With regard to sobriety, it is well known that local option succeeds in closing the liquor saloons in very many operative American towns, and with the happiest results. The county of Barnstaple in Massachusetts, for example, with a population of 32,000 souls, and having no licensed liquor saloons, yields a crop of only three convictions per annum for drunkenness. The county of Suffolk, on the other hand, with a population of nearly 400,000, and a license for every 175 of its inhabitants, acknowledges one drunkard for every 50 of its population. The labor in one case is nearly all native; in the other, largely foreign.

It is almost, if not quite, impossible to obtain the statistics of pauperism in America. The "indoor" poor, as paupers in almshouses are called, can be found and counted with comparative ease, but how can the outdoor paupers be found? It is no use inquiring for them from door to door, and the poor-master's disbursements are so limited in amount that his bills for pauper relief become mixed up with other items, so that they cannot be separately stated. The total number of paupers resident in American almshouses is 67,000, or about one in every 70,000 of the whole population. In England, we have still one pauper in every fifty thousand of the population. Such being the more important aspects of native American labor, as displayed by the statistician, it is time for the social observer to give his account of a typical American artisan's home.

We are at Ansonia, in the Naugatuck valley, one of the chief towns of "Clockland," where, within a radius of twenty miles, watches and clocks are made by millions and sold for a few shillings apiece. Our friend Mr. S. is an Ansonia mechanic who occupies a house with a basement of cut stone and a tasteful superstructure of wood, having a wide veranda, kitchen, parlor, and bed-room on the ground floor and three bedrooms above. The house is painted white, adorned with green jalousies, and surrounded by a well-tilled quarter acre lot. Its windows are aglow with geraniums, and from its veranda we glance upward to the wooded slopes of the Green Mountain range, and downward to the River Naugatuck, whose blue mill-ponds look like tiny Highland lakes surrounded by great factories. Within, a pleasant sitting-room is furnished with all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life, the tables are strewn with books, and the walls decorated with pretty photographs. Mr. S.'s wife and daughter are educated and agreeable women, who entertain us, during an hour's call, with intelligent conversation, which, turning for the most part on the events of the War of Independence, is characterized by ample historical knowledge, a logical habit of mind, and a remarkable readiness to welcome new ideas. No refreshments are offered us, for no one eats between meals, and, in private houses, as in the public refreshment rooms, where native labor usually takes its meals, nothing stronger than water is ever drunk. Such are the homes of men whom I would distinguish as "American" artisans, and such, also, are those of many foreign workmen who have been long under native influence.

It is not in the valleys of Massachusetts, however, that the greatest manufacturing cities of the Union are to be found, the towns already referred to containing usually only a few thousand inhabitants, and being still, for the most part, rural in their surroundings. They are, indeed, the fastnesses, so to speak, to which the Yankee artisan has retired, after having been almost literally swept out of the great manufacturing cities by successive waves of emigrant labor, chiefly of Irish and French-Canadian nationality. To these great cities we must now turn for examples of a condition of operative society which contrasts most unfavorably with that which has already been sketched; it being, meanwhile, understood that a penumbral region, of more or less mixed conditions, graduates the brightness of the one into the darkness of the other picture.

The city of Lowell, whose brilliant past is so well known, exemplifies, on that very account, better than any other manufacturing town in the States, the character of recent alterations in American labor conditions. The mill-hands, formerly such as I have described them, have been almost entirely replaced by Canadians and Irish, who have given a new character and aspect to the Lowell of forty years ago. "Little Canada," as the quarter inhabited by the former people is called, exhibits a congeries of narrow, unpaved lanes, lined with rickety wooden houses, which elbow one another closely, and possess neither gardens nor yards. They are let out in flats, and are crowded to overflowing with a dense population of lodgers. Peeps into their interiors reveal dirty, poorly furnished rooms, and large families, pigging squalidly together at meal times, while unkempt men and slatternly women lean from open windows, and scold in French, or chatter with crowds of ragged and bare-legged children, playing in the gutters.

The Irish portion of the town has wider streets, and houses less crowded than those of "Little Canada," but is, altogether, of scarcely better aspect. Slatternly women gossip in groups about the doorways. Tawdrily dressed girls saunter along the sidewalks, or loll from the window-sills. Knots of shirt-sleeved men congregate about the frequent liquor-saloons, talking loudly and volubly. No signs of poverty are apparent, but everything wears an aspect of prosperous ignorance, satisfied to eat, drink, and idle away the hours not given to work. Such is the general aspect of operative Lowell to-day; but some of the old well-conducted boarding-houses remain, sheltering worthy sons and daughters of toil. Similarly, the outskirts of the city are adorned with many pretty white houses, where typical American families are growing up amid wholesome moral and physical surroundings, and enjoying all the advantages of schools, churches, libraries, and free institutions which the Great Republic puts everywhere, with lavish profuseness, at the service even of its least promising populations.

