RICHES AND POVERTY 309 



young none are of more importance to the com- 

 munity than kindness and consideration for those 

 around them. The discipline to which boy-scouts 

 submit themselves has no more admirable 

 feature than the helpfulness with which they 

 learn to meet the needs of others. 



The accumulation of riches may have benefits 

 in its train. It stimulates the aptitudes of man- 

 kind. The wealthy can afford to pay high prices 

 for meritorious industrial or artistic work. It may 

 be urged that genius is its own incentive : that 

 inventiveness or art do not need to be excited by 

 money rewards. This is true in a measure. But 

 we cannot trust the creative spirit always to urge 

 genius to exert itself. Judging by the anxiety of 

 inventors to protect their ideas by patents, their 

 originality is stimulated by hopes of gain. And 

 artists of eminence expect liberal fees if they are 

 to rise to the utmost height of their talents. 



Are poverty and riches essential results of our 

 industrial civilization ? Could not the State, or 

 community, reconstruct society so as to maintain 

 the effectiveness of industry, while directing the 

 distribution of its fruits according to principles of 

 equity and kindness ? By labour legislation the 

 State is successfully checking the rich from 

 pressing to the utmost the advantages of their 

 wealth : moreover, it is taking a practical hand 

 in the economic life of the community, and man- 

 ages to distribute letters, to carry passengers, 

 efficiently and economically, while assuring to 

 its employees a living wage. But the aspirations 

 of Socialism soar far beyond this. The com- 

 munity, it is claimed, should itself undertake to 

 produce wealth and to distribute it ; or, at least, 

 should imperatively regulate its distribution so 



