Real wages, also, the power to purchase goods with labor, are greater than ever before so far as this can be measured in the price of leading commodities. The offsetting loss of the free health-giving pleasures of country life cannot easily be expressed. In England likewise the rise in money wages has been great. In 1860 it is represented by 100, in 1870 by 113, in 1880 by 125, in 1891 by 140, in the intervals some decline occurring. For a century in all civilized lands wages have moved in an ever-rising series of waves. The purchasing power of wages in England increased ninety per cent, in the thirty years between 1860 and 1891. Throughout Europe the same general change is seen, going always hand in hand with new industrial methods and the displacing of the old agricultural system by the wage system. As the hours of labor have at the same time been shortened, the workers have gained doubly. [Sidenote: Need of a broad explanation of rising wages] 2. _This progress is mainly due to the opening up of rich natural resources and to the development of industrial processes._ Recognized in some measure by every one, this progress is attributed by different observers to different causes: in America, by many to the protective tariff; in England, by many to the freer trade introduced about 1840; throughout the continent of Europe, to the spread of constitutional government and free institutions; by trade-unions everywhere, to the organization of labor. There is, doubtless, under certain conditions, some portion of truth in each of these claims. But, either separately or altogether, they fall short of a broad, reasonable, and sufficient explanation. The two-fold proposition just presented, the justification for which has been given in preceding chapters, points to a general and adequate cause. [Sidenote: The gloomy view as to the wage system was mistaken] Seventy-five years ago it was thought that, with the increase of machinery, of factories, of the concentrated control of wealth, and especially with the wage system, there must go a steady depression in the welfare of the workingman. This idea was connected with the iron law of wages. It was believed by some that, whatever the causes of advancing social income might be, the wage system would rob the wage-earners of all share in progress. In view of the facts, if it cannot now be asserted positively that the wage system is the cause of all the gain, it can be asserted negatively that it is not inconsistent with great progress on the part of the laboring classes. It might be possible to go further and to maintain that the organization of industry, under the wage system and competitive conditions, by its encouragement of enterprise, energy, and economy, has been an indispensable condition in the industrial progress which has in turn made possible the rising wages of labor. [Sidenote: More workers now in better-paid callings]