Britain For The British Part 3

_The working cla.s.s._--The great bulk of the British people are overworked, underpaid, badly housed, unfairly taxed but besides all that, they are exposed to serious risks.

Read _The Tragedy of Toil_, by John Burns, M.P. (Clarion Press, 1d.).

In sixty years 60,000 colliers have been accidentally killed. In the South Wales coalfield in 1896, 232 were killed out of 71,000. In 1897, out of 76,000 no less than 10,230 were injured.

In 1897, of the men employed in railway shunting, 1 in 203 was killed and 1 in 12 was injured.

In 1897, out of 465,112 railway workers, 510 were killed, 828 were permanently disabled, and 67,000 were temporarily disabled.

John Burns says--

This we do know, that 60 per cent. of the common labourers engaged on the Panama Ca.n.a.l were either killed, injured, or died from disease every year, whilst 80 per cent. of the Europeans died. Out of 70 French engineers, 45 died, and only 10 of the remainder were fit for subsequent work.

The men engaged on the Manchester Ship Ca.n.a.l claim that 1000 to 1100 men were killed and 1700 men were severely injured, whilst 2500 were temporarily disabled.

Again--

Taking mechanics first, and selecting one firm--Armstrong's, at Elswick--we find that in 1892 there were 588 accidents, or 7.9 per cent. of men engaged. They have steadily risen to 1512, or 13.9 per cent. of men engaged in 1897. In some departments, notably the blast furnace, 43 per cent. of the men employed were injured in 1897 The steel works had 296 injured, or 24.4 per cent. of its number.

Of sailors John Burns says--

The last thirteen years, 1884-85 to 1896-97, show a loss of 28,302 from wreck, casualties, and accidents, or an average of 2177 from the industrial risks of the sailor's life.

But the most startling statement is to come--

Sir A. Forwood has recently indicated, and recent facts confirm this general view, that

1 of every 1400 workmen is killed annually.

" " 2500 " is totally disabled.

" " 300 " is permanently partially disabled.

125 per 1000 are temporarily disabled for three or four weeks.

One workman in 1400 is killed annually. Let us say there are 6,000,000 workmen in the British Islands, and we shall find that no less than 4280 are killed, and 20,000 permanently or partially disabled.

That is as high as the average year's casualties in the Boer war.

But the high death-rate from accidents amongst the workers is not nearly the greatest evil to which the poor are exposed.

In the poorest districts of the great towns the children die like flies, and diseases caused by overcrowding, insufficient or improper food, exposure, dirt, neglect, and want of fuel and clothing, play havoc with the infants, the weakly, and the old.

What are the chief diseases almost wholly due to the surroundings of poverty? They are consumption, bronchitis, rheumatism, epilepsy, fevers, smallpox, and cancer. Add to those the evil influences with which some trades are cursed, such as rupture, lead and phosphorous poisoning, and irritation of the lungs by dust, and you have a whole a.r.s.enal of deadly weapons aimed at the lives of the laborious poor.

The average death-rate amongst the well-to-do cla.s.ses is less than 10 in the thousand. Amongst the poorer workers it is often as high as 70 and seldom as low as 20.

Put the average at 25 in the thousand amongst the poor: put the numbers of the poor at 10,000,000. We shall find that the difference between the death-rates of the poor and the well-to-do, is 15 to the thousand or 15,000 to the million.

We may say, then, that the 10,000,000 of poor workers lose every year 150,000 lives from accidents and diseases due to poverty and to labour.

Taking the entire population of the British Islands, I dare a.s.sert that the excess death-rate over the normal death-rate, will show that every year 300,000 lives are sacrificed to the ignorance and the injustice of the inhuman chaos which we call British civilisation.

Some have cynically said that these lives are not worth saving, that the death-rate shows the defeat of the unfit, and that if all survived there would not be enough for them to live on.

But except in the worst cases--where sots and criminals have bred human weeds--no man is wise enough to select the "fit" from the "unfit"

amongst the children. The thin, pale child killed by cold, by hunger, by smallpox, or by fever, may be a seedling Stephenson, or Herschel, or Wesley; and I take it that in the West End the parents would not be consoled for the sacrifice of their most delicate child by the brutal suggestion that it was one of the "unfit." The "fit" may be a hooligan, a sweater, a fraudulent millionaire, a dissolute peer, or a fool.

But there are two sides to this question of physical fitness. To excuse the evils of society on the ground that they weed out the unfit, is as foolish as to excuse bad drainage on the same plea. In a low-lying district where the soil is marshy the population will be weeded swiftly; but who would offer that as a reason why the land should not be drained?

