(1) The chief evil of all is that by our present method of wealth distribution, the best people are not infrequently the most sorely oppressed, the most severely chastised by poverty and lack of power. The correlative evil to this is that those who are powerful to-day through wealth, are frequently so hopelessly unfitted to hold their position that the system which elevates such people to their present eminence seems as if it must be bad to the root. (2) The next in importance is that life at present is organised in such wise that poverty does not mean merely humbleness [p39] of station; for which of us would object to that? It means being compelled to perform some of the most heart-rending, most unhealthy, most besotting and characterless work that the economy of the community has to offer. Society should be organised in such a way that either filthy and besotting labours should not be necessary or else that where they are necessary, they should entail compensating advantages. (3) The next in importance is that, as society is organised at present, poverty, which might be readily and cheerfully accepted by thousands of us, aye, actually preferred in some cases--now almost necessarily signifies bad air, ugly surroundings, poor food, and consequently an unsecured bill of health. Accessibility to conditions in which good air and beauty are, as it were, happily wedded, is becoming ever more and more the restricted privilege of the wealthy. (4) Owing to a misunderstanding of the true nature of social unity, wealth, or extensive private property, now gives certain classes the power of trespassing upon the life-needs of their fellows, without, however, being amenable to law--cornering markets, levying undue profits, destroying beautiful sites, supporting a host of societies which are simply parasitic pests on the nation’s back, unwise disposal of fortunes, etc. (5) Owing to the educational advantages associated with wealth--an association which is quite unessential and arbitrary--modern society imposes a certain measure of benightedness and ignorance as an inevitable inheritance upon poverty, which is not in the least essential to poverty _per se_. [p40] After this brief enumeration of some of the leading evils of our present system of wealth distribution, is it not, however, more than ever clear that none of these evils is inherent in the principle of private property itself? Who would venture to prove that any one of the wrongs enumerated was (_a_) either inherent in the principle of private property, or (_b_) irremediable without the sacrifice of that principle?