Flinn and Real Wage Trends in Britain 1750-1850: A Comment
IN a recent article in this journal, Prof. M. W. Flinn surveyed the existing literature on real wages in Britain, c. I750-i850, and offered a number of tentative generalizations.' In particular, Flinn attacked the prevailing pessimism about the usefulness of the data presently available to historians, referring especially to the London-based price series of Silberling, Schumpeter, Gayer, Rostow, and Schwartz, et al. and his reconsideration of the source material led to the following comments: i. that the price rise of the Napoleonic War years, of the order of 65-85 per cent, was followed by two periods of deflation, the first involving a fairly rapid fall in prices of c. 25-35 per cent to the mid-i82o's, the second a less severe drop of c. I0-20 per cent to the late i840's; and 2. that although less confidence could be placed in general hypotheses on wage trends, it appeared that wages kept pace with prices during the Napoleonic Wars, tended to fall less than prices in the first period of deflation, and to keep pace with prices in the second. Flinn was thus able to conclude that real wage gains over the century I 750i 850 were largely confined to the immediate postwar period, that is, to the relatively short period of "scarcely a dozen years" from c. i8I3 to c. i825.2 It seems likely that Flinn's principal conclusions will influence the course of future research, and because of this a number of issues raised by his article require clarification.