The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1881-10-13
Poverty and Low Wages.

sSS0AaAASo ~ SAAS ASD0AS - SAAS SAAAS~A
States Consul General at Shanghai, who
mas made special investigation, are, in
harvest time, 10 and Is cents day and
food estimated At 10 cents. BY the
month the same laborer gets 81. so or 50
md board by the year, sl2 and board
II he saves 81 a year he is accounted
thrifty. Boatmen, carriers, wheel-bar-
'ow men, ETC., earn from to 80 cents a
lay, and the average pay Of skilled Ia
Dor is 50 week for a master, 81. so for
workman and 50 cents for women and
children. On the farm children years
Did work with the other laborers, and
two and one-half acres of land, with a
aouse built Of mud and reeds, COW, a
few fowls and pigs and some primitive
tools constitute q well TODD farmers
property.
As may be supposed. the condition of
the Chinese laborer is very degraded,
tnd it is not surprising that famine is
constant danger to which these poor
people are exposed. Nevertheless, they
are living out the theories Of certain
classes in this country, who favor low
wages-for everybody except themselves.
II small wages with small expenses are
calculated to make people prosperous,
China ought to lead the world in in
instry, intelligence and wealth, for So a
year clothes the laborer, and 20 cents a
week supplies food for an entire family
Of from four to six persons.
Unhappily, small wages, even when
accompanied by small expenses, do not
make the common people prosperous in
China or anywhere else. The people
may be content, and so may mule in
coal mime, but when designers and weay-
ars Of the most exquisite patterns of silk,
md artist laborers who make wonderful
pieces Of porcelain pottery, are content
+ they are able to save enough for burial
expenses, contentment is scarcely to
their credit, and Of little advantage to
their country. Poverty must predomi-
nate where the savings of the most eco
nomical Of unskilled laborers are not
more than 81 year. And poverty is the
curse to which we may trace ali other
curses. 1t kills the body and damns the
soul.
The researches of Baron Kolb have
disclosed the fact that poverty kills, and
though pampered poets have sung and
fat parsons have preached loud praises
TO indulgence, no reasoning worthy Of
the name can. in violation Of all expert
ence, make it anything else but hideous.
According to kolb's statistics, of 1000
weil-to.do and 1000 poor people there
lied within five years 81 Of the former
and $40 OF the latter in fifty years, 443
Of the former and TT OF the latter and
at 70ycars Of age there remained 235 OF
the prosperous class, and only 65 OF
the poor. His figures show that the
almighty dollar, as we aptly call it in
America, will save men from disease
and premature death. driveling senti-
ment to the contrary notwithstanding.
And that poverty kills or at least stunts
and deforms the mind is q fact which
needs no statistics for its support. The
observation of any man who has mingled
much with his fellows ought to have
taught him that, ii it has not.
Poverty and low wages go hand in
hand. Inequality in the condition Of
men is greatest where the wages of labor
are the lowest The palace and the
hovel IN the shadow Of the palace are
the natural consequences Of cheap labor
and cheap product, for by taxes and
usury the luxurious classes will contriye
to secure ample fortunes for themselves.
though labor is content with bare sub.
sistence, or forced to rot in poverty. It
Is only when wages are high and
products proportionately high that labor
stands on a footing Of equality will
riches and gentility.
The nations OF the earth that have
made greatest progress in morality and |
useful knowledge are those where labor
has been paid the highest wages, and
the tendency Of civilization and enlight-
eminent is constantly toward increased |
pay for honorable service. All talk Of |
the dignity Of labor, Of the health and |
comfort enjoyed by toilers, and the |
especial purity of their morals is in
shifting mockery or cruel sarcasm in |
England, where the wages OF the CON-
mon day lahorers are from 40 to 75 cents |
a day, or in Scotland where the same |
class receive from 33 to 38 cents |
a day, or in Holland where farm hands
III the harvest season or during other |
busy times receive from 20 to % cents |
q day, or in Austria where employment |
IN the army at IL cents day is more
than common labor. or in
China, where, as we have stated, in the |
busiest portions OF the year . good farm
hand can be hired for 10 cents q day
Labor at such wages is not honorable.
Il is not healthful. 1t is necessarily as.
sociated with poverty, and poverty
means disease, premature old age. blunted
gross illiteracy and untime-
" death. Demagogues and knayes have
preached the pernicious doctrine Of con-
tentmcnt to the classes whose labor they
have expected tocontiscate, and honest
men have believed that ignorance,
pennry and brutal indifference are com.
mendahlc III the masses, hut those who
have preached loudest against the &C
cnmnlation OF "filthy lucre," against
Maumnn and tho Iowa III 1ala ohAxa |