370 . ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book iv exorbitant, and desires to have a certain portion of 

 hapter 4 the total deducted. Now if the tailor is reasonable 

 and agrees to take off something, the matter may be 

 easily adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties ; 

 for though the customer may think that the tailor 

 has claimed too much, he admits that to a certain 

 sum the tailor has an undoubted right. But if the 

 customer were a madman, who believed when he 

 ordered his clothes that in abstract justice he ought to 

 be charged nothing for them, and that any claim on 

 the tailor's part was in reality robbery and oppres- 

 sion, whatever deduction the tailor might consent 

 to make, the customer's grievance against him 

 would remain the same as ever. It is possible for 

 customers and tradesmen to come to some satis- 

 factory understanding, so long as the demand of the 

 former is that their bills shall not be too high. 

 No satisfactory understanding could be arrived at 

 between them possibly there would be nothing but 

 friction, constant dunning, and writs were it known 

 that the customers entertained and meant to act on 



These theories the theory that they ought not, in abstract justice, 

 to pay their bills at all. Now such is the labour- 

 leaders' theory with regard to the employing classes. 



and the cause p or a t ime some part of their bills must unfor- 



of true social r 



reform suffers tunately be paid that is, some part of their profits 



incalculable . , , T, , /- i i 



injury. be allowed them, but to these profits they have no 



real right, and the employed must never be con- 

 tented until they have absorbed the whole of them. 

 So long as such a theory prevails, no satisfactory 

 progress in the condition of labour is possible, 



