202 



CAN STEIKES EEALLY IMPEOVE THE CONDITION 



OP THE MASSES? 



By A. J. Ogilvy. 



The question— the very serious and practical question raised 

 in Mr. Johnston's late interesting paper is this— Can the 

 toiling masses really improve their condition by these incessant 

 and unhappy Strikes, or are they only beating their hands 

 against the iron bars of inexorable Economic Law ? 



That, at any rate, whether it exactly represents what Mr. 

 Johnston meant or not, is the great question of the day ; and 

 it seems a very plain question. Yet, plain as it seems, one or two 

 other questions appear to have got rather mixed up with it which 

 are no part of it all. Por instance, the question is not whether 

 if all nominal incomes were raised real incomes would be raised 

 too, and that if everybody had twice as many shillings, other 

 things being unaltered, everybody would be twice as well off. 



The most ignorant striker does not imagine this for a 

 moment. He understands perfectly well that the increased 

 pay that he expects to get must come out of somebody else's 

 pocket. Neither is the question whether "men can divide 

 amongst themselves more than is created or produced." Of 

 course not. We might as well be asked to debate whether 2 

 and 2 could make 5. That is not the great Strike question. 



Briefly summarised, the proposition placed before us in Mr. 

 Johnston's paper is that strikes, if carried out on any extended 

 scale, must fail, because a mere increase of nominal wages, 

 unaccompanied by any increase in production, cannot really 

 improve the condition of the masses. The aim of this paper is 

 to show that it can. The proposition indeed ought to be 

 reversed and stand thus:' — No increase of production can 

 improve the condition of the masses unless accompanied by an 

 increase of nominal wages. The nominal wages are the main 

 thing, because it is not an increase of production, but an 

 alteration of distribution that is aimed at. 



"What we are concerned with is an increase of wages, that 

 is,_of the income of the masses: of the lower 10 millions whose 

 toil is the active factor that produces all wealth, not of the 

 upper 10 thousand who in some mysterious way manage to get 

 rich upon that toil. 



Society, in the view of the masses, may be roughly divided 

 into 3 classes : 



(a.) Those who derive income absolutely without any effort of 

 their own, and consequently from the efforts of other 



