Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/829

NOTES AND MEMORANDA 807 The summary regarding the hours of labour is both vague and un- satisfactory. No distinction is drawn between hewers and other workers, and evidently the figures in some cases refer to hewers, in other cases to those who are not Giffen draws is that the number of in determining wages. In hewers. The only deduction Mr. hours worked is not the sole factor mines other than coal, iron, and slate mines, the results are: Annual, Per Week, Men 19. ?2 7 % ? 1? ? Lads and boys 18 ? O0 I1! Women 15 Girls 19. 56 0 0 4 Average ?-? ? b 0-14 -? The averages are also given in the return for slate, and granite and stone quarries, and for china clay and stone works. Whilst it is evident that the report and the appendices have been compiled with great care, their value would have been greatly increased had the Treasury placed sufficient means at the disposal of the Board for a thorough investigation. The method of collecting statistical information by circular may yield good results, but it is not the method that ought to be followed by a Government Department. Even when Mr. Giffen ascertains that those to whom he applied for information paid 4,080,207 as wages in the year 1885, he is unable to say how many persons actually received this sum. He is forced to take the number of persons employed on the 1st October of the following year, and to assume that this correctly represents the number that received the above amount. Surely it ought not to be beyond the power of the State to ascertain the actual amount paid in any one year and the actual number of pets. ohs employed. Mr. Giffen has selected the year 1885 as the year to which the census of wages is to relate. But it is more than doubtful whether that is the best startiug-point for the coal trade. Each dist .r? has its standard rate of wages fixed by reference to a particular year, and all subsequent variations have reference to this standard. For instance, in Durham the standard wages are those that prevailed in the different collieries in November 1879, whilst in South Wales the standard wages are those payable in December of the same year. If the standard wages for each district had been ascertained, it would have been possible to trace the rise or fall of wages in subsequent yem? by simply referring to the percentage rise or fall that had occurred. One further remark may be made, the return makes no distinction between the coal and the iron trades. 'Coal, iron ore and ironstone mines' are treated together. It is true that by referring to the tables an expert who knows which district produces iron and which produces coal, may be able to ascertain the wages paid to iron and coal