INTRODUCTION. 
XXXIX 
this country, the tendency of industrial progress, on the sup 
position that the present separation between individual classes 
is maintained, is toward an inequality greater still.” * 
When, viewing from a distance and without bias the dis 
tribution of the good things of this world, one sees, on the one 
side, the workers reduced to the bare necessaries of life—not 
obtaining even them at the least crisis—and, on the other, the 
Idle and independent classes, in increasing numbers, enjoying 
more and more refined comfort, it is impossible to pronounce 
this state of things conformable to justice, and we are forced to 
eimlaim with Bossuet, “The murmurs of the poor are just. 
Tierefore, O Lord, this inequality of conditions ? ” Doubtless 
It may be answered that it has always been so, and cannot be 
otherwise ; but this argument satisfies those only whose privileges 
are thus confirmed. ^ 
SodaHsm demands that the labourer should reap the whole 
ru.ts of his labour, and nothing seems more just. Still, if the 
ranhT '7'?f help of two other factors, land and 
Jital, and if these do not belong to the labourer, he cannot 
retoin the entire product. Each factor must be rewarded, 
othemise it will refuse its aid. The solution consists in uniting 
he three factors m the same person 
mm 
" of Poliliral Economy " (1874), p. 340.