JNFLUENCES 
 
 BEARING ON 
 
 Production. 
 
c ocV\ (p i 
 
Hon. T. F. Bayard, 
 
 Secretary of State , 
 
 Sir: 
 
 January ii, 1888. 
 Washington , D. C. 
 
 The closer we get to the people in international inquiries 
 into the economy of production the more we realize how 
 great the influence which habits, association and inherited 
 views exercise upon the formation of national character. 
 
 The methods employed in production are largely governed 
 by these causal influences. They impress their stamp upon 
 the output even, on the work measured quantitatively and 
 qualitatively. This becomes clear to us, when we observe 
 the people engaged in their daily occupations. The busy marts 
 of life, the shop and the factory alone can supply the requisite 
 measure for an understanding of the relative positions nations 
 occupy in the industrial progression of their time. The aim 
 and end of all industrial activity are the supplying of food, 
 clothing;, shelter and necessaries of life to the worker and his 
 dependents. What we call luxuries are only the necessaries 
 of a more advanced state of civilization. A people’s state of 
 civilization can therefore be measured best by what its working 
 classes consider necessaries of life, or their standard of living. 
 The working classes pre-eminently. It must be taken for 
 granted that the well-to-do classes enjoy in all times and 
 zones relatively the sum and substance of comforts known to 
 their age. Varying as this standard of living is, varying as 
 the wants of nation and nation, time and time, zone and 
 
4 
 
 zone are, so we find with the greater or smaller force of this 
 incentive, activity increase and prevail with greater or smaller 
 force. Under this varying standard we find the widest 
 divergence both in the demands of the laborer and in the 
 product of his activity by which he supplies these wants. 
 What by one would be considered comfort and plenty another 
 nation's standard would stamp as poverty and want. 
 
 If we have, therefore, no common standard oi living, of 
 the wants, we have a still more varying standard of produc¬ 
 tion, of the means employed for supplying the wants. The 
 results of a day’s labor in one and the same industry per 
 hand employed in different countries are of a most diverging 
 nature. In one and the same line differences are so pro¬ 
 nounced that it becomes at once apparent that the old stand¬ 
 ard of measurement, from which economic deductions have 
 usually been made, the day wages, is entirely illusory. The 
 means employed, the tools, machines, and methods are seldom 
 the same. Even when apparently the same agents and 
 methods are employed, on examination we find that they 
 differ in their nature, or employment, or in both, so materially 
 that no reliable comparison and deductions could be made 
 from the mere fact of the employment of these agencies in 
 production. 
 
 It may be taken for granted that in cotton manufacture 
 the same kind of machinery is employed in America, England, 
 Switzerland, Germany and France. The same power is like¬ 
 wise employed for speeding the machinery. Steam-power in 
 England, Germany and France, and water-power supple¬ 
 mented by steam-power in America and Switzerland. The 
 day earnings of the operatives (weavers) vary so much 
 between one country and another that weavers in Switzer¬ 
 land earn but 234! to 2'/ 2 francs (44 to 49 cents), in Germany 
 on an average 2 marks (48 cents), in French mills 2^ to 3 
 francs (53 to 58 cents), with a working day from five o’clock 
 in the morning to half past seven in the evening, and 2]/ 2 
 hours of rest in the day; in England about 65 cents, with 
 nine working hours, and in America from 80 cents to $1.12^ 
 a day of ten working hours. If all things were equal, if with 
 
5 
 
 the s^me machines and working agencies the results of a 
 day s work per hand employed were the same, of course the 
 countries where the higher earnings prevail would be in a 
 hopel^ ss condition in competing with the others. The above- 
 mentioned factors, however, exercise so powerful an influence 
 that the reverse is the truth. In fact, the cheapness of the 
 labor product stands in an inverse ratio to the weekly earn- 
 ings of the operative. The cost of weaving—in wages — of 
 one kilogram of print cloth, 151^ yards, 64x64 standard, in 
 Switzerland is 50 centimes, 9^ cents, or .606 cents a yard. 
 F° r Germany I have not been able to obtain data for this 
 count and width. Printers in Mulhouse and Elberfeld tell 
 me when they use it for export they get it mostly from Eng¬ 
 land,^— a drawback of the duty paid to the government is 
 given upon re-exporting the prints. This sufficiently proves 
 that the cloth cannot be made at less cost in Germany. In 
 Engl ancl 22 d, or 44 cents, is paid per cut of 80 yards, equal 
 to .55 cents per yard. In America 20 cents is paid per cut of 
 50 yards (from another source I have 18.15 cents per cut of 
 45 yards), or .40 cents a yard as the weaver’s wages. Putting 
 daily earnings side by side with the labor cost of weaving we 
 have 
 
 
 Daily wages. 
 
