the cost of moving a barrel of flour a thousand miles from a dollar and a half to fifty cents; was he not a cheap man for the community to employ even if he did make a hundred million dollars? What he made himself was but a tithe of what he saved to the community.

In other essays I have endeavored to show that not exceeding ten per cent. of the product of a normal or average year can be saved in a concrete form and added to the capital of the nation. Whether this ratio is correct or not, it will be admitted by all that a certain amount of capital must be saved in some way in order that society may continue to exist, even under the present narrow conditions of life. It will be generally admitted that it is more important that capital should be efficiently maintained than it is to determine who saves it or who controls it. A large part of this addition to capital may, and doubtless does, consist of the savings of persons who can never hope to accumulate enough to enable themselves to give up work in their later years, or to live wholly upon the income of what they may save. The most that the great majority can expect to do, is to lay up a moderate sum of which they may expend the principal when they become disqualified for work, unless they are then supported by their children wholly or in part.

There are no data by means of which the number of the rich or even of the well-to-do persons can be set off as a separate class from the rest of the community; that is to say, there is no way to find out how many can accumulate a sufficient amount of capital to enable themselves or their children to live upon the income of their property without further work. Suffice it that the proportion is very small indeed in point of number; and as the margin of profit becomes less, or as the amount of capital required in order to yield an income sufficient for a comfortable support without work becomes greater, the proportion of those who can hope to live without work in their later years will probably diminish rather than increase as time goes on.

It is probable, to say the least, that fully ninety per cent. of the whole body of the people spend nearly all that they earn; of this ninety per cent. a portion may, by setting aside a moderate part of their small earnings, become the owners of a house, or become depositors in a savings bank, or insure their lives in a moderate way; of the remaining ten per cent. a part save enough to protect themselves against want in their later years, and a very small part may become rich, and then need not work unless they choose. There are but few in each generation who do not choose to work, whatever their motive may be and however rich they may be; the actual drones are but a small fraction even of the rich, hardly calling for attention. They are, like Mr. Toots, of little consequence to themselves and of no consequence to others.

When it is admitted that the whole capital of the richest State in this Union does not, and probably never can, exceed in value three years' annual product of the same State; and that the people of the richest State are always within one year of starvation, within two years of being naked, and within a very few years of being houseless and homeless, unless they work for a living, what possibility is there that any considerable part of one generation can save their children to any extent from the beneficent necessity of supporting themselves? Our present aggregate product, whatever it may be, being mostly consumed by those who work for a living, what is the limit within which the measure or cost of living must of necessity be confined? When we have settled this question we may ask, What is the aspect of life to the average man or woman who works for a living in order to gain a mere subsistence, and what can we do to better it?

In the next article I will give the reasons for my conclusion that the present limit within which the great mass of the people of this country must find food, fuel, shelter, and clothing ranges between that which forty cents and that which sixty cents a day will buy for each man, woman, and child in the community, the average not exceeding what fifty cents a day will purchase. It requires the work for gain or the earnings in money of more than one in three in the population to sustain the whole community; and the average earnings of the great mass of the people range from $1.00 to $3.00 a day, on which earnings three persons must be sheltered, fed, and clothed.

The picture which is brought before the eye or mind of him who can take in the full significance of these figures is somewhat appalling. It might lead many to ask, If this is the result of the highest civilization. yet attained by the most favored nation, is life on the whole worth living? and one must carefully guard himself against the influences of materialistic philosophy in order to keep an even balance in his own life.

It may not be judicious for the mere business observer, who cannot claim to be able to comprehend any thing more than the elements of the philosophy of history, to venture to forecast the future; yet to many prosperous persons who now pay little regard to the blind struggle of vast numbers of working men and women to improve their condition, and who think workmen have no rights to be secured and no wrongs to be redressed, one may rightly put the question, Have not you also something to do in the solution of these problems? Are there not signs of danger? May not the existing unbearable tension among European nations, burdened as they are with monstrous national debts that can never be paid, and with huge and onerous standing armies which it seems to be impossible to disband, end in revolutions in which many feudal privileges and vested wrongs may go down forever, but in

which also many institutions covering not only rights of property in land but in all the products on which existence depends, may for a time be questioned? If such should be the course of events in other countries, are we so strong in our popular government that we ourselves may not share some of these difficulties and dangers? Or even if there be no danger to society in this country, and, as the writer most profoundly believes, nothing but benefit to be ultimately gained from the organization of labor and the study of economic problems by so-called labor associations, clubs, and societies, might not all others also join in attempting to solve these problems, to the end that free institutions. may be fully justified, not only by those who possess an abundance, but also by those who can find in such institutions the opportunity for themselves or their children to attain the conditions of life which may indeed make this life worth living to the poor as well as to the prosperous?

