3. The phenomena of waste, which are always more or less a feature of the competitive system, are particularly manifest during the great industrial and commercial crises. Not only are the products of industry intended for consumption wasted in vast masses, but the productive forces themselves, such as machinery and shipping, are sacrificed enormously, whilst great numbers of people are idle and starving. 4. The prevailing system also leads to the large development of an idle class of the most motley description. Those conversant with the history of revolutions know how influential an overgrown idle class has often been in forcing them on. 5. The existing competitive system also necessarily leads to a vast amount of inferior, inartistic production in all departments. Cheapness is too conspicuous a feature of every branch of industry. 6. Our moral standards in every department of the national life have been lowered and corrupted by the excessive prevalence of a commercial and mercenary spirit. No rank, profession, or calling has escaped its influence. 7. Thus we are led to the general result, that inequalities of condition, and the too prevalent anarchy and insecurity as well as the unworthy status of the workers under the competitive system, are a permanent source of trouble and even danger to society. The circumstances of the workmen have improved; but it is doubtful whether the improvement has kept pace with their advancing enlightenment and the growing sense of their rights and needs. Here again we must emphasise the fact that the progress of democracy is not merely a political matter. It means still more the continual development of intelligence and of higher and finer needs in the mass of the people, a fuller consciousness of the claims of labour, a greater capacity for organisation, a wider moral and intellectual horizon. In the contrast between their moral and intellectual growth on the one hand, and their insecure and inferior position as precarious wage-labourers on the other, we may at one and the same time discover a great danger to our present social order and a splendid guarantee of further progress. Now, as ever, progress must be, attained through struggle, and perfection through suffering. Scarcely any reasonable man therefore will deny that socialism has done excellent service to mankind in so strongly emphasising the necessity for further progress. While it has largely helped to rouse the working classes out of their apathy, it has also done much to dispel the comfortable optimism of those who had succeeded in the competitive struggle for existence. * * * * *