Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1869-01-08
From the Nation.
The Uupopuiarity of Production

ne hpopuiditiy OF tTOuuCtlOA
Mr. Wells, the Revenue Commissioner. has.
We believe. been more struck IN the course OF his
investigations into the condition OF American
industry by the rapid decline in the quality Of
the ski ell labor Of the United Stltes, than by
almost any other flct the cause being partly
the elgerue>s Of the better sort of young men 10
get into commerce, or some kind of employ
ment in which the labor l. clerical An ap-
prentice who has served cut his full time in any
handicratt, and has learned it thoroughly, is
getting TO be rare bird. Ia some trades. IN p
builiing for one. printing or another, he Is al
most unknown. Plenty Of boys are apprentices
in all trades, but hardly any remain apprenticed
long enough to learn the business. The result is
that the work hops swarm with inefficient work.
men, who only half know their business. and
only oue-third do it, TO the great detriment Of
their cwu character, the great diminution Of the
national production, and TO the despair Of en-
plOyers. The shipbuilders ascrbe large pro-
portion of the present depression in their busi-
ness to the scarcity of good workmen, and they
do not look very hopefully into the future, owing
to the increasing scarcity Of apprentices who
show either the desire or intention to learn the
trade thoroughly.
The eagerness Of yong men TO escape from
the workshops and farms and become clerks and
Spectators IN the great toWns-in other words,
to become distributors rather than producers
does not, perhaps, do SO much damage to indus
try a. the want of thoroughness on the part Of
those engaged in it but it does a good deal,
and every year more It is the fashion Just now
with some observers TO ascribe the rush into the
cities to the paper currency, and the prevalent
spirit of speculation begot by it hut more Of
the responsibility Is thrown on this cause than
it will fairly bear In a new couutry with vast
resources, with thousand new schemes for
their development every day starting new
railroads, new mines, new steamboats, ; with
population doubling every twenty-five years,
values must rise at an enormous and unprece-
dented rate, no matter how good or steady the
standard may be and = hen values are con-
stantly rising, and the volume of shares offered
on the stock exchange constantly increasing, it
is useless to expect that there will not be con-
slant and fierce speculation. and that the army
of speculators will not continually grow in
numbers and audacity. There are other agen-
cies at work which have more to do with the
drifting Of the young men into the towns than
speculations. One is the degrading influence,
from social point Of view, which foreign i'm
migration has exerted, and is now exerting, in
all kinds of manual employment. As you cannot
keep two kinds Of currency in circulation, one
Of higher value than the other, so also you can
not keep two kinds Of laborers, one possessing
higher social culture than the other, at work in
the same fed- and workshops. As the cheaper
currency drives the dearer out Of circulation,
the more ignorant and less exacting laborer
drives the better educated and more fastidious
out of the market. The popular theory that !