I. A man should in justice be paid for two hours' work twice as much as for one hour's work, and for _n_ hour's work _n_ times as much, if the effort be similar and continuous. II. A man should in justice be paid for difficult or dangerous work proportionately more than for easy and safe work, supposing the other conditions of the work similar. III. (And now look out, for this proposition involves the ultimate principle of all just wages.) If a man does a given quantity of work for me, I am bound in justice to do, or procure to be done, a precisely equal quantity of work for him; and just trade in labor is the exchange of equivalent quantities of labor of different kinds. If you pause at this word "equivalent," you shall have definition of it in my next letter. I am sure you will in fairness insert this challenge, whether you accept it or decline. I am, Sir, your obliged servant, JOHN RUSKIN.[45] DENMARK HILL, _Thursday, April_ 20. FOOTNOTES: [43] The _Gazette_ was at this time of little more than eight weeks' standing. The dull leader was that in the _Gazette_ of April 19, entitled "Masters and Men," and dealt entirely with Mr. Ruskin's letter on strikes. The "_pace_ Mr. Kingsley" alludes, of course, to his "Ode to the North-East Wind." [44] The leader had begun by speaking of Mr. Ruskin's previous letter as "embodying fallacies, pernicious in the highest degree," and concluded by remarking how "easily and unconsciously he glided into the true result of his principles." [45] In reply, the _Gazette_ denied "each of the three propositions to be true," on grounds shown in the quotations given in the following letter. [From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 26, 1865.] _WORK AND WAGES._ _To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_ SIR: I accept your terms, and reply in the fewest words I can. I. You "see no injustice in hiring a fly for 2_s._ 6_d._ for the first hour and 1_s._ 6_d._ for each succeeding one." Nor I either; so far from it, that I never give a cabman less than a shilling; which I doubt not is your practice also, and a very proper one. The cabmen make no objection, and you could not have given a neater instance of the proportion of payment to labor which you deny. You pay in the first hour for the various trouble involved in taking the man off his stand, and for a proportion of the time during which he has waited for the chance of your custom. That paid, you hire him by the formula which I state, and you deny.