Suppose that all employers who found themselves unable to pay full living wages and obtain the normal rate of interest, should dispose of their businesses and become mere loan capitalists, would the condition of the underpaid workers be improved? Two effects would be certain: an increase in the supply of loan capital relatively to the demand, and a decrease in the number of active business men. The first would probably lead to a decline in the rate of interest, while the second might or might not result in a diminution of the volume of products. If the rate of interest were lowered the employing business men would be able to raise wages; if the prices of products rose a further increase of wages would become possible. However, it is not certain that prices would rise; for the business men who remained would be the more efficient in their respective classes, and might well be capable of producing all the goods that had been previously supplied by their eliminated competitors. Owing to their superior efficiency and their larger output, the existing business men would be able to pay considerably higher wages than those who had disappeared from the field of industrial direction. As things are to-day, it is the less efficient business men who are unable to pay living wages and at the same time obtain the prevailing rate of interest on their capital. The ultimate result, therefore, of the withdrawal from business of those who could not pay a living wage, would probably be the universal establishment of a living wage. Of course, this supposition is purely fanciful. Only a small minority of the business men of to-day are likely to be driven by their consciences either to pay a living wage at the cost of interest on their capital, or to withdraw from business when they are confronted with such a situation. Is this small minority under moral obligation to adopt either of these alternatives, when the effect of such action upon the great mass of the underpaid workers is likely to be very slight? The question would seem to demand an answer in the affirmative. Those employers who paid a living wage at the expense of interest would confer a concrete benefit of great value upon a group of human beings. Those who shrank from this sacrifice, and preferred to go out of business, would at least have ceased to co-operate in an unjust distribution of wealth, and their example would not be entirely without effect upon the views of their fellow employers. _An Objection and Some Difficulties_