1 BERKELEY 
 .IBKURY 
 NIVE- ~>'~Y OF 
 
WORK AND WAGES 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STKEET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
ON 
 
 WORK AND WAGES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS BRASSEY, M.P. 
 
 FIFTH THOUSAND 
 
 LONDON 
 BELL AND DALDY 
 
 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1873 
 
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C., M.P. 
 
 AS A MARK OF APPRECIATION OF 
 
 HIS EMINENT SERVICES IN MEDIATING BETWEEN THE 
 
 EMPLOYERS AND THE EMPLOYED 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 AS I have been in some measure the 
 cause of this work being produced, 
 and have seen it through the press, it may 
 be desirable for me to give some account of 
 its origin and its purpose. 
 
 While I was writing the Life of the 
 late Mr. Brassey, the Labour question was 
 naturally much in my thoughts ; and I 
 could not but observe that, in studying his 
 Life, many facts of high importance in rela- 
 tion to the general state of labour throughout 
 the world came prominently forward. 
 
 I found that my coadjutor, Mr. Thomas 
 Brassey, was fully aware of the value of 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 these facts, and had already given great 
 attention to the question of labour in all 
 its various aspects. I asked him, therefore, 
 to give me a paper on the subject, dealing 
 especially with Wages, and taking his 
 illustrations from the facts which were 
 known to us both from the evidence that 
 had been given by many skilled persons 
 in reference to his father's career. This 
 paper I proposed to subjoin to the Life. 
 
 It was soon found, however, that though 
 the experience which the late Mr. Brassey had 
 gained, as regards the labour question, was 
 perhaps as large and varied as had ever fallen 
 to the lot of any one man to acquire for him- 
 self, it still occupied only one branch of the 
 subject. To treat this subject with the ful- 
 ness that it inevitably demands, a general 
 survey of the labour employed in all trades 
 and occupations was needed. Mr. Thomas 
 Brassey's unremitting industry, based upon 
 much previous research, has supplied evi- 
 dence of the most varied and extensive kind ; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 -and now, the facts which were originally 
 gained from the study of his father's expe- 
 rience, form but a small part of the work, 
 when compared with those which have been 
 elicited by studying the other branches of 
 industry that have been carefully examined. 
 As regards some special departments of 
 labour, there have been more exhaustive 
 researches ; but such a body of evidence, so 
 comprehensive and so various, bearing upon 
 the whole subject of labour generally, and 
 not even favouring any particular section of 
 it, has never, I think, been brought together 
 in the comparatively small compass of a 
 single volume. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Brassey would not for a mo- 
 ment contend that several of the conclusions 
 he has arrived at, are new to students of 
 Political Economy. The aspects, however, of 
 these conclusions, and the practical effect 
 which should be given to them, vary much 
 according to the circumstances of the times, a 
 fact which the author has not lost sight of. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is, however, very satisfactory to find that 
 the most recent facts are entirely in accord 
 with some of the chief principles laid down 
 by Adam Smith and the earlier masters of 
 political economy. 
 
 It has been to me, and I doubt not that it 
 will be to many of the readers of this book, a 
 very pleasing thing to find that the author is 
 able, by an overwhelming mass of evidence, 
 to dispel the fear which has long prevailed 
 of our industrial labours being about to be 
 greatly restricted by foreign competition, 
 based upon the comparative cheapness of 
 wages in foreign countries. 
 
 Mr. Brassey's remarks in reference to the 
 action of Trades Unions, appear to me, to 
 be at the present moment, of the highest 
 importance, and to indicate thoroughly sound 
 and just views of the duties and respon- 
 sibilities, both of employers and employed. 
 
 ARTHUR HELPS. 
 
 LONDON : June 1872. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 DEDICATION v 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 I. HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES TRADES UNIONS . i 
 
 II. DEMAND AND SUPPLY 33 
 
 JII. COST OF LABOUR CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THE 
 
 RATE OF WAGES 66 
 
 IV. THE INDUSTRIAL CAPABILITIES OF DIFFERENT 
 
 NATIONS COMPARED in 
 
 V. DEAR LABOUR STIMULATES INVENTION . . .123 
 
 VI. HOURS OF LABOUR 143 
 
 VII. RISE OF WAGES ABROAD 154 
 
 VIII. COMPARISON OF THE COMMERCIAL PROGRESS OF 
 
 NATIONS 166 
 
 - IX. Is LABOUR BECOMING DEARER? .... 194 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 X. INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES ON THE ENGLISH 
 
 LABOUR MARKET 200 
 
 XL ALLEGED PHYSICAL DETERIORATION OF THE 
 
 LABOURER 225 
 
 XII. FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES 235 
 
 XIII. CO-OPERATION . 247 
 
 XIV. PIECE WORK 261 
 
 XV. COURTS OF CONCILIATION 270 
 
 INDEX 285 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT has been suggested that the publication 
 of a memoir of my father affords a 
 seasonable opportunity for collating the 
 results of his long and varied experience of 
 the cost of labour, and also of setting forth 
 results of a kindred character. Other men 
 have organized and conducted vast industrial 
 operations ; but few have laboured in so 
 many lands, or had the same means of com- 
 paring the working men of every nation. 
 
 The task of writing the following pages 
 has been a serious addition to the engrossing 
 labours of Parliamentary life. But I can 
 truly say that it has been to me a labour of 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 love, for which I shall be well rewarded if the 
 facts which are here recorded prove a useful 
 addition to the store of knowledge on this 
 important subject, and valuable to econo- 
 mists, whose study of the science of wages 
 and whose able writings have contributed so 
 much to enlighten even practical men. 
 
 The altered conditions of modern industry 
 seem likely to lead to new complications 
 in the relations between labour and capital. 
 Close competition with the cheaper labour of 
 other countries makes it necessary for our 
 manufacturers to develop to the utmost the 
 use of machinery, and this can be best 
 effected in large establishments. 
 
 Between the employer and the employed 
 there is now a wider interval than before ; 
 and with the diminished opportunities of 
 personal intercourse, there is a danger that 
 class prejudices and class jealousies may be 
 embittered. 
 
 If ignorance be, as undoubtedly it is, the 
 origin of every prejudice, let us rest assured 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 that clearer knowledge will bring charity and 
 forbearance, where jealousy and distrust now 
 unhappily divide the master and the man. 
 It was well said by Le Pere Hyacinthe, 
 " Toutes les fois que le voisin com met une 
 faute, accusons-nous nous-memes, nous ne 
 1'avons pas assez edifie." 
 
 There have been many high examples of 
 generosity and consideration for the working 
 men among the great employers of England. 
 I desire to follow humbly in their footsteps, 
 and I ask that the spirit of impartiality on 
 labour questions which may perhaps be 
 recognised throughout the essay, may be 
 accepted as an earnest of my good intentions. 
 
 Few persons are more indebted to the 
 labourers and artisans of this country than I 
 am ; and I shall ever be found ready to 
 sympathise with their difficulties and to 
 vindicate their rights. While I feel myself 
 impelled, by many and potent influences, to 
 take the employers' view of the labour 
 question, on the other hand I cannot forget 
 
Xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that the working classes, of whom vast 
 numbers for many years rendered honest 
 and faithful services to my father, possess 
 especial claims on my sympathy and gra- 
 titude. 
 
 I know that there are some who fear that 
 the day of England's commercial glory is 
 departed. I can see no reason for sharing 
 in those alarms. 
 
 O passi graviora ! dabit Deus his quoque finem. 
 I have a high opinion of the industry and 
 common sense of our working people, and I 
 look forward with unshaken confidence to 
 the continued prosperity of my country. 
 
ON WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES TRADES UNIONS. 
 
 r I ^HE recognition of the rights of free 
 
 JL labour came late in the history of the 
 
 world. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans 
 
 recognised the liberty of labour. 
 
 From the third to the thirteenth century 
 the Church was the most faithful protector of 
 the labouring man. From the thirteenth to 
 the eighteenth century, as we have been 
 told by M. Michael Chevalier, from whose 
 writings these historical details are borrowed, 
 
 B 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the Parliaments, the Legists, and the Lawyers, 
 did much to secure liberty for the labourer. 
 
 Turgot, the First Minister of Louis XVI., 
 fully appreciated the rights of free labour. 
 In his Edict of 1776 he says: " Dieu, en 
 donnant a 1'homme des besoins, a fait du 
 droit de travailler la propriete de tous les 
 hommes, et cette propriete est la premiere, 
 la plus sacr6e, et la plus imprescriptible de 
 toutes." 
 
 This Edict, the first proclamation of the 
 just and equitable principles which are now 
 universally accepted, was cancelled in the 
 darker times, after the fall of Turgot. 
 
 The right of free labour has, however, at 
 length been fully recognised by a power 
 which far transcends that of Parliaments or 
 Kings, I mean the power of public opinion. 
 Consequently the right of combination, for the 
 purpose of obtaining better terms for labour, 
 has now been conceded to the working men 
 of every country in Europe, which has reached 
 a high degree of civilization. And here I 
 would point out, that the tendency to combi- 
 nation for the purpose of promoting their 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 3 
 
 mutual interests is no new thing among the 
 industrial classes. The Guilds of the Middle 
 Ages were but the forerunners of the Trades 
 Unions of to-day, and the " Strikes" of 
 modern times have had their counterpart in 
 the Jacquerie riots of the fourteenth century. 
 
 When we take into view the great changes 
 which have been brought about in the indus- 
 trial organization of this country during the 
 present century the substitution of steam 
 for manual power, and of machinery for hand 
 labour, and remember that the resources of 
 machinery can be most fully developed only 
 when applied on a large scale, the reasons 
 why workmen have gathered together in 
 recent times, in numbers so vast, round our 
 great industrial centres, are not far to seek. 
 
 When operatives have thus been assembled 
 together in great'' numbers, under the same 
 roof, tending the same machine, and working 
 at the same table, is it not natural nay 
 reasonable that they should confer and take 
 action together on all questions of mutual 
 interest ? In this most legitimate manner 
 Trades Unions have had their origin. 
 
 B 2 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 I am not insensible to the great errors and 
 follies which have marked the policy and 
 the conduct of certain Trades Unions. In re- 
 gard to wages, as distinguished from " benefit 
 objects," their influence has too often been 
 essentially illiberal, anti-social, and calculated 
 to establish, among the industrial classes of 
 this country, that subdivision of caste which 
 has been the great curse of India. 
 
 There is a general tendency amongst the 
 Trades Unions to ignore the interest of the 
 master, as if his success were not essential to 
 their own prosperity. In his evidence before 
 the Trades Unions Commissioners, Mr. Con- 
 nolly, of the Masons' Society, made a frank 
 confession that their rules were for the men, 
 not the masters. " They want," he said, 
 " the greatest profit, we the highest wages." 
 
 I am not afraid of the Trades Unions. 
 On the contrary, I believe that their power 
 both for good and for evil, has been greatly 
 exaggerated. When the demand for labour 
 is increasing, the employers compete against 
 each other for the supply of labour, and 
 wages will necessarily rise. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 5 
 
 The pretensions of the Trades Unions 
 to regulate the rate of wages, irrespectively 
 of the demand for labour, are wholly at 
 variance with the most prominent facts, 
 Mr. Mault, the secretary to the Builders' 
 Association of Birmingham, stated to the 
 Trades Unions Commissioners, that, of the 
 900,000 men employed in the building trades, 
 not more than 90,000 were members of 
 Trades Unions; and that, although the 
 Trades Unions professed to aim at securing 
 uniformity of wage throughout the country, 
 the wages of masons varied in different parts 
 from A^d. to 7df. per hour, the wages of 
 bricklayers from \\d. to &/., and those of 
 carpenters from \^d. to %\d. These figures 
 conclusively prove the fallacy of the idea that 
 Trades Unions can secure for their clients 
 an uniform rate of wages. 
 
 Their organization and united action may 
 secure an advance of wages at a somewhat 
 earlier date ; but, eventually the competition 
 among employers would be equally beneficial 
 to the working people. The advantage to 
 the working classes of obtaining an advance 
 
6 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 at an earlier date is not, in my opinion, 
 sufficient to compensate for the expense 
 of perpetually maintaining, by heavy sub- 
 scriptions, the Trades Union organization, still 
 less to compensate for the loss which is 
 caused by unsuccessful strikes. 
 
 I have admitted that Trades Unions may 
 have the effect of obtaining an advance in 
 wages at an earlier date ; but the most pro- 
 tracted strikes in which the working men 
 have been engaged have .generally taken 
 place, not for the purpose of securing an 
 advance in wages, but for the purpose of 
 resisting a fall. Resistance to a proposed re- 
 duction was the cause of the engineers' strike 
 in 1852 ; of the strike at Preston in 1853 ; of 
 the strike in the iron trade in 1865 ; and of 
 the strike of the colliers at Wigan in 1868. 
 In each of these cases the masters had found 
 it necessary, in consequence of the depressed 
 state of trade, to reduce the rate of wages ; 
 but the men, ignoring the circumstances of 
 the trade, and looking only to what they 
 believed to be a degradation of their position 
 as workmen, refused to accept the reduction. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. *] 
 
 They therefore went out on strike ; but, after 
 a protracted struggle, were compelled to 
 accept the original proposal of their em- 
 ployers. 
 
 It has been a great object with Trades 
 Unions to establish uniformity of wage, irre- 
 spective of the personal abilities of the work- 
 man. The effect of this system is obviously 
 unjust to the more skilful and capable artisan, 
 while, at the same time, experience shows 
 that the inferior artisan does not by any 
 means escape the ill-effects of such a system. 
 Perhaps in the long run, he it is who suffers 
 most. Mr. Smith, in his evidence before 
 the Trades Unions Commissioners, said, " I 
 have always been against a uniform rate of 
 wage. The moment there is a reduction in 
 the shops or works, all the men who, from 
 age or other causes, cannot do their full 
 share, are discharged, although they might be 
 employed continuously at lower wages/ 
 
 Employers, as a general rule, from motives 
 of kindness and consideration towards their 
 workmen, are anxious, to avoid, if they pos- 
 sibly can, reductions of wages. They rarely 
 
8 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ask their workpeople to accept a lower rate 
 of wages, until the condition of their trade 
 has become so unfavourable, as to make the 
 reduction absolutely necessary. 
 
 This opinion is confirmed by Mr. John 
 Stuart Mill, who says that "Wages, like other 
 things, are regulated, either by competition 
 or by custom. In this country there are few 
 kinds of labour, of which the remuneration 
 would not be lower than it is, if the em- 
 ployers took the full advantage of competi- 
 tion." The success which marked Mr. Bras- 
 sey's career has become matter of notoriety ; 
 but no employer ever dealt more liberally 
 with labour. The almost invariable result of 
 the commencement of railway operations in 
 any county in England, or in any country 
 abroad, was a rise in the prevalent rate of 
 wages. On one occasion an estimate was 
 submitted to him for a contract, for which a 
 sharp competition was expected. The prices 
 had accordingly been cut down to an un- 
 usually low figure. He thereupon asked 
 " How it was proposed to carry out the work 
 for such inadequate prices?" In reply, it 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 9 
 
 was stated that the calculation was based on 
 the assumption that a reduction of wages 
 could be negotiated. On receiving this ex- 
 planation he desisted from all further exami- 
 nation of the estimate, saying, that " If busi- 
 ness could only be obtained by screwing 
 down wages, he would rather be without it." 
 A similar feeling I believe to be generally 
 entertained by employers. 
 
 The power of combination has been proved, 
 by experience of its results, to be at least as 
 much for the advantage of the masters as the 
 workmen. The defeat of the shipwrights on 
 the Thames in 1852, and more recently the 
 failure of the iron workers' strike in Stafford- 
 shire, are conspicuous examples of the power 
 which the masters acquire by combination 
 among themselves. 
 
 The great evil, however, of Trades Unions, 
 in their action in regard to the wage question, 
 arises from the fact that the leaders of these 
 societies, while they exercise great authority 
 over the members of the Trades Unions, 
 have no corresponding power of obtaining 
 for their clients what they tell them they 
 
10 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ought to have. No virtue is so freely dis- 
 played as the virtue of generosity, when ex- 
 ercised in imagination at the expense of others. 
 Trades Union agitators have too often sought 
 to win the admiration of their auditory by 
 thoughtless declamation against the alleged 
 rapacity of employers, and by loud professions 
 of sympathy with the wrongs of their industrial 
 brethren. Their credulous hearers have been 
 apt to forget that, when the trade in which 
 they are employed is yielding no profit, or is 
 perhaps being carried on at a loss, it is better 
 for the employer to abandon, for the time, a 
 business in which he has hitherto persevered 
 only in the hope of an ultimate revival of 
 trade, rather than consent to give rates of 
 pay which must inevitably involve him in 
 disaster. The leaders in several protracted 
 strikes have exhibited a melancholy ignor- 
 ance of the state of their own trade, and even 
 of the market value of the goods, in the 
 production of which they are engaged. How 
 much suffering might have been spared to 
 the working classes, if they had but known, 
 before they engaged in a hopeless struggle, 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 1 1 
 
 the true merits of their case ! I was once 
 present at a meeting of employers during a 
 large strike in the coal trade. I had the 
 means of knowing that the wages which had 
 been offered were the highest which the em- 
 ployers could afford to pay, and that the 
 markets were so overstocked that it was a 
 positive advantage to suspend the working of 
 the pits for a time. But the facts which I 
 had the means of knowing were apparently 
 unknown to the miners ; and it was indeed 
 lamentable to see the hard-earned accumula- 
 tions of many years exhausted in an obstinate 
 resistance to a reduction of wage, which had 
 not been proposed by the employers until it 
 had been forced upon them by the unfavour- 
 able condition of their trade. 
 
 The power of oratory over illiterate per- 
 sons is irresistible. Some years ago, when 
 the Birkenhead Docks were being constructed, 
 a strike occurred among the labourers, most 
 of whom were Irish, and such violence was 
 displayed that a detachment of the 24th Regi- 
 ment was sent to Birkenhead, to prevent a 
 breach of the peace. The authors of this 
 
12 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 excitement among the workmen were three 
 stump orators, who led out on strike the 
 entire body of workmen employed, not less 
 than 500 in number, not one of whom cared 
 to enquire what justification there was for the 
 demand which he had made upon his em- 
 ployers. 
 
 The propriety of asking for an advance, 
 and of striking if it is refused, depends 
 entirely upon the state of trade, the amount 
 of business in prospect, and the profits which 
 the employers are enabled to realize, circum- 
 stances of which Trades Union agitators are 
 too often wholly ignorant. 
 
 But while I have thought it my duty to 
 condemn the unreasonable proceedings of 
 ignorant agitators, on the other hand I . rejoice 
 in the conviction that some of the most 
 trusted leaders of the Trades Unions have 
 profited by past experience, and are strongly 
 averse to strikes. Mr. Allen, of the Amalga- 
 mated Engineers, stated to the Trades Unions 
 Commissioners, that their Executive Council 
 was always opposed to strikes. He added 
 that their large accumulations, amounting to 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 13 
 
 I49,ooo/., only made the members of his 
 society so much the more anxious not to 
 waste their money in injudicious contests with 
 their employers. 
 
 The first duty of the officers of the Trades 
 Unions is, to understand the condition of 
 their several trades, the demand for work, 
 and the prices obtained. If these essential 
 conditions of the wages problem were 
 thoroughly understood by the workmen, 
 many strikes would be prevented which 
 cause inconvenience to employers, and bring 
 consequences far more disastrous upon the 
 workmen themselves. 
 
 Doubtless the dearness of labour in Eng- 
 land has stimulated inventive genius and 
 administrative skill ; and, in fairness, the con- 
 tinued success of our trade should be attri- 
 buted not only to the energy of the British 
 workmen, but to improvement in the pro- 
 cesses of manufacture, the merit of which is 
 really due to the employers of labour. We 
 have also had immense advantages in the 
 comparative cheapness of fuel, and the 
 
14 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 abundant supply of iron and other raw 
 materials of industry in England. 
 
 " Here we raise 100,000,000 tons of coal per 
 year, of which 10,000,000 tons are exported, 
 and 20,000,000 are used in the iron works. 
 In France and Belgium less than one fourth 
 of this quantity is obtained, and that by great 
 exertions." 
 
 But it is not the less essential to keep a 
 watchful eye on all that is taking place 
 abroad. The organization of Trades Unions 
 might be utilised for this important purpose. 
 The resources of a joint purse should afford 
 the means of sending delegates abroad, for 
 whom opportunities ought to be provided of 
 studying foreign languages, and whose duty 
 it should be to keep the artisans of England 
 closely informed of the fluctuations in the 
 activity of trade and the reward of labour in 
 the countries in which they resided. Trades 
 Unions cannot in the long run materially 
 influence the rate of wages, but there are 
 many valuable services which they can 
 render ; and none would be more practically 
 useful than the frequent publication of faithful 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 15 
 
 reports on the state of the labour market from 
 well placed observers on the Continent. 
 
 English workmen but imperfectly realize 
 the serious odds against which our industrial 
 establishments have to contend, from the 
 difference in the rate of wages in this country 
 and on the Continent. It requires much skill 
 in the employer, much energy in the work- 
 men, to compensate for the difference in 
 wages. 
 
 Perhaps the most successful engineering 
 establishment on the Continent is M. Krupp's 
 at Essen. Between 8,000 and 10,000 men 
 are employed. Day workmen and helpers 
 receive only is. 2\d. to is. <$\d. a day, while 
 the wages of smiths, puddlers, carpenters, and 
 masons, average 2/. 8s. to 61. 15^. a month. 
 These wages would not satisfy the English 
 artisan ; yet they are the highest which are 
 paid in any part of Germany. This low rate 
 of wages is to be explained partly by the 
 cheapness of provisions ; and it may here be 
 remarked that the comparative cheapness of 
 provisions in some districts of the Continent 
 goes a long way to compensate our foreign 
 
1 6 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 competitors for the higher price which they 
 have to pay for coal and iron. 
 
 Moreover, the mode of living adopted by 
 the artisans in Germany is more frugal than 
 English habits will permit. A well-informed 
 writer in the ' Revue des Deux Mondes ' 
 states that at Essen 1,500 of the workmen 
 live together in a barrack, where they have an 
 eating room in common. In this barrack the 
 workmen can procure food and lodging for 
 the small sum of lod. a day. The reviewer 
 mentions that the favourite beverage of the 
 workmen at Essen is coffee, and suggests 
 that their preference for a cup, ' which cheers 
 but not inebriates/ to intoxicating liquors, is 
 worthy of imitation in other countries. 
 
 It is creditable to the leaders of the Trades 
 Societies that they have strenuously exerted 
 their influence to suppress the vice of drunk- 
 enness. In spite of the development of 
 industry in this country, the constantly in- 
 creasing employment, and gradual increase in 
 the rate of wages, we have to deplore the 
 existence, side by side with this prosperity, of 
 that which we are too apt to think is inevi- 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 17 
 
 table pauperism. Do not the statistics of 
 the consumption of intoxicating liquors, and 
 the expenditure of ioo,ooo,ooo/. a year on 
 drink, indicate an excessive indulgence in the 
 use of stimulants ? The taste for drinking 
 which unhappily still prevails in this country 
 among a large number of the labouring people 
 has been excused on the ground that hard 
 work renders a considerable consumption of 
 beer almost a necessity. But some of the 
 most powerful among the navvies have been 
 teetotallers. On the Great Northern Rail- 
 way there was a celebrated gang of navvies, 
 who did more work in a day than any other 
 gang on the line, and always left off work an 
 hour or an hour and a half earlier than any 
 other men. Every navvy in this powerful 
 gang was a teetotaller. 
 
 The working classes in the agricultural 
 districts in France are, as a rule, much more 
 provident than the same class in England. 
 When the works were first commenced on 
 the Paris and Rouen Railway, the contractors 
 endeavoured to introduce a system by which 
 the workmen were to be paid once a fortnight, 
 
 c 
 
1 8 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 instead of once a week, as had been the 
 custom in England. But very soon after 
 operations had been begun, the Frenchmen 
 requested that the pay might take place only 
 once a month. 
 
 Mr. Reid, managing director of the Paris 
 and Rouen Railway, told the House of 
 Commons Committee on Railway Labourers, 
 in 1846, that a French labourer is a much 
 more independent person than an English- 
 man, and much more respectable. He as- 
 serted in support of his opinion, this remark- 
 able circumstance, that, whereas the French 
 labourer desired to be paid only once a 
 month, the English navvy desired to be paid 
 on Saturday night and, by the following 
 Wednesday, he wanted something on ac- 
 count of the week's work. " Nothing could 
 be a greater test/' said Mr. Reid, "of the 
 respectability of a working man, than being 
 able to go without his pay for a month." 
 
 In consequence of the additional activity 
 of industry abroad, and the equalising effects 
 of Free Trade on prices, enquiries in Spain, 
 France, Belgium, and Prussia, show that 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 19 
 
 provisions in those countries are from twenty 
 to thirty per cent, dearer than twenty years 
 ago. At the present time the prices of rent 
 and clothing are about the asme abroad as in 
 England ; but fuel is given to our workmen 
 in the iron making districts at half the price 
 charged to the workmen abroad. But, not- 
 withstanding all these advantages, labour is 
 about thirty per cent, cheaper, measured, 
 that is to say, by the daily rate of wages on 
 the Continent, than in this country. It is 
 the opinion of Mr. Lothian Bell, one of our 
 highest authorities, that, after all the efforts 
 of our iron masters to contend with the 
 difficulty of high-priced labour by the im- 
 provement of machinery, labour costs fifteen 
 per. cent, more in England than on the Conti- 
 nent, and this disadvantage in his opinion 
 entirely neutralizes the advantages we derive 
 from our great facilities in the proximity of 
 our iron-mines to our coal-beds. Our work- 
 men are not sufficiently alive to the necessity 
 for the exercise of the utmost efforts of 
 ingenuity, in order to enable capital invested 
 
20 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 in England to hold its own in the industrial 
 campaign. 
 
 There is a notion that profits are higher in 
 England than elsewhere. The large fortunes 
 occasionally amassed in British industry are 
 quoted in support of this assumption ; but 
 the different employments of stock are, as 
 Adam Smith has observed, " more nearly 
 on an equality than the necessary wages of 
 the different sorts of labour. It seldom 
 happens that great fortunes are made by any 
 one regularly established and well-known 
 branch of business, but in consequence of a 
 long life of industry, frugality, and attention/' 
 These rare accumulations of wealth are 
 generally the result of exceptional thrift, 
 rather than exceptional gain. The low rate 
 of interest which capital usually commands in 
 England, as compared with foreign countries, 
 is a conclusive proof that the profits of our 
 trade are moderate. 
 
 In many continental markets we no longer 
 enjoy the advantages which we formerly 
 possessed ; and foreign manufacturers, with 
 their cheaper labour and more intimate 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 21 
 
 knowledge of the character and requirements 
 of the people, are rapidly gaining ground. 
 Mr. Michell, in a letter on the condition of 
 British trade in Russia, observes " that the 
 Continent is getting an increasing proportion 
 of the orders for rolling stock, tools, hard- 
 ware, and metallic manufactures generally, 
 except perhaps rails. 
 
 " English iron masters compete with diffi- 
 culty with the works at Cologne, which supply 
 many of the Russian railways with bridges. 
 In the matter of tires English manufacturers 
 have to a great extent been driven out of 
 the market by Krupp. 
 
 " Of the large quantity cf files now used 
 in Russia, two-thirds come from Germany. 
 Houses there purchase steel at Sheffield, and 
 have it worked up into files in Prussia. 
 English saws, on the contrary, meet with an 
 increasing sale, their price having been re- 
 duced by one-half within the last few years. 
 
 " Zimmerman of Kilmitz supplies the 
 Russian market with an enormous quantity 
 of tools. He boasts of making Whitworth his 
 model, and produces tools almost equally good. 
 
22 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Imitations of English lathes are made in 
 Germany for half the price, and largely im- 
 ported into Russia. 
 
 "Apart from the greater cheapness of 
 continental hardware, dealers in Russia are 
 frequently prevented from giving orders to 
 English manufacturers by rumours of strikes. 
 When these are reported, the dealers, not 
 understanding that the disturbances are 
 merely local, get alarmed at the possibility of 
 their orders not being executed in time, and 
 hence they prefer giving their orders in 
 countries less liable to such serious con- 
 tingencies. 
 
 " But there are other circumstances which 
 should in fairness be mentioned, and which 
 go far to deprive us of the monopoly of 
 Russian trade which we formerly enjoyed, 
 circumstances altogether distinct from the cost 
 of labour and the rate of wages in ^England. 
 
 *' First of all, the Continent has the advan- 
 tage of uninterrupted railway communication 
 with Russia, while our goods have to be chiefly 
 carried by sea during the months of summer. 
 In the case of rolling stock, for instance, 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 23 
 
 English houses are obliged to be cautious in 
 taking orders for delivery in the autumn of 
 the year. In the second place, the facility of 
 communication with Russia has led to the 
 German manufacturer having greater confi- 
 dence than his English competitor in Russian 
 customers. He knows the market better, 
 readily takes the bonds of railway companies 
 in payment for rolling stock, is better ac- 
 quainted with the Russian tariff and Customs 
 regulations, and generally makes it more his 
 study how to push his trade in Russia, offer- 
 ing, as she does, a vast and ever expanding 
 field for his enterprise. In the course of the 
 studies which I have made on the subject of 
 the trade between Great Britain and Russia, 
 I have been very much struck by the want 
 of knowledge that exists in England with 
 respect to the Russian market. Few appear 
 to have cared to enquire seriously whether 
 anything could be done in this country, while 
 their better instructed brethren from Germany 
 and Belgium have been quietly pushing their 
 way. The new tariff and more liberal com- 
 mercial policy of the Russian Government 
 
24 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 seem, however, to have aroused the attention 
 of our manufacturers. 
 
 Admitting that the progress of continental 
 manufacturers in Russia is not wholly due to 
 their advantages in the price of labour, and 
 that new circumstances have arisen, which 
 must in any case have deprived us of a por- 
 tion of our former trade, the warnings of 
 Mr. Michell equally deserve the attentive 
 consideration of our workmen and their em- 
 ployers. 
 
 The competition of the continental manu- 
 facturers demands, it is obvious, our close 
 attention. Manufacturers must exercise their 
 best commercial, administrative, and inventive 
 faculties to maintain their position ; and the 
 workmen must take care that they do not 
 impede the progress of industry by unreason- 
 able demands, and by attacks upon capital 
 which ample information would have shown 
 to be ill advised. 
 
 I have said much about the harm done by 
 the Trades Unions in vain attempts to force 
 up the rate of wages by regulations which 
 tend to destroy the free liberty of the labourer; 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 25 
 
 for though, in raising wages the Trades 
 Unions can do but little good to the work- 
 men and may do some injury to the masters, 
 in other respects, and especially as benefit 
 societies, the Trades Unions have affected, 
 and are capable of doing, great good to the 
 working people. They encourage a spirit of 
 self-help, and, in point of fact, devote by far 
 the greater portion of their funds to "-benefit 
 objects." For example, the Engineers' So- 
 ciety, out of a total income of 49,ooo/., spends 
 but 724^ a-year in contributing to the support 
 of the members of the Unions who are out 
 on strike. 
 
 We shall do well to encourage every effort 
 which our working people are making, to 
 ensure themselves against the risk of scanty 
 employment and the degradation of pauper- 
 ism. 
 
 We cannot but honour and admire the sen- 
 timents of fraternal sympathy, which prompt 
 men to promote each other's advancement in 
 life by that mutual aid and support which 
 these societies are intended to afford. It 
 may be apprehended that the existence of 
 
26 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 an organization framed for the purpose of 
 carrying on a strike, may, like the mainten- 
 ance of large standing armies, be a provoca- 
 tion of war ; but if a strike should unfor- 
 tunately occur, under the control of a Trades 
 Union, the conduct of the workmen will pro- 
 bably be as much superior to that of the 
 rioters in the manufacturing districts in the 
 early part of the present century, as the dis- 
 cipline of a standing army is superior to that 
 of a guerilla band. 
 
 To treat the workman who strikes for 
 higher wages as if he were on all occasions 
 the unprovoked assailant of his master, is 
 unjust. In most cases the presumption is, that 
 the workmen believe that they have a right 
 to claim a concession for which they have 
 it may be vainly applied. If they were not 
 convinced of the justice of their claim, and of 
 the ability of their masters to make the 
 concession, the workmen would scarcely be 
 prepared to make the terrible sacrifice which 
 they endure in a long continued strike. 
 
 During the period of distress in the Isle of 
 Dogs which followed the last commercial 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCHSTRIKES, ETC. 2>] 
 
 panic, the decay of shipbuilding attracted the 
 attention, not only of the employers, but of 
 other enquirers into the circumstances to 
 which it was attributable. 
 
 Some employers said that it was chiefly 
 the result of the excessive price of labour. 
 A large number of the workmen, however, 
 alleged that free trade was the cause, and 
 the walls of the deserted workshops were 
 freely placarded with such documents as the 
 following : 
 
 " To the Working men and Women of 
 England. The ' Revivers' ' Association will 
 hold their eighth public meeting at the Red 
 Church school room, Bethnal Green Road, 
 on Monday, June 7, 1869, to w T hich those are 
 invited who will conform to the rules of the 
 Association. There will be a few reserved 
 seats for those who feel inclined to pay 6d. 
 each to help to pay the expenses. The 
 Chairman of the Association will preside. 
 
 " We place before you a few plain ques- 
 tions : 
 
 " Are your wages to be gradually reduced ? 
 
28 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 " Are you to be out of work, and go into 
 the workhouse or stone yard ? 
 
 " Are your wives and families to starve ? 
 
 " Because of the introduction of the products 
 of foreign labour into this country in the 
 shape of foreign manufacturers of every kind, 
 and this without reciprocity. 
 
 " Believe us, friends, this is the true cause of 
 our difficulties and distress, and we warn you 
 that we have not yet seen the bitter end. 
 Let us forget general politics, and look at 
 our material interests our business, our trade, 
 our life. 
 
 " Ask your brother workmen all over Eng- 
 land more especially those at Mill wall and 
 every ship-building port, at Macclesfield, Co- 
 ventry, and Spitalfields ; at Leek, Preston, 
 Manchester, and Derby ; at Nottingham, 
 Congleton, and Sanbach ; at Leighton Buz- 
 zard, Luton, Newport Pagnell, and Thring; 
 at Exeter and Crediton ; in fact, ask all, 
 yourselves included, and you will find that, 
 with a few exceptions, none are now getting 
 a proper living, and we tell you your pros- 
 pects are gloomy, if you do not put your 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 29 
 
 shoulders to the task and demand protection 
 for British labour. 
 
 " Remember that the ruin of Ship-building 
 involves about thirty, and that of Watch- 
 making about sixty other trades, and that all 
 are gradually passing away from us. The 
 Iron Trade and Engineering are losing 
 ground, English carpenters' work is super- 
 seded by foreign doors, windows, &c., the 
 Lathrenders are done, the Silk and Ribbon 
 Trades are almost gone. Foreign agricul- 
 tural implements, furniture, and artificial 
 flowers, baby linen, baskets, beads, and beds, 
 Berlin work, hardware, blankets, bonnets, 
 boots, braid, brushes, and buttons, candles, 
 canes, cannon, caps, cardboard, and carpets, 
 china, clocks, cloth, crape, and cutlery, 
 damask, de Laine, electrotype paper and 
 pencils, fancy goods, fringe, lace, gilded 
 goods, gloves, gold and silver articles, 
 hosiery, leather, linen, looking glasses, luci- 
 fers, shoes, silk manufactures, soap, stationery, 
 stays, steam engines, and steel pens. In fact, 
 nearly everything, small or great, is now 
 done by foreigners. What have you left to 
 
30 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 make ? Could you not make all those arti- 
 cles here ? And if you did so, would any of 
 you be out of employment ? No ! This, 
 then, is the cause of your distress ! And 
 remember that these classes being out of 
 employment destroy the necessity for other 
 labourers. But if all were in full working 
 order, labourers would be fully employed, and 
 every shopkeeper would at once feel the 
 benefit of the expenditures of all these 
 classes ; and in fact would be daily extending 
 their business, which is now slack, because 
 no one has any money to lay out simply 
 because they receive no wages. Some of 
 you may be enabled to say that the parti- 
 cular trade in which you are engaged has not 
 yet been interfered with by foreigners, but 
 let them but know it, and you will soon share 
 the same fate. 
 
 " The rules of the association are that 
 neither general politics or religion may be 
 discussed. We have had plenty of that 
 lately. Let us, like men of sense, deal with 
 this vital question fairly and justly. 
 
 " Doors open at half past seven o'clock. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH STRIKES, ETC. 31 
 
 Chair to be taken at half-past eight precisely. 
 Free trade a gigantic mistake. A pamphlet 
 one shilling." 
 
 We objected very lately to the dictation 
 and bad political economy by Trades Unions, 
 but the remedy proposed by the " Revivers' 
 Association" would be still more fatal to the 
 industry of the country. 
 
 The " Revivers " were wrong in their 
 assumption that the shipbuilding business, 
 which had been once conducted with such 
 activity in the Isle of Dogs, had been trans- 
 ferred to foreign ports. Owing to the 
 general depression of commerce, it was lan- 
 guishing everywhere. The shipbuilders of 
 France were not less clamorous for protection 
 than their unfortunate rivals on the banks 
 of the Thames. The " Revivers " desired to 
 secure to the British workmen a monopoly 
 at home. They forgot that if they succeeded 
 in excluding foreign productions, the price of 
 every article of consumption, which had' been 
 partly supplied from abroad, must be aug- 
 mented, and that the increased cost of living 
 would more than neutralize the advantage of 
 
32 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 protection against foreign competition. 
 They forgot that the monopoly of the home 
 market, a limited outlet after all, in com- 
 parison with the wide arena of external 
 commerce, would be much too dearly bought 
 if obtained, as it must inevitably have been 
 at the sacrifice of our export trade. 
 
[ 33 ] 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 WHETHER we call the regulating power the 
 relation between supply and demand, or, with 
 Mr. Thornton, say, that the power of labour 
 is absolutely under the sway of competition, 
 the power of controlling the rate of wages 
 lies equally far beyond the scope of Trades 
 Union organization. An increase of wages 
 can only take place when trade is prosperous, 
 and when the supply of labour is not sufficient 
 to meet the increasing demand. " When," 
 says Adam Smith, " in any country the 
 demand for those who live by wages is con- 
 tinually increasing, the workmen have no 
 occasion to combine to raise their wages. 
 The demand increases necessarily with the 
 increase of the revenue and stock of every 
 
 D 
 
34 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 country, and cannot possibly increase without 
 it." . ..." It is in the progressive state, 
 while a Society is advancing to further acqui- 
 sition, rather than when it has acquired its 
 full complement of riches, that the condition 
 of the labouring poor, and of the great body 
 of the people, is the happiest and most com- 
 fortable. It is healthy in a stationary, and 
 miserable in a declining state. The progres- 
 sive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the 
 hearty state in all the different orders of 
 society. The stationary is dull, the declining 
 melancholy." 
 
 These axioms of the great economist are 
 abundantly verified by the practical experience 
 of Railway contractors. Many interesting 
 examples of the effect of unusual pressure 
 upon the labour resources of a sparse and 
 scattered population, or of a rapidly in- 
 creased demand, even in the most populous 
 districts, have presented themselves in the 
 course of Mr. Brassey's extensive experience. 
 The advance of wages which has occurred in 
 such cases from the natural operation of the 
 laws of supply and demand, would satisfy the 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 35 
 
 most golden conceptions of the working 
 man. 
 
 When the Grand Trunk Railway was 
 being constructed in Canada, Mr. Brassey 
 sent out, at his own expense, a great number 
 of operatives from this country. Men were 
 engaged in Lancashire and Cheshire ; and, 
 on landing in Canada, received forty per cent, 
 more for doing the same work than they had 
 been previously earning in England. The cost 
 of the works was about thirty per cent, dearer. 
 The wages of labourers were 3^. 6d. a day at 
 the commencement of the works, and rose to 
 6s. a day ere they were completed. Masons, 
 whose wages when in England were $s. a 
 day, and who were taken out to Canada at 
 the expense of the contractors, earned js. 6d. 
 a day in the colony ; although the .cost of 
 living was not greater in Canada than in 
 England ; but the supply of their labour in 
 England was abundant, while in Canada 
 skilled artisans were comparatively rare. 
 
 For the construction of a railway in New 
 South Wales, two thousand men were sent 
 out from England, at the joint expense of the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 contractors and the Government. The cost 
 of living for a single navvy was los. a week ; 
 as compared with eight shillings a week in 
 England. But notwithstanding that the dif- 
 ference in the cost of living was so small, 
 and that the whole expense of their voyage 
 had been defrayed by their employers, yet, 
 in consequence of the scarcity of labour in 
 the colony, navvies, who in England had 
 been paid from $s. $d. to 3^. 6d. per day, 
 received from 7^. 6d. to 8s. ; and the wages 
 of skilled hands were increased in pro- 
 portion. The daily wages of masons ranged 
 from us. to 13^.; bricklayers, us. to 12^.; 
 brickmakers, 8s. to IDS. ; and carpenters, los. 
 to 1 2s. Such an advance in the rate of pay of 
 the same men can only be explained by the 
 altered relations between the supply of labour 
 and the demand in the colony, as contrasted 
 with the mother country. 
 
 In Spain, a few years ago, in the construction 
 of the railway from Bilbao to Tudela, the 
 wages earned by labourers, which, at the 
 commencement of the contract, were one 
 shilling a day, rose, before the works were 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 37 
 
 completed, to three shillings a day. On the 
 same contract, the wages of the masons 
 increased, in the corresponding period, from 
 one shilling and fourpence to five shillings a 
 day. 
 
 The fall in wages, which follows a commer- 
 cial panic, when production is diminished 
 and employment is scarce, proves how closely 
 the rate of wages depends upon altera- 
 tions in the relation between supply and 
 demand. When the panic took place in the 
 railway world in 1847-8, even the common 
 labourers, employed on the Eastern Union 
 Railway, accepted lower wages. 
 
 In 1849, on the Roys ton and Hitchin 
 Railway, labour was cheaper than it has ever 
 been since. The reduction was a direct con- 
 sequence of the depression, caused by the 
 collapse of railway enterprise in 1847-8. 
 Men who, on the North Staffordshire line, 
 shortly before the panic, had been paid 3^. 6d. 
 a day only earned half-a-crown on the 
 Royston and Hitchin line. 
 
