SWEATING AND SUBCONTRACTING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5532, 6 April 1896, Page 2

SWEATING AND SUBCONTRACTING.

- — ♦ . Mr Bernard Shaw, an able writer on socialistic subjects, has an article on " Socialism for Millionaires " in the Contemporary Review, in which, he' tells a story which contains a , wealth of suggestion aB to the evils of sweating and subcontracting. He writes : —"I remember once, at a time when I made daily use of the reading-room of the British Museum — a magnificent communistic institution of the, best type — I was offered two pounds to copy a certain book or manuscript, I forget which. Being too lazy to think of doing the work myself, I handed over the commission to a man whose respectable poverty would have -moved a heart ofstone — an ex-schoolmaster whose qualifications were out of date, and who, through no particular fault of his own, ha,d drifted at last into the reading-room as less literate men drift into Salvation Army shelters. He was a sober, well-spoken, well-con-ducted, altogether unobjectionable man, really fond of reading, and eminently eligible for a good turn of the kind I did him. His first step in the matter was to obtain from me an advance of five shillings ; his next, to sub-let the commission to another person in similar circumstances for one pound fif teen, and so get it entirely off his mind and return to his favourite books. This second, or rather, third party, however, required an advance from my acquaintance of one-and-sixpence to buy paper, having obtained which, he handed over the contract to a fourth, party, who was willing to do it for one pound thirteen and sixpence. Speculation raged for a day or two as the job was passed on ; and it reached bottom at last in the hands of the least competent and least sober female copyist in the room, who actually did the woi-k for five shillings, and then turned it into a handsome invest- • ment by making it an excuse for borrowing endless sixpences from me from that time to the day of her death, which each sixpence probably accelerated to the extent of fourpence, and staved off to the extent of twopence. She was not a deserving person." It will be seen that the story bears not only upon the problems named, but also upon that of female competition. It pre- * sents, in fact, an epitome of the world's labour market, and shows' how futile are individual efforts to do charitable acts or to deal with the complex motives Of humanity. It is an argument for State • regulation of the conditions of labour, the force of which must be apparent to every reader, ' -