I now take the Wage Census figure of 1886 as a basis and correct it for the upward movement of wages since that date by the wage index numbers of the Board of Trade (Cd. 4954, which slightly corrects the index numbers of Cd. 1761, used in "Riches and Poverty," 1905 edition, p. 24), which are based on the mean of over 150 rates:—
Year. | Average Wage (Men, Women and Children) per Week. | Board of Trade Index Number 1900=100. * |
| s. d. | ||
| 1886 (Wage Census figure) | 17 6 | 82.86 |
| 1900 " " | 21 1 | 100.00 |
| 1908 " " | 21 3 | 101.02 |
* The meaning of this column is that, if the average wage of 1900 be represented by 100, the average wage of 1886 is represented by 82·86 and that of 1908 by 101·02.
We thus arrive at 21s. 3d. as the average weekly wage of the manual workers in 1908. There is much reason to believe that this estimate errs on the side of liberality. It is unfortunate that we have not a compulsory wage census, and the method of estimation used here can pretend to no more than approximation. It neglects the important fact that between 1886 and 1908 the ranks of women and child workers have swollen at the expense of adult male workers. The 15,500,000 (estimated) manual workers of 1908 consisted as to a larger proportion of women and children than the 13,200,000 (estimated) manual workers of 1886. I regard the 21s. 3d., therefore, as the most liberal figure that can be put forward as the average earnings of the men and women and child workers of the United Kingdom in 1908.
We have now to decide what allowances should be made (1) for the great army of casual, incompetent, and aged or ageing workers who figure in the census returns as following definite occupations, and (2) for the loss of time through unemployment, sickness, accidents, stress of weather, strikes, lockouts, "bank" and other holidays, etc., in the case of the remaining workers.
With regard to the first item, I do not think we are justified in estimating the incompetents and casuals at less than 1,000,000 out of the 15,500,000. For the purposes of the present estimate, I assume that these 1,000,000 workers earn, on the average, £25 per head per annum, or an aggregate of £25,000,000. My view is that this is a liberal estimate of the earnings of what may be termed the camp-followers of the industrial army.
With regard to the remaining 14,500,000, we have to form an estimate of the amount of time lost per annum through voluntary or enforced leisure. No certain information exists, and the widest differences of opinion have been expressed on the subject. As I have said above, Dudley Baxter took ten weeks; Leone Levi took four weeks; Mr A. L. Bowley takes six weeks plus a further allowance for unemployment.
The Board of Trade, in their recent examination of fluctuations in employment, made an analysis from the records of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, combined with information supplied by employers, of the time lost in the engineering trade. They came to the conclusion that, in an average year, perhaps 8 per cent. of working time was lost from all causes, and expressed the opinion that in a good year the loss might fall to 4 per cent. and in a bad year rise to 15 per cent. or more (Cd. 2337, p. 101). This would mean, for the engineering trade only, a loss of time varying from only two weeks in the year to as much as eight weeks or more.
In other employments the widest variations exist. There are the quite regular employments, such as the army, the navy, the postal service, the police service, and, for the greater part, the railway service. There are violently fluctuating employments, such as the building trades and the shipbuilding trades. In all alike, sickness takes its toll, and unemployment arises from accidents, from disputes, from "drink," and from seasonal influences and depression, while, on the other hand, overtime occasionally goes to swell the aggregate earnings.