MIND, MATTER, AND OPPOR. TUNITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2046, 11 May 1893, Page 15

MIND, MATTER, AND OPPOR. TUNITY.

(By S. Binder, in the Australasian.)

For nearly half a century the Duke of Argyll has been a notable figure in literature and politics ; and in the preface to this, his latest work, he tells us that in the early days of hia public life he joined the group of statesmen who inherited the traditions of Sir Robert Peel, " of which group," he says sadly, "Mr Gladstone and myself are the sole survivors." The career of one of that group, Lord Shaftesbury, he describes as " the noblest I have ever known " ; and it was in connection with the untiring efforts of that nobleman, directed to the amelioration of the condition of the factory hands in the great manufacturing towns, and the passing of the Ten Hours Bill, that the duke first began to study the larger natural laws which are the only foundation for any true economic science. Even at that early date this study seems to have led him to doubt the conclusions and interpretations of the older economists, who, he says, seemed to be like men always sounding in abyssmal waters — always busy in recording depths — but wholly unconscious that their lead has never touched bottom. Smith, Mill, Ricardo, and the rest of the then unquestioned oracles of economic science failed to satisfy him, until at last he was " fain to join the number of those younger writers who— some on one point, come on another — have rebelled against an authority which had been too long and too uncritically admitted." So utterly, he say?, has the teaching of

POLITICAL ECONOMY BROKEN DOWN, that its very elements, and not a few of ite most certain truths, seem to have lost their hold. One result of this revolt against the old teachers and acceptance of newer light is the book before us ; and one of the first objections raised in it is to the phraseology of the older writers — an objection which will be heartily endorsed by the army of bewildered students who have wandered hopelessly through its mazes. "The whole science," says the author, "is infested with this pestilent vocabulary of phrases." Ib is a curious fact which the duke notices, that Adam Smith nowhere furnishes a definition of the word that gives colour to the title of his book on the " Wealth of Nationß." He gives examples of what is held to constitute

WEALTH in different countries, bat avoids denning it exactly, though he Bays that " A man is rich or poor according as he possesses a greater or smaller amount of useful commodities which minister to his enjoyments." Ricardo makes "utility" the sole test of wealth. Say vaguely describes it as " value," and Sismondi's definition is to the same effect. Proudhon puts his answer in the form of a paradox, thus: — "Value diminishes in proportion as production increases." But then Proudhon revelled in contradictions, and said, " I should like to go to heaven, but; I fear that everbody there will be of one mind, and I should find nobody to argue with." Bastiat takes 15 pages to extract the meaning of the seemingly simple word, and leaves it much as he found it. The Duke of Argyll follows, to some extent, his great countryman Adam Smith, but expands that writer's attempt into a more exact definition, which, as it is the latest, so is perhaps the most complete of all. " Wealth," he says, "is the possesion, in comparative abundance, of things which are objects of human desire, not obtainable without some sacrifice or some exertion, and which are accessible to men able as well as anxious to acquire them." The duke is one of the most orthodox men in Scotland — which is saying much— and he is excessively fond of Biblical quotations and illustrations. He lays great stress on the word " possession " in his definition, and aptly quotes Christ's rebuke of covetousness— " A man's life consisteth not in (1) the abundance (2) of the things (3) which he possesseth," in which, he says, the main force of the whole sentence falls on the word "possesseth." In the words

11 WEALTH " AND " POSSE" SION " we have the key-note of the whole book, as, indeed, they are the key-note of the history of humanity, and the moving force of individual and national progress. Of course, the author does not overlook the moral and religious aspects of, the question. He is careful to include bcth, and insists upon the insertion of the word " legitimate " in his definition as qualifying " objects of human desire." So highly does he rate the value of the light that be has thrown upon this long-debated subject that, when he asks at length what we have gained in this definition of wealch, the reply is almost exultant. " Surely,"' Le says, "that gain is obvious and immense. Never was there a more searching l'ghfc thrown by any process co simple as upon the directions, the methods, and the scope of a great inquiry. Ib follows from the definition that if we seek the sources and origin of wealth we must seek, in the first place, for the sources and origin of all possessions amoDg men. We must seek, in the second place, for the causes productive of relative scarcity or comparative abundance. We must seek, in the third place, for those relations which prevail between onr own various needs and the materials supplied for the satisfaction of them to the external world. We must seek, in the fourth place, for all those causes which limit, or expand, or shape, or control the desires of men. Was there ever Huch a rich and various field opened before the eyes of any science." Tha author absolutely rejects the theories of the old economists who limit the definition of wealth to

REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY. He is indignant at Henry George's description of wealth as " matter of the universe worked up into desirable form," and also at Fawcett's equally vague interpretation of it as

" oommoditiea possessing exchange value." Throughout his argument he continues to lay great emphasis on "possession," which he says has been entirely ignored by all writers on the subject. He attacks the hitherto generally accepted doctrine that the three great sources of wealth are—

LAND, LABOUH, AND CAPITAL; and declares that "it is obnoxious to every possible objection that can lie against a scientific definition." Land, without many external adjuncts and agencies, is valueless. Labour, taken as muscular exertion only, without a directing mind, is useless. Capital is stored wealth, and cannot, therefore, be its source. Here we come, for the first time, to a knowledge of the meaning of the title of the book. The unseen foundations are the mental agencies without which the physical sources of wealth would lie for ever dormant ; and the Duke's quarrel with the great exponents of economic science is that from all their definitions they omit the most powerful factor in the production of wealth — mental activity. Without this living force land lies idle, mere physical labour is resultless, and capital is dead matter, until mind, the great motive power, breathes into them the breath of life. The arguments used here are very striking, and the illustrations apt and pertinent, but space forbids their quotation.

