Class Ji^fl-i^ Book • n IS— CQEKRIGHT DEPOSIT. / UNTO THIS LAST ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY BY JOHN RUSKIN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD T. ELY, LL.D. Professor of Political Economy and Director of the School of Economics and Political Science in the University of "VVisconsin NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS c THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two CoHiEfl Received JUL. 10 1901 ^ Copyright entry COPY Q. \A\'^ Copyright, 1901, By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, ' •• • •• I CONTENTS ESSAY PAGE 1. The Roots of Honor i II. The Veins of Wealth 37 III. Qui Judicatis Terram 65 IV. Ad Valorem loi "FRIEND, I DO THEE NO WRONG. DIDST NOT THOU AGREE WITH ME FOR A PENNY ? TAKE THAT THINE IS, AND GO THY WAY. I WILL GIVE UNTO THIS LAST EVEN AS UNTO THEE." "IF YE THINK GOOD, GIVE ME MY PRICE; AND IF NOT, FORBEAR. SO THEY WEIGHED FOR MY PRICE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER." PREFACE I. The four following essays were published eighteen months ago in the " Cornhill Magazine," and were reprobated in a violent manner, as far as I could hear, by most of the readers they met with. Not a whit the less, I believe them to be the best, that is to say, the truest, rightest-worded, and most serviceable things I have ever written ; and the last of them, having had especial pains spent on it, is probably the best I shall ever write. "This," the reader may reply, "it might be, yet not therefore well written." Which, in no mock humility, admitting, I yet rest satisfied with the work, though with nothing else that I have done ; and purposing shortly to follow out the subjects opened in these papers, as I may X PREFACE. find leisure, I wish the introductory statements to be within the reach of any one who may care to refer to them. So I republish the essays as they appeared. One word only is changed, correct- ing the estimate of a weight ; and no word is added.^ 2 . Although, however, I find nothing to modify in these papers, it is matter of regret to me that the most startling of all the statements in them - — that respecting the necessity of the organiza- tion of labor, with fixed wages — should have found its way into the first essay ; it being quite one of the least important, though by no means the least certain, of the positions to be defended. The real gist of these papers, their central mean ing and aim, is to give, as I believe for the first time in plain English, — it has often been inci- dentally given in good Greek by Plato and "^ Note to Second Edition. — An addition is made to the note in the fourteenth page of the preface of this book ; which, be- ing the most precious, in its essential contents, of all that I have ever written, I reprint word for word and page for page, after that addition, and make as accessible as I can, to all. PREFACE. xi Xenophon, and good 'Latin by Cicero and Horace, — a logical definition of wealth : such definition being absolutely needed for a basis of economical science. The most reputed essay on that subject which has appeared in modern times, after open- ing with the statement that " writers on political economy profess to teach, or to investigate,^ the nature of wealth," thus follows up the declaration of its thesis : '' Every one has a notion, suffi- ciently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by wealth." . . . '* It is no part of the design of this treatise to aim at metaphysical nicety of definition." - 3. Metaphysical nicety we assuredly do not need ; but physical nicety, and logical accuracy, with respect to a physical subject, we as assuredly do. Suppose the subject of inquiry, instead of being House-law (^Oikonomia) , had been Star-law (As- ^ Which ? for where investigation is necessary, teaching is impossible. '" Principles of Political Economy." By J. S. Mill. Pre- liminary remarks, p. 2. xii PREFACE. tronomta), and that, ignoring distinction between stars fixed and wandering, as here between wealth radiant and wealth reflective, the writer had be- gun thus : " Every one has a notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by stars. Metaphysical nicety in the definition of a star is not the object of this treatise ; " — the essay so opened might yet have been far more true in its final statements, and a thousand- fold more serviceable to the navigator, than any treatise on wealth which founds its conclusions on the popular conception of wealth can ever become to the economist. 4. It was, therefore, the first object of these following papers to give an accurate and stable definition of wealth. Their second object was to show that the acquisition of wealth was finally possible only under certain moral con- ditions of society, of which quite the first was a belief in the existence, and even, for practical purposes, in the attainability of honesty. PREFACE. xiii Without venturing to pronounce — since on such a matter human judgment is by no means conclusive — what is or is not the noblest of God's works, we may yet admit so much of Pope's assertion as that an honest man is among his best works presently visible, and, as things stand, a somewhat rare one ; but not an incredible or miraculous work ; still less an abnormal one. Honesty is not a dis- turbing force, which deranges the orbits of economy ; but a consistent and commanding force, by obedience to which — and by no other obedience — those orbits can continue clear of chaos. 5. It is true, I have sometimes heard Pope condemned for the lowness instead of the height of his standard : " Honesty is indeed a respectable virtue ; but how much higher may men attain ! Shall nothing more be asked of us than that we be honest?" For the present, good friends, nothing. It seems that in our aspirations to be more than xiv PREFACE. that, we have to some extent lost sight of the propriety of being so much as that. What else we may have lost faith in, there shall be here no question ; but assuredly we have lost faith in common honesty, and in the working power of it. And this faith, with the facts on which it may rest, it is quite our first business to recover and keep : not only believing, but even by experience assuring our- selves, that there are yet in the world men who can be restrained from fraud otherwise than by the fear of losing employment;^ nay, ^ " The effectual discipline which is exercised over a work- man is not that of his corporation, but of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence." (" Wealth of Nations," Book I., chap. lo.) Note to Second Edition. — The only addition I will make to the words of this book shall be a very earnest request to any Christian reader to think within himself what an entirely damned state of soul any human creature must have got into, who could read with acceptance such a sentence as this, much more write it ; and to oppose to it, the first commercial words of Venice, discovered by me in her first church : " Around this temple,- let the Merchant's law be just, his weights true, and his contracts guileless." If any of my present readers think that my language in this PREFACE. XV that it is even accurately in proportion to the number of such men in any State, that the said State does or can prolong its existence. To these two points, then, the following es- says are mainly directed. The subject of the organization of labor is only casually touched upon ; because if we once can get a sufficient quantity of honesty in our captains, the organi- zation of labor is easy, and will develop itself without quarrel or difficulty ; but if we cannot get honesty in our captains, the organization of labor is forevermore impossible. 6. The several conditions of its possibility I purpose to examine at length in the sequel. Yet, lest the reader should be alarmed by the hints thrown out during the following investi- gation of first principles, as if they were lead- note is either intemperate, or unbecoming, I will beg them to read with attention the eighteenth paragraph of " Sesame and Lilies ; " and to be assured that I never, myself, now use, in writing, any word which is not in my deliberate judgment, the fittest for the occasion. Venice, Sunday, iS March, i8jy. xvi PREFACE. ing him into unexpectedly dangerous ground, I will, for his better assurance, state at once the worst of the poUtical creed at which I wish him to arrive. (i.) First, that there should be training schools for youth established, at Government cost,^ and under Government discipline, over the whole country ; that every child born in the country should, at the parent's wish, be permitted (and, in certain cases, be under penalty required) to pass through them ; and that, in these schools, the child should, with other minor pieces of knowledge hereafter to be considered, impera- tively be taught, with the best skill of teaching that the country could produce, the following three things : J It will probably be inquired by near-sighted persons, out of what funds such schools could be supported. The expedi- ent modes of direct provision for them I will examine here- after ; indirectly, they would be far more than self-supporting. The economy in crime alone (quite one of the most costly articles of luxury in the modern European market), which such schools would induce, would suffice to support them ten times over. Their economy of labor would be pure gain, and that too large to be presently calculable. PREFACE. xvii {a) The laws of health, and the exercises en- joined by them. (/5) Habits of gentleness and justice ; and {c) The calling by which he is to live. (2.) Secondly, that in connection with thesQ training schools, there should be established also, entirely under Government regulation, man- ufactories and workshops for the production and sale of every necessary of life, and for the exer- cise of every useful art. And that, interfering no whit with private enterprise, nor setting any re- straints or tax on private trade, but leaving both to do their best, and beat the Government if they could, — there should, at these Government man- ufactories and shops, be authoritatively good and exemplary work done, and pure and true sub- stance sold ; so that a man could be sure, if he chose to pay the Government price, that he got for his money bread that was bread, ale that was ale, and work that was work. (3.) Thirdly, that any man or woman, or boy or girl, out of employment, should be at xviii PREFACE. once received at the nearest Government school, and set to such work as it appeared, on trial, they were fit for, at a fixed rate of wages deter- minable every year ; that, being found incapable of work through ignorance, they should be taught, or being found incapable of work through sick- ness, should be tended; but that being found objecting to work, they should be set, under compulsion of the strictest nature, to the more painful and degrading forms of necessary toil, especially to that in mines and other places of danger (such danger being, however, diminished to the utmost by careful regulation and disci- pline), and the due wages of such work be re- tained, cost of compulsion first abstracted — to be at the workman's command, so soon as he has come to sounder mind respecting the laws of employment. (4.) Lastly, that for the old and destitute, comfort and home should be provided; which provision, when misfortune had been by the working of such a system sifted from guilt, would PREFACE. xix be honorable instead of disgraceful to the re- ceiver. For (I repeat this passage out of my " Political Economy of Art," to which the reader is referred for farther detail ^) " a laborer serves his country with his spade, just as a man in the middle ranks of life serves it with sword, pen, or lancet. If the service be less, and therefore the wages during health less, then the reward when health is broken may be less, but not less honor- able ; and it ought to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a laborer to take his pension from his parish because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country because he has deserved well of his country." To which statement I will only add, for con- clusion, respecting the discipline and pay of life and death, that, for both high and low, Livy's last words touching Valerius Publicola, " de pub- ^ Now " A Joy for Ever " (vol. xi. of " The Revised Series"). Addenda, p. 143, ^*i 129 (and p. 165, ^^ 143, of the small edition). XX PREFACE. lico est elatus,'' ^ ought not to be a dishonorable close of epitaph. 7. These things, then, I believe, and am about, as I find power, to explain and illustrate in their various bearings ; following out also what belongs to them of collateral inquiry. Here I state them only in brief, to prevent the reader casting about in alarm for my ultimate meaning ; yet requesting him, for the present, to remember that in a science dealing with so subtle elements as those of human nature, it is only possible to answer for the final truth of principles, not for the direct success of plans ; and that in the best of these last, what can be immediately accomplished is always questionable, and what can be finally ac- complished, inconceivable. Denmark Hill, 10 fh May, 1862. P. Valerius, omnium consensu princeps belli pacisque artibus, anno post moritur ; gloria ingenti, copiis familiaribus adeo exiguis, ut funeri sumtus, deesset : de publico est elatus. Luxere matronse ut Brutum." — Lib. ii., c. xvi. INTRODUCTION. What the reader will get out of Ruskin will depend altogether upon the spirit with which he approaches this master. If he approaches Rus- kin with a disposition to be fault-finding, if he desires to show how many shortcomings and in- consistencies there are in Ruskin, he will find no difficulty in the discovery of defects, and he may be filled with a sense of his own importance as a successful critic of one held to be a light of the first order in the nineteenth century. He may say to himself: " Surely I never would have been guilty of such blunders ! " And it is true that thousands of readers of Ruskin never have com- mitted his mistakes and never will. But what of it? Commonplace minds have commonplace characteristics and keep well within the safe, (xxi) xxii " UNTO THIS LAST:' beaten track. They come and go, leave things as they find them, and are soon forgotten. If they are upright and well-meaning, they have per- formed a useful service. But they must not put themselves in the class of our Ruskins. They cannot measure him because they cannot reach high enough ! But the reader who approaches Ruskin with that sympathy which gives insight, and tries to learn from Ruskin the lessons which he has to teach the receptive mind, will be refreshed. Ruskin is not to be devoured blindly. With the wheat he offers us there is much chaff, but that may be brushed aside, and the wheat is precious food for the soul. " Unto this Last " is the chief economic work of a destructive character which Ruskin wrote, as " Fors Clavigera " and "Time and Tide " are his greatest constructive productions within the field of social economics. " Unto this Last *' clears away what Ruskin held to be errors to make room for positive truths. Yet " Unto this Last " INTRODUCTION. xxiii is far from being purely negative, for it is full of suggestions of reform. Nevertheless, its chief note is negative. . Ruskin found obstructions which he felt must be removed as preparations for the fair social structure which he hoped would some day be erected for the comfort of men. Destruction for the sake of destruction was some- thing so far away from the mind and heart of Ruskin that nothing of the kind suggests itself to the candid reader, even when he is startled by fiercest denunciation of wrong belief producing wrong practice. What is essential in all of Ruskin's writings is their ethical tone. " Unto this Last " is saturated with ethical feeling. Wrong conduct is hateful because it produces misery and is, moreover, hideous in its aspect ; whereas right conduct is beautiful to look upon and brings to the children of men happiness. A yearning for righteousness filled the soul of Ruskin as he wrote "Unto this Last," and this yearning of soul reveals itself plainly on every page. We may not always be xxiv " UNTO THIS LAST:' able to perceive the precise outcome of our every social act, but we can do the righteous thing, and in the end that will surely, be the beneficent thing, the thing that will do good to our own selves and to all others. Ruskin expresses this thought in these words in the second essay, "The Veins of Wealth" : "One thing only you can know, namely, whether this dealing of yours is a just and faithful one, which is all you need concern yourself about respecting it ; sure thus to have done your own part in bringing about ulti- mately in the world a state of things which will not issue in pillage or in death. And thus every question concerning these things merges itself ultimately in the great question of jus- tice." Ruskin, scientifically considered, is guilty of gross errors, and at the same time he reveals scientific .insight of a high order. Among his chief foes are the political economists. John Stuart Mill, in particular, is singled out for attack. Yet what a white soul had Mill ! and with what INTR OD UC TION. xx v rare devotion did he toil for social amelioration ! In the case of the political economists Ruskin lacked that insight of sympathy which is required for an appreciation of his own works. But Ruskin lost much, and the world lost much, be- cause he did not patiently build on the founda- tions which had already been laid instead of attempting their destruction. He did not differ as he thought that he did in his aims and aspira- tions from Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill. Equally with him they sought to promote human welfare. But Ruskin was a poet, and they were men of facts and of science. These economists had a diversity of aims and were guilty of many inconsistencies. But un- doubtedly each and every one of them sought an explanation of our actually existing economic life. What are the causes of the wealth of nations? This question they asked themselves, and their explanation did not mean to any one of them a justification of all that exists. They also sought to know the causes of poverty, and Malthus, a xxvi " UNTO THIS LASTr humane, warm-hearted man, busied himself especially with this question : Why are men poor and wretched? Ricardo examined into the operation of a few causes working under assumed conditions, but his abstractions were never in- tended to be a justification of oppression. John Stuart Mill endeavored to retain the work of his great predecessors and to prosecute inquiries into the methods of improving the lot of mankind, especially of the wage-earning classes and of women. But Ruskin was irritated by vicious practices and by much heartiessness which men justified on alleged grounds of political economy, and which, indeed, found a measure of justifica- tion in the mistakes of such great economists as those we have named ; but for which the chief responsibility rested in reality with certain far smaller men, who exaggerated the mistakes of the masters and omitted some of the better parts of their work for the sake of logical consistency. These smaller men are fitly called by the name of epigones, the followers-after, who create a tradi- INTR OD UC TION, xxvii tion of orthodoxy and stifle free thought, as well as generosity of action. It is true that economists have frequently been guilty of inconsistencies with respect to their fundamental purposes. Sometimes they have said : " We examine merely what is." But they have all examined as well into what they wished to be, and have allowed desire to influ- ence thought. Moreover, they have not always so written as to make it sufficiently clear to the average citizen and his representative in legisla- tive halls that the rules for wealth-accumulation are not the dominant rules of social action, but are subordinate to rules of human welfare. But we must not dwell longer on these considera- tions, interesting as they are. Ruskin knew precisely what he desired, and that was a society of happy, noble human beings, using material possessions for the highest ends. In the fourth lecture, " Ad Valorem," he tells us as follows what he regards as political economy : " The real science of political economy, which xxviii " UNTO THIS LAST:' has yet to be distinguished from the bastard scieiice, as medicine from witchcraft, and astron- omy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labor for the things that lead to life ; and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction." And in " Veins of Wealth " he tells us : '' The final outcome and consummation of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible full- breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human beings." And again in " Ad Valorem " he de- scribes in these words the richest nation and the richest man : " That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings ; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful in- fluence, both personal and by means of his pos- sessions, over the lives of others." Economists have frequently failed to discrim- inate sufficiently between the conditions of in- dividual well-being and the conditions of INTRO D UC TION. xxix general prosperity, and often we find in their writings an underlying assumption that whatever enriches the individual is for the advantage of the world at large. While the distinction be- tween the two lines of inquiry, namely, into the causes of individual riches and those of social wealth, could not altogether fail to escape any really great economist, it is true that this distinction has been inadequately presented in classical economic literature and has escaped the attention of the average well-to-do citizen who is inclined to believe that whatever enriches him enriches his neighbors likewise. