970 REPORT— 1898. 



employed. 3. Output and employment. 4. Position in 1884. 5. Effect on trade. 

 6. Not limited to amount of bounties. 7. Kegularity of quality. 8. General 

 advantages accruing. 



(c) On British Consumers. — 1. The consumption in Britain. 2. Advantages of 

 best markets. 3. Beet sugar an advantage. 4. Cost of production. 5. Its effect 

 on prices. 



{d) On the West Indies.— 1. The effect on the Islands. 2. Value of the West 

 India Commission. 3. Cane and beet sugar production. 4. Old-fashioned 

 methods. 5. Waste of material. 6. Introduction of modern machinery. 7. And 

 reduced cost of production. 8. Further improvements necessary. 9. The yield 

 of the sugar canes. 10. System of importation. 11. West Indian requirements. 

 12. Grants to West Indies. 13. Preferable to abolition of bounties. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. 

 The following Papers were read : — 



1. Comparison of the Changes in Wages in France, the United States, and 

 the United Kingdom from 1840 to 1891. By A. L. Bowley, M.A. 



The object of this paper is to compare the results of the recent inquiry in 

 France as to wages and their chansres ' Salaires et Dur^e du Travail ' (Office du 

 Travail, 1897), and of the United States Senate Report on ' Wholesale Prices, 

 Wages and Transportation ' (Washington, 1893), with wages in the United King- 

 dom. A paper considering the American report, and comparing the changes of 

 wages since 1860, there shown, with the changes in the United Kingdom, was 

 read to this Section at Ipswich ; ' the results obtained there, and in a paper relating 

 to English wages since 1860 read to the Statistical Society in 1895, are freely used 

 in the present estimate. The new work in this paper consists chiefly in carrying 

 back English wages from 1860 to 1840, and in tabulating the figures in the foreign 

 reports for comparison. 



Stress is laid on the fact that none of the results obtained in the foreign reports 

 or in the English calculations can pretend to minute accuracy. The probable 

 accuracy diminishes as the dates become remote ; as a rough guide it may be said 

 that the index figures relating to nominal wages may be five in error, whether in 

 the number sixty-one for 1840 or ninety for 1886, and those relating to real wages 

 twice as far from the fact. This is unfortunate as far as theories dealing with the 

 laws of wages are concerned, but for a general view and comparison such a margin 

 of error is of less account. Throughout the calculations it has been recognised 

 that the result must be rough, and fine instruments have not been used. Thus, 

 simple instead of weighted averages have been taken ; figui-es have not been calcu- 

 lated beyond the first decimal place, and slight differences of date ignored. Similar 

 principles had been followed by the compilers of the French report, and the 

 American figures are insufficient for very accurate deductions; hence for this 

 comparison it is useless to labour the English figures to their greatest possible 

 accuracy. 



The general method adopted has been to form an index-number for wages, and 

 all the theorems relating to the use and accuracy of index-numbers for prices may 

 be adopted. In the actual work it has been found that the numbers obtained by 

 successive approximations are such as the theory of error would lead one to 

 expect. 



The English Figures. — The sources of information for these are official reports 

 on wages, reports of Commissions and of Factory Inspectors, reports on Trades 

 Unions, and general or special estimates published at various times by private 

 individuals. The information is heterogeneous and from very miscellaneous sources, 



' Vide Brit, Assoc. Rep., p. 775, and Economic Journal, 1895. 



