4:79 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



will furnish all those whose cost of living is less, with a mar- 

 gin proportionate to the difference which may be saved or 

 spent in what to them are luxuries." . . . . " Thus through 

 the law of price uniformity, by which the cost of producing 

 the most expensive portion determines the general price of 

 the commodity in that market, the minimum amount upon 

 which the most expensive labourers in any class or industry 

 will consent to live and continue to work determines the 

 rate of wages in that class." 



Mr. Gunton briefly summarizes his views as follows: — "To 

 recapitulate them: (1) Wages are the price of labour. (2) The 

 price of labour is governed by (moves toward) the cost of its pro- 

 duction, i.e., the cost of producing the most expensive of the 

 necessary supply. (3) The cost of producing labour is determined 

 by the standard of living of the family. (4) The standard of 

 living is determined by the habitual wants and customs, or the 

 social character of the people." 



If we accept these premises it will, of course, follow that wages 

 will ever be highest where the socially established standard of 

 living among labourers is the most complex and expensive; and, 

 conversely, they will be the lowest where the standard of living 

 is the most simple and inexpensive; and this precisely is what 

 we fiad the world over. A comparison of the conditions of the 

 Asiatic and European labourer is alone necessary to establish the 

 truth of these generalizations. 



The Inequalities of Different Wage-earner's " Purchasing 



Power." 



The preceding observations and illustrations are intended to 

 demonstrate that the price or value of commodities, or the pro- 

 ducts of local labour, is mainly determined by the cost of local 

 labour and its allied auxiliary forces; and that the aggregate cost 

 of the latter is equivalent to the aggregate value of all commodities 

 and services, the product of such labour, and its allied auxiliary 

 forces. It does not follow, however, that the same quantity of 

 labour, i.e., labour-hours of the many different classes and sub- 

 divisions of existing organized labour forces, exert an equal pur- 

 chasing power over tlie various commodities, even when produced 

 locally. This, as formerly explained, is mainly owing to the 

 extreme variation in the standard rates of local wages, not only 

 in the many distinct classes of occupations generally, but also in 

 the very different remuneration paid to different individuals in 

 exactly the same trade. Among the causes of difference in the 

 rates of pay within the same trade and in the same place may be 

 cited difference of sex, skill, youth, apprenticeship; also conditions 

 of locality, as in urban and rural centres respectively. 



