Ten years in a Portsmouth slum

If I have ventured, in the last chapter, to speak of the duty which everyone owes to the town in which he lives, I fear that, for several years of my work in Portsmouth, I was very oblivious of this duty. The labour and watchfulness needed to try and cleanse our own little district made one forget the larger, but less apparent, duty. Indeed, many of my brethren felt that I had rendered their work more difficult, by uprooting dangers from my own district which located themselves in theirs. There is much, of course, to be said for this line of thought, but self-preservation is one’s first instinct, and if, in preserving myself and my own children, I have wronged others, I am sorry for it. But I do not think that I had ever let one day pass, in Portsmouth, without praying that I might realise the grave responsibility which rested on every inhabitant, and I believed especially on the clergy. I had tried, in preaching to men alone on Sunday afternoons, to speak out quite plainly on these social subjects, and this had brought me into contact with most of the labour leaders. For a long time all labour reform, in Portsmouth, was a great difficulty, for the Dockyard did not welcome its workers joining Trade Societies. However, thank God, that reproach has all been rolled away, and I believe myself the day is not far distant when employers will find that the men’s Unions are really a great gain in the solution of the whole Labour Question. Everything that tends to make the working man more intelligent and more self-reliant, is a tremendous gain, and there is no doubt that the better hours which men work, and the better wages, have this tendency. Of course, there are two dangers—first, as the Unions grew stronger, they had a tendency to look at all questions merely from the workman’s point of view, and, secondly, there was a danger of the individual wasting his increased wages and leisure in bad ways. In all acts of emancipation the first enjoyment of liberty may turn to licence, but such licence never lasts very long, and, I think, looking back over the last thirty years’ history of the Labour Question in England, one might say that this licence has almost never existed. At any rate, I was continually struck with the enthusiasm for righteousness that I discovered amongst the majority of the leading working men with whom I was brought in contact. I saw how keenly they recognised that though the creation of character was the chief thing to be aimed at, yet the creation of character, amidst temptations touching one at every single moment, added enormous difficulties to the education of every right-minded young man and woman. A great deal of cant has been talked about what is called the “Nonconformist Conscience,” and I am quite willing to believe that many of those most en evidence have, by their want of tact, and, I would add, want of true understanding of the working man, prejudiced the British public. But I can testify to this fact, that every word I uttered in Portsmouth on these subjects, was, in a large measure, but the echo of earnest words said to me, and prayers prayed with me, by working men, who were almost always, I say it with shame as a priest of the Church of England, Nonconformists. Why are these men not in communion with our Church? Surely that is the most important question for those in authority in the Church to ask themselves. The answer is not a difficult one. For their fathers and for themselves the Church of England has practically forbidden all work. They are trained in their own denominations to be class-leaders, itinerant preachers, to visit the sick, often to govern the chapel as elders. They are on a perfect equality with their minister, they tell him plainly what they think about him, and the needs of the men amongst whom they live. In years gone by their forbears suffered for what they held to be the truth; the remembrance of that suffering is bred in the bone of the children. But for all those who are interested in the Labour Question, there can be no thought so full of thankfulness to God, and of hope for the future, as the knowledge that the vast majority of labour leaders are deeply religious men.

For a long time I had been trying to organise the shop-assistants in the town. Would you believe it that, even now, Portsmouth has no weekly half-holiday, no early closing? The vast majority of the better shops, in our part of the town, do not close till 7.30 the first four nights in the week, on Fridays at 10, on Saturdays at midnight. The little shops never seem to close at all, day or night. There is something particularly pitiful in the class of shop-assistants. As a rule they will not help themselves. There is very little esprit amongst them, and a great deal of snobbishness. If some went on strike, their places would be filled within twenty-four hours, and one class will not mix with another. If you will not help yourself, God cannot help you, far less man. So, practically, one was fighting an impossible battle, for one or two large shopkeepers stood in the way of all reform. In the middle of the agitation, to my utter astonishment, I was told that the new minister of the Lake Road Baptist Chapel, Mr. Joseph, would be very glad to come and see me about it. I knew many of the Nonconformist ministers in the town were in sympathy with me, for several of them had written to me, when I resigned, in 1890, to say how sorry they were, and how they earnestly prayed that I would not leave Portsmouth. I felt that if Mr. Joseph was willing to stand by me, not only on the platform of shop-assistants, but with regard to the drink question too, I had indeed gained a most important ally. The congregation at Lake Road has more men in it than any church in Portsmouth—surely that is the best test of a Christian Church—and I knew that their minister was a true representative of his congregation. After many talks with him and some of his brethren, there was no doubt at all left in our minds that the Drink Question lay at the root of every evil in Portsmouth. With a population of 159,255 we had 1040 licences, or one licence to 153 people; or, deducting infants and total abstainers, 25 per cent. of the population, one licence for every 115 people. This is enormously above the average of almost all the large towns in England, the great seaport towns, or even the other Dockyard towns. In several Bills for the revision of the Licensing Question, submitted to Parliament, it has been proposed that licences should be granted in towns in the ratio of one per thousand; that would mean the reduction of licences, in Portsmouth, from one thousand and forty to one hundred and sixty.

