Credit Money and the Precious Metals. 233 



question whether there is not a greater tendency to the 

 congestion of wealth in the hands of a section of the 

 community than can be regarded as a necessary consequence 

 of the varying qualities of mankind, or of that hereditary 

 transmission of wealth, which is one of the conditions of 

 the accumulation which makes possible the general 

 advancement of the community ? In other words, bearing 

 in mind the vast increase in productive power due to 

 the advancement and application of science, has the 

 position of the labourer improved in a reasonably pro- 

 portionate ratio? The conviction that it has not done 

 so, and the desire to remedy the anomaly, are at the base, not 

 merely of the various present-day State-help movements, 

 but of trades unionism, and especially of what is known as 

 the new trades unionism, co-operation, profit-sharing, and 

 other economic experiments ; and it really inspires the 

 further studies of economists and all would-be social 

 reformers. 



The problem, as it presents itself to sober minds, may 

 be stated as follows : Is it possible, without undue in- 

 terference with individualism, to diminish the inequalities 

 in the distribution of wealth? Is a distribution approxi- 

 mately proportionate to the quantitative (or qualitative) 

 relations of the services rendered — the value of such services 

 being still estimated strictly according to what they can 

 freely command in exchange in the market — consistent 

 with the free play of natural economic laws, including the 

 law of supply and demand ? If so, then what are the 

 conditions which check such distribution ? 



In the consideration of these questions, we may leave out 

 the doctrine of Malthus. Up to the present the means of 

 subsistence have increased in a far greater ratio than popu- 

 lation. Moreover, the problem immediately in hand is not, 

 as I view it, concerned with the consequences of mere 

 individual imprudence, recklessness, or vice. These are 

 O 



