EARNINGS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 177 
Huntingdonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Somerset- 
shire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. On the 
whole, it will be seen thatthe average amounts earned are 
generally lower in the more rural counties than in counties in 
which there are manufacturing and mining districts or large 
populous urban centres. 
A detailed comparison of the foregoing rates with the 
estimated earnings of agricultural labourers in 1892, as 
ascertained by the Assistant Commissioner to the Royal 
Commission on Labour, is rendered somewhat difficult by 
the fact that the inquiry of 1892 was confined to certain 
selected districts in each county, whereas the later figures 
collected by the Labour Department refer to entire counties. 
The broad results of an examination of the two sets of 
figures indicate, however, that except in the districts where 
the men are hired, a rise has taken place since 1892 in most 
counties in the earnings of agricultural labourers. This 
appears to have been generally the case in the midland and 
home counties, where the rural labour market is exposed to 
the competition of large manufacturing industries and 
populous urban centres, but the rates have also improved in 
the more rural grazing counties of the west and south-west. 
But the purely arable counties of East Anglia have not par- 
ticipated in this upward movement, and in Norfolk and 
Suffolk the rates in 1898 were slightly below those of 1892. 
As regards Wales, where the wages of agricultural 
labourers are governed to a considerable extent by the proxi- 
mity of mines and quarries, the Returns furnished to the 
Labour Department show a range in the averages of the 
predominant rates of winter and summer cash wages from 
14s. in Cardiganshire to 18s. in Glamorganshire, while the 
weekly estimated earnings range from 14s. 9d. in the former 
county to igs. Id. in latter. These figures relate to the wages 
and earnings of married labourers finding their own food. 
According to the information collected by the Labour 
Department, in Scotland nearly all the farm servants are 
engaged by the year or half year and given continuous 
employment and regular wages. They may be classified 
in five groups, viz. grieves or stewards, horsemen or 
N 
