CHAPTER IX

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF WAGES

METHODS OF REMUNERATION

Soue special attention may profitably be given to the
problem of wages as concerned with various groups
of labourers in regard to whom the conceptions developed
in the preceding chapter in the matter of the standard of
living will not apply. There are some notable cases where
a wage insufficient to maintain even the individual worker,
much less to support a worker and a dependent family, can
be accepted without even a tendency to react on the supply
of labour. A good illustration is afforded by the case of
women’s and children’s wages. In regard to the latter, the
supply-price is not entirely unconnected with the amount
supplied, but is not limited by the expenses of maintenance
of the children. Its relation to the permanent supply of
child labour is bound up with other questions. The total
earnings of a family, rather than the earnings of individual
members of it, form the fund the relation of which to the
standard of living operates on the growth of numbers, So
far as the children are concerned, provided their earnings
exceed the amount by which their maintenance at work is
more expensive than their support without a wage-earning
employment, there is an apparent gain from the wages.
Against this gain some set-off is formed in the diminution
of the services which the child is able to render in the home
as a result of being employed outside it. Though this
may, in a numerous class of cases, cover the grounds on
which the availability of children for wage-earning employment
 is determined, the consideration of the later working
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