So far the extent and significance of the changes in the value, or purchasing power, of money have been considered from the point of view of those who produce and sell railway transportation. But equally striking changes will appear and similar conclusions are inevitable when recent history is reviewed in the aspect which it presents to those whose earnings are devoted, in part, to the purchase of the services which the railways supply. For the important consideration to the wage-earner who wishes to travel by rail or who buys commodities that have been so carried, or to the producer whose products must go to market over railway routes, is not, how much money must be paid for the railway services, but, rather, how much labor must be expended, or what quantity of his goods must be produced, in order to obtain that sum of money. If the earnings of a particular wage-earner have increased from fifty to seventy-two cents per hour, a railway service is cheaper, to him, if it costs twelve cents than it was at ten cents when his earnings were on the fifty-cent basis, for he now procures with the fruit of ten minutes' toil what formerly cost the result of twelve minutes' labor. In Bulletin No. 77, just issued by the United States Bureau of Labor, the official statistician presents data showing the relative wages per hour of many different classes of wage-earners, not including railway employees, in 1897 and 1907. While these data show that wages have almost uniformly advanced (there are ten somewhat questionable exceptions among the 342 classes) the data supplied by the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during the same period average railway freight rates have declined from 7.98 mills to 7.59 mills per ton per mile, or 4.89 per cent. A table presenting and based upon these official statistics and showing the relative wages per hour of the various classes of labor, in 1897 and 1907, the percentage increase in wages rates per hour and the increased command over railway freight services which these wage-earners have obtained through the combined effect of higher wages and lower ton-mile rates is given in Appendix C[F]. In studying the data presented in this appendix it should be borne in mind that the wages are relative and not absolute. They mean, for example, that the average male blacksmith in the agricultural implement industry was paid, in 1907, $1.25 for the same quality and period of labor for which he was paid a little less than ninety-six cents, in 1897. This increase amounted to 30.58 per cent. of the wages rate of 1897, and, combined with a decreased cost of railway freight service of 4.89 per cent., which made 95.11 cents go as far in purchasing the latter in 1907 as one dollar would go in 1897, gave him 37.29 per cent. greater command over railway freight services.