during sixty or seventy years of trade-combination, wages have risen, and hours and conditions of labour have been improved, to a remarkable extent, in spite of open competition in an overcrowded market. But prices and rents also have risen, and it is not clear that there has been a net advantage to the worker. It is very difficult to answer the question precisely, because other factors (such as the application of science) have increased the productiveness of labour and have cheapened certain commodities (books, clothes, pictures, tea, etc.). The workers have shared these advantages, and are in a position of far greater comfort than they were formerly. But in seriously testing the claim and promise of the Trade Unionist and the Labour politician we have to endeavour to subtract the improvement in the workers’ condition which is due to the application of science, and of better methods, to production and distribution. When we make allowance for this, it is certainly not clear that the rise of wages shows a margin over the increased price of commodities: that, in other words, the higher wage is a real advantage.
It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. When wages are raised, who pays the increment in the cost of production? The employer or the consumer? It is a familiar experience, and an inherent necessity of our industrial order, that the consumer does; and the consumer is the worker—the middle-class or wealthy consumer generally gets the difference in other ways. It would be bold to say that our
