What clearly marked economic truth is brought into view by the successful issue of such an experiment as we have been advocating? This:--That there is a broad path open, through a creation of new wealth forms, to a new industrial system in which the productive forces of society and of nature may be used with far greater effectiveness than at present, and in which the distribution of the wealth forms so created will take place on a far juster and more equitable basis. Society may have more to divide among its members, and at the same time the greater dividend may be divided in a juster manner.
Speaking broadly, industrial reformers may be divided into two camps. The first camp includes those who urge the primary importance of paying close and constant attention to the necessity of _increased production_: the second includes those whose special aim is directed to _more just and equitable division_. The former are constantly saying, in effect, "Increase the national dividend, and all will be well"; the latter, "The national dividend is fairly sufficient were it but divided equitably." The former are for the most part of the individualistic, the latter of the socialistic type.
As an instance of the former point of view, I may cite the words of Mr. A. J. Balfour, who, at a Conference of the National Union of Conservative Associations held at Sunderland on 14th November, 1894, said: "Those who represented society as if it consisted of two sections disputing over their share of the general produce were utterly mistaken as to the real bearing of the great social problem. We had to consider that the produce of the country was not a fixed quantity, of which, if the employers got more, the employed would get less, or if the employed got more, the employers would get less. The real question for the working-classes of this country was not primarily or fundamentally a question of division: it was a question of production." As an instance of the second point of view, take the following: "The absurdity of the notion of raising the poor without, to a corresponding degree, depressing the rich will be obvious."--"Principles of Socialism made plain," by Frank Fairman (William Reeves, 83 Charing Cross Road, W.C.), page 33.