| Title | The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists |
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| Page | 400 |
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| Chapter | -- |
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| Text |
`I mean this: supposing that the owner of a house wishes to have it repainted. What does he usually do?' `As a rule, 'e goes to three or four master painters and asks 'em to give 'im a price for the job.' `Yes; and those master painters are so eager to get the work that they cut the price down to what they think is the lowest possible point,' answered Owen, `and the lowest usually gets the job. The successful tenderer has usually cut the price so fine that to make it pay he has to scamp the work, pay low wages, and drive and sweat the men whom he employs. He wants them to do two days' work for one day's pay. The result is that a job which - if it were done properly - would employ say twenty men for two months, is rushed and scamped in half that time with half that number of men. `This means that - in one such case as this - ten men are deprived of one month's employment; and ten other men are deprived of two months' employment; and all because the employers have been cutting each other's throats to get the work.' |
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