Britain For The British Part 4

444 persons are reported by the police to have attempted to commit suicide in London last year, and probably as many more succeeded in doing so. 200 persons died from starvation in the same period. We have in this one city about 100,000 paupers, 30,000 prost.i.tutes, 33,000 homeless adults, and 35,000 wandering children of the slums.

There is a standing army of out-of-works numbering 80,000, which is often increased in special periods of commercial depression or trade disputes to 100,000. 12,000 criminals are always inside Her Majesty's prisons, and about 15,000 are outside. 70,000 charges for petty offences are dealt with by the London magistrates every year.

The best authorities estimate that 10,000 new criminals are manufactured per annum. We have tens of thousands of dwellings known to be overcrowded, unsanitary, or dangerous.

Here is the evidence of a man of letters, Mr. Frederic Harrison--

To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold, that 90 per cent. of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind except as much old furniture as will go in a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed for the most part in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from dest.i.tution, that a month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism.... This is the normal state of the average workman in town or country.

Here is the evidence of a man of science, Professor Huxley--

Anyone who is acquainted with the state of the population of all great industrial centres, whether in this or other countries, is aware that amidst a large and increasing body of that population there reigns supreme ... that condition which the French call _la misere_, a word for which I do not think there is any exact English equivalent. It is a condition in which the food, warmth, and clothing which are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state cannot be obtained; in which men, women, and children are forced to crowd into dens wherein decency is abolished, and the most ordinary conditions of healthful existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains acc.u.mulate at compound interest in the shape of starvation, disease, stunted development, and moral degradation; in which the prospect of even steady and honest industry is a life of unsuccessful battling with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave....

When the organisation of society, instead of mitigating this tendency, tends to continue and intensify it; when a given social order plainly makes for evil and not for good, men naturally enough begin to think it high time to try a fresh experiment. I take it to be a mere plain truth that throughout industrial Europe there is not a single large manufacturing city which is free from a vast ma.s.s of people whose condition is exactly that described, and from a still greater ma.s.s who, living just on the edge of the social swamp, are liable to be precipitated into it.

Here is the evidence of a British peer, Lord Durham--

There was still more sympathy and no reproach whatever to be bestowed upon the children--perhaps waifs and strays in their earliest days--of parents dest.i.tute, very likely deserving, possibly criminal, who had had to leave these poor children to fight their way in life alone. What did these children know or care for the civilisation or the wealth of their native land? _What example, what incentive had they ever had to lead good and honest lives?_ Possibly from the moment of their birth they had never known contentment, what it had been to feel bodily comfort. They were cast into that world, and looked upon it as a cruel and heartless world, with no guidance, no benign influence to guide them in their way, and _thus they were naturally p.r.o.ne to fall into any vicious or criminal habits which would procure them a bare subsistence_.

Here is the evidence of a Tory Minister, Sir John Gorst--

I do not think there is any doubt as to the reality of the evil; that is to say, that there are in our civilisation men able and willing to work who can't find work to do.... Work will have to be found for them.... What are usually called relief works may be a palliative for acute temporary distress, but they are no remedy for the unemployed evil in the long-run. Not only so; they tend to aggravate it.... If you can set 100 unemployed men to produce food, they are not taking bread out of other people's mouths. Men so employed would be producing what is now imported from abroad and what they themselves would consume. An unemployed man--_whether he is a duke or a docker_--is living on the community. If you set him to grow food he is enriching the community by what he produces.

Therefore, my idea is that the direction in which a remedy for the unemployed evil is to be sought is in the production of food.

Here is the evidence of the Tory Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury--

They looked around them and saw a _growing_ ma.s.s of _poverty_ and _want of employment_, and of course the one object which every statesman who loved his country should desire to attain, was that there might be the largest amount of profitable employment for the ma.s.s of the people.

He did not say that he had any patent or certain remedy for _the terrible evils which beset us on all sides_, but he did say that it was time they left off mending the const.i.tution of Parliament, and that they turned all the wisdom and energy Parliament could combine together in order to remedy the _sufferings_ under which so _many_ of their countrymen laboured.

Here is the evidence of the Colonial Secretary, the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P.--

The rights of property have been so much extended that the rights of the community have almost altogether disappeared, and it is hardly too much to say that the prosperity and the comfort and the liberties of a great proportion of the population have been laid at the feet of a small number of proprietors, who "neither toil nor spin."

And here is further evidence from Mr. Chamberlain--

For my part neither sneers, nor abuse, nor opposition shall induce me to accept as the will of the Almighty, and the unalterable dispensation of His providence, a state of things under which _millions lead sordid, hopeless, and monotonous lives, without pleasure in the present, and without prospect for the future_.

And here is still stronger testimony from Mr. Chamberlain--

The ordinary conditions of life among a large proportion of the population are such that common decency is absolutely impossible; and all this goes on in sight of the mansions of the rich, where undoubtedly there are people who would gladly remedy it if they could. It goes on in presence of wasteful extravagance and luxury, which bring but little pleasure to those who indulge in them; and private charity is powerless, religious organisations can do nothing, to remedy the evils which are so deep-seated in our social system.

You have read what these eminent men have said, Mr. Smith, as to the evils of the present time.

Well, Mr. Atkinson, a well-known American statistical authority, has said--

Four or five men can produce the bread for a thousand. With the best machinery one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, or boots and shoes for 1000.

How is it, friend John Smith, that with all our energy, all our industry, all our genius, and all our machinery, there are 8,000,000 of hungry poor in this country?

If five men can produce bread for a thousand, and one man can produce shoes for a thousand, how is it we have so many British citizens suffering from hunger and bare feet?

That, Mr. Smith, is the question I shall endeavour in this book to answer.

Meanwhile, if you have any doubts as to the verity of my statements of the sufferings of the poor, or as to the urgent need for your immediate and earnest aid, read the following books, and form your own opinion:--

_Labour and Life of the People._ Charles Booth. To be seen at most free libraries.

_Poverty: A Study of Town Life._ By B. S. Rountree. Macmillan. 10s.

6d.

_Dismal England._ By R. Blatchford, 72 Fleet Street, E.C. 2s. 6d.

and 1s.

_No Room to Live._ By G. Haw, 72 Fleet Street, E.C. 1s.

_The White Slaves of England._ By R. Sherard. London, James Bowden.

1s.

_Pictures and Problems from the Police Courts._ By T. Holmes. Ed.

Arnold, Bedford Street, W.C.

And the Fabian Tracts, especially No. 5 and No. 7. These are 1d. each.

CHAPTER II

WHAT IS WEALTH? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHO CREATES IT?