 Wages per 
 
 In Switzerland, and we may include Germany.. 
 
 30.44 to 30.49 
 65 
 
 80 to 1.12 
 
 $0,606 
 
 55 
 
 40 
 
 In Englax-irl. 
 
 In America. 
 
 
 From this we have a right to conclude that the average 
 rate of wages customary in the country, the supplying of the 
 wants and necessaries of life, must have a direct bearing upon 
 the productive power of the people—the operatives. I con¬ 
 fine myself here strictly to this induction—and specific case. 
 And here this is demonstrable to an absolute certainty. The 
 number of looms operated by one weaver is : 
 
 In Switzerland two to three for the more expert weavers, 
 
 In CJermany and France two and very seldom three. 
 
 In England three, and for expert weavers four. 
 
 And. in America six to eight looms. 
 
6 
 
 The work account of a mill in Lowell, for which I am 
 indebted to the kindness of the lamented Mr. Dupee, the late 
 treasurer of the Hamilton Mills, gives me 
 
 232 girls operating 6 looms. 
 
 43 « .. 7 « 
 
 20 “ “ 8 “ and only 
 
 11 “ “ 5 “ each. 
 
 This shows that the high standard of working power in 
 America is very widely distributed. I he speed of the looms 
 has been held to be so much greater in England than in 
 America, that thereby the advantages gained by the running 
 of a greater number of looms by one hand becomes neutral¬ 
 ized in a measure. Even this I do not find to be the case. 
 In America 180 picks a minute is the average, and some run 
 as high as 210 picks a minute. In England 200 is considered 
 very high speed, run by the best and most improved looms. 
 Whatever objection might be raised on this point would be 
 met by the weekly output as given by the earnings, which 
 are piece price earnings and not day wages. In England, 
 taking $3.90 as the average of weekly earnings, at the rate 
 of 55 cents per 100 yards the weekly output would be 709 
 yards of print cloth. In Switzerland, taking $2.80 as the 
 average earnings of weavers, at the rate of 60 cents per 
 hundred yards the weekly output would be 466 yards ; while 
 in America, taking 6 looms indicating a low average, or $4.86 
 (as taken from the pay-rolls of my informant) at the rate of 
 40 cents per 100 yards the weekly output would be 1,200 
 yards of print cloth per weaver. The average number of 
 looms worked in this mill by one weaver is 6^, with the 
 earning proportionately raised to $5.08, brings the output to 
 1,270 yards. In the spinning of the yarn for this cloth I find 
 about equal cost of labor per pound in English and American 
 mills and a higher cost in Switzerland. The time earnings 
 stand relatively in the same positions with the respective 
 countries as in the weaving, necessarily indicating higher 
 individual exertion, skill, energy or whatever term we may 
 apply to cover this economic manifestation. 
 
 I speak here of a branch where the same plant and 
 technic is assumed to be used by competing nations—enjoy- 
 
7 
 
 ing relatively the greatest amount of social, intellectual and 
 political advantages of the age—and still how different are 
 the results of exertion aided by the same motors and appli¬ 
 ances. 
 
 If equally accurate data were at hand for the lowest stratum 
 of wage earners—the operatives in the cotton mills of India—a 
 still stronger verification of this parallel could undoubtedly 
 be brought out. The fact of the great spread of cotton 
 manufacture in the last decade is attributed to the low wages 
 and to the depreciation of silver. With the latter imputed 
 cause I have not to deal here, though I may say incidentally 
 that the price of cotton in Liverpool or Manchester would 
 never be affected thereby in any but a nominal way. Ten 
 dollars worth of India cotton would bring, let us say, $7.00 
 gold, plus freight and charges, in Liverpool, and re-exported 
 to Bombay in the nature of yarn or cloth be again $10.00 in 
 silver plus labor—and freight and charges. The differences 
 in exchange could only bear upon the added items. Freight 
 charges even would be subject to the same nominal influences 
 as the price of cotton. It is a fact, however, that India works 
 successfully only the coarser yarns, Nos. 10 to 20, where the 
 least labor is expended in the pound of cotton, while the 
 finer numbers are imported from England in a larger degree 
 even than the spread of Bombay cotton manufacture. Now 
 the spinning wages in one hundred pounds of cotton yarn in 
 Fall River are 
 
 For No. 14. 3 o -33 For No - 20 . 30.45 
 
 For “ 16. 35 (And in Lancashire for No. 20.50) 
 
 For “ 18.40 For No. 40.98 
 
 India has the seeming advantage of freight. The average 
 rate of freight the year around on a ton of cotton from Bom¬ 
 bay to Liverpool is 22/6 or $5.46. Freight from Liverpool 
 to Bombay of a ton of yarn is 12/6 or $3.06, tota ^ $8.52, or 
 about the spinning wages in Lancashire and Massachusetts 
 for the coarse numbers made in Bombay. I his apparent pro¬ 
 tection, however, is almost offset in the higher cost of coal, 
 higher cost of mill property and machinery, superintendence, 
 etc. 
 
