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Facts for Londoners:

AN EXHAUSTIVE COLLECTION OF STATISTICAL AND OTHER FACTS RELATING TO THE METROPOLIS ; WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM

ON SOCIALIST PRINCIPLES.

PUBLISHED BY

THE FABIAN SOCIETY.

"Hell is a City much like London."-SHELLEY.

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To be obtained of the Secretary, 180 Portsdown Road, W.; of the Freethought Publishing Company, 63 Fleet St., E.C.; & of W. Reeves, 185 Fleet St., E.C.

(ESTABLISHED 1883.)

"For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did, most patiently, when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless."

THE FABIAN SOCIETY consists of Socialists.

It therefore aims at the reorganisation of Society by the emancipation of Land and industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people.

The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of Rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites.

The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial Capital as can be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.

If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), Rent and Interest will be added to the reward of labor, the idle class now living on the labor of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails.

For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon. It seeks to promote these by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and Society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects.

LECTURES.-A list of Lectures which are given by members of the Society can be obtained on application to the Lecture Secretary, SIDNEY WEBB, 27 Keppel Street, W.C.

PUBLICATIONS. Of the series of "FABIAN TRACTS" the undermentioned are still in print, and may be obtained of the Freethought Publishing Company, 63 Fleet Street; W. Reeves, 185 Fleet Street; or of the Secretary, 180 Portsdown Road, W.:

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IN THE PRESS.-" FABIAN ESSAYS ON SOCIALISM," a volume containing eight essays by ANNIE BESANT, HUBERT BLAND, WILLIAM Clarke, SYDNEY OLIVIER, G. Bernard Shaw, Graham WALLAS, and SIDNEY WEBB.

Facts for Londoners.

TH

HE Socialist Programme of immediately practicable reforms for London cannot be wholly dissociated from the corresponding Programme for the Kingdom. The mighty "province covered with houses," which we know as London, does but sum up, and present in aggravated form, the social problems everywhere awaiting solution. If London's million wage earners are oppressed by the abstraction of rent and interest from the produce of their toil-an inevitable result of private appropriation of the land and other instruments of wealth production necessary for their existence-their oppression is but typical of that of the workers elsewhere, and can be put an end to only in common with that of the rural and provincial workers outside the Metropolitan area

Accordingly, most of the immediate reforms of greatest importance to London are, at the same time, matters of national concern To reach the common end---the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual or class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit-reformers in all parts of the kingdom must push forward together along a common path. The fiscal burdens of the London workers can be relieved only through a thorough REFORM OF NATIONAL TAXATION, by which Customs, Excise and other imposts falling upon the worker or consumer will be superseded by a gradual recovery of the entire Rent and Interest of the country for public purposes by means of an INCREASED LAND TAX, especially on urban properties; a GRADUATED AND DIFFERENTIATED INCOME TAX, and DEATH DUTIES, INCREASED, EQUALISED, CONSOLIDATED, and GRADUATED. The sweating system, and other forms of industrial oppression suffered by the poorer London worker, can be alleviated by a wide EXTENSION OF THE FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTs, with an increase in the number of inspectors, and the further gradual reduction, by law, of the maximum hours of labor. The harsh treatment of the destitute poor can be humanized by a general REFORM OF THE POOR LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION So as to provide more satisfactorily than at present for the children, the aged, and the temporarily unemployed. The political helplessness of the London citizen can be remedied by ADULT SUFFRAGE, SHORT PARLIAMENTS, PAYMENT OF ELECTION EXPENSES AND OF ALL PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES, and EFFECTIVE CONTINUOUS REGISTRATION BY PUBLIC OFFICERS. In all these matters the Programme for London is identical with that for every other centre of population in the country.

But London is more than a city: it is a whole kingdom in itself, with revenues exceeding those of mighty principalities. With its suburbs it exceeds all Ireland in population if it were emptied to-morrow the whole of the inhabitants of Scotland and Wales together could do no more than refill it: the three next largest cities in the world could be combined without outnumbering its millions. One seventh of the total population of the United Kingdom is gathered into the metropolitan centre, which forms at once the largest manufacturing town and the greatest port, the chief literary and scientific centre as well as the commercial, banking, shipping and insurance emporium of the world. As such it has needs and problems peculiar to itself. In the following pages the Londoner will find the facts and figures without which he can neither understand his position nor discharge his duties as a citizen.

