Mr. Wright's Second Lecture

In the second lecture of the series on the Statistics of Wages, Hon. Carroll D. Wright spoke last night on "Difficulties in the Presentation of Wage Statistics." To illustrate the different methods which are used in presenting statistics, the speaker made use of different styles of tables which were copied upon the black-board. Mr. Wright said in part:

The chief development in the presentation of statistics of wages has occurred within the past twenty years. Formerly the time and wages of the individual laborers was ascertained without any accompanying record of the number of men and women receiving particular wages. The work of Dr. Bodio in compiling Italian statistics of labor twelve years ago, though considered valuable at that time, is now entirely discredited on account of his incorrect method of classification. The great development in the treatment of wages statistics has come from this side of the water. Entering upon a field new and unexplored, the American statistician gradually evolved the system of individual classification with the concentration method. For this method there is a classification of weekly wages and a determination of percentages of the number receiving those wages. When this concentration system is used in connection with one industry, as for instance, cotton goods manufacture, the greatest percentage of laborers is found to be employed on the lowest class of labor. When applied to all industries the concentration system shows the weight of numbers to be on a higher grade of labor. This form of table is now used in the United States, in Federal and State census; and also in England and various continental countries. It does not eliminate the use of the "average" which many statisticians distrust; but the average becomes valuable when used over a term of years since it indicates the variations in the earning capacity of labor.

The great desideratum of statisticians is some common method for presentation and tabulation of figures which can be used everywhere. In this way only can an exact comparison of wages be made. For purely economic purposes use can be made of "positions"--that is, using as a theoretic unit the laborer who works at standard wages for a standard length of time. For social purposes however, there can be no theory in the compilation of figures and we must consider the number of laborers and their time of labor strictly according to truth. When some uniform system has been used for a number of years--then and only then will it be possible to obtain satisfactory results from the use of wages statistics.