for one man's subsistence, it was impossible either
greatly to reduce the normal hours of labor, or
greatly to increase the proportion of the population
who enjoyed more than the bare necessaries of life.
But this state of affairs has been overcome by modern
methods of production. At the present moment,
not only do many people enjoy a comfortable income
derived from rent or interest, but about half the
population of most of the civilized countries in the
world is engaged, not in the production of commodities,
but in fighting or in manufacturing munitions
of war. In a time of peace the whole of this
half might be kept in idleness without making the
other half poorer than they would have been if the
war had continued, and if, instead of being idle, they
were productively employed, the whole of what they
would produce would be a divisible surplus over and
above present wages. The present productivity of
labor in Great Britain would suffice to produce an
income of about 1 pound per day for each family, even
without any of those improvements in methods which
are obviously immediately possible.

But, it will be said, as population increases, the
price of food must ultimately increase also as
the sources of supply in Canada, the Argentine,
Australia and elsewhere are more and more used up.
There must come a time, so pessimists will urge, when
food becomes so dear that the ordinary wage-earner
will have little surplus for expenditure upon other