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and, lastly, the question whether the working classes have gained, 
in proportion with other classes, by the development of material 
wealth during the last fifty years. Although data do not exist 
for comparing the aggregate earnings of the working classes 
to-day with those of fifty years ago, and although forms of work 
have changed, and the same names represent different sorts of 
work now, still it is possible to compare what appear to be the 
average wages of large groups of the working classes, and if the 
changes all prove to be in the same direction, or nearly so, then 
we may infer that probably the changes which absence of data 
alone prevents us from tracing are not in the opposite direction. 
From the ‘ Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Kingdom,’ 
and from Mr. Porter’s record of wages commenced at the Board 
of Trade about fifty years ago (see his work ‘ Progress of the 
Nation’) we see that wherever a comparison is possible there is 
an enormous appareit rise in money wages, ranging from 20-and 
in most cases from 50 to 100 per cent., and in three cases to 
more than 100 per cent. (the mean of the percentages of increase 
being 70 per cent.) The wages of carpenters have risen at 
Manchester 42 per cent.; at Glasgow, 85; bricklayers, 50 and 
80; masons, 24 and 69; Staffordshire miners, 50; weavers at 
Bradford, 150; spinners (children) at Bradford, 160; and so 
on. Of seamen Mr. Giffen says that while there has been an 
improvement in their food and lodging, their money wages have 
increased by from 25 to 70 percent. As regards the agricultural 
labourers, the increase in their wages has been general in Great 
Britain and Ireland (see the reports of the recent Royal Agri- 
cultural Commission.) Sir James Caird, in his ‘ Landed 
Interest,’ estimated it at 60 per cent. within the last forty years. 
To these facts, as to the increase of workpeople’s money wages, 
must be added one word to notice the accompanying relief in the 
shortened hours for which they now labour. Mr. Giffen estimates 
the general shortening of the hcurs of labour at very nearly 
20 per cent. In the textile, engineering, and house-building 
trades he says that the workman gets from 50 to 100 per cent. 
more money for 20 per cent. less time. I say ‘ less time,’ not 
less work, because in many cases, doubtless, as much, or nearly 
as much, work is done in the shorter as in the longer hours. 
Be that as it may, the shortened hours are a gain to the 
workman, which must not be overlooked in an estimate of 
progress. Mr. Giffen’s second point for consideration is the 
prices fifty years ago and now of the chief articles which the 
people consume. And he begins by showing that, though the 
value of gold was depreciated after the Australian and Cali- 
fornian gold discoveries, its appreciation during the last twenty 
years has made prices much what they were before that time ; 
so that the sovereign goes as far as it did forty or fifty years ago; 
