IT THE UNIONIZING OF GERMANY'S POORLY PAID T has so often been asserted that a classical education is a mere waste of time, and that a scientific training is the only guaranty of both success and wealth, that the acute observer is amazed when he considers the position of technically educated men in Germany. In a country where technical training has been developed to an extent unknown in other civilized states, he will find that the scientific education has not meant prosperity for the university graduate. The position of the German physicians has been growing increasingly serious from an economic standpoint, and during the past year more or less concern has been felt at the grave situation in other scientific departments. Indeed, it is stated with no small amount of justice that the physicist, the electrical engineer, the chemist, is in a position far inferior to the carpenter, the mason, the ironworker, and the discontent is so general that a strong movement toward unionizing technical forces is on foot. In a recent issue of the Frankfurter Zeitung we find a long discussion of the problem. This careful journal says that "the golden stream which has flowed from the industrial life of Germany has benefited only a thin strata of the population, while the men who have created that life, the graduates of our colleges and universities, have not been benefited at all." It also draws attention to the contrast between the actual profits in the technical trades and the salaries received by the men managing the factories, a contrast so glaring that it led to the formation two years ago of the Bund der Technisch-industriellen Beamten. This society has brought to light much which seems incredible. For example, we hear of men with diplomas from our best universities receiving 87 cents a day, even less, and the increase in wage is so small that in the great majority of cases the sum of $50 a month would not be reached for more than ten years. Moreover, the men must frequently obligate themselves to release to their employers any invention they may make, together with all claim for royalty, while practically all chance for improving their position is stifled by conditions in the service contract which are repulsive even to the morally obtuse. And not only are they repulsive, but they ignore all individual rights,-witness one of the largest Berlin factories where the amount of salary is a "trade secret." the divulging of which may mean instant dismissal. This writer estimates that 60 per centum of the college-bred technical men in Ger many receive less than $500 a year, 25 per centum from $500 to $750, and only 15 per centum more than $750. But in order to obtain this trifling wage a young man costs his parents from $1000 to $4000." " A STUPENDOUS OVERCROWDING." The Frankfurter Zeitung considers that conditions are absolutely chaotic, and as a result of the increase in the number of our technical schools, without any adequate investigation of the needs of the professions, there is a stupendous overcrowding of the different departments." Consequently, in the case of an offer in the Rheinland of a place with $45 a month salary there were 270 applicants, and a place with $50 brought 700 letters. Further, in the best of our technical papers, as the Elektrotechnischen Zeitschrift and the Zeitschrift des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure, we constantly find an extensive list of applications for positions, applications which in many instances are heartrending. It is an ordinary thing to read of "$25 to be paid for a position," or of $40 to $50 for the same thing, or for three years I will pay 10 per centum of salary to the person who procures a position for a constructor with twelve years' experience," and so forth. In the Essener Anzeiger we saw a short time ago this advertisement: Engineer, forty-three years old, for neer, office and outdoor work, desires at once nineteen years active as chief and sub-chief engiemployment in any place, even as foreman or laborer." And it would be possible to cite indefinitely similar evidences of the deplorable condition of the German technical professions. As The condition which the German writer describes is no ordinary one, and these advertisements have in general no relation to the "want ads" which appear in American papers offering rewards for positions. the same writer says, we have here a serious menace to German industry, since there are at least 300,000 to 400,000 men with superb technical training who are threatened with a mere hand-to-mouth existence. Indeed, ordinary mechanics have more than once declared that they would not change places with the engineers and physicists who have made German technical skill famous the world over. And the wisdom of this view will at once appear if we cite the instance of only one Berlin factory which was forced to raise the wages of its locksmiths twice the past year. During the discussion with his men the director referred to the salaries of his college-bred assistants, and remarked that if the wages of the workmen continued to increase it would soon be possible to obtain two university men for one locksmith. To this the mechanics replied, with evident scorn, "these people are foolish to accept their present from November to Palm Sunday. The rest salaries.' Therefore, we find the question firmly of the time the personnel must live as best posed: Shall technical skill be unionized? An