in Northumberland; the pay of Belgian farm labour is three times higher in the valley of the Meuse than in the Campine, and twice as high as in Flanders; it varies likewise prodigiously in Germany, even in adjoining districts. Whence these diversities? The reason, obviously, is that distinct and dissimilar conditions determine wages in different parts of each country. Mr. Cairnes urges: A rise of wages, let us suppose, occurs in the coal trade-does any one suppose that this could continue without affecting wages, not merely in other mining industries in full competition with coal mining, but in industries the most remote from coal mining, industries alike higher and lower in the industrial scale? Most undoubtedly it could not.'

We answer, most undoubtedly it could, and actually did. Wages rose continuously for a century in mining and other industries in some counties in England, while in others the earnings of the agricultural labourer remained stationary throughout the whole period. In 1850, Mr. Caird found the rate of agricultural wages in one northern parish 16s. a week, in another parish in the south only 6s. a week. In the former parish, mines and manufactures competed with farming for labour; in the latter, the one employer was a farmer holding 5,000 acres. Would it be reasonable to say there was an average rate in the two parishes of 11s. a week, resulting from the ratio of the aggregate wages fund to the number of labourers in both? What share had the southern labourer in the funds from which his fellow in the north earned his 16s. a week? In like manner, the funds expended in wages in the Rhine Province no more govern the price of labour in Pomerania and Posen than in Cornwall or Kent. A farm labourer in Flanders earns 1 fr. 50 c. a day, an inferior labourer in another part of Belgium may earn 3 fr. 50 c. and upwards. Why? Because the Fleming no more shares in the funds which afford such high wages around Charleroi and Liége, than a provincial journalist does in the funds from which the writers of the Times are remunerated. Moreover, to speak of the ratio of an aggregate wages fund to the number of labourers as determining wages in each country surely implies that the sum expendible in wages at any given time is a fixed quantity; and, accordingly, M. de Laveleye

remarks that one of many facts which give a practical refutation to the doctrine is that wages have recently risen in some parts of Belgium at the expense of rent. The demand for labour in manufactures on the one hand, and the novel attitude of the Belgian farm labourer on the other, have compelled farmers in certain districts to raise wages to a point at which farming has become a losing business; rents, therefore, are falling. It was seriously urged against trade-unions and combinations of labourers in England a few years ago by some advocates of the doctrine of the wages fund, that wages could not be raised by combination in one trade or locality without a proportionate fall of wages elsewhere, there being only a certain aggregate fund to be distributed. Mr. Heath's statement, however, is incontrovertible that the mere report of the formation of an agricultural labourers' union in Warwickshire raised wages immediately in several neighbouring counties, and it will hardly be contended that there was a corresponding fall in other counties.

It is evident that the result has been mistaken for the cause; that the aggregate amount of wages is nothing but the sum of the particular amounts in all particular cases taken together; and that it would be as rational to say that the income of each individual in the United Kingdom depends on the proportion of the total national income to the number of individuals, as to say that the wages of each labourer in every place and in every occupation depend on the ratio of the sum total of wages to the total number of labourers. The statistician may find some interest in calculating the average rate resulting from the ratio of the aggregate amount of wages, if it could be ascertained, to the number of labourers in the kingdom; but the economist deludes himself and misleads others by representing this as the problem of wages. If farm wages be 10s. a week in Devonshire, and 20s. in Northumberland, to say that the average rate is 15s. a week is to speak of a rate which has no existence in either, and to withdraw attention from the causes of the real rates in both. In every country, instead of an average or common rate of wages, there is a great number of different rates, and the real problem is, what are the causes which produce these different rates? Hence we are driven to conclude that Mr. Cairnes is

not 'justified,' to use his own words, 'in generalizing the various facts of wages into a single conception, and in discussing "general" or "average wages."

At this point we are brought to enquire whether there is any better reason for maintaining the existence of an average rate of profit. The doctrine of average profit is closely connected in Mr. Cairnes's exposition with that of average wages. While contending, erroneously as we have shown, for an equality of wages throughout all similar occupations in the same country, he admits that working classes of very different degrees of skill do not compete, and may be paid at different rates for equal sacrifice and exertion. But, he adds, though labourers in certain departments of industry are practically cut off from competition with labourers in other departments, the competition of capitalists is effective over the whole field. The communication between the different sections of industrial life, which is not kept open by the movements of labour, is effectually maintained by the action of capital constantly moving towards the more profitable employments. In this way our entire industrial organization becomes a connected system, any change occurring in any part of which will extend itself to others, and entail complementary changes.'