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. Ruskin did good service in sharply separating out the two lines of inquiry, and even if here, as elsewhere, he was guilty of exaggeration, he anticipated modern movements of scientific thought. He used the term " mercantile economy " for indi- vidual accumulation which does not " necessarily involve an addition to the actual property or well-being of the State in which it exists." Rus- XXX " UNTO THIS LAST:' kin frankly tells us that " mercantile economy " does not interest him, but that he proposes to in- quire into the causes of social prosperity, and this inquiry he styles political economy. We have already quoted one informal defini- tion of political economy, but in this place it is well to quote another, rather more formal, found in the lecture *' Veins of Wealth" : " Pohtical economy (the economy of a State, or of citizens) consists simply in the production, preservation, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of use- ful or pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time ; the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in sound wood ; the builder who lays good bricks in well-tempered mortar; the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlor, and guards against all waste in her kitchen ; and the singer who rightly disciplines, and never overstrains her voice, are all poHtical economists in the true and final sense ; adding continually to the riches and well-being of the nation to which they belong." INTRODUCTION. xxxi How shall we bring about prosperity ? What must we do to produc'e the largest number of happy human beings? Ruskin tells us that to accomplish this we must renounce the policy of do-nothing, of letting things drift, and must be socially active, guiding and directing the work of men as they engage in their occupations. Human laws, Ruskin tells us, cannot withstand the flow of wealth. " They can only guide it ; but this the leading trench and the limiting mound can do so thoroughly that it shall be- come water of life — the riches of the hand of wisdom ; or, on the contrary, by leaving it to its own lawless flow, they may make it, what it has been too often, the last and deadliest of national plagues : water of Marah — the water which feeds the roots of all evil." But Ruskin perceived as clearly as John Stuart Mill that laws, institutions, and social direction are only in so far valuable as they act upon the habits, thoughts, feelings — in a word, the character — of the individual, and the individual xxxii " UNTO THIS LAST." is brought into connection with his home in a way which suggests quite recent sociological ten- dencies. " Note finally," says Ruskin, " that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not public effort. Certain general measures may aid, certain revised laws guide, such advance- ment, but the measure and the law which have first to be determined are those of each man's home." While Ruskin is in places guilty of exaggera- tion, there are many fine distinctions in " Unto this Last " which later writers have not always perceived with equal clearness, and if we would appreciate our author we must direct our atten- tion to his keen, analytical power. Discrimina- tion is made by Ruskin between the just and legal means of acquiring wealth and mere indi- vidual acquisition, which may imply, sometimes does imply, social impoverishment and the deg- radation of others. There are good and bad sources of wealth, good and bad rich men, good INTRODUCTION. xxxiii and bad poor men. Wealth, like poverty, may be due to superior excellence or to unusual ethical inferiority. Noteworthy is this passage in which Ruskin describes those who now become rich or remain poor : " The persons who become rich \ are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, ^^ proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imagina- tive, the sensitive, the well-informed, the im- provident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person." We must next turn our attention to Ruskin's general philosophy of society as truly organic in character, with parts interdependent, mutually necessary, but unequal in rank and power. Un- less we clearly grasp this view of society, we shall be constantly puzzled by his social writings. Man thrives only in society. Man, isolated and xxxiv " UNTO THIS LAST." alone, the man who is truly individual and apart from his fellows, is really no man ; he is, as the Greeks called him, an '^idiotic" or "private" body, " whence finally our ' idiot,' meaning a person entirely occupied with his own concerns." The harmonious action of men in society requires government, and the existence of inequalities among men points to the rulership of the supe- rior. Ruskin is a democrat in the sense that he sympathizes sincerely and intensely with the masses in their sufferings and desires the eleva- tion of every man to conditions where he can enjoy the best and happiest life of which he is capable ; but Ruskin is an aristocrat in this, that he believes in the existence of natural classes and desires government of the people by the best, for the good of all. Not all inequality can be looked upon as beneficial, but only that rightly established and rightly used. In Ruskin's own words, "The eternal and inevitable law in this matter is that the beneficialness of the inequality depends first on the methods by which it was INTR OD UC TION. xxxv accomplished, and secondly on the purposes to which it is applied. Inequalities of wealth, un- justly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establish- ment ; and unjustly directed, injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth, justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment ; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence. That is to say, among every active and well-governed people, the various strength of individuals, tested by full exertion and specially applied to various needs, issues in unequal but harmonious results, receiving reward or authority according to its class and service." But superior natural power and superior rank are not to be used for self, but for others. The leader must exercise leadership for those whom he leads, and must, if need be, die for them. This gives us an insight into the admiration that in spite of all our theories we still have for the soldier. He stands ready to die for us in the xxxvi " UNTO THIS LAST." discharge of duty, and the prospect of all the pleasures of life will not induce him to turn his back upon the foe when the order comes to advance. Ruskin would elevate business to the rank of a profession in which the I I thought of service of others, and not of self, is the animating motive. The soldier's profession is to defend the nation, " the pastor's to teach it, the physician's to keep it in health, the lawyer's to enforce justice in it, the merchant's to provide for it." And each one must die rather than fail in the discharge of duty. But what is the occasion of death for the business man? It is when the choice comes to him between death and faithlessness to engagements or failure to secure perfectness and purity in those things which he provides for the nation. And as a gov- ernor of men in his employ, the business man, merchant, or manufacturer has a measure of paternal authority and responsibility. As he would have his own son treated, so must he treat the sons of others who toil under his direction. JNTR OD UCTION. xxxvii Thus it is that Ruskin says that the following phrase sums up all the principles of his political economy : " Soldiers of the ploughshare as well as soldiers of the sword ; " and that they are like- wise summed up in this single sentence from " Modern Painters " : " Government and coop- eration are in all things the laws of life ; anarchy and competition the laws of death." Mention has already been made of Ruskin's scientific insight which led him^ years ago, to anticipate quite modern movements of economic thought. This is conspicuously the case with his treatment of consumption, in regard to which he has said things clearly resembling utterances which have been heard at an annual meeting of the American Economic Association. Further- more, his views of capital and utility suggest doctrines to-day widely held, and in the treat- ment of these concepts he criticises effectively the current views of his contemporaries. But with sound opinions are mingled strangely un- doubted errors, errors which are plainly incon- xxxviii " UNTO THIS LAST:' sistencies proceeding from misapprehension. He gives expression to an illuminating viev/ of utility and value, and then follows his exposition by the strange assertion that " value is independent of opinion and of quantity," whereas opinion is an essential element and excess of quantity may de- press value to zero. One of the parts of "Unto this Last" which is most faulty and full of inconsistencies is the treatment of exchange, in which he overlooks the essential significance in value of time and place, and makes a meaningless distinction between ''profit" and "advantage." Another failure in Ruskin is his failure to distinguish between brute struggle and competition; or, if one will, between good and bad competition. But the limits of space for this introduction have already been reached. Fortunately we have one work which has the unique merit of a gener- ous and scientific presentation of Ruskin's eco- nomic and social views, and that is Mr. John A. Hobson's "John Ruskin, Social Reformer;" a INTRODUCTION. xxxix work which contributes materially to the value of Ruskin's writings. In conclusion we may say that after we have made due deduction for the many mistakes and even weaknesses of his writings, Ruskin remains one of the truly great figures in the Victorian age of English thinkers and reformers. He did much for England and for the entire world. The quickening of conscience to suffering and the world-wide efforts to elevate the masses owe much to Ruskin. And Ruskin did not accom- plish his work without pain. Like all noble natures, he carried a cross for others, and in his own body he bore the marks of his suffering. Ruskin ranks among the seers and prophets of England, and let us, for our own good, hear him and receive his message. Richard T. Ely. March, 1901. ''UNTO THIS LAST." ESSAY I. THE ROOTS OF HONOR. I. Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious — certainly the least creditable — is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, based on the idea that an advantage- ous code of social action may be determined irrespectively of the influence of social affection. Of course, as in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy has a plausible idea at the root of it. "The social affections," says the economist, , " are accidental and disturbing elements in human nature ; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant elements. Let 2 " UNTO THIS last:' us eliminate the inconstants, and, considering the human being merely as a covetous machine, examine by what laws of labor, purchase, and sale the greatest accumulative result in wealth is obtainable. Those laws once determined, it will be for each individual afterwards to introduce as much of the disturbing affectionate element as he chooses, and to determine for himself the result on the new conditions supposed." 2. This would be a perfectly logical and suc- cessful method of analysis if the accidentals afterwards to be introduced were of the same nature as the powers first examined. Supposing a body in motion to be influenced by constant and inconstant forces, it is usually the simplest way of examining its course to trace it first under the persistent conditions, and afterwards intro- duce the causes of variation. But the disturbing elements in the social problem are not of the same nature as the constant ones : they alter the essence of the creature under examination the moment they are added ; they operate, 'not THE ROOTS OF HONOR. -. mathematically, but chemically, introducing con- ditions which render all our previous knowledge unavailable. We made learned experiments upon pure nitrogen, and have convinced our- selves that it is a very manageable gas : but, behold ! the thing which we have practically to deal with is its chlorides ; and this, the moment we touch it on our established principles, sends us and our apparatus through the ceiling. 3. Observe, I neither impugn nor doubt the conclusion of the science if its terms are ac- cepted. I am simply uninterested in them, as I should be in those of a science of gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. It might be shown, on that supposition, that it would be advantageous to roll the students up into pellets, flatten them into cakes, or stretch them into cables ; and that when these results were effected, the re-insertion of the skeleton would be attended with various inconveniences to their constitution. The reasoning might be admirable, the conclusions true, and the science 4 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' deficient only in applicability. Modern polit- ical economy stands on a precisely similar basis. Assuming, not that the human being has no skeleton, but that it is all skeleton, it founds an ossifiant theory of progress on this negation of a soul ; and having shown the utmost that may be made of bones, and constructed a number of interesting geomet- rical figures with death's-head and humeri, successfully proves the inconvenience of the reappearance of a soul among these corpus- cular structures. I do not deny the truth of this theory : I simply deny its applicability to the present phase of the world. 4. This inapplicabilfty has been curiously manifested during the embarrassment caused by the late strikes of our workmen. Here occurs one of the simplest cases, in a per- tinent and positive form, of the first vital problem which political economy has to deal with (the relation between employer and em- ployed) ; and, at a severe crisis, when lives THE ROOTS OF HONOR. e in multitudes and wealth in masses are at stake, the political economists are helpless — practically mute : no demonstrable solution of the difficulty can be given by them, such as may convince or calm the opposing parties. Obstinately the masters take one view of the matter ; obstinately the operatives another ; and no political science can set them at one. 5. It would be strange if it could, it being not by " science " of any kind that men were ever intended to be set at one. Disputant after disputant vainly strives to show that the interests of the masters are, or are not, antagonistic to those of the men: .none of the pleaders ever seeming to remember that it does not absolutely or always follow that the persons must be antagonistic because their interests are. If there is only a crust of bread in the house, and mother and children are starving, their interests are not the same. If the mother eats it the children want it ; if the children eat it the mother must go hungry 6 " UNTO THIS LAST. " to her work. Yet it does not necessarily follow that there will be " antagonism " be- tween them, that they will fight for the crust, and that the mother, being strongest, will get it, and eat it. Neither, in any other case, whatever the relations of the persons may be, can it be assumed for certain that, because their interests are diverse, they must neces- sarily regard each other with hostility, and use violence or cunning to obtain the advantage. 6. Even if this were so, and it were as just as it is convenient to consider men as actuated by no other moral influences than those which affect rats or swine, the logical conditions of the question are still indeterminable. It can never be shown generally either that the interests of master and laborer are alike, or that they are opposed ; for, according to cir- cumstances, they may be either. It is, indeed, always the interest of both that the work should be rightly done, and a just price ob- tained for it; but, in the division of profits, THE ROOTS OF HONOR. y the gain of the one may or may not be the loss of the other. It is not the master's interest to pay wages so low as to leave the men sickly and depressed, nor the workman's interest to be paid high wages if the smallness of the master's profit hinders him from en- larging his business, or conducting it in a safe and liberal way. A stoker ought not to desire high pay if the company is too poor to keep the engine-wheels in repair. 7. And the varieties of circumstance which influence these reciprocal interests are so end- less that all endeavor to deduce rules of action from balance of expediency is in vain. And it is meant to be in vain. For no human actions ever were intended by the Maker of men to be guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of justice. He has therefore rendered all endeavors to determine expe- diency futile for evermore. No man ever knew, or can know, what will be the ultimate result to himself, or to others, of any given 8 " UNTO THIS LAST, " line of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us do know, what is a just and unjust act. And all of us may know also, that the consequences of justice will be ulti- mately the best possible, both to others and ourselves, though we can neither say what is best, or how it is likely to come to pass. I have said balances of justice, meaning, in the term "justice," to include affection, — ^such affection as one man owes to another. All right relations between master and operative, and all their best interests, ultimately depend on these. 8. We shall find the best and simplest illus- tration of the relations of master and operative in the position of domestic servant. We will suppose that the master of a house- hold desires only to get as much work out of his servants as he can, at the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be idle ; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they will endure, and in all things pushes his requirements to the exact point beyond THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 9 which he cannot go without forcing the servant to leave him. In doing this, there is no violation on his part of what is commonly called "justice." He agrees with the domestic for his whole time and service, and takes them ; — the limits of hardship in treatment being fixed by the practice of other masters in his neighborhood ; that is to say, by the current rate of wages for domestic labor. li the servant can get a better place he is free to take one, and the master can only tell what is the real market value of his laboi by requiring as much as he will give. This is the politico-economical view of the case, according to the doctors of that science j who assert that by this procedure the greatest average of work will be obtained from the servant, and therefore the greatest benefit to the community, and through the community, by reversion, to the servant himself. That, however, is not so. It would be so if the servant were an engine of which the lO ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' motive power was steam, magnetism, gravita- tion, or any other agent of calculable force. But he being, on the contrary, an engine whose motive power is a Soul, the force of this very peculiar agent, as an unknown quantity, enters into all the political economist's equations, without his knowledge, and falsifies every one of their results. The largest quantity of work will not be done by this curious engine for pay, or under pressure, or by help of any kind of fuel which may be supplied by the chaldron. It will be done only when the motive force, that is to say, the will or spirit of the creature, is brought to its greatest strength by its own proper fuel : namely, by the affections. 9. It may indeed happen, and does happen often, that if the master is a man of sense and energy, a large quantity of material work may be done under mechanical pressure, enforced by strong will and guided by wise method; also it may happen, and does happen often, that if the master is indolent and weak (how- THE ROOTS OF HONOR. n ever good natured), a very small quantity of work, and that bad, may be produced by the servant's undirected strength and con- temptuous gratitude. But the universal law of the matter is that, assuming any given quantity of energy and sense in master and servant, the greatest material result obtainable by them will be, not through antagonism to each other, but through affection for each other ; and that if the master, instead of endeavoring to get as much work as possible from the servants, seeks rather to render his appointed and necessary work beneficial to him, and to forward his interests in all just and wholesome ways, the real amount of work ultimately done, or of good rendered, by the person so cared for, will indeed be the greatest possible. Observe, I say, " of good rendered," for a servant's work is not necessarily or always the best thing he can give his master. But good of all kinds, whether in material service, in protective watchfulness of his master's interest 12 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' and credit, or in joyful readiness to seize un- expected and irregular occasions of help. Nor is this one whit less generally true because indulgence will be frequently abused, and kindness met with ingratitude. For the servant who, gently treated, is ungrateful, treated ungently, will be revengeful; and the man who is dishonest to a liberal master will be injurious to an unjust one. lo. In any case, and with any person, this unselfish treatment will produce the most effec- tive return. Observe, I am here considering the affections wholly as a motive power; not at all as things in themselves, desirable or noble, or in any other way abstractedly good. I look at them simply as an anomalous force, rendering every one of the ordinary political economist's calculations nugatory ; while, even if he desired to introduce this new element into his estimates, he has no power of dealing with it ; for the affections only become a true motive power when they ignore every other THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 13 motive and condition of political economy. Treat the servant kindly, with the idea of turning his gratitude to account, and you will get, as you ^ deserve, no gratitude, nor any value for your kindness ; but treat him kindly without any economical purpose, and all eco- nomical purposes will be answered ; in this, as in all other matters, whosoever will save his life shall lose it, whoso loses it shall find it. ^ 1 The difference between the two modes of treatment, and between their effective material results, may be seen very accurately by a comparison of the relations of Esther and Charhe in " Bleak House" with those of Miss Brass and the Marchioness in " Master Humphrey's Clock." The essential value and truth of Dickens' writings have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some color of caricature. Unwisely, because Dickens' caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement ; and when he takes up a subject of high national importance, such as that which he handled in "Hard Times," that he would use severer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects the greatest he has written) is with many persons seriously diminished because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us 14 " UNTO THIS LAST.'' 1 1 . The next clearest and simplest example of relation between master and operative is that which exists between the commander of a regiment and his men. Supposing the officer only desires to apply the rules of discipline so as, with least trouble to himself, to make the regiment most effective ; he will not be able, by any rules or admin- istration of rules, on this selfish principle, to develop the full strength of his subordinates. If a man of sense and firmness, he may, as in the former instance, produce a better result than would be obtained by the irregular kind- ness of a weak officer ; but let the sense and firmness be the same in both cases, and as- suredly the officer who has the most direct not lose the use of Dickens' wit and insight, because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written ; and all of them, but especially "Hard Times," should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust ; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told. THE ROOTS OF HONOR. IS personal relations with his men, the most care for their interests, and" the most value for their lives, will develop their effective strength, through their affection for his own person and trust in his character, to a degree wholly- unattainable by other means. This law appHes still more stringently as the numbers con- cerned are larger : a charge may often be successful, though the men dislike their offi- cers j a battle has rarely been won, unless they loved their general. 