THE WORKERS' DISADVANTAGES IN BARGAINING. wages; and as we have seen, this lowers his efficiency as a worker, and thereby lowers the normal value of his labour. And in addition it diminishes his efficiency as a bargainer, and thus increases the chance that he will sell his labour for less than its normal value1. 1 On the subject of this Section compare Book v. Ch. 11. § 3, and the subsequent Note on Barter. Prof. Brentano was the first to call attention to several of the points discussed in this chapter. 603 BOOK VI. CH. IV. BOOK VI. The fifth peculiarity CHAPTER V. DEMAND AND SUPPLY IN RELATION TO LABOUR, CONCLUDED. § 1. THE next peculiarity in the action of demand and supply with regard to labour, which we have to consider, is closely connected with some of those we have already of labour discussed. It consists in the length of time that is required to prepare and train labour for its work, and in the slowness of the returns which result from this training. consists in the great length of time required for providing We find the clearest signs of the deliberate adjustment additional of supply of expensively trained labour to the demand for supplies of specialized it in the choice made by parents of occupations for their ability. children, and in their efforts to raise their children into a higher grade than their own. Adam comparison earned by machinery and by a skilled worker It was these chiefly that Adam Smith had in view when he said:" When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be performed by it before it is worn out, it must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary profits. A man educated at the expense of much labour and time to any of those employments which require extraordinary dexterity and skill, may be compared to one of those expensive machines. The work which he learns to perform, it must be expected, over and above the usual wages of common labour, will replace to him the whole expense of his education, with at least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do this too in a reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of human life, in the same manner as to the more certain duration of the machine." DIFFICULTY OF FORECASTING THE FUTURE. CH. V. modified on the shortness of the lives of most ma 605 But this statement is to be received only as a broad BOOK VI. indication of general tendencies. For independently of the fact that in rearing and educating their children, parents must be are governed by motives different from those which induce account of a capitalist undertaker to erect a new machine, the period over which the earning power extends is generally greater in the case of a man than of a machine; and therefore the chines; circumstances by which the earnings are determined are less capable of being foreseen, and the adjustment of supply to demand is both slower and more imperfect. For though though factories and houses, the main shafts of a mine and the important embankments of a railway may have much longer lives than those of the men who made them; yet these are exceptions to the general rule. there are exceptions. choosing their children forward a § 2. Not much less than a generation elapses between Parents in the choice by parents of a skilled trade for one of their trades for children, and his reaping the full results of their choice. And meanwhile the character of the trade may have been must look almost revolutionized by changes, of which some probably whole gene threw long shadows before them, but others were could not have been foreseen even by the shrewdest and those best acquainted with the circumstances of the to error. trade. ration, and such as their fore casts are persons very liable The working classes in nearly all parts of England are constantly on the look-out for advantageous openings for the labour of themselves and their children; and they are eager to learn from friends and relations who have settled in other districts everything that they can as to the wages that are to be got in other trades. It is astonishing with what assiduity and sagacity many of them pursue their inquiries, not only as to the money wages to be obtained in a trade, but also as to all those incidental advantages and disadvantages which have been discussed in the last chapter but one. But it is very difficult to ascertain the causes that are likely to determine the distant future of the trades which they are selecting for their children; and there are not many who enter on this abstruse inquiry. The majority assume without a further thought that the condition of each trade in their own time sufficiently indicates what it will CH. V. BOOK VI. be in the future; and, so far as the influence of this habit extends, the supply of labour in a trade in any one generation tends to conform to its earnings not in that but in the preceding generation. In this connection we must as our unit cular trade, grade of labour. Again, some parents, observing that the earnings in one trade have been for some years rising relatively to others in the same grade, assume that the course of change is likely to continue in the same direction. But it often happens that the previous rise was due to temporary causes, and that, even if there had been no exceptional influx of labour into the trade, the rise would have been followed by a fall instead of a further rise: and, if there is such an exceptional influx, the consequence may be a supply of labour so excessive, that its earnings remain below their normal level for many years. Next we have to recall the fact that, although there are some trades which are difficult of access except to the sons often take of those already in them, yet the majority draw recruits not a parti- from the sons of those in other trades in the same grade': but a whole and therefore when we consider the dependence of the supply of labour on the resources of those who bear the expenses of its education and training, we must often regard the whole grade, rather than any one trade, as our unit; and say that, in so far as the supply of labour is limited by the funds available for defraying its cost of production, the supply of labour in any grade is determined by the earnings of that grade in the last rather than in the present generation. Allowance must however be It must, however, be remembered that the birth-rate in every grade of society is determined by many causes, among which deliberate calculations of the future hold but a secondary place: though, even in a country in which tradition counts for as little as it does in modern England, a great influence is exerted by custom and public opinion which are themselves the outcome of the experience of past generations. § 3. But we must not omit to notice those adjustments of the supply of labour to the demand for it, which are effected made for by movements of adults from one trade to another, one 1 Book IV. Ch. VI. § 8. DIFFICULTY OF FORECASTING THE FUTURE. 607 CH. V. ments of labour, grade to another, and one place to another. The move- BOOK VI. ments from one grade to another can seldom be on a very large scale; although it is true that exceptional opportunities the movemay sometimes develop rapidly a great deal of latent ability adult among the lower grades. Thus, for instance, the sudden opening out of a new country, or such an event as the American War, will raise from the lower ranks of labour many men who bear themselves well in difficult and responsible posts. in conse the in demand But the movements of adult labour from trade to trade which are of inand from place to place can in some cases be so large and creasing so rapid as to reduce within a very short compass the period importance which is required to enable the supply of labour to adjust quence of itself to the demand. That general ability which is easily creasing transferable from one trade to another, is every year rising for general in importance relatively to that manual skill and technical ability. knowledge which are specialized to one branch of industry'. And thus economic progress brings with it on the one hand a constantly increasing changefulness in the methods of industry, and therefore a constantly increasing difficulty in predicting the demand for labour of any kind a generation ahead; but on the other hand it brings also an increasing power of remedying such errors of adjustment as have been made. remainder § 4. We have so far kept clear of the questions how far The the earnings of all those already trained for any industry are of this to be regarded for the time as a Quasi-rent, and how far the Chapter is occupied earnings of those who have extraordinary natural abilities with the may be regarded as Rent. These questions are technical, but between the adjustnot without direct practical bearing. ments of differences and supply to labour We must revert to the general principle that the income demand derived from the appliances for the production of a commodity in relation will indeed exert a controlling influence in the long run over for long their own supply and price, and therefore over the supply and short the price of the commodity itself; but within short periods periods. there is not time for the exercise of any considerable influence 1 See Book IV. Ch. vI. § 2; and on the whole subject compare Mr H. Ll. Smith's paper on Modern Changes in the mobility of labour. and for |