Production of Coal. 1861. APPENDIX. A.-Statement showing the Production of Coal, the Number of Employés, and the Average Annual Output per Employé in the United Kingdom in 1861 and in each Year from 1864 to 1890. Year. I= 1,000 tons 83,635 B.-Statement showing the Total Production of Coal in Germany, and the Average Annual Output per Miner, 1879, 1883, and 1886 to 1890. 5,462 7,238 C.- Production of Iron Ore in Germany, 1878 to 1889, and Average 1878.. '80. D.-Statement showing the Average Output of Iron Ore per Employé in E.-Minimum Wages Paid per Week in United Kingdom. Note. The above is abstracted from the Board of Trade Report on Trades Unions for 1887. * 1864. + 1853. + 1858. F.-UNITED KINGDOM. Hours of Labour per Week in different Years. H.-Wages Paid per Day in the United States for Ordinary Unskilled K.-Statement showing the Hours of Labour Worked in Summer by certain Classes of Workmen in the United Kingdom in 1850 and 1890. Note.-In winter the hours of labour are often shorter. L-Half-timers Employed in Textile Factories generally in United M.-Statement showing the Percentage Proportions of Female Workers Employed in the Chief British Textile Industries in 1878 and 1890. 482,903 528,795 264,171 295,176 54.70 55.82 Woollen 134,344 148,729 Flax 65.848 130,925 148,324 69,784 79,452 108,806 107,583 Total of above 856,978 933,431 76,492 72,148 70,004 471,951 521,124 66.30 65.06 55.55 56°20 DISCUSSION on MR. JEANS'S PAPER. THE RIGHT HON. SIR CHARLES DILKE said that he thought it difficult for any one to arrive at a definite conclusion on the subject, on account of its great complexity, and the absence of sufficient information. He agreed with what the lecturer had said as to the Labour Department of the Board of Trade, and he thought it essential that this department must be strengthened. This would have to be one of the first recommendations of the Royal Commission on Labour now sitting. Other countries were doing more in this direction than England, especially the United States, which had a Federal Bureau, and separate State Bureaus. Considering the importance of our foreign trade, England ought to be ahead of other countries instead of behind them. Mr. Jeans was, as he himself was also, an optimist in thinking that it is not proved that either short hours or high wages were necessarily a detriment to the trade of the country which had them. But the facts on which the lecturer based his theories must only be accepted with great caution. It was extremely difficult to arrive at the rates of wages in different countries, and still more difficult to compare the efficiency of labour in different countries. Even in the case of a single employment it was not easy to get at the average hours of labour. In the coal mining industry there were two returns in existence, one prepared by the Government, and another prepared by the men in the various unions, and these two did not agree in the least. He feared that seven and a half hours, as given by the author, was not a scientific average, it was an average arrived at by comparing figures which were not very certain in regard to different parts of the country, without adding up the number of men who worked at the respective hours at different times. One factor could not be taken into account, because there were no statistics bearing on it, and that was the number of days worked |