DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0078
62
INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
mere numbers make wealth, without examining sufficiently what
are the conditions on which numbers make wealth.
The result depends on the efficiency of labour, the astonishing
growth of skill in manipulating materials which progressive
societies exhibit. One form of this is no doubt the division of
employments to which I have already adverted in an earlier
lecture. But the dexterity which makes wealth rapidly is ex-
hibited in all labour, in that which does not admit of division as
well as that which does. But it is exceedingly disficult to estimate
industry and its efficiency at different epochs of economical history.
Closely as I have followed and studied it, I got a very scanty
conception of it, and need in order to get any conception of it at
all, to constantly refer myself to related prices. Now in modern
estimates over a necessarily narrow range, the results of researches
such as those of Dawson, Newmarch, and Jevons, very capable
persons indeed, are by no means satisfactory, after they have been
at great pains to develop and accentuate what they call index
numbers, that is, money values of the principal necessaries and
conveniences of life. I am perpetually asked to interpret for
inquirers what is the value of money five, four, three, two, one
centuries ago, and after I have been at great pains to explain the
facts, I have generally found that I had sown my seed on the
highway.
Two conditions, the esficiency of labour being postulated, make
the risks of general over-population among the industrial classes
remote. The one is the establishment of a high standard of living,
the other is perfect freedom on the part of the workmen to
interpret the terms under which they will accept employment.
There is no risk that they will destroy the contingencies of their
industry. No combination of English working men has ever
attempted to improve the capitalist employer out of existence, and
I see no likelihood that they will ever fall under so gross and
suicidal a delusion. Of course they have never attained to the
conditions which I have referred to. There are still laws in
existence which permit certain persons to take excessive toll on
industry, even to imperil its efficiency, and these are frequently
called rights. The combination or association of workmen is still
partial and imperfect, and when the union men meet they are apt,
INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
mere numbers make wealth, without examining sufficiently what
are the conditions on which numbers make wealth.
The result depends on the efficiency of labour, the astonishing
growth of skill in manipulating materials which progressive
societies exhibit. One form of this is no doubt the division of
employments to which I have already adverted in an earlier
lecture. But the dexterity which makes wealth rapidly is ex-
hibited in all labour, in that which does not admit of division as
well as that which does. But it is exceedingly disficult to estimate
industry and its efficiency at different epochs of economical history.
Closely as I have followed and studied it, I got a very scanty
conception of it, and need in order to get any conception of it at
all, to constantly refer myself to related prices. Now in modern
estimates over a necessarily narrow range, the results of researches
such as those of Dawson, Newmarch, and Jevons, very capable
persons indeed, are by no means satisfactory, after they have been
at great pains to develop and accentuate what they call index
numbers, that is, money values of the principal necessaries and
conveniences of life. I am perpetually asked to interpret for
inquirers what is the value of money five, four, three, two, one
centuries ago, and after I have been at great pains to explain the
facts, I have generally found that I had sown my seed on the
highway.
Two conditions, the esficiency of labour being postulated, make
the risks of general over-population among the industrial classes
remote. The one is the establishment of a high standard of living,
the other is perfect freedom on the part of the workmen to
interpret the terms under which they will accept employment.
There is no risk that they will destroy the contingencies of their
industry. No combination of English working men has ever
attempted to improve the capitalist employer out of existence, and
I see no likelihood that they will ever fall under so gross and
suicidal a delusion. Of course they have never attained to the
conditions which I have referred to. There are still laws in
existence which permit certain persons to take excessive toll on
industry, even to imperil its efficiency, and these are frequently
called rights. The combination or association of workmen is still
partial and imperfect, and when the union men meet they are apt,