EDITOR'S TABLE. 



127 



whole industrial system may not be 

 shaken to its base by the introduction 

 of some new force or process more 

 revolutionary in its effects than all that 

 has gone before. 



Evidently what is wanted for the 

 production and maintenance of the 

 highest form of social well-being is not 

 only a large command over the forces 

 of Nature, but a reasonable measure of 

 stability in the general conditions of 

 life. The lack of such stability entails 

 evils not only material but moral ; and 

 we are inclined, after a careful reading of 

 Mr. Wells's pages, to believe that in our 

 present social state the latter predomi- 

 nate over the former. If the question 

 be asked, Have the working-classes, in 

 point of fact, endured greater hardships 

 during the last fifteen years than dur- 

 ing the previous fifteen, or in past times 

 generally ? the answer, according to 

 Mr. Wells, must be an emphatic No. 

 We may, indeed, go further on the 

 strength of the facts he furnishes, and 

 say that, up to the present, wages have 

 been pretty steadily rising, while the 

 purchasing power of money has been 

 increasing. As a result of this double 

 improvement in the remuneration of 

 labor, the whole standard of living 

 among the wage-earners has advanced. 

 The skilled mechanic or artisan can to- 

 day enjoy more botb of comfort and of 

 luxury than citizens of substantial means 

 could have done a generation or two 

 ago. On the other hand, if we turn to 

 the capitalist class, and ask whether 

 their losses and perplexities have de- 

 pressed their mode of living, or dimin- 

 ished the outward and visible marks of 

 their prosperity, we read the answer 

 in the handsome streets of all great 

 cities, and their suburbs. M. de Lave- 

 leye remarked a few years ago, with 

 special reference to continental Europe, 

 that-one of the most conspicuous facts 

 of the age was the vast increase in mid- 

 dle-class wealth and luxury ; and cer- 

 tainly the phenomenon challenges at- 

 tention at least as powerfully in this 



country. The very " strikes " that have 

 marked our time have in themselves af- 

 forded evidence of general prosperity, 

 showing, as regards the strikers, the 

 possession of resources on which they 

 could fall back during the period of 

 their voluntary idleness, and, as regards 

 the employers of labor, an ability 

 to withstand the derangement of busi- 

 ness which the strikes must have 

 entailed. The truth would therefore 

 seem to be, that our " economic disturb- 

 ances " have involved more of unrest 

 and anxiety than of actual suffering. 

 Society has been, naturally enough, 

 in a nervous, excited condition, and 

 men's minds have been filled with ap- 

 prehensions of evil that fortunately has 

 not yet come to pass. Such a condition 

 is not free from danger. Man does not 

 now, and never did, "live by bread 

 alone." He lives also by formed 

 habits, permanent associations, settled 

 views, well-grounded hopes. Takeaway 

 any of these, and you not only unclothe 

 but actually unbuild average human 

 nature. It is not enough to supply 

 bread. The bread-eater, if he is to 

 thrive in mind as well as in body, must 

 be enabled to feel that it is not all a 

 matter of chance whether he gets the 

 bread or not, but that there is some 

 regular provision in the general scheme 

 of things whereby his labor and thought 

 can be transmuted into sustenance for 

 himself and those dependent on him. 



This view of the matter can not, 

 we think, receive too much attention. 

 Some one, rising from the perusal of 

 these articles, may be disposed to ex- 

 claim : " Oh, it's all right after all. I 

 see that wages are better than they 

 used to be, and the working-classes en- 

 joy a great many comforts they were 

 not accustomed to formerly, and there 

 is more work to be done in the world 

 than there ever was before. Why, 

 everything is splendid! " No, every- 

 thing is not splendid. On the material 

 side we are prospering, but the deep 

 unrest that pervades society is not a 