This heartless, fatuous talk about the survival of the fittest is only another example of the insults to which the poor are subjected. It fills one with despair to think that working men--fathers and husbands--will read or hear such things said of their own cla.s.s, and not resent them. It is the duty of every working man to fight against such pitiless savagery, and to make every effort to win for his cla.s.s and his family, respect and human conditions of life.

Moreover, the shoddy science which talks so glibly about the "weeding out" of little helpless children is too blear-eyed to perceive that the same conditions of inhuman life which destroy the "weeds," _breed_ the weeds. Children born of healthy parents in healthy surroundings are not weeds. But to-day the British race is deteriorating, and the nation is in danger because of the greed of money-seekers and the folly of rulers and of those who claim to teach. The nation that gives itself up to the worship of luxury, wealth, and ease, is doomed. Nothing can save the British race but an awakening of the workers to the dangerous pa.s.s to which they have been brought by those who affect to guide and to govern them.

But the workers, besides being underpaid, over-taxed, badly housed, and exposed to all manner of hardship, poverty, danger, and anxiety of mind, are also, by those who live upon them, denied respect.

Do you doubt this? Do not the "better cla.s.ses," as they call themselves, allude to the workers as "the lower orders," and "the great unwashed"?

Does not the employer commonly speak of the workers as "hands"? Does the fine gentleman, who raises his hat and airs his nicest manners for a "lady," extend his chivalry and politeness to a "woman"? Do not the silk hats and the black coats and the white collars treat the caps and the overalls and the smocks as inferiors? Do not the men of the "better cla.s.s" address each other as "sir"? And when did you last hear a "gentleman" say "sir" to a train-guard, to a railway porter, or to the "man" who has come to mend the drawing-room stove?

Man cannot live by bread alone; neither can woman or child. And how much honour, culture, pleasure, rest, or love falls to the lot of the wives and children of the poor?

Do not think I wish to breed cla.s.s hatred. I do not. Doubtless the "better cla.s.s" are graceful, amiable, honourable, and well-meaning folks. Doubtless they honestly believe they have a just claim to all their wealth and privileges. Doubtless they are no more selfish, no more arrogant, no more covetous nor idle than any working man would be in their place.

What of that? It is nothing at all to you. They may be the finest people in the world. But does their fineness help you to pay your rent, or your wife to mend the clothes? or does it give you more wages, or her more rest? or does it in any way help to educate, and feed, and make happy your children?

It does not. Nor do all the graces and superiorities of the West End make the lot of the East less bitter, less anxious, or more human.

If self-interest be the ruling motive of mankind, why do not the working men transfer their honour and their service from the fine ladies and fine gentlemen to their own wives and children?

These need every atom of love and respect the men can give them. Why should the many be poor, be ignorant, despised? Why should the rich monopolise the knowledge and the culture, the graces and elegancies of life, as well as the wealth?

Ignorance is a curse: it is a deadlier curse than poverty. Indeed, but for ignorance, poverty and wealth could not continue to exist side by side; for only ignorance permits the rich to uphold and the poor to endure the injustices and the criminal follies of British society, as now to our shame and grief they environ us, like some loathly vision beheld with horror under nightmare.

Is it needful to tell you more, Mr. Smith, you who are yourself a worker? Have you not witnessed, perhaps suffered, many of these evils?

Yes; perhaps you yourself have smarted under "the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes"; perhaps you have borne the tortures of long suspense as one of the unemployed; perhaps on some weary tramp after work you have learned what it is to be a stranger in your own land; perhaps you have seen some old veteran worker, long known to you, now broken in health and stricken in years, compelled to seek the shameful shelter of a workhouse; perhaps you have had comrades of your own or other trades, who have been laid low by sickness, sickness caused by exposure or overstrain, and have died what coroners' juries call "natural deaths," or, in plain English, have been killed by overwork; perhaps you have known widows and little children, left behind by those unfortunate men, and can remember how much succour and compa.s.sion they received in this Christian country; perhaps as you think of the grim prophecy that one worker in four must die in a workhouse, you may yourself, despite your strength and your skill, glance anxiously towards the future, as a bold sailor glances towards a stormy horizon.

Well, Mr. Smith, will you look through a book of mine called _Dismal England_, and there read how men and women and children of your cla.s.s are treated in the workhouse, in the workhouse school, in the police court, in the chain works, on the ca.n.a.ls, in the chemical h.e.l.ls, and in the poor and gloomy districts known as slums? I would quote some pa.s.sages from _Dismal England_ now, but s.p.a.ce forbids.

Or, maybe, you would prefer the evidence of men of wealth and eminence who are not Socialists. If so, please read the testimony given in the next section.

_Section C: Reliable Evidence_

The Salvation Army see a great deal of the poor. Here is the evidence of General Booth--