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 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 AND OTHER STUDIES
 
 THE 
 
 STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 MRS. BERNARD BOSANQUET 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'rich AND POOR' 
 
 3Loni)on 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1898
 
 All rights 7vscr-i'ed
 
 N 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Nearly every one to-day is interested in questions 
 of social welfare, and more especially in industrial 
 questions. But for those who have not had a prelimin- 
 ary training in economics it is sometimes difficult 
 to follow the course of events in the industrial world, 
 and to understand the explanations offered of those 
 events. I have therefore attempted in the first of 
 these studies to bring together in a simple form some 
 of the more fundamental economic ideas, and to show 
 their application in the questions which come before 
 us day by day. More especially I have wished to 
 emphasize the importance, and to explain the actual 
 working of the Standard of Life as the basis of 
 economic progress. 
 
 The subsequent studies are of a more detailed 
 character, and are offered as a small contribution 
 towards the research for which such a large field lies 
 open to the student of social phenomena. I believe 
 that even such detached studies, if faithfully made, 
 may be of use in promoting a better understanding 
 of the conditions under which we live. Some of 
 these have been published before, and I have to 

 
 vi I'Ki:kack 
 
 thank the Editors of the Journal of Economics, the 
 Litcrnational Journal oj li/hics, and the Charity 
 Organir:ation Review for their kind permission to 
 reproduce them here. 
 
 As a conclusion I have ventured t(j add a transla- 
 tion of a passage from Xenophon's JMeniorabilia, 
 which seems to mc to contain guidance for social 
 reformers as appropriate now as it was two thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 C(itc7-/i(ii/i-oii-t/ic-Hill, 
 May 30, iSgS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE . 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 KLASSENKAMPF .... 
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS 
 AN APOLOGY FOR ' FALSE STATEMENTS ' 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 
 67 
 
 88 
 102 
 114 
 136 
 
 157 
 174 
 183 
 191 
 
 215
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 If any proof were wanted of how ideas may mould 
 the lives of men and be the moving spirit of their 
 progress, we might surely find it in this deeply 
 significant idea of the Standard of Life. Around it 
 centre most of our industrial problems of to-day, and 
 more or less consciously it is made the base for all 
 the forward movements of the working-class. And 
 like all living ideas it is incapable of exact definition ; 
 in other words, its significance is inexhaustible, for it 
 has not yet become stereotyped into one narrow usage. 
 It may be taken to include all that is best and highest 
 in human life, or it may be narrowed down to signify 
 nothing more than the satisfaction of the crudest 
 cravings of mankind ; and its very elasticity gives it 
 a deeper significance, for by the interpretation which 
 he gives to it you may most surely know the man for 
 what he is. 
 
 But though we cannot define the idea, we can, by 
 considering its varying usages, and the part which it 
 plays in our own thought and life, form some estimate
 
 2 TIIK STANDARD OF LIIF, 
 
 of its importance, and perhaps lay emphasis on 
 elements which are too liable to be overlooked. 
 
 In the first place, we may consider in what sort of 
 sense we are justified in speaking of a standard in 
 this connection. 
 
 Behind the fountains and lions in Trafalgar Square 
 is a stone wall, and in this stone wall is something so 
 important that it is hardly ever looked at, and perhaps 
 the majority of Londoners do not even know that it 
 is there. To get at it you must pass behind the seats 
 full of languid, uncleanly tramps and loafers, perhaps 
 move aside a group of playing children, and then you 
 will find certain pieces of metal let into the stone, and 
 marking off lengths which are named as inches, feet, 
 yards, and furlongs. This is the standard of measure- 
 ment, by which is determined what length shall be 
 called an inch or a foot, and bej-ond which there is 
 no appeal. Such a standard is an absolute necessit}' 
 as one of the fundamental ideas upon which civilized 
 intercourse is based ; without it there would be no- 
 thing to prevent any person from having his own idea 
 as to what sort of length a }'arcl should be ; we might 
 revert to the rough and ready method, still in use 
 where great accuracy is not required, of measuring 
 from the outstretched hand to the tip of the nose ; 
 but this becomes unsatisfactor)- as soon as divergent 
 interests come into pla}'. As it is, any one who 
 doubts the accurac}' of his tape-measure or foot-rule 
 need but take it and lay it against the standard, to 
 assure himself whether or not it is leading him astraj-. 
 
 But, as I have said, this standard is seldom if ever 
 referred to, and most people do not know that it is 
 there. It is a matter of such fundamental importance, 
 and one which enters so deepl)- into our lives, that
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 3 
 
 every one either carries about with him his own 
 pocket-measure, or has it handy for reference in a 
 particular drawer, while not one in a thousand thinks 
 of questioning the accuracy of his measure. Nor, in- 
 deed, is there any necessity to do so. There would 
 be no gain in falsifying the measures sold to private 
 persons, and the motive to tradespeople to have 
 fraudulent measures is so strong that the State pro- 
 vides inspectors to guard against it. 
 
 The necessity of a standard is not confined to the 
 commonplace facts of weighing and measuring. The 
 tuning-fork of the singing-master sets a standard to 
 which his pupils must conform, and without which 
 he would himself fall into uncertainty ; while in the 
 ten commandments we have a standard of morality 
 which has served the human race for countless 
 generations. 
 
 How is it with the Standard of Life? It may be 
 objected that this is something too vague and in- 
 definite to be really analogous to these ; that there is 
 nowhere any definite statement laid down to which 
 we can appeal, and that it is merely a picturesque 
 way of saying that a man ought not to live like an 
 animal, or some other rhetorical phrase of the kind. 
 
 It is true, no doubt, that many of us do not know 
 where to look for our standard, and should be puzzled 
 if suddenly called upon to define it. But this is partly 
 again because it is so important a matter that those 
 who have any standard at all have no need to refer 
 elsewhere ; it has become a part of their ver}' lives, 
 and consciously or unconsciously they measure their 
 every action by it. What else does it mean when we 
 say, " I can't live in that street, it is too dirty and 
 disreputable," or, " I wouldn't turn out a piece of work
 
 4 THE STANDARD OV lAVV. 
 
 in that disf^raccful state," or, " I couldn't bring myself 
 to such a low trick as that," or, " I'd be ashamed to 
 let my children run the streets in that condition"? 
 Or when, again, we so order our lives that the case 
 and pleasure in them shall not become dispropor- 
 tionate to the amount of toil and exertion ? We are 
 simply measuring certain facts by a standard which 
 we have within us of decent living, good work, 
 honesty, family pride, and strenuousness ; and it 
 would not be difficult for any thoughtful man to 
 make clear to himself just what the sort of life was 
 which he had taken as a standard. And he would 
 then find that just so far as he fell below that 
 standard he would consider his life unsatisfactory and 
 a failure. 
 
 The great difference between the Standard of Life 
 and other standards seems at first sight to be, that 
 while ph)'sical standards are the same for all, the 
 standard of life varies for each of us. But this is 
 largely only appearance, and due to our narrow way 
 of regarding the standard. When we take it in a 
 larger sense, we begin to see that the difficulty is not 
 so much that for each of us it is different, but that 
 for all of us it is progressive. 
 
 For instance, one way of narrowing the idea is to 
 use it as if it could be expressed in monej- terms 
 alone, and to speak of the standard of any class as 
 represented b}- 20^., 30^'., or 40^-. a week, as the case 
 may be. Then we are apt to fall into the error of 
 saying that the standard of such a class is high or 
 low merely according to its money earnings, thus 
 omitting all reference to the more important matters 
 which are not to be obtained by money. And yet
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 5 
 
 we should know that there may be a far higher 
 Standard of Life where money is scarce than where it 
 is abundant. I have just received a striking con- 
 firmation of this in a pubHcation entitled Dai'/y Record 
 of my Physical, Moral, and Intellectual Developnioit ; 
 it consists of a number of blank schedules for me to 
 fill up with my daily virtues, and is preceded by a 
 specimen page which we may fairly take to represent 
 the standard desired. It is as follows : 
 
 Will .... I Resisted impatience twice. 
 Sympathy . . | Visited a friend in sorrow. 
 Moral sense . Answered two letters although I did not feel 
 
 like it. 
 
 Understanding Studied a chapter on biology. 
 Memory . . Learned by heart ten lines of Tennyson, and 
 
 read carefully two pages of a foreign author. 
 
 Physical ) . 
 Exercise/ 
 yEstheticall 
 Sentiment / 
 
 Played tennis (one hour). 
 Admired a beautiful sunset. 
 
 It is at once obvious that those who devised this 
 extraordinary recipe for making a prig have in most, 
 if not all respects, a much lower standard than that 
 of any self-respecting artisan who gives good work in 
 return for his maintenance, and devotes himself to 
 the welfare of his family, his trade, or his fellow- 
 workers, instead of brooding over his own virtues. 
 
 Another way of simplifying the question is to 
 divide the community up into social classes, and 
 assign a different standard to each class ; and for 
 this view there is a certain justification if we look 
 rather to the probable origin of class distinctions than 
 to the facts as they stand at present. For it seems 
 likely that class distinctions have their origin in 
 differences of function, and that our Standard of Life
 
 6 'IIFK STANDARD OK I, IKK 
 
 differs in detail accordin^^ to the particular function 
 we have to fulfil in the conmmunity. In other words, 
 according to the occupations which they follow men's 
 standards will vary in kind, without our being 
 necessarily able to say that this or the other is the 
 higher or lower. If for the present we leave out of 
 sight the lowest class of all, the Residuum (which is 
 the Residuum just because it is made up of men and 
 women who have lost their standard), then we shall 
 find that in certain fundamental respects the standard 
 is the same for all Englishmen to-day. For instance, 
 in cleanliness, morality, and sufficiency of food, we 
 differ no doubt from person to person ; but we could 
 not fairly say that on the whole it is characteristic of 
 any one class to be cleanlier, more moral, or to eat 
 more than any other. But as soon as we get away 
 from these elementary facts, great divergences begin 
 to appear, and those differences begin to show them- 
 selves which seem to coincide with what we are apt 
 to call class distinctions. The most obvious differences 
 between classes, those which at once attract the atten- 
 tion to the exclusion of underlying identities, consist 
 in their different standards in such matters as dress, 
 education, housing, and recreation. Certain classes 
 appear to attach much more importance to these, and 
 at any rate spend much more money upon them ; and 
 we incline, perhaps somewhat hastily, to assume that 
 the more expensive standard must be the higher. 
 
 The attempt to understand these differences in the 
 standard brings us into contact with some of the 
 most perplexing problems of sociology. The first 
 which stares us in the face is one which has baffled so 
 many young inquirers that it may fairly be called 
 the Pons Asinorum of social reform. W'hv are there
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 7 
 
 different classes in the community ? Why do we 
 not all belong to one class, with one standard of life 
 and equal means of attaining it? This is one of the 
 first questions we begin to ask upon emerging from 
 the sublime indifference of childhood to all social 
 arrangements, and one which nobody seems prepared 
 to answer for us. Fortunately for our present purpose 
 no comprehensive answer is needed ; it will be suffi- 
 cient to note briefly one or two of the considerations 
 involved in our social inequalities. 
 
 And first as to the connection between class dis- 
 tinctions and difference of social function. History 
 does not tell us whether there was ever a time in 
 which all men were equal, but we do seem to find that, 
 broadly speaking, the differentiation of society into 
 classes has followed the lines of its differentiation into 
 different functions or employments. Leaving out the 
 disturbing influence of conquest, we see that the 
 general lines of division between classes coincide with 
 the general lines of division between function in the 
 community. One strong instance of this we find in 
 the feudal system, under which the distinctions between 
 classes and employments were strongly marked, and 
 which is defined as meaning " property held as a 
 reward or in consideration of special services." The 
 propertied class was then, theoretically at least, the 
 class which rendered special service to the State ; and, 
 speaking broadly, both the property and responsibility 
 were hereditary. 
 
 Again, it is worth noticing that our so-called " middle 
 class " is of comparatively modern growth, and cor- 
 responds to a development of the professions and of 
 the organizing branches of industry. 
 
 But the most marked illustration of the coincidence
 
 8 TFFE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 of class and employment is to be seen where we find 
 the social arrangement known as caste. The essence 
 of caste^ apart from its religious significance, is, that 
 certain functions are committed to certain classes, and 
 that these functions are to a greater or less extent 
 hereditary, so that members of the same family 
 continue to follow the same occupation from generation 
 to generation. 
 
 We may say then, that in the past at any rate 
 difference of class has largely depended upon difference 
 of function or employment. 
 
 Now if we could find a society in which every one 
 followed the same employment, and in which there 
 was also no distinction of classes, we should have a 
 striking corroboration of the view that the two depend 
 upon each other. A society with literally no difference 
 of employment would perhaps be an impossibility, 
 but we get as near to it as we can in the modern state 
 of Bulgaria, The people of Bulgaria are essentially a 
 race of peasant proprietors, and form a society which 
 is almost homogeneous. The one exceptional class is 
 that of the State officials, the civil service; but this 
 service is itself recruited from the peasant class and 
 shares its characteristics. With this one exception 
 there seems to be no opening whatever for educated 
 people, and the question has been seriously raised, 
 whether it is of any use to educate, beyond the most 
 elementary stage, boys who have nothing before them 
 but the career of the professional politician or the 
 meagre life of the peasant. What that life is we may 
 gather from the following extract from Dicey 's The 
 Peasant State: 
 
 " The agent of a number of English mercantile firms 
 complained to me recently that he found it impossible
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 9 
 
 to push business in the Principality. When asked for 
 the reason of his failure, his explanation was that 
 the great mass of the people had absolutely no wants 
 which they could not satisfy for themselves. The 
 Bulgarian peasant needs extremely little, and that 
 little he provides from the produce of his own land. 
 The average cost of a peasant's daily sustenance does 
 not exceed twopence. Their food, during the greater 
 part of the year, consists solely of bread and garlic. 
 Their only beverage is water; not that they have any 
 objection to beer or spirits, but because they object to 
 paying for them. Sheep-skins, provided in most cases 
 from their own flocks, form the universal dress of the 
 peasantry. The clothes, both of men and women, are 
 generally home-made. Commonly they only possess 
 one suit, and they sleep at night in the same clothes 
 as those which they wear during the day. Their beds 
 are mattresses laid on the mud floors of the rooms 
 where they have their meals. On these mattresses 
 the whole family lie huddled together. Even in the 
 towns separate bedrooms are almost unknown. The 
 servants sleep on rugs in the kitchen, and their masters 
 and mistresses are lodged in a way any English 
 artisan, earning good wages, would regard as intoler- 
 able . . . The necessities of existence lie within their 
 own reach; but as yet they have not a wish for its 
 luxuries. Their daily lives are so laborious, so rough 
 and so penurious, that they even contrive to lay by 
 money. When they have laid it by, they have no idea 
 of spending it so as to improve the conditions under 
 which they live. Their one dominant passion is the 
 hunger for land, and if a peasant sees his way to add 
 an acre or two to his patrimony, he will part with his 
 savings for the purpose."
 
 10 Till'; STANDAKI) Ol' IJir. 
 
 It seems clear, then, that without ^'oing so far as to 
 say that differences of employment are the cause of 
 class distinction, or vice versd, we are safe in assuming 
 that there is some close connection between them, and 
 that a society which lacks the one is likely to be 
 deficient in the other. 
 
 Perhaps the most important characteristic in which 
 we differ from more ancient forms of society lies in 
 the fact that functions and employments are no longer 
 hereditary in any strict sense of the term. It will 
 of course always remain natural, that other things 
 being equal, a father should teach his son his own 
 trade; and thus there will always be a tendency for 
 families to continue in the same employment. But 
 there is no longer any artificial barrier erected by 
 tradition and custom, and it is possible for any boy on 
 leaving school, if his intelligence is not below the 
 average, to choose among a dozen different occupa- 
 tions. This possibility of choice, i.e. of adapting the 
 occupation of the boy to his individual disposition and 
 capacity, instead of forcing him into the same groove 
 as his ancestors, is of the utmost importance. Plato 
 laid stress upon it in his conception of the ideal State, 
 which was to be organized as a system of classes, based 
 upon difference of function, wherein each man was to 
 do that which he was best fitted by nature to do. 
 
 There is probably no way in which it can be ensured 
 beyond fail, that a man shall do what he is best fitted 
 to do; some spend their lives in looking for their 
 vocation and die without finding it. But it is clear 
 that all will have a better chance in a complex society 
 offering many different openings, than in a simpler one 
 such as Bulgaria, where all members are more on a 
 level, and where there is little variety offered. We
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE n 
 
 find a similar contrast between developed countries 
 with fully differentiated occupations, and new countries 
 where there is as yet little demand for anything but 
 manual labour. In the latter there is no career for the 
 weakly or intellectual; those whose nature and dis- 
 position might have found full satisfaction, are in 
 a double sense " out of place " in a primitive society. 
 
 And together with this opening up of employments 
 to all the members of a community, we find the simul- 
 taneous process going on of the breaking down of 
 class barriers. There are no longer any insuperable 
 chasms between classes, but each class melts by indis- 
 tinguishable degrees into that above and that below. 
 We should not be far wrong in saying that the number 
 of'' social classes " in England to-day is almost as great 
 as the number of different employments, and that it is 
 possible for a man to choose to what class he or his 
 son will belong, in about the same degree that it is 
 possible for him to choose their kind of employment. 
 There is now nothing in the nature of the case to 
 prevent, e.g. an artisan from giving his son an education 
 which will enable him ultimately to enter the ranks of 
 the professions. 
 
 This means of course an immense widening to the 
 scope of ambition. Professor Cunningham points out ^ 
 that the old burgess society " had this striking char- 
 acteristic, that the ordinary object of ambition was 
 not so much that of rising out of one's grade, but of 
 standing well in that grade ; the citizen did not aim 
 at being a knight, but at being warden and master of 
 his gild, or alderman and mayor of his town. For 
 good or for evil we have but little sympathy with 
 these humble ambitions ; every one desires to rise in 
 1 Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 410.
 
 12 TIIF. STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 the world himself, and the philanthro[)ic construct 
 social ladders by which the jxjorest child may rise to 
 the highest ranks, as was done by ecclesiastics in the 
 middle ages." 
 
 That this breaking down of artificial barriers must 
 in the long run be for good, we can hardly doubt. Man 
 is naturally progressive, both in his wants and in his 
 aspirations ; and by the very law of his being, must 
 always — if only left to himself — be seeking after new 
 interests, new plans, new ambitions. But if no interests 
 are there, if the means to carry out his plans are want- 
 ing, if his ambitions are thwarted and held in check 
 by custom and tradition, he will never break through 
 the lower circle of desires and satisfactions, which we 
 share with the brutes, and progress will be impossible. 
 
 In this progressiveness of the human being we find 
 one reason for those differences in the Standard of Life 
 which we are trying to understand. Not all have yet 
 worked out their freedom from the lower range of 
 desires ; for these, satisfaction of the appetites means 
 only renewed opportunity for the repeated satisfaction 
 of the appetites. Of those again who have set their 
 hopes on pressing forward, who see before them a 
 universe of desirable things to be mastered, some have 
 outstripped others and lead the way. In their advance 
 lies the chief hope for those behind : the sight of better 
 things attainable is the chief spur to men to raise their 
 own standard, to seek for themselves and their children 
 advantages for which they would otherwise care 
 nothing. 
 
 Another reason for differences in the standard, and 
 one still more in the nature of things than the former, 
 is to be found in the different conditions under which 
 varying kinds of work must be carried on. The
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 13 
 
 scholar eats much less than the artisan who goes 
 through great physical exertion, but he needs instead 
 greater warmth and quiet ; just as their tools must 
 always be different, steel and iron for the one and 
 books for the other, so also their standards must 
 differ in kind as regards the surroundings in which 
 they live. That one or the other may cost more in 
 terms of money is a matter of accident, and may 
 indeed tell hardly upon the one who is generally 
 supposed to be in the better position. The young 
 clerk, who earns no more than the artisan, but must 
 wear a black coat ; and the governess, whose scanty 
 earnings must provide evening dress, know well enough 
 that the difference in the standard is not in their 
 favour ; but the obligation to " dress according " is 
 one which is fully recognized by the working-class, 
 and will always be accepted as a reason why John 
 the clerk should contribute less to the family expenses 
 than Tom the carpenter. 
 
 In the mere fact, then, of differences of standard, 
 apart from accidental accompaniments of which we 
 may hope in time to free ourselves, we have both the 
 condition and consequence of vitality and progress in 
 a nation ; and indeed we find that what really practical 
 reformers are working for is not to bring about greater 
 uniformity, but to get rid of certain definite disadvan- 
 tages to which people of certain classes or occupations 
 are subjected. For instance, we have not yet attained 
 that ideal "equality of opportunity," which would make 
 it possible for every man to do what he is most fitted 
 for ; but we are perhaps nearer to it than any nation 
 has ever been. In what direction must we work to 
 help on the advent of this ideal? In the first place 
 I think, we must do our part towards ensuring that
 
 14 TIIK STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 every one is fitted for something, fur if a man is good 
 for nothing it is beside the mark to talk about his 
 opportunities. And in the second place, we must see 
 that boys and girls on leaving school have alternatives 
 fairly placed before them. That is the work of parents, 
 it will be objected, and I quite agree ; the greater 
 part of the training of our citizens is the work of 
 parents, and can be done by no one else so well. But 
 if parents are slow, as they sometimes are, to see the 
 importance of a careful choice of occupations for their 
 children, a great deal can be done by school managers 
 and others to awaken them to a sense of responsibility 
 in this direction. And as regards the kind of educa- 
 tion which is best adapted to fit children for life, it is 
 now open to everj' one to make his influence felt ; if 
 in no other way, yet still as an elector. 
 
 Again, in the bad conditions under which certain of 
 the wage-earning class carry on their occupations, in- 
 cluding too long hours and insufficient pay, we have a 
 circumstance horrible in itself, and in no way essential 
 to the nature of our societ)', which the whole com- 
 munity is interested in abolishing. But here the 
 efforts of the community can only be effectual in so 
 far as they are accompanied by a raising of the 
 standard of life of the particular class concerned. 
 
 But before proceeding to consider the economic 
 influence of the standard more in detail it is important 
 to note, that out of the differences of standard and of 
 function have arisen certain class prejudices which are 
 the source of more injustice and stand more in the way 
 of progress than any merely economic inequalities. 
 In the first place, there is the prejudice which assumes 
 a difference of nature between the " working-class " in 
 the ordinary usage of the term, and other members of
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 15 
 
 the community. This, strangely enough, is apt to 
 come out most clearly in the attitude of benevolent 
 philanthropists, but it is probably latent in many 
 others, who only do not manifest it because they are 
 not interested in any one outside their immediate 
 circle. It shows itself in speaking and thinking of the 
 whole class of" poor " people as childish, or dependent, 
 or as incapable of planning for themselves a desir- 
 able life and living it — in other words, of choosing and 
 maintaining a Standard of Life ; and the philanthropy 
 based upon this prejudice takes the form of endeavour- 
 ing to regulate the life of the poor for them on lines 
 which it thinks suitable to an inferior class. In this 
 way the low standard gets stereotyped, and a wiser 
 philanthropy recognizes that if this class is to put 
 away childish things and rise to the full dignity of 
 self-respecting manhood, we must cease to treat it as 
 childish and incapable. We may of course allow that 
 the working-classes have disadvantages to contend 
 against, and we ma)- give them every help in our 
 power ; but we must in common justice recognize this 
 power of determining their own standard of life and 
 of working towards it in their own way. In other 
 words, we must get rid of the prejudice which leads 
 us to misquote the Prayer-book, as instructing us to 
 do our duty in that station of life to which God has 
 called us, instead of shall call us. 
 
 This does not mean that if, after really understanding 
 the standard of another person, we honestly think our 
 own a higher one, we are not to endeavour to edu- 
 cate him up to it ; but this is a very different thing 
 from acquiescing in a low standard for another which 
 we would not accept for ourselves. 
 
 This prejudice has its economic aspect in another
 
 i6 TIIK STANUAKD OF I.I IK 
 
 superstition which has grown up out of untrue ch'stinc- 
 tions ; the superstition that there is a natural enmity 
 between classes engaged in production ; an inevitable 
 antagonism between the so-called capitalist and wage- 
 earner. As I maintain in a later essay, the distinctions 
 are not true to the facts of our modern society, and 
 what hostility there is has its roots rather in misrepre- 
 sentation and misunderstanding than in reality. 
 
 Before proceeding to consider the more purely 
 economic aspect of the Standard of Life, I will pause 
 to sum up briefly : 
 
 1. Every man (above the lowest Residuum) has a 
 Standard of Life, by which, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, he orders his life, and estimates its success 
 or failure. 
 
 2. The standard in England of to-da)' is the same 
 for all to a certain extent, and in certain fundamental 
 but less obvious facts ; but it is essentially progressive, 
 and in more obvious wa}'s it varies greatly from class 
 to class, and according to differences of occupation. 
 
 3. These differences do not involve an)' essential in- 
 capacity on the part of any class to raise and maintain 
 its own standard, and therefore every class, as ever}' 
 individual, has both the right and the duty to fix its 
 standard as high as it can attain, there being no 
 limits which are more proper for one class than 
 another. 
 
 4. The well-being, moral and economical, of any man 
 or class will be for the most part determined by the 
 standard which he accepts, and for this reason we 
 might formulate this practical ideal for individuals : 
 That every man should aim at giving his children at 
 least as high a standard as his own, and as good an 
 opportunity of realizing it. And that this is not an
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 17 
 
 unnecessary matter to urge, may be witnessed by 
 the fact that large numbers of our very poor are un- 
 skilled labourers whose fathers were skilled artisans. 
 
 II 
 
 I have already referred to a characteristic which 
 emphatically distinguishes man from the lower 
 animals ; /. e, the fact that when he has once broken 
 through the circle of the more elementary desires 
 and satisfactions, he is by nature progressive and 
 incapable of permanent satisfaction. It is this 
 characteristic which lends importance to the dis- 
 tinction which has been made between the Standard 
 of Life and the Standard of Comfort. There is 
 nothing essentially progressive in comfort ; indeed if 
 it has been attained before wider interests have been 
 aroused, it may prove to be a more insuperable 
 barrier to progress than poverty itself One great 
 demerit of the public-house is, that it makes its 
 frequenters comfortable for the time, without arousing 
 a desire for anything more than a speedy return. 
 (Not that mere discomfort is enough. Lockhart's 
 cocoa-rooms, with their bare trestles and sawdusted 
 floors, are indeed less satisfying than the public-house 
 to the lower life, but then they afford no more stimulus 
 to the higher.) A sufficiency of food, again, may only 
 act upon us as it does upon the well-fed dog, which 
 curls up before the fire in happy sleep until it is time 
 for another meal. But to the man who is interested, 
 say in his co-operative society, a good meal gives 
 refreshment and strength to attend an evening 
 meeting, and once there he may be stimulated to 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Tllli STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 join the education committee, and that again will 
 bring him into contact with new intellectual and 
 administrative interests one after the other, until he 
 laments with secret satisfaction that there is no end 
 to the work, and he never has a moment to himself. 
 
 IJclicving then that the Standard of Life in 
 England is essentially and not only accidentally 
 progressive, we will avoid using the word "comfort" 
 with its implications of satisfied quiescence. " Let us 
 take the term the Standard of Life to mean the 
 Standard of Activities and Wants. Thus an increase 
 in the Standard of Life implies an increase of in- 
 telligence and energy and self-respect ; leading to 
 more care and judgment in expenditure, and an 
 avoidance of food and drink that gratify the appetite 
 but afford no strength, and of ways of living that are 
 unwholesome physically and morally." ^ 
 
 Taking the Standard of Life in this higher sense, 
 what is its relation to the " Living Wage," of which 
 we hear so much ? The connection between the two 
 is very close, but we must be careful not to lose sight 
 of the fact that a standard which is at all advanced, 
 indeed we may say any standard in England to-day, 
 includes many things which cannot be bought by the 
 money of the individual, and that therefore an ad- 
 vance in wages can never be more than one element 
 in social progress. 
 
 The term Living Wage itself demands some at- 
 tention, for it clearly does not mean only what it 
 says, a wage upon which it is possible to live. When 
 the miners e.g. asked for a living wage, they meant 
 something more than the minimum necessary to keep 
 them alive. A man can live upon 5^. a week in 
 ' Professor Marshall, Principle of Econo/nics, p. 738.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 19 
 
 London, but, as the poor themselves will quaintly 
 say, this is " not living, it's only existing." And if 
 we consider what they mean by the distinction, it 
 comes to this, that upon such an income you can 
 maintain no standard. 
 
 We may define the Living Wage as the least upon 
 which the man can live and maintain the standard 
 which he has set before himself as necessary to his 
 leading a satisfactory life. Is it possible to say what 
 that standard should include ? 
 
 Individually of course every man must ultimately 
 be the judge of how high a life he will aim at ; but 
 to deliberately determine one's own standard is a 
 large part of the art of living, and comparatively few 
 people have mastered this art. Many of us let our- 
 selves be guided entirely by the custom of the class 
 and time into wdiich we are born, and just to that 
 extent our standard tends to be rather a safe-guard 
 to prevent us from falling than a progressive force 
 pushing us onwards. But without seeming to limit 
 the individual's right of progress, we can indicate 
 what is the minimum that the standard should in- 
 clude from a public point of view. It is clear that if 
 the community is to derive valuable services from its 
 members, they must be efficient, both in mind and 
 body, and they must either possess or have access to 
 the implements, tools, books, machinery, etc., which 
 are necessary to the carrying on of their work. We 
 shall see later on that this efficiency of mind, body, 
 and conditions cannot be ensured to any class until it 
 is included in the standard definitely accepted by the 
 individuals of that class and maintained by their own 
 exertions. 
 
 What at any time the standard accepted docs in-
 
 20 Till': STANDARD OV I,IFK 
 
 elude is, \vc have said, hir^^cly a matter of custom, 
 and may then have little reference to the real needs 
 of the individual. ]5ut where the standard is lower, 
 not necessarily from a moral or social point of view, 
 but in the sense of involving less expenditure, the 
 wages will be found to keep proportionately low. 
 This is strikingly illustrated by the difference between 
 the wages of men and women. Women are sup[Joscd 
 to be able to live on a much less wage than men of 
 the same social standing, and this is largely because 
 they accept a much lower standard of living. That 
 is, they are content with less food, less comfort, 
 narrower interests, and less recreation ; and this 
 reacts through their impaired vitality by making them 
 less efficient. A widow will bring up two or three 
 children on ten or twelve shillings a week and be 
 considered by herself and others as fairly well off; a 
 man in the same position will require at least double 
 that amount, and then be accounted very poor. The 
 children will probably be no better off in the latter 
 case, but the man's fortunate selfishness will have 
 kept him an efficient worker, while the woman will be 
 a human wreck. " The w^oman needs less," it is 
 always argued as a reason for woman's lower wages ; 
 but she needs less only in the sense that it costs less 
 to maintain a low physical standard than a high one. 
 An exactly parallel difference of standard, depending 
 on difference of custom, and resulting in difference of 
 efficiency, is found between the wage-earners of differ- 
 ent countries. We have already seen what a low 
 physical standard prevails among the Bulgarian 
 peasantry, and an interesting article b}- Prof. Nitti 
 on " The Food and Labour-Power of Nations," ^ 
 ^ Economic Journal^ March 1S96.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 2i 
 
 enables us to make a similar comparison with other 
 nations. For instance, he tells us that " among the 
 day labourers of the Italian Highlands, the con- 
 sumption of meat is practically nil, save on festivals, 
 and wine is little drunk. Victuals consist of cereals 
 (wheat, maize, and rice), peas and beans or other 
 vegetables, seasoned with lard. The diet is one in 
 which azote matter is stinted, and what there is is 
 derived from vegetable substances rather than from 
 animal food." And again: "According to the calcu- 
 lations of some writers, an average Italian workman 
 consumes no more than about one-half the allow- 
 ance of a Frenchman, and one-quarter that of an 
 Englishman." 
 
 A similar difference in standard appears when we 
 compare the diet of a United States labourer with 
 that of a European. Prof. Nitti gives the following 
 table : 
 
 Commoditv ^°° representing quantity consumed in United 
 
 States, the European workman consumes : 
 
 Meat 33 
 
 Bacon (or fat) ... 50 
 
 Eggs 85 
 
 Butter ... ... ... ... ... 100 
 
 Flour ... 100 
 
 Potatoes 175 
 
 Sugar 25 
 
 Coffee 85 
 
 As a result of his investigations, Prof Nitti holds 
 it proved that " In manufacture as in agriculture, 
 wherever energy is given out, the well-fed labourer 
 proves superior to the under-fed. . . . The peoples of 
 southern countries who, when under-fed, have not the 
 habit of taking alcohol or other stimulating substances, 
 call in the aid of repose, drowsiness, idleness, by the
 
 22 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 help of which they follow a rcc^imcn that would other- 
 wise kill them. ICastern drowsiness, which sometimes 
 looks like actual lethart^^)-, and the drowsy idleness 
 of the southerner are really never an}'thini( h)ut the 
 effects of insufficient nutrition, . . . An Englishman 
 cats more and better than a German, he works more 
 and better tlian a German ; an American eats more 
 and better than a German, or a Frenchman, or an 
 Englishman, and works more and better than any of 
 them." 
 
 What we learn, then, from inquiries such as these, 
 is to aim at and encourage a high standard of nutrition 
 for all classes alike ; money spent in good whole- 
 some food is gain not only to the individual who eats 
 it, but to the whole community which profits by his 
 services. We may learn a similar lesson from com- 
 paring the neglected children of the lowest classes 
 with those children who are better cared for. It is 
 said that the average Industrial School-boy is seven 
 inches shorter and twenty-four and three-quarter 
 pounds lighter than the average boy of the same age. 
 No doubt many causes combine to produce this 
 startling result, but mal-nutrition must be one of the 
 chief. 
 
 Moreover we are told that there is a direct physi- 
 ological connection between mal-nutrition and the 
 craving for alcohol, which goes far to explain the 
 prevalence of drinking amongst the very poor. The 
 provoking part of the matter is that the money spent 
 on alcohol would often be enough, with good manage- 
 ment, to supply a really sufficient diet. It is the 
 good management which is lacking, and that is a 
 question of education and conviction. There was a 
 perplexing confusion of cause and effect in the state
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 23 
 
 of a woman who was sent to me as ill from want of 
 food, and who proved upon inquiry to have been 
 living for some days upon porter and tomatoes. Bad 
 management of her income had led to insufficient 
 diet, insufficient diet to a craving for drink, and the 
 drink had not only left her without money, but had 
 taken away her taste for good food. Amongst many 
 of our poor, especially in the towns, poverty and 
 drink act and react in this way ; and we cannot 
 break the knot either by giving food or cutting off 
 the drink. We can only work indirectly through a 
 rise in the standard of living. 
 
 That we have every reason to hope for such a rise 
 we may see from the progress that has already been 
 made by the bulk of the working-class. Mr. R. 
 Giffen's statistics on this question are so well known 
 that I need not do more here than give a brief 
 summary of the conclusions which he draws from 
 them. He is speaking of the half-century ending 
 in 1883-6, and claims to have shown that "the 
 working-classes of the United Kingdom had enjo}'ed 
 a great improvement in their money-wages in the last 
 fifty years, an improvement roughly estimated at 50 
 to 100 per cent.; that the hours of labour had been 
 shortened in the same period 20 per cent. ; that along 
 with this improvement there had been a general fall, 
 or at any rate no increase, in the prices of the principal 
 articles of general consumption, with the exception 
 of rent and meat, where the increase still left to the 
 labourer a large margin for increased miscellaneous 
 expenditure ; that meat in particular was not an 
 article of general consumption b)' the masses of the 
 community fifty years ago as it has since become ; 
 that the condition of the masses had in fact improved
 
 24 I'HH STANDAkl) OV l.ll T. 
 
 vastly, as was shown by the (Uminishccl rate of 
 mortality, the increased consumption per head of tea, 
 su<jjar, and the like articles, the extension of i)opular 
 education, the diminution of crime and pauperism, 
 and the increase of savings bank deposits, as well as 
 of other forms of savings among the masses." 
 
 If we measure this advance by money income 
 alone, we see it most strikingly when we arc told that 
 whereas in 1883 the manual-labour class numbered 
 thirteen millions, with an income of ;^4i|; per head, 
 fifty years before they numbered nine millions, with 
 an income of only £ig per head. 
 
 By taking a longer period of one hundred years, 
 we are able to see more in detail the nature of the 
 progress that has been made, for in 1797 Sir F. Eden 
 published his great work, T/ie State of the Poor, for 
 which he collected numerous budgets of family income 
 and expenditure all over the country. In 1896 was 
 published by the Economic Club a work of much 
 smaller proportions, entitled Family Budgets, and 
 from among these we are able to select one which is 
 sufficiently parallel with one of Eden's to make a 
 comparison fair. 
 
 From Eden I have chosen a family living in 
 Monmouth, which seems fairly representative of the 
 agricultural labourer of the time, being neither one of 
 the best nor one of the worst off. " Samuel Price, a 
 labourer, 52 years old, has a wife and nine children, 
 viz. a girl aged 17, who is subject to fits, and not able 
 to work; a boy, aged 16, at service; a boy, 15, at 
 home; another boy, 14, at home; three girls, 12, 10, 
 and 8 years old ; a boy, 3, and another bo\-, i \ )-ears 
 old ; the wife is now pregnant. 
 
 " The father mostl)- works for a gentleman at 8jr. a
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 25 
 
 week and beer ; except in hay and corn harvest, 
 when he has is. 6d. a day, and victuals ; annual 
 amount, about £2 1 3^-. The boy who is i 5 years old, 
 earns, by going on errands, etc., about is. a week. 
 The other children earn nothing, but pick sticks for 
 fuel in the winter. The wife earns, by baking bread 
 for sale, annually about 25^. Total yearly income, £2^^. 
 " Expenses. 
 
 " The man says, bread at present costs him about 
 gs. a week throughout the year, and that he could 
 use more if he could get it. Butter and cheese, about 
 6d. a week ; he uses neither meat nor beer. Tea and 
 sugar, about 4c/. a week. Potatoes, 6d. a week. Fuel, 
 Si". 8^. a }^ear. House rent, £2 2s. a year. Soap, 
 candles, thread, etc., about £1 6s. Total expenses, 
 £zo 14-$". 
 
 " Here appears a deficiency of £$ i/p". ; yet the 
 man says, his children mostly go without shoes and 
 stockings, and that the cloaths worn by him and his 
 family are, mostly, if not wholly, given them by 
 charitable people. The gentleman, for whom this 
 labourer works, allows him about three pints of milk 
 a day, which, with a little bread, serves his children 
 for breakfast ; his wife drinks tea ; their dinner is, 
 bread, potatoes, and salt, sometimes a little fat or 
 dripping if it can be procured cheap : their supper, 
 generally, bread or potatoes. The man says, his 
 family is little more than half supplied with what 
 they could eat. He rents his house off the Corporation 
 of Monmouth, at two guineas a year ; but not being 
 able to pay his rent, he says, they lately seized on all 
 his working tools, some of his furniture, etc., and sold 
 them, so that he is obliged to borrow spades, axes, etc. ; 
 he applied to the parish for relief; which they offered.
 
 26 THE STANDARD OF lAFE 
 
 on condition that he woiikl come into the poor-house 
 with all his family ; which he has hitherto refused to 
 do. r^rom further Inquiry it appears, that the man is 
 honest and industrious. He is fletermined to remain 
 in his house, in defiance of the Corporation. His 
 children, having been bred up in idleness, and in the 
 most abject illiterate state (althouijh several of them 
 have been at service), arc so saucy, that no person 
 will employ them." ^ 
 
 The important point to note about this budget is, 
 that out of the £2^ which the man says he receives, 
 or the i^30 14^'. which he expends, no less than £2^ 8s. 
 goes in bread alone. Of his total expenditure, 89 per 
 cent, goes in food alone, and that of the most meagre 
 kind, and a still larger percentage if we count as a 
 part of his wages the beer and milk which he receives 
 from his employer. Rent forms another 7 per cent, 
 of his expenditure, leaving only 6 per cent, to cover 
 all other items. 
 
