BRITISH POVERTY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 44, 2 December 1913, Page 10

BRITISH POVERTY.

At a timo when thousands of people in New-Zealand realise that they have run the risk "of feeling tilio pinch of poverty, a condition ot affairs engendered by the strike, and when the revelations of the Housing Inquiry in Dublin are disclosing the distressing poverty existing there, it is interesting to learn of economic conditions generally in Great Britain. In a recent issue of 'The Fortnightly Review' there is a reinarkablcarticle by Mr J. Ellis Barker entitled "Great Britain's Poverty and Its Causes." Mr Barker begins "with the postulate that instead of" being the richest country in the world, as is frequently alleged, Great Britain is a relatively poor nation, bc- \ cause the British masses are very poor. ! Ho shows from tobies of wages paid to i working men that tho -1,6.56,915 grown |up men enumerated received on an [average only 30 shillings a week. Other 'investigators have agreed that one-third of tho population of Great Britain lives in poverty, <n>tul Mr Barker gives figures collected by tho Board o'. Trade showing that in 1909 one person in every 21 had recourse to tho poor law for assistance. Ho says of the 30 per cent, of the British population living "on tho verge of hunger" that "the majority of these unfortunate people do not consist, of idlers, loafers, shirkers, tramps a.nd ! professional beggars, for whom one need, perhaps, not have much sympathy, but the workers engaged in wealth-producing industries." In a most exhaustive and elaborate table in which he has enumerated 26 important trades Mr Barker finds that, the British industries still rely very largely on hand labor, and they do'this because hand labor is so cheap. The total horse-power used in the manufacturing industries of the I'iiited Kingdom is 8,083,341, while that used in the United States is 'lB,(i7.";..H7(i. And so, although tho population of the United Slates is only twice a:, large as that of tho I'nited Kingdom, its income is four times as great. Tliereforo Mr Barker argues that the poverty of the British workers is not caused by a vicious distribution of wealth, as the Socialists claim, hut by insufficient production; for production determines wages. Kor instance, it is clear that a man who produces only 10s worth of goods a day cannot -possibly cam Pis a day in wages. In one paragraph ho sums up his entire argument and conclusion: —"Owing to the gi eater efficiency in manufacturing which is brought -about by the more extensive use of labor-saving machinery, the production per man per day is far greater in the I'nited States that .it. is in Great Britain. In tho hoot and shoe trade the British operative pio'.iuces gross !)s Od worth of goods per day, and the American operative '29s (id worth., or three times as much; in cardboard boxes tho daily gross output per worker i.s 5s 9d in Groat Britain, and LV in tho United States; in cement it is 10s Ixl in Great. Britain, and 2-">s 9d in the I'nited States; in clothing it is 8s 9d in Britain, and 2os lid in the great Republic, etc. As the and the net output of the American workers is from two to three times ■.•■.. high as is the output- of the British worko'rs. it. is only natural that wag"s are irom two to throe times as high in the United States as they are in Britain. The assertion of our Socialists '.and Labor leaders that all is right in British production, and that tho poverty of the workers i.s due to tin- greed of tiie capitalists and to the unfairness o'' distribution is untrue. The poverty ot the Hritish people springs from our industrial inefficiency, or one ought. jK'rhaps to «.ay from the great inefficiency of our industrial equipment." Here. then, is a telling indictment. In these days of strikes and unrest and what has been called "tho tumult of the envious," it is well to think over these comparisons. Wages and tho cost of living differ materially in Great Britain and Xew Zealand, but the comparisons given are valuable as in a degree applying to other countries than those for which they were especially prepared.