Benjamin Seebhom Rowntree

And let us clearly understand what "merely physical efficiency" means, Rowntree was searing:

A family living upon the scale allowed for in this estimate must never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus. The must never go into the country unless they walk. They must never purchase a halfpenny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket for a popular concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute anything to their church or chapel, or give any help to a neighbour which costs money. They cannot save, nor can they join a sick club or Trade Union, because they cannot pay the necessary subscriptions. The children must have no pocket money for dolls, marbles or sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco, and must drink no beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for herself or for her children, the character of the family wardrobe as for the family diet being governed by the regulation, “nothing must be bought but that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of physical health, and what is bought must be of the plainest and most economical  description.” Should a child fall ill, it must be attended by the parish doctor; should it die, it must be buried by the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent from his work for a single day. If any of these conditions are broken, the extra expenditure involved is met, and can only be met by limiting the diet; or, in other words, by sacrificing physical efficiency.

      That few York labourers receiving 20s. or 21s. per week submit to these iron conditions in order to maintain physical efficiency is obvious. And even were they to submit, physical efficiency would be unattainable for those who had three or more children dependent upon them. It cannot therefore be too clearly understood, nor too emphatically repeated, that whenever a worker having three children de- pendent on him, and receiving not more than 21s. 8d. per week, indulges in any expenditure be- yond that required for the barest physical needs he can do so only at the cost of his own physical efficiency y or of that of some embers of his family.

      The life of a labourer is marked by five alternating periods of want and com- parative plenty. During early childhood, unless his father is a skilled worker, he probably will be in poverty ; this will last until he, or some of his brothers or sisters, begin to earn money and thus augment their father's wage sufficiently to raise the family above the poverty line. T hen follows the period during which he is earning money and living under his parents' roof; for some portion of this period he will be earning more money than is required for lodging, food, and clothes. This is his chance to save money. If he has saved enough to pay for furnishing a cottage, this period of comparative prosperity may continue after marriage until he has two or three chil- dren, when poverty will again overtake him. This period of poverty will last per- haps for ten years, i.e. until the first child is fourteen years old and begins to earn wages ; but if there are more than three children it may last longer.^ While the chil- dren are earning, and before they leave the home to marry, the man enjoys another period of prosperity — possibly, however, only to sink back again into poverty when his children have married and left him, and he himself is too old to. work, for his income has never permitted his saving enough for him and his wife to live upon for more than a very short time.