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sented the same value as in 1840. In this case the price of an ellof calico of exactly the same quality declined from 1840 to 1883by 22 per cent., the cost of labour per yard by 41 per cent., theamount falling to interest and profit, by 63 per cent., and duringthe same period the weekly earnings of the operative had risen by64 per cent. (1).
What applies to a single article may also apply to the wholenational production, as far as it depends upon the principle ofcentralised industry. Labour receives a relatively higher share.But the centralised industrial system represents such a greaterproduction that, similarly as in the production costs of a singlearticle, the amounts for labour as well as for capital absolutelydecrease. Tims with regard to the greatly increased total produc-tion, both amounts absolutely increase. On labour as well as oncapital falls an absolutely greater amount.
An exception only occurs in so far that extraordinary dexteritybecomes replaced by the machine. As the demands on labourbecome more regular, wages also approach more nearly to a similarlevel (2). Thus medium wages, according to experience, tend torise more than the highest, and the latter partially to fall. Forinstance, the wages of the mule-spinner, at one time, for the finestyarns amounted to double those for ordinary yarns; to'-day thewage conditions of both have approached one another.
To those special capacities which were formerly higher paidthan later, because they have become partly less necessary, partlymore frequent, belong before everything else the portion of theprofit which is termed real employer’s wage. We have alreadylaid clear the reasons for this.
Extremely influential in this respect operates the “ limited ”system, which at the present time comprises one-tenth of all busi-ness concerns in the United Kingdom. With the largely increasedoperations of single undertakings, only few large possessors ofcapital would be in a position to come forward as industrial em-ployers. With them the limited principle puts all those technicaland commercial talents into competition which, without consider-