I

N my last

VI.

THE PRICE OF LIFE.'

essay I endeavored to present the condition of life as they must of necessity appear to him or her who earns little more than enough, or barely enough, to support material existence. In those which preceded it I endeavored to define the limit within which life must be sustained, if sustained at all, under the present conditions of production and distribution. The series would be incomplete if in this paper the figures which define the limit were not again presented and worked out more fully and conclusively than they have been elsewhere. In the subsequent computations I shall omit small fractions and shall deal with round figures only.

In 1880 the average family group consisted of five persons; the working group consisted of a fraction under three persons, one of whom sustained two others. The time had not then come, and has not yet come, when the work of women and children for gain or money payment could or can be spared; it will be many long years before the head of every family of five persons can produce enough, or can procure enough by his own exertions, for the support, in comfort and welfare, of four persons dependent upon him. This would be true if we were to consume for mere subsistence every thing that we produce. If the total product were divided evenly and consumed, there would not be enough to raise the general level much above what it now is, and the next generation would then suffer want because we had eaten up or worn out that part of the product which ought to have been saved in the form of capital.

In all the computations which existing data enable me to make, I have been obliged to stretch a point and to assume a maximum rather than a minimum estimate of the gross value of the product of the nation, in order to find six hundred dollars' worth of food, fuel, shelter, and clothing as the average product of each person occupied for gain, by which product, whatever it may be, three persons must be subsisted, housed, and clothed. This is the gross product. Unless ten per cent. of the six hundred dollars' worth be set aside by some one, whether by rich or by poor matters not, to be added to the capital of the nation, 1 Reprinted from the Forum.

the product of future years will be diminished rather than increased, and want will then ensue rather than welfare.

Again, a part of this product must be diverted by taxation to meet the necessary expenditures of the country and of the several States, cities, and towns. The taxes required for cities and towns are assessed upon property in a great measure, nevertheless they must come out of the gross product of the nation; they represent work of some sort, and those who do the work, of whatever kind, contribute to these taxes. A tax cannot be made to stay where it is put; it is distributed no matter where it may be first collected.

All profits, all taxes, all shares of the product represent work of some kind, whether it be mental or mechanical or manual. It may be work in which capital or machinery has saved labor the greater part of the effort, or it may be work in which manual labor does the most and machinery the least. If the capitalist cannot demonstrate his right to the share which falls to him by proving that in the direction, control, and use of the capital which he owns he adds to the gross product more than he takes away for his own consumption and for that of those who depend upon him, then he must hold his capital only by force rather than by recognized service. If taxes cannot be justified in their expenditure, they cannot be justified in their collection.

If the possession of property does not rest upon service rather than upon force, on what pretense can any one set up the right to property? The word "right" cannot cover wrong. Can he who lives on others' work, or who takes from the product even a small part without adding by his own service or that of his capital more than he takes from it, justify his existence or set up a right to the property that he misuses, no matter how legal may be his title?

In 1880, State, city, and town taxes came close upon twenty dollars per head of all who were at work-about six dollars per head of the population. Assuming that sixty dollars' worth of the product, on the average, of each person occupied in gainful work must be set aside to be added to capital by some one, and twenty dollars' worth must be set aside to sustain States, cities, and towns, in order that society may continue to exist-eighty dollars' worth in all out of each six hundred. dollars' worth, we then find a net income, on the average, to each working man or woman who is not in the public service or sustained by the taxes, of five hundred and twenty dollars a year; or rather, what five hundred and twenty dollars a year will buy for their own consumption. Computing three hundred working days in the year, this gross sum of six hundred dollars yields a fraction less than one dollar and three quarters per day a little less than twelve dollars per week, or fifty dollars per month, and if out of this sum, or of what this sum will buy, after setting aside ten per cent. for the necessary addition to capital and the