THE PROGRESS OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 29 



the economic literature of the time are most instructive. M. Quetelet, 

 in his well-known great book, points to the obvious connection between 

 the high price of bread following the bad harvest of 1816 and the 

 excessive rate of mortality which followed. To this day you will find 

 tables in the registrar-general's returns which descend from a time 

 when a distinct connection between these high prices of bread and 

 excessive rates of mortality was traced. But within the last twenty 

 years what do we find ? Wheat has not been, on the average, for a 

 whole year so high as 705., the highest averages for any year being 

 645. bd. in 1867, and 635. ^d. in 1868 ; while the highest average of 

 the last ten years alone is 585. 8(7. in 1873 ; that is only about IO5. 

 above the average of the whole period. In the twenty years, more- 

 over, the highest price touched at any period was just over 705., viz., 

 7O5. 5c7. in 1867, and 745. 7c7. in 1868 ; while in the last ten years the 

 figure of 7O5. was not even touched, the nearest approach to it being 

 685. 9(7. in 1877. Thus of late years there has been a steadily low 

 price, which must have been an immense boon to the masses, and 

 especially to the poorest. The rise of money wages has been such, I 

 believe, that working-men, for the most part, could have contended 

 with extreme fluctuations in the price of bread better than they did 

 fifty years ago. But they have not had the fluctuations to contend 

 with. 



It would be useless to go through other articles with the same 

 detail. Wheat had quite a special importance fifty years ago, and the 

 fact that it no longer has the same importance — that we have ceased 

 to think of it as people did fifty years ago — is itself significant. Still, 

 taking one or two other articles, we find on the whole a decline : 



Prices of Various Articles about Fifty Years ago and at Present 



Time. 



^\^y^ 



>ugar • 



Cotton cloth exported. . .X^T*.' 



Inferior beasts ^1^ . .fj* 



Second class f .'. . . ' 



Third « %ui 



Inferior sheep '[. :'5^' 



Second class ,,. . , .^U.v.. .u^ 



Large hogs \ '. . W : . * . . \ f 



, per cwt. 



^'i/'*- • -per yard 



A 



p^ 8 pounds 



1889-40, I Present time. 



I should have liked a longer list of articles, but the difiiculty of 

 comparison is very serious. It may be stated broadly, however, that 

 while sugar and such articles have declined largely in price, and while 



* Porter's " Progress of the Nation," p. 543. In the paper as read to the society, I 

 gave the price without the duty, but including the duty the price was what is now given 

 here. The average price, with the duty of the ten years ending 1840, was 58s. 4c?. 



f Average price of raw sugar imported. 



