(1) The disadvantage under which the working class labors affects it, as the economic law which I shall adduce under the second head shows, as producer, not as consumer.  It is therefore an entirely false kind of aid to try to help the workingman as a consumer instead of helping him in the place where the shoe really pinches him—­as producer.

As consumers, we are, in general, all on the same footing; as before the law, so before the salesman, all men are equal—­provided only they pay.

Just for this reason it is true that for the working class, in consequence of its limited ability to pay, a special additional evil has developed which has nothing to do with the general cancer which is eating into it—­the disadvantage of having to supply needs on the smallest scale, and so of being exposed to the extortion of the retailer.  Against this the consumers’ associations give protection; but, aside from the facts that you will see under No. 3 as to how long this help can last and when it must cease, this limited help, which can for the time being make the sad condition of the workingman a little more endurable, must by no means be mistaken for a means for that improvement in the situation of the working class at which the workingmen are aiming.

(2) The relentless economic law which, under present conditions, fixes the wages by the law of demand and supply of labor is this:  The average wage always remains at the lowest point which will maintain existence and propagate the race at the standard of living accepted by the people.  This is the point about which the actual wage always oscillates like a pendulum, without ever rising above or falling below it for any length of time.  It cannot permanently rise above this average, for then, through the easier situation of the workingman, an increase of the working population and therefore of the supply of hands would ensue, which would bring the wage again to a point below its former scale.

Neither can the wage fall permanently far below what is necessary to support life, for then arise emigration, celibacy, and avoidance of child-bearing, and, finally, a reduction of the number of laborers, which then diminishes still more the supply of hands, and therefore brings the wage back to its former position again.

The real average wage, therefore, is fixed by a constant movement about this point of equilibrium, to which it must constantly return, sometimes rising a little above it (period of prosperity in some or all industries), sometimes falling a little below it (period of more or less general distress and industrial crises).

The limitation of the average wage to the amount necessary to exist and propagate the race under the accepted standard of living in a community—­that, I repeat, is the inexorable and cruel law which determines the wage under present conditions.

This law can be denied by no one.  I could cite as many authorities for it as there are great and famous names in economic science, and even from the Liberal school itself, for it is just the Liberal school of political economy which has discovered this law and proved it.  This inexorable and cruel law, Gentlemen, you must above all things fix deeply in your minds and base upon it all your thinking.