FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



259 



For the purposes of comparison it is as- 

 sumed that the general average weekly wages 

 obtained in 1867 (viz., $18.96) were entirely 

 expended, and in the following proportions: 

 $14.29 for provisions, meat, fuel, etc., and the 

 balance ($4.67) for clothing, domestic dry- 

 goods, housekeeping articles, etc. The same 

 quantities and qualities of provisions, grocer- 

 ies, clothing, rent, fuel, and housekeeping arti- 

 cles could have been obtained in 1860-'61 for 

 the respective sums indicated in the adjoining 

 column. This shows an average weekly cost 

 of $10.85 in 1860, as compared with $18.96 in 

 1867, and leaving a balance in the former year 

 of $1.31 (gold) pet week in favor of the opera- 

 tive, as against no accruing surplus whatever 

 in 1867-'68. From these facts, which are 

 drawn from a wide field of details, the com- 

 missioner concludes that the condition of the 

 working men and women, in a majority of the 

 manufacturing towns of the United States is 

 not as good at this time as it was previous to 

 the war, notwithstanding that their wages are 

 greater, measured in gold, in 1867-'68 than 

 they were in 1860-'61. Most of the persons 

 above referred to were skilled workmen, re- 

 ceiving an advance in wages of about 52 per 

 cent, in 1867 as compared with the amount re- 

 ceived in 1860. If their condition has not im- 

 proved, the condition of the large class of 

 unskilled workmen, such as day -laborers, team- 

 sters, watchmen, and the like, is even worse. 



A comparison of a large number of returns 

 from the proprietors or superintendents of 

 furnaces, mills, founderies, and factories of every 

 description, in almost all sections of the coun- 

 try, establishes the fact that the average weekly 

 wages of laborers and other unskilled work- 

 men for the years 1860-'61 and 1867-'68 re- 

 spectively were as follows. The effect is mani- 

 festly -shown in the following table of the av- 

 erage weekly expenditures of laboring-men in 

 various manufacturing establishments in those 

 periods : 



This shows an available surplus of 52 cents 

 per week in 1860-'61. 



If flour is made the basis of the comparison, 

 the result is, that the wages which in 1860 

 purchased one and a half barrels of flour, now 

 pay for about one and a quarter barrels ; that 

 is, the workman is not as well off in 1867 as 

 he was in 1861, by at least 20 per cent. 



The conclusion drawn from these facts, with 

 many others of a similar character, is, that the 

 purchasing power of the irredeemable paper 

 money of the country is not nearly equal to 

 what it was in the immediate years before the 

 war, and that the working men and women of 

 the country do not receive as much in return 

 for their labor as before the war. Although 

 the aggregate wealth of the country is in- 

 creasing as rapidly as at any former period, 

 yet it does not follow that there is the same 

 increase in the general prosperity. 



The system of direct taxation, adopted dur- 

 ing the war, has been greatly modified since 

 its close. Within the last three years, all 

 taxes which discriminated against prudence 

 and economy, as the taxes on repairs; against 

 knowledge, as the taxes upon books, paper, 

 and printing ; against capital and thrift, as the 

 differential income tax ; against the transpor- 

 tation of freights by boats or vehicles, and 

 against the great leading raw materials, as coal 

 and pig-iron, cotton, sugar, and petroleum, 

 have been swept from the statute-book. Nor 

 are any direct taxes now imposed upon any 

 manufactured product, with the exception of 

 distilled spirit, fermented liquors, tobacco, 

 gas, patent medicines', perfumery, cosmetics, 

 and playing-cards, all of which may be regard- 

 ed in the light of luxuries. These changes, by 

 which an annual revenue of at least $170,000,- 

 000 has been relinquished, have brought no 

 permanent detriment to the Treasury. With 

 some further changes the entire system of in- 

 ternal revenue would become subordinate to 

 the more important end of creating national 

 wealth, and present no direct obstacle, what- 

 ever, on the part of the GoTernment, to pre- 

 vent the domestic producer from placing his 

 product upon the iparket at the lowest pos- 

 sible cost. These clianges should embrace the 

 taxes levied upon telegraph and express com- 

 panies ; npon the gross receipts of railroads, 

 steamboats, and other common carriers for the 

 transportation of passengers; and the per- 

 centage taxes on sales of merchandise. 



The basis of the present indirect taxation, 

 or the tariff, is found in the act of March 2, 

 1861, which virtually repealed all former duties 

 by imposing 10 per cent, on all raw or un- 

 manufactured articles imported, and 20 per 

 cent, on all articles manufactured, in whole or 

 in part, and not enumerated in said act. There 

 have subsequently been eleven amendments, 

 essentially affecting rates of duty. So that the 

 rate of duty imposed by the present tariff, on 

 the invoice value in gold of the dutiable goods 

 imported, has averaged for the last three years 



