第68章

Bread (5 quarterns).............................110Flour (1/2 gallon)..............................0 4Tea (1/4 lb.)...................................0 6Butter (1 lb.)..................................1 3Lard (1 lb.)....................................0 6Sugar (6 lb.)...................................1 0Bacon or other meat (about 4 lb.)...............2 8Cheese (1 lb.)..................................0 8Milk (half-tin condensed).......................0 3 1/4Oil, candles, blue, soap, salt, pepper, etc.....1 0Coal............................................1 6Beer............................................none Tobacco.........................................none Insurance ('Prudential')........................0 3Laborer's Union.................................0 1Wood, tools, dispensary, etc....................0 6Insurance ('Foresters') and margin for clothes..1 1 3/4Total.............................13s. 0d.

The guardians of the workhouse in the above Union pride themselves on their rigid economy.It costs per pauper per week:

s. d.

Men.............................................61 1/2Women...........................................56 1/2Children........................................51 1/4If the laborer whose budget has been described, should quit his toil and go into the workhouse, he would cost the guardians fors.d.

Himself.........................................61 1/2Wife............................................56 1/2Two children...................................102 1/2Total.............................21s.10 1/2d.

Or, roughly, $5.46

It would require $5.46 for the workhouse to care for him and his family, which he, somehow, manages to do on $3.25.And in addition, it is an understood fact that it is cheaper to cater for a large number of people- buying, cooking, and serving wholesale- than it is to cater for a small number of people, say a family.

Nevertheless, at the time this budget was compiled, there was in that parish another family, not of four, but eleven persons, who had to live on an income, not of thirteen shillings, but of twelve shillings per week (eleven shillings in winter), and which had, not a rent-free cottage, but a cottage for which it paid three shillings per week.

This must be understood, and understood clearly: Whatever is true of London in the way of poverty and degradation, is true of all England.While Paris is not by any means France, the city of London is England.The frightful conditions which mark London an inferno likewise mark the United Kingdom an inferno.The argument that the decentralization of London would ameliorate conditions is a vain thing and false.If the 6,000,000 people of London were separated into one hundred cities each with a population of 60,000, misery would be decentralized but not diminished.The sum of it would remain as large.

In this instance, Mr.B.S.Rowntree, by an exhaustive analysis, has proved for the country town what Mr.Charles Booth has proved for the metropolis, that fully one-fourth of the dwellers are condemned to a poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that fully one-fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, are inadequately clothed, sheltered, and warmed in a rigorous climate, and are doomed to a moral degeneracy which puts them lower than the savage in cleanliness and decency.

After listening to the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert Blatchford asked him what he wanted.'The old man leaned upon his spade and looked out across the black peat fields at the lowering skies."What is it that I'm wantun?" he said; then in a deep plaintive tone he continued, more to himself than to me, "All our brave bhoys and dear gurrls is away an' over the says, an' the agent has taken the pig off me, an' the wet has spiled the praties, an' I'm an owld man, an' I want the Day av judgment."'

The Day of Judgment! More than he want it.From all the land rises the hunger wail, from Ghetto and countryside, from prison and casual ward, from asylum and workhouse- the cry of the people who have not enough to eat.Millions of people, men, women, children, little babes, the blind, the deaf, the halt, the sick, vagabonds and toilers, prisoners and paupers, the people of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, who have not enough to eat.And this, in face of the fact that five men can produce bread for a thousand; that one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and shoes for 1000.It would seem that 40,000,000 people are keeping a big house, and that they are keeping it badly.The income is all right, but there is something criminally wrong with the management.And who dares to say that it is not criminally mismanaged, this big house, when five men can produce bread for a thousand, and yet millions have not enough to eat?