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Page 30
XI.
THE VALUES OF LABOUR.
Only about a quarter-century ago unlearned men of ability would often
sigh and say, "Ah, if I was only a scholar!" Admirers of a clever and
illiterate workman often said, "Why, if he was a scholar, he would
make a fortune in business for himself!" Women mourned the lack of
learning in the same way, and I have heard good dames deplore the fact
that they could not read. I pity most profoundly those on whom the
light of knowledge has never shone kindly; and yet I have a comic sort
of misgiving lest in a short time a common cry may be, "Ah, if I was
only not a scholar!" The matchless topsy-turvydom which has marked the
passage of the last ten years, the tremendously accelerated velocity
with which labour is moving towards emancipation from all control,
have so confused things in general that an observer must stand back
and get a new focus before he can allow his mind to dwell on the
things that he sees. One day's issue of any good newspaper is enough
to show what a revolution is upon us, for we merely need to run the
eye down columns at random to pick out suggestive little scraps. At
present we cannot get that "larger view" about which Dr. W.B.
Carpenter used to talk; he was wont to study hundreds and thousands of
soundings and measurements piecemeal, and the chaos of figures
gradually took form until at length the doctor had in his mind a
complete picture of enormous ocean depths. In somewhat the same way we
can by slow degrees form a picture of a changed state of society, and
we find that the faculties of body or mind which used to bring their
possessor gain are now nearly worthless. In one column of a journal I
find that a trained schoolmistress is required to take charge of a
village school. The salary is sixteen pounds per annum; but, if the
lady is fortunate enough to have a husband, work can be procured for
him daily on the farm. This is just a little disconcerting. The
teacher must see to the mental and moral training of fifty children;
she must have spent at least seven years in learning before she was
allowed to take charge of a school; then she remained two more years
on probation, and all the time her expenses were not light. As the
final reward of her exertions, she is offered six shillings per week,
out of which she must dress neatly--for a slatternly schoolmistress
would be a dreadful object--buy sufficient food, and hold her own in
rural society! The reverend man who advertises this delectable
situation must have a peculiar idea regarding the class into which an
educated lady like the teacher whom he requires would likely to marry.
An agricultural labourer may be an honest fellow enough, but, as the
husband of an educated woman, he might be out of place; and I fancy
that a schoolmistress whose husband pulled turnips and wore corduroys
might not secure the maximum of deference from her scholars. In
contrast to this grotesque advertisement I run down a list of cooks
required, and I find that the average wage of the cook is not far from
three times that of the teacher, while the domestic has her food
provided for liberality. The village schoolmistress in the old days
was never well paid; but then she was a private speculator; we never
expected to see the specialised product of training and time reckoned
at the same value as the old dame's, who was able to read and knit,
but who could do little more. While we are comparing the wages of
teachers and cooks, I may point out that the _chef_, whose training
lasts seven years, earns, as we calculate, one hundred and thirty
pounds per year more than the average English schoolmaster. This is
perhaps as it should be, for the value of a good _chef_ is hardly to
be reckoned in money; and yet the figures look funny when we first
study them. And now we may turn to the wages of dustmen, who are, it
must be admitted, a most estimable class of men and most useful. I
find that the London dustman earns more than an assistant master under
the Salford School Board, and, besides his wages, he picks up many
trifles. The dustman may dwell with his family in two rooms at
three-and-sixpence per week; his equipment consists of a slop,
corduroys, and a sou'-wester hat, which are sufficient to last many a
day with little washing. But the assistant, whose education alone cost
the nation one hundred pounds cash down, not to speak of his own
private expenditure, must live in a respectable locality, dress
neatly, and keep clear of that ugly soul-killing worry which is
inflicted by trouble about money. Decidedly the dustman has the best
of the bargain all round, for, to say the least, he does not need to
labour very much harder than the professional man. This instance tends
to throw a very sinister and significant flash on the way things are
tending. Again, some of the gangs of Shipping Federation men have full
board and lodging, two changes of clothes free, beer and rum in
moderate quantities, and thirty shillings per week. Does anybody in
England know a curate who has a salary like that? I do not think it
would be possible to find one on the Clergy List. No one grudges the
