THE

SCOTTISH REVIEW.

JULY, 1892.

ART. I.-THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR IN GLASGOW.

1. First Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiry into the Housing of the Working Classes. (Presented to both Houses of Parliament.) London. 1889.

2. Presbytery of Glasgow: Report of Commission on the Housing of the Poor in Relation to their Social Condition. Glasgow. 1891.

T is an old and often repeated forecast that social subjects are coming to the front; to-day it has fulfilled itself; they have come to the front; for good or evil we stand face to face with them. They have laid hold of the public mind; they are discussed in Parliament; they are discussed in General Assemblies; they are discussed in Labour Congresses.

Some problems are ripening for settlement, others as yet are in the inchoate and nebulous state. Whether the settlement will issue in weal or woe depends upon the spirit of reason and common sense and common justice on the basis of which they are settled.

In some respects the temper of the times is not favourable to a rational settlement of complicated and difficult problems; in other respects it is. It is an age of doubt and uncertainty in spheres economic as well as theological. Fixed principles which guided men's actions in old days have been cast to the winds. The

laws of political economy, we are told, are banished to Saturn, and responsible statesmen are prepared with a light heart to venture upon the rashest experiments, little knowing to what goal they may lead. Economic as well as moral law is fixed and inexorable, and if infringed will return from Saturn to avenge itself on the transgressors. Statecraft to-day is marked by a disregard of principle which is little short of immoral. Leaders of all parties are seemingly guided not by what they believe to be right, but by what they believe to be politic; they have ceased to be men of light and leading; their mission seems to be to follow rather than to lead. Instead of educating the popular mind, they are beseeching the popular mind to educate them; they each in turn find salvation by yielding a blind adherence to some popular fad. They are educated, not by the voice of the people, which in the main is a true voice, but by the voice of interested agitators who arrogate to themselves the right to speak in the people's name. The power of legislative enactments is enormously exaggerated, and the power of individual effort is correspondingly underrated. Ecclesiastics dream that by persuading men to change their opinions they will regenerate the world; politicians dream that by framing a new social creed they will cure the ills which afflict the commonwealth. All that churchmen can do is to put men in a position to be helped by a higher power to work out their own salvation. All that statesmen can accomplish is to remove any obstacle which hinders the progress of the race. All progress is, and cannot be aught else than, the work of individual effort.

Social problems are so intricate and far reaching in their issues, that the greatest caution is requisite to guide any movements connected with them towards even their partial solution. There is always the grave risk, that in trying to remedy one set of evils other evils may be developed or exaggerated. In other respects the temper of the times is favourable to social reform. There is the growth of the humanitarian spirit; a deeper sympathy towards the distressed and miserable is stirring in men's minds; and even the dissolute are regarded more with pity than loathing. Parliament, democratic in its tone, is quick to give a careful consideration to any proposals, which are reasonable in

themselves and likely to improve the social condition of the people. Corporations and churches, and the public at large, are showing a better disposition to carry out reformatory schemes.

It would serve no good or immediate practical purpose to refer to social problems in regard to which there is much divergence of opinion; such as the distribution of wealth, the relation between capital and labour, the restriction of labour hours, and others, which are only vaguely shaping themselves into form. The air is full of proposals and schemes, crude in their conception and loose in their definition, which by dreamers of dreams are regarded as the means of restoring an earthly paradise, and constitute the gospel of the socialist. We do not propose to enter the homes or refer to the social conditions of the skilled and intelligent workman; to do so might reasonably be resented as an impertinent intrusion. Such may safely be left to conduct their own affairs and to protect their own interests. The position of the upper circles of the industrial classes has vastly improved during the last half century. The workman is better educated, more intelligent and more self-reliant; he reaps a larger share of the fruits of his labour, is better housed, better clothed and better fed. Wages were never so high, the cost of living was never so low. It is pleasant to find signs of culture and refinement in his house, in furniture, pictures and books. The accumulated savings of the working classes are very large. The Friendly Societies are possessed of vast capital, the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows alone having a capital of upwards of seven and a half millions. This is not to be wondered at when the undernoted facts are considered.

