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SOCIETY.-The Fabian Society consists of Socialists.

its Rules and the following publications can be obtained from the Secretary, at the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, London, W.O.

Is. net

THIS MISERY OF BOOTS. By H. G. WELLS. Paper cover, design
by A. G. Watts. 3d., post free 4d.; 23 per doz., post free, 2/7.
FABIANISM AND THE EMPIRE: A Manifesto.
FABIAN ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM. (43rd Thousand.)
Paper cover, 1/-; plain cloth, 2/-, post free from the Secretary.
FABIAN TRACTS and LEAFLETS.

Tracts, each 16 to 52 pp., price 1d., or 9d. per dos., unless otherwise stated. Leaflets, 4 pp. each, price 1d. for six copies, 1s. per 100, or 8/6 per 1000. The Set of 81, 3s.; post free 3/5. Bound in Buckram, 4/6; post free for 58. I.-General Socialism in its various aspects.

TRACTS.-121. Public Service versus Private Expenditure. By Sir OLIVER LODGE. 113. Communism. By WM. MORRIS. 107. Socialism for Millionaires. By BERNARD SHAW. 133. Socialism and Christianity. By Rev. PERCY DEARMER. 78. Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. By Dr. JOHN CLIFFORD. 87. The same in Welsh. 42. Christian Socialism. By Rev. S. D. HEADLAM. 79. A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich. By JOHN WOOLMAN. 75. Labor in the Longest Reign By SIDNEY WEBB. 72. The Moral Aspects of Socialism. By SIDNEY BALL. 69. Difficulties of Individualism. By SIDNEY WEBB. 51. Socialism: True and False. By S. WEBB. 45. The Impossibilities of Anarchism. By BERNARD SHAW (price 2d.). 15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. By S. WEBB. 7. Capital and Land (6th edn. revised 1904). 5. Facts for Socialists (10th edn., revised 1906). LEAFLETS-13. What Socialism Is. 1. Why are the Many Poor? 38. The same in Welsh. II.-Applications of Socialism to Particular Problems. TRACTS.-136. The Village and the Landlord. By EDWARD CARPENTER. 135. Paupers and Old Age Pensions. By SIDNEY WEBB. 131. The Decline in the Birth-Rate. By SIDNEY WEBB. 130. Home Work and Sweating. By Miss B. L. HUTCHINS. 128. The Case for a Legal Minimum Wage. 126. The Abolition of Poor Law Guardians. 122. Municipal Milk and Public Health. By Dr. F. LAWSON DODD. 120. "After Bread, Education." 125. Municipalization by Provinces. 119. Public Control of Electrical Power and Transit. 123. The Revival of Agriculture. 118. The Secret of Rural Depopulation. 115. State Aid to Agriculture: an Example. 112. Life in the Laundry. 98. State Railways for Ireland. 124. State Control of Trusts. 86. Municipal Drink Traffic. 85. Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad. 84. Economics of Direct Employment. 83. State Arbitration and the Living Wage. 48. Eight Hours by Law. 23. Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 47. The Unemployed. By JoHN BURNS, M.P. LEAFLET.-104. How Trade Unions benefit Workmen. III.-Local Government Powers: How to use them. TRACTS-137. Parish Councils and Village Life. 117. The London Education Act, 1903: how to make the best of it. 109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. By RAYMOND UNWIN. 76. Houses for the People. 99. Local Government in Ireland. 82. Workmen's Compensation Act. New edition for the Act of 1906. 62. Parish and District Councils. 54. The Humanizing of the Poor Law. By J. F. OAKESHOTT. LEAFLETS. 68. The Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 71. Same for London. 134. Small Holdings, Allotments and Common Pastures: and how to get them. FABIAN MUNICIPAL PROGRAM, FIRST SERIES (Nos. 32, 36, 37). Municipalization of the Gas Supply. The Scandal of London's Markets. A Laber Policy for Public Authorities. SECOND SERIES (Nos. 90 to 97). Municipalization of Milk Supply. Municipal Pawnshops. Municipal Slaughterhouses. Women as Councillors. Municipal Bakeries. Municipal Hospitals. Municipal Steamboats.— Second Series in a red cover for 1d. (9d. per doz.); separate leaflets, 1/- per 100. IV.-Books. 132. A Guide to Books for Socialists. 29. What to Read on social and economic subjects. 6d. net. 129. More Books to Read. Supplement to October, 1906.

V.-General Politics and Fabian Policy.

127. Socialism and Labor Policy. 116. Fabianism and_the_Fiscal Question: an alternative policy. 108. Twentieth Century Politics. By SIDNEY WEBB. 70. Report on Fabian Policy. 41. The Fabian Society: its Early History. By BERNARD SHAW.

VI.-Question Leaflets. Questions for Candidates: 20, Poor Law Guardians. 28, County Councils. Rural. 102, Metropolitan Borough Councils. BOOK BOXES lent to Societies, Clubs, Trade Unions, for 103. a year.

Printed by G. Standring, 7 Finsbury St., London. E.C., and published by the Fabian Society,

3 Clement's Inn. Strand. London W C.

THE

UNEMPLOYED

(WRITTEN IN 1892.)

