of
the aggregate man-power consumed in industrial enterprises under
business management. And apart from the instances, essentially
exceptional, where such a special consideration comes in, the
businessmen in charge will, quite excusably as things go, endeavour to
consume the man-power of which they dispose in the persons of their
employees, not at the rate that would be most economical to the
community at large, in view of the cost of their replacement, nor at
such a rate as would best suit the taste or the viability of the
particular workman, but at such a rate as will yield the largest net
pecuniary gain to the employer.

There is on record an illustrative, and indeed an illustrious, instance
of such cannily gainful consumption of man-power carried out
systematically and with consistently profitable effect in one of the
staple industries of the country. In this typical, though exceptionally
thoroughgoing and lucrative enterprise, the set rule of the management
was, to employ none but select workmen, in each respective line of work;
to procure such select workmen and retain them by offering wages
slightly over the ordinary standard; to work them at the highest pace
and pressure attainable with such a picked body; and to discharge them
on the first appearance of aging or of failing powers. In the rules of
the management was also included the negative proviso that the concern
assumed no responsibility for the subsequent fortunes of discharged
workmen, in the way of pension, insurance or the like.

This enterprise was highly successful and exceedingly profitable, even
beyond the high average of profits among enterprises in the same line of
business. Out of it came one of the greater and more illustrious
fortunes that have been accumulated during the past century; a fortune
which has enabled one of the most impressive and most gracious of this
generation's many impressive philanthropists, never weary in well-doing;
but who, through this cannily gainful consumption of man-power, has been
placed in the singular position of being unable, in spite of avowedly
unremitting endeavour, to push his continued disbursements in the
service of humanity up to the figure of his current income. The case in
question is one of the most meritorious known to the records of modern
business, and while it will conveniently serve to illustrate many an
other, and perhaps more consequential truth come to realisation in the
march of Triumphant Dem