his view rests upon a mere denial of the effect
which it is alleged that high wages and a rise in standard of comfort
have in increasing efficiency.

The relation between wages and other conditions of employment, on the
one hand, and efficiency of labour or size of product on the other, is
clearly one of mutual determination. Every rise in wages, leisure, and
in general standard of comfort will increase the efficiency of labour;
every increased efficiency, whether due directly to these or to other
causes, will enable higher wages to be paid and shorter hours to be
worked.

Sec. 6. One further point emerges from the evidence relating to
efficiency and high wages. According to Schulze-Gaevernitz's formula,
every fall in piece wages is attended by a rise in weekly wages. But
it should be kept in mind that a rise in time wages does not
necessarily mean that the price of labour measured in terms of effort
has been raised. Intenser labour undergone for a shorter time may
obtain a higher money wage per unit of time, but the price per unit of
effort may be lower. It has been recognised that a general tendency of
the later evolution of machinery has been to compress and intensify
labour. In certain classes of textile labour the amount of muscular or
manual labour given out in a day is larger than formerly. This is the
case with the work of children employed as piecers. In Ure's day
(1830) he was able to claim that during three-fourths of the time
spent by children in the factory they had nothing to do. The increased
quantity of spindles and the increased speed have made their labour
more continuous. The same is true of the mule spinners, whose labour,
even within the last few years, has been intensified by increased size
of the mule. Though as a rule machinery tends to take over the heavier
forms of muscular work, it also tends to multiply the minor calls upon
the muscles, until the total strain is not much less than before. What
relief is obtained from muscular effort is compensated by a growing
strain upon the nerves and upon the attention. Moreover, as the
machinery grows more complex, numerous, and costly, the responsibility
of the machine-tender is increased. To some considerable extent the
new effort imposed upon the worker is of a more refined order than the
heavy muscular work it has replaced. But its tax upon the physique is
an ever-growing one. "A hand-loom weaver can work thirteen hours a
day, but to get a six-loom