fit
the new economic conditions, may make a progress which, while rapid,
may yet be safe, because it is not a speculative progress, but one
which is guided in its line of movement by precedent changes of
environment.

Regarding, then, this conscious organised endeavour, enlightened and
stimulated by a fuller understanding of industrial forces in their
relation to human life, as a determinant of growing value in the
industrial evolution of the future, it may properly belong to a
scientific study of modern industry to seek to discover how the forces
of conscious reform can reasonably work in relation to the economic
forces whose operations have been already investigated.

In other words, what are the chief lines of economic change required
to bring about a readjustment between modern methods of production and
social welfare? The answer to this question requires us to amplify our
interpretation of the industrial evolution of the past century, by
producing into the future the same lines of development, that they may
be justified by the appearance of consistency with some rational
social end. The most convenient, and perhaps the safest way to meet
this demand is to indicate, with that modesty which rightly belongs to
prophecy, some of the main reforms which seem to lie upon the road of
industrial progress, rendered subordinate to larger human social ends.

Sec. 2. So far as the waste of economic maladjustment consists in the
excessive or defective application of various kinds of productive
force at different points of industry, upon the existing basis of
individual initiative and control, the reforms which are desirable
must be considered as contributing to the more complete establishment
of "free" competition in industry.

The complete breakdown of all barriers which impede the free flow of
commerce and the migration of capital and labour, the fullest and
widest dissemination of industrial information, are necessary to the
attainment of the individualistic ideal of free trade. Perfect
transparency of industrial operations, perfect fluidity of labour and
of wealth would effect incalculably great economies in the production
of commercial wealth. The free-trader, in his concentration upon the
achievement of the latter economy, has generally failed to do full
justice to the importance of the former. He has indeed to some limited
extent recognised the value of accurate and extended industrial
information as the intellectua