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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 POLITICAL EOOl!^OMT. 
 
 Third Edition. 12mo. Frice $1.25. 
 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, LL.D. 
 
 OKKIN SAGE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN 
 WILLIAMS COLLEGE 
 
 Quid pro quo. Sibi totique 
 
 twent: 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1888 
 
H"E»t' 
 
 v«%^ 
 
 Copyright, 1873, 1883, by 
 ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY. 
 
 By Transfer 
 D. C. Public Library 
 AUG 17 1934 
 
 FRANKLIN press: 
 
 BAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
121854 
 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PKOPiLHTi 
 TeUSSFERRED FROM FUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 TO 
 
 THESE FEW AMONG MANY, 
 
 MY BELOVED AND HONORED CO-WORKERS IN A FIELD 
 WORTHY THE BEST THOUGHTS OF 
 
 THE BEST men: 
 
 JOHN BASCOM, FRANCIS A. WALKER, 
 
 DAVID A. WELLS, WILLIAM G. SUMNER. 
 
 8>^o 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 As the human body continues to be the same body 
 throughout all the changes of its growth and mature life, 
 so the book now in the hands of the reader has continued 
 the same book as the one first published in the late autumn 
 of 1865. This, too, in the mean time has grown in size, in 
 symmetry, and in maturity of thought and expression ; it 
 has been carefully revised, and in large parts rewritten 
 once and again and again ; now at length it has been recast 
 throughout for new plates, so that probably there are not 
 now- three consecutive pages standing just as they stood 
 in that original edition ; also the book appears at present 
 with a new and simpler title, " Political Economy," in order 
 that it may be more easily distinguished from, and brought 
 otherwise into better harmony with, my smaller book entitled 
 ' ' Introduction to Political Economy ; ' ' and the number 
 of the chapters (constant till now) has been diminished 
 from sixteen to fourteen, in order to allow a fuller devel- 
 opment of the more essential portions of the great subject. 
 But it is the same book still. In substance of doctrine, in 
 nomenclature for the most part, in scientific divisions and 
 sequences, in studied clearness of statement on every page, 
 in the frequency and fulness of current and historical illus- 
 trations of principles, and in the strong and steady drift 
 
viii FBEFACE. 
 
 against all needless restrictions on trade, — it is the same 
 book still. Excrescences have been cut off, crudities 
 ripened, and the whole fibre made tougher and more com- 
 pact, but the continuity of life has been constantly conserved. 
 I had taught Political Economy in this Institution for tea 
 or twelve years without ever forming any purpose to try 
 my band at a treatise on the subject. I had used for my 
 teachers and guides the English writers, particularly Adam 
 Smith, Eicardo, Senior, and Mill ; and familiarized myself 
 also with the American writers, particularly Carey, "Way- 
 land, Bowen, and Bascom. Almost from the outset of my 
 studies, however, and increasingly as the years went by, I 
 kept asking myself, " WImt is Political Economy about?'* 
 " Within wliat precise field do its inquiries lie?" ^'' Is it pos- 
 sible clearly and simply to circumscribe that field ? " I could 
 see no solid reason why economical discussions should be 
 confined to tangible commodities, and not include as well 
 personal services rendered for pay, and also credits of all 
 kinds. I could not gain from the general terms used by 
 the writers a firm conception of the science as including 
 these three classes of things. The word "Wealth," which 
 figured so largely in all the books, gave no satisfaction in 
 this regard, for this best of reasons, that I never could gain 
 with all my sjfcrivings a clear and generalized conception of 
 just what that word covered. I found besides, that no two 
 of the writers had the same notion of the meaning of that 
 woi^ \ind that no one of them all had given an adequate 
 and self-consistent definition of it. I talked this matter 
 over repeatedly with Professor Bascom, at that time my 
 colleague and always my friend, and suggested to him a 
 way o^ egress from the difficulty ; and my mind had almost 
 
PBEFACE. ix 
 
 refiched the conclusion in which it has now rested for many 
 years with perfect composure, when my late friend, Amasa 
 Walker, who was even then a political economist of reputa- 
 tion, though he had not yet published his "Science of 
 Wealth," recommended to me Bastiat's " Harmonies of 
 Political Economy." I had scarcely read a dozen pages in 
 that remarkable book, when the Field of the Science, in all 
 its outlines and landmarks, lay before my miud just as it does 
 to-day. I do not know how much I brought to that result, 
 and how much towards it was derived from Bastiat. I only 
 know, that from that time Political Economy has been to 
 me a new science ; and that I experienced then and there- 
 after a sense of having found sometJiing, and the cognate 
 sense of having something of my own to say. 
 
 It is a pleasure to acknowledge in ample terms one's in- 
 debtedness to such a quickening writer as Bastiat is, and 
 whoever will compare carefully with his book the following 
 chapters on Value and Land will see that I have profited 
 much by his discussions, and he will also see that I have 
 made an entirely independent use of them. The scheme of 
 my book is wholly my own. I do not fear to claim, that, 
 owing to their present setting, even the points derived from 
 Bastiat appear in a new light and in broader relations, and 
 that the scientific connections of Utility with Value are more 
 clearly and ultimately put than he put them. An uncom- 
 monly competent critic (see The Nation, II. 146) conceded 
 on the appearance of the first edition of this book, that 
 original light was thrown by it on the vexed questions of 
 Land ; and I even dare to hope, that, in the chapter as it 
 stands at present, some scientific contribution may be found 
 towards the solution of the problem, which has tried the 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 British Government these late years more than any other. 
 Besides, Bastiat, with all the rest, still clung to the bad word 
 " "Wealth ; " and in my estimation, there could be no better 
 proof that that word is a veritable " slough of Despond," 
 than that the far-seeing and firm-stepping Bastiat certainly 
 floimdered in it. Then, too, I thought I could make no 
 better acknowledgment for help received in those parts of my 
 book, than to try my best in all the other parts to execute 
 the commission which Bastiat left to his readers in these 
 words : " 7 Jiope yet to find at least one among them who will 
 be able to demonstrate rigorously this proposition : the good 
 of each tends to the good of all, as the good of all tends to 
 the good of each; and who will, moreover, be able to impress 
 this truth upon men's minds by rendering the proof of it 
 simple, lucid, and irrefragable." 
 
 The most of what is original in my book is an immediate 
 or else an indirect result of absolutely dropping from the 
 pitai-t the use of the word "wealth" as a technical term. 
 So far as I know, I was the very first economist to do this ; 
 and this change, which seems at first to be but a small one, 
 is really a great one, insomuch as it made necessary an 
 entire reconstruction of the form of the science as I had 
 found it. The books in effect, and most of them in form, 
 gave as the subject of the science, the Production, Distribu- 
 tion, and Consumption of Wealth, and the primary divisions 
 within the treatises turned for the most part on this phrase ; 
 but the phrase implies that " wealth " is a concrete thing, 
 something that may be produced and distributed and con- 
 sumed, that is to say. Commodities only, while the writers 
 all conceded that purchasing-power, or Value, resides in 
 personal Services and in Credits also. It follows accord- 
 
PEE FACE. Xi 
 
 ingly, that the true subject of the science is Value, in which- 
 ever of the three forms it manifests itself ; and in this simple 
 presence, the old divisions fell out of themselves, and the 
 word "wealth" dropped out of course as both a useless 
 and a confusing term. In devising a new scheme, accord- 
 ingly, and in elaborating that, most that is new in this book 
 came to the surface and easily found its appropriate place. 
 
 The three historical chapters of the book have cost me 
 first and last wide research, and very great labor. In 
 sketching the history of the United States Tariffs for the 
 earlier editions, I had not before me the tracks of a solitary 
 pioneer. Benton's Debates, the annual and special Mes- 
 sages of the Presidents, and the published Speeches of the 
 leading statesmen, were my principal sources. Hildreth's 
 History of the United States gave me some aid in relation 
 to the Hamilton and Calhoun Tariffs. It has been a per- 
 sonal gratification that the designations originally given to 
 the successive tariff-acts in this chapter have been widely 
 adopted, not only in books and pamphlets, but also in 
 speeches on the floor of Congress. More recently, several 
 able men have usefully busied themselves more or less with 
 our tariff legislation, and thus have helped to put this chapter 
 into fuller and better shape, particularly my friends. Wells 
 and Sumner and Philpott, and also the new historian, 
 Schouler. Nor was there any one who preceded me in 
 attempting to give a history of Money in the United States. 
 The materials for that chapter came from widely scattered 
 quarters. Since then, Sumner and "Walker and Bolles and 
 Richardson, and others, have illustrated large portions of 
 the subject, and my chapter has profited by their fresh re- 
 searches. J. R. McCulloch prefixed to his edition of Adam 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 Smith, i-ublished in 1853, a carefully written " lutrodac- 
 tory Discourse," which was intended as a succinct history 
 of the Science up to that time ; but his strong prejudices 
 against the French and other foreign writers, and his unwill- 
 ingness to concede that anybody had really contributed 
 any thing to Political Economy except his own countrymen, 
 make the essay at once incomplete and misleading. The 
 article "Political Economy" in the second edition of the 
 American Cyclopedia of Ripley and Dana is very full, very 
 learned, and means to be very fair to all sides ; but the 
 obvious bias of its author towards Carey and the Pennsyl- 
 vania knot of economists hinders it from becoming a wholly 
 satisfactory presentation. I do not expect that my introduc- 
 tory chapter on the History of the Science will meet the views 
 of all my readers, but this at least can be truthfully said for 
 it, that no pains have been spared to make it accurate and 
 proportionate and unprejudiced, and that the largest part 
 of all the quotations taken in it were made at first hand. 
 
 The late President Garfield, who was a pupil and life-long 
 friend of mine, was fond of making the remark, that, with 
 the exception of the Constitutional argument against ' ' Pro- 
 tection," all the points since urged for and against that 
 system were brought out in the first congressional tariff 
 debate in the summer of 1789. The remark is acute and 
 significant, but it is not exact to its entire extent. The 
 points laised in the tariff debate of that year, and in the 
 tariff debates of the next sixty years, so far as these were 
 epitomized and published by the indefatigable Senator 
 BentCE, contain only a remote allusion or two to the argu- 
 ment for Free Trade emphasized and iterated in many 
 forms throughout these pages, namely, that, if a nation 
 
PBEFACE. Xiii 
 
 will not buy of foreigners it can not sell to them. This is 
 the universal and fundamental objection to "protection" 
 so-called, that, if legal barriers keep out a dollar's worth of 
 foreign goods which want to come in, they thereby and 
 necessarily keep in a dollar's worth of domestic goods which 
 want to go out. The points made in this book against arti- 
 ficial restrictions on trade are in no sense whatever a repro- 
 duction of English arguments ; they come, most of them, 
 from the simple and indisputable principle just enunciated ; 
 and most of the rest have come from the answers given 
 from time to time to objections raised by doubting students 
 in my own lecture-room. 
 
 Two or three editions of the present treatise had been 
 issued before I had seen any of the books of Henry Dunning 
 Macleod. Many references to these books and to their 
 gifted author will be found in the present text. The points 
 of our independent coincidence were many, the points of 
 our decided divergence are confined mostly to, the nature 
 of Money, and I wish here to express in general my sense of 
 obligation to him for much information in matters of fact 
 and for some distinctions in matters of science. In the first 
 volume of his "Principles of Economical Philosophy," he 
 has done me the great honor to associate my name with 
 Condillac, Whately, Bastiat, and Chevalier, — the heads of 
 the third great school of Political Economy. His own name 
 is more worthy than mine, and more likely than mine, to 
 stand permanently in that distinguished list. 
 
 Every writer who is both competent and earnest puts his 
 readers under obligations of some sort, whether they agree 
 with him or not, and I desire to acknowledge my own in a 
 general way to a great variety of economical and historical 
 
XIV PBEFACE. 
 
 writers, whom I cannot here name in detail, but to most 
 of whom more or less reference is made in the following 
 pages. 
 
 I cannot conclude this preface without expressing my 
 sense of indebtedness to the successive classes of intelligent 
 young men, to whom I have presented, and with whom I 
 have discussed, now for more than thirty years, the facts 
 and principles of this fascinating science. It seems to me 
 as if every possible objection to the leading points in this 
 book has been raised at one time or another by members 
 of my own classes. Sometimes I have been convicted of 
 error in minor things, and many times been fortified in the 
 truth, through attempts to remove objections started thus 
 by students ; and I deem it of the greatest advantage to 
 any political economist, — an advantage to which Adam 
 Smith himself was much indebted, — to have the oppor- 
 tunity to test views and theories over and over again in the 
 presence of fresh and bright minds. It has not infre- 
 quently happened in my experience that new light has been 
 thrown out upon a subject by a young man just grasping 
 the thought for the first time. 
 
 A. L. P. 
 WiLijAMS College, June 17, 1883. 
 
TABLE OF COl^TEJ^TS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FA8B 
 HiSTOKY OF THE SCIENCE 2 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Field of the Science 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Value 
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Pboduction . . . , 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Labor .....,, 203 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Capital 251 
 
 XV 
 
XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lanb 274 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Cost of Production 300 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 M'ONBT 814 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Money in the United States ...... 377 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Cbedix 413 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 F0REIG<N Tkade 461 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 United States Takiffs 534 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Taxation . .581 
 
POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 
 
 Sciences are not formed all at once, but they grow. As 
 a rule, thej'^ come slowly to tlieir exact definition, and then 
 the just outline itself is but slowly filled up. Many men 
 in many lands give thought and work to the matter in hand, 
 till at length a science stands forth to view, it may be in full 
 outline if not yet in perfect form. "Here a little and 
 there a little" is as much the rule in the unfolding of 
 sciences as it is in the revelations of God. 
 
 So it has been with Political Economy. The subject- 
 matter of this science is Buying and Selling ; but while 
 men have been buying and selling ever since there were 
 men on the earth ; and, what is more, while by much the 
 largest part of human actions has been put forth to this 
 very end, and too a larger and still larger part always as the 
 world has gained in age and unity ; and while the thoughts 
 of certain men have been given more or less from the first 
 onwards to the several things that make up the science as 
 a whole ; still, even the exact definition of it was only 
 reached a little more than a century ago, and the form and 
 filling up of it are by no means yet so perfect as they will 
 become in the future. 
 
 1 
 
2 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 The opening chapter of a book like this will fitly trace 
 in brief the thoughts that men have had in the past on all 
 this matter of trade, as a mere means to prepare its readers 
 for the thoughts that they should have on the same subject- 
 matter. It would indeed be wrong to begin a treatise like 
 the present with critical estimates of past systems, and with 
 minute attempts to adjust to each great thinker his own 
 meed of praise for what he has added to the common stock ; 
 but the beginners in a science as well as its riper students 
 interest themselves easily in its history, and seem to come 
 more readily to thorough discussion and ultimate conclusion 
 along the roadway roughly wrought b}' those who have gone 
 before. The pioneers prepare the way for the permanent 
 settlers ; the advanced guard clears the road for the whole 
 army ; and, in this science particularly, the beginner learns 
 from its past record in general what it is about, how vast its 
 field, how vital its importance, how errors in thought have 
 led to mistakes in practice, how grand a thing is freedom of 
 industry, how debasing to mind and body is its opposite, 
 how peace and good neighborhood are blessed, how the world 
 is one and God is good, and then he comes perhaps with 
 zest and certainly with insight to definitions and to princi- 
 ples, to dry details and scientific reasonings. In short, 
 somewhat as the boy at play runs back a little before he 
 makes his longest leap, it will be well and orderly to trace 
 the steps already trod in economics before we try to make 
 our own. 
 
 1. The sun rises alwaj^s in the east. To the Orient, then, 
 must we" look for the first streaks of light that reach our 
 theme. It is plain, that buying and selling can go but a 
 very little way without the aid of weights and measures ; 
 and the origin of these has always been ascribed to the 
 dwellers on the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris. Chaldea 
 on the lower courses of these streams, and Babylonia and 
 Nineveh on their more northern reaches, were in this view 
 but one country. Chaldea seems to have been the parent 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 3 
 
 land of aritlimetic and astronomy ; ^ the Babylonians made 
 out a catalogue of the fixed stars, of which the Greeks 
 afterwards made practical use ; the same people invented 
 the sun-dial to measure time during the day, and the water- 
 clock to measure it during the night, and bj^ these and other 
 means they fixed the true length of the solar day, and came 
 to know as well as we do that the solar year is 365^ days 
 nearly ; and they watched the changes of the moon so closely 
 as to learn that there are 12 (almost) lunar periods in the 
 solar year, which is beyond doubt the. origin of the duodeci- 
 mal system in numbers, as a man's ten fingers are the origin 
 of the decimcd system, and each of these outward facts may 
 have suggested the fertile conception of a unit composed of 
 a number of equal units. 
 
 It is pretty clear that the Babylonians knew both the 
 decimal and duodecimal systems, because they seem to have 
 joined the two in their own sexagesimal system. For prac- 
 tical purposes they counted by 60, which is just one-half 
 the product of 10 and 12, perhaps because the wliole prod- 
 uct was too large a unit. They called 60 the sossos, and 
 its square, 3600, the saros, and reckoned time by both 
 of these. Our hour has 60 minutes, and our minute 60 
 seconds, simply because that old people so divided them. 
 Day and night have each 12 hours, because that old people 
 watched the moon. Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer, who 
 lived in the second century before Christ, took all these 
 points from them, and also the same numeral system to 
 measure the old earth by, and thus he put 60 minutes to a 
 degi'oe, and 360 degrees to the earth's circle. 
 
 These ideas of length and measure, gained partly thus 
 from things above and partly also from things below, as the 
 length, for example, of the human foot gives one standard 
 {foot), and the weight a man can poise in his hand with 
 outstretched arm another (pound), were gradually applied 
 
 1 ♦•Chaldaei cognitione astrorum soUertiaque ingeniorum antecellunt." 
 
 Cic. de Div. 1. 41. 
 
4 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 by these ingenious people to surfaces and capacities and 
 weights, and definite standards of these were devised, with- 
 out which any considerable trafBc between man and man is 
 impossible. The Greeks owned that they learned from 
 the Babylonians the art of dividing gold and silver for the 
 purposes of trade ; and the same people grappled for the fii-st 
 time with the still hard problem of the value of gold to 
 silver each to each, and settled it then and there in the ratio 
 of 1 to 13-|^. At first and for a long time in the oriental 
 lands, and borrowed thence in the classical lands as well, 
 were the standard weight and the standard coin the same iu 
 name and partly also in use, and these, with the cognate 
 standards of surface and capacity, being now supplied, 
 trade took on a new form and grew great, Babj'lonian 
 bricks burnt more than 2000 years before Christ disclose to 
 us that houses and lands were then sold and leased and 
 mortgaged ; that money was loaned on interest ; and that 
 the market-gardeners worked on shares. Indeed the Baby- 
 lonian onina, whose very name even was borrowed both by 
 the Greeks and Romans, controlled in substance theii 
 weights and coins, and thus influenced the English sover- 
 eign and its subdivisions.^ 
 
 Good proof meets us that cloths and carpets and coins and 
 other goods went out in trade from the valley of the Euphra- 
 tes at a very early day to the countries to the westward, of 
 course only to bring back in pay the products of those coun- 
 tries. The " goodly Babylonish garment " coveted by Achan 
 in Palestine (Josh. vii. 21) perhaps 1600 years B.C. ; the 
 word of one prophet who speaks of Babylon as " a city of 
 merchants " (Ezek. xvii. 4) , and of another who speaks of the 
 ''Chaldeans and the ships of their delight " (Is. xliii. 14), 
 and of still another who says of Nineveh ' ' Thy merchants 
 have been more numerous than the stars of heaven" (Nah. 
 
 1 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, I. 102, 11. 570, III. 15; Mommscn's Roman 
 History, I. 272,11. 448; Max Miiller in Contemporary Review; and Chief Justice 
 Daly before the Geographical Society. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 6 
 
 ui. 16) ; and the many notices in the classical writers of the 
 exports and imports, the grains and fruits, of these earliest 
 of civilized men ; — all this goes to show that the bulk of 
 their lives was given to traffic, and that the fame of their 
 works was in all lands. 
 
 If we come nearer to the western sea, facts of the same 
 sort meet us on every hand, Damascus is so old a city that 
 no one dares to tell its age, and yet its very name means " a 
 seat of trade." We read that Abraham, about 2000 years 
 before Christ, went up out of Egypt " very rich in cattle, in 
 silver, and in gold ; " and the formal sale to him in Hebron 
 of the cave and the field is full of signs of the drift of those 
 times. It was " in the audience of the sons of Heth, before 
 all that went in at the gate of his city, that the field and the 
 cave were made sure unto him for a possession. And Abra- 
 ham weighed unto Ephron the silver which he had named in 
 the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of 
 silver, current money with the merchant." Let us note, 
 that here are " merchants " as a class, that silver by weight 
 passes as "money" from hand to hand, and that in the 
 lack of written deeds (as we have them) sales were " made 
 sure " before the faces of living men who would tell the 
 truth and pass on the word. Abraham seems to have 
 given the pitch for the song of trade sung by the Jews 
 from that time to this ; for his grandson, Jacob, was a 
 skilled trafficker, not to say a secret triclvster, in his bar- 
 gains ; and wherever in the Old World or the New there have 
 been Jews, there have been in fact and in fame buyers and 
 sellers. The word of God in no place calls fair sales wrong, 
 but on the other hand blames alike the son who wasted his 
 own goods, and the servant who let lie idle his lord's money ; 
 and our Lord himself and those with him, though He drove 
 the money-changers from the temple as an unfit place for 
 their trade, bought with the coin borne in a bag their daily 
 bread. 
 
 The man who wrote the book of Job knew well the way in 
 
6 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 which the aucieat mines were wrought, and the worth of the 
 ores : — 
 
 *' Truly there is a vein for silver, 
 And a place for gold, which men refine. 
 Iron is obtained from earth. 
 And stone is melted into copper. 
 Man putteth an end to darkness; 
 He searcheth to the lowest depths 
 For the stone of darkness and the shadow of death. 
 From the iDlace where they dwell they open a shaft ; 
 Forgotten by the feet, 
 
 They hang down, they swing away from men. 
 The earth, out of which cometh bread. 
 Is torn up underneath, as it were by fire. 
 Her stones are the place of sapphires, 
 And she hath clods of gold for man. 
 The patli thereto no bird Ivuoweth, 
 And the vulture's eye hatli not seen it; 
 The fierce wild beast hath not trodden it; 
 The lion hath not passed over it. 
 Man layeth his hand upon the rock; 
 He upturneth mountains from their roots; 
 He cleavetli out streams in the rocks. 
 And liis eye seetli every precious thing; 
 He bindeth up the streams, that they trickle not, 
 And bringeth hidden things to light." ^ 
 
 The 27th chapter of Ezekiel gives a vivid picture of the 
 immense commerce centring in the city of Tyre. That was 
 a home of ships, and a home of the arts. "All the ships 
 of the sea with their mariners were in thee to traffic in thy 
 merchandise." "Many islands were at hand to thee for 
 trade." "With silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in 
 thy fairs." " They brought thee for payment horns of ivory 
 and ebony- wood." Among the articles besides these ex- 
 changed in that market are mentioned horses and mules and 
 lambs and rams and goats, wine of Helbon and white wool, 
 fine linen and embroidered work and riding cloths and man- 
 tles of blue and chests of damask and thread, wheat and 
 
 1 Dr. Noyes's translation. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 7 
 
 pastry and sirup aud oil and balm, precious spices and cassia 
 and sweet reed, and gold and carbuncles aud corals and rubies.^ 
 These old Phoenicians of Tyre colonized Carthage, and thus 
 bore a vast trade to the west, going by land into the heart of 
 Africa for dates and salt and gold-dust and slaves, and by 
 sea through the pillars of Hercules northward to the British 
 Isles for the sake of the trade in tin. With this agrees a 
 dim tradition of the Celtic Irish that their land was first civ- 
 ilized by Fhenians, and these were without doubt the PhcB- 
 nician traders, who, though they dwelt at Carthage, took their 
 name from then- native shore. They were great miners also 
 both in the East and the West. (Herod, vii. 112.) 
 
 So far as it appears, the Persians were the only Orientals 
 who scorned to buy and sell, — to soil their hands with work 
 to that end, — and the evident surprise of the Greek writers 
 at this as at a strange thing shows that these people were in 
 this respect in strong contrast with their neighbors. With 
 this exception, there is no sign of any sense among the Ori- 
 entals that exchange of goods is otherwise than beneficial, 
 and no sign of anj^ effort to stop or hinder such exchange ; 
 nar, on the other hand, is there any sign that any deep 
 thought was given to the nature of exchanges, or the reason 
 of the benefits they confer. All the men of the east, too, 
 bought and sold slaves, which is wrong even in the eye of 
 traffic, since it denies the native right of those who are slaves 
 to buy and sell, and thus makes good trade less than it would 
 be, and besides tends to bring labor, which lies at the root 
 of trade, into shame. 
 
 2. The Greeks, who had better minds than the Orientals, 
 seem to have been the first to look into the nature of trade, 
 and thus were able to find out some of the germs of our 
 science. Nearly eveiy Greek writer throws some light either 
 upon the facts of their exchanges, or upon their thoughts in 
 
 1 Under the other name of Tj^re, Sara, the Latin poets refer to some of the same 
 things with the prophet : — for example, Plautus, — " purpuram ex Sara attuli ; " and 
 Virgil, — " Ut gemma bibat, et Siirrano dormiat ostro." 
 
8 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 relation to them. Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey gives a 
 full picture of the heroic age ; and while it is almost sure 
 proof that no such thing as money was in common use at 
 that time, that he makes no mention of it, there are still 
 many lines in these poems that show a brisk interchange of 
 otlier products. For instance, these near the end of the 
 seventh book of the Hiad : — 
 
 " But the long-haired Greeks 
 Bought for themselves their wines; some gave their brass, 
 And others shining steel ; some bought with hides, 
 And some with steers, and some with slaves, and thus 
 Prepared an ample banquet." i 
 
 StiU, there are hints in Homer, that, though there was then 
 no money passing from hand to hand, there was then and 
 there a sort of common measure of things exchangeable. 
 Several articles are mentioned in his poems as being worth 
 so many oxen. For example, near the middle of the sixth 
 book of the Iliad, in these lines : — 
 
 " Then did the son of Saturn take away 
 The judging mind of Glaucus, when he gave 
 His arms of gold away for arms of brass 
 Worn by Tydides Diomed, — the worth 
 Of fivescore oxen for the worth of nine." ^ 
 
 Herodotus, the father of History, gives many notices of 
 the coins and commerce of both coasts of the Archipelago, 
 and also leads us to infer that more of time and thought were 
 given to matters of trade by the Greeks than by the Orien- 
 tals, although slaves were a curse to Greece and her colonies 
 as they have always been elsewhere and for the same reasons. 
 Besides this, the vei-y form of the Greek States, in which the 
 affairs of private life were subordinated to those of public 
 life, — the State being everything and the individual only 
 that which the State allowed him to be, — was really hostile 
 to the development of private and associated industry. Be- 
 sides this, various States so organized would naturally be 
 
 > Bryant's tranelation. * Bryant, 307-311. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 9 
 
 and actually were often at war, which is a great foe both to 
 domestic and foreign exchanges. Still, the historian notes 
 many things that interest us as economists ; for example, 
 speaking of the Lydians across the sea to the eastward, and 
 not knowing as we do their indebtedness to the Babylonians, 
 he says (I. 94) , " So far as we have any hnoivledge^ they loere 
 hhe first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, 
 and the first who sold goods by retail." He says also of 
 Pheidon, a famous king of Argos, who flourished about 750 
 B.C., that it was he '•'■who first established weights and 
 measures throughout the Peloponese." His very ignorance of 
 Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, and of the amber coast of 
 the German ocean, conveys to us (IH. 115) a truth, which 
 was then kept well concealed by the shrewd Phoenician 
 traders : — " Nor do I know of any islands ccdled the Cassi- 
 terides [Tin-islands], luhence the tin comes which we use: 
 nevertheless, tin and amber do come to us from the ends of 
 the earth.'' But on the other hand he knew very well indeed 
 (IV. 181-185) about the traffic in salt and dates — mediated 
 also by the Phoenicians — in North-western Africa. 
 - Xenophon, a personal disciple of Socrates, is the first 
 man known to have treated economic subjects at some length 
 in a connected way. Though best known to the world 
 through the Expedition of the younger Cyrus, his name is 
 well worthy of mention in any sketch like this now in hand. 
 As a patriotic and observant Athenian, he wrote two short 
 essays, which clearly show the drift of Greek opinion on this 
 subject about 375 B.C. One of these is a dialogue entitled 
 " The Economist," in which, though he does not give us its 
 limits and divisions, he says that Economy is a science by 
 itself, and goes on to make the legal distinction between 
 otKta, house, and oIko<;, the household estate. As the name 
 of our science is derived from oIko';, estate, and I'o/xo?, law, 
 and as Xenophon first used this compound in a sense not 
 very unlike its present meaning, he may be said to be the 
 author of the name of the science so far as the noun is con- 
 
10 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 cerned. The other tract is entitled "Ways and Means," 
 and its object is to propose methods for increasing the reve- 
 nues of Athens. To this end, among others much less 
 sound, he makes these wise proposals : — that the State offer 
 encouragements to the settlement of aliens, in order to swell 
 the active population and increase the revenue from the 
 aliens' tax ; that merchants and shipmasters of all nations 
 receive special honors in the city, in order to attract more of 
 them thither and thus augment the income from duties on 
 imports and exports ; that prizes be offered the presidents 
 of the courts to expedite the trial of commercial causes ; 
 and that a Council of Peace be instituted, by whose media- 
 tion war might be avoided, and the State, in the enjoyment 
 of durable tranquillity, enter gradually upon measures of 
 national improvement. 
 
 The same book has these just views on money: — "7n 
 most of the other cities, a trader is obliged to take commodi- 
 ties for those he brings, because the money used in them has 
 not much credit outside; with us, on the contrary, the foreign 
 merchant has the advantage of finding a multitude of objects 
 which are everywhere in demayid, and besides, if he does not 
 wish to encumber his vessel ivith merchandise, he takes his 
 pay in ready money, which of all negotiable articles is the 
 safest and most convenient, as it is received in all countries, 
 and besides, it always brings back something to its master, 
 when the latter judges proper to dispose of it." The best 
 sentence in the book, whether one looks at the power of the 
 State either for good or evil, is this : — " One has very long 
 arms, ivhen he has those of an entire people." But slavery 
 taints all that it touches. It tainted the Greek mind through 
 and through with contempt for the arts of common labor. 
 Xenophon also says; — '•'•The manual arts are infamous 
 and unworthy of a citizen. Most of them deform the body. 
 Tliey oblige one to sit down under shelter or near the fire. 
 TJiey leave time neither for the republic nor one's friends." 
 
 Plato was a fellow disciple of Socrates with Xenophon, 
 
HIS TOBY OF THE SCIENCE. 11 
 
 but was more receptive as a pupil and more profound as a 
 thinker than his fellow. He gave however but little atten- 
 tion to matters of exchange, and fully shared in the con- 
 tempt of his time for the laboring classes. But in the 
 "Republic," in which he tries to sketch a perfect state of 
 society, and which is indeed so ideal and Utopian that he 
 himself had little faith that it could be realized in fact, he 
 shows in two places of the dialogue that he knew very well 
 the natural need of trade, and the function of money. " In 
 fact, we are not all born with the same talents, and every one 
 manifests particular inclinations. Things would then go 
 better, if every man confined himself to one trade, because the 
 task is better and more easily accomplished when it is adapted 
 to the tastes of the individual and he is free from every other 
 care." '■^People must be found who ivill take upon themselves 
 the charge of importing and exporting commodities. These 
 are called traders." — " Yes, and besides, if the trade is 
 carried on by sea, another set of people will be needed for 
 navigation purposes." — '•'■But, in the city, how will our 
 citizens distribute the results of their labor?" — '•'■ It is evi- 
 dent that it ivill be by sale and purchase." — " The7i we need 
 a market, too, and a money, symbol of the contract." No 
 one has ever put better than this the doctrine of division of 
 labor, and of the origin of money. Finding such good 
 sense at this point, we are amazed to read at another ; — 
 '■'•Nature made neither shoemakers nor blacksmiths; such 
 occupations degrade the people who engage in them, base mer- 
 cenaries, who are excluded by their very condition from polit- 
 ical rights. As to tradesmen, accustomed to lie and deceive, 
 they will be suffered in the city only as a necessary evil." 
 
 Plato dreams of a certain kind of equality for the mem- 
 bers of the leading class of his ideal State, and proposes 
 for them a property and even wives in common : — " / pi-o- 
 pose that the wives of our warriors be common to all; that no 
 one of them live solely with any particular one; that the 
 children be common, and that the latter should not know theit 
 
12 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 parents, nor the parents their children." No wonder that a 
 surmise that some of these things were contrary to truth 
 and nature took hold of their author: — " We cannot., how- 
 ever, hope to realize the plan of this perfect republic. As 
 skilful painters delineate in bold outlines models of an ideal 
 beauty, impossible to find in individuals, so we 07ily attempt 
 to present a finished type." 
 
 When we come to Aristotle, we strike the richest vein of 
 ore in the whole Greek field. He has sometimes been called 
 the father of Political Economy. He is certainly the father, 
 if not of the science, of this name of the science, which, 
 however, he did not intend should be the name of the sci- 
 ence at all. It is one of the queer things, that, while 
 Aristotle in due form called the science Chrematistics, the 
 Science of Prop)erty, which is a good name for it, another 
 name, which is not in itself a good one, which he used 
 incidentally in a classification in a quite other than the pres- 
 ent sense, has come in the course of time to be fixed to the 
 science as by his authority. The good name he gave to it is 
 thrown off: the poor one he never thought of as such 
 is clung to. In the second book of his "Economics" he 
 divides economy into four kinds, the regal, the satrapical, 
 the 2^olitical, and the domestic. By the first he means the 
 central, by the second the provincial, administration of a 
 great empire like that of Persia ; by the third, the adminis- 
 tration prevailing w free States; and by the fourth, what 
 we also mean by domestic economy. By some means this 
 third term became attached to our science as its name, and 
 bas done it harm, because the adjective conveys the idea 
 that the science has much to do with Politics proper. 
 
 Indeed, Aristotle's contributions to the science are found 
 quite as much in his "Politics" and "Ethics" as in his 
 "Economics." In all three of these treatises of this tran- 
 scendent thinker are to be found acute definitions, shrewd 
 remarks, and some information as to facts, relating to the 
 proper science of exchanges. This, for example, is a per- 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 13 
 
 feet definitJon of property: — '■'•But by property we mean 
 every thing., ofwMcJi the value is measured by money." (Eth- 
 ics, rV. i.) The proper boundarj^ line between economy 
 and morals is drawn as follows: — " JVhcnever there "'s no 
 agreement made about the service performed., those who con- 
 fer a favor freely for the sake of the ])ersons on lohom they 
 confer it, cannot complain ; for the value of it is not meas- 
 ured by money, and no equivalent price can be paid." 
 (Ethics, IX. i.) The same chapter accurately describes the 
 ultimate phenomenon of value as between the two persons 
 exchanging: — '■'•For each fixes his mind on that which he 
 happens to want, and for the sake of that will give what he 
 does give." Aristotle understood, as well as any one under- 
 stands at present, the function of money as a measure : — 
 " Money, therefore, as a measure, by making things commen- 
 surable, equalizes them; for there coidd be no commerce with- 
 out exchange, no exchange without equality, and no equality 
 without the possibility of being commensurate." (Ethics, 
 V. V.) 
 
 Although Aristotle was a pupil of Plato, his philosophy 
 was quite distinct from his master's. In direct opposition 
 to Plato's proposed community of goods, he insists strongly 
 on the rights and benefits of private property. (Pol. II. v.) 
 He goes a long way beyond Plato, in including the personal 
 services of judges and senators, for example, among valuable 
 things. (Pol. rV. iv.) He explains very well the coming in 
 of money : — " People agreed to give and receive in trade a 
 useful material of easy circulation. They adopted for this 
 use iro7i, silver, and other metals. This first symbol of eX' 
 change was valued at the beginning oidy according to its vol- 
 ume and weight; afterwards it ivas stamped with a mark 
 ivhich denoted the value, in order to dispense with any other 
 verification." (Pol. I. vi.) Then follows a just definition 
 of money as " an intermediary commodity designed to facili- 
 tate an exchange of two other commodities ; " and a just cor- 
 ollary from that, namely, that money is a mere means, and 
 
14 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 not an end in itself. (Pol. I. ix.) He estimates agriculture 
 highly, as the ground of all other arts, and as most favor- 
 able to health and morals and good government. (Econ. 
 I. ii.) 
 
 But much dross comes out with this good gold. He who 
 saj^s, " Tlie best nation is a nation of farmers^' (Pol. VI. 
 iv.), says also, '■'■ Neither should they who are destined for 
 office be husbandmen." (Pol. VII. ix.) He defends out- 
 right the slavery of the inferior members of the human race : 
 — " These individuals are destined by nature to slavery., be- 
 cause there is nothing better for them than to obey." (Pol. 
 III. i.) " It is clear, then, that soyne men are free by nature, 
 and others are slaves, and that in the case of the latter the lot 
 of slavery is both advantageous and just." (Pol. I. v.) Of 
 course, to a man who thought slavery right, and who lived 
 in the midst of it, all kinds of manual labor would seem 
 mean : — " And indeed the best regidated States vnll not per- 
 mit a mechanic to be a citizen; for it is impossible for one 
 who lives the life of a mechanic or hired servant to practise a 
 life of virtue." (Pol. HI. v.) Such views as these are quite 
 incompatible with any sound and complete science of econ- 
 omy, and are the reason why the man who held them, with 
 all his rare skill in these things, and who came so near found- 
 ing a school in this science for all time, yet failed to put his 
 name at the head as founder and father. 
 
 Once in a while Aristotle makes a false inference from a 
 sound principle, as when he infers from the truth that money 
 is a means to .an end, that interest on money should not be 
 paid for its use, overlooking the fact that money is a foyra 
 of value as well as a means of distributing other forms of 
 value: — '•'■For usury is most reasonably detested, as the 
 increase of our fortune arises from the money itself, and not 
 by employing it for the purpose for which it was intended." 
 (Pol. I. X.) He had watched well the spirit of monopoly, 
 which has often attended exchanges, and always will attend 
 them unless the vigilance of the people insists on the freest 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 15 
 
 possible competition : — " ^ Sicilian had a sum of money in 
 store. He bought with it all the iron there was at the forges. 
 Soon merchants arrived from different countries^ and found 
 iron only with him. He had not raised the price too high; 
 however he doubled his investment^ ivhich zvas fifty talents.' ' 
 The keen eye of this Greek saw clearly the vital distinction 
 which we now make between Utility and Value, and which 
 Adam Smith drew less sharply between "value in use and 
 value in exchange:" — '■'■ Every article of property has tico 
 uses, both inherent in the article. One is the natural use, 
 the other the artificial use. Thus the natural use of covering 
 for the feet is for aid in walking ; its industrial use is to be 
 an object of exchange." (Pol. I. vi.) 
 
 It is not quite certain whether Aristotle included in his 
 term for property — XPW^'^^ — from which term he coins his 
 name of the science — chrematistics — all three of the classes 
 of valuable things, namely, material commodities, personal 
 services, and credit-claims. He certainly includes the first 
 two, and there are some good reasons for thinking that his 
 mind took into the term the third also. First, he defines 
 property as " every thing, of which the value is measured h\ 
 money," which implies that value only appears through ex- 
 changes, since the only way in which any of these thing,-/ 
 can be truly " measured by money " is by being exchange*', 
 against money ; and his objection to usury seems to imply 
 that notes of hand, or credit-claims of some sort, were then 
 in common use ; and it is certain that the Greeks borrowed 
 money freely at all rates of interest, and they could hardly 
 have done that without the current use of some form of credit. 
 Second, the later law-usage of the Greeks expressly includes 
 credit-claims in the term xPVF-"-'^°^ > ^i^cl a dialogue a little 
 later than the time of Aristotle, called " Eryxias," includes 
 under that term even more distinctly than he does, '■'■those 
 persons luho teach music or grammar or some other science, 
 who in return for this obtain ivhat is necessary for them as a 
 remuneration for this instruction." Thus the Greeks, and 
 
16 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 specially AristoUe, made a good beginning in onr science, 
 and there they stopped short. 
 
 But the Greek States showed practical good sense in their 
 laws of property. They fell into no such follies as marked 
 sometimes the public action of Rome, and of many modern 
 States. A law ascribed to Solon made free at Athens the 
 rate of interest on money loaned, and there is no evidence 
 that any restriction was afterwards imposed either there or in 
 any other Greek State. Grote says, " /i 7nay be asserted 
 with confidence that a loan of money at Athens was quite as 
 secure as it ever was at any tiine or place of the ancient world." 
 The natural march of industry and commerce was not hin- 
 dered ; there was no forbidding the export of raw materials 
 or of specie ; no favoi'ing of manufactures at the expense of 
 agriculture ; no effoi-ts to preserve an artificial balance of 
 trade ; and no duties on imports except for purposes of rev- 
 enue. These at Athens itself were usually 2% of the value 
 of the goods, at the ports of her subject-allies 5%, and 
 exceptional cases of higher rates than these were regarded 
 as extortionate.-^ 
 
 3. The Romans were a practical people, fond of law and 
 order, and naturally addicted to trade. Mommsen thinks, 
 (I. iv.) that the city of Rome itself had its origin, or at 
 least its early growth, in the natural traffic that followed the 
 course of the Anio and the Tiber. " Increase of substance 
 and of prosperity by husbandry and the rearing of flocks and 
 herds, by seafaring and commerce — this was what the Ro- 
 man desired from his gods; and it very zvell accords tuith this 
 view, that the god of good faith (deus fidius), the goddess of 
 chance and good luck (fors f ortuna) , and the god of traffic 
 (mercurius) , originating out of their daily dealings, appear 
 very early as adored far and near by the Romans. Strict 
 frugality and mercantile speculation were rooted in the Ro- 
 
 1 See Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens, passim ; Heeren's Ancient Greece, 
 chap. X.; Grote'a Greece, v^l. 3, shap. xi.; Macleod's Econ. Phil. vol. 1, pp. 47, 135; 
 and Blanqui's Hist, Pol. Econ. chap. iii. 
 
HISTOBT OF THE SCIENCE. 17 
 
 man character too deeply not to find their thorough reflection 
 in its divine counterjja.rt ." (I. xii.) But unfortunately, the 
 Romans worshipped Mars even more devoutly than they 
 worshipped Mercury ; and the almost constant recurrence of 
 wars, down to the time of the empire, interfered sadly with 
 the natural growth of trade and commerce. Besides this, 
 the form of slavery among the Romans was far worse than 
 that in vogue among the Greeks, or any of the modern na- 
 tions, — " it is very possible that, compared with the suffer- 
 ing of the Roman slaves, the sum of all Negro suffering is 
 but a drop," — and the more servile and hopeless the com- 
 mon laborer, the worse the name and fame of all labor. 
 
 The courtly Cicero apologizes in a letter to his friend for 
 his sorrow over the death of his favorite slave ; and in sev- 
 eral passages of the " De Offlciis " he follows his Greek 
 teachers, Plato and Aristotle, and declaims in a pitiful way 
 against the noble rights of labor. ' ' All artisans are en- 
 gaged in a degrading profession." Again, "there can be 
 nothing ingenuous in a workshop." When trade and com- 
 merce are carried on on a small scale, "they are to be 
 regarded as disgraceful;" when on a large scale, "they 
 must not be greatly condemned — non admodum vituper- 
 andal " (I. 42.) When social prejudices and views of labor 
 like these are held by the foremost man of his time, the best 
 educated and the most liberal, there is no longer room for 
 surprise at the comparative lack of Roman contributions to 
 our science. 
 
 Then the form which the love of gain took on at Rome 
 was a great bar to much study into the real nature of gains. 
 Instead of the usual voluntary union of capital and labor 
 for the mutual benefit of each, the laborer was owned by the 
 capitalisl, and the true relations between the two were dis- 
 guised and distorted. Business in all its branches came to 
 be carried on by means of slaves ; the lands were tilled by 
 slaves ; slaves became the artisans of the country ; the 
 money-lenders and the bankers of the centre scattered 
 
18 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 branch-baaks iu the towns under the direction of tneir 
 slaves and freedmen ; the company that leased on specula- 
 tion the customs-duties from the State had their slaves and 
 freedmen levy these duties at each custom-house ; the con- 
 tractor for buildings bought architect-slaves ; and the mer- 
 chant imported his goods in ships of his own manned by his 
 slaves or freedmen, and then sold the same at wholesale or 
 retail by the same means. In this way a gigantic system of 
 unnatural traffic was built up and extended. ' ' Roman mer- 
 cantile transactions fully kept pace with the contemporary 
 development of political power, and were no less grand of 
 their kind." " The Roman denarius followed up closely the 
 Roman legions." (Mom, III. 12.) Thus great estates 
 were acquired in certain families. A Greek writer observes 
 of the 3'ounger Scipio Africanus, that he was not rich " for 
 a Roman ; " and Lucius PauUus, though he had an estate of 
 $70,000, was not reckoned among the rich senators ; and 
 each of the daughters of Scipio Africanus the elder received 
 from him as a marriage portion $ GO, 000. 
 
 This spirit of speculation that came to pervade all the 
 forms of Roman life, the mode of doing business by means 
 of contracts adopted by the State and extended by private 
 persons to almost all their affairs, the power of capital apt 
 to be unscrupulous which put slaves and cattle upon the 
 same level, the absorption of the larger part of Roman 
 riches by the few great families, and the source of the 
 most of these riches as from conquests and from tributes 
 and often from official extortion in the provinces, excited the 
 strong hostility of the Roman moralists, and thus put up 
 another bar to economical inquiry. Cato the elder, a leader 
 of these moralists and of a reform party in Rome, while he 
 believed in and practised a diligent money-getting by means 
 he deemed lawful, and wrote to his son, — " a widoto's es- 
 tate may diminish, but a man must increase his substance^ 
 and he is worthy of praise and full of a divine spirit, whose 
 account-books shoiv at his death that he has gained more than 
 
HIS TOBY OF THE SCIENCE 19 
 
 he has inherited; " wrote also iu his book on agriculture, — 
 ^'■lending money at interest has many advantages, but it is 
 not honorable. Our forefathers accordingly ordained and in- 
 scribed it in their laws, that the thief should be bound to j^ccy 
 twofold, but the man loho takes interest fourfold, compensa- 
 tion; whence we may infer how much worse a citizen they 
 deemed the usurer than the thief." " When our forefathers 
 pronounced the eulogy of a luorthy man, they praised him as 
 a worthy farmer and a worthy landlord; one who was thus 
 commended was thought to have received the highest praise. 
 The merchant I deem energetic and diligent in the pursuit of 
 gain; but his calling is too much exposed to perils and mis- 
 chances. On the other hand, farmers furnish the bravest men 
 and the ablest soldiers ; no calling is so honorable, safe, and 
 inoffensive as theirs, and those who occupy themselves with it 
 are least liable to evil thoughts." 
 
 Again, the policy of the Roman Government in respect to 
 the prices of grain became fatal to the small farmers of Italy. 
 From an early time, the State, as was perhaps reasonable 
 under the circumstances, had kept a watchful eye on the 
 prices of the food-grains, and, whenever it looked like a 
 dearth at home, had made well-timed purchases of grain 
 abroad for the army and the people also ; but later, after 
 the conquest of Sicily and of other fertile countries growing 
 grain, the tribute-deliveries of these States subject to Rome, 
 and the chance to buy at cheap rates a vast mass of grain 
 from over sea, tempted the State to glut the markets of the 
 city with such grain at such prices as proved the ruin of 
 the home grain-growers. The small Italian farmer could not 
 raise grain for such prices, and therefore lost his market ; iu 
 vain did Cato scold at this great wrong ; by and by grain 
 was doled out as a gift to the hungry citizens at the expense 
 of the State treasury ; and the capitalists, no longer able 
 to loan money to the small farmers because these could not 
 repay them, began to buy up the small holdings and to merge 
 them into larger ones managed now by freedmen and slaves. 
 
20 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Thus free labor passed off from the soil, and Pliny writes its 
 epitaph in three memorable words, — '■'■latifundia perdidere 
 Italiam,'' — broad farms proved the ruin of Italy. It is 
 plain, that a sound science of buying and selling could hardly 
 be found amid such views of labor, such methods of gain, 
 such moral notions, and such interferences with prices on 
 the part of the State, as prevailed at Rome. 
 
 Strange to say, it is in the Roman Law that we find, 
 nevertheless, some admirable definitions, some acute distinc- 
 tions, and even some theoretical discussions, relating to our 
 science. For example, one would have to try hard before he 
 could improve the beauty or the brevity of Ulpian's defini- 
 tion of property : " Ea enim res est quce emi et vendi potest. 
 For that is property which may he bought and sold. (Fr. 17 
 D. XVIII. 4.) Ulpian was a Roman jurist, assassinated by 
 an imperial order in 228 A.D. ; and when the Code of 
 Justinian was formed about 300 years later, many extracts 
 from his writings found their way into the Digest. Ulpian 
 also says, — " Nomina eorum qui sub conditione vel in diem, 
 debent et emere et vendere solemus.^' We are accustomed 
 to buy and sell debts jyayable on a certain day and at a certain 
 event. (Fr. 17 D. XVIII. 4.) As examples of sharp dis- 
 tinction in matters economical, let us take these from the 
 Digest : — " Omnium Q'erum, quas quis habere, vel possidere, 
 vel persequi potest, venditio recte Jit." A sale is lauful of any 
 thing which a man has, or has the use of, or has the right 
 TO SUE FOR. (Fr. 34 § 1 D. XVIII. 1.) " Pecuniae nomine 
 non solum numerata pecunia, sed omnes res, tarn soli quam 
 mobiles et tarn corpora quam jura continentur." Under the 
 name of Property, not only ready money, but things both mov- 
 able and immovable, both corporeal things and Rights, are 
 included. (Fr. 222 D. L. 16.) 
 
 As examples of what may be called economic discussion, 
 let us note two passages in the Institutes of Justinian. 
 " Some valuable things are corporecd and others incorp)oreal. 
 Tilings corporeal are those, which by their nature can be 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 21 
 
 touched, such as land, a slave, clothes, gold, silxier, cmcZ othei 
 things innumerable. Tilings incorporeal are those which can 
 not be touched, such as those which consist in mere rights, as 
 an inheritance, a usufruct, uses, and all obligations however 
 contracted. Nor is it any objection that corporeal things are 
 contained in an inheritance ; for fruits also which are gath- 
 ered from land ore corporeal; and that which is due on an 
 obligation is usually corporeal, as land, a slave, money ; but 
 the right of inheritance, and the right of using and enjoying, 
 and the right of the obligation are incorporeal." (Pr. §§ 1& 
 2, J. 11. 2.) 
 
 " Likewise value ought to dwell in money ; for it used to be 
 earnestly discussed, whether value can be in other things, — 
 for example, whether a slave or a piece of land or a garment 
 can be the value of another thing. Sabinus and Cassius 
 think, value can dwell in another thing [than money'] too; 
 whence is that which was commonly said, buying and selling 
 is carried on in the exchange of goods, and tJiat view of pur- 
 chase and sale is very old; and they used for proof the poet 
 Homer, who somewhere says, that the army of the Grecians 
 procured wine in exchange for certain things. Writers of a 
 different school took the opposite view and thought, exchange 
 of commodities loas one thing, but buying and selling another 
 thing: furthermore, they thought, the matter could not be 
 explained in the case of exchanging commodities, which thing 
 seems to have been sold as property and which given as the 
 price; for reason does not allow tliat both things appear to 
 have been sold and given as the price. But the opinion of 
 Procullus has deservedly prevailed, who says, exchange is a 
 particular kind of transaction different from, selling; since 
 this is both supported by other verses of Homer, and is proven 
 by stronger reasons ; and this, both former illustrious persons 
 have given a place to, and it is shoion more at length in our 
 Digest." (§ 2, J. de empt. et vend. III. 23 (24). The 
 place in the Digest referred to is D. XVIII. 1.) ^ 
 
 » Mr. Macleod was tbe first modern economist to bring out the interesting aspects 
 
22 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 lu the matter of common sales, aucl in the matter of tax- 
 ation, the Romans showed for the most part a good common 
 sense, that is, a desire to be fair and just. The law held 
 all sales to be valid, in which a tangible thing had been 
 rendered and received, even though they were concluded 
 without any legal forms, while the promise of a gift made 
 without due form was null both in law and fact. On the 
 other hand, the sale of personal services was much restricted 
 among the Romans as compared with modern peoples both 
 by the prevalence of slavery and also by the odd relations 
 between Clients and Patrons, Also, sales of credits, the 
 only remaining class of things salable, did not reach very 
 large proportions among the Romans ; because, first, there 
 was no credit on land secuiity, but instead of a debt on 
 mortgage the land was passed over at once to the creditor 
 as if he were actual owner, who thereupon gave his word 
 of honor (ftducia) that he would not sell the land until 
 the debt fell due, and would at once give it back when 
 the debt were paid ; and because, second, personal credits, 
 except in one case, gave no right of action at law, although 
 the poor debtor who could not pay fell summarily into the 
 power of the -creditor, who could treat him as a slave or 
 worse. " The law could not have more clearly expressed its 
 design, which was to establish at once an independent agri- 
 culture free of debt and a mercantile credit, and to sup- 
 press with stringent energy all merely nominal ownership 
 and all breaches of fidelity." The principle of insurance 
 was unknown ,at Rome ; but something very much liive it, 
 namel}^ the nautical loan, or as we call it " bottomry," was 
 much used. Even Cato, who hated interest, did not scruple 
 to lend money with others on ships pledged for its repay- 
 ment with premium in case of a successful voyage ; if the 
 ship were lost, the lender lost his money. 
 
 of the Roman Law towards our Science. This last extract from the Institutes was 
 called to my attention by Mr. Melville Egleston, and was translated for me by Mr. 
 F. W. Fiske, — both recent graduates of this college. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 23 
 
 In general, a sale on credit neither gave nor took away 
 the right of propertj^, and so furnished no ground of legal 
 action ; but in one class of cases it did, namely, in that of 
 the loan {iiexum) of ready money. This exception in law 
 shows clearty, what is shown, too, in the passage from the 
 Institutes but just now quoted, that the Romans looked 
 upon money as something quite different from other forms 
 of salable things ; and, in the teeth of the sound view of 
 Aristotle, who said that money is a mecms only, deemed it 
 in a sense an end in itself, — something to be gained and 
 not readily to be parted with. If this were the right view 
 of money, then the policy to spring from it might well be, — 
 Get all the money possible into the country and let as little 
 as possible out ! Just this came to be the policy of the 
 Romans. In one of his orations Cicero says, " The Senate 
 solemnly decreed both many times previously , and again when 
 I was cons'ul, that gold and silver ought not to be exported." 
 This view of money and of what is to be doue about it may 
 be said to be the first Theory of Sales. Let us call it the 
 Bullion Theory. The Romans brought it forth, and other 
 ' nations took it from them. It is plausible only. Because 
 all men seemed eager to get money, and because when the 
 worth of any thing were asked for the answer always came 
 — so many denaries or sesterces — these people thought 
 that money is idtimate and not mediate. 
 
 Finally, in taxation the Romans were sensible and moder- 
 ate. They laid taxes for the sake of getting money for the 
 public treasur}', and had no other end in view. They knew 
 nothing of what has since become famous under the name 
 of "Protection." Their taxes were both direct and in- 
 direct, but especially the latter. The chief direct tax was 
 the land-tax, that is, a claim to the tenth pai't of the sheaves 
 and of other field produce, such as grapes and olives ; and 
 also pasture-money {scriptura) demanded of those who 
 made use of the public pastures and woods. In Macedonia, 
 and the other larger provinces, in lieu of the land-tax a 
 
24 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 fixed sum of money (tributum) was paid to Rome each year 
 by each community in its own way. The grain-tenths and 
 pasture-moneys were always farmed out to private contract- 
 ors or companies on condition of their paying fixed quan- 
 tities of grain or fixed sums of money. The chief indii'ect 
 tax was customs-duties. There never was at any time a 
 general tariff for the whole empire, but there were customs- 
 districts, such as Italy, Sicily, proconsular Asia, the prov- 
 ince of Narbo in Gaul, and others, each with a sort of tariff 
 of its own, and some with special immunities. Goods 
 imported by sea into Italy, for example, not for the per- 
 sonal use of the importer, were subject to a tax, which 
 seems to have been mainly a tax on luxuries, since pepper, 
 cinnamon, myrrh, ginger, perfumes, ivory and diamonds, 
 are among the dutiable goods mentioned in one of these 
 tariffs. Sicily had a tariff-tax quite distinct from this, since 
 one-twentieth of the value of the goods (5%) was levied on 
 the frontier on all imports and exports ; and a similar tax of 
 one-fortieth was laid by the Sempronian law on the province 
 of Asia. These imposts, too, were leased to contractors, 
 which gave, of course, some chance to fraud and wrong. 
 There were other temporary taxes, like those, for instance, 
 which Augustus laid of 5% on legacies and inheritances, 
 and of 1 % on articles publicly exposed for sale.-^ 
 
 4. Between the years 330 and 1453, that is to say, from 
 the founding of Constantinople till its capture bj^ the Turks, 
 lies the Middle Age. The main fact in this long stretch 
 of time was the conversion of Western Europe to the faith of 
 Christ. The new faith was in all ways favorable to trade. 
 In the first place, little by little it took the life out of Slavery. 
 It came to the slave, and said, Thou art the Lord's freeman ; 
 it came to the master, and said. Thou art the Lord's servant ; 
 and it came to both alike, and said. Ye are brethren. As a 
 
 1 Mommsen's Rom. Hist, passim, and especially IV. ii. ; Blanqui, Hist. Po.. 
 Econ. chap. vii. ; and articles " Vectigalia " and " Portorium " in Diet, of Antiq- 
 nities 
 
BISTORT OF THE SCIENCE. 25 
 
 rule, the christian church has always and everywhere been 
 a foe to human bondage ; and we will look a moment to 
 England as a type in this of all the other lands. As early 
 as the 7th century, Archbishop Theodore denied christian 
 burial to the kidnapper, and forbade the sale of children by 
 their parents after the age of seven ; a little later, Bishop 
 Egbert of York excommunicated the seller of child or kins- 
 folk ; the killing of a slave by lord or mistress, though no 
 crime m the eye of the law, became a sin for which penance 
 was due to the church ; in the 10th century, King Athelstane 
 gave the slaves a new rank in the realm by making them 
 mutually responsible in cases of crime, just as this rule had 
 long been the basis of order among the freemen ; the church 
 also led the way in the work of directly freeing the slaves, 
 the bishops and other clergy setting the good example ; says 
 Macaulay, '■'■ token the dying slaveholder asked for the last 
 sac7'anients, his spiritual attendants regularly adjured him, as 
 he loved his soul, to emancijmte his brethren for whom Christ 
 had died; " often slaves were set free before the altar or in 
 tlie church-porch, and the solitary church-Bible bore the 
 record of the fact on its margins ; and before the close of 
 the 11th century. Archbishop Lanfranc had put an end to 
 the slave-trade in its last hold, the port of Bristol. When 
 slavery dies out anywhere, trade gains new life then and 
 there, because there are now more persons, more molivoH, 
 and more resources, to trade. Just at the time when the old 
 white slave-trade ceased in England, we read that " the realm 
 increased in riches and prosioerity . Its gold work and em- 
 broidery were famous in the markets of Flanders and France.'^ 
 On the other hand, Feudalism, which is only less hostile than 
 slavery to a free and varied industry, took the place of that 
 in many parts of Europe, and retarded for a long while the 
 growth of a wholesome trade. 
 
 In the second place, Christianity makes men sensible of 
 new wants, puts them under new and strong impulses, en- 
 larges their foresight, and develops in them new grounds 
 
26 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of mutual trust. All of these things help on buying and 
 selling, and the felt benefits from the exchanges already 
 made tend constantly to increase the buying and selling of 
 the future. It has been seen in every age since the Lord 
 came, that His truth leads men on to trade more and mete. 
 Dr. Chi-istlieb, of Bonn, in a survey of modern missions 
 made in the year 1880, uses these words, — " ^Y has been calcu- 
 lated that every missionary in the South Seas creates on an 
 average a trade of $50,000 a year." Still it is true that 
 the form which the christian religion took on in the Middle 
 Age held back these forces more or less from their ti'ue 
 working. Men became monks from the false idea that the 
 touch of the world taints the soul. Religious houses were 
 founded in spots remote from the haunts of men ; and while 
 the brethren often drained the marshes, and made many a 
 waste acre as fertile as a garden, still the notion lay in their 
 minds that somehow it was wrong to buy and sell and get 
 gain. The schools, which were under the control of the 
 clergy, favored this notion, and filled the minds of their 
 pupils with religious subtleties and scholastic distinctions 
 rather than with a solid knowledge of the world as it is. 
 Without doubt also the common christian hatred of the Jews, 
 who were the briskest traders and principal money-lenders 
 of the Middle Age, deepened this prejudice. 
 
 At the same time the Jews were showing to the world 
 what wonders can be wrought by capitcd. In spite of the 
 endless disabilities put upon them by law and public opinion 
 in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and even England, tho 
 industry and frugality of these strange people piled up at 
 intervals large sums of money. They were by turns shunned 
 and courted, robbed and protected, forbidden and then en- 
 couraged to trade, often banished and then recalled, always 
 hated and yet always leaned on, sometimes murdered without 
 mercy and again armed with safe- conducts for travel and 
 trade. Magna Charta forbids in 1215 the payment of inter- 
 est on debts due the Jews in behalf of any minor while his 
 
EISTOEY OF THE SCIENCE. 27 
 
 lands are in wardship. St. Louis of France (a mere 
 instance) released by. law their debtors from all payment.' 
 shut up his courts to their claims, and even foibade their 
 making any contracts ; and again in 1254 decreed that " the 
 Jews must cease usuries, blasphemies and sorcery, and live 
 henceforth by the labor of their hands and other tasks with- 
 out loaning money." Edward I. of England in 1290 bade 
 them forego usury on pain of death, and shortly after 
 expelled them the realm. In spite of all, the Jews continued 
 to be bankers, bullion-dealers and money-lenders to the Gen- 
 tiles ; and their loans, though at a high rate of interest, gave 
 a sharp spur to industrial energy and to the building of castles 
 and cathedrals. If they had had a decent freedom and secur- 
 ity, they would have loaned vaster sums at lower rates and 
 so transformed the face of the nations. 
 
 Then, too, the confusions consequent on the breaking up 
 of the Roman Emph-e, and on the migration of the modern 
 nations into the seats of the ancient civilization, broke in two 
 the lines of the older commerce and put off for a long time 
 the knitting of strong new ones. The lands of Western 
 Europe changed hands. Northmen threw themselves into 
 England and into the best parts of France. Through the 
 Moors, the East poured itself into the West, and Bagdad 
 was joined in faith and works with Cordova, which at length 
 even eclipsed it in population and splendor. Although the 
 Moors brought into Europe much learning and much trade, 
 iieir defeat at Tours in 732 and theh^ final expulsion from 
 Granada in 1492 checked the growth of both of these, and 
 left it for the new towns founded by men of German stock 
 to furnish for both a lasting home. 
 
 It is to these towns made free one by one from the sen'i- 
 tudes of Feudalism that we are to look for the beginnings of 
 the modern forms of industry and commerce. Exempted in 
 one way or another from the random taxes of the times, and 
 receiving upon one ground or another the rights of self-gov- 
 ernment by a town-council, and of self-defence b}' town- 
 
28 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 walls and a town-militia, these places soon became the seala 
 of a busy traffic ; and in turn and in time spurred on a better 
 agriculture all around them because the tillers of the soil 
 soon wished to buy with their produce the products of the 
 towns ; while these sought and found a widening sale of 
 their own products in distant markets so as to buy therewilli 
 the products of the world. So London thrived after the gift 
 of its first charter by William the Conqueror, and especially 
 after the charter of rights granted by Henry I., which be- 
 came a model for many lesser towns. So Oxford thrived 
 after its older customs and exemptions had been confirmed 
 to the townsmen by Henry II., " as ever they enjoyed them 
 in the time of Henry my grandfather, and in like manner as 
 my citizens of London hold them." In the next century 
 Magna Charta holds these words ; — " Let the city of London 
 have all its old liberties and free customs as well by land as 
 by water. Besides this we will and grant that all other cities 
 and boroughs and towns and jJorts have cdl their liberties and 
 free customs." The same instrument secured liberty of jour- 
 ney and trade to foreign merchants, and a uniform system of 
 weights and measures throughout the realm. The old frith- 
 gilds in each of the English towns had early united in one 
 body called the Merchant-Gild, and this body of organized 
 citizens both governed the town as such and controlled all 
 its internal trade ; and the principal street of old London 
 still tells in its name of "Cheap-side," or the bargaining- 
 place, of the early prominence in that town of its buyers and 
 sellers. The principal exports of England in this period 
 were tin and wool ; the towns in Flanders across the Chan- 
 nel spun and wove and dyed earlier and better than England 
 did ; the weavers of Bruges were celebrated even in Charle- 
 magne's time, and in 1430 Philip the Good instituted there 
 the order of the Golden Fleece, which still exists both in 
 Spain and Austria, in token of the riches and honor brought 
 in through wool ; the looms of Ghent and Li6ge were equally 
 rich in linens ; so that for a long time England sold her raw 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 29 
 
 wool to Flanders to take back fine cloths and other things 
 in pay. From his Parliament of 1275, Edward I. obtained 
 the grant of 6s 8d on each sack of wool exported, which was 
 the very beginning of a legal cnstoms-reveuno in England. 
 
 The famous Hanse towns, so-called from an old Teutonic 
 word hansa, a league, formed a bond of union for the de- 
 fence and extension of commerce, and did a vast deal 
 toward those ends, during the two hundred years preceding _ 
 the fall of Constantinople. Hamburg had been founded by 
 Charlemagne in the 9th century, and Liibeck was founded 
 in the 12th, and these two first, and afterward other 
 German towns near the Baltic and Northern seas, and later 
 towns along the Rhine and elsewhere, constituted the League. 
 By it piracy was suppressed in the northern waters, civiliza- 
 tion and the arts were established along their shores amid the 
 wild Slavonic settlers, and commodities of every name were 
 made, grown or distributed by means of the marts of these 
 towns, which numbered at last about 70 in all, and were 
 divided into 4 circles, of which Liibeck stood at the head 
 of the first, Cologne of the second, Brunswick of the third, 
 and Dantzic of the fourth. Partly in return for loans of 
 money, since trade always gives birth to gains, and partly 
 by hook and by crook, these Hanse towns obtained from the 
 kings of the North special privileges in navigation and ex- 
 change, which they afterwards kept b}^ force of arms. lu 
 order to make wider and easier their commercial transactions 
 the League had Factories so-called, that is, depots for the 
 sale of goods, in widely distant lands, such as those in 
 Novgorod in Russia, London in England, Bruges in Flan- 
 ders, and Bergen in Norway. Along this first open route to 
 Russia passed the goods in demand there to bring back then 
 as now the skins, hides, grain, hemp, tar, and timber of 
 those vast regions. Perfect freedom of exchange reigned 
 between all these towns, and between them and their distant 
 depots. Their money had long been of rare purity and of 
 right weight, whence comes a famous word in our modern 
 
30 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 wojld. "In the time of King Richard the First, monie 
 coined in the east parts of Germanie began to be of espeeiall 
 request in England for the puritie thereof, and was called 
 Easterlivg monie, as all the inhabitants of those parts were 
 called Easterlivgs, and shortly after some of that countrie, 
 skillfull in mint matters and allais were sent for into this 
 realme to bring the coine to perfection ; which since that 
 time was called of them sterling for Easterling." {Camden.) 
 The Hanseatic League decayed at last, partly on account of 
 internal jealousies between the members, partly on account 
 of an external jealousy of their special privileges, partly also 
 on account of the English discovery of the sea route to Arch- 
 angel which took away their Russian trade, but mainly after 
 all on account of the successful accomplishment of all the 
 work they had had in hand. 
 
 The towns of Italy, even after their conquest b}^ the men 
 of German stock, kept the forms, or at least the traditions, 
 of the old Roman municipal law, and therefore came earlier 
 than Teutonic towns elsewhere into prominence in all the 
 arts of trade. Pisa and Genoa, for example, grew great in 
 commerce even before the Crusades had thrown into their 
 bosom a good part of the riches of the West in payment 
 for transportation and provisions, and had gained them also, 
 as a reward for direct help in the wars of the time, much 
 dominion in the Levant. The leaders of the Crusades liked 
 to enroll in their ranks artificers of all kinds ; and these 
 clear-eyed men watched to some purpose the arts of th^ 
 Saracens and Greeks, and brought back from the East tc 
 the cities of Italy and to the West generally the germs of 
 industries a thousandfold more valuable than all the riches 
 spent on those memorable expeditions. For instance, at 
 Damascus they learned how to work figures on cloth and 
 steel, as the terms damask and Damascus blades well prove ; 
 at T^T-'e they caught the art of making those fine glass 
 fabrics, which enriched Venice throughout the Middle Age ; 
 at Tripoli they saw for the first time the sugar-cane, which 
 
niSTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 31 
 
 they transplanted to Sicily ; even our common maize, still 
 called in Germany Turkish corn, was then first brought west- 
 ward ; and more than all, the breeding of silk-worms and the 
 making of silk, arts which had been solely Chinese till about 
 550, and were then carried to Constantinople, and thence 
 later to Greece, and in 1147 to Sicily, were borne by the 
 Crusaders to the Italian towns. Lucca passed over the silk 
 culture to Venice in 1310 ; and that town, which had been 
 founded in 452 on low islands as a refuge from the terrible 
 Huns, became in the 14th and 15th centuries the chief manu- 
 facturing and commercial city in Christendom. Its own 
 products were glass, silks, cloth of gold, leather, and sugar; 
 and it carried for all Europe the drugs and spices and other 
 products of the East Indies. How natural and how gainful 
 it is to buy and sell ! Said one of the doges of Venice on 
 his death-bed in 1423, " I leave the country in peace and pros- 
 perity. Our mierchants have a capital of 10,000,000 golden 
 ducats in circulation, on which they make an annual profit 
 of 4,000,000 ducats. We have 45 galleys and 300 ships 
 of war; 3,000 merchant vessels, and 52,000 sailors; and 
 1,000 nobles icith incomes varying from 700 to 4,000 ducats 
 each." Incessant wars, privileges restricted to " nobles," 
 and the discovery of a new ocean route to India by the Cape 
 of Good Hope, sapped this enormous opulence. 
 
 Florence had its very birth in the needs of traders, and 
 the people entered into the mechanic arts with such zeal that 
 their manufactures of wool, silk, gold brocade, other gold- 
 work, and jewels were exported everywhere ; and the gains 
 of this trade gave birth to banking on a great scale, so that 
 the loans of the chief sovereigns of Europe were largely 
 taken up in Florence ; in 1254, the Republic coined their 
 famous gold florin, unequalled at the time for beauty, as the 
 wide-spread use of the mint-term ^orm in other nations tiU 
 now sufficiently shows ; and in process of time there was a 
 separation at Florence, as there tended to be also in Eng- 
 land, of the seven " Greater Arts " so-called from the four- 
 
82 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 teen " Lesser Arts," and even a subdivision of the seven 
 by which Cloth-making, Dyeing, and Banking held the very 
 first rank. What Florence was in Tuscan}', Milan became 
 in Lombardy. This city was equally renowned in the Mid- 
 dle Age for its manufactures of arms and armor, and for the 
 elegance of its finery and its taste as the leader of fashions, 
 whence came our good word milliner. 
 
 While in Provence, as its name implies, and Languedoc, 
 some good points of the old law of Eome had no doubt been 
 kept up, the provinces of France in the time under review 
 were behind Italy and Flanders in the arts of buying and 
 selling. The minute directions of Charlemagne, who gave 
 much attention to the management of his own estates, are 
 still extant, some of them sound, and all of them curious. 
 In his Capitularies., and especially that entitled De Villis, 
 we find, for example, these; — "Each of our estates shall 
 be provided with good feather beds, mattresses, coverlets, 
 copper vessels, lead, ii'on, wood, chains, pot-hooks, hatchets 
 and augers, so that notJiivg ivill have to be borrowed of any 
 one." '' The eggs not needed for consumption on the farm 
 shall be sold." "It is important that we know how much 
 all these things yield us, namely, cattle, mills, woods, ships, 
 vegetables, vineyards, wool, flax, hemp, fruits, bees, fish, 
 skins, wax and honey, old and new wines. Every thing that 
 has not been consumed in the service of the king must be 
 immediately sold." " Cows, breecling-mai-es, and sheep must 
 be multiplied." " I wish also a good account to be rendered 
 me of the horns of my bucks and of my goats, as well as of 
 the skins of my wolves taken in the coui'se of each year. 
 In the month of May, let terrible war be made without fail on 
 the wolves' tvhelps." " The very pious lord our king has de- 
 cided that no man, whether ecclesiastic or layman, either in 
 time of abundance or time of scarcity, shall sell provisions 
 higher than the jirice recently fixed p)er bushel." This piiu- 
 ciple became afterwards the famous maximum of history. 
 But he forbade the exportation of grain in times of scarcity 
 
ni STORY OF THE SCIENCE. 33 
 
 on pain of confiscation. He put men on the frontiers, and 
 guard-boats at the mouths of rivers, to encourage and defend 
 tlie trade with foreigners. He undertook to dig a canal to 
 join the Rhine with the Danube. He ordered a uniform sj^s- 
 tem of weights and measures throughout his empire, pimished 
 the makers of counterfeit money, a7id forbade monopolies. 
 Usury is often denounced in the capitularies, and the emperor 
 himself fixes the rate at which money shall be loaned in his 
 dominions. 
 
 But Feudalism was as hostile to progress in France as else- 
 where. The lords of the land were the foes of the arts. 
 They scorned to work themselves, and they despised the 
 men who worked, but in some way their own needs must be 
 met, and so by degrees the money of the lords raised by 
 taxes or pillage passed over to the men of the shop, who 
 furnished the former their silks and woollens, their gloves 
 and helmets, their arms and armor. This process was has- 
 tened by the compact organization of the trades made in 
 the time of St. Louis. Some of these trades were then 
 very old. " The marchands d'eau at Esftesse probably the 
 direct descendants of the Parisian Mv^.'4//^it charter of 
 the butchers in 1134 speaks of fm^ 'Laiicierfti^hopping- 
 blocks." Leather-dressers, purse-iBp^ers,<^d conifers, seem 
 to be among the oldest. St. L&M^ intittsted to ttienne 
 Boyleau of Paris to make rules forf^ja^guid^ce an^.^ontrol 
 of all the different artisans, each kikct^ecomlrig 'thiti a body 
 by itself ; and his " Book of Tradesyf^tjll exfent, cmmnizes 
 and subjects to rules more than m^f separate i^aps tries 
 as then practised. These rules are mluvTte, cut^crsome, 
 and would now be intolerable, but they ha^^^uifj gain, 
 that they strengthened by discipline and union under royal 
 autliority the middle and lower classes as against tlie lords 
 of the soil ; and these now organized trades in turn gave 
 great strength to the communes, as the town governments 
 in France were then and are still called. The communes 
 became gradually freed from the feudal lords in like wayfj 
 
 ^/^Public Library, 
 
 r RECEIVED 
 
 I" 
 
 R3 1900 
 
84 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 with the towns in England, and so little by little as libertiea 
 in<^.reased became what they now are, — the seats of busy 
 exchanges. The oldest commune is that of Mans, formed 
 by revolt from William the Conqueror in 1067. Three hun- 
 dred years later they became of great importance all over 
 Franco, and after much decline were reorganized by law in 
 1791, and are now, 35,985 in number since the loss of Alsace 
 and Lorraine, the vital units of administrative government. 
 
 lu this long stretch of more than 1100 years no great 
 names shine forth to illumine Political Economy. No Aris- 
 totle and no Adam Smith appear in the life-time of the 
 Greek Empire. No great interest seems to have been felt 
 by anybody in the inmost nature of those commercial trans- 
 actions that were then multiplying in all the nations of 
 Europe. Perhaps the most memorable words in an economi- 
 cal point of view that meet us in this long interval are those 
 of a Venetian doge, Thomas Moncenigo, spoken to the 
 Grand Council in 1421 : — " You are the only ones to whom 
 land and sea are equally open. You are the channel of the 
 opulence, and the providers for the wants, of the entire world. 
 The whole universe is interested in your fortune. All the 
 gold of the world comes to you. Fortunate, so long as you 
 hold to pacific ideas ^ while all Europe is on fire. As for 
 me, so long as there remains in me a breath of life, I will 
 persist in this, that we must love peace. What will you 
 sell to those of Milan, when you shall have ruined them? 
 What will they he able to give you in exchange for your 
 products? And your products, what will become of them 
 in the exigencies of a war which will encroach on the capital 
 you need to create them ? I have always tried to take meas- 
 ures that the interest of the loans and all public expenses 
 be promptly met every six months, and I have had the good 
 fortune to succeed. If you continue in this course, you 
 will become formidable, and the possessors of all the riches 
 of the christian world. God will punish you for touching 
 the property of others, and for making war unjustly. Then 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 35 
 
 those who had 10,000 ducats will have no more than 1,000, 
 and those who had ten houses will be reduced to one. No 
 more property^ no more credit, no more reputation. From 
 the masters that you were, you will find yourselves subjects, 
 and of whom ? Of military men, of soldiery, of those bands 
 whom you are keeping in pay." 
 
 One little treatise, however, written in 1360 by a French 
 bishop, Nicole Oresme, marks for our science one bright 
 spot in the Middle Age. It is a Latin tract on Money, which, 
 after having been long lost to the world, was discovered 
 about the middle of the 19th century by the German econo- 
 mist, Roscher, and translated into French by another econ- 
 omist, Wolowski. The good bishop was moved to his work 
 by the wretched state of the coins of France in his time. 
 " The origin, nature, right, and changes of Moneys " is the 
 title of the tract, and it shows signs both of learning and of 
 scientific analysis. An error of Aristotle is reproduced in 
 it under the same rhetorical figure ; — "It is monstrous and 
 contrar}^ to nature, that a barren stock should give birth, 
 that a thing sterile in its whole being should fructify and be 
 multiplied from itself, and such a thing is money." A ran- 
 dom dictum of Aristotle made the taking of interest on 
 money seem wrong to some for a couple of millenniums. 
 Even Shakspeare catches up the old figure : — '•''Is your gold 
 and silver ewes and rams?" Shylock answers: '•'• I can- 
 not tell; I make it breed as fast." Oresme understood well 
 the principle of seignorage ; — "As money itself belongs to 
 the community, so it should be fabricated at the expense 
 of the community." He knew well also the great truth, that 
 was constantly broken by the princes of his time, that Lhe 
 worth of coins hangs only on the purity and weight of the 
 precious metal contained in them. 
 
 Perhaps in consequence of the dearth of any deep thought 
 on our theme during the Middle Age, the germs then become 
 visible of the second Theory of Sales. It is called the Mer- 
 cantile System. It was not known under that name, nor 
 
36 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 was it developed in any fulness, until the next age ; but we 
 can detect its beginnmgs before the fall of Constantinople 
 both in Italy and in France. It is an illustration of the con- 
 tinuity of human thinking as well in wrong as in right direc- 
 tions, that the second theory is a prolongation and expansion 
 of the first. That gave an undue weight to gold and silver 
 over other goods in trade, and forbade their export : tJiis did 
 the same thing too, but also tried to swell the exports of 
 other goods beyond the worth of current imports, so as to 
 get a balance of gold and silver ])o,id. Gold and silver are 
 the things to get; they are tvorth more than what they will 
 buy : therefore, let us get all of these in that we can, and let 
 as little of them out as we can; and let us work all our trade 
 so, that others shall have to give us a balance back in gold 
 and silver. These false postulates and inferences wrought 
 centuries of woe in the world of commerce. The great facts 
 will come in on a later page ; we look now only at the germs 
 of a bad growth. Phillippe le Bel of France, in ordinances of 
 1303 and 1304, put his hand in as king to mend the move- 
 ments of trade, to forbid the export of gold and siloer, to fix 
 the price of wheat and to forbid its export, and to lessen 
 imports by prohibitions. " Considering that our enemies 
 might projit by our provisions, and that it is also important 
 to leave them their merchandise, tve have ordered that the 
 former shall not be exported nor the latter imported." So 
 Venice, which had started in freedom, declined into re- 
 straints. The port was open to the goods of the world, but 
 only Venetian ships with Venetian captains could bring them 
 in. Foreigners could neither build nor buy ships in Venice, 
 and must pay customs-duties twice as high as natives.-^ 
 
 5. In any sketch of the buying and selling of the modem 
 nations, and of the thoughts of their citizens in relation to 
 that, there are good grounds which will appear as we go on 
 
 1 Green's England, i., iii.; chaps, i.-iv.; Gibbon's T>. and F. vii. 99, and x. 110; 
 Blanqui, Hist. Pol. Eoon. pasniin in cbaps. xii.-xx.; McCuUooh's Com. Diet., Arts, 
 Wool and Silk; Appletons' Cyclo., Arts. Commune, Cordova, and Italy; and Web 
 ster's Diet, sub ve?^liis Milliner »ud Florin. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 37 
 
 for putting France first in the list. The French are apt to 
 do well what they think worth doing at all, and to say well 
 what they think worth saying at all. Like other nations, 
 they have made vast economical mistakes in the modern age, 
 but also they have made contributions to our science of the 
 first importance. The Protestant Reformation, which tended 
 to reform industry as well as religion and demanded the 
 right to work and sell as well as to think and pray, did not 
 do so much for France as for Germany and the Low Coun- 
 tries, in. which latter and in Spain the reactionary, cen- 
 tralizing, and tyrannical policy of Charles V. and his worse 
 successor put back the hand on the dial of progress. Still 
 the Huguenots invented great improvement iu agriculture 
 and manufactures ; and both before and after the revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 carried these improvements 
 to Flanders, England, Switzerland, Prussia, New England, 
 Virginia and South Carolina. The silk culture had come 
 over into France from Italy in the 40 years ending in 1520, 
 and had found a home especially in Tours, Lyons, and the 
 towns of Provence ; and after the revoking of the edict of 
 toleration, this industry among many was carried abroad. 
 About 50,000 Huguenots settled in England, and those who 
 knew the silk business gathered in Spitalfields, where they 
 introduced very soon several new branches of the art, though 
 England then admitted silks freely from all the world. In 
 Prussia they set up works (new there) for making cloth, 
 serges, bunting, small goods, druggets, stockings woven on 
 frames, caps, and hats made of skins, and dyes of all kinds, 
 while Berlin took the goldsmiths, jewellers, clockmakers and 
 sculptors ; in the Netherlands they cultivated tobacco , and 
 made of the sandy lands excellent kitchen gardens for fruits 
 and vegetables ; and into this country they brought the olives, 
 the mulberry, varieties of pears still cultivated, and advanced 
 modes of farming. 
 
 Just as some individuals in all times have thought it wise 
 to try to cheat others in trade, and so get the whole gain to 
 
88 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 themselves, so some nations have worked for long stretches 
 of time to handle their trade in such a way as to get to them- 
 seh^es the sole profit, forgetting the grand truth that all 
 trade alike — whether domestic or foreign — must be fair to 
 both sides and mutual in its gains, or else it will cease of 
 itself. France seems to have been the first nation to try 
 this trick on a great scale, and thus to give voice and form 
 to the Mercantile System. In the very year (1572) of the 
 massacre of the Huguenots, and in the city (Paris) which 
 was its chief scene, and by the king (Charles IX.) who was 
 the chief actor in it, was issued the following decree : — " //i 
 order that our said subjects may better devote themselves to 
 manufacture and working in wools, flax, hemp and yarns,, 
 which are increasing and abound in our said kingdoms and 
 countries, and may make and realize the xorofit from them 
 which foreigners do, who come here and buy them usually at a 
 low price, transport them and work them up, and afterioard 
 bring the cloths and linens which they sell at a very high 
 price; we have ordered and do order that it shall hereafter 
 be allowable to no one of our said subjects and foreigners 
 for any cause or under any pretext whatsoever to trans- 
 port out of our said kingdom and country any ivools, flax^ 
 hemp or yarns. We also very expressly forbid all entrance 
 into this our said kingdom of all cloths, linens, gold or 
 silver laces and ribbons, as ivell as all velvets, satins, damasks, 
 taffetas, camlets, linens, and all sorts of stuff's striped or having 
 in them gold or silver, and likewise all harness for horses, 
 belts, swords, and dirks, spurs silvered or engraved, and 
 stirrups, under jyenalty of confiscation of said merchandise." 
 The Protestant Sully, the finance-minister of the French 
 king Henrj' IV., seems to have been the first man in high 
 authority who studied thoroughly the whole subject of buy- 
 ing and selling, who devised a set of practical rules for the 
 guidance of his policy in regard to these, and who was in 
 position in spite of many hindrances to carry his policy 
 into execution. He had some very good points, and some 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 39 
 
 very bad ones, and the two were well mixed up in his sys- 
 tem. Of the first sort were these : — lie thought that the 
 debts of the State should be managed just like those of au 
 individual, that is to say, paid off in the shortest practicable 
 time, and so his first care as minister was to ascertain their 
 exact amount — 332,000,000 francs in 1595 — and to reduce 
 and remit taxes on his principle that the people must pros- 
 per in order that the revenue may be large, and then to pay 
 off the entire debt, TYhich he did in a few years. He 
 thought the ways of letting money out of the treasury quite 
 as important as the ways of getting it in, and amid great 
 opposition he stopped the leaks in the treasury, and was 
 perhaps the first to lay down the maxim that specific parts 
 of the revenue must be rigidly applied to specific parts of 
 the expenses, a method now praised and practised in the 
 United States. He thought that better means of internal 
 transportation would foster the growth of France, and so he 
 improved the highways and organized post-houses along 
 them with relays of horses for travellers, and dug the first 
 canal in France — the canal de Briare opened in 1642 — to 
 connect the Seine and the Loire, and he also placed public 
 barges on the main rivers. He thought, too, that agriculture 
 lay at the root of national opulence, and so he suppressed 
 tolls, removed various obstructions, and made free the 
 domestic trade in grain. Of the second sort were these : — 
 He thought that manufactures were parasites on the State, 
 and quarrelled with his king about the mulberry trees and 
 the silk fabrics that were then coming into prominence in 
 France, and combined with a sort of Aristotelian aversion 
 to mechanical labor a kind of stoic indifference to articles 
 of comfort and luxury. He thought that France was suffi- 
 cient unto itself in trade, and so sought to suppress within 
 the realm the circulating monej^s and commodities of other 
 nations, saying with short-sighted folly, — " It is still moi'e 
 necessary to do without the commodities of our neighbors, 
 than without their money ; the necessity people impose on 
 
40 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 themselves of dressing in certain materials rather than 
 others is outy a fault of our fancy, but the |:)?-<ce we pay for 
 them is a wrong done to ourselves with full knowledge of 
 the case." He thought consequently that gold and silver 
 ought not to be exported from France, and punished severely 
 tlie taking them out, and passed sumptuary laws to reduce 
 public and private expenses, and kept up the toll-barriers on 
 the Rhone to keep out the commodities of Italy, and became, 
 in short, a stern propagator of the .Mercantile System, the 
 principle of which system was never better expressed than 
 by a Spaniard, Ustariz, in 1740, — " Ji is necessary rigor- 
 ously to employ all the means that can lead us to sell to for- 
 eigners more of our irroductions than they toill sell us of 
 theirs^ as that is the whole secret and the sole advantage 
 of trade." Sully also drew a false analogy between the 
 materials of war and a stock of coin in the coffers of the 
 State, and so had vaults made in the Bastile into which 
 he gathered as a reserve for contingencies a sum which 
 amounted at the death of Henry IV. in 1610 to 42,000,000 
 francs. Henry was riding to visit Sully, then sick, when 
 his life was cut short by the dagger of the fanatic Ravaillac 
 in one of the narrow streets of Paris. 
 
 Two years after Sully ceased to be minister, that is, in 
 1613, the earliest general treatise on our theme, and the first 
 to bear the title of Political Economy, was issued at Rouen 
 by Antoine de Montchrestien. He combats some of the 
 points of that minister, while he treats at length of the util- 
 ity of the mechanic arts, the regulation of manufactures, 
 the trades most important to communities, commerce, trans- 
 portation, and Money. 
 
 If we balance in our minds the good done by Sully with 
 the evil, and close the process perhaps in a doubt, there can 
 be no doubt at all that the good done by Colbert, the greater 
 minister of Louis XIV., far outweighed the evil. Sprung 
 from a race of merchants, himself apprenticed young to a 
 woollen-draper, of a slow but grasping mind, hungry for 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 41 
 
 facts and able to interpret them, orderly in plan and bold 
 as a lion, Colbert will always be a great figure in French 
 history and economy. The last words of the great Cardinal 
 Mazarin to the young Louis were: — "Sire, I owe every 
 thing to 3^ou ; but I pay my debt to your Majesty by giving 
 you Colbert." Like Sully, Colbert looked at all things 
 from the practical side ; unlike him, who was of noble bti-th, 
 Colbert, who had brains and not birth, was vexed in all his 
 course by those who had birth but lacked brains. Even his 
 king, yfho placed him in 1661 in virtual charge of the trade 
 and taxes of France, gave him full support but for eleven 
 years, and for eleven years more till the death of the minis- 
 ter in 1683 paid but partial heed to his counsels. His grand 
 and simple plans, marred by one grand mistake, were car- 
 ried out in the midst of and in spite of hostile opinions, 
 
 , wasting wars, and wavering support. 
 
 A His first maxim was, to reduce and simplify the internal 
 taxes, on the sound principle that the public treasury pros- 
 pers just in jDroportion as private production prospers. 
 Says Llenri Martin, — "We are struck with admiration to 
 
 ' see Colbert begin by reducing an impost 33 %, on the in- 
 creased product of which he founded in great part his 
 hopes." He abolished many taxes altogether, and made 
 the rest bear as lightly as possible on the poor. The result 
 of this and other efforts was, that whereas he found the 
 gross revenue 82 millions and the cost of collecting it more 
 than 50 millions, he left the gross revenue 113 millions and 
 a cost of collection 26 millions, an exhausting war, too, 
 having intervened. Another maxim was, to revise and 
 reduce the swollen claims of creditors, to lighten the com- 
 munes of their old debts and forbid their incurring new 
 ones, to abolish superfluous offices and then hold each offi- 
 cial to a strict account, and thus and otherwise to lessen the 
 public expenses and reform the administration. A third 
 maxim was, to encourage agriculture by directl}^ lessening its 
 burdens, by permitting the freest possible circulation of 
 
42 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 its produce within the realm, by favoring the introduction 
 and increase of live stock, by improviug all the old ways of 
 communication, and by creating new ones such as the great 
 canal of the Two Seas. A fourth maxim was, to assure all 
 men and especially all traders at home and abroad security 
 of person and property. Sully scorned manufactures ; 
 Colbert justly gloried in them, and outran himself and the 
 truth of his system to enliven and diversify them, as we 
 shall see. Still another point of his policy may be given iu 
 his own words : — " The maritime commerce of the whole 
 world is carried on with about 20,000 ships. In the natural 
 order, every nation should have its share in proportion to its 
 power, the number of its people, and the extent of its sedr 
 coast. The Dutch have 15,000 or 1G,000 of this number, 
 and the French 500 or GOO at the most. The king employs 
 all sorts of means wJiich he thinJcs to he useful in order to 
 come a little nearer the number that his subjects ought nat' 
 urally to have.'' 
 
 Unfortunately for his own age and all the ages since, Col- 
 bert was also in part a disciple of the Mercantile System. 
 He thought that he could so manage the foreign trade of 
 France that she should get the better of her neighbors : he 
 thought he should be able more or less to drain the gold and 
 silver from them to her. Let him sum up his plan in his own 
 words : — "To reduce export duties on provisions and manu- 
 factures of the kingdom ; to diminish import duties on every 
 thing which is of use in manufactures ; and to repel the 
 products of foreign manufactures by raising the duties." 
 This is the mercantile system pure and simple : the end in 
 view is to get gold and silver into the kingdom b}'^ selling 
 much merchandise and buying little. Curiously enough this 
 plan had been shown to be delusive in all its parts b}'^ the 
 petition of the merchants of Paris addressed to the king in 
 1G54, ten years before Colbert embodied his plan in the 
 tariff of 16G4. "Sire, exi)erience teaches that excessive 
 taxes have never increased the revenues of a State, because 
 
HISTOEY OF THE SCIENCE. 43 
 
 they cause a loss on the whole of tvhat is gained oa the parts. 
 In fact, only commerce and manufactures attract the gold and 
 silver by which armies subsist. If our workmen profit by 
 their industry, it is not without the help of foreigners., who 
 furnish us all the fine wools, for we have only coarse ones, 
 as well as the drugs for dyes, the spices, sugars, soaps and 
 leathers, which we cannot dispense with and which are net 
 found in the kingdom. Foreigners will not fail to retaliate^ 
 by laying heavy duties on all these commodities ; whence it 
 will come to pass that we shall obtain no more, or that they 
 will prohibit the admission of our manufactured products ; 
 consequently our loorTcmen will be ivithout employment, and 
 the number of useless ones and of beggars will increase." 
 
 Nevertheless, Colbert's work in its whole aggregate caused 
 France to begin to prosper mightily ; and manufactures in 
 particular, which Sully had frowned on, seemed to feel the 
 impulse of the new policy ; and Colbert was led on by this 
 mere seeming to lay down the third historical Theory of 
 Sales, namely, what has been called the Protective System. 
 His tariff of 1667 was the first Protective Tariff so-called. 
 That is to say, it was the first formal schedule of tariff-taxes 
 laid for the avowed purpose of cutting off competition from 
 home manufacturers in order to raise the price of their wares. 
 This scheme grew right out of the mercantile system, and 
 would never have been thought of but for that, just as the 
 mercantile system itself grew right out of the bullion sys- 
 tem, and would never have been thought of but for that. 
 "Protection" was an afterthought in its very birth — an 
 outgrowth of a confessedly false system. The effects pre- 
 dicted b}' the Paris petition followed at once. The new 
 tariff shut out many kinds of Dutch goods : the Dutch argued 
 and expostulated a while in vain, and then acted: French 
 wines, brandies, and manufactures were shut out of Holland 
 by the same means. Henri Martin, with whom Colbert is 
 a hero, acknowledges these naturgl consequences of his 
 action. Agriculture, which had had a hard blow on one 
 
44 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 cheek by the prohibition to export grain as a part of the 
 mercantile policy, now took another hard blow on the other 
 cheek by the loss of the market for wines and brandies as a 
 part of the protective policy. "War soon followed with Hol- 
 land, — the first of a long series of commercial wars that 
 have cost plenty of blood and tears. 
 
 It is said of the vegetable world, that the poison and its 
 antidote often grow near each other in space ; at any rate, 
 this vitally bad principle of Colbert was corrected in whole- 
 some words by a man who lived near to him in time. This 
 was Bois-Guillebert, a provincial magistrate of Rouen. He 
 looked at things on the theoretical side. So far as it now 
 appears, he was the first man in the world, who gazed 
 steadily into the inmost nature of trade and brought back a 
 true analysis of it. In the midst of much that is false and 
 more that is crude, we find in the books of this shrewd Nor- 
 man such golden sentences as these : — Every seller must be 
 a purchaser, and every purchaser a seller. Every exchange 
 must be profitable to two parties, and thus be in the genera- 
 interest. The liberty and competition of producers is re- 
 quisite to the interest of all. When the cultivator of the 
 soil, the base of society, grows poorer, his poverty involves 
 the ruin of the rest. The interest is one, not only of man 
 with man, of province with province in the same state, but 
 also of nation with nation. Nature demands the liberty of 
 industry, and this liberty alone can paralyze the efforts of 
 special cupidity and selfishness. To Nature and not to men 
 belongs the police of the economic order. 
 
 France kept slipping back all the time from the reforms 
 of Colbert, the privileged classes kept themselves exempted 
 from most of the burdens of the State, abuses in taxation 
 and administration multiplied, till a hand, that had already 
 traced with wonderful skill the exterior defences of France 
 in war, traced also in peace her internal condition in these 
 lines: — "Nearly a tenth part of the people is reduced to 
 mendicity; of the nine remaining pai'ts, five can give no 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 45 
 
 alms to the first, from which they scarcely differ ; three are 
 in very sti'aitened circumstances ; the tenth does not number 
 over a hundred thousand families, of which there are not ten 
 thousand that are completely at ease." That hand was 
 Vauban's, a man better known as a worker and writer on 
 Fortifications, but who also must always be named with 
 honor in any sketch of Economics. What he had seen in 
 every part of France where he had planted a fort to defend 
 it stirred him to write a book which he entitled the Royal 
 Tithe, the principle of which was, that every subject in the 
 realm ought to contribute to the needs of the State in pro- 
 portion to his income, that all the hitherto privileged nobles 
 and clergy should pay this tax with the common people, that 
 this should be the only direct tax in the kingdom thus re- 
 leasing an army of the old tax-gatherers, and that the rate 
 of it should slide according to the needs of the treasury from 
 the semi-tithe or one-twentieth (artisans and laborers paying 
 only one-thirtieth) to the entire tithe or tenth in case of 
 necessity. The taxes at that time came wholly out of 
 capital, and for the most part out of the capital of the poor : 
 Vauban would take them wholly out of revenue, and from all 
 classes of the people who had revenue. This plan of taxing 
 was simple and grand and just, and for that very reason was 
 condemned by the royal council in the year of its author's 
 •death (1707). 
 
 France worried along, most things getting from bad to 
 worse, in spite of brilliant philosophies and an elegant liteia- 
 ture, without much that was new on our theme, till in the 
 first decade of the second half of the eighteenth century, 
 Quesnay, physician and surgeon and friend to Louis XV., 
 developed a set of economic doctrines very celebrated in 
 their time and influential in results in all time since. The 
 numerous disciples of these doctrines, with their teacner, 
 constituted the first great School in Political Economy, and 
 are called sometimes "Economists," sometimes "Physio- 
 crats," and sometimes (and best) the " Agricultural School.'^ 
 
46 . POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 There had been every now and then an outburst of comTnon 
 sense against the protective system of Colbert and the re- 
 taliations of foreigners that had of course attended it. The 
 tradition is, that the merchant Legendre had replied to Col- 
 bert himself, when the minister asked, ' ' What can we do to 
 aid you?" '•'- Laissez faire" — Let us alone. Gournay, 
 the intendant of commerce, himself a merchant, the friend 
 and helper of Quesnay, is the real author of the celebrated 
 saying, — Laissez faire et laissez passer, — Let tjs alone 
 AND KEEP THE WATS FREE. Gournay attacked the restric- 
 tions of that day on the commercial side, Quesnay on the 
 agricultural side, and thus they worked together, while the 
 great Turgot became the disciple of them both. There had 
 been some reaction all along from the artificial manufactures 
 of Colbert towards the earlier and simpler maxim of Sully, 
 — " Tillage and pasturage are the two breasts of the State ; " 
 then the collapse of John Law's famous <^redit-system in 
 1720, and the loss thereby of nearly all fortunes except 
 those invested in lands ; and then the subdivisions and im- 
 provements in lands consequent on Law's gigantic opera- 
 tions, — all these had caused the French to look away from 
 the more transient values of credit and merchandise to the 
 most stable of all possessions, the land on which they trod. 
 The way was thus prepared for Quesnay, who was son of a 
 small land-proprietor and advocate, and who carried his 
 simple tasks and interest in rural matters through a long life 
 at Versailles. 
 
 Quesnay 's. whole system was broader than any mere 3C0- 
 Qomic system can be, in that it involved a system of Society 
 and of Government as well as of Econom}^, in which last 
 respect alone we are now to look at it. Quesnay saw in the 
 agriculture of his time, what has been seen in the agriculture 
 of all times, that the produce of the land, after paying the 
 immediate expenses of its cultivation to the man who tilled 
 it, afforded also an additional sum in the shape of rent to 
 the man who owned the land. This additional sum he called 
 
niSTOEY OF TUE SCIENCE. 47 
 
 Net Product. On the other hand, he saw that mere labor 
 put forth on any thing else than land only obtained fair 
 wages for itself without any net product remaining. There- 
 fore he called labor put forth on the land Productive, and all 
 other labor Unproductive, not because the latter is not use- 
 ful, but because there is nothing in the result over and above 
 a return for the labor. What he failed to see was, the 
 difference between the results of labor assisted by capital 
 and those of labor not so assisted. In truth, he utterly 
 mistook the nature of rent. As we shall see by and by, land 
 is only a form of capital, and the rent paid for its use is 
 nothing but profit to the owner of this capital, so that in 
 reality the produce of the land pays for wages and profits 
 and nothing more. All other products made by the union 
 of labor and capital must do the same or cease to be made. 
 There is, then, no such distinction as that drawn by Quesnay 
 between Productive and Unproductive labor, and there is no 
 net 2)rodiict at all, such as he supposed. But if there were, 
 then it would follow from that, (1) that the only new values 
 possible must come out of the earth itself ; (2) that the pro- 
 prietors of the soil are a special class of men by themselves ; 
 (3) that all taxes to government should be paid by them 
 alone, since no others have any net product ; (4) that every 
 restriction on the sale of produce at home and abroad should 
 be removed as lessening the net product ; (5) that all at- 
 tempts to foster manufactures artificially are worse than 
 futile as involving no possible gain, and that every obstacle 
 I to the freest sale of mere labor and its results should every- 
 where be abolished at once. These economic inferences, as 
 well as others both social and political, were drawn out 
 logically from the premises. While the system had plenty 
 of errors in it, it had also this grand truth, that all value 
 turns on exchange. Quesnay says: — "We must distin- 
 guish between biens (goods), which have value in use and 
 not value in exchange, and ricJiesse (salable tilings) , which 
 have both value in use and value in exchange. For example, 
 
48 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the savages of Louisiana enjoy manj'^ Mens, such as wood, 
 game, fruits of the earth, which are not richesse because they 
 have no value in exchange." So Le Trosne, one of Ques- 
 nay's many disciples, says : — "Value consists in the relation 
 of excJiange which exists between such and such products. 
 In a word, the qualit}' of rfc/iesse supposes not only a useful 
 property, but also the possibility of exchange, because value 
 is nothing but the relation of exchange. The earth in truth 
 onl}^ gives products which have the physical qualities to 
 satisfy our wants ; it is exchange that gives them value ; a 
 quality relative and accidental. But as it is the products 
 themselves which are the sole matter of exchange, it follows 
 that we can say with truth that it is the earth that produces 
 not only all Mens but also all richesse.'" 
 
 The whole school made a botch of the bad word " wealth," 
 and wrongly drew from their wrong main point that material 
 things alone are valuable, forgetting that even the ancients 
 conceded that labor may be sold and rights may be sold in 
 the same way as material things are sold. Their otherwise 
 clear vision, however, emancipated them from most of the 
 errors of those who had gone before, at once from the bullion 
 theory, the mercantile theory, and the protective theory. 
 Mercier de la Riviere, one of the brightest of them, well 
 says : — " Lot me be permitted to repeat here that money does 
 not rain down into our hands, does not grow in our fields, in 
 nature. To have money, we must buy it; and after that pur- 
 chase, one is no richer tha,n he was before : he only receives in 
 money a value equal to that he has given in m,erchandise. An 
 agricultural nation is very rich, people tell us, when we see 
 much money there; people are doubtless right in saying so, 
 but they are wrong not to see also that before acquiring that 
 money it was equally rich, since it possessed the values with 
 which it paid for the money; it cannot even eiijoy that wealth 
 in money without maldng it forever disaj^pear, miless it main- 
 tains it by the reproduction of the values whose sale, or rather 
 exchange, lias procured for it money wealth : so this wealth 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 49 
 
 in money is only a secondary wealth representative of a pri- 
 mary wealth for which it is substituted. ' ' These physiocrats 
 were every one charapious of the freedom of trade. It was 
 a maxim with Quesnay : — " Let entire freedom of commerce 
 be maintained ; for the truest, surest, and most profitable 
 regulation of commerce, both internal and external, consists 
 in entire freedom of competition." Louis XV. called Ques- 
 nay his thinker (penseur) , and the epithet belongs to the 
 school. They were good men^ too, disinterested, philan- 
 thropic, and moved by strong sjanpathj^ for the masses of 
 the people, while they attacked neither throne nor altar. 
 One of them, the elder Mirabeau, though he abused his 
 more gifted son, called himself the "friend of men," and 
 put the work of Quesnay in point of benefit to mankind on 
 a level with the invention of money and the invention of 
 printing. 
 
 Before Quesnay died at 80 years of age in 1774, he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing his disciple Turgot, who was also 
 the friend and disciple of Gournay, enter the government as 
 comptroller-general of finances, and begin at once on a great 
 scale in spite of tremendous opposition to carry into practi- 
 cal effect the views of this school. The first fruit of physio- 
 cratic doctrine was the announcement of future freedom of 
 trade in grain, both internal and external. This gave rise 
 to the so-called Flour War. Then followed an edict for the 
 abolition of all compulsory labor for the state or for feudal 
 lords. Says Turgot: — "God, by giving man wants, by 
 rendering the resource of labor necessary to him, has made 
 of the right to tuork the property of every man; and that 
 property is thefrst, the most sacred, the most imprescriptible 
 of all." Then followed an edict for the suppression of 
 masterships, and trade corporations of all kinds, and con- 
 firming the full liberty of every citizen to undertake any 
 kind of manufacture in conformity with natural right. An- 
 other edict made the commerce in wine free throughout the 
 kingdom on the payment of a moderate tax. Another les- 
 
50 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 sened the odious salt-tax. Still another proposed 2 single tax 
 on land iu lieu of some other existing taxes. Associated 
 with Turgot in the administration was Malesherbes, another 
 physiocrat with similar aims, and the two fell together in 
 1776 before the united opposition of the official and privi- 
 leged classes of France. Malesherbes described Turgot as 
 the " man loilli the heart of L'Hopital and the head of 
 Bacon;" and what posterity thinks of Malesherbes maybe 
 seen in the broad avenue of Paris dedicated to his name 
 with imposing ceremonies iu August, 18G1. The strong 
 sway over men's minds and hearts gained by this great 
 school is shown alike by the French help in the American 
 War of Independence and by the steady oncoming of the 
 French Revolution, in whose councils passed the decree for 
 the equal division of lands, which has been the strength of 
 France ever since. 
 
 The year 1776 is a great year in the history of Economics, 
 as it is also in that of Politics. The germs of both the 
 second and third Schools in this science sprang into life in 
 that year. The second school, which we shall call the 
 Commodities School, looks to Adam vSmith as its founder, 
 whose book was published in that year, and whose views 
 will be given at some length in the next section. It is best 
 to say right here, that the second school is the offspring of 
 the first, just as the second theory of sales is the outgrowth 
 of the first. Wonderful is the continuity of science. Adam 
 Smith is the child of Quesnay, to whom he would have dedi- 
 cated his book had the latter lived but two years longer. 
 What Turgot, however, had already questioned, Adam Smith 
 triumphantly denied, namely, the distinction drawn by the 
 first school between Productive and Unproductive labor. 
 The second school proved beyond a doubt that artisans and 
 merchants and transporters are as truly productive laborers 
 as the agriculturalists, but at the same time they included in 
 labor only effort put upon material and tangible commodities. 
 They proved also, contrary to the views of the first school, 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 51 
 
 that in all sales of commodities both sides make a gain, 
 owing to the diverse desires of the two parties to the sale. 
 Both schools held alike for free trade though on different 
 scientific grounds. 
 
 The same year Condillac, very distinguished as a meta- 
 physician, issued a book entitled " Commerce and Govern- 
 ment co7isidered relatively to each other," which was not a 
 successful work, as was Adam Smith's, but in which he laid 
 the foundations of the third and only remaining School of 
 Economics, which we propose to call the All Sales School. 
 Condillac had been trained as a physiocrat and in some sense 
 continued such, and the third school at any rate grew out of 
 the first school just as indeed the second school did, and both 
 in something the same way as the second and third theories 
 of sales grew out of the first ; but he was also a metaphysi- 
 cian of clear thought, and saw just as Adam Smith did the 
 futility of the distinction between productive and unpro- 
 ductive labor, and the certainty, too, that in sales both sides 
 gain. He saw also the great truth that the Desires of men 
 are alwaj^s the starting-point whenever any thing becomes 
 valuable, and concluded from this that value resides in the 
 Mind only, and blamed the physiocrats for saying that value 
 consists in the relation of one thing exchanged for another, 
 and claimed that value may exist before an exchange takes 
 place so soon as each party desires the product of the other, 
 thus confounding value with estimation, which is only one of 
 its elements. Still, as value in his sense of it would lead to 
 exchanges or sales, he defines our science as the " Science 
 OF Commerce " or Exchanges. This is a great merit. Here 
 is a definition that just covers (and no more) the field of the 
 science. His notion of value is indeed faulty, as we shall 
 see, but his definition of the science will never be improved 
 upon so far as its meaning is concerned. Sales may be, or 
 may not be, a better ivord than Commerce or Exchanges, 
 The definition involves that any thing of whatever kind ex- 
 changed for something else comes within the view of the 
 
52 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 science, and thus the third school happily escapes the limita- 
 tions of the two others, namely, tJiat material things alone 
 are salable; although Condillac himself did not fully realize 
 how broad and strong he had made the science, and contin- 
 ued to talk now and then about the earth as the source of 
 all ricJiesse and about the Net Product as the source of all 
 taxation. 
 
 On came the French Revolution like a flood, and its waters 
 had scarcely subsided when, in 1803, Jean-Baptiste Say issued 
 his book on Political Economy, which has continued a stand- 
 ard work almost up to our own time. He is a great light 
 of the second school ; for Adam Smith's book had been 
 translated into French in 1781, and Say is an admirer and 
 follower of Smith, although in no servile way. Without 
 essentially going beyond the commodities school, Say admits 
 much more fully than Smith does, immaterial services, like 
 those of a physician, into his category of richesse. He 
 divides his treatise into three parts, the Production and Dis- 
 tribution and Consumption of richesse^ borrowing these three 
 terms of the physiocrats, but unfortunately treating them, 
 as the physiocrats did not, as if each of these indicated a 
 separate and independent process. With the physiocrats 
 production meant the extracting of raw produce out of the 
 earth, distribution the manipulating and transporting it, and 
 consumption the final sale of it, — all really one indivisible 
 process which they properly called comvierce or exchange. 
 But nearly all the writers of the second school have followed 
 the bad example of Say in this respect, and some of them 
 like the Walkers, father and son, in this country, have added 
 a fourth division. Exchange, just as if there could be any 
 production and distribution and consumption tvithout ex- 
 change. The progress of Political Economy on both sides 
 the ocean has been much kept back by this strange abuse of 
 originally safe and simple physiocratic terms. Besides, Say 
 did not have much better luck with his word ' ' ricJiesse ' ' as 
 a term of science than Adam Smith had with his term 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 53 
 
 "wealth; " for which neither is certainly much to be blamed, 
 since no one has ever tried to use either of these words in 
 science without making a hotch-potch of it. Still, in addi- 
 tion to a clear and skilful exposition of the great subject in 
 a general way, Say made one particular contribution to it of 
 grand importance. He demonstrated fully that there can 
 never be a general glut of products in any market, because 
 the ]nore of some kinds exposed for sale, the better sale of 
 other kinds in exchange for them. He says : — '■'■A product 
 is no sooner created than it affords from that instant a mar- 
 Tcet for other products to the full extent of its oivn value. 
 When the producer has p)iit the finishing hand to his product, 
 he is most anxious to sell it immediately lest its vcdue shoidd 
 vanish in his hands. Nor is he less anxious to dispose of the 
 money he may get for it, for the value of money is also per- 
 ishable. But the only ivay of getting rid of money is in the 
 purchase of some product or other. Thus the mere circum- 
 stance of the creation of one product immediately opens a 
 vent for other products. ' ' 
 
 When Say first published this book in 1803, Frederic Bas- 
 tiat was a boy two years old in Bayonne. Growing up in a 
 counting-room, travelling more or less in the neighboring 
 countries with both eyes open, and giving all his leisure 
 to the study of this science especially after 1825, Bastiat 
 appeared in 1844 and onwards till his death by consumption 
 in 1850, both in fugitive writings and in books, as a champion 
 with the keenest blade in behalf of Property as then men- 
 aced by the socialists, and in behalf of Trade as always 
 menaced by the protectionists. "Property is theft," cried 
 Prudhon, the ablest of the socialists : on the contrary, Bas- 
 tiat demonstrated with a point and pungency that proved 
 a thorn in the side of his opponents, that Property is sacred 
 in the hands of him who creates it or buys it, and that it is 
 through the right to acquire it and exchange it freely that 
 God designs the progressive amelioration of mankind. These 
 writings were indeed rather controversial than constructive, 
 
54 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and Bastiat himself had not much better hick than others 
 have had in wrestling scientificall}^ with the word ricJiesse, — 
 athlete as he was he was thrown in that encounter, — but he 
 gives after all a masterly definition and exposition of Value, 
 effectually demolishes the vagaries of Communism, and 
 demonstrates the harmonious mechanism of Society so far 
 as exchanges are concerned. By far his most imporlant 
 work is the Harmoides economiques left incomplete at his 
 death. His debt to the first school of Political Economy, 
 the physiocrats, is plain enough, since his definition of Value 
 as the relation between two services exchanged, and his dis- 
 tinction between biens and richesse, are in substance the 
 same as theirs, as one may see in the quotation already given 
 from Le Trosne. His debt to Condillac, the founder of the 
 third school, is plainer still, since his technical terms, such 
 as "desires," "estimations," "services," "satisfactions," 
 are largely the same as Condillac' s, and since the two alike 
 exalt the action of the Mind in all matters of value, and 
 extend the science so as to cover all sales whatever. Bastiat 
 belongs fully to the third school. His debt, however, to his 
 own genius and to the circumstances of his own time, is 
 plainest of all. No economic writer has ever shown so 
 much literary skill as he ; very few, if any, have surpassed 
 him in clearness and power of thought. His wit enlivened, 
 as his analj^sis illumined, the dark places of the general sub- 
 ject. His special contribution to it, which is one of great 
 importance, may be given in his own words. Though Value 
 cannot exist separately from human efforts, Utility, or the 
 mere capacity to gratify some desire, may reside in the mate- 
 rials and forces of Nature. '•'•But these natural forces in 
 tliemselves and apart from all intellectual and bodily exertion 
 ore gratuitous gifts of Providence, and in this respect they 
 remain destitute of Value through all the complications of 
 human transactions. This is the leading idea of the present 
 work.'' 
 
