As a rule, these men are given
their board and lodging in return for work during the first week, but
no money, as their labour is worth little. In the second week, 6d. is
paid to them in cash; and, subsequently, this remuneration is added to
in proportion to the value of the labour, till in the end some of them
earn 8s. or 9s. a week in addition to their board and lodging.
I asked the Officer in charge what he had to say as to the charges of
sweating and underselling which have been brought against the
Salvation Army in connexion with this and its other productive
Institutions.
He replied that they neither sweated nor undersold. The men whom they
picked up had no value in the labour market, and could get nothing to
do because no one would employ them, many of them being the victims of
drink or entirely unskilled. Such people they overlooked, housed, fed,
and instructed, whether they did or did not earn their food and
lodging, and after the first week paid them upon a rising scale. The
results were eminently satisfactory, as even allowing for the
drunkards they found that but few cases, not more than 10 per cent,
were hopeless.
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