'I Believe' and other essays Part 17

"The guardians decided that the stone-yard is derogatory, and abolished the labour test. They had no sufficient labour for men, so they allow them to remain in practical idleness. There are over two hundred and fifty young men in the workhouse to-day, amply fed, well clothed, and maintained week by week, and month by month, in idleness. They are lazy, good-for-nothing scamps, many of them, as their records clearly show. Naturally they take advantage of the glorious prospect of plenty to eat and nothing to do. There is another army, only less numerous, of young women in the prime of years and of health, equally idle.

"A few days since, I went over the 'workhouse' at midday, and watched the great rooms packed with legal idlers, all busy eating a dinner such as few labourers outside have. 'Do you mean seriously to tell me that these men have no proper employment?' I asked my guide, as we stood in a great room thronged with not far short of three hundred men, mostly varying in age from eighteen to forty, all sound limbed, all physically fit. 'We use them as far as we can in cleaning up,'

my informant replied.

"The next extraordinary point at Poplar is the feeding of the inmates. No one denies that the pauper should have a sufficiency of wholesome food, and most of us would willingly support the generous feeding of the old and the infirm. But the Poplar guardians have gone to the extreme here. They work on the policy avowed by some of them that 'the poor man ought to have the best sometimes.' They are going to give him the best when he is in the workhouse, and they do! The b.u.t.ter costs, bought by the ton, 1_s._ 2-3/4_d._ a pound. I am informed that the contractors are required to supply only 'Denny's best Irish' bacon. The meat is of the very finest quality to be bought, and the bread is of a grade and perfection rarely to be had in shops or restaurants. I examined the dinners being served in the course of an ordinary visit, and I declare in sober truth that the quality was at least as high as that given in an average West End club. The mealy potatoes and the fine boiled meats certainly equal those served in the modest club where I lunch."

This, my working-men listeners, is what you and I are paying for. The obvious result upon any district where the rates must be raised to an impossible height in order to support the idle and worthless, is that such a district ceases to be an area of employment.

The great manufacturing firms decline to continue their operations in a place where local taxation is so heavy that it prevents them from paying a dividend to their shareholders.

The firms go, but their labourers do not go with them. These, after a brief struggle, swell the ranks of the Unemployed, that sorrowful army for which the Government has just voted 200,000 as a small temporary relief.

Now I do not think that I need say much more as to the manner in which the Unemployables have created the cla.s.s of the Unemployed, and as to how the working man suffers. I have given a brief summary enough--in the endeavour to be as thorough as possible--but it is already somewhat lengthy.

I wish to come at once to the princ.i.p.al point of this lecture--_the remedy for it all_!

I am personally convinced that the remedy I am about to propound is the only satisfactory one, and the object of my presence here to-night is to outline it for you.

There is a time in the history of certain diseases when any malignant growth must be removed with the knife. Cancer, the tiger of all physical ills, can only be treated in this way. The hideous thing which has fastened on the human body must be cut away from it, or the body dies. The gentle measures of medicine and diet are useless. Life must be preserved by the scalpel and knife of the surgeon. "Is there no other way, doctor?" the nervous patient asks. "Don't you think that I might get well if I kept on the Chian Turpentine treatment or the injection of Tryptic Ferment?"

The surgeon of to-day who knows his business will answer "No." He will proceed to the stern though inevitable operation.

And that is what we have got to do in regard to this social cancer, this economic disease of the Unemployed question. We must stop the whole thing. You working men have the power to do it, and this is the way in which you must do it.

In the first place, you must realize your own power over the councils of the nation, in the ordering and determining of the laws of England.

You who are working men are already beginning to do this. To take only one instance, the Trades Unions have already combined to send a number of labour members to Parliament, and a working man holds a high ministerial position with conspicuous honesty and ability. I don't in the least agree with most of the aims of what is known as the Labour Party. My reading, education, and experience have taught me that Socialism is the dream of an impossibility, and that the witness of history, the experience of nations, and the laws of G.o.d are all hostile to it alike. There has never yet been a continuing Commonwealth in which all men were equal inasmuch as they were State officials. There never will be.

But working men have now the power to remedy the unjust conditions under which they live. The more they realize that power the more able will they be to bring about the change.

One of the first things that they must do is to relieve themselves and others of the burden of the Unemployables--this is the way in which I believe it can be done.