 A member of my father's staff informs 
 me that at the same period and from the same 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 cause, the wages of the navvies, which in 
 the inflation of the railway mania in 1846 
 had been advanced in some cases to 6s. a day, 
 in the collapse following on the panic were 
 so much reduced that on the Cheshire Junc- 
 tion line, the cost of the work was in conse- 
 quence diminished by not less than fifteen 
 per cent. 
 
 The following statement gives the weekly 
 wages earned by men employed on railway 
 works from 1843 to J 869. The notes furnish 
 a comparative statement of the cost of work 
 represented by the different rates of wages, 
 and contain a short explanation of the extent 
 of the demand for labour at the different 
 periods included in the Return : 
 
 
 PERIODS. 
 
 
 1843 
 
 1846 
 
 1849 
 
 1851 
 
 1855 
 
 1857 '1860 
 
 i 
 
 1863 1866 1869 
 
 Masons .... 
 
 2I/ 
 
 
 24/ 
 
 2I/ 
 
 25/6 
 
 24/ 
 
 22/6 
 
 24/ 
 
 2 7 / 
 
 2 7 / 
 
 Bricklayers . . 
 Carpenters and Blacksmiths. 
 Navvies, Getters (Pickmen) . 
 
 2i/ bo/ 
 
 2I/ ho/ 
 
 16/6 2 4 / 
 
 2 4 / 
 22/6 
 
 J5J 
 
 25/6 
 
 2 4 / 
 
 22/6 
 22/6 
 
 22,6 
 22/6 
 
 I?/ 
 
 l\l 
 IP/ 
 
 20/ 
 
 25/6 
 
 2 4 / 
 
 Fitters (Shovellers) 
 
 I5/ 
 
 22/6 
 
 16/6 
 
 
 T 7/ 
 
 Ijl 
 
 
 I?/ 
 
 i8/ 
 
 I 7/ 
 
 Cost of labour only, per cube 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 yard : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Of Brickwork . 
 Of Earthwork . 
 
 *w 
 
 3/9 
 
 1 
 
 t 
 
 2/6 
 
 /Si 
 
 2/6^ 
 
 2/4 
 /5 
 
 2/6 
 
 /s| 
 
 2/9 
 /5f 
 
 2/6 
 
 /5t 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 39 
 
 " Gloucester and Bristol Railway, period of 
 general depression, provisions for men and 
 horses very cheap. Men plentiful, excellent 
 workmen. Clay cuttings, on the Gloucester 
 to Stonehouse line, taken out at 6d. a yard, 
 inclusive of horse labour." 
 
 " Lancaster and Carlisle, Caledonian, Trent 
 Valley, North Staffordshire, Eastern Union 
 Railways in construction. Height of the 
 railway mania. Demand for labour excessive,, 
 very much in excess of supply. Beer given 
 to men as well as wages. Look-outs placed 
 on the roads to intercept men tramping, and 
 take them to the nearest beershop to be 
 treated and induced to start work. Very 
 much less work done in the same time by the 
 same power. Work going on night and day, 
 even the same men. working continuously for 
 several days and nights. Instances recorded 
 of men being paid for forty-seven days in 
 one lunar month. Provisions dear. Exces- 
 sively high wages, excessive work, excessive 
 drinking, indifferent lodgings caused great 
 demoralisation, and gave the death-blow to 
 
4O WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the good old navvy already on the decline. 
 He died out a few years after this period." J 
 
 " Great Northern, Oxford, Worcester and 
 Wolverhampton, Oxford and Birmingham, 
 Chester and Holyhead Railways, in construc- 
 tion. Great reduction in wages caused by 
 the financial embarrassments in October 1847, 
 and political turmoils and revolutions in 1848 
 on the Continent and at home. General 
 distrust, aggravated by the unsettled state of 
 affairs abroad. Works stopped in 1847, 
 partially resumed in 1848. The 1846 con- 
 tracts not yet completed. In 1849 work 
 comparatively plentiful. Provisions moderate 
 in price." 
 
 " Shrewsbury and Hereford, North Devon, 
 in construction. Contracts taken in i846 
 now all completed. Great depression in the 
 labour market. But little work going on. 
 Political affairs on the Continent unsettled. 
 Provisions very cheap." 
 
 " Leicester and Hitchin, Leominster and 
 Kingston Railways in construction. Work 
 
 1 Other experienced contractors do not admit that 
 good navvies can no longer be obtained. 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 41 
 
 still very slack during this period. Best men 
 gone to France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, 
 and Italy to Mr. Brassey's works. Crimean 
 War, militia all called under arms. These 
 circumstances tended to raise wages. Pro- 
 visions dear, horse provender excessively 
 high, costing 5$. a day each horse." 
 
 " Shrewsbury and Crewe, Leominster and 
 Kingston Railways in construction. Work 
 still very slack ; the effects of the Crimean 
 War had not wholly passed away." 
 
 " Knighton and Craven arms, Woofferton 
 and Tenbury, widening of Shrewsbury and 
 Hereford, Severn Valley Railway Works 
 in construction. Men plentiful, provisions 
 cheap." 
 
 " Tenbury and Bewdley, South Stafford- 
 shire, Ludlow and Clee Hill, Wenlock, Nant- 
 wich and Drayton, widening of Shrewsbury 
 and Hereford, Worm Valley drainage, Letton 
 Valley drainage in construction. Men plenti- 
 ful, provisions rather dear." 
 
 " Wellington and Drayton, widening of 
 Nantwich and Drayton, Hereford Loop, 
 
42 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Hooton and Parkgate, Wenlock and Craven 
 arms, Ebbw Vale in construction/' 
 
 " Silverdale and Drayton, Sirhowy, widen- 
 ing of Abergavenny, and Merthyr Railways, 
 and London drainage works in construction. 
 Provisions rather dear/' 
 
 The explanatory memorandum does not 
 exhaust the list of Mr. Brassey's contracts 
 in progress at the several dates mentioned. 
 Those contracts only are included which 
 happened to be in the recollection of the 
 writer, whose immediate field of observation 
 was necessarily limited to a few contracts in 
 the Midland Counties. 
 
 It will be observed that the fluctuations in 
 the rate of wages exhibited in the return 
 take place in exact conformity with the law 
 of wages as stated by Mr. Ricardo when he 
 says : " The market price of labour is the 
 price which is really paid for it, from the 
 natural operations of supply and demand. 
 Labour is dear when it is scarce, and cheap 
 when it is plentiful." 
 
 The unusual pressure on the labour market, 
 during the continuance of the Crimean War, 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 43 
 
 produced a marked effect on the rate of 
 wages in every trade, both in England and 
 on the Continent. In the construction of the 
 Bellegarde Tunnel, two and a half miles in 
 length, on the Lyons and Geneva Railway, 
 the wages of the Piedmontese quarrymen 
 rose from 2\ to 3, 3^, and 4 francs a day ; 
 and the Englishmen, who were employed in 
 the tunnel, working in shifts of from six to 
 ten hours each, were paid at the rate of from 
 8 to 10 francs a day. Their wages were 
 raised, partly on account of the difficult nature 
 of the works, some idea of which may be 
 formed, when it is mentioned that the shafts 
 were from 600 to 700 feet deep ; but the 
 general rise of wages consequent upon the 
 Crimean War had a still greater influence in 
 determining their pay. 
 
 At Woodford, in Essex, the wages of 
 navvies rose to 6s. a day, at about the same 
 period and from the same cause. 
 
 Our operatives have but a faint conception 
 of the rise of wages which has taken place 
 abroad in countries where Trades Unions 
 did not exist, and where the improvement in 
 
44 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the workman's condition was attributable 
 solely to the increased demand for labour. 
 From the tables given in the report prepared 
 by Mr. Phipps, on the Industrial Classes in 
 Wurtemberg, it appears that the average 
 increase in the rate of wages, in eight branches 
 of manufactures and industry, during the last 
 thirty years, amounted to between sixty and 
 seventy per cent. In the building trades the 
 rise of eighty to ninety per cent, is to be 
 explained solely by the unusual activity in 
 the trades. As a general average sixty-nine 
 per cent, may be taken as the increase in the 
 daily wages for the out-door labourers. In 
 their class the increased demand for labour is 
 peculiarly noticeable. 
 
 In Hungary, before 1865, the wages of 
 common labourers were is. %d. a day. In 
 Moldavia the same rates of wages were paid 
 on the railways, although agricultural labour 
 ers were earning only 6\d. a day in money, 
 together with an equivalent of $\d. in food. 
 In 1871, in Saxony and Bohemia, in conse- 
 quence of the great and increasing demand 
 for labour, both on the railways, and from the 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 45 
 
 general revival of industry after the cessation 
 of hostilities with Prussia, the daily wages of 
 labourers rose to 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 On the Suczawa Line, the wages of 
 labourers, at the commencement of the works, 
 varied from 45 to 60 kreutzers, or <$d. to is. 
 a day ; but, owing to the demand for men on 
 the Moldavian lines, the wages rose within 
 a year to from 60 to 80 kreutzers, or i^. to 
 is. ^d. a day. 
 
 A work by Herr Jacobi, quoted by Mr. 
 Petre, describes the remarkable advance in 
 the rate of wages in Lower Silesia. The 
 rates have doubled generally within the 
 memory of the older workmen ; and, in parti- 
 cular cases, the recent rise has been sudden 
 and great. At Loben, in Silesia, it is said 
 that the erection of a factory in an agri- 
 cultural district caused a rise in labourers' 
 wages, which were only 6d. a day for men, 
 and $d. for women to the extent of 100 per 
 cent, for the latter, and 50 per cent, for the 
 former : a most remarkable illustration of the 
 effect of the altered relation between the 
 demand for labour and the supply. 
 
46 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The advance in wages in the building 
 trades in London has been considerable ; but 
 it has been the necessary result of the altered 
 relation between the supply of workmen and 
 the demand for labour. 
 
 The Metropolitan Railways, the growth of 
 Kensington, Bayswater, and other suburbs, 
 are visible evidences of the pressure of the 
 demand of the builders of London upon the 
 supply of labour in the trades which they 
 employ. 
 
 Abundant evidence in support of this 
 explanation of the cause of the rise of wages 
 in all branches of trade is supplied by 
 employers by no means friendly to the 
 Trades Unions. 
 
 Mr. Trollope, for example, made the 
 following admission in his evidence before 
 the Commissioners : " I am bound to say 
 that hitherto there has been such an enor- 
 mous pressure for work, that almost every 
 man who can handle a tool has been taken 
 on at an unreasonable rate." 
 
 Again, speaking of the advance in wages 
 in the building trades in the provinces, Mr. 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 47 
 
 Mackay, a member of my father's staff, 
 observes in a Report he has made to me on 
 the subject : " Wages have risen, during the 
 last twenty years, from twenty to twenty-five 
 per cent. ; but by the force of circumstances 
 they would have risen as much or more if 
 Trades Unions had never existed." 
 
 To the same effect Mr. Robinson, the 
 Managing Director of the Atlas Works, 
 Manchester, said in his evidence before the 
 Trades Unions Commissioners : " I do not 
 think the Unions have altered the rate of 
 wages ; the changes are rather due to the 
 demand for labour in particular branches. 
 Between 1851 and 1861 no advance took 
 place in the wages of the engineers, though 
 theirs is the most powerful of the Trades 
 Societies ; but, in the case of the Boiler 
 Makers, wages rose from 26s. to 32^. 6^., in 
 consequence of the extension of iron ship- 
 building, and the great amount of iron-bridge 
 work." 
 
 The rate of wages cannot long continue so 
 high as to deprive capital of its fair return. 
 For if it did, capital would seek some other 
 
48 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 investment of a more satisfactory nature. 
 Neither can the rate of wages long continue 
 below the amount necessary to maintain the 
 labourer and his family. The fluctuations in 
 the rate of wages between the two limits, 
 depend entirely upon the varying demand 
 for labour. 
 
 We see this principle of political economy 
 fully illustrated at the present time. Why 
 are the columns of our newspapers filled with 
 accounts of strikes and trade disputes ? 
 Why are the working men in every branch 
 of manufacturing industry making ever new 
 demands for an increase of wages, or a re- 
 duction of hours which is only an increase 
 of wages in another form ? It is because 
 labour has become comparatively scarce. 
 
 On the Kensington and Richmond line, 
 shortly before the last panic, the men had 
 become almost unmanageable ; but imme- 
 diately after the failure of Messrs. Overend 
 and Gurney, their tone was changed and 
 their demands were much more reasonable, 
 
 The recent increase in the demand for 
 labour has produced a marked effect upon 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 49 
 
 the rate of wages on the Wolverhampton 
 and Walsall Railway. Three years ago the 
 navvies were paid at the rate of 2s. qd. a day. 
 Their wages are now from $s. 6d. to 3^. 9^. 
 a day ; and no more work is done for the 
 money. Excavation is being made at a cost 
 of 7^. a yard, which was thought to be dear 
 work when the cost was about ^\d. a yard. 
 The explanation of the present high rate of 
 wages, is to be found in the fact that the rail- 
 way in question is in the centre of the colliery 
 districts, where the demand for labour in the 
 collieries has caused a corresponding rise of 
 wages for the workmen on the railway. 
 Drivers engaged at regular standing wages at 
 the rate of a guinea a week on the Wolver- 
 hampton and Walsall Railway, are being 
 attracted into the collieries by an advance of 
 wages to the rate of 4^. 6d. a day. The 
 same causes are producing the same effects 
 on the Continent as in England. In Brussels 
 such is the demand for labour for excavation, 
 that the men employed as navvies are actually 
 receiving higher wages than skilled masons. 
 The wages of the navvy in Brussels are 60 
 
 E 
 
5O WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 centimes an hour, whereas the masons are 
 receiving only 50 centimes. 
 
 The industrial history of past years, so 
 admirably reviewed in the columns of the 
 * Economist,' furnishes a striking illustration of 
 the rise of wages consequent upon the activity 
 of trade. 
 
 In 1871 wages rose in the iron, engineer- 
 ing, coal, and hardware trades from fifteen to 
 twenty per cent. In the Cleveland iron trade 
 the rise was even greater. The wages of 
 labourers advanced from $s. to 4^. a day ; 
 puddlers from 40^. per week to 55$. ; and 
 from 5$. $d. to js. per score of *]\ tons. 
 
 In Lancashire and Yorkshire labour is so 
 scarce that lads are now being imported from 
 the country into the cotton trade. Their wages 
 commence at from 15^. to i6s. per week. 
 The exports from the United Kingdom last 
 year reached the value of 3i9,ooo,ooo/., and 
 the greatest increase took place in those 
 trades in which the wages had advanced 
 the most. Our exports of iron and steel have 
 actually doubled within the last seven years. 
 If, therefore, the wages of puddlers and 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 51 
 
 colliers have gone up, the advance was fully 
 explained upon the strict principles of political 
 economy. 
 
 The activity of the Welsh iron manufacture 
 at the present time is unprecedented. The 
 rise in wages in the iron manufacture in 
 the north of England, during the past year, 
 has already been given. The following state- 
 ment, which has been kindly prepared for me 
 by the proprietors of large iron works in 
 South Wales, shows the comparative earnings 
 of the workmen in their employ, in the years 
 1842, 1851, and 1869 (see next page) : 
 
 When capital is enjoying so much pros- 
 perity, who shall grudge to labour a liberal 
 participation in the profits of business ? I 
 have no sympathy with the aggressive and 
 restrictive spirit of Trades Unionism; but 
 surely every fair and generous mind must 
 rejoice that the condition of the labourer is 
 improved. 
 
 Owing to the limited supply of skilled 
 labour, the wages of artisans in all newly 
 settled countries are high as compared with 
 the rate prevailing in England. A fitter 
 
 E2 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Comparative Earnings of Workpeople employed in Iron 
 Manufacture. 
 
 
 1842. 
 
 1851. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Occupation. 
 
 Price per ton 
 
 Wages 
 per week 
 
 Price per ton 
 
 Wages 
 per week 
 
 Price per ton 
 
 Wages 
 per week 
 
 Miners . 
 
 
 
 io/ to i6/ 
 
 
 
 ii/toi6/ 
 
 
 
 ia/ to i8/ 
 
 Colliers . . 
 
 
 
 i4/ to i6/ 
 
 
 
 i5/to i8/ 
 
 
 
 i6/ to 20/ 
 
 Furnaces: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Founders 
 
 /4 
 
 i7/ to i8/ 
 
 h 
 
 aS/ to 2Q/ 
 
 /I A 
 
 27/ to so/ 
 
 Fillers . 
 
 
 i7/ to i8/ 
 
 
 as/ to zgf 
 
 }) 
 
 27/ to 30/ 
 
 Cinder fill. 
 
 /3^ 
 
 IS/ to i6/ 
 
 / 2 i 
 
 2I/tO24/ 
 
 / I f*o 
 
 20/ tO 22/6 
 
 Labourers 
 
 " 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 
 1 1/6 to 1 2/6 
 
 Forge: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Puddlers I 
 
 Pig-iron, ) 
 nil 
 Metal, 5/6 ) 
 
 Share. 
 i6/ to i 6/6 
 
 Pig-iron, \ 
 4/10 \ 
 Metal, nil ) 
 
 Share. 
 i6/ to i8/ 
 
 4/II&5/H) 
 4/ 1 
 
 Share. 
 i8/ to 24/ 
 
 
 ist hand 
 
 8I/ tO 22/ 
 
 ist hand 
 
 22/ tO 25/ 
 
 ist hand 
 
 28/ tO 32/ 
 
 Labourers 
 
 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 
 10/6 to is/ 
 
 Girls . . 
 
 
 
 nil 
 
 
 
 4/9 
 
 
 
 5/6 to 6/6 
 
 Mills : 
 
 Bar-iron 
 
 
 Rails. 
 
 
 Rails. 
 
 
 
 
 
 First ] 
 
 
 First ^ 
 
 
 Heaters . 
 
 i/5 
 
 
 heater, i/i [ 
 Second f 
 
 as/ to 27/ 
 351 to 37/ 
 
 heater /ioi 1 
 Second " ( 
 
 as/ to 28/6 
 35/ to 4 o/ 
 
 
 
 
 heater, /6JJ 
 
 
 beater, /sjj 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ) 
 
 Roller, so/ 
 
 Rollers, &c. 
 
 i/8J contract 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 w } 
 
 Rougher, 
 40 <?ji. 
 
 Labourers 
 
 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 
 10/6 
 
 
 1 1/ tO 12/6 
 
 Girls . . 
 
 
 
 4/9 
 
 
 
 4/9 
 
 
 
 5/6 to 8/ 
 
 Carpenters . 
 
 
 
 12/6 
 
 
 
 is/to i4/ 
 
 
 
 i3/ to 16/6 
 
 Pattern mkrs 
 
 
 
 i3/ to i4/ 
 
 
 
 is/ 
 
 
 
 13/6 to ig/ 
 
 Fitters ; . 
 
 
 
 i a/ to I4/ 
 
 
 
 12 / tO I4/ 
 
 
 
 i3/ to ig/ 
 
 Blacksmiths 
 
 
 
 I2/ tO 15/6 
 
 
 
 Contract 
 
 
 
 I4/ tO 22/6 
 
 Masons . . 
 
 
 
 I2/ tO IS/ 
 
 
 
 i5/ 
 
 
 
 I4/ tO 20/ 
 
 whose wages in England would be 30^. a week, 
 commands a salary of 2OO/. a year at Rosario 
 in the Argentine Republic. The engineers of 
 the steamers on the River Plate, all of whom 
 are Englishmen, are paid at the rate of from 
 i6/. to 2O/. a month, or more than double the 
 rate at which they would be paid in England. 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 53 
 
 Nor is this difference in the rate of wages 
 confined to skilled artisans ; even the least 
 skilled description of labour is highly paid 
 in countries in which the supply of labour 
 falls short of the demand. In the Argentine 
 Republic the wages of a farm labourer range 
 from 6s. Sd. to 8^. $d. a day. 
 
 So in other parts of the world. One of the 
 last investigations made on my father's behalf 
 was connected with a project for a complete 
 system of railways in Persia. If the scheme 
 had been carried out, it was assumed that the 
 pay of engine-drivers, fitters, and station- 
 masters, would be 25<D/. a year, and of fore- 
 men platelayers 1 2o/. a year. 
 
 In Syria the rates of wages are higher 
 than might have been expected not indeed 
 because capital is abundant, but because the 
 supply of labour is limited. In Alexandretta 
 the daily wages of common labourers are 
 is. 4^. ; masons and carpenters are paid from 
 2s. jd. to 3^. jd. a day. In Aleppo the daily 
 wages of masons are 2s. $d. to 25*. c>d. ; car- 
 penters, 2s. 2d. to 2s. yd. ; masons' labourers, 
 is. iod. y and masons' boys, is. 3^. 
 
54 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 When labour is scarce in a colony in which 
 the climate is unfavourable to the develop- 
 ment of the physical powers of European 
 workmen and where the cost of living is 
 high, there seems scarcely any limit to the 
 rates of wages. I will take, as an example, 
 the earnings of the operatives in Lima, where 
 in 1869 machinists received IQS. 6d. to 18^. 
 per day ; boiler makers and smiths, 1 2s. to 
 1 8s. a day; plumbers, los. 6d. to 15^. ; com- 
 mon labourers, $s. gd. to 6s. With regard to 
 the cost of living, single men can board at 
 Lima for from 2s. $d. to 3$. a day, and the 
 rent of houses, containing two or three rooms 
 and a kitchen, varies from 2/. 55-. to 3/. 15^. 
 a month. 
 
 The figures quoted from the Report of the 
 English Consul show what high wages are 
 offered in Peru to European artisans. The 
 navvy appears to be in still greater demand. 
 A certain number of navvies have been sent 
 over from England lately to act as foremen 
 upon the works of the Callao Docks now in 
 progress. Their wages have been fixed at 
 8s. a day ; but Mr. Meigs, an American 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 55 
 
 contractor for some Peruvian railways, in- 
 duced the men to leave the Docks, and enter 
 into his employment on the railway by 
 offering them the apparently preposterous 
 sum of 22s. 6d. a day. The men could not 
 resist so great a temptation. From causes, 
 however, which have not yet been explained, 
 the occurrence having only recently taken 
 place, they remained but a short time on the 
 railway, and returned to the less lucrative 
 employment on the docks much disgusted 
 with their experience of railway employment 
 in Peru. 
 
 In the United States the wages of skilled 
 workmen average from qs. to 15^. a day, and 
 those of unskilled workmen from 2s. 6d. to 
 JS. 6d. It cannot be supposed that so great 
 a difference between the reward of labour on 
 the opposite shores of the Atlantic is due to 
 the superior organization of Trades Unions 
 in the United States. In New England 
 there are powerful combinations among the 
 artisans, but none among the agricultural 
 labourers, yet, as compared with the same 
 class in England, the condition of the com- 
 
56 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 mon labourer is, of all others, the most im- 
 proved by emigration to America. And let 
 it be observed that, as agriculture is the most 
 flourishing, so it is the most important of all 
 the industries of the United States. The 
 value of the total annual production of the 
 leading industries has been estimated by 
 Mr. Wells at i,365,ooo,ooo/. To this total, 
 agriculture contributes 685,59O,ooo/. The 
 demand for labour to bring under cultivation 
 the vast tracts of land still unoccupied is 
 such that it has never yet been satisfied. 
 Hence a rise of wages in strict conformity 
 with an economical law. 
 
 In the recent report of Mr. Hemans, the 
 British Consul at Buffalo, the wages of the 
 working classes in that city are given as 
 follows: "Per day, skilled artisans, i6s. to 
 24^. ; carpenters, 6^. to 14^. ; masons, IDS. to 
 i6s. ; unskilled labourers, 4^. to 6s. ; and dock 
 labourers, 125-. to i6s. v 
 
 The wages in California are higher than in 
 any other State of the Union ; because the 
 expense of a journey to the remotest limits of 
 the Western Continent has hitherto prevented 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 57 
 
 a supply of labour from keeping pace with 
 the demand. " Under these circumstances, 
 the condition of the artisans and the indus- 
 trial classes," says Consul Broke, " has been 
 one of unparalleled prosperity. The following- 
 table gives the rates of wages in the building 
 trades at San Francisco : Bricklayers, 205-. 
 per day of 8 hours; plasterers, 16^. per day 
 of 8 hours; stonemasons, 18^. to 2os. per 
 day of 8 hours ; hod-carriers, 1 55*. a day of 8 
 hours." 
 
 The completion of the Pacific Railway has 
 not yet affected the labour market in Cali- 
 fornia ; but it is certain that it must tend 
 in the long run to equalise the value of 
 labour in the Western and the Eastern 
 States. 
 
 Since 1853 we have subscribed no less 
 than 4o,ooo,ooo/. for India Railways. A 
 considerable portion of this sum has been 
 paid to native labourers, and the result has 
 been that in the districts traversed by these 
 railways, wages have advanced within a 
 short time no less than 100 per cent. In 
 consequence of the great demand for work- 
 
58 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 men, the price of labour has increased to an 
 extent still more marvellous in Bombay. 
 
 Wages in that Presidency are now two or 
 three times higher than in Bengal and the 
 Punjaub. 
 
 In a paper furnished to the Select Com- 
 mittee on East India Finance by Sir Bartle 
 Frere, some remarkable examples are given 
 of a rise in wages in consequence of the 
 increased competition for labour for railways 
 and other great public works. 
 
 The following table shows the variations 
 in the average monthly wages of a carpenter 
 in Bombay : 
 
 1830-39 1840-49 1850-59 1863 
 
 s. d. s. d. s. d. s. 
 
 30 4 28 10 32 7^- 58 
 
 The following table shows the wages of a 
 coolie at the s<ime periods : 
 
 1830-39 1840-49 1850-59 1863 
 
 s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. 
 
 I 4 92 I2 3a J 4 2 27 o 
 
 Everywhere in the vicinity of railway 
 works the collectors remark on their great 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 59 
 
 effect in raising wages. The practice of 
 promptly paying for all labour in liberal 
 money wages caused an important social 
 revolution in the habits of all who live by 
 labour, even at a great distance from the 
 railway works. The labourers often tra- 
 velled from their homes 200 miles to obtain 
 work so paid, returning home at the harvest- 
 time. 
 
 The people of the Abruzzi came up in 
 thousands to work for six months in the 
 winter season, on the Maremma Railway, 
 and returned home in a precisely similar 
 manner for the harvest. It is interesting to 
 observe how similar was the influence of the 
 same circumstances on two nations geographi- 
 cally remote, but not very far removed from 
 each other in the scale of civilization. 
 
 The increase in wages in Bombay had 
 increased the number of consumers of supe- 
 rior qualities of grain and meat. The in- 
 creased consumption had raised the cost of 
 living. The advance in the cost of living 
 had had the effect of raising the rate of 
 wages : for with their former earnings the 
 
60 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 people could no longer have provided them- 
 selves with the necessaries of life. 
 
 Moreover, the increased external trade of 
 Bombay, the influx of money for the purchase 
 of commodities and the consequent deprecia- 
 tion in the purchasing power of bullion, and 
 the increased demand for labour, had by their 
 combined influence produced an astonishing 
 advance of wages in Bombay, as compared 
 with Bengal. 
 
 The following table shows the difference 
 between the rates in Bengal and Bombay : 
 
 In Bengal per month. In Bombay per month. 
 
 Rupees. Rupees. 
 
 Carpenters . 9 . . . . 25 
 Masons . . 5fV . . . 21 
 Labouring Coolies 6 .... 9-]--. 
 
 Horse-keepers . 5 .... 8/g- 
 
 It is impossible to produce a more striking 
 example of the effect of an increased cost of 
 living, and an increased demand for labour in 
 raising the rate of wages. 
 
 In a country in which the erroneous policy 
 of protection is still adopted by the Govern- 
 ment, the price of labour, from the increased 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 6 1 
 
 demand for it, will advance, as might be 
 expected, in a still more rapid ratio than in 
 a country in which a free trade policy is 
 adopted. The closing of the home markets 
 in Russia to foreign trade, is producing a 
 sensible effect on wages and the cost of living. 
 I quote the following from Mr. Michell : "It 
 is fortunate that such an amelioration of the 
 condition of the people is taking place." In 
 many districts black bread and water are the 
 only food of the people, and the cost of this 
 meagre dietary varies from 5^. to 6s. a month. 
 Owing to the extension of railways, the rate 
 of wages and the style of living are happily 
 improving even in the remoter districts. The 
 chief articles of consumption have risen, in the 
 last ten years, from thirty to fifty per cent, 
 but the rate of wages have increased in an 
 equal, and in many cases, in a greater, pro- 
 portion. 
 
 It is evident from the results of the large 
 experience of many employers, from which 
 the cases which have been enumerated have 
 been taken, that at all times, in all places, and 
 under all circumstances, a rise of wages will 
 
62 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 take place whenever the demand for labour 
 increases more rapidly than the supply, and 
 that no increase can take place, except under 
 that condition. 
 
 Pernicious in their social tendency and 
 scientifically inaccurate are the doctrines of 
 those who seek to persuade the working 
 people that the capitalists are their natural 
 enemies. This latter opinion is well ex- 
 plained by Bastiat, in his " Harmonies econo- 
 miques," from which the following lucid 
 exposition is extracted : 
 
 " Le capital, jusqu'oii qu'il porte ses pre- 
 tentions, et quelque heureux qu'il soit dans 
 ses efforts pour les faire triompher, ne peut 
 jamais placer le travail dans une condition 
 pire que Tisolement. En d'autres termes, le 
 capital favorise toujours plus le travail par 
 sa presence que par son absence. 
 
 " Rappelons-nous 1'exemple que j'invo- 
 quais tout a Fheure. 
 
 " Deux hommes sont reduits a pecher pour 
 vivre. L'un a des filets, des lignes, une 
 barque et quelques provisions pour attendre 
 les fruits de ses prochains travaux. L'autre 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 
 
 n'a rien que ses bras. II est de leur interet 
 de s'associer. Quelles que soient les con- 
 ditions de partage qui interviendront, elles 
 n'empireront jamais le sort de Tun de ces 
 deux pecheurs, pas plus du riche que du 
 pauvre, car des 1'instant que Tun d'eux 
 trouverait Fassociation onereuse comparee a 
 1'isolement, il reviendrait a 1'isolement." 
 
 The people of England are happily without 
 experience of the condition to which the 
 labourer is reduced in countries in which the 
 invigorating influence of capital is unfelt. 
 But there are isolated communities even in 
 Europe, in which the low estate of the 
 people affords a melancholy example of the 
 results of that separation of capital from 
 labour to which Bastiat refers. 
 
 At the head of the gulf of Bothnia, far 
 removed from the enjoyments and advantages 
 of European civilization, there dwells a 
 community of peasants, on whose dreary 
 abode for a considerable part of the year the 
 sun never shines. In frost, and snow, and 
 darkness, throughout their long winter, these 
 unfortunate people are engaged in felling and 
 
64 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 sawing timber, and making tar. When the 
 spring at length returns, and the seas so long 
 frozen up are once more navigable, a few 
 mercantile agents pay them an annual visit 
 and purchase the timber and the tar which 
 have been prepared in the previous winter. 
 The purchase is effected, not by giving 
 money in exchange, but by a system of 
 barter, in which the peasants, innocent of the 
 value of their own labour, are hardly dealt 
 with. They receive a supply of meal barely 
 sufficient to maintain them during the coming 
 winter, and a limited quantity of cast-off 
 clothing, purchased perhaps, from the old 
 clothes dealers of London. Many of these 
 poor people have never tasted meat, and as 
 they are always in debt to the merchants for 
 the supplies of meal which they have accepted 
 in advance, they are not in a position to 
 negotiate, as independent parties to the 
 transaction, for more liberal terms of 
 payment. 
 
 During the summer the people work for 
 a great many hours ; but, from imperfect 
 nourishment, their physical strength does not 
 
DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 65 
 
 enable them to put forth the same exertions 
 as an English workman. To what shall we 
 mainly attribute their pitiable condition ? 
 To the entire absence of accumulated capital, 
 and the dependance of the peasantry on 
 employers who are too poor to be generous, 
 and in whom the desire to make the most 
 of their small capital has altogether extin- 
 guished the virtue of charity and the spirit 
 of justice. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 COST OF LABOUR CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY 
 THE RATE OF WAGES. 
 
 IT is said by a numerous section of 
 employers that the cost of labour has 
 risen in this country to a point far beyond 
 anything which has been attained in the 
 corresponding trades on the Continent ; 
 and they allege a difference in the rate of 
 wages, as if that were conclusive evidence 
 that their apprehensions are reasonable. 
 But I maintain, unhesitatingly, that daily 
 wages are no criterion of the actual cost of 
 executing works, or of carrying out manu- 
 facturing operations. On the contrary, ex- 
 perience teaches that there is a most remark- 
 able tendency to equality in the actual cost 
 of work throughout the world. In the indus- 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 67 
 
 tries which compete against the manufac- 
 tures of the Continent for the supply of the 
 neutral markets of the world, it is clear that 
 Trades Unions cannot raise the cost of 
 production in this country beyond the cost of 
 producing an equivalent quantity of work 
 abroad, without diminishing the relative rate 
 of profit of the British manufacturer ; and 
 that if the rate of profit which could be ob- 
 tained by an investment of capital at home 
 were to be reduced below the profit accruing 
 from a corresponding investment abroad, the 
 immediate result would be the withdrawal 
 of capital from this country. In point of 
 fact, the amount of daily wages affords no 
 real measure of the actual cost of work ; and 
 it is quite possible that work may be more 
 cheaply executed by the same workmen, 
 notwithstanding that their wages have largely 
 increased. I proceed to give evidence in 
 support of this opinion. 
 
 At the commencement of the construction 
 of the North Devon Railway, the wages of 
 the labourers were 2s. a day. During the 
 progress of the work their wages were raised 
 
 F2 
 
68 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 to 2s. 6d. and 3^. a day. Nevertheless, it was 
 found that the work was executed more 
 cheaply when the men were earning the 
 higher rate of wage than when they were 
 paid at the lower rate. Again in London, 
 in carrying out a part of the Metropolitan 
 Drainage Works in Oxford Street, the wages 
 of the bricklayers were gradually raised from 
 6s. to los. a day; yet it was found that the 
 brickwork was constructed at a cheaper rate 
 per cubic yard, after the wages of the work- 
 men had been raised to ios., than when they 
 were paid at the rate of 6^. a day. 
 
 In Russia the nominal price of labour is 
 lower than in any other country in Europe ; 
 yet the manufacture of iron is at least as 
 costly in Russia as in England ; and it is 
 considered politic by the State to give an 
 artificial encouragement to the iron manufac- 
 turers by paying a bounty of 4/. per ton on 
 all rails made in the country. Cases to prove 
 that the actual cost of labour cannot be 
 measured by the rate of daily wages can be 
 indefinitely multiplied from railway experi- 
 ence. 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 69 
 
 In making the South Staffordshire Railway, 
 the navvies employed by Mr. Day, my 
 father's resident agent, were paid from 35. to 
 y. 6d. a day. A few years later, Mr. Day 
 was engaged on the construction of a line 
 from Enniskillen to Bundoran ; and on that 
 line the labourers were paid at the rate of 
 is. 6d. to is. Sal. a day. Yet, with this 
 immense difference in the rate of wages, sub- 
 contracts on the Irish Railway were let at the 
 same prices which had been previously paid 
 in South Staffordshire. 
 
 It is interesting to find these views enun- 
 ciated by Mr. Joseph Hume in a speech on 
 the Combination Laws, delivered in the House 
 of Commons on June 29, 1825 ; and to see 
 how correctly his language describes the 
 result of my father's experience. He said 
 that he had heard it stated " that low wages 
 were a good thing. That he denied. Low 
 wages tended to degrade the labourer. It 
 was the high wages which the English artisan 
 received, compared with the miserable pay 
 of the Irish labourer, which made the former 
 so superior in energy." 
 
70 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The inferiority of the Irish labourer in the 
 days of Mr. Hume is described and fully 
 explained in the Report of the Irish Railways 
 Commissioners presented to Parliament in 
 1837 : " In the northern province the people 
 were better lodged, clothed, and fed, than in 
 the other provinces ; the wages of labour 
 were higher, being, on the average, about js. 
 a day ; and their food consisted chiefly of 
 meal, potatoes, and milk." 
 
 "In the southern districts the food of the 
 population was inferior, consisting at best of 
 potatoes and milk, without meat. The wage 
 of the labourer varied from is. to 8d. a day. 
 But the condition of the inhabitants of the 
 western district was inferior even to that of 
 the people of the south of Ireland. Their 
 food consisted of potatoes alone, without meal, 
 and, in most cases, without milk. The cabins 
 were wretched hovels, their beds were of 
 straw, and the wages of the labourer were 
 reduced to the lowest point, being, upon 
 the average, not more than 6d. a day." 
 We shudder as we read this description, 
 and anticipate the inevitable consequences. 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 71 
 
 Poverty and misery had deprived them of 
 all energy. Every motive to exertion was 
 destroyed ; agriculture was in the rudest and 
 the lowest state. 
 
 The effect of these depressing circum- 
 stances, aggravated of course by the backward 
 state of agriculture, was strikingly illustrated 
 in the deficiency of produce and in the 
 amount of work performed by Irish labour, 
 compared with that of the same class in 
 England. 
 
 The Irish Poor Law Commissioners stated 
 that the average produce of the soil in 
 Ireland was not much above one half the 
 average produce in England, whilst the 
 number of labourers employed in agriculture 
 was, in proportion to the quantity of land 
 under cultivation, more than double, viz., 
 as five to two. Thus ten labourers in 
 Ireland raised only the same quantity of 
 produce that four labourers raised in England, 
 and this produce was generally of an inferior 
 quality. So striking a disproportion, though 
 generally admitting of very considerable 
 qualification with reference to the different 
 
72 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 nature and degree of facilities afforded to the 
 labourer in the two countries, still shews a 
 decided advantage in favour of the English 
 workman, and goes far to prove the dearness 
 of ill-requited labour. 
 
 I wish to establish my position on this 
 subject by adducing the testimony of manu- 
 facturers, who have had experience in spheres 
 which lie beyond my own immediate obser- 
 vation ; and on this ground I would refer to 
 a speech delivered by Sir Francis Crossley, 
 in a debate on the appointment of the Trades 
 Unions Commission in 1867, in which he 
 expressed very just and generous views on 
 the relative value to the employers of well- 
 paid and ill-paid labour. " There was," he 
 said, " a good deal of unreasonable feeling 
 abroad ; that it was wrong for working men 
 to sell their labour at the best price, but it 
 must be remembered that their labour was 
 the only thing that they had to sell ; and the 
 best thing to do was to leave these matters 
 to take their natural course. It was a great 
 mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose 
 that the lowest priced labour was always the 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 73 
 
 cheapest. If there were not so much desire 
 to run down the price of labour, and the 
 masters showed a more conciliatory spirit, 
 there would be fewer strikes and outrages." 
 
 The condition of the Warwickshire la- 
 bourer has of late been brought prominently 
 under the notice of the public. The internal 
 economy of the agricultural labourer's house- 
 hold has been minutely described in the 
 columns of the " Daily News." I would ask 
 men of business to examine this question, not 
 from a philanthropic point of view, but for 
 the purpose of ascertaining what rate of 
 wages will give the best return to employers. 
 It is quite true that the rent received by 
 the English landlord gives but a miserable 
 return on the capital value of his property. 
 In no country indeed does landed property 
 give so poor a return. It is equally certain 
 that the business of farmers is not as lucrative 
 as that of manufacturers. If the agricultural 
 labourer receives higher wages without doing 
 more work in the day, the farmer and land- 
 lord will suffer a diminution of income, which 
 they can ill afford to bear; and the only 
 
74 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 result will be that capital will be withdrawn 
 from agriculture, and more advantageously 
 invested in other business. But are we 
 justified in assuming that the labourer is 
 incapable of doing more work for a more 
 liberal reward ? I will not be so pre- 
 sumptuous as to offer an opinion upon the 
 particular case of the Warwickshire labourers ; 
 but this I say, that all experience shows that, 
 with proper supervision, and with an equi- 
 table scheme of prices for piece work, the 
 best paid workman does more work for a 
 given sum of money than the underpaid 
 and therefore under-fed labourer can by 
 possibility accomplish. The cost of labour, 
 rightly observes Mr. Fawcett, " is deter- 
 mined by the amount of work which is 
 really done for the wages. Many of our 
 labourers can barely obtain the necessaries of 
 life ; and we can all appreciate the false 
 economy that would be practised, if a horse 
 was so much stinted of food that he could 
 only do half as much work as he would be 
 able to perform if he were properly fed." 
 High wages do not necessarily imply dear 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 75 
 
 labour, just as, on the other hand, low wages 
 do not, of necessity, make labour cheap. On 
 my father's extensive contracts, carried on in 
 almost every country of the civilized world 
 and in every quarter of the globe, the daily 
 wage of the labourer was fixed at widely 
 different rates ; but it was found to be the 
 almost invariable rule that the cost of labour 
 was the same that for the same sum of 
 money, the same amount of work was every- 
 where performed. Superior skill, extra dili- 
 gence, and a larger development of physical 
 power, will often compensate the employer 
 who finds himself obliged to pay higher 
 wages than his competitors. On the other 
 hand, if labour becomes so costly in England 
 that our productions are undersold by the 
 foreigner, our customers will leave our 
 markets, and the workmen's livelihood will 
 be lost. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to compare accu- 
 rately the whole cost of production of any 
 class of goods in England and abroad. The 
 daily wage, it has been shown, is not the 
 true measure of cost. The superior diligence, 
 
76 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the skill and energy of the workmen, may 
 and generally do largely compensate the 
 employer who pays a higher rate of wages. 
 Or again, when the superior qualities of the 
 operatives do not fully make up for the 
 difference in wages, the high price of labour 
 will generally lead to the use of labour-saving 
 machinery, which would not have been 
 adopted had labour been cheap. Our labour 
 is expensive ; indeed, with the greater cost of 
 living in this country, it could not but be 
 more expensive than it is abroad. But we 
 have on our side the many great qualities of 
 our operative population ; the large resources, 
 the fruit of many years of thrift and patient 
 toil, at the command of our capitalists ; the 
 abundant supply of fuel ; and the admirable 
 faculty of organization which is the distin- 
 guishing feature of English industrial economy. 
 With these advantages, and by dint of 
 strenuous efforts, we have hitherto held our 
 own amid an increasing number of competi- 
 tors. In some branches of trade we are 
 behind ; in others, and in probably the 
 greater number of the more important trades, 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 77 
 
 we are still in front. In machinery, and in 
 textile manufactures of the cheaper kind, and 
 in most branches of metallurgy, we are 
 slightly in advance of the Continent ; but 
 even where we are still ahead, our rivals 
 follow closely at our heels. 
 
