THE UNEMPLOYED IN AMERICA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3804, 16 June 1885, Page 2

THE UNEMPLOYED IN AMERICA.

An article in the current number of the “ North American Review ” fully bears out all that has been said of the growing social dangers in the United States. The writer calculates that there are no fewer than two million persons out of work at the present time, and that the numbers of the seriously discontented are growing every day. Entering into details, he shows that Mr Vanderbilt, who recently said that any worker could purchase a barrel of Hour by one day’s work, over-estimated the earnings by not lose than three dollars 50 cents, or 14s a day, even in case of highly skilled artisans. Taking the two millions or more workers engaged in manufactures, he further shows that their wages did not exceed a dollar a day on the figures of four or five years ago, before the present serious depression had begun, and that the manufacturors received themselves in _ profits more than the total amount which the workers obtained in wages, reckoning prices at the factory. Certainly

2,000,000 of unemployed, of whom not fewer than 1,500,000 would gladly go back to work at once if they could, make up a terrible army for discontent to recruit from, and it must bo remembered that tramps are treated with great cruelty in the States. The on ! y remedy which the reviewer discusses is the enforced reduction of the working day to eight hours. This he heartily approves of though ho considers it the least important; but it is ineturctivo to find that a moderate writer of this kind in a North American periodical should feel convinced that a social conflict is close at hand, unless some steps are at once taken to avert it