l comparatively recent period.
To go into details minutely would involve extensive and here needless
discussion.

[22] A letter was sent me by a friend in America, from a writer who,
commenting on my late addresses in that country, said that in the main
he entirely agreed with my arguments, as against socialism; but that he
could not divest himself of the belief that labour as a whole got less
than it produced, and was thus as a whole suffering a chronic wrong. He
suggested, however, a method, fundamentally analogous to that set forth
in the text, of computing what labour, as such, does produce in reality.
He gave his own opinion as to actual facts, as an impression merely; but
how misleading impressions may be can be seen from his statements "that
all _very great_ fortunes, at all events, must be derived from the
underpayment of labour." Had he only considered the case in detail, he
would have seen that labour received the highest wages from some of the
richest employers. According to his theory the wages of labour, in such
cases, would touch the minimum.

CHAPTER XIII

INTEREST AND ABSTRACT JUSTICE

The essential feature of interest, as distinct from the income due to
active ability, is that while the latter ceases as soon as the able man
ceases to exert himself, the former continues to replenish the
recipient's pockets, though for his part he does nothing, or need do
nothing, in return for it. Since, then, the possession of this
particular form of income is admittedly unconnected with any concurrent
exertion on the part of those possessing it (such is the argument of the
objectors) the whole portion of the national wealth which, in the form
of interest, is at present appropriated by the presumably or the
possibly idle, might obviously be appropriated by the state, and applied
to public purposes, without lessening in any way even the highest of
those rewards which are due to, and are needed to stimulate any active
ability whatsoever, and hence without lessening the efficiency of the
wealth-producing process as a whole. If we adopt the programme which
this argument suggests, it will be possible, so its advocates say, to
satisfy the demands of labour by a shorter and more direct method than
that of committing ourselves to an estimate of what labour actually
produces, and endeavouring to secure that the total which is paid to
labour shall accord with it.

Now, this programme raises two separate questions. One