Estimated in silver, the East Indian laborer earns from £1 to £2 a year; the English, £9 to £15; the North American, £12 to £20. (_Senior._) _Hildebrand_, Nat-Oek., I, 195 ff., assures us that the average rate of wages in Germany, in 1848, amounted to 400 thalers a year; in England, to 300 thalers; and that the prices of the means of subsistence in the latter country were 1½ times higher than in the former. _Engel_, Ueber die arbeitenden Klassen in England, 1845, shows only the dark side of a real picture, and is silent on the other, and is well corrected by _Hildebrand_, I, 170 ff. Excellent statistics in _Sir F. M. Eden_, State of the Poor, I, 491-589. On the more recent times, compare the Edinburgh Review, April, 1851, April, 1862; Quarterly Rev., Oct., 1859, July, 1860. _Ludlow_ and _Jones_, loc. cit. On the situation in France, see _Blanqui's_ report in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 7. _Leplay_, Les Ouvriers des deux Mondes, II, 1858. Very important are the "Reports from Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular Agents abroad respecting the Condition of the industrial Classes, and the Purchase-power of money in foreign Countries." (1871.)] SECTION CLXXV. WAGE POLICY.--SET PRICE OF LABOR. Among the artificial means employed to alter the existing rate of wages, we may mention first, a rate of wages fixed by governmental authority. These have, in many places, constituted an intermediate step between serfdom and the free wage-system. In most cases, this measure was intended in the interest of the upper classes to prevent the lower obtaining the full advantage of their freedom under the favoring circumstances of competition.[175-1] In later times, another cause has frequently been added to this, viz.: by diminishing the cost of production to increase foreign sales. (See § 106.) In the higher stages of civilization, nations will scarcely look with favor on the diminution of the rightful, for the most part, individually small gains of the most numerous, the poorest and most care-worn class of the community.[175-2] The purchasers of labor would, in consequence, be badly served, since they would have lost the possibility of obtaining better workmen by paying higher wages. Hence, there would, probably, be none but mediocre labor to be found.[175-3] On the other hand, fixed rates which keep within the limits described in § 114 are, under certain circumstances, desirable. This is especially the case where the purchasers of labor on the one hand, and the buyers of labor on the other, have formed themselves into united groups, and where the rate fixed is only in the nature a treaty of peace under governmental sanction, when a war over prices had either broken out actually or there was danger to fear that one would break out. It must not be forgotten, that thus far common