 For our present purposes there is no need of going into 
 
niSTOBT OF THE SCIENCE. 65 
 
 further detail in regard to tlie later economists of France.- 
 There have been a great number of these of sharp intelli- 
 gence and varied view up to our own time, and so far as 
 they have confined themselves to strictly economic discussion 
 may be grouped in a general way into either the second or 
 third school, for the first school, influential as it proved, is 
 dead even in the land of its bu'th. But much writing that 
 passes as economical is not really such. As Political 
 Economy is the science of Sales, and as there can be no 
 full stream of sales where the right to the varied results of 
 past or present work for use or sale is denied, Communism, 
 which denies the benefits of private property and demands 
 community of goods in a society, and Socialism, which hates 
 capital and gives to present work dominion over the accumu- 
 lations of past work, are in all their manifestations non- 
 economic^ and the advocates of these theories push themselves 
 by the strokes of their pens out of the pale of our science. 
 There can be no science of sales with those who strive to 
 give economic reasons for restricting sales. So, also, there is 
 a large number of otherwise able writers, both French and 
 other, who have not yet learned the radical difference be- 
 tween Politics and Economics, and who try to cover both 
 fields with one science, — a feat that cannot be done. Poli- 
 tics is a far wider and more difficult and more incomplete 
 science than ours, although the two touch each other at 
 several vital points, as we shall see. Social Science so- 
 called is another broad subject which is sometunes con- 
 founded with Political Economy to the great detriment of 
 the latter, whose sole field is buying and selling. Chevalier, 
 professor of this science in the College of France, a friend 
 and disciple of Bastiat, very distinguished for his part in 
 negotiating the commercial treaty with England in 1860, and 
 a gifted author belonging to the third school ; Wolowski, a 
 native Pole but after 1834 a naturalized Frenchman, a 
 teacher in the school of Arts and member of the Academy 
 of moral and political sciences, the founder of the famous 
 
56 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Bcheme of Credit fonder, and a copious writer on economic 
 subjects ; and Leon Say, a grandson of the great economist 
 of that name, a long time the minister of Finance, and per- 
 haps the most successful handler who ever lived of a great 
 
 \ nation's great debts, — may serve as specimens merely of the 
 
 \French economists of our own day. 
 
 The strong drift of French thought has been towards free 
 trade with the rest of the world. This may be voiced for us 
 by the celebrated Fenelon in the third book of his Tele- 
 maque : — ^'^ Above all, never undertake to restrict the freedom 
 of commerce. The prince must never interfere with it for 
 fear of restraining it, and he must leave all the profit of it to 
 his subjects who have the labor of it ; otherwise he loill dis- 
 courage them. He toill derive sufficient advantage from it 
 through the great riches which zoill enter into his dominions. 
 Commerce is like unfailing springs : if you wish to change 
 their course, you will drain them." France has long been 
 and is now a country prosperous by trade. The annual aver- 
 age yield of wine for the half-centurj^ past is 1,000 millions 
 of gallons, rising in 1875 to near 2,000 millions gallons, but 
 sinking in 1880 to 675 millions gallons owing to the ravages 
 of the phylloxera, the insect-pest of the vineyards. About 
 4% of this wine is exported, and the rest is sold at home. 
 The annual production of silk is worth 1,000 millions of 
 francs. In 1871-72, France paid a war-indemnity to Ger- 
 many of 5,000 millions of francs, besides spending thi'ee- 
 fifths as much more in the costly struggle, and seemed soon 
 after as busy and prosperous as ever, notwithstanding the 
 change of government from empke to republic. These were 
 the sums managed by Leon Say. Before the decade was 
 over the annual foreign trade of France amounted to more 
 than the cost of that war ; and the ordinary receipts of the 
 treasury were 2,575 millions of francs in 1876.-' 
 
 ^ Henri Martin's Age of Louis XIV., vol. i. cliaps. i., ii., and vii.; Martin's De- 
 c\ *. of the French Moiiareliy, vol. ii. chaps, iii., v., and vii.; Laveleyc's New Ten- 
 ds ies of Pol. Econ., translated by George Walker; Blanqui's History of Pol. 
 Ecv )., chaps, xxxii. and xxxiii.; Say's Treatise of Pol. Econ., I. xv.; Bastiat's Har 
 
HISTORY OF TEE SCIENCE. 51 
 
 6. Next after France comes Eugiand in any true sketch of 
 the modern growth of our science. Indeed, as a rule, Eng- 
 land has always managed her matters of trade better than 
 France ; but her thinkers on this theme, even if they have 
 been more numerous and copious, came later upon the field, 
 and have been less original. Historically considered, Eng- 
 land has been rather an agricultural than a commercial or 
 manufacturing country. We have the statement of the 
 Emperor Julian that, in the middle of the 4th century, a 
 famine on the banks of the Rhine was averted b}' the impor- 
 tation of corn from Britain. Sheep culture on a large scale 
 began early, as we have seen already ; and the export of 
 wool even in 1354 was 35,500 sacks, valued at £6 a sack, 
 aud taxed rather more than 40*^ for export. Not many 
 years after that, the exportation rose to 100,000 sacks a 
 year. In 1660 the export of wool was strictly forbidden, 
 under the notion which Colbert was fostering at the same 
 time across the channel, that raw materials kept at home 
 would enable a country to sell more of its finished products. 
 This prohibition was not repealed till 1825 ; the import of 
 foreign wool into England had always been entirely free till 
 1802, between which time and 1828 it was burdened with 
 heavy duties ; but the I'epeal of all these restrictions was 
 followed by a large increase in the number and great im- 
 provement in the quality of the sheep in the United King- 
 dom, which amounted in 1868 to 35,607,812. Neither 
 carrots nor turnips nor other edible roots were cultivated 
 in England before the 16th century, when these and most 
 of the garden vegetables were introduced from Holland, and 
 the potato at the same time from America ; l ut onions and 
 pease aud cabbage, apples aud other fruits, and grapes also 
 perhaps planted by the Romans, were grown with success 
 before the fall of Constantinople. The cereals, and espe- 
 
 monies of Pol. Econ., in the Introduction ; Appletons' and Chambers' Cyclopaedias, 
 under tit.es Pol Heal Economy^ Ba,sUat, BoisguUlebevt^ CpiidiUae, Turgot, and 
 others 
 
58 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 cially wheat, always have beeu and are still the chief crops 
 of Britain. The old " three-field husbandry " of the Anglo- 
 Saxons, by which a crop of wheat was followed regularly by 
 a crop of barley, oats, or beans, and then the field left fal- 
 low every third 3^ear, has been kept up in some of the mid- 
 land counties till our own day. Beans have gone far to 
 Biipersede fallows on strong loams and clays. The " four- 
 course husbandry " of modern times, namely, wheat, turnips, 
 barley, clover, still makes wheat the main thing ; and it is 
 claimed that the average yield per acre, 28 bushels, is the 
 largest in the world, and more than double the average yield 
 in the United States. The total extent of the United King- 
 dom is 76,300,000 acres, of which 26,300,000 acres are in 
 mountain pasture and waste, and 50,000,000 acres in crops, 
 meadows, permanent pasture, and woods. There were in 
 1877 in wheat, 3,321,000 acres; barley, 2,652,000; oats, 
 4,239,000; potatoes, 1,393,000; other green crops, 3,566,- 
 000; grass under rotation, 6,441,000; permanent pasture, 
 24,000,000; forest and plantations, 2,511,000; and in flax, 
 hops, fallows, and so on, 1,877,000 acres. Notwithstand- 
 ing a fertile soil and a skilful culture of it, and notwith- 
 standing a cost of importation equal on the average to the 
 rent of the land for a corresponding home production, in 
 1880 that part of British bread made out of foreign wheat 
 was larger than the other part, and one-fourth of the meat 
 and dahy products eaten by the British people were im- 
 ported from abroad. The entire value of the lands of the 
 United Kingdom (including the mineral lands) has been put 
 at no less a sum than £3,000,000,000 sterling. 
 
 It was only in Queen Elizabeth's time that England began 
 to be strictly a manufacturing and commercial country. 
 The fall of Antwerp in 1585 transferred one-third of the 
 merchants and manufacturers of the ruined city to the banks 
 of the Thames, and from that day to this London has been 
 the commercial mart of the world. The export of wool 
 declined when the farmers' wives began everywhere to spin 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 59 
 
 their own wool into a, coai'se " homespun," and the weaA'ing 
 and fulling and dyeing of cloth spread out from the towns 
 to the hamlets. Before Elizabeth died in 1G03, we read 
 of the worsted trade passing from Worsted (a now almost 
 forgotten hamlet of Norfolk) over the eastern counties, of 
 the broadcloths of the "west of England" that then 
 claimed and still claim the palm among woollen stuffs of 
 that kind, of the coverlets of York, of the cloth trade 
 of Halifax, and of the cutlery of Sheffield. The linens 
 of Ireland and Scotland came in later, and the weaving of 
 silk was then just beginning, while Cornwall was still ex- 
 porting its tin as of old, and the iron furnaces were blazing 
 in Sussex and Kent. Commerce had just found a new path 
 to Russia ; ocean ships were soon built bigger ; the old time 
 fisheries of the Channel and of Ulster were extending to 
 the banks of Newfoundland for cod and to the Polar seas 
 for whales ; John Hawkins began in 1562 the slave-trade 
 from Africa, which, being immoral, proved a curse for more 
 than two hundred years to all concerned in it ; customers 
 from all sides dropped in on the British markets, for Sir 
 Thomas Gresham, of whom we shall hear more by and by, 
 laid the foundation at London of the Roj^al Exchange in 
 1566 ; coal came gradually into sale for use in the arts and 
 manufactures and for domestic purposes also, until, in 1880, 
 of the world's annual output of 300,000,000 tons, Britain 
 furnished about one-half, and the United States only one- 
 sixth ; the year 1770 is the great year in the history of the 
 cotton industry on both sides the Atlantic, for it was in 
 that year that Hargreaves patented the spinning-jenny, and 
 fabrics of pure cotton were first woven in England, and 
 that the first shipment of any importance of raw cotton 
 (2,000 lbs.) was made from the United States; in 1871, 
 just one hundred years afterwards, Britain imported 1,778,- 
 139,776 lbs. of raw cotton, of which 1,038,677,920 lbs. 
 came from the United States, and the latter exported in all 
 $218,527,109 worth of raw cotton that year; the processes 
 
60 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of spinning have been so improved that a single thread 
 more than 1,000 miles long has been spun out of one 
 pound of cotton, and the arts of weaving and printing the 
 cloth so perfected that 4,500,000 of the people of Britain 
 are said to be engaged in the industry as a whole, and Brit- 
 ish export of cotton goods in 1875 was £70,900,000 ; colo- 
 nies laid all over the world with a view to bu}^ and sell goods 
 with them have long been a point of English policy ; and, 
 as a consequence of all this, in the amount and variety of 
 her home and foreign commerce, in all the arts and modes 
 of buying and selling, in the steadiness of coins and extent 
 and solvency of credits, the United Kingdom has immensely 
 surpassed every other nation in the world. 
 
 Now, it could not be that these things should go on as 
 they did on ship and shore, and no one give his thoughts to 
 the core of these things and to the source of these gains. 
 In fact, men thought a great deal about these things, and 
 took sharp sides in relation to them on questions of taxa- 
 tion, poor-laws, or other points of public policy. Some were 
 for a broad trade, and some were not. Under the spur of 
 difference and debate, tract after tract came forth in Eng- 
 land, in some of which were reached bright glimpses of some 
 of the great truths that make uj) our science. More or 
 less the fetters of the mercantile system bound men's minds, 
 but here and there and now and then the chain was 
 snapx)ed by a struggling thought that looked out into the 
 realm of a free action. The best thing from an English 
 soiirce in the IGth century was the letter of instructions 
 issued to Sir Hugh Willoughby when he started out in 1553 
 for the exploration of the seas north of Europe, in the 
 course of which one of his ships discovered Archangel. 
 '"''And if it he right and equity to sJiewe such humanitie to 
 all men, doubtlesse the same ought chiefly to he shewed to 
 merchants, who, wandering about the toorld, search both the 
 land and the sea, to carry such good and profitable things as 
 are found in their countries to remote regions and kingdomes, 
 
EISTOET OF THE SCIENCE. 61 
 
 and again to bring from the same such things as they find 
 there commodious for their own countries: both as well that 
 the 2oeople to whom they goe may not he destitute of such com- 
 modities as their countries bring not forth to them, as that 
 also they may be partakers of such things tohereofthey abound. 
 For the God of heaven and earth, greatly providing for man- 
 kinde, would not that all things should be found in one region, 
 to the ende that one should have need of another; that, by this 
 means, friendship might be established among cdl men, and 
 every one seek to gratifie all.'" 
 
 Omitting the pamplileteers, who yet did good work in 
 pushing their way into the wilderness to right or left, and 
 thus pioneered the great writers who came after, — the phi- 
 losopher John Locke must first be mentioned, whose treatise 
 on Civil Government, written to justify the English Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, incidentally illustrates the vital distinction be- 
 tween Utility and Value, and all but establishes this one of 
 the fundamental truths of our science, namely, that Value is 
 the birth of human effort, and not the gift of Providence. 
 " Jbr it is labor indeed that puts the difference of value on 
 every thing. Whatever bread is ivorth more than acorns, 
 ivine than water, or cloth or silk than leaves, skins, or moss, 
 that is wholly oioing to labor a,nd industry. It is labor that 
 puts the greatest part of value upon Land, without which it 
 would scarcely be worth any thing. Supposing the world 
 given, as it ivas, to the children of men in common, we aee 
 how labor could make men distinct titles to the severed parvels 
 of it for their private uses. For it is not merely the plough- 
 man^ s pains, the reaper's and thrasher's toil, and the baker's 
 sweat, that is to be counted into the bread we eat ; the labor 
 of those ivho broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron 
 and stones, ivho felled and framed the timber employed about 
 the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, lohich are a vast 
 number, requisite to this corn, from its being seed to be sown 
 to its being made bread, that must all be charged to the ac- 
 count o/Labour, and received as an effect of that ; nature and 
 
62 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the earth furnishing the almost loorthless materials as in them- 
 selves." These detached passages are an early, if not the 
 very earliest, statement of a truth destined in our own day 
 to transform the face of Political Economy ; but Locke him- 
 self was hardly aware of its pregnant nature, and did not 
 deduce from it the conclusions which it is well able to bear. 
 Locke also did good service in the same reign by his tracts 
 on Money, in helping to prevent the lowering of the silver 
 standard, and in diffusing sound principles (not unmixed 
 with several errors) on the nature of mone^^ He justly 
 taught that it was as wrong for the State to try to fix the 
 price for the use of money (usury-laws) as to fix the price 
 of cutlery or broadcloth. 
 
 The historian Hume issued his Political Essays in 1752. 
 The titles of some of these are, — "Of Commerce," "Of 
 Money," "Of Interest," " Of the Balance of Trade," "Of 
 the Jealousy of Trade," " Of Taxes," " Of Public Credit," 
 In these essays are at once to be recognized not only the 
 clear-flowing style that makes it always a pleasure to read 
 his History of England, but also some strangely liberal senti- 
 ments on trade almost wholly emancipated from the mer- 
 cantile system. But this must be remembered : the doctrines 
 of Boisguillebert on free international exchange and the 
 vanit}" of the so-called balance of trade and the impossi- 
 bility of one nation's monopolizing the coin of the world 
 had by this time become known in England, and Henri Mar- 
 tin says that Hume was familiar with these doctrines, which 
 takes off the edge of our surprise that the latter seems so 
 far in advance of his times. But his merit is great notwith- 
 standing. He ran into the very teeth of the opinion of his 
 day ; and whereas Boisguillebert was prolix and confused, 
 Hume was terse and clear. For example ; — " Foreign trade, 
 by its imports., famishes materials for new manufactures; 
 and, by its exjiorts, it produces labor in particular commodi- 
 ties, which could not be consumed at home. In short, a king- 
 dom that has a large import and export, must abound more 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 63 
 
 witJi industry than a Mngdom that rests contented with its 
 own commodities." In the conclusion of the essay on the 
 Jealousy of Trade occur these noble words : — "J shall there' 
 fore venture to acknowledge, that, not only as a man, but as 
 a British subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of Ger- 
 many, Spain, Italy, and even France itself." Perhaps there 
 was no earlier hint of the great truth afterwards fully de- 
 veloped by Say, that there can never be a general over- 
 production, than these words from the essay on Commerce : — 
 " If strangers will not take any particular commodity of ours, 
 we must cease to labor in it. The same hands will turn them- 
 selves to some refiyiement in other commodities which may be 
 wanted at home; and there must always be matericds for them 
 to work upon, till every person in the State who possesses 
 riches, enjoys as great plenty of home commodities, and those 
 in as great perfection, as he desires; which can never pos- 
 SCBLT HAPPEN." Ou the subjcct of Money, Hume is less 
 happy, although he casts some new light on it. He mars 
 his discussion by assuming that a less quantity of the metals 
 would answer every purpose of commerce as well as a 
 greater, and have as much value ; which would only be 
 true on the supposition that the less quantity cost as much 
 effort to produce it, and its smaller subdivisions were as 
 convenient in exchange ; and from this false assumption he 
 deduces this very false inference : — " Were all our money, 
 for instance, recoined, and a penny's toorth of silver taken 
 from every shilling, the neio shilling would probably purchase 
 every thing that could have been bought by the old; and do- 
 mestic industry, by the circulation of a great number of pounds 
 and shillings, would receive some increase and encourage- 
 ment." Are men, then, usually willing to receive ^ as 
 equal to ^ ? 
 
 In 1776, the same year in which Condillac put out his 
 book abeady referred to, Adam Smith, who was the inti- 
 mate friend of Hume, published " An Inquiry into the 
 Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." He was 
 
64 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 then fifty-three years old. Scotch born and trained, thoug?j 
 he passed seven years at the University of Oxford, he be- 
 came in 1752 Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, 
 and issued in 1759 his "Theory of the Moral Sentiments," 
 a book on which he supposed his lasting fame would rest, 
 but which is now very nearly forgotten. His University 
 lectures on natural theology and ethics were thus put in sul - 
 stance into permanent form ; while his lectures given it the 
 same time on jurisprudence and public economy, which have 
 not been preserved, are thought to have been the nucleus of 
 his later and far more famous book, since he is known to 
 have advocated in them the doctrine of Free Trade, which 
 was at that time held also by the most enlightened men in 
 France, Italy, and Spain. Resigning his professorship in 
 1763, he went the next year to France, where he resided 
 nearly three years, and where he became intimate with 
 Quesnay and other prominent phj^siocrats of the first school 
 already characterized, whose doctrines are clearly seen to 
 color many parts of his own book. Indeed, had not Ques- 
 nay's death prevented it, the book would have been dedi- 
 cated to him. So continuous is the growth of a science 
 when once it begins, and so closely connected in its origin 
 was the second school with the first. Returning to his 
 native Kirkcaldy, where there is -still a paved walk to the 
 seashore called "Adam Smith's Close," and where the tra- 
 dition is still alive, that he used to pace back and forth along 
 the shore muttering and gesticulating, he passed there in 
 retirement the ten years previous to its publication in the 
 preparation of" his famous book. It will be noticed that the 
 publication took place in the very year in which the Inde- 
 pendence of the United States was declared ; and this book 
 itself was a. sort of declaration of independence of the false 
 principles and foolish policy of the mercantile system. Like 
 the document of Jefferson, this also excited universal atten- 
 tion : both alike mark an era ; and the results in the eco- 
 nomical world of the treatise of Smith have been scarcely 
 
niSTOBY OF THE SCIENCE. 65 
 
 less striking and beneficent than the results in the political 
 world of Jefferson's Declaration. Mr. Buckle goes so fai 
 as to say, that " Adam Smith contributed more, by the 2)ubli- 
 cation of this single woi'k, toward the hapx>iness of man. than 
 has been effected by the united abilities of all the statesmen 
 and legislators of whom history has preserved an authentic 
 accoujit." This is extravagant. So also is the general esti- 
 mate put upon the book in Great Britain, as if it were wholly 
 original, as if it had created our science, and as if its author 
 deserved the title of "father" of the science. Political 
 Economy has no father. There are elder brothers in that 
 famil}', of whom the eldest is Aristotle, and prominent 
 among the others will always be Adam Smith. Nulla est 
 ars quae singulari consummata sit ingenio. No branch of 
 knowledge is achieved by the genius of one man. 
 
 Adam Smith, though not the founder of our science, is 
 the true founder of the second school of it, which we have 
 already called the Commodities School ; and to him more 
 than to any other one man must be referred the fourth and 
 final theory of sales, namely, the theory of freedom of scdes. 
 He founded the second school, because he gave a strong 
 preference to material commodities over other forms of 
 value, and even to agriculture over other forms of i^roduc- 
 tion, while he well refuted the point of Quesnay, that the 
 physical earth is the only source of values. He also gave 
 a false preference to the home trade over the foreign trade, 
 to labor as a cause of value over desire as the other cause, 
 and even to certain forms of salable effort over other forms 
 equally salable. Still, several of the more important propo- 
 sitions of our science are established in this book be^'ond the 
 reach of controversy, and they have exerted a prodigious 
 influence over the legislation of Great Britain and of many 
 other countries also. He demonstrated that both the parties 
 are gainers in commerce. He exalted labor, and showed 
 the immense advantages of its division. He advocated with 
 all his might the unshackled freedom of labor and trade, 
 
66 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and mercilessly exposed the weak points of the devices of 
 the mercantile system. 
 
 On the other hand, a strange lack of precise definitions, 
 a want of consistency in the use of terms, and consequently 
 an absence of scientific generalizations, mar the "Wealth 
 of Nations," and have given rise to endless controversies. 
 For example. Dr. Smith does not anywhere tell us in what 
 "wealth" consists. He does not attempt to give a defini- 
 tion of that word, which is with him the bottom word. From 
 the frequency, however, with which he uses the phrase, " the 
 annual produce of land and labor," we may infer that that 
 was in general his idea of "wealth." If so, his idea was 
 very faulty; for he himself classes "labor" among the 
 valuable things; but labor is no part of " the annual prod- 
 uce of land and labor." He counts as a part of fixed capital 
 " the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants or 
 members of the society;" but "abilities," certainly so far 
 as they are natural, are no part of " the annual produce of 
 land and labor." He rightlj" reckons as a part of circulat- 
 ing capital " bank-notes and bills of exchange ; " but clearly 
 enough, these are not "the produce of land and labor." 
 Many things are bought and sold every day which are not 
 " the produce of land and labor," either as separate or com- 
 bined ; and many things which are " the produce of land and 
 labor," whether separate or combined, cannot be sold at all 
 at certain times and places. Therefore, Dr. Smith's idea 
 of "wealth" was at once quite too narrow and quite too 
 wide. But it is well to note that he too held with those of 
 old that there are at least three kinds of valuable things. 
 At last he comes in a remarkable passage to the root of the 
 whole matter. He says: " A guinea (which maj' be called 
 the produce of land and labor) may be considered as a bill 
 for a c^'tain quantity of necessaries and conveniences upon 
 all the tradesmen in the neighborhood. The revenue of the 
 person to whom it is paid does not so properly consist in the 
 piece of gold, as in what he can get for it, or in what he can 
 
HIS TOE Y OF THE SCIENCE. 67 
 
 exchange for it. If it could be exchanged for nothing, it would, 
 like a hill upon a baiikrupt, be of no more value than the 
 most useless piece of paper." This is just the truth. Here 
 Dr. Smith admits in ample terms that even a gold guinea, 
 and hence all kinds of valuable things, depends for its value 
 on its exchangeability . If he had organized his matter around 
 this point as a centre, instead of around "the annual prod- 
 uce of land and labor ; " if he had widened his discussions 
 so as to include all exchangeable things as such, instead of 
 narrowing them to what is " fixed and realized in some ven- 
 dible commodity ; " and if he had given his mind more to 
 definitions and thus to generalizations ; his book would never 
 have become, as it has already become, antiquated ; for he 
 had the art of making his discussions interesting, even when 
 his conclusions were clearly wrong ; of bringing the truths 
 discovered by others and those first demonstrated by himself 
 into a sort of system, some parts of which indeed are not 
 consistent with other parts, — as when, for example, he 
 aUows that a state may regulate the rate of interest, and 
 that some wines bear a high price because they are scarce 
 and fashionable; and of making the facts of history throw 
 a blaze of light upon the points he had in hand. 
 
 Dr. Smith's book was translated into French in 1781, and 
 soon threw into the shade not only Condillac's book on 
 ' ' Commerce ' ' but also more or less the writings of the 
 phj^siocrats and of the earlier French economists. It made 
 such an impression in France in connection with the impres- 
 sion already produced by Boisguillebert and the rest, that 
 "William Pitt, who, as an undergraduate at Oxford, had just 
 before studied the treatise of Smith, had little difficulty in 
 1786 in concluding with the French Government a treaty of 
 commerce and navigation, by which was established on the 
 payment of moderate duties " reciprocal and entirely perfect 
 liberty of navigation and commerce between the subjects of 
 eacli party in all and every the kingdoms, states, provinces 
 and territories, subject to their majesties in Europe for all 
 
68 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and singular kind of goods in these places." This excellent 
 treaty was shortly after swept away by the oncoming of the 
 French Ee volution. If books are to be measured by the 
 effect that follows them on the fortunes of mankind, then 
 Dr. Smith's must be reckoned among the greatest of books. 
 It was translated into several of the languages of the Conti- 
 nent, and came to have a crowd of followers in all the coun- 
 tries of the west of Europe. Of course that crowd has been 
 *ihe greatest in Great Britain. For a century there has been 
 no end of the flow of vvritings that may fairly be said to be- 
 long to his school. These writers in long succession, many 
 of them of great reputation, whose special points will be 
 named and discussed in the sequel, have for the most part 
 followed out his principles and accepted his limitations, — 
 like him, confining their discussions of value mainly to ma- 
 terial commodities, regarding labor rather than desire as the 
 cause of value, ignoring personal services as such, and giv- 
 ing with some exceptions but little attention to the subject 
 of credit. Of course in such thorough and continued discus- 
 sions they have corrected many of Adam Smith's minor mis- 
 takes, and have made important additional contributions to 
 the science at many points. They have also the great repu- 
 tation that attends undoubted success : they have put the 
 doctrines of Free Trade and Sound Money upon an im- 
 movable basis in Great Britain, and thus exerted a powerful 
 influence towards their establishment throughout the world. 
 
 Nevertheless the signs are now seen on every hand that 
 the second school of Political Econom}'', as a scientific sys- 
 tem, is neariiig its end. It is already passing to join the 
 first school, its worthy predecessor, in the land of Silence ; 
 and the third school, which started the same year, may per- 
 haps already be said to be the system of the Present, and at 
 any rate is certain to become the system of the Future. 
 Three indications of the decay of the second school may 
 suffice the present purpose. (1). Bonamy Price, long distin- 
 guished both in other ways and as the Professor of Political 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 69 
 
 Economy in the University of Oxford, a disciple of Adam 
 Smith, and as much entitled perhaps as any man in the 
 world to speak for tlie school, published a book in 1878, 
 dedicated by permission to His Roj'al Highness, Prince Leo- 
 pold, with the title ^^ Practical Political Economy." The 
 subject of the first chapter of this book is, "Is Political 
 Economy a science?" and the answer extended through 
 thirty pages is an emphatic No. The title is in itself a 
 confession, and the reason given for the title is an express 
 confession. " The v:ord Practical is added solely in contra- 
 distinction to what may he called Scientific Political Economy. 
 It is intended to indicate a mode of treatment ivMch not only 
 does not claim to be scientific, but which supposes the scientific 
 method to be a mistake." Moreover, Prof. Price does not 
 indicate his own feeling alone in this remarkable chapter, 
 but goes on to say of the meeting of the Political Economy 
 Club of London in 1876 to celebrate the centenary of Adam 
 Smith's book, — '•'•It is unhappily but too clear that a marked 
 feeling of dissatisfaction ivith the actual position of Political 
 Economy pervaded the whole gathering." The chief ground 
 of this scientific despair of the second school, as the present 
 writer pointed out many years ago, is their vain attempt to 
 use the word " wealth " in a technical sense. That is a word 
 impossible to be defined with precision. From its indefinite- 
 ness and the variety of associations it carries along with it 
 in different minds, it is totally unfit for any scientific pur- 
 pose whatever. No two writers conceive of it alilvc. In his 
 first sentence Adam Smith seems to explain it as " the neces~ 
 saries and conveniences of life which a nation annually con- 
 sumes." That is pretty vague, to say the least of it. 
 "What is wealth?" asks Bonaray Price, and he answers 
 cautiously, — " Here again we have a question as hard and 
 as jyuzzling as ever. ' ' But while the school as a whole has 
 tended towards a concrete meaning of the word, as denoting 
 something fixed and realized in a vendible commodity. Price 
 goes on to say, — " I hold that the qualities of a people, their 
 
70 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 moral, intellectual and physical natures, are parts of their 
 wealth.'" The truth is, each disciple of the second school 
 has had his full say about the word : no two of them have 
 agreed about its meaning : if possible, each has been more 
 befogged by it than his predecessor : it has been demon- 
 strated that there is no need of the word at all in the 
 science ; but the school will not give it up ; and, therefore, 
 they are dying of a pet but inadequate word, which they 
 insist on putting in at the foundation of their work. Prof. 
 Price admits in so many words, — " ?<;e must give up all 
 hope of a scientific definition of wecdth." Yes, indeed ; and 
 they must therefore ' ' give up all hope ' ' of holding the 
 ground of Political Economy against those who know how 
 to use words with precision. 
 
 (2). Mr. Cliffe Leslie, a very intelligent and copious and 
 candid economical writer of the Commodities School, in an 
 article of the Fortnightly Review for October, 1880, betrayed 
 his infidelity in the scientific conclusions of Political Economy 
 both in other ways and also by these significant questions at 
 the end : — " How much, beneath what can claim only a local 
 or a temporary imp>ortance, possesses universcd and permanent 
 value? Wlicd pvohlenis have been solved for cdl time? Wliat 
 universal truths have been discovered? Hoio much of the 
 work of Smith, Malthics, Mill, Roscher, Knies, Bastiat^ 
 Chevalier, Wayland, Walker, Perry, Carey, will remain 
 standing and solid a hundred years hence?" The same 
 gentleman more recently mildly ridiculed the present writer 
 for these words in the preface of his smaller book : — "I 
 have endeavoiied in this book so to lay the foundations of 
 Political Economy in their whole circuit, that they will never 
 need to be disturbed afterwards by persons resorting to it 
 for their early instruction, however long and however far 
 these persons may pursue their studies in this science : " — 
 as if such foundations could not be laid, or at least had not 
 yet been laid, for the science. Mr. Leslie's words in this 
 connection are of importance only as indicating clearly the 
 
EISTOEY OF THE SCIENCE. 71 
 
 dissatisfaction, or ratlier despair, of the second school as 
 such. 
 
 (3) . The same thing is indicated by the shock produced 
 in England by the books of Henry Dunning Macleod. Mr. 
 JNIacleod indeed did not come upon the British public un- 
 heralded. So early as 1831, Archbishop Whately, then 
 Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, criticised the 
 fundamental views of the second school, disliked the techni- 
 cal use of the word " wealth," and proposed a new name 
 for the science — Catallactics — in exact accordance with its 
 true nature. " For the things themselves of which the science 
 treats^ are immediately revioved from its province, if loe 
 remove the possihility or the intention of making them the 
 subject of exchange; and this, though they may conduce in 
 the highest degree to happiness, tvhich is the tdtimate object 
 for tvhich wecdth is sought." Thus Whately reached one 
 hand back to Condillac, and the other (as it were) forward 
 to Bastiat and Macleod. The second school, however, was 
 then too strong in England through the labors of Smith and 
 Ricardo, and was soon to be too much restrengthened by 
 the work of Stuart Mill, for these light blows of the polite 
 churchman to have much effect. But Macleod hewed roughl}^ 
 He was bred a lawyer, and as such and as land-proprietor 
 became interested in economics on the practical side. His 
 first economical discoveries were in the realm of Credit, for 
 the understanding of which he had the great advantage of 
 familiarity with the Roman Law, and also with the practical 
 routine of commercial business. He showed that the buj'ing 
 and selling of Credits come just as much within the view of 
 the science as the buying and selling of Commodities ; and 
 even maintained to the horror of the concrete school that 
 withiu certain limits Credit is capital ; and also was the first 
 to demonstrate the important principle, that a difference in 
 the rate of discount betiveen any two places, more than suff- 
 cient to x>ay the cost of sending bullion from one to the other, 
 tiaturally causes a transmission of bullion from one to the 
 
72 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 other ; and, accordingly , a sedulous attention to the rates of 
 discount shoidd he the managing principle of hanks of issue. 
 Macleod, accordingly, appeared as a strong champion of the 
 third school. He held that all three kinds of sales come 
 equally beneath Political Econom3^ In 1872 he wrote to 
 Chevalier, the personal friend of Bastiat, in warm allusion 
 to the latter: — " ^o 07ie can feel more sensibly than I do 
 how inferior I am to your lamented friend in literary skill, 
 hut our ideas are the same; and I venture to say loith confi- 
 dence, that had he been living now, there woidd have been no 
 material difference between us at any point. ^' First in his 
 "Theory and Practice of Banking," since republished in 
 different forms ; then in 1858 in his " Elements of Political 
 Economy," afterwards expanded into his "Principles of 
 Economical Philosophy ; ' ' and lastly in his exhaustive 
 "Dictionary of Political Economy," Macleod showed him- 
 self to be learned, lawyer-like, copious, original, over-confi- 
 dent, sometimes careless, controversial, exasperating, almost 
 belligerent, and alwaj's indefatigable. Good economists of 
 the earlier faith, like Cairns, Price, and Leslie, found it 
 hard to possess their souls in patience. Half-conscious that 
 their own position was narrow and untenable, half-persuaded 
 against their will that the science was moving into a broader 
 and better field, and thoroughly dislilving the sledge-hammer 
 and devil-may-care manner of their Scotch compeer, there 
 was something ludicrous to bystanders in the attitude of the 
 older brethren towards Macleod. Still, though his views 
 found a readier acceptance in P'rance and in the United 
 States than at home, his books have already changed, and 
 cannot fail in the end greatly to change, the economic opin- 
 ions of his countr^^men. His definition of the science is the 
 same as that of all the other leaders of the All Sales School, 
 namely, the Science of Exchanges.^ 
 
 1 Brodei-ick's English Land and English Landlioldc?rs, pp. 3, 11, et seq. ; Green's 
 England, I. 363, 410; McCulIoch's Com. Diet., Arts. Wool and Cotton ; Green's Short 
 Hist., p.oSG et seq.; Locke on Civil Gov., sects. 39-43; Henri Martin's Dec. Men., 
 H. 147; McCuUuch's Discourse in his ed. Adam Smith; Columella, De Re Rustica, 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 73 
 
 7. Italy was the land whence the light of the new learn- 
 ing of the 16th centur}" spread over Europe. Banks, or 
 public loans, on which interest was paid and whose shares 
 were negotiable, had been very early established at Venice, 
 Milan, and Genoa ; and this circumstance with others natu- 
 rally directed the chief attention of the Italian economists 
 to the subject of Money. In 1552, Scaruffi published a book 
 On Moneys and the true proportion between Gold and Silver. 
 In 1613, Serra issued his Treatise on the causes which make 
 Gold and Silver abound in Kingdoms. Davanzati wrote : — 
 ." Gold and silver are instruments tvhich make the property 
 of mortals circulate over the whole globe, and which may be 
 considered as secondary causes of a happy life." Mengotti 
 wrote : — '■'■Money is essentially rebellious to the orders of law : 
 it comes without being called, it goes toithout being arrested, 
 deaf to advances, insensible to threats, attracted solely by the 
 allurements of profits." Numerous writers besides these 
 through original discussions came to the sound conclusion 
 that governments have no right to tamper with the standard 
 of value used by their subjects ; and some of them expressed 
 the strong reaction against the Mercantile System felt in 
 Italy, as well as in France and England, during the second 
 half of the 18th century. The first professorship of Politi- 
 cal Econom}' was established in the university of Naples in 
 1754, on three conditions, namely, that the lectures should 
 be in Italian , that Antonio Genovesi should be the first pro- 
 fessor, and tnat no ecclesiastic should succeed him. Geno- 
 vesi was a mercantilist, but he insisted on the free exportation 
 of corn. A second professorship was instituted in Milan in 
 1768, and Beccaria, who already felt the influence of Quesnay 
 and insisted on the freedom of inland-industry, was appointed 
 to lecture in it. He was the first to call iron t\\e falher-metal. 
 Later Italian economists belonged in general to the second 
 school. The two most remarkable things about the Italians 
 
 lib. i. ; Cainis's Pol. Econ., Appendix A; Macleod's Elements of Pol. Econ., Preface, 
 and Macleod's Prin. Ecoiiom. Pbil., Dedicatory letter to Chevalier. 
 
74 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 in this connection are (1) their precedence in founding chairs 
 for teaching the science, and (2) their zeal in collecting and 
 classifying the books on the science. A collection of the 
 best Italian writers was begun under the patronage of Napo- 
 leon in 1803, and completed in fifty octavo volumes in 1816. 
 A second collection in twenty-six octavo volumes was made 
 by Professor Ferrara of Turin in 1850-70. A third collec- 
 tion, to consist in part of foreign works translated into 
 Italian, was commenced in Turin by Professor Boccardo in 
 1875. Professor Cossa of the university of Pavia published 
 in English in 1880, as previously in Italian, a Guide to the 
 Study of Political Economy. He issued also about the 
 same time in Italian other treatises of merit on the general 
 subject.-' 
 
 8. Perhaps the Germans have done more for Political 
 Economy through their public action in the ZoUverein, and 
 through the Society of German Economists, than through 
 the individual contributions of their numerous economical 
 writers. Prussia founded the Zollverein in 1818. As a 
 separate state of Germany, Prussia deserved well of the 
 world for successful efforts to improve and diffuse education, 
 and for equally successful efforts to bring into Germany as 
 a whole a free commercial system. The outline of the Zoll- 
 verein was uniform customs duties on the frontier, a division 
 of this revenue among the states on the basis of the popula- 
 tion of each, and a perfect internal free trade. The Ger- 
 man States came into the plan one after another, suppressed 
 their interior custom-houses, adopted the Prussian proposal 
 of a maximum duty of 10% ad valorem on foreign manufac- 
 tures of which nothing was prohibited, varied the rate of 
 duties below that figure from time to time, after 1851 ad- 
 mitted the raw materials of manufactures free or nearly so, 
 found that each of them without exception had a larger reve- 
 
 i L. Cossa's Primi Element! di Economia Politica, and autograph letter from the 
 Bame; Blanqni's Hist. Pol. Econ., pp. 260, 2G6, 623; Appletons'Cyclo., Art. Political 
 Economy ; and Chambers' Cyclo., Art. Genovesi. 
 
HIS TOBY OF THE SCIENCE. 75 
 
 nue than before joining theZollverein, witnessed an immense 
 progress of trade and industry in all Germany under this 
 an-angement, and thus became gradually prepared through 
 the benefits of this commercial union for that more intimate 
 political union under the new empire which was consum- 
 mated in 1871. The empire is a union of separate States, 
 like our own government ; and all commercial affairs, tariffs, 
 and taxes, are now managed bj^ the Bundesrath, or imperial 
 senate, in which all the States are represented by annual 
 election, and over which presides the imperial chancellor 
 ex officio. The principles of the Zollverein were not much 
 changed by the change in the form of government. A few 
 simple classes of foreign articles, on which duty is charged ; 
 a low scale of duties on each, almost wholly specific rather 
 than ad valorem., — mostly by weight ; no internal barriers at 
 all ; very few, if any, duties on exports ; a rising customs 
 revenue distributed among the States ; a yearly chance of 
 changing the rates of impost, and hence of experiment and 
 of reaction ; a new coinage of gold, and a new metrical sys- 
 tem, for the whole of Germany ; the trial of an universal 
 income-tax ; and some new political combinations within the 
 empire on the ground of supposed commercial exigencies ; — 
 were the main features during 1871-81 of this customs and 
 commercial union embracing nearly 45,000,000 of people. 
 It seldom falls to the lot of an individual thinker to teach 
 such impressive lessons as may be learned from these great 
 movements. A similar system united in 1851 the different 
 provinces of the Austrian Empire, and similarly gratifjung 
 results followed unity and simplicity in trade regulations. 
 
 The Congress of German Political Economists, which first 
 met in 1858, and whose meetings have been annual since in 
 one of the chief cities of the empire, though entirely non- 
 political, has contributed greatly to the liberal imperial legis- 
 lation, such as the abolition of the usury laws, of the old 
 laws binding certain men to the soil, and of the remnants of 
 the old guilds and other mediaeval rules. The chance of 
 
76 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 a new political combination turned Bismarck towards com- 
 mercial restrictions in 1880, which lessened the direct iuflu-- 
 ence of this Society, a majority of whose members are 
 decided free-traders, but their indii'ect weight in moulding 
 public opinion and in shaping economical and social legisla- 
 tion is said to be great. To reach the end now in view there 
 is no need of mentioning many of the German authors. 
 Friederich List, an early champion of the Zollverein, some 
 time also a resident of the United States, wrote largely both 
 in English and German in the second quarter of the 19th 
 century, using especially the periodical press as a means of 
 influence. Though a mercantilist in his writings, he dis- 
 played a multifarious activity on both continents in behalf 
 of many liberal schemes till his suicide in 1846. K. H. Rau 
 of Heidelberg was author of a text-book much used in Ger- 
 many for about thirty years, and was for about the same 
 time a forcible lecturer in one of the large auditoriums of the 
 university. Loreuz Stein of Kiel and Vienna, perhaps the 
 first to examine historically and scientifically the socialist 
 movement in France and elsewhere, was a copious writer 
 on legal and economical subjects in 1841-75, a stickler for 
 the rights of private property as against all the vagaries of 
 communism, and a zealous free-trader as against all legalized 
 barriers to exchange. Socialism is first and last hostility to 
 the acquisition or exclusive use of Capital by any person or 
 association under the control of the state. Quite a number 
 of the professors in the German universities who lecture on 
 political economy have given to a certain degree the hand of 
 fellowship to socialism. These have passed under the name 
 of Katheder-Socialisten, or socialists in professors' chairs, 
 in distinction from the workiugmen who have been the soul 
 of the movement. " This scientific socialism,'' says Mehring, 
 ' ' distinguishes itself by an uncommon number of interesting 
 characters; but this advantage has a reverse side in an entire 
 want of agreement both as to their criticism of the present or- 
 der of society and as to their positive demands. They have 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 77 
 
 not made any lasting impression on the ivorkingmen's move- 
 mient. But it is scientific socialism which to-day fills all 
 patriotic hearts with anxiety.'" 
 
 Jobanu Conrad of Halle has sometimes been named as 
 among these socialists of the chair ; but, at any rate, he has 
 been a clear writer, an influential thinker, an admirable 
 lecturer, and an unwearied statistician. Wilhelm lloscher 
 of Leipsic was the most widely known economist of Ger- 
 many in the third quarter of the 19th century. His great 
 work. System der Volkswirthshaft ^ is in four separate parts, 
 of which the first has been translated into English in two 
 large volumes under the title. Principles of Political Econ- 
 omy. The German title is. Die Grundlageii der National- 
 oconomie. The second part contains the economy of 
 agriculture and related .subjects, — Nationaloconomie des 
 Aclcerbaues. The third part discusses manufacturing indus- 
 try and commerce, and the fourth the Economy of the State 
 and the commune (Gemeindehaushalt) . These books, as 
 well as his History of Political Economy in Germany, are 
 exceedingly learned, and are full of statements of fact 
 gathered from every land. This peculiarity has given rise 
 to a claim put forth in Roscher's behalf both by his French 
 and English translator, that he is the founder and leader 
 of a new school in political economy, namely, the historical 
 school. This expression is much calculated to mislead. 
 Roscher indeed uses history a great deal for induction and 
 illustration, and so, for that matter, does Adam Smith, and 
 many more. Roscher is not peculiar in this, except, it may 
 be, in the extent to which he carries it. A wide knowledge 
 of the facts of exchange in all parts of the world is ver}^ 
 useful to the scientific economist, but he must have a good 
 deal more furniture than that, if he wish to extend his 
 science. Roscher does not seem to be particularly skilled 
 in generalizations, which are the substance of science, aud 
 he certainly develops his matter on a scheme furnished by 
 others rather than on one devised by himself. He belongs 
 
78 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 emphatically to the second school of our science, the one 
 founded by Adam Smith. The subject of the first book of ' 
 his GruncUagen is Production, of the second book Circula- 
 tion, of the third Distribution, of the fourth Consumption, 
 and of the fifth Population ; terms, some of which indeed go 
 back to the first school of Quesnay, but which as so used are 
 pretty definite ear-marks of the second school. In general, 
 the economists of Germany have unfolded the science in 
 too intimate a dependence on the state, — considering it too 
 much in its relations to public law and administration, and 
 too little in its own proper claims and authority.-^ 
 
 9. The United States of America, in colonial vassalage 
 and as an independent nation, have furnished from the first 
 conditions favorable to the cultivation of economic studies. 
 The Mother Country early envied these Colonies their grow- 
 ing trade and their natural manufactures. The navigation 
 acts of 1651-63 grievousl}^ restricted their foreign markets 
 and their ocean shipping. In 1672, the chief products of 
 the Colonies, under the style of " enumerated articles," were 
 forbidden to be carried except through heavy duties even 
 from one colony to another. In 1698, colonial woollens, 
 whose manufacture had sprung vigorously up of its own 
 accord, were prohibited to be sold b}* one colony to another. 
 Parliament prohibited to the colonists the exportation of 
 hats in 1732, and the erection of mills for slitting and roll- 
 ing iron, and of furnaces for making steel, in 1750. The 
 first general Congress of the Colonies in October, 1765, 
 resolved '•'• xi^. That the restrictions imposed by several late 
 acts of Parliament on the trade of these colonies will render 
 them unable to piuTcliase the manufactures of Great Britain.'^ 
 The Revolution itself was a well thought-out movement of 
 resistance to parliamentary laws restricting the rights and 
 the gains of trade. The Constitution of the United States, 
 
 1 Woolsey's Communism and Socialism, pp. 4-14, 192; Woolscy's Political 
 Science, i., pp. 313, 314; Rosober's Principles of Political Economy, passm,- Blan- 
 qui's Hist. Pol. Econ., Eng. traus., p. 531; Articles Rau, Roscher, Stein, etc., in the 
 CyclopsBclias. I have myself heard Iii\u lecture in Heidelberg, and Conrad in Halle. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 19 
 
 while it gives to the Federal Congress the power "to regu- 
 late commerce," expressly forbids all taxes on exports, and 
 all inter-state impediments to free traffic. Ever since the 
 present national government went into operation in 1789, 
 there has been a succession of public questions involving 
 economical principles, that have stirred more or less deeply 
 the mind of the nation. The coinage laws from the first 
 have been experiments as to the relative value of gold and 
 silver; since 1849, much interest has attached to the mining 
 of these in the western half of the continent ; and in the 
 eighth decade of the century, the country was shaken from 
 one side of it to the other by the perplexing problem of 
 bimetalism. The country has had experience with almost 
 every variety of paper money. There have been two great 
 Banks of the United States, State banks innumerable under 
 all sorts of regulation, and since 1863 there has been oppor- 
 tunity to watch the working of a vast national banking sys- 
 tem. The funding and refunding of a great national debt 
 (1861-81) opened the mysteries of fiscal operations to the 
 minds of the people. Tarifl: discussions have always been 
 in order from 1789 till the present time, and are certain to 
 be continued into the future ; sometimes the masses of the 
 people have been deeply interested in these, and the fate of 
 political parties has turned ou them ; but the people as a 
 whole have never yet seen, as they will one day see, how 
 they have been imposed upon and impoverished by the plau- 
 sible tricks of a tariff. 
 
 Under all these circumstances, it would be thought that 
 our people would be uncommonly well-trained in economics. 
 But it is not so. There never has been a national text-book 
 generall}" accepted, such as the English had for a century in 
 the work of Adam Smith. Besides, our people have never 
 been driven by the pressure of want, or by mediaeval burdens 
 of anj^ kind, to study this science. Politically privileged 
 classes have been mostl}'^ unknown in the United States. 
 "Wars have been infrequent, and standing armies never 
 
80 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 allowed to suck np the substance of the people. An abun- 
 dance of cheap and fertile land has been a constant resource 
 to persons anywhere crowded by competition, or in any way 
 feeling uncomfortably the pressure of numbers. A virgin 
 continent at their free disposal, and the buoyancy of youth 
 m their hearts, our people have been led to study very little 
 their limitations^ and perhaps least of all their economic limi- 
 tations. The enormous losses of their commercial crises, 
 and of their protective tariffs, make far less impression on 
 them than they would make on people less fortunately 
 placed. 
 
 Then, too, a knowledge of economic science has scarcely 
 ever been a requisite for places of honor and profit, — not 
 even for the highest fiscal positions. There has been almost 
 no demand for this kind of knowledge. Of the secretaries 
 of the national treasury even, only Hamilton, Gallatin, 
 Walker, McCulloch, and Sherman, could lay auy claim at 
 all to a scientific mastery of this subject. In the entire list 
 of the Presidents of the United States, Mr. Garfield is the 
 only one, who had to any considerable breadth and depth a 
 personal control of this science. Only a few members of 
 either branch of Congress from the beginning on have been 
 economists in the scientific sense ; what is worse, these have 
 been regarded as scarcely better qualified for their place on 
 that account ; and, consequently, it cannot be said that the 
 usual action of Congress has been guided by Biuch economic 
 wisdom. The fiscal and commercial laws have often been 
 most complicated and conflicting. Now and then a govern- 
 ment official" has distinguished himself for ability in special 
 parts of the subject : for instance, Mr. Wells, as Special 
 Commissioner of the Revenue, and since as a private gentle- 
 man, presented such facts and reasonings in relation to the 
 national industry, commerce, and money, as deserved and 
 received the profound attention of the people ; Professor 
 Walker, as the Superintendent of the two censuses of 1870 
 and 1880, furnished a thesaurus, whose collection was guided 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 81 
 
 by the economic instiuct, and whose facts are extremely use- 
 ful for economic iUustration ; Dr. Linderman, as Director of 
 the Mints, showed himself to be a master in all matters per- 
 taining to bullion and coins ; and Mr. E. B. Elliot, as a 
 mathematician and statistician of the Treasurj', gained a 
 name in many lands for his science and skill. 
 
 The formal treatises on Political Economy in this country, 
 of which the first was written by Daniel Raymond, 1820, 
 fall mostly into two groups, namel}', first, those modelled 
 mainly upon the plan of Adam Smith ; and second, those 
 modelled mainly after the ideas of Henry C. Carey. Into 
 the first group come easily the books of Ra^^mond, Rae, 
 Way land, Bowen, Bascom, Amasa Wall^er, Chapin, Sturte- 
 vant, and Professor Walker. These all belong to the second 
 school. They all conceive of Political Economy as a science 
 of "things," rather than as a science of persons. They all 
 arrange their matter for the most part under " Production," 
 "Distribution," " Exchange," and " Consumption." They 
 all try to use technically the concrete word "wealth." 
 They all seem to the present writer to miss the true doctrine 
 of Credit. Yet they all, some more and some less, furnish 
 fresh contri.l)utions to the science both in the way of infor- 
 mation and of scientific distinctions. Of John Rae, 1834, 
 John Stuart Mill says : "/?i wo othej' book known to me is so 
 much light throion^ both from principles and history, on the 
 causes which determine the accumulation of capital.''^ Amasa 
 Walker's book presents much original discussion on the sub- 
 ject of Money, and has been translated into Italian for the 
 collection of Boccardo, already referred to. His son, Pro- 
 fessor Walker, in full monographs on "Wages" and 
 " Money," and in his formal treatise, " Political Economy," 
 (1883), whose superstructure is worthier than its founda- 
 tions, at once honored the name of his father, and gained an 
 enduring place in the science for himself. 
 
 The other group must be noticed the more carefully, because 
 Carey claims as original with himself some of the fundamental 
 
82 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 positions of Bastiat. The dispute is not very important, 
 because the growth of science is continuous, and because it 
 is difficult for any reader and thinker sharply to cut off in 
 the work of his mind what is his own from that of others. 
 It is certain that these positions are common to the two 
 writers ; and it is to be presumed that Bastiat profited by 
 some of the views of Carey, whose first book dates from 
 1835 ; but there is more than enough that is distinctive in 
 the two authors to justify the claim of each to originality 
 and merit, and also to preclude the classing of Carey and 
 his followers in the third great school of economists. In 
 some respects they belong to that school, and they certainly 
 do not belong to the second school ; but in other, and espe- 
 cially in practical, respects, they are a knot b}^ themselves, 
 — they are a group and not a school. Certain peculiarities 
 of Carey himself cling to all his followers, and these are 
 such as make it almost certain that the group will never 
 become a school. 
 
 Carey's father was an Irish exile, and one of the founders 
 of the Hibernian Society in Philadelphia in 1793, the year 
 of his son's birth. He was a constant writer on party poli- 
 tics, political economy, and social questions. The main 
 thought in a series of Essays published by him in 1822 was 
 the excellent one, which also runs through the writings of 
 his son, namely, that " there is a complete identity of interest 
 between agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." But he 
 hated England with all the fervor of a Celt. The biogra- 
 pher of the §on. Dr. William Elder, and one of his zealons 
 followers, admits that his passionate hostility to the British 
 system of foreign trade and the connected system of political 
 economy, took something of the temper and tone of national 
 prejudice, adding, ^^ His father was an Irish patriot and a 
 political exile from the land of Jiis birth. Something heredi- 
 tary may be detected running with much of the pristine force 
 of blood through the life and character of his son." Dr. 
 Elder also says: " ^e sometimes clinched his deliverances 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 83 
 
 witJi expletives and epithets something out of fashion in 
 society." Au English visitor said of him: " i?e is a man 
 of plain speech, and siuears like a bargeman ivhenever Mill's 
 name is mentioned." Now, a temperament and a prejudice 
 like tl is is hardly favorable to processes of logical reasoning. 
 As a matter of fact, Carey was not a clear and cool economic 
 reasoner. He had insight — a plenty of it — and made sev- 
 eral important and permanent contributions to our science, 
 but his system as a whole is not logically coherent. It does 
 not hang well together. His protectionism, for example, 
 is no outgrowth of the rest of the system, but is rather in 
 direct contradiction to it. He was a protectionist appar- 
 ently, partly because he hated England and its policy, and 
 partly because he was of Pennsylvania, whose iron and coal 
 are raised in price by protective duties, and in which state 
 have resided most of his supporters. These are Stephen 
 Colwell, Peshine Smith, William Elder, Ellis Thompson, 
 William Kelley, Horace Greeley, and others. 
 
 The group are not wholly at one as between themselves, 
 but in general they all follow out the points of their leader. 
 They all exalt the individual nation as over against the 
 world, as if it could have an independent development and 
 destiny separate from the world, and would be glad to have 
 their system entitled the " national " or " nationalist " 
 Economy. They all emphasize governments as a large and 
 constant factor in the ongoings of trade, and are not willing 
 to leave to natural motives and to natural forces what these 
 are perfectly able to care for and conserve. They are all 
 protectionists, just as if tricks wrought on certain prices 
 could by any possibility enrich a whole people. They all 
 keep a closer eye to the interests of selected capitalists than 
 to those of general laborers. Thej' are all friendly to paper 
 money and a good deal of it, and some of them have no 
 objection to irredeemable paper money. Most of them try 
 to draw a distinction between economy as a science and 
 econom}' as an art. All of them show a reluctance to look 
 
84 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 into the inmost nature of trade, to begin at tlie beginning, to 
 analyze simple instances, to display the motives and gains 
 of exchanges, and then to go on clearly and logically through 
 the deeper portions of the subject. This lack of consistent 
 logic makes the group weak with reasoning and reasonable 
 men, notwithstanding the good service done to our science 
 by some of them. Among the central points of Carey and 
 his followers may be enumerated these : That land gains fts 
 value from labor ; that, generally, poorer soils are first culti- 
 vated, then those more fertile and difficult ; that, what would 
 be the cost of their repi'oduction rather than their actual cost 
 of production, determines the value of commodities ; that 
 the interests of classes aud individuals are really harmonious ; 
 that there is a tendency to increase in the wages of labor, and 
 to diminution in the rate, though increase in the aggregate, 
 of the profits of capital ; that the advancement of society 
 corresponds to the degrees of association and libertj' in it ; 
 and that the prices of land, labor, and raw materials tend 
 to approach the prices of finished commodities. 
 
 What may perhaps properly be called the Katheder- 
 Oeconomisten, or Economists of the Chair, have been prom- 
 inent in the United States. The colleges were late in 
 instituting these chairs, few of them being earlier than the 
 middle of the century, but since that time their occupants 
 have exerted a large influence on the educated 3'oung men 
 of the country directly by their teachings and on all classes 
 indirectly by their writings. Among the more prominent of 
 these teachers have been Sumner at New Haven, who had 
 the advantage of entering on the thorough tillage of a field 
 already well ploughed hy Woolsey, and who in his books on 
 "Currency" and "Protection" and in strong articles in 
 various periodicals supplemented a powerful influence ex- 
 erted orally upon his immediate students ; Diman at Provi- 
 dence, who had a worthy predecessor in Wayland, and who 
 added force to sound economic teaching by a great beauty 
 of personal character ; Dunbar at Cambridge, who had Bowen 
 
HIS TO BY OF THE SCIENCE. 85 
 
 before him as no mean economist, and whose own work is 
 not to be disparaged because he was inclined to disparage 
 the worl?: of his colaborers ; Chapin at Beloit, who taught 
 enthusiastic classes in college, and who edited and revised 
 Wayland and afterwards wrote a book of his own ; Sturte- 
 vant at Jacksonville, who in his book indeed wrestled in vain 
 with the irreducible word ' ' wealth ' ' while presenting to his 
 readers, and doubtless also to his pupils, a mass of economic 
 truth in a popular way ; Canfield at Lawrence, whose effec- 
 tive work in economics is all the more to be noticed, because 
 the bulk of his instruction was given along another line ; and 
 Thompson at Philadelphia, who in a widely circulated treatise 
 and in oral instruction tried hard to round down to a circle 
 some of the worst tangents of Carey. The result of all this 
 painstaking instruction has been a generation of compara- 
 tively young men much better versed than their fathers in 
 the principles of our science. 
 
 The only American books that belong unequivocally to the 
 third school of Political Economy are the two books, of which 
 the one now in hand dates from 1865, of the present writer. 
 The great honor was given to him to associate his name with 
 Condillac, Whately, Bastiat, and Chevalier, the heads of this 
 school, by Macleod, its most distinguished representative 
 in Great Britain, in the first volume of his "Principles of 
 Economical Philosophy" issued in 1872. Macleod's own 
 name at any rate is sure to stand in that list in all time to 
 come. His "Elements of Economics," published in 1881, 
 restated with exhaustive learning and ability the grounds on 
 which the third school build, and in which they have such 
 confidence as to believe that there never will be another school 
 substantially different from their own. We have called this 
 the All Sales School in distinction from the Agricultural 
 School of Quesnay and the Commodities School of Adam 
 Smith. 
 
 A brief reference to Henry George, whose " Progress and 
 Poverty" made a great noise in the years 1880-81, will con- 
 
86 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 elude, the section and the chapter. It is impossible not to 
 admire the earnestness and personal conviction of this Cali- 
 fornia writer. In the preface to the fourth edition he 
 saj's : " But there has been nothing in the criticisms they have 
 received to induce the change or modification of these views. 
 In fact., I have yet to see an objection not answered in advance 
 in the booh itself." If he were a few years before, as is 
 implied on page 283, an artisan working at his trade, it 
 is difficult not also to admire the learning, the literary 
 skill, and the dialectic push, displayed in this book. Never- 
 theless it starts from wrong data, and proceeds to an utterly 
 false conclusion. The author, like so many others before 
 him, is helplessly entangled in the word "wealth," and 
 completely' mistakes the nature of land as a valuable thing, 
 not drawing the essential distinction between land as a 
 physical gift from the hand of God and land as made and 
 kept valuable by the efforts of men. Consequently he thinks 
 that the private ownership of land is a misappropriation of 
 the gifts of God. '•'• If we are all here by the equal permis- 
 sion of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the 
 enjoyment of his bounty — with an equal right to the use of 
 all that nature so impartially offers. This is a right that is 
 natural and inalienable ; it is a right that vests in every human 
 being as he enters the tvorld, and which during his continu- 
 ance in the world can be limited only by the equal rights of 
 others. There is in nature no such thing ccs a fee simple in 
 land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make 
 a grant of exchisioe oivnership in land." (p. 304.) Accord- 
 ingly he finds the cause of Poverty, and of commei'cial 
 depressions also, in the rent of land. He thinks that 
 industrial Progress would be promoted if the state would 
 appropriate to itself for the benefit of all in the way of 
 taxation all landed rents. But is not rent a return for a 
 service rendered ? And if the rent be confiscated would the 
 service continue to be rendered? It follows from his prem- 
 ises, that, as rents increase, wages of labor and interest of 
 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 87 
 
 capital must fall ; or, as he puts it, " As rent arises, interest 
 will fall as wages fall." (p. 183.) But well-known facts dis- 
 prove this. Rent, wages, and interest sometimes rise or fall 
 together. All three have been higher in England than they 
 were 130 years ago during the last 30 years. In spite of 
 these radical errors which mar and cut the main drift of his 
 book, it is a pleasure indeed to find him as radically opposed 
 to other and current economic errors. He speaks (p. 270) 
 of " the rohhery involved in the protective tariff of the United 
 States, which for every twenty-five cents it puts into the treas- 
 ury takes a, dollar, and it may be four or five, out of the pocket 
 of the consumer.'" He is equally opposed to the current 
 notions, '■'' that there is a necessary conflict between capital 
 and labor, that machinery is an evil, that competition must 
 he restrained and interest abolished, that wealth may be cre- 
 ated by the issue of money, and that it is the duty of Govern- 
 ment to furnish capital or to furnish work." 
 
 Let us now put into a summary the main points of the 
 chapter. 
 
 1. Every science grows sloivly, and a brief study of the 
 steps of this growth paves the way for scientific analysis and 
 discussion. 
 
 2. The earliest oriental civilization furnished the weights and 
 measures and moneys for the early commerce of the nations. 
 
 3. The Greeks first, and of the Greeks Aristotle most, laid 
 the foundations of Political Economy. 
 
 4. The Roman Law is a mine of distinctions, definitions^ 
 and even discussions relating to our subject. 
 
 5. TJie Middle Age was a jumble of men and measures^ 
 some for and some against the rights and gains of a broad 
 traffic. 
 
 6. The ivonderworkings of capital were first shown to the 
 world on a grand scale by the Jews. 
 
 7. The Hanseatic League, the English and Italian town, 
 and the thrift of Charlemagne, greatly developed commerce. 
 
 8. The fall of Constantinople drove to the West arts and 
 artisans and abiding riches. 
 
88 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 9. Four great TJieories of Sales and Three great Schools of 
 Economy have followed each other. 
 
 10. France stands first of modern nations in an economic 
 view, partly because two of these Theories and two of these 
 Schools are French. 
 
 11. British economists have been distinguished within the 
 limits of the second School. 
 
 12. In substance of doctrine^ though not perhaps in scien- 
 tific form, the third seems likely to be the School of the Future. 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 89 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 
 
 The foregoing chapter has taught indirectly but effectively 
 what is in a general way the subject-matter of our science, 
 and also what have been the main currents of human thought 
 about it. This is a great gain at the outset, and justifies 
 an historical chapter at the beginning, which one might 
 think would be more logically placed at the close. The 
 next step is to determine exactly what this subject-matter is. 
 Thus far we have spoken loosely of our " science," without 
 strictly defining that important term. It is time now to in- 
 quire, first, what a "science" is, and second, what is the 
 precise j/feZfZ of Political Economy among the sciences. 
 
 A Science is the body of exact definitions and sound prin- 
 ciples educed from and applied to a single class of facts or 
 phenomena. 
 
 In this general definition of a science, in which, as cover- 
 ing all the cases and including all that is essential, a full 
 trust may be put, the word " body " is used in its pregnant 
 sense as implying an organic arrangement of parts. A jum- 
 ble of even true definitions and principles does not make 
 a science, but only these when placed in a just order and 
 dependence. As in the human body all the parts are recip- 
 rocally means and ends, so in a science all the definitions 
 and principles and illustrations must be so arranged as to 
 make up a symmetrical whole. 
 
 It will be noticed also, that this definition applies to any 
 science in all stages of its growth. No science is j^et 
 completed ; but just so soon as any correct definitions and 
 
90 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 principles are drawn from and applied to any class of things, 
 and these definitions and principles are orderly arranged 
 in a body, there is an incipient science ; and its progress 
 towards perfection will proceed in precisely the same manner 
 in which its foundations have been laid ; new definitions and 
 principles will gradually be discovered, and these when 
 applied to the class of things from which they have sprung 
 \^"ili lead to corrections and readjustments and enlargements 
 of the science ; and no matter how far these processes may 
 be carried, the general definition with which we start will 
 also be found ample at the end of the journey. 
 
 It follows, that the first grand condition of any science is, 
 that there must be a class of facts to begin with ; and this 
 class must be perfectly separated, in the mind by the concep- 
 tion and in the words by the definition, from all other classes. 
 The class as defined must include every thing that has the 
 quality for the sake of which the investigation is had. There 
 can be no ragged edges. From the very nature of a science 
 as a body, and from the mode in which alone it can be built 
 up, it cannot tolerate facts that come partially but not 
 completely under its fundamental conception. This must 
 be widened to take completely in all things and all phe- 
 nomena just so far as they possess the quality in hand, or 
 narrowed so as to shut wholly'' out all things and phenomena 
 in so far as they do not possess this quality. The concep- 
 tion must embi"ace and the definition constitute a strict class 
 of things, that is to say, include all things that really belong 
 together for the purposes of the investigation. Thus arith- 
 metic, for example, as the science of number, must be 
 inclusive of all things whatsoever that can be numbered, 
 while the other qualities of those very things may well sub- 
 ject them to still other sciences. So ethics, as the science 
 of duty, must just cover those feelings and actions that have 
 in them the ought-quality. So economy, if it be the science 
 of sal'^s, must consider those things (and only those) that 
 arc bought and sold : salableness will be the quality eonsti- 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 91 
 
 tilting the class of things with which tlie science is conver- 
 sant. It follows from all this, that the terms and conclusions 
 of any science are of necessity general and not particular. 
 
 The second grand condition of the building up of any 
 science is, that the class of facts to which it relates be open 
 to the processes of Induction, Deduction, or both. Philo- 
 sophical induction, which is the main instrument in the 
 building up of sciences, is the act of inferring that what has 
 been observed and established in respect to a sufficient par^ 
 may be safely affirmed and received in respect to the whole; 
 that what has been found to be true in a certain number of 
 individuals will be found to bo true of the whole species to 
 which they belong ; that when a due number of particulars 
 have been examined and their peculiarities ascertained, the 
 same peculiarities may be predicated of their generals, how- 
 ever comprehensive. The process of induction proceeds 
 upon the axiom that Nature is consistent with herself. 
 Accordingly, when certain things are shown to be uniformly 
 true in a considerable number of cases, the mind naturally 
 passes over from these cases to a whole class, and frames 
 for itself a general rule or principle, which binds all the 
 cases into one bundle, and thereafter affirms what is known 
 to be true of some to be probably true of all. This is Gen- 
 eralization. It has as a basis a confidence in the resem- 
 blances and analogies of Nature ; and this confidence is 
 justified in the issue, when it is found that Nature pre-or- 
 dained the sciences by causing grand resemblances to run 
 through each department of her works including man and 
 his works. Lord Bacon was the first to explain fully the 
 ground and the mode of philosophical induction, and hence 
 it is sometimes called the Baconian method of reasoning. 
 Inductions have to be tested, in order to make sure that they 
 are correct ; and one way of testing them is by Deduction, 
 which will be explained in a moment. The only other way 
 of testing an induction is by other inductions in different 
 terms so taken as to show the validity- of the first. These 
 
92 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 subsidiary iuductions and dcductioDS are tometimes called 
 Verification, whicli is not a new process at all. 
 
 Descartes thought he had a test of the truth of a general- 
 ization in the vividness and strength with which the concep- 
 tion came home to his mind. He says: " Credicli me pro 
 regula generali sumere p>osse id quod valde dilucide et dis- 
 tincte concipiebam verum esse." I have thought that I coxdd 
 take as a just generalization that which I very dearly and 
 vividly conceived to he true. Probably it is hard sharply to 
 distinguish the scientific satisfaction — the joy of a new 
 generalization — from the skill to use the scientific process ; 
 clearness is indeed a part of the proof, since the reliance 
 is wholly on the free action of one's own mind ; and so far 
 forth Descartes is undoubtedly and interestingly right ; but 
 the truth remains, that the result of a process of scientific 
 reasoning can only be confirmed or overturned by another 
 process of scientific reasoning. Sometimes a single experi- 
 ment is enough to establish an induction, as when Franklin 
 with his kite and key proved the identity of lightning with 
 electricity ; but more commonly repeated observations, exper- 
 iments, or experience, are needful, such as those that have 
 proved the law, that rising prices follow a depreciated 
 money. 
 
 Deduction, on the other hand, is the process by which, 
 beginning with a genercd truth, which itself probably has 
 been inductively ascertained, we seek to connect that with 
 some particula,r case by means of a middle term, or class 
 of objects, known to be equally connected with both. Thus 
 we bring down the general into the particular, affirming of 
 the latter the distinctive qualities of the former. Deduction 
 is thus the opposite process to Induction. Inductively we 
 pass up from less to more inclusive propositions, and deduc- 
 tively we pass down from more to less inclusive propositions. 
 Both processes intermingle continually in scientific reason- 
 ings, and nothing else is strictly reasoning but the use of one 
 or the other of them. Bacon put his great stress on Indue- 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 93 
 
 tiou, because he headed a reaction from the Aristotelian 
 logic which was deductive, yet he did not overlook the true 
 place of Deduction, for he says : ^ " Axioms duly and orderly 
 formed from particulars easily discover the way to neiv partic- 
 ulars, and thus render sciences active." Just now we noted 
 Franklin's famous experiment as leading to the induction 
 that lightning and electricitj^ are identical. The generaliza- 
 tion having been gained, deduction has a chance to work 
 now. It had long been observed that electricity could be 
 conducted from point to point ; if electricity, then lightning ; 
 therefore, inferred Franklin, a pointed iron rod elevated 
 above buildings will conduct lightning from the clouds into 
 the ground. The lightning-rod is the gift of deduction. 
 Whenever a general rule reached by careful induction can 
 be fortified by a deduction from a more general law that has 
 been inductively framed and in which confidence is felt, that 
 rule is almost certainly true. For example : we say that 
 apple-tree blossoms are five-petaled, because blossoms from 
 a large number of trees in many localities have been ob- 
 served to have just five petals; in that case, we affirm 
 inductively ; but the botanists lay down a law that they 
 have reached by induction, that outside-growers, when they 
 have petaled flowers, have them five-fold ; now apple-trees 
 are outside-growers ; and therefore, deductively also, apple- 
 tree, blossoms are five-petaled. As this point is important, 
 let us take a second example from economics. It has been 
 observed in a score of cases that the use of an inferior 
 money is followed by a rise of prices, and no instances to 
 the contrary are recorded ; the rule is perhaps suQlciently 
 made out by induction ; but when we can deduce beforehand 
 the same rule from the nature of money as a measure of 
 values, the rule becomes as certain as any thing can be made 
 by reasoning. 
 
 The sciences fall easily into three great classes, namely, 
 the Exact, the Physical, and the Moral, sciences. The 
 
 M>vum Urgaiion, 1, 24, quoiea by Macleod in Econ. Phil., chap. i. 
 
94 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 exact sciences consist only of the formal Logic, and pure 
 Mathematics. These are whollj^ deductive. Stuart Mill 
 argues at much length in his " Logic " that even the axioms 
 of pure mathematics are originally gained by induction, 
 while others claim that their truth is perceived intuitively,, 
 but no matter how this point is decided, the processes of the 
 mathematics are from the general to the particular. So it 
 is also with the Aristotelian logic, whose major premise, 
 whether only supposed to be true or having been inductively 
 proved,, is always general in terms. This is the form of the 
 syllogistic logic : — All sinners deserve to be punished ; John 
 Roach is a sinner ; therefore John Roach deserves punish- 
 ment. 
 
 Physical sciences are those concerned with the classifica- 
 tions and laws of action belonging to material substances. 
 There are a great circle of these. They have been mostly 
 developed since the time, and in accordance with the 
 methods, of Lord Bacon. They are such as Astronomy, 
 Acoustics, Botany, Chemistry, Dynamics, Geology, Optics, 
 Physiology, S.tatics, and Zoology. The subject-matter of 
 each of the physical sciences is open to observation and 
 experiment, to induction and deduction, and to corrective 
 verifications, in the manner already pointed out. Each of 
 these sciences has a distinct class of objects or phenomena 
 to which its attention is directed ; the class is circumscribed 
 by the scientific conception and definition ; its devotees as 
 a rule are skilled in using the Baconian tools ; and conse- 
 quently, its conclusions receive the confidence and control 
 the action ot men. All of the physical sciences are con- 
 stantly enlarging " the body of exact definitions and sound 
 principles" connected with their several classes "of facts 
 or phenomena." 
 
 Moral sciences are those concerned with the classifications 
 and laws of action belonging to beings having thoughts and 
 desires and will. Among these sciences may be mentioned 
 Metaphysics, Ethics, and Economics. Each of these, and 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 95 
 
 of all other moral sciences, is concerned with a single class 
 of phenomena, which may be exactly conceived of and 
 defined. But induction cannot march up with quite so sure 
 a stride, nor deduction descend with so large a degree of 
 certainty, in relation to persons endowed with free-will, as iu 
 relation to physical substances held firm in the grip of un- 
 varied law. Still, the doubt attaches far more to the actions 
 of an individual than to the actions of the masses of men. 
 It is much easier to know human nature in general than one 
 man in particular, because many inductions guided by obser- 
 vation and history make it almost certain how masses of men 
 will act under a given set of conditions, while any individ- 
 ual may act in a contrary way. Deduction, accordingly, 
 cannot hold quite the same place in the moral sciences so 
 far as individuals are concerned, as it holds in the physical 
 and exact sciences ; but this lack is perhaps more than made 
 up by other advantages. Experience in the moral sciences 
 corresponds to experiments in the physical sciences. Then 
 there is the great advantage of introspection : each man has 
 within himself the means of interpreting and of testing the 
 inductions of metaphysics, ethics, and economics. Then 
 also there is the great resource of feigned cases, which, pro- 
 vided only they be cases possible to occur, open up to rea- 
 soning a new means of proving and correcting. Besides 
 these, which it enjoys in common with them, economics, as 
 we shall see, has one other great advantage over and above 
 the rest of the moral sciences, which all, moreover, are 
 stronger and more developed on account of their close 
 relation to and opportunity of being tested by, a Divine 
 llevelatiou, whose ends indeed are not scientific, but whose 
 methods and conclusions may often be a test of science. 
 
 1. Let us now apply the points of this brief discussion 
 of the sciences in general to the particular science now in 
 hand. In the first place, is there a single class of facts 
 easily conceived of and defined as such, — easily circum- 
 scribed and separated from all others, — with which alone 
 
96 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Political Economy has to do? We answer, Yes. Sales are 
 a ver}" definite thing. Thej^ are never confounded with gifts, 
 and they are never confounded with thefts. They have a 
 distinctive character of their own. They have always been 
 in the world,, will always be in the world in ever raultipl3ing 
 volume, and no one ever mistakes their main features for 
 something else. Political Economy is the science of sales, 
 or exchanges. Any thing whatsoever that is salable, or cau 
 be made so, comes within its view, and scientifically it cares 
 notliing whatever for any thing else. While it finds its field 
 definite, it finds it also very large. It has no wish to en- 
 croach on other sciences, nor will it tolerate any encroach- 
 ments on its own. Before any thing is sold, or is being made 
 ready to sell, it cares not what other science employs itself 
 upon that thing ; after the thing is sold, economy loses its 
 interest in it, and other sciences may take it up if they 
 choose. Salableness is the one qualit}'^ that constitutes the 
 class of things with which the science is conversant, and it 
 claims complete jurisdiction over all things just so far forth 
 as they have this quality, and no farther. Now there is in 
 the actual world such a class of things ; and accordingly, 
 Political Economy possesses the first grand condition of a 
 science. 
 
 It is at this point that we can see the failure of some 
 otherwise great writers on Political Economy. When Adam 
 Smith talks of " the annual produce of land and labor," 
 he gives us no distinct and general conception of what the 
 subject of Political Economy is. He does not start with a 
 clearly-defined class of things ; and, consequently, there is a 
 cloudiness and lack of scientific precision in some parts of 
 his book, in striking contrast with the vigor and logical 
 sequences in the other parts. The same is true of John 
 Stuart Mill. On his first page he says, "Everyone has a 
 notion sufliciently correct for common purposes of what is 
 meant by wealth." A little further on, "It is no part of 
 the design of this treatise to aim at metaphysical nicety of 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 97 
 
 definition where the ideas suggested by a term are already 
 as determinate as practical purposes require." Mill, then, 
 as embodying the conception that lies at the basis of our 
 science, gives us the word " wealth," and assumes that both 
 he and his readers have ' ' a notion sufficiently correct ' ' of 
 what is meant by that term ; but, unfortunately, the sequel 
 shows how ill-founded this assumption really is. Once, 
 indeed, he gives us a clear conception in connection with 
 that word : ' ' Every thing therefore forms a part of wealth 
 which has power of purchasing." But he almost immedi- 
 ately confuses this conception, when he says, "I shall 
 therefore in this treatise, when speaking of wealth, under- 
 stand by it what is called material wealth." But a little 
 further on he says, "The skill, and the energy, and perse- 
 verance of the artisans of a country, are reckoned part of 
 its wealth no less than their tools and machinery." Also, 
 " acquired capacities which exist only as a means, and have 
 been called into existence by labor, fall rightly as it seems 
 to me within that designation." But in an another place 
 and contrariwise, "The production of wealth is the extrac- 
 tion of the instruments of human subsistence and enjoyment 
 from the materials of the globe." Again, " it is essential 
 to the idea of wealth to be susceptible of accumulation.' ' 
 Also, " I should prefer, were I constructing a new technics 
 language, to make the distinction turn upon the permanence 
 rather than the materiality of the product," since services 
 "which only exist while being performed cannot be spokei^ 
 of as wealth except by an acknowledged metaphor." Stili 
 further, though credit is obviously neither material nor per- 
 manent, — ^ " Credit, though it is not productive power, is 
 purchasing power." And, "Credit, in short, has exactly 
 the same purchasing power with money." 
 
 These quotations are enough, and more than enough, to 
 show two things conclusively. First, they show that the 
 leaders of the second school are inconsistent with themselves 
 in their general conceptions of the subject-matter of the 
 
98 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 science. They begin nowhere. They have no steady class 
 of facts to deal with. They have indeed demonstrated many 
 important truths, and they have done excellent practical ser- 
 vice for the welfare of mankind, but in the entirety of their 
 scientific work one can take but little satisfaction. It is ou 
 account of this comparative failure in their scientific outset, 
 (Jiat the second school have declined in influence, and are now 
 liliely to be superseded. On the other hand, when Bastiat 
 or Macleod, by their very definition of the science, recognize 
 a definite class of things with which alone the science has 
 to do, namely, exchangeable things, or what means just the 
 same, salable things, or what is just the same, valuable 
 things, a clear conception is had at once, having which as 
 the prime condition, a true and lasting science may be 
 obtained, provided only the next right steps be taken also. 
 Second, they show how useless the word "wealth" is for 
 any scientific use whatever even in the hands of a professed 
 logician. As we have seen, the sense of this word was too 
 indefinite in the mind of Mill to give him any hold at all 
 of a broad and constant economic conception, which is the 
 first condition of a true growth in this science ; and if this 
 be so, it is certaiul}- too indefinite in the minds of common 
 men to make it possible that it should serve any useful sci- 
 entific end. Then again the word is too concrete to do the 
 work assigned to it in a broad definition, because in most 
 men's minds it means only material things. Even Mill says, 
 "it is essential to the idea of wealth to be susceptible of 
 accumulation." But he also says, what is contradictory to 
 that, — " Every thing forms a part of wealth which has pur- 
 chasing power." Now material things are not the only 
 things, nor the most important things, which have purchasing 
 ■Dovver. Labor has purchasing power. Eights have purchas- 
 ing power. If we could determine the sums paid out in this 
 country for a year as the wages of labor, from those of the 
 President of the United States down to those of the common 
 day laborer, including the rewards of all professional skill; 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 99 
 
 and if we could estimate the sums paid out in the same time 
 as a return for rights of all sorts, such as bonds, shares, 
 leases, and other credits ; we should soon discover that 
 material things form but a small part of the purchasable 
 things. 
 
 So indefinite and so concrete and therefore so inadequate 
 is the meaning of this word " wealth," and so prominent 
 has been made its place near the foundations, that a chief 
 reason of the slow progress of the science hitherto has been, 
 that it tried to use a word for scientific purposes which no 
 amount of definition and explanation and manipulation could 
 make suitable for that service. This word has proved to 
 be the bog whence most of the mists have arisen that have 
 beclouded the whole subject. This is the more to be re- 
 gretted, inasmuch as there is no need of the word at all. It 
 is true, that even Bastiat and Macleod continued to use the 
 word in subordinate places ; but there was no advantage, 
 but rather a waste of strength in their doing so, because 
 there are other good words all ready to take its place. In 
 wholly dropping the word as a technical term, which was 
 first done in this book in 1865, Political Economy has dropped 
 a clog, and its movements are now relatively free and certain. 
 If a general term be needed to express the sum of all valua- 
 ble things ; and if a term be needed, as it is, to express an 
 estimate of valuable things not yet subjected to the test of a 
 sale ; let that word be Property, which in its original Latin, 
 and in English also, has an abstract rather than a concrete 
 meaning, and denotes a right of possessing, using, enjoying., 
 selling, and destroying, any thing. When used in the follow- 
 ing pages, the word will always be given the same sense that 
 Ulpian gave to it, namel}^, " Thai is Property which can he 
 bought and sold; " and then the word Value will always be 
 used when a more definite and technical term is required. 
 
 2. In the second place, having our definite class of things 
 to begin with, are these all open to the common processes 
 of scientific generalization? We answer, that they are 
 
100 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 remarkably thus open. Not one resource is denied us. 
 All the tools of the scientific workshop are at our hands, 
 (a) The experience of all the past in the matter of sales 
 very fully recorded on the pages of history, the experience of 
 all the different nations at the present time in these matters 
 of money and trade, and what is passing right before our 
 eyes in the buying and selling of daily life, affords Induc- 
 tion all the chance it could ask to try its hand. Instances 
 abound. Particulars may be gathered up one b}^ one and 
 linked into the inductive chain. If any doubt be felt about 
 the strength of any one of these chains, another one may at 
 once be forged in terms drawn from another field of experi- 
 ence with a view to test the strength of the first. Circum- 
 stances in different countries and in the same country at 
 different times do indeed differ, and care must be taken 
 to avoid the common fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc ; on 
 the other hand, the instances in most cases are so many and 
 varied, that there is no great difficulty in throwing out right 
 and left the non-causal elements, and connecting in both 
 ways effects with their causes. In this general point of view, 
 the United States is the most fortunate of countries, because 
 here there are States with substantive powers of control 
 over most matter's of trade within their borders, as well as 
 a Nation with sovereign powers of control over some points 
 of trade within the country as a whole. This feature has 
 given birth to commercial experiments of all kinds ; and 
 Induction rejoices in the abundant materials for generaliza- 
 tion thus furnished free of cost to Science, though unfortu- 
 nately not free of cost to the People. As a. single example 
 of the inductive method in economics, let us take the follow- 
 ing: most if not all the States in this Union have passed 
 at one time or another what are called Usury Laws, or laws 
 forbidding lenders of money to take more than a given rate 
 of interest. It has been uniformly observed, that such laws 
 are constantly violated especially in large towns, because 
 it is contrary to reason that a man should not sell the use 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 101 
 
 of his money on the best terms he can get, just as he sells 
 the use of any other form of property ; that such laws when 
 not violated work essential injustice to the lender whenever 
 the market rate of interest is higher than the legal rate ; 
 that such laws so far as obeyed work injustice to borrowers 
 us tending to restrict the loan-market, and so far as violated 
 as tending to compel them to pay even more than the market 
 rate as compensation to the lender for law-breaking ; and 
 that such laws often lead to litigation, chicanery, and oppres- 
 sion of the poor. The economist noting ill effects in all the 
 Instances under his observation comes to the clear conclusion 
 inductively that usury laws are wrong. 
 
 (6) We have already seen that Deduction has not quite 
 the same scope in the moral as in the physical sciences, 
 because any individual may act contrary to the probable 
 action of many individuals. Still deduction is a safe and 
 potent process even in the moral sciences, since it may de- 
 scend securely from the larger masses to the smaller, even 
 though the individual may perchance escape. This is partic- 
 ularly true of deductive economics, owing to the simplicity, 
 universality, and certainty of the impulses that lead men to 
 exchange. AYell writes John Bascom : " Between one dollar 
 and two dollars a man has no choice, he must take the 
 greater ; between one day and two days of labor, he must 
 take the less ; between the present and the future, he must 
 take the present. This is not a sphere of caprice, nor 
 scared}^ even of liberty ; the actions themselves present no 
 alternative, and, if an alternative giving an opportunity for 
 choice does arise, it arises from some partial or individual 
 impulse, — from some one of those transitory and foreign 
 influences, which, while rippling the surface, neither belong 
 to nor affect the current of the stream." As an illustration 
 of economical deductions let us look again to the case of 
 usury laws. Jerem}' Bentham by a grand induction of par- 
 ticulars reached the truth and statement, that usury laws are 
 economically wrong. His induction took no note of the 
 
102 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 experience of the people of Massachusetts. But the Legis- 
 lature of that State in 18G7, having become more or less 
 familiar with the reasoning of Beutham, and having made 
 inductions of its own from local and neighboring experience, 
 passed down from the generalization, that usury laws are 
 everywhere injurious, to the specific proposition, that such 
 laws were injurious to the people of Massachusetts, and so 
 it abolished these laws for that State. The deduction was 
 well taken ; and the people have ever since been pleased 
 with Iheir liberty of contract in this particular. But it must 
 not be inferred from these instances, that induction and 
 deduction always pursue a separate and distinct path in 
 economical reasoning ; for the two processes commingle 
 constantly, and neither is always carried out in full and due 
 form, since premises used by the mind are often dropped in 
 the statement, and shortened forms of expression take the 
 place of long-drawn-out logical formulas. Nevertheless, all 
 good reasoning is analyzable into one or the other of these 
 processes. 
 
 (c) Economical reasoning has a vast advantage both in 
 gaining its starting-points and also in guarding its steps 
 in that power of Introspection that is possessed by every 
 man, woman, and child. Everybody buys and sells. Almost 
 everj^body watches the action of his own mind enough to see 
 what are the motives in buying and selling. Even the child 
 knows that in each act of exchange something is rendered 
 and something is received. Everybody within the pale of 
 compos mentis knows that it takes two to make a bargain, 
 and two to inake a trade. Each party to a trade knows 
 what his motive is in making it, and soon comes to know 
 that the other part}' has a corresponding motive. It is not 
 needful that a man should be a banker or merchant or even 
 a so-called "business man" in order to know just as well 
 as anybody can know that what is rendered in an exchange 
 is thought less of on the whole than what is received. The 
 slightest introspection tells any man that. As this must 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 103 
 
 always Ibe ti'ue of each of the parties to any exchange, that 
 which is rendered by eacli must stand in a different relation 
 to his own mind from that which is received by each. In 
 other words, each is glad to part with something for the sake 
 of receiving something else ; and this higher estimate put 
 by each on what is received from the other marks for each 
 the gain of the exchange. A very little introspection will 
 inform any person, that were this higher estimate wanting 
 in the mind of eitlier of the two parties, the trade would not 
 lake place at all. It is perfectly natural to trade when these 
 conditions are present, and morally impossible to trade when 
 they are absent. Hence no law or encouragement is needed to 
 induce any persons to trade ; trade is natural, as any person 
 can see who stops to ask himself why he has made a given 
 trade ; and on the other hand, any law or artificial obstacle 
 that hinders two persons from trading who would otherwise 
 trade, not only interferes with a sacred right, but destroys 
 an inevitable gain that would otherwise accrue to two per- 
 sons alike. Introspection, accordingly, breaks up some 
 economical fallacies. "How would you like it yourself ?." 
 is often a relevant question to inquirers in this field. An 
 easy self-knowledge open to all persons alike thus gives 
 sound starting-points and guides to safe steps in economics, 
 (d) The Greek language has a distinct form of expression 
 for that class of suppositions that might possibly become 
 facts, and thus the acute mind of the Gi'eeks marked a 
 decided difference between such suppositions and others 
 impossible to become facts. This distinction must always 
 be borne in mind by those who use or note in economical 
 reasonings the expedient of Feigned Cases. These are 
 always legitimate and often pregnant whenever they may 
 be realized in actual fact ; but otherwise, no inference at aU 
 can be drawn from them, because it is a universal truth in 
 nature and in logic, ex nihilo nihil fit., out of nothing nothing 
 can come. But a supposition that may clearly be realized 
 in fact is a substantive thing, a,ud inferences may be drawn 
 
104 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 from it, just as geometrical inferences are drawn from a sup- 
 posed circle. Let us take an illustration from Paris. While 
 these lines are being written the Monetary Conference of 
 1881 in that city is just adjourned. Able and eloquent men 
 represented in that conference the United States, all the 
 nations of Europe, and even the distant India ; but some of 
 these representatives, in their eagerness for a factitious ratio 
 of value between gold and sUver, forgot the important dis- 
 tinction now in hand, and argued of the good results to flow 
 from the realization of a supposition, which itself is impossi- 
 ble to become a fact. The French and American delegates, 
 through Mr. Evarts, made this declaration : " A7iy ratio now 
 or of late in use by any commercial nation, if adopted by an 
 important grovp> of states, covld be maintained; but the adop- 
 tion of a ratio of 15^ of silver to 1 of gold loould accomplish 
 the principal object with less disturbance in the monetary sys- 
 tems to be effected by it than any other ratio.'" The fallacy 
 in this passage is in the words " could be maintained,'' which 
 are a supposition, and what is much worse, a supposition 
 contrar}?^ to fact, from which all arguing is nugatory. Why 
 it is contrar}' to fact will be seen at length in our chapter on 
 Money. On the other hand, the Monetary Conference of 
 1867 in Paris, as its judgment was voiced by Mr. Ruggles, 
 argued the benefits of an international coinage of gold with 
 logical propriety, because, while that was then a mere suppo- 
 sition, it was a supposition possible any day to become a fact. 
 An international coinage of gold is a simple question of equal 
 weights in the coins of different countries : an equivalence of 
 values between gold and silver coins for any great length 
 of time is neither simple nor possible. 
 
 (e) This last point leads us naturally to the most impor- 
 tant advantage that Economy has in its methods of reason- 
 ing over the other moral sciences, namely this, that the result 
 of each economical process may be stated numerically in the 
 terms of money, while mental, ethical, and other moral pro- 
 cesses can only be loosely weighed and estimated. This 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 105 
 
 single fact, to say nothing of other connected facts, puts 
 Economy far in advance of the other moral sciences in a 
 scientific point of view : it has an ever ready test which they 
 from their nature never can have. An economical blunder, 
 whether in legislation or in private action, pretty soon proves 
 itself to be such by the lessened gains of somebody, and 
 these losses can be stated arithmetically ; and similarly, an 
 economical improvement evidences itself at once by increased 
 gains coming to somebody ; while it may take years and years 
 to work out the results of an ethical mistake, and even then 
 their amount can only be guessed at. Theories in meta- 
 physics can only be tested by the reason of men, and rea- 
 sonable men without apparent bias of motive take opposite 
 views of sensations and intuitions ; while theories in econom- 
 ics, which can be even better tested by the reason, have an 
 additional and almost immediate and constantly recun-ing 
 test through men's pockets and the tables of the census. 
 The truth is, that all these matters of exchange come home 
 intimately to each man, woman, and child ; they have at 
 hand the means of judging and comparing the eifects of 
 good and bad laws, and of good and bad practice generally ; 
 the people indeed sometimes deceive themselves, and are also 
 too often duped by others, in these matters ; but it is none 
 the less of the utmost consequence to this science that all its 
 results work themselves at last into a definite shape — into 
 figures that cannot lie — and stand out like landmarks against 
 the sky. It is not, as in ethics and metaphysics, that ten- 
 dencies and potencies only are ascertained, but every thing 
 drifts at once into measurable facts, and may be hardened 
 into statistics. The science certainly does not arise out of 
 statistics, and is not strictly dependent on them, though it 
 uses them and rejoices in them as a help. So far as this, all 
 economical authorities are agreed. But when Jevons con- 
 cludes from the conceded circumstance that every thing 
 whatsoever economically exchanged has a standard of meas- 
 urement in money, that economics may therefore become a 
 
106 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 strictly mathematical science, " a calculus of pleasure and 
 pain ; ' ' and when Macleod from the same circumstance calls 
 all exchangeable things technically " quantities," and applies 
 mathematical formulas to them, and concludes accordingly 
 that Economy is a " physical," as well as moral, science, 
 or as he calls it, "a great moral science both inductive and 
 deductive framed on the strictest model of a physical sci- 
 ence ; " there are those, and the present writer is among 
 them, who are disposed to cry a halt. We saw in the last 
 paragraph that a question of tveights is a very different thing 
 from a question of values, because the thoughts and feelings 
 and will of men cannot affect the former at all, while they 
 entirely create the latter. If the distinction alreadj^ made 
 between a physical and moral science be well taken, as it is, 
 then Economy cannot belong to both ; it is either a science of 
 Persons or a science of Things, as those terms are commonly 
 contrasted, and it makes confusion to mix the two ; besides, 
 there is no gain to come from it, so far as we can see, but 
 obviously some loss, because many persons can master eco- 
 nomics thoroughly who find it difficult to master mathematical 
 formulas at all ; and it seems a violence to the term " quan- 
 tity " to include under it a mere service sold, as for example 
 the service of Dr. Bliss in medically attending upon the wound 
 of President Garfield. It is true, that personal services and 
 all other valuable things are either sold against money, or may 
 be measured in the terms of it, and this is no small aid to the 
 science, as we have seen, but it does not seem as if this were 
 enough to make the science one of " quantities," or to open 
 it up for the display of a mathematical " calculus." Jevons 
 and Macleod are both excellent economists, and no ultimate 
 harm can come to the science from their attempts to render 
 it " exact ; " but we venture to assure our readers that they 
 can explore, if they will, all the recesses of the temple of 
 Economics without going through the portico of Analytics.^ 
 
 1 See Jevons's Theory of Political Economy, particularly chap i., aud Macleod's 
 Elements of Economics, vol. i. chap. ii. (edition 18S1). 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 107 
 
 3. In the third place, while Political Economj' is strictly 
 and onl}'^ a moral science as distinguished from a physical 
 science, that is to say, has to do with the laws of action 
 belonging to persons and not those belonging to things, still, 
 there is another current sense of the word "moral," in 
 which Political Economy is not a moral science at all ; and 
 that is tlie sense in which the word is used as synonymous 
 with " ethical," or. "obligator}'." Paley defines Ethics as 
 '■'■the science of Duty and the reasons for it ; " and it is in 
 this ethical sense that we sometimes speak of the science 
 of Morals, or of Moral Science. Now,, the idea of obliga- 
 tion., on which ethical science is founded, and the idea of 
 value., on which the science of economy is founded, are 
 totally distinct ideas. Both are "moral" sciences in the 
 proper sense of that term as opposed to "physical" sci- 
 ences, though it is important to see clearl}' the vital distinc- 
 tion between the two. There is one w'ord that marks and 
 circumscribes the field of Ethics, and that word is Ought: 
 there is one word also that marks and circumscribes the field 
 of Economics, and that word is Value. The imperatives 
 of ethical obligation rest upon the consciences of men, and 
 Duty is to be done at all hazards : guilt is incurred if it be 
 neglected : pecuniary gains and losses, however large, do not, 
 or at least ought not, weigh a feather as against an intuition 
 of Eight. Economy, on the other hand, does not aspire to 
 place its feet upon this high ground : it finds a solid and ade- 
 quate though not a lofty footing upon the expedient and the 
 useful : no man is ever under any obligation to make a trade : 
 he properly makes it or not according to his present sense 
 of its gaiufulness to himself. Ethical science appeals only 
 to an enlightened conscience, and certain conduct is ap- 
 proved because it is right, and for no other reason : econom- 
 ical science appeals only to an enlightened self-interest, and 
 exchanges are made because they are mutually advanta- 
 geous, and for no other reason : each of the two sciences, 
 therefore, has a basis and sphere of its own, and the grounds 
 
108 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of the two are not only independent bnt also incommensura, 
 ble. Economy does and must discuss and decide all ques- 
 tions on economical grounds alone, and as a science has no 
 direct concern with questions of ethical i^ght. It favors 
 honesty and morality indeed because these facilitate ex- 
 changes. It puts the seal of the market upon all of the 
 virtues. It condemns slavery, not so much because it is 
 ethically wrong, as because it is economicall}'' ruinous. Still, 
 after all, each science has some points of contact with other 
 sciences, and this is particularly true of ethics and econom- 
 ics, and may be the reason why the two have sometimes 
 been confounded with each other. The system of the uni- 
 verse appears to be one ; and, at any rate, the sound con- 
 clusions of economics seem to be harmonious with the sound 
 conclusions of ethics, since both certainly work for the 
 good of men, — for the amelioration of their condition. 
 The spheres of the two, though entirely distinct, neverthe- 
 less touch each other. Duty and interest lie alongside. 
 The ultimate analysis of Property, for example, will, as we 
 may see hereafter, lead the inquirer into the higher region 
 of ethical truth. In legislation also, the question is fre- 
 quentl}^ at the same time an ethical and an economical one, 
 which led Wayland acutely to observe tliat " almost every 
 question of the one science may be argued on grounds 
 belonging to the other." 
 
 4. In the fourth place, our science, as the adjective 
 " political " clearly implies, relates to men in a state of 
 Society, and not to men in a state of isolation. It is a social 
 as well as a" moral science. The hermit who neither buys 
 nor sells, who neither gives nor receives any thing in ex- 
 change, is in no sense amenable to the laws of Political 
 Economy. Robinson Crusoe, for instance, came to lead 
 a very tolerable life upon his desolate island by means of 
 bis own industry directed so as to satisfy his own wants 
 by his own efforts. Pie did every thing for himself, and had 
 no opportunity to buy any thing, sell any thing, exchange 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 109 
 
 any thing. The whole course of such an isolated life could 
 never develop the idea of Value, and the record of the whole 
 experience of such a solitary individual would require no 
 such word as Value. Moreover, all men, even in the most 
 advanced states of society, still satisfy some of their own 
 wants by their own efforts without exchange, and just so far 
 as they do this, they stand outside the pale of economics. 
 When a man shaves his own face, our science has nothing 
 to say : when the barber shaves him for a fee, it has a good 
 deal to say. If men had been so made, and the world 
 around them had been so made, that each man could as well 
 meet his varied wants by his own direct efforts as by the 
 intervention of mutual exchange, then each would certainly 
 have grown his own food, made his own clothes, hammered 
 out his own tools, been his own doctor, and so on through 
 the list of his wants ; and under those circumstances the 
 notion of Value would have had neither birth nor being, and 
 of course such a thing as a science of Value could have had 
 no possible existence. 
 
 But it is evident at the very first glance that neither men 
 nor the world have been so made. Society is God's handi- 
 work. It is the most complicated and the most wonderful, 
 as it was the final, Avork of His hands. The first man, as he 
 stood alone in the earthly Paradise, was indeed a wonderful 
 structure, — wonderful in his body, and in all his mental 
 and spiritual powers. But it was not good that the man 
 should be alone. Society must be provided for ; and lu 
 providing for a society of human beings, they were made 
 very dependent upon each other for existence, for happi- 
 ness, and for melioration. The entire organization of soci- 
 ety, in its lower and in its higher parts, in the phenomena 
 of exchange and in the phenomena of ethics, displays those 
 peculiar laws that mark a divine hand ; and no intelligent 
 observer can watch their working, when left intact and free, 
 without being stimulated and gladdened by the beneficent 
 results to which they lead. If the footsteps of providential 
 
110 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 intelligence and goodness be fonnd anywhere upon this 
 earth, they are discernible in the fundamental laws of Soci- 
 ety. 
 
 So far, too, as economics are concerned, there is a wonder- 
 ful correspondence between the structure of society and the 
 structure of the physical earth. Both work together to keep 
 men in a state of mutual dependence, and on a plane of 
 rising comforts. The limitations which men find in them- 
 selves, and which bind them into a societ}^ correspond in 
 their effects with the obstacles in the way of the satisfaction 
 of men's desires found on and under the surface of the 
 earth. The almost incredible increase of men's powers and 
 enjoyments through their combination in one place, and 
 co-operation in distant places, will be the burden of a later 
 page ; but it is proper in this paragraph on the social char- 
 acter of our science to call attention to the natural obstacles 
 interposed between the isolated man and the supply of his 
 various wants. If any one man tries to surmount a consid- 
 erable number of these natural obstacles, he must miserably 
 fail, because his powers are not adequate to the task ; and 
 hence it follows, that in a state of isolation men's wants 
 exceed their jjoioers ; but let the same man devote himself to 
 overcome but one class of obstacles, for instance, those in 
 the way of procuring suitable clothing, and his powers are 
 adequate to this, he soon acquires skill in it, he learns to 
 avail himself of the free help of nature and the facilitat- 
 ing processes of art, he is able to realize large products 
 along his line, and is now ready to offer his surplus in ex- 
 change with other men, who meanwhile have been giving 
 themselves each to another class of obstacles, have concen- 
 trated efforts and skiU upon them, have succeeded by the 
 help of nature and art in surmounting them, and are now 
 read}' to offer their surplus products to society in exchange ; 
 and, the exchanges being made in all directions, men alwaj'S 
 find that they thus obtain vastly greater satisfactions for 
 their various desires than they could possibly get by direct 
 
FIELD OF '/HE SCIENCE. Ill 
 
 eflfort ; so that we may even say, that, in a state of society, 
 men's powers tend to overtake their ivants. Under the social 
 system of exchange, a division of employments becomes 
 possible, all pecnliar talents find scope, industry becomes 
 steady, obstacles gradually give way in all directions, moun- 
 tains are pierced, rivers are bridged, forests are levelled, 
 fields are made fertile, mines are opened, and oceans are 
 crossed ; a vast increase of useful products comes into exist- 
 ence, and each part of the earth ministers to the wants 
 of every other part ; as measured by effort, every thing comes 
 easier to everybody, as measured by qualit}' all products 
 become better, and as measured b}^ quantity' there are more 
 articles and in greater variety ; and it follows, of course, 
 that there are more satisfactions of all men's desires. 
 Political Economy, therefore, which unfolds the reasons and 
 the laws of exchange, finds its only field in a state of Soci- 
 ety. 
 
 There is another reason why Political Economy is a social 
 science : it touches at certain points on the action of Govern- 
 ment. For example, the minting of the current coin, which 
 is so indispensable to the ongoing of exchanges, has alwaj's 
 been considered as a function of the Government. "Whose 
 is this image and superscription?" asked our Lord. The 
 answer came then, as it would come now in substance the 
 world over, "Csesar's." It would seem as if the govern- 
 ment stamp authenticates the weight and fineness of the coin 
 better than any other known expedient can do it ; and, if so, 
 our science must acknowledge a dkect obligation to society 
 through such action of its government. The whole matter 
 of taxation, also which is certainly an economical topic, is 
 closely connected with questions of government ; and the 
 form and amount of taxation depend at last on the action 
 of government, though the views of the economists have 
 already been influential in determining these. The laws of 
 property, of sale, and of bequest, all of which are of supreme 
 importance in an economical point of view, hinge also on 
 
112 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 governmental action. All this shows that our science 
 touches at several vital points on the far more comprehen- 
 sive science of government, and marks the fact, that, as 
 no individual can be completely isolated from society, so no 
 science can be completely isolated from the rest of the family 
 of sciences. More or less each touches and influences the 
 rest. Still, we shall find it to be a dictate of sound reason 
 as well as a sharp lesson from experience, that the less 
 government has to do in matters purely economical, the 
 better. The points of contact we concede ; the asserted 
 jurisdiction and control we deny. Self-interest, which is 
 the motive power in exchange, while at a few points it 
 accepts the help, will not at other points tolerate the inter- 
 ference, of government. 
 
 5. In determining now the exact field of our science, it 
 only remains in the fifth place, to throw out all those defini- 
 tions that give it too broad a range, and to propose an exact 
 and final definition. For example. Say defines it "as the 
 science of Society; a science combining the results of our 
 observations on the nature and functions of the different parts 
 of the social body.'' This is far too broad. Society is a vast 
 organization, and there is no one science that can embrace it 
 all. Government, Ethics, and Economics, all have a place 
 within this great sphere. So, too, Sismondi regards " as the 
 object of Political Economy the physical welfare of man, so 
 far as it can be the work of government.'^ But this is too 
 broad, too narrow, and too confusing, all at the same time. 
 Several other things besides economics and government con- 
 tribute to " the physical welfare of man ; " then economics 
 contribute to other parts of man's nature besides his " phy- 
 sical nature ; and also the uniting of " government " and 
 " political economy " in this intimate way precludes a clear 
 genera] conception of the latter. On the other hand, we 
 place the field of the science just where Whately places it, — 
 ''■ catallactics., or the science of exchanges ; " just where the 
 continental Kiehl puts it, — ^'- Die Lehre von den Wertherif" 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIE2^CE. 113 
 
 J7ie doctrine of Values; and just where Macleod locates it, 
 though we do not like the term " quantities " in this connec- 
 tion, — " the science which treats of the laws lohich govern the 
 relations of exchangeable quantities.^ ^ Any one of the three 
 following definitions, which are the precise equivalents of each 
 other, namely, the science of Sales, the science of Exchanges, 
 the science of Value, gives a perfectly definite field to Political 
 Economy. We shall use the three interchangeably, though 
 for the present emphasizing the last. To determine with 
 the utmost distinctness what Value is, to separate it from 
 some things which have often been confounded with it, and 
 thus to lay a foundation for the science at once solid and 
 complete, will be the work of the next chapter. 
 
 But as we have already noted in the persistent use of the 
 indefinite word ' ' wealth ' ' the first great reason of the slow 
 advance hitherto made in this field of inquiry, it is in order 
 at this point to call attention also to the second great reason 
 of this tardy progress. This is found in the peculiar (though 
 not indefinite) meaning of the word " Value " and its equiv- 
 alent terms. Value is a relative word, and so is Sales, and 
 so is Exchanges. The difficulty, however, does not lie in the 
 words as such, but in the very subject-matter of the science. 
 Sales imply both a seller and a buyer ; exchanges imply two 
 things given one for the other ; and value may be briefly 
 defined as purchasing-power, that is to say, the value of any 
 thing is its power of purchasing other things. Value is not 
 an independent quality of one thing, as height is a quality 
 of a tiee, and hardness a quality of a stone, but it is a quality 
 of one thing as estimated in a corresponding quality of some- 
 thing else. It is not a quality of gold as gold, but a relation 
 of purchase which that gold holds to certain other things 
 which it will buj'. The notion of Value is not conceivable 
 except b}^ a comparison of two things, and what is more, of 
 two things mutually exchanged. Political Econom}' accord- 
 ingly is bottom-based upon a relative idea, and has to do 
 from beginning to end with a relation of mutual purchase 
 
114 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 established between two things. Now in this there is an 
 inherent difflcnlty, which proves to be greater to some minds 
 than to others, and one which can never be obviated to 
 beginners, nor be wholly obviated to anybody except by 
 constant familiarity with it. It lies in the very nature of the 
 subject. Men much more readily apprehend an absolute idea 
 than a relative one. They much more easil}- follow a dis- 
 cussion touching the independent attributes of single objects, 
 such as length, biieadth, thickness, and many others, than a 
 discussion touching Value, which is not an attribute of any 
 one thing, but a relation subsisting between two things. 
 This is tlie prime difficulty in this class of inquiries, and 
 has been a main reason of the slow progress made in them. 
 Economical writers have not called attention as they should 
 to this difficulty at the outset, nor have they themselves 
 wholl}^ escaped the snares that lurk around it. 
 
 In thus circumscribing the field of Political Economy, and 
 yielding ground that has been sometimes claimed as falling 
 within it, we all the more assert complete jurisdiction over 
 the territory as thus defined. No other possible science can 
 have any thing to do with the gaining of propert}- by means 
 of exchavges. Theft is out of the question here. So are 
 gifts. It makes no difference what a man's motives may be 
 in buying and selling, it makes no difference what his ulti- 
 mate purposes may be as to the results of his buying and 
 selling, the buying and selling must proceed in accordance 
 with the principles of this science. Saint and sinner must 
 plough with the same heifer. The laws of value are abso- 
 lutely universal. One man may get rich for the sake of 
 making a displaj', and another man may get rich for the 
 sake of doing good, but the getting rich is one and the same 
 process forever. As John Bascom well says, — "Which- 
 ever one of a thousand motives engages man in the pursuit 
 of wealth, once in that pursuit, these all conform to one 
 method, and acknowledge one law." Ethics constitute a 
 gi-eat sphere, and persons are in it for certain great pur- 
 
FIELD OF THE SCIENCE. 115 
 
 poses ; the same persons are also in the sphere of economics 
 for other great purposes ; the two spheres are co-ordinate 
 with each other, not one in subordination to the other ; 
 economics have to do with persons just as directly and con- 
 stantly as ethics have to do with them ; and the golden rule 
 is equally applicable to persons acting in either sphere. The 
 value of material things, the value of human efforts, and the 
 value of incorporeal rights, — in short, every value is deter- 
 mined only by two persons, acting face to face in direct 
 reference to each other as persons. Whatever others have 
 done, therefore, or may hereafter undertake to do, we pro- 
 pose solely to investigate the motives and the conditions that 
 govern men in their exchanges. Such investigations have a 
 definite field of view ; and if properly pursued, will lead to 
 a statement of those laws that constitute the Science of 
 Value. To these, then, we next proceed ; and first of all, 
 to an anatysis of Value itself. 
 
