After all that can be done for them, the wages of the agricultural laborers of Great Britain cannot be expected to exceed, on an average, twelve shillings a week, or about half the price of the same labor in America. Their rent and clothes cost them, perhaps, less than half the sum paid by our farm hands for the same items of expenditure. Their food must also cost only about half of what our men pay, who would think they were poor indeed if they could not have hot meat breakfasts, roast or boiled beef dinners and cold meat suppers, with the usual sprinkling of puddings, pies, and cakes, and tea sweetened with loaf sugar. Thus, after all, put the English laborer in the position suggested; give him such a three-pound cottage and garden as Lord Overstone provides; give his children free and convenient schooling; then let him exchange his ale for nutritious and almost costless drinks, and if he is still able to live for a few years on his old food-fare, he may work his way up to a very comfortable condition with his twelve shillings a week, besides his beer-money. On these conditions he would be able almost to run neck and neck with our hired men in the matter of saving money "for a rainy day," or for raising himself to a higher position. We will put them side by side, after the suggested improvements have been realised; assuming each has a wife, with two children too young to earn anything at field work. American Laborer at 24s per week English Laborer, at 12s per week Weekly Expense $ c. s. d Weekly Expense s. d. $ c for:-- for:-- ------------------------------- ---------------------------- Food 3 50 = 14 7 Food 7 3 = 1 75 Rent and Taxes 0 67 = 2 9 Rent 1 2 = O 28 Fuel, average of the year O 48 = 2 O For Fuel 1 O = O 24 For Clothes 1 0 = 4 2 For Clothes 2 1 = 0 50 Total Weekly Total Weekly Expenses -------------- Expenses ----------- -- 5 65 = 23 6 11 6 = 2 77 -------------- ----------- --