a condition in which there is no hope, from which there is not, except by a general emigration, any escape. Society does not exist merely for the accumulation of the largest amount of material products, still less in order to give facilities for their being accumulated in favour of a few persons. It must take into account, (if it be true to its mission, if it would escape pressing, imminent dangers, and would obviate certain decline), the machinery by which wealth is distributed. This fact is the more manifest when the legal system which may be endured, though as I have said with great hardship, in a country which is largely devoted to commerce and manufacture, is made to apply to another in which agriculture alone is practised. Here the evil is of the most serious kind, the danger is the most minatory. If we needed an example of such a state of things, we should find it easily in the chronic disaffection of Ireland.

CHAPTER X.

On the Causes which depress the Rate
of Wages.

My reader will remember, that according to the theory of wages given above, the remuneration of a labourer is generally relative to the cost of producing his services: and that wages are partly interest on capital; partly a sinking fund, the operation of which is the replacement of capital as it is gradually extinguished by the growing age

or declining strength, or certain wearing out of the labourer; partly an insurance against the risk of the premature extinction, or of any extraordinary liability to a suspension of work, in the case of the labourer. Hence such callings as involve risks are invariably paid more highly than others are in which no such risk is present; and such callings also as concentrate risks, i. e. those which cut human life short at an early period, as for example, the trade of needle-makers and dry-grinders, always secure greater wages than others the following of which does not tend towards an easy destruction of the vital powers.

It will be clear therefore, if these charges and risks are compensated by certain legal provisions, which transfer the risk from the labourer to some other parties, an economy will be induced on wages. If, for example, a large percentage of labourers is reared and instructed at the public cost, up to the age in which their labour becomes available, the tendency of such an arrangement will be to lower the wages of those who are not so maintained and instructed. This rule holds good, whatever be the labour which is seeking employment and wages. For example, a common practice with wealthy and benevolent persons in bygone ages was the foundation of colleges, in which persons destined for the Christian ministry should be gratuitously boarded, lodged, and taught. The recipients of this benefaction were undoubtedly advantaged, for they went into the market to compete against the labour of others who were not so circumstanced. But they diminished the earnings of the latter; for the aggregate earnings of any one class of labourers is proportioned, as I have said several times, to the aggregate cost of

producing all those who are, at any given time, competing to supply a service which is in general demand.

The fact to which I allude was recognized and commented on by Adam Smith, who rightly explained the low earnings of clergymen on the ground that the education of many among them, both at school and in the University, was practically gratuitous. And just the same facts apply to the fulfilment of other analogous functions. To communicate a high education requires a person of great learning and considerable skill. Now setting aside those who would do their best to supply this service to mankind for other than the wages which an economist recognizes (such persons being few at all times, and not causing any marked effect upon the general rate of remuneration), the fact that there exist large endowments in aid of the highest education, in the shape of salaries to teachers, has a depressing effect on the rate of remuneration obtained by those who are unendowed; and this in two ways, first by increasing the number of those who enter on these callings, secondly by lowering the earnings of all. For just as the aggregate earnings of any class of labourers is proportioned to the aggregate cost of producing these labourers, so the amount distributed among the several labourers, cæteris paribus, is not increased by that which is added to the general fund from permanent sources, but diminished to a tantamount degree by it; for all other things being considered, the profits of all occupations tend to an equality, and all conditions being fulfilled, are never far distant from this equality.

What then, may be asked by the way, is the use of educational endowments? Are they not an inconvenience and an evil, if they reduce the rate of remuneration in the

case of one class of workers, by the permanent quantity which they add to the gross remuneration divisible, but not divisible equally, among all those who are employed in the same function? Whatever benefit may be conferred by them on individuals, are they not a wrong to others, either by the fact that they depress their earnings, or by checking free competition in the field of employment, because they limit competition, in some degree at least, to those who are endowed? It does not seem to be a fact that they restrain competition for the endowment; for as a rule, those occupations in which there are occasional prizes are more eagerly entered on than those are in which the rate of remuneration is generally uniform.

The excuses for the existence and continuance of educational endowments are two, one of these relating to the teacher, the other to the pupil. Neither however is, strictly speaking, of an economical character. The need or the advantage of these aids is to be found in the facts that the economical value of high education, or even in some cases of education at all, is only slowly and imperfectly appreciated by the public, and that the free competition of labourers, with what is implied in this competition-ample opportunity for the development of the individual's natural abilities and capacities-is in reality a merely hypothetical state, which has never yet occurred in the actual working of society.

Let us see what Education is. Properly speaking, it is the cultivation of the reflective faculties, with the view of making the acquisition of knowledge easier and the process of thought and reason more rapid. The benefit of a high education, that is, one in which these faculties are most thoroughly sharpened and trained, is of manifest

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significance to the possessor of such powers. But as the number of such persons as possess this education determines in general the intellectual position of a nation among other nations, it is of great importance to a nation that high education should be cultivated and used. Public opinion, however, appreciates this fact very slowly and very indistinctly. It confounds education with the knowledge of facts, whereas it really is the possession of method. It affects to prefer 'common sense,' which is in effect a rough and imperfect education. It is prone to limit education, even when it does acknowledge its value, to the simpler and more familiar branches of it, those the use of which is common and convenient; and to disparage its higher growths, the use of which is less obvious and less material. Lastly, even when it is available for service, society is very slow to employ it, partly from prejudice, partly from fear, partly because it is often sharply corrected by it, partly because it prefers other agencies which are more familiar and in appearance more submissive. Hence, as the demand for the higher education is slow, and the use of it is great, (owing perhaps to the fact that society is artificially constituted and a variety of interests are protected in it,) it is argued, and with much reason, that this education should be also protected, and protected in the least invidious form, that is, by permanent endowments or grants in aid of it. The same reason applies to a minor, but by no means unimportant subject, assisted education in art. The value of the service is undoubted, but at present it could not be secured by the ordinary agencies of public competition. The government therefore interposes, and rightly estimating the value of the process, fills up the deficiency of public or general opinion.