94 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



would require, and therefore wages would not be 

 reduced by any shortage of land. Relieved of this 

 cause of depression, wages then would depend only 

 on the extent to which use was made of modern know- 

 ledge ; and as in these countries science is availed of 

 to the fullest extent, wages everywhere would be as 

 high as they are capable of being. 



As we saw, abundance of land coupled with a full 

 emplo^inent of science makes the wages on the land 

 the greatest possible ; and the high wages of the land 

 bring it about that the wages in other callings must 

 be correspondent for the requisite labour force to be 

 attracted. Owing to this cause the wages of manu- 

 facturing, building, transport and commerce in the 

 Dominions are so high. If therefore the exchanges 

 of the United Kingdom took place with the three 

 Dominions, and the four countries conducted their 

 affairs as a single self-sufficing country, then the wages 

 of the United Kingdom must equally rise to the height 

 of what they are in the three Dominions. 



The state of the people of this Kingdom stands as 

 follows : Wages are the extent of the living which 

 the wage-earner himself makes, and if those wages are 

 to be increased he must be put in a position to make 

 a larger living. This will follow not so much from 

 the enlargement of his productive power in the 

 manufactures — though these also play a considerable 

 part — but from the enlargement of his productive 

 power upon the land. His capacity for production in 

 the latter respect is seriously diminished by the 

 employment of inferior grades of land ; and if therefore 

 productive power upon the land is to be heightened 

 the inferior land must be abandoned in favour of land 

 of a higher quaHty. That there is no shortage in the 

 supply of superior land is certain. 



This land, however, is not in the keeping of the people 

 of the United Kingdom, but in that of the inhabitants 



