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STUDIES IN 



POLITICAL ECONOMY 



A GBAMMAB OF FOIiITICAIi ECONOMY. 

By Major-Gten. W. F. Marriott, C.S.I., late Secretary to the 
GoYemment of Bombay. Grown Syo. 6s, 

The anther's aim in presenting this new elementary treatise to 
the world is, firstly, to r^rict it to tmly elementary considerations 
in each branch of the subject ; secondly, to adopt a perfectly precise 
and unambigaous use of terms in the sense which most nearly agrees 
with conunon nse ; thirdly, to offer reasonable proof of evtoy pro- 
position ; and fourthly, to use the utmost brevity consist^t with 
proof, so as to invite and facilitate the judgment of the student as 
well as of the critic. 

SOCIALISM : its Nature, its Dangers, and its Bemedies 
considered by the Bev. M. Kaufmaitk, BJl. Foimded on the 
German work ' Kapitalismus und Socialismus,' by Dr. A. E. 
F. SCHAPPLE. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 

This work is addressed on the one hand to the great middle 
class, the capitalists, against whom the * International ' and kindred 
affiliations are directing their open attacks and dreaded secret com- 
binations. On the other hand, it is addressed to those * enlightened ' 
leaders of the labouring classes, who can see no other means of 
salvation for the working-man except the destruction of the capital 
and influence of the hated moneyed middle and upper classes. 

*A really complete theory upon the question "Without 

assuming the authority of all he (Dr. Schaffle) urges as explained 
by his English editor, we feel it would be difficult to recommend to 
those more especially interested a better or more conscientious 
summing up of the entire argument on both sides.'— Standard. 

* Ought to be in the hands of all who are interested in this most 
important but complex subject.' — Leeds Mercury. 

* The great social questions of the day are here handled in an 
able and comprehensive manner,, and the work more particularly 
claims the attention of capitalists and the leaders of the labouring 
classes.' — EDmBUROH Courant. 

'VfiJuable in many respects. There is in it much of soun^l 
teaching and wise ezi)osition of economic principles.'—ScoTSMAN. 



Henby S. Kimo & Co. 



STUDIES 



IN 



POLITICAL ECONOMY 



BY 



ANTHONY MUSGRAVE, C.M.G. 



UOVBRNOR OF SOUTH AURTRALIA 




Henry S. King & Co. 

65 CoRNHiLL & 12 Paternoster Row, London 

1875 






{All rights reserved) 



INTRODUCTION. 



-*o»- 



The following Essays have been the products of leisure 
hours : being merely written out thoughts which have 
arisen from study of the subjects to which they refer. 
They do not pretend to be a treatise, and are now pub- 
lished only with a view of suggesting to other minds for 
consideration the questions which have presented them- 
selves to mine in the course of my reading and experi- 
ence. 

During twenty years of ofl&cial life, in seven Colonial 
Governments — most of them in different parts of the 

« 

world, and all mider dissimilar conditions — it has been 
my duty to deal with many public financial and econo- 
mical questions, and it has often occurred to me that 
facts and circumstances did not coincide with principles 
of political economy, which I had been taught to believe 
well-established ; though what was the true cause of the 
discrepancy I was miable at the time to pronounce. 

More lately, with greater leisure at my disposal for 
inquiry into a subject which must always possess interest 
in connexion with public affairs, I have devoted some 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

time and care to a review of the general doctrines of the 
economists ; and I now believe that the error may be 
seen of which the effects penetrate almost every branch of 
economical science, and to which is due the confusion and 
obscurity so often obvious in discussions concerning capital 
and labour, commercial policy, culpable luxury, and other 
cognate questions. 

All this prevailing cloudiness and paradox arises 
apparently from the inconsistency of writers — of which 
the effects are very surprising when examined— in first 
insisting that gold is a commodity like all other articles 
of exchange, which is quite true, and then proceeding 
to treat money as not property at all, but only a * circu- 
lating medium.' 

According to the principles laid down, an ingot of 
gold is an article of value which may be exchanged or 
sold like any other goods; but when once coined into 
pieces of ascertained quality and weight, which we call 
money, it must immediately be disregarded as having no 
effect upon the exchanges accomplished by it, and in 
which it is one of the articles exchanged. It is as 
though a cask of sugar should be considered merchandize 
but parcels of 5 lbs. put up at the grocer's treated as 
valueless. 

The manner in which the subject is dealt with re- 
minds one of the old story of the question said to have 
been put by Charles II. to the Eoyal Society of his day — 
Why a bowl of water with a fish in it, weighed no more 



/ 



INTRODUCTION. VU 

than without the fish ? The learned body had excellent 
scientific reasons ready for His Majesty, "why the presence 
of the fish should make no difference in the weight of the 
contents of the bowl ; but were disconcerted, when recom- 
mended by the King to try the experiment, at finding 
that in fact a difference was made of exactly the weight 
of the fish. Now, the professors of economical science 

• 

have assumed, on the authority of inconsistent state- 
ments and opinions of Adam Smith, that the value of 
gold and silver makes no difference in the amount of the 
world's wealth: as money they are only machinery for 
exchanging other things ; and, consequently, all problems 
in Political Economy are to be worked out ' without the 
intervention of money,* The results are very curious. 

In these essays, I attempt to trace the effects of this 
error in some branches of inquiry. In doing so, I have 
referred more frequently to Mr. John Stuart Mill than to 
any other writer, because his work may be considered to 
be the standard text-book on economical science. I am 
aware that a controversial tone is undesirable in treating 
any subject, and I have endeavoured to avoid this so far 
as possible; but in dealing with doctrines which are 
believed to be controvertible, it is difficult to evade the 
necessity of appearing controversiaL 

I am conscious, too, that an unknown writer should 
feel some diffidence in questioning the doctrines of an 
eminent teacher like the late Mr. Mill respecting a sub- 
ject to which he had given especial attention. But even 

a 



vm INTRODUCTION. 

great men are not protected from the possibility of over- 
looking, and thus aiding to perpetuate, a fallacy which is 
assumed to be a truth because they failed to detect it. 
This is a period when many previously accepted dogmas 
in science of all kinds are being freely questioned. Those 
of political economy cannot escape, and Mr. Mill himself 
has referred to the * fatal habit of thinking through only 
one set of technical phrases.' 

It does not follow because I point out what I conceive 
to be errors — ^which if they are such, must fatally aflfect 
theories based upon them — that I therefore profess to 
furnish an explanation of all perplexing economical and 
social phenomena. I only urge that, as it appears to me, 
we have not got the right clue by which to follow our 
investigations in search for the truth. And the truth in 
economical science is practically most important to us. 
Errors in this influence what may be called commercial 
legislation, and many matters of administrative policy, as 
well as others in different fields of human action. They 
touch the effects of loans for public purposes and of 
taxation — questions of much moment to any community. 
And this is certain, that the truth in any science will not 
be discovered so long as one decided error vitiates its 
fundamental doctrines. 

Adelaide, Slst August^ 1874. 



CONTENTS 



••o*- 



PAGB. 

A Plea for some Facts 1 

Monet — a Function .32 

A Review op Mr. Mill's Fundamental Propositions 

respecting capital 55 

Some Thoughts on Value 103 

On iNTERNATIONAIi TrADE 134 

On Foreign Exchanges and Distribution op the Precious 
Metals 157 



STUDIES 



IN 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



-•o»- 



A PLEA FOE SOME FACTS. 

What I conceive to be the root error, from which a plen- 
tiful crop of fallacies springs in modem economical 
doctrines, consists in ignoring the fact — as hard a fact as 
any in science — that gold and silver are a * medium of 
exchange ' only in so far as, and because, they are eminently 
articles — and, from their peculiar value and characteristics, 
pre-eminently the articles — of exchange. They do not 
become valuable because they are money, but are money 
because they are specially valuable. Many other articles 
besides gold and silver have at times been used as money, 
but did not therefore lose their specific value. Adam 
Smith tells us that dried cod-fish served this purpose in 
Newfoundland not long ago, as did tobacco in Virginia, 
and sugar in the West Indies. And I have been informed 
on good authority that less than twenty years ago, in a 

B 



2 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

district in Mexico, round Acapulco, pieces of soap, stamped 
by the Alcalde, served as small change for a dollar. It ia 
impossible to deny that a lump of gold, which you can 
have parcelled out into bits of a certain weight and fine- 
ness called sovereigns, is just as much an article of 
exchange as, and much more readily exchangeable than 
a bale of Manchester cotton, which cannot be used except 
as clothing, and being by no means absolutely necessary 
to anybody, even for clothing, has not any intrinsic worth 
which gold does not possess. Professor Fawcett, in his , 
Manual of Political Economy, speaks of its being * evident 
that exchangeable value is the characteristic which stamps 
a commodity with the attribute of wealth.' Plain men 
would therefore think that, according to this definition, 
gold, being very readily exchangeable, is certainly wealth 
as far as it goes ; but in the next page we are told to 
' pay careful attention to an erroneous conception of 
wealth, universal until the appearance of Adam Smith's 
work about eighty years since,' the essence of which error, 
as embodied in the ' mercantile system, was to identify 
wealth with money.' Now, no one would pretend that all 
the wealth of the world is gold and silver ; but they are 
demonstrably as much part of it as parcels of Manchester 
goods, Birmingham wares, or Sheffield cutlery. To say 
otherwise is not more reasonable than to assert that 
because all horses are not mares, therefore mares are not 
horses ; but this is really what is done. Because gold 
and silver are used as standards of exchange, it is assumed 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 3 

they are nothing more and have no value ; while, in fact, 
many other things may be and are media of exchange 
which are not gold or silver. Suppose that I have a 
black horse and a white one, and wish to change the 
white one for another black, as a match for the first. I 
know a friend who has a black, which will suit me ; but 
he wants a brown horse, not a white one. I find another 
person who has such a brown animal, and who takes my 
white in exchange for him. I then change my brown 
with my friend for the black which I want, and we both 
are suited. The intermediate person would not sell his 
horse for money, because he wanted a beast of burden ; 
but colour was unimportant to him. Surely in this case 
the white horse was as truly a medium in exchanging the 
brown for the black as money would have been if I had 
sold him for 100^., and bought the other with that sum. 
But he was more than a medium — he was an article 
of exchange; he still represented a third value, again 
exchangeable. If a hundred sovereigns had been the 
articles of exchange, they also would represent a third 
value again exchangeable — ^with this addition, that they 
are practically imperishable, while the horse must die in 
a few years. 

The aggregate ' realized ' wealth of the world consists 
of an unknown quantity of more or less perishable com- 
modities which we will call re; to which is to be added an 
unknown value in precious metals, which do not perish, 
which we will call y. The whole is x-{-y. But x is very 

B 2 



4 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

slightly, if at all, augmented at any time — because accu- 
mulation beyond a certain limit of things liable to decay 
is impossible, and increasing population causes consump- 
tion of the increasing production. Very small part of y 
is ever consumed^ and the sum is yearly increased by the 
production of the mines of California and Victoria, as 
well as from other sources in different parts of the world. 
The relative proportions of these two constituents of the 
world's wealth are being yearly altered ; and they will 
vary differently in different countries ; but, that this is 
so, is mathematically demonstrable. And it is in these 
facts and these variations that we must look for explana- 
tions of many economical problems which are perplexing 
— and, indeed, are insoluble without recognition of the 
truth. The attempt to solve them by arguments based 
on false premisses is as profitless as the disquisitions of 
the ancient schoolmen as to the number of angels who 
could dance upon the point of a needle. 

It is only surprising and deliberate disregard of these 
facts and the consequences flowing from them which can 
in any way account for such contradictory statements as, 
for instance, those made by Professor Fawcett in Book I., 
c. iv., of his Manual, where he speaks of the doctrine that 
a demand for commodities is not a demand for labour, 
' a proposition which,' he says, ' is perhaps more rarely 
understood than any other in the whole range of Political 
Economy.' No wonder, indeed, when the explanations 
given start with the assumption of what is not fact. 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 5 

But what is to be said of his statement that ' the capital 
of the country — and therefore the fund which is dis- 
trihuted amongst the labourers — is not in any way 
diminished if an individual should wantonly destroy so 
much wealthy instead of consuming it unproductively^ 
for his own gratification,^ when placed against the asser- 
tion contained in the next sentence, ' that^ consequently, 
an individual increases the wealth of the country, and 
improves the condition of the labourer, not by spending 
but by saving ! ' If it does no harm to destroy instead 
of consuming, a fortiori the individual may as well con- 
sume ; and if neither course diminishes the capital, it is 
not at all obvious how he can improve the condition of 
the labourer by saving a perishable commodity. 

Further on, in the same chapter, Mr. Fawcett states, 
in discussing the supposed effects of a glut of capital, 
that ' the augmentation in the capital of the country has 
been supposed to result from diminished consumption of 
luxuries on the part of the rich.' Still a little further on, 
speaking of the effect of increase of wages arising from 
the application of the increased capital, he says : ' If the 
labourers were before supplied with all the necessaries of 
life, they, in their turn, will begin to consume more 
luxuries ; and the labour, which before had produced 
luxuries for the rich, is now available to meet this new 
demand on the part of the labourer.' Surely, the effect 
produced here is rather a more equal distribution of 
luxuries than a diminished consumption of them. This 



-I 



6 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

is not the place to discuss the advantage of such a result 
— I believe that it would be great ; but it would by no 
means necessarily lessen the total production or con- 
sumption of lu^furies. 

Subsequently we are told that, notwithstanding that 
all capital is the result of saving, it is altogether an error 
to set aside with the intention of not spending, as ' this 
is a fundamental misconception, for capital cannot fulfil 
any of its functions except by being consumed.' 'The 
capital of a country is constantly being consumed in 
order to produce more wealth ; and therefore capital 
is maintained by perpetual reproduction, and not by 
hoarding and keeping wealth out of consumption.' 

These contradictory statements seem wholly irrecon- 
cilable ; but the conflict arises from unconscious shufiBing 
of the facts, which are in opposition to the theories he 
is maintaining, with those theories. What is it that is 
consumed, and what saved ? He assumes that the capital 
— that is, the money — is consumed, and the perishable 
products of the capital and labour are somehow to be 
saved. But the contrary is really the fact : the money, 
which is almost the only true capital in relation to labour, 
is not consumed at all — it is the product of the labour 
hired with the money wages, which perishes if not con- 
sumed, and can only be ' saved ' by being exchanged and 
re-exchanged imtil it assumes the form of something of an 
exchangeable value more durable than itself — in short, 
for money, for gold, the most indestructible and most 
exchangeable of all our articles of barter. 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 7 

This brings us to the real hinge of the matter. Mr. 
Mill (vol. i. p. 91) states distinctly that * everything 
which is produced is consumed — both what is saved and 
what is said to be spent ; and the former quite as rapidly 
as the latter.' And again, 'The greater part of the 
wealth now existing in England has been produced by 
human hands within the last twelve months. A very 
small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in 
existence ten years ago — of the present productive capital 
of the country scarcely any part except farm-houses and 
manufactories, and a few ships and machines ; and even 
these would not, in most cases, have survived so long if 
fresh labour had not been employed in putting them into 
repair.' Now, if this be so — and I believe the statement 
to be true, if gold is not wealth — in what form, if not in 
gold and silver, exists that enormous accumulated capital, 
the aggregate savings of former years, ready to support 
labour wherever it is expedient to apply it, which Great 
Britain is known to possess — where shall we see it ? 
Where is it to be found ? Are we to be satisfied with Mr 
Bonamy Price's explanation {Fraser'a Magazine^ October 
1873), that 'the "savings" of the agriculturist have 
been eaten by the manufacturers who owe debts through 
the banks to the agriculturist ; but the banks do not hold 
the savings, but only registers of debts due by those who 
possess or possessed them ? ' According to which state- 
ment the savings of the world consist of ink-marks on 
paper. It is plain that ' the farm-houses and manu- 



8 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECOKOMY. 

factories, the few ships and machines,' however valuable 
and useful as property in other respects, cannot be used to 
support labour ; on the contrary, as Mr. Mill shows, they 
require labour to support them ; they are causes of outgo, 
rather than sources of income. These are not the accu- 
mulated wealth set aside to enable further production. 
Then, where are the stores of food and clothing ? No one 
keeps these for any length of time, and they are not pro- 
duced or manufactured in quantities larger than will meet 
ready sale for more or less immediate consumption ; and 
one bad crop at the same time all over the world would 
starve half mankind. Plainly, then, when the facts of the 
case are examined, and we are not misled with illusory 
phrases, we see that there is very little accumulated 
property of exchangeable value which can be applied to 
the employment of labour, except such as exists in the 
form of gold and silver. A man may have a splendid 
house and furniture, or a magnificent factory and 
machinery of all kinds, but he cannot employ labour 
with these, nor upon these, without money; or, at all 
events, without food and clothing to furnish in exchange 
— and no capitalist possesses stores of these. 

I quite agree with Mr. Noel Vanstone, in Wilkie 
CoUins's story 'No Name,' that persons are not half 
particular enough about the use of words. We ring 
changes upon ' capital,' ' money,' ' wealth,' ' labour,' 
* production,' until we scarcely know what we are 
talking about. In the course of my own experience. 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 9 

in my wanderings about the world, I have met a curious 
and amusing instance of the way in which a word 
originally meaning a particular thing has acquired a 
signification never intended, aud has produced results 
which are practically inconvenient to some people. The 
word is ' dollar.' Some years ago, early in this century, 
a silver coin known as the Mexican dollar was in extensive 
circulation among the British Colonies in Nortli America 
and the West Indies. It was the coin most generally 
used in paying troops, and for other army services, and 
passed from hand to hand very freely at the value of 
four shillings and fourpence, which had been fixed for 
it by an Imperial Order in Council. For some reason, 
another subsequent Order in Council was passed, reducing 
the rate at which the dollar should pass to four shillings 
and twopence. There seems to have been a mistake 
about this, because the coin was intrinsically worth more 
than four shillings and twopence, and the effect was to 
cause the speedy disappearance of the Mexican dollars, 
probably into the melting-pot. It might be supposed 
that this was a simple matter, and an end of the Mexican 
dollar. Not at all. His ghost walked as money of 
account in the colony of Newfoundland, at least. Salaries 
and debts had been paid there with these coins at four 
shillings and fourpence, and afterwards at four shillings 
and twopence, as we now pass crown-pieces at five 
shillings. But after the disappearance of the coin itself, 
by a most extraordinary juggle the name was used so as 



10 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

to enable persons to pay a debt of four shillings and 
fourpence with four shillings and twopence, and to esta- 
blish what is still known as Newfoundland sterling. A 
dollar had been equal to four shillings and fourpence, but 
four shillings and twopence is now equal to a dollar. A 
dollar is equal to a dollar — things that are equal to the 
same thing are equal to one another. Four and twopence 
is equal to four and fourpence : I owe you four and 
fourpence, but am entitled to a discharge if I pay you 
four and twopence. The thing seems incredible ; but yet 
the system became so established that, up to the time, a 
few years ago, when my acquaintance with the colony 
ceased, if you sold a horse for fifty pounds sterling, with- 
out specifying British sterling, you would lose a discount 
of four per cent., and receive only 48 i. ; and the Judges 
of the Supreme Court, whose salaries are given by law 
as so many pounds sterling, were mulcted by that per- 
centage on their incomes. I think this will be admitted 
to be a curious result from the use of a word. ' Dollar ' 
first and really meant a piece of silver of a certain form 
and weight; it then meant four and fourpence; then 
four and twopence ; and then that four and twopence is 
equal to four and fourpence. 

It is not often that we meet with so much con- 
fusion from metonymy as this; but we are frequently 
led into perplexity by uncertain and inexact use of 
words, especially those which have become technical. 
We are told that we are not to consume 'luxuries' 



A PLEA FOR SOME PACTS. 11 

because this diminishes the * production' of * wealth.' 
Now, m limine, it is necessary for any profitable dis- 
cussion of this subject to define what is meant by 
* luxuries,' and * wealth,' and ' production.' If we 
pause a little to consider, we shall find that wealth and 
luxuries are nearly, if not altogether, synonymous, and 
that it is necessary that we should settle what it is 
permitted to produce. If luxuries are not to be con- 
sumed, what is the good of producing wealth? We 
are clearly not to produce wealth in the ancient sense 
of the word ; we are not to have well-to-do-ness ; we are 
to evolve something else now known to the political 
economists by that name, but which is not money nor 
luxuries. Here is a bottle of champagne — clearly a 
luxury if anything is. I must not drink this, because if 
I do somebody will be foolish enough to make more and 
get paid for it. Nobody is to drink champagne. The 
champagne is to be added to capital somehow. The 
champagne-growers do not quite like this ; that's nothing ; 
they must turn their attention to some other respectable 
occupation. But what other? They must not make 
silk goods — those are luxuries ; nor lace, nor velvets, 
nor ribbons, nor carriages, nor ornamental houses ; no 
articles de luxe; not even Manchester cottons, for any 
one who has knocked about the world knows that a 
flannel shirt is far better to work in ; and persons with 
limited means use no materials for outer garments which 
require frequent washing. What are these people, and 



12 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

all others in like cases, to do to produce wealth ? They 
may grow plain food, weave rough clothing, and build 
log-huts. Everything beyond these is really a luxury 
which must not be consumed, and therefore not pro- 
duced ; because, we are told, that to do so will be a 
detriment to the wealth of the community. The food 
and the rough clothing and simple shelter are not likely 
to be accumulated in any large quantity ; and it seems 
diflBcult to understand in what the 'wealth' would 
consist, seeing that society would have gone back nearly 
to the condition of the Kafirs of South Africa. For, as 
is very tersely stated by the elder Mill, at the beginning 
of the 4th chapter of his work on Political Economy, 
' of the four sets of operations — ^Production, Distribu- 
tion, Exchange, and Consumption — which constitute the 
subject of Political Economy, the first three are the 
means. No man produces for the sake of producing and 
nothing further. Distribution, in the same manner, is 
not performed for the sake of distribution. Things are 
distributed as also exchanged, to some end. That end 
is — consumption.' 

Many persons who, like myself, have been too busily 
occupied during early life to examine attentively the 
grounds of accepted principles of political economy, have 
yet in difierent parts of the world, and in new and 
sometimes savage communities, had opportunities for 
applying the common doctrines, and as it were trying 
how they would fit. In many cases they do not fit at all. 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 13 

For instance : if it be true, simply and without quali- 
fication, that a person does good to the labouring classes 
not by what he consumes himself, but only by his 
abstinence from consumption, then I know of no people 
that do so much good to the labouring classes, both 
among themselves and among the nations of Europe, as 
the Kafirs of South Africa. Tliey live in huts made of 
reeds built by themselves with the assistance of their 
wives, so that there is no foolish waste of labour there. 
Their clothing is of the severest simplicity, not nearly 
80 elaborate as the Cherokee full-dress, consisting of a 
cocked hat and pair of spurs, for they only require a 
moucha, a bunch of feathers before and behind, suspended 
by a string from the waist. Their food is composed of 
pounded maize, with an occasional feast of half-cooked 
beef from one of their cattle, herds of which constitute 
their wealth. Now, if any people can boast of absti- 
nence from consumption of luxuries produced by the 
manufacturers of Europe or elsewhere, they can ; and I 
suppose, therefore, they really benefit the labourers who 
produce them. All attempts to induce these people to 
consume what are to them luxuries, and to labour that 
they may have the means of buying them, must, 
according to the proposition we are discussing, be ab- 
solutely injurious to their own community; because, to 
do this, their labour must be applied to pm'poses not 
productive of the commodities hitherto regarded by 
them as necessaries, as of these they have already more 



14 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

than enough for their consumption, though the surplus 
imfortunately is unsaleable and perishable. 

It appears to me that if we follow out the principles 
propounded we logically arrive at this conclusion, and 
must regard the Kafir economical arrangements as 
affording the highest type which can be followed. But 
it is not in accordance with this view of the subject that 
the British nation has, almost at the point of bayonet 
and the cannon's mouth, forced the consumption of 
luxuries produced by British industry upon \mwilling 
customers in semi-barbarous nations like the Chinese 
and Japanese. 

Now let us turn from Kafirland to a gold-producing 
country like California or our own colony of Victoria. 
Of what use would it be to the digger to mine for gold 
if that were really only a medium of exchange, imless, 
when he got it, he should have something else also which 
he hoped to exchange by its means? But in fact the 
gold here is the equivalent of his labour expended upon 
obtaining it, and paid for, in many instances, at a very 
high rate. He now has his labour in a concrete form, 
which he may exchange for anything else, and which 
yet is never consumed, except by scarcely appreciable 
friction or oxidation. 

And if a person does good to the labouring classes 
only by his abstinence from consumption, surely there 
never was a community or state of things more injurious 
to the working classes than that which may be seen in 



A PLEA FOR 'SOME FACTS. 1 5 

Victoria, for, I suppose, in no part of the world will 
200,000 people be found together who consume nearly so 
much as the population of Melbourne, which is about that 
number. 

I think that I have not exaggerated a single sup- 
position, and the result is the logical outcome of the 
conduct recommended by the economists. In order that 
we may produce we are not to consume. It does not 
seem to occur to them that in this case it must be 
decided what we are to produce; that sumptuary laws 
must be adopted on a very extensive scale to settle what 
is and what is not a luxury; and that as luxuries are 
diminished so will be wealth, and all possibility of accu- 
mulating it, except in the shape of gold, which will 
then be lessened in practical value — so little in the way 
of comfort, not to say luxury, could be got in exchange 
for it. 

Another misleading phrase, and that which I believe 
to have caused a great deal of the prevailing misconcep- 
tion, is ' medium of exchange,' as applied to money. 
Gold and silver are exchangeable commodities, and have 
their value chiefly in that fact ; they serve as ' money ; ' 
but this word is rather the expression of a function than 
the name of a thing. Gold and silver are weighed and 
stamped in certain quantities by authority, as ready 
articles of exchange; but they are not more media of 
exchange than bricks or bales of cotton, though they 
have been adopted as standards of value, just as the 



16 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

human foot was adopted as a standard of measure. The 
circulation which gold and silver are supposed to pro- 
duce is equally assisted by other articles of exchange, 
and is as intangible an effect as music. A piano is not 
the less a substantial thing because it produces music, 
though its chief value is as a musical instrument, and it 
will not produce music without being used for the pur- 
pose ; and other instruments will produce music, though 
not so commonly used. But it seems to me that Adam 
Smitli, though very inconsistent, does not fall into quite 
the same depth of error as that in which Mr. Mill and 
his disciples appear to have floundered in respect to the 
character of money. Mr. Mill rejects with scorn the 
idea that gold and silver could have any value of their 
own. He scoffs at it and misses no opportunity of tilt- 
ing at what he regards as an absurdity. In one place 
(vol. ii. p. 172) he says that ^ money is to commerce 
only what oil is to machinery, or railways to locomotion 
— a contrivance to diminish friction.' In another he 
states (vol. ii. p. 11) that 'when one person lends 
to another, as well as when he pays wages or rent to 
another, what he transfers is not the mere money, but a 
right to a certain value of the produce of the country, 
to be selected at pleasure.' Than this last it would not 
be easy to devise a statement more absolutely or pre- 
cisely untrue. It would seem as if, by confusion of ideas, 
the political economists thought that, because bank-notes 
are money and are, or ought to be, convertible into 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 17 

■ 

sovereigns (M demand from a particular person, at a 
specified place, all money is likewise convertible into 
something else on demand. No doubt Mr. Mill practi- 
cally found it so in his experience ; but he had not lived in 
new countries. The possession of gold gives no right at 
all any more than the possession of bales of cotton or 
pigs of iron. I cannot compel any man to change his 
goods for my sovereigns ; and no one will do so unless he 
thinks it will be to his advantage. In places like the 
gold-mining regions of California and British Columbia, 
in their early days, before transport was organised, flour 
and other food has been worth its weight in gold, and 
gold readily obtainable for it ; yet the possessor of the 
food has refused to part with what to him was more 
valuable there than gold ; and men have been found dead 
of starvation on heaps of gold. But it would be absurd 
to suppose that the gold had no exchangeable value in 
another place. 

Another instance of the exceedingly illusory effect 
produced by the incorrect application of words may be 
found in the use of 'convert' constantly made by the 
writers on Political Economy. An example may be 
found in vol. ii. p. 184 of Mr. Mill's book, where he is 
speaking of supposed effects of the discovery of treasure. 
He says : ' Effects of another kind, however, would have 
been produced. Twenty millions, which formerly existed 
in the unproductive form of metallic money, have been 
carwerted into what is, or is capable of becoming pro- 



18 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECOKOMY. 

ductive capital.' If this statement is examined it is 
found to be absolutely uutrue. It at first gives the idea 
that the money has been changed into something else ; 
but the twenty millions of metallic money have in no 
sense been converted into any other more profitable sub- 
stance or commodity. Gold cannot be converted into 
something else, as water may be converted into oxygen and 
hydrogen, or those gases into water ; or even as a piece of 
cloth into a coat, for in this last case the cloth ceases to 
be useful for any other purpose. The twenty millions 
of capital remain totally unchanged, but they have been 
eojchanged for other commodities with other people of 
other countries who doubtless regarded the gold as not 
unproductive, and expected, in some manner, to derive 
advantage from the transaction ; and the gold will again, 
as capital, be exchanged for other commodities, but will 
not ' perish in the using.' 

On the very same page there is another illustration of 
the extraordinary inconsistency everywhere observable in 
handling the subject. Mr. Mill alludes to what he regards 
as the extreme aptness of a comparison made by Adam 
Smith, where ' he compares the substitution of paper in 
the room of the precious metals to the construction of a 
highway through the air, by which the groimd now occu- 
pied by roads would become available for agriculture. 
As in that case a portion of the soil, so in this a part of 
the accuTnulated wealth of the country would be relieved 
from a function in which it was only employed in render- 
ing other soils and capitals productive, and would itself 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 19 

become applicable to production ; the office it previously 
fulfilled being equally well discharged by a medium which 
costs nothing.' 

When taken to pieces this is a very surprising passage, 
following what had gone before. First we have an admis- 
sion that the precious metals, which are commonly treated 
with so much contempt, are a part of the accumulated 
wealth, the capital of the coimtry, which we are so fre- 
quently told they are not. Then we are informed that 
this unproductive metallic money, only good as a circu- 
lating medium, will, if relieved from that function, itself 
become applicable to production, though how, except as 
an article of exchange, which it was before, we are not 
told. And we finally arrive at the surprising conclusion 
that the office which it previously fulfilled will be just as 
well discharged by something which is worth nothing, 
that is, certainly not having an inherent exchangeable 
value. In other words, the possessor of the gold, by a 
pleasant little arrangement, is to use it as an article of 
exchange, and also to do the same with a simulacrum or 
eidolon of the gold, in hope that the real substance of 
this latter will never be asked for, or, at all events, not 
asked for from him. 

It is not necessary to the purpose of my present argu- 
ment to enter upon any discussion of the arrangements by 
which all British currency, at least, is supposed to have a 
real metallic basis. I have no doubt that this fundamental 
principle is, in commercial practices, often evaded. But 

c 2 



20 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

theoretically, at all events, every Bank of England note of 
five pounds is presumed to represent a certain five pounds' 
worth of gold in the vaults or elsewhere. If it does not, 
then some one has been practising the pretty little plan 
for getting something out of nothing. But this very fact, 
that the real thing has been counterfeited, is only excellent 
evidence that the original possesses a true value which it 
has been sought to duplicate. 

Illustrations of the mystification which neverttieless 
prevails in men's minds on this branch of the subject has 
been afforded recently in Mr. Bonamy Price's review of 
Mr. Bagehot's book, ' Lombard Street,' in the number of 
* Eraser's Magazine' for October 1873. It is to doctrines 
like Mr. Price's that the world owes disasters such as the 
recent commercial panic in the United States. Indeed, I 
suppose that the teachers of no science have so much 
human misery to answer for, or have assisted so much 
fraud, as the doctors of Political Economy. Once estab- 
lish the belief that money is nothing but machinery — of 
no value in itself — and the step is easy to making this 
machinery out of a valueless representative like paper, 
which is supposed to stand in place of something called 
' wealth ' to be ' produced ' from the womb of time. Then 
comes the panic from some accidental cause — the rush, 
and the lamentable discovery by pauperised widows and 
orphans that the bank-notes or other securities for money 
which they hold are only simulacra, and they grasp 
nothing but air in their frantic attempts to recover their 
lost property. 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 21 

It is easy to obscure the mental vision by the spray 
from a cataract of words ; and we may amuse ourselves 
by romantic fancies that banking is an affair of goods, and 
exchange of barrels of beer from the brewer for timber 
from the timber-merchant — the fact remains that what is 
deposited in the bank and what the bank afterwards lends 
is gold, or the right to demand gold from a particular 
person at a specified place, and no other right whatever. 
The gold may never be touched for months or years, but 
it is all the time presumed to be tangible ; it should be 
there when wanted, as the final residuum of all the trans- 
actions, and if it is not, the transactions are tainted with 
fraud. 

Mr. Price is indignant at what he terms the exagger- 
ated language of an alarmist used by Mr. Bagehot in 
drawing the startling inference that on the wisdom of the 
directors of one joint-stock company it depends whether 
England shall be solvent or insolvent. It is well that it 
should be startling. Here, again, we can puzzle oiu-selves 
with words — with ' aseets,' ' liabilities,' * deposits,' ' loan 
funds,' ' issues,' and ' reserves ; ' but when the verbiage is 
cleared away it is obvious to reason that ' ex nihilo nihil 
fiV It is simply plain, with the Bank of England as with 
any other bank or with an individual, that unless the gold 
in its possession, together with its claims upon others for 
gold, are equal to or greater than the demands of others 
upon it for gold, the Bank is not solvent. And more than 
this— if the Bank's claims upon others are satisfied by 



22 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

returning its own paper, and it does not possess gold suf- 
ficient to meet the demand upon it from its own creditors 
(in other words, if it has more paper afloat than is covered 
by gold or what is exchangeable into gold), if there should 
be a run upon it, a collapse is inevitable, which may or 
may not be regarded as a bankruptcy of England, but 
which would have the effect of shaking the prosperity of 
the nation at its foundation. The nation cannot pay its 
international obligations by transfer of real property ; and 
should the accumulations of gold be exhausted, it is not 
easy to see what other moveable wealth can be used for 
the purpose. 

And if Mr. Huskisson was wrong in declaring it to be 
* the essence of money to possess intrinsic value ' — if no- 
thing were wealth except ' production ' of some indefinite 
character, whence would be derived the profit admitted to 
be often obtained from th^ sale and re-sale of the same 
commodities, which are not augmented in quantity or 
quality by any i^ew labour upon them before they are 
finally consumed as food or raw material ? Such profits 
as these cannot be embodied in nothing but gold. 

And again, why should we be so solicitous that the 
metallic currency of the country shall not be debased, if 
it were not really in itself wealth, but only an order or 
token exchangeable for something else, like an opera- 
ticket ? Mr. Mill waxes warm with righteous indignation 
at the profligate governments who, for the sake of robbing 
their creditors, seldom scrupled * to confer on all other 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 23 

debtors the licence to rob theirs, by the shallow and im- 
pudent artifice of lowering the "standard;"' but it is 
diflScult to see the shallowness, though we may the impu- 
dence, if Mr. Mill is right in saying that what a man 
transfers in paying wages is not mere money, but a right 
to a certain value of the produce of the country. The 
recipient of the wages will still be able to get his * right,' 
whether the token is a real shilling or only a pewter imi- 
tation of one ; and the Government would get the value 
of the gold from foreign people foolish enough to change 
with them. The result is the same as with an issue of 
paper not representing bullion. 

But on all sides we see evidence that coin is a com- 
modity which everywhere finds its level of value as an 
article of exchange rather than as a ' medium.' I have 
known several instances in my own experience. Besides 
the case of the Mexican dollars, which, as I have 
already mentioned, disappeared from circulation imme- 
diately that it was attempted to pass them at less than 
their value, another instance is afforded by the disap- 
pearance of some old Spanish coins called ' Pesetas ' 
from one part of the British West Indies and their 
collection in another. Fifty years ago the money of 
account in the Leeward Islands was a currency at 225 
exchange ; that is, one hundred pounds sterling was 
equal to two hundred and twenty-five pounds currency 
— four shillings sterling was equal to nine shillings cur- 
rency. There was very little English coin in circulation. 



24 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

but an English shilling passed for two shillings and three- 
pence currency, and the peseta passed for one shilling. A 
few years later this currency and money of account became 
inconvenient, and English sterling was established as the 
legal currency in all the larger islands. There was no 
difficulty about English coin, but there was much in 
determining what the peseta should be taken for. Nine 
were formerly equal to four shillings. To pass them at 
sixpence each would make nine of them equal to four and 
sixpence. To fix fivepence as the rate would reduce the 
value of nine to three-and-ninepence ; but as the lesser evil 
this course was adopted. I believe that this exceeded 
their intrinsic worth, for they contained some base metal ; 
but the reduction of their nominal value had the efiect of 
sweeping them all, in an incredibly short time, into the 
Island of Nevis, where they were allowed to pass at the old 
rate for a longer period than in the larger and more 
wealthy commimities. When I was in that island, some 
thirteen years ago, there was scarcely any coin in circu- 
lation but these pesetas, and when once there Nevis could 
not get rid of them. An attempt was made to have them 
collected and re-coined in England, but it was found that 
a considerable loss would be caused to the public chest by 
so doing ; and, for all that I know, Nevis cherishes her 
pesetas still. 