12. Passing from these simple examples to the more complicated relations existing between a manufacturer and his workmen, we are met first by certain curious difficulties, resulting, apparently, from a harder and colder state of moral elements. It is easy to imagine an en- thusiastic affection existing among soldiers for the colonel. Not so easy to imagine an en- thusiastic affection among cotton-spinners for the proprietor of the mill. A body of men associated for purposes of robbery (as a High- 1 6 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' land clan in ancient times) shall be animated by perfect affection, and every member of it be ready to lay down his life for the life of his chief. But a band of men associated for purposes of legal production and accumulation is usually animated, it appears, by no such emotions, and none of them are in any wise willing to give his life for the life of his chief. Not only are we met by this apparent anomaly, in moral matters, but by others connected with it, in administration of system. For a servant or a soldier is engaged at a definite rate of wages, for a definite period ; but a workman at a rate of wages variable according to the demand for labor, and with the risk of being at any time thrown out of his situation by changes of trade. Now, as, under these con- tingencies, no action of the affections can take place, but only an explosive action of ^/j-affections, two points offer themselves for consideration in the matter : The first. How far the rate of wages may THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 17 be so regulated as not to vary with the demand for labor. ' The second, How far it is possible that bodies of workmen may be engaged and main- tained at such fixed rate of wages (whatever the state of trade may be), without enlarging or diminishing their number, so as to give them permanent interest in the establishment with which they are connected, like that of the domestic servants in an old family, or an esprit de corps, like that of the soldiers in a crack regiment. 1 3 . The first question is, I say, how far it may be possible to fix the rate of wages, irrespect- ively of the demand for labor. Perhaps one of the most curious facts in the history of human error is the denial by the common political economist of the possibility of thus regulating wages ; while, for all the important, and much of the unimportant, labor on the earth, wages are already so regulated. We do not sell our prime-ministership by 1 8 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' Dutch auction ; nor, on the decease of a bishop, whatever may be the general advantages of simony, do we (yet) offer his diocese to the clergyman who will take the episcopacy at the lowest contract. We (with exquisite sagacity of political economy ! ) do indeed sell commis- sions ; but not openly, generalships : sick, we do not inquire for a physician who takes less than a guinea; litigious, we never think of reducing six-and-eightpence to four-and-six- pence ; caught in a shower, we do not can- vass the cabmen, to find one who values his driving at less than sixpence a mile. It is true that in all these cases there is, and. in every conceivable case there must be, ulti- mate reference to the presumed difficulty of the Work, or number of candidates for the office. If it were thought that the labor necessary to make a good physician would be gone through by a sufficient number of students with the prospect of only half-guinea fees, public consent would soon withdraw the un- THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 19 necessary half-guinea. In this ultimate sense the price of labor is indeed always regulated by the demand for it ; but, so far as the practical and immediate administration of the matter is regarded, the best labor always has been, and is, as all labor ought to be, paid by an invariable standard. 14. "What!" the reader perhaps answers amazedly, '^ pay good and bad workmen ahke?" Certainly. The difference between one prel- ate's sermons and his successor's — or between one physician's opinion and another's — is far greater, as respects the qualities of mind in- volved, and far more important in result to you personally, than the difference between good and bad laying of bricks (though that is greater than most people suppose). Yet you pay with equal fee, contentedly, the good and bad work- men upon your soul, and the good and bad workmen upon your body; much more may you pay, contentedly, with equal fees, the good and bad workmen upon your house. 20 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' " Nay, but I choose my physician, and (?) my clergyman, thus indicating my sense of the quaUty of their work." By all means, also, choose your bricklayer; that is the proper reward of the good workman, to be " chosen." The natural and right system respecting all labor is, that it should be paid at a fixed rate, but the good workmen employed, and the bad workmen unemployed. The false, unnatural, and destructive system is when the bad workman is allowed to offer his work at half price, and either take the place of the good, or force him by his competition to work for an inadequate sum. 15. This equality of wages, then, being the first object towards which we have to discover the directest available road, the second is, as above stated, that of maintaining constant numbers of workmen in employment, what- ever may be the accidental demand for ■ the article they produce. I believe the sudden and extensive inequali- THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 21 ties of demand, which necessarily arise in the mercantile operations of an active nation, con- stitute the only essential difficulty which has to be overcome in a just organization of labor. The subject opens into too many branches to admit of being investigated in a paper of this kind ; but the following general facts bearing on it may be noted : The wages which enable any workman to live are necessarily higher if his work is liable to intermission than if it is assured and con- tinuous ; and however severe the struggle for work may become, the general law will always hold that men must get more daily pay if, on the average, they can only calculate on work three days a week than they would require if they were sure of work six days a week. Supposing that a man cannot live on less than a shilling a day, his seven shillings he must get, either for three days' violent work or six days' deliberate work. The ten- dency of all modern mercantile operations is 2 2 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' to throw both wages and trade into the form of a lottery, and to make the workman's pay depend on intermittent exertion and the prin- cipal's profit on dexterously used chance. 1 6. In what partial degree, I repeat, this may be necessary in consequence of the activities of modern trade, I do not here investigate ; contenting myself with the fact that in its fatallest aspects it is assuredly unnecessary, and results merely from love of gambling on the part of the masters, and from ignorance and sensuality in the men. The masters cannot bear to let any opportunity of gain escape them, and frantically rush at every gap and breach in the walls of Fortune, raging to be rich, and affronting, with impatient covetousness, every risk of ruin, while the men prefer three days of violent labor, and three days of drunken- ness, to six days of moderate work and wise rest. There is no way in which a principal who really desires to help his workmen may do it more effectually than by checking these THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 23 disorderly habits both in himself and them ; keeping his own business operations on a scale which will enable him to pursue them securely, not yielding to temptations of jDrecarious gain ; and at the same time leading his workmen into regular habits of labor and life, either by inducing them rather to take low wages, in the form of a fixed salary, than high wages, subject to the chance of their being thrown out of work; or, if this be impossible, by dis- couraging the system of violent exertion for nominally high day wages, and leading the men to take lower pay for more regular labor. In effecting any radical changes of this kind, doubtless there would be great inconvenience and loss incurred by all the originators of the movement. That which can be done with per- fect convenience and without loss is not always the thing that most needs to be done, or which we are most imperatively required to do. 17. I have already alluded to the difference hitherto existing between regiments of men 24 "UNTO THIS LAST.'' associated for purposes of violence, and for purposes of manufacture ; in that the former appear capable of self-sacrifice — the latter, not ; which singular fact is the real reason of the general lowness of estimate in which the pro- fession of commerce is held, as compared with that of arms. Philosophically, it does not, at first sight, appear reasonable (many writers have endeavored to prove it unreasonable) that a peaceable and rational person, whose trade is buying and selling, should be held in less honor than an unpeaceable and often irrational person, whose trade is slaying. Nevertheless, the consent of mankind has always, in spite of the philosophers, given precedence to the soldier. And this is right. r' For the soldier's trade, verily and essen- tially, is not slaying, but being slain. This, without well knowing its own meaning, the world honors it for. A bravo's trade is slay- ing ; but the world has never respected bravoes THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 25 more than merchants : the reason it honors the soldier is, because, he holds his life at the service of the State. Reckless he may be — fond of pleasure or adventure — all kinds of bye-motives and mean impulses may have determined the choice of his profession, and may affect (to all appearance exclusively) his daily conduct in it ; but our estimate of him is based on this ultimate fact — of which we are well assured — that put him in a fortress breach with all the pleasures of the world behind him and only death and his duty in front of him, he will keep his face to the front ; and he knows that his choice may be put to him at any moment — and has beforehand taken his part — virtually takes such part continually — does, in reality, die daily. 18. Not less is the respect we pay to the lawyer and physician, founded ultimately on their self-sacrifice. Whatever the learning or acuteness of a great lawyer, our chief respect for him depends on our belief that, set in a judge's 26 " UNTO THIS last:' seat, he will strive to judge justly, come of it what may. Could we suppose that he would take bribes, and use his acuteness and legal knowledge to give plausibility to iniquitous decisions, no degree of intellect would win for him our respect. Nothing will win it, short of our tacit conviction that in all important acts of his life justice is first with him : his own interest second. In the case of a physician, the ground of the honor we render him is clearer still. Whatever his science, we would shrink from him in horror if we found him regard his patients merely as subjects to experiment upon ; much more, if we found that, receiving bribes from persons interested in their deaths, he was using his best skill to give poison in the mask of medicine. Finally, the principle holds with utmost, clearness as it respects clergymen. No good- ness of disposition will excuse want of science in a physician, or of shrewdness in an advo- THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 27 cate ; but a clergyman, even though his power of intellect be small, is respected on the presumed ground of his unselfishness and serviceableness. ^ 19. Now, there can be no question but that the tact, foresight, decision, and other mental powers required for the successful manage- ment of a large mercantile concern, if not such as could be compared with those of a great lawyer, general, or divine, would at least match the general conditions of mind required in the subordinate officers of a ship, or of a regiment, or in the curate of a country parish. If, therefore, all the efficient members of the so-called liberal professions are still, somehow, in public estimate of honor, preferred before the head of a commercial firm, the reason must lie deeper than in the measurement of their several powers of mind. And the essential reason for such preference will be found to lie- in the fact that the mer- chant is presumed to act always selfishly. His 2 8 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' work may be very necessary to the commu- nity j but the motive of it is understood to be wholly personal. The merchant's first object in all his dealings must be (the public believe) to get as much for himself, and leave as little to his neighbor (or customer) as possible. Enforcing this upon him, by political statute, as the necessary principle of his action ; rec- ommending it to him on all occasions, and themselves reciprocally adopting it, proclaim- ing vociferously, for law of the universe, that a buyer's function is to cheapen, and a seller's to cheat, — the public, nevertheless, involunta- rily condemn the man of commerce for his compliance with their own statement, and stamp him forever as belonging to an in- ferior grade of human personality. 20. This they will find, eventually, they must give up doing. They must not cease to condemn selfishness ; but they will have to discover a kind of commerce which is not exclusively selfish. Or, rather, they will have THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 29 to discover that there never was, or can be, any other kind of commerce ; that this which they have called commerce was not commerce at all, but cozening ; and that a true merchant differs as much from a merchant according to laws of modern political economy as the hero of the "Excursion" from Autolycus. They will find that commerce is an occupation which gentlemen will every day see more need to engage in, rather than in the businesses of talking to men, or slaying them ; that, in true commerce as in true preaching, or true fight- ing, it is necessary to admit the idea of occa- sional voluntary loss ; that sixpences have to be lost, as well as lives, under a sense of duty; that the market may have its martyr- doms as well as the pulpit, and trade its heroisms as well as war. May have — in the final issue, must have — and only has not had yet, because men of heroic temper have always been misguided in their youth into other fields : not recognizing 30 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' what is in our days, perhaps, the most im- portant of all fields ; so that, while many a zealous person loses his life in trying to teach the form of a gospel, very few will lose a hundred pounds in showing the practice of one. 21. The fact is, that people never have had clearly explained to them the true functions of a merchant with respect to other people. I should like the reader to be very clear about this. Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily necessities of life, have hitherto existed — three exist necessarily, in every civilized nation : The Soldier's profession is to defend it. The Pastor's to teach it. The Physician's to keep it in health. The Lawyer's to enforce justice in it. The Merchant's to provide for it. And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die for it. " On due occasion," namely : riJE ROOTS OF HONOR. 31 The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle. The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague. The Pastor, rather than to teach Falsehood. The Lawyer, rather than countenance In- justice. The merchant — what is his "due occasion" of death? 22. It is the main question for the merchant, \ as for all of us. For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live. / Observe, the merchant's function (or manu- facturer's, for in the broad sense in which it is here used the word must be understood to include both) is to provide for the nation. It is no more his function to get profit for himself out of that provision than it is a clergyman's function to get his stipend. This stipend is a due and necessary adjunct, but not the object of his life, if he be a true clergyman, 32 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' any more than his fee (or honorarium) is the object of life to a true physician. Neither is his fee the object of Hfe to a true merchant. All three, if true men, have a work to be done irrespective of fee — to be done even at any cost, or for quite the contrary of fee ; the pastor's function being to teach, the physician's to heal, and the merchant's, as I have said, to provide. That is to say, he has to understand to their very root the qualities of the thing he deals in, and the means of obtaining or pro- ducing it ; and he has to apply all his sagacity and energy to the producing or obtaining it in perfect state, and distributing it at the cheapest possible price where it is most needed. And because the production or obtaining of any commodity involves necessarily the agency of many lives and hands, the merchant becomes in the course of his business the master and governor of large masses of men in a more direct, though less confessed way, than a military officer or pastor; so that on him falls. THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 33 in great part, the responsibility for the kind of life they lead : and it becomes his duty, not only to be always considering how to produce what he sells, in the purest and cheapest forms, but how to make the various employments involved in the production or transference of it most beneficial to the men employed. 23. And as into these two functions, requiring for their right exercise the highest intelligence, as well as patience, kindness, and tact, the merchant is bound to put all his energy, so for their just discharge he is bound, as soldier or physician is bound, to give up, if need be, his life, in such way as it may be demanded of him. Two main points he has in his providing function to maintain : first, his engagements (faithfulness to engagements being the real root of all possibilities, in commerce) ; and, secondly, the perfectness and purity of the thing provided ; so that, rather than fail in any engagement, or consent to any deterio- ration, adulteration, or unjust and exorbitant 34 " UNTO THIS last:' price of that which he provides, he is bound to meet fearlessly any form of distress, poverty, or labor, which may, through main- tenance of these points, come upon him. 24. Again : in his office as governor of the men employed by him, the merchant or man- ufacturer is invested with a distinctly pater- nal authority and responsibility. In most cases, a youth entering a commercial establishment is withdrawn altogether from home influence ; his master must become his father, else he has, for practical and constant help, no father - at. hand. In all cases the master's authority, to- gether with the general tone and atmosphere of his business, and the character of the men with whom the youth is compelled in the- course of it to associate, have more immediate and pressing weight than the home influence, and will usually neutralize it either for good or evil; so that the only means which the master has of doing justice to the men employed by him is to ask himself sternly THE ROOTS OF HONOR. 