BY R. M. JOHNSTON, F.L.S. 



199 



family for one day may be secured by a nominal expenditure 

 of 4s. in money. If his nominal or money wages for a day 

 of nine hours be 5s. then the purchasing power of his real 

 wages for one day's labour is equivalent to the command over 

 1 l-5th days of the necessaries of life. If the same necessaries 

 exactly in America cost a nominal or money value of 6s., it 

 follows that a nominal or money wage of 7 s. 2'4d. for a nine 

 hours dav in America would only have the same purchasing 

 or real wages value as the nominal or money wage of 5s. per 

 day in England. 



Now, as it can be shown that tbe nominal cost of a day's 

 labour mainly determines the ultimate nominal cost of the 

 commodity, product, or service related to that effort, it 

 follows that if nominal wages all round were arbitrarily raised 

 20 per cent, without actually increasing product's, it would 

 inevitably result in raising the nominal prices of commodities 

 or necessaries all romid to the same extent, and thus leave 

 the purchasing power or real wages of the labourer in the 

 same position as at first. 



It has been purposely assumed that this effect would only 

 oe brought about where the arbitrary increase to nominal 

 wages was equally spread over all classes of wage-earners ; 

 for it is not denied that an arbitrary increase to nominal wages 

 rf restricted to a few industries might increase both the 

 nominal and real wages of these trades ; but in all such cases 

 it would be obtained by a proportionate decrease of the 

 Purchasing power or real wages of every other class in the 

 community who were obliged to purchase the products so 

 enhanced in price of the various industries who succeeded in 

 having the nominal wages so raised. It is the consumers of 

 products or services who would ultimately lose by the 

 a dvantage gained by the industries whose wages were 

 nominally raised, and not the capitalists and employers who 

 "directly were obliged to advance the nominal wages. 



It is only under such restricted circumstances where Strikes 

 could really benefit any industry by raising real wages. They 

 Would of necessity fail to raise real wages if the nominal 

 wages of every class were raised by the same percentage of 

 increase as has already been explained. Unfortunately the 

 workers in many industries whose labour is worst paid (e.g., 

 seamstresses and agricultural labourers) lack organisation, and 

 thus fail to improve their position among other labourers, 

 fve 0Ta gh the nominal cost of the necessary satisfactions of 

 ™ is the same to them as to the better paid wage-earners, 

 -out here again it must be borne in mind that any increase in 

 real wages gained by them by the nominal raising of wages 

 could only be secured where the nominal increase to wages is 

 restricted to a few industries. This is made all the more 

 apparent when we try to estimate (however roughly) the 