 We may summarize the principal propositions of this 
 chapter as follows : — 
 
 1. It is the first grand condition of a science that there he a 
 circumscribed class of facts to start with. 
 
 2. The second condition is, that these facts be open to the 
 processes of Induction, Deduction, or both of them. 
 
 3. Clearness of insight and convict io7i is a part of the proof 
 of a correctly made generalization. 
 
 4. There are three great classes of sciences, namely, the 
 Exact, the Physiccd, and the Moral. 
 
 5. Economy is a Moral Science, and X)Ossesses all the con- 
 ditions of a scientific growth. 
 
 6. Induction, Deduction, Introspection, Feigned Cases ^ 
 and Results Measurable in numbers, are the tools loith which 
 economists loorJc. 
 
 7. Economics are not to be confounded ivith Ethics, though 
 their spheres lie alongside. 
 
 8. Associated and not isolated men afford a chance for eco' 
 nomical worltings. 
 
116 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 9. The structure of the physical earth is in harmony with 
 the varied and social wants of men. 
 
 10. Political Economy is the Scietice of Vcdue, which is a 
 definite relation between two things, though one somewhat 
 hard to be caught and held. 
 
VALUE. 117 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VALUE 
 
 The preceding chapter has paved the way for this one. 
 The field of the science is the field of Value ; and we have 
 gained some little glimpse of that seemingly elusive thing, 
 with which we shall be concerned from now on to the end. 
 Though Value seem at first sight to be elusive, its shape 
 becomes definite enough when firmly grasped, and it daily 
 proves itself to be one of the most tremendous realities with 
 which human life is confronted. The daily bread, the scale 
 of comforts, the mental and moral progress, of every man 
 and woman and child in the civilized world, hang almost 
 wholl}' upon it. The mind is baffled by the bigness of the 
 figures that express the aggregate of values in any one de- 
 partment of industry even in a single country. The grain 
 crops alone of the United States in the decade 1870-80 were 
 valued at $10,000,000,000, of which corn was one-half, and 
 wheat $3,500,000,000. To take a specific and local example 
 of increase in a valuable product, — the little town of Min- 
 neapolis in Minnesota, from a flour product of 30,000 barrels 
 in 1860, rose in 1880 to 2,051,841 barrels. Now Value, in 
 the definite and uniform sense in which it is used in econom- 
 ics, is alwaj's an expressed result; and the entire processes 
 that lead up to this result are called Production, which will 
 be the subject of the next chapter. Before we proceed to 
 the elementary exposition of Value that follows, it should be 
 said in the way of caution, that the word is sometimes used 
 in loose and unscientific senses, which we are carefully to 
 avoid. For instance, men speak of the " value " of a good 
 
118 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 example, iu which sense it is equivalent to iitiUty ; and gram- 
 marians speak of the " value " of a word or phrase, iu which 
 sense it means import or signification. Scientifically speak- 
 ing, Value never comes into being until it is determined by 
 an actual exchange ; and never resides, as utility may, in 
 any one thing in and of itself ; still, no ambiguity or other 
 ill consequence will arise, if, for the sake of shortened forms 
 of expression, we sometimes use the word as if it meant 
 expected or estimated value, or even use such an expression 
 as this — Land has Value. Examples of this harmless but 
 needful departure from a finical exactitude of science will 
 come up as we go on. 
 
 If I take up a new lead-pencil from my table, for the pur- 
 pose of examining all its qualities, I shall immediately per- 
 ceive those which are visible and tangible-. The pencil has 
 length, a cylindrical form, a black color, is hard to the 
 touch, is composed of wood and plumbago in certain rela- 
 tions to each other, and has the quality, when sharpened at 
 the end, of making black marks upon white paper. These 
 qualities, and such as these, may be learned by a study of 
 the pencil itself. But can I learn, by a study of the pencil 
 itself, the value of the pencil ? Is value a quality ? By any 
 examination of its mechanical, or by any analysis of its 
 chemical properties, can I detect how much the pencil is 
 worth ? No. The questioning of the senses, however mi- 
 nute, the test of the laboratory, however delicate, applied 
 to the pencil alone, can never determine how much it is 
 worth. These methods will discover the qualities that be- 
 long to the pencil as such, but I must take another method 
 altogether to determine its value. 
 
 Will the origin of the word Value help in finding a method 
 by which I may discover the value of the pencil? The 
 word is derived from the Latin verb valeke, to pass for., to 
 be worth. There is a hint of a comparison in the original 
 meaning of the term itself. Will the current use of language 
 assist me any further in finding out the way to learn the 
 
VALUE. 119 
 
 value of my pencil? In current language, when the value 
 of any thing is aslied, the answer always comes in the terms 
 of something else. We ask, How much is it worth? The 
 answer is, So many cents or dollars. The cents or dollars 
 are very different tilings from the things whose value we in- 
 quire after ; and thus we see again more clearly that vaLue 
 implies a comparison of two distinct things ; and, if so, of 
 course it is useless to try to ascertain its value by a study 
 of the pencil alone. But what kind of a comparison between 
 two things is needful, in order to ascertain the value of 
 either? There is no use in laying down a certain number 
 of cents by tlie side of the pencil for the purpose of fixing 
 its value, as we lay down a carpenter's square by the side 
 of a stick to ascertain its length ; because the cents have 
 no common physical quality with the pencil, as the square 
 and stick have in common the physical quality of length. 
 A simple comparison determines the relative length of the 
 square and the stick, and it makes no difference in the result 
 whose the square is, or whose the stick is. A borrowed 
 square is just as good to determine length as any other, since 
 that circumstance does not affect the terms of the compari- 
 son : also, one man is competent to maliie the comparison, 
 and it is not needful that he be the owner of either of the 
 things compared. 
 
 But is a man who does not own a thing competent to fix 
 its value ? And is a man who does own a thing competent 
 to fix its value by himself alone ? The true answer to these 
 questions brings out two peculiarities of that comparison by 
 which value must always be ascertained. Besides the two 
 things compared, there must be always two persons com- 
 paring, and each of these two persons must be virtuall}^ the 
 owner of one of the things compared. Because I think ray 
 pencil is worth fifteen cents, is it therefore worth fifteen 
 cents ? Somebody else must think so too before that fact can 
 be announced. Also, the comparison that two thieves make 
 between two pieces of stolen goods would not go far in pub- 
 
120 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 lie estimation towards fixing the value of either piece of 
 goods. Somebody, then, who owns the cents, must make a 
 comparison with somebody else wlio owns the pencil, or the 
 value of the latter is not likely to be truly ascertained. 
 
 But besides such a comparison, essential as this is as 
 towards the end in view, another step is needful before I can 
 announce the value of the pencil. Not simply a comparison 
 but an action also is necessary. I think it is worth fifteen 
 cents ; an owner of cents, with whom the comparison is 
 made, thinks so too ; is it therefore worth fifteen cents ? 
 That is more than I can tell yet. I say to him. Will you 
 take it and give me fifteen cents for it? He replies, I think 
 it is worth it, but I am not ready to give that sum for it 
 this morning. The value of the pencil is not yet deter- 
 mined. In order to that, there must be an actual exchange 
 of the pencil for the cents. There must be two things, two 
 persons, a comparison, an actual exchange by which each 
 person shall receive in fact or in ownership that previously 
 held by the other, — each rendering something for the sake 
 o/the thing received, before the determinate value of any 
 thing is possible to be stated. There may be expected 
 value, estimated value, but actual value there is none, until 
 a real exchange has settled how much the value is. The 
 value of any thing is something else already exchanged for it. 
 Value is not simply a relation subsisting between two things, 
 but an actual fact established in connection with those two 
 things. Quid pro quo is the universal formula of value. 
 The pencil is not worth fifteen cents, because I have not yet 
 succeeded in -obtaining that sum in exchange for it. 
 
 Not dealing in pencils, nor liking to chafi'er, and finding 
 it a little troublesome to discover what the value of the 
 pencil ?■«, I ask myself what its value was when I purchased 
 it? That is an easy question. Two days ago I paid for it 
 the sum of ten cents, United States mone}'. It was the 
 storekeeper and I. I owned the cents, and he owned the 
 pencil. We compared these two pieces of propert}'^ together, 
 
VALUE. 121 
 
 and agreed to change ownership in them. I gave him the 
 cents for the sake of the pencil, and he gave me the pencil 
 for the sake of the cents. How much is my pencil worth? 
 I do not know. How much was it worth two days ago? 
 Ten cents exactly. 
 
 If this preliminary view be just, it is clear that value is 
 not in any true sense a quality residing in an}- one thing, 
 but is a relation of mutual purchase established between 
 two things. Nevertheless, it is often convenient to regard 
 value as a quality inhering in a commodity or service. The 
 convenience of such expressions as " the pencil has value," 
 " gold has value," is so great, that science will not consent 
 to forego the advantage of using them, even though they 
 are not scientifically accurate. Science justly prefers to 
 make her language intelligible and popular, even at the 
 hazard of perpetuating a misapprehension. On such sub- 
 jects as these, she is compelled in part to use language 
 as she finds it ; but she is culpable if she does not fix 
 at the outset with absolute distinctness the meaning of her 
 terms, however popularly current, and then use the terms, 
 always in the same sense, never confounding a term with 
 other terms of a similar but not identical significance. In 
 allowing, therefore, such expressions as "gold has value," 
 we do not use the term in any other than its defined sense, 
 nor imply that value is a simple quality, but employ short- 
 ened forms of expression long consecrated by usage, and 
 avoid circumlocutions sure to become tedious. So also, by 
 using language that may imply that value exists before it 
 is realized in an actual exchange, we do not admit that 
 value exists independently' of an exchange ; men employ 
 foresight, put forth exertion, practise abstinence, in refer- 
 ence to a future realization of value : it is proper, at any 
 rate it is necessary, to speak of them as already emplo^^ed 
 upon value, and of value itself as a purchasing-power resid- 
 ing in this or that. A concession to the exigencies of lan- 
 guage is not a departure from the exactness of science. It 
 
122 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 is not, accordingly, true, speaking strictly, that value is a 
 quality of gold in the sense in which weight is a quality of 
 gold, because circumstances are easily conceivable, and have 
 often occurred, under which gold would have no value at 
 all. To the crew of a boat abandoned at sea, among whom 
 the last biscuit had been rationed out, a bag of gold belong- 
 ing to one of the men would not purchase a biscuit belonging 
 to another. The inherent qualities of the gold are present. 
 It is still hard and yellow and heavy. But valuable it is 
 not. It will not purchase any thing. Value, therefore, is 
 not an inherent and invariable attribute, but is the relative 
 power which one thing has of purchasing other things. This 
 power in any one thing will vary according to time and place 
 and circumstances. It may cease altogether, as in the case 
 just supposed, or it may rise under other cu'cumstances to 
 a very high degree ; but whenever it exists, it exists with 
 reference to some other thing, which either is, or is supposed 
 to be, exchanged with it. Ten cents had the power of pur- 
 chasing my pencil, and my pencil had the power of purchas- 
 ing ten cents. In this transaction the idea of value is 
 developed. A similar transaction first introduced that idea 
 into the world, and the encUess succession and variety of 
 such transactions have kept the idea in the world, and will 
 keep it here tUl the end of time. Value, then, speaking 
 strictly, is not an independent quality of the pencil, any 
 more than it is an independent quality of the cents. Both 
 are necessary in order that the value of either may be con- 
 ceived of. The value of the cents is estimated, is measured 
 by the pencil ; and the value of the pencil is estimated, is 
 measured by the cents. In one word, value is always rela- 
 tive, and never absolute. To say that any thing has an 
 absolute value is a simple contradiction in terms. 
 
 But why was I desu'ous to part with good United States 
 money for the sake of the pencil, and the storekeeper to part 
 with a good pencil for the sake of the money ? The answer 
 to this question will ground the science of value on the un- 
 
VALUE. 123 
 
 cl:anging principles of human nature. I experienced a want 
 which the pencil was adapted to satisfy. He experienced a 
 want which the money was adapted to satisfy. But between 
 ttiy want and its satisfaction, both of which were personal to 
 me, there lay an effort, to be made either by myself or by 
 somebody else in my behalf. So, between his want and its 
 satisfaction, both of which were personal to him, there lay 
 an effort, to be made either by himself or b}* somebody else 
 in his behalf. If I had chosen to do so, I might have made 
 the direct effort necessary in order to supply myself with a 
 pencil. I might have made the pencil for myself. It would 
 indeed have been a long and tedious process, would have 
 required a learning of two or three trades, a journey to 
 some plumbago-bed, the working and preparation of the 
 mineral, and various other subordinate processes ; still, in 
 the course of half a life-time it might perhaps have been 
 done, and I might by direct efforts have supplied myself 
 with a pencil as good as that which I purchased. So, too, 
 the storekeeper, unless the laws had prevented it, might 
 have procured for himself by direct efforts the metal cents 
 which I gave him in exchange for the pencil. He might 
 have dug the ores for himself, refined, alloyed, and minted 
 them. Had we chosen respectively to take this course, and 
 each been able to satisfy his own particular desire by his 
 own unassisted efforts, the processes in either case would 
 have had no relation to Political Econom3^ There would be 
 in each case a want, an effort, a satisfaction, but there 
 would be no exchange. As a matter of fact, however, we 
 exchanged the efforts which lay between our respective de- 
 sires and their respective satisfactions. I desired a pencil, 
 he relieved me of the effort necessary to malvc it, and I 
 experienced the satisfaction. He desired the cents, I re- 
 lieved him of the effort necessary to procure them, and 
 he again experienced the satisfaction. We each experi- 
 enced our own desires, and our own satisfactions, but we 
 exchanged efforts. Precisely in this exchange of efforts 
 
124 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 arose the phenomenon of value. I parted with my cents, 
 which had cost me an effort, in order to satisfy my desire 
 for a pencil, because my effort, represented in the cents, 
 was less than the effort it would cost me to create the 
 pencil. The shopkeeper parted with the pencil, which had 
 cost him an effort, in order to satisfy his desire for the 
 cents, because his effort, represented in the pencil, was less 
 than the effort which it would otherwise cost him to procure 
 the cents. We exchanged efforts, therefore, for our mutual 
 advantage. 
 
 The principles of human nature, then, on which the laws 
 of value are grounded, are these : Men have desires, are 
 capable of making efforts to meet these desires, and expe- 
 rience a satisfaction when the desu'cs are met. These three 
 are indisputable and universal facts. But while the desire 
 and the satisfaction are strictly personal to one man, that 
 is to say, belong to him and cannot be communicated to 
 another, it is not so with efforts. Efforts are exchangeable. 
 You have a desire, I make the effort to meet it, and you 
 again experience the satisfaction. On the other hand, I 
 have a desire, you make the effort to meet it, and I again 
 have the satisfaction. We exchange efforts, but experience 
 our own satisfactions. Desires, efforts, satisfactions, con- 
 stitute the one circle of Political Economy, and value arises 
 in every case from a comparison of two corresponding efforts. 
 Efforts arc naturally irksome. Everybody wishes to realize 
 as large a satisfaction as possible from a given effort. K, 
 by making that effort for another, a larger satisfaction will 
 be realized than by expending it directly for one's self, there 
 is an immediate and pressing motive to make the effort for 
 another, and to reach the satisfaction, not direct!}^, but indi- 
 rectly, that is, by exchange. A precisely similar motive 
 actuates that other person. If his given effort will realize 
 more for himself by being put forth for the first man, and 
 by accepting the first man's effort in return, he too will be 
 anxious to exchange efforts with the first. There is a mutual 
 
VALUE. 125 
 
 advantage in thus exchanging. A given effort realizes better 
 Batisf actions for each of the parties, and the reason for ex- 
 changes is thus seen to spring from the most active and 
 invariable principles of human nature. 
 
 The exchange of the cents for the pencil, and the pencil 
 for the cents, is a simple case of value, but it is not the 
 simplest. In this case there is an exchange of one com- 
 modity for another commodity, the idea of value is instantly 
 developed, and we say that the pencil is worth ten cents, or, 
 what is exactly equivalent, ten cents are worth the pencil. 
 There are two things in every exchange, — that which is 
 parted with and that which is received. Attention should 
 be constantly directed to both. Many errors in science, and 
 numberless mistakes in legislation, have arisen from not 
 attending to this circumstance, as if it were the glory of trade 
 to sell rather than to buy, whereas it is not possible to sell 
 without buying, because the pay must be taken for what is 
 sold. In every exchange, therefore, of commodity for com- 
 modity, the value of each is expressed in the other, and the 
 relation between the two purchasing-powers is adjusted. 
 This is the common case witnessed in the shops, on the 
 street, and in the market-places. This is one case of value ; 
 and there are, as we shall soon see, but five other possible 
 cases, and each of these presents us, in principle, with 
 nothing different from this. Sometimes, as in foreign com- 
 merce, for example, when commodities are rendered, a credit- 
 claim is taken in return, and this credit-claim is afterwards 
 exchanged against another credit-claim, or against some 
 personal service, or against other commodities, as the case 
 may be. So in domestic trade, goods or labor are often sold 
 on credit, as it is called, that is, against a claim to be real- 
 ized in future, or are paid for in paper money, which is 
 itself a credit-claim, as well as sold against other goods or 
 metallic mone3' or personal service, in which case the trans- 
 action is closed up at once. These surface-differences do 
 not alter at all either the notion of value or its laws. Each 
 
126 POLIJICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 repeated purchase and sale, no matter in which form, pre- 
 sents us over and over again with the same phenomenon, 
 namely, the equalization through exchange of two purchas- 
 ing-powers. This is value, and is the sole subject of our 
 science. 
 
 The simplest case of value, however, will throw light upon 
 ths more complex ones, and will be found to include them. 
 Two farmers, who are neighbors, find, on talking over their 
 respective crops, that one has more hoeing and less haying 
 this year than usual, and the other less hoeing and more 
 haying. A says to B, " Come over and help me hoe in 
 June, and I will go over and help 3'ou hay in Julj-." B 
 agrees. It is a mutual advantage. And so, to use the old 
 expression, which is better here than anj" scientific terms could 
 be, they change works. B does a* service for A, and A does 
 a service for B. The two services balance each other. 
 Thej' are mutually exchanged one for the other ; and in the 
 yery proposal thus to exchange them the notion of value is 
 conceived, and in the exchange itself value is both pro- 
 duced and measured. B's help in hoeing is worth A's help 
 in haying. 
 
 This exchange of one service for another service presents 
 the simplest case of value ; and we now proceed to show that 
 it essentially includes all other cases. If it can be shown 
 that value is always and everywhere the same thing, that it 
 is always and everywhere the relation of mutual pur- 
 chase ESTABLISHED BETWEEN TWO SERVICES BY THEIR EX- 
 CHANGE, Political Economy will be seen to possess one grand 
 characteristic of the great sciences, namely, simplicity. 
 This can be shown. 
 
 Induction has been busy more or less for more than two 
 tliousand j^ears in trying to gain a complete classification of 
 Values, and thus to reach a complete definition of Property. 
 Of course the attention of men was first drawn in the way 
 of ';ou3nng and selling to tangible things, and the balance 
 was very early used to equalize the things exchanged ac- 
 
VALUE. 127 
 
 eording to an estimation mutually agreed on by the two par- 
 ties. Thus " Abraham tveighed to Ephron the silver he had 
 named in the audience of the sons of Heth " as a return for 
 the land received by him "for a possession." Thus the 
 early Romans called buying and selling manci2num, — faA.'en 
 by the hand, — because that formality was required in the 
 transfer of certain things. When land was sold, a turf was 
 sometimes cut from it and passed over into the hand of the 
 purchaser in token of the sale. The balance was much used 
 in all sales — per oes et libram — even in imaginary sales, as 
 when a father manumitted a son. But society has never 
 advanced far in any country, before it has been observed by 
 somebody that intangible things are bought and sold also. 
 Even if Aristotle did not perceive that personal services or 
 labor are a part of property, the author of the Eryxias 
 stated that clearly ; and even if the Greeks did not see that 
 abstract rights are property, the Roman lawj^ers announced 
 it in the clearest terms. Keen eyes among the moderns have 
 watched for some other species of property than these three, 
 and have not found it. The Induction is completed for all 
 time. The particulars have all been generalized, and not 
 one outlying case is left. Property, as including these three 
 kinds, has been neatly defined by Ulpian, and the definition 
 can never be impro\'ed. 
 
 "We have, then, but six possible cases of value, since there 
 are only three kinds of things that are ever exchanged for 
 the sake of each other. These are : — 
 
 1. A commodity for a commodity, as the pencil for the 
 cents. 
 
 2. A commodity for a service, as a gold eagle for a law- 
 yer's advice. 
 
 3. A commodity for a claim, as a Howard watch for a 
 copyright. 
 
 4. A service for a service, as the above case of two farmers. 
 
 5. A service for a claim, as a year's work for a U. S. 
 bond. 
 
128 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 6. A claim for a claim, as a U. S. bond for railroad 
 Bhares.^ 
 
 Blackstone quoted with approval from the Koman civil- 
 ians the four valuable considerations in cases of contract 
 which the Romans seem to have clearly and constantly 
 recognized. This list is quite incomplete, even when com- 
 pared with principles elsewhere clearly recognized in the 
 civil law inself ; for Ulpian says, " We are accustomed to 
 buy and sell Debts payable at a certain event and on a certain 
 day;" and again he says, " Under the term Projjerty both 
 Mights of Action and Rights are included." We will now 
 give the list as Blackstone gives it, and then give the six 
 formulas that will correct and complete it. 
 
 1. Do ut des .... Commodity for commodity. 
 
 2. Facio ut facias . . Work against work. 
 
 3. Facio ut des . . . Work for a commodity. 
 
 4. Do ut facias . . . Commodity for work. 
 
 A full statement of possible valuable considerations is the 
 following : — 
 
 1. Do ut des . . My commodity against yours. 
 
 2. Do ut facias . . My commodity for your work. 
 
 3. Do ut promittas . My commodity for your promise 
 
 4. Facio ut facias . . My service against yours. 
 
 5. Facio ut promittas . My service for your promise. 
 
 6. Promitto ut promittas . My promise against j^ours. 
 
 Now what is mutually' transferred in all these cases, is the 
 ownership or property in something. The Latin word p?-o- 
 prietas, from which our word projjerty comes, means both 
 etymologically and legally what is exclusively one's oiun. 
 What is exclusively one's own may be rightfully sold, pro- 
 vided the consideration be sufficient, and may thus become 
 
 1 Comiiare the Civil Law, Fr. 19, §5, 5; Blackstone's Commentaries, 
 Book ii. 444 ; and Macleod's Banking, page 9 et seq. 
 
VALUE. 129 
 
 exclusively another's. Material products may or may not 
 be passed over to the purchaser at the time of the sale, but 
 the owyiersJup goes over to him in all cases. Personal ser- 
 vices, unlike material products, are not commonly resalable 
 by the purchaser ; sometimes they are, as when one hires 
 out for a time his own hired man. Most species of incor- 
 poreal property are transferable at will, as bank checks, 
 patent-rights, and promissor}^ notes. But this transfer of 
 ownership, a feature in all cases of value, though less obvi- 
 ously so when simple services are rendered, does not present 
 the best aspect for the complete understanding of value. 
 That aspect is presented through the term services. 
 
 It is mutual services, as well as mutual ownership, that 
 are exchanged in these six cases ; and the word services 
 carries us deeper into the central phenomena of value. 
 Thus the client, with five dollars in his pocket, is just as 
 much in position to do the lawyer a service, as the lawyer is 
 in position to do him a service. The counsel is serviceable 
 to the client, and the dollars are serviceable to the lawyer, 
 and so they exchange. And just so when commodities are 
 exchanged with each other. The hatter serves you with a 
 hat, and the shoemaker with a pair of boots, and you serve 
 them with six dollars each ; or if the hatter be in want of 
 boots, and the shoemaker of a hat, they serve each other 
 with their respective products. In every case of value, 
 therefore, without exception, what is really exchanged, 
 whether a commodity intervene or not, are mutual services ; 
 and value is then produced, and only then, when two per- 
 sons are in position to render each other a service ; and the 
 respective services being rendered, that is exchanged, and 
 the balance being struck, we have the value of one ex- 
 pressed in the other. 
 
 If this view of the matter be correct, the definition of 
 Value that has just been given must be correct also. This 
 analysis of value brings us directly to persons as the central 
 point of the science, and makes outward things, though still 
 
130 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of vast importance in their relations to persons, entirely sub- 
 ordinate to the desires and estimates of the persons them- 
 selves. Even in the exchange of tangible things, which we 
 have called commodities, the wants and tasks of persons are 
 the chief element in the transaction ; the character and skill 
 of persons as such become still more prominent in the ex- 
 change of what we have called personal services or labor ; 
 and in the sphere of claims or credits, which always relate 
 to future time, almost every thing hinges on the character of 
 persons through the confidence they are able to inspire. As 
 we have been obliged to use the term "things" in two 
 senses, the specific sense as opposed to persons, and the gen- 
 eral sense as including whatever is exchanged, so we have 
 been obliged to use the term " services " in two senses, in 
 the specific sense as personal services or labor, and in the 
 broad sense as rendering any thing for wJiich something is de- 
 manded in return. No confusion will arise from these ambi- 
 guities, for the context will always show in which sense the 
 terms are used. Also, people sometimes do for others what 
 are called services, out of sympathy, from benevolence, 
 from duty ; but the characteristic of these is that they are 
 free ; nothing is demanded in return. These, therefore, fall 
 in the sphere of ethics, and are outside the pale of Political 
 Economy. There is no such thing as exchange proper within 
 the field of ethics, and there is nothing else but exchange 
 proper within the field of econom3\ This principle alone 
 marks the boundary -line between the sciences referred to. 
 A service, then, in the language of this science, and as the 
 word will henceforward be used in these pages, is any thing 
 rendered to another in view of a return, and for the sake of 
 a return. The man who furnishes you a barrel of apples, 
 does you, in this sense, a service equally with the physician 
 who attends upon your fever ; and you pay them both on 
 precisely the same principles. You render to each an equiv- 
 alent service in return. To pay them money is to render 
 them a service, just as to furnish you apples and medical 
 
VALUE. 131 
 
 advice were a service to you. Whether a commodity, as 
 apples, intervene or not, is, as far as value is concerned, a 
 matter of indifference. The more specific use of the term 
 " service," as opposed to a commodity, is indeed convenient, 
 and will, doubtless, continue to be used : the broader sense 
 is exceedingly useful, and, by its aid, we clear up the whole 
 subject of value. 
 
 This ultuTiate definition of Value, namely, that it is the 
 
 RELATION OF MUTUAL PURCHASE ESTABLISHED BETWEEN TWO 
 
 SERVICES, is somewhat lilve the definition of the physiocrats, 
 still more like the definition of Bastiat, and j^et it is different 
 from them both. The physiocrats said, that " value con- 
 sists in the relation of one tiling exchanged for another." 
 Two things are to be said about this : first, as the physio- 
 crats admitted only one kind of property, — richesse, — and 
 consequently only one kind of exchange, that of material 
 products, their definition is too narrow, — their word 
 "thing" meant only a physical thing exchanged; and sec- 
 ond, there is an indefiniteness about the relation itself as 
 expressed by them, — the kind of relation is not clearly 
 given. Bastiat's definition, — '■'■the relation of two services 
 exchanged.," — escapes the first fault by means of the word 
 " services," but does not escape the second fault. Our defi- 
 nition steers clear of both ; and as an elephant tests the 
 bridge, first by one foot and then by another, and then by 
 all his weight, so we are willing that this definition should 
 be tested by all economists, however cautious. 
 
 The definition of a general and abstract term like Value 
 ought certainly to be both general and abstract. In this 
 point of view, Macleod's definition, however excellent in 
 most other respects, seems to us to be defective. He says : 
 " The value of any economic quantity is any other economic 
 quantity for tohich it can be exchanged." Yes ; but this does 
 not answer the question, "What is Vcdue? It answers the 
 question. What is the value of any specific valuable thing? 
 We have already confessed also our dissatisfaction with 
 
132 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Macleod's use of the word "quantity " in this connection. 
 He is indeed perfectly right in claiming that every valuable 
 thing whatsoever can be measured in money, and we saw 
 before that this is a great advantage in all economical rea- 
 soning ; but in applying the term "quantity" with all its 
 concrete associations to each economic rendering of the 
 three kinds, he runs a risk, which is still more plainly seen 
 in Jevons, of leading men's minds back to the concrete 
 notions of the first and second schools. Jevons says : " To 
 me it seems that our science must be mathematical., siynply he- 
 cause it deals with quantities. Wherever the things treated 
 are capable of being more or less in magnitude ., there the laws 
 and relations must be mathematical in nature. The ordinary 
 laws of supply and demand treat entirely of quantities of 
 Commodity demanded or supplied, and express the mode in 
 which the quantities vary in connection with the price.' ^ To 
 most persons, if not to all persons, a " quantity " means a 
 mass or mess of something. Is not "services" a better 
 term than ' ' quantities ' ' ? May it not be better said of ser- 
 vices than of quantities that they are measurable by money? 
 When Siddous acts, and Mehlig plays, and Kellogg sings, in 
 public, is not their respective economic rendering rather a 
 service than a quantity f If A with the toothache pays the 
 dentist B $5 for pulling out the tooth, A's mone}'^ seems to 
 us a measure of B's service, and of nothing else. We have 
 BOW tracked the lion of Value to his very lair. We have 
 reached a deGnition that seems adequate aiKl complete. But 
 for the sake of further illustration and still clearer light on a 
 central point "that has long lain in fog, it is well worth our 
 while to go on with the discussion, and to enumerate at 
 length some of the reasons why we may feel entirely satisfied 
 with our final definition. 
 
 1. In the first place, this definition covers naturally and 
 easily all those anomalous cases of value which have been so 
 hard to reduce under any other general view. Take for in- 
 stance those rare cases of the accidental finding of things, 
 
VALUE. 133 
 
 like a large diamond or a nugget of. gold, which proved 
 afterwards to have great value. The second school, and 
 more especially McCulloch, claim that laboj- is the source of 
 value, and that the purchasing-power of all things is propor- 
 tioned to the labor which they have cost. This statement 
 has a good deal of truth in it in relation to certain things at 
 certain times and places, but it will not do at all as a gener- 
 alization. There are many cases that it does not cover. 
 Indeed, mere effort, mere work, in itself considered, has no 
 tendency whatever to create value. Much effort, much work, 
 as by a dull but laborious writer of a book, may issue in very 
 little value. Little effort, little work, as by a skilful pleader 
 in the courts, may issue in very great value. Labor is not 
 so much a cause of the value expected to accrue as it is the 
 7'esidt of the value expected to accrue. Whately puts this 
 just right when he says: "In this, as in so many other 
 points in Political Economy, men are prone to confound 
 cause and effect. It is not that pearls fetch a high price 
 because men have dived for them ; but, on the contrary, men 
 dive for them because they fetch a high price." In other 
 words, value always has its starting-place in Desires ; and 
 although Effort of some sort and in some degree is always 
 associated with desire in the realization of value, yet the 
 effort alone is never the cause of the value, nor can the 
 value always be said to be proportioned to the effort. 
 
 We can reason well from feigned cases, provided only 
 they be cases liable to happen : let us suppose a case that 
 has probably often happened in fact. A miner chances in 
 his work to find a gold nugget of extraordinary size ; it is 
 but a moment's labor to appropriate the prize ; but then, 
 such as it was, the labor was his own ; he is now the un- 
 doubted proprietor of the nugget ; he must preserve and 
 defend it until the opportunity come to sell it ; he must take 
 it to the buyer whoever and wherever he may be ; and does 
 he sell it for one shilling less on account of the little labor 
 of appropriating it? No. He is now in position to do a 
 
134 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 great service to anybody wanting gold. He demands a large 
 service in return, and gets it. Gold bears a market-rate by 
 the pennyweight, and whoever offers it in any quantity may 
 expect to receive that rate. It would be poor mercantile 
 logic for the buyer to say to the seller : I hear that you 
 found that nugget by accident, and as it cost you but a few 
 minutes' labor to secure it, I am ready therefore to give you 
 for it a fair valuation of your time expended. He rather 
 reasons in this waj^ : Here are 100 pennyweights of crude 
 gold, equivalent to 70 pennyweights of coin gold ; this 
 miner knows in a general way the market-rate of gold of 
 this degree of fineness ; I cannot get it elsewhere for less ; 
 and, therefore, I am glad to give him his price. The value 
 is not determined in this case by the labor expended, but it 
 is determined by the service rendered ; and this principle 
 governs all cases of this sort, however unique. A diamond 
 larger than usual found in Golconda, in Brazil, in South 
 Africa, is, as a rule, sold in accordance with the same prin- 
 ciples as other things ; a finder indeed may sometimes not 
 know what it is that he has found, as the Swiss soldier who 
 picked up the Sanci diamond on the battle-field of Nancy 
 from the hat of Charles the Bold and sold it to a clergyman 
 for a gulden ; on the other hand, the slaves in Brazil are 
 stimulated to knowledge and diligence by the rule, that 
 when a diamond of 17 carats is found he who finds it is en- 
 titled to his liberty ; but on the whole it is remarkable that 
 there are so few fortunate accidents in the world of values 
 anywhere, labor for labor is the almost universal circum- 
 stance, and when the anomalous case arises now and then 
 it comes with all other cases under the absolutely universal 
 formula Service for Service. If the seller of any thing 
 at any time pitches his demand too high, that is, at a point 
 beyond which the bu3'er can get himself served by another 
 or prefers to go without the thing, the first must lower his 
 terms or not tirade ; and the second can only crowd down 
 the first to the point at which he can find another purchaser 
 
VALUE. 135 
 
 or prefers to retain possession himself. The comparison 
 and adjustment of these two services, that of the first to the 
 second and that of the second to the first, fixes for that sale 
 the value of each service. 
 
 Here we must tarry a moment in passing to note what an 
 exceedingly good word the English language furnishes us 
 with in this term " Service." It combines in its own proper 
 meaning all the elements which make up and which vary 
 value. First, it implies always two persons, the person ren- 
 dering and the person receiving the service. Next, it always 
 implies some eflTort on the part of the person rendering, and 
 some satisfaction on the part of the person receiving the 
 service. Thus when one service is spoken of there are 
 always implied two persons and two things, and the two 
 things are the effort of one person and the satisfaction of 
 another. But when two services are spoken of as ex- 
 changed, as is always the case in Political Economy, there 
 are implied, as before, two persons, each of whom makes 
 an effort for the other, each of whom is recipient of a satis- 
 faction which comes from the effort of the other, and each 
 of whom estimates in the light of his own satisfaction that 
 which is received as compared with that which is rendered. 
 It is this reciprocal estimation alone that constitutes value ; 
 and it is the excellence, we may almost say the glory, of the 
 term Service, that it gathers up in its own signification all 
 the elements which go to determine value, and which ever 
 vary its amount. 
 
 As here is the very core of our science, a little further 
 illustration at this point may at least be pardoned, and per- 
 haps will be well bestowed. Let the parties be A and B, 
 in position to render each other a mutual service. A has a 
 desire which B's effort can meet, and B has a desire which 
 A's effort can meet. Up to the point when the exchange 
 takes place there are only four elements that play any part 
 in the transaction as preparatory to it, namel}', two desires 
 and two efforts. In the act of exchange itself two other 
 
136 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 elements come into being, namely, two relative estimates, 
 A's estimate of B's effort for him as compared with his own 
 effort for B, and B's estimate of A's effort for him as com- 
 pared with his own effort for A. As a result of the ex- 
 change, and as that for the sake of which the whole series 
 took place, there appear two other elements, namely, two 
 satisfactions. Here is the whole of it. Now, then, any 
 change in any one of the first four elements will vary value ; 
 and there is nothing else in the world that can vary it. If 
 A's desire for that which B is ready to render be lessened, 
 the other elements remaining the same, A's estimate of B's 
 effort as compared with his own is lessened, and value is at 
 once affected. If A's desire be increased, other things being 
 equal, his estimate of B's service as compared with his own 
 is increased, and value is affected. Just so any diminution 
 or enhancement of B's desire for that which A is ready to 
 render, acts at once upon B's estimate of A's effort as com- 
 pared with his own, and consequently acts at once upon 
 value. Again, any change in either effort as compared with 
 the other, such as its becoming more or less onerous than 
 the other, will of course affect the estimate of the one as 
 measured by the other, and of course also will vary value. 
 These fix'st four elements then are not only the elements out 
 of which value subsequently springs, but also arc the ele- 
 ments any change in any one of which, the others remaining 
 the same, will tend to vary value, and without a change in 
 some one of which, relatively to the others, value never will 
 be varied. The term services expresses just these elements 
 which play and vary as preparatory to the realization of 
 value. Value itself is realized from the adjustment of the 
 fifth and sixth elements, that is to say, from the equalization 
 of A's estimate of B's service with B's estimate of A's 
 service. This adjustment also, together with the remaining 
 elements, the two satisfactions, are all implied in the ex- 
 pression mutual services, or, if j^ou please, two servi(ies 
 exchanged. 
 
VALUE. 137 
 
 If any reader objects to this paragraph as abstract, the 
 reply is, it is no more abstract than the subject-matter is 
 with which we are dealing ; and if any one finds difficulty in 
 the relative nature of the transaction unfolded, it can only 
 be said, that Economy starts with a relation and has to do 
 with a relation every step of the way to the end. This is the 
 one intrinsic, unavoidable difficulty that lies at the threshold 
 of the science ; and whoever, by taking pains at the outset, 
 familiarizes this difficulty to his thoughts, and thus over- 
 masters it, will walk thenceforward with positi^'e pleasure 
 throughout the whole economic domain. If there ever was 
 a science grateful for a word, as lessening its inherent diffi- 
 culties and helping explain its phenomena, Political Econ- 
 omy, which has wandered more than twice forty 3'ears in the 
 Avilderness of "Wealth," thankfully accepts in the terra 
 " Service " its latest and most important gift. 
 
 2. In the second place, the definition of Value here given 
 expands the field of economics to its full and natural limits. 
 Even Adam Smith, and the English economists generally, 
 while really considering " wealth " as consisting of material 
 commodities only, have experienced a difficulty in excluding 
 from the domain of the science certain immaterial services, 
 and in denjung value to those services. Some have tried to 
 avoid this difficulty in one way and some in another. Some 
 have called those who render a mere service to society 
 "unproductive laborers," and have gifted with the title of 
 ' ' productive laborers ' ' all those who bring forward some 
 vendible commodity. Stuart Mill was inclined to enlarge his 
 l(!rms so as to take in all those sorts of mere services whose 
 action goes to swell the volume of material commodities. He 
 would allow, that persons employed in a factory to teach the 
 operatives knowledge needful to the doing of their daily tasks 
 were productive laborers ; while ordinary school teachers, as 
 such, he put altogether outside the realm of economics. It 
 is conceded then that value may reside in some services ; 
 and why not then in all services put forth for the sake of a 
 
138 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 return? Why allow value to a service that may come to he 
 indirectly emhodicd in a commodity, and deny the term to 
 another service just as necessarj^ to our comfort and just as 
 much purchased that is not thus embodied ? Wliy class the 
 brick-maker and the hod-carrier as productive laborers, and 
 den}' the epithet to the bishop, whose residence they are at 
 work upon, and whoso salary as a clergyman pays their 
 wages? The truth is, there is no ground for this distinction ; 
 and the very difficulty which the various writers have found 
 in trying to make it, is a pretty sure proof that it ought not 
 to be made at all. By putting its definitions so that value 
 can only be supposed to dwell in tangible commodities, 
 Econom}- excludes itself, without any good reason, from the 
 largest and best portion of its own field. 
 
 Let us now see if there be any good reason for this nar- 
 rowness. An example here is better than a syllogism. A 
 man buys a spelling-book for his boy, for the sake of his 
 learning to read. He then hires a teacher to teach him to 
 read. According to the usual definitions the spelling-book 
 has value, while the service of the teacher has none. But 
 why has it none? It has to be paid for, certainly, as much 
 as the spelling-book has to be paid for. There are two sepa- 
 rate exchanges ; first, of money for the spelling-book, and 
 second, of money for the service. Both are made with the 
 same object in view, namely, that the boy may learn to read. 
 The want of a spelling-book and the want of a teacher are 
 the two external obstacles in the way of reaching that object ; 
 and the father overcomes them botli by similar means, that 
 is to say, by "an exchange ; and there is no such difference 
 in the two transactions as will justify or even tolerate the 
 distinction sought to be made between them. The teacher 
 sells his service. The shopkeeper sells his book. The 
 father renders a service to each equivalent to that received 
 from each. Political Economy now claims jurisdiction over 
 both transactions alike, and affirms value as truly of the 
 service as of the commodity, and more truly of the service 
 
VALUE. 139 
 
 than of the commodity, inasmuch as it stands read}' to prove 
 that so far as value resides in any commodity it resides there 
 simpl}^ in virtue of the human services which have been con- 
 cerned in it and in that for which it is exchanged. What is 
 ultimate, therefore, in all exchange, is services and not com- 
 modities ; and the services which are bought and sold in 
 every department of life,- the services, for example, of the 
 lawyer, the physician, the clergyman, the teacher, the editor, 
 the musician, fall as much within the province of Political 
 Economy as the traffic of commodities in the market-place. 
 Our science asserts its claim of jurisdiction wherever services / 
 are mutually exchanged. 
 
 3. A third advantage of the definition of Value now given, 
 and one closely connected with the last, will be seen in the 
 fact that it helps free the discussion from a perplexing error 
 which has long infected this class of inquiries, namel}^ that 
 value is somehow or other connected with matter. This 
 notion has controlled most of the definitions and develop- 
 ments of the science hitherto ; has led, as we have just seen, 
 to groundless distinctions between personal services ; and 
 has taken possession of language so thoroughly that no judi- 
 cious writer will attempt at this late day to dislodge from 
 that strongest of all citadels. Rather than disturb the cur- 
 rent nomenclature of life and business, the wise economist 
 will allow such expressions as these to stand : Gold has value, 
 strawberries have value. But it is very easy to show and 
 very important to see that value does not reside in matter, 
 or in any form of matter, but only in human services 
 exchanged ; and that, therefore, Value is never of God's 
 creation, hut always of meii's exertion. For example, the 
 jihysical thing. Land, and the physical thing. Silver, liave 
 been wrought by God ; but the value of the land, and the 
 value of the silver, are matters brought about by living men. 
 The distinction between a certain thing as existing, and even 
 as existing in a certain form, and the same thing as valuable, 
 is a vital distinction in economics. Moreover, the distinction 
 
140 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 between the utility of something, that is, its capacity to 
 gratify some hnman desire, and the value of that same thing, 
 that is, its power to pnrchase something else, is another 
 vital distinction in economics, as"we shall fully see shortly. 
 No effort of men can add one particle to the existing matter 
 of the globe, but it has been supposed that the efforts of 
 men, by changing the form of existing matter, impart the 
 quality of value to it, and that thenceforth the value remains 
 fixed in the matter itself. The efforts of a woodman, for 
 example, with the co-operation of nature, can transform the 
 stock of a tree into wooden bowls, and value is now supposed 
 to reside in the vendible bowls, and the current language is, 
 that each bowl has a value of fifty cents. "Why has it. a 
 value of fifty cents ? Clearly enough, to reward his service 
 who felled the tree, and sawed the block, and then hollowed 
 out the bowl. But the service having been employed upon 
 the matter, and being embodied in it, is not Avhat is really 
 sold now the matter, and not the service? We answer. No. 
 What is really sold is the service, and not the matter. And 
 this, which at first sight might not be thought important, but 
 which is really very important, becomes apparent as soon as 
 we I'eflect that any changes in the conditions of the service 
 instantly affect the value. Our woodman has on hand a 
 stock of one hundred bowls, which he offers for sale at fiftj'' 
 cents apiece, as fairly rewarding his personal services in their 
 production. But, unknown to him, an enterprising neighbor 
 has invented a machine which enables him to make bowls in 
 every respect equal to the others, and to offer them at twen- 
 ty-five cents apiece. Whoever now wants a wooden bowl 
 can have that service rendered him for twenty-five cents 
 return. The first man finds that he cannot sell a bowl for 
 over twenty-five cents, and that his stock of one hundred 
 has sunk at once in value from fifty dollars to twenty-five 
 dollars. What is the matter with his bowls? The matter 
 is not in the matter. The matter is all there, and the form 
 of the matter is all there, but the value is just one-half 
 
VALUE. 141 
 
 es(!aped, because the service which he can render to a buyer 
 by a bowl has been, by the enterprise of his neighbor, just 
 one-half lessened. Value then follows the fortunes of ser- 
 vices, and varies as they vary, just as much when they have 
 been employed upon commodities, as when they are inde- 
 pendent of them, and we see that the value resides in services 
 compared, and not in matter at all. To render and receive 
 services are a function ot persons, and the qualities of matter 
 are subordinate to that. 
 
 We now proceed to indicate the manner in which language 
 came to be used in such a way as gives color to the notion 
 that value resides in the commodities rather than in the ser- 
 vices. An instance will bring the whole subject before us 
 clearly. In many parts of the United States delicious wild 
 strawberries may be had in their season for the simple pick- 
 ing. The pastures and meadows are open to every comer, 
 and the strawberries are considered to belong, not to the 
 owners of the fields, but to any one who takes the labor of 
 picking the fruit. Let us suppose tliat my family are fond 
 of the berries, and that no member of it likes to undergo 
 the labor of picking them, and that I hire some girl, who 
 offers her services for the purpose, to go to the fields and 
 gather some of the fruit for us. When she returns I pay 
 her for her service. Slie does not conceive of any value 
 residiug in the strawberries themselves. Neither do I. She 
 makes a series of efforts for the gratification of my family, 
 and is paid for her efforts. Language recognizes the true 
 state of the case, and she does not say now that she sells us 
 the berries, and we do not speak of buymg the berries of 
 her. She thinks only of her service, we think only of her 
 service, she is paid only for her service : language is exact 
 in the premises. The next day, as the girl is about to go 
 for us again, my neighbor sa^'s to her, "You bring ne as 
 many, and I will pay you as much." The third day, a sec- 
 ond neighbor makes a similar bargain with her, and she 
 brings strawberries for the three families, and is paid in 
 
142 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 each case for her service. The girl, on the fourth day, 
 taking it for granted that we shall be likely to want straw- 
 berries that day also, does not wait to be sent, makes no 
 bargain for her services beforehand, but goes and gathers 
 the fruit. This time there is a change of language when 
 she comes to my door. She now offers to sell me straw- 
 berries. " How much are they worth? " I ask. She names 
 probably the same sum which she had before received for 
 the service of picking the same quantity. She could not 
 materially increase it, because there are doubtless other 
 girls who are ready to render the service which she before 
 rendered, at the same rate. But attention is now drawn 
 away from the service to the berries, and the idea of value 
 is attached to the berries, and language adopts the illusion, 
 and says, " the berries are worth so much." Who does not 
 see, however, that the transaction is substantially the same 
 as before ? Who does not see that it is only by a figure of 
 speech, convenient indeed, but still only a figure, that the 
 berries are now said to have value? If there be no differ- 
 ence in the last case as compared with the former cases in 
 the two desires and in the two efforts, it is plain to reason 
 that there can be no difference in the value, and conse- 
 quently no difference in that which is really sold. But my 
 desire for the berries, my effort as represented in the price 
 paid, her desire for the money, and her effort as represented 
 in the picking, are all just as before. She expected me to 
 take them, and I took them as before. The value, there- 
 fore, the purchasing-power, resides not in the berries, but 
 in the service; that is to say, in that which she renders as 
 compared with that she receives ; and it is only a freak of 
 language which leads us to suppose otherwise. 
 
 This is but a simple instance, but the principles of the 
 instance are applicable to all commodities whatsoever. It is 
 only mediately and figuratively that commodities can be said 
 to have A-alue at all ; and if we use the common language, 
 and say that they have value, we must always rcniember 
 
VALUE. 143 
 
 that they have it simply aud solely in consequence of the 
 human services which have been employed upon them, as 
 related to those other human services for which they may be 
 exchanged. If this be true, and it seems to us certain that 
 it is true, it throws a flood of light upon the whole field of 
 value. More attention must be given hereafter, in Political 
 Econom}', to persons, and less to things. Man aud his 
 wants, man and his efforts, become at once the chief topics, 
 while the material products on which efforts are employed, 
 and which minister to wants, sink in relative position. It 
 foUows also from this distinction, that there is not so much 
 difference as is commonly supposed, when a man works for 
 others, and when he sets up for himself, — between a jour- 
 neyman and a master. The journeyman sells his services, 
 and the master sells nothing more or other than his own ser- 
 vices. The services of the master may not be manual, they 
 may be merely supervisory, or they may be connected with 
 ihe use of his capital ; but the finished product, when it is 
 ready for the consumer, represents the aggregate of the 
 human services which have been employed upon it, and who- 
 ever sells it, sells those services, and its ultimate value is 
 determined, as all other value is, by a double comparison, 
 the purchaser's comparison of the service of the product to 
 him with that which he renders, and the seller's comparison 
 of the service ho receives with that of the product. Service 
 for service, in the last analysis, rather than commodity for 
 commodity, is the rule of value and the law of exchange. 
 
 4. In the fourth place, a principal merit of the definition of 
 value insisted on in this chapter is the easier discrimination 
 v^hich it allows between Value and Utility. It is absolutely 
 essential to our progress in economics that we keep distinct 
 in our minds the two ideas underlying these two words. 
 Whole discussions in Adam Smith are marred by his not con- 
 sistently attending to the distinction, which he himself draws 
 in one place, between " value in use and value in exchange : " 
 meaning by the former expression simple utility. Say mixes 
 
144 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 up the two ideas even more completely than Adam Smith 
 does ; and the errors of the two writers in this respect gave 
 rise to the twentieth chapter of Mr. Ricardo's book,^ in 
 which the difference between utilitj'' and value is pretty 
 clearly unfolded. Mr. McCulloch, too, always insists upon 
 this difference, and correctly maintains that the distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of utility is, that it is gratuitous ; although 
 the theory of value of each of these writers is too narrow, 
 unduly restricting the field of Political Economy by assum- 
 ing that value rigidly inheres in commodities only. The ex- 
 ample of these writers shows that the distinction refeixed to 
 can be made even under their definition of value, but it is 
 not so easil}' and practically made as under the true defini- 
 tion, because in the true definition attention is inevitably 
 drawn to two persons, instead of to one thing, and utilit}'^, 
 which is simple capacity to gratify any desire, is neatly dis- 
 criminated, even in the nomenclature itself, from the mutual 
 efforts by which the mutual desires are met. The word Ser- 
 vice enables us to draw the distinction, and to hold it fast. 
 
 Utility, then, is the capacity which any thing or any service 
 has to gratif}' any human desire whatsoever. Political 
 Economy has nothing to do with the estimation in which 
 different desires are held by a philosopher or a moralist. It 
 is enough to constitute for it utility, if any thing will meet 
 anybody's desire or serve anyboclj^'s purpose. In this sense, 
 which is the etymological and only just sense of the word, 
 ardent spirits have utility just as wheat has utility. The 
 same thing may have no utility for one man, a low utilit}' 
 for another," and a very high utility for a third ; since tiie 
 first has no desire for it, the second a feeble, and the third a 
 strong desire for it. Desires are personal to individuals. 
 There is no common standard with which they maj' be com- 
 pared. They are not exchangeable. Utility is the capacity 
 which any thing has of meeting any one of these desires 
 at any time or in any place. But some things have this 
 1 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 
 
VALUE. 145 
 
 capticity in a high degree which are never exchaugcd, which 
 are usver bought or sold, and which consequently can have 
 no value. The air we breathe, the light in which we recreate 
 ourselves, the water we drink from the spring or brook, all 
 have the highest utility, but no value. They connect them- 
 selves with no service. "We give nothing for them. They, 
 and such as they, are the direct gifts of God. They arc 
 gratuitous. 
 
 But utility is always present in all value also, since it is 
 an element in all service ; and the utility that appears in 
 connection with value is always derived partly from Nature 
 and partly from man. It is impossible to say, in any given 
 case, how much is attributable to Nature and how much is 
 attributable to man. It might seem at first sight, as if, in 
 the case of the diamond, or in the case of the strawberries, 
 the utility were wholly the gift of Nature, but the diamond 
 undiscovered among the pebbles, and the strawberries un- 
 picked upon the meadows, can hardly be said to have utility, 
 much less value. The human service that fits each of these 
 to meet a present desire is an essential contributor to their 
 utility. On the other hand it might seem as if the utility of 
 a painting were wholly referable to the art of the painter ; 
 but the tenacity of the canvas, the flexibility of the brush, 
 and the brilliancy of the colors, are the contribution of 
 Nature. Although, therefore, all utility that ever appears 
 in connection with value is partly due to the efforts of meu, 
 it is none the less essential to clear thinking in this depart- 
 ment to separate distinctly' in the mind the utility from the 
 value. The utility of a service may be great and its value 
 little ; the utility of a service may be great and its value also 
 great. They are distinct things. They become, as it were, 
 commingled in the service rendered, but the utility is one 
 thing, and the value a distinct thing. Utility is ultimate : 
 value is mediate. Utility is absolute with reference to the 
 individual : value is always relative. 
 
 The utility involved in every valuable service is derived 
 
146 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 from two sources, — the free contribution of Nature, and 
 the onerous contribution of man ; but the vakie of such ser- 
 vices in general tends perpetually to become proportionate 
 to the onerous human contribution, and not to the aggregate 
 utility. If the service be unique, if only one person or a 
 fc;iv be in a position to render it, no useful principle can lie 
 laid down, which shall discriminate the two components of 
 the utility ; but in respect to the vast mass of services, of 
 which a market rate can be predicated, it is very clear that 
 the competition with each other of those who are ready to 
 render them, will fix the current value at a point which shall 
 just about compensate for the onerous elements involved. 
 That portion of the utility which is the free gift of Nature 
 will be very nearly a common factor in that whole set of ser- 
 vices. The action of competition will eliminate this com- 
 mon factor, and tend constantly to determine value on the 
 basis merely of what man has done to impart utility to those 
 services. Thus, if ten men bring ten horses to the market 
 to exchange against money, though the utility of the horses 
 be derived in large degree from the gifts of Nature, yet 
 there are some of the owners who will be willing to part 
 with their property at a price that will compensate them for 
 what they themselves have contributed towards that utility. 
 The action of these will tend to fix the price of the whole 
 ten. There is no tendency in value, then, to proportion it- 
 self to the aggregate utility of a service, but there is a ten- 
 dency in value to proportion itself to the aggregate of the 
 onerous human efforts represented in a service. 
 
 UUlity and Value, then, are distinct things ; even the 
 physiocrats recognized this in their well-known distinction 
 between Mens and richesse; some things, as air, have a high 
 utility and no value, and other things, as strawberries, may 
 have a high utility and a low value, and still other things, as 
 a portrait, have a high utility and a high value also ; because 
 the strawberry girl cannot charge for all that has been done 
 for the fruit in the wonderful laboratory of Nature, since 
 
VALUE. 147 
 
 there are doubtless other girls willing to bring it for a fail 
 equivalent of their personal efforts only, and because the 
 portrait-painter has put a skill that is rare and an exqui- 
 site service into the canvas that he sells. The history of 
 Economy is full to a surfeit of the theoretical errors and 
 of the practical blunders which have come from confound- 
 ing value with utility ; and from not attending to the fact 
 that all utility, until some human service has been mingled 
 with it, is absolutely free. God is a Giver. He gives 
 sunlight and air and water in abundance. He gives the 
 earth, with all its materials, and with all its powers, and 
 with all its spontaneous fruits, gratuitously to man. At the 
 very first, He gave to man, " dominion over the fish of the 
 seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
 thing that moveth on the earth." So far forth as these gifts 
 minister directly to men's wants, there is utility indeed, but 
 no value. But since, for the most part, human services are 
 required to mould these gratuitous materials, to harness these 
 gratuitous powers, to make these gratuitous fruits and ani- 
 mals available for use, and since services for this purpose 
 are exchanged among men, value springs up in connection 
 with these utilities, but must not be confounded with them. 
 The utilities, disengaged from the service, are free. God 
 never takes pay for any thing, and has not authorized any- 
 body to take pay in his behalf ; what is paid for is the ser- 
 vice of man, and not the bounty of Nature. Even the 
 powers of Nature which men avail themselves of by machine- 
 ry, such as water, wind, and steam, all work for nothing : 
 water gravitates, and wind blows, and steam puffs, for noth- 
 ing. These all, and such as these, help to create utilities, 
 but ultimately no value. Value is in the service which 
 makes the machine, and in the service which tends it, but in 
 the power which moves it, unless that power be human mus- 
 cle, there is no value. 
 
 5. In the fifth place, this nomenclature helps us to get 
 rid once for all of one or two mischievous expressions 
 
148 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 that have long vexed the discussions on Value. The worst 
 of these is the term '■^intrinsic" as applied to value. This 
 adjective almost always, if not always, misleads the person 
 who uses it in this connection. There is only one kind 
 of value in economics, and that is value as we have now 
 defined it, and the use of any adjective that implies that 
 there is another kind is of course misleading and vicious. 
 Besides, this adjective strongly implies that value is some- 
 thing inherent in matter, — an assumption which we have 
 now seen to be false. Sometimes the phrase "intrinsic 
 value" is used to mean what is much better expressed by 
 the term Utility, as when one speaks of the "intrinsic 
 value" of a bushel of wheat, meaning its utility as food. 
 Sometimes again the phrase is used as if it were equivalent 
 to cost of production, in which sense it is sometimes con- 
 trasted with "market value;" but the phrase "natural 
 value," another expression worse than needless, is perhaps 
 more often employed in this sense of cost of production. 
 Both of these adjectives should be wholly avoided as pitchy, 
 and all other expressions that imply more kinds of value 
 than one. Value is value. The phrase "market value" 
 is well enough, because it is often convenient to mark the 
 rate at which something is actually selling in contradistinc- 
 tion from another rate asked or bid. The only place in 
 which the epithet " intrinsic " is even tolerable in economics 
 is in relation to certain coins, whose value is made by law 
 greater than the value of the metal contained in them would 
 otherwise be. For example, any two half dollars are legally 
 equal in value to a silver dollar, but the pure silver in them 
 is only 346.22 grains to 371.25 grains in the dollar; so that 
 one might say without great ofi'ence, that the actual value 
 of the small silver is greater than the intrinsic value, so far 
 as the silver dollar is the standard ; but it would be much 
 better to say in such cases, that the nominal or legal value 
 is greater than the hullion or metal value. The coin as hul- 
 lion is not bought or sold, and so actually has no value: the 
 
VALUE. 149 
 
 coin as coin finds its value like every thing else in what it 
 passes for or fetches. The example will be better under 
 stood when we come to the chapter on Money. 
 
 6. In the next place, our nomenclature helps us more 
 readily to understand the important distinction between 
 Value and Price. It is very interesting to notice in the 
 passage from the Roman Law quoted in our first chapter, 
 that the point involved in this distinction, was a matter of 
 discussion among the Romans at a very early time. Two 
 views were maintained in that . discussion. The question 
 was, whether the buying and selling of goods was anywise 
 different from the exchanging of goods, — "for example, 
 whether a man, or a piece of land, or a garment, can be the 
 value of another thing. Sabinus and Cassius think value 
 can dwell in another thing too ; whence is that which was 
 commonly said, — buying and selling is carried on in the 
 exchange of goods, — and that vieio of purchase and sale is 
 very old." For this last statement we ought to be thankful, 
 for it is probably the only proof in existence, that the 
 Romans occupied their minds with this innermost question 
 of Political Economy. Sabinus and Cassius were substan- 
 tially right, as we have seen, since, no matter what the 
 nature of the two things exchanged, each expresses per- 
 fectly the value of the other ; and we shall see in the chap- 
 ter on Money, that, when goods are paid for in money, 
 there is no change in any law of value, but onl}* a new word 
 is used, namely Price. Apparently on the basis of this 
 slight difference, however, another view was had at Rome, 
 and is even said to have "prevailed." "Writers of a dif- 
 ferent school took the opposite view, and thought exchange 
 of commodities was one thing, but buying and selling another 
 thing ; furthermore, they thought the matter could not be 
 explained in the case of exchanging commodities which 
 thing seems to have been sold as property and lahich given 
 as the price, for reason does not allow that both things 
 appear to ha^ e been sold and given as the price ; but the 
 
150 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 opinion of Procullus has deservedly prevailed, who Bays, 
 exchange is a particular kind of business transaction differ- 
 ent from selling." It is indeed different in one little par- 
 ticular. 
 
 Both these Roman views hold clearly that the value oi 
 price of any thing is the other thing, whether goods or 
 money, exchanged for it, and thus justify the proverbial 
 good sense of the Romans. Condillac, on the other hand, 
 perceiving that two estimations always precede an exchange, 
 held that value resides in the minds of men. Because peo- 
 ple give value at one time to things to which at another time 
 they do not, he held that value is founded on estimations, 
 and that value exists before the exchange takes place. This 
 was in reaction from the false view that value is an absolute 
 quality inherent in things, independently of the opinion men 
 have of them. But Condillac went too far in the opposite 
 du-ection. Minds do indeed have an essential part to play 
 in determining value, but if there were no outward manifes- 
 tation of these mental states, no phenomenon, no effect by 
 which the estimation of the mind can be measured, there 
 could be no economic science, because there would be no 
 class of facts open to observation and induction. Condillac 
 makes this distinction between Value and Price : value, 
 being a mental estimation, is what a man ivould give for any 
 thing if he could not get it for less ; price, the result of 
 contention, is what he actually does give ; and, therefore, 
 value and price are not always convertible terms. The true 
 distinction turns rather on whether the return service be 
 money or something else. 
 
 It is precisely because we have in all cases the return 
 ser\dce as the outward expression and measure of the desire 
 of him who renders the service, and because it makes no 
 difference which of two services exchanged be regarded as 
 the return service, that our science has an objective char- 
 acter, notwithstanding the strong subjective elements that 
 have a part in it. The science is reared on the firm groun'li 
 
VALUE. 151 
 
 of objective realities. Even rights are objective realities 
 that can be enforced in the courts. 
 
 The price of any thing, tlien, is its purchasing-power ex- 
 pressed in money ; the value of any thing is its purchasing- 
 power expressed in an}^ other purchasing-power whatever. 
 Price is a relative word, but specific ; value is a relative 
 word, but general. When we speak of the price of a ser- 
 vice, we mean the sum of money which that service will 
 buy ; but when we speak of the value of a service, we mean 
 the command in exchange of that service over other services 
 generall}'. Thus, we say, " This coat is worth twenty-five 
 dollars ; ' ' that is its price . The value of the same coat 
 never could be completely expressed, because it would re- 
 quire a comparison not only with hats and gloves and boots 
 and vests, but with all other things which are ever exposed 
 for sale. Therefore, for convenience' sake, value is com- 
 monly reduced to price. By knowing the price of various 
 things, we readily compare their value relatively to each 
 other. Thus, when we know the price of the coat at 25 
 dollars, and of gloves at 2, of hats at 5, and vests at 10 
 dollars, we easily determine the value of the coat as esti- 
 mated in gloves, hats, and vests, namely, that its value as 
 compared with theirs, is respectively 12^, 5, and 2^ times 
 theirs. The value of any thing may remain nearly uniform 
 while its price may greatly vary. This will always be owing 
 to some great change in the money of the country. In this 
 country, from the spring of 1862 till the spring of 1878, the 
 current money was much depreciated as compared with gold, 
 the premium on which over the paper money varied at dif- 
 ferent times from 1 to 185 per cent. There was, in conse- 
 quence, a universal rise of prices reckoned in paper money, 
 but it may be said in general that values remained much as 
 before ; that is to say, a given number of paper dollars so- 
 called fell in their power to command general services, — 
 prices rose — while these services continued to command 
 each other in exchange much as before, — values were com- 
 
152 POLITICAL ECONOMY. , 
 
 paratively steady. This illustration brings out the privilege 
 we have, or rather the necessity we are under, whenever 
 special attention is called to one of two services exchanged, 
 to speak of its value as liable to vary, meaning its purchas- 
 ing-power over other sersdces. Value is always a consum- 
 mated relation ; but there is no harm, rather there is a 
 necessity, in conceiving and speaking of one service as rising 
 or falling in value at different times, according as it com- 
 mands more or less of other services. As before remarked, 
 this is a concession to language, and not a departure from 
 the exactness of science. 
 
 Moreover, it is not possible that there should be any gen- 
 eral rise or fall of values, as there may be a general rise or 
 fall of prices. A rise in the value of any thing implies a 
 fall in the value of those things with which you compare it, 
 that is to say, if it will buy more of them, the}^ will buy less 
 of it. Its rise in value implies their fall in value, and con- 
 versely. Every rise in value of any service involves a cor- 
 responding fall in other services ; and every fall in value 
 of any sei-vice involves a rise in value of other services ; 
 and therefore, a general rise or fall of values is impossible. 
 Nothing is more common than a rise or fall of value in par- 
 ticular services. Suppose, for instance, an improvement in 
 machinery \)j which broadcloth can be made with one-half 
 the former effort, and that no change has been made in the 
 efforts requisite to make the gloves, hats, and vests of our 
 former example, and no change in the views of those who 
 wish to exchange them. The coat wUl sink at once to about 
 half its former value, not only in relation to gloves, hats, 
 and vests, but in relation to every thing which does not hap- 
 pen to be affected by a similar depressing cause. It is 
 correct to say that the value of the coat has fallen. As 
 estimated in gloves, hats, and vests, its value now is only 
 6^, 2|, and \\ times theirs, respectively. But while coats 
 have fallen in relation to the other commodities, the other 
 commodities have risen in relation to coats ; and if similar 
 
VALUE. 153 
 
 improvements should be made in the machinery by which 
 gloves, hats, and vests are made, so that one-half less effort 
 will bring these also to market, views of parties as before 
 I'emaining unchanged, they will exchange now for coats 
 exactly in the same ratios as at first, namely, 12^, 5, and 
 2i, respectively, for 1. As soon as the improvements affect 
 all the commodities equally, value stands just as it did be- 
 fore the first improvement was made. Views of the parties 
 remaining the same, it is only an advantage or disadvantage 
 affecting some services and not others, that will vary their 
 value in exchange : whatever affects them all equally Avill 
 have no effect upon value. Thus, a universal rise of wages 
 in any country, provided it could and did affect all depart- 
 ments of effort in the same relative degree, would not have 
 the least effect upon other values ; and we have just seen 
 that a general rise of prices lately experienced in this coun- 
 try had little effect upon the general purchasing-power of 
 services other than money, but was only a token that the 
 one service, money, had fallen relatively to them. 
 
 7. In the next place, our definition of Value makes it 
 needful to inquire and comparatively easy to find out wheth- 
 er there is, or can be, any invariable measure of services, or, 
 as it has been commonly called, weas?<?-e of value. A full 
 discussion of this point can best be had in the coming chap- 
 ter on Money, but it is in order here to ask whetlier there 
 is a7iy standard or measure, by a comparison with which 
 we may determine the general purchasing-power of different 
 services. It has commonly been supposed that there is such 
 a measure, and political economists have expended a great 
 deal of strength in endeavoring to discover what it is. The 
 results have hardl}^ been commensurate with the zeal and 
 patience of the search. Adam Smith seems at one time to 
 regard labor as the best measure of value, that is, the quan- 
 tity of labor which any commodity will buy as the best 
 gauge of its power to buy commodities in general. At 
 another time he seems to think that corn is a better measiu-p 
 
154 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of general exchange value than labor. Others have thought 
 that price furnished the best attainable standard of com- 
 parison ; in other words, that the quantity of gold or silver 
 which any thing will purchase, will best enable us to deter 
 mine the quantity of all other things which it will purchase. 
 Others still have supposed that the cost of production of any 
 coramodity would give the most accurate rule by which to 
 decide the value of the commodity ; and still others, as Mr. 
 Carey, have suggested the cost of reproduction. But the 
 truth is, a measure of value in the sense in which it has been 
 sought after by these writers, is something impossible to be 
 realized. It never would have been sought after, unless 
 value had been supposed to be a rigid quality inhering in 
 commodities, and, when once placed in them by whatever 
 process, to be invariable. We have seen, however^ that 
 value is not a quality inhering in any one thing, but is a 
 relation subsisting between two services which two persons 
 are in a position to render to each other ; and that this is 
 not an inflexible relation, but is variable by any change in 
 the views of the two persons, by which either of them puts 
 a different estimate upon the service about to be rendered as 
 compared with the service about to be received. "We have 
 seen sufficiently already, that there are four things, and only 
 four, any change in any one of which will vary value ; and 
 that these four things are two desires and two efforts, the 
 two desires belonging to two persons, and the efforts made 
 by two persons each for the other. Now these four ele- 
 ments are in their very nature so liable to vary, and as a 
 matter of fact do so constantly vary, that no man who 
 clearly perceives what value is, will waste time and ingenu- 
 ity in searching for an invariable standard of that which in 
 its nature is variable and relative. 
 
 While no invariable measure of value is possible to be 
 found, there are certain limitations and principles of much 
 importance which ought to be given in this connection. 
 Although labor alone, as we have seen, cannot be regarded 
 
VALUE. 155 
 
 as the cause of value, for, if it were asserted to be such, 
 tlie inquiry would be pertinent, what is the cause of the 
 value of labor ; yet, value always stands in connection with 
 liuman efforts, and, the mutual . desires being presupposed, 
 there are always limitations of value lying partly in the 
 effort made by the person serving and partly in the effort 
 saved to the person served. In every exchange, each of the 
 parties is reciprocally serving and served, and it is clear that 
 they would not exchange unless the service which each ren- 
 ders to the other is less onerous than the effort which each 
 would have to make if each served himself directly. It 
 costs a certain effort for me to bring water from the spring ; 
 I am willing to pay a neighbor for bringing it for me, but I 
 should not be willing to make a greater effort for him in 
 return than the effort is to bring it myself ; neither should 
 I be willing to make an effort for him which I regarded just 
 as onerous as the bringing the water : unless there is some 
 service which he will accept less onerous to me than that, 
 I shall continue to bring the water for myself. On the 
 other hand, he will not render the service to me of bringing 
 the water, unless it be less onerous to him than the doing 
 that for himself which I am ready to do for him. 
 
 This principle, applicable to all exchanges whatsoever, 
 draws on the one side the outermost line, beyond which 
 value never can pass. It may be asserted with confidence 
 that no man will ever knowingly make a greater effort to 
 satisfy a desire through exchange, than the effort needful 
 to satisfy it without an exchange. Moreover, within this 
 outermost limitation which is made by the comparative oner- 
 ousness of the respective efforts, there is a second limitation 
 of a similar kind. To pursue the same illustration, while 
 I should never make an effort for another in return for his 
 bringing the water, greater than that required to bring it 
 myself, the return effort may be very much less than that 
 effort, and may sink down to a point, below which I can get 
 no one to bring the water f "»r me. Suppose I estimate the 
 
156 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 effort required to bi'ing the water myself as 10 ; and that 
 there are several persons who would be glad to do that ser- 
 vice for me for a return service which I estimate as 8 ; and 
 that there are two persons who are willing to do it for some- 
 thing which I estimate as 6 ; and that there is only one per- 
 son who will do it for a return service which I regard as 5. 
 It is evident that the extreme limits of the value of that 
 service to me are 10 and 5. Higher than 10 it cannot go, 
 lower than 5 it cannot sink. I should render the service 
 estimated as 8, rather than forego having the water brought 
 for me ; but I shall render the service estimated as 5, just as 
 long as there is any one person who will make the exchange 
 with me on those terms. If he declines the exchange, I fall 
 back on one of the two persons in the class above him, and 
 value rises now from 5 to 6. It will be steadier at 6 than it 
 was at 5, because there are two persons ready to render the 
 service at that rate. If each, however, in turn should give 
 out, I should then be obliged to fall back upon the larger 
 class ready to serve me for a return service of 8. At this 
 point the value would be very steady from the presence of 
 numerous competitors anxious to serve me at that rate, and 
 it could by no possibility rise above 10. Between 10 and 5 
 the value may fluctuate, but it cannot overpass these limits 
 in either direction. Therefore we may say that the maxi- 
 mum value of any service in exchange is struck at the point 
 where the recipient will prefer to serve himself, rather than 
 make the exchange ; and the minimum value of any service in 
 exchange is struck at the point below which the recipient can- 
 not get himself served. These two limits, it will be observed, 
 are found in the two elements which we have called efforts. 
 
 But there are also limitations of value in the two elements 
 which we have called desires. In the foregoing illustration, 
 it is supposed that my desire for the water is all the while 
 of uniform strength, and the desire of each of the three 
 classes willing to serve me for the return service is uniform 
 also, though each class makes a different estimate of the 
 
VALUE. 157 
 
 comparative efforts. Let us now suppose that the efforts 
 OD either side remain invariable, but there is a change in the 
 element of desire. Any capacity in any thing to gratify 
 any desire of anybody is utility. For simplicity's sake, let 
 us look only to the one man who was ready to bring the 
 water for a return service which I estimated as 5, and sup- 
 pose that he is the only man who will do me the service on 
 any terms. Let now the utility of the water to me be in- 
 creased, and let him know that fact, all other elements 
 remaining as before, and he can crowd up the value of his 
 service towards 10, according to the intensity of my desire. 
 Of course he cannot crowd it over 10, but the limit below 
 that will now be determined by the relative strength of my 
 desire. On the other hand, if my desire be as before, and 
 the two efforts as before, and his desire for my return ser- 
 vice be increased, and I know it, and I the only man who 
 can render him such a service, I can crowd down the value 
 of his service below 5, according to the intensity of his 
 desire. Of course I cannot crowd it down below a point, 
 which we will call 3, at which, rather than continue his ser- 
 vice at that rate, he will forego the exchange altogether. 
 But value may vary between these limits, 10 and 3, accord- 
 ing to the varying intensity of our mutual desires. If it 
 should so happen that both these desires, my desire for his 
 service and his desire for mine, should increase simultane- 
 ously and proportionably, value would not be affected ; the 
 exchange would go on at the same rate as before. Or if 
 both desires should diminish simultaneously and proportion- 
 ably, value would not be affected. The same is true of 
 efforts. If both efforts suddenly become twice as onerous, 
 or one-half as onerous as before, the desires remaining the 
 same, the value of the two services estimated in each other 
 would stand just as before. Thus we see that the natural 
 limits of value, and all the variations in value, 'are to be 
 sought for and will be found in the play and interaction of 
 the four elements out of which value itself springs. 
 
158 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 8. lu the last place, our definitions and explanations thus 
 far will enable us to understand clearly what is the one 
 universal Law of Value, — a law applicable alike to all three 
 classes of exchangeable things, and comprehending per- 
 fectly all variations in all values. This is termed the Law 
 of Demand and Supply. Demand is the Desire of purc/ics- 
 ing something coupled with the Power of purchasing it. In 
 other words, demand is the desire of one person for some- 
 thing from the hands of another, who also desires something 
 from the hands of the first, when both are willing to part 
 with what they now have from that motive. Supply is any 
 exchangeable thing offered for sale against any other exchange- 
 able thing. These definitions are stated in the most general 
 terms. 
 
 Now, as Value is always a resultant of four elements, and 
 only four, all changes in value must be due to change in 
 one or more of these elements relatively to the others ; and 
 the universal Law, which shall account for the existence of 
 value, and for its amount at both extremes and at all inter- 
 mediate points, must be found in just these elements. These 
 elements are expressed in the terms Demand and Supply. 
 Market- Value is the rate at which services of all sorts are 
 exchanging at the present time in the various departments 
 of society. What determines that rate? What determines 
 that corn is now selling in the market for one dollar a bushel? 
 Two desires come in to determine it, — the desire of people 
 for corn, and the desire of farmers for money. Two efforts 
 come in to determine it, — the effort of farmers to raise and 
 bring a bushel of corn to market, and the effort of people 
 to secure one dollar in monej'. The presence of corn in the 
 market, or its being ready to be immediately brought there 
 and offered in exchange for money, constitutes what is called 
 a Supply of corn ; money offered, or ready to be offered, 
 in exchange for corn, constitutes what is called a Demand. 
 This is commercial language, and is sufficiently^ accurate, 
 although it must be remembered that each commoditj' in 
 
VALUE. 159 
 
 reality constituios a Demand for the other, and is a Supi)ly 
 in reference to the other. But, speaking commercially, the 
 money ready to be offered for commodities is the Demand, 
 and the commodities ready to be exchanged for money are 
 the Supply. 
 
 What, then, is the law of market- value ? The law of 
 market-value is the equation of supply and demand : that 
 is to say, the rate of the exchange is adjusted when money 
 enough is offered to take off within the usual times the com- 
 modities on hand. Demand and supply are thus eqvialized, 
 and the current market-rate is determined. If demand for 
 any reason becomes quickened, and the supply not increased, 
 there is competition among buyers for the stock in market, 
 and market-value tends to rise. If demand becomes slug- 
 gish, the supply remaining the same, there is competition 
 among sellers to dispose of their stock, and market- value 
 tends to sink. So far it is the action on value of the element 
 of desire, which expresses itself through demand. How far 
 can this action go? Demand being increased, suppty remain- 
 ing the same, value rises : how far does it rise ? That depends 
 upon circumstances, and upon the nature of the commodity. 
 We must remember that demand not only acts upon value, 
 but vahie acts upon demand. As value rises, the number of 
 those whose means or inclinations enable them to purchase 
 at the new rate is constantly diminished. There are ten 
 persons who may wish an article at one dollar, of whom not 
 over four will wish it at two dollars, and perhaps only one 
 at three dollars. Every rise in value then, under the influ- 
 ence of increased demand, tends to cut off a part of that 
 demand, that is, to lessen the number of those who will 
 purchase at the increased price ; and the value will rise only 
 to that point, whatever it be, where an equalization takes 
 place between the suppl}^ and demand, between the ouantity 
 of corn, for example, offered at the enhanced rates, and the 
 ([uantity of money in the hands ot those willing to exchange 
 it for corn at the enhanced rates. Thus we see that every 
 
160 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 rise or fall of demand, and the consequent rise or fall of 
 value, tends to check itself. An increased demand for any 
 article or service, other things being equal, enhances its 
 value; but the enhanced value in turn lessens the' demand 
 by lessening the number of those who will purchase, and 
 the new market-rate is struck at the point of equalization 
 between the old supply and the new demand. Just so, if 
 demand is slackened, value declines ; but declining vah.ie 
 in turn increases the demand by bringing the article within 
 the range of a larger number of purchasers, and the decline 
 is arrested at the point of equalization between the new 
 demand and the old supply, and a new market-rate is deter- 
 mined. Every thing oscillates under the variations of de- 
 mand, but the point of stable equilibrium, if we may use the 
 expression of any thing so unstable as market- value, the 
 point of stable equilibrium is always the equation of supply 
 and demand. 
 
 In the preceding paragraph we have supposed supply 
 to remain unchanged, and have followed the law of value 
 through the variations of demand, which, money being inva- 
 riable, as is here supposed, expresses the element of desire. 
 Supply expresses the element of efforts, and market-valne 
 varies with the variations of supply. We have seen that 
 every rise or fall of demand tends to check itself, and will 
 check itself even without variations in the supply ; but it is 
 commonly checked at an earlier point by variations in the 
 supply. A brisk demand enhances value, and enhanced 
 value commonly stimulates supply, and increased supply 
 checks the rise. A slack demand lowers value, and lowered 
 value commonly lessens the supply by the action of holders 
 and speculators, — holders withdrawing their stock for a 
 better market, and speculators buying now when the article 
 is cheap, to store away till it shall be dearer. Thus rise of 
 value from increased demand is doubly checked ; first, by 
 restricting the number of purchasers, and second, by increas- 
 ing the supply : the fall of value from slack demand is doubly 
 
VALUE. 161 
 
 checked ; first, by enlarging the number of consumers of a 
 now cheaper article, and second, by diminution of supply 
 by the action of holders and speculators. This law of the 
 equalization of demand and supply, thus doubly and harmo- 
 niously working, is the most comprehensive and beautiful 
 law in political economy. It is all-comprehensive. Its 
 operation in the field of personal services and in the field 
 of commercial claims, though perhaps less obvious at li'st, 
 is equally certain and universal as its operation in the field 
 of material commodities. 
 
 But we must note the action on value of changes in supply 
 only, demand continuing steady. If the supply be short, 
 and cannot be increased at all, as is the case with choice 
 antiques and certain gems and paintings by the old masters, 
 value may rise to any point, and will be struck, as before, 
 at the precise point of equality of the demand then exist- 
 ing with the supply there offered. The French Government 
 paid, in 1852, 615,300 francs for a painting by Murillo, 
 which had belonged to Marshal Soult. The genuine Murillos 
 are comparatively few, and their number cannot be increased, 
 and their merit causes a strong desire to possess them, and 
 their value rises in consequence of the limitation of supplj^ 
 to a point beyond which no one purchaser can be found. 
 When this painting was offered in Paris for sale, many 
 parties were anxious to purchase it, but the equation of 
 demand and supply was reached, and its value was deter- 
 mined only when one party distanced all other competitors 
 and offered a sum greater than any one else would give. 
 There was one painting ; there could be but one puijchaser ; 
 value rose under the influence of demand, and could not be 
 checked by increase of supply ; and the equation was com- 
 plete when the demand was practically restricted to one 
 party, and that the highest bidder. The same principle 
 controls all sales of this sort. 
 
 If the supply, instead of being absolutely limited, can 
 only be increased with difficulty or after the lapse of time. 
 
162 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 similar but less extreme results will be obser-\ed. Suppose 
 pianos are selling in any community at $800 each, and there 
 are twenty persons in that community who wish a piano 
 mimediately, and that there are but fifteen pianos on hand, 
 and the number cannot be increased for six months. The 
 value will rise above $300. How much above? To that 
 point, whatever it be, at which only fifteen of the twent}' 
 v^ill be willing to purchase at the new rate. The equati( ii 
 of supply and demand wUl be reached by a rising value which 
 cuts off five competitors. This is the principle, working only 
 roughly indeed in practice, — working only by the estimates 
 and good judgment of dealers, — but the principle is this. 
 A better illustration of this class of cases is, perhaps, the 
 grains and other products of the earth. When these have 
 been gathered there is no more home supply for a year. 
 An}' deficiency in the crops will raise their value, not at all 
 in the ratio of the deficiency, but according to the relations 
 of the diminished supply to a new demand. Since the aboli- 
 tion of the corn-laws in England in 1849, and the consequent 
 facility of importation, an estimated deficiency of home 
 crops has no such effect on the prices of grain as it had 
 before that time ; when, according to Tooke's History of 
 Prices, an expected falling off of one- third in the crop often 
 doubled and sometimes quadrupled the usual prices ; which 
 shows that the world ought to be one in respect to all food 
 supplies, each country allowing them to be distributed freely 
 everywhere in accordance with this law of Demand and Sup- 
 ply. Speculation is more busy in grain, in cotton, and in such 
 things generally, because a new supply can only be had once 
 a y(!ar ; early information is eagerly sought at the trade centres 
 in regard to the prospects of the growing crops, and has its in- 
 fluence one way or the other on current prices ; but the world 
 is so wide, and the parts of it now so closel}^ connected to- 
 gether by steamship and telegraph, that the prices of the great 
 stai)les are remarkably uniform over the earth, and specula- 
 tion has not the chance it once had to count and " corner." 
 
VALUE. 163 
 
 In the only lemaining and far more numerous cltoss of 
 cases, in which, the supply of commodities and" services and 
 claims can be readily and indefinitely increased, each rise 
 and fall of value tends to be speedily checked through the 
 action of Supph' ; and the harmoniously-working law but 
 just now referred to keeps value in this class of cases com- 
 paratively steady. 
 
 The general theory of value has now been given. In the 
 light of it, we may see how wide of the mark are they, who 
 regard the study of values as materialistic in contrast with 
 what is personal and spiritual. Political Economy does 
 indeed make the same distinction as the Roman Law does 
 between a Person and a Thing ; but it exalts the person as 
 over against the thing, and finds its only interest in things 
 as they stand related to persons. It adopts, in short, the 
 definition of man as "an animal that exchanges." It is 
 able to prove that exchanges are beneficial to men's physical, 
 mental, and spiritual natures ; and is consequently averse to 
 any thing that stunts the growth of men to their full stature 
 as exchangers. It would guard the rights, preserve the 
 morals, and exalt the dignity, of mew, in order that they 
 may both render and receive the full benefits of all possible 
 exchanges. While we shall find no case of value, or its 
 variations, which our general theory does not cover and 
 explain, we shall still find important principles which act in 
 particular cases on Demand and Supply, and thereby must 
 act upon Value. "We have, then, now seen what Value 
 really is ; how it practically arises ; the elements which 
 alone can vary it ; and the universal Law which limits 
 it. 
 
 The following propositions gather up the substance of the 
 present chapter : — 
 
 1. Value is always an expressed result; and is one of the 
 chief realities loith lohich men have to deal. 
 
 2. A peculiar Jcind of comparison, and an actual exchange^ 
 constitute Value. 
 
164 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 3. Two persons, two tilings, two desires, ttoo efforts, tivo 
 estimates, and two satisfactions, form the circle of Value. 
 
 A. It is the relation of mutual purchase established between 
 two services by their exchange. 
 
 5. There are three kinds of exchangeable things, and but 
 six possible cases of exchange. 
 
 6. Tlie word Services unfolds best the inmost nature of 
 Value. Service for Service is the universal formula. 
 
 7. Value is no attribute of matter, and must not be con' 
 founded with Utility. 
 
 8. Price is only a special form of Value. 
 
 9. TJiere are limiiations of Value, but no strict measures 
 of it. 
 
 10. Tlie Law of Value is found in the billowy play of 
 Supply and Demand. 
 
PBOBUCTION. 165 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PRODUCTION. 
 
 Value is the sole subject of our science ; and we have 
 just seen at great length and through every variety of Illus- 
 tration, that, while value always takes its rise in the desires 
 of men, it is never realized except through the efforts of men, 
 and through these efforts as mutually exchanged. In othei 
 words, value is always an accomplished Eesult ; but then, 
 all the processes that directly lead up to this result are a part 
 of the science, and are called Production, which is the sub- 
 ject of the present chapter. While it is impossible to make 
 discussions in Political Economy amusing, it is also impossi- 
 ble intelligently to conduct them without coming constantly 
 to conclusions that are cheering. We shall find several laws 
 underlying the processes of Production, that show clearly 
 that men were designed to be producers, and to produce 
 under conditions of constantly increasing advantage. The 
 world with its forces, and man with his motives, are so 
 admirably constructed, that these conditions of increasing 
 advantage cannot fail, under freedom, to redound to the 
 benefit of the masses of men. Economics, like Christianity, 
 lift the masses. We will first determine the meaning of our 
 scientific terms, and then pass to some of the facts and laws 
 of Production, 
 
 Every man who puts forth an effort to satisfy the desire 
 of another, with the expectation of a return, is, in the lan- 
 guage of Political Economy, a Producer. The Latin word 
 producere means to expose any tiling to sale. Our derived 
 word to produce means the same. The Latin poet Terence 
 
166 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 uses the expression, " producere servos," to offer slaves for 
 sale. He did not mean to say that the person of whom he was 
 speaking brought the slaves into being or transformed them 
 in any v^, but only brought them out to sell. We must 
 rid ourselves at the outset of the notion, accordingly, that is 
 apt to linger about this word, namely, that it is only to be 
 applied to forms of matter, that it means to maJce something, 
 or to g7'oiv something, or at least to transform something, 
 only. In common language, the growth of the farm is called 
 Produce, but only when it is offered for sale, in which sense 
 we speak of the produce-market. The fundamental meaning 
 of the root-word both in Latin and English, is effort with 
 reference to a sale, and this is the exact scientific sense in 
 which we propose to use the word and its derivatives. A 
 product is a service ready to he rendered. A producer is any 
 person ivho gets something ready to sell and sells it, whether 
 that thing be a commodity, a service, or a claim. Political 
 Economy is interested in all classes of producers alike, and 
 demands a fair field for every person who has any thing to 
 sell which is in demand on the part of others, provided first, 
 that he do not cry his wares offensively in any way or in- 
 fringe the right of anj^body else to his own time and quiet, 
 and provided second, that his solicitation and sale do not 
 interfere with the public health, morals, or revenue. Pro- 
 duction is blessed ; but let no producer trifle with the inter- 
 ests of his fellow-men that are higher than his or their 
 individual gain. Even Science, while claiming all its own 
 field, may deprecate infringements in its name upon neigh* 
 boring fields : — - 
 
 " Speed on the ship! — But let her bear 
 
 No merchandise of sin, 
 No groaning cargo of despair 
 
 Her roomy hold within. 
 No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, 
 
 No poison-dranglit for ours: 
 But honest fruits of toiling hands, 
 
 And Nature's sun and showers." 
 
production: 167 
 
 These lines of Whittier touch also incidentally upon the 
 three requisites of Production. These are, first, Natural 
 agents, including not only " nature's sun and showers," but 
 all the forces and fertilities and agencies of free nature, that 
 men may avail themselves of in preparing services to ex- 
 change with other men; second. Labor, — "the toiling 
 hands," the inventive brains, the eloquent tongues, and the 
 skilful manipulations of every name ; and third, Capital, 
 of which the poet's "ship" is an instance, — the results of 
 previous toil reserved to help on some future sales. Those 
 three conspire in all production, and especiall}' in all pro- 
 duction of material things. Nature comes first with her 
 gifts ; present toil aided by the results of past toil does all 
 the rest in production. Natural agents assist and sustain 
 the processes, but the}' are not of equal rank in production 
 with man and his efforts. 
 
 Production is always Effort, but it is not every kind of 
 effort that is production. One of my boys is now playing 
 the piano in the parlor; it is effort for him, — irksome 
 effort, — but as he has no intention ever to sell his acquired 
 skill on that instrument, it cannot be called productive effort. 
 It is effort put forth for altogether other than commercial 
 reasons. The effort of his music-teacher, however, who 
 comes here to give him his lessons, is productive effort, inas- 
 much as it is put forth solely with reference to a sale. 
 Efforts of all kinds that find their purpose and end in an 
 exchange, are Production ; efforts put forth for amusement, 
 for self-improvement, for benevolence, for personal or family 
 gratification, are not Production. Political Economy has 
 to do with processes only as these are related to sales ; and 
 it makes no difference what kind of processes they are, if 
 they have that design and issue. 
 
 Standing over against Production is its correlative Con- 
 sumption. This word is derived from the Latin consumi^tio ; 
 and, like that word in Latin, has two meanings in P^nglish ; 
 first, wasting^ destroying^ or second, uiing, employing. The 
 
1G8 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 second is the sole economical sense of the word, although 
 many writers have not escaped the taint of the ambiguity. 
 While many things that are purchased are destroyed as to 
 form almost immediately, many other things that are pur- 
 chased are not thus destroj-ed, while both classes alike by 
 their sale are economically "consumed." Mr. Senior pro- 
 posed as an improAcment in nomenclature, the expression 
 "to use" instead of the expression "to consume." But 
 the words "to consume," "consumer," and "consump- 
 tion," are too strongl}^ intrenched in our science to be dis- 
 lodged ; corresponding words in French and Italian, though 
 rather derived from consuvimare than consumere, are used 
 economically and similarly- ; and all that is necessary in any 
 case is to define and employ them with exactness. To con- 
 sume is to purchase any thing. The consumer is the pur- 
 chaser, or customer. Consximption is purchase. We have said 
 that consumption is the correlative of production, but only 
 in this sense, that each party to an exchange is both pro- 
 ducer and consumer ; each is producer as having prepared 
 himself to sell something, and each is consumer as being 
 prepared to buy something. These words are correlative 
 just as demand and supply are correlative. There is no 
 production independent of consumption, and no consumption 
 independent of production ; and there is no need, accord- 
 ingij', of treating consumption, as Waj^land and Walker 
 have done, as a separate branch of the subject. 
 
 The reader must now be notified that this nomenclature 
 is broader than that which has been hitherto current. Adam 
 Smith, and the second school generally, confined " produc- 
 tion ' ' to the occasioning of changes in form or place of 
 material objects. He gifted with the title of "producer" 
 the farmer, the mechanic, the miner, the hunter, the fisher- 
 man, and the transporter, because they bring to the market 
 a material commodity ; and refused the honor of the term to 
 those wlio render simple services, or claims to a future ren- 
 derhig, however essential these may be. Of course this is 
 
PRODUCTION. 169 
 
 wrong, because it is narrow. It proceeds from an inadequate 
 analysis of Value. That which is "produced," that with 
 which we have to deal, is not any form of Matter, but is a 
 valuable Service. It is plain, that they are "producers," 
 whose direct action originates value ; but we have seen per- 
 fectly already, that value is not an attribute of matter, but a 
 relation of mutual services. Some of the services may have 
 been employed upon matter, and in a certain sense may be 
 embodied in it, but what is really sold is not the matter, but 
 the services ; and services are all the time being sold, such 
 as those of the singer, the teacher, the clergyman, and scores 
 besides, which have no connection whatever with matter. 
 Yet these services have purchasing-power precisely like other 
 services, the action of these persons originates value, and 
 therefore, they are " producers." Once more, then, we 
 define Production as the whole rendering of any thing for 
 which something is demanded in return, and Consumption as 
 the receiving of something for which any thing has been pre- 
 pared to he rendered and is rendered in return. 
 
 Two things are here worthy of notice before we pass on. 
 First, in the light of these true and simple definitions, how 
 utterly misleading seems the old description of Political 
 Economy as "the science of the Production, Distribution, 
 and Consumption of Wealth." A worse description of a 
 good science could scarcely be put together in words. To 
 say nothing more than has been already said about the 
 irreducible word "wealth," this description as used by 
 the second school implies that "production" is one thing, 
 " distribution " another, and " consumption " still another! 
 Professor Walker at the opening of his Wages Question makes 
 each of these distinct from the others, and then makes " ex- 
 change ' ' distinct from all three of them. This is not analy- 
 sis, but concision. The second school borrowed all these 
 terms from their predecessors, the physiocrats, and then 
 commenced and continued to misapply them. As first used 
 the terms were well enough, but as used since they have 
 
170 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 become too bad. The physiocrats, as we saw in the first 
 chapter, made the grand distinction between hiens (goods 
 not sold) and ricJiesse (goods sold) . But their too narrow 
 fundamental notion was, that the physical earth is the only 
 mother of real richesse. Hence they are often called the 
 agricultural school, and hence they followed with extreme 
 care each form of the raw produce of the earth until it found 
 its ultimate consumer. The person who extracted or ob- 
 tained in any way this raAv produce from the earth and sold 
 it, for example the farmer, was called by them a prodrtct'?-; 
 the person who transformed or transported this once or 
 more, for example the miller or baker, and then sold it, was 
 called by them a distributer ; and the person into whose 
 hands it came by purchase for final use, for example the 
 boaixler, was called a consumer or consommateur. They 
 tried to trace their article of richesse through all its commer- 
 cial changes to the end, as wheat, flour, bread, and board. 
 To their minds it was one complex process through which 
 some one thing passed, every step of which was accompa- 
 nied by an exchange, and the whole of which is well de- 
 scribed b}'' the single term "exchange." They used the 
 whole phrase, "the production and distribution and con- 
 sumption of wealth," as indicating one really indivisible 
 process, and never dreamed that their successors of the 
 second school would tear it as they have done into confused 
 disjecta membra. The ingenuity and patience displa3'ed in 
 trying to make and understand these artificial distinctions, 
 would, if applied to the natural divisions of the subject, 
 have advanced the science many stages.-^ 
 
 Second, in the light of the true definition of production 
 aud consumption, we may see how false is that estimate in 
 the popular mind, by which x>roducers are placed in strong 
 contrast with consumers, as if these were quite separate 
 classes, and as if the producers were the meritorious people 
 
 1 See M.icleod in the third of his Cambridge Lectures, and in Elements of Eco- 
 nomics (ISSl), pp. 61 et seq., for a good exposition of physiocratic doctrine. 
 
PRODUCTION. 171 
 
 and the consumers nearly worthless ones. This notion is 
 very shallow, and perhaps for that reason is widely extended. 
 The growers and manufacturers of material commodities 
 seem to many more worthy of encouragements than those 
 who buy these products ; but, as a matter of fact, many 
 of these buyers buy directly or indirectly with other material 
 commodities ; and those who buy with labor, as operatives, 
 and those who buy with claims, as bankers, and those who 
 buy by transportation, as shippers, are just as essential to 
 exchange as the farmers and manufacturers. Even in this 
 false sense of the words, that connects them directly with 
 some tangible commodity, where would the "producers" 
 be were it not for the "consumers"? Where Avould pro- 
 duction be at any one point if it were not for production at 
 other points, by means of which to take off, that is, " to con- 
 sume," the products of the first point? In the only scien- 
 tific sense of the terms, each party to an exchange is at the 
 same moment " producer" and " consumer," because each is 
 at the same moment buyer and seller, and because each 
 has gone through the processes or become proprietor of the 
 results of the processes by which each service has been 
 fitted for the exchange, and this too without any reference 
 to which one of the three kinds of valuable things it is that 
 either party renders. Economy deals roughly with many 
 popular illusions, and leaves no vestige at all of that one 
 which exalts " producers " at the expense of " consumers." 
 Having now a clear and correct nomenclature, we may 
 proceed to the facts and laws of Production, and be sure of 
 our results. The strength and safety of our conclusions 
 are derived from the simplicity and certainty of the forces 
 at work. No man has ever denied the great facts that lie 
 at the basis of exchange. That men are possessed of de- 
 sires, that efforts are necessary in order to meet these, that 
 these efforts are exchangeable, and that mutual satisfac- 
 tions are the result of the exchange, are propositions univer- 
 sally admitted. From these simple truths spring all the 
 
172 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 laws of our science. One man may and docs put forth the 
 effort necessary for the satisfaction of another man's desire. 
 But since the elfort is not for himself but for another, and 
 since to put forth efforts is not naturally agreeable to man, 
 and never becomes so except in connection with the satis- 
 faction to which they minister, he will demand for his effort 
 some corresponding effort made for him. This is a simple 
 fact. No man will work for another for nothing. But he 
 will work with alacrit}^ and persistency in view of a suitable 
 reward. This reward is the return service, whatever it may 
 be, and thus it happens that Society is one vast hive of buy- 
 ers and sellers, every man bringing something to the market 
 and carrying something off. We speak of the commercial 
 classes, but all classes are commercial. Everybody ex- 
 changes. You do something for me, and I will do some- 
 thing for you, is one of the deepest laws of Society. From 
 this results the division of employments, and all the various 
 professions. Each person brings his own product and ex- 
 changes with other persons as best he vaa.y. The farmer 
 brings his produce, and exchanges ; the mechanic brings the 
 product of his skilled labor, and exchanges ; the laborer 
 brings his strength, the teacher his knowledge, the merchant 
 his goods, the banker his credits, the physician his skill, the 
 lawyer his lore, the clergyman his life and learning, the 
 editor his scissors and leaders, the singer his voice, the actor 
 his mimicry, and so on to the end of the list, and all are 
 ready to do service, — for a consideration. Indeed, when we 
 look out upon Society, the most striking thing we observe 
 about it is, that these processes of preparation and these 
 actual exchanges are going on in a thousand directions at 
 once, determining all occupations and the tenor of all men's 
 lives, reaching everywhere and permeating every thing, and 
 all this the more rapidly and perfectly as advance knowledge 
 and civilization and the mingling of the nations. 
 
 1. The Amount of Production, as measured by money or 
 otherwise, in any progressive country or any part of it, not 
 
PRODUCTION. 173 
 
 to mention the world at large, is something amazing, and is 
 becoming constantly greater. This little State of Massa- 
 chusetts, containing but 7,800 square miles, made in 1875 
 $532,136,333 of manufactured goods to sell ; and this was 
 only &part of one class of salable things offered in one small 
 State. The great prairie State of Illinois, whose main pro- 
 duction was of course agricultural, yet in 1880 put into the 
 market $444,000,000 worth of manufactures. It is only by 
 snatches here and there that we can gain any adequate idea 
 of the vastness of the Production of our own country. 
 There was produced of pig iron in the United States in the 
 year 1880 4,295,414 net tons ; of rolled ii'on (excluding 
 rails) 1,838,906 net tons; of iron and steel rails for rail- 
 roads 1,461,837 net tons; of all kinds of steel (excluding 
 steel rails) 1,397,015 net tons; and of anthracite coal 
 27,433,329 gross tons. The cotton crop of the United States 
 for 1880 was 5,737,257 bales; the corn crop 1,537^000,000 
 bushels ; and the wheat crop 480,000,000 bushels. The for- 
 eign commerce of the United States for the calendar year 
 1877, under a tariff-system designed to restrict foreign trade, 
 was $1,176,000,000; and the foreign commerce of Great 
 Britain with one third less of population, under a free sj^s- 
 tem of trade, amounted to $2,978,355,000 in the same time. 
 During the fiscal year closing June 30, 1881, the foreign 
 trade of the United States, notwithstanding the obstacles of 
 a reslrictive tariff, amounted to $1,544,912,692; for it is 
 hard work even by hostile legislation to destroy the com- 
 merce of a great people.-^ The volume of the foreign trade 
 of Gieat Britain for their fiscal 3^ear closing March 31, 1881, 
 was between two and three times larger than that of the 
 United States. These immense sums represent but a small 
 part of the traffic going on in these two countries in tangible 
 goods alone ; because the volume of domestic trade in com- 
 modities is always many fold larger than the volume of for- 
 eign trade. The volume of wages of all kinds paid in these 
 
 - Report U. S. Bureau of Statistics. 
 
174 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 two countries in a j^ear is a sum impossible to be ascertained. 
 As a mere liint of the amount of transactions in claims in 
 tliese countries, note, that the average daily clearings of 
 credit-paper at the New York clearing-house alone from 
 1872 to 1878 was $78,000,000, and the daily clearings in 
 London alone for the same time were $100,000,000. Since, 
 then, as a matter of fact, Production on a gigantic scale is 
 going forward, not in the public market-places only, but in 
 every department of life ; since men do constantly put forth 
 onerous efforts of all kinds in order to get ready to satisfy 
 other men's desires, and this for the sake of receiving back 
 from them the results of corresponding efforts in return ; 
 there must be strong reasons in the nature of things and in 
 the nature of man for such striking facts as these. 
 
 2. Let us now look into the Grounds of this varied Pro- 
 duction. The desires of men are not only various in kind 
 and indefinite in degree, but also tend to increase in variety 
 and extent by the progress of knowledge and freedom. To 
 the gratification of almost all these desires, however, there 
 are obstacles interposed, some of which are physical and 
 some moral ; and these obstacles are so great in all direc- 
 tions, that the powers of the individual man are utterly 
 incompetent to surmount them. They mock at his weak- 
 ness, and throw him back upon his destitution. Without 
 association with his fellow-men, there is no creature so help- 
 less, so unable to reach his true end, as is man ; and there- 
 fore it is, that the impulse to association is one of the 
 strongest of our natural impulses. Men come together, as 
 it were by instinct, into society ; and, associating themselves 
 together in a society, it is very soon discovered, not only 
 that there are various desires in the different members of the 
 community which are now readily met by co-operation and 
 mutual exchange, but also that there are very different 
 powers in the different individuals in relation to those obsta- 
 cles which are to be surmounted. There is a vast diversity 
 in natural gifts. One man has physical strength, with no 
 
PROJDUCTTON. • 175 
 
 mechanical ingenuity ; another combines with a feeble body 
 a wonderful knack for contrivance ; a third has a philosoph- 
 ical turn, liking to examine into the laws of nature ; and a 
 fourth has a bent and genius for traffic. Now, then, Nature 
 speaks in this diversity of gifts in as loud a voice as she can 
 utter, in favor of such a degree of association and exchange 
 as shall allow a free development of these varying capaci- 
 ties, while they work upon the obstacles to the gratifica- 
 tion of men's wants which are appropriately opposite to 
 them. 
 
 It is, then, personal interest that leads men to produce, 
 and this is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, of the 
 natural and social forces. It is because a given effort put 
 forth for another, in view of a return, realizes more of sat- 
 isfaction than when put forth dnectly for one's self, that. 
 exchange ever takes place. Why does it realize more? 
 Because there is diversity of advantage BETvirEEN dif- 
 ferent MEN AND BETVTEEN DIFFERENT NATIONS, IN DIFFERENT 
 
 RESPECTS. All exchange depends on diversity of relative 
 advantage ; and diversity of relative advantage exists by 
 God's appointment among individual men, and among the 
 nations. Reserving this national diversity for a later dis- 
 cussion, it is very clear that a diversity of advantage in 
 different things display's itself as between the individuals 
 of every community large and small. There is no village in 
 which one man has not an advantage over his neighbors 
 in the making of coats, another in the shoeing of horses, 
 another in the curing diseases, another in the keeping a 
 school ; while each of those neighbors ma}^ have an advan- 
 tage over each of these in some other art or avocation. 
 This diversity of advantage in various directions depends, 
 in every advanced state of society, partly upon diversity of 
 original gifts, partly upon concentration of personal effort 
 upon the one set of obstacles that lie in the path of a single 
 branch of business, and partly upon the use, and familiaiity 
 in the use, of the gratuitous forces of nature which It'ud 
 
176 • POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 their aid towards overcoming these obstacles; As the result 
 of one or two or all of these, one man comes to have a 
 legitimate advantage over others in his own branch of busi- 
 ness, whatever it is ; and the others come to have a legiti- 
 mate advantage over him in their own branches of busi- 
 ness, whatever they are ; and if he has desires which their 
 efforts can satisfy, and they desires which his efforts can 
 satisfy, nothing more is necessary to a profitable exchange 
 between them than this relative advantage at different 
 points. 
 
 For example, the tailor and blacksmith can profitably 
 exchange their respective efforts just as soon as each has a 
 relative superiority to the other in his own trade, provided 
 of course each has a desire for the product of the other : 
 and the greater the relative superiority of each to the other, 
 the more profitable is the exchange to both. This is a point 
 of considerable consequence, and will repay some pains in 
 illustration. If the blacksmith can shoe horses only a little 
 better than the tailor could shoe them, and the tailor make 
 coats only a little better than the blacksmith could make 
 them, there will be only a slight advantage in their mutually 
 exchanging efforts. For the sake of definiteness, let us say, 
 that the tailor's capacity in making coats is 6, and his capa- 
 city in shoeing horses is 5 ; and the blacksmith's capacity in 
 shoeing horses is 6, and his capacity in making coats is 5. 
 Each has a relative superiority to the other of 1, and if they 
 exchange, there is an advantage of 2 to be divided between 
 them. Now. let us suppose that each, by exclusive devotion 
 to his own trade, by developing his latent skill and ingenu- 
 ity, and by availing himself of all the forces of nature at 
 his command, comes to have a capacity in his own business 
 of 15, his capacity in the other business remaining as before 
 at 5. Each now has a relative superiority to the other of 
 10, and when they exchange there is an advantage of 20 to 
 b(5 divided between them. The motive to an exchange, and 
 the gain of an exchange, are ten times greater than they 
 
PEODUCTION. 177 
 
 were before. Therefore we lay down the principle, as uni- 
 versally applicable to all exchanges, that the greater the 
 relative superiority at different points, the more profitable 
 do exchanges become. If this principle is just, and we may 
 flatter ourselves that it will be found to be just, it follows, 
 ■hat every man who has any thing to exchange, is directly 
 interested in the success of his fellow-citizens, that every 
 trade finds its advantage in the increasing development of 
 other trades, and that all discoveries and inventions by which 
 Nature is made to pay tribute to any art is, restrictions 
 apart, so much clear gain to the world at large. In the 
 light of sound principles, what has been sometimes called 
 the jealousy of trade is simply silly. 
 
 3. We may well note next the Conditions of successful 
 Production. As soon as there is any difference of relative 
 advantage, there begins to be a motive for an exchange, and 
 a gain as the result ; and the motive and the gain become 
 stronger and greater as the difference increases ; so that the 
 gains of exchange are the greatest in that state of society 
 in which the freest opportunity is allowed to every individ- 
 ual to employ his peculiar powers in work for which he is 
 best fitted, in which desires are so various and employments 
 so diversified as to give a chance for all kinds of efforts, 
 and in which men avail themselves to the utmost of those 
 natural advantages and gratuitous powers which lie open to 
 their disposal. Association is the first main condition of 
 production. Men must come together either locally or com- 
 mercially, must learn each other's wants, must compare with 
 each other powers and tastes and opportunities, must come 
 to have some confidence in each other, and begin by render- 
 ing services back and forth to experience the satisfactions 
 and the new strength that exchanges bring. Whatever im- 
 proves the character of men, and thus leads to greater con- 
 fidence among them, will enlarge their commerce, and knit 
 closer and wider ties of association and production. Neigii- 
 borhood associations and productions soon create a surplus 
 
178 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to be exchanged with other neighborhoods ; parts of single 
 nations however remote from each other find a relative diver- 
 sity of advantage and an increasing profit in connecting 
 themselves by the ties of trade ; and the separate nations 
 learn, though late, that they are only one great fami'y for 
 the grand ends of production and progress. Now, this 
 broad association as between persons and nations, instead 
 of detracting at all from the individuality and power of each, 
 is the very thing that brings out the individuality, and inten- 
 sifies the power, of each ; because it is only thus that full 
 scope is given to the exercise and development of each 
 peculiar power whether of the individual or of the nation. 
 Carey is wholly right in his principle that the degree of indi- 
 viduality depends on the degree of association, each advan- 
 cing hand in hand with the other ; while he seems to be wrong 
 in lacking confidence in the natural forces at work tending 
 to the highest degree of association and consequently to the 
 highest degree of individuality. Personal interest and a 
 strong sense of justice are driving society continually to 
 exchange, and to a wider and wider application of the prin- 
 ciples of exchange, that is to say, to a higher and higher 
 degree of association, which allows of course a freer growth 
 of individuality. When interest and justice fail as motive 
 powers, at least in this department, it is in vain to trust to 
 an inferior and factitious force. 
 
 Invention is the second main condition of production. 
 Production is processes ; and Nature stands ever ready with 
 her free agencies to facilitate these processes, just so far as 
 the inventive brain of man can contrive to unite the two. 
 Invention is the marriage of a gratuitous force to an oner- 
 ous process, and the fruit of that union is an easier way and 
 multiplied utilities. There are some in every considerable 
 community, who like to contrive, who find their joy in find- 
 ing a new power in Nature or some new application of an 
 old power ; were it not for association and exchange, the 
 individuality of these would be repressed, and they would 
 
PBOBUCTION. 179 
 
 have to drudge for their daily bread ; but the worth of in- 
 ventors is well understood in every progressive community, 
 and under exchange their livelihood is guaranteed by those 
 who hope to profit by its results while their work is matur- 
 ing ; and Production rejoices and grows strong and throws 
 out unnumbered hands to make instant use of the new 
 power and the easier processes. 
 
