receive $11, what would be the price of a corresponding amount of work in Germany?

Mr. RADFORD. The price of a corresponding amount of labor would be not quite 20 marks.

Senator ALLISON. For a week?

Mr. RADFORD. For the week's work. First-class beaters do not get it, only in the very heavy work.. But the gold-beaters there do not learn the trade throughout. They only learn a portion of it. The man that beats the mold can not fill it. He has never learned it.

Senator ALLISON. Somebody else fills it?

Mr. RADFORD. They have girls. It is done on a large scale because they supply so many countries. They supply the market of England. Senator ALLISON. Then a gold-beater in Germany only does a small portion of the work you do here?

Mr. RADFORD. They do it in different parts. It is divided. There are girls that fill and there are girls that brime.

Senator ALLISON. You fill, do you not?

Mr. RADFORD. We fill and brime, too, and beat.

Senator ALLISON. What are the wages of the girls that fill?

Mr. RADFORD. The girls receive 20 pfennig for filling a 1,200 mold. That is about 5 cents a mold.

Senator ALLISON. What would that amount to by the week?

Mr. RADFORD. Well, she can fill a mold almost as quick with 1,200 as we can with 900, because the process is different. Instead of having them cut from the leaf in the shoder, it is the other way in Germany. They take the leaf out of the shoder and place it in between large books and turn the leaf over and put two more in, and then put them into an oven and get them very dry, and take them out and cut them with a knife. They will not stick together then. They do not trust the girls to cut them square. The men will do that part of the work and the girls can take them after they are cut.

Senator ALLISON. The work you do is done in Germany first by a man and then by a girl. Is there any other work there different from your work?

Mr. RADFORD. Oh, yes; it is different from the commencement to the finish.

Senator JONES. For 1,200 leaves how much wages would be received, respectively, in Germany and in this country for all the work?

Mr. RADFORD. The beating and all?

Senator JONES. Beating and finishing 1,200 leaves in Germany, including the men and women who do the work. What would be the cost in Germany and what would be the cost in this country?

Mr. RADFORD. We would receive nearly four times as much; about four times as much right through, taking the whole week's work. The man who cutches can prepare more work than the man that beats the mold, because the gold is very thick and he beats it very small. It takes a few minutes to beat the cutch and four or five hours to beat the mold. One cutcher and two assistants can keep sixteen beaters at work. Senator JONES. I judge by what you say that the classification of the labor in Germany in the manufacture of this product would be more advantageous than the classification here of the labor.

Mr. RADFORD. It is done there because they must compete. A man would never start in business in this country on the same principle. A man with five or six hundred dollars would have to employ five or six people in the German style, otherwise he could not think of starting. They have to have four times as many tools and six times as much gold.

There are no small employers there because the large ones swamp them out. We have a man in our business, who is now in New York, who started to manufacture gold-leaf on a small scale in Nuremberg, intending to export it to England, and the large importers gave him just 12 cents a pack more than a journeyman's wages in Germany. They cut him right down and he came over here with a few dollars that he had. If they depended only on their own consumption they could not do business on that scale. They do their work in large factories and they have that advantage. They can beat gold-leaf cheap for this reason: Take the mold when it has been beaten with gold-leaf 120 times. They can put it on silver and they can beat silver about 200 times and when it has got worn out for silver they can send it to the metal shop. Consequently the tools for their metal cost nothing, and the tools for the silver cost them very little. Our molds, when we are through with them in this country, we have to send over to Germany, or rather the employers have to, as we have no use for them here, and the Germans give them just what they choose for them because we can not beat the metal. We have no use for them unless we cut them down for shoders. The system on. which they do their work is that they buy from everybody and won't give you the chance of wearing out your old tools here.

Senator JONES. If our workmen could work as cheap as their workmen and adopt the same system we could compete with them?

Mr. RADFORD. You can not get our workmen to work as cheap because they can not live as well.

Senator JONES. I say, if we could.

Mr. RADFORD. Everything else being equal, I think we could work as cheap as they work. But things are not equal. I spoke to a gentleman that gave me an affidavit. He says you can get a little house in Fürth for 3 marks a month, and it would cost you $10 a month for two rooms in New York. Germans leave there and come over here. There are a number of them working in New York and in Chicago, and different places. They get enough money to come over here and then work cheap. We do not mind their coming here and working cheap because we teach them their business. They only know one branch when they come here. Our men here take hold of them and help them along, and we make them competent in three or four years to go along themselves. We would rather teach them here and let them do the work than have them stay across the water and send their work here. The men there do not know their business, but they are taught that they are splendid gold-beaters, and as they do not know the difference, ignorance is bliss. They are surprised, on coming here, that they can not go ahead and go through with their work. A short time ago I gave a German some gold ribbon to anneal and he did not know how to do the work, although he thought he was a mechanic. He was a about thirty years of age.

