The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1907, SWEATED INDUSTRIES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 40, 3 October 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1907, SWEATED INDUSTRIES

ARTHUR. — On the 27th September, at her late residence, Stratford street, Gore, Ellen. Josephine, beloved wife of Win. Arthur (late of Sievwright and James, Dunedin). and eldest daughter of Mrs J. Roche, Blue Spur. Aged 31 years 8 months. — R.I.P.

§HE Sweated Industries Section in the Christchurch Exhibition gave to workers and' others in this prosperous land a heart-riving idea of how some of ' the other half ' live in Ihe slums of ' famous London town '. And now comers to our young Dominion a lecturer who revives the impression, and deepens here and there the shadows of v the picture thtot shows the cheerless lives of ''The White Slaves of Great Britain '. The awful slums, in which the white slaves toil ever on without hope, are the property of a few titled nabobs— among them the Dukes of Bedford and Westminster. And in their festering depths are packed Ihe -' sweated ' victims from whose lives God's blessed sunshine has Been blotted out. - We are told that ' The work of the vict.irr.is of the sweating evil often' required skill and an artistic temperament, as, for instance, those who made artificial flowers-, and sorted them" into bunches. These women were paid at the magnificent rate of ljd to 2d per hour. .Those who made violets received 7d per gross, buttercups •3d per gross. On the Continent were women who • made beautiful wreaths of false flowers', ~ involving much delicate work. They received Is 9d each for these, and by working twelve hours daily made 7sper week. Great numbers of women were employed mending sacks, forwhich they were paid 2d or 3d pcr -dozen. * A woman she knew in Glasgow employed in work of this sort got 6s per week, during which she worked ninety-six hours ; yet she kept a family of small children and. a crippled husband. Whole families were engaged in making trousers,' receiving Is 9d per dozen. One paid 4s 6d or 5s 6d for a baby's bonnet, a piece of delicate workman-, ship. A~"poverty-stricken woman made that bonnet for 2d, and supplied her own thread ! There were women making double-flounced skirts for 2s per dozen, and fancy-work blouses for 2s 4d per dtfzen. And thisi was taking place in Great Britain — a civilised country— <the metropolis of the world. . . . Those conditions" were existent in Great Britain to-day,' and were never worse. The cheapest thing there at _the present time was flesh and blood.' As far back as 1843, Hood wrote his famous poem which told how the poor sewing woman toiled in a sqjualid garret — 1 Stitch, stitch, stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich, She sang the " Song of the Shirt." ' ■ « And still in this year of grace 1907, the condition "of " -the • sweated * worker in the Ducal slums is little, if anything, better than it was when Hood penned his terrible • Song of the Shirt '.

But long hours and a starvation wage represent .only a part of the sufferings that sap the life-blood of the workers in the noisome slums which provide the Bedfords and the Westminstprs with the guilty luxury that merits the bitter Swinburnian reproach :—: — 1 Ye whose night is bright With soft rest and heat, Clothed like day-* with light, Us the naked night Slays from street to street '. Here is how the lecturer describes the sort of ' home, sweet home ' in which dwell the victims of the sweating evil :— 'To call the warrens in which these people lived homes would be a travesty on the name of home. Often had she seen twelve or fourteen people occupying a small room, a number of families, containing adults of both sexes, being packed together. There was no privacy of any sort. Those suffering from loathsome and ■ infectious diseases remained amongst the stronger, and 1 'until they could not move a finger continued their work. 'Then they died and were removed. They did necessary •household duties in these rooms, and if a tenant were p, vendor of such perishable articles of food as fruit or •vegetables, ho kept what was held over from the day ■overnight in this habitation. The people- were constantly at poverty point, and in winter were unable to purchase adequate clothing ; they utilised any material Jihat they were making up into garments as bed-cover-ing, and in this manner the articles became saturated with disease. These were afterwards exported to every part of the world.' • And then there is the dire problem of the children— ill-nourished, dull of intellect,* forced' in maiiy instances' to work long hours in order to eke out the wretched ■existence of the ' sweated ' denizens of the nabob-owned :slums. 'In the East End ', we are told (where the poor most do congregate), '55 per cent, of the chil•dren die before the age of fi/e,* as against 18 per cent, in the West End '. Commissions have been appointed ■by Parliament to inquire into the condition of the London poor. But they have left the poor pretty well -where they found them. If the ' sweated ' victims of the London slums were ' ez far away-ez Congo is ' (to adapt a line of Russell Lowell's), they would stand a ■vastly better chance of having their cry of agony heard. For in our dollar-worshipping day, outrages — real or •allegted— under a small nation's flag' often ' hey a solid ■vally ' to those who are disposed to exploit them, in the name of humanity, for what they are worth commercially. But there are no rubber-forests in the Seven Dials, no goldfields among the purlieus of Whitechapel. So_ the bitter cry of the White Slaves is likely to be heard awhile, and yet awhile—perhaps until London and its titled slum-owners receive an awakemingj like that which rubbed the sleep out of the startled «yes of the French nobility one summer morning in 1789. Those who fail or refuse to learn the lesson of s "lEhe Sybilline Books sometimes live to learn a lesson that costs a good deal more.