494 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
banks, and stock exchanges—is to feed, clothe, and shelter the 
world’s present and prospective inhabitants, and provide them 
with the commodities, services, and manufactured articles 
necessary and desirable to their daily existence. 
Growth of Population Under Capitalism and Socialism. 
—The rapid increase in population both in this country and 
abroad has been in a great measure due to the effectiveness of 
our financial machinery over the past century and a half. This 
swift growth in the population of civilized countries is, more- 
over, peculiar to the present-day so-called “capitalistic” era of 
history. In the Middle Ages, and even during the earlier por- 
tion of the Renaissance period, the population of Europe was 
largely stationary, for the quantity production of goods was 
then prevented by the lack of scientific and mechanical knowl- 
edge, uneconomic legislation, and the inability to finance or 
distribute mass output. Since, therefore, the commodities and 
goods necessary to human existence were produced in a rela- 
tively fixed volume, only a fixed number of human beings were 
permitted to find shelter, clothing, and food. Children born 
over and above a fixed rate therefore perished from the lack 
of these essentials to life. If, under this mediaeval system of 
fixed production, speculation and usury were largely held in 
abeyance, it is nevertheless true that the continual economic 
slaughter of human beings was necessary to its maintenance. 
An interesting modern analogy to this grim and (to us) in- 
human condition of affairs is furnished by Bolshevist Russia, 
where the population has had to adjust itself to meet the limited 
output of goods and foodstuffs permitted by the socialist theory 
of producing without the speculative carrying of surplus, and 
other functions performed by the modern machinery of capital. 
The Instance of Great Britain.—Despite the clamor of the 
agitator and the economic crank, the “capitalistic order,” as 
they call it, has had a very different record. By the invention 
of mechanical labor-saving devices and the credit machinery 
needed to install and operate these devices, a vast energy and