POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



309 





nmtton as it does to get a pound of wheat. And the Mme 

 rule hold* good in the value of snob services M a man 

 another man. The reason, in general, why, if we assume that 

 a physician on an average got* .800 a year for his services, 

 :ui'l .in .!!!!. --'irivor gets .100, this different value is assigned ' 

 rvicos lies in the fact that on an average it 

 costs eight times M much to make a physician fit for his work, 

 as it does to make an engine-driver competent to perform his. 

 i* a rule of general application, the exceptions to 

 wliii-h viitu:illy prove it, because the reason why they are ex- 

 :n is plainly apparent, that in all objects in demand the 

 value of the article is relative to the cost of producing it ; or, in 

 other words, that value is tho result of labour ; and assuming that 

 all labour is exercised with equal intelligence and precision, 

 that ditr.T.'iice of value in different objects is due to the com- 

 punitive amount of labour condensed in them. 



It will, however, be convenient to explain the exceptions to 

 tliis rule, and at this place. Two things are requisite before 

 value can be assigned to any object or service. The object 

 or service must be required, or demanded, or needed, those 

 who wish to have it being willing to give, or, in technical 

 language, to exchange something for it, since a mere wish to 

 have a thing, apart from some power of acquiring it or buying 

 it, is no basis for such a transaction as Political Economy 

 recognises. Next, there must be labour exercised on the object 

 <>r srrvico, for no one will give what he has worked for in order 

 to obtain that which comes spontaneously and immediately 

 in his way for his use. The cause which raises or lowers the 

 demand is the difficulty or ease of acquisition ; the cause which 

 increases' or diminishes labour is the greater or less cost of 

 producing tho article or service. 



In June, 1870, a very eminent novelist, who was, moreover, 

 in consequence of certain personal qualities, apart from his 

 genius, very popular, died suddenly. Ho had ordered by his 

 will that all his effects should be sold within a month of his 

 decease. This author had many affectionate friends, and a 

 still greater number of fervent admirers, all of whom were 

 anxious to possess some souvenir of his memory. The number 

 of such memorials was far less than the number of those who 

 were ready to compete, by purchase, for these mementoes. In 

 economical language, the demand was excessively keen, and 

 the prices fetched at the sale were out of all proportion to the 

 cost of producing the articles sold, or their equivalents. Here 

 we have an example of the circumstances under which an 

 exceptional demand completely alters the ordinary conditions 

 of value, in which the cost of acquisition entirely obscures the 

 cost of production. 



Let us take another instance. A town is besieged by an 

 enemy. The garrison is provided with food, but the inhabi- 

 tants have to purchase what they may need from those who 

 possess stores of provisions. If one person possessed all tho 

 provisions, he might exact whatever price he liked from those 

 who needed them. He will not be willing, indeed, to raise the 

 price so high as to take it entirely out of the reach of those who 

 could buy, else his customers would starve ; but in case the 

 inhabitants did not constrain him to surrender his provisions to 

 a common stock, he might exact any price he pleased short of 

 that which the people were wholly unable to pay. Here, again, 

 the urgency of demand, or the difficulty of acquisition, takes 

 the article wholly out of the range of those, the value of which 

 is determined by the cost of producing them. In a minor 

 degree, but still notably, the same facts apply to a scanty or 

 unfavourable harvest, the quantity of which cannot be supple- 

 mented from hoarded or foreign stocks. 



Here, then, are two examples illustrating the fact, that when 

 the demand for any article is urgent, and the supply cannot be 

 increased at all, or when it can be increased only with great 

 difficulty, the price will be wholly disproportionate to the cost 

 of producing the article, and be measured only by tho cost of 

 procuring it ; and this applies to services also. If the law did 

 not tie them down to a uniform tariff, cab-drivers might exact 

 triple fares during a thunder-storm, or when there is any other 

 exceptional demand for their services. Physicians might do the 

 same in a time of great sickness or mortality. Such prices are 

 exacted by inn-keepers and lodging-house keepers when there 

 is a sudden or urgent demand for accommodation in some 

 :lar place. The same fact accounts for the high prices 

 occasionally paid for a seat commanding any view of a proces- 



r spectacle which excite* great public lateral 

 The price which people generally pay has been called by 

 economists the natural price, that which is exalted or de- 

 pressed by circumstance* in known a* the market price ; and 

 it may be said that in the long run. and upon an average, the 

 market and natural price coincide, the average of the former 

 being tho amount of the hitter. 



