198 



OBSERVATIONS ON" THE INFLUENCE OP STRIKES. 



wages [viz.— the current products created by the combined 

 services of capital (instruments) and labour], Strikes cannot 

 raise the real wages of all wage-earners. 



In other words, it is possible to regulate and alter 

 the distribution of the aggregate wealth of consumable 

 necessaries of life, but so long as this aggregate wealth fails 

 to be increased per capita per year, Strikes cannot increase 

 the real wages or the purchasing power of a day's labour of 

 all wage-earners. In a word they cannot divide more than 

 what has actually been created or produced, although the 

 nominal rates of wages and nominal prices of commodities may 

 both be raised to any extent without real benefit to anyone. 



To secure a general nominal rise of wages in all branches 

 of labour would further have the immediate effect of lowering 

 once more the real wages of those who already had effected 

 for themselves an advantage by successful combination or 

 Strikes. This may seem hard to believe by many who have 

 not taken the trouble to discern the fundamental distinction 

 which exists between real wages— which alone can improve 

 the workman's condition— and nominal wages, which, if raised 

 ever so high, in all branches of labour, leaves the work- 

 man just in the same condition as at the beginning. 



But, directing the attention to the fact that there is an 

 important distinction, it may prepare the more thoughtful to 

 contemplate that there is something underlying these terms 

 which they would do well to understand, for it cannot be too 

 often asserted that Strikes might possibly raise the nominal 

 wages of workers all round a hundred-fold, and yet result in 

 the positive lowering of the real wages of all workmen who, 

 by means of organisation, hitherto have succeeded in bettering 

 their condition as compared with their less perfectly organised 

 fellow-wage-earners. It is the failure to recognise the essen- 

 tial difference between real and nominal wages that renders 

 futile the many schemes of sentimentalists, which have for 

 their object the laudable design to improve the condition of 

 the people. 



Real and Nominal Wages. 

 No one has more clearly defined the nature of real and 

 nominal wages than Mr. George Gunton, in his admirable 

 work " Wealth and Progress." He states (p. 74): "By real 

 wages is meant the actual amount of wealth (social well-beino-) 

 obtainable by a day's labour. By nominal wages is meant the 

 amount of money obtainable by a day's labour." In other 

 words real wages means the actual purchasing power of a 

 day's labour, while nominal wages may or may not always 

 afford a correct index of the comparative purchasing powers 

 of a day's labour. For example, in England the minimum 

 supply of the necessaries of life for a workman and his 



