ABSTRACT
It appears, then, that the army clothing in the year above alluded to cost, for 105 battalions of infantry, £255,000. The supply of this was intrusted to 105 colonels, and they paid £192,000 for the goods, taking to themselves £63,000 profit out of the transaction. The evidence of Mr. Pearse, one of the army clothiers, before the same committee, was as follows: -
Of the evils of this competitive system, the following extract from the same gentleman's evidence may be taken as an apt illustration. Its influence upon the workpeople will be afterwards exposed:-
This leads me to the army clothiers themselves. Of the profits of these gentlemen I am in no way disposed to complain. Indeed, as a body of men, they appear to have no very exorbitant gains; and of one in particular I can state that his whole life appears to have been an anxious study, and, indeed struggle, to benefit the workpeople in his employment. The following letter sent by him as far back as the year 1845 to the several army clothiers of the metropolis, with a view of inducing them to raise the wages of the operatives engaged in the manufacture of regimentals, is a higher eulogy upon that gentleman's exertions than any it is possible for me to pronounce: -
same benevolent desire to increase the incomings of the underpaid and overworked operatives of the trade, addressed a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Army, Navy, and Ordnance Estimates, from which the following are extracts: -
In another place the same gentleman says: - "I could refer to the screwing down of other things, but the above
With this introduction, I will now proceed to set forth the prices paid for the different articles of Army, Navy, Marine, Police, and Convict clothing, distinguishing between those that are paid, and those that ought to be paid to afford workmen even a bare subsistence. These have been furnished to me by an old-established firm, and the statement of the gentleman supplying them to me is this: - "The work is to be considered as uncertain, even with the best workmen and workwomen. I have not found one that has not been at times without work. Therefore if they are paid barely sufficient to keep body and soul together when labouring hard, think of their situation when they are without work! Many are obliged to work on the Sabbath, and many have told me," adds my informant, "that they are in the constant habit of rising at four or five in the morning, and working till ten, eleven, or twelve at night."
