THE PRESENT DISTRESS.
THERE is no great fault to be found with Mr. Cross's answer to Mr. Hubbard's question last Tuesday. It is not the business of Ministers to be alarmists, least of all in matters which they can so little mend or control, as distress and de- stitution. And undoubtedly the particular statement to which Mr. Hubbard's question related was of that rhetorical type in which it is always possible to find some ground for contradic- tion. That we are almost face to face with a crisis of distress such as this generation has never known, cannot pos- sibly be said with any certainty. The statistics of former periods of extraordinary poverty were probably less perfect than those which are now accessible, and the form in which these statistics are presented to the reader is far better calculated to take hold of his imagination. If the winter which has just begun so sharply really witnesses anything like the amount of suffering which is foreboded, the details of that suffering will be supplied, every morning, with a picturesque minuteness to which there has never been a parallel. Formerly each district and each parish knew some- thing of the destitution existing within its own boundaries, but it knew little, except by vague rumour, of that which existed beyond those boundaries. It is not so now. Deaths from starvation are carefully noted, cases of destitution are diligently hunted out, and behind the workers stands the special corre- spondent, to give the journal he represents the earliest news and the most comprehensive review of all that is going on. Mr. Cross was pretty safe, therefore, in saying that the statement as to the superior intensity of the approaching crisis was probably exaggerated. No matter how great the destitution proves, it will be difficult to demonstrate that it exceeds anything that has been known in the present generation. At the same time, the quotations he gave from letters did not really touch the issue raised by Mr. Hubbard's question. The Chairman of the Board of Supervision at Edinburgh is "not apprehensive that the distress will be beyond the ordinary means of relief." The Mayor of Liver- pool says that the distress he anticipates is not greater than has been experienced in Liverpool before. The Mayor of Manchester says that there is no need for Government aid, as Manchester is quite able to bear the strain. There is not one of these assurances which might not be given with perfect truth, in the same breath as the statement that we are almost face to face with the worst crisis this generation has known. The Poor-law has never yet broken down, and until it does, the distress, however unprecedented it may be, will not be beyond the ordinary means of relief. Liverpool, it appears, is not worse off now than it has been before,—in the cotton famine, for example. But if Liverpool is as badly off as in the worst time she has previously known, there is reason to fear that her distress will be far less exceptional now than it was then. The dark spots will be less dark by comparison, because the surrounding districts will be so much darker. If Manchester were unable to bear any strain that the existence of distress could put upon her, it would be time to inquire whether any capacity of bearing strains was really left in us. The one important piece of evidence which has lately been contributed to the controversy is Mr. Selater-Booth's statement that at the end of November, 1862, there were 39,023 paupers in Manchester, whereas now there are oaly 6,243. If this is a fair sample of the statistics of poor-relief throughout the country, they certainly show that we are not yet abso- lutely face to face with a period of unparalleled distress, even though, to a prophetic glance, we may seem to be " almost " face to face with it.
The Standard, in which the challenged statement appeared, did not choose to abandon the field at the first summons. On Wednesday it gave its readers the evidence supplied by its various correspondents, on which it had based the impeached statement. At Sheffield the distress is said to be without a parallel in the previous history of the town. Everything in the houses has gone to buy food. Rents have been lowered a third, but even at that reduction cannot be collected. The "Mayor's Fund" is now giving relief to 12,000 people, and thousands more as yet prefer starvation to the publica- tion of their condition involved in applications for help. The comparative respectability of many of the sufferers seems to be a characteristic feature of the present distress. When we read that many men who four years ago were earning from £2 to £4, and even £6, a week, have this year been out of employment for months together, this fact is at once explained. In Glasgow, on November 30th, 3,091 persons were returned as unemployed, and in a fortnight from that date the number had risen to 4,368. Many of these are heads of families, so that the real destitution is much more extensive than the nominal. In Manchester, the distress is described as "falling largely upon those who by no amount of privation can be induced to appeal to the Guardians for re- lief." The sufferers are not only men who have been accustomed to live from hand to mouth, but warehousemen, clerks, and small shopkeepers. In Liverpool the almost idle quays are thronged at all hours with dock-labourers, vainly hoping to find a chance job. The number of cases relieved by the Central Relief Society is more than double what it was last year, though that, too, was a year of very great distress. Indeed, it is this fact of coming at the tail of a long period of de- pression that gives such peculiar intensity to the distress of 1878-9. What is true of many of the trading class is true also of the working class. They have been holding on for a year or two, in hope of better times, and now that the better times have not come, they can hold on no longer. At Bristol there is the same return of factories closed, and work- men and clerks out of work. At Wigan the bad time is only beginning. There is an increase of nearly twenty per cent, in the sum paid for out-door relief during the half-year ending last October over the corresponding half-year in 1877, but at present there seems to be more distress arising out of short time and reduced wages, than positive destitution arising out of positive cessation of work. At Birmingham the distress is "exceptionally severe, and widely spread."
These statements show, we think, that if the original position taken up by the Standard must be received with some quali- fication, Mr. Cross's correction of it must be taken with equal
limitation. The times are undoubtedly very bad, and it is early in the winter for them to have become so bad. In other unprosperous years, there have been one or two prominent causes at work which accounted for the distress prevailing. Now, all the causes that have produced distress in times past—with the one important exception of high prices —seem to be operating at once. There is political un- certainty of the most pronounced kind. There is an almost universal absence of demand for goods, while the process of manufacturing for stock has been carried to a point beyond which only a minority of employers will or can go. Wages have for a long time been low, and in many cases trade disputes have prevented even these low wages from being earned. Losses of various kinds have led whole classes of the community to curtail their expenditure at all points, so that the industries which supply the daily wants or fancies of the well-to-do are as much at a stand-still as the greater in- dustries which ordinarily feed their millions. These things, taken together, make up a very serious prospect for the present winter. Whatever organising power this country possesses, whether in the way of legal or voluntary relief, will be called out to its full extent. There will be objects to which every one may contribute of their substance, and to which those who have either gifts or opportunity will do well to contribute of time and thought, as well as substance. It is too early as yet to say what shapes the undertakings called forth by this necessity will assume. It is enough for the moment, if all whom the distress concerns—and whom does it not concern ?—will await the duties it imposes in a temper which shall insure their prompt and generous recognition.
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