Another case of somewhat the same kind came under my 
notice in British North America. All through the Pro- 
vinces now forming the Dominion of Canada accounts are 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. ' 25 

kept in dollars and cents, but there were very few, if 
any, coined dollars or fractions of dollars in circulation. 
British coin was used. In Newfoundland the British 
shilling passed at its true value, twenty-four cents. In 
Halifax, a much more populous and busy place, coin for 
exchanges was much more needed, and, for convenience, 
the shilling was taken by the shopkeepers and the banks 
as a quarter dollar, or twenty-five cents. The effect was 
to clear all the English shillings out of Newfoundland 
into Halifax. That four per cent, difference in value be- 
tween the two places was suflBcient to repay the banks in 
Newfoundland the expense of shipping English silver to 
Halifax to meet their own drafts. 

It is imnecessary to multiply instances, of which there 
may exist many more than I know. What it is requisite 
to insist upon is, the significance of these facts, as show- 
ing that coin, too, is a commodity which will find its way 
to the place where it can be exchanged for other com- 
modities to the best advantage. It is remarkable that 
insistance upon this matter should be called for ; but it is 
necessary, on account of the confusion which has arisen 
from the inconsistencies of the economists, in first acknow- 
ledging that the precious metals are to be considered and 
treated as commodities like any others of exchangeable 
value, and then, in the same breath, declaring that they 
are so utterly insignificant in their value and exchange- 
ableness as to be a mere 'medium' — an intangible no- 
thing — from any reference to which you must clear your 



26 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

mind, in speculations or theories as to the manner or effects 
of the production of wealth. The result is much like what 
might be expected from a discussion upon the conduct of 
the other characters in the play of ' Hamlet,' all reference 
to that of Hamlet himself being omitted. 

I plead guilty to a feeling nearly akin to consciousness 
of presumption in daring to call up for reconsideration 
questions that are supposed to have been settled, once for 
all, by men so eminent as Adam Smith and John Stuart 
Mill. But, as there were great men before Agamemnon, 
so there were wise and thoughtful men before Adam 
Smith, who did not quite agree with him ; and I think 
the ordinary every-day experience of a good many of us 
teaches that Locke, who was supposed to know something 
of the power of the human understanding, was not very far 
wrong in regarding money as a ' steady friend, not very 
liable to be wasted or consumed ; the most solid part of the 
moveable wealth of a nation.' My views, whether with or 
without true foundation, are grounded principally upon 
my own personal observations in four out of the ' five 
quarters' of the world — in places where facts do not 
accord with common dogmas in Political Economy, but 
where opportunity is afforded for studying the effects of 
alleged principles more easily than in larger communities — 
just as one can see more readily in a model the details and 
modes of action of the several parts of a large machine. 

It follows, if I am right, that what have been sneered 
at by Whately and others, as the ' absurdities of the mer- 
cantile system,' are not all absurd. Like many other 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 27 

doctrines treated as erroneous, they contain a half-truth. 
It would be ridiculous to assert that there is no wealth but 
gold and silver ; indeed, wealth in the old sense of well-to* 
do-ness, comfort, if not luxury, may well exist, and does 
exist, in many places without tlie presence of much money, 
just as large accumulations of precious metals may be 
found in gold regions where comfort is conspicuous by its 
absence ; but it is quite as childish to pretend that the 
precious metals are not wealth while the world recog- 
nises their exchangeable value. This is all that I contend 
for. And possibly many persons will at once readily 
concede this. But, if so, it is important to note the 
consequences which follow from the admission. 

1. If the precious metals already extracted from the 
earth are a portion of the world's wealth, * realised,' 
' capitalised ' wealth, as articles of exchangeable value. 

2. And we remember that the other products of labour 
and capital are in themselves more or less perishable, and 
cannot themselves be added to ' capital ' or permanent 
savings to be applied in support of labour. 

3. Then this being so, it follows from the nature of 
other things, and the more durable character of the 
precious metals, that in their form must always be col- 
lected the chief part of a nation's ' savings ; ' and that, 
therefore, the ' capital,' of which we hear so much as 
applicable to future production, must be almost entirely 
money. 

4. Then it follows, that capital is practically inde- 
structible, and can be used over and over again for the same 



28 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

purposes by different persons, as it circulates from hand to 
hand ; but itself remains a potential energy unconsumed. 

5. That luxuries, and wealth which is not money, are 
practically synonymous ; and that, if we are to abstain 
from the consumption, and therefore the production of 
luxuries, it is essential for economists to define what is 
the nature of the 'wealth' which is to be the object of 
' production.' 

6. That it follows that demand for commodities is 
always a demand for labour, else there would be no object 
in withdrawing it from one class of production for appli- 
cation to another. But that labour may be applied, and 
often is, to services which do not produce commodities. 

The correctness of these conclusions may be tried by 
the personal experience of any one ; and I believe it will 
stand the test. And by their light many social phenomena 
which are attracting attention may be more readily in- 
terpreted than is possible in accordance with the com- 
monly received dogmas of so-called economical science. 
We are told that prices are rising in all parts of the world ; 
and we can easily understand why, when we recognise gold 
as an article of exchange, and know that it is more 
abundant. It is a complaint that the mercantile classes 
are becoming more and more wealthy, and that poverty is 
increasing among the masses of the people ; and this we 
can comprehend when we remember that the final residuum 
of the commercial interchanges of the world is gold, and 
is most likely to be found in the hands of the mercantile 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 29 

classes — that it is with them that the wealth of a commer- 
cial country will most accumulate ; but that the masses 
haring nothing but their labour to exchange for gold, which 
is cheaper, and cannot be again exchanged for so much of 
other wealth, they are no better off, and, in some cases, the 
change is to their disadvantage. And these facts throw 
some light upon another fallacy maintained by McCulloch 
and others against the opinion of Adam Smith, viz., that 
what is for the benefit of the individual must be for the 
benefit of the commimity, because the community is only 
an aggregate of individuals. 

Great Britain is undoubtedly greatly richer upon the 
whole than she was a hundred years ago ; but notwith- 
standing the great increase of population, whose labour is 
a source of wealth, vast numbers are unquestionably worse 
off than their predecessors were then. Wealth is much 
more unequally distributed ; and, in spite of Mr. 
McCulloch, it may be held to be better that ten men as a 
body should have nine pounds each, making a total of 
ninety pounds, than two of their number should have forty 
pounds apiece, other two ten pounds, and the rest nothing 
at all, although the aggregate is one hundred instead of 
ninety pounds. 

To observant persons it is visible that we are meeting 
at every turn the natural result of stimulus given to all 
kinds of production, or, in other words, to industry, by 
the large increase in the quantity of gold, and the greater 
usefulness accruing to gold as an article of exchange from 



30 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

the growing freedom of trade and facility of intercourse 
between diflferent parts of the world. But the profits of 
commercial prosperity, upon which we so much pride 
ourselves, go into the pockets of the traders, and not the 
workers and producers. This result was not intended; 
but it will be the source of the troublesome social ques- 
tions which are looming in the not distant future, and 
have already sporadically shown themselves in many 
shapes. It was supposed a few years ago that political 
reforms were the panacea for all the evils from which the 
masses of the people suflFer. It is beginning to be 
apparent in the republican United States that even the 
freest institutions of that cynosure of so many eyes in 
England will not prevent disproportionate accumulations 
of riches in the hands of a few ; and already discussions 
are arising there as to what should be done to secure some 
more equitable redistribution. 

My essay is intended as a plea for some consideration 
of the facts I have adduced, which I hope may be given 
by others better qualified than myself to deal with the 
whole subject. It is from disregard of them that the 
confusion arises, which is obvious in such controversies 
as that between Mr. Groldwin Smith and Mr. Greg, 
recently published in the ' Contemporary Eeview,' as to 
what is ' culpable luxury,' in which the quite separable, 
moral and economical, aspects of expenditure are so 
mingled as to present nothing but a blurred and unin- 
telligible whole. If I am foolish enough to give five 



A PLEA FOR SOME FACTS. 31 

hundred gold sovereigns, exchangeable for a great many 
purposes, in exchange for a diamond, useful for none, my 
conduct may have been both idiotic and immoral in its 
relations to persons having claims upon me ; but why my 
exchanging with another man a metal, alleged to be 
worthless, for a still more worthless stone, should have any 
efifect in diminishing production, or the total wealth of 
the coimtry, or the happiness of my poorer neighbours, 
I admit myself to be quite unable to perceive. 

If my conclusions are not altogether erroneous, this, 
at least, is plain — that there should be some revision 
of the usual dogmas and teaching of the economists. 
It may be seen that in the actual transactions of the 
world they are generally disregarded, though they often 
are the real seed of the commercial panics which distress 
communities. Still students should not be misled by 
sophistical statements that money is not wealth at all, 
but only a medium of exchange ; that gold is not capital ; 
that wealth is not luxury ; and that demand for commo- 
dities is not demand for labour. Let us not perplex 
ourselves and others by fanciful explanations of social 
circumstances. Let the truth be discerned and admitted 
that the artificial fabric of society and our system of 
commerce, as they are constructed under what we call 
civilisation, are based upon the exchangeable value of 
gold and its recognition as wealth ; and that if it were 
in our power to demolish this foundation the whole 
superstructure would subside in confusion. 



32 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



MONEY^A FUNCTION. 

In my last essay I pleaded for the consideration of some 
facts which, I think, show that the precious metals, and 
especially gold, cannot justly be regarded as only a 
medium of exchange in the same manner as a bank- 
note may properly be so regarded. The intrinsic ex- 
changeable value of gold, and the possession by gold 
of all the essential characteristics of wealth, must be 
admitted, it appears to me, before we can obtain any 
satisfactory solution of the many interesting and highly 
important questions arising out of the commerce of a 
community within itself, or of nations with each other. 

When once a glimpse has been obtained of the 
character of the fundamental error which vitiates so 
much of the arguments used on economical problems, it 
becomes most interesting to observe the manner in which 
it starts up every now and then in all branches of enquiry, 
like an ignis fatuns^ and leads the expounders of these 
questions along paths which terminate in a bog of 
paradoxical perplexity, from which they only clumsily 
escape by floundering through an attempt to show that 
one and on^ make three. It is to me a matter of the 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 35 

gravest astonishment that a man with the intellectual 
power and logical perception of Mr. Mill, should not 
have known, when he stated that there cannot be intrinsi- 
cally a more insignificant thing in the economy of society 
than money — when he called it a machine, a medium, or 
oil for machinery — that lie had really misconceived the 
whole affair, that he was dealing metaphysically with 
what is a matter of simple physics, and that it would 
have been far more scientifically accurate and philosophi- 
cally true to say that there is no such distinct thing as 
money — that all articles of exchange fulfil the function of 
money — that all commercial dealings are reducible in 
principle and in fact to barter, or exchange of one article 
of value for another — and that he who gives a soxereign 
for four pairs of gloves has only bartered a piece of gold 
for manufactured leather. Eepeatedly throughout his 
work he says what is equivalent to an admission of this 
simple truth ; quite as often he goes back to his favourite 
error, that money is not real wealth, but only represents 
a right to some of the produce of the country. The 
distinction between this error and the fact may, at first 
sight, appear unimportant, but it is very far from being 
so.; in truth, it lies at the very root of all the discussions 
which are so frequent concerning capital, and currency, 
and labour ; because an idea, which properly belongs only 
to a function, has become associated with a thing ; and 
then, by a very singular kind of mental legerdemain, 
a shadow has become confounded with, and in many cases 

D 



34 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

apparently substituted for, the substance, without which 
it could have no existence. Because gold coin serves the 
function or purpose of money or exchange, and is more 
frequently used for that function than any other article, 
gold has come to be considered as pre-eminently money, 
and then to be nothing else but money ; that is, nothing 
but a function. And I may here observe that the trans- 
ference of idea from the act done to the thing by which it 
is done may be traced in the use of the word ' change ' for 
money. Then, because bank-notes, under certain arrange- 
ments and conditions, which are forgotten, serve in the 
place of the real article of exchange, they have gradually 
become identified with the substance, of which they are 
but the doppelgdnger^ and then substituted for it, until 
paper has been, at last, supposed to be money. The 
mode in which these diflFerent dissolving views are blended 
into one another in all the doctrines of the economists, 
until it is almost impossible to discern what is a picture 
of facts and how much is an illusion, is very extraordinary 
to any one who just exercises enough common sense to 
remember that, if A exchanges something for another 
thing with B, who again exchanges that something for 
yet another thing with C, there must have been three 
things of substantive value employed in the transaction, 
unless one of the three parties has been defrauded. 

Two facts are commonly left out of sight ; the first is, 
that any medium of exchange must be the representative 
of some article of value, if not such an article itself ; that 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 35 

no one deliberately exchanges something for nothing. If 
a man exchanges the produce of his farm for a bank-note 
for one hundred pounds, he does so in the belief that the 
note represents a certain quantity of gold, which can be 
obtained from a certain person at a certain place. If he 
has exchanged for a hundred sovereigns, he knows that he 
has the gold, and that this is readily exchangeable for any 
other thing that he may require, either in his own country 
or in any other known to him ; but if this also was like 
the bank-note, a doppelgdnger^ or shadow of something 
else, it would be necessary to know what the substance is 
of this shadow. There is nothing which it can represent; 
it gives no title to anything but the possession of itself. 
It cannot, as supposed by Mr. Mill, stand in the place of 
something which he calls capital, and says has been 
given for it ; because, the thing for which it was even 
last exchanged may have perished, and the shadow has no 
right to exist after the destruction of the substance. It 
cannot represent production as yet xmaccomplished, for 
the shadow cannot exist before the substance. It does 
not give, at any time, a claim upon any specified person ; 
it simply rests its title as an article of exchange upon its 
own inherent value. 

And the second fact is that, apart from the intrinsic 
value which the readiness of all mankind to exchange 
other articles for it has conferred upon gold, it does 
possess properties as a metal, which, but for its costliness 
— but for its extreme value — would render it one of the 

D 2 



36 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

most useful for common purposes of everyday convenience 
which are known to us. For the purpose of water-pipes 
alone, the cleanliness of the substance, so to speak, its 
freedom from rust or oxidation, would render it a great 
deal more useful that any other that we know. It appears 
to be a red/udio ad ahsurdum to say that, because of the 
extreme value and usefulness of an article, it therefore 
shall not be considered as forming any part of the wealth 
of a country, and is a mere ' wheel of circulation.' And 
yet, we find such passages as the following in Smith's 
' Wealth of Nations ' (Book II., chap. 2) : — 

' If a guinea be the weekly pension of a particular 
person, he can in the course of the week purchase with 
it a certain quantity of subsistence, conveniences, and 
amusements. In proportion as this quantity is great or 
small, so are his real riches — ^his real weekly revenue. 
His weekly revenue is certainly not equal both to the 
guinea, and to what he can purchase with it, but only to 
one or other of those two equal values, and to the latter 
more properly than to the former — to the guinea's worth 
rather than to the guinea. 

' If the pension of such a person was paid to him, not 
in gold, but in a weekly bill for a guinea, his revenue 
surely would not so properly consist in the piece of paper 
as in what he could get for it. A guinea may be con- 
sidered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and 
conveniences upon all the tradesmen in the neighbour- 
hood. The revenue of the person to whom it is paid 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 37 

does not so properly consist in the piece of gold as in 
what he can get for it, or in what he can exchange it for. 
If it could be exchanged for nothing, it would, like a bill 
upon a bankrupt, be of no more value than the most 
useless piece of paper.' 

In this statement exists a fallacy which ought to be 
transparent. It is overlooked that the same argument 
may be used with exactly the same force with respect to 
any other commodity, except simple food or clothing, as 
well as to the guinea. It can quite as truly be said that 
the revenue of the vendor of any manufactured articles, 
whether woollen, or cotton, or silk, or glass, earthenware, 
or hardware, does not consist in these things, but in what 
he can get in exchange for them. The producer or pos- 
sessor of acres of cloth, or tons of ironmongery, may die 
of starvation if he cannot exchange these things for food 
with the producer or possessor of food. Why should wool 
or iron be deemed wealth, and that character be denied 
to gold, which is more exchangeable and less perishable 
than either ? Is it the fact that nothing but food and 
clothing is wealth ? But it is this fallacy, that money is 
something essentially different from other ordinary arti- 
cles of exchange, which, like the ignis fatuus^ starts up 
later in the same chapter, where he says that ' the substi- 
tution of paper in the room of gold and silver money 
replaces a very expensive instrument of commerce with 
one much less costly, and sometimes equally convenient.' 
The sentence is a contradiction^ In the first place, the 



88 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

gold and silver are not more especially the instruments of 
commerce than ironware or glass ; and Adam Smith 
would have laughed at the idea of replacing these with 
paper, as being less costly and equally convenient. And 
if gold money were only an instrument, and had no in- 
trinsic value, it could not be expensive ; and there could 
be no use in replacing it by paper, except to prevent its 
being simply worn by friction. Substitution, according 
to Adam Smith, really means that the substance and the 
shadow of the doppdgdnger shall both, by some hocus- 
pocus, be used as articles of exchange. If paper could, 
indeed, be truly substituted for gold as money — if we 
could really deprive gold of its intrinsic value as an 
article of exchange — we might then have the use of this 
metal for purposes for which it is peculiarly suited, but 
to which it is now too costly to be applied. 

In order to see how very curiously the fundamental 
misconception of the character of money is interlaced 
with other ideas, and what a misleading eflfect is produced, 
it will be worth our while to follow Mr. Mill through the 
seventh chapter of the third book of his ' Principles of 
Political Economy,' where he treats ' of money.' He 
begins by saying that, having proceeded so far in the 
discussion of his subject without introducing the idea of 
money, except for illustration, it is necessary to superadd 
that idea, and ' to consider in what manner the principles 
of the mutual interchange of commodities are aflfected by 
the use of what is termed a medium of exchange.' This, 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 39 

in eflFect, is to say that it is necessary to consider how 
interchange is affected by itself. If I change a hogshead 
of claret for a horse, and the horse again for a phaeton, 
and the phaeton for one hundred sovereigns, and the 
sovereigns for a diamond, which I change with a jeweller 
for a ruby bracelet, every one of these things has been 
obtained through a medium of exchange, and not one more 
than another. And when Mr. Mill proceeds to say that 
* in order to understand the manifold functions of a cir- 
culating medium, there is no better way than to consider 
what are the principal inconveniences which we should 
experience if we had not such a medium,' he uses lan- 
guage which could only be properly applied to a meta- 
physical abstraction, like thought or clairvoyance. It is 
like asking how we should think if we had no thought, 
or how we should exchange if we had nothing to exchange. 
To ask what we should do without gold, is quite another 
question, and one nearly as difficult to answer as what we 
should do without water. Gold does fulfil a purpose in 
the world's affairs which nothing else answers so welL It 
would be beyond the scope of my present remarks to 
enter upon that topic ; but it might be an interesting 
vein of thought to follow out the moral effect of the 
special properties of gold in the world's transactions — 
to see how its portability, durability, and universal 
exchangeableness, promote self-denial and frugality — to 
observe how, but for the possibility of saving which is 
afforded by its peculiar properties and general acceptance. 



40 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

lavish consumption and wasteful destruction would be 
encouraged — and how it enables, as no other article of 
exchangeable value can, aid to be rendered to those in 
need at a distance. But, leaving moral aspects of the 
question on one side as too sentimental for economics, 
it must be admitted that the peculiar characteristics of 
gold give it a special value as an article of exchange not 
possessed by any other known substance, and have fitted 
it, in an exceptional degree, to discharge the function of 
money or exchange. 

But Mr. Mill, in the chapter to which I am referring, 
proceeds at once to confound the advantages which we 
enjoy from having a substance of natural value as a ready 
article of exchange with the advantage which is derived 
from a common measure of values. This, latter is not 
necessarily attached to what we call money, and exists 
in some cases quite independently of the coin used. Mr. 
Mill observes that the ' advantage of having a common 
language in which values may be expressed is, even by 
itself, so unimportant that some such mode of expressing 
and computing them would probably be used, even if a 
pound or a shilling did not express a real thing, but a 
mere unit of calcidation.' And he mentions that ' it is 
said that there are African tribes in which this somewhat 

* 

artificial contrivance actually prevails.' He evidently 
was not aware that such a system, in wliich the words 
* pounds ' and ' shillings ' do not express real things, 
actually existed in British coumiunities at the time when 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 41 

he wrote I and, I believe, still prevails in one at least. 
In the North American provinces, a mode of computation 
that was called currency, but, in fact, was 'money of 
accoimt,' was used, and I believe, is still used by the 
banks in Newfoundland, and was well understood in Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick. A pound was equal to 
sixteen shillings and eightpence British sterling, and a 
shilling was a twentieth part of this pound, but there 
were no coins representing these values. I do not know 
the origin of the custom. By the side of it were to be 
found the ordinary British sterling, as well as a New- 
foundland sterling — a curious offshoot, the origin of 
which I explained in the last essay — and computation in 
dollars and cents, as used in the United States. Yet, for 
some reason* the banks, and most of the merchants and 
storekeepers, from long habit, I suppose, preferred to 
keep their accounts in this ' currency,' which, when once 
imderstood, was quite as convenient as British sterling. 
A sovereign was equal to twenty-four shillings ; a deduc- 
tion of one-sixth would convert an amount stated in 
currency into the equivalent amount in British sterling. 
Here was to be found, in actual practice, Mr. Mill's ' con- 
ventional unit for the more convenient comparison of 
things with one another,' used in the presence of American 
eagles and half-eagles, and of English sovereigns and 
shillings, which were in circulation, and not corresponding 
exactly with any of them.* 

* This leads mo to say, in passing, that these and similar circumstances 



42 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

After having, by a remarkable shuffling of ideas, sub- 
stituted a mere system of account-keeping for tangible 
articles of exchange, Mr. Mill proceeds to describe the 
inconveniences of what he calls ' barter.' He recognises 
the extremely perishable character of the necessaries of 
life and most other property, and admits that the thing 
which people would select to keep by them for making 
purchases must be one which, besides 'being divisible and 
generally desired^ does not deteriorate by keeping. He 
enimierates the many advantages possessed by gold, as 
answering to this description, though he greatly under- 
rates the probabilities of change in its relative value. He 
points out clearly enough how the contrivance of coining 

induce me to think that an exceedingly simple decimal system of money 
accounts, which would saye much trouble to clerks, might easily be adopted 
in England by a very trifling change in the copper or bronze coinage, and 
by making tenpence equal to a shilling, and five farthings to a penny. A 
half-sovereign, or ten shillings, might then be the unit, and called a 
pound, or by any other name, while the sovereign might still remain the 
standard. No change would be necessary in the gold or silver coinage, but 
a pound (or whatever else might be adopted as the name for the half- 
sovereign) would be equal to ten shillings, the shiUing to tenpence, and 
the farthing to *2 of a penny ; and thus all sums of columns of figures 
would be only an affair of simple addition, as with francs and centimes, 
or with dollars and cents ; while it would be easy to remember that the 
old pound would be just double the new pound or unit of account. The 
plan seems so simple that I wonder that I never have seen it suggested. 
Most of the small dealings of any communities, even amongst the poorest 
classes, are in shillings and half-shillings, and these, and any of larger 
amount, would not be affected in any way ; and it does not appear to me 
that any great mischief could result to any one, and especially not to the 
poor, who are the chief users of them, from conferring additional value of 
one-fifth part upon the bronze pence, which are only token coin of little or 
no intrinsic worth. 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 43 

obviously suggested itself, in order that the Government, 
as agent for the community at large, should insure them 
against fraud in dealing with an article so greatly in 
demand, and yet so easily adulterated or imitated. He 
inveighs against the insupportable wickedness of Govern- 
ments who abuse this trust by debasing the coinage for 
their own advantage. And then, in marvellous disregard 
that all this is in direct opposition to what he is about to 
gay, he plunges back again into the mistake that material 
gold and silver coins are the same things as abstract units 
of calculation, and dilates upon the insignificance of the 
thing which he has stated to be valuable because ' gene- 
rally desired, and which does not deteriorate by keeping ' 
— ' except in the character of a contrivance for sparing 
time and labour ; ' and declares it to be only a ' machine 
for doing quickly and commodiously what would be done, 
though less quickly and commodiously, without it.' 

Now, except food in the abstract (for all kinds of food 
which are used are not necessary) and clothing of some 
kind, and more or less shelter according to climate, there 
is not a possession or article of property of any sort, of 
which this assertion could not be made with much greater 
force and truth. Mr. Mill would never have hesitated 
to declare that the productions of the looms of Lancashire 
are wealth, and possess exchangeable value, and would 
have regarded as an idiot any one who declared the whole 
of the manufactures of Great Britain to be intrinsically 
insignificant, except as a contrivance for saving time and 



44 STUDIES IN POUTiCAL ECONOMY. 

labour. And, yet, it is the naked fact that these produc- 
tions, particularly those of the Lancashire looms, are, in 
no sense whatever, more necessary than gold, and most 
obviously are not so useful for many purposes, or so readily 
exchangeable, as the products of the mines of California 
and Victoria. 

But Mr. Mill, not seeing Adam Smith's mistake, had 
become possessed by a remarkable delusion that exchange 
of any other article for gold was a transaction essentially 
different from any other barter ; and that money pos- 
sessed or transferred some mystical right to part of the 
produce of the country, which would certainly not be 
supposed to reside in a bale of goods. And yet, in the 
last paragraph of the chapter under review, with the in- 
consistency constantly appearing, he states that ' money 
is a commodity, and its value determined, like that of 
other commodities, temporarily, by demand and supply,* 
though he again falls into a transparent fallacy when he 
adds, ' permanently and on the average by cost of produc- 
tion.' 

In this latter clause of the sentence, he means, no 
doubt, what is expressed also by Eicardo at the beginning 
of his chapter on currency and banks (2nd edition, by 
McCulloch), that ' gold and silver, like all other com- 
modities, are valuable only in proportion to the quantity 
of labour necessary to produce them and bring them to 
market. Gold is about fifteen times dearer than silver, 
not because there is greater demand for it, nor because 



MONEY— A FUNCTIOK. 45 

the supply of silver is fifteen times greater than that of 
gold ; but solely because fifteen times the quantity of 
labour is necessary to produce a given quantity of it.' 
This is one of the hasty generalisations so common in 
political economy, which, if weighed and examined, is 
found to be, so to speak, physically impossible, and which 
any one who has been in a gold country knows to be un- 
true. Gold is not a manufactured article, to make a 
given quantity of which takes fifteen times as long as to 
make another article. A gold-washer in alluvial diggings 
knows that what he can get in exchange for the produce of 
a lucky hour's work bears no sort of proportion to the 
labour bestowed, or the value of that labour applied to 
any steady manual occupation. This is more nearly allied 
to. gambling than any other in which personal physical 
labour is employed. The value of the gold obtained by 
the digger is not measured by the labour which it costs 
him to get it, but by the amount of other property of any 
kind which he can get for it. In common parlance, the 
thing is worth what it will fetch. 

It would be fatiguing, if it were not so curious and 
interesting, to wade through the mass of contradictions, 
inconsistencies, fallacies, and sophisms, which have been 
accepted as science for many years in one branch, at least, 
of political economy. Adam Smith's chapter on the com- 
mercial system (Book IV., chap. 1) is full of sophisms. 
As an example, let us take his remarks where he is arguing 
against the natural consequences of the more easy accu- 



46 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

mulation of gold and silver as wealth. ^We do not, 
however,' he says, ^ reckon that trade disadvantageous 
which consists in the exchange of the hardware of Eng- 
land for the wines of France ; and, yet, hardware is a 
very durable commodity, and, were it not for the continual 
exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, 
to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of 
the country. But it readily occurs that the number of 
such utensils is, in every country, necessarily limited by 
the use that there is for them, and that it would be absurd 
to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cook- 
ing the victuals consumed there ;' and further on he adds, 
that the attempt to increase the wealth of a country by 
accumulating gold and silver ' is as absurd as it would be 
to increase the good cheer of families by obliging them. to 
keep an unnecessary number of cooking utensils.' Five 
minutes' consideration will convince any one that the 
comparison is wholly inappropriate. The answer to his 
objection is simple and obvious. If the pots and pans, 
besides beiug durable, were exceedingly portable and 
readily exchangeable at a moment's notice, not only for 
victuals, but for any other commodity or for any kind of 
service which can be required, not only all individuals, 
but all nations, would find it very convenient as well as 
useful to have accumulations of these imaginary pots and 
pans. To say that gold and silver, or pots and pans, are 
not food and clothing is simply to affirm that one object or 
substance is not another. But the next best thing to possess- 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 47 

ing precisely the article which you need, is to have a store 
of that which, like Aladdin's lamp, will obtain for you what- 
ever you desire. And there does seem to besomethingalmost 
magical about the action of gold in the affairs of mankind. 

But the economists not only deny anything magical, 
but they will not allow any action at all. Gold is nothing 
but a ' medium.' And yet, it is very instructive to observe 
how the experience of the world, since the later discoveries 
of large quantities of gold in California and Australia, has 
confirmed the view taken by Hume of the probable efiect 
of increase in the quantity of money, notwithstanding that 
his view is repudiated with contempt by both the elder 
Mill and his more distinguished son. Hume supposed, as 
is stated succinctly by James Mill (2nd edition, p. 160), 
that, ' when an augmentation of money commences, indi- 
viduals, more or fewer, go into the market with greater 
sums. The consequence is that they ofier better prices. 
The increased prices give encouragement to the producers, 
who are incited to greater activity and industry ; and an 
increase of production is the consequence.' 

This is exactly what has happened. But Mr. Mill 
would have none of it. He proceeds to say, that 'this 
doctrine implies a want of clear ideas respecting produc- 
tion ;' and overlooks the fallacy contained in his argument 
on the other side, which he states clearly and tersely 
enough. That fallacy consists in ignoring the element of 
human character mixed up with the matter, and in sup- 
posing that no additional encouragement is given to pro- 



48 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOltY. 

duction because the relative value of money is diminished ; 
while, on the contrary, the acquisitiveness o^ the producer 
is stimulated, because he can buy more money — that is, 
get more gold in exchange for his goods than before, and 
the future eventual reduction in the value of the gold 
does not sensibly aflfect him at the time ; and this is ex- 
plained with clearness by Hume himself in his Essay, 
which is well worth reading again now, although that, 
also, is pervaded in parts by the singular inconsistencies 
arising from the resolution not to acknowledge the exist- 
ence of a physical fact. 

It is impossible to dissociate altogether the two sub- 
jects of money and capital ; and it is this remarkable 
determination not to admit that an article of exchange 
can have an existence except in its effects — this singular 
fallacy where, as' Hume says with reference to another 
point, a collateral effect is taken for a cause — which leads 
the economists into such strange statements and assump- 
tions in ' fundamental propositions on capital.' 

J. S. Mill says, in Book I., chap. 4 :—' Capital, by per- 
sons wholly imused to reflect on the subject, is supposed to be 
synonymous with money. To expose this misapprehension 
would be to repeat what has been said in the introductory 
chapter. Money is no more synonymous with capital than 
it is with wealth. Money cannot in itself perform any 
part of the oflBce of capital, since it can afford no assistance 
to production.' He himself substantially contradicts this 
in other parts of the work ; but place beside the fore- 



* MONEY— A FUNCTION. 49 

going statement the following from his father's book (2nd 
edition, p. 14Q) : — ' If it be considered that the annual 
produce is equal not only to the whole of the net 
revenue of the country ; but along with this to the 
^vhole of the capital excepting that part of it which is 
fixed in durable machinery, it may be understood how vast 
an accession is made to the means of production by pro- 
viding a substitute for the precious metals as a medium 
of exchange.' 

It is not too much to say that the whole of this is 
absolute nonsense.* If money can itself aflford no assistance 
to production, how is it possible that an accession can 
be made to the means of production by providing a sub- 
stitute still more valueless for a useless thing ? 

But more than this. As the economists have settled 
that gold is not a substance but a medium, they are bound 
to show how the accumulation of ' capital 'r— of the savings 
of the nation, of products in former years — has been 
accomplished. And see how they do it. The younger 
Mill, and others after him, have said the same thing in a 
more diffuse style and more words ; but the doctrine pro- 
fessed by the whole school is concisely expressed in the 
passage which I have quoted from James Mill ; and John 
Stuart Mill has stated that the ' growth of capital is similar 
to the growth of population.' 

The comparison is totally untrue, though with a spe- 
cious cleverness about it which is very misleading ; a little 
consideration will, however, show any thoughtful person 

E 



50 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

that the increase of products of manual labour can never 
be the same as the multiplication of animal life by breed- 
ing, except in so far as more hands may make more goods. 
For the comparison to be just, we should suppose that all 
population is every year destroyed, and every year repro- 
duced in greater number by some force external to itself. 
And when we come to think out the proposition that the 
annual produce of the industry of the nation is equal not 
only to the net income of the country, but also to the 
whole of the capital — that is, to all the accumulated 
surplus products over and above consumption of all former 
years from the beginning of national existence — we see 
that we are called on to believe a physical impossibility. 
No proposition in the Athanasian Creed to a sceptical mind 
is half so incredible as this alleged fact. Shall we bow 
down in dazed adoration before this annual miracle — this 
yearly resurrection of a phoenix from its ashes ? Let any 
one try to work the theorem out and see how it will stand 
any mathematical test. Any single industry will do as an 
example, for the whole can only be in this case an aggre- 
gate of single cases ; and no intervention of money must 
be allowed, as we are told that gold is not wealth nor 
capital. Then let us inquire in what manner any manu- 
factory or farm can annually reproduce the aggregate of 
the profits of former years. It will be seen that it can 
do nothing but return the value paid for the labour ex- 
pended upon it in the one year, with that year's profit ; 
and this latter is sometimes wanting. If this were not 



MONEY— A FUNCTION. 51 

SO, the increase in quantity of mere manufactured or pro- 
duced articles over and above consumption would force 
itself upon attention, and would continue until again 
wasted by decay. Because all savings, if not gold and 
silver, must be products of manual labour, and in any case 
must be, in some form or substance, products of the earth. 
But we witness no such accumulations — there are no such 
savings ; and as regards the real necessaries of life, man- 
kind as a whole now. as from the beginning, live literally 
from hand to mouth ; the food to support life must be 
perpetually cultivated, and is not produced in quantity 
more than sufficient for immediate consumption. 

I plead for reconsideration of the ordinary doctrines 
of political economy. The time has come when some one 
should be bold enough to say the truth about them, and 
challenge investigation of facts. We know that an early 
error of a single unit in complicated calculations will 
render valueless the result of much labour. A mistake 
made by Adam Smith in confounding a material article of 
exchange with the act of exchange in which it only takes 
part, has led to still greater confusion, and vitiated an 
infinite amount of argument; producing, among other 
imaginations, that chimera, the ^ capital ' of the econo- 
mists, and the mischievous idea that paper money can be 
anything but a cheat and delusion, except where it is the 
dappelgdnger of a substance of exchangeable value — 
unless, indeed, when it is clearly understood that the paper 
is only a national promissory note representing a promise 

B 2 



52 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

to pay in the future an amount to be raised from future 
taxes upon future national produce, and submitting to be 
discounted accordingly in proportion to the credit of 
the nation. We have, to use a sporting simile, been 
put upon a wrong scent; and it is not wonderful that 
we should be often at fault in searching for the truth in 
questions of economical and social science. As has been 
recently observed by Dr. Carpenter with more gravity of 
language ( ' Psychology of Belief ' — Contemporary Re- 
view, December), it is necessary ' to distinguish what is 
just in itself from what is merely accredited by illustrious 
names. We must cultivate the insight which shall enable 
us to detect a fallacy of observation or a weakness of de- 
duction ; and determinately reject from our ground tiers 
every stone that is not fit to bear the weight of the super- 
structure we intend to raise upon them.' 

I will only further remark, in conclusion, that it is 
worthy of notice how, while allowing ourselves to be mis- 
led by one of Adam Smith's mistakes, we have by common 
consent disregarded a point which he considered as chiefly 
important to be maintained. He argued against the 
advocates of foreign trade. He complained that the 
' inland or home trade, the most important of all, the 
trade in which an equal capital aflfords the greatest 
revenue, and creates the greatest employment to the 
people of the country, was considered as subsidiary only to 
foreign trade. It neither brought money into the country, 
it was said, nor carried any out of it. The country, there- 



L 



MONEY — A FUNCTION. 53 

fore, could never become either richer or poorer by means 
of it, except so far as its prosperity or decay might in- 
directly influence the state of foreign trade.' 

