CHATS WITH THE CHILDREN By Pater.

Otago Witness, Issue 1975, 26 September 1889, Page 35

CHATS WITH THE CHILDREN By Pater.

Last week I stated my intention of writing on wages, so this week that is my subject. In the first place, do not be easily led by anyone to believe that wages in the olden time were either higher or lower than at present. There are very few men capable of stating whether they were or were not. After the Black Death that I wrote of last week, someone wrote in his diary that he had to pay a hookman 8d and a mower 12d for a day's work. That ia small wages, you say ; buc as the labourers wanted 4d to be the fixed rent of an acre of land, you see these sums were equal to the rents of two and three acres. Besides, 4d waa fully equal to 5s of our present money in purchasing power — that is, would buy about as much. You must not take into account the amount of the money so much aa the amount of necessaries and luxuries the money will buy. Then, in comparing wages past and present, you must take into account the manner of liviug in former times compared with the present. It wasn't necessary for a workman to have a watch; he could not spend money in books or newspapers ; there was no necessity for him to dress as he does now ; his house had not the thousand-aud-one things in it that a steady labourer's house has at present. Then, again, we must remember that owing to improved modes of working the soil better orops are obtained ; the six bushels to the acre of Richard II have now become 30 or more. But the main things to take into consideration iv comparing the past with the present are the accumulation of capital, the division of labour, and the amount of machinery. What are the advantages of division of labour and machinery ? The first makes workpeople more expert than formerly, and that means increased production. Machinery means the same, only in a greater degree, for a machine will make as much as perhaps three or four hundred people. What is the benefit to mankind from this greatly increased production ? Things have become cheaper, but at the same time that may not be such an advantage as we think, for cloth is not so lasting as formerly, and many things are made more flimsily, and we must always bear iv mind that division of labour, machinery, and advanced civilisation mean multiplying our wants, bo that we buy perhaps a dozen things where previously only one was bought. But workmen now are beginning to think somewhat in this strain :— " Without division of labour and machinery there is so much land that every man can easily provide the common ueoesaaries of life ' for himself and nine others.' With these advantages we naturally expect to provide ourselves and these families of nine not only with the common necessaries but also with comforts and even luxuries, and that too by working shorter hours." They go further and say : — " But we are reduced in many trades and occupations to starvation wages, and the capitalist is getting the greater part of the profits that division of labour and machinery should

give to us, and-" by combination we intend to gefc a larger share of the products of our exertions."

Among other points, then, in comparing past wages with the present you ought to consider : — 1. The purchasing power of money.

2. The manner of living generally.

8. The advantages that ought to come to the work* man through division of labour and the introduction of machinery.

4. If wages have risen, have they risen in proportion to the national wealth ?

The last I shall not enlarge upon, but only state that while the nation is growing richer year by year, the wages of the working classes are not increasing in the same proportion aa the wealth of the rich.

HEAL AND NOMINAL WAGES.

I am now going to leave the past alone, and, confining myself to the present, distinguish between the real — the amount of wages as fixed by purchasing power — wages and the nominal, or named wages. The main points to be oousjdered are the following :—: —

1. The variations in the pnrchaalng power of money. —Bight shillings a day, with bread at 6d a loaf, la no better than 6a a day when bread is 4£d, other things 'being iv the same proportion. This point you can easily work out yourselvos. 2. The form of payment.

The wages may be paid in gold or silver, or paper — bank notes, &o. Gold does not vary much in value, but silver does. If you were in India you might buy a thousand pounds' worth of wheat and send it to England, hoping to make £100 profit, but by the time the wheat got to England silver might have dropped over 10 per cent, in value. If so you would have losb instead of gained, for the prices' in India are regulated by the rise and fall in the value of silver, and silver falling you would not get so much gold for it.

But, worse still, you may be paid in paper. A pound note with us can be changed for a sovereign, and so we can get a sovereign's worth for it. But a note is only a promise to pay, and the bank may become insolvent, or we may lose faith in it. You would then find that your note would not be worth a sovereign. A while since a bank failed in Victoria, and had not enough gold to redeem its notes, and they fell in value to 15s, and even less. Would you take four of that bank's notes as an equal to four sovereigns, or to four notes of another bank that you could change for a sovereign ? Not you.

