A visual interlude

"Hard Times" by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, 1885

 
Unemployment: 125 years ago and today

It is likely that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs in Britain in 2010, as the government starts to cut back state expenditure savagely in order to keep public finances solvent. Greece has started down this turbulent road and several other Western nations need to follow suit.

A lengthy period of unemployment lies in store for many... as was the case in the recession of the 1880s, when this picture was painted. Here we see two portraits, two halves of a whole: a woman is exhausted, sitting on the roadside hardly able to stay awake, yet nursing her baby at the breast and comforting her older child, who rests his head on her lap. She is resigned yet unswerving in her determination to protect her little ones – even if they have to sleep rough through another winter night.

In contrast, her husband remains standing, alert, refusing to put down his heavy bundle of possessions (a symbol, perhaps, of the weight of responsibility he carries for his family.) As an itinerant labourer, the man has no assets but his bundle of tools and the strength of his back. He keenly surveys the road in the distance for any sign that the figures approaching might be in a position to offer him some work.

In spite of the circumstances, there is patience and hope in the man’s poise; his poverty has not robbed him of his dignity. Can the same be said today? We have established a welfare safety net to support families through unemployment and hardship, which is laudable, but it has helped create an “entitlement” mentality which can easily undermine the vital sense of responsibility that motivates people to persevere and work hard.

With this new crisis comes the opportunity for governments to find ways of modifying welfare systems so as to safeguard the dignity of newly unemployed men or women, and avoid the slow slide into dependence and hopelessness.

Perhaps the two birds flying overhead add a spiritual dimension to the painting – pointing to the ultimate source of hope, provision and identity for us all, whether in or out of work: “Consider the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” The Bible, Matthew 6 verse 26.