And State Papers 189 



great and successful commonwealth like ours in the 

 long run works under good laws, because a people 

 endowed with honest and practical common-sense 

 ultimately demands good laws. But no law can 

 create industrial well-being, although it may foster 

 and safe-guard it, and although a bad law may de 

 stroy it. The prime factor in securing industrial 

 well-being is the high average of citizenship found 

 in the community. The best laws that the wit of 

 man can devise would not make a community of 

 thriftless and idle men prosperous. No scheme of 

 legislation or of social reform will ever work good 

 to the community unless it recognizes as fundamen 

 tal the fact that each man's own individual qualities 

 must be the prime factors in his success. Work in 

 combination may help and the State can do a good 

 deal in its own sphere, but in the long run each man 

 must rise or fall on his own merits; each man must 

 owe his success in life to whatever of hardihood, 

 of resolution, of common-sense and of capacity for 

 lofty endeavor he has within his own soul. It is 

 a good thing to act in combination for the common 

 good, but it is a very unhealthy thing to let ourselves 

 think for one moment that anything can ever supply 

 the want of our own individual watchfulness and 

 exertion. 



Yet given this high average of individual ability 

 and invention, we must ever keep in mind that it 

 may be nullified by bad legislation, and that it can 

 be given a chance to develop under the most favor 

 able conditions by good legislation. Probably the 



