But you ask of such repayment, "Who shall determine how much?"[58] I took no notice of the question, irrelevant when you asked it; but in its broad bearing it is the one imperative question of national economy. Of old, as at bridge-foot of Florence, men regulated their revenge by the law of demand and supply, and asked in measureless anger, "Who shall determine how much?" with economy of blood, such as we know. That "much" is now, with some approximate equity, determined at the judgment-seat, but for the other debt, the debt of love, we have no law but that of the wolf, and the locust, and the "fishes of the sea, which have no ruler over them." The workmen of England--of the world, ask for the return--as of wrath, so of reward by law; and for blood resolutely spent, as for that recklessly shed; for life devoted through its duration, as for that untimely cast away; they require from you to determine, in judgment, the equities of "Human Retribution." I am, Sir, your faithful servant, J. RUSKIN.[59] _May_ 20, 1865. FOOTNOTES: [56] Viz., "Wages ought to be proportioned to the supply and demand of labor and capital, and not to the hardship of the work and the time spent on it." [57] "Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi ... Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia." The third precept is given above. Justinian, "Inst." i. 1-3; and see Blackstone, vol. i. section 2, "Of the Nature of Laws in General." [58] See _ante_, second interpolation of the _Gazette_, on p. 54. [59] The discussion was not continued beyond this letter, the _Gazette_ judging any continuance useless, the difference between Mr. Ruskin and themselves being "one of first principles." [From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 1, 1867. Reprinted also, with slight alterations, in "Time and Tide," App. vii.] _THE STANDARD OF WAGES._ _To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_ SIR: In the course of your yesterday's article on strikes[60] you have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy--to wit, that the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined; and that "all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a certain sum."