35 whether he is dealing with such subordinate as he would with his own son, if compelled by circumstances to take such a position. Supposing the captain of a frigate saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his own son in the position of a common sailor : as he would then treat his son, he is bound always to treat every one of the men under him. So, also, supposing the master of a manufactory saw it right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his own son in the position of an ordinary workman : as he would then treat his son, he is bound always to treat every one of his men. This is the only effective, true, or practical Rule which can be given on this point of political economy. And as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last man to leave his ship in case of wreck, and to share his last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the manufacturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it with the men, and even to take more of it for himself than he 36 " UNTO THIS LAST:' allows his men to feel ; as a father would in a famine, shipwreck, or battle, sacrifice himself for his son. 25. All which sounds very strange: the only- real strangeness in the matter being, never- theless, that it should so sound. For all this is true, and that not partially nor theoretically, but everlastingly and practically : all other doctrine than this respecting matters political being false in premises, absurd in deduction, and impossible in practice, consistently with any progressive state of national life ; all the life which we now possess as a nation showing itself in the resolute denial and scorn by a few strong minds and faithful hearts of the economic principles taught to our multitudes, which principles, so far as accepted, lead straight to national destruction. Respecting the mode^ and forms of destruction to which they lead, and, on the other hand, respecting the farther practical working of true polity, I hope to reason further in a following paper. ESSAY II. THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 26. The answer which would be made by any ordinary poHtical economist to the statements contained in the preceding paper, is in few words as follows : " It is indeed true that certain advantages of a general nature may be obtained by the development of social affections. But political economists never professed, nor profess, to take advantages of a general nature into con- sideration. Our science is simply the science of getting rich. So far from being a fallacious or visionary one, it is found by experience to be practically effective. Persons who follow its precepts do actually become rich, and persons who disobey them become poor. Every capitalist of Europe has acquired his fortune by following the known laws of our (37) 38 " UNTO THIS last:' science, and increases his capital daily by an adherence to them. It is vain to bring forward tricks of logic, against the force of accomplished facts. Every man of busi- ness knows by experience how money is made, and how it is lost." Pardon me. Men of business do indeed know how they themselves made their money, or how, on occasion, they lost it. Playing a long-practised game, they are familiar with the chances of its cards, and can rightly explain their losses and gains. But they neither know who keeps the bank of the gambling-house, nor what other games may be played with the same cards, nor what other losses and gains, far away among the dark streets, are essentially, though invisibly, dependent on theirs in the lighted rooms. They have learned a few, and only a few, of the laws of mercantile economy; but not one of those of political economy. 2 7 . Primarily, which is very notable and curious. THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 39 I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word "rich." At least, if they know, they do not in their reasonings ] allow for the fact that it is a relative word, / implying its opposite " poor " as positively as the word " north " implies its opposite " south." Men nearly always speak and write as if riches \ were absolute, and it were possible, by follow- ing certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of electricity, acting only through in- equalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbor's pocket. If he did not want it, it/ would be of no use to you ; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it — and the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbor poor. 40 " UNTO THIS LAST." I would not contend in this matter (and rarely in any matter) for the acceptance of terms. But I wish the reader clearly and deeply to understand the difference between the two economies, to which the terms " Political " and " Mercantile " might not unadvisedly be attached. 28. Political econdmy (the economy of a State, or of citizens) consists simply in the produc- tion, preservation, and distribut-ion, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasureable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time ; the shipwright who drives his bolts well / home in sound wood ; the builder who lays good bricks in well-tempered mortar; the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlor, and guards against all waste in her kitchen; and the singer who rightly dis- ciplines, and never overstrains her voice, are all political economists in the true and final sense ; adding continually to the riches and well-being of the nation to which they belong. / THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 41 But mercantile economy, the economy of " merces " or of " pay,'-' signifies the accumu- lation, in the hands of individuals, of legal or moral claim upon, or power over, the labor of others ; every such claim implying precisely as much poverty or debt on one side as it implies riches or right on the other. It does not, therefore, necessarily involve an addition to the actual property or well-being of the State in which it exists. But since this commercial wealth, or power over labor, is nearly always convertible at once into real property, while real property is not always convertible at once into power over labor, the idea of riches among active men in civilized nations generally refers to commercial wealth ; and in estimating their possessions, they rather calculate the value of their horses and fields by the number of guineas they could get for them than the value of their guineas by the number of horses and fields they could buy with them. 42 « UNTO THIS last:' 29. There is, however, another reason for this habit of mind, namely, that an accumulation of real property is of little use to its owner, unless, together with it, he has commercial power over labor. Thus, suppose any person to be put in possession of a large estate of fruitful land, with rich beds of gold in its gravel ; countless herds of cattle in its pastures ; houses, and gardens, and storehouses full of useful stores ; but suppose, after all, that he could get no servants? In order that he may be able to have sei-vants, some one in his neighborhood must be poor, and in want of his gold — or his corn. Assume that no one is in want of either, and that no servants are to be had. He must, therefore, bake his own bread, make his own clothes, plough his own ' ground, and shepherd his own flocks. His gold will be as useful to him as any other yellow pebbles on his estate. His stores must rot, for he cannot consume them. He can eat no more than another man could eat, and wear THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 43 no more than another man could wear. He must lead a life of seVere and common labor to procure even ordinary comforts ; he will be ultimately unable to keep either houses in repair, or fields in cultivation ; and forced to content himself with a poor man's portion of cottage and garden, in the midst of a desert of waste land, trampled by wild cattle, and encumbered by ruins of palaces, which he will hardly mock at himself by calHng " his own." 30. The most covetous of mankind would, with small exultation, I presume, accept riches of this kind on these terms. What is really desired, under the name of riches, is, essen- tially, power over men ; in its simplest sense, the power of obtaining for our own advantage the labor of servant, tradesman, and artist ; in wider sense, authority of directing large masses of the nation to various ends (good, trivial, or hurtful, according to the mind of the rich person). And this power of wealth 44 " UNTO THIS LAST." of course is greater or less in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the same price for an article of which the supply is limited. If the musician is poor he will sing for small pay as long as there is only one person who can pay him ; but if there be two or three he will sing for the one who offers him most. And thus the power of the riches of the patron (always imperfect and doubtful, as we shall see presently (§ 39), even when most authoritative) depends first on the poverty of the artist, and then on the limitation of the number of equally wealthy persons who also want seats at the concert. So that, as above stated, the art of becoming "rich," in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumu- lating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbors shall have less. In accurate terms, it is " the art of THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 45 establishing the maximum inequality in our own favor." ' 31. Now, the establishment of such inequality cannot be shown in the abstract to be either advantageous or disadvantageous to the body of the nation. The rash and absurd assump- tion that such inequalities are necessarily advantageous lies at the root of most of the popular fallacies on the subject of political economy. For the eternal and inevitable law in this matter is, that the beneficialness of the inequality depends, first, on the methods by which it was accomplished ; and, secondly, on the purposes to which it is applied. Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment ; and, unjustly directed, injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth, justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment ; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence. That is to say, among every active 46 " UNTO THIS LAST:' and well-governed people the various strength of individuals, tested by full exertion and specially applied to various need, issues in un- equal but harmonious results, receiving reward or authority according to its class and service ; ^ 1 1 have been naturally asked several times with respect to the sentence in the first of these papers, " the bad workmen unemployed," " But what are you to do with your bad unem- ployed workmen ? " Well, it seems to me the question might have occurred to you before. Your housemaid's place is vacant — you give twenty pounds a year — two girls come for it, one neatly dressed, the other dirtily ; one with good recom- mendations, the other with none. You do not, under these circumstances, usually ask the dirty one if she will come for fifteen pounds, or twelve; and, on her consenting, take her instead of the well-recommended one. Still less do you try to beat both down by making them bid against each other, till you can hire both, one at twelve pounds a year, and the other at eight. You can simply take the one fittest for the place, and send away the other, not perhaps concerning yourself quite as much as you should with the question which you now impa- tiently put to me, " What is to become of her ? " For, all that I advise you to do is deal with workmen as with servants ; and verily the question is of weight : " Your bad workman, idler, and rogue — what are you to do with him ? " We will consider of this presently : remember that the administration of a complete system of national commerce and industry cannot be explained in full detail within the space of twelve pages. Meantime, consider whether, there being con- fessedly some difficulty in dealing with rogues and idlers, it may not be advisable to produce as few of them as possible. If you examine into the history of rogues you will find they THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 47 while, in the inactive or ill-governed nation, the gradations of decay and the victories of treason work out also their own rugged system of subjection and success ; and substitute for the melodious inequalities of concurrent power the iniquitous dominances and depressions of guilt and misfortune. ^ 32. Thus the circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the natural body. There is one quickness of the current which comes of cheerful emotion or wholesome exercise ; and another which comes of shame or of fever. There is a flush of the body which is full of warmth and life ; and another which will pass into putrefaction. The analogy will hold down even to minute particulars. For as diseased local determina- arc as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just because our present system of political economy gives so large a stimulus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false one. We had better seek for a system which will develop honest men, than for one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons. 48 " UNTO THIS LAST:' tion of the blood involves depression of the general health of the system, all morbid local action of riches will be found ultimately to involve a weakening of the resources of the body politic. The mode in which this is produced may be at once understood by examining one or two instances of the development of wealth in the simplest possible circumstances. 33. Suppose two sailors cast away on an un- inhabited coast, and obliged to maintain them- selves there by their own labor for a series of years. If they both kept their health, and worked steadily and in amity with each other, they might build themselves a convenient house, and in time come to possess a certain quan- tity of cultivated land, together with various stores laid up for future use. All these things would be real riches or property; and, supposing the men both to have worked equally hard, they would each have right to THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 49 equal share or use of it. Their political economy would consist merely in careful pres- ervation and just division of these posses- sions. Perhaps, however, after some time one or other might be dissatisfied with the results of their common farming; and they might in consequence agree to divide the land they had brought under the spade into equal shares, so that each might thenceforward work in his own field, and live by it. Suppose that after this arrangement had been made, one of them were to fall ill, and be unable to work on his land at a critical time — say of sowing or harvest. He would naturally ask the other to sow or reap for him. Then his companion might say, with per- fect justice, " I will do this additional work for you ; but if I do it you must promise to do as much for me at another time. I will count how many hours I spend on your ground, and you shall give me a written prom- ^o " UNTO THIS last:' ise to work for the same number of hours on mine, whenever I need your help, and you are able to give it." 34. Suppose the disabled man's sickness to continue, and that under various circum- stances, for several years, requiring the help of the other, he on each occasion gave a written pledge to work as soon as he was able, at his companion's orders, for the same number of hours which the other had given up to him. What will the positions of the two men be when the invalid is able to resume work ? Considered as a "Polls," or state, they will be poorer than they would have been other- wise : poorer by the withdrawal of what the sick man's labor would have produced in the interval. His friend may perhaps have toiled with an energy quickened by the en- larged need, but in the end his own land and property must have suffered by the withdrawal of so much of his time and THE VEINS OF WEALTH. ^I thought from them : and the united property of the two men will be certainly less than it would have been if both had remained in health and activity. But the relations in which they stand to each other are also widely altered. The sick man has not only pledged his labor for some years, but will probably have exhausted his own share of the accumulated stores, and will be in consequence for some time de- pendent on the other for food, which he can only " pay " or reward him for by yet more deeply pledging his own labor. Supposing the written promises to be held entirely valid (among civilized nations their validity is secured by legal measures'), the The disputes which exist respecting the real nature of money arise more from the disputants examining its functions on different sides than from any real dissent in their opinions. All money, properly so called, is an acknowledgment of debt ; but as such, it may either be considered to represent the labor and property of the creditor, or the idleness and pen- ury of the debtor. The intricacy of tne question has been much increased by the (hitherto necessary) use of marketable confimodities, such as gold, silver, salt, shells, etc., to give in- trinsic value or security to currency; but the final and best 52 ''UNTO THIS last:' person who had hitherto worked for both might now, if he chose, rest altogether, and pass his time in idleness, not only forcing his companion to redeem all the engagements he had already entered into, but exacting from him pledges for further labor, to an arbitrary amount, for what food he had to advance to him. 35. ^There might not, from first to last, be the least illegality (in the ordinary sense of the word) in the arrangement; but if a stranger arrived on the coast at this advanced epoch of their political economy he would find one man commercially Rich; the other commer- cially Poor. He would see, perhaps with no small surprise, one passing his days in idle- ness ; the other laboring for both, and living sparely, in the hope of recovering his indepen- dence at some distant period. definition of money is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or find a certain quan- tity of labor on demand. A man's labor for a day is a bet- ter standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever maintains a consistent rate of pro- ductibility. THE VEINS OE WEALTH. 53 This is, of course, an example of one only out of many ways in which inequality of pos- session may be established between different persons, giving rise to the mercantile forms of Riches and Poverty. In the instance be- fore us, one of the men might from the first have deliberately chosen to be idle, and to put his life in pawn for present ease ; or he might have mismanaged his land, and been compelled to have recourse to his neighbor for food and help, pledging his future labor for it. But what I want the reader to note especially is the fact, common to a large number of typical cases of this kind, that the establishment of the mercantile wealth which consists in a claim upon labor, signifies a political diminution of the real wealth which consists in substantial possessions. 36. Take another example, more consistent with the ordinary course of affairs of trade. Suppose that three men, instead of two, formed the little isolated republic, and found them- 54 " UNTO THIS last:' selves obliged to separate, in order to farm different pieces of land at some distance from each other along the coast : each estate furnish- ing a distinct kind of produce, and each more or less in need of the material raised on the other. Suppose that the third man, in order to save the time of all three, undertakes simply to superintend the transference of commodities from one farm to the other; on condition of receiving some sufficiently remunerative share of every parcel of goods conveyed, or of some other parcel received in exchange for it. If this carrier or messenger always brings to each estate, from the other, what is chiefly wanted, at the right time, the operations of the two farmers will go on prosperously, and the largest possible result in produce, or wealth, will be attained by the little community. But suppose no intercourse between the land- owners is possible, except through the travel- ling agent; and that after a time this agent, THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 55 watching the course of each man's agriculture, keeps back the articles with which he has been entrusted until there comes a period 01 extreme necessity for them, on one side or other, and then exacts in exchange for them all that the distressed farmer can spare of other kinds of produce : it is easy to see that by ingeniously watching his opportunities he might possess himself regularly of the greater part of the superfluous produce of the two estates, and at last, in some year of severest trial or scarcity, purchase both for himself and maintain the former proprietors thence- forward as his laborers or servants. 