III. (And now look out, for this proposition involves the ultimate principle of all just wages.) If a man does a given quantity of work for me, I am bound in justice to do, or procure to be done, a precisely equal quantity of work for him; and just trade in labor is the exchange of equivalent quantities of labor of different kinds.
If you pause at this word "equivalent," you shall have definition of it in my next letter. I am sure you will in fairness insert this challenge, whether you accept it or decline.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
John Ruskin.[45]
Denmark Hill, Thursday, April 20.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] The Gazette was at this time of little more than eight weeks' standing. The dull leader was that in the Gazette of April 19, entitled "Masters and Men," and dealt entirely with Mr. Ruskin's letter on strikes. The "pace Mr. Kingsley" alludes, of course, to his "Ode to the North-East Wind."
[44] The leader had begun by speaking of Mr. Ruskin's previous letter as "embodying fallacies, pernicious in the highest degree," and concluded by remarking how "easily and unconsciously he glided into the true result of his principles."
[45] In reply, the Gazette denied "each of the three propositions to be true," on grounds shown in the quotations given in the following letter.