In so far as the tendency of modern production is to relieve man more and more of this rough muscular work, it might happen that the true economy favoured high wages only in those kinds of work which were tending to occupy a subordinate place in the industry of the future. The earlier facts, which associated high wages with high productivity, low wages with low productivity, in textile factories and ironworks, were of a fragmentary character, and, considered as evidence of a causal connection between high wages and high productivity, were vitiated by the wide differences in the development of machinery and industrial method in the cases compared. In recent years the labours of many trained economists, some of them with close practical knowledge of the industrial arts, have collected and tabulated a vast amount of evidence upon the subject. A large number of American economists, among them General F.A. Walker, Mr. Gunton, Mr. Schoenhof, Mr. Gould, Mr. E. Atkinson, have made close researches into the relation between work and wages in America and in the chief industrial countries of Europe. A too patent advocacy of tariff reform or a shorter working day has in some cases prevented the statistics collected from receiving adequate attention, but there is no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the research.
The most carefully-conducted investigation has been that of Professor Schulze-Gaevernitz, who, basing his arguments upon a close study of the cotton industry, has related his conclusion most clearly to the evolution of modern machine-production. The earlier evidence merely established the fact of a co-existence between high wages and good work, low wages and bad work, without attempting scientifically to explain the connection. Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz, by his analysis of cotton spinning and weaving, successfully formulates the observed relations between wages and product. He compares not only the present condition of the cotton industry in England and in Germany and other continental countries, but the conditions of work and wages in the English cotton industry at various times during the last seventy years, thus correcting any personal equation of national life which might to some extent vitiate conclusions based only upon international comparison. This double method of comparison yields certain definite results, which Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz sums up in the following words:—"Where the cost of labour (i.e. piece wages) is lowest the conditions of labour are most favourable, the working day is shortest, and the weekly wages of the operatives are highest" (p. 133). The evolution of improved spinning and weaving machinery in England is found to be attended by a continuous increase in the product for each worker, a fall in piece wages reflected in prices of foods, a shortening of the hours of labour, and a rise in weekly wages. The following tables, compiled by Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz, give an accurate statement of the relations of the different movements, taking the spinning and weaving industries as wholes in England:—
SPINNING.
| Product of yarn in 1000 lbs. | Number of workers in spinning mills. | Product per worker in lbs. | Cost of labour per lb. | Average yearly wages. | |
| s. d. | £ s. d. | ||||
| 1819-21 | 106,500 | 111,000 | 968 | 6 4 | 26 13 0 |
| 1829-31 | 216,500 | 140,000 | 1546 | 4 2 | 27 6 0 |
| 1844-46 | 523,300 | 190,000 | 2754 | 2 3 | 28 12 0 |
| 1859-61 | 910,000 | 248,000 | 3671 | 2 1 | 32 10 0 |
| 1880-82 | 1,324,000 | 240,000 | 5520 | 1 9 | 44 4 0[228] |
WEAVING.
| Product of yarn in 1000 lbs. | Number of workers in spinning mills. | Product per worker in lbs. | Cost of labour per lb. | Average yearly wages. | |
| s.nbsp; d. | £ s. d. | ||||
| 1819-21 | 80,620 | 250,000 | 322 | 15 5 | 20 18 0 |
| 1829-31 | 143,200 | 275,000 | 521 | 9 0 | 19 18 0[229] |
| 1844-46 | 348,110 | 210,000 | 1658 | 3 5 | 24 10 0 |
| 1859-61 | 650,870 | 203,000 | 3206 | 2 9 | 30 15 0 |
| 1880-82 | 993,540 | 246,000 | 4039 | 2 3 | 39 0 0 |
The same holds good of the growth of the cotton-weaving industry in America, as the following table shows:—
| Yearly product per worker. | Cost of labour per yard. | Yearly earnings per worker. | |
| Yards. | Cents. | Dollars. | |
| 1830 | 4,321 | 1.9 | 164 |
| 1850 | 12,164 | 1.55 | 190 |
| 1870 | 19,293 | 1.24 | 240 |
| 1884 | 28,032 | 1.07 | 290 |
Of Germany and Switzerland the same holds. Every improvement of machinery increasing the number of spindles or looms a worker can tend, or increasing the pace of the machinery and thus enlarging the output per worker, is attended by a higher weekly wage, and in general by a shortening of the hours of labour.
A detailed comparison of England, the United States, and the Continent, as regards the present condition of the cotton industry, yields the same general results. A comparison between England and the United States shows that in weaving, where wages are much higher in America, the labour is so much more efficient as to make the cost of production considerably lower than in England; in spinning, where English wages are about as highly paid, the cost of production is lower than in America (p. 156). A comparison between Switzerland and Germany, England, and America, as regards weaving, yields the following results (p. 151):—