276 ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



rule laid down as regulating labour prices, we find that the rise 

 in the highest kind of carpenters' work is less than that of the 

 commoner or average kind, being only 43 per cent. 



The wages of masons, cementarii and latomi, as they are 

 generally named, are not recorded with such fulness as those of 

 carpenters. The rise here, however, is more considerable than 

 that of carpenters' work. It may be that the combination 

 which such artisans were able to effect, and the regulations by 

 which they were enabled to govern their trade, gave them 

 greater advantage in the event of a scarcity of hands. The 

 increase derived from the evidence is 60 per cent. 



Still more imperfect is the information from which the 

 fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh columns of the decennial 

 averages have been compiled. As before, I have distinguished 

 the single labour of the tiler from the joint labour of the tiler 

 and his assistant, and have used the same rule with the slater 

 and his man. The rise in the tiler's wages is only 34 per cent., 

 in the case of the tiler and man it amounts to 90 per cent. 

 Though I am ready to admit that some part of this latter 

 increase must have been local, particularly during the last 

 three decades, and therefore imperfectly available for a general 

 average, it is nevertheless in the direction which we should 

 anticipate. The lower labour rose in a far more considerable 

 degree than the higher, and the average represents consequently 

 a greater increase on joint labour than it does on the single 

 labour of the better-paid workman. Did the accounts supply 

 information as to the payments made to the tiler's help we 

 should find the per-centage of rise would be far more con- 

 siderable. 



The evidence found for the wages of slater, and of slater 

 and man, is even more imperfect. The business of the 

 slater, properly so called, could have been carried on only 

 in regions where fissile stone is found, or is easily procured. 

 Such a place was Oxford, which from the very earliest times 

 has used Stonesfield slates for roofing purposes, and perhaps 

 certain deposits of similar but inferior oolite. The name of 



