State of labor in Europe, 1878 : reports from United States Consuls in the several countries of Europe on rates of wages, cost of living to the laborers, past and present rates, present condition of trade, business habits, and systems, amount of paper money in circulation, and its relative value to gold and silver : for the several consular districts, in response to a circular from the Department of State requesting information upon these subjects ; together with a letter from the Secretary of State transmitting these reports to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of labor in Europe, 1878 : reports from United States Consuls in the several countries of Europe on rates of wages, cost of living to the laborers, past and present rates, present condition of trade, business habits, and systems, amount of paper money in circulation, and its relative value to gold and silver : for the several consular districts, in response to a circular from the Department of State requesting information upon these subjects ; together with a letter from the Secretary of State transmitting these reports to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Neivcastle-tqwn-Tyne.—An exhaustive and interesting report on the following subjects: The nine-hour system, in connection with the great strike of the engineers in 1873; Northumberland coal mines, miners, and coal trade (valuable); agricultural laborers, a review of 100 years; seamen's wages; railway employes and their wages, &c, Bradford.—Labor educational statistics, and the relations between capital and labor. Manchester.—The public feeling in regard to, and the suffering caused by, strikes. Sheffield.—Habits of the workingmen and workingwomen; time and money lost in drinking saloons. IRELAND. No country in Europe, perhaps, affords a better illustration of the commercial vigor and manufacturing activity which are ever the results of diversified industry than does Ireland by the almost total absence of the same, and the consequent monotony which is ever the accompani- ment of such a commercial condition as prevails in that country. With the exception of the linen manufacture—omitting local efforts for self-supply—Ireland may be said to have no national industry out- side of agriculture; and as the great tendency of agriculture in that country is toward pasture-farming—over one-third of all the arable land being now given up to pasturage and meadow-land—and as the labor required to tend cattle and cut and save hay is comparatively little, it follows that even the requirements of this one industry, as far as labor is concerned, must be growing less year by year. Emigration, however, would seem to draw off Ireland's surplus labor population, as the wages of farm hands in that country, according to the reports submitted, are very little less than the wages which prevail in England and Scotland, as may be seen by the following statement: - Weekly wages paid to agricultural laborers in Ireland, England, and Scotland. . Description. Ireland. England. Scotland. Ifen, without board or lodging $3 40 1 30 2 16 75 40 00 $3 60 2 60 1 80 1 15 60 00 $4 25 $1 50 to 2 00 1 80 to 3 25 60 to 1 00 34 00 to 49 00 In a large number of cases the agricultural laborers of Ireland supple- ment their wages by the produce of small plots of ground attached to their cabins. As a general thing, a fair share of the field work is per- formed by women. To enable you to compare the rates of wages paid to the trades in Ireland with the rates paid to similar trades in New York and Chicago, I submit the following table: