WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR IN THE COTTON-MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES, 1907 TO 1922-Continued.

WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR IN THE COTTON-MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES, 1907 TO 1922-Continued

WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR FOR THE COTTON-MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES, 1907 TO 1922-Continued.

WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR FOR THE COTTON-MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES, 1907 TO 1922-Concluded.

TH

HE Territorial mine inspector of Alaska in his report for 1921 states that labor conditions in the mining industry in Alaska "were very satisfactory throughout the year." There was a plentiful supply of workers and no troubles of any kind were reported. Some reductions in wages were made in 1921. According to the report, the 1921 wage scales in the more important mines in the coastal districts were as follows:

From these wages deductions ranging from $1 to $1.50 per day were made for room and board and from $1.50 to $2.40 per month for hospital fees and medical attendance. In the Matanuska field in 1921 coal miners' wages were $8.60 per day of 8 hours. Unskilled

laborers were paid $7.90 per day. Both the working conditions and living accommodations were reported excellent.

At nearly all of the larger camps workers with families may rent cottages at a reasonable rate from the operators.

The cost of living in Alaska is not very much higher than in Seattle, and rents are lower. In the interior of the Territory both wages and living conditions vary so much that it is not easy to make general statements in this connection. In the larger camps, for example, Iditarod and Fairbanks, placer miners' wages range from $5 to $6 per day, exclusive of board furnished by the operators, the estimated value of which is from $2 to $3 per day. In the very remote districts mine workers receive from $7 to $10 per day and their board.

The amount of wages paid in the mining industry in Alaska in 1921 is estimated as approximately $5,260,000, distributed as follows: Placer mines (estimated on the basis of 2,000 men employed for an average of 150 days during the year).

Gold lode mines, productive properties and mills.

Gold lode mines, miscellaneous small operations.

Copper mines and mills.

Coal mining (estimated).

Nonmetal mines (not including quarries).

$1,500,000 1, 494, 482 185, 228 1, 154, 876 875,000 50,542

5, 260, 128

About 4,000 men were employed in the various branches of mining in 1921.

Agricultural Wages and Wage Earners in Norway and Sweden.

IN

By MRS. V. B. TURNER.
Norway.

Norway, as in the other Scandinavian countries, agriculture is the predominant occupation. According to the census of 19101 of 923,047 occupied persons, 288,322, or nearly one-third of the number employed, were engaged in some form of agriculture. Broadly speaking, they were divided as follows: Independent farmers, 144,190; salaried employees, 3,864; laborers, 140,268. From 1890 to 1910 there was a conspicuous tendency towards an increase in the number of independent farmers and a corresponding decrease in the number of laborers. The increase in the number of landowners was probably due to the greater ease with which ownership of small holdings was secured, while the decrease in the number of wage earners may also be attributed to the encouragement given these workers through propaganda and legislation to acquire small holdings of their own, to migration to the cities, and to trans-Atlantic emigration. But the war practically did away with trans-Atlantic emigration, caused a demand for the most intensive cultivation of the land, and rendered living in towns almost unbearable. While there are no available statistics at present to support such a conclusion, it is believed, because of what is known of the increase in the whole rural population in excess of the increase by birth rate for the

1 International Review of Agricultural Economies, March, 1920, p. 195.