The interested and wise laborer will seek information wherever he can find it on the effect of even moderate education on individual wages, (and this he will find to be very considerable); on the sanitary conditions which are best for laborers, the real and ultimate effects of strikes and trades unions, and the advantages and disadvantages of coöperative industry and trade, and the great benefit to be derived from making the laborer a sharer in the profits of any business in which he may be engaged. The employer also would receive great benefit from a careful study of these same questions, as well as from a consideration of the results of paying in all cases not the lowest wages for which labor can be procured, but the highest which he can really afford, since in many cases the quality and quantity of work secured from this cause, more than compensates the extra outlay. IV. _Profits_ are the share of the product which go to the proprietor or employer. Very often the latter are confounded with the capitalist, and hence arises a like confusion concerning the nature of profits. Among more recent writers a distinct place is assigned to the _employer_, whereas formerly he was practically lost sight of. But in our modern system of industry he is one of the most important, if not actually the most important factor in the system. The capitalist is not necessarily an employer—more frequently than otherwise he is incompetent for this office. Nor is the employer always a capitalist. He is a man who must have the somewhat rare ability to organize and superintend labor so as to get the most possible out of it, and at the same time have such financial talent as will enable him to make the best possible disposition of his means in buying material, etc., and the best possible disposition of his goods in selling. Frequently the capital which he uses is borrowed. Profits, then, are what remains after paying all stipulated wages and salaries, including a fair compensation to the employer himself, together with the material, rent, interest on capital owned or borrowed, taxes, insurance, etc. Obviously no one would assume all the care and responsibility, and incur the risk implied in any considerable business unless something more was likely to come from it to him than what his talent and ability would bring in the way of salary. Sometimes the profit is very small; sometimes, also, it is very great. Free competition will furnish the requisite conditions usually, so that the profits will not be so large as to be disadvantageous to the community generally. V. _Interest_ depends upon various considerations. That the compensation implied is proper is obvious from the fact that though ostensibly money is that which is loaned, in most cases it is really capital in some other form; and no one denies that when a man lends his horse, or his mill, or his farm, he should receive something for the use of it.