a book with statistics to show this, but I will
only quote one example. Professor Rauschenbusch cites it in his
excellent book, _Christianity and the Social Crisis_, a book I should
like you to read, Jonathan. He quotes _Dun's Review_, a standard
financial authority, to the effect that what $724 would buy in 1897 it
took $1013 to buy in 1901.

I know that I could make your wife see the importance of this, my
friend. She would tell you that when from time to time you have
announced that your wages were to be increased five or ten per cent.
she has made plans for spending the money upon little home
improvements, or perhaps for laying it aside for the dreaded "rainy
day." Perhaps she thought of getting a new rug, or a new sideboard for
the dining-room; or perhaps it was a piano for your daughter, who is
musical, she had set her heart on getting. The ten per cent. increase
seemed to make it all so easy and certain! But after a little while
she found that somehow the ten per cent. did not bring the coveted
things; that, although she was just as careful as could be, she
couldn't save, nor get the things she hoped to get.

Often you and I have heard the cry of trouble: "I don't know how or
why it is, but though I get ten per cent. more wages I am no better
off than before."

The Socialist theory of value is all right, my friend, and has not
been disturbed by the assaults made upon it by a host of little
critics. But Socialists have always known that the laws of competitive
society do not apply to monopoly, and that the monopolist has an
increased power to exploit and oppress the worker. That is one of the
chief reasons why we demand that the great monopolies be transformed
into common, or social, property.

_The fourth principle of Socialist economics is that the wages of the
workers represent only a part of the value of their labor product. The
remainder is divided among the non-producers in rent, interest and
profit. The fortunes of the rich idlers come from the unpaid-for labor
of the working class. This is the great theory of "surplus value,"
which economists are so fond of attacking._

I am not going to say much about the controversy concerning this
theory, Jonathan. In the first place, you are not an economist, and
there is a great deal in the discussion which is wholly irrelevant and
unprofitable; and, in the second place, you can study the question for
yourself. There are excellent chapters upon the subject in _V