Some of us would get whipped if all of us got our deserts; but who would deserve applause and wealth and a crown?
In a sporting handicap the weakest have the most start: in real life the strongest have the start and the weakest are put on scratch.
And I have heard it hinted that the man who runs the straightest does not always win.
CHAPTER XIV TEMPERANCE AND THRIFT
I said in the previous chapter that if all the workers were very thrifty, sober, industrious, and abstemious they would be worse off in the matter of wages than they are now.
This, at first sight, seems strange, because we know that the sober and thrifty workman is generally better off than the workman who drinks or wastes his money.
But why is he better off? He is better off because, being a steady man, he can often get work when an unsteady man cannot. He is better off because he buys things that add to his comfort, or he saves money, and so grows more independent. And he is able to save money, and to make his home more cosy, because, while he is more regularly employed than the unsteady men, his wages remain the same, or, perhaps, are something higher than theirs.
That is to say, he benefits by his own steadiness and thrift because his steadiness makes him a more reliable, and therefore a more valuable, workman than one who is not steady.