560 TRANSACTIONS OF BECTION F; 
prices the Wage-earners, obviously largely through the aid of their untoiis, 
have been rather more than able to hold their own. Nevertheless, whether 
in virtue of natural conditions or through the control of markets, prices 
have been kept closely in the wake of the upward movement of. wages. 
With prosperous times, based on the conditions already outlined, the 
vendors of both labour and goods have a vital command on their respective 
markets. As a result, an increase in wages has been taken as a good 
reason for an increase in prices, and an increase in prices as a still better 
reason for a rise in wages. But while wages and prices thus pursued each 
other in an ascending spiral, the miscellaneous body of citizens, who have 
no direct access to the industrial and commercial wheel of fortune, have 
stood helplessly by, anxiously watching the ascent of the cost of living. 
Some of them have occasionally managed to secure an increase in income, 
though in a very irregular and uneconomic manner. From the enhanced 
prices paid by the non-competitive classes for their diminished supplies 
there have been chiefly furnished what advantages the wage-earners and 
profit-takers have obtained since they have been unable to exploit each 
other. Among these unfortunate bystanders are such classes as the general 
body of clerical assistants, not directly connected with trade or industry, 
and commonly paid by salary, the general body of public Sficials so far 
as not included in the former class, the non-commercial, professional, or 
semi-professional classes, and also those who are dependent upon pensions, 
annuities, or other fixed incomes. In any case it is evident that, though 
the business of the country has greatly increased, and though speculators 
in real estate and other natural resources and those who are able to conduct 
business on a large scale have been able to make more or less extensive 
fortunes, yet the great apparent improvement in the lot of the wage- 
earner, the small tradesman and producer, and the general non-commercial 
element is far from being so great as it appears on the surface. Indeed, 
their chief advantage lies in the fact that they are receiving steady employ- 
ment, whereas in less prosperous days their employment was more uncertain 
and in consequence their standard of living sometimes lower. 
Referring more closely to Mr. Coates’s tables, we find that, omitting 
some extreme quotations, meat, potatoes, eggs, butter, milk, fuel, and 
house rent have increased in price from 25 to 50 per cent. within, the 
past decade; also that the wages of the trades covered by the table have 
increased from 25 to 60 per cent. On the other hand, the prices of 
groceries have increased but slightly or not at all. When we follow up 
these conditions beyond the range of Mr. Coates’s tables, to include dry 
goods, hardware, lumber, and other raw materials, we find, as a rule, that 
wherever the articles are imported or made up under conditions of manu- 
facture on a large scale, prices have increased very moderately ; whereas 
where the articles involve a considerable element of Canadian labour, not 
under factory organisation, prices have risen very greatly; in fact, the 
prices reflect the increase in the wages of the labour employed on them 
and the profits of the middlemen who handled them. 
The general outcome of this line of investigation is that such essential 
elements in the cost of living as native food products, fuel, housing, clothing 
made to order, and all forms of service very largely owe their increased 
cost to a rise in wages, which the producers and dealers connected with 
them have been able to translate into increased prices. On the other hand, 
the slight increase in groceries and foreign foods would indicate a more 
stable wage scale abroad, while the moderate increase in the price of 
articles produced in Canadian factories working on a large scale indicates 
that the increased wages paid to the employees have been partly offset 
by economies in production and the obtaining of profits on a lower rate 
per unit, but on a larger scale. 
One conclusion from the survey: 1s that there is no real advantage in 
