POVERTY is more general even in America than most people think. In England it presents a problem of national scope and importance, which seems year by year to grow more difficult to deal with.
Some idea of its magnitude may be gained from a comparison. America, with a population of eighty millions, has less than 100,000 paupers to care for. England (including Wales) with a population of about 32,000,000, has over 800,000 such on her hands. In other words, in the states a population two and a half times greater than that of the old country has only one-eighth as many paupers to provide for. The proportion here is twenty as compared with one in the states. But this is not all the advantage.
The Real Suffering
in England is not to be found in the pauper class as such, the large proportion of whom are comfortably lodged and fed in the enormous work-houses. It is with the laboring classes mainly that the most pressing social problems have to do. Careful investigation has revealed the fact beyond doubt that the wages paid a very considerable proportion of unskilled laborers are insufficient to enable them even with careful management to support their families in decency and comfort. In the large cities thousands of little children come to school in the morning too hungry to be able to study, so that it has been found necessary to provide breakfasts for them at public expense. Is this caused by drink? Not always, by any means. The parents may not be to blame. A leading daily offers the following as a typical case:
We will say the father is a carman earning a guinea [a trifle more than five dollars] each week. On this he and his wife and four children have to live. How do they do it? Well, suppose he spends twopence upon his breakfast, another twopence on his dinner, and a like sum upon his tea, that will make sixpence per day, three and sixpence per week. [One shilling equals 24 cents; a penny, 2 cents]. A similar allowance for his wife brings the total for the parents' meals for one week to seven shillings. For the children we will allow three farthings [1 1/2 cents] per meal; this for three meals per day for four children makes another five and threepence, or a total of twelve and threepence. If they are fortunate in getting into a Trust building, such as the Peabody or Guinness blocks of dwellings, they may get rooms for a family of six for five shillings per week, and even then there is an element of charity in the matter. Thus we account for seventeen and threepence of the weekly guinea.
If we set aside 2s. 3d. per week for the clothes necessary for six persons, 1s. 2d. for fuel, we find there remains fourpence each week for luxuries, such as a sick club or a holiday.
It will be noticed that no provision is made in this scheme either for drink or tobacco, and the other items are carefully fixed in harmony with the prices of the various food commodities prevailing in English cities. With such conditions obtaining in times of comparative prosperity, when employment is regular, what must be the case when work fails, or the bread-earner is laid up by sickness? Many, moreover, fail to get decent quarters for five shillings per week, and must pay more. Many, again, in fact most, drink; hence must cut down the allowance of food for themselves and their children in order to buy beer. The average working-class family spends about one-fifth of the weekly wage in the public house.
Below the Poverty Line.
Mr. Charles Booth, after a minute investigation extending over many years, has come to the conclusion that 30 per cent. of the population of London live below the poverty line; in other words, can not, under existing conditions, and with their own natural limitations, earn a sufficient wage to feed, clothe, and shelter their families with due regard to health and reasonable comfort. A similar investigation has been conducted by Mr. Rowntree in York, with a population of about 75,000. He distinguishes two varieties of poverty, namely, primary and secondary. The former term is applied to persons whose suffering arises solely from an insufficient wage; the latter to cases where it is more or less the result of waste. Ten per cent. of the population are said to be in a state of primary poverty, 18 per cent. in secondary poverty. It hardly needs to be added that the waste referred to usually means indulgence in alcoholic drinks. In York we have, then, in times of comparative prosperity, 28 per cent., or more than one-fourth the entire population, suffering want, the children ill-clad, half-famished, and therefore attaining but a dwarfed mental and physical development. There is no reason to suppose that the situation is materially different in other cities.
Outside of the Cities.
How is it in the villages and the country districts generally? This question has also been answered by thorough-going investigation. A little village in Bedfordshire which seemed from all appearances to be typical of English village conditions, was recently subjected to a scientific inquiry in respect of the financial status of its inhabitants. It consisted of 127 families, 40 of whom were found to be living in conditions detrimental to health and decency. That this little village possessed three public houses is somewhat significant.
