WAGES 37 



for instance, emigrate to America and Australasia they 

 perform the same work and receive the same wages as 

 the other labour of the country. It is therefore no 

 inferiority but the extreme descent of cultivation that 

 obliges them in their own countries to be satisfied with 

 the meagrest of wages. 



The state of Europe was formerly no better than 

 that of Asia, and that state might have endured to the 

 present day. But with the modern era there set in 

 those great improvements in the power of labour and 

 in the capacity of land —the fruits of science. The 

 shortage of land has been mitigated by bringing in 

 more land, and yet without any descent of cultivation, 

 for although more of the surface has been brought into 

 use its cultivability has been raised by science, and, 

 on the whole, the descent of agriculture is not so great 

 as it formerly was. Thus a larger population is better 

 fed from the same territory' that before ill supported 

 a much smaller number. The condition of the people 

 of Europe would have been still more improved had 

 their increase of population been not so great or the 

 advance of science been greater still. Their future 

 state will depend upon the respective rates of increase 

 of population and knowledge. At present the ratio 

 between the three determining factors — land, popu- 

 lation, and science — is such that it enables them to 

 obtain a living just the half of what they might get if 

 the controlling conditions were in a proper equipoise. 



To sum up, human well-being may be stated to be 

 determinable by human knowledge ; the ingredients 

 for food being practically infinite, the extent of living 

 must ultimately depend upon our capacity for turning 

 them to account. The method at present in use, 

 however, is able to take and convert but an insignifi- 

 cant part of the infinite material which surrounds us, 

 and it is employable only under the sufficient rays of 

 the sun, and on certain parts of the earth's surface. 