 Freedom is by far the most important of the conditions 
 of production, because, where freedom is conceded, associa- 
 tion and invention follow in time by laws of natural sequence. 
 By freedom is meant the practical right of every man to 
 employ his own efforts for the gratification of his own wants, 
 either dkectly or through exchange. Each man's right of 
 freedom is limited of course by every other man's right 
 of freedom which he is not at liberty to infringe ; and also, 
 in certain respects, by what is called the general good, of 
 which the judge must be the government under which he 
 lives. Under these limitations, which limit in common all 
 other rights, the right to produce is just as much of a right 
 as the right of breathing. It stands on the same unassail- 
 able ground. Every man has a natural, self-evident, and 
 inalienable right to put forth efforts for his own well-being ; 
 and whenever two men find that by exchanging efforts with 
 each other, they can better promote their own happiness, 
 they have an indisputable right, subject only to the above 
 limitations, to exchange ; and it is a high-handed infringe- 
 ment of natural rights, a blow aimed at the life and source 
 of property, when an}' authority whatever interferes to re- 
 strict or prohibit the freedom of exchange, except that act 
 be justified by a solid proof that other private or publii; 
 rights which are as well based as the right of exchange are 
 infringed thereby. Happily, since governments have be- 
 come more enlightened than formerly, they perceive for the 
 most part that they have no right to interfere with tliis 
 natural rigiit of their people, and also, that b}' interfering 
 with it, they would do them an incalculable injury. The 
 
180 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 only motive to a mutual exchange of services, that is to say, 
 to a free production, is always and everywhere the mutual 
 benefit of the parties. After all the processes have been 
 gone through with and the exchanges consummated, all the 
 parties are richer than before, that is, have more satis- 
 factions, otherwise processes and exchanges would cease. 
 Therefore, a free production benefits everybody, and hanus 
 nobody. Moreover, under a system of free production, 
 every man is allowed, under the stimulus of self-interest, to 
 foUow the bent of his own mind, to work away at those 
 obstacles to the gratification of human desires which he 
 feels himself best able to overcome, and to avail himself 
 of all tliose helps in his work, of which Nature offers to him 
 a full store. Under these circumstauces, obstacles give way 
 in all directions : the amount of material products produced 
 and olTered for exchange is vastly augmented ; the number 
 and variety and excellence of the services proffered is indefi- 
 nitely increased ; the diversified and rapidly increasing de- 
 sires in such a community are readily met by exchange ; all 
 peculiar facilities are taken advantage of, and the diiTerence 
 of relative advantage becomes great in all directions, and a 
 new day of Industrial and commercial prosperity is ushered 
 in. Under freedom all men have the greatest possible 
 motive to produce, because thej^ can dispose of their efforts 
 to the best advantage. They can purchase with these 
 efforts what they will, and when they will, and where they 
 will. Thus freedom leads to extended association, and, 
 speedily also, to the invention of machinery and all labor- 
 saving appliances. Therefore, again, no reason can be 
 given, no good reason ever has been given, why processes 
 and exchanges should not be the freest possible. 
 
 4. One of the underlying laws of Production is, tJiat oner- 
 ous efforts bear a less and less j^i'oportion to realized utilities. 
 Men have a strong motive to substitute, whenever they can, 
 force for muscle, machinery for labor ; and Providence has 
 placed freely at their disposal such materials and forces in 
 
PRODUCTION. 181 
 
 Nature, that, availing themselves skilfully of these, irk- 
 some efforts are lessened, and at the same time, the lessened 
 efforts are more productive. For example, the first people 
 ground their grain by hand ; and it was a weary task to sit 
 cramped by the mill all day, and turn, and turn, and turn.^ 
 The effort was great, and the result was small. At length 
 it occurred to somebody that the weight of water might turn 
 a wheel, and that the wheel might turn the mill-stones. 
 Once thought of, the water-wheel was soon an actual fact : 
 instead of human strength. Nature wrought now, and what 
 is better, wrought for nothing ! Human services were still 
 needed, and doubtless more of them ; the hopper must be 
 fed, the bags tended, and the meal distributed ; but there 
 was less ' ache and more product ! More grain was ground, 
 bread came easier to the poor, and the wheel which free 
 water turned blessed its patrons with increased and cheap- 
 ened products. The old hand-loom, to take another in- 
 stance, was the only means antiquity knew of for procuring 
 clothing of fabrics. The shuttle was thrown by human 
 muscle. Every thread cost a throw. Women for the most 
 part did the weaving, and the word wife is supposed by 
 many to be connected in its derivation with the word iveave. 
 While the slave woman sat on the ground, and turned the 
 handle of the mill to grind the grain, the wife was exalted 
 to the dignity of the loom, and worked away at the monot- 
 onous task, thread by thread, thread by thread. Doubtless 
 the hand-loom was a great improvement on the earlier pro- 
 cesses, and was itself gradually improved as the centuries 
 went by, each improvement being the substitution either of 
 a gratuitous force of Nature for an irksome human effort, 
 or an easier process of art for a more laborious one. Every 
 step of improvement was a lessening of obstacles with ref- 
 erence to a given satisfaction. All the way up to our pres- 
 ent admirable machinery — the power-loom, which weaves, 
 as if by magic, while a child can tend it — ever^- step hag 
 
 ' Exod. xi. u: Isa. xlvii. 2. 
 
182 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 marked a lessening of efforts relatively to utilities. The 
 utility, the satisfaction, the yard of cloth, has cost less and 
 less of human effort, not onl}^ to the producer, but, through 
 exchange, to everybody. So again the farmer, who used 
 to cut his meadow-grass with a hand-swung scythe, then 
 rake it up with a hand-drawn rake, and then pitch it into the 
 loft with a hand-lifted fork, now mows and rakes and pitches 
 by the medium of machines ; and so far forth, the well-cured 
 hay costs less to all concerned. This progress from difficult 
 to easier, from costly to cheaper, thus briefly illustrated in 
 the three cases of flour, cloth, and hay, has been going on, 
 and is constantly going on in all directions ; more strikingly, 
 indeed, in the production of material commodities, in which 
 the powers of Nature may be indefinitely applied by ma- 
 chinery, while at the same time there is no production of any 
 kind that is not greatly facilitated by the progress of knowl- 
 edge and experience ; and the benefits of this increasing 
 advantage, and of this increasing diversity of advantage, 
 come home through exchanges to everybody ; and, conse- 
 quently, the satisfactions of all bear a larger and larger 
 proportion to their efforts. 
 
 What is the effect on values of these processes now made 
 easier in all directions ? Clearly, since value is nothing but 
 the relation between two services exchanged, no effect at all 
 is produced on values, if the improvements have gone on 
 equally in all directions. Every thing exchanges just as 
 before. If the improvements have not gone on equally, then 
 the value, that, is, the purchasing power, of those products 
 is diminished in whose production the improvements have 
 been relatively greater. There is now less of human efforts 
 represented in these and more of gratuitous forces, and, the 
 two elements of desire remaining as before, the intelligence 
 of buyers and the competition of other sellers will press 
 down the vahie of these products at any one point of sale, 
 that is, more of them will have to be rendered as against less 
 assisted products. The utility of these first products, how- 
 
PRODUCTION. 183 
 
 ever, that is, their capacity to gratify desire, remains as 
 before : a lesd effort has brought forth the same utility. 
 But tlio portion of effort thus set free does not probably 
 remain idle. It will be still put forth to create a larger num- 
 ber of products of the same kind, each one of which indeed 
 has less purchasing power than before, but the aggregate 
 value of which may be much greater than before. For 
 example, when machinery is employed in the making of 
 gloves, which before were cut and stitched by hand, the 
 value of a pair of gloves, estimated in any thing whose pro- 
 duction has not been altered by a similar improvement, will 
 infallibly decline ; but the aggregate value of all the gloves 
 made in the establishment will be greater than before, be- 
 cause otherwise there would have been no motive to intro- 
 duce the machinery. No new element has come into the 
 determination of the value of any pair of these gloves : it is 
 still the old circle of desu-es and efforts and estimations : 
 this machine, and all other machines, can create no value. 
 The machine helps to create utilities, since each pair of the 
 now increased number of gloves has the same utility as a 
 pair of the former fewer number ; and the maker of gloves 
 is able to render a service to a greater number of persojis 
 than before ; and it is true, that, for a time, especially if the 
 new process be not yet generally applied to glove-making, 
 before Value has a chance to adjust itself to the new state 
 of things, he may realize extra gains ; he may obtain, in 
 part, the old price for his new product, and this is the very 
 thing that led him to invent or to purchase the machine ; but 
 it is confusion to say that the machine creates value: the 
 machine lessens one of the two onerous efforts, which, in 
 conjunction with two desires, ^ss^(e in value; and he who 
 renders this assisted service may have a temporary advan- 
 tage over him with whom he exchanges. But just as soon 
 as machines come to be generally employed in the business, 
 Value tends to adjust itself through competition to the real 
 human effort in the service rendered, and the extra gains of 
 
184 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the first operators are cut off. The gain of the reduction 
 has now become permanent to all consumers of gloves. It 
 is this interval between the old price and the new which gives 
 to producers the margin for their enterprise, and a sharp 
 spur to invent and adopt improvements. The improvements 
 once become general, the gain redounds to the whole com- 
 munity. The value then of all services which have been 
 facilitated by improved processes, is constantly being les- 
 sened relatively to services not equally facilitated ; and here 
 we gain the first glimpse of a truth, which will afterwards 
 appear in the clearest light, namely, that the value of com- 
 modities tends to decline as compared with human labor, and 
 therefore, that there is inwrought into the nature of things 
 a tendency towards the elevation of the masses of men in a 
 scale of comforts. 
 
 5. Another leading proposition of Production is, that pro- 
 duction may go on indefinitely in all directions without ever 
 a fear of reaching a general glut of products. This impor- 
 tant proposition was first fully developed by Say in chapter 
 XV. of his well-known treatise ; and the proof of it, and some 
 of the consequences of it, are well worthy of our attention. 
 Let us put the proof of it in our own way, and in this form : 
 the desires of men which the efforts of other men can satisfy, 
 are unlimited in number and indefinite in degree ; and there- 
 fore, mutual efforts can continue to be put forth in exchange, 
 until these unlimited and indefinite desires of all men are all 
 met — a goal which never can be reached. This proposition 
 demolishes jit a stroke the fallacy which pervades Dr. Chal- 
 mers' interesting but not over-sound book on "Political 
 Economy," namely, that the universal market is limited, and 
 therefore, were it not for the unproductive consumption of 
 the rich and luxurious, and the equally unproductive con- 
 sumption of wars, there would soon be a general glut, and 
 production must cease for the lack of a vent for its products. 
 What constitutes a market for any thing? This, that some- 
 body desires the service thus offered, and is willing to render 
 
PRODUCTION. 185 
 
 a return service acceptable to the offeier. Only two things 
 can limit the universal market, first, a lack of desires, and 
 secondly, a lack of return services. But there can be no 
 lack of desires at any time, and there will be th« greatest 
 plenty of return services where production is most busy and 
 most universal. Therefore, again, no general glut of prod- 
 ucts is possible to occur. A truth which we have already 
 seen in another connection, re-appears here as a consequence 
 of this proposition, and will re-appear again and again, 
 namely, that all persons are interested commercially, as well 
 as morally, in the prosperity of other persons, and each na- 
 tion which has any thing to exchange, is du'ectly interested 
 in the prosperity of all other nations ; because the more pro- 
 duction everywhere, the better market everywhere. A mar- 
 ket FOR PRODUCTS IS PRODUCTS IN MARKET. 
 
 But while no such thing as a general glut of products ever 
 did, or ever can occur, a glut in respect to certain services 
 is very common. Through want of foresight, or miscalcula- 
 tion, particular services are offered in too great abundance, 
 or of a kind not adapted to the demand, and in respect to 
 these the market is truly said to be glutted. This frequently 
 happens with editions of books ; more copies are printed 
 than can be sold at remunerative prices. Also when fashion 
 changes, the goods which were fashionable, but are so no 
 longer, are apt to be in excess of the demand. The only 
 precaution that can be taken to avoid losses of this charac- 
 ter, is the cultivation of foresight, by studying as accurately 
 as possible the nature of human desires, and the changes 
 that have been observed to take place in them. This consti- 
 ( utes mercantile sagacity ; and the most successful producers 
 in all departments are those who best develop this sagacity, 
 who adapt their services to the existing and coming demand, 
 who, to excellence in the substance of their services, add 
 taste and attractiveness to their form, who tend rather to 
 to lead the fashions for the many than follow in then- wake. 
 The (ield of production is like the billowy and heaving sea* 
 
186 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to ua^^igate most successfully requires foresight, a wise cour- 
 age, a power of adaptation to varying circumstances, skill 
 to veer and tack when the wind changes, and a will to ruu 
 before a favoring breeze with all sails set. Production, as 
 a general rule, is no dead level of monotonous exertion ; 
 since its sphere is life with its wants, man with his desires ; 
 and there is scope for the development of ingenious mind in 
 almost all of its departments. Since all exchange is due to 
 the diveicjity of relative advantage, whoever develops his 
 powers of observation, of application, of adaptation, to a 
 higher point, and avails himself more skilfully of all pecul- 
 iar facilities, will reap a larger share of the harvest of 
 exchange. 
 
 6. Let us next examine the immense increase of Produc- 
 tion, and the superior perfection of products, consequent 
 upon what has long been called the Division of Labor. This 
 phrase is the title of the first and most famous chapter of 
 Adam Smith's famous book, and has been more read than 
 any other chapter, partly because it is the first and partly 
 because it is the most interesting. The phrase was not well 
 chosen to express what it is has come in course of time to 
 mean, and we must employ the terms in their broadest sense 
 in order to make them useful in this connection. As used 
 by Smith, they denote a specific part of the general truth 
 with which we are now becoming familiar, namely, that 
 exchange is stimulated and made profitable by all natural 
 diversity of employments, by the application of all peculiar 
 gifts to the corresponding obstacles that lie in the path of 
 production, and by the use and familiarity in the use of all 
 the gratuitous forces of Nature by means .of implements of 
 all sorts. He meant the dividing up of a process or employ- 
 ment into particular parts, so that each person emplo^^ed 
 can devote himself wholly to one section of the process ; 
 and his point was, that by means of this " division of labor " 
 all the processes of production are vastly facilitated. He 
 cites, as an illustration, the manufacture of pins. One man 
 
PBODUCTION. 187 
 
 draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a 
 fourth sharpens the points, a fifth grinds it at the top for 
 receiving tlie head. The making the heads consists of two 
 or three distinct operations, each confided to a single person. 
 Tlie remaining processes are similarly divided up, and the 
 result is, according to Dr. Smith, that in a single establish- 
 ment, emploj'ing only ten persons, 48,000 pins are made in 
 a day, while if each man went through all the processes him- 
 self, he could hardly make twenty pins a day, or two hundred 
 for the whole establishment. 
 
 If Dr. Smith had lived in our day, and seen the operation 
 of American machines in pin-making, he could have made 
 his illustration far more striking. There are now 14 distinct 
 processes instead of the 10 of a century ago ; the head is 
 now a part of the main wire, and not as formerly twists of a 
 separate smaller wire, and is formed with wonderful rapidity 
 by the Wright machine, that works automatically ; still more 
 wonderful is the combination in one complex and yet simple- 
 in-principle machine of this heading process with the straight- 
 euivg, cutting, and grinding processes ; and most wonderful 
 of all is the machine worked by two children, one of whom 
 feeds it with pins and the other with papers, by which the 
 final process of papering is completed, the pins dropping by 
 the million into the holes pierced in the paper to receive them, 
 without a touch of a human hand. It has been calculated, 
 that 18,740,800,000 single pins are made in the United 
 States yearly, that is to say, 375 for each head of the popu- 
 lation in 1880. 
 
 Pin-making is comparatively a simple process, while watch- 
 making is relatively a complicated one. It was put in q\\- 
 donee before a committee of the House of Commons about 
 the middle of this century, that there were one hundred and 
 tu'O distinct branches of the watch-making art, to each of 
 which a boy might be put apprentice ; and when his appren- 
 ticeship had expired, he was unable, without subsequent 
 instruction, to work at any other branch ; and that the 
 
188 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 watch -finisher was the onl}'^ person, out of the one hundred 
 and two, who was able to work in any other department than 
 his own. American machinery has put watch-making upon 
 a new plane. Several elaborate and extremely ingenious 
 labor-saving machines are now in use whereby great perfec- 
 tion of parts and accuracy of time-keeping are attained at 
 a comparatively small cost. 
 
 The causes of increased efficiency imparted to production 
 by the division of labor are reduced by Dr. Smith to 
 three : — 
 
 (o) The improved dexterity, corporeal and intellectual, 
 acquired by the repetition of one simple operation. 
 
 (6) The saving of the time which is commonly lost in pass- 
 ing from one species of work to another, and in the change 
 of place, position, and tools. 
 
 (c) The invention of a great number of machines which 
 facilitate and abridge labor in all its departments. Because 
 the simple task which complete division of labor gives to 
 each operator is precisely what machinery ma}^ most easily 
 be made to perform, and what the operator, if intelligent, 
 will be most likely to devise machinery for. Add to these 
 advantages of the division of labor these other : — 
 
 (d) The saving of the waste of material, partly as the 
 result of this improved dexterity ; and frequently, also, as 
 the result of the shorter time required to finish up the prod- 
 uct. 
 
 (e) The more economical distribution of labor by classing 
 the operatives according to their strength, skill, and expe- 
 rience. The easier parts may be performed by women and 
 by children, whose labor is less expensive ; the ruder parts 
 by ruder hands ; and only the more difficult processes by the 
 most skilful workmen, who must be highly paid. Next to 
 the first, this advantage is the most important. 
 
 (/) There is a saving in tools. The various implements, 
 being now in constant use, yield a better return for tlieir 
 original cost ; and therefore their owners can afford to have 
 
PRODUCTION. 189 
 
 them of a better quality, and this, too, faciliti.tes produc- 
 tion. 
 
 (g) It brings the producers and consumers into more inti- 
 mate and safe relations. The division of labor between the 
 ivholesale and the retail trade is of great advantage. The 
 retailers know their local mai'kets, and supply them without 
 loss or waste from the wholesale reservoirs. The wholesak; 
 reservoirs neatly control the various streams of production, 
 according as demand is slackened or intensified. Thus, for 
 example, a large city is daily supplied with fresh meat, with- 
 out the loss, perhaps, of a hundred weight. 
 
 There are some disadvantages resulting from this division 
 of labor : — ^ 
 
 (a) The work becomes in some departments monotonous 
 and irksome, while some varietj^ of occupation would afford 
 relief b}' employing different muscles, or different faculties 
 of the mind. 
 
 (b) There is some tendency to dwarf the mental and cor- 
 poreal powers, through exclusive attention to one part only 
 of a complicated process. 
 
 (c) ^Yhen this part has been learned, and long made the 
 means of a livelihood, a person has less power to adapt him- 
 self to change of circumstances, and becomes too much 
 dependent on the continuance of the business in that form. 
 
 The degree to which the division of labor can be carried, 
 depends in part upon the extent of the market, and in part 
 upon the nature of the employment. To recur to Dr. Smitli's 
 illustration of the pins : if the market would only have 
 received 24,000 pins a day from that establishment, instead 
 of 48,000, the division of labor could not have been carried 
 to the same extent, because if it had been, the men would 
 be idle one-half the time. In that case, some of the men 
 would be dismissed, and some of the separate processes bo 
 combined, and production would be less efficient from the 
 limitation of the market. Production, thei'efore, i.i most 
 profitable when the market is broad enough to allow a full 
 
190 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 division of lal or, and complete emplo^'ment to all the opera- 
 tives ; and, the market being presupposed, is moie likely to 
 be profitable in large establishments than in small ; because, 
 (a) the division of labor can be carried to a fuller extent ; 
 (&) more perfect machinery can be afforded ; (c) relativelj 
 less superintendence is required ; and (d) the scraps and 
 ends of a large business are frequently of sufficient impor- 
 tance to justify one or more subordinate branches of busi- 
 ness in connection with the main business. For example, a 
 large saw-mill may profitably furnish lath as well as lumber, 
 since the refuse boards and slabs may go to lath. A whole- 
 sale butchering establishment of neat cattle might profitably 
 have, in connection with the sale of meat, a tannery to dis- 
 pose of the hides, a comb manufactory to dispose of the 
 horns, a glue manufactory to dispose of the feet, a stall for 
 the hair, which is useful in plastering, while the offal might 
 be chemically disposed of in fertilizers. 
 
 The nature of the employment also limits the degree to 
 which the division of labor may be carried. Agriculture, 
 for instance, allows less of this division than most other 
 departments of production, because its various operations 
 cannot, from the nature of the case, become simultaneous. 
 When the sowing is once done, the producer must wait some 
 months upon Nature, till his agency is again required in the 
 reaping. This fact, that agriculture can be less facilitated 
 by the division of labor, and by the use of machinery, than 
 most other departments of material production, constitutes 
 one ground of an important truth, which we shall hereafter 
 perceive stands also on another and firmer ground, the truth, 
 namely, that agricultural products tend constantly to rise in 
 value as compared with other commodities. 
 
 7. Opposed to free Production, and therefore opposed to 
 progress and to comforts, are Monopolies. A monopoly, as 
 the derivation of the word implies, is a restriction imposed 
 by a government upon the sale of certain Services. A gov- 
 ernment may properly restrict or even wholly prohibit the 
 
PRODUCTION. 191 
 
 sale of any services that clearly threaten the public hecJth or 
 the public morals, because these are of higher consequence 
 to individuals and the State than the pecuniary gains of any- 
 body ; it is in this view that the United States forbid utterly 
 the introduction from abroad of obscene books and pictures, 
 and the States forbid the sale of tainted meat ; and when ti 
 nation has determined to raise a revenue from the sale of any 
 commodity, as for instance tobacco, it may properly restrict 
 the sale to its own authorized agents, or to those who buy 
 its licenses and stamps ; but outside these three exceptions 
 in the interest of morals, health, and revenue, no government 
 would seem to have the right or any adequate motive to 
 restrict the sale of any thing. Monopolies become a public 
 wrong and are justly denounced whenever they are instituted 
 for the benefit of a part, at the expense of another part, of 
 Society. During long centuries the older governments med- 
 dled with and vexed the freedom of production, at the 
 instance of individuals and classes wishing to be arbitrarily 
 privileged, and thus threw arbitrary burdens on other classes 
 of the people, for example, by limiting the number of ap- 
 prentices to each artisan, by dictating what should and what 
 should not be manufactured or grown, and by trying to fix 
 what should and what should not be imported and exported ; 
 but common sense has come to reign now for the most part 
 within the limits of the individual nations, which perceive that 
 riches and progress and power are dependent on free produc- 
 tion within their own boundaries ; while common sense and 
 perception are not yet enough enlarged to secure free produc- 
 tion as between the different nations. Senior (p. 177) uses 
 this illustration : When Napoleon brought half of West Eu- 
 rope under French dominion, the previously existing custom- 
 houses and toll-barriers of the interior fell as by a stroke, 
 and free trade became the rule between French, Dutch, Ger- 
 mans, Italians, and Spaniards, — all indeed who were sub- 
 ject to his sway ; but when this vast empire was dissolved 
 into its original independent kingdoms, each State was busy 
 
192 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to re- impose on itself the fetters which his powerful hand had 
 broken, and the custom-houses shot up again around all the 
 petty frontiers. Just as if the benefits of exchange depended 
 in the least on the accident that the parties to it are subjects 
 or citizens of the same government ! 
 
 If we reckon those restrictions on sale by which the public 
 morals and health are sought to be conserved and a public 
 revenue secured a first and worthy form of monopoly, as 
 tobacco has long been in France a close monopoly for reve- 
 nue purposes, then the second and a most unworthy form 
 may be illustrated by the monopolies of Queen Elizabeth. 
 She called the power of granting patents of monopoly to her 
 favorites " the fairest flower of her garden." The privilege 
 granted was an exclusive right to deal in certain articles of 
 common use, which of course limited competition in their 
 sale, and raised artificiall}^ the value of whatever the privi- 
 leged few offered for sale. If the view be limited to these 
 persons alone, monopolies would certainly seem to be advan- 
 tageous ; but is it not fair to look also at the buyers of these 
 monopolized wares? They are all obliged to pay more of 
 their return service than is natural and just, since the only 
 purpose in granting the patent was to raise values in behalf 
 of the privileged. The English people did not like the work- 
 ing of it. Towards the close of the reign the abuse of this 
 power reached an intolerable height, and many of the most 
 necessary articles of life, such as salt, iron, calf -skins, vine- 
 gar, lead, and paper, were in the hands of patentees, and 
 could only be bought at exorbitant prices. In 1601, the 
 House of" Commons met in so angry and menacing a mood, 
 in consequence of this abuse, that Elizabeth was obliged to 
 promise at least, that the monopolies complained of shoul 1 
 be abolished. The famous Act of Parliament of 1624 de- 
 clares that all monopolies, grants, letters patent for the sole 
 buying, selling, and making of goods and manufactures, 
 shall be null and void. This Act effectually secured the 
 freedom of industrj" in England ; and in the opinion of ex- 
 
PRODUCTION. 193 
 
 cellent authorities, has done more to excite the spirit of 
 invention and industry, and to accelerate the progress of 
 riches in that country, tlmn any otlier in the statute book. 
 The Act excepts, however, patents for fourteen j^ears to 
 the true and first inventors of new manufactures within the 
 realm, and also the grants by Act of Parliament to any com- 
 pany, for the enlargement of foreign trade. Under this 
 exception, the East India Company possessed, up to 1834, 
 the exclusive right to vend tea in England. During the last 
 years of this monopoly, and notwithstanding the quantities 
 of tea smuggled into the country, the people of England 
 paid more than $7,500,000 a year for their tea beyond the 
 price at which tea of equal quality was sold, under a system 
 of free competition, in Hamburg and New York. It is well 
 worth notice, that monopolies never realize to their pos- 
 sessors the full pecuniary advantage of which the public are 
 robbed by their action. Thus, while Englishmen paid 
 $7,500,000 extra annually for their tea, the Company, by 
 their own showing, did not realize much more than half that 
 sum from their privilege ; owing to the inertness of their 
 servants removed from the stimulus of competition. " The 
 spirit of monopolists," says Gibbon, " is narrow, lazy, and 
 oppressive. Their work is more costly and less productive 
 than that ov' independent artists ; and the new improvements, 
 so eagerly gi'asped by the competition of freedom, are ad- 
 mitted b}' them with slow and sullen reluctance." 
 
 A third form of monopoly (also most unworthy) is that in 
 which governments by restrictive duties try to exclude /o^'efr/n 
 competition in certain articles, leaving the domestic dealers 
 open only to home competition. This is done in connectioD 
 with, sometimes under color of, levying duties for revenue. 
 Duties laid for this purpose, however, as we shall see more 
 fully hereafter, are very different in principle, amount, and 
 action, from those properly laid for revenue. They violate 
 a natural right of exchange, as the others do not, and are 
 always followed by injurious consequences. Sometimes the 
 
194 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 hope of unusual gains from producing an article whose for- 
 eign supply is thus restricted, seduces capital and labor from 
 other profitable channels and concentrates them upon this 
 business ; and the home competition, thus artificially stimu- 
 lated, becomes intense and feverish, the business is over- 
 done, an element of distrust and unsteadiness is mtroduced, 
 the weaker houses are ruined, and only the stancher firms 
 tide over the depression consequent upon overdoing, and 
 control the market for a while at a monopoly price. But 
 the losses of home competitors ; the losses of those who 
 would otherwise have been foreign competitors ; and espe- 
 cially the losses of those home producers who would have 
 exchanged products with those foreign competitors, overbal- 
 ance many fold these gains. Sometimes, again, home com- 
 petition is even less active after the imposition of such 
 duties ; and then the manufacturers and dealers, relieved, 
 in great measure, from the stimulus of competition, are less 
 on the alert for improvements, less attentive to the quality 
 of their goods, less compliant to their customers ; and the 
 consumers are obliged, not only to pay a tax levied for the 
 benefit of the monopolists, but also an additional tax on 
 account of their want of enterprise and spirit. 
 
 A fourth form of monopoly, and like the first a worthy 
 one, is that involved in the granting of patent-rights and copy- 
 rights. Society does well in protecting, by law, inventors 
 and thinkers in the sole use of theii* respective productions 
 for a limited time. Otherwise, men would have less motive 
 to think and to invent ; since in that case only the public 
 sphited and the rich would or could devote themselves to an 
 important branch of the public progress. A patent or copy- 
 right is merely a return service which society renders for a 
 service received. It violates no man's right of property, as 
 an ordinary monopoly does, but is a provision to protect for 
 a time a new right of property created by the thought and 
 efforts of deserving men. It has sometimes been improperly 
 called intellectual property, in contradistinction from material 
 
PRODUCTION. 195 
 
 property, because the right is not embodied in any outward 
 thing, but remains a rigid onlj^ ; it is true, that Political 
 Economy has not hitherto given to this whole class of valua- 
 ble things the attention that is undoubtedly their due ; but 
 we have already seen that any thing is property that can be 
 bought and sold, and that simple rights are constantly bought 
 and sold in the markets ; and it follows from all this, that 
 patents and copyrights, which are a technical return-service 
 for services ready to be rendered to the community, are at 
 once proper and property, since they themselves also are 
 bought and sold. 
 
 In the United States a patent lasts for seventeen years, 
 and is not re-issued, except by a special act of Congress : 
 I copyright lasts for twenty-eight years, and may be re- 
 tiewed by the author, his widow, or children, for fourteen 
 /ears longer. 
 
 A patented process is almost always the application in 
 isome new wa}' of a gratuitous force of Nature to some use- 
 ful and valuable end. Through inventors, free forces are 
 constantly harnessed to the use of Production. Services 
 become easier, and therefore cheaper, in all directions. 
 Take a case in illustration in which machinery can only be 
 used in a limited degree, and in which hand-labor must 
 always be a main element, namely, work in anthracite coal 
 collieries : ^ the average increase of hands in these collieries 
 in the United States from 1870 to 1880 was only 6.4 %, 
 while the average increase of product in the same time was _ 
 45 %. If then, patents stimulate inventions, and inventions 
 lessen efforts and multiply results, patents are to be com- 
 mended ; and it is a beautiful consequence of individual 
 eagerness to invent, which is perhaps more common in this 
 country than in any other, that all improvements in ma- 
 chinery, all inventions, all substitution of Nature's forces for 
 human labor, soon become the common property of mankind. 
 Patent rights speedily expire by their own limitation, secret 
 
 1 Census of 1880. 
 
196 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 processes are sure to become known, and the competition 
 of the different men who, under a system of freedom, will 
 be sure to use these gratuitous helps, will compel each of 
 them to sell their product at a rate graduated only by the 
 actual human service rendered ; so that, the liberal gifts of 
 Nature, though seemingly monopolized at first by ingenious 
 men, are not long intercepted in their descent towards the 
 masses of mankind. An invention of great merit even at 
 first does not benefit the patentee alone ; as a patentee, his 
 interest leads him to lower the price of his product, to bring 
 it within the reach of a wider circle of consumers ; and so 
 soon as the patent has expired, the benefit has at once a 
 wider reach. The steam-engine, for example, has long been 
 common property. There are, indeed, certain features of 
 the more perfect engines still restricted in their manufacture 
 by the rights of individuals, and this will always be so while 
 invention continues busy, but the perpettial tendency in all 
 inventions is from individual property towards a common 
 right. And it is here in place to remark, that the applica- 
 tion of machinery to all departments of production, and the 
 introduction of improved processes of every name, can 
 hardly in the fii'st instance be prejudicial to any, and are 
 sure ultimately to be beneficial to all. 
 
 8. The natural laws of Production are inexorable in their 
 operation. It is best for men to find out what these are, 
 and then to conform to them their own economic action. If 
 custom or legislation thwart these laws, they will take their 
 revenge without pity, and lapse of time will only exhibit 
 transgressors more clearly as firmly held in the grip of vio- 
 lated law. Nature prescribes to men the way to reach the 
 best economic euds, by giving to all a consciousness of 
 rights and impulses to maintain them, though it must be 
 owned that there are impulses, too, to infringe upon rights, 
 and also by giving that common sense by which mistakes 
 are perceived and a sound experience gained ; and the result 
 of the play of all these for countless generations is expressed 
 
PRODUCTION. 197 
 
 in sucli maxims as, Live and let live, A fair field and no 
 favor, Honesty is the best policy, It takes two to make a 
 bargain, and Laissez /aire. Still, each generation shoots 
 up a lusty crop of foolish and selfish men, foolish because 
 selfish, and selfish because foolish, who think they know, how 
 things had best be done, how Nature can be improved upon, 
 and how those who trust themselves to tJiem will be better 
 off than if thej' trusted to their own sense of fair aud right. 
 Such men and their followers — " blind leaders of the blind " 
 — so far and so long as they have their way, get caught in 
 the meshes of laws as old as the creation, and the more they 
 struggle to evade and escape, the more they show forth their 
 own helplessness, and the magnitude and wisdom and power 
 of the natural laws they have trampled on. 
 
 An excellent illustration of all this is found in the state 
 of the shipping of the United States in the year of grace 
 1881 , and in the contortions of the men who tried to justify 
 the false system that had brought forth such fruits. It must 
 be premised, that there were three things only which the 
 citizens of this country were absolutely forbidden to buy 
 from abroad, namely, obscene prints, drugs prepared to pre- 
 vent conception or secure abortion, — and ships. The first 
 two were prohibited in the interest of morals, and that was 
 right enough ; but why were free American citizens prohib- 
 ited to buy innocent ships wherewith to sail the seas, if they 
 found it for their profit to buy them ? Why, nothing, only 
 to encourage the same people to build ships of their own ! 
 In order to have ships a plenty, and make it profitable to 
 build them, the competition of foreigners in ship-building 
 was wholly cut off by one of the first laws passed under the 
 present constitution, that is, in 1789, to exclude foreign-built 
 sJdps from registry under the American flag; and after 
 almost a century of such continuous exclusion, during which 
 native ship-building was not only "protected" hxit perf'Cthj 
 "protected," since prohibition is the perfection of protec- 
 tion, the fruits of such a system would certainly have time 
 
198 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to work themselves out. If such legislation were in accord- 
 ance with the natural laws of Production, the results would 
 ]*e good ; if contrary to them, bad. Well, then, what was the 
 state of ocean ship-building and ocean carrying, so far as the 
 United States were concerned, in 1881? What had been 
 that state for the two decades preceding? Before answering 
 this question in figures, we must premise also, that that ship- 
 building had been carried on vigorously in this country for 
 150 years prior to 1789, not only without any " protection " 
 to encourage it, but also in spite of the unceasing hostility 
 of the British Government towards colonial shipping ; how 
 far all the arts of navigation had been carried here before 
 the Revolution, any one may read in Burke's famous speech 
 on Conciliation with America ; and how far the products of 
 the loom, the forge, and the anvil, were already exported 
 on native ships to other countries, in spite of British legisla- 
 tion, any one may see in Lord North's last proposals and 
 concessions to ward off the Revolution. Probably ships 
 could be built here as cheaply in money as in Europe till the 
 middle of this centurj^, and the main effects till then of 
 the prohibition were the loss of a market for such native 
 products as would otherwise have been sold against ships, 
 and the loss of the stimulus of competition on our own 
 ship-builders that would have accompanied free ships ; but 
 in the twenty years after 1861, when a general protective 
 system, with duties far higher than ever before, prevailed, 
 it became practically impossible to build ocean ships in thijj 
 country on account of the protective duties on lumber^ 
 cordage, iron, steel, and other materials ; so that the free 
 citizens of the United States, fond of the sea, found them • 
 selves in a humiliating position, in which it was illegal to 
 buy ships, and impossible to build them. 
 
 What was the outcome of this dilemma ? The exports of 
 the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881, were $902,377,340, 
 of which only twelve per centum was carried away under the 
 American flag, and 88 % under foreign flags. The imports 
 
PRODUCTION. 199 
 
 of that year were $642,664,628, of which only $133,731,000 
 were brought iu by our own ships, and $491,000,000 were 
 brought in foreign vessels, and $17,933,628 came in on cars 
 and other vehicles. Of the total foreign trade of that year 
 mediated by ships, very nearly 15 % was by American ships, 
 and 85 % by foreign ships. According to the authority of 
 Senator Blaine, our own ships carried in 1857 72 % of our 
 total foreign trade, leaving 28 % to foreigners ; in 1878 
 these figures had become almost exactly reversed, less than 
 28 % was native and more than 72 % was foreign. This 
 disproportion grew worse and worse, till, in 1881, the result 
 above mentioned was attained. All this time protectionists 
 were praising their system, though sorely perplexed by the 
 results of it in ship-building, in which the system had been 
 carried to its highest terms for the longest time. A vio- 
 lated law of Production held them and the whole country 
 in its grasp, and irrefutable figures growing worse from year 
 to 3-ear exhibited in the face of the world their system and 
 all its defences as refuges of lies. The world of economic 
 law cannot be cajoled, manipulated, and falsified. Causes 
 will produce their effects, restrictions wiU end in scarcity, 
 and the successful selfishness of a few will bring in wide 
 disaster to the many. One of the odd things of that odd 
 year, 1881, was the ostentatious advertisement of a promi- 
 nent protectionist firm of ship-builders on the Delaware, that 
 the}' could and would furnish iron ships as good and as 
 cheap as those built on the Cl^^de ; which, if it were true, 
 cut off all possible explanation of the decline of ship-build- 
 ing on the ground of higher wages, or any other natural cir- 
 cumstances of the country. Another odd thing of that year, 
 was the bringing into New York harbor the obelisk, known 
 as Cleopatra's Needle, by Commander Gorriuge on a for- 
 eign-built ship bought by him for that purpose, for which 
 consequently he could not legally take out American papers, 
 and which accordingly made the whole voj'age home in the 
 character of a pirate : any man-of-war could have overhauled 
 
200 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 her at sea and taken her and the obelisk into port as a prize ; 
 for tlae Dessong had no authenticating papers at all but a 
 bill of sale. Still another odd thing of that year, was the 
 publication at great expense by the government of special 
 reports of our consuls in all parts of the world, set on foot 
 by Mr. Secretary Evarts on purpose to facilitate trade be- 
 tween this and other countries, while the general tariff of 
 this country was expressly designed and constructed to pre- 
 vent trade with other countries. 
 
 The number of vessels plying between the United States 
 and Europe in 1881 was 5,210, of which 555 were steam- 
 ships. Of the sailing vessels the United States had in num- 
 ber 19 %, though their tonnage was less than the average, 
 while the little hyperborean kingdom of Sweden had 22 <^. 
 Of the steamships 80 % were British, and the United States 
 had just four and no more. Between 1792 and 1881, by 
 act of Congress of the former date, all foreign-owned ves- 
 sels were excluded from the American coasting trade, and, 
 consequently^, coasters 7nust he built at home, or coast navi- 
 gation cease. Within monopoly waters, our flag floated ; on 
 the free seas, it mostl}' disappeared. 
 
 The great struggles of mankind in all history past have 
 been around three points as centres : first, freedom of per- 
 son ; second, freedom of-- opinion ; third, freedoJii of ex- 
 change. In consequence of the struggle around the first 
 point, personal slavery has now mainly disappeared from 
 the earth ; in consequence of the struggle around the second 
 point, the freedom of opinion, and especially of religious 
 opinion, haa gained great victories in all lands, although 
 much remains to be done before its complete triumph is 
 assured ; while, in consequence of the struggle around the 
 third point, one barrier after another has been thrown down, 
 one monopoly after another has been conquered, until it is 
 pretty generally acknowledged at present that freedom of 
 exchange is just as sacred as freedom of person and of 
 opinion, and the struggle will certainly never cease until the 
 
PBODUCTION. 201 
 
 liberty of contract and delivery, subject only to conditions 
 of morals, health, and revenue shall be international and 
 universal. 
 
 If, in this chapter, attention has been more strongly 
 drawn to commodities than to the other tAvo classes of 
 valuable things, it is not because the man who sells a mere 
 effort is less a producer than a farmer or a manufacturer, nor 
 because a banker, for example, is less a producer than either 
 of them. It is because the principles are more readily seen 
 and simply illustrated in the production of material things. 
 The same principles apply equally to mere labor and the 
 sale of intangible rights. We can see their application to 
 these, however, better at a later stage of our inquiries. 
 Labor will be considered at length in the next chapter ; and 
 Credit, which best represents the whole class of technical 
 rights, will be fully treated still further on. In the mean 
 time, the propositions of this chapter may be summarized 
 thus : — 
 
 1. Production is the getting something ready to sell and 
 selling it. 
 
 2. Production is immense in amount as measured by 
 money. 
 
 3. All production is facilitated by God's free gifts, and, 
 accordingly, grows constantly easier. 
 
 4. Production ahuays depends on diversity of relative ad- 
 vantage as betiueen the parties exchanging. 
 
 5. The greater this diversity, the more profitable do ex- 
 changes become. 
 
 6. Association, Invention, Freedom, are the grand condi- 
 tions of Production. 
 
 7. Inventions increase production, but tend to lessen the 
 value of particular services. 
 
 8. There can be no glut of general services. 
 
 9. All production tends more and more to specialties. 
 
 10. Exchanges should be free because they are natural avd 
 beneficial. 
 
202 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 11. Monopolies, as a class, lessen production, and impede 
 progress. 
 
 12. TJie laws of Production are inexorable, and adequate 
 for their own vindication. 
 
 13. Governments are less guilty than formerly of curtailing 
 exchanges. 
 
LAB OB. 203 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LABOR. 
 
 Production is processes leading up to Value ; there are 
 tliree essential elements in these processes ; and these are 
 Labor, Capital, and Natural Agents. In all production 
 these three conspire ; and we must now take them up one 
 by one, and learn carefully how each acts alone, and in 
 conjunction with the others. We take up Labor first, be- 
 cause it is first in point of importance though not of time, 
 since Nature always furnishes in some primary form that 
 upon which and in connection with which Labor expends 
 itself. Human desii'es are presupposed for whatever is 
 produced, and the only other requisites of production are 
 the three just mentioned, so that a full treatment of these 
 will exhaust the subject. To recur to our strawberry-girl 
 for an illustration, — Nature furnishes the wild strawberries 
 free, she furnishes the Labor of picking and bringing them, 
 and her tin pail is the article of Capital employed. Or to 
 take an illustration from the gold hills of North Carolina, — 
 a bored log to divert the water from a mountain stream, and 
 a tin pan in which to gather and wash the sand and gravel ^ 
 are Capital, an old colored woman of the neighborhood is 
 the Laborer, and the bits of gold scattered in the soil are tlie 
 gift of Nature : gravitation also brings the water through 
 the log, and gravity carries down the particles of gold to the 
 bottom of the washing-pan, and many other agencies of 
 Nature co-operate even in this very simple case of produc- 
 tion ; and besides the log and pan, there are doubtless other 
 forms of Capital, at least the whittled plug to stop at need 
 
204 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the flow of water ; and the labor is both physical and mental, 
 since no animal could be trained to adapt means to ends 
 like this negro woman. As Production passes from these 
 simplest forms, each of its three requisites becomes more 
 multiplied and complicated, but no new requisite is discov- 
 ered. Labor in all its grades to the most elaborate is still 
 labor, machinery in all its forms to the most ponderous is 
 still Capital, and Nature in all her manifold agencies is 
 nature still. 
 
 Personal effort of any kind, put forth in view of a return- 
 service and for the sake of it, is Labor. 
 
 Effort that is not sold is not labor. Most persons put 
 forth some efforts every day for their own direct gratifica- 
 tion, which of course are not labor ; and also some efforts 
 for the direct welfare of others, for which nothing is ex- 
 pected in return ; but every form of human effort exerted for 
 another and for the sake of the pay is technically Labor. 
 We sometimes speak in the way of contrast of physical and 
 mental labor, according as body or mind seems the main 
 factor in the exertion, though we must hold fast to the 
 truth that both mind and body work as one in every act of 
 labor. We may also make a rude distinction for the sake 
 of convenience between common and skilled and professional 
 labor, though no very sharp lines can be drawn between 
 these, nor need be drawn. 
 
 It is a curious thing, and one that draws after it important 
 consequences, that what we call j^^'-ysiccd labor, and indeed 
 all physical effort, consists in moving things. When a man 
 works with his hands or his feet, all that he does or can do, 
 is to produce a series of motions or resistances to motion, 
 because human muscles are only capable of producing motion 
 and resisting motion. All the marvellous results of physical 
 effort in all the world have flowed from so simple a matter 
 as the contraction and expansion of muscle. Phj'sical work 
 is motion, and weariness is weariness of muscle. The world 
 of materials is so cunningly constructed, that, when thej'^ are 
 
LABOR. 205 
 
 moved into right position by the aid of capital, the powers 
 of Nature do the rest, and objects of utility and value are 
 the result. For example, when the woodman fells a tree for 
 sale, he moves (labor) his axe (capital) through the trunk, 
 and then the power of gravitation (nature) seizes the tree 
 aod brings it to the ground. The woodman brings a series 
 of motions to bear upon the tree, but the final motion by 
 which the oak comes crashing to the earth is the free action 
 of nature. 
 
 Let us take two other illustrations. Wool, cotton, and 
 flax, have by nature a certain tenacity of fibre. Man moves 
 these fibres in certain relations to each other by an instrument 
 called a spindle, and the result is thread. Then the threads 
 are moved in certain relations with each other by an instru- 
 ment called a shuttle, and the result is a web of cloth. The 
 tailor moves his shears through the cloth, and then his nee- 
 dles, and the result is a coat, — the object of utility for 
 which all these processes were gone through with. The 
 farmer first moves the ground, then moves his seeds into it, 
 mo'ses his sickle through the standing corn, moves his corn 
 to the granary and mill, moves his meal from the mill to the 
 larder, at which last point the housewife begins to operate 
 upon it in a new series of motions. She moves the meal to 
 the kneading-trough, and, having well moved it there, moves 
 it to the oven, and, from the oven, after due interval, moves it 
 to the table, beyond which point it is not needful for us to 
 foMow the process. 
 
 N'ow, since motion is the only thing which man is required 
 t: furnish in the production of commodities, he naturally 
 looks around for helps in this matter. The first thing he 
 lighted on, as a help to produce motion, was the domestic 
 animals. The ox, the ass, the horse, were doubtless domes- 
 ticated in the very beginnings of society. Men want these 
 animals to produce motion for them — simply that. And as 
 they can be used in so many different places, and for such 
 a variety of purposes, and are so cheaply reared, the}' are 
 
206 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 exceedingly convenient as a motive power, and will probably 
 never be superseded. The discovery and application of the 
 great motive powers of water and steam have scarcely occa- 
 sioned a lessened demand for the earlier and humbler motors, 
 oxen and horses. Having employed from a very early time 
 tlie domestic animals as a motive power, Labor secured after 
 a while as inanimate auxiliaries the water-wheel and wind- 
 mill, and much later steam and electricity and other natural 
 agents. It is a point that has scarcely been noticed, even 
 if it has ever been noticed at all, that these auxiliaries, 
 whether animate or inanimate, do but cause simple motions 
 of the same kind as the motion caused by a human hand. 
 The most ponderous engine merely reduplicates that which 
 the arm of a child is capable of ; while in point of delicacy 
 and firmness of touch, perhaps no machinery can subdivide 
 and apply this motion so skilfully as the human fingers can. 
 It is said that some of the lace made wholly by hand is finer 
 and more delicate than any yet woven by machinery, although 
 the introduction of machinery into lace-making has cheapened 
 lace products in general to a small fraction of their former 
 cost. Wliat we commonly call Power., then, in whatever way 
 created, is simple motion. But in order to subdivide motions 
 and apply them to the various purposes of production, imple- 
 ments of all sorts are needed, and implements, as we shall 
 see fully in the next chapter, are always Capital. Still, no 
 Power however mighty or however delicate, and no forms of 
 Capital however perfect, can ever dispense with Labor. Not 
 until machinery can be taught to think will Labor cease to 
 play a chief part in production. It is true indeed, that men 
 are all the while throwing more and more of the burden of 
 production off then- own shoulders upon the ever willing 
 shoulders of Nature, who is "good," to use a commercial 
 term, for all she can be made to carry ; but the more natural 
 agents through machinery do, the more there is for men to 
 do in tending, overseeing, and distributing, so that labor is 
 in as great demand as evei' ; just as horses and teamsters 
 
LAB OB. 207 
 
 seem now as much required as before railroads and steam- 
 mills came into use. At first blush, it would seem as if 
 machinery were about to drive men off the industrial field ; 
 even in agriculture, in which labor-saving implements can- 
 not be used to the same extent as in factories, it is now pos- 
 sible, instead of the manifold hand-motions of a previous 
 paragraph, by means of the reaper and binder and thresher 
 and mill-appliances and baker's facilities, " to direct every 
 process in the production of bread, ^ so that not a human 
 hand shall have touched the grain from the time it was 
 planted until it is placed on the table of the family that 
 consumes it ; " still, the making, repairing, and managing of 
 the machines, and the handling of the vastly greater volume 
 of materials and products, require doubtless more men than 
 the old methods demanded. 
 
 Besides what we have roughly called physical labor, which 
 always has to do with motions and with commodities, there 
 are the various forms of mental efforts put forth by men to 
 satisfy the desires of other men and to secure some return 
 service. These, which we may roughly also call mental 
 labor, have little connection with motions or with commodi- 
 ties, but are not on that account less useful or less valuable. 
 Professional labor, that is, the selling of personal services 
 separate from tangible things, depends on the same princi- 
 ples, gives rise to the same phenomena, and is amenable to 
 the same science, as all other selling. One man, as the 
 violin maker, offers services in which a commodity inter- 
 venes ; another, as the violinist, offers services in which no 
 commodity inteiTenes ; each has gained in his own art a 
 point of relative advantage as compared with other men, 
 and these doubtless have gained some point of relative 
 advantage as compared with them ; each, by the sale of his 
 respective service, meets some desire of the buyer, and is 
 paid on the same principle as the other. The violin-maker 
 of Cremona, who sold his instruments for five hundred francs 
 
 * Edward Atkinson's Labor and Capital, p. 28. 
 
208 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 apiece, was no more and no less a laborer, in the language 
 of our science, than Paganini, who sold an hour's playing 
 in the theatres for five thousand francs. 
 
 Laborers, then, are a very large class, and include all 
 persons, who, whether statedly or occasionally, put forth 
 personal efforts in view of a return service and for the sake 
 of it. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, is, in the language of our science, just as much a 
 laborer as the Irishman who is cutting sods in plain sight of 
 m}^ window at this moment ; and the annual salary paid to 
 the one is just as much wages as the daily pay rendered to the 
 other : the Irishman indeed is employed and paid by an indi- 
 vidual, while the judge is employed and paid by the whole 
 people of the United States, but that makes no difference 
 between them as laborers and wages-receivers. Professor 
 Walker in his elaborate and in many respects excellent 
 " Wages Question" (pp. 10, 206, et seg.) denies the coinci- 
 dence between the labor-class and the "wages-class," and 
 while he distinguishes five different classes of laborers, he 
 finds, after much painstaking inquii-y and many exclusions, 
 only one " wages-class," and that a comparatively small one. 
 The scientific advantage of his distinction between the " sal- 
 ary-class" and the "wages-class," and of his many other 
 distinctions in this connection, is not very obvious from our 
 point of view ; and we shall regard the laborers-class and 
 the wages-class as identical, inasmuch as personal services 
 or labor are always put forth for the sake of the return ser- 
 vice which is wages, although the same person is often at the 
 same time a wages-giver and a wages-receiver in respect of 
 different transactions, and although one return service or 
 gross price may include wages, profit, and price proper. If 
 a man sell a commodity as such for money, the return is its 
 price; if he sell a personal service as such, the return is his 
 wages; and if he sell the use of a credit-right or any form 
 of capital, the return is his profit; but it often happens, as 
 with a merchant selling goods over his own counter, that the 
 
LABOR. 209 
 
 price of the commodity includes present wages of the seller 
 and the current rate of profit on the capital involved. The 
 merchant is laborer and capitalist at the same moment in 
 relation to the same commodity, and receives in its price his 
 return for effort and abstinence in both capacities. Even 
 Walker's small class of wages-takers are also at times indi- 
 vidually wages-givers. The commonest da^' laborer is often 
 a wages-payer too, since he must have his doctor when sick, 
 and, if a church-goer, contribute something to his preacher 
 or priest for Ids support. There is no class of wages-takers 
 only, and no class of wages-givers only, and it seems simpler 
 and better to regard all persons as laborers so far forth as 
 they render personal services for pay, and to regard even 
 the same persons as capitalists and all others so far forth as 
 they yield the use of valuable things for further production. 
 Having seen what labor is, and who laborers are, we turn 
 now to the considerations that determine in general the value 
 of labor, which is wages. Now, it is easy to see hy a little 
 introspection and observation, that the value of labor in all 
 its various grades depends on the same great condition as 
 the value of commodities and of claims, namely, on recipro- 
 cal demand. Desires and efforts rule here as everywhere 
 else within the sphere of Exchange. The laborer in every 
 grade from the hod-carrier to the President is able to sell his 
 service, because there is somebody else who wants that par- 
 ticular service and is willing to render in return what the 
 laborer wants. The labor-giver works for a reward, and the 
 labor-receiver finds his return for that reward in the labor 
 itself. This reward is wages, whether received in money or 
 in any other valuable thing. The value of the labor is the 
 wages, and the value of the wages is the labor. It is the 
 old case over again. It is a true and free exchange. Soci- 
 ety is so constituted — it alwaj^s has been and always will 
 be — that most persons, either in their individual or in their 
 collective capacity, require the personal service of others, 
 and are able to render a satisfactory return service. 
 
210 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Now, since desires aud efforts determine the value of labor 
 just as they determine the value of every thing else, and 
 since first j^rinciples really control ever}' thing, because 
 chance effects happen now on one side and now on the 
 other, and leave the great working forces unaffected, it is 
 important to notice that laborers, in order to be sucessful 
 as such, must study the desires of the labor-takers, and 
 adapt their service to the wants of those from whom then- 
 wages are to come. This is the first and most important 
 point in the doctrine of wages. The more perfectly the 
 desires of wages-payers are met on the part of laborers, the 
 higher, so far forth, will be their wages and the more secure 
 their employment. The wise laborer is he who studies his 
 market., who adapts his effort to present and prospective 
 wants, who makes himself necessary to his employer by the 
 excellence of his service. That laborer will be the last one 
 discharged. That laborer's high wages will not be grudged 
 by the payer. It is, then, the demand for labor, that is, the 
 desires of men wliicli the personal service of other men can 
 Jill, that is first in order in a discussion of wages. These 
 desires are originally very various, and they become more 
 varied and sensitive as civilization advances ; they become 
 exacting and precise within many branches of industry ; and 
 they become scrupulous within many fields of personal grati- 
 fication. Hence, intelligence and skill and patience and moral 
 character are required in successful laborers of all grades. 
 These desires are to be met, if at all, by an intelligent adap- 
 tation to them of personal services. Political Economy, ac- 
 cordingly, calls on its toilers, not for muscular exertions 
 only, but for mental activities also, and for the moral virtues 
 as well, that the toilers may meet the wants of even the most 
 fastidious, and receive their reward. It calls for the trained 
 eye, the skilful hand, the willing and waiting effort, the com 
 prehension that sees what is needed, and the honesty that 
 keeps nothing back. Economics are far enough from being 
 materialistic : they are both human and humane. 
 
LABOR. 211 
 
 While the demand for labor is first iu order as determining 
 wages, the supply of laborers is correlative with t\iat as the 
 next most important element. The value of labor, the value 
 of commodities, and the value of claims are each controlled 
 by the grand law of Demand and Supply ; and it is now our 
 task to indicate some of the causes that affect the law of 
 demand and supply of labor, and thus indirectly affect the 
 law of wages. So far as the supply of labor is concerned, 
 the first interest of every laborer is to be able, so far as it 
 is possible, to furnish a service peculiar to himself and better 
 than anybody else can furnish. Instead of herding with 
 other laborers of the same general grade, and being content 
 with rendering a service averaging with theirs, his cue should 
 be, to be able to do something better in some respects than 
 any of them can do it. So he is sure just to meet the want 
 of some wages-payer. So as a laborer he stands on his own 
 legs, and so far forth is able to dictate his own wages, that 
 is to say, to sell something peculiar to himself to another 
 who prizes its quality. The more the laborer can put into 
 his service something that is unique in the way of excellence, 
 the more sure he is of constant and remunerative employ- 
 ment, partly because he is sure to find somebody who wants 
 such a service, and partly because he is exempted from the 
 competition of others less acceptable than himself. This 
 point has been, perhaps, more often illustrated in the higher 
 grade of professional labor, as in the case of John Sartain, 
 the engraver, Charles O'Conor, the lawyer, and Meissonier, 
 the painter ; but the opportunity of this advantage is open to 
 every laborer in every grade of effort ; and there is no other 
 thing so important to the welfare of the laboring class as that 
 each laborer shall feel that he is one by himself, that his 
 service is, and is to be, Ms own to sell, and that he is bound 
 to make it in some way different in excellence from that of 
 his competitors. For example, a courteous laborer is always 
 preferred to a rude one, a conscientious to an unprincipled 
 one, a skilful to an awkward one, a steady to a restless one, 
 
212 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 a coj.tentecl to a dissatisfied one, one interested in his worl? 
 to make it better to one who already thinks he knows it all. 
 This point bears intimate relations to the supply of laborers ; 
 and, were it attended to, as it might be, by all laborers, 
 would make their competition for employment a different 
 thing from what it is at present; it would give such an 
 individuality, such a variety, such an excellence, to personal 
 services, as would adapt them to the almost infinitely varied 
 market, and take away the curse of conglomerated competi- 
 t-ion. 
 
 A rude classification of labor may be made into common, 
 skilled, a,nd professional labor. Common labor is that which 
 can be acceptably performed by an ordinarily competent per- 
 son after a little practice and instruction, without any thing 
 corresponding to an apprenticeship as a preliminary. Farm 
 laborers, railroad laborers, 'longshoremen, teamsters, por- 
 ters, miners, and many more, belong to this class. "Wages 
 are usually the lowest and steadiest in this class, because, 
 owing to the ease mth which the class can be recruited at 
 any time from growing boys and immigrating foreigners, the 
 supply is kept constantly large relatively to the demand. 
 Skilled labor, namely, that of those who have had to pass 
 through something equivalent to an apprenticeship in order 
 to be able to offer their services, presents some points of 
 difference from common labor. In the first place, their 
 numbers are fewer, because comparatively few parents can 
 afford to give their children the time and the money needful 
 for them to learn a trade, or to become skilful in any art 
 requiring edhcation ; and, as a result of this, their wages will 
 rule higher than common wages, because the press of compe- 
 tition will be less felt among them, and because, being more 
 intelligent and consequently mobile, they can better insist 
 on their claims, and can better distribute themselves to 
 poiiits where their services are in demand. In the second 
 plaiie, they are more likely to be subject to a strong demand 
 than common laborers are, on account of the close connec- 
 
LABOR. 213 
 
 tion of their labor with special accumulations of capital. 
 Professional labor is the highest form of personal services 
 rendered for pay, because it involves the most of time and 
 expense in the way of preparation, because it is most often 
 connected with high natural abilities and genius, and because 
 for these reasons it receives the highest remuneration, oi 
 wages. 
 
 It is not pretended that sharp lines can be drawn between 
 these three kinds of labor, nor indeed is it needful in any 
 discussion of wages. We mean by professional labor the 
 services of those who have received a technical education, 
 — something more than an apprenticeship, — expressly to fit 
 them to render these services, and who have the requisite 
 character, talents, and genius to enable them to succeed. 
 Clergymen, physicians, lawyers, literary men, artists, actors, 
 and many more, render professional services loosely so called. 
 The obstacles at the entrance to this path occasioned by the 
 lack (1) of appropriate natural gifts, or (2) of the requi- 
 site industry and character, or (3) of the means of a suitable 
 education and training, practically exclude so many persons, 
 that the competition in the higher walks of professional life 
 is not such as to prevent a large remuneration for ser\dces 
 rendered. The demand for these is often peculiarly intense, 
 as well as the supply peculiarly limited. When great interests 
 of property, of reputation, or of life are at stake, it is felt 
 that the best men to secure these must be had at almost any 
 price. Fees and rewards for services of great delicacy, of 
 great difficulty, or great danger, are paid by individuals and 
 corporations and nations without grudging. Comparatively 
 few men reach a high point of excellence in their respective 
 professions, and they have in consequence a natural monopol}' 
 in these fields of effort, and receive for their labor a very 
 high rate of wages. 
 
 For example, Daniel Webster could demand a fee of $1,000 
 for making a single plea in court, Paganini a like sum for an 
 hour's playing on a violin, and Jenny Lind at least as much 
 
214 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 for an evening's singing in a concert, because there was in 
 each case a strong demand for a peculiar service and only 
 one person in the world who could render that service in the 
 eircumstances to the same perfection. The demand was 
 strong, the supply was small, and the value consequently 
 great. The higiiest efforts of professional skill will always 
 receive a high reward, whenever there is one person even, 
 who, together with a strong desire for the product, has also 
 the power to give a service in return ; and especially when- 
 ever there are many persons who have a similar desire and 
 power, to whom, as in the case of Paganini and Jenny Lind, 
 the service can be rendered in common without lessening the 
 satisfaction of each individual. That the supply is small in 
 these higher regions of skilled effort, is due partly to the 
 fact, that Nature is not lavish in her gifts of peculiar talents, 
 and partly to the fact, that those who have I'eceived have 
 assiduously cultivated them, and have reached in consequence 
 a high point of relative advantage. These persons have what 
 may be called a natural monopoly in their respective fields of 
 high effort, because there are few others who have the natural 
 gifts and the acquired skill which enable them to come in 
 competition with them. But the objections which lie with 
 such force against artificial monopolies, cannot be urged at 
 all against a natural monopoly ; for, if the road to excellence 
 be open to all, an-d no artificial obstructions thrown in the 
 paths of any, there is no blame but rather praise for him 
 who distances all competitors, and demands for services of 
 peculiar excellence a large remuneration. Exchange rejoices 
 in all diversity of advantage that is the birth of freedom, 
 but reprobates with all her force advantage that is gained 
 by artificial restrictions, because artificial restrictions always 
 infringe on somebody's right to render services for a return ; 
 and the right to render services for a return is the fundamental 
 conception in the right of Property. 
 
 Within this great law of Demand and Supply, now sketched 
 in outline as applied to the value of labor, that is, to wages, 
 
LABOB. 215 
 
 there are a number of minor principles, which go to varj' the 
 wages of all these three kinds of labor, mainly through their 
 action on Supply. We will now consider these, before pass- 
 ing to the discussion of what constitutes much of the Demand 
 for labor, which is a topic closely connected with Capital, 
 the subject of the next chapter. Several of these principles 
 were mentioned by Adam Smith, and in connection with them 
 we shall present others of no less importance. 
 
 1. The agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employ- 
 ments will have an influence in determining the rate of wages 
 paid to those who engage in them. The more agreeable em- 
 ployment will attract the larger number, and will experience 
 in consequence the press of competition, and the rate of 
 wages will be lessened by the increased supply of laborers. 
 The more disagreeable employment will feel less the press- 
 ure of numbers, and will secure, other things being equal, 
 a higher rate of remuneration in consequence. Among the 
 elements which, in spite of the diversity of natural tastes, 
 make any employment agreeable or disagreeable to the 
 laborers, are (1) the less or greater exertion of physical 
 strength required, (2) the healthfulness or unhealthfulness 
 of the labor, (3) its cleanliness or dirtiness, (4) the degree 
 of liberty or confinement in it, (5) the safety or hazard of 
 the employment, (6) the esteem or disrepute of it in public 
 opinion. To illustrate each of these in order, the stone- 
 mason, the glass-blower, the scavenger, the factory opera- 
 tive, the worker in a powder-mill, the smuggler, will each 
 receive a larger compensation owing to the peculiar element 
 of disagreeableness involved in his employment ; and he will 
 be able to demand and secure it through the action of the 
 disagreeableness upon the supply of such laborers. Of all 
 these elements, public opinion is perhaps the most opera- 
 tive ; and if this be favorable to an employment, and some 
 social consideration be attached to it, and only common 
 qualifications be required for it, the wages in it will infalli- 
 bly be low. This is probably the main reason why so many 
 
216 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 young women prefer to teach, rather than be employed in 
 mills, shops, or offices, and why the wages of female teach- 
 ers are so pitifully low ; although each of the elements of 
 agreeableness specified above may also contribute something 
 towards the same result. If a business be decidedly op- 
 posed to public opinion, it must hold out the inducement of 
 a large reward, or nobody will engage in it. This explains 
 the abnormal gains of the slave-trade, the liquor-business, 
 of gambling-houses, and of lotteries. 
 
 2. The easiiiess and cheapness., or the difficulty and ex- 
 pense, of learning different employments, will have an influ- 
 ence on the rate of wages paid in them. The more quickly 
 and cheaply one can learn to perform the duties of a place 
 satisfactorily, the less, so far forth, will be his wages ; be- 
 cause there will be many who will compete with him in ren- 
 dering such services ; the more time, difficulty, and expense 
 involved in learning a business, the larger, so far forth, wUl 
 be the wages secured b}^ it ; because fewer persons have the 
 means, the foresight, the patience, to prepare themselves 
 for such a vocation. This is the principal ground of the 
 difference in the wages of skilled and unskilled labor. The 
 artisan has, at least, given time, and the professional man 
 has given both time and money, to fit themselves to render 
 the services which they now offer to society ; and it is right, 
 therefore, for them to demand a higher rate of compensation 
 than is accorded to operatives and common laborers. But a 
 right to demand does not always carry along with it an abil- 
 ity to secure : in this case it does, through the reduction of 
 numbers which these obstacles at the entrance occasion, and 
 the consequent weakness of competition. To put a boy 
 apprentice to a trade, requires on the part of the parents 
 a foresight, an abilit}^ to get on without his immediate help, 
 and sometimes an amount of money for his board and 
 clothes, which all parents do not possess ; and consequently, 
 the number of skilled artisans, who must learn when they 
 are yonng if at all, are relatively few compared with common 
 
LABOR. 217 
 
 laborers, and are able to realize a much higher rate of wages 
 than they. In the professions, if we confine our attention 
 to those persons who are thoroughly trained for them, we shall 
 find a higher rate of compensation still, and one made higher 
 on the same principles ; although we must here bear in mind 
 the counter- working influences which tend to increase the com- 
 petition in the professions, namely, the respectability whicli 
 attends them, the desire of knowledge for its own sake which 
 is gained in connection with them, the instruction wholly or 
 in part gratuitous^.y offered to those in course of preparation 
 for them, and the desire to do good, without regard to pecuni- 
 ary reward, which actuates many who enter upon them. 
 
 3. The constancy or inconstancy of employment is a con- 
 sideration that affects wages. If the employment be such 
 that it can only be carried on during nine months of the 
 year, the wages of the day or month will be greater than 
 they would be if it could be caiTied on during the twelve 
 months. The laborer looks to the aggregate earnings of the 
 year, and will hardl}^ take up a trade which affords employ- 
 ment but a part of the time, unless some compensation can 
 be found in the higher wages for that time. This is the 
 chief reason why the day's wages of the mason and the 
 house-painter, in this climate at least, are higher than those 
 of the carpenter or smith. The coachman, also, may stand 
 by his horses half the day or night, with no call for liis ser- 
 vices, and must have, therefore, a proportionably higher fare 
 from those whom he does transport. In general, it is foimd 
 that men prefer a constant employment with a lower rate 
 of wages, than an inconstant one, with a prospect of higher 
 pay for the particular jobs actually done, and because they 
 prefer that, those who take up with the other are able tu 
 secure a higher rate of pay in their less eligible vocation. 
 Counter working this, however, are the desu'es which many 
 mtLi have, for intervals of leisure in their business ; and the 
 opportunity to make these intervals subservient to anothei 
 branch of business or means of livelihood. 
 
218 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 4. The amount of trust involved affects wages. Men in 
 responsible positions secure a higher rate of pay for their 
 services than can be accounted for, except by a reference 
 to the unwillingness of people to intrust great interests to 
 others, unless they are men of established character for 
 probity. Such men, men who combine all the other requi- 
 sites for an important post, with a well-known honesty, are 
 comparatively rare ; and, when they are found, will receive 
 a very high compensation for their services. Treasurers of 
 corporations, cashiers of banks, and holders of trust-funds 
 generally, are examples in point. Such men are commonly 
 obliged also to find responsible bondsmen, who will legally 
 guarantee the correctness of their proceedings ; and only 
 men of well-tried character can usually procure such pecu- 
 niary guaranties. Shall we say, then, that men offer their 
 honesty in the market, as they offer their skill, and are paid 
 for the one as for the other ? No ! Their skill has been 
 acquired to sell, and for no other reason ; but their honesty, 
 if it be genuine, has another basis altogether ; and he who 
 is honest, simply because honesty is the best policy, is not 
 honest at all. The very characteristic of honesty is that it 
 cannot be bought! It has a moral, and not a mercantile 
 foundation. In point of fact, a man who has the full con- 
 fidence of his fellow-citizens, as an honest man, and at the 
 same time all the other qualifications requisite for a post of 
 high pecuniary trust, is in position, partly on the ground 
 of his honesty, to render a high service, and will receive 
 for that service a high reward ; but let us all protest, in the 
 name of morals, against the notion that honesty is a mar- 
 ketable article : it is rather an underlying element of moral 
 character, which fits men indeed to render certain ser- 
 vices, but the honesty is maintained, not for the sake of 
 the service, but has an independent basis of its own. So, 
 also, most people would prefer a deeply religious man for a 
 preacher and spiritual guide, but it is a perversion of lan- 
 guage to maintain that in rendering these services a clergy- 
 
LABOR. 219 
 
 man sells his religion. It is true that he sells services to 
 the appropriate rendering of which his personal piety con- 
 tributes one element ; but the piety is not nourished for the 
 sake of the services, but for its own sake, and it must not 
 be confounded with that which is sold. Accordingly, while 
 the clergyman's vocation is sacred, and belongs to the sphere 
 of religion, his salary belongs to the sphere of exchange, 
 and its determination is wholly a business transaction. This 
 distinction ought to be better understood than it is ; and 
 both clergymen and people need to be reminded that the 
 spiritual things belong to one sphere, and the carnal things 
 to another. The amount of a clergj^man's salary, and the 
 time and mode of its payment, are matters of pure business ; 
 and the clerg3Tnan himself is to blame if he does not attend 
 to them, and insist on them, on business principles. 
 
 5. The probability of success in any employment is a cir- 
 cumstance that has some influence on the rate of wages paid 
 in it, through the action of this probability on the numbers 
 of those who enter upon it. If success be doubtful, fewer 
 will engage in such a business, and those who do engage 
 in it and succeed, will reap a very high reward. Ten boys, 
 for example, put to the blacksmith's trade, ordinary capa- 
 city being presupposed, will probably every one succeed in 
 becoming a tolerable workman ; but of ten boys of the same 
 capacity put apprentice to an engraver, probably not over 
 three would ever reach any high degree of skill and success ; 
 and therefore, the pressiu-e of numbers will be felt much 
 more in the former than the latter art. So also, those who 
 take jobs by contract, and who consequently assume some 
 risks, are usually paid at a higher rate than those who do work 
 by the day. It is true that this is owing partly to the fact 
 that the contractor commonly uses his own capital, and must 
 therefore be paid profits as well as wages, and also that the 
 wages of superintendence are due to him as well as ordinary 
 w?ges ; still there is a residuum of difference which can only 
 be accounted for by the risk he runs of a successful issue. 
 
220 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 The difference in wages from this fifth cause of variation, 
 would be greater than it is, were it not for the overweening 
 confidence ^s^hich many men have in their own good luck. 
 This confidence is seen in the rush which is always made for 
 newly discovered mining regions, and in the facility with 
 which even yet lottery tickets are sold. It is demonstrable 
 beforehand on the doctrine of chances, that no person can 
 rationally buy any lottery ticket at its advertised price, 
 because if that person should buy them all he would cer- 
 tainly lose money, since the sum of the prizes is always less 
 than the sum of the prices ; and yet people still buy lottery 
 tickets in spite of the demonstration ; and the bitter expe 
 rience of the most in California and at Pike's Peak, at Lead- 
 ville and Deadwood, taught too late how excessive was the 
 confidence in their own success of the masses who flocked 
 to those new El Dorados. Besides this excessive confidence 
 in individual minds, there comes occasionally a general 
 movement in whole communities towards overconfidence in 
 commercial enterprises of all sorts, and this is always fol- 
 lowed by a season of depression called a commercial crisis, 
 which can only be thoroughly understood after we have 
 studied Money and Credit. 
 
 6. Custom, prejudice, and fashion, have something to do 
 with deciding the rate of wages in certain departments of 
 labor. In former times and in the older countries custom 
 was largely appealed to as helping to determine, for exam- 
 ple, the current fees of lawyers and doctors, competition 
 coming in to decide how many such fees a man should get, 
 rather than the amount of each particular fee ; also, the 
 shares of the produce going respectively to the agricultural 
 tenant and to the landowner ; but competition, so far as 
 rates of wages are concerned, seems now to be breaking 
 down custom or usage in all directions, and will soon per- 
 haps reign supreme over the economic field ; while, in cer- 
 tain other matters relating to land and trade, custom seems 
 to be hardening into law, as, for instance, the famous Ulster 
 
LAB OB. 221 
 
 Right. Prejudice is closely allied to custom, and las some 
 voice still in adjusting wages, as ma}' be seen in women's 
 wages crowded down to a point unreasonably low as com- 
 pared with the wages of men, and also in the rate of John 
 Chinaman's wages in those parts of the United States where 
 he ventures to offer his services in the teeth of public opin- 
 ion. Custom and prejudice may yield the field, but fashion, 
 which is one form of competition, will always have an influ- 
 ence over wages. They who lead the styles in any depart- 
 ment whatsoever, will always offer their services to society 
 at an advantage to themselves, and their rate of compensa- 
 tion will be legitimately higher than the average rate of theii 
 fellows, of which a good instance was the marked worldly 
 prosperity about 1880 of Worth, the man-milliner of Paris. 
 7. Legal restrictions and voluntary associations are another 
 cause acting on wages, by acting on the supply of laborers. 
 Laws inhibiting or promoting immigration, laws appointing 
 the fees and salaries of officials, tariff laws, whether pro- 
 hibitory or only restrictive, unequal taxation, and so on, 
 all have an agency in adjusting wages. G-overnments are 
 coming, however, much more freety than formerly, to leave 
 every thing except the wages of their own servants, and 
 those things which they choose to tax, to the simple and 
 safe action of supply and demand. The guilds of the Mid- 
 dle Ages, and the trades' unions of our own day, are exam- 
 ples of voluntary associations for the sake of regulating the 
 wages of the members by combined action. The restrictions 
 in the old guilds, limiting the number of apprentices to each 
 artisan, determining the time a man should serve before he 
 could become a master, and so on, were very onerous, and 
 have mostly passed away. The trades' unions of the pres- 
 ent day cannot be commended, because they tend to destroy 
 the freedom of personal action, and bring all workmen to 
 one level of wages. The spirit of Political Econom}^ which 
 is the spirit of freedom, is against such associations for such 
 purposes. If an^^ man has a sei-vice to render, let him 
 
222 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 offer it freely, and make the best terms he can with whoever 
 wants it. 
 
 8. The mobility of laborers, or the lack of it, acts on 
 wages by affecting the supply of laborers at an}^ place. In 
 some countries, notably in the United States, laborers move 
 from place to place with considerable facility under the action 
 of demand for labor. According to the United States Census 
 of 1870, 7,500,000 of the native population dwelt in other 
 States than those in which they were born. Many of these, 
 doubtless, had left their native region to obtain more fertile 
 land, and many also to obtain more remunerative employment. 
 The native American, more than most other persons, is not 
 only willing to move from place to place in the hope of better- 
 ing his condition, but is also willing to change his occupation 
 from time to time in the same hope. There is more freedom 
 of movement locally, and less fixedness of occupation on 
 the part of laborers and others, in this country than in any 
 other industrial country. Even foreign immigrants here, — 
 factory operatives, miners, and other laborers, — seem to 
 catch after a while the spirit of the countr}' in both these 
 respects. There is one great advantage in all this, namely, 
 competition becomes more uniform in all places, an unusual 
 demand for labor at any point is easily met, and wages 
 neither rise so high nor fall so low at special points as they 
 otherwise would. But there is a disadvantage also, namely, 
 the service of laborers floating locally or changing the kind 
 of their labor can never be so excellent as service more 
 steady in place and time. In Europe, on the other hand, 
 laborers a,v€ far less mobile than with us ; and in Asia still 
 less so. There is said to be no country in Europe in whicii 
 the proportion of foreigners to the native population exceeds 
 three per cent^im. In England, which is a small countr}', 
 the difference in wages between the northern and southern 
 counties is very marked. Professor Fawcett is authority 
 for the statement,-' that an ordinar}?^ agricultural laborer 
 
 1 Political Economy, p. 167. 
 
LABOR. 223 
 
 ID Yorkshire, during the winter months, earns thirteen shil- 
 lings a weel^, while a Wiltshire or Dorsetshire laborer, doing 
 the same kind of work dming the same number of hours, 
 earns but nine shillings. The contrast between the wages 
 of English agricultural laborers in general, and the wages of 
 those employed in mills, mines, and furnaces, is still more 
 striking. Competition is by no means perfect in distributing 
 commodities so as to make their price uniform in the same 
 country, or even in the same count}^ ; but the immobility of 
 labor, for an obvious reason, is greater than the immobility 
 of goods. While labor should be free to go wherever it may 
 be in demand, the natural reluctance of most men to leave 
 their native haunts, enables each nation to work out its 
 chosen ends without wholesale interference from abroad. 
 If China should precipitate itself upon the United States, or 
 India upon England, as the mere econoviical impulse might 
 indicate, it would be disastrous to the western nations ; but 
 Providence holds one impulse in check by a stronger one, 
 and Political Economy deals with men as the}'^ a?'e, and with 
 exchanges as they actually take place^ all things being con- 
 sidered, and not as they would be were competition in all 
 directions abstractly perfect. 
 
 9. Lastly, we must note the influence of casual events 
 upon wages, as these events affect the supply of laborers. 
 For example, in 1348, a terrible plague, called the Black 
 Death, invaded England, and swept away more than one-half 
 of its population. "■ Even when the first burst of panic was 
 over, the sudden rise of wages consequent on the enormous 
 diminution in the supply of free labor, though accompanied 
 by a corresponding rise in the price of food, rudely disturbed 
 the course of industrial employments ; harvests rotted on 
 the ground, and fields were left unfilled, not merely from 
 scarcity of hands, but from the strife which now for the first 
 time revealed itself between Capital and Labor." ^ The 
 landowners of the country districts and the craftsmen of the 
 
 1 Greeu's Short History of tbe English People, p. 769. 
 
224 • POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 towns, not understanding the law of wages, were scandal- 
 ized by what seemed to them the extravagant demands of 
 the new labor-class. Parliament, as if there were no natural 
 law regulating such things, enacted as follows: "Every 
 man or woman of whatsoever condition, free or bond, able 
 in body, and within the age of threescore years, and not 
 leaving of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own 
 about the tillage of which he may occupy himself, and not 
 serving any other, shall he hound to serve the employer who 
 shall require him to do so, and shall take only the toages 
 which loere accustomed to be taken in the neighborhood where 
 he is bound to serve two j'ears before the plague began." 
 The next year, the price of labor was sought to be fixed by 
 act of Parliament, and the labor-class, already' partly eman- 
 cipated, was once more tied to the soil. Afterwards, the 
 runaway laborer was ordered to be branded on the forehead 
 with a hot iron, and the harboring of country serfs in the 
 towns was rigorously forbidden. All these acts of Parlia- 
 ment, and many more of the same kind, Avere powerless to 
 keep down wages to the old standard, but were powerful to 
 keep up ill-blood and social discontent. They prepared the 
 way for agitators like John Ball, for the poet-agitator William 
 Longlaud, and for the Peasant Revolt of 1381. John Ball's 
 famous rhyme condensed the scorn for the nobles, the long- 
 ing for just rule, and the resentment at oppression, of the 
 peasants of that time, and of all times : — 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 , Who was then the gentleman ?" 
 
 The first great poet of the Poor, Robert Longland, in his 
 Vision of Piers Plonghraan, saw clearly enough that as 
 population rose again to its normal height the high wages of 
 the post-plague period would pass away: — "I warn you, 
 workmen, win while ye may, for Hunger hitherward hasteth 
 him fast." Still, a hundred years after the Black Death 
 the wages of an English laborer "commanded twice the 
 
LABOR. 225 
 
 amount of the necessaries of life which could have been 
 obtained for the wages paid under Edward the Third." 
 Another instance of a similar kind was seen during the late 
 civil war in the United States, when the large enlistment 
 into the northern army, of farm-laborers and factory-oper- 
 atives, brought about such a sharp increase of wages on 
 farms and in the mills, that at last the mill-owners, in this 
 vicinity at least, closed their doors against the recruiting 
 officers, partly because of the rise of wages consequent ou 
 the enlistments, and partly because their manufacturing was 
 then too profitable to be endangered by a prospective lack of 
 hands. So it is. " Scarce is ever costly." 
 
 Now, then, on the other hand, we must pass to discuss the 
 facts and principles connected with the demand for labor. 
 As we have seen, Demand is not mere Desire, but desire 
 coupled with the ability to render return services. The de- 
 mand for labor, therefore, cannot be unlimited. The power 
 to render and receive services in exchange, though vast, is, 
 considered in reference to one generation of men, strictly 
 limited, because the physical and mental powers of men, 
 to say nothing of the powers of the physical earth, are lim- 
 ited. There may be an increase, but there must be a limit. 
 The demand for labor, too, is limited by the demand on 
 the part of the same persons for commodities and claims. 
 These latter must be paid for, and that leaves so much less 
 to pay for labor. Wages, therefore, cannot rise indefinitely 
 for another reason than the probable Increase of the supply 
 of laborers. All labor is offered over against some demand 
 of other men, and wages are the response to that appeal. 
 Accordingl}^, it is easy to point out what is the maximum 
 of all wages possible to be paid at any one time : it is the 
 point at which the labor-takers will sooner forego some of 
 the labor received than give any more for it. It is easy also 
 to point out what is the minimum of aggregate wages at 
 any one time : it is the point at which the labor-givers will 
 soDuer forego some wages altogether than take any less wages. 
 
226 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Between these two extremes marked out by the intensity of 
 the demand on both sides, the cmTent rate of wages in each 
 of the greatly varying departments of effort, and the aggre- 
 gate amount of wages in all departments of effort, will fluc- 
 tuate back and forth according to circumstances. 
 
 Persons who put forth a demand for labor., in distinction 
 from a demand for commodities and claims, may be divided 
 into two classes : first, those whose demand for labor has 
 the end of immediate gratification, such as employers of do- 
 mestic servants, physicians, lawyers, actors, singers, and so 
 on ; and second, those who employ labor for the sake of sell- 
 ing something by its means, for an ultimate profit, such as 
 manufacturers, merchants, railroad men, and so on. The 
 question with individuals of the first class is, Can I afford 
 to employ this labor? that is. Have I at hand the return 
 services to pay these wages in, and will the gratification 
 justify the payment? The question with the other class is. 
 Will the direct products of this labor, or something made 
 ready to sell and sold by means of it, repay the present 
 expenditure with a profit besides? As a general rule, the 
 second class of employers puts forth the steadier demand 
 for labor, employs skilled rather than common or profes- 
 sional laborers, looks sharply after the eflSciency of its labor- 
 ers, acts with reference to prospective rather than present 
 markets, expects back more than is now expended, and only 
 proceeds on accumulations of capital soon to be treated of. 
 
 In respect to the first class of employers, — remembering 
 what has already been said about professional labor, — the 
 following is- all that needs to be added so far as demand 
 and consequent wages are concerned. There are a great 
 many persons in all countries who desire such services as 
 common laborers can render, and are able to pay for them 
 at a moderate rate only, since their deshes are not intense 
 nor their means very ample. There are everj^where common 
 desires for personal comforts and for ordinary gains in con- 
 nection with a small capital, just as there are often intense 
 
LABOR. 227 
 
 desires for personal distinction and for extraordinary gains 
 in connection with a large capital. Common laborers, being 
 numerous for the reason already given, compete with each 
 other to secure the wages thus offered by those who desire 
 their sei'vices. In many cases, these services could be and 
 would be dispensed with, if a high rate of wages was de- 
 manded. Under these circumstances, a general market-rate 
 of wages for common labor is determined, — an equalization 
 of demand and supply is had, — and the rate is always 
 moderate, because the service of the labor-givers has few 
 elements of scarcity or difficulty about it, and because the 
 return service of the labor-takers is not proffered under the 
 impulse of unusually strong desires. Of course, a market- 
 rate thus established is liable to change from time to time, 
 being higher in flush times and lower in dull times, and the 
 better individual laborers will get and ought to get the better 
 wages. The number of laborers is, of course, an element, 
 the general prosperity and hopefulness of employers is another 
 element, and the amount and productiveness of capital is 
 still another element, but this has more immediately to do 
 with wages under the second class of employers. 
 
 Before passing to those, it ought to be said, that there is 
 no unit of labor, and consequently no unit of wages. There 
 can be no strict measure of physical and mental exertion ; 
 and even if there could be, that would not furnish a unit of 
 wages, because wages are a resultant of exertion on the one 
 side and of desires on the other ; and there can be no stri(;t 
 measure of desires. Hence, in a doctrine of wages, only 
 general principles can be laid down. For instance, t ia 
 said, an agricultural laborer in England could earn, six hun- 
 dred years ago, but thu-ty-four grains of standard silver in a 
 day, while now he can earn three hundred and fifty grains. 
 Accepting this as true on an average of laborers at the two 
 epochs, — what follows? That the laborer now puts forth 
 ten times the exertion of his predecessor ? No ! That the 
 demand for the labor is ten times greater now than then ? 
 
228 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 No ! Eveu a grain of standard silver, though physically the 
 same now as then, is by no means the same in point of 
 value. Silver has become relativel}^ more abundant in the 
 course of these centuries, and hence is cheaper as measured 
 by commodities in general or by labor in general. Labor 
 itself has become more efficient, and is aided by better tools 
 and a more advanced science. Besides, a clay's labor ia 
 no sound measure of comparison as between different times 
 or different countries at the same time. How long are the 
 respective days? How eflicient, how well trained, are the re- 
 spective laborers ? How much armed with labor-saving ap- 
 pliances? Nothing is more indefiuite than the phrase, "a 
 day's labor;" and no fallacies are more patent, or more, 
 common, than those which turn on "days' works" and 
 " da3's' wages " in different countries. Professor "Walker in 
 his "Wages-Question" gathers from the best authorities 
 such statements as these : ' ' The statistics of the Iron indus- 
 try in France show that on the average 42 men are em- 
 ployed to do the same work in smelting pig iron as is 
 done by 25 men on the Tees." "On the G. T. R. of 
 Canada the French-Canadian laboi-ers received 3s. 6d. a daj^, 
 while the Englishmen received from 5s. to Qs. a day, but 
 it was found that the English did the greatest amount of 
 work for the money." " In India, although the cost of dail}' 
 labor ranges from A^d. to Gd. a day, mile for mile tJie cost 
 of railway work is about the same as in England.'" " In the 
 quarry at Bonnieires, in which Frenchmen, Irishmen, and 
 Englishmen were employed side by side, the Frenchman re- 
 ceived 3, the Irishman 4, and the Englishman 6, francs a 
 day ; and at those different rates the Englishman was found 
 to be the most advantageous workman of the three." Even 
 in different sections of the same country a marked differ- 
 ence of productive power is forced on the attention of the 
 observer ; as, for example, between the artisans of north- 
 ern and southern France, and the laborers of the ncirthern 
 and the southern United States. "The ill-paid and ill-fed 
 
LABOR. 229 
 
 agricultural laborer of the west of England is dearer at 9s. 
 or 10s. a week than the Nottinghamshire man at IGs," 
 
 But the second class of emploj^ers operate in connection 
 with capital; and we must now anticipate the discussions of 
 the next chapter, so far as to saj^, that all capital constitutes 
 an immediate and pressing demand for labor. Whoever 
 desires a service which a laborer can render, and lays by 
 something to pay for that service, creates that instant a de- 
 maud for labor ; and especially, whoever accumulates raw 
 materials which laborers are to work up, builds, buys, or 
 keeps machinery which laborers are to tend, or puts himself 
 in position to suffer loss by the ownership of lands, ships, 
 or other property whatsoever, unless laborers be employed to 
 make them productive, creates thereby an instant demand 
 for labor. All such accumulations -vv^hatsoever, destined in 
 the owner's mind to be emplo37ed in further production, all 
 implements, buildings, and improvements, designed to assist 
 labor, and raw materials which labor must work up, are 
 capital ; and capital must be constantly united with labor, 
 or the owners will suffer an inevitable loss. The presence 
 of capital anywhere constitutes a demand for labor. The 
 more capital there is anywhere, the stronger the demand for 
 labor ; and capital, therefore, is the poor man's best friend. 
 Capital does not like to lose its profit any more than the 
 laborer likes to lose his bread. In a true and general view, 
 the one is under just as much pressure to employ laborers, 
 as the other to get employment. They come together of 
 necessity into a relation of mutual dependence, which God 
 has ordained, and which, though man may temporarily dis 
 turb it, he can never overthrow. 
 
 Now let us notice first that the aggregate of all his forms 
 of capital helps to make up in the mind of the capitalist his 
 motive for employing labor, because the more he has invested 
 in buildings, machinery, and materials, the more urgent is the 
 necessity to employ laborers, in order to make the investment 
 productiA^e ; although only a small part of tlie whole capita? 
 
230 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 can be free to be offered in the payment of wages. Demand 
 for labor, speaking strictly, is constituted only by that part 
 of the capital (whether now in existence, or soon to be 
 created) which is available to be offered in the form of 
 wages ; but it is clear, that, as a rule, demand^ that is, the 
 portion of capital designed in the mind of the capitalist foi 
 the payment of wages, may increase under the influence of 
 his increased desire for laborers ; and an increased desire for 
 laborers is a necessary consequence of the increase in the 
 aggregate of his capital. Whether the portion designed for 
 wages will increase or not, on an increase of capital, will 
 depend mainly on the action of the laborers. It is certainly 
 possible that aggregate capital may go on increasing, while 
 the portion set aside in the mind of the employer for wages 
 may remain stationary, or even be diminished, owing to the 
 competition of an increased number of laborers and the 
 smaller pay going to each. If the laborers remain about 
 the same in number and efficiency, and if they intelligently 
 take hold of their position, the size of this mental wages- 
 portion, and consequently the amount of actual wages, will 
 surely increase with all increase of aggregate capital. There 
 is no known proportion between aggregate capital and the 
 wages-portion as now defined, and from the variable nature 
 of the second element, there never can be, although this 
 subtle connection between the two things is certain and 
 important, — important because actual wages paid are always 
 tending towards their limit in the wages-portion. This point 
 of the influence of the whole capital on the desire for labor- 
 ers, and cons'equently (though indirectly) on actual wag(!£ 
 paid, was new when presented in the earlier editions of this 
 book, and seems one of much importance in unfolding the 
 relations of capital to labor. 
 
 On the other hand, the proportion between actual wages 
 paid and the value of ih.Q finished products is ascertainable. 
 The United States Census of 1870 declared this proportion 
 in the entire manufacturing industries of the country to be 
 
LABOB. 231 
 
 19 : 100, that is to say, wages were 19 % of the value of 
 the goods. lu the cotton and woollen industries, taken 
 alone, wages were about 16 % of the value of the goods as 
 sold. The census of 1880 puts the wages paid in the an- 
 thracite coal industry of that year as 53 % of the value 
 of the coal. This includes wages of superintendence ; and 
 iliere is probably no industry in which wages bear so large a 
 ratio to value of product as mining, since matei'ials and 
 machinery play so small part in that industry. These were 
 16 % of the value of the coal in that year, and 31 % of 
 that value was gross profits. It is probably safe to say, 
 that, taking all branches of industry in this country together, 
 one-fifth of the value of all commodities sold, that is, 20 %, 
 has been paid out as wages to the laborers concerned in 
 then- production. The products of manufacturing industry 
 alone were worth in 1870, $4,232,325,442, of which 19 %, or 
 1804,141,833, represented wages. What we have loosely 
 called skilled laborers, accordingly, have a hold on their em- 
 ployers somewhat more firm than common and professional 
 laborers have on then' employers. Capital is conservative. 
 Capital is anxious to increase itself. Capital knows its de- 
 pendence upon its laborers. But it is a great mistake for 
 laborers to suj)pose that there is no limit to wages, that the}' 
 can crowd their employers indefinitely. The motive of these 
 employers is profits; and when profits disappear, this demand 
 for labor disappears also, except under certain transitory con- 
 ditions, when, rather than lose their customers and get out of 
 the channels of trade, employers will go on for a little at a 
 loss to themselves. But this loss is ultimately a greater loss 
 to the laborers for reasons to be unfolded in the next chapter. 
 And it is a still greater mistake for laborers to suppose that 
 their own industrial qualities are a matter of indifference so 
 far as wages are concerned. Wages are paid out of the 
 joint products of the employers' capital and the laborers' 
 industry ; and when that industry is the best in quality and 
 the steadiest in quantit}^, the product will be the greatest, 
 
232 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and the part going to wages larger than ever. It is a pity 
 that there is so much misunderstanding and ill-feeling be- 
 tween employers and skilled laborers whose interests are at 
 bottom one, and whose relations ought to be so cordial. 
 Most of the so-called labor-troubles have been between these 
 two classes, owing in part to ignorance of economical truth 
 on the part of both, owing sometimes to pride and petu- 
 lance on the part of employers, and oftener owing to unrea- 
 souing jealousy and aggregated action on the part of labor- 
 ers. So it has always been. Labor-troubles are almost as 
 old as civilization. The poet Euripides, in his play of the 
 " Supplicants," both indicates facts as thej' were then, and 
 points out a hope in which we may share, that these middle 
 classes by a better harmony with each other may yet ' ' save 
 the State : " — 
 
 " In each State 
 Are marked three classes: of the public good 
 The rich are listless, all their thoughts to more 
 Aspiring; they that struggle with their wants, 
 Short of the means of life, are clamorous, rude, 
 To envy much addicted, 'gainst the rich 
 Aiming their bitter shafts, and led away 
 By the false glosses of their wily leaders. 
 'Twixt these extremes there are who save the State, 
 Guardians of order, and their country's laws." 
 
 Now, this aggregate Demand for labor in any country needs 
 a name. It is something offered or promised to laborers. 
 It is either in hand or expected to be in hand. The motive 
 for offering it is, on the part of the non-capitalists, or em- 
 ployers of the' first class, present gratijication of some sort ; 
 on the part of the capitalists, or employers of the second 
 class, idtimate profit; that which both these classes to- 
 gether are willing to pay rather than forego the varied ser- 
 vices of laborers, or what we have called as related to the 
 laborers maximum ofivages, requires now a name as related 
 to the employers ; for, although its seat is only in the minds 
 of men, it is certainly a substantive thing, and tends am 
 
LABOE. 233 
 
 stantly to coincide with an objective and practical thing, 
 namely, actual wages paid out. Until a better name offers, 
 let us call this mental limit and amount the Wages-Portion. 
 The aggregate of wages actually disbursed in any country 
 may fall below this ideal sum, but can never overpass it. If 
 the laborers are efficient and intelligent, and use their privi- 
 leges as individual parties to a bargain, the whole amount 
 of values distributed as wages will closely approximate the 
 Wages-portion. The larger the wages-portion, the larger the 
 sum of actual wages will be. This sum will be distribut(id 
 among all laborers at greatly varying rates, according to 
 the nature of the services rendered, and according to the 
 intensity of the reciprocal desires of the two parties to 
 the sale. Demand and Suppl}^, in their action and re-action 
 on each other, furnish the universal law of Wages, as of 
 'every thing else bought and sold. If we look first at the 
 Emploj^ers, it is in the interest of good wages, that, (a) they 
 he many, (6) they have much capital, (c) this capital he very 
 productive, {cl) more capital he constantly added, and (e) 
 thus and every luay the wages-portion hecome greater; and if 
 we look second to the Laborers, it is in the interest of wages, 
 that, (a) their industricd capacity he high, (h) their intelli- 
 gence and mobility crowd actual wages to the wages-portion, 
 and (c) their number at any one point able to render just the 
 same service he few. These are the true principles of Wages. 
 A working man once put it well and short, who said: "J 
 Tcnow when two bosses ewe running after one man, wages are 
 high; when, there are tivo men running after the one boss, 
 wages are loio." 
 
 We may see now what we are to think of some remedies 
 [:opularly recommended for low wages. A brief discussion 
 of what is false will give us a stronger hold of what is true. 
 
 1. Some people say, "Government ought to interfere to 
 better wages, at least to designate a minimum below which 
 they sliall not go." This proposed remedy is a delusion, 
 and so is every other one that ignores the general law of 
 
234 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 wages just established. Goverameut is nothing iu the world 
 but a committee of the citizens of a country chosen to attend 
 to certain great interests of the whole body which cannot 
 otherwise be cared for ; and this committee (whatever be 
 the form of government) has no money except what is gath- 
 ered for its prescribed uses by taxation of the people, and 
 is rarely or never wiser and better than the average sense 
 rnd virtue of the people. To show the people, accordingly, 
 iiow to make their bargains, how to buy and sell and save 
 and spend, is a function government is not fitted for, and 
 was not chosen to perform, and never undertook without 
 making a botch of. Besides, such proposed action of gov- 
 ernment could have no tendency whatever either to enlarge 
 the wages-portion, or to increase the industrial efficiency of 
 the laborers, or to diminish the number of competitors at 
 any one point of the wages scale. As a matter of fact, 
 such governmental action would have precisely the opposite 
 effect at each of these three vital points of wages : employers 
 would have less motive to swell the wages-portion, laborers 
 less motive to improve their capacity, and more motive to 
 congregate locally. Suppose, that at some given point in 
 the scale of wages, free and intelligent competition has been 
 had on both sides, and that the average rate of wages as 
 thus determined proves one dollar per day for each laborer. 
 Suppose further, that everybody outside of the employers 
 thinks this is quite too little, and that government accord- 
 ingly issues a decree that wages at that point must be there- 
 after one dollar and a half per day. That decree has no 
 tendency at ail to enlarge the wages-portion of those partic- 
 ular employers, because that is determined by the general 
 productiveness of labor, and by the division under free 
 competition between wages and profits ; if, therefore, the 
 decree were carried out, as it never practically could be, the 
 result would be that only two-thirds of the laborers pre- 
 viously employed could be employed there at all, aud the 
 remaining third Vvould certainly be worse off tlian before ; 
 
LABOB. 235 
 
 and besides, the division of labor beiug necessaril}^ lessened, 
 production would be less profitable to the emplo^-ers, and 
 the next wages-portion would be less than before, and thus 
 the outcome of the remedy would be wco-se than the disease. 
 Let alone the artificial interference of government, and all 
 natural accessions to capital at that point, all investment 
 of profits in an enlarged business, all saving from expendi- 
 ture for the sake of further production, tend of themselves 
 to increase the wages-portion, and thus, the number and intel- 
 ligence of the laborers continuing as before, tend to raise 
 the rate of wages. Or, if there be no accessions to capital, 
 or other influence swelling the wages-portion, and the num- 
 ber of laborers be diminished at that point, as by migra- 
 tion to new fields of effort or enlistment in armies, the 
 competition of wages-payers for labor will be increased, and 
 the rate of wages will rise. Reversed conditions, of course, 
 will give reversed results. 
 
 But there are, nevertheless, indirect ways in which a gov- 
 ernment may act most beneficially on this whole matter of 
 wages. By using its power of taxation to the sole end 
 of drawing from the people only so much money as is need- 
 ful for its rightful uses in the way easiest for them to pay ; 
 by fidelity to its peculiar trust of making the rights of per- 
 son and property as secure as possible to all on the basis 
 of strict equality, without yielding special privileges to any ; 
 and by fostering the means of education and the diffusion 
 of knowledge among all classes of the people alike ; a gov- 
 ernment may act helpfully and powerfully upon employers 
 of both classes, giving impulses to enterprise, spurs to indus- 
 iry, assurance to gains, and effectiveness to the desire of 
 accumulation, and thus contribute to maximize the wages- 
 portion ; while at the same time the same agencies act upon 
 laborers of all kinds with equal benefit, making them intelli- 
 gent, hopeful, ssving, confident, trustful in themselves and 
 in the go\ernment, and imparting to them that character 
 and self-respect which fits them, in exchanging services with 
 
236 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 capital, to demand and secure their full rights in the ex- 
 change. It is not denied that capital takes advantage of 
 tlie ignorance and immobility of laborers, and sometimes 
 secures their services at a less rate than the just relations 
 of capital to labor then and there would indicate!, but the 
 remedy for this is not in arbitrary interference of govern- 
 ment in the bargain, but in the inteUigence and self-respect 
 of the laborers which shall fit them to insist on a just bar- 
 gain. In this whole sphere of exchange, the just and com- 
 prehensive rule always will be, that when men exchange 
 services with each other, each party is bound to look out for 
 his own interest, to know the market-value of his own ser- 
 vice, and to make the best terms for himself which he can 
 make. Capital does this for itself, and laborers ought to do 
 this for themselves, and if they are persistently cheated in 
 the exchange, they have nobody to blame but themselves. 
 Government should give them all facilities for intelligence : 
 they should give themselves a character, and cherish a hearty 
 self-respect, which there is nothing in their position to 
 diminish : towards such laborers, capital occupies no van- 
 tage ground in an exchange of mutual seivices. But let us 
 add here once for all the grand truth, that Political Economy 
 does not cover the entire relations between employers and 
 employed, and between buyers and sellers generally ; it 
 covers perfectly their economical relations — the relations 
 between buyers and sellers as such ; but morality and religion 
 have additional but not incompatible words to utter when 
 this science becomes silent ; mutual forbearance and conces- 
 sion, mutual affection and helpfulness, are duties enforced 
 by higher considerations than those of gain. 
 
 2. Others say, "Public opinion ought to be brought to 
 bear upon employers to induce them to give suflicieut 
 wages." It is clear, that public opinion can do nothing to 
 this end directly, partly because it has no effective organ by 
 which to voice itself, but mainly because it cannot reach the 
 root of the matter, in that it cannot make general industry 
 
LABOR. 237 
 
 more profitable and thus swell the wages-portion, nor can it 
 make laborers less numerous or more efficient at any one point 
 of the scale. People oftentimes forget what is the motive 
 of capitalists in employing labor, namely profits, and that 
 if these decline or disappear, wages cannot rise ; and tliey 
 forget too, that capitalists are under no obligation to employ 
 laborers at any time : no one is ever under any obligation 
 to 1)uy or sell : it is a question of gain and not of dut3\ 
 Public opinion, however, may do something towards better- 
 ing the wages of labor, in countries where they are low, by 
 organizing means to assist the laborers in distributing them- 
 selves at points where their services are most in demand. 
 Societies in our seaboard cities, whose object it is to aid 
 immigrants to pass on from those cities whei'e labor is very 
 abundant, to the country towns and to the "West, where it is 
 relatively much less so, are commendable in their purpose 
 and spirit. So also are emigration societies and agencies, 
 in countries like Ireland, where more or less of misgovern- 
 ment and much more of misunderstanding and a great deal 
 of race antipathy and vital religious differences and a very 
 general ignorance produced temporary pressure of popula- 
 tion on the means of support. Even after Irish population 
 had much declined by voluntary emigration, and the condi- 
 tion of the laboring classes for other reasons also had much 
 improved, the Irish Land Act of 1881, in addition to its 
 more essential clauses relating to tenure and rent and sale, 
 made provision for parliamentary assistance to further emi- 
 gration, thus hardening public opinion into positive legis- 
 lation. Wherever there is a pressure of numbers on the 
 wages-portion so as to bring actual wages essentiall}- below 
 that, as is the case also in China, it is a good thing for pub- 
 lic opinion, and possibly also for legislation, to be favorable 
 to emigration to newer and more fortunate countries, and 
 thus to assist in tlie distribution of labor to those points, 
 wherever they may bo, wher^ capital is ready and anxious to 
 employ it. 
 
238 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 It ma}" suiprise some who are familiar with books on Po- 
 litical Economy, that we do not here adduce the influtnce 
 of public opinion in restraining population as favorable to 
 wages, and put over against each other the force of that 
 spring of population which the Creator has coiled up in the 
 nature of man and the weakness of that power by which 
 the earth brings forth sustenance for man. Malthusianism, 
 as it has been called, is really a topic of Physiology and nofe 
 of Political Economy at all. Political Economy presupposes 
 the existence of persons able and willing to make exchanges, 
 before it begins its inquiries and generalizations. How they 
 come into existence, the rate of their natural increase, and 
 the ratio of this increase to the increase of food, however 
 interesting as physiological questions, have clearly nothing 
 to do with our science. But the discussion was so respecta- 
 ble in its origin, and has played such a part in the growth 
 of our science, that we must give just a sketch of it. Mr. 
 Mai thus, an English clergyman and teacher, greatly inter- 
 ested himself during the first third of the present century 
 in the welfare of the poor ; he observed, that, as a rule, they 
 had large families, and even in the workhouse families grew 
 larger, so that the general hopelessness of their condition 
 seemed no check to their increase in number ; wages were 
 very low on account of the pressure of such numbers on the 
 wages-portion ; food was liable to be very high on account 
 of the wretched corn-laws forbidding importations of grain ; 
 he was led to contrast the natural increase of population in 
 something like geometrical progression, with the rate of tlie 
 increase of food even iiuder improved agriculture in only 
 something like arithmetical progression ; the United States 
 was then doubling its population in 25 years, and he calcu- 
 lated that, at this rate, the inhabitants of any country in 
 five centuries would increase to above a million times their 
 present number, which would give England in that time more 
 than tweut}^ million millions of people, or more than could 
 even get standing-room there ; for this tendency of the law of 
 
LABOR. 239 
 
 hiunan fecauclity to outstrip the results of the law of returns 
 fr^in laud, he sav?' no remedy except in checks to population, 
 which he divided into the positive and the preventive, the 
 first of which, such as war, famine, and disease, increase 
 the number of deaths, and the second of which, such an 
 prudence in contracting marriage, and temperance after 
 marriage, diminish the number of births ; of course it is 
 better that the checks limiting fecundity should come into 
 play, rather than those decreasing longevity, and Malthus 
 and hiy followers were at great pains to inculcate upon the 
 laboring classes as an indispensable condition of their rise 
 in comforts the duty of later marriages and fewer children. 
 Their discussions have attracted great attention, and have 
 been supposed to be very pertinent to the subject of wages ; 
 but since the abolition of the corn- laws, and the demonstrated 
 ability of Great Britain under free trade to draw on the fer- 
 tility of the whole world for the maintenance of her people, 
 their irrelevancy to economics has come to be seen. Experi- 
 ence has shown, that the strong impulse in mankind towards 
 procreation is not too strong for the purpose intended ; that, 
 as men under moral and religious training come more and 
 more under the influence of reason and affection, the preven- 
 tive checks to population come silently and effectually into 
 operation ; and that, taking the world at large, food and 
 comforts have more than kept pace with the stride of popu- 
 lation, since its inhabitants as a whole were plainly never 
 so well fed and clothed and housed as now. The abstract 
 antagonism of the law of the increase of population with the 
 law of the increase of food may be admitted, if one chooses 
 to insist on it ; but then He who is the author of the laws 
 is author also of natural counter-workings of them, so that 
 a practical tendency towards their coming into conflict is 
 confidently denied. Each human being is as much consti- 
 tuted by Nature to receive services as to render them, in 
 economics each without exception receives when and because 
 he renders, snd each alike is naturally able also to become a 
 
240 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 capitalist ; economical laws present no obstacles, that we can 
 see, to all men becoming rich., as we use that term ; most 
 men are unwilling, some are perhaps unable, to fulfil the 
 moral conditions of getting rich ; while, we may depend upon 
 it, the famines of the world have been caused more by the 
 indolence and want of foresight of individuals, and by 
 the maladministrations of governments, than by the law 
 of population. 
 
 3. Many say, " There may properly be combinations 
 among the workmen themselves for the purpose of dictating 
 the rate of wages to the employers." But will "strikes " 
 accomplish that for the raising of wages which neither gov- 
 ernment nor public opinion can effect? A strike is a combi- 
 nation among laborers for an increase of wages, by which 
 they agree to stop work altogether until their employers shall 
 comply with their terms. It is not to be denied that work- 
 men thus possess, under many circumstances, a very consid- 
 erable reserved power which they can bring to bear upon 
 their employers. When the processes of production are 
 going briskly forward, when the manufactory is thoroughly 
 furnished with competent hands, and profitable orders are 
 in waiting, it is no laughable thing for the owner to be told, 
 of a cloudy morning, that his hands have all stopped work, 
 and refuse to lift a finger, until he shall agree to pay them 
 wages at a rate which they themselves dictate. Of course, 
 his first impulse is to discharge every man of them, and 
 endeavor to fill his factory with new hands. But this he 
 cannot always do. At best it will take time. Meanwhile 
 his wheel or engine must be idle, customers be lost, orders 
 unfilled, and profits nowhere. And so, many an employer 
 has surrendered to a strike, when he felt that it was all 
 unjust, rather than undergo a still greater loss. It is ad- 
 mitted that workmen may sometimes strike and gain their 
 point, but it is none the less true for all that, that strikes 
 are false in theory and pernicious in practice ; that they 
 spring from utter misapprehension of the true principles of 
 
LABOR. 241 
 
 wages ; that they imbitter relations between employers and 
 employed which ought to be cordial and free ; and that they 
 rarely or never are permanently advantageous to the work- 
 men themselves. 
 
 In the first place, then, strikes are contrary to the very 
 old adage, that it takes two to make a bargain. If we express 
 this proverb in the language of our science, it will take some 
 such form as this : When two men have mutual services to 
 exchange, let them come to a fair agreement as to the terms 
 on which they will exchange. Certainly, let each make the 
 best terms he can, but let the bargain always be free. If 
 one party, who happens to have the power to do it, uses any 
 thing like compulsion upon the other, it ceases so far forth 
 to be a bargain at all, and becomes a sort of robbery, of 
 which in some cases courts will take cognizance. Now, 
 workmen bring a certain valuable service to the market, just 
 such a service as the capitalist wants, and he has to offer 
 just such a service as they want, namely, wages : let the two 
 parties come to a free and fair agreement on the terms of 
 their exchange : let each workman by all means make the 
 very best terms he can, insisting to the last penny on all he 
 can get elsewhere, for the value of his service is determined, 
 as other values are determined, by what it will bring : let the 
 employer do just the same on his side, and so let a fair bar- 
 gain for the time present be struck. This is a very good 
 kind of striking ; and the more intelligence and skill and self- 
 respect a workman has, the better prepared he is to strike the 
 bargain and secure his just due ; and if the emploj^er will not 
 yield him this, let him have done with it at once and go else- 
 where. Or, if a just bargain has once been struck, and cir- 
 cumstances so alter that the workman thinks he can rightfully 
 demand more wages, let him frankly and fully demand th( q, 
 remembering always that it is an exchange he has to do w. Ih, 
 and that it takes two to make a bargain. If he cannot get 
 for his sei-vice what he thinks he ought to get, what he thinks 
 the service is worth in another market, let him exercise his 
 
242 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 perfect right to quit and go elsewhere. All this is fair and 
 above-board and legitimate. 
 
 But a strike is wholly different from this, in that it brings 
 a kind of compulsion into play. A bargain sJiould be bn-ken, 
 if at all, just as it was made, ivitJi the two parties face to face, 
 and everybody else aloof; and a new bargain should be made, 
 just as the old one was, with the two parties face to face, and 
 everybody else cdoof But a combination among workmen to 
 leave an employer in the lurch, and especially a combination 
 which forces into its ranks by cajoling or menaces those 
 who are unwilling to join it, as is so commonly the case 
 in strikes, is not only contrary to the inmost nature of a 
 bargain, but also of itself a sort of confession of the injus- 
 tice of the claim. If the claim be just, there is no occasion 
 to extort it. If the value of the service rendered be equal to 
 the sum demanded, and especially if this can be obtained 
 elsewhere, there is no need of conference and combination 
 and conspiracy. Let each man tell his employer the facts, 
 a.nd if this prove ineffective, let him go quickly where he 
 ^an get the most for his service. That this is not done, that 
 neans are brought to bear upon the employer which are not 
 •rdinarily used in bargains, — means of the nature of a 
 hreat — that the justice of the claim is not relied on in 
 . case where, more than anywhere else, justice can enforce 
 i self, that full and free explanations are not had, that no 
 i >tice is given, that great damage is expected by their 
 a tion to accrue to the employer, all this seems to forget 
 tL it the transaction between employers and employed is a 
 ca )e of pure excbange, a simple bargain of one service 
 agimst another service. 
 
