Low wages and cheap production not convertible terms.
The most recent inquiries tend to establish the fact, which I have, on former occasions, endeavoured to urge on the attention of employers, that underpaid labour is by no means the most economical. It does not follow that, when a workman receives more pay for exactly the same amount of labour, there is no increase in the cost of production. It would be absurd to put such an interpretation on the axiom assumed by my father, when estimating the cost of work, that the cost of labour in a fully peopled country was, as a general rule, the same, whatever might be the nominal rate of daily wages. But, where the principle of payment by the piece is adopted, (and, trades-union opposition notwithstanding, no other system of payment can be really equitable), there it will be found that labour, when stimulated by a liberal reward, is far more productive than that of the ill-paid operative. The reports to which I have referred are full of illustrations on this point.