3. Co-operative stores; or the “club system” of obtaining provisions at wholesale prices.
4. The abolition of the payment of wages on Sunday morning, or at so late an hour on the Saturday night as to prevent the labourer availing himself of the Saturday’s market.
5. Teetotalism; as causing the men to spend nothing in fermented drinks, and so leaving them more to spend on food.
Such are the direct modes of remedying low wages, viz., either by preventing the price of labour itself falling below a certain standard; prohibiting all stoppages from the pay of the labourer; instituting certain aids or additions to such pay; or increasing the money value of the ordinary wages by reducing the price of provisions.
The indirect modes of remedying low wages are of a far more complex character. They consist of, first, the remedies propounded by political economists, which are—
A. The decrease of the number of labourers; for gaining this end several plans have been proposed, as—
1. Checks against the increase of the population, for which the following are the chief Malthusian proposals:—
a. Preventive checks for the hindrance of impregnation.
b. Prohibition of early marriages among the poor.
c. Increase of the standard of comfort, or requirements, among the people; as a means of inducing prudence and restraint of the passions.