the rate current in the country in 1830 and in 1884. While each spindle and loom has become vastly more effective, we see by Chart No. XIX that the average production of each operative constantly increased from 4,321 yards per year in 1830, to 28,032 yards in 1884; and this it was which made possible the corresponding increase in the rate of wages from $164 in 1830, to $290 in 1884. The sum of $290 a year as an average for each operative, is a stipend too small to cause any general satisfaction; but he must be gloomy indeed who does not see that $290 is a cheerful possession as compared with $164. There is, then, abundant ground for believing that in the past fifty years the condition of the working-classes in the United States has been materially improved. The diminishing proportion of the price which goes to the capital is a significant fact, and illustrates the tendency of profits to fall with the increase of capital.313 The same truth seems to be [pg 522] seen in the table given in a previous chapter,314 where the wages have been increased, but the hours have fallen per day from thirteen to eleven since 1840.
§ 2.—through small holdings, by which the landlord's gain is shared.
So far we have considered the chances for improvement in an industrial order in which the present separation of capitalists from laborers is maintained. But this does not take into account that future time when cultivation in the United States shall be forced down upon inferior land, and no more remains to be occupied, and when capital may no longer increase as fast as population. What must be the ultimate outlook for wages-receivers? Or, more practically, what is the outlook now for those who are wages-receivers, and for whom a more equitable distribution of the product seems desirable? How can they escape the thralldom