The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-09-25
LOCAL W AGES.

Tn arrival of many miners from variety Of camps having finished work tor the summer. is suggestive Of the fact thot from now on until Spring these will have no work to do if they remain in the country.
 Any question of local wages in- wolves also the matter Of local con ditions. Tae man who he-c gets five dollars q day and beard has only a short season in which tc work, and if he rcmairc il in the camp will consume the rest of the year in eating up -hc bal2nce which he hes been able to save.
 Hence in order to live here the standard as paid is getting lower and lower c2ch year by virtue of the fact that the purcAoa' ag powci ot the dollar hes diminished more than fifty per cent in the meanwhile.
 Seven wars age the same identical wages has been paid as is paid now The price Cf groceries has gone up more than fifty per cent. The price Cf coal has ricon from eighteen to twenty-five dollars ton. Clothing is dearer. shoes are dearer. rubber goods are dearer. Wages are still the same.
 Now it is evident that therc must be some men retained in this camp, The ditches have to be got ready in the spring; dredges have to be worked and repaired; alterations of one sort of another effected and if the mining operators wait until the opening of navigation they lose so much of the 1hCrt season that the loss is very serious.
 There is no mining camp in the country where relatively less w@gcs is paid than in Alaska is the gen eral rule They arc low wages in Juneau where work is all the year round, they are low in Fairbanks, they are LOW III -NOHlC,
 The contention is made in favor of Nome that the ground is low grade. But it is evident that this is merely a makeshift argument be- cause the richest Comp&CiCs pay no more than those which are poorest and whether there are three cent pans or one hundred dollar pans, the working man farc5 TO better.
 The fac. is also to he remember ed that the accommodations pro- vided by even the best of the mining companics. and certainly by the rich est of the mining companies are such as would not be offered to railroad construction workers in the most cphemer@l camp of that type. Even companies which have bunkhOuscs established with some degree of per mancnce fail to provide accomoda- tions compatible with human dcce1cy There are no wash rooms, there is no drying room, there IS nothing but nigger heavened bunkhouscs whore the steam and cXhalation from drying clothes and sweating men stinks in a most intolerable way.
 Most of the comps are constructed on the principle that anything is good enough for the working man and indeed anything is good enough for men who will tolerate such a ,oathsome condition without pro test.
 The arguments used to account for the inferior food that is pro- duccd for the benefit of the miners are of a piece with the arguments used in the wages and general con ditions. Freighting costs. difficult ties in transportation and SO fortf arc asked to condone the miserable food that is placed before the men
 But just as the richest camps pay only the same rate of pay as the lowest grade, so even camps which have to pay the lowest freightine costs very often provide grub of tho slumgullion sort which often sicken: instead of nourishes the men who eat it.
 Sometimes the blame for this condition is laid upon the cook who usually has graduated to the ex tent of boiling water with some sue cess when he styles himself a null igan artist. But the fact remains