478 REPORT—1890. 
(2) Combination may be resorted to by labour as a method of preyent- 
ing outside labour from coming into an industry. For instance, the 
number of labourers may be restricted by rules regarding apprentices. 
The Trade Union rule that Unionists will not work with non-Unionists 
has sometimes a similar effect; though this difficulty may be avoided 
by providing different workrooms for the two classes of workers. To 
the extent that combination enables producers to control the produc- 
tion of a given article to that extent, a trade may escape sharing in a loss 
due to a reduction of hours in other trades. Combination amongst 
capitalists falls under the head of monopolies, but there might be an 
agreement amongst employers not to employ men hoiding particular 
religious or political views or men belonging to trade unions. 
(3) Hitherto the methods of paying wages have not been taken into 
account. As a rule wages in the skilled trades are paid by piecework ; 
the spinner and the weaver receive a certain rate of wages for every 
yard they spin or weave respectively; the miner is paid by the ton, and 
the bricklayer by the yard. In other trades wages are paid by the hour, 
whilst in the unskilled industries wages are paid by the day of a varying 
number of hours. A reduction of hours where piecework prevails 
would not ipso facto affect the ‘rate’ of wages, but would lessen the 
‘amount’ of wages, inasmuch as a fewer number of yards would be 
woven and a fewer number of tons obtained in the shorter hours. The 
wages earned in a year would be reduced in proportion to the reduction 
in hours. But this would not leave the capitalist in the same position as 
before, as he would have a smaller gross return on the same amount of 
fixed capital; and if he has only been receiving an economic return before, 
a reduction in the ‘rate’ of wages may be required to prevent a migra- 
tion of capital into some other industry. 
Where wages are paid by the hour similar results would follow. 
In both the above cases the method of paying wages is such that a 
reduction of hours reduces automatically the ‘amount’ of wages with- 
out affecting the ‘rate’ of wages; but where labour is paid by the day the 
method of payment will, if no alteration takes place, continue the same 
wages as before for a smaller amount of labour. If the economic equili- 
brium is to be maintained the ‘rate’ which in these cases is the same as 
the ‘amount’ of wages will have to be reduced ; and it may be admitted 
that a reduction in the rate of wages is always a matter of difficulty. It 
is therefore quite possible that whilst in piecework wages would at once 
fall in proportion to the reduction in the hours of labour, in day work the 
reduction might be for a time delayed. 
To argue as some do that day wages govern piece wages is to assume 
a relation of cause and effect that does not exist. There is more reason 
for saying that piece wages govern day wages than that day wages govern 
piece wages, since piecework is the rule in all the chief industries of the 
country, and the skilled industries have greater effect on wages than the 
unskilled industries. The high piecework wages of the manufacturing 
county of Lancashire have raised the day wages of agricultural labourers 
and of domestic servants in the North of England. If day wages 
governed piece wages we would expect the wages in skilled industries to 
approximate to the low wages of farm labourers, but this has not been the 
case. 
