FOOTNOTES:
[56] Viz., "Wages ought to be proportioned to the supply and demand of labor and capital, and not to the hardship of the work and the time spent on it."
[57] "Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi ... Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia." The third precept is given above. Justinian, "Inst." i. 1-3; and see Blackstone, vol. i. section 2, "Of the Nature of Laws in General."
[58] See ante, second interpolation of the Gazette, on p. 54.
[59] The discussion was not continued beyond this letter, the Gazette judging any continuance useless, the difference between Mr. Ruskin and themselves being "one of first principles."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 1, 1867. Reprinted also, with slight alterations, in "Time and Tide," App. vii.]
THE STANDARD OF WAGES.
To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."
Sir: In the course of your yesterday's article on strikes[60] you have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy—to wit, that the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined; and that "all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a certain sum."
Now, Sir, the "value" of any piece of labor (I should have written "price," not "value," but it is no matter)—that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform it without eventually losing any of his flesh or nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years ago, and—under pardon of your politico-economical contributor, it is not a sentimental, but a chemical, fact. Let any half-dozen London physicians of recognized standing state in precise terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a laborer in any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without shortening his life, work at such business daily, if in such manner he be sustained. Let all masters be bound to give their men a choice between an order for that quantity of food and space of lodging, or the market wages for that specified number of hours of work. Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require further concession; but in the outset, let but this law of wages be established, and if then we have more strikes, you may denounce them without one word of remonstrance either from sense or sensibility.
I am, Sir, with sentiments of great respect,
Your faithful servant,
John Ruskin.
Denmark Hill, April 30, 1867.