307 
the preceding two years and a half. The result brought out in this 
way is, that, in the face of greatly enlarged production, and constantly 
increasing importations, with one or two exceptions all the 38 articles 
inserted have risen in price — most of them very materially, and 
many of them continuously and progressively, though, as might he 
expected, the constantly advancing tide has in the majority of in- 
stances been marked by fluctuations, exhibited most prominently 
after the crisis of 1857. 
Now, this rise of prices during the last nine years (for the list 
begins in January 1851, and ends in January 1860) would be a 
serious look-out, especially for the working classes, were it not ac- 
companied, as it appears to have been, by a simultaneous and corre- 
sponding advance in the money wages of all kinds of labour, both 
agricultural and manufacturing, skilled and unskilled. 
Communications from eminent agriculturists represent the wages 
both of farm-servants and of day-labourers as having risen since 
1850 fully 25 per cent. In Edinburgh, masons’ wages, which in 
1852 were 20s. per week of sixty hours, are now 5d. per hour, 
equal to 25s. a week, or an advance of 25 per cent. Joiners’ wages, 
which in 1852 were 18s., are now 23s., or 27 per cent, higher. 
Upholsterers, then 19s., are now 23s., or 21 per cent, higher. 
From an important paper, “ On the Money Rate of Wages in 
Glasgow and the West of Scotland,” communicated by Dr Strang to 
the Cheltenham Meeting of the British Association in 1856, and 
founded on actual returns, it appears that the increase of wages in 
1856 over the rates of 1850-51 had been, in the case of masons, 
carpenters, and joiners, 20 per cent. ; of unskilled labourers in 
the building trades, 48 per cent. ; of engineers, 17 per cent. ; of 
quarriers, 30 per cent.; of cotton-spinners, 25 per cent.; of power- 
loom weavers, 15 per cent. In a subsequent paper, communicated 
by the same gentleman to the meeting of the British Association at 
Leeds in 1858, he states, as the result of his more recent inquiries, 
that although the rate of wages in 1858 was lower than in 1856, it 
was still higher than in 1851. In a Report on the Statistics of 
Glasgow for 1859, Dr Strang states that c< the wages of labour, now 
given for a week of diminished hours, have greatly advanced, and 
are still on the rise ; and when measured either in grain or in time, 
are generally higher than they ever were known to be.” 
The price of labour, especially of unskilled labour, is perhaps the 
