Note 173-5 — Chapter III

In high stages of civilization, it is always more profitable, the result being the same, to keep a few well fed cattle than many poorly fed. (Roscher, Nationalök. d. Ackerbaues, § 179.) Infra, § 231. When the drainage of Oxford street in London was made while wages were rising, it happened that the cubic foot of masonry work at 10 shillings per day was cheaper than it was formerly at 6 shillings per day. (Brassey, 68 ff.) Senior calls it an absurdity to consider the high wages paid in England as an obstacle in the way of its successful competition with other countries. Rather would he consider it as the necessary result of the excellence of English labor. Thus, in his Lectures on the mercantile Theory of Wealth, p. 76, he says that if the English employ a part of their labor injudiciously, they must pay it not in proportion to what it really accomplishes, but to what it might do if well employed. If a man calls in a doctor to cut his hair, he must pay him as a doctor. If he puts a man to throwing silk who might earn 3 ounces of silver a week spinning cotton, he must pay him weekly 3 ounces of silver, although he may deliver no more silk within that time than an Italian who gets only 1½ ounces.