"LIVING ON THE DOLE"
{To the Editor of THE Seecravon.] Ssa,—As an unemployed clerk, aged 28, workless for the past fifteen months, and of no political party, I drafted these notes out in a public reading-room packed to the doors with unemployed men reading the print off every paper in the place, or else going round with pencils making notes from advertisements for possible jobs. Dawn the street there is another reading-room so crowded to the doors with unemployed that one cannot get a scat—contrary to the opinion of your contributor, Mr. Hugh Martin, whose article, " Living on the Dole," interested me, although I think only the fringe of the vast subject has been touched. As one who is desperately trying to live on a dole of 12s. a week, perhaps The Spectator readers would like a few facts as I know them, especially regarding the classes and work centres for the unemployed so enthusiastically described by your contributor and others.
It must be emphasized at once that there is no such thing possible as " living" on the dole. That is quite out of the question. One exists—that's all. I haven't The Spectator by me, but I fancy your contributor described the case of a fairly large family named Brown ; how they subsisted on a weekly dole of 84s. 6d. ; and how Mr. Brown was saved from depression by attending free classes. My own case is so typical of thousands of homes to-day that I will • give full particulars. There are three of us living at home. I receive a weekly dole of 12s. ; my sister is forced to con- tribute 22s. (nearly all her wages) to the home ; total, 34s. a week to keep three people. Kent swallows £1 of our weekly income, i.e., nearly 60 per cent. of it, and we have the sum of 14s. left for fuel, food, light, clothes (as a clerk I am compelled to dress well), fares (for my sister, and for myself when seeking work far afield), stamps and stationery (for applying for advertised positions), boot repairs (an important item, as I tramp at least twelve miles daily) and other items of household expenditure.
Of course we live frugally, meanly, often rising late and retiring early in order to save food, fuel and light. My sister resents having to keep me in idleness—to work for nothing, as she says, when in normal times she could bank the money ready for a home of her own. We live sparingly, chiefly on bread, butter, bacon and tea. The sacrifices made are enormous. The loss in purchases to shopkeepers alone amounts roughly to about £8 weekly (well below the average, I'm sure). Taking the 'number of unemployed as 3 million and multiplying this figure by that representing our own drop in weekly purchases, we get the figure of £9,000,000, i.e., £408,000,000 per annum drop in purchases ! And the figure is probably much larger than that. Our ease is to be paralleled all over the country. Unemployed people and their families and dependants are living on the starvation line. They have had to give up nearly everything that makes life worth living. I, for example, can no longer think of buying cigarettes, cinema-seats, books, records for the gramophone, dance tickets and many other items. Nearly every industry in the country must be affected by this and other drops in purchases of myself and the millions like me.
Most of the unemployed are decent folks, used to a decent mode of life, but the enervating, deleterious effects of chronic unemployment are now taking their toll of the physique, morale and mind of the unemployed. Far worse cases than ours are known to me, and are to be found all over the country. A friend of mine and his brother are both workless and receive not a penny dole, because their father is in a job ' as an engine-driver, and he (the father) is compelled either ' to turn his eons on to the street or else to keep them at home in idleness. He does the latter, and naturally resents having to do so, just as his sons hate having not a penny of their own and having to beg an occasional cigarette from their father. Another man, middle-aged, sacked after twenty-six years' service with a shipping company, has to be kept by his daughter, who never lets the poor fellow forget the fact. These two cases are typical of many thousands. The tables are now turned. The women keep the men. They find it much easier to find jobs doing machine work, for which no skill is required, and for which women have the preference. The great majority of modern, fool- proof machines are run by women, and, as nearly all work (even clerical) is now done by women-run machinery, there seems little hope of men ever finding work again. I know that from my own experience when applying for work here in a local wireless factory where 90 per cent. of the machine work is done by women. The result is, as mentioned above, that the women are now keeping the men in idleness, and, consequently, working for nothing, or for love, as they say.
It is only natural that friction follows. Homes are " armed " camps ; son is set against father, father against son ; daughter against father and brother. The result is that criminal tendencies are developed as the males want money, and the unemployed are reduced to a state of either sullen animosity, the prey of Communists and the like, or else to the yet more common state of utter hopelessness, resigned to their lot, often without malice, but feeling rightly that Fate has a grudge against them. After a spell of long unemployment the inevitable decay follows. Weakened by malnutrition and idleness, they become totally unemployable —a fact whose truth has been proved time and time again by all employers of labour. Half of the unemployed (and I speak as one) simply could not stand the strain of prolonged work : they would collapse. I know an unemployed man who recently obtained work on a building here. The foreman was forced to sack him because his skill had rusted and his capacity for sustained work during a lengthy period had completely gone. That case, again, could be paralleled all over the country. Unemployment takes more out of a man than hard work, and an unemployed man feels far more tired and worn out at the day's end than a man who is working hard. The classes for unemployed which have arisen to remedy this mental and bodily decay are only partially successful, admirable as they are, and I speak as one who has regularly attended them.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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