The opposition to task work arose from more than one
cause. Lazy unprincipled people were opposed to it, because they were
lazy and unprincipled; a far larger class were opposed to it, because it
was no secret that the works were carried on not for sake of their
utility, but to keep the people from being idle. Had this class been
employed upon really useful works, such as reclaiming land, tilling the
soil, draining, subsoiling, or railroad-making, they would, no doubt,
have had more heart for their daily labour. There is a natural
repugnance in the mind of a man to apply himself in earnest to what he
has been told is useless,--to what he sees and feels to be useless. If a
labourer were hired, and even given good wages, for casting chaff
against the wind, I make bold to say, he would soon resign his
employment, from sheer inability to work at anything so much opposed to
his common sense. A third and a very large class of the labouring
population were opposed to task work, because they were able to earn so
very little at it. "Those who choose to labour may earn good wages,"
writes Colonel Jones to Mr. Trevelyan; but he forgot, or was ignorant of
the fact, that great numbers of the working class had been already so
weakened and debilitated by starvation, that they were unable to do what
the overseers regarded as a day's work; and it is on record that task
work frequently brought industrious willing workmen less money than they
would have received under the day's-work system.
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