TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 775 



planation, is not a variation of degree, but a reversal of direction. And this re- 

 versal coincides with similar changes in the available supplies of the standard 

 metal. If the disturbances in America at the beginning of the century, with 

 the known diminution in production, were followed by a fall, if the Califor- 

 nian and Australian discoveries of the middle of the century were accompanied by 

 a rise, and if the notorious extraordinary demands since 1873, statistically com- 

 puted by Sir Robert Giffen,' coming on u supply which until the past few years was 

 diminishing, coincided with a fall again, it seems impossible to doubt that, although 

 improvements in production and transportation may have been contributory causes, 

 an important influence has been exerted by the monetary supplies. With the aid 

 of the economic telescope and microscope forces too remote or obscure to be de- 

 tected by the naked eye are thus brought within the range of ordinary vision ; and 

 the action of the standard metal on prices is one of those forces, for, in Jevons's 

 language, it is ' insidious, slow and imperceptible.' 



Such is the guidance which, as it seems to me, economics is able to offer ; and 

 in this question of the currency, as in the others of which we have treatsd, it is 

 surely not destitute of practical import, for the detection of a monetary cause of 

 the fall in prices is so far an argument for the adoption of a monetary remedy. 

 Such guidance also, I believe, economics can furnish on many other questions 

 coming to the front ; and, in offering this, it cannot be accused of an excessive or 

 defective estimate of its claims to popular recognition. I am convinced that, as 

 the years elapse, its aid will be sought with increasing urgency, and that it will 

 discharge, with a fuller consciousness of its high prerogative, its important but 

 difficult mission of seeing for itself, and disclosing to others, the unseen. 



The following Papers were read :— 



1. Comparison of the Rate of Increase of Wages in the United States and 

 in Great Britain, 1860-1891. By A. L. Bowley, M.A. 



The basis of the calculation is the vSenate Report on Wholesale Prices, Wages, 

 and Transportation, 1893, with which is compared the author's estimate of the 

 change of average wages in the United Kingdom, published in the Journal of the 

 Royal Statistical Society, June 1895. 



On examination it is found that the final wage tables of the Senate Report do 

 not rest on sufficient data, that no account is taken of the relative importance of 

 different occupations or of the different levels of wages, and that the figures for 

 many of the industries included are based on very slender information. The 

 industries for which the data appear on analysis to be sufficient are selected, and 

 the average wages in these industries reworked for certain years directly from the 

 original table of wages. By this means the relative wages for these selected 

 trades are found, on a method more correct than in the Report, for the years 1860, 

 1871-3, 1879-80, 1883, 1886, and 1891. 



These relative wages are compared individually and collectively with the 

 corresponding figures already found for the United Kingdom ; and it is seen that 

 money wages have followed very much the same course in both countries, rising 

 to a maximum in 1873, falling till 1880, and then rising till in 1891 the level of 

 1873 is again reached. Wages in the wool-trade follow a different course, and 

 do not make much progress in England, whereas in the States they increase 

 rapidly after 1873. 



To estimate the relative change in real wages, it is necessary to find index- 

 numbers formed on the same plan for both countries. This is done in three ways : 

 Sauerbeck's numbers are first compared with similar numbers for the States; 

 secondly, they are grouped and weighted, and compared with weighted numbers 

 given in the Senate Report ; while a third series is found from certain wholesale 

 prices compiled and grouped in the same Report. After discussion, the second of 



' In evidence given before the Gold and Silver Commission, and, more recently, 

 bafore the Commission on Agriculture. 