 In some parts of the Continent a railway 
 can be made at a less cost than in the more 
 expensive districts in England. There is 
 but little difference in the cost, and none in 
 the quality, of an English, French, or a 
 German locomotive, made by the best manu- 
 facturers of each country. The Trades 
 Unions should be mindful of these things. 
 Extravagant demands on behalf of labour 
 may destroy the old industrial supremacy of 
 this country ; and a concession may be dearly 
 bought if, in the end, the employment of 
 the British workman is transferred to his 
 foreign rival. 
 
 While I venture to give this warning, I 
 feel no present alarm. The workman and 
 his master, like soldiers in the thickest of the 
 fight, who see only their immediate oppo- 
 nents and nothing of the general combinations 
 
78 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 of the battle, are each disposed to exaggerate 
 the power and importance of the other. In 
 order to form a more correct judgment, we 
 must withdraw to a distance from the battle- 
 field, and in a serener atmosphere we shall 
 be better able to measure the strength of the 
 contending forces. We shall find, as we 
 examine the industrial situation, that the 
 labour market is sensitive to every fluctuation 
 of trade, that the price of labour rises with 
 the demand, and falls when the competition 
 among the employers for the services of 
 workmen becomes less keen. 
 
 Once duly impressed with this great 
 economical truth, we may listen with un- 
 ruffled patience to the allegations which, in 
 times of commercial depression, are invariably 
 made, that our trade has gone to other 
 countries, because the wages of the British 
 workman are excessive. 
 
 So long as the cost of production in this 
 country exceeds the cost of production in 
 other countries, the neutral markets of the 
 world will no longer draw their supplies from 
 England. The demand for labour here will 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 79 
 
 accordingly diminish : the multitudes of 
 people out of employ will be driven, under 
 the pressure of necessity, to compete against 
 each other for employment ; wages will thus 
 be in proportion diminished, until we are 
 once more in a position to compete. The 
 difficulty which we apprehend will, in exact 
 proportion to its gravity, bring its own 
 appropriate remedies. Solvitur ambulando. 
 
 I will now give an interesting example, 
 derived from my father's early experience in 
 France, in the construction of the Paris and 
 Rouen Railway in 1842. The Paris and 
 Rouen Railway was the first large railway 
 work executed on the Continent. About 
 10,000 men were employed in its construc- 
 tion, of whom upwards of 4,000 were 
 Englishmen. Perhaps so remarkable an 
 exodus of English labour to continental 
 Europe never before occurred, and it is im- 
 probable that it will ever be repeated. A 
 special effort was made to secure the services 
 of English workmen on this particular con- 
 tract ; because it was a question whether 
 native workmen could be obtained in suffi- 
 
8o WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 cient numbers, and it was still more doubtful 
 whether they would possess the necessary 
 skill and experience for carrying out railway 
 works, which at that period were a novelty, 
 even to English engineers, and entirely un- 
 known on the Continent. Under these ex- 
 ceptional circumstances, a large body of 
 Englishmen were sent over to Normandy. 
 
 The responsibility of taking so large a 
 body of Englishmen into a foreign country 
 was very serious ; but the greatest efforts 
 were made by the contractors to mitigate the 
 inconveniences to the English workmen of 
 residence in a foreign country. They origi- 
 nated schools, and provided the spiritual 
 succour of two or three clergymen. 
 
 They also organized a system of medical 
 attendants. The Rouen line was divided 
 into districts, and one English physician 
 was appointed as superior medical atten- 
 dant for the whole of the works; and he 
 placed, at certain distances apart, resident 
 surgeons to attend upon the sick and 
 wounded, and also upon the wives of the 
 workmen. It is scarcely necessary to ob- 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 8 1 
 
 serve that the employment of English manual 
 labour abroad must always be costly, and 
 a somewhat doubtful policy. But in this 
 particular case it was not found to be disad- 
 vantageous in a pecuniary point of view. 
 
 The contract for the Paris and Rouen 
 line included some difficult works. There 
 were four bridges across the Seine, and four 
 tunnels, one of them one mile and five-eighths 
 in length, passing through hard limestone. 
 The English were chiefly employed on the 
 difficult work. The French labourers drew 
 away the stuff, or wound it up the shafts ; 
 but the mining was done by Englishmen. In 
 the tunnels the skilled work was all done by 
 them. At one time there were five hundred 
 Englishmen living in the village of Rollebois, 
 most of whom were employed in the adjacent 
 tunnel. Although these English navvies 
 earned $s. a day, while the Frenchmen em- 
 ployed received only 2s. 6d. a day, yet it 
 was found, on comparing the cost of two 
 adjacent cuttings in precisely similar circum- 
 stances, that the excavation was made at a 
 
 G 
 
82 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 lower cost per cubic yard by the English 
 navvies than by the French labourers. 
 
 In the same quarry at Bonnieres, in which 
 Frenchmen, Irishmen, and Englishmen were 
 employed, side by side, the Frenchmen re- 
 ceived three francs, the Irishmen four, and 
 the Englishmen six francs a day. At those 
 different rates, the Englishman was found to 
 be the most advantageous workman of the 
 three. 
 
 On the completion of the Paris and Rouen 
 line, and the extension to Havre, most of 
 the English navvies returned to their own 
 country ; and the Dieppe line was executed 
 principally by native labour, although English- 
 men were still employed on the more difficult 
 work. On the Dieppe Railway French 
 labourers earned from two and a half to three 
 francs a day ; and, when working by piece 
 work, their earnings advanced to three and a 
 half francs a day. The wages of Englishmen, 
 employed as plate-layers and tippers, were 
 about five francs a day. A large number of 
 v Belgians were employed on this contract, and 
 they always earned one franc a day more 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 
 
 than the Frenchmen. It should, however, 
 be explained that the construction of railways 
 had been considerably developed in Belgium 
 before railway works were commenced in 
 France. Upon the Caen line, which was 
 executed about ten years later than the Dieppe 
 line, Englishmen were still employed for 
 tipping and plate laying, and on difficult work 
 in the deep rock cutting. The wages of the 
 Englishmen were five francs a day as before ; 
 while the usual earnings of the French 
 labourers ranged from 275 to 3 francs 
 and 3-50 francs a day. It is to be noted that 
 the English workmen were employed by 
 sub-contractors, whose interest was directly 
 involved in the closest possible reduction 
 of expenditure. Yet those most experienced 
 practical men were of opinion, that the 
 English were worth the much higher rate of 
 wages which they received, when employed 
 on a work of exceptional difficulty. 
 
 I may mention, as an illustration of the 
 benefits invariably conferred by railways upon 
 the rural districts in which they have been 
 constructed that in the districts adjacent to 
 
 G 2 
 
84 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the Caen line, the average wages for agricul- 
 tural labourers were 1*50 franc a day. The 
 same men, who were employed on the 
 railway, received from 2 francs to 2*25 francs 
 and 2*75 a day. 
 
 I have elsewhere shown the difference that 
 exists between the wages of the industrial 
 classes in England and France. That 
 difference was much greater twenty-five years 
 ago ; but, in spite of the advance of wages, 
 France is better able to compete with us than 
 in former days when her labourers were much 
 less liberally paid. Twenty-five years ago 
 large quantities of English rails were im- 
 ported for the Rouen and Havre line, though 
 at that time the duty amounted to 5/. per 
 ton. 
 
 Extending the investigation to other con- 
 tracts in France, and to Italy, Austria, 
 Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and 
 Holland, it has been found that there is 
 hardly any perceptible difference in the cost 
 of railway work, executed by unskilled labour, 
 although the difference in the rates of the 
 daily wages prevailing in those countries is 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 85 
 
 most striking. The wages paid in this 
 country are higher than in any other. Yet 
 even with respect to bridges, viaducts, tunnels, 
 and all works of art on railways, they can be 
 executed at a cheaper rate in England than in 
 any other country in the world. The rate of 
 wages is much lower, but masonry costs as 
 much in Italy as in Manchester. This ap- 
 proximate uniformity of cost is exhibited in all 
 cases. The superiority of the Englishman to 
 the workman of other nations was equally 
 remarkable, whenever there was an oppor- 
 tunity of employing him side by side with 
 them. The wages of the Dutchmen engaged 
 in the construction of the Dutch Rhenish 
 Railway, varied from is. 6d. to is. 8d. a day, 
 when paid by the day. At piece-work they 
 could earn 2s. or 2s. 6d. ; but good work- 
 men from the Lancashire fens would have 
 made y. 6d. at similar work. 
 
 Both English and French masons were 
 employed in large numbers on the Alderney 
 Breakwater in 1852. The Englishmen earned 
 $s. 6d. to 6s., and, as a general rule, they 
 made is. a day more than the Frenchmen, 
 
86 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 whose average earnings did not exceed 45-. 
 a day. 
 
 It has been many times stated in the 
 course of this work that from superior skill 
 or greater energy, the more highly paid 
 workman will in many, perhaps in most, 
 cases turn out a greater amount of work, 
 in proportion to the wages he receives. An 
 opportunity occurred some years ago, during 
 the construction of the refreshment room at 
 Basirigstoke, for testing this problem with 
 great accuracy. On one side of the station a 
 London bricklayer was employed at 5$. 6d. 
 a day, and on the other two country brick- 
 layers at 35*. 6d. a day. It was found, by 
 measuring the amount of work performed, 
 without the knowledge of the men employed, 
 that the one London bricklayer laid, without 
 undue exertion, more bricks in a day than his 
 two less skilful country fellow labourers. 
 
 On the Grand Trunk Railway a number of 
 French-Canadian labourers were employed. 
 Their wages were 3$. 6d. a day, while the 
 Englishmen received from 5^. to 6^. a day ; 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 87 
 
 but it was found that the English did the 
 greatest amount of work for the money. The 
 same remarkable tendency to equality of cost 
 exhibits itself even in India. On the Delhi 
 and Umritzir Railway it has been found, as 
 I am informed by Mr. Henfrey, my father's 
 resident partner in India, that, mile for mile, 
 the cost of railway work is about the same in 
 India as it is in England ; although the wages, 
 if estimated by the amount of daily pay, are 
 marvellously low. Earthwork, it is true, is 
 executed by the coolies at a cheaper rate 
 than in England, but native skilled labour is 
 more expensive. 
 
 The wages paid on the Delhi and Umritzir 
 Railway were : Masons, 10 to 12 rupees a 
 month ; carpenters, 1 5 to 1 8 ; bricklayers, 8 to 
 1 2. The execution of the works on a railway 
 in India is generally undertaken by small con- 
 tractors or middle men, who in many cases 
 are shopkeepers. There is a difficulty in 
 obtaining experienced sub-contractors, and in 
 consequence it is necessary to employ a 
 numerous body of English foremen. Hence 
 
88 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the cost of supervision is greatly enhanced in 
 India, and is found to amount on the average 
 to twenty per cent, on the entire outlay. 
 
 Before the railways caused an increased 
 demand for labour in India, wages ranged from 
 4^. to ^\d. a day. The demand for labour 
 raised wages considerably, but even then the 
 coolies were not paid more than 6d. a day. 
 However these wages far more than sufficed 
 to supply all their wants. Their food con- 
 sists of two pounds of rice a day, mixed with 
 a little curry ; and the cost of living on this, 
 their usual diet, is only 15. a week. For 
 is. 6d. they can live in comparative luxury. 
 On the railways of India it has been found 
 that the great increase of pay which has taken 
 place, has neither augmented the rapidity of 
 execution, nor added to the comfort of the 
 labourer. The Hindoo workman knows no 
 other want than his daily portion of rice, and 
 the torrid climate renders watertight habita- 
 tions and ample clothing alike unnecessary. 
 The labourer therefore desists from work as 
 soon as he has provided for the necessities of 
 the day. Higher pay adds nothing to his 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 89 
 
 comforts ; it serves but to diminish his ordi- 
 nary industry. 
 
 In Eastern Europe the standard of living 
 is very low, and the earnings of the labour- 
 ing people are scanty in proportion. The 
 Galicians live principally upon black bread, 
 schnapps, a spirit distilled from Indian corn, 
 and potatoes. The inhabitants of Bukovina 
 and Moldavia live on Indian corn and 
 schnapps, at a cost of from 4^. to ^d. a day. 
 Ninepence may be considered the ordinary 
 wages for labourers in this part of the country. 
 The peasants are very improvident. When 
 the Indian corn crop fails, they literally starve ; 
 and in the winter they are obliged to obtain 
 advances from the proprietors, or from Jews, 
 undertaking to work out these allowances in 
 the course of the following summer. When 
 bound by an engagement such as I have 
 described, their wages are reduced to 6d. 
 or >jd. per day. In Moldavia and other 
 European countries similarly placed in the 
 scale of civilization, unskilled labour is 
 cheaper than in England ; but, in proportion 
 as skill and manual dexterity are required, 
 
90 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the differences in the cost of constructing 
 engineering works disappear. 
 
 In Italy, as in India, it has been found that 
 a numerous but unskilled population, in a 
 climate where the necessaries of life are inex- 
 pensive can undertake the mere manual 
 labour at a cheaper rate than in England ; 
 though this is only true when works are not 
 pushed on so rapidly as to require the importa- 
 tion of labour from a distance. When the local 
 labourers are alone employed, the Italian 
 villagers, men, women, and children carrying 
 earth to and fro in baskets on their heads, 
 and as ignorant as the Coolies themselves of 
 the resources and appliances of mechanical 
 science, can execute earthwork about as 
 cheaply as in India. On the other hand, 
 masonry and other work requiring skilled 
 labour is rather dearer in Italy than in Eng- 
 land. In the Mauritius the result of the 
 experience acquired in the construction of a 
 railway in that island by my father's partner, 
 Mr. Longridge, established the same result 
 as in the cases already quoted. Though the 
 daily wages are low, yet when you take 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 91 
 
 into account the extra supervision, the cost of 
 earthwork, rock cutting, and masonry, is 
 quite as great as the cost in England ; and 
 skilled work, as, for example, carpentry, is 
 from twenty to twenty-five per cent, more 
 costly in the Mauritius than it is in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 I turn from the business of the railway con- 
 tractors to other occupations : and in whatever 
 sphere of industry, where equally complete 
 investigation is made of the actual cost of 
 production, as compared with the rate of 
 wages, I arrive at a similar result. The ship- 
 builders at Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Nantes, 
 who appeared as witnesses before the com- 
 mittee appointed to conduct the " Enquete 
 sur la Marine marchande," under the presi- 
 dency of M. Rouher, described in accents of 
 despair the collapse of their industry in 
 France, and the impossibility of competing 
 in point of price with the English ship- 
 builders. 
 
 It is certain that the stationary if not the 
 retrograde condition of French ship-building 
 is not attributable to the difference in the 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 rate of wages in favour of the British ship- 
 builder. 
 
 Tableau comparatif du prix du Travail dans les ateliers de 
 construction des services maritimes des Messageries 
 imperiales. 
 
 PROFESSIONS 
 
 GAGES JOURNALIERS 
 
 1859 
 
 1869 
 
 Modeleurs . 
 
 
 
 
 
 4-08 
 
 4*47 
 
 Ajusteurs 
 
 
 
 
 
 3-69 
 
 3-8o 
 
 Chaudronnerie de 
 
 cuivr 
 
 
 
 
 3'34 
 
 3-90 
 
 Chaudronnerie de 
 
 fer 
 
 
 
 
 2 73 
 
 370 
 
 Forgerons . 
 
 
 
 
 
 3-27 
 
 3-8o 
 
 Charpentiers 
 
 
 
 
 
 3-22 
 
 3 '99 
 
 Maons 
 
 
 
 
 
 2-89 
 
 3'99 
 
 Manoeuvres . 
 
 
 
 
 
 274 
 
 2*99 
 
 Menuisiers . 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 <6 4 
 
 4*00 
 
 Perceurs 
 
 
 
 
 
 4*29 
 
 4-90 
 
 Calfats 
 
 
 
 
 
 3*40 
 
 3-90 
 
 Voiliers 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 '40 
 
 3 '9 
 
 Scieurs de long 
 
 
 
 
 
 4-08 
 
 3-89 
 
 Bateliers 
 
 
 
 
 
 4-08 
 
 3-8 9 
 
 If the French table of wages be compared 
 with the following statement of the average 
 rate of wages paid at Millwall from 1863 to 
 1866, it is marvellous that any ships should 
 have been built in the Thames for Mediter- 
 ranean ship owners : 
 
 Wood Shipwrights 
 Joiners 
 Platers 
 Riveters 
 
 d. 
 
 6 8 to 
 
 s. 
 
 7 
 6 
 
 7 
 5 
 
 d. 
 
 o per day. 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 93 
 
 
 s. 
 
 /, 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Chippers 
 
 5 
 
 o to 
 
 5 
 
 6 per day. 
 
 Smiths 
 
 . . 
 
 . 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 
 Hammermen 
 
 3 
 
 9 to 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 Plumbers 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 
 Painters 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 
 Engineers 
 
 5 
 
 8 to 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 Pattern makers 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 Moulders 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 6 
 
 4 ? 
 
 
 Labourers . 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 3 
 
 6 , 
 
 
 Boys . 
 
 from 4 
 
 o to 
 
 15 
 
 o per week. 
 
 There must be a remarkable superiority 
 either in vigour or in skill in the English 
 workman or he could not have held his 
 own in the race in spite of the extraordi- 
 nary difference in the rate of wages. The 
 cost of provisions is an essential element in 
 determining the wages of the labourer, but 
 the standard of comfort which the working 
 classes are content to adopt, has also a most 
 material influence on their condition. Mr. 
 McCulloch attributes the difference between 
 the condition of people in England and Ire- 
 land mainly to the different standard of 
 living adopted by the people themselves. 
 
 The rate of necessary wages must vary 
 with variations of climate, and other things 
 
94 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 being equal, it will be the highest in countries 
 where the most expensive clothes and houses 
 and the largest Supplies of fuel are required. 
 
 There is a maximum limit above which 
 wages cannot rise, and a minimum below 
 which they cannot fall. The minimum is 
 determined by the cost of living according 
 to the standard adopted by the people. 
 Wages cannot long continue below the 
 amount necessary for the support of the 
 labourer and his family. On the other hand, 
 wages cannot long continue so high as to 
 deprive the employer of a fair return upon 
 his capital, and a reasonable reward for the 
 application of his time and abilities to the 
 conduct of his business. If wages exceed 
 the maximum limit determined by the neces- 
 sity of fulfilling the conditions enumerated, 
 capital will no longer be embarked in under- 
 takings from which no adequate return can 
 be obtained. 
 
 There is a remarkable instance of high 
 wages, in consequence of the cost of living 
 being artificially raised, at Beyrout. Every 
 inhabitant is taxed \l. a-year for the supply 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 95 
 
 of water. Owing to the pressure of this 
 taxation, the wages of common labourers are 
 from 2s. to 2s. 6d., and of masons and car- 
 penters 35. to 4^. a day. 
 
 " It is not," says Mr. McCulloch, " in the 
 best situated countries, or those of which the 
 climate is the finest and the soil most pro- 
 ductive, that the peasantry are the best off. 
 In those their necessities are few and easily 
 supplied, and when these are satisfied, they 
 seem to care for nothing more." Humboldt 
 tells us that it had been proposed to prohibit 
 the culture of the banana in Mexico, as being 
 the only means calculated to rouse the torpid 
 qualities of the natives and make them in 
 some degree industrious. 
 
 As we recede from the more civilized 
 countries of Europe the standard of comfort 
 is reduced, and the labourer is content to 
 receive lower wages ; although in most cases 
 the amount of work performed is diminished 
 in corresponding proportions. High wages 
 and short hours of work may not be found 
 incompatible with a diminished cost of pro- 
 duction ; and low wages and long hours may 
 
96 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 sometimes prove less advantageous to the 
 employer than shorter hours of labour and a 
 higher rate of wages. This apparent ano- 
 maly is partly explained by the necessity of 
 giving to the labourer, who has to undertake 
 severe manual exertion, the means of pro- 
 curing a generous diet. In Belgium the 
 workmen are not so expensive in their habits 
 as the English artificer. They consume less 
 meat ; their bread is seldom purely wheaten ; 
 and they work for lower wages ; but, on the 
 other hand, it cannot be expected that, under 
 these conditions, they can have the same 
 physical vigour as the English labourers, who 
 are better fed. 
 
 Mr. Hewitt, to whose evidence I have 
 elsewhere referred, speaking on this subject, 
 remarked that at Sireuil the rate of wages of 
 the common labourer will only admit of his 
 having meat once a week ; and yet the manu- 
 facturers were not making money. He also 
 stated that there was a deplorable look of 
 hopelessness among the lower class of work- 
 men at Creuzot, though this \yas not dis- 
 cernible among the better paid men. 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 97 
 
 It is interesting to observe how fully the ex- 
 perience of practical men bears out the opinion 
 expressed by Montesquieu, in the " Esprit des 
 Lois/' " II y a dans 1'Europe une espece de 
 balancement entre les nations du Midi et celles 
 du Nord. Les premieres ont toute sorte de 
 commodites pour la vie et pour les besoins ; 
 les secondes ont beaucoup de besoins et peu 
 de commodites pour la vie. L'equilibre se 
 maintient par la paresse qu'elle a donnee aux 
 nations du Midi, et par Tindustrie et 1'activite 
 qu'elle a donnees a celles du Nord." 
 
 The recent interesting publications of Mr. 
 Lothian Bell, a report to Congress of Mr. 
 Commissioner Wells, the Special Commis- 
 sioner of Revenue in the United States in 
 1868, and a report of Mr. Redgrave, one of 
 the Inspectors of Factories, contain many other 
 equally remarkable cases in various trades, 
 all tending to prove that the cost of labour 
 cannot be conclusively determined by the 
 rate of daily wages in the respective indus- 
 tries. 
 
 Mr. Lothian Bell, in an address read at a 
 meeting of iron masters in the North of 
 
 H 
 
98 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 England, gave the result of his investigations 
 as to the cost of smelting pig iron in France, 
 which distinctly proved that more men were 
 required to do the same quantity of work in 
 France than in England. He stated that, 
 by a very careful enquiry at a large establish- 
 ment in France, he had ascertained that forty- 
 two men were there employed to carry out 
 the same amount of work which twenty-five 
 men were able to do at the Clarence factories 
 on the Tees. In spite of the actual labour 
 on a ton of pig iron for smelting being twenty 
 per cent, cheaper in France than in England, 
 the entire smelting charges were sensibly 
 greater in France than in the general run of 
 work at Middlesbrough. And, taking into 
 account the saving in respect of fuel, the cost 
 of producing pig iron in France was twenty 
 shillings, in some cases even thirty shillings, 
 per ton more than that exhibited by the cost- 
 sheets of the manufacturers at Cleveland. 
 
 The average cost of raising coal at the 
 pit's mouth in France is said by Mr. Lothian 
 Bell to be from $s. 6d. to 6s. a ton, and 
 the average price of coal i is. per ton ; the 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 99 
 
 price for small coal used by the iron masters 
 being 8s. 6d. as compared with $s., the price 
 paid by the Cleveland smelters. 
 
 Belgium raises 11,000,000 tons of coal 
 annually, and exports 4,000,000 to France. 
 The average cost of coal at the pit's mouth 
 is from $s. 6d. to Js. a ton. The price varied 
 in 1867 from gs. 6d. to IQS. 6d. a ton. It is 
 clear from these figures that neither in France 
 nor in Belgium is the cost of extracting the 
 coal reduced by the low price of labour. In 
 the manufacture of iron, the opinion of Mr. 
 Bell is confirmed by Mr. Hewett, an American 
 iron master, who told the Trades Unions 
 Commissioners, that the price of iron was i/. 
 sterling per ton higher at Creuzot than in 
 England, and by M. Michel Chevalier, who, 
 in his introductions to the Reports of the 
 Jurors of the French Exhibition in 1867, said 
 that rails were from twenty-five to thirty 
 francs dearer per ton in France than in 
 England. A similar difference was shown in 
 the rails purchased for the Mont Cenis Rail- 
 way, the price of which at the works in 
 France was from 7/. 12^. to 8/. per ton; while 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the price in England was 7/. per ton. The 
 duty of 2/. 8^-. per ton which is still payable 
 on rails imported into France is a proof of 
 the conscious inability of the French iron- 
 masters to compete with our manufacturers in 
 an open market. 
 
 In Germany as in France, though the 
 nominal rates of wages are still lower, the 
 actual cost of the work is greater than it is 
 in England. Mr. Lothian Bell observed that, 
 whereas labour in Westphalia cost from twenty 
 to twenty-five per cent, less than with us, 
 the labour-saving arrangements were much 
 neglected ; and a ton of iron smelted in the 
 Ruhrort district could not be produced for 
 less than 1 5$. a ton above the cost upon the 
 Tees. 
 
 Mr. Commissioner Wells, in an able report 
 to the American Congress, has discussed in 
 minute detail this most important question of 
 the comparative cost of labour in the principal 
 manufacturing countries. Taking the pud- 
 dling of iron as the representative process of 
 the iron trade, he says that he found that the 
 average price of labour per day for puddlers 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. IOI 
 
 was from JS. 6d. to 7^. lod. in Stafford- 
 shire ; 6s. 4^. in France ; and from 45*. gd. to 
 5^. in Belgium ; yet the average price of 
 merchant bar-iron was 6/. los. in England, 
 7/. in Belgium, and 8/. in France. 
 
 In a recent report on the condition of the 
 textile industries in England, Mr. Redgrave, 
 one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Factories, 
 says that, while the foreigner is under the 
 same conditions, as to the raw material, as 
 the English manufacturer, and his fuel is 
 more expensive, his workpeople do not work 
 with the same vigour and steadiness as En- 
 glishmen. Consequently, the same number 
 of operatives, employed upon the same 
 machinery, do not produce the same quantity 
 of yarn as in this country. " All the evidence 
 that has come before me," he says, "has gone 
 to prove that there is a great preponderance 
 in favour of this country. Comparing the work 
 of a British with a foreign spinner, the average 
 number of persons employed to spindles is 
 in France, one person to fourteen spindles; 
 in Russia, one to twenty-eight spindles ; in 
 Prussia, one to thirty-seven ; in Great Britain, 
 
102 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 one to seventy-four. But I could find many 
 cotton spinning factories in my district, in 
 which mules containing 2,200 spindles are 
 managed by one minder and two assistants." 
 " I have recently been told," he continues, "by 
 one who had been an English manager in a 
 factory at Oldenburgh, that though the hours 
 of work were from 5.30 A.M. to 8 P.M. every 
 day, only about the same weight of work 
 was turned off under English overlookers as 
 would be produced in a working day from 
 6 A.M to 6 P.M in this country. Under 
 German overlookers the produce was much 
 less. The wages were fifty per cent, less in 
 many cases than in England ; but the number 
 -of hands, in proportion to machinery, was 
 much larger. In some departments it was in 
 the proportion of five to three. In Russia 
 the inefficiency of the labour of the foreign, 
 as compared with the labour of the English 
 operatives, is even more strikingly manifested, 
 for on a comparison of the wages, supposing 
 the Russian operatives to work only sixty 
 hours a week as they do in England, instead 
 of seventy-five as they do in Russia, their 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 103 
 
 wages would not be one fourth the amount 
 earned in England. But the wage must be 
 taken into account with the power of the 
 operative as a producer ; and herein will be 
 found an advantage of the English operative 
 over the foreign competitor, sufficient, with 
 some qualification, to counterbalance the 
 mere cheapness of wage/ ' 
 
 Mr. Wells, in the report to which I have 
 already referred, confirms the view expressed 
 by Mr. Redgrave. He says that, " whereas 
 female labour in the cotton manufacture is 
 paid at from 1 2s. to 1 $s. a week in Great 
 Britain ; at from 7$. ^d. to qs. jd. in France, 
 Belgium, and Germany ; at from 2s. ^d. to 
 2s. nd. in Russia ; the one thing which is 
 most dreaded by the continental manu- 
 facturers everywhere is British competition. 
 The demand for protection is loudest in 
 France, Austria, and Russia, where the 
 average wages reach their minimum." 
 
 Mr. Mill in his " Political Economy " quotes 
 a statement made by Professor Jones, in which 
 he said that the Russians, or rather those 
 German writers who have observed the 
 
104 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 manners and habits of Russia supply some 
 remarkable facts : " Two Middlesex mowers/' 
 they say, " will mow in a day as much grass 
 as six Russian serfs, and in spite of the dear- 
 ness of provisions in England and their 
 cheapness in Russia, the mowing of a quan- 
 tity of hay, which would cost the English 
 farmer half a copeck, will cost the Russian 
 proprietor three or four copecks/' The 
 Prussian Councillor of State, Jacobi, is con- 
 sidered to have proved that in Russia, where 
 everything is cheap, the labour of the serf 
 is doubly as expensive as that of the labourer 
 in England. In Austria the labour of a 
 serf is one-third of that of a free hired 
 labourer. 
 
 The miserable pay of the women employed 
 in the manufactories of Russia suggests some 
 observations as to the evils which necessarily 
 arise from subjecting the female population 
 to excessive manual labour. In all the less 
 civilised countries of Europe the women are 
 compelled to share in the manual labours of 
 the men. This practice is in a large degree 
 the cause of that very poverty which it is 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 105 
 
 intended to alleviate. The introduction of 
 so many additional hands into the labour 
 market has a marked effect in diminishing 
 the reward of labour. On the Lemberg and 
 Czernowitz line, in some places, half the 
 people employed were women. They 
 earned i *6o franc a day, and the men from 
 2 to 3 francs a day. 
 
 On the Bukovina line the wages of the 
 men for picking were is. 6d. per day, 
 while the women, who worked only with the 
 shovel, earned about 6d. a day less than the 
 men. The cost of living for a man and his 
 wife and three children in Hungary may be 
 stated approximately at is. a day. In those 
 countries the cost of unskilled labour is small, 
 but the struggle for life is so severe that 
 every child, the moment it can add the 
 smallest fraction to the earnings of the family, 
 is sent into the fields. The sacrifice of these 
 earnings, however scanty, for a few years, 
 for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of 
 a skilled trade, is impossible with a peasantry 
 so destitute ; and the cost of skilled labour 
 is thus disproportionately high, because so 
 
106 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 few persons possess the means of passing 
 through a period of unpaid apprenticeship. 
 
 An apprehension of the military power of 
 Russia, which a certain school of politicians 
 are too ready to entertain, might, perhaps, be 
 changed to pity if they knew the condition of 
 the Russian peasantry, as described by Mr. 
 Michell, and their inability to bear the strain 
 of a long protracted war. Even in peace 
 they are engaged throughout their lives in 
 an exhausting struggle for bare existence. 
 From abject poverty the women are compelled 
 to share unceasingly in the out-door labours 
 of the men. The infant mortality in Russia 
 is appalling. The peasant women of Russia 
 give birth to their offspring under circum- 
 stances equally perilous to the life of the 
 mother and the child. Their confinement 
 takes place in a barn or a stable. They 
 have no medical attendance, and in three 
 days at the utmost they are once more 
 employed in hard field labour. The result 
 of such privation and suffering is that a large 
 proportion of infants die within a week after 
 their birth. The number of males living at 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 107 
 
 the age of five years, in proportion to the 
 total number of the population, is 2o| 
 per cent, less in Russia than in Great 
 Britain, France, and Belgium. The short- 
 ness of the average duration of life in Russia 
 is equally lamentable. In the North- West 
 Provinces, the average limit of life is between 
 twenty-two and twenty -seven. In the Volga 
 basin and South-Eastern Provinces it is 
 twenty years. In Viatka, Perm, and Oren- 
 burg, it is only fifteen years. 
 
 In Great Britain the number of men and 
 women alive between fifty and sixty, out 
 of 1,000, averages 548 ; in Belgium 518 ; in 
 Russia only 265. Hence it may be "inferred 
 what difficulty there would be in recruiting 
 an army in the case of a long-continued and 
 sanguinary war. 
 
 The spectacle of a vast population ex- 
 posed to such privation, must awaken the 
 sympathy of every friend of humanity. 
 There is more reason to pity the hard lot of 
 the Russian people than to fear their military 
 resources. What a cruel mockery it would 
 seem to the millions of Russian peasants, 
 
108 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 whose lot in life is so depressed compared 
 with that of the very humblest of our 
 labourers, if by chance it reached their ears 
 that there were statesmen in England who 
 believed that the most imminent danger of 
 their own more favoured land was the grow- 
 ing power of the Russian Empire ! 
 
 In Russia the day labourer's wages range 
 from 8d. to is. 4^. with food, the cost of 
 which is from 2d. to $d. a day. The average 
 pay of the female labourer is 6\d. a day, with 
 the addition of food. During harvest, the 
 male labourer can command from i^. 4^. to 
 2s. 8d. a day with food ; the female labourer 
 from )\d. to 2s. 8^. a day with food. What 
 is the result of this low-priced labour, as 
 compared with other European countries, in 
 which much higher wages are given ? The 
 yield of crops in Russia is said by Mr. 
 Michell to be less than half the yield obtained 
 in England or Saxony ; and smaller than in 
 any other country in Europe. 
 
 The impossibility of determining the actual 
 cost of labour by the nominal rate of wages 
 
COST OF LABOUR, ETC. 109 
 
 is as fully demonstrated by the experience of 
 the ship owner as by that of the manufacturer. 
 
 The wages of shipwrights and the pay of 
 seamen are much more moderate in France 
 than with us. Yet the cost of building ships 
 is ten per cent, greater in France than in 
 England ; and the wages of a French crew, in 
 consequence of their greater number, involve 
 an expenditure for manning twenty-five per 
 cent, greater than the corresponding expense 
 in an English ship. . I quote these figures 
 from a recent Report by Mr. West. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we compare the cost 
 of manning an American ship, with the cost 
 of manning an English ship, we shall see how 
 our comparatively cheaper labour makes us 
 more prodigal in the use of it. The average 
 proportion of seamen in an English ship is one 
 man to every fifteen tons ; in an American 
 ship, it is one man to every twenty-five tons. 
 
 It is remarkable that the English manufac- 
 turers, who pay a higher rate of wages for 
 the labour they employ than their foreign 
 competitors, can compete most successfully 
 with the rest of the world in point of cheap- 
 
110 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ness of production. English travellers in the 
 East, who have examined the European 
 goods displayed in the bazaars of Beyrout 
 and Damascus, will have been pleased to 
 discover an English stamp on every bale of 
 cotton goods. These fabrics were invariably 
 of the cheapest quality. It is solely by our 
 lower prices that we have secured the 
 monopoly of the Syrian market. 
 
[ III 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL CAPABILITIES OF DIFFERENT 
 NATIONS COMPARED. 
 
 THE examples which have been quoted 
 might be indefinitely multiplied ; but 
 sufficient evidence has, it is presumed, been 
 given, to prove that the English manufacturer 
 has no grave reason to complain of the 
 position which he occupies in regard to the 
 cost of labour in this country. 
 
 The industrial genius of the English work- 
 man, though not in all respects equal to that 
 of our foreign competitors, exhibits so many 
 solid qualities, that there seems to be as little 
 ground for complaint as regards workmanlike 
 abilities as there is to be dissatisfied with the 
 rate to which wages by an ever increasing 
 
112 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 demand on the part of employers have 
 gradually been raised. 
 
 Mr. Kitson, of Leeds, in his evidence 
 before the Select Committee on Scientific 
 Instruction in 1868, stated that in 1864, in 
 consequence of a dispute with the workmen 
 at Leeds, he had engaged several Frenchmen 
 and Belgians. This experiment proved 
 that " the foreign workmen were scarcely as 
 intelligent as our own." " We are not/' he 
 said, " inferior in the manufacture of iron, 
 machinery, and steel, to the foreign iron- 
 masters. The English are equal to the 
 Belgians in the manufacture of iron, and are 
 superior in the manufacture of machinery/' 
 
 At the locomotive building works in Bel- 
 gium the work is rarely executed with the 
 same precision as in England. All the parts 
 of English engines, made from the same pat- 
 tern, are interchangeable. This is not always 
 the case in Belgian engines. Again, the 
 necessity of competition with the foreign trade 
 has somewhat lowered the quality of the 
 Belgian rails, which are occasionally worn out 
 in two years. Previously to the recently 
 
DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED. 113 
 
 restored activity in the iron trade, loud com- 
 plaints were heard of the difficulties arising 
 from foreign competition ; and especial appre- 
 hension was expressed of the danger to 
 British industry from the close competition of 
 the Belgians. 
 
 I nan interesting report on Belgian industry 
 Lord Howard de Walden has remarked that 
 the Belgians exhibit their greatest qualities 
 in the manufacture of arms at Liege. " In all 
 works in sheet iron, for example stoves, the 
 Belgians excel ; but in wrought iron they are 
 behind many other countries. A good lock 
 and key is nowhere to be found. It is 
 cheaper to buy one of English make. A 
 tolerable horse-shoe is nowhere to be seen, 
 nor are the agricultural implements of good 
 quality, and yet in carriage building they 
 have been eminently successful." 
 
 Speaking generally, it may be affirmed 
 that as practical mechanics the English are 
 unsurpassed. The presence of the English 
 engineer, the solitary representative among a 
 crew of foreigners of the mechanical genius 
 of his country, is a familiar recollection to 
 
 i 
 
114 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 all who have travelled much in the steamers 
 of the Mediterranean. Consul Lever, in his 
 report of 1870 from Trieste, says that, in the 
 vast establishment of the Austrian Lloyds at 
 that port, a number of English mechanical 
 engineers are employed, not only in the 
 workshops, but as navigating engineers in 
 the company's fleet. Although there is no 
 difficulty in substituting for these men 
 Germans and Swiss at lower rates of pay- 
 ment, the uniform accuracy of the English, 
 their intelligence, their consummate mastery 
 of all the details of their art, and their re- 
 sources in every case of difficulty have 
 entirely established their superiority. 
 
 The building and working of steamers in- 
 volves expenditure in almost all descriptions 
 of labour the purchase of raw materials of 
 every kind, as well as the most elaborate 
 machinery. 
 
 The statistics relating to shipping exhibit a 
 marvellous increase in our steam merchant 
 navy as compared with the steam-propelled 
 shipping of any other nation. Go into any 
 port of the Baltic or the Mediterranean ; and 
 
DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED. 115 
 
 the heart of every patriotic Englishman will 
 rejoice in the spectacle of our undisputed 
 maritime preponderance. The returns of the 
 traffic through the Suez Canal afford an 
 equally convincing proof of our maritime 
 ascendency in every particular. 
 
 The industrial capabilities of Englishmen 
 are conspicuously shown by their superior 
 skill as miners. Mining is perhaps the most 
 exhausting and laborious of all occupations. 
 It has been found that in this description of 
 work the English miner surpasses the fo- 
 reigner all over the world. On the Continent, 
 long after earthwork and all the other opera- 
 tions involved in the construction of railwavs 
 
 rii 
 
 had been committed to the native workmen, 
 English miners were still employed in the 
 tunnels. A few years ago, in making the 
 railway from Chambery, in Savoy, to the foot 
 of Mont Cenis, Piedmontese were employed in 
 the comparatively easy work of tunnelling 
 in the dry rock ; but Englishmen were still 
 required to conduct the far more difficult 
 operations in the soft and yielding clay sub- 
 ject to a constant influx of water. 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The differences of character and capabili- 
 ties, which tend in such a remarkable degree 
 to establish an equality in the cost of labour 
 in every part of the world, have occupied the 
 attention of many thoughtful and penetrating 
 minds. Mr. John Stuart Mill says that " in- 
 dividuals or nations do not differ so much in 
 the efforts they are able and willing to make 
 under strong immediate incentives, as in their 
 capacity of present exertion for a distant 
 object, and in the thoroughness of their appli- 
 cation, to work on ordinary occasions. This 
 last quality is the principal industrial excel- 
 lence of the English people. This efficiency 
 of labour is connected with their whole cha- 
 racter, with their defects as much as with 
 their good qualities. The majority of Eng- 
 lishmen have no life but in their work that 
 alone stands between them and ennui. The 
 absence of any taste for amusement or enjoy- 
 ment of repose is common to all classes. 
 The effect is that where hard labour is the 
 thing required, there are no better labourers 
 than the English.'" 
 
 In point of manual skill, the French and 
 
DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED. \ I 7 
 
 English are probably equal. In invention 
 the Frenchman may be the cleverer of the 
 two. But in the power of throwing energy 
 into his labour, the Englishman is the better 
 man. I have been told by Mr. Alexander, 
 who has had considerable opportunities of 
 studying the capabilities of French operatives, 
 and who was engaged in superintending the 
 construction of the engines for the short-lived 
 Fell railway over Mgnt Cenis, that if a 
 Frenchman has a good model of a machine, 
 he will make it as well as an English 
 mechanic, but the same number of English 
 workmen will turn out sixteen machines, when 
 an equal number of Frenchmen would make 
 only four. 
 
 It may be gathered from the experience 
 obtained on my father's continental contracts, 
 that, as a general rule, the superiority of 
 English workmen was most conspicuous when 
 they first commenced work in a country in 
 which no railways had been previously con- 
 structed. The inexperience of the French in 
 large engineering works is proved conclu- 
 sively by the fact, that the works on the Paris 
 
1 1 8 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 and Rouen line having been divided into 
 ten separate contracts, for each of which a 
 separate tender was made, in every case the 
 tender of Messrs. Brasseyand Mackenzie was 
 fifty per cent, under the lowest tender of the 
 French contractors. Increased experience 
 enabled the French workmen to earn higher 
 wages, and, on the other hand, closer contact 
 with men of less vigorous habits, in some 
 cases, gradually diminished the energy of the 
 English labourers. But on the whole, 
 wherever the English have been employed 
 on the Continent, they have received much 
 higher pay than their fellow workmen, the 
 natives of the country ; and the difference in 
 the pay has been fully represented by their 
 superior skill and marvellous energy. 
 
 Great pains were taken to ascertain the 
 relative industrial capacity of the English- 
 man and Frenchman on the Paris and Rouen 
 line ; and, on a comparison of half-a-dozen 
 pays, it was found that the capacity of the 
 Englishman to that of the Frenchman was 
 as five to three. 
 
