THE GROSS AND NET GAIN OF RISING WAGES. 651 



has become more expensive. The workingman has to get more 

 food, clothing, and shelter for his family than he would formerly 

 have had to get ; more is expected of him ; and he has to pay for 

 such things as the education of his children to a much greater 

 extent than he would formerly have had to pay. In this way the 

 strain upon the workingman has increased. As I understand 

 the complaint, he is no more a free man than before. His energies 

 are mortgaged in advance, and he has all the old difficulty to keep 

 his footing in the world. 



Now, whether these complaints are right or wrong, well or ill 

 founded, it is clear that they involve problems of a most vital kind 

 as to the general effect upon the working classes of the conditions 

 of modern civilization. To take the first head of complaint. If 

 it be the case that a rise of rent or the charge for traveling be- 

 tween the place of living and the place of work or similar ex- 

 penditure is sufficient to deprive workingmen of the advantage 

 of increased money wages, then the congregation of men in cities 

 or in certain parts of cities, where higher money wages are to be 

 obtained than elsewhere, which appear to be the conditions of 

 modern industrial life, would be fatal to improvement. It would 

 be the same with the necessity for working in an exhausting cli- 

 mate. The problem, as stated, is certainly of the gravest kind. 

 The questions raised by the second head of complaint are just 

 as important. If increase of toil, not proportionately remuner- 

 ated for which perhaps there can be no proportionate remuner- 

 ation comes with the increase of productive capacity and the 

 greater call thus made on the nervous and mental energy of the 

 workman, what is the workingman the better off for all the civili- 

 zation ? Finally, as regards the increased cost of living through 

 a rise in the scale, may it not be the case that such a rise in the 

 scale of living is to some extent what is meant by progress, though 

 the drawback of the slavery of the workers, which some working- 

 men appear to feel so keenly, remains.? How far is the " slavery " 

 itself avoidable, so long as human nature is what it is, unless at 

 the risk of all civilization perishing ? Such problems are obvi- 

 ously of the deepest interest. The desire for leisure, for an ease 

 to a severe strain, in all these complaints, is itself very striking, 

 and may perhaps be held of itself to indicate a change of work- 

 ing-class conditions, as compared with a time when the masses 

 simply endured, or were content to drag on a dull existence, with 

 little color in it, and without hope of change. The whole subject, 

 at any rate, should be well worth considering. What are the 

 facts, and what should be the conclusions regarding them ? 



Dealing with the first head of complaint, which is perhaps the 

 simplest and most easily dealt with, we must allow it to be obvi- 



