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shipwrights and carpenters, or plumbers and fitters-attract their full meed of attention; but more importance really attaches to the injuries which one trade inflicts on others by stinting the output of the raw material which they have to use, or by throwing them out of work through a strike in which they have no concern.

$ 20.

Connection between the

moral and the economic

problem.

As Mill says:

"Except on matters of mere detail, there are perhaps no practical questions even among those which approach nearest to the character of pure economic questions which admit aspects of the of being decided on economic premises alone;" and it is alike unscientific and injurious to the public welfare to attempt to discuss men's conduct in industrial conflicts without taking account of other motives beside the desire for pecuniary gain. The world is not ready to apply in practice principles of so lofty a morality, as that implied in many socialistic schemes, which assumes that no one will desire to gain at the expense of an equal loss of happiness to others. But it is ready, and working men among others are ready, to endeavour to act up to the principle, that no one should desire a gain which would involve a very much greater loss of happiness to others. Of course the loss of £1 involves much less loss of happiness to a rich man than to a poor man. And it would not be reasonable to ask working-men to abstain from a measure which would give them a net gain of £1 at the expense of а loss of 30s. to profits, unless it could be shown that this loss would react on wages in the long run. But many of them are willing to admit that no Union should adopt a course which will raise its own wages at the expense of a much greater total loss of wages to others; and if this principle be generally adopted as a basis of action, then nearly all the evil that still remains in the policy of Unions can be removed by such a study of economic science, as will enable them to discern those remote effects of their action "which are not seen," as well as those immediate results "which are seen."

Thus Union policy as a whole is likely to be economically successful provided Unionists as individuals and Power and rein their corporate capacity follow the dictates of sponsibility of morality directed by sound knowledge. In this public opinion. respect Unions derive an ever-increasing assistance from public sympathy and public criticism; and the more they extend the sphere of their undertakings by Federation and International alliances, the more dependent do they become on that sympathy and the more amenable to that criticism; the larger the questions at issue, the greater is the force of public opinion. Public opinion, based on sound economics and just morality, will, it may be hoped, become ever more and more the arbiter of the conditions of industry'.

1 The strength and the responsibility of public opinion as regard the modern developments of trade combinations of all kinds are discussed in an address by the present writer to the Economic Section of the British Association, which is republished in the Statistical Journal for Dec. 1890. And something further is said on the meaning of the phrase "a fair rate of wages" with special reference to Conciliation and Arbitration in an Introduction by him to Mr L. L. Price's Industrial Peace, a book which, supplemented by Prof. Munro's papers on Sliding Scales, throws much light on an important class of problems. The general history of Unions is told in the writings of Mr Howell and Mr Burnett, already mentioned, and in those of Prof. Brentano, also in the Reports of a Committee of the National Association for Promoting Social Science in 1860, and of the Royal Commission on Trades Unions in 1866--9. A great deal of information bearing on these and other questions discussed in this Chapter is being published (1892) by the Commission on Labour.

Among the many aspects of Unionism with which it has not been possible to deal at present are the subtler and more indirect influences of foreign competition; and the claim of Unions to aid, or sometimes even to compel the action of employers in Regulating Trade. No doubt there are occasions on which a trade cannot continue to produce at its full strength without forcing the sales of its wares on an inelastic market at prices disastrous to itself. But since every check to the production of one trade tends to throw others out of employment, what is called the Regulation of trade often tends to increase instability of prices, of wages and of employment in some directions more than it diminishes them in others; and its general adoption would probably increase the uncertainties of trade and of work. If we assume however that it is reasonable for those in a trade to try to regulate it, it seems to follow that the employed should have their say in the matter; and some slight weight must be conceded to that objection to Sliding Scales, which urges that under them wages are reduced when the employers accept lower prices, without the workers being consulted as to whether they would prefer to produce less, so that higher prices could be got and higher wages paid.

INDEX.

Words printed in Italics are technical terms: and the numbers immediately
following them are those of the pages on which they are defined.

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Cliffe Leslie 31

Climate, influence of 10
Coke 117

Collective goods 54; property 38-9;
use of wealth 101

Competition, fundamental character-
istics of 5-8, 262-3

Composite demand 239; supply 241
Comte 71 n.

