THE GROSS AND NET GAIN OF RISING WAGES. 659 



tional remuneration, people would not change back. What has 

 happened is really a revolution in the quality of labor and the 

 general conditions of life. The net gain, in one view, is less than 

 the apparent gross improvement, looking at the matter strictly ; 

 in another view, the gain is so great as to make the present con- 

 dition of workmen on the average incommensurable with their 

 former condition. The two things are not on the same plane, and 

 can hardly be compared. 



An important corollary seems to be suggested by these con- 

 siderations. If there is so much doubt about the adequacy of the 

 reward for the additional labor thrown on workmen by the con- 

 ditions of modern society, is not that reward really a minimum 

 reward ? In other words, may not the amount of production 

 itself be conditioned by the energy of the workman, which is in 

 turn a function of the food and other things on which he expends 

 his wages, so that the quality of labor by which modern society 

 is carried on would not itself exist if the remuneration were less 

 than it is ? The complaint we are dealing with is that of the 

 severity of modern toil, and implies that the workman is tasked to 

 his full capacity, and can just do the work, so that the remuner- 

 ation can not be reduced. And that this is really the case in many 

 employments may be easily enough illustrated. It is quite certain 

 that the driver of an express engine could not go through the 

 very formidable labors he undergoes if he only had the food of the 

 rude laborer of a former time, and only lived in the way that such 

 a laborer used to live. He would not, under such conditions, have 

 the energy or brain-power for the work to be done. It is the 

 same with workmen in a factory who have to attend to many 

 machines. The constant strain simply could not be endured if 

 the workman had to live as the factory worker of a former time 

 had to live. The present worker is really cheaper than the former 

 worker, because he does more in proportion ; but, dear as he is, 

 yet, in another respect, he may perhaps be viewed, according to a 

 suggestion already made, as really engaged at a minimum wage 

 without which he could not do the work at all. This is not a 

 question merely of a rise in the scale of living, though that ques- 

 tion is intermixed with it. It is a question of the actual necessity 

 on the part of the workman that certain things should be put 

 into him, or supplied to him, as a condition of his doing the work 

 which he actually performs. What is true of the workman spe- 

 cially referred to is of course still more true of the higher kinds 

 of work involving artistic or other skill. 



It may also be added that the suggestion already made as to 

 the reason for a non-increase of remuneration in certain direc- 

 tions being that the work done has not itself improved in quality, 

 is fully confirmed by the general view thus stated. If the work 



