Page:The Economics of Unemployment.djvu/92

to better health, higher intelligence, and generally improved efficiency.

But one of the most injurious effects of these trade fluctuations is that they unsettle standards of living and stop these gradual processes of improvement. Under such a dispensation, just as it cannot be assumed that wage-increases beyond the immediate limits of physiological efficiency will at once or quickly or of necessity be represented in higher productive efficiency, so it cannot be assumed that a reduction of these higher wages will be attended by a corresponding fall of efficiency and productivity. So far as immediate costs of production are concerned, there is much evidence to sustain the view that low-wage periods mean low labour-costs and high wage periods high labour-costs in trades where normal wage minima are above any 'sweating' level. If this view be correct, the 'economy of high wages' cannot be pleaded as a sufficient answer to the claim for wage-reduction, regarded from the standpoint of immediate trade policy.

The resistance of the workers to wage-reductions at such a time must be based upon a longer-sighted view of labour policy. A momentary view of the immediate situation may tempt them to accept a reduction, upon the plea that thus more employment can be found and the actual volume of wages can be raised. But the habitual adoption of this policy means that wage-increases, obtained in times of good trade, cannot be assimilated in a higher normal standard of living and thus cannot contribute to build up a higher standard of personal and economic efficiency