at all events not produced by the multitude, and might, under changed conditions, be no longer produced at all. Now this doctrine of Ability Mr. Shaw accepts, and completely surrenders and throws overboard the Socialistic doctrine of Labour. He does indeed endeavour to make the surrender seem less complete than it is, partly by irrelevant comments on some minor points,[61] and partly by insisting on certain qualifications which are perfectly true, and to which I have myself often elsewhere alluded, but which, as I shall show presently, are, on his own admission, of small practical importance, and do not appreciably affect the main position. For instance Mr. Shaw argues that it is not always the most able man who, in any given business, is to be found directing it. This also is no doubt true. It merely means, however, that of industrial ability the same thing may be said, which has so truly been said of Government—that it is always _in_, or _passing into_, the hands of the most powerful section of the community. Businesses conducted by men of inferior Ability are gradually superseded by businesses conducted by men of superior Ability. Men’s actual positions may be a few years behind or before their capacities, but for all practical purposes they coincide with them and the utmost that Mr. Shaw’s contention could prove would be that some members of a minority are in places which should be occupied by other members of a minority; not that the majority could take the places of either. But I merely mention these points in passing, and waste no pains in insisting on them or pressing them home, because their practical insignificance is admitted by Mr. Shaw himself. The great body of men—of men selected at random, even if they should enjoy the advantages of superior position and education—“could not,” he says, “invent a wheelbarrow, much less a locomotive.” He amplifies this admission by quoting the case of an acquaintance of his, whose exceptional Ability secured him _four thousand pounds_ a year, because without the assistance of that Ability his employer would have lost more than this sum. “Other men,” he proceeds, “have an eye for contracts, or what not, or are born captains of industry, in which case they go into business on their own account, and make ten, twenty, or two hundred per cent, _where you or I should lose five_.... All these people are _rentiers_ of Ability.” Again he quotes with emphatic approval a passage from an American writer, whom he praises as a skilled economist; and using this passage as a text, endorses its meaning in these words of his own. “The able man, the actual organiser and employer, alone is able to find a use for mere manual deftness, or for that brute strength, and heavy bank balance, which any fool may possess.” “The capitalist and the labourer run helplessly to the able man.” “He is the only party in the transaction capable of the slightest initiative in production.”