the teacher; or any other personal service "that is valued, as material commodities are valued, according to their selling prices." Even the services of the clergyman are included in the national income or product, since they are paid for and form a part of the annual supply of good things produced and distributed within the country. In the language of the economist, anything that satisfies a human want is a utility, and forms part of the national wealth; hence there can be no sufficient reason for excluding from the national income goods which minister to spiritual or intellectual wants. The services of the clergyman, the actor, the author, the painter, and the physician are quite as much a part of the utilities of life as the services of the cook, the chambermaid, or the barber; and all are as clearly utilities as bread, hats, houses, or any other material thing. In a general way, therefore, we say that the national product which is available for distribution among the different productive classes comprises all the utilities, material and non-material, that are produced through human agents and satisfy human desires.

In the great majority of instances the product is not distributed in kind. The wheat produced on a given farm is not directly apportioned among the farmers, labourers, and landowners that have co-operated in its production; nor are the shoes turned out by a given factory divided among the co-operating labourers and capitalists; and it is obvious that personal services cannot be returned to the persons that have rendered them. Cases of partial direct distribution do, indeed, occur; as when the tenant takes two-thirds and the landowner one-third of the crop raised by the former on land belonging to the latter; or when the miller receives his compensation in a part of the flour that he grinds. To-day, however, such instances are relatively insignificant. By far the greater part of the material product is sold by the undertaker or business man, and the price is then divided between himself and the other agents of production. All personal services are sold, and the price is obtained by the performers thereof. The farmer sells his wheat, the miller his flour, and the barber his services. With the money received for his part in production each productive agent obtains possession of such kinds and amounts of the national product as his desires dictate and his income will procure. Hence the distribution of the product is effected through the conversion of producers' claims into money, and the exchange of the latter for specific quantities and qualities of the product.

While the national product as a whole is divided among the four productive classes, not every portion of it is distributed among actually distinct representatives of these classes. When more than one factor of production is owned by the same person, the product will obviously not go to four different classes of persons. For example; the crop raised by a man on his own unmortgaged land, with his own instruments, and without any hired assistance; and the products of the small shopkeeper, tailor, and barber who are similarly self sufficient and independent,—are in each case obtained by one person, and do not undergo any actual distribution. Even in these instances, however, there occurs what may be called virtual distribution, inasmuch as the single agent owns more than one factor, and performs more than one productive function. And the problem of distributive justice in such cases is to determine whether all these productive functions are properly rewarded through the total amount which the individual has received. Where the factors are owned by distinct persons, or groups of persons, the problem is to determine whether each group is properly remunerated for the single function that it has performed.

The problem of the morality of industrial incomes is obviously complex. For example; the income of the farmer is sometimes derived from a product which he must divide with a landowner and with labourers; sometimes from a product which he shares with labourers only; and sometimes from a product which he can retain wholly for himself. The labourer's income arises sometimes out of a product which he divides with other agents of production; sometimes out of a product which he divides with other labourers as well as other agents; and sometimes out of a product of which he receives the full money equivalent. The complexity of the forces determining distribution and income indicate a complexity in the forces affecting the morality of income. Moreover, there is the more fundamental ethical question concerning the titles of distribution: whether mere ownership of a factor of production gives a just claim upon the product, as in the case of the landowner and the capitalist; whether such a claim, assuming it to be valid, is as good as that of the labourer and the business man, who expend human energy in the productive process; whether different kinds of productive activity should be rewarded at different rates; and if so in what proportion. Why should the capitalist receive six per cent., rather than two per cent., or sixteen per cent.? Why should the locomotive engineer receive more than the trackman? Why should not all persons be compensated equally? Should all or any of the benefits of industrial improvements go to the consumer? Such are typical questions in the study of distributive justice. They are sufficient to give some idea of the magnitude and difficulty of the problem.

Scarcely less formidable is the task of suggesting means to correct the injustices of the present distribution. The difficulties in this part of the field are indicated by the multiplicity of social remedies that have been proposed, and by the fact that none of them has succeeded in winning the adhesion of more than a minority of the population. We shall be obliged not only to pass moral judgment upon the most important of these proposals, but to indicate and advocate a more or less complete and systematic group of such reforms as seem to be at once feasible and righteous.

GENERAL REFERENCES

Taussig: Principles of Economics. Macmillan; 1911.

Devas: Political Economy. Longmans; 1901.

Hobson: The Industrial System. Longmans; 1909.

Clark: The Distribution of Wealth. Macmillan; 1899.

Smart: The Distribution of Income. London; 1899.

Willoughby: Social Justice. Macmillan; 1900.

Carver: Essays in Social Justice. Harvard University Press; 1915.

Ely: Property and Contract in Their Relations to the Distribution of Wealth. Macmillan; 1914.

Nearing: Income. Macmillan; 1915.

Streightoff: The Distribution of Incomes in the United States. Longmans; 1912.

Wagner: Grundlegung der Nationaloekonomie. Leipzig; 1892-1894.

Pesch: Lehrbuch der Nationaloekonomie. Freiburg; 1905-1913.

Antoine: Cours d'Économie Sociale. Paris; 1899.

Hitze: Capital et Travail. Louvain; 1898.

Hollander: The Abolition of Poverty. Houghton Mifflin Company; 1914.

Ellwood: The Social Problem. Macmillan; 1915.

Garriguet: The Social Value of the Gospel. Herder; 1911.

Parkinson: A Primer of Social Science. Devin-Adair