Riches and Poverty (1910)

THE consequences of the error of distribution now demand our attention.

The congestion of so much of the entire income and accumulated wealth of the United Kingdom in a few hands has a most profound influence upon the national development. It means that the great mass of the people—the nation itself—can progress only in such fashion as is dictated by the enterprise or caprice of a fraction of the population. The possessors of wealth exercise the real government of the country and the nominal government at Westminster but timidly modifies the rule of the rich. When we say that about one million people command one-third of the entire income of the nation we mean, broadly, that one million people have under their control the lives of one-third of the population or of 15,000,000 people. When we say that about five million people command one-half of the entire income of the country we mean, broadly, that five million people control the lives of one-half of the population, or of 22,000,000 people. Expenditure is a call for material or immaterial commodities, and a demand for commodities is a demand for labour. That call rules the continuous series of employments which form the main activities and which mould the lives and character of our people. If the call be for worthy things, our people are directed into noble occupations. If the call be for unworthy things, labour is misdirected and degraded.

The self-degradation of a limited number of unduly rich persons would be a little thing from a national point of view if its effects could be confined to the rich themselves. Unfortunately, those effects are not a stagnant pool which we may avoid, but a stream which flows through and pollutes the lives of the majority of our people. A working man may resist the temptation to ape the vices which are bred of idleness, but the highest standard of morality cannot save him from degrading his manhood in the service of waste. Without his knowledge the product of his toil may be bartered for the toy of a moment, and the skill of his hands pass to the foreigner in exchange for the means of wanton luxury. The rare steam coal of South Wales, got in blood and tears in a fiery mine, may be exported to France in exchange for a racing automobile. It would matter little that a limited number of drones inhabited the hive if they had no command of the work of the community. It matters everything when these drones, by their expenditure, can each command thousands of workers to attend their idleness.

There are certain well-defined servants of the rich wholly devoted to their pleasure, such as menial servants, grooms, stablemen, gardeners, makers of expensive articles of food, clothing, furniture, etc., hotel servants, many of the inhabitants of the rich quarters of towns and of fashionable pleasure resorts, many tradespeople and their shop assistants, and other workers. Again, there are certain well-defined servants of the poor, such as petty tradespeople, general storekeepers, the workmen and officials engaged in institutes, charities, free libraries, municipal tramways and other services, public gardens, and so forth. There is often, however, no clear distinction between those who serve the few rich and those who serve the many poor. Every trade, however useful nominally, has to give of its best to be poured into the cup of luxury and spilt in wanton extravagance. Our 1,300,000 builders, our 1,400,000 metal workers, engineers and shipwrights, our 1,300,000 textile workers, our 1,300,000 clothiers, and all the other persons engaged in our "useful" industries, furnish their large quota of products for the rich and their small quota of products for the poor. The edict of the rich man goes forth and industry hastens to obey it. Bricks from Berkshire which are sadly needed for the building of decent cottages for agricultural labourers are taken into Surrey to form part of one of the vulgar and pretentious red-brick villas which mock every canon of architecture and make hideous the most beautiful portions of that Garden of England. Good fir from Sweden, imported in exchange for the toil of Lancashire or the sweat of Cleveland, roofs in the tenth, fifteenth or twentieth bedroom of the man who has more rooms than children, and more menial servants than guests, while the Census shows us that in England and Wales there existed, in 1901, 3,286,526 tenements of fewer than five rooms, of which 251,667 had but one room, 658,203 but two rooms, 779,992 but three rooms and 1,596,664 but four rooms. The mechanic, the electrical worker, the girl at the loom, all appear to be usefully employed in contributing to the well-being of the nation. As a matter of fact, the lion's share of the wealth they create goes to add to the income of a few, while the remainder is distributed amongst a number so great as to constitute nearly the whole of the population. If we consider the case of the cotton industry alone, it appears, on the surface, that 582,000 workers (172,000 men and 410,000 women and children) are most usefully employed in the production of articles of the first necessity. They do work, each year, upon some 16,000,000 cwts. of raw cotton which they manufacture into about £120,000,000 worth of cotton goods. But trace the history of these goods. Are they consumed by the countrymen of the people who make them? Alas! no. Of the yearly output of £120,000,000, as much as £100,000,000 is exported to foreign countries and British Possessions, chiefly to foreign countries. Only £20,000,000 worth of the magnificent output of our cotton workers is retained by our 44,000,000 people. In addition there is a consumption of a few million pounds worth of imported cotton goods. Can it be true that our population need to renew their household and personal stock of cotton fabrics to the extent of a value of but 10s. per head per annum? Of course it is not true. From cotton is manufactured, for the person, dresses or blouses of muslin, lawn, cambric, prints, mercerized stuff, etc., shirts and underclothing in great variety for both sexes, handkerchiefs, lace, hosiery, etc., and for the household, cotton sheets and other bed furnishings, curtains of lace, cretonne and muslin, towels, dusters, and a host of other things. Yet so poor are the mass of our people that 10s. per head per annum furnishes them with all the cotton goods which they can afford to buy for both their persons and their households. Great is their need and small are the means available for its satisfaction. If it were not so, our cotton trade would need many thousands more bales of raw cotton per annum, first to supply a quite ordinary home demand and second to export to the foreigner to obtain in exchange the satisfaction of other ordinary needs.

