I have already, in part, dealt with the question practically as far as workingmen are concerned, by pointing out the really narrow limits of monopoly rent,[1]. and practically the final conclusion must be reached by the statistical method, and in the way I have already used. But I wish to avoid statistics for the present, and to indicate merely the general conditions of the problem to be solved, which appear to minimize the possible extent of the alleged drawback.
It is clear, first of all, on general grounds, that the concentration of men in cities is due to the fact that cities, on the whole, weigh in the balance against the country. There is more and better employment there than in the country, all deductions made, in the opinion of those interested; and that seems a conclusive answer to the question as to whether, on the whole, there is not a net as well as a gross improvement in wages as far as this drawback is concerned.
Next, it is plain that, as a great part of the improvement of the last fifty years has consisted in the substitution of artisan and other highly paid labor for merely rude labor, the additional monopoly rent payable in the cities can only be, in most cases, a comparatively trifling drawback. It may be the case that, if we compare the former peasant of the country with the rude laborer of the city, and especially of the metropolis, the latter has hardly gained; but if we compare the former peasant of the country with the town artisan of the present time, although the latter has to pay monopoly rent or an equivalent charge for conveyance, there is still an enormous gain in the latter's position. It is the same with the professional classes. If the latter were stationary in number, or increasing only pari passu with the increase of population, then the larger gross income on the average earned by the masses of professional men in cities, as compared with the professional incomes earned in the country formerly, might show little net improvement; but allowance has to be made for the fact that the number of such incomes has enormously increased, and that the earners largely compare with the earners of wholly inferior incomes in former times, whether in town or country. As the increase of these classes could not have taken place without the growth of cities, there must be a large net as well as gross gain to be reckoned when the comparison is properly made.
To bring the matter to a point, what I have to urge is, that the very growth of cities implies the existence of conditions under which workmen of higher grades take the place of workmen of lower grades, so that, although class for class a workman passing from country to town does not seem to gain so very much, on account of the difference between gross and net, yet,
- ↑ See "Essays in Finance," second series, pp. 381, 382
