148 



REPORT — 1875. 



labour, " is that which, under the worst circumstances, the worst workman 

 gets from the worst master." We cannot, therefore, take the minimum rates so 

 considered as a proper basis for the sufficiency of wages. How far insufficient 

 wages in relation to the cost of living in the United Kingdom is a cause of the 

 large emigration which is taking place from year to year it is not possible to 

 establish * ; but doubtless the prospect held out in the distant colonies and 

 in the United States of America of considerable improvement has been for 

 some time past, and still is, a strong inducement to those in receipt of insuf- 

 ficient wages in this country to emigrate to other lands. Your Committee 

 are desirous to point out in connexion with this question that not only has 

 the cost of some of the principal necessaries of life greatly risen within the 

 last twenty years f , but that, in consequence of the general increase of 

 comfort and luxury, many articles of food, drink, and dress J must now be 

 counted as necessaries which some years ago were far beyond the reach of 

 the labouring classes ; whilst house-rent, especially adapted for tho labouring 

 classes, is considerably dearer. If, therefore, the cost of living be taken as a 

 guide to the rate of wages, it would not be enough to take into account the 

 cost of the mere necessaries of life. A higher standard of living having been 

 established, it is indispensable to compare the wages of labour with such 

 higher standard. Yoiir Committee are not satisfied, however, that it is pos- 

 sible to regulate wages according to the scale of comfort or luxury which may 

 be introduced among the people, and are compelled to assert that it is an 

 utter fallacy to imagine that wages wiU. rise or fall in relation to the cost 

 of such supposed necessaries or indulgences. 



A better test of the sufficiency of wages is the relation they bear to the 

 state of the labour-market; and tested by that standard the minimum rate 

 of wages which workmen are at any time prepared to accept is the least 

 which they think they are entitled to have under existing circumstances, the 



* The average number of emigrants in the last ten years from the United Kingdom, 

 from 1862 to 1873, -was 230,000 per annum. In 1873 the total umnber was 310,612, and 

 in 1874 241,014. The emigration to the United States decreased from 233,073 in 1873, 

 to 148,161 in 1874. 



t The prices of the principal articles of food in the five years from 1852 to 1856 and 

 186S to 1872 are shown in the following Table : — 



