WAGES OF ARTISANS i8i 



blacksmiths, and masons upon public works and in 

 the neighbourhood of towns has drawn many of them 

 away from the villages, and it is therefore to be pre- 

 sumed that the artisan who remains has more ploughs 

 to attend to, though his remuneration per plough has 

 not been increased. I am inclined to think that more 

 positive changes may at times take place. The village 

 would no doubt be scandalized at the idea of raising 

 the grain-wages of Bhopal, the carpenter ; but if Bhopal, 

 attracted by the high wages in the neighbouring town, 

 were to leave the village, his former employers might 

 not find it impossible to offer a higher rate to Phuran 

 to persuade him to fill the gap. Definite alterations, 

 too, have been made by the village elders, after some 

 great convulsion which disturbed rural economy. 

 Thus I find it recorded that the cultivators of Ferozpur 

 (in the Punjab) refused the sweepers the remuneration 

 they had received under the Sikhs, but that, as this 

 change was not in harmony with the economic condi- 

 tion of the time, the rate of payment for their other 

 services was gradually adjusted by mutual necessity.* 

 It must also be remembered that in the case of the 

 remuneration of the village artisans custom and com- 

 petition have not been seriously in conflict in the last 

 100 years ; as their wages are paid in kind, the money 

 value of their remuneration has risen pari passu with 

 the rise in prices. Lastly, although these customary 

 wages appear so immutable, some alteration, though 

 not openly avowed, must have taken place, because it 

 is exactly persons of this class who are popularly sup- 

 posed to have most improved their condition in recent 

 years. ' The wages of certain classes of artisans,* said 

 Mr. Crooke in 1888, ' particularly masons, blacksmiths, 

 and carpenters, have gone up by leaps and bounds 

 since employment opened in public works. As far as 

 I can judge their pay has about doubled within the 

 last generation. And this rise of wages has been in 



* ' Ferozpur District Settlement Report, 1877/ E. L. Brandreth. 



