ments in education and sanitation. There is even something to be said for the view that the representatives of the property-owning classes had done a good deal to resist the progress of these improvements, which had only been carried through by social reformers and a few scientific enthusiasts, after lives of thankless effort. This may be so, but nevertheless the store of wealth which was necessary in order to carry them out had been called into being by the working of Capitalism with the incentive of profit before it. It may not have been responsible for the excellent use thus made of its wealth, but it did at least provide the wealth which was so used by those who had nobler views than it of the use to which wealth should be put.
Such were the achievements of Capitalism in the land of its birth in its modern form and in the countries into which this land poured the men and capital that it produced. Its victories, unlike those other institutions that have dominated human life, could only be won by doing what somebody else wants. Industry and investment can only earn a profit if they produce an article or a service that somebody wants and wants enough to repay the adventurer