In Russia there is but little silver or gold in circulation, and the paper rouble is not worth more than perhaps half its supposed value. An English sovereign would purchase as much as two sovereigns' worth of paper roubles. In the Southern States, after the war, 1000 dollars of paper money could be bought for a dollar in coin. Coins, too, vary in purity. A Gorman silver coin is only equal to an English one twothirds its size. The wages may not always be paid in money, or only partly in money.

A man may have £1 10s a week, with house, coal, gas, and taxes paid, so it would not be fair to say he was not as well off as another getting £2 a week.

Farmers often pay part of the wages by giving their hands permission to keep a cow or a pig on their lauds. These are an equivalent for money, because they are always saleable. A French lady some years ago made a tour of the world, and arriving at the Society Islands gave a concert, singing five songs, for which she was to receive a third of the proceeds. But there was not much money on the island, and the doorkeepers had to take what the natives had as an equivalent. The lady got as her share three pigs, 23 turkeys, 44 chickens, 5000 cocoanuts, and heaps of bananas, oranges, and lemons ! In Paris the lot would have been worth perhaps £200, but the lady could not eat them all nor sell them. The pigs, turkeys, and poultry were fed on fruit and cocoauuts, aud the real value of the lot to her became perhaps £20. Then, again, contraqtors may pay good wages, but force the men to deal at their stores and pay high prices for inferior goods ; so you see a great deal depends on the form of payment.

3. Opportunities for extra earnings.

The stewards and stewardesses on the Union Company's boats get, say, £50 a year, and found, of course. But this does not represent their earnings. I know that one steward got between £2 and £3 on one trip alone to Melbourne. I dare say at times they get more than that, and often enough, no doubt, less, but their real wages are quite different from their nominal wages.

4. Regularity or irregularity of employment through various causes.

Shearers, hat vest hands, divers, sealers, carpenters, bricklayers, and others receive higher wages than those whose work is not; affected by seasons, weather, changes in social customs or fashion, &c.

In some countries religious observances interfere very much. It is said that in India nearly half the year is lost in holidays. In several European nations a great deal of time is losb in this way. The days regularly lost by periodic strikes must be taken into consideration, for workmen and their families must be supported during voluntary or enforced holidays. Supposing wages to be 10s a day, and one day a week be lost on an average, you can easily see that the wages are not 10a a day, but 8s 2d — five days at 10s divided by six equalling that sum. 5. The longer or shorter duration of working power.

Many trades are exceedingly unhealthy, and higher wages are necessary that provision may be made for the years of life in which the workers in these trades and occupations are not able to work. In lead, ground glass, needle, match, and other factories the health is quicker undermined than in others, and they naturally get higher wages to compensate for loss of health and the comparatively early age they have to give up working at such unhealthy trades.

I have now written enough to show you that there are several things to be taken into consideration hefore real wages can be definitely stated. I only hope that in the near future, when you will be called upon to take a stand on the wages question, you will well consider these and other points that will occur to you. If you do so yon will be of great use in deciding disputed points between capitalists and labourers.

—Eight hundred of the street flower women ancj girls were lately entertained to tea by the Watercress and Flower Girls' Mission in the Forester's Hall, Olerkenwell road. The society, which is in its 24th year, is one in which Lord Shaftesbury took much interest ; it has received no fewer than 700 girls into its brigade, and trained them for domestic service and useful crafts, such as artificial flower-making, of which an exhibition was held. It has also a scheme on foot for establishing an orphans' home.

Consumption, BooHrne, xxcd Obksrai, Dkeiii^y will yield quciker to the regular use of " Scott's Kmulsion o? Cod Liver Oil with Hypophosphites," than any other remedy know to Medical science. Bead tea following ; — " I have prescribed • Scott's Bmulsioh' and have also taken it myself nndcan fully endorse the opinion that it is both palatable and efficient, andean be tolerated by al most anyone, especially where Cod Liver Oil itself cannot be borne. Mxkttk Myi.es, M D., &c. Stantonbury, Bucks, Bng. Large and small bottles at all Chemists, 4s 6d and is6d.