EDITOR'S TABLE. 



125 



concurred to make the present epoch 

 one of peculiar commercial and industrial 

 unrest. 



What is the lesson, then, we are to 

 draw from Mr. "Wells's pages, so far as 

 the social problems of our own time 

 are concerned ? We learn from it that 

 there is nothing radically unsound in 

 our social system ; and, further, that the 

 total effect of all the changes of the last 

 twenty-five or thirty years has been to 

 improve materially the condition of the 

 working classes. Hours of labor are 

 not as long on the whole as they used 

 to be ; wages are higher ; and the pur- 

 chasing power of money is greater. 

 What is the case, however, is that, in 

 the rush of change which has marked 

 recent years, there is a constant selec- 

 tion and reselection of the better men, 

 and that the worse — the less competent, 

 the less efficient in every way — find them- 

 selves relegated to poorer conditions of 

 life. There is an upward current and 

 there is a downward current : those who 

 move up do not spend much time or en- 

 ergy in singing the beauties of the pres- 

 ent system ; but those who are moving 

 down waste no small amount of the little 

 energy they have in bewailing its de- 

 fects, and, with the help of a few liter- 

 ary gentlemen of lively sympathies and 

 facile speech, manage to create a wide- 

 spread impression that a world in which 

 they do not get all they would like must 

 be a very badly governed world indeed. 

 The whole social question seems to lie 

 here, that some, through natural defi- 

 ciencies of one kind or another, can not, 

 in any satisfactory degree, adapt them- 

 selves to the world as it is. We should 

 be sorry to profess, or to feel, indiffer- 

 ence to the problem even as thus stated ; 

 but what are we going to do about it ? 

 The true methods of reform are of slow 

 application ; and immediate suffering it 

 is impossible altogether to prevent. The 

 path of social reform, we are strongly 

 persuaded, lies mainly along these three 

 lines : 



1. Diminution of state interference 



with private liberty, including state re- 

 strictions on trade and state encourage- 

 ment of trade. 



2. Constant inculcation of the doc- 

 trine of individual responsibility, and 

 constant effort to mold better individ- 

 uals. 



3. An honest, vigorous, and simple 

 administration of justice. 



These three conditions (to which 

 many minor but still important ones 

 might be added) are all intimately con- 

 nected. For example, how can we 

 preach the doctrine of individual re- 

 sponsibility with any success, if the in- 

 dividual is daily surrounded by a closer 

 and closer network of arbitrary enact- 

 ments, designed at once to abridge his 

 liberty and to relieve him of the exer- 

 cise of judgment and caution ? And how 

 can we have a really efficient adminis- 

 tration of law, till law itself undergoes 

 a pruning, and is brought down to its 

 necessary elements? 



To return, however, to Mr. Wells's 

 book. We are glad to see its merits 

 very frankly acknowledged in an article 

 published in the March number of Mac- 

 millan's Magazine, the writer declaring 

 that Mr. Wells deals with his subject " in 

 a manner altogether superior to any- 

 thing which this country (England) can 

 show." We shall only say in conclusion 

 that the book is an eminently useful one 

 to-day and will remain so for many 

 years to come. A careful perusal of its 

 pages would clear infected brains of 

 many sickly fancies. 



TRAINING IN REALITIES. 



It is a long time since an earnest 

 thinker proclaimed that wisdom was the 

 principal thing, and that with all a man's 

 gettings he should strive to get under- 

 standing; but whether the world to-day 

 — even those who regard the utterance 

 as carrying with it more than human 

 authority — can be said to pay due heed 

 to the maxim is more than doubtful. 

 Instead of wisdom, men exalt opinion, 



