Out and Home.—By "The Extractor."
Page 15
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The "Austin Advocate," a monthly journal issued from the Austin works, is an interesting potpourri. Excellent advice to users of Austin ears is interlarded with caricatures and artistic impressioes of Austin productions in all parts of the world with splashes of local colour. I notice they are now dc• voting some entirely serious pages to commercial vehicles. Later I shall look for some impressionist pictorial comparisons from China or Peru. One article touches an abstract subject which is always of interest, the question of working conditions and wages in the United States. I would like to quote a good many paragraphs from this spasmodic but all the same attractive article, for the genuineness of which the editor stands sponsor.
"Notes from the Diary of a Working Man" :- " American operatives work no harder than their European brethren.
" Why should they.? They are no better paid, indeed not so well, and usually they work longer hours.
" West of Chicago, and in fact in most German-controlled shops, the Saturday half-holiday is only allowed in the hot summer months.
" I only worked in one factory that closed at mid-day on Saturday all the year through.
" What is the condition of the engineering workman operative generally in the States, excluding special cases " His wages are lower, his hours are longer, his tenure of steady work more uncertain, his liberty far more restrained. His place in the governing of his country nonexistent.
" Tbe average union wage outside New York and Chicago (capital cities like London) is $15.00 which at $4.87 = 2.3 Os. Gd.
" The internal buying value of the dollar to the workman is not over 4.55 as compared with 4.100 here.
" So, in comparison, he gets hr the States 3:3s. 2d. per week, against our union rate here of 38s.
" The union hours in the States are one hour longer than here, but the union rule probably does not affect 20 per cent. of the shops West of Pittsburg. German precedent, which is based on 60 and 72 hour weeks, rules here.
" It costs as much to heat a workman's five-room house for one winter round Chicago as it would to heat it three winters here,
" We used 35 tons of coal a week to heat the last factory I was in, employing 400 hands.
" It cost 240 a year to screen the windows and doors against flies in the summer.
" A workman's ice bill in the hot months about equals his winter coal bill.
"Cloth of good quality is unknown, except to millionaires. I paid £18 for a dinner suit made of English cloth." It is a wonder our working man had any money left for dinner after paying for that dinner suit.
A great day seems to have materialized at Guildford in connection with the Dremmond water sports. This has become a hardy annual now, and one of the events is the competition for the Guildford Works Trophy. This is put up for a swimming race amongst the employees of three Guildford works, Drummond's, Dennis Bros., and St. Marthas. Last year it went to our friends the Dennis concern, now the
" ashes " are regained by Drummend's, no doubt amidst tremendous excitement. The head of the tool-making concern occupied the position of umpire at their sports, and Mrs. Drummond, who takes the keenest interest in the employees, took care that the children of same had their golden In= and presented suitable prizes herself for boys' and girls' races.
The friends ef Mr. J. Yarwood will read the following notice with interest :—
John Yarwood and Co., Ltd., with an authorized capital of 22000 in 21 shares, with its office at 121, Gresham House, Old Broad Street, E.C. First directors : J. Yarwood, F. R. Yarwood, and G. F. Ranee.