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Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16500, 30 July 1919, Page 4

UNKNOWN

THE MIDDLE CLASSES ARE PAYING THE PENALTY OE THE 111 OWN INDIVIDUALISM. Bow down! bow down ! to lower midtile classes!—Gilbert and Sillivan. A Dean says that the man repairing tile cathedral received more than the curates. A church treasurer says that the men who sweep the streets receive more than the curates. “In tlio great towns it is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish between the classes,” writes Mr. Harold Spender in the Daily Chronicle. “Where are the top hat and the frock coat '1 Ten rears ago they were the accepted wear of the ‘governing class' ; humble people made way for them in the streets and in railway trains; they were the marks and ensigns of success. Now they have gone like the snows of .Tester year. They are consigned to "funerals. They have become the symbols of grief and woe. “The reason is clear. No one is proud any longer of being a middleclass mail. The honour and glory has departed. Icbahod. 'the best thing is to resemble and to pretend to be a working man. Then, at any rate, yon get equal treatment. You escape contempt. The taxi-driver will not mock you. The girl conductor will be just to you. The tailway porter may ho fair to you. You wiii be able to face the battle of life. SERVICE TOUCHED WITH DECAY. Service as a whole; is also touched with decay. -The, new wages are checking that steady flow of surplus daughters from the countryside which provided the prosperous city classes With sure, cheat), and contented service. The iaboi.ior can maintain his own daughters. Woman has acquired a new passion for freedom. So the middle-class household, with all its arrangements for service, is left desolate. LEISURE IN DANGER. “Leisure is in danger—and leisure was the note of the middle class—leissnre for sport, leisure for Gavel, leisure for society, leisure for the arts. Society needs leisure; but not necessarily a- ‘leisured .'lass.’ The demand of tho new society is that all classes should have some leisure, and no class ail the leisure. So we .see a new leisure coming into being—the leisure of the eiglvthour worker. The .Halls arc emptying, and the picture palaces are filling. As the middle cfciss enjoys itself less, the working class enjoys itself more. ‘Our turn now!’ they seem to say, as they take their places at tho banquet of life. The tone of pleasure becomes more popular. The masses call fur strong meat while the delicate tasters leave the tables and set their faces to unwonted toil. “it is not all a gain. Watch the theatres, and note tho steady decline that goes along with this new invasion. Matthew Arnold called tho middle classes the ‘Philistines’ of the modern world, but it is a curious irony of the situation that ho himself very largely jeered them out of their Philistinism. The taste of the British middle, class was never better than just hcfcjro its decline. The new invaders will be educated in their turn, like the barbarian invaders of Italy. But for tho moment there is a great smashing of the old gods, a vast desire for sensation. Irving , and Bcorbohm Tree have passed, and Charlie Chaplin reigns in their place.

OF WHAT USE ARE YOU? “ ‘Of what use arc you?’ That is the question hurled at the unfortunate middle class by coal commissions, industrial councils, and Labour congresses. In the old days there was an ansiver. There i is an answer even' to-day for the old professions—for tho doctor who goes his rounds, for tho parson who visits his flock, for tho laivyer 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; 'there are still shopkeepers. But the company system has gravely undermined the great solid, ablo class that directed the industry in the old days. Then you had captains of industry; now you have salaried directors aud shareholders. The craving for high dividends has eclipsed tho pride in good work, tho fine honour, of so many old British firms. When you substitute an impersonal company "for a jicrsonal chief, then you are already on the high road to State control." Tile love ot usury has struck the heaviest blow at the great middle class.

THE DOMINANT FEAR. “Meanwhile the tragedy remains; for, after all, great transitions have always an element of tragedy. Sir Edward Carson dwelt the other day, in the Budget debate, on the sad Into of the overtaxed professional man. The. income tax, that easy and attractive magnet of revenue has completed his undoing. Not without reason do tho French, a nation of Bourgeois, regard our income tax with horror. But the income tax could have been borne if the middle class had really shared tho great war bonuses. The dominant tear is that, while wages soar, salaries creep. “The middle classes are paying the penalty of their own individualism, 'they have despised trade unionism; and now", in their iiQiir. of fate, no trade union voices their grievances. They perish unheard. They are powerless before the great new triple alliance which has taken , tho place of Bismarck’s creation —the triple alliance of the trained and organised workers of England. THE WORKERS’ INCREASES OF WAGE. A remarkable article in tho Labour Gazette shows the enormous increases which have come to the workers since July. 1914. “The bonuses and increases granted show a considerable diversity among different groups of work-pcoplo._ both as regards the actual monetary 'totals and the percentage over pre-war rates which the increases represent, extreme examples ranging from less than 60 to

over 150 per cent, on the wages of July. 1914. “In cases where a monetary increase has been granted—e.g., in the railway service, the percentage equivalent is much higher for labourers than for skilled men, whilst in others whore a percentage increase has boon given, the monetary equivalent varies according to the earnings of individual men, ami ifi 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 than doubled on the whole during the war; and. while tho material available is not sufficiently complete to enable an exact calculation of the general average increase on pre-war rates to be 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, has been neutralised bv reductions in the weekly hours of labour.'’

Farm labourers are getting an average increase of 83 per cent.; labourers in the building trades, 100 per cent. ; colliers. 110 toTSO per cent.; bootmakers. S 7 to 93 per cent. ; in tho carting industry, 80s per week over pre-war rates, as well as shorter hours. Tho estimated cost of the increase of wages and reduction of hours of coalminers, under the interim report ot the Commission, is £20,250,000 up to March 31 next. Out-of-work pay to the value of £'21,420.000 had been paid up to May

The number of unemployed on May 2 was £1,093,400, ns compared with 1.060,245 on March 28—an increase of 33.155. Tim total of 1,093.100 was made up of 402,151 men and 1316 women demobilised from the forces, and 089.933 civilians. Of tho latter. 452,133 wore women and girls. The number of men on the live registers of the employment exchanges at May 9 was 653,270, or an increase of 87,903 on March the number of women was 450,155, a decrease of 113,035.