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Show AMERICAN AND ENGLISH WORKMEN. f j i f Two year9 aK representatives of tho labor department of the t British board of trade visited the United States and made extended investigations in twenty-eight cities, two on the Mississippi and the I j others cost of it, with a view of making a comparison between the I I j conditions of British and American workmen, according to the Hcl- cna Kecord. The twenty-eight cities visited had a total population jit 15,500,000. The report of the investigations has just been made I ' public, in comparison with the result of similar investigations made , in England four years previously. Those four years saw a greater rise in living expenses in this country than in England. The report shows that in this country the hours of labor are shorter, wages are higher, rents are higher and cost of food is higher than in Great Britain. These general facts were known before. The report shows the percentage of difference in each case and to strike a balance exhibits the net advantage of the American laborer over the British. The American workingman gets more than two and a quarter times as much as his British cousin and works fewer hours, so that his hourly pay is nearly two and a half times as great. On the othor hand, rents arc about twice as high hero as in England Eng-land and the coat of food is about one-third more, so that the total cost of living here is a- trifle more than half as much again as it is in England. But as wages here aro 130 per cent higher than in Great Britain, or 1-10 per cent by the hour, and tho total cost of living is oul' 52 per cent higher here than there, it is evident that the American Ameri-can workingman is by far the better off. |