i.c. equals wages - a notion which is finding acceptance even among economic writers who are not socialists.1 This impression, created by Marx, is so widely diffused and so strong that one of the most prominent charges made by socialists against the present industrial system is that capital robs labor of half it produces.2

In

The actual rate of surplus value or profits, however, is wholly a question of fact; hence it is by facts that his or any conclusions as to the rate of profits must finally be tested. order to test the scientific validity of this claim, I have made extensive investigations covering a number of years (in most cases ten years together) of the cost of production, wages, profits, etc., in many of the largest concerns in the leading industries, where large capital and the most modern methods are employed.

Since Marx entirely rejects the idea of estimating the rate of profits on the capital invested and insists that it should be based on what the laborer receives, in order to fairly test his conclusions we must consider the facts from his standpoint. To do this we must eliminate all that is due to capital or fixed cost, and compare the rate of profits not with the capital invested but with the wages paid. Accordingly, in presenting the following data derived from four leading industries in which the capitalistic method of production is most thoroughly exemplified, I have taken no account of the capital invested, but only of the value of the finished product and the items of cost in its production, showing the actual amount and aliquot parts of raw material, plant etc., wages and profits in the total product, and the ratio of wages to profits.

1 See Stuart Wood, New Theory of Wages, Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1888, and July, 1889.

24 But the fact is- and on that we lay stress that the workers receive only about half of what they produce." Gronlund, Modern Socialism, p. 23. This statement is accompanied by several diagrams and by statistics for the purpose of proving its literal correctness.

MANUFACTURE OF COTTON CLOTH.

The data in this table are drawn from ten of the largest and most successful corporations in Fall River, Massachusetts, and cover eight consecutive years since 1880 (1881-1888):

This table gives results obtained in one of the most permanent and successful shoe manufacturing concerns in New England, for ten years ending 1888:

This table represents the operations of the largest concern of its kind in the country, for four years:

1 Under the head of raw material, plant, etc., are included all repairs, wear and tear of machinery, insurance, taxes, transient supplies, etc. I have in every instance given the full particulars, but have grouped them under this brief heading for convenience of presentation.

2 Profits represent the surplus after all costs are paid, and include interest.

RAILROADING.

This table represents one of the largest and most profitable Trunk Lines running out of New York, for 1888:

This table represents all the other four combined, and therefore shows the ratio of wages to profits in the whole four industries, representing a product of over $112,000,000:

It will be seen, from the above data, that so far from profits being equal to wages, they are nowhere one-fourth as large as wages. Where the profits are highest, wages are 337 per cent greater than profits; and where they are lowest, wages are 1000 per cent greater than profits. It must be remembered, moreover, that these enterprises are not earning low, nor even average, but high profits, being among the best of their respective classes in the country. From the data I have collected it is quite clear that there is a portion (and in some industries a large portion) of concerns which during the same period have made no profits at all.

Although I have the facts of many no-profit concerns, the data are not sufficient to give the proportion of these in each industry represented above. The complete data for one of them, however for the railroads are furnished by Professor Henry C. Adams, statistician to the interstate commerce commission, in his recent report (1889) which is the most complete

report of its kind ever published. According to the data presented by Professor Adams, out of the $3,864,468,055 invested in the railroads of the United States $2,374,200,906 or 61.44 per cent received no profits whatever in 1888, and only eleven one-hundredths of one per cent received from nine to ten per cent profit: That is to say: $2,374,200,906 of capital, representing about 84,000 miles of railroads (equal to four and a half times the entire railroad system of Great Britain), was used without profits in 1888, while only about one-tenth of one per cent of the capital invested in the whole 136,830 miles of railroad yielded a profit of ten per cent. What is true of railroads is substantially true of all other industries where an increasing amount of capital and improved methods are employed. Clearly, therefore, the claim of Marx and his disciples that profits equal wages is as baseless in fact as his doctrine of the "exploitation of labor power" is false in theory.

GEORGE GUNTON.

1 Statistics of Railways in the United States, p. 21.

STATISTICS OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.1

THE

In staTwenty years ago

HE appearance of this thick volume marks a great stride in the knowledge both of the laws and their operation regarding these most fundamental of social problems. tistics especially the gain is immense. President Woolsey's Divorce and Divorce Legislation contained in a dozen scanty pages about all the existing statistics regarding both this country and Europe. Since then, the collection of their own statistics by four or five more states (in a meagre way, excepting the excellent work in Massachusetts begun by Mr. Wright, the commissioner of labor in 1879 and continued since under provision of statute); the few additions by the National Divorce Reform league; the little pamphlet of Sig. Bodio of Italy in 1882; the Étude demographique du divorce of Mr. Bertillon in 1883 (which, however, added comparatively little except in details to the work of Bodio), and some continental official publications in very recent years have pretty much covered all that could be got at even in libraries. No good collection of these in a single volume could be had. And for a compendium of our own laws of marriage and divorce, we have had to resort to various handbooks, generally unsatisfying to the student and mostly so untrustworthy or meagre as to disappoint him. The laws of Europe, beyond the account of divorce law given in Woolsey, were not easily accessible. But a knowledge of these for historical and comparative study and the purposes of practical legislation and social reform is invaluable. The work of Vraye and Gode (Paris, 1887) has, very recently, given a sketch of European laws of divorce.

This report has changed all this. We now have a good handbook for the legislator and student. That it has many and

1 A Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United States, 1867 to 1886: includ ing an appendix relating to Marriage and Divorce in certain countries in Europe. By Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, February, 1889, Washington: Government Printing Office.