912 REPORT—1890. 
do a difficult thing well, then the hope of earning such an income would offer, to 
all but the most sordid natures, inducements almost as strong as they are now 
when there is an equal hope of earning a large one. 
§ 17. On all this class of questions modern economists are inclined to go a little 
way with the Socialists. But all socialist schemes, and especially those which are 
directly or indirectly of German origin, seem to be vitiated by want of attention 
to the analysis which the economists of the modern age have made of the functions 
of the undertaker of business enterprises. They seem to think too much of com- 
petition as the exploiting of labour by capital, of the poor by the wealthy, and 
too little of it as the constant experiment by the ablest men for their several tasks, 
each trying to discover a new way in which to attain some important end. They 
still retain the language of the older economists, in which the employer, or under- 
taker, and the capitalist are spoken of, as though they were, for all practical purposes, 
the same people. The organ of the German school of English Socialists prints 
frequently in thick type the question, ‘Is there one single useful or necessary duty 
performed by the capitalist to-day which the people organised could not perform 
for themselves?’ It would be just as reasonable to ask if there is a single victory 
to which Julius Cesar or Napoleon conducted their troops, which the troops 
properly organised could not have equally well won for themselves ; or whether 
there is a single thing written by Shakespeare which could not have been equally 
well written by anyone else who, as Charles Lamb said, happened to ‘ have the 
mind to do it.’ Itis quite true that many business men earn large incomes by 
routine work. It is just in these cases that Co-operation can dispense with 
middlemen and even employers. But the German Socialists have been bitter foes 
of Co-operation; though this antagonism is less than it was. 
The world owes much to the Socialists, as it does to every set of enthusiasts 
among whom there are honest men; and many a generous heart has been made 
more generous by reading their poetic aspirations. But before their writings can 
be regarded as serious contributions to economic science, they must make more 
careful and exact analysis of the good and the evil of competition. They must 
suggest some reasonably efficient substitute for that freedom which our present 
system offers to constructive genius to work its way to the light, and to prove its 
existence by attempting difficult tasks on its own responsibility, and succeeding in 
them ; for those who have done most for the world have seldom been those whom 
their neighbours would have picked out as likely for the work. They must not, 
as even Mr. Bellamy and other American Socialists do, in spite of their strong pro- 
testations to the contrary, assume implicitly a complete change of human nature, 
and propound schemes which would much diminish the aggregate production, but 
which they represent as enabling every family to attain an amount of material 
well-being which would be out of reach of the aggregate income if England or 
America were divided out equally among the population. 
§ 18. But though the Socialists have ascribed to the virtues inherent in the 
human breast, and to the regulating force of public opinion, a much greater capacity 
for doing the energising work of competition than they seem really to have; yet, 
unquestionably, the economists of to-day do go beyond those of earlier generations 
in believing that the desire of men for the approval of their own conscience, and 
the esteem of others, is an economic force of the first order of importance, and 
that the strength of public opinion is steadily increasing with the increase and the 
diffusion of knowledge, and with the constant tendency of what had been regarded 
as private and personal issues to become public and national. 
Public opinion acts partly through the Government. But though the enforce- 
ment of the law in economic matters occupies the time of a rapidly increasing number 
of people; and its administration is improving in every way, it fails to keep pace with 
the demands resulting from the growing complexity of economic organisation, and 
the growing sense of responsibility of public opivion. A part of this failure is due 
to a cause which might easily be remedied ; it is that the adjustment of punish- 
ment to offences is governed by traditions descending from a time when the 
economic structure of England was entirely different. This is most conspicuous 
with regard to the subtler, or, as they are sometimes called with unconsciousirony, 
