Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-10-18

Says j. Ellis Barker, the English
economist, now visiting this country:
The average wage of all wage
earners for full employment in the
cotton trade In England is $3.50 a
week. In the WOODEN trade it is the
same. In the worsted trade it is
$3.50. In the clothing trade it is less
than So. These are scarcely living
wages. II one compares American
and British censuses it appears that
mill work in America two are so EN-.
ployed in free trade England. Free
trade means not only sweating on
the largest scale but female labor.
1t drives the women into the fac
tories and the men out Of England.
Agricultural laborers receive in
Great Britain from 81 in Ireland to
$3.50 or $4.75 a week in England, and,
mind you, these atrociously low wages
include the full value of all payments
made in kind, such as food, fuel, hous.
ing and so on. AS many farm laborers
cannot work when the weather Is bad
and don't get paid in that event, the
sums they draw are really even less
than appears Thus free trade causes
mutual sweating in England.
American admirers OF free trade
will tell you that Great Britain owes
her enormous foreign trade to free
trade; but her principal exports are
OF goods that are made by underpaid
labor. These are textiles, and amount
to more than $500, 900, 900 q year, but
the average wage in British textile
trades is less than "a week for all
workers in full employment. The
real wage is much lower because OF
the great amount Of pioyment
and OF short time.
Then these American admirers oil
free trade tell us much about the
cheapness Of British wooden clothes,
but they omit to tell us that these
beautifully cheap clothes are made by
beautifully sweated labor and largely
not from honest wool at all, but from
rags, some Of which may have formed
part of clothes these same Americans
have discarded.
During the last fifty years the
consumption of wool in England has |
doubled. while that Of shoddy has
grown skiold. Free trade England
has the proud distinction Of being
the largest importer Of rags in the
world, bringing in an average year
Of $4,000 tons OF WOODEN rags. and. /
cur1ously enough, the bulk Of these
comes from the greatest protection
the United States, Ger
many and France. Golden prophe-
sled that England would always re-
main the workshop of the world.
Free trade has made her the rag
shop OF the world. and the rag pick
srs Of the universe rake over dust
heaps for rags to send to free trade |
Britain to be manufactured into
cheap clothes.
Then there Is jam. America con-
sumes q great quantity of jam and
and American free trad
ers say the United States cannot pro- I
luce jam and marmalade BECAUSE
sugar is dearer in the United States
han in Great Britain. The principal
Ingredient and the most expensive in
am, AZ every manufacturer knows. is
lot sugar but labor. British jam is
made principally by women and girls.
Who are paid anything from 81 to
$50 a week. The report of the Poor
law commission for 1909 said that
the aggregation of population into
Urban centers often provides a large
AMOUNT Of labor. chiefly women and
children. willing to take few weeks
If months Of employment, and type
II such employment is the jam max
ng. which thrives on the abundant
cheap labor of east and south London.
II think America owes it's indus
rial greatness largely to it's pro-
.h, ,o+,.,os r,;o.a, So,