Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/46

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40
THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

the calculation confines itself to a few branches of labor, all of which, with the exception of the farm laborers, are extremely well organized economically. The author has then, without further consideration, concluded that the condition of the whole laboring class has risen at the same average rate as that of these organized laborers which, even in England, did not include at the highest calculation more than one-fifth of all laborers. So it is not without interest that we observe the changes in wages in each of these categories of labor:—



1860 1868 1870 1874 1877 1880 1883 1886 1891
Agricultural Laborers 100 105 107 130 132 122 117 111 118
Building Trades 100 116 116 126 128 125 123 126 128
Cotton Workers 100 125 125 148 148 136 145 155 175
Woolen Workers 100 106 112 121 130 123 120 115 113
Iron Workers 100 127 127 143 112 112 110 100 124
Machinists 100 108 110 124 123 120 127 120 120
Gas Workers 100 115 120 125 128 128 130 130 140
Sailors 100 113 103 129 123 102 118 110 148
Miners 100 ? 100 150 115 100 115 100 150
Average 100 113 113 138 132 124 130 125 140


We see that the increase in wages of 40 per cent from 1860 to 1891 that Bowley calculates for the whole laboring class of England, does not even hold for the whole aristocracy of labor. With the exception of the cotton workers who have not vainly been the conservatives of England and the model children of all dreamers of "social peace," the average of 1891 was only exceeded by the gas workers, the sailors and the miners. The gas workers owe their increase, in