56 THE EMPLOYMENT OF CAPITAL 



not only the crops he helped to cultivate, but 

 the results obtained partly by his own efforts. 

 But though the merit of work done must always 

 very greatly depend on the workman's interest 

 in what he does, to none of these men — the 

 artisan, the bricklayer, the farm-labourer — is 

 that interest made the one important matter. 

 The amount of wages received is a thing of 

 much greater importance. 



The employer pays a certain amount of wages 

 for work done, and after those wages are paid 

 he is not further greatly interested in the men 

 to whom he paid them. Yet these men differ 

 immeasurably among themselves, as men do 

 everywhere. What would mean starvation to 

 an Englishman is superfluity to a Chinaman; a 

 weekly sum that would place one English family 

 in comfortable circumstances would leave another 

 partly starving. An employer of a large number 

 of hands does not know which of his workmen 

 have the biggest appetites, which have the largest 

 families, which have the worst managing wives. 

 He simply pays the same amount of money for 

 the same amount of work of the same kind. 

 The man who receives wages sufficient to enable 

 him to obtain for himself and his family enough 

 food, clothing, and shelter; to layby in some form 

 or other a reserve against illness ; to keep his 

 mind free from anxiety, and suitably occupied 

 during his leisure — such a man has an induce- 

 ment to be steady in conduct, and industrious 

 while at work, even though he lacks the supreme 

 interest not due to wages. A man who has only 



