CONDITIONS AFFECTING EMIGRATION 577 



and the firm pays one half. The reason for serving breakfast is to in- 

 sure that the men start work in the morning on nourishing food. 

 Baths, including soap and towel, are provided at 2 cents. 



The Swiss Locomotive and Machinery Works, Winterthur, are un- 

 dertaking a limited amount of welfare work. About fifty families are 

 housed in neat dwellings owned by the company. The rent varies 

 from $41.68 per year for three rooms to $57.90 for four rooms of 

 medium size and $69.48 for four large rooms. Nearly all of the men 

 residing in these houses are members of the firm's fire brigade. Baths 

 are provided here as at Oerlikon. In general, Europe has made con- 

 siderable advancement in providing houses, meals, baths, and pensions 

 for workingmen. 



Germany 



Berlin workmen in machine shops obtain, as a rule, better wages 

 than those in other parts of the empire, and the Berlin workmen are 

 unexcelled at their respective trades. In the machine-tool plant of the 

 Ludwig Loewe A. G. Works, at Berlin, the workmen can usually make 

 on piece work 20.23 cents per hour. The lowest guaranteed wage is 

 12.614 cents per hour. Workmen can obtain houses of one room and a 

 ' kitchen at an annual rental of $57.12 to $64.26 and houses of two 

 rooms and a kitchen at $119.96 to $134.24. In the Hohenzollern A. G. 

 Locomotive Works, Grafenberg-Diisseldorf, and the Hanover Locomo- 

 tive Works, respectively, expert workmen receive, on the average, 16.6 

 cents per hour. The Hanover works own about 150 houses which rent 

 at an average of $3.57 per month — a sum merely sufficient to keep 

 them in repair. The houses contain from four to six rooms and may be 

 occupied by one or two families. In many cases one room and a kitchen 

 suffice, but two rooms and a kitchen are more common. The Benrather 

 Works, at Benrath, board and lodge their unmarried workmen for 23.8 

 cents per day. 



In the textile industries lower wages are paid than in the machine 

 shops. Barmen is a great center for textile industries. Wages average 

 80 cents per day, but are increasing. Weavers on special work get as 

 high as $1.43 a day. In the most important single cotton mill in Ger- 

 many, at Augsburg, Bavaria, the picker-room hands and the carders 

 get 50 to 70 cents a day. On two 900 self-actor mules the spinner 

 averages about 90 cents a day, the piecer 71 cents, and each of the two 

 creelers 35 cents. Weavers, on an average, run three looms apiece and 

 make about 80 cents a day. The term of apprenticeship is two years, 

 during the first six months of which 24 cents a day is usually paid. 

 Houses of three rooms rent for $23.80 to $33.32 a year. The working 

 day is ten hours. Wages in the mills in Saxony are distressingly low. 

 At Plauen, Saxony, overseers receive $5.71 to $9.52 a week, rarely more. 

 Operatives average $3.81 a week. Man, wife and several children live 

 on this wage, although the wife is sometimes a wage earner. Eent of 



