PROTESTANT HAPPINESS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 48, 26 March 1886, Page 9

PROTESTANT HAPPINESS.

(.From the Toronto Tribune.) Only last week Mr. Goldwin Smith repeated in the Week the fallacious, threadbare statement that tbe people of Protestant countries enjoy more worldly prosperity than tbe people of Catholic countries, and that the difference in religion is tbe direct cause of the great prosperity of Protestants. This week we have the evidence of tbe United States Consul at Breslau as to the condition of the working classes in that part of Germany. He states that the labourer usually lives upon tbe estate and isemployed tbe year round. The working hours are, in summer, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and in winter, from sunrise to sunset He is given free lodging and fuel, au 1 it is customary to allow bis family the use of 100 square rods of land for the raising of vegetables. As direct wages he receives per annum 19dols. to 23d01g. in cash, and 24 bushels of rice, 3 bushels of peas, and 1£ bushels of wbe»t. Thd labourer* wife is bound to work in the neld whenever required, and receive* lor a day's work in summer 10 to 14 oeniß, in winter 10 to 12 cents. Of tea, meat, tobacco, and schnapps the farm labourer gets but little. If he smokes a pipe it is but seldom, and his tobacco is the unmanufactured leaf. In the harvest time he is treated to schnapps to encourage him in bis work, The Government tax is no longer paid by farm labourers, but the commercial income tax amounts to 60 or 75 cents a year. A writer on economic subjects figures that a labourer's family consisting of bimaelf, wife, and five children under 12 years of age can subsist on l'o9£dols. a week, or 57d015. a year. Consul Dethman gives a tabular statement of the wages paid to miners and mine labourers, showing that they receive daily from 62£ c, which is paid to foremen, engineers, and carpenters, to 18£ c., and 15c. paid to women and miners. The average cost of the subsistence of a miner's family, including rent, clothing, and taxes amount to ]22-80dols. per annuv. The rents paid by the miners range from 36c. to l'l9dols. per month. To find greater misery than this it is necessary to go to Ireland.*

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