Practically it may be said, therefore, that the basis of cost, 
 the material, upon which labor operates in India, offers only 
 slight advantages to the home spinner. I he difficulties of the 
 Bombay manufacturer increase with the increase in the ratio 
 of labor to the pound of cotton. There, the greater pro¬ 
 ductivity, relative cheapness of high-cost labor, shows itself in 
 its greater potency. In lieu of a more specific and more 
 closely defined measure, we may take the relative output. 
 
 A mill in Bombay, of which I have an account, of 35,000 
 spindles turns out 8,000 pounds of No. 20 yarn a day. 
 Against this we may set a mill in Lowell of 110,000 spindles, 
 spinning 160,000 pounds of cotton into No. 38 yarn—allowing 
 15 per cent, for waste net 140,000 pounds of yarn a week or 
 about 23,300 pounds a day. Reduced to 35,000 spindles, 
 8,100 pounds—a slightly greater output in No. 38 in Massa¬ 
 chusetts than in No. 20 in Bombay. The spinning wages in 
 Massachusetts per pound of No. 20 yarn are 45 cents (in 
 Lancashire 50 cents), and per pound of No. 38 yarn 87 cents. 
 This means that, irrespective of the number of hands employed 
 for an equal quantity of work produced, the same plant and 
 improved machinery turn out in a given time 200 yards of 
 yarn in Massachusetts against a trifle over 100 yards in 
 Bombay. 
 
 If this be so, when we deal with what is apparently like 
 and like, how much more are we justified in expecting quite 
 important modifications of ruling impressions when we ex¬ 
 amine into industries which are conducted among different 
 nations by entirely different methods. Here we find one 
 nation clinging tenaciously to small domestic industries, the 
 people work in family groups or masters with helpers, some 
 still employ hand tools of ancient construction, others use 
 modern inventions and labor-saving machinery made service¬ 
 able for domestic industry. Along with this the factory runs. 
 But even here the use made of machinery is quite different in 
 one country from what it is in another. 
 
 Here the insufficiency of the commonly adopted standard 
 of measuring relative efficiency, i. e. productivity of labor, or 
 cheapness, by the rate of wages becomes more distressing yet. 
 
9 
 
 In a sense more closely allied in methods of proceeding to the 
 just-mentioned industry than what I shall point out below, is 
 calico printing. In Elberfeld and Mulhouse the work is 
 conducted practically on the same principle as in Lowell, 
 Fall River, Providence, etc., by printing machines with en¬ 
 graved copper rollers driven by steam. Yet I was told by 
 owners of extensive print works at both places in Germany, 
 that it is useless for them to attempt competition with America 
 in neutral markets. That they had lost the Mexican market 
 and would run the same risk elsewhere where American 
 Cloth, width and quality, have established markets. They 
 cannot compete in price. From the rate of wages standard 
 this would seem incredible. In Lowell print-works, which 1 
 visited, a printer gets $4.50 a day. In Mulhouse not above 
 one-third; in Elberfeld not much over one-fourth would be 
 the day wages of a printer. Truly a formidable difference. 
 When, however, we know that one printer at $4.50 and a 
 helper at $1.50, suffice to tend one printing machine, and that 
 one printing machine, printing up to three or four colors turns 
 out daily 400 pieces of print of 50 yards or 20,000 yards, and 
 in prints used for furniture, etc., with eight to twelve colors 
 printed simultaneously, 250 pieces or 12,500 yards, then we 
 see how immaterial the question is whether the wages for 
 tending the printing machine are $ 6, $3, or $4, .03, .015, or 
 .02 cents per yard. The labor cost becomes here a vanishing 
 quantity on the one side, while on the other side causes may 
 come in which make it an important factor, even if nominally 
 of a very low rate. The German printers say that they cannot 
 work on the American basis of running for days and weeks 
 one pattern on one machine. They have to run much slower, 
 use more time and care. They have to collect their trade 
 from almost every country in the world. It comes in dribblets. 
 They have to accommodate themselves to everybody’s whims, 
 make patterns, styles, and colors for every zone and taste. 
 The large trade is in the hands of England, and they can only 
 obtain and retain trade by ready acquiesence to all the 
 exactions of fashion in the finer prints or national predilections 
 in the cheaper goods. This not alone increases the cost of 
 
TO 
 
 production, but perhaps to a greater extent yet, the cost of 
 distribution, and may be called a new element of disturbance 
 in making comparisons in like industries among different 
 nations. Methods in distribution as well as methods in pro¬ 
 duction. They are dissimilar in every country and both have 
 their influence on prices and cost of production. 
 
