The North British Review (Volume 48) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1868. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Reservoir Fund. 9 of 10,000 or 20,000, but out of his gross annual receipts of 100,000. So that diminished profits do not entail a diminution in the fund from which renewed savings are made. They do diminish the fund from which new savings are drawn, and no one will deny that in face of falling profits and rising wages new investments in a particular trade will be checked. Hitherto we have assumed that notwithstanding the increased cost of production consumers would pay no more for the produce. If they do pay more, the fund from which the renewed savings are drawn will increase also, and the wages fund will or may be increased still further. We took the other case first, as more unfavourable to our views. But, it may be urged, the argument as to a possible increase of the wages fund notwithstanding diminished profits, cannot hold good in those employments which require but little fixed capital. Undoubtedly the more easily capital can be transferred from one business to another, the sooner will any possible increase of wages fund applicable to that business reach its limit; but this same transfer of capital is by no means an easy matter, as any manufacturer or man of business will tell us. Some persons in speaking of the wages fund seem to imagine that there would be a material as well as a moral difficulty in paying increased wages. They reason as if wages were limited by the amount of cash which manufacturers hold. It is of no use, they say, that the manufacturer may be willing to pay increased wages, if he has not already saved money enough for the purpose. A man cannot give what he has not got. A man who will open his eyes and will look at the way in which wages are paid in practice, will never be deceived by this fallacy. There is a very co...