Work and Wages in the Russian Empire
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IIOMR OF A WKIJ.-TO-DO RUSSIAN WORKMAN.
ITussian Cutlery grindeii.
(Copyright, 1903, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
' "1JNI NOVQOROn, Aug. 10 Sp
WJ clul Corrt'spondeni c of tlio ltoe.)
8ooner or later the Russians will
bo our chief romietltors In th
iSZAiJJ niarkotH nf Kuriin nrnt Km'tsk-
They have greater material les turces than
Any other country outmlde the United
Btatea and by far the larg rt number of
hlte laborers. They aro n:i orally uk'llfut
and will work for less thuri any iieople
except the. Chlnupo, Jupannse a'ld lCust In
diana. There nro now 130,00u.(i) of them In
the Rustlun empire, and of thesa mor
than 100,000,000 belong to lh laboring
claases. The factory hands are steadily
Increasing, and there are tens of millions
who work at their homes.
An enormous amount of hou . e Industry la
done here. Hundrods of art e'ea now sold
at the Nljnl Novgorod fulr were made In
thatched huts. Muny of the Htaple prod
ucts are turned out by the runners, who
till the land in the summer, nnd devote
themselves to their trades In the winter.
Our farmers Ho Idle six mmths of the
year. More thun 8,000,000 RujMian farmers
devote the cold wc.uther to ouinldj worlv,
.making things) to sell, which bring them In
an annual profit of $-),0OJ,O0, v,i hout leav
ing their humia or neglecting t'u lr farms.
These figures are given me by ih govern
ment oftlcluls.
This work has been going on for years
and It has resulted In building v; u class
of skilled laborers who can t ni out a
better product for the same tu ny than
any other people In Kurope. 'J hey can
compete with and beat American machin
ery. Take our shoeH, for Instance. In
tome dish lots here calfukln shoex ure made
o cheaply that they can be soli at whole
sale for 43 cents a pair, a llgmc which
crowds out forever our 13 articl .
The work done in the houses U of every
description. In Borno districts they make
razors, knives, locks and all kinds of hard
ware. Kmh cabin has its little blacksmith
hop, and the man works away manufac
turing a small product oach day. Here In
NUnl Novgorod thousands of pennants are
making wooden ppoons, which are sold in
Europe and In different parts of Axl.t. They
enamel the spoons, and r.lso larve nnd
paint them from designs furnlshi d by the
Russian government. Altogetiu r. they
make more than 100,000,000 spoons a year,
and 60,000, on) of these are exported to China
and to south and west Aula.
In six provinces of Kuropean Russia there
are something like lUMO1) lace makers, who
make more than EaO.OM.OCO yards of l.iro
very year. Some of th- Inro Is very lino
and other kinds exceedingly coarse. The
peasants ibo laee of diffiTcnt colors for
trimming their drtsses and aprons, nnd
every man's Sunday shirt has more or less
lace stitched down the front. Tli" ou'rut
of this kind amounts to something hie
11,000,000 a year.
I wish I could ehn'v ymi some ! tb.it
are for anle here nt the Nljnl fair. They
are made of the finest woat, so f ro and
f'v
" a it'll 'Ot
v. f
CI
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V:' ) :MA
WAITING FOR JOBS AT TWO CENTS AN HOUR, ,
soft that you can draw a shawl aa big as
a bed quilt through a finger ring. Don't
laugh! I have done this myself, and I
bought such a shawl the other day for less
thun (5. These shawls are made by the
women of Orenburg and are sold all over
the empire.
In the Klmrl district the people make
boots and shoes. They turn out 8,000,000
pairs of boots every year, and It Is esti
mated thut there are 20,000 persons engaged
In that industry. In another government
there urv 10.000 more, nnd In Tobolsk the
onr.ual value of the leather made Is more
that Sl.COO.OOO. There are 10,000 peasants In
Vladimir and Moscow who spend the winter
weaving tdlk nnd something like 200.000 who
are engaged In making carriages and wag
ons. Many of these, farmers and farm hands
have co-operative associations. They club
together and build little factories In their
villages, which they fit up with lathes, en
gines and other machines. Sometimes they
borrow the money, putting In a few dollars
each nt the start, and sometimes go away
to vork for It. After the factory U es
tablished th-y will labor there during the
winter months and at the close divide the
pro His.
