedy for this state of things which springs to the mind of the social reformer is a legal minimum wage. The discussion of a minimum wage, which is at the same time to be a family wage, is exceedingly difficult. We realise that wages are not now paid on a family basis. If they were we should not have 2,500,000 adult men receiving for full-time work a sum which the writer has no hesitation in saying is less than sufficient for the proper maintenance, and that on the lowest scale, of one adult person. To pay wages in future, on an adequate family basis, to every adult worker who could possibly have helpless children dependent upon him or her would be a startlingly new departure. There are none, in fact, who advocate it. And yet if we are really attempting to solve the problem of hungry children by minimum wage legislation, we ought to aim at no less. Of course, what usually is advocated is the paying of a family wage to all adult men, while paying women an individual wage—the assumption being that women never maintain families. But we know this assumption to be untrue. Many thousands of women do maintain families, and if, through the medium of the minimum wage, their children also are to be kept in decency and comfort, the wages of women must also be on the family basis. Another difficulty in dealing with a family wage is the question of what sized family? There is no standard either in numbers or in age. If the wage be calculated upon a wife and two children, it will not support a wife and six children. Nor if it be calculated upon three children under four will it support in equal efficiency three children of ten, eleven and thirteen. Further, if a law which would keep children at school until the age of sixteen should happily come into force, the difficulty of reckoning a minimum wage which would suit everybody would be still greater.

A third difficulty is the fact that money paid as wage for work done must, in the nature of things, belong wholly and entirely to the person who performs the work. He or she is free to devote such money to any purpose they think best, and cases are not unknown of children who do not receive even such nurture as their parents’ means could allow. Many people solve these knotty points by dropping women bread-winners out of the problem, by arranging that the family consists of five persons—a man, his wife, and three children—and by assuming that every parent thinks more of his or her children’s welfare than of self. By doing this, they deal with theories instead of facts.

The two sums that have been seriously discussed by such various authorities as Mr. Rowntree, Mr. Charles Booth, and the Labour party are 25s. a week and 30s. a week. Neither sum is really enough in some localities should there be more than three children, who are to be properly housed as well as properly dressed and fed. And neither sum as a hard and fast minimum, even for men only, is considered practical politics by anybody. Scientific minimum wage schemes must consider and give weight to the conditions of each trade and locality. Many decisions in the worst paid trades will follow the example of the decisions under the Trades Boards Act, and when a minimum has been arrived at it will be—though an advance on present wages—insufficient perhaps to keep in real efficiency and comfort a single adult.

Moreover, to keep the children of the nation in health and strength is too important and vital a responsibility to be placed entirely on the shoulders of one section of the community—namely, the employers of labour. It is a responsibility which should be undertaken by the only authority which is always equal to its complete fulfilment—the State.

Therefore, although any minimum wage scheme which proposes to raise the bottom wages in any trade or trades, or for any group or groups of workers, is a necessary part of legislation, and must be urgently insisted upon in any plan for social reform, no minimum wage legislation now proposed, or likely to be proposed, will deal adequately with the question of all the children of the working poor. Yet unless we do deal with all of them, and deal adequately, the problem of the nation’s children goes unsolved.

Two theories are sometimes seriously brought forward as means by which the problem of hungry children could be dealt with. One is that if only the poor could be induced to cut down their families to fit their incomes there would be no problem. The other is, that if only the woman with 20s. a week knew how to spend it she could feed, lodge, and clothe her family with perfect ease. The first of these two ideas—if it ever possibly could be put into practice—would find a cure for poverty by the dying out of all the poor people. The man with 20s. and less could not even marry; the man with 25s. might perhaps marry, but could have no children; the man with 30s. might have one or two children—one is tempted to say “and so on.” But the people with incomes over the income-tax level do not nowadays as a rule err on the side of too large families. Many people with the comparatively enormous sum of £10 a week hesitate to have more than one or two children. It is obvious that were the children of the poor limited according to wage there would be no corresponding advance in the size of the families of the rich. It is not only that the nation would shrink, but the wage-earner would automatically cease to reproduce himself. It seems an heroic way of curing his difficulties. Obviously as a palliative in individual cases the plan of limiting the family according to wage appeals with great force to the well-fed and more fortunate observer, but as a national measure to deal with poverty it fails to convince. That a man with 24s. a week is unwise to have six children is perfectly true. But, then, what sized family would he be wise to have? If he were really prudent and careful of his future he would, on such a wage, neither marry nor have children at all. He could in that case live economically on 20s. a week and save the 4s. towards his old age. But we cannot expect Professor Bowley’s 2,500,000 adult men to act on those lines. The fact is they want to marry and they want to have children. As either of these courses is unwise on 24s. a week, they are in for a life of imprudence anyhow. The very facts of their poverty—close quarters and lack of mental interest and amusement, and, above all, lack of money—help to make the limitation of their family almost an impossibility to them.

The other suggestion has been already dealt with in previous chapters. It is always worth while, of course, to teach an improvident and stupid woman to be careful and clever—if you can. But to put down all the miseries and crying wants of the children of the poor to the ignorance and improvidence of their mothers is merely to salve an uneasy conscience by blaming someone else. It is almost better to face the position and say, “The poor should not be allowed to have children,” than to pretend that they could house, clothe, and feed them very well on the money at their disposal if they chose.

In Schedule A in the First Report of the Departmental Committee, with respect to the Poor Law Orders, a diet for a child of over two and under eight years is given, of which one day in any workhouse might be as follows:

_Breakfast._—Bread, 5 ounces; fresh milk, ½ pint.

_Dinner._—Roast beef, 1½ ounces; potatoes or other vegetables, 4 ounces; fresh fruit-pudding, 6 ounces.

_Supper._—Seed-cake, 4 ounces; cocoa (half milk), ½ pint.

No mother on 20s. a week could secure such food for her children. It is not supposed that the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Local Government Board would prescribe an extravagant diet, and it seems terrible that the children of the hard-working honest poor should be fed on a diet which is about half that prescribed as the most economical and very least that a healthy workhouse child should have. In this report it has been decreed that the workhouse child needs milk. Half of its evening and morning meals are to be of bread and milk. Further, “milk” is specially notified as meaning “new milk, whole and undiluted.” If the workhouse child needs about a pint of whole and undiluted new milk a day, as well as other food such as vegetables, fruit, bread, and cocoa, so does the child outside the workhouse. No scheme of porridge and lentils will do for a child without milk, and milk is expensive. When the mother has fed the bread-winner in accordance with his tastes and with some semblance of efficiency, she has no chance of being able to afford even a half-ration of milk for her children. When she has balanced the problem of housing against that of feeding, and has decided on the wisest course open to her, she has still to put her children three and four in a bed. She cannot separate the infectious from the healthy, nor the boys from the girls. She can never choose a sanitary and healthful life. She can only choose the less of two great evils.

No teacher of domestic science, however capable, can instruct girls scientifically and in detail how adequately to house, clothe, clean, warm, light, insure, and feed a family of four or five persons on 20s. a week in London. The excellent instruction given by the L.C.C. teachers is based on budgets of £3, 35s., or of 28s. for a family of six persons. It was realised that to teach girls how to manage inadequately would be false teaching. If the scientific and trained teacher cannot solve the problem, the untrained, overburdened mother should not be criticised because she also fails. The work which she is expected to do is of supreme importance. It would be enlightened wisdom to enable her to do it.