2 JANUARY 1886, Page 17

"TIPS."

TELE lady who writes to Tuesday's Times under the signature

of "Fair Wages and No Tips" has evidently a very healthy conception of what moral independence ought to be, but certainly one which rather suits the moral atmosphere of a Republic than the moral atmosphere of this country as it is. She is in love with the ideal of the policeman who, after saving a large country house from being burnt down by his prompti- tude, rejected indignantly the handsome reward offered him the next morning in the words,—" Sir, I would have done the same for the poorest cottages in my rounds,"—which doubtless was very true, but did not at all prove that if the poorest cottager of the poorest cottage in his rounds had been exceedingly anxious to show his gratitude in any way appropriate to a man of no means, it would have been either mean or otherwise wrong, —supposing, of course, that the service did not require him to refuse such tokens of gratitude,—for the policeman to accept what the cottager might have been anxious that he should accept as a token of thanks. We do not say that the kind of pride which made the policeman indignant when the Magistrate whose house he had saved wished to make him a handsome present, is at all a bad quality. Doubtless the feeling that your having done efficiently what you were professionally paid to do is not a ground for reward, is a very noble kind of feeling which is more likely to result in faithful service than the state of mind which regards any extra zeal as entitled to special recognition and

remuneration. But was not the policeman's feeling really one rather of dislike to be patronised than of reluctance to regard a part of his effort as being in excess of his duty ? Was it not rather the feeling, I will not take a favour from anyone, least of all from a rich man, to whom it would place me under a specially dis- agreeable obligation ' ? And if that were the feeling, would not any wide prevalence of such a feeling suggest a state of society altogether different from that in which we live, though, of course, there may be here and there examples of a state of feeling so thoroughly alien to that which prevails generally in our country ? We quite understand feeling aggrieved at the special pecuniary recognition of services which might be exacted if they were net voluntarily accorded. And we have very much the same feeling as the writer of the letter in the Times that it would be far better if servants in general, whether on railways, or in the postal service, or in private houses, could be paid the full value of their work, and not partly paid, as they so commonly now are, by more or less capricious gratuities. But let us not suppose for a moment that that is a change which the rich can bring about by agreeing in small groups to refuse such gratuities. The reason it cannot be easily brought about is this. If the postmen, the porters at railway stations, and domestic servants in houses where much company is kept, were paid wholly by wages, and all gratuities could be absolutely abolished, the only result would be that, in the case of postmen and porters at least, the advance of wages necessary, if any advance proved to be necessary, would come out of the poor; for the increased cost of letter-carrying, or of railway travelling, aould only be paid either by a higher ,rate of postage or fares, or by a „higher general -taxation, either expedient necessarily falling in part upon the ,poor, whereas :in the .present case the gratuities fall wholly on the well-to-do. If .no-advance of -wages proved to be necessary, then the whole lostriwould_f all-on a very good. and hard-working class of•menito-whomit is.hppossible to- grudge the proceeds of a:little self-taxation- -by. the Ndell-to-do. The case of household servants is, of couree,rdifferent. There it is a question between the master paying higher wages-and forbidding absolutely,—what -it is, however,-extremely difficult to forbid effectually,—the taking of veils by the servants, and paying somewhat lower wages and allowing his guests-to contribute. The only reason for the latter course is, we believe, that both the guests and the servants prefer it. The guests prefer it because there is a certain awkwardness in giving trouble, and not recognising it in some way. The servants prefer it because they 'feel that a dubious element in their wages which they cannot count upon with any certainty beforehand adds a definite interest to their life, and also makes them really more willing to exert themselves in the service of their masters' guests. It is quite true that that feeling in the servants does not argue very great independence of mind, or even what is called "proper pride." But there is nothing wicked in such a feeling, nothing which calls for rebuke or condemnation, and it seems to us quite a mistake to suppose that you can alter the moral attitude of large classes of people by the mere expedient of refusing to conform to customs which, at the worst, only imply that the kind of pride which we call Republican has not grown up amongst us. No one, even in the higher classes, objects to those presents by Which the affection, or goodwill, or gratitude, or mere sociability of men so often expresses itself. Well, as you cannot easily give to those who are much poorer than yourself what will certainly be useful to them, you give them what will enable them to buy for themselves what will certainly be useful to them ; and we cannot imagine why this should be in any way reprehensible, supposing that this is as grateful to their feelings as it is to the givers'. Why should not postmen, for instance, receive some recognition from the well-to-do, of the extraordinary labours they go through in the course of their duty,—labours much increased since the establishment of the Parcel Post, without any equivalent addition to their wages ? Thelady who is so" indignant" at the system of " tips " would say that they ought to have their wages raised, instead of receiving the "tips." Well, we have already pointed out one objection to that, namely, that it would fall mainly on the ,poor and not exclusively on. the rich ; but-there is another objec- tion, namely, that by the operation-of pure competition it is only too probable that the rate of wages would not be raised at all, tips or no tips. There are so many ,poorrrnen willing to trudge any -number of-miles a day. for a bare pittance, that it is verrdaubtful indeed whether the outting.off of.all Christmas-loxes would raise the mere market rate of: postmen's wages at all. And as the ffitate.eannot reasonably-go IT any other .igeneral rule than the market rate of wages, it would come to this,—that the publics, feeling heartily grateful to the postmen as they do, and especially at a time of year when their labours are excessive, would have no means of showing that gratitude consistently with the rules of the service. We must say that all this indignation at what are called pauperising doles seems to us entirely misapplied to such eases as those of the postmen and the railway porters. Of course, we have no quarrel with men who dislike being put under personal obligations, and who will not accept what the public are eager to offer. We regard such men as exceptional in their class, men who have imported into one class the social feelings and customs of another class ; nay, we have a great regard for their more delicate feeling. But we cannot say that we think it is at all to be desired that such feelings should be imposed, as it were, from above, instead of being volunteered from below. There is nothing intrinsically worse in a servant's willingness to take a pecuniary expression of good will than in a school-boy's or school-girl's willingness to take a like expression of good will from his or her seniors. In this case it is the seniority which prevents the child from feeling any hurt pride in the matter. It is a well- recognised social custom that children may accept a money-gift from an older friend without any undue sense of patronage. Well, where is the moral mischief in certain classes feeling, —if they do feel, as they certainly do,—just as little in- clined to be hurt by money - presents from their social superiors, as children feel in receiving such presents from their superiors in age P In both cases alike there is a recog- nition of the difficulty, for different reasons, in so judging of tastes as to give any acceptable present except money, and in both cases alike the genuine friendliness which prompts the present is recognised on both.sides. We do-not deny that a greater dislike to anything like dependence of position might-be accompanied by very considerable social advantages and virtues. Probably there is too much of that feeling of dependence which children have for their seniors, in the feeling which the poorer classes of public servants have for those of the public who can afford to express their gratitude in this way. If that feeling could be removed naturally, by a growth of the sense of culti- vated equality between men of different grades of wealth, the result would undoubtedly be good in many respects,—though there would be evils to set off against the good. But the notion of abolishing this feeling of partial dependence and partial patronage simply by abolishing the actions by which the good will of the richer for the poorer classes is expressed, is altogether a false one. The only effect of suddenly stopping this system of gratuities would be that you would diminish the cordiality of feeling between different classes, without increasing the moral equality.