The Crown of Wild Olive
the baker's. Which, thus fearlessly asserting, we shall endeavour in
next paper to consider how far it may be practicable for the mob itself,
also, in due breadth of dish, to have dinners to carry home.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Remember carefully this statement, that Wealth consists only in the
things which the nature of humanity has rendered in all ages, and must
render in all ages to come, (that is what I meant by "constant") the
objects of legitimate desire. And see Appendix II.
[15] The _Wanderings_, observe, not the Right goings, of Imagination.
She is very far from despising these.
[16] _See_ Appendix III.
[17] I would beg the reader's very close attention to these 37th and
38th paragraphs. It would be well if a dogged conviction could be
enforced on nations, as on individuals, that, with few exceptions, what
they cannot at present pay for, they should not at present have.
[18] _See_ Appendix IV.
[19] I little thought, what _Trionfo della Morte_ would be, for this
very cause, and in literal fulfilment of the closing words of the 47th
paragraph, over the fields and houses of Europe, and over its fairest
city--within seven years from the day I wrote it.
[20] The meaning of which is, that you may spend a great deal of money,
and get very little work for it, and that little bad; but having good
"air" or "spirit," to put life into it, with very little money, you may
get a great deal of work, and all good; which, observe, is an
arithmetical, not at all a poetical or visionary circumstance.
[21] More especially, works of great art.
[22] The meaning of that, in plain English, is, that we must find out
how far poverty and riches are good or bad for people, and what is the
difference between being miserably poor--so as, perhaps, to be driven to
crime, or to pass life in suffering--and being blessedly poor, in the
sense meant in the Sermon on the Mount. For I suppose the people who
believe that sermon, do not think (if they ever honestly ask themselves
what they do think), either that Luke vi. 24. is a merely poetical
exclamation, or that the Beatitude of Poverty has yet been attained in
St. Martin's Lane and other back streets of London.
[23] Large plans!--Eight years are gone, and nothing done yet. But I
keep my purpose of making one day this balance, or want of balance,
visible, in those so seldom used scales of Justice.
[24] These are nearly all briefly represented by the image used for the
force of money by Dante, of mast and sail:--
Quali dal vento le gonfiate vele
Caggiono avvolte, poi che l'alber fiacca
Tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele.
The image may be followed out, like all of Dante's, into as close detail
as the reader chooses. Thus the stress of the sail must be proportioned
to the strength of the mast, and it is only in unforeseen danger that a
skilful seaman ever carries all the canvas his spars will bear, states
of mercantile languor are like the flap of the sail in a calm; of
mercantile precaution, like taking in reefs; and mercantile ruin is
instant on the breaking of the mast.
[I mean by credit-power, the general impression on the national mind
that a sovereign, or any other coin, is worth so much bread and
cheese--so much wine--so much horse and carriage--or so much fine art:
it may be really worth, when tried, less or more than is thought: the
thought of it is the credit-power.]
[25] The object of Political Economy is not to buy, nor to sell labour,
but to spare it. Every attempt to buy or sell it is, in the outcome,
ineffectual; so far as successful, it is not sale, but Betrayal; and the
purchase-money is a part of that thirty pieces which bought, first the
greatest of labours, and afterwards the burial-field of the Stranger;
for this purchase-money, being in its very smallness or vileness the
exactly measured opposite of the "vilis annona amicorum," makes all men
strangers to each other.
[26] Cicero's distinction, "sordidi quaestus, quorum operae, non quorum
artes emuntur," admirable in principle, is inaccurate in expression,
because Cicero did not practically know how much operative dexterity is
necessary in all the higher arts; but the cost of this dexterity is
incalculable. Be it great or small, the "cost" of the mere perfectness
of touch in a hammer-stroke of Donatello's, or a pencil-touch of
Correggio's, is inestimable by any ordinary arithmetic.
[Old notes, these, more embarrassing I now perceive, than elucidatory;
but right, and worth retaining.]
[27] Only observe, as some labour is more destructive of life than other
labour, the hour or day of the more destructive toil is supposed to
include proportionate rest. Though men do not, or cannot, usually take
such rest, except in death.
[28] There is, therefore, observe, no such thing as cheapness (in the
common use of that term), without some error or injustice. A thing is
said to be cheap, not because it is common, but because it is supposed
to be sold under its worth. Everything has its proper and true worth at
any given time, in relation to everything else; and at that worth should
be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to the buyer by
exactly so much as the seller loses, and no more. Putrid meat, at
twopence a pound, is not "cheaper" than wholesome meat at sevenpence a
pound; it is probably much dearer; but if, by watching your opportunity,
you can get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it is cheaper to
you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller has lost. The
present rage for cheapness is either, therefore, simply and literally a
rage for badness of all commodities, or it is an attempt to find persons
whose necessities will force them to let you have more than you should
for your money. It is quite easy to produce such persons, and in large
numbers; for the more distress there is in a nation, the more cheapness
of this sort you can obtain, and your boasted cheapness is thus merely a
measure of the extent of your national distress.
