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stantial form. We limit ourselves therefore to a few points characteristic of time-wages.

The sum of money^[1] which the labourer receives for his daily or weekly labour, forms the amount of his nominal wages, or of his wages estimated in value. But it is clear that according to the length of the working-day, that is, according to the amount of actual labour daily supplied, the same daily or weekly wage may represent very different prices of labour, i.e., very different sums of money for the same quantity of labour.^[2] We must, therefore, in considering time-wages, again distinguish between the sum total of the daily or weekly wages, &c., and the price of labour. How then to find this price, i.e., the money-value of a given quantity of labour? The average price of labour is found, when the average daily value of the labour-power is divided by the average number of hours in the working-day. If, e.g., the daily value of labour-power is 8 shillings, the value of the product of 6 working hours, and if the working-day is 12 hours, the price of 1 working hour is 3/12 shillings=3d. The price of the working hour thus found serves as the unit measure for the price of labour.

It follows therefore that the daily and weekly wages, &c., may remain the same, although the price of labour falls constantly. If, e.g., the habitual working-day is 10 hours and the daily value of the labour-power 3s., the price of the working hour is 33/5d. It falls to 3d. as soon as the working-day rises to 12 hours, to 22/5d. as soon as it rises to 15 hours. Daily or weekly wages remain, despite all this, unchanged. On the contrary, the daily or weekly wages may rise, although the price of labour remains constant or even falls. If, e.g., the working day is 10 hours, and the daily value of labour-power 3 shillings, the price of one working hour is 33/5d. If the labourer in consequence of increase of trade works 12 hours, the price of labour remaining the same, his daily wage

1. The value of money itself is here always supposed constant.
2. “The price of labour is the sum paid for a given quantity of labour.” (Sir Edward West, “Price of Corn and Wages of Labour.” London, 1836, p. 67). West is the author of the anonymous “Essay on the Application of Capital to Land. By a Fellow of the University College of Oxford, London, 1815.” An epoch making work in the history of political economy.