 I have selected to compare with this the budget 
 of an agricultural labourer living in Somerset, taken 
 from the collection of the Economic Club. The man 
 works for a farmer, and has nine children, of whom 
 six live at home. He " breakfasts before starting, at 
 six o'clock, and takes lunch and dinner of bread and 
 cheese or bacon from home ; he has tea at home and 
 a hot supper at eight o'clock. They use fresh meat 
 ' once a year,' but have bacon two or three times a 
 day. They live two miles from the husband's work, 
 in an old farm-house very much out of repair and 
 scantily furnished ; there are two kitchens, four small 
 bedrooms, and a dairy. The net value of the produce 
 of the garden amounts to about t,os. a )'ear. The 
 ' Eden's S/a/i' of the Poor, vol. ii. p. 448.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 27 
 
 man keeps pigs and fowls, and gets £1 extra at harvest 
 and 4^. at haymaking. He has been married twenty- 
 two years. One son, 21 years of age, is a private in a 
 hne regiment stationed in Upper Burmah ; a girl of 
 17 is a housemaid in a private school in a neighbour- 
 ing town ; and another, a girl of 15, is in farm service 
 near. One boy of 19 living at home does odd work 
 on the farm ; he gets 12s. a week wages, of which he 
 gives 5^. for bed and board. The man is a teetotaller, 
 but until recently was allowed nothing at harvest and 
 other times instead of beer ; now he has is. a week 
 extra from Lady-Day to Michaelmas." 
 
 The expenditure of this family is given in great 
 detail, from regularly kept accounts. Summarized 
 to compare with Eden's budget it comes to this. Out 
 of an income of lys. a week available for housekeeping, 
 nearly 5i'. a week is in excess of expenditure. Of this 
 expenditure only 48 per cent, is spent on food, 10 per 
 cent, on rent, and 41 per cent, odd is left for other 
 items. These other items are classified under nine 
 headings ; and the food itself, instead of falling under 
 six headings, as did that of Samuel Price (nor is it easy 
 to see how they could have been subdivided), has no 
 less than fifteen. 
 
 No doubt the standard of the agricultural labourer 
 of to-day is far below what we could wish it to be, 
 but measured by the amount of the income available 
 after the elementary necessaries of life have been 
 supplied, there can be no doubt that even this class 
 — which is perhaps least favoured of any — has made 
 enormous progress. 
 
 It may of course be said that 1/97 ^^'^^ a time of 
 especial hardship, owing to the high price of wheat, 
 and therefore not fairl)' comparable with to-da)- ; but
 
 28 THK STANDARD OF I.IFF. 
 
 from what I can c^ather, the at^iicultural labourer had 
 for some time been in a similar conchtion of poverty ; 
 and the relation of his wages to his necessary fuod — 
 or what we now consider necessary — was not then 
 regarded as anything out of the way. There was 
 rather a tendency to blame him for spending so much 
 on wheaten bread, instead of being content with 
 poorer food-stuffs. As an instance of the lamentabl}' 
 low standard considered sufficient for the working- 
 man in the last century, we may take the following 
 dietary suggested in the Farmer s Letters (2nd Ed. 
 1778). The argument is that the poor find a difficulty 
 in living because they are extravagant, and the author 
 proceeds to draw up a table of " Seven-days messes 
 for a stout man." 
 
 d. 
 
 First. Bread, 2 lbs 2 
 
 Cheese, 2 oz., at i\d. per lb. ... ... o\ 
 
 Beer, two quarts ... ... i 
 
 Second. Three messes of soup ^ ... 2 
 
 Third. Rice-pudding ... ... i\ 
 
 Fourth. Quarter of a lb. of fat meat, and 1 1 of 
 
 potatoes baked together. Beer \d.... 2% 
 
 Fifth. Rice-milk 2 
 
 Sixth. Bread, cheese, and beer as first ... 3^ 
 
 Seventh. Potatoes and fat meat, 2^ lbs. ; 2 oz. of 
 
 cheese, and beer ... 4 
 
 \s. %\d. 
 
 He generously calls the average 3^. a day, and then 
 by calculating that wives eat two-thirds of what their 
 husbands do, and children from a half to three-quarters 
 according to age, he comes to the conclusion that a 
 family of five can be fed at '^s. \\d. a week. His 
 righteous indignation against those readers who will 
 deny that the poor live so cheap is quaint. " But is 
 
 ' A receipt is given for the soup ; of meat it contains only the 
 fifth part of I lb.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 29 
 
 their not living so cheap any fault in the price of 
 provisions? Let me ask in return, where the poor 
 family is to be found, that do not drink tea once a 
 day at least ? Can they live so cheap as if they 
 desisted from their tea-sipping ? Or are they to com- 
 plain of prices, when they will not allow them to 
 trifle at the tea-table? Is there any necessity that 
 they should eat nothing but the best wheaten bread, 
 when other kinds are to be had much cheaper but 
 equally wholesome ? Whenever therefore the price 
 of provisions is complained of, let an explanatory 
 expression come in, ' as we chuse to live.' " 
 
 " As we choose to live," expresses very well the 
 fact that even then the poor had a standard, to which 
 they obstinately adhered in spite of the efforts of 
 their masters to break it down ; and although tea 
 was perhaps not the wisest form of expenditure, 
 especially in the adulterated form in which it reached 
 them in those days, yet we can hardly wonder at 
 their craving for " the weeds of China " when we con- 
 template the terrible stodgy diet recommended by 
 the author of the Fanner s Letters. 
 
 Interesting as it is to compare the standard over 
 long periods of time, it is hardly less striking to 
 watch the progress taking place at the present day. 
 This we are enabled to do by the statistics given in 
 the Labour Gazette (amongst much other useful in- 
 formation) as to the changes in rates of wages and 
 hours of labour which occur from month to month. 
 A summary of these changes for the year 1897 
 appeared in January 1898. 
 
 " The upward movement of wages which took 
 place in 1896 was continued in 1897. The changes 
 in rates of wages in the United Kingdom reported
 
 30 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 during 1897 affected 575,000 separate individuals. 
 Of this number 538,200 received a net increase, 14,500 
 sustained a net decrease, and the wages of 22,300, 
 though affected by upwarci and downward changes 
 during the year, stood at the same level at the end 
 as at the beginning. The estimated effect of all the 
 changes on the weekly wages of the total number of 
 workpeople affected was a net increase of ;{^28,750 
 per week." 
 
 In 1896 the net amount of rise had been ^^26,592 
 per week ; but in the two years before there had been 
 a decrease. The rate of wages, though it rises steadily 
 over longer periods, is subject to fluctuation and 
 temporary set-backs according to the state of trade. 
 But with respect to a still more important element 
 in the Standard of Life, the number of hours worked, 
 the improvement, while quite as marked, is more steady 
 and less liable to be checked by temporary reversals. 
 In 1897 the number of workpeople whose hours of 
 labour were changed was 65,136 ; of these 409 suffered 
 an increase, while 64,727 gained a decrease. For the 
 five years of which we have records there has been 
 a steady reduction in the hours of labour ; "the 
 number of workpeople whose working hours were 
 shortened during 1897 was greater than in any of 
 the immediately preceding years, except 1894 — the 
 year of the adoption of the eight-hour day in Govern- 
 ment establishments. The result was a net decrease 
 of over 300,000 hours per week."^ 
 
 If we take the total number of hours gained during 
 the last five years, we find it amounts to no less than 
 803,212 hours per week. In only five years the work- 
 
 * The Labour Gazette is issued by the Board of Trade, and 
 costs a penny a month.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 31 
 
 ing-class have gained increased leisure for themselves 
 to the extent of over 41 i million of hours per year. 
 
 We may take it, then, that progress, so far as it can 
 be measured by money and leisure, is an undoubted 
 fact ; but it may fairly be asked how far we are justi- 
 fied in assuming that this implies a real raising of the 
 Standard of Life. " If more money," it may be objected, 
 " means only more self-indulgence, and more leisure 
 means only more time for the public-house and loaf- 
 ing, what is gained ? " We might reply that at least 
 the possibility of better things was gained, but we are 
 fully justified in taking a more cheerful view than 
 this. In all the examinations which have been made 
 into working-class expenditure, it comes out with 
 quite sufficient clearness that the larger the income 
 earned the smaller the proportion which is expended 
 on satisfying the elementary appetites, while con- 
 versely " the less the worker gains, the more he invests 
 in food, renouncing out of necessity all share in the 
 higher joys of life, and condemning himself to a purely 
 animal existence." Of course the wise expenditure 
 of time and money is an art, and one which must be 
 learned largely by experience ; but we may take it 
 as a general rule, that those who have to struggle for 
 these precious possibilities will know how to value 
 them ; it is those to whom they come without seeking 
 who make the most egregious blunders in their use. 
 
 But wise expenditure, whether of money or time, 
 can only be practised under certain conditions. To 
 consider the most elementary matters, unless there 
 is a plentiful supply of good food and water, no rise 
 in wages will enable the working-man to im{)rove his 
 diet. With regard to the first, there has never been 
 a time when the supply of food has been so varied,
 
 32 Till'; STAXDAKH ()!■ IJll. 
 
 SO unfailing, and so cheap. If we go back to tlic 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the food of the 
 pe(}[)le was ahnost increchbly bad — " there was (jften 
 a general scarcity, which was intensified in particular 
 districts into a local famine. At such times men 
 were driven to use acorns and roots for food, and had 
 recourse to the flesh of dogs and horses ; some cases 
 of cannibalism are reported. It was only rarely that 
 starving people were reduced to such extremities, 
 but there is some reason to believe that they habitu- 
 ally used diseased and unwholesome food, and that 
 they were thus rendered a ready prey to the ravages 
 of pestilence." ^ Even in the last century any account 
 of the diet of the people rings the changes with a 
 terrible monotony on cheese, bread, bacon, and pota- 
 toes, enlivened only by the iniquities of tea-drinking 
 and beer. A similar monotony may still exist in 
 some country districts ; but the travelling grocer, the 
 co-operative stores, the general shop, and all the other 
 expedients for opening up the food-market to the 
 consumer are doing their work, and anything like 
 periodical scarcity is now unknown. But it is only 
 in the towns that the working-man can avail himself 
 to the full of the immense variety of food now within 
 his means, and this fact has no doubt a good deal to 
 do with the partiality for town life. Those who regret 
 this partiality might do something to obviate it by 
 organizing better food-supplies to country villages ; 
 or, what would have a similar effect, b}- improving 
 the local knowledge of cooker}-. 
 
 With regard to the water-suppl}- the case is very 
 different. Here it is the townsman who is helpless 
 
 1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce 
 p. 346.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 33 
 
 to provide himself with pure water, at whatever cost, 
 and is completely in the hands of those who under- 
 take the business of providing it. Our scientific 
 knowledge, which enables us to force water to the 
 top of enormous houses crowded like rabbit warrens, 
 has greatly increased the danger arising from any 
 possible deficiency or pollution ; while the probability 
 of pollution is itself increased by modern systems of 
 drainage. No increase in wages can help the working- 
 man here, except in so far as he can refuse to live 
 where there is no proper and permanent water-supply. 
 Another most important matter, which is only to 
 a limited extent under the working-man's control, is 
 his housing and sanitation. He may be willing and 
 able to pay a high rent, but if decent accommodation 
 is not to be had he cannot help himself. He must 
 live within reach of his work, and the choice may be 
 only between bad and worse. Are we improving in 
 this respect or not ? The answer is not quite obvious, 
 for if we have got rid of much of the brutal ignorance 
 and carelessness in sanitary affairs which characterized 
 our ancestors, we have new problems arising from 
 the overcrowding in our large towns which we have 
 certainly not succeeded in solving as yet. If we go 
 back to the fifteenth century again, we are told that 
 in addition to outbreaks of plague " there was chronic 
 typhoid in the towns, and leprosy all over the country. 
 The undrained, neglected soil ; the shallow, stagnant 
 waters which lay upon the surface of the ground ; the 
 narrow, unhealthy homes of all classes of the people ; 
 the filthy, neglected streets of the towns ; the insufifi- 
 cient and unwholesome food ; the abundance of stale 
 fish which was eaten ; the scanty variety of the vege- 
 tables which were consumed, . . . predisposed the 
 
 D
 
 34 TIIK STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 agricultural and town population alike to tj'phoirlal 
 diseases, and left them little chance of recovery when 
 stricken down with pestilence." Our worst enemies 
 cannot indeed accuse us of bein^^ as bad as this now ; 
 but we need only refer tf) the Reptjrt of the Com- 
 mission of 1885 on the Housing of Working-classes, 
 to find statements which will seem as shocking to our 
 children as these are to us ; and there is no one with 
 any knowledge of the poor who will not be able to 
 recall instances of gross moral and physical evil 
 arising out of overcrowded or insanitary dwellings. 
 But towards raising the standard in this respect every 
 one can help by bringing into force existing sanitary 
 regulations, and an important ally in the task has 
 arisen in the bicycle, which may really do much to 
 solve the problem of overcrowding by enabling the 
 working-man and his family to live at a distance 
 from their work, and yet be independent of railway 
 companies, 
 
 The question of the emplo}'ment of leisure raises 
 a different, but no less important, set of considerations. 
 Leisure, like money, can only be profitably employed 
 under certain conditions ; and it does not necessarily 
 follow that because a man has obtained more leisure 
 for himself he will be able to turn it to advantage. 
 Take, for instance, the possibilities of recreation. In 
 the towns there is now no lack of these to suit every 
 taste and every purse. Theatres, music, libraries and 
 exhibitions of every conceivable kind, are open even 
 to the poorest, and no man need complain of the 
 provision made for his entertainment. All that is 
 needed is that the working-man and woman should 
 be thoroughly aroused to the possibilities awaiting 
 them in this direction. In the country matters have
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 35 
 
 . not advanced so far ; if the temptations of the town 
 are absent, so also are the opportunities of wholesome 
 recreation wanting to a great extent, and one hears 
 still of country villages where the public-house is the 
 only provision made against the monotony of the 
 daily toil. But even the country has its advantages 
 in the possibilities of cricket and football, from which 
 the young people of the towns are to some extent 
 cut off; and in these days of cheap literature the 
 absence of a public library does not mean that any 
 one need be entirely without mental recreation. 
 
 For men and women of maturer age family life 
 and family affections must always, in any healthy 
 community, form the centre round which their interests 
 and their recreations chiefly cluster. No man can be 
 entirely dull with these — witness the account of the 
 " recreation " of one of the poorest families described 
 in the Family Budgets — 
 
 " Recreation — The man plays a little upon the flute, 
 mainly to amuse the children, in whom he finds his 
 chief pleasure. Sitting, coatless, before the fire of an 
 evening, a boy on one knee and a girl on the other, 
 he sings or whistles, and, as he says, ' 'as a game 
 with 'em in my way.' At 7.30 p.m. (having arisen 
 at 7 a.m.) the children go to bed, and the man goes 
 to his brother's to have a game of dominoes. These 
 visits are not returned. The brother ' being a single 
 man and a little better off, he thinks as my place 
 ain't quite good enough for him.' Expenses are 
 scarcely ever incurred for recreation, but last Bank- 
 holiday they all went for a country walk towards 
 Dulwich, and hired a mail-cart for the children, three 
 hours at id. an hour. Neither the man nor his 
 wife has been to a theatre or entertainment since
 
 36 THE STANDAUn OF I.IFK 
 
 marriage. ' Wc have pantomime enough at home,' 
 they say." 
 
 Just as it is in the need of more leisure for family 
 life that the plea for shorter hours finds its most 
 telling argument, so also in the regenerating influence 
 of family life we may find the strongest arguments 
 against any steps, legislative or philanthropic, which 
 tend to break down the responsibility and the ties 
 which hold the family together. The solitary inmate 
 of the lodging-house, whether " common " or made 
 select with all the appliances of luxury, is in danger 
 of living on an altogether lower plane than the man 
 whose life is the centre of a home. More money and 
 more leisure he may have, but the strongest interests 
 of life will be wanting, and those with experience 
 know that the lodging-house man is generally drifting 
 as aimlessly as a straw upon a stream. 
 
 " But a man may have wider interests than those 
 of the family life," it may be objected, and this is of 
 course true. Wider instincts may indeed lift the life 
 to a still higher plane, and afford even greater scope 
 for profitable employment of leisure. But it may be 
 taken as a general rule for ordinary men that wider 
 interests grow out of narrower ones. For instance, 
 the wider interests of the working-man are primarily 
 those of his trade-union or his sick-benefit society. 
 But one of the strongest motives to join union or 
 benefit society is the desire to provide for wife and 
 children or parents in time of need ; and if a census 
 could be taken amongst those who have cast off 
 domestic responsibilities and are haunting shelters, 
 casual wards, and lodging-houses, a startlingly small 
 proportion would be found of members of trade-unions 
 or benefit societies.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 37 
 
 Indeed, one great reason for refraining from inter- 
 ference with the more elementary interests and duties 
 of men's lives, is that by means of them alone they 
 can push their way forward to a stronger hold upon 
 life. We cannot force interests or occupations or 
 benefits of any kind upon men from without, however 
 desirable we may think them ; they must grow out of 
 their own strivings and desires, their own planning 
 and progress. The best we can do for each other is 
 to remove unnecessary obstacles, and the worst — to 
 weaken any of the motives which urge us to strive. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Wages alone, then, cannot put good things into 
 a man's life ; but it is none the less true that without 
 good wages he cannot avail himself of them to the 
 fullest extent. It is of prime importance that a 
 plentiful supply of good things should be organized 
 within the community ; but granted that, we have 
 still to ask, upon what terms are men admitted to a 
 share in them ? Under our present constitution (and 
 we are not concerned with any other) the vast majority 
 of us measure our share by the wages we earn, and 
 as our wages increase so our share increases. Before 
 proceeding further to consider how the Standard of 
 Life reacts upon wages, it will be necessary to consider 
 a little more closely the meaning of the terms we 
 shall use. 
 
 There is a good deal of rather vague talk about the 
 rate of wages among people who would be puzzled to 
 state exactly what was the real position as regards 
 earnings in any industry. The rate may be quoted
 
 38 TUK STANDARD OF LIFK 
 
 by the hour, day, or week ; and to say that a man 
 earns 6|y/. an hour tells us little unless we also know 
 how many hours he works in the day and how many 
 days in the week. Nay, we may very easily be 
 deceived as to the position of a man unless we also 
 know how many weeks he will work in the year ; 
 whether, that is, his trade is subject to long slack 
 seasons and out of work for which he must make 
 provision. Thus a high rate per hour or day may 
 mean a comparatively low one taken over a longer 
 period, as in the case of bricklayers who cannot work 
 during a frost, or miners who " play " perforce two or 
 three days out of the six. Piece-work, again, and 
 overtime, introduce fresh complications, all of which 
 will hav^e to be taken into account in estimating the 
 financial position of the worker in any branch of 
 industry ; and it is unsafe to base any judgment 
 upon a general statement of the " rate of wages " 
 until we have informed ourselves on all these details. 
 
 Again, when we have ascertained the money-wages, 
 we have further to inquire whether there are not other 
 advantages attached to the work which have a money 
 value. An agricultural labourer will frequently have 
 a cottage rent-free, and a Northumberland hind can 
 claim his thousand yards of potatoes in addition to 
 his money-wage. On the other hand, there are often 
 specific disadvantages to be taken into account which 
 represent a diminution of the stated wages. A bad 
 system of fines will act practically as a reduction, and 
 in some of the worst paid industries earnings are still 
 further reduced by the fact that the unfortunate 
 workers have to " find " their own materials. 
 
 In making comparisons as between wages at different 
 times or different places we have further to consider
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 39 
 
 the purchasing power of money. We have to remem- 
 ber, that is, that a man with high wages in one place 
 may be able to buy less with them than a man with 
 lower wages in another. At the gold-diggings, for 
 instance, labourers can always command high money- 
 wages, because gold is plentiful and labour scarce 
 where every man wants to be working on his own 
 account. But then the prices which he will have to 
 pay are also very high — we are told that at Klondike 
 a man must pay £6 a week for food of the coarsest 
 description — and so the labourer may really be worse 
 off than on a much lower wage in England. The higher 
 wages to be earned in London, again, as compared 
 with country towns, are partly counteracted by the 
 fact of higher rents, though against this again we have 
 to set off the plentiful supply of cheap food. 
 
 High wages, then, if accompanied by high prices, 
 do not necessarily mean that the wage-earner is pros- 
 perous, but may mean only that there is a plentiful 
 supply of money in the country. 
 
 Low wages and high prices means the time of the 
 greatest hardship for the labourer ; it implies a scarcity 
 in commodities as compared with labour, and in its 
 extreme form constitutes famine. 
 
 On the other hand, the opposite extreme of high 
 wages and low prices means, from this point of view, 
 the greatest prosperity for the working-man ; for then 
 his money-wages, translated into the things he wants 
 to buy with them, show larger still. He gains both 
 as seller and buyer, both as producer and consumer. 
 
 This close relation between wages and prices has 
 always to be recognized in historical inquiries into 
 the condition of the working-classes, and generally 
 takes the form of expressing wages by the amount of
 
 40 TIFK STANl^ARI) OV MFE 
 
 wheat they would buy. Thus we read, for instance, in 
 Roj^ers' JVor/c and Wages, that in 1495 " an artisan, 
 therefore, earned nearly a bushel of wheat by a day's 
 labour, and an ordinary labourer three-quarters of a 
 bushel. A week's work would enable an artisan to 
 purchase more than a quarter of malt, and a little more 
 than seven days' work would supply the farm labourer 
 with a quarter of malt." 
 
 Now when wages are so low as to be entirely swal- 
 lowed up in purchasing the bare necessaries of life, as 
 in the case quoted of Samuel Price (p. 24), this way 
 of measuring them by the amount of wheat they will 
 buy, really represents their value to the working-man. 
 Moreover, the fact that the price of wheat used to vary 
 enormously in former times with good and bad seasons, 
 wars and rumours of wars, etc., thus making the value 
 of wages as measured in it vary from year to year — 
 this fact represented a serious difficulty to the working- 
 man in organizing his expenditure. One year his 
 wages would barely supply him with bread for his 
 family, while the next year, though earning the same 
 money, he might have a large part of it to spend on 
 other things. At the beginning of the century, e.g., 
 the price of wheat varied from I2ay. to 50^". a quarter 
 in five years. 
 
 Matters stand quite differently now that the wheat 
 markets of the world are open to us. While the price 
 of wheat remains low and steady it forms but a small 
 item in working-class expenditure ; every one has as 
 much bread as he wants, as is shown by the fact that 
 no one buys more bread when the price falls, and we 
 no longer measure a man's prosperity by the amount 
 of wheat he can buy. Anything like a famine would 
 of course bring this into importance again ; meanwhile
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 41 
 
 the prices of coal, meat, housing, clothing, and many 
 other things must be taken into account in considering 
 the purchasing power of wages. 
 
 This, then, is one aspect of low prices. The cheaper 
 the things are which the working-class habitually 
 consume, the better off the wage-earners are, inas- 
 much as they are able to spend their earnings to 
 better advantage. 
 
 But there is another aspect of low prices which 
 cannot be left out of sight, and which is most familiar 
 to those who are accustomed to hear the talk of 
 business men. When prices are falling, the first effect 
 is to diminish profits, and thus the business world 
 becomes depressed, and business is more and more 
 difficult to carry on. If there is a difficulty in cutting 
 down the expenses of making the commodities of 
 which the price is falling — and among those expenses 
 wages must be included — then it may happen in some 
 cases that the amount of work will be diminished, and 
 a certain number of men thrown out of work. 
 
 On the other hand, when prices are rising profits 
 increase at once, business is brisk, and every one is 
 at work. But wages may be slower to rise propor- 
 tionately, and the working-man will find himself 
 buying his goods at a high price with only the same 
 wage as before, and this of course means that he will 
 have to restrict his consumption. 
 
 In considering movements of wages, then, we must 
 also take into careful consideration movements in the 
 prices of those things which the wage-earner buys. 
 We must remember that while a rise in prices is 
 " good for trade," it is baci for the buyer ; and while 
 a fall in prices is good for the buyer, it is " bad for 
 trade."
 
 42 TIM'; STANDAKn OF LIFK 
 
 I now want to consider very briefly some of the 
 theories which have been held at different times con- 
 cerning the movements of wages ; for at the present 
 time, at any rate, theories about wages seem to have 
 some influence in determining what wages shall be. 
 
 In the first place, there has been what we may call 
 the Proletariat Theory; the theory, that is, that the 
 working-class will always multiply its numbers so fast 
 as to keep wages down to the lowest point at which 
 they can live. Even J. S. Mill writes : " It is but 
 rarely that improvements in the condition of the 
 labouring classes do anything more than give a 
 temporary margin, speedily filled up by an increase 
 of their numbers. The use they commonly choose 
 to make of any advantageous change in their cir- 
 cumstances, is to take it out in the form which, by 
 augmenting the population, deprives the succeeding 
 generation of the benefit." This was the theory of 
 despair, and was maintained by writers whose observa- 
 tions were made at a time when the labouring class 
 was peculiarly poverty-stricken, and therefore degraded 
 and reckless. The possibility of better things was 
 recognized, but rather as a forlorn hope than as a 
 practical consideration. " Unless, either by their 
 general improvement in intellectual and moral culture, 
 or at least by raising their habitual standard of com- 
 fortable living, they can be taught to make a better 
 use of favourable circumstances, nothing permanent 
 can be done for them ; the most promising schemes 
 end only in having a more numerous, but not a 
 happier people." 
 
 Taken out of their context, these words read to us 
 as if they had been written of the class which is 
 peculiarly our despair at the present day, the Residuum
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 43 
 
 which gathers in our large towns. These are the 
 people whom we cannot help because they are without 
 a standard to maintain ; the people who marry without 
 provision of any kind, almost without a home and 
 without the least prospect for the future ; the people 
 who marry when out of work on the plea that " two 
 can get along better than one." But no one would 
 say to-day that this class is representative of the 
 working-class as a whole, or indeed anything more 
 than the fringe upon its outskirts. A higher and 
 definite Standard of Life has always been operative 
 amongst some at least, and was beginning to re-assert 
 itself more widely even as Mill wrote ; and it was 
 owing to the assertion of this higher standard, and 
 the demands to which it led for higher wages, that 
 the theory of wages took another form. 
 
 This was the Wage-fund Theory, another low-spirited 
 view of the prospect of wage-earners, which maintained 
 that any attempt to raise wages must frustrate itself, 
 not this time by the perverseness of the wage-earners 
 themselves, but by the inevitable limitations of what 
 was called the wages fund. There is a certain amount 
 of capital, it was argued, which is devoted to produc- 
 tion, and of this a certain amount goes in wages ; this 
 amount is divided up amongst the workers, and the 
 share of each worker depends upon the number 
 amongst whom it is divided. If for a time wages are 
 raised beyond that amount, it can only be at the 
 expense of profits, which will ultimately diminish the 
 fund applied to wages. Thus the last state of the 
 wage-earner will be worse than the first, and the 
 temporary rise will be more than counterbalanced by 
 the subsequent fall. 
 
 This theory also has proved to be too desponding.
 
 44 TinC STANDARD OK MFK 
 
 Those who held it had not allowed sufficiently for the 
 fact that a man with a high standard of Ijfe may be 
 so much better a worker than one with a low standard 
 as to make it more profitable to pay high wages. 
 Just as it pays better to keep good horses in a good 
 condition than to work with horses which are broken 
 down or half-starved, so it is found that better work 
 can be got from well-paid men than from ill-paid. 
 It may be thought that this is a low ground upon 
 which to base an argument for the possibility of a 
 higher life for the workers ; but it must be borne in 
 mind that humanity can only remain solvent so long 
 as it is capable of producing more than it consumes ; 
 if it once took to consuming more than it produced, 
 the bankruptcy which ultimately means extinction 
 would be near at hand. P'or the industrial world to 
 have realized then that increased consumption means, 
 at any rate up to a certain point, increased productive 
 powers, is to have changed from the attitude of the 
 miser who hoards his gold and starves to death for 
 fear of poverty, to that of the wise husbandman who 
 fearlessly entrusts his treasure to the soil and receives 
 it again many-fold. 
 
 It would be rash to formulate any theory of wages 
 as predominant at the present day, but now that we 
 have seen how the supposed limitations of former 
 theories have broken down, we are free to consider 
 some of the actual influences at work in determining 
 the Rate of Wages. Foremost amongst these is the 
 Standard of Life in the sense in which we have been 
 considering it. Man, as we have seen, is progressive 
 in his wants and desires, and the kind of life which 
 he definitely sets before himself as desirable is the 
 kind of life he will tend to have. One ereat obstacle
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 45 
 
 to progress is the lack of any definite ideas, which 
 makes one thing seem desirable to-day and another 
 to-morrow, and no line of conduct persisted in for 
 any length of time. But where we find settled pur- 
 poses in life and a definite standard, we have a 
 progressive force, of which one effect is to check any 
 reduction in wages and further any advance. This 
 force is of course liable to be frustrated, and must 
 always be limited in its effects by the particular 
 conditions of the moment — conditions which may be 
 summed up as " the state of the labour market," which 
 we shall consider presently. But it is none the less 
 operative, and can be traced in its working, both 
 negatively and positively. Negatively, in so far as 
 where it is absent wages fall ; positively, as the actual 
 basis of a rise. 
 
 It has been seriously urged ^ that one cause of the 
 low wages of women is their low standard of physical 
 nutrition, and that, to put it plainly, if women ate 
 more they would earn more. To this the obvious 
 objection is sometimes made, that a rise in wages 
 must precede a rise in the standard, that you must 
 earn more before you can eat more. But to show 
 just how the matter works, I will give an instance 
 which once came under my notice. 
 
 Some time ago certain employers advertised for a 
 woman to take a situation at a salary which was 
 named. I do not know how many applied, probably 
 a large number, but out of them three were selected 
 to be interviewed. The employers sat in an inner 
 room, the candidates in a little ante-room whence they 
 were summoned one by one. When all had been 
 seen a pause ensued, there was probably not much to 
 ^ See p. 20,
 
 46 THE STANDARD OF LITE 
 
 choose between them, and it occurred to the employers 
 that here was an opportunity. Number one was 
 summoned again, and offered the post if she would 
 take it at a lower salary. She had no time to consult 
 the others, or to think it over ; but she had a definite 
 standard of what women ought to receive in order to 
 live an efficient life, and she refused the offisr. Number 
 two was summoned, and returned triumphant ; she 
 had a lower standard, and had accepted the lower 
 salary, and had thereby done her share towards 
 lowering the standard for other women. There was 
 of course no reason why any of the three should have 
 taken the lower salary, if they had all had the same 
 standard ; but they had not, and in consequence the 
 rate of wages in that particular post was lowered. 
 
 This lower standard of women is probabl}' the only 
 justification for the outcry against women's competi- 
 tion in the industries where both men and women 
 are employed. Just in so far as they are willing to 
 take lower wages for the same work, it is because 
 they have a lower standard of what is necessary and 
 desirable. The cure for this lies of course, not in 
 excluding them from the work, but in helping them 
 to raise their standard in every possible way. 
 
 It may be that the only effectual method of raising 
 and maintaining the standard of women workers will 
 prove to be that adopted by the men, the method of 
 combining to make the standard effective by mutual 
 agreement and support. Whatever else of good or 
 of evil has been achieved by Trade-Unions, they have 
 been of fundamental service to the wage-earners by 
 emphasizing the fact that no individual can lower 
 his standard without endangering the position of all 
 his fellows. How far they ha\e been successful in
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 47 
 
 enabling any class of workers to press forward to a 
 higher standard of earnings and conditions of work 
 than it would otherwise have done, is a further point, 
 and one which is full of interest. 
 
 The process of maintaining or raising the standard 
 of any class of workmen receives its severest check 
 when it is said that the prices of the commodities 
 produced are so low that they will not admit of a 
 rise in wages. If the employer could demonstrate 
 that his profits were already so low that he could 
 only just afford to keep going, this argument was 
 formerly considered to be unanswerable, and the 
 workman's claim would be abandoned. But a new 
 attitude is now apparent. Wages, it is argued, must 
 be taken into account before prices are fixed, and 
 instead of allowing wages to fall because prices fall, 
 producers should raise prices because wages have 
 risen. This doctrine is very clearly advanced in the 
 article upon The Lock-out in the Coal Trade, by Mr. 
 Edwards {Economic Journal, 1893): "It is quite 
 obvious that behind the concrete proposals of both 
 owners and men lies a great question of principle. 
 The employers may say that the prices at which they 
 have accepted contracts will not allow them to make 
 a profit unless wages are reduced. . . . The men do not 
 deny the statements of the owners as to prices. Their 
 ground of refusal is quite other. They say when 
 they were unorganized they accepted reduced wages 
 on a decline in prices because they could not help 
 themselves. The object of their union is to prevent 
 this in future. They therefore now decline to let 
 wages be regulated by prices. . . . The miners are not 
 going to work for less than a living wage, and owners 
 should recognize that before recklessly reducing
 
 48 THE STANDARD OF lAVK 
 
 prices. . . . They do not object, however, to having 
 their wages regulated by arbitration based on prices, 
 provided a Hving wage minimum is first secured. 
 Thus the real question at issue is whether labour is 
 or is not to have the right of exercising a voice in 
 fixing prices." 
 
 No one can fail to see the importance of this 
 argument, but in estimating its influence we must 
 bear in mind the effect of a rise in prices on the con- 
 sumer. The people who were most affected by the 
 rise in the price of coal in 1897 were the old women 
 in London with only just enough to live on, whose 
 supply of coal had to be curtailed ; and if many wage- 
 earners could succeed in raising the price of their 
 own product they might ultimately find themselves 
 really poorer than before. 
 
 Before proceeding to questions of the labour market 
 there are certain practical difficulties and confusion 
 arising out of the question of the Standard of Life 
 which may be noticed here. 
 
 All facts are capable of misinterpretation, and none 
 more so than facts in which human nature is con- 
 cerned. When people begin to notice social condi- 
 tions the observation they first make is, that a very 
 small income and an unsatisfactory life generally go 
 together, and from this they hasten to conclude that 
 if they can increase the income in any way the life 
 will become more satisfactory. Then they- gradually 
 learn by experience that an increase of income, unless 
 it is result of — or at least accompanied by — an im- 
 proved Standard of Life, is either mischievous, as 
 when it enables the recipient to spend more on drink 
 or self-indulgence, or else it cannot be maintained. 
 That is, a gift from outside may merely enable the
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 49 
 
 recipient to diminish his earnings proportionately ; 
 either by doing less work, or by taking less money 
 for what he does. To increase wages is one of the 
 most effectual ways of helping on the worker ; to 
 supplement them is the surest means of making 
 progress impossible. Where the worker is counting 
 upon help, whether from out-relief or charity or his 
 family, then he will be content to earn less and his 
 employer will be content to pay less, than if he had 
 only his earnings to look to. Hence the greatest 
 blunder the philanthropist can make is to give to any 
 indiv'idual or class because wages are low ; by so 
 doing he is only making them lower still. 
 
 Another danger to which the philanthropist is 
 liable, is that of lowering the standard of those whom 
 he desires to benefit. A hundred years ago the 
 efforts of the benevolent were mainly directed towards 
 devising means by which the labourer could live 
 more cheaply ; that is, they aimed at lowering his 
 standard instead of raising it. It was then that soup 
 first assumed that importance in philanthropy which 
 it still possesses to a large degree. Count Rumford 
 was especially noted for his skill in devising cheap 
 soups. Here is a receipt for one which is recom- 
 mended as "highly deserving the attention of the 
 masters and governors of work-houses." 
 
 Receipt for a very Cheap Soup. 
 
 " Take of water eight gallons, and mixing with it 
 5 lbs. of barley meal, boil it to the consistency of 
 a thick jelly. Season it with salt, pepper, vinegar, 
 sweet herbs, and four red herrings, pounded in a 
 mortar. Instead of bread, add to it 5 lbs. of Indian 
 corn, made into samp, and stirring it together with
 
 so THE STANDARD OP' LIFK 
 
 a ladle, serve it up iin mediately in portions of 20 
 ounces." 
 
 The cost of providing this soup for 64 persons is 
 worked out at one farthing per head. 
 
 The danger of familiarizing the people with cheap 
 foods is twofold. Even if the food is nourishing, 
 there is the danger — as Malthus pointed out — that 
 those who use it will be content to let their wages 
 fall until they are only just sufficient to provide it, 
 and then when hard times come there is nothing 
 cheaper to fall back upon. But there is also the 
 great probability that the cheaper food will not really 
 be so nourishing as that for which it is substituted — 
 red herring soup is a poor substitute even for bread 
 and bacon — and then the labourer's efficiency and 
 power of earning will be impaired. 
 
 These considerations do not apply to the majority 
 of our wage-earners to-day ; for their standard in- 
 cludes much beside the bare necessaries of life. 
 Any economy which they can practise in food — so 
 long as it does not impair their efficiency — sets free 
 more of their income for other purposes, and is so 
 far good. Hence the importance of teaching 
 the wives of working-men how to cook well and 
 economically. 
 
 But to the people upon whom our soup-charities of 
 to-day are exercised they apply with all their force. 
 The casual labourer throughout the winter now looks 
 upon chance bowls of soup, paid for with odd half- 
 pence or not at all, as the standard for himself and 
 his children, instead of three meals a day provided 
 out of his earnings. Formerly even a poor man 
 included a settled home, however humble it might be, 
 amongst his necessaries ; now his standard has been
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 51 
 
 lowered by charitable enterprise until he is content 
 to pass his life in shelters, casual wards, and semi- 
 charitable lodging-houses. It is much cheaper than 
 to maintain a home, and involves less work ; so those 
 men — of whom there is always a considerable number 
 — who like to follow the line of least resistance, i. e. 
 lead the easiest life, revert to the nomad type and 
 have their standard permanently lowered. The fol- 
 lowing extract from a report of the Whitechapel 
 Guardians on the influence of " cheap and free 
 shelters " is instructive : 
 
 " The shelters do not become centres of improve- 
 ment, tending to restore the inmates to self-respect 
 and independence ; they are merely places of tem- 
 porary lodging, from which the vast bulk of the 
 inmates go away as badly off as they came ; their 
 action is similar in result to indiscriminate gifts of 
 small doles of money, which weaken the character 
 without improving the condition of the recipient. 
 The shelters furthermore tend to increase the number 
 of destitute people, without regular means of employ- 
 ment, by making the life of the shiftless and idle 
 more easy, and offering a new temptation to those 
 who are willing to live, as far as possible, at the 
 expense of others. 
 
 " The shelters aid and abet the neglect of the 
 duties of family life, on the doing of which the hap- 
 piness of humankind so largely depends. Facilities 
 are afforded for husbands and wives to evade their 
 mutual responsibilities ; instances have been met with 
 of the husband being in one shelter, while his wife 
 and children were in another; of the husband entirely 
 deserting his wife and children, who were being 
 maintained in the shelters. The effect upon the
 
 52 TIFK STANDARD Ol' LI IK 
 
 children is disastrous ; Ihcir Irainint; and proper 
 bringin^^ up is neglected; they have in many cases 
 no schooling." 
 
 There is no doubt that many people who, but for 
 the shelters, would have had homes of their own, arc 
 now without. What would become of them if the 
 shelters ceased their work .'' Those who have most 
 experience say, " Some of them would apply to the 
 guardians; some would betake themselves to agencies 
 which endeavour by reformatory and other efforts to 
 restore them to self-respect and independence ; a 
 large part would re-enter the ranks of self-supporting 
 workers by making the small effort which would, in 
 most cases, be required for the purpose." In other 
 words, when the temptation to live a lower life was 
 removed, the homeless vagrant would rise again to 
 the higher level of the independent wage-earner with 
 his own home. The real work of charity is not to 
 afford facilities to the poor to lower their standard, 
 but to step in when calamity threatens and prevent it 
 from falling. 
 
 It is sometimes thought that the two virtues of 
 maintaining a high standard and of exercising thrift 
 are opposed to each other, and indeed incompatible. 
 If this were so, we should be forced to choose one of 
 the two and reluctantly abandon the other as a vice. 
 But the apparent conflict is really due to a narrow 
 interpretation of both virtues, and disappears when 
 we see them in their fullest significance. The true 
 opposite to a high standard of life is extravagance, 
 for a man with a really high standard regards life as 
 a whole, and so regulates it that no part may shame 
 the rest ; while the essence of extravagance is to live 
 in and for the present without thought for the future
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 53 
 
 and to lavish upon present pleasures the resources 
 which are owing to future needs. 
 
