CABMEN AND THEIR GRIEVANCES. T HE deputation of cabmen which waited
the other day upon the Home Secretary, and the subsequent discus- sion which has appeared in the columns of the daily Press, will perhaps serve at least to attract public sympathy towards a very deserving and somewhat hardly used class of the com- munity ; though it is to be feared that neither the Home Secretary nor the force of public opinion will be able to do much to remedy the evils under which cabmen labour. The last twenty-five years has seen an enormous improvement not only in the cab, but in the cabman himself, and in the face of that change, it would be useless, as well as ungrateful, to sug- gest that any reform is wanted among the drivers ; on the other hand, it would be equally useless to ask for an increase of the legal fare, for no one can pretend that the present rate of payment is not amply sufficient for the service which the cabmen renders. Nevertheless, it seems to be accepted as a fact by all those who have concerned themselves in this matter, that an honest cabman—that is to say, a cabman who does not attempt to extort more than his legal due—can barely get his living out of his employ- ment ; and, also, that his employers, the cab-proprietors, are so far from making excessive profits from their business that, e Tcept by the assistance of horse-dealing, they are scarcely able to make both ends meet. There is only one possible explana- tion of this state of things, and that is a very simple one. The supply of cabs in our streets is greatly in excess of the demand ; it is not higher fares, but more fares for each cab, that both proprietor and cabman require, and that can only be brought about by diminishing the number of applicants for public custom. That, unfortunately, is not an explanation which recommends itself to the favour of the cabmen, who naturally prefer a scanty and precarious employment to no employment at all. If proprietors would consent to with- draw a certain number of cabs from circulation—the drivers, we fear, would have to take their chance of finding some other form of work or starving—then there would be a better chance for the cabmen who remain. But it is not in the least likely that this improvement would be a permanent one, for unless the number of cabs licensed were actually limited by some public authority—say, the London County Council—to correspond with the demand, competition would speedily swell their ranks, and pull down their earnings again to the old.level. It is not in the nature either of cabmen or of cab-proprietors, to agitate for a reform which should limit their number ; rather than that, they would agitate for a law to compel the public to travel by cab, or to limit the activity of the omnibus companies or the district railways.
The efforts of the cabman to hit upon some middle course between demands which cannot be fulfilled and demands which are distasteful to himself, are rather pathetic. The grievances which he aired before the Home Secretary the other day are, no doubt, real grievances of their kind ; but they do not touch the real question at issue in the very least, —were they all righted to-morrow, the poor cabman would be very little better off. The quarrel between the cabs and the railway companies is not one in which the public could interfere with any benefit to itself, or even with much benefit to the cabmen. It is obvious that the railways must control the number of cabs that stand for hire at their stations, and it is also obvious that the price which cabmen pay for this privi. lege can hardly be excessive, or they would not pay it ; abolishing the custom would not increase the number of fares for the cabs. As to the right of the railway company to charge for this privilege, as a correspondent to the Times points out, there is no more reason for cabmen to be exempted, than there is for bookstall-proprietors or restaurant-keepers, who also profit by railway custom. The station-omnibus is another grievance which is of rather a sentimental character, for they cannot seriously contend that the vehicle in question robs them of very much custom. If they do think so, cab-proprietors would do well to start such omnibuses themselves, for it must be confessed that a single omnibus does the work of two, or even three, four-wheeled cabs, and the traveller is not at all likely to be content with the latter for a substitute. Equally wide of the mark is the complaint as to the licensing of the boy-driver. That youthful com- petitor, who is supposed to be pushing his elders and betters off their driving-seats, is at present rather conspicuous by his absence. The cab-driver of tender years is very rarely seen ; when he is met with, we are by no means sure that, in spite of his inexperience, we do not prefer him to the ancient and grumpy driver of the old school who sometimes growls abuse from the box of the four-wheeler. Better founded are the cabman's complaints against his customers and the deliberate swindlers from whom the law fails to protect him ; but even in this matter he is rather prone to exaggerate the importance of the results to himself. Take, for instance, the gentleman who is known as the " bilker," and whose pleasant practice it is to engage a cab for the whole day, and then either openly refuse to pay the fare, or covertly give his unpaid cabman the slip. As a particularly mean and despicable form of swindling, the practice of the " bilker" deserves all the condemnation that the cabman demands, and, we think, a good dead heavier punishment perhaps than the law is at present disposed to award. But does the " bilker " make any appreciable difference in the earnings of the average cab- man P A correspondent, to whose letter in the Times we have made allusion, who evidently writes with full knowledge of the subject, says that these persons are fairly well known to the cab-driving fraternity, and that they are too few to average more than one case to a hundred cabs in the year. "Bilking," therefore, can be but a drop in the flood of the cabman's woes, and his quarrel with the public must rest on other grounds. It is possible that he has some cause of complaint in the unequal treatment which the law accords to himself and to his customer. It is easier for a Magistrate to be- lieve that a cabman is in the wrong, than that the police- man or the respectable lady who summons, or is summoned by her driver, is not telling the truth ; hence it arises not =frequently that a cabman suffers unfairly, and so comes to believe that justice is only blind to his own merits. Even where the law does take his part, it can hardly be said to recompense him. If a customer chooses to cheat him out of a shilling or two, the unlucky cabman will only make a farther loss by prosecuting the delinquent ; for even though he make good his claim before a Court of Law, his compensation is altogether insufficient to repay his labour and loss of time, and he would still be the loser of more than he was defrauded of in the first instance. On the other hand, when the cabman himself is in fault, the fine is by no means a lenient one, and it must be remembered that the cabman, as a rule, is far less able to pay than is his customer.
Here, at least, it may be said that the cabmen have a genuine cause for complaint, and it is one which cer- tainly might be remedied to some extent. As matters now stand, a cabman can often better afford to suffer injustice than to seek for justice in a Court of Law ; a state of things which is eminently undesirable, as it puts a direct 'premium on dishonesty ; and though " bilkers " on a large scale may be very few, it is to be feared that innumerable "bilkers" on a small scale are thus encouraged to cheat their cabmen of a disputed shilling or sixpence, knowing that the poor fellow who demands their name and address is not likely to go further with his prosecution and lose more money by their, meanness. If the law would inflict a heavier fine upon the customer who is found defaulting, and award a more generous compensation to the cabman, the public would be none the worse, and the cabman, who, after all, deserves protection quite as much as his customer, would be a great deal the happier. Still, the cabman would be no nearer a solu- tion of the problem of existence, for the -number of people who habitually overpay their cabmen is immensely larger than that of the people who attempt to underpay them. In spite of that unearned wage—the extra sixpence or shilling which, as a general rule, the public freely affords them—it still remains impossible for two cabs to earn a livelihood by doing the work of one, for that is really about the proportion of cabs and customers at this time of year. The question is one that can only be solved by the cab-proprietors and their cabmen. There is no business in the world which is so !sensi- tive to excess of supply over demand as the letting of carriages for hire. Unfortunately, in the case of London cabs the effects are felt rather by the drivers than by the proprietors, owing to the system by which the latter contract for their hire,—unfortunately, we say, because the limit of the supply is solely in the power of the owners, and the advantages of that limit will be felt not by them, but by the men whom they employ. The interests of cab-proprietors and cab-drivers are, in this matter, not the same.
Previous page