I have no quarrel with the publican. I have known many of them to be the most respectable people, whose righteous souls were vexed, day by day, by the circumstances under which they and their children were forced to live; and yet, because they had invested their little all in a public-house, they had no other chance of a livelihood. In Portsmouth, too, the publican seems to suffer far more than in other towns, for the transfers are much more frequent—that is, a man invests his savings in a public-house, finds it does not pay, and has oftentimes to leave it, realising very little of the money which he put into it. Almost all the houses in Portsmouth are tied houses—that is, the publican has to sell, exclusively, the beer of the brewer who owns the house; and if he does not sell a sufficient quantity he is soon reminded of it, for the brewer’s profit is far more largely made out of the profits from the beer than from the rent of the house. There is only a certain amount of legitimate drinking in any town—that is, drinking because a man actually needs the drink. If the drinking were limited to this, an enormous number of houses would close without any interference of the magistrate. And so the publican has to do all sorts and kinds of things to induce men to stay in his house and drink. Everyone knows that there are innumerable ways of adulterating or faking up drink; that, if gambling and betting are allowed, men will congregate; that, if bad characters fill the bar, certain men will stay there; that, if the singing of vulgar songs is allowed, it is a great attraction, and makes men who roar the choruses all the more thirsty. Many publicans, of course, are too high-minded to employ these methods; but many who see starvation facing themselves and their children, do use them. Needs must when the devil drives; and certainly, in this case, the devil is the driver. Then it is very hard to refuse drink to a man who has already had too much, not only because you lose the price of the glass, but very likely his custom, as well as his friends’. However diligent and efficient the police are, it is utterly impossible for them to see that every public-house is conducted on legitimate lines. A large public-house, with a big trade and hardly any seats, where people take their drink and go out again, does, comparatively speaking, little harm. In towns with slums like Portsmouth, nearly all the harm is done by the little public-house. And these little houses are not scattered over the whole town; they are gathered, as a rule, into little districts. In Portsmouth proper, for instance, with a population of 6933, there are 75 public-houses; in Portsea, with a population of 15,260, there are 145. And these are really the diseased spots which fester and corrupt, where germs of every kind of disease collect—the places where our soldiers and sailors mostly spend their time. And the public-house is never by itself. Close to it—perhaps on either side of it—are houses of shame and evil. I would to God that the doctors in the naval and military hospitals could let their opinion of these places be known by the thinking people in England.

At any rate, I soon discovered that the Nonconformist ministers were only too anxious to move with me, with a view to drawing attention to these and other evils, which we considered to be a perpetual menace to the true health of our town. And then, to my greater joy, I found that Canon Jacob, and many of the Church clergy, too, were most anxious to join in the matter, and in a short time a Vigilance Committee had been appointed, which practically represented all that was best in every church and chapel, trade and profession, in the town of Portsmouth. Canon Jacob, who has since become Bishop of Newcastle, was elected chairman of that Committee, and I have never known anyone discharge duties—very difficult duties—with greater tact and earnestness.

On March 15th, 1894, the Town Council received a deputation from the Vigilance Committee upon the state of the streets in the town, and the Watch Committee, to whom the questions were referred, gave instructions to the Chief Constable, and the effect in a very short time was very manifest. The outward visible signs of the evil largely disappeared, and it was quite possible for people to walk through the streets without having their ears filled with the most disgusting language, and their sense of shame continually wounded. The lighting too of many streets, and especially of Southsea Common, by electricity, had a most desirable effect. But the real gain of the whole question was a deepening, in the minds of thoughtful men, of their duty in seeing that the authorities of the town did all that lay in their power to prevent temptation being forced on unwilling persons, and to make it possible for any lad or girl to go through any of the streets without being molested. When the town realises this duty, the authorities will soon see that that which is necessary is done.

