THE PROGRESS OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 27 



gets from 50 to 100 per cent more money for 20 per cent less work ; 

 in round figures, he has gained from 70 to 120 per cent in fifty years 

 in money return. It is just possible of course that the workman may 

 do as much or nearly as much in the shorter period as he did in his 

 longer hours. Still, there is the positive gain in his being less time at 

 his task, which many of the classes still tugging lengthily day by day 

 at the oar would appreciate. The workman may have been wise or 

 unwise in setting much store by shorter hours in bettering himself, 

 but the shortening of the hours of labor is undoubtedly to be counted 

 to the good as well as the larger money return he obtains. 



We come then to the question of what the changes have been in 

 the prices of the chief articles of the workman's consumption. It is 

 important, to begin with, that, as regards prices of commodities gen- 

 erally, there seems to be little doubt things are much the same as 

 they were forty or fifty years ago. This is the general effect of the 

 inquiries which have been made first as to the depreciation of gold 

 consequent on the Australian and Califomian gold discoveries, and 

 next as to the appreciation of gold which has taken place within the 

 last twenty years consequent on the new demands for gold which have 

 arisen, and the falling off in the supply as compared with the period 

 between 1850 and 1860. It would burden us too much to go into 

 these inquiries on an occasion like the present, and therefore I only 

 take the broad result. This is that, while there was a moderate rise 

 of prices all round between the years 1847-'50, just before the new 

 gold came on the market, and the year 1862, when Mr. Jevons pub- 

 lished his celebrated essay, a rise not exceeding about 20 per cent, yet 

 within the last twenty years this rise has disappeared, and prices are 

 back to the level, or nearly to the level, of 1847-'50. The conclusion 

 is that, taking things in the mass, the sovereign goes as far as it did 

 forty or fifty years ago, while there are many new things in existence 

 at a low price which could not then have been bought at all. If in 

 the interval the average money earnings of the working-classes have 

 risen between 50 and 100 per cent, there must have been an enormous 

 change for the better in the means of the working-man, unless by 

 some wonderful accident it has happened that his special articles have 

 changed in a different way from the general run of prices. 



But looking to special articles, we find that on balance prices are 

 lower and not higher. Take wheat. It is notorious that wheat, the 

 staff of life, has been lower on the average of late years than it was 

 before the free-trade era. Even our fair-trade friends, who find it so 

 difficult to see very plain things, were forced to allow, in that wonder- 

 ful manifesto which was published in the " Times " some weeks back, 

 that wheat is about 55. a quarter cheaper on the average than it was. 

 The facts, however, deserve still more careful statement to enable us 

 to realize the state of things fifty years ago and at the present time. 



