MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON GERMANY AS THE WORKING-MAN'S PARADISE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TUB "SPECTATOR-",J
SIR,—Will you allow me to add a word in confirmation of " A German Free-Trader's " letter on the above (Spectator, June 10th)? I was for nine years. sole manager of a woollen factory in the neighbourhood of Berlin, and had under my control five hundred German workpeople. I had, therefore, ample opportunity for seeing bow they lived. Their dinner often consisted of nothing but black bread and salt herring (raw). To maintain that horseflesh is not a staple article of food among them, when they could afford meat at all, is, of course, to betray gross ignorance of the country, as the Boss.Schldchtereien (horseflesh butchers) are an institution well known and , well patronised all over Germany. If personal evidence of English working men is required, there is no need to send to Germany a. deputation,, whose evidence, after all, could never be anything but superficial.
There are scores of English working men, in York- shire at any rate, and I believe in many other parts of the kingdom, who have lived for years-in some cases as long as twenty years-in Germany and Austria, and mixed daily with the working class in those countries. Their evidence, if it ,could be collected, would form a valuable refutation of much irresponsible and ignorant talk. It is a significant fact that English skilled labour always asked and obtained 50 to 100 per cent. more wage in Germany than was obtainable in England. These men, indeed, always found that to live as they were accustomed to live in their own country cost them so much more. Such high wages are of course not paid to native workmen. We have the evidence of our own Blue-books that they receive on the average less than their brethren in England; their standard of living, which is also affected by the higher cost of many necessities, is thus correspondingly lower.-I am, Sir, &c.,
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