hundredweight. Four navvies are employed in filling the barrows and running them to the foot of an incline. The runner runs his barrow with the assistance of a horse up the incline, making an ascent of thirty feet in perpendicular height, at an angle of perhaps sixty degrees. Having arrived at the summit of the incline, he wheels the barrow a distance of eighteen yards to the tip. The average quantity these men fill in one day is about eighteen cubic yards of clay and twenty-two cubic yards of peat. Their average earnings are seven shillings, and they work about eight hours per day.

The quantity of victuals they consume may be estimated at 2 lbs. of meat, 2 lbs. of bread, but not so much vegetables in proportion. Ale is their principal drink, of which they consume about five quarts during the working hours. On Monday morning these men are remarkable for a great display of clean white clothes in which they begin their week's work. As a rule they are quiet, and, with a few exceptions, are civil to those in charge of the work, and, so long as they are fairly treated, give very little trouble.

The average stature of the Lincolnshire navvies is not inferior to the standard of the Household Cavalry, and the development of physical strength in their sinewy frames is greater in proportion as their labours are more arduous than those of a mounted trooper in the piping times of peace.

It would have been interesting to examine the cost of engineering works in all parts of Europe, and

Cost of labour at ironworks and collieries in France;

materials are not wanting; time and space, however, do not admit of such an investigation on the present occasion. We will therefore proceed to examine the comparative cost of labour in the mines and iron works. Mr. Lowthian Bell is a high authority on this subject. With reference to the cost of labour in the ironworks and collieries in France, the inquiries instituted by Mr. Lowthian Bell in 1867 furnish most ample information. No reason exists for the belief that the French have made greater progress than the English manufacturers, in regard to economy of labour, in the interval which has since elapsed. Mr. Lowthian Bell extended his inquiry to all the conditions which affect the price of labour. He showed that the price of meat had increased in France in the preceding quarter of a century by 25 per cent.; and that the ordinary price at the period of his visit was from 7d. to 8d. per pound, there being no difference in this respect between the prices in France and England. The cost of bread was 2d. per pound, while house-rent was about 2s. 4d. per week for two good rooms. Firing was provided by the workman himself, the price of coal being 12s. 6d. per ton. No material difference was found in the cost of clothing in England and France. Workmen engaged in French mines had no advantage over the miners in our own country in the cost of schooling and medical attendance. The price of labour in France had grown with the augmented cost of living. The wages of ordinary labourers had risen in twenty years from 1s. 6d. a day to from 2s. 2d. to 2s. 4d. The effect

of the former low wages was clearly apparent in the absence of labour-saving appliances.

Comparing the wages paid in France with the British standard, Mr. Lowthian Bell reported that blast furnace keepers in France were satisfied with four shillings for a day's wages, a low rate no doubt as compared with English wages, but every French furnace had a second keeper. Mr. Lowthian Bell took infinite pains to obtain correct data as to the quality of the work and the quantity of iron made at each furnace. He found that, at the furnaces on the Tees, twentyfive individuals performed an amount of work identical with that executed by forty-two men at a French furnace. In spite, therefore, of the wages being, as nearly as he could estimate, twenty per cent. cheaper, the cost of the labour employed in smelting a ton of pig-iron was sensibly greater at the French works than at Middlesborough.

gium;

The enhanced value of provisions had produced in Belthe same influence on the price of labour in Belgium as in France. Colliers worked in six-hour shifts, and went down the pit twice in the twenty-four hours; they worked, therefore, twelve hours a day, and earned from 28. to 2s. 43d. per shift. A blast furnace keeper only earned 28. 43d. to 2s. 9d. per day; but then he had such help as brought up the cost of this description of labour to 6d. to 7d. a ton for foundry iron, and for forge iron to a trifle above 4d. There were two chargers to each furnace, who, however, only received 2s. a day. The women were chiefly employed in coke burn

in the United States.

ing, and their wages were 1s. a day. In Belgium, the same want of appliances for the saving of labour at the furnaces was observed as in France; the result being that, notwithstanding the low rate of wages, the sum paid on a ton of iron in Belgium was about the same as in England.

The following comparative data are taken from a paper written on the occasion of Mr. Lowthian Bell's visit to the Exhibition at Philadelphia :

The average earnings throughout Great Britain were about 5s. 2d. per day, or 114d. per hour of actual work. In 1874 the rates were 1s. 2d. per hour, for which the quantity worked was about 11 cwt. per man. In Northumberland and Durham the miners are supplied with firing and live rent free, which makes their wages worth an additional 1d. per hour, as compared with the earnings of colliers in the United States.

In America in 1874 the hewers got 13 cwt. of coal and were paid about 18. 1d. per hour. It thus appears that at that date the advantage was rather on the side of the pitmen of this country.

In November 1874 the price paid for puddling iron on the Tees was 10s. 9d. per ton; the average price in the United States at the same date was 17. Os. 7d.

Since 1874 the price at Middlesborough has been reduced from 10s. 9d. to 8s. 3d., or 2s. 6d. per ton. During the same period the amount of reduction in the United States varied from 28. to 4s. 6d. per ton; but these concessions had been obtained at the expense of considerable interruptions to work and some serious disturbances.

Mr. Lowthian Bell could detect no difference between the Old and the New country in the skill of manipulation exhibited by the workmen employed in the rolling-mills, but the cost for labour per ton was fully 25 per cent. higher in America than in our own country.

Mr. Lowthian Bell gives the following as the earnings of workmen employed in ironworks on the continent of Europe for the year 1873, the period of the highest wages in this country and in America:

parison in

It is satisfactory to know that, after his wide and The comsearching inquiry both in the United Kingdom and in favour of America, Mr. Lowthian Bell arrives at the conclusion England. that, in regard to cheapness and efficiency of the labour, the workmen engaged in the ironworks of Great Britain have nothing to fear from foreign competition, even where the hours are longer and the