Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/81

 Rh the bulk of them are failures pure and simple, which must be put to the discredit of competitive commerce. Mr. David N. Wells, the American economist, published the result of an investigation made in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, regarding failures in business. "Of every hundred men in business in that place in 1845, twenty-five were out of business in five years, fifty in ten years, and sixty-seven in fifteen years; and most of these disappearances mean simply failures." What man of practical instincts can regard such a state of things with a happy mind?

In addition to actual failures, there is a struggle for life going on daily from which many competitors never get clear. They make ends meet only after the most continued strain. They keep their heads above water at the price of a physical and mental wear and tear which by and by bring disease in their train. The increase in insanity, in paralysis, in consumption, in ailments like diabetes and Bright's disease, which are supposed to have some connection with mental worry, is one of the problems with which modern medicine is struggling in vain.

Thus our present system fails absolutely to satisfy the most primitive need of food, clothing and shelter, for a large section; it imposes absolute failure on others struggling to meet that need, and it places such great difficulties in the way of others that they cannot enjoy life after these needs are satisfied; it makes the grip of the vast majority of men on