a monopoly of coal. If, accordingly, the wages of the miners are
temporarily pushed up to a high point, the result will certainly be a
diminished demand for British coal, which will lead before long to
their fighting a losing battle to maintain the concessions they have
won. Contrast their position with that of the steel smelters, whose
wages (high though the wage rates are) constitute a very small
percentage of the costs of steel production, and we must agree I think
that we have in this distinction the main reason why the steel
smelters, though they hardly ever go on strike, have as a rule been
able to do so much better for themselves than the miners.

When a commodity or service is such that an appreciable alteration in
its price has only a slight effect upon the quantity demanded, the
demand is said to be _inelastic_. Conversely, when a small change in
price greatly alters the quantity demanded, we call the demand
_elastic_. In the former case, it is worth nothing, a larger aggregate
sum of money will be spent upon the thing when its price is high than
when it is low, while the opposite is true in the latter case. This
distinction is of considerable importance in connection with many
problems (e.g. of taxation); and the terms, elastic demand and
inelastic demand, are worth remembering. We may thus express the
above conclusions by saying that the demand for sewing-cotton is
highly inelastic, and that the demand for coal miners is more elastic
than that for steel smelters.


§5. _Capital and Labor_. Cases in which it is impracticable to make
any variation in the proportions in which different things are used
together are, however, the exception rather than the rule. Where
variation is possible, we are confronted with an uncertainty as to the