The Crown of Wild Olive
fixed weight of any article (called, suppose _a_), is either for the
return of that weight of the article itself, or of another fixed weight
of the article _b_, or another of the article _c_, and so on.
Now, supposing that the labourer speedily and continually presents these
general orders, or, in common language, "spends the money," he has
neither changed the circumstances of the nation, nor his own, except in
so far as he may have produced useful and consumed useless articles, or
_vice versa_. But if he does not use, or uses in part only, the orders
he receives, and lays aside some portion of them; and thus every day
bringing his contribution to the national store, lays by some
per-centage of the orders received in exchange for it, he increases the
national wealth daily by as much as he does not use of the received
order, and to the same amount accumulates a monetary claim on the
Government. It is, of course, always in his power, as it is his legal
right, to bring forward this accumulation of claim, and at once to
consume, destroy, or distribute, the sum of his wealth. Supposing he
never does so, but dies, leaving his claim to others, he has enriched
the State during his life by the quantity of wealth over which that
claim extends, or has, in other words, rendered so much additional life
possible in the State, of which additional life he bequeaths the
immediate possibility to those whom he invests with his claim. Supposing
him to cancel the claim, he would distribute this possibility of life
among the nation at large.
41. We hitherto consider the Government itself as simply a conservative
power, taking charge of the wealth entrusted to it.
But a Government may be more or less than a conservative power. It may
be either an improving, or destructive one.
If it be an improving power, using all the wealth entrusted to it to the
best advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch at once, and
the Government is enabled, for every order presented, to return a
quantity of wealth greater than the order was written for, according to
the fructification obtained in the interim. This ability may be either
concealed, in which case the currency does not completely represent the
wealth of the country, or it may be manifested by the continual payment
of the excess of value on each order, in which case there is
(irrespectively, observe, of collateral results afterwards to be
examined) a perpetual rise in the worth of the currency, that is to say,
a fall in the price of all articles represented by it.
42. But if the Government be destructive, or a consuming power, it
becomes unable to return the value received on the presentation of the
order.
This inability may either be concealed by meeting demands to the full,
until it issue in bankruptcy, or in some form of national debt;--or it
may be concealed during oscillatory movements between destructiveness
and productiveness, which result on the whole in stability;--or it may
be manifested by the consistent return of less than value received on
each presented order, in which case there is a consistent fall in the
worth of the currency, or rise in the price of the things represented by
it.
43. Now, if for this conception of a central Government, we substitute
that of a body of persons occupied in industrial pursuits, of whom each
adds in his private capacity to the common store, we at once obtain an
approximation to the actual condition of a civilized mercantile
community, from which approximation we might easily proceed into still
completer analysis. I purpose, however, to arrive at every result by the
gradual expansion of the simpler conception; but I wish the reader to
observe, in the meantime, that both the social conditions thus supposed
(and I will by anticipation say also, all possible social conditions),
agree in two great points; namely, in the primal importance of the
supposed national store or stock, and in its destructibility or
improveability by the holders of it.
44. I. Observe that in both conditions, that of central
Government-holding, and diffused private-holding, the quantity of stock
is of the same national moment. In the one case, indeed, its amount may
be known by examination of the persons to whom it is confided; in the
other it cannot be known but by exposing the private affairs of every
individual. But, known or unknown, its significance is the same under
each condition. The riches of the nation consist in the abundance, and
their wealth depends on the nature, of this store.
45. II. In the second place, both conditions, (and all other possible
ones) agree in the destructibility or improveability of the store by its
holders. Whether in private hands, or under Government charge, the
national store may be daily consumed, or daily enlarged, by its
possessors; and while the currency remains apparently unaltered, the
property it represents may diminish or increase.
46. The first question, then, which we have to put under our simple
conception of central Government, namely, "What store has it?" is one of
equal importance, whatever may be the constitution of the State; while
the second question--namely, "Who are the holders of the store?"
involves the discussion of the constitution of the State itself.
The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads:
1. What is the nature of the store?
2. What is its quantity in relation to the population?
3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency?
The second inquiry into two:
1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what proportions?
2. Who are the Claimants of the store, (that is to say, the holders of
the currency,) and in what proportions?
We will examine the range of the first three questions in the present
paper; of the two following, in the sequel.
47. I. QUESTION FIRST. What is the nature of the store? Has the nation
hitherto worked for and gathered the right thing or the wrong? On that
issue rest the possibilities of its life.
