VIRTUE AND CRIME 167 



for our state and occupation in life to be perfectly educated, 

 useful, and, if habits of moral rectitude have been also in- 

 cluded, we will not only be useful but also virtuous. But the 

 acquirement of knowledge we cannot utilise except in the few 

 cases of exceptional literary ability when there is sufficient 

 genius for the knowledge so acquired to be above the average 

 and so be exceptionally useful, is only so much time wasted. 



As time and money are the same commodity under 

 different names, we must not forget that our time and wealth 

 are the property of the community, to whom we are account- 

 able for their use. We cannot all be parsons, doctors, or 

 statesmen, for these are professions that are unproductive of. 

 food, clothes and the necessities of life ; and thus culture is not 

 necessary to the majority of us, and although singing, music 

 and dancing may be very useful to those who can afford them, 

 they are not necessities of education, and a dancing master will 

 not add to the profits of a coal-pit. The producer always has 

 to provide for two drones, or two workers, whose rate of remu- 

 neration is above the return value in production among the 

 bread-winners of a community ; and were it not for the fact 

 that the wage the good or skilled workman earns is more than 

 double and treble the wage he is paid, it would be utterly 

 impossible to pay the indifferent worker anything approaching 

 a living wage. For an average fluctuation of 10 a year will 

 raise or lower the birth-rate, and the bad worker cannot even 

 expect a living wage. It therefore always works out that the 

 industrious, energetic and thrifty man has always to support 

 twice his number in the community who fail to earn, otherwise 

 than nominally, the average value of income or wage they are 

 paid so that they may not starve. This is why we always 

 err, if we err at all, by paying high wages too long, not low 

 ones, and so create poverty. So our aim must be to reduce the 

 non-productive members of the community by teaching them, 

 not knowledge, but to understand that it is habits of persever- 

 ance, industry and economy, and the love of duty to God, our 

 superiors, and our neighbours, not wages, that produce the 

 reward of wealth and happiness, and that it is by striving for 

 the good of the whole community, not by private or individual 

 success, that wealth and happiness are attained, for the truth 

 is that we are honoured for the success that brings our wealth. 

 It is not success or wealth that brings honour, or that creates 



