“Practically, no doubt.”
“Then you see that practical co-operation benefits a man according to his ability and application.”
“Clearly.”
“Well, I think that is right. Now if I understand your principle of Socialism it makes no distinction between the skilled and incapable. Granting only equality of industry you reward all alike. Now that is not common justice.”
“I think it is,” said Tom, stoutly, “a man can but do his best.”
“All the same, it isn’t. Take the case of a man, a designer, say, in a mill, or a lawyer, or a doctor. He devotes money, time, and the hard sweating of his brains to becoming master of his calling. Whilst he is studying he is earning just nothing at all, in fact less than nothing. When he is qualified for it he rightly expects to be better paid than a man who knows how to handle a spade or pickaxe when his life of toil begins, and knows just as much and no more when his life ends in the workhouse or the grave.”
“You say ‘rightly expects,’ why rightly?” asked Tom.
“Because when the skilled and educated labourer in whatever sphere you like does begin to be paid it is common justice that he should be paid, not merely for the present years of harvest, but also for the years of seeding, cultivation, and growth. It is merely the analogy of the farmer. It simply means that the toil of preparation is paid for at a later day. It is payment deferred, but none the less payment of what is justly due. Now your navvy or artisan gets his payment from the first day he touches the mattock or throws a shuttle.”
“There seems some justice in what say, Miss Dorothy; but I thought you were going to show me the way to your attainable Utopia.”
“So I am. I should imagine that the current rate of wages is very much the measure of a man’s comparative worth in this life-absorbing soul-cramping pursuit of wealth you call business. When these are paid and other outlays deducted, there remains, or doesn’t remain sometimes, what the capitalist calls his profit?”