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land about 5.7 per cent. less for the same standard of comfort than he is paying in France.

The English workingman, transported to Germany and living at his own standard of comfort, would pay 18 per cent. more than he is paying in England. This excludes a comparison of tea and coffee. Conversely, a German workingman transported to England, and living at his old standard of comfort, would find that his English price level was about 7.4 per cent. lower than it was in Germany.

Excluding commodities for which comparative prices could not be secured, the English workingman who moved to Belgium would find his budget increased by 2 per cent., or if coal were excluded, slightly decreased. Conversely, a Belgian workingman moving to England would find his cost of living increased by about 2 per cent., or if coal were excluded, increased by slightly over 5 per cent.

An English family moving to the United States and maintaining its regular standard of living, would find its budgetary expenses increased by 38 per cent. Conversely, an American family would pay 20 per cent. less for its accustomed dietary if it moved to England than it is now paying in the United States. These comparisons between the cost of living in England and the United States relate to the year 1909, a special investigation being made into English prices in February, 1909, to provide a budgetary basis comparable with that of the United States.

Combining these various comparisons, and bringing them to a common basis, the following are the results. An English family which was transferred in turn to the respective countries named below and maintained its normal standard of living, would find its expenditures for food and fuel to stand in the following relations to its expenditures in England, the latter being taken as par, or 100 per cent.:

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From this it will be seen that the cost of living in the United States, compared with that of France, is in the ratio of 138 to 118, or 117.8 per cent.-that is, it is 17.8 per cent. higher than in France. Similarly, the cost of living in the United States is

17.8 per cent. higher than in Germany,

35.3 per cent. higher than in Belgium, and

38.0 per cent. higher than in the United Kingdom.

This is not a complete statement of the situation, inasmuch as it takes into account only those articles, and in only those proportions, used by the British workingman in his dietary. His standard would doubtless rise in moving to the United States; but for the same standard of living, the foregoing comparisons hold.

Budgets. The Board of Trade, in its investigations, made a study of budgets of workingmen's families in the five countries studied. Below will be found a brief résumé, presented on a per capita basis:

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Thus the actual expenditure of the average American workingman for food in the northern part of the United States is seen to be greater than that of the average workingman in France by 48.0 per cent.; greater than that of the workingman in Germany by 81.2 per cent.; greater than that of the workingman in England and Wales by 81.6 per cent.; and greater than the amount spent by the workingman of Belgium by 88.0 per cent.

The United States and England and Wales [page 68]. The English-American comparison of the cost of living, as ascertained by the British Board of Trade in 1909, rests

on returns secured from but three trades-the building, the engineering, and the printing trades. . . .

On the average the wages of the American workman were higher than those of the English by 130 per cent.; his hours of work per week were fewer by 4 per cent; his payments for rent for the same kind and amount of house accommodation were higher by 107 per cent.; the retail prices of his food, weighted according to the consumption shown in the British budgets were, as has earlier been shown, higher by 38 per cent. Put more briefly, it is found that while the wages of the American workman are the higher by 130 per cent., his expenditures for food and rent combined, on the British standard of living, are the higher by only 52 per cent. A much greater margin over the expenditures for food and rent is, therefore, available in the United States than in England and Wales. This margin, says the report of the Board of Trade, "makes possible a command of the necessaries and conveniences of life that is both nominally and really greater than that enjoyed by the corresponding class in this country (England)."

COTTON-MILL EFFICIENCY AND MACHINERY

[FROM the Tariff Board Report on Cotton Manufactures, the following extracts are taken, showing the use of automatic machinery in America as compared with England. (House Document No. 643, 62d Congress, 2d session, p. 468.)]

Factory organizations compared. Contrary to the prevailing organization in the cotton industry in England, the mills in this country have both spinning and weaving departments.

The spinning mill is, as a rule, equipped with sufficient machinery to produce all the yarn, both warp and filling, necessary for the continuous operation of the weaving mill. There are a few mills manufacturing specialties, where, on account of the variety of yarns required and the small quantity of each number used or the special processing necessary, it is impracticable to operate a spinning mill, and in such cases the yarn is purchased from spinning mills manufacturing special numbers of yarn, for which they find a ready market. Where it is necessary for a spinning mill to manufacture a wide range of yarns for the supply of the weaving mill, it follows that the manufacture cannot be carried on as economically per unit of production as in the mill where the production is limited to the manufacture of but few numbers of yarns.

Many American mills, especially in the North, produce a wide variety of cloths, involving the use of many different kinds of yarn from coarse to very fine. On the other hand, some mills weaving principally plain constructions are re

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quired for their own needs to spin only a narrow range of yarns, frequently but one warp and several fillings. In the case of the former mills, the American practice puts them at a disadvantage with English spinning mills which produce yarns of more uniform count for a regular market. In the case of the latter class of mills the advantage of the specialization which exists in the English industry seems to be fully offset.

In the United States most of the yarn is manufactured on ring spindles, as against the English method of mule spinning. The production of yarn by ring spinning is greater per spindle than mule spinning, though the mule-spun yarn is more even in density and softer in finish.

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Cotton waste. Only a part of the raw cotton input of the mills reaches the yarn in its finished state. Through each operation, as picking, carding, spinning, etc., there is a loss of some of the original stock known as waste. A part of this waste, which is chiefly due to evaporation, is not recovered, and this is termed "invisible waste." The percentage of waste in a mill is a varying quantity, due in part to the length of the fiber of the raw cotton and the fineness of the number of the yarn spun. In mills producing coarse yarns where it is possible to rework part of the waste the loss is not over 10 per cent. of the input of raw cotton, while in the mills producing higher or finer numbers of yarns the loss will approximate 35 per cent. All of the waste, except that known as invisible waste, which does not amount to more than 3 or 4 per cent., is recovered and reworked or sold. ..

Conditions influencing efficiency. The efficiency of the weaving mills is affected by numerous conditions, making it impracticable to accurately present these conditions in any tabular statement. No two weaving mills are affected by exactly the same conditions, there being a difference either in the loom equipment, the size and breaking strength of the yarn used, or the organization of the cloth produced.

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