Concerning the Lowell mill-hands of to-day, I prefer, before my own observations, to quote from an article entitled "Early Factory Labor in New England," written by a lady, herself one of the early mill-girls, and published in the "Massachusetts Labor Bureau Keport for 1883." She says:

"Last winter, I was invited to speak to a company of the Lowell mill-girls, and tell them something of my early life as a member of their guild. When my address was over, some of them gathered round and asked me questions. In turn, I questioned them about their work, hours of labor, wages, and means of improvement. When I urged them to occupy their spare time in reading and study, they seemed to understand the need of it, but answered, sadly, 'We will try, but we work so hard, and are so tired.' It was plain that these operatives did not go to their labor with the jubilant feeling of the old mill-girls, that they worked without aim or purpose, and took no interest in anything beyond earning their daily bread. There was a tired hopelessness about them, such as was never seen among the early mill-girls. Yet they have more leisure, and earn more money than the operatives of fifty years ago, but they do not know how to improve the one or use the other. These American-born children of foreign parentage are, indeed, under the control neither of their church nor their parents, and they, consequently, adopt the vices and follies instead of the good habits of our people. It is vital to the interests of the whole community that they should be brought under good moral influence; that they should live in better homes, and breathe a better social atmosphere than is now to be found in our factory towns."

The city of Holyoke, another great cotton center, having 23,000 inhabitants, is in some respects the most remarkable town in the State of Massachusetts. It was brought into existence, 35 years ago, by the construction of a great dam across the Connecticut River; and, around the water power thus created, mills have sprung up so rapidly that the population, whose normal increase is eighteen per cent. every ten years in Massachusetts, has doubled, during the last decade, in Holyoke. But eighty out of every 100 persons in the city are of foreign extraction, the prevailing nationality being French-Canadian, a people who are so rapidly displacing other operatives, even the Irish themselves, in the manufacturing centers of New England that they must not be dismissed without remark.

The Canadian-French were recently described in a grave State paper as a "horde of industrial invaders," and accused of caring nothing for American institutions, civil, political, or educational; having come to the States, not to make a home, but to get together a little money, and then to return whence they came. The parent of these immigrants is the Canadian habitan, a peasant proprietor, farming a few acres, living parsimoniously, marrying early, and producing a large family, who must either clear the soils of the inclement north, or become factory operatives in the States. They are a simple, kindly, pious, and cheerful folk, with few wants, little energy, and no ambition; ignorant and credulous, Catholic by religion, and devoted to the priest, who is their oracle, friend, and guide in all the relations of life. Such are the people—a complete contrast with Americans—who began, some twelve years ago, to emigrate to the mills of New England. They came, not only intending to return to their own country with their savings, but enjoined by the Church to do so. Employers, however, soon found out the value of the new comers, and Yankee superintendents preferred them as operatives before any other nationality, not only on account of their tireless industry and docility, but because they accepted lower wages, and kept themselves clear of trade-union societies. Thus, finally, it has come about that nearly 70 per cent. of the cotton operatives at Holyoke are of French-Canadian origin, and the social condition of all these people is precisely similar to that which has already been described as characterizing the inhabitants of "Little Canada" in Lowell.

It has already been said that the average rate of inhabitancy is six persons per house in the State of Massachusetts, but the presence of the French in Holyoke actually doubles the inhabitancy of the whole town, with what effect upon their own special quarter may easily be imagined. Probably nowhere in Europe could there be found more crowded houses, and worse physical conditions of life, than in the quarters inhabited by certain alien operatives in many manufacturing towns of the United States.

Sharp contrasts as they are, these sketches fairly picture the heights and depths of industrial conditions in a region which, as I would again remind you, contains nearly one-half of all the factory operatives in America. More than this, while the States in question would yield to no others their claims to represent advanced civilization, Massachusetts, the creation of the Puritan refugees, and the cradle of American independence, stands confessedly at the head of all her sister States for enlightened philanthropy. There are no greater lovers of right, honorers of industry, and friends to education in the world than its people, yet the present social condition of Holyoke and of Lowell, as of many other manufacturing cities, would have shocked all America thirty years ago, and been impossible less than half a century back. It is time we should ask, How is America going to treat a problem, formerly the danger and still the perplexity of Europe, for which democratic institutions have failed to furnish the solution once confidently, but unfairly, expected from them?