 It would however be a mistake to suppose 
 
DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED. 119 
 
 that the Frenchmen failed to profit by the 
 lessons of experience which they acquired 
 from the temporary introduction of English 
 labour into their country. For ordinary work, 
 Frenchmen soon became almost as efficient 
 as Englishmen, as the following dialogue 
 with Mr. Milroy, a most experienced member 
 of my father's staff, very clearly explains : 
 " Q. In the particular work you have been 
 speaking of, the two great trades employed 
 were masons and carpenters ? " Mr. Milroy : 
 "Yes, I found plenty of good masons and 
 carpenters, in France. The latter are, in my 
 opinion, superior for such works to English 
 carpenters, both in the quality of the work 
 done, and in the price at which they do it. 
 Their tools also are particularly well adapted 
 to the work. This may arise from Paris 
 having been, in a great measure, built of 
 timber, filled in between with small rubble 
 stones and stucco, and then plastered outside. 
 They seemed to have acquired a specialty 
 for that work, and could do it better than any 
 carpenters I have ever seen. What I have 
 stated was proved in 1853, when I went back. 
 
120 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 I then went on to the Caen and Cherbourg 
 line. There was only a sprinkling of English- 
 men then. The agents and sub-contractors, 
 who went out with me, had acquired the 
 language sufficiently, when formerly engaged 
 in France, to carry on their communications 
 with the French workmen without interpre- 
 ters. Upon the Paris and Rouen line we 
 had a large proportion of English labourers, 
 but on the Caen and Cherbourg line a very 
 small proportion ; yet the one line was con- 
 structed quite as cheaply as the other." 
 
 It may be interesting to supplement the 
 experience of the railway contractor, by stat- 
 ing the views of acknowledged authorities 
 who have studied these questions in other 
 spheres of industry. Professor Leone Levi, 
 in a paper on the silk manufacture, remarks 
 that in the processes, the manufacture, and 
 cost of material, the different countries of 
 Europe are on a par. The wages of labour 
 in this manufacture are very low, both in 
 England and in other countries ; and if they 
 are a little higher here than elsewhere, that is 
 probably more than made up by our superior 
 
DIFFERENT NA TIONS COMPARED, l 2 I 
 
 power of productiveness. It is not indeed by 
 starving the labourer, or by employing cheap 
 and inferior labour, that British manufacturers 
 will ever be able to meet competition. On 
 the contrary, the most prominent want in an 
 industry so light and delicate is a higher class 
 of labourer, more educated, more refined in 
 taste, and even more expert in manual 
 dexterity. The prosperous maintenance of 
 the manufactures in any country mainly 
 depends on the natural facilities and advan- 
 tages which the nation may possess for it, 
 and on the energy, aptitude, and skill, dis- 
 played by the manufacturers themselves. It 
 has already been pointed out that we are not 
 so much behind the Continent in practical 
 science as we are in taste. 
 
 In France, according to a report from the 
 Minister of War in 1866, 30 conscripts 
 out of every 100 were unable to read. In 
 1864, 2,271 workmen were employed in 
 the establishment of MM. Dollfus, at Mul- 
 hausen. Of those not more than 1,553 could 
 read and write. Technical education, how- 
 ever, is comparatively unimportant to the 
 
122 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 workman, who has merely to superintend the 
 motion of the machine ; although it is certain 
 that if he were of an inventive turn of mind, 
 he might often suggest valuable improvements. 
 But technical education is essentially neces- 
 sary, and inventive genius is invaluable, in 
 the man who has the superintendence of 100 
 machines. In original conception, English 
 manufacturers do not perhaps possess any 
 advantage over the manufacturers of other 
 countries ; but in the practical development 
 and application of an invention, and in general 
 administrative capability, and especially in the 
 art of economical management, they have 
 shown a real commercial genius which is 
 rarely exhibited abroad. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEAR LABOUR STIMULATES INVENTION. 
 
 OUR successful competition with other 
 countries is maintained in a large 
 degree by our more extensive use of ma- 
 chinery. In truth it is only by these means 
 that our more highly paid artisans are able to 
 hold their own in the industrial contest in 
 which they are engaged. Nor can it be 
 doubted that the dearness of labour must 
 necessarily give a stimulus to inventive 
 genius which, with a cheaper supply of 
 labour, will probably not be developed in the 
 same degree. 
 
 It may be thought that the substitution of 
 machinery for hand labour, and the diminution 
 in the number of hands employed in propor- 
 tion to the quantity of goods produced, is a 
 
124 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 change not altogether beneficial to the in- 
 terests of labour ; but it must be admitted 
 that in manufacturing industry the English 
 could no longer have competed successfully 
 with the Continent unless the cost of produc- 
 tion had been continually reduced by me- 
 chanical contrivances. It cannot be doubted 
 that it was better for the working man that 
 economy should be obtained by improve- 
 ments in mechanism and in methods of work- 
 ing than by constant reductions of wages. 
 
 M. Michel Chevalier truly says that ma- 
 chinery can alone enable dear labour to com- 
 pete with cheap labour, and that England, 
 which makes 57 percent, of the textile fabrics 
 of Europe, owes her superiority entirely to the 
 extensive use of machinery. The economy ob- 
 tained by the introduction of machinery is often 
 very remarkable. In their gallant struggles 
 in the difficult times following the war in 
 America, our manufacturers developed the re- 
 sources of machinery to a greater extent than 
 had ever been attempted before, and they sue- 
 ceeded in making a considerable reduction in 
 the amount of labour employed. The results 
 
DEAR LABO UR STIMULA TES IN VENTION. 
 
 125 
 
 are shown in the subjoined table, taken from 
 a paper read by Mr. Elijah Helm before the 
 Manchester Statistical Society in 1868 : 
 
 Statistics of Factories employed in the three great Textile Manufactures 
 of the United Kingdom in the years 1856, 1861, and 1868. 
 
 COTTON 
 FACTORIES : 
 England & 
 Wales . 
 Scotland . 
 Ireland 
 
 United 
 Kingdom 
 
 WOOLLEN, 
 WORSTED, 
 AND SHODDY 
 FACTORIES : 
 England & 
 Wales . 
 Scotland . 
 Ireland 
 
 United 
 Kingdom 
 
 FLAX, HEMP, 
 AND JUTE 
 FACTORIES : 
 England & 
 Wales . 
 Scotland . 
 Ireland 
 
 United 
 Kingdom 
 
 No. of Factories 
 
 No. of Spinning Spindles 
 
 No. of Power Looms 
 
 No. of Persons 
 Employed 
 
 1856 
 
 186] 
 
 2,715 
 163 
 
 9 
 
 2,887 
 
 1,968 
 201 
 42 
 
 2,211 
 
 143 
 192 
 105 
 
 1868 
 
 1856 
 
 1861 
 
 1868 
 
 1856 
 
 1861 
 
 1868 
 
 1856 
 
 1861 
 
 1868 
 
 2,046 
 152 
 12 
 
 2,210 
 
 1,793 
 204 
 33 
 
 2,405 
 131 
 15 
 
 25,818,576 
 2,041,129 
 150,512 
 
 28,352,125 
 1,915,398 
 119,944 
 
 50,478,228 
 1,597,546 
 124,240 
 
 275,590 
 21,624 
 1,633 
 
 368,125 
 50,110 
 1,757 
 
 544,719 
 31,864 
 2,746 
 
 341,170 
 34,698 
 3,345 
 
 407,598 
 41,237 
 2,734 
 
 557,052 
 59,80 
 4,203 
 
 2.549 
 
 28,010,217 
 
 30,387,467 
 
 52,000,014 
 
 298,847 
 
 599.992 
 
 579,529 
 
 379,213 
 
 451,569 
 
 401,064 
 
 2,211 
 
 207 
 47 
 
 2,465 
 
 155 
 
 169 
 148 
 
 3,798,275 
 293,362 
 19,884 
 
 3,092,576 
 356,131 
 23,274 
 
 6,045,049 
 385,246 
 25,584 
 
 52,535 
 800 
 64 
 
 65,512 
 1,585 
 125 
 
 115,122 
 3,528 
 215 
 
 155,820 
 10,175 
 890 
 
 159,281 
 12,728 
 1,037 
 
 253,555 
 18.1T4 
 "1,547 
 
 2,030 
 
 3,111,521 
 
 3,471,781 
 
 6,455,873 
 
 55,399 
 
 64,818 
 
 118,865 
 
 166,885 
 
 173,046 
 
 255,056 
 
 159 
 168 
 110 
 
 441,759 
 278,304 
 567,980 
 
 545,192 
 312,259 
 594,805 
 
 148,909 
 531,151 
 899,297 
 
 1,987 
 5,011 
 1,691 
 
 2,161 
 8,520 
 4,666 
 
 5,550 
 15,828 
 13,689 
 
 19,787 
 31,722 
 28,753 
 
 20,474 
 39,562 
 33,967 
 
 24,949 
 52,639 
 57,745 
 
 417 
 
 440 
 
 472 
 
 1,288,043 
 
 1,252,256 
 
 1,679,357 
 
 8,689 
 
 15,547 
 
 35,047 
 
 80,262 
 
 94,003 
 
 155,355 
 
 * As given in the return for 1868, the number of persons employed in the Woollen, &c., manufacture 
 in Ireland is 10,555. This is an obvious error, and I have corrected it by estimating the number of per- 
 sons employed, on the basis of the number of spindles and looms given in the return. 
 
 Mr. G. R. Porter, in his " Progress of the 
 Nation," gives a statement from the books 
 of Mr. Thomas Moulds worth, laid before the 
 Committee on Manufactures, which sat in 
 
126 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 1833 ; and he shows in a similar manner 
 the powers of machinery in augmenting 
 the productive powers, as well as the 
 earnings of the operative : 
 
 
 Work turned 
 
 
 
 Prices from 
 
 Quantities which 
 
 
 off by one 
 Spinner per 
 . week 
 
 Wages per week 
 
 
 Greenwich 
 Hospital 
 Records 
 
 a week's riett 
 earnings would 
 purchase 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hours 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 Nos. 
 
 Gross 
 
 Piecers 
 
 Nett 
 
 of work 
 per 
 week 
 
 per 
 
 sack 
 
 Flesh 
 per Ib. 
 
 Lbs. of 
 Flour 
 
 Lbs. of 
 Flesh 
 
 
 
 
 5. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 *. d. 
 
 d. d. 
 
 
 
 1804 
 
 12 
 
 180 
 
 60 o 
 
 27 6 
 
 32 6 
 
 74 
 
 83 o 
 
 6 to 7 
 
 117 
 
 62^ 
 
 ,, 
 
 9 
 
 200 
 
 67 6 
 
 31 o 
 
 36 6 
 
 74 
 
 83 o 
 
 6 to 7 124 
 
 73 
 
 1814 
 
 18 
 
 180 
 
 72 o 
 
 27 6 
 
 44 6 
 
 74 
 
 70 6 
 
 8 175 
 
 67 
 
 
 J 3& 
 
 200 
 
 90 o 
 
 30 o 
 
 60 o 
 
 74 
 
 70 6 
 
 8 239 
 
 90 
 
 1833 
 
 22* 
 
 180 
 
 54 8 
 
 21 
 
 33 8 
 
 69 
 
 45 o 
 
 6 2IO 
 
 67 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 65 3 
 
 22 6 
 
 42 9 
 
 69 
 
 45 o 
 
 6 267 
 
 85 
 
 The development of the productive power 
 of machinery by increasing the proportion of 
 spindles to the number of hands employed is 
 not a novelty of our time. Mr. Porter's work 
 contains the following interesting calculation 
 of the results attained by a former genera- 
 tion of cotton spinners : 
 
 " In the cotton mill of Messrs. Houldsworths 
 in Glasgow, a spinner employed on a mule of 
 3,360 spindles and spinning cotton 120 hanks 
 to the pound, produced, in 1823, working 74^ 
 hours in the week, 46 pounds of yarn, his nett 
 
DEAR LA BO UR ST1MULA TES INVENTION. I 2 7 
 
 weekly earnings for which amounted to 26s. ^d. 
 In 1833, the rate of wages having in the 
 meanwhile been reduced 13^ per cent, and 
 the time of working having been lessened to 
 69 hours, the spinner was enabled by the 
 greater perfection of the machinery to pro- 
 duce, on a mule of the same number of 
 spindles, 52^ pounds of yarn of the same 
 fineness, and his nett weekly earnings were 
 advanced to 29^. iod" 
 
 But a much more considerable economy 
 than this was produced by increasing the 
 size of the mules. Mr. Cowell, in the Sup- 
 plementary Report of the Factory Commis- 
 sioners, gives the following example of the 
 effect on the spinner's earnings: " In the 
 early part of last year a spinner produced 16 
 pounds of yarn of No. 200 from mules of the 
 power of 300 to 324 spindles. Consulting 
 the list of prices, I perceive that in May he 
 was paid 35. 6d. a pound : this gives 54^. for 
 his gross receipts, out of which he had to pay 
 135-. for assistants. This leaves him with 41^. 
 earnings. His mules are now converted into 
 mules of the power of 648 ; he is paid 2s. $d. 
 
128 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 a pound instead of y. 6d. ; but he produces 
 3 2 pounds of yarn of the fineness of 200 hanks 
 to the pound in 69 hours. His gross receipts 
 are immediately raised to 77^. ^d. He 
 requires five assistants to help him ; but 
 deducting 27^. for their pay from his gross 
 receipts, there remains a sum of $os. 4^. for 
 his nett earnings for 69 hours' work, instead 
 of 415-., an increase of more than 20 per cent, 
 while the cost of the yarn is reduced 1 3^. per 
 pound/' 
 
 It is perhaps less easy to substitute 
 machinery for manual labour in engineering 
 work than in any other branch of industry. 
 But even in the construction of railways, 
 labour has been greatly economised. 
 
 In Denmark the cost of constructing rail- 
 ways has been reduced by 35 per cent. This 
 reduction is entirely due to the improved 
 system of working introduced by Mr. Rowan, 
 the engineer, who has represented the firm 
 of Peto, Brassey, and Betts, in their Danish 
 contracts. 
 
 Mr. Ballard, who has had great experience 
 in making railways in England, gives a 
 
DEAR LABOUR STIMULA TES INVENTION, l 29 
 
 similar explanation of the reduction in the 
 cost of making railways. He says that in 
 England, as abroad, contractors can now 
 obtain the co-operation of much more ex- 
 perienced sub-contractors ; and that the intro- 
 duction of the locomotive has made it practi- 
 cable to carry a load of earth to a greater 
 distance for the same money. 
 
 Mr. Wilcox, who has executed important 
 contracts in Australia, in reply to the question 
 as to whether it costs more to make a railway 
 now than it did twenty years ago, replies : 
 " I am of opinion that railways are now made 
 considerably cheaper, though the rate paid 
 for labour has increased to the extent perhaps 
 of fifteen or twenty per cent. Railways are 
 now less costly, owing to the greater skill in 
 construction, and from other appliances being 
 so much employed to do work which was 
 formerly performed only by the labour of men 
 and horses." 
 
 Mr. Nasmyth, in his evidence before the 
 Trades Unions Commissioners, described very 
 graphically how the long strike of 1851 made 
 him anxious to develop to the utmost the use 
 
 K 
 
130 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 of labour-saving machinery. " The great 
 feature/' he said, " of our modern mechanical 
 improvement has been the introduction of 
 self-acting tools. All that a mechanic has to 
 do, and which any lad is able to do, is, not to 
 labour, but to watch the beautiful functions 
 of the machine. All that class of men, who 
 depended upon mere dexterity, are set aside 
 altogether. I had four boys to one mechanic. 
 By these mechanical contrivances I reduced 
 the number of men in my employ, 1,500 
 hands, fully one half. The result was that 
 my profits were much increased." 
 
 With the increased use of machinery 
 labourers can now be employed to make 
 parts of locomotives which formerly could 
 only have been produced by skilled artisans. 
 By these means, in one of the largest loco- 
 motive establishments in England, the cost 
 of manufacturing a first-class engine and 
 tender has been steadily diminished, and the 
 re-manufacture of iron rails which, in 1860, 
 cost 7/. 15^-. od. per ton, was reduced in eight 
 years to 7/. os. zd. per ton. In both cases 
 the old rails were charged at the same price 
 per ton. 
 
DEAR LA BO UR STIMULA TES INVENTION. 1 3 1 
 
 In the opinion of Mr. Charles Manby, the 
 price of locomotives is *]\ per cent, less 
 than it was, having been reduced on the 
 average, say from 2,6oo/. to 2,3OO/. There 
 have been no changes in the rate of wages ; 
 but production is cheaper through the appli- 
 cation of improved machinery. 
 
 Formerly, the furnaces in use in our iron 
 manufacture were constructed with little 
 regard to economy of fuel ; but Mr. Lothian 
 Bell says that, as soon as the cost of fuel 
 increased, our manufacturers adopted the 
 best methods for the purification of the coal, 
 and for its conversion into coke, for the use 
 of waste heat from furnaces in driving ma- 
 chinery and for the use of the best furnace 
 gases, and that 500,000 tons of coal are 
 annually saved by these discoveries in the 
 Cleveland district alone. 
 
 Mr. Buddicom, an English locomotive 
 engineer, who has had thirty years' experi- 
 ence on the Continent, and who was at the 
 head of the Sotteville Works, a large estab- 
 lishment near Rouen, explains how the 
 special difficulties with which they had to 
 
 K2 
 
132 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 contend, have stimulated the ingenuity of 
 French engineers : " Formerly, when I was 
 actively engaged in locomotive building, 
 greater study was given to save the con- 
 sumption of fuel in the workshops in France 
 than in England. Fuel was so expensive, 
 it cost 25^. a ton, that before the drawings of 
 any piece of machinery were completed, the 
 question of the quantity of fuel necessary to 
 be used in producing it was a consideration, 
 and frequently the form or the method of 
 construction originally proposed, underwent 
 an entire modification, with a view to econo- 
 mize coal. I know that at one time my 
 consumption of fuel for the manufacture of 
 an engine did not exceed the cost of the 
 fuel consumed in England ; although the 
 price of fuel in England was about one-third 
 of the amount which we had to pay." 
 
 The following extracts from the evidence 
 of Mr. Hodges, who has had great experi- 
 ence in America, supply further illustrations 
 of the stimulus given to the inventive faculty, 
 by the difficulty arising from the high price 
 of labour and the dearness of raw materials. 
 
DEAR LABOUR STIMULATES INVENTION. 133 
 
 " In America the leading wheels of the loco- 
 motives and all the wheels of the railway 
 carriages are constructed of cast-iron ; but the 
 railway authorities of this country would not 
 sanction the use of cast-iron for those pur- 
 poses. It is doubtful, indeed, whether cast- 
 iron wheels could be obtained in this country 
 of such quality as to endure the wear and 
 tear of railway traffic. In America cast-iron 
 wheels are made of chilled iron, and they 
 are found to answer the purpose admirably. 
 At the commencement of the Grand Trunk 
 Railway of Canada, a large quantity of cast- 
 iron wheels were sent out from England, but 
 it was found that they did not last. Wrought 
 iron wheels were then tried ; but even these 
 would not stand the work for which they 
 were designed." 
 
 " In America the climate presents peculiar 
 difficulties. When the summer weather 
 breaks up there is a month of continuous 
 rain, followed by intensely severe frost. 
 The effect of the changes of weather was to 
 consolidate the sleepers upon which the rails 
 were placed, and to convert the ballast into 
 
134 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 an intensely hard mass, as rigid as the solid 
 rock. When trains pass over a railway in 
 this condition, a very severe jar is necessarily 
 experienced, causing exceptional wear and 
 tear to the rolling stock. The Americans 
 have been able to construct wheels of cast- 
 iron, which will stand this ; while we in 
 England have scarcely been able to produce, 
 even in wrought-iron, wheels which will 
 endure the strain to which they are subjected 
 in America. Again, Americans have dis- 
 played marvellous energy in the construction 
 of all light machinery/' 
 
 " The United States iron-masters have 
 made wonderful strides, and their axles are 
 amazingly strong, they are better than 
 English axles. There is now a large manu- 
 factory at Montreal for axles, and their 
 castings are admirable. Take, for example, 
 such simple things as rainwater pipes. 
 They are beautifully cast. You see them 
 scarcely more than the eighth of an inch thick. 
 We should have them five times as thick." 
 
 " In cast-iron they beat us out of the market. 
 The superior quality of their cast-iron is due 
 
DEAR LA BO UR STIMULA TES INVENTION. 135 
 
 to their great skill in mixing the ores. The 
 extreme cost of labour is the reason why 
 they make these things of cast-iron. " 
 
 " The construction of rolling stock formed 
 a part of the contract for the Grand Trunk 
 Railway, and when the contractors were 
 about to establish workshops for the purpose 
 of constructing carriages and other rolling 
 stock, two clever mechanics were sent 
 through the United States to examine the 
 principal establishments in which similar 
 railway stock was constructed. Although 
 these men represented, as it were, a com- 
 petition in trade, they were extremely well 
 received wherever they went. They were 
 freely supplied with drawings of all the most 
 successful machines, and with every informa- 
 tion necessary to enable them to set up 
 similar apparatus. Every well tried labour- 
 saving machine was introduced into our 
 workshops. In England, in 1853, there 
 were no morticing machines, and no planing 
 machines such as we now see in every well- 
 furnished establishment; but they had all 
 
136 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 those machines in Canada supplied from 
 American manufacturers." 
 
 Mr. Hodges, while speaking in commen- 
 datory terms of the ingenuity displayed by the 
 Americans in the contrivance of all light 
 machinery, is of opinion that in the construc- 
 tion of machinery for undertaking heavy 
 work, England has carried the palm against 
 every other nation. 
 
 Mr. Alfred Field told the Committee on 
 Scientific Education that, in the United States, 
 a workman in the hardware trade earns 
 double the daily wages of an English work- 
 man ; but labour saving appliances have 
 been brought to such perfection that in 
 twenty-five classes of hardware goods, the 
 United States are able to export largely into 
 countries in which the pay of artisans is 
 scarcely a quarter of the wage paid in 
 America. They send their spades, shovels, 
 axes, coopers' tools, and pumps to England ; 
 although raw material and wages are twice 
 as dear in the United States as in England. 
 
 The rates of wages ordered for farm- 
 labourers at the Labour Exchange in San 
 
DEAR LABOUR STIMULA TES INVENTION. 1 3 7 
 
 Francisco, in September 1870, were during 
 the winter season from 5/. to 61. per 
 month and food and lodging found, and 
 from 8/. to 9/. and food and lodging found, 
 during harvest. The wages of operatives in 
 California were still more in advance of the 
 rates paid in other States of the Union. Ob- 
 serve the effect of these extreme prices for 
 labour. " The number of farm labourers 
 required in this state/' says Mr. Booker, " is 
 less in proportion to the land cultivated than 
 in any other part of the Union. It probably 
 does not exceed one hand to 100 acres. 
 Every agricultural operation is performed by 
 machinery. A great deal of soil is light, 
 permitting the use of gang ploughs, and on 
 the lightest lands the seed is distributed by 
 the plough in front of the shares. Nothing 
 more is done until the grain is ready for the 
 sickle, when the reaping machine is used, and 
 the threshing machine follows it." 
 
 The recently published Blue Book on the 
 tenure of land in foreign countries is a com- 
 pilation of immense value, and does honour 
 to the diplomatic service of this country. It 
 
138 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 contains most interesting illustrations of the 
 laws which govern the labour question. I have 
 already, by numerous examples, endeavoured 
 to show that where labour is cheapest, the in- 
 difference to labour-saving machinery is most 
 conspicuous ; and that where labour is dearest 
 it is most effectually economised. These 
 axioms are strikingly illustrated by a com- 
 parison of the agriculture of Russia and 
 Prussia with the agriculture of the United 
 States and of those European countries in 
 which labour is most liberally paid. To give 
 a single example of this contrast of labourers 
 to land in Russia, the proportion is one man 
 to every nJ> acres. In Pennsylvania two 
 men by the year, with two others during the 
 harvest, will do the whole of the work on a 
 farm of 100 acres. 
 
 In the United States the application of 
 labour-saving machinery to agricultural opera- 
 tions is increasing every year. The number 
 of patents issued for agricultural implements 
 was, in 1847, 43 ; in 1863, 390 ; in 1864, 563 ; 
 in 1866, 1,778 ; and in 1867, 1,800. 
 
 A few years ago Mr. McCormack, at 
 
DEAR LABOUR STIMULA TES INVENTION. 1 39 
 
 Chicago, had already made 80,000 reaping 
 machines. 
 
 In spite of the great difference in the rate 
 of wages in favour of the continental pro- 
 ducers, Messrs. Ransom and Sims are, and 
 have long been exporting agricultural imple- 
 ments on a large scale to Russia, Japan, 
 China, Hungary, Austria and Turkey. 
 
 Though in articles of iron we enjoy a 
 pre-eminence over the rest of the world, in 
 machines in which wood is more used the 
 Americans compete with England success- 
 fully. They export a large number of 
 reaping machines to Austria and to England. 
 Wood's grass mower, an American machine, 
 is much used in this country, and their horse- 
 power machines are generally much cheaper 
 than ours. They have an advantage in an 
 abundant supply of cheap wood. But their 
 skill in contriving machines for the purpose 
 of working up wood into articles useful for 
 men has enabled them to overcome the 
 difficulties of high priced labour in competi- 
 tion with other countries in which much 
 lower rates of wages prevail. 
 
140 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 In English agriculture the rise of wages 
 has been considerable. It was recently 
 stated by Mr. C. S. Read, M.P., that " within 
 the last twenty years the remuneration of 
 agricultural labourers had increased about 
 35 per cent. In 1851, in the six counties in 
 which agricultural wages are the lowest, the 
 average was *js. \\d. per week. The wages 
 in Dorsetshire, where the lowest rate is still 
 paid, are now 8s. In the Cots wold they 
 range from los. to 14^., and in Northumber- 
 land from i$s. to 155". Farmers on light 
 arable soils pay a higher rent per acre than 
 they did twenty years ago. Then they paid 
 25^., now it costs them 35^., he did not get 
 off under 405-." 
 
 I have quoted numerous examples to show 
 how much dear labour stimulates invention, 
 and how indifferent men become to the value 
 of mechanical appliance when manual labour 
 is very cheap. 
 
 As an amusing instance of the incapacity 
 of unskilful men in its most exaggerated 
 form, I may mention a case which occurred 
 in Jamaica, on the only railway which has 
 been executed in that Island. The usual 
 
DEAR LABOUR STIMULA TES INVENTION. 1 4 1 
 
 plant required for the construction of the 
 railway had been sent out, and the native 
 labourers were supplied with barrows for the 
 purpose of removing the earth. When these 
 men began to work they were so ignorant of 
 the mechanical advantages to be derived 
 from the use of the barrow, that they placed 
 these vehicles, laden with earth, upon the 
 top of their heads : and it was not without 
 much expostulation that the English foremen 
 were enabled to induce them to try the effect 
 of placing the barrow on a plank, and wheel- 
 ing instead of carrying the load. 
 
 It is by improved methods of husbandry, 
 and by superior machinery alone, that agri- 
 culturists are enabled to pay higher wages 
 and higher rents and yet obtain a moderate 
 return on their capital, and some remunera- 
 tion for their scientific education and personal 
 attention to their business. 
 
 An examination of these remarkable illus- 
 trations of the ingenuity of man, when his 
 powers are developed by difficulties, confirms 
 the opinion already expressed that the pro- 
 ductive powers of the different nations are 
 
142 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 more equal than might have been expected. 
 Dear labour is the great obstacle to the 
 extension of British trade. But we see how 
 the cheap labour at the command of our com- 
 petitors seems to exercise the same enervating 
 influence as the delights of Capua on the 
 soldiers of Hannibal. 
 
[ H3 J 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOURS OF LABOUR. 
 
 I HAVE said that the mere rate of daily 
 wages affords no indication of the cost 
 of executing work. It is equally true that 
 the hours of labour are no criterion of the 
 amount of work performed. In 1842 Messrs. 
 Hornby, at Blackburn, made a calculation that 
 even if their operatives were paid the same 
 sum for working sixty as for working sixty-nine 
 hours per week, the increased cost would be 
 so small, as not to be weighed in the balance 
 against the advantage to the operatives them- 
 selves of a larger amount of leisure. More 
 recently MM. Dollfus of Mulhausen reduced 
 the working hours of their establishment from 
 twelve hours to eleven hours per day, and 
 promised the men that no reduction should 
 
144 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 be made in their wages, if they performed 
 the same quantity of work. After a month 
 had elapsed it was found that the men did, in 
 eleven hours, not only as much work but five 
 per cent, more than they had previously per- 
 formed in a day of twelve hours. 
 
 Miners work on the average twelve hours 
 a day in South Wales and only seven hours 
 in the north of England ; and yet Mr. G. 
 Elliott, M.P., has found that the cost of 
 getting coals in Aberdare is twenty-five per 
 cent, more than it is in Northumberland. 
 
 " In Russia, the peasantry begin to work in 
 summer," says Mr. Michell, " at 2 A.M., when 
 working for themselves, and finish at 9 P.M., 
 with periods of rest equal to two or three 
 hours, leaving from sixteen to seventeen 
 hours' work per day. Persons competent to 
 form an opinion consider that an English 
 farm labourer would do the work of two 
 Russian labourers the latter working six- 
 teen and the former only ten hours/' 
 
 In the foregoing case greater diligence, 
 when at work, has enabled the energetic and 
 laborious Englishman, to do more work in a 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 145 
 
 shorter time than the Russian peasant, with 
 whom he has been compared. Unless there 
 be this superior vigour and industry, a reduc- 
 tion of hours is only an increase of wages in 
 another form. It is possible that the work- 
 man may be justified in demanding such an 
 increase ; and assuming that the profits of 
 trade do justify a rise of wages, there cannot 
 be a more legitimate mode of raising wages 
 than by reducing the working hours. But it 
 must be remembered that trades which can 
 only flourish by successful competition with 
 the foreigner, must, to a certain extent, be 
 regulated with reference to rules established 
 abroad. 
 
 In the United States the usual hours of 
 labour are ten hours a day. In Germany, 
 France, and on the Continent generally, the 
 working hours are longer than with us. The 
 British workman must take care that he does 
 not, by working shorter hours, so increase 
 the cost of production, that competition with 
 foreign industry becomes impossible. 
 
 A reduction in the hours of labour does 
 not necessarily involve a corresponding re- 
 
 L 
 
146 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 duction of work performed. A little more 
 diligence will easily enable a workman to get 
 through as much work in nine hours as in 
 ten hours. 
 
 On railways many opportunities have 
 occurred of ascertaining to what extent the 
 amount of work executed in a day, is 
 regulated by an extension or a reduction in 
 the hours of labour. On the Paris and 
 Rouen line, the Frenchmen were in the 
 habit of coming to work in the summer at 
 five in the morning, and they left off at 
 seven in the evening. The Englishmen 
 never came to work before six, and always 
 left off at half-past five : but the amount of 
 work executed by the Englishmen in the 
 shorter time was much greater than the 
 amount of work executed by the Frenchmen, 
 notwithstanding the longer hours in which 
 they laboured. 
 
 During the construction of the Trent 
 Valley line, immense efforts were made to 
 complete the work in the shortest possible 
 time, and in order to expedite to the utmost 
 degree the completion of the station at 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 147 
 
 Atherstone, two shifts of men were employed 
 on the building, each of them working eight 
 hours a day. It was found that each shift, 
 although working for only eight hours, did 
 more work in a day than other men em- 
 ployed for the full number of hours which at 
 that time constituted a day's work, viz. ten 
 hours per day. 
 
 A very recent illustration of the increased 
 diligence with which men are wont to labour 
 when their hours of work are reduced, has 
 been brought to my knowledge by Mr. 
 Biddle, the manager of the large establish- 
 ment of Messrs. Ransome and Sims at 
 Ipswich in which 1,200 artisans are em- 
 ployed. 
 
 On January 2 of the present year, the 
 hours of work were reduced from 58 J hours 
 to 54 hours a week. But the men working 
 the engineer's tools have so successfully 
 striven to protect themselves against the 
 risk of diminution of wages from the nine 
 hours' movement when employed in doing 
 piece work, that the power required to work 
 
 L 2 
 
148 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the tools has actually been increased from 
 twelve to fifteen per cent. 
 
 With regard to vice work, all of which is 
 done by hand, the operatives execute quite as 
 much as in the previous longer hours. 
 
 In the blacksmiths' shop, where there is a 
 great variety of work, the men are in every 
 case making equally good wages on the old 
 piece-work prices. The same remark applies 
 to the iron moulders. 
 
 Turning from these significant facts to the 
 general question of the combination of human 
 labour with machine power, it will not be 
 denied that it is impossible for the human 
 machine to keep pace with machinery made 
 of brass and iron. But why should not a 
 machine, which never tires, be tended by two 
 or three artisans, relieving each other, as one 
 watch relieves another on board ship ? In 
 driving the machinery of steam ships it has 
 been found necessary, on all long voyages, to 
 have three sets of engineers and firemen. 
 Why should not the day be divided into 
 three periods of eight hours, or the working 
 day be extended to sixteen hours two sets 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 149 
 
 of men being employed ? The change arising 
 from the increasing use of machinery seems 
 to render corresponding modifications in the 
 application of labour to industrial production 
 essential. 
 
 I am aware that my solution of the diffi- 
 culty is not universally, nor perhaps gene- 
 rally, approved by practical men. The fol- 
 lowing remarks by Mr. Alexander, whose 
 name has been already mentioned, very for- 
 cibly and clearly set forth the arguments of 
 those who are opposed to a change in the 
 present system. " With reference to increasing 
 the productive power of plant by working it 
 on the 'relay' system, there are two sug- 
 gestions, which may be offered in support of 
 the idea that such a scheme will not prove 
 so remunerative as might be anticipated. In 
 the first place, it is unnatural. It is true that 
 our systems have changed greatly since the 
 ' good old times ' when we were told that 
 ' the night cometh when no man can work/ 
 But still the fact remains that up till now 
 men love the daylight rather than darkness, 
 and moreover require (a fact to be noted by 
 
150 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the political economist) considerably increased 
 wages when on night shifts than when on 
 day duty." 
 
 " The amount varies from twenty-five to 
 fifty per cent, in excess of the ordinary wages. 
 A very serious addition ; and this must 
 therefore be set against any advantage 
 gained by the more continuous application of 
 fixed capital to the powers of machinery. 
 Again, I have found practically that the 
 system is not conducive to economical main- 
 tenance of machinery. A good workman 
 comes to like shall I say love the machine 
 which seems to share his labour. A work- 
 man in comfortable circumstances and no 
 true workman should be otherwise learns 
 to appreciate the merits of the machine 
 entrusted to his care ; and I have heard him 
 bewail the short-sighted policy of its owner 
 who stinted it in needful repairs, or insisted 
 on administering cheaper and inferior oil, 
 with the same kind of pathetic sorrow with 
 which we may hear a mother regretting her 
 inability to procure suitable medicine for an 
 ailing child. Now this kindly and excellent 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 151 
 
 feeling based on admiration and support to 
 something dependent, is completely broken 
 down by handing over special machines to 
 the care of several people. No doubt it has 
 been and must be done in certain cases. 
 On the Metropolitan and North London 
 Railways, for instance, where ' omnibus ' 
 trains run at short intervals continued for a 
 number of hours, no other plan so economical 
 could probably be adopted. But I speak 
 from experience when I say, generally, that 
 engineering machines entrusted to different 
 workmen are not nearly so well kept as 
 when each has his machine under his peculiar 
 care, and that ' break-downs ' and damage 
 are much more frequent. Indeed, unless 
 there be a minute inspection at each change 
 which is nearly impracticable in a large 
 establishment it becomes very difficult to 
 fix the responsibility for the deterioration 
 which occurs upon any one in particular." I 
 know my correspondent to be a practical man, 
 and I am moved by the eloquence of his 
 appeal ; but in deciding these disputed ques- 
 tions impartiality is essential, in order to 
 
152 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 form a sound opinion ; and I am therefore 
 disposed to adhere to my own suggestion in 
 favour of the system of relays of mechanics 
 to tend machinery. There are difficulties in 
 every system, but the relay system seems the 
 best way of applying the exhaustible powers 
 of man to the inexhaustible machine. 
 
 The leisure which they enjoy is the 
 highest privilege of the wealthy. The want 
 of opportunity for thought and cultivation is 
 the greatest privation of those who are com- 
 pelled to pass the greater portion of their 
 lives in manual or in mental toil. In the 
 eloquent language of M. Jules Simon, in his 
 essay on Labour : " Cette condition parait 
 assez dure. Ce n'est pas a cause du travail, 
 dont personne ne se plaint, ni a cause de la 
 privation du superflu ; c'est parce que dans 
 une vie ainsi faite il ne reste pas de place 
 pour Fetude, pour la possession de soi-meme. 
 Ce besoin d'etudier et de penser n'existe 
 pas partout, meme en France. II faut pour 
 Teprouver une certaine elevation de senti- 
 ment, autrefois rare, aujourd'hui presque 
 universelle, au moins dans les grands centres 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 153 
 
 de population. A quoi tient ce changement ? 
 Au progres general, aux merveilles scienti- 
 fiques accomplies chaque jour sous les yeux 
 de la foule, a 1'augmentation de bien-etre 
 resultant de 1'augmentation du nombre des 
 produits manufactures, a une instruction plus 
 etendue et plus repandue, a Torgueil legitime 
 inspire par les souvenirs de la Revolution et 
 par la possession des droits politiques/ 
 
 The demand for a larger share in the 
 intellectual enjoyments of life is a necessary 
 result of the diffusion of education among the 
 masses of the people. But the workmen 
 must recognise the necessity of developing to 
 the utmost their energy and their skill, in 
 order to justify a demand for diminished 
 hours of labour in an industry in which the 
 profits of the employers are already so 
 moderate that they cannot be further reduced 
 without altogether preventing the investment 
 of the capital in the business. 
 
[ 154 ] 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. 
 
 I WILL next proceed to examine the 
 statements, widely circulated and 
 largely accepted by the public, to the effect 
 that there has been a greater advance in the 
 wages of operatives in recent years in 
 England than in the corresponding period 
 abroad. If it were true that the workmen in 
 union possessed a great power which they 
 could not exercise without the aid of their 
 trade combinations, the development of these 
 societies would become a question of the 
 utmost gravity to the commercial interests of 
 the country. I have, therefore, thought it 
 most important to ascertain how far the 
 statements which have gained credence are 
 
RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. 155 
 
 justified by facts. For the purpose of eluci- 
 dating this portion of the subject under dis- 
 cussion, I have obtained tabulative state- 
 ments extending over the last sixteen years, 
 and showing the comparative rate of wages 
 in several important manufacturing establish- 
 ments in this country, in which many of the 
 workmen employed belonged to the much 
 dreaded Trades Unions. Full and accurate 
 information on the actual rate and progres- 
 sive increase of wages abroad, where Trades 
 Unions until very recently did not exist, is 
 contained in the valuable Reports on these 
 subjects which were specially made to Lord 
 Stanley by the Secretaries of Embassy and 
 Legation. I will begin by stating how the 
 case stands as regards the engineering trade 
 in England. In this trade since 1852, there 
 has been no augmentation until quite recently 
 in the wages earned by the operatives. The 
 reason is obvious. The rate of wages in 
 England is limited by the necessity of com- 
 petition with the foreign manufacturers. 
 Employers in England, as elsewhere, only 
 employ labour on the assumption that they 
 
156 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 can realize a profit by their business ; and in 
 the engineering trade, in consequence of the 
 impossibility of increasing the cost of pro- 
 duction without losing our trade in the 
 neutral markets, it has not until lately been 
 possible to make an advance of wages. On 
 the other hand, the active competition between 
 the numerous body of manufacturers in the 
 country has reduced profits to a rate so 
 moderate that, if it were to be further re- 
 duced, the trade would no longer offer any 
 inducement for the investment of capital. I 
 give in a tabular form a statement of the 
 wages at the Canada Works at Birkenhead, 
 since the formation of that establishment. 
 
 The average number of hands on the 
 books is 600 ; a sufficient number to afford 
 a fair opportunity of testing the average 
 wages in the mechanical trades throughout 
 the country. It will be seen, on examination 
 of the table, that there has been no appreci- 
 able improvement in the rates of pay in 
 recent years. 
 
RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. 
 
 157 
 
 Average Rates of Wages Paid to Skilled Workmen at the Canada 
 Works, Birkenhead. 
 
 
 1854 
 
 1855 
 
 1856 
 
 1857 
 
 1858 
 
 1859 
 
 1860 
 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 
 18641x865 
 
 1866 
 
 1867 
 
 1868 
 
 1869 
 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 *. d\s. d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s. d\s. d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s.d. 
 
 Fitters. . . 
 
 29 o 
 
 28 3 
 
 29 0,30 6 
 
 2810 
 
 27 6 
 
 27 6 27 o 
 
 2710 
 
 28 028 '28 i 
 
 31 o 
 
 32 6 
 
 31 o 
 
 30 o 
 
 Turners . . 
 
 29 4 
 
 30 331 3 
 
 33 o 
 
 31 6 
 
 31 o 
 
 3 2 o 
 
 31 6 
 
 32 o 
 
 31 6j 3 i 6 
 
 3i 53i 6 
 
 31 o 
 
 30 o 
 
 29 4 
 
 Coppersmiths 
 & Braziers 
 Grinders . 
 
 3' 6 
 27 o 
 
 30 10 
 27 o 
 
 28 10*29 o 
 27 024 o 
 
 28 o 
 24 o 
 
 30 031 o 
 
 22 026 
 
 29 6 
 256 
 
 28 628 1131 6 
 27 027 6,27 6 
 
 3i 7 
 32 o 
 
 32 6 
 28 6 
 
 32 o 
 
 32 o 
 
 32 o 
 26 6 
 
 30 9 
 23 o 
 
 Smiths . . . 
 
 31 o 
 
 3i 5 
 
 32 o 
 
 3io 
 
 30 o 
 
 29 6 30 3 
 
 30 0129 6 
 
 31 030 6 
 
 30 3 
 
 3i 9 
 
 32 9 
 
 31 6 
 
 30 o 
 
 Boiler Smiths. 
 
 34 o 
 
 34 o 
 
 35 o|34 o 
 
 32 6 
 
 33 033 8 
 
 33 0(32 6 
 
 33 033 o 
 
 346 
 
 36 o 
 
 37 o 
 
 360 
 
 36 o 
 
 Bricklayers . 
 Saddlers and 
 Belt Makers 
 
 34 o 
 26 o 
 
 34 o 
 27 o 
 
 34 0.34 o 
 26 026 o 
 
 34 o 
 27 o 
 
 340 
 26 o 
 
 34 o 
 27 o 
 
 34 0|34 034 o 
 
 27 027 OJ27 
 
 340 
 270 
 
 34 o 
 25 6 
 
 34 o 
 24 o 
 
 34 o 
 24 o 
 
 34 o 
 
 25 o 
 
 34 o 
 26 o 
 
 Forgemen . . 
 
