THE PROBLEM OF WAGES 129

advantages, and with supplies of labour which may be
recruited or reduced by interchange between trades or places.
The industrial world is thus effectively reduced to a world
where each industry can be separately considered, or where
we may proceed as if there were but one industry. The
standard of living we consider has reference to this industry
alone.
What will be the result if the remuneration of labour
fall short of the amount demanded by the standard of
living? This amount suffices to provide the necessaries and
comforts of life according to the habits prevalent among
the workers, and includes provision for the maintenance of a
family. The former is implied in the supposition that
personal ability to labour is maintained, for when expenditure
is reduced, some reduction takes place, in practice, in the
expenditure which contributes to efficiency, as well as in
that which has its chief object in affording satisfactions
secured for their own sake. What has become conventionally
Necessary is yielded up with as great reluctance as what is
demanded for the satisfaction of primary physical needs,
The inclusion of provision for a family in the conception of
the standard of living is demanded by the consideration
that we are examining the conditions of existence of a class,
not of individuals. That the class may be maintained in
undiminished numbers, provision must be made for the
rearing of children and their industrial training. Wages
must, in fact, cover the necessaries of the wage-earners and
of the dependent members of the class as well, those too
young to earn, those engaged in rearing children, those too
old to support themselves. The wage which affords the
Means of attaining to the standard of living of the class is
the supply-price of the labour of that class, and the preceding
 remarks have reference to this fact rather than to
anything specifically stated in the words “standard of
living.”
If wages, then, fell below the amount needed to maintain
the class standard, the supply of labour will be reduced,
sither in amount, or in efficiency, or in both. Reduction in
amount may obviously proceed by a drain to other classes,