Right here it may be well to say that the sordid, cheerless surroundings of the poor, and the ill-selected and badly-cooked food that forms their diet, both tend to drive them, women as well as men, to the public house, where there are companionship, cheerful surroundings, and something to take that will, at least for the time being, exhilarate them, and enable them to forget their troubles. The houses in which the English tenant farmers (scarcely one out of ten owns the land he works) live are oftentimes old, dilapidated huts which are hardly good enough for the housing of animals. Moreover, they are insufficient in point of size, country folk mostly having large families. Thus the over-crowding problem applies in England to the country districts as well as to the cities, all because the owners of the land are too indifferent or parsimonious to tear down these wretched hovels, and put up modern cottages.
The Exodus to the Cities.
The bad housing accommodations and low pay of the country largely account for the exodus to the cities which has caused a good deal of concern in recent years. How extensive this movement has been may be judged from the fact that, while the country population of Great Britain has remained stationary, has, in fact, diminished in certain districts during the last thirty years, the urban population had increased by 10,000,000. Can it be wondered at that the young men growing up in sordid squalor should turn with longing eyes to the city, where some at least manage to make a success, and improve their condition in life. Unfortunately they do not know that very many find the city after all a worse place than the country, and after eking out a precarious existence in the slums, ultimately join the ever-growing army of paupers. In the country they can at least have a little garden of their own, and if the housing is poor, the air is fresh and pure out-of-doors; while in the city there is only the street for the children, and the air is thick with noxious smells.
Practical Serfs.
Moreover, while the country laborer is virtually a serf, helpless in the hands of his landlord, the poor of the cities are equally tied down by circumstances. Every man knows that if he loses his job, a half dozen men stand ready to step in and fill his place. Unskilled labor is a drug on the market; so also is clerical help of almost all kinds. Hence a business education is not by any means a solution of the difficulty. Skilled artisans are less likely to come to want, but their wages are usually small, and employment is by no means sure.
Employers and Employees.
A great many clerks and shop hands generally in the large cities are obliged by the firms they work for to board and room on the premises. This is known as the "living-in" system, and it works severe hardships upon many. The accommodations are usually very poor, and the charge correspondingly high, the object being to make this branch of the business pay as well as possible.
In general the attitude of the employer to his employees is much the same as in other countries. Exceptions there are, such as the Cadbury Brothers, who take a real interest in the welfare of their employees, but in the main, business interests count largely to the exclusion of other considerations. Oppression is unfortunately not wanting, and charity is often given out as a dole where justice would be more welcome.
Socialism.
Socially, the English laborer is at a much greater remove from his employer than is the American. This may account in part for his apparent acquiescence in things that to Americans would be simply intolerable. But the English workingman often feels a good deal more than he says. His resentment of wrong is not less keen if it is not openly expressed. Socialism has made enormous strides in England in recent years; the labor element is manifesting its strength in unsuspected quarters; and it becomes increasingly evident that social reforms must occupy a prominent place in the legislation of the next few years. One-fourth to one-third of the entire population of a country can not remain content with squalid quarters, an impoverished dietary, and nothing but the workhouse to look forward to in old age. At the present time three out of four of all the men in England who are sixty-five years old and upwards, are paupers.
The Unemployable—Dementia, Insanity.
A word may be said in regard to the unemployable. Unfortunately this class is growing. Recent investigations show a disproportionately large number of children in the public schools who are more or less deficient mentally, and unable to keep up with other children. Insanity has increased at an alarming rate among the very poor. In 1859 one in every 536 persons was insane, to-day the ratio is one in every 293. This increase has been confined almost entirely to the lower classes. Physical inefficiency is generally prevalent from the army records, which show that only two out of five men who wish to join are physically capable; this altho the standard has been considerably lowered in recent years.
The Underlying Cause.
If we look for the underlying cause of a large amount of the suffering and poverty of England, we must lay it to the enormous expenditures for military purposes, which, in the long run, come out of the pockets of the laboring men. This burden, moreover, continually grows heavier. Indeed, the cost of national defense threatens to double itself within a decade. In 1895, for instance, the cost of the army and navy together was less than $191,000,000; in 1903 it was (exclusive of war expenditure) $322,500,000. An armed peace, indeed!
Of Charitable Organizations
it is true, England has a large number. There are said to be some 30,000 of them, one-third of which are located in London, and they are doing much excellent work. Things would be a great deal worse without them. Nevertheless they can not in the very nature of things deal adequately with the situation. They are at best only palliatives;7they do not cure the disease. Legislation can do something, but it also is subject to limitations. While sin remains in the heart of man, poverty and suffering can never depart from the world in which he lives. The coming of Christ is the only radical cure for many of the social evils of the day.
M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN.
