The difference in the cost of living is accounted for by the difference in the manner of living, and I hope to clearly demonstrate this by another example. Take a locomotive fireman in the United States. I know many of them; I know what wages they receive and how they live. An ordinary locomotive fireman in the United States earns usually $60 a month, and, counting loss of time, he earns on an average about $550 a year at the lowest estimate. European locomotive firemen consider themselves well paid if their earnings amount to $22 per month or $264 per year. As to the manner of living, I am satisfied that one-third of the firemen in the United States possess their own homes, and a large majority of all could be in the same happy condition if they lived on the same economical basis as the European firemen. The homes owned by the American firemen consist of from six to eight rooms. They are usually well built and comfortably furnished. In country towns they are generally surrounded by good gardens. The school facilities for their children are equally as good as those of the European firemen, and I am inclined to believe that they are better in many respects, since the European school experts at the World's Fair in Chicago frankly confessed that, taking everything into consideration, the public-school system of the United States is the best in the world. Thus, it may be seen that the American firemen have the advantage of their fellowworkers in the Old World.

If their educational advantages are equally as good, their food advantages are far better. The ordinary food supply of the American firemen consists of good coffee, tea, sugar, milk, bread, butter, meats of all kinds, fresh fish, fruits, and canned goods of every description, and for nearly every one of these items of food they pay from 6 to 12 per cent less than the cost of the same class and quality of goods in the European markets. While at work, the locomotive firemen of the United States usually wear overalls, but when they cease their labors they become apparently as well dressed as is a merchant, a banker, or a judge of a superior court in either country. An interesting fact is that if these clothes are ready-made, their cost in the American market is no more, and sometimes less, than in the markets of the Old World. To be sure, these clothes made to order would cost less in Europe than in America, because labor is much cheaper in the Old World than in the New. The journeyman tailor in central Europe gets only $5 for sixty-five hours of work, while his fellow-worker in the United States gets $12 for five hours' less work. Every intelligent person realizes that the people of that country where the cost of living is cheapest and the earnings highest are the happiest and will be the most prosperous people on earth.

In the United States, prices for the necessaries of life are lower

and the wages of all who labor are higher than in any other country. No one can successfully challenge this assertion. I speak of as necessaries, those things that enter into the making of a comfortable home, as we understand such a home in the United States; such as ample and wholesome food, furniture, fuel, lights, clothing, and cheap transportation by railroad, steamboat, or tram car. To the American workmen, all these things are cheaper than they are to their brother breadwinners in Europe, and, to double this great advantage, their wages are sometimes more than twice as high. But these are not the only advantages American labor has over conditions in the Old World. When workmen go to church in the United States they find a comfortable pew in a warm, well-lighted, and pleasant place of worship. When they go to the theater they occupy good seats. When they travel with their families on the railroad, they ride first class, and, if sober and industrious and of good moral character, as they usually are, they hold a pleasant social position in the community in which. they live.

This is a fair and conservative picture of the surroundings, condition, and life of the American firemen.

You may search the continent of Europe from St. Petersburg to Lisbon, from Stockholm to Palermo, and the isles of the Briton from the Hebrides to Brighton in vain for such conditions among railroad men. I am confident that not one-twelfth of the locomotive engineers and firemen of Europe live in their own homes. How can they? The average wages of the engineers is about $320 per annum, and that of the firemen $264; switchmen, $216; watchmen, $240; and prices of food and clothing, rent, fuel, and lights are as high in their markets as in the markets of the United States-I mean, the same kind and quality of food, clothing, fuel, lights, and the same number of rooms as to rent prices.

A locomotive fireman of central Europe receives, on an average, for a week's work of sixty-five hours' time, $5; for a full month's work, $20; and for a year of fair average time, $264.. He seldom owns his home. A well-informed person says that he does not know of a single instance where a locomotive fireman in Europe has. bought and paid for his home out of his regular earnings. I can name a hundred firemen in my limited knowledge of the personnel of railroads in the United States who own their homes and have paid for them out of the savings from their wages. The European fireman is simply forced, by the conditions that always confront him, to pay rent, and he usually rents rooms and not a house. His quarters generally consist of from two to three rooms, and the rent price is approximately the same as in the United States, taking floor space, location, condition, and conveniences into consideration. His quar