By JOHN BURNS, M.P.

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY

THE FABIAN SOCIETY.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

LONDON:

THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 3 CLEMENT'S INN, STRAND, W.C.
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1893. REPRINTED OCTOBER 1906.

THE

UNEMPLOYED.

[Reprinted, with additions, from "THE NINETEENTH CENTURY" (No. CXC., Dec. 1892), by kind permission of the Editor, JAMES KNOWLES, Esq.]

WHEN in ordinary busy years autumn arrives and the leaves begin to fall; after the harvest has been gathered and the hop, fruit, and market gardens have given up their yield; when the nights draw in and the weather breaks, then begins to gather in the city and the town the advance guard of the workless army. As winter approaches they grow in numbers and persistency. Increasing education, political enfranchisement, and economic knowledge have engendered amongst them healthy discontent at their enforced idleness and poverty.

In times of bad trade and its accompanying exceptional distress, by meetings, processions, and deputations the unemployed now call public attention to their sufferings and their wants. In London the bolder spirits amongst them believe and practise what the moral cowardice of politicians and the lack of initiative on the part of local governing bodies have taught them—that is, to make a nuisance of their grievances. For, in the language of a noble politician, "the people are only in earnest when they pull down railings, break windows, and create riots."

Acting on this suggestion, it is not to be wondered at that a few desperate men should use threats and urge others to violence; or that the genuine distress of the unemployed should be exploited by individuals who simply use the workless as a means of pushing to the front views and interests for which they require publicity, and which are incompatible with a healthy agitation on behalf of the unemployed movement.

But if there have been loafers, cranks, and other contemptible persons using the unemployed for ulterior purposes, this should not blind us to the grievances of the genuine men who may attend the meetings and who are really desirous of finding employment.

Whether these are 10,000 or 100,000 men does not affect, except in degree, the responsibility of society for meeting their demands. And if it were true, which it is not, that these meetings are composed altogether of thieves and loafers who meet in thousands for predatory reasons only; then that would be additional and urgent reason why we should hasten all remedial agencies of a permanent character. Society should anticipate the loafing and thieving stage. that casual labor too often produces, by providing work for willing workers-work that must be made more attractive, remunerative, and steady for the individual than is now the precarious life of the average laborer, through the gradations of which he descends to the unemployed, the dosser, the loafer, and the criminal-a curse to himself, a pest to all. The practicability of some remedy for all his troubles is dawning upon, yea is being felt by, the modern

laborers, even the hardened ones that have been imbruted by the fierce fight with poverty in the "casual" ranks. Ringing in my ears now is the hoarse whisper of a prisoner in the exercise yard of Pentonville-"Stick to the unemployed, John; work is our only hope." From the depths of the criminal habit into which poverty and want of work had plunged him, he saw instinctively the remedy for his failing, and the means of his rescue, and to find it is the duty of all reformers, present and to come.

The unemployed laborer to-day is not a replica of the out-of-work of a few years back. With the restless and ever-changing spirit of the times, he has altered greatly. His predecessor was a patient, longsuffering animal, accepting his position as beast of burden with a fatalistic taciturnity, looking upon his enforced idleness as inevitable, and with blind submission enduring his lot. His poverty and credulity were often exploited by rival politicians, his disorganisation used for the advertisement of fiscal nostrums; and when his distress had been gauged, tabulated, discussed, and partially relieved with charitable doles or "The House," a slight revival of trade disposed of him until the next winter or depression set in, when again the same philanthropic opiates were administered to keep him quiet. In the past he was, whenever possible, deliberately, yea scientifically, ignored. As part of the body politic he was never considered. Statisticians befogged him and each other as to the amount his class and the nation had saved whilst he was starving. Political economists pointed out the impossibility of relieving his distress by spending money in useful public works instead of useless pauper tasks, or sagely informed him that the depression from which he suffered was due to "vagaries of fashion in dress," whilst he was nearly naked, or to "spots on the sun," when he was enduring the pains and penalties of the nether kingdom. Mute, inarticulate, unenfranchised, he escaped observation because he had no vote, no political, no municipal influence.

The extension of the franchise, education, trade unionism, Socialist propaganda, the broad and rising Labor movement have altered all this. The unemployed worker of to-day is of different stuff. He has a grievance, and thinks he has a remedy. Laying aside his tools with reluctance, embittered by the belief that organisation could prevent his impending misfortune, with genuine sorrow he gives up his time-ticket, and feels, as he takes the last week's wages to his wife, that his little home may have to be parted with bit by bit, and with it the independence of character he loves, sapped by the greater or lesser stretch of enforced idleness that society disorganised imposes upon him with a cruel disregard of his claims. Having experienced the lot of the workless worker, I believe, with Carlyle, that a man willing to work and unable to find work is, perhaps, the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under the sun." Pathetic it is to see the laborer, strong in limb, healthy in mind and morale, willing to work, but compelled reluctantly to be numbered with the ever-increasing legions that machinery, invention, competition, and monopoly recruit for idleness in this big city. But the first step necessary to a change is his own awakening, and that at last has come. His eyes are now open, and the Samson of labor

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