It is plain to observers that, as a nation, we have 
pursued the course deprecated by Adam Smith, and I do 
not say that we have been wrong to do so. But, in fact, 
we have developed our manufactures and our foreign trade 
at the expense of our agricultural and pastoral industries 
until the nation can no longer feed itself, and until the 
result has been produced which was foreseen by Hume 
when he said (Essay on Money) : — ' There seems to be a 
happy concurrence of causes in human affairs which checks 
the growth of trade and riches, and hinders them from 
being confined to one people, as might naturally at first be 
dreaded from the advantages of an established commerce. 
Where one nation has got the start of another in trade, it 
is very difficult for the latter to regain the ground it has 
lost ; because of the superior industry and skill of the 
farmer, and the greater stocks of which its merchants are 
possessed, and which enable them to trade on so much 
smaller profits. But these advantages are compensated, 
in some measure, by the low price of labour in every nation 
which has not an extensive commerce, and does not abound 
in gold and silver. Manufacturers, therefore, gradually shift 
their places, leaving those countries and provinces which 
they have already enriched, and flying to others, whither 
they are allured by the cheapness of provisions and labour ; 
till they have enriched these also, and are again banished 



54 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

by the same causes. And, in general, we may observe that 
the deamess of everything from plenty of money is a dis- 
advantage which attends an established commerce, and 
sets bounds to it in every country by enabling the poorer 
states to undersell the richer in all foreign markets.' 

It is certain that the period has arrived with us when 
our pre-eminence in manufactures is threatened by the 
successful competition of other countries. 



55 



A REVIEW OF MB. MILL'S FUNDAMENTAL 
PROPOSITIONS RESPECTING CAPITAL. 

Mr. Mill is generally regarded as the great apostle of the 
modern doctrines of political economy, and his work is 
almost universally accepted as the text-book upon the 
various subjects which collectively form what is known as 
this science. He tells us that ' besides the primary and 
universal requisites of production — labour and natural 
agents — there is anotlier requisite, without which no pro- 
ductive operations beyond the rude and scanty beginnings of 
primitive industry are possible, namely, a stock previously 
accumulated of the products of former labour. This 
accumulated stock of the produce of former labour is 
termed "capital."' 

Now, for intelligent appreciation of the facts of eco- 
nomical science, it is necessary for students attentively to 
consider what are stated by Mr. Mill as fundamental pro- 
positions respecting capital, the full comprehension of 
which, as he says, is already a considerable step out of 
darkness into light. 

I believe, on careful examination, many persons will, 



56 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

like myself, be surprised to see how exceedingly erroneous 
most of them are. 

The first of these propositions he states to be ^ That 
industry is limited by capital.' The phrase may be ob- 
jected to for want of precision, as it is susceptible of the 
construction that capital is antagonistic to industry ; but 
this is clearly not what Mr. Mill intends. He obviously 
means that without capital there can be no exercise of 
industry ; and he calls it an axiom which imtil lately was 
almost universally disregarded by legislators and political 
writers. 

This so-called axiom scarcely appears to have founda- 
tion in fact. Industry is only limited by the means of 
life. If population is starved to death, industry will 
eflfectually be limited, but not otherwise. While there is 
life there may be also industry ; otherwise we must sup- 
pose that there never could have been any product of 
industry without pre-existent capital ; and as Mr. Mill 
himself has defined capital to be the accumulated stock of 
the produce of former labour, we find ourselves involved 
in a contradiction. Moreover, if the axiom were true, 
no increase of capital could ever be obtained, supposing 
it to be pre-existent in certain quantity. That quantity 
would be necessary for the support of a limited extent of 
industry, and would maintain no more ; and the industry, 
being so limited and dependent on the pre-existent capital, 
could not increase the quantity of capital. If it is capable 
of doing so, then it is obvious that capital proceeds from 
industry and that no limitation of industry is caused by 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 57 

capital, which itself is only an eflfect of industry as a cause. 
Mr. Mill, in fact, puts the cart before the horse in his first 
fundamental proposition. He goes on to say, in his ex- 
planation of it, that the only productive powers are those 
of labour and natural agents — that there can be no more 
industry than is supplied with materials to work up and 
food to eat — that, self-evident as the thing is, it is often 
forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and 
have their wants supplied, not by the produce of present 
labour, but of past — and that, of what has been produced, 
a part only is allotted to the support of productive labour, 
and that there will not and cannot be more of that labour 
than the portion so allotted (which is the capital of the 
country) can feed and provide with the materials and 
instruments of production. From these and his subse- 
quent observations it is obvious that he is not alive to 
the contradictions in which he is involved. 

It is true that there can be no more industry than is 
supplied with materials and food to eat ; but he overlooks 
the fact that all materials are the products of the earth in 
some form or other, always existing without reference to 
labour ; and that there should be food enough in existence 
for inmiediate consumption is an essential condition of any 
human life at all ; no initiatory stage of human transactions 
is conceivable in which the race as a whole, or any part of 
it, was without food to support life, even in the shape 
of wild fowl or animals, or the natiural vegetable products 
of the earth. There was, therefore, no time when the 



58 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

materials and food to eat were not present to support 
industry ; but these, or at least these in this shape, are not 
what Mr. Mill or any one else means by capital ; and it is 
plain that so far from industry being limited by capital, the 
industry must precede and produce the capital in any case 
where it is accumulated. When Mr. Mill, in the next 
place, says that it is forgotten that the people of a 
country are maintained, not by the produce of present 
labour, but of past, he drops out of sight the fact that this 
is only true to a very limited extent. If the continuous 
artificial production of food necessary in present states of 
society were interrupted for a very short time, we should 
know that the product of past labour is sufficient only 
for our support for a very limited period. We should find 
that whatever else may constitute wealth or productive 
labour in the eyes of the economists, food is the primary 
necessity of life, which is not and cannot be accumulated 
for long, nor in large quantity, and never really can form 
any great portion of the savings known as capital. Yet 
without the food capital would be valueless. In fact we 
know that no one practically accounts food as among his 
savings. Whoever possesses more food than he needs for 
the consumption of his own household for such a time as 
it will probably remain undecayed, is only too glad to part 
with the surplus to others in exchange for some less perish- 
able property ; and I suppose that it will be no exagge- 
ration to assume that at no one time is there much more 
food in actual existence than would support mankind for 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 59 

a single year. And further, when Mr. Mill states that a 
part only of what is produced by past labour is allotted to 
the support of productive labour, and there cannot and 
will not be more of that labour than the portion so allotted 
(which is the capital of the country) can feed and provide 
with the materials and instruments of production, he uses 
language exceedingly sophistical and misleading. He 
speaks as though any portion of an existing conmiunity 
were likely to remain imfed imless the capital, that is the 
past savings, is used to feed them ; but the major part of 
past savings consists of substances which cannot be used 
as food ; and food, as I contend, forms in fact little or no 
portion of capital. Except in very extraordinary circum- 
stances, producing famine, we may suppose that all the 
community will be fed, no matter upon what occupation 
they may be employed. They will first and naturally seek 
the occupation which will ensure them food. It is not 
capital that feeds them. Capital can only determine the 
direction in which their labour shall be applied. It is 
accimaulated in substances of exchangeable value, of the 
least perishable nature, of which gold, from its peculiar 
properties, has been generally selected as the most eligible 
for the purpose. The labourer or mechanic gives his 
labour in exchange for gold, which he can again exchange 
for food and other necessaries ; and the person who gives 
the gold can determine by agreement the purpose to which 
the labour shall be applied — to this production or employ- 
ment, or to that ; but this is all. No future production 



60 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

can be accomplished without fresh labour ; while much 
may be produced without any capital at all, if the work- 
men combine, and if only food can be procurable, which in 
many cases it may be, from the natural animal and vegetable 
products of the earth. 

But, it may be urged, when Mr. Mill says that in- 
dustry is limited by capital, that is, the amoimt of 
capital, he means that it is limited by the amount of 
machinery or apparatus and raw material which may be 
applied to the purpose in view. To this I reply that it 
is not accurate to term this a limitation of industry by 
capital. Such a state of things is only limitation of 
a particular kind of production by the lack of the special 
requisites necessary for that purpose — which may occur, 
while, at the same time and place, there is abundance of 
food, and of wealth or capital, or the savings from former 
industry, applicable to other purposes for which both 
labour and capital may be used. As, for instance, when 
during the American war the cessation of the usual 
supply of raw cotton put a stop to the production of the 
Lancashire looms. No one supposed that this eflfect was 
caused by lack of capital, of wealth, or savings to continue 
the industry. These existed in suflBcient abundance, of 
exchangeable value, whether in money or in goods. But 
the accumulated savings from former labour were here 
useless for further production unless they could be 
exchanged for another thing which could not be obtained 
at the time from the usual source of supply. 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 61 

As a broad, general principle, then, we see that it is 
incorrect to say that industry is limited by capital. And 
speculations upon the precedence of capital or industry at 
this stage of human aflfairs are scarcely more profound 
than the wisdom of the owls — those birds being absorbed, 
according to a fable I have heard, in contemplation of the 
question whether there was first an owl and then an egg, 
or first an egg and then an owl. If further illustration 
were, however, wanted, it might be found abundantly in 
the history of many colonies and settlements. The early 
settlers, of course, needed some food, some clothes, and 
some shelter ; but these were of the simplest, and many 
privations had to be endured. Little or nothing of pre- 
vious eavings was brought into a country which, when 
first occupied, was only a savage wilderness, where nothing 
was to be bought, and there were no labourers to employ ; 
and if anything was to be done or procured, it had to be 
done or procured by the settlers themselves. But from 
very small beginnings property was gradually collected 
— such of it as was perishable exchanged for what was 
more useful and durable — and, finally, the surplus savings 
exchanged with other communities for gold, until, for 
instance, now, in less than forty years, there is scarcely 
a more wealthy or prosperous community of the same 
number in the Queen's dominions than the colony in 
which I write. 

That capital is not in all cases indispensable to in- 
dustry may be seen also in instances where nations have 



62 STUJDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

consumed almost all their exchangeable savings, and yet 
contrive to proceed with further production by the aid of 
paper currency, which, in fact, is nothing but promissory 
notes — discounting the produce of labour yet unper- 
formed* It is necessary to remember that very little of 
what is known as property can be applied to the remu- 
neration of labour. Of real property none at all can be 
so applied. It is not divkible, and is not movable. In 
fact, scarcely any commodity can be used for the purpose, 
except gold and silver, in the certified quantities of certain 
quality, which we call money or coin. 

Now, in the United States of America, to say nothing 
of European nations, we find such a state of things in actual 
existence. The exigencies of the civil war caused the 
portion of their accumulations, possessed in the shape of 
gold, to be exchanged with other nations for more perish- 
able commodities, which have been consumed, until little 
has been left of previous savings which is capable of being 
exchanged for fresh labour. The nation has been obliged, 
by what may be regarded as a domestic arrangement 
within itself, to enable the several members of the State 
to give each other credit, on the security of future pro- 
duction, by the issue of paper notes of nominal value, 
which do not represent existing property, but are, in fact, 
merely promises to pay at an indefinite future time. No 
doubt a time may arrive, perhaps must arrive, when the 
foreign trade of the nation will be hampered, at least, to 
the extent of restricting imports to the amoimt which 



MirJi'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 63 

can be paid for by commodities other than gold ; inas- 
much as foreigners will not readily take promises to pay 
which are useless to them out of the United States, But 
it does not follow that this disappearance of capital, or 
accumulation of savings, will at all diminish the industry 
of the nation itself, so long as it is capable of producing 
food and other necessaries of life from time to time, from 
year to year, as occasion requires. In fact, we know that 
it has not limited industry ; and, on the contrary, it may 
be said that, in the absence of accumulations of food, or 
commodities which may be exchanged for food, industry 
is more imperatively enforced to obtain the means of 
living. 

I must not be understood, however, as failing to see 
that the possession of accumulated savings — of capital — 
confers great advantage in industrial pursuits, in so far 
as it enables the possessor to direct masses of labour into 
particular channels, for special objects very beneficial to 
himself. But it is out of the questions concerning the 
degree to which this mode of operation benefits him, 
rather than the labourers employed, that the difficul- 
ties arise which beset the relations of capital and 
labour ; and this kind of limitation to industry is 
quite a diflferent thing from that implied by Mr. Mill's 
generalisation. 

Mr. Mill proceeds to comment upon what he regarded 
as the erroneous belief that laws and governments, with- 
out creating capital, could create industry ; and, further 



64 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

on, he states explicitly that they can create capital by 
laying on taxes and employing the amount productively, 
and in this way can create additional industry. Here, 
again, we are called upon to admit that an eflfect pre- 
cedes a cause. It is totally incorrect to say that capital 
can be created by laying on taxes. Taxes are merely 
contributions in small quantities of existing savings, to 
be again distributed among the community ; it may be 
in very diflferent and much more beneficial proportions 
among the same mass, though this eflfect will depend 
upon the character of the taxation and the purposes to 
which the contributions are applied. The money in 
which the taxes are paid is never destroyed; but it is 
wholly impossible for any government, by taxation, to 
create the slightest addition to any single substance then 
in existence. If, by the application of the capital so 
collected, industry is directed into so-called productive 
employment, any accession to material property pre- 
viously in existence must be obtained from new labour, 
which had not been applied at the time of the collection 
of the taxes ; and all that it is possible for the government 
to do is to apply that labour to one purpose rather than 
another. So, likewise, it is a gross fallacy to assume, as 
is done by Mr. Mill, that laying taxes on income or 
expenditure, and applying the proceeds towards paying 
oflF the public debts, would be equivalent to employing 
the amount productively. If the whole of the public 
debt were wiped oflF to-morrow by a stroke of the pen, the 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 65 

nation, as a whole, could be no richer than it is now, 
except in so far as it got rid of the claims of foreign 
fimdholders. Some individuals would be ruined for the 
eventual advantage of others. Not one ounce of the 
precious metals, nor oif food, nor one shred of other pro- 
perty would be added to what now exists ; no augmentation 
whatever of available capital would take place. The 
national debt in. one, and to the nation the most im- 
portant, sense, is no debt at all from the nation, being 
quite as mucli a debt to the nation. It is merely a 
statement of account between members of the same com- 
munity, recording the obligations of the body as a whole 
to individual members of the partnership, who have lent 
money or goods for purposes of common interest ; and it 
can only determine the manner in which existing property 
shall be distributed. To suppose that capital can be 
created by extinction of the national debt is to suppose 
that a man of large business transactions could increase 
his wealth by debiting in his books an amount against a 
mining speculation, which he credits to a ship's account. 
The proceeding may show that the ship was profitable, 
while the mine caused loss ; but it will not add one 
farthing to the total of his cash account. 

It is not necessary here to follow Mr. Mill through 
the third section of the chapter to which I am referring. 
His arguments appear to me to be based on a radical 
misconception of the true character of the national 
savings which constitute capital, to which I have already 

F 



66 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

adverted in a previous paper,* and I need not recapitulate 
my comments upon that misconception. But it is curious 
to note, in passing on to the consideration of another of 
his ' fundamental propositions,' the singular inconsistency 
of Mr. Mill's statement that every increase of capital 
gives, or is capable of giving, additional employment to 
industry without assignable limit, and the fact that all 
capital is the result of saving from former labour, with his 
anxiety — so constantly shown throughout his work — with 
regard to the eflfect of the increase of population. One 
would suppose that, as labour is the source of all wealth, 
more population would imply more labour, and the 
greater accumulation of savings ; and as more capital 
would aflford more employment without assignable limit, 
there need be no fear of the eflfect of greater population ; 
but for some inscrutable reason, this is not the conclusion 
at which Mr. Mill arrives by the help of his own argu- 
ments, although what the facts of the case are, and the 
experience of multitudes, may be seen from observing the 
course of events and the struggles to obtain population in 
North America and Australasia. 

Mr. Mill's second fundamental proposition is that all 
capital is the result of saving ; and his third that, although 
saved, and the result of saving, it is nevertheless destroyed. 
With the former of these two we need not quarrel ; but 
with all deference to Mr. Mill's reputation, the two to- 
gether constitute a silly paradox, and this silly paradox 

* ' Plea for Some Facts.* 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 67 

we are called on to accept as science. The statement in- 
volves a physical impossibility. It matters not whether 
a material product be consumed by the producer or some 
other person — that thing cannot be saved. It is a marvel 
that the keen and polished intellect attributed to Mr. 
Mill was not sufficiently penetrating to enable him to 
perceive the absurdity of the belief which he was incul- 
cating. The confusion arises from the singular determi- 
nation not to admit — although gold is a commodity — that 
it can have any substantive value as exchangeable property. 
It is necessary to remember that all the commercial or 
economical tiTinsactions of mankind consist of nothing 
more than the exchange of one article of value for another, 
or of the gift of some article of exchangeable value, more 
or less necessary, in exchange for labour, or service of some 
kind. All the products of human manual labour are ma- 
terial substances. It is in the savings of these, at any 
particular point of time, that the capital at that time will 
consist. We must remember, too, that these possessions 
or capital are the product of paat labour which can never 
be again applied ; and if these products are consumed, the 
sa'ine can never be called again into existence, though they 
may be replaced by like substances produced by new labour. 
Now, suppose all industry to be arrested on some one da}^, 
and to be suspended for an indefinite time, it will soon be 
foimd that the greater part of the possessions in existence 
on that one day are required for more or less immediate 
consumption, and will be speedily destroyed ; and if not 

F 2 



68 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

so consumed, will decay, until nothing is left of the stock 
or capital except those things naturally imperishable. 
Let A, B, C, and all the alphabet down to X, Y, Z, repre- 
sent various conmiodities, from very perishable ones, like 
bread and meat, represented by A, B, to very durable 
ones, like gold and silver, which may be Y, Z; it is ob- 
vious that the possibility of accumulating and preserving 
the products of past labour will diminish from Y, Z, up 
to A, B. It is as though one should every day pour into 
the same receptacle a portion of sand, of oil, of water, 
and of ether. It would not surprise him that in a short 
while he should find little but sand, and no ether at all. 
It is so in the exchanges of the world of things of value 
in existence at the same time ; and it is utterly misleading 
to introduce into the computation things which may be 
produced subsequently to that time by new labour. These 
latter can never form a portion of the former capital, 
though the new labour may replace for future use neces- 
saries of which the supply has been exhausted. But if the 
consumption or destruction of these amounts to the number 
or value of ten in a given period, and in that period are 
replaced only by the same number, accmnulation of these 
cannot occur. My argument upon this point is, that all 
transactions in the commerce of mankind are only matters 
of barter or exchange — that gold and silver are part of 
the movable property of mankind— that of this movable 
property the most durable will last longest and be most 
readily accumulated; and that, as everybody is anxious 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 69 

to get gold, because it will keep best and is always ex- 
changeable, savings will naturally fall into the form of 
gold. This being so, and the capital of the world being 
really the savings of the world, on which point I agree 
with Mr. Mill, I say that, as a physical fact, capital will 
consist chiefly of gold. As a matter of fact of another 
kind, no doubt labour is the source of all wealth ; but we 
are too apt to mix up other questions which are metaphy- 
sical with questions of simple physics when we begin to 
talk of labour and industry. We forget that the property 
in existence is the result of labour which has been already 
expended, and which same labour can never be again ap- 
plied. The question to be answered is, how much and 
what kind of the produce of past labom* retaining ex- 
changeable value remains to mankind after the lapse of a 
few years, except gold. Land in this question can scarcely 
be considered, because that has always been in existence 
and will always remain, although in many instances much 
impoverished by cultivation. Mr. Mill admits that very 

I 

little else remains ; and he and his disciples are obliged 
to resort for explanation of the existence of capital to a 
miraculous annual resurrection of what has been destroyed. 
This is untrue. The same old products of former labour 
are not reproduced. And if gold does not represent the 
savings of former years, then we, in fact, have no accumu- 
lations of circulating capital of any consequence. Mr. 
Mill's conception of it is chimerical. His proposition 
involves a supposition similar to this, that, if I now drop 



70 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

my manuscript into the fire where it is consumed, I shall 
also have saved it. It is true I may reproduce my essay 
by re-writing it ; but for this purpose I shall have to use 
fresh paper, fresh ink, and new labour. The mental and 
manual exertion which I may employ to-morrow will not 
be the same which were expended yesterday. There seems 
to be a tendency in words to deviate from their original 
meaning. We lose sight of the fact that capital means 
things saved ; and because the word is sometimes used 
to signify any advantage, as when we speak of political 
capital, it has almost become synonymous with some im- 
material abstraction. To permit ourselves to be misled by 
this, is almost as absurd as it would be to suppose that a 
table really means a dinner, because when it is said that 
a man keeps a good table, it is meant that he gives good 
dinners. But confusion as to what he regards as being 
saved is repeatedly apparent in Mr. Mill's contention. In 
speaking of what is done with the capital which he repre- 
sents as being consumed (Vol. I., p. 87), he says, ' Part is 
exchanged for tools and machipery, which are worn out by 
use ; part for seed or materials, which are destroyed as 
such by being sown, or wrought up and destroyed alto- 
gether by the consumption of the ultimate product. The 
remainder is paid in wages to productive labourers, who 
consume it for their daily wants ; or, if they in their turn 
save any part, this also is not generally hoarded, but 
(through savings banks, benefit clubs, or some other 
channel) re-employed as capital and consumed.' Now, if 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 71 

labourers save any part of the capital by the aid of savings 
banks and benefit clubs, that part of the capital must be 
money, and if re-employed as capital cannot be consimied, 
but only again exchanged. And, although the machinery 
and the tools for which the capitalist has exchanged other 
part of his capital will wear out, the capital which he gave 
will have been also money, and that will not wear out, but 
will again be exchanged ; and therefore it is absurd to say 
that the capital has been consiuned so far as the community 
at large is concerned, though the individual who had it has 
consumed his temporary use of it. 

There is something amusing in the simplicity with 
which Mr. Mill states that ' to the vulgar it is not at all 
apparent that what is saved is consumed.' To them, he 
says, every one who saves appears in the light of one who 
hoards. He fails to see that no one does, or, in fact, can, 
hoard to advantage anything but gold ; and that, according 
to his theory, it ought to be totally immaterial whether 
that is hoarded or not, it being useless for production. In 
any case it is indestructible. The only evil which can 
arise to the general public from hoarding gold is from 
keeping an article of exchangeable value out of the circu- 
lation to which every such article contributes. Even to 
the possessor of the hoard the loss is only of the interest — 
formerly called the usury — which would be given to him 
for the temporary use of the gold as an article of exchange ; 
and presumably its services in this capacity must be va- 
luable or they would, not be paid for. But all Mr. Mill's 



72 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

arguments in favour of saving any thing but gold are in 
direct contradiction to those which he uses in support of 
the consumption of what he regards as capital ; and there 
is almost a puerile misapprehension of the true state of the 
case when he says that it is the intervention of money 
which obscures to an unpractised apprehension the true 
character of these phenomena. One might almost as well 
urge that it is the intervention of water which prevents a 
correct understanding of the action of a water-mill ; and 
it would be equally absurd to contend that the power of 
the water is not to be taken into account because the same 
water can drive several wheels in succession, as to overlook 
the exchangeable value of gold because it can be exchanged 
again and again. The gold, in fact, is the power which 
drives the wheel, but it is not the wheel of circulation 
itself. Most undoubtedly, all expenditure being carried 
on by the use of a special, most generally used, article of 
value, that article comes to be looked upon as the main 
feature in the transaction — as much so in the case of gold 
as it would be in the case of wool or wheat and no more ; 
'and since the article of gold does not perish, but only 
changes hands, people cZo, most naturally, fail to see that 
any destruction of that property takes place in the case of 
what is called unproductive expenditure. The money being 
merely transferred, they do most truly think that that 
wealth has only been handed over from the spender, whom 
Mr, Mill calls the spendthrift, to other people who may use 
it as they choose, for any purpose, productive or otherwise, 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 73 

just as readily as any one previously. This is by no means 
confounding money with other wealth, but is distinctly 
recognising the special character of this form of wealth. 
The wealth which has been destroyed, as Mr. Mill says, 
was not the money, but the wines, equipages, and furniture, 
which the money purchased ; and from these no return 
whatever could have been obtained except by their pur- 
chase in this manner for destruction ; and therefore society 
is not poorer by the amount so destroyed. 

The whole of Mr. Mill's subsequent argument, in the 
place to which I am referring (Vol. I., p. 90), amounts in 
effect only to this, that society should put an end to the 
production of all articles of luxury, and that laboiu: should 
be applied only to the growth and manufacture of neces- 
saries for the majority of the community, in order that all 
may have enough of these. I have not the slightest ob- 
jection to offer to this as a matter of morality; but it 
appears to me that, what we call economical laws, cannot 
ensure it ; and certainly the operation of free trade and 
modem commercial policy have a directly contrary ten- 
dency. 

In a recent article in the Fortnightly Review^ Pro- 
fessor Fawcett discusses the eflfect of an increased pro- 
duction of wealth upon wages, which it is admitted in 
many cases have not been advanced at all by the unpre- 
cedented growth of the trade of the country. It appears 
to be regarded as extraordinary that the working pro- 
ducer should not have been benefited by this remarkable 



74 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

augmentation of national wealth. It does not seem to 
occur to Mr. Fawcett that there is no reason why the 
profits on national exchanges should flow into the pockets 
of the manufacturer or of the labourers whom he employs. 
In fact the competition to which he is subjected with 
rival producers in other coimtries in selling to the export- 
ing merchants may, and does, compel the manufacturer 
to keep down wages at a point which will enable him to 
sustain such a competition. The profits which accrue on 
the successful exchanges of the commodities after they 
are produced, for other consumable commodities, and 
finally for gold — into which commodity all profits will 
eventually gravitate, if I may be allowed the expression 
— will be found in possession of the mercantile or trading 
rather than the manufacturing or producing class. The 
first action of free trade is to produce this result. The 
subsequent and eventual tendency is to promote the 
migration of industries to places where they can be con- 
ducted most cheaply by cheap labour. From a cosmopo- 
litan point of view this effect need not be deprecated. 
To the world at large it is immaterial whether cotton 
manufactures are carried on in India, by British skill 
and capital and native labour, br in the Southern States 
of America, by American enterprise and imported Chinese 
labour ; though the Lancashire cotton spinners will pos- 
sibly look at the matter in another light. 

Mrv Fawcett, adopting the prevalent theory that gold 
and silver can have no other effect upon the world's 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 75 

exchanges than that of a so-called medium, through 
which they are transacted, does not recognise the eflFects 
which flow naturally from the fact that labourers are paid 
for their labour in gold, which is never destroyed, and 
from the character of this first exchange aflFecting all sub- 
sequent transactions ; but proceeds to consider the case, 
as usual, 'without the intervention of money.' He 
accounts for the results by assigning three causes — in- 
crease of population, the displacement of labour by 
machinery, and the export of capital. But it may be 
doubted whether either of these can have any perceptible 
influence in the matter. The more numerous marriages 
caused by higher wages, and any real increase of popula- 
tion in consequence, are probably more than counter- 
balanced by the emigration of adult males in the very 
flower of manhood during the last twenty-five years ; 
because very few of the children of marriages contracted 
during that period can yet have arrived at an age when 
they may render efi'ective assistance in any industry. As 
to the effect of machinery, Mr. Mill has himself observed 
that hitherto ' it is questionable if all the mechanical 
inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any 
human being. They have only enabled a greater popula- 
tion to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, 
and an increased number of manufacturers and others to 
make their fortunes.' And it frequently has been urged 
in defence of machinery, that so far from diminisliing the 
demand for labour, it has created new sources of employ- 



76 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ment and need for labour. If machinery does cheapen 
labour or throw men out of employment, it must be 
admitted that improvements in machinery are not benefi- 
cial to the labouring classes. With respect to the last 
cause assigned by Mr. Fawcett — the export of capital — 
it ought to be almost a suflBcient answer to observe that, 
if capital has been exported to a large extent, then pro 
tanto^ the wealth of the country has been so exported, 
and is no longer in Great Britain. It is again necessary 
to insist upon it that capital is saving, and saving can 
only consist of material things. If this material wealth 
has been exported to other countries, all the advantages 
connected with it are transferred also, just as much as the 
material advantage of the possession and use of a carriage 
and horses will be transferred to another person if I lend 
him mine, though I may remain the nominal proprietor, 
and may expect to have my property returned to me at 
some time, with or without compensation for the use of 
it. But it may also be noted how inconsistent is this 
latter suggestion of Professor Fawcett's with the prin- 
ciples laid down by the school to which he belongs. If 
money is not capital — if capital consists only of the in- 
creased value given to farms by the improvements to land 
and buildings, of development of factories and a greater 
number of them, of more numerous and better dwellings, 
and of a diffusion of general prosperity among the mass 
of the people, so that they who were previously badly 
housed and fed live in more comfort, and fare more plen- 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 77 

tifuUy, if not luxuriously — then in what manner would it 
be possible to export this kind of capital ? But here 
again we have an instance of the remarkable contra- 
dictions apparent in the doctrines of the economists. 
They are constantly coming into contact with facts, and 
base arguments upon them which are at variance with the 
theories they endeavour nevertheless to maintain by an 
eflfort to make the facts coincide with them. 

Mr. Mill observes that all the ordinary forms of lan- 
guage tend to disguise that everything which is produced 
is consumed, and that by the language used, the idea 
suggested is, that the riches transmitted from ancestors 
and predecessors were produced long ago at the time 
when they were first acquired, and that no portion of the 
capital of the country was produced this year, except 
such as may have been added then to the total amount. 
He says that the fact is far otherwise. He seems to pay 
no attention to the probability — to use no stronger term 
— that this language embodies the common sense, that 
is, the common agreement from experience, of societies ; 
who know that the land, from the products of which the 
incomes and subsistence of all are in some way derived, 
was always in existence ; and, leaving land as a possession 
which is peculiar in its character out of the question, 
that many products of human industry are more or less 
durable, and some counted as the most valuable for 
exchange, are most imperishable, as are gold and silver ; 
and that these are transmitted from one generation to 



78 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. ' 

another. It is idle to pretend that civilised nations do 
not now possess an enormously greater quantity of gold 
and other more or less durable property than was accu- 
mulated fifty years ago, which will be transmitted to our 
posterity ; and equally delusive to ignore the consequences 
to industry, production, and commerce, which is only ex- 
change, produced by this possession. This large accession 
to the quantity of the precious metals, of which the value 
in exchange is still recognised, has produced a twofold 
efifect, in first augmenting the purchasing power of por- 
tions of the human race, and then stimulating the pro- 
ductive industry of other portions, until large additions 
have been made to other forms of wealth and industry, so 
that much more of all wealth exists now than formerly. 
But these causes do not necessarily ensure, and, in fact, 
have not produced any more equal distribution of goods. 
On the contrary, the tendency appears to be in the 
opposite direction. 

The perpetual consumption and reproduction of capital, 
according to his theory, Mr. Mill thinks, affords the ex- 
planation of what has so often excited wonder, the great 
rapidity with which countries recover from devastation, 
caused by war or other calamities ; and he says that 
there is nothing wonderful in the matter. But there 
would be if we accept his explanation. It is totally falla- 
cious to speak of a; via medicatrix naturce in such a 
question. Nature will do nothing here ; all must be ac- 
complished by human labour. All that his argument 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 79 

shows, if it shows anything, is that there is no such thing 
as capital, and that there is no necessity for it. If indus- 
try were limited by capital, and money, that is, gold and 
silver, is not capital, then the devastation having destroyed 
the capital, industry must cease and nothing further could 
be done. But the fact is that the wealth destroyed would, 
in any case, have perished sooner or later, and needed to 
be replaced by other wealth, as Mr. Mill admits ; though 
he forgets that it cannot be the same wealth, and that 
this must always be done by new labour not before applied ; 
and the real savings of the former labour of the inhabitants 
embodied by exchange in gold and silver are not destroyed. 
Where these have been plundered from the inhabitants, 
their means of procuring in exchange for them the neces- 
saries of life, or the materials for resuming their usual 
occupations, will have been diminished ; but treasure we 
know, on almost all such occasions as hostile invasion, is 
immediately and easily removed, or concealed in places 
of security. And it by no means unfrequently happens 
that their store of precious metals is added to, at least in 
modern times, since the harsher modes of warfare have 
been abandoned, by the expenditure of a foreign army 
during the time of the hostile occupation. Prince Bismarck 
practically recognised this truth, when he insisted upon 
the indemnity from France of £200,000,000 of gold as 
compensation for the Prussian war expenses. It was the 
only way to recover money which, in fact, had been trans- 
ferred to France. 



80 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOilY. 

But as an instance of warfare on the largest scale, 
where the evils of such a struggle, prolonged for nearly 
five years, must have been felt in all their intensity, and 
yet where there was no introduction of foreign money or 
foreign supplies, which were not raised as loans, or paid 
for by the inhabitants of the country which was the seat 
of war, it will be worth our while to consider the effects 
produced by the gigantic civil war in the United States. 

Let us think of what actually happened. Somewhat 
more than a million of lives, I believe, are said to have 
been lost ; and expenditure, which was defrayed partly by 
loans of money and partly by paper issues, was incurred 
to the extent of more than £500,000,000 sterling. The 
contest was between peoplq of the same nation, and it may 
be assimied that no important addition was made from 
without to the population to be supported during the time 
of the war. On the contrary, it appears that consumers to 
the extent of a million, or whatever was the real number, 
were removed. Of the combatants and others engaged, it 
may be assumed, I think fairly, that all would have been 
fed and clothed if there had been no war ; and it would 
probably not be too much to say that their actual consump- 
tion of commodities and comforts, not to say of luxuries, 
-fluring the campaigns, was really less than it would have 
been in time of peace. The consumption of the neces- 
saries of life is varied very little by the different occu- 
pations in which men are engaged, but the diminution 
caused in some respects during a state of war would 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 81 

probably nearly counterbalance the destruction from waste 
which, no doubt, is sometimes unavoidable. The usual 
consumption would be almost entirely of things like arms 
and ammimition, and warlike equipments of various kinds, 
the destruction of which would scarcely be felt on return 
of peace. The loss of these, and of the products which it 
may be supposed the men under arms might during the 
war have developed from the soil or raw material, if not so 
engaged, will really constitute the whole diminution of 
property caused by the war, except in so far as buildings 
or permanent structm'es may have been partially injured, 
or other property vindictively destroyed. Of the accumu- 
lated savings of the people existing at the commencement 
of the war in gold and silver none will have been destroyed. 
The chief evils of war, apart from loss of life, consist not 
so much in destruction as in the more or less violent and 
sudden dislocation and redistributioaof capital. Even for 
this, and for losses of some property, it will be seen further 
on that the nation is not without compensation. But 
these masses of men under arms for a national purpose or 
the common weal are to be paid, fed, and clothed, and 
furnished with munitions and materials of war at the 
common national or public expense, not at their individual 
or private charges. This expense must be defrayed from 
the public chest, or what used in the early days of the 
West Indian Colonies to be there expressively termed ' the 
common stock.' The common stock not being sufficient 
for this sudden emergency, money must be raised by taxes, 

Q 



82 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

which are only contributions or subscriptions from cdl the 
nation to compensate that portion of it which jJerfcHnais a 
particular service, and to pay for the cost of materials for 
performing it. These contributions of taxes being in 
money, would in any case not be destroyed, but only again 
distributed among the nation as a whole. But for reasons, 
among which political considerations are not the least, the 
Grovemment, as agent for the nation, regards it as ex- 
pedient to meet the exigency by a loan rather than by 
present taxation, thus deferring the period at which each 
individual taxpayer of the nation shall contribute his 
quota. The necessary amount is, therefore, in the first 
instance, raised by the nation as a body borrowing from 
some of its citizens what is required, and so far nothing is 
done beyond redistributing the property of the society as a 
whole. But the accumulations of individual citizens are 
not sufficient to furnish enough in a lump for the purposes 
immediately in view, and recourse is had to loans of money 
from members of foreign nations, on the security of bonds 
bearing interest to be repaid at a future time. Now, the 
immediate eflFect of this is really to bring more money, that 
is more capital of an imperishable character, into the 
United States ; the persons who have lent it having 
nothing in exchange for it but promises to pay it back at 
a future time, with interest for the use of it in the mean- 
while. The nation is therefore absolutely in possession of 
more capital than it had before, though under an engage- 
ment to return it at a future period. Contractors make 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 83 

fortunes ; more money circulates among the money-dealing 
classes ; but the Grovemment, as agent for the nation, soon 
finds itself again in need of funds for carrying on the war ; 
because the continuously increased outflow from the public 
chest, or common stock, is not compensated by simul- 
taneous income or contributions — what we call taxes — 
from the several parts of the whole to that common stock. 
The nation is really much richer ; but with a large public 
debt. Almost all the advantages which are attributed to 
an abimdance of capital in a country, by any school of 
economists, existed, and would have remained, but for 
some collateral circumstances; and even after making 
allowance for them, the extraordinary prosperity of the 
United States since the war has been notorious. More 
money was wanted, however, by the Government, and the 
device was resorted to of legal tender notes, or incon- 
vertible paper currency, not bearing interest. When issue 
of such a currency takes place — which is really nothing 
but the issue of national I.O.U.s — the real currency or 
circulating capital of the country will speedily disappear 
before it, to do elsewhere what cannot be done by the 
I.O.U.s. The exports of the country being greatly 
diminished, and not being sufficient to meet the cost of 
large importations of expensive materials of war, the 
difference of value could only be paid in Europe in gold, 
and great part of the gold accordingly went to Europe for 
that purpose ; while other circumstances connected with 
the deranged trade led to exportation of other part ; until 

G 2 



84 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

almost the only so-called money left in circulation was an 
aggregate of small promissory notes, redeemable at no 
specified period, amounting even in 1873 tp ,^35 6,000,000. 
These promissory notes, like all others, could not be pro- 
tected from the usual effect of credit, and had to submit 
to discount, at one time of as much as sixty per cent. ; for 
it is necessary to recall to mind that what was termed a 
rise of prices in the United States was nothing but the 
low value of this inconvertible paper currency. It really 
represented, and still represents, nothing but the antici- 
pation of future products of ^ future years, perhaps of 
future generations. But, as in like cases with individuals, 
these paper issues do produce a temporary accession to the 
means of the nation, just as a man will benefit by the 
property he can get in exchange for a promissory note 
which will have to be paid after his death by some one 
else. There is no way, as Mr. Mill has said, in which a 
general rise in prices, or, in other words, depreciation of 
money, can benefit anybody, except at the expense of 
somebody else. And in this case the nation, as a whole, 
benefited at the expense of individuals. It was an unjust 
form of taxation. Individuals paid by the State were 
forced to take these notes at their nominal value ; while, 
so soon as it was sought to exchange them for gold or 
other commodities, they could only be passed for half that 
amount. Private creditors suffered heavily. The only 
mode by which public creditors, contractors, and others 
could protect themselves was by charging more than 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 85 

double what would have satisfied them if paid in gold. 
The Grovernment, therefore, as agent for the people in 
this case, had to do what was tantamount to the proceed- 
ing of the young spendthrift who takes forty pounds and a 
worthless picture for a post obit for one hundred pounds. 
But, like the young spendthrift, the nation has temporarily 
benefitted by the present addition to its means. Mr. Mill 
has said that ' substitution of paper for metallic currency 
is a national gain ; any further increase of paper beyond 
this is but a form of robbery.' I think him entirely 
wrong in regarding it as a real — that is, a permanent gain. 
It is not possible to make real value out of nothing. His 
mistake arises from regarding money as only a mediiun 
of exchange, which it is not — it is a substantive article of 
exchange. Paper money can no more be a permanent 
gain to a nation than a promissory note can be so to a 
merchant who makes it ; but like the promissory note, it 
may afford immense transient advantage, as has, in fact 
been seen in the United States. It has had the temporary 
effect of adding circulating credit to the extent of more 
than seventy-two millions of pounds sterling to the mercan- 
tile resources of the nation, which has used abroad the 
gold displaced at home. 

