men so much as by engineers and stokers. It would seem that, as a class, the new men all round are paid better than the able seamen, but I should not press this point; it might well be the case that steam-ships as a whole could be worked by an inferior class of laborers as compared with sailing-ships, and yet the fact that inferior labor is sufficient for this special trade would be quite consistent with the fact that the whole conditions of modern labor require more skill than the conditions fifty years ago, so that there is more labor relatively at the higher rates than used to be the case.
The comparison, except for seamen's wages, where it has only been possible to go back for about thirty years, is made between a period about fifty years ago and the present time only. It would have complicated the figures too much to introduce intermediate dates. I may state, however, that I have not been inattentive to this point, and that, if we had commenced about twenty to twenty-five years ago, we should also have been able to show a very great improvement since that time, while at that date also, as compared with an earlier period, a great improvement would have been apparent. A careful and exhaustive investigation of the records of wages I have referred to, in comparison with the numbers employed in different occupations, as shown by the census reports, would in fact repay the student who has time to make it; and I trust the investigation will yet be made.
The records do not include anything relating to the agricultural laborer, but from independent sources—I would refer especially to the reports of the recent Royal Agricultural Commission—we may perceive how universal the rise in the wages of agricultural laborers has been, and how universal at any rate is the complaint that more money is paid for less work. Sir James Caird, in his "Landed Interest" (page 65), puts the rise at 60 per cent as compared with the period just before the repeal of the corn-laws, and there is much other evidence to the same effect. The rise in the remuneration of labor in Ireland in the last forty years is also one of the facts which has been conspicuously brought before the public of late. In no other way is it possible to account for the stationariness of rents in Ireland for a long period, notwithstanding the great rise in the prices of the cattle and dairy products which Ireland produces, and which, it has been contended, would have justified a rise of rents. The farmer and the laborer together have in fact had all the benefit of the rise in agricultural prices.
The next point to which attention must be drawn is the shortening of the hours of labor which has taken place. While the money wages have increased as we have seen, the hours of labor have diminished. It is difficult to estimate what the extent of this diminution has been, but, collecting one or two scattered notices, I should be inclined to say very nearly 20 per cent. There has been at least this reduction in the textile, engineering, and house-building trades. The workman
