The Price of Labor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 28, 1879

The Price of Labor.

It appears by a late report of the Department of Agriculture that last year agricultural laborers in England received, without board and lodging, an average per month of $15.60; in Ireland, $14.73; Scotland, $14.42; Normandy, $12.44; Italy, $15.19; Spain, $14.95; France, $13.65. Now, the question suggests itself, why does not Kearney go back to his old home in Ireland, and stir up his people to a sense of their rights and their sufferings. There they get $14.73 per month, or about 50 cents a day, and board themselves; while in California, as appears by the same report, the average pay of farm laborers, is $38.33 per month, besides board, or adding the board of $3.50 per week, or $15 per month, makes $53.32 as against $14.73 per month, in Ireland—or over 350 per cent, more for wages in California than in Ireland. There must be a fearful number of Chinamen in Ireland, to bring down the white men's wages so shockingly! Why don't "Kearney" go home and regulate affairs, before setting himself up as a reformer in this country, where they are paying the laborer over three and a half times more wages than in his own "Green Isle"? — Woodland Democrat.