entirely confined to the towns (this means that the well-known overcrowding of rural cottages has still to be statistically explored), and it is observed that in some of the coal-bearing districts this crowding is very severe. In the towns the percentage of the population inhabiting these dwellings varies from 40.78 per cent., the highest, in Gateshead, to 174 per cent., the lowest, in Portsmouth, London with 19.71 per cent. being about midway.§ Although, therefore, the condition of England presents some improvement upon that of Scotland in this respect, there are yet hundreds of thousands of single room and overcrowded tenements in all our great towns, and the total number of persons in our midst to whom the elementary conditions of decent family life are unknown, exceeds three millions. Here again, although the percentage of the total population is doubtless much less than in 1837, I feel some doubt whether the actual number of those in this condition is very much diminished; and this is a point of supreme importance in our estimate of comparative civilization. It is nearly impossible to get good citizenship, good trade unionism, or good co-operation out of a one-roomed home. Until we can secure to these unfortunates the conditions of elementary decency we can count upon no real progress in their civilization. I will venture to quote, on this point, the unpublished autobiography of Francis Place, the Radical Reformer, of Westminster, whose unique experience included many years of life as a journeyman breeches-maker in a one-roomed home in London, towards the end of last century "The consequences," he says, "of a man and his wife living in the same room in which the man works is mischievous to them in all respects, and I here add, as a recommendation to all journeymen, tradesmen, and other workmen who are much at home, and even to those who are only at home at meal-times and after working hours, and other times such as Sundays and when they have no employment, to make almost any sacrifice to keep possession of two rooms, however small and however inconveniently situated as regards the place of their employment. Much better is it to be compelled to walk a mile or even two miles to and from their work to a lodging with two rooms, than to live close to their work in a lodging of one room. I advise them also to arrange them contrary to the usual custom of those who have two rooms, and to put the bed in the room in which as much as possible of the domestic work is done. A neat, clean room, though it be as small as a closet, and however few the articles of furniture, is of more importance in its moral consequences than anybody seems hitherto to have supposed. The room in which we now lived was a front room at a baker's shop. The house had three windows in the front, two in the room, and one in a large closet at the end of the room. In this closet I worked. was a great accommodation to us; it enabled my wife to keep the room in better order; it was advantageous, too, in its moral effects. Attendance on the child was not as it had been always in my presence. I was shut out from seeing the fire lighted, the room washed and It For all these statistics relating to overcrowding, etc., see the Census of England and Wales, 1891, General Report, pp. 19-25. (C.-7222, 1893. Price 1s. 3d.). cleaned, and the clothes washed and ironed, as well as the cooking. We frequently went to bed, as we had but too often been accustomed to do, with a wet or damp floor, and with wet clothes hanging up in the room. Still, a great deal of the annoyance and too close an interference with each other in many disagreeable particulars (which having but one room made inevitable) were removed-happily removed for ever."* Conclusion. Space does not permit me to enlarge further on my theme. Under every heading it might be shown that, whilst the position of a large section of the wage earners has greatly advanced since 1837, other sections have obtained little, if any, share of the general growth in wealth and civilization. If we took each department of life in turn, and fixed a datum line below which we considered that the workman could not decently live, we should find, alike in wages, hours of work, dwelling and general civilization, that the percentage of those who fell below the line is less now than it was in 1837. But we should discover also that the lowest level reached was quite as low as at that time, and that the total number falling below our assumed datum line is, in actual magnitude, probably greater than in 1837. The depth of the poverty is as great as it can ever have been; its actual breadth even is as great or greater; the residuum of 1837 remains, indeed, undiminished on our hands and our consciences. Under these circumstances, the fact that the more prosperous section has increased and multiplied in numbers and in wealth, whilst leaving so large a part of the community unimproved, appears to me to aggravate our responsibility in the matter. The general moral of the whole survey seems to be the need for more earnest endeavor to "level up" this residuum. The retrospect teaches us that this levelling up is possible. It has actually been accomplished as regards particular industries. The inference is that it could be equally carried out in others did we but really choose to take the appropriate means. And if I had to name one great factor in the continued industrial degradation of large sections of the community who remain in the trough of destitution, I should not hesitate to place first the demoralizing influence of what is called the "sweating system," or more precisely, home work.t Home work it is, with all its insidious demoralization, that keeps down the earnings of East Loudon, of the down-trodden Sheffield trades, of the miserably paid workers in the Black Country, of women workers everywhere. And it is instructive to notice that, just as in 1837 it was the decaying influence of eighteenth century organization that produced so much of the misery of that time, so in 1897, it is the evil effect of the obsolescent hand industry, with its * The Autobiography of Francis Place, edited by Graham Wallas-to be published shortly-will throw new light on the social and political history of the century. +I do not forget the twin social curses of drink and gambling; but these affect individuals in every grade of society. Home work demoralizes whole classes. See Fabian Tract No. 50, Sweating: its Cause and Remedy; and How best to do away with the Sweating System, by Mrs. Sidney Webb. Co-operative Union, Manchester; 1892. Id. small masters and isolated home labor, that is perhaps the greatest cause of industrial disorganization. Not until we can thoroughly eradicate the remnants of this system from our midst can we hope to level up its unfortunate victims to the high standard of life which has been given to their more fortunate brethren by the machine industry and the world-commerce. And if we think seriously of setting to work to lift London to the level of Lancashire, and the Black Country to the standard of Northumberland, the lesson of history is clear. Unregulated individualism it was that produced the "white slavery" of the Lancashire of 1837, and the degraded serfdom of the Northumberland collier. Our fathers dealt with the problem in these cases by replacing this industrial anarchy by the restrictions of well-considered collective control. For the headlong competition which was lengthening the hours and destroying the health and character of the Lancashire mill hand, they substituted the Factory Acts. The heedless greed of the Northumberland coal-owner was checked by successive Mines Regulation Acts. Upon the firm basis of these ever-lengthening codes, strong Trade Unions arose still further to assert the common will. Protected by law and their Trade Union, the coal-hewers and the cotton-spinners were able to combine in yet other ways. Co-operative stores, which had hitherto failed, began to flourish; town councils stepped in with fresh assertions of Collectivism to raise the standard of sanitation, and to minister to the common needs of urban populations; and finally it was the votes of these comparatively prosperous communities which secured for themselves and their less fortunate brethren that tremendous development of Collectivism, our system of national education. In every department of life where any progress has taken place since 1837, we find that progress marked by an ever-growing substitution of collective rule for individual control. And just where the advance of this collective rule has been checked-in the industries jealously fenced off from effective factory legislation; in the localities from which thorough municipal institutions have been withheld-just there do we find the chief instances in which progresss in civilization has been small or even nonexistent. Factory legislation, trade unionism, and that combination. of consumers for educational or administrative purposes which takes the form either of Municipal Socialism or the Co-operative Store, these, together with the potent engines of taxation and central administrative control, have been the great factors in whatever progress has been made since 1837. Our chief hope for the levelling up of the residuum must lie in the well-devised extension of these manifestations of Collectivism. See The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain, by Beatrice Potter, 3rd edition (London; 1896). PRINTED BY GEORGE STANDRING, 7 & 9 FINSBURY STREET, LONDON, E.C. 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