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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416 REMSCHEID. of an efficient sewerage service. The main streets are not all as yet well paved, whilst the side streets are in general badly kept. These shortcomings are due partly to the difficulty of obtaining money, the municipal addition to the State income tax being already 230 per cent. The municipal authorities have, however, recently spent large sums upon a large, elaborate and very ornate town hall. The town owns its water and gas supply, whilst the tramways and the electric light and power supply are owned by a private company in which the town has two-fifths of the shares. Since the new water supply came into operation, typhoid, which used to be a frequent and deadly visitor, has entirely disappeared. At present tuberculosis would appear to be Remscheid’s worst scourge. The town has a pleasant public park with a large public hall, and there is a Bismarck memorial tower. Remscheid is well served by the railways, and is also surrounded by a network of light railways, which connect it with Elberfeld and Barmen. Occupations, Wages, and Hours of Labour. The principal productions of Remscheid are the rougher kinds of tools— files and rasps, drills, gimlets, pincers, saws, picks, axes, hatchets, scythes, anvils, &c. The most important branch is the manufacture of files and rasps, and there are said fio be some two hundred firms engaged in this alone. There are also several firms occupied in the production of skates (another Remscheid speciality) and employing therein about 700 workpeople. There are some iron and steel works, the Bergische Stahl-Industrie, with about 1,500 employees, being by far the largest. Another firm, the Alexanderwerk A. von der Ñahmer, with about the same number of workpeople, manufactures butchers’ implements and meat machines, household machines and utensils of all kinds, copying- presses, &c. Throughout 1906 there was much activity in almost all branches of Remscheid industry, and unemployment practically did not exist. In 1901, when there was a certain amount of unemployment, the municipal authority started relief works (including road making), but it was found that only inferior men resorted to them. The following Table shows the increase in the number of persons employed in this industry, and the change of organisation between 1891 and 1900 :— Year. Persons Occupied. 1891 1894 1900 Independent. 10,856 12,105 16,620 2,889 3,203 3,231 Dependent. 7,967 9,202 13,386 Domestic industry survives, but not to any large extent. It used to be the chief way in which file-cutting was carried on, when the work was done solely by hand, but it is rapidly giving way before the factory system and machine- cutting. It has been estimated that in 1890 there were about 1,200 file-cutters working in their own homes ; by 1902 the number had fallen to 700, and by 1906 to 500. The making of drills and gimlets is still largely a domestic industry, but the number of persons engaged in it is quite small. The file- cutters and drill-makers usually possess or hire a small house with workshop on the ground floor. The grinders, who are fairly numerous, are not, as in Solingen, chiefly independent workmen, but have become almost entirely factory employees. There is, however, one peculiarity in their organisation ; in some cases the manufacturer employs them directly, but in others he engages simply a “ master grinder ” and makes terms only with him, and the “ master grinder ” then takes on so many grinders as he thinks necessary, and makes his own terms with tliem. A peculiarity of the Remscheid grinding industry is the “ Halblohner,” or “half-employee,” a grinder who is a sort of industrial metayer, being a workman, yet to some extent independent. Employers provide

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