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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
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MOUNTAIN WARFARE, illustrated by the Campaign of 1799 in Switzer-
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RUSSIA'S ADVANCE EASTWARD. Based on the Official Reports of
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THE VOLUNTEER, THE MILITIAMAN, AND THE
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THE OPERATIONS OF THE GERMAN ENGINEERS AND
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By Capt. A. von Goetze. Translated by Col. G. Grahaxa. Demy 8vo. With
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THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY, UNDER GEN.
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THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN.
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has he sacceeded, that it mig[ht really be imagined
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:omplete
THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN.
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Chief of the Staff of the First Army. Translated by Colonel C. H. VOn Wrigrht.
With Two Maps. Demy 8vo. Price 9*.
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65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row^ London,
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13
Military ^oua^^continued,
THE GERMAN ARTILLERY IN THE BATTLES NEAR METZ
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AUSTRIAN CAVALRY EXERCISE. From an Abridged Edition
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THE REGIMENT OF BENGAL ARTILLERY. Compiled from
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THE FRONTAL ATTACK OF INFANTRY. Bjr Capt. I*aymann,
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ELEMENTARY MILITARY GEOGRAPHY, RECONNOITRING,
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The Abolition of Purchase and the
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65 r ComhiU; <&«• 12, Paternoster Row, London.
u
Works Published by Henry S. King d- Co.y
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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hidian Mail.
"Full of interest for tl)e sportsman and natural-
ist. Full of thrilling adventures of sportsmen who
have attacked the fiercest and most gigantic
specimens of the animal world in their native
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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." —
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" Contains a great deal of most necessary infer-
EASTERN EXPERIENCES. By L. Bowringr, C.S.I., Lord Canning's
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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.,
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EDUCATIONAL COURSE OP SECULAR SCHOOL BOOKS
FOB INDIA. Edited by J. S. Laiirle, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law ;
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service to many of our readers, especially to those | Civil Service Gaxette.
The following Works are now ready: —
aUOQHAPHT OF INDIA, with
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tracing the growth •f the British
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THBS FIRST HINDUSTANI
REi ADSB, stiff linen wrapper . .06
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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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dard.
EXCHANGE TABLES OF STERLING AND INDIAN RUPEE
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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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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,
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\
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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,
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AUNT MARY'S BRAN PIE. By the Author of " St. Olave's," "When I
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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.
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Elsie
Dinsmore is a famHiar name to a world
- readers. In the above three pretty
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of young
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** We reconunend it with confidence."— /*«//
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Second Edition.
THE AFRICAN CRUISER. A Midshipman's Adventures on the West
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sauor, is orammed ft^ of adventures." — Times.
BRAVE
MEN'S
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FOOTSTEPS. A Book of Example and Anecdote for
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trations, by C. Doyle. Crown 8vo. Price 3*. dd
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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
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" 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
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" A touching record of the struggles in the cause
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up in the fear of the Lord . . . .*' — Illttstrated
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THE DESERTED SHIP. A Real Story of the Atlantic. By Cupples
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" 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, "—
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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
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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
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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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ciently excitinj; readinff." — Times.
"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."
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FANTASTIC STORIES. Translated from the German of Bioliard
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tions, by m. E. Fraser-Tytler. Price 5*.
" Short, quaint, and. as th^y are fithr called, fan-
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*" Fantastic' is certainly the right CfHtbet to
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Third Edition.
STORIES IN PRECIOUS STONES. By Helez^ Zimmem.
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With
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readers of many a legend, and many an imaginary
virtue attached to the gems they are so fond of
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Fourth Edition.
THE GREAT DUTCH ADMIRALS. By
8vo.
Jacob de Z>i«fae. Crown
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*• A really good book."— 5to«/jteraf.
" A realfy exceUent b(i6^"-^ptctator.
THE TASMANIAN LILY.
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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
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Courant.
PHANTASMION. A Fairy Romance. By Sara Coleridgre. With an
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Mary. A new Edition. In i vol. Crown Svo. Price 7*. 6d.
" The readers of this fairy tale will find them-
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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."
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LAYS OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT IN MANY LANDS. Bf-Mn^or-
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Pharaoh Land. | Home Land. | Wonder Land. ) Rhine Land.
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—Literary World. '
BEATRICE AYLMER AND OTHER TALES. By Mary M. Howard,
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"These tales possess considerable
Court Jouriuxl.
merit."— I " A neat and chatty little volume."— /r<wr.
I
65, Coi'Jihill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London,
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.
Volumes L to VII, are now ready.
Subscribers' names received by all Booksellers.
Reduction in prices ef Mr, Tennyson^ s Works : —
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MAUD AND OTHER POEMS. SmaU 8vo 36
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IDYLLS OF THE KING. Small 8vo 50
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21
POETRY.
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*' Of all the poets of the United States there is no tion.'*--^aM^^m^,
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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
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* *
*
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THE DISCIPLES. A New Poem. By Mrs. Hamilton King. Second
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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
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" Throughout it breathes restrained passion and
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ASPROMONTE, AND OTHER POEMS. By the same Author. Second
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ARYAN : or, the Story of the Sword. A Poem. By Herbert Todd, M.A.,
late of Trinity College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo.
65, Cornhill ; 6-12, Paternoster Row^ London.
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
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SOITGFB FOR MTJSIO. By Four Frieada.
SquavB crown 8vo. Price 5; .
CONTAINING SONGS BY
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Greville T. Chester. Juliana H. Ewing.
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^ The charm of siaip>llcity is manifest throt^h*
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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.
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"Allegories and Sonnets."
• Vol. III.— "CoruLskeen Sonnets ;" "Book
of Orm ;" " Political Mystics.*'
" Holding, as Mr. Buchanan does, snch a con*
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isff public wiU be duly thankful for this bandsoine
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SONaS OF lilFB AND DEATH. By
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•* The art of ballad- writtne has long been lost
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IMITATIONS FROM THB QSRMAN
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ON VIOIj and FLUTE. A New Volume
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EDXTB*; or. Love and Life in Cheshire.
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Second Edition.
SONGS OF TWO WOIlI(I>&" Seooad
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Review.
" A real advance on its predecessor, and con-
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ALEXANDER THA aRK4.T. A
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Crown Svo. 5*.
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spectator.
65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London*
PForis PuMis&ai by Hmry S. King &- Co.,
M&oDalUkld, Author of " Daiid E
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IDOIiAVBY. A Romance. By JdUui
isras
UIVHi BXBVIUB.
TOO LATll. By Mn. Nawmtn, 1 T0I5.
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oamiii Aa xkd sratk. By tbc
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CLH. ByKatl
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Fiction — continued.
SBPTIMinS. A Romance. BjrNafhanlel
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HONOR BIiAKFi : The Story of a Plain
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MIRANDA. A Midsummer Madness. By
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THE PRINCESS CLARICE. A Story of
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JOHANNES OIjAF. By E. do Wille.
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THE STORY OF BXR EDWARD'S
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lilNEED AT IiAST. By F. E. Bnnndil
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OFF THE SEEIiliiaS. By Jean
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" Thoroughly interesting and ei\Joyable read-
ing." — Examiner.
WHAT 'TIS TO LOVE. By the Author
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town." 3 vols.
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MEMOIRS OF MRS. UBTITIA
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HESTER MORtiEY^S PROMISE. By
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THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA. By Hesba
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THE SPINSTERS OF BIjATOH-
INQTON. By Mar. Travers. 2 vols.
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WORKS BY THE REV.
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33
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35
Miscellaneous — continued,
WORKS BY EDWARD JENKINS, M.P.
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