answer to this question seems only possible in The German Musician as a Wage-Earner. (Berlin) discusses wage and salary condi- According to Dr. Waltz, the situation may be summed up in the statement that with few exceptions "the position to-day of the orchestra musician in Germany is a precarious one." The exceptions to this rule are members of the great orchestras, although even in these cases only the first positions are well paid. The two leaders at the Imperial Prussian Opera House receive $1500 and $1250 a year, but this is an unusually high wage; and in the larger court and city theaters the pay of the orchestra musicians is notoriously insufficient. The Soziale Praxis In it can. Therefore the places in the summer- These pitiful salaries are arrayed against a It The position of the higher-class musicians when compared to that of the men in the is desperate enough, but it appears favorable music-halls, beer-gardens, and similar places. These musicians belong to no orchestra, and they play when and where they can. But they naturally suffer from the irregularity of their work, and they are also compelled to accept any price that may be offered. frequently happens, as the Fachzeitung für Zivilmusiker reports, that these men play for six or eight hours at a ball or other entertainment for $1 or 75 cents; and it appears from a canvas made by these artists, and how little their material life is fitted to strengthen them for the great bodily a musical organization that in Berlin 26 and mental exertions which they are compelled per cent. of the independent musicians to make. Musicians who have to fulfill the highest artistic demands.-for example, the members of the Hamburg Stadttheatre orchestra, receive only $350 a year, and in the smaller towns, as Rostock, Wurzburg, Nuremburg, which must have their Wagner performances, the pay is from $20 to $25 a month. says: The tables which Waltz publishes show how filled with care and denial is the existence of The season in the larger theaters is about nine months, but in the smaller it is only do not earn $12.50 a month, and 44 percent. do not receive $15. In the small orchestras which share the profits..the pay is little better. In Heidelberg, for example, the members of a "mutual" orchestra received $225 annually, and in Gera the receipts were, for a stated period, only $50 to $75 a head. RAILWAYS OF THE UPPER CONGO. DISTRESSING reports have reached us to fill up gaps in the river navigation caused 66 more frequently than any constructiye tidings anent Belgium's exploitation of the Congo. Because of this fact we are glad to record a friendly tribute to the enterprise and achievement of the Belgians in that region. Mr. Demetrius C. Boulger, writing on railroad construction in the Congo under the Leopold régime, in the Engineering Magazine for July, says the story is really a romance that would fill a volume. It seems to be forgotten," says he, "by some of our latter-day critics, that the Berlin act, which is so often invoked by persons who have evidently never read it in its entirety, laid down in one of the sections of its first article that the construction of railways was to be undertaken chiefly with the view of abolishing human portage. Although twenty-two years have elapsed since the signature of that act by fourteen powers, not one of the five holding territory therein has constructed a single mile of railway in the Congo basin, except the Congo State." This speaks well for Leopold's rule. Water communication was first attempted. In December, 1881, the first of the Congo Government's steamers was launched on Stanley Pool. It was only five tons. During the subsequent twenty-five years a regular fleet of steamers was added, of over 500 tons each. In March, 1887, King Leopold granted a concession for the construction of a railroad from Matadi, the ocean port of the Lower Congo, to Leopoldville, the river port on Stanley Pool. In 1898, it became available for traffic, and human portage has ceased to be known throughout the whole of the Cataracts Province since its construction. Evils resulting from the employment,-sometimes forced,-of natives in this work, Mr. Boulger says, were inevitable, and the price that had to be paid for a great and highly beneficent result. Continuing, he says: "No government could have shown more clearly than the Congo State that it realized that portage was a system to be superseded by something better in the Upper Congo region as quickly and as effectively as had been done in the Lower Congo." In 1898, the year of the official opening of the line to Stanley Pool, the question entered upon its third stage. Orders were issued for the survey of a railroad from Stanleyville to the Nile. In January, 1902, a concession was granted to a company formed specially by cataracts, through the construction of short railroad lines. One line to turn the cataracts at Stanley Falls is completed and in working order; and a second, to turn the cataracts of Hell's Gate and Sendwe, is progressing with remarkable rapidity. "The starting point of these railways is Stanleyville, a picturesque and growing town on the left bank of the main Congo River, situated at an altitude of about 1400 feet above sea level. The first half of the line rises steadily and slowly to a maximum altitude of 1750 feet. The second half is an equally gradual descent to Ponthierville. which is less than 1550 feet above sea level. Except for