two parents and four children, they would be placed in class C, but if there were five or more children they would be placed in class B. Again, if a family had an income of 27s., and consisted of two parents and two children, they would be placed in class C, but if there was only one child they would go into class D. Rowntree introduced the important distinction between "primary" and "secondary" poverty. People are living in "primary" poverty if their total income "is insufficient to obtain the minimum necessities for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency; they are living in secondary" poverty if their total income "would be sufficient for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency, were it not that some portion of it is absorbed by other expenditure, either useful or wasteful."* He calculated the cost of what he considered to be the minimum necessaries, and for a family of man, wife and three children estimated the primary" poverty line to be 21s. 8d. In a later work,† written in 1913, allowing for the increased cost of living, he raised the figure to 23s. 9d. Rowntree came to the conclusion that 15:46 per cent. of the wage-earning class in York, or 9'91 of the total city population, were living in "primary" poverty. After investigating the amounts spent in drink and in other ways either useful or wasteful," he arrived at the further conclusion that 27.94 per cent. of the wage-earning class or 17'93 per cent. of the population were living in "secondary" 66 * Op. cit., Ch. IV. †The Way to Industrial Peace and the Problem of Unemployment. In his Human Needs of Labour (1918, p. 129), Rowntree gives 35s. 3d., with prices as at July 1914 as the minimum to satisfy the labourer's needs. But the standard taken here is higher than the poverty line; e.g. 5s. od. is allowed for personal sundries— insurance, recreation, travelling. poverty. His final conclusion, therefore, is that 43'40 per cent. of the wage-earning class, or 27.84 per cent. of the total population of the city were living in poverty. Presumably, if these estimates are correct, two-thirds of the poverty could be reduced merely by a better apportionment of the family income. It is doubtful, however, whether the poverty in the country would actually be reduced by anything near that amount, even if all the undesirable expenditure were eliminated. At first sight there is a certain resemblance between Booth's figure of 307 and Rowntree's estimate of 27.84. But the two results cannot be properly compared, since the respective investigators take different factors into their calculations. It is interesting to conjecture what the estimated proportion for London would have turned out to be, had Booth allowed for the secondary poverty that entered into Rowntree's calculation. The discrepancy in the figures, however, is due not only to the variance in the methods adopted, but also to the difference between conditions in London and in York. Neither of the towns is typical of the country as a whole; for example, the ratios of rent to total expenditure and the relative costs of the necessities of life are not alike in the two districts. No single town can be typical of the total population.* The following diagram taken from Rowntree's work depicts the cycles in the life of an unskilled labourer. It illustrates, incidentally, the variability of a "living wage" for a given worker at different periods in his line. Dr. Bowley demonstrates these changes more specifically. Dealing with conditions in 1912, he estimates that the minimum living wage "at marriage would be 16s. weekly, and would rise gradually to about 25s. in five years and 28s. * See article on The Poverty Figures by Professor D. H. Macgregor, Economic Journal, Vol. XX. (1920) p. 569 et seq. "Primary' Poverty Line in ten years, provided that there were four children all surviving. It would remain at 28s. for another five years and then fall back to 16s. as the children became selfsupporting."'* Age 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Closely connected with these variations is the incidence of pauperism according to age. This is shown in the graph on p. 22. In 1912 inquiries were conducted into the social condi tions of Reading, and in the following year Bowley and into those of Northampton, Warrington and Burnett-Hurst's Investigation. Stanley, the aggregate population being a little over a quarter of a million. Random samples of the people of the four towns were taken, the method thus differing from Rowntree's. The four towns are not claimed to be typical of the whole country, but * The Measurement of Social Phenomena, pp. 179-80. † Bowley and Burnett-Hurst, Livelihood and Poverty, 1915. Dr. Bowley shows (op. cit., Ch. VI.) that sampling is mathematically justified, that it is unlikely to give in the aggregate an incorrect picture of the situation. Children Marry and leave home. Labourer past work. they are to a large extent representative of towns ranging between 40,000 and 150,000 in population, while the different types of industrial centre are fairly well repre Census of Paupers, 1906 (England and Wales), showing Age 400 0-5 5-15 15-25 25-35 35-45 45-55 55-65 65-75 75-85 upwards. sented. One feature upon which the economic character of a town largely depends is the variety or absence of variety in its industries. Some towns are almost entirely * Quoted in Newsholme, Vital Statistics, (1923 Edition). dependent upon one staple industry and the minor industries which are subsiduary to it. Other towns have no predominant trade, but a large number of co-existent and independent trades. Each of these types is represented by two towns among those here described."* Northampton (boot and shoe manufacturing) and Stanley (coal-mining) belong to the first type; Warrington and Reading to the second. Further, the differences in economic conditions among the four towns are such that their total population is more or less characteristic of that prevailing in the greater part of industrial England. In determining the maximim standard of living, Bowley and Burnett-Hurst proceeded on rather different lines. They slightly added to Rowntree's minimum for an adult man, and reduced the minimum for a child. They also laid down different standards for children according to age, whereas Rowntree grouped all children together. They took "primary" poverty only into their calculations. As worked out in percentages, however, the differences between Rowntree's figures for primary poverty and those given by Bowley and Burnett-Hurst are not very great, and the general conclusions may usefully be compared. Grouping York with the towns in their survey, they show that in four towns out of the five, more than a quarter of the adult male workers, and in two towns more than a third, were earning less than 24s. per week, irrespective (apart from York) of loss due to sickness and unemployment.† The following tablet shows the relation of households to the poverty line in the four towns respectively. Percen * Bowley and Burnett-Hurst, op. cit., pp. 12-13. † Ibid., p. 35. Adapted from fuller table, ibid., p. 39. |