Agricultural implements 4 1 5
Artisans' tools 3 4 7
Boots and shoes 18 2 20
Brick 3 1 4
Building trades 32 24 56
Carpetings 1 1 2
Carriages and Wagons 11 3 14
Clothing 10 4 14
Cotton goods 10 9 19
Flax and jute goods 2 3 5
Food preparations 5 2 7
Furniture 11 1 12
Glass 1 3 4
Hats (fur wool and silk) 3 2 5
Hosiery 5 3 8
Liquors (malt and distilled) 10 1 11
Machines and machinery 12 15 27
Metals and metallic goods 25 13 38
Printing and publishing 12 7 19
Printing, dyeing and bleaching etc 3 4 7
Stone 10 1 11
Wooden goods 12 1 13
Woolen goods 4 2 6
Worsted goods 3 3 6
210 110 320
Thirty-two cities in Massachusetts, and twenty-six in Great Britain, were
visited in search of returns, of which almost all our great industrial
centers yield their quota.
It being, of course, impossible to obtain wage returns for all the
_employes_ of these various industries in either country, the
investigation aimed at covering at least 10 per cent. of such totals, and,
in the case of Massachusetts, succeeded in getting returns for 36,000
hands, or 13 per cent. of the whole number of artisans employed in the
twenty-four industries examined. Great Britain, on the other hand, made
returns for about half that number of hands, but their proportion to the
totals employed cannot be similarly stated, first, because we have here no
specific industrial census, and, second, because many of the English
returns were made for an indefinite number of _employes_.
The comparison was made in the following way: For each of the twenty-four
industries, a table, consisting of four sections, was constructed, viz.,
"Occupation," "Aggregation," "Recapitulation," and "Comparison." The first
gave the names of the various branches of each industry, classifying these
as minutely as possible, because the names indicating subdivisions of
labor are, generally, so different in the two countries that the actual
"matching" of occupations, desirable for a perfect comparison, is
impossible. The second, or "Aggregation" section, brings the various
occupations in the same industry into juxtaposition, and supplies
opportunities for direct comparison. The third, or "Recapitulation"
section, is drawn from the "Occupation" section, and shows the number of
men, women, young persons, and children for whom wages are given; whether
these are paid by the day, or by piece; and whether the wage returns show
the actual amounts paid to a definite number of _employes_, or an average
wage for a definite or an indefinite number of _employes_. The fourth, or
"Comparison" section, brings the highest, lowest, and general average
weekly wages into final comparison.
The first three sections of the table, being either simply enumerative or
collective in character, are easily understood without illustration, but
an example of the "Comparative" section, marked Table B, hangs on the
wall, and shows all the final comparisons at a glance.
_Table B_.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
---------------------------------------
Classification. |Massac- | Great | Massac- | Great
|husetts.| Britain.| husetts.| Britain.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Average highest weekly | dols. | dols. | dols. | dols.
wage paid to-- | | | |
Men | 37.00 | 13.39 | 25.41 | 11.36
Women | 5.50 | ... | 8.57 | 4.10
Young persons | 7.00 | 3.65 | 6.94 | 3.04
Children | 5.70 | ... | 4.64 | 1.05
| | | |
Average lowest weekly wage | | | |
paid to-- | | | |
Men | 7.60 | 3.21 | 7.09 | 4.72
Women | 5.00 | ... | 4.62 | 2.27
Young women | 4.50 | 1.46 | 4.26 | 1.66
Children | 3.00 | ... | 3.09 | .60
| | | |
Average weekly wages | | | |
paid to-- | | | |
Men | 12.04 | 8.07 | 11.85 | 8.26
Women | 5.12 | ... | 6.09 | 3.37
Young persons | 5.76 | 2.52 | 5.10 | 2.40
Children---- | 5.31 | ... | 3.81 | .79
---------------------------------------
General average weekly wage | | | |
paid to all _employes_ | 11.75 | 8.07 | 10.32 | 6.96
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Result: General average | |
weekly wages higher in | 45.60 | 48.28
Massachusetts by per cent | per cent. | per cent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The two first columns of the table are simply illustrative of the method
applied to a single industry, exhibiting the highest average, lowest
average, and average weekly wages, whether to men, women, young persons,
or children, in the particular business of "machine-making," together with
the general average wages paid to all the _employes_ in such industry. The
general average weekly wages in this industry are thus shown to be 45.6
per cent. higher in Massachusetts than in Great Britain.
