i 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



this to be an establishment of limits " by reason and science," what 

 are the kinds of " reason and science " by which he expects to estab- 

 lish them ? 



On another page M. de Laveleye says 



" I am of opinion that the State should make use of its legitimate powers of 

 action for the establishment of greater equality among men, in proportion to 

 their personal merits " (p. 489). 



Merely observing that the expression " its legitimate powers of action " 

 seems to imply a begging of the question, since the chief point in 

 dispute is What are " its legitimate powers of action ; " I go on to 

 express my surprise at such a sentence coming from a distinguished 

 political economist. M. de Laveleye refers to the "old-fashioned 

 political economy," implying that he is one of those younger econo- 

 mists who dissent from its doctrine ; but I was quite unprepared to find 

 that his dissent went so far as tacitly to deny that in the average of 

 cases a proportioning of rewards to personal merits naturally takes 

 place under the free play of supply and demand. Still less, after all 

 the exposures made of the miseries inflicted on men throughout the 

 past by the blundering attempts of the State to adjust prices and 

 wages, did I expect to see in a political economist such a revived con- 

 fidence in the State as would commission it to adjust men's rewards 

 " in proportion to their personal merit." I hear that there are some 

 who contend that payment should be proportionate to the disagree- 

 ableness of the work done : the implication, I suppose, being that 

 the knacker and the nightman should reeeive two or three guineas a 

 day, while a physician's fee should be half-a-crown. But, with such a 

 proportioning, I suspect that, as there would be no returns adequate 

 to repay the cost and time and labor of preparation for the practice 

 of medicine, physicians would quickly disappear ; as would, indeed, all 

 those required for the higher social functions. I do not suppose that 

 M. de Laveleye contemplates a proportioning just of this kind. But 

 if in face of all experience, past and present, he trusts officialism to 

 judge of "personal merits," he is sanguine to a degree which sur- 

 prises me. 



One of the questions which M. de Laveleye asks is 



"If the intervention of public power for the improvement of the condition 

 of the working-classes be a contradiction of history, and a return to ancient 

 militant society, how is it that the country in which the new industrial organi- 

 zation is the most developed that is to say, England is also the country where 

 State intervention is the most rapidly increasing, and where opinion is at the 

 same time pressing for these powers of interference to be still further extended ? " 

 (p. 491). 



Several questions are here raised besides the chief one. I have 

 already pointed out that my objection is not to " intervention of public 

 power for the improvement of the condition of the working-classes," 



