The Coming Colony/Appendix C

by Philip Mennell

APPENDIX C.

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RATE OF WAGES.

The following is taken from the excellent handbook issued by the Emigrants' Information Office.

The rate of wages in the towns is roughly as follows, in the country districts slightly lower:—

1. Without board and lodging—per day:

Bakers	8s. to 10s.
Blacksmiths	8s. " 10s.
Boatbuilders	8s. " 10s.
Brewers	6s. " 8s.
Carpenters	8s. " 10s.
Coachbuilders	7s. " 10s.
Gardeners	5s. 6d. to 6s.
General Labourers	5s. to 7s.
Masons and Bricklayers⁠	8s. " 11s.
Miners	10s. " 12s.
Navvies	6s. " 8s.
Painters	6s. " 8s.
Plasterers	8s. " 10s.
Plumbers	7s. " 9s.
Printers	6s. " 10s.
Saddlers	7s. to 10s.
Sawyers and Lumbermen	6s. " 10s.
Shipwrights	10s.
Shoemakers	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$ By piece work, average 6s. to 9s. a day.
Tailors
Tanners and Curriers	6s.
Tinsmiths	8s.
Tobacco Factory Operative	Piece work average £3 a week.
Wharf Labourers	6s. to 7s.
Wheelwrights	9s. " 10s.

2. With board and lodging:

a. Per month:

Housemaids and General Female Servants, 30s. to 40s.; Cooks, 30s. to 50s.

Farm Labourers, Ploughmen, and Station Hands, 40s. to 80s.

b. Per year:

Shepherds, Stockriders, generally useful men on stations, £30 to £45. Married couples, servants on farms and stations, £50 to £70.

3. At the goldfields in the Kimberley Division Gardeners get £2 a week; Saddlers and Gold-miners, £4; Wheelwrights and Butchers, £5; Blacksmiths, Farriers, Joiners, and Car­penters, £5 to £6; Engineers, £8; and General Labourers, £4. Female Servants get £6 to £10 a month, and found (no demand, Chinamen being used).

Note.—Farm labourers are usually boarded and lodged; and single men preferred to married men with families. A high rate of wages does not necessarily imply a demand for labour. Navvies work eight hours a day, most other trades nine hours; a few, 10; farm hands, sunrise to sunset in the season. There is a good demand generally for female servants, milliners, and dressmakers. There is a good opening for market gardeners, fruit growers, and farmers, with £150 and upwards, but they should get experience of colonial farming before taking up land. In a few agricultural parts there is a fair demand for farm hands at £2 to £4 a month and board, but employment is not always permanent, and in the Kim­berley Division there is no demand. In any case they should be prepared to turn their hands to all kinds of farm and station work, or to cut down timber, or to use a pick and shovel, and to rough it in the bush and country districts. There is a. moderate demand only for mechanics, chiefly for those in the building trades. Gold­ miners may do well in mining districts, but the journeys are gene­rally expensive, and the life is rough.

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