Britain For The British Part 2

The question is, Do evils exist at all to-day, and if so, is no remedy available?

Your "betters" have admitted, and do admit, as I will show you presently, that evils do exist; but they have no remedy to propose.

The Socialist tells you that your "betters" are deceived or are deceiving you, and that _Socialism_ is a remedy, and the only one possible.

Self-interest will counsel you to secure the best conditions you can for yourself, and will warn you not to expect unselfish service from selfish men.

Ask yourself, then, whether, since self-interest is the universal motive, it would not be wise for you to make some inquiry as to whether the persons intrusted by you with the management of your affairs are managing your affairs to your advantage or to their own.

As a selfish man, is it sensible to elect selfish men, or to accept selfish men, to govern you, to make your laws, to manage your business, and to affix your taxes, prices, and wages?

The mild Hindoo has a proverb which you might well remember in this connection. It is this--

The wise man is united in this life with that with which it is proper he should be united. I am bread; thou art the eater: how can harmony exist between us?

Appealing, then, entirely to your self-interest, I ask you to consider whether the workers of Britain to-day are making the best bargain possible with the other cla.s.ses of society. Do the workers receive their full due? Do evils exist in this country to-day? and if so, is there a remedy? and if there is a remedy, what is it?

The first charge brought by Socialists against the present system is the charge of the unjust distribution of wealth.

The rich obtain wealth beyond their need, and beyond their deserving; the workers are, for the most part, condemned to lead laborious, anxious, and penurious lives. Nearly all the wealth of the nation is produced by the workers; most of it is consumed by the rich, who squander it in useless or harmful luxury, leaving the majority of those who produced it, not enough for human comfort, decency, and health.

If you wish for a plain and clear statement of the unequal distribution of wealth in this country, get Fabian Tract No. 5, price one penny, and study it well.

According to that tract, the total value of the wealth produced in this country is 1,700,000,000. Of this total 275,000,000 is paid in rent, 340,000,000 is paid in interest, 435,000,000 is paid in profits and salaries. That makes a total of 1,050,000,000 in rent, interest, profits, and salaries, nearly the whole of which goes to about 5,000,000 of people comprising the middle and upper cla.s.ses.

The balance of 650,000,000 is paid in wages to the remaining 35,000,000 of people comprising the working cla.s.ses. Roughly, then, two-thirds of the national wealth goes to 5,000,000 of persons, quite half of whom are idle, and one-third is _shared_ by seven times as many people, nearly half of whom are workers.

These figures have been before the public for many years, and so far as I know have never been questioned.

There are, say the Fabian tracts, more than 2,000,000 of men, women, and children living without any kind of occupation: that is, they live without working.

Ten-elevenths of all the land in the British Islands belong to 176,520 persons. The rest of the 40,000,000 own the other eleventh. Or, dividing Britain into eleven parts, you may say that one two-hundredth part of the population owns ten-elevenths of Britain, while the other one hundred and ninety-nine two-hundredths of the population own one-eleventh of Britain. That is as though a cake were divided amongst 200 persons by giving to one person ten slices, and dividing one slice amongst 199 persons. I told you just now that Britain does not belong to the British, but only to a few of the British.

In Fabian Tract No. 7 I read--

One-half of the _wealth_ of the kingdom is held by persons who leave at death at least 20,000, exclusive of land and houses. _These persons form a cla.s.s somewhat over 25,000 in number._

Half the wealth of Britain, then, is held by one fifteen-hundredth part of the population. It is as if a cake were cut in half, one half being given to one man and the other half being divided amongst 1499 men.

How much cake does a working mechanic get?

In 1898 the estates of seven persons were proved at over 45,000,000.

That is to say, those seven left 45,000,000 when they died.

Putting a workman's wages at 75 a year, and his working life at twenty years, it would take 30,000 workmen all their lives to _earn_ (not to _save_) the money left by those seven rich men.

Many rich men have incomes of 150,000 a year. The skilled worker draws about 75 a year in wages.

