A DAY'S WORK
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—In a letter from one of the unemployed in your paper lately, I noticed that among other remedies suggested was one that each man should have only one job. The writer gave as an example an advertisement which he quoted, and suggested that such should not be allowed. As far as I remember, it was : " Required, chauffeur, engineer, handy- man, secretary, willing to help in garden." To object to such an advertisement shows inability to look at employment
from -both the employee's and employed's point Of view, and is likely to impede rather than increase ernployment. Look' at what the advertisement really means. Simply that a man is wanted who is able to do the things mentioned, ' if required, not that he is to be continuously employed on each one. His employer is able to provide board, lodging, and a salary which shall cover clothing, personal expenses, -provision for old age and holidays, and in return he asks a day's work. He retains to himself the power of saying what that day's work should consist of, and he gives the limits of what he will ask for. Suppose the day worked out as follows : First, assistance to his employer with corre- spondence ; about 11 o'clock, take his employer's wife shopping in the car, returning in time to wash the car before lunch ; after lunch his employer, wishing to take his wife to a bridge afternoon himself, requires the chauffeur to mend a leak or put a new washer on, and then occupy himself in the garden ; on the return of the car the employer points out a small matter which requires adjusting, which the chauffeur puts right before finishing for the day. He will thus have discharged all the jobs asked for, but merely done a day's work for which it would be impossible to pay four or five men.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Lane End, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.
GERTRUDE TOLER.
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