The State, the Church, and the School are all doing their best to prevent the lapse to lower conditions which seems to threaten labor in the States, each of them trying their utmost to "make Americans" of alien laborers, by means of the political, religious, and educational institutions of the country. How inadequate these unaided agencies are for the accomplishment of their gigantic task is nowhere so clearly realized as in the common, or free, schools of the States. These, in districts such as I have distinguished as "American," are filled with boys and girls, of all ages from five to eighteen, whose appearance and intelligence bespeak high social conditions. Whatever the occupation which these young people may ultimately adopt—and all of them are destined for work-a-day lives—an observer feels quite sure that they are more likely to raise the character of their several employments, than to be themselves degraded to lower social levels, on quitting school.

But no similar confidence in the future of American labor is engendered by visits to the schools where sits the progeny of alien labor. In the case of the Canadians, indeed, parents and priests alike bend all their energies to the establishment of "parochial schools," which, if they forward the cause of the Church, do little for education in the American sense of requiring good citizens, even more than good scholars, at the hands of the national teachers.

The primary schools of great industrial towns, such as Fall River, the Manchester of America, are filled, to quite as great an extent as similar schools in Europe, with ignorant, ragged, and bare-footed urchins. These children are, indeed, no less well cared for and taught than their Yankee fellows, and one cannot sufficiently admire the energy and enthusiasm with which school-teachers generally endeavor to "make Americans" of their stolid and ragged little alien charges. In these cases, however, where often the children have had no schooling at all before they are old enough to work, it is quite clear that the school cannot do all that is required to raise the labor of to-day up to the levels it occupied in the past. And, if the school itself is ineffective in this regard, how much more so must be the Church, to which immigrant youth is a comparative stranger; or those democratic institutions which are based, to quote the words of Washington himself, upon "the virtue and intelligence of the people."

Whether the present condition of labor in America will ever again be lifted to the levels of the past depends, in truth, less upon the State, the Church, and the School, than upon the part which the American employer is taking or about to take in this question. It is impossible for any unprejudiced observer to be long in the States, and especially in the New England States, without coming to the conclusion that a large number of employers are very anxious about the character of the labor they employ, and willing to assist to the utmost of their power in improving it. In spite of the love of money and luxury which is so conspicuous a feature of certain sections of American society, a high ideal of the proper function of wealth has arisen in the States, where large fortunes are chiefly things of recent date, among large and influential classes having an enlightened regard for the best welfare of the country. This regard finds expression now in the establishment of a factory, managed with one eye on profits and another on the elevation of the artisan, and now in the endowment of free libraries or similar institutions, offering opportunities of improvement to all.

To give only a few instances of the former movement: Mr. Pullman, the great car-builder, has recently established, on Lake Calumet, a vast system of workshops and workmen's homes, a description of which reads like a chapter from More's "Utopia." The Waterbury Watch Company has lately built a factory, employing 600 hands, on similar lines to those of Mr. Pullman. Cheney Brothers' silk mills at South Manchester remain now, after Irish labor has entirely taken the place of native hands, at almost the same high level as that which, in common with Lowell, they held forty years ago. Messrs. Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury, in Vermont, conduct a large establishment, where every married employe owns a house in the village, almost an Eden for beauty and order, which has grown up around these remote but remarkable scale works. Similarly, the Cranes at Dalton, in Massachusetts; Messrs. Brown, Sharpe and Co., at Providence, Rhode Island; Mr. Hazard at Peacedale, Narragansett; and last, not least, Col. Barrows, at Willimantic, in Connecticut, have all succeeded in restoring the past conditions of native American labor among operatives, now, for the most part, of alien origin.

I wish that time permitted me to sketch, however briefly, the mills to which I have last alluded. It must suffice to say that the devoted labors of Col. Barrows, President of the Willimantic Thread Co., have succeeded in creating, out of Irish labor, social conditions of industrial life which approach ideal perfection as nearly as the work of imperfect man can possibly do. And, better still, the high morality and intelligence of Col. Barrow's 1,600 operatives, the comfort and seemliness of their homes, the cleanly and cheerful character of the mill work, even the refinements of the music and art schools attached to the mill, can be proved, by hard figures, to be paying factors in the undertaking, viewed from a purely commercial standpoint.