this very small ascent and descent the construction of the railway presented no features of great difficulty. As, however, the track passes through a dense forest, it was not easy to determine which was the best line to follow. The clearing of the forest has been accomplished only for a very few yards on each side of the rails. Certainly the most serious part of the work was the cutting of the track through the wood and undergrowth, owing to the fact that the timber could not be burnt on the spot, but had to be carried into the open. A further cause of difficulty was the eradication of the roots and undergrowth, while numerous watercourses required either extensive draining and the construction of culverts, or, at certain points, the building of bridges. However, none of these last named was of any important dimensions. Out of the twenty constructed only ten exceeded fifty yards in length." we extract: Labor had to be organized, for it was entirely local. Over every 100 laborers was a European foreman. On this phase of the problem the writer cites Mr. William Edgar Geil's views, from which "While in construction of the chemin de fer du Congo certainly hundreds have lost their lives, and I have no doubt thousands, yet in the long run it will prove to be of great value in saving human life. It is also a great saving of human health. The old caravan route was flanked with the graves of carriers and of whites who fell by the way, and diseases were developed by the journey. Now many sufferings are avoided. Before the railway was opened the journey took twenty days, at a cost of £50. There is now a great saving of time, and the trip costs only £2. This and water is being opened up for a distance of not less than 860 miles above Stanley Falls, and already 300 miles of it is open to traffic." is a prodigious saving, and with regard to the Great Lakes Railway it is not only a great material help, but also furnishes a new idea to the whole native mind, not simply to those living in proximity to the line, but He thus concludes: "What the Belgians to millions of natives that have heard rumors have accomplished with regard to the Congo of this strange mode of transportation. . is that they have supplemented the defects of With regard to the work, 2300 native work- nature and vanquished the obstacles that renmen are employed and but thirty whites. dered navigation on the great river of dubiI carefully scrutinized the native ous value. By the railway in the Lower employees, and found them strong, robust, Congo they placed the upper river in and jolly. Indeed, they impressed me direct communication with the ocean and as being prosperous and well satisfied with thereby with the outer world. By the two their employers, their employment, and their railways that I have described in this paper wages." they have evaded and turned the obstacles The line from Stanleyville to Ponthier- which were assumed to render the river useville, a distance of eighty miles,-begun in less as a waterway above Stanley Falls. January, 1903, was completed in March, They have thus insured the prolongation of 1906. On a new line from Kindu there are the magnificent water route which traverses at work 5000 men, and thirty kilometers out their territory in its first portion from west of 320 are completed. It will be finished by to east, and in its second from north to south. 1909. The navigable channel from Pon- It is this that constitutes the real source of thierville to Kindu has been greatly im- the present prosperity and the future and proved in addition. "A new route by land much increasing prosperity of their colony." INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION AND ITS COST. rates are all doubled. Statistics proving that mining, manufacturing, railroad and seafaring work is nine times more dangerous than textile-working alone, the writer assumes that this new act may impose a tax of £5 8s. per £100 of wages paid on British industry in general. LEGISLATIVE interference in labor af- £100 was 10s. With iron and steel, £1 fairs, viewed from the angle of the hu- compensation per £100 has been paid. Under manization of industry, is an inestimable a new law, operative on July 1, these boon, but when it adds to the cost of production, and thus increases the toiler's burdens, it is something of a handicap. At present in England and in the United States there is an unusual amount of activity in framing industrial legislation, and to show that improvements have been effected far more by the development and application of scientific working methods than by legislative enactments intended to be ameliorating is the task which Mr. T. Good sets himself in Cassier's Magazine for July. In general, the benefits secured by legislation cost more than they are worth, and the latter is not the most effective means to improve the condition of the operatives. Confined to his experience in Great Britain, there is, nevertheless, sufficient relevancy to American conditions to make his paper one of interest to our readers. Taking up the new Workmen's Compensation act, imposing liability on employers, he says that when the act of 1897 was passed insurance companies charged only 1s. 6d. per £100 of wages as a premium in the case of risk on textile operatives. In 1905 this had risen to 6s. With railroads, cost of compensation in 1905 per This will not fall on capital alone. Much will fall inevitably on labor, supposedly a