658 REPORT—1904. 
3. Report on the Accuracy and Comparability of British and Foreign 
Statistics of International Trade.—See Reports, p. 302. 
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Changes in Nominal and Real Wages in Belgium.' 
By Professor E. Manat. 
I. Nominal Wages —Estimates of changes in nominal wages are shown in 
Table I. They are arranged on as nearly as possible the same basis as similar 
estimates by Mr. Bowley, read to the British Association in 1895 and 1898. 
TabLE I1.—Nominal Wages in Selected Trades in Belgium for Various Years, 
the Wages of Agricultural Labourers for 1895 being taken as 100, and 
Weighted Average for all these Trades. 
| | | | 
——— 1880 | 1840 1846 | 1856 | 1874 | 1880 1890 | 1891 | 1895 1896 
| 
| Sea Pa ie a ea 
Hobie 0's eal, Gay Sale Se] 180 | a et 
Percentage No. of | | 
| employés (adult | | 
| males) . — | 40 — = 8) es wee a 3 
Wool = ee aL = — 152 | — | 171} — #168 
No. . = — | 5 — — | 6 be Le | 3) 
Building _— <= HeTO — — 17% | = 173 | — 148 
| No. — j= 8 — | — a} — | — | — | 16 
Mining . == — 104 121 199 155 | — 183 — (|165 
| No. — |=] 5 — | — s4) — | — | — | 88] 
Tron == — | 81 _— — 186 — | 184 | /181 
No. _ — | 16, — | 6 — | — | — | 17 
Printers = — 83 — 173 — 185 182 
No. . . si am 1 = =i a 2 —— — al 9) 
Agriculture . 54 57 59 69 108 (1038 |. 99 — '100 — 
No. - — 51) — | — | 465 — | — Son — 
| Weighted average ae ca ee = = 283 | — — — 154 
The same reduced | 
so that 100 re- ~ ‘2 ere pfia-¢ | a “i ea 
presents average J ae | . 87 100 
wage in 1896 | 
The same when | 
agriculture is; | — — | 51 = — 93 — — |) ene 
excluded , ) 
Il. Prices.—Using the retail prices computed month by month in the ‘ Revue du 
Travail’ issued by the Belgian Labour Office, and weighting the annual averages by 
weights obtained from the ‘ Budgets Oavriers’ collected in 1891, a list of index- 
numbers is drawn up from 1896. This is supplemented by the retail prices of a 
large grocery business selling all commodities of general use in 565 shops in 
industrial districts. ‘The list so obtained for twenty years agrees very closely with 
the index-number of wholesale prices compiled by Professor H. Denis. 
1 Published in the Statistical Journal, September 1904, 