37. This would be a case of commercial wealth acquired on the exactest principles of modern political economy. But more distinctly even than in the former instance, it is manifest in this that the wealth of the State, or of the three men considered as a society, is collect- ively less than it would have been had the merchant been content with juster profit. The 56 " UNTO THIS last:' operations of the two agriculturists have been cramped to the utmost ; and the continual limitations of the supply of things they wanted at critical times, together with the failure of courage consequent on the prolongation of a struggle for mere existence, without any sense of permanent gain, must have seriously dimin- ished the effective results of their labor; and the stores finally accumulated in the merchant's hands will not in any wise be of equivalent value to those which, had his dealings been honest, would have filled at once the granaries of the farmers and his own. The whole question, therefore, respecting not only the advantage, but even the quantity, of national wealth, resolves itself finally into one of abstract justice. It is impossible to con- clude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, merely by the fact of its existence, whether it signifies good or evil to the nation in the midst of which it exists. Its real value de- pends on the moral sign attached to it, just THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 57 as sternly as that of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical sign attached to it. Any given accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities : or, on the other, it may be in- dicative of mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane. Some treasures are heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with untimely rain ; and some gold is brighter in sunshine than it is in substance. T^Z. And these are not, observe, merely moral or pathetic attributes of riches, which the seeker of riches may, if he chooses, despise ; they are, literally and sternly, material attri- butes of riches, deprecating or exalting, incal- culably, the monetary signification of the sum in question. One mass of money is the out- come of action which has created — another, of action which has annihilated — ten times as much in the gathering of it ; such and such strong hands have been paralyzed, as if they 58 " UNTO THIS last:* had been numbed by nightshade : so many strong men's courage broken, so many pro- ductive operations hindered; this and the other false direction given to labor, and lying image of prosperity set up, on Dura plains dug into seven-times-heated furnaces. That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far-reaching ruin; a wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which he has beguiled an argosy; a camp-follower's bundle of rags unwrapped from the breasts of goodly soldiers dead ; the purchase-pieces of potter's fields, wherein shall be buried together the citizen and the stranger. And, therefore, the idea that directions can be given for the gaining of wealth, irrespect- ively of the consideration of its moral sources, or that any general and technical law of pur- chase and gain can be set down for national practice, is perhaps the most insolently futile of all that ever beguiled men through their vices. So far as I know, there is not in history THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 59 record of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect as the modern idea that the commer- cial text, " Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," represents, or under any circumstances could represent, an available principle of national economy. Buy in the cheapest market ? — yes ; but what made your market cheap? Charcoal may be cheap among your roof timbers after a fire, and bricks may be cheap in your streets after an earthquake ; but fire and earthquake may not therefore be national benefits. Sell in the dearest? — yes, truly ; but what made your market dear ? You sold your bread well to-day : was it to a dying man who gave his last coin for it, and will never need bread more ; or to a rich man who to-morrow will buy your farm over your head ; or to a soldier on his way to pillage the bank in which you have put your fortune? None of these things you can know. One thing only you can know : namely, whether this dealing of yours is a just and faithful one, 6o " UNTO THIS LASTr which is all you need concern yourself about respecting it ; sure thus to have done your own part in bringing about ultimately in the world a state of things which will not issue in pillage or in death. And thus every ques- tion concerning these things merges itself ultimately in the great question of justice, which, the ground being thus far cleared for it, I will enter upon in the next paper, leaving only, in this, three final points for the reader's consideration. 39. It has been shown that the chief value and virtue of money consists in its having power over human beings ; that, without this power, large material possessions are useless, and to any person possessing such power, compara- tively unnecessary. But power over human beings is attainable by other means than by money. As I said a few pages back (§ 30), the money power is always imperfect and doubtful; there are many things which can- not be reached with it, others which cannot THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 6i be retained by it. Many joys may be given to men which cannot be bought for gold, and many fidelities found in them which cannot be rewarded with it. Trite enough — the reader thinks. Yes; but it is not so trite — I wish it were — that in this moral power, quite inscrutable and immeasur- able though it be, there is a monetary value just as real as that represented by more ponderous currencies. A man's hand may be full of invisible gold, and the wave of it, or the grasp, shall do more than another's with a shower of bullion. This invisible gold, also, does not necessarily diminish in spending. Political economists will do well some day to take heed of it, though they cannot take measure. But farther. Since the essence of wealth consists in its authority over men, if the ap- parent or nominal wealth fail in this power, it fails in essence ; in fact, ceases to be wealth at all. It does not appear lately in England, that our authority over men is absolute. The ser- 62 " UNTO THIS last:' vants show some disposition to rush riotously upstairs, under an impression that their wages are not regularly paid. We should augur ill of any gentleman's property to whom this hap- pened every other day in his drawing-room. So, also, the power of our wealth seems limited as respects the comfort of the servants, no less than their quietude. The persons in the kitchen appear to be ill-dressed, squalid, half-starved. One cannot help imagining that the riches of the establishment must be of a very theoretical and documentary character. 40. Finally. Since the essence of wealth con- sists in power over men, will it not follow that the nobler and the more in number the persons are over whom it has power, the greater the wealth? Perhaps it may even appear, after some consideration, that the persons themselves are the wealth — that these pieces of gold with which we are in the habit of guiding them are, in fact, nothing more than a kind of Byzantine harness or trappings, very glittering and beauti- THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 63 ful in barbaric sight, wherewith we bridle the creatures ; but that if these same living crea- tures could be guided without the fretting and jingUng of the Byzants in their mouths and ears, they might themselves be more valu- able than their bridles. In fact, it may be discovered that the true veins of wealth are purple, — and not in Rock, but in Flesh, — per- haps even that the final outcome and consumma- tion of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy- hearted human creatures. Our modern wealth, I think, has rather a tendency the other way; — most political economists appearing to con- sider multitudes of human creatures not con- ducive to wealth, or at best conducive to it only by remaining in a dim-eyed and narrow- chested state of being. 41. Nevertheless, it is open, I repeat, to serious question, which I leave to the reader's pondering, whether, among national manufact- ures, that of Souls of a good quality may not 64 " UNTO THIS LAST." at last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one ? Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour, I can even imagine that England may cast all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among whom they first arose ; and that, while the sands of the Indus and adamant of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flush from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian mother, mav at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a Heathen one, and be able to lead forth her Sons, saying, " These are my Jewels." ESSAY III. QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 42. Some centuries before the Christian era, a Jew merchant, largely engaged in business on the Gold Coast, and reported to have made one of the largest fortunes of his time (held also in repute for much practical sagacity), left among his ledgers some general maxims con- cerning wealth, which have been preserved, strangely enough, even to our own days. They were held in considerable respect by the most active traders of the middle ages, especially by the Venetians, who even went so far in their admiration as to place a statue of the old Jew on the angle of one of their principal public buildings. Of late years these writings have fallen into disrepute, being opposed in every particular to the spirit of modern commerce. Nevertheless I shall re- (65) 66 " UNTO THIS LAST:' produce a passage or two from them here, partly because they may interest the reader by their novelty, and chiefly because they will show him that it is possible for a very practical and acquisitive tradesman to hold, through a not unsuccessful career, that prin- ciple of distinction between well-gotten and ill-gotten wealth, which, partially insisted on in my last paper, it must be our work more completely to examine in this. 43. He says, for instance, in one place : " The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death ; " adding in another, with the same meaning (he has a curious way of doubling his sayings), "Treasures of wickedness profit nothing : but justice delivers from death." Both these passages are notable for their assertions of death as the only real issue and sum of attainment by any unjust scheme of wealth. If we read, instead of ''lying tongue," "lying label, title, pretence, or advertisement," QUI JUDICATIS TEKRAM. 67 we shall more clearly perceive the bearing of the words on modern business. The seeking of death is a grand expression of the true course of men's toil in such business. We usually speak as if death pursued us, and we fled from him ; but that is only so in rare instances. Ordinarily he masks him- self — makes himself beautiful — all glorious ; not like the King's daughter, all glorious within, but outwardly : his clothing of wrought gold. We pursue him frantically all our days, he flying or hiding from us. Our crowning success at three-score and ten is utterly and perfectly to seize, and hold him in his eternal integrity — robes, ashes, and sting. Again, the merchant says : " He that op- presseth the . poor to increase his riches, shall surely come to want." And again, more strongly : " Rob not the poor because he is poor ; neither oppress the afflicted in the place of business. For God shall spoil the soul of those that spoiled them." 6S " UNTO THIS last:' This " robbing the poor because he is poor " is especially the mercantile form of theft, consisting in taking advantage of a man's necessities in order to obtain his labor or property at a reduced price. The ordinary highwayman's opposite form of robbery — of the rich, because he is rich — does not appear to occur so often to the old merchant's mind ; probably because, being less profitable and more dangerous than the robbery of the poor, it is rarely practised by persons of discretion. 44. But the two most remarkable passages in their deep general significance are the follow- ing : '^ The rich and the poor have met. God is their maker." " The rich and the poor have met. God is their light." They " have met " : more literally, have stood in each other's way (^obviaverunf) , That is to say, as long as the world lasts, the action QUI yUDICATIS TEKRAM. 6g and counter-action of wealth and poverty, the meeting, face to fece,' of rich and poor, is just as appointed and necessary a law of that world as the flow of stream to sea, or the inter- change of power among the electric clouds : — " God is their maker." But, also, this action may be either gentle and just, or convulsive and destructive : it may be by rage of devour- ing flood, or by lapse of serviceable wave ; — in blackness of thunderstroke, or continual force of vital fire, soft, and shapeable into love-syllables from far away. And which of these it shall be, depends on both rich and poor knowing that God is their light; that in the mystery of human life, there is no other light than this by which they can see each other's faces, and live ; — Hght, which is called in another of the books among which the merchant's maxims have been preserved, the " sun of justice," ^ of which it is promised iMore accurately, Sun of Justness; but, instead of the harsh word "Justness," the old English "Righteousness" being commonly employed, has, by getting confused with 70 " UNTO THIS last:' that it shall rise at last with "healing " (health- / giving or helping, making whole or setting at one) in its wings. For truly this healing is only possible by means of justice ; no love, f no faith, no hope will do it ; men will be un- wisely fond, vainly faithful, unless primarily they are just ; and the mistake of the best ^ men through generation after generation, has been that great one of thinking to help the poor by almsgiving, and by preaching of patience or of hope, and by every other means, emollient or consolatory, except the one thing which God orders for them, justice. "godliness," or attracting about it various vague and broken meanings, prevented most persons from receiving the force of the passage in which it occurs. The word " righteousness " properly refers to the justice of rule, or right, as distinguished from " equity," which refers to the justice of balance. More broadly, Righteousness is King's justice ; and Equity Judge's justice; the King guiding or ruling all, the Judge dividing or discerning between opposites (therefore, the double question, " Man, who made me a ruler — ScKaarr/g — or a divider — fj,ept(jTf}g — over you ? " ) . Thus, with respect to the Justice of Choice (selection, the feebler and passive justice), we have from /e£-o, — lex, legal, loi, and loyal ; and with respect to the Justice of Rule (direction, the stronger and active justice), we have from re^o, — rex, regal, roi, and royal. QUI JUDICATIS TERRA M. 71 But this justice, with its accompanying holi- ness or helpfulness, being even by the best man denied in its trial time, is by the mass of men hated wherever it appears : so that, when the choice was one day fairly put to them, they denied the Helpful One and the Just ; ^ and desired a murderer, sedition-raiser, and robber, to be granted to them ; — the murderer instead of the Lord of Life, the sedition-raiser instead of the Prince of Peace, and the robber instead of the Just Judge of all the world. 45. I have just spoken of the flowing of streams to the sea as a partial image of the action of wealth. In one respect it is not a par- tial, but a perfect image. The popular econ- omist thinks himself wise in having discovered that wealth, or the forms of property in general, must go where they are required ; that where demand is, supply must follow. He farther i In another place written with the same meaning, "Just and having salvation." 72 " UNTO THIS last:' declares that this course of demand and supply cannot be forbidden by human laws. Precisely in the same sense, and with the same certainty, the waters of the world go where they are required. Where the land falls, the water flows. The course neither of clouds nor rivers can be forbidden by human will. But the disposition and administration of them can be altered by human forethought. Whether the stream shall be a curse or a blessing, depends upon man's labor, and administrating intelli- gence. For centuries after centuries, great districts of the world, rich in soil, and favored in climate, have lain desert under the rage of their own rivers; nor only desert, but plague- struck. The stream which, rightly directed, would have flowed in soft irrigation from field to field — would have purified the air, given food to man and beast, and carried their burdens for them on its bosom — now over- whelms the plain and poisons the wind; its breath pestilence, and its work famine. In QUI JUDICATIS TEKRAM. 73 like manner this wealth "goes where it is required." No human laws can withstand its flow. They can only guide it : but this, the leading trench and limiting mound can do so thoroughly^ that it shall become water of life — the riches of the hand of wisdom ; ^ or, on the contrary, by leaving it to its own lawless flow, they may make it, what it has been too often, the last and deadliest of national plagues : water of Marah — the water which feeds the roots of all evil. The necessity of these laws of distribution or restraint is curiously overlooked in the ordinary political economist's definition of his own " science." He calls it, shortly, the " science of getting rich." But there are many sciences, as well as many arts, of getting rich. Poisoning people of large estates was one employed largely in the middle ages ; adul- teration of food of people of small estates ' " Length of days in her right hand ; in her left, riches and honor." 74 " UNTO THIS last:' is one employed largely now. The ancient and honorable Highland method of blackmail ; the more modern and less honorable system of obtaining goods on credit, and the other variously improved methods of appropriation — which, in major and minor scales of industry, down to the most artistic pocket-picking, we owe to recent genius, — all come under the general head of sciences, or arts, of getting rich. 46. So that it is clear the popular economist, / in calling his science the science par excellence of getting rich, must attach some peculiar ideas Vof limitation to its character. I hope I do not misrepresent him, by assuming that he means his science to be the science of "getting rich by legal or just means." In this definition, is the word "just," or "legal," finally to stand? For it is possible among certain nations, or under certain rulers, or by help of certain ' advocates, that proceedings may be legal which / are by no means just. If, therefore, we leave QUI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 75 at last only the word " just " in that place of our definition, the insertion of this solitary and • small word will make a notable difference in the grammar of our science. For then it will follow that in order to grow rich scientifically, we must grow rich justly ; and, therefore, know what is just; so that our economy will no longer depend merely on prudence, but on jurisprudence — and that of divine, not human law. Which prudence is indeed of no mean order, holding itself, as it were, high in the air of heaven, and gazing for ever on the light of the sun of justice ; hence the souls which have excelled in it are represented by Dante as stars forming in heaven for ever the figure of the eye of an eagle ; they having been in life the discerners of light from darkness ; or to the whole human race, as the light of the body, which is the eye ; while those souls which form the wings of the bird (giving power and dominion to justice, " healing in its wings " ) trace also in light the inscription in 76 " UNTO THIS last:' heaven : " diligite justitiam qui judicatis TERRAM." "Ye who judge the earth, give" (not, observe, merely love, but) " diligent love to justice " : the love which seeks diligently, that is to say, choosingly, and by preference to all things else. Which judging or doing judg- ment in the earth is, according to their capacity and position, required not of judges^ only> nor of rulers only, but of all men : ^ a truth sorrowfully lost sight of even by those who are ready enough to apply to themselves pas- sages in which Christian men are spoken of as called to be '^saints" {i.e., to helpful or healing functions) ; and '■'■ chosen to be kings " {i.e., to 1 I hear that several of our lawyers have been greatly amused by the statement in the first of these papers that a lawyer's function was to do justice. I did not intend it for a jest; nevertheless, it will be seen that in the above passage neither the determination nor doing of justice are contemplated as functions wholly peculiar to the lawyer. Possibly, the more our standing armies, whether-of soldiers, pastors, or legislators (the generic term "pastor," including all teachers, and the generic term " lawyer," including makers as well as inter- preters of law) , can be superseded by the force of national heroism, wisdom, and honesty, the better it may be for the nation. QUI yUDICATIS TERR AM. 77 knowing or directing functions) ; the true meaning of these titles having been long lost through the pretences of unhelpful and unable persons to saintly and kingly character; also through the once popular idea that both the sanctity and royalty are to consist in wearing long robes and high crowns, instead of in mercy and judgment ; whereas all true sanctity is saving power, as all true royalty is ruling power ; and injustice is part and parcel of the denial of such power, which " makes men as the creeping things, as the fishes of the sea, that have no ruler over them." ^ 47. Absolute justice is indeed no more attain- able than absolute truth ; but the righteous man is distinguished from the unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice, as the true man from the false by his desire and hope of truth. And though absolute justice be un- attainable, as much justice as we need for all 1 It being the privilege of the fishes, as it is of rats and wolves, to live by the laws of demand and supply ; but the distinction of humanity to live by those of right. \ 78 " c/jvTO THIS last:' practical use is attainable by all those who make it their aim. We have to examine, then, in the subject before us, what are the laws of justice respect- ing payment of labor — no small part, these, of the foundations of all jurisprudence. I reduced, in my last paper, the idea of money payment to its simplest or radical terms. In those terms its nature, and the conditions of justice respecting it, can be best ascer- tained. Money payment, as there stated, consists radically in a promise to some person working \ for us, that for the time and labor he spends I in our service to-day we will give or procure I equivalent time and labor in his service at ; any future time when he may demand it.^ 1 It might appear at first that the market price of labor expressed such an exchange : but this is a fallacy, for the market price is the momentary price of the kind of labor required, but the just price is its equivalent of the productive labor of mankind. This difference will be analyzed in its place. It must be noted also that I speak here only of the exchangeable value of labor, not of that of commodities. The QUI yUDICATIS TEKRAM. 79 If we promise to give him less labor than he has given us we' underpay him. If we promise to give him more labor than he has given us we overpay him. In practice, according to the laws of demand and supply, when two men are ready to do the work, and only one man wants to have it done, the two men underbid each other for it ; and the one who gets it to do is underpaid. But when two men want the work done, and there is only one man ready to do it, the two men who want it done overbid each other, and the workman is overpaid. 