Wages naturally decline then, owing to an increase of population, when relatively to the population wealth declines also; but only then. ◆¹ On the other hand,—and this is the important point to consider,—so long as a country, under the existing system of production, continues, like our own, to grow richer in proportion to the number of labourers, of every fresh increase in riches the labourers will obtain a share, without any political action or corporate struggle on their part, merely by means of a natural and spontaneous process. And we have now seen in a broad and general way what the character of this process is. It may seem, however, to many people that a study of it and of its results can teach no lesson but the lesson of _laisser faire_, which practically means that the labourers have no interest in politics at all, and that all social legislation and corporate action of their own is no better than a waste of trouble, and is very possibly worse. But to think this is to completely misconceive the matter. Even a study of this process of natural distribution by itself would be fruitful of suggestions of a highly practical kind; but if we would understand the actual forces to which distribution is due, it must, as I have said already, not be studied by itself, but taken in connection with others by which its operation has been accelerated. I spoke of these as consisting of deliberate and concerted actions in contradistinction to individual and spontaneous actions; ◆² and these, speaking broadly, have been of two kinds—the one represented by the organisation of Labour in Trade Unions, the other by certain legislative measures, which, in a vague and misleading way, are popularly described as “Socialistic.” Let us proceed to consider these. CHAPTER IV _Of Socialism and Trade Unionism—the Extent and Limitation of their Power in increasing the Income of Labour._ [Sidenote ◆1 Legislation of the kind just alluded to is commonly called Socialistic:] [Sidenote ◆2 But this way of describing it is inaccurate;]