Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-10-24

Il .
ing time Is longer. This fact, IL the rate
, OF pay kept up, would lift the provincial
workman to plane of decided superiori-
ty- But 1t doesn't-it never does. Lon
don always leads the rest of England In
the wages paid to mechanics. By the time
you get to Birmingham the plumber has
dropped from twenty cents an hour to
eighteen cents. At places like Leicester
and Derby the standard rate is down to
sixteen cents, and 1t does not get above
seventeen cents even when you reach the
great manufacturing ceuters which abound
In Lancashire. And here You have an a.
lustration of the best England can do for
those who rank as her best mechanics.
All this we learned at the interview we
were so fortunate as TO enjoy with the off,
eials of the Plumbers union. We also
gathered on that occasion q number of
facts which show how toilsone and lengthy
Is the road which the mechanic has TO
travel In this country In learning his trade
IL Is actually fact that to entitls himself
70 even such mesger wages as those above
quoted the young Aspirsnt must serve from
nve TO seven years as an apprentice. In
some cases this is all done by an informal
agreement between master and man. but
three-fourths of those entering the ranks
are bound to their employer for at least
hve years, we are assured, by regular legal
| ta3easufcss alu N Gases L1eir irieECn
| nave TO put up plump sum ss q premium
for the fne opening thus afforded them.
In return they are paid, IL they work hard
and are duly obedisnt, dollar O week the
hrst year, one and q half week the sec
ond year, and so on, until, when they are
| men, they finish of at three dollars a
week. Then follows that sffiuence of pay,
| II they have learned their trade well and
are 30 fortunate as to get located In Lon
L Anr, ~ -, IA. l.
weekly wage of something below ten dol
lars.
The four men who sat about Us at the
table that night had al climbed up by
the hard stages we have lust sketched
They had all been indentured, and in
each case their friends had paid q pre-
| MUM. One of them sffordsd us q sight
| of the legal papers by which his sppren-
ticeship was effected. He was FIRST in
dentured to plumber In a small town
for four years. In that case his mother
paid one hundred and twenty-five dol
lars. After that he served two years
with another man, the stipulation being
that he should "be taught plumbing as
1t is prsctissd in London" This time he
paid seventy-fve dollars as q premium,
making two hundred dollars In all Dur
| ing his fifth year of work he go. four
teen ehillings a week, and in his sixth
year he made pound q week. And
now, as the happy result of 1t all, he is
raising his family, and following an en-
| ployment which is so inimicsl to health
that the average age limit of those en-
gagged in 1t in big cities is thirty-seven
| years, upon the regular wage of the Lon
don plumber, nine dollars and forty cents
in summer and eight dollars and ninety
cents in winter.
Our excuse for troubling the reader
| with these particulars is that we desire
| in this letter to throw light upon the
lives and struggles of English mechanics
| generally. To do this special instances
must be given. The matter is of such
moment to American workmen, and the
situation we have to portray Is 30 as
founding, that We can hope to carry in
| telligent conviction only by getting down
| to bottom facts, and by showing the re-
| lstion of these facts to the question as a
whole. This is the line which must be
| followed in treating of wages in England,
and for the purposes indicated the facts
| given above conform to every require
ment. The men referred to are not at
| all exceptional amongst plumbers, NOR In
| any respect, saving that they are little
better off than most of them. are plumb
ers exceptional amongst English pnechsn-
les. We have investigated all the stand
ard trades, and have conrersed or cor
gent of the men who follow these trades,
and everywhere we find the same hard
conditions and the came wretched return
for competent workmanship. There is no
form of skilled employment which does
not exact of the lesrner years of hard
work for almost nothing, and in all the
long list of mechanical trades which are
most familiar to the general public, there
is not one which anywhere in England
x-ta d a. - -nlr 81
| thing beyond ten dollars a week.
That is the maximum, and any man
| earning 1t by the use of his hands and
wits over here Is looked upon ss q work
ing class nabob. The vast majority of
mechanics get less; many of them much
less. If any get more they sre foremen
or something of shat kind; though even
in such capacities as these they have lit
tie to be thankful for. Fancy a foreman
plumber. with all the planning to do for
large buildings, in a city where architects
leave everything of this kind to be thought
out by the men who do the work-fsncy
such a man getting only twelve dollars and
a half . week. Yet we have met a man of
| this kind, and he was so convinced of the
rare good fortune which had befallen him,
that he only wished, to use his own words,
"thst all mechanics had as good employ
ers to work for as he had"
To turn for a moment 10 other trades,
we have tables before us which show that
ten dollars q week Is the highest pay In
England'slsrge engine fitting works. This
Is earned only In London, and only by
pattern makers. Others get less than that
even In the metropolis, while the wage
scale goes down 30 rapidly as ons makes
the rounds of provincial communities that
we find many places where engine filters
are working for less than seven dollars q
week, and two places where they get a tn
fe under five dollars A letter before rs
from q prominent member of the Alliance
Cabinet Makers contains the astonishing
statement that "the average wages
throughout London for cabinet makers Is
from five dollars to six dollars and quar-
ter per week and no more" Another
writes Ms regarding painters, saying that
there are about thirty -fve thousand In
London; that the highest wsge paid Is
seventeen cents an hour; that only a few
get this; that in the outlying districts the
rate Is but fifteen cents an hour. and that
painters In London are in such hard lines
that large numbers in winter time have no
resource but to seek shelter with their fam
lilies in the poor house. The writer of
this letter also sends me a wsge scale
which takes In the provinces, from which
1 find that outside of London it is the ex-
ception for painters to get more than four
teen cents an nOur, anu tnst 81 NOrWlcn
and Bedford men are working at this trade
for ten cents an hour.
The wages OF carpenters, bricklsyers,
mssons; plssterers and other skilled work
men have already been given in this cor
respondence. None of them exceed our
ten dollar Q week quotation; few of them
reach 1t and many fall far below. Wheth-
er there are advantages enough In the cost
of living, and in the cheaper rents we
hear so much about. to make up for the
deficiencies in the English wage scale, IL q
point which must be settled by the prscti-
cal results. As regards the necesssries of
life, some of them, as we have shown, are
no cheaper In England than In the United
States. Some are dearer; and although,
when q balance Is struck, the weight of 1t
may be somewhat in the Englishmsu's ia
, vor, yet how little Is this compared to the
immense short comings of his yearly in
come.
That his wages cannot be adequate to
his needs is shown only too painfully by
: couple of facts which Englishmen them
. selves admit, and which many of them
, bitterly deplore. One Ia that the English
| mechanic has to be so generally helped In
{ the struggle for a living by the labor Of his
Z wife. BY those who ought to know, and
: do know, we are assured that this La the
rule in East London, and that the practice
l O.. avan iy, Vast TruIon has