Third Lecture on Statistics of Wages.

In his third lecture, yesterday afternoon, Hon. Carroll D. Wright combined his third and fourth subjects in order that he might in his three remaining evenings devote more time to an exposition of the course of real wages in the past fifty years. The subject of tonight's talk will be "Money Wages as Shown by Statistics in the Past Half Century." The course of real wages will be treated tomorrow and Monday night. Mr. Wright spoke yesterday afternoon especially on "The Yale of the Various Collections of Wages Statistics." He said in part:

Much of the great mass of industrial statistics which exists today has been gathered unofficially, that is by individuals working on their own responsibilities. Such writers often go beyond the use of known facts--in expounding their arguments with the aid of figures. In recent years many of the statistics unofficially obtained in England have been used by the official statisticians as being trustworthy. In reality, however, many of these tables are unreliable, having been made up by manufacturers in their counting rooms and containing many errors.

The construction of statistics by official means was first taken up by Belgium in 1846 in a very thorough industrial investigation. Here there was a minute classification according to wages received and a grouping by age and sex. The system was not used again for years, however. The work of 1846 went for nothing because there were no subsequent data for comparison. In England the Labor office was established in 1893 under the leadership of Mr. Llewelyn Smith who is making an exhaustive search for correct data of hours and earnings of labor. In 1891 the Bureau of Labor was established in France. Specially trained agents are employed for thorough personal investigation and the results are classified according to the American method. In Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Canada, and Australasia a movement is on foot for the establishment of reliable official systems for the collection of statistics. Thus far, only the United States and the first three countries named--England, France and Belgium are on the system. Among these the data of the next five or ten years will make possible extensive comparisons which were formerly out of the question; and eventually this comparison will be possible among all the nations of any industrial importance.

Official compellation of statistics, although begun in the United States with the census of 1810, never attained any great degree of accuracy until after 1885 when the classification method had become thoroughly established. Now, in addition to the United States Department of Labor which was organized in 1884, there are in this country many other reliable statistical offices--almost every state having its own.

As to the opinion which has at one time or another gained ground--that there is "juggling" done occasionally with the figures in statistical offices--there is this to say. "Juggling" with facts is impossible. The agents could send in no false figures to the central office for they would be discovered if they did. In the central office itself all political and social tendencies are represented and the statistical editors work in an atmosphere of free criticism of each other and of their chief. From the unscientific data of the part it has been difficult to secure scientific conclusions, and if there have been faults it has not been through lack of integrity. For honesty, official statistics both Federal and State can be absolutely trusted.