be more competent workers than
before. If, on the other hand, following the true line of temperance
reform, you expelled intemperance by substituting for drink some
healthier, higher, and equally strong desire which cost as much or more
to attain its satisfaction; if in giving up drink they insisted on
providing against sickness and old age, or upon better houses and more
recreation and enjoyment, then their wages would not fall, and might
even rise in proportion as their new wants, as a class, were more
expensive than the craving for drink which they had abandoned.

Or, again, take the case of technical or general education. In so far as
technical education enabled a number of men who would otherwise have
been unskilled labourers, to compete for skilled work, it will no doubt
enable these men to raise themselves in the industrial sense; but the
addition of their number to the ranks of skilled labour will imply an
increase in supply of skilled labour, and a decrease in supply of
unskilled labour; the price or wage for unskilled labour will rise, but
the wage for skilled labour will fall assuming the relationship between
the demand for skilled and unskilled labour to remain as before. A mere
increase in the efficiency of labour, though it would increase the
quantity of wealth produced, and render a rise of wages possible, would
of itself have no economic force to bring about a rise. No improvement
in the character of labour will be effectual in raising wages unless it
causes a rise in the standard of comfort, which he demands as a
condition of the use of his labour. If we merely increased the
efficiency of labour without a corresponding stimulation of new wants,
we should be simply increasing the mass of labour-power offered for
sale, and the price of each portion would fall correspondingly. It would
confer no more _direct_ benefit upon the worker as such, than does the
introduction of some new machine which has the same effect of adding to
the average efficiency of the worker. Those who would advocate technical
and general education, with a view to the material improvement of the
masses, must see that this education be applied in such a way as to
assist in implanting and strengthening new wholesome demands in those
educated, so as to effectively raise this standard of living. There can
be little doubt but that such education would create new desires, and so
would indirectly secure the industrial elevation of the masses.