hour per day allowed for meals.' The master had put a wrong construction upon these rules, according to the opinion of the men, and it was therefore decided to call for an arbitration. The umpire, Mr. Robert Kettle, appointed Monday last. The business of the meeting was conducted on both sides with excellent feeling, and at the close the umpire decided in favour of the men. The master having supplied the amounts due to each man, so that the umpire could make a legal award, the meeting concluded with a vote heartily given by both parties to Mr. Kettle.”

Further and equally gratifying intelligence upon the same case, has been recently furnished by the Birmingham Daily Post, from which the subjoined paragraph is taken :

"At Wolverhampton, somewhat over twelve months since, the master builders and their carpenters and joiners adopted, with the assistance of Mr. Rupert Kettle, a code of rules for settling all future disputes between them in their trade by arbitration. One of the rules required that all alterations should be made after due notice, so as to come into operation at the spring of every year, before the employers made their contracts with their customers. A few days since the men gave notice for an alteration this spring. The alterations which the men required were a rise to 6d. an hour, being an advance of 4d. an hour. They also required that a Saturday half-holiday should be made imperative, subject to payment as overtime after one o'clock; and they further required certain alterations as to the mileage walking in masters' time. The masters, on their part, sought under Rule 8, and gave notice of a proposition to alter Rule 4, the rule upon which the arbitration took place some few months ago as to extra payment for work on unprotected buildings. On Monday evening the representatives of the masters and men, six on each side, again assembled. The result arrived at was that the wages were increased to the extent which the men required; that where men were employed on unprotected buildings, from six weeks before and six weeks after Christmas, they were not to claim the extra payment, provided they had the option of filling up their full time by working in the shop, it being the intention of both parties that the same class of men should have the option of earning the same amount of wages wheresoever they might be employed, thus dispensing with all difficult questions about the hours of daylight, &c. The question of a half-holiday was satisfactorily settled by providing that the wages each week should be reckoned up to Friday night, and that they should be paid at the principal pay office of the firm between the hours of one and two o'clock on Saturday; and that all the men who required a half-holiday on Saturday should walk to the pay office in their own time; others to be paid either at the 'job, or at the pay office, at four o'clock, as before. The chief representative of the men said he could not allow the occasion to pass over without, on behalf of himself and of the working men who were with him, expressing the great satisfaction they felt at the candid and conciliatory spirit in which the masters had met and discussed the propositions they (the men) had made; and the masters on their part, through their chairman, said that nothing could be more gratifying to them than that their men should meet them for reasonable and free discussion, with minds open to conviction and unwarped by prejudice. They (the masters) had concealed nothing, and they should be glad at all times to meet any branch of the building trade, and candidly discuss, as independent men of business, the whole trade bearings of their relative positions.”

V.-The Finances of the United States in 1865.

IN December last the Economist gave certain details of (a) the paper circulation; (b) the debt; (c) the revenue; and (d) the expenditure of

the United States. That statement is here reprinted with a very slight addition, designed to keep the paragraphs more distinct.

(a) “The paper circulation of the United States, on the 31st of October last, was substantially as follows:

1. United States notes and fractional currency

2. Notes of the national banks

3.

Dols. 454,218,038

185,000,000

State banks, including outstanding issues } 65,000,000

of State banks converted into national banks..

"On the 31st day of October, 1865, since which time no material change has taken place, the public debt, without deducting funds in the Treasury, amounted to $2,808,549,437, consisting of the following items :—

(b) "The following is a statement of receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1865 :

Dols.

Dols.

96,739,905

Receipts from loans applicable to expenditures

861,863,499

applied to payment of public

607,361,241

debt

(c) "The receipts for the year ending 30th June, 1867, are estimated as follows:

THE subjoined article, upon the occupations of the enfranchised classes in Belgium, recently appeared in the Morning Post.

"As more than usual interest is at present attached to all that relates to the political state of Belgium, some information on the subject of the constituencies of that kingdom may be acceptable, and besides, it may not be altogether without its use in this country when measures are understood to be taken by the Government to ascertain what is the state of the county and borough registers, with a view to a reform in the representation of the people, which must, sooner or later, be brought under the consideration of Parliament.

"An opportunity has fortunately been afforded for knowing something authentic of the Belgian constituencies, by the Minister of the Interior having published a statistical account, in which the electors of the representatives in the two legislative chambers are described according to their professions; and although this return has reference only to 1864, it may be presumed that it will sufficiently serve the purpose for this year also, as the changes cannot be supposed to have been either numerous or important, although, when the comparison is made between the list now published and another which appeared in 1847, the difference is so great that there can be no doubt as to the progress that has since been made alike in the population and the prosperity of that industrious and interesting nation.

"In this return the electors for the whole kingdom are ineluded, but as there has also been obtained from other sources a similar statement as to the metropolitan district of Brussels, that is likewise added, both being as follows:—

"In 1847, the number for the kingdom was only 46,330, since which period it has been more than doubled. The agriculturists were then only 14,500, instead of 25,200, as in the above table; while there has been a similar change as to the clergy of all denominations, of which the number has increased from 874 to 2,332. It would appear, however, that the various interests are fairly enough represented, although at one time it was alleged that the wealthy had the advantage of the industrious, but as no complaints of that kind are now heard, it may be supposed that both of them have found their level.

"

Taking the population of Belgium and of Great Britain and Ireland as a criterion, the number of electors in the United Kingdom, according to the above Belgian scale, should be about 640,000; but it should be kept in view that, in Belgium, the same electors choose the members both of the Senate and of the Chamber of Representatives; and although this has been considered to be an anomaly, it ceases to be so when the qualification for a senator is taken into account, as the number of such who have paid direct taxes to the extent

2,116 frs. 40 c. and who have attained the age of 40, is very limited, there being
only of such in Brabant 120; in East Flanders, 95; in West Flanders, 65; in
Antwerp, 60; in Namur, 38; in Liege, 32; in Limburg, 11; and in Luxem-
bourg no more than 2; from which it has been found that those elected are
sufficiently aristocratic to render the Senate a safe bulwark against any democratic
movement that is ever likely to be attempted in that kingdom."

It is here manifest that half the voters for the kingdom come under
four classes of occupation, and in this order, viz. :—

VII.-On the Prices and Manufacture of Plate Glass in England, France,
Belgium, and Russia.

IN 1850 Mr. Henry Howard, of Plaistow, Essex, furnished to the
Journal some statistics of the prices of British plate glass, from 1760 to
1847,* accompanied by some remarks upon the way in which the produc-
tion of glass had been influenced by the duty.

Mr. Howard has recently brought his accounts of the manufacture in
this country down to last year, adding the tariff prices of the French,
Belgian, and Russian trade in 1865, as shown in the following table :—
"The manufacture of plate glass in England existed in the vicinity of London

'65

2/ 2/6 2/5, 3/2/7 „, 3/4 2/11, 3/9 | 3/2 4/4 3/2 4/43/6 5/ 3/10 6/
The Belgian rates are somewhat lower than the French, and a shade higher than the
2/1
4/5
9/1

"

17/3

Explanatory Notes.-The profits derived from this manufacture in the last fifty years have been very large. About only other house then existing is known to have realized a net profit of 30,000l. @ 40,000l. per annum for some years on a The tariff rates of 1886 and 1815 were the same, but the trade discounts in 1845 were much larger; hence the average feet per week, as shown in columns 2 and 3.

The present estimated make of plate glass proper, viz., 140,000 feet, as given in column 2, is exclusive of the of Sunderland, which, together, are estimated at 50,000 to 60,000 feet per week additional.

* See vol. xiii, p. 80 et seq.