RENTS, PROFITS, AND WAGES. 89 



In the Lowlands of Scotland, and in Wales, the average 

 rate of wages was 8s. a-week, or 1.25 francs reduced 

 value per working day. In the Highlands of Scotland, 

 and in three-fourths of Ireland, the average was 6s. a-week, 

 or 1 franc reduced value per working day. In the west 

 of Ireland, the average fell to 4s., say 70 centimes per 

 day.* 



In France, the average farming wage is 1.25 francs to 

 1.50 francs per working day ; but in certain districts it 

 is as high as the English, and in others again as low as in 

 Ireland. 



Thus, owing to the reduction of manual labour one of 

 the bases of their agricultural system the English were 

 enabled, although in a less proportion, to raise their rate 

 of wages at the time when rents, profits, taxes, and other 

 expenses took a start. 



In addition to the annual sum paid in wages, amount- 

 ing, in England, to 28,000,000 of nominal value, the 

 labouring classes there possess another great resource in 

 the poor's-rate, which is nothing more nor less than a 

 supplementary wage, and goes to increase the amount 

 annually paid to them by 6,000,000. 



Finally, it is only necessary to enter a labourer's cottage 

 in England, and to compare it with one such as our cultiva- 

 tors mostly inhabit, to perceive a difference in the general 

 comforts of the two people. Although the French peasant 

 is frequently proprietor of the land, and thus adds a little 

 rent and a little profit to his wage, he does not live so 

 well as the English farm-labourer. He is not so well 

 clothed, less comfortably lodged, and not so well fed : he 

 eats more bread, but it is generally made of rye, with the 



* The wages here stated are, upon the whole, rather under the mark, both as 

 regards England and Scotland ; but at the higher rate they all the better turn to 

 establish the author's argument. J. D. 



