72 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES revival and prosperity of industry. The rectifying of managerial inefficiencies, the elimination of wasteful methods and practises, and the securing of the cooperation and good-will of industrial workers, were pointed out as essential to the return of normal industrial conditions, and often more necessary than a cut in wage-rates. As rep- resentative of this form of enlightened and disinterested opinion, statements by a distinguished student and edu- cator, Doctor Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, and of a prominent banker and indus- trial executive, Mr. Sam A. Lewisohn, may be cited. Both citations are taken from a discussion before the Economic Club of Boston in April, 1921, on the question of a “Com- prehensive and Considerable Reduction of Wages as the Only Road to Normal Production and Reasonable Cost of Living,” Speaking to this question, Mr. Lewisohn, in part, said: On the other hand, aside from the matter of the political and social solidarity of this country, and approaching the question entirely from the viewpoint of materialistic eco- nomics, it is of primary importance that labor does not become resentful and suspicious. Low costs are obviously not merely a matter of low or even of reasonable wages. It is just as much a matter of efficiency as all you who are manufacturers here will recognize. Production standards— the amount of work performed by each unit each day—is a large factor in your costs. In view of the great deterioration in the capital goods of the country since the war, the neces- sity of increased efficiency is self-evident. Now, of course, the efficiency of labor depends to quite some extent on the state of the labor market,—whether labor is scarce or plentiful. The average man will naturally work harder when he realizes that if he loses his job he cannot get another. But, for- — 1 The Consensus, Volume VI, No. 2, May, 1921. Published quarterly by the National Economic League, Boston, Mass.