636 LABOUR AND WAGES. 



coal-dues, a tax which has been continued up to the present 

 time. The other volume is an account of the moneys voted by 

 Parliament for the repair of Westminster Abbey, also under 

 Wren's supervision, from 1697 onwards, some of the results of 

 this expenditure being now visible in the west end of the church. 

 Even here, however, there is a great deal of contract work. 

 Wren's hirings are of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, 

 and workmen's labourers, though there is far less information 

 about carpenters' wages than about any other kind of labour, 

 as so much is done by measure and contract. One does not 

 find sawyers, tilers or slaters, except the latter very rarely, 

 for the board and plank used were supplied by the master 

 employers, and almost all the churches, had, like the abbey, 

 their roofs leaded. I think it also not improbable that the 

 demand for artisan labour in the rebuilding of London after 

 the great fire must have stimulated the migration of artisans 

 to the metropolis, which was I have already stated exempt 

 from the system of quarter sessions assessments. But on the 

 whole the rise in the wages of labour, the effect of London 

 prices being subtracted from the estimate, was fully from fifty 

 to sixty per cent., as gathered from wages paid. 



This inference will be most conveniently illustrated by 

 taking and comparing the average rates of wages, in the 

 different callings appended to this chapter, in two divisions, 

 the first sixty and the last sixty years. This contrast will, 

 it is true, bring out, in the result, the very marked effect of 

 London prices, but it also assists the interpretation of the rise 

 during the last sixty years of the period. Now the first 

 general and unquestionable rise in wages is during the sixth 

 decade, and it is exhibited in nearly every kind of labour. 

 But it is during this decade that almost all kinds of corn are 

 heightened in price, and that a marked but hardly permanent 

 elevation is shown in the price of beef. I conclude therefore 

 that the assessments had had the effect of dragging the wages 

 of the labourer down to bare subsistence, and that the fact 

 becoming obvious, it became necessary first to disregard the 



