Later investigations give the following results for the years succeeding 1890:

The first column includes data pertaining to 148 establishments, representing 26 industries and 192 occupations. The year 1891 is taken as a base for wages with which to compare the other years.

The second column is the summary of the relative prices of 261 commodities, the average price for 1890-1899 being taken as the base.

Whatever increase in wages there has been, it should be partly attributed to the efforts of trade

searching criticism from Professor Charles J. Bullock in his paper, "Contributions to the History of Wage Statistics," which appeared in the quarterly publications of the American Statistical Association, March, 1899, Vol. VI.

1 Bulletin Department of Labor, 1900, p. 914.

2 Ibid., March, 1902, p. 235.

unions. Workers have had to fight for the increase. From the following figures we see that, in twentyone years, the strikes in slightly over a half the establishments succeeded, in about a third they failed, and in the rest succeeded partly:1

1 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1901,

P. 35.

Somewhat less favorable results are shown when the percentage which the successful strikers constitute of the whole number of persons engaged is considered.

Another way in which the working classes are being benefited is in the efforts that have been made to restrict child labor in factories. It is instructive to compare the movement in the various geographical divisions. In the cotton manufacture, for example, there is a marked decline in all sections except in the Southern states:

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE 1

Percentage of Wage-earners who are Children under 16 years of age,

A decline in the death-rate is a reliable indication of better conditions of living. Improvements in the water supply and sanitary regulations of many kinds make for well-being in ways that do not admit of money measurement. That progress has recently been made in this direction is evident from the following figures, showing the death-rate in 1880 and 1890 in certain cities:

1 Census of 1900, "Manufactures," Pt. I, p. cxxviii.

It is instructive to compare the changes in the death-rate at different age periods. The chief reduction of the death-rate has been in the earlier ages, and this means that a larger proportion of those born survive to the non-dependent or useful ages.2 The following table shows that

1 Twelfth Census, "Vital Statistics," Pt. I, p. lxi.

2 Newsholme, "Vital Statistics," 3d ed., London, 1899, p. 304.

While this table is for England and Wales, the decline in the death-rate would indicate similar results in the United States. Furthermore, it is to be observed that in sanitary measures and in what is called "public medicine," we have as yet scarcely made more than a beginning. We have reason to anticipate further progress and an increasing proportion of population in years of full vigor, the birth-rate declining somewhat, but a larger relative number surviving. This would seem to confirm the position that in the modern nation we have an increasing average of vigor and economic efficiency.

LITERATURE

The

Industrial history is a large subject on which a great deal has been written in recent years. following references are to those more important works which are at the same time accessible without great difficulty. They should be in every public

1 Newsholme, "Vital Statistics," 3d ed., London, 1899, p. 309.