First of all, taking the rate of wages as a rough but
fairly reliable index of the abihty of the laborer to
provide himself with the necessaries and the health-
giving comforts of life, it is, of course, notorious that
all over the world the higher the rate of wages the
lower the actual percentage of cost chargeable to labor
in the article produced. The United States, which
pays the highest wages, has the lowest percentage of
labor-cost in the goods produced. England, with the
next highest wages, charges a higher percentage of
the cost of production to labor. Germany, with still
lower wages, has a still higher debt to labor in the total
cost, and so on down the scale. Underpaid labor is
everywhere the dearest, partly because it is unintel-
ligent, but also because it is ineflBcient from strain and
fatigue, subject to large deductions of time on account
of illness, is apt to be dnmken and dissipated on ac-



THE HEALTH OF THE EMPLOYEE 197

count of the discomfort in which it lives, and is exceed-
ingly wasteful of material.
