BY A. J. OGILVY. 



203 



• 



people. Of these are receivers of ground rent, holders 



of state bonds, money lenders, shareholders in 



companies, and so on. 



(b.) Those who do contribute some effort, but effort absurdly 



disproportionate to the income they receive. For 



example, the manufacturer who makes some thousands 



a year by only some 4 or 5 hours attention to business 



a day, while his factory hands only get £1 a week or so 



for some ten hours work a day. 



(c.) Lastly come the toiling masses who bear practically the 



whole burden and heat of production, and yet gain but 



a mere subsistence. This last class thinks that the two 



first classes get much more than their fair share, and it 



strikes in order to make them disgorge. A strike, then, 



is a movement of the underpaid against the overpaid. 



"Whether the two first classes do really get more than their 



due is a matter that we have nothing to do with at present. 



We are not concerned with the ethics of the question. All we 



have to enquire is, not whether strikes ought to succeed, but 



whether they can. 



In the primary industries, that is in those which are 

 concerned in extracting or producing the raw materials of 

 wealth from the land (as in agriculture and mining), where 

 certain lands only are suitable for the purpose (as for instance 

 fertile lands for agriculture, and mineral lands for mining), and 

 the intending users are much more numerous than the owners, 

 there is keen competition for possession of such lands, and the 

 competitors run each other up in rent. In all such industries 

 every increase of wages will come out of the rent. For rent 

 (or, at any rate, that portion of it which we are now 

 concerned with) is simply the surplus which remains after 

 paying working expenses and tenants' " ordinary profit ;" and 

 every rise in the expenses or fall in the profits will reduce the 

 rent proportionately. Take agriculture. In every lease the 

 rate of wages and the price of produce is tacitly accepted on 

 both sides as the basis of the whole calculation; and both 

 landlord and tenant understood quite clearly that if wages rise 

 or prices fall, not as a mere fluctuation, but with every 

 appearance of "settled weather," the rent will have to be 

 re-adjusted at the first opportunity. But royalties on minerals 

 are but rent under another name, and are determined by 

 exactly the same calculations. Think what a vast area of 

 industry, and how great a body of workers are represented in 

 this category ! It includes the raising of every description of 

 crop, and all grazing, dairying, and many other products ; also 

 all coal, iron and metal of all sorts, building stone, slate, lime, 

 china, and brick clay, and minerals too numerous to mention, 

 in all which every increase in the cost of the working will 

 come out of the rent. It covers also not only all those who 



