828 report — 1884. 



of all that is produced, then all contention between labour and capital may well be 

 laid aside. It is, of course, a matter of immense difficulty to make such compu- 

 tation. By various ways, each proving the other, which cannot be stated in the 

 space at his disposal, the author thinks it may be cousidered substantially 

 proved that the value of the annual product of the census year was the maximum 

 #10,000,000,000. In this computation, #1,000,000,000 is included as the value of 

 the domestic consumption on farms by farmers and labourers which never enters 

 into the commercial statements, #9,000,000,000 representing that part of the 

 product which was bought, sold, and distributed. Five per cent., or #450,000,000, 

 is set aside from this sum to represent the profits of capitalists as a distinct class. 

 We will set aside #450,000,000 as the maximum estimate of the small savings of 

 industrious people, making a total set aside for the maintenance and increase of 

 the capital of the United States of #900,000,000. He has assumed 10 per cent, of 

 a commercial product of #9,000,000,000 as the maximum national profit which 

 «an be set aside for the maintenance or increase of capital. In the census year 

 this would have been substantially at the rate of #18 per head of the population. 

 If we apply this computation to the average population of the last thirty years, 

 no sum of accumulated capital can be found in the United States corresponding to 

 #18 per head. It is a maximum estimate rather than a minimum. The remainder 

 constitutes the earnings of all who are engaged in gainful occupations, amounting 

 to #3,100,000,000. 



Now comes the main difficulty of ascertaining bow the sum was subdivided. By 

 various methods the author has reached the conclusion that the average of each person 

 ■engaged in the mental or administrative part of the work would amount to between 

 #1,000 and #1,100, and that the next remainder to be sub-divided among artisans, 

 mechanics, farm-labourers, domestic servants and the like would yield to each 

 from #400 to #450. Having come to this conclusion by way of an estimate of the 

 value of the total product, the proof in detail became necessary. The first standard 

 is taken from the railroad. In the year 1880, one man out of every ten employed 

 iti any kind of gainful occupation aside from agriculture was employed in the 

 •construction or operation of a railroad. In the operation of a railroad every class 

 is represented. The returns of a railroad are absolute, being taken from the books 

 of the last previous financial year. From these returns it appears that 418,957 

 men were employed upon the railroads of the United States in their operation, not 

 including construction. The sum of their wages was #195,350,000, averaging to 

 eacli person for the year #466. On subdividing this, it appeared that all those 

 who were engaged in the administration, or as general officers and clerks, earned 

 #1,015 each, and that those who were engaged in the executive work, being 95 

 per cent, of the total number, earned #450 each. It will be borne in mind that 

 these are men, and that in the remainder of the gainful occupations the earnings of 

 two and one-half millions of women and children are included at less rates than 

 the rates earned by men. By setting aside #1,050 to each person of the 1,050,000 

 engaged in the general work of administration, there remains for the rest, number- 

 ing 16,200,000, the sum of #7,000,000,000 to be divided, which gives each one 

 #4.°>2. The total of all national, state, and town taxation was over #700,000,000 

 in 1880, or 8 per cent, on the commercial products. Deduct in pi-oportion, and 

 the net income of each workman is #400. Each one of these persons to whom 

 #400 a year is assigned on the average as the rate of his earnings sustains sub- 

 stantially two others. It therefore follows that if these wages are high as com- 

 pared with other countries, as they are, or low as compared with what it would 

 be desirable they should be, they yet represent all there is produced that can be 

 distributed among those who do the work. They represent an increasing share of 

 an increasing product which, under the law I have propounded, constantly falls to 

 the labourer as years go on. This average is fully sustained by all the special 

 reports of the census of the United States in which the wages or earnings of 

 persons employed in all the different arts and manufactures are given, after adding 

 to the apparent sums disclosed by the census such sum as seems fit in each case 

 •to carry the term of the census employment up to that of a full year. 



What the author has undertaken to prove, therefore, is that the law of compe- 



