unless he combines his labor with that of his fellows. The rights of wealth thus become common and social, as well as personal.
Three objects are gained through combined labors. First, increased power of production ; second, economy and security in the use of wealth; third, facilities for making exchanges of property
Capital is accumulated wealth, that surplus beyond current consumption which may be applied to increase or maintain production. As capital is always the result or product of labor, the two cannot be really in conflict. There can be no real antagonists between the act which produces a thing and the thing itself. But the economic system of civilism has always made a conflict of interests between the persons whose labor pro duced wealth and another class who always sought to appropriate the larger part of that wealth without doing any manual labor themselves.
The conflict was between two classes. It has
eached a higher degree of bitterness in our own day than ever before. And in our own day it will come to a final end. For the masses are studying this problem and they will persist until a remedy is found and applied.
NATURE GIVES WEALTH only as a reward of labor. Wild fruits may tempt the hand of man, but some work must be done even to pick these. In some countries wild grain, wheat, or rice, or maize, may offer itself ready grown for sustenance. But effort, labor, is required to gather and preserve this grain. The savage who finds a nugget of gold cannot use this to supply himself with food, clothing or shelter. In a pastoral state, where men depend upon flocks and