gainer by this legislation. Further economies will be attempted, elderly and delicate men will not be retained, and young and strong ones will be speeded up. There are other ways of benefiting labor than by means of legislation. Much mining legislation has been secured, and mining is now as safe as human foresight and present knowledge permit. But much of the general improvement is not due to legislative interference at all, but to the spread of knowledge, the growth of science, and the natural development of -humanitarian ideas,-to voluntary effort quite as much as to compulsory regulation. "The moral, social, and educational conditions of our miners have been materially improved; and this improvement in the individual, this improvement in humanity, due to the influences of a progressive civilization, is reflected not only in improved technical knowledge, but in increased thought and care; and increased knowledge and caution bring a huge increase in safety. Partly through legislation, but chiefly, we believe, through improved knowledge, there has been a large measure of progress in lessening personal risk and injury during the last fifty years." Fatalities dropped from one in every 250, between 1845 and 1855, to one in every 770, between 1896 and 1906. State regulation within a period of about half a century has added 2s. per ton to the cost of coal getting, thus increasing the cost of production. This means £24,000,000 a year, and with £37,000,000 threatened, in addition, for workmen's compensation, the writer thinks it is time to halt the movement for restrictive legislation and to adopt a new policy in industrial affairs, to settle the differences of capital and labor without state interference. The latter is a tax on production and a commercial handi cap. A PLEA FOR AN UNRE FORMED HOUSE OF LORDS. THE efforts now being made by Premier Campbell-Bannerman to discipline the alleged refractory English House of Lords by bringing it within the jurisdiction and under the subjection of the Commons has aroused the keenest interest throughout the United States and in all European countries. Many nations, including our own, have trouble with their upper house at intervals, hence all are anxious to learn just what can and will be done by the English in the matter of controlling the actions of their hereditary legislators. Naturally enough, the English newspapers and periodicals have opened their columns wide for discussion of this topic, not by any means a new one, but always interesting and, as a rule, timely. Premier Gladstone, when endeavoring to pacify Ireland, a few years ago, complained, early and after, of the Lords and their evident antagonism. He, figuratively, held a "big stick " over the opposition peers and eventually created some additions to the peerage from his own party to help along. In the current National Review, Lord Willoughby de Broke gives his views on this subject in the form of "A Plea for an Unreformed House of Lords." He takes for his theme, principally, Lord Newton's bill to reform the Lords. The outcome of the bill's introduction was the reference of all schemes of reform to a representative committee of the Lords, with Lord Rosebery as chairman. The writer assumes a defensive attitude and consistently maintains it in a respectful way. Referring to the ministerial resolution inspired by the Premier he says this resolution, however innocent in appearance, aims at completely subverting the present relationship between the two houses of Parliament by placing the peers under the autocracy of the Commons. At the same time, Lord de Broke admits that reform is necessary. the writer's opinion, is thus stated: The effect of the passage of such a bill, in Newton's bill would be to pull to pieces an inIn effect the result of the passing of Lord tegral portion of a very ancient fabric gradually knitted together through the ages, strong enough to resist the wear and tear of centuries, yet probany attempt at alteration or reconstruction. ably from its very nature peculiarly sensitive to For this measure does not merely aim at the reduction of the hereditary element_upon has depended for its composition; it is at once which, from its inception, the House of Lords perfectly plain that if it becomes law heredity pure and simple will no longer entitle the holder of a peerage to a seat in the House unless he has stood the test of election, or is invested with schedule of the bill; so that by abolishing forthone of certain qualifications set forth in the with the claim of any peer to be summoned to the House solely in virtue of the fact that he is exercising a right and a privilege conferred on him by the Crown, what has been called a modification of the hereditary principle really amounts to a fundamental alteration in the basis and constitution of the House of Lords. The defects of the House of Lords that the Rosebery committee is considering, on suggestion, are (1) the unduly large number of peers; (2) scanty attendance at sessions of their House; (3) the hereditary basis of the House; (4) the absence of representatives of the important classes, and (5) the undue preponderance of the Conservative element. Lord de Broke, in his plea, considers each of these defects in turn, and makes a clear presentation. The alleged defects of ultra-conservatism, in the eyes of the party in power a misdemeanor almost amounting to a crime, this writer refers to in this fashion: |