[174-3] Thus, in England, during the last great war, wages rose less than the price of corn, and sank less after it. About 1810, wages were nearly 100 per cent. higher than in 1767; but, on the other hand, the price of wheat, 115; of meat, 146; of butter, 130, and of cheese, 153 per cent. (Edinburg Rev., XL., 28.) If it has some times been observed that crime, communistic machinations and revolutionary movements grow less frequent in times of war, the fact is not to be ascribed necessarily to a better condition of the laboring class. It might possibly be the consequence of the strongest and wildest elements of the laboring class finding some other career.
[174-4] Adam Smith, loc. cit., on this point describes China as a stationary country (according to R. Fortune, Wanderings in China, 1847, 9, a decided decline has been noticeable there for a long time), and Bengal as a declining one. On the condition of wages among the Romans, Juvenal, III, 21 ff., is one of the principal sources. Hence the desire to emigrate because honest labor had no longer any foothold (23 ff.). Poor dwellings of the laboring class, dark, exposed to danger from fire (166, 190 ff., 225), and yet comparatively dear (223 seq.). Numerous crowds of robbers and beggars (302 ff.; IV, 116 ff.; V, 8; XIV, 134). On beggary, see Seneca, Controv., V, 33. De Element., II, 6. De Vita beata, 25 ff. Martial, V, 81, XIV, 1, complains of the absence of outlook among the poorer classes. Horace, too, is rich in passages which might be appropriately cited in this connection. Characteristic question of the nabobs, in Petron., 48, 5: What on earth is that thing called a pauper?
[174-5] Thus, in China, the East Indies, etc., people travel in palanquins borne by men; in a multitude of cases, Chinese commodities are carried in wheelbarrows; and a great many roads are constructed, in reference not to wagons, properly so-called, but to this species of vehicle. How heartless the Chinese, who, before they save a drowning man, first higgle about the reward, and take pleasure in pestilence, famine, etc., because those who survive profit by them. See Finlaison, Journey of the Mission to Siam, 1826, 62 ff.
[174-6] Hence Menander (342-290 before Christ) says it is better to be the slave of a good master than to live wretched in freedom. (Stobœus, Flor., 62, § 7. Meinecke, Fr. com. Gr., IV, 274.) Libanios, too, (Tom., 483, Reiske), in his "Blame of Poverty," represents slavery as better cared for, and freer from worry. Horrible contracts made even in Cæsar's time, from want, by freemen, to become gladiator-slaves. Cicero, pro Roscio, Am. 6; Horat., Serm., II, 7, 58 ff.; Petron., 117; Seneca, Epist., 37. And so by Justinian, cases of declined freedom are supposed. (L. 15, Justin., Cod., VII, 2.) "Dans une armée on estime bien moins un pionnier, qu'un cheval de caisson, parce que le cheval est fort cher, et qu'on a le pionier pour rien. La suppression de l'esclavage a fait passer ce calcul de la guerre dans la vie commune." (Linguet.)
[174-7] Sismondi is guilty, however, of a philanthropic exaggeration when he says that the labor of children is always fruitless to the laboring classes. (R. P. I., 235.)
[174-8] The bringing into juxtaposition of the rates of wages in different countries is doubtless one of the most important objects of comparative statistics. Only it is necessary not to confine it to the money amount of wages, but to make it embrace the prices of the principal means of subsistence. Thus, in France, before the outbreak of the French Revolution, a French workman earned a cwt. of bread on an average of 10.5 days; one of meat in 36.8; an English workman, in 10.4 and 25.3 days. (A. Young.) In the interior of Russia, a female weaver earns, in a day, almost one Prussian scheffel of rye, in Bielefeld, only about one-tenth of a scheffel; a table-cloth weaver, in the former place, 18 silver groschens, while the scheffel costs from 12 to 15 silver groschens. (von Haxthausen, Studien, I, 119, 170.) According to Humboldt, the money-wages paid in Mexico were twice as high, and the price of corn two-thirds as dear, as in France. (N. Espagne, IV, 9.) According to Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 180, the procuration of the following means of subsistence required in day labor in:
Column code:
A = Manchester. B & C = Hanover. D = Upper Canada. E = Brandenburg. F = Gratz.
| A. | B. | C. | D. | E. | F. | |
| Cwt. | 1810-20 | 1700[TN 13] | 1827 | 1830 | 1820-33 | 1826-45 |
| beef, | 26.00 | 33.0 | 35.0 | 6.6 | 34.0 | 36.00 |
| potatoes, | 1.85 | — | — | — | 1.0 | 02.68 |
| wheat, | 5.50 | — | — | 2.0 | 7.6 | 11.00 |
| rye, | — | 6.5 | 8.7 | 1.5 | 5.4 | 8.60 |
| butter, | 42.30 | 87.0 | 64.0 | 22.0 | 83.0 | 84.00 |
| sugar, | 96.00 | 181.0 | 128.0 | — | — | — |
Estimated in silver, the East Indian laborer earns from £1 to £2 a year; the English, £9 to £15; the North American, £12 to £20. (Senior.) Hildebrand, Nat-Oek., I, 195 ff., assures us that the average rate of wages in Germany, in 1848, amounted to 400 thalers a year; in England, to 300 thalers; and that the prices of the means of subsistence in the latter country were 1½ times higher than in the former. Engel, Ueber die arbeitenden Klassen in England, 1845, shows only the dark side of a real picture, and is silent on the other, and is well corrected by Hildebrand, I, 170 ff. Excellent statistics in Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, I, 491-589. On the more recent times, compare the Edinburgh Review, April, 1851, April, 1862; Quarterly Rev., Oct., 1859, July, 1860. Ludlow and Jones, loc. cit. On the situation in France, see Blanqui's report in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 7. Leplay, Les Ouvriers des deux Mondes, II, 1858. Very important are the "Reports from Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular Agents abroad respecting the Condition of the industrial Classes, and the Purchase-power of money in foreign Countries." (1871.)