CHAPTER XVII--INEFFICIENCY
I stopped a moment to listen to an argument on the Mile End Waste.
It was night-time, and they were all workmen of the better class.
They had surrounded one of their number, a pleasant-faced man of
thirty, and were giving it to him rather heatedly.
"But 'ow about this 'ere cheap immigration?" one of them demanded.
"The Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting our throats right along?"
"You can't blame them," was the answer. "They're just like us, and
they've got to live. Don't blame the man who offers to work cheaper
than you and gets your job."
"But 'ow about the wife an' kiddies?" his interlocutor demanded.
"There you are," came the answer. "How about the wife and kiddies
of the man who works cheaper than you and gets your job? Eh? How
about his wife and kiddies? He's more interested in them than in
yours, and he can't see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour
and out you go. But you mustn't blame him, poor devil. He can't
help it. Wages always come down when two men are after the same
job. That's the fault of competition, not of the man who cuts the
price."
"But wyges don't come down where there's a union," the objection was
made.
"And there you are again, right on the head. The union cheeks
competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where there are
no unions. There's where your cheap labour of Whitechapel comes in.
They're unskilled, and have no unions, and cut each other's throats,
and ours in the bargain, if we don't belong to a strong union."
Without going further into the argument, this man on the Mile End
Waste pointed the moral that when two men were after the one job
wages were bound to fall. Had he gone deeper into the matter, he
would have found that even the union, say twenty thousand strong,
could not hold up wages if twenty thousand idle men were trying to
displace the union men. This is admirably instanced, just now, by
the return and disbandment of the soldiers from South Africa. They
find themselves, by tens of thousands, in desperate straits in the
army of the unemployed. There is a general decline in wages
throughout the land, which, giving rise to labour disputes and
strikes, is taken advantage of by the unemployed, who gladly pick up
the tools thrown down by the strikers.
Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers
of the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more
men to do work than there is work for men to do. The men and women
I have met upon the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not
there because as a mode of life it may be considered a "soft snap."
I have sufficiently outlined the hardships they undergo to
demonstrate that their existence is anything but "soft."
It is a matter of sober calculation, here in England, that it is
softer to work for twenty shillings a week, and have regular food,
and a bed at night, than it is to walk the streets. The man who
walks the streets suffers more, and works harder, for far less
return. I have depicted the nights they spend, and how, driven in
by physical exhaustion, they go to the casual ward for a "rest up."
Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To pick four pounds of oakum,
break twelve hundredweight of stones, or perform the most revolting
tasks, in return for the miserable food and shelter they receive, is
an unqualified extravagance on the part of the men who are guilty of
it. On the part of the authorities it is sheer robbery. They give
the men far less for their labour than do the capitalistic
employers. The wage for the same amount of labour, performed for a
private employer, would buy them better beds, better food, more good
cheer, and, above all, greater freedom.
As I say, it is an extravagance for a man to patronise a casual
ward. And that they know it themselves is shown by the way these
men shun it till driven in by physical exhaustion. Then why do they
do it? Not because they are discouraged workers. The very opposite
is true; they are discouraged vagabonds. In the United States the
tramp is almost invariably a discouraged worker. He finds tramping
a softer mode of life than working. But this is not true in
England. Here the powers that be do their utmost to discourage the
tramp and vagabond, and he is, in all truth, a mightily discouraged
creature. He knows that two shillings a day, which is only fifty
cents, will buy him three fair meals, a bed at night, and leave him
a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would rather work for
those two shillings than for the charity of the casual ward; for he
knows that he would not have to work so hard, and that he would not
be so abominably treated. He does not do so, however, because there
are more men to do work than there is work for men to do.
When there are more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out
process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient
are crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they
cannot go up, but must descend, and continue to descend, until they
reach their proper level, a place in the industrial fabric where
they are efficient. It follows, therefore, and it is inexorable,
that the least efficient must descend to the very bottom, which is
the shambles wherein they perish miserably.
