WAGES, CAPITAL AND RICH MEN. 793 



indolent and improvident. The industrious and economical poor man 

 is better off to-day than if laboring-men all through the past could 

 have had what so many of them are at present clamoring for. This 

 method of attaining the good does not, of course, come up to the 

 standard of perfection ; it is not harmonious and artistic ; it is very 

 far from being equitable, if tried by an ideal standard ; still, it is 

 the best possible — human nature being what it has been and still 

 is, this taint of evil is the inevitable condition of compassing the 

 good. 



Let us suppose that capitalists and managers get less, and the work- 

 ers more, of the common products. So far this would seem to be greater 

 justice than now obtains. Suppose further — which, however, is absurd 

 — that just as much will now be saved for business as before, and that 

 it is in the hands of the w^orking-people themselves for business pur- 

 poses. Can they make it tell in business as it does in the hands of 

 men whose shrewdness and skill bring them to the front by a sort of 

 natural selection ? Would there not be a great want of unity and con- 

 cert of action among the million holders of this surplus to render it 

 comparatively inefficient for the purposes of production ? Would it not 

 come to pass that, through the misapplication of capital, the masses of 

 the people, in drawing a larger proportion of the common earnings, 

 would soon find a smaller aggregate to draw from ? Is it not plain 

 that here is a case in which seeming justice may defeat justice, and 

 cause the working-man after a brief triumph to fall into a worse con- 

 dition than before ? And this would be true, even on the supposition 

 that the proletariat would save as much as the accumulating classes 

 now save ; but they would not so save — they would consume ; there 

 would be less capital, and business would suffer a decline, to the detri- 

 ment of all classes. It is one of the difficulties of reform that a seem- 

 ing good may react into evil. 



Agitators do not sufficiently keep in mind that business can not be 

 carried on without capital, and that this capital can be had only by 

 self-denial and by saving. Capital is not a providential gift bestowed 

 like showers of manna from heaven. Only the industrious, enterpris- 

 ing, economical, well-managing, are certain to acquire capital and re- 

 tain it. In making investments for production by the employment of 

 labor, there are very generally risks to run, and these risks the party 

 responsible for the business must wholly assume. The laborer as such 

 has no capital to fall back upon, and can not share in losses. Is it 

 right, therefore, that he should receive so much of the products that 

 there would be little or nothing left for the responsibility and enter- 

 prise of management ? Take two men fifty years of age : A has 

 worked hard, lived economically, invested wisely, and saved more or 

 less every year ; he is now a capitalist and employer. B has used up 

 his earnings as he went along, and is now working for A. Has he 

 any just right to insist that A shall forget the past, ignore its results. 



