sides. The increase of production is the very fact which is assumed. Nor is the increase of remuneration denied—the only question is of the proportionate remuneration. Before passing from this point, however, I should like to dwell a little on the fact already referred to, of an improvement in the quality of nonmechanical labor, because, as this labor is largely the subject of direct exchange without much intervention of capital, the mere fact of improvement implies almost a proportionate increase of remuneration. At any rate, the laborers concerned get almost the whole benefit, because they exchange with each other. I refer to such employments as those of teaching, medical attendance, nursing, domestic service, dressmaking, and the like among the upper and middle classes. The increase of remuneration here may not be in proportion to the improvement of quality; the game may not be worth the candle; but, at any rate, the exchanges are direct. Now, as to the fact of great improvement, I believe there is no doubt. Nursing, for instance, is said to be an entirely different thing in hospitals from what it was only fifteen or twenty years ago. Domestic service, as regards cooking, waiting, and other points, is also, on the whole, better, notwithstanding manifold complaints, just because of the general improvement in education and intelligence. The same with dressmaking. More intelligence and skill are everywhere applied, and in direct exchanges, without much intervention of machines or of capital.
Next, it has to be considered, as regards the question of proportionate remuneration, that by the very mode of here stating the question, it appears that it is not so much a question of increase in the severity of labor generally, as of a change in the character of the labor. If the quality of labor has altered and improved in many directions, there is, in truth, no proper term for comparison between the present and former times. The improvement of the quality of the labor, which is another name for the increased intelligence and energy of society, may not be proportionately remunerated; but there is no means of telling. People would not go back to the conditions of a former society, where less intelligence and energy were required for a lower scale of living, even if they had the choice. The new advantages, with all their drawbacks, are accepted as part of a higher state. The complaints are to some extent a sign of the perpetual unrest of human life, and of the fact of improvement itself.
There can equally be no doubt, looking at the matter in this way, that in certain directions there may be a very poignant and not unjustifiable feeling as to an increase in the severity of labor. This appears to be the case as regards employments which involve the watching of machines, the very employments where there is apparently the greatest increase of production and the
