CHANGE IN ENGLISH HABITS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 605, 21 November 1873, Page 3

CHANGE IN ENGLISH HABITS.

A correspondent writing to a Melbourne paper make- these observations : —“ A very short acquaintance with London, 1 or indeed with any English town, suffices to show an Austra'iau who has been for long resident in Melbourne that a very great change has come over the manners and customs of -he English within the last few years. ; No longer can it he said that they arc a saving or afr ugal people. The habit of living up to their men' s, if not indeed beyond them, is almost universal. Micawher’s famous maxim— ‘ Income one hundred a year : expenditure ninety-nine pounds nineteen shillings and elevenpence—result, happiness ; income one hundred a year ; expenditure one hundred pounds and one penny — result, misery,’ seems to be entirely forgotten, or if remembered is certainly not acted upon. Improvidence is not confined to any class, it is universal, and even the most poorly paid section of the community expend a considerable portion of their wages in cheap and not always innocent amusements. One very remarkable change which has come over the working classes in particular is, that they no longer take so much pride in their work as formerly. Many employers complain that the class of skilled workmen is gradually becoming extinct, and that the young men who nowcome to the trade are only anxious that their work should ho just good enough to prevent its being rejected ; that the consciousness and devotion to duty which ma le an artizan expend all his labor and s'till upon whatever he had in hand, and lent a dignity to hia labor, are now rarely or ever found among English workmen. The middle classes blame the trades unions for the change—they should rather blame themselves. They set an example of unmitigated selfishness to their men, and it is not very wonderful if the latter improve upon the lesson. My own experience in London has convinced me of one rather singnlar.anomaly, to which I should not have attached much importance if it had not been corroborated hy several ex-Victo-rians who have had to do with workmen both in London and Melbourne. The wages of lahorere.here are four shillings, and of carpenters six and six pence for nine hours’ work ; the usual rate in Melbourne is six shillings for laborers, and at least nine for mechanics for a day of eight hours ; and yet contracts cost quite as much in London as in Melbourne. lam afraid that the only solution of the paradox is that men in the one city cannot or will not work anything like so hard as in the other. Whether the difference arises from inability or disin duration I would not care to decide, hut it is quite certain that even skilled workmen must find it very difficult to get a sufficiency of wholesome and nutritions fond when meat is from a shilling to fonrtoen-pcnce a pound, and to mere laborers flesh diet must be an almost unknown luxury. National greatness is after all, pretty much a matter of food, and with dear fuel and dear meat the supply of carbon must be remarkably short.”