Omaha daily bee., 1902-08-23
SURVEY AMERICAN LABOR
British Trade Commission Probes Conditions
in Iron and Steel Industries.
DEVELOPMENT DUE TO PERSISTENCE
American workman Aspires to
Higher Grades of Labor and H.
Better Paid Than Briton
worker.
(From a Stan Correspondents

Labor conditions in the iron and steel in
dustries Of the United States, in contrast
with those in the United Kingdom and Eu-
ropean countries generally, are discussed
at great length by the commission appointed
by the British Iron Trade association,
which recently visited the United States and
thoroughly studied its great iron and steel
manufacturing establishments.
This commission consisted OF J. S. Jeans,
whose name is already we'll known to the
people Of the United States as an authority
upon these subjects; Axel Sahlin, an expert
in blast furnace work; Ebenezer Parkes,
whose special study was sheet and bar-mln
practice, and Enoc James. who gave special
attention to the steel industry. while Mr..
Jeans special work was to report upon the
general economic and industrial conditions.
The report OF this commission. according
to some extracts which have reached the
treasury bureau of statistics. points out
that In the United States the iron and steel
industries are face to face with conditions
that make both the dearest and cheapest
labor at present to be found in the world
the dearest in point Of nominal remunera-
tion and the cheapest in industrial and eco
nomic results.
The workmen at American mills says
Mr.. James in his share of the report. ARE
generally supposed 10 ne working muCn
harder than they do in this country ENG
land). but this is not my own view. After
much conversation with many men in vari-
Gus branches who had been employed in
similar works in England, and some of
them subject to my own control, the con-
clusion l have arrived at is that the
American workmen do not work SO hard
as the men in England. They have to be
attentive in guiding operations and quick
in manipulating levers and similarly easy
work. They are also much more DESTROYS
OF getting out larger quantities than in
England. They are better paid and more
regular in their attendance at the works.
loss Of time through drinking habits or
otherwise not being tolerated"
Anne lean Ambitious.
Mr.. sahlin in his section Of the report
says that the American workman generally
aspires to the higher grades Of labor, leav-
Ing the purely manual labor to workmen
from othor countries. Thus II is" he says,
that around American blast furnaces the
American is found in a very decided minor
ity. He may be a foreman, master me-
chanlc, blast engineer, locomotive driver or
stove tender, but he will not work eighty
four hours per week shoveling ore or wheel
ing scrap. Fer these duties are employed IL
the south the negroes and at the northern
furnaces immigrants, mostly Irish, slavs or
Italians"
On this question Of higher grade work and
higher grade wages Of American workmen
attention is called to the fact that in GER
tain works Polish and Hungarian laborers
were receiving 81 to $3.50 per day, while
American rollers working alongside of them
were receiving on the average $12 per day
OF eight hours.
The report quotes Mr.. Carnegie as stat
ing recently that the ~averake}wages Of men
In his employment at Homestead was SO per
day, or an average of e1S7 per annum,
against an average Of e6S per annum as
the earnings Of iron and steel workers In
Lancashire and G79 per annum received by
the steel rollers in South Wales. On the
question Of cost Of living Mr.. Jeans de-
clares, as the result Of his inquiries, that
"the average American workman. In most
Of the essentials of life, can live, mutatis
mutandis, as cheaply as he can in the old
country"
Human Factor Paramount.
THE Importance Of the human factor"
says the London Statist in summarizing
this report, sis fully realized by all the
members of the commission. 1t Is all very
we'll to admire American plants, the in
genuity Of machine tools, the devices for
saving labor and so forth. But, as Mr..
Sahlin remarks in his special report, 1t is
not the guns which win the battles, but the
men who stand behind them What the
American admires and honors is the ability
to do; that capacity in a man, through his
own sagacity, nerve, enterprise and skill to
create and employ a fortune. Nobody is
above his work. Everybody works, and for
the sake Of work, and thus has been pro-
duced in America within a generation an
Industrial potentiality more wonderful and
more to be feared than all the factories and
machinery and plants that these workers
have created.
at comes to this, then. that American
labor is not more e~ficient, though 1t Is
better paid, than ours, and that American
manufacturing development is due to the
persistent. unresting industry which once
characterized the Briton. but for which
trade unionism and athletics have given an
apparently growing distaste.
"All the reporters, however, seem struck
with the strenuousness OF American life
The comparative absence of a leisured class
is noted as one of the prominent char
Acteristics of the principal cities and in.
dustrial centers of the United States. II
the avenue Of industry a man without 9
regular business, or who is not concerned
in the development Of som industry. is as
q hsh out Of water. Nowhere, we are
assured. is the struggling youth more kindly
encouraged, more generously aided ant
more readily trusted than in America, ant
1t is pleasant to read Of an esprit du corp
among works managers which one would
hardly expect to find in a land Of such
feverish competition"
ENDS LEE BY STANDARDIZATION