during the interval of these years by 399 per cent; or in a slightly smaller ratio of increase than was experienced during the same period in the industries of that district of England of which the city of Manchester is the center. The figures of the United States census of 1850 can not, however, be accepted with confidence.*

As respects agricultural labor in the United States, the assertion is probably warranted that, taking into account the hours of work, rates of wages, and the prices of commodities, the average farm-laborer is 100 per cent better off at the present time than he was thirty or forty years ago. In Massachusetts the average advance in the money-wages of this description of labor between 1850 and 1880 was 56 per cent, with board in addition. Between 1842 and 1846 the wages of agricultural labor in the United States sank to almost the lowest points of the century. According to the investigations of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average advance in general wages in that State from 1860 to 1883 was 28.36 per cent, while the conclusions of Mr. Atkinson are that the wages of mechanics in Massachusetts were 25 per cent more in 1885 than they were in 1860.

Taking the experience of the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis as a basis, recent investigations also show a marked increase in the average wages of all descriptions of labor in the northwestern sections of the United States, comparing 1886 with 1875, of at least 10 per cent. In all railroad-work, the fact to which Mr. Giffen has called attention as a gratifying result of recent English experience also here reappears—namely, that the proportion of men earning the highest rates of wages is much greater than it was ten years ago, or more skilled workmen and fewer common workmen are relatively employed.

A series of official statistics, published in the "Annuaire statistique de la France," respecting the rates of wages paid in Paris and in the provinces of France in twenty-three leading industries during the years 1853 and 1883 respectively, show that, during the period referred to, the advance in average wages in Paris was 53 per cent and in the provinces 68 per cent, the figures being applicable to 1,497,000 workmen out of a total of 1,554,000 ascertained to be occupied in these industries by the French census of 1876. M. Yves Guyot, the eminent French

* It is at the same time not a little significant that the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics should have reported in 1884, as the result of his investigations, that while from 1872 to 1883 wages advanced on an average 9.74 per cent in Great Britain, they declined on the average in Massachusetts during the same period 5:41 per cent.

+ "On the Comparative Efficiency and Earnings of Labor at Home and Abroad," by J. S. Jeans," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society" (G. B.), December, 1884.

economist, is also the authority for the statement that the average daily wages of work-women in France engaged in the manufacture of clothing, lace, embroideries, laundry-work, and the like, increased 94 per cent between the years 1844 and 1872. In the cotton-mills at Mülhausen, Germany, the rates of increase in wages between 1835 and 1880 range between 60 and 256 per cent, the increase in the later years, as in other countries, having been particularly noticeable.

Accepting the wage statistics of France (and they are official), it would, therefore, appear that the rise of wages in that country during the years above reviewed was greater than was experienced in either England or the United States.

One factor which has undoubtedly contributed somewhat to the almost universal rise of wages during the last quarter of the century has been the immense progress that has been made in the abolition of human slavery-absolute, as well as in its modified forms of serfdom and peonage-which thirty years ago existed unimpaired over no inconsiderable areas of the earth's surface, and exerted a powerful influence for the degradation of labor and reduction of average wages to a minimum.

RELATION OF WAGES TO LIVING.-All conclusions as to the effect of changes in the rates of wages in any country are, however, incomplete, unless accompanied by data which permit of a conversion of wages into living, and these, in the case of the United States and for the period from 1860 to 1885, have been furnished by Mr. William M. Grosvenor, through a careful tabulation of the prices of two hundred commodities, embracing nearly all those in common use. From these comparisons it appears, that, if the purchasing power of one dollar in gold coin in May, 1860, be taken as the standard-or as one hundred cents' worth-the corresponding purchasing power of a like dollar in the year 1885 was 26'44 per cent greater. The artisan in Massachusetts in this latter year, therefore, could either "have largely raised the standard of his living, or, on the same standard, could have saved one third of his wages." Similar investigations instituted in Great Britain (and which had been before noticed) indicate corresponding results.

Another conclusion of Mr. Atkinson would also seem to be incapable of contravention, namely: That the greatly increased product of the fields, forests, factories, and mines of the United States which has occurred during the period from 1860 to 1885 "must have been mostly consumed by those who performed the actual work, because they constitute so large a proportion-substantially about ninety per cent of the whole number of persons by whom such products are consumed," and that "no other evidence is needed to prove that the working man and woman of

the United States, in the strictest meaning of these words, are, decade by decade, securing to their own use and enjoyment an increasing share in a steadily increasing product." *

The report of the Bureau of Industrial Statistics of the State of Maine, for the year 1887, also presents some notable evidence of the continued increase in the purchasing power of wages; and show that, taking the experience of a typical American family in that State, deriving their living from manufacturing employments, as a basis, as much of food could be bought in 1887 for one dollar as would have cost $1.20 in 1882 and $1.30 in 1877; the difference being mainly due to reductions in the prices of flour, sugar, molasses, fresh meats, lard, oil, and soap.

In a paper presented to the British Association in 1886 by Mr. M. G. Mulhall, the increase in the purchasing power of money as respects commodities, and its decrease in purchasing power as respects labor in England during the period from 1880-'83 as compared with the period from 1821 to 1848, was thus illustrated by being reduced to figures and quantities: Thus in 1880-'83, 117 units of money would have bought as much of grain as 142 units could have done in 1821-'48; but, in respect to labor, it would have required 285 units of money to have bought as much in 1880-'83 as 201 units did in 1821-'48. In respect to cattle, the purchasing power of money had decreased in the ratio of 312 in the latter to 218 in the former period; but since 1879 the carcass price of meats has notably declined in England: inferior beef upon the London market to the extent of 43 per cent (in 1885-'86); prime beef, 18 per cent; pork, 22 per cent; middling mutton, 27 per cent. It is also undoubtedly true, as Mr. John Bright has recently pointed out, that meat, in common with milk and butter, commands comparatively high prices in England, "because our people, by thousands of families, now eat meat who formerly rarely tasted it, and because our imports of these articles are not sufficient to keep prices at a more moderate rate."