Senator ALLISON. Is their method of division of labor a better method than yours, or a cheaper method of producing the article?

Mr. RADFORD. It does not produce such a good article as we produce, and if any mistake occurs one man can blame it onto the other man. Here, if we get a beating of gold given to a man in a ribbon and if he does not produce a first-class article, the employer discharges him because he knows he has failed. He can locate the blame. The man here is responsible from the commencement to the finish. It is not so there. Senator BECK. You are paid $11 for sixty hours' work.

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir.

Senator BECK. That is a week's work?

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir.

Senator BECK. But it frequently takes you two weeks to get in those sixty hours if you are running on half time?

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir.

Senator BECK. You do not always do $11 worth of work in a week? Mr. RADFORD. We do not always do $11 worth of work in a week. Senator BECK. You do not get $11 until you have worked sixty hours?

Mr. RADFORD. That is so.

Senator BECK. And how long it takes to make those sixty hours de pends entirely upon how much work you get?

Mr. RADFORD. If I work but forty hours this week I would only get paid for two-thirds of $11.

Senator BECK. It is sixty hours, and the week may be three weeks long if you are running on one-third time, or two weeks if you are running on half time.

Mr. RADFORD. If I work for an employer and he is close enough in figures he can stop me for one hour's work, about 18 cents, and some of them will do it. They are compelled to do it.

Senator BECK. Your week is sixty hours, and that sixty hours depends upon how many hours a day you work, or how many hours in any one week your employers have work for you.

Mr. RADFORD. Oh, yes. If I go in in the morning and he has no work for me until dinner time he will send me home, and on Saturday he will dock a half a day from me.

Senator HISCOCK. He practically pays you by the hour.

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir; only we put it at $11 a week so that an employer shall not call you in for three or four hours' work and have you bring your tools along with you and after you have finished that say to you "I can not give you any more." We have arranged so that we shall not be driven out in that way. We have our hammers and different things to take along, and we don't want to have them left on our hands to be removed again right away.

Senator ALLISON. What class of men are your employers; are they men who make large product or are they generally men making a smail product? How many workmen are there where you work?

Mr. RADFORD. About 33 men at the present time and there are cutters sufficient to cut work up. I do not know how many cutters there are, because I do not go into the cutting-room upstairs; but I should judge there would be about 20.

Senator ALLISON. Is that an average establishment?

Mr. RADFORD. No, sir; that would be considered a large establishment in our country. There is that establishment and another one in New York that employs about the same number of hands, and they are considered large establishments. Any establishment that employs 20 beaters is considered a large establishment. We have nothing to do with the cutters. They do not trouble us. They cut our work.

Senator BECK. Although the German wages are low, do you know how it is about the regularity of the work. You say they work in large establishments and supply England and other countries of the world. Is their employment regular or irregular?

Mr. RADFORD. I can not say. I think it must be pretty regular for the simple reason that if it was not regular they could not live at all. Senator BECK. And the larger the establishment the more regularity there is likely to be because of the immense demand from other countries than their own for their work.

Mr. RADFORD. No; I think not always. I know a couple of years ago when they found we had come down in our wages here I heard there was grumbling in Germany because they had less work. It was not being sent here. Since the English have been starting it they have come down. They are trying to keep it out of the market. If any steps or action are taken outside of Germany it must affect the beaters in Germany. It is bound to affect them, because the gold-beating establishments and the metal establishments in Germany are not running to supply the wants of Germany only. They are running to supply other countries. Germany itself supplies more gold to England in one year than she will consume herself in seven. She has her own market, but it is for the foreign market that the work is done.

Senator ALLISON. If you gentlemen think of anything further you can submit it to us in writing.

Mr. BRICE. After a day or two we will have an opportunity to consider, and if we think of anything that will help our case we will send it to the committee.

Mr. Radford also submitted the following statement:

Report of the committee appointed to represent the state of the gold beating trade to the royal commission for inquiring into the causes of depression to trade.

Joint committee: Richard Buckea, esq., treasurer, president Masters' Association; G. J. Packe, esq., president Trade Society.

Employers: Messrs. W. Clarkson, A. Dunn, J. Dean, J. Stickley, George Whiley, E. W. Wilson, secretary.

Employés: Messrs. J. Bentley, J. Bartlett, W. Cross, J. Goslett, C. Maisey, J. Pye, secretary.

Secretary: Joseph Pye. Auditors: James Stickley, employer; William Cross, employé.

MAY 24, 1886.

