*THE
WORKER*
Brisbane,
March 16, 1895.
The
Editorial Mill.
Our Motto:
“Socialism in our time.”
The
par in last week's WORKER: “ That trousers are let out in Melbourne
by notorious Semitic middlemen sweaters at the rate of 21/2d. per
pair,” is a forcible illustration of the position the unfortunate
clothing workers have come to in the “Queen City” of Australasia.
But why raise our eyes in pious and holy horror at the wrongs of our
brothers and sisters in the South, when in this fair land, at our
very doors, the same degrading and humiliating state of things exists
– the same canker worm is eating the very hearts out of our own.
And the vipers that are making this havoc amongst us are not
altogether of the Semitic race, but business men who pretend to be
Christians – religious and God-fearing pillars of our churches and
ornaments of society- men whom our little children are told to look
up to, to honour and respect, and whose footsteps are to be followed
as those of men who walk in the straight and narrow path of moral
rectitude.
*
* *
When
the Shops, Factories and Workshops Commission inquired into the
conditions under which work was done in the conditions under which
work was done in the shops, factories and workshops of Queensland,
although the Commission elicited that the sanitary accommodation in
many cases was bad, and the wages low and hours long, there was
little to show that “ sweating,” in the sense understood and
described by Charles Kingsley, was carried on extensively in
Brisbane. Perhaps if the members of the commission had had power to
summon and compel witnesses to give evidence, their report might have
been of a different character. As it was, however, the members who
sat on the commission in the interests of the workers, discovered
enough to make them issue a warning that the germs of the disease had
already made their appearance; that the soil was so favourable the
sweater would increase and multiply to such an extent that the awful
state of affairs described in “Alton Locke” might be repeated in
this city.
*
* *
It
is only four years since the Shops, Factories and Workshops
Commission conducted its inquiry, yet to-day, if a commission vested
with power to compel the attendance of witnesses and receive
testimony on oath, a state of things would be revealed which would
shock the entire community. Under both Government and municipal
authorities, capitalists large and small, grasping and greedy
middlemen, the sweating evil has grown so strong and powerful,
affecting almost every trade and occupation of the wage-earners, that
Brisbane is now a sweaters' head-quarters. Evidence can at any be
procured from many sources in proof of this. Take the price list of
one of our large wholesale firms as an example of sweating prices:
Men's trousers; Making and finishing combined, 4s. per dozen pair;
workers to supply their own thread which amounts to from 1s. to 1s.
3d. for each dozen pants, leaving the magnificent sum of 23/4d. per
pair for making. Coats average from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. each; vests,
3d. to 8d. Each; dungaree pants, 1s. 9d. to 2s. 3d. per dozen;
women's chemises, with ten and twelve tucks, 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. per
dozen; blouses-print and muslin-1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen; children's
and women's white bonnets with frills, lace and rows of cording, 6s.
to 9s. per dozen; men's shirts, with collars, buttons and button
holes, from 1s. 6d. per dozen night dresses, from 2s. per dozen;
tweed coats, from 24s. per dozen vests, from 4s. per dozen; flannel
undershirts, 1s. 9d. per dozen; in fact almost every garment worn by
men and women in this city pass through the sweaters' hands, and with
few exceptions every article we use or consume is the product of this
system.
*
* *
Well
may our “business” men endow churches, contribute handsomely to
the minister's stipend, support rescue brigades and charitable homes,
when they thus sweat the labour of their piece-work employ'es.
A woman or girl to earn 12s. has to make and finish three dozen pairs
of trousers or 108 men's shirts. How is it possible for anyone to
make a living within reasonable hours at these absurdly low and
criminal prices? Christian man and woman, Agnostic, Free-thinker and
Pagan, you owe it to your man and womanhood to raise your voices
against a continuance of such a shameful system. You dare not permit
the evil to grow, for you and yours may at any time-such is the
uncertainty and instability of our competitive system – become
victims to it. You have for too long been content to dismiss the
painful subject of low wages with the thought that the rate of pay
must and should be regulated by the number of workers competing for
employment, and it is time this hellish doctrine was consigned to the
grave of other exploded theories. Children who should be enjoying
bright and happy school days are having their young bodies poisoned
by the foul and reeking atmosphere of the stuffy houses in which the
“sweating,” misnamed “home work” is being carried on – children who would be at school but for the circumstance that their
fathers are thrown out of employment by the very system which
enslaves their offspring. There would appear to be only one method of
entering an effectual protest against the infamous sweating practices
of the church attending business firms of the city. Clergymen may
denounce from the pulpit the cruel wrong, the press may appeal to the
“consciences” of the captains of industry to deal fairly with
those in their employ. All moral suasion goes in one ear and passes
out the other. The Legislature is the body to settle the question.
