Project Gutenberg's The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice, by Stephen Leacock

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Title: The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice

Author: Stephen Leacock

Release Date: September 17, 2007 [EBook #22651]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
UNSOLVED RIDDLE
OF
SOCIAL JUSTICE

BY STEPHEN LEACOCK

=B. A., Ph. D., Litt. D., F. R. S. C.=

_Professor of Political Economy at McGill University, Montreal_

Author of "Essays and Literary Studies," Etc.

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY: MCMXX

BY STEPHEN LEACOCK

FRENZIED FICTION
FURTHER FOOLISHNESS
BEHIND THE BEYOND
NONSENSE NOVELS
LITERARY LAPSES
SUNSHINE SKETCHES
ARCADIAN ADVENTURES WITH THE IDLE RICH
ESSAYS AND LITERARY STUDIES
MOONBEAMS FROM THE LARGER LUNACY
THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA

Copyright, 1920,

By John Lane Company

_CONTENTS_

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Troubled Outlook of the Present Hour 9
II. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness 33
III. The Failures and Fallacies of Natural Liberty 48
IV. Work and Wages 66
V. The Land of Dreams: The Utopia of the Socialist 88
VI. How Mr. Bellamy Looked Backward 103
VII. What Is Possible and What Is Not 124

THE UNSOLVED RIDDLEOF SOCIAL JUSTICE

_I.--The Troubled Outlook of the Present Hour_

THESE are troubled times. As the echoes of the war die away the sound of
a new conflict rises on our ears. All the world is filled with
industrial unrest. Strike follows upon strike. A world that has known
five years of fighting has lost its taste for the honest drudgery of
work. Cincinnatus will not back to his plow, or, at the best, stands
sullenly between his plow-handles arguing for a higher wage.

The wheels of industry are threatening to stop. The laborer will not
work