One point of interest pertinent to this discussion, which has for some time attracted the attention of students of social science in England and France, has also been made a matter of comment in the cities of the northwestern United States, especially in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and is probably applicable to all other sections of the country; and that is, that expenditures for rent form at present a much larger item in the living expenses of families than ever before, and for the reason that people are no longer content to live in the same classes of houses as formerly; but demand houses with all of the so-called modern improvements-gas and water and better warming, ventilating, and sanitary arrangements-which must be paid for.

* "Century Magazine," 1887. + Letter to the London "Times," November, 1884.

REDUCTION IN THE HOURS OF LABOR.-Concurrently with the general increase in recent years in the amount and purchasing power of money-wages throughout the civilized world, the hours of labor have been also generally reduced. In the case of Great Britain, Mr. Giffen is of the opinion that the reduction. during the last fifty years in the textile, house-building, and engineering trades has been at least 20 per cent, and that the British workman now gets from 50 to 100 per cent more money for 20 per cent less work.

In the United States, the data afforded by the census returns of 1880 indicate that in 1830, 81'1 per cent of the recipients of regular wages worked in excess of ten hours per day; but for 1880, the number so working was about 26'5 per cent. In 1830, 13.5 per cent worked in excess of thirteen hours; but in 1880 this ratio had been reduced to 25. For the entire country the most common number of hours constituting a day's labor in 1880 was ten.*

That the conclusions of Mr. Giffen respecting the general effect in Great Britain of the increase in wages and reduction in the hours of labor, as above stated, find a correspondence in the United States, might, if space permitted, be shown by a great amount and variety of testimony. A single example-drawn from the experience of the lowest class of labor-is, however, especially worthy of record. In 1860, before the war, the average amount of work expected of spade-laborers on the western divisions of the Erie Canal, in the State of New York, was five cubic yards of earth excavation for each man per day; and for this work the average wages were seventy-five cents per day. At the present time the average daily excavation of each man employed on precisely the same kind of work, and on the same canal, is

* The results of an investigation recently instituted by the Prussian Government in consequence of a demand made for an absolute prohibition of Sunday labor in business occupations in that country, have revealed a curious and apparently an unexpected condition of public sentiment on the subject: Thus from returns obtained from thirty out of thirty-five provinces or departments, containing 500,156 manufacturing establishments and 1,582,591 workmen, it was found that 57.75 per cent of the factories kept at work on Sunday. On the other hand, the larger number of the workmen, or 919,564, rested on Sunday. As regards trade and transportation, it was found that in twenty-nine provinces (out of thirty-five), of 147,318 establishments of one sort or another, employing 245,061 persons, 77 per cent were open on Sunday, and 57 per cent of the employés worked on that day. A canvass of the persons naturally most interested in the matter-i. e., the employés— showed, however, that only a comparatively small number were in favor of the proposed measure. Thus, for example, of those who were consulted in the great factories or stores, only 13 per cent of the employers and 18 per cent of the employed were in favor of total prohibition. In the smaller industries the proportion was 18 per cent of the employers and 21 per cent of the employed. In trade only 41 per cent of the employers and 39 per cent of the employed, and in transportation only 12 per cent of the employers and 16 per cent of the employed, were in favor of total prohibition.

reported as three and a half cubic yards, at a compensation of from $1.50 to $2 per day.

Any review of the recent experiences, in respect to wages and hours of labor, would be imperfect that failed to call attention to the fact that the benefits from advances in the one case, and reductions in the other, have accrued mainly to operatives in factories and to artisans and skilled mechanics, and have been enjoyed in the least degree, and largely not at all, by employés, clerks, book-keepers, copyists, etc., engaged in mercantile and commercial operations and establishments. The reason of this is manifestly that the supply of this latter class of labor has been disproportionately greater than that of the former, and continually tends to be in excess of demand; and, under such circumstances, although the amount of discontent may be, and undoubtedly is, very great and well warranted, the organized and aggressive expression of it finds little sympathy on the part of the public.

The question has been asked, Why is it that wages of manual labor have been constantly rising in recent years, while all other prices have been concurrently falling? or, to put it differently, why is it that overproduction, while cheapening the product, should not also cheapen the work that produces it? The answer is, that the price of the products of labor is not governed by the price of labor, or wages, but that wages, or earnings, are results of production, and not conditions precedent. Wages, as a rule, are paid out of product. If production is small, no employer can afford to pay high wages; but if, on the contrary, it is large, and measured in terms of labor is of low cost-which conditions are eminently characteristic of the modern methods of production-the employer is not only enabled to pay high wages, but will, in fact, be obliged to do so, in order to obtain what is really the cheapest (in the sense of the most efficient) labor. The world has not yet come to recognize it, but it is nevertheless an economic axiom, that the invariable concomitant of high wages and the skilled use of machinery is a low cost of production and a large consumption. In the first of the results is to be found the explanation for the continually increasing tendency of wages to advance; in the second, an explanation why the supplanting of labor by machinery has not been generally more disastrous. If, however, it be rejoined that "the comparative poverty of cotton- and woolen-mill operatives, and of women who run sewing-machines," and the like, does not sustain the above explanations, the question is pertinent, Comparative with what? For, low and insufficient as may be the wages of all this class of operatives, they were never, in comparison with other times, so high as at present.