Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/679

Rh enough to be thrifty and careful, and to do without some things that appear to be necessary for their sphere in life, so as to have what is meant by a surplus. Its absence is certainly no proof that the condition of those who make the complaint has not improved. The scale of living has risen, and this rise, beyond all question, imposes a strain upon many workmen which only the greatest care and philosophy can mitigate. It involves of necessity severer toil on the part of the bread-winner, with no apparent surplus for himself.

It is apparent, however, that to some extent what is called a rise in the scale of living is, in reality, an improvement in the mode of living which is absolutely necessitated by the work itself, without which, in fact, the work could not be done. Where moral qualities are to be displayed, and great vigor, punctuality, and energy are required, they are not to be expected except from workmen of a certain class, whose scale of living has, in fact, risen to the standard necessary, and whose "medium" and "atmosphere," of which the condition of wife and children or relations is a part, are altogether different from what they were. Before human beings can display the qualities and exert the energies required, they must have certain tastes and wants to gratify, or there would be no motive to exhibit those qualities and energies. Hence a rise in the scale of living is only another mode of describing the improvement in the character of the workman, which is essential to the performance of the work to be done.

The conclusions of this long argument may now be very shortly restated. In certain cases the increase of net earnings by the advance of the last fifty years can not be so great as the increase of gross earnings, because some classes of workmen have to submit to an increased charge for rent and railway fares, and similar expenditure, which really amount to a reduction from the gross earnings which they receive. But, on the whole, the classes of workmen affected in this way must, from the nature of things, be comparatively small, while the general conditions are such that the deduction from gross earnings, as a rule, still leaves an enormous net gain. Next, the allegation as to the increased severity of labor, and as to workmen not getting a sufficiently adequate remuneration or a sufficient share of the increased gross produce, is met by the admission generally of an increase in the severity of labor, which, however, is found to be more properly described as a revolution in the quality of the labor, and to be connected with the fact of improvement generally, and to be evidence of improvement in the workman's condition. The character of labor generally has so changed that it can not really be measured in comparison with the labor of a former time. Some