Evening star., 1903-08-22

Volga cheap jewelry is made. Fifty vii
lagos make specially of it. They manu-
facture earrings. bracelets, lockets and
rings and gild them. They make copper
and brass jewelry and ship it to Asia. The
product is enormous.
There are many thousands engaged on
icons, the pictures of saints cut out of
metal and painted. which are found in every
Russian home. They sell for from few
cents to many dollars, and are exported to
all countries where the Greek Church has a
fCOthOld. There are some engaged in print
ing, others color Autographs and many
make boxes of papier mache and enamel
them. There is one town where old-fash-
ioned wall clocks are turned out and an
other where they make little looking
glasses so cheaply that 1000 can be sold at
wholesale for $40 and still leave the manu-
facturers profit of about 81. In the same
villages more expensive wares are pro-
duced. including costly pier and mantel
glasses. But / might fill this paper with
the different articles made in these home
associations. They embrace everything
used in Russia. from textiles to machinery,
and the cheapness of manufacture must be
taken into consideration by the Americans
who are pushing the commercial invasion.
Low Profits the Rule.
Goods are sold so low that the profits are
small. 1t is chiefly a question of raw ma
terial. the labor cost being little In some
of the associations men. women and chill
dren work from daylight to dark. and If
each makes a few cents day he is salts
fed. Take the lock makers There are
thousands of them. and in Tula alone the
locks sold bring in $4 100000 a year. Some
SO cheap that they sell for Is cents a
dozen. and others SO dear that they are
each worth 81 so. The latter are door locks
which ring a bell when you turn them. Men
engaged In lock making average less than
81 week. and If one can net $50 In win
ter he does extraordinarily well. Saddlers
make about the same and weavers much
less
Along the Volga there are thousands of
women who weave fishing nets, using a
million pounds of hemp and other raw ma
terial every year. They labor on the farms
in the summer and do this work in the win
ter. Their average earnings are about 10
cents per day while the children who help
them are glad to get 8. or cents.
In the Big Factories.
Within the past generation a great num-
Der of big factories have been established
In Russia The millions who are working
in their homes are to large extent skilled
laborers. and 1t takes but little time to
teach them to handle machinery. The re-
suit is there is an abundance of cheap
labor and all the industrial centers are
growing. st. Petersburg has become a
manufacturing city, and it has iron works
of all kinds. Warsaw has now about three
quarters of a million people, who are large
ly engaged in textile industries, and LodZ.
a great cotton town of western Russia, is
nowgrowing faster than any town in the
United States 1t was village only few
years ago. 1t had about hundred thou
sand population in 1880, and now it has
more than three times that many. 1t
makes goods for shipment to all parts of
Russia and to Siberia, China, Turkestan
and Persia.
Russia has now great linen and woolen
mills If has in IT'S textile ia oil
gether more than six million spindles and
something like one hundred and fifty thou
sand looms employing more than three
hundred thousand hands. There are sixty
thousand engaged in dyeing, bleaching and
printing and almost three-quarters of
million employed on textiles alone.
There are half a million Russians en-
ployed in mining and smelling and fully
that number in making food stufYs. There
are three hundred thousand men in the
iron works and thousands at work in the
Oil fields
Foreign Factories in Russia.
Within the past few years the English
French. Germans and Americans have been
establishing factories in Russia to avoid
the tariff and to take advantage of Rus
sian cheap labor. The country is open to
foreign capital. and many of the foreign
establishments are making money. have
spoken OF the Westinghouse air brakes works
and those or the New York Air Brakes
Company. The Westinghouse company
has electrical works in south Russia and
others of our manufacturers will likely es-
tablish plants on account of the present
discrimination against the United States
which can be avoided by making the goods
here. I am told that American capital win
be welcomed and that it will have every
advantage possessed by the natives.
Working for Two Cents an Hour.
The wages in the Russian factories are
2 cents an hour and upwards There are
thousands who work for cent an hour and
tens of thousands who do not receive 30
cents a day for ten. eleven and more hours
work. have before me some figures given
by the order of Mr.. Witte the Russian
minister of finance. They state that In the
two great industrial provinces of Vladimir
and Moscow the men on the average earn
from $3.50 to s. month. This would be
81 a week or SO cents day Women get
Us a month or about 81 so per week and
boys of sixteen 81 month or less than is
cents a day. while children are paid as
low as Sc month or SO cents a week. about
8 cents day. In general it is reckoned
that the wages of a woman should be two
thirds, those of a girl or boy OF sixteen or
seventeen one-half and those OF a child
one-thir the wages of man.
This Is in central Russia. The wages are
q little higher In st. Petersburg and in the