In 1876 only 36 per cent. of persons who died in Glasgow were enrolled in Friendly Societies, but the proportion has risen year by year without interruption, until in 1885 it was fifty-two per cent. There are now 160,881 Depositors in the Glasgow Savings Bank, besides 80,000 in the Penny Banks, making an aggregate of 240,881 persons who directly or indirectly are depositing their savings in this Institution. Estimating the population of the city and suburbs at 762,000, this number gives an average of 1 Depositor for every 3 of the population. In 1850 the average was only 1 in 12, affording a remarkable evidence of the growth

of thrifty habits in the community.-(Glasgow Savings Bank Report, 1890.)

A considerable portion of these savings are being invested in productive labour. The Co-operative Societies, wholesale and retail, are on the whole flourishing; in many instances they are highly successful. The Report of the Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society shows that during the last quarter the turnover amounted to £714,314 8s. 4d., or about £3,000,000 a year. Still more gratifying is the public spirit and the generous sympathy with refinement and culture exhibited at their meetings. When the Report referred to was submitted, the chairman brought up a message from the Board of Directors recommending that a grant of £1000 be made to the Glasgow Art Gallery Scheme, to which we shall afterwards refer. The discussion which followed turned, not on the question whether the grant should be agreed to, but whether it should be one of £1000 or £2000. A hopeful picture this of growth and progress; showing an advance amongst the industrial classes not merely in material comfort, but also in culture and refinement. In sharp contrast with it, the Presbytery's Report presents us with a mass of depressing details, describing in strong but unexaggerated language, the mean, sordid housing and debased social condition of the lowest class of unskilled workmen. The picture is truly distressing and pathetic.

Poor souls, they have fallen to so low a level, that there need be no fear of intrusion in entering their dwellings, to observe their habits and scan their surroundings. Their lives, though very black, many of them, and very repulsive, are very sombre and joyless, and will respond to kindly words of human sympathy, and possibly grasp a helping hand.

In all cities there are quarters, sometimes, as in Westminster, abutting on stately residences, where are lodged the very poor and unfortunate; the thriftless and dissolute; the abandoned and criminal. The general aspect is gloomy and depressing; the tenements densely packed; the houses overcrowded; types of the race who inhabit them may be seen lounging at alley entrances and doorways.

It is the same the world over. The most advanced civilization has its blots, and there is no blot blacker than a population of

wretched stricken lives, dragging out their days amidst squalor and penury in cities full of signs of great wealth and material prosperity, adorned with splendid monuments, and full of stately cathedrals and imposing churches. Anyone who has the courage to penetrate these regions will come in touch, amidst much and loud profanity, with much pathetic sorrow, and see played out before his eyes many a sad tragedy.

In the following pages we propose to confine our attention to the City of Glasgow, partly because it seems to us to be a fair type of a great commercial and manufacturing city, and partly because the information to hand in connection with its poor is, so far as we are acquainted with the subject, more easily accessible and abundant.

The Royal Commission practically, and the Commission appointed by the Presbytery of Glasgow avowedly, restricted their enquiry to the housing and social condition of working men and women whose wages are under 20s. As to the first point the latter body of Commissioners at an early stage of their inquiry arrived at the opinion, which was afterwards fully confirmed on evidence submitted, that for workmen whose wages are over 20s., there is, at least in Glasgow, a full supply of good houses at moderate rents.

There are

It is difficult to estimate with accuracy the number of workers whose wages are under 20s. There are in Glasgow 122,600 dwelling-houses, of which 8,000 are unoccupied. 35,892 houses of only one apartment, of which 2,118 are unoccupied. Of these houses, 23,228 are 'ticketed houses,'16,413 of one room, and 6,875 of two rooms. "Ticketed house' is a technical term which is thus defined by Dr. Russell (Evidence, p. 4):

:

'Any house that does not exceed three rooms, and does not exceed as to the conjoint capacity of the whole house 2,000 cubic feet, may be measured, and the total cubic contents inscribed upon a ticket on the door or lintel, with the number of inmates who may legally occupy that house, at the rate of 300 cubic feet per adult or child over eight years. That is a ticketed house.'

The average rent of ticketed houses' of one room is 7s. 11d. a month, or £4 15s. a year; and of two rooms, 10s. 3d. a month,