108 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
numbers in the lowest grades would have a beneficial effect on wages, 
but it appears that even this form of calculation works less strongly in such 
grades than it does in higher ones. 
Before further considering the effect of calculations made by the 
workers on wages, it will be well to turn to the question of how far such 
calculations affect the employer, purely from the business point of view. 
The employer is concerned to pay such a wage as will, within the limits of 
his vision, keep his firm effectively staffed. His range of vision will extend 
over sickness as well as health, even over some unemployment as well as 
employment, according to the need of his particular firm for employees 
who know their job and the firm. But, apart from philanthropy, it will 
not extend forwards to the period in which men cease to work for him, 
any more than it will extend backwards to the period in which they have 
not begun to work, save in so far as a higher wage is needed to induce 
parents to pay for the education or training appropriate to the particular 
work. Nor, again apart from philanthropy, will it extend to the sustenance 
of children, save in so far as it appears that lack of sustenance for the 
children leaves the workers without sustenance to an extent which reacts 
on their efficiency. This is likely to happen only amongst the most ill- 
paid workers, ill-paid because of the number of others ready to replace 
them ; therefore such a reaction on wages is not likely to be very powerful. 
The children of the worker may, of course, be the future recruits of the 
firm to which their father belongs, but there is no certainty about this. 
In some cases, as in the mining industry, where families are relatively 
large but where male labour only is needed, some of the children will 
necessarily be of the wrong sex. For, as Cobbett ruefully remarked, ‘ where 
there be men and boys there will also be women and girls.’ 
The upshot of this analysis of the effect of calculations relating to old 
age and dependants is that for the most part where they have been made 
voluntarily they have been the effect rather than thecause of high earnings, 
and that, apart from the more immediate needs of labour, normal wages 
are not adjusted to cover them. Employers have not reckoned the whole 
of the worker’s life or maintenance of his dependants as an overhead 
charge. They do not pay adult male employees at a high rate because 
they have families dependent on them or because they must make pro- 
vision for the future, but because their productivity is relatively high and 
because they are strong and experienced workers. They do not gravely 
reckon the average family of an average worker, they reckon what the man’s 
work is worth. 
Nor do the needs of the worker provide him directly with additional 
bargaining power. It has generally been recognised in foreign trade that 
needs are a weakness and not a strength in bargaining. It is the same with 
the worker. As far as fighting strength goes, bachelors who are without 
dependants can fight more effectively than men with families. And the 
mere acquisition of a new set of needs, unless it stimulates activities and 
so is part of a higher standard of life, adds to misery and not to wages. 
To a certain extent it is notorious that dependants do stimulate activity, 
married workers being generally steadier and more regular than un- 
married ones. Their higher productivity raises their earnings. But it is 
to be feared that bargaining power is in no way enhanced by the number 
