AACHEN. 
• 41 
further east. The Roman Catholic organisations are the strongest, but no 
prominence is given to the militant aspect of trade unionism. Here as in the 
French districts adjoining Belgium on the west, the unskilled Belgian workman 
offers considerable competition in the labour market, and it is held that his 
willingness to accept low wages is prejudicial to the native workers. As a rule 
the Belgians live in villages within a few miles of the frontier, and do not settle 
in Aachen. Many Dutch workmen are also engaged in the building trades. 
Occupations, Wages and Hours of Labour. 
The textile industry is the principal source of employment at Aachen, 
and in its various branches about a third of the entire manual working 
classes are engaged. At the beginning of the year 1906 the industrial and 
trade sickness insurance funds had 41,563 contributing members, and of these 
13,393 were engaged in the textile industry, chiefly in the many cloth manu 
factories for which Aachen is famous. The manufacture of needles is also one 
of Aachen’s staple industries, and employs several thousands of persons, a far 
larger majority being here males than in the case of the textile industry. Other 
important occupations are the machine and card-making industries, while, smaller 
numbers of workpeople are engaged in the chemical, soap, and tobacco manu 
factures, the last employing women almost exclusively. At a short distance 
from the town are the iron and steel works of the Rothe Erde Company. A 
considerable proportion of the women who work in the cloth mills are married ; 
of a total of 5,383 female workers in the cloth industry, on December 31, 1902, 
1,198, or 22'2 per cent, were married. 
The following is a classification of the industrial workpeople employed 
in 1905 in the district of the Aachen Factory Inspector, which includes, 
besides the town itself, the adjacent villages of Eupen, Malmedy and Montjoie, 
though about four-fifths of the workpeople belong to Aachen :— 
Groups of Trades. 
N urn her 
of 
Establish 
ments. 
Metal-working 
Machine, implement, and apparatus 
making. 
Textile 
Clothing and cleaning 
Printing, lithography, bookbind 
ing, &c. 
Paper 
Woodworking and carving 
Chemicals ... « ••* 
Begins, varnishes, oil, soap, 
candles, &c. 
Stone and earth 
Food, drink, and tobacco ... 
Leather ... ... ••• ••• 
Miscellaneous 
Total 
95 
68 
211 
248 
23 
10 
57 
8 
22 
52 
•251 
65 
4 
1,114 
Number of Workpeople. 
Males 
over 16 
years. 
Females I Juveniles, | Children 
over 16 14 to 16 under 14 
years. years. ¡ years. 
2,967 
3,196 
8,788 
117 
341 
569 
712 
96 
296 
784 
750 
654 
23 
19,293 
1,543 
83 
6,898 
786 
79 
225 
74 
18 
43 
19 
1,562 
7 
11,337 
869 
230 
1,082 
238 
84 
101 
58 
6 
8 
56 
261 
16 
2 
3,014 
27 
Total. 
5,383 
3,512 
16,776 
1,143 
505 
899 
844 
120 
347 
859 
2,581 
677 
25 
33,6,1 
Of 33,671 industrial workpeople of all ages, 20,868, or 62 per cent., were 
males. Of a total of 12.803 female workers, 7,215, or 56'3 per cent., were over 
the ao-e of 21 years ; of the remainder, 4,122, or 32*2 per cent., were between 
16 and 21 years ; 1,454, or 11*3 per cent., were between 14 and 16 years ; and 
12 were under 14 years. Only 27 children under 14 years were engaged in 
industrial occupations, and 8 of these were employed in the textile factories. 
The hours of labour are generally 10 per day, or 57 to 60 per week. In the 
cloth industry the usual division of the day is as follows :—7 to 8 ; pause to 
8.15 ; 8.15 to 12 ; pause till 1.30 ; 1.30 to 4 ; pause till 4.15 ; 4.15 to 7. On 
Monday morning work begins at 8, and on Saturday it ends at 5.30. Several 
mills work one or two hours less, but others work from 64 to 68 hours. In the 
iron and metal trades a 10 hours day is also fairly general. Although virtually 
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