[Sidenote ◆1 I have just shown how the normal forces of distribution are all in favour of the labourer, contrary to the vulgar view of the matter.] ◆¹ I have shown that, contrary to the opinion which is too commonly held, and which is sedulously fostered by the ignorance alike of the agitator and the sentimentalist, the forces of distribution which are actually at work around us, which have been at work for the past hundred years, and which are part and parcel of our modern industrial system, have been and are constantly securing for Labour a share of every fresh addition to the total income of the nation; and have, for at all events the past fifty years, made the average income of the labouring man grow faster than the incomes of any other members of the community. They have, in fact, been doing the very thing which the agitator declared could be done only by resisting them; and they have not only given Labour all that the agitator has promised it, but they have actually given it more than the wildest agitator ever suggested to it. I have shown the reader this; and I have shown him also that the forces in question are primarily the spontaneous forces—“deep, strong, and silent,” as Professor Marshall calls them—“of normal distribution and exchange”; how that these have been, and are seconded by the deliberate action of men: by extended application of what is called the Socialistic principle, and to a far greater extent by combinations of the labourers amongst themselves. [Sidenote ◆1 This should encourage, and not discourage, political action on behalf of the labourers.]