ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



I have taken only one average, that, namely, of carpenters' 

 labour. The other kinds represent the highest prices at which 

 the service was paid at any place in each year. I have also given 

 a separate column to the highest price of carpenters' labour. 

 I adopted this exceptional rule, (which gives in the case of the 

 carpenters an average from highest prices, which is in excess 

 of the general average by about 25 per cent, both before and 

 after the Plague,) because, since the accounts rarely give dates, 

 I did not feel certain whether the rate represented in each case 

 summer or winter wages. But I treated the carpenters' wages 

 on each plan; adopting a general average, because the carpenter 

 was almost universally employed, and a considerable part of his 

 labour must have been occupied by common farm-work ; and an 

 average derived from highest prices only, because the same name 

 was given to an artizan who was engaged in the more respon- 

 sible and difficult labour of building, and in the more delicate 

 labour of, as we should call it, cabinet-work. I have taken note 

 of certain cases in which an exceptionally high rate of wages is 

 due either to the labour being performed in an expensive 

 locality, such as London, or on domestic furniture or other 

 work of a higher character, as in one of the colleges at Oxford. 

 It will be seen, on comparing the average prices of carpenters' 

 work with the highest recorded rates, that the latter are very 

 often much in excess of the former. 



Of all these prices given for mechanical labour, that of 

 carpenters' work is by far the most abundant and continuous. 

 Although perhaps even here the evidence is insufficient to 

 enable one to form a satisfactory annual average, (which is not of 

 course absolutely necessary,) and is perhaps deficient even for 

 the decennial periods ; we find that the decade to which allusion 

 is so often made, produces its effect both immediately and per- 

 manently on this kind of work, and that the twenty years, 

 1371-1390, represent the highest rates of the second period, 

 that, namely, which follows the Plague. Taking, as before, the 

 first ninety years as forming the first division, we find that the 

 rise in the second is 48 per cent., and in accordance with the 



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