 Thrift, again, loses its hard narrowness when we 
 no longer confine it to the commonplace meaning of 
 saving money. A thriving man is one whose well- 
 being in the present promotes, rather than hinders, 
 his well-being in the future; and the really thrifty 
 man is one who so orders his present that it may 
 bear fruit in the future. A good house may be as 
 profitable an investment as money in the bank, and 
 better than either will be children well brought up, 
 with strength and skill, and good-will towards their 
 parents. Thrift, in one form or another, is for all of 
 us the only way to realizing the highest standard ; 
 while the niggardliness which will not cultivate 
 present opportunities and make them fruitful, is one 
 of the worst forms of waste, for it wastes life itself. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the long run then, it is the Standard of Life 
 aimed at by any class which determines what the 
 wages of the individuals of that class will be. But 
 this tendency is subject to many checks and limita- 
 tions, according to the conditions of particular times 
 and places. We say that it is the state of the tides 
 which determines how far inland the waves will reach 
 along the coast ; but high- water mark will differ 
 greatly within very few miles. In one place there 
 will be a heap of shingle to be cleared away before 
 progress can be made ; in another a rock proves an 
 insuperable barrier ; while in a third a smooth bed of 
 sand or a well-worn channel affords an easy passage
 
 54 TIIK STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 to the waters. So too with the tide of progress; in 
 one place it may have to overcome an obstacle of 
 prejudices and traditions ; in another it is barred by 
 incapacity and sloth ; and in favoured places where 
 obstacles are fewest it will rise highest and most 
 easily. 
 
 Some of the chief conditions which at any given 
 time or place limit the effect of the Standard of Life, 
 are summed up as the " state of the labour market." 
 What does this mean ? 
 
 Wc may begin our explanation by considering 
 what is meant by a market. 
 
 There is an interesting account in Sir Henry 
 Maine's Village Communities, of the probable origin 
 of our markets and market law. When society is 
 still in its more primitive condition of small and 
 mainly self-sufficing communities, it has generally 
 been the case that all prices are determined by custom, 
 to the exclusion of bargaining, and what Adam Smith 
 called the " higgling of the market." No one would 
 think of trying to get a higher price for a thing 
 because it was scarce, or because his neighbours 
 wanted it very much. He asked the price which his 
 father and grandfather used to ask before him. But 
 these small communities, however friendly and peace- 
 ful they might be internally, were frequently hostile 
 to neighbouring communities, and it was convenient 
 to have a neutral piece of ground at points where the 
 domains of several villages converged. " These were 
 the markets. They were probably the only places 
 at which the members of the different primitive 
 groups met for an)' purpose except warfare, and the 
 persons who came to them were doubtless at first 
 persons specially empowered to exchange the produce
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 55 
 
 and manufactures of one little village community for 
 those of another. . . . But besides the notion of 
 neutrality, another idea was anciently associated with 
 markets. This was the idea of sharp practice and 
 hard bargaining." 
 
 This account of the origin of the market as the 
 place where business was carried on with acknow- 
 ledged enemies, seems partly to explain some of the 
 strange contradictions of modern business transactions 
 when compared with what is considered honourable 
 amongst friends. Such contradictions used to be 
 still more marked in the different attitudes maintained 
 by the Roman law — the Jus Gentium — on the one 
 hand and the Canon Law on the other. In its earlier 
 days the Christian Church struggled hard to introduce 
 and maintain in the relations of business life the 
 principles and morality which were held binding upon 
 the individual. Extremists even argued that all trade 
 was wrong, since it was based upon covetousness and 
 the desire for gain ; and though this difficulty was 
 ultimately got over by allowing trade to be per- 
 missible when " the merchant looks upon the gain, 
 not as the object, but as the reward of his labour," ^ 
 many questions of detail remained to be solved by 
 the ingenuity of the Church. Is it right to buy cheap 
 and sell dear .'* is a sale made unlawful by a defect in 
 the article sold .'' is the seller bound to reveal a fault 
 in an article .-* what is \.\\Q.just price .-' Such are some 
 of the problems which men endeavoured to solve in 
 accordance with Christian doctrines, and which we 
 are still only able to meet by compromise. 
 
 The Roman legist, on the other hand, starting 
 from the idea of natural hostility between bu}'cr and 
 ^ Ashley, Ecojiomic Hisfory, vol. i.
 
 56 TJIE STANDARD <)!• LIKH 
 
 seller, had a much easier task before him. Two 
 striking utterances are, we arc tok], quoted as authori- 
 tative in Justinian's dif^est : " In purcliase and sale it 
 is naturally allowed to the contracting parties to try 
 to over-reach one another," and "in buj'ing and selling, 
 a man has a natural right to purchase for a small 
 price that which is really more valuable, and to sell 
 at a high price that which is less valuable, and for 
 cither to over-reach the other." 
 
 If we look upon the efforts of the Church to 
 counteract this spirit of hostility in trade, as an 
 attempt to maintain the old regime of customary 
 prices, it must be allowed to have failed altogether. 
 The time came when the customs which had been a 
 protection to the working-man began to be felt only 
 as oppressive. He found that if freed from the 
 shackles of custom he could do far better for himself 
 by what we now call free contract ; and an important 
 chapter in economic history is that which tells how 
 the English labourer freed himself from the restraints 
 of customary prices and services, and began to work 
 for a money- wage. In other words, he found he 
 could do better for himself in the market, amongst 
 quasi-enemies, than by remaining under the shelter 
 of old traditions. 
 
 But though the morality of the market is not that 
 which the Christian Church strove to impress upon 
 it, there has nevertheless developed a state of things 
 which goes far to modify the old Roman ideal of 
 mutual over-reaching. Over-reaching in a bargain 
 implies that one party to the bargain has knowledge 
 which is concealed from the other ; but our modern 
 ideal of a market is one where all concerned have 
 complete knowledge of all the circumstances involved.
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 57 
 
 and where the possibility of over-reaching is therefore 
 reduced to a minimum. The market may still be held 
 in some particular place, but this is not essential. 
 " The traders may be spread over a whole town, or 
 region of country, and yet make a market, if they are, 
 by means of fairs, meetings, published price lists, the 
 post-office or otherwise, in close communication with 
 each other." And this close communication, which 
 has now been brought almost to perfection, implies 
 knowledge ; knowledge, that is, of the exact nature 
 of the goods concerned, of the amounts offered for 
 sale, of the stores in reserve, of competing buyers, of 
 prices — past, present, and future, and so on. It may 
 be that the honesty which comes perforce with the 
 increase of publicity and knowledge, is not so fair 
 a virtue as that which scorns the opportunities of 
 fraud ; but for the transactions of exchange, which in 
 our time affect the well-being of every member of the 
 community, individual heroism is not so sure a basis 
 as the obstacle to fraud which is presented by 
 knowledge. 
 
 Now the market for labour is in many respects 
 similar to the markets for commodities. Just as in 
 certain localities we still find a market-place where 
 sellers bring their goods and expose them for sale, 
 so in certain country towns the labourers still come 
 together at given times to hire themselves out, and 
 employers come as purchasers of their labour. But 
 for the most part the labour market is not localized ; 
 knowledge of wages, and of the demand for labour in 
 different places, is spread by means of trade organiza- 
 tions, newspapers, private communications and re- 
 ports ; and thus the labourer is enabled to get the 
 best price for what he can offer.
 
 58 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 lUit in one very essential point the labour market 
 differs from other markets. The seller of sugar or 
 cotton, or any other tangible commodity, when he has 
 made his bargain, hands over the goods, and is no 
 more concerned with them. Not so the labourer. 
 His commodity is inseparable from himself, and can 
 be yielded only by himself; hence the bargain can 
 only be made for stated times, and for so long as it 
 holds he is debarred from entering upon new 
 transactions. 
 
 Moreover, though the bargain is always open to 
 revision, the labourer is at a disadvantage, in so far 
 as he cannot move about freely. If there is a demand 
 for coal in London, it can be sent from Newcastle at 
 a few hours' notice ; it is a less simple matter — though 
 infinitely easier than it used to be — for the labourer 
 to transport himself and his family and his goods to 
 the place where they may be needed. 
 
 Just in so far as either party to the bargain is 
 unable to avail himself of his knowledge, we tend to 
 revert to the old hostile conditions of the market, and 
 the bargain is degraded into a struggle between strong 
 and weak. A shoemaker may know that he could 
 get good wages in Northampton, but if he cannot go 
 there, his knowledge is ineffective, and he will have 
 to take the lower wage offered where he is. If it 
 happens that in that place the shoemaking trade is 
 declining, there will be less and less demand for men 
 of his trade ; and either his wages will fall lower and 
 lower, or he will be out of work altogether. The 
 supply of labour in that trade will be too great for 
 the demand. On the other hand, a new industry- 
 may be started in the place, such as c}'clc-making, 
 and there may be such a demand for C}clc-makers
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 59 
 
 that wages in that trade may be very high until more 
 competent labourers have been attracted from other 
 towns. 
 
 The demand and supply of labour, thus, will have 
 a great deal to do in determining the amount of work 
 and wages to be received by each individual at any 
 time or place. Let us consider a little more exactly 
 what is meant by the supply of labour. 
 
 In the first it does not mean simply that there are 
 men there willing to do the work. The shoemakers 
 in our town want work badly enough ; but it is cycle- 
 makers who are in request, and as cycle-makers they 
 are useless. In all old countries, again, there are 
 always a certain number of men out of work, and 
 therefore a supply of labour. But it is always labour 
 of a particular kind that is wanted, and of that par- 
 ticular kind the supply may easily fall short. So 
 that we must say that the supply of labour in any 
 industry means the number of men able and zvilling 
 to do the particular kind of work. 
 
 Now, whether or not people will be willing to do 
 the work depends upon the advantages offered in that 
 work compared with what they could get in other 
 ways. High wages in the cycle trade may attract 
 them from other branches of engineering. Special 
 discomforts, again, as in a stoker's work, may make 
 the number of men willing to do it small, even when 
 high wages are offered. 
 
 How many men will be able to do the work depends 
 upon education and strength. If much education is 
 needed, the number of parents willing to hav^e their 
 children taught may be small, but this again depends 
 largely upon their standard. If they have set before 
 them a his^h standard for themselves and their chil-
 
 6o TIIK STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 drcn, they will be \villinc( to make sacrifices for the 
 sake of giving the children a better education. 
 Amoni^st artisans this will i^enerally mean that they 
 will be content to wait Ioniser before the children 
 begin to earn ; so that they ma)- learn a trade and not 
 be put at once to unskilled labour. Very much of 
 the prosperity of the workers depends upon the wis- 
 dom with which they select their children's occupa- 
 tions ; and those who are in contact with the children, 
 whether in the schools or at their homes, can do much 
 both by advice and encouragement towards ensuring 
 them a fair start in life. 
 
 Thus we see that the ability of the wage-earners to 
 maintain and raise their standard will depend largely 
 upon their being educated to do a kind of work which 
 is in demand ; while, again, their willingness to give 
 this education to their children will depend upon the 
 Standard of Life at which they aim. 
 
 What is it which determines what kind of work 
 will be in demand ? 
 
 In the first place, it is evidentl}' the consumer, the 
 person who wants and buys things, whose desires 
 determine what things shall be made. Few people, 
 none who have to earn their living, will spend their 
 energies in making things which no one wants to have 
 or to use. Hence, as the wage-earners of the world 
 far exceed in numbers all others, it is very largely 
 they who, by their wants, determine what kind of 
 work wage-earners shall be engaged in. It is the 
 working-class demand which makes brewing a profit- 
 able business, and causes many men to be emplo}'ed 
 in breweries. It is unfortunatel)' a working-class 
 demand for cheap and showy articles which supports 
 many of our " sweated " industries, and causes many
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 6i 
 
 men and women to be employed in badly paid and 
 unhealthy occupations. On the other hand, just in 
 proportion as the masses of the people insist upon 
 having really good value for their money, in the sense 
 that they will prefer solid well-made articles to those 
 which are showy and cheap, they will be making a 
 demand for well-paid work done under good condi- 
 tions. Here again, then, we see how a high standard of 
 living helps forward the position of the wage-earners. 
 In simpler states of society than ours all that is 
 required to enable industry to be carried on are these 
 two sets of conditions — that there should be people 
 able to make things, and people wanting to use 
 the things when made, and able to give other things 
 instead. In some of the smaller industries this is 
 still sufficient. The village blacksmith still has 
 his customers coming direct to him and paying 
 him for each of his services as he requires them. 
 The mangle-woman organizes her own connection 
 amongst her neighbours, and requires no middle- 
 man between her and them ; though even she may 
 lose much time in seeking for custom, and many 
 customers through not knowing where to look for 
 them. But whenever work is carried on on a large 
 scale, it becomes impossible for the worker himself to 
 manage the " organizing," or the keeping of the 
 business together. Men are necessary who will give 
 their whole time to this, who " study the markets," /. e. 
 find out the people who want to buy, who determine 
 just what is wanted, who know where to go for capital 
 on the one hand and workers on the other, and can 
 bring them and hold them together for the purposes 
 of production. These are the " captains of industry," 
 without whom capital and labour are equally helpless
 
 62 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 under modern conditions to " make work " ; that is, 
 to conduct new entcrpri'-cs. A great industrial under- 
 taking like the Manchester Ship Canal, may be in the 
 air for years before it is actually carried out ; the 
 capital may be easily attainable, and a plentiful 
 supply of workmen to be had, but it will not be 
 started until the men appear who have the mental 
 power of organizing it, and can inspire confidence in 
 that power. Then the enterprise grows like the seed 
 that has been waiting for the gardener to plant it in 
 the ground. 
 
 These men of enterprise, then {iindertakers, as they 
 used to be called), are another condition essential to 
 progress, since without them industry stagnates. It 
 is they who are the dealers in the labour market, who 
 organize and focus the demand for labour, which has 
 its rise in the wants of the consumer. 
 
 These, then, are some of the conditions which go to 
 determine the state of the labour market, and we sec 
 now what is meant by saying that labour, like other 
 valuable things, is subject to market law, and must 
 seek its best market if it is to get a good price, /. e. 
 high wages. It now remains to consider some of the 
 obstacles which at the present time check the free 
 movement of labour to the places where it could 
 command the highest prices. 
 
 In the first place there must always be some natural 
 reluctance to move far or frequently on the part of 
 the man who has made himself a home and a circle 
 of interests and friends. For this reason it is to the 
 young that we chiefly look for seeking out new fields 
 for work. Nevertheless, under our present conditions 
 it is often necessary for older men with families to 
 tear themselves away from the place where they have
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 63 
 
 taken root, and to make a fresh start in life under new 
 conditions. To some this comes as a pleasant change, 
 and for all — however hard — it is at any rate infinitely 
 healthier than the stagnation which settles upon a 
 district of town or country which has lost its 
 occupation. 
 
 The question of housing again may prove a serious 
 difficulty to the man who has a family to consider. 
 It is true that under the influence of the speculative 
 builder houses spring up like mushrooms as soon as 
 — or even before — there is any indication of a demand ; 
 but it will always be more or less hard for a new- 
 comer, with a large family and no available references, 
 to get himself accepted as a tenant on reasonable 
 terms. Moreover, the very natural and desirable form 
 of saving, by which the working-man gradually 
 becomes possessor of his house, seems almost incom- 
 patible with the preservation of his powers of migra- 
 tion ; unless indeed the building societies can organize 
 some system under which a house in one part of the 
 country can be exchanged for one of equivalent value 
 in other parts. 
 
 The expenses of moving about in search of work, 
 again, are so considerable an obstacle to the mobility 
 of labour as to have been definitely recognized and 
 provided for by some of the Trade Unions. For men 
 who are unsupported by their union this expense is 
 apt to come just at the time when they are least able 
 to meet it. 
 
 These are what we may call the natural and 
 inevitable obstacles to the free movement of labour to 
 its best markets. But there are others of a more 
 artificial kind, and even more stagnating in their 
 influence.
 
 64 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 
 
 Originally it was the State which sinned against 
 " the law of the market," by imposing restrictions 
 upon the movements of the labourer. In the desire 
 to enforce the responsibility of each parish for the 
 maintenance of its' own poor, the "settlement laws" 
 were enacted, by which workmen who left their own 
 parish in search of work were always liable to be sent 
 back again, upon the ground that they were likely to 
 become chargeable to the rates of some other parish. 
 In this way the relief which migration affords to 
 congested districts was checked, and the distress 
 within those districts intensified. We have freed our- 
 selves from these pernicious laws, but in many places 
 a very similar effect is produced by voluntary efforts. 
 In our large towns especially the stagnation of labour 
 Avhere it is not needed is intensified, and the consequent 
 distress greatly enhanced, by the promiscuous charity 
 v/hich is poured in upon the affected district. Instead 
 of being urged, and indeed driven by necessity, to 
 seek their work elsewhere, the " unemployed " are 
 encouraged in a hopeless waiting upon Providence 
 and odd jobs ; and many of them are quick to learn 
 that by staying quietly where they are they can live 
 without working. It is true that there is a great field 
 in such districts for philanthropic effort, but it should 
 be on the very different lines of helping labour to 
 find its market, instead of holding out inducements to 
 it to stay. 
 
 A new difficulty has arisen for the working-class in 
 the increased prevalence of what has been called the 
 " long-vacation system." It is becoming more and 
 more the case throughout the industrial world that 
 during some part of the year at any rate there will be 
 a " slack time," a time, that is, when there will be little
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE 65 
 
 or no work, and therefore little or no wages. It is not 
 necessarily altogether bad that this should be so ; it 
 is good for every one to have an occasional holiday. 
 But a holiday that is accompanied by grinding 
 poverty is no holiday, and probably involves a 
 lowering of the standard from which the worker may 
 never recover. This may be the case even when the 
 annual income is quite sufficient, if the worker has not 
 learnt the art of equalizing his income throughout the 
 year, the art of making the fat months contribute to 
 the thin months. The rate at which the wage-earning 
 class as a whole will make further progress appears 
 likely to depend largely upon their ability to learn 
 this art. 
 
 An attempt has been made sometimes, as e.g. at 
 Basle, to enforce the lesson upon them by compelling 
 contributions to an insurance fund against " out-of- 
 work." The plan has not yet proved its success, and 
 some of the difficulties seem obvious. It is clear, for 
 instance, that the managers of such a fund, especially 
 when it is subsidized by the State, will have to guard 
 very carefully against members throwing themselves 
 out of work in order to enjoy its benefits. On the 
 other hand, the man who desires to " better himself" 
 must be free to leave his work when he sees a chance 
 of improving his position. On the whole, it seems 
 likely that wage-earners are more likely to make 
 successful provision for themselves than any one else 
 to do it for them. Already they have organized 
 insurance against loss of work occasioned by illness, 
 by means of the Friendly Societies ; and to a con- 
 siderable extent they have organized insurance against 
 loss of work through other causes by means of Trade 
 Unions. If once the need is thoroughly realized, 
 
 F
 
 66 TIIK STANDARD OK LIFE 
 
 there seems little reason to doubt that, either by 
 private arrangement of their incomes, or by some 
 similar organization, they will ultimately provide also 
 against periodical loss of employment, and thus 
 convert a season of poverty into one of rest and 
 refreshment.
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 Amongst the man)- financial difficulties of the wage- 
 earner two are pre-eminent at the present moment; 
 the provision for emergencies and the equalization of 
 his income. They are difficulties alike in their nature 
 and calling for very similar solutions, and leading also 
 when unsolved to the same financial embarrassments ; 
 but it is only in comparatively recent times that the 
 latter is coming to be recognized as a serious problem. 
 The necessity for providing against the inevitable 
 "rainy day "has existed from time immemorial, and all 
 sorts of expedients and machinery have been devised 
 to meet the need. The necessitj^ of spreading out an 
 intermittent income over the whole year has only 
 recently assumed large proportions among wage- 
 earners, and thc}' are as yet ill prepared to meet it 
 and to adapt themselves to the inconveniences of the 
 long vacation. Such expedients as they do resort to 
 are for the most part obvious enough, but clumsy and 
 expensive, and to my thinking altogether on the 
 wrong lines. Moreover they have a tendency when 
 freely indulged in — as in large towns — to supersede 
 the older and wiser methods of providing against 
 
 67
 
 68 TIIK I',URI)I;N OF SMALL DKIiTS 
 
 cmerc^cncics. A man who finds that he can tide 
 over slack times without troubh'ng himself to make 
 provision beforehand, naturally yields to the un- 
 conscious inference that he will be able to get through 
 other difficulties in the same way ; and the tendency 
 is for him to place his whole financial position upon a 
 different and less sound basis. 
 
 There are, of course, as every economic unit soon 
 finds out, two ways of meeting financial exigencies ; 
 two ways, that is, in addition to the obvious but not 
 always possible one of working. We can anticipate 
 our difficulties, either in general or in detail, and 
 sacrifice something of the present to make provision 
 against them ; or we can wait until they come and 
 then draw upon our future resources — sacrifice the 
 future to provide for the present. It is of this latter 
 course, and of the divers ways in which it may be 
 achieved, that I have now to speak ; and also of its 
 efficiency as compared with the former. 
 
 Of course the old-fashioned morality goes in favour 
 of thrift as opposed to credit, but I am interested to 
 find to what a large extent the advantages of credit 
 are now being preached as well as practised. The 
 pawnbroker especially is extolled by many who have 
 no dealings with him as the "poor man's friend," and 
 the system of credit at the general shop is very 
 generally regarded as the one salvation of the wage- 
 earner in bad times. The money-lender has not yet 
 lived down the accumulated antipathies of ages ; but 
 if the pawnbroker is good, the money-lender surely is 
 better. Thus the prestige which attaches to credit in 
 the commercial world is fast being transferred to 
 the region of private indebtedness, and as we turn 
 to the poorer classes we find ourselves regarding it as
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 69 
 
 tinged with a curious kind of semi-professional, semi- 
 sentimental benevolence. 
 
 From this point of view the uncertainty of the 
 future becomes a powerful argument against anticipa- 
 tory provision and in favour of credit. There is no 
 doubt that saving is often regarded, and perhaps 
 justifiably regarded, as the sacrifice of present and 
 certain advantages for the sake of meeting evils which 
 may, possibly never occur, or which, if they do occur, 
 may be met in some way not yet foreseen. " Sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof" is to a certain extent 
 good business, and finds its realization in the general 
 disinclination to make provision for an old age which 
 may never come. And though I have never heard it 
 openly argued that a burden may very likely be 
 escaped altogether by putting it into the future, yet 
 no doubt the possibility is vaguely present to the 
 minds of those who practise some form of indebted- 
 ness as their financial niodns operandi. 
 
 Of course the uncertainty of the future really tells 
 both ways from a rational point of view ; and it must 
 be argued as against credit that while our present 
 resources arc known our future resources are not, that 
 we may be piling up a burden for a time of special 
 misfortune, and that in any case we increase it by 
 paying instead of receiving interest. But from an 
 //'rational point of view the uncertainty tells almost 
 entirely in the direction of sacrificing the future ; 
 where the reasoning faculties are undeveloped the 
 psychological pressure is all in favour of the present. 
 A very small want of to-day looms large enough to 
 obscure a great necessity in the future, and it is 
 useless to point out how the price of a few pots of 
 beer would pay the sick-club subscription ; arithmetic
 
 70 Tin-. !',uri)i;n of small Di;ins 
 
 has no power over a thirsty soul when ch'ink is \vithi?i 
 reach. Nor can the vision of future sickness overcome 
 the assuredness of present health and strength ; " I 
 were never ill in my life before," some prostrate 
 worker will say in aggrieved surprise that he should 
 have been afflicted after all those years of immunity. 
 Like many others, he argues from present to future, 
 so makes no provision and is taken unawares. Even 
 when the need of the future might be thought quite 
 assured, as in season trades, the undeveloped mind 
 refuses to grasp it ; the combination of a large town 
 and good money coming in makes a present so rich 
 in possibilities, that the future fades before it and 
 imagination shrinks from contemplating the barren 
 meagreness of the six weeks when there will be no 
 money, just as the child's thoughts will turn away 
 during playtime from the dryness of the lesson hour. 
 And when the barren weeks have come the possibilities 
 of the future seem inexhaustible in comparison with 
 the present restraints, and any obligation will be cheer- 
 fully incurred as an escape from the pinch of present 
 poverty. 
 
 Thus it comes about that there is a powerful 
 instinct towards the credit system of meeting emer- 
 gencies and equalizing incomes, and many and 
 ingenious are the devices by which a working-man 
 may now forestall his future. If we attempt to 
 classify these they seem to fall roughly under three 
 heads, though I doubt whether the classification will 
 hold good for anything more than purposes of 
 convenience. For those purposes I propose to 
 consider the various forms of credit — or as I should 
 prefer to call it " indebtedness " — under the heads of 
 Borrowing, Pawning, and Not-paying.
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 71 
 
 Of borrowing there may be said to be three typical 
 forms. There is first the regular business transaction 
 with the ordinary loan society or money office ; 
 " money lent on personal security in any amount." 
 How much of this goes on one may roughly estimate 
 by the number of loan offices which flourish in or 
 around working London, and by consulting the 
 records of the County Court. There are eighty-two 
 loan offices in the London Directory^ and by far the 
 greater number of these are in the poorer neighbour- 
 hoods. The ordinary rate of interest charged is 10 
 per cent., but this is often doubled or more by the 
 system of fines and charges. Preliminary charges 
 are made for " inquiries " into the character or solvency 
 of the borrower, and these have to be paid whether 
 the loan is granted or not. Then a charge is made 
 for every letter written, and a fine imposed for every 
 delay in repayment. I am told that the more 
 respectable firms prefer to charge 20 per cent, right 
 out, and have nothing to do with extras. This is 
 considered a fair rate of interest, and a loan office is 
 likely to win its case in court unless it has charged 
 above 25 per cent. ; higher than that the judge is apt 
 to consider unreasonable. As a matter of fact this 
 does not seem to be more than a fair cover for risk, if 
 we consider that the pawnbroker charges 24 per cent., 
 and has perfect security ; yet the pawnbroker is 
 regarded as a respectable tradesman, or even philan- 
 thropist. 
 
 These loans are easily got, and for any amount, and 
 there is no doubt that the facility makes the poor 
 extraordinarily reckless in the way in which, and the 
 reasons for which, they will run into debt. No doubt 
 they are often enabled in this way to tide over a bad
 
 72 TIIK liURDEN OV SMALL I)L!5TS 
 
 time, or to make a fresh start ; but more frequently 
 still the burden of the debt only drags the sinking 
 man deeper down, and makes it impossible for him to 
 extricate himself Very often again the occasion of 
 the debt will be nothing more than a Bank holiday or 
 a bean-feast or some other form of spree, and the sort 
 of thing which happens then is for a man to go to a 
 loan office, giving the name of a friend or perhaps 
 two, as security, and borrow a pound, or two, or three, 
 as the case may be ; the friend then goes to another 
 office and gives /lis name, and so between them they 
 raise a nice little sum for their festivity. Before the 
 pound is paid off it probably becomes two, and if it 
 goes into court the costs will run it up still further. 
 To give some idea of the amount of this borrow- 
 ing that goes on : there were dealt with in the 
 Shoreditch County Court last year 12,600 cases for 
 amounts varying from is. 6d. to ^50 ; these of course 
 covered very various kinds of debts, rent, general 
 shops, tallyman, etc., but loans formed a very large 
 number, and were frequently for such a small amount 
 as to seem hardly worth collecting. One day, for 
 instance, a man brought in a batch of 300, the highest 
 being for 5^., and the whole lot producing from £60 
 to £yo. These 12,600 of course represent only the 
 defaulting debtors, and what percentage they form of 
 the whole number I cannot say. So far as concerns 
 the representatives of the loan offices their business 
 may be legitimate enough, but their appearance is 
 very much against them ; the possibility of their 
 dealing leniently with an unfortunate debtor, or even 
 refraining from entangling him still deeper, seems 
 very remote.^ Any more disgusting sight than some 
 
 ' I quote an account cut from a daily paper after writing the
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 73 
 
 unclean, vulture-like old Jew " kissing the book," and 
 gabbling through an inaudible form of words which is 
 reduced to mere blasphemy in this connection, can 
 hardly be conceived. 
 
 The private money-lender is more difficult to watch 
 at work, but he is largely patronized, especially by 
 the costermonger. The coster's business is mainly 
 carried on on borrowed capital, yet he seldom 
 appears in court ; so much is this the case that for a 
 coster to appear in court is a pretty sure sign that he 
 is a bad lot. The reason is that this branch of credit 
 has been made a special business of by men (or often 
 women) well acquainted with the trade, and a man 
 who is known to be trustworthy can always get his 
 money without difficulty. I understand that there is 
 an old woman who keeps a little stall in C Street, 
 
 above : — " In the Lord Mayor's Court yesterday, a money- 
 lender, named Palmer, summoned a number of working-men, 
 whose wages ranged from £1 to £2 per week, to show cause 
 why they should not be ordered to pay different sums for which 
 judgment had been previously recovered. One man, named 
 Moltini, said he was security for another defendant, named 
 Lyons, who borrowed £2 from the plaintiff, and had repaid about 
 ^i 10^., and yet they were each summoned for sums of about 
 ^8. Lyons corroborated the statement. After hearing further 
 evidence the Assistant Judge (Mr. Roxburgh) said that in June 
 1893, the two defendants received 35^-. from the plaintiff, and 
 gave a promissory note for £2. Since that time ^i 4^. iO(^^. had 
 been repaid out of the 35^-. In respect of the balance of the 
 debt judgment was signed against one of the defendants for 
 £6 14s., and ^i 5^-. 8(/. costs, and against the other defendant 
 for £6 4s. 8d. debt, and ^i 9^. Sc/. costs. In July 1894, the 
 plaintiff's solicitor applied for payment of ^3 is. 4d., but 
 instead of signing judgment for that amount at that time, he 
 waited until further costs had been incurred. To mark his 
 sense of the way in which these poor men had been treated, he 
 himself should make an order in each case for the payment of 
 a penny a month. The decision was applauded by several 
 persons in court, and will no doubt give joy to those who read 
 this paragraph."
 
 74 Till'. F.UKDICN OK SMAF,!, I>I:HTS 
 
 IsIin[Tton, who makes " any amount of money " in this 
 way ; she knows all the costers and just whom she 
 can trust, and lends only to them and to others 
 introduced by them. The rec^ular rate of interest is 
 IS. in the £, or k/. in the is. for forty weeks ; not 
 much if one considers the inevitable risk in spite of 
 personal knowledge. 13ut as a matter of fact it works 
 out at something much more like 400 per cent., for 
 the coster seldom keeps the money for more than a 
 few days. He borrows " a pound for a shilling" on 
 Wednesday or Thursday, and pays it back on 
 Saturday or Monday, borrowing afresh each week. 
 The reason is said to be that he cannot trust himself 
 not to spend it, if he keeps it for the intervening days 
 when he is not at work, and if this is true to even a 
 small extent, it throws a curious light on the type of 
 character. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting mode of borrowing is 
 that carried on by the mutual loan societies (described 
 also in Mr. Booth's book), which partake of the 
 character of thrift. A club is formed in which mem- 
 bers take shares, perhaps at 6d a week up to a pound ; 
 and from the capital thus subscribed money is lent to 
 members at the rate of is. in the £ for forty weeks. 
 They are " sharing out " clubs, dividing quarterly or 
 yearly, and paying interest on the shares out of the 
 fines and interest paid on loans. The financial basis 
 is not quite clear to me, but I know that considerable 
 pressure is put upon members to borrow, whether 
 they need the money or not, as otherwise the interest 
 on sharing out could not be kept up ; I am also 
 assured that it pays a man better to borrow a pound 
 than to withdraw a pound share, because he pays only 
 one quarter's interest on his loan and receives three
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 75 
 
 quarters' interest on his share. These societies are 
 formed largely in connection with political and social 
 clubs, and mainly with a view to paying the quarter's 
 rent, but a man will often borrow for a Bank holiday 
 or a funeral ; or if he can think of nothing else, for 
 clothing. (Strictly speaking this kind of borrowing 
 can hardly be regarded as a form of indebtedness, 
 and I only introduce it here as being a form of saving 
 ingeniously contrived so as to include much of the 
 injurious tendency of debt.) 
 
 The subject of pawning offers much food for 
 reflection. It might be fairly argued that in pawning 
 a man does not really get into debt at all, but merely 
 exchanges his goods for a sum of money considerably 
 less than their real value. Technically I believe that 
 the goods are so far gone out of his possession that 
 he cannot recover damages in case of fire at a 
 pawnbroker's shop. Nevertheless the money is 
 generally regarded as borrowed, and the pledges as 
 merely temporarily alienated ; and for all practical 
 purposes pledging is only a very expensive way of 
 raising money. If indeed, as may no doubt happen, 
 there is little or no prospect of redeeming, the man is 
 merely selling his goods ; living upon his capital 
 instead of drawing upon his future income. But in 
 the majority of cases there is every intention to redeem ; 
 and in East London it is a recognized function of 
 clothing and furniture to serve at need as a 
 machinery for raising money, i. e. for forestalling 
 future earnings. 
 
 It not infrequently happens, however, that the 
 goods are pledged without any definite intention of 
 redeeming, and then of course the object of the 
 pawner is to get as near full value as may be. Why
 
 76 THE HUKDKN or S^fAI.L DKHTS 
 
 not sell at once? it may be asked; but it is always 
 more difficult to sell at a moment's notice unless at a 
 ruinous sacrifice ; moreover, when you have pawned 
 you still have a marketable value in the tickets. 
 There is a considerable traffic going on in pawn- 
 tickets, and the effect of the double transaction is to 
 occasion a sort of vague feeling that pawning is a 
 profitable business in which you really can for once in 
 a way both eat your cake and have it. The most 
 striking instance of this which I have come across is 
 that of a young fellow who somehow or other 
 managed to accumulate;^ 50, he said by shoe-blacking 
 and carrying luggage ; ^ this he expended at sales, 
 chiefly buying up such things as opera-glasses, tele- 
 scopes, microscopic slides, and old books. Having thus 
 invested his capital, his next proceeding was to begin 
 to pawn, and to buy new articles with the money so 
 obtained, always receiving, of course, less for an article 
 than he originally gave for it. Finally he found his 
 wealth reduced to a bundle of pawn-tickets represent- 
 ing some iJ^20, and some 300 old books which not 
 even a pawnbroker would take ; when I came across 
 him he was living on the tickets, selling them at a few 
 pence each, but even then he was not convinced that 
 his operations had been unsound in nature, but 
 thought he had not been very judicious in the 
 selection of the goods which he had bought. 
 
 This of course is an extreme case, but it shows how 
 easily the essential loss involved in pledging becomes 
 obscured, and explains the readiness of the people to 
 have recourse to it whenever a little money would 
 come in handy. The intention to redeem converts 
 
 1 I have since heard that he was afterwards convicted of 
 passing false coins.
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 77 
 
 the transaction into a burden which is practically a 
 debt, all the more dangerous because it tends to 
 become periodical. Many an East End family is 
 hampered all through a summer of good work by the 
 struggle to gather round them again the home with 
 which they parted last winter ; only for it to be 
 dissipated again as soon as work falls off. It is in 
 cases like these that the pawnbroker is generally 
 regarded by benevolent outsiders as a guardian angel, 
 ready to come to the rescue at a crisis. " What would 
 the poor people have done if they could not have 
 gone to the pawnbroker? they must have starved," 
 we are often told. But experience or a little reflection 
 shows us that every summer the poor people pay 
 away in redeeming and interest enough to carry them 
 through the winter without any assistance from the 
 pawnbroker, and that but for the vicious habit of 
 drawing upon the future they might with less hard- 
 ship to themselves get through the winter and have 
 the use of their furniture into the bargain. The 
 pathetic absurdity of the situation finds its climax in 
 the Monday to Saturday pawning, which has become 
 so common and degrading a custom. It happens 
 some Monday morning that the wife finds she has no 
 money to pay the rent; it may be illness or a sudden 
 call of some unavoidable kind ; just as likely the rent 
 has found its way to the public-house or music-hall. 
 The remedy is close at hand. The Sunday clothes of 
 the family are called into requisition, made up into a 
 bundle and carried over to the pawnbroker ; and the 
 rent is paid. All goes smoothly until Saturday comes 
 round, but then even the most easy-going sons and 
 daughters will insist on having their Sunday finer)- 
 back, and the rent must go this week in redeeming.
 
 78 TIIK BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 On Monday of course the clothes i^o back, and it 
 becomes a fixed habit, not altogether inconvenient, as 
 there is little room for storing clothes in London 
 homes, and special accommodation will be supplied 
 for the best dress by paying a halfpenny extra to the 
 pawnbroker. Thus it comes to pass that on Monday 
 morning the way to the pawnbroker's shop will be 
 thronged with women, eager to leave their bundles and 
 get home before the rent collector comes. On the 
 guardian-angel theory this throng should mean a 
 sudden outbreak of distress ; really it is only an 
 indication of the habit of mind which will go on 
 shirking the burden and pushing it off indefinitely 
 into the future for ever, rather than face it boldly and 
 pinch for one week until the arrears are made up. 
 
 When we come to the credit which takes the form 
 of not-paying, the varieties are of course co-extensive 
 with the purchases made by the debtor ; but certain 
 of them are more general and therefore more im- 
 portant than the others. First among them is the 
 general shop, and other tradespeople to a smaller 
 extent. The general shop covers all the necessary' 
 expenditure of bad times from coals to candles, with 
 the exception indeed of butcher's meat, and it offers 
 substitutes for that in the form of bacon and eggs. 
 It is therefore at the general shop that the debt 
 accumulates, and the owner of the shop practically 
 supports many of his customers for considerable 
 periods of the year. This is why it is no kindness to 
 leave sums of money to faithful servants ; if it is 
 enough they will take a public-house, more often it 
 only runs to a general shop ; whichever it is, a few 
 months generally suffices to divest them of every 
 penny, and turn them out probably in debt. It takes
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 79 
 
 some one born to the business, knowing whom to 
 trust and prepared to follow up defaulters, to carry 
 on a general shop in East London ; given the neces- 
 sary character they may do well ; for by giving credit 
 judiciously they will be able to hold their own against 
 the larger shops and stores which do business on a 
 cash basis, and to which the man who trusts in the 
 future knows he cannot turn in bad times. 
 
 Next in importance to the general shop is the land- 
 lord, and large is the extent to which he is drawn 
 upon for free lodging. Apart from the regular 
 " besters," who will pay perhaps one month's rent in 
 six, there are many who habitually let the rent run 
 in bad times, and pay it up gradually as things im- 
 prove. ■ It is comparatively seldom, however, that 
 they get it all paid before the next bad time, and in 
 this way there comes to be a sort of "rest" which gets 
 wiped out by a removal, but accumulates if the family 
 stays on until it reaches pounds. After some time 
 has elapsed they cease to regard this in the light of a 
 debt, on the ground that " the landlord isn't likely to 
 trouble about that " ; whether their liability really 
 lapses I don't know. (It is worth noticing in this 
 connection that a " good-principled man " means a 
 man who pays his rent regularl)' ; it is in the eyes of 
 the East Londoner a virtue sufficiently exceptional to 
 stamp the whole character.) 
 
 When board and lodging can both be charged upon 
 the future a man's position is assured ; but there are 
 ways of dealing with less urgent needs which arc quite 
 as prevalent. He need not wait for his furniture until 
 he has money to pay for it ; the hire system will ad- 
 vance it to him, at a terrible cost it is true, but then 
 that cost is charged upon the future. Articles con-
 
 So THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 ccrnincj the purchase of which he wouUl think twice 
 had he to pay the money down, find their way into 
 his home and cost as much to keep as an additional 
 member of the family. The women revel in the pos- 
 sibilities of sewing-machines and mangles, which are 
 to be had literally for the asking, but which in the 
 majority of cases barely pay their own hire, and 
 generally find their way back to the shop before they 
 have done more than divert a little custom from some 
 neighbour more in earnest. "Light come light go" ; 
 these hired goods have none of the steadying effect of 
 genuine possessions ; and their temporary owners are 
 like spoiled children with too many toys, alwaj-s 
 wanting something else. The drain upon the weekly 
 income soon comes to be intolerable, and the forfeiture 
 of past payments preferable to the continued strain. 
 To furnish on the hire system is perhaps as unsatis- 
 factory a way of housekeeping as can be devised ; 
 even the furnished lodging has more of reality about it. 
 
 A still more insidious exponent of credit is the tally- 
 man, who finds an occasion for exploiting the future 
 of his victims in every conceivable article, both of 
 necessity and luxury. Of course his success depends 
 upon the skill with which he can magnify the delights 
 of immediate acquisition, and minimize the pains of 
 future payment ; it has very little to do with the real 
 value of the article, which is often discarded or stale 
 long before the payments are completed. All the 
 genuine delight of purchase is in this way spoiled, and 
 it becomes a mere burden, rashly undertaken and 
 evaded as often as possible. 
 