 A. bad principle always works badly in practice ; and the 
 prircipie that underlies strikes is so opposed to the funda- 
 mej tal nature of exchange, that we might expect beforehand 
 thai it would work badly. As a matter of fact, it works 
 bad. . enough both upon emplo3'ers and emploj^ed, because 
 stril -ss only ^-ike place in relation to employers who operate 
 
LABOR. 243 
 
 with accumulations of capital more or less, and on whDse 
 minds consequently strikes will work to lessen the wages- 
 portion. The production of most material commodities is 
 a joint process, in which capital and labor both conspire, 
 and the gross returns of which belong wholly to the capital- 
 ists and laborers. If these returns be large, the two parts 
 into which they are divided, namely, the wages of labor and 
 the profits of capital, will also be large ; and therefore, it is 
 for the interest of both laborers and capitalists alike to make 
 these returns as large as possible. Wages being taken out 
 of these returns, the rest is gross profits, or, gross profits 
 being taken out, the rest is wages ; and it makes no prac- 
 tical difference in this division, whether or not some or all 
 of the wages have been advanced to the laborers while the 
 production was still going forward, since the wages in all 
 cases come sooner or later out of the proceeds of the joint 
 process. The capitalist has no motive to pay ultimate wages 
 out of his previous accumulations, and ought not to be ex- 
 pected to do so, and were he compelled to do so, it would 
 soon be all the worse for his laborers, since these accumu- 
 lations are the gross capital feeding the wages-portion. It 
 is not only rightful for the capitalist, but needful also for 
 the laborers, that wages, whether advanced or not to the 
 laborer by the capitalist out of his own or borrowed capital, 
 shall really be paid out of the proceeds of that on which the 
 iabor is now expended ; whatever, therefore, tends to lessen 
 these proceeds, necessarily lessens actual wages. Any inter- 
 ruption of the process of production by strikes, all consequent 
 imbittered relations between employers and employed, and 
 any want of hearty working together of the labor with the 
 capital, will diminish the gross returns of the two parties 
 to the joint process, and thus injure at once both wages and 
 profits. 
 
 Let us suppose a strong case just to show the principle 
 involved, namely, that it takes three months to realize the 
 leturns in some branch of production, and that, when the 
 
244 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 workmen are paid off at the end of one cycle, they strike at 
 the beginning of the next, and both parties hold out for 
 three months. What is now the chance of higher wages 
 for the workmen? It shall go hard even if they get as 
 much as before ! And why? Because the factorj^ has stood 
 idle, the owner has lost three months' profits on the wholfi 
 investment connected with it, he has lost customers by the 
 strike, and the whole course of his business is disarranged ; 
 the workmen have lost wages for three months, have been 
 supported meantime out of their little funds laid by or from 
 the contributions of others, and they are not in as good a 
 position either morally or pecuniarily to drive a favorable 
 bargain with their employer as before ; besides, by thus 
 inflicting a loss upon themselves, they have found an oppor- 
 tunity of inflicting a loss upon their employer, in conse- 
 quence of which the wages-portion is demonstrably less than 
 it would otherwise have been, and actual wages in all proba- 
 bility will be less for the next cycle. So far as this point 
 is concerned, there is no sense or reason in the common 
 jealousy of workmen towards employers, and in the too 
 common absence of conciliation towards the employed on the 
 part of employers. Their duties and their relations are 
 reciprocal; and neither party can expect all the forbearance 
 to be exercised upon the other side. There is no real oppo- 
 sition of interests between them, for they are partners in the 
 same concern. Laborers who are intelligent, prudent, skil- 
 ful, courteous, will infallibly get their due ; and employers 
 who are humane, urbane, fair, will flnd their account in it. 
 
 This cours'e of argument is strongly confirmed by authen- 
 tic facts and statistics. Mr. Wright, Chief of the Bureau of 
 Labor in Massachusetts, in his Report for 1880, gave a 
 succinct account of all strikes in that State from their begin- 
 ning in 1830. They were 159 in all, of which 109 were 
 unsuccessful, 18 appai^ently successful, 16 compromised, 6 
 partly successful, and 10 "result unknown." In Great 
 Britain during the year 1878, there occurred 277 strikes, of 
 
LABOR. 245 
 
 which only 4 were successful, 17 were comproniised, and 
 256 were failures. The direct losses of laborers in the vari- 
 ous strikes in Massachusetts for the fifty years, to say noth- 
 ing of the losses of the capitalists, were enormously large ; 
 of which a good instance is given in the single town of Fall 
 River, where, in several strikes, mostly in 1875 and 1879, 
 the sum of $1,400,000 was voluntarily forfeited by the 
 idleness of the operatives. Fields of labor are often lost by 
 strikes, as well as direct wages, of which a notable instance 
 was the introduction of Chinese labor into North Adams in 
 1871 to the permanent displacement of the native shoe- 
 makers. Even if, after an interval of idleness, a rise of 
 wages be secured, the striker rarely stops to calculate how 
 long he will have to work at the higher rate just to make 
 vp what he has lost. If the strike be for 5 % increase 
 of pay, and one month's wages at the old rate be lost by 
 it, it will take 1.6 years to make it up at the new rate; 
 if two months be lost in idleness, 3.2 years must be spent 
 in making up the loss ; aud if three months be lost, it will 
 be 4.8 years before he will have the least gain from his 
 increased pay. Is not that paying too dear for the whistle? 
 Mr. Wright's conclusions are so apt, that we will quote 
 them: (1) '■'■ Strikes generally 2Jrove poiverless to benefit the 
 condition of the ivages-classes ; " (2) ^'■Strikes tend to de- 
 prive the striker's ofivork;" and (3) ^'-Strikes lead to im- 
 providence, and are demoralizing in their effect upon the 
 workingmen." 
 
 4. Lastly, many say : "Co-operation is a scheme likely 
 to raise the wages, and permanently improve the condition, 
 of some classes of laborers." This is a matter that was 
 much agitated in Europe, and somewhat also in the United 
 States, during the third quarter of the 19th century; but 
 the interest felt in it is now much less than formerly, owing 
 to the failures that have mostly attended the attempts to 
 put the scheme into practice. The idea is, that certain 
 laborers within a given class combine of their own accord, 
 
246 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 either to purchase their necessaries in common and at whole- 
 sale, hence at cheaper rates because avoiding all profits oj 
 the middlemen; or., w,ore especially, to engage in the joint 
 production of the commodities they are familiar with, the 
 laborers furnishing the capital from their little hoards or 
 borrowing it on the strength of their individual or associated 
 credit., managing the business themselves, all being co-part- 
 ners, and of course all sharing pro rata the profits of the con- 
 cern. All this is well ; and in countries where laborers have 
 been under traditional disabilities, it may be in some cases 
 very promotive of their self-respect, activity, frugality, and 
 general welfare ; but any one can see that no new economic 
 principle is involved in the plan. As in all other produc- 
 tion, so here, there must be (1) capital from some source, 
 (2) steady and skilful labor, and (8) superintendence or 
 management of the business. It is at the third point that 
 schemes of co-operation have mostly broken down. The 
 faculty of good management is rare ; the organizing and 
 executive ability needful to carry through any scheme of co- 
 operation will not come upon call ; if any of the co-operators 
 chance to possess it, the scheme may succeed, although he 
 who is conscious of having it will prefer to use it for his own 
 gain in his own way, to say nothing of the practical impos- 
 sibility of any man's working with the same spirit when 
 the gain or loss is to be largely another's as when it is to 
 be wholly his own; moreover, it has been well said, "it is 
 impossible to hire commercial genius or the instincts of a 
 skilful trader ; " so that, while there is no trouble about the 
 workmen uniting the character of capitalist and laborer in 
 their own persons, and no doubt that they will work harder 
 and more skilfully while sharing profits as well as receiving 
 wages, it is still true, that the difficulty of securing a real 
 " captain of industry," and thus a perfect organization and 
 management of the whole business, puts the scheme of co- 
 operation out of the question as a means of raising wages, 
 or promoting the general welfare of laborers. 
 
LAB OB. 247 
 
 In this country, where there is nothing to hindei any 
 laborer from becoming a capitalist, where the savings-banks 
 are open to the smallest gains, where nothing is more com- 
 mon than for two or more workmen to organize a firm to 
 carry on some branch of business, where most of the capi- 
 talists proper were formerly laborers proper, and where the 
 shares of most of the joint-stock companies are open to 
 everybody who has the means to buy them, there is o\\\j one 
 consideration that seems to justify any special jealousy 
 of laborers as such towards capitalists as such ; and that is 
 the fact, that Legislation every now and then, sometimes 
 on a small scale and then on a gigantic one, now by means of 
 corporate charters and then by other ways more indirect and 
 effective, does confer certain extraordinary privileges upon 
 capital. So long as capital and labor rest solelj' on their 
 natural rights, neither can have the advantage of the other ; 
 and so far as each recognizes their identity of economic 
 interest and the consequent reciprocity of obligation and 
 effort, the prosperity of each will build up the other ; but, 
 on the other hand, so far forth as advantage is given to 
 capital by law, it is necessarily unjust to labor, and ulti- 
 matelj" injurious to capital also ; and, in this case, laborers, 
 seeing just what it is that hurts them, must combine and 
 strike, not capital (their friend), but a piece of perverted 
 legislation (their enemy). The Legislature, whether State 
 or National, cannot be too scrupulous in this whole matter, 
 because the proper limits of legislative action on econom- 
 ical subjects are pretty narrow, and a fierce friction begins 
 as these limits are widened ; in general, capital and labor 
 should each have the utmost liberty of action compatible 
 with social securit}^, and the equal rights of each will best 
 be reached by leaving both to take care of themselves sub- 
 ject only to general laws relating to person and property. 
 But if the Legislature yields to special claims of capital, it 
 must expect to hear labor also knocking at its doors : if, for 
 example, capitalists "strike" for artificial profits by means 
 
248 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of a protective tariff, why may uot laborers "strike" for 
 artificial wages? The foriner have set the latter a bad ex- 
 ample ; and much more than is commonly supposed of the 
 recent discontent of labor in the United States is due to this 
 greed of a few capitalists demanding and securing for them- 
 selves special privileges under the law. Let alone. Legis- 
 latures, whether State or National, are not wise enough, 
 and never will be, to settle any of the great questions in- 
 volved between capitalists and laborers ; to settle, for exam- 
 ple, how high wages any class of capitalists shall pay, or 
 how many hours per day adult laborers shall work ; and 
 even to try to settle any such things as these by legislation 
 is an economic abomination. 
 
 In our discussion thus far of labor and wages, we have 
 been under the disadvantage of not knowing exactly what 
 Capital is and the part that it plays in Production. The 
 next chapter will throw out light upon these points, and 
 later discussions of wages-questions will confirm these pre- 
 liminary ones. We have also leen under the disadvantage 
 in common with all economists of being compelled to treat 
 of laborers as if they formed a quite distinct class by them- 
 selves, and of capitalists as if they also were a class by 
 themselves quite distinct from the laborers ; while, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, and especially in this country, laborers are very 
 often at the same time capitalists, as the returns of all our 
 savings-banks show, and nearly all capitalists are at the 
 same time laborers, at least to the degree of superintend- 
 ing actively their own capital. It alters no principles, that 
 laborers shade thus into capitalists, and that most persons 
 of either class belong also at the same moment to the other 
 class ; since labor and capital play their distinct parts in 
 Production without reference to the question, whether the 
 same person furnish one factor or both. It may be added, 
 that Production is most likely to be successful in those 
 branches in which it is most difficult to draw the line be- 
 tween the laborers and the capitalists, because there any 
 
LAB OB. 249 
 
 conflict between labor and capital is extrenely unlikely to 
 take place. 
 
 . It has been proven many times over by experience, and 
 emphatically by the recent experience of the United States, 
 that the legalized use of an inferior money operates to the 
 greater disadvantage of laborers as such, than of capitalists 
 as such. It harms both ; and it would seem at first sight as 
 if those capitalists who are in the receipt of fixed incomes, 
 as annuities, would suffer more from bad money than any- 
 body else, and perhaps they do ; but laborers as a whole class 
 find their wages late to rise in the universal rise of prices con- 
 sequent upon a depreciated money, because as a class they 
 are slower to perceive the change in the purchasing-power of 
 the medium than capitalists are, and are consequently slower 
 to insist on their just rights in the now altered circumstances ; 
 while the fall of wages, late to rise under a poor money, is 
 apt to be prompt enough under a return to better money, 
 because employers see the change at once, and act quickly 
 in accordance with their own interests. In general, it may 
 be said, that all departures from sound legislation, particu- 
 larly in regard to money and taxation, are sure to make 
 against the laboring classes, and the only certain remedy for 
 such legislation is in their own intelligence and vigilance. 
 
 Laborers work for the sake of wages, but it is an honor 
 to human nature that there are very few men who would be 
 willing to work at any wages in doing things that they know 
 to be useless. For example, to carry stones from one heap 
 to another, and then carry them back again, for no ulterior 
 purpose, is a task that few would be content to perform 
 even for very high wages. Man is not a machine. His 
 mind must be somewhat interested in the work of his hands ; 
 and this is another point at which our field of Economics 
 touches the field beyond of Aims and Ends. 
 
 "We may summarize thus : — 
 
 1. Labor is physical or mental effort which demands for 
 itself something in return. 
 
250 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 2. TJiat return is called wages, 
 
 3. Wages depend on the great law of Supply and Demand. 
 
 4. Other influences on wages are hut secondary at best. 
 
 5. Labor may be loosely divided into common^ skilled, and 
 professional. 
 
 6. Employers may be loosely divided into those who pay 
 wages for a present gratification, and those who pay wages 
 for an ultimate profit. 
 
 7. Capital thus 7ias intimate relations with wages, and the 
 two are not antagonistic. 
 
 8. Bad money is worse for wages than for profits, but is 
 bad enough for both. 
 
 9. Governments have small functions in wages-questions^ 
 as in economics generally. 
 
CAPITAL. 251 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAPITAL. 
 
 The second grand requisite of Production is Capital ; and 
 we are now to learn what this is, how it arises, how it works, 
 and what its vast influence is on the ever-enlarging world of 
 exchanges. 
 
 1. Labor, as we saw in the last chapter, is an original ele- 
 ment in Production, because, in getting something ready to 
 sell and selling it, effort, physical or mental or both, begins, 
 accompanies, and concludes the process. The various forces 
 of Nature, which will be treated of at length in the next 
 chapter, are also an original element in Production, and we 
 have already learned that these powers work freely and tire- 
 lessly in the service of man. But labor can only go a very 
 little way, and natural agents can only go a very little way, 
 without the constant aid of the other requisite. Capital. 
 Here is another of the trinities of Political Economy. Labor 
 leans on its counterpart, — capital ; and power-agents of all 
 kinds ply their work in production and plough their way past 
 obstacles through their instrument, — capital. But capital 
 is not an original element, because it is itself a product of 
 the other two elements. Every form of capital is indeed 
 such a product, but is at the same time so essential a factor 
 in further production, that labor and power-agents amount to 
 but little without its constant and accumulated co-operation. 
 Power-agents are free ; labor demands a return ; and capital, 
 which is a sort of embodied labor, demands also a rev^ard 
 for its use ; the owner of the capital is frequently a distinct 
 person from the present laborer ; but Political Economy is 
 
252 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 able to show that there is no natural opposition of interest 
 between capital and labor, that capital is as dependent on 
 present labor as labor is dependent on capital, that each is 
 equally interested in the prosperity of the other, and that 
 thus a deep and admirable harmony subsists in this part, as 
 in ev^ery other part, of the social organism. 
 
 The word Capital is derived from the Latin caput, a head, 
 a source, and gives intimation in its etymology of its sci- 
 entific meaning. The word caput is often used in classical 
 Latin for a sum of money put out to interest, and its deriva- 
 tive capitale is also used in the bame sense, at least in medie- 
 val Latin ; and from this form of che word have come into 
 English not only Capital, but also, by corruption, Cattle and 
 Chattels. Flocks and herds were at one time the principal 
 riches of our Saxon ancestors, and also the principal means 
 of increasing their riches, and in process of time the same 
 root- word came to be spelled differently as applied to animals 
 (Cattle), or to inanimate things of value (Chattels). The 
 notion implied in the Latin cap^it and in the English source 
 came along in all these words, and hence Capital may be 
 scientifically defined in accordance with its root-meaning as 
 Any vahcable thing outside of man himself which becomes a 
 Means in further production. 
 
 We are willing to take the risks with this definition. Our 
 previous definitions of Capital, while in substance equivalent 
 to the one now given, did not so distinctly exclude personal 
 services from the category of Capital. The boundary line 
 between Labor and Capital cannot be clearly drawn, unless 
 the powers of, man himself, so far as these come into play in 
 personal services, are discriminated from the external com- 
 modities and claims, which alone can be properly capital. 
 Labor is the exertion of ph3'sical and mental powers for the 
 sake of a return, which is wages: Capital is some product, 
 always a commoclit}^ or a claim, reserved for the sake of an 
 increase to present values through its emploj'ment produc- 
 tively, which increase is called Profits. Personal powers 
 
CAPITAL. 253 
 
 cannot be parted with, although their exercise gives l:j.:th to 
 value ; capital can always be parted with, and become fruit- 
 ful in the hands of another. When it is said that a young 
 man's integrity, or his acquired skill, is his '■^capital," the 
 word is used in a metaphorical, and not in a scientific sense ; 
 since the meaning is simply, that these qualities are like capi- 
 tal in some respects. Mr. Carey is careless of this impor- 
 tant distinction, and defines capital as "the instrument by 
 means of which man obtains mastery over Nature," includ- 
 ing in it the physical and mental powers of man himself, 
 and thus hopelessly confuses the boundaries between capital 
 and labor. Mr. Macleod defines capital as ' ' any economic 
 quantity used for the purpose of profit," making it expressly 
 inclusive of professional talents, and this opens his defini- 
 tion to the previous objection. Our definition seems to have 
 the merit at once of distinctness and comprehensiveness : it 
 will cover all the cases, obviate many difficulties, and take 
 the life out of many disputes. 
 
 It is plain from what has already been said, that the new 
 class. Capital, is a smaller class under the old great class, 
 Values ; and that the same article of value may be at one 
 time capital, and at another non-capital, according to its 
 destination. Only that value is capital, that is resei'ved as 
 a means to further production, and from whose use accord- 
 ingly an increase or profit is expected. A value must be 
 contemplated as existing, before it can possibly become cap- 
 ital, because it is a distinct purpose of the owner to use it 
 for a profit that capitalizes it, that is, that transforms it frcra 
 a general purchasing-power into a special form of purchasing- 
 power, Capital. The sole purpose is to use now that value 
 in such a way as that a larger value may accrue by means 
 of it. For example, money in the hands of individuals is 
 sometimes capital and sometimes not, according as they pro- 
 pose to use it, while the whole money of the nation consid- 
 ered as belonging to the whole nation, is wholly capital, 
 because the only motive in minting it is to increase by means 
 
254 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of it the national gains. So credits, that is, claims for the 
 payment of money or other valuables, are capital or not, 
 according as they are kept for convenient use, or for accru- 
 ing profit. Many products are devoted to the gratification 
 of present desires, without any reference to the rendering of 
 future services by means of their help, and such products, 
 though valuable, are not capital at all : many other products, 
 such as tools, raw materials, and moneys loaned on interest, 
 are altogether capital. Any piece of transferable property 
 may become capital, either as retained by the present owner 
 for the sake of a greater than its present value to be obtained 
 by means of it, or as purchased b}^ another person with the 
 same intent ; and the whole mass of capital, then, in any 
 country is the whole mass of those products, of whatever 
 kind, which are destined in the mind of their owners to be 
 retained as an aid towards rendering future services to 
 Society. 
 
 2. How does capital arise? We have seen that there are 
 obstacles which lie in the way of the gratification of men's 
 desires in all directions, and that these obstacles can only be 
 removed by human effort. When a man devotes himself to 
 one set of these obstacles, with a view to surmount them, he 
 is not long in discovering, that if he had certain tools, his 
 work would be greatly facilitated ; and having discovered 
 that, it will not be long before he will attempt himself, or 
 induce others to attempt, to invent such tools. The beaver 
 gnaws down the tree with his teeth, from generation to gen- 
 eration ; but man is a being more nobly endowed than the 
 beaver, and "no sooner had Le occasion to fell trees, than 
 something of the nature of an axe suggested itself to his 
 ingenuity. It is true, that his earliest attempts at axe-mak- 
 ing were probably of the rudest sort, but just as soon as 
 any thing was devised, whether of flint or shell or metal, that 
 rendered easier the labor of felling a tree, capital made a 
 beginning along that line of obstacles. Among the more 
 gifted I'aces, progress in this direction was perhaps more 
 
CAPITAL. 255 
 
 rapid than we are wont to think it was, since Tubal-eain, 
 even in the times before the flood, is said to have " ham- 
 mered all kinds of implements out of copper and iron ' ' 
 (Gen. iv. 22). 
 
 We are at no loss, then, to explain the origin of capital : 
 it is found in the motive that exists everywhere, and that 
 always existed, to lessen, if possible, a given irksome effort 
 that is the condition of a given satisfaction. Tools are 
 invented and employed for no other reason than this, that, 
 by means of their help, the human effort is lessened rela- 
 tively to the given satisfaction. The powers of ISature, such 
 as those which make the grain grow, bring the tree down, 
 turn the water-wheel, impel the locomotive, and send the 
 message round the world, all stand ready to slave in the 
 service of man ; but in order to make their aid available for 
 human purposes, there must be a plough, an axe, a wheel, 
 an engine, an electric machine. These, and all other imple- 
 ments whatsoever, from the tiniest needle to the most pon- 
 derous engine, are products created and retained for the 
 sake of further production. They are capital. They are 
 not capable of yielding in themselves an ultimate satisfac- 
 tion to human wants, but they mediate between the powers 
 of Nature, which they enable us to make available for our 
 purposes, and those ultimate satisfactions. This origin of 
 capital gives the key-note to its universal use and indefinite 
 expansion : easier methods are always in order, finer imple- 
 ments take the place of coarser, and machinery of some 
 sort is forcing its way more and more into all the fields of 
 hand labor. Since it requires tools to make tools, the prog- 
 ress of this branch of capital was comparatively slow at 
 first ; but, since every advance in mechanical contrivance 
 makes still further advances easier, there is a natural ten- 
 dency, which facts abundantly exemplify, to a more and 
 more rapid progression in the number and perfection of all 
 implements of production. The same motive that impelled 
 to the first invention, has impelled to the whole series of 
 
256 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 inventions since, and will constantly impel to further inven- 
 tions till the end of time. This motive, — and there is no 
 motive that actuates man more universal, — is, to lessen the 
 onerous effort of human muscle, and to throw upon the ever- 
 willing shoulders of Nature more and more of the burden 
 of production. Every step of this progress gives birth to a 
 larger and largei proportion of satisfactions relatively to 
 efforts ; marks an increasing control on the part of man 
 over the powers of Nature ; and gives promise for the time 
 to come of greater advantages still in both these two direc- 
 tions. And it is because capital brings gratuitous natural 
 forces into service, and the more so as capital progresses, 
 that the value of those things created by the aid of capital 
 tends constantly to decline as compared with the value of 
 those things, in whose production capital less conspires ; and 
 in the chapter following the next will be developed from this 
 point one or two important laws of value. 
 
 3. How capital works may perhaps be best illustrated by 
 the action of railroads, which are an important part of the 
 caj)ital of every civilized country. The general function of 
 all capital is to facilitate production, to make exchanges easy 
 and many by removing obstructions of all kinds and lessen- 
 ing onerous human efforts ; and the railroad is a piece of 
 capital, a product, designed to lessen the natural obstruc- 
 tions to exchanges made by time, distance, and inequalities 
 of earth-surface. The ocean is somewhat like the railroad 
 in these respects, with this peculiarity, that the ocean road- 
 way fortunately costs nothing, it is not a product, and so it 
 is free to all users. The railroad is a valuable thing, and 
 charges must be made to them who use it to re-imburse those 
 who constructed it, but it is a grand law of this foim of capi- 
 tal certainly, that less and less needs to be charged to each ton 
 of freight and to each passenger carried as the exchanges 
 are multiplied, to further which the railroad is built as a 
 means. Edward Atkinson has gathered figures from official 
 sources, which put this law beyond the reach of question. 
 
CAPITAL. 257 
 
 For example, in the ten years 1870-70, the Lake S'lOre and 
 Michigan Southern raikoacl increased its freight traffic 202^ , 
 decreased its charge per ton per mile 57|^% (from one cent and 
 a half to .64), and increased its earnings from freight 22^%. 
 In the eleven 3'ears 1869-79, the New York Central and Hud- 
 son River railroad increased its freight traffic 289 % , decreased 
 its charge per ton per mile 67% (from 2.38 cents to .79), and 
 increased its earnings 30%. One cent a ton per mile deduc- 
 tion on 8,000,000 tons moved 1,300 miles is a saving to the 
 transporters of $104,000,000 ; so that, the interest of the rail- 
 road is equally the interest of the whole country. The use of 
 capital lessens the cost of every thing in whose production 
 the capital conspires ; and the railroad is able steadily to re- 
 duce its charge for transportation, because it learns by expe- 
 rience to throw more and more of its work upon the free 
 forces of Nature, and because the people intrust it constantly 
 with more work to do, which enables its agencies to be more 
 continually and economically employed. 
 
 Railroad mileage more than trebled in the United States 
 from New Year's 1865 to New Year's 1882, that is to say, 
 went up from 33,908 to something over 100,000 miles. If 
 we suppose the average cost of the round mileage to have 
 been $30,000 a mile, then the whole cosi of the roads would be 
 $3,000,000,000, truly a costly piece of capital. But then, it 
 can be proved, that the actual reduction in charges on freight 
 alone in ten years from the rate in 1870 to the rate in 1879 
 more than equals that whole cost of the roads ! The declared 
 value of the grain, meat, and dairy products, exported from 
 the United States in 1880, was $389,000,000, and their weight 
 9,400,000 tons ; now, if this weight were moved on the aver- 
 age 1,300 miles to the seaboard, and if there were a saving 
 in raili'oad service of one cent a mile per ton as compared 
 with 1870, then the saving constituted 26.72% of the total 
 value of those exports. As we saw in the last chapter that 
 physical labor consists simpl}' in movivg things with reference 
 to an economic result, so we may now see that railroads and 
 
258 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 many other forms of capital are contrived simply to htlp to 
 move things. On the average each man, woman, and child, 
 in the United States, eats very nearly a barrel of flonr a year, 
 and so 50,000,000 barrels of flour have to be moved each 
 year to the places where the people take their food ; and it is 
 a comfort to think that such is already the perfection of onr 
 raikoad system, that a barrel of flour may be moved from 
 Chicago to Boston, 1,000 miles, for fifty cents, and from 
 almost any point in the North-west where wheat is ground 
 to almost any point on the Atlantic seaboard for less than a 
 dollar. An adult in good health eats nearly three pounds 
 of solid food a daj^, or 1,095 pounds a year, and such are the 
 present appliances of capital that a day's wages of a common 
 mechanic in Massachusetts will pay for the transportation of 
 his year's bread and meat from Chicago to Boston. 
 
 Such a startling result as an average annual reduction of 
 the cost of railroad service of ^320,000,000 for the decade 
 ending in 1880, a sum more than equal to the average annual 
 revenue of the United States in the same time, has not been 
 reached except in spite of artificial obstacles of legislation. 
 A tariff tax of $28 a ton on steel rails imported doubled the 
 price during a part of the decade of all steel rails wsed, and 
 so far forth hindered the beneficent action of this form of 
 capital. Then railroading is a new thing in the world, and 
 of course there has been much blundering in management, 
 and more blundering in Congress and in State Legislatures 
 in all sorts of legislation both hostile and favorable. After 
 all, the railroads have paid for themselves over and over 
 again, in the" lessened cost of all products, in the multipli- 
 cation of exchanges of every name, in the rise in the value 
 of old lands and in the extension of profitable cultivation to 
 new lands, and in manifold other ways which need not now 
 be told. Hence they illustrate perhaps better than any thing 
 else the way in which capital in general works to increase 
 the power and multiply the satisfactions of men. 
 
 4. As we have just seen that capital in the form of rail- 
 
CAPITAL. 259 
 
 roads soon pays for itself and becomes a perennial sou rce of 
 profit, so let us now see that capital in all forms docs tlie 
 same thing, and at the same time opens the way for new 
 savings and new profits. As railroad begets railroad, so 
 capital in general breeds capital. Even the ordinary annual 
 interest of money, if regularly compounded with the princi- 
 pal, will double that principal in a very few years. But the 
 rate of interest, which is usually reckoned by the year, must 
 not be confounded with the rate of profit, which may accrue 
 by the day, by the week, by the month, or shorter irregular 
 periods. The current rates of profit reckoned by the year 
 are always much higher than the current rates of interest 
 reckoned in the same way ; for otherwise men would never 
 borrow money for the sake of carrying on their business. 
 Some interesting facts are mentioned by Macleod (Econ. 
 PhU. p. 219) as occurring in the retail provision trade of 
 Paris. Turgot instances that, in his time, the money lenders 
 charged the petty dealers two sous a week for the loan of 
 three francs. That is interest at the rate of 173% per 
 annum. But if the dealer sold his three francs' worth of 
 victuals for three francs and a half every day, as is likely, 
 his profit, omitting Sundays, would be at the rate of 5,216% 
 per annum. That this way of doing business is still kept 
 up in Paris, as it used to be also in London, appears from 
 a speech of a member of the late Legislative Assembly of 
 France, who says, that a five-franc piece borrowed in the 
 morning will buy provisions that may be sold for eight francs 
 in the course of the day ; twenty-five centimes are paid in 
 the evening without complaint as the interest on the money ; 
 that is at the rate of 1,800% per annum ; but the rate of 
 profit is 21,600% per annum, or twelve times the rate of in- 
 terest. Even at a very small ratio of profit to principal on 
 each transaction, a money capital turned quickly over accu- 
 mulates with a startling, almost incredible rapidity. 
 
 Equally wonderful is the power of capital in the form of 
 tools and machines to hasten, facilitate, and accumulate pro- 
 
260 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 duction. Perhaps as good an instance as any is the trowel 
 of the mason and plasterer. It is nearly his only tool, but 
 an absolutely indispensable one. "Without it he can do noth- 
 ing at all : with it he can do a great deal. Time seems to 
 have made but few improvements in this primitive instru- 
 ment ; its cost is slight, say one dollar ; it will last a long 
 time, say an entire year ; it is almost constantly in the 
 mason's hand from morning till night, and so is earning a 
 profit all the time ; for it must be remembered, that the more 
 constant the use of any form of capital, the sooner it pays 
 for itself and the more profitable its agency becomes ; and 
 thus this case of the trowel may serve as an illustration of 
 the influence in production of all forms of capital from the 
 simplest to the most elaborate. Every tool or machine, 
 itself capital, enables the laborer to avail himself of some 
 free natural force to aid him in his work, and so the three 
 requisites of production, labor and capital and power-agents, 
 are always united in the use of any tool. 
 
 5. The influence of capital on production will be more 
 fully seen as we examine the source and the reioard of the 
 capital. The source of capital is always in Saving or absti- 
 nence. Even Cicero very truly sa^-s; "Optimum et in 
 privatis familiis et in republica vectigal est parsimonia." 
 Frugality is the best means of revenue as well in private 
 families as in the State. It is a distinct act of will that 
 transforms any valuable thing, whether money or other, into 
 an instrument of future production ; because the valuable 
 thing might he used or sold for the purposes of present enjoy- 
 ment ; and if it be set apart in order to help get something 
 ready to sell in the future, the owner must have some reward 
 for this act. The reward of cajyital is technically called profits : 
 just as the reward of labor is technically called wages. Profits 
 are the legitimate reward of a service just as much and in the 
 same sense as wages are the legitimate reward of a service. 
 The distinctive service of the capitalist as such, as distin- 
 guished from the service ol the laborer, consists in his volun- 
 
CAPITAL. 261 
 
 tary abstinence from the use and enjoyment of that which he 
 contributes in aid of further production. If a man puts a 
 thousand dollars, which he might spend upon his immediate 
 gratifications, into a machine to be used in his business, the 
 money immediately becomes capital ; the owner practises 
 abstinence, and for this abstinence justly expects a reward. 
 This reward we call profit. The expected profit is the only 
 molive for the abstinence. He will not be content simply to 
 get his thousand dollars back, for that he has now : he must 
 have hi 3 thousand dollars with a profit. Suppose A to be a 
 manufacturer of flax fabrics, B to be a farmer in his neighbor- 
 hood, and C an expert mechanic acquainted with the current 
 modes of spinning and weaving flax. A has a capital of 
 $10,000 invested in his business, in buildings, machinery, 
 naterials, and wages-fund, which nets him Si, 000 a year 
 clear pi-ofit. At the end of the year, the question with him 
 is, whether he shall spend this $1,000 unproductively in im- 
 mediate gratifications, or, adding it to his capital stock, 
 increase his business with it. If he concludes to do the 
 latter, he must forego the use and enjoyment of his $1,000 
 for the present, he must practise abstinence ; and this he will 
 not do, and ought not to do, except in view of increased 
 profits to accrue from his business at the end of the next 
 year. If more flax is to be spun and woven in his factory, 
 more money must be invested to buy more materials, to pay 
 more laborers, or to pay for more or better machinery. His 
 contribution to the prospectively increased production is 
 $1,000, ti-ansformed by his intention from simple property 
 to capital, devoted to production by a voluntary abstinence 
 from its present use and enjoyment, in view of a future re- 
 "ward or profit. It is a service rendered by one man to a 
 joint process to be performed by many, and gives him a just 
 claim to a portion of the product. Is exertion irksome ? So 
 is abstinence. Are wages legitimate? So are profits. B as 
 a farmer might devote all his fields to growing food and fruits 
 for the gratification of himself and family, but since A now 
 
262 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 wants more flax fibre for his factory, he gives up a part of 
 his acres to growing flax, and this becomes a part of A's 
 capital in the form of raw material ; and the money received 
 for it may become capital in B's hands by being spent either 
 in agricultural improvements, or in buying additional land. 
 The mechanic C, by giving time, exertion, and money to the 
 work, may invent an improved machine for spinning flax, to 
 be introduced into A's factory. The machine becomes a part 
 of A's capital, and the money paid to C for his machine is 
 partly wages, a reward for the labor bestowed on its construc- 
 tion, and partlj' profits, to replace to C the money used in 
 making the machine, together with a reward for his absti- 
 nence from the use of this money until the machine was sold. 
 Thus we see that capital, whether in the form of wages-fund, 
 materials, or implements, is always the result of abstinence ; 
 and that whoever abstains from the present enjoyment of any 
 thing, in order that that something may contribute to a future 
 production, renders an essential service ; and, consequently, 
 that the reward of such abstinence, or profit, is just as legiti- 
 mate as are wages. 
 
 This is very clearly seen in the common case in which one 
 man loans capital to a second, to be used by that second in 
 his own business. Brooks has a thousand dollars in hand 
 which he is at liberty either to enjoy unproductively, or to 
 employ himself productively, with the assurance of a profit ; 
 but is willing to forego the use of it for a year in favor of 
 Smith, who is anxious to enlarge his business. Brooks' 
 abstinence is a clear service to Smith ; and at the end of the 
 year, therefore, Smith not only refunds the thousand dollars 
 borrowed, but also sundry other dollars besides as a specific 
 rewar.i for this specific service. If Smith keeps the money 
 ten years or twenty, it is no more than just that he should 
 pay this sum every year till the principal is refunded, because 
 the service is every year repeated, the abstinence is still prac- 
 tised in his favor. Therefore, capital once acquired by absti- 
 nence, becomes, if the abstinence be continued, a legitimate 
 
CAPITAL. 263 
 
 source of perpetual revenue to the owner, as wel. as a per- 
 petual source for the maintenance of laborers. Whoever 
 transforms his property into capital, establishes thereby a 
 permanent fund whence he may draw an income, and labor- 
 ers support, in perpetuit}' ; because the capital, though con- 
 stantly disappearing in production, as constantly re-appeais 
 in products, with profits added : a fact which shoA\'S the folly 
 of the popular opinion which regards more favorably the man 
 who spends his money freely and unproductively, than the 
 man who, turning his money into capital, building a mill, or 
 making other permanent investments, creates by that means 
 a fund in the community, out of which permanent wages and 
 permanent profits can be paid. The strength of the motives 
 to abstinence in any country will depend largely upon the 
 character of the government, and the organization of society 
 there ; these motives being generally strongest where liberty 
 of action, equality of privileges, and security of property 
 are the greatest. 
 
 6. It is time now to observe the forms which capital 
 assumes. The whole class Capital is divided into two 
 sub-classes, namely, Circulating Capital and Fixed Capital. 
 Circulating Capital comprises all those capitalized products, 
 the returns for the sale of which are derived at once and 
 once for all: Fixed Capital comprises all those capitalized 
 products which are purchased or held with a view of deriving 
 an income from their use. " The test of fixed and circulat- 
 ing capital is the inquiry. Are returns secured by the reten- 
 tion, or by the transfer, of the particular product? Tools 
 in the hands of him who uses them are fixed, in the hands 
 of him who manufactures them, circulating capital." (Bas- 
 com's Pol. Econ. p. 71.) Circulating Capital will be found 
 in the following forms : (1) all raw materials ; (2) all wages 
 paid out in view of an ultimate profit ; (3) completed pro- 
 ducts on hand for sale ; and (4) all products bought and 
 held for the sake of resale. Fixed capital will be found 
 under one or other of the following heads : (1) all tools and 
 
264 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 machinery ; (2) all buildings used for productive purposes ; 
 (3) all permanent improvements on land ; (4) all invest- 
 ments in aid of locomotion, such as railroads, canals, ships, 
 and every thing subsidiary to these ; (5) all products loaned 
 or rented, or retained for that purpose ; and (6) the national 
 money as a whole. 
 
 In manufactming and mining industry, a new term has 
 come into common use within the past few years, which needs 
 to be explained in this connection. The term is '■'• plant." 
 The plant is made up wholly of items of fixed capital, like 
 machinery, improvements, personal property (not supplies), 
 draught animals, fixtures, and so on, but does not include 
 the real estate of factories or the mine itself as a mineral 
 yielder (Dr. Pumpelly in Census of 1880). 
 
 As civilization advances, and the aggregate of all forms 
 of capital enlarges, there is a tendency towards a relative 
 increase of fixed capital, as compared with circulating. 
 This disproportion would become greater than it actually 
 does become, were it not for the fact that almost all forms 
 of iixed capital arc subject to a rapid deterioration of value, 
 due partly to usual wear and tear, and partly to the progress 
 of improvements, in consequence of which, what is old soon 
 becomes antiquated. In nothing, perhaps, is actual cost of 
 production so useless a guide to present value, as in ma- 
 chinery, and other forms of fixed capital. New and easier 
 methods are being constantly invented, and the result of 
 their introduction is to lessen the value of the old apparatus, 
 and consequently to lessen the value of the aggregate accu- 
 mulations of fixed, as compared with the current value of 
 circulating, capital. Production looks perpetually to ends ; 
 and estimates means just in proportion to their present effi- 
 ciency to reach the end proposed. If the end can be reached 
 by a cheaper process, in any department, the value of the 
 former means will fall ; and the value of the former results 
 secured by these means, other things being equal, will fall 
 also. About the middle of the century it was estimated by 
 
CAPITAL. 265 
 
 Mr. Carey (Social Science, III. 56), that the proportion of 
 ch'culating capital to fixed in France, was one to eight ; in 
 TLiigland, one to three ; and in the United States, three 
 to five ; proportions which he believed to be mnch higher 
 in favor of fixed capital than formerly obtained in those 
 countries. It is' also worthy of notice, that there may be a 
 too rapid and general conversion of circulating into fixed 
 capital for the present best interest of certain classes of per- 
 sons. If all carriage-makers, for example, instead of sell- 
 ing their carriages outright, and making new carriages with 
 the proceeds, should let them out on hire, receiving their 
 value only in instalments, it is evident that they could not 
 make so many carriages as before, and that their workmen 
 would suffer by the change of method. So too, if, while a 
 national debt is being contracted for war expenditure, gen- 
 eral business become dull, and capitalists, preferring the 
 steady income from the national bonds to the uncertain gains 
 of business, largely invest their circulating capital in bonds, 
 it is very clear that many laborers would suffer a disadvan- 
 tage. When man}' of the small farms of Scotland were 
 turned into sheep walks, and some of the circulating agri- 
 cultural capital was used to enlarge estates with that view, 
 it was said, that there was much temporary distress among 
 the agricultural population. In the ten years, 1871-81, 
 828,000 acres of grain-land and 228,000 acres of green- 
 crop land in Great Britain were converted into permanent 
 pasture, and an annual return of £8,000,000 formerly de- 
 rived from these crops thereby disappeared (James Cau'd) . 
 Pasturing, whether of sheep or cattle, employs far fewer 
 laborers thar.. culture. The wonderful productiveness of 
 railroad's as a form of capital has already been noted ; aad 
 3'et 'jven railroads may be built, have been built, too fast 
 and too far for the best interest of capital as such ; because 
 a railroad as fixed capital becomes a fixed fact, and cannot 
 change its form and place, as the circulating capital out of 
 which it was built was well able to do ; and tlierefore, a mania 
 
266 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 for building railroads is to be dreaded \\ke other manias, lest 
 it withdraw capital too rapidly from a more profitable circu- 
 lating form and put it beyond recall into a fixed form. 
 
 7. We come now to the most important point in this chap- 
 ter, namely, the relations of capital to labor, and to that 
 law of the distribution of the products between capitalists 
 and laborers, which was first propounded by Mr. Carey, 
 and which fully justifies his claim to be regarded as an 
 important contributor to the science of Political Economy. 
 We shall unfold the whole matter in our own way, and in 
 strict accordance with the principles already laid down. 
 
 Capitalists are all those who have laid by some valuable 
 things (the fruit of previous labor and capital) to be used 
 as a means for further production ; but this further produc- 
 tion cannot be had, unless labor also be united with the cap- 
 ital , since capital by itself alone can produce nothing ; and 
 consequently, capitalists are the principal people who desire 
 steadily, and are able to pay for, the services of laborers. 
 It is true, the capitalists are looking only at profits, just as 
 the laborers are looking only at wages ; but the possession 
 of capital and the desire for profits put the capitalists into 
 a good position to make exchanges with laborers, whose 
 desire for a return in the shape of wages puts them into a 
 good position to make the exchanges. Capital does not hire 
 labor, as many economists phrase it ; persons and not tilings 
 are ultimate in Political Economy, and personifications of 
 things are always confusing in science ; but capitalists, be- 
 cause they are such, and because capital not united^ with 
 labor both remains barren and becomes less, desire to make 
 a trade with laborers, who, desiring toages for their part, 
 are able to work up the raw material, tend the machinery, 
 and dispose of the products, and thus enable the capitalists 
 to realize profits. It is the old case over again of a mutual 
 sale, — of two persons standing opposite each other to make 
 a mutually advantageous trade. There can be no deep- 
 seated antagonism between capitalists and laborers, any 
 
CAPITAL. 267 
 
 more than between any other two classes of men able and 
 anxious to make exchanges with each other. Unless there 
 may be profits there will be no capital, because men will not 
 practise abstinence without the hope of a reward ; but also 
 without the laborers there can be profits by no possibility, 
 since these are the agents by whom profits are realized ; and 
 therefore the very presence of capital in any community 
 becomes expressed through the capitalists as a demand for 
 laborers. The more capital accumulates in any community, 
 the greater must be the demand for laborers ; and the greater 
 the demand for laborers, the greater so far forth the reward 
 of labor, or wages ; and therefore laborers as such are 
 interested in nothing so much as in the increase of capital 
 through large profits, and in the strength of those motives 
 to abstinence in the minds of capitalists, out of which cap- 
 ital springs. 
 
 Laborers are every way the economical equals of capital- 
 ists. Laborers offer a service to capitalists, and capitalists 
 offer a service to laborers. They stand man to man. They 
 exchange to the mutual advantage of both, and one is as 
 independent as the other. The workmen may hold up their 
 heads. They offer an honorable service on which capital 
 is absolutely dependent for its existence. They offer a ser- 
 vice as legitimate and as respectable, as that of the clergy- 
 man who preaches their sermons and baptizes their children, 
 and are paid on the same general principles. Let no em- 
 ployer feel too much exalted towards his workmen. The 
 mojaey he renders them is no whit better than the work they 
 render him. The exchange is honorable, and the parties to 
 it on the same level of advantage. They are as necessary 
 to him as he is necessary to them. As a capitalist he can- 
 not exist without them ; as laborers they cannot exist with- 
 out him. He is one blade of the shears, they are the other 
 blade, and it takes both blades to cut. It is absurd to ask 
 which blade cuts most, because there is no cutting at all, 
 unless both blades work together. 
 
268 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 But this is not all. The next step in this course of rea- 
 soning is still more interesting and important. Capitalists 
 and laborers are not only essential to each other, as are also 
 all other parties to a trade, but besides each of these classes is 
 constantly bettered by the prosperity of the other. If capital- 
 ists are realizing a good round rate per centum, each will be 
 desirous to enlarge his business, whether as active operator 
 or lender, and to employ as much of his income as possible 
 in the form of new capital. Of course this process increases 
 capital. If men constantly put their profits only back into 
 their business, which, under a high rate per centum, they are 
 strongly inclined to do, capital increases rapidly. But in- 
 crease of capital is, in its very nature, an increased demand 
 for laborers. An increased demand for laborers, other 
 things being equal, infallibly raises wages ; just as an in- 
 creased demand for any thing else raises its value. There- 
 fore, laborers are directly interested in the prosperity of 
 capital, because the prosperity of capital leads to its in- 
 crease, and its increase leads to higher wages. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, high profits and high wages, so far from being 
 incompatible, usually accompany each other. On the other 
 hand, the capitalist is equally, though perhaps not so direct- 
 ly, interested in the prosperity of his laborers. It is not a 
 dead loss to him by any means that he now has to pay 
 higher wages than formerly, because this is no game of 
 grab, in which what one gains another loses ; it is rather 
 a case of joint production, in which two parties conspire, 
 and in which whatever helps to enlarge the gross amount 
 produced, helps to increase the share falling to each party. 
 If then, as they undoubtedly do, high wages tend to mak-3 
 the workmen more intelligent, industrious, frugal, and in- 
 ventive, they are not a loss to the capitalist, but a gain. 
 Larger gross returns are thereby secured. Improved intel- 
 ligence and skill of workmen affect production, just as im- 
 proved machinery, secured by the aid of capital, affects it. 
 Both alike enlarge the aggregate of products to be divided 
 
CAPITAL. 269 
 
 between capitalist and laborer. Now, in ths division of 
 products thus rendered larger in amount, what hinders capi- 
 tal from getting a fair share? When a firm is prosperous, 
 are not all the partners benefited ? All that is produced is 
 to be divided ; if more is produced, more is to be divided. 
 Intelligent, industrious, skilful workmen, are best for produc- 
 tion, are best for the capitalist, and therefore, high wages, 
 which tend to make them so, and which are a consequence 
 of their being so, are to be paid without grudging. When 
 the matter is sifted to the bottom, it is seen that capital is 
 as mucli interested in the prosperity of labor, as labor is 
 interested in the prosperity of capital. All legitimate inter- 
 ests are in harmony. 
 
 But the last step in this course of reasoning is the most 
 important of all. We are now to prove that all increase of 
 capital^ while it redounds to the benefit of cajyitalists, redounds 
 in a still higher degree to the benefit of laborers. As a 
 country grows older and richer, and as the world grows 
 older and richer, there is a constant and general tendency, 
 subject indeed to some temporary interruptions, towards a 
 decline in the rate per centum for the use of capital. The 
 rate of interest on money loaned, and the rate of profits on 
 capital used, tend all the while to go down as capital is accu- 
 mulated. No one will dispute this as a simple fact of his- 
 tory. Three centuries ago in England the legal rate of 
 interest was 10 %, while now the current rate is about 4 in 
 that country, and has been considerably lower than that 
 in Holland, although in both countries there was some rally- 
 ing of the rate as the last quarter of the century set in. 
 Duiing the first years of mining operations in California, 
 from 8 to 15 % a mouth with security of real estate was 
 paid for the use of money, which enormous rates long ago 
 declined to rates not much higher than those paid in the 
 States along the Mississippi River, and in these also the 
 rates are approximating those current in the older Eastern 
 States. This admitted fact, that, as capital increases in 
 
270 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 amount, the rate for its use declines, is just what we might 
 expect as a corollary from the proposition, that, other things 
 being equal, an increased Supply of any thing means a les- 
 sened Value for any specific part of it. But, while there is a 
 less rate oi interest or profit on each hundred invested, 
 there are also many more hundreds, and consequently there 
 is an absolute gain to capitalists as a class, and both an 
 absolute and relative gain to the laborers as a class. Let 
 us take to figures. Let ^100,000,000, while the rate of 
 profit is six, and $500,000,000, when it has fallen to foui, 
 be expended in payment of simple wages. So far forth, 
 the value of the products to be divided j'early, will be repre- 
 sented respectively by ^106,000,000 and $520,000,000. In 
 the first case, $6,000,000 is profits, and $100,000,000 is 
 wages. In the second case, $20,000,000 is profits, and 
 $500,000,000 is wages. Here is an absolute gain to capi- 
 talists. Profits have gone up from six to twenty millions, 
 and are more than three times as great as before. But wages 
 have gone up both absolutely and relatively. They have 
 risen from one hundred to five hundred millions, and are fve 
 times as great as before. Profits have risen in the ratio of 
 one to three, but wages in the ratio of one to five. This 
 arithmetical example is put for the sake of illustration, but 
 the principle holds good in every case w^here the rate jjer 
 centum goes down in consequence of the increase of capital, 
 and therefore the advantages of ever enlarging capital are 
 even greater to the laborers as a class than to the capitalists 
 themselves. Most assuredly, if capital now takes less out 
 of every hundred, more is left to labor. Profits and wages 
 are reciprocally the leavings of each other, since the aggre- 
 gate products created by the joint agency of capital and 
 labor are wholly to be divided between them. This demon- 
 stration is extremely important ; for it proves beyond a cavil, 
 that the value of labor tends constantly to rise, not only as 
 compared with the value of the material commodities which, 
 by the aid of capital, it helps to create, a truth we have 
 
CAPITAL. 271 
 
 seen before, but also as compared with the value of the .ise 
 of its co-partner capital itself ; and therefore, that there is 
 inwrought in the very nature of things a tendency towards 
 equality of condition among men. God has ordered it so. 
 Self-interest is indeed the mainspring of movement in the 
 economic world ; but no man can labor intelligently and 
 productively under its influence, without at the same time 
 benefiting the masses of men. Plis very savings, produc- 
 tively employed, are poor men's livings. 
 
 8. While capital always takes its origin in the frugality of 
 men and women, its profitableness and power depend very 
 much upon the degree of skill with which it is used. There 
 is no inherent power in capital to work independently for 
 the welfare even of the people whose choices have called it 
 into being, for it must be I'emembered that capital, potent 
 as it always becomes in skilled hands, is onl}^ a means for 
 further production. The place that capital shall hold, then, 
 in any couutr}-, will depend very largely on the character- 
 istics of the people there ; first, on their estimate of the 
 future as compared with the present, and consequently on 
 their disposition to save, and second, on their ability to 
 handle what has been saved so that it shall pay tribute to 
 a brisk and wide production. In both these respects, the 
 people of the United States are perhaps as fortunate as those 
 of any other country. As a rule, our people are frugal 
 and thrifty ; and while the necessaries of life no longer 
 content them, and the luxuries of one generation become 
 the common comforts of the next, which then requires 
 and secures new luxuries, the statistics of savings-banks, 
 the- lists of investors in government and other stocks, many 
 new railroads, innumerable new and improved farms, and 
 other forms and signs of capital, all show that the saving is 
 silently going on everywhere. Besides, our people are inven- 
 tive, that is, they know how to make natural forces do more 
 and more of their work ; they are bold, that is, they are will- 
 ing; to risk capital on every rational chance of a profit ; they 
 
272 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 combine easily their capitals, and diverse personal abilities, 
 in gTeat undertakings ; they are not afraid of each other's 
 competition, though they are foolishly afraid at present 
 of the competition of foreigners ; thej* have learned to com- 
 bine cheapness in industrial outlay with vigor of industrial 
 enterprise, so that, in the general manufactures of Massa- 
 chusetts, for example, the fixed and quick capital employed 
 IS only about one-half the value of the annual product, and 
 even in the cotton factory the capital only about equals the 
 annual product ; the ratio of capital to product is higher in 
 mines than in manufactures, — for instance, in the census 
 year 1880, it took 62^ cents' worth of capital to bring out 
 one pound of copper worth on the average 17.46 cents, in 
 the U. S. mines east of the 100th meridian ; and then too, 
 our people as a rule rally quickly from industrial failure and 
 times of depression. 
 
 The greatest fortunes in this country in our time have 
 been realized in connection with' the investment of capital 
 in the means of transportation. Nature seems to be partic- 
 ularly pleased to have her roughnesses smoothed out, and 
 her distances practically shortened ; and the rewards of those 
 who have a genius for this work, or ability to combine into 
 one grand system of benefit the scattered and thus subor- 
 dinate efforts of others, are very large indeed ; and yet, the 
 public advantage in these cases is incomparably larger than 
 the private emolument of the projectors, and so far forth 
 the telegraph magnates and the railroad millionnaires miy 
 be held to be public benefactors. 
 
 9. It must follow from all that has preceded, that the 
 vast destructions of war are mainly a destruction of capital. 
 War cannot be carried on except by means of property act- 
 ually existing, nor for any length of time or to any great 
 extent except by means of propert}' existing in the form of 
 capital. These savings previously employed productively 
 are the source whence war-supplies are drawn ; the capital 
 is absolutely destroyed ; the war-debt remaining is only a 
 
CATITAL. 278 
 
 memorial of this destruction, and an obligatioi resting upon 
 sombody to create new capital with which to replace the old ; 
 the debt does not carry on the war, but transfers the capital 
 from individuals to the government ; and war, accordingly, 
 is the greatest enemy to exchanges, because it annihilates 
 a portion of the central agencies which carry them forward.' 
 We may gather up into the following propositions the sub- 
 stance of the present chapter : — 
 
 1. All capital is products saved for further use in produC' 
 tion. 
 
 2. The motive for the saving is the increase accruing. 
 
 3. Mere hoards are not capital, but become such when lent 
 for interest or otherwise used productively. 
 
 4. The more capital the more use of free Nature, and the 
 more demand for paid laborers. 
 
 5. The more capital the larger the aggregate of values pro- 
 duced, and the less the value of each particular of the aggre- 
 gate. 
 
 6. The more capital the higher the rate of wages, and the 
 loiver the rate of profit. 
 
 7. Profits are the leavings of wages. 
 
 8. Fixed capital increases relatively to circulating, and both 
 are the poor man's friend. 
 
 9._ War destroys capital, communism threatens it, strikes 
 impair it, while peace and good-will reduplicate it. 
 
274 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LAND. 
 
 Labok a ad Capital, two of the three requisites of Produc- 
 tion, have now been fully discussed. It remains to treat 
 closely of Natural- Agents, the third and last of these requi- 
 sites, and more especially of Land, the only natural agent 
 that presents elements of dispute and difficulty. It is con- 
 ceded by all, that air and light and gravity and electricity 
 and other natural powers disconnected with the land are free 
 for all to use at will, and that the progress of invention is 
 nothing in the world but the shifting off of parts of irksome 
 human labor by means of certain forms of capital upon these 
 gratuitous forces, which work without money and without 
 price. But when it comes to Land, itself originally a natural 
 agent of vast proportions, and to such things as waterfalls 
 and mines inseparably connected with the land, there ap- 
 pears a great diversity of opinion. The Phj^siocrats thought, 
 that land was property in an eminent sense, that it alone 
 should bear the weight of taxes, and that indeed it was 
 the ultimate source of all values. Henry George thinks, 
 that private property in land is an abomination, and " can- 
 not be defended on the score of justice." Most, if not 
 all, of the second school of economists have regarded the 
 amount of land-rents, the value of land products, and the 
 value of the land itself, as determined in a quite different 
 way from all other values. "We must, accordingly, go cau- 
 tiously into this topic, and use the best powers we have 
 of insight and reasoning, in order to understand it ; and 
 if this one condition be supplied, there is no danger but we 
 shall reach clear and sound results. 
 
LAND. 275 
 
 Let one thing be premised before we begin, namely, thai 
 the presitmption in science is always against the existence of a 
 few oiitlying cases, whenever the induction has been long and 
 carefully conducted by many persons, and the generalization 
 appears on cdl other grounds to be sound and comprehensive. 
 Indeed the best test of scientific definitions or generaliza- 
 tions is found in those seemingly anomalous cases with which 
 all science has to do, and which come with such apparent 
 reluctance under her painstaking classifications ; for, if defi- 
 nitions or generalizations reduce into order these outlying 
 cases without violence, as well as cover easil}' the more cen- 
 tral phenomena, there is at once created the strongest evi- 
 dence of their correctness. Now the questions relating to 
 the value of laud and its products have been among the 
 most vexed questions of Political Economy, have exercised 
 a vast amount of ingenuity, and have led to careful obser- 
 vations in the whole field of agriculture, while the diverging 
 views that have been taken, the arguments adduced, the 
 conclusions drawn, and the spirit manifested, in these dis- 
 cussions, form the most unrefreshing portion of the history 
 of the science. These questions in their economical aspects, 
 however bitterly debated in the past and present, and though 
 almost uniformly regarded as anomalous matters to which 
 peculiar principles must be applied, are approaching, even if 
 they have not already reached, a scientific and satisfactory 
 solution. It seems to us that the means are now at hand for 
 combining what is true in all these views, and for settling 
 the disputes for all time. We feel sure that all the parties 
 are right in some respects and are wrong in other respects, 
 and are not without hopes of being able in this chapt( r to 
 reconcile the differences, and to show completely' that the 
 varying values of land and of its products and of its rents 
 arise and vary from human services rendered and received, 
 precisely as all other values do, and consequently that our 
 previous definitions and classifications appl}' here witliout a 
 break. 
 
276 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 1. There is one grand distinction to be made at the out- 
 set, namel}^ that between land as a physical thing, which 
 God made and gave to men in common, and land as a valua- 
 ble thing, made such through the action of human desires 
 and human efforts. It is confusion at this point, that has 
 oiven rise to most of the current fallacies in the land dis- 
 cussion. As God made it and gave it to men, the whole 
 earth was one vast natural agent. Every thing on its sur 
 face and underneath its surface was plainly free to all com- 
 ers to use and enjoy, just as the air above its surface was 
 and still is free to all for breathing, ballooning, and all 
 other purposes for which air can be used. The spontaneous 
 fruits of the earth, and the manifold powers of the earth, 
 had indeed for the first men a great utility, but from the 
 nature of things could have had no value at all. Nor was 
 there any provision or occasion at first for particular owner- 
 ship of separate parcels of the land itself. The idea of vahce 
 could not have attached to any portion of land on which 
 no human efforts had been expended : no man would have 
 thought to say to another under such circumstances, "this 
 field is mine, and if you will give me something for it, you 
 shall have it ; " and even if he had thought of it, that other 
 would not give it, because such fields were open on every 
 hand gratis. It is not in human natvu'e to render any thing 
 for something which may be gratuitously obtained ; and 
 therefore value can have no place in a sphere where every 
 thing is free. All the portions of the earth's surface, and 
 all the part^ of a vast system of natural agents connected 
 with it, were, in the early ages of its occupation, as common 
 and free to all men as most of the natural agents have con- 
 tinfted to be till this day. 
 
 2. If we may trust the simple record in Genesis, the whole 
 earth was given of God without partiality to a whole race 
 under the simple direction that they ' ' replenish and subdue 
 it." Under the word '■'■subdue," and under the human ser- 
 vices implied in that, came in the first idea of ownership in 
 
LAND. 277 
 
 land. When a family commenced this work of subjugation 
 upon a piece of land, when they enclosed it, settled on it, 
 tilled it, in any way whatever improved it by an expenditure 
 of their own toil, then first dawned upon their minds the idea 
 of possession, then first began the land to be possessed of 
 value, since now the family would justly say to another. If 
 you want this field, you must give us an equivalent for what 
 we have expended on it. If the transfer took place, is it 
 not very plain that what was sold, was not so much the 
 inherent qualities of the soil as the result of the efforts ex- 
 pended in its amelioration? The qualities of the soil lay 
 indeed at the foundation of the utility of the parcel ; that 
 utility, however, had been increased by the efforts of men ; 
 and the value of the parcel, the equivalent rendered in return 
 for it, would be gauged, in general, by this second factor in 
 the utility. The first family received the soil and its powers 
 gratuitously, and then expended a series of efforts on its 
 improvement ; but a similar series of efforts bestowed on 
 other gratuitous land in the neighborhood would make it as 
 eligible as this now is ; if, therefore, the family insisted on 
 more than an equivalent for their exertions actually bestowed 
 on the land, the other would reply, For as much labor as 
 you have given to your land, we can make other free land 
 as good as yours, consequently we can give you no more 
 than a fair equivalent for your efforts. The value there- 
 fore of the parcel sold, would be determined, not by the 
 gratuitous elements involved, but by the onerous elements 
 involved, that is to say, by the elTorts already made by the 
 first family in connection with the land, as compared with 
 the efforts of the second involved in the remuneration offered. 
 The physical thing, land, which cost nothing, has now be- 
 come the valuable thing, land, solely in consequence of 
 human efforts expended, by which a new utility has been 
 added to the original utility,, whatever that was; and that 
 which the buyer pays for is not the free old but the onerous 
 new, and nobody is harmed thereby, and no bounty of 
 
278 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 God is thereby intercepted in its descent to mankind as a 
 whole. 
 
 Indeed, it does not seem to he possible in the nature of 
 things that God's bounty to the whole race should be thwarted 
 b}^ any number of individuals through exclusive appropria- 
 tion on their part of this bounty. What they received gra- 
 tuitously, they must gratuitously transmit ; what they have 
 wrought of permanent improvements on the land, the}^ may 
 justly demand a recompense for, and can secure it. By 
 their expenditure of efforts they have saved to the purchaser 
 a like expenditure of efforts, and for these they can demand, 
 and he will be willing to concede, a recompense ; but if they 
 go further, and demand pay for the natural qualities of the 
 soil which God gave and they have not improved, for the 
 sun that shines, and the rain that falls on it, the demand is 
 blocked at once hy the common sense of the purchaser. He 
 replies : There is land enough in its natural state, with inher- 
 ent qualities as good as yours, the same sun shining on it, 
 and just as much blessed rain falling on it, which I can have 
 for nothing. I cannot give you something for that which 
 costs you nothing, and which I can get for nothing. 
 
 As long as there is abundance of land still open to occu- 
 pation, everybody wCl concede that this line of argument is 
 just, and that the general value of land cannot rise above 
 the estimated measure of the human efforts actually bestowed 
 on its improvement. Though less obvious at first, the prin- 
 ciple still holds true after all the land has been taken up. 
 Improved farms are always for sale in every countr^^, lands 
 once appropriated and amelioi-ated are perpetually changing 
 hands, and some men are always found willing to part with 
 land, as with any thing else, for what it has cost them. If 
 some proprietors try to exact a price for their land made up 
 of compensation for what they and their predecessors have 
 done upon it, and for what they or others have done in some 
 proximity to or connection with it, together with something 
 added for. what God has done for it, theix cupidity is usually 
 
LAND. 279 
 
 thwarted by the readiness of others to dispose of their land 
 for a fair equivalent of their own or others' onerous exer- 
 tions. Human motives are such, and every thing is so provi- 
 dentially an-anged, that men cannot, as a rule, sell G-od's 
 gifts ; it would be derogatory to the Giver, if they could. 
 
 3. What might be thus inferred from the nature of the 
 case, is abundantly confirmed by facts. As a matter of fact 
 and experience, lands are absolutely valueless until some 
 portion of human effort has been expended on them, or in 
 reference to them. They may have utility, but they have 
 no value. Nobody will give any thing for them. The United 
 States Government has been selling for years some of the 
 best lands in the world for one dollar and a quarter an acre, 
 and this after the lands have been survej^ed at government 
 expense, local governments provided for the settlers, and 
 mail facilities and other privileges guaranteed to them. The 
 same government is now giving away similar lands in home- 
 steads to actual settlers, merely taking for the the title-deeds 
 nominal fees, whose aggregate amount does not begin to 
 meet the expenses incurred in connection with these lands. 
 If lands had value, independent of human exertions, then 
 would the English companies and individuals who received 
 grants in the 17th century of vast tracts of as fertile land 
 on this continent as the sun ever visited in his diurnal revo- 
 lutions, have become rich as Croesus ; but these companies 
 and individuals did not become rich at all, but rather poor. 
 The amount realized from the sale of their lands fell far 
 short of re-imbursing the expenses of colonization; and, 
 after incurring debts and endless vexations, most of the 
 companies and proprietors were glad to be rid of then" lands 
 at an}' price. It is a current proverb now in regard to wild 
 lands at the West, that the more a man has of them the 
 worse off he is ; and it is a maxim also in the newer settle- 
 ments everywhere, that improved lands are worth the present 
 value of the improvements and no more. Mr. Care}' is at 
 pains to prove, what might be expected beforehand, that the 
 
280 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 value of lauds in old countries is now less than they have 
 cost of actual human efforts in their subjugation and im- 
 provement. The progress of capital and inventions enables 
 similar work to be done now at greater advantage, and con- 
 sequently the results of former work have fallen in value. 
 While, therefore, value in land arises solely in connection 
 with human efforts of some sort standing in some relation to 
 that land, it is important to observe that the value is net 
 always proportioned to those efforts. The efforts may have 
 been misdirected ; the desires calculated upon may have taken 
 another turn ; the utility sought to be conferred may not find 
 the requisite natural utility underneath ; and so, there is a 
 greater diversity in the value of lands than in the amount 
 of efforts expended upon them. 
 
 4. It follows from these points made, that, under our divis- 
 ion of Values, salable land is a Commodity, just as a horse 
 is, or as a steam-engine is. Men did not originally make 
 the land, neither do men make horses, nor do men make the 
 iron ore, out of which most parts of the steam-engine are 
 made ; but men modify the land as God made it, come into 
 possession of it in some way, gain for themselves a 7-ight to 
 sell it, and prepare it to be sold, just as men break and train 
 horses and prepare them to be sold, and just as men by 
 many processes transform the iron ore into the steam-engine. 
 Ricardo ^ says that ' ' rent is that portion of the produce of the 
 earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the origi- 
 nal and indestructible powers of the soil." As a matter of 
 fact, and as we shall see, thei'e are no such powers ; and even 
 if there werS, it would be impossible to separate the portion 
 paid " for the use of the original and indestructible powers 
 of the soil ' ' from the portion paid as interest on the capital 
 expended to bring that land from the state of nature to its 
 present state. There is scarcely any land anywhere fit for 
 cultivation without more or less expenditure of labor and 
 capital upon it; and the "powers" of the earth, instead of 
 
 1 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, p. 47, 2d ed., 1819. 
 
LANB. 281 
 
 beiug " indestructible," are iu a constant process of wearing 
 out, and require a constant application of labor and capital 
 to keep up their fertility. Besides, who is authorized to take 
 pay " for the use of the original and indesiructihle powers of 
 the soil " ? And who can put himself into a position where he 
 can enforce such a claim ? Laud accordingly, like all other 
 commodities, and like all other valuable services, derives its 
 utility partly from the free contribution of Nature, and partly 
 frorc the onerous contribution of men ; and, as we saw in 
 gencxal in the chapter on "Value," the value of land, as of 
 all othei services, tends perpetually to become proportionate 
 to the onerous human contributions, and not to the aggregate 
 utility. There are unique cases iu lands, as in other things, 
 in which the action of competition may not expel the common 
 factor, — nature's contribution, — from all influence on price ; 
 but these cases are of no more importance in lands than in 
 horses, or other things, and themselves come completely under 
 the law of Supply and Demand. Our generalization, there- 
 fore, in regard to Commodities, is not at fault when it touches 
 upon land. Land comes under it easily and perfectly. 
 
 5. Moreover, all our other definitions and principles will 
 now be seen to include without violence the facts of land. 
 Desires first and then efforts, — the utUity to each party of 
 the respective services, and then the equivalents rendered hj 
 each, — these are always the elements out of which the value 
 of land, the value of its products, the amount of its rent, 
 must and do spring ; otherwise, our science would lack the 
 generality which alone can constitute it a science. What- 
 ever makes land more an object of desire than it was before, 
 wliether increased fertility or a location now become more 
 advantageous, will, so far forth, increase its value ; and 
 whatever makes the equivalent offered for it more an object 
 of desire to the holder of the laud, will, so far forth, dimin- 
 ish its value ; while the reversed conditions iu each case will 
 give of course reversed results. Lands in cities, or in th^ 
 neighborhood of them ; lands of uuusual fertility, or pos- 
 
282 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 sessing superioi' building sites ; lands containing rich mines 
 or a remarkable water-power ; sometimes excite extraordinary 
 desires to possess them, and bear in consequence an extra- 
 ordinar}" price. Still the efforts, care, and abstinence of their 
 owners, or of others, have made up an essential part of their 
 present utility. They are assimilated in the law of their value 
 to other unique products. Of such lands no market rate can 
 be predicated, because competition has no play. Their util- 
 ity, like every other utility that underlies value, is partly the 
 contribution of nature and partly the contribution of man, 
 but competition in this case has not its usual opportunity to 
 eliminate from its action on price that portion of the utility 
 that is the free gift of nature. Their price, consequently, 
 is only gauged by the service which the owner can render 
 the purchaser by them. V/ith these unimportant exceptions, 
 which themselves come with precision under our fundamental 
 principles, the value of land follows the law of other values, 
 arises only in connection with human efforts, is open to free 
 competition, is not affected by the utility that comes from 
 nature, rests back upon the right of making efforts for one's 
 own welfare, and of not parting with the result except for 
 an equivalent, is a clear case of service for service, and 
 varies like other values under the law of demand and supply. 
 ,6. It is worthy of remark at this point that the element of 
 profits frequently finds place in the price of lands. Land 
 may be purchased and held a long time with a view to ulti- 
 mate profits. Little may have been done for the land origi- 
 nally, and little in the mean time, and yet the ultimate price 
 be large, because the purchase-money should be replaced with 
 compound interest. Abstinence, therefore, which is one form 
 of effort, has often to do with the value of lands. Also, the 
 efforts of certain men put forth exclusively towards euds of 
 their own, as in locating a railroad or a manufactory, may 
 benefit the lands of other men as much as efforts put forth 
 with that direct intent. These lauds become thereby more 
 desi -able and therefore more valuable. 
 
LAND. 283 
 
 7. This brings us to the very important proposition, that 
 by much the largest part of all salable land is nothing more 
 or less than Capital. Capital is some product reserved as a 
 means to further production ; and valuable land is always 
 a product of labor and previous capital, and is generally 
 reserved for use in future production, and so is capital under 
 the definition. The moment it is recognized as such, the 
 difficulties that have perplexed economists and statesman, 
 for example, Mr. George in his labored discussions of land, 
 and Mr. Gladstone in his passing of the Irish Land Bill of 
 1881, mostly, if not wholly, disappear. Of coui'se, land is 
 capital only so far as it is a p)rodact ; and here comes in agam 
 the distinction with which we started, namely, that between 
 land as a physical thing and land as a valuable thing. Not 
 Sill lund is valuable, though all land is land: value is often 
 superinduced by labor and capital on worthless land, and 
 thereafter the two become one in men's minds, and work 
 confusion there. But there is nothing unusual in the trans- 
 formation of a worthless thing into a valuable thing by the 
 action of labor and capital, and the two thereafter becoming 
 undistinguishable : a cherry log, perhaps now worthless in 
 the mountain pasture, wnen transported by labor and capital 
 to the cabinet-shop, and transformed by the same means into 
 a set of furniture, may become very valuable, — the valueless 
 physical wood taking on that (now inseparable from itself) 
 which makes the two salable. But it must always be remem- 
 bered, that value goes as well as comes, and that things once 
 salable often become later valueless. 
 
 So too, not all valuable land is capital, but only that large 
 portion of it that is worked or leased or held with a view to 
 an ultimate p?'q/i^. A competent authority estimated in 1881 
 that the land of the United Kingdom of Great Britain was 
 worth £3,000,000,000 ; and there were at the same time 
 6,000,000 inhabited houses, excluding factories and business 
 premises and tenements renting for £20 and under. There 
 were 4,008,907 farms in the United States in the year 1880. 
 
284 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 The actual number of acres taxed ia 1880 in the sioall and 
 sterile State of Massachusetts was 4,474,674; from which, 
 if we deduct 100,000 acres for house-lots in city and village, 
 th i farm acreage remaining will be about 4,375,000, an aver- 
 age of near!}' 44,000 farms of 100 acres each. Now it is 
 eas}' to see, in general, what part of these lands, as also 
 what part of these buildings, is capital : the factories and 
 business premises of course are capital ; the lands and the 
 buildings on them that are rented out are capital ; the farms 
 cultivated by their owners or leased to tenants are capital ; 
 while private houses occupied by their owners, and lands 
 kept for mere beauty or convenience, are not capital. That 
 portion of the land that is capital, then, must of course pos- 
 sess all the characteristics of capital ; and, among these, is 
 the liability to wear out. As value comes only gradually into 
 land under the action of human efforts and desires, and as 
 valuable land becomes capital only under the further action of 
 these and of abstinence, so lands often cease to be capital 
 and even to be valuable as these causes intermit their action 
 in relation to them. There are whole tiers of farms in the 
 writer's native town in New Hampshire, that were once 
 valuable and capital in the hands of active owners and cul- 
 tivators, which are now growing up to forest again, and are 
 as nearly as possible valueless. This is a mere instance of 
 facts, which may probably be exemplified in every country 
 in the world ; and is such as ought to stop the mouths of 
 those, who, like Mr. George and the Irish land-leaguers of 
 1881, denounce private ownership in land as spoliation, and 
 would confistjate rent either for the benefit of the whole com- 
 munity or of the actual tillers of the soil. The truth is, the 
 common sense of mankind seals such ownership, that is to 
 say, grants a full title to the land to those who have subdued 
 or improved it, and to their heirs or purchasers, except when 
 tribal or political considerations override this by some neces- 
 sity that then and there seems more imperative. "Since the 
 beginning of documentary history, the Germans have had 
 
LAND. 285 
 
 mdividual property in laud and a settled law of succession," 
 says Dr. Inama-Steruegg of Prague. The right to own and 
 to enjoy carries along with it the right to sell and to abandon ; 
 and even the abandonment of lands proves that they become 
 valuable and become capital, and then sometimes cease to be 
 both, in the manner already indicated. Under certain well- 
 known conditions, value disappears, and capital wears out. 
 
 8. If the bulk of land be capital, as it is, then we might 
 expect beforehand to find a law of diminishmg return from 
 land, agricultural labor and skill remaining the same ; be- 
 cause all capital is tools, and tools are always wearing out. 
 Increase of labor in connection with any form of capital 
 unimproved by new inventions and uninvigorated by fresh 
 skill, though it may indeed increase the aggregate return, 
 cannot, for the reason just given, secure an increase propor- 
 tioned to the increase of the labor. Tilled land, therefore, 
 is subject to the law of a diminishing return of " produce," 
 by which we mean all the fruits of the earth cultivated foi 
 the sake of their sale. This is the fundamental proposition 
 on which Ricardo, and the English writers generally, lay such 
 stress, and on which they found their law of Rent, and the 
 necessity of restraints on Population ; while Carey and Bas- 
 tiat, impliedly if not expressly, deny the proposition, and 
 of course the inferences deduced from it. But the proposi- 
 tion cannot be logically denied, because it can be shown to 
 be a law of Nature, and to have played a very important 
 part in the occupation and culture of successive portions of 
 the earth's surface. The English writers have not indeed 
 taken land to be capital, and have proved the law of dimin- 
 ishing return in another way from ours,' and hence have 
 not set the propositions of land in their best and most ulti- 
 mate relations. Their method of proving the law is shoil 
 and conclusive: — If by doubling the labor on a piece of 
 land, double the produce could be secured, and by quadru- 
 pling it, quadruple, and so on, there would be no reason 
 why an J' man should ever cultivate more than a square acre. 
 
286 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 or even a square rod. He has a strong motive to confine 
 his culture to a small space, just so long as the amount of 
 produce is in the ratio of the labor expended, because there 
 is less locomotion of tools and fertilizers and crops. The 
 fact that he extends his culture from one acre to another, 
 and then to distant acres, notwithstanding the inconven- 
 icmces and expense of transportation, is an irrefragable proof 
 of the proposition in question. Increase of agricultural 
 labor and expenditure on a given space of land will secure 
 a larger amount of produce, but as a general law, the in- 
 creased amount will not be proportioned to the increased 
 expenditure. If it were thus proportioned, if the law of 
 diminishing return did not exist, then, for purposes of agri- 
 cultural production, a square acre is as good as a continent. 
 
 It is through this law of diminishing return, that the 
 Creator has secured the gradual occupation, by men, of almost 
 the whole earth. There is a strong tendency to leave the 
 old acres to advance upon new, the old countries to emigrate 
 to new, whenever the returns begin to bear a more unfavora- 
 ble ratio to the labor bestowed. The farmer will advance 
 from the first to the second acre as soon as he thinks that 
 more produce can be obtained from it by a given amount 
 of labor than can be got by a like expenditure of additional 
 labor upon the first acre, ' allowance being made for the 
 increased inconvenience ; and so, cultivation has gradually 
 extended itself, and men have become dispersed over the 
 whole earth. Other principles leading to dispersion have 
 undoubtedly co-operated, but this is the fundamental one, 
 operative at all times, changing the course of population, 
 and consequently of empire. 
 
 Mr. Carey tried to break down the law of diminishing 
 returns, which he thought was dependent on an alleged order 
 of occupation, namely, that the best soils are entered npon 
 first, and afterwards recourse is had to the poorer soils, by 
 attempting to prove the reverse order of occupation, namely, 
 that cultivation has always been begun upon the poorer 
 
LA NI). 287 
 
 soils, and that afterwards the river bottoms and strong lauds 
 have been drained and cleared and tilled. This discussion 
 of the order of the occupation of lands, however interesting 
 in itself, is irrelevant so far as the law of diminishing returns 
 is concerned, because that law is nowise dependent on the 
 order in which soils of different productive power are entered 
 upon in cultivation ; and consequently, Mr. Carey put upou 
 this order of occupation an estimation altogether dispropor ■ 
 tioned to its importance. Whenever men have entered upon 
 new countries, they have undoubtedly selected those lands 
 first which seemed to them most eligible, reference being 
 had of course to their present means of subduing them ; 
 and whether these lands proved ultimately to be better or 
 worse than other parcels which they might have chosen, is a 
 point, which, however determined, has no effect to disturb 
 the fundamental proposition in hand. 
 
 Nor is there any thing to disturb this proposition in the 
 enormously increased produce of late years in the United 
 States, and in other countries similarly situated. For in- 
 stance, in the cotton year ending Sept. 1, 1881, the United 
 States produced 6,589,329 bales of raw cotton, while in 
 1850 and in 1870 respectively the crop was 2,469,093 and 
 3,011,996 bales; in the census year 1880, there was of 
 wheat 459,479,505 bushels, while in 1870 there was only 
 287,745,626 bushels ; and of Indian corn in 1880, there was 
 1,754,861,535 bushels, while in 1870 there was but 760,- 
 944,549 bushels. This great increase came for the most 
 part from new acreage, and not from a larger produce on old 
 fields. The United States has an immense area of fertile 
 land, long stretches of which are feeling the plough for the 
 first time year by 3'ear. 
 
 9. All imjirovevieyits in agriculture retard the operation of 
 i/i"" laio of diminishing returns. The recent introduction of 
 the silo upou the long-used and wearing-out farms of New 
 England promises to help restore the fertility of many of 
 them. The discover}- of new and more available fertilizers, 
 
288 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tne invention of better agricultural implements, the light 
 thrown by chemistry upon agriculture, the consequent adop- 
 tion of better methods of culture and rotation of crops, the 
 more perfect adaptation to the various soils of the kinds of 
 produce sought to be raised from them, all these and similar 
 improvements tend to increase the ratio of the produce to 
 the labor, and disguise the law just established. The lands 
 that are now under cultivation may be made, under more 
 skilful modes of culture, to 3'ield indefinitely more than at 
 present, and the vast still uncultivated lands of the world 
 may come to render an incalculable quantity of food to the 
 world's population ; but yet, as improvements are naturally 
 less continuous in this than in some other departments of 
 production, as invention has less play, as there is less oppor- 
 tunit}^ for the division and co-operation of labor, as nothing, 
 can materially shorten the time during which the fruits of 
 the earth must ripen, it is certain that possible improve- 
 ments will never override the law of diminishing returns ; 
 and, consequently, that the value of agricultural products 
 tends to rise relatively to manufactured products generally. 
 Labor, for a reason already given, and produce, for the rea- 
 sons now given, have risen and tend steadil}' to rise, as 
 estimated in general commodities. 
 
 10. The rent of leased lands is the measure of the service 
 which the owner of the land thereby renders to the actual cul- 
 tivator of it. This proposition is extremely important. As 
 land is capital, and as every form of capital may be loaned 
 or rented, and thus become fruitful in the hands of another, 
 as was shown in the preceding chapter, the rent of land does 
 not differ essentially in its nature from the rent of buildings 
 in cities, or from the interest of money. The year 1881 
 was marked by animated discussions throughout the civilized 
 world, and particularly throughout the English-speaking 
 world, on the nature and rightfulness of landed rents, stimu- 
 lated by the deep commotions of Ireland and by the de- 
 bates in the British Parliament on the Irish Land Bill passed 
 
LAND. 289 
 
 in that year. In those debates, the representatives of Irish 
 land-owners held to their commercial right to take all the 
 rent they could extort ; the representatives of the Irish rent- 
 payers held to then* right as cultivators and maintainers to 
 withhold rent in large part or altogether; and Mr. Glad- 
 stone, as representative of the nation, while insisting on 
 the right of the owners to certain rents, insisted equally on 
 the right of the cultivators to certain important privileges'" 
 in the soil. Our present proposition with its corollaries, 
 although it was not used by Mr. Gladstone as it might well 
 have been to smooth his pathway through the roughness of 
 this legislation, j'et justifies at one and the same time the 
 discontent of the Irish rent-paj^er, the claim of the Irish 
 land-owner to an assured rent, and the fundamental principle 
 of the Irish Land BUI. That biU gives a certain modified 
 ownership and control to the actual cultivators and main- 
 tainers of the soil. That is right. 
 
 The commonly accepted English principles of land are 
 wholly against Mr. Gladstone in his concessions to the ten- 
 ants in that bill, while the principles of land herewith enun- 
 ciated justify those concessions completely. Valuable laud 
 becomes such in virtue of human labor expended in connec- 
 tion with the desires of other men for land or its produce, 
 and, unless human labor is further and constantly expended 
 on or in connection with that laud, the value will certainly 
 escape fro^a it ; therefore, whoever has come into possession 
 of that valuable land by purchase or inheritance, and fore- 
 goes the use of it in favor of another, is morally and com- 
 merciall}^ entitled to the stipulated return for that use ; but 
 also, if that other, aside from the current use which is 
 always a wearing-out process, contributes in any wa^^ to the 
 continuance and increase of the fertility of the land, then 
 and so far he gains rights in the land and becomes a sort 
 of joint owner of it, since what he has done in the way of 
 maintenance and improvement is inextricably mingled with 
 what the other owners have done, and is of the same nature 
 
290 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 with that. Therefore, the modified ownership of certain 
 tenants recognized in Gladstone's bill is in strict accordance 
 with ultimate justice. It is also in strict accordance with 
 right, that the legal owner should continue to receive a 
 return in the shape of rent for all the fertility and oppor- 
 1 unity actually rented by him, and no more. The discon- 
 tent of the Irish peasantry, accordingly, has largely come 
 from an instinct or intelligence more unerring than the eco- 
 nomics of the landowners, namely, that they are called on 
 to pay rent for what they themselves have contributed in 
 addition to the rent for what they have received. The true 
 origin of value in land, and the only way in which value in 
 land is kept up, seems to have penetrated deeper into the 
 minds of Irish tenants than into the minds of many British 
 statesmen. 
 
 But Mr. Eicardo's wrong docti'ine of rent is too famous 
 and too firmly embedded in many men's minds for us to pass 
 it by in this connection. The doctrine is for substance, this : 
 there are some lands in every country whose produce just 
 repays the expenses of cultivation, and consequently yields 
 no margin for rent ; and the cost of production on these 
 rentless and poorest lands under cultivation, will determine 
 the price of the produce ; and as there can be but one price 
 In the same market, the produce raised on more fertile lands 
 -mil be sold for the same price, and this price, besides pay- 
 ing the cost of production, will yield a rent rising higher 
 according as the land is more fertile ; so that the rent paid 
 on any land is always a measure of the excess of produc- 
 tiveness of that land over the least productive land under 
 paying cultivation ; and therefore, an increased demand for 
 food in consequence of increased population, and the higher 
 price resulting, will force cultivation down upon still poorer 
 soils, or else compel a higher culture for less remunerative 
 returns on the old soils, according to the law of diminishing 
 returns, which in either case will raise the rents on aU the 
 soUs above that grade that just repays the expenses of cul 
 
LAND. 291 
 
 tivation ; so that it is the sole interest of laudlords, as such, 
 that population should be dense and food high, their interest 
 being directly antagonistic to that of the other classes of the 
 community. 
 
 This ingenious and plausible doctrine is as full of falla- 
 cies as an egg is full of meat. It grew up in a state of 
 things in England now long since passed away, when that 
 country was under infamous corn-laws passed to " protect" 
 the land-owners by raising the price of food through virtual 
 prohibitions on the importation of foreign food. So soon 
 as the trade in corn became free in 1849, and it was no 
 longer possible to crowd cultivation down upon unfit soils 
 by means of prices artificially made dear for the people, the 
 Eicardo law of rent lost most of its significance, and the 
 simple truth remained, applicable to all products that have 
 a market- rate, that the rate must be presupposed to be suffl- 
 cient to meet the cost of that portion produced with the 
 greatest difficulty, otherwise that portion would not have 
 been produced at all. So far as lands are taken on shares, 
 or on permanent leases, or so far as produce is exchanged 
 directly against other commodities and services, Eicardo's 
 law has no direct bearing. It falsely assumes too, that mere 
 cost of production determines the value of produce, while 
 we have learned that the desires of purchasers have quite as 
 much to do with value as the efforts of producers. It falsely 
 assumes also, that the market-rate of produce is a sort of 
 invariable and predeterminable tiling, whereas, although there 
 is a strong tendency towards one price of similar goods of 
 (he same grade in the same market-town on any one day, 
 within certain limits nothing is more changeable or indeter- 
 minable beforehand than the market-rate of produce from 
 week to week or year to year even in one country, to say 
 nothing of the markets of the world. Worst of all, this 
 law assumes, that there are "original and indestructible 
 powers of the soil," and that "rent is that portion of the 
 produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the 
 
292 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 use " of these powers, and that the varying grades of soil 
 become such and continue such without modification and 
 reversal on the part of men ; whereas, the truth is, as we 
 have fully seen, that there are nc such " powers," and that 
 rent is not consequently paid for their '' use." 
 
 The following is believed to be the whole truth briefly 
 expressed in regard to the rent of lands. That portion of 
 utility in lands that is the free gift of Nature is mostly a 
 common factor eliminated from value by the action of com- 
 petition, as in the horses and strawberries, by which illustra- 
 tion was made in the chapter on Value. When not thus 
 eliminated, that part of the utility may raise the rent as well 
 as the price, but the exception in either case is practically 
 unimportant, in both cases is amenable to the law of services 
 exchanged, and, the exception aside, the rent of lands is a 
 simple recompense for the use of a productive instrument, 
 made such by human efforts. The owner has become pro- 
 prietor of all the results of the onerous exertions put forth 
 upon that land, or in any connection with that land, and 
 allows the lessee the use of these results. Because the 
 owner practises abstinence in the lessee's behalf, re7it is sub- 
 stantially the same as profits ; and as gross profits include 
 the wages of superintendence, so rent also partakes of the 
 nature of wages, so far foi'th as the owner still takes an 
 active supervision of his property. Whether tillable lands 
 pay any rent at all, and the amount of rent that they pay, 
 always depends, so far forth as commercial considerations 
 control, on the general or average or expected price, that 
 is to say, value, of Produce. It is not diversity of soils, 
 nor the law of diminishing return, that causes rent, since 
 these continue as before when rent ceases to be paid ; but 
 it is the price of produce under demand and supply, that 
 causes rent. If this price be high, as under the corn-laws, 
 then rents tend to be high ; if low, as under free trade in 
 food, then rents tend to be low. The boundless acres and 
 fertility of the western parts of the United States reduced in 
 
LAND. 293 
 
 the decade 1870-80 many rentful lands in New Euglaud, and 
 Old England too, to or near the rentless point. Of course, 
 whatever makes lands more desirable for cultivation, such 
 as greater proximity to markets, higher degrees of fertility, 
 a better state of improvements, will influence both the price 
 and the rent of those lands ; while the variations of demand 
 and supply as determining the price of produce are the main 
 things to watch in order to find out about the value of lands 
 and their rent. 
 
 11. The best tenure of lands is the fee simple in the hands 
 of the actual cultivators. This is the old Teutonic holding ; 
 but special circumstances in the British Islands have gradu- 
 ally changed these small holdings cultivated by their owners 
 into large estates, the parts of which are leased out at will 
 or for a term of years to tenants or " farmers," as they are 
 called, who, in turn, being small capitalists, as the land- 
 owners are large capitalists, furnish stock and hire laborers 
 and thus become the actual cultivators, and even often sub- 
 let parts of their own leased holdings to tenants of the next 
 degree. The word " farmer" as used in the United States 
 has a quite different meaning from the same word as used in 
 Great Britain ; it means here a man cultivating his own 
 fields with his own funds in his own way, and it means 
 there a man cultivating another's fields with his own funds 
 in a way and on terms made a matter of contract between 
 the two ; and these two modes of culture are so distinct that 
 they are not likely to lie alongside of each other in the same 
 country to any great extent for a very long time. Since 
 the great Revolution, France has had for the most part the 
 small holding tilled by the owner's hands, instead of the 
 great estates of the old regime; in this country the plough 
 is guided almost exclusively by the man who owns the soil ; 
 while in Britain the peasant proprietor has almost wholly 
 disappeared. Each system has its advocates and arguments. 
 The question at bottom is, whether capital in the form of 
 tillable land is more effective when held in largo masses and 
 
294 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 loaned out to men with small capitals in another form, or 
 when held in small masses and used as capital by the owners 
 themselves. We hold that the latter is better for produc- 
 tion than the former, because when one owns the land he 
 tills, he takes a greater interest in it, it is his own, he has a 
 constant motive to improve it, to make the production from 
 it as great as possible, since all it produces is his own. If 
 men work from motives, and if the energy and persistence 
 of the work be proportioned to the constancy and press of 
 the motives, then will ownership most certainly make the 
 aggregate of produce greater than any other tenure of land. 
 Moreover, ownership improves the moral character of the cul- 
 tivators, because it tends to make them industrious, thrifty, 
 independent, hopeful of the future, anxious to give their chil- 
 dren better privileges, as well as better lands, than they 
 themselves had. It would seem as if the masses of men are 
 educated and developed b}' nothing so much, at least by noth- 
 ing more, as and than by the ownership of laud, wherever such 
 tenure is possible and easy to the masses. The testimony is 
 abundant, that the peasant proprietor is a happier and more 
 virtuous, as well as a more industrious and productive man, 
 than the mere tenant and the farm-laborer ; and there is 
 much testimony, though it is perhaps less conclusive, that 
 leased lands are inferior in point of improvements and pro- 
 duction to the same lands when they were cultivated \>j their 
 owners, and to contiguous or at least similar lands still so 
 cultivated. The zeal of an absolute ownership limited in 
 extent has been observed to lead to remarkable results as 
 well in character as in lands, transforming after a while the 
 poorest into excellent lands, and thriftless laborers into fru- 
 gal and enterprising proprietors. This line of argument is 
 strengthened by several features of the Irish Land Bill of 
 1881, and by a speech of Gladstone's at the rent-day dinner 
 at Hawarden in 1882, to the effect, that it was necessary 
 both that legal security be given for the unexhausted im- 
 provements made by the tenants, and also that provision be 
 
LAND. 295 
 
 made whereby tenants might cheaply and quickly be made 
 land-oivners. 
 
 12. It is a point closely allied to the last, that a general 
 division of lands into farms approximately equal and only 
 moderately large is most favorable to the largest aggregate 
 production. Wherever there are no legal obstacles like pri- 
 mogeniture and entails, and owners can consequently sell a 
 part or all of their lands whenever it is their pecuniary inter- 
 est to do so, the lands naturally fall into those hands which 
 are most capable of using them productively, because such 
 persons can afford to pay more for them than anybody else ; 
 and the division that follows this impulse of self-interest 
 and this freedom of exchange is likely to be into farms 
 about equal in extent and but moderately large. Such a 
 division has taken place of its own accord hi New Engianr'', 
 in the Middle States, and for the most part at the Wes- 1 
 also; while at the South, the institution of slavery led U 
 the system of large plantations and few land-o^^ners, whia 
 system is now under the auspices of freedom gradually 
 giving way to the better system of small farms and numer- 
 ous proprietors. Aristotle quotes from "the African," 
 probably some Carthaginian writer on agriculture, the say- 
 ing, " the best manure for the land is the foot of the owner." 
 This homely word, which has been often attributed to Dr. 
 Franklin, and which is as true as if its origin did not date 
 back some centuries before Christ, is based on the ground, 
 that personal supervision, to be most effective, must be lim- 
 ited in its sphere, and that the best agricultural knowledge 
 and skill becomes weak when it attempts to exhibit itself on 
 too broad a surface. Because a man can cultivate 100 
 acres better than any of his neighbors, it does not prove 
 that he will cultivate 50 acres additional to them better than 
 a neighbor of inferior skill, who is the owner of those 50, 
 and no more. When the freeholds are small and nearly 
 equal, a wide competition among the farmers comes uatm-ally 
 into play, success is seen to depend upon personal efforts of 
 
296 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 intelligence and will, and interest and hope become the mo- 
 tives to the most productive cultivation. There is a high 
 pleasure in possession and in self -guided exertion, and an 
 Impulse is broadly felt over the whole region to get as much 
 as possible out of the land and at the same time to keep 
 good "ind ever improve its condition. To protect and ad- 
 vance his own interests, to attend upon the seasons, to watc h 
 and \\ ait, to foresee and plan and labor, all this educates the 
 farmer and gives him energy and independence ; and wher- 
 ever there is a broad basis of such independent yeomanry to 
 lean back upon when heavy taxes are to be raised and strong 
 blows of battle are to be struck, the national safety and posi- 
 tion are assured. 
 
 France and England are instructive examples in this whole 
 matter. In France, since the abolition of all entails and 
 primogeuital rights b}' the revolution of 1789, and under the 
 action of the law requiring the equal partition of a man's 
 landed estate among his children, the lands have become 
 subdivided into small parcels, averaging about fourteen acres 
 to each owner. Nearly one-fourth of the entire population 
 of France are proprietors of land either in town or country. 
 There are ver}'^ nearly 123,000,000 of acres owned by indi- 
 viduals. In 1866 these lands were officially estimated to be 
 worth $31,000,000,000, and the annual net income from them 
 $937,500,000. In 1875 the yield of French wine rose to 
 84,000,000 hectolitres, or over 2,000,000,000 gallons, though 
 this was by much the largest j\e\d on record. In point of a 
 pretty regular increase of agricultural products throughout 
 this century, with the exception of wine in these later years ; 
 in point of an industrious, frugal, cheerful peasantry ; in 
 point of a very general desire and ability to purchase land ; 
 in point of showing that subdivision ceases so soon as the 
 lands, if divided further, would be less profitable in produc- 
 tion ; in point of pauperism ; in point of national strength 
 and weight, in spite of disasters in war, and in spite of a cen- 
 tralized and repressive government ; in point of the easy 
 
LAND. 297 
 
 iutroductioii and mainteuance of republican institutions , 
 and in point of an ability in the peasantry to loan to g'overn- 
 ment in an exigency enormous sums of money in the aggre- 
 gate ; a long experience has shown that the practical work- 
 higs of this subdivision of the land have been most happy. 
 
 In England, on the other hand, the monster-farm system 
 prevails. According to the Domesday Book of 1875^ 710 
 persons owned ^ of the geographical area of England and 
 Wales, the aggregate holdings of the 100 largest private 
 owners were 3,852,000 acres, the Duke of Northumberland 
 owned in one county 181,000 acres, the two old Universities 
 held 235,553 acres in all parts of England and Wales, while 
 the entire acreage is but 34,537,158 acres. The system of 
 leased lands extends also over Scotland and Ireland. The 
 late Earl of Leitrim, assassinated in 1878, owned 95,000 
 acres in three Irish counties, and there were about 20 land- 
 lords in Ireland who then held more land than he. There 
 are 20,815,460 acres of land in Ireland. The national results 
 of this system, so far as we can trace them separately, have 
 been about what 'we should expect them to be. It is hard to 
 say just how much is due to bad laws of land, how much 
 to irreducible differences of race and religion, and how much 
 to political remnants of the feudal system ; but it is clear 
 enough, that the first cause has had much to do with the 
 patent fact, that while there are upper and middle, and lower 
 and lowest, classes, a homogeneous British people are not to 
 be found. In what used to be justly called the " irretrieva- 
 ble helotism ' ' of the laboring classes ; in an unmeasured in- 
 equalit}' of fortunes and comforts ; in an average of 1,169,043 
 persons in the three kingdoms relieved by means of the poor- 
 rate on a specified day of each year from 1849 to 1871, of 
 whom on the average 207,890 were able-bodied adults ; in an 
 annual poor-rate raised bj^ taxation of $53,187,225 for the 
 same 23 years on an average, some of which, however, was 
 expended for other purposes ; in the lack, felt alike in war 
 and peace, of a large class of sturdy yeomanry, the strength 
 
298 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of a State ; in the frequent recurrence of land troubles of 
 vast magnitude in Ireland ; and perhaps also in a consequent 
 sinking of relative position, power, and influence, former 
 times being held up with the present, as compared with 
 France and the other first-class powers ; may doubtless be 
 seen some of the special results of vicious land laws. No 
 degree of merit in the other parts of the British system can 
 ever comj; ensate the want of just and broadly liberal laws 
 of land. Still, the striking merits of other parts of that 
 system are alleviating results even here. The commercial 
 system is admirable beyond that of any other country in the 
 world. Tho money system and the taxing system are rela- 
 tively simple and excellent. Consequently, on the whole bal- 
 ance of results, Britain is prosperous and powerful. "Wages 
 are constantly rising, and pauperism is constantly declining. 
 At the close of 1881, John Bright declared, that the main 
 lines of wages in the cotton mills of Lancashire had doubled 
 in forty years ; and when it comes to the purchasing-power 
 of these wages, with the single exception of food, Britain 
 is the cheapest market in the wide world for the necessaries 
 and comforts of life. 
 
 We may condense the discussions of this chapter into the 
 following propositions : — 
 
 1. The questions of Land test the powers of the economist 
 to their utmost. 
 
 2. A just generalization covers readily all the relevant 
 cases. 
 
 3. A distinction must be made between Land as a physical 
 thing and Land as a valuable thing. 
 
 4. Land is a Commodity made such by human efforts, and 
 its sale, its produce, and its rent, come under the ordinary 
 lavjs of vcdne. 
 
 5. Valuable land is a form of Capitcd, and as such is 
 subject to the law of diminishing return. 
 
 6. Private ownership in lands is a dictate of the deepest 
 justice and of the longest experience. 
 
LAND. 299 
 
 7. The rent of leased lands is but the return- service of the 
 cultivator for the use of the capital of the land-owner. 
 
 8. It is not the law of diminishing returns^ nor the differ- 
 ences in fertility that cause rent, hut the price of produce 
 under demand and supply. 
 
 9. Superior soils pay a rent because the price of produce 
 justifies the cultivation of inferior soils. 
 
 10. The corn-laws of England were abominable because 
 they raised prices, and therefore rents. 
 
 11. The p)rice of produce as of every thing else is deter- 
 mined by the demand for it and the supply of it. 
 
 12. As lands are capital, so rents are profits. 
 
 13. Fee-simple in the hands of actual cultivators is the best 
 tenure; long leases are better than short ones; and reasi^able 
 tenant-rights should be guarded by law. 
 
300 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COST OF PRODUCTION. 
 
 There are only three categories of valuable things : first, 
 commodities ; second, services ; and third, credits. Credits 
 will shortly be considered at length in the chapter under that 
 title ; services have already been specially treated in the chap- 
 ter on " Labor ; " and the general principles of value already 
 laid down cover alike all three of the categories. But there 
 are certain subordinate principles of our science, which are 
 applicable to commodities alone. Land, so far as it is ever 
 subject to sale, is, as we have just seen, a commodity ; its 
 products are commodities ; the hired laborers who till it, ren- 
 der services; and the leases, under which the tenants culti- 
 vate it in lieu of their landlords, are rights, or credits. These 
 three things are intimately associated of course, inasmuch 
 as the}^ are all salable, and thus all come under one genus. 
 Still, in the present chapter we must bring forward some 
 supplementary matters relating to value, which concern com- 
 modities alone, and which could not properly be discussed 
 until the subjects of labor, capital, and land, were, at least 
 in their gi'ound principles, understood. We are now in posi- 
 tion to be able to analyze the Cost of Production of those 
 material things exposed for sale, which are technically called 
 Commodities. 
 
 While we were inquiring, in the chapter on value, whether 
 such a thing as a measure of value were possible, it was 
 remarked that some political economists have thought that 
 the cost of production of any commodity is the most accu- 
 rate measure of its general purchasing-power ; and it might 
 
COST OF PBODUCTIOJSr. 301 
 
 have been added, that these writers consider tLat there is 
 sucli a thing as natural value distinct from market vahie, 
 that natural value is the cost of production, and that market 
 value oscillates perpetually around that, and tends constantly 
 to return to it. How far these views are just, how far cost 
 of production constitutes a law of value within the all-com- 
 prehending law of demand and supply, is the point to which 
 attention is now directed. 
 
 It is noticeable, that while almost all people put forth 
 onerous efforts to satisfy the present and immediately pro- 
 spective wants of other people, in view of receiving back 
 from them corresponding efforts to satisfy their own present 
 and immediately prospective wants, there are some people, 
 who have both foresight and capital, who set to work to 
 make preparations in reference to services which they expect 
 to render some time in the future ; and it is evident that this 
 matter of the cost of production has an especial bearing upon 
 those classes of production in which permanent investments 
 are made, looking to future rather than to present exchanges. 
 It becomes necessary to attend to cost of production simply 
 because cost of production is sometimes an exact measure 
 of one of the elements out of which value springs, namely, 
 the element of effort. When a surgeon, for example, charges 
 fifty dollars for cutting off a man's leg, cost of production is 
 an impertinent phrase in relation to such a service, and is no 
 measure of the effort ; but when a capitalist invests $20,000 
 in a cutlery establishment, hires all his labor, and at the end 
 of the year has produced 5,000 knives, cost of production 
 has a definite meaning as applied to each one of the knives, 
 and is an accurate measure of the one element of effort, which 
 goes, together with other elements, to determine its value. 
 It is not true at all that cost of production alone determines 
 the value of the knife, or is a measure of the value of the 
 knife, but it is true that, in this case, and in all cases in which 
 a commodity is produced by a definite capital invested for a 
 fixed time, and by labor wholly hired, or estimated as hked, 
 
302 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the t^.ost of production is an exact measure of one of the 
 four elements which go to determine value, namely, of one 
 effort. 
 
 Now let us suppose that when these knives are exposed 
 for sale, no such return-services are offered for them as are 
 held b}' the maker to be satisfactory. He maj^ indeed, in order 
 to avoid a still greater loss, sell his knives for less money 
 than it has cost to manufacture them, but it is evident that 
 he will not go forward at present in his enterprise of making 
 knives. He will suspend operations, or withdraw fi'om the 
 business ; and his action in this respect will affect the supply 
 of knives to lessen it ; and the next equalization of demand 
 and supply will be likely to adjust a market value more favor- 
 able to knife-makers. Or if, when the knives are exposed 
 for sale, they meet with an exchange at very remunerative 
 rates, our capitalist is now stimulated to increase his produc- 
 tion, to put back his profits into his business, and perhaps 
 to invest in it additional principal. His action in this respect 
 will affect the supply of knives to increase it ; and the next 
 equalization of demand and supply, or if not the next, some 
 subsequent one, will be likel}'" to adjust a new market value 
 less favorable to knife-makers. Thus it is seen, that abso- 
 lute cost of production influences value not directly, but 
 remotely, through its influence on supply. To suppose and 
 to say that the cost of production of one commodity deter- 
 mines its value in an exchange with another, is to perpetuate 
 the old mistake of ignoring the second commodity, is to re- 
 iterate the fallacy that value is an independent quality of 
 one thing, in" short, is to confuse the whole subject of value. 
 When the writers referred to speak of the " natural xalue" 
 of any commodity, they mean its absolute cost of produc- 
 tion ; but, at this stage of our inquiry, it surely cannot be 
 necessary to repeat the thought already so often expressed 
 in substance, that an analysis of one component part falls 
 far short of determining the resultant of four component 
 parts. Professor Jevons puts this in his own strong way, 
 
COST OF PRODUCTION 803 
 
 when he says : " The fact is, that labor ouce expended has 
 no influence on the future vahie of any article; it is gone 
 and lost forever. In commerce, bygones are forever by- 
 gones." In another place, the same writer lays down the 
 maxim too broadly : ' ' The value of labor is determined by 
 the value of the product, not the value of the product by 
 that of labor." The exact truth is, the value of labor, as 
 of every thing else, is gauged by the Demand for it and the 
 Supply of it. 
 
 But while these general statements are' just, there are 
 other points of view in which the cost of production of com- 
 modities comes to be practically important, and thus worthy 
 of a careful analysis. From its obvious relations to Supply 
 already exemplified, the cost of any particular commodities 
 is constantly, though indirectly, influencing the value of 
 other similar commodities afterwards to be put upon the 
 market. Also, in respect to permanent investments looking 
 solely to future production, cost becomes very important, 
 because, while it can never determine the purchasing-power 
 of the product, it is always one element in determining it ; 
 and especially because the improvements which are all the 
 time being introduced into the mechanical and other pro- 
 cesses of such production, which improvements alwaj^s tend 
 to lessen the cost of the product, have the effect to lessen 
 the value of all permanent investments, unless similar im- 
 provements be inaugurated in connection with them. The 
 inarch of improvement is so constant, that old machinery 
 and old processes are rapidly depreciated ; and a calculated 
 cost of future production in one establishment is almost 
 sure to be disturbed by new labor-saving inventions in other 
 simJur establishments, which will be able in consequence to 
 offer the commodity at a lower rate than the rate estimated ; 
 in which case the value of the product will not conform to 
 the estimated or even actual cost of production in that 
 establishment, but will pitilessly fall to the point at which 
 similar commodities are offered by the more fortunate pro- 
 
304 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ducers. For these reasons we must inquire carefully after 
 the elements of cost of production. 
 
 Mill (iii. 4) says correctly that these elements are only 
 two, namely, Cost of Labor, and Cost of Capital. These 
 two are the only onerous elements that enter into the produc- 
 tion of commodities. Assisting the processes are, indeed, 
 the natural powers of land, water, wind, steam, electricity, 
 and so on, but as these are always gratuitous, they form no 
 element of cost. Labor must have its icages, and capital 
 must have its profits. Besides current profits, capital must 
 also lay by a sinking-fund to replace the original capital 
 when worn out. It will be in vain to search for any other 
 ingredient of cost than these two. In some of the best of 
 our New England mills and foundries a careful record is 
 kept of the cost of materials and labor going into any 
 single machine, or other product, which they have contracted 
 to deliver ; no account being taken in this record of the 
 wear and tear of buildings and tools, and other incidental 
 costs of capital. 
 
 1. Let us examine fii'st the cost of labor. By this is 
 meant, of course, the cost to the employer, and not to the 
 laborer himself, in reference to whom the phrase would have 
 no meaning. Now, if we make an exhaustive analysis of 
 the cost of labor to the employer, we shall find that there 
 are only three things that go to make up its cost. First, the 
 efficiency of the laborer ; second, the rate of nominal wages 
 paid ; and third, the cost to the employer of that in which 
 the wages are paid. Let us see how each of these acts, and 
 how all act together, (a) There are great differences in 
 the efficiency of workers even on the same farm or in the 
 same mill within the same country, and still greater differ- 
 ences of efficiency when workers in different countries are 
 compared ; consequently, if an employer hire two men to 
 work for him at the same rate of wages, and if one be 
 twice as efficient a laborer as the other, then the cost of the 
 labor of the first to the employer is only one half the cost 
 
COST OF PRODUCTION. 305 
 
 of the labor of the second. What the employer wants is to 
 get things done; and therefore, a high rate of ivages does 
 not import a high cost of labor whenever the labor is very 
 efficient. As a rule, the cost of labor in reference to a 
 given product is the least in those countries in which the 
 rates of wages are the highest ; because, it is found, that a 
 high efficiency of labor accompanies both as a cause and an 
 effect high rates of wages. A vast mass of current falla- 
 cies are disposed of in a moment by this truth seen in its 
 grounds. The United States show the highest rates of 
 wages in the world, and at the same time show the lowest 
 costs of labor, because as a rule the laborers are more effi- 
 cient than elsewhere. England has the highest rates of 
 wages and the lowest costs of labor in Europe for the same 
 reason. (6) There are striking differences in the rates of 
 nominal wages paid for a day's work in different parts of 
 the same country, and especially in different countries. If 
 there be no difference in the efficiency of the laborers as 
 between Massachusetts and Georgia, or as between old Eng- 
 land and New England, and no difference in the cost of that 
 in which the labor is paid, then the differing rates affect 
 at once the relative costs of labor. If a Georgia mill-owner 
 can get just as eflicient a laborer for one dollar a day as the 
 Massachusetts owner must pay two dollars for, the third 
 element being common, then, so far forth, the cost of labor 
 in Massachusetts is double that in Georgia. So as between 
 the United States and England, or Germany and France. 
 If the rate of wages at any point rises or falls, efliciency 
 of labor and cost of pay remaining the same, then of course 
 cost of labor rises or falls there. But while rates of wages 
 vary gn^atly, the costs of labor are nearly uniform the world 
 over ; because, the differences in rates come from differences 
 in efficiency and in the cost of the money or other product 
 in which wages are paid. "In India, although the pay 
 of daily labor ranges from 4^ to Gd. a day, mile for mile 
 the cost of railway work is about the same as in England." 
 
306 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 (c) If tha^j commodity, whether money or other, in which 
 wages are paid, varies ia cost to the capitalist, thou the cost 
 of labor compensated by that commodity, efficiency of labor- 
 ers and nominal rate of pay remaining the same, will of 
 course be varied thereby. We shall learn in the next chapter 
 that the value of money is by no means invariable even in 
 one country, as we have already learned the variable nature 
 of all other values ; and, accordingly, the third element in a 
 cost of labor is the cost of that in which the labor is paid. 
 Assuming, as we may, that wages are paid in money, any 
 country that has for any reason a more abundant money 
 than another, may well pay higher rates of nominal wages 
 without making its costs of labor higher than in that. In 
 other words, any country that has its current prices of com- 
 modities higher than another, may pay higher nominal wages 
 without having a higher cost of labor. The United States, 
 for example, has usually had a very abundant money (not 
 always of the best kind) , which has tended to make high the 
 current prices of commodities, and this has enabled capital- 
 ists to pay high nominal rates of wages, while their cost of 
 labor was not enhanced at all by the extra rate. 
 
