The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1888-10-06

of his employees earned S. week,
only two were paid SIS.
In Italy which is not now but means
soon to be competitor of this country,
he found in a government lace factory
women and girls making the finest
laces in the world earning from to 2
cents day. One woman who had
worked there forty years, and the most
skiiliul in the factory earned 10 cents a
day. The superintendent of cotton
mill near Naples told him that the
women mostly worked for 40 cents. In
a marble yard forty cents day was re-
garded as good pay for an able bodied
man. In Belgium where women make
the land blossom like rose, they earn
daily from 20 to IS cents a day. In
the lace factories at Brussels the skilled
women who IN Italy earn IL cents a
day, could command 20 cents. In the
cotton mills IS cents day was re,
garded as satisfactory wages for women,
and 40 to so cents for men. In the
iron and steel works 81, week would
furnish an ample supply of common
laborers, while skilled labor seldom
averaged more than S. or Sc.
In Germany wages were hardly as
high as in Belgium. Agricultural labor
ers were plenty at 20 cents a day, while
women earned only that much as wood
sawy ers in the streets of Munich. Hon.
Charles P. Kimball formerly Demo
cratic candidate for Governor of Maine
was appointed by President Cleveland
to the Consulship at Stuttgart an i'm
portant manufacturing city. After being
there three months he wrote to Sena-
tor Frye. 81 came here ee-trader,
| am now high protectioniSt. With
present wages In America the attempt
to compete with these Germans is
absurd. Why the wages are a mere
bagatelle. Our party should be looking
to an increase rather than a decrease
of duties.
But England is the free traders para
disc, and her scale OF wages, higher than
in any continental country, is cited as
proof positive that tariff is no protector
OF wage-workers, forgetting that this
scale was largely Influenced by the high
est kind of protection, vigorously en-
forced by England until she believed
that her wealth, her machinery, and her
skilled workmen could control the mar
kets of the world. Neither her manu-
facturers not her laborers to day partic,
ipate in this admiration of her fsca
policy. Wages all over Great Britain
are low and decreasing. Eighty thou,
sand women are working in her cotton
mills at Manchester for from 80 to IS
cents day, while the manufac turers
are insisting upon a decrease, to enable
them to compete with Germany and
Belgium. Two shlllings, and in favored
localities two and sixpence day, are
the highest wages paid to common men
laborers, while hundreds of thousands
cannot get work at that. saw, on the
magnificent docks at Liverpool, thou.
sand OF men, hungry-looking men, daily
asking for work, work at any price, work
il only an hour, so that they might bay
bread Tor their children. The street:
of the great cities are full of idle men
not willingly So, but from necessity, and
great armies of police are required tc
preserve the peace. She is to day sup
porting in her pcorhouses more than q
million of 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 stee
being supplanted by that of Germany
and Belgium, her ship building not EN-
ploying one-half of the usual compile.
ment OF men.
l heard Mr.. Bradlaugh declare in q
speech in Parliament that agriculture
was ruined that half of the farm labor,
ers could get no work that those EN-
ployed received the pittance of shill,
Ing and sixpence day. If l should
describe the condition of English labor,
ers in his words, | should be charged
with gross exaggeration. This being
Englands condluon to-day, what utter
nonsense to talk about high wages
there l 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.
Scotland is IN no better condition
In Glasgow, where Mr.. Bright SAID
forty one thousand families out of every
one hundred thousand lived each in
one room, the army OF the unemployed
is perfectly immense, the evidences Of
pinching poverty horrible.
As to Ireland it is hard for me tC
understand how any moderately decen,
rate of wages can prevail in this afflicted
country. More than half of the people,
men and women, seemed to be entirely
out of work. As you ride through the
country, hundreds will follow your car
rage, some of them for miles, begging
for penny. Agriculture seems prac
tically dead. Out of the 100000 ten.
ants of small holdings, 5 acres and less,
many, if not the most, formerly worked
on the farms in England and Scotland
during each summer, earning and saw
ing enough to pay their rents, while
their wives and children cared for the
home lot. But now the farmers OF
England and Scotland cannot employ
more than two thirds of their own, SO
that resource is cut off. In some coun-
ties almost halt of the inhabitants are
now receiving help. Pauperism is fear
fully increasing. They raise an abun-
dance of wool, are willing to work for
the lowest wages, and nearly all their
mills are idle. What little cotton man
ufacturing they had seems to have dis
appeared, and even the linen industry
has greatly declined. l hardly see how
any rate of wages could be fixed.
To the Republican Voters
of Cecil County.
"
The undersigned ReDublican County