d must rest
upon an insufficient knowledge of the events which will govern the
future. One of the chief requirements that proposals made were designed
to satisfy is the attainment of such a distributive outcome as may be
judged to be both just and sound--weighing all relevant considerations.
Yet it would probably be over-optimistic to believe that the result
would satisfy the intention. For all that, the general desire for a high
level of production will largely depend upon the fulfillment of that
intention. The wage earners will only continue to subscribe to a
doctrine of high production if they trust to the action of the
distributive mechanism to bring them a fair share of the resulting
product. Here we are at the very storm center of socialist economics.
The question is, to what extent, as a matter of fact, do the wage
earners share in the result of increased productive efficiency? To that
question, the policy of wage settlement must furnish a satisfactory
answer--though, of course, no answer will be satisfactory to all men.

The question of the prospective distribution of wealth, however, can
hardly be considered apart from the question of the future course of
growth in population. Even if the wage earners do receive that share of
the product of industry which represents a just and sound distributive
outcome, will that mean a gradual evolution of higher permanent
standards of living among the poor, and give them a fair start in the
struggle for opportunity? Or will it mean but a greater rate of increase
in population, such as will more than keep pace with the ability of our
natural resources and the advances in production and invention to
provide the basis of a rising standard of life for all the population?
In the latter case, groups will remain at the bottom of the industrial
scale whose economic position will be so unfavorable under any social
arrangements as to prevent the individual members of these groups to
fairly develop and test their natural ability. In which case the
handicap of inequality would be very real. The nineteenth century has
left us with a hopeful outlook in regard to the possibility of
maintaining a progressive standard of living throughout the community;
but the events, purposes, and habits which will determine the outcome
are too many, and their relative influence is too indeterminate to
warrant any certain predictions.

However, even if the menace of population is avoided, even if the
gen