And this view is not inconsistent with the fact that in- 
convenience is now felt in the United States from the 
attempts to contract the currency. The gold and silver 
money which has been superseded by the paper has been 
exchanged in foreign trade for other forms of wealth, some 



86 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

of which have been destroyed, and the rest cannot answer 
the purpose of money so well, and especially do not permit 
accumulations of savings to be made in their form, except 
to a limited extent. The nation is rich, but not in gold 
and silver. Savings may be made in the shape of the 
national paper currency, or promises to pay, so long as it 
remains in circulation and retains credit ; but as it falls in 
to the public chest for taxes or anything else, and is laid 
aside without re-issue, unless it is replaced by gold, so 
much exchangeable credit is removed from circulation, 
and the lack of the function naturally discharged by gold 
begins to be felt ; and the inconvenience must continue 
imtil excess of value of exports over imports and the 
receipt of the difference in gold again restores as much as 
is needed of that commodity to embody the savings — ^the 
capital of the nation. 

Consideration of these circimastances will enable us to 
understand the effect of Grovemment loans for war purposes, 
or other expenditure which is called unproductive, and 
why, as Mr. Mill admits was the case, ' the years in which 
expenditure of this sort has been on the greatest scale 
have often been years of great apparent prosperity ; the 
wealth and resources of the country, instead of diminish- 
ing, having given every sign of rapid increase during the 
process, and of greatly expanded dimensions after its close, 
as was confessedly the case during the last long continental 
war.' So long as we are misled by such suppositions as 
that * the whole amount borrowed by the Government is 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 87 

destroyed, and was abstracted by the lender from a produc- 
tive employment in which it had actually been invested,' we 
can never ascertain the true state of the case. The amount 
borrowed is borrowed in money, which is not destroyed, 
but put into immediate circulation ; and if in the posses- 
sion of the lender to lend, it could not then have been 
invested in any productive employment. We talk of 
* investing ' money, and ' locking^ up ' capital, as if some 
such thing was really done as enclosing it in something 
else, or hoarding it for a time, whereas there is no more 
certain mode of passing money from hand to hand than by 
exchanging it for other property, which is what we call 
investment, 

Mr. Mill states that, according to the principles he 
lays down, these loans must tend to impoverish the 
country ; yet he cannot help the admission contained in 
the passage quoted above, that they did not in fact do so. 
It is strange that he should have been so prejudiced by 
his theories as not to see that the facts must be right and 
his theory wrong. Instead of inquiring why the facts 
oppose the theory, and where the explanation is to be 
found for this remarkable discrepancy, he disingenuously 
endeavours to give reasons for ' the causes which operated, 
and do commonly operate, to prevent these extraordinary 
drafts on the productive resources of the country from 
being so much felt as it might seem reasonable to expect.' 
I say, disingenuously, because it is disingenuous to assume 
that there has been any extraordinary draft on the re- 



88 STUDIES IN POIJTICAL ECONOMY. 

sources of the country in the face of evidence that 
*the wealth and resources of the country, instead of 
diminishing, have given every sign of rapid increase 
during the process, and of greatly expanded dimensions 
after its close.' If the vast sum of the nominal war debt 
of the United States really represented the value of pro- 
perty, of capital, of accumulated savings from past labour, 
absolutely and truly destroyed by the war, then indeed the 
nation would have been impoverished to prostration. But 
it does nothing of the^ kind. A part of that sum merely 
represents national property re-distributed subject to 
certain obligations inte7' se ; a part represents money 
borrowed from foreigners, which — or the property which 
has been bought with it — still exists in the possession of 
the nation ; and the rest is composed of the paper cur- 
rency or circulating credit by which future contributions 
from individual citizens to the common stock have been 
discounted; these latter never having represented any 
true property either in gold or goods. 

We now pass on to Mr. Mill's fourth fundamental 
proposition — that demand for commodities is not a 
demand for labour. It is no wonder, as Mr. Mill says, 
that political economy advances so slowly when such a 
paradoxical question as this still remains open at its 
very threshold. The proposition is a sophism, and Mr. 
Mill's treatment of it is most sophistical. Of course, 
a commodity is not the same thing as labour. A com- 
modity is the product of labour now expended and deadj 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 89 

and the commodity remains in place of it. Water is 
not a pmnp. A demand for water is not, in the first 
instance, a demand for a pump ; if water is to be obtained 
from a bucket already supplied there is no demand upon 
the pump ; but if none can be obtained but from a pump, 
then, in fact, a need for water does most emphatically 
make a demand upon the pump-handle. If we can 
imagine a suspension of human affairs, in which all pro- 
duction had ceased, then a demand for commodities 
would certainly not be a demand for labour. But we 
know that the business and transactions of mankind are 
in a state of continuous flux, and the consumption of 
commodities to-day or this year does create an effective 
demand for labour to produce more for consumption to- 
morrow or next year. If this were not so, indeed, the 
imaginary spendthrift — ^that bete noire of the economists — 
would, on the ground of their own arguments, have a full 
and complete answer to all their reproaches. He might 
logically say — You state that a demand for commodities 
is not a demand for labour. I do not want labour ; I 
want commodities, and give capital in exchange for them. 
Take your capital and employ the labour to produce 
anything you please, and leave me unmolested to enjoy 
the commodities I consume ; I do you no harm. And this 
answer is, indeed, true as regards any commodities already 
in existence. The labour which produced them has been 
used, and can never be again applied to any purpose ; and 
if the commodities which have been the result cannot be 



90 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

profitably exchanged, the labour is for ever lost. No 
abstinence from consumption of a luxury — be it velvet, 
lace, or champagne— can enable that thing, velvet, lace, 
or champagne, to be transmuted into food or common 
clothing, or enable the labour which made it to be used 
again for the production of any more necessary com- 
modity. The past is irrevocable. All that can be done 
at any point of time is to determine how labour shall best 
be applied in the future for the good of the social body. 
And this is done by demand caused by consumption. It 
may be safely assumed that there will be no demand for 
superfluities until the necessity for that which cannot be 
dispensed with has been satisfied. 

But it is a sophism to say that ' manufacturers and 
their labourers do not produce for the pleasure of their 
customers, but for the supply of their own wants ; and 
having still the capital and the labour, which are the 
essentials of production, they can either produce some- 
thing else which is in demand, or, if there be no other 
demand, they themselves have one, and can produce the 
things which they want for their own consumption.' The 
pleasure of their customers does determine what is pro- 
duced, and it is simply absurd to pretend that if it were 
the united pleasure of consumers no longer to wear cotton 
clothing, it would be easy for the Lancashire manufac- 
turers to remove their capital into some other manu- 
facture. They could do nothing of the kind. Their 
present capital — ^the buildings, machinery, and appliances 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 91 

for makiDg cotton goods, for which they had exchanged 
their former capital in gold and silver — would be totally 
useless for any other purpose ; and, as the making of 
cotton goods is supposed to cease, no one would or 
could have any desire for the possession of this property, 
and it would not be saleable. It is important to re- 
member that, in spite of what Mr. Mill says, it is 
Tiot always the fact 'that the capital invested in an 
employment can be withdrawn from it if sufficient 
time be allowed.' The outfit and buildings intended 
for one industry cannot be transferred to another. When 
a man retires from a business under circumstances such 
as I have supposed, he retires because he is unable 
to carry it on ; but he cannot withdraw capital which is 
lost to him for ever. The cotton manufacturers would 
simply be ruined. They live, they move, and have their 
being on the breath of the demand for cotton goods — ^no 
other demand will suit their purpose ; and the property 
which they possess in this shape would not render to 
themselves the slightest assistance even in growing a 
potato or a cabbage for their own sustenance. It is 
absurd to suppose that they can now produce the things 
they want for their own consumption. The economists 
constantly speak as if * production' were a single sub- 
stance, applicable to all kinds of consumption — as if a 
piece of it might be turned into a coat, another portion 
used to feed a baby, and, if not wanted for these purposes, 
could be made into a railway bridge. It seems to be for- 



92 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

gotten that abstinence of A from the consumption of 
velvet will by no means supply B with bread ; the velvet 
cannot be turned into bread or anything else. The bread 
can only be obtained, if required in greater quantity, by 
labour specially applied to land ; and it does not at all 
follow that even by withdrawing the whole of the labour 
now applied to the production of what are called luxuries, 
and applying it to the cultivation of the soil, any con- 
siderably greater quantity of food can be produced, except 
in places where there are large tracts of unoccupied 
country; and in these the lack is not of food but of 
luxuries, for which the inhabitants of such places are 
ready to exchange their surplus food. It is for this reason 
that I conceive it to be altogether a fallacy to state, as 
Mr. Mill does, that a person who buys commodities and 
consumes them himself does no good to the labouring 
class. What he consumes can never be turned into capital 
or made use of in any other way if not so taken in 
exchange for consumption. A piece of velvet cannot 
itself afford any assistance in making more velvet; just as 
little can it do in producing cotton goods, or cloth, or 
butter, bread or cheese. But the purchaser of the velvet 
exchanges for it gold — a species of possession more readily 
exchangeable for any of these things, or for the labour 
necessary to obtain or produce them ; and which yet, from 
its durability, possesses the advantage of never being itself 
consumed, retaining after each exchange an unimpaired 
power of purchase. Mr. Mill and others constantly speak 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 93 

of the application of capital, as if in that application 
' capital' were destroyed or * consumed ;' whereas, in fact, 
there is nothing so indestructible as capital. If the 

* capitalist ' pays Five Pounds for a piece of velvet, he has 
parted with the potentiality of purchasing other things to 
the extent of Five Pounds, and the velvet for which he 
has exchanged his money will wear out, but the Five 
Pounds remain, do not wear out, and, in other hands than 
his, will retain the power of supporting labour un- 
diminished. The intervention of money is so important a 
factor in all these problems that it is impossible to grasp 
a true idea of them, if its effects are disregarded. 

It is surprising how slow we are to perceive that the 
communities of the world, as social conditions are at 
present constituted, and probably will be to the end of 
time, are like a number of children playing at a game of 

* Commerce.' Suppose some children playing for a pool, 
say of ten, or any other number of bonbons, contributed 
by them, each child having a certain number of counters 
for each bonbon as a * medium of exchange.' Suppose 
that at the end of the first round or game these counters 
are not called in, or set aside as having fulfilled their pur- 
pose, but that the players are allowed to retain them in 
addition to the bonbons, and to use them in playing in 
exchange for bonbons at the same rates as before. Sup- 
pose, further, that the bonbons and counters being thus 
interchangeable, the bonbons are composed of a substance 
of perishable nature, which will not last beyond a few 



94 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

hours ; and also that, being good to eat and capable of 
being made into toys, a good many are so consmned by 
the young players ; but that others can be and are by 
them made with some trouble, though scarcely much 
faster than the first bonbons decay, or are consumed. 
Suppose further, that the dm*able counters are allowed to 
be augmented in number by digging in the garden for 
some which are concealed there, and can be obtained 
with more or less diflficulty. It is obvious, I think, that 
in this little game, before it has been long played, and so 
long as it continues, the desirable thing to do, is to get 
possession of as many of the counters as possible. They 
do not perish, and cannot be consumed, although they 
can at any time be exchanged for any bonbons at that 
time imdecayed and unconsumed. And the little player 
who accumulates most counters will soon be the capitalist 
who possesses the potentiaUty of wealth— who can com- 
mand when he chooses, the largest amount of the more 
perishable commodities then existing or thereafter to be 
produced. Of course I quite admit that if the game is 
stopped, and the counters called in, then he who has the 
most bonbons will be in truth the wealthiest; but so 
long as the game goes on the counters are the things to 
have. The actual commerce of the world is almost pre- 
cisely analogous to this imaginary little game. So long 
as gold and silver are recognised as counters in the trans- 
actions of mankind, they will possess intrinsic worth, 
will be accumulated more easily and more certainly than 




MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 95 

other property, and will constitute the greatest part of 
our wealth, as being the most durable form of it, until 
such time as the world — if ever — can stop its game of 
commerce and set aside the counters ; and in proportion 
as freedom of trade and facility of intercourse render it 
easier to supply our wants from foreign countries, by 
buying with counters instead of producing articles of con- 
sumption ourselves, so will the practical value of the 
counters increase as compared with any other form of 
property. 

The fact that the precious metals which we use as the 
basis of our currency and all our commercial transactions 
are more dm'able than the commodities for which they are 
exchanged, and are also more readily exchangeable, does 
introduce an element into all economical questions which 
cannot be disregarded if we seek for truth. It is a mere 
sophism for Mr. Mill, or any one else, to say that * it is not 
with money that things are really purchased,' and that 
* there cannot be intrinsically a more insignificant thing in 
the economy of society than money, except as a contri- 
vance for saving time and labour.' The gold-digger 
knows better, and the common experience of mankind con- 
tradicts the delusion. 

In his illustrations regarding the comparative good 
done to the labouring classes by buying velvet, or by 
paying for labour directly, Mr. Mill says that the funds of 
the manufacturer * while locked up in velvet cannot be 
directly applied to the maintenance of labour.' But, in 



96 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

fact, so far from any funds being ' locked up in the velvet,' 
they have been put into circulation by the manufacturer 
having exchanged them for the * plant,' the machinery, 
and labour of various kinds which have produced the velvet 
he now wishes to sell. He has his buildings and other 
appliances — whatever they may be — and the product of 
the labour for which he has paid ; but his original capital 
(the money which he has expended) has been set free, and 
has already flowed into innumerable labour-nourishing 
channels. The manufacturer has nothing * locked up' 
which could previously, or can then be applied to main- 
tenance of labour, except in so far as his buildings and 
machinery maybe again exchanged for money. But it is 
clear that they would only be purchased for money on the 
supposition that they could be put to profitable use in the 
business for which they are intended, and which can only 
be rendered profitable by the employment of labour. If, 
on the other hand, the property purchased by the capital 
originally expended upon it should prove to be valueless 
from any reason, and therefore unsaleable, the person who 
had so exchanged his money for it may be ruined, or at all 
events has pro ta/nto lost the potentiality of procuring 
other service or commodities with the capital which he 
has transferred ; yet the capital itself is neither destroyed 
nor ' locked up,' but possesses a^ much the power of sup- 
porting labour as it ever did from the first instant of its 
existence, as the representative of value of some kind. 
Supposing that I am right in regarding it as a fallacy 



MILUS VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 97 

to treat money exchanged for luxuries as so much capital 
consumed^ it must be seen that what the spendthrift 
expends is not substracted from the potential energy of 
the country as generally asserted. What is consimied is a 
perishable commodity which in any case could not be pre- 
served beyond a certain period, and cannot be added to the 
* potential energy,' and which is valueless for exchange 
except for consumption. But the purchaser and consumer 
of this perishable commodity has exchanged for it a cer- 
tain amount of coin which is practically indestructible so 
far as society is concerned, except by absolute loss (as if it 
fell into the sea) and if not lost will always retain the 
property of being again exchangeable for labour, or the 
products of labour. It is therefore exceedingly diCBcult to 
perceive why it should be considered that expenditure for 
what are termed articles of luxury, as wine and silk, is 
less beneficial to the labouring classes who produce them, 
and desire to sell the results of their industry, than ex- 
penditure directly in alms, or labour for such a purpose as 
the excavation of Mr. Mill's artificial lake ; than which 
none can be conceived more entirely unproductive ; no- 
thing resulting from the operation which can even be 
consumed. 

If under the generally accepted arrangements of 
civilised societies, capital is thus preserved from destruc- 
tion, it follows that the fund of which it consists is merely 
subjected to continual re-distribution in the community to 
which it belongs as a whole, and is added to from time to 

H 



98 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

time by the products of the labour of the community, ex- 
changed with other communities for metallic symbols orf 
labour, or for other products, which may be transmuted 
into those tokens of value. 

To say that it is more advantageous to a community to 
apply labour for one object rather than another, will be 
more or less true, accordingto circumstances ;. and it may 
be unwise on the part .of the individual to exchange for 
perishable luxuries a potentiality which may be otherwise 
so used as to yield to himself a profit in what is tanta- 
mount to trade. But it is not obvious how this can affect 
the subsequent application of the * potential energy ' with 
which he parts, and which is not extinguished. If he does, 
as it is called, ' make money ' by the use of his fund, it 
certainly is not by the multiplication of his pounds, as 
sheep multiply by breeding. He can only add to his store 
by subl^traction from some other source which must have 
been supplied by labour. And as in all other cases of 
supply and demand, uninfluenced by artificial restrictions, 
the application of labour will be directed by the natural 
demand for this or that particular product of industry. 
But all these products, whether food, clothing, or shelter, 
or only something called a luxury beyond these, are in 
themselves, as Mr. Mill has pointed out, eminently perish- 
able. If not consumed they decay, and no accumulation of 
them as wealth is possible beyond an uncertain time and 
limited extent. To leave out of the question deliberately 
the fact that coin and bullion are the concrete representa- 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 99 

tives of the accumulated surplus products of labour over and 
above what the nation has itself consumed, is to omit 
any notice of the only solution of paradoxical problems. 

It is not extraordinary that the proposition for which 
Mr. Mill contended should appear to so many a paradox, 
when his illustrations are untrue and misleading. He 
says that ' if, instead of laying out one hundred pounds 
in wine or silk, I expend it in wages or in alms, the 
demand for commodities is precisely equal in both cases ; 
in the one it is a demand for one hundred pounds' worth 
of wine or silk ; in the other for the same value of bread, 
beer, labourers' clothing, fuel, and indulgences ; but the 
labourers of the community have in the latter case the 
value of one hundred pounds more of the produce of the 
community distributed among them. I have consumed 
that much less, and made over my consuming power to 
them. If it were not so, my having consumed less would 
not leave more to be consumed by others, which is a 
manifest contradiction.' The comparison is totally unfair, 
and the reasoning fallacious in the extreme. Mr. Mill is 
involved in the contradiction to which he refers, because 
it is certain that his not having consumed wine or silk 
cannot possibly have left more bread and beer, clothing 
and fuel, which are diflferent substances, for the labouring 
classes. And his having consumed the wine or silk might 
possibly have enabled larger quantities to be provided of 
the necessaries named. But, besides this, the demand in 
the two cases which he compares is not the same for 

H 2 



100 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

commodities. If the one hundred pounds is laid out for 
wine or silk this is an exchange for wine or silk ; if laid 
out in wages or alms, it is exchange for labour, or a gift 
without an equivalent. But there, in accuracy, the com- 
parison should stop. In both cases, after this first 
exchange or gift, the one hundred pounds may be laid out 
in the bread or beer, clothing, fuel, or indulgences, just in 
the same manner, either for the labourers who made the 
silk or wine, or for those who dug the artificial lake, or for 
the ignoble recipients of alms. But the reasoning through- 
out this portion of Mr. Mill's chapter is based apparently 
upon the remarkable supposition that all produce is the 
same kind of thing, of which what is not consumed by 
one will be equally valuable to others, for whatever pur- 
pose needed. Whereas ' turning over part of my share of 
the present produce of the community to the labourers,' 
if that share is silk or velvet, is very much like giving 
them a stone when they ask for bread. The true neces- 
saries of life, simply stated as food, clothing, and shelter, 
are just those requirements which cannot be altogether 
relinquished by any one in favour of others, though they 
may be restricted in quantity and quality. 

Mr. Mill closes the chapter upon which I am com- 
menting witli some observations respecting many popular 
arguments and doctrines which he regarded as erroneous, 
more particularly with regard to the incidence of taxation. 
I do not propose now to analyse this section of the subject. 
But' this is certain, that the efiect of taxation can never 



MILL'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL. 101 

be accurately traced until its true character — what is 
really done by the imposition of a tax — is seen and 
acknowledged. We shall grope in the dark until it is 
seen and acknowledged that national taxation does not 
and cannot impoverish the nation as a whole — that it is 
absurd to talk of ' consumption ' by a Grovemment which, 
in the capacity of Grovemment, can consume nothing — 
and that all that the most grinding taxation can do is to 
re-distribute the property of the society with more or less 
violence, or more or less prudence, or more or less incon- 
venience to the persons from whom the contributions are 
exacted in the first instance. But no savings of the nation 
are consumed any more than there is consumption of 
money among a party of men who sit down to a round 
game, some of whom win and some lose. 

In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to call 
attention to what I regard as fundamental errors in the 
propositions respecting capital, accepted as true by the 
school of economists of which Mr. Mill was the most 
distinguished member ; and I have sought to explain in 
what I think these errors consist. Instead of endea- 
vouring to trace out the physical effects of an endless 
chain of exchanges, of property for labour, and of pro- 
perty of various degrees of durability for other possessions, 
more or less perishable, in mercantile transactions, the 
economists base all their investigations upon a meta- 
physico-moral proposition that gold is not wealth. And 
they institute a kind of economical sacrament in which 



102 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

^'old — that is, money — is held to be merely the outward 
and visible sign of an invisible and mysterious gift or 
benefaction, which is imparted to the true believer by the 
transfer of the money, but is not perceptible, except in 
1l;e beneficial effects of future labour. All this maybe 
poetry, but it is not economical science. 



103 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE, 

Out of the erroneous doctrine that money is only a 
medium of exchange, and from disregard of the fact 
that, to be a true medium of exchange, it must itself 
possess intrinsic value, has arisen the obscurity which 
surrounds the teaching of so many writers on the subject 
of value. It is admitted that value is a relative term ; 
and it is the fact that value has no more existence as an 
entity than height or breadth ; it can only be measured 
or conceived of by comparison : yet there have been 
attempts to establish that there is such a thing as natural 
value pertaining to an article of exchange or production. 
Some writers, as Eicardo, have endeavoured to show that 
the value of a thing not only is measured by, but is 
constituted of, the quantity of labour necessary to produce 
or obtain it. Others, among whom was Malthus, have 
contended that value consists in, as well as is measured • 
by, the quantity of labour that the thing can command 
as an article of exchange. The latter is much the nearer 
to the truth of these two theories, but neither is a satis- 
factory explanation. Both are among the generalisations 



104 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

80 common in political economy which involve the error 
in reasoning known to logicians as arguing * a dido 
secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter ; ' that is, taking 
for granted that what is true under particular circum- 
itances will also be true on all occasions. While there are 
cases in which either explanation will seem to suit the cir- 
cumstances, the exceptions are so numerous that it seems 
impossible to accept the generalisation as a law. 

In truth the exchangeable value of any article will 
not depend upon the labour expended upon obtaining it, 
nor upon the labour which it will, as a general rule, com- 
mand ; but upon the cost of production — that is, upon the 
amount of property of exchangeable value which has been 
given for the labour and materials necessary to obtain or 
produce the article on an average. Unless this can be 
recovered with a fair amount of profit on the transaction, 
the article will cease to be sought for or produced, no 
matter whether the labour required be much or little. 
As an affair of convenience exchanges may be made with- 
. out profits, but in commerce the expectation of profits is 
of the essence of the proceeding, and profits can only be 
accumulated in some third article, and eventually must be 
embodied in money. It is commonly forgotten that the 
value of any article in exchange must be largely deter- 
mined by the degree of possibility of exchanging it, and 
of exchanging it with profit. Abundance pf food in a 
country without local demand or easy transport — as has 
happened in the Western States of America and other 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 105 

new countries with respect to grain — has rendered the 
greater part of the production almost valueless. If in 
these cases exchange had been possible, but only for 
articles likewise of perishable character, as milk and 
butter, although the convenience and comfort of the com- 
munity would have been served by having abundance of 
milk and butter instead of a wasted surplus of wheat, yet 
still it would have been impossible, in the mercantile 
sense, to make any profit on the exchange. Comfort 
would be increased, but thrift or saving would be imprac- 
ticable. Eventual profits and permanent savings can only 
be made in money — and the fact that money is an article 
of exchange and the article in which savings must be 
accumulated, affects the whole theory of value. 

Almost all the writers on political economy seem to 
fail to grasp this idea, though it dimly presented itself to 
Malthus. He, however, stops short of apprehending the 
full force of the consequences from what he perceived. 
He says, in a note to the chapter on the progress of wealth 
in his ' Principles of Political Economy : ' — ' Theoretical , 
writers in political economy, from the fear of appearing 
to attach too much importance to money, have perhaps 
been to apt to throw it out of their consideration in 
their reasoning. It is an abstract truth that we want 
commodities, not money. But, in reality, no commodity 
for which it is possible to sell our goods at once, can be 
an adequate substitute for a circulating medium, and 
enable us in the same manner to provide for children. 



106 STUDIES IN WLITICAL ECONOMY. 

to purchase an estate, or to command labour and pro- 
visions a year or two hence. A circulating medium is 
absolutely necessary to any considerable saving ; and 
even the manufacturer would get on but slowly if he 
were obliged to accumulate in kind all the wages of his 
workmen. "We cannot, therefore, be surprised at his 
wanting money rather than other goods ; and in civilised 
countries, we may be quite sure that if the farmer or 
manufacturer cannot sell his products so as to give him 
a profit estimated in money, his industry will immediately 
slacken. The circulating medium bears so important a 
part in the distribution of wealth, and the encouragement 
of industry, that it is hardly ever safe to set it aside in 
our reasonings ; and all attempts at illustration, by sup- 
posing advances of a certain quantity of com and clothing, 
instead of a certain quantity of money, which every year 
practically represents a variable quantity of com, cannot 
fail to lead us wrong.' 

Now it is for the reason that profits not only, as 
Malthus says, must be estimated in money, but do 
absolutely in the end consist of money and of nothing 
else, that the theory of value, so far as there cto be any 
natural value at all, depends upon the cost of production 
in money, and not upon the amount of labour. It matters 
nothing to the manufacturer, or agriculturist, or pro- 
prietor of mines, whether he employs ten labourers or 
twenty, or whether he pays them ten shillings a week or 
twenty shillings ; the question for his consideration is, 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 107 

whether the value of the exchangeable property which he 
will acquire by their labour will be equal to that which he 
has to give in exchange for the labour and materials 
necessary to produce it, with a reasonable profit on the 
business, such as can be obtained from other employment 
of the exchangeable property which he possesses. And 
solution of this question does not depend upon the quan- 
tity of labour necessary, nor does it upon the amount of 
future labour in another place which the products may be 
able to purchase. It must be found, as I have said, in 
what the labour and materials cost in exchangeable pro- 
perty already saved, and depends entirely upon the 
relative value of the product to other products of the 
same kind, perhaps developed imder quite dissimilar 
circumstances, and upon that value as measured against 
money — the article of exchange with which he has had 
to purchase the labour and materials necessary to the 
production. 

In many instances, so far from the value of any article 
being determined by the cost of production, the cost of 
production, though no more labour is employed, is mate- 
rially raised by the value of the article ; this effect 
being often caused by the great demand for some par- 
ticular product, and the consequently enhanced price of 
it. High profits stimulating cupidity cause high wages 
to be offered to obtain labour for its production until the 
cost is so much increased that it cannot be recovered. 
Augmentation in the wages of labour will also take place 



108 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

in cases where there is no increase in the average value 
of the product of the labour, indeed rather the reverse, 
but where circumstances enable that product to be ob- 
tained with less labour than is necessary to procure the 
same value in exchange in other places. An instance 
may be found in South Australia. To the peculiarity of 
the climate, which enables wheat to be reaped and 
thrashed at the same time by Eidley's reaper * with very 

* Note. — ^For the information of those who are not acquainted with 
Australia, or the peculiarities of the climate, I should explain why South 
Australia is not dependent to the same extent as other places upon hand 
labour for reaping her crops. The harvest is gathered at a time of year 
when no rain falls, and the air is so free from moisture that all substances 
are almost desiccated. The ears of wheat when ripe become so dry, that a 
very slight touch will separate the grain from the peduncle. To this cir- 
cumstance is due the success of Eidley's reaper. By the action of this 
machine, the grain is literally combed off the stalks, and falls into a 
receptacle entirely separated and ready for the sack, while the stalks are 
left standing. But so entirely is the action of the reaper dependent upon 
the dryness of the wheat, that it will not work satisfactorily early in the 
morning when the preceding night has been at all damp ; it is necessary 
then to wait until the sun has been up some time, and the day has been 
'aired.' And elsewhere in moist climates, the reaper does not succeed. 
Instead of the grain being readily separated from the stalk, the plant itself 
is entangled in the teeth of the machine, and the apparatus becomes hope- 
lessly clogged. 

The advantage derived in South Australia from the use of this reaper 
may, however, be understood when I mention that with it the labour of one 
man and three horses will reap and thrash from seven to ten acres in one 
day, yielding an ordinary crop of ten bushels of wheat per acre, at a charge 
of 78. per acre, to which is to be added Is, for winnowing and bagging 
ready for market. For a heavier crop four horses would be required, and 
the expense is computed to be Is, per acre more. In the only part of the 
colony where hand-reaping is carried on the charge is 16^. per acre, and of 
thrashing, winnowing, and bagging 58, 3d. more ; making 21^. Zd. per acre 
for hand-reaping as against 8^. for machine work. As this colony had 
780,000 acres of wheat to reap last harvest, it is easy to compute the saving 
to the wheat-grower of South Australia. 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 109 

little comparative labour, is owing to the fact that it is 
remunerative to grow wheat on lands which are far from 
fertile, and where it would be impossible to do so at a 
profit if the same labour were required for reaping alone, 
which is necessary in other places. This effect is also 
conspicuously obvious in the gold mining countries. 
In these places evidence is afforded that the doctrine of 
which Eicardo was the chief expositor, 'That gold and 
silver, like all other commodities, are valuable only in 
proportion to the quantity of labour necessary to produce 
them and bring them to market,' is a fallacious gene- 
ralisation, specially untrue as regards the article gold. ^ 
The extraordinary prosperity and rapid growth of Cali- 
fornia and Victoria is entirely inconsistent with the 
accuracy of such a view of the subject. They have 
prospered because by a certain amount of labour it has 
been possible to produce a greater amount of exchange- 
able value on an average in a certain time than would 
have been obtained in any other known occupation. 

Eicardo's generalisation could only be true on the 
supposition that the average remuneration of labour in 
one kind of occupation is the same as in any other occu- 
pation, which it certainly is not. But apart from this, 
the uncertainty of results in gold mining, so nearly akin 
to gambling, deprives the generalisation of any accuracy 
in this case. If it were true, it ought to be found, for 
instance, that the exchangeable value of the production 
of a thousand men engaged for a thousand days in gold- 



110 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

mining, exactly equals the value of the produce of the 
labour of a thousand men engaged for a thousand days in 
any other industry. "We know almost certainly that this 
is not so. And it would not aflfect the question of 
accuracy in the generalisation if it could even be shown 
that the result of the labour expended is really much 
less. This would not deter men from following an oc- 
cupation which offers to individuals the chance of sudden 
wealth, or a large remuneration for their exertions, any 
more than the certainty that the bank at rouge-et-noir, or 
roulette, always wins in the long run, will deter men from 
gambling. And those who do find large nuggets will not 
get more in exchange for an ounce of gold, than an ounce 
will already purchase, because many other men have 
toiled unprofitably ; just as the man who wins at roulette 
will not get more for his Napoleons because other men 
have lost. The value of all articles of exchangeable cha- 
racter, in fact, is determined by and relative to that or 
other articles of the same kind existing at the same time. 
An ounce of gold must always be worth an ounce of gold, 
but what it will be worth in exchange for other articles 
will depend not upon the amount of labour bestowed upon 
getting it, and not even upon the cost of production — it 
may have been produced at a loss to the individual ; but 
it is an imperishable article added to an accumulation, 
and its value relatively to other things will depend upon 
the quantity then in existence. It is remarkable to me 
that writers on economical subjects should. so generally 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. Ill 

speak of labour as if it were constant in quantity or 
value, and that they uniformly disregard the fact that 
the value of labour is determined by the relative value of 
what can be procured by it. Otherwise there could 
scarcely be such a thing as a demand for labour, which 
can only arise from the fact that labour may be applied 
more profitably in one occupation than another, and itself 
therefore varies in value. "Wages could only moimt up 
to a pound per day, as was the case for day-labourers at 
Cariboo gold diggings, in British Columbia, when I was 
there, because the employer expected to get more than a 
pound back again, on an average, from the labour which 
he paid for. But surely, in this case it would be absurd 
to say that the men employed worked ten times as hard, 
or ten times as long, as men employed elsewhere at two 
shillings per day. And if it can be a profitable thing to 
work a gold mine on an average, with wages at twenty 
shillings per day, it seems to follow that so far from 
' fifteen times the quantity of labour being necessary to 
produce a given quantity of gold,' in comparison with 
silver, as said by Eicardo, it is obvious that a much 
greater relative exchangeable value — perhaps fifteen 
times — is or may be produced in gold mining, by the 
same quantity of labour than is produced by most other 
occupations. 

And the existence — the rapid rise and flourishing con- 
dition — of such places as California and Victoria is a 
decisive reply and refutation to Eicardo's theory. There 



112 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECOXOXY. 

is no reason, according to this, why gold countries should 
have been more prosperous; and their being so, as all 
must admit they are, is only explicable on the supposi- 
tion that a given amount of labour has in these produced 
a greater amount of exchangeable value than in other 
places, and that they have consequently become more 
rapidly rich than other commimities with the same 
population and equal natural advantages, excepting the 
gold. 

Eicardo's doctrine has, however, been admitted by 
Mill and others to be erroneous, and it would scarcely be 
necessary to dwell much upon this, if it had not become 
mixed up with theories respecting a supposed natural 
value, and speculations upon the difference between value 
and price. 

With regard to what has been termed natural value, 
we may admit that any article ought always to be worth 
what it has cost to produce it on an average ; but beyond 
this it is scarcely possible to go. And we know that this 
standard is not in practice applicable in all cases. The 
value in exchange will be determined by what other 
articles of the same kind may be obtained for, without 
any reference to cost of production. There are occupa- 
tions which are supposed with good reason to be prose- 
cuted on the whole at a loss, though their speculative 
character, affording the chances of large gains, induces 
persons to continue to engage in them. Mr. Mill men- 
tions the lumbering trade of Canada as one of these ; 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 113 

and gold mining in many instances is another. On the 
other hand there are certain industries in which the 
profits are uniformly larger than in others ; and causes 
quite apart from the quantity of labour expended, or the 
cost of production in exchangeable value, regulate the 
value of the article when produced. Instances may be 
found in the fisheries of North America, in wool growing 
in the Australian colonies, and in the diamond fields of 
South Africa. 

