In other words, if two persons are to make a bargain or contract which can possibly satisfy both, each must start with recognising that the other has some valid right, and what the nature of this right is, to the property or position which is held by him and which is the subject of the projected exchange.

Unless this be the case, any exchange that may be effected will, for one of the parties at least, not be a true bargain or contract, but an enforced and temporary compromise.

There will be no finality in it, and it will produce no content.
Now, in the case of the bargain or contract between labour and ability, this last situation is precisely that which the teachings of socialism are at present tending to generalise.

They are encouraging the representatives of labour to regard the representatives of ability as a class which possesses much, but has no valid right to anything, and with whom in consequence no true bargain is possible; since, whatever this class concedes short of its whole possessions will merely be accepted by labour as a surrender of stolen goods, which merits resentment rather than thanks, because it is only partial.
The intellectual socialists of to-day, and many of their less educated followers, will strenuously deny this.

They will declare that they, unlike their predecessors, recognise that directive ability is a true productive agent no less than ordinary labour is; and that able men, no less than the labourers, have rights which they may, if they choose, enforce with equal justice.