Wages have fallen during the last few years to the barest subsistence point, and even below.

Wages for men are put at 10s.

or 12s., and in the case of girls and young women, fall as low as 4s.; a sum which is in itself insufficient to support life, and must therefore be only paid to women and girls who are partly subsisted by the efforts of relatives with whom they live, or by the wages of vice.
In cabinet-making and upholstery, the same disintegrating influences have been at work which we noted in tailoring.

Many firms which formerly executed all orders on their own premises, now buy from small factors, and much of the lowest and least skilled work is undertaken by small "garret-masters," or even by single workmen who hawk round their wares for sale on their own account.

The higher and skilled branches are protected by trade organizations, and there is no evidence that wages have fallen; but in the less skilled work, owing perhaps in part to the competition of machinery, prices have fallen, and wages are low.