WAGES 49 



That the high wages of skilled and manufacturing 

 trades overseas are due to the high wages of agricultural 

 employments seems to be deducible also from the 

 workings of the fiscal policies which those nations have 

 adopted. Before the adoption of protection the manu- 

 factures of the New Worlds did not flourish. The 

 workmen though no better than those of Europe were 

 disinclined to accept the European scale of wages, while 

 the masters in the face of European competition could 

 not pay more. Consequently the labour was not forth- 

 coming in sufficient numbers and the manufactures 

 languished. Skilled men preferred local trades, such 

 as building and transport, in which they were not 

 subject to foreign competition and could demand wages 

 commensurate with those of the land labourer. How- 

 ever, with protection from the competition of foreign 

 manufactures the workmen in the manufactures were 

 enabled to demand, and the employers to pay, wages 

 which corresponded to those of the rest of the labour of 

 the country. Thereupon manufacturing labour was 

 forthcoming in sufficient numbers, and in this way there 

 was built up those flourishing manufactures paying high 

 wages which exist in the United States, Canada, and 

 Australia. In this case it seems certain that the re- 

 muneration of the manufacturing trades is graded from 

 that paid in agriculture. 



If plenty of land and high agricultural wages lead to 

 high wages in the manufactures it should also be true 

 that in countries of land shortage with low agricultural 

 wages the skilled workmen are obliged to accept low 

 wages. That the case is so in fact is indicated by the 

 figures of pay of the agricultural and non-agricultural 

 classes of the United Kingdom, Germany, and France 

 exhibited in Table No. XI, and since the skilled 

 workmen of Europe are none other than the same as 

 those overseas, there would seem to be no way of 