 This analysis of the cost of labor throws a clear light 
 upon several otherwise dai'k points : it explains, why the 
 employer is quite willing to pay liberal wages to his efficient,, 
 workmen, and rates still more liberal when monej' becomes 
 inflated ; why countries with very low rates of wages, as 
 India, have no advantage in international trade over coun- 
 tries with high rates of wages, as England ; why it is the 
 poorest kind of logic to jump to the conclusion, that, be- 
 cause rates of wages in Germany are about one-half those 
 in England, therefore Germany ought to undersell England 
 in the markets of tlie world ; wh}', when De Quincey says, 
 that Profits are the leavings of Wages, he must mean by 
 "wages" the cost of labor; why the common confusion 
 in the minds of men between rates of loages and costs of 
 labor leads to false conclusions through errors of reasoning ; 
 
COST OF PRODUCTION. 307 
 
 why the capitalist as such has no interest in low money 
 wages, but only in a low cost of labor, which is entirely 
 consistent with high money wages ; why a rise in money 
 wages (money remaining as before) will not lessen profits 
 any, if there be an accompanying increased efficiency of 
 labor, as there is apt to be in that case ; and finally why 
 there is no real antagonism but rather a real harmony of in- 
 terests between employers and laborers. Employers as such 
 are interested in having the costs of labor low, and so are 
 countries engaged in foreign trade, but neither have the least 
 interest in low rates of wages as such. So far of cost of labor. 
 2. The second element in the Cost of Production is the 
 Cost of Capital; and this too may be analyzed into three 
 variables, no one of which, any more than the three varia- 
 bles in the cost of labor, can be safely neglected in the 
 reckoning that has for its end a prospective Cost of Produc- 
 tion. These are, first, the current rate per Centura; second, 
 the time for which the capital is advanced; and third, the 
 liability of that form of capital to slow or rapid wearing-orit. 
 (a) If we suppose that the rate at Amsterdam be 3 and 
 that at New York 7, that the cost of labor be equal in the 
 two cities, that the time of advance be one year, and that 
 there be no liability of the capital to wear out ; then a com- 
 modity made at Amsterdam with an outlay of $100 can be 
 sold for $103, while a similar commodity made at New York 
 with the same outla}^ cannot" be sold for less than $107. 
 All other things being equal, a low rate per centttm of capi- 
 tal in any country gives that country an advantage in selling 
 a given commodity for money in the markets of the world, 
 because its cost of production is less, {h) Let the same 
 Buppcsitions be continued, except that the time of advance 
 at Nc5v York be extended to 4 years. Then the commodi- 
 ty may be sold at Amsterdam, as before, at $103, but the 
 corresponding commodity at New York for not less than 
 $131, so far as mere cost of production determines the 
 prices. This point is well shown up also in the cnse of 
 
308 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 wine, which to reach its perfection requires to be kept a 
 number of years : if it be a genuine article, and ripe, its 
 cost is much enhanced by its delay in reaching the market. 
 If the period of advance be long, and the rate high at the 
 same time, the cost of capital from the two causes combined 
 multiplies the cost of the product ; and only countries in 
 which the rates are low can successfully engage in enter- 
 prises requu'ing a large capital to be invested for long 
 periods before returns are realized. One million of Dutch 
 capital at 3 <^ a year, expecting to realize returns only 
 after 20 years, may be remunerated by products selling for 
 $1,806,111 ; but American capital under like circumstances, 
 except that the rate is 7, must have a return of $3,809,685. 
 (c) All forms of capital wear out, but some forms much 
 faster than others, and this makes a difference in the sink- 
 ing-funds reserved from gross profits in order to replace the 
 principal. This difference affects the cost of capital, and 
 thus the cost of production, and thus indkectly the value of 
 the product. Suppose there are two commodities A and B 
 produced in two establishments, in each of which is invested 
 a capital of $11,000, in one of which is a machine costing 
 $1,000, which is wholly worn out by one year's use, and in 
 the other a machine costing the same sum, which will last, 
 however, for ten years. Let the rate per cent be ten, and 
 the time consumed in completing the products be one year. 
 There is a difference in the cost of capital in the two estab- 
 lishments, and this difference indirectly but immediately 
 appears in the value of the respective products. To A must 
 be charged not only $1,100, the interest on the capital at the 
 current rate, but also another $1,000, wherewith to replace 
 the machine already worn out by the year's production. A 
 cannot be sold without loss for less than $2,100. B, how- 
 ever, will cost less. To it must be charged, as before, $1 ,100, 
 current rate of profit on the capital invested, and only $100 
 to replace after ten years' use the machine. B, therefore, can 
 permanently sell without loss for $1,200. 
 
COST OF PRODUCTION. 809 
 
 Some conclusions worthy of notice follow from these iinaly- 
 ses. First, since cost of production is made up only of cost 
 of labor and cost of capital, if the cost of labor be for any 
 reason enhanced, nothing can prevent this higher cost from 
 taking effect and exhibiting itself in lower profits. Second, 
 rates of money-wages, or any rise or faU of them, provided 
 they are uniform, or uniformly rise and faU, in those depart- 
 ments of production whose commodities exchange witli each 
 other, have no effect at all upon value, since they are common 
 factors in two costs of production, and like all common fac- 
 tors, cancel each other ; but any inequality of money- wages 
 in these departments that affects the cost of labor, will have 
 an indirect but controlling influence on the value of the com- 
 modities. Third, the same principle holds in rates of profits. 
 So far as the rates are common to all branches of production, 
 the capital advanced for the same period, with a similar risk 
 of deterioration or loss, and so far as any one or all of these 
 advance or recede uniformly and together, they do not affect 
 the value of any of the commodities produced. But inequal- 
 ity in any one of these points, varies the relative cost of 
 capital, and consequently, the cost of production, and con- 
 sequently the value of the product. Fourth, though high 
 rates of profit, all other things being equal, increase the cost 
 of capital and so of production, it is a strange perversion of 
 logic to conclude that countries with high rates of profit are 
 at some great disadvantage in international trade as compared 
 with countries with lower rates. The former are indeed at a 
 disadvantage in trying to undersell the latter in tile markets 
 of the world, when each offers the same commodity against 
 money; but theii- cun-ent high rates of profit show the folly 
 of trying a trade like that, since they must have excellent 
 domestic and foreign markets for other things, else they 
 could not realize such profits on all their capital invested ! 
 
 Just here there is opened up to us a clear view of the 
 influence of macliinery upon profits and wages, and conse- 
 quently upon values. So far as machinery brings into play, 
 
310 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 as it always does, a gratuitous natural force, it is outside the 
 pale of value ; but since the machinery itself is one important 
 form of value, on which rates per centum must he paid, the 
 more machinery employed relatively to labor in the produc- 
 tion of any given commodities, the more do profits enter into 
 their cost of production, and the more powerfully do changes 
 in the rate, the time of advance, and the risk of wear-out, 
 tell upon the value of those commodities as estimated in other 
 commodities. Or, to say the same thing in other words, 
 the more, or the more durable the machinery employed in the 
 pi'oduction of any commodity, the larger becomes the element 
 of profit in a price now absolutely reduced ; on a rise or fall 
 of the rate, therefore, the value of a commodity made, by 
 more or more durable machinery will tend to rise or fall 
 relatively to other commodities. 
 
 The influence of machinery upon ivages cannot be stated 
 with quite the same precision of terms as the effect of it 
 upon profits. Formerly the prejudice was almost universal, 
 and is still wide-spread in many parts of the world, that the 
 general introduction of labor-saving appliances does an injury 
 to the laborers by taking away their work. So strongly has- 
 this been felt by the laborers, that in England, and especiall}' 
 in Ireland, mobs and riots have usually accompanied the in- 
 troduction of machinery into those departments of produc- 
 tion in which hand-work had previously prevailed. If vjork 
 were what laborers really wanted, the prejudice in question 
 would cease to be such, and become a sound opinion ; since 
 the only object and result of introducing machineiy is to 
 lessen work^. at least with reference to a given product ; and 
 the laborers, to be consistent, should not stop with opposing 
 new inventions, but should destroy all forms of existing 
 capital, that there might be work a plenty for simple human 
 hands. What the laborers really want, however, is not wctrk, 
 but wages, or rather, those commodities for which their wages 
 are expended ; and the question is, whether labor-saving 
 processes tend to lessen, not work, but work's remuneration 
 
COST OF production: 311 
 
 The general appeal can be made to experience with all safety. 
 As a matter of fact and experience, it has not been found 
 true that the introduction of improved processes, the substi- 
 tution of Nature's forces for human muscle, has deteriorated 
 the condition of laborers in those departments into which the 
 inventions have been brought, or the condition of laborers 
 generally. Exactly the reverse has usually taken place ; and 
 wages are apt to be highest rather than lowest in connection 
 with the most and the most durable machinery, and higher 
 rather than lower, after the introduction of more and better 
 machinery. Operatives in manufactories, for instance, are, 
 as a rule, better paid than farm laborers ; and better paid in 
 the first class than in the inferior establishments. Teamsters, 
 in this country at least, are as well to do as before the con- 
 struction of railroads. So of spinners, weavers, and arti- 
 sans of every name. In explanation of these general facts, 
 it may be noticed, (1) that labor is always required in the 
 construction and repairs of all kinds of labor-saving appli- 
 ances, and so far forth, a new market for labor is opened 
 up in place of any loss of market possibly resulting from 
 their introduction ; (2) these forms of capital always tend 
 to cheapen the products which they help to create, and such 
 products because they are cheap find a wider circle of con- 
 sumers, and more must be produced to supply a now broader 
 market, and so far forth the demand for labor may be stronger 
 than it was before ; (3) these improvements cheapen also 
 the commodities consumed by the laborers themselves, and 
 therefore a given rate of wages now secures for them a higher 
 grade of comforts. Combining these observations with the 
 law of distribution already pointed out, and the conclusion 
 is fairly established that the effect of machinery is, and \7iJl 
 be, rather favorable than otherwise to the laboring classes. 
 
 Now, as a result of this entire discussion, attention muet 
 be called to a generalization, wliich has been more or less 
 fully noticed by several writers, and with the presentation 
 of which, this branch of the subject will be concluded. Since, 
 
312 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 by the aid of the dififerent fomis of capital, and such a divis- 
 ion of labor as that every part of it is made most efficient, 
 the cost of production of most kinds of manufactured articles 
 tends to decline as compared with the cost of production of 
 food and raw materials, in whose production these advan- 
 tages are less perfectly attainable, there is a constant tend- 
 ency towards approximation in the value, and, if money 
 remain unchanged, in the price, of raw materials and of 
 finished products ; and in the degree of this approximation 
 will be found a gauge of the success with which gratuitous 
 natural forces and improved facilities of art have been made 
 available in production. This single statement, clearly per- 
 ceived in its grounds, grasps and holds the principal results 
 of our discussions thus far. Examples of the principle offer 
 themselves on every hand. Let us look at cotton cloth. At 
 the opening of this century, the average price of raw cotton 
 was just about twenty cents a pound ; at the middle of the 
 century, and onwards, the average price was just about ten 
 cents a pound. At the first peiiod, although accurate tables 
 are wanting, the average price of cotton cloth could not have 
 been less than sixty cents a yard ; at Ihe second period, it 
 could hardly have been more than ten cenis a yard. The 
 absolute price of raw cotton diminished in the interval in 
 the ratio of 2 to 1 ; while the absolute price of cotton cloth 
 diminished in the interval in the ratio of 6 to 1 . Relatively 
 to a yard of finished cloth, the raw material greatly rose in 
 value, since at the first it took three pounds to buy a yard, 
 and at the last but one pound. There was a marked approx- 
 imation all- the while of the price of the finished product 
 towards the price of the raw material ; in other words, less 
 and less difference of price was due to the cost of manufac- 
 ture, which lessening cost marks the ever- increasing efficiency 
 in the production of commodities of the gratuitous powers of 
 Nature applied through machinery. According to Dr. TJre, 
 the introduction of machinery into the manufacture of lace, 
 lessened the cost of that product in the ratio of 50 to 1 ; and 
 
COST OF PRODUCTION. 313 
 
 thereby, and to that degree, approximated the piice of a 
 pouiid of such lace towards the price of a pound of the 
 cotton from which it was made. Food, raw materials, and 
 labor, and the last more than the other two, tend steadily to 
 advance in their power to command, that is, to bu^', most 
 kinds of finished products ; and therefore, the millions who 
 labor with their hands, and the other millions who own the 
 soil and till it, have already advanced, and will still more 
 advance, in a scale of comforts, with the advancing centuries. 
 "We may now give a summary of the present chapter as 
 follows : — 
 
 1. There is only one kind of Value cognizable in Political 
 Economy. 
 
 2. Cost of Production is the measure of one effort in one 
 class of exchanges', and therefot^ influences Value indirectly 
 by its action on Supply. 
 
 3. Cost of Production is made up of two elements only., 
 namely. Cost of Labor and Cost of Capital. 
 
 4. Cost of Labor is easily analyzed into three variables, in 
 weighing which several current fallacies are exposed. 
 
 5. Employers as such are interested in low costs of labor, 
 which are entirely consistent with, and often accompany, high 
 rates of wages. 
 
 6. Cost oj Capital is cdso analyzable into three variables, 
 no one of which can be safely neglected either in the processes 
 of reasoning Dr of practical production. 
 
 7. Profits are the leavings of costs of labor. . 
 
 8. The use of more and better and more durable machinery 
 is equally favorable to both wages and profits. 
 
 &. A given amount of raw material, of food, and of labor, 
 tends to command, that is, to hxiy, more and more of the Jin- 
 ished product. 
 
314 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 While Providential arrangemements in the plij'sical struc- 
 ture of tlie earth and in the moral structure of society fur- 
 nish the occasions and the limitations of exchanges, the 
 desires and efforts and estimates of men play the chief part 
 upon this great field. Nature and men co-operate in the 
 determination of every case of value whatsoever ; but a 
 distinction may be drawn with advantage which really divides 
 economical laws into two classes. The providential ele- 
 ments in economics, both physjical and social, are relatively 
 fixed ; and so are those principles of human nature related 
 to exchanges which may be said to be universal in their char- 
 acter, — such, for instance, as the preference to receive a 
 larger ratlicr than a less return, and to render a smaller 
 rather than a greater effort ; while there are other principles 
 of human nature related to exchanges much more variable 
 in their character, such, for instance, as a nation's choice of 
 the kind of money it will use, or the kind of taxation it will 
 impose. It follows clearly from this, that some economical 
 laws must be more general than others, owing to a less vari- 
 ation in the" human impulses concerned in them: it follows, 
 for example, that the law of landed rents, or the law of the 
 approach of the price of raw materials to that of the fin- 
 ished produces, is more universal in its terms than most of 
 the propositions of Money and Taxation can be. 
 
 Though it seems like a paradox, it is yet strictly true, that 
 those parts of Political Economy in which the human ele- 
 ments; of variable choice predominate over the relatively 
 
MONEY. 315 
 
 fixed laws of nature and of mind, are just the parts hardest 
 for men to grasp and hold. We naturally think, and it is 
 true, that difficultj' and mj'stery are found in those depart- 
 ments in which an infinite mind has been at w^ork upon an 
 infinite plan, and that there is no such profundity in the 
 works of men. But at the same time, even those natural 
 laws, like gravitation, which are clear in themselves, if they 
 be such as the choices of men have to do with, such as^may 
 be modified and in a certain sense controlled by human 
 actions, become from that very circumstance liable to diffi- 
 culty and even to some mystery. All the truths of Money 
 belong to this class. Still, while the propositions become 
 less general on that account, and some difficulties are found 
 here and there, there is no use at all in saying that money is 
 such an elusive agent that nobody can understand it. That 
 is the language of indolence. Money is wholly a matter 
 of man's device, though it comes into contact with some- 
 thing greater and more fixed than itself ; it was invented, 
 just as any other instrument is invented, to accomplish a 
 certain purpose ; and it would be strange indeed if men by 
 taking pains could not comprehend what men themselves 
 have devised. "We hope, accordingly, in the following para- 
 graphs to clear up the whole subject of Money completely. 
 We will try to go so carefully and surely into this topic, that 
 even "the wayfaring men shall not err therein." In this 
 case, we will not begin with definitions and justify them 
 afterwards, bat will come up to them step by step, and, as 
 it were, justify them beforehand. 
 
 1. Exchanges may go forward to a certain extent, — may 
 begin and become profita ble, without the use of any money 
 at all. Men at first exchanged services directly for each 
 other, without the intervention of any medium. This form 
 of trade is called Barter. Hiram, king of Tyre, furnished 
 to Solomon a certain quantity of cedars from Lebanon, and 
 Solomon, in return, furnished the Tyriaus a certain quantity 
 of wheat and oil. This may serve as an instance of barter, 
 
316 .POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 although money had been in current use long previously to 
 that transaction, as is seen in the purchase by Abraham 
 of the cave and field of Maehpelah, for which he weighed 
 out four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the 
 merchant. It is obvious, however, that while barter is a 
 great deal better than no exchanges at all, there are inherent 
 difficulties in that form of exchange. Under pure barter, 
 excli^nges are pretty much limited to those parties each of 
 whom is in position to render to the other such services, and 
 in such quantities, as the other stands in dii'ect and immedi- 
 ate need of ; it is not enough, under these conditions, that 
 a man should have a service to sell, but also he must find a 
 man who wants that specific service, and more than this, 
 a man who not only wants that specific service, but also has 
 a service to render in return, such as the first man wants. 
 If A has wheat which he wishes to exchange for a coat, he 
 must find a party who wants wheat, and who also is in posi- 
 tion to render a coat in exchange for it, and moreover who 
 wants just as much wheat as will pay for a coat, no more 
 and no less ; if he wants more, he may have nothing to ren- 
 der in exchange for the excess which A is willing to accept ; 
 if less, A may have nothing which the other wants, besides 
 wheat with which to help pay for the coat. Even in the 
 simpler states of society, the inconvenience, loss of time, 
 and deterioration of commodities involved in direct barter, 
 are very great, and in more advanced states of civilization 
 would be intolerable, if it were possible, as it is not, for 
 society to become advanced under those conditions. Ex- 
 changes are" so limited in time, place, and variety, associa- 
 tion is so hampered, and the development of all peculiar 
 talents so impeded, under a system of simple barter, that 
 one of the initial steps in the progress of all societies has 
 been to hit upon some expedient to lessen these intrinsic 
 diflicnlties ; and so to facilitate exchanges. 
 
 2. The invention of money was nothing in the world but 
 the selection by certain people in a certain locality of some 
 
MONET. 317 
 
 commodity then and there valuable, that is capable of buy- 
 ing some things then and there, and giving to that by general 
 consent the capacity of buying all things then and tliere 
 salable. The thing made money, whatever it was, had a 
 limited purchasing-power to start with, — no instance to the 
 contrary has ever been shown ; the making it money was 
 merely the common consent that thereafter it should have a 
 general purchasing-power ; so that, whenever anybody had 
 any thing to exchange, he might first exchange it for this 
 product valuable before but now generally valuable, and then 
 with this product in hand he might buy whatever he might 
 want at any time or place. Money makes no alteration in 
 any law of value, but merol}' substitutes for convenience' 
 sake in every transaction in which it plays a part, a universal 
 for a specific purchasing-power ; a book, for example, has a 
 specific purchasing-power ; there is somebody who wants it, 
 and is willing to give a sum of money for it ; and the owner 
 by the sale of it parts with a product which has only the 
 power to purchase something from a few persons, and re- 
 ceives a product which has the power to purchase something 
 from all persons ; it is not true to say that the book is worth 
 more than the money, or the money is worth more than the 
 book, because they are just worth each other, as is demon- 
 strated by the sale ; but it is true to say that the seller of the 
 book has substituted in the place of a limited purchasing- 
 power, of which he was proprietor, a general purchasing- 
 power, of which he has now become proprietor ; and that the 
 command of the money, which has no more value than the 
 book had, does carry along with it a superior command over 
 purchasable articles generally. In one word, value in the 
 form of money is in a more available shape for general pur- 
 chasing, than value in any other foi-m. This is the exact 
 expression for what truth there is in the common vague 
 remai'k, that money is different from all other commodities ; 
 in point of value, it is different from other commodities in 
 just one respect, namely, while they have the power of buy 
 
318 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ing some sorts of things from some persons; it has the 
 power, derived from the usages of society, to buy all sorts 
 of things from all persons. 
 
 3. This simple change, which seems in itself so little and 
 easy and natural, has changed in its results the face of the 
 world ! It makes the selected commodity seem to the minds 
 of men to be a quite different thing from what it was before. 
 It removes, as by a stroke of the hand, most of the incon- 
 veniences of Barter. So soon as a commodity selected to 
 be money by one people comes to be acceptable as such to 
 all other peoples, the advantages of its use are vastly mul- 
 tiplied. Experience has shown, and a little reflection will 
 explain, how that there is no machine that has economized 
 labor like money ; no instrument which plays so important 
 a part in production ; no invention, unless it be the inven- 
 tion of letters, which has contributed more to the civilization 
 of mankind. While men still exchanged in kind, and knew 
 no other mode, the purchasing-power of a service was very 
 much confined in place, and would not be parted with except 
 in view of the return service actually there present, — the 
 ultimate parties to an exchange must for the most part come 
 together locally, in order to effect ah exchange ; under a 
 money system, this is no longer necessary, for it is sufficient 
 to constitute a market for any commoditj" that it is wanted 
 anywhere on the globe, the middle man, paying the seller for 
 it in money, transports it thither, and receives back his 
 money with a profit from the ultimate consumer. Thus 
 money brings conveniently buyers and sellers together com- 
 mercially, no -matter how far separated locally. So, also, 
 money generalizes any purchasing-power in point of time. 
 The fruit-dealer, for example, must dispose of his product 
 quickly, or it perishes on his hands, but by transmuting his 
 perishable product into money, he may keep its power of 
 purchase locked in this form as long as he lists ; the money, 
 indeed is only good to purchase with, but it puts an interval 
 at the pleasure of the holder between selling and buying, 
 
' MONET. 819 
 
 and with this generalized power in his pocket he may buy 
 when h€ will, and what he will, and tvhere he will. Money, 
 too, makes any purchasing-power portable, divisible, and 
 loanable. A man may carry the value of his farm in his 
 purse, and may divide it up for a thousand different pur- 
 chases, and especially is able to loan it iji this form, to 
 receive it back again with interest at a future day. 
 
 4. It is obvious, and yet important to notice, that, what- 
 ever made the commodity selected as money originally desir- 
 able and valuable, it has now become desirable and valuable 
 for other and wider reasons. The tobacco of Virginia, 
 for example, in the early da5's of that colony, became valua- 
 ble at first on account of the demand for it as a narcotic 
 both there and in England ; but so soon as it was made a 
 legal mone}^ in the colony by the general consent already 
 described, its value depended in part upon another set .of 
 causes. Demand and supply still controlled its' value just as 
 before, only parties who had not desired it as a commodity 
 merely desired it then as moneij. Its convenience as money 
 widened the circle of those willing to receive it and to render 
 a return for it. It is true, that some received it only because 
 they could pay it out again ; but that made no difference so 
 far as value is concerned ; it was valuable before under a 
 certain demand, and continued valuable under an additional 
 demand ; we cannot say that it became more valuable under 
 that demand, because we do not know how the combined 
 demand affected the supply ; we may probably say, that the 
 value became steadier., if not larger, under the double de- 
 mand, than under the previous single one ; and the vital point 
 to note is, that the value of money., previously valuable as a 
 commodity only, is maintained under the law of demand and 
 supply, just as all other values are, the only peculiarity 
 being this, — that, as a generalized value and a potent social 
 agent, money is in demand by everybody who has any thing 
 else to sell. 
 
 5. It follows from this, that money as such., whatever may 
 
320 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 have been the ground of its original vakie as a commodity, 
 is always received in order to he parted with. It is not'bought, 
 as other things are, for its own saJce^ to be used and enjoyed, 
 but is only bought to be sold again. Men will sell every 
 thing to buy it, with the sole intent to sell it again to buv 
 something ; and the odd thing about it is, that everybody 
 buys it to sell again, not at all as the speculator buys cattle 
 to sell them again at a higher price, but, the money remaining 
 constant in their minds, they sell for it something they care 
 less about in order to buy with it something thej care more 
 about. Money is, therefore, a medium in men's exchanges. 
 The word "medium" in this proposition, is to l)e taken in 
 its etymological and strict sense, as something that comes 
 between two extremes, and serves also to relate them to eacli 
 other. Money is exchanged for other things, as a means, 
 and not as an end ; it is a very great help in exchanging all 
 other things, Ibut is never exchanged for itself in an ultimate; 
 transaction. Small boys, indeed, swop cents, but men, the 
 miser excepted, who is under a deplorable fallacy of the 
 senses, use and estimate money first as the medium which 
 facilitates the real exchanges of society. What is reallj' 
 exchanged is the wheat, the cloth, the lumber, the furniture, 
 the service of every kind, and money is but the instrument 
 making those exchanges easy, which might perhaps go on 
 without it, though with difficulty and loss. It is somewhat 
 like a railroad ticket. Transportation to a given place is 
 what is really bought when one buys a railroad ticket. The 
 evidence of the purchase is the bit of paper. It comes in 
 as a m'edium between the traveller and the railroad company, 
 and while it facilitates the real exchange, it also partly dis- 
 guises it. The resemblance holds in the main feature, but 
 in two respects the likeness fails ; money is not a specific 
 ticket for one purpose, but is a general ticket for all purposes 
 of purchase ; and secondly, inoney really stands as a value 
 in its own right, at the same time it is serving as a medium, 
 while the ticket does not. Still, \<!Q. are all desirous to get 
 
MONET. 821 
 
 money, uot for the sake of the money, but for the sake of 
 those things which the money will bu3^ We part with it 
 freely and constantly for those things which we care more 
 about. What we really care for is what the money will buy, 
 is the command over all services and commodities which the 
 possession of money insures. If we could give our own 
 ssrvice or commodity, whatever it is, and receive directly in 
 return the service or commodity' which we want, whatever 
 it is, there would be no need of money. This is generally 
 inconvenient, and sometimes impossible. Therefore we in- 
 troduce a middle term between the two extreme terms. Money 
 is a good mean which helps exchange the two extremes. 
 
 6. We are getting on towards a just conception and a true 
 definition of Money, though a few more points must still be 
 noted as preparatory to that. It is a result of the fact that 
 monej^ serves as a medium in exchanges, that the power of 
 money as a medium is multiplied by what has been called 
 rapidity of circidation^ by which is meant, that, a brisker 
 use of the volume already in circulation will reach the same 
 end as an increase of its volume. As in mechanics, so in 
 money, the whole power is the product of mass and velocity. 
 Money is like any other tool ; the more constant its use the 
 more profitable its agency. The quick movement of a small 
 mass is better than the torpid movement of a large mass, 
 both in what it saves of expense, and in what it presupposes 
 of the general conditions of exchange. The value of the 
 money of any country is a small fraction of the value of 
 that which it helps to exchange directly ; and a very small 
 fraction indeed of the value of that which it help/ to rx- 
 change indu-ectly through credit by means of its dcnomi:.a- 
 tions ; for, as we shall see better farther on, money works 
 not only as a medium direct, — itself exchanged against 
 other services, — but also as furnishing those denominations 
 of value, like the dollar, which are always used in bargaining, 
 and in those cases of credit in which settlement is not made 
 by money, but by offsetting one piece of indebtedness against 
 
322 PO LIT I (J An VAIONOMY. 
 
 juidUhji", vvlii(;Ii (IcMioiiiiiKitioiiH (;;ui spring' only from the nse 
 of money us :i direct medium. Tiicu'efore we see tluit the 
 hub and the Bpolces uud the rim of the wheel of exeluuige 
 consist of personal services, credit-claims, and idl commodi- 
 ties but money, while, to borrow the famous comparison of 
 Iliune, money itself is l)nt tlie grease whicli makes the wliec^l 
 turn easier. It would be; a A'ast mistake to suppose, as sor .e 
 of tlie !ui(;icnts did, tliat tlie grease is really the wheel. 
 
 7. VViiilc! money thus makes easy the revolution of tiie 
 wheel of cxchiuigc, it follows also from its nature as a 
 medium, that tlie dimensions of the wheel itself are vastly 
 greater than they would have been had it not been for 
 money. Money indeed heli)ed cxcliange the products that 
 alrcjady existed at its first invention, but by far the largest 
 part of products since have come into (existence largely 
 through the !ig(>ncy of money. We g(>t (piite too low a view 
 of tlie finu^lJon of this i)<)teiit agent, if we think of it merely 
 as iiii aid in circiil.'Uing products tliiit would liavo existed 
 whether or no ; some pi'odncts would luive existed whether 
 or no, and money certainly is of great use and convenience 
 in hel[)iug biing these to the ultinnite consumers; but this 
 is a partial iuul wholly inadecpiate view of the function of 
 money as a medium of exchange. The fact that su(!h a 
 mcduim is in universal circulation, and that the holders of it 
 arc ready to exchange it against any sort of services adapted 
 to gratify their desires, exercises a kind of creative power, 
 and brings a thousand products to the market which would 
 otherwise never have come into existence. Since money will 
 buj' any thing", men ar-e on the alert to bring forward some- 
 thing wlii(^h will buy money; and since mon(>y is divisilile 
 into small pieces, ;in imiredible number and variety of small 
 services are brought forward to be exchanged against these 
 pieces, which services we have no reason to suppose would 
 ever be brought forwai'd at all, were it not for the strong 
 attraction of the money. 
 
 8. From this last point of view we may gain another con- 
 
MONEY. 323 
 
 nected with it, namely, that money must be a very important 
 part of the capital of the worhl. Capital as we have already 
 learned, is any produet outside of man himself from whose 
 use springs a pecuniary increase. The circulating medium 
 of any country is the most active, the most profitable, and 
 the most essential of all those instruments reserved in aid ci 
 further production. The axe, the plougli, the spindle, the 
 loom, the wheel, the engine, are all instruments, are all capi- 
 tal, and they each aid respectively some part or parts of tlie 
 processes of production ; l)ut money is a form of capital 
 which stirauhites and faciUtatcs all the processes of produc- 
 tion without exception. Just as we have seen that money 
 is a form of value generalized, so is it also a generalized form 
 of capital, that is to say, it is an instrument capable of aid- 
 ing all production in every department, wliile every other 
 instrument is capa]>le of aiding but few processes in one 
 department. Without money, there could be no thorough 
 division of labor, because there would be no adequate means 
 of estimating or rewarding each one's share in a complicated 
 process. By means of money, all services, small or great, 
 contributing toward a common product, are neatly measured 
 and paid for l)y some one, who thereby l)Ccomes proprietor 
 of tlie whole product; or, if the contributors clioose, they 
 may wait till the product itself is sold, and then the money 
 received is divisiltle without loss to each contriliutor, accord- 
 ing to the service rendered. Tluis the iulluence of money, 
 as capital, pervades the whole field of excliange, from centre 
 to circumference, facilitating every transfer, and stimulating 
 to new trausfers. 
 
 9. If money 1)0, as it is, a medium in exchanges and thus 
 a peculiar kind of capitjil^ the question is pertinent, How 
 much of it is wanted? Clearly, only so much as will serve 
 the purposes which such a medium is fitted to subserve ; 
 there should be enough fairly to mediate between the ser- 
 vices actually ready to be cx(rhanged then and there, and also 
 enough fairly to cull out other services, proper and profitable 
 
324 POLITICAL EC0N03IY. 
 
 in the then dreumstances of society, and whose only obsta- 
 cle to a profitable exchange then and there, is the lack of a 
 facilitating medium. All increase of money beyond this 
 point, which the very nature of money itself marks Dut as 
 the boundary, leads to a diminution in value of eve y part 
 of it, to a consequent disturbance of all existing money con- 
 tracts, to a universal rise of prices which are illusory and 
 gainless, to unsteadiness and derangement in all legitimate 
 business, and to a spirit of restless enterprise and specula- 
 tion, which seeks to draw off the excess of money in untried 
 and reckless experiments. The real subjects of exchange 
 are mutual efforts, mutual services, and money is the instru- 
 ment merely that comes in between the real services exchanged 
 to facilitate the exchange ; and therefore it seems to be per- 
 fectly conclusive on the point to remark, that the quantit}^ 
 of money needed in any country, or in the whole world, is 
 limited by the number of the services ready to be exchanged, 
 to facilitate the exchange of which is the good purpose and 
 end of money. The physical and mental powers of men, 
 which alone give birth to services, when considered, as they 
 must be in this connection, as belonging to a given number 
 of men at a given time and place, are strictly limited ;' and 
 although the presence of money then and there is both a 
 stimulus and an aid to their bringing forward services of all 
 sorts to the market, there are obvious limitations both in their 
 powers and in their cu-cumstances ; and the quantity of money 
 needed among them is just that quantit}" which will fairly act 
 as a mediumjn exchanging the services which they are able 
 and willing to render to each other. All increase in the quan- 
 tity of money beyond that point would have, and could have, 
 the only effect of increasing the nominal prices of services, 
 without making the services themselves anj^ greater in num- 
 ber or better in quality. It is with money exactly as it is 
 with any other form of capital, allowance being made for 
 the fact that money is a kind of generalized capital. How 
 many ships does a commercial nation need to employ? As 
 
MONEY. 825 
 
 many as will fairly take off its exports and bring in its im- 
 ports. Ships are wanted for one definite purpose ; and when 
 enough are secured to answer that purpose, all additions to 
 the number will lessen the value, that is, the purchasing- 
 power of ships generally. So of all instruments whatever. 
 Enough is as good as a feast. Enough is better than more. 
 Ill regard to every form of capital, the point of sufficiency 
 is determined by the quantity of work to be done. 
 
 10. It will help us now, having seen some of the more 
 obvious functions of money, to look at some of the commodi- 
 ties that have served as money at different times and places. 
 We have already in the first chapter quoted passages from 
 Homer, which indicate that oxen were already an incipient 
 money in the Heroic age. We cannot certainly infer, when 
 it is said in Genesis that " Abraham departed out of Egypt 
 very rich in cattle and silver and gold," that any of these 
 were any thing more than articles of valuable merchandise ; 
 but it is certain from the Latin name of money, pecunia, 
 derived from the word pecus, meaning cattle, that cattle were 
 the money of the early Romans, and Pliny says that Servius 
 Tullius stamped the first bronze money with the image of 
 cattle, — probably indicating by that, some equivalence in 
 value between the two. Cattle at any rate have been used 
 as money among pastoral people very widely in place and 
 time, and are still so used in Africa. 
 
 Before Pheidon coined silver money in Greece (869 B.C.), 
 copper sketvers were used as money in that country, of which 
 six made up a drachm which was afterward both a coin and 
 a weight, the coin being worth about seventeen cents of our 
 money, — rather more than a Roman denarius, — and t-ie 
 weight being about sixty-six grains avoirdupois. The wo.'d 
 drachm is derived from Spdy/jia, a handful, and the sixth part 
 of it, called an obol, from the Greek word meaning a spit, 
 became also both a coin and a weight, which makes it evi- 
 dent that these skewers were used in comiection with roasting 
 meat, and that one of them was originally both a unit of 
 
326 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 value aud of weight. In Adam Smith's day, in certain 
 districts in Scotland, nails were still used as small money, 
 which is a forcible reminder of these old Greek skewers. 
 
 Cowry shells are used in the East Indies and also in Africa 
 in the place of small coins, and have sometimes been im- 
 ported into England from India to be exported in trade to 
 the coast of Africa : these count in Bengal at about 3,200 to 
 a rupee (46 cents) . The New England Indians also used 
 beads of shells of periwinkles (white) , and of clams (black) , 
 of which 3G0 made up a belt of loampum, as they called it, 
 the black being counted worth twice as much as the white ; 
 and the English colonists accepted the wampum in their ex- 
 changes with the Indians, regarding a string of white as 
 equal to five shillings, and a string of black to ten shillings, 
 and afterwards made it legal tender for small sums among 
 themselves, and even counterfeited it. Bullets also once 
 passed in Massachusetts at a farthing apiece, and were legal 
 tender for debts of less than one sliilling. The shells had a 
 value as ornaments to the Indians, and the bullets were 
 useful to the colonists, previous to and separate from their 
 use as money. The same will be noted of all the other things 
 now to be mentioned. 
 
 Calces of tea have passed as money in India, and elsewhere ; 
 and it is said, that at the great annual fair at Novgorod in 
 Russia, the price of tea has first to be determined before the 
 prices of other things can be settled upon, since that is a 
 kind of standard of values in that great mart. Salt has 
 been current money in Abyssinia ; codfish in Iceland and 
 Newfoundland ; heaver-skins in New Netherlands, New Eng- 
 land, and the western parts of America ; iron was money 
 in Sparta ; leaden money was known to the ancients, and is 
 still current in the Burman empire ; the earliest coins proper, 
 were undoubtedly of bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, 
 and Sicilian, Roman, and old British coins of tin alone are 
 known to have been struck ; the Romans first coined silver 
 money in 269 B.C., and gold money in 207 B.C., though 
 
MONEY. 327 
 
 gold coins bad been known in the East long before tliey 
 were stamped in Greece, which was about the time of Alex- 
 ander the Great, say, 333 B.C. ; and Herodotus makes the 
 statement, that the Lydians of Asia Minor were the first to 
 make a coinage of electriim^ which some claim, was a mixture 
 of gold and silver, of which ancient specimens are still ex- 
 isting.^ 
 
 "We do not here try to give a full list of the things that 
 have been used as money in the early states of society. In- 
 deed, so great is the need of some such form of generalized 
 value, in order that exchanges may grow to any considerable 
 size, that there would be no ground for surprise in any list 
 however large and varied. It may be held for certain, how- 
 ever, that nothing has become money in primitive times or 
 states of civilization, which was not previously valuable. 
 The apparent exceptions to this do not seem to be real ex- 
 ceptions. The Carthaginians had a kind of leather monej^, 
 which originally enclosed bits of the precious metals, and 
 circulated in virtue of them, though they afterwards came 
 to circulate as bits of leather only, as counters, in away that 
 will be explained later. According to the Venetian trav- 
 eller Polo, China had in the 13th century, a money made 
 of the bark of the mulberry tree, cut into round pieces and 
 stamped with the name of the sovereign, which money it 
 was death to counterfeit or to refuse to take in any part of 
 the empire. If we had the whole history of this money, it 
 surely would ally itself either with the other commodity- 
 moneys now being treated, or with the modern credit-moneys 
 made legal tender to be treated hereafter. The French 
 writer Montesquieu, asserted that there was in use in the 
 last century among the people of the coast of Africa, what 
 he called "an ideal monej"," "a sign of value without 
 money," the unit of which was called the macoute, which 
 was subdivided also into ideal tenths, called pieces. This 
 
 * See commenta on this passage in Herodotus in Macleod's Ecou Pliil., vol. i^ 
 p. 367. 
 
328 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 statement was startling, as implying a denominatiou without 
 the thing denominated, as impl^uug a standard of value 
 which had no basis in a valuable thing. It was discovered, 
 however, afterwards, that this money of account had its 
 origin, just as we should suppose it must have had, in an 
 actual macoute, namely, a piece of stuff, a fabric which they 
 had used first as a commodity-money, and afterwards its 
 name as a money of account, A valuable thing may become 
 money, and then its name may become a denominatiou of 
 value, and still later a bit of leather or a bit of paper may 
 be called by the same name and in a certain sense take 
 the place of the same thing. All this will be clear by 
 and by. 
 
 As civilization has advanced, and the nations have come 
 into closer connection with each other, experience has al- 
 ready driven them for the most part to drop the more tenta- 
 tive and factitious commodities in favor of the precious 
 metals so-called as the best material for money. Gold and 
 silver coins are now acceptable in almost all parts of the 
 known world ; and in many parts of the world nothing else 
 is acceptable as money ; experience has shown in their 
 almost universal adoption the superiority of these coins over 
 all other forms of money ; and we shall soon see the grounds 
 of this manifested superiority. 
 
 11. We are now ready to look into the inmost nature of 
 money through an ultimate definition. Monet is a current 
 AND LEGAL MEASURE OF SERVICES. The word "legal" in 
 this definition is not always to be pressed to its utmost sig- 
 nification, but denotes any thing sanctioned by law or usage 
 equivalent to law. The other words are to be taken in their 
 full and technical meaning. It is believed, that, while the 
 definition is short and simple, it just covers the whole ground 
 and no more. It is not enough that a certain commoditj' be 
 legal as money ; it must also be current in order to be a true 
 money. In this country between 1862 and 1879, gold 
 coins, though legal tender all the time for all debts, were 
 
MONEY. 32^ 
 
 not current in the full sense of that terra, and hence were 
 not the money of the country. Till the latter date, gold 
 coins were required to pay duties with, and the interest on 
 the public debt, and were used to a small extent in a few 
 branches of private business, and were not otherwise in the 
 hands of the people. They were not strictly money, but 
 bore a premium over the current money of the country. To 
 be money, then, a commodity must be recognized as money 
 by law, or custom as strong as law, and also circulate among 
 all classes of the people as a medium in their exchanges. 
 
 But money becomes a medium in exchanges, because it 
 first becomes a measure of Services. Some think that the 
 two functions are separate, and of equal rank. It is easy 
 to see that one only is original, and that the other is derived. 
 Even Aristotle saw that money is a Measure, inasmuch as he 
 defined property ' ' any thing that can be measured by money. ' ' 
 We may be pretty sure, in opposition to Professor Jevons,-^ 
 who thinks there are four characteristics of money, that 
 money as such has but one primary characteristic difference 
 from other forms of value, namely, this measure-quality, 
 this stoTidarcZ-quality, this publicly recognized function as a 
 common measure, to which all other values are constantly 
 referred. This additional attribute put upon money by the 
 action of society in law or custom is not what imparts its 
 value to money, since an ounce of uncoined gold is worth 
 within a very small fraction as much as an ounce of gold 
 coins, but it makes the money a far more convenient instru- 
 ment to purchase with, inasmuch as money, having now the 
 attribute of making aU other values easily commensurable 
 witli itself, becomes at once something which everybody is 
 wHliug to receive, because everybody knows in general what 
 its power will be to purchase all other things. In other words, 
 money becomes a medium in exchanges, just because it hag 
 already become a measure of Services in general ; and there 
 are not in reality two prime functions of money, still less 
 
 ' Money aud tbe Mechanism of Exchange, p. 13. 
 
3S0 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 four, but only one. This view seems to simplify tlie siibject 
 of Money very much, and we may be sure that it will be 
 found to be scientifically correct, and shall have many means 
 of testing its accuracy as we proceed. 
 
 12. The only thing common to salable things is the fact 
 that they all are salable, and if they are to be made in any 
 way commensurable with each other, it must be by means of 
 one of their number assumed as a standard of comparison 
 with the rest. This is just what is done when any thing is 
 selected as money : it was valuable before, but now it has 
 become a standard, with which other valuable things may be 
 compared in the single point of their value. In other words, 
 to render money is to render a Service, which, from its very 
 nature as money, is capable of measuring all other Services 
 whatsoever. Without some common measure of services, it 
 would be inconvenient, not to say impossible, to carry on 
 traffic at all. For instance : A baker has only loaves of 
 bread, and wishes to buy a hat, a horse, a house. How 
 many loaves shall he give for each? Unless there be some 
 common Service, in the terms of which these differing values 
 can be expressed, and by means of which they can be brought 
 into numerical relations with each other, it would be an awk- 
 ward piece of business to effect even the three exchanges ; 
 and every time the baker wished to buy anotlier article, there 
 must be a rude and slow calculation from independent data, 
 to decide upon the terms of the exchange. Let now some 
 common service be introduced, in the terms of which each 
 of these values can express itself, and the difficulty disap- 
 pears in an -instant. "My loaves are worth ten cents each," 
 says the baker. "My hat is worth ten dollars," says the 
 hatter. Their saying so does not indeed maJce it so ; but each 
 has come to that approximate conclusion by a relatively easy 
 comparison of two services ; and if the loaves bring ten cents 
 and the hats ten dollars, the terms of their exchange are one 
 hundred for one, and there is no need of parleying. So of 
 the rest ; so of every thing that is ever bought and sold. 
 
MONEY. 831 
 
 Money becomes by common consent a measure of them ; 
 because it measures them, it makes the interchange of them 
 far easier ; because it measures them, it becomes a medium 
 between them ; and because money rendered is itself a Service, 
 it is a natural and universal measure of all other Sei-vices. 
 
 This is better than to say, in common with many econo- 
 mists that " money is a Measure of Value." That phrase 
 is objectionable, because value is always relative to two ser- 
 vices exchanged for each other, and to say that mouey is a 
 measure of that relation is neither so simple nor so ultimate 
 as to say that it is a measure of each of the services that 
 enter mto that relation. The Sei'vices may be conceived of 
 and spoken of separate from the Value into which they merge, 
 although they come into existence solely for the sake of that 
 resultant value ; so money may be conceived of and spoken 
 of separate from the exchanges in which it finds its sole 
 significance ; and it is strictly accurate to say, that monej', 
 itself a service, is a measure of all other services, considered 
 as constituent elements of the values into which they fall. 
 We are not without hopes, accordingly, that competent econo- 
 mists will concede, that here is an improvement in the nomen- 
 clature of our science. Money is the measure of services. 
 Its other functions are the result of that. 
 
 As all values are the result of a comparison, it is not strange 
 at all, rather it is natural and inevitable, that there should 
 arise in connection with them some such comparative measure 
 as money is ; and it is of some consequence to notice, con- 
 trary to what has often been said, that the real measure is 
 the money itself, and not its denominations, — the tiling -ddW.'XX 
 and not the denomination-diO\\2t.Y . The denominations are 
 used in bargainings and calculations as representatives of the 
 money itself, and thus indeed in a secondary sense serve as 
 measures; but the subtle connection between the thing and 
 its name, betwen money and its denominations, and the differ- 
 ences between the two, need to be clearly unfolded, because 
 most of the current fallacies about money take their rise just 
 
332 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 at this point. An illustration will best serve us here. The 
 original measure of Services in France, England, and Scot- 
 land, was the pound weight of silver. No coin of that weight 
 was ever struck ; but a pound of sUver was cut into 240 coins 
 called pence. Twelve of these pence were called a solidus, 
 or shilling. Thus as applied to silver, the symbols lb. and £ 
 denoted equivalent weights, the former of uncoined metal, 
 the latter of metal coined. But in course of time, more 
 than 240 pence so called, and at last in Elizabeth's reign, 
 744 pence, came to be coined out of a lb. of silver. Yet all 
 the while, 240 of these pence were called a £. £ and lb., 
 both a contraction of the Latin libra, were no longer equiva- 
 lent. The lb. of weight continued stable : the £ of money 
 had dwindled to less than one-third. Yet the nc^ne pound 
 continued to attach to 240 pence, although the pence em- 
 bodied a less and less quantity of silver. Each actual penny 
 had less silver in it, and though it was still called a penny, 
 the denomination, though spelled and sounded as before, rep- 
 resented less silver, and therefore, less value, than before. 
 The denominations follow the fortunes of the coins, whose 
 names they are, to the frequent loss of the unthinking, who 
 suppose the same name must represent the same thing. In 
 1834, the gold eagle of the United States was reduced in 
 weight from 270 to 258 grains troy, and the alloy increased 
 from one part in twelve, to one part in ten. These changes 
 took out more than six parts of gold in every one hundred 
 parts, in all the gold coins of the country. Yet all the coins 
 bore the same names as before. Other things remaining equal, 
 the coins lost about six per centum of their purchasing-power, 
 or in other words, general pj'ices rose in that proportion ; the 
 measure became smaller ; and the words dollar, eagle, and so 
 on, though outwardly unchanged, varied simultaneously and 
 equally with the change in the coins. 
 
 Also, coins are liable to change in their function as a meas- 
 ure from changes in the general purchasing-power of the 
 metals. If for any reason an ounce of gold will buy less 
 
MONEY. 333 
 
 of other things than formerly, the coins cut from that gold 
 will buy less than formerly, and this change in the measure 
 is followed of course by a corresponding change in the denom- 
 ination. Other tables of denominations have a basis inde- 
 pendent of the things which they help to measure, and are 
 not variable by the quality or quantity of those measurable 
 things. A French metre, for example, is an invariable unit 
 of length the world over; so is one of Troughton's inches; 
 but this is not true of the denominations of money at all. 
 Pounds sterling^ dollars, marks, francs, are denominations 
 of value, which is itself a variable relation. Such denomi- 
 nations, consequently, are not an independent standard to 
 which values themselves can be referred, as lengths are re- 
 ferred to the metre, but vary with the varying purchasing- 
 power of the coins. The dollar, as a denomination, means 
 more or less, just according as the dollar, as a coin, buys, 
 that is, measures, more or less. Still, it is vastly important 
 for the interests of exchange that the accepted measure of 
 Services be as little liable to fluctuations as possible, espe- 
 cially in all cases in which lapse of time is involved before 
 the exchange is fully consummated. For the same reason 
 in kind, only multiplied a thousand-fold in force, that the 
 bushel measure should be of the same capacity in sowing- 
 time and in harvest, to sell by and buy by, always a bushel, 
 no more and no less ; and the yard-stick an inflexible meas- 
 ure of length, always thirty-six of Troughton's inches, no 
 more and no less ; so, as far as it is possible in the nature 
 of things, ought the measure of Services, and hence its 
 denominations, to represent year in and year out a uniform 
 degree of purchasing-power. 
 
 In the place of our expression, " the measure of Services," 
 and the foregoing explanation consequent upon its use, Pro- 
 fessor Walker^ prefers the phrase, "the common denominator 
 in exchange," and Professor Price ^ is fond of the formula 
 (and it is a good one), " the tool of exchange," and Mr. 
 
 1 Money, pp. 280 et seq. ^ Practical Political Economy, 1877, p. 363. 
 
334 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Macleod,^ who is more or less fortified in his view by Bastiat 
 and Price, strangely insists that money is "the representa- 
 tive of Debt." He says: " The quantity of money in any 
 country represents the amount of Debt which there would be 
 if there was no money ; and consequently where there is no 
 debt there can be no money." The unfortunate use by some 
 countries of a paper money, which is indeed a form of debt, 
 gives some plausibility to the notion that money is a repre- 
 sentative of debt ; and perhaps the fact that money is often 
 used'to pay debts previously contracted, and that iebts are 
 usually contracted in the terms of money, gives some addi- 
 tional plausibility to this view ; but as Mr. Macleod himself 
 goes on to say, that " no substance possesses so many advan- 
 tages as a metal for money," and that " all civilized nations 
 therefore have agreed to adopt a metal as money, and of 
 metals, gold, silver, and copper have been chiefly used," we 
 do not see how he can consistently hold that a gold dollar, or 
 gold sovereign, whose value is in no sense due to the process 
 of coining, whose value is as substantive and independent as 
 any value in the world can be, becomes through coinage and 
 circulation a representative of debt. Instead of saying, as 
 he does, " where there is no debt there can be no money," we 
 may confidently say, where all transactions are settled at once 
 in solid money, there can be no debt. 
 
 13. This brings us to the considerations which determine 
 what is the best money. Historically, coins of gold, silver, 
 and copper, have been proven by an experience of about 
 2,500 years to be more acceptable to the people of the world 
 as money than any other substances. There is a presump- 
 tion, accordingly, that these in proper adjustments with each 
 other constitute the best money. These have never been 
 anywhere of equal value with each other : an ounce of gold 
 has always been more valuable than an ounce of silver, and 
 this than an ounce of copper. Moreover, the relative value 
 of the three in each other has never continued permanent, 
 
 1 Elements of Banking, 1876, p. 17. 
 
MONEY. 335 
 
 even after the law has sought to ascertain and fix it. In 
 Asia Minor, where coinage began, gold was the standard 
 with silver as subsidiary ; in Greece, silver was long the sole 
 standard, till Philip's victories established a double standard, 
 gold being reckoned as one to twelve and a half of silver; 
 while in Rome, copper was the original standard, which was 
 displaced by silver in 217 B.C., and gold was legalized by 
 Caesar as a co-standard in the ratio of one to about twelve, 
 until in the reign of Alexander Severus, gold became the 
 sole standard throughout the Roman Empire. After the 
 downfall of that empire, gold maintained itself for a time 
 in Spain and France, but silver gradually regained its lost 
 place in Europe, to be again gradually displaced by gold as 
 the standard. In 1717 a double standard was established 
 in Great Britain, gold being rated to silver as one to fifteen 
 and one-fifth, but in 1816 gold was made, by a law still in 
 force, the sole standard, the legal use of silver being limited 
 to forty shillings in any one payment. In France, silver held 
 its own as a co-standard longer and better than in any other 
 country in Europe. In 1803 the legal relation of gold to 
 silver was fixed at one to fifteen and a half, and so continued 
 till 1876, when the right of private individuals to have silver 
 coined for them was taken away in behalf of the government, 
 and only the five franc silver pieces continued to be legal 
 tender to all amounts, the other silver coins becoming then 
 only legal to pay debts to the amount of fifty francs. In 
 1871, the German Empire adopted the sole gold standard, 
 and limited silver to the amount of twenty marks ir. any one 
 forced payment ; but the old silver thaler continued to circu- 
 late at the rate of three marks to a thaler. Since 1875, the 
 Scandinavian Union permits gold alone to be coined for pri- 
 vate persons, and limits the debt-paying power of silver to 
 twenty crowns. A franc is 19.29, a mark 23.82, and a crown 
 26.78, of our standard cents. 
 
 As Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Austro- 
 Hungary in part, act with France in monetary matters, it is 
 
836 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 plain that the tendencies are towards the adoption of gold 
 as the single standard, and of silver as subsidiary money 
 only. Copper, which was the only money in early Rome, 
 and is stUl the only legal coinage in China, has come in most, 
 modern coinages to be a token-money only, that is, a money 
 circulating in small sums without reference to the value of 
 the metal. In 1738, the relative value of silver to copper 
 in France was one to forty ; in 1803, one to one hundred ; and 
 in 1852, one to about one hundred and fifty. The French 
 copper centime (one gram) , the English penu}' (9.149 grams) , 
 and the present United States copper cent (3.11 grams), all 
 circulate as money much above their value as metal. Dis- 
 missing copper, then, as only useful for money in this very 
 subordinate way, and remembering that gold and silver stood 
 in ancient times in about the ratio of one to twelve, and stands 
 in modern times not far from the ratio of one to sixteen, it 
 may be said in general that gold and silver coins make the 
 best possible money. It is convenient to have money of the 
 two metals notwithstanding the impossibility of maintaining 
 a steady legal valuation between them. For reasons to be 
 given shortly, gold ought to be exclusively the standard, as 
 it has now come to be in Europe ; it ought to be the only 
 legal tender for large sums ; but silver coins are useful for 
 the lesser exchanges, as gold ones would be too small for the 
 purpose ; and there is no objection to the present usage of 
 all the leading nations in lessening the weight of the silver 
 coins below their supposed ratio to gold, so as to allow a 
 considerable change in the market value of gold in silver 
 without te'nding to export the latter from the countr3^ Eng- 
 land, France, Germany, and the United States have debased 
 their smaller silver in weight, so that the nominal value of 
 these coins varies from seven to fifteen per centum above 
 their bullion value. This is at once a profit to the govern- 
 ments, and a security to the peoples that they shall not lose 
 their small change by export. 
 
 (1) The first and main reason why gold and silver make 
 
MONEY. 337 
 
 the best money is found in their comparatively steady value. 
 Money is a measure of all other vakiable services, and there- 
 fore its own value must be as steady as it can be made, and 
 gold and silver meet this test better than any thing else. 
 Money is not a representative of value ; it does not owe its 
 value to the stamp impressed upon it ; its value aiises under 
 the same conditions as every other value, and is variable by 
 any change in any one of the four elements which alone can 
 vary the value of any thing ; and it seems that nothing more 
 is needed in order to remove the last vestiges of the dark 
 cloud which has so long overhung this subject, than to fa- 
 miliarize ourselves first of all with the true doctrine of value 
 in general, and then hold fast the truth, exemplified on every 
 side, that the value of money is just like every other value. 
 Let us see, then, why the value of gold and silver money is 
 so steady. 
 
 (a) On account of the comparatively steady demand for 
 these metals. Gold and silver are wanted for two general 
 purposes : first, to be used as money, and second, to be used 
 in the arts ; and it has been estimated that about two-fifths 
 of the aggregate quantity in the world is in the form of 
 money, and the other three-fifths in the form of plate, uten- 
 sils, and ornaments. Now, so far as the element of desire 
 controls value, the purpose for which au}' article is desired 
 is a matter of indifference. The aggregate desire for it for 
 all purposes, accompanied with the offer of something with 
 which to buy it, constitutes the demand ; and the more uni- 
 versal the desii'e, no matter for what purpose, the steadier 
 the demand, and, so far forth, the steadier the value. It is 
 worth noticing, as a point still too little noticed, that it is not 
 the demand for the precious metals as coin alone that deter- 
 mines their general value, nor the demand for them in the 
 arts, but the combined demand for all purposes ; just as the 
 value of barley is regulated, partly by the demand for it for 
 food, and partly by the demand for it for malting purposes. 
 Hence an ounce of bullion of the standard fineness, destinec 
 
338 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 for the smelting-pot of the artisan, is worth withia a very 
 trifle as much as an ounce of coined money. By the law of 
 the Bank of England an ounce of standard gold is coined 
 into £3 17s. lO^fL, and the Bank is obliged to buy all bullion 
 and foreign coins of the standard fineness offered to it at 
 £3 17s. 9d. per ounce — a difference of three half -pennies. 
 Now, gold and silver are so indispensable in the form of 
 money, so beautiful in the form of ornaments, so well 
 adapted to serve the purposes of luxury and love of distinc- 
 tion, so really useful in the arts, that the demand for them 
 is constant and well-nigh universal ; and if, in the progress 
 of civilization, a less quantity should be desired for personal 
 ornamentation and purposes of luxury, a greater will doubt- 
 less be required for the other uses ; and so, as the demand 
 in the past has been steady, and perhaps steadily increasing, 
 there is every reason to expect the same for the time to come. 
 And it contributes to the steadiness in value of the gold and 
 silver coin, that there is at hand in the form of plate a reser- 
 voir from which a chance chasm in the coin may be replen- 
 ished, or an extra demand for it answered. 
 
 (&) On account of their tolerably uniform cost of produc- 
 tion. Not desires alone, but efforts as well, regulate value. 
 Supply is the correlative of demand ; and when to a steady 
 demand there answers a steady supply, realized under condi- 
 tions of pretty uniform difficulty, there will be of course a 
 pretty steady value. Nature herself has indicated, in a :uan- 
 ner not to be mistaken, her intention that these metals should 
 be the money of the nations. She has scattered them all over 
 the earth, and so scattered them that the cost of their produc- 
 tion has been on the whole pretty steady ever since civilization 
 and commerce began in earnest. There have been but two 
 or three striking changes in the value of gold and silver owing 
 to easier and larger Supply in the commercial world during 
 the last 500 years. The discovery of the mines of Potosi in 
 1545, and the large influx of silver into Europe from those 
 and other American sources, with the stimulus thereby given 
 
MONET. 3S9 
 
 to the working of European mines, so increased the stock of 
 silver, that its value, as measured in grain or other commodi- 
 ties, declined in Europe from 1570 to 1640 to about 25% of 
 its previous purchasing-power. Adam Smith thinks (I. 187 
 et seq.) that silver did not fall in value before 1570, nor con- 
 tinue to fall after 1640. The discovery of gold deposits ou 
 the Pacific coast of the United States in 1848, and a similar 
 discovery in Australia in 1851, enlarged the annual supply 
 of gold from $40,000,000 in 1848 (Chevalier), to an average 
 of $136,000,000 for the five years ending in 1859 (Jevons) ; 
 and the latter writer estimates the fall of gold from 1845 to 
 1862 at about 15%. So the opening of the fertile silver 
 mines of Nevada, which produced in 1875 $32,000,000, car- 
 ried down decidedly the value of silver the world over. But 
 with exceptions like these, and similar ones are perhaps not 
 likely to recur, the precious metals have always maintained 
 and seem likely to maintain in the future a considerable uni- 
 formity of value, so far forth as cost of production goes to 
 determine value. Even the great changes just noted in the 
 cost of the metals issued only gradually in a rise of prices, 
 which many were able to foresee and thus to provide for, but 
 by which many more were caught and brought into distress 
 and even pauperism. The two classes that suffer the most 
 under a fall in the value of money are the wages-receivers 
 and the holders of long annuities and other similar obliga- 
 tions. 
 
 (c) On account of their quantity. The amount of gold 
 and silver in circulation in the commercial world, to say 
 nothing of the quantity so easily brought into circulation 
 from the reservoir of plate, is so vast, that it receives the 
 annual contributions from the mines much as the ocean re- 
 ceives the waters of the rivers, without sensible increase of 
 its volume, and parts with the annual loss by detrition and 
 shipwreck, as the sea yields its waters to evaporation, with- 
 out sensible diminution of volume. The yearly supply and 
 the yearly waste are small in comparison with the accumula^ 
 
340 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tions of ages ; and therefore the relation of the whole mass 
 to the uses of the world, and the purchasing-power of any 
 given portion, remain comparatively steady. It is probable 
 that production at the mines might cease altogether for a con- 
 siderable interval without very sensibl}^ enhancing throughout 
 the .commercial world the value of gold ; as it is certain, from 
 experience, that a production very largely augmented only 
 gradually, and after a considerable interval, diminishes its 
 value. The mass of the precious metals has been aptly com- 
 pared to the heavy balance-wheel in mechanics, which pre- 
 serves an equable and working condition of the machinery 
 under anj^ sudden increase of the power, and even when the 
 power is for a moment withdrawn. Mint-Director Burchard 
 estimated the amount of gold in this country on May 1, 1881, 
 to be $520,000,000, of which $256,000,000 were in circula- 
 tion; in Great Britain $596,000,000, of which $428,000,000 
 were in circulation ; and in France $927,000,000, of which 
 $816,000,000 were in circulation. The same authority es- 
 timated the world's production of gold in 1880 to be 
 $107,000,000, and of silver $87,500,000 ; the world's con- 
 svimption in the arts that year as $75,000,000 of gold, and 
 $35,000,000 of silver; and this country's annual use in the 
 arts as about $11,000,000 gold and $6,000,000 silver. Just 
 at this point a caution is needful. Because it is affirmed that 
 the great amount of the precious metals is a ground of their 
 firm value, it must not be supposed that we are going be- 
 yond our general doctrine, and introducing another element, 
 namely, quantity, besides the four elements which, as we 
 have so often alleged, can alone vary the value of any ser- 
 vice ; quantity, in itself, is not an element capable of varying 
 the value of any thing, but taken in connection with durabil- 
 ity, it is an element of what might, perhaps, with propriety 
 be called the inertia of value, and tends to keep the purchas- 
 ing-power of gold and silver where it is. Value and steadi- 
 ness of value are two distinct ideas. The present value of 
 an ounce of gold expressed in any other commodity is decided 
 
MONET. 341 
 
 by four things alone ; but other elements besides these may 
 help determine that that ounce of gold shall have ten years 
 from now a purchasing-power approximately, the same as 
 now. It will depend, of course, in the last analysis, upon 
 the relation of the then demand to the then supply ; yet the 
 va&t quantit}^ of the precious metals in existence, combined 
 with their durability, prevents those fluctuations in the supply 
 which are so destructive to a steady value. It is not as with 
 the fruits and the grains, whose value varies perpetually with 
 the seasons, and which are so perishable that they must be 
 sold soon or never : gold and silver are almost indestructible, 
 and except by wear and accident, the existing mass is not 
 liable to be lessened, and in so far as the annual production 
 from the mines exceeds the yearly waste there is a natural 
 provision made for the natural increase of demand, to supply 
 the wants of the world for money aud for the arts, without 
 much disturbing the relation of the demand and supply. The 
 quantity, in connection with the durability of the precious 
 metals, helps preserve to them a tolerabl}^ steady value from 
 generation to generation. 
 
 (d) On account of their fluency. Gold and silver are in 
 demand the world over. Having great value in compara- 
 tively small bulk, they are easily transported from continent 
 to continent ; and whenever, from any cause, they become 
 relatively in excess in any country, and thus lose there a 
 portion of their previous purchasing-power, there is an im- 
 mediate motive to export them to other countries where their 
 power in exchange is greater, and thus the equilibrium is 
 restored. The value of gold and silver throughout the com- 
 mercial world is thus kept pretty steady bj* the facility with 
 which they are carried from points where they are relatively 
 in excess to points where they are relativol}' in deficiency. 
 There is a gain in carrying them to those countries where 
 their power of purchase is the greatest, because more com- 
 modities can be obtained for them than at home ; and 
 private motives here coincide with public welfare, siucp 
 
342 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 what the traders do in transporting gold and silver, with 
 an eye to their own interest, helps maintain at home and 
 abroad the steady value of these commodities. This law 
 Oi the distribution of the precious metals by commerce, and 
 the equilibrium of value resulting therefrom, is as natural 
 and beautiful as the law which preserves the level of the 
 ocean, or that which balances the bodies of the planetary 
 system. This has come at length to be recognized by the 
 nations, and the laws which used to forbid b}^ heavy penalties 
 the exportation of gold and silver are all swept away, and 
 these metals are now free to go, and do actually go, where 
 they can obtain the most in exchange. It is absurd to sup 
 pose that their owners would carry them out of a country, 
 unless they were worth more abroad than at home, and there- 
 fore the prejudice which exists still in this country against 
 the exportation of gold is a senseless prejudice. The gold 
 is not given away ; it is sold, and sold for more than it will 
 buy at home ; otherwise it would not be carried abroad. 
 There is the same kind of gain as in all other exchange^^ 
 and this great incidental advantage in addition, that, by 
 means of free commerce in the precious metals, their general 
 value is kept pretty uniform throughout the world, and a 
 chance redundancy in the money of one country is drawn 
 off to supply a corresponding deficiency in another. It may 
 be laid down as an axiom, that no countr^^ will export, for 
 the sake of getting other things, those things which are more 
 needful for its own welfare ; and there need not be the slight- 
 est fear that any nation which cultivates its own advantages 
 under freedom will ever lack a sufficient quantum of the pre- 
 cious metals. Under freedom, and so long as human nature 
 continues wh^lt it is, these metals will go, and go in just the 
 light proportions, to and from those countries which produce 
 and offer in exchange those desirable services which other 
 countries want. The greater the enterprise and skill, the 
 keener the development of all peculiar and presently availa- 
 ble resources, the more honorable and- free the commercial 
 
MONET. 343 
 
 system, the surer is any nation, whether it be a gold-bearing 
 country or not, of securing the gold and silver which it needs. 
 This is so, because there will be a good market to buy in, and 
 they who have gold will resort thither to buy. But such a 
 nation will also want to buy other things besides gold and 
 silver, and when enough of the latter is secured for money 
 purposes and the arts, the residue will be exported, perhaps 
 to the ver}^ countries from which it originally came, in pay- 
 ment for some products which those countries have an advan- 
 tage in producing. The United States is a gold-producing 
 country, and exported in the years 1850-1860, both inclusive, 
 $502,789,759, coin and bullion ; and during the same period 
 imported from other countries $81,270,571, coin and bullion.^ 
 Now, there was a double advantage in that exportation. In 
 the first place, more and better commodities were secured to 
 the country than the gold could have bought in the country, 
 for otherwise it would not have been carried abroad ; and, in 
 the second place, this large sum carried abroad to various 
 countries in exchange, not only prevented the disturbing 
 effect on our own moneys of more than doubling in ten 
 years' time our stock of gold, thus inevitably depreciating 
 the whole mass, but also, by causing the new gold to impinge 
 on the whole world's stock instead of on the moneys of a 
 single nation, the shock of the new production on the measure 
 of services, though perceptible, was reduced and deadened. 
 The world's mass of the precious metals is comparatively 
 torpid beneath the action of an accretion which would break 
 down by its weight the metals of a single nation. There- 
 fore, the fluency of gold and silver, by which they pass easily 
 in commerce to those places where their present value in 
 exchange is greatest, or to such countries as India and 
 China which have shown for centuries a wonderful power to 
 absorb the metals of the West, and return as easily when 
 the conditions are reversed, or when a larger use of paper 
 releases some portion of the coin, tends powerfully to make 
 
 1 Report in the Finances, 1S63. 
 
344 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 their general value uniform throughout the world, and conse« 
 quently to make them the best medium of exchange and the 
 best measure of value. 
 
 (e) On account of this circumstance, that every general 
 rise or fall in the value of gold and silver tends to check 
 itself. This principle, indeed, is applicable to the value of 
 all commodities, but owing to their quantity and durability 
 pre-eminently applicable to the value of the precious metals. 
 The check is double in either direction. First, let us suppose 
 that the purchasing-power of an ounce of gold or silver be 
 rising : then, production will be stimulated at all the mines, 
 and the more stimulated as the rise is more, and the new and 
 enlarged supply will tend to check a farther rise, and, unless 
 the permanent demand has been intensified, to bring back the 
 value to the old point ; moreover, when there is a rise in 
 the value of the coin, there is a less quantit}' required to do 
 the same amount of business, and the demand for gold which 
 causes the rise tends to be checked by the rise itself, because 
 a less quantity is needed for money-use in consequence of the 
 rise. This supposes, of course, that the exchanges mediated 
 by money are no greater than before. Thus a rise of value 
 in gold and silver checks itself by natural laws in two ways. 
 Just so of a fall in their value. Production is thereby slack- 
 ened at the mines, and the lessened supply tends to enhance 
 value; and, if the same business is to be done as before, 
 there is a stronger demand for money while the fall continues, 
 and this demand tends also to restore the value. All this is 
 in the interest of a stead}- value, 
 
 (/) On "account, lastly, of this circumstance, that a 
 stronger demand for money is met either hy increasing the 
 stock of coin, or by an increased rapidity of circulation of 
 that on hand. A brisker demand for money, especially if it 
 be temporary, does not necessarily enlarge the supply, or 
 alter the value, but only hurries round the existing money. 
 Oscillations in the demand are responded to by a slower or 
 more rapid circiilation. This tends most admirably to keep 
 
MONEY. 845 
 
 the value steady within certain limits. "When enterprises are 
 multiplying and exchanges are being permanentl}^ increased 
 in number and variety, then there must be a larger amount 
 of money, and this larger amount is secured in the ways 
 already indicated, with perhaps slight disturbances of value ; 
 bi t the temporary ebbs and flows of business have no effect 
 at all on the mass of money, but only on its movement, and 
 its value consequently is not disturbed at all. 
 
 These six grounds appear to be satisfactory and sufficient 
 to account for the superior steadiness of the value of gold 
 and silver, so far as their value is determined by considera- 
 tions relating to the metals themselves. We now proceed to 
 the reasons additional to this why gold and silver constitute 
 the best money. 
 
 (2) The second general reason why gold and silver make 
 the best money is found in the fact, that governments have 
 little to say or do about the value^ quantity^ or mode of circu- 
 lation of such money. In all essential respects such money 
 regulates itself. These metals came to be money and con- 
 tinue to be money in one sense independent of the enactments 
 of any government. The people chose them : they still choose 
 them. As we have seen, coins do not owe their value to the 
 stamp of the government, since the metal in them is worth 
 within a trifle as much before coinage as after. Coinage 
 publicly attests the quantity and qualit}' of the metal in the 
 coin, and that is all. Of the value of their coins govern- 
 ments say nothing. They can say nothing. That depends 
 on men's judgments, and not on edicts at all. No law of 
 the United States can add directly an appreciable fraction 
 to the value of a gold dollar. The law makes it consist of 
 twenty-five and four-fifths grains troy of gold nine-tenths 
 fine, the mint so stamps it, and thereafter it takes its own 
 chance as to value. When, however, it is designed that both 
 metals shall circulate together, it becomes needful that gov- 
 ernment shall fix, as well as it can, not the general value of 
 either, but the relative value of each in each. But this value. 
 
346 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 too, regulatijs itself independently of edicts. The work, uo 
 matter how well done at first by ascertaining the ratio in 
 which they exchange in a free market, will require revision 
 from time to time. 
 
 Some governments charge a little for coining for their 
 jioople, and some do not. What is charged is called seign- 
 iorage. England coins gold for all comers at a seigniorage 
 of .032%, — practically a free coinage. France charges for 
 gold coinage .216% ; and by the law of 1874, the United 
 States charge nothing for coining gold. It is left to the peo 
 pie to say Jioio much money they will have coined, and, having 
 received it from the mint, they are at liberty to do just what 
 they please with it, — they may hoard it, they may melt it, 
 they may circulate it at home, and they may export it abroad, 
 at will. Now, it is a great gain to have a money with which 
 the government has nothing to do except to mint it, — a money 
 that asks no favors, needs no puffing, never deceives anybod}^, 
 knows how to take care of itself, and is always respectable 
 and everywhere respected. 
 
 (3) The third general reason why gold and silver make 
 the best money, is found in their physical peculiarities, by 
 which they are uniform in quality, conveniently portable, 
 divisible without loss, easily impressible, and always beauti- 
 ful. Pure gold and silver, no matter where they are mined, 
 are exactly of the same quality all over the earth. Gold is 
 gold, and silver is silver. The gold mined to-day in Cali- 
 fornia differs in no essential respect from the gold used by 
 Solomon in the construction of the Temple, and the silvei* 
 out of the Nevada mines is the same thing as the silver paid 
 by Abraham for the cave of Machpelah. Nature with her 
 wise finger has thus stamped them for the universal money ; 
 and a universal coinage, that is, coins of the same degree of 
 fineness, and brought into easy numerical relations with each 
 other in respect to weight, and current everywhere by virtue 
 of universal confidence in them, though bearing the symbols 
 preferred by the notion that mints them, is one of the 
 
MONEY. 347 
 
 dreams aud hopes of economists, that will be realized in 
 
 some 
 
 "Fair future day, 
 Which Fate shall brightly gild." 
 
 Gold and silver are sufficiently portable for all the purposes 
 of modern money. Their weight is little relatively to their 
 value. A thousand dollars in gold are not indeed carried so 
 easily as a bill of exchange or a bank-note ; and expedients 
 are easily adopted, and have been in use since the days of 
 the Romans, by which the transfer in place of large masses 
 of coin is for the most part obviated ; and these expedients 
 will all be explained in the following chapter on Credit. For 
 the ordinary exchanges for which they are designed, gold 
 and silver coins are portable enough. The writer has car- 
 ried across the ocean, incased in a glove finger and borne in 
 a vest-pocket, a troy pound of English sovereigns, worth 
 about $230, scarcely conscious of their weight, though easily 
 reassured of their presence by a touch of the hand. The 
 experience of those countries, like France and Germany, in 
 which the money has been and is still mostly metallic, has 
 not pronounced it onerous on account of its weight ; and, at 
 any rate, it is better to accept all the other immense advan- 
 tages of gold and silver money, together with some incon- 
 venience as to weight, if one chooses to insist on that, than 
 to adopt substitutes every way inferior as money, except 
 that they are lighter in our purses. They are unfortunately 
 " lighter " in other respects also. 
 
 Moreover, gold and silver differ from jewels and most other 
 precious things, in that masses of them are divisible, without 
 any loss of value, into pieces of any required size. The 
 aggregate of pieces is worth as much as the mass, and the 
 mass as much as the pieces. This is a great advantage in 
 money, because for the convenience of business, a consider- 
 able variety of coins is required, and the proper proportion 
 of each kind is a matter of trial, and if any kind be minted 
 in excess of the demand nothing more is required than to 
 
318 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 remint in other denominations, and the whole value is thus 
 saved to the country in the most convenient form. 
 
 Then, gold and silver are easily ivipressihle by any stamp 
 which the government chooses to put upon them. Indeed in 
 their natural state they are too soft to retain long the impress 
 of the die. Accordingly, for coinage purposes they are al- 
 loyed with another metal, chiefly copper, since by a chemical 
 law, whenever two metals are mixed together, the compound 
 is harder than either of the two ingredients. Most of the 
 nations now use in their gold and silver coins, one-tenth 
 alloy, but England still adheres to her ancient rule of one- 
 twelfth only. So compounded, coins receive readily and 
 retain for a long time with sharp distinctness the legend and 
 other devices chosen for them to bear. In monarchical coun- 
 tries, the head of the reigning sovereign is usually stamped 
 upon the coins ; in all countries, national emblems of some 
 sort ; quite recently, some of our coins have been made to 
 bear the appropriate legend "In God we trust;" so that, 
 patriotic and even religious associations are connected with 
 the current money. Although the alloy hardens the coins, 
 yet after long usage they will lose part of their weight by 
 abrasion, and governments usually indicate a short weight, 
 after coming to which the coins are no longer legal tender. 
 Thus an English sovereign weighs five pennyweights 3-^-|^ 
 grains, containing llo-g-^Tj grains of fine gold, and when it 
 falls below five pennj-weights two and three-quarters grains, 
 it loses its legal tender character. Still, the abrasion is not 
 very considerable in any one year. The Director of the 
 United States Mint, in his Report for 18G2, gave the results 
 of some careful experiments made at the Mint to ascertain 
 the yearly loss of coins by the ordinary wear and tear of 
 circulation. The result of actual weighings and cautious 
 estimates was, that the average yearly waste by wear on all 
 the coins then in use in this country did not exceed one part 
 in 2,400. The cost, therefore, of maintaining a metallic 
 circulation is by no means so great ae it has been usually 
 
MONEY. 349 
 
 represented. An instrument in constant use that requires 
 only -g^oo" of its value for its yearly repair, and performs 
 well the most delicate and important functions, is a cheap 
 and durable instrument. 
 
 Lastly, gold and silver, when coined into money, are ob- 
 jects of great beauty. This is no slight recommendation of 
 these metals for the money of the world. They are clean. 
 They are beautiful. People like to see them, and to handle 
 them, and to have them. Their perfectly circular form, the 
 device covering the whole piece, the milled and fluted edges, 
 the patriotic emblem whatever it be, the religious or other 
 legend, and their bright color, are all elements in their beauty. 
 The educating power over the young of a good coinage well 
 kept up, aesthetically, historically, and commercially, is a 
 matter of consequence to any country. A whole people 
 handling constantly such money cannot fail to receive a 
 wholesome development thereby. The new German coinage, 
 in contrast with the old money of the German States, fur- 
 nishes an illustration of all this. The new German coins 
 from highest to lowest are very beautiful, and have already 
 tended, and will tend more and more, to a true German 
 nationality. 
 
 From these three main reasons we conclude that gold and 
 silver make the best money. 
 
 14. Silver is much inferior to gold as a metal for money, 
 for the reason that it is less steady in value; and its value is 
 less stead}" because it is subject to greater changes in its Sup- 
 ply, and greater vai'iations iu its Demand. The annual silver 
 pioduct of the world doubled in the third quarter of this 
 centur}", rising from an average of $40,000,000, 1851-Cl, 
 to $80,000,000 in 1875. In 1876, Nevada alone yielded 
 $40,000,000, as much as the world yielded twenty years before. 
 Then, too, public opinion does not hold to silver as it does to 
 gold for a standard of values. The action of England in 
 1816, of the United States in 1853, of Germany iu 1871, 
 of Scandinavia in 1874, and of the Latin Union in 1876, iv 
 
350 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 legally making gold the sole standard of services and, silver 
 suhsidiiry to that., of course affected more or less tbe demand 
 for silver, and thus varied its value. The average price of 
 silver in gold from 1833 to 1874 in the London market was 
 just about 60 pence per ounce, never falling below 58|-, and 
 never rising to 63. At 60 pence per ounce (444 grains pure 
 silver, standard English silver being .925 fine) the ratio of 
 gold to silver is 1 to 15.716. Between May, 1875, and July, 
 1876, the price in that market (which is the bullion market of 
 the world) dropped to 47 pence per ounce, a fall of 21%, 
 and a ratio of gold to silver of 1 to 20. The price gradu- 
 ally rose again to about 53 pence per ounce, and remained 
 there till 1882. Such fluctuations as these, however unusual 
 and unlikely to recur, unfit silver to be the standard in a 
 great commercial country, and equally unfit it to be a co- 
 standard with gold, but do not interfere with its usefulness 
 in subsidiary coins ; and consequently, the action of the 
 United States in 1877, in trying again to make silver a co- 
 standard with gold, seems to have been unwise, and is likely 
 to manifest itself as unwise sooner or later. 
 
 15. A money inferior in general value will, so long as it cir- 
 culates at all, drive a superior money out of the circidation. 
 The only exception to this is found in token-coins, and in 
 subsidiary silver so far as that has the to^•en-quality, that is, 
 so far as its nominal is above its bullion value. These are 
 only designed for the smaller exchanges, and are legal tender 
 only for small sums, and are acceptable only on local and 
 conventional grounds. The exception aside, the principle is 
 a fundamental law of finance and has been illustrated over 
 and over again in every age and nation. It is as solid as 
 the substance of truth can make it, though it looks at first 
 sight like a paradox. We naturally think that what is ex- 
 cellent tends rather to displace what is inferior, but with 
 money the exact reverse is the law, and the perfect coin of 
 full weight, instead of driving out the light and the debased 
 pieces, is always itself driven out of the circulation by them. 
 
MONET. 351 
 
 The reason is obvious from tlie nature of money. Money 
 is merely an instrument of exchange, and nobody wants it 
 except to buy with, and so long as the government and the 
 community treat light coin and full coin as of equal value, 
 receiving them indifferently in payment of debts and of 
 taxes, it is clear that nobody will give in payment of (.ebts 
 and of taxes that which is really worth more so long as that 
 which is really worth less will go just as far. The inferior 
 pieces will abide in a market where they will fetch just as 
 much as. the superior pieces, while the superior pieces will 
 take on a form or migrate to a place in which some advan- 
 tage can be gained from their superiority. Thrown into the 
 crucible, or exported in commerce, this superiority immedi- 
 ately manifests itself ; and therefore into the crucible or into 
 the channels of foreign trade it might be confidently pre- 
 dicted beforehand that such money would be thrown, and 
 all experience testifies with one voice that exactly those are 
 the destinations of such money. 
 
 Aristophanes, the Greek comic poet, in the 5th centary 
 before Christ, seems to have been the fii'st writer who noticed 
 that good coins of full weight are apt to be crowded out 
 of the circulation by the lighter and poorer pieces, and he, 
 mistaking the cause of this, satirized his countrymen unmer- 
 cifully for preferring bad coins to good, and demagogues, 
 like Cleon, to honorable citizens for rulers. The following 
 are the verses : — 
 
 " Oftentimes have we reflected on a similar abuse, 
 In the choice of men for office, and of coins for common use; 
 Fcr your old and standard pieces, valued and approved and tried, 
 Here among the Grecian nations, and in all the world beside, 
 Eecognized in every realm for trusty stamp and pure assay, 
 Are rejected and abandoned for the trash of yesterday; 
 For a vile, adulterate issue, drossy, counterfeit, and base, 
 Which the traffic of the city passes current in their place! 
 And the men that stood for office, noted for acknowledged worth, 
 And for manly deeds of honor, and for honorable birth; 
 Trained in exercise and art, in sacred dances and in song, 
 All are ousted and supplanted by a base, ignoble tlirong; 
 
352 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Paltry stamp and vulgar metal raise them to command and place, 
 Brazen connterfeit pretenders, scoundrels of a scoundrel race, 
 Wliom tlie state in former ages scarce would have allowed to stand 
 At the sacrifice of outcasts, as the scapegoats of the land." ^ 
 
 Sir Thomas Gresham, financier of Queen Elizabeth and 
 founder of the Royal Exchange and of Gresham College in 
 London, was the first to explain fully what Aristophanes had 
 noticed, and what may hence properly be called Gresham'a 
 law. Let us give two or three illustrations of it. The city 
 of Amsterdam founded its famous bank in IGOOj because 
 the clipped and worn foreign coins then circulating in that 
 great mart of trade, drove out completely the good money 
 which the mint of the city constantly poured in. This was 
 a bank of deposit only ; it took in all the old coins at their 
 bullion value, and had them reminted at full weight ; it gave 
 the depositors credit on its books in the terms of the new 
 money for all they brought in ; it adjusted accounts between 
 merchants and others by mere transfers on its books ; and 
 the city required all debts due in Amsterdam to be paid in 
 the new bank-money, and thus took away all uncertainty 
 from bills of exchange drawn on Amsterdam, which were 
 previously liable to be paid in the worn coin, and were there- 
 fore sometimes at as much as 10 % discount in other cities ; 
 this brought these bills at once up to par and kept them 
 there, and thus made it for the interest and convenience of 
 every business man in Amsterdam to have these simple deal- 
 ings with the bank, which in turn enjoyed unlimited credit 
 in the commercial world for nearly two hundred years. 
 
 The great English recoinage of 1696 was compelled by 
 similar causes. Macaulay describes it graphically in his 
 twenty-first chapter. The old silver coins were stamped by 
 the hammer ; few of them were perfectly circular ; the edges 
 were neither milled nor fluted ; the superscription was not 
 so near the edge as that the letters were impaired by a little 
 clipping ; it was easy to pare off a pennyworth or two, and 
 
 I Translated by Sir Bartle Frere. 
 
MONET. 353 
 
 then pass the coins along ; it was profitable to do it, and in 
 vain that Elizabeth enacted that the clipper must suffer the 
 penalties of high treason ; nearly all the coin of the realm 
 became mutilated, and about 1660 a new process of coinage 
 was brought in. A mill worked by horses fabricated the 
 new coins on better principles. They were exactly round, 
 and the edges wei'e inscribed with a legend, and they were 
 all of just and equal weight. They were thrown out to pass 
 current with the hammered money, and it seems to have 
 been expected that they would soon come to displace it. But 
 they did not. Both were received at first without distinction 
 by the individual traders and by the public tax-gatherers. 
 But the milled money soon came to be scarce, and the old 
 mone}' grew constantly worse. The lighter the old coins 
 became, the scarcer became the new ones ; for who would 
 pay two ounces of silver when one ounce was legal tender ? 
 The new money was melted, was exported, was hoarded, 
 but circulate it would not. At length the lightest pieces 
 began to be refused by some people, and other people de- 
 manded that their silver should be paid to them by weight 
 and not by tale, and there was wrangling over every counter, 
 and a dispute at every settlement, and the coin was really 
 so diverse in its value that there was no longer any measure 
 of value in the kingdom ; business was in utmost confusion, 
 society was by the ears, poor people were unmercifully 
 fleeced, and shrewd ones grew enormously rich ; and the 
 Jacobites secretly exulted in the hope of being able to avail 
 themselves of the prevailing discontent to overthrow the 
 scarcely established revolutionary government of William and 
 Mary ; when, by the joint counsels of two such philosophers 
 as Locke and Newton, and two such statesmen as Somers 
 and Montague, the government took the bold resolution of 
 recoining all the silver of the kingdom. An early day was 
 fixed by Parliament, after which no clipped money could 
 pass except in payments to government, and a later day 
 after which it could not pass at all. 
 
354 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 16. Some steps have already been taken towards unifying 
 the coinage of the leading commercial nations. Since alloy 
 is of no consequence in coins so far as value is concerned, 
 which depends wholly on the weight and fineness of the pre- 
 cious metal, if the nations could agree as to the fineness of 
 the gold in their unit-coins, and then bring the weights of 
 these into easy numerical relations with each other, the coins 
 of each nation might bear the names and emblems preferred 
 by cacli, but there would be practically a universal coinage, 
 and the pieces respectively might be legal tender in each 
 nation. Except England, the leading nations have already 
 adopted the standard nine- tenths fine for their gold coins. 
 The French have taken much pains to make their franc- 
 system universal, and have had some success as towards that 
 end. They want their five-franc gold piece, weighing 1,612.9 
 milligrams, to be the international unit ; and have persuaded 
 Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Roumania, and 
 Austro-Hungary in part, to adopt it. The last mentioned 
 began in 1870 to. coin gold pieces of eight and four florins, 
 the same in weight and fineness ao the French twenty and 
 ten franc pieces respectively ; and uecreed in 1873, that 
 foreign gold pieces of the French system be accepted in 
 Austro-Hungary in the ratio of two and one-half francs to 
 the florin. If this system is to become international, Brit- 
 ish, German, and American gold will have to' be recoined, 
 and the British standard of eleven-twelfths fine be changed 
 to nine-tenths fine. If our gold dollar were lowered 3.5 %, 
 and the British sovereign lowered .88 %, very simple ratios 
 would obtain between the moneys of the United States, Great 
 Britain, and the Latin-Union countries. Five dollars would 
 ec^ual one pound and each would equal twenty-five francs ; 
 also, of course, one dollar would equal five fi-ancs and four 
 shillings respectively. If the United States should make its 
 gold dollar the equal of five French francs, it would there- 
 after circulate wherever the French napoleon now circulates 
 (virtually CAcrywhere) , and tend powerfully to make the 
 
MONET. 355 
 
 dollar the future universal denomination of value, as it is 
 already in many countries both in Occident and Orient.' 
 The objections to this general plan, are (1) the ugly fraction 
 in the metrical unit of weight ; (2) England's preference of 
 her old standard ; (3) the new, independent coinage of Ger- 
 many ; (4) such a body of gold would have to be recoined ; 
 and (5) the system is not decimal throughout, though the 
 multiples of the unit would be divisible by five, the napoleon 
 of twenty francs not being decimally related to the franc. 
 
 Mr. E. B. Elliott's plan is similar, simpler, and more 
 meti-ical : Let G-reat Britain coin y^^y fine and increase the 
 weight of the sovereign from 7.3223-]- to 7.5 grams fine, let 
 the French increase the weight of the napoleon from 5.8064 -f- 
 to 6 grams fine, and let the Uhited States reduce the weight 
 of the dollar from 1.5046 -|- to 1.5 grams fine, and then 
 their weights, both fine and standard, would all be strictly 
 metrical and bear simple relations to each other. The 
 following equivalents would obtain, namely, 4 pounds = 20 
 dollars =100 francs. Each of these would weigh 30 grams 
 fine gold, or 33^ grams standard gold. Also, 1 dollar = 5 
 francs = 50 pence, each weighing 1^ grams fine, or 1| 
 grams standard. Also 1 pound = 5 dollars, each 7| grams 
 fine, 8^ grams standard. 
 
 The new German Empire adopted bodily the metric sys- 
 tem from France, but in developing about the same time its 
 new coinage, it avoided the French unit of money, and thus 
 probably postponed the exact unification of the money of 
 the commercial world. The German unit is the mark, and 
 the principal coin is the 20-mark piece, which contains 
 7.168459 grams fine gold; the English sovereign contain,'} 
 7.3224 grams fine, and the French 25-franc piece is to con- 
 tain 7.2581 grams fine ; and if these three could be brought 
 together, and the American dollar be made equal to 5 francs, 
 an international coinage would be substantially secured. 
 The German mark is subdivided into 100 2'>f6nnige, as the 
 
 1 Compare Jevons's Mechanism of Exchange, p. 179. 
 
356 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 French franc into 100 centimes. An English shilling equals 
 24.33 of our standard cents, and two shillings English are 
 very nearly the same as the new Austrian florin. 
 
 17. We have defined "Money" as a current and legal 
 measure of Services. So far, we have treated only of coin- 
 money ; as this is the only money that stands in its own 
 right as a commodity, and the only money that can give 
 birth to the denominations of value, such as dollars., mai'ks, 
 and francs. What is a dollar? A dollar is twenty-five and 
 four-fifths grains of a metal compound coined, of which 
 nine parts are pure gold, and one part a hardening alloy. 
 It is a definite quantity of a definite thing. It is a visible, 
 tangible commodity. Government is competent, if it pleases, 
 to alter the quantity of gold that shall make a dollar, though 
 the people will quickly readjust the prices of services to a 
 changed dollar ; it is competent even to make a dollar out 
 of silver, though it is not competent to cause both dollars 
 to circulate as such at the same time ; but it is not practically 
 competent to make a dollar out of any thing else than gold or 
 silver. From the way in which money originates, the mate- 
 rial of money must be a valuable commodit}' ; and no civil- 
 ized people now tolerate any other commodity in this relation 
 than gold or silver. Such a commodity, becoming in the 
 way already explained an actual medium passing from hand 
 to hand in exchanges, impresses its name on the minds of 
 men as an ideal measure of services, which measure they 
 can use, and do constantly use, without handling at the time 
 the commodity itself. But these ideal-dollars, these denomi- 
 nation-dolla"rs, need to be kept in check by a constant 
 recurrence to actual, palpable thing-dollars. The denomina- 
 tion only comes into existence in connection with the use of 
 the thing, cannot possibly exist independently of it, and 
 needs constantly to be reduced to it (as it were by actual 
 contact) in order to be useful as a measure. Just as men 
 talk about inches, and calculate by inches, in thousands of 
 cases in which no actual inch is used as a measure, and, in 
 
MONEY. 357 
 
 every case of doubt, dispute, or difficulty, have recourse 
 to tlie actual inch, and thus the ideal inch is kept steady in 
 the minds of men by frequent reference to the outward 
 standard ; so the mental measure of services, which men 
 insensibly acquire from the use of the objective measure, 
 needs to be kept true by actual and frequent contact with 
 that measure. 
 
 But besides the thing-dollar and its denomination, which 
 always go together like a man and his shadow, there is one 
 other kind of money, — the promise-dollar. We must now 
 attend to this. "What is a dollar bill? How does it read? 
 It is a promise of the issuer to pay to bearer one dollar, that 
 is, this definite quantity of a precious metal. There is no 
 mystery here. A dollar is a tangible commodity. A dollar 
 bill is a promise to give this commodity to bearer. The 
 difference between them is the same in kind as that between 
 a bushel of corn and a man's promise to his poor neighbor 
 to give him a bushel. It depends on the man, on his ability 
 and character, how much this promise is worth ; and so it 
 depends on the issuer, on his ability and character, how 
 much the promise-dollar is worth. The issuer may be of 
 such standing as to be able to secure for his promises that 
 they become "a current and legal measure of services;" 
 if so, they become money under the definition. There is, 
 then, such a thing as paper money, although many high 
 authorities are reluctant to concede that any mere promises 
 can be money at all. For ourselves, we cannot refuse the 
 courtesy of the term "money" to paper promises, which 
 our country, however unwisely, makes a legal-tender for 
 debts. The essential characteristic of money is its posses- 
 sion of a generalized purchasing-power. Whatever circu- 
 lates among all classes of the people as a medium in their 
 exchanges is money under the definition. Still, there are 
 but two kinds of it. Money is alwaj^s either an intermediate 
 and equivalent merchandise (coin) or promises to pay thia 
 (paper money) . 
 
358 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 But not all promises to pay coin are money, because not 
 all have the " current and legal " qualities which alone make 
 any thing money. Paper money is always credit ; but not 
 all credits are money. Ordinary notes of hand, cheques, 
 drafts, bills of exchange, and so on, are not money under 
 the definition. This is a distinction recognized in common 
 language, and science has no motive to disturb it. The peo- 
 ple know the difference between paper money and other 
 credits. One man may receive and pay out cheques in ordi- 
 nary exchanges, but all his neighbors do not, and they know 
 the difference : cheques are not money. The people know 
 too, what is the weak point in paper money. It is credit- 
 money. It may be more convenient than coin money ;. its 
 value, that is to say, its purchasing-power, ma}- be equal to 
 that of coin money ; it may even in some circumstances bear 
 a premium over coin money ; but all 'this does not alter the 
 fact that there is in it an unlucky element, an unstable 
 element, an element which, as men are, is liable to some 
 suspicion, the element, namely, of a present promise to be 
 fulfilled in future. Paper money walks by faith, and not by 
 sight. It is the sign, and not the thing signified. It is the 
 representative of something, and not that something itself. 
 It is a promise to pay, and not the pay itself. It is a credit, 
 and not a quittance. And what makes this very certain is, 
 that all paper money knows it to be true about itself. It 
 bears this truth stamped on its very face. It does not even 
 profess to stand on its own bottom, but leans consciously 
 and conspicuously on some solid support. The French 
 assignats promised to redeem themselves in land ; the conti- 
 nental bills of the old American Congress were all to be paid 
 in Spanish milled dollars ; the bills of the Bank of England 
 profess to be and are, redeemable in gold ; the present legal- 
 tender notes of the United States, and the current national 
 bank bills, are all in terms promises to pay to bearer so 
 many legal dollars of the United States, that is, so many 
 times 25^ grains of gold standard fine. 
 
MONEY. 359 
 
 18. It follows from all this, that paper mouej' is iDade up 
 only of promises made by somebody to pay to tsomcbody 
 else a definite weight of coined metal. All civilized countries 
 now make a certain weight of gold or silver of a known de- 
 gree of fineness their acknowledged standard of value ; and 
 accordingly, paper money can only promise to pay specie^ 
 since specie is the only thing that can be meant, w.ien the 
 promise is to pay sovereigns^ dollars^ marks, francs. Specie 
 is indeed a commodity, like other commodities, and owes its 
 value to precisely the same principles as they owe theirs, but 
 then it is the only commodity that is characterized by the 
 denominations of money ; and therefore, all attempts to 
 make a paper money promise to pay land, wheat, cotton, 
 mercantile bills, or any other valuable thing but specie, have 
 always failed in the past, and always must fail, because they 
 involve a direct contradiction in terms. Now, paper money 
 as thus defined and made definite to the mind is of two 
 kinds, namely, convertible and inconvertible. A convertible 
 paper money consists of promises that are always kept by 
 the issuer according to their terms, that is to say, that are 
 paid in specie at the will of the holder. An inconvertible 
 paper money is only another name for unfulfilled promises. 
 Is it any wonder, that unfulfilled promises to pay invariably 
 become less valuable than that which they promise to pay ? 
 They are valuable to start with, else they could not become 
 money, and they are valuable because men suppose the 
 promise will be kept : they are commonly valueless to end 
 with, because men lose faith in the fulfilment of a promise 
 long delayed. This is the simple secret of the depreciation 
 of inconvertible money so soon as the amount of it passes 
 a certain limit, and so soon as a certain time has elapsed 
 after its issue and the issuer shows no signs of keeping his 
 word. As money is only a measure of Services, and as 
 possible Services are limited at any one time and place, and 
 consequently as the amount of money needed for healthful 
 business is limited also, a steadily convertible paper money, 
 
360 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 provideil the limit of quantity be not overpassed, will con- 
 stitute a tolerable money. But this limit of quantity is apt 
 to be overpassed, whether the paper money be con\ertible 
 or inconvertible, and especially in the latter case, because 
 the temptation to issue promises to pay in excess of the 
 means of promptly redeeming them always besets the issuer 
 on account of the gain to him in such issue at least for a 
 time. This temptation has been yielded to first or last by 
 every nation, and probably by every corporation, that has 
 ever issued paper money ; and a sufficient yielding will 
 surely bring in the "good times" of the boy, who boasted 
 that he had sold his hen for one hundred dollars and taken 
 his pay in two fifty-dollar puppies. 
 
 19. The Bank of England has been on the whole the best 
 managed, and its notes have gained the most confidence and 
 the widest circulation, of all the bodies that have ever issued 
 paper money. Let us take the best specimen of its kind, 
 and if we find a comparative failure even here, we may know 
 what to expect of the genus as a whole. We shall look at 
 that Bank now solely as a Bank of Issue, because its wider 
 and more complex functions as a Bank of Discount cannot 
 be understood until we have studied the subject of Credit. 
 "The Governor and Company of the Bank of England" 
 are an association of capitalists incorporated by Parliament 
 in 1694, on the original condition that the Stockholders 
 should loan to the Government, then pressed for money, 
 £1,200,000, for which the lenders were to receive 8% a 
 year as interest, and also £4,000 a year for the manage- 
 ment of the bank, whose capital stock was just this debt 
 due from the government, on the strength of which the bank 
 was authorized to issue an equivalent amount of bills to ci]-- 
 culate as money, but which, however, at first could only pass 
 from hand to hand by successive indorsements. The capital 
 stock was of no use so far as redeeming these bills was con- 
 cerned, the stockholders must furnish other money for that 
 purpose besides what they had loaned to the State, but the 
 
MONEY. 361 
 
 ownership of so much of the public debt made the bauk re- 
 spectable, and tended to give credit to its bills, which at first 
 were paid promptly in coin on demand, and thus the Bank 
 by increasing the volume of money and by showing confi- 
 dence in the stability of the State strengthened the revolu- 
 tionary position of William and Mary, and consequently 
 the "Whigs were the friends and the Jacobites the enemies 
 of the Bank, It was felt that if James II. should regain 
 Ihe throne, no pound of the loan would ever be paid tack. 
 " So closely," says Macaulay, " was the interest of the bank 
 bound up with the interest of the government, that the greater 
 the public danger, the more ready was the bank to come to the 
 rescue." As already related under the last general proposi- 
 tion, the silver coins of the realm were at this time much 
 worn and clipped ; the bank had received them at their 
 nominal value ; but after the recoinage began in 1696, it 
 was obliged to redeem its bills in new coin of full weight, 
 that is, for perhaps 7 ounces of silver received, it was now 
 bound to pay 12. Consequently its enemies made a run 
 upon the bank by collecting its notes to a large amount and 
 presenting them for redemption. The bank was obliged to 
 suspend specie payments, at first partiall}', and then gener- 
 ally. In February, 1697, its notes were 24% below par. 
 
 A new charter then extended the term and doubled the 
 capital stock of the Bank, one-fifth of the subscriptions to 
 which increase was receivable in the old notes of the bank. 
 This device bought up all the notes to par. This second 
 charter provided, that, if the bank thereafter did not pay its 
 notes on demand, they might be presented at the Exchequer 
 and be redeemed out of the annuity due to the bank. In 
 1709, the term was again extended, the capital stock again 
 doubled, that is, the bank loaned as much more to the State, 
 and the interest on the whole debt was reduced to 6 % ; while 
 each increase of the debt carried along with it the privilege 
 to the bank of increasing by so much the issue of its bills. 
 This is a vicious principle ; because there is no relation be- 
 
862 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tween the proper aniouut of money in any country and the 
 size of its national debt. Moreover, the national debt back 
 of the bills has had very little to do in making them a toler- 
 able money, but the solid cash back of them with which tc 
 convert them on demand has put into them their goodcess 
 as paper money. In 1720, and again in 1745 when the 
 Young Pretender made the last rally of the Jacobites, there 
 were severe runs upon the bank ; on both occasions, in 
 order to gain time, notes were paid in shillings and six- 
 pences. Best friends were also accommodated first, who 
 are said to have returned the bags of money as fast as they 
 received them. The practice of indorsing the notes became 
 gradually disused, though the law at first did not follow the 
 innovation. 
 
 TUl 1759 no notes less than £20 were issued by the bank, 
 but thereafter £15 and £10 notes began to go out. The 
 bank kept advancing various sums to government on various 
 conditions, mostly, however, at 3%, till 1782, when the debt 
 stood about where it does now, £11,642,000. Only between 
 1694 and 1711 were the issnes of the bank limited by law to 
 the amount of . the debt owed to it by the nation ; between 
 17].l and 1844 there was no limitation on the amount of bills, 
 only of coui-se the bank was required to pay its promises in 
 coin on demand ; but the war of the French Revolution made 
 such demands upon the bank for money, that, just 100 years 
 after the first suspension, that is, in 1797, the bank sus- 
 pended specie payments, and did not resume them till 1821. 
 Government and the business men of London did their best 
 to hold up the credit of the notes during the suspension, but 
 they were not made a legal tender for debts. Government 
 received them at par for taxes, and provided that business 
 payments in notes would be held as payments in ca,sh if 
 offered and accepted as such. Debtors, having tendered 
 bank notes, which the creditor refused, had certain privi- 
 leges before the law which other debtors had not. The 
 notes therefore had a quasi higalization, but not a forced 
 
MONEY. 363 
 
 circulation. The bank was also authorized at this time 
 to issue £5, £2, and £1 notes. Cautiously issued at first, 
 bank paper continued at par for several years after the 
 suspension, which proves that when government possesses 
 the monopoly of issuing paper money, and carefully limits 
 its quantity, and both receives and pays it out at par, it may 
 keep an inconvertible paper at par, or even by sufficiently 
 limiting its quantity carry it above par. But this truth doea 
 not make an inconvertible paper a good moue}', because it 
 does not make it a self -regulating money, and because gov- 
 ernment is not wise and firm enough to fix and maintain a 
 proper limit. Though Parliament intended in successive acts 
 to confirm to the Bank of England the monopoly of banking by 
 enacting that no partnership of more than six persons should 
 take up money on its own bills, ^et the common law assured 
 to private persons and smaller partnerships the right to do 
 this ; and private bankers multiplied after the suspension, 
 since they were allowed to pay their notes in Bank of Eng- 
 land notes. Thus the quantity of paper mone}^ gradually 
 increased till in August, 1813, the Bank of England notes 
 were at 30% discount in gold. 
 
 In 1829, all notes whatsoever for less than £5 were for- 
 bidden to be circulated in England. In 1844 Sir Robert 
 Peel gave the bank through Parliament a new constitution, 
 under which it is still managed, which made the Issue depart- 
 ment of the bank quite distinct from the Loaning depart- 
 ment, and restricted the issue of bills to £15,000,000 on 
 the strength of securities (most of which is the government 
 debt) , and for all issues beyond this amount it must have 
 £ for £ of specie in its coffers. Thrice, however, the gov- 
 ernment has authorized the bank to issue more bills than 
 this provision allows on temporary securities, namely, in 
 1847, 1857, and in 1866. The average amount of notes 
 issued under these conditions is about £30,000,000, includ- 
 ing the reserve of notes held by the Loaning department in 
 lieu of gold. No note once returned to the bank is evei 
 
364 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 re-issued ; and no note presented for payment (not even if 
 counterfeited) has been dishonored since 1821. 
 
 20. An irredeemable paper money, or an ostensible paper 
 money that pledges payment in any thing else than gold or 
 silver, only needs to be described to be condemned. John 
 Law, a shrewd Scotchman, born in Edinburgh in 1671, son 
 of a goldsmith, with an innate talent for finance and well- 
 educated, was the first to give scientific form and color to 
 the false theory that paper money represents commodities 
 of some sort, and may be issued to an amount equal to the 
 value of these. '-'• Any goods that have the qiiaUties neces- 
 sary in money., may he made money equal to their value. 
 Five ounces of gold is equal in value to £20, and may he 
 made money to that value ; an acre of land is equal to £20, 
 and may he made money equal to that value^ for it has all 
 the qualities necessary in money." The fallacy in these 
 words of Law is patent enough to any one who will stop 
 to think a moment about the nature of Money. Because 
 land, for example, has value, it does not follow that it has 
 '•'• all the qualities necessary in money ; " and, as a matter 
 of fact, it lacks the precise quality necessary in money, 
 because, though it has purchasing-power, it cannot from its 
 very form and nature become a generalized and current pur- 
 chasing-power. Money is indeed a valuable thing, but that 
 does not prove that all valuable things can be money. With 
 this radical vice of Law's view was wrapped up another, 
 namely, that there may be in any country as much paper 
 money as the sum of the values of all its valuable things. 
 Now, we hnve learned perfectly, what escaped the acute 
 intellect of John Law, that Money is only a valua]')le measure 
 of all other salable Services ; and therefore, that the amount 
 of it that can be made useful at any one time and place is 
 strictly limited, and bears very little relation to the sum of 
 the values present at that time and place. 
 
 Scotland fought shy of Law's idea when he published it 
 there in 1705, and so did Paris the first time he visited that 
 
MONEY. 365 
 
 iity, in whicli and in other cities he gambled successfully' 
 and talked finance to princes and statesmen fascinatingly ; 
 but when he returned to Paris in 1715 with his ill-gotten 
 fortune, he gained the ear of the Regent Duke of Orleans, 
 who permitted him to found a bank there, in which 'were 
 incorporated some sound principles of monetary science as 
 well as the prime fallacy of his system. The bank bought 
 a portion of the State Debt, just as the Bank of England 
 had done, and laid in also a fair stock of coin, and there- 
 upon issued a paper money. For a couple of years, or so, 
 the bank surpassed all hopes, for Law had touched a spring 
 till then but little known in France, the potent spring of 
 Credit. But his whole thought, meditated on for years, 
 could not be expressed through a private bank. The State 
 should be a banker ; it should collect all its revenues into 
 a central bank, and attract the money of individuals to it as 
 deposits ; besides, the State has public property of vast 
 value, on the strength of which paper money can be emitted 
 and made legal tender ; and thus the State, instead of bor- 
 rowing, should lend to all on easy terms, and the profits thus 
 accruing would lessen or abolish taxes. Nor was this all. 
 The State should also be a merchant; the whole nation 
 should form a commercial company, a body of traders, 
 whose common treasury should be the State bank. Com- 
 mei'ce by individuals creates great wealth ; why should not 
 tilt organized commerce of a State make everybody rich? 
 The discounts of the bank, and the profits of the trade, 
 would surel}' provide for the public service without taxation. 
 These vast ideas were actually carried out. Law's bank 
 became the Royal Bank, issuing a paper money guaranteed 
 by the State and resting back upon the value of all nationa. 
 propert3^ The money was receivable in taxes, nominally 
 redeemable in coin, and made a legal tender. It actually 
 bore at one time 5 and 10 % premium over gold and 
 silver. People were anxious to exchange their coiu for 
 uotes. Meanwhile a commercial company was formed in 
 
866 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 connection with the bank, to which the State ceded at first 
 the monopol}^ of the commerce of Louisiana and of the 
 Canada beaver trade for twenty-live years, and the soil of 
 Louisiana forever ; under the auspices of which New Or- 
 leans was founded, and named from the Regent, the patron 
 of the grand system ; and in succession, the monopoly of 
 tobaccos, the rights of the Senegal Company, of the East 
 ludia Company, of the China Company, and of the Barbary 
 Company ; until, having almost all the commerce of France 
 outside of Europe in its hands, it entitled itself the Company 
 ©p THE Indies. Its shares rose from a par value of 500 
 francs, to 10,000 francs, more than forty times their value 
 in specie at their first emission. To support such specula- 
 tions, which completely turned the heads of all classes of 
 the people, the amount of paper money reached at last the 
 sum of 3,071,000,000 francs, 833,000,000 more than had 
 been legally authorized to be emitted. The collapse of this 
 most gigantic financial bubble of history was ten'ific. Before 
 the close of 1720, the shares of the Company could be 
 bought for a louis d'or, and the paper money became worth- 
 less.^ 
 
 The utter failure of Law's paper money, which ran its 
 course in about 4 years, did not exorcise from the French 
 mind the evil spirit that entered into it in 1715. Again at 
 the close of that century France tested on a grand scale the 
 merits of paper money issued on the principle that money 
 represents commodities. As the Great Revolution went for- 
 ward and a scarcity of money was publicly felt, the National 
 Assembly issued in 1790 under the name of " assignats " 
 a paper money whose promises, though couched in terms of 
 fiancs, were really to be redeemed in lands; for they were 
 receivable in payment for any of those lands of the Church 
 which had just been confiscated to the State at any public 
 
 1 Martin's Decline of the Monarchy, chap, i ; Macleod's Theory and Practice ol 
 Banking, chap, xi; Banc) eft's United States, chap, xxiii; New Arn. Cyclo., Ait, 
 John Law. 
 
MONEY. 367 
 
 Bale of them. The first emission, but not the rest, bore 
 interest. That issue was 400,000,000 francs — about one- 
 fifth the value of the confiscated lands. In September, 800,- 
 000,000 more were authorized, Talleyrand opposing ar.d 
 Mirabeau strongly urging these additional issues. " It is in 
 vain," said Mirabeau, "to compare assignats, secured on 
 the solid basis of these domains, to an ordinary paper cur- 
 rency possessing a forced circulation. Thc}^ represent real 
 property, the most secure of all possessions, the land on 
 which we tread." Nevertheless, and though all assignats 
 were legal-tender, they drooped. The government in alarm, 
 while issuing on the one hand enormous quantities of the 
 paper to meet the vast expenses of the Revolution, which 
 quantities were swelled b}'' skilful counterfeiters in the pris- 
 ons and elsewhere, took strong measures on the other to prop 
 up their market value ; the use of coin was prohibited ; a 
 maximum price in assignats for every thing was established 
 by law ; heavy penalties and at last death were decreed against 
 those who refused to receive them at par ; but it was all in 
 vain. "They sink now," says Carlyle, "with an alacrity 
 beyond parallel." In June, 1793, the assignats had fallen 
 to 33, and in August to IG %. Renewed confiscations kept 
 the estimated value of the public domains far in advance 
 of the par value of the assignats based upon them ; but this 
 had no tendency to prevent the depreciation of the assignats, 
 because money is a medium of exchange^ and its proper 
 amount has no relation to the estimated value of any com- 
 modities at all. In February, 1796, the assignats legally 
 issued had amounted to 45,500,000,000 francs, and had 
 fallen to one two-hundred-and-sixty-fifth part of their nomi- 
 nal value, that is, to f %. The government then offered 
 to redeem them at 30 for 1 in '■'■mandats," which entitled 
 the holder to take immediate possession at their estimated 
 value of any of the lands pledged by the assignats. This 
 device took up some of the old paper, but proved futile to 
 recover for it its value ; and in less than six months a Decree 
 
368 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ended the whole matter by permitting any one to do business 
 in any money he chose ; and traffic, which had practically 
 ceased under the paper money, revived again at the sight 
 of the coin, which of course in accordance with Gresham's 
 law had been wholly out of circulation. Thus the assignats 
 had a course of about 6 years. The distress and consterna- 
 tion into which a country falls when its current Measure of 
 Ser"\'ices is disturbed and destroyed, as it was in this case, 
 IS ].ast all powers of description. The prisons and the 
 guillotine did not compare with the assignats in causing suf- 
 fering during those six years. This example is significant, 
 because it shows the powerlessness of even the -strongest and 
 most unscrupulous governments to regulate the value of any 
 thing. The assignats were depreciating during the very 
 months in which Robespierre and the Committee of Public 
 Safety were wielding the power of life and death in France 
 with terrific energy. They did their utmost to stop the sink- 
 ing of the revolutionary paper. But value knows its own 
 laws, and follows them, in spite of decrees and penalties. 
 
