We should like to know, as a matter of intellectual
specula- tion, why Mr. Burns, on his principles, fixes on £500 a year as his maximum price for men. If they are to work for love of the human race, a subsistence allowance ought to be sufficient ; and if all men are to be equal, £500 is egregiously extravagant. If, on the other hand, men are to be allowed to be selfish, they must be allowed to put themselves up to auction ; and why should £500, or any other figure, be the fixed maximum ? The truth, we believe, is that men like Mr. Burns do not recognise intellectual ability at all, and do not see that a man may be able by a single suggestion, or by good supervision, to double the utility—that is, the earning power—of a hundred subordinates. The actual Inspectors, said one speaker, only earn two guineas a week ; and why should the Medical Officer have more P Just because he can, by his scientific knowledge, make each of the two-guinea men worth four. Mr. Burns writes or has written in journals, we believe. Sup- posing him to write successfully, how much does he think that he adds to the earning power of his printers P Is it not the whole difference between a sufficiency and nothing? That is an extreme case ; but all mental power must be worth at least the value of all the strength it adds to the labour it directs. Mr. Burns would see that at once if he were a soldier under fire, and had to buy a good General at auction. Not only he would give all he could, but his hundred thousand comrades too, which would make an enormous salary.
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