104 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



says tliat Le cannot marry on 300. a year, although he knows 

 that a mechanic on 100L lives in real comfort, and brings up a 

 well-to-do family. Again, it is the young doctor's standard of 

 comfort which limits the number of the well-to-do class, and so 

 keeps up their pay. But, it may be said, if it is not the expense 

 of education which limits the number of doctors, why do not 

 the well-to-do of the lower class make their sons professional 

 men, and so lower the standard of refinement and culture ? They 

 actually do so to a limited extent, but no sooner has the lad 

 received the professional education, and learnt the wants of 

 the new and higher class, than he adopts these ; and while his 

 father married on 100L a year, he refuses to be contented with 

 less than 500Z. 



Now, there is nothing which so much helps a man to keep 

 up the standard of his desires as the possession of some wealth. 

 A man who has something can hold out. If he cannot enjoy 

 large profits he can enjoy idleness ; but the pauper must work 

 or starve. Thus those who have money make the larger incomes, 

 and the poor in a profession make small profits. Money makes 

 money, because money produces a high standard of ease. Trade- 

 unions are one of the most powerful agents for raising wages, 

 because they enable the community of workmen to acquire 

 wealth. They are more powerful than savings-banks or building- 

 societies, by which individuals obtain reserve funds. The in- 

 dividual workman knows that his reserve fund will be nearly 

 useless unless his neighbour has a reserve fund also. If each 

 workman in a strike trusted to his own funds only, the poorer 

 ones must give in first ; and these would secure work while the 

 richer, after spending a part of their reserve, would find them- 

 selves supplanted by the poorer competitors, and the sacrifice 

 made uselessly. A combined reserve fund gives great power by 

 insuring that all suffer alike. The trade-union, therefore, has 

 a permanent action in raising wages, because it enables men to 

 accumulate a common fund, with which they can sustain their 

 resolution not to work unless they obtain such pay as will give 

 increased comfort. The common reserve fund plays just the 

 same part in raising their wages, as is played by the small pa- 

 trimony or sustenance given by a doctor to his son, which enables 