 366 
 
 37 
 
 36 o 
 
 336 
 
 
 
 
 
 33 o 
 
 36 035 6| 3 5 o 
 
 346 
 
 33 o 
 
 32 9 
 
 33 o 
 
 326 
 
 326 
 
 Painters . . 
 
 24 o 
 
 23 o 
 
 24 o 
 
 26 o 
 
 26 6 
 
 25 o 
 
 27 o 
 
 26 025 6 
 
 25 6 
 
 25 8 
 
 26 6 
 
 27 6 
 
 24 6 
 
 24 o 
 
 23 o 
 
 Moulders . . 
 Joiners and 
 Pattern mkrs 
 
 32 o 
 28 o 
 
 31 6 
 28 6 
 
 33 033 o 
 
 29 028 2 
 
 32 o 
 27 6 
 
 31 6 
 29 o 
 
 31 6 
 29 6 
 
 32 632 032 6 
 30 0,29 6 29 6 
 
 33 o 
 29 o 
 
 33 o 
 30 o 
 
 329 
 306 
 
 346 
 3i 4 
 
 34 2 
 30 9 
 
 31 6 
 30 o 
 
 Boilermakers. 
 
 31 6 
 
 31 030 6 
 
 326 
 
 30 030 6 
 
 31 o 
 
 31 631 oJ3i 6 
 
 3i 3 
 
 3i 9 
 
 34 2|33 o 
 
 32 o 
 
 32 o 
 
 Again, the experience of the same estab- 
 lishment is equally conclusive in proof of the 
 opinion that the rate of wages is regulated 
 of necessity by the ratio between the supply 
 of labour and the demand ; and that when 
 the supply exceeds the demand, wages must 
 inevitably fall, if the depression in trade is 
 long protracted. During the contraction of 
 trade consequent upon the late financial 
 crisis, the price of piece-work had been 
 reduced at the Canada Works sufficiently to 
 allow of the construction of locomotives and 
 bridge work at a cheaper rate than at any 
 
158 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 time during the last fifteen years ; thus fully 
 confirming the opinion that Trades Unions 
 can never succeed in advancing wages, except 
 when the prospects of trade are favourable. 
 
 On the other hand, the advanced rate of 
 wages abroad proves that, through the de- 
 velopement of manufacturing industry, the 
 wages of the working classes have risen 
 more rapidly than in any branch of industry 
 in this country. The rise of wages abroad 
 is mainly caused by increased demand for 
 labour ; but it is partly due to the augmented 
 cost of living. 
 
 In France, Belgium, and Prussia, the three 
 great competing countries with England, 
 prices are from twenty to thirty per cent, 
 dearer than twenty years ago ; and this in- 
 crease in the cost of living tells immediately 
 upon the price of all labour, especially of 
 common or unskilled labour. In France, 
 twenty years ago, labourers were content to 
 work for is. 6d. a day. At the present time, 
 from 2^. zd. to 2s. ^d. is the ordinary rate of 
 pay. Mr. Fane says, in his report to Lord 
 Stanley, that " the general rate of money 
 
RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. 159 
 
 wages in France has increased about forty 
 per cent, in the last fifteen years, in those 
 industries which compete with foreigners in 
 the neutral markets. This rise in the money 
 wages has been accompanied by a consider- 
 able rise in the price of food and clothing ; 
 still, the relative proportions in which money 
 wages and the price of commodities have 
 risen, leave a margin in favour of the former." 
 
 Mr. Wells attributes the rise in the price 
 of agricultural labour in France and Germany 
 to the drain which is constantly taking place 
 from the rural districts into the towns. The 
 increase of manufacturing industry has caused 
 much embarrassment to agriculture, and a 
 further supply of labour from the same source 
 can only be obtained by the payment of 
 higher wages. 
 
 There cannot be a doubt that the same 
 observation is equally applicable to Warwick- 
 shire at the present time. 
 
 In the famous engine building establish- 
 ment at Creuzot, founded by the father of 
 Mr. Charles Manby, 10,000 persons are now 
 employed, and the annual expenditure in 
 
l6o WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 wages amounts to 4oo,ooo/. Mechanics were 
 paid, when the establishment was first created, 
 at the rate of 2\ francs a day. At the 
 present time none receive less than 5 francs 
 a day. Between 1850 and 1866, the mean 
 rate advanced from 2s. to 2s. nd. per head, 
 or thirty-eight per cent., and some men earned 
 from 6s. 8d. to 8s. \d. per day. In addition 
 to their money wages, great facilities are 
 given to the workpeople, at the expense of 
 the proprietors, for feeding, clothing, and 
 educating themselves and their families : 700 
 families of the operatives are lodged by the 
 company at fifty per cent, below the normal 
 rate of house rent, and 700 gardens are let 
 at the nominal rent of 2 francs per annum. 
 Compare what has occurred in this country 
 with what has taken place at MM. Schneider's, 
 at Creuzot, and it will be clearly proved, as I 
 think, how small is the power of a Trades 
 Union in comparison with the natural effects 
 of an increasing trade and increasing compe- 
 tition among masters for the supply of labour. 
 At MM. Schneider's, without the assistance 
 of a Trades Union, the working people 
 
RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. i6l 
 
 have obtained, during the last seventeen 
 years, an augmentation of wage of thirty- 
 eight per cent. In England, in the corres- 
 ponding period, the most powerful of all the 
 Trade Societies, with an accumulated fund 
 of I49,ooo/., has found it impossible to secure 
 any increase in the earnings of its members. 
 
 I shall next refer to the case xjf the tailoring 
 trades. At the military clothing establish- 
 ment of M. Dusautoy, in Paris, there are 
 3,300 persons employed, 800 of them being 
 men, 2,000 women, and 500 children. The 
 amount of wages paid in 1866 amounted to 
 ioo,ooo/. in the year. The daily wages for 
 men ranged from y. \d. to 8s. 4^. ; while in 
 London the rate is stated by Professor Levi, 
 in his essay on the wages and earnings of the 
 working classes, to be from 4^. to js. At 
 M. Dusautoy's, women earn from 2\ to 4 
 francs a day. In London the wages of girls 
 are is., and of women employed as seam- 
 stresses from 2s. to 2s. 6d. a day. The 
 children at M. Dusautoy's earn from i to 2 
 francs a day. In London their wages would 
 be about is. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 In France machine tools are made to the 
 value of 2,000,000 of francs annually ; but, 
 though the raw materials used are much 
 cheaper since the negotiation of the Treaty 
 of Commerce with this country, the selling 
 price continues the same, owing to the 
 increasing dearness of labour. 
 
 In Italy since i8bi wages have risen con- 
 siderably, in some trades to the extent of 
 thirty to fifty per cent. It has been stated 
 that in Sicily, since 1860, the pay of the work- 
 ing classes has doubled. A field labourer in 
 that island now earns from is. 4^. to 2s. %d. 
 a day. In Lower Silesia the rates of wages 
 have doubled generally within the memory of 
 the older workmen. At the great zinc works 
 known as the Vielle Montagne near Liege, 
 where 6,500 hands are employed, in twelve 
 years the wages have increased forty-five 
 per cent. It is therefore clear that the 
 difficulties of the labour question are likely 
 to be felt quite as severely on the Continent 
 as in this country, and that they will here- 
 after increase in proportion to the increase of 
 continental production. 
 
RISE OF WAGES ABROAD. 163 
 
 Wages in England would have risen to a far 
 higher scale than has hitherto been reached ; 
 unless the enlightened policy of free trade 
 had been adopted, and the improved com- 
 munications both by sea and land had given 
 increased facilities for the importation of cattle 
 and other supplies from distant countries. 
 A perusal of the following statement of the 
 prices of provisions in the rural districts of 
 Staffordshire will show how much has been 
 accomplished by our liberal fiscal policy in 
 reducing the cost of the necessaries of life. 
 
 The question of rent is inferior only in its 
 importance to the domestic economy of the 
 working man to the price of food. Owing to 
 the great rise in rents and the increased 
 burdens of taxation in London during the 
 last twenty years, an advance of wages was 
 inevitable. The working classes have been 
 subjected to most serious inconvenience by 
 the demolition of whole suburbs by railway 
 companies. 
 
 In a debate in the House of Lords on the 
 Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Bill, Lord 
 Chelmsford said that the poorer descriptions 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Statement of Prices of Provisions (Retail), extracted from the Books 
 
 1 
 
 1849 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 1854 
 
 1855 I8 5 6 
 
 1857 
 
 1858 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 &s.d. 
 
 &s.d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 *. d. 
 
 &s.d. 
 
 *.< 
 
 &s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 j. d. 
 
 Flour per sack 
 
 i ii 6 
 
 i 7 o 
 
 i 8 o 
 
 I IO O 
 
 i 15 6 
 
 226 
 
 250 
 
 226 
 
 i 18 6 
 
 i 10 6 
 
 Cheese per Ib. 
 
 o 004 
 
 o o 64 
 
 o o 64 
 
 006 
 
 o o 64 
 
 007 
 
 007 
 
 008 
 
 009 
 
 008 
 
 Bacon ditto 
 
 008 
 
 o o 7& 
 
 0080 0750 08 
 
 007 
 
 008 
 
 o o 84 
 
 009 
 
 008 
 
 Tea ditto . . 
 'Coffee ditto 
 
 050 
 
 050 
 
 500 So 
 
 050 
 
 050 
 
 050 
 
 050 
 
 050 
 
 048 
 
 Sugar ditto . 
 Candles ditto . 
 
 o o si 
 006 
 
 oo si 
 o o si 
 
 osi 
 
 005 
 005 
 
 005 
 o o 6J 
 
 005 
 o o 74 
 
 005 
 
 o o 7i 
 
 005 
 
 o o64 
 o o 7 4 
 
 006 
 007 
 
 Soap ditto . . 
 
 o o si 
 
 006 
 
 o si 
 
 o o si 
 
 005 
 
 005 005 
 
 o o 44 
 
 o o 44 
 
 o o 44 
 
 Beef ditto 
 
 007 
 
 006 
 
 o 6 
 
 006 
 
 007 
 
 007 o o 74 
 
 o o 74 
 
 o o 74 
 
 1\ 
 
 Mutton ditto . 
 
 o o 6i 
 
 006 
 
 o 6 
 
 006 
 
 007 
 
 o o 7 'o o 7^ 
 
 o o 7! 
 
 o o 74 b o 7 
 
 'Bread ditto 
 
 l 
 
 o o rj 
 
 OlJ 
 
 o o ii 
 
 l4'o 2^0 Z\ 
 
 002^ 
 
 o o if o o ij 
 
 of property in London were daily increasing 
 in value, and he referred, among other evi- 
 dence, to the report of the Rev. Mr. Andrews, 
 Incumbent of St. Luke's, King's Cross, in 
 which it was stated that the Midland Company 
 had demolished 275 houses in his parish, and 
 that the population had been reduced from 
 8,050 to 3,800. In Old St. Pancras 750 
 houses had been pulled down and 1,800 
 persons ejected. The rents in that neighbour- 
 hood had risen in consequence twenty per 
 cent. On the site selected for the Law 
 Courts 206 houses, containing 1,120 families, 
 had been demolished. 
 
 I am informed by Sir Sydney Waterlow, 
 that in London working men, earning from 
 
RISE OF. WAGES ABROAD. 
 
 165 
 
 of Mr. George Dix, Grocer and General 'Dealer, May 26, 1869. 
 
 i859 
 
 1860 
 
 1861 
 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 
 1864 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 867 
 
 1868 
 
 1869 
 
 &s.d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 ft A -A 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 * d 
 
 &s.d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 196 
 
 i 14 o 
 
 i 16 6 
 
 i 16 o 
 
 I 10 
 
 i 8 o 
 
 I IO O 
 
 i 14 6 
 
 206 
 
 230 
 
 2 15 
 
 o ?i 
 
 
 o o 8i 
 
 o o 74 
 
 1\ 
 
 008 
 
 o o 84 
 
 O O IO 
 
 009 
 
 o o 74 
 
 o 084 
 
 008 
 
 o o 84 
 
 009 
 
 o 080 08 
 
 008 
 
 009 
 
 009 
 
 o 8 
 
 o o 8i 
 
 10 
 
 046 
 
 o 46 
 
 046 
 
 
 03 8 
 
 o 38 
 
 o 3 8 
 
 36 
 
 036 
 
 036 
 
 005] 
 
 o o 54 
 
 o o s4o o 5^ 
 
 005 
 
 005 
 
 005 
 
 005 
 
 o 44 
 
 o o 44 
 
 014 
 
 o o 44 
 
 007 
 004' 
 007 
 
 o o 7j;o o 7^0 o 64 o 06 
 o o 44 o o 44 o o 44 o o 4^ 
 o 0740 0740 08 o 07^ 
 
 o o 6^0 06 
 o o 44 o 04? 
 o o 74 o 08: 
 
 006; 
 o o 4] 
 008 
 
 o o 6i 
 004} 
 007^ 
 
 o o 6^ 
 1 4- 
 007^ 
 
 o o 44 
 o 044 
 o 08^ 
 
 007^ 
 o o ij 
 
 o o 74 o o 74 o o 74 o 071 
 
 |O O if O O l4 O O if O O I; 
 
 r O O 8 O 08 
 
 po o ijo 01^ 
 
 o o 84 
 
 001; 
 
 0074 
 
 002 
 
 o o'7 
 
 002^ 
 
 o 09 
 ro oif 
 
 to 40^. per week, pay on the average one 
 day's wages in rent; that below 255-. per 
 week, this proportion is rather more than 
 less ; and that the increase in the latter case, 
 during the last twenty years, has ranged from 
 twenty to thirty per cent., chiefly owing to 
 the augmented local taxation which, in the 
 case of the labouring classes, is now not less, 
 on the average, than one-fifth of their rent. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE COMMERCIAL PROGRESS 
 OF NATIONS. 
 
 THE relative progress of the export 
 trade is the most reliable standard by 
 which the cost of production in different 
 countries may be compared. If we apply 
 this test to our own case, we shall find no 
 reason to complain of the measure of success 
 which has attended British enterprise in 
 competition with foreign industry. 
 
 In the long period of depression which 
 followed upon the panic of 1866, we were 
 told by many who doubted the recuperative 
 powers of English industry, that we should 
 never again recover our former prosperity; 
 and that foreign competitors had driven us 
 from the field never to return again. The 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 6 7 
 
 marvellous commercial activity of the last 
 years must have dispelled these misgivings, 
 and should make our toiling millions and 
 their employers grateful for the measure of 
 success which has attended British enterprise, 
 in competition with foreign industry. While 
 the more recent revival of our trade must be 
 admitted to be highly satisfactory ; yet when 
 we look back upon the commercial success of 
 England through an extended cycle of years, 
 the growth of our trade becomes still more 
 remarkable. In 1800, according to a calcula- 
 tion by M. Chemin Dupontes, the entire 
 exports of the Western nations, including the 
 United States, to and from the East, amounted 
 in value to 1 6,000, ooo/. sterling, while the 
 total value of the trade between the West and 
 East in 1860 amounted to 1 1 2,000, ooo/. sterl- 
 ing ; and this large sum was again increased 
 in 1866 to i6i,ooo,ooo/. sterling, the increase 
 being in round numbers 49,000,000^ The 
 whole of the recent gain has been secured by 
 Great Britain ; and if a comparison be made 
 between England and France for the entire 
 period, it appears that, while in the last sixty 
 
1 68 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 years the trade of England to the East has 
 increased tenfold, that of France has not even 
 doubled. 
 
 The recent valuable work of Professor 
 Leone Levi furnishes conclusive evidences of 
 the growth of our commercial prosperity. 
 The superiority of England over every com- 
 petitor in the industrial field is sufficiently 
 proved by the proportion of our exports per 
 head of the population. In England the rate 
 is 61. $s. 2ci., while in France it is only 
 2 1. 1 8s. $d., and in Italy i/. 4^. %d. 
 
 The general result of the progress of 
 British commerce is summarised in the follow- 
 ing recital of the principal achievements of 
 the past century : 
 
 In 1763 the population probably was 
 10,000,000. In 1870 it was 31,000,000, 
 showing an increase of 326 per cent. But if 
 the population has increased three times, the 
 imports have increased thirty times, namely, 
 from io,ooo,ooo/. to 303,000,000^ ; the 
 exports nearly twenty times, namely, from 
 I3,ooo,ooo/. to 244,000,000^ ; the navigation 
 of ports fifteen times, namely, from 1,500,000 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NATIONS \ 169 
 
 tons to 36,000,000 tons ; and the shipping 
 belonging to the kingdom fourteen times, 
 namely, from 550,000 tons to 7,100,000 tons. 
 The whole trade of the kingdom actually 
 doubled itself during the last fifteen years, 
 having grown from 2 60, ooo, ooo/. in 1855, 
 to 547,000, ooo/. in 1870. 
 
 The sum invested in railways in 1845 was 
 S8,ooo,ooo/. In 1870 the capital embarked 
 amounted to 5 30,000, ooo/. The increase 
 most fully demonstrates the growth of capital, 
 the vastness of our accumulations, and the 
 extent of our industrial resources. 
 
 During the last panic, ship-building on the 
 Thames was almost entirely discontinued. 
 The high wage paid to shipwrights in 
 London was assigned as the reason for the 
 decay of their industry, and it was affirmed 
 that our ship-builders were no longer able to 
 build vessels as cheaply as their competitors 
 abroad. I have spared no pains to test the 
 value of these assertions, that were too readily 
 believed by the credulous public ; and the 
 following statement embraces the more 
 important results of the enquiry. 
 
170 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The fleet of the Austrian Lloyd's Company 
 contained 68,450 tons of shipping. Of this 
 total 17,705 tons were built at Trieste, 3,300 
 at Stettin, 1,420 at New York, 33,110 at 
 Glasgow, 7,170 in London, 2,580 at New- 
 castle, 1,240 at Bristol, and 1,050 at Liver- 
 pool. Thus in round figures there were 
 44,000 tons of British-built shipping, out of 
 an entire fleet of 68,450 tons. In Italy there 
 were four companies receiving subsidies from 
 the State for carrying the mails. The total 
 tonnage of the vessels belonging to the four 
 companies was 35,089 tons. Two vessels of 
 the combined tonnage of 1,150 tons were 
 built at Marseilles, while all the other steam- 
 ers were constructed in England. 
 
 The principal line of steamers subsidised 
 by the Egyptian Government, the Azizieh 
 Line had (i.e. at the date of my enquiry two 
 years ago) a fleet consisting of 31,249 tons of 
 shipping. Of this total, one ship of 2,617 
 tons was built in Austria, one of 750 tons in 
 Holland, one of 300 tons in Antwerp ; while 
 all the other ships were built in England. 
 
 In the port of Marseilles there were nume- 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 7 1 
 
 rous merchant steamers not subsidised by 
 the Government. Of the total tonnage, 
 20,290 tons were built in England, and only 
 16,467 tons in France. 
 
 The fleet of the Messageries Imperiales 
 possessed 50,547 tons of shipping. Since 1864 
 no steamers had been built in England. Re- 
 strictions were imposed, as the condition of 
 granting an increased subsidy, which com- 
 pelled the company to build all their ships in 
 France ; but the fleet of the Messageries Im- 
 periales still contains 10,420 tons of English- 
 built shipping. 
 
 The Compagnie Transatlantique was not 
 at its first foundation precluded from purchas- 
 ing steamers abroad. Of their entire fleet, 
 consisting of twenty-four ships, fifteen were 
 built in England. 
 
 The British Indian Steam Navigation 
 Company, although an English Company, had 
 invited tenders from all the principal ship- 
 builders abroad, and they invariably went to 
 the cheapest market. The total tonnage of 
 their ships was 21,759 tons. All were built in 
 England, and all, with one exception, in the 
 
I 72 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Clyde. The Netherlands India Company, a 
 perfectly neutral company, and wholly free 
 from British proclivities, had a fleet of 7,875 
 tons, but only two small vessels of that fleet 
 were built in Holland. The remainder were 
 from the Clyde. The line of steamers running 
 from Hamburgh to New York included eleven 
 vessels of a total tonnage of 22,000 tons. All 
 but the Allemannia were built by Mr. Caird. 
 
 The fleet of the North German Lloyd's 
 Company, composed of thirteen vessels of 
 26,000 tons, was constructed entirely by Mr. 
 Caird. 
 
 At Bordeaux, of the unsubsidised foreign 
 going steamers, four were trading to Rot- 
 terdam and two to Amsterdam, under the 
 Dutch flag ; and nine vessels were trading to 
 Hamburgh and Havre under the French 
 flag. All these steamers were built in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 MM. Rubattini & Cie. of Genoa, were 
 building four steamers to trade between 
 Genoa and India. Of these three were 
 being constructed at Newcastle, and one in 
 Glasgow. 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NATIONS, i 73 
 
 Another company had lately been formed 
 to run between Italy and the River Plate. 
 All their steamers were being built by Messrs. 
 Dudgeon & Co. on the Thames. 
 
 These examples are merely quoted as illus- 
 trations. The general result of the progress 
 of ship-building in England is exhibited, 
 though in less minute detail, in the Board of 
 Trade return. In 1861 7,487 tons of shipping 
 were built for foreigners. In 1863 the tonnage 
 had increased to 17,320 tons, as compared 
 with 365,000 tons built for the home trade. 
 In 1868 the proportion built for foreigners 
 was much larger, having increased to 46,000 
 tons, as compared with 316,000 tons built for 
 the home trade. In conclusion, it may be 
 affirmed that the opinion expressed by the 
 Select Committee on Merchant Shipping of 
 1860 is not less true at the present time than 
 it was at the date when their report was 
 written. It states that, in comparing the rela- 
 tive cost of the British shipping with that of all 
 the various maritime countries with which we 
 are engaged in the race of competition, there is 
 no reason to doubt, when every point of com- 
 
174 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 parison is duly taken into consideration, that 
 the first cost of building vessels is as low in 
 this country as in any other ; while it is un- 
 doubted that steamers can be built in the 
 United Kingdom at much less comparative 
 expense and greatly superior to any produced 
 abroad. 
 
 I have stated above that, in our recent 
 commercial difficulties, the cry was too often 
 raised that our trade, which had temporarily 
 diminished, would never revive, and that our 
 foreign competitors were about to establish 
 an era of golden industry on the ruins of 
 British industry. The speeches of M. 
 Thiers and the Protectionists in the French 
 Chamber as recently as 1870, describe the 
 condition of French industry in terms which 
 give little occasion for envious feelings in 
 the English reader. They say that in mixed 
 woollen and cotton stuffs England had beaten 
 France that we produced 10,000,000 tons 
 of iron as contrasted with an annual pro- 
 duction of 1,000,000 tons in France ; that the 
 French had no heavy goods to export ; that 
 having given up differential rates, they had 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. I 75 
 
 to import all their colonial and eastern pro- 
 duce from England ; and that the merchant 
 navy was rapidly decaying. Comparing the 
 relative positions of England and France, in 
 reference to cotton manufactures, M. Thiers 
 stated that while England worked up 
 3,000,000, France only worked up from 
 600,000 to 700,000 bales, and that the cost 
 of production was from 1 5 to 20 per cent less 
 in England than in France. " It was," he 
 said, "the cheap industry of Rouen which 
 suffered most from English competition. 
 The genius of England was for cheapness 
 that of France for quality." 
 
 The relative importance of the cotton 
 manufacture in the different countries of 
 Europe was also compared by M. de Forcade 
 in the course of the same debate. His 
 statement gave the following results : that 
 England had 30,000,000 spindles, France 
 6,800,000, the Zollverein 2,500,000, Russia 
 1,800,000, Austria 1,700,000, Switzerland 
 1,500,000, Belgium 600,000, and Italy 
 450,000 spindles. 
 
 The recent dulness of trade was not the 
 
I 76 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 exceptional misfortune of this country. The 
 same causes produced even more discouraging 
 effects in those countries which are our most 
 formidable competitors in commerce. It is 
 not a little remarkable that a great part of 
 the recent increase in our commerce has 
 taken place in the iron trade, the branch of 
 industry in which it had been alleged that the 
 pressure of foreign competition had been, 
 and would be, most particularly felt. 
 
 On a general review of the subject, the 
 profits of trade in England in the last 
 quarter of a century cannot but be regarded 
 as satisfactory. 
 
 If the returns had been larger, employers 
 would have encountered more severe compe- 
 tition ; and though wages may be a little 
 higher in England than abroad, our superior 
 machinery and greater command of capital 
 as yet compensate for the difference. 
 
 Particular cases have from time to time 
 been quoted in the newspapers and else- 
 where in proof of the success, with which 
 foreigners have engaged in competition with 
 our manufacturers in various branches of 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA T1ONS. 177 
 
 trade, and especially in the manufacture of 
 iron and machinery, in which we were 
 formerly unrivalled. 
 
 The experience of the Consulting En- 
 gineers of our Indian Railways does not by 
 any means go to prove that foreign iron 
 masters or engine builders can successfully 
 compete with the English. Their experience, 
 it may be added, is all the more valuable 
 because the Indian railways afford the most 
 perfect example of a purely neutral market. 
 There is no personal influence acting on 
 the minds of Indian railway engineers and 
 directors prejudicially to our interests ; and 
 no customs duties, which are protective to 
 our manufacturers, are imposed upon the 
 importation of our manufactures into India. 
 The plant and machinery for the Indian 
 railways are purchased in the cheapest 
 market; and it is certain that the foreigner 
 would be preferred regardless of national 
 sympathies, if he could compete with the iron 
 trade at home, either in quality or price. Let 
 us then examine into the actual state of the 
 
 N 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 facts, as regards the supply of rails and 
 locomotives to the Indian railways. 
 
 I shall first appeal to the experience of Mr. 
 A. M. Rendel. In November and Decem- 
 ber 1865, tenders were invited by advertise- 
 ment for a large number of locomotives for 
 the East Indian Railway. Eminent foreign 
 as well as English makers were free to com- 
 pete, and twenty-two tenders were sent in. 
 The result was, that eighty engines, varying 
 in cost from 3,i65/. to 2,45<D/., were ordered 
 from English makers, at an average price 
 of 2,6oo/. each ; twenty from Kiessler, of 
 Esslingen, near Stuttgart, at 2,5507. each ; 
 and twenty from an English maker, at 
 2,44O/. ; so that the foreign maker received 
 a price intended to be intermediate between 
 those of the English makers. It ought to 
 be mentioned that at the date when the 
 order was given, English houses were full 
 of work. Not long afterwards, in conse- 
 quence of the rapid development of traffic on 
 the East Indian Railway, it became a matter 
 of urgent importance to send out additional 
 locomotives as early as possible. Accord- 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA T10NS. i 79 
 
 ingly ten more engines were ordered from 
 an English firm at the price agreed upon in 
 the first tender, viz., 2,45O/. ; and ten more 
 were ordered from Esscher, Weiss, and Co., 
 of Zurich, who undertook to make them for 
 2,550^ each, the price which had been pre- 
 viously accepted by the other foreign makers. 
 At the termination, however, of their con- 
 tract, Esscher, Weiss, and Co. made a repre- 
 sentation to Mr. Rendel that they had 
 sustained a loss, and asked to be allowed, by 
 way of compensation, to make ten more 
 engines of the same kind, but at the 
 enhanced price of 2,8oo/. It is therefore 
 evident that in the results of their competition 
 with the English makers, who were under 
 no pressure in regard to price, all the shops 
 being so full of work that early delivery 
 was an impossibility, Esscher, Weiss, and 
 Co. had little cause for satisfaction. Indeed, 
 they admitted a substantial loss. But, even 
 if this contract had been more satisfactory to 
 Esscher, Weiss, and Co. than it actually 
 proved, their success would have been 
 largely due to British industry ; seeing that 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the boiler-plates, the copper fire boxes, the 
 wheels, the pig-iron for the cylinders, the 
 tubes, and the frame-plates (in short, two- 
 thirds of the materials used in the construc- 
 tion of their engines,) came from England 
 in a manufactured state. It was the same 
 with the engines supplied by Kiessler. 
 That firm assured Mr. Rendel that they 
 could not think of asking him to accept 
 Prussian iron or copper, and that by far the 
 greater portion of their material came from 
 England. Of course, to a certain extent, 
 this was done under the requirements of the 
 specification ; but no pressure was needed on 
 the part of the engineers. The axles and 
 wheel tires were specified to be of Prussian 
 steel ; but for this, they too would have been 
 of English make. But the experience of Mr. 
 Rendel is by no means limited to the pur- 
 chase of locomotives. Rails and iron bridge 
 work upon the largest scale have been 
 supplied in England for the Indian railways 
 for which he has acted ; and the tenders have 
 been obtained on all occasions, when a large 
 order has been given, by open advertisement ; 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. \ 8 1 
 
 and all continental makers have been as free 
 to tender and would be accepted on the 
 same guarantees as English makers. Yet 
 out of the total expenditure during the last 
 ten years, of from 7,ooo,ooo/. to 8,ooo,ooo/. 
 sterling on materials and plant for the East 
 Indian railways constructed under Mr. 
 Rende!' s supervision, with the exceptions I 
 have made, the whole of these contracts have 
 been obtained by English manufacturers. 
 
 Another interesting and conclusive proof 
 of the success with which our engine builders 
 can compete for the supply of locomotives, 
 is furnished by the following schedule, pre- 
 pared by Mr. W. P. Andrew, of the tenders 
 for ninety-four locomotives received by the 
 Punjaub Railway Company, in answer to a 
 public advertisement in January 1866 : 
 
 Tenders for Supply of Engines for the Punjaub 
 
 Railway. 
 
 Country from which Prices per engine 
 
 tender received. and tender. 
 
 1 Germany 3, 156 
 
 2 England ..... 2,990 
 
 3 England ..... 2,960 
 
 4 England . . . . 2,950 
 
1 82 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Tenders for Supply of Engines for the Punjaub 
 
 Railway (continued). 
 
 Country from which Prices per engine 
 
 tender received. and tender. 
 
 5 England . ... 2,850 
 
 6 England 2,835 
 
 7 England 2,810 
 
 8 England . ... 2,790 
 
 9 England 2,750 
 
 10 Germany . . . . 2,750 
 
 11 England 2,685 
 
 12 Germany 2,680 
 
 13 England 2,680 
 
 14 Switzerland , 2,650 
 
 15 England 2,650 
 
 1 6 England ..... 2,600 
 
 17 France . . . . 2,595 
 
 18 England 2,575 
 
 19 England ..... 2,500 
 
 20 Scotland 2,424 
 
 21 Scotland 2,395 
 
 It is not necessary to comment on this 
 most important illustration of the relative 
 powers of British and Continental industry. 
 Though not yet beaten in the race, we 
 cannot afford to disregard the pressure of 
 competition. It is for our manufacturers to 
 apply to the best advantage all the resources 
 which a ready supply of the raw material 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 183 
 
 and a large command of capital afford ; and 
 our operatives on their part must strenously 
 exert themselves to increase the productive 
 value of their labour, else they cannot hope 
 to retain the pre-eminence which they have 
 hitherto enjoyed. 
 
 Serious alarm was felt, when, in 1865, 
 fifteen engines were ordered for the Great 
 Eastern Railway from MM. Schneider. 
 
 These misgivings would probably have 
 been allayed, had it been generally known 
 that at the same time, when the fifteen 
 engines were ordered from Creuzot, forty 
 other engines were ordered from English 
 firms, and that when MM. Schneider were 
 subsequently asked to undertake the con- 
 struction of twenty-five more engines at the 
 price they had agreed to accept for the fifteen 
 engines originally ordered, the offer was de- 
 clined. 
 
 The prices actually quoted by the various 
 tenders are given in the following table : 
 
1 84 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Tenders for fifty-Jive Goods and twenty-Jive Passenger 
 Engines. June 1865. 
 
 
 Goods 
 
 Passenger 
 
 Mean 
 
 Eng 
 
 i 
 
 Bel 
 Eng 
 
 Schn 
 
 lish Mai 
 ) 
 
 3 
 
 t 
 J 
 
 cers 
 
 
 
 
 3,350 
 3,300' 
 3,250 
 3,145 
 3, "5 
 3,045 
 3,100 
 No tender 
 2,950 
 2,890 
 2,889 
 
 2,745 
 2,730 
 
 3,350 
 3,350 
 
 3,200 
 
 3,085 
 3,085 
 3,135 
 3,075 
 
 2,95 
 2,940 
 2,890 
 2,790 
 2,695 
 2,59 
 No tender 
 
 ngines togeth 
 
 3,350 
 3,325 
 3,225 
 3,^5 
 
 3,100 
 3,090 
 3,088 
 
 2,945 
 2,890 
 2,840 
 2,720 
 2,660 
 
 er,^2,498 
 
 } 
 
 an Ma 
 ish Mai 
 i 
 i 
 > 
 
 eider, Te 
 
 ters 
 cers 
 
 
 
 nder for Goods and 
 
 2,600 
 Passenger E 
 
 The eminent English engineer at whose 
 instance the original order was intrusted 
 to MM. Schneider, possesses, from long re- 
 sidence in France, a special knowledge of 
 French workmen ; and it is his opinion that 
 the price of that kind of labour in France was 
 not generally cheaper for a given quantity of 
 work than it is in England, while the material 
 of course costs at least as much. 
 
 The following schedule of tenders for 
 Rolling Stock for the Poti and Tiflis Rail- 
 way gives no indication of the failing power 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 8 5 
 
 of British industry. The tenders were sent 
 in three years ago, at a time when anxiety as 
 to the future of British industry was so com- 
 monly expressed among our principal manu- 
 facturers. 
 
 First Class 
 
 Fes. 10,785 
 
 CARRIAGES. 
 
 French. 
 Second Class 
 Fes. 9,890 . 
 
 Third Class 
 Fes. 6,600 
 
 English. 
 ^540 . . ^485 - ;33o 
 
 55 49 335 
 
 All the above delivered in Poti. 
 
 ENGINES AND TENDERS. 
 
 French. 
 
 Goods Passengers Delivered in 
 
 Fes. 46,320 . 42,000 . Antwerp. 
 
 
 Belgian. 
 
 
 Fes. 55,000 
 ^2,355 . 
 
 Fes. 49,000 . 
 ^2,265 
 
 Antwerp. 
 . Poti. 
 
 
 English. 
 
 
 ;i,933 
 
 2,100 
 2,125 
 2,195 
 
 ;i,68o . 
 
 2,000 
 
 1,842 
 
 2,080 
 
 Liverpool 
 Glasgow 
 Poti 
 Liverpool 
 
1 86 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 English (continued). 
 
 Goods Passengers Delivered in 
 
 ,2,395 ^2,280 Liverpool 
 
 2,450 2,300 
 
 2,575 2,240 
 
 2,600 . 2,400 . ,, 
 
 2,950 . 2,700 . Poti. 
 
 The extent to which the engine-building 
 establishments are employed upon foreign 
 orders may be proved by a comparison of 
 their actual capabilities with the following 
 estimate of the home demand for loco- 
 motives. 
 
 In the year 1865 Mr. Manby found, from 
 careful analysis of returns made to him from 
 numerous railways, that the life of engines 
 built by Messrs. Robert Stephenson and Co. 
 might be taken at 480,000 miles. At that 
 period the " Train mileage" of the United 
 Kingdom equalled 120,000,000 miles. Then 
 120,000,000-^-480,000 = 250 + 50 engines (for 
 contingencies) = 300 engines destroyed annu- 
 ally. 
 
 Since the date of Mr. Manby's calculation, 
 railway traffic has been enormously increased. 
 
COMPARISON OF PRO GRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 8 7 
 
 Details of Tenders for Rolling Stock for the Poti and Tiftis 
 Railway. 
 ENGLISH. 
 
 Ballast 
 Wagons 
 
 Covered 
 Wagons 
 
 Plat- 
 form 
 Wagons 
 
 High-side 
 Goods 
 Wagons 
 
 Coal 
 Wagons 
 
 Timber 
 Wagons 
 
 Delivery 
 
 *.*. 
 
 * 
 
 *. 
 
 * 
 
 f 
 
 J. 
 
 
 64 4 6 
 
 88 16 
 
 64 o 
 
 74 12 
 
 66 6 
 
 7i 3 
 
 Gloucester or Swansea 
 
 79 o o 
 
 104 1 8 
 
 78 o 
 
 89 10 
 
 81 10 
 
 86 10 
 
 Gloucester 
 
 79 12 6 
 83 o o 
 
 105 o 
 106 10 
 
 79 
 82 o 
 
 90 o 
 92 o 
 
 81 14 
 86 o 
 
 88 10 
 94 10 
 
 Liverpool 
 Ditto, or Newport 
 
 84 o o'io8 o 
 
 90 o 
 
 92 o 
 
 92 o 
 
 97 o 
 
 Ditto, London or Hull 
 
 90 5 0126 o 
 
 94 o 
 
 109 10 
 
 97 o 
 
 99 10 
 
 Ditto, ditto 
 
 98 o 0127 o 
 
 104 o 
 
 110 10 
 
 84 oj 105 o 
 
 Poti 
 
 105 o o 134 o 
 
 79 o 
 
 117 o 
 
 107 o 
 
 118 o 
 
 Ditto 
 
 FRENCH. 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Delivery 
 
 1,850 
 2,OOO 
 1,865 
 2,240 
 2,130 
 2,550 
 
 2,350 
 2,600 
 2,267 
 2,840 
 2,950 
 3> J 70 
 
 1,825 
 1,885 
 2,050 
 2,22O 
 2,240 
 2,625 
 
 2,100 
 2,090 
 2,350 
 2,570 
 
 2,650 
 
 2,945 
 
 1,917 
 1,930 
 2,150 
 2,3CO 
 2,340 
 2,780 
 
 2,159 
 2,2OO 
 2,490 
 2,550 
 2,6oo 
 
 3,045 
 
 F. O. B. Havre 
 Ditto, ditto 
 On quay ditto 
 F. O. B. Havre 
 
 Marseilles 
 Havre 
 
 BELGIAN. 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Francs 
 
 Delivery 
 
 I,78l 
 2,200 
 2,270 
 
 2,3 2 3 
 2,850 
 2,920 
 
 i,794 
 2,120 
 2,190 
 
 2,O2I 
 2,356 
 
 2,610 
 
 1,830 
 2,159 
 2,250 
 
 i,995 
 2,692 
 2,670 
 
 Antwerp 
 Ditto 
 Ditto 
 
 But our resources for producing locomotives, 
 even allowing for the increase of traffic, are 
 still very largely in excess of the demand for 
 British railways alone. We had in 1867 
 
1 88 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 thirty or more factories, which could supply 
 1,500 locomotives annually. If, therefore, 
 these establishments are ever fully employed, 
 as at the present time they mostly are, a large 
 proportion of the locomotives must be ex- 
 ported. In 1869, immediately after the cry 
 of alarm had been raised, large orders from 
 abroad were received by the English manu- 
 facturers. To show how shallow were the 
 foundations on which the apprehensions of 
 the decay of British industry were based, I 
 may mention that, in the case of one firm, 
 which had up to the end of 1869 received 
 orders for 92 engines for Russia, 70 of those 
 locomotives were ordered in 1869, 2 in 1868, 
 and 30 in 1864. 
 
 It was also said that Belgian rails were 
 being largely imported into England. It is 
 true that some 600 tons for the East Glou- 
 cestershire Railway were supplied by a Bel- 
 gian firm in 1865. The price of these rails 
 was 61. los. per ton, delivered at Gloucester. 
 But a solitary instance like this proves no- 
 thing as to the general comparative prices 
 of English and Belgian rails. It was because 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 89 
 
 our ironmasters were more fully employed 
 than the ironmasters in Belgium, and because 
 the prices of rails had in consequence fallen 
 more rapidly in Belgium than in England, 
 that the order in question was executed 
 abroad. 
 
 Since the year 1865, rails have been made 
 in England at a cheaper rate than that paid 
 for the Belgian rails supplied to the East 
 Gloucestershire Railway. 
 
 The fortunes of our Belgian rivals have 
 been as chequered as those of their English 
 ironmasters. The following table shows the 
 fluctuations in Belgian prices : 
 
 Average price per ton of Belgian rails. 
 
 Francs. 
 For 1835, average price per ton . 340,00 
 
 1836 , . 425,0 
 
 1837 , 438,75 
 
 1838 , . 394,00 
 
 18 39 , - 37^,00 
 
 1840 , . 239,50 
 
 1841 , , 248,00 
 
 1842 , ., . 234,00 
 
 1843 , 221,60 
 
 1844 , . 290,00 
 
 1845 , 39> 
 
 1846 , . 320,00 
 
IQO WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Average price per ton of Belgian rails (continued). 
 
 Francs. 
 
 For 1847, average price per ton 
 
 263,00 
 
 
 
 1848 
 
 73 
 
 7? 
 
 190,00 
 
 3? 
 
 1849 
 
 ,, 
 
 7? 
 
 l80,00 
 
 77 
 
 1850 
 
 7? 
 
 77 
 
 170,00 
 
 77 
 
 1851 
 
 77 
 
 7? 
 
 I7O,OO 
 
 7? 
 
 1852 
 
 77 
 
 3? 
 
 I72,OO 
 
 77 
 
 1853 
 
 37 
 
 7 
 
 231,00 
 
 7? 
 
 1854 
 
 77 
 
 73 
 
 220,25 
 
 33 
 
 1855 
 
 77 
 
 73 
 
 212,50 
 
 37 
 
 1856 
 
 77 
 
 33 
 
 213,85 
 
 7? 
 
 1857 
 
 7? 
 
 33 
 
 237,65 
 
 73 
 
 1858 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 l6O.OO 
 
 33 
 
 1859 
 
 73 
 
 37 
 
 160,00 
 
 J3 
 
 1860 
 
 37 
 
 53 
 
 l60,30 
 
 7? 
 
 1861 
 
 77 
 
 37 
 
 I56 5 85 
 
 77 
 
 1862 
 
 77 
 
 77 
 
 149,60 
 
 57 
 
 1863 
 
 7? 
 
 33 
 
 142,90 
 
 77 
 
 1864 
 
 37 
 
 77 
 
 157,35 
 
 73 
 
 1865 
 
 77 
 
 37 
 
 l62,65 
 
 73 
 
 1866 
 
 73 
 
 77 
 
 l69,OO 
 
 33 
 
 1867 
 
 7? 
 