Not the present Legislature, for those M.L.A. Who are in favour of
the abolition of the practice are confined to the seventeen Labour
members and a few of the Opposition. The members of the present
Government, who have it in their power to pass a Shop and Factories'
Act containing proper provisions are either sweaters themselves or
friends of the sweaters. A clean sweep of the whole clan of people's
enemies must be made at the ballot box. Then, and then only, may we
expect a redress of a fearful grievance which is a foul blot on a
people the majority of whom claim to be able to read and write.
*
* *
Wage-earning
ratepayers have hitherto been very neglectful of the opportunities
presented by the municipal councils for raising the standard of wages
and abolishing the contract system. The enormous power of the
property vote admitted, the wage earners who pay rent still have in
their possession a force which, if directed intelligently, can
disturb the old municipal rats who, having worked their way into the
municipal barn, want to make their nests there for all time. Most of
the aldermen who gain their seats through their wealth of coin and
fat are in favour of the “glorious principle” of freedom of
contract and low wages. They see no objection to allowing their
personal friends to obtain contracts at a high price and sublet them
to other middlemen at a lower figure, the work being done by
wage-earners at about a third the sum that is paid by the council in
the original contract. For the council to employ the workers direct
or let the contract to groups of bona fide workers and thus
distribute the cost more equitably over a larger area would be a
gross interference with the liberty of boodling aldermen; and
boodling aldermen – against the more magnanimous notions of the
up-to-date councillor – fight with tooth and claw. The example of
an important body such as the London County Council – a council
which has amongst its members some of the best brains to be found in
the chief city in the world – is lost upon the cramped
understandings of aldermen who never read anything but dairy produce
quotations. London, with its six millions of inhabitants, may have
its municipal work done on the minimum wage plan and the co-operative
system, but Brisbane, with its 30,000 of a population, must still
hang on to unjust and wicked old-time notions proved to be wasteful
and unnecessary hundreds of years ago.
*
* *
Addressing
itself to the wages question the Melbourne Age thus refers to the
action of the London C.C.; “The London County Council has inserted
the union prices for each trade in its schedule of wages. The council
therefore pays the same rate as the leading employers in each trade,
and in no case less than 6d. an hour to adult men, or 18s. a week to
adult women. With unskilled labour the case is somewhat different,
for here there is no trade union rate to serve as a guide. But the
council has adopted a minimum wage of 24s. for men and 18s. for
women, and it has proved so successful that even the Moderate or
Conservative element in the council, who at first bitterly opposed
it, are now quite satisfied, and would not change the existing system
had they the power. The minimum wage as thus established is based
upon the calculation of Mr. Charles Booth, a well-known authority on
labour questions, who fixes the actual “poverty line” in London
at regular earnings of 21s. a week. It is interesting to find that
the adoption of the minimum wage has not increased the burden upon
the ratepayers of London to any great extent, if at all. In 1889 the
average pay of the wage staff was £75,
and in 1894 this average had risen to £78
a year, an increase of only 4per cent, which was considerably less
than the rise in wages of several trades. There are, however, other
considerations which must be taken into account in computing the cost
to the ratepayers. The council rate is somewhat higher than that paid
by many large employers of unskilled labour, but it is obvious that
the council must for that reason get the very pick of the working
men, and thus obtain more efficient labour, which naturally turns out
better and larger results. Again, it must be remembered that while a
private employer may justify his payment of starvation wages on
economic principles, the State cannot do so without losing in another
way by making the unfortunate who are “sweated” burdens upon the
poor rates in England, or, with us, throwing the onus of partially
supporting them upon charitable institutions or private individuals,
so that there is no actual saving in the long run.”
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