Just what validity this claim may have cannot, with our present experience, be definitely settled.

That to deprive individuals suddenly of the opportunities they have so long enjoyed would be disastrous may be fully admitted.

It may also be admitted that any immediate and drastic attempt to substitute for the present system a national regulation of the distribution of wealth or a national responsibility for the management even of monopolies or semi-monopolies would break down and would do little to promote either individual or social welfare.

But to conclude from any such admissions that a systematic policy of promoting individual and national amelioration should be abandoned in wholly unnecessary.

That the existing system has certain practical advantages, and is a fair expression of the average moral standards of to-day is not only its chief merit, but also its chief and inexcusable defect.