THE WORKMEN OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1796, 29 September 1888, Page 4

THE WORKMEN OF THE WORLD.

Thera is only one way of finding out the true position of the working men, and that is to live among them. Interesting experiences of how working men live in Europe and America hare been given recently in Harper’g

Magazine by Mr Lee Meriwether. He went about for a year dressed in a workingman’s blouse, and lived with the working men of nearly every State

in Europe. His comparison between the life in, different countries is therefore reliable. He begins with the Italian working classes, who spend an unenviable existence. The Italians work as hard and get as little for their labour as any people ‘in Europe. Some of them save up money for years that they may come over to England and enjoy the light and honourable occupation of organgrinding. The Italian workman exercisea the greatest 1 possible economy. The refuse of the rich ■ man’s kitchen is retailed by his cook to the labouring classes. The coffee grounds are dried, and other articles are used in the same way. Their dwellings are squalid, damp, smoky and crowded. Yet the Italian workman is happy and contented. His house consists of one room. Among the labourers sometimes thirty people sleep in one room. There are some Italian workmen who earn but sixpence for a day’s work of fourteen hours. Few skilled mechanics can earn four shillings a day. Among the bettor class, foremen, small shopkeepers, and the highest mechanics, the families live somewhat better, and make use of the co-operative system to reduce tho cost of living to the owest limit. In Switzerland the cost of living is

slightly greater than in Italy, hut ' Wages are better, and the Swiss working man’s standard is higher. He undergoes military service consisting of three weeks’drill every year, which 1 he looks forward to as a holiday. The Germans, on the other hand, and the Austrians lose throe years in the army, and two or three more as strolling journeymen,. Of the numerous causes that tend to lower the German i workmen is the custom of excessive beerdrinking, which is increasing. Almost every German'working man is a member of a beer “ Kneiper,” or club, where be spends his evenings smoking and drinking beer. “The, , statement may seem improbable,” says Mr Meriwether, yet I know it to be true, that a large percentage of German working men spend more money on beer than they do in houserent. The German factory hands

spend thirteen hours a day in the mill,’ of which eleven hours and forty minutes are spent in work, and the rest id meals, which consist of black bread, coffee, soup and potatoes, with occasional'sausage and dumpling. The' pitmen are . worseoff. They spend twelve hours a day.in dark, damp pits, and’sleep *t nights in hovels almost equally dark and damp. The men in thb salt ihines at Salzburg, Austria, earn two shillings a day, to which the women add by spinning and weaving. The Belgian labourer works hard enough, but drinks a good, deal, r and a large, number of them /lose Mondays regularly through their Saturday night and Sunday dissipations. This, together with the extreme, density of population, caused the condition of: the Belgian workman to he considerably less prosperous than his skill and industry entitle him to. In some of the large glass manufacturing establishments, expert blowers earn as much as 12s a day. The average wages in* Belgium by ordinary mechanics do not exceed 2a 5d a day. In France the working man eats but one square meal a day, and some people would not call that meal a “ square ” one. Fivepeace suffices for bread, soup, meat and potatoes, and prunes. The English working men earns better wages than any of his brothers on the Continent; his standard of living is higher, he has better food and lodgings, yet, says the writer, it. is doubtful if he is any happier or more contented than the Italian or' the Frenchman., Ihe English demands more, and is less satisfied with what be gets than either of these people. He must have bis ale and., beer or he fancied he starves. He requires; too, bis newspaper. r Luckily for him, living is ’ clibap, and wages, comparatiybly speaking, high. An English labourer of any ability can earn 4s a day. In ' America,' workmen have high wages— hight-r than, wages elsewhere —but rents, are enormous, clothing costly, and among the masses in the towns discomfort of habitation is the rule. No working man can live in decent 1 contentment ’in New York itself. A t the very least rent will cost as much as 10s a week, and even then the accommodation is squalid. In [England provisions are as cheap as, and in some respects cheaper than, in America/ wages' are higher tlian on , the centinent, /ood and lodging .'are much Tn hours of labour people in'" are also in a superior position, and on the whole England in this practical,fashion bears. the: comparison with credit. ' «