Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/680

662 engaged about machines may appear to get comparatively little of the increased production for themselves, but the reason is that the improvement in machines is for the benefit of society as a whole, and not specially for that of the particular workmen engaged upon them, who only participate in the improvement as consumers, and not as producers. Substantially, however, there is more severe toil all round, and whether the additional remuneration is adequate or not, the change in the quality of the labor is necessary to the production, the laborer gets all the possible remuneration, and the labor itself could not be carried on without the remuneration obtained. It is the same with the complaint as to the rise in the scale of living. The rise in the scale is at once a proof of the improvement in the workman's condition, and of the necessity for an improvement in his living to enable him to do the new work. The two things are inextricably connected. On the whole, the complaint of workmen as to the difference between gross and net is not unjustified, but it points to changes in their condition of a remarkable kind, which are in every way deserving of further study. To show fully what these changes are, statistics would be needed, but the necessary conditions of the problem are apparent without statistics. The complaints here dealt with could not exist without that improvement in society and the condition of the masses which the complaints seem to call in question. A further conclusion may be drawn. The conditions of life thus indicated seem favorable, on the whole, to a continuous improvement in society, so long as science and art make progress, and heavier and heavier calls are made on the intelligence and energy of workmen, along with an increase of their capacities on the one side and their wants on the other. The whole structure of modern society is such as to require greater and greater knowledge, greater and greater energy and moral power, greater and greater capacity of every kind, so as to make sure that machines and inventions are maintained and improved, and that artistic capacities and the arts of living are developed to correspond. The continuous improvement implies a continuous improvement, on the average, of the human being who really belongs to the new society. So long as society, therefore, continues to progress that is, for our present purpose, so long as the average workman continues to produce more quantity or better quality—there must be continuous improvement and progress in the quality of workmen themselves and the conditions of their existence, although we should not expect that complaints would cease as to the greater severity of toil and as to particular classes of workmen not getting for themselves the full benefit of the increased production. Still, the improvement is there, and the complaints, when analyzed, are, in truth, signs of the improvement.