So far, I have endeavored to show that a great contrast exists between what once was and now is the condition of factory labor in America. I have, further, described certain survivals of an earlier and happier state of things, and indicated the forces now at work tending to lift the Holyoke of to-day, for example, to the social levels of old Lowell. I have given my reasons for believing that the democratic institutions of America are incapable, unaided, of accomplishing such a task as this charge implies, and concluded that its accomplishment depends mainly on the action of the American employer. What this action as a whole, and what, therefore, the future of labor in America is likely to be, I confess myself in grave doubt—doubt from which I turn, with something like a sense of relief, to discuss those economical considerations affecting wage-earners which have hitherto been made to give place to social inquiries.

We have now to ask what are the wages of labor in the States, their relation to the cost of subsistence, and to wages and cost of subsistence in our own country? Finally, I shall briefly consider certain propositions of the American political economist which are so inextricably mixed up with the question of labor and wages in the States that it is impossible to discuss the one without taking some note of the other.

Until quite recently, no complete investigation, bringing the rates of wages paid in industries common to the United States and European countries, has ever been made, although the results of such an investigation have been constantly and earnestly called for both by the press and people of America. Permit me to remark, in passing, that we know little in this country of the desire for full, trustworthy, and accessible statistics, concerning all matters of national interest, which dominates the public mind of America; and as little of the willingness with which American citizens of all classes place the particulars of their private business at the service of the statistician. This desire for statistical bases whereon the statesman and economist may build, is vividly illustrated by that publication, perhaps the most wonderful in the whole world, entitled a "Compendium of the Census of the United States," issued with every decade. These volumes, accessible to everybody, and arranged with marvelous skill and lucidity, offer to the social observer a complete, accurate, and suggestive survey of every field comprised within the vast domain of the national interests. An evening's address would not more than suffice to indicate the scope and appraise the value of this work, which is a mine wherein, the ore ready dressed to his hand, the politico-economic or industrial essayist might work for years without exhausting its riches.

But the United States Census does not treat specifically of wages and subsistence, and it is to the Massachusetts Labor Bureau that we must again turn for such information as we now require. Dr. Edward Young, indeed, the late chief of the United States Bureau of Statistics, published an elaborate work upon this subject in 1875, but his comparisons as to the relative cost of living in America and Europe, good in themselves, are rendered of little value by the absence of such statistics as would give the true percentage of difference between American and foreign wages. Several elaborate wages reports were also published between 1879 and 1882, which, while they gave the American side of the question with great fullness, presented foreign wages very incompletely.

Always, however, impressed with the importance of making an accurate comparison between wages and the cost of subsistence on the two sides of the Atlantic, but unable to undertake a very wide inquiry with the funds at its disposal, the Massachusetts Bureau determined, in the fall of 1883, upon reducing to narrower limits than heretofore the field of investigation. Instead of America and Europe, Massachusetts and Great Britain were selected for comparison, the former as the chief manufacturing State of America, the latter as her leading competitor.

With this view, a number of agents were sent to gather personally, from the pay rolls of American and English manufactories, the rates of wages paid in twenty-four of the leading industries which are common to the two districts respectively. It was, at first, sought to extend the inquiry to thirty-five different industries, a number which would practically have covered the whole ground, but nine of these were finally abandoned for want of sufficient British information.

It is a perfectly easy thing, as already indicated, to gather wage or other statistics in the counting-houses of Massachusetts manufactories, but quite a different matter when a collection of similar information is attempted in this country, where most proprietors are unwilling, and many altogether refuse, to give any information regarding their industries.

The following table, of which an enlarged facsimile, marked A, appears on the wall, specifies the twenty-four industries from which the returns in question were made, and the number of establishments making such returns in each industry in either country:

Table A.

Industries. Massachusetts. Great Britain. Total

Agricultural implements 4 1 5 Artisans' tools 3 4 7 Boots and shoes 18 2 20 Brick 3 1 4 Building trades 32 24 56 Carpetings 1 1 2 Carriages and Wagons 11 3 14 Clothing 10 4 14 Cotton goods 10 9 19 Flax and jute goods 2 3 5 Food preparations 5 2 7 Furniture 11 1 12 Glass 1 3 4 Hats (fur wool and silk) 3 2 5 Hosiery 5 3 8 Liquors (malt and distilled) 10 1 11 Machines and machinery 12 15 27 Metals and metallic goods 25 13 38 Printing and publishing 12 7 19 Printing, dyeing and bleaching etc 3 4 7 Stone 10 1 11 Wooden goods 12 1 13 Woolen goods 4 2 6 Worsted goods 3 3 6

210 110 320

Thirty-two cities in Massachusetts, and twenty-six in Great Britain, were visited in search of returns, of which almost all our great industrial centers yield their quota.

