reached to throw sufficient light on perplexed situations; but formulated law, endowed with the gift of prophecy through mathematical figures, will be looked for in

vain.

This desire to ascertain with accuracy the amount of wages available for the purchase of labour, has led to a theory of wages, which has been widely appealed to in discussions with the labouring classes: the theory of a wage fund. It cannot be better stated than in the able words of Professor Francis A. Walker, of the United States.

"The doctrine is, in substance, as follows: There is at any time, for any country, a sum of wealth set apart for the payment of wages; this sum is a portion of the aggregate capital of the country. The ratio between. the aggregate capital and the portion devoted to the payment of wages is not necessarily always the same. It may vary, from time to time, with the condition of industry and the habits of the people, but at any given time, the amount of the wage fund, under the conditions existing, is determined in the amount of capital. The wage fund may therefore be greater or less than at another time, but at the time taken, it is definite. The amount of it cannot be altered by force of law or of public opinion, or through sympathy, or compassion on the part of the employers, or as the result of appeals or efforts on the part of the working classes.

"The sum so destined to the payment of wages, is distributed by competition. If one obtains more, another must, for that very reason, obtain less, or be kept out of employment altogether; labourers are paid out of this sum and this alone. The whole of that sum

is distributed without loss, and the average amount received by each labourer is therefore precisely determined by the ratio existing between the wage fund and the number of labourers." *

Is there such a fund? Is there an amount of wages predetermined at a given moment, more than which the wage-receiving class cannot possibly divide amongst them, and which and no less, they cannot but obtain ? To this question, a categorical answer must be given : there is no such wage fund predetermined in amount, and which, neither law, nor public opinion, nor combination, nor any other force can alter. No one can define it. We are only told that wages are a part of the aggregate capital of a country. This every one knows. It is said to be a fixed part; but how fixed, and how known to be unalterable, is left utterly unexplained. The asserters of a fixed wage fund are imperatively called upon to specify in definite terms, what portion of the productive capital of a country is marked off by a law, dominant at a given time, as wages; but none of them respond to the call. They give no definite answer to the question-what part? Their answers amount to no more than the tautological proposition, that the wages given are the wage fund. The wage fund becomes only an expression for the sum-total of all wages paid. To add up the wages paid by every employer, and to call them a wage fund, is to give no information; the point of the question is, why the figures added up are just such and can be no other? and on it we look in vain for a particle of definition. The wage fund proclaimed by those who hold the doc

trine, is a body without a boundary; it acquires definite form and magnitude only, when all the wage items, actually given and received, are added up into one sum. It might be said with equal correctness, that there is a tool fund for every country. Add up every shilling paid for tools and machinery by every employer, the resulting figures give a tool fund of equal worth with a wage fund.

It might be said that Mr Mill has defined the wage fund and marked out its limits. He tells us that "Wages depend upon the proportion between the labouring population and circulating capital." If this expression means, that these are the two factors, and the two only which determine the rate of wages, the one mounting up as the other goes down, and vice versa, it must be held to assert that the circulating capital of a country constitutes the fund which it has to distribute in wages. If this is so, then the statement is entirely It is certain that a considerable portion of the circulating capital of a people is not absorbed by wages. That capital, it is quite true, has to provide all that the labourers consume, their food, clothing, and other necessaries; but it procures also in addition, raw materials, and coal, and cartage, and repairs of machinery. Mr Mill has not drawn the line which is the boundary of the wage fund.

erroneous.

Experience testifies that it knows nothing of a wage fund of fixed and unalterable amount. Employers could declare with one voice that the amount of wages which they pay is often severely increased, not because the wealth produced is larger, nor because it sells at higher prices, but simply because in selling their labour

the labourers have combined to get more out of the buyers. If they were met with the reply, that if some of them were harassed by higher wages, others would necessarily, upon the fixed wage fund theory, have less to pay to their men-the universal answer might be that wages had gone up all round, that profits were lowered for everyone, that goods were not proportionally higher in price, that labourers were better off, and they themselves worse. They know as a stern reality, that they are constantly engaged in mortal strife against the assaults of wage-demanders. They could tell of their profits forcibly reduced by additions made to wages, till at last they have been driven to shut their mills and their mines in despair by the pressure brought upon them by labourers. Every trades union is built up on the principle, or as they would say, the fact, that labourers by acting in combination can exact higher wages from their employers. To the wage fund theorist, who assured them that they never acquired an additional shilling by such pressure, they would point, not without some ridicule, to the raised rates which they had so often and so triumphantly enforced. A fixed and unchangeable amount of wages capable of being paid is the last thing of which industrial and commercial life dreams.

The battle of life is fought on the very opposite ground, whatever science-making economists may proclaim. Employers know but too well that the profits which they expected to spend on themselves are often appropriated by force to the enjoyment of labourers. That is, the wage fund is enlarged at the expense of profit, for profit is only the residuum after wages have been paid, and that residuum may be inde

finitely reduced by the theoretically impossible but practically realised enlargement of the wage fund. It may well happen that in a steady business both the employer and his workmen should consume unproductively, in their ordinary style of living, their respective shares of the profits without making any addition to capital by saving. It is perfectly legitimate to suppose that diverse causes may enable the workmen to increase their share to the diminution of the employer's enjoyments. He might still go on with the business, but the wage-fund, the sum expended in wages, will have become larger at the expense of the employer's comforts. It will have lost its fixed character. The wage fund of theory will have been proved to be a fiction.

To these considerations one more can be added, which by itself alone disproves the existence of a fixed fund for wages. What if a nation deliberately resolved to consume its capital in enjoyment? Seasons of excited prosperity of trade, when speculation sets in movement an excessive conversion of wealth into fixed capital, when mine after mine is wildly opened, factories and mills built on every side, or railways spread over the wilderness, are very familiar occurrences. At such times an eager demand springs up for labour, employers vehemently compete with each other in the search for workmen, and rapid and large additions are made to wages. But from what source do these augmented wages come? From an excessive destruction of wealth. The fund actually received by the whole body of labourers is greatly increased. They obtain more and spend more. Their collective wage fund is far larger, and the nation in the end is much poorer.