The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1888-02-11
WIS.,. SATURDAY. FEB. If. 1883.
The Presidents Message Fryed.

The following is an extract from
the speech Of Senator Frye, recently
delivered in the L. S. Senate:
During the year, the opportunity
offering, investigated as thoroughly as
| could the condition of labor in
Europe. | found that to obtain it
from the employers was difficult, and
when obtained it was unreliable, wages
being generally exaggerated. They
were fond of dealing in averages.
They arrived at these by diaregar,ling
numbers For instance, in cotton
mill nearly all OF the employees are
women, few skilled men being re-
quired to look after the machinery, to
whom fair wages are paid. The Sup
erIntendent in answer would reply.
ave pay fromS2 week to So, the
average being 81 or 50. He never
volunteered the information that
while one hundred of his employees
earned 81 week only two were paid
IS. | visited personally factories, fur
naces, FORCES, ship-yards, iron and coal
mines, and talked whenever | could
with the workma and in my con-
illusions as to facts do not think | can
be mistaken.
The Senator gave the results of, his
investigations in Italy, Belgium, and
Germany, and continued:
But England is Free Trades para
disc, and her scale of wages, higher
thap in any continental country, is
cited proof positive that Tariff is no
protector of wage-workers, forgetting
that this scale was largely influenced
by the highest kind of Protection,
vigorously enforced by England I'M
til she believed that her wealth, her
machinery, and her skilled workmen
could tontrol the markets Of the
world. Neither her manufacturers
nor her laborers participate in this adj
miration Of her fiscal policy. Wages
all over Great Britain are low and de
creasing. Eight thousand women are
working in her cotton mills at Man
chester for from 30 to 80 cents a day,
while the manufacturers are insisting
upon a decrease to enable them to
compete with Germany and Belgium.
Two shillings, and in favored local
tiles two and siXpence day, are the
highest wages paid to common men
laborers, while hundreds of thousands
cannot get work at this. | saw on
the magnificent docks at Liverpool,
thousands of men, hungry-looking
men, daily asking for work, work at
any price, work if only an hour, so
that they might buy bread for their
children. The streets of the great
cities are full Of idle men, not wiling
~ SO but from necessity, and great
armies Of police are required to pre-
serve peace. She is to-day support
ing in her poorhouses more than a
million people, and how many more
receive outdoor relief no man can tell
Her silk industry is almost destroyed,
her cotton is suffering, her iron and
steel being supplanted by that of Ger
many and Belgium, her ship-building
not employing one-half of the usual
complement of day laborers.
| heard Mr.. Bradlaugh declare in a
speech in parliament that agriculture
was ruined; that half the farm labor
ers could rot get work; that those en-
ployed received the pittance of a
shilling or a shilling and sixpence a
day. If | should describe the con-
dition of English laborers in his
words | should be charged with gross
exaggeration. This being England's
condition to-day, what utter non
sense to talk about high wages there.
| say that men and women there will
to-day work for what they can get,
and that the wages actually paid are
not more than one half Of those paid
in our Northern States.