 Along with this advanced system of printing, bearing such 
 different results so far as price-making is concerned, runs 
 block printing yet to a considerable extent. Apparently 
 hopelessly expensive if brought in competition with roller 
 printing—still under certain conditions it may be much 
 cheaper—or no other process applicable. Roller printing 
 would be ruinously expensive in a small output or applied to 
 a small industry of a changeable nature. 
 
 We have found all of these divergences in reviewing 
 manufacturing conducted by similar methods. How much 
 greater must we expect these divergences to be when we 
 compare production conducted here by an industrous toiler 
 with his hand tools; there with improved hand machinery; 
 and in another place by minute subdivisions of the best 
 organized labor, aided by machinery of the subtlest construc¬ 
 tion or by automatons, which with iron teeth and fingers cut 
 steel and copper, turn screws, nails, pins, make the heads, 
 sharpen the points and drop the finished work into a ready 
 receptacle, or cut iron and twist and knit it into chains, &c. 
 The labor employed here consists simply in putting a coil of 
 wire or a rod of steel or copper into the machine, which then 
 does all the work with greater regularity and precision than 
 the most skilled workman could do by hand. In more com¬ 
 plicated work than the making of these units great skill is 
 required of the workers under both systems. Still it is skill 
 of quite a different nature—the one in doing one and the 
 same kind of work repeatedly day in and day out, like the 
 automaton which makes the parts; the other—in making a 
 complete piece of assembled parts inclusive of the parts. 
 Great as the skill and technical knowledge must be of making 
 a complete piece of so fine and subtle a mechanism as a watch 
 or a clock by hand with hand tools, the skill required in the 
 
manipulation of the other system is of an equally high though 
 of a different character. In the assembling room of an 
 American clock factory I found one girl putting together the 
 parts of 240 movements as one day’s work. This requires 
 great dexterity and exactness. The work in all the manipula¬ 
 tions is paid for by the piece. High earnings can only be 
 obtained by great quickness, deftness and uninterrupted 
 attention and application, qualities which again can be sup¬ 
 plied by none but the best conditioned labor, enjoying the 
 highest standard of living. Nowhere is so high a degree of 
 intelligence and brightness in manner, looks and appearance 
 observable among work people as where these conditions 
 prevail, where the highest known earnings in like industries 
 lead to the lowest cost of labor. A clock is sold at 90 cents, 
 an alarm-clock is sold at retail at $1.25, a Waterbury watch at 
 $2.50. It is the surprise of Europe. The factory sells it at 
 $1.50 to the retailer. On a recent visit to the factory I was 
 shown all the numerous operations of the manufacturing 
 process. The material is all worked from the plainest condi¬ 
 tion. It enters the factory as rolled steel and brass, and 
 sheet-iron, and leaves it as a well-regulated watch in a paste¬ 
 board box lined with colored satin. The making of the spring, 
 of the wheels, screws, pins, pinions, the perforating of the 
 plates, &c.; the assembling, the finishing, the regulating, all 
 are done with as much care and precision as if for a piece of 
 five times the value. Yet all these collected processes do not 
 cost in labor more than 50 cents a watch. The company has 
 a pay-roll of $4,500 a week, and turns out 1,500 watches a 
 day, or 9,000 a week, which makes the labor exactly as stated. 
 The machinery is as interesting a study as the labor employed 
 in the making and furnishing of this product of skill and 
 enterprise. The number of people employed in the factory 
 is 420, fully one-half of whom are women. The average 
 earnings are $10.71, which is about four times as high as in 
 the Black Forest or in Switzerland. Here the lower cost is 
 not due to cheap wages but to excellent machinery and skill 
 and great quickness of labor employed at a very low cost by 
 the piece. The great variety and complexity of machinery 
 