In the following table I have estimated a demand for cotton goods by a household of five persons. The prices are wholesale and relate to the materials only. It should be distinctly understood that nothing is included for retail profit or for the manufacture of the materials into garments. I have estimated for all the cotton goods used on the person or in the household, not forgetting the cotton linings commonly used in woollen clothing.

CALL (AT WHOLESALE PRICES) BY A HOUSEHOLD
OF 5 PERSONS, FOR COTTON MATERIALS

In framing this estimate I have imagined an exceedingly modest standard of comfort, one such as few readers of these lines would probably care to adopt, and the prices, as I have said, refer to the wholesale cost of the material only. Yet, modest as it is, the estimate works out at nearly 20s. per head. Given such a modest demand, our cotton trade would need to produce about £45,000,000 worth of cotton goods per annum for home consumption alone. As we have seen, it finds a call for only £20,000,000 worth, a great part of which, of course, is absorbed by the "rich" and "comfortable" classes.

It is a deeply significant fact that a nation of 44,500,000 people, producing by its manifold activities a total income of £40 per head per annum, should be able to afford to retain of its total output of cotton fabrics but 10s. per head per annum.

Let us turn to our woollen and worsted industries. Here we have in an average year an output worth some £65,000,000 of which £23,000,000 is exported, leaving £42,000,000 for home consumption. In addition there is a considerable importation (£12,000,000) of woollen and worsted goods, chiefly woollen goods, of a character which we do not ourselves produce, from France. Thus we have a total home consumption worth £54,000,000 per annum. This amounts to about 25s. per head per annum, a sum which, in view of our climatic conditions, is, if anything, less satisfactory than that for cotton consumption. Again let us picture our working-class household of five persons and inquire what might be its most modest imaginable expenditure upon articles made of wool:—

CALL (AT WHOLESALE PRICES) BY A HOUSEHOLD
OF 5 PERSONS, FOR WOOLLEN AND WORSTED GOODS.
MATERIALS ONLY

In working out this estimate in detail, I have again postulated a low standard of comfort. Thus the man is assumed to have but one new woollen suit and one new pair of trousers per annum, and an overcoat once in two years. It is also assumed that the children are partly provided for by adaptation of their parents' discarded garments. Even so, the estimate works out at 47s. per head. At this rate there would be a call for about £105,000,000 of woollen and worsted goods by the 44,500,000 people of the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, the call is for only £54,000,000 worth, or about 25s. per head on the average. But who is the Average Man? He is a creature of the statistician. The real truth is, of course, that quite a small number of people consume a very great part of our total present annual call for £54,000,000 worth of woollen and worsted goods. The masses of the people spend a sum which is a small fraction of the average expenditure of 25s. per head.

