Capital Volume I
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472
Chapter 25 extent, that “the peasant has again become a serf,” and a serf worse fed and worse clothed. 88 Dr.
Julian Hunter, in his epoch making report on the dwellings of the agricultural labourers, says: “The cost of the hind” (a name for the agricultural labourer, inherited from the time of serfdom) “is fixed at the lowest possible amount on which he can live ... the supplies of wages and shelter are not calculated on the profit to be derived from him. He is a zero in farming calculations ... 89 The means [of subsistence] being always supposed to be a fixed quantity. 90 As to any further reduction of his income, he may say, nihil habeo nihil curo. He has no fears for the future, because he has now only the spare supply necessary to keep him. He has reached the zero from which are dated the calculations of the farmer. Come what will, he has no share either in prosperity or adversity.” 91
the criminals condemned to transportation and penal servitude. The results are recorded in two voluminous Blue books. Among other things it is said: “From an elaborate comparison between the diet of convicts in the convict prisons in England, and that of paupers in workhouses and of free labourers in the same country ... it certainly appears that the former are much better fed than either of the two other classes,” 92 whilst “the amount of labour required from an ordinary convict under penal servitude is about one half of what would be done by an ordinary day-labourer.” 93 A few characteristic depositions of witnesses: John Smith, governor of the Edinburgh prison, deposes: No. 5056. “The diet of the English prisons [is] superior to that of ordinary labourers in England.” No 50. “It is the fact ... that the ordinary agricultural labourers in Scotland very seldom get any meat at all.” Answer No. 3047. “Is there anything that you are aware of to account for the necessity of feeding them very much better than ordinary labourers? – Certainly not.” No. 3048. “Do you think that further experiments ought to be made in order to ascertain whether a dietary might not be hit upon for prisoners employed on public works nearly approaching to the dietary of free labourers? ...” 94 “He [the agricultural labourer] might say: ‘I work hard, and have not enough to eat, and when in prison I did not work harder where I had plenty to eat, and therefore it is better for me to be in prison again than here.’” 95
From the tables appended to the first volume of the Report I have compiled the annexed comparative summary. 473
Chapter 25 WEEKLY AMOUNT OF NUTRIENTS
Quantity Of Nitrogenous Ingredients Quantity Of Non-Nitro- genous In- gredients Quantity Of Mineral Matter TOTAL
Ounces
Ounces Ounces
Ounces Portland (convict) 28.95 150.06
4.68 183.69
Sailor in the Navy 29.63
152.91 4.52
187.06 Soldier
25.55 114.49
3.94 143.98
Working Coachmaker 24.53 162.06
4.23 190.82
Compositor 21.24
100.83 3.12
125.19 Agricultural labourer 96
17.73 118.06
3.29 139.08
The general result of the inquiry by the medical commission of 1863 on the food of the lowest fed classes, is already known to the reader. He will remember that the diet of a great part of the agricultural labourers’ families is below the minimum necessary “to arrest starvation diseases.” This is especially the case in all the purely rural districts of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wilts, Stafford, Oxford, Berks, and Herts. “The nourishment obtained by the labourer himself,” says Dr. E. Smith, “is larger than the average quantity indicates, since he eats a larger share ... necessary to enable him to perform his labour ... of food than the other members of the family, including in the poorer districts nearly all the meat and bacon.... The quantity of food obtained by the wife and also by the children at the period of rapid growth, is in many cases, in almost every county, deficient, and particularly in nitrogen.” 97
The male and female servants living with the farmers themselves are sufficiently nourished. Their number fell from 288,277 in 1851, to 204,962 in 1861. “The labour of women in the fields,” says Dr. Smith, “whatever may be its disadvantages, ... is under present circumstances of great advantage to the family, since it adds that amount of income which ... provides shoes and clothing and pays the rent, and thus enables the family to be better fed.” 98 One of the most remarkable results of the inquiry was that the agricultural labourer of England, as compared with other parts of the United Kingdom, “is considerably the worst fed,” as the appended table shows: Quantities of Carbon and Nitrogen weekly consumed by an average agricultural adult:
Carbon, grains Nitrogen, grains England
46,673 1,594
Wales 48,354
2,031 Scotland 48,980 2,348
Ireland 99
43,366 2,434
“To the insufficient quantity and miserable quality of the house accommodation generally had,” says Dr. Simon, in his official Health Report, “by our agricultural Yüklə 3,3 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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