It being, of course, impossible to obtain wage returns for all the employes of these various industries in either country, the investigation aimed at covering at least 10 per cent. of such totals, and, in the case of Massachusetts, succeeded in getting returns for 36,000 hands, or 13 per cent. of the whole number of artisans employed in the twenty-four industries examined. Great Britain, on the other hand, made returns for about half that number of hands, but their proportion to the totals employed cannot be similarly stated, first, because we have here no specific industrial census, and, second, because many of the English returns were made for an indefinite number of employes.

The comparison was made in the following way: For each of the twenty-four industries, a table, consisting of four sections, was constructed, viz., "Occupation," "Aggregation," "Recapitulation," and "Comparison." The first gave the names of the various branches of each industry, classifying these as minutely as possible, because the names indicating subdivisions of labor are, generally, so different in the two countries that the actual "matching" of occupations, desirable for a perfect comparison, is impossible. The second, or "Aggregation" section, brings the various occupations in the same industry into juxtaposition, and supplies opportunities for direct comparison. The third, or "Recapitulation" section, is drawn from the "Occupation" section, and shows the number of men, women, young persons, and children for whom wages are given; whether these are paid by the day, or by piece; and whether the wage returns show the actual amounts paid to a definite number of employes, or an average wage for a definite or an indefinite number of employes. The fourth, or "Comparison" section, brings the highest, lowest, and general average weekly wages into final comparison.

The first three sections of the table, being either simply enumerative or collective in character, are easily understood without illustration, but an example of the "Comparative" section, marked Table B, hangs on the wall, and shows all the final comparisons at a glance.

Table B. - 1 2 3 4 - Classification. Massac- Great Massac- Great husetts. Britain. husetts. Britain. - Average highest weekly dols. dols. dols. dols. wage paid to Men 37.00 13.39 25.41 11.36 Women 5.50 ... 8.57 4.10 Young persons 7.00 3.65 6.94 3.04 Children 5.70 ... 4.64 1.05 Average lowest weekly wage paid to Men 7.60 3.21 7.09 4.72 Women 5.00 ... 4.62 2.27 Young women 4.50 1.46 4.26 1.66 Children 3.00 ... 3.09 .60 Average weekly wages paid to Men 12.04 8.07 11.85 8.26 Women 5.12 ... 6.09 3.37 Young persons 5.76 2.52 5.10 2.40 Children 5.31 ... 3.81 .79 - General average weekly wage paid to all employes 11.75 8.07 10.32 6.96 - Result: General average weekly wages higher in 45.60 48.28 Massachusetts by per cent per cent. per cent. -

The two first columns of the table are simply illustrative of the method applied to a single industry, exhibiting the highest average, lowest average, and average weekly wages, whether to men, women, young persons, or children, in the particular business of "machine-making," together with the general average wages paid to all the employes in such industry. The general average weekly wages in this industry are thus shown to be 45.6 per cent. higher in Massachusetts than in Great Britain.

The 3d and 4th columns of the table consolidate all the twenty-four industries, and yield, in similar terms, as in the case of machine-making, an average comparison applying to the whole group of industries under examination, giving, as a grand result, that the general average weekly wages of Massachusetts are higher by 48.28 per cent. than those of Great Britain.

It is, however, explained that the British wage returns were made in three different ways, viz., for a definite number of employes, by percentage returns, and by general returns; both of the latter being for an indefinite number of employes. Where more than one wage-basis was given, the highest figure was used in the calculations, and, this being the case in eighteen out of the twenty-four industries, its effects on the grand result are considerable; for, by crediting Great Britain with the average instead of the high weekly wage, the average percentage in favor of Massachusetts rises from 48.28 per cent. to 75.94 per cent.

In order truly to indicate the higher percentage of average weekly wages in Massachusetts, we must, therefore, agree upon a figure somewhere between these two extremes, viz., that of 48.28 per cent., derived from tables in which Great Britain is credited with the high wage, and that of 75.94 per cent., derived from those tables in which she is credited with the average of the returns made upon the different bases. The mean of these figures is 62.11 per cent., which is considered to be the result of the investigation, and may be formulated as follows: The general average weekly wages paid to employes in twenty-four manufacturing industries common to Massachusetts and Great Britain is 62 per cent., higher in the former than the general average weekly wages paid in the same industries in the latter country.

