THE AUSTRIAN ARTISAN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7697, 21 March 1887, Page 3

THE AUSTRIAN ARTISAN.

' (St. James 1 Gazette.) We have heard a good deal lately about the opening afforded for British products muting the rapidly developing nationalities of ihe Lower Danube. "Wo know, too, what efforts the Austria'na are making to obtain the lion's share of this trade. Perhaps, therefore, it will not be without profit- to see the terms on which the Austrian merchant and manufacturer is free to compete. with his English rival. . The English conditions we know. How the wages range between 20s and 30s per ■week for unskilled and 30s to 45s for skilled labor. How the number of working hours is about nine per diem, with a half-holiday on Saturday, while machinery and fixed plant stand idle, earning no interest for the rest of the time. How the ventilation of the factory and work-rooms, the sanitavv arrangements, the fencing of the. machinery, are. stringently required hy law and enforced by constant inspection. How Truck Acts anil Employers' Liabilities Acts protect the wages of-work-men from fraud and his life from danger. All this wo know; and every working man must -know it too. Perhaps he hardly realises the position of Ins competitors.' As far as Austria at least is concerned, the very full .abstract of the jiewly-appoinfed factory inspectors' reports *Ktv«ji in the Board of Trade Journal for SToveraJjer last 'should enable us to nppreciate the difference. The original reports, it should be said, are of the most ex3iau«tive nature, unjl are the result of an inquiry extending over more than two years, during which over 250 D factories were officially inspected. ■Here we find that in Vienna (admittedly the dearest town to' live in in Europe), "on the average, a week's wages for a man is about 17s fid, for a female laborer about 103." " The average wages of the men is highest in the machine industry— namely, 23s per week j and lowest, in the textile industry-uamely, 13s per week. In the towns.of Western Bohemia the hiaheet figure recorded is 17s per week. Dav laborers are paid from lOd to is 2d par diem In Prague and the northern parts Bohemia, as also in Silesia, the average eeems to be a good deal higher. In the ironworks of Toplitz, indeed, the workmen earn, on something like the English scale, j from 24s to 30s per week. It is-dijhen t, ! however, from tables giving merely Uw Highest' and lowest wages to make out what is actually the average rate paid ; for example, "male laborers m glass factories, Is 4<i' to 7s ; M per diem ; in machine works. 2s 8d to 10s ; book publishers 2s to7s. w But unskilled laborers nowhere Appear to receive much above Is Sd or 2b «, day. Where this is the case we can hardly be wrong in assuming either that ihe manufactories are small and unimportant or else that the workmen wlio are jiaid £2 to £3 per week form a very small proportion of the whole number. Everyone has heard of the crushing toil and scanty pay of the- Staffordshire, nail makers;, im^has anyone ever heard of .anything like the slate of atlairs reported - from Carintbia ? " The nailflritftlr works hard 14 hours in the day ; liis toil commences at 3 o'clock in the morning, and sometimes even earlier. '.' Children from 8 to 10 years work three hours, from 10 to 12 yeaisjsix hours, those from 12 to 14 years nine hours. ." J lie total earnings at Sfcinbuehel Amount to from 4s to Ss per week, at.Kropp from Gs to 10s per week." "He eats three meals a day; but what food is.it that is placed anon hte table? A dough made of flour and water, •swimming in grease; meat ..only on holidays." "There were many "years when wages were even lower than .they are ta-An-y." " The only other place where the hours of l.abor me mentioned is Vienna. There, we are told, "in Ihe small shops generally a day's labor is tileven liours, in the';larger factories ten Jionrs." "According to the demaii/fe of the market worlfjnen labor— sometime;* for weeks ten and etaven hours per day, And then again from fourteen to fifteen 9ionrs per day." - > As for arrangements for the health ami safety of the workman, "all the inspectors agree that in the old factories and workshops (those built lately show a. marked improvement), especially in the smaller shop 3 and factories, there is a total want of hygienic precautions, and that foul air, excessive .heat.'.dust, and a total absence of ventilation interfere seriously with the health and comfort of the laborers." One siwtocejiiayser.ve as a type of she. whole. "In 'Mie '3hqp3 of the galvaniscrs, who work in (lark rooms and kitchens,, the atmosphere -is /impregnated with saltpetre iind' sulphuric acid to a degree which irritated my eyes and throat. ■ The y onng •girls whoworked-there all coughed and had inflamed eyes. The foulatmosphereiHof ten caused by the overcrowding of the shops to sa-vc additional rent." The factories may ibe'bad, but the mines are ten times worse. 3?rom Hie petroleum mines of Galicia comes .ji 'description of a state of things such as we way confidently assert has never existed in ttreafc Britain since Adam Smith helped to ■stamp out the last traces of slavery in the coal mines and .'salt pans of the Scottish Lowlands, The workmen, some 12,000 in number, are " treated by the cashier like •cart-horses. .The .cashier boards and lodges and employs them. ■ lor the favor of employment alone tho laborer ■pays the cashier a commission of ]0. per cent.' of his wages"-10d to ls ! 8d foi twelve hours' work. " The Imlance ol 90 per cent., of his earnings he is com. polled' to. pay to the cashier or his wife for board mid* lodging and drink.-, lie m always in debt when the balances struck, so that he neither has the means to elotlu Mmself nor to escape from )ii» truly mtifu slavery. These petroleum slaves, clad ir tnfcerable rags, " may be seen_ m dj'ovei liny day" "In order to obtain a correc opinion of the physical and mora^s "rotation of the laborers of Boryslaw it is /juite sufficient to cast a, glance inti one of iJje laboring men's jjn«rleraj wher< in one narrow room sixty or sevent; ijersons of both sexes, clad in filthy raptu are- lying together so closely that the; cannot turn from one side to the other. " Whether a laborer breaks his neck o <lies fliisernbly matters notj there ar always jjnforhmates ready l to s/ep i»t liis place.- P»" ' Lechowsky. asserts tlia laborers smitten wilh disease have bee: " brought to the hospital entirely naked. There is nothing as M as tins re corded in any other district ; but there i abundant evidence to prove that it is no in London only that exorbitant rents ni paid for "dwelling places m maiiycnsc

