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9 0 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
dressmaking, and the like among the upper and middle
classes. The increase of remuneration here may not be
in proportion to the improvement of quality; the game
may ~ot be worth the candle; but, at any rate, the ex-
changes are direct. N ow, as to the fact of great im-
provement, I believe there is no doubt. Nursing, for
instance, is said to be an entirely different thing in
hospitals from what it w<!.s only fifteen or twenty years
ago. Domestic service, as regards cooking, waitin,g, and
other points, is also, on the whole, better, notwithstand-
ing manifold complaints, just because of the general
improvement in education and intelligence. The same
with dressmaking. More intelligence and skill are every-
where applied, and in direct exchanges, without much
intervention of machines or of capital.
Next, it has to be considered, as regards the question
of proportionate remuneration, that by the very mode
of here stating the question, it appears that it is not so
much a question of increase in the severity of labour
generally, as of a change in the character of the labour.
If the quality of labour has altered and improved in
many directions, there is, in truth, no proper term for
comparison between the present and former times. The
improvement of the quality of the labqur, which is an-
other name for the increased intelligence and energy of
society, may not be proportionately remunerated; but
there is no means of telling. People would not go back
to the conditions. of a former society, where less in-
telligence and energy were required for a lower scale or
living, even if they had the choice. The new advan-
tages, with all their drawbacks, are accepted as part of
a higher state. The complaints are to some extent a
sign of the perpetual unrest of human life, and of the
fact of improvement itself.
There can equally be no doubt, looking at the matter
in this way, that in certain directions there may be a
very poignant and not unjustifiable feeling as to an in-
crease in the severity of labour. This appears to be the
case as regards employments which involve the watch-