272 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

ward in a practical way by the locomotive engineers and
firemen in their arbitrations, it was derided by railway
management as a visionary, academic theory, incapable of
practical application. Later, the claim that wage-earners
should participate in earnings according to their contribution
 to output, was strenuously opposed on moral and economic
 grounds based on the argument that lower costs and
productive gains had their origin in managerial ability and
in new capital commitments—the installation of new machinery
 and equipment and the adoption of improved processes
 and methods. The recognition of such a theory, it
was claimed, would remove the incentive for new capital
investment and thus prevent industrial progress and expansion.


Not until after the inauguration of the new post-war
policy of reviving and maintaining general prosperity
through mass production and distribution, and through the
stimulation of consuming power by wage increases, was
there any general aceptance of the theory that industrial
workers should participate in lower costs and productive
gains. Some of the ultra-conservative associations of
manufacturers even then conceded this participation not as
a moral or economic right, but only on the selfish policy
that if wage-earners received more compensation they
would consume more commodities and services, and thus
help to expand demand for commodities—the basic essential
 of stabilized prosperity. The more liberal industrial
leadership, however, has unreservedly accepted as a fundamental
 of enlightened industrial statesmanship the right
of wage-earners to share in output according to their contribution
 thereto. It has become an accepted, fundamental
tenet of the new industrial régime.
Likewise, the opposition to an adequate basic wage has
ceased. The old claim that to grant labor a “living wage”