Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/241

 Rh by our author with illustrations of how much invention, as in electricity and rubber manufacture, increases the demand for labor, and with statistics showing that while the population increased 62.41 per cent, from 1870 to 1890, the number of persons in all occupations increased 81.8 per cent.

May it not be, however, that our immigration has brought us an unnatural enlargement of adults of working age and that this, together with the increase of women, and in some states children wage-workers, accounts for the different ratios of increase? Anyway, a study of the relative increase of native adult workers as compared with the total native population would be most interesting in this connection.

The well-known claim of Bastiat and Atkinson that the wage-worker gets an increasing share of an increasing product is disproved by the census figures, in so far as these are reliable. As Colonel Wright says, these figures show that in 1850, 51 percent, of the net value of our manufacturing product went to wages, and in 1890 45 per cent. This is partly accounted for by the fact that though interest rates are falling, the average amount of capital required for $100 of product increased from $52.32 in 1850 to $69.62 in 1890, or 33 per cent. This is a remarkable confirmation of the theory of Professor John B. Clark, that with private ownership of capital, the chief way in which labor can get an increasing absolute wage is through increase of capital, which will mean a decreasing relative share for the wage-worker. Colonel Wright's chapters, which are well illustrated by cuts of industrial processes, close with a brief but good account of some salient features in the history of American labor organizations and strikes, including the Chicago strike of 1 894, and of Massachusetts factory legislation. The latter is not fully brought up to date.

The Knights of Labor is reported as now having 150,000 members. It is doubtful if there are one-fourth of this number who are keeping up their dues or are in any substantial way assisting the order. The American Railway Union is spoken of as having an alleged membership of 150,000 both before and since the strike. In June 1894, only 24,868 were reported by the officers as having paid their dues, though more were recognized as members and were expected soon to pay. The entire number could hardly have exceeded 100,000 at any time, much less now.

Colonel Wright also errs in supposing that the railway brotherhoods and some other unions quoted are members of the American