LONDON'S SIZE AND GROWTH.

THE "Administrative County" of London, with its 58 Parliamentary constituencies, measures 16 miles in extreme length (east and west) from Plumstead to Bedford Park, and 112 miles in extreme breadth (north and south) from Stamford Hill to Anerley. This area comprises, including the "City" proper, 75,490 acres, or nearly 119 square miles (being three-quarters the size of Rutland or the Isle of Wight). The independent municipal boroughs of West Ham (population, 1881, 128,953), Croydon (population, 1881, 101,241), and Richmond (population, 1881, 21,302) now adjoin it on the N.E., S., and S.W., whilst on the West and North the Urban Sanitary Authorities" of Chiswick, Twickenham, Acton, Ealing, Willesden, Hendon, Harrow, Hornsey, Finchley, Edmonton, Barnet and Tottenham also practically belong to the metropolitan aggregation of population.

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The 119 square miles had, in 1881, 488,995 inhabited houses, containing at that date 3,814,571 persons (1,797,486 males and 2,018,997 females), being 14.69 per cent. of the population of England and Wales; 51 to the acre, 32,640 to the square mile, 7-8 to each house (Census Report, c. 3563). Particulars as to the distribution of these millions will be found on page 6.

This population was estimated to have increased, in 1889, to 4,306,380 persons, representing about 860,000 families, living in 549,283 houses (Report of Metropolitan Board of Works, 1888, p. 7). Its growth, continuous for at least 500 years, has gone on since the beginning of the century (when it had only 136,196 houses, ibid, p. 7) at a prodigious and ever accelerating rate. Taking the best estimates prior to 1801, and the Census since that date, we get the following table:

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3,814,571

14.69

(Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xiv. p. 821; and Census Report, C-3797.)

Since the end of the seventeenth century it has overtopped Paris as the largest city in Europe; but its unquestioned commercial, industrial and financial supremacy probably dates only from the "industrial revolution" of the last century and the Napoleonic wars. It is now estimated to contain 250,000 persons of Irish and 120,000 of Scotch parentage; 45,000 Asiatics, Africans and Americans; with some 60,000 Germans, 30,000 French, 15,000 Dutch, 12,000 Poles, 7500 Italians, 5000 Swiss, and 40,000 Jews. (Ency. Brit., vol. xiv. p 822.) The number of registered Parliamentary electors on 1st January, 1889, was 518,770 (H. C., No. 179 of 1889); in November, 1885, it was 476,294 (H. C., No. 144 of 1888). The number of male adults may be estimated at a quarter of the population, or about 1,075,000 in 1889. Hence less than half the men in London can vote; but at the 1885 election only 351,779 (about one-third) did vote, and in 1886 even fewer. The poorest constituencies have usually not only the smallest percentages of electorate to population, but also the smallest percentages of poll to electorate.

The above statistics take no account of plural votes and duplicate registrations, of which it is estimated that London has at least 50,000 (the City's 31,685 electors nearly all have also votes elsewhere). The 2923 electors of London University are not included.

THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF LONDONERS. LONDON Contains 860,000 families. How many of there are in destitute circumstances, and how many comfortably off? The official census statistics give no information on this point; but Mr. Charles Booth, with the aid of a staff of assistants, has, during the last three years, been making exhaustive inquiries into the subject, and has taken, chiefly by minute investigations into the books of the 66 School Board Visitors, a complete industrial census of East London (Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, and Hackney), comprising about one-quarter of the whole. His results are presented in detail in his book, "Life and Labor in East London" (Williams and Norgate). His classification is given in the following table :

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100,000

...

74,000 129 000

114 8

14

314,000

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377,000
12!,000

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F. Higher class labor, 30s. to 50s. per week
G. Lower middle-class, shopkeepers, clerks, etc.
H. Upper middle-class-" the servant-keeping
class"-mostly in Hackney...

Inmates of workhouses, asylums, hospitals, etc.
Estimated population, 1887

:

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