and consequent great expense of plant can be borne profitably 
 because of the very large output. The labor, the machinery 
 turning uninterruptedly the same work is here employed and 
 utilized to the full. Improvements in machinery follow on 
 one another’s heels when they are so profitable that, for 
 instance, two machines and two men make 1,200 to 1,500 
 springs a day, while a short time ago, now on obsolete 
 machinery, it took twelve men to turn out 1,000 springs. 
 Neither in the Black Forest nor in Geneva have I seen 
 machinery, meant for the same purpose, utilized in any way 
 approaching that in which it is utilized in America. Nor does 
 hand labor move with the swiftness of hand labor in American 
 factories. Here it is also a matter of minor significance that a 
 girl gets $9 to $10 a week, when she is thereby enabled to 
 fasten the wheel in 1,600 watch cases, handling four pieces in 
 each case (the wheel, two washers and the pinion wire), 
 as a day’s work. Only with such labor, appliances and 
 systematizing is it possible to make a watch containing 58 
 pieces which collectively have passed through 370 single 
 operations, at so abnormally low a price. 
 
 The relative indifference of high day wages when brought 
 side by side with such astonishing results, is more apparent 
 yet when we deal with industries where automatic machinery 
 is employed almost exclusively. Screw-making, nail-making, 
 pin-making, etc. In the latter industry the coil of brass wire 
 is put in its proper place, the end fastened, and the almost 
 human piece of mechanism, with its iron fingers, does the rest 
 of the work. One machine makes 180 pins a minute, cutting 
 the wire, flattening the heads, sharpening the points, and 
 dropping the pin in its proper place. 108,000 pins a day is 
 the output of one machine. A factory visited by me employed 
 70 machines. These had a combined output per day of 
 7,500,000 pins or 300 pins to a paper—25,000 papers of pins, 
 allowing for stoppages and necessary time for repairs—say 
 20,000 papers. These machines are tended by three men. 
 A machinist with a boy helper attends to the repairing. It 
 will not materially influence the price of pins whether the 
 combined earnings of these five men be $7.50 or $10 per diem. 
 
! 3 
 
 The difference would amount to one-eighth of a cent on a paper 
 of pins. The likelihood is that when cheaper help is employed 
 a greater number of hands would be employed for the same 
 work and the same output. 
 
 This applies to all industries, but principally to those which 
 can be conducted by highly developed and organized labor. 
 The boot and shoe industry is a brilliant example. I found 
 on samples, the products of Lynn factories, which 1 had brought 
 with me for comparison, that no foreign manufacturers were 
 able to compete with American factories in the cheapness of 
 the labor price. Here at Lynn a pair of ladies’ gaiters is made 
 as low as 35 cents for the labor, including the making of 24 
 buttonholes and sewing on of buttons, and in country shops 
 as low as 25 cents for the same kind with about 10 buttonholes 
 in each. I made comparisons in different places. In Vienna, 
 in Berlin, in Frankfort, and in Offenbach I found the labor cost 
 to be double, while the earnings were less than half what the 
 are here. In Erfurt where wages are lower yet than in any 
 of the mentioned places the cost is lower, but the goods are 
 inferior and still nearly 100 per cent, higher in the labor cost 
 than in my sample of country-shop gaiters of American manu¬ 
 facture. The factories work with American machines, but the 
 output falls way behind ours. Along with this a great deal of 
 handwork made in the homes of shoemakers—domestic in¬ 
 dustry— is run in, both for export and home trade. I do not 
 enter into an explanation of these phenomena here, neither 
 their bearings or their causes. I shall in a later report with 
 fuller data attempt to point out the causes which produce 
 these varying effects. I only desire, now, in a cursory review 
 of the methods under which the world’s industries are con¬ 
 ducted, to enforce the necessity of conducting investigations 
 specifically and not from a “general average” standpoint, 
 which necessarily leads to erroneous deductions. 
 
 To show the extent to which industrial production persists 
 in the line marked out, I point to Germany, certainly now 
 one of the most progressive states. Still, according to the 
 Industrial Census of 1882, more than one-half of all its popu¬ 
 lation engaged in manufactures where small groups of 
 
H 
 
 workers can at all be employed, were employed in groups of 
 
 less than 5 to each establishment. 
 
 In 
 
 
 
 
 : A Total of 
 
 I Worked in Worked in 
 groups o( lessjgroups ot more 
 than 5 persons, than 5 persons. 
 
 
 459 - 7 1 3 
 35 6 .° 8 9 
 71,777 
 910,089 
 221,688 
 469,695 
 743,881 
 
 298,125 ! 
 
