“The price is the labor it has cost to make and deliver it, and it is determined by the first principles of arithmetic. The million workers in the nation’s wheat-fields have worked a hundred days each, and the total product of the labor is a billion bushels, so the value of a bushel of wheat is the tenth part of a farm labor-day. If we employ an arbitrary symbol, and pay, say, five dollars a day for farm-work, then the cost of a bushel of wheat is fifty cents.”

“You say ‘for farm-work,’ ” said Mr. Maynard. “Then labor is not to be paid alike?”