Therefore one man with 150,000 a year gets more than 2000 skilled workmen, and the workmen have to do more than 600,000 days' work for their wages, while the rich man does _nothing_.

One of our richest dukes gets as much money in one year for doing nothing, as a skilled workman would get for 14,000 years of hard and useful work.

A landowner is a millionaire. He has 1,000,000. It would take an agricultural labourer, at 10s. a week wages, nearly 40,000 years to earn 1,000,000.

I need not burden you with figures. Look about you and you will see evidences of wealth on every side. Go through the suburbs of London, or any large town, and notice the large districts composed of villas and mansions, at rentals of from 100 to 1000 a year. Go through the streets of a big city, and observe the miles of great shops stored with flaming jewels, costly gold and silver plate, rich furs, silks, pictures, velvets, furniture, and upholsteries. Who buys all these expensive luxuries? They are not for you, nor for your wife, nor for your children.

You do not live in a 200 flat. Your floor is not covered with a 50 Persian rug; your wife does not wear diamond rings, nor silk underclothing, nor gowns of brocaded silk, nor sable collars, nor Maltese lace cuffs worth many guineas. She does not sit in the stalls at the opera, nor ride home in a brougham, nor sup on oysters and champagne, nor go, during the heat of the summer, on a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean. And is not your wife as much to you as the d.u.c.h.ess to the duke?

And now let us go on to the next section, and see how it fares with the poor.

_Section B: The Poor_

At present the average age at death among the n.o.bility, gentry, and professional cla.s.ses in England and Wales is fifty-five years; but among the artisan cla.s.ses of Lambeth it only amounts to twenty-nine years; and whilst the infantile death-rate among the well-to-do cla.s.ses is such that only 8 children die in the first year of life out of 100 born, as many as 30 per cent. succ.u.mb at that age among the children of the poor in some districts of our large cities.

Dr. Playfair says that amongst the upper cla.s.s 18 per cent. of the children die before they reach five years of age; of the tradesman cla.s.s 36 per cent., and of the working cla.s.s 55 per cent, of the children die before they reach five years of age.

Out of every 1000 persons 939 die without leaving any property at all worth mentioning.

About 8,000,000 persons exist always on the borders of starvation. About 20,000,000 are poor. More than half the national wealth belongs to about 25,000 people; the remaining 39,000,000 share the other half unequally amongst them.

About 30,000 persons own fifty-five fifty-sixths of the land and capital of the nation; but of the 39,000,000 of other persons only 1,500,000 earn (or receive) as much as 3 a week.

In London 1,292,737 persons, or 37.8 per cent. of the whole population, get less than a guinea a week _per family_.

The number of persons in receipt of poor-law relief on any one day in the British Islands is over 1,000,000; but 2,360,000 persons receive poor-law relief during one year, or one in eleven of the whole manual labouring cla.s.s.

In England and Wales alone 72,000 persons die each year in workhouse hospitals, infirmaries, or asylums.

In London alone there are 99,830 persons in workhorses, hospitals, prisons, or industrial schools.

In London one person out of every four will die in a workhouse, hospital, or lunatic asylum.

It is estimated that 3,225,000 persons in the British Islands live in overcrowded dwellings, with an average of three persons in each room.

There are 30,000 persons in London alone whose _home_ is a common lodging-house. In London alone 1100 persons sleep every night in casual wards.

From Fabian Tract No. 75 I quote--

Much has been done in the way of improvement in various parts of Scotland, but 22 per cent. of Scottish families still dwell in a single room each, and the proportion in the case of Glasgow rises to 33 per cent. The little town of Kilmarnock, with only 28,447 inhabitants, huddles even a slightly larger proportion of its families into single-room tenements. Altogether, there are in Glasgow over 120,000, and in all Scotland 560,000 persons (more than one-eighth of the whole population), who do not know the decency of even a two-roomed home.

A similar state of things exists in nearly all our large towns, the colliery districts being amongst the worst.