 Occasionally the evil tends to remedy itself in 
 curious ways when it has been carried to excess in 
 some definite direction. I have already noted the
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 8i 
 
 mutual loan societies, which had their origin in the 
 necessity of paying rent, and my attention has been 
 called to a similar organization in connection with 
 funerals. Somewhat to my surprise I found that ten 
 or twenty years ago the extravagance in this direction 
 was even worse than it is now. Undertakers were 
 much more ready then to give credit for " high class 
 funerals," and people entirely without means would 
 indulge in mutes, footmen, feathers, and pall— "the 
 whole show" — and incur debts of £2^ or more which 
 they were years in getting rid of. Unless, indeed, 
 they repudiated it altogether ; and this happened to 
 such a large extent that undertakers have become a 
 cautious race. The extreme of credit now is a good 
 funeral for ^8 or £10, of which £^ must be paid 
 down. Moreover, burial clubs have been instituted ; 
 the undertaker collects payments, and for about a 
 shilling a month undertakes (giving a new meaning to 
 his name) to bury any member of a family who dies 
 within the year. At the end of the year the balance 
 is divided out, and in this way, by paying \2s. a year, 
 you may if you are lucky have three or four funerals 
 as well as a dividend of ^s. or ys. 
 
 But even this gambling sort of thrift makes slow 
 progress amongst a people so tempted on every hand 
 to forestall their means. A man learns to consider it 
 a little thing to be in debt for rent and food, and 
 almost meritorious to possess furniture and clothing 
 for which he has not yet paid ; the consequence is 
 that in one alone of the ten county courts of London, 
 12,600 were sued for debt last year; in other words 
 about every third or fourth family was insolvent ; not 
 merely living on their future, but having pawned that 
 future so deeply that they could no longer get credit 
 
 G
 
 82 TIIK HURDKN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 for it even in East London, the very paradise of 
 indebtedness. 
 
 Taking it then that the prevalence of indebtedness 
 amongst the working-classes in London is established, 
 I want to consider briefly its bearings as a moral and 
 an economic phenomenon. Is it sufficiently analogous 
 to the prevalence of credit in the commercial world, 
 to be a source of congratulation to the community ? 
 Does it, in other words, enable the working-class to 
 carry on operations with a freer hand, and thus help 
 it to increase its wealth and raise its standard of 
 living ? The primitive agriculturist learns by hard 
 experience that last year's harvest is the only legiti- 
 mate source of food ; have we, in our more complex 
 society, really got beyond that elementary truth ? It 
 is possible to argue that in a community with so large 
 a surplus available for luxury it is legitimate, and 
 even desirable, to divert some of that surplus into a 
 more productive course by advancing it to the labourer 
 in the shape of food, clothing, and furniture. It might 
 be even urged that although the labourer did not 
 repay, the wealth of the community would be well 
 spent in increasing the comfort of its working-class. 
 
 I suppose the ultimate criterion between good and 
 bad credit is whether it directs capital into more or 
 less productive channels. When the borrower is able 
 to make use of his loan in such a way as to replace it 
 with due profit at the end of his operations, then the 
 transaction is justified. But in what sense is this true 
 of the great mass of indebtedness of which we have 
 been speaking .-* 
 
 Take rent as a typical instance. The indebted class 
 tiever repays the loan (if loan we are to consider it) in 
 full ; much less is there any profit reaped except in
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 83 
 
 SO far as it profits by not-paying. Of course in the 
 long run the deficit is made up to the landlord, who 
 is no more of a philanthropist in his business than is 
 the pawnbroker ; he covers his risk by charging high 
 rents all round, and thus it comes to pass that those 
 who pay are just those who dout have credit, and 
 therefore benefit nothing. 
 
 In the case of the general shops it is the same with 
 a difference. Here, again, high prices cover some of 
 the risk, but customers may choose between them and 
 cash shops. It is the general shops themselves which 
 suffer most in the long run, and taking into considera- 
 tion the enormous number of small failures in that 
 trade, I seriously doubt whether on the whole it is a 
 remunerative one. 
 
 With regard again to the more direct forms of 
 credit, we cannot argue that men only borrow because 
 it profits them, and that therefore the very existence 
 of credit is its justification. The men of whom I write 
 are so far removed from the economic man that his 
 characteristics are almost unknown to them. The 
 economic man borrows with an eye to future profit ; 
 our man borrows for present convenience, and shuts 
 his eyes to future loss. For there can be little doubt 
 that if he pays he loses tremendously by the trans- 
 action, even from a money point of view. The hirer 
 of a sewing-machine pays ;^8 for a machine which is 
 said to cost ^i 15^-. to put together, and which can 
 certainly be bought for £4 or ^5 cash. The price 
 covers the risk no doubt, but the hirer has her risk 
 too, and is very liable to lose it altogether if she 
 delays in her instalments. The whole hire system 
 involves a similar loss to those who pay, while to the 
 thousands who are tempted to pledge their future for
 
 84 TIIH BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 thiiiL^s which they don't want, there is nothinij but 
 loss from beginning to end. 
 
 To borrowers who do not pay, or do not pay in full, 
 the system is of course less of a financial loss ; and 
 here the point of view comes in which suggests that it 
 may be no harm for a rich community to divert some 
 of its wealth to meet the needs of its working-class. 
 Some such suggestion was made, I believe, with 
 respect to the Scotch Crofters, who were reported by 
 the Royal Commission to be a fine race, but economic- 
 ally incapable of supporting themselves ; it might of 
 course be that their qualities are so valuable as to 
 make it worth while for the community to subsidize 
 them permanently. Apart from the fact that the 
 " wealth " which goes to maintain the East London 
 debtor is not diverted from luxuries, but from the 
 necessities of people little, if any, better off than him- 
 self, we must still ask ourselves seriously whether the 
 qualities of this class really are such that the com- 
 munity should desire to perpetuate them. And even 
 if it has desirable qualities to begin with, how long will 
 they hold out against the degrading effect of chronic 
 indebtedness ? 
 
 Let us look at this moral effect a little closer. 
 Under the best of circumstances a man who is in debt 
 is only half a man ; his future is not his own. But 
 the man who has to submit to weekly dunning from 
 professional debt-collectors, whose clothing is for five 
 days out of seven in the pawnshop, whose household 
 goods may at any moment be confiscated, and whose 
 landlord is always meditating the advisability of 
 evicting him, has sold himself into a slavery from 
 which there is no escape but flight. He has literally no 
 alternative but indifference or despair, and it is these
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 85 
 
 qualities which chiefly characterize the class. Thrift 
 is made an impossibility, for apart from the facilities 
 for satisfying all desires without previous effort, how 
 can }'OU save with your creditors on the watch for 
 ever)' pennj' ? Many a shilling is recklessly wasted 
 because if not spent it will only go to the debt- 
 collector ; and it does not take long for the energies 
 of the debtor to be diverted from the effort to repay to 
 the effort to evade his creditor. I have known a 
 woman move herself and family and belongings five 
 times in order to avoid the payment of li". a week for 
 a sewing-machine ; as soon as she is tracked she 
 makes another flitting, and will continue to do so 
 until the creditor abandons the pursuit. 
 
 There is something also almost incompatible with 
 self-respect in the scenes into which people are brought 
 by their indebtedness. Go into the pawnshop and 
 watch the man unroll the bundles as they are brought 
 in, chaffing the women on the quality of their clothing, 
 and holding some well-worn garment up to ridicule ; 
 see him take the wedding-ring from some poor woman, 
 try it on the counter and sniff contemptuously that 
 " there ain't much gold in that." Or go into the county 
 court, where the ver}' air seems tainted with degrad- 
 ation, and look at the faces of the throng of debtors 
 lounging about till their turn comes. Some are 
 anxious and troubled, the majority indifferent or con- 
 temptuous ; there is no more sense of responsibility 
 about any of them than there is about the out-patients 
 in a hospital waiting-room. They happen to have got 
 into debt as they might happen to catch a cold, and 
 they have come there for treatment. It is a miserable 
 scene, and almost enough in itself to condemn the 
 whole s)-stem. And the worst of it is that if, like the
 
 86 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 
 
 Roman Emperor, we could cancel all the bonds, and 
 dismiss the throng of men and women, the majority 
 of them would only use their solvency to r^ct into debt 
 again. Indebtedness is not an incident with them ; it 
 is their plan of life. 
 
 Would the working-class on the whole benefit if an 
 Act were passed making small debts irrecoverable at 
 law ? This was the question which I had in my mind 
 when I first began to consifler the matter ; but I am 
 not prepared to answer it decisively. The arguments 
 against it arc obvious, and it has been strongly urged 
 upon me that the poor would suffer greatl)' in bad 
 times by the inevitable withdrawal of credit by the 
 general shops, and the inability to borrow a few 
 pounds in emergencies, liut there are two forms of 
 credit which would remain practically unaffected by 
 such an Act, and which involve, to my thinking, less 
 harm than any of the others. The first of these I 
 have not yet mentioned, though it is practised to a 
 considerable extent ; it takes the shape of an adv'ance 
 of wages from the employer on special occasions of 
 misfortune. There is no fear of such indebtedness 
 becoming chronic, or of its being incurred for trivial 
 reasons ; the loan is repaid automatically by deduction 
 from future wages, and in full, but does not involve 
 any burden of interest or fines. Moreover, it is made 
 on the strength of a personal relationship, and brings 
 with it no degrading associations. 
 
 The second kind of credit is similar in that the loan 
 is made on the strength of personal knowledge and 
 confidence, and does not rely upon legal proceedings 
 for recovery. The most prevalent form of this in 
 London is that practised by the costermongers ; and 
 in smaller places we find the general shops acting on
 
 THE BURDEN OF SMALL DEBTS 87 
 
 what is practically the same basis. They rely, that is, 
 on personal knowledge of their customers and their 
 circumstances, and not at all upon legal remedy. The 
 chief hindrance to this personal knowledge in London 
 is the mobility of its inhabitants, and this would 
 decrease enormously with the decrease of credit. 
 
 But the effects of legislation are difficult to foresee; 
 I am told that a great encouragement to bad debts 
 has been given by the Married Women's Property 
 Act, which has opened up new possibilities of evading 
 liabilities. It is conceivable that a check to small 
 debts would only conduce to larger ones ; and in any 
 case such an Act could do nothing to remedy the 
 evils of the pawnshop. My only conclusion is, there- 
 fore, that the amount and facility of credit (or as I 
 should prefer to call it — indebtedness) among the 
 working-classes is an almost unmixed evil.
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 
 
 In reading of social problems as the)' develop on the 
 Continent, no one can fail to be struck with the way 
 in which they are embittered by the spirit of class- 
 warfare. So keenly is it felt, and so deeply does it 
 appeal to the people, that by a certain party— the 
 German Social Democrats — it has been accepted as 
 the principle of progress itself; and the summons to 
 hatred has become not only the basis of an economic 
 system, but also the war-cry of a crusade. 
 
 All crusaders have their war-cry, upon which 
 depends very largely their success. What are the 
 characteristics of a successful war-cry? In the first 
 place it must represent a definite, simple idea, which 
 can be understood quickly and without great effort by 
 many people of very various degrees of intelligence ; 
 and in the second place it must appeal directl}-, and 
 without the necessity of any demonstration, to the 
 emotions of the multitude. 
 
 To their understanding of these conditions the 
 Socialist leaders in Germany have owed much of their 
 influence. " Class-warfare" is the cry by which from 
 the first they have summoned the people to rail)- 
 
 88
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 89 
 
 round their standard, and it is their uncompromising 
 loyalty to this cry which has kept the German Social 
 Democrats a compact fighting body when the ranks 
 of English Socialists are breaking up in confusion and 
 compromise. 
 
 The principle contained in the cry is very simple. 
 All past history, it maintains, is the history of struggles 
 for pre-eminence among different classes, and these 
 struggles have now concentrated and culminated in 
 one fierce uncompromising wrestle between the 
 bourgeoisie or capitalist on the one hand, and the 
 proletariat on the other. And just as the bourgeoisie 
 has fought itself into pre-eminence in the past, so the 
 proletariat will, inevitably and by the immutable 
 laws of economic development, fight itself into pre- 
 eminence in the future. This is the modern version 
 of the heaven which rewards the prowess of all good 
 crusaders. 
 
 Here are all the elements of success. The sharp 
 contrast emphasized between bourgeois and proletariat 
 simplifies the real complexity of social relations, and 
 appeals straight to the imagination as a contrast 
 between rich and poor. The surging of self-pity hides 
 the ignominy implied in accepting the shameful title 
 of " proletariat," and hatred — almost the strongest 
 emotion of which we are capable — responds eagerl)- to 
 the summons to war. And it is a summons which 
 deafens the crusader to all particular circumstances 
 of time and place, and to the teachings of his own 
 experience. It may be that his own emplo)'ers, or 
 even all the employers known to him, are men whom 
 he admires and respects, and would greatly desire to 
 be. No matter ; they belong to the hated class, and 
 he to the chosen people with the future in its hands,
 
 90 KLASSENKAMPF 
 
 and they must perish for the sake of the cause. 
 Saladin and Cceur de Lion may have a profound 
 admiration for each other privately ; but it is Moslem 
 against Christian, and there can be no parley with the 
 unclean thing. 
 
 Such is the spirit which animates social movements 
 on the Continent, and excites terrified oppression in 
 the courts of kings. How far can we trace the same 
 feeling in England — a country where, if it really 
 exists, it can find much better expression than abroad ? 
 It is not unknown, of course, and from time to time 
 attempts have been made to utilize it to the same 
 purpose as in Germany. Now and then some }'Oung 
 enthusiast sounds the trumpet-call, here and there 
 some wily veteran tries back cautiously to the " first 
 principle " enunciated by Marx and Engels ; but the 
 cry has found but a faint echo, and the polic)- of 
 direct warfare has been almost entirely abandoned for 
 one of compromise and " permeation." 
 
 The reason is not far to seek. The self-constituted 
 leaders of democracy in England are themselves too 
 closely allied with the hated class to hate consistently. 
 Their sympathies are all with the working-class ? 
 Yes, that part of their sympathies which finds con- 
 scious expression in words, and as they themselves 
 understand them ; but their lives ? Our conscious 
 creeds may form but an insignificant part of our 
 nature at any moment, and do but float on the surface 
 of the great subterranean instincts which swa)' the life 
 at any important turn ; and so the leaders of the 
 chosen people take to themselves wives from amongst 
 the enem)' without any consciousness of inconsistenc}*, 
 and cherish a banking account which — be it small or 
 great — goes to swell the iniquit)' of amassed capital.
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 91 
 
 And who will doubt that they select their investments 
 wisely, with a view to safety and a good return ? 
 Briefly, in all the practical relations of life common- 
 sense prevails, and they act according to their kind. 
 
 This attitude is the more natural because of the im- 
 probability that in England the young social reformer 
 will be in any way cut off from his natural surround- 
 ings by the role which he assumes. There is a great 
 fund of good-natured tolerance in English society, 
 which regards an outbreak of enthusiasm as not unbe- 
 coming in a young man ; while good sense advises 
 that the surest way to drive him to extremes is to cut 
 him off from other interests. And so it happens that 
 while the Socialist leader on the Continent may be an 
 embittered outcast, banished from congenial surround- 
 ings, excited by political oppression, and dogged by 
 the police, in England he will be regarded with the 
 indulgent admiration which a mother has for a 
 troublesome, high-spirited boy, and his opinion will 
 be courted by politicians because he " has influence 
 with the people." 
 
 How, then, can the cry of class-warfare be anything 
 but half-hearted in England .'' Not only are the 
 spokesmen of the people inextricably entangled in the 
 meshes of capitalism ; the rank and file of the very 
 people itself recognizes its kinship with the class it is 
 called upon to hate, and can make but a superficial 
 response to the war-cry. Its sturdy common-sense 
 and self-respect tells it that it is 7wt proletariat, that it 
 has some function in the community beyond that of 
 increasing its own numbers, and that therefore there 
 is no natural ground of hatred between it and other 
 classes of the community. No doubt there is a pro- 
 letarian class in England which is at war alike with
 
 92 KLASSENKAMPF 
 
 itself and all others, and is ready enough to respond 
 to the cry ; but it is a small class, and essentially not 
 that of the wage-earners. 
 
 Let us consider this question of the different 
 "classes" in English society. It is not quite an easy 
 matter, for whatever division we take, we get perplex- 
 ing cross-divisions. We cannot, e.g., take simple 
 division into wage-earners and capitalists without 
 raising the difficulty of what we are to do with the 
 professional class. If they are to be classed with 
 wage-earners, the division will cease to be useful for 
 purposes of contrast, and there will be few things left 
 to say of either class as such ; for instance, it will 
 then be as obvious as it is true that wage-earning and 
 proletariat are not synonymous. If, on the other 
 hand, we are to say that professional men belong to 
 the capitalist class because their income is really the 
 return to capital invested in their education, then we 
 at once obliterate the distinction between capitalist 
 and wage-earner altogether. Right through the ranks 
 of wage-earners, from the most highly skilled artificer, 
 who earns more than many a professional man, down 
 to the roughest labourer who knows how to handle a 
 spade, income may, if we like, be just as reasonably 
 regarded as return to capital invested in education, 
 and whether the amount of capital was large or small 
 does not affect the nature of the case. Recent 
 inquiries into the diet of different nations go to show 
 a very close relation between the amount and kind of 
 food absorbed ( = capital invested), and the wages 
 earned ( = return to capital); and any sensible omni- 
 bus company will tell us that it is a good investment 
 to feed the horses well. If then we want to maintain 
 the line of distinction between classes, we must be
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 93 
 
 careful not to obscure it altogether by admitting 
 similarities between earnings and returns to capital. 
 
 Shall we say, then, that it is the uncertainty of the 
 wage-earner's position which places him in a class by 
 himself? He has no firm footing in the world; 
 neither land of his own whence he may by the sweat 
 of his brow wrest a certain living, nor any assured 
 position carrying with it a regular income not termin- 
 able any day or week ? This uncertainty is a com- 
 mon plea for the pathos of the wage-earner's position, 
 and one which must always meet with a sincere 
 response, for is it not in uncertainty that the whole 
 pathos of humanity lies ? But it does not follow that 
 because the fact is indisputable, therefore the causes 
 assigned for it are the correct ones. That the wage- 
 earner is not dependent upon his own plot of land for 
 a living means perhaps the greatest advance in security 
 of position which can be taken on the upward scale ; 
 for it means that he is freed from the awful tyranny 
 of Nature, from the fear of famine, drought, and all 
 the divers destructions to which the poor man's crops 
 and herds are exposed. Let the peasant of Russia or 
 India tell his tale. 
 
 And if we still insist that the position of the man 
 who earns a weekly wage is at least comparatively 
 uncertain, we must pause a little before basing any 
 class distinction upon the fact. Can we on these 
 grounds maintain any essential difference between the 
 artisan and the doctor or lawyer who has not even a 
 daily wage, but depends upon the precariousness of 
 piece-work ? 
 
 And even if we abandon our professional men as an 
 insuperable obstacle to our attempt to cut up society 
 into neat compartments, it is still far from evident
 
 94 KLASSENKAMPF 
 
 that insecurity of position is confined to the wa^'c- 
 carncr. Landed property was at one time regarded 
 as a rock that could not be shaken ; now it is more 
 like a quicksand, capable of engulfing large fortunes. 
 And if wc could penetrate into the private histories of 
 f^imilies which rely upon revenues independent of 
 their abilities, we should learn much from the hope- 
 lessness of their position when those revenues fail. 
 Discussions on " Poor Ladies," if they have served no 
 other purpose, must at least have opened the eyes of 
 some to the most pressing claim of women — the 
 claim to be so educated as to have the power of earn- 
 ing if need should arise. This is the only weapon 
 which can be given them against the sordid poverty 
 which awaits them should their resources fail ; and it 
 is beginning to be generally recognized that there is 
 no surer safeguard against distress of every kind than 
 the power of earning. Banks may fail, investments 
 go astray, landed property become worthless ; but 
 though the power to earn is itself subject to grave 
 shocks, it is more inalienable than any other kind of 
 possession : 
 
 When land is gone and money spent, 
 Then learning is most excellent. 
 
 Of course there aj'e men whose possessions are so 
 vast as to place them beyond the possibility of poverty 
 while social order is maintained ; but then there are 
 also men whose skill is so great that they need never 
 be without work, even should the social order be 
 broken down. 
 
 As a final possibility, we may, if we like, take as 
 the basis of our class distinction the bare fact that 
 incomes vary in amount ; that some are rich and
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 95 
 
 others poor. But we shall find the distinction useless 
 and running hopelessly athwart all others. Suppose 
 we say that all with an income of less than ^300 a 
 year belong to the proletariat, and all with an income 
 above to the capitalist class. Then we shall often 
 find the women of a family belonging to one class, the 
 men to another ; brothers of the same birth and 
 breeding will rank in opposite camps ; and men of 
 letters, clergymen, and teachers will be branded as 
 proletariat and called upon to hate their printers, 
 churchwardens, and grocers. Though, indeed, if we 
 accept this basis of classification, the cry to warfare 
 should fail altogether ; for all desire a larger income, 
 and will hardly bestow more than a perfunctory 
 hatred upon the class to which they aspire. 
 
 Though the insecurity of the wage-earner's position 
 will hardly serve as a basis for class distinction, its 
 remedy does seem to throw an interesting light on 
 the future of English society. For the average man 
 the only safeguard against the freaks of fortune is an 
 alternative. That the property-owner should possess 
 the power of earning, and that the wage-earner should 
 possess property, this would be the ideal condition, 
 and this it is to which we seem to tend. Collectively, 
 through their clubs, trade unions, building societies, 
 etc., as well as individually through the ordinary 
 machinery for saving, the wage-earning class is amass- 
 ing a large amount of property to which individuals 
 may anchor themselves in safety during the storms of 
 industrial crises ; and if the property-owning classes 
 are not yet universally capable of earning a living, 
 they are probably far less helpless than they were a 
 few generations back. 
 
 Now as this rapprocheuiait takes place, as each
 
 96 KLASSENKAMPF 
 
 camp adopts more of the qualities of the other, it is 
 clear that such class distinctions as are still left to us 
 must become more and more obliterated. We cannot 
 hate men for possessing property, if we ourselves 
 possess some and hope to possess more ; we shall no 
 longer despise men for earning their bread by daily 
 toil, when we pride ourselves on the capacity to earn 
 our own living if need be. 
 
 As might be expected, the class feeling remains 
 strongest where this rapprocJienient has not yet begun 
 to make its influence felt. The man who has never 
 soiled his hands by taking pay, and would be in sorer 
 straits if thrown upon his own resources for a year 
 than was Robinson Crusoe in his island, cannot — 
 however kindly he may try to conceal it — divest him- 
 self of a certain degree of contempt for those who 
 labour, whether with hand or brain, for a livelihood. 
 Strange as it may seem, it is the toilers who awaken 
 this feeling of superiority in him, far more than the 
 residual mass at the extreme end of the social scale. 
 It was " Rome's mechanics " upon whom Coriolanus 
 poured his scorn. And in the same way it is this 
 residual mass, this fringe of the industrial world, which 
 really responds in England to the cry of class-warfare 
 when it can be roused from its apathy, and even it 
 hates — not so much the " real gentleman" as the 
 upper ranks of workers. It is as if some secret fellow- 
 feeling made itself felt between the two extremes, and 
 caused them to draw together in the kind of unreal 
 relation of which the Jubilee dinner is a type. And 
 perhaps the feeling is not without justification. Eng- 
 land of to-day is essentially an industrial community 
 — a community of busy independence with which our 
 two extremes have little in common. Both are
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 97 
 
 " outcast," they are relics of the old feudal system of 
 patronage and dependence ; and just as the one 
 extreme cannot get along without some one to de- 
 pend upon, so the other cannot be happy without 
 some one to whom it can be a special Providence. 
 If we can be special Providence towards an inferior 
 class, we cease to despise it ; we do not respect it, of 
 course, but we regard it with indulgent tolerance, and 
 are well satisfied that it should be there for us to 
 exercise our benevolent instincts upon. It is the class 
 which is poorer than we are, but yet has no need of 
 us, to which therefore we cannot approve our indis- 
 pensability, which tends to irritate us. I will repeat, 
 therefore, that it is in the two extremes of English 
 society, if anywhere, that we shall find the class feel- 
 ing still existing in any strength, and this not because 
 of the contrast of wealth and poverty, to lay stress 
 upon which only obscures the real facts. It exists in 
 them primarily because they alone no longer belong 
 to the real throbbing life of the nation. They are 
 something apart ; and though we may describe the 
 one as outcast and the other as select, it really comes 
 to the same thing. 
 
 Perhaps some one will go even further than I have 
 ventured to do, and say that the class feeling is no 
 longer to be found at all ; that, for instance, the 
 " man of leisure " has no longer any contempt for the 
 worker, but honours him for his toil. In exceptional 
 cases this no doubt is so ; but I do not think it can 
 be maintained as the rule, if we examine our experi- 
 ence carefully. Theoretically, of course, it is fashion- 
 able to laud the dignity of labour, and to grace one's 
 drawing-room occasionally with a working-man. But 
 even those who are keen to promote the interests of 
 
 H
 
 98 KI.ASSKNKAMI'K 
 
 the workers de /unit en Ixrs, will resent the i)rcsencc 
 on equal terms, in board-room or committee, of the 
 man who works for a wage or salar)'. And when we 
 study the phenomenon, and try to trace its psj'cho- 
 logical origin, it appears to be due to an incapacity to 
 believe that the man who earns his living can be 
 actuated by any but sordid motives. In other words, 
 the man who cannot earn his living believes most pro- 
 foundly in the moral inferiority of the man who does. 
 In England, happily, this feeling is onl}-a relic, and 
 perhaps we shall do well not to obliterate it alto- 
 gether, but to preserve a few specimens, as we do of 
 other relics — e.g. the armour in the Tower, or the few 
 fields which still show traces of a now vanished form 
 of land culture. Nothing is so difficult for the 
 children of the present as to realize the spirit in 
 which their ancestors lived, and no small part of this 
 spirit is contained in the attitude of the different 
 classes of a community towards each other. The 
 indignant old protest — 
 
 When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman .? 
 
 has lost the greater part of its bitterness for our 
 modern ears, and already the arrogance of the last 
 century has for us a comical clement which it cer- 
 tainly had not then. The sagacious Boswell was a 
 good deal troubled in mind by this question. " No 
 doubt," he says, " honest industry is entitled to esteem. 
 But perhaps the too rapid advances of men of low 
 extraction tends to lessen the value of that distinction 
 by birth and gentility which has ever been found 
 beneficial to the grand scheme of subordination." He 
 then considers the arguments of those " who think
 
 KLASSENKAMPF 99 
 
 that a new system of gentility might be established 
 upon principles totally different from what have 
 hitherto prevailed," ' but only to brush them aside. 
 " Such are the specious, but false, arguments for a 
 proposition which will always find numerous advo- 
 cates in a nation where men are every day starting up 
 from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. 
 The general sense of mankind cries out with irresis- 
 tible force, 'un gentilhomme est toujours gentil- 
 homme.' " 
 
 But, alas for the " grand scheme of subordination," 
 when based upon a birth and property qualification. 
 Read what the Daily Chronicle has to tell us of the 
 effect which sixty years of prosperity has had upon 
 our upper classes : 
 
 " In the early days of her Majesty's reign almost 
 all occupations, save the Army, Navy, Church, and 
 Bar, were regarded as below the dignity of a well- 
 born gentleman. Bulwer Lytton was perhaps the 
 first aristocrat to break the barrier as regarded 
 writing for periodicals, and he took the editorship 
 of a magazine with the avowed object of showing 
 that such an occupation was not inconsistent with the 
 position of a gentleman. To-day we have a duke's 
 son whose name is advertised prominently as editor 
 of a magazine, although no peers' sons have yet been 
 found to brave the task of editing a London daily. 
 Then we have great nobles, with their names on their 
 carts, directly supplying the public with coals, and a 
 noble earl has established a fruit and vegetable shop 
 hard by his great mansion near Charing Cross. 
 
 " As for aristocratic lady milliners, they may be 
 found by the dozen, whilst a gentleman of ancient 
 family, who is married to a peer's daughter, is a sort
 
 loo KLASSKNKAMl'K 
 
 of entnprcnenr for makinj^ all the arrangements for 
 balls and parties. Then, again, up to twenty years 
 ago it was considered a shuddering impossibility for 
 the 'upper classes' to travel second-class, whereas 
 now many who mix in the best society unblushingly 
 go third." 
 
 Of course this is all really so much to the good. 
 The mighty are not fallen ; they are merely coming 
 down from the dress-circle of spectators into the arena 
 of real life, and laying aside the hollow dignity of 
 position for the solid dignity of action. And the 
 change is far-reaching. Even of those who do not 
 actually earn in the sense that their income varies 
 with their exertions, many nevertheless deliberately 
 plan out some useful course of life and pursue it with 
 all the zeal and devotion of the business-man. And 
 in so doing they are both proving the truth of Bos- 
 well's " un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhommc " in 
 a much nobler sense than his, and they are giving a 
 practical answer to John Ball's question. 
 
 In fact, the rapprodienient between classes is no 
 longer exceptional, it is becoming universal. Sir 
 R. Giffen, in his Essays in Finance^ showed us ten 
 years or more ago how the whole " composition " of 
 the community is changing, how the very wealthy are 
 giving place to the moderately wealth)', and the very 
 poor to the moderately comfortable. 
 
 Especially clear is it that the skilled artisan class is 
 receiving into its ranks the unskilled labourer and the 
 residual class ; while the professional class is growing 
 rapidly, recruited largely, no doubt, from the hitherto 
 leisured class. It is little wonder, then, that the doc- 
 trine of " Klassenkampf " finds slow acceptance in 
 England, and there is small fear that the day will
 
 KLASSENKAMPF loi 
 
 ever come when English Society will find itself divided 
 into two camps, fighting for pre-eminence. 
 
 Obliteration of the main lines will of course leave 
 room for infinite gradations to be perceived ; we need 
 never fear a dead level of mediocrity. Nor is it likely 
 that industrial warfare will cease as the distinction 
 between wage-earner and capitalist becomes less 
 marked. Already it is being succeeded by rivalry 
 between different branches of production, and an 
 entirely new series of economic problems are opening 
 up before the inquirer. But whatever struggles re- 
 main for the future, it seems likely that in England 
 at any rate class hatred has had its day.
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL 
 CONFLICT 
 
 It has long been a part of the economic creed that 
 the lines of Industrial Conflict He between Capital and 
 Labour; but there are in the industrial world of to- 
 day not a few indications which suggest that the 
 battles of industry tend to bring into conflict different 
 industrial classes rather than different social classes, 
 and that this tendency is not only increasing but is 
 being recognized and accepted. Before the " organiz- 
 ation of labour " the struggles between individual 
 masters and men were the most striking features in 
 modern industry, and concealed for the most part the 
 underlying forces ; now the war between individuals 
 has disappeared for good or for evil,^ and with it 
 much of the old significance of the rivalry between 
 Capital and Labour. What we now find is an indus- 
 trial field whereon employers and workmen stand in 
 armed neutrality, with a balance of power so nicely 
 adjusted that the least encroachment on either side 
 may throw the whole industry out of gear for weeks 
 
 1 See "The Method of Collecti\e Bargaining," Economic 
 Journal^ March 1896. 
 
 102
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT loj 
 
 or months, pending a re-adjustment. As it becomes 
 increasingly difficult for any disturbance from with- 
 out to be compensated by a re-arrangement of 
 internal relations, the tendency is for each organized 
 group to maintain its own internal economy as 
 against any change from the outside world, and 
 frequently this can only be done by passing on the 
 shock to less compactly organized bodies. For the 
 indefinite margin between wages and profits, which 
 shifted to and fro as conditions of supply and demand 
 enabled one side to encroach upon the other, dis- 
 appears as the workman erects his standard to mark 
 the line beyond which he will not retreat, while his 
 idea of profits as an indefinitely expansive territory 
 upon which he may advance, breaks down before his 
 fuller knowledge of the trade. It was thus, for 
 instance, that in the coal strike of 1893 the battle as 
 between Capital and Labour came to a deadlock, and 
 the workmen, recognizing that their standard could 
 not be maintained as against profits, insisted that the 
 warfare should be directed against the community in 
 a rise of prices.^ 
 
 If such a policy succeeds it will be at the expense 
 of the community at large. In such a case as this it 
 is not profits which suffer by the rise in wages, for not 
 unless profits are secured will the system be able to 
 maintain its elasticity against the exigencies of com- 
 mercial life ; and thus it becomes once more evident 
 (as in the breaking down of the Wage Fund theory) 
 that there is no natural antagonism between profits 
 and wages, Capital and Labour. 
 
 It might have been thought that the tendency 
 
 ' Sec " The Lock-out in the Coal Trade," Eco/ioiiiic Journal^ 
 1893.
 
 104 TIFK 1-INKS OV INDUSTRIAL CONFMCT 
 
 towards such a niovcnicnt would always appear under 
 some such circumstances as that of the coal strike, 
 the labourer bringing pressure to bear upon the em- 
 ployer to force him to raise prices, but in the " New 
 Trades' Combination Movement " we have an instruc- 
 tive illustration of the way in which Capital and 
 Labour may combine voluntarily, and without any 
 preliminary tussle, into a compact fighting body. 
 
 A brief summary of this movement is to be found 
 in a leaflet reprinted from the FuDiiture mid Decora- 
 tion (X)id Furniture Gazette (March 15, 1897), and a 
 fuller account in a pamphlet published in 1895, and 
 consisting of five articles reprinted from the Birniing- 
 Jiani Daily Post. In the first of these articles, the 
 chief promoter of the movement, Mr. E. J. Smith, 
 states the problem of the difficulties of combining a 
 " living wage " with a " living profit," and gives a 
 gloomy sketch of the commercial prospects of the 
 country. Over-production, unremunerative prices, 
 deterioration of quality, and markets filled with in- 
 ferior articles, he regards as the characteristics of the 
 time, and all these evils he traces to an inordinate 
 desire on the part of business men to take large 
 orders at any price and to cut out everybody else. 
 " The idea is that nothing but a large output can pro- 
 duce profit, and the intention is to secure it at any 
 cost." In consequence "profits grow less year by 
 year," and the problem is " to find out a way whereby 
 we can trade on safe and profitable lines, which will 
 not drive away our trade, but which will give every- 
 body a better chance, and, while satisfying all reason- 
 able demands from the side of labour, will ensure at 
 least some fair and reasonable amount of profit on all 
 business done, whether much or little."
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 105 
 
 The second article, which is perhaps the most in- 
 teresting of the series, is an analysis of " Cost-taking." 
 To the outsider it seems almost incredible that 
 the business-man should actually not know whether 
 he is selling at a profit or not, but we are assured that 
 *' there are few trades which do not contain a num- 
 ber of members who have no adequate plan of fixing 
 the line between profit and loss." ..." Many business- 
 men . . . fail to see the necessity for accurately ascer- 
 taining the real cost of an article upon which they 
 must place a market value. It is a common practice 
 for firms just commencing business not only to copy 
 other people's goods, but to take other people's price 
 lists." Further, " a lower list is generally adopted in 
 order to get a connection, under the fond delusion 
 that the connection once obtained better prices can be 
 secured. The only result is the general lowering of 
 the market price and the consequent lessening of 
 profit to the whole trade." 
 
 The remedy suggested is, first, that in every trade 
 a system of taking out costs should be adopted, and 
 all selling prices arrived at from this basis. In the next 
 place, a minimum profit should be fixed, and no man 
 permitted to take less. 
 
 The result of carrying out these two stipulations is 
 not at once clear, but we are told that it would not 
 bring about uniform price ■ lists, inasmuch as " some 
 would sell at lower prices than others, according to 
 the quality of the goods sold ... all that would be 
 insisted upon would be that, whatever the selling 
 price, it bore the proportion of profit on dead cost 
 agreed to." 
 
 But again, we must also take into consideration the 
 variations in cost of production due to working on a
 
 io6 Till', I.INi:S OV INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 
 
 large or small scale, or to different capacities of the 
 business-men themselves in buying, etc. ; and these 
 variations, we understand, arc not to be represented 
 in price, but are to accrue in the shape of extra 
 returns to the particular firm. " Should the most 
 favoured buyer use his advantage by selling his goods 
 at lower prices, or should he keep the difference .■* 
 At present it is given away in nearly ever trade 
 Why?" 
 
 Article three, after dwelling upon the mutual dis- 
 trust of business-men in the same trade, goes on to 
 suggest ten principles upon which a combination 
 should be formed. These principles ensure amongst 
 other things, that no one shall sell without profit, 
 that this profit shall be fixed at a " safe and reason- 
 able amount," and that it shall be shared " in proper 
 proportions " by every one representing either Capital 
 or Labour engaged in the trade. These proportions 
 are to be fixed by an arrangement as to wages at the 
 outset, and based upon that a sliding scale or bonus, 
 varying with the returns. 
 
 How far these principles are to be enforced within 
 a trade, or only voluntarily adopted, is not quite clear. 
 The members of a trade must not compel any one to 
 join an association who has conscientious scruples, 
 but " in self-defence they must insist upon profitable 
 prices being charged, and fair wages being paid." 
 "What this practically means was seen in Birmingham 
 not long ago, when a large metal works was be- 
 leaguered in an attempt to force the men into coming 
 out until their employers should join the association. 
 
 In article four, the question of wages, which has 
 been so far concealed behind that of profits, is brought 
 forward. Throus:h their Wagres Board the work-
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 107 
 
 people are to have a voice in the question of selling 
 prices, " they must have the right to consider any 
 proposal to alter them." This, together with the 
 fixing of a standard wage, to be taken into account 
 in determining the selling price, and the addition of 
 a bonus, constitutes the advantage to the workmen in 
 the new partnership; for it is distinctly an alliance 
 between masters and men as against the community 
 at large which is contemplated : " The one great 
 principle of the alliance between masters and men is 
 that they agree to support each other. The men will 
 not accept employment under any one in the trade 
 who refuses to get a fair profit on his goods, and 
 the employers refuse to employ an employe who has 
 not joined his trade association." The same point 
 is urged in the smaller leaflet. " It is equally ob- 
 vious, too, that if strong combinations of employers 
 and employed are formed, they can bring to bear an 
 irresistible force either upon dissentient employers or 
 dissentient work-people, to compel them to conform 
 to regulations by which a fair price and fair wages 
 can be obtained." 
 
 The scheme is deserving of attention, if only because 
 it has already been realized to some considerable 
 extent. It is claimed that the whole bedstead trade 
 in this country is conducted upon this system, and 
 that many other trades have followed the example ; 
 indeed the movement is said to have succeeded among 
 " industries representing probably one-half the artisans 
 of Birmingham," and there are no doubt certain 
 features in it, besides the increase in wages, which are 
 very attractive. To diminish factitious cheapness due 
 to selling at a loss (whether through ignorance or 
 competition) must tend to steady trade, and so far
 
 io8 Till'; LINKS ()!■ INDUSTRIAL cr^NLLICT 
 
 the new scheme init^ht benefit the whole community, 
 as well as the particular section directly involved. 
 lUit it is clear that the present intention of the pro- 
 ducer is to reap his advantage at the expense of the 
 consumer. It would have been open to the promoters 
 of the scheme to urge that by better organization of 
 the trade they would really lessen the cost of pro- 
 duction, e.g. by avoiding the loss of capital involved in 
 numerous small failures ; but so far as I am aware this 
 line of defence has not been adopted. Nor has the 
 common argument that a higher standard for the 
 workmen will really increase the quantity and quality 
 of the work, been brought forward. The gain is to 
 accrue to the producers alone, and it is to result from 
 a forced ri.se in prices. This of course can only be 
 maintained ultimately by control and probably re- 
 striction of the output ; a policy which is clearly 
 contemplated in Mr. Smith's preliminary discussion 
 on over-production. 
 
