new
industries or more effective modes of manufacture, is, undoubtedly, in
fact conferring a benefit upon his fellows, and may, so far, be doing
his duty in the most effectual way open to him. If he succeeds by being
really a more efficient man of business than his neighbours, he is only
doing what, in the interests of all, it is desirable that he should do.
He is discharging an essential social function; and what is to be
desired is, that he should feel the responsibility involved, that he
should regard his work as on one side the discharge of a social
function, and not simply as a means of personal aggrandisement. It is
not the fact that he is competing that is against him; but the fact,
when it is a fact, that there is something discreditable about the
means which he adopts, or the reward that he contemplates.

This, indeed, suggests another and a highly important question--the
question, namely, whether, in our present social state, his reward may
not be excessive, and won at too great a cost to his rivals. And,
without going into other questions involved, I will try to say a
little, in conclusion, upon this, which is certainly a pressing
problem. Competition, I have suggested, is not immoral if it is a
competition in doing honest work by honourable means, and if it is also
a fair competition. But it must, of course, be added, that fairness
includes more than the simple equality of chances. It supposes, also,
that there should be some proportion between the rewards and the
merits. If it is simply a question between two men, which shall be
captain of a ship, and which shall be mate, then the best plan is to
decide by their merits as sailors; and, if their merits be fairly
tried, the loser need bear no grudge against the winner. But when we
have such cases as sometimes occur, when, for example, the ship is cast
away, and it becomes a question whether I shall eat you or you shall
eat me, or, let us say, which of us is to have the last biscuit, we get
one of those terrible cases of temptation in which the strongest social
bonds sometimes give way under the strain. The competition, then,
becomes, in the highest degree, demoralising, and the struggle for
existence resolves itself into a mere unscrupulous scramble for life,
at any sacrifice of others. That, it is sometimes said, is a parallel
to our social state at present. If I gave an excessive prize to the
first boy in a school and flogged the second, I should not be do