quiescence, at all events, in the broad
features of the industrial system, by means of which the production in
question takes place. But if the labourers have no stake in the surplus
for the production of which such a system is requisite, it may be
perfectly true that by escaping from it they would on the whole be no
better off than they are, yet there is no reason which can be brought
home to their own minds why they should not seek to disturb it as often
and as recklessly as they can. There is, at best, no structural
connection, but only a fractional one, between their own welfare and the
welfare of those who direct them; and a structural connection between
the two--a dovetailing of the one into the other--is what ability, no
matter how selfish, is in its own interests concerned before all things
to secure. In other words, it is concerned in its own interests so to
arrange matters that the share of its own products which is made over to
the labourers shall be large enough, and obvious enough, and
sufficiently free from accessory disadvantages, to be appreciated by the
labourers themselves; and the ideal state of social equilibrium would be
reached when this share was such that any further augmentation of it
would enfeeble the action of ability by depriving it of its necessary
stimulus, and, by thus diminishing the amount of the total product,
would make the share of the labourers less than it was before.

Though an ideal equilibrium of this kind may be never attainable
absolutely, it is a condition to which practical wisdom may be always
making approximations; but in order that it may be an equilibrium in
fact as well as in theory, one thing further is necessary--namely, that
both parties should understand clearly the fundamental character of the
situation. And here labour has more to learn than ability; or perhaps
it may be truer to say that socialism has given it more to unlearn. If
any exchange takes place between two people, which by anybody who knew
all the circumstances would be recognised as entirely just, but is not
felt to be just by one of the contracting parties, he, though he may
assent to the terms because he can get none better, will be as much
dissatisfied as he would have been had he been actually overreached by
the other. If, for example, he believed himself to be entitled to an
estate of which the other was in reality not only the _de facto_, but
also the true legal possessor, and if the other, out of