CHAPTER X.

_WAGES._

We have succeeded in getting the authentic records of wages from about eighteen firms in London, representing every branch of work in connection with printing, binding, and despatch, and employing together 1,000 hands--more in busy, less in slack weeks. We have also less detailed information about some half-dozen other firms.

These studied together and apart will no doubt give a correct general impression of the amount and variability of wages paid, but circumstances have made it very difficult to group them so as to give a simple bird's-eye view of the whole.

These circumstances are partly due to the very great differences between the class of work done by the various firms, and the difficulty of tabulating the workers under a few definite heads; partly to the difficulty of collecting records. Our investigators were recommended:--