BY A. J. OGILVY. 



207 



" Bat high wages are not only a sign of progress, they are 

 also a factor of progress, and this in three ways : — 



1. When the labourer is well paid he becomes more in- 

 telligent and skilful, more self-respecting, a better man all 

 round. I do not mean that wherever the labourer is poorly 

 paid he is dull, unskilful, immoral, and that wherever he is 

 highly paid he is all that he ought to be ; for many agencies 

 go to the making of character besides the rate of wages. 

 But I mean this : that, given any labourer of the character 

 that he is, however produced, higher wages will make him 

 better, not worse — more efficient, not less. 



2. High wages induce clever men to invent, and compel 

 slow men to adopt labour-saving contrivances of all sorts, 

 and so add to the productiveness of labour. Employers do 

 not bother themselves about inventions where labour is dirt 

 cheap. In the making of the Suez Canal, the sand was ex- 

 cavated with common hoes, and carried out on women's heads, 

 though steam excavators and elevators were well known, and 

 would have saved nine-tenths of the labour. But the labour 

 wasn't worth saving — to the contractors. Improved appliances 

 m agriculture are in much more general use in America and 

 Australia, where wages are high, and because they are high, 

 than in England ; and more in use in England than on the 

 Continent, for similar reasons. 



_ 3. High wages, like free-trade,' help to weed out weak- 

 industries, and to concentrate labour where it is most effective, 

 as already pointed out." * 



It may be said again that the increased price referred to of 

 goods consumed only by the upper classes will diminish the 

 consumption, and that to that extent the labourer will fail to 

 shift the burden of his increased wages on to the rich consumer, 

 wanted. But the effect of this would merely be to diminish 

 the successfulness of strikes, and the question before us is 

 simply whether strikes when they are successful can really 

 improve the labourer's position. I have tried to show that they 

 c »n. It is for the present company to decide for themselves 

 Whether I have succeeded. 



missi?nw 0t ot a P a P er > " Land Nationalisation," by the author (reprinted by per- 

 land lv,Y- ,- e ^o-operative Wholesale Societies' Annual, 1890, and issued by the 

 * na Nationalisation Society : Manchester, 1890. 



o 



