178 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



wages except by fair and free competition can only increase 

 the cost of production, or lead to the production of commodities 

 of inferior value, and so lower the purchasing power of the 

 worker's time, and it is with our time, not our money, that we 

 have to pay for all we use, eat or drink ; and if we wish to 

 improve this we must create associations that will act as 

 registry offices which will guarantee to the employer full value 

 for the wage he is willing to pay, and to the employee the 

 equivalent wage for the skill he is capable of, and first chance 

 of constant employment at high pay to the most skilful man. 

 But the wage must be in proportion to skill, not to occupation 

 or trade a good mason, ten shillings, a bad one five, and an 

 average workman seven shillings. But the trouble will always 

 be to reduce wages fast enough when depression commences, 

 so as to be able to prevent want of employment. If you leave 

 them alone they will always rise fast enough, so long as profit 

 encourages the circulation of capital, for a small rate of profit 

 is preferable to no profit at all, and the rate of wages should 

 be decided by the number of certificates of efficiency held, and 

 the demand for employment and skill of the employee, not by 

 Acts of Parliament. 



Finally, it will be a better educational system of how to 

 make our lives, time, skill and thrift useful to our fellow- 

 countrymen, not by a system of wholesale distribution of 

 knowledge, which only makes wisdom valueless, nor by a 

 universal franchise, which only converts power into vacillation 

 and indecision, that we are to enable self-control to turn folly 

 into wisdom. And do not forget that all folly is some degree 

 of crime, and all wisdom some degree of virtue 



