218 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



endeavour to improve the condition under which 

 our industrial population live, to amend the drain- 

 age of densely peopled streets, to provide baths, 

 washhouses, and gymnasia, to facilitate habits 

 of thrift, to furnish some provision for instruc- 

 tion and amusement in public libraries and the 

 like, is not only desirable from a philanthropic 

 point of view, but an essential condition of safe 

 industrial development, appears to me to be indis- 

 putable. It is by such means alone, so far as I 

 can see, that we can hope to check the constant 

 gravitation of industrial society towards la misere, 

 until the general progress of intelligence and mo- 

 rality leads men to grapple with the sources of 

 that tendency. If it is said that the carrying out 

 of such arrangements as those indicated must en- 

 hance the cost of production, and thus handicap 

 the producer in the race of competition, I venture, 

 in the first place, to doubt the fact; but if it be 

 so, it results that industrial society has to face 

 a dilemma, either alternative of which threatens 

 destruction. 



On the one hand, a population the labour of 

 which is sufficiently remunerated may be physic- 

 ally and morally healthy and socially stable, but 

 may fail in industrial competition by reason of 

 the dearness of its produce. On the other hand, 

 a population the labour of which is insufficiently 

 remunerated must become physically and morally 

 unhealthy, and socially unstable; and though it 



