656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment by itself, but in proportion to the increased productiveness 

 of labor generally. Hence, it may well be that while the product- 

 ive power of machines may enormously increase, yet the general 

 increase of productive power may be much less than would at 

 first be thought, owing to the comparatively small proportion of 

 laborers, after all, who use machinery of great capacity largely in 

 their employments. Looking at the number of domestic servants, 

 of clerks, of professional men and women, of unskilled laborers 

 of every kind, of skilled laborers, such as painters, who do not 

 use machines, I should doubt very much whether one fourth of 

 the laborers, even in a society like that of England, the most 

 manufacturing in the world, use machinery of great capacity in 

 their employments. It is easily to be accounted for, therefore, 

 why in a given employment there should be a great increase of 

 production without a corresponding increase of remuneration to 

 those engaged in that particular employment. The gain has to 

 be diffused through society, and the increase of production gen- 

 erally is not so great, and not nearly so great, as in a few special 

 cases. 



Another observation must be made. There may be a consider- 

 able improvement in the quality of production in employments 

 of a non-mechanical kind, which it is difficult or even impossible 

 to note by quantities, but where the labor competes with all other 

 labor for remuneration. Where the increased remuneration 

 should go to, when machines improve, is not thus so easy to de- 

 termine a 'priori. 



It is also obvious that even in an advancing community the 

 remuneration of certain kinds of laborers, whose numbers con- 

 tinue disproportionate, may either not increase at all, or increase 

 very little, the whole gain from increased productiveness being 

 for the benefit of the laborers whose own labor improves in qual- 

 ity, apart from the fact that it is employed on more productive 

 machines. Strictly speaking, unless there is a rise in the scale of 

 living, accompanied by an improvement in quality all round, 

 there is no reason why, in modern times, a man who can only 

 drive a spade into the ground, or wheel a barrow, or carry bricks 

 up a ladder, should receive any higher reward than similar labor- 

 ers in former ages. The fact that such laborers are little better 

 off is not inconsistent with the fact that workmen generally re- 

 ceive a larger reward than in any former period. 



The way is thus cleared for answering the question as to 

 whether the remuneration of labor has increased generally in pro- 

 portion to the increased severity of labor. 



It can not be denied, first of all, that there is a great increase 

 of the productiveness of labor itself, as well as a great increase of 

 the absolute amount of remuneration. This is admitted on all 