My readers will remember that I have stated above, that 

 what is true of the products of labour is true of labour itself. 

 The wages of labour correspond to the coat of producing the 

 labourer, and making him fit for the function which he fulfils. 

 If the cost is high, the labour is highly paid. If the la 

 supplied after little outlay on the part of the labourer, the 

 labour will be remunerated at low rates. A short analysis of 

 the remuneration of labour, which is called wages, will make 

 this clear. 



In the first place, then, a man's wages must include as a 

 necessary item the cost of his maintenance. A man must live, 

 i.e., eat, drink, be clothed, and be sheltered from the weather in 

 order to work, just as a horse must, just as a steam-engine must 

 be supplied with coals. Nay, physiologists tell us that the 

 energies of life are the slow combustion of food, just as the 

 activity of a steam-engine is due to the rapid combustion of 

 fuel. The supply of necessaries to a labourer is therefore an 

 antecedent condition of labour ; a competent supply is a con- 

 dition of efficient labour. The work of an ill-fed labourer is as 

 costly as the work of an ill-fed horse. Low wages do not mean 

 cheap labour, nor do high wages, for the matter of that, repre- 

 sent dear labour. 



A labourer sometimes receives nothing but the bare neces- 

 saries of life, in the form of a meagre and miserable diet. He 

 gets no more when he is a slave. We have no slaves in England. 

 Ho gets or, rather, she gets no more when plying a needle 

 for a bare subsistence, for, owing to the very scanty number of 

 employments open to women, the condition of many among 

 those who work for their living is, as far as the means of sub- 

 sistence go, individually inferior to that of slaves. 



But it is plain that if the mass of labourers gained nothing 

 but that subsistence which is absolutely necessary in order that 

 they may continue their work, society, as far as they are con- 

 cerned, must cease to exist within a generation. They must 

 earn enough to support those who are to fill their places during 

 such time as these successors are unable to contribute anything 

 to the common stock. The wages of labour must be sufficient 

 for the maintenance and education of children ; and, further- 

 more, in order to keep the existing stock of labour in effective 

 condition, and to save certain instincts of humanity, the wages 

 must suffice to cover the risks of sickness, and to make pro- 

 vision against the evem; of that incapacity which attends old age. 

 Wages, then, must cover the cost of maintenance, both of the 

 labourer and of his children, and must ensure him against sick- 

 ness and old age. If wages are of such an amount that they 

 rise and fall with the price of food, we may be sure that they 

 are generally no more than is necessary to supply these three 

 reauisites, and that it is probable that they are insufficient to 

 supply even what is requisite, but must be supplemented from 

 some other source. 



In England they are supplemented from Poor-Law relief. 

 The English law recognises the claims of destitution on the 

 resources of those who are able to spare from their funds. Such 

 a system is a gain to humanity, since it inculcates the duty of a 

 moral obligation to relieve distress. But it no doubt tends to 

 lower wages, by obviating the necessity of making provision 

 against contingencies, and by continually supplying a number 

 of labourers who compete for wages with other labourers, but 

 who have been brought up at the public charge, and who, there 

 fore, by reducing the total amount expended in supplying com- 

 mon labour, lower the compensation paid to labourers, and 

 which is paid in accordance with the rule given above ; that the 

 wages of labour are on the whole, or on an average, propor- 

 tionate to the cost of supplying the labour in question. 



I have taken the case of such labour as that the wages of 

 which are supplemented by the charity of the Poor Law. 

 Exactly the same rule holds good in the case of those whose 

 education in the sense of the instruction which fits people 

 for employment or wages has been supplemented by endow- 

 ments. If any profession is assisted on so large a scale by pe-- 

 manent endowments, that the cost cf learning the profession is 



