>r 



BOOT MATTERS IK" SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 

 PBOBLEMS. 



By E. M. Johnston, F.L.S. 



(2nd Series.") 



Natural Limits to the Numbers Engaged in Various 

 Occupations. 



Most writers on social problems tacitly assume that no 

 other considerations than those of supply and demand, or 

 competition and remuneration, need be taken into account 

 when questions relating to the numbers that may be 

 employed in the various branches of human industry are 

 concerned. Indeed so able an exponent of the principles of 

 Political Economy as Mr. Henry Sidgwick, assumes with con- 

 fidence that the adjustment of the apportionment of the 

 employed in the various divisions of industry is sufficiently 

 determined by "rates of remuneration." He states (p. 182 

 "Principles of Political Economy ") : " We assume that labour 

 and capital are mobile or capable of being attracted by a higher 

 rate of remuneration, both from district to district, and from 

 industry to industry, so that not merely are the wages paid 

 for the same quality in any one industry approximately the 

 same, but also when the remuneration of labourers or 

 capitalists in any industry is known to be higher than that of 

 labourers or capitalists in some other industry entailing no 

 more sacrifice or outlay, and requiring no scarcer qualifica- 

 tions, the difference tends to be gradually reduced by the 

 attractions which this higher remuneration exercises on actual 

 °r prospective labourers or employers." 



There is not the faintest recognition here of natural 

 limits to or absolute necessity for employment in a given 

 direction, irrespective of the aggregate intensity of energies 

 expended, or market rates and prices. Neither does he 

 recognise the universal truth in matters animate and 

 inanimate, that mobility or movement in a new direction 

 requires a fresh expenditure of force commensurate with the 

 n 8*ore of the subject, the time occupied in transition, and 

 trie friction to be overcome due to inertia or foreign resisting 

 media. A physicist would never dream of discussing the 

 mobility of material substances in such a loose way. He 

 would first consider the mass or weight of the substance : 

 the distance and direction of movement : the rate of move- 

 ment and time : and the friction due to inertia or existing 