For example, let us imagine a society, of no great extent, occupied in
procuring and laying up store of corn, wine, wool, silk, and other such
preservable materials of food and clothing; and that it has a currency
representing them. Imagine farther, that on days of festivity, the
society, discovering itself to derive satisfaction from pyrotechnics,
gradually turns its attention more and more to the manufacture of
gunpowder; so that an increasing number of labourers, giving what time
they can spare to this branch of industry, bring increasing quantities
of combustibles into the store, and use the general orders received in
exchange to obtain such wine, wool, or corn, as they may have need of.
The currency remains the same, and represents precisely the same amount
of material in the store, and of labour spent in producing it. But the
corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear
sulphur and saltpetre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn
and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their
currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of
currency will command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of
rockets is unlimited, but that of food, limited, in a quite final
manner; and the whole currency in the hands of the society represents an
infinite power of detonation, but none of existence.
48. This statement, caricatured as it may seem, is only exaggerated in
assuming the persistence of the folly to extremity, unchecked, as in
reality it would be, by the gradual rise in price of food. But it falls
short of the actual facts of human life in expression of the depth and
intensity of the folly itself. For a great part (the reader would not
believe how great until he saw the statistics in detail) of the most
earnest and ingenious industry of the world is spent in producing
munitions of war; gathering, that is to say the materials, not of
festive, but of consuming fire; filling its stores with all power of the
instruments of pain, and all affluence of the ministries of death. It
was no true _Trionfo della Morte_[19] which men have seen and feared
(sometimes scarcely feared) so long; wherein he brought them rest from
their labours. We see, and share, another and higher form of his triumph
now. Task-master, instead of Releaser, he rules the dust of the arena no
less than of the tomb; and, content once in the grave whither man went,
to make his works to cease and his devices to vanish,--now, in the busy
city and on the serviceable sea, makes his work to increase, and his
devices to multiply.
49. To this doubled loss, or negative power of labour, spent in
producing means of destruction, we have to add, in our estimate of the
consequences of human folly, whatever more insidious waste of toil there
is in production of unnecessary luxury. Such and such an occupation (it
is said) supports so many labourers, because so many obtain wages in
following it; but it is never considered that unless there be a
supporting power in the product of the occupation, the wages given to
one man are merely withdrawn from another. We cannot say of any trade
that it maintains such and such a number of persons, unless we know how
and where the money, now spent in the purchase of its produce, would
have been spent, if that produce had not been manufactured. The
purchasing funds truly support a number of people in making This; but
(probably) leave unsupported an equal number who are making, or could
have made That. The manufacturers of small watches thrive at Geneva;--it
is well;--but where would the money spent on small watches have gone,
had there been no small watches to buy?
50. If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile economy--"labour
is limited by capital," were true, this question would be a definite
one. But it is untrue; and that widely. Out of a given quantity of funds
for wages, more or less labour is to be had, according to the quantity
of will with which we can inspire the workman; and the true limit of
labour is only in the limit of this moral stimulus of the will, and of
the bodily power. In an ultimate, but entirely unpractical sense, labour
is limited by capital, as it is by matter--that is to say, where there
is no material, there can be no work,--but in the practical sense,
labour is limited only by the great original capital of head, heart, and
hand. Even in the most artificial relations of commerce, labour is to
capital as fire to fuel: out of so much fuel, you _can_ have only so
much fire; but out of so much fuel, you _shall_ have so much fire,--not
in proportion to the mass of combustible, but to the force of wind that
fans and water that quenches; and the appliance of both. And labour is
furthered, as conflagration is, not so much by added fuel, as by
admitted air.[20]
51. For which reasons, I had to insert, in Sec. 49, the qualifying
"probably;" for it can never be said positively that the purchase-money,
or wages fund of any trade is withdrawn from some other trade. The
object itself may be the stimulus of the production of the money which
buys it; that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained the
means of buying it, would not have been done by him unless he had wanted
that particular thing. And the production of any article not
intrinsically (nor in the process of manufacture) injurious, is useful,
if the desire of it causes productive labour in other directions.
52. In the national store, therefore, the presence of things
intrinsically valueless does not imply an entirely correlative absence
of things valuable. We cannot be certain that all the labour spent on
vanity has been diverted from reality, and that for every bad thing
produced, a precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain