be expressed in common or average labour; will have to be added up to get the total value; and will have to be kept separately in accounts so that each one may get his due number of cheques and no more to present against goods or services. Then, more carriers' labour will be required, as well as bleachers, and their contributions in time must be added on to the value estimate, because they, too, will have a claim as respects the total product. It will finally be conveyed to warehouses. It may then be made into necessary articles of direct utility; the values of each of which will have to be estimated by the book-keepers and valuers from the value in hours of the amount of material in it, together with the additional hours of the seamstress, whom, on Marx's principles, we must suppose aided by the sewing machine, as the latest social and technical aid to her labour. As to the bookkeeper's own labour I will only say that, however difficult it would be to measure it on the theory under consideration, it will be very real and responsible.

If the question be raised, what is Marx's standard of average or common labour, it is not easy to reply. It is not a real objective one, as the labour of the carpenter, the mason, the ploughman, or any other. is something lower, simpler, and less skilled than the least skilled of these. There is no formal definition of it, but it is described as "the expenditure of simple labour power, i.e. the labour power which on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual." "Skilled labour counts only as average labour intensified, or rather as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity

of skilled labour being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour." It is further described as "mere human labour, simple average labour," finally with a nearer approach to light, though not quite to definiteness of conception, which is what is wanted in a standard of comparison, it is "simple unskilled labour, to which the different sorts of skilled labour are reduced as their standard." He adds, "for simplicity's sake we shall henceforth account every kind of labour to be unskilled labour; by this we do no more than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction; "a saving of trouble much to be regretted if, as implied, the reduction could have been made by Marx.

The standard then is simple unskilled labour, of which, however, it is not easy to get examples in the concrete, especially as nearly all labour requires the aid of some implements and some degree of skill, however faint. Perhaps the rude labour which a "C Iman out of work" could do or could learn to do in a few days might be supposed to furnish examples. But even this should not be labour requiring exceptional strength as that of the navvy or dock-labourer, for this would not be average labour, or "the exercise of labour-power which exists in the organism of every ordinary individual." The first difficulty is the want of a clear and definite conception of the standard, before we can hope to reduce other kinds of labour to it. The standard remains an ideal thing, an abstract or general conception, while we want a definite con

3 "Capital,” vol. i. p. 11.

crete conception, as of such a kind of work for such a length of time.

The next difficulty is to reduce the many different sorts of skilled labour to this standard. And confining ourselves in particular to the different kinds of labour in the factory, all of which are above this unskilled labour, how are we to reduce them? We must first reduce the labour of the ordinary operative to it. But by what rule? How much is it to be rated above average labour? Then comes the skilled labour of the manual sort: this has to be reduced to average labour. Is it to be twice or thrice, and why? Then where intelligence is of importance, how is the labour into which it enters to be expressed in terms of average labour?—the labour e.g. of the foreman and overseer, or of the clerks who must correspond in foreign languages, or finally of the owner or manager whose work in organizing and directing is altogether intellectual and moral? And yet all these labourers are required to produce the final thing, or what is equally necessary, to find a market. All the labour must be rated in hours of common or average labour, or we cannot tell what is its value on Marx's principles; and if we do not know its value, we cannot tell the value of a given portion of the product, nor by

4 Under Collectivism, indeed, there would be no labour necessary to find a market at home; and much of the above labour would be spared; while the high ability now required to distance rivals would find no proper scope. There would still, however, be some business ability of this particular kind required to find the best foreign markets for our manufactures; while all other kinds of ability tending to increase production, would, of course, be as much needed as before.

consequence how much of it the different workers can get in exchange for their certificates for hours of work. We have no Law of Distribution, to get which was the chief object of this theory of value, none, save one impossible of application-that each one. should get in proportion to his work, or as much of the objectified time-products as he had given in average labour-time.

Thus, then, we see that even with respect to the workers of a single factory, hours of work would be an imperfect and unequal measure of work. Even if it could be applied it would very imperfectly realize justice, which is the object in view; while it could not be applied without the greatest difficulty. The difficulty increases if we compare the labour in a given industry with the labour of connected or subsidiary industries, the labour of weaving with spinning, or with the labour of transport or circulation of the product;-still more, if we compare one kind of productive labour with another; agricultural labour with mining, or with carpentering, weaving, or navigating a ship. The difficulty of comparing in this way productive with unproductive labour is too obvious, e.g. the labour of a magistrate and a business manager, or of a soldier, a school-master, and an artisan, while, with respect to some kinds of unproductive labour, though highly important, time has little or nothing to do with the work or its value.

The fact is, that where time as a measure is applicable roughly, it is already applied, and workers for the same time in the same species of work are paid by time and paid the same amount. In other cases

where it would be impossible to tell how many hours they have really worked they are still paid by time -the day, week, or month. They are paid a certain amount per week agreed on for their work, without the vain attempt to estimate how many minutes or hours of their work is objectified in the final material product. In other cases again they are paid not by time but by the job, or for the special service, where the time-consideration is not the important point.

II.

As to Marx's theory that skilled labour is ordinary labour intensified or multiplied, we must ask in what sense it is common labour multiplied or intensified ?

An hour's labour of the skilled sort is not two or three or any number of times as severe or painful, or disagreeable, as an hour of common labour, it is probably less so, possibly it is even pleasant, though even were it otherwise, there is no quantitative measure of these degrees. Nor can we say that skilled labour requires greater muscular effort, of which there is a quantitative measure in the number of foot pounds lifted a given height. Thus estimated, we should have to reverse the Marxian proposition, and say that average labour was skilled labour multiplied. But perhaps skilled labour consumes greater nervous, including brain energy, though less muscular effort or energy, and that taken all together the quantity of energy consumed by skilled labour is greater. Now it is, perhaps, true that there is a greater quantity of energy on the whole consumed by the skilled than the unskilled labour, but science