Problems of Poverty | Page 7

numbers of men and
women seeking work and finding none. Thus are linked together the
twin maladies of over-work and the unemployed. It is possible that

among the comfortable classes there are still to be found those who
believe that the unemployed consist only of the wilfully idle and
worthless residuum parading a false grievance to secure sympathy and
pecuniary aid, and who hold that if a man really wants to work he can
always do so. This idle theory is contradicted by abundant facts. The
official figures published by the Board of Trade gives the average
percentage of unemployed in the Trade Unions of the skilled trades as
follows. To the general average we have appended for comparison the
average for the shipbuilding and boiler-making trades, so as to illustrate
the violence of the oscillations in a fluctuating trade:--
General per cent. Ship-building, etc.
1884 7.15 20.8 1885 8.55 22.2 1886 9.55 21.6 1887 7.15 16.7 1888
4.15 7.3 1889 2.05 2.0 1890 2.10 3.4 1891 3.40 5.7 1892 6.20 10.9
1893 7.70 17.0 1894 7.70 16.2 1895 6.05 13.0 1896 3.50 9.5 1897 3.65
8.6 1898 3.15 4.7 1899 2.40 2.1 1900 2.85 2.3 1901 3.80 3.6 1902 4.60
8.3 1903 5.30 11.7
These figures make it quite evident that the permanent causes of
irregular employment, e.g., weather in the building and riverside trades,
season in the dressmaking and confectionery trades, and the other
factors of leakage and displacement which throw out of work from time
to time numbers of workers, are, taken in the aggregate, responsible
only for a small proportion of the unemployment in the staple trades of
the country.
The significance of such figures as these can scarcely be over-
estimated. Although it might fairly be urged that the lowest dip in trade
depression truly represented the injury inflicted on the
labouring-classes by trade fluctuations, we will omit the year 1886, and
take 1887 as a representative period of ordinary trade depression. The
figures quoted above are supported by Trade Union statistics, which
show that in that year among the strongest Trade Unions in the country,
consisting of the picked men in each trade, no less than 71 in every
1000, or over 7 per cent., were continuously out of work. That this was
due to their inability to get work, and not to their unwillingness to do it,
is placed beyond doubt by the fact that they were, during this period of

enforced idleness, supported by allowances paid by their comrades.
Indeed, the fact that in 1890 the mass of unemployed was almost
absorbed, disposes once for all of the allegation that the unemployed in
times of depression consist of idlers who do not choose to work.
Turning to the year 1887, there is every reason to believe that where 7
per cent, are unemployed in the picked, skilled industries of a country,
where the normal supply of labour is actually limited by Union
regulations, the proportion in unskilled or less organized industries is
much larger. It is probable that 12 per cent, is not an excessive figure to
take as the representative of the average proportion of unemployed. In
the recent official returns of wages in textile industries, it is admitted
that 10 per cent, should be taken off from the nominal wages for
irregularity of employment. Moreover, it is true (with certain
exceptions) that the lower you go down in the ranks of labour and of
wages, the more irregular is the employment. To the pressure of this
evil among the very poor in East London notice has already been drawn.
We have seen how Mr. Booth finds one whole stratum of 100,000
people, who from an industrial point of view are worse than worthless.
We have no reason to conclude that East London is much worse in this
respect than other centres of population, and the irregularity of country
employment is increasing every year. Are we to conclude then that of
the thirteen millions composing the "working-classes" in this country,
nearly two millions are liable at any time to figure as waste or surplus
labour? It looks like it. We are told that the movements of modern
industry necessitate the existence of a considerable margin supply of
labour. The figures quoted above bear out this statement. But a
knowledge of the cause does not make the fact more tolerable. We are
not at present concerned with the requirements of the industrial
machine, but with the quantity of hopeless, helpless misery these
requirements indicate. The fact that under existing conditions the
unemployed seem inevitable should afford the strongest motive for a
change in these conditions. Modern life has no more tragical figure
than the gaunt, hungry labourer wandering about the crowded centres
of industry and wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in