 161,588 
 
 I machinery instri 
 
 127,565 j 
 
 228,524 
 
 54,910 
 
 469,516 
 
 114,395 
 
 102,007 
 
 275,229 
 
 l” ^ aC ’ ' 
 
 16,867 1 
 
 l" t e t . leb 
 
 | 440,573 
 
 107,293 i 
 367,688 i 
 468,652 i 
 
 I a er and leather industries 
 
 In wood industr: 
 
 l" W • t food 1 Irink 
 
 
 Totfll 
 
 3 > 232,932 
 
 1,826,763 j 
 
 1,406,169 
 
 
 Organizations large enough for profitable employment of 
 power machinery would have to be aggregates of many more 
 than five persons. The number of people employed in domestic 
 industries, those working in their own homes, for account of 
 business-houses, merchants, exporters or manufacturers, is 
 very large. A total of 754.550 persons are so engaged. The 
 kingdom of Saxony alone employs 138,000 persons and 
 Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia 102,000 in domestic indus¬ 
 tries. 230,000 are engaged in textiles, mostly in weaving. 
 Hosiery still occupies over 40,000 people in house-industry. 
 The principal lines in textiles occupy in home-industries the 
 following position ; I set side by side the total of all engaged 
 in the representative branches : 
 
 Percentage of all Employed. 
 
 Engaged in 
 House-Indus¬ 
 tries. 
 
 Total in 
 Industry. 
 
 Per cent . 
 
 
 
 Silk weaving and velvet (Rhenish Prussia 49,022)... 
 
 70 
 
 53.286 
 
 76,264 
 
 Woolen weaving. 
 
 22 
 
 23,799 
 
 108,007 
 
 Linen “ . 
 
 40 
 
 41,045 
 
 103,808 
 
 Cotton “ . 
 
 42 
 
 52,295 
 
 125,591 
 
 Mixed goods weaving. 
 
 3 ° 
 
 22,212 
 
 73-750 
 
 Knit goods, hosiery (kingdom of Saxony only, 30,513) 
 
 55 ! 
 
 40,528 
 
 73 iS 28 
 
 Total. 
 
 42 
 
 233- i6 5 
 
 561,248 
 
 In woolens 22 per cent., in mixed goods 30 per cent., in 
 cotton 42 per cent., in silk 70 per cent, and in knit goods 55 
 
per cent, of all weavers are still plying their looms or work 
 their frames in their own homes in the fashion of the fathers. 
 
 In boots and shoes of 398,757 shoemakers, only 25,768 
 work in groups of more than five persons. But even these 
 are not of a higher ratio than 14, being distributed over 1,839 
 establishments. 
 
 In metals, a line where so much of our automatic machin¬ 
 ery is so tellingly employed, the employment groups are of 
 an equally low ratio. 
 
 
 Total No. of employed. 
 
 In groups of less than 5. 
 
 I n groups of more than 5.1 
 
 No. of establishments. 
 
 No. of persons in larger 
 
 groups employed in each | 
 
 establishment. 
 
 Coppersmith ware. 
 
 9,198 
 
 6,940 
 
 2,258 
 
 147 
 
 >5 
 
 Lead and tinware. 
 
 4,6io 
 
 2,158 
 
 2,452 
 
 "3 
 
 22 
 
 Composite metals. 
 
 30,003 
 
 7,410 
 
 22,693 
 
 760 
 
 29 
 
 Tinsmith ware. 
 
 46,158 
 
 34,884 
 
 11,274 
 
 457 
 
 25 
 
 Nails, screws, &c. 
 
 23,609 
 
 11,784 
 
 11,825 
 
 267 
 
 44 
 
 Safes and heavy ironware, blacksmithing, &c. 
 
 63,467 
 
 5 LI 27 
 
 12,340 
 
 976 
 
 12 
 
 Cutlery, &c. 
 
 55,889 
 
 34 , 3 12 
 
 2 L 577 
 
 825 
 
 26 
 
 Watch and clock making.. 
 
 26,208 
 
 21,100 
 
 5,108 
 
 156 
 
 33 
 
 Mathematical instruments, &c. 
 
 15,073 
 
 7-591 
 
 7,482 
 
 384 
 
 20 
 
 If the classification into groups were carried further than 
 “groups above 5 ” and groups of 5 to 10 and of 10 to 20 
 were given we should see plainly, what the above figures 
 indicate—the small number of people employed in establish¬ 
 ments conducted on a basis large enough to make produc¬ 
 tion on the plan on which it is conducted mainly in America, 
 at all possible. 
 
 If these illustrations and figures prove anything, they 
 prove beyond doubt the necessity of basing comparisons on 
 homogeneous positive facts. 
 