ters are of necessity in the cheap residence quarter. The facilities for housekeeping are scant, as a rule, and the furnishings very meager, but usually clean and neat. His food consists of coffee and bread for breakfast; potato soup, bread, potatoes, and cheap wine or beer for dinner, and sometimes meat; for supper, bread, beer, or cider, or common wine that costs perhaps 10 cents a liter or quart. For every ounce of this food, except the common wine and beer, he will pay just as much as, and sometimes more than, the American fireman pays for food similar in quality and kind. His coffee, fair Rio, is 32 cents per pound; fair Java costs 35 cents; tea, from 70 cents to $1; sugar, 6 cents; beef, 18 to 25 cents; horseflesh, 5 to 7 cents; bacon, 20 cents; ham, 25 cents; sausages, 22 cents; rice, 6 cents; cheese, from 16 to 26 cents; dried apples, 11 cents; flour, 5 cents; common soap, 7 cents; American canned beef, 18 cents; potatoes, from 40 to 60 cents a bushel; eggs, 15 to 24 cents per dozen; milk, 4 cents a quart; cider, 6 cents a quart; beer, 8 cents a quart; common wine, 19 cents a quart; kerosene, 20 cents a gallon; wood, cut for stove, $10 per cord; coke, $8 per ton; coal, $7 per ton; coarse cowhide shoes, from $2 to $3.50 per pair; cotton overalls, 96 cents; cotton blouse, 96 cents; Sunday suits, from $8 to $18; common coarse suits, from $5 to $8. And, as everybody is taxed in central Europe, the fireman comes in for his share; not on his possessions, for he seldom has any, but on the amount of the meager earnings which he may receive during the year.

The above are the average retail prices for food and clothes, and he who will take the trouble to compare them with prices for the same articles in the American markets will discover that in almost every article the American fireman has the advantage, besides having twice the income with which to make the purchases.

The European firemen usually wear overalls during working hours, and, when they dress after their labors, they present a plain, neat appearance; but their clothes are coarse and never fit as well as those of the American, while the foot and head wear are positively awkward and rough in make and appearance. To these disadvantages, should be added the fact that when the European firemen go to church they find an uncomfortable, poorly heated, poorly ventilated, and sometimes gloomy place of worship; when they go to the theater, they must occupy the poorest places; when they travel with their families on the railroad, they do so in the third-class cars; and, no matter how sober and industrious they may be, they can never hold the same position in the social world that their brother breadwinners do in the United States. But, with all these disadvantages, it must be conceded that the railroad employees of the Old World are usually loyal to the corporations that give them employ

ment and discharge their duties with a fidelity, industry, and care that make them worthy of better wages, better food, better homes, and brighter hopes. Their earnings are small; they can save nothing; their time of toil is long and their chance of advancement slow. Yet, with all these discouraging conditions, they are as sturdy and faithful a class of men as can be found in any department of human labor in the world.

If the conditions were the same in Europe as in the United Statesthat is, if the locomotive firemen of Europe received the same wages that are paid in the United States—and if they continued to live in the way they do now and practiced the same economy, a service of twenty years would find them in the possession of savings that would place every one of them in his own home and in independent circumstances.

Whenever it is stated in the United States that "the wages in Europe are small, but the cost of living is proportionately small,' it should not be forgotten that, while the cost of living among the workmen of Europe is proportionately smaller than among the toilers in the United States, the manner of living is also immeasurably poorer, not only in housing, clothing, and food, but in all conditions; and also the wages are only half the amount paid in our country.

ST. GALL, February 18, 1898.

JAMES T. DuBois,
Consul-General.

ENGLISH EXPORTS OF COTTON GOODS AND

YARN.

Under date of March 11, 1898, Consul Grinnell sends from Manchester the following tables:

1

Total exports of cotton yarn and cotton goods during the two months ending February 28, 1898, in comparison with the same period of the two preceding years, showing the countries to which the yarn has been exported.

THE GERMAN LEATHER INDUSTRY.

In my report dated January 6, 1898,* I mentioned that American dressed leather was finding its way into German markets. Since then I have investigated the matter more thoroughly, and find that American dressed leather is greatly preferred by the local shoe and boot manufacturers to the German article, or, in fact, to that of any other country. It is the fault of our American leather manufacturers and dealers if they do not succeed in gaining a permanent foothold and become formidable competitors in the German markets; provided, of course, that the present import duty on leather remains unchanged.

So far, however, our American leather manufacturers and dealers in general (of course, there are a few exceptions) have not given

*See CONSULAR REPORTS No. 210 (March, 1898), p. 450.