 To create a monopoly, then, is the object of the 
 producers who adopt this system. How far it is 
 possible for it to become universal, and for a monopoly 
 to be maintained in every branch of production, would 
 be an interesting problem to consider; but for my 
 present purpose the chief interest lies in the clear 
 recognition involved in it, of the fact that the real 
 lines of industrial warfare are not between Capital 
 and Labour, but between different sections of pro- 
 ducers. It is not sufficient to say, between producer 
 and consumer, for the great majority of consumers 
 are producers whose powers of consumption are 
 limited by the returns they get for themselves as 
 producers. And in so far as organization on these 
 lines is successful the struggle for higher returns
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 109 
 
 (profits and wages) will approach again to the 
 economic bargain between individuals having a mo- 
 nopoly of goods to exchange ; with two important 
 differences. 
 
 1. Though the seller will be practically one, the 
 buyers will be many. 
 
 2. The seller, though one inasmuch as competition 
 will be excluded, will not be able to control the 
 market completely. An individual can withhold any 
 part of his commodity, and thus raise the price for 
 each unit to the very highest the buyers will give ; 
 but in this case all holders will be keen to be first in 
 the field, and the whole amount will be in the market 
 at once. Hence though the producers may by agree- 
 ment maintain a high minimum price, they will be 
 unable to create an artificial famine, unless by a 
 closer organization than is at present contem- 
 plated. 
 
 But though the competition amongst producers to 
 be first in the market (which might lead to a great 
 development in advertising) would remain, externally 
 there would only be the competition of alternative 
 commodities (as for example in the great increase in 
 the use of oil-stoves during the coal strike). This 
 might, however, be a considerable check on the 
 monopolists if there were any great impetus to 
 ingenuity in discovering substitutes. 
 
 But the main point would be that the labourers 
 could no longer fail to see that industrial rivalry lies 
 between themselves. While the policy is confined to 
 one or a few industries, this is not so obvious. The 
 hardship caused by a rise in the price of coal, spread 
 as it would be over the whole community, might be 
 insignificant as compared with the benefit to be
 
 no TIIK LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 
 
 reaped by a relatively small number of miners and 
 coal-owners. But as the movement spread, and the 
 miner found, not only firing, but clothing, light, food 
 and tools, all rising in price, he must recognize that 
 it becomes merely a question as to which group of 
 producers can enforce the best terms for itself against 
 other groups of producers. 
 
 There can be little doubt which this would be. 
 Where a monopoly is concerned the intensity of the 
 buyers' need, combined with a knowledge of that 
 need on the part of the seller, must always pla}- a 
 principal part in determining the rate of exchange. 
 Hence the producers of the necessaries of life, as soon 
 as they discovered their powers, would be able to 
 increase their returns almost indefinitely at the ex- 
 pense of the community. In the absence of com- 
 petition the total utility of a commodity will make 
 itself felt, and the food, clothing, building, etc., 
 industries, in so far as they were successful in organ- 
 izing, would be able to make the best terms for 
 themselves. (As a question of practical politics, no 
 doubt foreign competition might continue to make 
 this impossible in England, so far as food is con- 
 cerned ; but if the food industries failed to meet this 
 difficulty, and should be the only ones unorganized, 
 they must sooner or later cease to exist and England 
 become completely dependent on foreign countries 
 for her food supply.) A community, therefore, 
 which was completely organized on these lines, 
 would be a community in which the necessaries 
 of life were very expensive as compared with its 
 luxuries. 
 
 It may of course be doubted whether the fullest 
 recognition of the true lines of industrial warfare will
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT in 
 
 ever lead any group of producers to be content with 
 less, if they can see their way to make good their 
 claims to more. But it should at any rate alter the 
 lines of social and economic discussions. Instead 
 of the rival merits of " Capital and Labour," or of 
 employer and of employe, we shall soon be discussing 
 the rival merits of different branches of production, 
 the comparative value of different kinds of luxury for 
 the community at large, and the extent to which the 
 production of mere necessaries should be allowed to 
 play an important part in the life of a community. 
 For instance, whether it is better to have an abund- 
 ance of cheap necessaries, and a large population 
 living chiefly on them,^ or a small population of 
 whom the greater part have both necessaries and 
 luxuries. We might anticipate on paper great 
 changes ; such as that the Residuum if left to itself 
 would be rapidly starved out of existence, that the 
 agricultural labourer would raise his income more 
 than proportionally to the increased cost of food, and 
 have a larger margin for luxuries, while tailors, shoe- 
 makers, weavers, miners, etc., would achieve a like 
 success. Birmingham would perhaps be the greatest 
 sufferer by the change she has initiated, for who 
 would wear " Brummagem jewellery " if it were ex- 
 pensive .-" And all that part of the community which 
 was not concerned in the production of necessaries 
 would have a smaller margin for luxuries ; so that 
 we might perhaps expect that the ultimate result of 
 the substitution of the problem of Exchange for that 
 of Distribution would be that Distribution itself would 
 tend to greater equality, 
 
 Arnold Toynbee in his Industrial Revolution says 
 ' See Prof. Geddes in The Claims of Labour^ and elsewhere.
 
 112 TIIK LlXi'.S ()\- INDUSTRIAL COXFLKT 
 
 (p. 84) : " I'inally, in the (listributi(jn of wealth there 
 must necessarily be a permanent antagonism of 
 interests. Adam Smith himself saw this, when 
 he said that the rate of wages depended on con- 
 tracts between two parties whose interests were not 
 identical." 
 
 In a further analysis of the question (p. 119) he 
 says : " The division of the produce, on the other hand, 
 is determined mainly by the proportion of labourers 
 seeking employment and the quantity of capital 
 seeking investment ; or, to put the case in a some- 
 what different way, instead of saying that wages are 
 paid out of stored-up capital, we now say that they 
 are the labourer's share of the produce. What the 
 labourer's share will be depends first on the quantity 
 of produce he can turn out, and secondly, on the 
 nature of the bargain which he is able to make with 
 his employer." 
 
 If it is no longer true (and perhaps it never was true, 
 in any but a superficial sense) that the interests of 
 the " two parties " concerned in the production of a 
 commodity are not identical, it will be necessary to 
 find some theory of wages which is more expressive 
 of the facts than the mere bargain between master 
 and man. " Wages are the labourer's share of the 
 produce." Yes, but not of his own produce ; and 
 speaking literally, they never were this. It is the 
 share of other people's produce which he has always 
 needed, and which he now sees himself able to in- 
 crease. And his ability to increase it will depend — 
 partly no doubt on the nature of the bargain (or 
 alliance) which he can make with his employer; but 
 chiefly and essentially on the nature of the bargain 
 he and his emplo)'er together are able to make
 
 THE LINES OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT 113 
 
 with other producers. That is, the " antagonism of 
 interests " as between Capital and Labour has proved 
 itself to be not permanent, and if there is any per- 
 manent antagonism it is to be found between different 
 classes of producers.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL 
 PROGRESS^ 
 
 The science of psycholofry has made extraordinary 
 progress within the last half-century; and though for 
 a science it is still in an early stage of development, 
 it may now fairly be said to have constructed for 
 itself a central group of conceptions from which to 
 work out its future. In its terminology also it has 
 abandoned its former use of terms made vague and 
 fluctuating in meaning by current usage, and is 
 gradually accumulating a well-defined terminology, 
 such as every other science achieves for itself. 
 
 So far, however, these conceptions and this exact 
 terminology have been for the most part confined to 
 the text-books, and have not been used, so to say, in 
 the open air ; they have been applied only to the 
 material collected b)' the professional psychologist, 
 and the professional ps}xhologist tends to draw his 
 material from the limited field of instances in which 
 his ideas are most strikingly illustrated. We have, 
 indeed, the so-called psychological novel, which is 
 
 ^ A paper read before the Socratic Society, Birmingham. 
 114
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 115 
 
 essentially a modern product. In it, instead of being 
 left to infer our hero's " states of mind " from his 
 words and actions, as in the old times, we are led 
 behind the scenes and shown his mental struggles 
 much more clearly than he can ever have seen them 
 himself; and it is conceivable that before long the 
 play of his thoughts and feelings will be imparted to 
 us in terms of the interaction of his appercipient 
 masses. But so far the novelist in his analysis has 
 kept to the old indefinite terminology, and has made 
 no attempt to explain his motives by the use of the 
 deeper psychological conceptions. 
 
 I have just been reading Mr. Stout's very interesting 
 and suggestive book on psychology, and thought it 
 might be interesting to take two or three of the con- 
 ceptions elaborated and explained in it and in Mr. 
 James's book, and see whether they would give any 
 interesting results when applied to some of our 
 economic and social problems. Of course, in so far 
 as they are true and adequate conceptions, they are 
 already implied in those problems, and nothing more 
 is necessary than to point out their bearings, and see 
 how far they coincide with popular and academic 
 conceptions on the same subject. 
 
 But first of all I want to point out that between 
 psychology and sociology there is no line to be drawn. 
 The latter science, if science it can yet be called, is 
 based upon psychological analysis ; the question as 
 to how societies are formed can only be answered by 
 appeal to the nature of men's minds ; while those 
 minds themselves which arc the material of psychology 
 are developed by living in societies. Let me quote 
 from Maudsley's Pathology of Mind, pp. 21, 22 : 
 
 " To live in social relations implies a social nature
 
 ii6 I III; rsvcuDLor.Y ok social 1'RO(;kess 
 
 within as well as a social mccliuin without, for were 
 there no community of kind such inter-relation could 
 not be. iMivy, emulation, malice, hatred, vanity, 
 ambition, and the like human passions, exist only in 
 relation to beings of the same kind ; even a fool does 
 not envy a good-looking horse or hate an ill-doing 
 machine. Because all men are of one kind they are 
 so infected by a panic of terror among themselves 
 that they behave as foolishly and franticly as a flock 
 of silly sheep, but they are not similarly affected by a 
 panic amongst sheep. . . . Lacking a social medium 
 for its nurture and display, hysteria would not attack 
 the solitary inhabitant of a desert island ; it would 
 hardly be inspired to perform to the unheeding stars. 
 In the absence of their proper stimuli, how can the fit 
 reflexes take effect ? " 
 
 In considering psychological conceptions, then, we 
 are considering the bases of sociological science, and 
 those conceptions themselv^es can only be really 
 understood in connection with social relations. 
 
 Man, it has been said, but I cannot remember by 
 whom, is distinguished from the lower animals by his 
 capacity for progressive w^ants. The lower animals 
 have a certain larger or smaller cycle of desires, which 
 being satisfied are quiescent, and incapable of further 
 satisfaction until the same cycle begins again and 
 runs its course of craving and satisfaction. With 
 men, on the contrary, the satisfaction of the primitive 
 wants may lead on through a constantly widening 
 range of what we are pleased to call " higher wants " ; 
 in such wise that there seems to be absolutely no 
 limit to their capacity for receiving new satisfactions. 
 When men have their fill of food and clothing, they 
 begin to desire luxuries and ornaments ; when their
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL TROGRESS 117 
 
 appetites are satisfied, they turn their attention to 
 dancing and music ; the poet, the story-teller, and the 
 artist then find a demand for their services, and so on 
 until the primitive cycle may be almost lost sight of. 
 
 It is a truism to point out that this capacity for 
 always discovering new wants is a necessary condition 
 of human progress. Had it been possible to satisfy 
 our natures with mere sufficiency of food and clothing 
 we should still be living in caves, huddled up in bear- 
 skins and devouring the flesh of wild animals. Whether 
 civilization owes most to the discontented men who 
 were always wanting something new, or to the in- 
 genious men who were alwaj-s discovering new wa}'s 
 of making themselves acceptable to their companions, 
 does not much matter. Both were essential to the 
 process of developing the higher nature, and though 
 there are those who maintain that men are unfortunate 
 in proportion as they have developed higher wants, — 
 i. e. that the}- are better off when left undisturbed in 
 the primitive c}xlc, — this opinion is not yet widely 
 accepted. 
 
 But the fact that there are exceptions to the rule, 
 that certain men would seem never to pass beyond 
 the primitive cycle, thus forming an unprogressive 
 " knot " in the flow of human progress, makes it of 
 interest to inquire whether we cannot get behind the 
 mere statement of the fact to some psychological ex- 
 planation which will help us to account for the excep- 
 tions. Why is it that some people are content to 
 pass their lives in eating, drinking, and sleeping, with 
 intervals of comparative quiescence, and are absolutely 
 free from the stimulus of progressive desires } There 
 is a chapter in Mr. Stout's book which seems to me 
 to hold the clue to such an explanation. I refer to
 
 ii8 TIIK rSVCnOLODV OF SOCIAL rROr.RESS 
 
 the chapter on " Conation and Cognitive S>'nthc.sis." 
 I will try to explain briefly what I take to be the 
 conception expounded in these and in other parts of 
 the book. 
 
 The stream of consciousness in the individual life 
 is represented to us as a current, not drifting aimlessly, 
 but alwaj's drifting towards some end, whether that 
 end be itself in consciousness or not. To explain the 
 existence of these "ends" towards which the stream 
 is making, the conception is used of a "vital series," 
 — a conception originall)' applied, as I gather, in 
 ph)'siological connections. A " vital series " takes 
 place when the equilibrium of mental elements has 
 been disturbed b)' some shock or stimulus, and they 
 are .seeking a re-adjustment. In creature.s still confined 
 to the primitive cj'cle of wants the stimulus or shock 
 will generally be due to such organic disturbances as 
 lack of food, and the " vital .series " will take the shape 
 of a series of efforts to obtain food and so to restore 
 the disturbed equilibrium. Then a period of more or 
 less total quiescence or unconsciousness — correspond- 
 ing to a state of mental equilibrium — will set in, until 
 a fresh disturbance occurs within the organism, leading 
 to a fresh re-adjustment. 
 
 Now, among the lower animals these re-adjustments 
 are brought about very largely b}- means of instincts. 
 " The peculiar feature of the life of animals," says Mr. 
 Stout, " which prevents progressive development is 
 the existence of instincts, which do for them what the 
 human being must do for himself. Their inherited 
 organization is such that they perform the movements 
 adapted to supply their needs on the mere occurrence 
 of an appropriate external stimulus." 
 
 To us these instincts have not been given. Possibly
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 119 
 
 because in the early days they would have been quite 
 inadequate to the protection of a weakly animal whose 
 desires led him to want to eat things stronger than 
 himself. A very simple instinct of pouncing brings 
 the cat to the attainment of the desired mouse ; the 
 human hunter relying upon as simple an impulse 
 would be more likely to fall a victim to his quarry. 
 
 But, whatever the reason, the fact remains that 
 man, having no sufficient instincts for the purpose, 
 must achieve his ends by way of consciously devised 
 means. For him the " vital series " leading to re-ad- 
 justment is a complicated one consisting of a number 
 of steps, any one or all of which may be fully present 
 to consciousness. Each of these steps in turn becomes 
 the object of our striving ; not at first for its own 
 sake, but as leading to the end in view. The im- 
 portant point is that, having once been an end in the 
 subordinate sense of being a means, it is henceforward 
 capable of becoming an end in the principal sense. 
 To use a simile : the traveller from London to 
 Birmingham who goes by train will reach his end 
 swiftly and surely, but will know little about the way 
 he has come, and will not be tempted to travel any 
 part of the route again until the need for going to 
 Birmingham recurs. His journey is analogous to the 
 instinctive action of the animal. The traveller who 
 walks or rides will be longer on the way, and will 
 have many difficulties to overcome ; but every stage 
 will have its interest for him. He will note x as being 
 a good place to come for a short tour ; and y as an 
 interesting branch road to explore ; and z as actuall}' 
 capable of yielding more satisfaction than Birmingham 
 itself. Thus, every journey he takes will open up to 
 him new possibilities for the future.
 
 I20 THE PSVCIIOLOCIV OK SOCIy\L PROGRESS 
 
 In a similar way every conation towards an end, 
 however simple, that passes throu^^h conscious steps 
 or " means," may open up fresh routes for future cona- 
 tions to pursue. Any one of the steps ma)' achieve 
 an independent interest and become desired for itself, 
 — e.g. the hunter glories in the chase long after his 
 larder is full ; the workman who takes up his handi- 
 work for the sake of a living maj' come to enjo)- it 
 for its own sake ; and the school-boy who plies his 
 task to avoid punishment becomes the scholar whom 
 nothing can bribe to leave it. It is often noticed that 
 the busier people are the more work they tend to under- 
 take ; while idle people are vcrj' hard to move. The 
 real antithesis is not so much between busy and idle 
 men as between men of many interests and men of 
 few. Every living interest opens the wa)' to new 
 ones, and the more energetically they are followed up 
 the more possibilities reveal themselves. In fact, we 
 must all have noticed that it is fatal to our peace of 
 mind to take a keen interest in anything at all. The 
 more often the mental equilibrium is disturbed the 
 more it is exposed to fresh disturbances in the way of 
 fresh interests. 
 
 How then account for an)' exceptions ? W'h)- do 
 we find some people who show no signs of being pro- 
 gressive in their interests, and others who are actuall)' 
 limited to the primitive cycle, and seem incapable of 
 breaking through it .'' In other words, how do people 
 manage to achieve for their minds such a stable 
 equilibrium as to become practically stationar)- ? 
 
 For animals, we have said, instinct does it. Of 
 course, their equilibrium is disturbed b)- the primitive 
 cycle of recurrent wants, but it is restored again b)- 
 simple instinctive action which does not trouble the"
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 121 
 
 mind with new interests. For them Hfe, though not 
 actually stationary (that would be a contradiction in 
 terms), is not progressive, but repeats itself like a 
 recurring decimal. 
 
 What instinct does for the animal, habit tends to 
 do for man. In proportion as the means by which 
 we reach our ends becomes easy and familiar it tends 
 to become habitual, and unconscious in so far as each 
 step ceases to attract special attention to itself. The 
 vital series then takes place automatically ; we are 
 again travelling by train, quickly and surely, with 
 little chance of losing the way, but also with no 
 chance of opening up new ways. Then we also tend 
 to become recurring decimals. We all know, prob- 
 ably, what it is to look back upon some period of our 
 lives which seems to us now to have been full of 
 possibilities, but which we passed through in an 
 almost apathetic state, simply because we had become 
 too habituated to it to notice. Then some great 
 change or shock is forced upon the life, and it is 
 obliged to enter upon new ways, which may ultimately 
 lead it into an altogether new world of interest. 
 
 Of course there is an immense gain if, after we 
 have developed the higher interests, we can relegate 
 the lower ones to automatic action. Then we send 
 on our heavy luggage by train and leave ourselves 
 free to explore new regions. But the danger is that 
 the mind should never have broken through the 
 primitive cycle, or should have been allowed to become 
 automatic at a low level. The child who is never 
 made to do things for himself, to find the solution to 
 his own problems, will be slow to develop higher 
 interests ; also the man whose trust in Providence or 
 his relations has taken the place occupied by instinct
 
 122 THE psvciioi.onv of sociai, rRofiuiiss 
 
 in ihc lower animals ; and the same stationary con- 
 dition must be cxi:)cctcd in the man whfjsc encrj^ics 
 arc so cxhaustctl in satisfyinc,^ the clcmentar}' needs 
 that he never has a chance of followinc^ the suggestions 
 to higher ones. 
 
 Mental struggle, then, is the first law of progress. 
 Peace of mind must be left to the lower animals, if 
 by peace of mind we mean nothing but freedom from 
 cares and contrivings, puzzles and desires, and " obsti- 
 nate questionings " of all kinds. What the child, the 
 family, the whole community needs is constant dis- 
 turbance of their mental equilibrium, combined with 
 the necessity of consciously devising for themselves 
 the vital series which is to bring renewed stability, — 
 i. e. the satisfaction of desire. If any individual or 
 class is cut off from this necessity, whether b}' the 
 stagnation of habit, or the crushing weight of circum- 
 stance, or because they are unfortunate enough to 
 have all their wants anticipated, they are as much 
 cut off from the possibilit)- of developing higher 
 interests as the jelly-fish or the penn}'-in-the-slot 
 automaton. 
 
 Now, I am well aware that we hear a great deal 
 about the over-strain of modern life, and we are told 
 sometimes that the great mass of the people have no 
 time to lead a higher life ; we are even threatened 
 with an enormous increase of insanity, owing to the 
 high pressure at which we live. My own impression 
 is that, as I have been arguing, this high pressure is 
 nearly all to the good, and infinitely more hopeful 
 than any approach to stagnation. In support of this 
 opinion, I will quote from Maudsley's PatJiology of 
 Mind, pp. 29, 30 : 
 
 "The full and varied exercise of mind elicited by a
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 123 
 
 variety of interests is no less conducive to health and 
 strength of mind than a full and varied exercise of 
 body is to its health and strength. The intellect 
 suffers more from rusting in disuse than it ever does 
 from its utmost use. One fact which the statistics of 
 insanity in England has clearly shown is, that the 
 purely agricultural counties furnish the largest per- 
 centage of insanity in proportion to the population ; 
 that is to say, there is most madness where there are 
 the fewest ideas, the most simple feelings, and the 
 coarsest desires and ways. . . . Railways and steam- 
 boats may have done more to prevent insanity by 
 the variety, than they have done to produce it by the 
 hurry, of life which they have occasioned. The more 
 numerous and various the impressions to which a 
 mind is subject in the complex relations of life, the 
 less likely is its balance to be upset by the exaggerated 
 preponderance of any one of them." 
 
 The next conception of which I shall speak is that 
 of apperception, in the modern sense of the term. It 
 seems to me to throw much light on the way in which 
 the mind develops, and therefore to be of great 
 practical importance to all who are either interested 
 in or desirous of influencing the mental development 
 of others. 
 
 The old idea of the mind, we shall remember, was 
 that of a clear surface becoming gradually written 
 over with the experiences of life in much the same 
 way as this sheet of paper was gradually written over, 
 one line after the other. Or, to take a better illustra- 
 tion, the conception was more like that of a nursery 
 screen which is pasted all over with a medley of 
 pictures bearing no special relation to each other, 
 (One of the older philosophers — Malebranche, I
 
 124 TlIK PSVCFIOLOfJY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 believe — spoke of ideas as actual substances, emanat- 
 ing from objects and adhering to or in the minds with 
 which they happened to come in contact.) 
 
 In place of this crude idea of a mind which is being 
 pieced together from the outside, there is now substi- 
 tuted that of a growing and organic system of ideas, 
 thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and emotions ; developing, 
 indeed, from the simplest germ, but from first to last 
 influencing its own development by its selection of 
 the elements which are to enrich it, and by its in- 
 fluence upon them. The process is analogous to that 
 by which a plant appropriates nourishment from the 
 surrounding soil and atmosphere. Its growth depends 
 upon the elements received from without, but, while 
 they affect its growth and constitution, it in turn 
 completely transforms their characteristics in the 
 process of assimilation. 
 
 Mr. Stout's definition of apperception is " the pro- 
 cess by which a mental system appropriates a new 
 element, or otherwise receives a fresh determination." 
 The essence of the process, and that to which I wish 
 to call special attention, is that it is not a mere 
 addition of new to old, but that the appropriation of 
 new by old involves modification of both. 
 
 The modification of old by new is a more or less 
 familiar conception to us. We speak of a man's 
 views and opinions changing and mellowing with 
 experience, and we feel, as we look back to younger 
 days, how much the years have done to alter the 
 organization and temper of our own minds. But we 
 must carry this principle down from generalities into 
 detail, and recognize that every new perception of 
 whatever kind, in so far as it is fairly taken into the 
 mind, is not only " one more " unit there, but alters
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 125 
 
 the constitution of the whole group of ideas into which 
 it is received. 
 
 Now the blending of new and old being of this 
 intimate kind has for consequence : 
 
 1. That nothing of a totally new nature can be 
 received into the mind ; it is impossible to give a new 
 idea to minds not in some way prepared for it. Just 
 as the plant can only assimilate the nourishment 
 suited to it, so the mind can only accept elements to 
 which there is already something analogous in its 
 constitution. Where the new perception is only rela- 
 tively new, has in it some familiar elements, it will 
 be apperceived or received by that part of the mental 
 system which is similar ; and it is by this way of 
 partial similarity or identity that the mind grows. 
 
 2. What the mind sees depends upon what it 
 already is. The town child who called a fern a pot 
 of green feathers could not see what the country child 
 or what the botanist would see, but saw what its past 
 experience enabled it to see. Thus there is a tre- 
 mendous tendency for the mind in receiving new 
 experiences to change them into something more 
 like what it already possesses. Indeed, in so far as 
 it does receive them, it must so change them. The 
 disappearance of the savage before civilization is said 
 to be largely due to his sheer inability to " take in " 
 all the new ideas and objects by which he is con- 
 fronted ; the mind is killed by its futile efforts. But 
 where the novelty is less overwhelming there is no 
 limit to the ingenuity of the mind in interpreting, or 
 misinterpreting, what it sees by what it already knows, 
 so that it may come to some sort of understanding : 
 a fact which is full of significance with respect to the 
 success or failure of foreign missions.
 
 126 TIIK rSVCIHJLrxiY OF SOCIAL I'ROGRKSS 
 
 This is what makes intercourse between people of 
 different "upbringings" apt to be difficult, and should 
 make us specially careful in placing our ideas before 
 minds less developed (or differently developed; than 
 our own, without making sure how they are inter- 
 preted. " One man's meat is another's poison " is far 
 truer in the spiritual than in the physical world. 
 
 How does this tell on our question of social de- 
 velopment ? Prinid facie, it seems to tend greatly 
 against the possibility of our achieving any state of 
 society in which the units shall be all the same ; shall 
 be, that is, individuals having the same views, in- 
 terests, and mental experiences. For in the mental 
 life differentiation is cumulative ; not only do no two 
 minds ever perceive an object the same way, but their 
 perceiving it differently introduces a further element 
 of difference into the mind which will affect all after 
 experience. 
 
 And yet we all live in the same world, and do have 
 similar views about it, and arc able to come to some 
 sort of understanding about our interests. That I 
 take to be due mainly to two facts : 
 
 1. That certain fundamental characteristics of 
 affection and gregariousness form a common basis 
 upon which all individual life is erected. 
 
 2. That we are rational beings, and therefore share 
 in a common mental organization which is reflected 
 into our social organization, Difference of detail does 
 not iniwlvc difference of stnicture. Two kinds of roses 
 may differ in almost every external detail, but none 
 the less both are roses. 
 
 I have only time to deal with the second of these 
 facts, — that of our common mental organization. 
 This is a conception which seems to have been
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL P-ROGRESS 127 
 
 entirely left out of sight by our Associationist Psycho- 
 logists. J. S. Mill tells us in his autobiography how 
 he regards his father's most important work to be 
 the fundamental doctrine of the formation of all 
 character by circumstance, through the universal 
 principle of association ; through, that is, the associa- 
 tion of pleasure with beneficial, and pain with injurious 
 action. If this were a sufficient account of the 
 matter, the well-trained dog or idiot should be as 
 capable of developing character as the wisest man, 
 for in both the principle of association can be made 
 active. 
 
 But the once famous principle of association is now 
 being relegated to its proper place as the mere 
 machinery by which higher principles of organization 
 develop. It is recognized that in proportion as the 
 mind reaches higher stages of development it ceases 
 to consist of mere trains of perceptions, thoughts, 
 and ideas linked together by associations of time, 
 space, and similarity, and has a definitely organized 
 and complex content, dominated in its workings by 
 definite interests and principles. Noetic synthesis is 
 the term which Mr. Stout uses to describe this organiz- 
 ation in the higher levels of intelligence. " In any given 
 stage of thought," he tells us (vol. ii. p. 3), " the next 
 step is partly determined by the controlling influence 
 of the central idea of the topic with which the whole 
 series is concerned, and partly by the special idea 
 which has last emerged. In so far as it is determined 
 by the special idea which has last emerged, the prin- 
 ciple of association is operative : in so far as it is 
 determined by the central idea of the whole topic, 
 noetic synthesis is operative." 
 
 All purposive, rational thought and action, then, is
 
 I2.S TiiK rsvcnoi.ofiv of social i-kogkess 
 
 guided by noetic synthesis ; all casual, aimless speech 
 or action, all chatter or punninj^ or mere trifling, much 
 narrative, and, again, all automatic action, is guided by 
 association alone. 
 
 Those who have listened much to the talk of un- 
 educated women know what an aimless trickle of 
 associated trifles it is apt to be. The listener can find 
 no rational clue to the thought by which it is prompted ; 
 it is a narrative of utterly insignificant sayings and 
 doings, only saved by some kind of observance of 
 time sequence from descending into the meaningless 
 jargon of the idiot. There is nothing to show that the 
 minds of many men do not drift in just the same way, 
 though they find less ready utterance in speech. Their 
 lives certainly show the same absence of " noetic 
 synthesis " ; day drifts after day in the same aimless 
 fashion, all is ordered by habit, chance, association; 
 nothing by purpose. Theirs is the very type of char- 
 acter formed by the great principle of association, for 
 at every movement they sedulously avoid the immedi- 
 ately unpleasant and seek the immediately pleasant. 
 Let us quote from Mr. Stout's PsycJiology, p. 34 : 
 
 " The varying degrees of noetic synthesis . . . 
 broadly correspond to the degree of intelligence of 
 the individual, either in general or in special directions. 
 The more developed it is, the less conspicuous by com- 
 parison is the part played by association. A person 
 of disciplined intelligence in narrating an occurrence 
 brings together the really relevant points as parts of a 
 systematic whole, discarding whatever is superfluous. 
 A country yokel seems unable to proceed otherwise 
 than by casual associations of proximity in time and 
 space. The important items are for him so embedded 
 in a flood of irrelevant details that it is difficult to
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 129 
 
 disentangle from his chaotic narrative the essential 
 circumstances. In other words, there is present in the 
 one case a mental synthesis which is absent in the 
 other." 
 
 Now this mental synthesis corresponds to a higher 
 and more complex grouping of mental contents. 
 Experience, as it comes to a mind of this type, ranges 
 itself in subordination to the principles and purposes 
 which are dominant, and the conception of a mere 
 stream of consciousness develops into that of a mental 
 system. 
 
 We may picture this systematization of the mind as 
 a grouping of mental elements according to the various 
 topics or interests which predominate ; much as in 
 highly civilized communities men are grouped accord- 
 ing to their interests into families, clubs, unions, 
 nationalities, religious and political sects, and so on. 
 The higher the type of mind and the development 
 of character, the more complex and complete Avill 
 be its organization according to interests and pur- 
 poses. V 
 
 If this newer conception of mental organization be 
 a true one, it seems clear that the principle of associa- 
 tion, as translated into a system of rewards and 
 punishments, will not do more than develop a quite 
 commonplace type of character. It may be the best 
 means we can use in certain directions towards restrain- 
 ing tendencies which would otherwise be injurious to 
 the community; as a positive and educational principle 
 it is of little use. All wise teachers, I believe, recognize 
 now that the best way of dealing with naughty children 
 is to absorb their whole attention with some interest, 
 which will not only leave no energy to spare for 
 naughtiness, but will of itself tend to organize their
 
 ijo TIIK I'SVCHOLOOV OK SOCIAL I'ROOKESS 
 
 minds, tf) subordinate mental elements to a purpose , 
 and so to develop character. 
 
 Again, why is it that some of us think it undesirable 
 that rich people, or the State, should play the part of 
 special Providence to the poor? The lazy answer 
 reverts to the principle of association and says, "you 
 must let them feel the consequences of beinfr drunken, 
 or idle, or improvident, and then they will strive harder 
 against it." But this clearly applies only to some few 
 among the poor, and even with reference to those few 
 indicates only the beginning of the better things we 
 hope for. The fuller answer is, that for every man 
 interests naturally arise which arc capable of organiz- 
 ing his life and developing his character, the interests 
 of supplying his own wants — higher and lower — and 
 those of his family ; and if these interests are taken 
 out of his hands, without the introduction of others 
 equally powerful, he is simply left to drift without the 
 possibility of development. The only way of really 
 helping a man is to strengthen him by education, 
 timely assistance, opportunities, what you will, to meet 
 his own difficulties and organize his own life ; and so 
 also of any class in the community, only by their own 
 activities can they develop progressive interests, and 
 only by purposes and progressive interests can they 
 organize their lives successfully. 
 
 We might appl)- the same idea to political education. 
 We shall hardly make much advance in this direction 
 until our politicians cease to appeal solely or mainly 
 to the special desires of their constituents, — which is 
 really nothing but the system of rewards (/. c. bribes) 
 over again, — and seek to interest them in wider issues. 
 So far as people are encouraged and helped to devise 
 ways of meeting their own needs they must necessaril}'
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 131 
 
 find their way sooner or later to the wider issues ; but 
 so far as material benefactions are forced upon them 
 from without, they will no doubt accept them, but will 
 lose in progressive power more than they gain in 
 material wealth. 
 
 Take as one instance out of many the question of 
 old age pensions, which at one time threatened to 
 become the chief political interest of the day. It is in 
 no sense a scheme devised by the class which would 
 benefit, nor have they shown any energy in pushing it 
 or in devising ways and means. Of course they will 
 take it when offered, and of course they will like a 
 candidate for election better for offering than for 
 opposing it. But for the very reason that it comes as 
 a windfall from without, having nothing to do with 
 their own plans, it may do little to really improve their 
 position ; while it will cut them off from one depart- 
 ment of energetic development in which very good 
 results had already begun to appear. 
 
 Finally, a conception which I take to be all impor- 
 tant from the point of view of social progress is that of 
 the wider self ; or, as we may call it, the elastic self 
 What do we mean by the self.-* Some have been 
 known to say it is the body, others that it is the mind 
 or soul, others again, the mind or soul plus the body. 
 From a psychological point of view it is enough to say 
 that it is the mind or soul, and that includes the body 
 and much more beside, for it includes all experience. 
 The soul literally is, or is built up of, all its experience ; 
 and such part of this experience, or soul life, as is 
 active at any given time or for any given purpose 
 constitutes the self at that time and for that purpose. 
 We know how the self enlarges and expands as we 
 enter upon new duties, acquire new interests, contract
 
 152 Tiir. i'Svciioi/k;v of social progress 
 
 new tics of friendship ; we know how it is mutilated 
 when some sphere of activity is cut off, or some near 
 friend snatched away by death. It is literally, anrl 
 not metaphorically, a part of ourselves which we have 
 lost. 
 
 But if, then, all we know is self, what shall we do 
 with our useful old words, selfish and unselfish ? For 
 practical purposes, of course, we can use them just as 
 before. The important point is that to a great extent 
 we get rid of the apparent incompatibility between 
 egoism and altruism, between the so-called self-regard- 
 ing and extra-regarding conduct. The unselfish 
 nature becomes now the self with wider interests, or 
 the self in which the wider interests predominate over 
 the narrower. The father who feels himself more 
 mutilated by loss of wife and family than by loss of a 
 limb does so, not because he is specially altruistic, but 
 because his family was a far more vital part of his self 
 than his limb. The loss of reputation, or injury to the 
 social self, is worse to many than the loss of health or 
 injury to the material self. The patriot who sacrifices 
 all private interests to the welfare of his country has 
 subordinated the narrower self to the wider. We no 
 longer, therefore, need to teach self-abnegation, but 
 the enlarging of the self, the finding it in wider 
 interests. 
 
 Here we are obviously at a point where psychology 
 merges into sociology ; indeed, we cannot draw an)' 
 line between them. Suppose we have two men whose 
 more important interests are the same ; who strive for 
 the same ends, are actuated by the same motives, and 
 respond in the same way to a given stimulus. In so 
 far as this is the case they have a common self, or 
 their interests are so organized as to be correlative to
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 133 
 
 each other ; they play into each other in such a way as 
 to supplement and support, so that neither is itself 
 without the other to complete it. This, of course, is 
 the secret of family life ; and this, when we take it 
 over a wider circle, is the justification for the theory of 
 the general will of a community. 
 
 The self varies with time and occasion according to 
 the mental elements or appcrcipient masses which 
 predominate. In other words, we are ruled by different 
 motives, desires, and affections according to the circum- 
 stances under which we are placed. Sometimes we 
 undergo the painful experience of having two sets of 
 motives struggling for predominance, and according as 
 the self is well or ill organized the result will be heroic 
 or disastrous. Do we always realize how much hero- 
 ism is involved in a strike in those cases where the men 
 subordinate their own material needs and domestic 
 affections, — not from fear of the union, but from a true 
 recognition of wider issues? They may sometimes be 
 mistaken heroes, but they are heroes none the less ; 
 and there is no limit to the possible progress of a 
 community of men with powers such as these. 
 
 But this progress may be indefinitely retarded if the 
 motives by which they are actuated are not themselves 
 progressive, and such as will lead to a continuously 
 wider development of the self. Any propaganda, for 
 instance, which appeals only or mainly to material 
 needs, will fail to raise its followers to any high level 
 of civilization or happiness, for it is concentrating the 
 attention of the self on comparatively narrow and 
 unprogressive issues. And any propaganda which 
 thrives by the inculcation of class hatred and jealousy 
 works for the destruction of its disciples as surely as 
 for that of the community ; for hatred and jealousy
 
 134 TFIK rSYCIIOT.OCY OV SOCIAL I'kfXlRESS 
 
 arc cHsintcj^n-atinc^ forces leading alike to madness in 
 the individual self and civil wars in the state. 
 
 All one-sided and emotional teaching {irrational 
 teaching) has this disintegrating effect. At first it may 
 seem successful ; the mind seems to acquire new 
 experience and to respond to new motives, and only 
 time can show whether the interests and the motives 
 are such as will enable it to organize life successfully, 
 — /. c. in correspondence with the wider interests of 
 the community. For instance, to illustrate by extreme 
 cases, under certain conditions, such as the influence 
 of some strong emotion, certain elements of the self 
 can be maintained in predominance to the total 
 exclusion of others, which are, technically speaking, 
 inhibited, — prevented from coming into action. This 
 is the explanation of one type of conversion, such as 
 that practised by the Salvation Army. Experience 
 seems to show that there is no permanence in con- 
 versions of this type, unless supplemented by the 
 acquisition of really rational and organizing ideas. 
 The bad self is merely stupefied or drugged, and 
 sooner or later reasserts itself with all its old power. 
 Cases of hypnotism are analogous ; almost all the 
 mental elements are lulled into stupor ; the self be- 
 comes identified with one small group of presentations 
 dominated by the operator, who thus acquires complete 
 power over his attenuated victim. But influence of 
 this kind can have no real organizing power over the 
 true life ; it works by suppression and not by develop- 
 ment ; and is always liable to be frustrated by any- 
 thing which arouses the fuller and wider self. 
 
 So with much of the teaching which is offered to 
 our working-classes to-day. It gains its influence 
 not by presenting them with wider issues and stronger
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL PROGRESS 135 
 
 sympathies, which would enable them to harmonize 
 their lives with that of the community, and so to share 
 in as well as to advance its progress ; but by concen- 
 trating the attention of the class upon its narrower 
 self, and by exciting disintegrating emotions. The 
 elements of a prosperous and progressive community 
 must play into, support, and recognize each other, just 
 as the elements of a sane and progressive mind must 
 support and recognize each other. The growth of 
 wider interests should mean, not the suppression, but 
 the fuller development of narrower ones ; and what is 
 needed in social as in individual life is the introduction 
 of organizing and not of disintegrating ideas.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 There are few subjects upon which so much has 
 been said or written as this one of how women should 
 be educated, and I suppose there is none upon which 
 there has been greater diversity of opinion. The 
 development of the question has been a remarkable 
 one, and well deserving of much closer study than we 
 can give to it here ; for it consists in nothing less 
 than the slow recognition by humanity that Reason 
 is of the same nature in man as in woman. That the 
 recognition has been slow is due no doubt to faults 
 on both sides ; or rather, for I wish to avoid the im- 
 putations of injustice or rivalry which are so apt to 
 embitter discussions of this kind and render them 
 unfruitful, it is due to short-comings which could only 
 be conquered by the general progress of human 
 nature to a higher level. But that it is still incom- 
 plete seems to suggest that natural limitations have 
 become hardened into unnatural prejudices, which 
 call for special efforts to break them down. 
 