 77 
 
 I375?0 
 
 ., 
 
 1868 
 
 77 
 
 7? 
 
 170,80 
 
 Much has been said, too, from time to time, 
 as to the importation of iron girders from 
 Belgium into this country ; but Dr. Percy, in 
 his evidence before the Committee on Scientific 
 Education, stated that the iron girders recently 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 9 1 
 
 imported from Belgium would be made here, 
 if there were a larger demand. A manufac- 
 turer would not alter his mills for a special 
 kind of girder, unless there was considerable 
 demand ; and he urged, as a sufficient reason 
 why there should be no apprehension on this 
 subject, the remarkable success which has 
 been achieved in England in the production 
 of armour-plates. 
 
 It is well known that in 1869 the produc- 
 tive powers of our rail-rolling mills were 
 strained to the utmost, and that almost the 
 whole of those rails were exported. 
 
 Take again the manufacture of steel. In 
 1851 the entire annual production of steel 
 in Sheffield was 35,000 tons, of which about 
 10,000 tons were cast-steel. At the present 
 time, at the works at Barrow alone, they can 
 turn out 1,200 tons per week of finished steel ; 
 and they will shortly increase their powers to 
 from 2,000 to 2,400 tons of cast-steel per 
 week. England has a decided pre-eminence 
 in this branch of metallurgy. 
 
 It has been shown that until the last year 
 there had been no increase whatever for a 
 
192 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 long period in the rate of wages in England, 
 in the trades concerned in the building of 
 locomotive engines ; while, on the other 
 hand, at Schneider's establishment there has 
 been an increase during the last fifteen years 
 of 38 per cent. We must not, therefore, 
 look at the increase of wages for an explana- 
 tion of the reason why we are no longer 
 monopolists of the engine building trade. 
 The real explanation is to be found in the 
 circumstance that, as the railway system was 
 first established in this country, so we were 
 the first in the field as locomotive engine 
 builders. 
 
 When, for example, a supply of rolling 
 stock was required for the service of the Paris 
 and Rouen railway, the first important rail- 
 way constructed on the Continent, it was 
 thought necessary to create the special engine 
 building works already mentioned, at Sotte- 
 ville, near Rouen, for the purpose of building 
 the locomotives and carriages required for the 
 line. A great number of the mechanics em- 
 ployed at the works were Englishmen ; and 
 the direction and supervision were exclu- 
 
COMPARISON OF PROGRESS OF NA TIONS. 1 93 
 
 sively English. Why was it that recourse 
 was had to English experience in this case ? 
 Solely because the science of building loco- 
 motives was an occult science at that time on 
 the Continent. Then, as now, labour of all 
 descriptions was not only as cheap, but much 
 cheaper, abroad than in England. It is true 
 that the necessary experience and mechanical 
 skill are not as yet to be found among conti- 
 nental mechanics. But surely it would have 
 been unreasonable to assume that we were to 
 remain for ever monopolists of a trade in 
 which the foreigner only required additional 
 experience in order to enable him to compete 
 with our countrymen. It is because we were 
 first in the field, and not because at a former 
 time labour was relatively cheaper, that we 
 for many years after the first introduction of 
 the railway system, supplied engines to con- 
 tinental countries which now supply them- 
 selves. Even now, be it remembered, our 
 continental neighbours would draw large 
 supplies from England, if they did not pro- 
 tect their own manufacturers by heavy import 
 duties. 
 
 o 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IS LABOUR BECOMING DEARER ? 
 
 THE question of the rise in the wages of 
 labour has of late come frequently 
 under discussion. During the last thirty 
 years the purchasing power of money, 
 the standard of living, and the education 
 and moral condition of the working classes, 
 have sensibly changed. It becomes therefore 
 extremely difficult to make a satisfactory 
 comparison of the relative cost of labour at 
 the present time and in the early days of 
 railways. 
 
 In the year 1837, on the Penkridge 
 viaduct on the Grand Junction Railway, the 
 wages were for navvies from 2s. 6d. to 2s. 8d. 
 per day, and for artisans from 22s. to 23^. 
 per week. On the works of the Aire and 
 
IS LABOUR BECOMING DEARER? 195 
 
 Calder Navigation, executed in 1836, navvies 
 working in butty-gangs by piece work, earned 
 from \s. to $s. and in some cases 6^. per day. 
 On the London and Birmingham Railway, 
 plate-layers, working on the piece-work sys- 
 tem, earned 5^. per day, and, working by the 
 day, 3^. 6d. per day. On the Trent Valley 
 line, completed in 1846, the wages of navvies 
 averaged from 3^. to 3^. 6d., and men 
 employed in filling wagons were paid from 
 2s. yd. to $s. On the Trent Valley line, on 
 many portions of the contract, during a great 
 part of the time during which it was being 
 executed, the men worked night and day. At 
 Nuneaton there was no difficulty in engaging 
 100 men in the course of three days to be 
 employed in night work alone. Men could 
 not be found to do night work so readily at 
 the present time. A few years ago, on the 
 Central Wales line, the wages of navvies 
 were on the average 2s. 8^., and of tradesmen 
 4s. per day. In 1869, in South Wales, in 
 consequence of the long-continued depression 
 in the iron trade, wages were as low as they 
 have ever been. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 In the present year, on the works in pro- 
 gress for the widening of the London and 
 North- Western Railway near London, wages 
 have risen considerably, in consequence of 
 the great demand for labour in all parts of 
 the country. The contractor for the exten- 
 sion, who was in my father's employ upon 
 his first contract on the Grand Junction, gives 
 the present rates of daily wages for navvies 
 at from y. to 3^. 6d., for carpenters and 
 smiths 5.5*. to $s. 3^/., and for masons and 
 bricklayers 6^. per day. He is of opinion that, 
 on the whole, the cost of labour is fifteen 
 per cent, dearer than at the commencement of 
 his career ; yet by their superior skill and 
 contrivance, the experienced contractors of 
 the present day are able to undertake work 
 for a smaller price than they were prepared 
 to accept at the earlier period. Opinions, 
 however, as to the relative cost of labour, 
 now and in former days, are not unanimous. 
 Those who have been engaged principally in 
 the great towns and especially near London, 
 have experienced much more serious diffi- 
 culties, in consequence of the variations in the 
 
IS LABOUR BECOMING DEARER? 197 
 
 price of labour, than employers who have 
 been chiefly engaged in the rural districts. 
 In consequence of the unprecedented demand 
 for labour at the present time, wages are 
 unusually high. They must of course at all 
 times be influenced by the relation between 
 the supply and demand. But, taking the 
 average, it may be safely affirmed that, while 
 the prices for railway work are nearly the 
 same now as in the period when the London 
 and Birmingham Railway was being made, 
 the cost of labour is, on the whole, somewhat 
 dearer than in former days, and labour-saving 
 appliances have not fully made up for the 
 increase in wages. 
 
 The increased expenditure on building in 
 London and other great cities, which has 
 resulted from the augmented wealth of the 
 country, has led to a great advance, both in 
 London and in Manchester, in the rate of 
 wages in the building trades. 
 
 The amount of this increase is shown in 
 a statement prepared by Messrs. Lucas Bros, 
 the well-known builders. 
 
 "We find," they write, " for some years 
 
198 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 previous to September 1853, that the rate of 
 wages was as follows : 
 
 Previous to 1853 . . . 
 From September 1853 I 
 to March 1861 . . j 
 March 1861 to Septem- ) 
 beri865 . . . .} 
 September 1865 to May ) 
 1866 J 
 
 For Mechanics, Masons, 
 Bricklayers, Carpenters, 
 and Plasterers 
 
 Labourers 
 
 5/ per day of 10 hours 
 5/6 . . 
 /7 per hour, or 5/10 per day 
 
 /7 J per hour, or 6/3 per day 
 /8 per hour, or 6/8 per day 
 
 3/ per day of 10 hours 
 3/4 
 /4^ per hour, or 3/6^ per day 
 
 /4^ per hour, or 3/9 per day 
 /4f per hour, or 3/1 1| per day 
 
 May 1866 to present time 
 
 And we consider that the price of building is 
 twenty-five to thirty per cent, more now than 
 it was in 1853." 
 
 The figures given by Messrs. Lucas corres- 
 pond very closely with the following state- 
 ment from Mr. Broadhurst, a Trades Union 
 officer, who, in a letter written in 1869, 
 informed me that in 1840 the daily rate of 
 wages in the building trades was 5^. per day 
 often hours, or a total of i/. IQS. for sixty 
 hours. In 1850 the rate was $s. per day of 
 ten hours, Saturday excepted, when the men 
 ceased work at four o'clock, being a total of 
 1 1. i as. for 58^ hours' work. In 1860 the 
 rate was $s. 6d. per day, or i/. 13^. for 5 Si- 
 hours' work. At the date of his letter it was 
 i/. 17^. $d. per week of 56^ hours. 
 
IS LABOUR B.ECOMING DEARER? 199 
 
 In 1837 wages advanced in Manchester 
 from \s. to \s. 6d. per day. The working 
 hours were, on Monday, from 7A.M. to 6 P.M., 
 and on the four following days from 6 A.M. to 
 6 P.M. On Saturday from 6 A.M. to 4 P.M. 
 An hour and three quarters each day was 
 allowed for meals, and the earnings were 
 therefore i/. 7^. for 59 \ hours of work. In 
 the spring of 1869 the wages in Manchester 
 were i /. i y. for a week of 5 5 hours. 
 
 I am not in a position to pronounce judg- 
 ment on the comparative cost of building. I 
 . can only give the data which have been 
 placed in my hands. It is possible that 
 the cost of building has increased, and that 
 the increase is due to a rise of wages. But 
 if an advance has taken place, it is fully 
 explained by the extension of the metropolis, 
 in the vast suburbs built during the last 
 quarter of a century, and now being built. 
 In this, as in all other cases, where a per- 
 manent rise has been established, there has 
 been an increased competition among 
 employers for a supply of labour, which has 
 for a lengthened period been insufficient to 
 meet their demand. 
 
[ 200 ] 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES ON THE 
 ENGLISH LABOUR-MARKET. 
 
 WHILE we have much reason to 
 congratulate ourselves on our com- 
 mercial successes in the past, it must be 
 remembered that the competition of the 
 American against the English employer for a 
 supply of skilled labour from this country has 
 already exercised and must always exert an 
 important influence on the price of labour. 
 
 On this ground, and also because it is a 
 most important opening for the most enter- 
 prising of our working men, no examination 
 of the labour question would be complete in 
 which the subject of Emigration was not 
 considered. 
 
 In England the facilities of communication 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 2OI 
 
 which railways have afforded, have had a 
 marked effect in equalizing the cost of labour 
 throughout the country. The difference in 
 the rates of pay of the operatives employed 
 in ship-building on the Thames, the Mersey, 
 the Tyne, and the Clyde, has diminished and 
 will continue to diminish. The cost of living 
 varies less than it did, and differences in the 
 rental of land, according as the available area 
 is large or small, and in the cost of materials, 
 will be the only elements of cost in which 
 equality will be impossible. That which has 
 already occurred in England will be repeated 
 over a wider area. If wages in England, 
 taking into account the amount of labour 
 performed for the money paid and the cost 
 of living, give to the English artisan a great 
 advantage over the foreigner, foreign labour 
 will be attracted to the English workshop. 
 On the other hand, the cost of the voyage to 
 the United States has been so materially 
 reduced that the higher rates of pay which 
 the workman receives on the other side of 
 the Atlantic cannot but affect the price of 
 labour here. The cost of living has increased 
 
202 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 so much since the war between the North 
 and South that it is doubtful whether the 
 married workman has derived any advantage 
 from the increase in his wages. But should 
 his position become much improved by a 
 reduction in the cost of living without a 
 corresponding reduction in his wages, a large 
 number of our skilled operatives will be 
 attracted to a field of labour where employ- 
 ment is to be obtained on better terms. 
 
 At the present time, although wages have 
 reached a point almost unprecedented in our 
 industrial history, extensive emigration is still 
 taking place from this country to America. 
 In this year 1872, a fine body of workmen 
 employed on the Fermoy and Lismore Rail- 
 way, no in number, left their work, and 
 sailed from Cork to America. It is found 
 at the present time extremely difficult to 
 procure the necessary supply of labour in 
 Ireland for the purpose of completing the 
 railway in question. 
 
 With a more easy means of communication, 
 a more perfect solidarity must gradually be 
 established between the industrial classes 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 203 
 
 throughout the civilised world. The inter- 
 national combinations of the operatives may 
 do something to check the influx of foreign 
 labour into England. But they can only 
 effect that object by giving an additional 
 impetus to the ascending movement, of late 
 years much more rapid on the Continent than 
 with us, in the scale of wages ; and the rise 
 of wages on the Continent will be an advan- 
 tage to British industry, by making the com- 
 petition with the continental manufacturer 
 more equal than before. 
 
 The flow of immigration into the United 
 States has been constantly increasing. 
 Between July i, 1865, and December 1868 
 a million emigrants entered the United 
 States, and, during the last five years, Mr. 
 Wells declares that there has been a greater 
 development of the industry of that country 
 than at any former period. As a necessary 
 consequence there must be a more general 
 demand for labour. Since 1865, 8,000 miles 
 of railway have been constructed, and the 
 present rate of increase is double what it was 
 before 1860, being now 1,156 miles a year; 
 
204 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 while the growth in the goods traffic is six- 
 teen times greater than the growth of the 
 population. The production of pig-iron has 
 been increased from 913,000 tons in 1860, to 
 1,550,000 tons in 1868. The import duties 
 have tended greatly to raise prices ; the 
 profits of the manufacturers have been very 
 large, and these circumstances have artificially 
 stimulated production. The effect of these 
 influences upon the wages of the artisans 
 employed, is shown in the evidence of Mr. 
 Hewitt before the Trades Unions Commis- 
 sioners. He told them that the wage for 
 puddling in Pittsburgh was from 2is. to 2js. 
 per ton, as compared with &s. 6d. in England, 
 there being, notwithstanding the great in- 
 crease in the cost of provisions in the United 
 States, no corresponding difference in the 
 cost of living. Mr. Wells gives a compara- 
 tive statement of the wages in the United 
 States as compared with the rates prevailing 
 in England, showing that, in the iron rolling- 
 mills in 1868, wages were forty per cent, 
 higher ; in the foundries fifty-eight per cent, 
 higher ; in the ship-yards forty-eight per cent. 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 205 
 
 higher ; in the cotton-mills twenty-nine per 
 cent, higher ; and in the woollen-mills twenty- 
 five per cent, higher, than the corresponding 
 rates in England. 
 
 We must further bear in mind that there 
 is a constant emigration of operatives from 
 the manufacturing districts of the United 
 States to the unsettled territories of the far 
 West. 
 
 The emigrants are men who have accu- 
 mulated sufficient means to embark in agri- 
 cultural enterprise, and are wearied with the 
 toils of industrial life. To those well-to-do 
 operatives, the boundless tracts of fertile land, 
 still uncultivated and unoccupied, are offered 
 for sale at a dollar and a quarter per acre. 
 And who indeed can wonder that the seduc- 
 tive charms of pastoral life should be found 
 so irresistible to the toil-worn labourer at the 
 anvil or the loom ? Nor is the effect of 
 emigration to the United States on the rate 
 of wages and on the supply of labour to the 
 manufacturing industries of this country pro- 
 spective merely. It is felt now, and has long 
 been felt. Mr. Fawcett reminds us that the 
 
206 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 emigrants from Ireland to the United States 
 remitted, between 1847 and 1864, no less than 
 ten millions sterling. " No statistical fact," he 
 says, " is more astonishing or more instructive." 
 From 1841 to 1861 the population of Ireland 
 was reduced from 8,100,000 to 5,800,000. 
 Messrs. Herries and Creed, in their pamphlet, 
 " Handicraftsmen and Capitalists," express an 
 opinion exactly coinciding with that which I 
 have formed, from information which has 
 reached me from other sources. Admitting 
 the impossibility of retaining skilled artisans 
 in this country, if wages were to undergo any 
 sensible reduction, they say that " in South 
 Wales the value of labour is, as compared 
 with other districts, cheaper in the extreme ; 
 which cheapness it is to be feared will not be 
 maintained owing to the growing feeling for 
 emigration manifesting itself among the 
 Welsh iron-workers." 
 
 Irish emigration has sometimes been 
 regretted by those who measure our national 
 greatness by the number of our population ; 
 but surely a destitute, and, because desti- 
 tute, a disaffected population, is a discredit 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 207 
 
 and a weakness, and not an honour or a 
 strength to a nation. Is national greatness, 
 although a truly noble object, superior in 
 importance to the welfare of humanity ? Is 
 it not immeasurably better that a man should 
 prosper in a foreign country than struggle 
 miserably for existence in his native land ? 
 
 The influence of the price of labour in the 
 United States has been felt in this country, 
 and no economist can doubt that it will soon 
 be felt in those branches of industry in 
 Germany in which the wages are so much 
 below the English rates of pay. 
 
 Within the last fifteen years one million 
 persons have emigrated from Hamburgh and 
 Bremen to the United States. It is impossi- 
 ble to contemplate the struggles for life among 
 the lower classes of our labouring population, 
 and to apply ourselves to the solution of the 
 difficult problem of pauperism, without casting 
 a longing eye on the vast tracts of land, of 
 great natural fertility, which are still un- 
 occupied, and which, for the want of capital, 
 are producing nothing for the sustenance of 
 man. 
 
208 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The area of land still at the disposal of the 
 United States is calculated at upwards of 
 1,400,000,000 acres, exclusive of the Russian 
 purchase of Alaska, which is estimated at 
 577,390 square miles, or 370,000,000 acres. 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply statistics, or 
 to enumerate the acres contained in our 
 numerous and vast colonial dependencies. 
 New South Wales alone contains 375,000 
 square miles ; and a large proportion of this 
 unoccupied territory possesses every natural 
 advantage for agricultural development. 
 But so long as the price of land in our 
 Australian colonies remains at i/. an acre, 
 when 1 60 acres of better land can be obtained 
 in America for nothing, it is not likely that 
 an English tenant farmer, with only a small 
 capital at his command, will undertake the 
 much longer and more expensive voyage to 
 Australia, in preference to the shorter and in- 
 finitely cheaper passage across the Atlantic 
 to America. 
 
 To the artisan the high rates of wages in 
 the United States present irresistible attrac- 
 tions. It must therefore be assumed that the 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 2OQ 
 
 stream of emigration, which has already 
 attained such vast dimensions, would be in- 
 creased in volume if a larger number of 
 operatives had accumulated sufficient savings 
 to enable them to pay the expense of re- 
 moving themselves and their families to the 
 opposite shores of the Atlantic. 
 
 With regard to the cost of living, a single 
 man pays for his board and lodging 2os. a 
 week; and one-third should be deducted 
 from the earnings, in order to make due 
 allowance for the diminished purchasing 
 power of money in the depreciated currency 
 of the United States. 
 
 The often-expressed opinion of Mr. Wells 
 that the present condition of the labourer in 
 the United States is, relatively speaking, 
 inferior to his condition before the war, is 
 well known to economists, but it is certain 
 that this opinion is not universally shared 
 by the working classes themselves. Mr. 
 Hemans quotes the evidence of a German 
 emigrant, who thus summed up the advan- 
 tages which he had obtained by emigration to 
 America. " I am/' he said, " ever so much 
 
210 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 better off. My earnings in Germany, as a 
 plasterer, would be barely y. a day, while 
 here they are from us. to i2s. My eldest 
 boy, who is just sixteen, makes his 4^. a day 
 already more than I could have done 
 myself at home and pays me something for 
 his board. Even my youngest of thirteen 
 earns 8s. a week, while he learns a trade. 
 In Germany neither of them would bring 
 home a sixpence. If I were there with my 
 large family, I should be little better than a 
 pauper; while here I have saved enough 
 already to purchase a comfortable cottage, 
 and I have something in the savings bank 
 still." 
 
 " It is worth noting," observes Mr. Hemans, 
 " that in this, as in every similar case which 
 has come within my own personal knowledge, 
 the labourer's cottage has been purchased 
 with savings laid by since 1860." Hitherto 
 Mr. Wells and other enlightened men have 
 addressed the voice of warning in vain to the 
 powerful protectionist party in the Congress ; 
 but it is impossible that a people so 
 eniightened as the Americans can long 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 211 
 
 persevere in a system which, in the language 
 of Mr. Wells, has made exchange in kind 
 with all foreign nations almost impracticable, 
 and rendered it necessary to pay for such 
 foreign productions as are required, in the 
 precious metals, or in the unduly depreciated 
 promises of national payment. 
 
 With so many chances of ameliorating his 
 condition, it is not wonderful that the work- 
 ing man in the over-populated countries of 
 the Old World is too often tempted to try 
 his fortunes in the New, without having pre- 
 viously furnished himself with sufficient means 
 to enable him to enter upon a new field of 
 industry. If an emigrant lands in New York 
 not possessing money enough to push on to 
 the far West, where labour is scarce and 
 therefore highly paid, he may find that his 
 position is but little better than it was in the 
 crowded cities of Europe. In the Eastern 
 States he may remain weeks or even months 
 without employment, unless he has friends 
 on the spot to push his interests. "If," says 
 Mr. Hemans, "an emigrant has such friends, 
 well and good. Otherwise some capital to 
 
 P2 
 
212 WORK AND WA GES. 
 
 fall back upon, while waiting for his chance 
 of employment, is indispensable." 
 
 In America there still is a great field for 
 the energetic and enterprising emigrant ; but 
 he has difficulties to encounter which did 
 not exist in the period preceding the war, 
 when industry was not yet burdened with 
 the dead weight of protection and heavy tax- 
 ation. 
 
 In Philadelphia a respectable mechanic, 
 his wife, and three children subsist on 2/. 135*. 
 $d. per week. A British mechanic w r ould 
 probably not spend more than i/. n^. lod. 
 A Philadelphian mechanic earns 3/. 6^. 7^., 
 and a British mechanic from i/. IDS. to 2/. 2s. 
 a week. This Philadelphian mechanic is 
 therefore only slightly better off than the 
 Englishman. It cannot, therefore, be sur- 
 prising to hear that the Consulate at Phila- 
 delphia is besieged by Englishmen clamour- 
 ing for assistance, or applying for the means 
 of returning home. The same class who 
 would fail in London, fail from the same 
 cause in the United States. If the reward 
 of success is more liberal, more energy of 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 213 
 
 character is required than in the more settled 
 communities of the Old World. 
 
 Mr. Connolly, formerly an operative mason, 
 who has recently visited the United States, 
 confirms, by the description he has lately 
 given in a letter to the " Daily Telegraph/' 
 the views expressed by our consular represen- 
 tative. He says that " the working people 
 in New York were never better off than 
 during the period between 1842 and 1860. 
 Wages in some trades have advanced since 
 the war in a greater ratio than the cost of 
 provisions ; but thirty per cent, of the work- 
 ing people are unemployed. Engineers and 
 mechanics are not much in demand ; and he 
 had invariably found that when a trade 
 assumed the character of an industry, the 
 men were not better paid than in England. 
 " There are more men," he says, " out of work 
 here at present than in London in proportion 
 to the population ; yet if I had to begin the 
 world again, this would be the country for 
 me, with its boundless and undeveloped re- 
 sources. But I would not stay in New York 
 or in any of the larger cities. A man who 
 
214 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 is not an agriculturist should make his home 
 in some small but rising town, where, if there 
 was anything in him, he would be sure to 
 rise with its growth/ 7 
 
 From the United States, let us turn to our 
 own colonies in Australasia. In New South 
 Wales the rates of wages are high ; but 
 a large proportion of the workpeople are 
 unable to find regular employment. The 
 Earl of Belmoresays, in a recent Report, that 
 there is no opening in that colony at the 
 present time except to men of good character, 
 and who are accustomed to hard work. As 
 a remedy for the great distress which lately 
 prevailed at the East End of London, emi- 
 gration would have been found, by reason of 
 the latter condition mentioned by Lord Bel- 
 more, to be an effectual resource. 
 
 In the opinion of Mr. Watson, an agent 
 employed on the East London Railway, the 
 artisans and labourers in the Iron Works at 
 the East End of London were lamentably 
 ill fitted for other work ; and not 50 per cent, 
 of their number would be capable of bringing 
 allotments of land into proper cultivation. 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 215 
 
 It must further be remembered that very 
 few paupers are able-bodied workmen. Of 
 163,700 persons, recently in receipt of relief 
 from the Poor Law Board, not more than 
 35,000, or 38 per cent, were out-door paupers. 
 In South Australia we are told by Sir 
 James Ferguson, that there is no opening in 
 the northern territory for the ordinary la- 
 bourer from Europe ; although the colony 
 presents a promising field for the investment 
 of capital. The report of the Hon. W. Fox 
 from New Zealand is equally discouraging 
 to those philanthropic persons who look to 
 emigration as an outlet for the surplus popu- 
 lation of the United Kingdom. Even in 
 Canada, where it is said that from 30,000 
 to 40,000 emigrants might be annually ab- 
 sorbed, there is the same demand for men with 
 capital, and the same apprehension of the 
 introduction of an inferior class of workmen, 
 who, if they had failed to earn their liveli- 
 hood in the United Kingdom, would be 
 equally certain to fail in a wilder country, in 
 which energy and industry are still more 
 essential. 
 
21 6 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The average annual emigration from Great 
 Britain in the ten years preceding 1857, was 
 275,000. In the next decennial period the 
 number fell to 162,000. Three-fourths of 
 these British emigrants have gone to the 
 United States. The emigrants who have 
 already left our shores are the pioneers of the 
 emigration of the future. They invite and 
 assist their friends whom they have left, to 
 follow them to the land of their adoption. 
 The working man is well aware of the diffi- 
 culties which beset the solitary exile in his 
 first hard struggle in an unknown land. He 
 naturally prefers to go to a country in which 
 he may count upon receiving friendly counsel 
 and advice. It is therefore probable that 
 North America will, for many years to come, 
 absorb by far the greater number of that 
 superior class of emigrants who possess both 
 capital, skill, and enterprise ; are able therefore 
 to earn a competency at home ; and yet are 
 prepared, for the sake of improving their 
 condition, to submit to the sacrifices which 
 expatriation involves. 
 
 The small success which has attended the 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 217 
 
 efforts recently made by the Central Argentine 
 Land Company to induce persons to emi- 
 grate from this country to the River Plate, 
 may be accepted as evidence that English 
 emigrants are but little disposed to risk their 
 fortunes in an unknown land. The advan- 
 tages offered to emigrants by the company 
 are considerable ; and the average wages in 
 the country, taken together with the moderate 
 cost of living, are much higher than the rates 
 paid in England. Bricklayers earn 65*. a day ; 
 joiners and blacksmiths, 6^. 6d. ; labourers, 
 4s. 6d. ; and railway labourers, 6s. The soil 
 is fertile, the climate is healthy and agreeable, 
 and the lands offered in allotments to emi- 
 grants possess the advantage of railway com- 
 munication with a convenient port. The 
 company is prepared to pay a portion of the 
 emigrant's passage-money, to cover the freight 
 on his agricultural implements, and to furnish 
 him with subsistence until the first harvest 
 after his arrival. The rent of land is is. and 
 the selling price i/. an acre. It will be seen 
 from the following return, that while these 
 temptations have utterly failed to induce emi- 
 
2l8 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 gration from England, a large number of 
 persons have recently emigrated to the River 
 Plate from Italy and France. 
 
 Emigration to the River Plate. 
 
 1868. 1869. 
 
 From Genoa . . . 10,000 15,000 
 
 France . . . 8,700 16,500 
 
 Spain . . . 3,300 5,000 
 
 ; England . . . 1,096 708 
 
 Totals . 23,096 37,208 
 
 The Argentine Provinces have apparently 
 become a favourite settlement for Italian emi- 
 grants. But, Englishmen as yet are unwilling 
 to go, and that mainly because so few 
 of their countrymen have settled in those 
 countries. 
 
 It has been stated elsewhere that 2,000 
 men were selected in England and Scotland 
 and taken out to Queensland, at a cost of 1 7/. 
 per man, to be employed in the execution of a 
 railway in that country. 
 
 Mr. Wilcox, the agent under whose super- 
 vision the work was completed, says that 
 most of the men selected remained until the 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 219 
 
 completion of the works, and on the whole 
 conducted themselves very fairly. 
 
 The artisans were still in the colony, but 
 the majority of the labourers will only remain 
 there as long as there is anything being done 
 in the way of public works. Railway labour- 
 ers, as far as his experience goes, do not 
 make good colonists. The roving habits 
 they acquire quite unfit them for becoming 
 settlers. 
 
 After carefully considering the reports 
 of the most competent observers on the 
 condition of the labour market in the 
 United States and in our own Colonies, and 
 taking into view the extreme fluctuations in 
 the demand for labour, and the discouraging 
 position of many independent branches of 
 industry in the eastern states of America, 
 even a zealous philanthropist must hesitate to 
 give his sanction to any proposals for State- 
 aided emigration on a large scale. It is 
 obvious that a workman may find himself 
 worse off than at home if he lands in any 
 one of our Colonial Settlements, or in the 
 United States, without sufficient capital to 
 
220 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 support him during the interval of time 
 which may probably elapse before he obtains 
 employment. Some capital is equally neces- 
 sary to furnish the means of travelling into 
 those remoter districts in which alone skilled 
 labour is paid at the higher rates. 
 
 It would be inexpedient, therefore, for the 
 Colonial Governments, still less would it be 
 humane or statesmanlike for the Home 
 Government to encourage emigration, unless 
 it were certain that employment could be 
 offered to the emigrants on their first arrival 
 in a colony. 
 
 One of the earliest recollections of my boy- 
 hood is the painful spectacle I beheld, when 
 I stood by my father's side, in the Boulevard 
 of Rouen, surrounded by hundreds of famish- 
 ing English workmen. There had been an 
 unavoidable interval between the completion 
 of his first contract in France and the com- 
 mencement of the works for the extension of 
 the railway from Paris to Rouen and on to 
 Havre. It happened too that at that time 
 there was but little employment for workmen 
 in the construction of railways in England. 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 221 
 
 The navvies, who are not a provident class, 
 had not saved money enough to support 
 themselves for many weeks without work; 
 and their sufferings, which would have been 
 great in England, were aggravated in a 
 foreign country. Soup-kitchens were opened, 
 and every effort was made to alleviate 
 their distress ; but philanthropy is no ade- 
 quate substitute for brisk and well-paid em- 
 ployment ; and the memory of that dreadful 
 winter makes me shudder at the prospect 
 of the sufferings which might be endured, 
 if by Government assistance a large number 
 of emigrants were induced to go abroad, only 
 to find on their arrival in a remote and 
 unknown country that it was impossible to 
 obtain employment. 
 
 An examination of the Reports recently 
 laid before Parliament will confirm the 
 opinion generally entertained by all who 
 have any practical knowledge of the openings 
 for English labour in our Colonies and in 
 foreign countries. The expenditure of public 
 money in assisting emigration can only be 
 justified when the persons assisted are in an 
 
222 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 indigent and helpless condition. But this is 
 the very class which the Colonial Govern- 
 ments absolutely decline to receive. The 
 emigrants who succeed, belong to the class 
 which rarely fails to find employment at 
 home, and is happily seldom seen by the 
 guardians of the poor. As a general rule, we 
 must dismiss from our minds the idea of 
 finding in emigration a remedy for pauperism. 
 If the State offers inducements to the working 
 people to try their fortunes in foreign lands, 
 it cannot divest itself altogether of responsi- 
 bility for their success in the new sphere 
 which they have been encouraged to enter. 
 
 On several occasions, as the history of my 
 father's enterprises has shown, the sending 
 out of a large number of workmen from 
 England has been a successful operation. 
 But those have been cases in which there 
 has been a large contract in progress, and 
 when the services of the workmen were im- 
 mediately required. It is probable that the 
 Colonies would derive advantage from the 
 execution of numerous public works not as 
 yet undertaken. It is possible also that 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN WAGES. 223 
 
 arrangements might be made on terms 
 mutually beneficial to the Colonies and to 
 the mother country, for lending money to the 
 Colonial Government for the purpose of 
 carrying out such works. The expediency 
 of such a policy may be especially deserving 
 of consideration at a time when the field of 
 employment in this country is contracted by 
 the pressure of commercial distress. To this 
 limited extent, State-aided emigration may be 
 desirable ; but an attempt to send workmen 
 to the Colonies in sufficient numbers to give 
 any sensible relief to the labour-market of 
 this country in a time of wide-spread distress, 
 would be strongly opposed by the Colonies, 
 calamitous to the emigrants, and in the end 
 ineffectual as a remedy for pauperism. 
 
 It is a painful task to oppose any well- 
 intentioned proposals for ameliorating the 
 condition of the poor ; but we must be 
 cautious, lest, in the desire to be generous, 
 we are tempted to encourage impracticable 
 schemes, and to excite in the minds of the 
 people expectations which can only be 
 
224 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 realised by their own strenuous and indepen- 
 dent exertions. 
 
 Poverty and misery there will always be, 
 and it is our Christian duty to relieve the 
 suffering and distressed ; but, in so far as 
 those sufferings originate in a want of em-, 
 ployment for those who are able and willing 
 to work, the evil is one which continually 
 tends to remedy itself. The interference of 
 the State by diminishing the incentives to 
 prudence would tend rather to extend the 
 evils it was designed to remedy, and in the 
 end be productive of more harm than good. 
 
 Emigration has been, and will continue to 
 be, an invaluable outlet for our redundant 
 population ; but the choice of a field of 
 labour, and the season for emigration, must 
 be left to the keen intelligence of the people. 
 Pecuniary aid should not be denied in appro- 
 priate cases ; but the emigrant who cannot 
 provide the means of paying the very 
 moderate sum now required for a passage 
 across the Atlantic, will rarely possess that 
 little store of capital which is an almost 
 essential condition to successful emigration. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 ALLEGED PHYSICAL DETERIORATION OF THE 
 LABOURER. 
 
 r I ^HERE is as much difficulty in pro- 
 JL nouncing a definite opinion upon the 
 alleged deterioration of the labourer physi- 
 cally, as in estimating the difference in the 
 cost of manual labour. Here again, em- 
 ployers who have of late been chiefly con- 
 cerned in carrying out works near London, 
 entertain a less favourable opinion of the 
 labourers of the present day than other 
 equally experienced contractors who have 
 been engaged in the neighbourhood of pro- 
 vincial towns and in the rural districts. The 
 facts which I have been able to ascertain in 
 relation to this branch of my general subject, 
 have chiefly reference to one kind of labourer, 
 
 Q 
 
226 WORK AND IV AGES. 
 
 the Navvy. I am, however, strongly of 
 opinion that most of the inferences derivable 
 from these facts will, with certain modifica- 
 tions, apply equally to all classes of labourers. 
 Mr. Milroy, whose recent experience has 
 been chiefly in Scotland, says that, " Com- 
 paring the navvies of to-day with those we 
 had on the Great Northern Railway, they 
 are just as powerful physically, but they are 
 more difficult to manage." Mr. Ballard, 
 whose experience has been chiefly in the 
 Midland Counties, says : " The navvies of 
 the present day exhibit no signs of deteriora- 
 tion, and more work has been done in the 
 latter days of railway construction than was 
 formerly accomplished for the same money. 
 The prices on the Great Northern for earth- 
 work averaged from is. to is. $d. per yard. 
 On the Bedford line, executed some ten 
 years ago, for much more expensive work, 
 the prices in no case exceeded i id. per yard. 
 On the Great Northern Railway is. 6d. 
 would have been charged for the same work. 
 Another large contractor, long associated 
 with my father, whose experience has of late 
 
ALLEGED DETERIORA TION OF LABOURER. 22 J 
 
 been chiefly in London, says, "that at 
 Macclesfield, in 1847, for excavating an 
 unusually heavy cutting, a large body of men 
 from Lincolnshire were employed. Not one 
 of those men was under 5 feet 10^ inches in 
 height ; such a body of men could not be 
 found in the present day on public works." 
 The fair inference from the testimony of 
 these very competent authorities on this 
 subject would appear to be that there cannot 
 have been any marked and general diminu- 
 tion of physical power in the present genera- 
 tion of manual labourers ; though the enerva- 
 ting life which the working population of 
 great cities are apt to lead has diminished the 
 physical powers of the navvies who have 
 been employed in the metropolitan districts. 
 
 It has been alleged that the navvy is only 
 enabled to earn his higher wages by exces- 
 sive exertion. It is true that the amount of 
 labour performed by the navvy in a day 
 involves considerable exertion ; but the men, 
 being of powerful frame, and having great 
 muscular development, are enabled to accom- 
 plish their work without undue exertion, and 
 
 Q2 
 
228 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 are often able to go home, their day's work 
 accomplished, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 If there be special danger to health in the 
 occupation of the navvy, it is because his 
 large earnings admit of greater indulgence 
 in the public-house. 
 
 At the present time, in consequence of the 
 unusual demand for labour, employers are 
 obliged to humour their men in every way. 
 On a railway now being executed near 
 Wolverhampton the men require a payment 
 of half-a-crown on account, technically called 
 a 'sub/ every night. The result of this 
 practice is, that the men spend every evening 
 in the beer-shop. 
 
 Three years ago wages were much lower 
 than they are now, and the men were more 
 temperate in their habits. A large propor- 
 tion of the improved wages of the working 
 class is unhappily being expended in the 
 public-house. 
 
 There is an evil in the frequent payment 
 of wages, in consequence of the unfortunate 
 disposition of the navvy to resort at once 
 to places of enjoyment, as soon as he has 
 
ALLEGED DETERIORATION OF LABOURER. 229 
 
 received his pay. If you pay wages weekly 
 on Saturday, it rarely happens that any con- 
 siderable amount of work is performed on 
 the Monday. On the Trent Valley Railway, 
 payment of wages took place, at the com- 
 mencement of the line, once a month. The 
 pay-day was followed by the same incapacity 
 for exertion which is unhappily still obser- 
 vable. The workmen then as now, could 
 never fill the same number of wagons for 
 two or three days after the pay. On the 
 Rouen and Havre Railway the pay took 
 place once a month on a Saturday. For two 
 or three days after the pay, the English 
 navvy could never be induced to work. On 
 the Barentin Viaduct, which was distant 
 about twelve miles from Rouen, a large 
 number of Englishmen were employed. 
 Special omnibuses were run between Ba- 
 rentin and Rouen on the Sunday following 
 the pay Saturday. On one of these 
 omnibuses, called by the navvies the Great 
 Western, 60 navvies could ride. These 
 English workmen used to crowd into the 
 streets of Rouen, where they were tempted 
 
230 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 to spend their hard earned wages in the 
 numerous cafes and cabarets. The result of 
 these excesses was, that after the pay, the 
 horses were never taken out of the stable to 
 draw the wagons from the cuttings until 
 Wednesday morning. 
 
 It has been observed that navvies em- 
 ployed in the vicinity of London often lose 
 some of their former physical strength. The 
 temptations of a great city, which are so 
 hard to resist, have told upon the physical 
 condition of the railway labourer. When the 
 works connected with the great drainage 
 scheme of the metropolis were in progress, a 
 large number of men were employed in the 
 principal streets of London, and they were 
 unable to resist the temptations of the public- 
 houses on either side of the street, in which 
 they were working. It must not be sup- 
 posed that this gloomy picture faithfully re- 
 presents the habits of all railway labourers, 
 but it is unhappily a fair representation of 
 the habits and condition of many of their 
 number. 
 
 The agricultural labour in numerous 
 
ALLEGED DETERIORA TION OF LA BO URER. 231 
 
 instances is not more able to resist the tempta- 
 tion than the navvy employed on the rail- 
 ways. In counties where the farm labourer 
 is paid a portion of his wages in cider, as is 
 the case in Devonshire and Herefordshire, 
 drinking takes place to a terrible extent. 
 
 The nature of the occupation of the navvy 
 is not necessarily detrimental to health. He 
 is rarely called upon to work in the rain. In 
 point of fact, the excavation of a cutting, or 
 the formation of an embankment, could not 
 be carried on with advantage either to the 
 contractor or to his workmen, in wet weather. 
 It may sometimes happen that a navvy is 
 required to work in a cutting, in which his 
 feet sink deeply into wet clay ; but the agri- 
 cultural labourer throughout his day's work 
 frequently fares no better, and he rarely goes 
 home in the intervals of his work ; whereas, 
 the navvy is in the habit of going home and 
 changing his wet clothes. 
 
 It must be admitted that the degree of 
 exertion to which the navvy is accustomed, 
 is too severe for the agricultural labourer, 
 until he has become accustomed to the more 
 
WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 arduous occupation. When an agricultural 
 labourer begins to work on a railway, he 
 will lie down at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 
 fatigued and incapable of continuing his work ; 
 but, after an interval of 12 months, with 
 more constant muscular exertion, receiving 
 higher wages, and having better food, he 
 will get into better condition, and will be able 
 to perform his task without difficulty. 
 
 It has been repeatedly proved in Belgium, 
 France, and England, that, after a sufficient 
 interval of time, the agricultural labourer 
 becomes perfectly master of the work re- 
 quired on a railway. To expect an ill-paid 
 and lightly worked agricultural labourer to 
 be at once capable of sustaining the exertion 
 which a navvy is fully able to bear, would be 
 as unreasonable as it would be to take a 
 horse direct out of a clover-field, and drive 
 him for a long journey at a great rate of 
 speed. It is supposed that, because there 
 are not a great number of old navvies about, 
 their occupation is necessarily prejudicial to 
 health. It must be remembered that thou- 
 sands of the navvies who were employed 
 
ALLEGED DETERIORA TION OF LA BO URER. 233 
 
 on the earlier railways, have emigrated to 
 Australia and America. Numbers of men 
 went to the Colonies, on the completion of 
 the Great Northern Railway, and other rail- 
 ways, which were finished about the same 
 time. As many as 350 navvies have been 
 known to sail in one ship from Liverpool to 
 Australia at that period. 
 
 Fortunately, too, many navvies have risen 
 to a better position in life. Many of those 
 employed by my father as navvies became 
 afterwards plate-layers, then inspectors, and 
 afterwards sub-contractors, or small con- 
 tractors on their own account. Those who 
 have been long connected with railway con- 
 struction, tell me that they know many 
 navvies, who have attained to a great age. 
 
