by producing fewer of them. The effect of an extra hour of leisure, in elevating the consumption of 150,000 machinists, with their money wages unchanged, could scarcely make in five years a noticeable increase of demand for machinery—no increase at all unless the higher consumption was of goods whose making required more machinery than did the goods of the lower. The employer would do well if he kept his shop running without his profits for five weeks. A commodity is produced for those having purchasing power already when it is offered for sale, not for those who may have purchasing power in a few years if certain social changes hoped for come to pass. A fall of wages-from reduction of output per man with no rise of prices-would overbalance the extra leisure and make consumption by the 150,000 smaller, to be raised no higher than the previous level by the added consumption of the 15,000 who had been idle, since both groups together would have no more money to spend than the first group alone had before. A sure increase of consumptive demand could come only through getting more by the 165,000 to spend. Theyat least with the help of their wives-could contrive to spend it all, whether they had more leisure or not. Instead of needing extra opportunity in which to study out new wants, most people are unable to hold their wants back to the level of their incomes, which are the vital factor. By return of better times, as in 1898, more employment and more pay could be obtained by reason of naturally increasing demand and rising prices, but not without such good times except by turning out more product per man. In the latter case there would be no places for the idle, whether the greater output came in ten hours, or by faster speed in nine, and whether or not there were ready in the shops plenty of capital in machinery and materials for extra men to work with. Wages and the Standard of Living. In China wages are lowest of all, it is said, because the Chinaman can live on least; and so on, passing up the scale of wages to Russia, Germany, England, and America, more is paid in each country than in the next below because the worker's standard of living is higher, and because he must have his usual comforts or he will not work. Hovel life makes hovel wages. Of course, in this theory cause is put in place of effect. The crowded Chinese live on little because they cannot get more, as millions of them have starved to death because they could get nothing, which is surely for none of them a standard of living. Yet here, as elsewhere, effect in turn influences cause. Living on barely enough to support life weakens body and stifles hope, degrading a people, and disabling them for desiring and trying to earn more; while as a nation's living improves, with comforts and leisure, its people grow in efficiency of body and mind, desiring and producing more and more goods, and rising in civilization.1 The Vital Factors in the Problem. But whatever the advantages of a high standard of living, drawing out best effort, a man's welfare still depends upon the product he gets. The farmer whose income for a year has been cut down half by drought can send no grievance committee, or make no demands, on the sanction that with his standard of comfort as a self-respecting citizen he and his family will not put up with such a living. He can only ask of the winds, which sometimes strew the ground with fragments of his property. The case is the same with men hired at wages. As many a one has experienced, the fact that a man's standard requires $2 a day is no bar to a drop of his income to nothing when hard times take away the market and profits of his employer. The showing made by labor speakers of rise of daily wages after shortening of the day would doubtless be far less favorable if they compared earnings per year. Wages depend most vitally "The large production consequent upon the increased consumption of wealth by the masses makes all classes actually richer." (Gunton.) The word consequent here is correct in the effect of increased consumption, when wise, to increase strength, intelligence, and enterprise. But of course, apart from increase of income due to a better selling of unchanged labor or products, one's production must increase first to provide something extra to consume. Production waits on what consumption promises to be-on market demand; but far more literally does consumption wait until what one consumes has first been made and brought into his possession. Wages and Cost of Producing Labor. Of equally desirable men taken to a distant mine it would be true, as Mr. Gunton teaches, that the wages required to meet the demands of the needed worker least willing to go would be the cost of producing the labor, and would have to be paid to the others, though willing to go for less. But ordinarily the labor power is already upon the product value the worker creates, above cost of material and other expenses. When the railway fireman passes to the right side of the cab as engineer he gets a dollar or two more per day than before, not because the engineer wants or needs more, but because his work is worth more in the labor market, his ability being scarcer in proportion to demand for it. The German doubles his wages by coming to America, where cheap land, abundant raw materials, and better machinery (not scarcity to raise prices and wages) double his labor's product value. The farm laborer getting $12 a month and board in the mountain counties of Pennsylvania gets $20 and board, and by working no harder, when he goes to the rich prairies of Nebraska. In each case the desire, and usually the effort, for more pay are as strong before the moving as afterward. The German's need for it at home is much greater, for living is more expensive there than in America.1 The standard produced and for sale, without access to a better market, and hence, above a bare subsistence, is not affected by cost of production but only by supply and demand. Mr. McNeill says, “Nothing short of a revolution can suddenly change their habits and ways of living." A change is very easy when it no longer pays the employer to hire them, as it is when the farmer's crop fails. To attempt a revolution would close more factories, and in a scramble to divide what little food was on hand it would not be the workers that fared best. 1Where the Standard of Living is Important. It is to prevent a fall of wages that the standard of living is important. Capable employers do not try to preserve profits by lowering wages if profits can be preserved in any other way. Being deprived of their usual supply of comforts leads men to work discontentedly and inefficiently, and to seek other employment. The standard of living has, to a less extent, the same influence as a factor in forcing a rise of money wages when, by reason of a general rise in prices, more money is required to buy a family's usual supply of commodities. This was one