 The subject is especially interesting in its purely 
 educational bearings, for the history of women's 
 education gives us points of view which are hardly to 
 
 I ^6
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 137 
 
 be got elsewhere. Looked at broadly the history of 
 man's education is neither more nor less than the 
 history of Reason, pushing forward to the best of its 
 ability in whatever direction it can make headway; 
 knowing little or nothing beforehand of what it will 
 achieve, but recognizing no closed doors in its ex- 
 plorations. To it obstacles exist only to be overcome, 
 and from every victory it issues with redoubled 
 strength and vigour. But when we turn to the 
 education of women, as it has been for the most part 
 carried on, we find something altogether different. 
 Here the path has always been planned out before- 
 hand; men have said: "This little sidewalk is suitable 
 for you, here you will meet with no obstacles and 
 need make no exertions ; you may come a little way 
 along this road which we have prepared for you, but 
 you must not try that other, it is too steep." And so 
 it has come about that the minds of women have 
 generally been artificial productions, based upon pre- 
 conceived ideas of what was suitable to women ; they 
 have never shared in the struggle forward, and thus 
 have failed to attain to the firmness and vigour which 
 are the rightful attributes of Reason. To be " strong- 
 minded " has always been a reproach to women : I 
 am not sure but what it is so still. And yet what 
 quality is more essential to a human being than 
 strength of mind, strength, that is, of Reason and of 
 reasonable will .-' 
 
 So far, then, as regards women, we have a history, 
 not so much of their education as of theories about 
 their education ; and it will help us to understand the 
 position if we look at a few typical instances of the 
 way in which it has been thought of in the past. It 
 would hardly be to my point to quote the oppression
 
 13S Till'; KDUCATION OV WOMEN 
 
 of women amongst savacjc tribes, nor their suppres- 
 sion amongst Eastern peoples ; for where brute force 
 or superstition is the ruHng power we need not expect 
 to find the claims of Reason recognized. But how 
 was it in the most civilized state of ancient days, 
 where the intellectual life reached its highest point 
 and was held in most veneration ? " Whatever their 
 (i.e. women's) position may have been, they are, when 
 we see them in the age of Pericles, surrounded by 
 restrictions of the closest kind. They live in separate 
 apartments, usually in the upper parts of the house. 
 They very rarely went out of the house. If we look 
 into the agora or the streets of Athens, we see very 
 few women, if any ; probably none of free citizen 
 origin. No education seems to have been given them. 
 It is possible that the wife of Sophocles or Phidias 
 could neither read nor write. The intellectual life of 
 Athens was not for them. The philosophical move- 
 ments of the time did not touch them. The theatre 
 was so intimately connected with religion that its 
 doors could not be entirely closed against them, but 
 they were only allowed to be present at the tragedies. 
 The wives and mothers of the great men of Athens 
 are, for the most part, names only, to which we can 
 attach no character at all." And again, " Plato's 
 statement that the highest intellect among women is 
 only equal to that of a second-rate man, has made 
 him seem to some a contemner of women. But the 
 really striking thing about his proposals, if viewed by 
 the light of contemporary social conditions, is his 
 demand for a fuller education, physical and mental, 
 for women, his claim that women shall not be excluded 
 from the life of the State." ^ 
 
 * G. Grant, Greece in the Age of Pericles, p. 229, scq.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 139 
 
 A passage has also been pointed out to mc in 
 which an Athenian gentleman describes his wife and 
 her duties. He says : " ' What should she know when 
 she came to me ? she was only fourteen, and had 
 always lived under the strictest supervision, that she 
 might see and hear and ask questions as little as 
 possible. All that I could expect was that she could 
 return you a garment if you gave her the wool, and 
 had seen how work is given out to the servants.' In 
 this, which is plainly held up as an ideal union, the 
 wife was to be house mistress, and definitely to 
 remain in charge ' at home ' while the man was 
 ' abroad.' It appears that she could keep and read 
 an inventory ; but it is thought that the education of 
 Athenian women did not include more reading and 
 writing than this. The ordinary union at Athens 
 involved the same ignorance and exclusion of the 
 wife, often without the safeguard presented by active 
 household occupation." ^ 
 
 This was what we may call the domestic ideal of 
 women's education as conceived by the Greeks. I 
 am far from saying that it is a low one, but the 
 domestic ideal is by itself insufficient while women 
 have minds which cannot be confined in narrow 
 routines. In Greece of old, as in England at the 
 present day, energies which were refused their natural 
 outlet turned to follies and mischief. " Plato," we are 
 told, " would actually prohibit all private worship at 
 altars and temples, because of the tendency of women 
 and invalids to make and pay fanciful vows to gods 
 and inferior spirits, filling all the houses and villages 
 with altars and temples ; whereas Plato says to found 
 a temple or divine service is a serious thing, and 
 * Companion to Plato's Republic^ Bosanquet.
 
 I40 THK EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 requires a great mind. So Mcnander's Misogynist 
 complains : 'The gods are especially a nuisance to us 
 married men, for we have always to be keeping some 
 festival. We have family prayers five times a day; 
 seven maid-servants stood in a circle playing cym- 
 bals, while our ladies chanted ' ; and finally Plutarch's 
 picture: ' It is false to say that idle people are cheer- 
 ful, if so, women would be more cheerful than men, 
 as they mostly stay at home ; but as it is, " though 
 the north wind may not touch the tender maid," yet 
 vexation and distraction and ill-feeling, owing to 
 jealousy and superstition and innumerable empty 
 fancies, find their way into the boudoir.' " 
 
 To my mind there is something very naive in 
 the way in which men will constantly point out the 
 ill effects upon women of idleness and untrained 
 faculties ; they seldom recognize that the discomfort 
 they experience from these ill effects is, after all, only 
 the natural consequence of their own theories about 
 women's education. 
 
 But the domestic ideal reaches a much higher level 
 among the Hebrews, just because they allow a wider 
 scope to the energies of the woman. Perhaps she is 
 a little too energetic to be comfortable, but it is a fine 
 picture. " She scekcth wool and flax and worketh 
 willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant's 
 ships ; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth 
 also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her 
 household, and a portion to her maidens. She con- 
 sidereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her 
 hands she planteth a vineyard, She girdeth her loins 
 with strength, and strcngtheneth her arms. She per- 
 ceiveth that her merchandise is good ; her candle 
 goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 141 
 
 spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth 
 out her hands to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth 
 her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the 
 snow for her household, for all her household are 
 clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings 
 of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. . . . Give 
 her of the fruit of her hands ; and let her own works 
 praise her in the gates." 
 
 In different forms and different degrees this ideal 
 has held its own down to the present day. It is too 
 true in its main outlines to ever fail of exercising a 
 great influence, but by itself it is insufficient. I find 
 an amusing counterpart to it written at the end of the 
 last century, which represents very well the narrow 
 range of interests and waste of time to which such an 
 ideal may lead when it is not supplemented on the 
 intellectual side. A father is writing about the 
 education of his girls, and says that he resolved "to 
 bestow that care on my daughters to which only sons 
 are commonly thought entitled. But my wife's 
 notions of education differ widely from mine. She is 
 an irreconcileable enemy to Idleness, and considers 
 every state of life as Idleness in which the hands are 
 not employed, or some art acquired, by which she 
 thinks money may be got or saved. In pursuance of 
 this principle, she calls up her daughters at a certain 
 hour and appoints them a task of needlework to be 
 performed before breakfast. They are confined in a 
 garret, which has its window in the roof, both because 
 work is best done at a skylight, and because children 
 are apt to lose time by looking about them. 
 
 " They bring down their work to breakfast, and as 
 they deserve are commended or reproved ; they are 
 then sent up with a new task till dinner. If no
 
 142 Tlir: EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 company is expected their mother sits with them the 
 whole afternoon to direct their operations and to draw 
 patterns, and is sometimes denied to her nearest 
 relations when she is cnj^aged in teachincj them a 
 new stitch. 
 
 " By this continual exercise of their diligence, she 
 has obtained a very considerable number of laborious 
 performances. We have twice as many fire-screens 
 as chimneys, and three flourished quilts for ever}' bed. 
 Half the rooms are adorned with a kind of siitile 
 pictures which imitate tapestry. I^ut all this work is 
 not set out to show ; she has boxes filled with knit 
 garters and braided shoes. She has twenty covers 
 for side-saddles embroidered with silver flowers, and 
 has curtains wrought with gold in various figures, 
 which she resolves some time or other to hang up. 
 All these she displays to her company whenever she 
 is elate with merit and eager for praise ; and amidst 
 the praises which herself and her friends bestow upon 
 her merit, she never fails to turn to me, and ask what 
 all these would cost if I had been to buy them. . . . 
 In the meantime the girls grow up in total ignorance 
 of everything past, present, and future." ^ 
 
 Out of the insufificiency of the domestic ideal to 
 afford interest for all the faculties and energies of 
 women in modern times, we find another suggestion 
 arising which is still very influential. It is the sugges- 
 tion that perhaps after all it may be well to educate 
 women just enough to keep them contented and out 
 of mischief, enough even, it may be, to make them 
 more interesting companions for men. This is what 
 we may call, in its developed form, the accomplishment 
 ideal. A writer in 1710 sa}'s, " I could name you 
 
 1 The Jd/cr, vol. i.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 143 
 
 twenty families, where all the girls hear of in their life 
 is, that it is time to rise and to come to dinner, as 
 if they were so insignificant as to be wholly provided 
 for when they are fed and clothed. It is with great 
 indignation that I see such crowds of the female world 
 lost to human society, and condemned to a laziness, 
 which makes life pass away with less relish than in 
 the hardest labour. Palestris in her drawing-room 
 is supported by spirits to keep off the return of spleen 
 and melancholy before she can get over half of the 
 day for want of something to do, while the wench in 
 the kitchen sings and scowers from morning to night." 
 He proposes as a remedy that " those who are in the 
 quality of gentlewomen, should propose to themselves 
 some suitable method of passing away their time. 
 This would furnish them with reflections and senti- 
 ments proper for the companions of reasonable men." 
 As an aid to them he suggests " for the better improve- 
 ment of the fair sex, a ' Female Library.' This 
 collection of books shall consist of such authors as do 
 not corrupt while they divert, but shall tend more 
 immediately to improve them as they are women." 
 " They shall be such as shall not hurt a feature by the 
 austerity of their refections." ^ I like this last precau- 
 tion ; it reminds me of a lady I once knew who would 
 not let her daughters learn Latin, lest it should make 
 them hard-featured. 
 
 Three years later, a writer in the Tatler takes up 
 the subject. " I have often wondered that learning 
 is not thought a proper ingredient in the education 
 of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have 
 the same improveable mind as the male part of the 
 species, why should they not be cultivated by the 
 
 ^ Guardian., \ol. i.
 
 144 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 same method ? . . . Learnincr and knowledge are 
 perfections in us, not as wc are men, but as we arc 
 reasonable creatures, in which order of beings the 
 female world is upon the same level with the male. 
 Wc ought to consider in this particular not what is 
 the sex, but what is the species to which they 
 belong." 
 
 So far our writer's arguments arc irresistible ; but 
 the conclusions he draws from them seem from our 
 later point of view miserably inadequate to his theme. 
 He adduces an instance of what might be achieved 
 by educated women in " an excellent lady," who " in 
 the space of one summer furnished a gallery with 
 chairs and couches of her own and her daughter's 
 working ; and at the same time heard all Dr. Tillot- 
 son's sermons twice over." 
 
 I quote these passages to .show how slowl)- and 
 through what curious and devious ways we have 
 reached the idea that women should receive a dis- 
 interested and thorough education. Those who do 
 not yet realize it should read Mary Wollstonecraft's 
 Vindicatiojt of the Rights of lVo;;/en, a vigorous pro- 
 test against the artificiality of the education given to 
 girls a century ago. She gives a vivid description of 
 the softness and dissimulation which were feigned 
 and cultivated as appropriate to the sex and likely to 
 be pleasing to men. To have a small appetite, to be 
 easily frightened and very ignorant, and to be well 
 versed in the art of skilful flattery ; this was the type 
 of character aimed at. That there had been better 
 notions which had been forgotten seems probable, 
 and of course there were exceptions, but it is not 
 until the beginning of this century that we find much 
 sign of improvement.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 145 
 
 Then, indeed, women seem to have begun to read ; 
 partly, perhaps, because of the development of a 
 literature of novels and easy poetry suitable to their 
 undeveloped intellects. But if we may judge from 
 the heroines of those novels, the object of their reading 
 was mainly (as was suggested a hundred years before) 
 " to furnish them with reflections and sentiments 
 proper to the companions of reasonable men." All 
 Miss Austen's heroines are duly furnished with senti- 
 ments and reflections, of which they make very skilful 
 use in their converse with reasonable (and unreason- 
 able) men. A starlight night or the death of a friend ; 
 a country walk or the loss of a lover ; any occasion 
 serves equally well for the utterance of elegantly 
 worded reflections on the beauties of nature or the 
 vicissitudes of life. The art of quotation especially 
 seems to have been prized before the days of birthday 
 books and Shakspeare Calendars. 
 
 It is always with diffidence that one differs from 
 the views of so great a teacher as Mr. Ruskin ; but 
 to my mind his really beautiful chapters on the 
 education of women {Sesmne and Lilies) are marred 
 by these " accomplishment theories." " All such 
 knowledge," he says, "should be given her as may 
 enable her to understand, and even to aid, the work 
 of men ; and yet it should be given, not as know- 
 ledge — not as if it were or could be for her an object 
 to know, but only to feel and to judge." . . . And 
 again, " A woman in any rank of life ought to know 
 whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know 
 it in a different way. His command of it should be 
 foundational and progressive ; hers, general and 
 accomplished for daily and helpful use. . . . Speak- 
 ing broadly, a man ought to know any language or 
 
 L
 
 146 Tlir. KDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 science he learns thoroughly — while a woman ought 
 to know the same language, or science, only so far 
 as may enable her to sympathize in her husband's 
 pleasures and in those of his best friends." 
 
 Apart from the difficulties of putting this theory 
 into practice — for how is it possible for a girl to 
 regulate her education by the requirements of a 
 husband who is presumably not yet known ? how is 
 she to know just how much philosophy or science, 
 just what language, will be pleasing to him and his 
 best friends? — it seems to me radically false. Unless 
 the object of learning is to know, and to know funda- 
 mentally and progressively, then learning becomes 
 mere trifling and waste of power, it loses all dignity, 
 and is degraded to the level of a pastime, or a task, as 
 the case may be. 
 
 The opening sentence of the Encyclopcsdia of 
 Education runs : " The ideal presented to a young 
 girl is to be amiable, inoffensive, always ready to give 
 pleasure, and to be pleased ; " and no doubt this still 
 represents the ordinary feeling. The implication of 
 course is, that no good work for the community is 
 expected from women in their capacity as rational 
 beings; and it is only in the latter half of the century 
 that there has been any marked advance from this 
 position. Public opinion must have been changing 
 for some time to make advance possible, and every 
 one will be able to call to mind particular instances 
 of well-educated women in past generations. But by 
 real advance I mean something more than this ; I 
 mean the abandonment of all artificial theories as to 
 there being some particular kind and degree of educa- 
 tion which is appropriate to women merely as an 
 accomplishment, as making them more amusing and
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 147 
 
 interesting to men. In other words, it is only in the 
 second half of this century that the way to real know- 
 ledge has been thrown open to women to follow as 
 far as their power and inclinations may take them. 
 That is what I take the higher education of women 
 to mean ; simply the abandonment of any artificial 
 standpoint. It carries with it no necessary implica- 
 tion of equality or rivalry with men, it urges upon 
 none a task which may be unsuited to their powers 
 or their duties ; but demands tJiat zvJiat knoivledge 
 zvonien do have shall be true knowledge, and not mere 
 accomplishment, and that the best shall be open to them 
 so far as they are able to avail themselves of it. 
 
 The first step towards a definite recognition of this 
 policy was taken in 1865, when the local examinations, 
 which were previously open to boys only, were thrown 
 open to girls. This has led by beautifully logical 
 steps to the growth of a better system of education, 
 which, being " fundamental and progressive," has 
 carried women into the very centres of learning them- 
 selves ; and there they are now endeavouring to 
 secure themselves against any reaction in favour of 
 artificial theories. 
 
 The Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary 
 Education tells us that : " Since the Schools' Enquiry 
 Commission made their report in 186S, there has 
 probably been more change in the condition of the 
 Secondary Education of girls than in any other 
 department of education. The report of that Com- 
 mission, the action of the Universities in regard to 
 the higher education of women, and other causes, 
 have produced an effect which is gradually pervading 
 all classes of the community ; and through this or 
 other causes, the idea that a girl, like a boy, may be
 
 I4S THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 fitted by education to earn a livelihood, or, at any 
 rate, to be a more useful member of society, has 
 become more widely diffused. The supply of good 
 schools for girls is now far larger than it was twenty- 
 five years ago." During the same time the various 
 colleges for women have been organized, and to a 
 certain number of women at least the best education 
 available is open. 
 
 What is it that we have gained, or hope to gain, 
 from this advance .-' What are the advantages of the 
 new over the old education ^ In the first place, there 
 is a very solid gain in commercial value. That from 
 the most purely economic point of view a " good 
 education " is a good investment of capital let the 
 hundreds of women testify who are earning an inde- 
 pendent living by thorough and honest work, instead 
 of being inefficient and underpaid nursery governesses. 
 
 But apart from the economic point of view, and 
 even more important, we must estimate the effects 
 on the character of what our ancestors were pleased 
 to call the "female mind" itself. The power of 
 working steadily with one object in view over a pro- 
 longed period of time, is one that is new to us as a 
 class, and which cannot fail to make us more efficient 
 and helpful whatever the course of life we may enter 
 upon. The analogous power of overcoming obstacles 
 by persistent struggle, with its accompanying delight 
 of stimulating progress, is a gain that is too great to 
 be measured in money or even in words. And most 
 important of all is the opening of the mind to the 
 wider issues of life and thought. Even if it were true, 
 as our opponents urge, that women can never do 
 original work, it is no little thing to be able to escape 
 from the harassment of petty vexations by sympathy
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 149 
 
 with great interests, or to know how to order our own 
 lives in harmony with the reaHties of progress instead 
 of being blindly hustled into submission. 
 
 Nor to those who can see largely is there anything 
 but gain in these qualities from the most domestic 
 point of view. The education of the next generation 
 is still, and always must be, largely in our hands ; 
 and the education of the boy and man can never 
 undo the education of the child. If that is not 
 " foundational and progressive " the superstructure 
 will be unstable and stunted. The organization of 
 the household again requires for its perfection the 
 same powers. Failure in this work, as in most, may 
 generally be traced either to (i) attaching importance 
 to the wrong things, or (2) inaccurate and careless 
 habits ; and only a mind that has large views and is 
 well disciplined will avoid both these errors. So far 
 from a good education unfitting women for domestic 
 life, it must, if really good, improve whatever capacity 
 they may already have for it. 
 
 But it is not wholly, or indeed to my mind mainly, 
 for the sake of women who can go to school and 
 college, that this question is important. It is the 
 community as a whole, and most of all the industrial 
 section of the communit)^ which will benefit by the 
 change as it becomes more and more widespread. 
 
 Let me revert to the principle I have suggested ; 
 the principle that what knowledge women receive 
 shall be true knowledge, and that the best shall be 
 open to them in so far as they can avail themselves 
 of it. How far is this principle applied, and how far 
 is it capable of application among the industrial 
 classes } Just here and there no doubt, where the 
 question is confused by no side issues, it is beginning
 
 I50 TIIF, I'JX'CATION OF WOMEN 
 
 to be recof^nizcd that women should be thoroucrhly 
 trained in the best way for the work they will have 
 to do. This is the case, for instance, with nursing ; 
 here there is no question of rivalry with men to rouse 
 hostility, and here the benefits to the community of 
 really good work arc immediately obvious. Here, 
 therefore, the days of inefficiency are rapidly passing 
 away; Sarah Gamp is becoming an impossibility, and 
 will soon be regarded as a fabulous monster, and 
 every nurse is expected to be properly trained and 
 qualified. But in by far the majority of cases girls 
 still receive no training to speak of, before taking up 
 the work by which they are to earn their living. If 
 we watch the boys and girls as they pass out from 
 the elementary schools, we see at once the contrast 
 beginning that will mark their whole lives in future. 
 Except in the lowest class, or in a family which is 
 going down-hill, the boy is put to " learn his trade." 
 Whatever it may be, he expects to serve his time as 
 a learner, and his parents are prepared to maintain 
 him wholly or partially for a considerable time, while 
 he acquires sufficient knowledge to carry him forward. 
 With girls this is as a rule quite different. True, they 
 are put to work at once, but some occupation is 
 chosen in which the returns will be speedy, and that 
 means that they will be small. Of course there are 
 many exceptions, but in general it is regarded as 
 unnecessary to secure a good industrial training for 
 girls. Now, the " trades " which bring in the quickest 
 returns are those requiring a merely mechanical and 
 easily acquired dexterity, which practice may perfect, 
 but which is useful onl)' for the one purpose, calls for 
 no exercise of the intellect, and is capable of no 
 development. The result is inevitable : all purel)'
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 151 
 
 mechanical work must sooner or later be taken over 
 by machinery, and the unfortunate women can only 
 hold their own against machinery by doing more and 
 more work for less and less pay. In general terms 
 the process is this ; one of these undertrained girls is 
 starting at box-making, cap-making, feather-curling, 
 button-making, or any one of the hundred odd 
 " trades " that are supported by women's labour. 
 She thinks herself fairly well off at first with her six 
 or seven shillings a week ; she is living at home, the 
 work is monotonous, indeed, but not exhausting, and 
 the hours are moderate. She continues for some 
 years, her fingers getting more dexterous with habit, 
 but her brain is never exercised in any way, and 
 brain and fingers both become so " set " that by 
 middle-age she is incapable of doing or learning to 
 do any kind of new work. Then fashion changes, or 
 machinery becomes imminent ; more work must be 
 done and less money can be earned ; the poor body, 
 enfeebled by insufficient nourishment, is called upon 
 for greater and greater exertions, until, of course, it 
 breaks down altogether. Then the employer, who 
 has only been keeping her on at starv^ation wages, 
 because the " poor thing had worked forty years for 
 the firm, and could turn to nothing else," introduces 
 a neat little machine which never gets tired, and if 
 women are employed at all, it is to do the more 
 rational work of supervision. That is the only cure 
 for our "sweated" industries; women must be 
 educated above the le\-el where they need fear rivalry 
 with machinery, they must be taught to use their 
 intellects as well as their muscles. This is one reason 
 why domestic service never falls quite so low as 
 merely mechanical trades ; however monotonous it
 
 152 TIIK KDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 may tend to t^row, it always calls for some resource 
 and adaptability, and therefore a domestic servant is 
 apt to be at her best at an age when her sister who 
 learned a "trade" is worn out as a machine, and half 
 stupefied as a rational being. 
 
 Of course the arguments in favour of superficial 
 training for girls are quite familiar to us all. They 
 turn upon the question of marriage, and run into one 
 of two forms, according as our opponents are econo- 
 mists or .sentimentalists. Put briefly wc may call 
 them (i) the waste-of-time-and-money theor}% and 
 (2) the unfitting-for-domcstic-life theory. 
 
 (i) Why trouble ourselves to give a good industrial 
 training to girls who will in all probability marry ? 
 The answer is in the first place, that though most 
 women marry, yet many do not, and wc have no right 
 to punish those who do not by condemning them to 
 the life of slavery I have described. Moreover, ?io 
 girl should be allowed to feel that marriage is her 
 only resource against grinding povert)- ; no girl should 
 be put to such work that she " would marry any one 
 to get out of it." And again, it is constantly- 
 happening in the industrial world, that wives and 
 widows j/i?fs/ work. When the father deserts his 
 famil)", or falls sick or dies, the mother is even more 
 imperatively called upon than the single woman to 
 earn, and her position is indeed a cruel one when she 
 comes to the labour market with nothing to offer but 
 willing toil at the most unskilled work. 
 
 (2) We have already dealt, to some extent, with 
 the theory that good education unfits for a domestic 
 life. We make the same rcpl}- with regard to the 
 higher kinds of industrial training. If economy, 
 resource, industr}', method, and self-control are desir-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 153 
 
 able qualities in a home, then the girls who have been 
 well trained in any of the higher branches of industry 
 will so far be better wives and mothers. But the old 
 superstition that ignorance is the best marriage dower 
 dies hard, and objections are even raised to the 
 introduction of sufficient physiology into the curricu- 
 lum of the Board School continuation classes, to 
 enable girls to take an intelligent care of children. A 
 little botany, I have heard it said, is "nicer" and 
 more " suitable for girls." 
 
 But in arguing that all girls should be well trained, 
 I am not arguing that under normal conditions 
 married women s/ion/d work. From my own experience 
 amongst the poor, I can bear witness to all the evils 
 which are attributed to it ; the neglected houses and 
 children, and uneconomical housekeeping due to 
 the custom can hardly be too strongly portrayed. 
 Fortunately it is a custom which is decreasing among 
 the working-class. But what I maintain is, that all 
 women should be in a position to earn a decent living 
 for themselves and those dependent on them when 
 occasion arises. 
 
 Finally, there is one difficulty running through the 
 whole range of the question which must be faced. 
 Does the better earning capacity of women injure the 
 economic prospects of men? Is it really an alternative 
 whether women should work or men ? If it were so, 
 I am inclined to think we should do better to submit, 
 rather than to burden ourselves with the support of 
 our male relations. But the question in the long run 
 is absurd. It comes to asking whether there is only 
 a limited amount of good work to be done in the 
 world, so that more given to women means less for 
 men.
 
 IS4 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 I am well aware that cases can be pointed out 
 where women seem to have ousted men from some 
 particular shop or employment. It will c,rcncrall)' be 
 found that this is due to defective orc^anization on the 
 part of the women, who do not stand out for the 
 proper wage ; and for this the men who exclude them 
 from their trade-unions have largely themselves to 
 thank. Jhit I take my stand on the facts adduced in 
 Miss Collet's report on the Employment of Women 
 and Girls (1894), which showed that where the 
 employment of women is increasing it is not to the 
 exclusion of the men, but merely to supplement 
 them. " No fact comes out more clearly than that 
 the occupations in which women and girls have been 
 employed on work hitherto done by men and boys, 
 are those in which the employment of the latter has 
 increased at an abnormal rate." 
 
 But in industrial as in college life the importance 
 of the issue does not lie only, or indeed mainly, in the 
 commercial value of a good education. We must 
 look for it also in the wider life, and the more dignified 
 position which it alone can bestow. Bitterly as the 
 women of the lowest classes suffer from their low 
 wage-earning powers, they suffer still more hopelessly 
 from the position of social inferiority which the}- 
 occupy in the eyes of the men of their own house- 
 holds. It is this which imposes upon them a life-long 
 submission to the tyranny of men and of circumstances ; 
 and from this there is no way of rescuing them, but 
 by raising them to a higher level of intelligence. 
 
 To sum up : The education of women in the past 
 has been guided by artificial standards, (i) The 
 Feminine. (2) The Pleasing and Convenient to 
 Men. The Feminine may be either a positive
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 155 
 
 standard of foolishness, or a negative one of " good 
 enough for women " ; while the " Pleasing to Men " 
 varies with varieties of men. 
 
 In place of these standards we wish to substitute 
 the idea that nothing is good enough but the best, 
 and that this can only be obtained by a disinterested 
 education. 
 
 And we want this idea to be applied to the whole 
 community, in the interests of the whole community. 
 One of the great arguments against a standing army 
 is, that it lives upon society without producing any- 
 thing towards its maintenance. We may with more 
 safety begin our reforms by disbanding our standing 
 army of incapable and idle women, and setting them 
 all to useful work. 
 
 Moreover, we want this idea to prevail not onl)' for 
 the sake of the comparatively few women who can 
 pass from school to college, but also, and still more 
 ardently, for the sake of the great numbers who suffer 
 economically and socially from their incapacity. 
 
 I have said that women are now endeavouring to 
 secure themselves against any reaction towards 
 artificial standards. To touch very lightly upon a 
 controversial topic, I would suggest that the real 
 strength of the movement of women for admission to 
 the Universities does not He in their claim to the 
 commercial value of the degree. That, no doubt, is 
 important ; but far more important is the public and 
 official recognition that the artificial standards are to 
 be abandoned. That we are right in regarding this 
 as our only safeguard is, I think, shown by some of 
 the suggestions of our opponents. A women's 
 university, with a curriculum specially suited to 
 women, and even the introduction of arts and
 
 156 Till'; KUUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 accomplishments, are, I believe, among those sug- 
 gestions ; and however mildly they are introduced 
 at first, it is difficult to doubt that they would finally 
 result in the rehabilitation of the old standards. 
 
 Our plea, after all, is only one which was made for 
 us thousands of years ago: 
 
 " Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her 
 own works praise her in the gates."
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF 
 WOMEN 
 
 I HAVE already spoken of the general arguments 
 for giving to women a better industrial training than 
 they get at present ; but the importance of the matter 
 seems to me so great that I propose now to press the 
 question into further detail. 
 
 First, I will endeavour to make more clear the need 
 there is for change by giving some sort of picture of 
 the state of things as it is at present. For the purpose 
 of this I shall use partly statistics taken from Giffen's 
 Report on the Wages of the Manual Labour Classes, 
 1893; from the Report on the Employment of 
 Women, Royal Commission on Labour, 1893 5 ^.nd 
 from the Report on the Employment of Women and 
 Girls, Board of Trade, 1894. 
 
 In the first Report is given a table of thirty-eight 
 miscellaneous industries (p. 470), in which are em- 
 ployed 355.838 men, whose earnings vary from under 
 los. to over £2. The average wage is 24^. ■/(/. per 
 week. 
 
 On page 474 is given another table showing the 
 157
 
 158 TinO INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 
 
 earnings of 151,263 women, who are employed in 
 twenty-three of the same industries. Their average 
 earnings are \2s. ?>d. per week; little more than half 
 as much as the men receive. Of these women 26 per 
 cent, earn less than \os. a week ; 50 per cent, between 
 IOJ-. and 15^.; 1 8*5 per cent, between 15^-. and 20s. \ 
 5'4 between 20s. and 25^-.; and only ci per cent, 
 between 25^-. and 30^'. 
 
 Here then we find at the outset a striking difference 
 between the wages of men and women in the same 
 industries ; due, partly no doubt to other causes, but 
 in the main to lack of industrial training. The argu- 
 ment that it is physical strength which is deficient in 
 women will always have some weight, but loses much 
 of its importance when we remember that it is skilled 
 work which commands the highest wages, not work 
 requiring most strength. 
 
 The point here is not that women are paid less for 
 doing the same work as men, though this also happens 
 now and then, but that they are usually employed 
 at those parts of the work which require less skill ; 
 which, generally speaking, means less training. That 
 with better training they can earn more is sufficiently 
 proved by the fact that out of the women in question, 
 198 actually did earn between 25^-, and 30^. a week. 
 
 These tables present the problem under the most 
 favourable conditions. Can we regard it as in any 
 way satisfactory, as a state of things in which we can 
 acquiesce? We shall often be told that it is quite 
 all right, that men have families to support, and 
 therefore ought to be much better paid than women. 
 There are many things which might be said about 
 this, amongst them that what we object to is not 
 "more for men," but "so little for women." But for
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 159 
 
 the present we must be content with pointing out the 
 following facts. 
 
 Mr. Charles Booth tells us that in London alone 
 185,000 women are Jieads of families. Here then we 
 may meet the enemy by borrowing his own argument 
 and turning it against him. The need to support a 
 family is sufficient reason for earning good wages ; 
 let us therefore act upon it and make our many 
 thousands of women who are going to be heads of 
 families able to earn good money. And because we 
 shall never know which of all our women they will 
 be, and because the necessity will be thrust upon 
 them by dire misfortune, not assumed voluntarily and 
 for their own satisfaction, this means that all women 
 should be industrially trained. The majority of these 
 " heads of families " will be widows, with families to 
 maintain, and to them we must add the many families 
 where the man is alive, and therefore returned as 
 " head," but owing to physical or moral infirmity has 
 to be maintained by the wife. In all these cases 
 good wages are quite as necessary as they are to 
 the man. 
 
 But to take an average of \2s. Sd. a week as repre- 
 sentative of women's earnings would be to neglect 
 altogether the darkest side of the picture, which we 
 should have in our minds before we can appreciate 
 the importance of the problem. There are many 
 industries requiring a minimum of skill and training, 
 involving great toil under miserable conditions, and 
 paid so badly that it is the rarest thing to find a man 
 working at them at all. The Report of the Women's 
 Industrial Council on Home Industries gives par- 
 ticulars of thirty-five of these. I will give the earnings 
 in some of them.
 
 i6o TIIK INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OK WOMEN 
 
 •Ih'ush-dniiviiig: earnings range from 8^/. a day for 
 eight hours' work, to \s. gd. for fifteen hours' work. 
 Six shillings a week seems a fair average ; or, measured 
 in hours, \d. to \\d. an hour. "It is practically an 
 unskilled industry, in which the supply exceeds the 
 demand to an almost unlimited extent," 
 
 Match-box making: rates of pay vary from i \d. 
 to 2\d. for a gross of match-boxes. The earnings 
 work out at \d. an hour or less ; in one instance two 
 women worked ten hours for ij-. 2d.\ but from \\d. 
 to \s. a day for twelve hours is the general rate. 
 Children frequently help ; in one case a boy of four 
 was found helping. The cost of materials is about 
 2d. in every 2s. 6d., besides a fire to dry the boxes. 
 Nearly all the houses where this work is done are 
 horribly dirty, and the smell of sour jjaste is revolting. 
 
 Biittoii-Jwliiig: Id. per dozen collars, three button- 
 holes in each collar ; cost of thread, 2ld. in every 
 2s. 6d. earned. For shirts with fourteen holes, id. 
 each. Earnings, iid. for eleven hours' work. 
 
 Paper-bags: earnings average about \s. lod. a day 
 for ten hours' work. 
 
 Pre-eminent amongst these home-industries for 
 bad pay and bad conditions is fur-jnilling. Of this I 
 will quote the report in full : 
 
 " Fur-pulling may fairly claim to occupy one of the 
 lowest places in the ranks of women's labour. The 
 picture of the women working is a haunting one ; 
 they are scantily clothed in rough, sacking-like dresses, 
 open for the most part at the throat, and letting the 
 flesh appear through various slits and holes. This 
 garment is matted with fluff or down. The women 
 work and eat and sleep in an atmosphere thick with 
 impalpable hairs, and tainted with the sickly smell
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN i6i 
 
 of the skins. Everything around them is coated with 
 fur, and they themselves look scarcely more human 
 than the animals beside them, from the thick deposit 
 of fur which covers them from head to foot, and forces 
 its way into the eyes and nose and lungs of the 
 miserable workers. The rabbit-skins are given to 
 the out-workers in ' turns ' of sixty skins to be cleared, 
 /. e. for the long, outside hair to be pulled off with the 
 plucking-knife, and the fur reduced to the soft, silky 
 down which grows close to the actual skin. For these 
 turns they are paid from ^d. to \s. 2d., according to 
 the size and quality of the skins ; ' furriners,' or 
 Australian skins, fetching the highest price. A turn 
 and a half of the small, or a turn of the large skins, 
 is the amount usually done in a long day's work, and 
 the average daily earnings are \s. id. From this a 
 deduction has to be made for knife-sharpening and 
 shields, about ^d. a week. Occasionally the pulled- 
 out hair, which is returned to the factory to be sold 
 as cheap bedding, is said to be deficient in weight, 
 and the amount is deducted from the price paid. 
 There is very little variation either in earnings or 
 conditions of life. The women suffer greatly from 
 chronic asthma, brought on by the fur penetrating to 
 the lungs, and by the acids with which the colonial 
 skins are cleaned ; and the rate of infant mortality 
 in the homes of the pullers appears to be abnormally 
 high." 
 
 Some of the industries in which much higher wages 
 are paid than those I have quoted, are in reality even 
 less desirable, owing to the fact that they are " season 
 trades," /. e. that the women may be out of work 
 many weeks in the year, and for many more working 
 short hours and earning very little. For instance,
 
 i62 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 
 
 Mr. Shcrwcll {Life in West Londoji) writes : " An 
 interesting clue to the seasonal fluctuations in the 
 dressmaking and millinery trades is afforded by some 
 returns (relating to twelve firms) published by the 
 Board of Trade. PVom these it appears that the staff 
 of workers is reduced by over 50 per cent, in the 
 slack seasons." Nearly all the lower branches of the 
 clothing trade are subject to these fluctuations ; and 
 it is terrible to think of the straits to which the 50 
 per cent, may be reduced during the "slack season." 
 It is said that " in the West End of London at least, 
 milliners, and dressmakers, and tailoresses are fre- 
 quently driven upon the streets in the slack season, 
 returning to their shops with the advent of the new 
 season's trade." But the majority simply pass through 
 an extremity of suffering and semi-starvation for 
 themselves and their children, which may or may not 
 be very slightly modified by relief from the Poor Law 
 or from charity. And indeed it is no kindness to 
 give " relief" in these cases ; to supplement insufficient 
 wages has but one effect, to reduce them still lower, 
 and all ineffectual charity to these women makes 
 their lot still more hopeless. The one remed}- is to 
 enable them to earn better wages — wages sufficient 
 to maintain them, and those dependent upon them, 
 all the year round; and this can only be done b)' 
 giving them a better industrial training. 
 
 One is liable to be met here by the argument that 
 there is not enough well-paid work for every one to 
 do, and that by increasing the numbers of workers 
 we shall onl}- be lowering wages and crowding out 
 those alread}' employed. If this were true we might 
 well despair for our unfortunate women workers ; 
 fortunate!)' it is only a revival in a new shape of an
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 163 
 
 old heresy which has already been slain many times, 
 the old wage-fund theory. The wage-fund theory 
 assumed that there was only a certain limited fund 
 in the country to be expended upon wages, and that 
 if one set of workers succeeded in raisin"- their wasres 
 they were, ipso facto, lowering the wages of others or 
 their own at a future day. The new work-fund theory 
 in the same way assumes that there is only a given 
 amount of work to be done, and that if some people 
 get more work there will be less for others. The 
 untruth of the assumption seems so obv^ious as to 
 hardly need refuting, but in order to make the case 
 for our women workers as strong as possible, we may 
 consider it briefly. 
 
 In the first place we may ask how, if this theory 
 were true, can it happen that the work which only 
 employed ten millions of people in England a century 
 ago, now employs over thirty millions? According to 
 the theory, two-thirds of our population should be 
 out of work ? The answer is, of course, that the 
 increase of population has in itself made more work 
 to be done ; every new worker who has come upon 
 the scene has needed to be fed, clothed, and housed, 
 and has therefore given employment to many of his 
 fellow-workers. 
 
 But now suppose that most of these new-comers 
 had been so poor that they could buy next to nothing. 
 Then, of course, they would not have given employ- 
 ment to each other ; people too poor, say, to buy 
 shoes, make no work for the shoemaker, and a butcher 
 would be always out of work amongst a people too 
 poor to buy meat. But make the " poor " people 
 capable of doing something useful, /. e. of earning 
 money, then they will be able to buy shoes and
 
 i64 TIIK INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMKN 
 
 butcher's meat, the shoemaker and butcher will prosper 
 and begin to employ builders and upholsterers, and 
 so on until the whole working community is busy. 
 To say that there is no more work to be done, is 
 really to say that everybody has got everything he 
 wants, which never has been and never will be true. 
 As we may all know from our own experience, man 
 is a creature of progressive wants, i. e. when you have 
 given him all he wants of one thing, forthwith he 
 begins to want two more ; and so the vista of " work " 
 to be done in satisfying each other stretches out 
 interminably before us. 
 
 Take the case of a man who has been out of work 
 for some months. We know how he will have had 
 to restrict his expenditure, how he and his family 
 have gone on short commons, how the girl who used 
 to come and mind baby has been dismissed, and the 
 washing is done at home, and shoes and clothing 
 worn out instead of being replaced by new ones. 
 Then when he gets to work again, and money begins 
 to come in, all this is reversed. The washerwoman 
 and baby-minder are reinstated, orders to butcher 
 and provision-merchant are doubled, the tailor and 
 shoemaker receive the stimulus of his custom, the 
 whole industrial world shares in an infinitesimal degree 
 in his renewed prosperit)-. 
 
 The same argument applies exactly to the working- 
 women of whom I have been speaking. Almost 
 without exception they are only half-fed and half- 
 clothed, and if they were only earning enough, it is 
 absolutely certain that the}' would double their demand 
 for food and clothing to-morrow. Double it ! — wh)- 
 they could easily treble or quadruple it, and not be 
 over- fed or over-clad. Imagine the run upon the
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 165 
 
 boot-makers if e\ery ill-shod woman in England 
 earned enough money next week to be able to buy 
 a new pair of boots. The stores would be almost, if 
 not quite exhausted, and all the boot-makers working 
 full tide to replenish them. 
 