48. I will examine these two points of injustice in succession ; but first I wish the reader to clearly understand the central principle, lying between the two, of right or just payment. When we ask a service of any man, ho exchangeable value of a commodity is that of the labor re quired to produce it, multiplied into the force of the demand for it. If the value 0/ the labor = x and the force of demand = y, the exchangeable value of the commodity is xy, in which if either x^=o, or j = o, xy = o. 8o " UNTO THIS LAST:' may either give it us freely, or demand pay- ment for it. Respecting free gift of service, there is no question at present, that being a matter of affection — not of traffic. But if he demand payment for it, and we wish to treat him with absolute equity, it is evident that this equity can only consist in giving time for time, strength for strength, and skill for skill. If a man works an hour for us, and we only promise to work half an hour for him in return, we obtain an unjust advan- tage. If, on the contrary, we promise to work an hour and a half for him in return, he has an unjust advantage. The justice consists in absolute exchange ; or, if there be any respect to the stations of the parties, it will not be in favor of the employer : there is certainly no equitable reason in a man's being poor, that if he give me a pound of bread to-day, I should return him less than a pound of bread to-morrow j or any equitable reason in a man's being uneducated, that if he uses QUI yUDICATIS TERR AM. 8i a certain quantity of skill and knowledge in my service, 1 should use a less quantity of skill and knowledge in his. Perhaps, ulti- mately, it may appear desirable, or, to say the least, gracious, that 1 should give in return somewhat more than I received. But at pres- ent we are concerned on the law of justice only, which is that of perfect and accurate exchange ; — one circumstance only interfering with the simplicity of this radical idea of just payment — that inasmuch as labor (rightly directed) is fruitful just as seed is, the fruit (or " interest," as it is called) of the labor first given, or " advanced,'* ought to be taken into account, and balanced by an additional quantity of labor in the subsequent repay- ment. Supposing the repayment to take place at the end of the year, or of any other given time, this calculation could be approximately made, but as money (that is to say cash) payment involves no reference to time (it being optional with the person paid to spend what he 82 " UNTO THIS last:' receives at once or after any number of years), we can only assume, generally, that some slight advantage must in equity be allowed to the person who advances the labor, so that the typical form of bargain will be : If you give me an hour to-day, I will give you an hour and five minutes on demand. If you give me a pound of bread to-day, I will give you seventeen ounces on demand, and so on. All that is necessary for the reader to note is, that the amount returned is at least in equity not to be less than the amount given. The abstract idea, then, of just or due wages, as respects the laborer, is that they will con- sist in a sum of money which will at any time procure for him at least as much labor as he has given, rather more than less. And this equity or justice of payment is, observe, wholly independent of any reference to the number of men who are willing to do the work. I want a horseshoe for my horse. Twenty smiths, or twenty thousand smiths, QUI JUDICATIS TERRA M. 83 may be ready to forge it; their number does not in one atom's weight affect the question of the equitable payment of the one who does forge it. It costs him a quarter of an hour of his Hfe, and so much skill and strength of arm, to make that horseshoe for me. Then at some future time I am bound in equity to give a quarter of an hour, and some minutes more, of my life (or of some other person's at my disposal), and also as much strength of arm and skill, and a little more, in making or doing what the smith may have need of. 49. Such being the abstract theory of just re- munerative payment, its application is practically modified by the fact that the order for labor given in payment is general, while the labor received is special. The current coin or docu- ment is practically an order on the nation for so much work of any kind ; and this universal applicability to immediate need renders it so much more valuable than special labor can be that an order for a less quantity of this general 84 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' toil will always be accepted as a just equivalent for a greater quantity of special toil. Any given craftsman will always be willing to give an hour of his own work in order to receive command over half an hour, or even much less, of national work. This source of uncertainty, together with the difficulty of determining the monetary value of skill,^ render the ascertain- i Under the term " skill " I mean to include the united force of experience, intellect, and passion, in their operation on manual labor ; and under the term " passion," to include the entire range and agency of the moral feelings, — from the simple patience and gentleness of mind which will give continuity and fineness to the touch, or enable one person to work with- out fatigue, and with good effect, twice as long as another, up to the qualities of character which render science possible (the retardation of science by envy is one of the most tremen- dous losses in the economy of the present century) , and to the incommunicable emotion and imagination which are the first and mightiest sources of all value in art. It is highly singular that political economists should not yet have perceived, if not the moral, at least the passionate ele- ment, to be an inextricable quantity in every calculation. I cannot conceive, for instance, how it was possible that Mr. Mill should have followed the true clue so far as to write : " No limit can be set to the importance — even in a purely productive and material point of view — of mere thought," without seeing that it was logically necessary to add also, " and of mere feeling." And this the more, because in his first definition of labor he includes in the idea of it " all feelings QUI JUDICATIS TERR^AM. 85 ment (even approximate) of the proper wages of any given labor in terms of a currency matter of considerable complexity. But tliey do not affect the principle of exchange. The worth of the work may not be easily known ; but it has a worth, just as fixed and real as the specific gravity of a substance, though such specific gravity may not be easily ascertainable when the substance is united with many others. Nor is there so much dif^culty or chance in determining it as in determining the ordinary of a disagreeable kind connected with the employment of one's thoughts in a particular occupation." True; but why not also "feelings of an agreeable kind" ? It can hardly be sup- posed that the feelings which retard labor are more essen- tially a part of the labor than those which accelerate it. The first are paid for as pain, the second as power. The workman is merely indemnified for the first ; but the second both produce a part of the exchangeable value of the work and materially increase its actual quantity. " Fritz is with us. He is worth fifty thousand men." Truly a large addition to the material force, — consisting, however, be it observed, not more in operations carried on in Fritz's head than in operations carried on in his armies' heart. " No limit can be set to the importance of mere thought." Perhaps not. Nay, suppose some day it should turn out that " mere " thought was in itself a recommendable object of production, and that all Material production was only a step towards this most precious Immaterial one ? 86 *' UNTO THIS LAST.'' maxima and minima of vulgar political econ- omy. There are few bargains in which the buyer can ascertain with anything like pre- cision that the seller would have taken no less; or the seller acquire more than a com- fortable faith that the purchaser would have given no more. This impossibility of precise knowledge prevents neither from striving to attain the desired point of greatest vexation and injury to the other, nor from accepting it for a scientific principle that he is to buy for the least and sell for the most possible, though what the real least or most may be he cannot tell. In like manner, a just person lays it down for a scientific principle that he is to pay a just price, and, without being able precisely to ascertain the limits of such a price, will nevertheless strive to attain the closest possible approximation to them. A practically service- able approximation he can obtain. It is easier to determine scientifically what a man ought to have for his work than what his necessities QUI yUDICATIS TERR AM. 87 will compel him to take for it. His necessities can only be ascertained by empirical, but his due by analytical investigation. In the one case you try your answer to the sum like a puzzled school-boy — till you find one that fits ; in the other you bring out your result, within certain limits, by process of calculation. 50. Supposing, then, the just wages of any quantity of given labor to have been ascer- tained, let us examine the first results of just and unjust payment, when in favor of the purchaser or employer ; i.e., when two men are ready to do the work, and only one wants to have it done. The unjust purchaser forces the two to bid against each other till he has reduced their demand to its lowest terms. Let us assume that the lowest bidder offers to do the work at half its just price. The purchaser employs him, and does not employ the other. The first or apparent result is, therefore, that one of the two men is 88 " UNTO THIS LAST.'' left out of employ, or to starvation, just as definitely as by the just procedure of giving fair price to the best workman. The various writers who endeavored to invalidate the positions of my first paper never saw this, and assumed that the unjust hirer employed both. He employs both no more than the just hirer. The only difference (in the outset) is that the just man pays sufficiently, the unjust man insufficiently, for the labor of the single person employed. I say, " in the outset," for this first or apparent difference is not the actual difference. By the unjust procedure half the proper price of the work is left in the hands of the employer. This enables him to hire another man at the same unjust rate, on some other kind of work ; and the final result is that he has two men working for him at half-price, and two are out of employ. 51. By the just procedure the whole price of the first piece of work goes into the hands QUI yUDICATIS TEKRAM. 89 of the man who does it. No surplus being left in the employef-'s hands, he cannot hire another man for another piece of labor. But by precisely so much as his power is diminished, the hired workman's power is increased; that is to say, by the additional half of the price he has received ; which additional half he has the power of using to employ another man in his service. I will suppose, for the moment, the least favorable, though quite probable, case that, though justly treated himself, he yet will act unjustly to his subordinate, and hire at half-price if he can. The final result will then be that one man works for the employer at just price ; one for the workman at half-price ; and two, as in the first case, are still out of employ. These two, as I said before, are out of employ in both cases. The difference between the just and unjust procedure does not lie in the number of men hired, but in the price paid to them, and the persotis by whom it go ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' is paid. The essential difference, that which I want the reader to see clearly, is that in the unjust case two men work for one, the first hirer. In the just case one man works for the first hirer, one for the person hired, and so on, down or up through the various grades of service, the influence being carried forward by justice and arrested by injustice. The universal and constant action of justice in this matter is therefore to diminish the power of wealth in the hands of one individual over masses of men, and to distribute it through a chain of men. The actual power exerted by the wealth is the same in both cases; but by injustice it is put all into one man's hands, so that he directs at once and with equal force the labor of a circle of men about him ; by the just procedure he is permitted to touch the nearest only, through whom, with diminished force, modified by new minds, the energy of the wealth passes on to others, and so till it exhausts itself. QUI yUDICATIS TEKRAM. ^x 52. The immediate operation of justice in this respect is therefore to diminish the power of wealth, first, in acquisition of luxury, and secondly, in exercise of moral influence. The employer cannot concentrate so multitudinous labor on his own interests, nor can he subdue so multitudinous mind to his own will. But the secondary operation of justice is not less important. The insufficient payment of the group of men working for one jDlaces each under a maximum of difficulty in rising above his position. The tendency of the system is to check advancement. But the sufficient or just payment, distributed through a descending series of offices or grades of labor,^ gives each 1 1 am sorry to lose time by answering, however curtly, the equivocations of the writers who sought to obscure the in- stances given of regulated labor in the first of these papers, by confusing kinds, ranks, and quantities of labor with its quali- ties. I never said that a colonel should have the same pay as a private, nor a bishop the same pay as a curate. Neither did I say that more work ought to be paid as less work (so that the curate of a parish of two thousand souls should have no more than the curate of a parish of five hundred) . But I said that, so far as you employ it at all, bad work should be paid no less than good work; as a bad clergyman yet takes his 92 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' subordinated person fair and sufficient means of rising in the social scale, if he chooses to use them; and thus not only diminishes the immediate power of wealth, but removes the worst disabilities of poverty. 53. It is on this vital problem that the entire destiny of the laborer is ultimately dependent. Many minor interests may sometimes appear to interfere with it, but all branch from it. For instance, considerable agitation is often caused in the minds of the lower classes when they discover the share which they nominally, and tithes, a bad physician takes his fee, and a bad lawyer his costs. And this, as will be farther shown in the conclusion, I said, and say, partly because the best work never was, nor ever will be, done for money at all ; but chiefly because the moment people know they have to pay the bad and good alike, they will try to discern the one from the other, and not use the bad. A sagacious writer in the " Scotsman " asks me if I should like any common scribbler to be paid by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. as their good authors are. I should, if they employed him — but would seriously recommend them, for the scribbler's sake as well as their own, not to employ him. The quantity of its money which the country at present invests in scribbling is not, in the outcome of it, economically spent ; and even the highly ingenious person to whom this question occurred might perhaps have been more beneficially employed than in printing it. QUI yUDICATIS TERR AM. 93 to all appearance actually, pay out of their wages in taxation (I believe thirty-five or forty per cent.). This sounds very grievous; but in reality the laborer does not pay it, but his employer. If the workman had not to pay it, his wages would be less by just that sum ; competition would still reduce them to the lowest rate at which life was possible. Similarly the lower orders agitated for the repeal of the corn laws,^ thinking they would 1 I have to acknowledge an interesting communication on the subject of free trade from Paisley (for a short letter from " A Well-wisher " at , my thanks are yet more due). But the Scottish writer will, I fear, be disagreeably surprised to hear that I am and always have been an utterly fearless and unscrupulous free-trader. Seven years ago, speaking of the various signs of infancy in the European mind C" Stones of Venice," Vol. iii., p. 168), I wrote: "The first principles of commerce were acknowledged by the English parliament only a few months ago, in its free-trade measures, and are still so httle understood by the million that no fiaiion dares to abolish its custojn-houses." It will be observed that I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. Let other nations, if they like, keep their ports shut ; every wise nation will throw its own open. It is not the opening them, but a sudden, inconsiderate, and blunderingly experimental manner of opening them, which does harm. If you have been protecting a manufacture for a long series of years, you must not take the protection off in a moment, so as 94 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' be better off if bread were cheaper ; never per- ceiving that as soon as bread was permanently cheaper, wages would permanently fall in pre- cisely that proportion. The corn laws were rightly repealed ; not, however, because they directly oppressed the poor, but because they indirectly oppressed them in causing a large quantity of their labor to be consumed un- to throw every one of its operatives at once out of employ, any more than you must take all its wrappings off a feeble child at once in cold weather, though the cumber of them may have been radically injuring its health. Little by little you must restore it to freedom and to air. Most people's minds are in curious confusion on the subject of free-trade, because they suppose it to imply enlarged com- petition. On the contrary, free-trade puts an end to all com- petition. " Protection " (among various other mischievous functions) endeavors to enable one country to compete with another in the production of an article at a disadvantage. When trade is entirely free, no country can be competed with in the articles for the production of which it is naturally cal- culated ; nor can it compete with any other in the production of articles for which it is not naturally calculated. Tuscany, for instance, cannot compete with England in steel, nor Eng- land with Tuscany in oil. They must exchange their steel and oil. Which exchange should be as frank and free as honesty and the sea- winds can make it. Competition, indeed arises at first, and sharply, in order to prove which is strongest in any given manufacture possible to both ; this point once ascertained, competition is at an end. QUI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 95 productively. So also unnecessary taxation oppresses them, through destruction of capital; but the destiny of the poor depends primarily always on this one question of dueness of wages. Their distress (irrespectively of that caused by sloth, minor error, or crime) arises on the grand scale from the two reacting forces of competition and oppression. There is not yet, nor will yet for ages be, any real over- population in the world ; but a local over- population, or, more accurately, a degree ofj population locally unmanageable under exist- ing circumstances for want of forethought and sufficient machinery, necessarily shows itself by pressure of competition ; and the taking advantage of this competition by the purchaser to obtain their labor unjustly cheap, consum- mates at once their suffering and his own ; for in this (as I believe in every other kind of slav- ery) the oppressor suffers at last more than the oppressed, and those magnificent lines of Pope, even in all their force, fall short of the truth : ^6 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' " Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but HATE his neighbor as himself: Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides." 54. The collateral and reversionary operations of justice in this matter I shall examine here- after (it being needful first to define the nature of value) ; proceeding then to consider within what practical terms a juster system may be established; and ultimately the vexed question of the destinies of the unemployed workmen.^ ^ I should be glad if the reader would first clear the ground for himself so far as to determine whether the difficulty lies in getting the work or getting the pay for it. Does he con- sider occupation itself to be an expensive luxury, difficult of attainment, of which too little is to be found in the world ? or is it rather that, while in the enjoyment even of the most ath- letic delight, men must nevertheless be maintained, and this maintenance is not always forthcoming ? We must be clear on this head before going farther, as most people are loosely in the habit of talking of the difficulty of " finding employ- ment." Is it employment that we want to find, or support during employment ? Is it idleness we wish to put an end to, or hunger ? We have to take up both questions in succession, only not both at the same time. No doubt that work is a lux- ury, and a very great one. It is, indeed, at once a luxury and a necessity ; no man can retain either health of mind or body without it. So profoundly do I feel this that, as will be seen QUI J U Die AT IS TERR AM. gy Lest, however, the reader should be alarmed at some of the issues to which our investigations seem to be tending, as if in their bearing against the power of wealth they had some- thing in common with those of socialism, I wish him to know, in accurate terms, one or two of the main points which I have in view. Whether socialism has made more progress among the army and navy (where payment is made on my principles), or among the manufacturing operatives (who are paid on my opponents' principles), I leave it to those opponents to ascertain and declare. Whatever their conclusion may be, I think it necessary to answer for myself only this : that if there be any one point insisted on throughout my in the sequel, one of the principal objects I would recommend to benevolent and practical persons is to induce rich people to seek for a larger quantity of this luxury than they at present possess. Nevertheless, it appears by experience that even this healthiest of pleasures may be indulged in to excess, and that human beings are just as liable to surfeit of labor as to surfeit of meat ; so that, as on the one hand, it may be char, itable to provide, for some people, lighter dinner and more work, for others it may be equally expedient to provide lighter work and more dinner. 