Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/127

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achievements under Capitalism have been enormous, and promise still greater miracles if we follow the same line. The world has been covered with a network of railways, and the shores of its various continents have been linked together by steamships of enormous power. Factories and machinery have been developed and improved with incredible speed. Telegraphs and telephones have made the whole world into one great listening gallery, and the exchange of goods and the communication of thought between one country and another are being continually developed in a manner which only shows what great possibilities still lie before us. The material output has grown at a staggering pace, and the British workman of to-day has his life embellished and made comfortable by the products of all the climates of the world, from tea to tobacco, with a freedom which would have been envied by many a mediaeval monarch. At the same time if there are terrible inequalities in the distribution of this wealth, if many at the bottom of the economic ladder lead lives of misery, owing to a lack of the good things of the earth, and many at the top lead lives of boredom owing to a surplus of luxurious enjoyment, it is possible to climb