WHITE SLAVERY IN EUROPE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 43, 13 February 1885, Page 19

WHITE SLAVERY IN EUROPE.

A book is about to be issued by the State Department at Washington, (says the Monitor), and the following is im extract from it. This book was compiled from reports famished by the American consuls at the different European centres of population. "The low wages received by the mechanic or other workiogmen m England oi Germany will buy as many of the comforts and necessaries of life there as the mechanic or other workingmen in the United States can procure with the so-called high wages he receives," is a common assertion of American free traders, or revenue reformers." A few examples gleaned from the recent reports of American consuls, and embodied in the forthcoming volume to be issued by the State Department, will enable workingmen in San Francisco. Portland, and other American cities to test the truth of this by comparing their own manner of living with that which foreign workingmen are compelled to adopt. It should be remembered that the statements given are by the woikingmen themselves. An engineer in electric works in London, England, with a wife and three children, earns 9dols. 72c. per week of 70A hours. His eldest eon earns 2dols. 44c. per week. A steady and sober man can save nothing, and could not live were it not for the earnings of bis son. He pays 106dols. per year for rent, 280dols. per annum for food, and can save nothing. A carpenter in Sheffield, England, whos-. family consists of himself, wife and three children, and whose weekly wages amount to 6dols. 70c. gave the following as his weekly expenses: Rent, 97cents; fuel and light, 36 cents; meat, 97 cents; clothing, 85 cents ; potatoes and vegetables, 36 cents ; bread, 97 cents ; beer, 36 cents ; tobacco, 12 cents ; rchool pence, 12 cents ; trade societies, 24 cents ; friendly society, 12 cents. The meat is consumed by the heads of the family ; the children live on bread and mola«se< or dripping. Toe weekly expenses of a carpenter in Tunstall, England, who earns 6 dols. per week, when working full time, and whose family consists of himself, a wife and three children are itemized as follows : Bent, 72 cents ; club. -1.6 cents ; taxes, 9 cents ; coal, 48 cents ; breal, 1 dol ; bacon, two pounds, 32 cents ; cheese, twe pounds, 32 cents : potatoes, $ peck, 16 cents ; fresh meat, 4| pounds, 71 cents ; tea, f pound, 36 cents ; sugar, 4 pounds, 28 cent- ; flour, 3 pounds, 12 cents ; soap, 2 pounds, 12 cents ; milk, 1 quart, 6 cents ; candles, A pound. 6 cents ; tobacco, two ounce?, 12 cents ; beer, 19 cents ; clothing, 48 cents ; total, 6 dols. A woman making sacks at Quintain said : " I get paid by the thousand ; the card price is 47cents per thousand, but I am glai to take the work at 14J cents per thousand, it is so hard to get. T work four days per week and make Idol. 16c. My husband is a gardener at at the co lege hard by and earns 17 sbil.ings per week, but works very long hours. Our total income is 275d01». 89c. per annum. Mostly all the forges in Quintain are closed, and women nail-makers go to Birmingham to do scrubbing or other work. I have a brother a nail-maker. He and his wife both work at the trade and earn about 172 dols, per annum. After paying rent and fuel for the forge ihey have 2dols. 43c. per week for food and fuel. Their food consists of what they call broad and batter, but I call it bread apd scraps, with a bit of bacon at times. They hardly ever see fresh meat. Idp not think the children get enough to ett." While the Lord Mayor of London receives a sj»larjr of £1,000 a year and while all other municipal officers in London receive large compensation, the average wages of the workmen and labourers employed bythe_municipal authorities of the same city amoan's to the munificent sum of 6dols. 48c.*per week. The reports of the American consular officers in Germany on the condition of the artizans and wot king people generally in different parts of the empire completely refute the assertion of American free traders that the higher wages paid in the United States are counterbalanced by the higher cost of living. Here is the daily history of a Strasburg pi sterer with v wife and five children. He works eleven hours, and earns 83 crnts per day, his wife as a laundress, assisted by the eldest daughter, earns 25 cents per day. He can save nothing whatever, and has for breakfast rolls and coffee ; for dinner, soup, vegetables and potatoes, and has meat three times per week. The consul reports that the manner in which this Strasburg plasterer lives applies equally well to masons, stonecutters, bricklayers, carpenters and other general trades in Alsace. The consul at Bremen reports : " The working classes in this district subsist on a comparatively meagre and scant diet, live in small and badly ventilated tenement-houses, and their clothing is coarse and of an inferior quality. Breakfast : very poor coffee, potatoes and black bread : dinner : beans or peas cooked in fat, or potatoes and flour cakes, or potatoes and fat, and onion sauce, sometimes of barley soup and fish, or common sausages } supper : coffee and bread and butter, or goose fat. On Sunday the bill of fare is ÜBually better than on week days." In Bavaria the great quantity of beer consumed by the labouring Glasses obviates the necessity of eating as much meat as in districts where less beer is drunk. The high price of meat, therefore, is counterbalanced by the cheapness of beer. Here are two examples showing the wages received by two skilled artisans in Berlin, and the manner in which they contrive to exist. First, a person, wife and three children, work from 6a.m. to 6 p.m., with intermission for meals. They work about eight months in the year, and earn 5 dols* 70 cents per week. The man cannot support his family the year round on his wages. He supplements bis wages by working a piece of land outside the city, where be keeps a goat and raites vegetables. His own yearly earnings average 238 dols. His expenses in Berlin, where he works, and at his cottage home outside the oity, where his family live, amount to SOldoli., or 63d015. more than his yearly earnings, which mast be made op by his family. They have a little meat three times a week, bet live principally oa potatoes grown by the family, coffee and rye bread.

