472 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



Society, stated, that since the telegraphs had been 

 worked by the Post Office four times as much work was 

 done by the same length of wire as could be done at first, 

 and that this was mainly due to improvements made by 

 officers of the postal service. These improvements, he 

 said, had never been patented, and the inventors of them 

 received no money reward. The objection that inven- 

 tion would cease, may therefore be dismissed as purely 

 imaginary, and quite unsupported by an appeal to facts. 



4. An objection made much of by Mr. Mallock and 

 others is, that the power of organization, or business 

 capacity in its higher forms, is the almost exclusive 

 possession of the capitalist class, and will only be exer- 

 cised under the stimulus of a very high salary or great 

 prospective gain. The associated workers must therefore 

 necessarily fail for want of this capacity. It may be 

 admitted that great organizing power is rare, and that, 

 under our present social arrangements and struggle for 

 wealth it commands a high price, and often brings wealth 

 to its possessor. But the assumption that it exists in one 

 class only, and the supposition that, under a different 

 state of society, it will not be utilized because it is not so 

 highly paid, is unproved as fact and unsound as reasoning. 

 The exercise of this faculty is the exercise of power ; and 

 this is always enjoyed for its own sake, or for the sake of 

 the benefits it confers on humanity, arid is still further 

 enjoyed on account of the admiration and esteem of his 

 fellow men which it usually brings to its possessor. The 

 idea that the man who has this great faculty, and is 

 asked by his fellow citizens to use it for the common good, 

 will refuse because he will not be exceptionally paid, is 

 about as absurd, and as contrary to all experience, as to 

 maintain that the great leader of armies or fleets will not 

 lead till he is assured of higher pay than all other leaders. 

 Two of the greatest organizers of modern times, Count 

 von Moltke and General Booth, were certainly not incited 

 to exertion by the hope of a money reward. 



And the experience at Ralahine shows that a sufficient 

 business capacity does exist among very humble men so 

 soon as they have an opportunity of exercising it. It 



