American Republican And Baltimore Daily Clipper

The WAGES OF LABOR—Female Operatives—A New Plan Proposed.

The wages of female operatives, and the impositions too often practised upon them in our large cities, are attracting the attention of the press. The following from the New York True Sun, upon the subject, will be read with interest:

We cannot come into town of a morning, or depart in the afternoon, without discovering a multitude of young and, oftentimes, beautiful girls proceeding to and departing from their daily tasks in this wide spread metropolis. We are constrained, when we behold the grouping of this interesting class of our community, to follow them, in imagination, to and from their homes; and we are compelled to believe many of those we behold on such occasions are great sufferers through the want of adequate remuneration from their employers for their daily work. On the gentle attentions of woman we are more or less dependent for our comforts in our respective families, and it is incumbent upon gallantry, to say nothing of benevolence, to look after the worldly prospects of that portion of them, who not only may not have a home to partake of, but who are as wayfarers and strangers among us, and toil for their daily bread.

The season of Winter is close at hand, and no time can be more appropriate than the present to inquire, whether it is not possible to fall upon some plan by which a living remuneration shall be awarded by the employers to the employed.

On this question, we, with all deference, would observe that it cannot possibly be to the interest of the manufacturer to undervalue the ingenuity of those by whom alone his avocation is sustained. It is, on the contrary, decidedly to the manufacturer's interest to cherish the energy of the hearts and hands through whose ability and steadiness he obtains a stock of merchandise wherewith to supply at wholesale, in this city, the retail traders of every town in the Union. It is, indeed the manufacturer's duty as well as interest to cherish the energy of those he employs by the gift of a generous price for their labor—a price adequate to the task performed. A generous price for labor acts kindly upon the feelings, and the work for which it is given not only becomes less irksome to the employed, but necessarily nearer to perfection, because it is wrought with a satisfactory, well-remunerated alacrity—the harbinger of industrious content.

On the other hand, it cannot possibly be of any great moment to the individual consumer who purchases at retail to give a trifle more for an article, absolutely necessary to her who makes it. 'Sixpence added to the price of an umbrella can be no material object to the man who needs so ingenious a luxury; yet that one sixpence, on all the umbrellas sold, might add to many females as much possibly, as twenty shillings a week more than they are at present receiving through the manufacturer not first allowing, and next putting the sixpence on to the price he gets from the retail trader. As in the case of umbrellas, with all other articles made by the combined ingenuity of the hands, intellect, taste and judgment of woman.

To carry on wholesale trade in any article extensively and profitably, we take it for granted, then, that it is neither profitable nor requisite to enforce the practice of setting too low an estimate on the value of the labor by which the trade alone exists. We say, therefore, and it is with confidence we say it, that all the injury done by undervaluing female manufacturing labor has a remedy, and that remedy rests alike with the employers and the employed, but more especially with the employers.

To ensure adequate remuneration to the industrious female, the plan we would recommend is this. Let all the employers of a particular trade hold a meeting. Let them, at that meeting, decide, with the consent of the employed, what is a living income for an expert workwoman. We should ourself say, six dollars a week, at least. Let the meeting, then, classify the employed thus:—clever—expert—very expert.

Let the employers, then, calculate how many of a given article can be made by the expert hand, without excessive exertion, in six days, allowing ten hours to the day; and let the employers establish the price for manufacturing upon that quantity so as to produce the required living income of six or more dollars per week.

By the foregoing arrangement, the very expert hand would have an advantage over the expert and the merely clever, and have an inducement to become first expert, and then very expert. All the employers paying the same rates, none would have the advantage of others; they would establish uniform prices, and there would be no cause for the consumer, manufacturer or dealer, to complain.