THE PROBLEM OF WAGES 133

rapid increase in numbers, by excess of births over deaths,
than would have taken place had earnings just corresponded
to the actual standard of living, its effects must be noted.
Increased competition for employment tends to induce the
competitors to accept some reduction of wages below the
rates current at the time. The increase of numbers employed
tends to the reduction of the marginal productivity of labour,
and thus to a reduction of the demand-price for labour,
These features dominate the wages discussions of some
writers, Those of the early nineteenth century, in particular,
wrote as if the whole effect of advances in wages would be
felt in increase of numbers of competitors for employment,
and that, in consequence, the advantage would be lost,
through the struggle of increased numbers for a place in the
industrial hive. The standard of living, adherence to which
provides a point of resistance to wage -reduction, was
conceived of as necessarily yielding to pressure till it
comprised the mere necessaries for existence. Hence these
writers gave an impression that the condition of the wageearners
 was one of little hope, The reluctance which is
manifested to abandoning established ideas of what are
reasonable conditions of life, manifested practically in the
reduction (or inadequate increase) of the labour supply when
that standard is threatened, with the correlative utilisation of
increased opportunities, resulting in greater efficiency being
secured when high wages provide these opportunities, lead
us to dwell less on the deplorable condition of the least
prosperous sections of the community than on the influences
which help to maintain the advantages enjoyed by the more
prosperous,
If, then, actual wage-rates be below the supply-price for
the amount of labour needed at those rates, though the
Quantity of labour immediately available may be great
enough to compel the acceptance of the prices offered, the
Supply will not be maintained. Similarly, if the actual rates
be higher than the supply-price in question, the supply will
Increase. Time is required to work out these results, to a
point where the scarcity or abundance of labour is felt as an
nfluence on the market-price for labour, but the supply-price