PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



473 



Relative Purchasing Power of each Class over Commodities 

 whose Value is most closely approximated by the Proportion 

 of Labour-wages of each Class to the Average Composite 

 Labour-hour cost of all Productive Agencies, viz., lO.Gld. 



(A) Human Agents engaged in Production. 



Class I. — Unskilled workers 

 ,, II. — Skilled workers 

 ,, III. — Under middle class 

 „ IV. — Upper middle class 

 ,, V. — Class with incomes over £1,000 

 per annum 



Average of the five classes 



!From such illustrations it is clear that the actual cost or price 

 of any one commodity cannot be gauged or determined by the 

 average cost of any one of the numerous divisions of labour. 



As nearly all divisions are more or less employed in the various 

 processes of the production, modification, and transport of nearly 

 all commodities, and as the larger proportion of labour-hours 

 (91.14 per cent.) are expended in the work by the two lowest classes 

 of producers, it follows that these two classes alone are the chief 

 influences which determine the average cost of all productive 

 agencies per labour-hour (viz., 7.02d.). 



It is conclusive, therefore, that the unit, or average cost per 

 composite labour-hour (10.61d.), is the best measure of the pur- 

 chasing power over commodities, generally, by the different classes 

 of labour. 



In the differentiated condition of the modern system of orga- 

 nized labour, it is rarely the case that the primary raw material, 

 upon which the particular individual worker, or factory, is en- 

 gaged happens to pass directly in a finished condition to the con- 

 sumer. On the contrary, the raw material, in most cases, passes 

 through many hands and many stages of modification before it 

 attains to the completed condition of the consumer's marketable 

 commodity. If we try, for example, to trace the various elements 

 of labour-cost imposed upon the primary raw material (the seed of 

 wheat), prior to the sowing of the seed on the farm, and at the 

 principal stages up to that when it finally leaves the hands of the 

 baker and distributing shopkeeper in the form of 2-lb. loaves, we 

 would encounter much difficulty in determining the infinitesimal 

 increment-value at each of the minor successive and intervening 

 stages of the process, culminating in the completed form of the 



