The Commonweal/Volume 1/Number 2/East-End Workers—II

by Charles Wilfred Mowbray

EAST-END WORKERS.—II.

We workers hail with great rejoicing the appearance of your new paper, and hope it soon will come out weekly. For a paper that commences with its first appearance to expose grievances should be well supported by the working classes. I am able to support your correspondent, J. Lane, in what he says about my trade, for he does not exaggerate when he says that coats are made for 6d., vests for 3d., and trousers for 4d., and find your own linen thread; but he should also say “and your own sewing machines, etc.,” thus reducing your wages by 2s. 6d. per week. For this not only saves the employer going to the expense of buying machinery, but it saves him paying the rent of a workshop. Thus the masters get all these advantages without giving the work hands any more remuneration for all the expense they have to go to, and how many hundreds are there (not being able to get the necessary security to enable them to buy a sewing machine) who are therefore forced (owing to the severe competition which exists for starvation wages in our trade) to fly to the sweaters, who can give them any wages they like. Our greatest curse seems to be that we do not know each other, for if we knew and trusted each other we should be able to organise for the overthrow of the accursed system which is crushing into an untimely grave our best men and women. For its is only the cunning foxes that dare not speak their mind, or in other words, those who are devoid of any principle, that are able to get on now. You must not speak or you are sacked, and this in a country that boasts of being the most enlightened and free. Now a sweater goes to shop, and by greasing the hand of the trimmer or taker-in he is enabled to get work and employs a few hands. For an example I will take one who lives not far from me. He employs hive hands, and they make on the average 100 coats, 100 vests and 100 trousers per week. Now he pays one woman 12s. 6d. per week and one man 25s. per week, the other three gurls get from 2s. 6d. to 3s. per week. He only wants those girls to put on buttons, or holes, and fell bottoms or sleeve linings, so that when they ask for a rise they get the sack and have to look out for other employment. Fancy 2s. 6d. to 3s. per week! Is it possible for them to live on this money? I say, empathetically, No! They have in most cases to eke out a living by becoming the mistresses or tools of the trimmers or cutters, thus filling our streets with prostitutes. It sickens me to think of it, when we have men paid to teach morality at £15,000 a year, and this is the result. But let us return to the sweater. I say he makes 100 coats, 100 vests and 100 trousers.

							£	s.	d.
100 Coats	-		-		-		2	10	0
100 Vests	-		-		-		1	5	0
100 Trousers			-		-		1	13	4
							5	8	4
							3	4	0
							2	4	4

---

Expenses—								£	s.	d.
	Rent	-		-		-		0	9	0
	Machines			-		-		0	5	0
	Wages	-		-		-		2	5	0
	Grease for the cutter's hand			-		-		0	5	0
								3	4	0

Thus leaving £2 4s. 4d. to this man for doing no work. I think that Professor Leone Levi reckoned a lot like this man in when he made his figures read that the working classes got on the average 32s. per week. Ah well, I believe there are a great many Levis and Giffens, and it is the leeches like the sweater I have mentioned that pay them their wages. They must write to suit their masters.

One thing in conclusion. We have lately had a great cry about small-pox. I know a man who makes coats, and a little while ago his girl had the small-pox while he had a lot of work at home. The prices he is paid for those coats are simply a disgrace to the master. He cannot keep himself and family clean, for he can barely earn sufficient to get food, and this is how the house is furnished. A table opposite the window, which serves for the double purpose of eating on and working on; a bed in the corner; a couple of chairs and a box; a sewing machine. I think he must be turning thrifty, for does without fender and fire-irons, pictures or flower-pots. But I said a bed in the corner. It is with this bed that I am particularly to deal. There is no bed-clothing, therefore you may image a girl in bed with the small-pox. Is it natural for her father to have a few nice warm overcoats in the house to make without throwing some over his child? Why I went in and found that the work that had to go to the shop the next morning was over the girl. I spoke to him about it, and he begged of me not to tell his master, or there was nothing left for him but the workhouse. It is true we plough and sow, yet so hungry; make clothes, yet go naked; build palaces and mansions, yet live in dens and hovels. But I believe that there is a bright speck on the horizon that indicates that a change is near. Let us hope the Commonweal will hasten the time when we shall say together, “Freedom's day is dawning.”

C. Wilfred.