BY E. M. JOHNSTON, r.L.S. 149> 



(3.) Such of the latter as by former misfortunes have 



been deprived of every form of wealth in exchange, 



must beg or steal from public or private resources, 



or die of starvation. 



Thus it is shown that one of the great economic harmonies 



in competition, while it effects much good in distributing 



wealth and breaking down monopolies and privileges, and in 



enlarging the domain of community in the enjoyment of the 



gratuitous products of nature and invention, it also, as one 



of the mills of God, directs its force terribly on the mere 



monopolists of bone and muscle ; competition grinding them 



smaller and smaller as its force is augmented by increasing 



numbers. 



Further Diffigtjltibs Connected With the Division 

 OF Labour — ^^llocation. 



One of the most formidable difficulties connected with the 

 division of labour is allocation ; for it is evident that if in 

 the technical training of the young due regard be not paid to 

 the chances of finding employment in the service to which the 

 future breadwinner aspires, disaster or a disappointed life may 

 be the result. This, being a relative matter, applies to a 

 small community as well as to a large one. Few take into 

 consideration that there is a natural law in operation which 

 as surely determines the numbers required for each great 

 class of employment as do the natural laws which locally 

 determine the times and relative heights of the tide. No 

 social advancement by means of the higher education of the 

 people can ever alter the relative numbers of the various 

 branches of human service ; and should it be thought possible 

 that the education of the masses exerts any influence in the 

 nature of its training in disturbing the necessary proportions 

 of each great group of services upon which our lives and our 

 civilisation depends, it would certainly prove that the general 

 spread of higher education was a curse and not a blessing. 



Services would never become a marketable commodity of 

 value in exchange if it were not for wants. Kinds of services, 

 therefore, must be exactly proportionate to kinds of wants. 

 The wants which demand the expenditure of the greater 

 amount of labour must necessarily absorb the greater amount 

 of persons requiring employment without regard to their 

 capacities, attainments, or personal desires ; and, so far as the 

 mass of human beings are concerned, there is no choice. 



The great wants, food, clothing, and shelter, are by far the 

 greatest factors in the determination of the aggregate numbers 

 that must be employed if the wants are to be satisfied. The 

 same three great wants also determine the necessary amount 

 and proportions of capital, machinery, and land to be employed, 