In the fisheries, the labour expended and cost incurred 
will probably not differ much whether the season be 
successful or the reverse, but the value of an abundant 
catch in one year will not be increased per cwt. by the 
fact of previous failures ; on the contrary, the abundance 
certainly will have a tendency to reduce the rate for an 
article which must be more or less immediately consumed. 
Unquestionably large fortunes have been made by mer- 
chants from the fisheries, even while the labouring men 
remain, as a rule, in debt. No doubt the fisheries are 
upon the whole profitable, but it would be wellnigh im- 
possible to state even approximately the * natural value ' 
of a quintal of codfish on the banks of Newfoundland. 
Let us take the case of wool. The enormous wealth 
known to be accumulated by the Australian ' squatters ' 
affords us a fact quite inconsistent with the idea of a 
natural value for wool, measured by labour. The value 
of the annual production from their flocks of sheep bears 
no relation to the little labour necessary to tend those 



114 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

flocks, or the cost of production where there is little or no 
rent paid for boundless extents of land. Although pro- 
duced for infinitely less than the wool of Europe, the 
price for Australian wool in England is regulated by the 
quantity to be obtained and the demand of the manu- 
facturers for it at the time. Who shall say what is the 
natural value per pound of Australian wool, and the 
difierence between that and the value of South African 
fleeces ? 

And when we turn to the diamond fields, I think it 
would perplex the most acute and distinguished econo- 
mist to give a rule by which we may asciertain the 
natural value of the diamonds of which the discovery 
has done so much for South Africa in the development 
of wealth. In this case again neither the labour nor 
the cost of production bears any ascertainable propor- 
tion to the exchangeable value which has been drawn 
from the bowels of the Colesberg kopje. By far the 
greater part of the hardest labour was performed by 
naked Kafirs, paid at absurdly low rates compared to 
the wages which gold miners would make for themselves 
out of any ordinarily prosperous gold mine. To pay 
these, and feed and clothe themselves was all the ex- 
pense incurred by the proprietors of the claims from 
which has come the wealth which has more than doubled 
the public revenue of the Cape colony. It is beyond 
calculation to say what may be the natural price of a 
diamond; but it is indisputable that by no process of 



BOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 115 

ordinary industry could the same amount of exchange- 
able wealth have been introduced into South Africa in 
the same time as has been obtained from the diamond 
fields. Why should the character and efiect of wealth be 
granted to diamonds and denied to gold ? 

And yet economists persistently refuse to recognise 
the existence and effect of money as an article of 
exchange. It is from this error that the obscurity arises 
in the attempted distinction between value and price. 
There is no true distinction. The price of anything is 
only its value expressed in relation to some one article of 
exchange — ^the most generally used for this purpose being 
that most generally used for exchanges — that is, used for 
money — and in which, being the most durable, all 
eventual profits and savings must be accumulated. But 
as an instance of the confusion prevailing even in a mind 
so clear as Mr. Mill's, let us take the following passage 
from his chapter on the ultimate analysis of cost of 
production (Vol. I., p. 555). He says : — ' A rise or fall 
of general wages is a fact which affects all commodities in 
the same manner, and therefore affords no reason why 
they should exchange for each other in one rather than in 
another proportion. To suppose that high wages make 
high values is to suppose that there can be such a thing 
as general high values. But this is a contradiction in 
terms ; the high value of some things is synonymous with 
the low value of others. The mistake arises from not 
attending to values, but only to prices. Though there is 

I 2 



116 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

no such thing as a general rise of values, there is such a 
thing as a general rise of prices. As soon as we form 
distinctly the idea of values we see that high or low 
wages can have nothing to do with them ; but that high 
wages make high prices is a popular and widely spread 
opinion. The whole amoimt of error involved in this 
proposition can only be seen thoroughly when we come to 
the theory of money. At present we need only say that 
if it be true there can be no such thing as a real rise of 
wages ; for if wages could not rise without a proportionate 
rise of everything, they could not, for any substantial 
purpose, rise at all. This surely is a sufficient reductio 
ad abaurdum, and shows the amazing folly of the pro- 
positions which may and do become and long remain 
accredited doctrines of popular political economy.' 

The whole of this argument is based upon the assump- 
tion that money is only a medium, like a bank-note, not 
exchangeable property ; and that wages are paid, not with 
money, but in some mysterious way with 'part of the 
produce of the country.' It falls to pieces when we see 
that money is an article of exchange; and it forms a 
striking illustration of Mr. Mill's observation in the last 
sentence quoted. He does not admit that money is any- 
thing, and treats it as an error to suppose that high wages 
make high prices. He fails to remember that if there is 
such a thing as a general rise of prices — which he admits 
— ^this must mean a general rise of values in everything 
else as compared to money; and that this involves the 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 117 

separate existence of money as an article of exchangeable 
value; for otherwise there would be no reason for a 
general rise of prices — price, as I have pointed out, being 
only the expression of value measured against some article 
of exchange. Were true money really only a medium, as 
a bank-note is, there could be no general rise in values 
as compared with money, which would then possess no 
intrinsic value. But being a distinct article of exchange, 
we may easily see that high wages will certainly make 
high prices, for this must follow when a larger amount of 
exchangeable value is given for the labour and materials 
necessary to production ; that amoimt must be recovered 
with a profit, or the industry will not be continued, 
unless in the exceptional cases to which I have already 
adverted. Mr. Mill says that, if wages could not rise without 
a proportionate rise of everything, they could not for any 
substantial purpose rise at all. Unfortunately this is not 
a reductio ad absurd/urn, but in many cases a lamentable 
truth. "Wages may rise, while everything but money has 
also risen. The rise in value of other things does mean 
depression in the purchasing power of money, and nomi- 
nally higher wages have in many cases not afforded the 
labouring classes any advantages. The increased cost in 
the necessaries of life having more than coimterbalanced 
this advance in wages paid in money, the labourers do not 
get the produce of more labour, as it is assumed by Mr. 
Mill that they must with higher wages. The law of 
distribution, from which he says there is no escape, does 



118 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

rest upon a law of arithmetic. But in working out the 
sum he omitted part of the calculation, which requires to 
be taken into account before we can obtain a true result. 

It is curious to notice the ramifications of the error 
which we are considering. In an article in the Fortnightly 
Review^ of June, 1873, by Mr. Cliffe Leslie, on the gold 
mines and prices in England, he says : — * It should, how- 
ever, always be borne in mind, in speaking of demand and 
supply, that it is only in the shape of money demand that 
the new gold can ever come into circulation ; and that if 
there be independent conditions of supply and demand 
sufficient to cause a rise of prices, a great addition to the 
quantity of money in circulation must magnify the rise in 
proportion. But some reasoners must go beyond this. 
They urge that since the demand which raises prices can 
be no other than a money demand, to trace a rise of prices 
to an increase of demand is simply to trace it to the new 
gold. A rise of some commodities, it has been added, 
would, but for the new gold mines, have been compensated 
by the fall of others, since the total amount of money 
expended would otherwise not have increased.' Now, this 
is true, because, imder these circumstances, variation in 
the comparative value of articles, other than gold, must 
have had its origin in a cause not common to them all. 
Gold would have remained where it was in relation to some 
things; some would have become cheaper or dearer, in 
relation to gold, and to others. But Mr. Leslie proceeds 
to say, that ^ It is not so, however. The total expenditure 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 119 

of money will naturally advance with the increase of 
population, though no new sources of money be dis- 
covered, and prices may rise without any discovery of 
more fertile mines.' There can scarcely be a greater 
error than this. Total expenditure, that is, total con- 
sumption of consumable things, would certainly be in- 
creased; the total savings of the nation it would be 
impossible to augment. If not from fresh supplies from 
old or new mines, the nation cannot get any more money 
except from other nations ; by exporting more value in 
goods than they import and consume, and by receiving 
the difference of value in their favour in the shape of the 
precious metals. Their only alternative would be an 
inconvertible paper currency — a currency, in this case, not 
even of debt or of credit, for there would be no basis of 
public national obligation upon which to issue promises 
to pay, as was done in the United States. 

I am disposed to think that over-generalisation is a 
radical defect in most of the philosophy of the last half- 
century. There is a tendency to the logical error before- 
mentioned of arguing that what is true in one set of 
circumstances will always be true on all occasions. In 
political economy, for instance, it is forgotten that the 
principles which regulate production have no more neces- 
sary connection with those which regulate exchange than 
the art of making good gunpowder has with the art of 
using it most effectively. The science of exchanges is 
really as distinct from production as gunnery is from 



120 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

chemistry. Profits can only be made upon exchanges ; 
and you can only exchange in commerce things already in 
existence. If a man gives two shillings for a pound of 
glass beads which he exchanges on the coast of Africa for 
a tusk of ivory which he sells elsewhere for five pounds, 
he and the nation to which he belongs have been largely 
gainers by these transactions, but nothing has been added 
to the sum of property already in existence. There has 
been no production. The gain of the man who exchanges 
the beads for the ivory has no relation at all to the cost 
of making the beads ; and his profits only consist in his 
having on the exchanges obtained more of the third 
article, money, than he gave for the beads. 

And the class of facts belonging to one kind of pro- 
duction is often totally difierent from that belonging to 
another ; so difierent as to render any generalisation 
imtrue and misleading. Production from land by agri- 
culture is one thing ; that by pastoral occupations another ; 
and that by manufacture dissimilar from either. So that 
when we talk of production of wealth, it is necessary to 
distinguish what kind of wealth we mean. For example, 
I have heard it objected by a friend to part of my obser- 
vations in a former essay, that capital may be consumed 
in the using, and a case was brought forward of a farmer 
who uses a thousand bushels of wheat as seed-corn which 
is destroyed, but in fact was part of his capital. Now this 
is quite true so far as the farmer was concerned ; but it 
will not support a generalisation, for it is only true in 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 121 

respect of agriculture and the fruits of the earth, for the 
multiplication of which we are dependent upon laws of 
Nature beyond the control of man. Instead of wheat, 
let us take wool. It will not be contended that by 
destroying wool or sheep the Australian squatter can 
produce more wool or more sheep. And if we follow the 
wool on to the manufacturer who hopes to make a profit 
on it, by making it into cloth, of course the cloth after it 
is made will not multiply by breeding, nor can any of it 
be used, like wheat, to grow more of its own kind. Now, 
in this last case of manufactm-es, there is not any new 
natural production, as in the case of the wool and the 
wheat ; there is only an expenditure of human labour in 
turning the wool into something which will sell for more 
money than the wool cost— out of which profit is to be 
made — ^which profit is in fact embodied in gold ; and as 
the transactions of mankind are conducted, can scarcely 
be embodied in anything but that article of value selected 
for use as money. 

As a matter of generalisation, too, I think it very mis- 
leading as well as inaccurate, to treat land as part of the 
capital of a nation, although the special right to use a 
particular portion of it may be a possession of an individual, 
valuable to him. Land has always existed and will always 
remain, although its productiveness may be diminished 
by exhaustion of its fertilising qualities. Capital, if de- 
fined to consist of the accumulated products of former 
labour, cannot include land, which is one of the gifts of 



122 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Nature, like air, water, or sunlight, which fertilise the 
land. 

But to revert to the illustration mentioned above — of 
the consumption of seed used in agriculture — it cannot be 
carried very far in support of the doctrine of the con- 
sumption of capital. It is said that if the seed, costing 
£100, has been sown, and is consumed in the soil by 
decay, and there is a failure of the crop, the loss is com- 
plete ; and it is urged that to treat this capital as not 
consimied, because the £100 paid for the seed still exists, 
is a play upon words. I do not so regard it, because the 
seed would have been destroyed in any case, whether by 
decay or consumption for food, if it had not been planted. 
The original capital or past savings remain in the shape 
of the gold, although no longer in the hands of the 
farmer. He had given that capital or past savings in 
exchange for a prospective advantage in a future crop of 
com which he fails to obtain. But so far as the com- 
munity is concerned, the affair is not one of loss of former 
savings, but of failure of increase ; which may both entail 
diminished consumption and lessen addition to property, 
but will not substract from capital. 

The existence of some independent, substantive — not 
merely representative — article of value, as money, is in- 
deed necessary to the existence of value in other articles 
in many cases. If not for the possibility of exchanging 
things of perishable nature for something else which will 
keep and can be accumulated, tlie aggregation of wealth 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 122 

would be impracticable. And hence we should perceive 
the mistake of regarding money merely as a medium of 
exchange. It is singular that the error is not more dis- 
tinctly seen of supposing that the quantity of gold neces- 
sary for use as money is regulated only by that required 
for making exchanges, seeing that all savings of movable 
property must be in the long run embodied in gold, and 
that without true money they cannot be preserved. The 
time has not come in any place with which I am ac- 
quainted when any one will declare that he has no use for 
more money. That period can only arrive when every one 
has more than he wants of every other article that can be 
purchased with gold. Then the gold mines will cease to 
be worked. The present position of affairs in the United 
States affords, I think, a very remarkable illustration of 
this error. That nation, like the improvident man who 
spends all his money on wines, equipages, and other 
perishable articles, has within the last few years exchanged 
all or almost all its capital in gold for more or less perish- 
able commodities, imported from Europe, and now has 
little or no capital left applicable to the employment of 
labour, and in consequence is compelled to resort to the 
continued use of circulating credit, in promissory notes, 
which is certainly not capital, but the anticipation of 
futiure products not yet realised. 

At the very first attempt to pay off these promissory 
notes by contracting the currency, it is made plain that 
the nation cannot do that, or do without the circulating 



124 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMy. 

credit, until it is replaced by gold. Imagine all the paper 
money — which is only circulating debt or circulating 
credit, according to the side from which you view it — 
withdrawn from circulation before the substitution of 
coin, and let any one ask himself whether the nation would 
not have lost so much exchangeable property; how 
business operations are to be carried on; and how per- 
manent savings are to be effected. Either capital or 
circulating credit is essential for this purpose in the 
shape of a so-called circulating medium. The States have 
spent their capital, and are driven back upon credit, 
which represents future production — not accumulated 
savings. Capital is necessary for a ' medium of exchange,' 
and it is only, I again urge, in the form of gold, or what- 
ever is used as money, tliat saving of the value of move- 
able or perishable property can be accumulated. Without 
it we may live profusely, consume prodigally all the com- 
forts and luxuries of life; but we cannot preserve the 
value of them by any abstinence, either individually 
among ourselves, or collectively as a nation in our com- 
mercial intercourse with other nations. It has been shown 
by oflBcial returns that the United States have parted 
with more than /?500,000,000 of gold in the past ten 
years. It is estimated that there is not more than 
/?1 50,000,000 in all hands in the country ; and it is com- 
puted, even by those who only think of money as a medium 
of exchange, not as the embodiment of savings, that, at 
least, /?500,000,000 of circulating capital, or national 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 125 

savings, is needed for national purposes. It will be im- 
possible for the nation, however wealthy in other respects, 
to withdraw their paper currency from circulation; in 
other words, they cannot pay off their debt to posterity 
until /?350,000,000 in the precious metals have again 
been obtained to replace the paper. The gold is not in 
the country, although there is abundance of other pro- 
perty. H#w is it to be obtained ? The United States 
have an alternative not possessed by other nations placed 
in like circumstances, because they can accumulate the 
produce of the gold and silver mines of California, Nevada, 
and other western states. Apart from this there is no 
other mode than that of falling back upon the much- 
despised commercial system, and the arrangement of the 
balance of trade so that it shall give them gold in exchange 
for more perishable articles. If their imports are kept 
down, and their exports are larger in value, they will 
gradually receive the difference in gold. But if they con- 
tinue to import, that is, consume foreign goods to the full 
extent of their exported production, they can never save 
and never pay off their debt except by the aid of future 
western production of gold. There are indications in the 
falling off of the revenue from imports in the United 
States that the remedy is at work : but I doubt whether 
the true meaning of the fact is appreciated. And un- 
doubtedly diminution of revenue is viewed with appre- 
hension because it at first diminishes their ability to pay 
off the public liability to individuals without other taxa- 



126 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tion. But when gold begins to flow in, the true plan 
would be as soon as possible to insist upon payment of all 
taxes in gold, and then to apply such portion of the 
taxes as can be so appropriated to retirement of the paper 
by instalments, replacing them by gold. This would pro- 
bably have the effect of rapidly bringing up the remainder 
of the paper to par value. But it is hopeless to attempt 
to withdraw the paper unless it can be replaced by gold, 
and it is for this reason that so much inconvenience has 
been felt from the recent contraction of the currency. 
It was tantamount to the withdrawal bodily of so much 
circulating credit, or what represents capital, from the 
resources of the nation. It does not matter how rich 
they may be in houses and lands, and flocks and herds, 
railways and factories : these will not stand in the place 
or answer the purpose of circulating capital or money ; 
and it is simply a matter of physical impossibility for 
their debt to be paid off until the Grovemment has gold 
to do it with. They may go on indefinitely among them- 
selves with the paper money, but they cannot while doing 
so import goods to a greater value, computed in money, 
than can be paid for by the money to be obtained for the 
exports of annual produce ; and if this is done to the full 
extent of those exports, they never can pay off their debt 
except from the produce of the western mines, for they 
can make no other permanent savings to do it with. 
Any surplus of agricultural, pastoral, or manufactured 
produce retained at home, beyond what is needed impera- 



i 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 127 

lively for home consumption, would only decay if not 
consumed : it would possess scarcely any value. The best 
that could be done with it would be to use it in luxurious 
living, for no abstinence from consumption will enable the 
people to save it, or the value of it, unless it can be ex- 
changed with other communities for articles of value 
which will keep — in short, for money. 

If we turn our attention now to the consideration of 
the labour which a commodity will comTncmd as a measure 
of value in exchange, we shall find that this also fails to 
afford us any uniform standard. 

It seems always to be disregarded, that the value of 
any article in exchange is most generally -determined — 
not by our being able to exchange it for what we want, 
but by the possibility of its being exchanged for some- 
thing which we do not require. And here again the 
existence of money as an independent substantive article 
of value, which being universally acceptable, and very 
durable, enables value to be preserved which would other- 
wise unavoidably be wasted, affects the whole character of 
exchanges. If, for instance, we imagine a community — 
and there have been many such, especially in former years, 
before the world enjoyed the present facilities for transport 
and commimication — where there is abundance of wheat 
or other food, and a bare suflBciency of homespun cloth, 
and that no great facilities for intercourse with other places 
exist, then it must be obvious that a small quantity of 
homespun would exchange for a large measure of food, 



128 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

say eight bushels for one yard, for illustration. Whatever 
the measure, the value could not be said to be unequal 
between the wheat and the cloth, and both may be sup- 
posed to purchase the same quantity of labour in that 
place. But if wheat is in demand in another place to 
which access is easy, and can there be sold at the rate of 
eight bushels for a yard of silk, which, when brought 
back to the first place can be exchanged for four yards of 
the homespun, then it becomes obvious that two bushels 
of wheat are equal to a yard of homespim, and more will 
not be given for that when interchange for silk is so much 
more advantageous. The quantity of labour which the 
silk might be able to command in the country of its pro- 
duction, does not affect the value in the other place, nor 
will the fact that eight bushels of wheat can only command 
the same labour as a yard of homespun in the place where 
they are produced, prevent a greater value attaching to the 
wheat in a place where that is demanded, and the home- 
spun is not required. If we see that it may be so much 
more advantageous to be able to exchange the wheat for 
the silk immediately, rather than immediately for the 
homespun, and we proceed a step further, we shall per- 
ceive that it must be still more advantageous, and will 
tend to raise the value of the wheat, if we can exchange 
not merely for silk, for which the demand may be local, 
temporary, and uncertain, and which is itself perishable, 
but for gold, for which there is a desire universal, continu- 
ous, and certain, and which in no respect deteriorates by 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 129 

keeping. This possibility of effecting exchanges for money 
— that alcahest or universal menstruum, itself an article 
of intrinsic exchangeable value, which will produce any- 
thing which we want now or at a future time — instead of 
for other things, which if taken must be consumed more 
or less immediately, governs the whole question ; and, as 
Malthus remarked, all attempts at illustration or reason- 
ing, by supposing advances of a certain quantity of com 
and clothing, instead of money, which practically every 
year represents a variable quantity of com, cannot fail 
to lead us wrong. I have, however, used this illus 
tration of the effect upon the value of wheat, because it 
may be found in action in the Colony of South Australia. 
The value of wheat here is manifestly determined by what 
it is worth in other places. Among a community where 
it is produced in abundance much greater than required 
for local consumption, its value in exchange must have 
fallen very low were it not for the possibility of disposing 
of it in places where the supply is not so large. But now 
it will not be exchanged in South Australia for less than 
may be got for it in the markets to which it may be sent. 
If, however, we now consider the amount of money for 
which it can be exchanged in England, we shall find that 
although this is greater than it would have been in 
South Australia, without access to foreign markets, and 
although this fact has raised the value in Australia, yet 
even then the same money value will not represent equal 
command over labour in the two places. In England a 

K 



130 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

certain sum of money wages will command a greater 
amount of personal labour than in South Australia. The 
wheat which has been exchanged for it may be held to do 
the same thing, even though the value of that in the place 
of production has been enhanced by the possibility of 
transferring it to a better market. It appears, then, from 
this and other facts of a like character, that a commodity 
will not uniformly command an equal amount of labour in 
different places ; and it is equally certain that it will not 
uniformly command the same amount at different times in 
the same place. Labour may truly be regarded as a com- 
modity, like articles of exchange, which will vary in value 
relatively to them in different places and at different times, 
and cannot, therefore, afford us a standard measure of 
natural or intrinsic value. 

Malthus, in his dissertation upon this subject, refers to 
the fact that the money price of labour is extremely low 
in China, and regards it as preposterous to measure the 
value of Chinese labour in China by money instead of 
measuring the money by the labour. Yet he admits that 
a Chinese commodity carried to Hamburg would be sold at 
the China money price, with the addition of the expenses 
and profits of the voyage ; and an English merchant pur- 
chasing Hamburg and Chinese goods would unquestionably 
estimate their relative values by their cost in money with- 
out the least reference to the very different quantities of 
labour which had been employed in obtaining them. 
Surely in this case to endeavour to distinguish between 



SOME THOUGHTS ON VALUE. 131 

measuring the labour by the money, and the money by 
the labour, is seeking to establish a distinction without a 
difference. And after all we come back to the simple fact 
that the value of any article will depend not upon the 
amount of labour employed in obtaining it, nor upon the 
amount which it will command, but upon that of property 
of exchangeable value given for it. 

Mr. Mill, indeed, has attempted to offer an apology for 
the speculations which he admits have incurred the re?- 
proach oflogomachy brought against writers on economical 
subjects. He says that ' The idea of a measure of value 
must not be confounded with the idea of the regulator 
or determining principle of value. When it is said by 
Eicardo and others that the value of a thing is regulated 
by quantity of labour, they do not mean the quantity 
of labour for which the thing will exchange, but the 
quantity required for producing it. This, they aflfirm, 
determines its value; causes it to be of the value it 
is, and no other. But when Malthus and Adam Smith 
say that labour is a measure of value, they do not mean 
the labour by which the thing was or can be made, but 
the quantity of labour which it will exchange for, or pur- 
chase, the value of the thing estimated in labour. And 
they do not mean that this regulates the general exchange 
value of the thing, or has any effect in determining what 
that value shall be ; but only ascertains what it is, and 
whether and how much it varies from time to time, and 
from place to place. To confound these two ideas would 



132 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

be much the same thing as to overlook the distinction 
between the thermometer and the fire,' 

This explanation explains nothing. If labour, as a 
measure of value, only ascertains what value is, and 
whether and how much it varies, not what it ought to be 
and must be, then it does not answer the purpose better 
than any commodity which might be selected, and scarcely 
so well as gold. And the comparison to the thermometer 
and the fire, though apparently apt, is in truth inappro- 
priate and misleading; because the thermometer will 
always, at all times and in all places, show the same heat 
of the fire if the heat is the same. The relation of the 
thermometer to the fire is constant ; the action of a certain 
degree of heat will always mark a certain temperature on 
the scale of the thermometer ; the mercury will fall with 
the heat. It is such a measure of value which the eco- 
nomists have sought for and not found ; because a certain 
amount of labour will not at all times and places be an 
expression of a certain amoimt of value in any single 
article. The two things — ^labour and value — will vary 
towards each other as well as in relation to other things. 
The value x will not represent the same amount of labour 
in Australia, in England, and in India ; it will not indicate 
the same amount of heat converted into muscular motion, 
as 0° .on a centigrade thermometer will indicate in each 
of these places the exact temperature of the point of con- 
gelation in water. The diflBculty in the case of values 
can perhaps best be illustrated by the measurement of 



SOME THOUaHTS ON VALUE. 133 

dimensions, which must be artificial. We can measure 
values against an adopted standard like gold, as we can 
measure height or length or bulk by an adopted standard 
like the metre ; but there is no more an inherent quality 
called value than there is an inherent size in any object, 

r 

It Would have been advantageous to the development 
of economical science if this had been clearly recognised 
by the writers who for many years have chiefly influenced 
the public mind upon these subjects. The singular attempt 
to distinguish between price and value has, perhaps, helped 
to keep alive a fanciful belief in a natural value as pertain- 
ing to commodities. 

But the subject affords a curious instance that even 
in the nineteenth century men of remarkable intellectual 
power and great attainments have occupied their time and 
their minds in speculations as unreal and practically worth- 
less as the inquiries concerning the colour of the Virgin 
Mary's hair or the personal habits of angels, which engaged 
the attention of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. 



134 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 

If we pursue our investigations further into other branches 
of economical science, such as international trade, we shall 
find that the error which we are considering — disregard of 
the fact that money is a substantive article of exchange — 
has led to very singular misapprehension of other facts. 

A remarkable instance may be found at the beginning 
of the seventh chapter of Mr. Fawcett's Manual. After 
referring to the advantages which a country derives from 
obtaining through foreign commerce various commodities 
which she cannot produce herself, or cannot produce so 
cheaply, on account of difference of climate and other 
circumstances — which advantages no one will deny — he 
proceeds to illustrate other benefits by examples which 
will not support his conclusions. He first supposes the 
case that in France a ton of iron can only be produced at 
the same expense of labour and capital as that required 
for twenty sacks of wheat ; but that in England a ton of 
iron may be produced with the same amount as is neces- 
sary for production of only ten sacks of wheat. He argues 
that in this case it is greatly for the advantage of both 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 135 

countries for England to exchange iron with France for 
wheat ; and, because, if the French manufacture iron for 
themselves, it would cost them as much as twenty sacks of 
wheat at home, and if the English sold their own iron in 
their own country they would have to take only ten sacks 
of wheat, he represents that by France giving fifteen sacks 
of wheat to England for one ton of iron — instead of 
France producing iron and England wheat — ^they each 
obtain a profit upon the transaction equal to five sacks of 
wheat. 

This argument and conclusion appear to be very falla- 
cious. It is not shown that there is any greater production 
caused by the interchange. The articles to be exchanged 
are not augmented in quantity ; there is no increase of 
value. The question is, who is to derive the profit, and 
in what the profit is to consist ? If the manufacturer of 
iron in France gets twenty sacks of wheat for his ton of 
iron, wheat remaining at the same value, it is clearly better 
for him to sell in France than in England. If the wheat- 
grower in England gets a ton of iron for ten sacks of 
wheat, undoubtedly this exchange is better for him than 
the exchange of ten sacks of wheat in France for only 
half a ton. And in each case, if this advantage is lost, 
it is lost to the nation to which respectively the iron- 
manufacturer and the wheat-grower belong. It is simply 
impossible that both parties to a transaction of this kind 
can be gainers in value unless that value is estimated and 
embodied in some third article itself possessing intrinsic 



136 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMTST. 

value. If iron is exchanged directly for wheat in England, 
and the same is done in France, each nation keeps what it 
lias. If in exchanging these articles internationally either 
party gains, it must be in quantity. The whole exchange- 
able property divisible is wheat + iron ; and, unless both 
parties are just where they were, at the close of the trans- 
action one of the two must have more of wheat + iron than 
it had before, and the other less. 

This is another of the many instances showing, as 
Malthus says, that all attempts at illustrations by supposing 
advances of certain quantity of com or other commodities 
instead of a certain quantity of money, which practically 
every year represents a variable quantity of com, cannot 
fail to lead us wrong. 

How it does so, is conspicuously shown in a further 
argument of Professor Fawcett, where he states that in 
order that two countries should enjoy the striking advan- 
tages which he pointed out in the passage to which I have 
referred, it is not necessary that of the two commodities 
exchanged, the first should be dearer in the one country 
than the other, and that the second commodity should be 
cheaper. All that is necessary, he says, is that in the two 
countries there should be a diflference in the relative value 
of the commodities which are exchanged. He then pro- 
ceeds to suppose, for an example, that the cost price of a 
ton of iron in France is thirty pounds, and the price of a 
sack of wheat thirty shillings, and that a ton of iron would, 
according to this supposition, exchange in France for 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 137 

twenty sacks of wheat ; but in England a ton of iron is 
supposed to exchange for only ten sacks. Then let it 'be 
considered, he proceeds, that a ton of iron in England is 
worth ten pounds, and a sack of wheat is worth one pound. 
Wheat and iron are, therefore, both cheaper in England 
than in France, but iron is three times as dear in France 
as in England, and wheat is only one and a half times as 
dear. There is therefore a diflference in the relative value 
of wheat and iron in the two countries. And hence, he says, 
a foreign trade in these two commodities can be carried 
on with great advantage to the two countries concerned. 

In this Mr. Fawcett is very manifestly mistaken. 
Even granting that what he supposes might be the case if 
any countries carried on trade by exchanging one article 
directly for another, the transaction is modified to a very 
important extent when exchanges are made of iron for 
gold, and gold for wheat, not wheat for iron. . According 
to Mr* Fawcett's own proposition, the English iron mer- 
chant would get in France thirty pounds per ton for iron — 
that being the cost price, below which iron could not there 
be produced. It would be contrary to all modern mer- 
cantile principle, which requires that he should buy in the 
cheapest market, to suppose that having been successful 
in selling his iron for a price so much better than he could 
get for it in England, he would immediately, out of pure 
philanthropy and good-fellowship, proceed to give the 
French fifty per cent, more for wheat than he could get it 
for in England. Why should he give twenty-two pounds 



140 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

the value of a is 10 (of the same units of account) in 
England, and 20 in Sweden; and that of 6 is 15 in 
England, and 20 in Sweden. We have here the propor- 
tions mentioned by Mr. Mill. Both a and h are cheaper 
in England ; but as to a, she enjoys an advantage of one- 
half; as to h only of one-quarter. Now, let us suppose 
that 10 a is taken to Sweden, and is there of the value of 
20 a, where it will be equal in value to 20 6 ; that is, that 
the cotton can be exchanged for the iron, both being of 
the same value in Sweden. The merchant will thus 
become possessed, for the original value of his cotton, 
10 units, of an amoimt of iron worth 20 imits in Sweden, 
which would have cost him 15 units to purchase in Eng- 
land. He seems to have gained an amount of h or iron, 
equal to 5 units in value, on the transaction. But in feet 
no additional substance has been produced. He and the 
nation have only exchanged a certain quantity of cotton 
for a certain quantity of iron to be added to what of this 
latter was possessed before. The value of the iron re- 
ceived will depend upon the possibility of exchanging 
it for things other than iron, which he may not want; 
and, if there be already more iron in the market than is 
required, the transaction will not suit his purpose, nor will 
the nation be a gainer. 

Now let us note the intervention of a third article, 
gold, used as money in the transaction — still observing 
the same relative proportion of values for illustration. 
The cotton is purchased by the merchant, or is made by 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 141 

him by labour and materials, costing ten pieces of gold, 
each equal to a unit of account. He takes it to Sweden, 
and there sells it for twenty pieces of gold, with which, as 
before, he may purchase the certain quantity of iron for 
the same amount ; but although he could not in England 
have purchased the iron which he wants for the ten pieces 
of gold — the value of the cotton there — it is no longer to 
his interest' to buy iron in Sweden, because here he would 
have to pay twenty pieces of gold for the same quantity 
which he can get in England for fifteen pieces. He will 
take gold back with him to England, and, after purchasing 
the iron for fifteen pieces, he will still retain five pieces 
as profit besides. Without the intervention of money he 
would have had a profit of five units embodied in the 
supposed greater relative value of the iron, and so would 
the nation in possessing two lots of iron valued at fifteen 
each, making thirty, instead of one lot of cotton and one 
of iron, valued at ten and fifteen respectively. But now 
he has a profit of ten units — five being in the form of 
iron, and five in that of gold ; and the nation has also a 
profit of ten, being the twenty embodied in the gold, 
less the value of the cotton (ten) which has been given 
for it. By changing the cotton for gold in the one place, 
and the gold for iron in another place, twice the amount 
of profit has accrued to the merchant and the nation that 
could have been obtained by direct exchange of cotton for 
iron under the circumstances supposed by Mr. Mill. In 
mercantile proceedings this will always be the case ; and 



142 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

BO long as money is used in commerce, it will never be 
found that, where one country has a decided advantage in 
the production of two commodities, it will be beneficial 
for her to exchange one for the other with another com- 
munity, imless where she has more of the one and less of 
the other commodity than she requires ; and even in that 
case she will sell her surplus for money where she gets the 
largest price, and supply her deficiencies where she can 
buy most cheaply. 

But in the illustration which I have given it is made 
obvious how fallacious and misleading are all attempts to 
explain the true effect of international trade which take 
no account of money as a third article of exchange intro- 
duced into the transaction. 

A like misconception pervades the supposed case stated 
by the elder Mill in his ' Elements of Political Economy,' 
and quoted by J. S. Mill, respecting the advantage enjoyed 
by Poland over England in the production of both com 
and cloth. It is admitted that if both corn and cloth 
require the same amount of labour to produce them — 
that is, if both require one hundred and fifty days in 
England, and one hundred days in Poland — no benefit 
from exchange can arise. But he proceeds to say that, if 
com costs two hundred days' labour in England and only 
one hundred in Poland, it will then be advantageous to 
England, and cause no loss to Poland, if the former ex- 
changes cloth, which cost one hundred and fifty days' 
labour, for corn, which cost only the labour of one 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 143 

hundred days. This would be true if the question were 
really answered by the amount of labour expended. But 
it does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Mill that it 
would not be possible, under the supposed circumstances, 
to save anything but labour. The English producers 
might have more leisure, but they would not become 
richer. No profit would be made out of the transaction. 
Besides the cloth she wants for herself, England would 
have no motive for making more than suiBcient to buy 
enough corn for her consimiption. There she would stop. 
There would be no inducement to accumulate either cloth 
or corn beyond a certain amoimt. The answer really, 
however, depends upon what was given for the labour, or 
what else could be got for it in the place where the corn 
and cloth are produced. It is a fruitful source of error 
and perplexity in the problems of economical writers that 
they habitually treat labour as if it were a material sub- 
stance, of which a quantity of certain size and weight in 
one place were always equal to a quantity of the same 
size and weight in another, as an ounce of gold or a 
pound of wheat in one country will always be equal to an 
ounce of gold or a pound of wheat in another, which the 
labour certainly is not ; and yet that the labour will not 
vary in value relatively to the other things, as the gold 
and the wheat certainly will. If, in the case supposed of 
the trade between England and Poland, two hundred days' 
labour in England costs no more in money than one 
hundred days' in Poland, labour being at the rate of one 



144 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

shilling in the one place and two shillings in the other, 
and we recollect that the transactions are eflTected by the 
intervention of money, the features of the case are 
entirely changed. Although the cloth requires one 
hundred and fifty days' labour, and the corn two hundred 
days', in England, and the com and the cloth only one 
hundred days' each in Poland, the cloth will only cost one 
hundred and fifty shillings in England, against two 
hundred shillings in Poland, and the corn will only cost 
the same as in Poland. It will remunerate Poland to get 
cloth from England, but it will not be to the advantage 
of England to take corn from Poland when she can pro- 
duce it as cheaply at home, and by so doing avoid the 
cost of carriage, which must be added if she take corn 
from Poland. 

As a matter of fact, then, we see that in all these 
questions concerning exchanges, it is not enough to con- 
sider only the relative value of one thing compared with 
another. Each case is a compound result of the value of 
money as a substantive article in relation to labour as a 
commodity, and of each of the other articles exchanged 
in relation to money and to labour in the two places 
between which the exchanges take place. 

The eflfect of the introduction of a third article of ex- 
change in the transaction is something like that of the 
presence of the goose in the child's puzzle of ' The Fox, 
the Goose, and the Com.' The affair is simple enough, so 
long as only the fox and the com are to be dealt with. 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 145 

But the attraction of the com for the goose, and the 
goose for the fox, introduces complications of which it is 
not easy to dispose. 