 In the old days, when the butty-gang 
 system was in vogue, there were numerous 
 cases in which the men were overworked, but 
 the cause of their being overtasked was not 
 the pressure brought upon them by their 
 employers. The members of the butty-gang, 
 who divided their earnings equally among 
 themselves, were naturally averse to allowing 
 
234 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 an inferior man to enter the gang. The 
 gangs were paid at various rates according 
 to the amount of work performed. Those, 
 who could get through the greatest amount 
 of work in a day earned the highest 
 rates of wages ; and it was naturally there- 
 fore an object of ambition with a navvy to 
 become a member of the best paid gang. 
 But these well paid gangs were equally 
 determined not to admit any man into their 
 gang unless he could perform as much work 
 as those who were already members. Men 
 often over-exerted themselves in order to be 
 admitted into a gang composed of men of 
 greater physical strength than themselves. 
 
[ 235 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES. 
 
 IT is with the deepest regret that views 
 have been propounded in a former 
 chapter of this work in opposition to the 
 arguments of philanthropists who have advo- 
 cated Sate-aided emigration, because it must 
 be acknowledged by all who have studied 
 these questions, that our working class is ex- 
 posed to an amount of suffering from the 
 fluctuations in the commerce of this country 
 to a degree unparalleled elsewhere. An 
 increase or a reduction of the pay of the 
 working men will follow, it is true, the vary- 
 ing course of trade in natural sequence ; but 
 still with very inconvenient results to the in- 
 ternal economy of their homes. In proof of 
 
236 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the preference shown by the working classes 
 for a more moderate rate of wage with con- 
 stant employment, it is interesting to compare 
 the rate of wages in the Dockyards with the 
 wages paid in the private ship-building yards 
 on the banks of the Thames. The following 
 table, compiled by Admiral King Hall, C.B., 
 gives the rate of wages in Sheerness Yard in 
 the years 1849, 1859, and 1869. The table 
 showing the current rates of wages at the cor- 
 responding period in the private yards on the 
 Thames, was prepared by Mr. John Hughes, 
 sometime manager of the Mill wall Works. 
 Sheerness. Rate of Wages. 
 
 
 
 1849 
 
 1859 
 
 1869 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 Shipwrights 
 
 4 o 
 
 4 6 
 
 4 6 
 
 
 Caulkers 
 
 4 o 
 
 4 6 
 
 4 6 
 
 
 Joiners 
 
 3 6 
 
 3 10 
 
 3 10 
 
 8 o 
 
 Forgemen . 
 
 7 o 
 
 
 
 5 9 
 
 Furnacemen 
 
 5 o 
 
 
 
 4 8 
 
 Assistant Furnacemen 
 
 4 o 
 
 
 
 5 2 
 
 Steam Hammermen 
 
 4 6 
 
 
 
 6 4 
 5 6 
 
 Anchor Firemen, 1st class 
 ,, ,, 2nd class 
 
 5 6 
 
 4 9 
 
 j Sa 
 
 me 
 
 5 6 
 
 Double Firemen . 
 
 4 9 
 
 
 
 4 10 
 
 Single Firemen, Vicemen, and F tters 
 
 4 3 
 
 
 
 4 4 Hammermen, 1st class 
 
 3 9 
 
 
 
 3 9 
 
 ,, 2nd class 
 
 3 3 
 
 
 
 The figures in the left-hand margin show the pay of smiths em- 
 ployed ten hours a day. 
 
FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES. 
 
 237 
 
 Average Rates of Wages Paid at Millwall Iron Works. 
 
 
 Rates of Wages during years 1851 to 1869 
 
 1851 
 
 1861 to 1865 
 
 1865 to 1869 
 
 1869 
 
 
 per week 
 
 per week 
 
 per week 
 
 per week 
 
 Fitters . 
 
 33 to 38 
 
 33 to 38 
 
 35 to 40 
 
 33 to 38 
 
 Planers . 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 32 
 
 34 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 Drillers. 
 
 22 
 
 27 
 
 22 
 
 27 
 
 23 
 
 28 
 
 22 
 
 27 
 
 Smiths . 
 
 30 
 
 42 
 
 30 
 
 42 
 
 30 
 
 42 
 
 30 
 
 42 
 
 , , helpers 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 Moulders 
 
 36 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 40 
 
 36 
 
 40 
 
 Pattern Makers 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 39 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 Joiners . 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 Shipwrights . 
 
 42 
 
 48 
 
 42 
 
 48 
 
 39 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 Platers . 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 ,, helpers 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 Rivetters 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 ,, helpers 
 
 20 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 24 
 
 2O 
 
 24 
 
 Caulkers 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 33 
 
 Chippers 
 
 28 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 30 
 
 Angle Iron Smiths 
 
 38 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 40 
 
 Boiler Makers 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 helpers 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 Painters 
 
 21 
 
 30 
 
 21 
 
 30 
 
 21 
 
 30 
 
 21 
 
 30 
 
 Hours of work, 58 \ hours per week. 
 
 It may be mentioned that the average rent 
 of men's houses in 1851 was about i6/. per 
 year; and in 1865 about 2O/. per year. 
 These are six-roomed houses, and in most 
 cases more than one family occupied them. 
 
 It thus appears that at a time when ship- 
 wrights in London were earning from 6^. 6d. 
 to *js. a day, the shipwrights in Sheerness 
 Yard, men at least as skilled as those em- 
 
238 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ployed by the private ship-builders, were 
 contented with 4^. 6d. ; though they could at 
 any time have put their tools into their 
 baskets, and at the end of an hour and a 
 halfs journey by rail have obtained employ- 
 ment from the private ship-builders at the 
 higher rate of wages. 
 
 They preferred, and with good reason, 
 more moderate wages with a certainty of 
 employment, to higher wages without the 
 certainty of permanent occupation. 
 
 The recent hasty dismissals of workmen 
 from the Dockyards are especially to be 
 regretted on this ground, that the workmen 
 can no longer look with the same confidence 
 as before to their permanent connection with 
 a Government establishment ; nor will they 
 be so ready to accept lower wages in a Dock- 
 yard in consideration of the advantages of 
 constant employment. 
 
 The same preference for regular employ- 
 ment at moderate wages to a less certain 
 employment with higher wages, manifests 
 itself abroad, as in England. The employes 
 of a Railway Company may look upon their 
 
FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES. 239 
 
 employment, at least during good behaviour, 
 as being almost as certain as that under a 
 government. Thus it has happened that in 
 the railway works at Sotteville, near Rouen, 
 there has been no advance of importance in 
 wages for the last twenty-five years in the 
 class of labour employed by the builders 
 of locomotives ; although there has been a 
 great increase in the wages paid by MM. 
 Schneider and other private employers. 
 The rates of wages at Sotteville are quoted 
 in the subjoined table. 
 
 It may be interesting to compare them 
 with the wages earned by the same trades in 
 England. 
 
 Sotteville Works. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Erecters, Fitters, and Turners 24 o per week 
 
 Smiths . . . . 27 o 
 
 Strikers . . . .180 
 
 Joiners . . . . 22 o 
 
 Modellers . . . 23 o 
 
 Moulders in the Foundry . 22 6 
 
 The wages at a similar establishment on 
 the largest scale in England are shown in 
 the following table : 
 
240 
 
 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Average Rates of Wages Paid to Skilled Workmen, 
 Locomotive Works, England. 
 
 
 1859 
 
 1869 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Fitters . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28 3-15 
 
 28 7-69 
 
 Turners 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28 4-57 
 
 29 376 
 
 Braziers 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28 6-85 
 
 28 7-06 
 
 Grinders 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 27 6 
 
 28 10-50 
 
 Smiths . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28 5 
 
 26 10-35 
 
 Boiler Smith 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 
 3i 8 
 
 3 4*5 
 
 Bricklayers 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 5'io 
 
 3 57 
 
 Saddlers 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 8 
 
 20 3 
 
 Forgemen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 34 3 
 
 34 4'05 
 
 Painters 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 IO 
 
 23 i -60 
 
 Moulders 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 29 4'50 
 
 28 5-58 
 
 Joiners, Pattern 
 Sawyers . 
 
 Mai 
 
 cers, 
 
 and "1 
 
 24 6-18 
 
 24 4 '95 
 
 Brickmakers 
 
 
 
 
 
 27 8-44 
 
 27 5*28 
 
 Total average 
 
 27 11-23 
 
 28 i -28 
 
 Every branch of industry was in an in- 
 flated condition in the period immediately 
 preceding the last commercial crisis. The 
 mania of speculation was equally felt, and the 
 reaction was equally strong in all depart- 
 ments of business. The following table 
 shows the amount of capital in shares and in 
 loans which it was proposed to raise by rail- 
 way and other bills, brought before Parlia- 
 ment in the two years preceding the last 
 commercial crisis, and in the two years 
 following the collapse : 
 
FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES. 241 
 
 In 1865 ^126,441,708 
 
 1866 . . . 175,490,646 
 
 1867 . 42,638,775 
 
 1868 .... 25,207,356 
 
 1869 29,221,706 
 
 It is impossible that such fluctuations can 
 occur in the rate of construction of railways 
 and other public works, without entailing 
 much cruel and unnecessary suffering on the 
 labouring poor. A melancholy illustration 
 to which in connection with another branch 
 of the subject, reference has already been 
 made, of the disturbance in the labour- 
 market caused by the inflation and sub- 
 sequent collapse of trade, has been lately 
 exhibited on the banks of the Thames. 
 
 The number of men employed at the prin- 
 cipal ship-building yards on the Thames was, 
 in 1860, 11,830; in 1869, 20,880; and in 
 1870, 3,190. Making every allowance for 
 the faults committed by the men, the princi- 
 pal share of blame for the disasters of the 
 panic must, in justice, be laid on some of 
 their employers. 
 
 The distress of the industrial population in 
 the Isle of Dogs from this extension of the 
 
242 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ship-building business to a height which it 
 was impossible long to sustain, cannot be 
 exaggerated. I was asked by Mr. Pease, 
 M.P., to send him some additional labourers 
 to be employed in his Collieries and Iron 
 Works in Durham. The number of applica- 
 tions that were received, as soon as it became 
 known that such employment was to be 
 obtained, afforded a melancholy proof of the 
 extreme destitution of the people. 
 
 Applications were received every Monday 
 and Wednesday, and on each of those days 
 not fewer than 700 men would present them- 
 selves. Many men, who had been employed 
 in the iron works, earning 75. a day, were 
 anxious to go down to Durham to work as 
 common labourers. Fine ablebodied young 
 men would come to the office, who had not 
 had a day's work for upwards of two months. 
 
 Over-production has not been confined to 
 ship-building on the Thames. Previous to 
 the last commercial crisis, production had 
 been unduly stimulated in every branch of 
 British industry. And then, when the reac- 
 tion took place, and prices had fallen from the 
 
FLUCTUATIONS OF WAGES. 243 
 
 markets having been overstocked, we were 
 told that the price of labour and foreign com- 
 petition were the causes of our inevitable mis- 
 fortunes. But, as it was well said by an able 
 and candid writer in the " Leeds Mercury," 
 "If foreign competition were the cause of our 
 distress, we should be justified in expecting 
 that, in countries competing successfully with 
 us, the manufacturers would be in a prosper- 
 ous state." This was not the case. All were 
 calling out at the same time that they were 
 ruined by foreign competition. 
 
 A similar opinion was expressed by the 
 Halifax Chamber of Commerce, who said 
 that it was demonstrable that the great cause 
 of the depression and the unremunerative 
 character of the worsted trade had been the 
 too rapid increase of machinery, both in 
 spinning and weaving, which were stimulated 
 both by permanent and temporary causes ; 
 such as the French Treaty and the American 
 war. 
 
 The same remarks would equally apply to 
 the iron trade, and all the other leading indus- 
 tries of the country. The very spirit of enter- 
 
 R2 
 
244 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 prise, which has made England what she is, 
 tends to produce great fluctuations in the la- 
 bour market. When trade is good, our iron- 
 founders and cotton-spinners are only too 
 ready to increase the productive resources of 
 their establishments. This leads to over- 
 production, and ultimately to a cessation of 
 demand from abroad. It cannot be doubted 
 that this spasmodic and fluctuating character 
 of our trade produces an unhappy effect 
 upon the operatives who are subject to its 
 influence, of a constant fluctuation in their 
 wages. 
 
 The operative class have of late suffered 
 from another cause. Small producers, who 
 were earning a livelihood by manual labour, 
 have gradually been overwhelmed by the 
 superior powers of machinery. Free trade and 
 open competition, by reducing prices, have 
 been good for the public at large; but, as 
 usual, the few have suffered for the benefit 
 of the many. I will take, as an example, 
 the distressed condition of the small weavers 
 at Coventry, as described by Mr. Alexander 
 Carter. The French Treaty precipitated 
 
FLUCTUATION OF WAGES. 245 
 
 an event which had been impending for 
 some time, viz., the extinction of the class 
 of small individual weavers, who worked 
 looms that they possessed, on their own 
 account. These men, who were of course 
 but small capitalists, were either unable 
 or unwilling, or probably both, to adapt 
 themselves to the altered circumstances 
 which the rest of the world saw were gra- 
 dually working to the detriment of the then 
 existing state of things, both as regards 
 modes of labour and change of fashion. 
 Their better educated and more active com- 
 petitors on the Continent were gradually 
 cutting them out. Formerly the majority of 
 ribbons were broad, and were made in a small 
 description of loom. Narrow ribbons next 
 came into fashion. The old looms could 
 not be adapted to produce the narrow ribbons, 
 and many of the weavers were unable to 
 afford to buy new looms. The French 
 Treaty, by taking away the last remnant of 
 protection, of course precipitated their des- 
 truction. The only people able to contend 
 against its effects were the large manufac- 
 
246 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 turers, who were possessed of capital ; were 
 accustomed to acquaint themselves with the 
 change of fashion by a wide range of obser- 
 vation ; could foresee what was wanted ; and 
 could provide for the new demands of the 
 public. It is to be feared that the industrial 
 history of Coventry, for some years before 
 and after the negotiation of the French Treaty 
 of Commerce, was the old story of British ob- 
 stinacy and resistance, which though good on 
 the field of battle, is not equally valuable in 
 trade. It is a new story also, and one not 
 altogether satisfactory, of the extinction of 
 the small producers in the overwhelming 
 competition with the large manufacturer, 
 whose commarsd of capital enables him to 
 employ the most improved machinery, to 
 procure the best designs, and to accept a lower 
 rate of profit on a much larger production. 
 
[ 2 47 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CO-OPERATION. 
 
 A KNOWLEDGE of markets and of 
 the state of trade is of immense im- 
 portance to the industrial classes, and it is 
 most desirable that the course of business 
 should be carefully watched by competent 
 persons on their behalf. An inspection of the 
 employers' books would be an effectual means 
 of obtaining this knowledge. Such an in- 
 spection is permitted in Messrs. Briggs' Co- 
 operative Colliery. Theirs is a noble experi- 
 ment but it is clear that the arrangement, 
 experimentally adopted by Messrs. Briggs, 
 could not, in practice, be extensively 
 applied. In many branches of trade there- 
 turns are in the highest degree fluctuating. 
 
248 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 A cycle of years of extreme depression is 
 followed by a period of corresponding pros- 
 perity. During the years of bad trade work- 
 men are employed at rates of wages which 
 involve considerable loss to the employer, 
 who looks for his compensation to the good 
 years of large profits. If the workmen were 
 continually informed of the profits of their 
 employers, I think they would be apt to 
 exact their full share of reward in the good 
 years, but not equally ready to submit to 
 corresponding sacrifices in the succession of 
 years of bad trade. 
 
 The history of the Association des Masons 
 established in Paris in 1848, is an illustration 
 both of success in the conduct of the co- 
 operative business, and of the difficulties in- 
 separable from the system. Eighty-four 
 members had been admitted, two being 
 managers and a third assistant-manager. Of 
 the eighty-one members two-thirds labour 
 with the hod and trowel. The remainder are 
 superintendents and distributors of work, or 
 small holders of capital. But the society 
 which has been very successful in business 
 
CO-OPERATION. 249 
 
 has found it necessary to employ from 200 to 
 300 men as auxiliaries, who are paid the 
 usual wages in the trade, but have no share 
 in the profits. Experience unfortunately 
 proved that when they were paid by a share 
 in the profits, a larger number of the men 
 could not be reconciled to the losses. As a 
 means of meeting the difficulty, which the 
 Societe des Ma9ons found to be so serious, 
 it has been proposed that the minimum rate 
 of weekly wages should be fixed in the, co- 
 operative society, and that a dividend on the 
 profits should be declared quarterly. It has 
 been objected to this plan that, as the work- 
 man's share of the profits is determined by the 
 cost of manual labour, and this must be fixed 
 by the assent of all the members of the co- 
 operative society, a direct conflict of interest 
 inevitably arises between them and the capi- 
 talists, in fixing the standard of the provisional 
 remuneration which they are to receive. 
 
 But notwithstanding all the difficulties 
 which beset the introduction of co-operation, 
 the recent Blue Book, on the industrial classes 
 abroad, is full of encouraging examples of co- 
 
250 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 operative organization. It has been largely 
 and successfully developed both in Vienna 
 and in North Germany, under the energetic 
 guidance of M. Schultse de Litsch. If only the 
 difficulties above mentioned could be over- 
 come, there cannot be a doubt that in the 
 adoption of the co-operative principle, modi- 
 fied to suit the different circumstances of 
 different trades, we shall find the only means 
 of effecting a fusion between the otherwise con- 
 tending interests of labour and capital. It has 
 been said that an inspection of the employers' 
 books would be an effectual means of im- 
 parting to the operatives a correct knowledge 
 of the condition of trade, and would, in 
 many cases, afford the means of proving the 
 utter impossibility of allowing an advance 
 of wages, which the workmen had claimed 
 from ignorance of the actual state of business. 
 But an inspection of the employers' books 
 involves many difficulties. Take the case of 
 the peculiarly hazardous business of a rail- 
 way contractor. In some of his contracts 
 the profits will be large, in others he will be 
 a serious loser. A large employer taking a 
 
CO-OPERATION. 
 
 251 
 
 general view of his affairs, and setting the 
 good contracts against the bad, is content if 
 the general result is satisfactory. Is it likely 
 that the navvy, who works equally hard both 
 on the bad contract and on the good, would 
 be disposed to suffer a reduction of pay on 
 the bad contract, and to see his fellow-work- 
 man employed elsewhere, but working no 
 harder, receive double the pay awarded to 
 himself? On the other hand, this is certain, 
 that while the navvy upon the unsuccessful 
 contract would object to such a reduction of 
 pay as would protect the employer from loss, 
 the navvy on the good contract, if he were 
 made aware of the profits, would demand 
 some share in those profits, in the form of 
 an increase in his pay. Such being the 
 practical difficulties in the way of opening the 
 ledger of the capitalist to the inspection of the 
 operative, what- other means are available to 
 enable the workmen to determine the fair 
 rate of wages ? The political economy of the 
 wages question is simple enough. The 
 difficulties which beset the question lie en- 
 tirely in the practical application of the prin- 
 
252 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 ciples to the facts. The facts are unhappily 
 unknown to the working men. They have to 
 struggle in the dark, and have no means of 
 estimating correctly the profits of their em- 
 ployers. 
 
 How, then, is this knowledge of the state of 
 trade to be obtained by the working classes, 
 from a source on which they might rely ? 
 Only by the introduction into every trade of 
 the co-operative principle. The co-operative 
 principle has hitherto been applied principally 
 to retail trade. But it is to the more difficult 
 organisation of productive industry, that we 
 must look for the settlement of disputes as to 
 wages. I do not expect a general substitu- 
 tion of co-operative industry for private 
 enterprise. It is impossible to deny the 
 superior efficacy of individual to co-operative 
 enterprise. Moreover, a considerable capital 
 is necessary, in order that every mechanical 
 improvement may be adopted. Again, the 
 skill required to manage a large establishment 
 cannot be obtained without paying high 
 salaries ; and workmen may sometimes find 
 it difficult to obtain the necessary commercial 
 
CO-OPERATION. 
 
 253 
 
 faculty and experience either in a committee 
 of management, or in an individual manager 
 of their own class. Some may object to give 
 to a fellow-workman for his services as man- 
 ager a salary proportionate to his responsi- 
 bility. Admitting these difficulties to be 
 considerable, they can scarcely be regarded 
 as insurmountable. 
 
 M. Schultse de Litsch, the father of co- 
 operation in Germany, has described the 
 origin and history of the movement in a 
 letter to the recent Co-operative Congress. 
 While his narrative reveals the extreme diffi- 
 culty of putting his admirable theory into 
 practice, and proves that the day is yet far 
 distant when the co-operative system can 
 take a prominent place in the productive 
 industry of the world, it is to be hoped that 
 the experiments which have already been 
 begun may not be abandoned until a more 
 conclusive result has been obtained. The 
 societies for supplying raw materials to 
 artisans have not been successful. The 
 chief cause of failure has been the neglect to 
 insist on cash payments. On the other hand, 
 
254 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the credit societies, established to give ad- 
 vances of capital to persons without avail- 
 able property, have enjoyed a brighter 
 fortune. These banks are now 740 in 
 number, with a paid-up capital of 2,ooo,ooo/. 
 sterling, with a sum of 8,25o,ooo/. available 
 for making loans ; and they lend 29,ooo,ooo/. 
 per annum. 
 
 Mr. Petre, an impartial and competent 
 observer, in a recent report to the Foreign 
 Office, has expressed his doubt as to whether 
 the economical results of the adoption of 
 M. Schultse de Litsch's principle have been 
 as important to Germany as may at first 
 appear. But it is certain that the disputes 
 between the partisans of M. Schultse de 
 Litsch's principle of self-help, and those who 
 advocate M. Lassalle's principle of State aid, 
 have borne precious fruit in the practical 
 education they have given to German work- 
 ing men in economical science. 
 
 The societies for production in France have 
 not been generally fortunate. Since 1848, 
 aided by a subvention from the Govern- 
 ment, 56 co-operative societies have been 
 
CO- OPERA TION. 255 
 
 established, but only 20 were in existence in 
 1861. 
 
 On the other hand, some of the happiest 
 efforts to create co-operative societies of 
 production have been made in France. One 
 of the most interesting of these establish- 
 ments is that founded by M. Godin le Maire 
 at Guise. He employs 900 workmen who 
 call themselves the Familistere de Guise, 
 and maintain among themselves the most 
 intimate social relations. Their employer 
 has exhibited an earnest solicitude to promote 
 the welfare of his workmen. In 1859 he 
 constructed for their accommodation, at a 
 cost of 800,000 francs, a house, containing 
 250 separate tenements, which he lets to the 
 workmen, at rents calculated to pay 3^ per 
 cent, upon the capital expended. The value 
 of this property has been divided into shares 
 purchasable by the tenants, who may thus 
 have an opportunity of becoming the sole 
 proprietors. M. Godin le Maire has also 
 divided the value of his plant and works into 
 shares of the value of 25 francs each, by 
 which means he aimed at associating the 
 
256 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 whole body of his workmen with himself, as 
 his partners in his business. 
 
 In England the effort to introduce the co- 
 operative principle made by Messrs. Briggs 
 remains still an experiment, though a hope- 
 ful experiment. The workmen are share- 
 holders to a limited extent. Of 9,770 shares 
 only 264 are held by the workmen, and Mr. 
 Briggs is of opinion that, without more 
 education, mining could not be conducted on 
 a strictly co-operative system. In other 
 branches of trade, co-operation appears 
 to be making considerable progress. In 
 Lancashire, as I noticed on the occasion of a 
 recent visit, the improvement in the cotton 
 trade has had the accustomed effect of en- 
 couraging the erection of new cotton mills ; 
 but at Middleton, the point of observation 
 I happened to occupy, I was rejoiced to find 
 that most of the new mills were established 
 on the co-operative system. 
 
 In New York the Tailors' Association 
 recently announced that their aim would be 
 henceforth to throw over the system of 
 strikes, and to commence fighting with the 
 
CO-OPERATION. 
 
 257 
 
 strongest weapon, Co-operation. Several 
 Co-operative Land and Building Societies 
 and Foundries have been established. An 
 Iron Foundry was started in 1866 at Troy, 
 in New York, with a capital of 2,75o/. In 
 the first year thirty-two men were employed, 
 in 1869, eighty-five: the skilled men earning 
 35/. a year more than the wages paid in an 
 ordinary foundry. 
 
 With these examples before us, we may 
 venture to hope that co-operation may be 
 more largely introduced into British industry. 
 When this change has been brought about, 
 the workmen will have a standard by which 
 they can determine the fair rate of wages in 
 their trade. They will know that they can- 
 not expect from their employers a rate of 
 pay exceeding that in the co-operative 
 establishments, where the workmen them- 
 selves sit in judgment on the relative claims 
 of capital and labour. 
 
 The Co-operative Association, working 
 side by side with the capitalist, would 
 diffuse among the workmen in the trade a 
 knowledge of the state of affairs which 
 
258 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 would make such a mistake as that com- 
 mitted at Wigan impossible. Co-operation 
 would teach our industrial population to 
 appreciate the difficulties and hazards attend- 
 ing the investment of capital in business. I 
 have had an opportunity of seeing what they 
 are; and I can assure the working man 
 whose stock in trade is secure amid all the 
 fluctuations of commercial life, because it 
 consists of his individual experience and 
 dexterity, of which no reverse of fortune can 
 deprive him that the more precarious tenure 
 by which capital is held, capital which has 
 only been amassed after long years of thrift 
 and untiring exertion, ought to mitigate the 
 envy which the contemplation of the rare 
 instances of great success in commercial 
 enterprise may arouse. In the difficult 
 vocation of a railway contractor the fluctua- 
 tions and anxieties of business are felt with 
 peculiar severity. I know of one great con- 
 tract in which three partners together lost 
 75o,ooo/. I could enumerate other contracts 
 in which, though the actual loss was not so 
 serious, the result was even more disastrous 
 
CO-OPERATION. 259 
 
 in proportion to the limited extent of the 
 operations. 
 
 The advantages of co-operation were 
 summarised by Lord Derby in a well-con- 
 sidered and suggestive speech. " It is human 
 nature," he said, " that a man should like to 
 feel that he is to be the gainer by any extra 
 industry that he may put forth, that he would 
 like to have some sense of proprietorship in 
 a shop or a mill, or whatever it may be, in 
 which he knows his days ; and it is because 
 the system introduced of late years of co- 
 operative industry meets that natural wish 
 that I look forward to its extension with so 
 much hopefulness. I believe it is the best 
 and surest remedy for that antagonism of 
 labour and capital which we hear so much 
 talked of, and which to a certain extent no 
 doubt exists." .... " I am well aware that 
 such a state of things as I have pointed out 
 is one which cannot be brought about in a 
 day. It is quite probable that there are 
 some trades and some kinds of business in 
 which it cannot be brought about at all ; but 
 it seems to me that it is in that direction that 
 
 S2 
 
260 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 the efforts of the best workers and the ideas 
 of the best thinkers are tending ; and we are 
 not to be disheartened by a few failures, or 
 disappointed because we do not at once hit 
 upon the best way of doing what has never 
 been done before." The diffusion of educa- 
 tion under the recent Act will doubtless assist 
 the industrial classes to overcome the diffi- 
 culties of co-operative organization ; and 
 when a higher scale of education is given to 
 the people than the purely elementary in- 
 struction which is now proposed, the great 
 quality of self-help will be more highly 
 developed. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PIECE WORK. 
 
 IT has been always the aim of experienced 
 employers to give to the workman a 
 direct interest in doing his work with skill 
 and diligence. Slave labour, in which the 
 motive of self-interest is wholly wanting, is 
 on that very ground as unsatisfactory in an 
 economical sense, as it is repugnant to our 
 moral sentiments. Adam Smith truly says 
 that " the person who can acquire no pro- 
 perty can have no other interest but to eat as 
 much and labour as little as possible. In 
 ancient Italy, how much the cultivation of 
 corn degenerated, and how unprofitable it 
 became to the master, when it fell under the 
 management of slaves, is remarked both by 
 Pliny and Columella." Slave labour was 
 
262 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 employed at one time by my father's repre- 
 sentative, Mr. Hancox, on the drainage 
 works at Rio Janeiro ; but he soon discovered 
 that free Portuguese labour, even with wages 
 at 4^. 6d. a day, was infinitely cheaper than 
 the labour of the slaves. 
 
 Some interesting evidence, as to the rela- 
 tive costs of free and slave labour, was given 
 by witnesses who appeared before the 
 Select Committee on the West Indian 
 Colonies in 1847. I* was stated by Mr. 
 John S coble, that free labour was not only the 
 cheapest, but, under proper direction, the best 
 kind of labour. The price of female slave 
 labour, per month of twenty days, was ten 
 dollars, or is. gd. a day. The cost of rearing 
 a slave up to the age of fourteen was ioo/. 
 In his opinion, if there had been a diminution 
 in the production of sugar, there had on the 
 other hand been a reduction in the cost of 
 raising it. 
 
 In 1848 a correspondence took place 
 between Earl Grey and the Governors of 
 the sugar-growing colonies, relative to the 
 causes of the then prevalent distress. Much 
 
- PIECE WORK. 263 
 
 evidence was given to prove that, at least in 
 some of the colonies, the cost of production 
 by free labour was less than the cost of doing 
 the same work with slave labour. 
 
 Sir William Reid stated that the produce 
 in Jamaica, under free labour cultivation, aver- 
 aged one ton per acre ; whereas in the most 
 prosperous days, before the emancipation of 
 the slaves, 18 cwts. per acre had been es- 
 teemed an excellent result. 
 
 The British Consul at Pernambuco gave a 
 detailed statement of the comparative cost of 
 work done by slaves, and work done by free 
 labour. He stated that eighty slaves on an 
 estate in Pernambuco, used to produce 171^- 
 tons of sugar. The annual cost of maintain- 
 ing the slaves, including replacement, was 
 765/. Adding to this sum interest at 12 per 
 cent, on the first cost of the slaves, which he 
 estimated at 4,o5o/., there was an additional 
 expenditure of 486/. This gave the sum of 
 4, 25 1 1. as the total cost of producing the 
 above quantity of sugar with slave labour. 
 
 The cost of producing an equal quantity of 
 sugar by free labour was considerably less. 
 
264 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 The wages of the free labourer, without food, 
 were iof^. a day ; free men were admitted 
 to work harder than slaves ; but, allowing that 
 an equal number of free labourers should be 
 employed, the total cost would have amounted 
 only to i,o8o/. 
 
 While I trust that the co-operative move- 
 ment may be more successful in future than 
 in the past, the difficulties which have been 
 hitherto encountered may perhaps tend to 
 reconcile those who have hitherto objected 
 to piece work, to its adoption in default of a 
 more perfect system. 
 
 My father always preferred putting a price 
 upon the work, rather than paying by the 
 day. This system was modified to suit the 
 usual habits of the people with whom he had 
 to deal. The Piedmontese on the line from 
 Chambery to Modane were paid at so much 
 a barrow-load. This minute measurement 
 was exclusively the Piedmontese system. 
 Piece work could not in all cases be adopted 
 without some complications and difficulties ; 
 but my father always looked upon day Avork 
 as a losing game ; and all his work was done 
 
PIECE WORK. 265 
 
 as far as possible by sub-contract, which is 
 piece work on a somewhat larger scale. 
 Even the scaffolding for the erection of an 
 iron bridge, such as that over the Severn, near 
 Colebrook Dale, of 200 feet span, was carried 
 out upon the principle of sub-contract ; and 
 the same system was adopted for the excava- 
 tion of shafts and adjacent lengths of tunnel. 
 Payment by piece is beneficial alike to 
 the master and the man. The men earn 
 higher wages, while the master has the satis- 
 faction of obtaining an equivalent for the 
 wages he has paid, and completing the 
 contract which he has undertaken with 
 far greater rapidity. On public works 
 the differences in the earnings of the men 
 doing piece work, and men working by the 
 day, were always remarkable. In the canal- 
 making days, men working in butty-gangs 
 would earn 4^., while others working on the 
 day work system would not earn more than 
 from 2s. to y. a day. 
 
 There was a remarkable illustration of the 
 advantage of piece work over day work in 
 the construction of the railway between 
 
266 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Leicester and Hitchin. At the commence- 
 ment of the works, instead of paying the 
 workmen at so much per cubic yard, the 
 piece work system was abandoned, and the 
 men received the average amount of the 
 agricultural wages of the country, namely, 
 2s. $d. a day. On my father's attention being 
 directed to this subject, the system was 
 changed and piece work introduced. It was 
 found that when the men were paid by the 
 day, the excavation in the cuttings had cost 
 is. 6d. a yard. When the system was 
 changed, day work abandoned, and piece 
 work adopted, the cost of the work was 
 reduced to 7d. per yard. 
 
 Piece work is not popular with the English 
 Trades Unions ; and the objection urged by 
 our own workmen is repeated by the artisans 
 abroad. In a letter addressed by F. Fonch6 
 to M. Haussontier, published in the " Reports 
 of Working Men on the Paris Exhibition," it 
 is said that piece work, when executed on 
 equitable terms, is a good thing in itself ; but 
 the marchandeur, or small contractor, always 
 
PIECE WORK. 267 
 
 wants to increase his profits by lessening the 
 prices paid to the working people. 
 
 Objections have been raised to piece work 
 by Mr. Thornton in his essay on Labour, 
 mainly on the ground that it makes men 
 overtask themselves and contract intemperate 
 habits, and tends to lower the remuneration 
 of labour. On railways, however, it is certain 
 that these objections have not been felt, and 
 I could quote, in answer to Mr. Thornton, the 
 opinions of Mr. Mill, Mr. McCulloch, and 
 other economists, who have given their 
 cordial approval to the system. 
 
 I have no fear that the workman will not 
 put forth his best skill and greatest energy, 
 when encouraged to do so by the hope of 
 reward. In my small personal experience I 
 have seen much to confirm this opinion, ex- 
 pressed by Adam Smith, that " workmen 
 when they are liberally paid by the piece, are 
 very apt to overwork themselves, and ruin 
 their constitution in a few years." 
 
 The truth of his position is in many cases 
 incontrovertible. Perhaps one of the most 
 striking cases is that of the slaves, employed 
 
268 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 as coffee-carriers in the Brazils. These men 
 are employed in removing bags of coffee, 
 weighing from two to three hundredweight, 
 on their heads, in and out of large warehouses 
 and from the warehouses to the shipping. 
 They often carry these immense weights a 
 distance of 300 or 400 yards. The men 
 are the most powerful slaves in the Brazils, 
 and they are paid at a fixed rate, in propor- 
 tion to the amount of work performed. They 
 work with the most intense vigour, in order 
 to earn as soon as possible a sufficient sum 
 wherewith to purchase their freedom, and 
 generally succeed in accumulating the amount 
 required in three or four years. But they 
 are a short-lived race, and in their devouring 
 anxiety to accomplish their object, too often 
 sacrifice their health by over exertion ; 
 although they are well fed on dried meat 
 or salt meat from the river Plate, eaten with 
 a large quantity of farinaceous food. 
 
 It would, in the present condition of trade, 
 be simply impossible to entertain the notion of 
 a further reduction of hours. But I hope to 
 see the day when the progress of mechanical 
 
PIECE WORK. 269 
 
 invention and habits of greater diligence on 
 the part of workmen may enable them to earn 
 as good a day's wages, and do as much work 
 for their employer, in eight hours as in nine. 
 In order, however, to accomplish so great a 
 reform, the Trades Unions must no longer 
 interpose, enforcing upon all workmen a 
 regulated diligence, and preventing them 
 from making the best use of their powers. I 
 do not wish to see men overwork themselves. 
 I believe with Adam Smith that " the man 
 who works so moderately as to be able to 
 work constantly, not only preserves his health 
 the longest, but, in the course of the year, 
 executes the greatest quantity of work." On 
 the other hand, I have seen much listlessness 
 and idleness in the workshop ; and I look for- 
 ward to the time when there may be . more 
 continued attention to business during the 
 working hours, and when the workman shall 
 receive a proportionate reward in shorter 
 hours of labour. 
 
[ 270 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 
 
 IN times of commercial depression, the 
 importance of establishing friendly means 
 of adjusting the rival claims of capital and 
 labour is underrated. When the rapid in- 
 crease of production is checked, and especially 
 when the rate of production is diminished, the 
 competition among the industrial classes for 
 employment makes it impossible for labour, 
 however skilfully organized, to exact any 
 concessions from capital. It often happens, 
 in periods of unsuccessful trade, that mills are 
 kept running, mines are being worked, and 
 that engineering establishments are in opera- 
 tion, although the results may involve the 
 employer in serious loss. In such cases pro- 
 duction is continued, partly for the sake of 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 271 
 
 sparing to the workmen the suffering arising 
 from suspension of industry, partly also with 
 the hope of a return of better trade. But it 
 will be readily understood that under such 
 adverse circumstances the employers cannot 
 possibly entertain demands for an augmen- 
 tation of wages. The case is reversed in 
 periods of commercial prosperity, when an 
 increasing production in all branches of 
 industry affords employment to every indi- 
 vidual who is able to work. The competition 
 of unemployed labour is no longer felt, and 
 labour will naturally begin to seek for an 
 increased reward. The certainty that these 
 claims will arise is a strong reason why some 
 effort should be made to establish friendly and 
 impartial tribunals by which they can be re- 
 viewed. Education will probably do much to 
 develop the usefulness of courts of conciliation. 
 It may be that a court of conciliation can 
 never adjust a real quarrel. But it is certain 
 that it may do much to prevent a quarrel 
 from arising. If the workmen were satisfied 
 that an employer could not make a concession 
 without suffering serious loss, they would not 
 
272 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 be so unreasonable as to ask for it. The 
 constant meeting of employers and represen- 
 tatives of the operatives at the same table 
 must naturally facilitate peaceful negotiation 
 where a desire for peace exists on both sides. 
 With constant discussion coming events will 
 cast their shadows before, and disputes are not 
 likely suddenly to arise. 
 
 Much advantage might be expected from 
 courts of arbitration, on the plan recommended 
 by Mr. Mundella and Mr. Rupert Kettle. 
 These courts of conciliation are an imitation 
 of the Conseils des Prud'hommes in France. 
 Each council was there established by decree 
 of the government, and consisted of a presi- 
 dent, a vice-president, not necessarily either 
 employers or workmen, and six members 
 elected by employers and workmen; the 
 general aim is to obtain a settlement of trade 
 disputes by judges who are the equals of the 
 disputants. The proceedings are inexpensive ; 
 the judges are unpaid ; and a delegation of the 
 council, consisting of one employer and one 
 workman, sit in judgment almost daily. The 
 result, in ninety-five out of one hundred cases 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 273 
 
 brought before these tribunals is a reconcilia- 
 tion between the parties ; and though appeals 
 are permitted to the superior courts of law, 
 they are rarely made. 
 
 The Conseils des Prud'hommes were highly 
 approved by Lord Brougham, who, in a debate 
 in the House of Lords in 1859, on the strike 
 in the building trade, referred to the efficiency 
 with which the disputes between masters and 
 men in France were adjusted. "It was 
 impossible," he said, " to read the annual 
 report of the proceedings of the Conseils des 
 Prud'hommes, without wishing to see some 
 analogous provisions in our own law ; " and 
 he stated that "in 1850, 28,000 disputes had 
 been heard before the Conseils des Prud'- 
 hommes, of which no less than 26,800 were 
 satisfactorily settled." 
 
 It would be well if employers were to 
 acquire the habit of giving more unreserved 
 explanations as to the conditions and prospects 
 of trade. 
 
 It seems to me that in England we should 
 do well to study the state of society in Switz- 
 erland, as described by Mr. Bonar. In 
 
 T 
 
274 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 Switzerland the personal relations between 
 employers and employed are far more intimate 
 and cordial than with us. Persons of every 
 grade of society sit side by side in the 
 cafes and places of amusement. The ad- 
 mission of workmen into the communal 
 councils, where they share with their em- 
 ployers the responsibilities and honours of 
 public life, while it encourages a wholesome 
 spirit of independence, does much to establish 
 a mutual feeling of sympathy and regard. 
 Sometimes a want of cordiality in the 
 demeanour of the employer is misinterpreted, 
 as indicating a want of sympathy and kind- 
 ness of heart. A little more facility of 
 manner towards faithful and deserving work- 
 men would often encourage sentiments of 
 loyal good will, beneficial alike to the master 
 and the man. 
 
 When I had the privilege of accompanying 
 my lamented father on visits of inspection to 
 works under construction, I was ever deeply 
 impressed by his genial manner towards his 
 old followers. He used to recognise many of 
 the old navvies, even some whom he had not 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 275 
 
 met for years, and address them by their 
 Christian names. He would never omit to 
 shake hands cordially with old gangers and 
 sub-contractors, and when he met them on 
 the works he would generally pull up for a 
 few minutes, to talk over old times and ask 
 after mutual acquaintances who had been 
 employed on former contracts. A small 
 manifestation of kindness like this, how little 
 it costs ; how much it is valued ! 
 
 At the Exhibition in Paris in 1867 
 premiums were offered for conspicuous 
 success in establishing friendly relations 
 between masters and men. Many interesting 
 examples of well-rewarded effort in this direc- 
 tion were produced from Germany. The 
 case of M. Quiltolf, a manufacturer of Port- 
 land cement at Stettin, was among the most 
 gratifying. When the .war broke out in 
 Austria, his affairs became seriously embar- 
 rassed. On hearing of the difficulties in 
 which he was involved, his workmen were 
 deeply concerned on his behalf. To avert 
 his impending bankruptcy, they not only sub- 
 mitted to a reduction of 33 per cent, on their 
 
 T 2 
 
276 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 wages, but they lent him all their savings. 
 M. Quiltolf had won for himself their 
 grateful attachment by the paternal interest 
 which he had always manifested towards 
 them. They had lived together as one 
 united family. Every Sunday in the summer 
 M. Quiltolf had been in the habit of going out 
 with his workmen, 500 in number, to an 
 island at the mouth of the Oder, where they 
 were accustomed to spend the afternoon in 
 singing choral music. 
 
 Many other examples of the same truly 
 patriarchal relations between the employers 
 and the employed, were brought under the 
 notice of the Commissioners of the Exhibition 
 at Paris in 1867. There was the case of the 
 Baron Diergardt, a manufacturer of velvet, at 
 Vierson, in Rhenish Prussia. When he cele- 
 brated the fiftieth anniversary of the formation 
 of his establishment, many of his operatives 
 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their 
 entering his service. It would be easy to 
 extend this enumeration, but it is impossible 
 to give all the numerous examples, of which 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 277 
 
 this may be taken as a type, which were 
 produced from every country. 
 