A glance at the confirmed inefficients at the bottom demonstrates
that they are, as a rule, mental, physical, and moral wrecks. The
exceptions to the rule are the late arrivals, who are merely very
inefficient, and upon whom the wrecking process is just beginning to
operate. All the forces here, it must be remembered, are
destructive. The good body (which is there because its brain is not
quick and capable) is speedily wrenched and twisted out of shape;
the clean mind (which is there because of its weak body) is speedily
fouled and contaminated.
The mortality is excessive, but, even then, they die far too
lingering deaths.
Here, then, we have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles.
Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is
going on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward.
Various things constitute inefficiency. The engineer who is
irregular or irresponsible will sink down until he finds his place,
say as a casual labourer, an occupation irregular in its very nature
and in which there is little or no responsibility. Those who are
slow and clumsy, who suffer from weakness of body or mind, or who
lack nervous, mental, and physical stamina, must sink down,
sometimes rapidly, sometimes step by step, to the bottom. Accident,
by disabling an efficient worker, will make him inefficient, and
down he must go. And the worker who becomes aged, with failing
energy and numbing brain, must begin the frightful descent which
knows no stopping-place short of the bottom and death.
In this last instance, the statistics of London tell a terrible
tale. The population of London is one-seventh of the total
population of the United Kingdom, and in London, year in and year
out, one adult in every four dies on public charity, either in the
workhouse, the hospital, or the asylum. When the fact that the
well-to-do do not end thus is taken into consideration, it becomes
manifest that it is the fate of at least one in every three adult
workers to die on public charity.
As an illustration of how a good worker may suddenly become
inefficient, and what then happens to him, I am tempted to give the
case of M'Garry, a man thirty-two years of age, and an inmate of the
workhouse. The extracts are quoted from the annual report of the
trade union.
I worked at Sullivan's place in Widnes, better known as the British
Alkali Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had to cross
the yard. It was ten o'clock at night, and there was no light
about. While crossing the yard I felt something take hold of my leg
and screw it off. I became unconscious; I didn't know what became
of me for a day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my
senses, and found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what
was to do with my legs, and she told me both legs were off.
There was a stationary crank in the yard, let into the ground; the
hole was 18 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 15 inches wide. The
crank revolved in the hole three revolutions a minute. There was no
fence or covering over the hole. Since my accident they have
stopped it altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of
sheet iron. . . . They gave me 25 pounds. They didn't reckon that
as compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of
that I paid 9 pounds for a machine by which to wheel myself about.
I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four
shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I
used to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to
be picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at the
hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked him if
he would be able to find me a job. He told me not to trouble
myself, as the firm was not cold-hearted. I would be right enough
in any case . . . Mr. Manton stopped coming to see me; and the last
time, he said he thought of asking the directors to give me a fifty-
pound note, so I could go home to my friends in Ireland.
Poor M'Garry! He received rather better pay than the other men
because he was ambitious and took shifts, and when heavy work was to
be done he was the man picked out to do it. And then the thing
happened, and he went into the workhouse. The alternative to the
workhouse is to go home to Ireland and burden his friends for the
rest of his life. Comment is superfluous.
It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the
workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If
three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it.
The other two, no matter how capable they may be, will none the less
be inefficients. If Germany, Japan, and the United States should
capture the entire world market for iron, coal, and textiles, at
once the English workers would be thrown idle by hundreds of
thousands. Some would emigrate, but the rest would rush their
labour into the remaining industries. A general shaking up of the
workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had
been restored, the number of the inefficients at the bottom of the
Abyss would have been increased by hundreds of thousands. On the
other hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers
doubling their efficiency, there would still be as many
inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he
had been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously
been.
When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do,
just as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and
as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful
destruction. It shall be the aim of future chapters to show, by
their work and manner of living, not only how the inefficients are
weeded out and destroyed, but to show how inefficients are being
constantly and wantonly created by the forces of industrial society
as it exists to-day.