Failure to comprehend this fact, and to see the error 
which arises from disregard of it, is the source of much 
confusion in many inquiries of practical importance. 
From it flows the remarkable doctrine of Eicardo, adopted 
by Professor Fawcett, that rent is not an element of the 
cost of obtaining agricultural produce — a proposition of 
which he remarks that a no less eminent writer than Mr. 
Buckle had assured his readers that it can only be grasped 
by a comprehensive thinker. One would like to know 
whether Mr. Buckle really grasped it, and thoroughly 
assented to it as true ; for this proposition afibrds us 
another instance of the fallacy of reasoning a dicto 
secundum quid^ ad dictum aimpliciter ; and the question 
involved has acquired a pointed interest from the recent 
disputes between the agricultural labourers and their 
employers in England. Mr. Fawcett assumes that if all 
land was made rent free, no diminution would be caused 
in the consumption of food ; the same quantity of agri- 
cultural produce would be required as before ; the same 
area of land would therefore have to be cultivated. That 
land would still require to be tilled which previously only 
paid a nominal rent ; but if food was rendered cheaper 
by making land rent free this land, which before only 
paid a nominal rent, would be cultivated at a loss. No 
person, however, will, he says, continue to apply his labour 

L 



146 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and capital if he does not obtain in return the ordinary 
rate of profit, and therefore if food became cheaper such 
land as we have just described would cease to be culti- 
vated ; but this cannot he, he immediately adds, because 
the demand of the country for food is such that the 
produce which this land yields cannot be dispensed with. 
It is therefore manifest that food cannot become cheaper, 
even if land were made rent free. Eent, consequently, 
he concludes, is not an element of the cost of production. 
The whole of this, as I venture to think, most 
erroneous argument is grounded on the fallacious sup- 
position that no food could be obtained from any other 
country than the one under consideration, and is con- 
gtructed in forgetfulness of the fact that money is an 
article of exchange. The whole question for the farmer, 
who cultivates the land, resolves itself into what he has 
to give in money for the produce which he is afterwards 
to sell. If he have to give wages and rent he must, to 
remunerate himself, get more money for the produce of 
the land than would be sufiicient for his purpose if he had 
the land rent free and paid wages only. The cheapness 
of food, relatively to other things, does not affect him at 
all. It might be exceedingly dear as compared to clothing, 
but that would do him no good ; and its cheapness does 
him no harm, if only he has not, from the force of 
circumstances, to pay more to produce it than he can 
obtain for it in competition with other food produced 
imder more favourable circumstances than are at his com- 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 147 

mand* It is just this competition to which the English 
farmer is now exposed. Vast quantities of grain from the 
north-western States of America, from California, and 
South Australia, and the Baltic and Black Sea provinces 
of Russia are poured into the English market, which can 
be sold at a certain rate, leaving a profit on the trans- 
action, chiefly because, in the three first- named places, at 
all events, of which I have some personal knowledge, land 
can be obtained practically rent free. The production 
per acre in England will be much larger, the land being 
more fertile or better cultivated, but that does not affect 
the question, because there must practically be a limit on 
an average. The problem for the English agriculturist 
is, whether the best average quantity which he can pro- 
duce, sold at the rate which he must take in view of the 
competition, will enable him to pay a certain amount of 
wages and other expenses, and a certain amount of rent 
for the land. It is incomprehensible to me that any one, 
in the face of the facts around him, can doubt that the 
rent which the farmer has to pay is a part of the cost of 
production: but the doubt can only co-exist with dis- 
regard or ignorance of the hard fact that money is an 
article of exchange. The farmer, however, has to solve 
the problem for himself, and only three alternatives are 
open to him. He must reduce expenses of cultivation, 
including wages ; or he must pay less rent ; or he must 
abandon the cultivation. Neither the supply of wheat 
grown by him, nor that produced by the nation to which 



148 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

he belongs, will determine market prices, which will be 
regulated by importations from other places, possessing 
natural advantages of one kind or another which enable 
corn to be grown there at less money cost per quarter than 
can be done in England, if rent and wages both remain at 
certain rates. If there are causes which should keep up 
the rent of land for other purposes, and if demand for 
labour in other employment prevents the reduction of 
wages, dislike it as much as he or we may, the only conclu- 
sion is, that agricultural production can no longer be 
maintained in England — she must cease to be an agricul- 
tural country. According to the principles of political 
economy, as generally taught, it may not be undesirable 
that this result should follow. But I, for one, as an 
Englishman, cannot help feeling some regret at the 
prospect of such a result ; though it is probably inevitable 
unless more people, than appear to do so at present, do not 
soon perceive the diflference referred to by Mr. Fitz-James 
Stephen between the propositions — 'If your only object 
in trade is to make the largest possible profit, you ought 
always to buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the 
dearest ;' and this other, that ' All men ought, under all 
circimistances, to buy all things in the cheapest, and sell 
them in the dearest market.' 

It is not diflficult to perceive in what the benefit of 
foreign commerce consists. Besides its enabling countries 
to obtain commodities which they could not themselves 
produce, it does certainly afibrd an advantage in a more 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 149 

eCBcient employment of the productive forces of the 
world. How far this general advantage to the world at 
large can be obtained without sacrificing specially national 
interests, will not be clearly ascertained unless we see and 
take account of the action of money as an article of 
exchange in commercial intercourse. 

It is urged by Mr. Mill, that the only direct advantage 
of foreign commerce consists in the imports. He says 
that the vulgar theory disregards this benefit, and deems 
the advantage of commerce to reside in the exports ; as 
if, not what a country obtains, but what it parts with by 
its foreign trade, was supposed to constitute the gain of it. 

It is worth our while to consider this proposition a 
little. The nation is, in its dealings with other nations, 
only an aggregate of individual consumers. Let us take 
the dealings of one individual consmner. Will the wealth 
of a baker consist not in the quantity of bread which he 
sends out for sale, and be derived from the number of his 
customers, but in the quantity of meat which he obtains 
from the butcher, and consumes in his own family ? Will 
the prosperity of the butcher depend likewise upon tha 
amount of bread which he obtains from the baker and 
consumes ? And will either be able to save anything on 
his transactions if he ' imports ' into his household, and 
consumes more of the article obtained from the other 
than he can pay for by the article with which he supplied 
him ? I do not think that any one can doubt the answer 
to these questions. If both the tradesmen consume other 



150 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

articles to the full value of those supplied by themselves, 
it will scarcely be supposed that any profit or savings can 
be accumulated from their business. The one illustration 
will answer for all individual industries. For all purposes 
of thrift or accumulation, it is essentially necessary that 
each trader should obtain for his wares more money than 
he expends in purchasing supplies from other persons. 
Otherwise he may live lavishly, and incur debts ; but if 
he does not receive more value for what he sends out 
or ' exports,' than he gives for what he consmnes or ' im- 
ports,' he wiU soon find himself involved in diflBculties. 
This instance, which I think is not open to objection, 
affords a remarkable comment upon Mr. Mill's proposi- 
tion. In the first place, if the prevalent theory were 
correct that money is not wealth, but only a mediunn of 
exchange, it is impossible to see how imports can be 
obtained beyond the value of the commodities produced 
and exported to pay for them. And although if the full 
value of these be imported, the imports may add to the 
comfort and luxury of the importers, it may be presumed 
that they are only obtained for the purpose of consump- 
tion ; and the nation could only be in the same position 
as the improvident man, who lives up to the full amoimt 
of his income, and ' imports ' largely from his tailor, wine 
merchant, butcher, baker, and other tradesmen, beyond 
the possibility of saving. But whether the nation chooses 
to save and become rich, or to live profusely, it is certain 
that its income, like his, will depend upon the amount of 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 151 

excliangeable property whicTi it may be able to produce — 
in other words, upon its exports. I can scarcely under- 
stand how Mr. Mill, or any other person who has studied 
the subject, should liave thought otherwise'; how he failed 
to perceive that there can be no saving or profit upon 
interchanges of goods intended merely for consumption. 
If no benefit is derived from an extended market for 
produce, or an abundant consumption for her goods — and 
if money is not a commodity — it is wellnigh impossible 
to understand what advantage can be derived by Great 
Britain from trade with gold-producing countries like 
California or Victoria in the earlier days, when they had 
nothing but gold to offer in exchange for goods. 

It is surprising that, while rightly objecting to any 
theory which implied that money is the only wealth, he 
and others should have altogether ignored the underlying 
stratum of truth in the mercantile theory. Even Adam 
Smith, opposed as he was to it, allowed that foreign trade 
aflTorded an outlet for the surplus produce, and enabled a 
portion of the capital to replace itself with a profit ; but 
Mr. Mill maintained that ' these expressions suggest ideas 
inconsistent with a clear conception of the phenomena.' 
He proceeds to object that, *the expression "surplus" 
produce seems to imply that a coimtry is under some 
kind of necessity of producing the corn or cloth which it 
exports ;' and he gives an explanation of what he regards 
to be the true state of the case, which could only be true 
on the supposition that every nation could really produce 



152 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

everything which it wants, and in sufficient quantity for 
its requirements. He says that, if prevented from ex- 
porting surplus productions, the nation ' would cease to 
produce it, and would no longer import anything, being 
unable to give an equivalent ;' but the disengaged latx>ur 
and capital 'would find employment in producing those 
desirable objects previously brought from abroad.' The 
principal imports of Great Britain are raw cotton, com, 
sugar, wool, silk manufactures, and tea. The principal 
exports are cotton, woollen, iron, and steel, and linen 
manufactures, coal, and machinery. According to Mr. 
Mill, then, we may assume that if Great Britain were 
prevented from exporting these articles, all the liberated 
labour and capital would be immediately applied to 
growing sugar, silk, and tea, and raw cotton to a limited 
extent, for home consumption. More wool than she now 
has would probably not be required. She would have to 
do her best to produce more com. Can any stronger 
instance be cited of the extraordinary flights of fancy 
which are often presented to us as the conclusions of 
economical science ? Does the wealth conferred by com- 
merce on Great Britain consist in the consumption of 
sugar, silk, and tea, and in retaining in her possession 
vast quantities of unmanufactured cotton ? 

Put another example of remarkable illusion is fur- 
nished by the statement immediately afterwards, made by 
Mr. Mill, that ' the gains of merchants, when they enjoy 
no exclusive privilege, are no greater than the profits 



ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 153 

obtained by the employment of capital in the country 
itself.' And he replies to the objection that, in case of 
the cessation of foreign trade, capital could not find em- 
ployment in supplying the home market, by saying that 
' we not only see that the capital of the merchant would 
find employment, but we see what emplojnnent.' That is, 
as we have observed, that the labour and capital now 
employed in British manufactures would immediately 
betake itself to the production of sugar, silk, tea, and 
cotton, in Great Britain. But surely it is surprising that 
among a mercantile nation like that of Great Britain, it 
can be supposed, by any one at all conversant with business 
afiairs, that the gains of merchants are never any greater 
than the profits obtained by the emplojmaent of capital 
in the country itself. We know that men have been 
ruined by mercantile speculations ; but we know, also, that 
the growth of the colossal fortunes which have been 
amassed by such men as the late Mr. Peabody, who began 
life with scarcely anything, cannot be measured by any 
rate of compound interest for capital invested, which it is 
possible to obtain anywhere on the globe. 

This, however, with other fallacies, grows out of the 
singular doctrine that money is not wealth, and the belief 
that capital is augmented and amassed by some occult 
manner similar to the growth of population. There seems 
always to be hanging about the doctrine of the economist 
an unexpressed idea that property can spring from pro- 
perty, as life springs from life by animal generation. 



154 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

The concluding paragraph of Mr. Mill's chapter on 
international trade, where he speaks of the indirect eflfects 
of foreign commerce as among benefits of a high order, 
afibrds an instance of the marvellous inconsistencies found 
in the prevalent economical doctrines taught chiefly on 
the authority of Mill. He points out, in glowing language, 
how to* a 'people in a quiescent, indolent, uncultivated 
state, with all their tastes either fully satisfied or entirely 
undeveloped, the opening of a foreign trade, by making 
them acquainted with new objects, or tempting them by 
the easier acquisition of things which they had not pre- 
viously thought attainable, sometimes works a sort of 
industrial revolution in a country whose resources were 
previously undeveloped for want of energy and ambition 
in the people.' Now this view may be correct, as I believe 
it to be ; but it is wholly irreconcileable with what he has 
laid down in another place, that it is only by what a per- 
son abstains from consuming that he benefits the labouring 
classes. 

In the chapter on international values, many pages are 
devoted by him to arguments and inferences drawn from 
supposed interchanges of cloth and linen between England 
and Germany, which are really as inaccurate as his con- 
clusions from the supposed dealings between England and 
Poland in corn and cloth already referred to, and from the 
same cause — the omission to take into account the effects 
of the intervention of a third article of exchange every- 
where in request ; the simple fact being that in all free 



ON INTERNATIONAL TEADE. 155 

trade articles are exchanged for gold where most gold can 
be got for tliem, and the gold taken to places where the 
articles it is desired to purchase can be obtained for least 
gold, and that without gold free trade would be impossible. 

But after all his elaboration of the subject, he arrives 
at the conclusion, in the latter part of his chapter, that 
* the only general law, then, which can be laid down is 
this. The values at which a country exchanges its pro- 
duce with foreign countries depend on two things.' . . . 
' But these two influencing circumstances are in reality 
reducible to one.' ... * It still appears,' he says, 
' that the countries which carry on their foreign trade on 
the most advantageous terms are those whose commodities 
are most in demand by foreign countries, and which have 
themselves the least demand for foreign commodities.' In 
other words, those countries which have the old-fashioned 
balance of trade in their favour. But this does not appear 
to be quite in accordance with the doctrine previously 
stated, that ' the only direct advantage of foreign commerce 
consists in the imports.' 

In an article in the Westminster Review for last April, 
on Moral Philosophy, at Cambridge, the writer observes, 
that to obtain a firm grasp of Mill's Theory of Interna- 
tional Values probably requires as great powers of mental 
concentration and as special an aptitude as to master 
Laplace's Co-efficients. So, no doubt, it does. And so it 
probably would to understand the Planetary System of 
Tycho Brahe, which assumed that the earth is stationaiy, 



156 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and that all the other planets revolve round the sun, being 
carried with it round the earth. It is known that his 
system explains all appearances quite as well as that of 
Copernicus ; and that in fact there is nothing but a com- 
paratively recent discovery, the aberration of light, which 
is demonstrably conclusive in favour of the annual motion 
of the earth. As the pre-existing belief of Copernicus, 
with some additions and modifications, has been shown 
by Bradley's discovery to be correct, so by recalling our 
attention to the fact demonstrated by the history of Cali- 
fornia and Victoria, that gold — and therefore money — ^is 
an article of exchange, we may be enabled to perceive that 
the old mercantile system, now dismissed with contempt, 
is, with some limitations and explanations, not so wholly 
erroneous as is commonly supposed, and to arrive at a less 
hazy conception of the character of paper-money, and the 
nature of international exchanges. 



15 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES AND DISTRIBUTION 
OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. 

Mr. Fawcett, in his * Manual of Political Economy' (2nd 
edition, p. 362), states that 'gold (and the same remark 
applies to silver) is devoted to two distinct purposes — 
1st. Gold is employed as an ordinary article of com- 
merce. 2nd. Gold is the substance from which a great 
portion of the money of eveiy country is made. A very 
large proportion of all the gold that exists in the world 
is devoted to the last of these two purposes.' 

Mr. Mill, at the beginning of his chapter on Foreign 
Exchanges, says — ' We have thus far considered the 
})recious metals as a commodity imported like other 
commodities in the common course of trade, and have 
examined what are the circumstances which would, in 
that case, determine their value. But those metals are 
also imported in another character — that which belongs 
to them as a medium of exchange ; not as an article of 
commerce to be sold for money, but as themselves money, 
to pay a debt, or eflfect a transfer of property.' 

In these statements we have a concise expression of the 



158 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

error against which I protest. The distinction which it 
is sought to establish has not, and cannot have any real 
existence. If gold is at all, and under any circumstances, 
an article of commerce, so must money be. The diflFer- 
ence can only be of quantity, not of character or kind. 
There is no more distinction between an ingot of gold 
worth one thousand pounds and a bag of one thousand 
sovereigns than there is between a pipe of wine and that 
same wine put into bottles for more convenient division 
and transport in small quantities. There is no magic in 
coining, and the Government never, under any circum- 
stances, can create money, though it may create public 
liabilities in the shape of paper currency, as has been done 
by the United States, and by some continental govern- 
ments more recently. All that is efifected by coining is to 
give a more authoritative certificate to the quantity and 
quality of a piece of gold, in a manner not unusual for- 
merly with respect to other commodities. Some years 
ago the packages of fish taken in the North American 
fisheries were always subjected to inspection as to quantity 
and quality, and were stamped and certified accordingly, 
by the inspectors, as No. 1 or No. 2 mackerel, for instance, 
as the case might be. . The packages so certified had a 
sort of timbre and corresponding market value. The 
principle, and, indeed, the practice involved in coining is 
the same, and nothing more. The use and free circulation 
of true money arises only from the fact that all civilised 
nations have agreed to receive the precious metals in 



OK rOREIGN EXCHANGES. 159 

exchange for other commodities in all cases where it is not 
necessary or desirable to take something else ; because the 
metals are not subject to decay ; as every one desires to 
have them they are always readily again exchangeable, 
and this of itself increases the desire for them. 

The fact that the occasions are numerous when coin is 
melted down and transported to places distant from that 
to which the coinage belonged, to be there exchanged for 
other commodities, as Professor Fawcett mentions to have 
been the case with French silver sent to the East, ought 
alone to be sufficient to show that money does not cease 
to be a commodity. It is strange that the significance of 
these facts, and of the admission that gold and silver con- 
tain great value in small bulk, is not perceived, and the 
true inference not drawn from them, that money is an 
article of commerce, and must indeed be so before it can 
become a medium of exchange. 

But all Mr. Mill's theory of foreign exchanges is 
vitiated by the failure to recognise the true character of 
money, and the effect which must be produced by the 
fact that it is a third article of substantive value, when, 
as he admits, ' in practice the imports and exports of a 
country are not only not exchanged directly against each 
other, but often do not even pass through the same 
hands.' 

He states that ' since things which are equal to the 
same thing are equal to one another, the exports and 
imports which are equal in money piice, would, if money 



160 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

were not used, precisely exchange for one another.' (VoL 
II., p. 171.) And in a note, which is an extract from 
one of his essays, he uses an elaborate argument adapted 
to the imaginary case of a trade between England and 
Germany in cloth and linen, to show that the same con- 
clusion is arrived at by supposing the employment of 
money which is foimd to hold on the supposition of 
barter. But the whole of the argument is grounded on 
two gratuitous assumptions, which are not by any means 
necessarily found to be facts in actual practice. He 
supposes ' that before the opening of the trade the price 
of the cloth is the same in both countries, namely, six 
shillings per yard. As ten yards of cloth were supposed 
to exchange in England for fifteen of linen, in Germany 
for twenty, we must suppose that linen is sold in England 
at four shillings per yard, in Germany at three shillings. 
Cost of carriage and importer's profit are left as before out 
of consideration. In this state of prices, cloth, he admits, 
'it is evident cannot be exported from England into 
Germany ; but linen can be imported from Germany 
into England. It will be so ; and in the first instance 
the linen will be paid for in money.' He proceeds how- 
ever to show how an equilibrium of imports and exports 
will, according to his views, be established by the efflux 
of money from England, and its influx into Germany. 
But, in the first place, it is assuming altogether too much, 
to suppose that the amount of money flowing into Ger- 
many in exchange for a single article of export among 



ON FOKEIGN EXCHANGES. 161 

many of both export and consumption, would or could be 
sufficient to raise money prices generally for everything 
else in Germany. And, secondly, supposing that the 
quantity was sufficient to do so, if it remained in Germany, 
there is nothing to justify the assumption that it may not 
flow out again in trade with some other place — as with 
China, for tea, which must be paid for in money — in 
quite sufficient amoimt not only to keep prices where they 
were when the trade with England began, but even still 
further to lower the price of linen as compared with 
money in Germany. This is an instance of many unjus- 
tified assumptions upon which economical dicta are 
frequently based. 

The greater part of Mr. Mill's chapter on Foreign 
Exchanges, in which he explains the fluctuations in 
exchange as depending upon the preponderance of im- 
ports or exports in the trade between any two countries, 
is in fact nullified by a paragraph at the close of it, in 
which he says — * It remains to observe, that the ex- 
changes do not depend on the balances of debts and 
credits with each country separately, but with all countries 
taken together. England may owe a balance of payment 
to France, but it does not follow that the exchange with 
France will be against England, and that bills on France 
will be at a premium.' 

If this explanation be correct, we need not trouble 
ourselves about any fluctuations of trade in detail ; and 
as the imports of England have for years been largely in 

M 



162 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

excess of her exports, exchange must always be Sigainst 
England. It may safely be left to the experience of the 
mercantile world to say whether this is uniformly the 
case. In fact, we know that exchange is not uniformly 
against England, and whether it is so or not will depend 
primarily not upon the balance of trade with any particu- 
lar country, nor with all coimtries taken together, but 
upon the respective plentifulness of money in the respec- 
tive countries — in other words upon the greater or less 
demand for money which exists in comparison with that 
for goods in these places. In a country where money is 
abundant and cannot find ready employment, a banker 
will not so willingly take it in exchange for an amount 
to be paid by him in another place where money is scarce 
and in much request. He cannot so easily use it with 
profit in the former as in the latter place ; and if he con- 
sents to the exchange, it will only be on condition of 
receiving a premiiun which is computed to compensate 
him for the loss he would otherwise sustain in the trans- 
action. In fact, exchanges will be regulated by the 
relative value of money as a commodity, in the two places 
between which the exchange is to be effected. The case 
is similar if we suppose the exchange of any other com- 
modity in one place for a like quantity of equally good 
quality in another ; A, who possesses ten thousand pounds 
of wool in London, worth there, and at that time, fifteen 
pence per poimd, will not transfer that wool to B, for 
other ten thousand pounds in Australia, only worth ten- 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 163 

pence per pound there, unless B compensates him for the 
difference in value. And the mere cost of carriage and 
other expenses will not determine the amount of this, 
because, by the time the latter parcel arrives in London, 
the value of wool may have fallen relatively to other 
things, and probabilities on this score must also be taken 
into the calculation. 

In the case of money, exchanges will also be influenced 
by other causes : the subject is rendered obscure by the 
use of paper money and the privilege which is accorded 
to banks of issuing their notes in payment of demands 
upon them ; thus using their credit in augmentation of 
their true capital; banking companies in this manner 
receiving interest for the use of their credit instead of 
money, and deriving profits which could not be obtained 
unless the circulation of bank-notes were permitted. 

But apart from Mr. Mill's own contradiction in the 
later paragraph which I have quoted — of his statements 
earlier in the chapter, these former statements are almost 
altogether based upon the fallacious assumption that all 
amounts payable to one nation from another can be used 
as aeta-off against amounts due from the first ; that debts 
can be written oflf as in dealings between individuals, and 
only the balance due be remitted in the precious metals. 
No doubt this ^7ill always be the case eventually unless 
the international obligation remains unsatisfied ; but this 
alone will not meet the whole case in actual practice. 
His argument takes for granted that all bill transactions 

H 2 



164 STUDIES IN POLIIICAL ECOXOMY. 

take place on the same side — ^that A in England draws a 
bill on B in France for the amount which B owes him : 
and that D in England, having an equal amount to pay 
in France, pays this bill from A and sends it to C, who, 
at the expiration of a certain number of days which the 
bill has to run presents it to B for payment. Thus, he 
says, the debt due from France to England, and the debt 
due from England to France are both paid without send- 
ing an ounce of gold from one country to another. This 
supposes that only one bill is drawn, and that in England 
for both transactions, and implies that each individual 
engaged in a trade between two countries knows what all 
others are doing in the same trade. Let us suppose, what 
is quite as likely as Mr. Mill's hypothesis, that instead of 
the purchase by D of a bill to remit to C, that C draws in 
France upon D in England for the amount due from him. 
Here we find that instead of the value of the goods being 
written oflf or exchanged in the national transactions, in 
each case the value of the exports has to be paid for in 
money in the other country, and twice the value of the 
property has changed hands in the operation. This eflFect 
might be produced to the full extent of the whole trade 
between the two countries, which would then require 
money to the whole value of exports from both to carry 
it on. No doubt this never occurs to the full extent, but 
we know that in fact bills are not always drawn in one 
country in a trade between any two nations, nor is perfect 
equilibrimn preserved in the drafts from either side ; and 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 165 

fluctuations in this, as well as other causes, will affect 
rates of exchange between money in one place and money 
in another, because it must affect the demand for the 
temporary use of money. 

Mr. Mill refers, with great approbation, to the state- 
ment made by Eicardo, that ' gold and silver having been 
chosen for the general medium of circulation, they are by 
the competition of commerce distributed in such propor- 
tions among the different countries of the world as to ac- 
commodate themselves to the natural traflSc which would 
take place if no such metals existed, and the trade between 
countries were purely a trade of barter.' This would be 
an apparently satisfactory explanation, if only it were true. 
But is it true ? Is it at all consistent with what we know 
of the trade between Great Britain and China and India ? 
— in which we are aware that her exports of ordinary 
merchandise do not pay for half the value of the tea, silk, 
and other commodities obtained from these places, money 
having to be sent for the remainder. Would it have been 
possible for us to procure these imports from China and 
India without the precious metals to give in exchange for 
them ? When British goods have been persistently de- 
clined we have no ground for assuming in this case that 
there would have been any natural traflSc which the gold 
and silver do not affect. And what is true in this case 
may be more or less true in all. At all events we are not 
justified by such a remarkable exception in adopting so 
broad a generalisation as Mr. Eicardo's. 



166 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Mr. Fawcett's observations in his Manual touching 
the effect of the recent gold discoveries, afford us a re- 
markable comment upon this question. He alludes to the 
extraordinary export of precious metals to India and China 
since 1850, shown by the Board of Trade returns. The 
annual average amount had certainly not been less than 
12,000,000^ at the time when he wrote, and yet a few 
years previous to 1850 the amount sent was comparatively 
insignificant. He thinks that the increase in the trade of 
the country is exhibited in a striking manner by the 
quantity of tea and silk which we import from China. In 
1847, he says, we purchased only 55,000,000 lbs. of tea from 
thence, whereas now (1863) we import 100,000,000 lbs. 
And he thinks that this increased consumption of tea 
which has taken place since the introduction of free trade 
proves the benefits derived from that policy, for there is 
no luxury so much prized by our labouring classes as tea, 
and therefore the consumption of tea could not have so 
largely increased unless the labouring poor had become 
far more prosperous. I will not discuss the question 
whether tea — ^which the Western world did very well with- 
out until a few hundred years ago — is one of the most 
desirable acquisitions for the labouring classes, good for 
the nation to possess, at the expense of more durable ex- 
changeable property which might be applied to other 
purposes. But it is interesting, as well as important, to 
consider whether this great increase of importation is 
really due to free trade — whether, however free the trade 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 167 

might be, it would have been possible but for the enor- 
mous accession to the quantity of the precious metals 
obtained from California and Victoria, which have fur- 
nished the nation with the only conunodity for which the 
Chinese are willing to exchange their tea in trade with us 
at least. - 

Mr. Fawcett assumes that the sudden development of 
our trade and commerce about the year 1850 created a 
demand for a greater quantity of money to be brought 
into circulation. Suppose that we take the converse of 
this proposition, and ask whether it was not the acquisition 
of a larger quantity of money — ^of exchangeable property 
of value — which caused this sudden expansion of trade and 
commerce. The effect upon the gold countries themselves 
cannot be disputed ; but after its fertilising influences had 
been felt there gold flowed out to other countries, where 
the same effects have been produced, only lessened in 
degree by the greater diffusion over a larger surface. It 
is indeed most strange that the true causes of the pheno- 
mena which we see around us should be so misunderstood, 
notwithstanding facts patent to ordinary observation ; and 
the misconception affords a singular instance of the per- 
sistency of error accepted without question on the authority 
of great names. The reputation of Newton and the oppo- 
sition of Lord Brougham prevented the recognition of truth 
in Dr. Yoimg's exposition of the undulatory theory of light, 
now established beyond question. Worship of Adam Smith 
and the celebrity of Mr. Mill have placed obstacles to our 



168 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

perception of what has been plainly taught by the gold 
discoveries of the last five-and-twenty years. 

Whether the true explanation of the laws of light 
were correctly understood or not mattered nothing in the 
operation of those laws, which can neither be prevented 
nor counteracted by man. It is otherwise in the case of 
a misunderstanding of facts in political economy, when 
commercial policy and fiscal regulations may be based 
upon a mistake from which important consequences flow. 

And yet in the writings of the economists we repeat- 
edly meet with passages which indicate their knowledge of 
facts, which ought to have shown inevitable consequences 
which must follow from them, utterly irreconcileable with 
the prevalent doctrine of the significance of money in the 
mercantile exchanges of the world. In Eicardo's chapter 
on the influence of demand and the supply of prices, he 
refers to observations of M. Say, to the eSect that the 
demand for gold having increased in a still greater propor- 
tion than the supply since the earlier discovery of mines 
in South America, its price in goods, instead of falling in 
the proportion of ten to one, fell only in the proportion of 
four to one ; that is, instead of falling in proportion as its 
natural price had fallen, it fell in proportion as the supply 
exceeded the demand. This ought to have been sugges- 
tive of the truth, that there is no natural but only 
relative price as compared with other things : and that the 
greater demand for other things, caused by larger means 
to purchase them in the accession of greater quantities of 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 169 

gold and consequent increase of production, prevented that 
disproportion between the relative values of gold and 
other commodities, which would have been obvious if the 
quantities of these latter had remained the same and that 
of gold only had been augmented. Eicardo fui'ther says, 
in a note to this passage, that ' if with the quantity of 
gold and silver which actually exists, these metals only 
served for the manufacture of utensils and ornaments, 
they would be abundant, and would be much cheaper than 
they are at present ; in other words, in exchanging them 
for any other species of goods we should be obliged to give 
proportionally a greater quantity of them. But as a large 
quantity of these metals is used for money, and as this 
portion is used for no other purpose, there remains less to 
be employed for furniture and jewellery: now this scarcity 
adds to their value.' This is only tantamount to what I 
have remarked in a previous Essay,* that if it were not 
for the intrinsic value of money as an article of exchange, 
we might use the precious metals for many purposes for 
which they are peculiarly suited, but to which they are now 
too costly to be applied. If we cannot afford to melt down 
coin for these purposes, it is — and can only be — because 
it possesses a substantive value too great in exchange 
for other things more imperatively necessary to permit the 
extravagance. And if this is the fact, we only involve 
ourselves in endless confusion by refusing to take into 
account the effect of money in exchanges, and puzzle our- 

* Money — a Function. 



170 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

selves needlessly by striving to work out, without the 
intervention of money, economical problems which cannot 
be solved unless we make allowance for that effect. 

We are taught by Mr. Mill that ' all interchange is in 
substance and effect, barter: whoever sells commodities 
for money, and with that money buys other goods, really 
buys those goods with his own commodities. And so of 
nations : their trade is a mere exchange of exports for im- 
ports ; and, whether money is employed or not, things are 
only in their permanent state when the exports and imports 
exactly pay for each other.' The whole of this is an ima- 
ginary hypothesis, utterly imjustified by facts. All inter- 
change is in substance barter, but it is only sometimes barter 
between commodities of other kinds — money of account 
being used as furnishing a convenient mode of compar- 
ing values agreed upon ; it is sometimes barter of other 
commodities for gold or silver as money. And the effect 
is not at all times, and in all places, the same. Were 
money only the machinery that Mr. Mill supposes it to be, 
trade would never be in any state but that which he regards 
as one of stable equilibrium. At all events, no nation 
would knowingly give away exports for imports of less 
value, and there would never be any balance to be paid in 
the precious metals. The simple fact that this does some- 
times occur — that there are many instances where the 
balance of trade, as it is called, is uniformly against 
a nation, and that this balance has to be paid in coin or 
bullion — shows that money is a commodity, and not a 
medium. Paper currency taken from the United States 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 171 

would be useless in exchange for tea with China. And 
were Great Britain, from any cause, to be drained of the 
precious metals as the United States have been, her enor- 
mous trade with China and India must cease, unless she 
could persuade other nations to give her a sufficient 
quantity of gold, in exchange for promises to pay, to 
enable her to prosecute the trade. 

Mr. Mill endeavours to explain a fanciful distinction 
between, what he calls, a barter system and a money 
system, and the process under the two by which things are 
brought back to a condition of stable equilibrixmi when 
they have deviated from it. He did not perceive that 
if any distinction exists, it must be because the money 
introduces a new element. Under the first, he says that 
the country which wants more imports than its exports 
will pay for, must offer them at a cheaper rate, as the sole 
means for creating a demand for them sufficient to re- 
establish the equilibrium. Embarrassed by the doctrine 
that money is in itself nothing, and only useful as fur- 
nishing a standard by which to compare values, he endea- 
vours to escape by an hypothesis quite untenable. How 
is it possible, by offering exports at a cheaper rate, to 
increase their value, if the exports are already insufficient 
in quantity to pay for the desired imports ? He speaks 
as if it were possible to every nation indefinitely to increase 
production; and not only so, but to produce more in 
quantity for less cost in the aggregate than the former 
amount. But he proceeds to explain how the apparent 



172 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

distinction between the two systems is to be aecounted.&&: 
in the case of dealing for money. When, he says, ^^ite 
state of prices is such that the equation of international 
demand cannot establish itself, the country requiring more 
imports than can be paid for by the exports, it is a sign 
that the country has more of the precious metals or their 
substitutes in circulation than can permanently circulate, 
and must necessarily part with some of them before the 
balance can be restored. The currency is accordingly 
contracted ; prices fall, and among the rest the prices of 
exportable articles, for which there arises in foreign coun- 
tries a greater demand, while imported commodities have 
possibly risen in price from the influx of money into 
foreign countries, and, at all events, have not participated 
in the general fall.' And he goes on to describe how there 
must be a continued influx of money until an imaginary 
equation takes place between exports and imports. 

The whole of this is quite contrary to experience. 
Compare the statement with the fact that the total value 
of the imports of Great Britain have for the last ten years 
regularly, according to official returns, been enormously 
in excess of the value of her exports ; and yet we know 
that during that time vast sums of gold have flowed into 
Great Britain from Australia and the United States, which 
have not flowed out again to the same amount. But to 
take the Indian and Chinese trade as special examples, it 
is notorious that the latter, at all events, has greatly 
increased, and that it consists, to the extent of more than 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 173 

half, of exchange of the precious metals for other com- 
modities, and yet that it is equally notorious and matter for 
frequent complaint how much the prices of other commo- 
dities, as compared with gold, have risen and are still 
rising in Great Britain. It is a singular delusion that 
there is any necessity either that a nation should part with 
the precious metals in the circumstances mentioned, or 
that any contraction of the currency should take place. 
Neither the nation nor the individuals composing it will 
part with their gold — their money — for other things unless 
they happen to want certain things more than money. It 
is quite conceivable that a community should be so rich 
in gold and in all other commodities as to have no wish 
and no necessity to exchange anything with any other 
people. Such a community the United States of America 
probably will in course of years become, for within their 
borders they possess, or are capable of producing, almost 
every known material of the animal, vegetable, or mineral 
kingdoms of use to man ; or at least available substitutes 
for any which they do not possess. In a case like this 
there could be no question of protSbtion or free trade. It 
would be as much out of place in respect of all articles of 
exchange as it always was in England in regard to coal. 
To export anything from other countries to $uch a place 
would be to send coals to Newcastle. 

But if there are cert£&n things, such as tea, silk, cotton, 
and tobacco, which climate forbids a nation like Great 
Britain to produce, she will purchase these from abroad, 



174 STUDIES la POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and if there are certain others which can be produced 
more cheaply elsewhere than at home, these also she will 
obtain from foreigners. But these she certainly will prefer 
to pay for, so far as she can, by the surplus of her own 
produce above what she requires for her own consumption. 
And she does not part with money except in cases where 
only money will procure that which she requires. The 
erroneous hypothesis which we are considering is based 
upon the assumption that money is nothing more than 
machinery, through the agency of which exchanges are 
eflfected, and of which a greater amount can never be 
useful than is required for this purpose, and that the re- 
mainder is therefore transferred to some other place where 
it is more needed. But facts do not accord with this 
theory. We might with as much reason suppose that 
more than a certain quantity of any other article of ex- 
changeable value, as clothing or food, can never be 
required. With money, as with them, it could never be 
found true until every member of a community had so 
much that it hkd become so cheap in exchange for other 
ai tides aS to be nearly valueless. We can scarcely conceive 
that food and clothing can ever be so abundant ; and, even 
if gold should become so common that a sovereign should 
only be worth, as an article of exchange, what a shilling 
now is, we yet should not have arrived at this point. We 
know, too, that the possibility of exchanging gold in 
foreign commerce for other articles where it will procure 
the greater quantity or better quality of these tends to 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 175 

diflfuse this possible eflfect over so large an extent of the 
inhabited world, as to postpone indefinitely any great in- 
convenience. But the effect is perceptible, especially in 
England, into which, as the great commercial emporium 
and banking-house of the world, large masses of the pre- 
. cious metals — in other words, of money — ^are continually 
being poured, without an equal outflow to China, India, 
and other places, which exchange their commodities chiefly 
for money. And the operation even of this eflBux is largely 
neutralised by the use which is permitted to banks of their 
notes, or credit, or promises to pay, in place of coin ; thus 
adding to the amount of nominal money as an article of 
exchange — just as capital, or a substitute for it, has been 
augmented in the United States by the issu6 of inconvert- 
ible paper currency — and thus raising the prices of all 
commodities but money. The distribution of the precious 
metals throughout the world is, in fact, determined very 
materially by the greater prevalence of paper currency in 
some places than in others. In the United States we have 
seen how they disappeared before the issue of the legal- 
tender notes. In Italy, and probably now in France, they 
have become scarce ; but China, India, and other places 
absorb large amounts. For in these the point in civilisa- 
tion has not been attained, from which may be perceived 
the advantage of permitting persons or companies of per- 
sons to derive large profits from duplicating their money 
by first lending it at interest, and then lending it a second 
time — also at interest- in the shape of bank notes, or 
promises to pay. 