labourers their extra food and high wages; I am only taking note of a
significant social circumstance. The curate earns nothing until he is
about three-and-twenty; if he goes through one of the older
universities, his education costs, up to the time of his going out
into the world, something very like two thousand pounds; yet, with all
his mental equipment, such as it is, he cannot earn so much as a
labourer of his own age. Certainly the humbler classes had their day
of bondage when the middleman bore heavily on them; they got clear by
a mighty effort which dislocated commerce, but we hardly expected to
find them claiming, and obtaining, payments higher than many made to
the most refined products of the universities! It is the way of the
world; we are bound for change, change, and yet more change; and no
man may say how the cycles will widen. Luxury has grown on us since
the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began
to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing
rapids. The flow of wasted wealth is no longer like the equable
gliding of the full Thames; it is like the long deadly flurry of the
waters that bears toward Niagara. These newly-enriched people cause
the rise of the usual crop of parasites, and it is the study of the
parasites which forces on the mind hundreds of reflections concerning
the values of different kinds of labour. A little while ago, for
example, an exquisitely comic paragraph was printed with all innocence
in many journals. It appeared that two of the revived species of
parasites known as professional pugilists were unable to dress
properly before they began knocking each other about, "because their
valets were not on the spot." I hope that the foul old days of the
villainous "ring" may never be recalled by anything seen in our day,
for there never were any "palmy days," though there were some ruffians
who could not be bought. Yet the worst things that happened in the
bygone times were not so much fitted to make a man think solemnly as
that one delicious phrase--"their valets were not on the spot." In the
noble days, when England was so very merry, it often happened that a
man who has been battered out of all resemblance to humanity was left
to dress himself as best he could on a bleak marsh, and his chivalrous
friends made the best of their way home, while the defeated gladiator
was reckoned at a dog's value. Now-a-days those sorely-entreated
creatures would have their valets. In one department of industry
assuredly the value of labour has altered. The very best of the brutal
old school once fought desperately for four hours, though it was
thought that he must be killed, and his reason was that, if he lost,
he would have to beg his bread. Now-a-days he would have a valet, a
secretary, a manager, and a crowd of plutocratic admirers who would
load him with money and luxuries. I was tickled to the verge of
laughter by finding that one of these gentry was paid thirty pounds
per night for exhibiting his skill, and my amusement was increased
when it turned out that one of those who paid him thirty pounds
strongly objected on learning that the hero appeared at two other
places, from each of which he received the same sum. Thus for
thirty-six minutes of exertion per day the man was drawing five
hundred and forty pounds per week. All these things appeared in the
public prints; but no public writer took any serious notice of a
symptom which is as significant as any ever observed in the history of
mankind. It is almost awe-striking to contemplate these parasites, and
think what their rank luxurious existence portends. Here we see a man
of vast wealth, whereof every pound was squeezed from the blood and
toil of working-men; he passes his time now in the company of these
fellows who have earned a reputation by pounding each other. The
wealthy bully and his hangers-on are dangerous to the public peace;
their language is too foul for even men of the world to endure it, and
the whole crew lord it in utter contempt of law and decency. That is
the kind of spectacle to be seen in our central city almost every
night. Consider a story which accidently came out a few weeks ago
owing to legal proceedings and kept pleasure-seeking and
scandalmongering London laughing for a while, and say whether any
revelation ever gave us a picture of a more unspeakable society. A
rich man, A., keeps a prizefighter, B., to "mind" him, as the quaint
phrase goes. Mr. A. is offended by another prizefighter, C., and he
offers B. the sum of five hundred pounds if he will give C. a beating
in public. B. goes to C., and says, "I will give you ten pounds if you
will let me thrash you, and I won't hurt you much." C. gladly
consents, so B. pockets four hundred and ninety pounds for himself,
and the noble patron's revenge is satisfied. There is a true tale of
rogues and a fool--a tale to make one brood and brood until the sense
of fun passes into black melancholy. Five hundred men worked for sixty
hours per week before that money was earned--and think of the value
received for the whole sum when it was spent! Truly the parasite's
exertions are lucrative to himself!
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