94 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



to try our fortune; and, if we avoid impending fate, 

 there will be a certain ground for believing that we are 

 the right people to escape. Securus judicat or bis. 



To this end, it is well to look into the necessary con- 

 dition of our salvation by works. They are two, one 

 plain to all the world and hardly needing insistence; 

 the other seemingly not so plain, since too often it has 

 been theoretically and practically left out of sight. The 

 obvious condition is that our produce shall be better 

 than that of others. There is only one reason why our 

 goods should be preferred to those of our rivals our 

 customers must find them better at the price. That 

 means that we must use more knowledge, skill, and in- 

 dustry in producing them, without a proportionate in- 

 crease in the cost of production; and, as the price of 

 labour constitutes a large element in that cost, the rate 

 of wages must be restricted within certain limits. It is 

 perfectly true that cheap production and cheap labour 

 are by no means synonymous; but it is also true that 

 wages cannot increase beyond a certain proportion with- 

 out destroying cheapness. Cheapness, then, with, as 

 part and parcel of cheapness, a moderate price of labour, 

 is essential to our success as competitors in the markets 

 of the world. 



The second condition is really quite as plainly indispen- 

 sable as the first, if one thinks seriously about the mat- 

 ter. It is social stability. Society is stable, when the 

 wants of its members obtain as much satisfaction as, life 

 being what it is, common sense and experience show may 

 be reasonably expected. Mankind, in general, care very 

 little for forms of government or ideal considerations of 

 any sort; and nothing really stirs the great multitude to 

 break with custom and incur the manifest perils of 

 revolt except the belief that misery in this world, or 



18 "Unconcerned about the world, he rules." 