98 ''UNTO THIS LAST,'' X works more frequently than another, that one / point is the impossibiUty of EquaUty. My / continual aim has been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of one man to all others ; and to show also the advisability of appointing such persons or person to guide, to lead, or on occasion even to compel and subdue, their inferiors according to their own better knowledge and wiser will. My principles of Political Economy were all involved in a single phrase spoken three years ago at Manchester : " Soldiers of the Ploughshare as well as Soldiers of the Sword;" and they were all summed in a single sentence in the last volume of " Modern Painters": "Government and cooperation are in all things the Laws of Life ; Anarchy and competition the Laws of Death." And with respect to the mode in which these general principles affect the secure possession of property, so far am I from invalidating such security, that the whole gist of these papers QUI yUDICATIS TERR AM. 99 will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its range ; and whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor. 55. But that the working of the system which I have undertaken to develop would in many ways shorten the apparent and direct, though not the unseen and collateral, power, both of wealth, as the Lady of Pleasure, and of capital, as the Lord of Toil, I do not deny ; on the contrary, I affirm it in all joy fulness ; knowing that the attraction of riches is already too strong, as their authority is already too weighty, for the reason of mankind. I said in my last paper that nothing in history had ever been so disgraceful to human intellect as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines of political economy as a science. I have many groundr for saying this, but one of the chief may be given in few words. I L.ofC. lOO ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' know no previous instance in history of a nation's establishing a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its professed religion. The writings which we (verbally) esteem as divine, not only denounce ,-the love of money as the source^gf alL^ evil, and as an idolatry abhorred of the Deity, but declare mammon service to be the accurate and irreconcilable apposite of God's service ; and whenever they speak of riches absolute, and poverty absolute, declare woe to the rich, and blessing to the poor. Whereupon we forthwith investigate a science of becoming rich, as the shortest road to national prosperity. "Tai Cristian dannera I'Etiope, Quando si partiranno i due collegi, L'UNO IN ETERNO RICCO, E L'ALTRO INOPE." ESSAY IV. AD VALOREM. 56. In the last paper we saw that just payment of labor consisted in a sum of money which would approximately obtain equivalent labor at a future time ; we have now to examine the means of obtaining such equivalence, — which question involves the definition of Value, Wealth, Price, and Produce. None of these terms are yet defined so as to be understood by the public. But the last, / Produce, which one might have thought the clearest of all, is, in use, the most ambiguous ; and the examination of the kind of ambiguity attendant on its present employment will best open the way to our work. In his chapter on Capita^ Mr. J. S. Mill * Book I., Chap, iv., s. I. To save space, my future references to Mr. Mill's work will be by numerals only, as in this instance, I. iv. I. Ed. in 2 vols., 8vo, Parker, 1848. (lOl) I02 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' instances, as a capitalist, a hardware manufact- urer, who, having intended to spend a certain portion of the proceeds of his business in buying plate and jewels, changes his mind, and '' pays it as wages to additional workpeople." The effect is stated by Mr. Mill to be that ^' more food is appropriated to the consumption of productive laborers." 57. Now I do not ask, though, had I written this paragraph, it would surely have been asked of me. What is to become of the silversmiths? If they are truly unproductive persons, we will acquiesce in their extinction. And though in another part of the same pas- sage the hardware merchant is supposed also to dispense with a number of servants, whose "food is thus set free for productive purposes," I do not inquire what will be the effect, painful or otherwise, upon the servants, of this emanci- pation of their food. But I very seriously inquire why ironware is produce and silver- ware is not ? That the merchant consumes AD VALOREM. lO- the one and sells the other certainly does not constitute the difference,' unless it can be shown (which, indeed, I perceive it to be becoming daily more and more the aim of tradesmen to show) that commodities are made to be sold and not to be consumed. The merchant is an/ agent of conveyance to the consumer in one case, and is himself the consumer in the other ; ^ but the laborers are in either case equally productive, since they have produced goods to the same value, if the hardware and the plate are both goods. And what distinction separates them? It is ^ If Mr. Mill had wished to show the difference in result be- tween consumption and sale, he should have represented the hardware merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them ; similarly, the silver merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them. Had he done this, he would have made his position clearer, though less tenable ; and perhaps this was the position he really intended to take, tacitly involving his theory, elsewhere stated, and shown in the sequel of this paper to be false, that demand for commodities is not demand for labor. But by the most diligent scrutiny of the paragraph now under examination I cannot determine whether it is a fallacy pure and simple, or the half of one fal- lacy supported by the whole of a greater one ; so that I treat it here on the kinder assumption that it is one fallacy only. I04 " UNTO THIS LAST.'' I indeed possible that in the " comparative esti- mate of the moralist," with which Mr. Mill says political economy has nothing to do (III. i. 2), a steel fork might appear a more sub- stantial production than a silver one : we may grant also that knives, no less than forks, are good produce ; and scythes and ploughshares serviceable articles. But how of bayonets? Supposing the hardware merchant to effect large sales of these, by help of the " setting free " of the food of his servants and his silversmith, — is he still employing productive laborers, or, in Mr. Mill's words, laborers who increase " the stock of permanent means of enjoyment" (I. iii. 4)? Or if, instead of bayonets, he supply bombs, will not the abso- lute and final " enjoyment " of even these energetically productive articles (each of which costs ten pounds^) be dependent on a proper choice of time and place for their enfante- ment ; choice, that is to say, depending on ^ I take Mr. Helps' estimate in his essay on War. AD VALOREM. 1 05 those philosophical considerations with which political economy has nothing to do ? ^ 58. I should have regretted the need of point- ing out inconsistency in any portion of Mr. Mill's work, had not the value of his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He deserves honor among economists by inadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly in- troducing the moral considerations with which he declares his science has no connection. Many of his chapters are, therefore, true and valuable ; and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which follow from his premises. Thus the idea which lies at the root of the passage we have just been examining, namely, ' Also, when the wrought-silver vases of Spain were dashed to fragments by our custom-house officers because bullion might be imported free of duty, but not brains, was the axe that broke them productive? the artist who wrought them unproductive? Or again. If the woodman's axe is productive, is the executioner's ? as also, if the hemp of a cable be productive, does not the productiveness of hemp in a haher depend on its moral more than on its material application? io6 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' that labor applied to produce luxuries will not support so many persons as labor applied to produce useful articles, is entirely true ; but the instance given fails — and in four directions of failure at once — because Mr. Mill has not defined the real meaning of usefulness. The definition which he has given — " capacity to satisfy a desire or serve a purpose" (III. i. 2) — applies equally to the iron and silver ; while the true definition — which he has not given, but which nevertheless underlies the false verbal definition in his mind, and comes out once or twice by accident (as in the words " any sup- port to life or strength" in I. i. 5) — applies to some articles of iron, but not to others, and to some articles of silver, but not to others. It applies to ploughs, but not to bayonets ; and to forks, but not to fihgree.^ 59. The eliciting of the true definitions will give us the reply to our first question, " What is ^ Filigree ; that is to say, generally, ornament dependent on complexity, not on art. AD VALOREM. 107 value?" respecting which, however, we must first hear the popular statements. " The word * value,' when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange" (Mill, III. i. 3). So that if two ships cannot exchange their rudders, their rudders are, in politico-economic lan- guage, of no value to either. But " the subject of political economy is wealth." (Preliminary remarks, page i.) / And wealth " consists of all useful and agreeable objects which possess exchangeable value." (Preliminary remarks, page 10.) It appears, then, according to Mr. Mill, that usefulness and agreeableness underlie the exchange value, and must be ascertained to exist in the thing before we can esteem it an object of wealth. Now the economical usefulness of a thing depends not merely on its own nature, but on the number of people who can and will use it. A horse is useless, and therefore unsalable, if no lo8 ''UNTO THIS LAST." one can ride, a sword, if no one can strike, and meat, if no one can eat. Thus every material utility depends on its relative human capacity. Similarly, the agreeableness of a thing depends not merely on its own likeableness, but on the number of people who can be got to like it. The relative agreeableness, and therefore salableness, of " a pot of the smallest ale," and of " Adonis painted by a running brook," depends virtually on the opinion of Demos, in the shape of Christo- pher Sly. That is to say, the agreeableness of a thing depends on its relatively human disposition.^ Therefore political economy, 1 These statements sound crude in their brevity, but will be found of the utmost importance when they are developed. Thus, in the above instance, economists have never perceived that disposition to buy is a wholly moral element in demand ; that is to say, when you give a man half a crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor with it — whether he will buy disease, ruin, and hatred, or buy health, advancement, and domestic love. And thus the agreeableness or exchange value of every offered commodity depends on production, not merely of the commodity, but of buyers of it ; therefore on the education of buyers, and on all the moral elements by which AD VALOREM. 109 being a science of wealth, must be a sci- ence respecting human capacities and dispo- sitions. But moral considerations have nothing to do with political economy (III. i. 2). Therefore moral considerations have nothing to do with human capacities and dispositions. 60. I do not wholly like the look of this conclusion from Mr. Mill's statements — let us try Mr. Ricardo's : "Utility is not the measure of exchange- able value, though it is absolutely essential to it." (Chap. L, Sect, i.) Essential in what degree, Mr. Ricardo ? There may be greater and less degrees of utility. Meat, for instance, may be so good as to be fit for any one to eat, or so bad as to be fit for no one to eat. their disposition to buy this or that is formed. I will illustrate and expand into final consequences every one of these defini- tions in its place ; at present they can only be given with extremest brevity ; for in order to put the subject at once in a connected form before the reader I have thrown into one the opening definitions of four chapters ; namely, of that on Value ("Ad Valorem"); on Price ("Thirty Pieces"); on Pro- duction ("Demeter"); and on Economy ("The Law of the House"). no ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' What is the exact degree of goodness which is " essential " to its exchangeable value, but not '^ the measure " of it ? How good must the meat be in order to possess any exchange- able value? and how bad must it be (I wish this were a settled question in London mar- kets) in order to possess none ? There appears to be some hitch, I think, in the working even of Mr. Ricardo's prin- ciples ; but let him take his own example. " Suppose that in the early stages of society the bows and arrows of the hunter were of equal value with the implements of the fisher- man. Under such circumstances the value of the deer, the produce of the hunter's day's labor, would be exactly " (italics mine) " equal to the value of the fish, the product of the fisherman's day's labor. The comparative value of the fish and game would be entirely regulated by the quantity of labor realized in each." (Ricardo, Chap, iii.. On Value.) Indeed ! Therefore, if the fisherman catches AD VALOREM. Ul one sprat, and the huntsman one deer, one sprat will be equal in value to one deer; but if the fisherman catches no sprat and the huntsman two deer, no sprat will be equal in value to two deer? Nay ; but — Mr. Ricardo's supporters may say — he means, on an average ; if the average product of a day's work of fisher and hunter be one fish and one deer, the one fish will always be equal in value to the one deer. Might I inquire the species of fish : whale ? or whitebait? ^ 1 Perhaps it may be said, in farther support of Mr. Ricardo, that he meant, " when the utility is constant or given, the price varies as the quantity of labor." If he meant this, he should have said it ; but had he meant it, he could have hardly missed the necessary result, that utility v/ould be one measure of price (which he expressly denies it to be) ; and that, to prove salableness, he had to prove a given quantity of utility as well as a given quantity of labor ; to wit, in his own instance, that the deer and fish would each feed the same number of men for the same number of days, with equal pleasure to their palates. The fact is, he did not know what he meant himself. The general idea which he had derived from commercial experience, without being able to analyze it, was that when the demand is constant, the price varies as the quantity of labor required for production ; or, using the formula I gave in last paper, — when y is constant, 112 ''UNTO THIS LAST.'' It would be waste of time to pursue these fal- lacies farther ; we will seek for a true definition. 6i. Much store has been set for centuries upon the use of our English classical education. X y varies as x. But demand never is nor can be ultimately constant, if x varies distinctly ; for as price rises, consumers fall away ; and as soon as there is a monopoly (and all scarcity is a form of monopoly, so that every commodity is affected occasionally by some color of monopoly) ,;/ becomes the most influential condition of the price. Thus the price of a painting depends less on its merit than on the interest taken in it by the public ; the price of singing less on the labor of the singer than the number of persons who desire to hear him ; and the price of gold less on the scarcity which affects it in common with cerium or iridium, than on the sunlight color and unalterable purity by which it attracts the admiration and answers the trust of mankind. It must be kept in mind, however, that i' use the word " de- mand " in a somewhat different sense from economists usually. They mean by it " the quantity of a thing sold." I mean by it '' the force of the buyer's capable intention to buy." In good English, a person's " demand " signifies, not what he gets, but what he asks for. Economists also do not notice that objects are not valued by absolute bulk or weight, but by such bulk and weight as is necessary to bring them into use. They say, for instance, that water bears no price in the market. It is true that a cupful does not, but a lake does ; just as a handful of dust does not but an acre does. And were it possible to make even the possession of a cupful or handful permanent {i.e., to find a place for them) , the earth and sea would be brought up by handfuls and cupfuls. AD VALOREM. 113 It were to be wished that our well-educated merchants recalled to mind always this much of their Latin schooling — that the nominative of valorem (a word already sufficiently familiar to them) is valor; a word which, therefore, ought to be familiar to them. Valor ^ from valere, to be well or strong (vyiaivu), — strong, ifi life (if a man), or valiant; strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable. To be "valu- able," therefore, is to " avail towards life." A truly valuable or available thing is that which leads to life with its whole strength. In pro- portion as it does not lead to life, or as its strength is broken, it is less valuable ; in proportion as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or malignant. The value of a thing, therefore, is inde- pendent of opinion and of quantity. Think what you will of it, gain how much you may of it, the value of the thing itself is neither greater nor less. For ever it avails, or avails not ; no estimate can raise, no disdain 114 « UNTO THIS last:' repress, the power which it holds from the Maker of things and of men. The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astron- omy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labor for the things that lead to life ; and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction. And if, in a state of infancy, they supposed indifferent things, such as ex- crescences of shell-fish, and pieces of blue and red stone, to be valuable, and spent large measures of the labor which ought to be employed for the extension and ennobling of life, in diving or digging for them, and cutting them into various shapes, — or if, in the same state of infancy, they imagine pre- cious and beneficent things, such as air, light, and cleanliness, to be valueless, — or if, finally, they imagine the conditions of their own exist- ence, by which alone they can truly possess AD VALOREM. ue or use anything, such, for instance, as peace, trust, and love, to be prudently exchangeable, when the markets offer, for gold, iron, or excrescences of shells — the great and only science of Political Economy teaches them, in all these cases, what is vanity, and what sub- stance ; and how the service of Death, the Lord of Waste, and of eternal emptiness, differs from the service of Wisdom, the Lady of Saving, and of eternal fulness ; she who has said, " I will cause those that love me to inherit Substance; and I will Fill their treasures." The " Lady of Saving," in a profounder sense than that of the savings bank, though that is a good one : Madonna della Salute, — Lady of Health, — which, though commonly spoken of as if separate from wealth, is in- deed a part of wealth. This word "wealth," it will be remembered, is the next we have to define. 62. "To be wealthy," says Mr. Mill, " is to | have a large stock of useful articles." \ Ii6 . "UNTO THIS last:' I accept this definition. Only let us per- fectly understand it. My opponents often lament my not giving them enough logic : I fear I must at present use a little more than they will like ; but this business of Political Economy is no light one, and we must allow no loose terms in it. We have, therefore, to ascertain in the above definition, first, what is the meaning of " having," or the nature of Possession. Then what is the meaning of "useful," or the nature of Utihty. And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts of Milan Cathedral has lain, for three hundred years, the embalmed body of St. Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on its breast. Admitting the crosier and emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be considered as "having" them? Do they, in the politico- economical sense of property, belong to it ? If not, and if we may, therefore, conclude gener- 4 AD VALOREM. 117 ally that a dead body cannot possess property, what degree and period of animation in the body will render possession possible? As thus : lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking, had he the gold? or had the gold him?^ And if, instead of sinking him in the sea by its weight, the gold had struck him on the forehead, and thereby caused incurable disease, — suppose palsy or insanity, — would the gold in that case have been more a "possession" than in the first? Without pressing the inquiry up through instances of gradually increasing vital power over the gold (which I will, however, give, if they are asked for), I presume the reader will see that possession, or " having," is not an abso- ^ Compare GEORGE HERBERT, " The Church Porch,' Stanza 28. r. 4k ii8 ''UNTO THIS last:' lute, but a gradated power; and consists not only in the quantity or nature of the thing possessed, but also (and in a greater degree) in its suitableness to the person possessing it and in his vital power to use it. And our definition of Wealth, expanded, becomes : " The possession of useful articles, which we can useT This is a very serious change. For wealth, instead of depending merely on a "have," is thus seen to depend on a "can." Gladiator's death, on a "habet; " but soldier's victory, and State's salvation, on a "quo plurimum posset." (Liv. VII. 6.) And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of material is seen to demand also accumulation of capacity. 