804 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



of two results. Part of the laborers may be without employment, and 

 thus constrained by exceptional pressure to remove themselves from 

 the overcrowded trade or locality. Or, the whole may find employ- 

 ment at wages reduced to the level of the marginal productivity of the 

 excessive supply. 



In what has preceded, reference has been made to the adjustment 

 of the supply of labor, as between different trades, by influences 

 affecting the choice of trades by young men just entering on life. A 

 few years may make a considerable difference in the supply even of 

 highly skilled labor, if strong inducements exist to select one branch 

 of work rather than another at the moment when choice is least 

 hampered. Later, a sacrifice of acquired skill must be made by a 

 workman who seeks to change his trade, and such changes are there- 

 fore hindered, quite apart from any customs, or union rules, requiring 

 definite apprenticeship, perhaps before a definite age. Though indi- 

 viduals be not free to choose from a wide range of employments, the 

 ability to chpose among a small number may have important effects 

 in changing the distribution of labor from one generation to the 

 next. 



The question of whether a given level of wages will suffice to 

 maintain the supply of labor introduces the consideration of the 

 standard of living among the recipients of the wages. What will 

 be the result if the remuneration of labor fall short of the amount 

 demanded by the standard of living ? This amount suffices to provide 

 the necessaries and comforts of life according to the habits prevalent 

 among the workers, and includes provision for the maintenance of a 

 family. The former is implied in the supposition that personal ability 

 to labor is maintained, for when expenditure is reduced, some reduc- 

 tion takes place, in practice, in the expenditure which contributes to 

 efficiency, as well as in that which has its chief object in affording 

 satisfactions secured for their own sake. What has become con- 

 ventionally necessary is yielded up with as great reluctance as what 

 is demanded for the satisfaction of primary needs. The inclusion of 

 provision for a family in the conception of the standard of living is 

 demanded by the consideration that we are examining the conditions 

 of existence of a class, not of individuals. That the class may be 

 maintained in undiminished numbers, provision must be made for 

 the rearing of children and their industrial training. Wages must, 

 in fact, cover the necessaries of the wage-earners and of the dependent 

 members of the class as well, those too young to earn, those engaged 



