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LABOURER AND CAPITALIST.
171
days’ work; or, otherwise stated, lie gives the produce
of his one hour’s work in exchange for twenty hours’ of
the labourers. It is, of course, true, that, owing to the
superior skill and intelligence of the professional man,
his one hour’s work is equal in value to the twenty hours
of the unskilled labourer: that is, when we regard it, as
we must, from a commercial point of view ; but when
we look upon this bargain through the gentler
sentiments of our moral nature, we must feel that the rich
man’s great natural advantages call for a compensating
effort of courtesy and kindness to balance the account;
for each man, if he is honest in his work, strives all the
while to do his best—the labourer strives for twenty
hours, the more fortunately educated but for one; there
is, therefore, a balance of nineteen hours of moral effort,
or striving to benefit, in favour of the labourer, which
demands, at least, the payment of moral
acknowledgment.
All that we experience of class animosities and
democratic discontent is nothing more than the
instinctive effort of the labourer to obtain the settlement of
this balance, and if it were justly and universally paid
all such bitterness would soon be at an end. I have
put the case of the professional man who earns his 31.
per day. How much more strongly must it apply
when the advantage comes by inheritance—when the
rich man receives, without any material effort on his
part, such showers of good offices from his fellow-men,
who feed, and clothe, and lodge him; who till his land,
and devote their utmost skill to surround him with
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