Again, let us consider the boot and shoe industry. Here I have no reliable estimate as to the value of production, but we know that employment in the trade is sometimes exceedingly bad, and that in Leicester, Northampton and elsewhere the greatest distress exists from time to time because the boot manufacturers have overtaken demand. What does this mean? There are some 7,000,000 houses in England and Wales not assessed to the Inhabited House Duty because they are under £20 in annual value. It is safe to say that each of the inhabitants of each of these 7,000,000 houses would gladly purchase three pairs of boots and shoes if they had the means to do so, and would then not be overburdened with footwear. That means that a need exists at this moment for 7,000,000 × 5.2 (the average number of persons per house in this country) × 3 = 109,000,000 pairs. That great demand, obviously, could be renewed, did means allow, within 12 months.[35]

Yet, in November 1904, the Mayor of Leicester (Mr S. Hilton, of Messrs S. Hilton & Sons, boot factors) dealing with the question of want of employment in the boot industry said:

"I think the present great need of Leicester is a new industry. We cannot expect, at any rate for some considerable time, that much more employment will be derived from the boot and shoe trade, at least, not sufficient for a growing population. The rapidity with which boots and shoes are turned out, owing to the improved machinery and modern methods, will supply all the demands for some time to come, and the man who may be the means of introducing some additional industry in this town, which will not only prove remunerative to the employer, but provide work for the many men and youths who are in need of it, will be a benefactor to the town."

With improving methods and machinery, there must, sooner or later, arrive, in every industry, a time when output overtakes visible demand, and when that time arrives, as it is alleged to have done in Leicester, great suffering is caused to many hard-working people. Their trade slips from them, and the matter of re-adjustment, the establishment of new industries, the transition to other employments, entails severe distress. But who can truly say that the boot trade has yet reached, in this country, the maximum of possible output? Certain it is that there are many who need new footwear and cannot afford it, even while Leicester men look vainly for employment. The real truth would appear to be that Leicester is suffering from the under-consumption of those who, if they had the means, would buy boots. I have shown that 100,000,000 pairs at least could be readily absorbed in Great Britain. Yet men are unemployed at Leicester and the Mayor calls for a new industry!

The fact is, of course, that while 7,000,000 or more poor householders lack the means to buy boots, some tens of thousands of unduly rich households are squandering those means and in effect commanding men to leave the boot trade to take up industries which shall serve their pleasures.

In relation to the trades which supply the materials of clothing the census returns give evidence that our industries are not developing healthily. It should be remembered, however, that it is impossible to measure the growth of luxury by the census returns, although it makes a certain impression in them. The labour of tens of thousands who follow nominally useful occupations is actually devoted to waste. This may be illustrated by two typical cases which recently were brought to the notice of the public. On February 8th, 1905, in the King's Bench Division, a millionaire, well-known in financial circles (his name matters not, for I take the case not to reproach an individual but because it is a typical one) sued a West-End firm of contractors and caterers for damages. It appears that in July 1903 he gave a dinner party with a concert and supper, and engaged the defendant firm to erect behind his residence in Grosvenor Square a temporary supper-room for the occasion. He gave instructions that "no expense was to be spared." The electric light was installed in the temporary structure, and from this or another cause, a fire occurred, and the temporary structure perished a few hours before its time. Out of this arose the claim for damages, which failed, the jury awarding the contractors their counter-claim for the work done.

It is not the merits of the action to which I direct the reader's attention. What would the mere statistics tell us of the men who were engaged in erecting the temporary supper-room "regardless of expense"? We should find them described as following quite useful occupations:

As a matter of fact the skill and labour of these honourable callings were turned to sheer waste at the command of the millionaire financier. With the same expenditure of time and effort, and with the same consumption of material, those men might have decently housed one or two families for life. Had they been free to choose between the housing of a poor family and the carrying out of a rich man's caprice, can we doubt which work they would have chosen? But they were not free to choose, and inquiry would probably show that they are constantly employed to do similar work in rich men's houses. Their lives are wasted to the nation at large, and devoted to the fancies of a few. In return, they are handed wage-money which is too often unearned by those who pay the bills. Thus A the financier commands B to waste his precious skill, and at the same time commands certain other persons, C and D, to devote part of their labour to sustaining B while he wastes his time and does nothing for them in return.