We must follow the plan adopted with signal success by Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and other foreign countries, only, in proportion as our own problem is more menacing and acute than in other States, we must adapt, amplify, and extend their plan to our needs. In these countries every effort is made to a.s.sist the deserving poor, while the undeserving are not merely repelled; they are also punished. Relief is given, after a careful visitation of the distressed case and thorough personal inquiry, in the shape of a loan, and repayment of the loan is required except in cases where the a.s.sisted are not able-bodied. The lazy and worthless are relegated to labour colonies, or to penal workhouses, whence they can return to ordinary life after a term of labour has been served. The old are cared for, when deserving, in a different kind of workhouse, and receive indulgent treatment. In this way st.u.r.diness and independence of character are a.s.sured, and there is no danger of the excessive multiplication of paupers, or of enormous expenditure on relief.

This is speaking generally. The two chief agencies for dealing with the Unemployed question are the systems of insurance against unemployment and the establishment of labour colonies in which the Unemployables are forced to work.

It is impossible for me to-night to do more than sketch the working of these two inst.i.tutions in a single country. I will, therefore, outline the method of insurance adopted in Germany, and give an account of the greatest labour colony in existence--that of Merxplas in Belgium.

A month or two ago I was in the great German city of Cologne. There I found the following system in operation:--

"The 'City of Cologne Office for Insurance against Unemployment in Winter' was established in 1896. The object of the office is to provide, with the a.s.sistance of the Cologne Labour Registry, an insurance against unemployment during the winter (December to March) for the benefit of male workpeople in the Cologne district. In order to insure with the office, a man must be at least eighteen years of age, must have lived for at least a year in Cologne, and must not suffer from permanent incapacity to work. He is required to pay a weekly premium, payment of which must commence as from April 1, and must continue for thirty-four weeks.

"The amount of the premium was originally 3_d._ per week for both skilled and unskilled workmen; in 1901 the rate of premium was fixed at 3_d._ for unskilled and 4-1/4_d._ for skilled men; in 1903 the rate was raised to 3-1/2_d._ per week for unskilled and 4-3/4_d._ per week for skilled workmen. In no case must a man be more than four weeks late in paying his weekly premium, otherwise he loses all claim upon the office; but in special cases the operation of this rule may be suspended by the committee of the insured.

"In return for these payments the insured workman, if and when out of work in the period named above, receives, for not more than eight weeks in all, a daily amount, which is 2_s._ for each of the first twenty days (nothing being paid for Sundays), and then 1_s._ on each subsequent day. These payments begin on the third week-day after the date on which the man has reported himself as out of work.

"While out of work, a man must report himself to the office twice daily, and if work is offered him, he must take it, provided that the nature of the employment and the rate of pay be, so far as practicable, similar to what the man had been getting while in work.

But he cannot be asked to fill a place left vacant in consequence of a trade dispute. Unmarried men, with no dependants living at Cologne, are required to take work away from that city, if offered to them, their fares being paid for them.

"No money is paid in respect of unemployment caused by illness or infirmity, or by the man's own fault, or by a trade dispute.

"The administration of the affairs of this Insurance Office is in the hands of the Executive Committee, the Committee of the Insured, and the General Meeting of Members.

"The Executive Committee consists of the head of the Cologne Munic.i.p.ality (_Oberburgermeister_) or his delegate, of the President for the time being of the Cologne Labour Registry, and of twenty-four members, twelve elected by the insured workmen, and twelve patrons or honorary members (six employers and six employees) chosen by the patrons and honorary members.

"The twelve representatives of the insured on the Executive Committee, together with the business manager of the office, form the Committee of the Insured, referred to above.

"The Executive Committee has the right to decline to make any further insurance contracts, should it become doubtful whether the fund is adequate to meet further liabilities; and on two occasions (in 1901-2 and 1902-3) it became necessary to suspend operations in this manner."

What an excellent plan this is! The working man has, I know, his sick club, his benefit society, to which he must subscribe. If he is a member of a Trades Union there again is another claim upon his purse.

But all working men are not members of Trades Unions. The greater the skill of the trained mechanic, for example, the more the disfavour with which he regards the Trades Unions. It is a splendid thing to be a member of a great and powerful organization which has for its object to ensure that every man shall be paid a living wage. But when a Union forces all its members to a dead level of equality with that of the least skilled, when the good workman is compelled to do no more work, and no better work, than the worst workman in the confederation, then the good workman very naturally takes his name off the books. Once more, many working men, especially in the country, are fairly sure of always being able to obtain work if they are prepared to do it. But in the great, crowded, compet.i.tive centres of England, the uncertainty of regular employment, especially in regard to unskilled labour, the establishment of such a system of insurance would be of incalculable benefit, nor do I believe that the infinitesimal premium would be regretted or missed by any sensible and hard-working man.

