These are most subtle and useful methods of competition, beneficial alike to the shopkeeper and to the customer. Unless the co-operators adopted such methods of competition even the Rochdale pioneers, who founded the whole system, would themselves have failed. Why does not co-operation succeed in this country in the distribution of product? is a question often asked. The reason is very plain. The shopkeepers of this country early learned and applied a competitive principle to the distribution of articles which are not quickly perishable, which is yet but little comprehended in England in respect to retail traffic, namely, large sales at small profits and large dealings only with cash customers. The margin of profit with which our great shopkeepers are satisfied, and on which they grow rich, is so small that there is little left for the co-operative shop to work upon. In this department competition having already done the work of co-operation in reducing the cost of distribution, and, having proved itself to be a synonymous term, there is nothing left for co-operation to accomplish in the distribution of many of the staple articles of commerce. There is, however, yet great room for improvement in the distribution of perishable articles and in the small traffic. It is the small shops which cost the most for their support. The charge in the distribution of meat, milk, fruit, green vegetables and the like, is the heaviest. The baker is a high-priced man even if he does not grow rich himself. How to abate excessive tolls on small traffic is of paramount interest and importance. It is written: "To him that shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken, even that which he hath." That is a hard saying, yet it is a profoundly true one, even to the economist. Let us interpolate a little. To him who hath (gumption) shall be given (opportunity), and from him who hath not (gumption) shall be taken even (a large share) of that which he hath, namely, of his small products, because his service is of little worth to others. No man can exchange services with another who is incapable of conferring a service himself. The rule of material success in life is never to do anything yourself which you can more easily get done for you by some one else. The employer who can use other men's hands or wits cannot spare his own time or brain for such work, and, conversely, the man who desires to be employed will find the exact measure of his wages to be the exact measure of the service which he is capable of rendering. This is just as true of borrowing and lending. The borrower must find out not only who has capital to lend, but also whether he himself is capable of using it without losing it. There is vastly more capital awaiting use than there is capacity to make use of at this very moment. That is just what's the matter. To him that hath capital which he has earned

himself, whether in his head or in his pocket, shall be given all the capital he can use, and from him that hath no capital, either in his head or hands, shall be taken even that which he hath in his pocket, if his father has left him a bit and he has not been put under the care of a trustee.

One very great advantage in the increase of capital in ratio to the possible use which can be made of it, and the consequent diminishing share of product which capital can secure, will consist in the lessening proportion of those who will be able to live without working themselves, either with brain or hand.

Witness the tremendous revolution which is now in progress in Great Britain. The mere possession of land devoted to agriculture, entirely aside from city property, is computed to have yielded £60,000,000-nearly $300,000,000-a year rent. To the extent of the purchasing power of this sum families have been enabled to live without work, except they worked from choice. This system has been continued and sustained by custom and statute in respect to the land tenure, until, according to Arthur Arnold, four-fifths of the land of Great Britain is nominally possessed by less than 7,000 owners; and of this four-fifths, the greater portion is held only in life tenancy subject to entails and settlements, so that those who nominally possess it can make no profitable use of it. This rent is now becoming impossible simply by the beneficent working of competition. The competition of our farmers, our railways and of the English steamships has given the masses of the people of England cheap bread, and the 7,000 landlords can no longer exact rent in any great measure by power of mere possession. Yet it is not by their dispossession that a remedy can be found even for their own misfortunes. The need is that the land shall be repossessed, free of incumbrances, so that it can be put to use by its present nominal owners or by others to whom they may sell it when freed from incumbrance, while to the present owners will come the beneficent necessity of working themselves on their land or off it in order to subsist. Without possession there can be no abundant production from land.

Free competition, both in the possession and use of land and its products, has had full play for the longest period over the area of the northern States of this Union where slavery did not exist to any extent. Let us judge it by its fruits. What has it accomplished, especially in New England?

1. It has resulted in the largest aggregate production in ratio to the number of persons employed that has ever been realized in any country.

2. It has reduced the ratio which interest, rent or profit bear to the total product to a less proportion of such product, than is to be found in any other country.

3. I has established the highest rates of wages by working such a distribution of the joint product of capital and labor, that the more effective both become, the larger becomes the share of the laborer in the constantly increasing product.

4. It has assured a good subsistence to lower and lower grades of labor while diminishing the hours and the intensity of the work.

5. It has diminished the proportion which the great fortunes bear to the total accumulated wealth. It has increased the relative number of persons possessing moderate wealth. It has vastly increased the number who possess small savings.

6. It has greatly increased the number of lucrative occupations which are open to women or to men who are out of full vigor.

7. It has rendered the saving or accumulation of a considerable property less necessary to assure a comfortable subsistence.

8. It has reduced the number of hours of work necessary to be devoted to procuring subsistence.

If we accept the misnomer of "the poor" as a generic term for all who do not yet possess property, the poor, as a class, are becoming richer by way of competition, while the rich,,who have already become possessors of property, may become no poorer, but are more numerous. In other words, competition is the force which tends to equalize the distribution of the annual product, while steadily increasing the product of each decade, as compared to the previous one.