 It is a common belief that with the rapid’ exchange of ideas, 
 the closer relations of nations characteristic of our age, the 
 methods and systems under which work is conducted by an 
 industrially more advanced nation, will soon be taken up by 
 all competitors. Measurably this may be true; so far as 
 
i6 
 
 outside appearances go, even to an appreciable extent. On 
 close examination we find, however, that the thick crust of 
 imperturbability of national predilections is not easily pene¬ 
 trated by new ways, methods, and ideas. Many counteracting 
 influences have to be overcome before one nation’s system of 
 work will perform the same result after adoption by another. 
 The spring to man’s activity to the exercise of all his functions, 
 lies deeper than that mere arbitrary will or individual action 
 exercised from without could effect rapid and violent changes. 
 While these differing features, in the productive methods of 
 nations, are visible at a first glance, it is evident that produc¬ 
 tion must also be largely influenced by them. Preeminently 
 production taken quantitatively. But much as the results of 
 labor measured by numbers, length or whatever term may be 
 called in for covering dimensions, may be influenced by the 
 methods and factors mentioned, the side which cannot be 
 measured by the common standard, the side appealing more 
 directly to the eye. Taste is still more greatly influenced by 
 these national, popular, latent instincts. It would be useless 
 to expect of one nation the same coloring, expression, orna¬ 
 ment, or artistic production as from another. In one the 
 sense of color predominates, in another the sense of form. 
 Here, more than in any other side of production, the national 
 habits, the means, and methods exert a great inflnence. Here, 
 in quite a number of instances, the same results could not be 
 obtained by any other method than the prevailing one. We 
 cannot expect production mainly conducted by machinery or 
 with an eye to turning out big quantities to cover the same 
 ground or bring out like results as where painstaking regu¬ 
 larity, inherited skill, and an intuitively trained eye direct the 
 hand of the worker tied to his domestic industry and produce 
 an individualization of products not obtainable otherwise. In 
 one country the traditions, habits and aims of government 
 unite to make the people persevere in the old methods. The 
 small industry of the craftsman, the hand-loom weaver, the 
 decorator, the metalworker in his own smithy, the domestic 
 industry is fostered and considered the ultimate goal to which 
 we have to return again. In another country, where traditions 
 
17 
 
 and habits do not so strongly point in that direction, industry 
 is left more to itself to shape its own course. Everywhere, 
 however, we detect the most varied manifestation of national 
 activity. The methods by which production is carried on are 
 as varied a. s the products themselves. Different as these are 
 in all respects, it is as unreasonable to expect of one nation 
 the same work and results as of another,-as it would be useless 
 to engraft upon one nation an exact copy of the methods of 
 another, because the latter have been found to bring out good 
 results there. 
 
 Referring to American conditions generally, it may be 
 stated that where data collected in Europeienable me to make 
 comparisons, I find, even in industries which are the least 
 able to compete with Europe, that the labor-price differences 
 are not naaterial. The causes are mainly in the price-differ¬ 
 ences in the material, raised by tariff taxation and tariff 
 influences. Manufacturers, as well as their fellow-men, out¬ 
 side of factories look to the week or day earnings of opera¬ 
 tions in foreign countries and base their comparisons of labor 
 cost thereon. We know from the aforesaid how misleading 
 this is. Still we have no data for correct comparison. Our 
 census statistics have had to serve in lieu thereof. They are 
 collected for a different purpose, and we need not find fault if 
 they do not answer the needs of more minute requirements. 
 “Woolens” may serve as an illustration. Shoddy goods, all- 
 wool goods, dress goods and heavy woolens are all classed 
 under one heading, and inferences are drawn from the col¬ 
 umns devoted respectively to material, labor and general 
 product. In my recent inquiries I obtained reliable data from 
 a mill making shoddy goods and all-wool cassimeres, from a 
 mill making pure wool goods only, and from a mill making 
 flannels a.nd all-wool sackings and dress goods. In goods 
 (cheviots) composed of two-thirds shoddy and one-third wool 
 I find the cost of material, including dyestuffs, to be about 32 
 cents per pound of finished goods and the labor cost, inclusive 
 of 2.81 cents for office expenses and superintendence, is 26.30 
 cents per woven yard. These goods weigh 16 to 18 ounces 
 a yard, and the net labor per pound may therefore be reduced 
 
