THE NEW BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 277, 19 August 1919, Page 5

THE NEW BRITAIN

VANISHING OF OLD MIDDLE CLASS

INDUSTRIAL MAZE

"In the great towns it is becoming more ami more iliflicult to distinguish between the classes," writes Mr. Harold Spender in the "Daily Chronicle." "Where are tho top hat and the frock coal? Ten years ago they were the accepted wear of the 'governing class'; humble peuple made way for them in the'streets and in railway trains; they ■wore the marks and ensigns of success. Now they have gone like tho snows of yester year. They are consigned to funerals. They have become the symbols of grief and woe. "Tho reason is clear. No one is proud any longer of being a middle-class man. The honour and glory has departed, Ichabod. Tho best thing is to rescmblo and to pretend to be a working man. Then, at any rate, you get equal treatment. You escape contempt. The taxi driver will not mock you. Tito girl conductor will bo just to you. The railway porter may bo fair to you. Yon will be able to face the battle of life. ''Service, as ft whole, is also touchcd with decay. The new wages aro checkin" that steady How of the surplus daughters from the countryside which provided tho prosperous city classes with, sure, cheap, and contented service. The labourer can maintain his own daughters. Woman has acquired a new passion for freedom. So tho. middle-class household, with all its arrangements for service, is left desolate..

Leisure in Danger. "Leisure is in danger—and leisure was tho note of tho middle-class—leisure for sport, leisure far travel, leisure for society, leisure for tho arts. Society needs leisure; but not necessarily ft 'leisured 'class.' • Tho demand of tho now society is that all clnsscs should have some leisure, and no class all tho leisure. So we seo a new leisure comin" into being—tho leisure of the eighthour worker. Tho stalls are emptying, and tho picture palaces aro filling. As the middle-class enjoys itself less, tho working-class enjoys itself more. 'Our turn now!' they seem to say, as they take their places at the banquet of life. The tone of pleasure becomes more popular The masses call for strong meat, while tho delicate tasters leavo the tables and sot their faces to unwonted to "it is not all a gain. Watch the theatres, and note the steady decline that goes along with this new invasion. Matthew Arnold called the middle clnsses the 'Philistines' of tho modorn world, but it is a curious irony of tho situation that he himself very largely leered them out of their Philistinism. The taste ot the British middle class was never better than just before its decline. The now invaders will be educated in their ton, like tho barbarian invaders of Italy. But for the moment, there is a great smashing of the old gods, a- vast desire for sensation, Irving and Beerbohm Tree have passed, and C'harlio Chaplin reigns in their place. '

. Of .What Uss are You? " 'Of what uso arc you ?' That is the qrastion hurled at tho unfortunate middle class by coal commissions, industrial councils, and Labour congresses. In the old days thoro was an answer. Thero is ail answer even to-day for the old professions—for tho doctor who goes his rounds, for the parson who visits his flock, for tho lawyer who pleads, for the officer who fights. But what of that vastly greater number of the middle class that lives by business? There are still merchants; thero are f-lill shopkeepers. But tho company systom has gravely undermined the great solid, able class that directed industry in tho old days. Then you had captains of industry; now you havo salaried directors and shareholders. Tho craving for high dividends has eclipsed the prido in good work, tho fino honour, of &o many old British firms. Wlion you substitute ivu impersonal company for a personal chief then you are already on tho high road to' State control. Tho love of usury has struck the heaviest blow at tho great middle class. The Dominant Fear. "Meanwhile tho tragedy remains; for, after all, great transitions havo always an element of tragedy. Sir Edward Carson dwelt the other day, in the Budget debate, on the sad fato of the overtaxed professional man. Tho income tax, that easy and attractive magnet of revenue, has completed his untoiug. Not without reason do tho French, a nation of bourgeois, regard our income tax with horror. But the incomo tax could lmve been borne if tho middle class had realiy shared the great war bonuses. The dominant fear is that, while wages soar, salaries creep. . •''The middle classes are paying tho penalty of their own individualism. They have despised trade- unionism; and now, in their hour of fate, no trade union, voices their grievances. They perish unheard. They are powerless before the great new triple alliance which has taken' the place of Bismarck's creation—tho triple alliance of the trained and organised. workers' of this country,"' The Workers' Increases of Wage, A remarkable article in the "Labour Gazette" shows the enormous increases which havo come to the workers since July, 1914. "The bonuses and increases granted show a considerable diversity among different groups of work-people, both as regards the actual monetary totals aud the percentage over pre-war rates which tho increases represent, extreme examples ranging from less than 60 to over 150 per cent, ou tho wages of July, 1914.

"In cases where a monetary increase has been granted, e.g., in tlie railway service, tho percentage equivalent is much higher for labourers than for skilled nien, whilst in others where a percentage increase has been given, the monetary equivalent varies according to the earnings of individual men,, and is generally higher for skilled men than for labourers.

"Taking all industries together, it is evident that rates of wages, for manual workers generally, have been more thaftt doubled on the whole during the_ war ; and, while the material availablo is not sufficiently complete to enable an exact calculation of tlie general average increase on pre-war rates to bo made, there is little doubt that it lies between ICO and 120 per cent., apart from enhancements of hourly and piece rates in certain industries, the effect of which, on weekly wages, lias been neutralised by reductions in tho weekly hours of labour."

Farm labourers are getting an averngo increnso of &S per cent.; labourers in tho building trades 100 per cent.; colliers 110 to 120 per cent.; bootmakers S7 to 93 per cent.; in tho carting industry 30s. per week over pre-war rates, as well as shorter hours. The estimated cost of tho increase of wages and reduction of hours of coalminera, under the interim report of tho Commission, is up to March 31 next. Out-of-work pay to the value of £Jl,420,000 had been paid up to May 9. The number of unemployed on May 2 was 1,093,400, as compared with 1,060,215 on March 28-an increase of 33,155. , . Tho total of 1,093,400 was made up ot 402,151 men and 1316 women demobilised from the Forces, and 689,933 civilians. Of tho latter, 452,132 were women and "iris. Tho number of men on the livo registers of the Employment Exchanges at May 0 was 653,270, or an increase ot 87,902 'on March 28, and the number of women was >150,155, a docrenso of 113,03.).