6. PYofits and Wages. Stock exchange industri.al quotations improved, acording to the Bachi index, from a minimum of 56.45 in April, 1922, to 67.47 in Septem her (under the old regime) . Under the Fascist regime the figures are October, 1922 January, 1923 July ... August 70.16 72·93 76.62 80.49 Italian con sols improved as fallows : January, 1922 . . . 75·9 September . . . . . . 81.8 January, 19~3 84.4 September . . . . . . -88.3 October . .. 89.2 Wages have, on the contrary, greatly diminished. The average in the metal and engineering industries was about 25 lire a day in 1921 and 19 in 1923, or a diminution exceeding ·20 per cent. In the textile, building, chemical, etc., industries the reduction is also estimated at 10 to 20 per cent., even 30 per cent. in the small centres. Only in certain small industries and in printing is the reduction less than 10 per cent. · In agriculture the average of the reductions effected by the pacts imposed by the Fascist groups or the farmers, as compared with the pacts formerly freely concluded between the employers' and workers' con-- federations, is about 10 to 15 per cent. in actual wages ; but the effective reduction is brought above 20 per cent. by the lapse or restriction of the former guarantees of ~mployment, the altered terms for other than normal \\'Otk, and so on. According to the figures compiled by the National Accident Insurance Bureau, the general average of daily wages has diminished from 18.74 lire in 1921 to 17.05 7 Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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