But the question of wages forms only one side of the working man's account; on the other stands the cost of living, and no comparisons of prosperity, in given industrial communities, are of any value which omit to take into consideration the relative ease with which such communities can procure the means of subsistence. Table C presents a summary of prices, gathered in 1883, of the chief items in a working man's expenditure, and their cost in Massachusetts and Great Britain.

Table C.

- Articles. Percentage higher Percentage higher in Mass. in Great Britain - Groceries 16.18 - Provisions - 20.00 Fuel 104.98 - Dry goods 13.26 - Boots and shoes 42.75 - Clothing 45.06 - Rents 89.62 - -

Having agreed that wages are probably 62 per cent. higher in Massachusetts than in Great Britain, it would be easy, if we could ascertain what proportion of a working man's income is spent respectively in groceries, provisions, clothing, etc., to determine what advantage an operative derives from the higher wages of the United States. Dr. Engel, the chief of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, puts us in possession of this information, and, as the result of a laborious inquiry, has formulated a certain economic law which governs the relations between income and expenditure. From him we learn (see Table D) that:

Table D.

A working man with an income of L60 per annum spends as follows:

Per cent. of income. Shillings. / meat.... 248 1. On subsistence 62 or groceries 496 2. " clothing 16 " 192 3. " rent 12 " 144 4. " fuel 5 " 60 5. " sundries 5 " 60 ——— Total shillings 1,200 Or L60

Now, referring to Table C, it will be seen that the same man's expenditure in America would be:

Shillings. S.

1. On subsistence / meat.... 248 - 20 p.c. = 198.4 groceries 496 + 16 " = 575.3 2. " clothing 192 + 45 " = 278.4 3. " rent 144 + 89 " = 272.1 4. " fuel 60 + 104 " = 122.0 5. " sundries 60 + 50 " = 90.0 ———— Total 1,536.2 Or L76 16s.

In other words, a workman earning L60 per annum in Great Britain would receive L99, or 62 per cent. more wages in the States, but living there would cost him L77, or L17 more than here, giving him a net advantage of only 28 per cent., instead of 62 per cent., derived from living and working in America.

But this result does not exhaust the question. The standard of life is very different among working men in the States and in Great Britain, and the almost inexhaustible statistics of the report, already so often quoted, enable us to gauge this difference with accuracy. It has been proved, by a recent investigation, whose details we need not follow, that the expenditure of working men's families, of similar size, in Massachusetts and in Great Britain, stand to each other in the ratio of 15 to 10. By introducing this new factor into our calculations, we find that a man who spends L60 per annum in England would spend L90, instead of L77, per annum in the States, paying American prices for subsistence, and living up to American standards. In other words, he would be a gainer to the extent of only L9 per annum by living and working in the United States. Finally, if we presume that 48 or 50 per cent., rather than 62 per cent., measures the higher wages of Massachusetts, the same man's increased wages would be L90 instead of L99, and he would-neither lose nor gain in money by becoming an American citizen, and adopting American habits.

That these conclusions agree with those rough and ready practical illustrations which, without being scientific, are generally trustworthy, let the following story evidence.

Some years ago, a skillful moulder, in my then firm's employ, left us for the States, where he permanently settled. After a long absence, he returned for a few weeks' holiday, when I asked him whether he earned higher wages and found life more agreeable in America than in England. "Well, as to money" was his reply, "I think, taking all things into consideration, I did about as well in the old shop as I do now; but, socially speaking, I am somebody there, while here I am only a moulder." Social advantage, indeed, probably measures almost all the difference between the position of a skilled factory operative in the States and in England.

Let me not seem, however, to undervalue that difference. Statistics, after all, do not dominate human nature; on the contrary, human nature determines the statistician's figures. Every artisan emigrant to America gains opportunities of advancement of which his European fellows know nothing. If he have brains, the way to success is open there, while it is practically barred to anything short of genius for men of his class in Europe. Our Australian colonies, where unskilled labor can earn 7s. 6d. a day, and live for a trifle, are, indeed, a paradise for the mere wage-earner, who can scarcely help becoming also a wage-saver; but America is the country which, with wage conditions such as I have attempted to portray, still offers the best possible opportunities of success, and even of great careers, to clever working men, and especially to clever mechanics. That man, however, is not worthy of a home in the great republic, who does not appreciate the higher social levels at which native labor desires to live, who is not anxious to make the most of the advantages which democratic institutions offer him, who does not, in short, ardently desire to become a "good American."

