ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS 525
17.7 per cent, of the gross value of the per capita product, as stated, leaving a balance of course of 82.3 per cent., or $1618, which the originator of the statement quoted above assumes goes to the employer. The 82.3 per cent, of the total product, or $1618 per capita, covers all expenses of production, cost of materials, miscellaneous items, profits, deterioration, interest every- thing in fact, which can be counted as cost of production other than wages. Taking the eleventh census, that for 1890, it is found that the value of the gross product per capita for the number of employe's engaged in manufactur- ing and mechanical industries was $2204 and the average annual wages per employe", computed for 1890 as already computed for 1880, was $445. The writer of the statement quoted above would assume, for the eleventh census, that while $445 was P a 'd to labor 1759 went to the employer. As a matter of fact, of the total product per capita, 20.18 per cent, went to labor, 55.08 per cent, for materials, and 24.74 per cent, to miscellaneous expenses, salaries, interest, profits, etc.
All statements like that quoted above are fallacious in their application. While the figures in themselves are in the main fairly correct, and the per- centages so, the balance, or 82.2 per cent., does not go to the employer, but, as shown, largely for raw materials ; and of the amount paid for raw mate- rials the bulk goes to labor for their production. That the statement emanates from the Commissioner of Labor is an assumption without any authority. From what sources the comparison with workingmen of other countries is secured is not known, but the concluding statement in the quoted article is undoubtedly as fallacious as the one which gives to the employer 82.2 per cent, of the value of the product. C. D. W.
The error which Colonel Wright here seeks to correct is one into which Mulhall seems to have been betrayed. In his His- tory of Prices, written in 1885, he says, "British operatives as a rule earn in wages from 30 to 33 per cent, of the value of the manufactures which they produce, but in the United States the workingman gets only 1 8 per cent." The error seems to consist in stating the sum of the products as the value of the products. This error is committed by Mr. Steuart in the article above quoted, and by Colonel Wright in his attempted explanation, in which he takes the gross product, or more properly the sum of the products, as the aggregate value of these products. As the value of every product consumed in producing other products was destroyed there could exist no value, aggregate or separate, save that of the finished product, whirh must include the value of the material consumed in its production.
