THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 13 



reported as three and a half cubic yards, at a compensation of 

 from $1.50 to $2 per day. 



Any review of the recent experiences, in respect to wages and 

 hours of labor, would be imperfect that failed to call attention 

 to the fact that the benefits from advances in the one case, and 

 reductions in the other, have accrued mainly to operatives in 

 factories and to artisans and skilled mechanics, and have been 

 enjoyed in the least degree, and largely not at all, by employes, 

 clerks, book-keepers, copyists, etc., engaged in mercantile and 

 commercial operations and establishments. The reason of this 

 is manifestly that the supply of this latter class of labor has 

 been disproportionately greater than that of the former, and 

 continually tends to be in excess of demand ; and, under such cir- 

 cumstances, although the amount of discontent may be, and un- 

 doubtedly is, very great and well warranted, the organized and 

 aggressive expression of it finds little sympathy on the part of 

 the public. 



The question has been asked. Why is it that wages of manual 

 labor have been constantly rising in recent years, while all other 

 prices have been concurrently falling ? or, to put it differently, 

 why is it that overproduction, while cheapening the product, 

 should not also cheapen the work that produces it ? The answer 

 • is, that the price of the products of labor is not governed by the 

 price of labor, or wages, but that wages, or earnings, are results 

 of production, and not conditions precedent. Wages, as a rule, 

 are paid out of product. If production is small, no employer 

 can afford to pay high wages ; but if, on the contrary, it is large, 

 and measured in terms of labor is of low cost — which conditions 

 are eminently characteristic of the modern methods of produc- 

 tion — the employer is not only enabled to pay high wages, but 

 will, in fact, be obliged to do so, in order to obtain what is really 

 the cheapest (in the sense of the most efficient) labor. The 

 world has not yet come to recognize it, but it is nevertheless an 

 economic axiom, that the invariable concomitant of high wages 

 and the skilled use of machinery is a low cost of production 

 and a large consumption. In the first of the results is to be 

 found the explanation for the continually increasing tendency 

 of wages to advance; in the second, an explanation why the 

 supplanting of labor by machinery has not been generally more 

 disastrous. If, however, it be rejoined that "the comparative 

 poverty of cotton- and woolen-mill operatives, and of women 

 who run sewing-machines," and the like, does not sustain the 

 above explanations, the question is pertinent, Comparative with 

 what ? For, low and insufficient as may be the wages of all this 

 class of operatives, they were never, in comparison with other 

 times, so high as at present. 



