Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-19
But Prices of Foodstuffs Also
Have Increased, According
to StatisticianS.
EXPERT OPINION DIFFERS
AS TO RELATION OF TWO
Women, Far More Than Men, Have
Been Gamers in the I'm
skilled Trades.
Correspondence of the Associated Press.

Correspondence Of the Associated Press.
| BERLIN, October Tabor statis-
ticians. who have been watching the
situation closely and critically as the
| months of war have passed, agree with
a fair degree of unanimity on the gen.
eral effect of the conflict on wages. but
disagree to some extent on the rela-
ton between the wages paid today and
| the cost of living-as to whether the
workingman's pay has increased as
fast as prices of foodstuffs have.
They agree that the men in the war
materials trades, and the women, for
that matter, today are receiving so, 20
and even 100 per cent more than they
ever did before. In most cases the ad-
vance is nearer, to 100 per cent than so
or 20 because there is no limit to the
amount of work to do. there is I'M
limited opportunity for overtime work,
wages are higher than usual and help
In other skilled trades that supply
ordinary needs--the printing and car
penter trades, for instance-the advance,
it is agreed, is neither so great nor so
even. The printer is making from to
. marks a day more than he used to;
the carpenters gain depends on how
much work he has the strength or the
inclination to do; the brewer is getting
leather worker. like the carpenter. can
be gagged only by his capacity.
Benefits Are Variable.
The benefits accruing to the I'M
skilled workers simply cannot be esti-
mated because they are SO variable and
so dependent upon employers gener-
osity, chance circumstances and the
like. The authorities are agreed that
these workers have been less benefited
than any others. but find it impossible
to determine the degree of benefit.
Alvin Koersten, secretary of the CEN
trail employment bureau of the Berlin
trades, who might be termed walking
statistical office, and who is constantly
in close touch with workers of all
kinds, is positive that living costs have
advanced faster than wages, and that
the war materials" workers are the
only ones who have kept up. He is
convinced that food prices have risen
from so to 100 per cent, or faster than
of those branches of skilled labor not
engaged in making war materials.
Though far from being pessimist, his
inclination is to look at the matter
from the standpoint of the many who
have had a minimum of gain out of
higher wages.
Max Steffen, head of the huge en-
ployment agency for unskilled work
men, even less than Mr.. koersten be-
lieves that prices have outstripped
wages. chiefly because he is in closest
touch with the great mass of men and
women on whom the effect of the war
has been more to give them work than
to raise the wages they had been get
ting. He has seen most of the thou
sands who drift into his enormous es-
adjustment placed where they can
earn a livelihood more readily than
ever before. but he also has heard
from countless. lips the story of the
difficulty of making both ends meet
His own experiences with the cost of
living has made him loath to believe
eft for the worker who stays at home