THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 247 



to increase faster than the food supply, as it would be 

 to regard them as due to the operation of a Darwinian 

 Natural Selection. There are trades that one might 

 characterise as varying normally from time to time 

 in the amount of employment they give, such as the 

 building trade, and such trades as supply works of de- 

 corative art and minister to luxury. These depend for 

 their prosperity upon the general prosperity of the 

 community. There come to every industrial and 

 commercial country seasons when money is said to be 

 scarce and seasons when money is said to be plentiful. 

 In the latter case all arts and industries that minister 

 to luxury maintain those who are employed in them 

 in the receipt of sure and good remuneration ; in the 

 former case the demand for the productions of such 

 employments becomes very attenuated. Many pro- 

 ducers cease to be employed, and most of those who 

 continue to be employed are obliged to submit to be 

 remunerated on a more meagre scale. 



Take, again, the building trade. Our great cities 

 are almost all rapidly extending, in many cases 

 shooting out streets and suburbs in all directions 

 like the rays of a starfish. Provision has constantly 

 to be made beforehand for the requirements of 

 an increasing population ; and it is invariably the 

 case that master builders, who are, in a manner, 

 compelled to erect streets and houses upon speculation, 

 so far overshoot the mark of the immediate need, that 

 when there takes place any slackness in the industries 

 of the town, or even without such an impelling cause, 



