It may be easily imagined from the foregoing figures, showing the wages of the laboring classes of Thuringia, that their daily fare is of the simplest sort, and that their life is, at best, a struggle for existence for themselves and families. Their principal food is rye-bread and potatoes.-Consul at Sonneberg.

Habits of the German workingmen.-The German workingmen have ever been noted for patience, industry, frugality, domestic affection, and love of rational enjoyment. While the accompanying reports bear evidence to the preservation of these characteristics, it cannot be denied. but that a great disposition to run into excesses and recklessness-the latter considered so foreign to the German character-has recently manifested itself, especially among the workingmen in the large cities and trade centers.

Socialism and communism, taking advantage of the workingman's deplorable state during the last few years, seem to have appealed to his desperation with too much success. Would that the results attained, even at the cost of uprooting the old household virtues, gave promise of any improvement in the condition of the laborer and his family; but a few extracts from the accompanying reports will clearly show that socialism and communism only add demoralization and excesses to already existing evils, taking away from the laborer that respect for constituted authority and reverence for the moral law which were his strength and his hope without giving him anything in return.

The consul at Barmen, which is the great iron-mining and manufacturing district of Germany, says:

Whatever be the characteristics of the laborer in other parts of Germany, in this and in the adjoining districts he is, as a rule, improvident and quarrelsome. The towns are, in consequence, heavily burdened by poor-rates; the municipal assessments in this consular district being from five to seven times the amount of the imperial rates. A fearful cause of want and ruin among the laboring classes is the enormous increase of drinking saloons and dancing halls, and the complaint is universal as to the disposition of the laborers to indulge in excessive drink.

The consul at Brunswick, in referring to the deplorable condition of the German workingmen, says:

The general trouble seems to be that the workmen will not work at present prices, or at such work as is to be had. As far as I am able to learn, the Socialist-Democratic party is largely responsible for this state of things. This organization, through its machinations, has done much to interfere with the prosperity of this country.

The consul at Dresden says:

The cost of living to the laboring classes almost invariably goes pari passu with their wages. They seem to be generally improvident and regardless of the future, and spend in beer-drinking, dancing, and idleness all they earn.

While it is to be hoped that the growth of the principles so clearly referred to above is more apparent than real, the riotous and turbulent few always making more noise than the orderly many, it is pleasant to turn to the following from the report of the cousul-general at Frankforton-the-Main, which, in addition to its local application, is thought to give the truer picture of the great body of the German working people:

Yet the German laborer can and does save from his earnings. He will not be idle if he can help it, and will rather work for a few pfennigs per day than do nothing. Strikes seldom or never occur, and nothing is lost, therefore, in costly and useless contentions with employers.

As an illustration at once of the condition of the working classes of Germany and their disposition to be happy under the most pinching circumstances, the following paragraph, from the interesting report of the consul at Chemnitz, in regard to the habits and customs of the Saxon working classes, is specially appropriate here:

The poorer classes in Southern Saxony fare very meanly indeed. For houses, they have generally a single room, which answers for workshop also. For household fur

niture, they have a few chairs or wooden stools, a table, stove, and sometimes a loom. For beds, they have the bare floors or straw pallets. For fuel, they have the dead branches fallen from the trees in the King's forest, carried home in their arms. For food, they have black bread, made of rye; coffee, made principally of chicory; a few boiled potatoes; sometimes a little cheese, butter, or goose-grease; and on Sundays a pound of meat for a family of five or six persons. But if "poor and content" is rich, no others within my knowledge can compare in wealth with the poor of this district. They live in villages and love company. When Sundays or holidays come, they meet at restaurants, smoke poor tobacco, drink poor beer, talk, sing, and dance, and seem as happy as if they had a thousand a year.

Such, in brief, are the characteristics of the German working classes, characteristics which, under more favorable circumstances in the United States, have helped so materially in the development of our vast resources, which have made the name of German-American synonymous with industry and good citizenship, and which have given to the agricultural and manufacturing mind of our country much of its solidity and perseverance.

Paper money. In regard to the circulating medium in Germany, it may be said that paper money has the same value as gold and silver. According to the report from the consul at Sonneberg, the Reichsbank and seventeen private banks are authorized to issue paper money. According to the bank act of 1875, the issue of notes uncovered by bullion or coin is limited to 273,875,000 marks for the Reichsbank, and 111,125,000 marks for the seventeen private banks; a total of 385,000,000 marks, or $92,630,000.

The actual issue of notes, covered and uncovered, was, on the 1st of April, 1878, 833,504,000 marks, and the amount of bullion and coin held by the banks on the same date was 623,896,000 marks; 75 per cent. of the entire note circulation being thus covered.

Besides the foregoing, there are 120,000,000 marks of state notes in circulation.

The entire note and coin system of Germany being based on the single (gold) standard, the bank-notes are on par with gold; all banks emitting paper money being required to redeem the same in gold on demand.

The consul-general at Frankfort-on-the-Main estimates the total amount of coin and notes in circulation in Germany, at the beginning of 1878, at 3,000,000,000 marks, or $714,000,000.

Silver is receivable as legal tender to the amount of not more than $23, but there is no limit to paper money as a legal tender unless by stipulation. Paper is the most popular currency, owing to its convenience and ready convertibility into gold; silver being used only as a medium for small transactions.

For further particulars concerning the paper money and coin circulation in Germany, and the laws and systems governing the same, I would refer you to the reports, herewith transmitted, from Consul Stanton at Bremen, from Consul-General Lee at Frankfort-on-the-Main, from Consul Stewart at Leipsic, and from Consul Winser at Sonneberg.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

ENGLAND.

