Sixth Century Political Economy

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"There -- ye're confessing it again, ye're confessing it again!"

"Confound it, I've never denied it, I tell you! What I say is this. With us HALF a dollar buys more than a DOLLAR buys with you -- and THEREFORE it stands to reason and the commonest kind of common-sense, that our wages are HIGHER than yours."

He looked dazed, and said, despairingly:

"Verily, I cannot make it out. Ye've just said ours are the higher, and with the same breath ye take it back."

"Oh, great Scott, isn't it possible to get such a simple thing through your head? Now look here -- let me illustrate. We pay four cents for a woman's stuff gown, you pay 8.4.0, which is four mills more than DOUBLE. What do you allow a laboring woman who works on a farm?"

"Two mills a day."

"Very good; we allow but half as much; we pay her only a tenth of a cent a day; and --"

"Again ye're conf --"

"Wait! Now, you see, the thing is very simple; this time you'll understand it. For instance, it takes your woman 42 days to earn her gown, at 2 mills a day -- 7 weeks' work; but ours earns hers in forty days -- two days SHORT of 7 weeks. Your woman has a gown, and her whole seven weeks wages are gone; ours has a gown, and two days' wages left, to buy something else with. There -- NOW you understand it!"

He looked -- well, he merely looked dubious, it's the most I can say; so did the others. I waited -- to let the thing work. Dowley spoke at last -- and betrayed the fact that he actually hadn't gotten away from his rooted and grounded superstitions yet. He said, with a trifle of hesitancy:

"But -- but -- ye cannot fail to grant that two mills a day is better than one."

Shucks! Well, of course, I hated to give it up. So I chanced another flyer:

"Let us suppose a case. Suppose one of your journeymen goes out and buys the following articles:

"1 pound of salt;
1 dozen eggs;
1 dozen pints of beer;
1 bushel of wheat;
1 tow-linen suit;
5 pounds of beef;
5 pounds of mutton.

"The lot will cost him 32 cents. It takes him 32 working days to earn the money -- 5 weeks and 2 days. Let him come to us and work 32 days at HALF the wages; he can buy all those things for a shade under 14 1/2 cents; they will cost him a shade under 29 days' work, and he will have about half a week's wages over. Carry it through the year; he would save nearly a week's wages every two months, YOUR man nothing; thus saving five or six weeks' wages in a year, your man not a cent. NOW I reckon you understand that 'high wages' and 'low wages' are phrases that don't mean anything in the world until you find out which of them will BUY the most!"