In 1725, wages in London were the equivalent of 11 grams of silver per day. In Amsterdam, they were 9 grams. In Beijing, Venice, and Florence, they were under 4. And in Delhi, they were under 2. It's not totally clear why wages were so high in Britain. Like, one argument is that the Black Death lowered population so much that it tightened labor markets, but that doesn't explain why wages remained low in, like, plague-ravaged Italy. Mainly, high wages combined with cheap fuel costs meant that it was economically efficient for manufacturers to look to machines as a way of lowering their production costs.