 21. As a result of this entire discussion, it may be laid 
 down with considerable confidence, that the safest and most 
 economical, and on the whole the best, money is gold and 
 silver coin. There is no need in any commercial country of 
 any other money, still less of any other legal-tender. This 
 position does not exclude the freest possible use of checks, 
 drafts, bills of exchange, money-orders through the post- 
 oflfice, and any other convenient fonn of pure credit. These 
 are sufficient to prevent for the most part all burdensome 
 transfers of- coin. The sphere of money and the sphere of 
 credit are quite distinct spheres. The functions of money 
 arc too delicate and too vastly important to be well performed 
 by any instrument that is essentially credit. Still, the lead- 
 ing nations of the world, including the United States, use 
 paper money in part ; and the people of the latter between 
 1862 and 1878 had in effect no other monej^ than irredeem- 
 able promises to pay, some of it issued by the national gov- 
 
MONEY. 369 
 
 ernment directly, and the rest of it by incorporated banks. 
 It will doubtless be long before the nations come to disuse 
 every form of paper money, because there is much that is 
 gainful to some, and more that is attractive to all, about such 
 an elastic measure of values ; and each generation easily for- 
 gets, even if it ever learns, the enormous losses that have 
 hitherto accompanied sooner or later even the most successful 
 forms of even convertible paper money. It is more than 
 doubtful whether England is any the richer on the whole for 
 the issue of Bank of England bills, and it is certain that the 
 United States is much the poorer for the attempted use of all 
 the manifold forms of paper money that its sanguine people 
 have handled first and last. But Political Economy as the 
 Science of Sales must have its say about what is the best 
 instrument of sales, whether men will hear or forbear. 
 
 22; Whether the money of a nation be coin or paper, or 
 both, when once it is in the hands of the people, the govern- 
 ment Jias no right to concern itself with the rate of interest at 
 which one person loans this money to another. Many of the 
 nations, and most of the States of this Union, have on their 
 statute-books what are called Usury Laws, which prohibit 
 the lender from taking more than a prescribed rate % for 
 the use of the money loaned. The penalty is sometimes the 
 forfeiture of the entire interest, and sometimes of the entire 
 debt. These laws cannot justify themselves for a moment 
 in the light of sound principles of Political Economy. Their 
 origin may be explained by a reference to two false views, 
 now happily exploded. 
 
 . (a) The law of Moses forbade to the Israelites the taking 
 from one another any interest on money loaned, but at the 
 same time it allowed them to take such interest freely of 
 strangers ; the permission in the one case going to show that 
 there is nothing in the taking of interest in itself unjust or 
 sinful, and the prohibition in the other being readily explain- 
 able from the general purpose of the municipal regulations 
 of Moses, which was to found an agricultural and not a trad- 
 
370 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ing commonwealth, in which every famil}' was to possess land 
 that could not be permanently alienated or sold, in which it 
 was a great object to maintain the personal independence and 
 equality of these families, in which the law for the recovery 
 of debts was very summary and effective, lessening the risk 
 of losing the principal, and which was to be and was sedu- 
 lously separated in its usages from the surrounding nations. 
 It has been well understood for a long time that the munici[)al 
 code of Moses was local and peculiar, not necessarily appli- 
 cable at all to the circumstances of other States, and in no 
 sense binding on the conscience of legislators ; and yet there 
 doubtless sprang from the prohibition referred to a prejudice 
 against interest, and this prejudice was perhaps deepened in 
 the Middle Ages and onwards by the conduct of the Jews 
 themselves, who, in addition to their sin of persistently grow- 
 ing rich in spite of the endless disabilities laid on them by 
 the people of Europe, always demanded, in accordance with 
 the permission of their great lawgiver, a good rate per centum 
 of interest from those strangers to whom they became money- 
 lenders. The Jews were everywhere hated, and consequently 
 the usurj^ which they practised was hated also. The funda- 
 mental absurdity of forbidding in trading communities the 
 taking of interest on sums loaned to a borrower which he was 
 at liberty to use for his own profit, deterred the nations from 
 going to the length of prohibition, unless it might be in the 
 case of the hated Jews. There is a clause of Magna Charta, 
 interesting as showing how early the children of Abraham 
 became the money-lenders of Europe, to the effect that, 
 during the minority of any baron, while his lands are in 
 wardship, no debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any 
 interest. 
 
 (b) Governments formerly deemed themselves competent 
 to determine and fix the general purchasing-power of their 
 own money. Even the Constitution of the United States 
 uses this language: "to coin money, regulate the value 
 thereof and of foreign coins." There was formerly, and 
 
MONEY. 371 
 
 there is still to some extent, a curious and harmful coufusion 
 in the public mind in respect to this term, "the value of 
 money." In the only proper sense of the term, the value 
 of money means its power of purchasing services in general, 
 and the value of money is high when a given sum of it wiU 
 purchase much of general services, and low in the contrary 
 case ; and a high or low value of money in this true sense 
 depcmds on a very distinct set of causes from those which 
 determine the high or low rate of interest on money loaned ; 
 nevertheless, so long as governments supposed that they 
 could regulate the former, it is very natural that they should 
 also suppose that they could regulate the latter ; and although 
 all intelligent governments have given over the idea of being 
 able to regulate the general value of the money they furnish 
 to the people, many of them still adhere to the notion, equally 
 false with the other, that- they are able to regulate the loan- 
 able value, or the rate of interest, at least to prevent any 
 more than their prescribed maximum rate from being taken. 
 A few simple considerations will sufficiently condemn all usury 
 laws. 
 
 (1). It is at once needless and invidious to deny by law 
 to money-lenders, who offer just as honorable and useful ser- 
 vices to society as any other class of men, the privilege of 
 selling their service for what it will bring in the market, 
 while other men in every department of business are allowed 
 to exchange their services on the best terms they can make 
 without interference or control. Let us see precisely the 
 nature of the transaction when one man loans money to 
 another. It is a clear case of value. The lender does a 
 service to the borrower, and for this service justly demands 
 a compensation. The service is this : The lender migJit 
 himself use the money to gratifj^ his own desires. It is his 
 money ; he may use it, as he pleases, for his own gratifica- 
 tion. Or he may himself employ it productively, and, at the 
 end of the period, receive back his principal with the custo- 
 mary rate of profit. If lie surrenders this advantage to the 
 
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 loiUltUiUs VllJno of iiiitiicy ViU'icM niidcr Sii|i|ily and Dciiiaml 
 JUHt like (ilJicf vnlnt'ii ; l.licrc ain alu'ayn (.liotici wiio want, lo 
 ])on'<)\v, and aJwiiyii llioiid vviio waiiL Id Ifiid ; IkiIJi |iar(,i('H 
 iniiHt lin iiHHniiir(| lo Know iJinii' own niindn, n.nd Id be (-(iiially 
 Ooni|)(*innt I.D iiiaJvc llicirDwn l»a,i7.';iiiiiH ; il, in n, caMn of niiilind 
 ON'lltMlf^'i^ I'di' a. iiiiiliia! Iiciii'lil,, like all ollii'i' liadc ; and l,lin 
 (nu'rnnt i'ii,l,n of inl.tn'oHl, in dnUn'iniiind iil any oiin Vwuv. Iiy llio 
 autnill I'l'Un (^\'nliiuiL';((H I»(^l,vviu',n hori'Dwni'H and IcndrcH. Now 
 for tiny gOViM'nincnl. I,D Iry Id cdiiiiicI a, lender hy huv I,d l,a,kn 
 only (t'^'/i, wli(»n liit-i inon(\y in worLli M, in n dircuil, NiolaliDn ol' 
 tJie i'i|j,lilH dI' pfopin'ly. H^ in 11, ('()rcilii(» luid i»(M'iiieiDiin inicn-- 
 l'(n'einie willi Hie I'lei'dDin dI' eontiaelH. Ill in l)a,Hed on Mm 
 fnlHn |n'(MiiiHe (,luil, IIh» lDn,nnl»l(M'!iln(* ol' iiiDn(\y is nnil'cn'in, 
 iuid llnil, }j,'(ivernniniit, is (M)nii)elcnl, I.0 deterniine wind, il, m. 
 No VmIiu* in iinirDiin. And no ;'DVi'ininenl, in eDiiipe|,(^iil, |,(i 
 (l^*tnl'n^Hn^ r\r\\ (he ina\iiiinin piiee of niDiiey loaned, luiy 
 Uiorn ilnui llie niaxiinnm |irie(^ of eDiiiinD(|ilie;i. 
 
 {'i) llHnry liiWM lU'c Jilnionl, nnifDrmly disrctjardctL I'dIIi 
 Ity IIk^ ;..';D\'ernineiil,n vvliieli inaKt^ (hem and l>y llie peD|ile Tor 
 wliDin (hey are nia<le. Indeed, iiiieli lauH eaniiDl. he enrinccil 
 in ti, eonnnefeini (H)niinnnil,y. ('onnnon neni-ie is onlm;j;e<l by 
 n, law wliieh ret|nii'en 11 man lo pail, with lii.s propi^i'ty jit ICHS 
 llian (li(^ a.(^l,nal \'alne ; and when eDinniDii neiuu^ Ih (Iguinut n 
 liivv, ill hIUiIhIm Hi nliin clinnei* ol' oht-itM'VJinee. IP l,Ii(i lofyjil 
 I'lutn l>n nix, and l,ii(< iu*t,uid vvi>i'|,h Ix^ (m;-!;1iI., who lipids id, Hix? 
 Noll ,1,ln^ lumlvS. 'Vh&y ^"iMiniii^ depot-iilH of (heir (ai.slomei'H, 
 tll(< iitK^ ol' w ho.'ii' in(mi\v hIimII make np Id (hem Mn^ ililTiM'- 
 
i\i(>N ii:v. 
 
 J{7;i 
 
 VilHH', |i(;t/VV(HMi l/li(i \vp^l\.\ iiihI IIic im-IiiiiI iiilr. 'I'Ik^ iiKMlni ol' 
 OVIlHlori IU'(( VluiolIS, ImiI, Mn'y m(i iid(M|im,(,i', luid iiiiivciI'MlU. 
 ll(1Mil|<'H, f.''OV<M'llll|(Mll,H (JltMlllK'lviMi Iui,V<1 lilluWII M, iiol/HworlJiy 
 
 liH'oiiHiiiltMicy III IJilii iiiiiJJ(<i', nliinh InciiltMilnJIy pi'ovini ihii 
 
 IliitKiiiinliK'MM of Uii'ir vvIhi|( tM'iioii. Wliild lllllin|||i(-ili|.'; |illJllll 
 iukI |i(tiiiiJl.i('ti to iJioMn wlio |,ii,lv(i iii()i'(i Uiiui II, fj,lvnii rtiXd, IJi(ty 
 iiid <^Mi't'riil iinv(ii' (-0 hind IJk'iiiiu'Ivi'h <|i»wii I.<» niiy |j;iviiii i'iii(^. 
 ( (<>v<'i'iiiiiHiil,H ii,rn iiJwii,y(i iiioro (»r limti iHU'mwi'm, luul il' iiiiiiry 
 
 lllWM lU'll IIIHU'MHIUy ill <»l'(|i*rli(» lltOp llOiroWiU'H ill II, pilKlil, llldld 
 
 oiit^iili (,(» Iki II, cliuiHM III Mil' (»i|.';ii,iiic liuv (>(' (tvcry (ioiiii(,i'y, I'oi'- 
 b.ddlii}!;' IJk' f.';(ivt'iiiiii«'ii(, l,i» \,n.y mid iln Iciidurw do liiUu iiiiy 
 IIIOI'i) MllUl II, <'c,i'l,|l,ill l'ii,l,n |ir|- ci-nl,. 'I'lid't'. Iti lio rtiii'li cliMlHn 
 ill luiy oi'ji^'iuild lii,w. ( Jov<'i'iiiiii'ii(,M wiiu'ly Inlimv (Jic 1111,1. iinil 
 iniii'kcl,, luid Ikh'I'ow low wImh riicy ciui, luid |»ii,y liigli wlinii 
 tliiiy iiiiihL III IJiii Imtli iiiiiiiUiii oC Mv. HiifliiuiiurH iuIiiiIiiIh- 
 l/l'tl,l,ioii, llnM liiilcd iSbdii'H pttld \''Ji''/i "ii :i jiiililiii l<>iui,iiii(| 
 (loiild f-'vl, hill, lilJic id, l,|iii,'„. Hii,(ic,{( for Uiit ^ooHd Ih hiuk-o Tor 
 tliM i^iuidcr, niid if iiMiiry lii,wH lU'ii u'ood for l,lin clll/iuiti, tutuw 
 
 MOlid rcllHoii <(ti;dil, l,(» ]h'. ir^idiuiw | wliy iJicy iii'd ikiI, f/;oo<| I'oi' 
 
 tlm f/;ovtM'iiiii(tiil,. Tliii l,i'iil,li in, llicy luc ii(»l, fj,'ood I'or clUicr, 
 siiKM) iitil, 11111,1 liivvrt iM'd \)('\l\'ci.\y c-oiniKfLi'iil, l,o i'('j.';iiliiJ,<i IImi 
 mt(i of iid,i'i'('nl,, mid do rccidiiit-, II, luihnl.mil.iiilly in M|iilii ol' 
 II, i'ii,(;l,il,ioiiM, iiii|)ci'l,iii(Mil/, mid iiiiHrliicI' iiiii,lviii,Lf; iiili'i'l'i-rttiKtit. 
 Tlitt rii,l,<i ol' iiil,('i't'ttl, liiiH lil/liii l,o do wiUi l,lii', viiliin <d' iiioiKty, 
 propci'ly MO (tidli'd. II, dcpi'iKln on llic pcopoiUoii hi'l.wi'iMi 
 l,liu HiitiiH ol' iiioiKiy iTiuly Id Ih' lomicd in luiy iiim'kcl,, iilid 
 Ul() lUlioiliil, wii,iil,<'(| id, l,iiiii linii: liy Ml, (id Ikh'I'owiU'H ill Ulid, 
 
 nmrkuli. llvmy i'Iho in ilui rii,t(iM hndit lo linurn llio (Itfiiiiuid 
 of horrowtfi'H, luid cvciy I'mII I,o cidimnc Mud, (((Miiiiiid, mid 
 tliiiH (fvt'i'y I'JHii tuid I'lill ol' inli'ifiil, IcikIh lo cliticlc JdHfll', njid 
 wliile l,in) dully uiid iiioiiUily viiiiidioiiH <ti' Uui rii,l,«i I'or lli'hl,* 
 clfiHH hori'owfii'H iii'ii very coiiHiilcriihlc-, l,li(< ptu\i'vn\ iivi'i'iij^H 
 of IJh' rnic hy y(»n,i'H, ciHp(U'lidly in i'liiMiiuid, wIumi' nHiiry liuvn 
 arn inoHlly or wliolly HW(<pl, iiwiiy, Im rciiiiulddtly iinirorm 
 
 (!1) ir llHiiry InvvH vvitc- iint, diHi'('!'ii,r(|i'd, iJn-y wnidd In' 
 iivt'ii wonic ill IJii'ir cITccln limn llii'y iiH' iinw. \V<' iniiil 
 
374 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 suppose, that their aim is, to aid borrowers, and make it 
 easier for them to contract loans. But are borrowers, aa 
 a class, any more deserving of the fostering care of gov- 
 ernment than are lenders? Even if it could make its in- 
 terference effective, as it cannot, is there any reason why 
 government, leaving these borrowers to make all other bar- 
 gains, sales, and transfers according to their best skill and 
 judgment, should rush to then- rescue only when they propose 
 to borrow money? If they are competent to do their other 
 business for themselves, government pays their capacity a 
 poor compliment in undertaking to help them in the single 
 matter of making loans ; and the borrowers in turn have 
 reason to pray to be delivered from their friends, since 
 they, of all others, would be the men especially injured, if 
 all the lenders obeyed the usury laws. Suppose that a bor- 
 rower is in great need of a loan, and that for some reason 
 his credit is now a little weak. Many men would be willing 
 to loan him at 9 % , which affords a margin for the extra risk, 
 but at 6, which we will suppose the maximum allowed by the 
 law, he cannot borrow a dollar, because his credit is not quite 
 equal to the best. If, therefore, the lenders obey the law, 
 he, and such as he, must fail. And because it is unlawful 
 to take over G % , he will be obliged to pay those who are 
 willing to violate the law 10 or 12, to compensate them for 
 the risk and odium of such violation, while, under freedom, 
 he could borrow at 8. Moreover, if the loanable value of 
 money at the time be actually'' 9, while the law only allows 
 6, many men will attempt to use their own capital produc- 
 tively, who would otherwise loan it, in order to realize the 
 high rate ; and this action of theirs still further restricts the 
 loan-market and makes it more difficult to borrow. If, then, 
 the purpose of government be to aid borrowers, no means 
 could be more unskilfully chosen for that end than to pass 
 usury laws, since such laws, so far as they are obeyed, have 
 necessarily the opposite tendency ; and even when violated 
 redound to the disadvantage of borrowers, so long as the 
 
MONET. 875 
 
 laws themselves are popularly regarded as of any legal or 
 moral force. 
 
 In 1716, the Bank of England, as a great loaning institu- 
 tion, was exempted from the operation of all usury laws : 
 why the hank only, and not other people as well, the Act of 
 l^arliament does not state. In 1867, the State of Massa- 
 chusetts repealed all its usury laws, though 6% is to be 
 understood in the absence of special agreement, and the 
 result has been entirely satisfactory to all classes of the 
 people. Rhode Island had done this previously, and Con- 
 necticut did it subsequently, and both have experienced equal 
 satisfaction in the result. Other States will soon follow in 
 their lead ; and this relic of ignorance and prejudice will pass 
 away. Adam Smith left the "Wealth of Nations" disfig- 
 ured by the concession that governments might properly 
 enough pass usury laws ; but it is gratifying to be able to 
 add, that he was convinced of his error in that by Bentham's 
 book on usury, and fully acknowledged his conviction in the 
 spirit of a genuine lover of truth. We conclude, then, that 
 usury laws are needless, since interest, like all other prices, 
 will perfectly adjust itself. They are disregarded, since 
 lenders will loan or withhold their money according to their 
 own keen sense of interest. They are pernicious, since thej^ 
 infringe the rights of property, and tend to prevent weak 
 borrowers from having a fair chance in the market. 
 
 The principal points in this chapter may be gathered up 
 into the following brief propositions : — 
 
 1. Money, as a device of men, may be made intelligible to 
 men. 
 
 2. Some of the difficulties about money have arisen from 
 the variety of objects chosen as money. 
 
 3. Money, as a valuable thing, can only be understood when 
 value in general is well understood. 
 
 4. Tlie inconveniences of barter are so great, that it is not 
 strange that some common measure of services was early hit 
 upon. 
 
376 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 5. This outward measure came naturally to he a medium 
 in traffic, and even its name a mental measure in bargains. 
 
 G. Money is discriminated from all other values, in that it 
 is a legal and current measure of services. 
 
 7. Changes or falsity in the measure disturb by losses the 
 whole world of values. 
 
 8. National experiments, through successive rejections, have 
 settled on gold as the best raaterial for money. 
 
 9. Subsidiary coins may be made of silver; but Gresham^s 
 law forbids a double standard. 
 
 10. Paper money is only promises to pay coin; promises 
 are liable to be brolcen; therefore, promises are not the best 
 money. 
 
 11. Promises are tolerable in proportion as they are Jcept; 
 consequently, some paper money is better than the rest. 
 
 12. Money depreciated from the highest standard raises 
 prices, but not of all things equally in amount or uniformly 
 in time: it works, therefore, great injustice. 
 
 13. A universal coinage would be a vast international 
 gain. 
 
 14. 2Vie interest of money ought to he free to all contracting 
 parties. 
 
MONEY IN TUB UNITED STATES. 377 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The general doctrine of Money has been fully given in the 
 last chapter. It is because the monetary history of the United 
 States throws so much fresh liglit upon old truths, as well 
 as brings out into sharp relief certain minor points not yet 
 made, that we venture to offer to guide the reader in tracing 
 the steps, state and national, the earlier and the more recent, 
 that have been taken in this country towards a sound and 
 uniform money. No national monetary history is so instruc- 
 tive as ours ; almost every possible variety of paper money 
 has been tried at one time or another ; the separate Colonies 
 issued it, and the confederated Colonies issued it, in mani- 
 fold forms ; the States have issued it through banks incor- 
 porated by them, and the Nation has issned it by its own 
 direct authority as well as through banks chartered by that 
 authority ; since 1794, the Nation has also minted coins, for 
 it has under the Constitution a monopoly of the coinage ; 
 between 1836 and 18G2, the national government discarded 
 in its own operations every kind of paper money, both pay- 
 ing out and demanding to receive coin money only ; while 
 since 1863 the national authority has claimed and exercised 
 the mo.iopoly of furnishing the people all the paper money 
 as well as all the coins. 
 
 From the first establishment of the English colonies in 
 America, the matter of a suitable exchange-medium attracted 
 public attention, and was found to be attended with difficul- 
 ties. TUe colonists drew all their supplies from tlie mother 
 country, and for a long time iiad but few native products 
 
378 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to export in return, and consequently there was a constant 
 tendency in the coin which reached them to flow off again 
 to England in payment of these debts. Unluckily the colo- 
 nists were under the impression that they could not afford 
 to use good silver money in their small domestic exchanges, 
 and this inclined them the more readilj- to penny-wise but 
 pound-foolish substitutes. Unluckily also they had an ink- 
 ling of the way in which Gresham's law works at all times ; 
 and in these two things we have a perfect key to unlock the 
 early monetary history of the country. Ehode Island in 
 1749 expressed the whole thought of the colonies on the 
 money-question : ' ' This loill always be the case with infant 
 countries that do not raise so much as they consume, either 
 to have no money, or if they have it. it tnast be ivorse than 
 that of their richer neighbors to comjyel it to stay tvith them." 
 This position involves an economical fallacy, and, therefore, 
 a great practical mistake: no country can "consume" in 
 the long run more than it "raises," because it must pay 
 sooner or later for all it buys ; and a money kept equal to 
 " that of their richer neighbors " keeps prices low, and thus 
 discourages importations and encourages exportations. This 
 tends to make what is ' ' raised ' ' equal to what is ' ' con- 
 sumed," using both words in the Rhode Island sense. One 
 of the miseries of cheap money was then, is now, and always 
 will be, that it makes the misguided country using it a good 
 market for foreigners to sell in and a bad market to buy 
 from. Of course the colonists at first resorted to barter in 
 part, and then to local and legalized moneys cheaper than 
 specie, of which tobacco and rice in the southern colonies, 
 and corn and cattle in the northern for large transactions 
 and "wampum" and bullets for small, were the chief. 
 Wampum was of two kinds, black and white, both of parts 
 of shells, and six white beads or three black ones were reck- 
 oned equal to a penny sterling ; and bullets were legal tender 
 in Massachusetts in 1635 for sums under one shilling at a 
 farthing apiece. 
 
MONET IN THE UNITED STATES. 379 
 
 Under the false impression that only money made inferior 
 to sterling wonld stay in the colony, Massachusetts began to 
 mint in 1652 silver shillings and sixpences and threepences 
 purposely debased in weight (including seigniorage) 22 % 
 below sterling. The silver for these coins came in mostly 
 from the trade with the West Indies, to which were now 
 shipped peltry, fish, various forms of lumber, beef, pork, 
 pease, cattle, and horses, for which they took mainly sugar, 
 molasses, rum, and silver. " They would have brought more 
 silver and less rum and other merchandise, had the first teen 
 in greater request at home." (Bronson.) John Hull, the 
 mintmaster, took out 15 pence out of every £ for his own 
 pay, and grew rich by the process. That was over 6 '^, 
 In 1662, a twopenny piece was added to the series, and the 
 mint existed (sometimes idle) for over 30 years, but all the 
 pieces coined bore the dates of 1652 or 1662. This paucity 
 of dates is commonly and perhaps properly accounted for 
 on the ground that coining in the colony was contrary to the 
 prerogative of the Crown ; but it is to be added that John 
 Hull was not a man to get new dies so long as the old ones 
 would answer his purpose. The law forbade the exportation 
 of these pieces under the penalty of thereby forfeiting one's 
 whole visible estate ; because, though this money was much 
 worse than sterling, there was a worse money than this circu- 
 lating in the colony, and Gresham's law began to crowd it 
 from the first, and to some extent it was both smuggled out 
 and clipped down. But it furnished a sort of standard, nev- 
 ertheless, and tended to keep the later paper money within 
 distant sight of the silver, and became the reason why in 
 New England there were six shillings to the dollar. Tlie 
 Spanish pillar dollar, which was the standard in the West 
 Indies, was worth 4s. 6cZ. sterling ; and in 1672 a law was 
 passed in Massachusetts allowing these dollars to circulate 
 at 6s. provincial, which was a discount on the home pieces 
 of 25 % . Ever after there were six shillings in a dollar in 
 New England. Hull's money is called the " pine-tree " coin- 
 
380 POLITKAL ECONOMY. 
 
 age, and was the only coin money minted in the country till 
 after Independence. 
 
 In 1690 Massachusetts set the first example, which was 
 imitated 20 years later by the other New England Colonies 
 and by New York and New Jersey, of issuing "bills of 
 credit ' ' to meet the expenses of the two disastrous Expedi- 
 tions against the French in Canada. The biUs were not 
 made legal tender in private payments, and pains were taken 
 to keep up their credit, but they were depreciated from the 
 first, and came to be very much depreciated. Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut made their bills receivable for taxes at a 
 premium of 5%^ laid special taxes for their redemption, and 
 from time to time called in portions of the issues. In 1718 
 Connecticut enacted that a debtor tendering these bills should 
 not be liable to legal execution on his estate or person for 
 the payment of that debt, an expedient, as we have seen, 
 resorted to by England in the great Bank restriction of 1797- 
 1821. These early New England bills bore no interest, 
 were not loaned out by the colony, and were a convenient 
 though dangerous means of anticipating the income of future 
 taxes; but after 1712 a paper money scheme originating in 
 South Carolina came into favor in the colonies, wliich was, 
 to open loan-offices for the issue of colony bills on the mort- 
 gage of land, the interest on which helped to pay the colony 
 expenses, the principal of which at first and on being paid 
 back and reloaned furnished a capital to borrowers, while 
 the bills themselves furnished a money for the people. 
 Pennsylvania had the best luck with this scheme of all the 
 colonies which tried it : as early as 1729 Benjamin Franklin 
 l)ecame thoroughly possessed of Jolm Law's notion, that 
 l)aper money may be "based" on laud or other valuables, 
 saj'ing in a pamphlet of that year that '■'■bills issued upon 
 land are in sffect coined land: " Pennsylvania bills neverthe- 
 less were at 46 % discount in 1748. Some of the later col- 
 ony bills bore interest, some were of a " new-tenor " so-called 
 designed to talce up the old ones, Virginia in 1755 made hera 
 
MONEY m THE UNITED STATES. 381 
 
 A legal tender for debts, some were issued in bounties for 
 Indian scalps and for various manufactures and fisheries, 
 but all ran one road of depreciation and gave bii'tli to one 
 set of results. Connecticut managed her issues the best of 
 the colonies, and yet Bronson says of the state of things 
 in that colony in 1749, " Trade was embarrassed and the 
 utmost co7ifusion prevailed : no safe estimate could be made 
 as to the future, and credit was almost at an end: no man 
 could safely enter into a contract, which was to be discharged 
 in money at a subsequent date : prudence and sagacity in the 
 management of business were without their customary re- 
 ward." 
 
 Under the good lead of Thomas Hutchinson, afterwards 
 Governor, Massachusetts determined in 1749 to abandon 
 paper money altogether. She had tried it for sixty years, 
 and found it fluctuating and troublesome. Bad as her own 
 money had been, that of her neighbors had been worse. 
 Gresham's law was busy then, as always ; and Rhode Island 
 money, the worst in the New England colonies, had the 
 most extensive circulation. The governor of Massachusetts 
 said in 1744, that of £400,000 Rhode Island money in cir 
 culation, £380,000 were in Massachusetts. The latter tried 
 to persuade her sister colonies in 1743 to abandon paper 
 money in common ; but they would not listen to it ; and so 
 in 1749 she acted alone. Parliament had voted to ransom 
 Louisburg from •the New England colonies, which had cap- 
 tured it from France in the name of the crown ; and tlie 
 share falling to Massachusetts was £138,649 sterling, and 
 this was shipped to the colony in coin. The then ruling 
 exchange of Massachusetts bills in sterling silver was eleven 
 for one, and at that rate the outstanding bills were redeemed. 
 That colony became for a time the " silver colony." Busi- 
 ness rapidly and steadily revived ; and Rhode Island and 
 New Hampshire found their trade transferred thither, and 
 their paper money heavily depreciated in contact and con- 
 trast with the newly current silver. 
 
382 POLITICAL ECO.VOMT. 
 
 In 1751 Parliament forbade the governors of the New 
 England colonics to give assent to any act by which bills of 
 credit should be created, re-issued, or the time of their 
 redemption extended ; but still permitted issues in the form 
 of exchequer bills bearing interest, but these were to run 
 not over two years or in case of war four years, and taxes 
 must be laid sudlcient to sink the notes at maturity, and in 
 no case must they be made a legal tender for debts. Such 
 notes as these were not specially objectionable : the old notes 
 kept tumbling : Connecticut bills in 1755 were 13 to 1 in silver, 
 and the Rhode Island courts in 1763 made £7 in old-tenor 
 bills equal to one Spanish milled dollar, or 4s. 6d. sterling. 
 The same year Parliament signalized the conquest of Canada 
 and the conclusion of peace with France by forbidding all 
 the colonies to issue any more bills of any kind ; but Massa- 
 chusetts was the only colony which had gotten entirely rid 
 of its paper money when the Revolution broke out twelve 
 years later, she was wholly out of debt also, and she was 
 the strongest of the colonies to grapple with the mother 
 country, — advantages owed largely to her wise resolution 
 of 1749. Under these circumstances it seems patriotic and 
 therefore praiseworthy, that she agreed in the spring of 1775 
 with re[)rcsentatives of Connecticut and Rhode Island to 
 allow their pa[)cr money to pass current with her people, and 
 also authorized the issue of new colonial bills of her own in 
 sums small enough to circulate as money. « 
 
 In June, 1775, a week after Bunker Hill, the Continental 
 Congress began its fiscal career by voting to emit $2,000,000 
 in new bills x)f credit issued on the faith of the " Continent, " 
 but referred as to payment to the separate colonies in the 
 ratio of their supposed gross population. The best excuse 
 for this action is the one urged by the Congress itself to the 
 French minister: ^^ America, never having been mncli taxed 
 nor for a continued length of time, being ivithout fixed gov- 
 ernment and contending against ivhat loas once the Jaivfid 
 authority, had no funds to support the loar; and, the contest 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 883 
 
 being upon the very question of taxation^ the levying of imposts, 
 unless from the last necessity, would have been madness. To 
 borrow from individuals without any visible means of repaying 
 them, while the loss was certain from ill success, loas visionary. 
 A measure, therefore, which had been early adopted, and thence 
 became familiar to the people, was pursued. This was the 
 issuing of paper notes representing specie for the redemption 
 of which the 2^ublic faith loas pledged." One phrase only 
 of this clear passage is cloudy, "paper notes representing 
 specie;" John Law cast some haze over the Continental 
 Congress ; the wording of the notes is curiously obscure, 
 '■'■this bill entitles the bearer to receive ten Spanish milled 
 dollars;" the notes in no sense represented specie, they 
 VwUxsllj promised to pay it to bearer; unluckily, the party 
 issuing the promise was not the party bound to pay, the 
 continent promised while the colonies were expected to fulfil ; 
 unluckily also, no good provision was made by either party 
 for the fulfilment of these promises ; and consequently the 
 vice of the continental money was, that there was no economi- 
 cal limitation of their suppl}'. The notes "were not amenable 
 to the law of supply and demand in the ordinary way, and 
 hence they could not long maintain a steady value. In a 
 certain remote sense they were indeed amenable to that law, 
 which presided over the decline and final extinction of their 
 value. These issues, too, came into competition with the 
 revolutionary issues of eleven separate colonies. New Hamp- 
 shire and Georgia issuing none, the total of which in 1775-83 
 was $209,524,776, so that this further increase of supply 
 depreciated in comparison with silver both classes of noies. 
 Eighteen months, however, had passed, and $20,000,000 
 continental had been authorized, besides large local issues, 
 before a marked depreciation began. 
 
 As the issues increased, as it became evident to all that 
 no provision was made to keep the promises, and as Burgoyne 
 was prosperously advancing from Canada towards New York, 
 the middle of 1777 saw a general fall of the notes, not the 
 
384 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 same in all the States at the same time, and not at all in 
 strict ratio with the increase of the notes. At the close of 
 1777, the average depreciation from silver was not far from 
 3 to 1 ; at the close of 1778, it was not far from 6 to 1 ; at 
 the end of 1779, it was about 28 to 1 ; the press then rested, 
 after Congress had put out nominally $200,000,000 but actu- 
 ally about $40,000,000 more than that, though the ceasing 
 of issue did not arrest the cascade of discredit ; early in 1 780 
 Congress advised the States to repeal their laws making the 
 bills a legal tender for debts, and devised the scheme of 
 "new tenor," by which the old bills might be taken up in 
 a new paper bearing interest at 6 % , in a ratio of 40 to 1 , 
 to which the old bills had now sunk in comparison with silver, 
 and $88,000,000 of the old paper were thus redeemed, New 
 York and Massachusetts and Rhode Island taking up their 
 entire quota in this way ; but the " new tenor " monej^ never 
 came into much circulation, and old and new alike dropped 
 out altogether in the spring of 1781, when the old notes, 
 if passed at all, were passing at about 300 to 1. The conti- 
 nental army iu camp at Newburgh combined to refuse to 
 receive them on any terms ; and President Reed gives a 
 pleasing picture of the way in which they passed out in 
 Pennsylvania : — " ^i once., as if by that force which in days 
 of ignorance would be ascrihed to enchantment., all dealings 
 in paper ceased; necessity brought out the gold and silver, 
 a fortunate trade opened at the same time to the Havana for 
 flour., all restrictions were taken off, and the Mexican dollars 
 flowed in by thousands; this supported the sinJcing spirits of 
 those zvho ijooidd have been discontented and uneasy, and in 
 a feiv days specie became the universal medium and so con- 
 tinues." The country found no more lack of silver for 
 money than Massachusetts had found in 1749. Assuming 
 that only $200,000,000 continental had been issued, Jefferson 
 estimated that the nation realized from them $36,367,720 in 
 specie value, or 18 % of the nominal value. 
 
 Ill effects of every kind came in the wake of this poor 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 885 
 
 money. Rising prices are ever the gauge of a falling money ; 
 rising prices then as ever gave birth to rash speculations ; 
 committees of safety undertook angrily to punish, under the 
 names of ' ' f orestallers ' ' and ' ' engrossers ' ' the speculators 
 who bought commodities for a further rise ; there was the 
 confusion of contracts usual under a variable money, gains 
 for the artful and unscrupulous, and envy and suiTerings for 
 the poor; Shays Eebellion in Massachusetts in 1786 was 
 a natural outgrowth of this fearful injustice ; debtors availed 
 themselves of the legal tender quality of the bills to pay only 
 ■^Q or -^Q of what was due ; the morals of all classes of the 
 people became corrupted through constantly calling things 
 that were not as though they were ; peculations pervaded 
 society ; Congress itself used wretched sopliistries in resolv- 
 ing that the money " ougJit to pass current in all payments, 
 trade, and dealings, and he deemed egical in value to the same 
 nominal sums in Sjoanish dollars," and in lauding the paper 
 as the only kind of money ' ' which cannot take to itself wings 
 and fly aivay ! It remains with us, it will not forsake us, it 
 is always ready at hand for the purposes of commerce, and 
 every industrious man can find it; " John Saj, and man* 
 others, who knew better, helped to make current such nor- 
 sense as this ; and then, a little later, swallowing all its brav, 
 words. Congress repudiated -for its part, and advised in effect 
 the States to repudiate, all obligations to redeem these bUls. 
 Their volume had been swelled both by native and by British 
 counterfeiters, and there was almost no crime to which their 
 issue and depreciation did not contribute. Noah Webster, 
 a clear-li^aded essayist of the time, said of this paper money : 
 " We have suffered more from this cause than from every other 
 cause or calamity. It has killed more men, corrupted the 
 choicest interests of our country more, and done more injusticu 
 than even the arms and artifices of our enemy." "Washing 
 ton, himself as a creditor the victim of that form of social 
 robbery involved in a depreciated legal-tender, unfortunately 
 did not understand the mysteries or rather the simplicities of 
 
386 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 paper money, and thus vented his wrath towards the wrong 
 objects : '•'■It gives me sincere pleasure to find that the Assem- 
 bly is so well disposed to second your endeavors to bring those 
 murderers of our cause, the monopolizers, forestallers, and 
 engrossers, to condign j^unishment. It is much to be lamented 
 that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as 
 pests to society, and the greatest enemies we have to the happi- 
 ness of America. I would to God that some one of the more 
 atrocious in each State was hung in gibbets upon a galloivs 
 five times as high as the one prepared for Haman ! No pun- 
 ishment, in my opinion, is too severe for the man who can 
 build his greatness upon his country's ruin.'" 
 
 At the very juncture of the collapse of the Continental 
 money, the ruduuents of a better system appeai-ed. For 
 nearly a hundred years tlie Bank of England had been issu- 
 ing paper payable on demand in gold and silver ; and Alex- 
 ander Hamilton, a native of the West Indies, of Scotch and 
 Huguenot parentage, but educated in New York and an aide- 
 de-camp of Washington with the rank of colonel, who had 
 been a student of English finance, thought that something 
 similar might be done with advantage in America. At the 
 opening of 1780, when he was just turned of twenty-three, 
 he wrote a letter to Robert Morris, a rich and influential 
 member of the Congress, even then talked of for Continental 
 Financier though he did not accept that oflQce till May 7, 
 1781, in which after showing clearly the causes of the decluie 
 of the old money and the necessity of a foreign loan, he 
 furnished the outlines of a Continental Bank, by means of 
 which the, loan when obtained might be so applied as to 
 re-establish the fallen public credit and become the basis of 
 a redeemable paper money. The root of his suggestions 
 was, to unite the private interests of moneyed men with the 
 interests of the public credit and of a new national paper 
 money payable on demand in good silver. The scheme was, 
 to establish a Bank to be the fiscal agent of the Govei-nment ; 
 to deposit in it the cash proceeds of the foreign loan, and 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 387 
 
 the product of the continental taxes as thej were gradually 
 paid in ; to issue shares of stock, one half of which were to be 
 bought by individuals and the proceeds turned into the bank, 
 and the other half to be held by the government with half 
 of the profits of the banking ; then to issue bills payable in 
 specie on demand, resting back for their redemption on the 
 loan, the subscriptions, and the taxes ; and thus to rely on 
 the subscribers to the stock, the holders of the bills, and the 
 community in this way provided with a sound paper for com- 
 mercial uses, to uphold the credit of the bank and of the 
 Government. This is believed to be the first practical sug 
 gestion of a specie-paying bank in America. 
 
 We have no call to follow Robert Morris in his perplexing 
 trials as continental Financier. Late in 1781 he presented 
 to Congress a plan for a continental bank, which embodied 
 in part and on a very small scale the ideas of Hamilton. 
 On the last day of that year Congress chartered the " Bank 
 of North America," to be located in Philadelphia, on a cap- 
 ital stock of $400,000, nearly two-thirds of which was sub- 
 scribed by Morris in behalf of the Government, because the 
 distrust with which paper money had come to be regarded 
 deterred individuals from putting their money in. Capitalists 
 did not believe there would be any dividends, and the people 
 were afraid the paper money would depreciate in their hands. 
 A week after the charter the bank went into operation under 
 these unfavorable circumstances. It had only $40,000 of 
 specie in reserve, and so great was the fear in the first and 
 most critical days of its life that all this would be drawn out 
 by the presentation for redemption of the bills cautiously 
 issued in loans, that friends of the bank were employed to 
 follow those who thus took out specie and urge them to re- 
 turn it. Morris had enlisted in behalf of the enterprise his 
 personal and business associates in Philadelphia ; he wrote 
 letters to the Governors of the States and many other prom- 
 inent persons, urging subscriptions to the stock, sketching 
 the advantages of a specie-paying bank, and trying to pa^'e 
 
388 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the way for the circulation of the bills ; bui these were in the 
 beginning at a discount in the Eastern States of 10 to 15%, 
 and the Southern States furnished no subscribers to the stock. 
 Morris's efforts, however, soon checked the depreciation, and 
 the bills rose to par. Pennsylvania granted the bank a State 
 charter soon after Congress had given it a national one, then 
 repealed and renewed its charter more than once, till in March, 
 ] 787, the State re-incorporated the concern in such different 
 terms that thereafter it was no longer considered as a national 
 institution. In the mean time, the bills became popular and 
 the banking so profitable, that dividends on the stock from 
 12 to 16% were earned yearly. Who ever heard of capital- 
 ists who could resist 16% ? Schemes for anotlier bank were 
 in agitation, " two shops to go to " became the cry in Phila- 
 delphia, and to head off rivalry the books of the bank were 
 opened for new subscriptions in 1784 and the stock went up 
 without difficulty from $400,000 to $2,000,000. That year 
 Morris ceased to be national financier, and not long after the 
 bank ceased to be national, but it continued as a State bank, 
 and celebrated its centennial on the last day of 1881 by the 
 publication of a detailed history of itself from the beginning. 
 Eight days after the opening of the Bank of North America 
 for business, Robert Morris helped and perhaps guided by 
 his assistant financier, Gouverneur Morris, presented to the 
 old Congress the first plan of a decimal coinage ever brought 
 forward. So far the Spanish milled dollar had been the 
 Revolutionary unit of money : it was time now to provide for 
 a new national coinage. There are three possible ways of 
 arranging a decimal system of coins : first, to have a very 
 small unit, and proceed only by decimal multiplication ; 
 second, to have a very large unit, and then go by division 
 only ; aud third, to have a moderate unit, and proceed deci- 
 mally in both directions. Morris chose the first of these, 
 and preferred a single standard of silver, aud proposed as 
 the unit of the new coinage a quarter grain of pure silver. 
 The lowest silver coin should be composed of 100 of these 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 389 
 
 units, and be called a Ceiit; the next of 500, and be called 
 a Quint; and the last of 1,000, and be called a Mark. These 
 pieces would weigh respectively 25, 125, and 250 grains of 
 pure silver, and should be alloyed each by 2, 10, and 20 
 grains of copper. Besides the three silver pieces, there 
 were to be two copper pieces of the value of five and eight 
 of the units, to be called a Five and an Eight, by which 
 device the new coppers would come into harmony with the 
 pennies of varying value in the different States. 
 
 Congress referred this scheme to a Committee, of which 
 Jefferson was the chairman, who praised its ingenuity and 
 " ease of adoption with the people," but strongly criticised 
 the unit as too small, and proposed in turn the dollar as the 
 unit. Morris afterwards modified his plan in favor of a large 
 unit and of a double standard, still keeping to the decimal 
 idea; but ceasing to be financier in 1784, and Congress 
 inclining to follow the lead of Jefferson, the whole subject 
 was referred to the latter, whose plan was adopted in 1786, 
 and consisted of both denominations and coins called Eagles , 
 Dollars, Dimes, and Cents. Each of these was to be sub- 
 divided into halves, and the dime was also to be doubled, the 
 binary system being thus recognized equally with the decimal, 
 which was borrowed from Morris, as was also the denomina- 
 tion cent though in a different sense. The same year an act- 
 ual coinage of copper cents, our fii-st national coins, took place 
 under State authority in Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jer- 
 sey ; and Congress also authorized the establishment of a mint, 
 and contracted for 300 tons of federal cents to be struck, 
 Bome of which were coined at the Connecticut mint in New 
 Haven, and a few of them at the Vermont mint at Rupert. 
 
 Three years later government went into operation under 
 the present Constitution, and the action of the old Congress 
 as to coins was reported to the new, and the whole matter 
 was then referred to Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the 
 Treasury. He recommended the re-adoption of Jefferson's 
 plan of a double standard, of coin-denominations, and of 
 
390 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the Spauish milled dollar as the unit, together with some 
 minor proposals of his own. He had found that the Spanish 
 dollar contained 371.25 grains of pure silver, and advised 
 that the new silver dollar should contain the same. As he 
 supposed that gold was then worth fifteen times as much as 
 silver, he advised consequently that the gold dollar should 
 contain 24.75 grains pure, and that both dollars should be 
 alloyed at the English rate of y^^, making the silver dollar 
 weigh 405 grains standard and the gold dollar 27 grains 
 standard. The Act of Congress in 1792, that established 
 the Mint of the United States, appointed the coins very 
 nearly as the Secretary had advised. It adopted his gold 
 dollar unchanged, with its multiples, the eagle, half-eagle, 
 and quarter-eagle, in gold ; the silver dollar was alloyed more 
 than he advised, that is, by 44.75 grains instead of 33.75, 
 and so weighed 416 grains standard, but had the 371.25 
 grains pure, which has been the exact content of the silver 
 dollar ever since. The subdivisions of this dollar, half- 
 dollars, quarter-dollars, dimes, and half-dimes, were at that 
 time proportional in purity and weight to the unit. Thus it 
 will be seen that the full credit of introducing a national and 
 decimal system of money is due not to one man, but to thi'ee 
 or four ; that all three of the possible ways of arranging 
 such a system were recommended in turn, and the third 
 finally adopted ; and that, while the undoubted superiority 
 of the decimal system in an upward scale is fully recognized, 
 the natural tendency of men's minds to subdivide into halves, 
 quarters, eighths, and so on, rather than into tenths, hun- 
 dredths, and so on, is recognized also. Eighty years havp. 
 not yet naturalized among us the dime and mill, nor expelled 
 the York shilling, the eighth of a dollar. 
 
 The terms of our monetary system may properly delay us 
 for a moment. The word dollar is derived from a German 
 word which means valley, and was first applied to coins in 
 the mining region of Bohemia, at a place called Joachims- 
 thal, where silver pieces of one ounce weight were coined 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 391 
 
 abctut 1520, and were called Joachimsthaler, and then for 
 shortness thaler, whence dalera in Spanish, and in English 
 dollar. The thaler has remained a German money of ac- 
 count until our own time, and the Spanish dalera became so 
 famous in the commercial world, so familiar to our fathers 
 in their dealings with the West Indies and other Spanish 
 colonies, that Congress adopted both its name and its weight 
 of pure silver. The present Mexican dollar is a lineal de- 
 scendant of the old Spanish coin, though it contains six 
 grains more of pure silver. The new "trade dollar," de- 
 signed for export only, and not legal tender at all, contains 
 6f more grains of pure silver than the standard silver dollar, 
 that is, 378 grains. It is hardly necessary to add that dime 
 is a corruption of the Latin decern, ten ; that cent is a con- 
 traction of the Latin centum, hundred ; and that miill is a 
 contraction of the Latin mille, thousand. 
 
 There was a curious debate in Congress at the time as to 
 the devices which the coins should bear. As the bill came 
 from the Senate, wtiere it originated, the gold and silver 
 pieces were to have on one side the figure of the eagle, 
 which the Continental Congress long before had adopted as 
 the national emblem, and near this, the legend " United 
 States of America." This was for the obverse of the coin, 
 and so far nobody had any objection. For the reverse, the 
 bill proposed that, in accordance with the usages of all 
 nations from the time of the earliest known coinage, the 
 impression or representation of the head of the President 
 of the United States for the time being, together with his 
 name, order of succession in the presidency, and the date of 
 the coinage, should be stamped. This was strongly objected 
 to in the House, as savoring of monarch3^ The President's 
 head on the coin was deemed by some a dangerous thing for 
 the republic, and the proposal led to a sarcastic and even 
 acrimonious debate, and was at length defeated in the House 
 by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-two, in which the Senate 
 was afterwards obliged to concur, and a proposition made 
 
392 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 by Key of Maryland was carried, to substitute a figure of 
 Liberty instead of the obnoxious head of the President ; but 
 under precisely what sort of a figure to represent Liberty 
 was then the difficulty, and at the next session Elias Boudi- 
 not of New Jersey, afterwards the director of the mint, 
 endeavored to get substituted for the emblematic figure of 
 Liberty the head of Columbus, but in vain ; the Republican 
 party so-called at the time was determined that the figure of 
 Liberty in some form should be stamped on the coins, and 
 so it has been from that day to this. 
 
 The original Mint of the United States was established at 
 Philadelphia in 1792, and the first federal coins of silver 
 were issued in 1794, of gold in 1795. While it was still 
 doubtful where the ultimate seat of the national government 
 would be placed, the citizens of that beautiful city were 
 strongly in hopes of being able to persuade Congress per- 
 manently to abide in their town, in which the old continental 
 body had first met, in which Independence had been declared, 
 and which, more than any other, was popularly regarded as 
 the headquarters of the national Union. A notable instance 
 of log-rolling legislation, the first in our history, transferred 
 the capital of the countr}^ to the banks of the Potomac ; but 
 the good people of the Quaker City have nevertheless always 
 retained the Mint, as a memorial of their earlier position in 
 the history of the government. By the law of 1873, that 
 mint, till then the head establishment for the whole country, 
 and the later mints till then called " branch-mints," and the 
 Assay-Offices for the stamping of gold and silver bars, all 
 became separate> and are responsible to a Bureau of the 
 Treasury department, whose chief officer is styled Director 
 of the Mint. 
 
 From the ratio of 1:15 fixed by the act of Congress in 
 accordance with Hamilton's recommendation as the relative 
 value of gold in silver to be maintained in the coins, unfore- 
 seen and important consequences followed, since that was 
 not the tiue ratio of their value at the time in the markets 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 393 
 
 of the world ; an ounce of gold was worth more at that iune 
 than 15 ounces of silver, and accordingly was worth more 
 Dut of the coinage than in it, and was therefore exported in 
 preference to silver in payment of foreign balances, espe- 
 cially after France had changed the relative legal value to 
 1:15-^; and of course the gold refused to circulate here 
 under those circumstances, being undervalued in the coin- 
 age, thus giving us another neat illustration of the economi- 
 cal law that the cheaper money will push the dearer out of 
 circulation. Not till 1834 was the attention of Congress so 
 strongly drawn to this fact as to secure a law to remedy it, 
 and this law substantially rated gold to silver at 1 : 16. The 
 weight of the gold dollar was then reduced from 27 grains to 
 25.8, and the alloy increased from one part in twelve to one 
 part in ten. This law mf/de at one jump the legal valuation 
 of gold 6.58% greater than before in silver, which remained 
 UiQchanged. But this in turn was going too far in the oppo- 
 site direction; gold was not worth 16 in silver in the mar- 
 kets of Europe ; and consequently the current of the metals 
 was now reversed, silver passing in preference abroad to 
 liquidate the balances of trade, and gold beginning to come 
 to the United States, where it was more than 3% dearer in 
 silver than in Europe. Three years later, that is, in 1837, 
 the standard of -^^ fine instead of ^^ was applied to silver 
 also, and this altered fineness made a change in the weight 
 of the silver coins necessary, if the ratio of 1:16 were to 
 be maintained. Accordingly the weight of the silver dollar, 
 and of two halves, four quarters, and so on, was reduced 
 from 416 grains to 412|-, that is to say, less alloy was put 
 into the silver coins, but the fine silver to the dollar was 
 kept just as it was, 371.25 grains. Since 1834 there has been 
 no change in the gold dollar, and since 1837 there has been no 
 change in the silver doUar-jJiece, and the ratio of value be- 
 tween gold and silver in our coins is still 1 : 15.98, as the 
 silver dollar of 1878 and onwards corresponds in weight 
 and fineness with the dollar of 1837. 
 
394 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Giesham's law, however, was busy from the beginning 
 with different parts of this coinage scheme, and particularly 
 with the attempt to keep gold and silver in equilibrio at a 
 fixed valuation. Only 321 silver dollar-pieces were coined 
 in the year 1805 ; and May 1, 1806, there is an order from 
 President Jefferson to the Director of the Mint, '■Hhat all 
 the silver to be coined at the mint shall be of small denomina- 
 tions, so that the value of the largest pieces shall not exceed 
 half a dollar." The reason given for this order is, '■'•that 
 considerable purchases have been made of dollars coined at 
 the mint for the purpose of exporting them, and that it is 
 probable that further purchases and exportations will he 
 made." The coinage of silver dollars, thus suspended, was 
 not resumed for thirty j'ears. What was the matter with these 
 dollars? Nothing, only they were too valuable. Clipped 
 and worn Spanish-Mexican coins had slipped into circu- 
 lation in large numbers, and driven out the good pieces in 
 accordance with a principle better understood now than then ; 
 while the order itself was not very intelligent, insomuch as 
 two halves, four quarters, or ten dimes, were equally valu- 
 able with the dollar-pieces, and as a matter of fact were 
 almost equally driven out by the smaller Spanish-Mexican 
 coins. In 1853 the disadvantages of a double standard 
 had become plain enough, for experience proved that the 
 value of gold and silver each in each was not constant but 
 variable ; and Congress then wisely determined to make Gold 
 alone the legal tender, except in sums below $5, and also to 
 reduce the weight of the silver half dollar and its subdivis- 
 ions, so thai then- nominal value should be considerably above 
 their real value, and their exportation be thus prevented. 
 Accordingly the half dollar was reduced from 206^ to 192 
 grains, and the smaller coins proportionally. This was in 
 imitation of the English legislation of 1816, and brought in 
 a subsidiary silver coinage of which a nominal dollar's worth 
 weighed 6.91% less than the silver dollar, which was not 
 mentioned one way or the other in the law of 1853, but 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 395 
 
 which was then worth about three cents more than the gold 
 dollar. For reasons already given, silver dollars circulated 
 bui little in the United States even before 1853, and none 
 at all between that date and 1878, when a law, was passed 
 requiring them to be coined in immense numbers of the old 
 weight and ratio to gold and with full legal tender functions, 
 but their circulation was sluggish up to 1883. 
 
 Through the influence of the late Samuel B. Ruggles, the 
 subsidiaiy silver coins were brought in 1875 into harmony 
 with the silver-system of France and the Latin Union. 
 Their five-franc silver piece, which is also y^^ fine, weighs 
 just 25 grams or 385.8 grains; a dollar's worth of our sub- 
 sidiary silver weighed 384 grains ; and it was therefore only 
 needful to add a slight fraction to our smaller silver coins to 
 knit a real connection between them and much of the Euro- 
 pean silver. Two halves, four quarters, ten dimes, of our 
 silver since 1875, are debased in weight 6.47% as compared 
 with the standard silver dollar. A more important coinage 
 connection with Europe was knit through our five-cent nickel 
 pieces, each of which weighs just five grams, and five of 
 which laid along in order measure exactly a decimetre in 
 length. These were the first official applications of the 
 Metric System on the part of the United States. The 
 nickel pieces, both the five-cent and the three-cent, are 75 
 parts copper and 25 parts nickel ; and the one-cent piece is 
 95 parts copper and 5 parts tin-zinc. Debts of 4 cents can 
 be legally paid in one-cent pieces, of 60 cents in three-cent 
 pieces, of 100 cents in five-cent pieces, of 500 cents in sub- 
 sidiary silver, and of any amount in gold coins or in silver 
 doilars. 
 
 Now we turn back to paper money, and following that till 
 the present time, we shall have given a complete though suc- 
 cinct account of Money in the United States. When the 
 present national government went into operation in 1789, 
 besides the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, the 
 Bank of New York in New York and the Bank of Massa- 
 
_S96 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ehusetts in Boston had been opened for business. All three 
 were State banks issuing bills convertible into coin, and each 
 confined its business for the most part to the city in which 
 it was located. In December, 1790, in pursuance of his new 
 duties as Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton 
 recommended to Congress a Bank of the United States. 
 Undoubtedly the Bank of England was in his mind ; un- 
 doubtedly he was in favor of a strong central government ; 
 and undoubtedly he had been disappointed at the local turn 
 "taken by the Bank of North America. There was at that 
 time no national money of any kind, except some copper 
 cents. He argued, first, as respected the people, that a 
 specie-paying national Bank would afford both through its 
 loans and its bills needed facilities to domestic exchanges at 
 a time when money was scarce and confidence was low ; and 
 second, as respected the government, that it would furnish 
 a good paper medium for its monetary transactions, and be a 
 resource for its needed temporary loans. But the constitu- 
 tionality of Hamilton's plan was stoutly denied in Congress. 
 The first-rate abilities and growing reputation of that eminent 
 statesman had already awakened jealousies both in Congress 
 and in the cabinet. Nevertheless, a bill, in substantial 
 accordance with the views of the Secretary, passed both 
 houses by large majorities. Washington, before signing it, 
 required the written opinion of his cabinet on the question 
 of constitutionality. Hamilton and Knox took the affirm- 
 ative ; Jefferson and Randolph the negative ; the President, 
 as often, sided with Hamilton, and signed the bill. 
 
 On New, Year's Day, 1853, the present writer had the 
 [pleasure of calling on the widow of Alexander Hamilton, 
 who survived him just fifty years. Tiu"ning the conversation 
 on her husband's connection with the government, the old 
 lady remarked with enthusiasm, — " My husband gave you 
 a bank. Jefferson thought we ought not to have any bank, 
 and Washington rather thought so, too ; but my husband 
 said we must have a bank ; and one day he said to me, ' My 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 397 . 
 
 dear, you must sit up with me to-night, and write for me ; ' 
 and I sat up all night, and I wrote it out with my own hand, 
 and the next morning he carried it to "Washington, and 
 we had a bank ! " This last was pronounced not without 
 exultation. 
 
 In July, 1791, the first United States Bank went into oper- 
 ation at Philadelphia, under a charter that was to run twenty 
 years, an3 with a capital stock of $10,000,000, one-fifth of 
 which was subscribed by government and four-fifths by indi- 
 viduals, and the whole of which was subscribed in a few hours 
 after the books were opened. There were things in this Bank 
 both new and old. Hamilton's reading had given him good 
 points out of the past, and his clear eye saw the special needs 
 of the present. This was the chief feature of the stock : three- 
 fourths of the subscription of individuals must be in the new 
 government stocks, in which Hamilton had just before funded 
 the old public debt, together with the revolutionary State debts 
 then assumed by the nation for that purpose. These two 
 classes of debts had been formed into one new and compact 
 debt, bearing 6% interest. The demand for the certificates 
 of this debt, in order to make subscription with them to the 
 new bank stock, carried them very shortly up to par, so that 
 the Bank was made an incidental means of establishing the 
 credit of the United States. This idea came from the first 
 rechartering of the Bank of England. That institution also 
 furnished the main thought of this, namely, that the secuiity 
 for the bills and deposits of a bank is best placed in govern- 
 ment stocks. The later New York banking system, and the 
 present system of National Banks, both turn upon this same 
 point. A second incidental object in the charter of this 
 United States Bank was to give the bank a direct interest in 
 sustaining every way the credit of the new government under 
 the Constitution. But we have to do with it now mainly as 
 fm-nishing during twenty years, the term of its charter, a 
 paper money, secured by government stocks and by cash 
 coming from the taxes, that was current at a uniform value 
 
398 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 all over tlie country ; this was something new in the experi- 
 ence of the people with paper money ; no bills were issued 
 of a less denomination than $10 ; the mone}^ was popular, 
 and it was in addition to the scant volume of Spanish -Mexican 
 coins, while the loans from a hank with ample capital gave a 
 sharp spur under the circumstances to industry and commerce ; 
 the dividends to stockholders never fell below 8, and frequently 
 rose to 10% ; and it is no wonder that, as the time approached 
 for the charter to expire, the stockholders were anxious for 
 a renewal of their privileges. They applied to Congress for 
 such renewal, offering to the government a bonus in account 
 of $1,250,000 for the privilege, but the opposition to the 
 continuance of the Bank was now strong, owing mainly to 
 the increase in the number of State banks in the twenty years 
 froiii 3 to 88, and to the hope that these, in case there were 
 no national bank, might obtain the custody and use of the 
 national funds and furnish the country with paper money in 
 its stead ; and accordingly the recharter was defeated in the 
 House by one vote, and in the Senate also by the casting vote 
 of the Vice-President, and the Bank was obliged to wind up 
 its affairs in 1811. 
 
 Then came in a sort of mania for the creation of new State 
 banks. The Pennsylvania Legislature chartered 41 in one 
 session, and that over the Governor's veto. New England 
 had set the example of " wild-cat " banldng, but had come 
 to her senses ; a heavy penalty was imposed there on all 
 bank-notes not redeemed on demand ; and in 1813 a central 
 bank of redemption was chartered in Boston, called the New 
 England Bank, for the purpose of keeping New England 
 bank-notes at par, a function that was afterwards performed 
 by the Suffolk Bank and called by its enemies " suffocation." 
 As money is not a commodity of which an unlimited quantity 
 can be absorbed by business, but is only an instrument for a 
 certain specific purpose ; and as when more than enough for 
 this purpose is put out, a diminution in value of every part 
 of it is inevitable, whether the money be specie or paper ; 
 
MONET IN TEE UNITED STATES. 399 
 
 and as it was the immediate pecuniary interest of each of these 
 new banks to crowd its notes into circulation ; it is no wonder, 
 that distrust of the notes was engendered, that chere was such 
 a presentation of them for redemption that the banks could 
 not respond, and that, in the fall of 1814, there was a general 
 stoppage of all the banks in the United States excepting those 
 in New England. New York city bank-notes went down to 
 90, those of Philadelphia to 82, those of Baltimore to 80, 
 and those of Pittsburg to 75%. Yet State banks multiplied 
 even after the crash, going up in number to 246 in 1816. 
 But how shall they resume specie payment? Mr. Dallas, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, and many others, thought that a 
 new and strong central Bank, on which these might lean for 
 support, would enable them to resume pa3'meut, and go on 
 thereafter on better principles. Accordingly Congress char- 
 tered the second Bank of the United States, with a capital 
 of $35,000,000, to which government subscribed $7,000,000, 
 but was to be allowed by the Bank on account $1,500,000 
 as a bonus. The Bank was opened in January, 1817, the 
 charter was to run twenty years, and by its help the New 
 York banks resumed in little more than a year and all the 
 rest of the State banks before the close of 1819. 
 
 But the new bank was not fortunate in its management. 
 It made great mistakes. It sometimes discounted the notes 
 of individuals on a pledge of the certificates of its own stock. 
 It pushed its own notes into circulation with great eagerness. 
 It is thought, that $100,000,000 of these notes were in the 
 liands of the people before the first year was out ; and it is 
 known, that its discount line was $43,000,000 in March, 1818. 
 Such a rapid swell in the volume of money had its usual con- 
 sequences. The bank and its bills were distrusted. Silver 
 came to bear a premium of 10% , and of course was exported. 
 Congress ordered a committee of investigation, and a resolu- 
 tion was offered that the charter be forfeited. This failed 
 to pass, to the disgust of John Randolph, who said then 
 what many a member has said since in substance, " a man 
 
400 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 may as ivell go to Constayitinople and preach Cliristianity, 
 as to go to Congress and j^feacli against banks." Although 
 under the abler and more careful management, first of Lang- 
 don Cheves, and then of Nicholas Biddle, the Bank recovered 
 something of stability, it never enjoyed the same credit as 
 the first Bank : and in the final wind-up in 1837 it was found 
 that the whole capital had been lost, though it managed to 
 pay its debts. 
 
 All this was not wholly the fault of the Bank itself, foi 
 President Jackson began his famous contest with it seven 
 years before its charter was to expire, by giving the Directors 
 fair warning in his annual message that there would be " con- 
 stitutional difficulties " in the way of their securing any exten- 
 sion of their privileges, and three years later he vetoed the 
 bill to recharter the Bank. Then he determined to remove 
 from its custody the national moneys, and to place them in 
 certain selected State banks. The order for this removal 
 must legally come from a Secretary of the Treasury, and he 
 displaced two of these in succession for refusing to give it, 
 and at last appointed the late Chief Justice Taney, then a 
 young lawyer of Baltimore, who at once gave the required 
 order. The national deposits at the moment amounted to 
 $10,000,000, and these had been properly treated by the 
 bank as a part of its working capital, and the discount 
 line resting in part on these deposits was at the tim.e over 
 $60,000,000, and their removal affected credit and disar- 
 ranged business to a remarkable degree and caused intense 
 excitement all over the Union. Shortly after the removal 
 of the deposits, followed the issue of the famous " specie- 
 circular," in which the Treasury directed the receivers of the 
 public money to take nothing hxit gold and silver in payment 
 for sales of the public lands. Speculators and others had 
 been making large purchases of western lands, and expected 
 to pay for them in paper money, and the specie-circular came 
 upon these like a clap of thunder, and made the previous 
 confusion worse confounded. President Jackson went out 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 401 
 
 of office, and the second Bank of the United States went 
 out of being, in the same year; but Van Buren, who was 
 proud to " tread in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor.,'" 
 completed the inaugurated movement and effected the divorce 
 of the Government from all banks whatsoever, first, by di- 
 recting the State banks which then had the keeping of the 
 public moneys to distribute them as surplus revenue among 
 the States, and second, by the Sub-Treasury scheme in pur- 
 suance of which the United States received in payment of 
 all dues and paid out in all disbursements gold and silver 
 only. That was doubtless a good goal to reach, though there 
 was something headlong in the methods of getting to it, which 
 doubtless contributed to the overthrow of Van Buren' s party 
 in 1840. 
 
 From 1837 to 1862 there was no national money in the 
 United States except the coins ; the withdrawal from circu- 
 lation of the bills of the United States Bank helped intensify 
 the great commercial crisis of 1837, and stimulated the crea- 
 tion of new State banks whose number was 675 in 1838 ; 
 and these State banks, increased at last to over 1,500 in all, 
 furnished till 1862 all the paper money of the country. Their 
 bills were nominally convertible into coin at the will of the 
 holders. Some of the States required their banks to keep a 
 percentage of specie on hand for the redemption of their 
 bills, and some of them required only a deposit with an 
 officer of the State of some kind of securities on the strength 
 of which the banks were allowed to issue an equivalent amount 
 in bills, and some of them did not require even so much as 
 this. It was a fast and loose system. In 1829, Massachusetts 
 passed a law limiting the bills of any bank to 25% in excess 
 of its paid-up capital, and New York established the so-called 
 " Safety Fund System," under which a common fund was 
 created by the contribution of the banks for paying the in- 
 debtedness of any bank that should become insolvent, but 
 neither law proved adequate to its purpose. Nine years 
 later New York founded the " Free Banking System," under 
 
402 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 which 'uhe circiUating notes were secured by n, deposit of 
 United States or New York State stocks, or bonds and mort- 
 gages on improved and productive real estate ; and in 1840 
 each bank was required to redeem its notes at an agency 
 either in New York City, or Albany, or Troy. Both of these 
 good features were afterwards borrowed by the United States 
 to put into the present national banking law, but they were 
 not sufficient in the State that devised them to secure per- 
 feclly the immediate or even the ultimate conversion of tha 
 notes into coin. Still, the paper money of New York and 
 New England on account of the pains taken for its redemp- 
 tion circulated more or less all over the Union, while the 
 money of other States had for the most part only a local 
 circulation. As a rule in those days ever}'' bank-note offered 
 was scrutinized by the person asked to take it in payment, 
 and tlie common distrust and refusal were a great hindrance 
 to domestic exchanges. 
 
 At last the people wisely concluded to abandon this whole 
 State paper-money S3'stcm. The following are among the 
 chief grounds of the wisdom of that action. (1) The sys- 
 tem was liable to great and sudden contractions and expan- 
 sions in the volume of the paper money. For instance, the 
 volume in 1858 was $59,570,474 less than in 1857, and in 
 1863 viore by $54,885,139 than in 18G2. The largest aggre- 
 gate of this money was in 1857, before the panic of that 
 year, when it rose to $214,000,000. Just before the panic 
 of 1837 it stood at $149,000,000, and then fell off to 
 $116,000,000. (2) The ratio of the paper money to the 
 specie reserved to redeem it was always a very high ratio. 
 For instance, the average for the whole country in January, 
 18G3, was 4:1; in Rhode Island 12:1; and in Vermont 
 28:1. Such a paper money can be called convertible only 
 by a stretch of courtesy. (3) As a matter of fact, so soon 
 as there came to be a financial pressure, and especially when- 
 ever 1 he exigencies of commerce witlidrew gold from reserves 
 already so small, the banks were compelled to confess wliat 
 
MONMV IN rniC flNITICI) STATICS. 4()^> 
 
 ev'(!ryl»()(ly ini;.';lil, li;i,v(! Known l»(!("orcli;i.n(|, 1,li;i,t, llicy wci'o 
 inin,I)l(; lo rcdccini IJicir ))t'()U)iH('H. l<'<)iir or (iv(! iiiiuiH dtninj^ 
 ili(! con(,inii;iii(r(! of tlio HyHl,<!rn p.'UiiciH JiXUickcd IIk; |):i|)(!r 
 jrioii(!y, siiul Ui(! b.-uilcH }j,(!n(',f;i,lly huh|)(!M(I<;(] Kjtccic, [)ii,y)ii(!nl/. 
 
 It) tllOHO thtlOH of Hlff^HH, HOUK! of tlu! |);inliH !l,ll(l HOIIIC, K(!<;- 
 
 tions of IIk! (ioiinti'y did hcU.cr l,li;i,ii oUi(;rs ; the iJ.'uik of Uio 
 St:il,(! of Indi.'inu, for cxuiripk!, undctr tli(! ni!iii;i,;^c,m(;nt of 
 IIiijji,'li M(;(Jtillo(!li, ni'U'.fw.ifdH Sccnilitry of the 'ri'(!:i,HUry, 
 in.'UMl.'uncd Hjx'-cic! i)M,yni(!iil,H in Uk; iryiiif^ pcriocjH of IHf;? 
 juid IMOI. (4) Tlic, inH(:i,l)ilily of iJio general ByHUsrn tc'iided 
 lowurdH a icckhiHM w;i,y of doinj^- Ihm'iuchh, and l(!d on to fre- 
 quent bankrtJi)t(;i(!H both of banI<H and indivi(hialH, wlii(;h 
 became a juHt r(![)roac,h to the mdion. 'J'lie bankH contrib- 
 nted powerfnlly in tiUWH of (|iii('.l; by :i, «yHl,(!rri of j^citwinniH 
 lojuiinu; of llnir blllH, on wlii<-b tli(;ir prolIlH de|)(!nd(;d, to 
 indiKu; a H|iiril, of MpccMilntion ;uid a williiigiicHH to contract 
 d(;l)tH, iuid IIkui wluin the re-;i,<rtion (!;i,ni(; (!X|)erienc(!d 1,li(!tn- 
 selveH bow much (iiisicr it Ih to lo.-in pnpci' promiwes than to 
 fulfil tln^m. Thcur in!d)ility to conlinue in l.roublouH timc^H the 
 free loanH wiiieh helped to brinj^ th(!m on, Ji,nd theii- r(!pe:i,t(!d 
 faihn'CH to mnke, f.';ood tiie obli;';;d,ioM to redeem tlieir own 
 l)illH, (iMJiMed ine:il(Md;d)le lo.sHeH of pro|)(!rty. TlKWi! e:i,n be 
 DO hcHitjition in !i,(nrmin<i; thnt the (iXfjcaiHe of m;unt;i,inin}!,' a 
 }ji;old and (silver money for :dl the, w.'intH of tlu; whole (;ounl,iy 
 mij^lit hii,vi! been met m:uiy tiimsH ovcsr from the; v;i,Ht Iomsch 
 coming from thiH b!Uik-pap(!r HyHUun. (5) Thin ehea[) p.-qxir 
 mon(!y k(;pt oid; the coins from common une in paymenta, and 
 l)ills wei(! HO likely to be unenrrent in loealiti(!H distant from 
 ihejr pl;i,ee of IsHiie, that travelling from one part of tlio 
 country to another was oftcMi didienlt as well «,n th(! m:d<iii<^ 
 of jiayrruHilH b(!twe(!n th(!m ; tlu; (country wan not renlly oim 
 in il,M monel,;i,ry relntionn ; m(;n iniwittingly took imcinicnl, 
 bills in p:iym(!nt oi' bills tli;i,t b(!(!;i,m(! imeiu'rent in their liandH, 
 and IohI, in other w.-iys by the f:i,ilin-(! of b:i,nkrt; iuid the feel- 
 in;^ with wliieli IIh! |)eo|)l(;, (•Hp(!ei;dly at IIh! Went, tiirncil 
 to a b(!tt(;r Kystem, was wctll voiced \)y Horace VVhiI.e, '■'■ l./ui 
 
404 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 farmers c/ Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, would rather 
 encounter war, pestilence, or famine than the old style of un- 
 secured or imperfectly secured hank-notes, by which they were 
 robbed at frequent intervals during the twenty-five years pre- 
 ceding the war." 
 
 Appalling financial difficulties confronted Secretary Chase 
 during the first year of the late civil war. The nation must 
 borrow, or perish ; but the preceding administration, even in 
 the initial troubles which had now culminated, had paid 12^ 
 interest on a public loan, and could borrow but little at that 
 rate. The credit of the government was very low in 1861 ; 
 but the country must be defended, an army be raised and 
 equipped and put into the field and paid, and the ordinary 
 expenses of government be met. Accordingly the Secretary 
 in his first annual report to Congress in December of that 
 year, with an eye chiefly to making easier the borrowing of a 
 few hundred thousayid dollars, recommended the organization 
 of a new national banking system. The main features of 
 the plan proposed, taken in part by acknowledgment from 
 the New York State system, were, (1) that the bank-notes 
 to be issued as money should all be secured by bonds of the 
 United States bought by each bank in amount proportioned 
 to its notes but deposited in the national Treasury as security 
 for their ultimate redemption ; (2) that the notes should be 
 furnished to each bank by the United States, which should 
 guarantee their full payment, not simply as a trustee holding 
 securities for the purpose, but also as a principal pledging 
 the public faith ; and (3) that each bank should be obliged 
 to receive at par for any debt due it the notes of any other 
 bank in the system, and the government be obliged to receive 
 tliem for all taxes or other dues except duties on imports, 
 and have the right to pay them out for all debts except 
 interest on the public bonds. This national banking scheme, 
 planned to secure not only a market for bonds but also a 
 paper money uniform in character for the whole country and 
 wholly secured as to convertibility, foreshadowing as it did 
 
MONET IN THE UNITED STATES. 405 
 
 tlio wiuding up of the State banks as issuers of paper money, 
 found at first but little favor in Congress or among the peo- 
 ple. In his second annual report a year later, the Secretary 
 iterated his recommendations, and enforced them by argu- 
 ments drawn from the pressing need of large loans, from the 
 character of the money for soundness and uniformity to be 
 thus furnished to the people, from the convenient agencies 
 which such banks would furnish for the deposit of public 
 moneys, and from the firm anchorage which such a system 
 would give to the union of the States. These arguments, 
 which found a response especially emphatic from the Western 
 States, coupled with the assurance of the Secretary, that, if 
 Congress should concur in his views, though conscious of the 
 great difficulty which vast, sudden, and protracted expendi- 
 tures imposed on him, he thought he should still be able to 
 maintain the public credit and provide for the public wants, 
 induced Congress to frame and pass '■'■An act to provide a 
 national currency secured by a pledge of United States stocks, 
 and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof." 
 The act was approved by the President Feb. 25, 1863. 
 
 In the mean time. Congress felt compelled to issue Treas- 
 ury notes made legal tender for all debts public and private 
 except duties on imports and interest and principal of the 
 national bonds. These notes have been commonlj' called 
 greenbacks. The first issue was made in April, 1862, and 
 was justified as a war measure. $450,000,000 were put out 
 in all, of which ^87,000,000 were taken in, and the rest was 
 still circulating in 1883. In one month after the first issue 
 of $150,000,000, these greenbacks began to droop in value 
 as compared with gold; in four months, when the second 
 batch of $150,000,000 was authorized, their depreciation 
 was already marked and firm ; and in nine months, when 
 President Lincoln reluctantly gave his approval to the third 
 issue of the same amount in order to pay off the soldiers 
 and sailors, he uttered a solemn protest against the policy 
 of thus inflating the current money, which, he said, '■'•has 
 
406 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 already become so redundant as to increase prices beyond 
 real values, thereby augmenting the cost of living to the 
 injury of labor, and the cost of supplies to the injury of 
 the whole country." In March, 1863, $50,000,000 of paper 
 promises for fractions of a dollar were authorized, redeem- 
 able in sums of not less than' three dollars in greenbacks, 
 and receivable for all dues to the United States less than 
 five dollars, except for duties on imports. Subsidiary silver 
 coins have since taken the place of these fractionals. In 
 July, 1863, the greenback dollar had lost one-quarter of its 
 nominal value ; in July, 1864, it had lost almost two-thirds 
 of its nominal value, as its lowest point was reached in that 
 month, namely, 35 cents as compared with the gold dollar ; 
 in July, 1865, it had risen to 70 cents; in July, 1866, it 
 stood at 66 cents, just two-thirds of a dollar proper ; and 
 from that time it slowly rose, with many fluctuations, till 
 New Year's, 1879, when it became legally and actually re- 
 deemable in gold and silver. Its variations for the sixteen 
 years, however, cannot be counted by the number of years, 
 nor even by the number of days ; for they were numerous 
 on each business day, and, as Comptroller Knox says, " can 
 only be numbered by tens of thousands." What a Measure 
 of Services that was ! 
 
 A beautiful illustration of Gresham's law was witnessed 
 in the interval of time just traversed. In 1862, just so 
 soon as the greenback dollars fell fairly below the gold dol- 
 lars in value, the latter left the channels of trade in a very 
 few days' time. Down sank the greenbacks gradually below 
 the subsidiary silver coins in value, and the latter obediently 
 and utterly abandoned the commercial field. At last the 
 greenbacks went down even below the level of the copper 
 cents, which at that time cost the government about half a 
 cent each, and this invariable law of money swept, the circu- 
 lation bare of coppers, and the people had to resort for their 
 smallest change to postage-stamps and shin-plasters and other 
 abominations. Happily, the country survived to see th^se 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 407 
 
 processes exactly reversed, and the old law confirmed on its 
 other side. When, after a considerable interval, the paper 
 dollar appreciated to the proper height, it was interesting to 
 watch the copper cents put in a prompt re-appearance ; after 
 a still larger appreciation of the paper, back came in abun- 
 dance the subsidiary silver ; and as the day of the redemption 
 of the paper drew near, silver dollars and gold dollars greeted 
 smilingly their old acquaintances of the street. 
 
 When, after a long time, the question of the constitutional 
 right of Congress to make a mere promise a legal tender for 
 debts, that is to say, to make a promise the same thing 
 legally as its fulfilment^ — a monstrous incongruity, — was 
 brought up to the Supreme Court of the United States, the 
 majority of the court, including Chief Justice Chase, who 
 as Secretary of the Treasury had recommended the opposite, 
 decided, after most elaborate argument and deliberate con- 
 sideration, that the Constitution gave no authority to Con- 
 gress to create a paper legal tender which could apply to 
 pre-existing contracts ; and some of the judges held that it 
 was equally unconstitutional to compel parties, in the ab- 
 sence of mutual agreement to that end, to receive such 
 paper promises in fulfilment of contracts even made sub- 
 sequently to the passage of the law. After this decision 
 was thus solemnly rendered, two new judges whose opinions 
 on the point were known beforehand and who were selected 
 on that very account, were put upon the bench, and this 
 change in the personnel of the court was made the means of 
 reversing the decision, no 7iew points therefor being raised 
 either by the neio judges or by counsel in the neio trial, and 
 the .chief justice and his associates still adhering to their 
 former opinions. It is scarcely needful to add, that the 
 Supreme Court of the United States suffered in the judg- 
 ment of good citizens by that transaction ; that the best 
 legal and financial opinion in the country yielded little 
 respect to a decision thus secured ; and that intelligent 
 people do not believe that constitutional law can sanction 
 
408 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 what contravenes at once common sense and common moral- 
 ity. Judge Field, one of the majority in the first decision, 
 uses this just language in respect to the second, in which he 
 could not concur : ^^Itfolloios, then, logically, from the doc- 
 trine advanced by the majority of the court as to the poioer of 
 Congress over the subject of legal tender, that Congress may 
 ]}or7'Ow gold coin upon a pledge to repay gold at the maturity 
 of its obligations, and yet in direct disregard of its pledge, in 
 open violation of faith, may compel the lender to take., in 
 place of the gold stijpulated, its own promises; and that legis- 
 lation of this character would not be in violation of the Con- 
 stitution, but in harmony loith its letter and spirit. What is 
 this but declaring that repudiation by the government of the 
 United States of its solemn obligations would be constitu- 
 tional? " 
 
 To complete this history of Money in the United States, 
 it only remains to follow till the present time the action of 
 the new national banks so far as their issue of paper money 
 is concerned. "We shall see in the next chapter, that it is 
 not an essential function of Banking to issue paper money, 
 although in this country this has been more commonly added 
 to the other more important duties of the banker. Banking 
 proper can only be understood in connection with the general 
 subject of Credit. Slowly at first, many of the old State 
 banks re-organized under the national law of 1863, and many 
 new banks were incorporated under its elaborate provisions.- 
 The charters of all extended twenty j^ears. The bills of the 
 old banks were gradually retired under a heavy national tax. 
 The bills of the new banks, although they came into direct 
 competition with the greenbacks and fell in value as com- 
 pared with gold by equal step with these under the increase 
 of their common volume, soon became popular and circu- 
 lated everywhere on account of then* national character ; for, 
 although they were not made legal tender for all debts, they 
 were made redeemable into greenbacks, which were thus legal 
 tender ; and, as this secondary redemption was but rarely 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 409 
 
 called for, as the amount of greenbacks required of each 
 bank for the purposes of this redemption was reckoned in 
 as a part of the whole reserve required of each bank to be 
 kept against its other and greater liabilities, and as since 
 1874 only 5% of its bills are required to be kept in lawful 
 money by each bank on deposit in the national treasury for 
 their redemption, national banking became very profitable 
 partly on the ground of this privilege of issuing money, and 
 the number of banks multiplied in all parts of the country. 
 
 In the eight years, 1870-77, a period for the most part of 
 great depression in most branches of business, the national 
 banks of the whole country, according to Comptroller Knox, 
 cleared an annual net profit of 8%, to which he credits 
 about 3 (fo i3et profit on the issuing of the bills. No other 
 leading branch of business made any such profits as that in 
 that interval. At the close of the fiscal year 1880, there were 
 in operation 2,102 national banks ; during that year, they paid 
 the United States in taxes, $7,591,770, and had paid in all 
 from the first till that date $100,361,460 in national taxes; 
 and yet, these bankers, making more money than any other 
 class of business men, and paying under the central govern- 
 ment relatively lighter taxes than any other class of buyers 
 and sellers, made in the decade ending in 1883 more com- 
 plaint of taxes and more persistent efforts to be rid of them 
 than any otljer class of men. There were outstanding Nov. 
 1, 1881, $360,344,250 of national bank bills, $346,681,016 
 of greenbacks, $562,568,971 of gold coin, and $186,037,365 
 of silver coin, an aggregate of $1,455,631,602.^ 
 
 Originally the total amount of bank-bills authorized to bo 
 issued was $300,000,000, but this limit was extended in 1870 
 to $354,000,000, and the act of 1875 removed all restric- 
 tions on the aggregate amount of bank-bills, though tliere 
 are restrictions on the amount that any 07ie bank may issue. 
 The laws of 1874 and 1882 made it easy for any national 
 bank desiring to withdraw in part or in whole its bills fi'om 
 
 1 Report Comptroller Knox, 1S81. 
 
410 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 circnlatiou to deposit lawful money in the treasurj' in order 
 to take up the bills, and then to take back the proportionate 
 amount of the bonds held for their security. This was in 
 hopes the volume of the money would wax and wane accord- 
 ing to the varying demands of business. No bank can issue 
 in bills over 90% of the par value of the bonds deposited to 
 secui'e the bills ; and, since 1882, national banks having a 
 capital stock of $150,000, or less, are not required to deposit 
 bonds with the Treasurer in excess of one-fourth of such 
 stock as security for their bills. The law of the same year 
 made provision for the easy extension of the charter of any 
 national bank for a second period of 20 years, authorized 
 the issue of 3% bonds of the United States to serve as a 
 basis for national banking, and permitted the deposit in the 
 treasury of gold coin in sums not less than $20 and the issue 
 therefor of certificates in denominations of that amount 
 and upwards corresponding with the higher denominations 
 of greenbacks. 
 
 Conceding the propriety of paper money, and looking at 
 the national banking scheme solely at present as issuing it, 
 several and considerable merits must be allowed to the plan, 
 such as, (1) the publicity of the affairs of each bank and of 
 all the banks within the system, since the comptroller pub- 
 lishes from time to time the sy^^orn statements of bank officers, 
 the results of skilled examinations, in short every thing about 
 the banks that the public wants to know ; (2) the certainty 
 of the redemption of the bills, since a responsible third party 
 holds in his hands ample funds for that purpose ; (3) the 
 nationalit'y and dignity of the bills, since they go freely 
 wherever the flag floats, and the image and superscription 
 of Caesar is really upon every bill ; (4) the relative flexi- 
 bility of the volume of this mone}', and the ease with which 
 worn and mutilated bills are .'e placed b}' new ones ; (5) the 
 society of the banks within the system, by which each is 
 rationally interested in the good name and success of the 
 rest, and in consequence of which a higher self-respect and 
 
MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 411 
 
 a more co-operative and conservative spirit tend to come to 
 every banker ; and (G) the community of their money in its 
 origin and nature as between the distant and diiferent States 
 and peoples is a bond binding them together and neutralizing 
 in part the centrifugal forces always at work in large societies 
 of men. 
 
 On the other side, there are some pretty strong objections 
 to this mode of issuing paper money, such as, (1) the basis 
 of it all presupposes a national debt, which the people do 
 not regard as a blessing, and which, so far as it is paid off 
 as it ought to be, destroys the foundation on which this money 
 rests ; (2) the issuing of the money is mixed up loitli other 
 tilings incongruous luitJi it, since the bank that issues also 
 takes in deposits, pay checks, discounts notes, and buys and 
 sells debts generally, which is the true business of a banker ; 
 and (3) it looks iuvidious and at any rate gives rise to hard 
 thoughts to grant to one small class of men the privilege of 
 issuing for their own j)'>'oJit a part of the national money. 
 More or less ill-will among the people towards the national 
 banks, and jealousy of their great influence over congres- 
 sional legislation, have been an open secret for many years ; 
 and the last sentence uncovers the main root of these hostile 
 feelings. Shall we say, then, that the privilege of issue 
 should be taken from the national banks ? That is a hard 
 question. Shall we say, that, if -there is to be paper money, 
 it is better that the government issue it directly like the 
 greenbacks? That is another hard question. Objections 
 are easy to both modes, and indeed to any mode of putting 
 out paper money ; but both modes are now in operation, and 
 in all likelihood will be for a long time to come. Congress 
 has forbidden the contraction of the volume of the green- 
 backs ; the national banks have obtained an extension of 
 their charters for twenty years ; silver certificates issued 
 dollar for dollar on silver coin deposited by individuals and 
 reserved intact by the Treasury are in the hands of the 
 people ; and gold certificates of a like description to be re- 
 
412 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 deemed in gold coin, as the others in silver, which seems to 
 be the best possible form of paper money, and which makes 
 up four kinds in all, were legalized in 1882. 
 
 A few statements wUl now review and condense the points 
 of this chapter : — 
 
 1. The colonists had a notion that they could not afford to 
 use sterling money, and also that a worse money drives out a 
 better ; and this double key opens most of the mysteries of 
 colonial moneys. 
 
 2. The old pine-tree coinage of Massachusetts is at once 
 historically interesting and scientifically instructive. 
 
 3. The strength and the weakness of Credit are illustrated 
 at once in the old bills whether of the colonies or of the Conti- 
 nent. 
 
 4. The experiences of the Confederation, and especially the 
 establishment of a new Government, furnished our first finan- 
 ciers their splendid opportunities. 
 
 5. Our Banking oioes m.ost to Morris, our Coining to 
 Jefferson, and our Funding to Hamilton. 
 
 6. The single standard of gold, and the subsidiary silver 
 pieces, both date from 1853. 
 
 7. Neio York furnished the model, and Secretary Chase 
 became the manipulator, of the national bank system. 
 
 8. Recent experiments in legal tender, in bimetallic and 
 other coinage, and in neio forms of paper money , promise to 
 enrich with wisdom the studious Future. 
 
CREDIT. 413 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 CREDIT. 
 
 Political Economy is the Science of Sales. Because it is 
 the science of sales, its definitions and principles must cover 
 equally all cases of sales actually occurring or possible to 
 occur. We have seen fully, that there are only three kinds 
 of things that are ever bought and sold, or ever will be, and 
 these are Commodities and Services and Claims. The first 
 two kinds have been completely elucidated already, and it 
 belongs to the present chapter to explain clearly and illustrate 
 fully the peculiarities of the third Jcind. Our science has to 
 do with the motives and facts and economic results of all 
 sales whatsoever. 
 
 Some sales or exchanges are consummated at once, that 
 is, the things exchanged and the ownership in them are 
 mutually passed over then and there, the reciprocal satisfac- 
 tions are entered upon immediately, and there is an econom- 
 ical end. For example, one neighbor sells another a peck 
 of green pease and takes in pay a peck of new potatoes, both 
 vegetables are cooked for dinner in the respective families 
 the same day, and the transaction is all over. But there are 
 other exchanges which have this peculiarity^ that the trans- 
 action is not then and there ultimately closed, but one (or 
 both) of the parties exchanging relies on the good faith 
 of somebody to fulfil in the future a promise expressly or 
 impliedly made in the exchange. Commonly some evidence 
 of the promise is created and passed at the time. For exam- 
 ple, A buys 50 bushels of wheat of B, and B takes in pay 
 A's note at six mouths for ^75. Considered as a mere case 
 
414 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of value created and measured, this transaction might be 
 said to be ended, and in one sense it is ended ; but, consid- 
 ered as to the nature of that exchange which requires another 
 exchange to complete it, the transaction is not 3'et ended, and 
 Political Economy must follow it in its principles to the end, 
 because the further exchange or sale was contemplated by 
 B as a part of his motive for taking A's note as an eqi^iva- 
 lent for the wheat. The right to demand a future equivalent 
 of that was the present equivalent for the sake of which the 
 wheat was rendered by B. It was therefore a clear case of 
 value, since each rendered the other satisfactory equivalents, 
 and all our definitions apply here perfectly. 
 
 This peculiarity thus sketched in outline is vastly impor- 
 tant to be considered, and gives rise to all the phenomena 
 that pass under the general name of Credit. There are two 
 essential features of this peculiarity. One is, that it always 
 involves future time; and the other is, that it always involves 
 confidence in Persons as such. The term credit is derived 
 from Credo, I believe, and the corresponding debt from 
 Debeo, I owe. Thus the personal element and the future 
 element are wrapt up in the very origin of the words. There 
 is no debt without credit, and there is no credit without debt. 
 The words imply a belief of one of the parties in a virtual prom- 
 ise made by the other, and an obligation acknowledged by 
 one party as due to the other. Credit, then, may be defined 
 as a Bight to demand something of somebody; and Debt, as 
 an Obligation to pay something to somebody. What lies, ac- 
 cordingly, between creditors and debtors, are Rights coupled 
 with Obligations ; and these are Property, since they may be, 
 and often are, bought and sold. It is these Eights or Claims, 
 that become the subject of a commerce immense in extent 
 and amount, and that take their place on an equality with 
 tangible Commodities and personal Services. 
 
 Macleod, who has cast fresh light on the nature of Credit, 
 makes a distinction that lies on the threshold of the subject, 
 namely, that between paper documents conveying titles to 
 
CREDIT. 415 
 
 specific things, such as a bill of lading, and those eouveyiug 
 credit rights, such as a bank note. Both kinds are trans- 
 ferable at will, but the former go with the goods, are a title 
 to the goods, and have no value separate from the goods ; 
 while the latter have nothing to do with any specific pieces 
 of property whatever, are in no proper sense a title to any 
 thia.5, but are a general claim for something upon some person 
 that awaits his action for its validity. For example, a Chicago 
 grain-dealer sells 1,000 bushels of No. 2 wheat to a party in 
 New York, and ships the grain to that point : two kinds of 
 papers arise in the transaction very diverse in their nature : 
 one is a hill of lading, that goes along with the goods and 
 gives the person named a complete title to 1,000 bushels of 
 wheat of a certain description, and the holder of the bill 
 has the wheat and asks no favors ; and the other is a hill of 
 exchange, drawn by the creditor in Chicago on his debtor in 
 New York to be sold to a banker, provided the latter has 
 confidence in the two former and a motive in the shape of a 
 discount for buying the bill : the bill of lading has neither 
 element of credit in it, and the bill of exchange has both 
 of them. For another example, if a man takes a package of 
 valuables of any kind to his banker, and asks him to take 
 care of it, and return it to him or any one else on demand, 
 no propert}' in the valuables passes over to the banker, the 
 relation of debtor and creditor does not arise, the banker 
 becomes the Trustee or Bailee of the package, but in no sense 
 its owner ; but if, in the ordinary case, a customer deposit 
 money with his banker, the property in that money passes 
 over absolutely to the banker, the relation of debtor and 
 weditor arises, the depositor receives a credit in lieu of his 
 money, that is, a right to demand in the future: the nature 
 of the transaction in the two cases is quite different. 
 
 As this distinction is vital, we shall lose nothing in the 
 end if we take even a third example : — The United States 
 Treasury receives silver dollars from any person who chooses 
 to place them there, and gives out what are called "silver 
 
416 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 certificates " to the same amount entitling the bearer to take 
 out the dollars again at will, and the certificates become a 
 IJart of the money of the country. The Treasury is bound 
 to exercise due care in the keeping of these silver coins, and 
 to return them to the holders of certificates on demand, juiifc 
 as the elevator and raikosd companies are under legal obli- 
 gations to show diligence in keeping and transporting the 
 wheat of our former example ; but the United States is aot 
 debtor to the holders of these certificates any more than the 
 elevator company is debtor to the wheat-shippers, and conse- 
 quently there is no element of Credit in these certificates. 
 Just so of the later gold certificates. On the other hand, the 
 greenbacks issued by the United States are also a part of the 
 money of the country, but they are credit-Taoney , inasmuch 
 as they are a promise to pay the bearer some time in the 
 future so many dollars. The United States is debtor to the 
 bearers, and these in turn are creditors, and the legal-tender 
 quality of the greenbacks does not alter their character as a 
 form of pure credit. Both the elements of good faith and of 
 future time inhere in the greenbacks, as they do also in the 
 bonds of the United States, while in the certificates they do 
 not appear. 
 
 This distinction between credit-rights and other rights is 
 well maintained in the Latin language and in the Roman 
 law, while corresponding English terms are ambiguous and 
 need to be used with care. In Latin, a true debt is caUed a 
 Mutuum, because it lies between two persons, a creditor and 
 a debtor, and is a credit-right independently of the question 
 of fact whe.ther the debtor has now any thing to pay with or 
 not ; but a thiag merely lent, when the very thing lent is to 
 be returned, is called in Latin a Commodatum. The English 
 has but the one word Loan for two very distinct operations, 
 for the loan of a book, for instance, which is to be returned, 
 and which may be reclaimed if the owner chance to find it, 
 that is, the Latin commodatum ; and for the loan of money 
 or other measurable thing, which is to be returned in kind 
 
CREDIT. 417 
 
 merely, which may not be reclaimed except through the action 
 of the borrower, since the ownership of that thing has passed 
 to him completely, that is, the Latin mutuum. The same 
 ambiguity of course inheres in the English word Borrow. 
 Now, as a debt is a claim on a person and not on a thing, 
 the Roman law is true to the nature of things and to the 
 vital distinctions of our science when it names the right to 
 which a mutuum gives birth as a jus in personam, that is, a 
 right against the person ; but it names the legal obligation 
 arising out of a commodatum as a jus in re, that is, a right 
 to the ver^- thing. So strongly is this doctrine, namely, that 
 the security of a true debt lies against the person and not 
 against things, intrenched in the Roman law, that debts or 
 credits are even called " nomina," names, — as when Ulpian 
 says, " Nomina eorum qui sub conditione vel in diem debent 
 et emere et vendere solemus." We are accustomed to buy 
 and sell Debts payable on a certain day and at a certain 
 event. The fundamental law of our present national banks 
 explicitly recognizes this old distinction by requiring the 
 banks to loan money on personal security only, that is to 
 say, no tangible things — not even real estate — may be 
 taken as original security for any loan. 
 
 Now that we have learned exactly what Credit is, we are 
 able to see clearly the reasons why it plays such a vast and 
 increasing part in the ongoing of modern exchanges. If it 
 were a convenience merely, making easier exchanges that 
 would take place whether or no, it would even then be worthy 
 of careful study ; but this is only a small part of it, credit 
 not only convenes exchanges but also creates them, it brings 
 in something new into the world of traffic, a new class of 
 things bought and sold, values that otherwise would not have 
 existed at all, it enlarges the field of Political Economy, 
 and makes a new grand division of time pay tribute to the 
 world of sales. The Past is represented in commodities, the 
 Present in personal services, and the Future in credits. 
 Sales accordingly are not shut up to the past and the present, 
 
418 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 for the future is also open to them in a certain degree, which 
 degree is marked by the limits of rational probability. The 
 Future has within it comparative certainties, and it is safe 
 commercially to build on these, and the name of that struc- 
 ture is Credit. The chief Gain for individuals and for the 
 whole community in the use of proper credit, and the grand 
 reason why it never will be disused, are found in the fact 
 that a new capital is thereby created, a new purchasing- 
 power, something in the world of values additional to what 
 existed before. This addition is not indeed unlimited, but 
 it is actual and great ; not unlimited, because rational prob- 
 abilities cannot pierce very far into the future ; but actual 
 and great, because credit-rights to future products have a 
 present and a ready value. The safe limitations of credit 
 can be learned only from experience ; the dangers of credit 
 arise from the uncertainties of the future, and the too san- 
 guine temperaments of men ; but the property in credit, and 
 the propriety of credit and the potency of credit are certain. 
 At least 90 parts out of every 100 of the payments and 
 receipts in modern commerce are in some form of credit 
 rather than in any form of mone}^ ; in this country between 
 1862 and 1882 almost all commercial transactions were medi- 
 ated either by pure credit or credit-money ; in Scotland, 
 owing to their peculiar banking-system and " Cash Credits" 
 to be explained pretty soon, coin plays an almost inapprecia- 
 ble part in business transactions ; while even in England, 
 where bank-notes for less than £5 are prohibited, it is esti- 
 mated that not far from 95 % of commercial business is 
 mediated by pure credit. 
 
 It is but frank to state right here that most economists 
 deny that any new capital is created through credit. Th&y 
 deny that the relation of debtor and creditor involves any 
 thing more than an exchange between the two parties of 
 certain titles to tangible goods. Thus J. H. Wallvcr of Mas- 
 sachusetts in a little book on Banking of 1882 says : — " -4 
 man ahvays borrows something of intrinsic value. What he 
 
CREDIT. 419 
 
 horroios is not a piece of pape}\ whatever may he on it, hut 
 a farm, a house, a factory, or a part of them; a store, a 
 mine, or goods. No man can horrow or lend any thing else. 
 The borrower gets from the lender what puts him in possession 
 of the thing he seeks, and it must be some one of these things.'^ 
 Again: — '■^ So imth all money {except coin). It has no 
 value in itself. It adds nothing to the capital of the world. 
 It purports to be and is only a title to property, — a con- 
 venient device for transferring the ownership of property." 
 This author, though a banker, is led astray by the useless 
 adjective "intrinsic," by a totally inadequate analysis of 
 what is meant b}^ "value," and by a narrow assumption 
 that the only objects bought or borrowed are corporeal 
 "things;" consequently, although he writes a book to do 
 this, he cannot under his view properly explain the common 
 facts of deposit banking in his own country, and would 
 come to a dead standstill before the ' ' Cash Credits ' ' of 
 Scotland. Bonamy Price of Oxford is a professed econo- 
 mist, and a teacher of acknowledged ability : let us hear him 
 also: — " Omitting the capital which a joint-stock compojiy 
 puts into a bank, the banker possesses no capital, except his 
 premises and any coin that may he in them, however much 
 commercial and monetary literature may ascribe capital to 
 hanks. Lines and names ^V^. ledgers, checks at the Clearing 
 House, debts due to depositors, debts due upon bills by borrow- 
 ers, are neither wealth nor capital. They are words and noth- 
 ing more. Incorporeal property, under ivhich these kinds of 
 written words have been summed up, is not loealth; it is mere- 
 ly a collection of title-deeds, but from which the reality is ab- 
 sent. The corpus is not in those deeds, hut the right to acquire 
 that proj)erty, even before possession is obtained, is itself a 
 property. If a title-deed or a mortgage is declared to he 
 actual wealth by Political Economy, then the sooner it is con- 
 signed to the waste-basket the better." '^ 
 
 This last passage shows how the word " wealth " tangles 
 
 1 Practical Political Economy, 1S77, p. 452. 
 
420 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 men up inextricably who by discarding it would become clear 
 thinkers. Professor Price himself with great good sense has 
 given up the attempt to build up a Science on that unde- 
 finable and abominable word, and so entitles his new book 
 " Py-ac/ticaZ Political Economy." Nevertheless, the passage 
 just quoted concedes the whole matter in present dispute, — ■ 
 " the riglit to acquire that 2^foperty, even hefore possession is 
 obtained, is itself a property, — that is all that we claim, 
 namely, that rights are property, and that new rights, new 
 property, a new capital, are created b}" Credit. Our Oxford 
 friend is far too well informed to contend, that a check is 
 "the right to acquire possession" of any sjjecZ/tc property 
 whatever ; and must admit that it is a general claim on the 
 hanker, and not on any special fund in the banker's hands ; 
 it follows, therefore, that the excess of the banker's average 
 deposits over his average reserves to secure them, is a new 
 creation of Credit, a neiv resource of Production, apiurchas- 
 ing-power now available to the banker not previously and 
 practically available to anybody. 
 
 It is a comfort to be able to quote against the current and 
 superficial view, that credit-claims are mere titles to tangible 
 things, the weighty words of the Roman Law laid down 
 fourteen centuries ago : — " Some valuable things are corpo- 
 real, and other's incorporeal. Things incorporeal are those 
 which cannot be touched, such as those lohich consist in mere 
 rights, as an inheritance, a usufruct, uses, and all obligations 
 however contracted. Nor is it any objection that corporeal 
 things are contained in an inheritance ; but the right of in- 
 heritance, and the right of using and enjoying, and the right 
 of the obligation are incorporeal." It is also a pleasure to 
 be able to state as a fact, in opposition to the view that 
 banks are handling in their credit paper of all sorts just the 
 titles of goods and chattels then and there changing hands, 
 that it often happens in those seasons of the year when 
 goods and chattels are moving least that the banks are han- 
 dling most of checks and bills and other forms of credit. 
 
CREDIT. 421 
 
 A credit-right is commonly, but not always, recorded upon 
 paper ; but the paper is the evidence of the right, and not 
 the right itself. These paper instruments of Credit are of 
 two kinds. Promises to pay, and Orders to pay ; and we will 
 first look at these principal forms of Credit in order, and 
 then at some further advantages and disadvantages of 
 Credit itself. 
 
 1. Book Accounts. A charge in a trader's books is both 
 a current and a legal evidence that the person charged has 
 received a certain service, and has virtually promised to 
 render the sum charged as a return service. This is the 
 most common of the forms of credit ; and if the person 
 charged fails of his own accord to complete the exchange 
 thus commenced, the law, in the absence of any proof to 
 make the charge suspicious, collects it, if possible, and for- 
 cibly completes the exchange. The convenience of this form 
 of credit is so great that it is not likely ever to be disused ; 
 and as between people who deal much with each other is 
 very useful, inasmuch as their respective book accounts are 
 set against each other in settlement, and only balances are 
 required to be cancelled in money. It is for the benefit 
 of both creditor and debtor, however, that such credits 
 should be short in time, and such, settlements frequent, since 
 thus only does the creditor realize the gains of the ex- 
 change, and the debtor keep fair his mercantile name. If 
 it be difficult or impossible to follow strictly the excellent 
 financial maxim, "Pay as you go," the next best thing to 
 that is, " Go and pay." The gains of an exchange are 
 lessened, or its terms become more onerous, just in pro- 
 portion as delay in its completion is experienced or ex- 
 pected. Book accounts are subject also to this disadvantage 
 as compared with other forms of credit, that their number 
 and amount as against any person are less likely to become 
 publicly known, and therefore he is more likely to be trusted 
 in this form by others beyond the point of his solvency and 
 their safety. 
 
422 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 2. Promissory Notes on interest. These are issued Dy in- 
 dividuals, corporations, and nations. If the principal be 
 deemed secure, that is, if there be a thorough trust on the 
 part of the holder in the maker of the note, and if the in- 
 terest be promptly paid, the time of the payment of the 
 principal becomes a matter of comparative indifference, be- 
 cause the interest is compensation for delay, and is often 
 tlie motive on the part of the holder for rendering that ser- 
 vice of which the note is evidence. Indeed a long obliga- 
 tion is commonly preferred to a short one, and bears a 
 higher price. When a note is sold by the original holder 
 it becomes payable to the purchaser, or to each subsequent 
 purchaser in turn, and thus may run 'a devious round, may 
 play a part in many commercial transactions, may be set off 
 by the transient holder against a debt owed by him and thus 
 cancel that, and when itself is cancelled by ultimate set-off 
 or by any other mode of payment the last holder takes the 
 return for the service originally rendered by the first holder. 
 The promissory notes of individuals are frequently discount- 
 ed by banks in a manner to be presently explained. These 
 are always for short times, and are debts bought by banks 
 on the personal security of the names upon the notes. The 
 notes are founded on the relation of debtor and creditor, 
 which is always a personal relation, and so differ in their 
 nature from a mortgage, which is a qualified title to a specific 
 piece of property-, usually real estate. A note secured by a 
 mortgage is, as it were, absorbed into the mortgage, and be- 
 comes another thing from a common promissory note, or 
 commercial paper, as it is called. A mortgage rests there- 
 fore on other grounds than a commercial trust in .the good 
 faith of a person. 
 
 Corporations also issue promissory notes, and as such 
 issuers become moral persons entitled to confidence accord- 
 ing to the character and purposes of the individual corpora- 
 tors and the financial means and methods of the corporation, 
 llieir short notes are often discounted by bankers on the 
 
CBEDIT. 423 
 
 same ground as the notes of individuals are discounted ; and 
 their long-time obligations, commonly called Bonds, are 
 bought and sold in the market like commodities. Most 
 railroad bonds, of which immense quantities are in the 
 markets of the world, rest back also for their security upon 
 moi'tgages of the real estate of the corporations made over to 
 the holders of the bonds, and thus differ from income bonds 
 for whose payment the net income of the corporations is spe- 
 cially pledged, and differ still more from simple bonds resting 
 on personal security only. Certificates of Stock in corpora- 
 tions are not credit documents at all, but are mere evidences 
 of ownership, and are in that respect like deeds to land. 
 
 States and Nations are moral persons, and as such issue 
 promissory notes on interest, commonly called in this coun- 
 try bonds and in Great Britain funds and in some countries 
 stocks. These are pure credit. Nations give no mortgages. 
 Yet they often borrow at a less rate of interest than individ- 
 uals or corporations, as is seen in the fact that British con- 
 sols bear but 3 % (though they have rarely sold at full par) , 
 and in the fact that United States bonds at 3 % were worth a 
 premium in 1882. The United States borrowed of its own 
 citizens in 1862-65, both inclusive, about $2,500,000,000 on 
 bonds at different rates of interest and at different times of 
 repayment : some bore gold interest at 6 % , government 
 reserving the right to pay the principal five years and pledg- 
 ing itself to pay it twenty years from date, and so these 
 were called ' ' Five-twenties ; ' ' others bore gold interest at 
 5%, becoming payable at ten and demandable at forty 
 years, and so were called "Ten-forties;" and still others 
 bore greenback interest at 7^^^%, the principal payable in 
 greenbacks at three years, or fundable in gold sixes, at the 
 option of the holders, and these were named " Seven-thir- 
 ties." Over $90,000,000 of this last kind of bonds were 
 subscribed for by the American people in the course of a 
 single week in the spring of 1865. The whole of our national 
 debt issued prior to 1865 was made payable on a day cer- 
 
424 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tain ; the so-called consols of 1865 and 1867 and 1868 were 
 pa^-able not more than forty years from date ; while all the 
 bonds authorized from 1870 to 1882 were Consols proper, 
 whose peculiarity is, that they never fall due so as to be- 
 come a claim for the principal against the government, but 
 after a day fixed or on a condition fixed are pa3^able ' ' at the 
 pleasure of the United States." The term " consols" is a 
 contraction of "consolidated annuities," the act to create 
 which at 3% out of a confused mass of public debts passed 
 the English Parliament in 1757. 
 
 The separate States of our Union issue their own bonds 
 for various purposes, the partial or entire repudiation of which 
 at different times on the part of several of the States has 
 justly damaged their credit, and even the good name of the 
 whole people of the United States. 
 
 3. Bank Bills. These are a form of promissory notes not 
 on interest, and thus differ from the notes of ordinary cor- 
 porations , but the bank offers, as a sort of compensation 
 for the privilege of circulating notes not on interest, to 
 convert them into coin on demand of any holder. It is this 
 proffered convertibility into coin that enables the promissory 
 notes of a bank to circulate as money, while the notes of 
 other corporations and individuals equally solid and solvent 
 do not cu"culate as money. It must be borne in mind, how- 
 ever, that the offer to convert them into cash does not essen- 
 tially alter the nature of bank-notes ; they are a form of 
 credit ; and although they are commonly issued against 
 another form of credit, namely, against the interest-bearing 
 notes of individuals who resort to the bank for discount, 
 this only complicates the exchange without changing its 
 nature. It is an instance of exchanging one form of credit 
 for another which happens to have a greater currency or 
 validity than the first, and for this superiority of the bank 
 credit the individual credit pays an interest, in other words, 
 is discounted ; and such exchanges of one form of paper 
 credit for another with or without a premium, may go on 
 
CREDIT. 425 
 
 indefinitely ; as credit money, such paper may serve as a 
 medium in many exchanges ; but ultimately, and before the 
 entire series of transactions is closed, such paper is to be 
 redeemed in coin, or taken in b}' the banker in payment of 
 some debt due to him, in both which cases it is extinguished 
 as an instrument of credit. 
 
 The Bank of England keeps out in circulation on the aver- 
 age £25,000,000. It has been computed that the average 
 length of life of a Bank of England bill between issue and 
 redemption is about three days. The joint-stock and private 
 banks of England and Wales circulate besides rather more 
 than £4,000,000 of bills. No bank bill is legal in England 
 and Wales for less than £5. The ten Scotch banks and their 
 branches put out in bills about £5,000,000 on the average ; 
 six out of the nine Irish banks and their branches issue 
 perhaps twice as much as the Scotch banks ; and both are 
 allowed to put out £1 bills. The associated national banks 
 of the United States (no others can issue bills in this coun- 
 try) owed the people in that form $360,000,000 in 1882. 
 
 4. Bank Deposits. Here we must go carefully. We have 
 now come to the central function of Banking, and this is the 
 place to understand clearly both what a Bank is and who a 
 Banker is. The word " bank " meant originally a mass, an 
 accumulation, — as we still say, a sand-bank^ and the hanks 
 of a river. When first applied to commercial transactions, 
 the word had a somewhat different meaning from what it has 
 at present, although the idea of credit has inhered in it from 
 the first. In 1171, the Republic of Venice, being at war, 
 ordered a forced loan from its citizens, and agreed to pay 
 interest on it at 5%. Certificates were issued for the sums 
 paid in, and public commissioners were appointed to manage 
 the payment of the interest and the transfers of the certifi- 
 cates, which were made salable. The Italian word applied 
 to such a public loan is monte, but as the Germans were then 
 strong in Italy, the Teutonic equivalent bank came to be used 
 alongside of it and instead of it. It meant this common 
 
426 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 coDtribulicu to the wants of the state, represented by the 
 mass of certificates, and came to be applied also to the 2)?ace 
 where the commissioners paid the interest and transferred 
 the shares. Two other sucli loans were contracted after- 
 wards, and an English writer in 1646, quoted by Macleod, 
 speaks of the "three bankes of Venice," meaning these 
 three public debts, including the evidences of them and the 
 place where they were managed. 
 
