Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/32

 would be in the highest degree improbable that precisely those changes which could not be traced were in the opposite direction. The difficulty in the way is that, in a period of fifty years in a country like England, the character of the work itself changes. The people who have the same names at different times are not necessarily doing the same work. Some forms of work pass wholly away, and wholly new forms come into existence. Making all allowances, however, and selecting the best comparative cases possible, some useful conclusion seems obtainable.

What I propose to do first and mainly, as regards this point, is to make use of an independent official record which we have to thank Mr. Porter for commencing. I mean the record of wages, which has been maintained for many years in the "Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Kingdom," and which was previously commenced and carried on in the volumes of "Revenue and Population Tables" which Mr. Porter introduced at the Board of Trade about fifty years ago. It is curious on looking back through these volumes to find how difficult it is to get a continuous record. The wages in one volume are for certain districts and trades; in a subsequent volume, for different districts and trades; the descriptive classifications of the workers are also constantly changing. Picking my way through the figures, however, I have to submit the following particulars of changes in money wages between a period forty to fifty years ago—it is not possible to get the same year in all cases to start from—and a period about two years ago, which may be taken as the present time. This comparison leaves out of account the length of hours of work, which is a material point I shall notice presently.

Comparison of Wages Fifty Years ago and at Present Time.