The committee appointed at a general meeting of employers and employés to take steps to bring the state of trade before the royal commission have the pleasure of presenting their report upon the action they have taken up to the present time.

Prior to the appointment of the committee, separate meetings of employers and employés had been held, but as it was considered that their interests were indentical, it was resolved to take united action, and a joint committee, representative of each, was appointed, with Mr. Buckea as treasurer, and Mr. Pye secretary.

They found certain statistics had already been obtained, and took steps to obtain other information which they considered would strengthen their case, and it was determined to draw up a statement showing the decline of the trade and its causes, to be laid before the commission.

This involved many meetings. No less than ten committee and subcommittee meetings were held, and threw much work upon the secretary in obtaining and arranging the information required.

Meanwhile the commission had prepared a schedule of questions to be answered by the various trade organizations of the country, which was filled in under the direction of the committee, but at the same time it was considered that the mere answers to the cut and dried questions of the commission would not adequately represent the case. It was therefore determined to persevere in the original intention, and send in the statement.

The statement was accordingly completed, and after being submitted to a meeting of employers and employés for approval, was, with statistics of the foreign import, laid before the commission; these, together with the answers given to the questions mentioned above, appear in the appendix to the second report of the commission.

The papers referred to are printed with this report; also, a statement of the receipts and expenditure duly audited. From the latter it will be seen that there is a balance of £8 98. 7d. in the hands of the treasurer. The committee have awarded the sum of 3 guineas to the secretary for his labor and the time he has devoted to the matter up to the present. This leaves a sum of £5 63. 7d. for printing this report and return and any other small expense that may be incurred.

The committee, having brought the state of the trade under the notice of the commission, have done all that they think advisable or possible for the present, but consider that they should continue as a committee, and maintain an observant attitude over the work of the commission, in order to be prepared to take any further steps that circumstances may require.

We have examined the above statement, with books and vouchers, and find them correct.

Countersigned.
MAY 24, 1886.

JAMES STICKLEY,

WILLIAM CROSS,

Auditors.

JOSEPH PYE,
Secretary.

STATEMENT ON BEHALF of the GOLD, SILVER, AND METAL BEATERS, LAID BEFORE THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE.

The trade of manufacturing gold and silver leaf, for use by book-binders, gilders, decorators, etc., has been in existence in England for centuries. Thirty-five years ago it employed at least 2,000 men in the United Kingdom in comfort and respectability. About that time the duty on gold-leaf was remitted, and the importation of foreign-manufactured leaf commenced. At the present time such is the depressed state of the trade, caused solely by the large and increasing importation, that on the 9th of September, 1885, there were but 400 men and boys in work, and even these but partially employed. In the year 1865 the importation of gold-leaf alone was 12,250,000 leaves, of the estimated value of £27,500, while last year it amounted to 80,000,000 leaves, of the value of £150,000; and even that shows only about 50 per cent. of the real importation, enormous quantities being sent here with toys, etc., to save the small additional expense.

The causes which render it impossible for us to compete with the foreign manufact

urer are:

(1) The cost of production abroad is much less than that of the home manufact

urer.

(2) The cost of carriage is nominal as compared with the value, in consequence of the smallness of bulk.

The cost of production.-Foreign gold-leaf, of their so-called best quality, being sold at 408. per 1,000 leaves, it follows that 100,000 would realize £200. The best quality of English gold-leaf can not be profitably manufactured under 508. per 1,000 leaves. The English manufacturer requires well-lighted, dry, and spacious premises; and to produce 100,000 of gold-leaf weekly would cost in rent £4, wages £50, material £162, in books and wear and tear of tools £11; gas, coke, and sundries, £3; in all amounting to £230, which sold at 508. per 1,000 leaves would realize £250.

This requires a capital for material and necessary stock of £6,000, and an annual turnover of £13,000, producing, subject to risks, bad debts, etc., £1,000 per annum profit, entailing payment to the revenue of income tax, house duty, etc., on that amount, besides the taxation payable on the excisable articles consumed by the 40 men employed.

The cost of carriage.-One hundred thousand leaves of foreign gold can be delivered in London in three days at a cost for carriage of 108. This can be carried by hand and distributed direct to the consumer at a nominal cost, not contributing a penny to the revenue.

The above quotations are for the employment of 40 men, and to produce the quantity now imported, as shown by the bill of entry of statistical department of Her Majesty's customs and the board of trade returns, would necessitate the immediate employment of 1,000 men for gold-leaf only, with a corresponding increase to the revenue. This statement, however, does not include the enormous quantities of cloth gilt, moldings imported in lengths for picture frames, wall papers, stamped and other materials; nor many other kinds of ready-gilt goods.

While in the case of most manufactured goods a certain amount of English labor is