Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-09-27
NEW HAVEN. CONN. TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 81 1892

down its employees to less than the stand
ard rate of wages. But both these of
fences are alleged against the government
| of Great Britain. and, if what was said
and done at the Trades Congress, and what
is constantly being said by workmen out
| side, be at all worthy of credence, the
charge is amply sustained. At a public
| meeting recently 1t was declared that the
late government bought paper from facto
ries on the continent, and in the Trades
Congress it was charged that pencils used
| in the postal and other branches of the
civil service came from Bavaria. Mis-:
Hicks, representing the London tailoresses
said that in the East-end government tail.
oring work was given out to mschinisi
who paid girls from two to four pence
(four to eight cents) for making coat.
By Mr.. Ashcroft, of Nottingham, it was
alleged that the military pads made for the
war Office were allotted to aub-contractors
in Nottingham and Leicester, and that the
men making them were paid five to ten
per cent. less than trade union rates. The
fact that in London the government pays
less than the standard wage to men en-
gagged at its great arsenals and dockyards
is adverted to almost daily by the London
papers, and it was only to be expected that
uPoh thOc0 ouO hkuulCu kAlONduSCs tuC
British workman should loudly express
himself by resolutions and otherwise at
the meeting just held in Glasgow.
To estimate correctly what ground there
Is for complaints made by the workingmen
of this country in regard to the wages
they receive, it is not enough to look mere
ly at the wage scale itself, but one must
also glance at the prevailing price of the
necesssries of life. The poorest must have
clothing, and we cheerfully admit that in
this department the British workman can
lay out the little money he gets to good
advantage. Both in ladies' and in mems
attire, prices-especially when one wants
something nice and good-range consider
ably lower, as a rule, than in the United
States; though even here the difference is
not nearly great enough to atone for the
lower average of wages To make the lat
ter condition possible clothing would have
to cost fully one-balf less than in Ameri-
ca, which, for such goods and making as
workingmen put up with, it certainly does
not at present.
In regard to rents the constant COM
plant We hear in London is that they are
high, and this complaint we are COM
PEELED to indorse. Such rents as workmen
have to pay would not be high if wages
were what they are in the United States,
or if the workman's income were anything
approaching what it is on our side. But
they are surely high when expenditures
are compared with receipts. Mr.. Cooke.
editor of the Post, says that the ordinary
run of postal employees, whose wages will
average less than ten dollars week, will
be paying in London from two dollars to
two dollars and half week for three
rooms. Mr. Il. R. Taylor, of the London
trades council, says that bricklayers, whose
income for full time does not exceed nine
dollars and seventy-five cents a week, will
have to pay from one dollar and seventy
five cents to two dollars for three rooms.
Mr.. Z. A. Atkins, secretary of the united
committee of carpenters and joiners, puts
it at the same figures for three rooms.
From the Shop-Assistants union we get
similar figures. Mr.. Quelch, of the Dock
ers union, declares that houses of four
rooms and kitchen in the east and south
east of London bring about two dollars
and seventy five cents week. In the
southwestern part of the city, four miles
from Charing Cross, we know a work
mans street with about sixty houses in
it, all built on the came pattern, with
four rooms only, the rent averaging two
dollars a week, and all being occupied by
men whose wages .as laborers, mechanics
or clerks will range, when full time is
put in, from seven dollars and halt
week to ten dollars. In provincial towns
rents, of course, are lower; but 30 also are
wages lower in these smaller places. Take
Sheffield, for instance, where cutters, many
of them, are earning less than seven dol
lars for full week, and carpenters seven
dollars and ninety-two cents against nine
dollars or more in London, and, what ad
vantage have such people at the weeks
end, even though they pay but one dollar
AID quarter or q dollar and half for
houses which would cost here two dollars
or two dollars and seventy-fve cents.
All kinds of good meat, not excepting
the best brand of bacon, costs more to the
retail buyer in England than in the great
middle and middle-west of the United
States. For our own table we pay thirty
cents for beef steak, and from twenty to
twenty-five cents for joints of either beef
or mutton. OF course the workman can
get an inferior quality for fourteen or six
teen cents pound, but numerous repre-
sentatives of this class have assured me
that they never go below eighteen cents in
buying, because, beneath that, they have
no assurance of quality, and for them
selves, as they say, ''they prefer little
that is good to more that might not be
good"
Flour is quoted to day in retail stores at
twenty-one shillings and six pence per half
sack of one hundred and forty pounds.
An American barrel has in it one hundred
and ninety six pounds, and that quantity
at the rate quoted would cost seven dollars
and half. This is for what is called best
whites. For the best American -four the
quotation is thirtynine shillings per sack
to the consumer, the sack having in 1t two
hundred and eighty pounds. Given the
American barrel of one hundred and nine
ty-six pounds the price would be six dol
lars and eighty cents. Now, with Ameri-
can -four at six dollars and eighty cents a
barrel and English -four at seven dollars
and a half a barrel, and that just after
harvest, where is the advantage of the
Englishmau over the American ss regards
the staple ingredient OF what is called
the staff of life? Bread costs in London
to-day twelve and thirteen cents quar-
tern loaf, which loaf is supposed to con-
tain a quarter of gallon of flour. In
the provinces the came eized loaf will
sell usually at ten cents, but never less,
or hardly ever, and we have been partic-
ular to give the price or bread as we'll
as -four because the English people in
cline more than we do to patronize the
trim, clean looking bakeries which abound
in their midst.
Within a stones cast of where we are
writing are branch Offices of half doz-
en- of London's leading coal dealers. We
have watched their quotations for weeks.
The lowest we have ever seen has been
for cobbles, or kitchen coal, at four dol
lars and a quarter q ton, and the scales
have invariably ranged from four dollars
and quarter or four dollars and a half
for the poorest up to six dollars or six dol
lars and a quarter for the best quality.
All this is for soft coal, and to those who
have to buy it by the hundred weight the
price would be higher rather than lower.
In the south of England these same Goals
sell at a still sleeper rate, but in the north
and nearer to the collieries the rate is, of
course, somewhat lower.
Sugar ranges uniformly from three TO
| five cents pound. For coffee we pay
| tea is cheaper. The best is quoted at
| seventy-fve centsa pound, which is about
what Americans pay for the best, but
/ you can get fairly good article here fol-
half that price. Good butter We find to
| cost in London about what 1t does In
| American cities, from twenty nine TO thir
| ty-four cents a pound.
| Having now cited the principal items Of
| weekly expenditure in every well regula
ted family, and having shown that in ref
erence to several of these the advantag'
rests with America as against England, WI
leave the reader to his own opinion upol
this subject. Perhaps he will be assistet
to just conclusions by the following tabl'
illustrating the difference in the wsg
scales of the two countries, It is mad
up from figures afforded in the last annus