VII. SHIP-YARDS AND SHIP-BUILDING. Wages paid per week of fifty-six hours in ship-yards (wood ship-building) in Gibraltar. Wages paid per month to seamen (officers and men)—distinguishing between ocean, coast, and river navigation, and between sail and steam—in Gibraltar. Wages paid per week of seventy-six hours in stores, wholesale or retail, to males, in Wages paid per month or year to household servants (towns and cities) in Gibraltar. XII. CORPORATION EMPLOYÉS. Wages paid per week of forty-two hours to the corporation employés in the city of Gibraltar. Wages paid per month of one hundred and eighty-two hours to employés in Government departments and offices-exclusive of tradesmen and laborers-in Gibraltar. Wages paid by the week of fifty hours to the trades and laborers in Government employ in Statement showing the wages paid per week of sixty hours to printers (compositors, pressmen, proof-readers, &c.) in Gibraltar. PORTUGAL. LISBON. REPORT BY CONSUL-GENERAL FRANCIS. The wages of labor and the cost of living largely illustrate the social and material situation of a people. In Portugal the favoring advantages of a genial climate must be taken into account as an important factor. The cost for necessary clothing and fuel is much less than in the colder climates. RATES OF WAGES. But wages here are very low in comparison with the earnings of work people in the United States or England. I subjoin a list of the average wages in various occupations. *Hours of labor, winter and summer, from sunrise to sunset. Except as otherwise noted, laborers receiving the wages named find themselves. CLASSIFICATION AND HOURS OF LABOR. The hours of labor may be stated as from sunrise to sunset, with two hours allowed for meals and rest. Small as is the daily pay, it is circumscribed still more by the numerous holidays, embracing, with Sundays, not less than sixty-seven days of the year, when work is to a great extent suspended. It may be said to the credit of the Portuguese working classes that as a rule they are temperate and industrious. Wages being so low, all the members of a laboring man's family capable of service must necessarily contribute to its support by diligent and often very hard work. Women do their full share, including stevedore toil at the docks, as well as field-work in farming. As appears by the census of 1880, out of a total population of 4,500,000 in the Kingdom proper, only 185,000 belong to the class known as mechanics and manufacturing citizens. Seven thousand workmen are employed in the manufacturing establishments of Lisbon. As a whole the laboring people are poor; a considerable proportion of them very poor. They seem content, however, with the little they can get in compensation for their toil, thankful if they are able to achieve for themselves the humblest living. PRICES OF THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE. The average prices in Lisbon of the leading commodities that constitute the necessities of life are as follows: It should be stated that the statistics here presented represent prices at Lisbon and the adjacent country. Elsewhere in this Kingdom the figures in respect of labor especially are even lower than the rates named, while as regards provisions the prices are also somewhat lower for meats and the products of the soil. RENTS. A Rents for the poorer classes are comparatively cheap in Lisbon. Small rooms where these people live rent for $5 to $10 per annum. family of five or six persons may secure very restricted accommodations, to which they are accustomed, for $25 to $30 per annum. But the space is suggestive of a "hole in the wall." HABITS OF THE WORKING CLASSES. I must say of the working classes here that their quiet submission to the inevitable illustrates a peaceful disposition in apparent content under circumstances of very meager subsistence, and that, too, without hope to inspire ambition for any material improvement of their situation. JOHN M. FRANCIS, Consul-General. THE AZORES. REPORT BY CONSUL DABNEY. I have the honor, in answer to the labor circular issued by the Department of State under date of February 15, 1884, received by me May 14, to submit the following report, which, relating to the island of Fayal, may be taken as tolerably correct for the major part of the nine islands of the group; any differences in wages at the other islands being as a rule against the laboring class, for the reason that there has been less emigration. PART I.-MALE LABOR. The rates of wages paid to laborers of every class-mechanical public works, domestic, agricultural-in Fayal, &c. Women (not receiving clothes) Country servants (receiving three suits clothes, with lodging and washing).. do. per annum.. ......per month.. *About ten hours. Are masons. Are tinsmiths. Do their own work assisted by unskilled labor. Paid by job, and but little work. ¶ Do their own work, and sell per piece. H Very few. |