, etc., consumed by labourers to
be reflected in an exactly correspondent difference of output of
productive energy--an assumption which needs no refutation, for no one
would maintain that the standard of comfort furnished by wages is the
sole determinant of efficiency, and that race, climate, and social
environment play no part in economic production. The alternative
assumption would be that of an absolute fluidity of capital and
labour, which should reduce to a uniform level throughout the world
the net industrial advantages, so that everywhere there was an exact
quantitative relation between work and wage, production, and
consumption. Though what is called a "tendency" to such uniformity may
be admitted, no one acquainted with facts will be so rash as to
maintain that this uniformity is even approximately reached.

Sec. 3. There is, then, no reason to suppose that wages, either nominal
or real, bear any exact, or even a closely approximate, relation to
the output of efficient work, quantity and quality being both taken
into consideration. But, in truth, the evidence afforded by Sir T.
Brassey does not justify a serious investigation of this theory of
indifference or equivalence of work and wages. For, in the great
majority of instances which he adduces, the advantage is clearly shown
to rest with the labour which is most highly remunerated. The theory
suggested by his evidence is, in fact, a theory of "the economy of
high wages."

This theory, which has been advancing by rapid strides in recent
years, and is now supported by a great quantity of carefully-collected
evidence, requires more serious consideration. The evidence of Sir T.
Brassey was chiefly, though by no means wholly, derived from branches
of industry where muscular strength was an important element, as in
road-making, railway-making, and mining; or from the building trades
where machinery does not play a chief part in directing the pace and
character of productive effort. It would not be unreasonable to expect
that the quantitative relation between work and wages might be closer
in industries where freely expended muscular labour played a more
prominent part than in industries where machinery was a dominating
factor, and where most of the work consisted in tending machinery. It
might well be the case that it would pay to provide a high standard of
physical consumption to navvies, but that it would not pay to the same
extent to give high wages to factor