United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Now, it may seem a preposterous dream that any arrangement can be devised by which it may be possible, under all circumstances, to provide food, clothes, and shelter for all these Out-of-Works without any loss of self respect; but I am convinced that it can be done, providing only that they are willing to Work, and, God helping me, if the means are forthcoming, I mean to try to do it; how, and where, and when, I will explain in subsequent chapters.
The labour register would contain columns in which would be entered the various kinds of employment for which the applicant was willing or suited, and the minimum pay which he was prepared to accept, so that we should be able to ascertain exactly how many out-of-works there were of each particular class.
To obtain the shelter of the last of these they must leave their family, sacrifice their liberty, and commit some offence. Therefore the honest out-of-works are driven by tens of thousands to lives of beggary, which too often pave the way for lives of imposture and crime.
There are millions of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment. It will be still worse when Revolution has burst upon us and spread like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as the barricades are erected in Europe and the United States. What is to be done to provide these multitudes with bread?
After careful examination and close cross-questioning of the Out-of-Works, whom we have already registered at our Labour Bureau, we find that at least sixty per cent. are country folk, men, women, boys, and girls, who have left their homes in the counties to come up to town in the hope of bettering themselves.
There were crooks whose faces shone with the evil excitement of alcohol, out-of-works of all kinds, beggars, and young men all young men with sleek oiled hair and shiny boots, in whose eyes and demeanour theft and crime could be seen. By a curious coincidence the great news seemed to have reached all, toffs and crooks alike, at exactly the same time.
In other words, having got one difficulty in the case of the Out-of-Works, we must cast about to find another difficulty to pair off against it, and then out of two difficulties will arise the solution of the problem. We shall not have far to seek before we discover in every town and in every country the corresponding element to our unemployed labourer.
It is obvious that an apparatus, which only provides for 1,136 persons per night, is utterly unable to deal with the numbers of the homeless Out-of-Works.
A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production. The millions of public money flowing into the Treasury would not suffice for paying wages to the millions of out-of-works.
And yet on the threshold of our inquiry we are confronted with an important and increasing class, of "out-of-works" who are being turned out of our educational establishments, unfitted for a life of hard labour, trained for desk service, but without any prospect of suitable employment in the case of a great and continually increasing majority.
Word Of The Day