[13] Mr. G. Wilshire, in criticising this argument as stated in one of my American addresses, declares that there would be nothing in socialism to prevent any great artist (such as a singer) from making an even larger fortune than he or she does now. But though a Melba, under the existing system, demands a large price for her services, under socialism all would be changed. Though she _could_ get it, she would no longer want it. She would then want no reward but the mere joy of using her voice. And he infers that this change which would take place in the bosoms of great singers would repeat itself under the breast-pocket of every leader and organiser of commercial enterprise. It would be hard to find a better illustration of the purely fanciful reasoning commented on in the text. [14] The question of how much labour, _as such_, produces in modern societies is discussed in a later chapter. CHAPTER X INDIVIDUAL MOTIVE AND DEMOCRACY The ascription of imaginary powers to the so-called "sovereign" democracy, which are really beyond the reach of any kind of government whatsoever, is, as I have said, a fallacy by no means peculiar to Socialists. Socialists merely push it to its full logical consequences; and I will begin with illustrating it by the arguments of a recent writer who, professedly as a social conservative, has dealt in detail with this precise question of the motives of the exceptional wealth-producer, which has just now been engaging us. I refer to the author of an essay in _The North American Review_, who hides his personality under the cryptic initial "X," but who is said to be one of the most cultivated and best-known thinkers now living in the United States. The subject of his essay is the growth, almost peculiar to that country, not of large, but of those colossal fortunes, which have certainly had no parallel in the past history of the world. The position of "X" is that the growth of such fortunes is deplorable, partly because they are possible instruments of judicial and political corruption, and partly because they excite antagonism against private wealth in general by exhibiting it to the gaze of the multitude in such monstrous and grotesque proportions. In any case, says "X," "it is to the true interest of the multimillionaires themselves to join those who are free from envy in trying to remove the rapidly growing dissatisfaction with their continued possession of these vast sums of money."