paid workers to build a railway, to that extent refrained from frivolous and luxurious spending, and created a means of transport which was or was not of benefit to the community. If it was not, the community would not travel on it and they would lose their money. If it was, they were entitled to remuneration for the service that they provided. The "labour of the proletariat," as Mr. Shaw calls it, built the railway, under the direction which the capitalists provided or paid for, in return for the pay which the capitalists put into their hands. Were they thereby "exploited"? And would the manual workers have been as well off as they are, if no capitalists had equipped the world with railways and machinery?
As to Ruskin's example, the capitalist will see that the lender of the plane did the borrower a service by lending him a tool which would help him in his work, and was fully entitled to a reward in the shape of a plank and the return of his plane or its replacement by a new one if it had been worn out. Did Ruskin mean that he should have given the plane, which he had made to help his own work, to the borrower who wanted it to help his? If we are all to give everything to everybody else, it will be a very nice and altruistic
