THE GROSS AND NET GAIN OF RISING WAGES. 657 



sides. The increase of production is the very fact which is as- 

 sumed. Nor is the increase of remuneration denied the only 

 question is of the proportionate remuneration. Before passing 

 from this point, however, I should like to dwell a little on the 

 fact already referred to, of an improvement in the quality of non- 

 mechanical labor, because, as this labor is largely the subject of 

 direct exchange without much intervention of capital, the mere 

 fact of improvement implies almost a proportionate increase of 

 remuneration. At any rate, the laborers concerned get almost 

 the whole benefit, because they exchange with each other. I 

 refer to such employments as those of teaching, medical attend- 

 ance, nursing, domestic service, dressmaking, and the like among 

 the upper and middle classes. The increase of remuneration here 

 may not be in proportion to the improvement of quality ; the 

 game may not be worth the candle ; but, at any rate, the ex- 

 changes are direct. Now, as to the fact of great improvement, I 

 believe there is no doubt. Nursing, for instance, is said to be an 

 entirely different thing in hospitals from what it was only fifteen 

 or twenty years ago. Domestic service, as regards cooking, wait- 

 ing, and other points, is also, on the whole, better, notwithstand- 

 ing manifold complaints, just because of the general improve- 

 ment in education and intelligence. The same with dressmaking. 

 More intelligence and skill are everywhere applied, and in direct 

 exchanges, without much intervention of machines or of capital. 



Next, it has to be considered, as regards the question of pro- 

 portionate remuneration, that by the very mode of here stating 

 the question, it appears that it is not so much a question of in- 

 crease in the severity of labor generally, as of a change in the 

 character of the labor. If the quality of labor has altered and 

 improved in many directions, there is, in truth, no proper term 

 for comparison between the present and former times. The im- 

 provement of the quality of the labor, which is another name for 

 the increased intelligence and energy of society, may not be pro- 

 portionately remunerated ; but there is no means of telling. 

 People would not go back to the conditions of a former society, 

 where less intelligence and energy were required for a lower scale 

 of living, even if they had the choice. The new advantages, with 

 all their drawbacks, are accepted as part of a higher state. The 

 complaints are to some extent a sign of the perpetual unrest of 

 human life, and of the fact of improvement itself. 



There can equally be no doubt, looking at the matter in this 

 way, that in certain directions there may be a very poignant and 

 not unjustifiable feeling as to an increase in the severity of labor. 

 This appears to be the case as regards employments which in- 

 volve the watching of machines, the very employments where 

 there is apparently the greatest increase of production and the 



vol. xxxvi. 42 