 The point is, that in putting these women in a 
 position to satisfy their wants we should be practically 
 creating a new market, and conferring quite as great 
 a benefit upon trade as by keeping open the ports 
 out in China, or subjugating some African tribe. 
 We are often enough exhorted to " encourage home 
 industries," but how could we do this better than by 
 opening up the new and probably insatiable market 
 which would be afforded by a race of well-paid women 
 with healthy appetites and a laudable love for nice 
 clothing? 
 
 But, it is objected, look at any particular industry 
 where both men and women are employed ; take 
 clerks, for instance. Is it not clear that if there were 
 no women acting as clerks there would be so many 
 more openings for men ? 
 
 No; it is not clear. If we cut off the wage-earning 
 power of these women-clerks, we also cut off their 
 demand for many of the articles they now use; that 
 is, we shut off a market which men are employed in 
 supplying. And inasmuch as all industries employ 
 clerks directly or indirectly, it is quite certain that 
 the closing down of any market will diminish the 
 openings for clerks as for othei* workers. 
 
 The real sting of the position comes in when women 
 *' undersell " men. That is quite bad, and a real loss 
 to the wage-earning class; probably to all classes. 
 Let us consider why they do this. 
 
 In the first place, we must be quite sure that in any
 
 i66 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 
 
 particular case they air unflerscllin^ before we com- 
 plain. By underselling^ we mean, strictly speaking, 
 giving the same work, the same in quality and amount, 
 for lower remuneration. To a considerable extent it 
 will be found that where women arc getting lower 
 wages it is because they are not doing the same work, 
 that in some way or another it is inferior to that done 
 by the men. This may be due either to want of 
 strength or to want of skill, and we will presently 
 consider how far these two defects may be remedied. 
 But when women really are doing the same work 
 for less remuneration, it is due mainly to three causes. 
 
 1. Because there are as yet comparatively few 
 occupations open to women. 
 
 2. Because women are slow to combine and support 
 each other in the demand for higher wages. 
 
 3. Because of the popular opinion that women need 
 less than men. 
 
 To a considerable extent men are themselves to 
 blame for the fact tha^ they are undersold by women. 
 In the first place, they are partly responsible for the 
 inefficiency of women. In proof of this consider the 
 following extract from the Report on the Employment 
 of Women, p. 93 : 
 
 "Witness 91, a managing director of the Women's 
 Printing Society, said the great difficult}- in their 
 way had been the refusal of the printers to teach 
 women any but the lowest branches of the work ; 
 they would not teach them ' imposing.' 
 
 " Witness 97, an emplo}-er, said the women only 
 did the more ordinar\- work ; they were not put on 
 to the jobbing, which required a great man}- t}-pes, 
 and they did not learn to ' impose.' The}- carried 
 their own galle}-s, but the men compositors lifted the
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 167 
 
 'formes' for them. It was difficult to get girls to go 
 through a long apprenticeship of four years. Women 
 were paid 6d. per 1000 in a class of work for which 
 men were paid 8^/. per 1000, but the men could be 
 put on to other work, such as jobbing, when wanted, 
 and were, therefore, more useful. If women wanted 
 to learn ' imposing,' he was quite sure that the men 
 would object to teaching them, but they rarely showed 
 any desire to learn the more skilled work." 
 
 Again, there is little inclination on the part of men 
 to encourage women in seeking new fields of employ- 
 ment. Generally speaking, the attempt to enter upon 
 any work where only men have been employed before 
 is like besieging a fortified city; instead of being made 
 easy, every possible difficulty is presented. Conse- 
 quently, as even women must have at least a minimum 
 of food and clothing, they press into what few indus- 
 tries are open to them, and are often driven by sheer 
 hunger to offer their services for a " starvation " wage. 
 
 Combination might help them somewhat, but here 
 again men are remiss, and for the most part rigorously 
 exclude them from their unions. Their true policy, 
 the wise and generous policy, would be to encourage 
 the women in industries where they were underselling 
 to qualify themselves to become members of the men's 
 unions, working under the same conditions and earn- 
 ing the same wages. For women to have a union of 
 their own in these industries would not answer the 
 same purpose; it would be a new weapon in the hands 
 of the employer if he could play off women's union 
 against men's union. 
 
 There are really only two noble courses open to 
 men in this matter. The first is, as in the case of 
 their wives, to withdraw women from the industrial
 
 i68 TIIK INDUSTRIAL TRAININCi OV WOMKN 
 
 field all()<^cthcr by undertaking the responsibility of 
 their maintenance entirely, and enabling them to de- 
 vote themselves, at any rate for a time, to the import- 
 ant duties of domestic life. The second is, to abandon 
 altogether their opposition to the industrial employ- 
 ment of those women who are nol engaged in domestic 
 duties, and to do all they can to make them really 
 efficient workers. In doing so they will not only be 
 deserving the gratitude of women, they will be in- 
 creasing their own market, and advancing their own 
 cause. 
 
 How can we make women (i.) stronger and (ii.) 
 more efficient .-' 
 
 Stronger, for our present purpose, means enjoying 
 better health, for there is no need that women should 
 be employed in industries requiring great muscular 
 strength. To some extent, better health can only 
 come with better earnings ; in so far, that is, as bad 
 health is due to insufficient food and clothing. But 
 very largely it is due also to injudicious feeding and 
 thoroughly bad conditions of work. We need not 
 take extreme cases, such as lead-poisoning, to illus- 
 trate this. The following extract, again from the 
 Report on the Employment of Women, gives in- 
 stances which are probably typical of almost every 
 industry in which women are employed : 
 
 '^Shop-assistants: Half-an-hour is the usual time 
 allowed for dinner, twenty or thirty minutes being the 
 usual time allowed for tea. Shop-assistants are liable 
 to interruptions during meals, and acquire a habit of 
 ' bolting' their food in a remarkably short time ; one 
 employer stated that his assistants nearly all finished 
 their dinner in about ten minutes, and devoted the 
 remaining twenty minutes to rest or amusement.
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 169 
 
 Another employer stated that his assistants ate very 
 Httle at meals, but were much addicted to eating 
 sweet-stuff and pastry in the morning. Indigestion 
 and anaemia are very common among the girls, and 
 their hasty meals and short time for rest may fairly 
 be assigned as the cause of their craving for unwhole- 
 some food. A physician with considerable experience 
 among West End shop-assistants has drawn attention 
 to the fact . . . that according as a business is con- 
 ducted on a large scale, and the girls are placed under 
 the direction of men instead of women, there is much 
 greater hesitation in applying for leave to take neces- 
 sary rest during temporary illness, and less willingness 
 to grant it ; serious injury to health arises in conse- 
 quence. In shops where late hours are the custom on 
 Saturday, but little time is allowed for supper, and in 
 some cases girls do not sit down to supper till nearly 
 midnight." 
 
 It hardly needs pointing out that the bad health 
 arising in this way tells against their efficiency not 
 only as wage-earners, but also as wives and mothers. 
 
 With regard to efficiency, so far as this does not 
 depend upon health, it is a question of more or less 
 skill, and more or less skill is a question of more or 
 less training. This does not mean that any girl can 
 learn to do any work, irrespective of her natural inclin- 
 ations and ability, but simply that, generally speak- 
 ing, efficiency depends upon training. Mr. Schloss 
 pointed this out some years ago in an article on 
 " Women's Work and Wages." 
 
 " The constant relation between the length of pro- 
 bation, the degree of skill demanded, and the pay of 
 the workers, will be seen to occur again and again in 
 Mr. Lakeman's table of wasfcs. Two weeks suffice
 
 I70 TIIK INDUSTRIAL TRAININCi f)F WOMKX 
 
 to teach the making of a hearth-brush ; the average 
 earnings of the women in this trade are from 8s. to 
 los. a week. You cannot learn to make a tooth-brush 
 under two months; but then you can, when you know 
 your business fairly well, make I2s. a week. The art 
 of making hair-brushes demands an initiatory period 
 of three months (during which the novice must be 
 prepared to work without any pay whatever;. How- 
 ever, the extra month of probation finds its reward in 
 the prospect of average wages amounting to lOi". to 
 I3J-., that is to say, one shilling a week more than your 
 mere tooth-brush-maker, and some three shillings 
 more than the luckiest woman of average ability in 
 the house-brush trade." 
 
 The connection between training and earnings which 
 appears in these lower branches of industry holds good 
 right through tl>e higher branches ; and we have here 
 clear guidance as to how our women are to be made 
 more efficient. It is a question for parents, more 
 especially for fathers. Let them remember that at 
 the best their daughters will be weaker to face the 
 battle of life than their sons, and let them give at 
 least as much care towards equipping them for that 
 battle as they do to giving their sons "a fair 
 start." Often enough it happens that when a bo)- 
 is properly set to learn his trade, his sister will be 
 left to " find a little place " for herself, and she is 
 expected to bring in 3J-. or 4^. at once, instead of 
 waiting to learn. 
 
 In choosing a trade for a girl, then, parents should 
 be willing to wait six or twelve months, as the case 
 may be, before expecting her to keep herself. Her 
 whole future life may depend for its health and com- 
 fort upon her being allowed to train for work which
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRATNINCx OF WOMEN 171 
 
 will be fairly paid and carried on under healthy 
 conditions. 
 
 But there is room for considerable judgment in 
 choosing a trade apart from the question of earnings. 
 Season trades should be avoided as far as possible. 
 Trades, again, which are subject to great fluctuations 
 in fashion, may be tempting by the high rate of wages 
 to be earned, but may leave the worker stranded after 
 a few years. And, most important of all, any merely 
 mechanical work should be carefully avoided. The 
 reason is plain. Mechanical work is that which can 
 be done by machines, and human industry never de- 
 scends so low as when it is competing with machinery, 
 either present or prospective. Choose, then, some- 
 thing requiring brain-power as well as manual dex- 
 terity, and then the girl will not only be quite secure 
 against the rivalry of machines, but will also be able to 
 adapt herself to altered circumstances should fashions 
 change. 
 
 This is what we can do for the girls who are start- 
 ing in life. Can anything be done for the women 
 who are already stranded — who are left as "heads of 
 families," and are not really heads at all, but only 
 poor unskilled hands? The difficulties of training are 
 of course greatly increased after they have passed 
 girlhood ; but what is there open to them without 
 training } 
 
 In the first place there is the mangle, to which 
 every London widow aspires. This needs capital, for 
 a second-hand mangle costs ^4 or ^5, and a new one 
 twice as much. Then a mangle is useless without a 
 "connection"; and though this, like a doctor's practice, 
 may be bought, few are the widows whose resources run 
 to buying both mangle and connection. More often
 
 172 TIIK INDUSTRIAL TKAININc; OF WOMKN 
 
 they trust to working up a cfjiincction by decrees, and 
 if they succeed this generally involves the ruin of 
 some other hard-working, half-starved woman. 
 
 Then there is scrubbing for institutions — hospitals 
 or infirmaries. Few women can stand this for more 
 than a year or two at the outside, for it is very heavy 
 work, and the pay is only 7^. to gs. a week. 
 
 Charing affords a living of a kind in wealthier 
 quarters of the town, and has the advantage that the 
 charwoman is probably well fed while actually at 
 work. But in poorer quarters, where after all the mass 
 of poor widows must live, it is of all livings the most 
 precarious, and the most sought after by all incom- 
 petent women ; except needlework, indeed, of the 
 unskilled kind, which touches a still lower level, and 
 means steady starvation. For here wc have the most 
 striking instance of the futility of endeavouring to vie 
 in purely mechanical work with machines. Unless 
 the needle-woman has learned sewing as an art, and 
 can do really beautiful work, she can only get em- 
 ployment now by working more cheaply than the 
 machinist. 
 
 The only hope, then, for the majority of these 
 widows is to get them trained, and, though difficult, it 
 is not impossible. If they are not over, say, thirt}--five 
 years of age, and if they are fairly intelligent, there 
 are still many openings for which they can be fitted, 
 and the charitable worker could find no more profit- 
 able disposal of time and money than in seeking out 
 these openings. What in each particular instance 
 will be best must depend upon the situation and 
 abilities of the woman; and it is useless to teach fine 
 cooking to a woman in the East End, or laundry-work 
 to a woman with a weak chest ; but energj' and
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN 173 
 
 intelligence will often be able to overcome these 
 difficulties. 
 
 But no woman should be dependent upon charitable 
 efforts to rescue her from misfortune. She should be 
 armed beforehand to meet it when it comes, and this 
 can only be ensured by recognizing that it is as im- 
 portant for girls to receive a good industrial training 
 as for boys.
 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLE- 
 SOME BOYS 
 
 What becomes of all the girls after they leave 
 school ? I don't mean High School girls ; you know 
 all about them ; but the thousands of girls who leave 
 the Board schools every year. Ver)-, ver}' few ever 
 go to college, or even know what college means. 
 They can spell it, no doubt, and write it in the most 
 wonderfully neat handwriting ; and they can " do 
 sums," including very puzzling problems in mental 
 arithmetic. But most of them will have forgotten a 
 good deal even of this in a year or two ; you see, 
 they leave school at fourteen, and fourteen, as you 
 know, is a dreadful age for forgetting ; and their 
 stubby little fingers grow stiff with hard work, and 
 their poor brains stupid with too little sleep, until 
 they leave off using them for anything but reading 
 the Family Herald. About hockey and tennis, and 
 German and Latin, and algebra and Euclid, they 
 never know anything at all, except the very few who 
 mean to be pupil teachers. But what a number of 
 things they can do ! The)- can mind baby for six 
 hours at a stretch without grumbling ; the)- can scrub 
 
 174
 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS 175 
 
 the floor, and do all the marketing, and turn the 
 mangle, and take the washing round, and even cook 
 the dinner — after a fashion. Wouldn't the best thing 
 be for them to help at home, then ? Well, perhaps 
 it would ; but they have been doing that ever since 
 they first toddled out at four years old to buy mother 
 a "ha'porth o' blue" at the chandler's shop. Number 
 two must do all the helping at home, now, in the 
 spare times between school hours, " It's time Sarah 
 Ann was bringing something in," says father, and 
 mother promises to get her " a little place," and 
 Sarah Ann feels very important and excited. What 
 the little place will be depends partly upon how big 
 she is. If she is small and weakly no one will give 
 much for her, and she will probably be sent to a 
 neighbour to drag about a strange baby almost as 
 big as herself, all day long. For doing this she will 
 get eighteenpence a week and her tea ; and no doubt 
 she will think she has earned it well ! If she is a 
 big strong girl, some one will take her as an errand- 
 girl, and then she may earn as much as four or five 
 shillings a week. But it is hard work ; she must 
 always be on the trot ; bringing " work " from the 
 City and taking it back when it is done ; fetching tea 
 for the workers, who cannot leave off long enough 
 to get it for themselves ; always at every one's beck 
 and call, and very little time to sit down and rest. 
 And running about all the time wears her boots out 
 so fast (they are only made of layers of brown paper 
 coloured over, to begin with), that nearly all her 
 money seems to go in buying new ones, and then 
 father scolds ; and being out in all weathers she gets 
 first hot, and then wet, and then cold, and never 
 knows which she is going to be. Perhaps if she is
 
 176 MTTLK DKUD(;ES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS 
 
 hiif^ht, and her mistress kind, Sarah Ann will by 
 degrees be taught to do the " work " herself, and then 
 a new errand-girl will coitie. What is the work ? 
 Making boxes at 3^^^. a dozen, or gentlemen's tics at 
 about the same price, or curling feathers, or machin- 
 ing ; there are all sorts of work to be done, but what- 
 ever it may be, Sarah Ann will very seldom come 
 to earn more than "js. a week, and out of this she will 
 be expected to pay at least 5^'. to the family house- 
 keeping. Or if she leaves home she will have to pay 
 rent, and buy food and clothes, all out of about i^i8 
 a year. That Sarah Ann so often does this success- 
 fully, shows, perhaps, that the mental arithmetic has 
 not been altogether wasted. 
 
 But a very large number of them go into service, 
 and turn up their funny little wisps of hair, and wear 
 long frocks, and large coarse aprons like extinguishers. 
 If they can be persuaded to do this they are quite 
 rich, for they sometimes get 3^". or \s. a week besides 
 their food, so that they can spend it all on their 
 hats. Such hats ! and such feathers in them ! But 
 even the hats and feathers cannot always tempt 
 them, for it is dreadfully hard work to be a " general," 
 and do all the housework, when you are only 
 fourteen. I remember a stumpy girl of about fifteen 
 who washed, and scrubbed, and cooked, and did 
 all the odd work for a family of five or six. The 
 strange thing was, that though she was alwa}'s 
 tired, she was quite contented : " Missis was verj- 
 kind," she said, and " helped a lot." When " Missis " 
 is not very kind, as too often happens, I am almost 
 afraid to think what the poor little slave}''s life 
 must be like. I have just been seeing one who is 
 lame. That is because when she was a little sirl
 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS 177 
 
 her father bought her a pair of boots which were too 
 small for her, and broke her instep by dragging them 
 on with a pair of pincers. As soon as the poor child 
 left school, her married sister took her to be her 
 "general," but as she did not want to pay her any 
 wages, she called it " keeping her." All day long the 
 girl was kept drudging — scrubbing, washing, minding 
 baby, never allowed to rest for a minute ; until her 
 foot got so bad that she had to go to the hospital. 
 Then it was arranged to send her down into the 
 country for a long time, until she got strong, and a 
 place could be found with a really kind mistress. 
 But when the time came for her to go, there she was 
 found, minding the baby or scrubbing the stairs : 
 " Sister said she couldn't spare me," she explained 
 quite patiently ; " it's just my luck." To her astonish- 
 ment, however, she found some one else could be as 
 obstinate as " sister," and she is now seeing what the 
 seaside is like for the first time in her life. 
 
 Poor little drudges ! It is hard work and small 
 pay, and not always enough to eat, and very often 
 sharp words. If ever you come across one, try and 
 make it easy for her, or at least to say something 
 pleasant to her. If no one does this, it is only too 
 likely that some day she will sicken of all the drudg- 
 ery, and run away from it in despair. Then she 
 will get into terrible trouble, from which we shall find 
 it very difficult, if not impossible, to help her. 
 
 And the boys, their brothers, what becomes of 
 tJieni ? Of course they very seldom go to service ; 
 just here and there one will go as a page-boy and 
 be very proud of his buttons, but he will probably 
 be much better off than his sister who goes as a 
 "general." For he will go to a house where there is
 
 17S MTTM: DKUIKiKS AND TROUIU.KSOMK P-OVS 
 
 plenty to eat, and where he certainly will not have 
 to do all the work ; and though the upper servants 
 may tyrannize, he will manage to have a good time 
 and get into plenty of mischief. Many more of them 
 will go as office-boys, and if they can refrain from 
 stealing the postage-stamps and be moderately in- 
 telligent, may in time reach the dignity of being clerks. 
 Still more will become errand-boys. Considering how 
 troublesome errand-boys are, it is wonderful how 
 many of them are wanted. They are like postcards, 
 so easy to send and so cheap, that every one likes to 
 have one handy ; and no doubt every one thinks that 
 some day they will come across the ideal errand-boy 
 who never forgets his message, or gets into bad com- 
 pany, or goes half-a-mile round to get into the next 
 street. Unfortunately being an errand-boy does not 
 always lead to anything better ; and it is very bad 
 for a boy to become a man not able to do anything 
 but run errands, however well he may run them. It 
 ought to be a condition that the errand-boy should 
 in due time learn his master's trade, and have a 
 chance of becoming a skilled workman. 
 
 But still worse off than the errand-boy is the boy 
 who does nothing when he leaves school. Of course 
 boys very seldom really do nothitig ; if they are not 
 doing something useful they are probably getting 
 into mischief; and so the boys who do not get to 
 work, and over whom the school-master no longer 
 has any power, soon find occupation for their restless 
 limbs and brains. First they lark about the streets 
 in search of harmless fun ; but there's not much 
 harmless fun for boys in a town, and they quickly ex- 
 haust the possibilities of the streets. Then they fall 
 in with some bigger boys, " get into bad company."
 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS 179 
 
 and begin to learn all sorts of Jiarmful fun. They 
 learn to spend long hours sitting on walls, smoking 
 bad cigarettes and using bad language, and feeling 
 very "grown up." Then because of that law of 
 nature that boys caiit do nothing, they get up " faction 
 fights," which means that the loafing boys of one 
 district will manage to pick a quarrel with the loafing 
 boys of another, and they will arm themselves with 
 sticks and stones and old knives and pieces of iron 
 and steel, and organize themselves into a war party. 
 Then as dusk draws on both parties will sally out, 
 and give chase to each other, and there will be a 
 grand scrimmage, and the rougher girls will take part 
 in it, cheering them on and giving them warning 
 when the police show signs of taking an interest. And 
 when it is over, the local doctors and the hospitals 
 will be dressing mysterious wounds and stabs which 
 the patient cannot account for, having no idea as to 
 how he got them. And the next day the exhausted 
 combatants sit on walls again and devise new mischief. 
 And because of the other law of nature, which 
 makes boys always hungry, and because all these 
 boys have come to hate the very thought of work, 
 they will have to find food some other way. So 
 during the long hours of sitting on walls and loafing, 
 they are learning all the many and interesting ways 
 of stealing, and when dusk comes they will again go 
 forth, not noisily this time, but stealthily. The bolder 
 and more practised will even go by daylight to show 
 their skill. And so our ex-schoolboy with nothing 
 to do will learn how to pick pockets, how to snatch 
 a pair of boots hanging at the shop-door, how to 
 abstract parcels from the back of a cart, how to bully 
 pennies out of small and frightened children who
 
 i8o IJITLK l)KUD(;i;S AND TKOUIJLESOMK HOVS 
 
 have been sent on errands, li(nv to pass bad money, 
 how to break open tills and pocket the contents, and 
 so on until he is ripe for bur<^lary. And many will 
 learn this art without even the excuse of hunger, for 
 feats which require darin<^ and skill will always appeal 
 to boys, and out of sheer emulation of each other 
 and defiance of authority they will form themselves 
 into bands of " Fort)' Thieves " to whom nothing is 
 sacred. Think of a boy aged 14 who is " convicted 
 of stealing eight brooches, valued ^^15. Previously 
 remanded for stealing apples ; had been sent to 
 a boys' home for robbing a chapel, and has lived b)' 
 thieving and begging for four years." ^ So that the 
 poor little chap began his career of crime at ten years 
 old ! — and many begin still earlier. 
 
 And so it comes to pass that the result of leaving 
 boys to do nothing is, that in one year alone 12,611 
 boys under 16 years of age were convicted of crime, 
 and between 16 and 21 years of age no fewer than 
 
 31,139- 
 
 The worst of it is that when crime is learned )-oung 
 and has become a habit it is very difficult to shake 
 off. The young offender is sent to an industrial 
 school, or a reformatory, or even a prison, and when 
 he comes out again he may try to do better for a 
 time ; but the chances are he will fall in with his 
 old companions — indeed they may be the only people 
 who take any interest in him — and the old life will 
 seem so natural and easy that he can hardly help 
 drifting back into it. Mr. Morrison tells us that 
 " at the present time at least 3000 homeless }'ouths 
 are annually discharged from the London prisons*" 
 Being homeless, what are they to do but go back to 
 
 ' Morrison : Juvenile Offenders.
 
 LITTLE DRUDGES AND TROUBLESOME BOYS i8i 
 
 their old haunts and old companions, and take up 
 the old life until caught again and sent back to prison ? 
 
 The time to save a boy is before he has learned 
 evil ; that is, generally speaking, just when he leaves 
 school. Masters do a great deal in helping the boys 
 to work, but they cannot do everything. Parents 
 ought to see to it, but parents are apt to be either 
 careless or too hard-worked to attend to the matter 
 just at the right time. A school-visitor or manager 
 might do very much by taking a list each term of 
 the boys who are likely to be neglected, and not 
 losing sight of them until each one is suitably settled 
 at work which will occupy his powers and lead to 
 something. Or, again, for those who like cure better 
 than prevention, what a splendid field of work to lie 
 in wait for boys leaving prison or reformatory, and 
 help them into safe surroundings and honest work ! 
 
 But with many of our boys the difficulty begins 
 even before the age when they should leave school. 
 Of the I2,6ii boys under i6 who were convicted 
 of crime, 2450 were under 12. When one thinks 
 of what a merry, chubby, innocently-wicked, and 
 fascinatingly-troublesome creature a boy under 12 
 should be, it is heart-breaking to read of these 2000 
 offenders who are being dealt with by all the majesty 
 of the law, instead of the tender discipline of home. 
 
 It generally begins with being " troublesome," and 
 might be stopped at once by a firm hand. It is a 
 lasting wonder to me to see how little power of disci- 
 pline the parents of these children seem to have. 
 Sometimes a great burly man will appear before a 
 magistrate to complain that his son is " beyond 
 parental control," and behold, the small sinner is a 
 mite of 6 or 7 whom he could almost put in his
 
 iS2 LiTTi.K i)Rri)(;i;s and troublkso.mk r.ovs 
 
 pocket ! What docs it mean ? Very often it means 
 the folly of the magistrate, who will send the child 
 to an industrial school, instead of laughing at and 
 reprimanding the father. And then this irresponsible 
 parent will go and prepare another uncontrollable 
 infant for the foolish magistrate to exercise his powers 
 upon, with the result that we have over ij ,000 children 
 in our industrial schools, matty of whom would ha\c 
 done far better at home. 
 
 The cure does not lie in banishment from home 
 life into some institution, even when accompanied 
 by indiscriminate flogging, as some of our educational 
 authorities seem to think. For small boys a little 
 extra care and attention when the troublesome fit 
 begins, such as they get now in Day Industrial 
 Schools, will generally be quite sufficient ; if parents 
 are encouraged to feel their responsibility instead of 
 being freed from it. For hardened delinquents, and 
 those whose surroundings are hopelessl)- bad, stronger 
 steps may be necessary. But for all alike we must 
 remember that boys are by nature "troublesome," if 
 by troublesome we mean restless and undisciplined, 
 and that the only cure is occupation and discipline.
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR 'FALSE 
 STATEMENTS' 
 
 One of the things which always surprises me about 
 other people is that they never seem to find any 
 difficulty about speaking the truth. As a branch of 
 being good, they regard it as purely a moral question, 
 and repudiate sternly any attempt to soften the aspect 
 of a breach of veracity as an attempt to break down 
 the moral law. " To speak the truth is right, to speak 
 an untruth is wrong, under any and all circumstances," 
 runs their moral syllogism ; " this man has spoken 
 what is not true, therefore this man has done wrong." 
 
 Now, I am not going to raise here any of the 
 casuistical questions as to the limitations of the duty 
 of truth-speaking, nor to discuss the well-worn problem 
 as to what you are to say when an assassin asks you 
 where your father is. I am prepared to accept the 
 duty, but maintain that by accepting it the problem 
 is not yet solved ; that truth is indeed an ideal to- 
 wards which it is well to aim, but that it is one which' 
 we seldom attain to in our intercourse, and that the 
 failure to attain to it is more often an intellectual than 
 a moral failure. 
 
 183
 
 iS4 AN AVOl.OC.V \0\i ' I AI.SK S rAT);M I'.NTS ' 
 
 To begin with a vci)- old question- — what 2s the 
 truth ? I don't mean any metaphysical abstraction 
 by this ; but simply, what do wc mean by speaking 
 the truth ? There arc three answers possible, each of 
 which is sometimes given : " To speak the truth is to 
 say what you think ; " that is one answer, and very 
 satisfactory until you come into collision with other 
 people's thoughts. " To make your statements con- 
 form to facts" is another definition; a task which 
 might stagger the boldest if he realized all that was 
 contained in it. " To convey a correct impression to 
 other people " is a third demand, not less difficult 
 than the last. Is my morality to depend upon the 
 degree of intelligence possessed by my audience ? and 
 if they are too dull to understand m)' plain statement, 
 shall I have been guilty of unveracit)- .' And }-et it 
 is very evident that, unless this point is kept in view, 
 language would easily degenerate into the means of 
 disguising our thoughts. 
 
 Here, then, are three conditions to be fulfilled in a 
 true statement : it must represent our own thoughts, 
 it must conform to fact, and it must convey the right 
 meaning to our hearers. A falsehood need not 
 necessarily break all these conditions, but I imagine 
 that no statement would, generally speaking, be 
 accepted as true which deviated from any one of 
 them. 
 
 Take the first. I have often such an almost in- 
 superable difficult}' in representing my own thoughts 
 in sentences that I cannot help thinking that other 
 people also have some difficult}-. One so often seems 
 to have a thought which quite refuses to be caught 
 and put into language, and which, when it finall}- 
 takes shape, has quite changed its significance. This
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR 'FALSE STATEMENTS' 185 
 
 is the difficulty under which the mute inglorious 
 Miltons suffered, and the Laird of Dumbicdikes. 
 Some philosophers, indeed, hold the theory to be 
 fallacious, and say that the people who think but 
 cannot put their thoughts into language do not really 
 think at all ; but to those who arc not gifted with 
 the power of eloquence this view docs not recommend 
 itself. 
 
 For those who are so gifted, whose words flow to 
 their command, another danger lies in wait. How 
 about the numerous little exaggerations which go to 
 make the point of a story more telling, or to heighten 
 the picturesqueness of a description .■' It may be said 
 that these are rather moral than intellectual devia- 
 tions, but I do not think that this is by any means 
 always so ; there is frequently no deliberate mis- 
 statement, merely a looseness of expression, an un- 
 cultivated ear for the values of words, a careless 
 habit of speaking, which has nothing really vicious 
 about it, and might easily be eradicated, say, by a 
 course of logic. 
 
 Our power of expressing ourselves can frequently 
 only be tested by its effect upon other people. Every 
 one must have felt at sometime or other the mortifica- 
 tion of having triumphantly struggled his thought 
 into words perfectly satisfactory to himself, and then 
 finding that it conveyed no meaning to any one else. 
 " Can you tell me what you think you meant by 
 that ? " a very cautious thinker used to ask his pupils, 
 and when you come to wonder what you think jou 
 meant the vagueness becomes hopeless. 
 
 But the failure of others to understand may not be 
 due only to our inadequacy of expression ; very often 
 it arises from the perversity of words themselves.
 
 i86 AN ATOLOflY FOR 'lALSK STATKMKNTS ' 
 
 which will not convey the same mcaninfj to every 
 one. Differences of education, of rank, of occupation, 
 and of prejudice may put difficulties in the way of 
 real intercourse which are almost insuperable. A re- 
 spectable elderly clergyman, with strong Conservative 
 convictions, to whom a Radical means a man who 
 frequents gambling clubs and gets drunk instead of 
 going to church, asks me casually whether some one 
 is a Radical. How can I stop before answering 
 " yes " to explain that by Radical / mean a man who 
 is impressed with the necessity of progress, and is 
 determined that it shall not be obstructed by class 
 interests? To introduce definitions into conversation 
 would be a necessary step towards ensuring absolute 
 truth-speaking ; but, then, who would ever converse? 
 It may be said that, after all, this is a small matter, 
 that the generality of words have full)--accepted 
 meanings, and are understood in the same sense by 
 every one ; like coins of the realm, thc}- have received 
 the stamp of authority, and pass current among all 
 men for what they really are. But I am inclined to 
 think that this is a mistake, that there is far more 
 deviation than is generally recognized, and that if, 
 like coins of the realm, our words could be called in 
 for a re-issue, many of them would be found wofull}- 
 mutilated. Every individual collects his meanings 
 from his own private experiences ; and when we 
 think how the experiences of individuals differ, the 
 wonder is that we ever come to any mutual under- 
 standing at all. We don't take our meanings ready- 
 made from the dictionar)- ; we put them together bit 
 by bit as we grow and see and ask questions ; and, 
 inasmuch as no two people ever have just the same 
 experiences, or receive just the same answers to their
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR 'FALSE STATEMENTS' 187 
 
 questions, it is probable that no two people ever really 
 understand one another, or are at all times able to 
 communicate intelligently. This is why we so often 
 dislike people whom we know only by what they say; 
 we do not realize that to them their words have quite 
 another meaning, and that statements which seem to 
 us crude or conceited are to them the expression of 
 very beautiful thoughts. I suppose no one ever 
 entertains thoughts which are not to him of superior 
 quality, so that if a real understanding could be 
 established sympathy would everywhere take the 
 place of criticism. But such an understanding is im- 
 possible, except under the sway of a Socialist Utopia, 
 where every one is brought up on the same pattern 
 and with the same experiences ; and then, perhaps, 
 we should no longer feel much interest in communica- 
 tion with our neighbours. 
 
 Finally comes the problem of making our state- 
 ments conform to fact, and this is so difficult of 
 solution that I wonder how any merely human being 
 can ever think he has succeeded. Who is to be the 
 judge of what is, and what is not, fact? We have no 
 dictionary of facts, as we have of dates, in which we 
 can hunt up a statement and prove it to be correct. 
 Nor, indeed, is a fact capable of being packed into a 
 statement like boots into a portmanteau. It presents 
 a different aspect to eyery beholder, and no one person 
 can ever hope to see it in all its aspects, to grasp 
 every characteristic, and reproduce the whole in one 
 " true " statement. At the best we can only hope to 
 make our statement conform to a tiny portion of the 
 fact, and even that minute portion may have presented 
 itself to us in such a way that no one else will recognize 
 the truth of our description.
 
 i8S AN APOLOGY 1"0R 'lALSK STA'l I.MKNTS ' 
 
 Take almost any event you please, and imagine it 
 described by a child, by a man of the world, and by 
 a scientific man. There will be little chance of the 
 descriptions coinciding ; you will get three distinct 
 statements about a fact, all of them attempting to 
 conform to it, and differing because of the different 
 standpoint of the speaker. Can we say that the most 
 scientific description is always the truest statement ? 
 I do not think so. No doubt that to the trained 
 observer our ordinary descriptions of objects and 
 events arc miserably inadequate ; but, on the other 
 hand, scientific descriptions miss a truth which can 
 only be conveyed in language which knows nothing 
 of nomenclature and terminology. Take, for instancci 
 an account of the geological formation of the Lake 
 district. It is to one of Wordsworth's descriptions 
 what the plaster-of-Paris model is to the real hills and 
 valleys, rivers and lakes, with the sunset glow upon 
 them, or the light mists softening every outline. How 
 can we say which is the truer ? Each has caught and 
 reflected its own tiny possession in the living fact ; 
 and what that reflection may be depends upon the 
 attitude of the individual, upon the angle of incidence. 
 
 Before deciding, then, whether a statement conforms 
 or not to fact, we must ask what fact ? whose fact is 
 the fact ? or is there such a thing as a fact at all ? Does 
 not the interest of the individual alwaj-s determine 
 what is or is not fact for him ? and, if so, should not 
 our zeal for truth lead us rather to reflect upon men's 
 minds than to condemn their statements ? 
 
 Suppose we are questioning an applicant in a 
 Charity Organization Office ; we know how inevitably 
 we elicit in the process what we arc pleased to call 
 false statements. And it is impossible that it should
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR 'FALSE STATEMENTS' 189 
 
 be otherwise from the very nature of the case. Putting 
 aside mere personal deficiencies of want of sympathy 
 on the one side, and inadequacy of expression on the 
 other, there remains the insuperable obstacle that we 
 arc talking about wholly different matters. The fact 
 which guides his statements, round which they all 
 gather, and to which they all conform, is the very en- 
 grossing one that he wants help, wants it with an 
 intensity which dominates all minor interests to a 
 degree inconceivable to an outsider; and his one en- 
 deavour is to bring this fact as clearly before the 
 mind of the hearer as it is before his own. We, mean- 
 while, have accepted that aspect of the fact (though 
 probably inadequately), and are trying to get at 
 another which is absolutely uninteresting to our 
 patient, which probably does not exist for him. Take 
 such a question as this, which I imagine must be a 
 fairly common one : " Have you ever been so badly 
 off before ? " We want to get at the cause ; is it 
 perioc^ical or accidental ? He has not even a glimpse 
 of our drift, and sees only another opportunity of 
 emphasizing Ids fact, the uniqueness and intensity of 
 his situation ; while very likely the only difference 
 between his present position and that of twelve months 
 ago is the difference between present suffering and 
 the mere recollection of past suffering, and every one 
 knows what a difference that is. 
 
 Generally speaking, it is inevitable that where 
 personal interests are called into play there should be 
 conflict with such a careful and all-round statement 
 as we are wont to call the " true facts of the case." 
 The personal point of view can never be entirely that 
 of science, even with highly-educated people ; how, 
 then, can we expect it of people who have never even
 
 190 AN AI'OI.OfJY ruR 'lALSK STAT1;MK\TS ' 
 
 realized that there is any other point of view than the 
 personal ; to whom facts have but one aspect, that 
 which is felt by them at the present moment ; and to 
 whom every statement not conforming to that aspect 
 is wholly irrelevant? 
 
 This insistence upon the one-sidedness of truth is 
 at the root of all intolerance, whether of philanthropy 
 or morality, politics or religion. It will never cease 
 out of the land until we recognize, on the one hand, 
 that other minds may be so placed as to catch a ray 
 of light which is cut off from us, and, on the other, 
 that the great majority of so-called " false statements " 
 are the expressions of an undeveloped intelligence 
 rather than a low standard of morality. The mind 
 which is capable of a deliberate falsehood is intel- 
 lectually more developed than the majority of those 
 which find their way into a C. O. S. office, and it is 
 hardly too much to say that our work would be more 
 hopeful if genuine false statements were more common. 
 Even the begging-letter writer generally believ-es in 
 himself, and must consider the attitude of the C. O. S. 
 a strangely perverted one. 
 
 To put the question in a wider form, is it not safe 
 to assume that in a considerable number of cases 
 opinions from which we differ require interpretation 
 rather than refutation ?
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 It is always interesting, and may well be useful 
 sometimes, to look back to our ancestors and consider 
 how they lived and died, what problems were puzzling 
 them and how they tried to solve them, and how far 
 the present is what they expected it to be. Unfortu- 
 nately it is not always easy to find materials from 
 which to reconstruct the conditions under which men 
 lived of old, and the inquirer is tempted to envy his 
 descendants who will know all about our times from 
 Mr. Booth. 
 
 But one great source of information we have in Sir 
 Frederick Eden's State of the Poor, which was pub- 
 lished early in 1797. The book has long been out 
 of print, and is not quite easy to get, so it may be 
 of interest to summarize some of the main points 
 in the three quarto volumes. 
 
 The author explains that he was induced to under- 
 take his inquiry by the difficulties which the labouring 
 classes experienced from the high prices of provisions, 
 clothing, and food in 1794 and 1795. 
 
 His plan was to get definite information, collected 
 on the spot, concerning as many different parishes as 
 
 191
 
 192 A HUNDRED N'KARS A^lf) 
 
 possible throughout the country. Some he visited 
 himself, but to most he sent " a remarkably faith- 
 ful and intelligent person ; who has spent more 
 than a year in travelling from place to place, for 
 the express purpose of obtaining exact information, 
 agreeably to a set of queries with which I furnished 
 him." 
 
 In this way he collected details about i8i parishes, 
 in reply to the queries, and as these are themselves of 
 interest we may quote them here : 
 
 " Parish of 
 
 Extent and population ? 
 
 Number of houses that pay the house or window tax, 
 
 distinguishing double tenements ? 
 Number of houses exempted ? 
 Occupations of parishioners, whether in agriculture, 
 
 commerce, or manufacture? 
 What manufactures ? 
 Price of provisions ? 
 Wages of labour ? 
 
 Rent of land, and land tax on the net rental ? 
 What sects of religion ? 
 Tithes, how taken ? 
 Number of inns or ale-houses ? 
 Farms, large or small ? What is the most useful 
 
 tenure ? Principal articles of cultivation ? 
 Commons and waste lands ? 
 Number of acres enclosed (if easily attainable) in any 
 
 of the last forty years ? 
 How are the poor maintained ? by farming them ? in 
 
 houses of industry ? or otherwise. 
 Houses of industry (if any) — their state ; numbers 
 
 therein ; annual mortality ; diet ; expenses and 
 
 profit since their establishment ?
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 193 
 
 Number and state of Friendly Societies ? 
 
