of most of the works visited, that they were right out in the country, some of them "entirely surrounded by pine forests," sums up the physical conditions as follows:: To go into a German glass-house with even six furnaces under one roof is very different from going into one of our English houses. There the atmosphere is quite bearable, and free from the vile smoke, the insufferable temperature, and the still worse effects of sulphur which are always in evidence in English glass-houses. The Germans can have their windows and doors in the glass-house wide open owing to the furnace not being dependent on its own draught, as this is obtained from a tall stack placed in the yard. One cannot wonder that the German maker can work ten hours, whereas the English maker finds it quite enough to work six hours a day.1 There is possibly some exaggeration here: one would like to hear the opinion of the operatives. And there is no material at hand to justify any very confident opinion as to the extent to which this sanitary superiority is general. But it is easy to see that the matter is not one that should be quite overlooked. But now we must notice that, after all, longer hours do not seem to be characteristic of the great modern industry whose rise in Germany in the last three decades has been most significant for them and for 1 Page 19 of the Report of Mr. Frederick Carder, Glass Instructor to the Committee, which has been printed in pamphlet form by the Staffordshire County Council. us. The Report before quoted on the iron industry declares that In the iron and steel works of Germany the length of the shift is twelve hours, as in this country; but in Germany there is a compulsory stoppage of two hours per shift throughout the entire works. And even these hours were not always anything like fully occupied. In one great mill— It was found, according to their system of changing, that no man during the twelve hours did more than five hours' actual work, and in the blooming and rolling mills the maximum was seven hours.1 And this was apparently not considered altogether exceptional. Mere statistics of wages and hours of labour, however, do not tell us everything about the standard of comfort of a people. We must take into account all the larger facts of the environment. We must ask, for instance, how the working population is protected, or manages to protect itself, against the economic effects of sickness and old age; and therefore so big a fact as the German compulsory system of Workmen's Insurance must not be disregarded. Let us put on one side the Accident insurance system, as roughly balanced by our recent Compensation legislation, though the latter is probably less efficacious for 1 Report, pp. 19, 37. its purpose. There remains the Sickness insurance system and also that which covers Old Age and Infirmity. These may be roughly compared with our Friendly Society organisation, supplemented by various Union and other Trade societies. But there are these striking differences. (1) Two-thirds of all the wage-earning workpeople in Germany are insured against sickness, and can confidently look forward to receiving, in case of need, both medical assistance and pecuniary relief;1 i.e., there is a much narrower fringe of people totally unprovided for. (2) A considerable part (one-third) of the cost is compulsorily borne by the employers. (3) Thirteen out of sixteen wageearning work people have a right to a small pension in case of permanent incapacity, or on reaching the age of seventy-a far larger number than the few who in England benefit by friendly society pensions. The accompanying diagram vividly presents to the eye the proportion of the working population of Germany which falls within the range of this beneficent system. The pension is small, varying from about two shillings to five shillings a week. But added to other means of livelihood, it will often make all the difference between a pinched but possible existence and absolute starvation; and it is to be remembered that it can be claimed as a right and not 1Since 1st Jan., 1904, for 26 weeks before for 13; Zacher, Leitfaden der Arbeiterversicherung (1904). |