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POLITICAL  ECONOMY

more  efficient  operatives  will  tend  to  get  wages
in  excess  of  the  wage  obtained  by  the  marginal
man  ;  and  after  the  foregoing  exposition  it
should  be  equally  apparent  that  the  extra
wages  will  measure  their  differential  advantages ­
  as  agents  in  production,  that  is  the
differential  advantages  of  employing  them.
They  are  properly  termed  rents,  according
to  the  modefn  use  of  the  term,  because  they
are  payments  for  differential  advantages.
It  will  be  observed,  moreover,  that  the
complexities  which  were  involved  in  the  case
of  land  considered  above  when  we  took  into
account  the  different  amounts  of  labour  and
capital  that  would  be  applied  to  different
qualities  of  land  are  involved  also,  to  some
extent,  in  the  case  of  workmen.  More  doses
of  labour  and  capital  will  be  applied,  other
things  being  equal,  to  the  more  efficient  than
to  the  less  efficient  workman,  that  is  to  say
there  will  be  a  tendency  to  set  the  efficient
workman  to  manage  more  machinery  and
generally  to  work  with  more  assistance.  However, ­
  this  tendency  is  frequently  counteracted
by  other  tendencies,  for  instance  by  the  disposition ­
  to  secure  the  simplicity  arising  from
uniformity  of  arrangement.  Again,  trade
union  regulations,  imposed  for  reasons  which
cannot  be  discussed  now,  may  prevent  the