176 STUDIES m tOilTICAL ECONOMY. 

Indeed, the feet of the continued, use and usefulness 
of paper mon^j in all countries serves to show that the 
efflux of money *in the cases supposed by Mr. Mill fs not 
a necessary consequence of abundance of money, and that 
there is never such a thing, even theoretically, as over- 
abundance. The only inevitable result is a rise in the 
relative values of other things. There may be such a 
thing as contraction of the currency where that currency 
is a currency of debt and the creation of the Govern- 
ment, which may be able to withdraw its liabilities to pay 
money by receiving them in liquidation of public claims ; 
as has recently happened in America. But if true money 
were so withdrawn the effect would be the destruction of 
so much property belonging to the people. And when 
the occurrence happens which is called contraction of 
the currency — where gold and silver are concerned — it 
means that at that time, and in that place, the precious 
metals have become more valuable in proportion to other 
commodities than they were before. But it does not 
necessarily indicate that any efflux of money has taken 
place. Suppose a farmer, rich in flocks and herds, and 
with 10,000Z. at his banker's, and a poorer neighboiu: who 
has not more than lOOL at his credit, but who needs two 
horses for his business, for which he changes four oxen 
with the first, paying him also a sum of lOl. for difference 
of value. Notwithstanding that the first has already 
more money as well as more cattle than the second, the 
lOi. will be added to his savings, and there will* certainly 



ON FOEEIGN HaifttA^'GES. 177 

be no outflow from his bank account. Just similar may 
be, and in many cases are, international: transactions. 
Nations will procure what they want where it is most 
expedient to obtain it, without any reference to such an 
equation of trade as is imagined by the economists, and, 
indeed, is necessary as a postulate in their hypotheses. 

The efiect of this is shown in a remarkable manner in 
the latter part of Mr. Mill's chapter on the distribution 
of the precious metals, to which I am referring. He 
admits that there is a semblance of contradiction between 
the law which he has laid down of that distribution by 
means of exchanges and the law by which the value of 
money is regulated when imported as an article of mer- 
chandize. Money he allows to be no exception to the 
general laws of value, and to be a commodity like any 
other ; though he erred, I contend, in believing that ' its 
average or natural value depends on the cost of produc- 
tion, or at least of obtaining it.' ^ That its distribution 
throughout the world, therefore, and its diflferent value in 
different places should be liable to be altered by a 
hundred causes unconnected with it ; by everything which 
affects the trade in other commodities so as to derange 
the equilibrium of exports and imports, appears,' he says, 
* to some thinkers a doctrine altogether inadmissible.' 

Mr. Mill proceeds to explain why he regards this 
anomaly as existing only in semblance. But in doing so 
he grants at first — what is wholly inconsistent with his 
attempted explanation — that the causes which bring 



178 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

money into or carry it out of a country through exchanges 
are the very same on which the local value of money 
would depend if it were never imported except as mer- 
chandize, and never except directly from the mines. 
Here is a full admission that the value of money must 
vary in any place directly in proportion to relative 
quantity as an article of merchandize. But he proceeds 
to say : ^ When the value of money in a country is per- 
manently lowered by an influx of it through the balance 
of trade, the cause, if it is not diminished cost of pro- 
duction, must be one of those causes which compel a new 
adjustment, more favourable to the country, of the 
equation of national demand — namely, either an in- 
creased demand abroad for her commodities, or a 
diminished demand on her part for those of foreign 
countries.' 

What do facts say in reply ? It is notorious that 
prices of almost everything which has not been cheapened 
by special causes have very greatly risen in Great Britain 
during the last ten years ; that is, that gold is permanently 
lowered in value. Though her exports of home produce 
have risen (in round numbers) from the value of 
146,000,000^. in 1863 to 256,000,000^. in 1872, her 
imports for home consumption have also risen from 
200,000,000^. to nearly 300,000,000^. during the same 
period. Where is the equation of national demand here, 
when for years the imports of the nation have exceeded 
her exports by millions, and the excess shows no signs of 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 179 

diminution? And how shall we reconcile this with an 
equation of national demands ? Either official returns 
are entirely fallacious and misleading, or the nation has 
for years had a balance of trade against her which must 
be paid in money ; and if she has not paid the debt, other 
communities are her creditors to an immense amount. 
But under any circumstances, the diminished value of gold 
is indisputable, and totally incompatible with Mr. Mill's 
hypothesis, for there is no ground for assuming that the 
cost of producing the precious metals has suffered any 
diminution, either in the amount of labour necessary for 
the purpose, or the rate at which that labour is paid. 
And it must be remembered that although gold may be 
produced at a loss to the producer, still, if an individual 
has even parted with three ounces and only receive back 
two, yet the community of which he is a member remains 
in the possession of five ounces of an imperishable com- 
modity of exchangeable value, as against only three which 
were previously in existence. 

But the hypothesis of an equation of national demand 
is seen to be imfounded when we consider the instances 
which may be adduced of countries which do not for the 
most part receive their imports from the places to which 
they send their produce. One is afforded in Newfound- 
land. Except seal oil, which goes to Great Britain and 
the United States, almost the only product exported from 
Newfoundland is dried fish, and nearly the whole of 
this goes to Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, from which 

n2 



180 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

countries none of their produce is received in return. 
The commodities required by Newfoundland have to be 
obtained elsewhere ; and if money were not a commodity, 
but only a medium of exchange, trade between New- 
foundland and Spain, Portugal and Brazil, would be 
impossible. 

Perhaps, however, no more striking instance can be 
furnished of the fanciful character of the doctrine, that 
money is only the representative of some unspecified pro- 
perty belonging to some unknown person, the right to 
which it transfers, than Mr. Mill's observations, where Tie 
refers to the existence of international payments not 
originating in commerce, for which no equivalent in 
either money or commodities is expected or received — 
such as tributes, subsidies, or remittances of rent to 
absentee landlords. 

Beginning with the case of barter, he says that it wiH 
now not be necessary that the imports and exports should 
pay for one another ; on the contrary, there must be an 
annual excess of exports over imports equal to the value 
of the remittance. If previously the commerce was in a 
state of equilibrium, the foreign country must now be 
induced to take a greater quantity than before. Surely 
no inducement would be necessary to take what is sought 
for as a gift or received as a right. But he says this can 
only be eflfected by offering these exports on cheaper 
terms, or in other words, paying dearer for foreign com- 
modities. Now, if this is done, the only effect must be 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES, 181 

to equalize the value, although the quantities are varied, 
and there cannot be any excess ^ equal to the value of the 
remittances.' Whatever commodities are contributed by 
the paying country will swell the amount of the same 
kind in the country to which they are transferred, and 
their value relatively to other conmiodities will be so 
much reduced that, although there may be larger quantity 
than before, there will be no additional value. And if we 
suppose, for example, that these contributions are of food, 
the recipients may be better and more che^-ply fed, but no 
more clothing would be furnished to them. Mr. Mill 
further declares Qie remarkable result, that a country 
making such regular payments to others, besides losing 
what it pays, loses something more by the less advantageous 
terms on which it is forced to exchange its productions for 
those of the others ; seeming totally to disregard the fact 
that, according to his own statement, it can only lose any- 
thing by the disadvantageous terms on which the exchanges 
are made in the value of its exports being rated lower 
than before. 

He proceeds, however, to state how, according to the 
theory he mentions, the same results follow on the sup- 
position of money as in the case of barter : — ^ Conmierce 
being supposed to be in a state of equilibrium when the 
obligatory remittances begin, the first remittance is neces- 
sarily made in money.' Why so ? To a famine-stricken 
country, without suflScient food within its borders, it is not 
money which would be sent* It was not gold and silver, 



182 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

but breadstuffs, that the United States sent as a gift to 
starving Ireland. And there is no reason whatever why, 
if these contributions are, in fact, of other commodities, 
they should not be made specifically, from the beginning, 
in the produce of the country which is under the obliga- 
tion to make them. Having assumed, however, that they 
must be made in money, he goes on also to the entirely 
gratuitous assimiption that this lowers the prices in the 
remitting country, and raises them in the receiving. 
Upon this baseless foundation his argument is built. But 
it is wholly unreasonable to suppose that such remittances, 
insignificant, and perhaps scarcely appreciable in amoimt, 
compared to the whole mass of money and other exchange- 
able property in circulation in the receiving country, and 
to the amount of its commercial dealings with others, 
should have any immediate effect in raising prices. So 
far from the prices being raised in the receiving country, 
if the remittance received is expended — as will most 
probably happen — in importations of commodities from 
other quarters, prices may immediately fall, and the 
effects predicted by Mr. Mill become totally impossible. 
They are, even theoretically, entirely dependent upon 
commercial intercourse being restricted to the paying and 
receiving countries. 

The simple truth is, that, as with persons, so with 
nations, which are only numbers of persons, when money 
is paid gold and silver only are transferred, or the right to 
claim a specified quantity of gold or silver from some 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 183 

certain person at a known place, but no obligation beyond 
this is ever incurred. No engagement is made that the 
person receiving the money shall be able again to exchange 
it for anything whatever ; the possibility of his doing so 
is dependent entirely upon the desire of every one to 
obtain that form of what Mr. Wemmick, in 'Great 
Expectations,' called ' portable property,' which is most 
easily accumulated with least risk of deterioration. 



If these prolusions should help to recall some serious 
attention to the true character of money as an article of 
exchange in all commercial transactions, they will have 
more than answered their purpose ; which originally was 
only for personal amusement and occupation, to note 
deductions from reading, in a part of the world distant 
from the great centres of philosophic thought and discus- 
sion. 

It has long appeared to me that there is a deeply- 
seated misconception as to the character of ' capital ' 
which afifects many important and interesting questions. 
Capital is constantly spoken of as if it were a hidden 
force like electricity, residing in all property ; whereas, 
when stripped of illusory appearances, we find that how- 
ever we may choose to regard such possessions as the 
Pyramids or Westminster Abbey, a house or a steam- 
engine as being capital, very little besides that part of 
the aggregate property of the community which consists 
of what is expressively termed 'hard cash,' * ready money/ 



184 STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

possesses any of the active attributes of capital. Other 
property must be exchanged for money before anything 
can be done with it. But in ready money resides that 
potential energy which can be applied at a moment's 
notice either to purchase wheat, to build a pyramid, or to 
pay an army. If there be indeed any occult power known 
as capital, it must be generated by the action of money 
upon labour, as electricity is generated in a galvanic 
battery by the action of one chemical agent upon another ; 
but it operates through the circulating coin, as the electric 
current through the wire, and its presence is no more to be 
looked for in the perishable produce of that action than 
an electric shock may be expected from a telegraphic 
message delivered by an errand boy. 

I am quite aware that I shall be said to be reviving 
the absurdities of what is called the mercantile ' system;' 
but whether that system is quite absurd may still be a 
question, when, notwithstanding what is theoretically 
taught as political economy, we find men practically 
acting upon it ; all our currency representing a metallic 
basis, as the only indestructible one ; and the National 
Banks still solicitous for reserves of bullion. 

When, on the contrary, thQ absm-dity is once fully 
apprehended of any system, however supported by the 
authority of great names, under which we are required to 
believe that though an ingot of gold, or a bag of gold 
dust, worth l,000i., is valuable merchandize and wealth—*- 
the same merchandize, divided into pieces, certified to 



ON FOREIGN EXCHANGES. 185 

be worth one pound each, immediately becomes mere 
machinery, only a medium, and utterly insignificant in 
its efifect upon the exchange of other commodities, we 
shall readily see that any attempt to solve economical 
problems is imscientific and hopeless, which disregards 
the fact of the intervention of money as a commodity. 
We shall then perceive the efifect of this error — which 
can be easily followed — in many other branches of the 
subject than those to which I have referred ; for it is 
closely interwoven with almost all prevalent doctrines 
relating to the material prosperity, and even in some 
cases, to the moral well-being of nations. 



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India and the East 
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PAGB 
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J — .( .t. n_f.. .,-., 1 .".._. J _..,), piioiojraphi of the Country ul iu j 



dnit of the Driih Tiligrafh. Illusnaied wilh Pholo^phi of the Counu^ a 






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VIZCAYA ; or, Life in (he Land of the Carlists at the Outbraal of the Insiu^ 

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65, CortthiU ; &• ix, Paternoster Row, Larubm, 



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N AUTUMN TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES AND 

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OUND THE WORLD IN 1870. A Volume of Travels, with Maps. 

By A. D. Carlisle, B.A., Trin. Coll., Camb. Demy 8vo. Price idr. 

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65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London. 



6 Works PublisJied hy Henry S, King 6r* Co,y 

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IRELAND. A Tour of Observation, with Remarks on Irish Public Questions, 
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A WINTER IN MOROCCO. By AmeUa Farrier. With 4* Illustrations. 

Crown 8vo. Price i<w. 6d, 



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SCIENCE, 



THE PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE SENSES ; or the 

Mental and the Physical in their Mutual Relation. By H. S. Wyld, 
F.K.S.S!. Illustrated by Several Plates. Demy 8vo. Price 16s. 

The author's object is twofold : first, to supply a Manual of the Senses, embracing th^ 
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Theory, that die Senses, no less turn Reason, furnish proof that an immaterial and 
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SCIENTIFIC LONDON. By Bernard H. Becker, i vol. Crown 8vo. 5^. 
An Account of the History and present Scope of the following Institutions :— 



The Royal Society 

The Royal Iiist:tution 

The Institution of Civil Engineers 

The Royal Geoeraphical Society 

The Society of Telegraph Engineers 

The British Association 

The Birkbeck Institute 

The Society of Arts 



The Government Department of Science 

and Art 
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The Chemioal Society 
The Museum of Practical Geoloffy 
The London Institution 
The Gresham Lectures. 



OBSERVATIONS OF MAGNETIC DECLINATION MADE AT 

TBXVANDBUM AND AQUSTIA MAI^IiEY in the Observatories of lus 
Highness the Maharajah of Travancokb, G.C.S.I., in the Years 1852 to i86a 
Bemg Trevandrum Magnetical Observations, Volume I. Discussed and Edited by 
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*»* The Appendix, containing Reports on the Observatories and on the Public Museum, 
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EUCLID SIMPLIFIED IN METHOD ANX> LANGUAGE. Being 

a Manual of Geometry on the French System. By J. B. Morell. 

The chief features of the work are : — The separation of Theorems and Problems — The 
Natural Sequence of reasoning ; areas being treated by themselves and at a later page— 
The simpler and more natural treatment of ratio — Tne legitimate use of arithmetical 
applications, of transposition, and superposition — The general alteration of langua^^e to 
a more modern form — Lastly, if it be assumed to be venturesome to supersede the tune- 
hallowed pages of Euclid it may be urged that the attempt is made under the shelter of 
v^rv high authorities. 

THE QUESTIONS OF AURAL SURGERY. By James Hinton, 

late Aural Surgeon to Guy's Hospital. Post 8vo. With Illustrations. Price izr. 6d. 

"The Questions of Aural Surgery more than I cian, a deep and accurate thinker, and a forcible 
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AN ATLAS OF DISEASES OF THE MEMBRANA TYMPANL 
With Descriptive Text. By James Hinton, late Aural Surgeon to Guy's Hospital 
Post 8vo. Price £6 6s. 

" Of Mr. Hinton's Atlas of the Membrana Tym- I ever yet been published. The drawings are taken 
pani it is hardly necessary to say more than that from actual specimens, and are ail coloured by 
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65, Carnhill ; 6** 12, Paternoster Pow, London. 



Pl^tfr^ Publishtd by Hmry S. King &• Co., 

Sci E^ c ^—coHtinueJ. 
Second Edition. 
f SIOLOGY FOR PRACTICAL USE. By various Writers. Edit. 
by Jamea Hlnton. ivoli. Crown Sto. With so lIluamilDai. Price lu. U. 



« iroFk mUy pnctlCLiI ai 



THE PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY. WiA iheir 
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SENSATION AND INTUITION Stud es n P ho ogy and E he cs 
B/Jamea SlxUy,K.A. DanyBro at 6d. 
" As to tllB nWDHEF oTthebKd:. Ifr. SuNjIvrrtU 

Second Edit] D 

THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN. A Series of Euii^rs on the Wtmders of 
(he FLrmamenL. By B, A. Prootor, B. A. With a Frontispiece. Ciown Svo. 6j. 

n!ader'smindup-[hmu|£h]i^liiEC'lTn)rktoulure'l | Br^fUon Gat/Oe. 

STUDIES OF BLAST FURNACE PHENOMENA. By ». L. 
Gnmer. Translated by I,. D. B. Qordon, F.S.8.E., F.Q.S, Svo. 71. fid. 

CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY. From the French o( 
Professor Th. Bibot. La^c pon Svo. Price 91. An Analysis of the Viewi and 
Opinions of the follcnvine MfltaphyEicunL.at «jtpr«fi«ed in their wntnffs :— 

Jahbs Mtll. Alexandbb Baih, John Stuabt Mili.. Gkmiu H. Ijbwbb, Heibibt 
Spbhcbb, Samuel Bajlev. 



TREATISE ON RELAPSING PEVER. 

As<istant-SurEeoI^ Bengal Army. Poet in. Price js. 6J. 

65, CornhiU; &• 12, PuternosUr Row, London. 



8 



Works Published hv Henry S. King &* Co., 



Second Edition Revised. 

A LEGAL HANDBOOK FOR ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, 
AND BUHiDIMa OWNSRB. By Edward Jenkins, Esq., M.P., and 
John Eainnond, Esq., Barristers-at-Law. Crown 8vo. 6s. 



"This manual has one reconunendation which i property. The writer conceives his subject clearly, 
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day. It proposes to supply a real want. ... As 
to the style of the work, it is just what a legal 
handbook should be. ... We warmly recommend 
it to our readers." — Architnt. 

" It would be doinff it an injustice to class it 
with the rank and file of les^ai hand-books. In 
tone and style it resembles Lord St. Leonards' 
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and lucid.*'— Z^w Magazine and Review. 

" For all thu and much more, about buildinj;^ 
and building contracts, v^ch is not always easy 
for a layman to understand, but which it is verv 
necessary for an architect to know, the reader will 
find in the neat little volume just published from 
the pen of Messrs. Tenkins and Raymond, a ver>- 
exceilent guide."— Zaw JourtuU, 



THE 



HISTORY OF CREATION, a Popular Account of the Develop- 
ment of tke Earth and its Inhabitants, accordingto the theories of Kant, Laplace, 
Lamarck, and Darwin. By Professor Emst jBCceckel of the University of Jena. 
The Translation revised by E. Bay Lankester, Iff .A. With Coloured Plates and 
Genealogical Trees of the various groups of both plants and animals. 2 vols. Pest 8vo. 

\,Preparit^. 

THE HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF MAN. By Ernst 
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sity of New York), with Notes and Additions sanctioned by the Author. Post 8vo. 

A New Edition. 
CHANGE OF AIR AND SCENE. A Physician's Hints about Doctors, 
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and the Mediterranean. By Dr. Alphonss Donne. Laige post 8vo. Price gf. 

*' A sing^ularljr pleasant and chatty as weft as 
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•' A valuable and almost complete vade tneaitn 
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Qttarterly Review. 



" A very readable and serviceable book 

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Vew and Enlarged Edition. 

MISS YOUMANS' FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY. Designed to 
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First Book of Botany It has been everywhere 

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A DICTIONARY AND GLOSSARY OF THE KOR-AN. With 

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Penrice, B. A. 4to. Price 21s. 

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MODERN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 

Crown Svo. Price ks. 



By T. G. Jaokaon. 



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CHOLERA: HOW TO AVOID AND TREAT IT. Popular and 

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65, Comhill; <^ 12, Paternoster Raiv, London, 



IVorks Puhlis^ied by Henry S. Kif^ dr* Co., 9 

THE IKTEBKATIONAIi SCIENTIFIC 8EBIES. 

The following is a List of the Volumes already published. 

Fourth Edition. 
I. THE FORMS OF WATER IN CLOUDS AND RIVERS, 
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trations. Price 5^ . 

Second Edition. 

II. PHYSICS AND POLITICS ; or, Thoughts on the Appltca^tion 
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Third Edition. 

III. FOODS. By Dr. Edward Smith. Profusely Illustrated. Price 5^. 

Third Edition. 

IV. MIND AND BODY: The Theories of their Relation. By 

Alexander Bain, liL.D., Professor of Logic at the University of Aberdeen. 
Wiih Four Illustraticms. Price ^r. 

Fourth Edition. 

V. THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencer. Price 5^^. 

Third Edition. 

VI. THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. By Profesaor 
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Second £diti(xi. 

VII. ANIMAL LOCOMOTION; or, Walking, Swimming, and Flying. 
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VIII. RESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASE. By Dr. 
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Second Edition. 

IX. THE NEW CHEMISTRY. By Professor Josiah P. Cooke, 

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X. THE SCIENCE OF LAW. By Profl Sheldon Amos. Price 5^. 

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XII. THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND DARWINISM. By 
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XIII. HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION 
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XIV. THE CHEMICAL EFFECTS OF LIGHT AND PHOTO- 

QRAPHY, IN THXIR APPLICATION TO ART, SCIXNOB, AND INDUS- 
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XV. OPTICS. By Professor Lommel (University of Erlangen). Profusely 

Illustrated. 

XVI. FUNGI : THEIR NATURE, INFLUENCES, USES, &c. 
By M. C. Cooke, M.A., IjL.D. Edited by the Bev. M. J. Berkeley, 
M.A., F.L.S. Profusely Illustrated. 

65, Cornhill i 6^ 12, Paterf tester Raw, London, 



12 Works Published by Hairy S, Kiftg &* Co,, 

MILITARY WORKS. 



MOUNTAIN WARFARE, illustrated by the Campaign of 1799 in Switzer- 
land, being a translation of the Swiss Narrative compiled from the works of the Archduke 
Charles, Jomini, and others. Also of Notes by General H. Dufour on the Campaign of 
the Vatteline in 1635. By Major-Gtonez«l Shad'Well, C.B. With Appendix, 
Maps, and Introductory Remarks. 

This work has been prepared for the purpose of illustrating by the well-known cam- 
paign of 1700 in Switzerland^ the true method of conducting warfare in mountainous 
countries. Many of the scenes of this contest are annually visit^ by English tourists, and 
are in themselves full of interest ; but ' the special object of the volume is to attract the 
attention of the young officers of our army to this branch of warfare, especially of those, 
whose lot may hereafter be cast, and who may be called upon to take part in operations 
against ihe Hill Tribes of our extensive Indian frontier. 

RUSSIA'S ADVANCE EASTWARD. Based on the Official Reports of 
Lieut. Hugo Stumm, German Military Attach^ to the Khivan Expedition. To which is 
appended other Information on the Subject, and a Minute Account of the Rus»an Army. 
By Capt. C. B. H. Vincent, F.B.G-.S. Crown 8vo. With Map. fix. 

" Captain Vincent's account of the improve- tenant Stumra's narrative of one of the most bril- 
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of the service is accurate and clear, and is full Vincent's own account of the reconstruction, 
of useful material for the consideration of those under MUutin, of the Russian Army. Few books 
who believe that Russia is still where she was left 
by the Crimean yrax"—Athen(eHvt. 

"Even more interestinjir, perhaps, than Lieu- 



will eive a better idea of its proeress than this 
briet survey of its present state and latest achieve- 
ment. " — Graph it. 



THE VOLUNTEER, THE MILITIAMAN, AND THE 

RXaULAB SOIiDISB; a Conservative View of the Armies of England, Past, 
Present, and Future, as Seen in January, 1874. By A Public School Boy. x voL 
Crown 8va Price 5*. 



" Deserves special attention. ... It is a grood 
and compact little work, and treats the whole 
topic in a clear, intellii^ble, and rational way. 
There is an interesting chapter styled " Historical 
Retrospect," which very briefly traces sdl the main 



steps in the growth of the English army from the 
time of the ^ngio-Saxons. The writer is at great 
pains to examine the real facts concerning enlist- 
ment into the different branches of the army at 
the present day." — Weshninster Review, 



THE OPERATIONS OF THE GERMAN ENGINEERS AND 

TEOHNICAIj troops in THS FBANCO-aSRMAN WAR OF 1870-71. 
By Capt. A. von Goetze. Translated by Col. G. Grahaxa. Demy 8vo. With 
Six Plans. 

THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY, UNDER GEN. 
VON BTSINMSTZ. By Major von Schell. Translated by Captain B. O. 
SoUist. With Three Maps. Demy 8vo. Price lof . dd. 



" A very complete and important account of the 
investment of Metz." 

"The volume is of somewhat too technical a 
character to be recommended to the general 
reader, but the military student will find it a valu- 



able contribution to the history of the great 
struggle ; and its utility is increased by a capital 
general map of the operations of the First Army, 
and also plans of Suichercn and of the battle-fields 
round Metz."— J<»A« /?«//. ' 



THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN. 

VON aOSBEN. By Major von Schell. Translated by Col. C. H. VOn 
Wrigrht. Four Maps. Demy 8vo. Price gs. 

has he sacceeded, that it mig[ht really be imagined 
that the book had been ori^nally composed in 
English. . . The work is decidedly valuable to a 
student of the art of war, and no military libraiy 
can be considered complete without \t."-~Hour. 



"In concluding our notice of this instructive 
work, which, by the way, is enriched by several 
large-scale maps, we must not withhold our tribute 
of admiration at the manner in which the translator 
has performed his task. So thoroughly, indeed, 



:omplete 

THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN. 
VON MANTKUFFEIi. By Col. Count Hermann Ton Wartensleben, 

Chief of the Staff of the First Army. Translated by Colonel C. H. VOn Wrigrht. 
With Two Maps. Demy 8vo. Price 9*. 

" Very clear, sunple, yet eminently instructive, i estimable value of being in jgreat measure the re- 
is this history. It is not overladen with useless de- I cord of operations actually witnessed by the author, 
tails, is written in good taste, and possesses the in- I supplemented by official documents." — Atfutiaum. 

65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row^ London, 



Works Published by Henry S, Kin^ 6^ C^., 



13 



Military ^oua^^continued, 
THE GERMAN ARTILLERY IN THE BATTLES NEAR METZ 

Based on the official reports of the German Artillery. By Captain Hoffbaner, 
Instructor in the German Artilleiy and Eneineer School. Translated by Capt. E. O. 
Hollist. Demy 8vo. With Map and Plans. Price 2M. 

" Captain Hoflbauer's style is much more simple able and instructive book ; whilst to his brother 
and a^eeable than those of many of his comraoes 
and feuow authors, and it suffers nothiii|^ in the hands 
of Captain Hollist, whose translation is close and 
faithful. He has given the {j^eneral public a read* 



officers, who have a special professional interest in 
the subject, its value cannot weU be overrated."— 
Academy. 



THE OPERATIONS OF THE BAVARIAN ARMY CORPS. 

By Captain Hngt> Helviff. Translated by Captain G-. S. Sohwabe. 

with 5 large Maps. In 3 vols. Demy 8vo. Price a+r. 



" It contains much material that may prove use- 
ful to the future historian of the war ; and it is, on 
thtf whole, written in a spirit of fairness and im- 



and that the translator has performed his work 
most creditably.**— w4/A*««w»«. 
"Captain Scnwabe has done well to translate it. 



partiality. . . It only remains to say that the work • and his translation is admirably executed."— ^A^ 
IS enriched by some excellent large scale maps, | Mall Gatette. 

AUSTRIAN CAVALRY EXERCISE. From an Abridged Edition 
compiled by Captain Illia Woinovits, of the General Staff, on the Tactical Regula- 
tions of the Austrian Army, and prefaced by a General Sketch of the Organisation, &c., 
of the Cavalry. Translated by Captain W. S. Cooke. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 7; . 

"Among the valuable group of works on the 1 'Austrian Cavalry Exercise' will hold a good and 
military tactics of the chief States of Europe which | iiseiul ^\a.z^^— Westminster Review. 
Messrs. King are publishing, a small treatise on i 

History of the Organisation^ Equipment y and War Services of ' 
THE REGIMENT OF BENGAL ARTILLERY. Compiled from 

Published Official and other Records, and various private sources, by Major Francis 
W. Stubbs, Royal (late Bengal) Artillery. Vol. I. will contain War Services. The 
Second Volume will be published separately, and will contain the History op the 
Organisation and Equipment of the Regiment. In a vols. 8vo. With Maps 
and Plans. XPrepartng. 

VICTORIES AND DEFEATS. An AtUmpt to explain the Causes which 
have led to them. An Officer's Manual. By Gol. xt. P. Anderson. 8vo. 14^. 



"The young officer should have it always at 
hand to open anywhere and read a bit, and we 
warrant him that let that bit be ever so small it 
win give him material for an hour's thinking." — 
United Service Gazette. 



" The present book proves that he is a diligent 
student of militarv history, his illustrations ranging 
over a wide field, and indudiiu^ ancient and mo« 
dern Indian and European yTaxtax^"—Stafulard. 



THE FRONTAL ATTACK OF INFANTRY. Bjr Capt. I*aymann, 

Instructor of Tactics at the Military College, Neisse. Translated hy Colonel 
Sd'Ward Newdigrate. Crown 8vo, limp cloth. Price 2s. 6d. 



"An exceedingly useful kind of book. A valu* 
able acquisition to the military student's library. 
It recounts, in the first place, the opinions and 
tactical formations which regulated the German 
army during the early battles of the late war ; ex- 



plains how these were modified In the course of 
the campaign by the terrible and unanticipated 
effect ot tM fire; and how, accordingly, troops 
should be trained to attack in future wars. — Aitztu/ 
and MHitary Gazette, 



ELEMENTARY MILITARY GEOGRAPHY, RECONNOITRING, 
AND 8KXT0HING-. Compiled for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers of all 
Arms. By Capt. G. E. H. Vincent. Square cr. 8vo. 3«. (xi. 



" This manual takes into view the necessity of 
every soldier knowing how to read a military map, 
in order to know to what points in an enemy's 
country to direct his attention ; and provides for 
this necessity by giving, in terse and seasible 



language, definitions of varieties of g^tmad and the 
advantages they oresent in warfare, together with 
a number of useful hints in military sketching."— 
Naval and Military Gasette. 



THREE WORKS BY LIEUT.COL. THE HON. A. ANSON, 
V.O., M.P. 



The Abolition of Purchase and the 
Army Regulation Bill of 1871. Crown 
8vo. Price One Shilling. 



Army Reserves and Militia Reforms. 

Crown Svo. Sewed. Price One Shilling. 
The Story of the Supersessions. Crown 

Svo. Price Sixpence. 



65 r ComhiU; <&«• 12, Paternoster Row, London. 



u 



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Military ^oviVi^— continued. 

THE OPERATIONS OF THE SOUTH ARMY IN JANUARY 

USTD TSBBUABY, 1871. Compiled from the Official War Documents of the Head- 
quarters of the Southehi Army. By Ootint Hermann von Wartensleben, 
Colonel in the Prussian General Staff. Translated by Colon^ G. H. VOn Wrigrht. 
Demy 8vo, with Maps. Unifonn with the above. Price (a. 

STUDIES IN THE NEW INFANTRY TACTICS. Parts I. & II. 

By DIaJor W. von Scherff. Translated from the German by Colonel litunley 
GFraliani. Demy 8vo. Price -js. 6d. 

" The subject of the respective advantages of Y mirably treated ; indeed, we cannot but consider 
attack and defence, and of the methods in which it to be decidedly superior to any work which has 
each form of battle should be carried out under hitherto appeared in Enellsh upon this all-import- 
tlie fire of modern arms, is exhaustively and ad- ant subject" — Standard. 

Second Edition. Revised and Corrected. 

TACTICAL DEDUCTIONS FROM THE WAR OF 1870—71. By 

Captain A. von Bogrusla-wiski. Translated by Colonel litunley Gxaliani, 

late x8th (Royal Irish) Regiment. Demy 8vo. Uniform with the above. Price 7^. 

the German Armies' and 'Tactical Deductions') 



"We muct, without delay, impress brain and 
forethought into the British Service ; and we can- 
not commence the ^ood work too soon, or better, 
than by placing tlie two books {' The Operatioasof 



we have here criticised in every military librarj-, 
and intreducinff them as dass>books in every tac- 
tical school." — united Service Gazette. 



THE ARMY OF THE NORTH-GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 

A Brief Description of its Organization, of the different Branches of the Service, and 
their "R81e" m War, of iu Mode of Fighting, &c. By a Prussian General. 
Translated from the German by Ool. Bdwiard If ewdigrata. Demy 8vo. Price 



" The work is quite essential to the fuH use of - 
the other vohunes of the ' German Military Series,* 
which Messrs. Kin^ are now producing in hand- 
some unifonn style." — UniUd Service Mageutitu. 
"EMtty page of the book deserves attentive 



5J- 

stud^ .... The information gfiven on mobilisation, 
garrison troops, keeplug-op establishment during 
war, and on the em^yment of the different 
branches of the service, is of jfrcat value."' — 
Standard. 



THE 



OPERATIONS OF THE GERMAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, 

FBOM SEDAN TO THIS KND OF THE WAR OF 1870-71. With large 
Official Map. From the Jounuils of the Head-quarters Staff, t^ ICajor William 
Slume. Translated by B. M. JoneSy Ma.lor 20th Foot, late Professor of Military 
History, Sandhurst. Demy,8vo. Price 9*. 

of works upon the war tiiat our press has put forth. 
Our space forbids our doing more than comixend- 
ing it earnestly as the most authentic and instruc- 
tive narrative of the second section of the war that 
has yet appeared,"— 5tf/»naS«y Review. 



" The book is of absohite necessity to the mili- 
tary student .... The work is one of nigh merit." 
—Uffittd Service Gaxette. 

•* The work of Major von Blume in its English 
dress forms the most valuable addition to our stock 

HASTY INTRENCHMENTS. By 
by liient. Cliarles A. Empson, B 

" A valuable contribution to military literature." 
•^AtheHatim. 

"In seven short chaptets it gives plain directions 
for forming shelter-trenches, with tne-best method 
of carrying the necessary tools, and it offers prac- 
tical illustrations of the -use of hasty intrenchznentS' 
on the field of battle." — United Service Maganute. 



Colonel A. Brlalmont. Translated 

.A. With Nine Plates. Demy 8vo. Price ds. 

" It supplies that which our own text -books give 
but impcarectiy, vt&i hints as to how a position can 
best be strengtheaed by means . . . of such extem- 
porised intreaohnimits and batteries as can be 
thrown up by infaobry^ the space of four or five 

! hours . . . deserveb'to hccome a standard military 

1 work." — Standard. 



STUDIES IN LEADING TROOPS. Farts I. and II. By Colonel von 
Verdy dn Veraols* An authorised and aecurace Traadation by Lieutenant 
H. J, T. HUdyard, 71st Foot Demy 8va Price 7*. 

observant and fortuaately-placed stafT-ofiiccr is in 



*.* General Bbauchamp WALKER says of 
this work : — " I recommend the first two numbers 
of Colonel von Verdy's ' Studies ' to the attentive 
perusal of my brother officers. They supply a 
want which I have often felt during my service in 
this country, namely, a minuter tactical detail of 
the minor operations of war than any but the most 



a position to give. I have read and re-read them 
very carefully. I hon« vmth profit, certainly witli 
great mterest^ and uelieve that practice, m the 
sense of these ' Studies.' would be a valuable pre- 
paration for maatJMHrres on a more extended 
scale.*"— Beriin, June, 187*. 



DISCIPLINE AND DRILL. Four Lectures delivered to the London 
Scottish Rifle Volunteers. By Gapt. S. Flood PagFO. Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. xs. 

"The very useful and interesting work."— | " An admiraWe collection of lectures."— 7>'m». 
Volunteer Service Gazette. 



65, Cornhtil ; vy* 12, Patertwster RcWy London. 



Works PuhlisJud by Henry *S. King 6- Cb., 



i^S 



Military VfoviKS—continueck 

CAVALRY FIELD DUTY. By Major-General vo^ Kirns. Translated 
by Captain Frank S. Bnssell, 14th (King's) Hussars. Cr. 8vo« cloth limp. js. 6d. 



" We have no book on cavalry duties that at all 
approaches to this, either for completeness in 
details, clearness in description, or for manifest 
utility. In its pages will be found plain instructions 
for every portion of duty before the enemy that a 
combatant horseman wul be called upon to per> 
form, and if a dragoon but studies it well and 



intelligently, his value to the army, we are confi- 
dent, must be increased one hundredfold. Skir- 
mishing, scouting, patrolling, and vedetting are 
now the chief duties dragoons in peaee should be 
practised at, and how to perform these duties 
effectivsly is what the book tcaLc\ics."— United 
Set vice Magazine. 



