Sept. 1896.] 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



199 



the 1-inch map, arranged to fold in a case; combined maps, 

 where the centre of interest ordinarily appears on the margin or 

 corner of a sheet, on the lines of a few which have been already 

 issued ; and a small scale map for cyclists. 



Board of Trade. — Second Annual Report on Changes in Wages 

 and Hours of Labour in the United Kingdom, 1894. 

 [0.— 8075.] Price Is. 9d. 



This volume, in treating of the changes of wages in various 

 occupations, contains an account of the variations in agricultural 

 wages during 1894. The method adopted for obtaining the 

 data necessary for such an inquiry in the case of most employ- 

 ments could not be utilised in the case of agricultural wages, 

 owing to the alterations not usually affecting simultaneously a 

 whole district or a given number of workpeople, as is more often 

 the case in mining and manufacturing industries, &c. 



For the purpose of the present report far more extensive data 

 have been collected, and the materials obtained are believed to 

 be more comprehensive than have ever before been brought 

 together. Applications have been addressed to the chairman of 

 each district council in England and Wales, asking for the net 

 cash weekly wages most usually paid to ordinary agricultural 

 labourers, exclusive of all allowances, piecework earnings, &c, 

 in January and June 1893, 1894, and 1895. Answers have been 

 received from 598 of such districts out of a total of 662 in 

 England and Wales. Of the 64 districts from which returns of 

 wages have not been received, six are returned as urban localities, 

 where practically no agricultural labour exists. 



The number of male agricultural labourers in each district has 

 been extracted from the rough sheets of the census of 1891, and 

 it has been assumed, for the purpose of calculation, that when 

 the predominant rate has been changed by a given amount in a 

 district, all the male agricultural labourers in that district have 

 had their wages changed by that amount. It is considered that 

 such an assumption gives an approximately true result, although 

 in certain districts, notably Cumberland and Yorkshire, it is 

 believed that such an estimate may not be entirely satisfactory, 

 because weekly labourers, upon whose wages the returns are 

 based, are not in a majority in those counties. Thus at the 

 hirings in these countries in 1 894, wages showed a slight down- 

 ward tendency compared with 1893. This it is thought is 

 hardly sufficiently indicated by taking the rates of wages paid to 

 the weekly labourers. 



Upon the above assumptions, however, which are considered 

 to give, on the whole, the most reliable estimate, the following 



