TllANS ACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



829 



iiiioncari'ies to the capitali.st a constantly diminisliing ratio of profit from each 

 wear's product, and to the labourer a constantly increasiii",' share. This rule was 

 iMinmlated ty Biistiat many years ago in the following terms: 'In proportion 

 .;,tlie increase of capital, (he absolute share of product falling to capital may be- 

 iiirmented, but the relative share is diniini.-hed, wliile, on the other hand, the share 

 ,1'the labourer is increased b(jth absolutely and relatively.' All the facts which I 

 hvebeen able to consider sustain the rule. The recent investigation made in 

 lifrland by Robert Gillen, of which I was informed about a year ago on my visit 

 M that country, disclose the same sequences of diminishing rates of proht and 

 i:;creasing rates of wages, accompanied by increased jiurchasing power for every 

 lit of wages, for the last fifty years of English history. 



If, then, our national wealth has increased ^l,")dO,OC;>,000 a year for twenty 

 rai'9. including the rise in the value of land, what does it come to by the unit of the 

 niiiividual ? One-lialf at least is the increased value of land, the other half 

 (insists in added wealth, or ^7o(),000,()0() a year ; but this great sum if equally 

 i!'..tributed would give less than iSl'O fi year to each persou. What proportion of 

 I't' people of this country have saved $'2i) each year, or $(j{) a year to each work- 

 man for twenty years ? The average tax upon each person — combining national, 

 .:ate, and municipal taxation — has been very nearly, if not quite, ,^20 per liead. 



What proportion of this tax does each man, woman, and child contribute ? 

 Have these taxes been paid by the same persons who have received the wealth 'i 

 These are grave questions which working men and women may fairly ask-. The 

 fjjfstion which each man who earns his daily bread by means of his daily work 

 Lteds to have answered more than any other is this — ' How soon and in what 

 nyain I to be relieved of the heavy, and in a large measure nseless, burthen of 

 tixation which finds me poor, keeps me poor, and leaves me poor ; which takes 

 frum me all hope of saving, and deprives me of a part of the comforts and even of 

 iht" necessaries of life ? ' 



There is no mercy in these statistics. By so much as some working men and 

 women earn more than ,^400 a year must some other working men and women 

 ram less, if that is the measure of all there is ; and on what each ;^400 will buy 

 iliree persons must be sustained (to be exact, 29-lOths). Shelter, subsistence, and 

 (lothing for each person must be provided out of what £140 a year, or forty cents 

 [•V day, will pay for. It is appalling, but it is true. In order to increase this 

 liite but 5 cents a day at the present time, one thousand million dollars' worth 

 "f increased product must be made, and a market must be found for the increase. 



Such a sum is twice the value of our wheat crop, ten times the value of our 

 production of pig iron or of our wool clip, three times the value of our cotton crop,. 

 rearly twice the value of all our textile fabrics. To put it another way : in order 

 tiiat each wage-earner may get 15 cents a day higher wages, and that each person 

 may have for consumption what 5 cents a day more will buy, more than he haa 

 i.uw— we must add to our present product the equivalent of our present wheat 

 fwp, of our production of pig iron, and the value of all our textiles — a sum-total 

 of SI ,050,000,000. Ten hundred and fifty million dollars a year will give 5 cents 

 a (lay to 58,000,000 persons, and no more. 



Yet at this rate of 40 cents a day on the average, the people of the United 

 States are the most prosperous in the world, because 40 cents a day will buy more 

 ilian it will in any other country. 



It is inequality in the wages of those who do the work of the world which calls 

 Crthe attention both of the student and of the statesman, and inequality in what 

 tlie wages will buy. AVholesale work, as it may be called, both in production and 

 feribution, is done at the smallest fraction of charge — at low-labour cost, but at 

 lii?h rates of wages to skilled workmen. I. is the common labourer who suffer* 

 wost, and it is retail distribution on which the highest charge is suffered. 



(?e3 Tables on following pages.) 



of compe- 



