Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/60

 the expense of the petty retail dealer. More and more every year the unprogressive methods of small shopkeepers foster the success of large multiple retailers. But it is likely that retail businesses, whether great or small, will ultimately tend to be eliminated. Manufacturers and trust companies will supply the public directly. What, then, will be the solution of the great social difficulties about to be created?

The answer is, that these difficulties, and especially the developments above confidently predicted for a future comparatively near, are probably transient in their nature. It is not yet the time to discuss political questions: but the problem here directly raised demands a few words of reassurance from the professed optimist.

There can be no doubt of the great social and political dangers involved in so enormous an aggrandisement of the commercial and manufacturing class as we shall most of us live to witness. What is called the problem of the unemployed grows every year more difficult and less obviously hopeful. Moreover, the concentration of great wealth in a few hands is in itself a political danger, even apart from the fact that it implies widespread impoverishment. There are dangers of corrupt legislation, for instance, and other dangers too.

But there will be another great force at work