THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 729 



and the superior efficiency to be thus gained are apparent ; and in 

 the struggle of corporation against corporation, it is evident that this 

 form of organization will be evolved as soon as the honesty and in- 

 telligence of the laboring classes will admit of it. Next, we may 

 specify organizations very like the foregoing in principle, but which 

 are commonly regarded with as much favor as corporations with the 

 reverse. We refer to co-operative associations. In communities where 

 there is little change from year to year, these may assume considerable 

 importance. Then come labor organizations. When trades-unions 

 were first prominently introduced, the general feeling was one of 

 fright ; and in this country there is still some uneasiness as to the 

 working of our great labor organizations. Here they can only be no- 

 ticed as a part of that segregation everywhere going on. General 

 considerations thus lead us to a belief in their beneficent results, in 

 spite of the many mistakes which they have committed, and will con- 

 tinue to commit. Next, we may recall that all unequal distribution 

 tends to die out, unless, as has been so conspicuously the case in the 

 last twenty years, the aggregation of property in single hands gives 

 a great advantage in its management. Inheritance is a perpetual 

 force for equal distribution. It may, indeed, be counteracted by 

 stronger forces, either political, as in the feudal system, or commer- 

 cial. But the management of combinations of property is now so 

 usual and easy, as we may see in the case of the Vanderbilt property, 

 that the divisive principle has full sway. Lastly, it needs no prophet 

 to predict that the passion for immense wealth characterizing " great, 

 intelligent, avaricious, sensual America," will decline. In its extreme 

 form it is a passing characteristic of a transitional age ; it is like 

 the feverish and senseless desires of youth. Like the passion for 

 power, which " the generality of mankind love so much more than 

 liberty," it must decline when no longer necessary ; and it will never 

 again, probably, be so necessary as in the present generation. In so 

 far as passion for power, or show, or wealth entails discomforts, it is 

 bound to die out, unless there are compensating advantages ; for 

 they hamper their devotees in the race for survival. 



How far we have reached in this great process is a much-mooted 

 question. Numerous instructive facts are, however, before our very 

 eyes. The fabulous amounts spent by the laboring classes for amuse- 

 ments, liquor, tobacco, and various things regarded as luxuries ; the 

 amount of money the labor organizations are able to handle ; the vast 

 increase in national wealth out of all proportion to the increase in 

 population competing for the hire of labor ; the great increase in 

 savings-bank deposits and depositors ; the proved increase in money- 

 wages, and in the purchasing power of wages ; the decrease, still go- 

 ing on under our very eyes, of the hours of labor ; the reduced fluc- 

 tuations in prices ; the increased average length of life, recognized by 

 insurance companies ; the increased consumption of necessaries per 



