Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of the Second annual Report of the Labour-Department (1896)

Schullern’s review surveys the British Labour Department’s report for 1894–1895 and its accompanying labour statistics. Its central concern is the accessibility and evidential basis of official knowledge about working-class conditions. He attributes the sudden growth of interest in those conditions, especially in industrial societies, largely to socialist criticism; the resulting literature, however, is difficult to obtain and survey. The annual report offers a practical response:

Das englische Labour-Department hat nun eine Einrichtung getroffen, die wenigstens die allerwesentlichsten Ergebnisse seiner Erhebungen weiten Kreisen zuzuführen geeignet ist, indem es einen zusammenfassenden Jahresbericht über seine Thätigkeit herausgibt, der das erste Mal die Periode 1893—1894 umfasste und nun die Periode 1894—1895 betrifft.

English translation: The English Labour Department has now made an arrangement suited at least to convey the very most essential results of its inquiries to wide circles, in that it issues a comprehensive annual report on its activity, which the first time covered the period 1893—1894 and now concerns the period 1894—1895.

The review moves from this rationale to the report’s statistical coverage, then examines the investigations underlying selected tables. Schullern emphasizes both breadth and changes from the preceding year. The tables connect labour organizations, disputes, employment, wages, and working hours with poverty, accidents, housing, education, and savings. Newly included employment offices and the marital status of female textile workers, alongside expanded material on associations and cooperatives, indicate a developing statistical programme.

His closer discussion concerns reports on gain-sharing, women’s and girls’ employment, and wages and hours. The main conceptual distinction separates gain-sharing from profit-sharing: the former rewards workers’ effort, skill, and care according to savings in normal production costs, independently of the enterprise’s profit or loss. Schullern therefore classifies it as progressive wages. He also identifies the geographical and documentary basis of the evidence:

Die Daten stammen aus schon publicierten und aus erst gesammelten Mittheilungen bestimmter Unternehmer in den Vereinigten Staaten, in Canada und England.

English translation: The data derive from communications of particular employers in the United States, in Canada and England, some already published and some only now collected.

This attention to provenance also governs his account of female employment in England and Wales. He distinguishes newly collected textile employers’ returns and Registrar-General statistics from earlier occupational census and wage data. The review thus explains how the annual abstract combines existing records with purpose-built inquiries, including investigations whose interim findings appear in the Labour Gazette.

For wages and hours, Schullern highlights procedures of supplementation and correction:

Der „Report on Wages and Hours of Labour“ gibt in seinem ersten Theile bereits in der „Labour Gazette“ monatlich veröffentlichte Daten, welche aber durch die Jahresberichte der Trade-Unions ergänzt und von den Secretären der Trade-Unions und der Unternehmerverbände richtiggestellt worden sind.

English translation: The "Report on Wages and Hours of Labour" gives in its first part data already published monthly in the "Labour Gazette," which have, however, been supplemented by the annual reports of the trade unions and corrected by the secretaries of the trade unions and of the employers' associations.

The subsequent volumes draw on concrete wage lists, preferably those established through agreements between workers’ and employers’ organizations. Schullern’s review is significant less for judgments about labour conditions than for its account of how such conditions become statistically knowable: public synthesis depends on specialized inquiries, differentiated sources, and checks involving organized labour and employers.