300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



prices for a particular product has led to the discovery of means 

 whereby another product can be used in its stead, whereby the 

 manufacturers of the original product have been compelled either 

 to reduce their prices or retire from, the field. 



Competition, before reaching the point where the leaders in a 

 particular industry are forced into final combination, tends to 

 lower the wages of laborers in that industry ; for, as it is to the 

 interest of the consumer to procure that which he needs at the 

 lowest cost, his efforts to buy cheaper tend to force the cost of 

 production to the lowest notch. When this pressure for low 

 prices is such that it can not be met by the saving in production 

 gained by the use of economical methods and improved appliances, 

 attack is necessarily made upon the wages of the workmen. Like- 

 wise the efforts of the salesmen of a particular product to extend 

 its market in competition with other producers, force the lowest 

 cost of production with like results upon the wages of the work- 

 ingman. After competition has forced the final combination, the 

 wages of workingmen in but few instances have voluntarily been 

 increased, and sometimes they have been reduced. Those in con- 

 trol of the capital, desiring to recoup for past losses and to secure 

 the greatest returns for the future, still find it to their interest 

 to keep down the cost of production. From this has arisen the 

 cry that a main purpose of industrial aggregation is to crush the 

 workingmen. To retain their employees, however, even great 

 combinations are usually obliged to pay wages not less than can 

 be obtained in other fields. Such combinations must be managed 

 by men of the first ability, whose services can not be secured 

 except for high remuneration. To the efficiency of their work is 

 necessary the careful training of a corps of subordinates to whom 

 it is to the interest of the corporation to give adequate remuner- 

 ation and certain tenure of position so long as they remain com- 

 petent. And even to laborers of the lowest grades these corpora- 

 tions must pay a rate of wages established by supply and demand. 

 It is shown by statistics that the rate of wages during the past 

 fifty years has steadily increased, in all except the vocations that 

 are being supplanted and are dying out. The rate of wages is a 

 matter, however, in which self-interest on either side is the prin- 

 cipal factor, and, whether forced by competition or actuated 

 entirely by selfishness, employers, as a rule, have not at any time 

 extended any greater compensation to their employees than they 

 have been obliged to. But in opposition to the tendency to force 

 wages down there have also grown combinations, the labor organ- 

 izations. These are trusts, in that the laborers in a certain field of 

 industry place the care of their collective interests as a trust in the 

 hands of the officers thereof. The theoretical justification for the 

 existence of labor organizations is, therefore, the same as the 



