Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-14

IS 75; pullers out, 81 05; cookers, 81 &c; pot
makers, IS 81; cellar lad, 81 SO.
Third-Steel rolling, foreman (4S hours),
$40 "a; rollers CAS- hours), So 75
| For the class of labor indicated, these
sums, at the time the reports were made,
represented the average weekly earnings of
all employed. But both as regarded these,
and the wages given in other branches, the
| question to be determined before any re-
lance could be placed upon them in q
comparison with American wages,
was, whether they represented fairly
the wages obtaining here to-day. Mr..
| Folsom and his intelligent clerk both
thought they did. There may have been q
slight fuctuation up or down in the period
| been any great change, one way or the
other. If either way, the tendency, they
thought, had been upward. Still, to make
sure as to this they would advise me to COIL
| fer with the leading officials of the Feder-
ated Trades Union; and here the pleasant
fact transpired-akin to many that L am
constantly discovering in England-that
several prominent labor representatives had
gained places recently in the Sheffield Town
Council These were men who at every
election were on the platform in behalf of
labor from the opening of the fight till the
last ballot was counted. They knew all the
ways accessible on the subject, and I could
|. take my choice as to which would honor
with a call
Trades-Unionism In England.
The gentleman I visited was Mr.. Charles
Hobson, who is not only Town Councillor,
but has served for FIVE or six years as Presi-
Gkb, Hol1 -
ganization in which 55 trades are embraced,
and with a paying membership of about
$4,000. To find these English toilers hang
ing together as they do, SO compactly and
in such great masses, for the protection Of
their own interests is one of the most
gratifying revelations which my trip abroad
has thus far afforded. When, too, I find
men of the stamp of Mr.. Hobson-self-
educated, intelligent, gentlemanly, self
acrifcing-willing to manage these organ
izations without cent of pay, and while
they stand at the forefront of the battle for
others, still earning their own bread by
daily toll, fell as though I had been let
into the secret of this phenomenal move
ment.
In replying to my inquiries, Mr.. Hobson
thought that trades unionism had certainly
accomplished something in Sheffield within
recent years, both as regarded hours of en-
ployment and the rate of gay. Still, in
looking over the figures above given, es-
pecially those relating to the iron and steel
trade, he could not help saying, in all
candor, that, with the qualifying remark in
my letter that the earnings given would
probably in some cases be a little lower
than those actually paid at the present
time, the list could be consistently pub
lished in the American press, and might be
properly used, with slight notifications,
in any comparison which might be desired
with the wages of similar workmen in the
United States.
Seeking Comparison With Homestead.
So far so good, but upon the one pressing
matter which I had gone to Sheffield
specially to investigate, this gentleman, un-
fortunately, was not able to enlighten me.
1 had carried with me newspaper clipping
giving q catalogue of 81 different occupa-
tions in which men had been engaged at
Homestead, with the amount of wages
which it was estimated would fall to the lot
of these different workmen under the new
scale offered them, and that which wanted
were earning per day in Sheffield at the
present time. This, Mr.. Hobson said, he
could not tell, and the employers having
previously averred that they would not af-
ford this information, the prospect looked
bad.
But got it approximately, and my kind
informant was Mr. j. Freeborough, local
Secretary of the Friendly Society of Iron
Workers, whose name, as one likely to be
familiar with such matters, had been given
me by the General Secretary of the same So
ciety in London. Mr.. Peterborough had
been allowed "a hours in reflection and in
quiry. Hence he did not speak at random
nor in haste. The names 1 read out to him
were different in some cases, he said, from
those in use over here, but he knew the
kind of work involved, and from long
practical acquaintance in mills and furnaces
he could estimate within trife what each
mans wages would be.
Avery Instructive Table.
Speaking generally the men worked by
the turn, he said. and day turn lasted from
6 to B. In changing English money into
American I have counted an English pound
to be worth So, and as this is more than its
real value the Englishman has that much
advantage over the American in the follow
ing table:
Minimum Wages
per day ut Home