Condition of the labouring classes.

Another and a very interesting portion of the information which the intelligence and industry of His Majesty’s foreign Ministers and Consuls have enabled us to submit to the public, consists of the answers to the questions respecting labourers. In order to facilitate a comparison between the state of the English and foreign populations, the questions proposed were in general the same as had been already answered in England, either by the population returns, or by the returns to the questions circulated in England by the Poor Law Commissioners.

The following questions, being 1, 3, 7, and 8, correspond to the English questions 8, 10, 13, and 14, of the rural queries:—

1. (8 of English questions.) What is the general amount of the wages of an able-bodied male labourer, by the day, the week, the month, or the year, with and without provisions, in summer and in winter?

3. (10 of English questions.) What in the whole might an average labourer, obtaining an average amount of employment, both in day-work and in piece-work, expect to earn in a year, including harvest work, and the whole of all his advantages and means of living?

7. (13 of English questions.) What in the whole might a labourer’s wife and four children, aged 14, 11, 8, and 5 years respectively, (the eldest a boy), expect to earn in a year, obtaining, as in the former case, an average amount of employment?

8. (14 of English questions.) Could such a family subsist on the aggregate earnings of the father, mother, and children; and if so, on what food?

The following is a digest of the answers from all the agricultural parishes in England which have given returns to the corresponding questions circulated by the Poor Law Commissioners:—

Agricultural wages in England.

Q. 8. Weekly wages, with or without beer or cider, in summer and winter?

254 parishes give an average in summer, with beer or cider, of per week, 10s. 4¾d.

522 parishes give an average in summer, without beer or cider, of per week, 10s. 5½d.

200 parishes give an average in winter, with beer or cider, of per week, 9s. 2¼d.

544 parishes give an average in winter, without beer or cider, of per week, 9s. 11¾d.

Q. 10. What in the whole might an average labourer, obtaining an average amount of employment, both in day-work and piece-work, expect to earn in the year, including harvest work, and the value of all his other advantages and means of living, except parish relief?

Q. 13. What in the whole might a labourer’s wife and four children, aged 14, 11, 8, and 5 years respectively, (the eldest a boy,) expect to earn in the year, obtaining, as in the former case, an average amount of employment?

856 parishes give for the man, an average of£271710

668 parishes give for the wife and children an average of131910

Average annual income of the family£41178

Subsistence of agricultural labourers in England.

Q. 14. Could such a family subsist on the aggregate earnings of the father, mother, and children; and if so, on what food?

Number of Parishes answering Q. 14. No. (simply). Yes. (simply). Barely, or without Meat. With Meat.

Bedford 15 1 3 0 11

Berks 24 2 1 2 19

Bucks 27 2 5 5 15

Cambridge 33 2 11 3 17

Chester 12 0 5 2 5

Cornwall 24 0 1 2 21

Cumberland 33 0 7 13 13

Derby 7 0 2 0 5

Devon 18 1 7 1 9

Dorset 16 1 4 2 9

Durham 30 0 6 4 20

Essex 38 9 9 6 14

Gloucester 19 0 7 5 7

Hereford 16 2 1 5 8

Hertford 16 0 2 6 8

Huntingdon 9 2 0 1 6

Kent 43 5 12 2 24

Lancaster 14 0 8 1 5

Leicester 14 0 6 3 5

Lincoln 14 1 5 0 8

Middlesex 2 0 0 0 2

Monmouth 7 0 2 1 4

Norfolk 27 2 8 0 17

Northampton 14 0 2 1 11

Northumberland 18 0 2 0 16

Nottingham 19 0 7 1 11

Oxford 21 0 8 3 10

Rutland 4 0 3 0 1

Salop 19 0 1 0 18

Somerset 22 2 0 6 14

Southampton 43 3 7 6 27

Stafford 12 1 1 0 10

Suffolk 26 4 9 3 10

Surrey 20 0 5 2 13

Sussex 68 21 18 7 22

Warwick 31 1 4 4 22

Westmorland 17 3 4 5 5

Wilts 24 1 7 4 12

Worcester 18 1 6 2 9

York 65 4 16 17 28

(40)

Total 899 71 212 125 491