206 CAN STRIKES EEALLY IMPROVE CONDITION OF THE MASSES ? 



only spend it in purchasing goods and hiring services just as 

 the upper class did. They will in short, to the extent of the 

 transference, be employed by each other instead of by their 

 old employers. 



My time being limited, I have been obliged to state my case 

 in broad outline, without going into details and qualifications, 

 but there are one or two such qualifications, real or apparent' 

 that we may have time to glance at. 



1. There is of course a limit to the rise of wages. The 



labourer cannot earn more than his labour produces. 

 But this limit is a long way off; what the labourer 

 actually gets is a very small portion of what his labour 

 really produces ; and the question before us is not 

 whether there is such a limit, or how far off it is, but 

 whether strikes, as strikes, can under present 

 circumstances really improve the labourer's condition or 

 not. 



2, It will be said that the fall of rent which we have predicted 



will throw some lands out of use, and so actually 



diminish the total production of wealth. That is to say, 



that land that now yields current wages to labourers, 



and profit to employers, but only a small surplus for 



rent, will then yield no rent at all ; in which case the 



landlord will withdraw such land from use and devote 



it to his own amusement, say for sport. 



Well, that opens up a question about which you will hear 



more before long, viz. : the question whether a man who claims 



to be sovereign lord and master of a certain portion of the 



earth's surface shall be allowed deliberately to prohibit all 



productive industry on that area, to forbid willing labourers 



from working, and enterprising capitalists from investing 



merely because such enterprise will not yield blackmail to him, 



as well as profit and wages to the workers. 



But passing that by, I would point out : 



1. That a more equitable distribution of the produce of labour 



is a boon so great in itself as to be well worth some 

 cost, and that we need not be dissatisfied because less 

 luxuries are produced for the few very rich, if more 

 comforts are provided for the manv poor; not even 

 though the loss in value on the luxuries exceeds the 

 gain in value on the comforts. 



2. That it is only the very worst lands that will be withdrawn, 



and the loss through the withdrawal of these worst 

 lands will be more than compensated by the more 

 effective utilisation of the better lands ; for these better 

 lands will now be tilled by better paid men, and well 

 paid labour is more effective than badly paid labour. 

 _ Allow me here to quote a short extract on the advantage of 

 high wages. 



