We are enabled thereby to know, almost at a glance, the drift of all labor energies, and to direct them safely from any great redundancy of supply. When engaged in the production of food supplies, where nature becomes of necessity a party to this great co-operative arrangement, we have devised a method that saves those who toil from the embarrassment and the frequent distress of an intermittent cost of living. We had observed that the tendency of cheap food to lower the wages of labor, and of dear food to raise them, was not equal, wages being much more easily lowered than raised under this natural influence. Our government has undertaken therefore to establish a fair and equitable adjustment between the cost of living and wage rates, to be modified when occasion requires. You are not to expect me to go into detail in these matters; but as it may seem impracticable to you, how any arbitrary rate of wages may be made to rule fairly among so many different people, I will give you some account of our system of grading labor, by which this difficulty is overcome. We have formed out of the three qualities of SKILL, STRENGTH and ACTIVITY a basis upon which to reckon the value of all individual labor. Each of these is divided into three grades, and the highest valued workman is he who stands first in all. The first grade in skill is considered equal to both the first and second grades of strength and activity in estimating wages; and there is no first grade of skill allowed, except in those industrial operations requiring much manual training. The workman begins his career usually in the lowest grades of each, although at times strength and activity are raised one grade at the beginning. The wages of all labor are uniformly established by the government, in accordance with the standing of the individual and the certificate he holds, according him his status under this method of estimating his ability. From middle life to old age changes usually occur in his grade, and his apportionment of wages is consequently modified; but so long as he retains his skill it goes far to keep up the allotment of fair wages against the loss of strength and activity.