Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Wages at
Home and

Abroad.

6/3 in Ireland; for adult women, 12/6 in England, 10/6 in Scotland, and 9/9 in Ireland; and for girls, 8/6 in England, 8/2 in Scotland, and 7/4 in Ireland. The total average in the United Kingdom being 19s. for adult males, 7/3 for boys under twenty, 11s. for adult women, and 7/10 for girls.

Between mechanics and labourers the difference in wages is great. The mechanic or artisan, such as joiners or carpenters, designers, spinners, engineers, puddlers, moulders, forgers, shipwrights, modellers, and throwers in potteries, and other skilled workers, earn easily 30s., 40s., and even 50s. per week. Common weavers, agricultural labourers, dock labourers, and all those classed as common labourers, earn from 12s. to 25s. per week, the hours of labour being usually from ten to twelve hours a day, though in some cases longer hours are required, and overtime is paid.

In comparison with some foreign countries, the wages in England appear high. From reports given recently* regarding the condition of the collieries and iron forges in Belgium, it seems that in coal-mining hewers earn 2/10 to 4/2, wood-tree setters, 3/1 to 5s., wood-cutters' sawyers, 2/6 to 2/11, and leaders of coal, 2/6 to 2/11; sundries, 1/6 to 2/6 per day. In this country, in Newcastle and its neighbourhood, hewers earn 5/9, sawyers 3/6, and labourers 2/4 to 3s. In iron furnaces a puddler in Belgium earns 4/2 to 5s.; in Staffordshire, 7/6 to 7/10; the under hand in Belgium, 2/3 to 3/1; in this country, 2/6 to 2/11. In iron foundries a moulder in Belgium earns 2s. to 2/11; in Sheffield, 5s.; and so in other branches of labour. In France the wages are also lower than in this country. In 1860 the Chamber of Commerce of

* See the Times of the 24th and 27th of December, 1866.

Paris instituted an inquiry into the state of industry in that metropolis, and the general results were that, out of 290,759 men whose earnings were ascertained, as many as 212,000 earned from 3 to 5 francs a day, or an average of 4 francs a day; women earning from one-half to 2 francs a day. These wages, however, applied to Paris only, and did not include agricultural labour or other lower-paid occupations, especially in the provinces. Whilst in this country the engine drivers earn 7s. 6d. a day; in Prussia first-class drivers earn 5s., and second 3s. 9d. In the United States of America, the Statistical Bureau of Washington recently published the wages paid in four places in the North, viz. Hartford, in Connecticut; Tunkhannock, a town in the iron regions of Pennsylvania; Tiffin, an agricultural town in Ohio; and Cairo, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi river, the extreme southern point of Illinois. Taking into account that the wages are paid in paper money, the averages were, carpenters, Hartford, 2 dols. 75 cents; Tunkhannock, 3 dols.; Tiffin, 3 dols. ; and Cairo, 3 dols. 50 cents, or 14s. or 15s. a day; farm labourers, with board, in Hartford, 26 dols. 50 cents; in Tunkhannock and Tiffin, 27 dols. 50 cents per month, or 3s. to 3s. 6d. a day; but in Cairo 18 dols.; machinists, 3 dols. to 3 dols. 50 cents per day; ironfounders, 2 dols. 50 cents to 3 dols.; weavers, 1 dol. 50 cents in Hartford, and 2 dols. 50 cents in Cairo, or 6s. to 10s. a day. At Sydney, in Australia, carpenters earn 9s.; bricklayers, 10s.; plasterers, 9s.; painters, 8s.; bricklayers' labourers, 8s.; plumbers, 10s. ; quarrymen, 8s. to 10s. per day. But, however valuable these facts may be, it is idle to institute any comparison without calculating, on the one hand,

(1) See Times of the 29th of March, 1867.

(2) Ibid. 12th of February, 1867.

d

Rate of

Price of
Labour.

the cost of living, and on the other the rate of production. The colliers in Belgium may be as well remunerated at the low wages as those in Newcastle at the higher, if we take into account the cost of food and house rent; and the high rate paid in Sydney may be low when we calculate the high rent and cost of food. The position of employers and employed is often perWages and plexing. The employer looks not only to the rate, but to the amount of wages which he must give for a given work. The workman is only interested in the wages. It is quite the same for a farmer who wants a field trenched whether the amount that he can afford to give for the work is divided by three able and industrious men, or five or seven weak and lazy. But it makes all the difference with the labourer if he is to get a third or a fifth of that given amount. The amount of wages and price of labour, or the earnings of the labourers, are, in fact, two different things. The same amount of wages may produce twice as much labour, where the labourer is in earnest in his work. Besides, a much greater amount of labour will be performed in a summer than in a winter's day-in fine, than in bad weather; in countries where the people are less given to enjoyments than in countries where pleasure seems to be the first and most attractive pursuit. Allowing, therefore, that in some foreign countries the rate of wages may be lower, the amount of wages paid for a given quantity of work may still be greater than in England.") Productive Some very valuable facts on this question are furBritish and nished by Mr. Alexander Redgrave, Factory Inspector, Foreign in his recent report. Taking the total of cotton factories, the average number of persons employed to

powers of

Labourers,

&c.

(1) Report of Inspectors of Factories for the year ending the 31st of October, 1866, 1867.

spindles was as follows:-In France, 1 person to 14 spindles; in Russia, 1 to 38; in Prussia, 1 to 37; in Bavaria, 1 to 46; in Austria, 1 to 49; in Belgium, 1 to 50; in Saxony, 1 to 50; in Switzerland, 1 to 55; in the smaller states of Germany, 1 to 55; and in Great Britain, 1 to 74 spindles. To make an exact calculation, it is not sufficient to take the wages of labour, but, as Mr. Redgrave said, we must take in conjunction with it the power of the operator as a producer; and here we find that the English operative has an advantage over his foreign competitor, sufficient with some other qualifications to counterbalance the mere cheapness of wages. If we give more to a British workman it is because he works more and works better. When, in fact, we consider the whole amount of wages paid for the total work performed, we find a much greater equality in the rate of wages throughout the world than we are apt at first to think. And it is the rate for labour, and not the rate for the day or for the month, that constitutes the regulating rate of wages.

APPROPRIATION OF WAGES.

Number in a Family-Number of Earners-Cost of Food and DrinkHouse Rent-Clothing-Medical and Benevolent Objects-Implements and Tools Savings' Banks Building Societies - Incomes of the Working compared with those of the Middle and Higher Classes.

[ocr errors]

IN ORDER to ascertain the real value of wages, it is necessary to examine what amount of comfort they are capable of supplying to the workman. And here I must enter into some interesting details. The economic condition of a family depends primarily on the number of members composing it, and their respective ages. Among skilled labourers, the usual habit is to marry as soon as they terminate their apprenticeship; but among the unskilled, many enter into the bonds of matrimony at a still earlier period, so that very early in life many of them have large families dependent upon them. Of all labourers the farm labourers receive the lowest rate of money wages, yet even among them the number in a family far exceeds the average for the kingdom. In the report of Dr. Edward Smith" on the food of the poorer labouring classes, it was shown that in 500 families visited in the United Kingdom the total number of members was 2757, giving an average of 5.51 in a family; the proportion in England being 575; in Wales, 4.79; in Scotland, 4.59; and in Ireland, 5:17. In the manufacturing districts the same averages would generally

(1) Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1864.

« ZurückWeiter »