Speech #630383910

Without objection. lenission to do so is granted. - -� The matter referred to is as follbws: The purely economic. condition of the .wageworker Is genelally very much lower in Europe than in the United States.. This is. _espei ally true of the unskilledlaborer class from which so great a proportldn -of the emigration to the United States Is drawn. Skilled labor also is poorly paid "when compared with returns for like -service -in the United States. but teli opportunity for continual employment in this field is nsnally goodand. the wages sufficiently high to lessen the incentive to emigration. A large proportion of the emigration from southern and eastern Europe may be traced directly to thEinability of the peasantry to gain an adequate livelihood in agricultural pursuits either as laborers or proprietors. Agricultural labor is paid extremely low "wages. .and employment isquite likely to be seasonal rather than continuous. In cases where peasant proprietorship is possible the land holdings are usually so small. the methods of cultivationso primitive. and the taxes so high that even in productive years the struggle for existence is a hard one. while a crop failure means practical disaster for the small farmer and farm laborer alike. In agrarian Russia. where the people have not learned to emigrate. a crop failure results in a famine. while in other sections of southern and eastern Europe it results in emigration. usually to the United States. * Periods of industrial depression. as well as crop failures. stimulate emigration. but the effect of the former is not so pronounced. for the reason that disturbed financial and industrial conditl6ns in Europe ard usuallycoincidental with like conditions in the United States. -and at such times the emigration movement is always relatively smaller. The fragmentary nature of available data relative to wages in many European countries makes a satisfactory comparison with wages in the United States impossible. It is well known. however. that even in England.