such facts we may take the following, picturesque example: In the
eighteenth century the Jesuit Fathers in Uruguay succeeded in teaching
the natives a variety of Western arts, among others that of
watch-making, and so long as the Jesuits were on the spot to direct them
the natives exhibited much manual skill. But when, owing to political
causes, the Jesuits were driven from the country, the natives sank back
into their previous industrial helplessness. The temporary efficiency of
their labour had been due to the ability that directed it; and as soon
as that ability was withdrawn, the labour, left to itself, shrank again
to its old relative inefficiency. Now, here we have a case precisely
analogous to that which we have to deal with when considering at the
present day how much of the products of any civilised nation is produced
by the labour of the average units of the population, and how much by
the ability of the exceptional men directing them. It is not a question
of how much this or that group of labourers, which is directed by a man
of the highest grade of ability, produces in excess of the products of
some similar group which is directed by another man whose ability is
somewhat inferior; it is a question of how much the same nation would
produce, if every director of other men's labour were withdrawn, and the
present labouring units left to their own devices.

These two questions, though not mutually exclusive, differ as much as
the question of why one of two balloons rises above the earth to a
height of three miles and a furlong, while a second balloon reaches the
height of three miles only, differs from the question of why either of
them rises in the air at all. Mr. Webb and his friends, with their
theory of the rent of ability, confine themselves to the first of
these--namely, the question of why one balloon rises a furlong higher
than the other. The real question which we have to deal with here is why
both balloons lift their aeronauts at least three miles into the clouds,
while other men who have no balloon to lift them can get no higher than
the top of the church steeple. Or to come back to literal fact, our
problem must be expressed thus: Let us take the present population of
Great Britain or America, and, having noted the wealth at present
annually produced by it, ask ourselves what would happen if some duly
qualified angel were to pick out and kill, or otherwise make away with,
every man, who, in virtue of