Nothing, therefore, is really in question, or ever has been, but the
differences between class incomes. Already there is economic equality
between captains, and economic equality between cabin boys. What is at
issue still is whether there shall be economic equality between captains
and cabin boys. What would Jesus have said? Presumably he would have
said that if your only object is to produce a captain and a cabin boy
for the purpose of transferring you from Liverpool to New York, or to
manoeuvre a fleet and carry powder from the magazine to the gun, then
you need give no more than a shilling to the cabin boy for every pound
you give to the more expensively trained captain. But if in addition to
this you desire to allow the two human souls which are inseparable from
the captain and the cabin boy, and which alone differentiate them from
the donkey-engine, to develop all their possibilities, then you may find
the cabin boy costing rather more than the captain, because cabin boy's
work does not do so much for the soul as captain's work. Consequently
you will have to give him at least as much as the captain unless you
definitely wish him to be a lower creature, in which case the sooner
you are hanged as an abortionist the better. That is the fundamental
argument.