THE SOURCES OF GREAT FORTUNES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2605, 23 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SOURCES OF GREAT FORTUNES.

Of some of these fortunes it may be truly said that every dollar which has been gained by their owners is but a token of the service which they have rendered to their fellow men. Of others it may as truly be said that each dollar of their gains is but a token of theft, fraud, and corruption. It may be that apme of the most conspicuous representative men in the railway system, having corrupted the Judge of a high court, are now in the position of outlaws, incapable of being trusted, and subject only to the execration of their fellow men ; yet, good or bad, as may have been the origin of these great fortunes, the railways themselves, under the higher law which controls all the exchangee of men, and in spite of judicious and restrictive legislation, continue to do their work with everincreasing benefit to those who consume the products which are moved upon them. The great economic forces which have so recently come into action are steadily working out. a greater equality in tho distribution of the abundant product which they have brought into existence; yet, great as this progress is, it doth not yet appear what it shall be even in the near future. A wholesome discontent now pervades all classes of the community, from which true progress will be evolved in spite of the obstructions of the Anarchist and the Socialists and the empirical devices of economic quaoks and agitators. Steam and electricity have profoundly changed all tho relations of men. The old order of personal intercourse between master and workman ie gone. The email, self-contained community in which there were none very rich and none very poor has almost disappeared. The new forms of eooioty are not yet shaped or moulded. The one thing most needed now is that the rich men nhall know how the workmen live, and the workmen shall know how the rich men work.—Edward AtkinBon.