Let me give another pertinent illustration:

In July, 1904, a great deal of attention was aroused by a case in which a West-End dressmaker was fined for working her girls at illegal hours. Her excuse was that she was compelled to get finished at very short notice a frock to be worn at Ascot by a certain rich lady. Considerable comment was aroused by the case, especially in view of the fact that a play with a purpose in which a similar incident was introduced was being played at the time in a London theatre.[36] I was particularly struck with the fact that the fashionable customer who caused the trouble was chiefly censured for her dilatoriness and want of consideration in ordering her frock at the last moment. But the gravamen of the offence lay not in ordering the frock late but in ordering it at all. The chief point is not one within the scope of the consolidated Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, but a much greater one, which goes deep down into the roots of the problem of want and poverty in the richest country in the world. For the special Ascot frock, the garment costing anything from 10 to 50 guineas, made to be worn once and then cast aside, is a perfect illustration of the misdirection of life and waste of labour which is caused by the error in the distribution of the national income. For every special Ascot frock worn by one woman, whether that frock be made in legal or illegal hours, a number of other women go insufficiently clad.

Such illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely. At the great Albert Hall Charity Bazaar held in 1904 a titled lady present wore a magnificent dress which had been completed literally at the eleventh hour of the previous evening by a number of young women whose economic condition is such that only the best of health and the best of fortune can save them from becoming the objects of "charity" in the time to come. As in the case of the temporary supper-room, these girls, to judge by the census of occupations, would appear as following useful occupations. From the point of view of the national welfare, they had better be paid wages for digging holes and filling them up again.

While the rich consume the means of living of the poor we need not be surprised if useful trades languish. A rich person can but consume a limited quantity of useful commodities. After that consumption, having still a great superfluity, he seeks other diversions, and the orders go forth which swell the ranks of the wrongfully employed.

At the other end of the scale, what is the possible expenditure upon goods by the poor? The answer which has been given to this question by the researches of Mr Charles Booth in London and of Mr Seebohm Rowntree in York is seen to be one which can only be regarded as inevitable in view of the figures we have examined. Mr Booth concluded that 30.7 per cent., or nearly one-third of the population of London were probably living in "poverty." Mr Rowntree found that in York, a typical provincial city, in a year of good trade, 7,230 persons, representing 15½ per cent. of the working classes, or 10 per cent. of the entire population of York, were living below a primary poverty line drawn at an income of 21s. 8d. per week for a family of five persons paying only 4s. per week for rent. Mr Rowntree also found 13,072 persons living in York under conditions which were but little above the primary line, making a total of 20,302 persons, or 28 per cent. of the population of York, living in want.

Mr Rowntree's primary poverty line of 21s. 8d. per week was arrived at thus.[37] He considered necessary expenditure under the three heads: (1) Food, (2) Rent, (3) Clothes, fuel and other necessaries. To begin with food, he framed a dietary which contained no butcher's meat or butter, and allowed such a luxury as tea but once a week. The only meat was bacon and very little of that. It was a dietary "more stringent than would be given to any able-bodied pauper in any workhouse in England or Wales." Taking the lowest co-operative store prices, he found that this dietary would cost 3s. each for the adults and 2s. 3d. each for the children per week. Thus the cost of food alone would be 12s. 9d. per week. Allowing for rent and rates 4s., we arrive at 16s. 9d. per week. To this Mr Rowntree added for clothing, fuel, and all other necessaries 4s. 11d. per week, making, in all, the 21s. 8d. referred to. Here is the estimate in detail:—

MR ROWNTREE'S PRIMARY POVERTY LINE

It will be seen that nothing is allowed for drink, or tobacco, or newspapers, or postage stamps, or any relaxation whatever. Yet 15 per cent. of the working people of York were found to be living below a primary poverty line conceived on such a scale as this. For boots, clothing, underclothing, hats, furniture, glass, crockery, utensils, curtains, washing materials, and gas or oil, only 3s. 1d. per week or £8 per annum (32s. per head per annum). Need we wonder, then, if Lancashire is only called upon by 44,000,000 British people for £20,000,000 worth of cotton goods?

The Board of Trade recently gave us (Cd. 2337) some useful studies of workmen's budgets which show that even Mr Rowntree's 3s. 1d. per week for goods is a larger sum than is expended by most workmen's families with about 21s. per week. The Board of Trade examined 1,944 workmen's budgets with the following results:—