Having thus discarded the time-honoured formula of land, labour, and capital, the author proposes to substitute for it

MIND, MATTER, AND OPPORTUNITY.

" Mincf," he says, would here represent the whole energies of man as an organism, including every kind of labour or activity possible to man. " Matter" fairly inoludes all physical materials and agencies; and " opportunity" embraces all varieties of circumstances. Continuing this war against phrases, the author falls foul of the distinction so frequently made between what it is the fashion to call productive and unproductive labour, and attributes it to the erroneous definition of waalth as produced and exchangeable matter. Every occupation which saves time and labour to those engaged in the actual work of production, or which guarantees peace and safety to them, is itself productive. Thus the distributors, the carriers by land and sea, the teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, authors, soldiers, sailors, domestic and other servants — a'l help to produce, inasmuch as their work enables the immediate producers to produce far more than would be possible if each had to do these things for himself. Having thus got rid of some of the deceptive technical words and phrases, which, as the author frequently insists, have given the name of " the dismal science to the richest of all subjects of inquiry," he proceeds to examine his

NEW DEFINITION OF WEALTH and to inquire into " the sources of possession," "the causes of comparative abundance," " the conditions which confer value on things," " the effects on human desires," and " the sources of efficiency in demand " ; as well as the moral limits imposed upon desires, tastes, and aspirations.

It is impossible, within reasonable limits, to follow the author as he sketches with master hand, the dawn and growth of civilisation the development of rights, the acquisition, first of tribal, and then of personal wealth, the necessity of defence, with its terrible consequences, war, aggression, spoliation, slavery, the blood stains on the historic page. Then follows the birth of law and civil authority, recognising and guarding "possession," regulating the acquirement and exchange of wealth. On almosj every page there are apt quotations from the Jewish story as told in the Old Testament and Apocrypha, all bearing on and illustrating the subject, and giving evidence of the existence of proprietary rights and rigid ownership among the Jews — which it is now the fashion to deny. The author goes so far as to say that the law of Jewish

LANDHOLDINGhas its nearest modern counterpart in the Scotch system of strict entails. Referring to the condition of ancient Persia under Darius, he writes :—": — " The forced withdrawal of men from their own business, and their employment in utterly useless or even in destructive labour, brings home to us the great fundamental truth of economic science, that in the freedom of men to pursue their own individual interests lies the richest fountain of national welfare." Tnis is true not only of the arbitrary interference of absolute kings, but of the modern attempts of democracies to force industry into narrow and tortuous channels, regardless of individual rights and wishes, and regardless also of the wider and straighter natural channels through which it would so much more easily flow. Here is a sentence which may be commended to the earnest consideration of some of our modern land reformers :—": — " The long continuity of loving labour which an improving agriculture absolutely demands, and which has always been the source of all improvement wherever ib exists, demands, above all other things, a corresponding continuity of possession in the hands of those individual men who in doing the rough work of life have legitimately acquired it." Naturally, when dealing with Mr George, the question of

PRIVATE OWNE&SaiP OI 1 LAND comes up again, and the author points out that the best method of disposing of the national lands has been before all the great colonies, with full power to deal with it in any way they thought proper, and that " the universal instinct of them all has been that the individual ownership of land is the one great attraction which they can hold out to settlers, whom it is their highest interest to invite or to establish." Out of Mr George's own mouth the Duke condemns him. Readers of " Social Problems " will remember the terrible picture drawn by Mr George of the venality and corruption of the Governments of his own country, and yet to these very bodies would he entrust the ownership and management cf the vast landed estates of the nation, and confide to these immaculate politicians the duty of fixing and spending the rents. The Duke's attack on Mr George — not merely for his policy of land confiscation, bat for the utter abandonment of every principle of national honour and personal honesty which he shows in bis proposals to repudiate the debt which the Northern States incurred in maintaining the integrity of the Union — is a splendid specimen of hard .md straight hittinp, and one of the best chapters in the book. OI course, the

ECONOMIC LAW 01? WAGES

shares the fate of the other so-called laws. The wage fund of Mill has no existence, and though wages are undoubtedly paid out of capital in the first instance, they are really only advanced on the security of labour. But here comes in another of the " unseen foundations." -Before physical labour can earn and receive wages, mental labour must have done its work. " The single brain of James Watt was, and still is ; the biggest wage fund that haa ever arisen in the world." Before wages can be earned by hand labour, there must be design. The " conceiver," as the Duke happily calls him, is the first worker and the first wage-fund producer. Labour must carry out the conception, and so keep the wage fund flowing, and capital must supply material and tools, or the flow will soon cease. " Mind, matter, and opportunity " must be all employed and worked together, or there will be neither wages nor wealth.

The book is a revelation on the new economic science, and throw 3 a splendid light on many puzzling questions which have been darkened by the older writers.