3o8 MODERN ECONOMICS 



Beauty may find a rich husband : strength and 

 activity give a money value to a professional 

 football player. The possession of land is a far- 

 reaching advantage : it may enable a landlord 

 to impose his own terms on his tenants and 

 labourers by threatening them with banishment 

 from their homes. But it generally goes with the 

 possession of money. Riches are the all-important 

 advantage. Through them satisfaction may be 

 offered to almost every impulse of humanity, and 

 money may be collected as if by magnetic 

 attraction. The poor have one advantage of their 

 own : they form by far the most numerous class 

 of the community. By a strike they can obtain 

 the advantage of a monopoly. And by their 

 voting power they can limit the tyranny of wealth 

 through protective labour laws. 



But this despondent conclusion does not take 

 into account all the impulses of mankind. There 

 remain the promptings of kindness and self- 

 restraint, which are authoritatively impressed 

 upon us by religious teaching. These moderate 

 the fierceness of the struggle for life amongst 

 human beings. Their power is shown in the 

 liberal amounts subscribed in charity. They may 

 soften the relations between employer and em- 

 ployed, between landlord and tenant, uniting 

 interests which are naturally divergent, and sub- 

 stituting mutual consideration for mutual distrust. 

 The sympathy of Parliament has undoubtedly 

 been stimulated, in some measure, by the political 

 power of the masses. But kindly feelings have 

 also been effective : the richer classes show little 

 resentment when required by the law to contri- 

 bute to the assistance of the poor. Society ulti- 

 mately relies upon these feelings to preserve it 

 from being torn by dissension : and amongst the 

 habits of mind which should be pressed upon the 