 How many of them have had their rules confirmed by 
 
 magistrates ? 
 Usual diet of labourers. 
 Earnings and expenses of a labourer's family for a 
 
 year : distinguishing the number and ages of the 
 
 family, and the price and quantity of their 
 
 articles of consumption. 
 Miscellaneous observations," 
 
 In addition to the picture thus obtained of the life 
 of the poor, Eden gives a history of the labouring 
 classes from the Conquest down to his own day ; and 
 the latter part of this, in which he describes and 
 discusses the many schemes propounded for the 
 improvement of their condition, is especially valuable. 
 It is clear that the air was as full of the question as 
 it is now, and many of the suggestions were strikingly 
 similar to those brought forward now. National 
 pensions, compulsory insurance, subsidizing of Friendly 
 Societies, all kinds of schools of work, were offered by 
 sanguine philanthropists as cures for poverty ; and 
 many are the causes to which poverty is assigned. 
 One writer, for instance, whose name has been lost, 
 connects the increase in the poor's rates with the 
 increase in Methodism, which " is a heavy tax," and 
 " encourages idleness ! " 
 
 Eden himself keeps a wonderfully open mind 
 during the inquiry, but in the Preface allows himself 
 to show that his own favourite panacea is the 
 enclosure of waste and common lands. Strangely 
 enough, as it seems to us now, he thinks that the 
 facilitation of enclosure will really enable posterity to 
 dispense with the Poor Law altogether. By turning 
 the whole kingdom into a rich garden it will give
 
 194 A IIIJNDKEI) VKARS ADO 
 
 abundaticc of work to every labourer for j'ears to 
 come ; and by increasinc^ the amount of food, encour- 
 age the increase of population — one of the chief aims 
 of the statesmen of those days. We are apt, now that 
 the thing is done, to think of the enclosure of the 
 commons as a great injustice to the poor whose rights 
 were annihilated. Eden argues that their advantages 
 were apparent rather than real ; " instead of sticking 
 regularly to any such labour as might enable them to 
 purchase good fuel, they waste their time . . . either 
 in picking up a few dry sticks, or in grubbing up, on 
 some bleak moor, a little furze or heath. Their 
 starved pig or two, together with a few wandering 
 goslings, besides involving them in perpetual alter- 
 cations with their neighbours . . . are dearly paid for 
 by the care and time and bought food which are 
 necessary to rear them. . . . There are thousands and 
 thousands of acres in the kingdom, now the sorry 
 pasture of geese, hogs, asses, half-grown horses and 
 half-starved cattle, which want but to be enclosed and 
 taken care of, to be as rich and as valuable as any 
 lands now in tillage." 
 
 Well, the lands have been enclosed ; but our poor 
 are still with us, and the prospect of dispensing with 
 the Poor Law is as remote as ever. It is only fair to 
 Eden to add, that he would have reserved in every 
 township sufficient land to provide a " competent 
 portion" for each family, and if this precaution had 
 been observed his prophecy might have been nearer of 
 fulfilment. But its failure has been mainly due to the 
 extraordinary development of the country in a way 
 quite unlooked for one hundred years ago, a develop- 
 ment which has increased the population from about 
 gh millions to 38 millions, and has brought about
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 195 
 
 many changes in the circumstances and habits of the 
 working-classes. 
 
 Look, for instance, at Eden's strange statement 
 that the paupers are but rarely found amongst those 
 employed in agriculture; and that "by far the greater 
 part of inmates in workhouses consists of persons who 
 have followed those occupations in which the highest 
 wages are given." One wonders whether this points 
 to greater instability in the highly paid occupations, 
 or whether it merely indicates that wages (in certain 
 directions) were rising faster than the labourer's 
 standard, causing him in many cases to lose his 
 balance and perish miserably. 
 
 Friendly Societies were a great topic of discussion 
 a century ago, and it is interesting to find to what an 
 extent they flourished. They were not, indeed, as we 
 now know them, large and powerful institutions, 
 federated or centralized, with branches all over the 
 country, and including nearly all classes of workers. 
 The societies of a century ago were small affairs, 
 confining their operations to particular localities, and 
 often including only members of particular trades, 
 being in this respect more like the trade unions of 
 to-day. But their objects were — ostensibly at least — 
 confined to those of the benefit club ; and their 
 number throughout the country was great. In 1793 
 an Act was passed recognizing the existence of such 
 societies, and providing relief from taxation and other 
 encouragements ; and we are told that within a very few 
 years nearly lOOO societies were enrolled in Middlesex, 
 and in other counties almost as many {^Encycl. Brit. 
 Art. ' Friendly Societies ' ). Perhaps one reason for their 
 popularity may have been that members seem under 
 the new Act to have been exempted from removal
 
 196 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 under the Poor Law. If we look at two or three 
 towns at random, we find that EaHng, with a popu- 
 lation of between 4000 and 5000, had nine societies ; 
 Newcastle had twenty-six, and Carlisle had six. One 
 of the last is for women, and indeed women's societies 
 .seem to have flouri.shcd much more freely then than 
 now. The rates of benefit were not high as compared 
 with those of to-day, but we must bear in mind that 
 wages also were much lower then. Taking one of 
 the Carlisle societies as typical, we find 6s. a week 
 allowed during illness, with apparently no time limit, 
 and 6s. a week for life to members incapacitated by 
 old age. 
 
 Eden's own opinion about the value of these 
 institutions is very decided. " I cannot," he writes, 
 " recollect any Act of the Legislature, for many years, 
 that has either produced such important natural 
 advantages, or been so popular as the institution and 
 extension of Friendly Societies . . . Friendly 
 Societies have now established, on the broad basis of 
 experience, one great and fundamental truth, of 
 infinite national importance ; viz. that, with very few 
 exceptions, the people in general, of all characters, and 
 under all circumstances, with good management, are 
 perfectly competent to their own maintenance . . . 
 I do not find that any parish has ever been burdened 
 with the maintenance of a member of any Friendl)' 
 Society ; nor are the instances numerous, of families 
 of members becoming burthensome." 
 
 The success of the societies seems to have raised in 
 many philanthropists and statesmen the desire to 
 improve or supersede them. A Mr. Acland "pro- 
 poses that there shall be established, by the authorit)' 
 of Parliament, throughout the whole kingdom of
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 197 
 
 England, one general club or society, to which every 
 male or female, between twenty-one and thirty years 
 of age, shall be required to subscribe," the rates of 
 subscriptions rising with the income. The benefits 
 are to include permanent allowances in old age, rising 
 very rapidly as the recipient rises above seventy years 
 of age. Mr. Gilbert would encourage Friendly 
 Societies by occasional relief from the parish fund (/. e. 
 Poor Law) ; and certain Agricultural Societies gave 
 premiums to clubs which were formed in conformity 
 with rules prescribed by them. 
 
 Eden himself fears the bad effect of any compulsion 
 in the matter. '•' Few of us," he says sagely, " will be 
 driven, but most of us may be led." He cites an Act 
 passed in 1757, by which the paymasters of "coal- 
 hewers working upon the Thames " were instructed to 
 retain two shillings in the pound out of the men's 
 earnings for a benefit fund ; and another passed in 
 1792 " for establishing a permanent fund," by enforced 
 contributions, " for skippers and keelmen " in Durham. 
 He is convinced that Parliamentary regulation is 
 dangerous, and thinks that the Acts already passed, 
 although conferring substantial benefits, have created 
 much alarm, and " have certainly annihilated many 
 societies." Probably the intentions of the regulators 
 were not always purely benevolent ; by many. 
 Friendly Societies were in those days regarded with 
 great suspicion, and Eden only reflects the spirit of 
 the times when he says, " I have indeed more than 
 once heard it insinuated that Friendly Societies are 
 apt to degenerate into Debating Clubs, and that 
 convivial meetings on a Saturday night might become 
 the aptest vehicles for disseminating principles subver- 
 sive of subordination and submission to the laws of
 
 198 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 our country. I have also heard it asserted that the 
 members of Friendly Societies, from being accustomed 
 to meet at ale-houses, are not only stimulated by 
 interested landlords, but cncouraejcd by the contaf^ion 
 of ill examples in habits of drunkenness ; that the 
 money which is spent on a club-night is entirely lost 
 to the labourer's family." But Eden regards these as 
 remediable defects, and as counting for little in com- 
 parison with the positive value of the clubs. He has 
 probably hit upon the real cause why the small local 
 societies have disappeared in favour of our present 
 system, when he points out that a member could not 
 change his trade or parish without forfeiting future 
 benefits from his society, so that they practically 
 acted in the same way as the settlement laws — i. e. 
 they prevented men from seeking the best market for 
 their labour. One society, indeed, he quotes, which 
 by its simplicity avoids both this difificulty and the 
 danger of embezzlement of "the chest." It consists 
 of about fifty members, and is called the Penny 
 Society ; there are no funds, but when a brother is 
 confined to bed by sickness, every member pays him 
 a penny weekly. Similar societies exist in London 
 to-day. 
 
 In comparing the wages of a century ago with those 
 of to-day, we have to bear in mind the great change 
 in the relative prices of commodities. Prices varied 
 also from one part of the country to another more 
 than they now do ; but taking Leeds as fairly repre- 
 sentative, we find prices in that town ranging as 
 follows : Oatmeal, 2s. yi. the stone (present retail 
 price about \s. gd.) ; flour, 2s. ^hd. to 2s. \\d. the stone 
 (normal price, \s. yd.) ; beef, '^\d. to ^d. the pound ; 
 mutton, 4^-^/. ; veal, 4^^/. ; pork, 4^/. ; milk, 2d. the
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 199 
 
 quart; butter, i\d. for 16 ounces ; potatoes, i\d. the 
 peck. Concerning the general diet of the people in 
 this town, Eden writes : " Wheaten bread is generally- 
 used here ; some is partly made of rye, and a few 
 persons use oat bread. Animal food forms a con- 
 siderable portion of the diet of labouring people; 
 tea^ is now the ordinary breakfast, more especially 
 amongst women of every description." 
 
 But the working population of Leeds, as of other 
 manufacturing towns, enjoyed a much better diet than 
 the mass of the people. The woollen manufacture was 
 the staple industry, and weavers earned from 12s. to 
 i8j. a week ; and more when they worked by the 
 piece. But they seemed to Eden to live extravagantly, 
 and he laments that " amongst them, high wages are 
 generally the forerunners of poverty." Unfortun- 
 ately he gives no account of the hours of work ; 
 probably he might have found an explanation of the 
 extravagance in the strain of factory life in those 
 days. 
 
 Bricklayers and masons in the same town earned 
 from 2s. 6d. to T)S. a day, and ordinary labourers from 
 gs. to los. 6d. a week. In Sheffield, cutlers earned 
 from \os. to 30^". In Manchester, cotton printers 
 earned from 21s. to ^os. a week; but the average 
 earnings of manufacturing labourers were about i6s. 
 " But," adds Eden, " it is to be observed that they 
 rarely work on Mondays, and that many of them 
 keep holiday two or three days in the week." In North 
 Shields, common labourers receive 12s. a week in 
 summer, and los. in winter; masons, 15^-. a week. 
 (To show how prices varied we may note that flour in 
 this place cost, " fine flour, 4$-. 2d. the stone ; second 
 
 ^ Tea is quoted elsewhere as costing 4^. the pound.
 
 200 A HIJNDKKD YKAKS A(JO 
 
 sort of flour, 3^-. i \d. the stone," as against 2s. 4U/. in 
 Leeds.) 
 
 Of the wages of agricultural labourers it is difficult 
 to get any general idea, for they vary so much — not 
 merely from place to place, but from one season to 
 another. For instance, at l\.ode, in Northampton, the 
 wages are "in winter and spring, about is. a day, 
 with breakfast and beer; in hay harvest, ioj". 6d. the 
 week, with beer ; in corn harvest, 40^". the month and 
 board till it is concluded." According to Eden's 
 statistics they vary at different places from 6s. to los. 
 a week, with a very varying amount of " diet " given in. 
 
 The women and children worked, but as a rule 
 earned very little. At Banbury, "children and 
 women in the manufactories earn about 2>-^. a week." 
 At Manchester, in the cotton mills, " women earn from 
 6s. to 12s. a week. Children, of seven or eight years 
 old, can earn 2s. a week ; of nine or ten years, 4s. 
 a week." In Sheffield "women follow many different 
 employments ; a few earn by spinning lint, about 6d. a 
 day ; washerwomen are paid is. a day and victuals." 
 At Rode, " a servant-maid of twenty years of age has 
 about ^3 a year, in a farmer's service." " During the 
 fruit season, a great many women are employed by 
 the market gardeners in this parish (Ealing) in 
 gathering and carrying fruit, pease, etc. to London. 
 Their wages seldom exceed half of what men receive 
 for the same work. A woman is only paid 6d. for 
 carrying a very heavy basket of fruit from Ealing or 
 Brentford to Covent Garden, near nine miles. They, 
 however, sometimes make two trips in a day. Most 
 of the women who are thus employed are Welsh." 
 In Kent, a boy of ten years cams 6</. a day ; at twelve, 
 gd. ; at fourteen, is., rising to full wages, 2s. a day.
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 201 
 
 at eighteen. Women earn from 8c/. to \od. in the 
 fields ; and " an industrious woman may earn 2s. 6d. 
 or TfS. a day in picking hops." 
 
 Here is a summary of the "state of the poor" in a 
 district of the East Riding of Yorkshire : 
 
 " Common wages, with diet, from Martinmas to 
 Lady Day, 5^. the week; from Lady Day to Mid- 
 summer, i6s.\ from Midsummer to Michaelmas, 9^-. ; 
 from Michaelmas to Martinmas, 6s. Common wages, 
 without diet, 9.5-. the week in winter, and 12s. in 
 summer. In harvest, men receive 12s. and 14J. the 
 week, and victuals ; and women, 6s. and ys. the week, 
 with beer, but no meat. There is very constant 
 employment in the winter. The labourers are, in 
 general, supplied by their employers with corn, etc., 
 much below the market price. The rents of cottages 
 vary according to the quantity of land annexed ; and 
 are from ^i to ^i \os. Many of the cottages on 
 this coast are miserable hovels ; built of mud and 
 straw. Such habitations are sometimes granted by 
 the parish to poor families ; and sometimes the 
 parishes supply their poor inhabitants with fuel. 
 Many cottagers cultivate potatoes in their garths or 
 gardens ; some have a pig, and a few keep cows." 
 
 But it is from the " family budgets " which Eden 
 has collected that we get most details concerning 
 the labourer's maintenance ; and some of these are 
 well worth quoting. Let us look first at one from 
 Cumberland, as among the most prosperous. 
 
 The man is a miner, 45 years of age ; he has a 
 wife and seven children, two of whom are boys, and 
 five girls; the eldest girl is 18 years old, the youngest 
 one year. He earns on an average yearly, £26; and 
 his wife and children occasionally wash ore, and earn
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 yearly about £i8, tnakinf^ 
 expenditure is as follows: 
 
 House-rent ... 
 Barley bread 
 
 Fuel (peat) 
 
 Milk 
 
 Butcher's meat 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Tea and sugar 
 
 Butter 
 
 Soap, candles, etc. ... 
 Cloathing and incidentals 
 
 Total 
 
 a total of £44. His 
 
 £ 
 
 3 
 5 
 1 
 I 
 10 
 4 
 4 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 
 i^44 
 
 As a contrast to this fairly prosperous family we 
 may take the account of two families in Banbury, 
 where, Eden tells us, " the poor . . . appear to be 
 in a very miserable state." In the first family the 
 man is a widower, and works as a common labourer, 
 at carting, digging, etc. ; his earnings are Ss. a week 
 for 48 weeks, and in one of the summer months 
 gs. a week, making a yearly total of ;62i. He has 
 three children, for whom the parish allows him 2s. 
 a week, bringing his income up to £26 4s. His 
 expenditure is as follows : 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d 
 
 Bread 
 
 ■• 13 13 
 
 
 
 Tea and sugar 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 Butter and lard 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 Beer and milk 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Bacon and other meat 
 
 I 10 
 
 
 
 Soap, candles, etc. ... 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 House-rent ... 
 
 • 3 
 
 
 
 Coals 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 Shoes and shirts 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Other cloaths, etc 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 ■£3^ 8 
 

 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 203 
 
 "In this account," says the record, "the expenses 
 exceed the income by £$ 4s.; on enquiry it was 
 found that the man was in debt between £t, and 
 £4 ; and that his neighbours were very kind to 
 him, and often suppHed him with old cloaths, etc. 
 . . . He has a garden of 160 square yards, on which 
 he grows about three or four bushels of potatoes." 
 
 In the second family, where the man has a wife 
 and six children, two of the children earn, and the 
 parish gives him is. a week "to support his lame 
 daughter"; and the total income is thus ^35 2s. 
 His expenditure account is simple : 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 ^. 
 
 Bread 
 
 27 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 House-rent ... 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Fuel ... 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Everything else 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 £3S 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 This expenditure was with bread at is. 2d. the half- 
 peck loaf; in 1797 it stood at is. lod. the loaf; and 
 Eden points out that at this price the family must 
 reduce their consumption of almost their only food 
 considerably. Nor can they, he continues, substitute 
 any other kind of food, such as "hasty pudding" 
 (porridge), boiled milk and potatoes or barley bread, 
 because of the difficulties of cooking. " The extreme 
 dearness of fuel, in Oxfordshire, compels him to 
 purchase his dinner at the baker's ; and from his 
 unavoidable consumption of bread, he has little left 
 for cloaths, in a country where warm cloathing is 
 most essentially wanted." 
 
 What strikes us at once about these budgets is, 
 that almost the whole income is consumed at once 
 in the barest necessaries, leaving little or nothing to
 
 204 A HUNDRED VKARS AGO 
 
 be laid out in that variety of food which has now 
 become ahnost, if not quite, a necessity. It is the 
 margin left, after the first essential outlay has been 
 incurred, which makes the financial basis of a family 
 broader and more secure, liut in 1796 a labourer 
 could obviously not retrench in bad times, for he was 
 already at the lowest point. And yet it was generally 
 thought that his only means of improving his position 
 was to live more economically. Eden urges that : 
 "To convince his employer that his wages ought to 
 be raised, may require more eloquence than he is 
 possessed of; but to make the wages which he 
 receives more productive, depends on a few little 
 frugal arrangements at home." Accordingly, a con- 
 siderable part of his book is taken up with descrip- 
 tions of various kinds of rye and oaten bread, and of 
 substitutes for bread, and of receipts for cheap soups. 
 Even bacon he is disposed to regard as an extrava- 
 gance : " a labouring man, in the metropolis, who 
 thinks he cannot afford milk, and therefore obliges 
 his family to drink their tea in a very crude state, 
 by way of economy, buys himself half-a-pound of 
 fat bacon (at lod. or \s. the pound) for dinner. This 
 creates such a thirst that he is fain to allay it with no 
 inconsiderable quantity of porter." 
 
 Generally speaking, Eden's quiet and impartial 
 investigations are very different from the declamations 
 which we find in the FavDio-'s Letters^ ^ against the 
 so-called extravagance of the labourer ; but both are 
 severe on what was then called the vice of tea-drink- 
 ing. The Farmer speaks of people that are " com- 
 pletely cloathed b}- the parish, and will let their 
 cloaths drop in pieces, without being at the trouble 
 
 ^ Sec Standard of Lij\\ p. 28.
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 205 
 
 and expense of ever mending them, at the very time 
 they have every day drank their tea sweetened with 
 nine-penny sugar," Again, he says : " As much super- 
 fluous money is expended on TEA and SUGAR, as 
 would maintain four milHons more of subjects in 
 BREAD." The lowering of the tax upon this " vile 
 superfluity," this " pernicious drug," merely enables 
 them to drink it twice instead of once a day. What, 
 then, we may ask, was the cost of this terrible 
 luxury ? " Now the duty is lowered, the entertain- 
 ment of sipping tea costs the poor each time as 
 follows : The tea |<:/., the sugar Jy/., the butter id., 
 the fuel and wear of the tea equipage \d. : total, 2hd. 
 N.B. — This article in general costs much more, but 
 sometimes we suppose the fire not made on purpose. . . . 
 It is amazing how the people are tea-bibbers, and 
 become as tenacious of drinking this infusion, as a 
 mad dog to avoid drinking at all." 
 
 For the price of clothing we must revert to Eden. 
 Here again he extols the economy of the north over 
 the extravagance of the south. In the latter, working- 
 people buy from the shops, either new or cast-off 
 clothing ; in the former almost every article is spun, 
 woven, and made at home. It is, however, acknow- 
 ledged " that articles of cloathing can be purchased in 
 the shops at a much lower price than those who make 
 them at home can afford to sell them for ; but that, 
 in the wearing, those manufactured by private families 
 are very superior both in warmth and durability." 
 
 His account of prices and clothing in Cumberland 
 and London respectively may be quoted at length. 
 In the former: "The usual price of a hat worn by 
 labourers is about 2s. 6d. ; a coat purchased (4 yards) 
 costs about 2s. 6d. a yard ; a waistcoat takes a yard
 
 2of> A iinNi)Ri:i) ^■I•:Aks a(;o 
 
 and a half; a pair of Icalhcr breeches costs 3.?. 6(/. ; 
 labourers sometimes wear breeches of flannel or 
 coloured cloth. A tailor charges ^s. for making a 
 whole suit. A linen shirt takes 3] yards, at 7^/. a 
 yard; this is strong and wears well. About ii oz. 
 of wool, at 8c/. the pound, will make a pair of stock- 
 ings. They are almost invariably spun and knit at 
 home. 
 
 " Women's dress generally consists of a black stuff 
 hat, of the price of is. Si/. ; a linen bedgown (stamped 
 with blue), mostly of home manufacture ; this usually 
 costs in the shop about S^. dd. ; a cotton or linen 
 neck-cloth, price about \s. 6d. ; coar.sc woollen stock- 
 ings, home manufacture, value about is. 8d.; linen 
 shift, home manufacture, 24 yards, at is. ^d. the yard. 
 Women generally wear stays, or rather boddice, of 
 various prices. Their gowns are sometimes made of 
 woollen stuff; 6 yards, at is. 6d. a yard. The women, 
 however, generally wear black silk hats and cotton 
 gowns on Sundays and holidays." 
 
 " The following are the prices of cloaths, as sold in 
 
 a slop-shop in the neighbourhood of London : 
 
 s. d. 
 Men : — A good foul-weather coat (will last very well 
 two years) 
 A common waistcoat 
 A pair of stout breeches (one year) 
 Stockings, the pair 
 A dowlas shirt 
 A pair of strong shoes 
 A hat (will last three years) 
 
 Women : — A common stuff gown 
 
 Linsey-woolsey petticoat ... 
 
 A shift 
 
 A pair of shoes 
 
 Coarse apron 
 
 Check apron 
 
 A pair of stockings 
 
 ... 13 
 
 ... 6 6 
 
 ••• 3 9 
 
 1 10 
 
 ... 4 6 
 
 ... 7 
 
 ... 2 6 
 
 ... 6 6 
 
 ... 4 6 
 
 ... 3 8 
 
 ••■ 3 9 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 ... I 6
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 207 
 
 Women {coittiiiued) : — 
 
 A hat, the cheapest sort (will last two years) 
 
 Coloured neck-handkerchief 
 
 A common cap 
 
 Cheapest kind of cloak (will last wo years) 
 
 Pair of stays (will last six years) ... 
 
 I S 
 I o 
 10 
 4 6 
 6 o 
 
 The chief economy which Eden urges in the way 
 of dress, is the substitution of clogs for shoes. " The 
 clogs, which will last two grown persons and four 
 children a twelvemonth, do not cost more than i ^s. or 
 i6j". ; whereas in Hertfordshire, it is not uncommon 
 for a day-labourer, with a large famil}', to spend ;^3 
 a-year in shoes." Those who know how miserably, 
 and yet expensively, the poor Londoner of to-day is 
 often shod, will agree that in this point at least Eden 
 was advocating a real improvement, and not a lower- 
 ing of the standard. 
 
 Two points we may note here. First, that " the 
 vice of tea-drinking" has, for good or for evil, become 
 firmly established. It is a striking instance of how, 
 when the working-class is fully determined that a com- 
 modity is desirable for them, they will persist in its 
 use notwithstanding all opposition and expense, until 
 they triumphantly add it to their list of necessaries. 
 With tea they have even succeeded in converting a 
 vice into a virtue, for has not " tea-sipping " become 
 a sign of the domestic and temperate man ? In order 
 to understand the outcry of the last century on the 
 subject, we may note the following circumstances in 
 the history of tea. Between 1780 and 1790 the duty 
 on tea was lowered from 35". A^d. to jd. the lb. ; and 
 the consumption increased from 5 million lbs. to 
 14-^ million lbs. Before the duty was lowered "a 
 committee of the House of Commons discovered that 
 4 million lbs. of so-called tea were annually manii-
 
 2oS A HUNDRED YEARS AC.O 
 
 facturcd from sloe, liquorice, and ash leaves."^ 
 Secondly, we may note, not only that the labourer's 
 margin of expenditure has become much greater, but 
 also that he has a much greater variety of commodities 
 upon which to spend it. The improvement is due 
 largely to the fall in the price of the articles which he 
 has selected to be his necessaries. Meat, it is true, 
 has risen in price ; but the price of meat had little 
 to do with the ordinary labourer of a century ago ; 
 as we have seen it hardly entered into his expendi- 
 ture at all. It is now, however, fast establishing 
 itself as a necessary ; and we may hope that, as 
 with bread and tea, its universal consumption will be 
 accompanied by a great fall in price. The recon- 
 ciliation of the people to foreign meat should not 
 be much more difficult than their reconciliation to 
 foreign corn. 
 
 If Eden had lived in our times, he would have been 
 strong against the Sunday closing of museums and 
 picture galleries. He expresses himself very strongly 
 against the repression of pastimes : 
 
 " Our laws against profaneness and immorality 
 have, no doubt, very properly prohibited many cruel 
 (if not otherwise improper) diversions on the Sabbath- 
 day ; but they have not pointed out any other means 
 of relaxation during those hours which (whatever 
 might be the wish of the friends of religion) are not 
 likely ever to be spent, altogether, either in public 
 worship, or in private meditation. Out of mere spite 
 ... an Act was passed in the beginning of Charles 
 the First's reign, for putting down all sports and 
 pastimes whatever on the Lord's Day. Whether, 
 however, this Act has been conducive to a more 
 
 1 Mr. Denver, Economic Journal^ vol. iii. p. 35.
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 209 
 
 religious observance of the Sabbath may be much 
 doubted. The only difference between the beginning 
 of the last and the conclusion of the present century, 
 in this respect, seems to be, that in the former the 
 people attended bear-baitings, bull-baitings and cock- 
 matches : at present they spend their Sunday evenings 
 at skittle-grounds and ale-houses. Piety and morality 
 seem to have gained little ; though perhaps the 
 revenue may have gained considerably by the change. 
 It is worthy, too, of observation, that this day, of 
 all others in the week, is in London the most pro- 
 ductive of disorder and riot. On a Sunday night 
 the streets of the metropolis are infested with 
 drunken men ; on a Monday morning the cages 
 and watch-houses in the circumjacent villages are 
 fully tenanted." 
 
 Concerning beggars in London, Eden quotes an 
 estimate of the number in those classes which may 
 be fairly comprehended under the term of beggars. 
 
 " Strangers out of work, who have wandered up to 
 London in search of employment, and without recom- 
 mendation, generally in consequence of some misde- 
 meanour committed in the country, at all times above 
 1000. 
 
 " Strolling minstrels, ballad-singers, showmen, trum- 
 peters and gypsies : 1 500. 
 
 " Grubbers, gin-drinking women, and destitute boys 
 and girls, wandering and prowling about the streets 
 and bye-places after chips, nails, old metals, etc. : 
 2000. 
 
 " Common beggars and vagrants asking alms, sup- 
 posing one to every two streets : 3000. 
 
 " Making a total of about 7500 beggars in London." 
 
 When we talk to-day of the slavery of the working- 
 
 V
 
 2IO A IlUNI)ki;D YEARS AGO 
 
 classes, we are well aware that we do so metaphorically, 
 and that wc are using strong language for the sake 
 of emphasis. But how many of us know that it is 
 little more than a century since there were actual 
 serfs, if not in England, yet in Great Britain ? But 
 the following statement by Eden is apparently quite 
 correct : 
 
 " The working of mines seems to have been produc- 
 tive of more immediate hardship on the persons so 
 employed than almost any other occupation what- 
 soever : it was therefore, in ancient times, the peculiar 
 allotment of slaves : the reader will perhaps be 
 surprised to be informed, that this state of servitude 
 actually existed in this kingdom not longer than 
 twelve years ago. It appears from the language of 
 Legislature, that a miner, in the Northern parts of 
 Great Britain, was as much transferable property as a 
 villein regardant : 
 
 " Whereas, by the Statute law of Scotland, as ex- 
 plained by the Judges of the Courts of Law there, many 
 colliers and coal-bearers and salters are in a state of 
 slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries and salt 
 works, where they work for life, transferable with the 
 collieries and salt works, when their original masters 
 have no further use for them. . . ." 
 
 Before the passing of this Act, Mr. Pennant remarked 
 that, in Scotland, thousands of our fellow-subjects 
 were the property of their landlords, appurtenances 
 to their estates, and to be transferable with them to 
 any purchaser. He adds : " IMultitudes of colliers and 
 salters are in this situation, who are bound to the spot 
 for their lives : and even strangers, who come to settle 
 there, are bound by the same cruel custom, unless they 
 previously stipulate to the contrary. Should the poor
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 211 
 
 people remove to another place, on a temporary cessa- 
 tion of the works, they are liable to be recalled at will, 
 and constrained to return on severe penalties " (vol. i. p. 
 418). 
 
 For children, indeed, a state very near that of slavery, 
 lasted even beyond Eden's time. The recent outcry 
 against District Schools for the children who are under 
 the care of the Poor Law marks an extraordinary 
 change in public opinion since the time when the 
 following description was possible : 
 
 " In the cotton mills (it would seem from Dr. Aikins' 
 description of the country round Manchester) children 
 of a very tender age are employed ; many of them 
 collected from the work-houses in London and West- 
 minster, and transported in crowds, as apprentices to 
 masters, resident many hundred miles distant, where 
 they serve, unknown, unprotected, and forgotten by 
 those to whose care nature or the laws had consigned 
 them. These children are usually too long confined 
 to work in close rooms, often during the whole night ; 
 the air they breathe, from the oil,'etc. employed in the 
 machinery, is injurious ; little regard is paid to their 
 cleanliness ; and frequent changes from a warm and 
 dense, to a cold and thin, atmosphere, are predispos- 
 ing causes to sickness and disability, and particularly 
 to the epidemic fever, which so generally is to be met 
 with in these factories. It is also much to be 
 questioned, if society does not receive detriment from 
 the manner in which children are thus employed 
 during their early years. They are not generally strong 
 to labour, or capable of pursuing any other branch 
 of business, when the term of their apprenticeship 
 expires. 
 
 " The females are wholly uninstructed in sewing.
 
 212 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 knitting, and other domestic affairs, requisite to make 
 them notable and frugal wives and mothers. This is 
 a very great misfortune to them and the public ; as is 
 sadly proved by a comparison of the families of 
 labourers in industry, and those of manufacturers in 
 general. In the former we meet with neatness, clean- 
 liness, and comfort ; in the latter with filth, rags, and 
 poverty, although their wages may be nearly double 
 to those of the husbandmen. It must be added, that 
 the want of early religious instruction and example, 
 and the numerous and indiscriminate association in 
 these buildings, are very unfavourable to their future 
 conduct in life." 
 
 We will conclude our extracts from Eden with a 
 short biography of a peasant woman of the poorest 
 class, which could doubtless be matched by many a 
 tale of our own times, and which indeed illustrates in 
 a simple straightforward manner the heroism of work- 
 ing women of all times and ages : 
 
 " Anne Hurst was born at Witley, in Surrey : there 
 she lived the whole period of a long life, and there she 
 died. As soon as she was thought able to work, she 
 went to service ; there, before she was 20, she married 
 James Strudwick ; who, like her own father, was a 
 day-labourer. With this husband she lived a prolific, 
 hard-working, contented wife, somewhat more than 50 
 years. He worked more than threescore years on one 
 farm ; and his wages, summer and winter, were regu- 
 larly a shilling a day. He never asked more, nor was 
 ever offered less. They had between them seven 
 children ; and lived to see six daughters married, and 
 three of them mothers of sixteen children ; all of whom 
 were brought up . . . to be day-labourers. Strudwick 
 continued to work till within seven days of the day of
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 213 
 
 his death: and at the age of fourscore, in 1787, he 
 closed in peace a not inglorious life ; for, to the day of 
 his death, he never received a farthing in the way of 
 parochial aid. His wife survived him about seven 
 years; and though bent with age and infirmities, and 
 little able to work, excepting as a weeder in a gentle- 
 man's garden, she also was too proud either to ask or 
 receive any relief from her parish. For six or sev^en of 
 the last years of her life she received 20s. a year from 
 the person who favoured me with this account. . . . 
 With all her virtue and all her merit, she yet was not 
 much liked in her neighbourhood ; people in affluence 
 thought her haughty ; and the paupers of the parish, 
 seeing, as the}' could not help seeing, that her life was 
 a reproach to theirs, aggravated all her little failings. 
 Yet the worst they had to say of her was that she 
 was proud ; which they said was manifested by the 
 manner in which she buried her husband. Resolute, 
 as she owned she was, to have the funeral, and every- 
 thing that related to it, what she called decent, nothing 
 could dissuade her from having handles to his coffin, 
 and a plate on it mentioning his age. She was also 
 charged with having behaved herself crossl)- and 
 peevishly towards one of her sons-in-law, who was a 
 mason ; and went regularly, every Saturday evening, 
 to the ale-house, as he sa\d,jjistto drink a pot of beer. 
 James Strudwick, in all his life, as she often told this 
 ungracious son-in-law, never spent $3. in any idle- 
 ness ; luckily (as she was sure to add) he had it not 
 to spend. A more serious charge against her was, 
 that, living to a great age, and but little able to work, 
 she grew to be seriously afraid, that, at last, she 
 might become chargeable to the parish (the heaviest 
 in her estimation of all human calamities), and
 
 214 A IIUNDRKD YEARS AGO 
 
 that, thus alarmed, she did suffer herself more than 
 once, during the exacerbations of a fit of distempered 
 despondency, peevishly (and perhaps petulantly) to 
 exclaim that God Almighty, by suffering her to 
 remain so long upon earth, seemed actually to have 
 forcrotten her."
 
 TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 
 A LESSON TO SOCIAL REFORMERS 
 
 GlaucON the son of Ariston, desiring to be a 
 leader in the city, began to speak in public before he 
 was twenty years old, and amongst his friends and 
 relatives none was able to restrain him from making 
 a laughing-stock of himself and being dragged off the 
 platform, except Socrates. He, meeting him, began 
 in such a way as to induce him to listen, saying — 
 " Well, Glaucon, I hear you intend to be a great man 
 in our city ? " " Yes, I do, Socrates," replied the 
 other. " That's right," he said, " it's one of the best 
 things a man can do ; for if you succeed you will not 
 only be able to do whatever you like yourself, but you 
 will be in a position to help your friends, and to raise 
 your family, and to increase the greatness of your 
 country ; and you will be renowned first in the city, 
 and then throughout Greece, and perhaps even, like 
 Themistocles, abroad ; and wherever you may be you 
 will always be a conspicuous person." 
 
 Hearing this, Glaucon was much flattered, and 
 willingly stayed to listen, so Socrates went on — 
 
 215
 
 2i6 TWO THOUSAND VKARS AGO 
 
 " I suppose since you are going to be so famous you 
 mean to be ver)- useful to the city ?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Come then, don't make a mysterj- about it; tell us 
 where you will begin your reforms." 
 
 Glaucon hesitated, as if just beginning to consider 
 what he would do first, and Socrates continued — 
 
 " I suppose if }'ou wanted to exalt a friend's house- 
 hold, you would try to make him richer ; shall you try 
 to make the city richer ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " It will be richer if the sources of revenue arc 
 increased ? " 
 
 " I should think so." 
 
 " Tell us then from what sources the revenues of the 
 city are now derived, and how great they are ; for you 
 must have considered this, so as to be able to increase 
 what are deficient, and to replace any which may have 
 dropped out." 
 
 " Why no," said Glaucon, " I have not considered 
 this." 
 
 " Well, if }-ou have omitted this, tell us the expenses 
 of the city ; for }'Ou will want to cut off those which 
 are superfluous." 
 
 " Indeed," he said, " I have not >'et had time to look 
 into this either," 
 
 " Ah, well," said Socrates, '* we'll put off making the 
 city richer ; for how is it possible to look after her ex- 
 penses and revenues unless you know what they are .^ " 
 
 " But, Socrates," said Glaucon, "it is possible to 
 make the city richer at the expense of her enemies." 
 
 " Why, certainly, if we happen to be the stronger, 
 but if we are weaker we should lose even what we 
 have."
 
 TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO 217 
 
 " No doubt." 
 
 " Then if you want to advise war you must know 
 the strength of the city, and that of the hostile powers ; 
 and then if the city is stronger you may advise her to 
 declare war, but if the enemy is stronger you may 
 persuade her to let it be." 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 " Come then, tell us first what is the strength of the 
 city by land and by sea ; and then the same of the 
 other powers." 
 
 " Indeed," said Glaucon, " I am not in a position to 
 tell you that out of my head." 
 
 " Never mind ; if you have got it written down, go 
 and fetch it, for we should so like to hear." 
 
 " But I've not even got it written down yet." 
 
 " Then we must refrain also from giving counsel 
 about war," said Socrates ; " perhaps the magnitude 
 of these matters put you off undertaking them so 
 early in your career. But I am sure you have been 
 thinking about the defences of the country, and know 
 how many of the forts are well placed or not, and 
 how many are sufficiently garrisoned, and that you 
 will advise us how to strengthen those which are well 
 placed, and do away with those which are super- 
 fluous." 
 
 " I shall do away with all of them," said Glaucon, 
 " for they are so badly garrisoned that the country- 
 side is actually plundered." 
 
 " And if you take away the forts any one who likes 
 will be able to plunder ! But did you go and look 
 into it yourself? or how did you know that they are 
 all badly garrisoned ? " 
 
 " I imagine it to be the case." 
 
 " Might it not be better here again," said Socrates,
 
 2i8 TWO THOUSAND YEARS AOO 
 
 "to put off giving advice until \vc no longer imagine, 
 but know ? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps," said Glaucon. 
 
 " I suppose you have not been to the silver-mines," 
 resumed Socrates, " so as to be able to say why they 
 are yielding less than they used to ? " 
 
 " No, I have not been there." 
 
 " Why, no, indeed ; the place is said to be unhealthy, 
 and that will be quite sufficient excuse when you are 
 called upon to speak about it." 
 
 " You are laughing at me," said Glaucon. 
 
 " One thing, at any rate, I am sure you have not 
 neglected, and that is, how long the corn of the 
 country suffices to feed the city, and how much it 
 falls short in the year ; so that the city may not run 
 short without your being aware, but that you may 
 know exactly what is necessary, and by your advice 
 to the city may help and save it." 
 
 " You are making it out to be a tremendous affair," 
 said Glaucon, " if I am to have to look after such 
 things as these." 
 
 " Why," said Socrates, " no one would ever be able 
 to manage his own household properly, if he did not 
 understand just what was needed, and if he were 
 not careful to supply it. But since the city consists of 
 more than ten thousand households, and it is a difficult 
 matter to manage so many all together, why not try 
 first to improve one, that of your uncle ? — it needs it. 
 And if you find you can do this, then you may try more; 
 but if you cannot help one, how could you help man}- ? 
 just as if any one could not carry the weight of one 
 talent, he would not even try to carry more." 
 
 " I would certainl}' put my uncle's house in order," 
 said Glaucon, " if he were willing to obey me."
 
 TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO 219 
 
 *' Do you really think, then, that though you are 
 unable to make your uncle obey you, you will be able 
 to make all the Athenians, including your uncle, obey 
 you ? Take care, Glaucon, that in your eagerness for 
 fame you do not get the opposite. Do you not see 
 how dangerous it is for people to talk, and be busy 
 about matters which they don't understand ? Think 
 of others, whom you have known to say and to do 
 things which they did not understand, and consider 
 whether they met with praise or blame for those 
 things, and whether they were admired or despised. 
 Consider, too, those who know what they are saying 
 and doing, and I think you will find that in all matters 
 those who have the best repute, and are most looked 
 up to, are amongst those who understand best ; while 
 the uninstructed have a bad name, and are despised. 
 If, then, you desire to have a good reputation, and to 
 be looked up to in the city, try, as far as possible, to 
 insist upon understanding what you are going to do ; 
 for, if you excel in this before undertaking to manage 
 the city, I should not wonder if you get what you 
 want quite easily." 
 
 THE END 
 
 Richard Clay 6^ Sotis, Limited, London <5r> Bungay.
 
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