SECTION CLXIX.

THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF LABOR.--ITS EFFECT ON WAGES.

C. Lastly, the personal disagreeableness of the work, which must be compensated for by higher wages. The uncleanness of a coal-worker's task, that of the chimney-sweep, and the repulsive labor of the butcher, demand high compensation, while other branches of business, themselves productive of pleasure, and therefore engaged in by many for pleasure's sake only, yield relatively little to those who engage in them as a regular industry.[169-1]

To this category belong the kinds of labor which require extraordinary effort,[169-2] or which put life or health in unusual jeopardy.[169-3] But, indeed, when the danger attending any kind of work is made glorious by the romantic light of honor, or by still higher motives, it ceases to have any influence on wages.[169-4] On the other hand, the disreputableness of a business in itself raises wages;[169-5] whereas, scholars, poets, etc., leaving the charm inherent in their occupations out of account, are for the most part remunerated only by the honor paid them, and, not unfrequently, only by fame after they have gone hence.[169-6] And yet their talents are so rare, the preparation so laborious, the economic risk so great! Nor is there for the really creative workman any such thing as evening rest. (Riehl.) Common intellectual labor is worse paid in our days than it was, comparatively speaking, a generation ago; because the increased average education makes it less burthensome to most people, and even seem positively agreeable to many. It would, indeed, be a dangerous retrogressive step towards barbarism, if it should come to such a pass, that labor preponderantly intellectual should be permanently more poorly remunerated than mere muscular labor.[169-7] [169-8]

In places in which nearly all kinds of work are dangerous, the danger cannot of course relatively raise the wages of anyone. Thus, in the Thuringian forest, the wages of the haulers of wood are very low. (Lotz, Revision, III, 151.)]

According to the first annual report of the poor law commissioners (202), the weekly wages in Manchester of hod-carriers was 12s.; of hand-weavers, 7-15s.; of diggers, 10-15s.,; of pack-carriers, 14-15s.; of shoemakers, 15-16s.; of machine-weavers, 13-16-5/6s.; of white-washers, 18s.; of tailors, 18s.; of dyers, 15-20s.; of plasterers, 19-21s.; of masons, 18-22s.; of tinsmiths, 22-24s.; of carpenters, 24s.; of spinners, 20-25s.; of machinists, 26-30s.; of iron founders and power-loom tenders, 28-30s. In Belgium, the average daily wages for male labor was 1.18 francs for agricultural laborers; for those engaged in industry, 1.48 francs; in the manufacture of linen, 0.80 francs; of cotton, 1.55; of woolens, 1.62; of silk, 1.25; of stockings, 1.14; of glass, 2.58; of coal, 1.33. All according to the Statistique générale de la B. In Athens, in the time of Aristophanes, a pack-carrier earned 4 oboli a day; a street sweeper, 3; a stone cutter on the public works, 6; a carpenter, 5; for roofing houses and taking down scaffoldings, each man, 6. The architects who superintended the building of the temple of Polias, on the other hand, got only 6 oboli per day, and the contractor 5. (Böckh, I, 165 ff.)

The Edictum Diocletiani of the year 301 after Christ contains the following provisions in relation to wages, besides "board:" shepherds, camel-drivers and muleteers, 20 denarii; agricultural laborers, water-carriers, scavengers, 25; bakers, masons, roofers, house-finishers and repairers of the inside, lime burners, wheelwrights and common clay moulders, 50; boatsmen, sailors, makers of marble or mosaic floors, 60; wall painters, 70; clay moulders for statues, 75; artistic painters, 150. (ed. Mommsen, cap. 7.) In slave countries, the price of different slaves is to be judged, mainly, by the above rules. Concerning the Greeks, see Böckh, I, 95 ff. St. John, The Hellenes, III, 23 ff. It is a characteristic fact that the Romans, after the Syrian war, began to pay high prices for the hitherto much despised kitchen slaves. (Livy, XXXIX, 6.) Remarkable fixed prices for slaves by Justinian: Cod. VI, 43, 3; VII, 7, 1, 5. Thus, in the Lex Burgundionum, tit. 10, the compensation for the murder of a common laborer is fixed at 30 solidi; of a carpenter, at 40; of a smith, at 50; of a silversmith, at 100; of a goldsmith, at 150. Advanced civilization is wont to raise the price of slaves who perform work of a higher quality, just as it raises the wages of labor of a higher quality.]