readiness from one country to another, and wherever there was a chance of devoting the proceeds of the labour and work of old countries to the development of new ones, in the hope of increasing mankind's output, and so gaining fresh profits, there was no lack of those who would risk their past and present labour and work on this process of continually expanding man's conquest over nature.
All classes had shared in the benefits produced by this expansion. Mr. Philip Snowden admits on page 38 of his book on Socialism and Syndicalism, that "between 1850 and 1900 the rate of wages as shown by Board of Trade index numbers, rose by 78 per cent., and in the same period the prices of commodities fell by 11 per cent." He adds that "it is not safe to take these figures upon their face value. The increase of wages was by no means spread uniformly over the whole wage-earning class, nor does a fall in the average of wholesale prices necessarily mean a corresponding reduction in the cost of living to the working classes. The fall in prices in the last half of the nineteenth century was mainly in comforts and luxuries. Many of the articles which enter into the economy of the workers increased
