“If a workman in Birmingham” says Dr. Young, “receive for fifty-four hours’ labor 30s., or about $8 33 in United States currency, and another, of the same occupation, in Philadelphia earn $12 50, it would be inaccurate to say that the earnings of the latter were 50 per cent. more than those of the former. The question is not what is the United States equivalent of the thirty British shillings, but what is the purchasing power of the wages of the
one workman in England and of the other in the United States? In other words, how much food, clothing, and shelter will the earnings of the one purchase as compared with the other?”
For the solution of this question Dr. Young enters into an elaborate analysis of the price of provisions, clothing, house-rent, etc., in each country. In this we are unable to follow him. But taking the amount paid for board by single men and women employed in mechanical labor in the great cities of both countries, the average price paid by men in Great Britain ranges from $2 50 to $3 50 per week; in the United States, from $4 50 to $5 50. For women, in manufacturing cities in England, from $1 50 to $2 50 per week; in the United States, from $2 50 to $3 50. In the great American manufacturing centre, Philadelphia, the average price of mechanics’ board is, for men, $5 per week; for women, $3. But this does not mean a single room for each; in most cases two, in some three, four, and even five, sleep in the same chamber. British workmen probably eat as much meat as American workmen, but they have not the same variety of dishes. House-rent is cheaper in most English cities even than in Philadelphia, where great and commendable efforts have always been made to provide good and cheap houses for working-men. Clothing Dr. Young estimates at less than half the price in England for the laboring classes compared with the United States; partly from cheaper rates, and partly from the inferior kind British workmen consent to wear—fustian or corduroy being the most common material.
We would wish to follow Dr. Young, if it were possible, into a comparison of the rates of wages
and cost of living in the great iron and steel works on the Tyne, at Essen, Prussia, and in Philadelphia, but our space is already exceeded. The highest wages earned at the works of Fried. Krupp, Essen, which Dr. Young personally visited in 1872, were $1 80 for 11 hours’ piece-work. At the same establishment dinner (meat and vegetables and coffee) and lodging are supplied to unmarried men at $1 18 per week. Bread is an extra charge. Large bakeries are attached to the works.
In the comparison of the general rates of wages and cost of living in Great Britain and the United States, so many and so great diversities exist in both countries that it is a hazardous matter to draw general conclusions. Stated broadly, it would appear that the rate of wages in Great Britain since 1865 has shown a steady tendency to advance, with some fluctuations, while the cost of living is nearly stationary; in the United States, within the same period of ten years, wages have remained stationary or shown a tendency to decline, allowing for the fluctuations caused by a depreciated currency, while the cost of living has increased. The commercial depression existing since 1873 has affected labor in both countries, but more sensibly in the United States. The great falling off in immigration since 1873 is a remarkable and sensitive test of the depreciation of the labor market in the United States and the simultaneous rise of wages in Europe. From the recent report of the New York Emigration Commissioners it appears that there were landed at Castle Garden during 1875 84,560 immigrants, against 140,041 for 1874 and 294,581 for 1873. The falling off has been equally divided among
all nationalities. Nor does this tell the whole story; for the steamship companies show a very large return of laborers to Europe during the past year. It is not intended to convey the impression by these figures that European emigration has finally stayed its course towards these shores, but it is evident that it has received a serious temporary check. It is not the purpose of this paper to investigate what the remedy for this state of things may be. But it may be stated as the conviction of the writer that a mere return to specie payments, though beneficial, will not do all for the country that its advocates claim. Something more will be required—that is, economy, curtailment of expenses, national and individual—before we can reach bottom. Like youth sometimes, we have temporarily outgrown our strength. We have no vast deposits of wealth, the hoardings of centuries, to fall back upon like some European countries. We have always lived right up to our income, and have not yet adjusted ourselves to our sudden plunge into national debt. Hope has all along buoyed us up to over-production and consequent over-expenditure. The supply of labor must equalize itself to the
necessary, not speculative, work to be done before it can be established on a sound basis. Fresh enterprises, promoting renewed inflation and over-production, will lead to another collapse. In the effort to recuperate, and before a new start can be made on a safe road of prosperity (which it is not doubted will be opened again), those who are already poor will suffer the most, as always has been and will be the case. The American working classes will have eventually to abandon most of those habits of personal expense which now seem to them a matter of course, but which European working-men would regard as extravagant, and to approach nearer to the old-country standard of living.
We are not able to follow Dr. Young in his researches into the rate of wages and cost of subsistence in the various countries of continental Europe which he visited. None of them approach so near the American standard as Great Britain. In most of them labor is poorly paid and the working classes live meanly according to our notions, yet contrive, withal, to enjoy a degree of comfort, and even happiness, which to us seems hard to understand under the circumstances.
[27] Labor in Europe and America: A Special Report on the Rates of Wages, the Cost of Subsistence, and the Condition of the Working Classes in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, the other Countries of Europe, and in the United States and British America. By Edward Young, Ph.D., Chief of the United States Bureau of Statistics. 1875.