should go at it again if I could. I got tired of the little work and
went away into the country to get work on a farm, but couldn't get it,
so I'm without the 10s. that it costs to join the Dockers' Union. I'm
going to the country again in a day or two to try again. Expect to get
3s. a day perhaps. Shall come back to the docks again. Then is a
chance of getting regular dock work, and that is, to lounge about the
pubs where the foremen go, and treat them. Then they will very likely
take you on next day."

R. P. was a non-Unionist. Henry F. is a Unionist. His history is much
the same.

"I worked at St. Katherine's Docks five months ago. You have to get
to the gates at 6 o'clock for the first call. There's generally about
400 waiting. They will take on one to two hundred. Then at 7 o'clock
there's a second call. Another 400 will have gathered by then, and
another hundred or so will be taken on. Also there will probably be
calls at nine and one o'clock. About the same number turn up but
there's no work for many hundreds of them. I was a Union man. That
means 10s. a week sick pay, or 8s. a week for slight accidents; also
some other advantages. The Docks won't take men on now unless they are
Unionists. The point is that there's too many men. I would often be
out of work a fortnight to three weeks at a time. Once earned #3 in a
week, working day and night, but then had a fortnight out directly
after. Especially when then don't happen to be any ships in for a few
days, which means, of course, nothing to unload. That's the time;
there's plenty of men almost starving then. They have no trade to go
to, or can get no work at it, and they swoop down to the docks for
work, when they had much better stay away."