Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/842

 826 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

that the lowest rate of wages is the just one; is it not possible, to say the least, that a low wage might be the means of fleecing a certain section of employees (and ratepayers) for the financial gain of the rest? For this sort of injustice our critic has no con- demnation, because it is done everywhere in the course of busi- ness. Finally, from a wholly "business" point of view, it may pay a municipality very well to pay its employees good wages, when it would not pay a private establishment. This is because, as Bernard Shaw well points out, the municipality has to take care of all its inhabitants, from the cradle to the grave; and if they fail and get into difficulties, it has to provide poor-houses and prisons, police and courts, and whatever other agencies are necessary. It also suffers from the ill-effects of one person on another; and, in fact, it is quite impossible to say where the ad- vantages or disadvantages arising from any particular action cease. The municipality is like a man who cannot afford to overeat himself or get drunk, because he will have to suffer the consequences; but the private trader can tickle his palate to any extent, as it were, because the stomach which will be out- raged is none of his.

The public-school idea is as yet inadequately developed in England, and some of the things which seem like innovations in that country, we take as a matter of course. The Times writer says with horror in his tones:

The children [of a certain London district] have hitherto been cared for in some good schools at West Ham, but fresh schools are being put up for them at Shenfield, Essex, at a cost of over 200,000. There they will have swimming-baths, gymnasium, farm, and other attractions of which even an ordinary first-class boarding-school could not boast, so that the children of the poor will be far better off than the children of most of the ratepayers who will bear the cost.

When I was staying at a place called River, near Dover, I was struck by the contrast between the English school, which I formerly accepted as a matter of course, and that to which I had grown accustomed in America. The whole place had the air of poverty, and the children were dirty and seemed ill cared for. They were, of course, the children of the "poor ;" the well-to-do