TEN-MINUTE TALKS WITH WORKERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16613, 10 December 1919, Page 10

TEN-MINUTE TALKS WITH WORKERS.

WHAT CAPITAL DOES. (Reprinted from The Times.) Financially, the capital of a given firm is the market value in money of i all the tilings it possesses and uses i for the purpose of tarrying on its busi- ! ness. flic constant use of money as I a measure of capital toads to hide the ■ real nature of capital. Socially, capital is that part of the wealth of the ; milieu which is used not tor the direct >sa t i.sia! tion of human needs, Iml lor Itbe. prod action of commodities which lean provide these .satisfactions. Jn its right pla c% the bicycle factory a ton of .steel tubing is very useful. If it was dumped down on your allotment you would rightly regard it as a nuisance. A bicycle, of course, would bo another matter entirely. If we think of capital as things, not as money, our reasoning in economics will never get into a tangle. The functions of capital may be considered from two points of view: (1) that of society in general, and (2) that of the workers in particular. Capita! enables (he production of good.- in be carried on by methods which give, i ho best possible results in output. Liu Jive in liie middle of a large town, yet you have at your very baud, at niiv moment of Die day or night, a full supply of the commodity you need most—fresh water. All you have to do is to turn a tap, and that tap is the lasi visible piece of a vast accumulation of capital—pipes, pumping machinery, and reservoirs—which brings you water from a mountain lake a hundred utiles all'. If you lived ill the country, you would have a well, a winch, a nipt 1 and ;V bucket—abo a mass of capital, hill- reipiinng (ar more rlfart on your pit l l to get at the water. it even this small array of capital vattisheil. ami every lime you wanted a i drink you had to go to the stream and I scoop the water up in your baud, you would have a painful lesson in the economics, of capital. A REMARKABLE FEAT. Capital enables us. then, to substitute for straightforward hut itiellirienl methods of production the methods which are roundabout but ellicietu. The savage kills an animal and lists the dried pelt, iis a garment.. Nothing could be more direct. It is recorded that in the I Kill century an Englisht.iaii won a big wager by dining one ni.gb!. in a jacket; which had been wool on a sheep's hack 21 hours previously. That was much less direct. To-day a sheep-farmer cu the Hailing Downs will wear a. suit made from cloth manuI,inured in Yorkshire fro in wool grown in his own district, perhaps mi his own run. Nothing; could he more roundabout. but it is the modern way, thanks to capital. Again, capilal. though it makes production rouii labout. makes it constant and certain lu-tead ot intermit lent and dubious. You cannot- hut, intli'v how independent we have become ol local (liieluation.s in natural supplies. In the .Middle Ages Yorkshire might, he starving while Surrey v. a . bursting wdli barIvests. Now, at any rate in peace thins, the processes of manufacture and the How ot commodities are so constant that even slight interferences when they occur, as 'through an industrial dispute, art' regarded as strange. 1 line they would have, been 100 usual to he noticed much. Once more, capital enables productive processes to he carried on while the result is remote in time, while those who carry them on are still in a position to enjoy meanwhile ail the necessaries and com forts of lilt 1 . I. naiiled labour has to live from hand to mouth, to produce to-day tlie goods which will satisfy the needs of to-day. Capital relieves industry of this necessity, and enables plans to be laid far ahead and a distant return to he waited for in comfort. HOW LABOUR BENEFITS. From the point of view of labour it is lo bo. noi.ed in ibt* first- plncc that capital in the specialised form of machinery and engines is constantly relieving nan of more and. more ol the “donkey work” of industry. Coalcutters, for example, relieve miners of much heavy' work without reducing t heir earnings. 100 much cannot, he done, to relievo man of toil that steam and electricity can do as well as ho. A gain, capital takes the. 1 tusks of industry o/f the shoulders ol labour, flic first claim on the produce ol industry, both in fact and 1 in law, is the wages of the workers. That the goods when produced tin not sell, or are sold at a loss, makes no difference to flits first and most important .claim. _ And since capital must shoulder the risks of production, caution, insight, and brains become or increasing importance, and so again tend to improve the national industry and increase its output. The difference mad,e in the output of labour when assisted by highly specialised forms of capital is almost incredible. It was calculated that the labour-power used in crowing barley in the United States in”I.SOCi, if it had only had the capital-power of 1830 at its disposal, would have prodnecd just tinder three million bushels, whereas, with the actual capital-power ol 1596 to aid it., the.'liarvest was nearly 7U million bushels. In other words, nearly 9(3 per cent, of the product was duo to capital. Another calculation allowed that capitalpower applied to pin-making increased the, efficiency of the labour-power no less than 90-fold. ... , This, then, it what capital does, and this is the service that capitalists render (o society. ft also explains why, in Russia and elsewhere, the enemies of capital turn out to he the enemies of mankind.