The manufacturing supremacy of England has necessarily developed a great labor element in that country, and it may be said that, as England has led the nations in commerce and manufactures, her artisans, mechanics, and workingmen in general have also led the labor element of Europe.

The labor populations of the rest of Europe, although that of each country is seemingly distinct, have something in common in their tempers and habits. The English workingman stands out boldly alone. Lacking the finesse of the Frenchman, the patient industry of the German, the eternal evenness of the Dutch, the docility and adaptability of the Belgian, and the spirit which relies upon the climate for half their food and clothing, which makes the Italian and the Spaniard so happy in misfortune, he possesses attributes which in many respects make him the superior of all.

What is called "British pluck" is the predominating characteristic of the English workingman. This is the result of centuries of national training in a school from which all the softer attributes were excluded as tending to effeminacy; a school in which the so-called "manly exercises" (rightly or wrongly so called is not to the question) were practiced, developing the rough-and-ready give-and-take spirit of the AngloSaxon; that stubborn courage which displays itself sometimes in riot and violence and sometimes in that indomitable courage which has made the British flag feared and respected throughout the world—a long strike or a Waterloo.

These features, which have been so indelibly stamped, through a long series of years, into the English workingman's character, must be taken into consideration if we would seek to arrive at any approximate understanding of the present perplexing and unsatisfactory state of labor in England. It is evident to those who have marked the recent course of manufacturing and labor events in that country-the decline of manufactures and the uncompromising spirit of labor; a decline caused by foreign competition, and, in consequence thereof, less demand for manufactures, producing a contraction to which the employer and the employé might have gradually accommodated themselves by a sensible spirit of concession on the part of the latter, had the workingman been capable of appreciating the fact that his employer was forced to reduce his wages in order to sell at a profit, a reduction which the organized stubbornness of trades-unions have so long and at such fearful cost resisted, it is evident to those who have noted these things of late that the British workingman has at length brought himself face to face with the inevitable. British manufacturers can go no further unless their workmen, by accepting less wages, assist them to maintain the foreign markets already being contested for by other nations.

Thus far the British workingman would seem to have believed that the British manufacturer sought a reduction of his wages in mere hostility to labor, not being capable, it would appear, to look beyond the narrow circle of his own interest to the broader fact that the manufac-turer has sacrificed much already for British pride, and, to his honor be it noted, for the interest of the workman, in running his establishment often at a loss rather than cease manufacturing altogether.

The great aim, according to the reports herewith submitted, of the trades-unions has been to resist any attempted reduction of wages. It may be said that, thus far, they have been successful, but if it be a victory which has cost England her manufacturing supremacy, it is a victory which will destroy labor also; for if the factories are idle, so must labor go idle, and while capital may find profitable investment in channels not necessarily connected with manufactuses, the laborer can only live by labor.

A few years more of strikes and disorganization in England, and it may be doubted whether any compromise between the employers and the employés will restore to that country her manufacturing supremacy.

As capital will not remain idle, nor permanently in unprofitable investments, it may be expected that English capitalists will seek new fields for investment, such as the transfer of the cotton manufacture to India, which may be said to have already begun.

Under such circumstances nothing will remain for the British workingmen but emigration. Thus, if they drive capitalists and manufacturers away, they must also go.

Already the British workingmen see the necessity of getting rid of their surplus labor so as to reduce it within the actual demand therefor, the greater portion of them being working at present, where they are working, on short time, to enable all to eke out an existence.

Premiums are being now offered to those workingmen who are willing to emigrate to Australia or to the United States by those very tradeunions which have divided capital and labor into hostile camps, brought ruin on the manufacturer, and poverty to the workingman's home, filled the land with strikes and resistance for years, made of the manly English workingman an organizer of reckless leagues, and which now offer the English people forced emigration.

There can scarcely be a doubt but that within the next five years half a million of English workingmen will emigrate; indeed, should the spirit of emigration once seize the English mind, there can be no reasonable limit set to the hegira.

That the greater number of these emigrants will seek "work and bread" in the United States, may be fairly assumed. We have, therefore, more interest in those people than even their own Government; they are Englishmen to-day; in ten years they will be American citizens. That they are as good material in physique, in pluck, and as workingmen as Europe has ever driven hither is undeniable, and if they will only rise up to the height of their new and more favorable surroundings, leave their trades-unions and strikes behind them, as well as their ruined manufactures, and fall into the ranks of the American workingmen proper, they will be a strength and an addition to our country.

These are questions, in connection with the present state of labor in England, to which I have considered it necessary to draw your attention before passing on to the review of the consular reports herewith submitted.

Although the reports from England are not as full nor as many as might be expected, it is thought that they are sufficient to enable you to reach a correct understanding of the present condition of labor in that country. A few consuls have written so fully in answer to the Department circular as to fill up the gaps which are so apparent in the reports of others, and the void which the total absence of reports from some districts has caused. In this connection I would refer you to the comprehensive and valuable report from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and also to the reports from Leeds, Sheffield, and Liverpool.

Rates of wages.-In laying before you the following statement showing the rates of wages, as averaged from the reports herewith submitted, throughout England, as compared with those prevailing in New York and Chicago, it should be remarked that, in many cases, the English rates are more apparent than real, and that, while nominally the English workingman appears to receive a comparatively high rate of wages, he only works on half or two-third time, thus gratifying his desire to preserve a high rate of wages at the expense of time; a senti mental fiction which is neither profitable nor substantial:

Statement showing the weekly rates of wages paid the following trades in England and the rates paid to similar trades in New York and in Chicago.

That you may be able to make fuller comparison of the relative purchasing power of the wages of the English and American workingmen, 1 submit the following table, showing the food-prices as averaged from all the English reports and the prices in New York and Chicago: Statement showing the retail prices of the necessaries of life in England and in the United