Human  society  from  the  economic  point  of  view
is  a  most  complicated  structure,  in  which  every
real  worker  is  in  some  way  a  contributor  to  the
common   good.      Even  now,  under  our  present
inharmonious  social  system,  we  find  it  impossible
to  dispense  with  one  another's  aid  in  providing
the  good  things  of  life.      Hence  the  necessity  for
reckoning  the  nation's  wealth  and  labour  in  the
lump;  we  can  do  nothing  else  if  a  truly  civilised
life  is  to  be  possible.
But,  if  we  are  to  reckon  in  this  way,  private
169


Christianity  and  the  Social  Order

exploitation  of  the  common  store  will  have  to
cease,  and  that  is  just  the  issue  which  is  now
Abolition  of  before  us.  All  taking  of  rent  and
unearned        interest  for  which   no  equivalent  ser-

incomes  and       .  i  i    •  i  i  rr

organisation  viccs  are  rendered  is  robbery,  it  we
of  labour.  could  Only  succeed  in  getting  rid  of  this
horrible  burden,  the  share  of  the  actual  producers
of  wealth  would,  of  course,  be  proportionately
greater;  it  would  be  multiplied  by  three  right
off,  even  as  things  are.  But  heroic  measures  of
this  kind,  although  in  the  abstract  perfectly  just,
would  prove  futile  without  a  better  organisation
of  the  national  resources  than  we  have  at  present.
Under  existing  conditions  production  is  more  or
less  haphazard,  every  capitalist  competing  with
his  neighbour  or  with  foreign  countries  as  to  who
shall  secure  the  markets,  with  the  result  that
every  now  and  then  we  have  the  glut  known  as
over-production.  It  may  be  questioned,  however,
whether  there  is  really  such  a  thing  as  over-
production; there  is  proportional  over-production.
