Such a program could properly be called a balancing-up program.

This balancing-up program may be vastly extended. Governments, schools, and other institutions may easily set forces to work which will accelerate the accumulation of capital, and eventually make it so abundant relatively to land and labor as to give capital a smaller and labor or land a larger share in distribution. Forces may also be set to work which will spread population over wider areas, reduce the intensity of the demand for favored locations and reduce rent, leaving larger shares to the other factors. It would be very easy to set forces to work which would reduce the number of unskilled laborers and increase the supply of employing talent. This would automatically result in some approach to equality, at least it would result in higher wages for unskilled labor and lower incomes for the employing classes. If carried far enough, a balancing-up program would give us something approximating to equality of income without sacrificing individual freedom.

A social system in which each free individual made his own business adjustments on the basis of voluntary agreement with other free individuals, and where, in addition to this universal freedom there was universal and approximately equal prosperity, would certainly be more desirable than a system which secured liberty without equal prosperity or equal prosperity without liberty. The balancing-up program is the only program which can possibly give us both. All other programs sacrifice one or the other.

In order to make capital so abundant as to reduce the share of the capitalist class and increase the share of the laboring class we need, first and foremost, a general, aggressive and permanent thrift campaign. The twin virtues of thrift and industry have been very unequally

cultivated in almost every community. While thrift is quite as important as industry to national prosperity, it has by no means received the encouragement that industry has received. Training for industry has been provided at public and private expense, every kind of social and moral pressure has been brought to bear upon the young to be industrious. No one has commended the idle man, but many have commended thriftlessness and extravagance. Advertisers and salesmen have never exercised their arts and blandishments to induce men to be idle, but they have done much to induce men to be thriftless and extravagant. Only a few agencies have been working effectively to induce men to save and invest their incomes. One very important step would be taken toward balancing things up, if as many encouragements and temptations and as much social and moral pressure could be brought to bear upon men to induce them to save as are now brought to bear to induce them to work.

He who saves money, and invests it wisely, does himself good in two ways. He gains directly by having an income in addition to his wages or his salary. He gains indirectly by making better conditions for everybody including himself.

It is easy to see that he gains directly. To have a hundred dollars invested, at four and one-quarter per cent, is better than not to have it. It gives him four dollars and twenty-five cents a year over and above his other income; and four dollars and twenty-five cents a year, small as it is, is not a sum to be despised.

It is not so easy to see, but it is none the less true, that saving and wise investing make conditions better for everybody including oneself. Show me a community where there is little saving and investing and I will show you a community where conditions are bad, however

rich it may be in natural resources. It is always a community in which there is little employment and low wages. It is always a community from which laborers emigrate in order to find more employment and better wages. On the other hand, show me a community where there is a great deal of saving and investing and I will show you a community where conditions are good, where there is much employment and good wages, a community to which laborers from other communities come in large numbers in order to find work.

There are good and sound reasons for the historical fact that conditions are good where there is much saving and investing, and bad where there is little saving and investing. To save and invest is not to hoard. It is to buy things which are needed for production instead of things which are good only for consumption. To buy things, such as tools, machines, buildings, etc., which aid in production is to encourage the production of such things. When many people are investing in such things, many will be produced and industry will then be well equipped with aids to production. In short, there will be many factories well equipped with buildings, machines, and materials. That is a condition in which there is much employment.

One may buy either directly or indirectly those things which aid in production. When a farmer buys a traction engine rather than a luxurious automobile he is buying directly a thing which aids in production rather than an article of consumption. If he has bought wisely, the traction engine will aid him to grow a larger crop, which is a good thing for him. It will also increase the food supply, which is a good thing for everybody. The more farmers there are who save money and invest it in instruments which aid in production, the better production we shall have and the better the world will be fed.

When a factory owner builds an addition to his factory rather than a new dwelling-house he is buying directly various things which aid in production. If he builds wisely he will add to his income, which is a good thing for him. It will also add to the productive power of the community, which is a good thing for everybody. It is a good thing especially for laborers, because it will require more laborers to run the enlarged factory than were required before it was enlarged. In short, it increases the demand for labor.

The more people there are who save their money and buy tractors, machines, factory buildings, and all other aids to production, the better the community will be supplied with all such things. The better the community is supplied with all such things, the greater its productive power, and the greater the opportunities for productive employment. That is the reason why laborers always emigrate from a country where there is little saving and investing to a country where there is much saving and investing.

But one may buy indirectly things which aid in production. When one deposits money in a savings bank, the bank will invest it. It may lend it to some farmer who wants to buy a tractor, a team, a cow, or some other aid to production. It may buy part ownership in some factory, or in some other way encourage the buying of aids to production. In all these ways, and in many others, one may buy indirectly all sorts of things which aid in production.

Indirect buying of such things has the same effect as direct buying. It encourages others to make the tools, machines, buildings, and other things which aid in production. Nobody would make such things unless somebody would buy and pay for them. The only people who buy and pay for them are they who save and invest,

who buy fewer articles of consumption than they might buy, and spend the money thus saved for things which aid in production. That is what it means to save and invest.

Some of the most needed investments in time of war are War Savings Stamps and Liberty Bonds. To own a Liberty Bond is certainly better than not to own it. It is not only better for the individual, it is also very much better for the whole country and the world that individuals should buy Liberty Bonds than that they should buy articles of consumption which they do not really need, even tho they would like very much to have them. If they buy Liberty Bonds, the government will spend that money to hire men to build ships, make guns and ammunition, and do whatever else is necessary for the defense of the liberty of the world. It is better for everybody that men should spend their money indirectly for these things than that they should spend it directly for some article of consumption which they do not really need.

In time of peace it is almost as desirable from the standpoint of the world that the individual should buy, either directly or indirectly, aids to production as that he should, in time of war, buy aids to warfare with his surplus income. Let us suppose that two communities have equal incomes and are able, at a given time, to spend equal amounts of money this year in purchasing goods or hiring labor to make goods. Let us suppose that Community A spends all its clear income this year on consumers' goods, spending only enough on producers' goods to keep its supply of capital intact, whereas Community B spends half its clear income this year on producers' goods, and only half on consumers' goods. There will be as many goods purchased this year, and as much labor employed in Community B as in Com