WAGES, CAPITAL AXD RICH MEN. 789 



the same. When this is the case, there are three parties having dis- 

 tinct interests. The owner of capital must have " use " ; the borrower 

 of capital and employer of labor must have " profits " ; and the laborer 

 must have " wages." But it will answer all the purposes of this state- 

 ment in this connection to assume that the owner and user of capital 

 are one, and that the contest is between him and the laborer. 



Laborers in the several departments of industry are as much com- 

 petitors with one another as with other classes of society, and in some 

 respects even more so. In connection with the class-feeling, which is 

 apt to be engendered among the laborers of a particular department 

 of industry, they come to regard the desired increase of their wages as 

 the one thing needful for the prosperity and happiness of mankind. 

 Allow that the additional wages are secured ; then, with what result ? 

 Labor is a large item in production, and, when it is made more expen- 

 sive, the cost of production is increased. This may or may not add to 

 the commercial price of the product : if it does, the additional price 

 must be paid by all who purchase for consumption ; and, as about three 

 fourths of all consumers in the civilized world are working-men de- 

 pendent on their wages, they are now worse off than before, being 

 taxed to better the condition of the favored few. 



"That is not the intention," retorts Reformer; "we mean that the 

 articles so produced shall be kept at their former price by reducing the 

 profits of the employer." A good idea, which should teach modesty 

 to the " money power " ; but it has this drawback, namely, that, if 

 capital in this particular industry is thus compelled to accept consider- 

 ably less return than capital employed in other industries, it will desert 

 this field of operations for some other which pays better, and the 

 laborers who have their wages thus arbitrarily raised will reap the 

 penalty for their ignorance of economical laws by finding themselves 

 out of employment, or working on short time. Capital and enterprise 

 could, under such circumstances, be retained in the business at all only 

 by an increase in the price of the product through reduced production, 

 increased demand, or other means, so as to pay both the increase of 

 wages and the usual interest of capital and profit to management. 



Reformer answers : " Such gain at the laborers' expense is precise- 

 ly what galls ; there is quite too much of it ; and it should be restricted 

 by public sentiment taking the form of law." Beware, my dear sir ; 

 that is just the way the other side used to do ! Within the present 

 century, even England has had laws on her statute-books restricting 

 the freedom of laborers as laborers in the most arbitrary manner, be- 

 cause it was assumed that only employers understood the proper thing 

 to have done, and they made the laws. This was a survival of barba- 

 rism in the interest of employers, and it can hardly be revived at this 

 late day in the interest of employes. There may, indeed, be certain 

 forms of restriction imposed on employers for the protection of labor- 

 ers ; as, for example, in relation to the unhealthy condition of shops. 



