THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 9 



during the interval of these years by 39"9 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 asser- 

 tion is probably warranted that, taking into account the hours 

 of work, rates of wages, and the prices of commodities, the aver- 

 age 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 Massachu- 

 setts were 25 per cent more in 1885 than they were in 1860. 



Taking the experience of the cities of St. Paul and Minneapo- 

 lis as a basis, recent investigations also show a marked increase 

 in the average wages of all descriptions of labor in the north- 

 western 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 pro- 

 portion 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 sta- 

 tistique de la France," respecting the rates of wages paid in 

 Paris and in the provinces of France in twentj^-three leading in- 

 dustries 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 fig- 

 ures 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. f M. Yves Guyot, the eminent French 



* It is at the same time not a little significant that the Commissioner of the Massa- 

 chusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics should have reported in 1884, as the result of his in- 

 vestigations, 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. 



f " 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. 



