In all this we have assumed with the economists
that there is a normal price to which' wages tend
to return, . however violently they may be raised
or lowered for a time, and that the Union can have
no influence in fixing that price. But the assump-
tion is not accurate because Labour, though a
marketable commodity, is not quite like other
marketable commodities. If the price of coal
falls and I get them 2s. or 3s. a ton cheaper,
the coals are just as good as they were before
and perform their function just as well. But if
wages fall, say, in an agricultural district, from
1 2s . to I OS . per week, the labourer does not do his
work so well . The labourer's capacity for work— an
economic factor of the first importance on which the
present commercial position of the nations of the
world may be truly said to rest— varies directly up
to a certain maximum with the remuneration of his
work. Send a man out underfed and scantily



46 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

clothed to his wintry toil in the frozen farmyard,
and bid him return at night to an unwholesome,
dirty, draughty cottage, and as the months go
by his mental and physical strength is drained.
He becomes spoiled goods, and at last has to
be thrown away — into the workhouse. Meanwhile
his children are growing up under similar con-
ditions, kept mercilessly alive for a battle they
are not fit to fight.