INDIA AND THE EAST, 



THE THREATENED FAMINE IN BENGAL; How it may be 

Met, and the Recurrence of Famines in India Prevented. Being No. i of 
" Occasional Notes on Indian AflFairs." By Sir H. Bartle E. Frere, G-.C.B., 
G-.O.S.I., fto. Aro. Crown 8vo. With 3 Maps. Price 5^. 



THE 



ORIENTAL SPORTING MAGAZINE. 

5 Volumes, in 2 Volumes, demy 8vo. ' Price 28^. 



A Reprint of the first 



'"Lovers of sport will find ample aaiusemeot in 
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"Full of interest for tl)e sportsman and natural- 
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have attacked the fiercest and most gigantic 



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Jungle. It is seldom we get so many exciting inci- 
dents in a similar amount of space . . . Well suited 
to the libraries of couatry geiUlemen 4nd all those 
who are interested in sporting matters."— O^f/ 
Service Gazette. 



Second Edition, Revised and Corrected. 

THE EUROPEAN IN INDIA. A Hand-book of Practicallnformation 
for those proceeding to, or residing in, the East Indies, relating to Outfits, Routes, 
Time -for Departure, Indian Climate, &c. By EdmiUld C. P. Sull. With a 
Medical Guide for Anglo-Indians. Being a Compendium of Advice to Europeans 
in India, relating to the Preservation and Regulation of their Health. To which is 
added a Supplement on the Management of Children in India. By R. S. TkCalTi 
M.D.y F.R.C.S.E., late Deputy Coroner of Madras. In i vol. Post 8vo. Price 6s. 



" Full of all sorts of useful hiformation to the 
English settler or traveller in India." — Standard. 

" One of the most valuable books ever pubKshed 
in India-^valuable for its sound information, its 
careful array of pertinent facts, and its sterling 



common sense. It supplies a want whkh few 
persons may have discovered, but which everybody 
will at once recognise when once the contents of 
the book have been mastered. The medical part 
of the w<Mic is invaluable." — Calcutta Guardian. 



MEDICAL GUIDE FOR ANGLO-INDIANS. Being a Compendium 

of Advice to Europeans in India, relating to the Preservation and Regulation of their 
Health. With a Suj^lement on the Management of Children in India. By H. S. Mair, 
M.D.)]?.i&.C.S<jBi.,lateneputyCoronerof Madras. Post 8vo, limp doth. Price 35. 6^. 

TAS-HIL UL KALAM.; or, Hindustani Mape Easy. 'Qy Captain 

W. E. M. Holro3rd, Bengal Staff Corps, Director of Public Instruction, Punjab. 
Crown 8vo. Price 5*. 

matioflt that is not to be found in any'Otiier work 
on the subject that has crossed our path." — Home- 
ward Mail, 



"As clear and as instructive as possible." — 
Standard. 
" Contains a great deal of most necessary infer- 



EASTERN EXPERIENCES. By L. Bowringr, C.S.I., Lord Canning's 
Private Secretary, and for many years Chief CommissioDer of Mysore and Coorg. 
Illustrated with Maps and Diagrams. Demy 8vo. Price \6s. 



"An admirable and. exhaustive gtegraphlcal, 
political, and industrial sarv«y«"-^/A<iMri«m., 

"Interesting even to the genetal reader, bat 
especially so to tiiose wh« nuwkave a special con- 
cern in that portion of oar. Indiaa. Empire."— /'at^L 



"This compact and methodical sumiftaryofthc 
most authentic information relating to countries 
whose wel^e is intiniately connected with our 
owckJ'—Da^jf Unas, 



65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Poiv, London, 



1 6 Werks Fvhlished by Henry S. Kifig &* Co., 

India and the East — continugd, 
EDUCATIONAL COURSE OP SECULAR SCHOOL BOOKS 

FOB INDIA. Edited by J. S. Laiirle, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law ; 
formerly H. M. Inspector of Schools, England ; Assistant Ro^al Commissioner, Ireland ; 
Special Commissioner, African Settlement ; Director of Pu)>hc Instruction, Ceylon. 

" These valuable little works will prove of real f who intend entering the Civil Service of India."— 
service to many of our readers, especially to those | Civil Service Gaxette. 

The following Works are now ready: — 



aUOQHAPHT OF INDIA, with 
Maps and Historical Appendix, 
tracing the growth •f the British 
Empire in. Hindustan. 128 pp. cloth z 6 



THBS FIRST HINDUSTANI 

REi ADSB, stiff linen wrapper . .06 
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BSLADSB, stiff linen wrapper . ,06 

In the Press, 

BIiXMSNTABY QSOaBAFHY OF FACTS AND FFATUBXS OF INDIAN 
INDIA. HISTORY, in a series of alternating 

Reading Lessons and Memory Exercises. 

Second Edition. 

WESTERN INDIA BEFORE AND DURING THE MUTINIES. 
Pictures drawn from life. By Major-G«n. Sir Georgre Le Grand Jacolb, 
X.G.S.I., C.B. In z vol. Crown 8vo. Price 7;. 6d. 

" The most important contribution to the history 
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yet. in a popular form, been made public" — 
Athenautn. 



" Few men more competent than himself to speak 
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dard. 



EXCHANGE TABLES OF STERLING AND INDIAN RUPEE 
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British Indian Steam Navigation Company, Limited. Royal 8vo. Price xor. (id. 

"The calculations must have entailed {nrcat I houses which have dealings with any country where 
labour on the author, but the work is one which we I the rupee and the Eng&h pouna are standard 
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NEW WORKS BY HESBA STRETTON. 
THE WONDERFUL LIFE. Fcap. 8vo. With a Map and Illuminated 

Frontispiece. 2J. dd. \.yi*st out. 

This slight and brief sketch is merely the story of the life and death of our Lord. It has been 
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searched diligently for the smallest links which might serve to complete the chain of those years of a 
life passed amongst us as Jesus of Nazareth, the Carpenter, the Prophet, and th« Messiah. .This little 
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GASSY. Twentieth Thousand. With Six Illustrations, is, (yd, 

THE KING'S SERVANTS. Twenty-eighth Thousand. With Eight 

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Part I.— Faithful in Little. Part II.— Unfaithful. Part III. —Faithful in Much. 

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« 



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\ 



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17 



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DADDY'S PET. By Mrs. EUen Boss (Xelsie Brook). Third Thousand. 
Small square, cloth, uniform with ** Lost Gip." With Six Illustrations. Price is. 



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LOCKED OUT; A Tale of the Strike. 
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By Ellen Barlee. With a 



PRETTY LESSONS IN VERSE FOR GOOD CHILDREN, 

with some Lessons in Latin, in Easy Rhyme. By Sctra GoleridgTO. A New Edition. 
With Six Illustrations. Cloth, 3;. 6d. 

AUNT MARY'S BRAN PIE. By the Author of " St. Olave's," "When I 
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Second Edition. 

SEEKING HIS FORTUNE, AND OTHER STORIES. Crown 8vo. 
With Foiu- Illusti-atiocs. Price 3*. 6d. 

Contents.— Seeking his Fortune. — Oluf and Stephanoff. — ^What's in a Name? — 
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THREE WORKS BY MARTHA FARQUHARSON. 



I. 

n. 



Elsie Dinsmorb. Cr. 8vo. Price 3*. 6d. I III. Elsie's Holidays at Rosblands. 
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Elsie 



Dinsmore is a famHiar name to a world 
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volumes ner story is complete, and it is one full of 
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of young 
ssn< 



THE LITTLE WONDER-HORN. By Jean Inflow. A Second 
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** We reconunend it with confidence."— /*«// 
Mall GoMette. 



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Second Edition. 

THE AFRICAN CRUISER. A Midshipman's Adventures on the West 
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of ** Marshall Vavasour.'* With Three Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 3*. 6d. 



" A capital story of youthful adventure .... Sea- 
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" Sea yams have always been in favour Mrith 
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BRAVE 



MEN'S 



Third Edition. 

FOOTSTEPS. A Book of Example and Anecdote for 
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"A readable and instructive volume." — JExa- 
nil Her. 
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65, Cornhtll ; 6- 12, Paternoster Row^ London. 



i8 



Works Published by Henry S. King 6- CV?., 



Books for the Young and for Lending J^ibraries— continued. 

Second Edition. 

PLUCKY FELLOWS. A Book for Boys. By Stephen J.'lffao Xenna. 

With Six Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price y. 6ti. 

" A thorough book for boys . . . written through- 
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Second Edition. 
GUTTA-PERCHA WILLIE, THE WORKING GENIUS. By 
Georgre MaoDonald. With 9 Illustrations by ArtllYur Huffhes. Cr. 8vo. 3£. dd. 

" The cleverest child we know assures lis she has I will, we are convinced, accept that verdict upon 
read this storj- throujjh five times. Mr. Macdonald 1 his little work us fmaS.'*— Spectator. 



THE TRAVELLING MENAGERIE. By Charies Camden, Author 

of " Hoity Toity." With Ten JUustratioos by J. 2!f!a]loney. Crown 8vo. 3*. (id. 

" A capital little book .... deserves a wide | •* A very attractive story."— Pubtic Ofinton. 
circulation among our boys and girls."— ATowr. | 

THE DESERT PASTOR, JEAN JAROUSSEAU. Translated from 
the French of Eugrene Pelletan. By Colonel E. P. De li'Hoste. In fcap. 
Svo, with an Engraved Frontispiece. New Edition. Price 3.9. (>d. 



" A touching record of the struggles in the cause 
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" There is a poetical simplicity and picturesque- 
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pure love, and the spectacle of a household brought 
up in the fear of the Lord . . . .*' — Illttstrated 
London News. 



THE DESERTED SHIP. A Real Story of the Atlantic. By Cupples 
Howe, Master Mariner. Illustrated by Townley ^Green. Cr. 8vo. Pi ice 3^. 6d. 



" Curious adventures with bears, seals, and other 
Arctic animals, and with scarcely more human 
Esquimaux, form the mass of material with which 



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have a spice of romance in their composition, "— 
Courant. 



HOITY TOITY, THE GOOD LITTLE FELLOW. By Charles 
Camden. With Eleven Illustrations. Crown Svo. Price y. 6d. 



*' Relates very ideasantly the history of a charm- 

. ing little fellow wno meddles always with a kindly 

disposition with other people's affairs' and helps 



them to do right. There are many shrewd lessons 
to be picked up in this clever little ^ory."— Public 
opinion. 



THE BOY 

David 

Four Illustrations. 



SLAVE IN BOKHARA. A 
Ker, Author of *'On the Road to 
■' Price sf. 



Tale of Central Asia. By 
Khiva," &c. Crown Svo, with 



SEVEN AUTUMN LEAVES FROM 

with Nine Etchings. Square crown Svo. 5*. 



FAIRY-LAND. Illustrated 



SLAVONIC FAIRY TALES. From Russian, Servian, Polish, ^nd 
' Bohemian Sources. Translated hy Jolin T'. Naakd, of the British Museum. Crown 
• Svo. With Four Illustrations. Rice 5J. 

" A most choice and charming selection ; and thirteen Servian, in Mr. Naaiki's modest but 



The tales have an original national rin? in them, 
and 'vvill be pleasant readinj^ to thousands besides 
children. Vet children will eagerly open the 
pages, and not willingly close them, of the pretty 
volume." — Standard. 

"English readers now have an opportunity of 
becoming acquainted.with eleven Polish and eight 
Bohenuan stories, as wcU as with eight Russian 



ser>'iceable collection of Slavonic Fairy Tales. 
Its contents are, as a generad rule, well chosen, 
and they are translated with a fidelity which 
deserves cordial praise . . . Before taking leave 
of his prettily got op volume, we ought to mention 
that its contents fully come up to the promise lield 
out in its preface." — Academy. 



WAKING AND WORKING; OR, FROM GIRLHOOD TO 

WOMANHOOD. By Mrs. G. S. Reaney. Cr. 8vo. With a Frontispiece. 5*. 



65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Roiv^ Lo7tdon, 



Works Published by Henry S, King 6- Co,, 



19 



Books for the Young and for Lending lAEKhKHE-s-- continued. 
AT SCHOOL WITH AN OLD DRAGOON. By Stephen J. 

Mac Slexina. Crown 8vo. With Six Illustrations. Price 5^ . 



" Consisting almost entirely of startlii^ stories of 
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"These yams pve some very spirited and in- 
teresting descriptions of soldiering in various parts 
ol the wotld.""— spectator. 



* ' Mr. Mac Kenna's former work, ' Plucky Fellows,* 
is already a general favourite, and those who read 
the stories of the Old Dragoon will find that he has 
still plenty of materials at hand for pleasant tales, 
and has lost none oChis po«r«r i&teUtng them well." 
— Standard. 



FANTASTIC STORIES. Translated from the German of Bioliard 
ZiMMder, bvPaulijxa B. Granville. Crown 8vo. With Eight fullTpage^IlUistra- 
tions, by m. E. Fraser-Tytler. Price 5*. 



" Short, quaint, and. as th^y are fithr called, fan- 
tastic, they deal with all manner ot^ subjects." — 
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*" Fantastic' is certainly the right CfHtbet to 
apply to some of these strai^e tale&r''-Examtner. 



Third Edition. 

STORIES IN PRECIOUS STONES. By Helez^ Zimmem. 

Six Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 5s. 



With 



" A series of pretty tales which are half fantastic, 
half natural, and pleasantly quaint, as befits stories 
intended for the youncf." — Daily Telegraph. 

" A pretty little book which {ancifm young per- 



sons will appreciate, and which will remind its 
readers of many a legend, and many an imaginary 
virtue attached to the gems they are so fond of 
wearing. "—Post. 



Fourth Edition. 

THE GREAT DUTCH ADMIRALS. By 



8vo. 



Jacob de Z>i«fae. Crown 

>y tth Eleven Illustrations by TO'Wlkley- Gveen and others. Price 5s. 



" May be recommended as a wholesome present 
for boys. Thev will find in it numerous tales of 
adventure." — Athenaum. 



*• A really good book."— 5to«/jteraf. 
" A realfy exceUent b(i6^"-^ptctator. 



THE TASMANIAN LILY. 

With Frontispiece. Price 5*. 



By James Bonwick. Crpwn 8vo. 



" An interesting and useful work." — Hour. 

" The characters of the story are capitally con. 



ceived, and are full of those touches which give 
them a natural appearance." — Public Opinion. 



MIKE HOWE, THE BUSHRANGER OF VAN DIEMEN'S 
T.A-wn By James Bonwick. Crown 8vo. With a Frontispiece. Price $5. 



" He illustrates the career of the bushranger half 
a century ago ; and this he does in a hij^hly credit- 
able manner ; his delineations of life m the bush 



are, to sav the least, exquisite, and his representa- 
tions of character are very marked." — Edinburgh 
Courant. 



PHANTASMION. A Fairy Romance. By Sara Coleridgre. With an 
Introductory Preface by the Bigrht Hon. liord CU>lerid8re of'Ottery S. 
Mary. A new Edition. In i vol. Crown Svo. Price 7*. 6d. 



" The readers of this fairy tale will find them- 
selves dwelling for a time in a veritable region of 
romance, breathing an atmosphere of unreality, 
and surrounded by supernatural beings." — Post. 

" This delightful work . . . We wouldtiladly have 



read it were it twice the length, closing the book 
with a feeling of rt^ret tliat the repast wa& at .an 
tn±"—l^ant/y Fair. 

" A beautiful con^ption ofara a el flpgifte dyt^nd." 
— Examifter. 



LAYS OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT IN MANY LANDS. Bf-Mn^or- 
G-eneral Six Vincent Eyre, O.B.^ K.0.S.L^ ftc. Square czxiwnSvo. With 
Six IlIustratioBS. Price 7;. 6d. 

Pharaoh Land. | Home Land. | Wonder Land. ) Rhine Land. 

" A collection of pleasant and well-written ( " The conceits here and there are really very 
stanzas . . . abounding in real fun and humour." amusing."— Standard. 
—Literary World. ' 

BEATRICE AYLMER AND OTHER TALES. By Mary M. Howard, 

Author of " Brampton Rectory.*' i vol. Crown Svo. Price 6j. 



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I 



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c 2 



20 Works Published by Henry S. King &» Co.^ 

WORKS BY ALFRED TENNYSON. 

THE CABINET EDITION. 

Messrs. Henry S. King & Co. have the pleasure to announce that 
they are issuing an Edition of the Laureate's works, in Ten Monthly 
Volumes, foolscap 8vo, at Half-a- Crown each, entitled "The Cabinet 
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The first volume is illustrated by a beautiful Photographic Portrait ; 
and the other volumes are each to contain a Frontispiece. They are 
tastefiiUy bound in Crimson Cloth, and are to be issued in the 
following order : — 

Vol. VoL 



1. EABLY POEKS. 

2. ZNOLISH IDYLLS & OTHER POEKS. 
8. LOCKSLEY HALL & OTHER POEKS. 

4. LlTCRETIXrS & OTHER POEKS. 

5. IDYLLS OF THE KOTG. 



6. IDYLLS OF THE XIN0. 

7. IDYLLS OF THE RIKa. 

8. THE PRIKOESS. ^ 

9. KAXTD AlTD ENOCH ARDEN. 
10. nr KEKORIAK. 



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Subscribers' names received by all Booksellers. 



Reduction in prices ef Mr, Tennyson^ s Works : — 

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s. d, 

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t, „ Collected. Small 8vo 70 

THE HOLY GRAIL, AND OTHER POEMS. Small 8yo. 46 

GARETH AND LYNETTE. Small 8vo 30 

ENOCH ARDEN, &c. Small 8vo 36 

IN MEMORIAM. Small 8vo 40 

SELECTIONS FROM THE ABOVE WORKS. Square 8vo, doth . . .36 

f> ,% tt cloth, gilt edges . . . .40 

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LIBRARY EDITION OF MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS. 6 vols. Post 8vo, each xo 6 

POCKET VOLUME EDITION OF MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS, ix vols., ia 

neat case • .« . • 3x 6 

„ extra cloth, gilt, in case . . . 35 o 

POEMS. Illustrated Edition, 4to 35 o 

*^* All the above are kept in leather bindings, 

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21 



POETRY. 

FOUB BliXGANT POSTICAIi QIFT BOOKS: 

LYRICS OF LOVE, From Shakspeare to Tennyson. Selected and arranged 
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as a whole, is very choict.'*— British Quarterfji 
Review. 

" The antholoify is a very full and fifood one, and 
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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT'S POEMS. Redline Edition. Hand- 
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A Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece, is also published. Price is. 6d. 

These are the only complete English Editions sanctioned by the Author, 

*' Of all the poets of the United States there is no tion.'*--^aM^^m^, 
one who obtained the fame and position of a classic 
carUer, or has kept them longer, than William 
Cullen Bryant . . . A singularhr simple and straight- 
forward fashion of verse. Very rarely has any 
writer preserved such an even level of ment 
throughout his poems. Like some other American 
poets, Mr. Bryant is particularly happy in transla- 



" We are g^lad to possess so neat and elegant an 
edition of the works of the most thoughtftd, grace* 
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British Quarterly Review. 

" Some of the purest and tenderest poetry of this 
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ENGLISH SONNETS. Collected and 
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HOME-SONGS FOR QUIET HOURS. Edited by the Bev. Canon 

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" A most acceptable volume of sacred poetry ; a 

* * 

* 



good addition to the gift books of the season."— 
RocJk. 

" These are poems in which every word has a 
meaning, and from which it would be ui^ust to 
remove a stanza . . . Some of the best pieces in 
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The above four books may also be had handsomely bound in 
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THE DISCIPLES. A New Poem. By Mrs. Hamilton King. Second 

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" A higher impression of the imaginative power could scarcely deny to ' Ugo Bassi' the praise of 
of the writer is given by the objective truthfulness being a work wortlqr in every way to live . . . The 
of the glimpses she gives us of her master, help- style of her writing is pure and simple in tiie last 
ing us to understand now he could be regarded degree, and all is natural, truthful, and free fn^n 
by some as a heartless charlatan, by others as an 
inspired saint." — Academy. 

"Mrs. King can write good verses. The de- 
scription of the capture of the Croats at Mestre is 
extremely spiritea ; there is a pretty picture of the 
road to Rome, from the Abruzzi, and another of 
Palermo. " — Athenanm. 

" In her new volume Mrs. King has far surpassed 
her previous attempt. Even the most hostile critic 



the slightest shade of obscurity in thought or die- 
tion . . . The book altogether is one that merits 
unqualified admiration and praise."— Z)(S»(x Tele- 
graph. 

" Throughout it breathes restrained passion and 
lofty sentiment, which flow out now ana then as a 
stream widening to bless the lands into powerful 
music."— British Quarterly Review. 



ASPROMONTE, AND OTHER POEMS. By the same Author. Second 
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' The Execution of Felice Orsmi,' has much poetic 
merit, the event celebrated being told with dra- 
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ARYAN : or, the Story of the Sword. A Poem. By Herbert Todd, M.A., 

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22 



Works Published by Henry S. King 6f* Co,, 



Poetry — contintied. 



THROUGH STORM A27D SUNSHINS. 
By Adon, Author of ** Lays of Modern 
Oxford" With IllustTBtions by H. Pater- 
son, M. E. Edwards, A. 1:, and the 
Audior. 

SOITGFB FOR MTJSIO. By Four Frieada. 
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CONTAINING SONGS BY 

Reginald A Gatty. Stephen H. Gatty. 
Greville T. Chester. Juliana H. Ewing. 
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^ The charm of siaip>llcity is manifest throt^h* 
oat, and .the subjects are well chosen and sue* 
cessfiiUy treated. —iJtfr*. 

SOBBRT BUCHANAN'S POXTIOAIi 
WOtRaEO, Collected Edition, in 3 Vols., 
{nice x&s. - Vol. I. contains, — "Ballads 
and Romances;" "Ballads and Poems 
of Life," and a Portrait of the Author. 

Vol. II.—" Ballads and Poems of Life ;** 
"Allegories and Sonnets." 
• Vol. III.— "CoruLskeen Sonnets ;" "Book 
of Orm ;" " Political Mystics.*' 

" Holding, as Mr. Buchanan does, snch a con* 
SfHCttous {Mace amoacfst modem writers, the read- 
isff public wiU be duly thankful for this bandsoine 
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" Taking the poems before us as experiments, 
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the romantic ballad, Mr. Buchanan shows real 
power.y*-/foj<r. 

THOUGHTS IN VXBSSi Small crown 
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Thiiis a Collection of Verses expressive 
of re^ous feeling, writtenfrom a Theistic 
stand-point. 

"All who are interested in devotional verse 
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ON THBS NORTH WIND— THISTLK- 
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FSSMTBCOFll AND OTHXB POBMS. 
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and Ahey *reveai- something not w removed frcan 
imagiaatioiL ; . . If the verK moves stifBy It is 
betaase'the substance is rich and carefully 
wroiq^L. That artistic regard for the value of 
words, Iriihrh is characteristic of the best modem 
workmanship, is apparent in every composition, 
and thb ornament, even when It might be pro- 
nooKCcd excessive, is tasteful in arrangement" — 
jttMttunttttm 

COSMOS. A Poem. 8vo. 3^. 6d. 

Subject.— Nature in the Past and in the Pre- 
sent — Man in the Past and in the Present«^The 
Future. 

FOmMS. By Augustus Taylor. Fcp.8vo. 5^. 

NARCISSUS AND OTH3BR POBICB. 
By B. Carpenter. Fcap: 8vo. 5x. 

" In many of these poems there is a force of 
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poetical utterance not bv any means common in 
these dAjs^—Standara. 

AURORA; A Volume of Verse. Fcap. 8vo. 5^. 



POBMS. By Annette F. O. Knight. Fcap. 
8vo. Cloth. Price cr. 

" . . . . Very ine also is the poetii entitled *,Past 
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turing the 'Spirits of the Present* The verses here 
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beauty and depth of the image ; yet it would not 
be easy to find a more exquisite picture in poetry 
or on canvas of the spirit of the aigc."— Scotsman. 

" These poems are musical to read, they give 
true and pleasant pictures of common things, and 
they tell sweetly ot the deeper moral and rel^ous 
harmonies whiim sustain us under the discords and 
the gricfe -of actual Vih.''-^Spectat<»^. 

" Full of tender and felicitous verse . . . ex- 
pressed with a rare artistic perfection. . . . The 
gems of the book to our niind are the poems 
entitled ' In a Town GBxd/ax.'"'— Literary, Church- 
man. 

A TAXJB - Oy TH B fiO&A* SCMillfBTB, 
AND OTHBR FOBMSl'^ By James 
HowbU.' Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, sr. 

"Mr< HoweU has a keen perceptioa of the 
beauties of nature, and a justappfvciado&of the 
charities of life. . . . Mr. Howefl's book deserves, 
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Pail Mall Gazette. 

MBTRICAIi TRANSIiATIONS - FROM 
THB aRBXK AND XiATHir POBTS, 
AND OTHBR POEMS; By R. B. 
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ChurahtnoM, 

"Mr. Boswell has a strong poetical vein in 
his nature-, and gives us every promise of success 
as an original pQet,'*^— Standard. 

BABTBRN IiBOBNDS AND 4EITORIB8 
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Second Edition. 

ViaNBTTBS IN RHYMB AND VBRS 
DB SOCI^T!^. By Austin Dobson. 
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" Lively, innocent elegant in expression, and 
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80NCM3 FOR BAHjOBB. By Dr. W. O. 

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WAIJliBD IN, AND OTHBR FOBMS. 
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Evening' Standard. 
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Mall GazeUe. 



65, Comhill; <^ 12, Paternoster Row, London. 



Works Published by Henry S. King &* Co,, 



23 



Poetry — cotitinued. 



SONaS OF lilFB AND DEATH. By 
John Payne, Author of ** Intaglios/' 

" Sonnets/' etc. Crown 8vo. sr. 

•* The art of ballad- writtne has long been lost 
in Engfland, and Mr. Payne may daiin to be its 
restorer. It is a perfect delight to meet with such 
a ballad as 'May Margaret' in the present 
yo\\xme."—tVestmiHster Review. 

IMITATIONS FROM THB QSRMAN 
OF 6PITTA AND TJSRSTSaSN. 
By Ijady Dnrand. Fcap. 8vo. 4^. 

" A charming little volume. . . Will be a very 
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ON VIOIj and FLUTE. A New Volume 
of Poems, by BdmimdW^.'QoMe.- With 
Frontispiece by W. B. Soott. Cr. 8vo. m. 
" A careful perusal of his verses will show that 
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inuriiq; ^und which reimnds one of the softness 
and deliciousness of summer time. . . . There is 
much that is good in the \o\\xmt.''—Speciator, 

EDXTB*; or. Love and Life in Cheshire. 
By S. Aaha, Author of *' The Sorrows of 
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" Pregnant from beginning to end with the re- 
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THJi INlff OF STRANOB IfBBVINGS, 

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OoiUiiMb- Crown 8vo. 5J. 

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" Mr. Collins has an undercurrent of chivalrv 
and romance beneath the trifling vein of good- 
humoured banter which is the special character- 
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tiiat has yet been produced. . . " — Exatttitttr. 

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AN OIjD liBGHBND OF B. PAtnD'B. By 

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" We admbr, and deservedly admire, the gen- 
uine podry of this charming old legend as nere 
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"The light of a devout, gentle, and kindly 
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Porar^ Jievt€W. 
THS 



DBBAM AND THB DXIBXV AND 
OTHIU^POiVMa DyPatriok Scott, 
AutlKur of " Footpaths between Two 
Worlds," etc. Fcap. Svo. Cloth, sr. 

" A bitter and able satire on the vice and follies 
of the day, literary, social, and political."— 5/a«- 
dard. 

"Shows real poetic power coupled with evi- 
dences of satirical energy."— Edittdurg-h Daily 
Review. 



EROS AQONISTES. ByE. B.D. Fcap. 
Svo. 3*. fid. 

" It is not the least merit of these pages tliat 
they are everywhere illumined with moral and 
religious sentiment suggested, not paraded, of the 
briglitcst, purest character." — Staftdard. 

CAIiDERON'S DRAMAS. Translated fr«ai 
the Spanish. By Denis Florence Mao- 
Cartiay. Post Svo. Cloth, gilt edges. lor. 

" The lambent verse flows with an ease» spirit, 
and music {perfectly natural, liberal, and har< 
monious." — Spectator. 

" It is impossible to speak too highly of this 
beautiful work. ' — Month. 

Second Edition. 
SONQB OF TWO WOBIJ>a First 
Smes. By a New Writer. Fcp. 8va 5*. 

" These poems will assuredly take hq^h cank 
among the class to which they belong."— iffriftj^ 
Quarterly Review, A^il 1st. 

"No extracts could do justice to the exquisite 
tones, the felicitous phrasing and deUcately 
wrought harmonies of some of these poems. *'^- 
Neitcon/orniist. 

" A purity and delicacy of feeling like morning 
2i\x."— Graphic. 

Second Edition. 

SONGS OF TWO WOIlI(I>&" Seooad 

Series. By a New Writer. Fcp. Svo. 5*. 

" The most noteworthy poem is the '-Ode oe a 
Sprii^ Morning,' which has somewhat ■ of the 
charm of ' L' Allegro ' and ' II Penseroso.' It is 
the nearest approach to a masterpiece in the ael* 
lection. We cannot find too much praise for tts 
noble assertion of man's resurrection. —5a/wnAiEy 
Review. 

" A real advance on its predecessor, and con- 
tains at least one poem (' The Orgsok Boy*) of 
great origiualit]r, as well as many ofmuoh bettuty 
.... As exquisite a little poem as we have read 
for many a day .... but not at all alone ia its 
power to fascinate."— vS^toibr. • 

" Will be gratefully welcomed."— Extunuter. 

THE QAIiliERY OF PIC^BONB', ASO) 
OTHEB POEMS. By Theo. Mw- 
zlals. Crown Svo. 4;. 6d. 

" A conceit abounding in prettiuea6.''«--£!e'- 
atniner. 

" The rush of fresh, sparkling fancies is too 
rapid, too sustained, too abundant^- not to be 
spontaneous." — Academy, 

THE IiEQENDS OF ST. PATRICK 
AND OTHER POEMS. By Aubrey 
de Verei Crown Svo. 5*. 

" Mr. DeVere's versification in hiseariicr poons 
is cliaractensed by great sweetness and dm- 
plicity. He is master of his instnimeat, and 
rarely offends the ear with false notes."— /to// 
Malt Gazette. 

" We have but space to commend the varied 
structure of his verse, the carefiibiess of his 
grammar, and his eKcelleot English.**— . Sflil Mr tf i n y 
Review. 
ALEXANDER THA aRK4.T. A 
Dramatic Poem. By AuluregF c^ Vw«, 
AuAor of ** The Legends of St. Patrick." 
Crown Svo. 5*. 

" Undeniably well ymlAn^^—Exiiminer. 

" A noble piay. . . . The work of a true poet, 
and of a fine artist, in whom there is nothing 
vulgar and nothing weak; . . . We had no con- 
ception, from our Knowledge -of Mr.' Oe Vere's 
former poems, that so mudi poetic- power lay in 
him as tnis drama shows. It is terse as wcttasfiiil 
of beauty, nervous as well as rich in thou£^t."~ 
spectator. 



65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London* 



PForis PuMis&ai by Hmry S. King &- Co., 



M&oDalUkld, Author of " Daiid E 
brod.''&s. 3 vols. troKTiSvo, 

THE XnaiJiOTIlD QOKBTIOS. By 
fi. Uukcwltob. Tnuulatnl (lam Ibc 
Russian, by the FrliuwBiai Onroniaofr, 

* '^"^ Crown B™. ,4.. 

%OUAirB A RISDIiB; or. Baby 
Warhstbev. By Philip ShBldoa, 

lilSBTTS-S VBHTUBB. By Um 

Bouall Gra;. 9 voU. 
IDOIiAVBY. A Romance. By JdUui 



isras 







UIVHi BXBVIUB. 



TOO LATll. By Mn. Nawmtn, 1 T0I5. 
The iDoe b healthy, in spllE or is Enddenta^ 

RBLaiNAU) BRAKBM. A Cvnic of die 

19lh Centitry. An AutolHOB»pny- T vol. 

" Writtfii hi B JivrlF ud ruiUhle tirie.'—^wr. 

oamiii Aa xkd sratk. By tbc 



OoootSHi Von BoHunm. 






CLH. ByKatl 
■ of •■ Gideon's 



65, Cornhili; S* 12, Paitrnoster How, London. 



Werks Published by Henry S. King <Sr* Co., 



25 



Fiction — continued. 



SBPTIMinS. A Romance. BjrNafhanlel 
Hawthorne. Second Edition, x voL 
Crown 8vo, cloth, extra gilt. of. 

The Athenentm says that " the Dook is full of 
Hawthorne's mos characteristic writinf^." 

BFFDB'B aAMX; How shb Lost and 
HOW SHE Wok. By Oecll Olayton. 

2 vols. Crown 8vo. 

" Well written. The characters move, and act, 
and, above all, talk like human beinji^, and we 
have liked readings about them." — Spectator. 

JUDITH aWTKNS. By Zdile Oarr. 

In 3 vols. Cr. 8vo, cloth. Second Edition. 

"Mr. Carr's novel is certainly amusing 

There is much variety, and the dialogue and 
Incident never flag to the finish." — Athenttum. 

"Displays much dramatic ^itj^"— Edinburgh 
Couratit. 

OHXSTSBIiBiaH. By Ansley Ooayers. 

3 vols. Crown Svo. 

" We have gained much enjojrment from the 
book."— J/^rfa/or. 

HONOR BIiAKFi : The Story of a Plain 
Woman. By Mrs. Keatixige. 2 vols. 

" One of the best novels we have met with for 
some time."— A/lw«««^ Post. 

" A story which must do good to all, yoimg and 
old, who read it,"— Daily News. 

HXATHSBGATB. A Story of Scottish 
Life and Character. By a new Author. 
i2 vols. 

"Its merit lies in the marked antithesis of 
strongly developed characters, in different ranks 
of life, and resembling each other in nothing but 
their marked nationality." — Athenuutn. 

THIB QXTSEN'B SHUjLING. By Captain 
Arthur arlfflths. 2 vols. 

" Every scene, character, and incident of the 
book are so life-like that they seem drawn from 
life direct."— /'a// Mall Gazette. 

MIRANDA. A Midsummer Madness. By 
Mortimer CollinB. 3 vols. 

" Not a dull page in the whole three volumes." 
— Standard. 

" The work of a man who is at once a thinker 
and a poet."— Hour. 

SQUIRX: 8IIjCH£STER'S whim. By 
Mortimer Collins. 3 vols. 

"We think it the best (story) Mr. CoUins has 
yet written. Full of incident and adventiure."— 
Pa/l Mall Gazette. 

"So clever, so IfHtating, and so charming a 
story. "—Standard. 

THE PRINCESS CLARICE. A Story of 
1871. By Mortimer Collins. 2 vols. 
"Mr. Collins has produced a readable book, 
amusingly characteristic." — A thenaum. 
" A bright, fresh.cuid original book,"StaHdard. 

JOHANNES OIjAF. By E. do Wille. 
Translated by F. E. Btinndtt. 3 vols. 
" The art of description is fully exhibited ; 
perception of character and capacity for delineat- 
ing it are obvious ; while there is great breadth 
and comprehensiveness in the plan of the story, " 
— Morning Post. 

A GOOD MATCH. By Amelia Perrier, 
Author of " Mea Culpa." 2 vols. 

" Racy and lively." —At/teneeum. 

" This clever and amusing novel." — Pall Mall 
Gazette. 



THE STORY OF BXR EDWARD'S 
WIFE. By Hamilton Marshall, 

Author of "For Very Life." i vol. Cr. Svo. 

"A quiet, graceful little story T— Spectator. 

" Mr. Hamilton Marshall can tell a story closely 
and pleasantly."— /%z//A/(x// Gazette. 

HERMANN AQHA. An Eastern Narra- 
tive. By W. Qifford Palgrave. a toIs. 
Crown Svo, cloth, extra gilt iSs. 

" There is a positive fragrance as of newljr-mown 
hay about it, as compared with the artificially 
perfumed passions which are detailed to us with 
such gusto by our ordinary novel>writers in their 
endless yfolvaaes."— Observer. 

lilNEED AT IiAST. By F. E. Bnnndil 

I vol. Crown Svo. 

" The reader who once tdkes it up will not be 
inclined to relinquish it without concluding t\0k 
volume. " — Morning Post. 

" A very charming story." — ^ohn Bull. 

OFF THE SEEIiliiaS. By Jean 
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" Clever and spSirV.}xa.g.''— Standard. 

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Works Published by Henry S. King &* Co,y 27 

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28 Works Published by Henry S. King 6^ Co., 

Theological — continued, 

HARTHAM CONFERENCES; OR, DISCUSSIONS UPON SOME 
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► 



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Works Published by Henry S, King 6r* Co.^ 29 



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30 



Works Published by Henry S, King &* Co., 



Thiloi.ogicm^-— continued, 

WORKS BY THE REV. H. R. •'HAW&IS, MA 

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Works Published by Henry S. King 6r* Co., 



31 



Theological — continued. 



WORKS BY THE REV. 
ZHX SOLIDITY OF TRUE RSIjI- 
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35 



Miscellaneous — continued, 

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