The 3d and 4th columns of the table consolidate all the twenty-four
industries, and yield, in similar terms, as in the case of machine-making,
an average comparison applying to the whole group of industries under
examination, giving, as a grand result, that the general average weekly
wages of Massachusetts are higher by 48.28 per cent. than those of Great
Britain.
It is, however, explained that the British wage returns were made in three
different ways, viz., for a definite number of _employes_, by percentage
returns, and by general returns; both of the latter being for an
indefinite number of _employes_. Where more than one wage-basis was given,
the highest figure was used in the calculations, and, this being the case
in eighteen out of the twenty-four industries, its effects on the grand
result are considerable; for, by crediting Great Britain with the
_average_ instead of the _high_ weekly wage, the average percentage in
favor of Massachusetts rises from 48.28 per cent. to 75.94 per cent.
In order truly to indicate the higher percentage of average weekly wages
in Massachusetts, we must, therefore, agree upon a figure somewhere
between these two extremes, viz., that of 48.28 per cent., derived from
tables in which Great Britain is credited with the high wage, and that of
75.94 per cent., derived from those tables in which she is credited with
the average of the returns made upon the different bases. The mean of
these figures is 62.11 per cent., which is considered to be the result of
the investigation, and may be formulated as follows: The general average
weekly wages paid to _employes_ in twenty-four manufacturing industries
common to Massachusetts and Great Britain is 62 per cent., higher in the
former than the general average weekly wages paid in the same industries
in the latter country.
But the question of wages forms only one side of the working man's
account; on the other stands the cost of living, and no comparisons of
prosperity, in given industrial communities, are of any value which omit
to take into consideration the relative ease with which such communities
can procure the means of subsistence. Table C presents a summary of
prices, gathered in 1883, of the chief items in a working man's
expenditure, and their cost in Massachusetts and Great Britain.
_Table C_.
---------------------------------------------------------
Articles. |Percentage higher | Percentage higher
| in Mass. | in Great Britain
---------------------------------------------------------
Groceries | 16.18 | -
Provisions | - | 20.00
Fuel | 104.98 | -
Dry goods | 13.26 | -
Boots and shoes | 42.75 | -
Clothing | 45.06 | -
Rents | 89.62 | -
---------------------------------------------------------
Having agreed that wages are probably 62 per cent. higher in
Massachusetts than in Great Britain, it would be easy, if we could
ascertain what proportion of a working man's income is spent respectively
in groceries, provisions, clothing, etc., to determine what advantage an
operative derives from the higher wages of the United States. Dr. Engel,
the chief of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, puts us in possession of
this information, and, as the result of a laborious inquiry, has
formulated a certain economic law which governs the relations between
income and expenditure. From him we learn (see Table D) that:
_Table D_.
A working man with an income of £60 per annum
spends as follows:
Per cent.
of income. Shillings.
/ meat.... 248
1. On subsistence 62 or \ groceries 496
2. " clothing 16 " 192
3. " rent 12 " 144
4. " fuel 5 " 60
5. " sundries 5 " 60
------
Total shillings 1,200
Or £60
Now, referring to Table C, it will be seen that the same man's expenditure
in America would be:
Shillings. S.
1. On subsistence / meat.... 248 - 20 p.c. = 198.4
\ groceries 496 + 16 " = 575.3
2. " clothing 192 + 45 " = 278.4
3. " rent 144 + 89 " = 272.1
4. " fuel 60 + 104 " = 122.0
5. " sundries 60 + 50 " = 90.0
--------
Total 1,536.2
Or £76 16s.
In other words, a workman earning £60 per annum in Great Britain would
receive £99, or 62 per cent. more wages in the States, but living there
would cost him £77, or £17 more than here, giving him a net advantage of
only 28 per cent., instead of 62 per cent., derived from living and
working in America.
