White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1911-06-04
OUR LABOR BEST
PAID IN WORLD
SOME COMPARISONS OF WAGES
AND COSTS OF LIVING THAT
REFLECT FAXORABLY UPON
THE UNITED STATES.

If the average wayfaring mar were
told that labor in the United States
is paid 100 per cent more for Its
work than in Great Britain, he would
probably put down his informant
as a liar, and a designing partisan
and politician to boot.
1t is to be admitted that living is
high, and that the cost of necessities
has increased more than wages have.
To some extent hat is also true
abroad. But taking high prices in
to account on both sides of the pond
and also having carefully investigat-
ed wages in all parts of England and
Wales. and in representative Ameri-
can cities, the deliberate Judgment
not of a biased American-but of no
less an individual than the assistant
secretary of the London Board of
Trade that IAN English w~orkingman
with an average family, maintained
under American conditions with the
food to which he has been accustom-
ed, would find his wages in the Unit
ed States higher by 100 per cent,
with slightly shorter hours, while
his expenditure for food and rent
would be higher by So per cent"
That isn't saying conditions here
at home are ideal, or hat things are
as they should be by any means. But
ii suggests a feature of the Ease now
before congress that ought not to be
lost on folks who see nothing in a
protective tariff but a means to in
crease the eost of living.
1t is doubtful If such a comment
ever before came from such an I'M
biased source. The report, which Is
in great detail and compares the
wages paid in occupation after oc-
cuation, must have created something
of a sensation in England for it leads
the London Times to make the fol-
lowing startling admission:
THE broad upshot of the reports
dealing with European countries. in
Guiding our own has been t o show
that in regard to the conditions in
y~estigated, the artisan of this coun-
try has in a varying degree, the adj
vantage over his fellows in Germany,
France and Belgium. He earns some
what higher wages, works some
what shorter hours, and pays some
what less for the necessities of life.
Without going into qualifying details
or minor distinctions. we may accept
that as the broad result. But when
we come to the United States, the
picture is turned almost completely
around. From the abstract which we
publish the reader will see that the
workmen in America enjoys an enor-
HlOuo duNdllldht oNti his ltIlON III
England. and an advantage far great
err than the latter enjoys over the
German or the Frenchman. He earns
more than two and one-quarter times
as much money and works shorter
hours for it: so that his hourly rate
of earnings is as 240 to 100, or pretty
nearly twice and one-half as much.
Against the enormous difference in
wages there Is something to be said
in the way of expenditure. Rent is
twice as high and food is about one
third higher than in England, but the
cost of living altogether is only 1852
to 100, or about half as much again.
Now, these facts completely dis
pose of two wildly current miseon-
eeptions or misstatements. One is
that the higher wages admittedly
paid in America are swallowed up
and more by the higher cost of living,
which Is believed to surpass the stan
dard of this country in regard to the
necessities of life by an enormous
amount, and to constitute an intoler-
able burden. The present report ex-
plicitly states the contrary, at the
conclusion of a long, elaborate, and
extremely careful comparison of the
two countries. In the United States
II says a much greater margin of
earnings owe cost of living is avail
able, even when allowance has been
made for the increased expenditure
on food or rent. The margin is clear
ly larger, making possible a COM
mand of the necessities and convent
ences and minor Injuries of life that
Is both monthly and really greater
than that anioved nv the porrpSnond-