reason for many cases of advance in wages during 1901-3, especially the advance of about ten per cent in 1902 by many railway companies. Yet generally the main reason is that an advance is justified by prices and profits in the trade considered. Watchful workmen demand all the pay that marginal profits can bear, whether their standard of living is threatened or not. When an industry's profits are unfavorable there can be no rise in its wages, whatever the rise in costs of living. This is momentously true when in a panic supplies begin to run short, as would have been the case if the American monetary standard of value had dropped down by half, as was feared, from the gold to the silver basis, by reason of the government's inability in 1893 or its inability or refusal in 1896 (if Mr. Bryan had been elected), of living has little to do with the matter, except to lead one to desire and strive for better things, a part of which striving is to demand wages as high as trade conditions will permit. These various conditions combined are what fix the wage rate, together with the worker's efficiency. Change of his efficiency -doing more or better work-or going to another place, or into another trade, change conditions for him.1 Whenever by to hold the silver up to the gold value by exchanging gold for it. Prices would have risen greatly, but the closing of factories from uncertainty would have brought wages lower. 'How Far the Motto is True. "Whether you work by the piece, or work by the day, The assertion in these favorite lines of American unionism is true of pay per day so far as decreasing the hours, by lessening fatigue and promoting efficiency, increases the laborer's daily output, as was the case in shortening the twelve-hour factory day. It might be true of pay per hour, though the day were shortened by half, if absence of fatigue from labor were not then outweighed by distracting effects of too much leisure. This does not mean, as was formerly claimed, that long days at work are necessary to keep men from drinking and from other temptations of idleness, but that a man devoting but half the day to his work might have his mind set mainly on other things. By nature it seems that one's work or business must always remain his chief temporal concern, if it is to amount to much. There are no indications that the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," will ever lack enforcement; or that it will ever mean less than And use most of thy strength, despite the socialistic dream of an elysium with three hours for work and all the remainder for play. Increase of a worker's product value must usually be in quantity and quality of the article he makes. Rise of selling price above the ordinary level is balanced by its fall below at other times. Benefit from permanent rise of a commodity's price would soon fall in rent to owners of the source of limited supply. Consumers would get less of it for what they had to exchange, fewer men would be employed to produce it, and those retained would get no more pay than the average for their grade in other occupations. The Drudge Who Works Longest is Paid Least because so many offer his grade of service that its value falls until to earn even the low pay many hours are required. Disagreeableness or unhealthfulness of work can raise the pay for it only by making scarcer those who apply for positions. By union demand, better pay may be obtained for most of the work done in such an occupation, the remainder being discontinued, and the margin thus raised. The men left idle, being the least desirable, cannot displace the others by offering to accept less pay, and may do better in other kinds of work. Fortunately, many of those who make no effort to escape from de shortening the day the daily product of men's labor is diminished, their daily pay will be smaller, however scarce and well organized the workers may be. And diminution of product grading drudgery are being driven from it by its transfer to machinery. That the pay is low for the most necessary labor, such as farm work and washing, while it is high for the work of producing luxuries, such as designing rich costumes, is surely not to be complained of. If farm laborers had to be paid like engravers of ornamental stone, what would a common dinner cost? Nature has arranged this by fitting only for common labor a thousand where artistic talent is given to one-by making necessaries so plentiful that the product of a worker growing them is worth but little. Doing Least and Getting Most. The head superintendent, who begins work latest and stops earliest, is not paid most because he works fewest hours, but because his grade of ability is so useful and scarce that both the high pay and the short day are included in its market value. Such is the case too with the many office employees who work short days and enjoy such other privileges as vacations without stoppage of pay, but who, far more than the worker docked for lost time, must bear the burden of giving satisfactory results-a more serious matter than putting in hours. To but a slight extent, too, are the office men less subject than the common workers to market rates of pay-are not so few in business as to escape such a rate, which anyhow would be an advantage as often as otherwise; nor by getting more than other employers would pay them are they more likely than common workers to gain unduly. The latter are quickly "fired," but they are just as quickly hired. So far as one's salary is based on his needs for support of his social station (the case to some extent with a few clergymen and public officials), it is paid, not for services, but for the substantial advantage of observing proprieties of securing for a city or a church creditable representation. Also, in many positions of trust and emolument, as to which the methods of election or appointment do not admit of bargaining, the salary is adjusted to needs in being placed high enough to secure the incumbent's best service, by relieving him from the necessity of devoting thought to care of personal affairs. To consider such needs, and to consider the effect of higher pay to secure higher ability, may be wise in public employment of any grade, and also in private industry (page 145). These considerations, together with the additional one of securing fidelity by removing temptation and by quickening the sense of honor, are prominent in the case of book-keepers and cashiers, who may be obtained at monthly salaries ranging from $16 to $500. But the Principle of Supply and Demand is Present in all these cases, Mr. Hobson will notice. With salaries here, as with wages in general, a certain amount is paid because what is wanted cannot be obtained for less (the want including sometimes gratification of a desire to appear liberal). The difference is that the things bought are less open to view than is the ordinary mechanic's labor. Also, for basing the physician's or lawyer's |