68 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



they may be bound to pay a lower wage to better workers 

 if working in association with slackers and other inferiors. 

 Or, if employers do keep up wages all round, the prices of 

 the goods they produce must be raised to make up for the 

 poor work of the inferior. Tradesmen are practically 

 forced to charge higher prices in order to cover the bad 

 debts, etc., incurred by dealing with the inferior. When 

 any man insures against any contingency, whether it be 

 unemployment, fire, old age, burial, etc., he would have to 

 pay a smaller sum if the Government or the Company, as 

 the case might be, had not to cover the risks due to deal- 

 ing with the fraudulent, the unhealthy, the careless, etc. 

 Compulsory pubhc services, such as those on juries and for 

 the defence of the country, would be less onerous if every 

 man called on were fit and wilhng to serve. Lastly, the 

 trouble brought on all, but most of all on the poor, by the 

 doings of habitual criminals must not be left out of the 

 account. In short, the financial and material injuries done 

 to the public by the unfit and the inferior will be seen in 

 every direction if we look for them carefully enough. 



The most important of all the benefits which would 

 result from any diminution in the numbers of the inferior 

 would, however, be that due to a lessening of the harmful 

 results of social contagion. In this chapter we are only 

 looking to financial questions ; but it is here in place to 

 note that idleness and many other bad qualities are highly 

 contagious. Consequently, the value of the work done by 

 any body of ordinary citizens would be increased if none of 

 them ever came in contact with the inferior either in or 

 out of work hours. 



It is constantly said that a man wants work. It would 

 be more true to say that he wants wages. It would be still 

 more true to say that he wants the goods which he can buy 

 with his wages. Carry on this fine of thought, and we shall 

 find that some of these difiicult questions are thus made 

 easier to answer. That is to say, it is often best to put 

 money out of our minds altogether, and to think only of 

 goods. By " goods " is here meant aU things that we want 



