64 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



have no cause to be ashamed thereof. Socialism can offer no 

 commensurate advantages ; its tendency is not to raise the masses 

 to a higher plane, but to reduce the competent to the level of the 

 incompetent. The world is always crowded with incompetent op- 

 eratives, while there is at the same time an unsatisfied demand for 

 the absolutely competent. 



In daily friendly intercourse with workingmen, extending over 

 a period of twenty years, I have found a prevalent idea in many 

 minds that employers of labor are, as a class, jealous of the mate- 

 rial advancement of wage-earners beyond a certain point ; that a 

 maximum wage is soon reached beyond which they can not hope to 

 pass, and that extra effort on their part would result merely in an 

 increase of tasks without a corresponding increase of pay. This 

 impression is more generally inculcated in the minds of opera- 

 tives than employers realize, and it operates to their mutual dis- 

 advantage. Modern " piece-work " systems of pay have been de- 

 vised (and are now generally practiced) with a view of stimulating 

 workmen to produce the greatest output and largest percentage 

 of perfect work ; but these elaborate systems are to a certain ex- 

 tent rendered inoperative by reason of the suspicion mentioned. 

 That there may have been, and may still be, some ground for 

 such impressions I do not dispute, but I do believe that a more 

 enlightened view of the mutual relations existing between em- 

 ployer and employee is gradually permeating the industrial 

 world. 



The great development of mechanical invention has not only 

 increased the demand for skilled labor by increasing the output 

 and opening constantly new fields of labor, but it has increased 

 tenfold, and in some instances one hundredfold, the possible 

 product of labor per capita. This is the reason why the Amer- 

 ican employer, paying the highest wages in the world, is never- 

 theless able to compete in the markets of Europe with so-called 

 " pauper labor " in many manufactured articles.* 



* Mr. Mulhall, the English statistician, has recently published some tables relating to 

 the producing power of the different nations of the earth. They show an enormous in- 

 crease during the latter half of the century of the productive power of the people of this 

 country, and they prove, moreover, that no other nations possess equal producing power jt)«' 

 caput. By the figtires which he has tabulated Mr. Mulhall shows that from 1820 to 1890 

 the " foot-ton" power of the United States increased from 4,292,000,000 of foot tons daily 

 to 129,306,000,000 foot tons. A foot ton is a method that statisticians have of measuring 

 the producing powers of a country. It signifies the ability of a man to accomplish with 

 ordinary exertion in ten hours an amount of work equal to raising 300 tons one foot high. 

 In 1820 the forces at the command of the Americans were equal to 446 foot tons of power 

 per caput of the population. By 1890 the productive forces had increased to 1,940 foot 

 tons per caput. These forces are now busily engaged in developing the resources of the 

 country, in cultivating the soil, working the mines, operating tlie industries, carrying on the 

 commerce, or in looking after the development of the mental powers and the enlightenment 



