Rings of every description in the political and the working world combine for general spoliation, and the honest worker's money jingles in every pocket but his own. Granting all that may be urged as to the capitalists' investment of brain-power and acquired skill, as well as of money with all the risks involved, they are the inactive rather than the active factors in production. They give of their store, while labor gives of its life. Their view is to be reconstructed, and profit-sharing become as much a part of any industry as profit-making. This is a growing conviction; nor can we wonder that realization of its justice and its possibilities has been a matter of very recent consideration. An often repeated formula becomes at last ingrained in the mental constitution, and any question as to its truth is a sharp shock to the whole structure. We have been so certain of the surpassing advantages of our own country, so certain that liberty and a chance were the portion of all, that to confront the real conditions in our great cities is to most as unreal as a nightmare. We have conceded at last, forced to it by the concessions of all students of our economic problems, that the laborer does not yet receive his fair share of the world's wealth; and the economic thought of the whole world is now devoted to the devising of means by which he may receive his due. There is no longer much question as to facts; they are only too palpable. Distribution must be reorganized, and haste must be made to discover how. It is the wages problem, then, with which we are to deal,--the wages of men and women; and we must look at it in its largest, most universal aspects. We must dismiss at once any prejudice born of the ignorance, incompetency, or untrustworthiness of many workers. Character is a plant of slow growth; and given the same conditions of birth, education, and general environment it is quite possible we should have made no better showing. We have to-day three questions to be answered:-- 1. Why do men not receive a just wage? 2. Why are women in like case? 3. Why do men receive a greater wage than women?