Political economists have not overlooked efficiency of labour: they
have underestimated its importance in the opinion of Edward Wilson,
who has supplied me with the examples and arguments that follow and
who has verbally given me leave to publish as much as I like.

The English workman, especially in a country town of moderate size,
regards capital as unlimited, employment ("work") as limited. A wall
six feet high is to be built along the length of a certain garden: if
one bricklayer is employed, the fewer bricks he lays daily the more
days' employment he will get; if several bricklayers are employed,
the fewer bricks one lays daily the more employment is left for the
others. It thus appears that the more inefficient the labourer is,
the better for himself, his fellow-handicraftsmen, and for "labour"
in general: the more money is drawn from the capitalist.

There is a grain of truth in this view with respect to petty
unavoidable repairs in a narrow locality: but the capital spent on
such is as a drop in the ocean compared with that embarked in a
single large work. Consider the case of the London Building Trade, as
practised in the suburbs on all sides of London. The London
bricklayers thoroughly believe that it is their interest to be
inefficient: it is said that they have a rule that no bricklayer
shall ever lay a brick with the right hand; they have also a rule
against "chasing," i.e. that no bricklayer, whatever his skill, shall
lay more than a certain number of bricks a day; they believe that if
the bricklayer laid a larger number of bricks he would get no more
pay for a harder day's work, while the "work" would afford employment
to a smaller number of labourers. Look however a little further. The
speculative builders round London compete against each other, so that
they carry on their trade on ordinary trade profits. Such a builder