DIFFERENCES IN LABOR COSTS 165 
German brick, however, is larger than the American in the pro- 
portion of 3 to 2; making allowance for this difference, the 
German output, for comparison with the American, may be 
reckoned at 60,000. The discrepancy in favor of the United 
States remains very great. The effectiveness of American labor 
in brickmaking, for the country at large, is over twice as great; 
and for the State of New York alone it is thrice that of German 
labor. 
Coal and brick belong in the class of domestic commodities. 
So great is their cost of transportation that in the main they do not 
come within the domain of international trade. True, this is less 
unreservedly the case with coal than with brick. Coal moves 
over greater distances than brick, and sometimes moves from 
country to country. England exports much coal, partly because 
the mines are near tidewater, and partly because freight rates are 
specially low on outward-bound shipping. German coal moves 
across the border to nearby regions of the Continent. Neverthe- 
less, in the main both commodities belong in the domestic class. 
The advantage which the United States has in producing them 
hence shows its consequences rather within the country than in 
its exchange with other countries. Tho the money rates of 
wages in the United States were double those in Germany (I speak 
of the pre-war period), the effectiveness of American labor in 
brick-making was more than double; bricks might therefore be 
expected to be cheaper, at the works or near by, than in Germany. 
So as regards coal. Money wages were higher in the United 
States than in England and in Germany ; they were a little higher 
in England than in Germany, but the difference was not great 
enough to affect materially a comparison between the United 
States and the other two. The effectiveness of labor in coal- 
mining was greater in the United States than in either of them, and 
LI cite a further bit of evidence on this same commodity. ‘‘I was in a brickyard 
at Singapore, where I calculated the product of the men. Their rate of pay was 35 
cents per day in our money. I happened to have in my pocket a very accurate cost 
statement of a brickmaking company in one of our Eastern cities, signed by its 
president, and when the superintendent of the Singapore yard and I figured his 
labor (i.e. wages expense) together, they were precisely the same.” Redfield, The 
New Industrial Dav. op. 121.