658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



least proportionate increase of the remuneration of labor. The 

 strain upon the nervous system, through the combined monotony 

 of the employment and the constant vigilance required, are no 

 doubt very often most severe, and are perhaps felt the more 

 because the present generation is comparatively untrained. But 

 the increased severity of toil, without proportionate remunera- 

 tion, might be admitted in those special employments without 

 altering the fact that remuneration has increased generally. 

 What seems to have happened in these cases is, that the develop- 

 ment of society imposes a heavy burden on a special class, involv- 

 ing rapid change in the quality of its labor, to which it is hardly 

 equal, but that the improvement in quality is part of the general 

 improvement in society. The nervous power to stand monotony 

 and supply the necessary vigilance and other moral qualities 

 necessary for the supervision of machines may exist in greater 

 abundance in the next generation, along with a continued im- 

 provement in the quality of labor in non - mechanical employ- 

 ments. 



It will, perhaps, be urged that the workman does not get a 

 proportionate remuneration because the capitalist obtains for 

 himself the increased product the socialist argument. But the 

 facts are all against this explanation. One of the most remark- 

 able facts of recent years is the general decline in the return to 

 capital. Capitalists from year to year have been willing to invest 

 for a smaller and smaller return. We must assume, then, that if 

 they have gained at all it has only been by the immense cheapen- 

 ing of commodities, and labor has gained more than in propor- 

 tion. This would appear to be the case : only the laborers who 

 have gained, as we have seen, are. not specially those who are 

 occupied about machines. The gain is generally diffused, and is 

 received by laborers generally in proportion to the relative values 

 of their work. Apparently the greatest gain has been among the 

 higher artisan and lower professional classes the very classes, it 

 may be remarked, by whom the strain of modern life is felt the 

 most intensely. 



The conclusion, then, is, that if the return to labor generally 

 is not proportionate to the increase of the severity of toil itself, 

 the reason must be that people are working for inadequate ob- 

 jects. The game, in one sense, may not be worth the candle. 

 The problem is another form of the very same problem that has 

 been considered with reference to the payment of monopoly rents. 

 On the whole, notwithstanding all the drawbacks of city life, 

 there is some improvement which makes the payment of monop- 

 oly rents worth while. People would not change back to the 

 former conditions. So, on the whole, notwithstanding all the 

 drawbacks of really severer toil, and the inadequacy of the addi- 



