According to the first annual report of the poor law commissioners (202), the weekly wages in Manchester of hod-carriers was 12s.; of hand-weavers, 7-15s.; of diggers, 10-15s.,; of pack-carriers, 14-15s.; of shoemakers, 15-16s.; of machine-weavers, 13-16-5/6s.; of white-washers, 18s.; of tailors, 18s.; of dyers, 15-20s.; of plasterers, 19-21s.; of masons, 18-22s.; of tinsmiths, 22-24s.; of carpenters, 24s.; of spinners, 20-25s.; of machinists, 26-30s.; of iron founders and power-loom tenders, 28-30s. In Belgium, the average daily wages for male labor was 1.18 francs for agricultural laborers; for those engaged in industry, 1.48 francs; in the manufacture of linen, 0.80[TN 11] francs; of cotton, 1.55; of woolens, 1.62; of silk, 1.25; of stockings, 1.14; of glass, 2.58; of coal, 1.33. All according to the Statistique générale de la B. In Athens, in the time of Aristophanes, a pack-carrier earned 4 oboli a day; a street sweeper, 3; a stone cutter on the public works, 6; a carpenter, 5; for roofing houses and taking down scaffoldings, each man, 6. The architects who superintended the building of the temple of Polias, on the other hand, got only 6 oboli per day, and the contractor 5. (Böckh, I, 165 ff.)
The Edictum Diocletiani of the year 301 after Christ contains the following provisions in relation to wages, besides "board:" shepherds, camel-drivers and muleteers, 20 denarii; agricultural laborers, water-carriers, scavengers, 25; bakers, masons, roofers, house-finishers and repairers of the inside, lime burners, wheelwrights and common clay moulders, 50; boatsmen, sailors, makers of marble or mosaic floors, 60; wall painters, 70; clay moulders for statues, 75; artistic painters, 150. (ed. Mommsen, cap. 7.) In slave countries, the price of different slaves is to be judged, mainly, by the above rules. Concerning the Greeks, see Böckh, I, 95 ff. St. John, The Hellenes, III, 23 ff. It is a characteristic fact that the Romans, after the Syrian war, began to pay high prices for the hitherto much despised kitchen slaves. (Livy, XXXIX, 6.) Remarkable fixed prices for slaves by Justinian: Cod. VI, 43, 3; VII, 7, 1, 5. Thus, in the Lex Burgundionum, tit. 10, the compensation for the murder of a common laborer is fixed at 30 solidi; of a carpenter, at 40; of a smith, at 50; of a silversmith, at 100; of a goldsmith, at 150. Advanced civilization is wont to raise the price of slaves who perform work of a higher quality, just as it raises the wages of labor of a higher quality.
RATE OF WAGES.—INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM.
Custom always exerts a great influence where there is question of choosing an avocation with the intention of devoting one's self to it entirely and exclusively. There is a public opinion which fixes the gradation of the different classes of labor and their appropriate reward, which is slow to change, and which both determines, and is determined by the relation of supply and demand. There is an equilibrium between the pleasantness of work and the rate of wages only in the case of such kinds of labor as are on the same social footing. It frequently happens, however, that the most repulsive work has to be performed by those who are forced to accept any pay and to be satisfied with it.[170-1] There are many branches of labor those engaged in which still form a kind of exclusive caste; and the pay of the higher branches is maintained at a high rate, especially by the fact that the members of the castes to which they belong are provident in their marriages. The lower classes are not in a condition to meet the preparation necessary to engage in such professions, even if they were certain of being afterwards reimbursed with interest for the outlay.[170-2] One of the chief causes of the lowness of wages paid to women is, that so few branches of labor are traditionally open to them, that the few that are, are intended to supply luxuries, and are, besides, for the most part, over-crowded. The distribution of the aggregate wages earned by any industry, among the higher and lower classes of workmen who coöperate in it, depends very largely on their social position relatively to one another.[170-3] ][170-4] Here political forms and changes may exert the greatest influence.[170-5]
Thus, the artificial increase of the wages of masters effected by the former guild-system was produced, to say the least, as much at the cost of the journeymen and apprentices as of the public. And if, on the other hand, it cannot be said that the most recent marked rise in wages, in so many countries, is merely the consequence of the extension of the parliamentary right of suffrage, certain it is that the two phenomena are very closely related, and that both are at once the effect and the cause of the intensified feeling of individuality and of the consciousness of constituting a class in the community of the lower strata of society.
[170-1] At least where the supply of labor in general surpasses the demand. Compare J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 14, 3d ed. The dangerous industries in which lead, quicksilver, arsenic, etc. are manipulated or employed, should be and can be better paid than they actually are. In the Bavarian Palatinate, stone-cutters rarely reach their 45th year; and yet their wages are very low, because of the comparative over-population of the country. (Rau, Haussen's Archiv., N. T. X., 228.) But the lowness of wages here is certainly and mainly caused by the little thought the workmen themselves give to considerations of health.
[170-2] The lower the rate of wages of any class sinks, the more difficult it becomes for parents to devote their children to another career.
[170-3] In Paris, 24,463 workmen with less than 3 francs daily; 157,216, with from 3 to 5; 10,393, with from 5 to 20 and even 3 to 5 francs. It is remarkable, however, how uniform the average wages in the different trades is: vêtements, 3.33 francs; fils et tissus, 3.42; boisellerie, vannerie, 3.44; garçons boulangers, bouchers 3.50; arts chimiques et céramiques 3.71; bâtiments, 3.81; carosserie, 3.86; peaux et cuirs, 3.87; ameublement, 3.90; articles de Paris, 3.94; métaux communs, 3.98; métaux précieux, 4.17; imprimerie, 4.18. (Journal des Economistes, Janv. 1853, 111.)
[170-4] How the Roman advocates were given to all sorts of ostentation, and even borrowed costly rings in order to raise their honoraria, see Juvenal, VII, 105, ff.