130 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



The fact that one article at 35s. may really be underselling 

 an inferior article which is offered at 30s. is true, and in this 

 sense competition between different qualities helps to determine 

 prices, but not otherwise. It is the underselling which is the 

 point, and workmen think this inadmissible. 



Much might be written as to the propriety of the feeling 

 which is finding an expression in the law restricting the im- 

 migration of Chinese labour to Queensland, but the considera- 

 tion of this would lead us far afield into the question of what 

 ultimately determines wages and prices in general over a long 

 period, whereas, in this article, the one question for consideration 

 is how the market price of goods at any one time and place is 

 actually discovered. We see that underselling and outbidding 

 are essential to the process, that these methods are practised 

 with material goods, because there is no idea of pride or disgrace 

 attached to the labour obtained, but that with labour these pro- 

 cesses are opposed by very strong human feelings men's pride 

 will not let them work along with an equal but at lower wages ; 

 men's generosity will not let them try to turn an equal out of 

 his place by offering to work for less than he is getting : outbid- 

 ding by masters is prevented by the feeling of common interest 

 amongst employers and by the fact that it cannot be done 

 gradually and tentatively for a few hands, but must be done 

 suddenly for all the men they employ. If these facts were once 

 understood there would be some hope that a remedy might be 

 found. 



The remedies hitherto proposed do not meet the case. 

 Courts of arbitration are merely a device, useful enough in its 

 way, for allowing disputing parties to give way with a better 

 grace, but would be as ridiculous when applied to settle wages 

 permanently, as a committee would be, employed weekly to 

 decide the price of corn after hearing arguments from counsel 

 employed by importers and purchasers. Sliding scales by which 

 an agreement is made that wages shall bear some relation to the 

 price obtained for the manufactured article, may in some cases 

 be convenient and serve to render men contented when prices 

 are rising ; but they afford no solution of the general problem. 

 The workmen if discontented can as easily ask that the whole 

 scale should be raised, as that a single rate should be altered. 



