PREFACE THIS volume contains a study of the structure and working of the modern business world in which weal th is made and distributed as income to those "v ho have made it or can lawfully get hold of it. I t describes the ways in which the productive powers of Labour, Ability, Land, Capital and Society are applied in the various trades, arts and professions, for the production of material goods and services, and the ways in which the paylnent lor tIris "work is regulated and earned out. No kno"rlcdge of economic facts or principles is presumed, except such as every intelligent man or "WOOlan acquires in the ordinary experience of life. So brief a presentation of so large a subject will suffer necessary defects. It will be apt to be too unqualified in statenlent and too dogmatic in mode of argument. It will shirk some iInportant points of controversy_ Since the line of interpretation taken here has been Inore fully defended in a larger volume entitled The ITable of Contents CONTENTS;...