asked the Minister of Labour by how much, on an annual basis, wages have increased since the Prime Minister made his appeal for restriction of increase in February, 1948.

These figures are not compiled on an annual basis. The increase on a weekly basis as a result of the changes in rates of wages reported as taking effect between March, 1948, and April, 1949, is estimated to be £2,080,000 a week. This represents an average increase of about 3s. a week for all manual workers in the industries covered by the statistics.