Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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68 BARMEN. houses approached ny successive flights of steps. Except for short distances in a few of the chief thoroughfares, the roadways are paved with cobbles and the streets are therefore noisy. As in Elberfeld, most of the older houses are faced with slate either in its natural colour or painted black. The windows of such houses are provided with green shutters and the sashes and frames are painted white, while in many cases the doors are elaborately carved. This picturesque type of house is gradually disappearing, however, and its place is being taken by the less picturesque but more convenient houses of the stucco-fronted type now common to most German towns. Locomotion is cheap and convenient and is provided by the municipal electric tramways as well as by the famous hanging railway (also electric) which runs along a track suspended about 60 feet over the Wupper and supported by iron girders fixed in either side of the river bank. By either of these means it is possible to get from one end of the town to the other in a quarter of an hour for about a penny. Signs of extreme poverty are not in evidence among the working classes, This may perhaps in some measure be attributed to the system of poor-relief (the Elberfeld system) which makes each “ almoner ” responsible for the care of two or three families only. But even those among the working classes who are reported to be the most discontented, viz., the members of the Social-Democratic Trade Unions, concede that the proportion of extreme poverty is small and attribute this to the character of the local industry—mainly textile—which gives employment in their homes to many who are unfitted through age or infirmity to work in the factories. While the death rate is one of the lowest recorded in any German town there are not wanting signs of weakness among the very young, due, in all probability, to lack of attention from mothers who are engaged in the factories all day. Occupations, Wages, and Hours of Labour. The principal manufactures of Barmen consist of articles coming under the general head of haberdashery, and among such articles those fur which the town has acquired a world-wide reputation under the name of “ Barmen goods,” viz., braids, galloons, trimmings, elastic and other webbings, mohair and other laces (boot, shoe and corset), tapes, dress-linings (Italian cloth) and bindings, hat-bands and ribbons of cotton, silk, or half-silk, dress goods and umbrella stuffs of silk and cotton, glazed yarn (“iron yarn ”), Turkey-red yarn, upholstery goods and carpetings. All of these are classed in local statistics under the general heading of “ textiles,” and employ some 20,000 workpeople, or a little inore than half of the occupied population of the town. With respect to yarn it may be noted that in Barmen only the glazing and dyeing processes are cairied on, and that there are no spinning mills. Other local industries of importance aie the manufacture of pianos, textile machines (for braiding’ and weaving), buttons, buckles, hooks and eyes, envelopes and other paper goods. In the most important of the trades, ¿.c., textiles and engineering, the piece-wage system preponderates, and in the former the bulk of the operatives are women and young girls, whose earnings do not come within the scope of the piesent inquiry. In the case of all piece-wage workers the endeavour has been made to ascertain the amount usually earned in a full week (without overtime), but owing to the widely differing degrees of skill and earning power among such operatives the ranges of earnings shown are somewhat wide it happens „also m some cases that the earnings of workpeople who rank as ‘ skilled or semi-skilled amount to less than the time-wages of men in the same establishment who rank as “ unskilled.” Thus in a dyeing-mill i'cotton- piece goods) where the bulk of the male dyers and finishers earn only 19s. 6rf. per week, the carmen are paid 23s. Again, in a foundry and machine-shop, 40 turners and fitters are returned as earning 2(is., and the carman is paid 25s. The idea ot fixing the conditions of employment by formal agreement between organisations oí employers and workmen respectively has made but little progress in barmen, and except for carpenters, stucco-workers, painters, printers and brewery workers, no such agreements were in force at October 11)00. It does not appear, however, that even in the trades where the conditions of labour are fixed by agreements, those conditions are everywhere observed.

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