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tion among labourers to obtain labour for a less price than he perceives it to be worth--we are not making ourselves auxiliaries of the Evil Principle, may be matter of opinion; but, at all events, we do not even then become participators in an injustice which we did not create, and do not uphold or help to perpetuate, but merely accommodate ourselves to. At worst, we are but accessories to it after the fact. In simply accepting the situation and striving to make the best of it for ourselves, without trying to make it better and only abstaining from making it worse for others, our conduct may be contemptible, mean, base, disgusting, or what you will, only not iniquitous; for whatever, short of their deserts, may, from the cause supposed, be received by our fellow-creatures, although in one sense plainly due to them, is as plainly not due from us, and we cannot, without palpable injustice, as well as palpable abuse of words, be charged with injustice for merely declining to pay debts that we do not owe. The rights to impartial and to equal treatment need not detain us long. There is no right to impartiality except where impartiality is due, and it is only in a small minority of cases that impartiality is due. There is nothing iniquitous in showing favour to the extent of giving one person more than his due, provided no other person be prevented from having as much as his due. The lord of the vineyard who gave unto all his labourers alike, the same to those who had wrought for him but one hour as to those with whom he had agreed that for a penny they should bear the burden and heat of the day, did the latter no wrong; his eye was not the less good because theirs was evil. A judge, or an arbitrator, or the conductor of a competitive examination, is bound to make his award without respect of persons, because he cannot favour one without withholding from some other what that other ought to have. On every distributor of Government patronage, likewise, it is morally incumbent to select for the public for whom he is trustee, the best servants he can find. An English Prime Minister has no right to make his son a Lord of the Treasury or of the Admiralty, if he know of any one better fitted for the post and willing to accept it; and if he name any but the fittest candidate, he fails in his duty to the community on whose behalf he acts. But a private employer, acting for himself alone, is under no similar obligation, and may take
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