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GROSS AND NET GAIN OF RISING WAGES 83
monopoly rent or its equivalent has to be paid, are at
a disadvantage. To show their real position for the
purpose of comparison, the monopoly portion of the
rent must be deducted. I t is quite obvious, also, on the
merest superficial aspect of the question, that as regards
many workmen, at least, the disadvantage may easily
be so serious as to compensate, and more than com-
pensate all the difference between the money wage of
the country, where there is no monopoly rent, and the
mon~ wage of the town. Take the case of a west H igh-
land peasant fifty years ago, living on a scanty wage of a
few shillings a week, or the produce of a poor croft eked
out by kelp-gathering or fishing, and his descendant at
the present time in the slums of a great city, earning
perhaps 15$. a week, but disbursing 4$. or 5$. for rent.
The improvement in money earnings may be immense,
perhaps 100 per cent., and as regards prices of com-
modities there may be no drawback in the change, but
the rent takes a monstrous cantle out of the margin.
Comparing all the conditions, it may certainly be doubted
whether the peasant, in the case supposed, in exchanging
the hard life of the country, which still had the advant-
age of being in the open, for the hard life of the city,
has made any real advance. Take a case higher in the
scale. A doctor, to earn a living, resides in a city rather
than in the country, pays a huge monopoly rent to begin
with, and incurs many other analogous expenses, so that
altogether he has a large leeway to make up before he
can reckon that net income which can properly enter
into comparison with that of his country colleague.
The difference may easily be so great, 1 believe, that
in many cases a professional man in a small country
town with £300 or £400 a year may have a larger net
income for the real objects of life, dealing with the
question in a wise philosophic spirit, than a professional
man in London with £1,000 or £1,200 a year. There
are differences even between London and smaller pro-
vincial cities. Thus the question between gross and net,
which working men have raised in these discussions,