TABLE X.-BAR-IRON MANUFACTURE. Relation between the Earnings of Workmen, the Labour Cost The wages of such skilled workmen as heaters and rollers are twice as great as in Great Britain, and nearly three-fold higher than in France and Belgium. The average wage to all classes of labourers in the establishment is also twice as great as in Great Britain, three times as high as in France, and four times larger than in Belgium. Compare these figures with the labour cost of a similar unit of manufacture, and we find quite different proportions. It is only a trifle more than in France, where daily wages are about one-third as high, one-eighth dearer than in Great Britain, with wages only half as high, and fifty-four per cent. greater than in Belgium, where wages are down to one-fourth. In the manufacture of steel rails the same general law is evident. With the average wage of the establishment 40 per cent. greater than in England, the labour cost is only 10 per cent. more. In comparison with the continent of Europe wages are 90 per cent. and labour cost but 50 per cent. higher. We must note also that for bar-iron the proportion of the labour cost to the total cost is less in the United States than in Great Britain and France, and for steel rails less than in England. What inferences are we to draw from the foregoing statistics? Unmistakably this, that higher daily wages in America do not mean a correspondingly enhanced labour cost to the manufacturer. But why so? Some say because of the more perfect mechanical agencies put into the hands of the workman in American rolling mills. There is reason in this answer, if we take the average conditions, but it does not represent the whole truth. Moreover, it cannot be used in a comparison between England and the United States, since in the former country mechanical processes have been perfected almost to the same degree as in the latter. Particularly will the explanation nearly alike in equipment and occupy a very high rank in their fail in the present case, since the three establishments chosen are respective countries. efficient. telligence and skill, make the working man in the United States more the result of better nourishment in combination with superior inThe real explanation I believe to be, that greater physical force, as His determination to maintain a high standard of life iron, but statistics give it here even less probability. If applicable to steel-making, it should equally hold true of bar TABLE XI.-MANUFACTURE OF STEEL RAILS. Relation between the Earnings of Workmen, the Labour Cost and the Total Cost These figures are taken directly from the books of three large establishments, well equipped The terminal dates of the periods to which these figures relate are as follows: United States, July 15 to 27, 1889 ; Great Britain, April 1 to September 29, 1889 ; The rails manufactured have very nearly the same weight per yard. Produc tion per Ton. causes him to put forth greater effort, and this reacts to the benefit of the employer as well as to his own. We should give the principal credit of the higher wages in America neither to the manufacturer, the tariff, nor any other agency, but the working man himself, who will not labour for less than will enable him to live on a high social plane. That he can carry out his policy with but little disadvantage to his employer in economic competition, teaches a lesson of farreaching importance. Instead of a Ricardian régime, where the wages of labour become barely sufficient to permit a sustentation of effort and a reproduction of kind, it looks as if ere long the world's industrial supremacy would pass to those who earn the most and live the best. E. R. L. GOULD. B THE INADEQUACY OF "NATURAL SELECTION.” f A S TUDENTS of psychology are familiar with the experiments of Weber on the sense of touch. He found that different parts of the surface differ widely in their ability to give information concerning the things touched. Some parts, which yielded vivid sensations, yielded little or no knowledge of the size or form of the thing exciting it; whereas other parts, from which there came sensations much less acute, furnished clear impressions respecting tangible characters, even of relatively small objects. These unlikenesses of tactual discriminativeness he ingeniously expressed by actual measurements. Taking a pair of compasses, he found that if they were closed so nearly that the points were less than one-twelfth of an inch apart, the end of the forefinger could not perceive that there were two points: the two points seemed one. But when the compasses were opened so that the points were one-twelfth of an inch apart, then the end of the forefinger distinguished the two points. On the other hand, he found that the compasses must be opened to the extent of two and a half inches before the middle of the back could distinguish between two points and one. That is to say, as thus measured, the end of the forefinger has thirty times the tactual discriminativeness which the middle of the back has. Between these extremes he found gradations. The inner surfaces of the second joints of the fingers çan distinguish separateness of positions only half as well as the tip of the forefinger. The innermost joints are still less discriminating, but have a power of discrimation equal to that of the tip of the nose. The end of the great toe, the palm of the hand, and the cheek, have alike one-fifth of the perceptiveness which the tip of the forefinger has; and the lower part of the forehead has but one-half that possessed by the cheek. The back of the hand and the crown of the head are nearly alike in having but a fourteenth or a fifteenth of the ability to perceive positions as distinct, which is possessed by the finger-end. The thigh, near the knee, has rather less, and the breast less still 1; so that the compasses must be more than an inch and a half apart before the breast distinguishes the two points from one another. What is the meaning of these differences? How, in the course of evolution, have they been established? If "natural selection or survival of the fittest is the assigned cause, then it is required to show in what way each of these degrees of endowment has advantaged the possessor to such extent that not infrequently life has been directly or indirectly preserved by it. We might reasonably assume that in the absence of some differentiating process, all parts of the surface would have like powers of perceiving relative positions. They cannot have become widely unlike in perceptiveness without some cause. And if the cause alleged is natural selection, then it is necessary to show that the greater degree of the power possessed by this part than by that, has not only conduced to the maintenance of life, but has conduced so much that an individual in whom a variation had produced better adjustment to needs, thereby maintained life when some others lost it; and that among the descendants inheriting this variation, there was a derived advantage such as enabled them to multiply more than the descendants of individuals not possessing it. Can this, or anything like this, be shown ? That the superior perceptiveness of the forefinger-tip has thus arisen, might be contended with some apparent reason. Such perceptiveness is an important aid to manipulation, and may have somextimes given a life-saving advantage. In making arrows or fish-hooks, a savage possessing some extra amount of it may have been thereby enabled to get food where another failed. In civilised life, too, a sempstress with well-endowed finger-ends might be expected to gain a better livelihood than one with finger-ends which were obtuse; though this advantage would not be so great as appears. I have found that two ladies whose finger-ends were covered with glove-tips, reducing their sensitiveness from one-twelfth of an inch between compass points to one-seventh, lost nothing appreciable of their quickness and goodness in sewing. An experience of my own here comes in evidence. Towards the close of my salmon-fishing days, I used to observe what a bungler I had become in putting on and taking off artificial flies. As the tactual discriminativeness of my finger-ends, recently tested, comes up to the standard specified by Weber, it is clear that this decrease of manipulative power, accompanying increase of age, was due to decrease in the delicacy of muscular co-ordination and sense of pressure-not to decrease of tactual discriminativeness. But not making much of these criticisms, let us admit the conclusion |