mental culture. They thus render beneficial ser vice, and are worthy of praise and encouragement. But often these associations attempt to regulate wages, by resisting competition, in two ways: First, by promoting and sustaining strikes, in which they are likely to aggravate the evils already referred to, because under them the strike is better organized and more domineering. They are apt also to insist on uniformity of wages irrespective of the varying abilities and efficiency of different workmen, which involves injustice to superior artisans as well as to employers. Second, by restricting apprenticeship, which is simply an attempt to rule out free competition, and give to a limited number of persons a monopoly of certain forms of skilled labor. involves the injustice and mischief which are inherent in the very principle of monopoly. If generally carried out, it would set the various branches of industry in antagonism to each other, and tend, as Mr. Brassey says, "to establish that subdivision of caste which has been the great curse of India." When managed for these ends, trades-unions involve heavy taxes on the members, and often subjection to selfish and reckless leaders, who seek their own personal interests rather than the common good. This On the other side, combinations of employers are often formed to resist competition. Such combinations sometimes attempt to regulate the prices of products, creating a monopoly in the general market, Their action in this form belongs to the department of exchange. They attempt also to regulate wages by agreements not to pay above certain rates. While the right to enter into such agreements cannot be questioned, the actual combination involves an abuse of the power of capital to tyrannize over labor and dictate terns. It pro duces in the laborer a sense of injury, and incites antagonism and attempts at retaliation, which prevent the cheerful co-operation of the two great factors of industry. Such combinations seldom succeed in controlling wages except for very brief periods. To be effective, the combination must embrace all who are engaged in a particular industry, and also all the capital likely to be drawn into it. If the wages fixed by the combination are so low as to make the profits larger than those of other forms of business, free capital will rush in and bid for laborers by raising wages, thus renewing competition, and defeating the end sought. Experience shows that combinations on either side, to prevent free competition, cannot, for any long time, materially influence the rates of wages. Such attempts interfere with the natural law of supply and demand, which is the grand regulator of wages for the best interest of all concerned. When issues arise between the parties to the labor-contract, the surest way to a fair adjustment is by frank mutual explanations, or, in the last resort, by joint reference to just arbitration. In most cases, the occasion of difficulties may be forestalled by the culture of mutual good-will in active co-operation for the common good, intelligently apprehended and prosecuted on both sides. EXERCISES. 1. Can either party, employers or employed, arbitrarily fix a rate of wages for labor? 2. Can the government, by law, fix a rate which will stand? Why not? 3. Why ought not laborers to be content with wages which suffice for their bare support? 4. Illustrate the effect of climate on the scale of living, and by consequence on the rate of wages. 5. When the cost of living is increased, are laborers to be blamed for demanding higher wages? 6. Are manufacturers to be blamed for reducing wages when the prices of their products decline? 7. When business is depressed, is it right that high dividends to stockholders should be maintained by reduced wages? 8. Illustrate the conservative influence of custom on wages in some one trade. 9. Why is the rate of wages generally higher in a new than in an old country? 10. Illustrate the effect of a financial panic on wages. 11. What reason have laborers to think that free competition bears most hardly on them? 12. If over-population by sharp competition reduces wages to the starvation limit, can a strike relieve the case? How can such a case be relieved? 13. State the results, good or bad, of any strike which you have known about. 14. State what benefits and what evils you have known to come from membership in a trades-union. 15. What consequences would follow if the policy of limiting the number of apprentices were carried out in all forms of industry requiring skill? 16. What is there to prevent the application of "the Golden Rule" in the mutual relations of laborers and their employers? SECTION IV. - CAUSES OF VARIATION IN THE REMUNERATION OF LABOR. Evidently all kinds of labor are not compensated alike. Competition tends to produce uniformity of compensation. Whatever, then, diminishes the intensity of competition, opens the way for other causes to produce variation. Several circumstances thus affecting competition may be named: 1. The ease or difficulty, the agreeableness or disagreeableness, of the employment. For easy work, many are ready to compete; but from hard work, many draw back, and the number able to put forth great muscular effort is small. Mining-work under ground is disagreeable; the number willing to engage in it is much less than of those ready to do pleasanter work on the surface: hence only a better compensation will induce any to go below. It is not an uncommon thing for a gentleman to pay a male cook more than his private secretary; the dignity attached to the one office, and the menial character of the other, accounting for the difference. 2. The skill required in the operation. Here we note the difference between simple labor and educated labor. Skill can be acquired only by practice and training, which cost both time and money. It becomes thus an investment, for which the possessor may justly ask a compensation. Unusual skill supposes unusual natural endowment, the rarity of which precludes sharp competition. 3. The amount of trust involved in the occupation. In services about banks, or which in any way involve the handling of money; in manufactures where, as in the case of jewelry, the precious metals are put into the hands of workmen as materials; in railway operations, where the safety of many persons and of large amounts of property depends on the conduct of a single engineer, in these and similar cases, good judgment and incorruptible integrity, as well as skill, are required. This combination of qualities is comparatively rare. Hence, while the demand is imperative, the supply is small, and competition for such places is restricted. For such positions, it is good economy to pay trustworthy men extraordinary compensation. The 4. The constancy or inconstancy of employment. In out-door occupations, such as those of the carpenter and bricklayer, work is interrupted by bad weather, rainy days, and the winter-season. compensation for the working time must be larger than ordinary, to cover the time when work must be suspended. 5. The probability or improbability of success. This consideration applies more to what are called the professions than to ordinary trades. He who learns the trade of a carpenter may be almost sure of finding employment at some compensation; but one who studies for the profession of a lawyer has hardly an even chance of being able to live by his profession, and, at best, must persevere through years of unremunerated toil, to establish a reputation which will assure him full success. The high |