NOTES AND ABSTRA CTS 1 2 5
and will become employe's with clearly defined hours and duties. Servants will learn their business like other workers. The common complaints against servants are often well founded, but good work cannot be expected from untaught workers nor good feeling from those whose future is uncertain, and whose present means exhausting labor, lack of freedom, the worst room in the house, loneliness and lack of innocent pleasures. A servant in Russia is worse off than when he was a slave; in Austria, little better. In Germany the position is less humiliating, but pay very low. In cities of France servants are in revolt, but in a helpless way, that leads to nothing but per- petual change of mistresses. In England they have won some privileges. In the United States wages are high, and, with no board to pay, there is every advantage in taking service. Nevertheless few do, except immigrants, who have not had time to develop a spirit of independence. A young woman prefers freedom and superior social position to material advantages. She dreads the loneliness of the country or of a house where she is the only servant. Miss Jane Addams, of Chicago, attributes to the cutting off from their own family life the refusal of the better class of workers to enter service. She foresees the formation of clubs to furnish social life, the ending of regu- lar hours at seven P. M., later service to have extra pay, and the lessening of work done within the home. Mrs. Stuckert, of Illinois, proposes many homes grouped about a common central building, in which washing and cooking shall be done for all, which shall lodge the servants, and contain library, reading rooms, assembly hall, kindergartens, and dining hall. A family may have its meals sent to its own house. This plan does not interfere with family life ; at the same time it secures expert serv- ice under conditions pleasant for the servants. HUDRY-.MENOS, La Revue Socialiste, May 1 897. Fr.
The Social Question in the East. Economic and social conditions are the real cause of the Eastern question. The Ottoman Empire is inhabited by many petty peoples, differing in origin, dialects, customs, religion, held together by political bonds and even by their mutual hatred of which their ruler takes advantage. The economic situation is precarious. A rude agriculture and the raising of animals are almost the only forms of labor. Manufacture scarcely exists. Imports pay a duty of 8 or 10 per cent. There is a tax on salt, on fish, on animals killed at the abattoirs, etc. All agri- cultural products, except potatoes, are taxed 10 per cent. As the collection of this tax is farmed out 30 or e v en 50 per cent, is often seized instead of the nominal 10 per cent. The peasant pays many other taxes. Christians pay a tax in lieu of military sen-ice, as Mussulmans will not serve with them ; besides the government does not wish Chris- tians to be familiar with arms. The tax on domestic animals is 18 cents a head, while a sheep or goat in Asia Minor may be bought for 12 cents. There is a tax on the laborer's hut and on his bit of land. The tax on crops is the only one collected regularly. The others are allowed to accumulate till some public event when money is needed, then all arrears are called for at once. The peasant must then go to the usurers or to the large landholders, who furnish him money at high rates, taking a mortgage on his land. To obtain seed and the use of farming implements his crops art UK /imaged in advance. He is never able to pay the interest, and his land is seized. Thus the land, not the property of sultan <>r church, is largely coming into the hands of a few officials. Those dispossessed of land are moving to the centers of population, forming a vast proletariat. Lack of transportation brings famine in case of a poor harvest. Corruption in government, and a more picturesque brigandage . the mountains help to depopulate whole sections. Almost all industries are
- >raring under competition with A ustro Hungary and Germany. Mining is almost
industry. There are rich mines of copper, chrome, manganese, borax, and coal. The work is nearly all done by women and young girls. The workers sleep in the open air, the masters providing nothing but two dirtv m:its for each per- son. The day's work is thirteen hours. The pay ranges from 10 to 20 cents. Only the overseers, who are men, receive the latter urn, I he proletariat is as yet helpless because ignorant, unorganized, divided l>v religion and race hatred. No reform! will remedy the ill. There must be a complete change of social rfgime. IluuUKS RoSALT in Revue Socialiste, November 1896.