On 18th August, 1894, the Society presented to the Licensing Justices an Open Letter, from which I have already quoted some statistics. This letter, at any rate, convinced the people of two facts: first, that the public-houses were altogether out of proportion to the population; secondly, that practically the monopoly of the drink traffic was held by a very few firms of brewers. When first I went to Portsmouth, and discovered how very undesirable many of the public-houses in my district were, I realised that it was utterly impossible that the brewers could know the character of the places in which their money was made, and I was particularly anxious that they should send their wives, or a lady of their acquaintance, dressed simply, to stay in their public-houses from 8.30 till the closing hour. I was told that this was an utterly preposterous demand. I cannot for the life of me see why it should be. The brewer makes his money, which his wife spends, out of the public-house. It is of vital importance that he should see, through the eyes of someone he can trust, how the money is made. If it is a place where he will not allow his wife to go, surely it is not a place where he wishes any other man’s wife to go, or indeed any woman’s husband, or indeed any other man or woman. And that is just the point I have never been able to understand about brewers. Many of them are most religious, excellent men, many of them even philanthropists, and doubtless these do see that all their public-houses are well-conducted. Some brewers say to me, “So long as the police do not interfere, it is no business of mine.” But surely that is not a true basis on which to work. The publican is the servant of the brewer, very often the tied and bound servant, and the brewer has no more right to make a penny out of a house where there is any wrong going on, than he has to steal. I am perfectly sure that, if every brewer, putting aside for a moment his business manager and agent, would make either in his own person, or in the person of someone whom he really trusts and whom the publican does not know, an examination of his own houses, many of them would be shut up.

In Lent, 1894, I was asked to preach in London on the subject of sailors, and I expressed pretty freely my own views, saying that most naval towns, Portsmouth among them, were sinks of iniquity. I had said the same thing over and over again in Portsmouth, and so I was utterly astonished when I arrived at the railway station, on my return, to discover the extraordinary storm my words had created. Underlying all this righteous indignation there was a certain amount of selfishness. Southsea, the favoured infant of the Corporation, for whose sake Kingston and Landport are sometimes starved, was endangered. If these words preached in London, and reported throughout the kingdom in the public press, were believed, it might hinder the influx of visitors, and so injure hotels, boarding-houses, and shopkeepers. When a scare from want of proper drainage or water has injured a health resort, is it wiser to try and hush the matter up, and blame the man who has dragged the nuisance to light, or to cure the nuisance, and render the town really healthy? That was the question which the Mayor ought to have answered, though, indeed, that part of it had never entered into my head. I only wanted to make England at large realise the cruel injury which was done to her noblest and best sons by the depravity which reigns in those very spots where, for her sake, the truest and noblest of her children are compelled to live. The Mayor’s defence of the town was most splendid. I venture to copy a few words from one of his speeches.

*****

I was threatened with a public indignation meeting in the Town Hall. I only wish that Mr. Joseph and myself had had the chance of addressing such a meeting. We wanted to ask the Mayor whether there was any other town in England in which, between the hours of 9.40 p.m. and 11 p.m.—that is eighty minutes—fifty public-houses could be entered, let alone thoroughly visited; whether he knew anything of the character of the houses which he passed in going from public to public; whether it could be desirable for the inhabitants to have so many licensed premises so close together; and whether he believed that there were fifty other publics anywhere in England which, at that hour in the evening, were without people whom he would call “jolly.” Surely his defence was the very best proof possible of my allegation. However, the public meeting never came off; discretion was the better part of valour.

I believe myself that the row did the town a great deal of good, and I am thankful to think that when I left it two years after I received from all kinds and sorts of people the most appreciative letters, one of the very kindest being from one of the largest brewers. There is one splendid thing about English rows, that, though we hit as hard as ever we can, we do not seem to bear any malice. I hope everyone will believe that it was with the purest intention of trying to remedy evils, the removal of which will only make Portsmouth more glorious, a better home for our soldiers and sailors, a more attractive spot in which to make all patriotic Englishmen learn to value the magnificence of their own country, that I spoke every word that I ventured to say.