The Gains of Later.

Hastings Standard, Issue 468, 4 November 1897, Page 4

The Gains of Later.

Even the most ignorant will soon he ashamed to repeat the old cry that the rich are boceminy richer and the poor poorer. It was once necessary to refute this popular sophism. Now it is .not: on all bauds there is overwhelming evidence that the poor are steadily becoming richer, and that a smaller proportion of the produce of industry goes to the wealthy. In the report on changes in rates of wages and hours of work which we epitomised yesterday there are striking signs of this transformation, which is going on, rarely with the intervention of strikes or unions, over almost the whole face of industry. The figures are free from some of the infirmities of earlier returns on this subject. They are not confined to the members of trade unions, who after all, form only a minor part of the wage-earning classes. They claim to cover industries wherein are employed eight millions and a half of persons: and tbeyall testify to an improvement in the position of the workers —an improvement probably greater in the United Kingdom than in any other country. For one fall in wages in 1896 there were about ten rises. For one person affected by changes more than two-thirds were benefited. In the four years, 1893-96, there was a decrease in the hours of labor per week, and in the last of the four the changes affected a far larger number of persons than in any of the three previous years. The improvement was all round, except in mining and quarrying. The most marked increase, chiefly brought about without strikes, was in the metal, engineering, and ship-building group of trades. A quarter of a millioi workmen received an increase of about £1,000,000 a year in wages —a " result due to a remarkable upward movement in the engineering and ship-building trades, effacing altogether the fall in 189-1." The upshot of the official information is that " the local changes reported were nearly all in an upward direction."

Lying outside the world described in this report is a multitude of persons who, it is pretty certain, have not shared in the rises in remuneration chronicled by the Board of Trade. For them there is no talk nf a " fairclay's wage " or an eight hours day. It is possible that in many cases their remuneration has decreased just as their toil has increased. Their grievances are rarely heard of. They have no means of coercing their employers. They do not picket, send deputations to Ministers, or meet in the Park. They have no special Acts passed for their relief, no jiriril'-i/ia of any kind. There is a dark side to modern industry, but it is not so much the fate of the manual worker or ar.i an as that of the small employer, saddled with all the risks of a capitalist, the solitary worker whose means are his brains and education, the poor teacher or governess, the clerk with all his crashing load of respectability, the struggling professional man whose remuneration is smti.ll, uncertain and deferred. A commissioner who inquired into their condition would have a very different tale to tell from the cheerful account in the last Board of Trade report on wages and hours of labor.— Times.