PENDING PROBLEMS FOR WAGE-EARNERS. 6i 



chapters Work in the Factory, and The Material Condition of my 

 Fellow-Workmen, the American student and operative will recog- 

 nize abuses still existing in Germany which our more progressive 

 establishments have eliminated. The contrast also in rates of 

 wages and quality of living with wage-earners in America will 

 excite sympathj^ but will also weld the American more firmly to 

 the belief that the condition of the wage-earner in this country is 

 a happy and fortunate one by comparison ; that its stability must 

 not be jeopardized by countenancing socialistic agitation.* 



In the chapters on Political Tendencies of my Fellow- Work- 

 men and Social Democracy the student of industrial sociology 

 will find much valuable information. In the chapters on Moral 

 Conditions, and Education and Religion, ethical questions are 

 plainly discussed. The final chapter, on Results and Demands, 

 will interest all readers. It is shown that the labor question is 

 not merely a wage question with the vast majority of the laboring 

 class. It is only one factor in the movement — perhaps the naost 

 tangible, but not the most important or determinative one. 

 " There is an ardent longing on the part of the whole class of 

 factory labor for more respect and recognition, for greater actual 

 and social equality in addition to the formal and political equality 

 which is theirs already. ... It is the irresistible impulse to a 

 larger intellectual freedom, the craving for the benefits of knowl- 

 edge and education, and for a fuller understanding of those high 

 and lofty problems of the human soul which, despite the univer- 

 sal pursuit of wealth and externals, rise up before humanity to- 

 day, new riddles in new forms. All this, rough, discordant, full 



* On entering the shops, Mr. Gohre received twenty pft'nnige (4 8 cents) per hour. 

 Compulsory deductions were made for assessments for sick-benefits, insurance, fines for 

 lateness or carelessness, etc. 



Men working at the vise earned fifteen to twenty-one marks ($3.60 to $5.04) per week ; 

 their foremen, $5.28 to $6.72 ; drillers working on time, $3.60 to $4.56. " Piece workers " 

 made considerably more. A specially skilled workman " would receive as much as forty 

 marks ($9.60) per week." It thus appears that the highest wage of the most skilled oper- 

 ative slightly exceeds the lowest wage for unskilled labor in this country. The home life of 

 the men was shown to be on a plane far below that of the average wage-earner in America. 



Some suggestive and important information is to be gathered from a book just issued by 

 the British Board of Trade, giving the statistics of wages paid for manual labor in Great 

 Britain. From this it seems that the average earned by men is $6.03 a week ; by women, 

 $3.08 ; by boys, $2.24 ; and by girls, $1.56. These are the averages of the wages of 816,- 

 103 persons. In Scotland the rates are lower than in England by ten and in Ireland by 

 some twenty per cent. The best-paid trade is that of builders, and then, in order, distillers, 

 brewers, metal workers, engineers, sawmill workers, coach builders, and printers. Eailroad 

 men average five doUai'S a week. The chances of earning ten dollars a week are not com- 

 mon. Thirty-seven per cent of the printers, thirty-three per cent of the tinplate workers, 

 thirteen per cent of the shipbuilders, eleven per cent of copper and brass workers, and ten 

 per cent of coopers attain that amount. On the whole, the report indicates that wages in 

 all British trades are on the increase, but at a very slow rate of progress. 