There remains the question already alluded to as inextricably bound up with American labor problems: How does the American tariff affect wages? The idea that these are determinable by the tariff is the corner stone of protection in the States. The artisan has been so sedulously educated to believe that the chief object of import duties is to protect him from falling into a ruinous competition with what is called the "pauper labor of Europe," that no movement on the part of workmen in the direction of free trade is ever likely to arise in America. I am not now about to argue the question of protection, except in so far as it relates to labor; but it may be remarked, in passing, that internal competition, rather than the people, is the enemy from whom the tariff will probably receive its death blow in the future. Protection will ultimately break down by its own weight in the States. Production already exceeds demand, the cry for a "wider market" and for "raw materials free" is in every manufacturer's mouth; and if America upholds her protective legislation too long, the produce of her factories and mills will, by and by, force its way, in spite of the tariff, into the open markets of the world, but it will be through the gate of national suffering. Few people in this country are, I think, aware of the extraordinary fervor with which the doctrine that protection benefits labor is preached in the States. We are ourselves accustomed to hear the question of free trade argued only from the economic standpoint, but this is by no means so commonly the case in America. I shall try, by paraphrasing certain recent addresses of an able personal friend and enthusiastic protectionist, to illustrate the position taken by those persons who advocate the tariff, not upon economic grounds, but in the avowed interests of labor.

Referring to the words "Free Trade," the speaker in question begins by asking, "What is the essential nature of that which we call trade?" And answers himself as follows:

"The grim, ugly fact is that trade is a fight, the markets are battle fields, the traders are gladiators, carrying on a true war around questions of values, with no care whether the opposing party or the community at large can afford that the trade is made. This contest is always going on, whether a lady buys a pair of gloves, or a syndicate corners Erie. Antagonism is so fixed an element of trade, and so often defeats the object it blindly follows, as to make laws which seek to mitigate the ferocity of the struggle as welcome to the far-sighted man of business as they are to the foredoomed victims of this relentless warfare."

On the other hand, competition is said to be a—

"Wonder worker in developing energy in the strongest individuals, and massing wealth in masterful states; but, since competitive trading can never be wholly beneficent, it should be strictly controlled, in the interests of the toiling millions, who are too weak successfully to oppose its attacks. The results of forcing on the naturally weak, by means of competition, hard and unequal bargains which are evaded by the strong, are appalling in their magnitude, dividing whole peoples permanently into castes, rich and poor, injuring the former by excess, and the latter by deprivation, making a nation strong in the trading instinct, and rich in accumulated wealth, but weak and poor in all its other parts. This abuse is saddest of all when, failing to be recognized as an evil, the doctrines of free trade are wrought into the policy and social life of a people."

Protective remedies for this state of things are introduced as follows:

"Wherever the value of competition has been fully recognized, but supplemented by wise control of its energies, the results are excellent. This fact forms the foundation of our protective laws, whose very name 'protective' implies assailants; those hard bargains, to wit, driven on the fighting side of trade, under the motto of 'let the fittest survive.' When a small army is attacked by a large one, it covers itself by earthworks. Similarly, where there are sheep, and wolves abound, the farmer puts up fences which effectually protect his flock; and, in the same way, tariffs are 'forts,' whence the artisan may hope successfully to defend himself against the attacks of his powerful and unscrupulous enemy, capital; or they may even be considered as a pistol, which a little fellow points at a big bully who threatens him with a thrashing."

Such are the arguments which are urged with great fervor, and immense effect, upon the American artisan, who fully and firmly believes that protection is the only agent capable of lifting his lot above those, dreaded levels at which the "pauper labor of Europe" is universally believed to live.

The simple answer to all this rhetoric appears to be that, while it might be valid as an indictment of the competitive system as a whole, it is valueless when directed against a part of that system only. Advocates who are not prepared to say that every bargain shall be controlled by beneficence, and who distinctly admire the chief results of competition, cannot logically demand that labor, alone of all salable commodities, shall be bought and sold on altruistic principles.

In what immediately precedes, I have endeavored to indicate the character of the pleadings which make American artisans universally supporters of the tariff, and we must now return to the question, What, after all, is really the effect of protection on wages in America? I answer that no legislative schemes can add to, although they may injure, the material resources of a state. Capital can only support the labor for which the annual harvest of such resources pays, and all that legislation can do is artificially to divert labor and capital from directions which they would take under the influence of natural laws.

