If Civilization has increased the producing power of the average man, why has it not bettered the lot of the average man?
There can be one answer only- MISMANAGEMENT.Civilization has made possible all manner of creature comforts and heart's delights.In these the average Englishman does not participate.If he shall be forever unable to participate, then Civilization falls.There is no reason for the continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure.
But it is impossible that men should have reared this tremendous artifice in vain.It stuns the intellect.To acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to give the death-blow to striving and progress.
One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself.
Civilization must be compelled to better the lot of the average man.
This accepted, it becomes at once a question of business management.
Things profitable must be continued; things unprofitable must be eliminated.Either the Empire is a profit to England or it is a loss.If it is a loss, it must be done away with.If it is a profit, it must be managed so that the average man comes in for a share of the profit.
If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it.
If it is not, if it hurts the worker and makes his lot worse than the lot of a savage, then fling foreign markets and industrial empire overboard.For it is a patent fact that if 40,000,000 people, aided by Civilization, possess a greater individual producing power than the Innuit, then those 40,000,000 people should enjoy more creature comforts and heart's delights than the Innuits enjoy.