There will soon be inaugurated (probably about the 14th of July) a new
establishment that has long been demanded by the laboring population,
that is to say, a new labor exchange, the buildings of which, situated
on Chateau d'Eau Street, are to succeed the provisional exchange
installed in the vicinity of Le Louvre Street. The new structures have
been erected from plans by Mr. Bouvard, and occupy an area of
seventeen hundred meters.
The main work is now entirely terminated, but the interior decorations
are not yet completely finished. The distribution comprises a vast
meeting room, committee rooms for the various syndicates, offices in
which the workmen of the various bodies of trades will find
information and advice, and will be enabled to be put in relation with
employers without passing through the more or less recommendable
agencies to which they have hitherto been obliged to have recourse.
[Illustration: NEW LABOR EXCHANGE, PARIS.]
Upon the whole, the institution, if wisely conducted, is capable of
bearing fruit and ought to do so, and the laboring population of Paris
should be grateful to the municipal council for the six million francs
that our ediles have so generously voted for making this interesting
work a success. On seeing the precautions, perhaps necessary, that the
laborer now takes against the capitalist, we cannot help instituting a
comparison with the antique and solid organization of labor that
formerly governed the trades unions. Each corporation possessed a
syndic charged with watching over the management of affairs, and over
the receipts and the use of the common resources. These syndics were
appointed for two years, and had to make annually, at least, four
visits to all the masters, in order to learn how the laborers were
treated and paid, and how loyally the regulations of the corporation
were observed. They rendered an account of this to the first assembly
of the community and cited all the masters in fault.
Evidently, the new Labor Exchange will not cause a revival of these
old ways of doing things (which perhaps may have had something of
good in them), but we may hope that laborers will find in it
protection against those who would require of them an excess of work,
as well as against those who would preach idleness and revolt to
them.--_Le Monde Illustré_.
[Illustration: NEW LABOR EXCHANGE--HALL FOR MEETINGS.]
* * * * *