to 24 cents a pound, and, inclusive of office expenses, superin¬ 
 tendence, &c., to a fraction over 21 cents a pound. This 
 gives us the relative positions of 32-4-21, or in a hundred in 
 round numbers—60 per cent, material and 40 per cent, labor. 
 In all-wool goods of the same mill the cost of materials rises 
 to 80 cents per pound, while the labor cost is rather less than 
 more, and is fully expressed by 20 cents a pound—in per 
 cent. 80 material and 20 labor. In a mill making all-wool 
 goods only I find these relations verified. Aggregating things 
 of such unequal dimensions and drawing averages therefrom 
 must lead to confusing applications, and confused results. If 
 this is the case with statistics of material and of labor in the 
 columns assigned to them, it is more so yet in what we have 
 as “general product.” This covers often supplies, profits, 
 general expense, selling expense, interest, discounts, generally 
 of a very elastic nature, and a multiplicity of items two numer¬ 
 ous to mention. While in some these would be more than 
 the combined cost of labor and material, in others they would 
 form only an inconsiderable part of the general cost. If for 
 general use these data are therefore not more than an index 
 of national development, used for comparisons, and bases of 
 operative reasoning, they become misleading, unless we can 
 find counter positions of equal values, a possibility which the 
 aggregation of dissimilar parts excludes. For international 
 comparisons they would be less than useless, as then new 
 elements of uncertainty would interfere. There is no other 
 basis for comparison than that of like and like—homogeneity. 
 For this the data have to be found. We have absolutely 
 none. An inquiry into the cost of labor in production, or 
 rather in specified articles of production, at once opens the 
 whole wide vista of the industrial problem. We then see side 
 by side nation and nation in their whole productive potency, 
 expressed by an unerring standard of measurement—price. 
 When we know that it costs 20 cents in America in labor to 
 scour, card, dye, spin, weave and finish sufficient wool to 
 make a pound of cloth, flannel, dress-goods of a certain fine¬ 
 ness and count, then we have an absolute, a certain, a scien¬ 
 tific basis of inquiry. We know that if the labor cost of the 
 
19 
 
 same operations in Germany, France or England is 17 cents, 
 that our labor costs 3 cents more, or if 23 cents, that our 
 labor costs 3 cents less than the same amount and quality of 
 labor in foreign countries, expended in the same amount of 
 product; no matter what the relative earnings are. I have 
 not been able to cover in my inquiries abroad like cases and 
 goods in woolens. The dissimilarity of apparently like goods 
 is especially great in woolens. Still in goods made in Ireland, 
 with day earnings perhaps of the lowest in Europe, on com¬ 
 parison I find but a small difference in the cost of labor, while 
 there is a very great difference in the cost of the wool 
 between here and there. The earnings, however, are nearly 
 three times as high in American first-class woolen mills. 
 
 To illustrate this by a specific example I may men¬ 
 tion here an Irish woolen mill of recent build, where the 
 weekly output per weaver was given to me as averaging 
 50 yards about double-width tweed. The price paid for 
 weaving 48 yards is 10/—or $2.40, or 5 cents a yard. 
 The earnings per week per weaver average about 11 /—or 
 $2.64. In the American mill referred to above, making 
 cheviots and kerseys, the monthly earnings average $34.63, 
 or counting 26 working days, $7.99 a week. At first sight 
 this would indicate that competition on equal terms is all but 
 impossible. * Still, the wages paid per yard for the goods 
 referred to run from to Z x / 2 cents per yard, 54 inches 
 wide. These goods, however, are all of a finer count, more 
 threads to the inch, and if we had the same goods for com¬ 
 parison we should probably find the weaving cost per yard 
 but slightly differing from that paid in Ireland. This ,can only 
 be accounted 'for by the output being sufficiently high in 
 American mills to cover thereby the indicated differences. 
 And this is the case, as the average monthly output per 
 weaver in this mill is 482 yards, or with 21 working days, 111 
 yards per week. But even here the output varies between 
 120 and 735 yards per weaver. The smaller output is that of 
 beginners. 
 
20 
 
 The 65 looms of the mill divided as follows: 
 
 3 below 200 yards. 
 
 5 between 200 and 300 yards. 
 
 5 “ 300 “ 400 “ 
 
 21 “ 400 “ 500 “ 
 
 17 “ 500 “ 600 “ 
 
 12 “ 600 “ 700 “ 
 
 2 respectively 716 and 735 yards. 
 
 It is apparent from this that the labor price per piece need 
 not necessarily be high because the earnings are high. The 
 earnings vary with the skill and energy of the operator. 
 Extended into wide fields of inquiry* the statement will un¬ 
 doubtedly find further corroboration. 
 
 I have the honor to be, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. SCHOENHOF.