ON SLIDING SCALES AND ECONOMIC THEORY. 535 



relative values of the precious metals ; ' that the adjustment of wages to 

 lower gold prices would have taken place automatically, and that we should 

 not now be hearing of supposed or real bounties to Indian spinners and 

 manufacturers of cotton and growers and sellers of wheat. 



And this leads me to consider one general point in conclusion. The 

 sliding scale is indeed in its infancy, and only affects a minority of work- 

 men. It has been applied with success to those industries alone where it 

 can be applied with the least complexity ; and the fact that it has not been 

 recognised, save in a very partial manner, in the cotton trade — and yet 

 the regulation of wages by lists in that trade is, as any student of the 

 exhaustive report submitted to this Section last year will admit, by 

 no means free from complexity — ought to render us very chary in ven- 

 turing upon any rash prophecy of its more extended adoption. It may, 

 however, and I think that it will, be extended in the future ; but, even as 

 it is, it may perhaps be regarded as significant of wider and more im- 

 portant changes. It is based, as we have seen, on combinations, and the 

 action of combinations, as we have also seen, undoubtedly exercises an in. 

 fluence on the competitive market. Is it then quite fanciful to regard 

 the adoption of the sliding scale as part of a growing collectivist tendency 

 in economic society ? 



And here we must be careful to avoid over- and under-statement alike. 

 We must remember, on the one hand, how large is the sphere occupied 

 by competition in the construction and the operat:on of a scale ; and, on 

 the other, we must not minimise the significance of the fact that two 

 powerful combinations meet one another and agree on a joint policy. I 

 am not one of those who think that society will ever be organised on one 

 comprehensive plan. I do not believe in the dull and stagnant uniformity 

 of one unvarying method of production universally prevalent. As in the 

 past so in the future there will, I think, be almost multitudinous variety. 

 But I do believe that there is more than one sign — and that among these 

 we may include the regulation of wages by sliding scales— that the ex- 

 treme individualism which has been attributed, not without exaggeration, 

 to the economic organisation of the early part of this century is givino- 

 way, here a little and there a little, to collectivist mflaences. I do b^ 

 lieve that methods of collective action, be it that of the State, be it that 

 of private corporations and associations and combinations, may occupy a 

 larger and a more explicitly recognised place in the future economy of 

 society than they have done in the immediate past. 



1 am not afraid of this tendency, because I think that its enemies and 

 its advocates alike have exaggerated its proportions and projects. It 

 will not, I believe, any more than the sliding scale has done, emancipate 

 itself from competition, but it will utilise and modify it. It will not, any 

 more than the sliding scale, overthrow economic theory, but it may 

 supplement it and correct it ; and economists, whether historical or de- 

 ductive, will, I believe, devote as much and as fruitful patience and 

 acumen to the study and analysis of society as it is influenced perhaps in 

 a larger degree by this collectivist tendency, as they have done to society 

 as it was influenced perhaps in a larger degree by the individualist ten. 

 dency. They will be ready to correct their theory by the study of facts, 

 and to assist their study of facts by the help of theory, as the best repre- 

 sentatives of either school have done, if not explicitly, at least implicitly, 

 in the past. 



