"BIG WAGES" IN AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 279, 24 February 1874, Page 2

"BIG WAGES" IN AMERICA.

Tub American corresjKJndcnt of the Irish Times toys: — The ' peculiarities ' of American money, and what it ctn purchase, make pro pie bel eve thof there is nothing to do but to come to the United States and get rich, when they hear of what wages can be earned here. I want now to give facts— -hard facts— as to wnges here, and what the same are really worth. Laborers — and Clu> great bulk of Irish emigrants become merely unskilled lubivera hero — can get from 1 dol 75- eenta to 2 do!s a-day. I was speaking last week to a gang of Irishmen w'lio were putting down a stone 'ballast' on a great leading railway, about their wages. They bud a certain amount of tkill m their work. Tuey told me that their wages were jubß 1 dol 50 cents a-day— never more. Now, if this^ be read as 36s a. week lor laborers on a railway of coiirte it look* big wa-.es. But it is 3C» a w eek in ' Rreenbacks', and what will the amount purchase for the laborer and his family ? Everything, all round, is dealt within the same expanded ourreney, and everywhere you turn you have to pay just in the same style for every article you pin - chase. A working man could get a good paii of strong

boots or shoos in Ireland, out 'of • which he could take fro>n^ sit ro nine months' wjar, with «om« reptire, for »ome 7» 6 lM to 10s Here be will pay G "ddls (3 k) for a • pair t'uat w.ll hanlly keep his feet dry at the'Very^firit.'.and will nob wear over three mouths at the very bant' Hi must buy three pairs here for ono at homo. Jft«&tr £»k;my own experience by way of illustration —In DAbliiKlc.hMr'Worn several pairs of boote.-one after the other, at'lW'&TJßnv I brought one | pair of them out to the United Stat<J9 now } I wore those " here for over twelve months, with «a pair of soles on them ■ »s tiie only repairs. I bought a pair in Iftssau-ofcreet, New York, for 8 doWj which only lasted three months. It would take four pairs of them! to wear me as long as one pair I eonld got in Dublin ; and al 8 dol» a pair (32<) instead of Its. four pair would be 128s, or £6 B*, for boots for a year hare, instead of 1(t in Dublin. I leave coa of repairs out in both cases. I have a cotamore made in Dublin, which cost me £3 ss, about 16 dola ; I was offered 63 dols for it her', after wearing it three winters. A hat thai. I xjould buy in Dublin for 12s 6d will cost mo here 7dols to 8dol«, 2Ss to 32s House renf, owing,, of course, to the very high wages for all labor on the building, and to the heavy taxathn of the cities, is enormously high. Working men earning Idol 50 ' cents to 2 lols a day cannol get two rooms, and Only pockets, for less than. lOdois a month, in advance, in the poorest and lowest slum of our American cities. Any decent place would be 15dols to a month! Any man like a . foreman cutter in a tailoring establishment, a draper's a9sutant, a grocer's assistant, and men of their class, could not get any place to rent that they would let it be known they Jived in for iess than 40dola to SOdola a month. And this, too, at such a distance from tbeir bushiest as to involve^ street car-faros, tramway fare* to and fro every^i day, which makes an additional rent. It will thusbe seen that all the ta^ about ' high wages ' received bore i* absurd. If those whrvwrite home abbut the wages would only just tell the expense of living here, then a better idea could be formed of ~tht> disadvantages of Amprican life. Tho cost of clothing women and children is even greater than that of men. A man -in many cases may wsar what he pleiises in America. But the women,' They must dresi.,. Every woman dresses out of all * proportion to the means ajfc her disposal except in one case in a thousand. If, is a fearful drag on struggling men here to keep their wives and daughters 'dressed flu (Jie fashion* Diessmakers charge 8 rlola for making a' plain dress fo*'»*servant, girl— 42s for ( making it alone It takes 20 ya^da now to cov^r a middling 'j •ized woman ; but at 1 dollar a yard for anything fit to bt» seen in, it comes to 20 dollars and 8 dollars/^r making it, . and 2 dollars for trimming, a plain dress for4rtServant girl *-ill thus cost 30 doll&as — £6. Wuat is the use ot ' Biddy ' writing home to Ireland that she has 12 dollars a month, and her board, when it takes 30 dollars to put one dresa on her that uhe would not dare to be seen at Diaas hi on Sunday morning. And everything else costs her equally high. There - is really nothing to be made by these nominally high wages. The whole thing is a bloated balloon — a soap bubble — i|» < finance. «