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128 reduce average direct labor earnings and, therefore, the total expenditure for employment. At the same time, the use of machinery and equipment was abandoned with the purpose of increasing the relative volume of direct employment, and this was accomplished only at the expense of increased total costs, a reduced total volume of work accomplished, and a reduced employment of indirect industrial labor. In subsequent years, when wage and hour restrictions were relaxed to closer accord with the national economic trend, there were resulting increases in the cost of direct employment. In these later years, however, there was a resumption of efficient methods of construction, so that, despite the higher labor cost, total construction costs were reduced. Moreover, the resulting stimulus both to direct employment and to the equipment, material, and supply functions of industry, amply demonstrated the wisdom of the later policy.

The variation in the expenditure per man-year of direct highway employment through the period from 1931 to 1942, inclusive, in relation to the total economy as expressed by the national income and to the total dollar volume of all classes of construction, and the resulting effects of the wage variation and policy decisions referred to, on over-all highway construction prices are shown by the comparative indexes of table 27.

From the regularity of the relation between the cost of providing direct highway employment and both the total dollar volume of construction and the national income throughout most of the period, it appears that natural economic forces may be depended upon to induce essential variations in both wages and hours of work without the necessity of invoking extraordinary artificial controls over either wage minima or working-hour maxima. The lack of agreement between the trend of highway construction prices and the trend of total construction volume in the middle thirtics indicates the inadvisability