The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-11-16

IedcIl01S Sdh
grand tour" on their own savings.
Scores, perhaps, hundreds, today OF
our bright instructors make the Two
ocean yag for 500 and travel TO
M Paris, the Rhine, perhaps
Berlin and Rome for six or seven or
even ten weeks for $3.50 more. Inc
young European or Iaoorer
home again after two or three years
in America, smartly clothed and flush
in spending money, perhaps back to
be married, is a common subject Tor
n~eighborhood gossip In Europe
whether it relates to the printer IN
Iiyerpool. the miner in WeStphalla,
the cigarmakers in prague, or the
"excavator' in Naples. Such facts,
elusive to the census maker, tell a
story of their own.
The printing trade in all countries
at the highest point in union crgan1-
z%ation, affords a basis for wage com
PARSONS. In New York the union
weekly scale for compositors on
morning newspapers is $31, on book
work, $3.50. In London, the book
scale is 80 shillings (less than $500;
in Paris, the minimum, 50; in Milan,
81 G5.20 lire per day.; in Austria
the towns and cities r divided into
six classes for ~compOsitors' weekly
wages, running respectively $40,
94.oU, pow, &O.OV, 3O.CV, IN @O.AVS AZ
Budapest the minimum scale is $3.50.
The custom of paying the best hands
more than the minimum scale is more
prevalent in European countries than
in America. The briefest mention of
the printing business, with compar-
ison Of wages, requires notice of the
fact that machinery, and that OF the
first order, in the press and composing
rooms, is in more common use in
A ~ o~so0 tho ~ IN m, EN,1ronaor III
try. I was shown through a model
book and job printing office in Lon
don that had no composing machines,
and the Cologne letting, the great
daily newspaper Of Rhenish, Ger
many, has non Seldom are any
seen in the many cooperative estab-
lishments. They are rare in the Of
fees Of Austria, Hungary and Italy.
I am reliably informed that more
type is set in one daily newspaper
office in a week in New York than
in all the printing offices of Naples.
fact is in agreement with the
rule that with high wages in Amer
lea there is often a low cost Of pro-
duction, coming from the education
and energy Of the workers, perfect
ed machinery, and organization IN a
large scale. My facts indicate that
money wages in America in many
trades double those paid abroad. But,
the cost Of living?
Two classes of writer's and talk
ers may be found who assert that
may live in Europe on half what
it costs in America" The first Of
these classes is the employers of
Europe as a body; they are interested
in keeping their workmen with them,
to compete with one another, besides
being actuated by anti-American SEN
hat calls for no more than
here. The other class is
made up Of well-to-do Amer
lean s%ojourners abroad. The latter
find several items in their
own outlay less than in America,
them being personal service,
objects Of luxury, and house rents. AS
relating to themselves and their So
cial classes, their assertions are cor
rect especially as regards city life.
The European working classes, how
ever, neither hire servants nor buy
articles Of luxury in rare cases: The
struggle for a barely decent living is
ever before them. Their necessary
annual budget" comprises plain and
cheap food, which on the average
takes 40 to SIS per cent. of the entire
outlay, quarters in either an indus
trial. or "slum" district, requiring
to thirty-fve per cent. and
ten per cent. or more These |
must be indefinite de-
pending, as they do, upon the size Of
the family ON earnings, and on view
and mentally contemplating the many |
cities I visited, IND having in min
the conversations I had with working
who had lived both in Europe
and America, I believe I may assert
whether the cost of living in
Europe OF America is greater to the
depends entirely on the
Of living he adopts while in
America. II he voluntarily lives the
life Of self-denial in this country that
he compulsorily lived in his native
his outlay in money will remain
about the same. Though even then
will hardly be able to escape gain
ing something from the superior sup