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92 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
and lower professional classes-the very classes, it may
be remarked, by whom the strain of modern life is felt
the most intensely.
Th,e conclusion, then, is, that if the return to labour
generally is not proportionate to the increase of the
severity of toil itself, the reason must be that people
are working for inadequate objects. The game, in one
sense, may not be worth the candle. The problem is
another form of the very same problem that ha~ been
considered with reference to the payment of monopoly
rents. On the whole, notwithstanding all the draw-
backs of city life, there is some improvement which
makes the payment of monopoly rents worth· while.
People would not change back to the former con-
ditions. So, on the whole, notwithstanding all the
drawbacks of really severer toil, and the inadequacy of
the additional remuneration, people would .not change
back. What has happened is really a revolution in the
quality of labour and the general conditions of life.
The -net gain, in one view, is less than the apparent
gross improvement, looking at the matter strictly; in
another view, the gain is so great as to make the pre-
sent condition of workmen on the average incommen-
surable with their former condition. The two things are
not on the same plane, and can hardly be compared.
An important corollary seems to be suggested by
these considerations. If there is so much doubt about
the adequacy of the reward for the additional labour
thrown on workmen by the conditions of modern
society, is not that reward really a minimum reward?
In other words, may not the amount of production
itself be conditioned by the energy of the workman,
which is in turn a function of the food and other things
on which he expends his wages, so that the quality of
labour by which modern society is carried on would not
itself exist if the remuneration were less than it is?
The complaint weare dealing with is that of the severity
of modern toil, and implies that the workman is tasked
to_his full. capacity, and can just do the work, so that