Earnings of Taxicab Drivers.
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" Murder will out," and so will the truth. We are glad that the outspoken language of our recent leading articles on the subject of " Extras" and drivers' earnings has already had one satisfactory result—the better information of the public. The uninformed hirer of a motoreab is the man (or woman) upon whom the average driver imposes, and of such cases the publicity accorded to this controversy has provided recurring proof. We desire to help to " queer the pitch " of dishonest cabbies—of the many who are fattening on appropriated " Extras " and generous tips, the while they alternately slack and cry poor man. The more correspondence there is, the more alert will the public become, so we continue with pleasure to help it along. No harm can be done to a sound cause, or to the real interests of any class of workers, by the honest disclosure of their earnings, and the reticence of the London taxicabby about his unrecorded " Extras " and tips is quite marked enough to justify the serious doubts which we have recently expressed as to the genuineness of the plea that his financial lot is bad. Mr. J. Edward Davies, who is the Secretary of the Driver-Owners Association, has apparently been perturbed (Letter No. 1176) by the publication and fairly-wide reproduction of a leading article (issue of the 30th June) entitled : " Taxi-drivers and ' Extras '—How the Public encourages thieving from Motorcab Owners." The most-noteworthy omission. to
1 our mind, amidst a mass of detail, was that Mr. Davies did
not find room to deny our general charge; it is, perhaps, to his credit that he had partly admitted that earlier (No. 1165. page 291 ante). We intend to afford every opportunityfor the formation of an opinion upon that officehearer's statements, many of which have already been severely criticised by correspondents.
The object of this journal, as Mr. Davies correctly surmises, is to get at the truth. As a matter of fact, our complete preparedness " to give the drivers a. show " has led not a few owners to believe that we favour the men. We favour neither party, but we do not like anybody to take advantage of a courtesy which only a stronglyplaced journal would have granted; further, we may remark, whilst " bluffing" no doubt passes for argument in the lay Press, it does not carry far with our readers. He began (No. 1137) with the assertion that a driver's legitimate expenditure is " an absolute minimum of 4.s. 64. a day, leaving a net wage to take home at night of 2s. 34. for a day's work of 1`2 hours on the streets," and next (No. 1161) sought to improve (sic) upon this assertion by writing that " drivers only get for their day's work 6s. to 8s., of which 4s. to 6s. goes in necessary expenses." It is the " Extras" and the tips about which some more admissions are really wanted from the men's side, and hereanent he wrote (No. 1150) " If all the ' Extras ' are punched up, as many men have regularly done, they do not average. la. a day." How often has any hirer of anybody's acquaintance seen a London driver voluntarily
punch up " an extra? The final sum, however, is that .4
which this correspondent puts forward (No. 1176) in the course of his angry retort to our " thieving" article, which was directly addressed to the public at large with a view to the lessening of temptation for the driver. Why are the 4d. tips on the 84. fares omitted? They are known to be very common, and their inclusion transforms the alleged 2s. per day into at least 4s.! We prefer to accept the independent figures, from a driver, which appeared in last week's issue, and which, over a period of 13 weeks, disclose a truly-remarkable advance upon the best effort. of Mr. Davies! He seeks to discredit our view that RA per week of six working days is an average for the man who " elects to stick to his work." Well, here we have a driver who has come forward with his private book (as to the value of which we have satisfied ourselves), and who can show, during slack weeks, a net average of 10s. 74. per day. Even in this case, the man has to admit that he did not " clock " all the " Extras."
We intend to encourage the delivery to our care of many other such records as those contained in letter No. 1179. and to produce them, in audited and certified shape, at a time when they may greatly discomfit the men's advocates who want to make out a state of affairs which does not exist. We repeat our view in regard to a settlement to the mutual satisfaction of drivers and owners, and it is that the truth about the men's total earnings—the aggregates of their one-fourth of the meter figures, their whole of the pocketed " Extras." and their " steadily-diminishing " tips—shall be known to all concerned.