In the condition of no kind of labor does the United States compare more favorably with England and the Continent of Europe than in agriculture. Here the respective wages paid hardly admit of comparison. But it is not to be lost sight of that, wretched as the condition of the English agricultural laborer may appear to us, his way of viewing things is not ours. The rough, arduous, irregular, exposed labor of the Western backwoodsman, or even farmer, appears to him more terrible than the dull, stated servitude, with its beer in the present and its work-house in the future, that shock our free thought. The report of the delegates of the Agricultural Union was decidedly unfavorable in the case of Canada, where the conditions of labor do not essentially vary from those of the Northwestern States. This question of agricultural labor is, however, too vast a one to be treated of here. Dr. Young’s reports are very valuable, but take, perhaps, the American view of the question too much for granted.[30] WAGES OF MECHANICS AND SKILLED ARTISANS IN GREAT BRITAIN. This branch of his subject is copiously treated by Dr. Young in connection with his tour through the chief manufacturing cities of the United Kingdom in 1872. From the numerous tables presented we select one under the head of “Skilled trades in London, weekly wages in 1871” (page 242) as being the most comprehensive. The average _daily_ wages of persons employed in the same trades in the United States in 1874 was from $2 25 for shoemakers to $3 33 for bricklayers or masons (pp. 745-747); or, in other words, from 50 per cent. to 100 per cent. more than in England. _Statement showing the established rates of wages obtained by members of the various trades societies of the metropolis, in summer and winter, compiled under the supervision of Alsager Hay Hill, LL.B._