The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-03-05
A PARTIAL TRUTH.


question President GoMPERs is credited
with saying:
There are some who say il you work more
you'll get more pay. The very opposite is the
truth, The country in which the people work
the longest number Of hours, the wages are
lowest; wherever the wages are highest, the
hours are shortest.
.. You will find that the workmen who go into
any factory earliest in the morning and leave it
the latest, get the least wages. while those who
arrive latest in the morning and leave earliest
in the afternoon, get the highest
To state 1t crudey, the reason is that those
who work the fewest hours can not afford to
work cheap-they must sell their services hieh
Fewer hours means less poverty, better
womanhood, sweeter childhood, nobler man.
hood. The whole civilized world asks of your
Legislators TO enforce the eight-hour law. If
long hours make great nations China should be
at the head.
The statement of Mr.. GeMPERs is true,
but 1t is not quite complete in explanation.
IL is true that those who work longest
often get the least wages; but it is not be-
cause of the great amount of work that
they do, nor the great number of hours
spent on the work.
The reason that wages are high in some
places and in some occupations is that the
labor performed is efficient, not that the
hours are short. In trades where much
machinery is used, a skilled operator may
earn twice as much as another who works
as hard and twice as long by hand
The chief reason that American wages
are high is the efficiency of American work
men; and one of the most direct methods
Of increasing wages is by the laborer in
creasing his efficiency
The basis of wage earning in any coun-
try, is the advantages of which the work
man may avail himself. In this country it
is chiefly cheap and fertile soil of vast ex-
tent that forms the basis Of wages in other
departments of manual labor
To begin with, a man may acquire farm
and make fair living without much capi-
tai to start on.
Theoretically, he must be paid as much |
wages IN any other industry as he can earn
at farming, since he is free to take up the |
latter occupation at any time. Practically. |
however. there might be considerable |
dl1ference in the wages of farmers and |
those of any other class of manual laborers |
because of the disinclination of Lien 10
leave their present occupation for another. |
though the latter offered slightly higher |
wages. But there is an approximation to
the theoretical condition, that wages will |
be governed by the amount obtainable in
an occupation in which almost every hand
laborer can engage a. will
We have spoken of farming as if it alone
were the basis of industry in this country.
since greater number are employed in it
than In any other; but other industries.
such as mining, numbering, and to some ex-
tent transportation, cooperate with the
leading one to make up the general basis
from which wages are fixed. For what
ever wages can be earned in these will be
demanded in other lines, and a little more
on an average, because of certain distan.
rewards that these may bring In addition
to the immediate returns.
1t follows that if the farms. etc. nav
well, then the hand-crafts must be equally
well paid or their members too will gradu-
ally take to farming, and as the productive
ness and profit of agriculture depends
strictly upon the intelligence and thrift of I
Its followers, it will be seen that the cues
ton of wages is at bottom a question of
the effectiveness of labor
The industries that laborers NAV fall
back upon if employers do not paw salts
factory wages, determine the point beyond
winch depression in wages cannot go. In
new countries the production of raw ma
terlals constitutes that industry; in older
countries commerce may be leading one
OF that kind. 1t is evident that if there
were no such retreat for oppressed labor.
then the limit of forcing wages down
would simply be the limits of the power of
capital to combine against labor.
But while the wages of the various hand
trades cannot be forced lower than those
which may be earned in the leading occu-
patton, agriculture, both classes are lin
tied IN wages by the effectiveness of their
labor. Thus, the farmers wages will be
doubled if he is skillful enough to make
his farm double in its yield, for the farm
crop is nearly all wages; and, leaving ont
OF view the Discrimination of men to chanee
their occupation, this of itself, occurring
generally, would cause the wages of the +,
hand trades to rise in about the same pro
portion or members would keep leaving /.
those trades for farming until the general
level was approximately the same.
Correspondingly, if the mechanic doubles +,
his own skill, he thereby doubles his own /
wages, provided that he works by the piece =
or that his occupation is such that with a :
little cooperation the mechanics them .
selves may engage in it, if their EMPLOYERS ,
refuse to pay them in proportion to their /.
earnings.
The observed fact that in most occupa- .
tons in this country the laborers are paid ;
more than in Europe, is due to the fact that :
they earn more, and not to the fact that :.
they work shorter hours, though that has :
PROBABLY good deal to do with it also. :
The greater efficiency of men WORKING :
shorter hours, when it occurs, is due to the =
condition of the men, by which .
they are enabled to do more or better worlr :.
than they had previously done in the longer
hours.
1t is further demonstrable by the same =
laws that if the reward of farm labor is cnt :
down one-third, as it is by our present sys. :,
tenn OF taxation, then the reward of other u
abor will be iniuriously affected in a cor :,
amount, though it takes time -
Tor the diffusion of the loss throughout the :,
whole system of industry, and it's most =
evils are first felt by the formers. o,
lmpoverish the farmers of this countrv -
nd labor will have then no retreat from .,