But this result does not exhaust the question. The standard of life is
very different among working men in the States and in Great Britain, and
the almost inexhaustible statistics of the report, already so often
quoted, enable us to gauge this difference with accuracy. It has been
proved, by a recent investigation, whose details we need not follow, that
the expenditure of working men's families, of similar size, in
Massachusetts and in Great Britain, stand to each other in the ratio of 15
to 10. By introducing this new factor into our calculations, we find that
a man who spends £60 per annum in England would spend £90, instead of £77,
per annum in the States, paying American prices for subsistence, and
living up to American standards. In other words, he would be a gainer to
the extent of only £9 per annum by living and working in the United
States. Finally, if we presume that 48 or 50 per cent., rather than 62 per
cent., measures the higher wages of Massachusetts, the same man's
increased wages would be £90 instead of £99, and he would-neither lose nor
gain in money by becoming an American citizen, and adopting American
habits.
That these conclusions agree with those rough and ready practical
illustrations which, without being scientific, are generally trustworthy,
let the following story evidence.
Some years ago, a skillful moulder, in my then firm's employ, left us for
the States, where he permanently settled. After a long absence, he
returned for a few weeks' holiday, when I asked him whether he earned
higher wages and found life more agreeable in America than in England.
"Well, as to money" was his reply, "I think, taking all things into
consideration, I did about as well in the old shop as I do now; but,
socially speaking, I am somebody there, while here I am only a moulder."
Social advantage, indeed, probably measures almost all the difference
between the position of a skilled factory operative in the States and in
England.
Let me not seem, however, to undervalue that difference. Statistics, after
all, do not dominate human nature; on the contrary, human nature
determines the statistician's figures. Every artisan emigrant to America
gains opportunities of advancement of which his European fellows know
nothing. If he have brains, the way to success is open there, while it is
practically barred to anything short of genius for men of his class in
Europe. Our Australian colonies, where unskilled labor can earn 7s. 6d. a
day, and live for a trifle, are, indeed, a paradise for the mere
wage-earner, who can scarcely help becoming also a wage-saver; but America
is the country which, with wage conditions such as I have attempted to
portray, still offers the best possible opportunities of success, and even
of great careers, to clever working men, and especially to clever
mechanics. That man, however, is not worthy of a home in the great
republic, who does not appreciate the higher social levels at which native
labor desires to live, who is not anxious to make the most of the
advantages which democratic institutions offer him, who does not, in
short, ardently desire to become a "good American."
There remains the question already alluded to as inextricably bound up
with American labor problems: How does the American tariff affect wages?
The idea that these are determinable by the tariff is the corner stone of
protection in the States. The artisan has been so sedulously educated to
believe that the chief object of import duties is to protect him from
falling into a ruinous competition with what is called the "pauper labor
of Europe," that no movement on the part of workmen in the direction of
free trade is ever likely to arise in America. I am not now about to argue
the question of protection, except in so far as it relates to labor; but
it may be remarked, in passing, that internal competition, rather than the
people, is the enemy from whom the tariff will probably receive its death
blow in the future. Protection will ultimately break down by its own
weight in the States. Production already exceeds demand, the cry for a
"wider market" and for "raw materials free" is in every manufacturer's
mouth; and if America upholds her protective legislation too long, the
produce of her factories and mills will, by and by, force its way, in
spite of the tariff, into the open markets of the world, but it will be
through the gate of national suffering. Few people in this country are, I
think, aware of the extraordinary fervor with which the doctrine that
protection benefits labor is preached in the States. We are ourselves
accustomed to hear the question of free trade argued only from the
economic standpoint, but this is by no means so commonly the case in
America. I shall try, by paraphrasing certain recent addresses of an able
personal friend and enthusiastic protectionist, to illustrate the position
taken by those persons who advocate the tariff, not upon economic grounds,
but in the avowed interests of labor.
Referring to the words "Free Trade," the speaker in question begins by
asking, "What is the essential nature of that which we call trade?" And
answers himself as follows:
"The grim, ugly fact is that trade is a fight, the markets are battle
fields, the traders are gladiators, carrying on a true war around
questions of values, with no care whether the opposing party or the
community at large can afford that the trade is made. This contest is
always going on, whether a lady buys a pair of gloves, or a syndicate
corners Erie. Antagonism is so fixed an element of trade, and so often
defeats the object it blindly follows, as to make laws which seek to
mitigate the ferocity of the struggle as welcome to the far-sighted man of
business as they are to the foredoomed victims of this relentless
warfare."