230 



GENERAL INCEEASE OF WAGES, ETC. 



It is not because nominal wages are much higher to-day in 

 Australasia than at the close of the sixteenth century in 

 Europe that the present workman is so much better off in 

 every way than his predecessor of three hundred years ago, but 

 mainly because of the great increase of capital wealth invested 

 m labour-saving appliances, whereby the annual wealth 

 created for consumption and real wages or purchasing- 

 power over wealth have so improved that the workman of 

 Australia can, by the expenditure of 4J days' labour, command 

 a much larger share of the world's wealth or satisfactions 

 than could be done by the accumulated savings of 40^ days' 

 labour amidst the dirt, discomfort, and almost enslaved 

 condition of the labourer 300 years ago. 



I think Mr. Ogilvy's objections to my former paper on 

 strikes have been shown by those observations to be based 

 upon assumptions which cannot be sustained when subjected 

 to close scrutiny, and I can only re-affirm that it is by in- 

 crease of savings properly applied in the creation of instru- 

 ments which will still more greatly multiply the powers of 

 man that any marked improvement to the condition of the 

 masses can be successful. Without this the mere raising of 

 wages can only benefit a few industries at the expense of the 

 many. 



Discussion. 

 Mr. Ogilvy said that Mr. Johnston had rather drifted into 

 the ethics of the question, which were expressly excluded 

 in his paper, and discussion confined to the question 

 whether strikes, as a matter of fact, really improved the 

 condition of the masses. He had tried to show that they did, 

 and Mr. Johnston had tried to show that thev did not. It 

 was for the members to judge. Mr. Johnston had based his 

 argument principally on the theory of Eicardo, but he differed 

 with him in thinking that that authority had expressed the 

 whole theory of rent. Although later economists had adopted 

 it, the British Parliament had virtually repudiated the theory 

 by the establishment of Land Courts iu the Highlands of 

 Scotland, and in Ireland, thus introducing an artificial 

 element into what was held by some economists to be a 

 natural law. In regard to what Mr. Johnston said about the 

 rent forming a part of the price of agricultural produce, there 

 were some farmers present, and he asked them if they had to 

 pay twice as much as they now did for their labour could 

 they afford to pay as much rent ? 



Mr. W. E. Shoobridge said that there were two points which 

 occurred to his mind. One was that the actual amount of 

 wages was not so much the question as that of facility of 

 exchange. Mr. Johnston had pointed out in his original 



