THE BRITISH WORKMAN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 842, 15 January 1883, Page 2

THE BRITISH WORKMAN.

A long controversy has been proceeding in the Times in reference to the poverty of the working classes, wherein Mr George Potter, a well-known supporter of the <( rights of the working man ” has been sturdily contending for higher wages, and other partisans have, with equal assiduity, sought to prove that the British artizan now gets infinitely higher wages than he used to do, and that he can live very well on the present rate of payment if he chooses to be economical and temperate. Mr Potter has at last come to the conclusion that “ the true remedy for the poverty of the working classes is to give them a fair share in the enormous wealth annually produced by labor, which, in their opinion, they have not as yet had.” This very comfortable doctrine Mr Potter enforces by quoting some figures as to the receipts and expenditure of the working classes, which are interesting and apparently reliable. In the building trade men get gd per hour, so

that working 51 hours per week they get Li i ßs 3d. On an average, however, the men are out of work (Mr Potter says) for twelve weeks, so that the average is reduced to 30s a week for the whole year. Printers, compositors, and bookbinders average 30s to 35s per week. Cabinetmakers, upholsterers, and chairmakers average 30s. Shoemakers, tailors, and so on’get about 20s to 255. The mass of ordinary laborers get about 12s or T6s per week. Now for the expenditure for rent, food, and clothing. Average cost of two rooms in London, with firing and lighting, 10s per week; food for a family of six persons, 3s per day, or 21s per week. These two items absorb the whole of the general average wage of 30s, leaving no balance forclothing and no margin for sickness or other contingent expenses, nor yet for amusement. The picture which Mr Potter draws is certainly a sad one, and if correct warrants him in saying that “ the lot of the laboring class is, as a rule, a hard one; thattheir food Consists of the coarsest and scantiest kind; that their dwellings are in the worst localities and are the most miserable of homes; and that ’their social condition is in every way discreditable to a nation abounding in such wealth and luxury as England does." Well, there is no doubt that the English working man would do a deal better if he would emigrate to new countries, but the observation of every day tends to show that, despite Mr Potter’s gloomy figures, it is possible for the British workman to have a decent roof over his head, to clothe his family, and to get food sufficient id quantity, and in keeping, as. regards quality, with his surroundings and tastes. The “true remedy,” one may say, is not to lay the capital accumulated by industry and frugality at the mercy of the poverty caused by improvidence and extravagance, as Mr Potter would like; but to recommend improved habits of thrift.