In Mr. Cairnes's view, if wages were below par in any trade or locality, although the labourers there might not be able to migrate, a movement of capital seeking cheap labour would at once set in. It might almost be a sufficient refutation of this doctrine, in relation both to wages and to profit, to point out that no migration of capital has equalized the wages of agricultural labourers in any country in Europe. What migration there has been-and it has been altogether inadequate to produce an approach to equality of wages-has been almost altogether a migration of labour. Moreover, if in a single occupation so simple as that of agricultural labour there has been no such effective competition as Mr. Cairnes assumes, there seems some antecedent reason for suspecting error in the assumption of such an effective competition among capitalists as to equalize the rates of profit in all the countless employments of capital. There is something like a circular movement in Mr. Cairnes's

reasoning on this subject. He first argues-Each competitor, aiming at the largest reward in return for his sacrifices, will be drawn towards the occupations which happen at the time to be the best remunerated; while he will equally be repelled from those in which the remuneration is below the actual level. The supply of products proceeding from the better paid employments will thus be increased, and that from the less remunerative reduced, until supply, acting on price, corrects the inequality, and brings remuneration into proportion with the sacrifices undergone.'

But afterwards we read-The one and sufficient test of the existence of an effective industrial competition, is the correspondence of remuneration with the sacrifices undergone-a substantial equality, that is to say, making allowance for the different circumstances of different industries, of profits and wages. Such a test applied to domestic transactions shows the existence of a very large amount of effective industrial competition throughout the various industries carried on within the limits of a single country. The competition of different capitals within such limits may be said to be universally effective.'

Is not this very like arguing that the equality of profits is proved by the fact that there is an effective competition of capital, and that the equality of profits proves the fact of an effective competition? Nor is this the only seeming flaw in Mr. Cairnes's logic. In proof of the equalization of profits, he urges that capital deserts or avoids occupations which are known. to be comparatively unremunerative; while if large profits are known to be realized in any investment, there is a flow of capital towards it. Hence it is inferred that capital finds its level like water. But surely the movement of capital from losing to highly profitable trades proves only a great inequality of profits. There is, in like manner, a considerable emigration of labourers from Europe to America; does that prove that wages are equalized over the two continents? Let Mr. Cairnes himself answer- Great as has been the emigration from Europe to the United States, it may be doubted if any appreciable effect has been produced on the rates of wages in the latter country. Throughout the Union, wages remain in all occupations very

considerably higher than in the corresponding occupations in this country.'

Elsewhere he estimates American wages at twice the English, and four times the German rate. The emigration of labour, thus, is neither sign nor cause of an equality of wages; it is, on the contrary, consequence and proof of their inequality; and the migration of capital from losing or unprofitable to promising businesses, in like manner, only lands those who refer to it in evidence of the equalization of profits in an ignoratio elenchi. Mr. Cairnes, it seems clear, has not taken into consideration the main objections to the doctrine he espouses. The only objections he notices are the difficulty of transferring buildings, plant, and material from one use to another, and of learning a new branch of business. The fact is, that there are, in the first place, no means whatever of knowing the profits and prospects of all the occupations and investments of capital. No capitalist knows so much as the names, or even the number of the trades in the London Directory, only a part of the trades of the kingdom; and their number and names are yearly increasing. If, again, there were any statistics showing the actual gains of the different trades, they would show that the profits of the individual members of each trade vary immensely.

The business of insurance used to be thought one in which there was a certain general rate of profit. But a few years ago the subject was investigated by Mr. Black, and also in the Economist, and the result arrived at was the fact of 'extremes of success and disaster in the experience of companies still underwriting.' Mr. Cairnes's reasoning assumes that the profits of every business are well known; but as they vary greatly with different companies and different individuals, the assumption implies that individual profits are known. If they were, it would be seen that to speak of the average profits, even of a single business, is idle. Moreover, even if the past profits of every individual in every trade were known, it would be a serious error on the part of capitalists, though one which they often commit, to judge of the future from the past. The changes in production and the conditions of trades, in international