Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/29

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was immediately abolished, and the whole burden of a heavy debt-charge was thrown on to indirect taxation of articles of consumption, which pressed most wickedly upon the poorer classes. Our ancestors who committed this economic crime were at least as good, according to their lights, as the statesmen of to-day, but they did not understand what they were doing. Probably there are many to-day who would like to repeat the proceeding now; but they could not even suggest it, because public opinion would not hear of it, quite apart from the fact that the widened suffrage would make it politically impossible. On all sides we see evidence of great improvement in what is thought about the manner in which one set of men should be treated by another. Great strides have been made under the Capitalistic era in the direction of making the world a pleasanter place to live in, and though some of them have involved the development of new forms of suffering and disgrace, we can still maintain that the movement has been forward on the whole.

It need hardly be said that this progress that we seek must not be confined to a small class. A really good world to live in implies, not only that we live there pleasantly among