THE WAGES OF THE BRITISH LABOURER.
THE only gift of civilization, it is said, which has yet reached the masses, is the lucifer match. The remark, like most epigrams, is untrue, for the artisan shares with the trader in the advantages of the telegraph, the railway, and the steamer. But it is true that civilization penetrates through the lower strata of society almost as slowly as heat through a frozen soil. We call Europe civilized, yet it is doubt- ful whether in Europe there are a million of really civilized men-men, that is, whose faculties have been developed to their utmost by cul- tivation. Even the benefits of half-civilization are confined to the towns. The peasantry reap little either from modern science or modern benevolence. The artisan may light his room with gas, but the labourer still goes to bed rather than burn his wretched apology for a light. The artisan may educate himself, but the peasant has neither the means of obtaining books or light to read them if he had. The artisan occupies a house with civilized conveniences, but the labourer is still poisoned by a cesspool under his nose. The Legis- lature which prohibits overcrowding in cities, leaves the cottager to fill a hut with fixed windows with as many lodgers as the sty will hold. London rings with the wants of a few thoustinds of men frozen out for a month, but who attends to the five hundred labourers ,driven out of a parish by its owner, lest the poor rates should in- crease, and forced to tramp five miles to their daily work? Even benevolence stops short of the labourer. Mechanics' institutions, isoup kitchens, coal funds, clothing funds are all for the benefit of the artisan. The cultivator is left to his landlord and his rector, fortunate if the one recognizes feudal duties while exacting feudal observance, and if the latter is a helpful man instead of a popular preacher. Parliament has just published a curious document illustrative of the pecuniary position of the English labourer. It is a return from the chairman of each Board of Guardians in England, of the wages in money, or in kind, paid in his district at different periods of the year. From this it appears that the average rate of wages in England for an able-bodied labourer is still about Ils, a week, or about half the wages of a moderately skilful artisan. This rate rises in places, as Morpeth, to 16s. a week, but this amount is not paid in money ; the labourer has only 6s; cash, but he is allowed house and garden, extras while delivering farm produce, the keep of a pig in summer, and advantages supposed by the chairman to be worth that amount .in all. Chairmen of Guardians, however, have liberal ideas on the
• money value of the summer's food of a pig, and no tendency to • believe their own labourers badly off. In Kendal the men get 15s. a week in cash, as they do likewise in Settle (West Riding) and Melton Mowbray. The rate declines, however, as we go south. In Essex it Inky be taken at lls a week, in Sussex at 12s., in Sonthampton
in Bedfordshire 10s., while in Wilts and Dorset it is quoted at 9s., and in Devonshire (Axminster) at 8s. The chairman of this Union adds in a note that many able-bodied labourers state their earnings all the year round at barely 7s. a week. In these counties, too, it is remarked that an allowance of beer or milk is "not general," and only the carters have rent-free cottages. The remainder pay, out of 8s., is. 6d. a week for rent. From 'Wareham and Purbeck (Dorset) the chairman returns that wages and other privileges vary with individual dispositions, the labourers, we presume, getting charity instead of justice. These counties are decidedly the worst off, but in parts of Berkshire and other counties labour rules nearly as low. There are still some special customs in remote districts as to pay- ment. In Burton-on-Trent (Staffordshire), for example, it is a custom to give the labourer 7s. a week, and his maintenance for nine months, and 10s. a week and his maintenance for the other three. This amounts altogether to a liberal rate. In Glendale (Northum- berland) labourers are almost entirely paid in kind, a practice which prevails through almost all the less civilized districts of the north. In Westmoreland (East Ward) the work is done by servants, who live with their masters, and the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Guar- dians in Caermarthen thus explains a similar practice : "Labourers are scarce and dear. We could no doubt get labourers for 105. a week, provided work was found them all the year, but this would not answer. I should observe that most of the farmers throughout the four districts chiefly em- ploy single men and women as servants for one year, hired at fairs, with but little regard to character; men from Si. to 181.; boys, 61. to 81.; women, 41. 10s. to 71.; girls, 21. to 41. per annum, boarded and lodged at the farmer's expense ; diet same as I mentioned in my last letter to you regpecting casual labourers fed by the farmer. This will explain why in Wales labour is high and scarce, bloat of the young men as soon as they marry leave their neighbourhood and settle near the large iron and coal districts, Merthyr, Aberdare, Llanelly, &c.; and in seeking for an explanation of this, the invariable answer is, we have no ready cash to pay the labourer weekly wages. They only work from six to six o'clock, and in winter not so much, daylight to dark, and we want them for the cattle and horses till eight o'clock; and though on the whole men servants are more expensive than labourers, and not so skilful, still we prefer servants by the year.
In other words, even ten shillings a week is wealth too great for a Welsh cultivator. In Cumberland also the work is done by servants hired by the half-year, at rates varying from 15/. to 20/. a year, with food.
Field labour among women appears, we are happy to believe, to be slowly dying out. From almost every union the return speaks of few women employed, and those few very irregularly: "The averlion of women to out-door work increases.' The rate of wages varies excessively, the highest being 7s. 6d. a week (Romney Marsh)' and the lowest 11d. (Peterborough). The ordinary rate seems to be about 4s. 6d., but it varies with the wages of the men. In all cases the women work very irregularly, and the chairman of the union at Atcham (Shropshire), the only one who pays marked attention to the subject, gives the following as the general result of his in- quiries: "As to women, they receive from 8d. to 10d. per day, but the time occu- pied in beneficial labour is so fluctuating, that it is impossible to get at any- thing satisfactory as to the amount. Many years ago, I obtained from twelve large farmers in different parts of the union, a return of the total amount of labour rendered, and the total amount of money paid, together with the value of potato ground and other advantages afforded to the labourers. From that inquiry I found the annual earnings of each family (on the average) was about 2s. 11d, per week more than the nominal wages of the man, which I think is very near the truth, taking the average of the year and the average of families."
Children are very little employed, and their wages evidently de- pend on individual whims. Generally the rate rises, as they reach sixteen, to about 6s. a week. Taking the Shropshire estimate as tolerably correct, which it certainly is in the eastern counties and the south, we have 14s. 6d. a week as the average income of a labour- ing family. The harvest money may be added, but there remain, in too many cases, long weeks of winter to be deducted from this amount, during which work is not to be obtained. Out of this sum the labourer must pay 2s. 6d. a week for food, and usually is. 6d. more for beer, tobacco, tea, and the few luxuries he will not do with- out. There remains is. 5d. a day for the subsistence, clothing, and education of an entire family, a rate which, if it permits some decent physical comfort, allows of no saving for old age. Throughout the country, also, labour is becoming "scarce and dear," a process to which, while dearness means 12s. a week, all but farmers will wish God speed. The quickest way to accelerate it would be to abolish a law of settlement which ties the Devonshire peasant, for instance, down to a soil which returns him for his labour less than the wages of a factory child.
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