nob fit for a human being." l'rom Bohemia an iiißpector reports that " where the laborers live in lured apartmentß they are overcharged, their rent amounting generally to fully one-thml of their earnings." ''In a flass-grinding establishment the head workman and Ins family, together with his journeymen and 'female servants, all slept in one room— from eight to twelve persons in all " "In a garret of a small house, twelve paces long and eight paces wide, <lwell thirteen laborers, girls and men. An old man had bin quarters m a remote corner among the rubbish for which he mid 2s 5d pev week." "Generally the laborer and his iamily occupy Juifc oik room, which is also used as a kitchen \ very often other par! ins occupy tins oik room with the laborer and his family. Quarters with separate kitchens are to bi found only in "very rare instances, am ' only then when laborers arc particularly skilful and earn extraordinary wnges. This last report from Brunn m Moldavia ■where want of space cannot be pleaded, n .excuse of .such jnoristrous overcrowding.

".Surely from all this we have a right to draw two morals, the one, that it is not only in England that tho "pinch of poverty" is felt. That, however, doe 3 not make . tho Englishman's poverty lighter. The other moral is more to the purpose. Seeing that, compared witW his Austrian rival, the British workman is 'paid larger wages for shorter hours in factories that have been made more wholesome, it behoves him to bo very sure that be gives bis employer in return- the best energies both of liis hands and bis head. ■ For in this way only can the English employer compete with his foreign rival on equal terms. If English labor is only equal to Austrian in average efficiency, in the long run it must be content to receive remuneration only at the average Austrian rate.