And so he played his part. But if the reader asks what, if any, was his definite contribution to the Science, we may answer that it was a real, although a negative and destructive, rather than a positive and constructive one. He demolished once and for all, and in a way which admits of no derogation from its merits, the old orthodox doctrine which still held sway in his time, namely that Wages were drawn from Capital, instead of being merely formally advanced by the capitalists to the wage-earners for convenience; and showed that Wages, on the contrary, were paid out of the produce of the workmen's labour, and not out of Capital at all. Now in this he did a real service to the Science, although only a negative one; for like the removal of a linch-pin or key-stone, it heralded the downfall of the orthodox Political Economy which since his time has so quickly ensued. He was also, as we have seen, the first, - if we except the contribution of Herbert Spencer on other lines, - to rock to its foundation the old Malthusian 'Law of Population,' which with its superficial plausibility and its affectation of mathematical exactitude, had hypnotized the minds of all the orthodox Political Economists for at least two generations.

Otherwise Henry George has added nothing of positive and constructive value to the Science; and in spite of the enormous tail of his followers, who were caught up by his simplicity and clearness of statement, his sincerity and candour, as well as by his prophetic fervour, he may be dismissed from the small circle of those political Economists with whose works the world need give itself further concern. It was when the controversy over Mr. George's book 'Progress and Poverty' was at its height, and when Marx's doctrine - that not only were the wage-earners exploited by their capitalist masters, but that on Ricardo's 'iron law of wages' they must always be kept down by them to the 'bare subsistence' level, - was beginning to exercise the minds of men in England, that Mr. Mallock entered the field on behalf of the Capitalists. As regarded the actual facts of the situation, Giffen had only recently proved from statistics that the wages of the workers had increased in fifty years not less than a hundred per cent, and that, too, over a period when the purchasing power of the sovereign had remained steady; the fall in the price of corn and clothing practically making up for the increase in the price of meat and of house-rents.

Whereupon Mr. Mallock, taking his stand on this as a solid foundation, was prepared to prove that the reason for this rise in the workmen's wages was not that they had themselves earned it; and pointed out that not only coal-heavers, and ordinary day-labourers, but the skilled workmen themselves, could not have increased the product, inasmuch as their muscular power and their technical skill were man for man no greater than that of the workmen fifty years before; and further, that they were now working a much shorter number of hours. And from this he argued that although the capitalists as a body had increased their wealth in a much higher proportion than the workmen as a body, it was the capitalists alone who by their skill in organization were the source of all this increase of wealth per head of the population; and that far from exploiting the workers and keeping them down to a bare subsistence wage, they had all along been sharing with them the extra wealth which was due entirely to their own exertions.

This unexpected flank movement of Mr. Mallock's brought the Fabians into the field in defence of Socialism in general and of their modified form of it in particular. They had already in one of their Tracts attempted to show, - and with certain reservations justly, as I think, - that the fund from which the interest and profits of the capitalists proceeded was precisely the same as in the parallel case of the landlords, namely from the whole of that 'unearned increment' which lay between the products of the poorest machinery and plant needed to supply the market (for it was these which fixed the price) and of those superior instruments of production of all kinds which the possession of mere money capital put into the hands of the great capitalists. And proceeding from this standpoint, Mr. Bernard Shaw, who took up the cause of Socialism generally as against Mr. Mallock, attempted to show that these capitalists were for the most part mere idlers trying to imitate the landlords by leading the lives of 'gentlemen,' and doing little or nothing; living on their yachts and letting their poorly paid and exploited subordinates do for them the work which was piling up their colossal fortunes; precisely as the landlords, whom no one had ever accused of doing any work (for at that time the idea that they ought to do any would have shocked most people) were doing with their lands.

The simple truth, of course, was that it was really the inventors, the scientists, and the discoverers of new processes in every department, whether of Industry or of the warlike defences of the country, to whom the 'surplus' wealth was mainly due; but neither Mr. Mallock nor Mr. Shaw cared to look that way. Not Mr. Shaw, for how could he look into the faces of his poor coal-heavers and the vast miscellany of ordinary hum-drum working men, and say; - These are the men to whom the vast accessions of wealth of the world are due? Not Mr. Mallock, for unless his capitalists were also the inventors of the machines and processes out of which they had built up great industries, how could he pretend that an increase of real wealth of any kind could come out of their mere money-bags as such? To have a 'cause' to champion you must, on the current doctrine of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number,' have your clients by the legion as a foundation for it; but in the case of the few great men who do the great things of the world, and who at any one time can be counted almost on your fingers, what scope can their grievances, especially if they are poor, afford as a foundation for a 'cause'? As well try and whip up the sympathies of men for the casuals in workhouses as for them.