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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

The Effect Upon Wages

The Effect Upon Wages.

A further consequence has to be considered in the effect of the dole upon the labor market. It is beyond dispute that in England the system of allowances out of rates in aid of wages crippled the independent laborer and lowered wages because the pauper with his State subsidy could afford to sell his labor cheaper, and was preferred by the employers in consequence. "It was demonstrated," said the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834, "that the allowance in aid of wages in reality operated as a grievous tax in diminution of them." It was subsequently demonstrated that an immediate rise of wages in the districts concerned followed upon the abolition of the system. Allowances limited to those above sixty-five years would not seem likely to affect the general rate of wages, but there must be some in the wage-earning class who will feel the full weight of the "grievous tax," and these will be the men whose earnings average somewhere about the limit of £52 a year, which disqualifies for a pension. Now, whether you hold with the false implication of this Bill, that poverty is in itself a test of merit, or whether you take the true test to be honest effort either of rich or poor, under either theory the struggling poverty which can just maintain its independence must satisfy your test and command] your sympathy; and it is this very class of strugglers, earning their £1 a week from light or casual work, who will have their sorry wages lowered and their independence undermined by State-aided competition. Thus the measure will make paupers, not merely by its direct inducements to idleness, but also by submerging those who, without the pensioners' competition, could have earned higher wages and remained free men. And whether these page 8 humble toilers succumb or not it is to be remembered that, while the struggle lasts, they are being taxed for those who pull them down.