others of them downward to a worse. And this is why economists and statisticians can so easily confuse us with the pessimism or optimism of their antagonistic figures as to our social state.
For instance, the series of our fiscal blue-books, published since 1903, exhibits to us workmen more highly paid, working shorter hours, and better housed than the corresponding workmen elsewhere in Europe, and enjoying, as regards prices, a greater command over the necessaries and comforts of life. On the other hand, the reports of the Royal Poor Law Commission of 1909 reveal to us a vast mass of casual, under-employed, unskilled, low grade labour, in depths, some of it, of profound misfortune. These contra-indicants are alike genuine. As the author of Life and Labour in London remarked years ago, "The cleavage between the higher and lower grades of manual labour has become more marked industrially." He who does not realise that fact firmly is apt to lose himself on this stricken battlefield of thought.
According to modern astronomy, the sky, as far as we can observe it, is filled by two currents of worlds, of like chemical constitution and probably of like origin, moving in opposite directions through space. Our social system has two analogous currents within it.
It is superfluous to analyse the causes of this growth of inferior labour. Partly, it has always existed, and the swamp has stood undrained from
