Mem. as to the former and present rate of Wages in the County of Down, by Lord Dufferin's Agent.
Labourers pay-sheets have been continuously passing through my hands for the last 38 years, and during that time, and especially since 1846 or 7, the rate of wages paid to the agricultural labourers has been gradually increasing until it has reached 1s 6d a day or 9s a week, which is the present standing rate of wages for ordinary labourers in constant employment; but able-bodied, active and handy labourers can readily command, and are at present earning 1s. 8d. a day, or 10s. a week; and mason's assistants, quarry men or drainers from 1s. 8d. to 2s. per day; indeed for the last eighteen months or so I have been paying (20 miles from Belfast) to a "squad" of constant labourers 2s. a day. In harvest and other busy seasons 1s. 6d. to 2s. per day, with their victuals, is not at all uncommon.
The food of the labourer now is altogether different from what I recollect it; and although the simple diet he was then accustomed to was perhaps as wholesome as the higher standard he can now afford, yet there can be no doubt whatever but that his present dietary is more suitable, as enabling him to endure with less fatigue the toils that labour imposes upon him. In fact, his condition is in every respect bettered; his food is improved and his clothing improved, for neither the price of the one or the other has at all kept pace with the rise in wages—many of the necessaries of life being now cheaper than when his wages were at the lowest.
The half yearly wages paid to a general farm labourer, boarded and lodged in the house was, in 1830 and for many years afterwards, £3. to £3. 10s, and now the same class of servant is paid from £6. to £8. for the same period. It was a very common custom to let the reaping of the corn crops by the acre: 5s to 6s used to be the price given, now it cannot be got done under 10s to 12s per acre.
April, 1867.
