Omaha daily bee., 1899-01-29
IMPROVED CONDITION OF woRkINeMri

IMPROVED CONDITION or WORKING EN
The improved condition of working
men in the United States and England
the increase of wages, the decrease in
living expenses and the consequent
higherstandard of lving-within the past
twenty years. Is attested by incontro-
vertible evideI &c. The Improvement
has not been so marked on the con
tinent of Europe as in the countries
named, but there also the condition of
the working classes has been materially
bettered. French official statistics re-
Gently published of wages and the cost
of living show that in fifty years the
rate of earnings has almost doubled.
while money goes farther than it did
in almost every direction except for rent.
The French report shows that. com
pairing 1913 with 1910, there had been
an increase in retail prices, but the in
crease vas less than that of wages.
Rents more than doubled, but rents and
food together advanced but % per cent
and clothing and other necessaries hav-
ing declined the aggregate increase in
the cost Of living was less than % per
cent, while wages had almost doubled.
For our wv country, says the New
York Journal of Commerce, the evil
dences of increased wages or improved
style of living are supplemented by the
remarkable evidence afforded by the
census of 500 of the rapid increase in
the number of persons employed and the
decrease in the employment of child
labor, the last fact being shown by the
labor statistics of the state of New
York for Il later period than the census
year. The inquiries on the continent of
Europe as to improved conditions OF
living show for France, Belgium and
Germany a greater quantity and better
quality of food, more meats consumed
and more wheat and less rye and DO
tatoes.
Referring to these facts the Journal
of Commerce says that Nothing could
more completely refute the socialists in
their attacks on capitalism, the labor
agitators in their denunciaticn of labor
saving machinery and the nvowed and
the disguised cheap money men, than
the improved condition of the working
population in northern and western
Europe and in the United States.' 1t
is especially to be noted that this i'm
provement has taken place in countries
where most of the monetary reforms
have occurred. Thus money wages for
most ,1,p,,, ~ ,,n,I-,,, Il, I,,,,.. t,...
advanced o~ne-quarter since 1874, about
the date of the legislation in the direc-
ton of the single gold standard in Ger
many, the Latin Union and the United
States, since which time all the OPP
ponents of the gold standard have been
claiming that the condition of the work
ing population had been constantly de-
teriorating and as already remarked,
these increased earnings are coincident
with Il decrease in living expenses, so
that the working classes generally have
been enabled to live better and are liv-
ing better than they did fifty or even
twenty-five years ago.
There are persons who take a
pessimistic view of the future of labor.
who apprehend that the constant addi-
tions making to the supply of labor
saving machinery must in time prove
injurious to the working classes, by de-
priving many of work and reducing the
pay of labor. Perhaps this fear is not
entirely ~ill-founded. though certainly
past experience in all civilized countries
does not give warrant for it. On the
contrary this experience justifes eX-
pectation that the condition of the work
ing classes will continue to improve.