Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/32

26 any motive for a man of big genius to undertake to create big things in railroads or other industries? Of course, the big railroads now existing must be managed, and this furnishes work for men of genius. But where is the motive to lead a big man to do in the future big things in creating new railroads and other industries such as have been created in the past? Furthermore, who is going to underwrite any big new railroad when the conditions are that, if any money is to be made out of it in dividends, there is a government commission ready and willing to reduce rates until dividends do not exceed an interest rate, and with no guaranty that they will equal an interest rate? When both control and profit are no longer to belong to a great business leader, what motive has he to engage in the work?

There are ways of increasing the funds for wages, and thus increasing the prosperity of the wage-earners, but they are not government control. Whatever increases the product of labor increases the fund for saving, and, if saving takes place, increases the fund for wages, whether it be labor-saving machinery or greater efficiency of the workman from