In some such es'nMlshments along lho
Volga cheap Jewelry Is made. Fifty vll
Inges make a specialty of It. They manu
facture earrings, bracelets, lockots and
rings nnd gild them. They make copper
and br.i'.s Jewelry nnd ship It to Asia. The
product is enormous.
There are many thousand engaged on
Icons, or tie pie. urea of saints cut out of
met il nnd p.itnted, which are found in
every Russian home They soil for from a
few cents to majiy dollars, and aro ex
ported, to all countries where the Greek
church has a foothold. There are some
engaged in printing, others color litho
graphs and many make boxes of papier
mac-he and enamel them. There is one
town where old-fashioned wall clocks are
turned out and another where they make
little looking glasses so cheuply that 1,000
can be sold at wholosalo for $20 and still
leave the manufacturers a profit of about
$3. In the same villages more expensive
wares are produced, including costly pier
and mantel glasses. Rut I might fill this
paper with the different articles made In
these home associations. They embrace
everything used In Russia, from textiles
to machinery, and the cheapness of manu
facture must be taken into consideration
by the Americans who are pushing the
commercial invasion.
Goods are sold so low that the profits are
small. It is chielly a question of raw ma
terial, the labor cost being little. In some
of the associations men, women and chil
dren work from daylight to dark, and if
each makes a few cents a day he ia satis
fied. Take the lock makers. There are
thousands of them, and In Tula alone the
locks sold bring In $4,000, OeO a year. Some
are so cheap that they sell for 18 cents a
dozen, and others so doar that they aro
each worth JL'.EO. The latter are door locks
which ring a bell when you turn them. Men
engaged in lockmaking uvefuge less than
$2 a week, and if one can net $50 in a win
ter he does extraordinarily well. Saddlers
make about the same and weavers much
less.
Along the Volga there nre thousands of
women who weave fishing nets, using a
million pounds of hemp and other raw ma
terial every year. They labor on the farm
In the summer and do this work in the win
ter. Their average earnings are about 19
cents per day, while the children who help
them are glad to get 5, 6 or 7 cents.
Within the last generation a great num
ber of big factories have been established
In Russia. The millions who are working
In their homes are to a large extent skilled
laborers, and it takes but little time .to
teach them to handle machinery. The re
sult la there is an abundance of cheap
labor and all the industrial centers are
trowing. St. Petersburg has become a
manufacturing city, and it has Iron works
of all kinds. Warsaw has now about 750,
000 people, who are largely engaged In tex
tile Industries, and Lodz, a great cotton
town of western Russia, Is now growing
faster than any town In the United States.
It was a village only a few years ago. It
had about 100,000 population In 1S90, and
Bow It has more than three times that
many. It makes goods for shipment to all
parts of Russia and to Siberia, China,
Turkestan and Persia.
Russia has now great linen and woolen
mills. It has In its textile factories alto
gether more than 6,000,000 spindles and
something like 150,000 looms employing
more fhan 300,000 hands. There are 00,000
engaged In dyeing, bleaching and printing
and almost 750,000 employed on textiles
alone.
There are 600,000 Russians employed in
mining and smelting and fully that number
In making foodstuffs. There are 300,000
men In the iron works and thousands at
work In the oil fields.
Within the last few years the English,
French, Germans and Americans have been
establishing factories In Russia to avoid
the tariff and to take advantage of Rus
sian cheap labor. The country Is open to
foreign capital, and many of the foreign
establishments are making money. I have
spoken of tho Westlnghouse airbrake
works and those of the New York
Airbrakes company. The Westlnghouse
company has electrical works in south
Russia and others of our manufacturers
will likely establish plants on account of
the present discrimination against the
Urilted Stales, which can be avoided by
making the goods here. I am told that
American capital will be welcomed and
that it will have every advantage pos
sessed by the natives.
The wages in tho Russian factories are
cents an hour and upwards. There are
thousands who work for a cent an hour
and tens of thousands who do not receive
SO cents a day for ten, eleven and more
hours' work. 1 have before me some fig
ures given by the order of Mr. Wltte, tho
Russian minister of finance. They state
that in tho two great Industrial provinces
of Vladimir and Moscow the men on the
average earn from $7.50 to $s a month.
This w ould be $2 a week or 33 cents a day.
Women got $5.25 a month or about $1.30
per week and boys of sixteen $1 a month or
less than 15 cents a day, whlk childrsa
(.Continued on Tage iMtcen. ,