496 AGRICULTURAL WAGES IN DECEMBER. 
capable of accurate arrangement in the groups to which they 
respectively belong. 

AGRICULTURAL WAGES IN DECEMBER, 1899 AND 1900. 
The Board of Trade have summarised in the Labour Gazette* 
the information received from a number of correspondents in 
England as to rates of weekly cash wages paid to ordinary 
agricultural labourers, exclusive of piecework earnings and 
all extra allowances in cash or kind, in December, 1900, as 
compared with December, 1899. 
The general effect of the returns is to show that there was 
an upward movement in agricultural wages. 
The following table shows the number of agriculturai 
labourers (according to the census of 1891) in the Poor Law 
Unions reported on, grouped by districts, and also by the 
extent to which the rates of weekly cash wages are stated to 
have changed in December, 1900, as compared with 1899 (it 
is assumed that the change recorded for a district applies to 
all the labourers in that district) :-— 

Number of Agricultural Labourers in Poor 
Law Unions in which there has been— 









No. of 
Poor Law 
Districts. Unions Increase per week of 
reported No 
on. change. | Total. 
6d. ES: Is. 6d. 
. eae. 
ia | 
Midland Counties - - 46 47,256 | — 17,863 | 1,601 66,720 
Eastern Counties - - 53 91,802 | — 36,825 | 2,553 | 131,180 
Southern and South- | 
Western Counties — - 69 59,532 | 2,779 | 31,328 | 3,767 | 97,406 
| dr 
Total : - 168 198,590 | 2,779 | 86,016 | 7,921 | 295,306 
Percentage - - — Gyr3 o'9 29°I 27, | Ioo0'O 
* Labour Gazette for February. 
