Now, to the acceptance of this judgment, considered as a foundation of a theory of comparative wages, there are certain obvious objections. In the first place, in the statement of most of the cases which are adduced to support the theory reference is made exclusively to money wages, no account being taken of differences of purchasing power in different countries. In order to establish any rational basis, the relation must be between real wages or standard of living and efficiency. Now, though it must be admitted as inherently probable that some definite relation should subsist between wages and work, or, in other words, between the standard of consumption and the standard of production, it is not _à priori_ reasonable to expect this relation should be uniform as between two such countries as England and India, so that it should be a matter of economic indifference whether a piece of work is done by cheap and relatively inefficient Indian labour or by expensive and efficient English labour. Such a supposition could only stand upon one of two assumptions. The first assumption would be that of a direct arithmetical progression in the relation of wage and work such as would require every difference in quantity of food, etc., consumed by labourers to be reflected in an exactly correspondent difference of output of productive energy--an assumption which needs no refutation, for no one would maintain that the standard of comfort furnished by wages is the sole determinant of efficiency, and that race, climate, and social environment play no part in economic production. The alternative assumption would be that of an absolute fluidity of capital and labour, which should reduce to a uniform level throughout the world the net industrial advantages, so that everywhere there was an exact quantitative relation between work and wage, production, and consumption. Though what is called a "tendency" to such uniformity may be admitted, no one acquainted with facts will be so rash as to maintain that this uniformity is even approximately reached. § 3. There is, then, no reason to suppose that wages, either nominal or real, bear any exact, or even a closely approximate, relation to the output of efficient work, quantity and quality being both taken into consideration. But, in truth, the evidence afforded by Sir T. Brassey does not justify a serious investigation of this theory of indifference or equivalence of work and wages. For, in the great majority of instances which he adduces, the advantage is clearly shown to rest with the labour which is most highly remunerated. The theory suggested by his evidence is, in fact, a theory of "the economy of high wages."