I do not present these propositions to you with any attention of attempting to prove them at this time. I submit them dogmatically as being capable of proof. Perhaps they cannot all be proved, except by your own work. One of the most important parts of your work may be in this very direction. I think you cannot have failed to observe how very few grades of labor there are, and how evenly, on the whole, a certain share of the annual product is even now divided in each grade. For instance, in New England, where capital is the most ample and effective, the mechanism of exchange most complete, and where specially skilled labor has concentrated in greatest measure, their are certain broad divisions, and in each division the earnings are very uniform. In the lowest plane or grade, the earnings of common laborers do not vary greatly. In the next grade above, the earnings of factory operatives and domestic servants and of women in many other arts are nearly alike, if the cost of boarding the servant be added to the wages. In the next above come the skilled mechanics, railway and telegraph em

ployes, and with them may be classed a great body of clerks, salesmen and women and a large proportion of teachers. In the next may bē found a greater proportion of persons of moderate means and income than can be found elsewhere. And, finally, although there is a great deal of wealth, yet, in my judgment, the wealth of those who are distinctly rich bears a much less proportion to the wealth of the whole community than it does anywhere else. In the State of Massachusetts nearly every other person-man, woman or child-is represented by name on the books of some savings bank, and the aggregate of their deposits is about $275,000,000. Where has competition been more free than in New England, so far as its own people are concerned? And yet my own computations, which were examined, verified and sustained by Commissioner Wright, and which were made on the basis of his most excellent census of Massachusetts of 1875, proved that the whole -capital of the State could not possibly exceed in value three years' production. I therefore present to you one of the most difficult and yet one of the questions most requiring an answer. What proportion of each year's product is or can be saved and added to capital? You will observe that this is a very different and much more complex problem that the question of what is the income of capital, because the income of capital is largely consumed. The capitalist who receives it is in many cases a mere distributer. Let us assume the cases of two men, each of whom receives $10,000 a year from the earnings of the same railroad or factory. One spends or consumes it in the support of a large family and of many servants and dependents. The other spends or consumes $5,000 and invests $5 000 in a new form of capital-a new mill or a new railroad-and it is only this last sum which is added to the aggregate capital of the State in which these two men live. Suppose this joint income of $20,000 had represented a dividend of five per cent. upon a factory worth $400,000, then the $5,000 saved would be only 1 per cent. added to the productive capital in this or some other factory. All my investigations have led me to believe that the actual addition to capital is very small. I do not believe five per cent. of our annual product for the last 100 years can now be found in existence as capital or even as realized wealth. It would be a matter of the utmost interest if this point could be worked out. The average population for the 100 years has been somewhat over 20,000,000, which would be the same as 2,000,000,000 for one year. If each person saved $1, or if each worker who supports two others saved $3, the wealth which this. saving represented would be $2,000,000,000. Assume that each person has saved $12 or that each worker has represented a saving of $36 per year, then the aggregate of wealth aside from land would be $24,000,

000,000 in 1880. I don't think as great a sum could be found, and the greater part of what there is has been saved in recent years. If $12 per head per year be an approximate estimate of the total savings which have been maintained, what ratio does that bear to the cost of subsistence? Can we solve that problem? Are my computations approximately accurate when I assign as the average value of our present annual product per person what would sell for $200, if all were sold at current retail prices including what is consumed on farms? Is ten per cent, as against five or six per cent, formerly, of such $200-or $20now annually added to wealth or capital? It would be over $1,000,000,000 this year. If ten per cent. of the product of the year has been saved or set aside for the maintenance or increase of capital, how much must we take off from the apparent gain to represent the actual depreciation of the capital previously saved? After all repairs have been made that are possible, mills, works, warehouses and dwellings depreciate; the inventor destroys the accumulations of years; there is nothing constant but change; there is no fixed capital in an absolute sense, and all life is but a conversion of forces. Stability is death. How much can we set aside for reproductive purposes? How much of this will be even moderately permanent? What proportion of the useful things now in existence are more than one generation old? What material work of man is permanent except the opening of the ways. Is the addition to capital more than sufficient to maintain an increasing production? Did the few in whose hands capital and wealth slowly accumulated in the first fifty years of our existence secure more, even for a short time, than $5 to $10 per head? Do the many in whose hands capital and wealth are now being accumulated secure, even for a short term, more than $15 to $20 per head? Would not future production decrease if any less than is saved were saved and added to capital? These questions are vital; they lie at the very foundation of all the issues to which your time and skill are devoted. Now, if both production and savings are so limited, wherein can greater progress be made, and how can greater welfare be assured? May it not be in a more intelligent use of what we do produce rather than in striving to increase it so fast, small as it may be when considered in ratio to our numbers? Our great fault is a waste of force. We waste in two directions; first, in respect to what is commonly called fixed capital. I will only treat the waste by fire. We burn about one dollar's worth in each hundred of each year's annual product, and we spend more than half a dollar more in a hundred in our clumsy attempts to exten L. R.-16