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SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 
THE MEANING OF WAGES. 
ADDRESS BY 
Miss LYNDA GRIER, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
THERE is a growing demand for the formulation of a theory of wages, 
a theory which shall be easy of comprehension and useful both in support 
of things desired and in refutation of things detested. Our friends across 
the Atlantic have set a price upon it ; they are offering 5,000 dollars for the 
best original thesis on the subject, and have engaged the services of 
distinguished men to decide which of the theses submitted on an economie 
theory has an economic value. Meanwhile laws are passed in this and other 
countries determining and bearing on wage rates, and international wage 
settlements are under discussion. 
It cannot be denied that the formulation of a theory of wages would give 
satisfaction to economists as well as to others who desire to use such a 
theory in practical affairs. Early economists essayed the task, but to no 
lasting purpose. The Iron Law of wages, the Wage Fund theory, with other 
theories of more or less note, have been placed on the scrap-heap of venerable 
antiquities, whence they are raked from time to time by those whodelight 
in recognising that it is almost as rare, perhaps almost as difficult, to 
evolve an economic theory which contains no truth as to evolve one which 
contains the whole truth. Modern economists for the most part content 
_ themselves by explaining how wages are determined under given conditions 
and commit themselves to no theory. While they give explanations 
only, other people will, if reverently minded, exalt these explanations 
into theories, or, if of bolder make, produce theories of their own and pour 
- scorn upon the timidity of academic theorists. 
; It is as little within my intention as it is within my power to put for- 
_ ward a theory of wages. My business is one of analysis, not of construction, 
of restatement, not of creation. My purpose is twofold : first, to discuss 
certain aspects of wages, and then to review from those aspects certain 
_ payments made to or on behalf of employees. 
Let us then consider three aspects of wages, each important in its way. 
First, there is the distributive or competitive aspect, from which wages 
are regarded as a factor determining where labour shall go, who shall 
- command it, in what manner labour of certain types and given efficiency 
shall be employed. Competition between employers seeking the best 
workers is expressed in the wage they offer, and competition between 
workers seeking the best employer is expressed in the wage they accept. 
This competition tends to bring the wages of workers of equal efficiency 
to equality and to ensure that the wages of workers of unequal efficiency 
shall be unequal. 