63. So much for our verb. Next for our adjective. What is the meaning of "useful"? The inquiry is closely connected with the last. For what is capable of use in the hands of some persons is capable, in the hands of others, of the opposite of use, called commonly " from- AD VALOREM. I19 use," or " ab-use." And it depends on the person much more than on the article whether its usefuhiess or ab-usefulness will be the quality developed in it. Thus wine, which the Greeks, in their Bacchus, made rightly the type of all passion, and which, when used, " cheereth god and man" (that is to say, strengthens both the divine life, or reasoning power, and the earthy, or carnal power, of man) ; yet when abused becomes " Dionusos," hurtful especially to the divine part of man, or reason. And again, the body itself, being equally liable to use and to abuse, and when rightly disciplined serviceable to the State, both for war and labor; but when not dis- ciplined, or abused, valueless to the State, and capable only of continuing the private or single existence of the individual (and that but feebly) — the Greeks called such a body an "idiotic" or " private " body, from their word signifying a person employed in no way directly useful to the State, whence finally our " idiot," I20 ''UNTO THIS LAST." f\ meaning a person entirely occupied with his own concerns. Hence it follows that if a thing is to be useful, it must be not only of an availing nature, but in avaihng hands. Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the hands of the valiant; so that this science of wealth being, as we have just seen, when regarded as the science of Accumulation, accumulative of capacity as well as of material, — when regarded as the Science of Distribution, is distribution not absolute, but discriminate ; not of every thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right man. A difficult science, dependent on more than arithmetic. 64. Wealth, therefore, is " the possession of THE VALUABLE BY THE VALIANT ; " and in considering it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, and the valor of its possessor, must be estimated together. Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly considered wealthy AD VALOREM. I2i are in reality no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth ; and operating for the nation in an economical point of view, either as pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the stream flows, are useless, or serve only to drown people, but may become of importance in a state of stagnation should the stream dry) ; or else, as dams in a river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller ; or else, as mere accidental stays and impediments, acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as "illth," causing various devastation and trouble around them in all directions ; or lastly, act not at all, but are merely animated conditions of delay (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead), in which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and " impedimenta," if a nation is apt to move too fast. 122 ''UNTO THIS last:' 65. This being so, the difficulty of the true science of PoHtical Economy lies not merely in the need of developing manly character to deal with material value, but in the fact, that while the manly character and material value only form wealth by their conjunction, they have nevertheless a mutually destructive operation on each other. For the manly character is apt to ignore, or even cast away, the material value ; whence that of Pope : " Sure, of qualities demanding praise More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise." And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character ; so that it must be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on the minds of its possessors ; also, what kind of person it is who usually sets himself to obtain wealth and succeeds in doing so ; and whether the world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral AD VALOREM. l2-> influence upon it, or for chief goods, dis- coveries, and practical advancements. I may, however, anticipate future conclusions, so far as to state that in a community regulated only by laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise,' the idle, the reck- less, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impul- sively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person. 66. Thus far, then, of wealth. Next, we have to ascertain the nature of Price ; that is to say, ' "6 Zetf 6r]T:ov rrevETai." — ' Arist. Plut.' 582. It would but weaken the grand words to lean on the preceding ones ; — ** OTi Tov Yl'Aoi'Tov Tzapex^ fieAriova^ dv^pac;, kui ttjv yv6)fir]v, Kol T1JV tdeav,'* 124 " UNTO THIS LAST. of exchange value, and its expression by currencies. Note first, of exchange, there can be no profit in it. It is only in labor there can be profit — that is to say, a ''making in advance," or ''making in favor of" (from proficio). In exchange there is only advantage ; i.e., a bring- ing of vantage or power to the exchanging persons. Thus, one man by sowing and reap- ing turns one measure of corn into two meas- ures. That is profit. Another, by digging and forging, turns one spade into two spades. That is profit. But the man who has two measures of corn wants sometimes to dig; and the man who has two spades wants sometimes to eat : They exchange the gained grain for the gained tool, and both are the better for the exchange ; but though there is much advantage in the transaction there is no profit. Nothing is con- structed or produced. Only that which had been before constructed is given to the person by whom it can be used. If labor is neces- AD VALOREM. 125 sary to effect the exchange, that labor is in reahty involved in the production, and, like all other labor, bears profit. Whatever number of men are concerned in the manufacture or in the conveyance, have share in the profit ; but neither the manufacture nor the conveyance are the exchange, and in the exchange itself there is no profit. There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very different thing. If in the exchange one man is able to give what cost him little labor for what has cost the other much he "acquires" a certain quantity of the produce of the other's labor. And precisely what he acquires the other loses. In mercantile language the person who thus acquires is commonly said to have " made a profit;" and I believe that many of our merchants are seriously under the impression that it is pos- sible for everybody, somehow, to make a profit in this manner. Whereas, by the unfortunate constitution of the world we live in, the laws 126 ''UNTO THIS last:' both of matter and motion have quite rigor- ously forbidden universal acquisition of this kind. Profit or material gain is attainable only by construction or by discovery, not by exchange. Whenever material gain follows exchange, for every plus there is a precisely equal mintLs. Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political Economy, the plus quantities, or - — if I may be allowed to coin an awkward plural — the pluses, make a very positive and venerable appearance in the world, so that every one is eager to learn the science which produces results so magnificent ; whereas the minuses have on the other hand a tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade ; or even to get themselves wholly and finally put out of sight in graves ; which renders the algebra of this science peculiar, and difficultly legible ; a large number of its negative signs being written by the account-keeper in a kind of red ink, which starvation thins and makes AD VALOREM. 12', Strangely pale, or even quite invisible ink for the present. 67. The Science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed to call it, of " Catallactics," considered as one of gain, is, therefore, simply nugatory ; but considered as one of acquisition, it is a very curious science, differing in its data and basis from every other science known. Thus : If I can exchange a needle with a savage for a diamond, my power of doing so depends either on the savage's ignorance of social arrangements in Europe, or on his want of power to take advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for more needles. If, farther, I make the bargain as completely advantageous to myself as possible, by giving to the savage a needle with no eye in it (reaching thus a sufficiently satisfactory type of the perfect operation of catallactic science), the advantage to me in the entire transaction depends wholly upon the ignorance, powerless- ness, or heedlessness of the person dealt with. 128 ''UNTO THIS LAST r Do away with these, and catallactic advantage becomes impossible. So far, therefore, as the science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of the exchanging persons only, it is fomided on the ignorance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these vanish, it also vanishes. It is, therefore, a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness. But all other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object the doing away with their opposite nescience and artlessness. This science, alone of sciences, must, by all available means, promulgate and prolong its opposite nescience ; otherwise the science itself is impos- sible. It is, therefore, peculiarly and alone the science of darkness j probably a bastard science — not by any means a divina scientia, but one begotten of another father, that father who, advising his children to turn stones into bread, is himself employed in turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish of him AD VALOREM. 129 (fish not being producible on his estate), can but give you a serpent. 68. The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this : There must be advantage on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disadvantage on the other) to the persons exchanging ; and just payment for his time, intelligence, and labor to any intermediate person effecting the transaction (commonly called a merchant) ; and whatever advantage there is on either side, and whatever pay is given to the inter- mediate person, should be thoroughly known to all concerned. All attempt at concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or un- divine science, founded on nescience. Whence another saying of the Jew merchant's : " As a nail between the stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between buying and selling." Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in men's dealings with each other, is, again set forth in the house which was to be destroyed — timber I30 " UNTO THIS last:' and stones together — when Zechariah's roll (more probably "curved sword") flew over it: *' the curse that goeth forth over all the earth upon every one that stealeth and holdeth him- self guiltless/' instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure ; — the measure " of the injustice of them in all the earth " {avTT) 97 a'^i- Kia avTcov iv Trdarj rrj yy), with the weight of lead for its lid, and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within it ; — that is to say, Wick- edness hidden by dulness, and formalized, out- wardly, into ponderously established cruelty. *' It shall be set upon its own base in the land of Babel." 1 69. I have hitherto carefully restricted my- self, in speaking of exchange, to the use of the term " advantage ; " but that term includes two ideas : the advantage, namely, of getting what [we need, and that of getting what we wi'sk for. / Three -fourths of the demands existing in the j world are romantic ; founded on visions, ideal- I ^ Zech. V. II. See note on the passage, at p. 148. AD VALOREM. 131 isms, hopes, and affections ; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem ; some- times to be solved only in a passionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of the well by the gate of Bethlehem ; but its first conditions are the following : The price of anything is the quantity of labor given by the person desiring it in order to obtain possession Of it. This price depends on four variable quantities : A. The quantity of wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to a, the quantity of wish the seller has to keep it. B. The quantity of labor the purchaser can afford to obtain the thing ; opposed to yS, the quantity of labor the seller can afford to keep it. These quantities are operative only in excess : i.e., the quantity of wish (^A) means the quantity of wish for this thing, above wish for other things ; and the quantity of work (^B) 132 " UNTO THIS LAST." means the quantity which can be spared to get this thing from the quantity needed to get other things. Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, curious, and interesting — too com- plex, however, to be examined yet ; every one of them, when traced far enough, showing itself at last as a part of the bargain of the Poor of the Flock (or "flock of slaughter"), "If ye think good give me my price, and if not, forbear" — Zech. xi. 12; but as the price of everything is to be calculated finally in labor, it is necessary to define the nature of that standard. 70. Labor is the contest of the life of man with an opposite; — the term "life" including his intellect, soul, and physical power, contend- ing with question, difficulty, trial, or material force. Labor is of a higher or lower order, as it includes more or fewer of the elements of life ; and labor of good quahty, in any kind, in- AD VALOREM. 133 eludes always as much intellect and feeling as will fully and harmoniously regulate the physical force. In speaking of the value and price of labor it is necessary always to understand labor of a given rank and quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced, or senseless) labor cannot be valued ; it is like gold of uncertain alloy, or flawed iron.^ The quality and kind of labor being given, its value, like that of all other valuable things, is invariable. But the quantity of it which * Labor which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, or efficient, the Greeks called " weighable," or a^iog, translated usually " worthy," and because thus substantial and true, they called its price r^////, the "honorable estimate" of it {honorarium) : this word being founded on their concep- tion of true labor as a divine thing, to be honored with the kind of honor given to the gods ; whereas the price of false labor, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honor, but vengeance ; for which they reserved another word, attributing the exaction of such price to a peculiar goddess called Tisiphone, the " requiter (or quittance-taker) of death ;"' a person versed in the highest branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits ; with whom accounts current have been opened also in modern days. 134 " UNTO THIS LAST:' must be given for other things is variable : and in estimating this variation, the price of other things must always be counted by the quantity of labor ; not the price of labor by the quantity of other things. 71. Thus, if we want to plant an apple sap- ling in rocky ground it may take two hours' work ; in soft ground perhaps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for the tree in each case, then the value of the sapling planted by two hours' work is nowise greater than that of the sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear no more fruit than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as valiiable as another half- hour ; nevertheless, the one sapling has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one. Now, the proper statement of this fact is, not that the labor on the hard ground is cheaper than on the soft, but that the tree is dearer. The exchange value may, or may not, after- wards depend on this fact. If other people have plenty of soft ground to plant in they will AD VALOREM. 135 take no cognizance of our two hours' labor in the price they will offer for the plant on the rock. And if, through want of sufficient bo- tanical science, we have planted an upas-tree instead of an apple the exchange value will be a negative quantity, still less proportion- ate to the labor expended. What is commonly called cheapness of labor signifies, therefore, in reality, that many obstacles have to be overcome by it ; so that much labor is required to produce a small re- sult. But this should never be spoken of as cheapness of labor, but as dearness of the object wrought for. It would be just as rational to say that walking was cheap because we had ten miles to walk home to our dinner, as that labor was cheap because we had to work ten hours to earn it. 72. The last word which we have to define is " Production." I have hitherto spoken of all labor as profit- able ; because it is impossible to consider under 136 " UNTO THIS last:' one head the quahty or value of labor, and its aim. But labor of the best quality may be various in aim. It may be either constructive (''gathering," from con and sti'uo), as agricul- ture; nugatory, as jewel-cutting; or destruc- tive ("scattering," from de and stnw), as war. It is not, however, always easy to prove labor, apparently nugatory, to be actually so ; ^ generally, the formula holds good : " he that gathereth not, scattereth ; " thus, the jeweller's art is probably very harmful in its ministering to a clumsy and inelegant pride. So that, finally, I believe nearly all labor may be shortly divided into positive and negative ^The most accurately nugatory labor is, perhaps, that of which not enough is given to answer a purpose effectually, and which, therefore, has all to be done over again. Also, labor which fails of effect through non-cooperation. The cure of a little village near Bellinzona. to whom I had ex- pressed wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their fields, told me that they would not join to build an effectual embankment high up in the valley, because every- body said " that would help his neighbors as much as him- self." So every proprietor built a bit of low embankment about his own field ; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a mind, swept away and swallowed all up together. AD VALOREM. 137 labor : positive, that which produces life ; negative, that which produces death ; the most directly negative labor being murder, and the / most directly positive, the bearing and rearing of children : so that in the precise degree in \ which murder is hateful, on the negative side of idleness, in that exact degree child-rearing / is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. For which reason, and because of the honor that there is in rearing ^ children, while the wife is said to be as the vine (for cheering), the children are as the olive branch, for praise ; nor for praise only, but for peace (because large families can only be reared in times of peace), though since, in their spreading and voyaging in various directions, they distribute strength, ^ Observe, I say, " rearing," not " begetting." The praise is in the seventh season not in aTroprjrdg, nor in (j>irra^ia, but in oTTtjpa. It is strange that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a momentary exertion, saves a life; but praise very hesitatingly a person who, by exertion and self- denial prolonged through years, creates one. We give the crown " od civem servatum" \ — why not " n. Dura plains, 58. Economy in the household, 40. " ishouse-law,^rif/'. xi., 164. " law of, life the aim of all substance, 165. Education, classical, 112. " goverment, what it should include, pre/, xvi and n. " of the poor, 153. " technical, /r^yi xvii. See s. Ethics. Emotion in art, S^n. Employment, a necessary luxury, g6n. " finding, ib. See s. Master Workman. Engine, the eternal, of nature, 160. England, future of wealth of, in her sons, 64. " oak enough for crowns in honor of lives both saved and created, 137;?. " steel of, 93^. " to become one large manufacturing town? 159. Enjoyment, on what dependent, 166. Envy, loss to science through, 84??. Equality impossible, 98. Equity, the meaning of, 6gn, INDEX. 179 Esprit de corps in a regiment, why not in a factory? \z^seqq. Ethics in education, enforce gentleness and justice,//-^, xvii. Exchange, accurate, the only just payment, yZseqq. " price and, 124. " profit impossible in just, 124. " in, means loss to somebody, 125, " the science of, founded on some one's ignorance, 127-128. " true law of just, 129. Expediency, act not according to, but justice, 8. Farmer, duty of a, 40. Fear of loss, not the only motive of human action, pfe/. xiv and n. Fee first or duty first, the test of a man, 31, 32. Filigree work defined, io6«. Fish live by law of supply and demand, 77 n. " none in hell, 128-129. Fisher and hunter, supposed exchange of, their game (Ricardo quoted), iio-iii. Foreign loans, war and, 147/2. Fortune, mediaeval wheel of, 143. Fowler's glass, birds and the (illustration), 144. Free trade, advocated, reciprocal or not, 93«. " Fritz is with us — worth 50,000 men," 84^. Furrows of more value than the plough that made them, 140. Gardening, productive labor of, I45«. Generalships, not put up to auction, 18. Geryon. See s. Dante. God, the only light for rich and poor, 68. Golconda, adamant of, 64. Gold, invisible, its power, 61. " price of, on what dependent, iii«. Government, a law of life, 98. See s. Education, Manufactures, Schools, Work. i8o " UNTO THIS LAST'' Gracchi. See s. Cornelia. Granary, function of a, to store for distribution, not till things rot, 144. Grapes, or grape-shot? 148. Halters, are they productive? lo^n. Happiness, the greatest, of greatest number, 150. Hardware manufactures, illustrations, 102. See s. Mill. Health, laws of, every child to learn, /r^. xvii. " part of wealth, 115. Heart, purse and, regulation of, 131. Heaven, war in, 150. Hell, no fish in, 128-129. Helps (Sir Arthur), " Essay on War," io/\n. Herbert, George, " Church Porch," iijn, Highwaymen, old, and modern merchant ; their forms of rob- bery, 68. Holiness, right of the poor to, 154. Holy or helpful, 71. Home, joy in one's, 163. Honesty, attainable ? pre/, xiii^^^^. " faith in, must be recovered, ^r*?/^ -xmsegq. " organization of labor zxidjpref. xmseqq. Honorarium, meaning of, 133??. Hoopoe, the, typical of the power of riches, i42«. Horace on wealth, /rrc/. x-xii. Mill, 107. " " true, 118, 120. " dependent on capacity to use it, 118. " desire for, is desire for power, 43. " distribution of, must be discriminate, 120. " health part of, 115. " ill-gotten or well, 66. '' " results in death, 66. " " illth " and, 121. " inequality of, when beneficial, 45. " labor essential to realize, 42-43. " life the only real, 149. " mere brutally human, 143. " '* shadow, 142. " moral sources of, the question about it, 57-60. " national, depends on abstract justice, 56. " political and mercantile, inverse ratio of, 53^r^ xvii. World, the, cannot be all destroyed, 159. " " rising in, 163. Worth, weight or, I33«. Xenophon, wealth defined hy,J>re/. xi. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS