Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-06-21
WAGES AND WAGE VALUE.

The capitalists will make no capital
among informed persons by the publication
OF Nimmos' pamphlet on wages in Europe.
American workmen do get higher wages
than are usually paid in Europe. To judge
by the articles upon the subject of the pres
ent strikes that ere appearing from time to
time in the columns of the commercial and
financial papers, and others of similar
afinities, their wages are too high, and ought
TO be lowered. Some of them, as we have
shown in the APPEAL by quotations, actually
accuse the American workingmen Of restrict
ing the demand for American articles by
their extravagant demands" Such re-
prosches are discreditable to those who make
them, that is to the capitalists who profit and
become rich by employing American workmen
and paying them American prices, and 1t
subjects them 10 a most crushing reply, and
one that should make them blush for the
duplicity involved in their accusation.
American workmen's wages are high, you
say; true, and American employers profits
are also high. If the workmen are to
be reproached for expecting good wages,
what is to be done with you
who gorge yourselves on extravagant
profits? You fifteen and twenty, and Besse-
mer steel twenty-two-per- employers,
where do you stand on the ground of extrav-
agance in the scale OF prices of American
manufactures? The newspapers that are
your sycophants are indignant that Ameri-
can workmen's wages should add their mod
est weight to the price of American goods,
but they have never a word to say on the
wholesale manner in which your profits
swell prices. American workmen insist, and
will insist, on living wages, for they will not
see their wives and children starving on
black bread and soup made of vegetables
gathered from the hedges and bitches, as is
the case in Europe. And have they not
right to good wages? Can any country in
Europe show as industrious, as intelligent,
as skillful, as sagacious, as inventive, as pro-
ductive workmen as are those of our own
shops and factories? Do the European
workmen turn out near the amount of work |
ours dc? Can they use their tools as deity, |
or finish their goods workmanlike? In |
Europe it takes more hands, and much |
more superintendence, to produce given |
amount OF goods than is the case with Amer
lean workmen; they cannot be organized, |
cannot make the best use of instruments and |
machinery, ss our people can. Go to the |
drinking English mechanic in his shop |
at home, to the German, the Belgian, the |
Norwegian, where you please-watch them |
at their toll, hear their masters" story |
about when the cat is out the mice will be |
at play" see the men when any tool or
machinery new to them is put into their |
hands, and then say if it Is not insulting to
American workmen to bring these European
wages up as an argument against the Amerl-
can toiler? The German machine weaver
gets 81 "a a week, the bricklayer s. 80, the
workmen's wages brought down to these
prices? Unless we do we cannot contend
with Europe, cay the employers. Take the
German employers profits, and no more, then
you can, and il reduction is necessary it will
do very we'll to begin at your profits. The
American workman wears a decent coat, and
dresses his family becomiugly. This makes
hi m a customer in the market and builds up
trade. What sort of customer is the 81 "a
t-WSSA WedNcIj anu TIC 20 Oo-d-WCCh 4
aver? Their employers are complaining OF
and scant custom. That is
because their greed has reduced those who
hould be customers TO paupers. The
american farm laborer is paid much above
he European one, yet his produce sells
eadily abroad at prices that satisfy him
cry we'll, although he is not bolstered up
he nd Of or II
Torkmen have fair treatment and fair
hare of the wealth they create, and no fair,
Ipright employer will be loser by it.