The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-24 00:00:00

French Wages and Workmen.

A report rendered to the Foreign-office this year
by Mr. Julian Fane, secretary of embassy at Paris,
speaks of wages of skilled artisans in various towns
in France as ranging from sf. to 10f. a day ; for in-
ferior workmen from 21f. to 3if. ; for work-women
in a clothing establishment from 2f. to 4f. or sf. ;
for children, from lf. to 2f. The general rate of
money wages in France may be said to have in-
creased about 40 per cent. in the last 15 years,
but the rise in money wages has been
accompanied by a very considerable rise in the
price of the ordinary articles of consumption
and in rent of lodgings, so that the improvement
in the position of the labourer, meaning his power
to supply himself with the necessaries and
comforts of life, has been far from commensurate
with the rise in the money value of his labour. Still
the relative proportions in which money wages and
the price of commodities have risen leave a margin
in favour of the former, and to this extent there
has been a rise in real wages, enabling the labourer
to feed, lodge, and clothe himself somewhat better
than he could fifteen years ago. This has been
the natural consequence of the rapid development
of industrial enterprise and the increased demand
for labour, and it may also have been affected by
the greater facilities afforded to the labourer by
the influence of opinion, and recently by legisla-
tion, to claim a larger share in tho profits of produc-
tion. It is difficult to estimate the relative price of
labour in England and France. The rate of money
wages may be higher in one country than the other,
but no just comparison can be instituted unless the
quantity and quality of labour supplied in each case
is fairly appraised. It is a question which only
experts can decide, and they differ upon it. Com-
binations to influence the rate of wages were for-
merly punished in France as misdemeanours, but
three years ago a law was passed under which they
are not illegal, unless accompanied by violence
(including insults), or menace, or fraudulent
manoeuvres, including false representations.
Ample advantage has been taken by the
workmen of this change in the law. There is
scarcely a trade in France whose members
have not combined in the last three years for the
purpose of increasing the rate of wages and dimin-
ishing the duration of labour ; and their efforts to
this end have usually met with success. The em-
ployers, for the most part, assert that the law has
proved to them an unmitigated evil, subjecting them
to the tyrannous coercion of the employed. Vari-
ous forms of the co-operative system are in course
of trial in France with a view to prevent or lessen
this collision of interests. The association of
masons, for instance, is one that has met with
remarkable success ; some of the workmen are
shareholders, and others are engaged as or-
dinary labourers and have no share in the
profits, while some members of the associa-
tion are simply holders of capital. In other
establishments the workmen are allowed to share
in the profits of the business by means of rewards or
prizes allotted to them, or to the more worthy
among them, by the proprietors at the end of the
year, or by facilities for procuring food, clothing,
lodging, and education for their children on advan-
tageous terms. Mr. Fano gives it as his jugdment
that the fault in the organisation of the co-operative
societies has been generally too much faith in the
combination of skill and labour, and too little re-
gard for the advantage of capital; and that the
workman should aim at becoming in some measure
a capitalist himself, by the aid of societies of con-
sumption enabling him to effect savings in expendi-
ture, before he seeks to become a co-operator with
the capitalist in industrial enterprise.

THE HOUsE of LORDS.—The Sultan, on passing
from the Peers' Lobby on Monday, saw Mr. Herbert's
fresco, and on leaving the House of Lords wont into the
Victoria Gallery and inspected Mr. Maclise's two pictures
of the "Meeting of Blucher and Wellington after the
Battle of Waterloo" and "the Death of Lord Nelson."
Thence the Royal party proceeded along the Black Rod
Corridor, through Sir Augustus Clifford's apartments, and
loft the Palace by the Royal Court.

FROM A COTTAGE TO A THRONE.---The Empress
of Morocco is a native of Chaley, near Dole, in France,
where she wa' born on the 20th November, 1820, in a
poor thatched cottage. Her name was Virginie Lanter-
nier. She wont with her parents in 1834 to Algeria,
and the whole family wore taken prisoners by the Mo-
roccans. Her father was killed, and her mother died a
short time afterwards. Tho captors, dazzled by the
great beauty of Virginie, spared her, and by a concur-
rence of romantic circumstances the Emperor's son fell in
love with her and made her his wife. This Empress has
since soug:nt out and brought her three sisters to the
Moroccan Court, to which they aro now attached.
TIM PROPOSED BOROUGH OF lIACKNEY.—Mr. J.
J. H. Homer, a licensed victualler, carrying on business
in Mare-street, and who has been for many years past an
ac.tve member of the Licensed Victuallers' Asylum and
Schools, has offered himself asa candidate for the represen-
tation of the borough of Hackney proposed to be consti-
tuted undar the Government Reform Bill.

TIIE FOLLIES OF FASHION.—The last freak of
fashion is to give the coup de grace to the pearl-powder,
white-lead, and rouge that have so long reigned. Even
belladonna is to be discarded, and " golden" hair will
shortly be as rare as the real auburn tint of nature, if not
still rarer. Tho decree has gone for black hair and bronze
complexions, and these will, no doubt, shortly crowd the
parks. How they aro produced is the only question that
need concern us. The destructive nature of the chemical
agents usually employed for dying the hair black is well
known to our readers. To give a lady of fashion the com-
plexion of a gipsy, nothing is needed but a little walnut
juice, and wo have reason to know that this has already
found its way to the toilette-table. It has at least the ne-
gative merit of not being so dangerous as some of the poi-
sonous cosmetics that have preceded it. "Whether a dirty
face will long be the rage it would be rash to predict.--
Medical Press and Circular.