To keep the poor comfortable for the present and for many years immediately in front of us, we require a continual increase in the wealth laid out in England annually in the purchase of labour. The growth of the empire, the profitable investment of capital in foreign countries (whereof the interest is paid and consumed in England), is one great resource: the profitable investment of capital in England itself is the other great, probably safer, resource. To effect this we require every acre of land to fall into the hand of the man (or company) who can make most of it: we require a Universal Free Trade that shall render our hold on the commerce of the world secure until all nations adopt Universal Free Trade (when we shall gain so much in other ways that we shall be able to afford to share our monopoly with others); we require the removal of all restraints on railways, tramways, electric lights, etc., that hamper or prevent the employment of capital in England (in other words, that send English capital abroad). Finally, underlying the whole, and as the prime cause that shall induce capitalists to employ their capital in England rather than to send it abroad, we require the labour of every working man to be in the highest degree efficient: this retards the fall of the natural rate of profits to a minimum, and the attainment of the stationary state. Whatever ideal beauty has been discovered in the stationary state by J. S. Mill, it is pretty clear that England is not approaching it. It is as difficult for us to stand still as it is impossible to go back; and our only (third) course open (for the present and for many years to come) is to progress.