People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1895 — GOLD STANDARD PAY. [ARTICLE]

GOLD STANDARD PAY.

A COMPARISON OF WAGES IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES. In Many Trade* Wage* Ara Higher In Silver Countrie* Than in AU the Gold Standard Conntriea of Europe— Figure* Deceptive. One of the arguments, or rather assertions, upon which the advocates of the gold standard lay peculiar stress is the alleged low rate of wages in silver countries as compared with those of gold countries. We have often noticed that while this assertion is made with a great deal of emphasis, the relative rates of wages in the two classes of countries are never actually stated and contrasted. We know now why they are not. It is because they do not bear out the claim of the gold standard orators. We have before us the very tables so often referred to, but never quoted, by the gold monometallists, which show the weekly wagSs paid to the general trades in countries whose currencies are on the gold and those whose currencies are on the silver basis. We observe in these tables that such gold standard countries as Egypt and Turkey are omitted from the tables, doubtless because their wages were entirely too low to show up to advantage in a gold standard argument. Nevertheless, especially prepared as these tables were for a campaign of gold monometallism, they are utterly destructive of the argument based on the comparative wage rates. While these tables show that in a number of the general trades wages are higher in the gold standard than they are in the silver standard countries, they also show that in a number of others the wages in the latter countries are higher than they are in nearly all the gold standard countries of Europe, and that they compare favorably even with the wages paid in England and France. Thus the tables show that in Mexico, bricklayers receive $lO per week, while in Germany they receive $4.21 per week, in Belgium $4.58 per week, in Holland $4.89, in Italy $4.20, in Spain $3.80, in France $5.74. In Mexico masons get SIO.BO, and in Peru, also on a silver standard, they get $14.76 per week. The same class of laborers in England get $7.68 per week, in France $5.33, in Germany $4.67, in Belgium $5.22, in Holland $4.80, in Italy $3, in Spain $3.30, in Switzerland $5.27. In Mexico the wages of a carpenter range from $1.50 to $4.75 per day. In Peru they are $9 per week, and in Venezuela, which was on the silver standard when the table was prepared, they are $9.84. In Germany carpenters get $4.11 per week, in Belgium $4.07, in Holland $4.80, in Italy $4, in Spain $3.90. Brass founders in Mexico get $lO per week, in Germany they get $4.38, in Holland $4. in Italy $4, in Denmark $4.82. In Mexico the wages of a cabinetmaker are $lO per week, in Peru they are $14.76 per week and in Venezuela they are $14.45, both of these latter countries being classed in the table as silver countries. In Germany a cabinetmaker gets $4.25 per week, in Denmark $4.58, in Belgium $5, in Holland $4.80, in Italy $3.40, in France $6.14. Tinsmiths get $7.50 per week in Mexico and sl4 per week in Venezuela. In Germany they get $3.55, in Holland $4, in Spain $3, in Belgium $4.40, in France $5.50, in England $6.50. Tailors get $7.14 per week in Mexico and $12.50 per week in Venezuela, In Germany they get $3.41 per week, in Italy $4, in Spain $4.90, in Holland $5, in France $5.62. What is there in these figures to justify the claim that high wages go with the gold standard and low wages go with the silver standard? Reduce these wages all to their gold value, and it still appears that the earnings of the workingman in these despised silver countries are higher than they are in nearly all the great and enlightened gold standard countries of Europe. When among the “great enlightened” nations of Europe, despite the blessings of a gold standard, you find laborers working for from 20 to 30 cents per day, as the reports accompanying these tables show to be the case in Italy and Switzerland, when “skilled labor” can be had in the German textile Industries for 48 cents per day, what excuse is there for all this howl about low wages in silver countries? —Memphis Commercial-Ap-peal.