133 

 20 



If we fail to do bo there will certainly 

 be introduced a tendency to lower the 

 quality and effectiveness of all human 

 eff'ort engaged in the necessary work of 

 production, and, in time, would result in 

 a lower average level of production than 

 is now enjojed by the average of the 

 lowest level of the existing social organi- 

 sation. 



With these general observations in 

 view let us examine, as closely as we are 

 able, the actual measure of production 

 available for distribution in the Australian 

 Commonwealth in the year 1903, and 

 the mode and measure in which it has 

 been distributed among the various classes 

 of breadwinners— rich and poor, capitalist 

 and wage-earner : 



For the Commonwealth of Australia for 

 the year 1903 there were actually en- 

 gaged in the work of production and other 

 requisite social services of a personal 

 kind : — 



(1) Auxiliary fixed instruments, etc., 

 having economically an effective capital 

 value of £912 millions and an annual 

 values of £45 60 millions. 



(2) Skilled industrial chiefs : techni- 

 cally trained professional men, artisans, 

 etc., and common labor, embracing 

 1,709,000 breadwinners, representing the 

 total population, whose capital value in 

 the work of production is estimated at 

 £3706 millions, with an annual produc- 

 tive value of £185*34 millions. 



Rail} labor, minus directing mind and 

 trained technical skill, ma> be considered 

 as on a plane with the useful effective 

 force of the myriad physical forces incor- 

 porated at the present day in the various 

 auxiliary instruments the fruit of many 

 inventive minds, so far as they are con- 

 cerned as effective agents towards the 

 necessary aggregate of production. But 

 it must be borne in mind that those im- 

 portant auxiliary instruments, alone, at 

 least contribute fully two-thirds of all 

 mere physical force or energy towards the 

 necessary production and services of 

 society. Whec, on the basis of average 

 labor time energy, on the Karl Marx 

 theory of distribution, it is asked : Does 

 the average human instrument of 

 physical labor receive anything like 

 his fair share of the year's production 

 of commodities and services ? the reply 

 according to statistics of distribution is 

 hat not only does" the actual laborer of 



the year, as such, receive his fair reward 

 for his proportion of physical effort 

 expended in the work of production, but 

 owing to the natural limitations to powers 

 of consumptien of both capitalists and the 

 auxiliary instruments owned by them, 

 the reward of labor, as a whole, in pro- 

 portion to mere physical effort expended, 

 is enhanced by more than 100 per cent. 



It ig manifest, notwithstanding these 

 considerations, that the total productions 

 and services of the the Australian Com- 

 monwealth in the year 1903, representing 

 in money £158,340,000, have not beea 

 equally distributed. Upon the whole 

 the aggregate of £185,340,000 represents 

 a sum of 6s lid per breadwinner, and 

 was approximately appropriated as fol- 

 lows : — 



DISTRIBUTION OF CONSUMABLE WEALTH. 

 THE PRODUCIS OF THE YEAR 1903 IN 

 AUSTRALIA. 



(Total products and services 

 £185,340,000. Per breadwinner per 



WORKING DAY, 6s 11d.) 



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