You may object that probably the funds of the insurance companies might possibly come to be diverted to the support and a.s.sistance of the _won't_ works--the Unemployables. Please hear me to the end and you will see that this objection cannot be upheld.

I do not appeal to the experience of despotic Germany but of democratic Belgium when I describe the largest Continental Labour Colony, that of Merxplas in Belgium. During the present year I have spent some months in Belgium, and have been enabled to gather the opinions of all sorts of people upon the subject. Every thinking man I have consulted in this country is emphatic in his praise of the inst.i.tution.

The Law of November 27, 1891, "for the repression of vagrancy and begging," which came into operation on January, 4, 1892, imposed upon the Belgian Government the duty of organizing correctional establishments to be called (A) Beggars' Depots, (B) Houses of Refuge, and (C) Reformatory Schools. The Labour Colonies are maintained in order to fulfil the requirements of the Law under (A) and (B).

All persons confined in a Beggars' Depot or in a House of Refuge, not suffering from incapacity, are to be put to work of such nature as may be prescribed, and shall, unless deprived thereof as a measure of discipline, receive a daily wage, part of which shall be kept in hand and credited to the "leaving fund" of the inmate in respect of whose labour the same shall be paid.

The Minister of Justice fixes, with respect to the Beggars' Depots and Houses of Refuge, the rate of wage which the inmates shall receive, and the deductions to be retained out of this wage towards the "leaving fund." This fund is handed over partly in the shape of cash, partly in that of clothing and tools, when the inmate is discharged.

The internal regulations of the Beggars' Depots and Houses of Refuge are settled by Royal Decree. Any person confined in either cla.s.s of inst.i.tution may be ordered to undergo solitary confinement.

The cla.s.ses of persons whom the magistrates are directed (by Article 13 of the Law) to send to be confined in a Beggars' Depot, are all persons not suffering from incapacity, who instead of providing themselves with the means of existence by labour, abuse the charity of the public by habitual mendicancy; those persons who, through laziness, or drunken or immoral habits, pa.s.s their lives in vagrancy, and those who live on the earnings of vice (_souteneurs de filles publiques_).

Merxplas is reached from Antwerp by a steam tramway running through a cultivated country with occasional stretches of pine plantations.

There are only a few villages, all small, and there is no place which can be in any way styled a town on the way to Merxplas, or indeed, within a considerable radius round the colony. The surrounding country is sandy heath, with pine plantations, but this is transformed at Merxplas by the manual labour of the colonists into excellent agricultural land, with fields and gardens neatly cultivated and well-grown avenues of oak, poplar, and pines. Such a transformation has been rendered more easy by the nature of the sub-soil, which is clay everywhere underlying the top-soil of sand. The buildings are large and handsome, and of good design. They seem excellently built.

The main block consists of a large quadrangle, and is entered by a princ.i.p.al gate on the western side. The offices of administration are centred round this gate, with dining-halls capable of seating 1500 colonists at a time, on the left, and reception-rooms, baths, fire-engine house, etc., on the right. The _quartier cellulaire_ as the prison for refractory colonists is named, is easily marked by the exercise grounds. To this is attached on one side a barracks for 150 soldiers and on the other a building set apart for the _immoraux_.

The east side, opposite to the main gate, is occupied by the hospital in the centre, and by two wings on each side for the _infirmes_, who are still capable of light work, and for the _incurables_, who are unfit for any kind of labour. The remaining side on the north consists of four long galleries, _chauffoirs_, which are intended for the use of the colonists in inclement weather. Between these, placed centrally, are the lavatories and the canteen. There also is a library, from which they can obtain books on Sunday, in which at the time of our visit a tramp choir was practising with considerable skill under a tramp organist, and without any supervision.

The dormitories are four large buildings on the west front flanking the approach to the main gate, and beyond these lies the large new church which the colonists have just erected. This will hold 1500 men standing, and is a very effective building. Adjoining are the farm-buildings, which are nearly all on a very lavish scale, and thoroughly modern in construction. To the northward are the workshops. All these also are admirably built, and are thoroughly suited to their purposes. Beyond these lie the brickyards, stoneyards, pottery works, tannery, cement yard, etc.

The inmates are divided into six cla.s.ses--

Cla.s.s I. Men sentenced for offences against morality and for arson.

Cla.s.s II. Men sentenced to Colony life as a sequel to a term of imprisonment of less than one year.

Men whose past history shows them to be dangerous to the community.

Cla.s.s III. Habitual vagabonds, mendicants, inebriates, and men generally unable to support themselves.

Cla.s.s IV. Men under twenty-one years of age.

Cla.s.s V. (_a_) The infirm and (_b_) the incurable.

Cla.s.s VI. First offenders.