America is selling, at the present time, about L160,000,000 worth of food and other raw products in Europe. These, together, represent her chief branch of business, in which nearly fifty per cent. of her population is engaged, and all this merchandise is sold in the free trade markets of the world. Wages in America, therefore, cannot possibly be regulated by the tariff, because, whatever wages can be earned by men engaged in the production of agricultural products—the prices of which are fixed in Liverpool—must be the rate of wages which will substantially be paid in other branches of business. Wages, like water, seek a level; if manufacture pays best, labor will quit agriculture; if agriculture pays best, manufactures will decline, and agriculture progress.

A glance at the condition of industrial society in America vividly illustrates this conclusion. Any man, with a few dollars and a strong pair of arms, can win far greater rewards from the soil than he could possibly obtain by the same effort in Europe. His wages are high, because the grade of comfort to be obtained from the land by means of a little labor is high, and the artisans' wages must follow suit, if men are to be tempted from the field into the workshop. American politicians, however, would have us believe that American labor owes its prosperity to taxation; in other words, that what the immigrant seeks is not the rich prizes offered him by a free and fertile soil, but the blessings which flow from a tariff that adds an average 40 per cent. to the cost of everything he needs except food.

One more illustration, and I have done. Upon the wall hangs a diagram which shows the movements of American wages, of English wages, and of the tariff from 1860 to 1883. I have already argued that a tariff cannot determine wages, and the diagram affords positive proof that it has not determined them in America, as between 1860 and the present time. On the contrary, their movements are evidently due to the same causes as have influenced wages here during this period, while it is certainly remarkable that they have fallen sooner, fallen lower, and recovered less completely in America, where industry is "protected," than in Great Britain, were it is "unprotected."

Shortly to recapitulate all that has been advanced, I have endeavored to show:

1st. That a great change has occurred in the social condition of labor in the United States during the last forty years, and that, spite of all the existing agencies of improvement, it is doubtful whether the working classes of America are not, at the present moment, falling still further from those high ideals of operative life which once so brilliantly distinguished the United States from European countries.

2d. That, although wages are probably some 60 per cent. higher in the chief manufacturing districts of America than in Great Britain, yet an English artisan would find himself little richer there than at home, after paying the enhanced prices for subsistence, and conforming to the higher standard of life which prevails in the States. At the same time, his whole social position and opportunities of advancement would be immensely improved.

3d. I have tried to demonstrate that the tariff, to which the higher wages of America are so confidently attributed, has really no influence whatever upon them, and that it is not therefore an engine, such as it is glowingly represented to the American artisan, constructed for the purpose of raising his lot above that of the so-called "pauper labor of Europe." Any inquiry into the character of the work really accomplished by the engine in question would lead me into regions of controversy forbidden in this room.

Finally, if I am asked why, in a review of American labor and wages, I have said nothing of trade unionism on the one hand, and of co-operative production on the other, I can only answer that to have introduced these among so many other interesting, but subsidiary, subjects which crowd around questions of labor and wages, would have doubled the volume of this address, and more than halved the patience with which you have kindly listened to it.

* * * * *

A catalogue, containing brief notices of many important scientific papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be had gratis at this office.

* * * * *

THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT.

PUBLISHED WEEKLY.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, $5 A YEAR.

Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to subscribers in any part of the United States or Canada. Six dollars a year, sent, prepaid, to any foreign country.

All the back numbers of THE SUPPLEMENT, from the commencement, January 1, 1876, can be had. Price, 10 cents each.

All the back volumes of THE SUPPLEMENT can likewise be supplied. Two volumes are issued yearly. Price of each volume, $2.50, stitched in paper, or $3.50, bound in stiff covers.

COMBINED RATES—One copy of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and one copy of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, one year, postpaid, $7.00.

A liberal discount to booksellers, news agents, and canvassers.

MUNN & CO., PUBLISHERS,

361 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y.

* * * * *

PATENTS.

In connection with the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Messrs. MUNN & Co. are Solicitors of American and Foreign Patents, have had 40 years' experience, and now have the largest establishment in the world. Patents are obtained on the best terms.

A special notice is made in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of all Inventions patented through this Agency, with the name and residence of the Patentee. By the immense circulation thus given, public attention is directed to the merits of the new patent, and sales or introduction often easily effected.

Any person who has made a new discovery or invention can ascertain, free of charge, whether a patent can probably be obtained, by writing to MUNN & Co.

We also send free our Hand Book about the Patent Laws, Patents, Caveats, Trade Marks, their costs, and how procured. Address

MUNN & CO., 361 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Branch Office, cor. F and 7th Sts., Washington, D.C.

THE END