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94 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
comparison, must starve, because, notwithstanding all
the plenty, those who really do the hard work of modern
society are only just paid, and no more. It is easy for
such workmen and their so-called friends to point to
the capitalists as living on their labour; and no doubt
if it were possible to divide the earnings of capitalists
amongst society generally, according to numbers, these
particular workmen might be much better off. But it
is not from the labour of such workmen that capital-
ists mainly derive their income, while those W110 do
work, as we have seen, have so large a remuneration
that they can have no quarrel with the capitalist. The
suggested division would therefore only be for the
benefit of a special class whose existence is itself a
danger to society, and which should rather be dis-
couraged than encouraged, the whole efforts of society
being rather directed to their transformation byeduca-
tion and similar agencies into a higher class, than to
securing an increased payment for their work under
present conditions. The curse of the very poor, in
more senses tha~ one, is their poverty-poverty in
strength, in mental capacity, in moral qualities. They
are poor because they cannot earn more. I f they were
stronger they would have the earnings, and would have
no quarrel with the capitalists. To improve their con-
dition they must be made stronger, and not merely
given more to spend, which would be a curse to them
instead of a blessing, as it is to the merely idle capitalist
whose luxury they envy, whose existence is a danger to
society also, and whose obliteration, or rather transfor-
mation into a different class, is equally to be sought for.
The next head of complaint is that a workman has
more expenses now, in consequence of the rise in the
scale of living. Not only himself, but his family, must
live better. They must have better and more food, be
better clothed and sheltered, be better educated, and
so on. The workman himself, on whom the burden
falls, has no more surplus than before. He is not a
freer man.