There is, indeed, a condition of apparent cheapness, which we have some
right to be triumphant in; namely, the real reduction in cost of
articles by right application of labour. But in this case the article is
only cheap with reference to its _former_ price; the so-called cheapness
is only our expression for the sensation of contrast between its former
and existing prices. So soon as the new methods of producing the article
are established, it ceases to be esteemed either cheap or dear, at the
new price, as at the old one, and is felt to be cheap only when accident
enables it to be purchased beneath this new value. And it is no
advantage to produce the article more easily, except as it enables you
to multiply your population. Cheapness of this kind is merely the
discovery that more men can be maintained on the same ground; and the
question how many you will maintain in proportion to your additional
means, remains exactly in the same terms that it did before.
A form of immediate cheapness results, however, in many cases, without
distress, from the labour of a population where food is redundant, or
where the labour by which the food is produced leaves much idle time on
their hands, which may be applied to the production of "cheap" articles.
All such phenomena indicate to the political economist places where the
labour is unbalanced. In the first case, the just balance is to be
effected by taking labourers from the spot where pressure exists, and
sending them to that where food is redundant. In the second, the
cheapness is a local accident, advantageous to the local purchaser,
disadvantageous to the local producer. It is one of the first duties of
commerce to extend the market, and thus give the local producer his full
advantage.
Cheapness caused by natural accidents of harvest, weather, &c., is
always counterbalanced, in due time, by natural scarcity, similarly
caused. It is the part of wise government, and healthy commerce, so to
provide in times and places of plenty for times and places of dearth, as
that there shall never be waste, nor famine.
Cheapness caused by gluts of the market is merely a disease of clumsy
and wanton commerce.
[29] Price has been already defined (p. 9) to be the quantity of labour
which the possessor of a thing is willing to take for it. It is best to
consider the price to be that fixed by the possessor, because the
possessor has absolute power of refusing sale, while the purchaser has
no absolute power of compelling it; but the effectual or market price is
that at which their estimates coincide.
[30] This "greater ease" ought to be allowed for by a diminution in the
times of the divided work; but as the proportion of times would remain
the same, I do not introduce this unnecessary complexity into the
calculation.
[31] Compare _Unto this Last_, p. 115, _et seq._
[32] [That is to say, the love of money is founded first on the
intenseness of desire for given things; a youth will rob the till,
now-a-days, for pantomime tickets and cigars; the "strength" of the
currency being irresistible to him, in consequence of his desire for
those luxuries.]
CHAPTER III.
COIN-KEEPING.
68. It will be seen by reference to the last chapter that our present
task is to examine the relation of holders of store to holders of
currency; and of both to those who hold neither. In order to do this, we
must determine on which side we are to place substances such as gold,
commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous definitions the
reader will now be able to understand closer statements than have yet
been possible.
69. _The currency of any country consists of every document
acknowledging debt, which is transferable in the country._[33]
This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Its
intelligibility depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anything
like it;--its credit much on national character, but ultimately _always
on the existence of substantial means of meeting its demand_.[34]
As the degrees of transferableness are variable, (some documents passing
only in certain places, and others passing, if at all, for less than
their inscribed value), both the mass, and, so to speak, fluidity, of
the currency, are variable. True or perfect currency flows freely, like
a pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in proportion to the
quantity of less transferable matter which mixes with it, adding to its
bulk, but diminishing its purity. [Articles of commercial value, on
which bills are drawn, increase the currency indefinitely; and
substances of intrinsic value if stamped or signed without restriction
so as to become acknowledgments of debt, increase it indefinitely also.]
Every bit of gold found in Australia, so long as it remains uncoined, is
an article offered for sale like any other; but as soon as it is coined
into pounds, it diminishes the value of every pound we have now in our
pockets.
70. Legally authorized or national currency, in its perfect condition,
is a form of public acknowledgment of debt, so regulated and divided
that any person presenting a commodity of tried worth in the public
market, shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a document
giving him claim to the return of its equivalent, (1) in any place, (2)
at any time, and (3) in any kind.
When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with its
management are always able to give on demand either,
A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,
B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.
If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is at
fault.
If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at fault.
The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined under