Furthermore, the comparison between agriculture and industry brings out the fact that skilled labor[79] is paid in the rural districts at nearly the same rate as farm work.[80] The case is perfectly analogous to that of agricultural labor. In many of the households in question there are, besides the artisan, other male members of the family who carry on their farming.[81] In fall and winter the farmer, who is at the same time an artisan, would work for any price. A tailor, e. g., travelling around his village, earns in the fall from 1.50 to 2.50 a week, while boarding with the customer. On the other hand, the maximum in wages is paid to carpenters, whose trade is carried on in the summer, so as to preclude competition on the part of the farmer.[82]
Certainly, the maximum of two rubles, say $2.00, a week, and board, to a skilled carpenter, falls short of the minimum in some civilized countries. It is in this rate of wages that we must seek the reason for the slow development of industry in the rural districts.
Indeed, it is but for a small part of the hands who have been “freed” from farming, that room could be found in local industry:
| Percentage of “horseless.” | Households engaged in industry. | |
|---|---|---|
| Ranenburg | 36 | 9 |
| Dankoff | 34 | 8.5 |
The ranks of the rural proletarians, who had no working horses with which to carry on their farming, grew four times as fast as rural industry, though it might be expected that the latter would have been fostered by low wages. The example of the quarries in the bailiwick Ostrokamenskaya, District of Dankoff, can be used to make the matter plain.
About fifty men are engaged there in breaking stone, and working it into millstones. Some of them work in small partnerships, and sell the stone to middle men; some are in the employ of petty contractors. A rent of 25.00 per head is levied by the owner of the place; the net income of an independent worker is from 75.00 to 100.00 for the summer, which is more than the income in any other trade. The hired workman, however, is paid only from 35.00 to 60.00, the profit of the entrepreneur amounting to 47-66 per cent. in a season. Where the product of a man’s semi-annual labor sells for 125 rubles, no mechanical improvements could make the commodity cheaper. So long as ten per cent. a month can be made by the petty employer, at a practically nominal outlay of money, he will successfully compete with big capitalistic enterprises. Indeed, we see that five men are about the average number of workers employed in any one concern.[83] There are, certainly, a few capitalistic concerns: distilleries, sugar factories, steam flour mills, coal mines. A railway line is crossing the district, and employs some of the peasants. But here, as elsewhere, the proletarian is beaten on the labor market by the farmer.
In distilleries a farmer can be got to work in winter merely for mash, which is used as fodder for his cattle. Money wages naturally oscillate between the very modest limits of 5.00 and 9.00 a month, out of which the workingman must board at his own expense. In sugar factories the wages are between 6 and 8 rubles a month in winter, i. e. between $0.75 and $1.00 a week![84]
It follows from what has been here shown that it is only the farmer who can get along with the rates paid in rural industry. The peasant who is unable to farm could hardly eke out an existence. He has the choice either of becoming a pauper[85] or of leaving his village.