WHAT HE TEACHES.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 147, 22 June 1889, Page 3 (Supplement)

WHAT HE TEACHES.

A Resume of "Progress and Poverty."

So much is said and written about Henry George and his teachings, and so few people are really well acquainted with the works of the man whom the Duke of Argyle ha - dubbed '•' the Prophet of San Francisco,', that a synopsis of his teachings will, we believe, be welcomed alike by upholders and opponents of his theories. In bhe following epibome it is, of course, only possible to indicate the landmarks of Henry George's remarkable book ; but while this may be sufficient for the general reader, ib will probably lead many persons to study. Mr George's writings for themselves.

Introductory.—THE PROBLEM. What is the cause of recurring industrial depressions in which capital wastes while labour stands idle, and there is ( widespread want with a seeming excess in productive forces? That there must be a common cause is shown from bhe existence of these conditions in all progressive countries, and that that cause is either material progress or something connected with maberial progress is shown by the fact thab bhe phenomena which we speak of as indusbrial depressions are bub inbensificabions of phenomena which accompany material progress. What is the law which associates poverty with progress and'- increases ivant with advancing wealth ? It must be within the province of political economy to discover it. Political economy is a science which in the sequence of certain phenomena seeks to trace mutual relations and to identify cause and effect, just as the physical sciences seek to do in other sets of phenomena. Its processes consist simply in identification and. separation, and its premises are axioms of everyday life, which may be reduced to the metaphysical expression of the physical law that motion seeks the line of least resistance, viz., bhab men seek to gratify their desires' with the least exertion.