Problems of Modern Industry

but it was not so clear that this inferiority was unconnected with a real inferiority of work, either in quantity, quality, or nett advantageousness to the employer. The point has seldom been discussed in detail with any reference to the actual facts of modern industry, and I had come to no definite conclusion on the subject, still less had I any novel or original view to bring before the "Association. But as it appeared to be unnecessary to do more than present the subject for discussion, I endeavoured to collect all the relevant facts I could discover, in the hope that they might suggest some fertile lines of subsequent investigation. The facts turned out to be of no small interest, and although I am bound to confess that further consideration of them brings me no nearer than before to any simple or universal generalisation, they are now republished in revised and more complete form, on the chance that they may be of use to economic students. 1 A paper read at the Economic Section of the British Association, 1891, and published in the Ero1wmic Journal, December 1891. For many of the facts quoted the author is indebted to the personal experience of the working-men and working-women members of the Fabian Society. There are generally assumed to be two rival methods of economic study. The one is supposed to start with a few simple principles, from which large conclusions are hypo- thetically drawn, to be compared with the facts of life. The other collects ec...