 Many of the largest English employers 
 deserve the gratitude of the working classes 
 for the considerate interest they have exhi- 
 bited in their welfare, and the beneficence with 
 which they have endeavoured to provide for 
 their wants. In his report of October 1866, 
 Mr. Redgrave speaks in terms of warm com- 
 mendation of the institutions connected with 
 Messrs. J. Akroyd and Sons at Halifax, 
 which comprise every element for the assist- 
 ance morally, materially, and intellectually 
 of every person employed in the works. 
 
 Similar provision has been made by Messrs. 
 J. Crossley and Sons at Halifax ; by Messrs. 
 Salt at Saltaire ; and by many other benevo- 
 lent employers. 
 
 It is melancholy to think how true it is 
 that one-half the world knows not how the 
 other half lives. In our great cities the ten- 
 dency of the different classes to occupy 
 separate quarters brings many social evils in 
 its train want of sympathy, indifference, it 
 may be hostility, between poor and rich. I 
 
278 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 have often felt that it is much to be lamented 
 that our successful employers of labour are 
 apt to withdraw from the scene of their 
 labours, and become country gentlemen, 
 members of Parliament, or residents abroad. 
 The love of field sports which makes country 
 life so attractive, the patriotism which sends 
 the man of business to the House of Com- 
 mons, are doubtless admirable traits in the 
 national character ; but the withdrawal of the 
 personal influence of the employer, just when 
 it is becoming most valuable, is deeply to be 
 regretted. 
 
 Much has been accomplished in recent 
 years to ameliorate the condition of the poor ; 
 but notwithstanding all the efforts which 
 have been made, it is sad to think how large 
 a proportion of our fellow-countrymen are 
 still too familiar with the pressure of 
 anxiety and want. 
 
 ... a thirst so keen 
 Is ever urging on the vast machine 
 Of sleepless labour, 'mid whose dizzy wheels 
 The power least prized, is that which thinks and feels. 
 
 In the language of the Emperor Napoleon, 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 279 
 
 in his speech to the Conseil d'Etats on March 
 13, 1869, " It must be acknowledged that the 
 society in which we live contains many 
 opposing elements. Do we not indeed see, 
 on the one hand, legitimate aspirations and 
 a just desire for improvement, and on the 
 other subversive theories and criminal covet- 
 ousness ? The duty of the Government is 
 to satisfy the former with resolution, and to 
 reject the latter with firmness. If we fathom 
 the diseases of the most flourishing people, 
 we still discover, beneath an appearance of 
 prosperity, many unmerited misfortunes 
 calling for the sympathy of all generous 
 hearts, many unsolved problems calling for 
 the united action of all reflecting minds." 
 
 As we think on these things, we may 
 sometimes be prone to despair of the per- 
 fectibility of human institutions, and to fold 
 our arms and idly wait the fulfilment of our 
 inexorable destiny. 
 
 But if we are sometimes inclined to des- 
 pair, we shall find encouragement to go for- 
 ward in a bolder spirit by the contemplation 
 of the victories already won. The story has 
 
280 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 been compendiously recorded in the work of 
 Messrs. Ludlow and Lloyd Jones, on the pro- 
 gress of the working classes. Subsequently to 
 1833 the Factories Acts, the Ten Hours Act, 
 the Mines and Collieries Acts, the Acts relating 
 to Merchant Seamen ; the establishment of 
 Loan Societies, the Post office Savings' 
 Banks, the Friendly and Benefit Building 
 Societies ; the creation of a National System 
 of Education, the Penny Postage, the adop- 
 tion of a new and more liberal fiscal policy ; 
 the facilities given for establishing public 
 libraries and museums ; the remission of the 
 paper-duties and the creation of a cheap 
 press ; the enlargement of the franchise, 
 which has given to the working classes an 
 overwhelming share of political power ; and 
 last, and perhaps the greatest of these re- 
 forms, the extension of educational facilities to 
 every child ; testify to the generous spirit of 
 our recent legislation in all that relates to the 
 welfare of the industrial classes. 
 
 The importance of social reforms, and of 
 securing the material well-being of the 
 masses of our population, is now universally 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 281 
 
 recognised. I confess my doubts as to the 
 efficacy of legislation in such matters. It 
 must be remembered that all national expen- 
 diture for the benefit of the working classes 
 which is not reproductive, must be defrayed 
 by additional taxes. Let the transfer of land 
 be by all means facilitated, let railway com- 
 munication between the centre of a great 
 city and its suburbs be made as cheap as 
 possible, let emigration be assisted by loans, 
 if security can be taken for the repayment of 
 such advances ; but, granted that something 
 may be done by these various means, I hesi- 
 tate to admit that the State can be the chief 
 instrument for elevating still higher the moral 
 condition of the people. The work is too 
 vast for any Government to undertake. It 
 can only be accomplished by the self-help and 
 self-sacrifice of the whole nation. And when 
 all shall have done their duty in their several 
 stations, the pressure of unforeseen calamity 
 upon some unhappy individuals and the in- 
 capacity of others will leave a mass of 
 suffering to our compassionate care, which it 
 will tax our best energies to relieve. The 
 
282 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 poor we shall always have with us ; and the 
 great peers, the landowners, and the men 
 who have become rich in commerce, must 
 show themselves active in their sympathies 
 for all just demands, benevolent and kindly 
 in the presence of distress. The exercise of 
 these excellent virtues, while it is in the first 
 place a paramount duty, will undoubtedly 
 bring with it to the State, and the society in 
 which we live, the immediate and priceless 
 blessing of union and contentment. 
 
 The condition of civilised man will be 
 raised, not by destroying all the institutions 
 which we have inherited from the wisdom of 
 past ages, but by earnestly applying our- 
 selves to adapt that which exists, and the 
 value of which has been tested by time and 
 by experience, to the ever new requirements 
 of mankind. 
 
 In the eloquent language of Mr. Ruskin, 
 "If we labour faithfully we shall know that 
 in reverence is the chief joy and power of 
 life reverence for what is pure and bright 
 in our own youth, for what is true and tried 
 in the age of others, for all that is gracious 
 
COURTS OF CONCILIATION. 283 
 
 among the living, great among the dead, and 
 marvellous in the powers that cannot die." 
 
 The quality of self-help will be developed 
 best in those peoples who are most ready to 
 appreciate the obligations and the practical 
 lessons of Christianity. " In societies such 
 as ours," says M. Michel Chevalier, " in 
 which the inequality of fortune presents a 
 striking contrast beside our political equality, 
 the religious sentiment is the best means 
 of reconciling and uniting together the rich 
 and the poor. It teaches the rich man to 
 have a due regard for his disinherited brother. 
 It teaches the poor man to be patient and 
 honest amid all temptations, to be confident 
 of a brighter future here below, which can 
 only be attained by his own intelligent exer- 
 tion, and to look beyond the world to the 
 hope of a good reward in another and higher 
 sphere of existence." The vague theory 
 of the International Society, founded on 
 atheism and in a narrow and contemptible 
 spirit, acknowledging the existence of only 
 one section of society, will never gain a foot- 
 ing among us, if only those whose responsi- 
 
284 WORK AND WAGES. 
 
 bilities are great will manfully endeavour to 
 do their duty. It is because there has been 
 so much public spirit among us that we have 
 hitherto been preserved from the miseries of 
 civil war, and the continued development of 
 these public virtues is our best security for 
 the future. 
 
ABR 
 
 ABRUZZI, labourers from the, 59 
 
 Age, of locomotives, 186 ; of la- 
 bourers, 232 
 
 Agricultural, implements, 138 ; la- 
 bourers, 52, 55, 73, 140, 162 
 
 Agriculture, in California, 137 ; in 
 Russia, 138 ; in Prussia, 138 ; 
 in Pennsylvania, 138 
 
 Aire and Calder navigation, 195 
 
 Akroyd, Messrs., of Halifax, 277 
 
 Alderney, wages at, 85 
 
 Aleppo, wages at, 53 
 
 Alexander, Mr., on French opera- 
 tives, 149 
 
 Alexandretta, wages at, 53 
 
 Allen's, Mr., evidence, 12 
 
 Amalgamated Engineers' Society, 12 
 
 America, emigration to, 216 ; cli- 
 mate of, 133 
 
 American, industries, axles, iron, 
 
 134 
 
 Andrew, Mr., 181 
 
 Andrews, Rev. Mr., 164 
 
 Arbitration, 270- 
 
 Area of United States, 208 ; New 
 
 South Wales, 208 
 Armour plates, 191 
 Argentine Republic, emigration to, 
 
 217- ; fitters' wages in, 52 
 
 BEY 
 
 Association des Maons, 248 
 Austrian Lloyd's fleet, 114, 170 
 Axles, 134, 1 80 
 Azizieh Company's fleet, 1 70 
 
 BALLARD, Mr. on railway construc- 
 tion, 128 ; on navvies, 226 
 
 Banana, prohibition of its cul- 
 ture, 95 
 
 Barrow, works at, 191 
 
 Barrows, carrying, on the head, 
 141 ; piece work per, 264 
 
 Basingstoke, bricklaying at, 86 
 
 Bastiat, quotation from, 62 
 
 Bedford Railway, 226 
 
 Belgians not so extravagant as 
 English, 96 
 
 Belgium, cost of getting coal, 99 ; 
 of iron, 112 ; of rails, 1 1 2, 1 88 ; 
 arms, 113; girders, 190 ; wages 
 in, 84, 96 
 
 Belmore, Lord, 214 
 
 Bell, Mr. Lothian, 19 ; on cost 
 of labour, 97 ; on coal, loo ; 
 on saving coal, 131 
 
 Bellegarde tunnel, 43 
 
 Benefit societies, 25 
 
 Beyrout, wages at, 95 ; water-tax 
 at, 94 
 
286 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BID 
 
 Biddle, Mr., 147 
 
 Bilbao line, wages on, 36 
 
 Board of Trade Returns, 1 73 
 
 Bohemia, wages in, 44 
 
 Boiler-makers' wages, 47 
 
 Bonar, Mr., on Switzerland, 273 
 
 Bonnieres cutting, 82 
 
 Booker, Mr., on farm labourers, 137 
 
 Bothnia, 63 
 
 Brassey, Mr., 8, 34, 42 
 
 Bricklayers, 57, 86, 87, 217 
 
 Bricklaying at Basingstoke, 86 
 
 Bridges for India, 180 
 
 Briggs, Messrs., co-operative move- 
 ment, 247, 256 
 
 Broadhurst, Mr., on builders' wages, 
 198 
 
 Broke, Consul, 57 
 
 Brougham, Lord, on the Prud'- 
 hommes, 273 
 
 Buddicom, Mr., on locomotives, 131 
 
 Builders, rise of wages in the trade, 
 197 ; in London, 197 ; in Man- 
 chester, 199; hours of labour, 
 198 
 
 Building Societies, 257 
 
 Bukovina Railway, 105 
 
 Butty-gangs, 195, 233, 265 
 
 CAEN, wages at, 83 ; and Cherbourg 
 
 Railway, 83, 120 
 Caird, Mr., 172 
 California, 137 ; wages in, 56 
 Callao Docks, 54 
 Canada works, wages at, 157 
 Capital, railway (1865-9), 241 
 Carpenters, 87, 119- 
 Carriage building, 113 
 Carter, Mr. A., 244 
 Cast iron, 133 
 Central Wales Railway, wages on, 
 
 195 
 
 COT 
 
 Class jealousies, xii 
 
 Climate, wages dependent on, 94 
 
 of America, 133 
 Chelmsford, Lord, 163 
 Cheapness and quality, 175 
 Chester Junction Railway, 37 
 Chevalier, M. Michael, I, 283; on 
 price of rails, 99 ; dearness of 
 labour, 124 
 
 Coal, English supply, 14; Mr. 
 Bell on, 98 ; cost of getting, 
 99, 144 ; co-operative mining, 
 247, 256 
 
 Coffee, drinkers, 16 ; carriers, 268 
 Commercial progress of nations, 
 
 167 
 
 Comparative number of men em- 
 ployed in England and abroad, 
 98, 109 
 Competition, sway of, 33 ; foreign, 
 
 77.. 
 Conciliation, Courts of, 270- 
 
 Conolly, Mr., on trades unions, 
 4 ; on work in the States, 213 
 
 Conscripts unable to read, 121 
 
 Conseils des Prud'hommes, 273 
 
 Coolies, 58, 87 
 
 Cost of labour, 66 ; in Canada, 35 ; 
 pig-iron, 98 ; of rising coal in 
 France, 99 ; in Belgium, 99 
 
 Co-operation, 247- ; difficulties of, 
 247 ; uncertain profits, 247 ; 
 an encouraging example, 249 ; 
 inspection of books, 250 ; 
 Messrs. Bigg's movement, 247, 
 256 ; The Familistere de Guise, 
 255 ; New York tailors, 256 ; 
 land societies, 257; building 
 societies, 257 ; Lord Derby on, 
 
 259 
 
 Cotton, Mr. Wells, on goods at 
 Damascus, no; M. Thiers 
 
INDEX. 
 
 287 
 
 cov 
 
 on, 174 ; M. de Forgade 
 
 on, 175 ; and woollen stuffs, 
 
 125 
 
 Coventry weavers, 245 
 Co well's, Mr., evidence, 127 
 Creuzot, wages at, 159; men at, 
 
 96 
 Crimean war, its effect on wages, 
 
 43 
 
 Crossley, Sir F., 72 
 Messrs., 277 
 
 < < DAILY NEWS," report in, 73 
 
 "Daily Telegraph," report in, 213 
 
 Day, Mr., 69 
 
 de Forjade, M., on cotton, 175 
 
 de Litsch, M., 250, 253 
 
 de Walden, Lord Howard, on Bel- 
 gian arms, 113 
 
 Dearness of labour a stimulus to 
 work, 13, 123- 
 
 Delhi Railway, 87 
 
 Delegates from trades unions, 14 
 
 Demand and supply, 33- 
 
 Derby, Lord, on co-operation, 259 
 
 Diergardt, Baron, 276 
 
 Dieppe Railway, 82 
 
 Discipline of trades unions, 26 
 
 Disputes settled by the Conseils des 
 Prud'hommes, 273 
 
 Distressed navvies. 220 
 
 Dix, Mr., on prices of provisions, 
 164 
 
 Dockyard dismissals, 238 
 
 Dollfus, MM., 121, 143 
 
 Drainage, wages on works, 68, 262 
 
 Dudgeon and Co., Messrs., 173 
 
 Dupontes, M. Chemin, 167 
 
 Dusautoy, M., 161 
 
 Dutch, 65 
 
 Dwellings, 100; Act, 163 
 
 EXO 
 
 EARTHWORK, prices of, 38, 39, 49, 
 226, 266 
 
 East, exports to the, 167 
 
 East Indian Railway, 178 
 
 Eastern Union Railway, 37 
 
 "Economist" paper, 50 
 
 Education, technical, 121 ; and Con- 
 ciliation, 270 
 
 Elliot, Mr. G., M.P., on coal get- 
 ^ting, 144 
 
 Emigration, 200; to America, 202; of 
 operatives, 211 ; from Ireland, 
 206 ; South Wales, 206 ; not 
 to be regretted, 206 ; from 
 Germany, 207 ; from Ham- 
 burg, 207 ; from Bremen, 
 207 ; evidence of a German 
 on, 210 ; absorptive power 
 of, 215 ; amount of, 216 ; cost 
 of, 201, 218 ; to the United 
 States, 216 ; to the Argentine 
 Republic, 218 ; to River Plate, 
 217, 218 ; to Queensland, 233 ; 
 State-aided, 219, 221 ; a 
 success, 222 
 
 Employers dislike to lessen wages, 
 
 7 
 
 Engineering trade, 155 
 
 Engineers, strike of, 6; society, 12, 
 47 ; income and expenditure of 
 the society, 25 ; on River Plate, 
 52; English, 114; on board 
 ship, 148 
 
 England's glory, xiv 
 
 Enniskillen and Bundoran Rail- 
 ways, 69 
 
 Equality in cost of labour, 75 
 
 Equalising influence of railways, 
 200 
 
 Esscher, Weiss, and Co., 179 
 
 Essen, wages at, 15 
 
 Exodus of English to France, 79 
 
288 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 EXP 
 
 HYA 
 
 Exports, 1 67; steel andiron, 50; en- 
 tire, of Western nations, 167 
 
 FACTORIES, locomotive, 179- 
 
 Familistere de Guise, 255 
 
 Fane, Mr., report of, 158 
 
 Farm labourers, 55, 73, 140, 162 
 
 Fawcett, Mr., 74, 205 
 
 Fell Railway, 1 1 7 
 
 Female labour, 104, 161 
 
 Ferguson, Sir J., 215 
 
 Field, Mr. Alfred, on hardware, 
 
 136 
 
 Field labourers in Silesia, 162 
 
 Files, 21 
 
 Fitters' wages, 52 
 
 Fleet, Austrian Lloyd's, 114, 170 
 
 Azizieh Company's, 170 
 
 British Steam Navigation, 171 
 
 CompagnieTransatlantique, 171 
 
 Messageries Imperiales, 171 
 
 Netherlands India Co.'s, 172 
 
 North German Lloyd's, 172 
 - Rubattini and Co. 's, 1 72 
 
 Fluctuations in trade, 47, 78, 189 
 
 Fonche, M., 266 
 
 Forgade, M. de, 175 
 
 Foreign competition, 77 
 
 Fox, Hon. W., 215 
 
 Free trade, 18, 27, 31, 163 
 
 French treaty, 245 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, on Indian wages, 
 
 58 
 Fuel, 132 ; economy of, 98, 131 
 
 GENIUS of French and English, 117 
 
 German ironworks, 15, 21 
 
 Girders, 190 
 
 Godin le Maire, M., 255 
 
 Grand Trunk Railway, 35, 86 
 
 Great Northern Railway, wages on 
 
 17 
 
 Grey, Earl, 262 
 Growth of trade, 1 68 
 Guilds of middle ages, I, 3 
 
 HALIFAX, chamber of commerce, 
 
 243 
 
 Hall, Admiral, on wages, 236 
 Hancox, Mr., 262 
 1 'Handicraftsmen and capitalists," 
 
 206 
 
 Hardware, 22 
 Harmony between master and man, 
 
 274 
 
 Helm, Mr. on manufacturing statis- 
 tics, 125 
 Hemans, Mr., on wages, 56, 209, 
 
 211 
 
 Henfrey, Mr., 87 
 
 Herries & Co., 206 
 
 Hewitt, Mr. , on wages, 96, 99, 204 
 
 Hodges, Mr., on American iron, 
 
 133 
 
 Holland, wages in, 84 
 
 Hornby, Messrs., on time, 143 
 
 Horse shoes, 113 
 
 Houldsworth's, Messrs. , machinery, 
 126, 127 
 
 Hours of labour, 102, 143, 199; in 
 South Wales, 144 ; in Russia, 
 144 ; in America, 145 ; on 
 Paris and Rouen Railway, 146 ; 
 at Messrs. Ransome and Sims, 
 147 ; in building trade, 198 
 
 Hughes, Mr., table of wages at 
 Millbank, 237 
 
 Hurnboldt, 95 
 
 Hume, Mr., on wages, 69 
 
 Hungary, wages in, 44 
 
 Hyacinthe, Le Pere, xiii 
 
INDEX. 
 
 289 
 
 IMP 
 
 IMPORTS and exports, 166 
 
 India, wages in, 58 ; bridges for, 
 1 80 ; railway capital in, 57 ; 
 locomotives and rails for, 177 
 
 Industrial success, 168 
 
 Intelligence, 112, 117 
 
 Intoxication, 16, 227 
 
 Inventive genius, 117, 122 
 
 Investment in railways, 57, 241 
 
 Irish, Railway Committee, 7p ; emi- 
 gration, 206 ; labour, 70 
 
 Iron, bar, 101 ; trade, 204 ; wages 
 of smiths, 52; pig, 98; increase 
 of pig, 204'; American, 133 ; 
 Belgian, 112 
 
 Italians, 90 
 
 JACOBI, 45 ; on serf labour, 104 
 Jacquerie riots, 3 
 Jamaica Railway, 140 
 Jones, Professor, 103 
 
 KIESSLER, M., 178, 1 80 
 Kitson, Mr., on intelligence, 1 12 
 Kettle, M., on Conciliation, 272 
 Krupp's works, 15, 21 
 
 LABOUR, liberty of, I ; abroad, 19 ; 
 cost of, 19, 66, 74 ; Mr. 
 Lothian Bell on, 19, 97 ; Mr. 
 Longridge on, 90 ; Mr. Com- 
 missioner .Wells on, 97 ; Mr. 
 Redgrave on, 97 ; dear, stimu- 
 lates invention, 13, 123 ; M. 
 Simon on, 152 ; is it becoming 
 dearer? 194 ; comparative cost 
 of, 42, 196; scarcity of good 
 in, 214; State^aided, 254 
 
 Land available for emigration, 208 ; 
 
 MAC 
 
 high price of, in Australia, 208; 
 rent and cost of, 217 ; Societies, 
 257 
 
 Lassalle, M,, 254 
 
 Lathes, 22 
 
 Law Courts site, 164 
 
 4 'Leeds Mercury," 243 
 
 Lemberg and Czernowitz line, 105 
 
 Levi, Prof. Leone, 161, 168 ; ou 
 silk manufacture, 120 
 
 Lever, Consul, on engineers, 114 
 
 Life, duration of, in Russia, 107 ; 
 navvies, 232 
 
 Living, cost of, 16, 93, 95 ; stan- 
 dard of, 88 ; in India, 54, 59, 
 
 88 ; at Lima, 54 ; in Hungary, 
 105 ; in Eastern Europe, 61, 
 
 89 ; in Moldavia, 89; in United 
 States, 209, 212 
 
 Loans, Parliamentary, 240 
 
 London and Birmingham Railway, 
 wages on, 195, 197 
 
 Locks, English, 113 
 
 Locomotives, 77 ; on Felt Railway, 
 117; introduced into railway 
 making, 129 ; reduction of 
 cost of, 130 ; made by machi- 
 nery, 130 ; Mr. Buddicom on, 
 131 ; tenders for, 181 ; prices 
 of, 178 ; ordered of Kiessler, 
 178 ; of Esscher, Weiss & Co., 
 179; for Great Eastern Rail- 
 way, 183 ; for Poti and Tiflis 
 Railway, 185 ; Life of a, 186 
 
 Longridge, Mr., evidence, 90 
 
 Lookouts, 39 
 
 Low wages, effect of, 71 
 
 Lucas, Messrs., 197 
 
 Ludlow and Lloyd Jones, Messrs., 
 280 
 
 MACHINE tools, 162 
 
 U 
 
2QO 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 MAC 
 
 Machinery, labour saving, 130, 138, 
 197 ; against hand labour, 123, 
 130 
 
 McCormack's reapers, 138 
 McCulloch, Mr., on cost of food, 
 
 93, 95, 26 7 
 
 Mackay, Mr. , on wages, 38, 46 
 Manby, Mr. Chas., on reduction in 
 cost of locomotives, 131 ; works 
 at Creuzot, 159; on life of 
 locomotives, 1 86 
 Manual skill, 16, 130 
 Masons, 5, 35, 36, 85, 87 ; wages 
 
 of, abroad, 35, 37, 53 
 Mauritius, labour in, 90 
 Maximum limit of wages, 94 
 Mechanic, a Philadelphian and 
 
 English, 212 
 Mault, Mr., 5 
 Medical staff, 80 
 Meigs, Mr., 54 
 Messageries Imperiales, 171 
 Michell, Mr., on Russian trade, 21, 
 
 24, 144 
 
 Military resources of Russia, 106 
 Mill, Mr., 8, 1 1 6, 267; on mowing, 
 
 103 
 
 Millwall, wages at, 92, 237 
 Milroy's, Mr., evidence, 119, 226 
 Miners, 81, 115 
 
 Montesquieu, observations of, 97 
 Morticing machines, 135 
 Mowers, 104 ; Wood's, 139 
 Mules, improvement in, and cost of 
 
 yarn, 127 
 Mundella, Mr., on Conciliation, 272 
 
 NAPOLEON III., 278 
 Nasmyth's, Mr., evidence, 129 
 National progress, 126 
 Navvies, 17 ; wages of, 36, 49, 81, 
 195, 226 ; severity of their 
 
 POO 
 
 work, 227 ; effect of London 
 residence on, 230 ; as emi- 
 grants, 233 ; great age of some, 
 232 ; rise in life, 233 ; in 
 France, 220 
 
 Nine hours movement, 147 
 
 Night-shifts, 150 
 
 North Devon Railway, wages on, 67 
 
 North- Western Railway, wages in, 
 196 
 
 OMNIBUS trains, 151 ; special, 229 
 Oratory, power of, 1 1 
 Ores, mixing, 135 
 
 PACIFIC Railway, 57 
 
 Panics, effects of, 37 
 
 Paris and Rouen Railway, 17, 79, 
 
 120, 146, 192, 220, 229 
 Parliamentary loans, 240 
 Pauper and able-bodied men, 215 
 Pease's, Mr., M.P. works, 242 
 Percy, Dr., 190 
 Pernambuco, 263 
 Persia, wages in, 53 
 Peru, wages in, 55 
 Peruvian Railway, 55 
 Petre, Mr., on Co-operation, 254 
 Philadelphian mechanic, 202 
 Phipps, Mr., on industrial classes, 
 
 44 
 Physical strength of navvies, 231 ; 
 
 of labourers, 225 
 Piecework, 261 ; trades unions and, 
 
 266 
 
 Piedmontese and barrow work, 264 
 Pig iron, 98, 204 
 Political economy, Mill on, 103 ; 
 
 of wages question, 25 1 
 Poor Law Commisston on Produce 
 
 of Soil, 71 
 
INDEX. 
 
 291 
 
 FOP 
 
 Population, reduction of, at St. 
 Pancras, 164; in 1763 and 
 1872, 168 
 
 Porter, Mr. G. R., on progress of 
 the nation, 125 
 
 Poti and Tiflis Railway, 184- 
 
 Profits, moderation of English, 20 ; 
 co-operative, 256- 
 
 Progress, 126, 166, "of the Na- 
 tion," 125 
 
 Protection, 103, 174 
 
 Providence of French, 1 7 
 
 Provisions, price of, 40, 41, 164 
 
 Prud'hommes, 272 
 
 Public opinion, 2 
 
 Puddlers, 204 ; Mr. Well* on their 
 wages, 100 
 
 Punjaub Railway, iBl 
 
 QUEENSLAND, 21 S, 233 
 
 Quiltolf, M. 275 
 
 Quotation from Mr. Alexander, 149 
 
 Mr. Ballard, 128, 226 
 Bastiat, 62 
 
 Mr. Lothian Bell, 19, 97, 98, 
 
 100, 131 
 
 Earl of Belmore, 214 
 
 Mr. Booker, 137 
 
 Consul Broke, 57 
 
 Lord Brougham, 272 
 
 Mr. Buddicom, 31 
 
 M. Chevalier, I, 99, 124, 283 
 
 Mr. Connolly, 4, 213 
 
 Mr. Cowell, 127 
 
 Sir F. Crossley, 72 
 
 Lord Howard de Walden, 1 13 
 
 Lord Derby, 259 
 
 " L' Esprit des Lois," 97 
 
 Mr. Fane, 158 
 
 Mr. Fawcett, 74, 205 
 
 Mr. Field, 136 
 
 M. Fonche, 266 
 
 QUO 
 Quotation from M. de Fo^ade, 
 
 175 
 
 - Hon. W. Fox, 215 
 
 Sir B. Frere, 58 
 
 Sir J. Ferguson, 215 
 
 "Handicraftsmen and capita- 
 
 lists," 206 
 
 * ' Harmonies Economiques, " 62 
 
 Mr. Helm, 125 
 
 Mr. Hemans, 56, 210 
 
 Mr. Henfrey, 87 
 
 Herries and Creed, 206 
 
 Mr. Hewitt, 96, 99, 204 
 
 Mr. Hodges, 132 
 
 Humboldt, 95 
 
 Mr. Hume, 70 
 
 Le Pere Hyacinthe, xiii 
 
 Herr Jacobi, 45, 104 
 
 Mr. Kitson, 112 
 
 "Leeds Mercury," 243 
 
 Prof. Leone Levi, 120, 161, 168 
 
 Consul Lever, 114 
 
 Messrs. Lucas, 197 
 
 Mr. McCulloch, 93, 95, 267 
 
 Mr. Mackay, 38, 46 
 
 Mr. Manby, 131, 159, 1 86 
 
 Mr. Mault, 5 
 
 Mr. Michell, 21, 24, 144 
 
 Mr. J. Stuart Mill, 8, 103, 116, 
 
 267 
 
 Mr. Milroy, 119, 226 
 
 Montesquieu, 97 
 
 Mr. Nasmyth, 129 
 
 Napoleon III., 278 
 
 Dr. Percy, 190 
 
 Mr. Petre, 254 
 
 Mr. Phipps, 44 
 
 Poor Law Commissioners, 71 
 Mr. Porter, 125 
 
 "Progress of the Nation," 125 
 
 Mr. Read, M.P., 140 
 Mr. Redgrave, 101, 277 
 
INDEX. 
 
 QUO 
 
 Quotation from Sir W. Reid, 263 
 
 Mr. Reid, 18, 
 
 " Revue des Deux Mondes," 16 
 
 Mr. Ricardo, 42 
 
 Mr. Robinson, 47 
 
 Mr. Ruskin, 282 
 
 Mr. Scoble, 262 
 
 M. Simon, 152 
 
 Mr. Smith, 7 
 
 Mr. Adam Smith, 20, 33, 261, 
 
 267, 269 
 
 M. Thiers, 174 
 
 Mr. Thornton, 267 
 
 Turgot, 2 
 
 Sir Sydney Waterlow, 164 
 Mr. Watson, 214 
 
 Comr. Wells, 100, 103, 159, 
 
 203, 209 
 
 Mr. West, 109 
 
 Mr. Wilcox, 129, 218 
 
 RAIN-WATER pipes, 134 
 
 Rails, 84, 130; bounty paid in 
 
 Russia on, 68 ; cost of, 99 ; 
 
 Belgian, 188 ; price of, 68 ; 
 
 manufacture of, 99 
 Railway, Bedford, 266 
 
 Bilbao, 36 
 
 Bukovina, 105 
 
 Caen and Cherbourg, 83, 120 
 
 Central Wales, 195 
 
 Chester Junction, 37 
 
 Delhi, 87 
 
 Dieppe, 82 
 
 East India, 178 
 
 Eastern Union, 37 
 
 Enniskillen and Bundoran, 69 
 
 Fell, 117 
 
 Fermoy and Lismore, 202 
 
 Grand Junction, 194 
 
 Grand Trunk, 35, 86 
 
 REN 
 
 Railway, Great Northern, 1 7, 226 
 
 Jamaica, 140 
 
 Lemberg and Czernowitz, 105 
 
 London and Birmingham, 195, 
 
 197 
 
 Metropolitan," 151 
 
 Moldavian, 45 
 
 North Devon, 67 
 
 North London, 151 
 
 North Staffordshire, 37 
 
 North- Western, 196 
 
 Pacific, 57 
 
 Paris and Rouen, 17, 79, 120, 
 
 146, 192, 220, 229 
 
 Peruvian, 55 
 
 Poti and Tiflis, 184 
 
 Punjaub, 181 
 
 Royston and Hitchin, 37 
 
 South Staffordshire, 69 
 
 Trent Valley, 146, 229 
 
 Wolverhampton and Walsall, 49 
 Railways, reduction in making, 
 
 128 ; Mr. Rowan on, 128 ; 
 
 Mr. Ballard on, 128 ; Mr. 
 
 Wilcox, 129 ; sum invested 
 
 in, 169 ; capital, 1865-9, 
 
 241 ; equalising influence of, 
 
 20 1 ; cost of,. 77; in India, 57 ; 
 
 growth of, 203 
 Ransom and Sims, 139, 147 
 Read, Mr. Chas., 140 
 Reading, 121 
 Reaping machines, 139 
 Redgrave, Mr., on spinning, 101, 
 
 277 
 
 Reid, Mr., 18 
 
 Reid, Sir W., on slave labour, 263 
 Rendel, Mr., on Indian railways, 
 
 I 7 8 
 
 Relays of workmen, 149 
 Rent abroad, 19, 255 ; at home 
 
 19; 73, HO, 164, 23 
 
INDEX. 
 
 293 
 
 REV 
 
 "Revue des Deux Mondes," 16 
 "Revivers," 26 ; their manifesto, 27 
 Report, Parliamentary, 70 ; of Irish 
 Railway Commission, 70 ; of 
 workmen on Paris Exhibition, 
 266 
 
 Ribbons, 245 
 
 Ricardo, Mr., on wages, 42 
 Rights of labour, I ; Turgot on, 2 
 Rise in wages, 36, 46, 47, 50, 66, 
 68, 140, 158, 198; in Italy, 162 
 Robinson, Mr., on wages, 47 
 Rolling stock, 135, 185, 192 
 Rowan, Mr., 128 
 Rubattini and Cie., 172 
 Ruskin, Mr., 282 
 
 Russia, trade of, 20, 23, 6 1, 68; cost 
 of labour in, 105 ; false dread of 
 military power of, 107 ; dura- 
 lion of life in, 107 ; serf labour, 
 1 08 ; yield of crops, 1 08 
 Russian operatives, 107 
 
 ST. PANCRAS, 164 
 
 Sailors, 109 
 
 Salt, Sir Titus and Co., 277 
 
 Saws, 21 
 
 Saxony, wages in, 44 
 
 Schneiders', MM., rise of wages at, 
 
 239; locomotives ordered from, 
 
 184 
 
 Schools for men, 80 
 S coble on slave labour, 262 
 Seamstresses' wages, 161 
 Serfs, labour, 104 ; wages of, 1 08 
 Sheerness, wages at, 236 
 Shipbuilding, 31; cost of, 91 ; decay 
 
 of, 169 ; comparative cost of, 
 
 236 ; men employed on, 241 
 Shipping, increase of, 214 
 
 TAB 
 
 Shipwrights, 91 ; on the Thames, 9 ; 
 wages of, 109, 237 
 
 Silesia, 45, 162 
 
 Silk manufacture, 120; Prof. Leone 
 Levi on, 120 
 
 Simon, M. Jules, on labour, 152 
 
 Skilled labour, 5 1 
 
 Slave labour, 262 ; Scoble on, 262; 
 Sir W. Reid on, 263 
 
 Smith, Adam, 20, 33, 261, 267, 269 
 
 Smiths' wages, 52 
 
 Solvilur ambulando, 79 
 
 Sotteville, 131, 192, 239 
 
 Spinning, British and foreign, 101, 
 175; Mr. Cowell on, 127; 
 wages, 126 
 
 Standard of living, 88; of wages, 257 
 
 Stanley, Reports sent to Lord, 155 ; 
 Fane's report to, 158 
 
 State-aid, 254; emigration, 219, 212 
 
 Steel, and iron export, 50 ; pro- 
 duction, 191 
 
 Strikes, 3, 6, 22, 51 ; engineers', 6; 
 Preston, 6 ; iron trade, 6 ; col- 
 liers', 6 ; shipwrights', 9 ; ig- 
 norance of leaders of, 9, 10 ; at 
 Wigan, 1 1 ; conditions to be 
 considered, 12 
 
 Stump orators, 12 
 
 Subbing, 18, 228 
 
 Suez Canal, 115 
 
 Sugar, 263 
 
 Supply and demand, 33 
 
 Switzerland, 273 
 
 TABLE ^f wages on English lines, 
 38 
 
 earnings in iron manufacture, 52 
 
 carpenters' wages in India, 58 
 
 labour in Bengal and Bombay, 
 
 60 
 
294 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 TAB 
 
 Table of shipbuilders in France, 92 
 
 on Thames, 92 
 
 statistics on textile manufactures, 
 
 125 
 
 spinners' wages, 1 26 
 
 wages at Canada works, 157 
 
 prices of provisions, 164 
 
 tenders for locomotives, 181 
 
 ,, goods and passenger 
 engines, 184 
 
 ,, carriages for Poti and 
 Tiflis Railway, 185 
 
 details of tenders, 187 
 
 Belgian rails, 189 
 
 wages in building trade, 197 
 
 emigration to River Plate, 21 8 
 
 wages at Sheerness, 236 
 
 ,, Mill wall, 237 
 
 ,, Sotteville, 239 
 
 , , locomotive works, 240 
 
 railway capital, 241 
 Technical education, 1 21 
 Teetotallers, 17 
 
 Tenders of Messrs. Brassey and 
 Mackenzie, 118 
 
 for locomotives, 184 
 
 for rolling stock, 1 85 
 Test of working men, 18 
 Textile manufactures, 125 
 Thiers, M., on French industry, 174 
 Thornton, Mr., 33 ; on piecework, 
 
 267 
 
 Thrift and gain, 20 
 
 Time, 143 ; short, 146- 
 
 Tires, 21 
 
 Tonnage, 109, 170 
 
 Tools, 21, 130, 162 
 
 Trade, 169 ; increase of, 1 68 ; fluc- 
 tuations in, 47 
 
 Trades Unions Commission, 4, 5, 
 7, 12, 47, 72, 99, 129 
 
 Trades Unions, 77 ; and ancient 
 
 WAG 
 
 guilds, I ; origin of, 3 ; faults 
 of, 4 ; Mr. Connolly on, 4 ; 
 Mr. Mault on, 5 ; Mr. Smith 
 on, 7 ; Mr. Allen on, 12 j 
 first duty of, 13 ; delegates, 
 14 ; good done by, 25 ; dis- 
 cipline, 26; "Revivers," 26; 
 rise of wages where there are 
 no, 43, 47; Mr. Robinson on, 
 47 ; Messrs. Trollope on, 46 ; 
 unable to obtain higher wages, 
 5, 158 ; and piece-work, 266 
 
 Train mileage, 186 
 
 Treaty, French, 246 
 
 Trent Valley Railway, 195, 228; 
 hours of labour on, 147 
 
 Trollope's, Mr., evidence, 46 
 
 Turgot, on rights of labour, 2 
 
 Tunnel, 8 1 ; Bellegard, 43 
 
 UNIFORM wages, 5, 7, 75, 89, 201 
 
 United States, 200, 208 ; wages in, 
 
 201, 208 ; cost of living in, 209 
 
 VIEILLE Montagne Zinc works, 162 
 Voyage, cost of, to America, 201 
 
 WAGES, masons', 5 
 
 uniform, 5, 7 
 
 and Trades Unions, 4 
 
 at Krupp's, 1 5 
 
 regulated by demand and supply, 
 
 33 
 
 in Canada, 35 
 
 of navvies, 36 
 
 in Australia, 36 
 
 on Bilbao Railway, 36 
 
 fall in, 37 
 
 on Eastern Union Railway, 37 
 
INDEX. 
 
 295 
 
 WAG 
 
 Wages on Royston and Hitchin Rail- 
 way, 37 
 
 in North Staffordshire, 37 
 
 from 1843-1869, 38 
 
 on early railway works, 38 
 
 during Crimean War, 43 
 
 at Woodford, 43 
 
 of quarrymen in Piedmont, 43 
 
 in Saxony, 44 
 
 ,, Bohemia, 44 
 
 on Moldavian lines, 45 
 
 advance of, in building trade, 47 
 
 of boiler makers, 47 
 
 , , navvy at Brussels, 49 
 
 in iron works, 50, 52 
 
 ,, Argentine Republic, 53 
 
 Persia, 53 
 
 ,, Syria, 53 
 
 Peru, 55 
 
 ,, United States, 56 
 
 ,, India, 58-60 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere on, 58 
 
 in Russia, 61, 105 
 
 Ireland, 70 
 
 effect of low, 71 
 
 high, 74 
 
 on Paris and Rouen Railway, 
 
 81 
 
 at Bonnieres, 82 
 
 on Dieppe Railway, 82 
 
 Caen and Cherbourg Rail- 
 
 way, 83 
 
 in Italy, 84 
 
 ,, Austria, 84 
 
 ,, Switzerland, 84 
 
 ,, Germany, 84 
 
 ,, Moldavia, 89 
 
 puddlers', 204 
 
 Belgium, 84, 96 
 
 Holland, 84 
 
 on Delhi Railway, 87 
 
 ship-building, 92 
 
 WEL 
 
 Wages dependent on standard of 
 comfort, 88-93 
 
 maximum limit of, 94 
 
 at Beyrout, 94 
 
 ,, Sireuil, 96 
 
 of serfs, 104 
 
 of female labour, 103 
 
 spinners, 127-137 
 
 rise of, in agriculture, 140 
 
 on relays, 151 
 
 rise of, abroad, 154 
 
 of mechanics, 155 
 
 at the Canada works, 156 
 
 Creuzot, 159 
 
 rise at MM. Schneiders', 1 60, 192 
 
 M. Dusautoy's, 161 
 
 of seamstresses, 161 
 
 in Sicily, 162 
 
 of shipwrights, 109 
 
 in French engineering works, 
 
 239 
 
 on London and Birmingham, 195 
 
 Grand Junction Railway, 194 
 
 ,, Trent Valley, 195 
 
 in Manchester, 199 
 
 influence of American, 200 
 
 on North- Western, 196 
 
 in Philadelphia, 
 
 fluctuation of, 235 
 
 at Sheerness, 236 
 
 Millwall, 92, 237 
 
 ,, Sotteville, 239 
 
 Political economy of, 251 
 Walden, Lord Howard de, 113 
 Warwickshire labourers, 73 
 Water-tax at Beyrout, 94 
 Waterlow, Sir Sydney, on rent, 164 
 Watson, Mr., 214 
 
 Weavers, 244 
 
 Welch iron, manufacture of, 51 
 Wells, Mr., on American industries, 
 2IO; cost of labour, 100; 
 
296 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 WES 
 
 puddlers' wages, 204 ; on cotton 
 works, no; on labour in 
 country going into towns, 158; 
 on emigration, 203-209 
 
 West, Mr., on shipbuilding, 109 
 
 Wheels, 133 
 
 Wigan strike, 1 1 
 
 Wilcox, Mr., 129, 218 
 
 Women labourers, misery of, 106 
 
 Wolverhampton and Walsall Rail- 
 way, 49 
 
 ZIN 
 
 Wood's mowers, 139 
 Woodford, wages at, 43 
 Woollen and cotton stuffs, 125 
 Work, ennui, n6 
 
 YARN, cost of, 128 
 
 ZIMMERMAN, 21 
 
 Zinc works, wages at, 162 
 
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