kindness (let us
say) towards a distant kinsman, agreed to pay him a pension, he would
doubtless accept the pension as a something that was better than
nothing; but he would not be satisfied with a part when he conceived
himself to be entitled to the whole, and as soon as occasion offered
would go to law to obtain it. In other words, if two persons are to make
a bargain or contract which can possibly satisfy both, each must start
with recognising that the other has some valid right, and what the
nature of this right is, to the property or position which is held by
him and which is the subject of the projected exchange. Unless this be
the case, any exchange that may be effected will, for one of the parties
at least, not be a true bargain or contract, but an enforced and
temporary compromise. There will be no finality in it, and it will
produce no content.

Now, in the case of the bargain or contract between labour and ability,
this last situation is precisely that which the teachings of socialism
are at present tending to generalise. They are encouraging the
representatives of labour to regard the representatives of ability as a
class which possesses much, but has no valid right to anything, and with
whom in consequence no true bargain is possible; since, whatever this
class concedes short of its whole possessions will merely be accepted by
labour as a surrender of stolen goods, which merits resentment rather
than thanks, because it is only partial.

The intellectual socialists of to-day, and many of their less educated
followers, will strenuously deny this. They will declare that they,
unlike their predecessors, recognise that directive ability is a true
productive agent no less than ordinary labour is; and that able men, no
less than the labourers, have rights which they may, if they choose,
enforce with equal justice. And if we confine our attention to certain
of their theoretical admissions, we need not go further than the pages
of the present volume to remind ourselves that for this assertion there
are ample, if disjointed, foundations. But the doctrine of modern
socialism must be judged, not only by its separate parts, but also by
the emphasis with which they are respectively enunciated, and by the
mood of mind which, on the whole, it engenders among the majority of
those who are affected by it; and, whatever its leading exponents may,
on occasion, protest to the contrary, the main practical result which
it has