Conciliation 341, 396-7

Constant Return 200

Consumer's Surplus or Rent 94 (see

Rent); how affected by monopolies
247-9

Consumption 57; ethical aspects of
99-101; of different grades 85
Consumption goods 58; Capital 64
Conventional necessaries 61

Co-operation 190-3, 305, 328, 341,
399 n., 409 n.

Cosmopolitan wealth 55 n.
Cost of marketing 242-4

Cost of production 214; its relation
to utility and to value 221, 331-2
Cost of Reproduction 245 n.
Cournot 204-5

Cree 382 n.

Cumulative effects with regard to
labour 226

Custom 10, 276 n.

Darwin 159

Definition 49-50

Demand, Elasticity of 84-89; Law
of 82; element of time in 88-9;
increase of 79-81; of rich and poor
84-6; for necessaries 87; joint
236; derived 236; composite 239;
curve 80 n.; point 80n.; price 78

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Economic Law 40-3
Economic method 43
Economic motives 34-9; not ex-
clusively selfish 36-9, 153, 278;
generally measurable 34-6
Economic Science, provisional defini-
tion 1; not more hypothetical than
other Sciences 42; the chief ques-
tions which it investigates 45-6;
practical issues which point to these
inquiries 46-8
Eden 29 n.

Education, technical 143-4, 280-1
Efficiency Earnings 268; tend to
equality 268-70
Elasticity of Demand 84

England, growth of free industry and
enterprise in 14-25; her geo-
graphical advantages 14
Equilibrium 210, 220

Equilibrium amount and price 220
Exchangeable goods 52

Expenses of Production 214

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Manufacture 176

Interest 68, 156; gross 295; net 295;
theory of 290-8; changes in 353
Internal economies 170

Internal goods 52

Interpretation clause in economics
49-50

Investment of capital 224-7, 292—5
Ireland, land tenure in 328

Irregularity of employment 273, 360

Jevons 31, 76 n., 78 n., 205, 223 n.
Joint demand 236

Joint products 240, 242

Joint-Stock Companies 188-190, 304
Joint supply 240

Keynes 33 n.

Labour 58 (see Earnings)
Labour value 666

Land 105; Capital value of 318 n.;
changes in value of 352
Land Tenure 319-329

Law 41; nature of 40-3; meaning
of the phrase "the action of a law,'
42

Law of Constant Return 200

Demand 82

Derived Demand 236
Diminishing Return 109, 112,
198-203, 246, 215: applies
to building land 122; in
relation to Mines and
Fisheries 121-2

Diminishing Utility 77: in re-
lation to Law of Diminish-
ing Return from Land 78 n.
Increasing Return 110, 200.

Its effect on supply price
200-3, 246-7
Satiable Wants 77
Substitution 216-17, 225, 253,
254. Its relation to Law of
Survival of Fittest 299; to
Earnings of Management
301-305

Survival of the Fittest 160,
299-301

Leisure 372-3

Localized industries 171-5
Long-period-supply-price 230

Machinery 163-170; its influence on
wages 262 n.

Malthus 29 n., 123-4, 128, 251-2

Margin of Cultivation 113
Profitableness 226

Marginal Disutility 103
Demand-price 78
Dose 113
Increment 77
Return 113

Utility 78

Market 204-9

Marketing 178-9, 242-3

Marriage-rate, causes affecting 125—
130

Marx, Karl 223 n., 298

Material and Immaterial Goods 51

Maximum satisfaction 210

Mediæval towns 11-12

Mercantilists 27 n.

Metayer system 320, 322 n.

Migration, hindrances to in Middle
Ages 128, from country to town
135-6

Mill, John Stuart 31, 33 n., 65, 81 n.,
146-7, 214 n., 252, 264-6, 331, 410
Mines 121

Minimum wage 393

Mobility of labour 145-8, 285-7
Money Cost of Production 214
Money Income 67
Monopolies 247-9

Monotony of life, and in some cases
of work, diminished by machinery
168-9

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