The fiscal problem in Missouri

Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1833271335

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-230042

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: The fiscal problem in Missouri

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc.

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: xvi, 359 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. Tax administration

Collection:: Economics Books

STUTTGART. 463 that the master builders only bind themselves to employ their masons and bricklayers from April to October, and this restriction applies even to apprentices, in whose indentures a clause in the above sense is frequently introduced. Possibly this practice has a more or less intimate connexion with another local custom. A large proportion of the masons of Stuttgart do not live in the town at all but many miles distant in the country. Their settled homes are to be found in the villages scattered about the “Filder” (fields), as the agricultural districts around Stuttgart are called, and they merely lodge in town during the week and go home over Sunday. On the “ Filder ” they have their patches of arable, garden, and potato land, which their wives look after in their absence, and which yield a modest addition to their own earnings, especially when, as is sometimes the case, they also possess a cow. When the slack season comes round in October the peasant-mason migrates to his country house for the winter and there spends his time in such outdoor work as may be practicable either upon his own land or in the forest. Masons of this class are able to board and lodge in Stuttgart for Is. 3d. or Is. 0>d. a day, not counting beer, and many lodging houses have no other patrons. Beer brewing is an important Stuttgart industry employing a large number of workpeople. The money wages were in 1905 supplemented by an allowance of beer. A revised wages agreement has, however, recently altered the position of all classes of workpeople in this industry. Their hours have been changed as from April, 1906, from 60 in summer and 57 in winter to 57 all the year round. A week’s holiday, with wages, is to be given once a year to most of the men. The old system of beer allowances will also be abolished and a money addition be made to the wages of each class of workmen proportionate to the value of the forfeited perquisite. The beer was reckoned at 15 pfennige (nearly 2d.) per litre, and, thus, where six litres of beer were allowed daily, as in the case of maltsters, draymen, mechanics, and stokers, 5s. 5d. extra per week will henceforth be paid in money ; where four litres were allowed, as in the case of draymen’s helpers, 3s. Id. extra will be paid ; though the men will still be entitled to buy beer for their own use at the old price. Stuttgart is one of the most important centres of the publishing trade in Germany, ranking with Berlin and Leipzig, and is the home of the well-known Cotta firm of printers, whose first fame came as the publishers of works of Goethe and Schiller at the end of the 18th century. As regulated by national agreement the minimum rate of wages for compositors, machine minders, and pressmen is 26s. 5d. per week, but the majority of the workmen earn from 28s. to 30s. In the art printing trade, lithographers (draughtsmen) have a minimum rate of 25s., and good men earn, as a rule, 30s. to 33s. ; while hand-press printers earn 30s. to 33s., and machine printers 32s. to 34s. Stuttgart is also a leading centre of the ready-made clothing trade, and bespoke tailoring engages a large number of hands. Of the workpeople in the former trade it is estimated that only one-tenth are employed in workshops, and the rest at home. They are but little organised, a considerable proportion of them are women, the work is very irregular, and the earnings, save in the busy seasons, are small, from 15s. to 20s. a week covering the majority of the male workers, and 12s. to 15s. the female. The tailors in the bespoke business, who are well organised, have better earnings ; efficient men in the first tariff class can make from 25s. to 30s. a week on the year’s average, and many exceed the higher fio-ure ; medium men earn from 20s. to 23s. ; but young and weaker hands barely reach 16s. on the average. These earnings entail, however, a long working week, especially in the busy seasons, when the home workers are not uncommonly twelve hours on the bench between daylight and dark, in contrast to which come the slack times of January, February, and August, when more opportunities for exertion would be welcome. The wife often helps the husband at the sewing-machine, and the value of her time is included in the latter’s earnings. It is in the ready-made clothes trade, however, that the real pinch is felt, for the bespoke tailors are a superior class of men, and are able to look after themselves. A large number of female workers find employment at home in connection with the hosiery industry, being engaged in simple operations such as making

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