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GROSS AND NET GAIN OF RISING WAGES 87
severity of labour and the want of any proportionate
remuneration.
On this head it may be admitted, to begin with, that
there is apparent foundation for some of the complaints.
Workmen in particular employments do not get a re-
ward at aU in proportion to the increase of production
in those employments. The il1ustration of a cotton mill
is familiar. A single ~ttendant on a number of machines
will II produce" as much in an hour as formerly in a
year· or two, but his wages are only double-or perhaps
not quite double-what they were when the production
was so much less. A great steamship supplies another
illustration. The ship does many times the work which
could have been performed by the sailing ship it has
displaced, and with much fewer men in proportion to
the tonnage conveyed. But the wages of the average
member of the crew are again only double. or not quite
double, what they were when the conveyance done was
so much less. In these and similar cases, who gets the
benefit of all the increase of production? The work-
men in the particular employments concerned receiving
only a fraction of the gain may be excused for suspect-
ing that there is something inexplicable in those social
and economic arrangements by which the benefit is
spirited away from them.
But, however natural the question, it is not difficult
to point out that there is a good reason why workmen
in some given employments should only receive a frac-
tion of the benefit from the increased productiveness of
those employments, and that this fact is quite consistent
with an improvement in the position of workmen all
round in proportion to the generally increased product-
iveness oflabour, which is the real question we are now
investigating, for the purpose of comparing this increase
of productiveness with the increase of the severity of
labour throughout society. The short explanation is
that the employments in which there is a great increase
of production, being mainly the employments in which
there are great mechanical improvements from time to