Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-05-04

cents per day, and the girls in the trade
receive from 5 to 25 cents per day
They have 20 per cent extra for night
work and double wages on national hol-
idays. They have one hour off during
the day, but this does not affect the
nine hours of actual work.
| Wages of Steel Workers.
| | wonder how our iron and steel men
would like to labor at the wages paid
here. Take the Bessemer furnace en-
cents day on the average, and their
day is II hours long with one or two
hours rest, which, as is the custom
here, comes on in sections. They have
$50 minutes off at a. m. and another
half hour at 3. There is full hour at
noon, and the LIST and 18th of each
month are considered rest days on
all other days, including Sunday. the
work goes on. This is the custom in
many factories. AS to other iron work
| ers the bar iron heaters get 80 cents.
rollers Of steel rails 80 cents, and iron
vessel men 57.1a cents With some Of
| these workmen bonus equivalent to
| twice a year.
| Japanese mechanics are about as
good workmen as YOU will find any
| where. Every common carpenter is a
cabinet maker, and many of the stone
cutters would pass as sculptors. The
painters have some artistic ability, and
ordinary masons lay walls which would
b. a surprise to our people of that trade
in the United States. | have been do
| Ing some building at my country home
in the Virginia mountains and my con-
| tractors account of the wages paid lies
before me. They are lower than those
of our cities. but still high enough. Ny
carpenters are receiving from 50 to SIS
per day, and my plasterers are paid
81, while the plumbers get IS. Here in
\
6o cents a day, and the best men I'M
der him 40 and so cents. This is for
nine or ten hours work.
These carpenters are fully the equal
| of any we have at home. They do
the work in just the opposite ways from
ours. They pull the plane toward them
instead of pushing it from them, and
they pull the sand saw. Nevertheless
their joints fit and a great part of
their housemaking consists of sliding
walls which move in grooves.
| Bricklayers. equal to those who re-
ceive as much as SIS day in the United
States, are getting 40 cents for nine
hours work here, and this is 10 per cent
more than they got in 1906. Brick ma
sons get 20 cents a day, stonecutters AZ,
and plumbers 81, and that without
helpers. Indeed even an ordinary man
can afford a plumber in Japan.
What Printers Get.
|
what the compositors receive. There
are now dailies in all the towns of any
size, and Osaka has several journals,
each of which has several thousand cir
culation The days work begins at s
a. m. and ends at ) p. m. The wage
+ scale Is from 80 cents to 60 cents, the
average being around As cents.
Coal miners get from % cents to Al
cents. blacksmiths % cents; iron
mouders, % cents, and machinists al
most a dollar. In the shoe factories
from As cents to so cents is paid, all
the work being done by hand, there be-
ing no factories, such as we have, in
Japan.
Ordinary laborers receive from 25 TO
IS cents a day when employed by the
municipality. and farm hands get from
, 10 to 20 cents for 10 hours work. ac-
I cording as they are women or men
Think of wading through the mud OF
v a rice field, with your dress rolled uE
i to your knees planting the rice sprouts
with your bare hands in the filth at !
/ cent per hour, and you have an idea
of one feature of womens work in
, Japan. Among the poorest paid are
the cart men, who drag loads over the
country for a few cents per day.
, What Government Pays.
, Our government pays big wages to
all it's mechanics, and as a rule the
/ eight hour law holds everywhere. The
, Japanese government has more fac
tories than Uncle Sam and it's hours
are much longer. There are altogether
, 1000 government factories, covering a
, variety of industries. In the govern
ment printing office the wages are 1914
cents day for women and from Is tc
! 90 cents for men; in the mint men re-
: ceive 25 cents and in the paper factory
= about 20 cents.
III In the tobacco factories, which the
: government runs as a MONOPOLY. there
are over $4,000 hands, and they gel
! from to IS cents a day. The lower
!. wages are received by the women.
$ The government has wooden mills
Y cannon factories, and military clothing
establishments, where proportionatel!
n low wages are paid. In the wooler
r factory at Senju, for instance, girls are
e paid IL cents and men on the average
g about IS. In the government ship
s building yards the pay is from II to 2
s cents and in the arsenalS of Toxic ant
Osaka. which altogether has abou
q 100000 hands, the WAGES are from l t
/ 8 cents an hour.
g In the steel works at Kure and ii
: the navy arsenal at Sasebo there are
s tens of thousands of men employed VIII
}, get on the average of less than 80 cent
T. a day, and this is for high class labor
g In those yards all kinds of fine stee
e work is done, including the making o
" armor plate for gunboats and tn
n building Of big ships.
s Similar wages are paid in the gov
k eminent railway works scattered her
:. and there over Japan. In the Who'll
e thousand factories there is only on
s where the average wages of the me
are over IS cents a day. and only tire
k where they are over 50 cents. OF tn
: 100000 men and women working 1
e these factories the AVERAGE wage c
:. the men is less than % cents and tina
1t of the women less than II cents pc
:. day for nine or ten hours.
II Pay Of Office Holders.
: The same policy of small wages pre-
Y. vail throughout the government. Th
h emperor himself has a civil list {
" about s1,500,000 a year, and he has re
IT fused to accept more on account {
n the hard times although the peop
n have requested him to do so. His cab
p met ministers are paid much less tina
If ours. The premier receives less tina
l. $4,000 a year and the minister of stat
If $4,000. The chief of the railways is pal
te $500, the governor general of Fol
mosa $4,000, and the resident general
Seoul the same. The foreign ambas
wit FRO