The second example is a bookbinder. He has a wife and three children, and earns eighty-nine cents per day, not enough to support ' his family. His yearly expenses are 370d015. He rents out a room, etc., to make up the deficiency. The following is reported from Bremen : A foreman cooper, hi* wife and two children, with steady work earn 6dols. 41c. per week. The average wages < f a journeyman cooper are eighty-three cents per da* . * He works from 6 am. to 6. p.m. in the summer, with intermissions for meals, and earns 312>1015. 49c. per annnm, ont of which he lives and saves 2 Idol*. 66c. per year. For breakfast he bas rye and white bread, butter and coffee ; for dinner, meats, vegetable and potatoes ; for supper, bread, butter, tea and cheese. A workingman's family of four or five persons, according to official estimates, live on the following . amount of provisions fora month in Silesia : Aye flour, 78 pounds ; wheat flour, 52 pounds ; .beef 2\ pounds ; pork, 2| pounds ; bicon, 7£ pounds ; butter, 3 'pounds ; potatoes, 3£ bushels ; milk, 10 quarts. Total value of monthly consumption of food, Bdols. 29c. A weaver in Crefeld has a wife aid three children ; works one loom and his wife works another. Their united earnings are £26d015. 81c. par year. They work all the time, but can save nothing. la summer they work from 4 o'clock in the morning to 9 at night, and have worked in this manner for twenty-four years. They do not stop to think of old age— few weavers ever arrive at old age. Their breakfast consists of coffee and bread, sometimes butter ; at 10 a.m.,. coffee or beer, and bread ; at noon, soup, vegetables, and sometimes bacon ; at 4 o'clcck coffee and bread ; at 8 o'clock, supper, potatoesonly. A tanner in Leipsic is better off than the majority of bis fellowworkmen. He has only a wife to support an t she earns something with her needle, but his fellow- workmen, with young children and] perhaps invalid wives, caunot make ends meet on Saturday night, and they grow sullen and desperate. The workman tarns4do!s. 4c. per week, and his wife also earns something. He computes his weekly living expenses as follows : House rent, 88 cents ; clothing, 70 cents ; coffee, 15 cents ; potatoes, 46 cents ; cheese, 15 cents ; butter and fa*, 60 cents ; beer, 35 cents ; black bread, 34 cents ; meat, 30 cents ; fuel, 24 cents ; light, 8 cents ; local taxes, S cent«. Total weekly expenses, 4 dols., 33 or 29 cents more than his earnines amount to. When his wife cannot make up the deficiency they drop the meat, butter and cheese. A consul in one of the leading cities in Germany reports: "A B'ioemaker and three journeymen were found at work in one corner of the kitchen, the wife doing the washing in another, while the daughter was cooking the dinner of sausage and potatoes at the stove, A carpt-nter had hw workbench in the family living room, the wife was filing a saw at the same bench while her husband was planing,, and in the afternoon the consul saw her sawing wood in thedooryard. These cases represent the avetage home, life and manners of the working people." '