 "We have already seen, that the Bank of England was an 
 incorporation of those persons willing to subscribe to a 
 public loan. In ten days the list of subscribers was fall. 
 £1,200,000 were advanced by them to the government, and 
 they received, besides the interest on their loan, certain privi- 
 leges as a CompanjT, on which they and their successors have 
 been operating ever since. This was the beginning of the 
 national debt of England ; and a new source of power revealed 
 itself in the discovery of the resources of the national credit ; 
 from that day to this all public loans are negotiated and 
 managed through the Bank of England ; and the legal name 
 of the British Funds is, " Bank Annuities." In one word, 
 the Bank of England is a debt, with certain other functions 
 connected with its management ; and secondarih', as before, 
 the building or place where its operations are conducted. Just 
 so, the first Bank of the United States was really an incor- 
 poration of persons who held the then new government stock. 
 Three-fourths of the subscription of individuals to the bank 
 stock must be in government stocks. Our Funding system 
 and our Banking system started together : Hamilton was the 
 author of both. Thus the word "bank" had originally no 
 connection with paper money, but only with the evidences 
 of a public debt ; the Bank of England had and has to do 
 with both these forms of credit ; before the Eevolutionary 
 war, the word meant in this country a batch of paper money 
 issued by a government or a corporation ; since Hamilton's 
 time, it has meant both other operations in credit and the 
 issuing of paper money ; while the present tendency of 
 
CREDIT. 427 
 
 language in this and other countries is to confine the word 
 "bank" to the buying and selling of credits other than 
 paper money. The whole historj^ of the word connects it 
 with credits, but not necessarily with credit-money. We are 
 now ready for definitions. 
 
 A Bank is an institution for the creation, management, 
 AND EXTINCTION OP CREDITS. Moucy of any kind plays a 
 very subordinate part in the general operation of banks, 
 which live and move and have their being in pure credits. 
 Consequently, Bankers are dealers iyi credits. As a merchant 
 is a buyer and seller of commodities, so a banker is a buyer 
 and seller of credits, buying, (1) some credits with other 
 credits, (2) some credits with money, and (3) money also 
 with credits. As merchants begin by laying in stocks of 
 goods of the kinds they purpose to deal in and oifering 
 them for sale, so bankers begin by bringing together money 
 and credits of their own in order to atti-act to themselves in 
 the way of buying and selling the money and credits of other 
 people. In order to deal successfully in credits the banker 
 must have credit, that is, he must have the reputation of hav- 
 ing property of his own, and of being an honest and careful 
 manager of his own affairs and of the affairs of others so 
 far as they are intrusted to him. Most bankers become 
 known owners of public stocks, and in many cases are re- 
 quired to own such stocks, and this gives them a kind of 
 credit scarcely to be reached b}^ the ownership of ordinary 
 property. Thus, the Bank of England holds £15,000,000 
 of public securities ; and each one of the national banks of 
 this country is required to own not less than 630,000 of its 
 capital stock in the bonds of the United States, though no 
 bank is now required to hold more than $50,000 in this 
 form. Each of these banks must also have a paid-up capital 
 of not less than $100,000, and in cities of 50,000 people 
 their capital must not be less than $200,000 each, except 
 that in places having less than 6,000 inhabitants banks with 
 not less than $50,000 capital may be organized at the discre- 
 
428 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tioti of the Secretary of the Treasury. The mahi puipose 
 of all this is to secure strong oi'ganizatious fitted to ch-avv 
 the conlideuce of the communities in which they arc placed 
 and to attract the Deposits of the people to the banks. 
 
 Now, as was just said, the ceutral function in banking is 
 for the banker to receive his customer's money and credits 
 becoming due, and to render in return for these a credit, 
 that is, a right to demand from him an equal sum at a future 
 time. The evidence of this right is entered on the banker's 
 books, and thus becomes a Deposit. The ownership of the 
 money and of the credits deposited passes over completely 
 from the customer to the banker. The latter has the right to 
 do just what he pleases with them ; only his entry of the trans- 
 action in his books is a virtual promise to pay that amount 
 on demand to the customer, and he must be ready to respond 
 to his customer's call, whenever the latter demands, not his 
 own money, but so much of his banker's money. A deposit, 
 therefore, is not the thing deposited, but a credit. It is the 
 depositor's property and the banker's promise. It is in this 
 way that a banker buys money with credit. The motive that 
 leads the customer to intrust his money to the banker is the 
 desire, not to have that specific money kept safety, but to have 
 the right to call on the banker for such sums (not to exceed 
 the deposit in the aggregate) and at such times as may suit 
 his own convenience. He has such confidence in the integrity 
 and solvency of the banker, and finds it so practically con- 
 venient to have dealings with him, that he prefers a credit on 
 him for the amount to the possession of the money itself. 
 The motive of the banker to receive his customers' funds on 
 these terms is the fact that he can safely use a large portion 
 of these funds in other operations in credit profitable to him- 
 self, and at the same time be sure of being able to meet his 
 customers' calls for money. He finds by experience that 
 many of his customers wish always to have a balance in his 
 hands ; that while some of them are constantly drawing on 
 bim for cash, others of them are as constantly depositing 
 
CREDIT. 429 
 
 with him in cash, and that consequontly he can use with 
 safety a part of the money he has purchased with his credit 
 to purchase other credits with. 
 
 Deposit-l)aukiug, accordingly, is not only convenient and 
 safe for the depositor, but also profitable for the banker, and 
 also a great gain for the community at large ; inasmuch as a 
 new capital has been thereby created, new values which could 
 not otherwise have existed at all. Were there no deposit- 
 bank, every man now a customer of it would keep his own 
 reserves by himself for contingencies : now these reserves 
 are all aggregated in the bank, and the banker finds that he 
 can use, say two-thirds of the whole, and still answer every 
 customer's call. It is abstractly possible that a banker might 
 be called upon to pay all his deposit-liabilities at once, which 
 would break him of course ; so it is abstractly possiljle that 
 all the lives insured in a Life Insurance Company might ter- 
 minate in one day, in which case no company in the world 
 could meet its obligations ; and so it is abstractly possible 
 that all the houses insured in a Fire Insurance Company 
 might be burned up in a single night, which would cause the 
 collapse of the soundest company ; but in all these cases of 
 possibility, there is a certainty that the possibility will not 
 become a fact. If a banker misjudges for his locality the 
 ratio of reserves to deposits, he must sell some of the securi- 
 ties bought with the excess, or borrow money on them. 
 
 Surprisingly large is the amount of bank deposits in the 
 leading commercial nations of the world. The average pub- 
 lic and private deposits of the Bank of England, on which 
 no interest is paid by the Bank, reaches about £10,000,000. 
 The ten joint-stock banks of London have about £80,000,000 
 in private deposits, of which those to remain some time take 
 an interest, but those lodged on current accounts and on call 
 take none. Scotland has carried deposit-banking further and 
 to greater advantage than any other country in the world. 
 There are now no private banks, but the ten joint-stock 
 banks with their numerous branches scattered to every vil' 
 
430 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 lage in the laud hold about £70,000,000 in constant deposit, 
 on which interest is allowed, and the habit of keeping one's 
 account with a banker is universal with the people. No one 
 thinks of keeping money to any amount in his house or about 
 his person, and consequently house-breaking and highway 
 robbery have almost ceased. Bankers even attend all the 
 great fairs to receive deposits and pay checks. Credit both 
 in this form and in another soon to be described treads its 
 utmost verge in Scotland. Although the custom of keeping 
 deposits with bankers and drawing checks against them has 
 not gone nearly so far in this country as in Scotland, yet the 
 aggregate of individual deposits in the national banks alone, 
 Oct. 1, 1881, was $1,070,997,531 (Knox). It is evident, 
 that wherever deposit-banking prevails, and to the degree in 
 which it prevails, less money is required to effect the exchanges 
 of the people. 
 
 5. Bank Discounts. The paper that is discounted by 
 bankers may be either the promissory notes already charac- 
 terized, or the bills of exchange soon to be characterized, 
 but the function of discount is so peculiar that the paper 
 subjected to it must be separately enumerated in a classifi- 
 cation of the instruments of credit. The discounting of 
 paper is the second essential function of banking ; and it is 
 more in accordance with genuine banJdng to pass the price 
 of the paper to the seller's credit in the form of a deposit, 
 that is, to buy one credit by creating another, than to pay 
 the money over at once, and thus buy credits with money. 
 Those who do the latter are called in England bill-discount- 
 ers rather than bankers, but most of our bankers do both, 
 though there is a strong tendency towards the separation of 
 the two in this country also. Manufacturers and wholesale 
 merchants usually sell goods on time, as it is called, say 
 three months. A debt is thus created. The manuf actu rei . 
 or wholesaler is creditor and the jobber or retailer is debtor. 
 But a debt is property ; and the creditor in this case wishes 
 to avail himself of his property at once for further produc- 
 
CREDIT. 431 
 
 tion ; so he either takes a note from his debtor, or draws a 
 bill upon him, aud this pieee of property is ready for sale. 
 The bauker buys it, that is to say, the creditor passes over 
 to him the right to demand payment of the debtor at the end 
 of tliree months, and receives from the banker either money 
 or so much of the banker's credit, that is, a deposit in the 
 creditor's favor on the banker's books. For furnishing this 
 creditor either with ready money or a more available credit 
 in lieu of his mercantile paper, the bauker charges a percent- 
 age. This is DISCOUNT. Discount is the difference between 
 the face and the price of the paper. This is the chief source 
 of profit in ordinary banking. When the paper matures, the 
 banker realizes from the debtor its full face. The following 
 is the form of a bankable note : — 
 
 ^^>^^' NoKTH Adams, Mass., Nov. 10, 1882. 
 
 Three months after date I promise to pay to the order of 
 
 Joshua Swan, one thousand dollars, payable at the Adams 
 
 National Bank, value received. 
 
 LEANDER ALLEN. 
 Due Feb. ^"/is- 
 
 Swan may put his name on the back of this note, and 
 then it is discounted on the strength of the two names, 
 Allen and Swan. It is expected that Allen will pay the 
 note to the bank when due ; but if he does not, then Swan 
 is bound for the amount. Two names are almost always, 
 not always, requisite to an acceptable note for discount ; 
 and more names merely strengthen the note, since it is dis- 
 counted on the combined validity of all the names upon it. 
 The chief advantage in Discount is, that it tends to make 
 all capital active and thus productive. It enables the banks 
 to sell their credit and make a gain, or to use a part of their 
 money deposits to buy mercantile paper with and get an 
 
432 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 interest ; it enables the dealers in commodities to realize at 
 once on what they have sold on time minus the discount ; 
 and by means ol" accommodation notes or bills, which only 
 differ from others in that there is no actual debt between the 
 parties, some men may swell the volume of their business 
 temporarily. The discount line of the 2,132 national banks 
 Oct. 1, 1881, was $1,1G9, 022,303 (Knox). Bankers have 
 not always credit enough or money of depositors enough to 
 buy in either mode all the mercantile paper that is offered, in 
 which case, they raise the rate of discount unless the law for- 
 bids, or accommodate regular customers and depositors first, 
 or buy of all who are " good " a certain proportion only 
 
 It is thus in part through the purchase of discountable 
 notes for money that banks derive their character as money- 
 lenders. Also, such reserve sums as they do not wish to 
 invest in negotiable paper, on account of the time involved 
 before such paper matures, banks frequently loan on call to 
 those who have salable collateral securities to pledge. So 
 far forth they become direct money-lenders. The following 
 is the form of such pledge : — 
 
 *^'O0O. Troy, N.Y., Nov. 10, 1882. 
 
 On demand we promise to pay to the Bank op Tkoy, or 
 order, five thousand dollars, for value received, with interest at 
 the rate of six per cent per annum, having deposited with said 
 bank, as collateral security, with authority to sell the same, at the 
 Brokers' Board, or at public or private sale, or otherwise at said 
 bank's option, on the non-performance of this promise, and with- 
 out notice, — 
 
 10 shares N. Y. Central, 
 
 55 do. Mich. Southern. 
 
 JOHN SMITH & CO. 
 
 6. Bills of Exchange. So far we have been looking a.t 
 promises to pay, and will now look at orders to pay, but 
 there is practically very little difference between them. A 
 bill of exchange is a written instrument designed to secure 
 
CREDIT. 433 
 
 the payment of a distant debt without the transmission of 
 money, being in effect a setting off or exchange of one debt 
 against anotlier. Thus, suppose A in Boston owes B in 
 New York $1,000, and anotlier party, C in New York, owes 
 A in Boston a like sum ; it is not necessary that A should 
 send tlie money to B to cancel his debt, and C send the 
 money to A for a like purpose ; the two debts, by means of 
 a bill of exchange, are set off against each other, and both 
 transactions are closed without sending any money from one 
 city to the other. A draws a bill upon C, directing him to 
 pay B $1,000, and sends this bill to B, who, if the bill be 
 drawn on sight, presents it to C for payment ; if on time, 
 presents it to C for acceptance, who then pays it at maturity. 
 An acceptance is written upon the face of a bill, as an 
 indorsement is upon its back. A is called the drawer of 
 the bill, C the drawee until he has accepted, and then the 
 acceptor, and B is the payee. It is not often that the same 
 person, as A, happens to owe another person in a distant 
 place, as B, exactly the same sum as is owed him in that 
 place by a third person, as C ; but by two bills of exchange, 
 one drawn by each creditor on his own debtor, and then set 
 off against the other, substantially the same advantage is 
 reached as if it always happened so. Nearly all these bills 
 come into banks in the way of ordinary business, either for 
 discount or collection, and are adjusted through bank bal- 
 ances. The following is the form of an inland bill of 
 exchange : — 
 
 $3,000. 
 
 PiTTSFiELD, Mass., 
 
 Oct. 1 
 
 , 1882. 
 
 Four months after date pay to the order 
 
 of Jol 
 
 n Kent 
 
 three thousand dollars, 
 
 value received, and charge the same to 
 
 account of 
 
 
 
 
 
 DAN STORRS 
 
 & CO. 
 
 To Eli Tkipp, Boston 
 
 , Mass. 
 
 
 
434 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 In this case, Kent may indorse, wtiich is a sign that he 
 sells his right in the bill ; Tripp accepts, which is a pledge 
 that he will pay the sum to the holder when the bill is due ; 
 and the banker or other buyer steps into all the original 
 right of Kent, whose claim lay against Storrs & Co. and 
 Tripp. The drawer of a bill is always creditor, the acceptor 
 is always debtor, and the payee again is creditor. A bill of 
 exchange is the formal sale of a debt. The claimant passes 
 over for value received his claim on a second person to a 
 third person, who thus becomes for the time being owner of 
 the debt. lie can indorse this claim over to a fourth per- 
 son, or by an indorsement in blank, as it is called, that is, 
 by merely writing his name upon the back of the bill, he can 
 make it payable to bearer. If time bills are discounted, it is 
 on the joint credit of drawer and acceptor. Besides their 
 convenience in settling debts between distant places without 
 the costly transmission of money, and besides their useful 
 function of enabling a debt due from one person to avail 
 the creditor for obtaining credit from a third person in dis- 
 count, it is plain, that the common use of bills of exchange 
 in all their forms releases from use large amounts of money 
 that would otherwise be needful in trade. The less money 
 in use the better, because, if coin, it costs much to mint 
 and maintain it, and if paper, it is didlcult to make and sus- 
 tain it. Bankers sometimes charge what they call " ex- 
 change " for settling debts between distant places in the 
 same country, when one place, say Chicago, draws more 
 bills on another place, say New York, than suffice to cancel 
 the bills drawn at that time by New York on Chicago ; the 
 point at which the larger indebtedness- lies is the point for 
 sending drafts to which banks naturally charge a percentage ; 
 this is the principle working all tlio tune in inland exchange, 
 as we shall see in a moment that it works in foreign ex- 
 change also ; but there is a principle counterworking this 
 and often neutralizing it entirely, namely, that the chief 
 settling place and commercial centre of a country, as New 
 
CREDIT. 435 
 
 York, draws towards itself from the whole circuit with such 
 force, everybody wanting a balance there and having occa- 
 sion to send funds thither, that drafts on such a place are 
 apt to bear a premium without reference to its comparative 
 indebtedness at the time. 
 
 Very similar to these inland bills in their general course 
 and usefulness are foreign bills of exchange, which, as an 
 important topic, we must now study with care. Commercial 
 relations between two countries, say for example, France 
 and England, always give rise to a mutual indebtedness of 
 their merchants, and if these debts were all to be paid by the 
 actual sending of money to and from, there would have to 
 be a constant and expensive outward and inward flow of the 
 precious metals in respect to each country, which necessity 
 is neatly obviated by the use of bills of exchange, and coin 
 is only transmitted to settle the balances on whichever side 
 there is an excess of debt. French dealers are always send- 
 ing goods to England, and English dealers goods to France ; 
 and for what they send to England the French merchants draw 
 bills on the parties to whom the goods are consigned, and 
 the English merchants draw similar bills on their debtors in 
 France ; these bills are bought up by bankers or brokers 
 «i either country, and exposed again for sale to any parties 
 who may have debts to pay in the other country. Thus bills 
 on London, in other words, on English debtors, are always 
 for sale in France ; and bills on France, that is, on French 
 debtors, are always for sale in London ; the mutual debtors 
 of the two countries, therefore, instead of sending coin to 
 cancel their debts, buy and transmit these bills. 
 
 Suppose Pieri'e & Co., of Paris, send a cargo of wine to 
 Barclay & Co., of London, worth £5,000 in English money; 
 the London firm thereby becomes indebted to the Paris firm 
 to that amount, and Pierre & Co. draw a bill in francs on 
 Barclay & Co. for the equivalent of £5,000 ; if they them- 
 selves have no debt to pay in London, they sell this bill to a 
 Paris broker (if the exchange be then at par) for its face, 
 
436 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 minus interest for the time it has to run ; and this broker ia 
 now ready to sell the bill again to anybody in Paris who has 
 a debt to pay in London ; and the person in London who 
 receives it in liquidation of a French debt to him, presents 
 it at maturity to Barclay & Co. for payment. A bill drawn 
 in London for a cargo of hardware sent to Paris, is similarly 
 negotiated with a London broker, and finds its way similarly 
 to France, in payment of some English debt, and ends its 
 career when it reaches the French firm on which it was origi- 
 nally drawn. "We are now in position to understand clearly 
 what is meant by the par of exchange. The merchants in 
 Paris, who have debts due to them in London, draw bills 
 of exchange for the amount of these debts, and, through the 
 agenc}^ of middlemen or brokers, go into the market to sell 
 these bills to other Paris merchants who have debts to pay 
 in London. If the former class have a larger amount to sell 
 than the latter have occasion to buy, in other words, if there 
 be a larger amount of debts due from London to Paris, than 
 from Paris to London, then the competition of the sellers 
 of bills on London will lower their price somewhat in the 
 market, in order, as usual, that the supply and demand may 
 be equalized. In this case the par of exchange is disturbed, 
 a bill on London for £100 may not sell for over £99, and 
 the exchange is then said to be 1% against London, or, 
 which is the same thing, 1 % in favor of Paris. 
 
 The par of exchange, therefore, between two countries, 
 depends on the substantial equality of their mutual debts ; 
 and if an exchange ^'- against^' either continue long, and 
 especially if the premium on its bills drawn be sufficient to 
 cover the charges of the transmission of specie, gold will 
 begin to flow from the country against which the exchange has 
 turned, and the equilibrium of payments, and hence the par 
 of exchange, will be restored. Also, the par tends to restore 
 itself, without the sending of specie, in this way : if bills on 
 London are at a discount in Paris, for the same reason that 
 they are so will bills on Paris be at a premium in London, 
 
CREDIT. 437 
 
 and therefore there will be a direct encouragement to the 
 extent of the premium for exportations from England to 
 France, because on every cargo sent bills can be drawn and 
 sold in London for a premium ; but the more bills on Paris 
 thus offered, the more the premium disappears, and the par of 
 exchange is restored so soon as the debts thus contracted by 
 France are equal to the debts due her from England. At the 
 same time, and so long as the discount on London bills con- 
 tinues, there is a discouragement to further exportations from 
 France to England, because the bills drawn in virtue of such 
 cargoes can onl}' be sold below par. Here is another instance 
 of a magnificently comprehensive law by which Nature vin- 
 dicates her right to reign in the domain of exchange. It is 
 through this law, stimulating exportations on the one side, 
 and slackening them on the other, that most of the casual 
 disturbances of the par of exchange are rectified ; but if, 
 notwithstanding this, the disturbance continues obstinate, it 
 indicates one of two things as true of the country against 
 which the exchange has turned : it has either made over- 
 purchases of the other country beyond the power of its ordi- 
 nary exports to cancel, or the money in which the bills drawn 
 on it are liable to be paid is an inferior money. In the first 
 case, the only proper remedy is an export of gold to pay off 
 the old scores, and a more prudent method of purchasing in 
 the future ; in the second case, which is well exemplified in the 
 instance of Amsterdam, cited in a preceding chapter, the 
 remedy is to raise the money to the standard of the best. 
 
 This leads us to sa}^, that the term '•'"par of exchcmge " is 
 also used in another and subordinate sense, namely, as de- 
 noting the relative vahie of the coin of one nation in the 
 coin of another. Thus, our present dollar contains 23.22 
 grains of pure gold; the English pound contains 113.001 
 grains ; consequently, there are $4.8665 to the £, and this 
 is the "par of exchange," so far as money is concerned, 
 between the United States and Great Britain. For the same 
 reason, the "par of exchange" between the United States 
 
438 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and France is $1 to 5 francs and 18 centimes (very nearly), 
 The franc is a little more than 19 -J cents. Now, if a com- 
 mercial bill drawn on Loudon sells in New York for $4.86 to 
 the pound sterling, minus interest for the time it has to run, 
 exchange is said to be at par ; if it sells for more than that, 
 exchange is said to be against us ; and if it sells for less 
 than that, exchange is said to be in owv favor. 
 
 These technical terms, "against" and in "favor," are 
 quite misleading unless one remembers their origin and their 
 exact meaning. The old Mercantile System, in order to 
 keep and heap gold and silver in the countr}^ encouraged 
 exports in every way and discouraged imports, that the 
 "balance of trade," that is, the difference of volume between 
 exports and imports, might come back in gold and silver ; and 
 this foolish and now exploded notion gave rise to the terms 
 in question : exchanges were said to be " against " a country 
 when the bills drawn on its exports were above par, as imply- 
 ing that the exports were too great for a " balance," and 
 were said to be " in favor " of a country when its bills were 
 below par, as implying more exports and a favorable balance. 
 As a matter of fact, very little, if any thing, can be inferred 
 as to the prosperity of a country from the state of its tech- 
 nical "exchanges;" one cannot tell at all, that exchanges 
 "in favor" will bring in an influx of gold, because, while 
 these indicate a present export of goods larger than the 
 import of goods, the excess may be a.ppliecl otlierioise than in 
 huying gold, as for instance, in paying interest on debts held 
 abroad or in paying freights to foreigners ; for example, the 
 exchanges were in favor of the United States in 1874-77, 
 there being an apparent trade balance of $164,000,000 in 
 1877 and a still larger in 1876 and a large one in the two 
 years preceding, but the import of specie was small in all 
 those years, averaging about $25,000,000 a year, and the 
 rest of the excess of exports went to pay foreign interest, 
 freights both ways, and so on. No one has ever shown, or 
 can show, that gold is any better in general as a return for 
 
CREDIT. 439 
 
 a balance than other commodities ; gold-producing countries, 
 and countries into which gold has flowed in excess so as to 
 carry up prices, find bullion their most advantageous export ' 
 and often also the imports for which a nation pays in gold, 
 or in bills above par, are bought with high profit. Exchanges 
 are apt to rule "in favor" of countries, like the United 
 States, whose national. State, or corporation bonds are 
 largely held by foreigners, because both interest and princi- 
 pal must sooner or later be remitted in exports, and whose 
 public policy is I'estrictive of imports whether of goods or 
 ships through what is falsely called ' ' protection ; ' ' and 
 exchanges, were there no counterworking principle, would 
 be "against" capitalist and hence creditor countries, like 
 Great Britain, whose imports are apt to be strongly in excess 
 of exports, and whose public polic}^ is wise enough to put 
 no obstacles in the way of the free receipt of the former. 
 
 This counterworking principle, already illustrated in the 
 case of New York, is best seen in connection with London, 
 which is the settling-place of the world's commerce. When 
 the Romans dredged the Thames and made " the pool " just 
 below London Bridge, they took the first steps towards mak- 
 ing that town a commercial centre ; a market for products 
 is products in market, and the busy exchange of commodities 
 there quickened in every age the accumulation of capital and 
 the increase of population ; about 100 vessels now enter the 
 port of London every day, which receives about one-half of 
 the total customs revenue of the United Kingdom and sends 
 out about one-fourth of its exports ; the business of out- 
 of-way and semi-civilized countries has somehow centred 
 there, as well as the business of original British colonies and 
 all other commercial nations ; accordingly, debtoi's and credit- 
 ors abound there, bills of exchange concentre there, and debts 
 due everywhere are payable there; and therefore, because 
 bills on London are good all over the world, the demand for 
 them counterworks the natural cheapness of the bills drawn 
 on exports thither as compared with the natural dearuess of 
 
440 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the bills drawn there on exports thence. Another thing must 
 be borne in mind in comparing the merchandise accounts of 
 any country, namely, that when the " exchange " is sufficient 
 to cover the cost and risk of the transmission of gold, that 
 is likely to go freely from the country " against " which the 
 exchanges have turned, and bills will be drawn upon that, as 
 upon common merchandise, and sold for a premium ; or, if 
 a decidedly higher rate of discount prevail in a neighboring 
 land, gold will go out thither from lower-rate lands, because 
 lenders in the latter will wish to realize the higher rate of 
 interest, and bills will be di-awn on this gold as well, but the 
 home bankers can always stop a drain of this kind by raising 
 their own rates of discount. 
 
 This casual mention of bankers leads on to the weighty 
 point, that the whole business of foreign exchange is falling 
 more and more into the hands of the bankers, because bills 
 drawn by and upon well-known bankers naturally have a 
 better credit than ordinary commercial bills the names upon 
 which are less widely and favorably known. Accordingly, 
 persons sending cargoes of cotton, say, or of any other 
 valuables, from New York to Liverpool, arrange with their 
 bankers in New York to have the proceeds of the cargoes 
 put to the hankers' credit in London, and then these bankers 
 di'aw bills on the London bankers, which will bring a higher 
 price in New York than a common commercial bill, because 
 many remitters and most travellers prefer bankers' bills, 
 which, though they cost more, pay better and buy better 
 abroad. Commercial bills are still bought and sold in every 
 commercial town, but bankers' bills are more and more tak- 
 ing their place ; and the quotations usually give the current 
 price of each. London is so prominent as the settling-place 
 of the world's transactions by means of bills di'awn on and 
 by London bankers, partly on account of the commercial 
 prominence of England, partly from excellent banking cus- 
 toms there, and mainly because an immense mass of cheap 
 loanable capital exists there, which even foreigners may 
 
CBEBIT. 441 
 
 borrow at London rates, provided only that they can get 
 credit there, that is, leave to draw on a London banker, to 
 whom of course remittances must be made as fast as he 
 accepts their bills. Besides, the Bank of England, as the 
 principal bank in Great Britain, and as closely connected 
 with the government, acts as a bank of support to the 
 public and private credit of that country. It does a regular 
 business as a bank of deposits and discounts, but it means 
 to keep its rate of discount above the rate demanded by 
 other bankers in London, so as not to come into competition 
 with them much in their ordinary business, and be able to 
 act as a bank of support to them and all others in times of 
 pressure. All banks have about so much credit to sell, and 
 no more ; most banks sell in ordinary times about all the 
 credit they have ; but if the Bank of England did this, it 
 would be useless in times of panic. In fact, it begins to sell 
 its reserve ci-edit, when the credit of the bankers below is 
 exhausted. When they are at the end of their rope, there 
 is generally an abundance of slack rope still in the great 
 institution above. Now, as gold can be drawn out of the 
 Bank of England by the cheques of depositors as well as by 
 the presentation of notes for redemption, the rate of dis- 
 count becomes a matter of prime importance in the practical 
 management of the Bank. The whole line of deposits is a 
 line of liabilities to pay out gold, if the depositors demand 
 it ; and, as deposits come largely through discounts, when- 
 ever there is a strong tendency to draw out gold so as to 
 weaken the reserves of the bank, the directors have an 
 effectual remedy in raising the rate of discount. The higher 
 t]iQ price the bank charges for its credit, the fewer, so far 
 forth, wUl be its customers, and the smaller its line of 
 deposits, and the less lUvely a continuous drain of gold from 
 its vaults. The Bank of England is managed throughout by 
 so simple a matter as the turning back and forth of this 
 magic screw of discount. 
 
 The antiquit}' of banks and bills of exchange is verj 
 
442 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 great. There are Babylonian tablets in the Metropolitan 
 Museum of Art in New York, dated variously from 601 to 
 505 B.C., many of them in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 bearing distinct records of transactions in credit-banking. 
 One of them is an account of a loan of money, having 79 
 days to run, with a penal clause in case of non-fulfilment. 
 Another states the exact amount of interest to be given for 
 the use of the money. Some are obligations payable to 
 a third party, and others with a guaranty to a third person. 
 Still others were regular bills of exchange, that is, drafts 
 drawn in one place and payable in another. These were 
 evidently negotiable, but from the nature of the case could 
 not pass by indorsement, because nothing new could be 
 added when the clay tablets were once baked, and conse- 
 quently the name of the payee is often omitted. The names 
 of three or four witnesses usually accompany each docu- 
 ment. It is reasonably supposed, that Egibi & Co., Baby- 
 lonian bankers, were the first to distinguish themselves as 
 such in the ancient world, as the Rothschilds have done in 
 the modern world ; because, burnt clay documents in the 
 British Museum, and some of those In the New York 
 Museum, trace this family in banking transactions during 
 a century and a half from the time of Sennacherib to the 
 reign of Darius.-^ The West was quick to catch the modes 
 of the East : Isocrates in his plea against the banker Pasion 
 describes a formal bill of exchange bought by Stratocles in 
 Athens, payable in Pontus, and guaranteed principal and 
 interest by Pasion; Cicero writes to Atticus, "Let me 
 know, if the. money my son needs at Athens can be sent 
 him by way of exchange or if it be necessary for it to be 
 taken to him, — peronutarine possit an ipsi ferendum sit;" 
 and Jews and Lombards carried the letter of credit over the 
 world. 
 
 7. Cheques. These are indeed in substance bills of ex- 
 change, but the two have such differing legal incidents, and 
 
 1 See for particulirs Article Bank in Lib. Univer. Knowledge, vol. ii. 
 
CREDIT. 443 
 
 run so different a course towards extinguishment, that 
 che(|ues ma}' properly be put under a separate head. 
 Cheques are drawn at sight on a banker, who thus becomes 
 a drawee, a depositor with that banker is the drawer, and 
 a person named in the cheque is the payee, who can indorse 
 his right over to another or to bearer in blank. When a 
 bill is drawn in this way by one hanker upon another, it is 
 usually called in this country a draft. Formerly in Eng- 
 land, and in other countries as well, every considerable 
 dealer kept his strong box, and when he had occasion to 
 make payments, told down the solid cash upon his own 
 counter. Afterwards, the goldsmiths of London solicited 
 the honor of keeping in their vaults the spare cash of the 
 merchants, who in their payments among one another came 
 to employ cheques drawn on the goldsmiths, and at the shops 
 of the latter the principal payments in coin were effected. 
 The later introduction of banks brought along with it the 
 custom, now continuallj^ widening in commercial countries 
 among all classes of people, of keeping one's funds with a 
 banker, and making payments by orders, or cheques, upon 
 him. When the person making the payment and the person 
 receiving it keep their money with the same banker, there is 
 no need of auy money passing at all in the premises, the 
 sum being merely transferred" in the banker's books from 
 the credit of the payer to that of the receiver. The banker 
 is quite willing to do this business for nothing, and even 
 sometimes to allow the depositors a low rate of interest on 
 all balances remaining in his hands, in consideration of the 
 privilege he enjoys of loaning such proportion of the sums 
 as he deems safe to other parties at a higher rate of interest. 
 In the large cities, by an arrangement called "the clearing- 
 house," substantially the same benefits are secured as if all 
 the people of the city kept their cash at the same bank ; in- 
 asmuch as all the cheques drawn on each of the different 
 banks, and passing in the course of the business day into 
 other banks, are assorted before evening at the clearing'- 
 
444 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 house, and set off as far as possible against each other, 
 leaving only balances to be adjusted in money. 
 
 The London Bankers' Clearing-house was established in 
 1775 ; in 1864, the Bank of England was admitted to it ; and 
 since then, the clearing-house itself, and all the bankers 
 and firms using it, keep accounts with the Bank of England, 
 and the balances formerly settled by money, are now settled 
 by simple transfers of account on the books of that great 
 bank. This carries out the principle of the clearing further 
 than it has yet been carried in this country, although the 
 United States sub-treasury has lately joined the New York 
 clearing-house, but the practical details of the clearing are 
 simpler and better in New York than in London. The 
 average clearings in the London Bankers' Clearing-house, 
 1875-80, were £5,218,000,000 a year, and the amounts 
 cleared frequently rose to £20,000,000 a day, which, if paid 
 in gold coin, would weigh about 157 tons and require about 80 
 horses to carry it, and if in silver coin would weigh more than 
 2,500 tons and requke 1,275 horses (Jevons). There are 
 besides many other clearing-houses in Great Britain. Of 
 the total business of the 23 clearing-houses in the United 
 States in 1880, namely, over $50,000,000,000, the New 
 York house did 65 "^ , and the average daily clearings there 
 for the fiscal year 1879 were $76,167,983. 
 
 We will describe mainly from observation the New York 
 Clearing-house, which was established in 1853, and premise 
 that the principle is the same, though the details may be 
 different, in all other clearing-houses. Business men in New 
 York usually pass in to their bankers as a deposit all the 
 cheques they have received in the course of a business day. 
 It is the custom for each man to draw his own cheque 
 on his banker to make payments with, and to pass in the 
 cheques he receives to his banker. There are fifty-nine 
 clearing-banks in New York city. Each of these banks 
 sorts out every day the cheques it has received drawn on 
 each of the other banks into separate parcels ready for the 
 
CREDIT. 445 
 
 clearing. Each bank has, therefore, to deliver fifty-eight 
 parcels, which represent the property of that bank, and are 
 a claim upon the other banks, and to receive fifty-eight par- 
 cels, which represent the property of other banks, and are a 
 claim upon it. Before ten o'clock in the morning fifty-nine 
 messengers, having each fifty-eight parcels to deliver, appear 
 at the clearing-house, each reporting at once to the manager 
 for record the amount of exchange he has brought, which is 
 entered of course as credit to his bank, and then all take 
 their positions in order in front of the fifty-nine desks, 
 behind which sit fifty-nine clerks, each representing one 
 of the banks. Each messenger stands opposite the desk of 
 his own bank, with his parcels already arranged in the exact 
 order of the bank-desks before him. Each clerk inside his 
 desk has a sheet containing the names of all the banks 
 arranged in the same order, with the amounts carried out 
 which his messenger has just brought. These are entered 
 in his credit column. Each messenger carries also a slip 
 ready to be delivered with each parcel to each clerk, on 
 which is entered the amount of exchange he now brings to 
 each bank. The amount brought to each bank is debit to 
 that bank, just as the amount brought by each bank is credit 
 to that bank. A signal from the manager, and each mes- 
 senger steps forward to the next desk, delivers his parcel 
 and also the slip that goes with it, which latter the clerk 
 signs with his initials and hands back to the messenger as 
 his voucher for the delivery ; and then each messenger ad- 
 vances to the next desk, — the whole cue moving in order, 
 — at which precisely the same things take place as before, 
 and so on, until the circuit of the room is made, and each 
 comes opposite again the desk of his own bank, having 
 passed to each its exchange and taken a receipt for each 
 delivery. This process takes about ten minutes ; when each 
 clerk, who had on his sheet to start with the credit due his 
 bank, has now the data to calculate the debit of his bank. 
 The difference between the total amount received and the 
 
446 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 total amount brought by his bank is the balance due to or 
 from the clearing-house as to that bank. All the clerks 
 report to the manager the amounts received, and as his 
 proof-sheet holds already the amounts brought, if the two 
 columns add up alike, no mistake has been made, and the 
 general clearing is over. Thirty-five minutes are allowed 
 the clerks to enter, report, and prove their work. Fines 
 are imposed for errors discovered after that time. The 
 clearing-house gives tickets of debit or credit to all the 
 banks, and the debit ones must pay in lawful money before 
 half-past one, and the credit ones will get their due from 
 the manager immediately after. The largest sum ever 
 cleared in New York in one day was Nov. 17, 1868, 
 $206,034,920.51, and the smallest sum Oct. 30, of the 
 panic year 1857, $8,357,394.82. 
 
 There has lately been instituted in England what is called 
 the cheque-bank, which is designed to bring the benefits of 
 the cheque-system more easily to all classes of the people.-^ 
 It is a stock company in London, which has entered into 
 relations with nearlj^ all the banks and bankers of the 
 United Kingdom, and with many colonial and foreign banks, 
 by which cheque-books are furnished for sale by the cheque- 
 bank, through these associated banks, which also agree to 
 cash the cheques, every cheque in which books indicates by 
 printed and indelible perforated notices upon the forms what 
 the utmost sum is against which that cheque can be drawn, 
 and the aggregate of these sums is the price of the book less 
 1 1-5 penny for each cheque in it, of which the penny is for 
 the government stamp and the one-fifth for the profits of the 
 cheque-bank. It is a security against fraud tliat each cheque 
 bears on its face the utmost sum for which it can be drawn ; 
 and as it is drawn to order and crossed, that is, only made 
 payable to a banker, it is dangerous to meddle with in a 
 fraudulent intent. The Crossed Cheques Act (1876) makes 
 
 1 See Jevons's Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, and Macleod's Econ 
 Phil., vol. ii., p. 511, ei seg. 
 
CBEBIT. 447 
 
 felony any obliteration of the crossing or alteration of a 
 cheque. Crossing is of two kinds, special and general. 
 Any particular banker's name written between the two trans- 
 verse lines, in which alone crossed cheques differ from 
 ordinary ones, makes that cheque payable by him only : 
 without the name, it is generally crossed, and is payable by 
 any banker. If the cheques be actually drawn for less than 
 the perforated sums, the bank will give additional cheques 
 for the balance ; or the persons to whom they are paid out, 
 if drawn for the full sum, may give back the change if the 
 debt thus paid be less than the full sum. Though drawn by 
 and payable to bankers, and thus to be settled ultimately 
 through the clearing-house, and not to be paid in money 
 though they have been paid for in money, any banker or 
 other person will give money for them because their ultimate 
 payment is sure. As all money received for cheque-books 
 is left in the hands of the bankers who sell them, or trans- 
 ferred to other bankers that they may meet the cheques as 
 presented, an interest is paid to the cheque-bank on the bal- 
 ance of deposits thus held, and this, together with the one- 
 fifth of a penny for each cheque, is the only source of profit 
 to the cheque-bank. These cheques have a more generalized 
 character than ordinary bank-cheques, they are safer than so 
 much money would be, they might, in some circumstances, 
 become money as much as bank-bills are, and there is no 
 difficulty in shopping or in paying wages by means of them. 
 The associated banks keep an account with the cheque-bank, 
 but are not obliged to keep a separate account with the pur- 
 chasers of cheque-books, which is a great relief. The cheque- 
 bank thus extends the use of cheques to a multitude of small 
 transactions, and relieves the other banks from what would 
 otherwise be a gi'eat deal of troublesome accounting. The 
 longer these cheques remain out before presentation the 
 more profitable to the cheque-bank, and their average life 
 has been heretofore about ten days. 
 
 8. Circular Letters of Credit. These are issued by bank- 
 
448 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ers to their foreign correspondents, ordering them to pay to 
 the person named in the letter such sums of money as may 
 suit his convenience, not to exceed in the aggregate the limit 
 mentioned in the letter itself. To travellers in foreign coun- 
 tries such a letter of credit is much more convenient than to 
 carry the money : because, in the first place, they can obtain 
 money on it in all the principal cities of the world in just such 
 sums as they need ; in the second place, they have to pay 
 for no more credit than they actually use ; in the third place, 
 the letter is available for no one else, and so is not liable to 
 be stolen, though it may be lost ; and in the fourth place, 
 the money need not be deposited with the banker at home 
 any faster than it is actually called for abroad. 
 
 9. Cash Credits. The Scotch banks have long practised 
 on a system that has proved extremely beneficial to Scotland, 
 namely, to create a drawing account in favor of a deserving 
 customer, who has no deposits in the bank, but who draws 
 out and pays in from time to time just as if he had, and in- 
 stead of receiving interest on the daily balance at his credit, 
 he pays interest on the daily balance at his debit. These 
 are called Cash Credits. Of course, only banks can furnish 
 them which have a superfluity of credit to sell, and they are 
 safe and useful only in communities in which men are well 
 known to each other. Some friends of the parties thus ac- 
 commodated always guarantee the bank against loss ; but 
 the losses have proved to be insignificant, the gains to be 
 marvellous, and this form of credit issued on the basis of no 
 previous transaction illustrates better than any other the 
 principle that credit is capital. 
 
 These nine are the principal forms of instruments of 
 credit ; and we must now observe that credits are extin- 
 guished in four different ways : first, by a payment in money, 
 which puts a commodity in place of the credit, and annihi- 
 lates the latter ; second, by a release of the debtor from the 
 obligation to pay by the free act of the creditor, which of 
 course extinguishes his right to demand; third, by renewal, 
 
CREDIT. 449 
 
 either to the creditor, or to. some other pevson with his con- 
 sent, as becomes the case with persons receiving cheques or 
 bills of exchange ; and fourth, but principally, by set-off, as 
 in book-accounts and at the clearing-house, since a mutual 
 release from debts becomes a mutual payment of debts. -^ 
 Thus we see that most credits extinguish each other, and bal- 
 ances only remain. Credits are like a circle, which returns 
 perpetually into itself. Some of the advantages of credit 
 have been already anticipated in the discussion of its princi- 
 pal forms ; but we will now instance more specifically a few 
 of these advantages. 
 
 (a) There are young men in every community, who have 
 integrity and industry and skill, but little or no capital ; and 
 when such men are enabled to borrow money to start them- 
 selves in business, or to enlarge a business already in success- 
 ful operation, the general interests of production, as well as 
 iheir personal interests, are subserved by such credit, because 
 m all probability capital thus passes from hands which are 
 less to hands which are more able to use it productively. 
 Those who are best able to make capital tell are generally 
 those who are most desirous to obtain it, and frequently those 
 who can ofi'er the best security for its replacement. Nothing 
 is to be said against, but every thing in favor of, such a loan- 
 ing of capital as shall bring it, under safe conditions, from 
 the hands of the idle, the aged, those indisposed, or those 
 incompetent to use it productively, into hands at once com- 
 petent and honest. Such credit is a benefit, and only a bene- 
 fit, to all the parties concerned, and to society at large. The 
 operators retain something of profit after replacing the capi- 
 tal with interest ; the lenders receive more than if their capital 
 remained idle, or they employed it themselves ; and society 
 is benefited by a more complete development and rapid cir- 
 culation of services. Despite all the instances of broken 
 faith, it is still an honor to human nature that men do so 
 gain by good character the confidence of their fellows that 
 
 1 See Maoleod's Economics, pp. 517, 518. 
 
450 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tliey are, and ought to be, trusted with capital on their sim- 
 ple word or note ; and it is the glory of free political insti- 
 tutions, that under their influence, more than elsewhere, 
 young men with no other dower than integrity and purpose 
 do rise, by the help of so slight a stepping-stone as this, in 
 crowds, to the high places of opulence. In the point of 
 view, that thus all the available capital of the community is 
 brought out into i^roductive activity too much can scarcely 
 be said in favor of savings-banks, which take the surplus 
 earnings of the poor, and not only keep them safely, but 
 pay a fair interest on each deposit, and loan the aggregate 
 at a higher rate on choice securities, thus stimulating fru- 
 galit}' in a wide cncle of depositors, and at the same time 
 aiding production by opportune loans to the best class of 
 borrowers. There were $443,000,000 invested in savings- 
 banks in the State of New York, and 1230,000,000 in the 
 small State of Massachusetts, in the year 1881. In this 
 category of the advantages of credit come also the ordinary 
 bank discounts, made for short periods only, holding the 
 debtor to the strictest rules of payment, only professing and 
 only enabled to help customers over the transient hard places 
 in their business, and not to furnish the funds on which the 
 business is mainly conducted. Sums drawn from the banks 
 on credit should only form a part of the circulating capital 
 of a business, and never be put into the form of fixed 
 capital. The passing necessities of a business having an in- 
 dependent basis of its own can be safely and conveniently 
 met by bank discounts. So far as the capital stock of a 
 bank is made up of small subscriptions, it has the advantage 
 just spoken of, of calling otherwise idle sums into activity ; 
 and so far as no undue privileges are accorded to it by laTV , 
 there is no branch of industry more legitimate and beneficial 
 than ):)anking. It is no essential part of the functions of a 
 bank, that it manufacture and issue money ; the money it 
 loans should be the national money : and if that, unfortu- 
 nately, be credit money, the element of credit in the money 
 
CREDIT. 451 
 
 should be sharp]}' discriminated iu the public mind from that 
 element of credit by which the bank loans it to its customers. 
 (b) There is another class of advantages in credit, which 
 do not depend so much on the transfer of capital from less 
 to more productive hands, as on the facilities which credit 
 affords in economizing the general operations of exchange. 
 Here th(! advantages are derived from the convenience of 
 settling accounts arising ont of exchanges, rather than from 
 the character of the exchanges themselves. Look, for ex- 
 ample, at bills of exchange. They serve to settle up the 
 accounts arising from the commerce of two continents, with 
 but little transmission of money from either, and with but 
 little loss of time. Bills drawn in New York on London 
 are usually payable at sixty days' sight ; and the merchant 
 despatching a ship is able to realize at once the value of her 
 cargo, minus interest for the time his bill has to run ; he is 
 indeed still liable in part to see that his bill is ultimately paid 
 by his drawee ; but the commercial integrity of the leading 
 houses in all countries is with justice so firmly believed in 
 and acted on, that on the whole but little anxiety springs 
 from this source. It is one of the noble things in inter- 
 national commerce that men trust each other across the 
 oceans, and lay millions of value on the faith of a single firm. 
 Inland bills of exchange equally facilitate settlements within 
 the country itself ; and cheques contribute to the same end 
 even more simply, passing readily in payments wherever the 
 parties are known, and, though credit, doing the work of 
 money more conveniently, and within certain limits as safely 
 as money itself could do it. The face of a cheque drawn to 
 the amount of his deposit in favor of another depositor is 
 transferred in the banker's books from the credit of the draw- 
 er to that of the payee. The banker is released from one 
 debt by creating another of equal amount. The drawer is 
 released from a debt by causing another debt to be trans- 
 ferred to the payee. The payee is paid by the drawer by the 
 receipt of another debt. 
 
452 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 (c) It i>5 not strange that some thinkers and writers, seeing 
 these unquestionable benefits of credit even within the peculiar 
 sphere of money itself, liave come, like Herbert Spencer and 
 many others, to think and teach that credit might answer all 
 the purposes of money. It is certain that it answers some of 
 the pu)-poses of money. Suppose A has bought of B $100 
 worth of goods, and B has bought of A $125 worth of another 
 kind of goods. Three ways are open to close up these trans- 
 .-mtions. A may pay B and B may pay A in money. This 
 would take $225. A may pay B in money, and B may send 
 it back with $25 more. This would take $125. Or A and 
 ]i may mutually balance books, and B pay the difference in 
 account. This would lake $25. It is clear, that, as one or 
 other of these methods prevails in practice, the quantity of 
 money required to do the business of a country is very differ- 
 ent. So in international trade. Foreign bills of exchange 
 lessen enormously the quantity of money that would other- 
 wise have to be transported. Credit does take the place of 
 money in part. Can it take the place of money entirely? 
 Let us see. We have defined Credit as a right to demand 
 something of somebody ; the denominations of money are cer- 
 tainly needful in order to measure this right ; and how can 
 the denominations of money be maintained at all se[)arately 
 from the use of money itself as a medium? Moreover, great 
 as is the undoubted power of credit, it waits for something 
 beyond itself ; it waits for realization; and how can realiza- 
 tion come without the use of money, at least to settle bal- 
 ances ? Further, there always have been hitherto in all com- 
 mercial countries longer or shorter periods during which there 
 was a general reluctance to accept the ordinary instruments 
 of credit in exchange. Money, and much of it, was then 
 found to be indispensable. The very advantages of credit 
 itself, which have now been explained, are dependent on this, 
 that there le underneath it, to support and limit it, a solid 
 basis of value-money, in whose denominations value can bo 
 reckoned, in whose coins the balances of credit can be struck, 
 
CREDIT. 453 
 
 and whose presence sociiied cvcrywlicro by natural laws uloao 
 can cnaljle fuKilmcnt to join hand in h;ind witli promise. If 
 ever credit should usurp the whole domain of money, a toler- 
 able standard of value would be no longer possible, credit 
 itself would lose its foothold, and the vast balloon of promise, 
 sailing for a while througli the blue, the joy of projectors and 
 the wonder of credulous spectators, would descend to the 
 earth on a sudden collapsed and ruined. 
 
 ((i) Besides the two (sssential functions of banks, receiving 
 deposits and discounting bills, they perform a variety of 
 other legitimate operations in credit. They buy and sell debts 
 of all sorts. Tliey sell their own drafts on distant places. 
 Our own new national banks have done an immense business 
 in the national bonds. They have been instrumental in dif- 
 fusing these bonds among the people. They collect for their 
 customers the coupons at maturity. They are tlie factors of 
 the government in exchanging, for those who desire it, one 
 species of bond for another. For the most part, all these 
 dealings of bankers in debts, — and their aggregate amotmt 
 is enormous, — must be enumerated among the advantages 
 of credit. But there are also some natural disadvantages iu 
 Credit. 
 
 (a) When credit is much given by dealers to ordinary 
 buyers, the reverse results take place from those already 
 characterized, and capital passes out from the liands of pro- 
 ductive operators and becomes temporarily unavailable as 
 capital. When an industrious artisan or merchant has trusted 
 out $1,000 to dilatory customers for six months or a year, it 
 is so much withdrawn for so long from his active capital, and 
 to riiake up the consequent loss of profit there must be an 
 addition to the prices of his wares, and besides some bad debts 
 belong to such a system, and there must be an additional 
 price to com[)ensate this, and thus the customers who pay 
 promptly bear a part of tlie propei' burden of the delinquents, 
 wlio at least do not wholly (iseape, inasmu(;li as they ulti- 
 mately (if they i)ay at all) pay a price enhanced by their owu 
 
454 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 delay. If the current profit of capital be 10%, and the mer- 
 chant sells and gets returns five times a year, something less 
 than 2% profit may be charged to each article, but if he only 
 gets returns at the end of the year, 10% must be put upon 
 every thing. Hence the excellent maxim, " Quick sales and 
 small profits." 
 
 (6) There is a greater inherent uncertainty in values con- 
 nected with credits than in those connected with commodities, 
 or than in those connected with personal services. We have 
 already seen that value has its sphere of operations in the 
 past, in the present, and in the future. There is uncertainty 
 connected with what has been done in reference to value, as 
 the market may prove to have been miscalculated, and the 
 commodities to have become unsuitable ; there is uncertainty 
 connected with what is n,ow being done in reference to value, 
 as the service bargained and being paid for may be less skil- 
 ful than is supposed ; but from the nature of the case there 
 is greater uncertainty connected with what is to be done in 
 reference to value, because in the first two cases some of the 
 conditions are already fixed, while in the last all of them are 
 at least open to hazard. There is sufficient certainty in all 
 three to justify, and probably to reward operations in refer- 
 ence to value, but credits are naturally more sensitive in the 
 law of their value than either commodities or services. 
 
 (c) Largely in consequence of what has just been ex- 
 pressed, credit-exchanges are more likely than others to be 
 unduly multiplied and to fail of ultimate realization in full. 
 No more bales of cotton can be actually bought than are act- 
 ually produced, and no more men can be hired than are willing 
 to work ; but there may easily be, and often are, more trans- 
 actions on the strength of a prospective cotton crop than the 
 crop itself can possibly realize ; and hence credits, whose 
 sphere is the future, though legitimate and potent, lie in a 
 field that adjoins the field of gambling. Gambling occupies 
 the field of chance. Credits occupy the field of probabili- 
 ties. Is speculation proper? That depecds on the meaning 
 
CREDIT. 455 
 
 of the word " speculatiou." If "to speculate" means to 
 l3uy any tliiug with au expectation based on rational ])ioba- 
 bilitics of being able to sell it again under different conditions 
 at a higher price, speculation is proper and beneficial to the 
 public — values of things thus bought and sold neither fall 
 so low nor rise so high as they otherv/ise would do, which is 
 a public gain. But if "to speculate" means to buy and 
 sell on chances merelj', it is gambling, and what one gambler 
 makes another loses. Under a sound money, healthful public 
 opinion, and good law, gambling never can become formida- 
 ble ; and it is very plain, that the limits and conditions of 
 legitimate credit are ■ the limits and conditions of rational 
 probabilit3\ 
 
 (cZ) A principal disadvantage of credit is seen in its action 
 on prices through increased demand, and in its consequent 
 tendency to produce commercial crises. A man's whole 
 purchasing-power is made up of three things : first, the 
 property in his possession ; secondly, the value that is owed 
 to him ; thirdly, his credit. He can buy services of the 
 three kinds v/ith these three things ; and his power to buy 
 is exactly measured by the sum of these three things. But 
 while the first two are limited and ascertainable, the third, 
 creilit, is in a certain sense unlimited. Being based upon 
 confidence, which is itself a variable quantity, a man's 
 credit at one time may be vastly greater than at another, 
 com])ared with his other property ; and if he have the repu- 
 tation of doing a safe and regular business, and is favored 
 l)y circumstances, he will find himself able sometimes to 
 buy ou credit to an extent out of all proper proportion to 
 his other capital. When, therefore, credit is offered and 
 received for commodities, it has the same influence upon 
 prices as when monejMS offered and received for them. It 
 follows that there is likely to be a rise of prices whcue^'er 
 there is an extension of credit for the purpose of purchasing ; 
 indeed, when money only is used to buy with, there cannot 
 be a general rise of prices, because while more money may be 
 
456 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 spent on so^ne things, and they rise in price, there would 
 be less money for other things, and they would rather fall in 
 price ; but when credit is used freely in addition to money, 
 and increased purchases go on in all departments at once, 
 tliere is a rise of prices as to all commodities and a universal 
 spirit of speculation. At such times, and while prices are 
 still rising, men seem to be making great gains ; everybody 
 wishes to extend his operations by means of all his money 
 and all his credit ; and forms of indebtedness are multiplied 
 on every hand. By and by it begins to be perceived in cer- 
 tain quarters that the thing has been overdone ; speculative 
 purchases cease ; banks become particular what paper they"- 
 discount ; men find it difficult to sell their debts in order to 
 provide for their own obligations ; they fall back on the sale 
 of their commodities, but when holders are^ anxious to sell, 
 prices always fall ; a panic now sets in, more irrational, if 
 possible, than the previous over-confidence ; their inflated 
 credits and commodities collapse in the hands of their hold- 
 ers ; sales at great sacrifices are inadequate to meet the mass 
 of maturing debts contracted when confidence was high ; men 
 fail, and must fail ; the banks cannot help them, or think 
 they cannot ; and so wide-spread commercial disaster comes 
 in. 
 
 Such crises swept over this country in 1837, 1857, and 
 1873, and will doubtless recur in the time to come. They 
 always arise from disordered credits, and though not neces- 
 sarily connected with credit-money, are more likely to come 
 in connection with that. The more strong and conservative 
 the banks maintain their ordinary condition, the more power- 
 fully can they operate to prevent or abate a panic. They 
 ought always to be on the shore and never in the stream. 
 They ought to be able to offer credit on approved securities 
 on all occasions whatever ; for it is not money so much that 
 is needed to allay a panic, nor even credit actually given, as 
 it is a knowledge that abundant credit can and will be given. 
 As a panic becomes imminent, banks ought to be able to 
 
CREDIT. 
 
 457 
 
 extend their discounts freely ; and the permission to do this, 
 contrary to the Bank Act of 1844, given by the government 
 to the Bank of England, has on three several occasions acted 
 like a charm to still the ragings of a commercial storm. Of 
 course banks must raise their rates of discount under these 
 circumstances. On the occasions referred to, the Bank of 
 England was forbidden to discount at less than 10%. As 
 the inclined plane of rising prices is slowly ascended before 
 a crisis, so the fall of general prices seems to be rather grad- 
 ual also till the lowest point of them is reached, from which 
 another ascent is commenced. The following table, taken 
 from the New York Public of the first week of November, 
 1881, is instructive on both these points. Taking the prices 
 in 1860 of 43 articles of prime necessity, which constituted 
 then and afterwards about three-fourths of the commerce of 
 the country, as the normal standard or 100, the table gives 
 the comparative gold prices of the same for four years pre- 
 \ious to 1873 and for seven years subsequent, as follows : — 
 
 1869 .116 
 
 1810 118 
 
 1871 120 
 
 1872 122 
 
 1873 113 
 
 1874 115 
 
 1875 107 
 
 1876 100 
 
 1878 81 
 
 1879 . ' 98 
 
 1880 103 
 
 1881 Ill 
 
 (e) The last disadvantage of Credit to be noted is the 
 facility it offers to contract national debts. A nation is a 
 moral person, and as such it may become debtor to its own 
 people and to foreigners, and the debt be made a sort of 
 mortgage on the national property and income. It is not 
 denied that incidental advantages may spring up in connec- 
 tion with sucli a debt: the bonds, which are its evidences, 
 open up to the people a convenient form of investment for 
 presently inactive capital, and for trust funds of all kinds ; 
 there can be no doubt, that certain classes of persons hold- 
 ing these national obligntions are won thereby to a strongei 
 
458 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 loyalty and become better friends to stability in government, 
 thougb this consideration applies mainly to new governments 
 and those temporarily endangered ; both England and the 
 United States now make a portion of their public debt the 
 basis of a national system of banking, but it is very ques- 
 tionable whether this can be justly put among the incidental 
 benefits of the debts ; and again " a moderate debt adds to 
 the credit of a nation, and its ability to raise money in an 
 emergency, for bankers and capitalists are more ready to 
 take such securities as they arc in the habit of dealing in " 
 (Sidney Homer). On the other hand, the burdens of a 
 national debt are very apparent : the annual interest charge to 
 the Union at the close of the late civil war was $150,000,000, 
 which gradually declined by the lowering of interest and the 
 paying off of pi'incipal to SCI, 308,012 for the year ending 
 June 30, 1881 ; between March, 18G9, and August, 1873, 
 the United States paid $378,015,005 on the principal of its 
 public debt ; the collection of the internal revenue alone 
 of the national government cost for the fiscal year 18G7 
 $7,712,089 ; and in each of the two years 1870 and 1881, a 
 little over $101,500,000 was paid out to reduce the principal 
 of the debt. These vast sums came out of the industry and 
 income of individuals ; and taxation to any such degree as 
 this is a great disturbance to industry, and gives rise to 
 an army of officials who eat out a considerable percentage 
 of all they collect. Moreover, the various expedients of 
 taxation, which are always practically unequal in their oper- 
 ation, give rise to irritation and political agitation, and even 
 sometimes to threats of repudiation , especially when the occa- 
 sion has gone by under which the debt was contracted, and 
 a generation is called upon to liquidate a debt which it had 
 no agency in creating. 
 
 Here the vexed question arises, how far has one genera- 
 tion the right to throw upon succeeding ones the burdens of 
 a national debt? The true answer is, that it has a very lim- 
 ited right indeed. The opposite doctiine tacitly iniplies that 
 
CBEDIT. 459 
 
 succeeding generations will have no occasion for extraordi- 
 nary expenses of their own, and therefore id ay rightfully be 
 made to contribute to the extraordinary expenses of this 
 generation. But it is pure assumption to take for granted 
 that the next generations will not have, of some kind or 
 other, as much occasion for an extraordinary effort in the 
 way of defence or of improvement as the present generation 
 has had. It is an illusion to estimate what has now to be 
 done as of much more importance than what will have to 
 be done. Therefore to throw our burden forward on another 
 generation that may have its own peculiar effort to make, 
 just as great and just as imperatively called for, is an unwar- 
 rantable procedure. The view that has prevailed in practice, 
 that a great war-debt, for example, might be cast with facility 
 upon posterity, has given rise to needless and expensive wars ; 
 and they have been called upon to pay who perceive the utter 
 inutility of the expenditure. Thus bitterness has been added 
 to burden. Besides, the men to fight the battles, and the 
 capital by means of which to feed, clothe, and furnish them 
 the munitions of war, must come from that generation ; and 
 there is always great injustice in the manipulations of a 
 debt ostensibly incurred to obtain this capital, and the debt 
 itself is usually in large part rather a memorial of the war 
 than of the means by which its expenses were actually de- 
 frayed. The present generation of American citizens was 
 called on to do an important thing in suppressing a civil war, 
 and in eradicating a social institution that was thoroughly 
 bad ; the expense of doing this was many fold enhanced by 
 timid counsels in the field, by class legislation in Congress, 
 and by wretched financiering in the Cabinet ; but the debt, 
 vast as it is, and unnecessarily incurred as a portion of it 
 was, can all be paid off, must all be paid off, by the genera- 
 tion that incurred it. That it may thus be paid will require 
 an economical administration of government ; an avoidance 
 of intervention in the affairs of our neighbors, and of entan- 
 gling alliances with foreigners ; a free commercial system, 
 
460 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 under which duties shall be adjusted only for the most pro- 
 ductive revenue ; and a constant and onerous home taxation. 
 We may perhaps throw into the following propositions 
 the substance of the discussions in this chapter : — 
 
 1. Credits are rights bought and sold like comviodities, and 
 therefore find an imijortant place in economics. 
 
 2. They are specially related to future time, and thus share 
 the uncertainties of the future. 
 
 3. Nevertheless they are legitimate and potent, and round 
 out the wondrous toorld of values. 
 
 4. The economic and moral worlds touch each other in 
 credits, which have their foundation in human character. 
 
 5. '''■ It is the character, exp)erience, and connections of the 
 man wanting credit, his knowledge of his husiiiess, and oppor- 
 tunities of making it available in the struggle of life, that 
 weigh with the shrewd capitcdist far more than the command 
 of a few thousands more or less of money in hand " (Cobden) . 
 
 6. Credits gather up the driblets, economize exchanges, spare 
 the use of money, and put even the Future under contribution. 
 
 7. Good banker's are great benefactors. 
 
 8. Co-edits are liable to abuse, as ahvays involving some 
 losses, as often bringing on crises, and as sometimes piling up 
 national debts. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 461 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FOEEIGN TRADE. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States expressly forbids 
 that any taxes should be levied upon articles exported from 
 them to foreign countries. Another clause of that instru- 
 ment forbids any taxation of articles carried from one State 
 into another. Knowing that exchanges are good, that they 
 are designed by God for the welfare of mankind, that Plenty 
 is better the world over than Scarcity, the wisdom of our 
 fathers shut off all chance of meddling by posterity with one- 
 half of the elements of foreign trade, — exports, — and se- 
 cured the entire freedom of interstate commerce forever. In 
 granting to Congress the power to tax the people at all, the 
 Constitution restricts it to the sole purpose of getting money. 
 The exact sense of the taxing clause is as follows : Congress 
 shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and 
 excises, in order to get money with which to pay the debts 
 and provide for the common defence and general welfare of 
 the United States ; and therefore, no power is given to lay 
 taxes for any other purpose than to get money for the use of 
 the who^e United States. Ostensible taxes on foreign goods, 
 accordingly, designed to prevent the United States from get- 
 ting money by reason of the highness of their rates, and thus 
 to raise artificially the prices of certain domestic products, 
 are clearl}^ unconstitutional as well as radicall}^ uujust. On 
 this point we are able to quote the pretty explicit opinion of 
 Daniel Webster, who has been long and justly styled the 
 "great expounder" of the Constitution. In the course of 
 his memorable speech against Hayne in 1830, he said with 
 
462 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 reference to opinions expressed b^' him in Faneuil Hall ten 
 years before, — " I said then., and say now., that., as an origi- 
 nal question., the authority of Congress to exercise the revenue 
 power with direct reference to the protection of manifactures., 
 is a questionable authority., far more questionable., in my 
 Judgment, than the power of interned improvements." A 
 recent decision (October, 1874) of the Supreme Court settles 
 ajyo the furtlier doctrine that the power to tax even to get 
 money is limited by the end for which the money is to be 
 expended, that is, public money must be expended for a pub- 
 lic PURPOSE. " To lay loith one hand the poiver of the govern- 
 ment on the property of the citizen, and with the other bestow 
 it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and 
 build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it 
 is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is 
 not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms. Nor 
 is it taxation. Beyond a cavil there can be no laivful tax that 
 is not laid for a public jiurpose " (Wallace, 20, 655). If the 
 fathers in their well-known zeal for liberty of commerce had 
 taken one step more in the Constitution, and forbidden all 
 taxes upon imports, for which there exists no reason not 
 equally applicable to exports, they would have conferred a 
 great and lasting boon upon their country. It would indeed 
 have been but a negative boon, an open oi^piortunity to ex- 
 change products with all nations as each generation should 
 find them profitable ; and it would have required what might 
 at first have been deemed an inconvenience, direct taxes ou 
 the propert}' or income of the people of the States for national 
 uses ; but the boon in both these respects would have helped 
 the nation to grow rich from the start, and would have saved 
 it later from some of the worst chapters of its history. Even 
 then it would still have been needful in each generation to 
 unfold, as we have already tried to do in these pages, the 
 vast benefits to men of free exchanges, but it would not have 
 been needful to apply the principles specially to foreign 
 trade. 
 
. FOREIGN TRADE. 463 
 
 It is only because their application to the wider field of 
 international exchanges has been contested by some persons, 
 who have conceded their validity within the boundaries of the 
 individual nations, that it is now needful to bestow upon the 
 subject a separate treatment, to demonstrate that the laws of 
 exchange are universal and not partial, that the accident of a 
 different nationality has nothing to do with the motives or the 
 gains of the two parties to an exchange, and also to attempt to 
 answer with thoroughness and candor the objections that have 
 been raised against the freedom of international exchanges. 
 
 Here, as everywhere else within the science of political 
 economy, the safe appeal lies to the common sense of men. 
 The scientific mind sees the absurdity at once of attempting 
 to apply one set of principles to domestic exchanges and an 
 opposite set to international exchanges, since a science is of 
 necessity' general, and its principles, if sound, must apply to 
 every possible case of the whole class ; and the common mind 
 as well can be made to see with entire clearness that artificial 
 obstacles put in the way of the freedom of exchanges invari- 
 ably involve both injustice and loss. It is only necessary to 
 take the simplest cases first, display familiarly the principles 
 applicable to them, and then with the clew well in hand, to 
 pass on through the more intricate portions of the subject. 
 A writer, whose simple purpose is to reach the truth, who has 
 no personal interest in either defending or overthrowing a 
 dogma, wUl not confuse the understanding of his readers, 
 and his own, by leaping at once into the thick complications 
 of this large subject. Happily, there is no need of any such 
 procedute. Man is man, motive is motive, and exchange is 
 exchange ; and the apparent chaos of commerce can be 
 resolved through these alone into harmony and order. 
 
 In our fourth chapter it was put beyond the reach of con- 
 troversy or cavil, that the onl}^ reason why men ever exchange 
 services at all, is on the ground of a relative superiority at 
 different points. This relative superiority at different points 
 was shown to depend in individuals partly on natural gifts, 
 
464 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 partly on concentration of miucl, or muscle, or botli, on a 
 single class of efforts, and partly on the use and familiarity 
 in the use of the gratuitous helps of Nature aiding that class 
 of efforts. The tailor makes the blacksmith's coat, and the 
 blacksmith shoes the tailor's horse, for no other reason in the 
 world, except that each has a relative advantage of the othe:* 
 in his own work, and therefore there is a mutual gain in their 
 exchanging works. To pretend that there would be any 
 exchange between them, in case the blacksmith could make 
 coats as weD as the tailor, and the tailor shoe horses as well 
 as the blacksmith, would be to assert that man acts without 
 a motive, and that exchanges take place without a gain. It 
 was also shown in the same connection, that the greater the 
 difference of relative advantage, the greater the gain of an 
 exchange, because each purchases the service of the other at 
 the rate of his own highest efBciency. To recur to the same 
 example, while the efficiency of the tailor and the blacksmith 
 each in his own trade remained at 6, the efficiency of each in 
 the trade of the other being at 5, there was only a gain of 2 
 to be divided between them ; but when by concentration and 
 aiDplication the efficiency of each in his own trade rose to 15, 
 his efficiency in the other remaining at 5, there was a gain of 
 20 to be divided between them. When the relative superi- 
 ority of each over the other in his own trade was low, the 
 gain, though sufficient to justify the exchange, was small ; but 
 when the difference of relative advantage increased, just in 
 that ratio did the exchange become more profitable to both. 
 The obvious inference from this, then drawn, and now re- 
 peated, is, that every person who exchanges with others is 
 directly interested in the highest efficiency and success of 
 their efforts as well as his own. The diversity of relative 
 advantage at different points exhibited by different nations, 
 and consequently the gains of international exchange, were 
 expressly reserved at that point to a later stage of our 
 inquiry. That stage is now reached. 
 
 The various countries of the earth have received from the 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 465 
 
 hands of God a diversity of original gifts, in climate, soil, 
 natural productions, position, and opportunity. This diver- 
 sity exists for a good design, and can never be substantially 
 reduced by man, even if there were, as there is not, any good 
 reason for desiring to reduce it. Besides original diversity 
 in these respects, there has been developed in the history of 
 the inhabitants of these countries, a diversity of tastes, 
 aptitudes, habits, strength, intelligence, and skill to avail 
 themselves of the forces of Nature around them. These 
 differences are somewhat less inherent and more flexible than 
 the others, but they exist, and always have existed, and in a 
 greater or less degree always will exist ; and it is on these 
 diversities, original, traditional, and acquired, that interna- 
 tional commerce depends ; it never would have come into 
 existence without them, and it would cease instantly and 
 completely were they to fade out. Men do not engage in 
 foreign trade for the pleasure of it ; they engage in it for the 
 sake of the mutual gain derivable to both parties ; they 
 desist from it so soon as that mutual gain disappears ; and 
 there is no mutual gain in any series of exchanges, unless 
 each party has a superior power in producing that which is 
 rendered, compared with his power in producing that which 
 is received. 
 
 For the sake of illustrating in order the common principles 
 of foreign trade, we will now take a simple supposed case, 
 a trade between England and France in cottons and silks, 
 and follow it through clearly to the end. The first question 
 is, when will it be mutually profitable for England to send 
 cottons to France to buy sUks with, and France to send silks 
 to England to buy cottons with ? Money and all other com- 
 modities except these two are out of the question now, though 
 we shall use the denominations of mone}' for comparing the 
 respective efforts, translating pounds and francs into dollars 
 for simplicit3''s sake. The answer is easy : the trade will be 
 mutually profitable when efforts bestowed in France upon 
 silks will procure, througli exchange with England, more of 
 
466 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 cottons than the same amount of efforts bestowed in France 
 upon cottons will produce of cottons directly ; and then, 
 when efforts bestowed upon cottons in England will procure 
 more of silks, through exchange with France, than the same 
 amount of efforts bestowed in England upon silks will pro- 
 duce of silks directly. So long as there is a difference of 
 relative efliciency in the production of the two commodities 
 :'n the two countries, so long, setting cost of carriage aside, 
 may there be a profitable exchange of the two. To make 
 such an exchange profitable to both parties, it is not at all 
 needfill that the cottons exchanged for the silks shall have 
 cost the English as many days' labor as the silks may have 
 cost the French ; or that the silks shall cost the French as 
 much as the cottons cost the English ; it is not a question 
 of the absolute cost of either commodity to the parties pro- 
 ducing it ; but a question of the relative cost of that produced 
 in either country compared with what would be the cost of 
 the other commodity were it to be produced in that country. 
 A demand in each country for the product of the other is 
 of course presupposed in the illustration. In effect the 
 Frenchmen ask. Can we get more and better cottons by work- 
 ing on silks .and then trading them off for English cottons, 
 than we can get by the same efforts in working on cottons at 
 home? The Englishmen ask. Can we get more and better 
 silks by working on cottons and then trading with France 
 for silks, than we can get by trying to make silks at home? 
 Suppose that efforts in England on certain cottons be gauged 
 at $100, and efforts in France on certain silks be gauged at 
 ^80, and these exchange against each other, is that a losing 
 trade for England or a gainful trade for France ? We can- 
 not tell yet. It depends upon this : whether the efforts 
 estimated at $100 if expended in England in the manufac- 
 ture of silks will procure as many and as good silks as the 
 same efforts obtain in exchange with France, and whether 
 the efforts estimated at $80 if expended in France on cottons 
 will secure aa many of them as if expended on silks and 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 467 
 
 then traded for cottons. Consequently it is not tlie absolute 
 cost of the commodities to the countries producing them 
 which determines their value in foreign trade, but it is the 
 relative efficiency of each country in growing or manufac- 
 turing the commodities to be exchanged. It follows, that, 
 setting aside a greater cost of carriage, foreign trade presents 
 no elements peculiar to itself, but only the same elements 
 which domestic trade presents ; and consequently, that the 
 same laws and limitations applicable to domestic exchanges 
 are applicable also to foreign exchanges. As in every other 
 exchange, so here, there are two efforts, represented in this 
 case b}' the cost of the respective commodities, — the cottons 
 $100, and the silks S80 ; there are two desires, — the desire 
 of the Englishman for silks, and of the Frenchman for cot- 
 tons ; there are two estimations, — the estimation of the 
 Frenchman of the effort in silks required to obtain the cottons 
 by exchange compared with the effort required to obtain them 
 directly, and the Englishman's estimation of his effort in 
 cottons necessary to procure the silks in exchange, compared 
 with what would be the effort needed to manufacture the silks 
 in England ; and, finally, as always, two satisfactions. 
 
 The second question is, how does the diversity of relative 
 advantage practically work in foreign trade ? If we suppose 
 that while the cottons cost $100 in England, it would cost 
 $120 to manufacture there as good silks as can be made 
 in France for $80 ; and that while the silks cost but $80 in 
 France, it would cost $96 to make cottons there as good as 
 the English can make for $100. On this supposition, France 
 can make both silks and cottons at a cheaper absolute cost 
 than England can. But does that destroy the motive and 
 the gain of an exchange between the countries in these two 
 articles? Let us see. By exchange with England, France 
 gets for $80 in silks, cottons which would otherwise cost her 
 $96, — a handsome gain of 20% ; England gets for cottons 
 costing her $100 silks which would otherwise have cost her 
 $120, — another handsome gain of 20<^. Though France 
 
468 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 can make each commodity for less absolute money than 
 England can make either, there is a diversity of relative 
 advantage, and therefore there might be in this case, as 
 there is actually in many such cases, a profitable trade. 
 The efficiency of France in making sillis, relatively to that 
 of England in making silks, is in the ratio of 80 to 120, — 
 a difference of 50 % ; while the efficiency of France in mak- 
 ing cottons, relatively to that of England in making the 
 same; is only in the ratio of 96 to 100, — a difference of 
 4^^. In the majority of cases, doubtless, foreign trade 
 takes place in articles, in the production of one of which 
 each of the respective countries has an absolute advantage 
 over the other, but an ever}' way advantageous trade may 
 be carried on in articles in the production of both of which 
 one nation shall have an absolute superiority over the other, 
 provided only that this superiority be relatively diverse in 
 the two articles, as has just been shown. This is an 
 effectual answer to the clamor of some, who object to im- 
 porting articles which might be made at home for the same 
 sum of money as foreigners expend in making them ; ad- 
 mitted, that they might be so made ; does it follow that the 
 country importing them would get them as cheaply by 
 making them itself? By no means does that follow. By 
 the supposition, the importing country has an efficiency in 
 making those articles equal to that of the foreign country ; 
 but it may also have a superiorit}' absolute or relative over 
 that country in the production of other articles which that 
 country wants in exchange ; if so, the exchange complained 
 of may go en to the manifest profit of both parties. Let no 
 nation be in haste then to drop a trade, because it thinks it 
 can make the article received in exchange as cheaply as the 
 other nation makes it, so long as it has an advantage over 
 the other, absolute or relative, in making the article rendered 
 in exchange ; and when that advantage ceases, the trade 
 will drop of itself. 
 
 The third question js, what are the extreme limits of the 
 
FOBEIGN TRADE. 469 
 
 value of cottons and silks in the case supposed, and when 
 will a third nation be able to undersell either in the ports of 
 the other ? The answer is : the extreme value of French 
 silks in English cottons, will be 80 and 96 ; they cannot 
 fall below 80, because they cost the French that to produce 
 them ; they cannot rise above 96, because at that rate the 
 French can make cottons, and there would be no gain in 
 exchanging. Nations, no more than individuals, will get 
 themselves served at a greater effort than that at which tijey 
 can serve themselves. If a given effort does not realize 
 more through exchange than it would directly, then the 
 exchange ceases of necessity, as fire goes out for lack of 
 fuel. The extreme limits of the value of English cottons in 
 French silks, v/ill be 100 and 120, for reasons precisely 
 similar. Therefore the highest profits possible to both 
 nations, under the conditions of the trade, are 20% each. 
 France would be glad to take the cottons at a return of 80, 
 at which rate her gain would be 20% ; and she cannot under 
 any circumstances offer quite 96, at which rate her gain 
 would disappear. No third nation, therefore, in a trade of 
 silks for cottons, can expel the French from the English 
 ports, until it is prepared to offer nearly 96, or more, in silks 
 in return for English cottons ; that is to say, until its effi- 
 ciency in making silks relatively to that of England in 
 making them, presents a greater difference than the differ- 
 ence of efficiency between France and England in making 
 5iilks, which is a difference of 50%. A greater difference of 
 relative advantage, and nothing else, will enable a thii'd 
 nation to undersell France in such a trade. England would 
 be glad ta take the silks at a return of 100, at which rate 
 her gain is 20% ; and she cannot possibly offer quite 120, 
 because at that rate her gain would wholly vanish. She 
 could be undersold in the French ports, under similar con- 
 ditions, and not otherwise, as the French in her own ports, 
 as just now indicated. We have seen that the diversit}^ of 
 relative advantage in the production of the two articles in 
 
470 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the two countries is in the ratio of 50 to 4^ ; France has an 
 absolute idvantage in the production of both commodities ; 
 the tradfe proceeds simply on the basis of this relative diver- 
 sity ; and no nation can take away the silks of France from 
 England, or the cottons of England from the French, either 
 with other cottons and silks, or any other commodity, ex- 
 cept on the basis of a diversity, absolute or relative, greater 
 than this. Here is the whole doctrine of one nation under- 
 selling another in the ports of a third. It can do so under 
 conditions of greater relative efBcienc}', and not otherwise. 
 
 The fourth question is, how does the varying play of in- 
 ternational demand affect the value of articles in foreign 
 trade? The answer is : if the demand for French silks in 
 England just answers to the demand for English cottons in 
 France, so that the silks offered by France just pay for the 
 cottons offered by England, then, cost of carriage aside, 
 the gains of the trade will be equally divided between the 
 two nations, each will realize 20% profit, because neither will 
 have any motive to lower the value of its commodity below 
 its highest value ; France, from its point of view, will offer 
 80 in silks and get 96 in cottons ; England, from her point, 
 will offer 100 in cottons and get 120 in silks. Demand and 
 supply are equalized at a point of value most favorable to 
 both parties, and really determined by the relative cost of 
 production. This case of equalization, though possible, 
 is likel}^ rarely to occur in practice. On any terms of ex- 
 change first offered, there is likely to be a stronger demand 
 in one country for the product of the other than in this 
 country for .the product of that. This will lead to a change 
 of value, and a new division of profits. The product for 
 which the demand is less will find its market sluggish, and 
 in order to tempt further and brisker exchanges, will be 
 compelled to offer more favorable conditions. He who 
 enters a market in quest of what is more in demand with a 
 service in reti rn which is less in demand, will have to lower 
 his terms, or not trade. The equalization of supply and 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 471 
 
 domanci will only be reached in this case, by quickening the 
 demand for the commodity now less in demand, through an 
 offer of better terms in trade. Thus, if the demand for 
 French silks in the English ports be slack, in comparison 
 with the demand for English cottons in France, at the rate 
 of exchange first established — 80 for 96, the French mer- 
 chant has no resource, if he wishes to continue the trade, 
 but to offer more silks for the same amount of cottons, say, 
 85 for 96. If this reduction prove sufficient to cancel the 
 account in cottons with the account in silks, then the trade 
 will go on on this new basis for a while, the equalization of 
 supply and demand has been reached through a new valua- 
 tion of the commodities, and there is now a different division 
 of the profits. France gains less than 13% by her trade 
 with England, while England gains 27% in her trade with 
 France. Under these new terms of exchange, it is possible 
 that silks may again become heavy in reference to cottons, 
 and a new decline take place in their relative value. If the 
 French are obliged to offer 90 for 96, in order to obtain 
 the cottons they want, their profits will sink to 6%, while 
 the English 4)rofits will rise to 35%. If, in any contin- 
 gency, the French were compelled to offer in the neighbor- 
 hood of 96 in silks for 96 in cottons, the trade would cease 
 of course, just as every other transaction ceases when the 
 motive for it ceases. Of course, the cottons are just as likely 
 to become duU in reference to sillvs, as the silks to cottons, 
 and in this ease England must lower her demands, and thus 
 suiTender a larger share of the profits to France. By the 
 play of supply and demand, within the outermost limits 
 drawn by the relative cost of production, is the value of 
 articles determined in foreign trade ; and no degree of com- 
 plication in the variety of articles, or in circuitous exchanges, 
 affects, for substance, these fundamental principles. 
 
 It follows from these pi'inciples hy necessary inference, 
 that, if, instead of one article, as cottons, England sends 
 two articles, or ten, to France in payment for silks, she wiU 
 
472 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 send iu preference that article in which her labor is relatively 
 most efficient, so long as the French demand will receive it ; 
 then, when obliged to lower on that down to the point at 
 which her next most available article stands, she will send 
 that in quantities regulated by the demand for it ; and so 
 on to the end. No matter whether the articles be one or 
 ma;iy ; no matter whether the trade be a direct, or an in- 
 direct, trade ; the profits in all cases will depend, first upon 
 the ratio of the cost of what is rendered to what would 
 otherwise be the cost of that received ; and secondly, upon 
 the relative intensity of the two demands. The gTcater the 
 relative efficiency of any nation in producing an article 
 of expert, and the stronger the demand for that article in 
 foreign ports, the more profitable does the trade become to 
 that nation. The precious metals, whether produced at 
 home, or obtained from other nations by another series of 
 exchanges, stand here in the same relations as other com- 
 modities, and are frequently the most profitable articles that 
 a nation can export. 
 
 It follows also from these principles, that what a nation 
 purchases by its exports, it purchases by its'^most efficient 
 labor, aijd consequently at the cheapest possible rate to 
 itself. Only those things, for the procuring of which a 
 nation possesses decided advantages relatively to other 
 nations, and relatively to its own advantages in producing 
 directly what is received in return, are ever exported ; and 
 hence, the return cargoes, no matter what they have cost 
 their original producers, are purchased by this nation as 
 cheaply aS' if they had been produced by its own most 
 advantageous labor. This is a wholly impregnable position, 
 and the advocates of restricting foreign trade are challeng 3d 
 to try their hand a little at its defences. 
 
 It follows once more from these principles, that those 
 men, who deem it needful that each nation should be able 
 to " compete " with other nations in everj* thing, are shallow 
 thinkers. Why are they not consistent enough to apply 
 
FOBEIGN TRADE. 473 
 
 their favorite doctrine of "competing" to domestic ex- 
 changes also, and demand that the clergyman shall have 
 facilities for " competing " with the law3'er, the tailor with 
 the blacksmith, the farmer with the manufacturer, the pub- 
 lisher with the author? Will people never learn that all 
 exchanges, domestic as well as foreign, depend on relative 
 superiority'' at different points, and that a nation which 
 should try to make its success in production equal at all 
 points, would be as foolish as an artisan trying to learn 
 and practise all trades at once? Suppose the nation to 
 succeed, what then? It would supply its wants at a certain 
 average efficiency of effort ; whereas, by a thorough develop- 
 ment of all its own peculiar resources, it could command by 
 exchange the products of the world at a cost not exceeding 
 that of its own most productive and efficient exertion. In 
 one word, whatever justifies individuals in selecting diverse 
 paths of production according to their capacities and oppor- 
 tunity, the same justifies the nations in fully drawing out 
 their own best capabilities under the conditions in which 
 God has placed them, and then, exchanging what costs 
 them little for what would otherwise cost them much, in 
 enjoying all that the world offers at the least expenditure of 
 irksome effort. Such action promotes the common good 
 of all the nations, and makes the best of all accessible to 
 all, and arms each with the power of all ; while the opposite 
 action, by lessening the diversities of relative advantage, so 
 far forth incapacitates all for exchanges which are at once 
 profitable and stimulating. 
 
 The fifth question is, how do new improvements in machine- 
 ry and other enhanced facilities of production in one country 
 afiect it? trade with other countries ? The true answer will 
 appear, if we apply this question to the conditions of the 
 trade in hand. Suppose France by new methods of silk 
 culture to become able to make the silk which before cost $80 
 for $50, cottons in France, and silk and cottons in Enoland, 
 remaining in natural cost as before, does France alone gain 
 
474 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the entire advantage of the increased cheapness of silk? 
 We will see. The production of silk in France is greatly 
 quickened by the cheaper methods, more is produced, more 
 is carried to England to buy cottons with, but at the old rate 
 of 80 for 96 the English will not take any more silks, and 
 the French, who can now abundantly afford it, since their 
 nominal 80 is really 50, will offer more silks for 96 in cottons, 
 in order to tempt a brisker and broader sale. They offer, 
 say, 96 in silks for 96 in cottons, and if that reduction of 
 value of silks in cottons be enough for the equalization 
 of the respective demands, the trade will go on on that basis, 
 at least for a time ; and as there is now a larger difference 
 of relative advantage than before, there will be, as always 
 in such cases, larger profits to be divided between the two 
 parties. The 96 now offered in silks to the English is really 
 only 60 in cost to the French, so that the French gain in the 
 trade is largely increased ; they now get for what costs them 
 60 what would otherwise cost them 96, a clear gain of 60%. 
 Before the new methods of silk culture were introduced they 
 gained only 20 % . But the English have also gained largely 
 by the ingenuity and diligence of their neighbors. Before, 
 they gained only 20% in the trade at best ; now they get for 
 what costs them $100 that which otherwise would cost them 
 $144, a clear gain of 44%. Indeed, it might easil}^ happen, 
 through the changes in international demand, that even a 
 larger share of the benefit of the French improvements 
 should accrue to the English than to the French themselves ; 
 the share of the French all the while being large, and much 
 larger, than if, gi-eedily endeavoring to keep all the benefit, 
 they refused to trade at all. Thus we reach again, from 
 another outlook, a grand doctrine of exchange, that eacli 
 party is benefited by the progress and prosperity of the 
 other. The only way^ in which all nations can share in the 
 benefits of the thrift and enterprise of each other, is through 
 mutual international exchanges ; and when each nation sees 
 to it tlaat it has a few commodities at least for which there 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 475 
 
 is a strong demand among foreigners, and in the production 
 of which themselves have a strong superiority, it may rest 
 assured that it buys all it buys from abroad, gold included, 
 at the cheapest rate to itself, and shares a part of the pros- 
 perity of every nation with which it trades. 
 
 The sixth question is, which party in foreign trade pays 
 the costs of carriage, or does each pay them in equal propor- 
 tion? The aggregate cost of transportation to the foreign 
 market is so much added to the cost of production, and is 
 a deduction of so much from what would otherwise be the 
 whole gain of the exchange ; but it is not true that each party 
 necessarily pays the whole of his own freights, and there- 
 fore, that the party carrying bulky articles is at a disadvan- 
 tage compared with the other. He may or may not be at a 
 disadvantage. That will depend on the effect of the new 
 expense, however divided, on the demand in the respective 
 countries. Suppose, that in the outset England pays the 
 whole cost of carrying cottons to France, and France the 
 whole cost of sending the silks to England ; but as cottons 
 are many times more bulky than silks proportionably to 
 value, a larger bill of freights would fall to England ; and 
 cottons would therefore fall relatively to silks ; but cottons 
 and silks both have risen absolutely, that is, with reference 
 to a given effort, or with reference to a money standard. 
 Suppose that France, instead of 80 for 96, now has to give 
 82 for 96, and England, instead of 100 for 120 now has to 
 give 105 for 120. The French gain in the trade is reduced 
 by cost of carriage from 20% to nearly 17, and the English 
 gain from 20% to nearly 14 ; but it is by no means cei'tain 
 that the trade would go on on these terms; the enhanced 
 value of bilks might well deaden the demand for them in 
 England, more than the relatively less enhanced value of 
 cottons in France would affect the demand for them. Silks 
 have risen in England o%, but cottons have risen in France 
 only 2^% ; it is therefore every wa}- likely that thereafter 
 the demand for cottons will be stronger than the demand for 
 
476 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 silks, and if so, the French will have to offer better terms, 
 or, what is the same thing, be obliged to pay a part of the 
 English freights ; so that there is nothing in the trne state 
 of the case to justify the conclusion jumped at by some people 
 that they who carry heavy goods are at a disadvantage com- 
 pared with those who carry light goods. That will depend 
 on the equation of international demand. Nothing in the 
 nature of things hinders, that each party shall in effect pay 
 the freights of the other, or one even really pay the freights 
 of both. 
 
 These, then, are the essential principles of foreign trade, 
 brought out, it is hoped, as clearly and consecutively as the 
 relative and complicated nature of the transactions will allow ; 
 and in the light of these principles it is very clear that for- 
 eign trade is just as legitimate as domestic trade ; that it 
 rests on the same ultimate principles in the constitution of 
 man and in the providential arrangements of Nature ; that 
 the profit of it is mutual to both parties, or it would never 
 come into being, or, coming into being, would cease of itself ; 
 that to prohibit it, or restrict it, otherwise than in the interest 
 of morals, health, or revenue, must find a justification, if at 
 all, outside the pale of Political Economy ; that to say to 
 any body of men who wish to render purely commercial ser- 
 vices to foreigners, to receive back similar services in return, 
 that such services shall neither be rendered nor received, is 
 not only to desti"oy a certain gain, but also to interfere with 
 a natural and inalienable right. 
 
 Notwithstanding this demonstrated identit}^ of foreign with 
 domestic trade in motives and methods and mutual benefits, 
 there are still some persons who persuade themselves that 
 foreign trade ought to be cut short by law, and even yet 
 some nations whose public policy it is to make small their 
 exchanges with other nations. This persuasion comes, and 
 this policy is pushed, under a view and system commonly 
 called ^'■Protection to Domestic Industry." This phrase, 
 always euphonious and long ago become famous, is very 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 477 
 
 little indicative of the true nature of the system sought to be 
 described by it ; the scheme itself in every part is in conflict 
 with the principles laid down in every part of this treatise ; and 
 we must now turn to its origin, methods, fallacies and fruitage. 
 
 1. Let us look at the origin of "Protection." As was 
 fully brought out in our opening chapter, the Mercantile 
 System, whose wisdom or folly it was to sell many goods 
 and bay few so as to have a balance in gold and silver, to 
 offer in the interest of such a balance bounties to exporters 
 to encourage them to sell and lay prohibitions on importers 
 to prevent their buying, was the bad mother of this worse 
 offspring misnamed "Protection." The parent is long ago 
 dead and buried, but the progen}" has not yet found its pre- 
 destined death and doom. The taint, however, of its birth 
 and breeding rests on it like a curse ; even if let alone, it 
 would now have been in its decrepitude owing to the poisons 
 in its blood ; but an incurable wound was inflicted on it in 
 1776 by one Adam Smith, hastening it towards its burial ; 
 the centennial of that event and of American Independence 
 found in it a lingering energy of evil, especially in the United 
 States ; and Political Economy, denouncing it as the enemy 
 of mankind, hopes soon to throw upon its loathsome carcass 
 the. last shovelfuls of cleansing earth. 
 
 As a single example to illustrate how Protection sprang 
 out of the Mercantile System and how it maintained itself 
 after that system became discredited, let us look at the case 
 of the English silk culture. As France had great advantages 
 for the culture of the mulberry and the manufacture of silk 
 in a sunny climate and fertile soil, England naturally bought 
 silks of France and paid for them in her own hardier prod- 
 ucts ; so of wines, and other things produced in France with 
 special facilities ; but England under the influence of the 
 Mercantile System was eager to sell to France a larger vol- 
 ume and value of products than she bought of France, in 
 order to get the coveted balance, and so, forgetting that 
 France be.ieved in the same system too and would surely 
 
478 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 retaliate on English goods, England laid heavy restraints on 
 the importation of foreign silks in the foolish hope that she 
 might make the silks herself and so help the balance of 
 trade ; and thus England, damp and cold, in the very teeth 
 of Nature's protests, undertook to rival France in the manu- 
 facture of silks. As an inducement to capital and labor 
 to withdraw themselves from natural and profitable employ- 
 ments and undertake the unnatural and unprofitable culture 
 of silk, the virtual monopoly of the home market was given 
 to them by law. Silks were made scarce and dear bj' pro- 
 hibitions on their import, and all buyers compelled to pay 
 an artificial price, in the vain hope of naturalizing thereby an 
 unfit industry, and of continuing to sell to France as much 
 as before while getting in return less goods and more gold. 
 Of course, France soon retaliated by prohibiting English 
 woollens ; the two neighbor nations eyed each other across 
 the Channel to see which could steal a march on the other in 
 the way of restraints and damage to each other's industries ; 
 in William and Mary's reign, Parliament voted that the 
 French trade was a nuisance; and Adam Smith tells us that, 
 in his time, smugglers were the chief importers of French 
 goods into Britain and of British goods into France. 
 
 But England had the silk industry on its hands. Those 
 who had embarked in it under artificial stimulus relied of 
 course upon that, and no longer upon their own vigor and 
 ingenuity ; they kept clamoring for still greater restraints 
 against their foreign competitors ; the idea of Protection 
 more and more took the place of the idea of a favorable 
 Balance -of Trade ; for more than a century the silk culture, 
 fenced round and "protected" by these prohibitory laws, 
 languished and at times almost expired, for the two reasons, 
 that the industry then and there was unnatural, and that 
 the manufacturers instead of relying on their own skill and 
 energy looked for support to an artificial monopoly ; and it 
 would have remained to this day feeble and dependent, had 
 not a great statesman, Huskisson, who was denounced as 
 
FOBEIGN TBABE. 479 
 
 "a Jiard-JieaHed political economist,'' made a beginning in 
 1826 of that system of Free Trade, which raised some forms 
 of this particular manufacture, as so many other manufac- 
 tures, to an eminence which scouts at the danger of foreign 
 competition. The duties on foreign thrown silk were then 
 reduced from nearly fifteen to five shillings per pound, and 
 on raw silk from nearly six shillings to three pence per 
 pound ; then first the English silk culture began to thrive ; 
 generally speaking, it has thriven from that day to this, 
 though only in certain forms of the trade, in spite of the 
 disadvantages of nature ; the duties were successively low- 
 ered tni 1860, when duties of every kind on foreign silks 
 of every kind were abolished under the lead of Gladstone ; 
 and that England, which was to be ruined in 1826 by the 
 importation of foreign silks, has exported since 1860 sUks 
 of native manufacture sometimes to the value of $10,000,- 
 000 annually. 1 
 
 "While, then, the origin of Protection is to be sought and 
 will be found in the follies of the Mercantile System, its 
 maintenance or adoption in any modern country is solely 
 due to the clamor of those who wish to secure an artificial 
 market for their wares free from foreign competition. It 
 can be historically demonstrated, that no protective duty 
 was ever laid in the United States from the beginning of 
 the government till this hour, except at the instance and 
 under the pressure of the very men who expected thereby to 
 get artificial prices for their wares at the cost of their coun- 
 trymen. The late President Garfield told the present writer 
 with emphasis that, while he was on the Ways and Means 
 Comrnittee of Congress, the individuals and delegations who 
 came before that committee to get new duties put on or old 
 duties raised, came in the barest selfishness without a thought 
 or care but for the extra price of their own products. The 
 strength of Protection has been in the greed of men who 
 hoped to be aggrandized thereby. 
 
 1 Knight's History of England, v. 21; McCulloch's Diet, ed., 1809, Art. Silk. 
 
480 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 2. "We will now examine the metliods by which Protection 
 seeks to reach its ends. The instrument is called a Tariff ; 
 and it will be well for us to see precisely what a tariff is, 
 since on this point a great confusion exists in the popular 
 mind. The origin of the word., as usual, will throw light 
 upon the thing. When the Moors conquered Spain in 711, 
 they fortified the southernmost point of the Peninsula where 
 it juts down into the Straits of Gibraltar, and by means of 
 this castle and town, called Tarifa, compelled all vessels 
 passing through the Straits to stop and to pay a certain 
 proportion of the value of their cargoes to these Moorish 
 lords of the castle ; whence the word Tariff in English and 
 other languages. This payment appears to have been black- 
 mail pure and simple ; it was extorted by force ; and whether 
 there were any pretence of a return service in the form of 
 exemption from further pillage or not, the main thing to be 
 noticed is, that what was paid was just so much out from 
 what would otherwise have been the gcuyis of the voyage. 
 The sign at Tarifa was minus., and not plus. This is not a 
 very respectable origin of a word which seems very dear to 
 some men's hearts, though this is not sufficient of itself to 
 condemn the thing described by the word. But the truth is, 
 the thing is always true to the origin of the word so far as 
 this, that a tariff always takes, and never gives. The only 
 phrase a tariff speaks, or can speak, is, TJiou sJialt pay ! A 
 tariff, accordingly, may be defined as a body of taxes levied 
 in some way upon the exchange of goods. A tariff makes 
 always and everywhere demands upon somebody ; and one 
 peculiarity of the matter is, that these demands are made on 
 and realized from the countrj^men of those who get the tariff 
 duties put on. How can anybody then intelligent!}^ suppose 
 that a body of taxes, which the people must pay, can be so 
 cunningly adjusted as to become a positively productive agent, 
 a spur to the progress of society? Taxes of some kind are 
 indeed necessary, but how they can be made a blessing to 
 the paj^ers and enrich the whole societ}', they must explain 
 who suppose that possible, provided they can explain it. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 481 
 
 Under this general definition of a Tariff, there are two 
 kinds of tariffs very diverse from each in their respective 
 purposes, principles, incidence and results. 
 
 (1) There is a tariff for Revenue. The sole purpose 
 of a revenue tariff as such is to get mone^r for the coffers of 
 the government by this mode of indirect taxation. It is the 
 underlying thought of this kind of tariff, that the government 
 shall get all the money which the people have to pay under 
 these taxes, except the bare cost of collecting them ; and no 
 intelligent, justice-loving people will long tolerate taxes laid 
 for any other intent than the support of their government. 
 A revenue tariff, accordingly, may be defined as a schedule 
 of taxes levied on imported goods with an eye to equitable 
 taxation only. As the sole object is to get money for the 
 national treasury, such taxes, first, must not interfere essen- 
 tially with the bringing in of the foreign goods, that is to 
 sa}", they must be levied at a low rate on each article taxed, 
 so as not much to discourage importations and not at all to 
 encourage smuggling; second, experience has shown that it 
 is not needful in order to derive a large revenue to lay even 
 low rates on all goods imported, but only on certain classes 
 of them, so as to burden at as few points as possible the 
 ongoing of international exchanges, since the prosperity 
 induced by commercial freedom enables a country to import 
 and to pay for in its own products vast quantities of the 
 articles subjected to the tax, so that large revenues come 
 from low rates levied at few points ; and third, these taxeB 
 should be laid on articles wholly or mainly procured from 
 abroad and not also produced at home, for otherwise the m- 
 cidence of the tax on the portion imported will raise the price 
 of the portion produced at home also, and thus the people 
 will pay more in consequence of the tax than the government 
 gets in revenue. These three, then, are the vital principles 
 of a revenue tariff, namely, low duties^ on few articles, and 
 these ivholly foreign. 
 
 The best modern example of a purely revenue tariff is that 
 
482 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of Great Britain since 1860. All duties are on one or other 
 of the following sixteen articles, namely, Beer, Cards, Chic- 
 corj', Chocolate, Cocoa, Coffee, Fruit, Malt, Pickles, Plate, 
 Spirits, Spruce, Tea, Tobacco, Vinegar, and Wine. Of 
 these. Spruce yielded no revenue in 1880 ; Cards, MaU^ 
 J*icldes, and Vinegar, yielded in the aggregate only £1,491 ; 
 leaving the other eleven articles to furnish practically all the 
 auytoms revenue ; but of these, Coffee and its three sub- 
 stitutes, and Beer and Plate, furnished only £337,258 in 
 the aggregate, so that, the five remaining articles yielded 
 £18,915,489 or 98% of the whole. In other words, Fruit, 
 Spmts, Tea, Tobacco and Wine, bring in all but 2% of the 
 customs revenue of Great Britain. This revenue is remark- 
 ably steady in amount year by year, averaging for the ten 
 years 1871-80, £20,250,000. If there be also a domestic 
 production of any article taxed in the tariff, as Spirits, a 
 corresponding excise-tax on the portion produced at home, 
 which portion would otherwise be raised in price by the 
 tariff-tax to no advantage of the revenue, enables the gov- 
 ernment to get all that the people are made to pay in conse- 
 quence of the tariff-tax. The sole purpose of such a scheme 
 of customs duties as this, which is the only kind of tariff 
 economical science can favor at all, is to get revenue with 
 the least possible interference with the ongoings of business. 
 (2) There is a tariff for "Protection." The ruling aim 
 in this kind of tariff is not at all to obtain income for gov- 
 ernment, but on the contrary by means of taxes on foreign 
 articles to raise the prices of corresponding domestic ones. 
 If the tariff-taxes be so high and complicated as to keep out 
 of the country altogether the foreign articles, and so the 
 Tioasury realize nothing at all from them, so much the more 
 '"protective" do thoy become, and the domestic producers 
 have the entire monopoly of the home market at their own 
 prices. A Protective Tariff, accordingly, may be defined aa 
 a schedule of taxes levied on certain imported goods with an 
 eye to raise thereby the prices of certain home commodities. 
 
FOREIGN TEADE. 483 
 
 The vital points of a protective tariff are also three, but 
 these are the exact opposites of the three points of a revenue 
 tariff, so that it is self-contradictory to attempt to combine 
 in one tariff-bill the two sets of contrary elements. In the 
 first place, if a tariff-rate is to be protective, that is, to raise 
 the price of home products, it must be high, so as either to 
 exclude altogether the corresponding foreign products or else 
 to make their price by means of the duty added reach the 
 point at which the home producers plan to sell their own ; 
 indeed, the higher the duties are (up to the prohibitory point) 
 the more protective do they become, and the less revenue is 
 derived from them ; when the Bessemer steel companies asked 
 in 1870 for two cents a pound duty on foreign rails, they 
 called it in terms " exceptional jyTOtection," and fidmitted that 
 they expected to supply the market and so government get 
 nothing in revenue ; and if any one doubts that the sole end 
 of protective duties as such is to raise the prices of certain 
 home products, he has only to watch the motives of those 
 who get them put on and their words and actions when others 
 propose to have them taken off, in order to assure himself 
 of that truth. In the second place, no system of protective 
 duties can be commenced or continued except by means of 
 many persons who all alike want their special products pro- 
 tected, and who are obliged to combine to keep them protected, 
 so that protective duties on a few things only were rarely or 
 never found in a tariff ; so contrary are protective duties to 
 the common sense of men, that only strong combinations 
 of many interests can begin or maintain them, whence there 
 must be many taxes if an}- under this system ; and by an 
 actual count of them in 1868 there were found to be in tlie 
 protective tariff of the United States 2,317 distinct rates of 
 duly assessed on different articles, which was strUjiingly in 
 contrast with the revenue tariff of Britain in point of the 
 number of things taxed. So needful is log-rolling to the 
 maintenance of protection, that the passage of tlie " Knit- 
 goods bill" in the summer of 188?, for example, was con- 
 
i84 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tingent on the passage of the famous ' ' Ri-ver and Harbor 
 bill" of that year. In the tMrd place, ^rotec^we duties are 
 placed of coarse on such foreign goods as are also made 
 or grown at home, otherwise their plain purpose would be 
 thwarted, while revenue duties select by preference things 
 wholly imported, which completes the contrast between the 
 two kinds of tariffs ; for instance. Tea and Coffee are the 
 best things possible to tax in a tariff for revenue, because 
 they are in universal consumption, and, being wholly im- 
 ported, taxes upon them do not raise the prices of other 
 things, and for this very reason the two were excluded for 
 years from any place in our avowedly and almost exclusively 
 protective tariffs ; and therefore, the three vital principles of 
 Protection must be conceded to be high duties, on many hinds 
 of goods, the counterparts of which are made or groivn at home. 
 The best and worst specimen of a protective tariff that 
 the world has ever seen was in operation in the United States 
 for twenty years and more from 1862. Its inner history is 
 not yet known fully by the public, but enough is known to 
 expose the motives and condemn the action of all those, 
 whether constituents or congressmen, who, knowing what 
 they were doing, contributed to build up gradually that mass 
 of incongruities and iniquities. Attempts more or less suc- 
 cessful were made at various times and at different points to 
 conceal from the public the impulses that were really behind 
 the provisions of this tariff, and even the amount and the 
 mode of the incidence of its taxes ; many of the most pro- 
 tective duties were complex, combining upon the same arti- 
 cle the specific and ad valorem taxes, as for instance, upon 
 Blankets " 50 cents per pound and 35% ad valorem," so that 
 it was difficult or impossible for the common reader of the 
 tariff to ascertain how much the tax really was ; much of 
 the language of the instrument was to the last degree in- 
 volved and uncertain, often leading to disputes and litigation, 
 and sometimes covering up a half-hidden purpose ; the last- 
 ings and rubber webbings of the shoemakers were inadver- 
 
FOREIGN TBADE. 485 
 
 tently covered by a tariff-description designed for anotlier 
 purpose, to the consternation of tliat great interest, wliicli 
 asked for no "protection" for itself, but wanted its raw 
 materials at their natural price ; and the iron industay of 
 Pennsylvania was bitterly angry at Secretar}^ Sherman, who 
 construed a line of the tariff relating to cotton ties used ''i 
 the South more favorably to the planters than to the iron- 
 workers, although the latter were strongly protected at every 
 point (even at this) in the teeth of the interests of the con- 
 sumers of iron. There were fifty descriptions of articles 
 of iron and steel taxed in the tariff, and the average rate of 
 duty on these in 1879 was 77% ad valorem, and this was 
 about the average rate for the twenty years ; but on special 
 articles of prime necessity, as steel rails, the duty varied 
 under the rate of $28 a ton put on in 1870 from 85 to 100% 
 ad valorem; and the purpose of this duty was clearly seen 
 in an average price of domestic steel rails in this countrj' 
 $24.44 a ton higher than in England for the eleven years 
 1870-80, in other words, 87% of the duty paid on the small 
 part imported was added to the average price of the large 
 part produced at home during those eleven years. That this 
 enormous artificial gain redounded wholly to the profit of the 
 capitalists, and not at all to the benefit of the laborers, is 
 shown by the census of 1880, which gives $393 as the aver- 
 age pay for that 3'ear of the persons employed in the iron 
 and steel industries of the country. Only 8.8% of the value 
 of the products of the Bessemer steel industry in 1881 wen^ 
 to the laborers employed, while 66.9% of the same went to 
 the capitalists as profits (Senator Beck) . 
 
 It is impossible to tell exactly liow much more the people 
 of the United States were compelled to pay for their com- 
 modities in consequence of tariff- taxes than the Treasury 
 received as the direct product of them during 1863-82, but 
 an approximation can be made within the truth whose results 
 are fitted to startle the minds of all good citizens. The 
 average annual tariff-income for those twenty years was iiv 
 
486 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 rouud numbers $158,000,000 ; but the ground-thought of the 
 tariff in all those years was not to get an income for govern- 
 nieut but fa(;titious prices for protected capitalists, and during 
 the last half of the time there were no tariff-taxes on Tea 
 and Coffee, which had been before the chief revenue taxes ; 
 if now we may fairly suppose, that on the average for each 
 1 foreign article paying a duty into the Treasury there were 
 4 domestic articles raised each in price as much as the for- 
 eign article paid in duty, then it follows, that the people 
 paid in each of those years under chiefly protective tariff- 
 taxes $632,000,000, or $12,640,000,000 in all, no penny of 
 which went into the treasury of the United States ; that this 
 is a reasonable supposition appears partly from the known 
 proportion between imported and domestic as to several lead- 
 ing articles, for example, of steel rails in 1880 the domestic 
 was 20 times the imported and the people paid 19 times more 
 under the duty than the Treasury got, — on woollen blankets 
 in 1881 the Treasury took in less than $2,000 while the peo- 
 ple paid in the extra price of blankets more than 1,000 times 
 that sum that year, — and on iron goods of all kinds we have 
 seen that the average duty was about 77% while the vast 
 bulk of the iron consumed is known to be of domestic pro- 
 duction ; and that this is a reasonable supposition appears 
 farther, if we look at the annual average amount of domestic 
 manufactured goods, — the census of 1870 gave $4,232,000,- 
 000 as the value of home manufactures for that j'ear, which 
 we may fairly take as the average of the twent}' years undei 
 consideration, and if we throw off one-third of those as no\ 
 affected b3^-the tariff at all, and consider that the rest were 
 oulj raised in price 22%, which is one-half of the average 
 late of duty on dutiable goods, then almost precisely the 
 same results will follow as before, namely, an annual aver- 
 age of $632,000,000 paid by the people under the protective 
 tariff no cent of which reaches the national treasur5^ An 
 acknowledged statistical expert, J. S. Moore, calculated from 
 data similar to our own, that the people paid ^1,000,000,000 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 487 
 
 m 1SS2 extra to the sum reaching the Treasury under pro- 
 tective tariff taxes. The average rate of duty ou dutiable 
 goods in 1880 was officially reckoned at 44%. "We see, then, 
 clearly the methods by which Protection reaches its ends ; and 
 we cannot but conclude, that these methods issue in unjust 
 burdens on the masses of the people. 
 
 3. We will now look in order at some of the chief Fal- 
 lacies by which this wretched system has gained and still 
 keeps its hold on the legislation of this country. The system 
 is as full of deceit as an egg is full of meat. The so-called 
 arguments, by which some men seek to support it, are every 
 one of them logically fallacious ; to undertake to give 
 economical reasons for suppressing by law a profitable trade 
 involves a contradiction in terms ; a profitable trade may 
 properly be suppressed on grounds of Morals, Health, or 
 Revenue, provided a clear contrariety to those can be shown, 
 but reasons from economics are precluded because the only 
 ground for trade at all is the gains of it ; and in the follo^ving 
 paragraphs we shall expose not only some of the logical 
 fallacies, but also other falsities and contradictions. 
 
 (a) One of the main fallacies of Protection is the old one 
 that pervaded the Mercantile System, namely, that a country- 
 may continue to sell to other countries while putting legal 
 obstacles in the way of buying from those counti-ies. 'i !:o 
 inmost nature of trade explodes this fallacy. The only rvi.- 
 son for selling any thing is to get in return that for wliich i:. 
 is sold, which is always more desired and furnishes ti> thj 
 seller the only motive for the trade ; but Protection ])uLs 
 large obstacles in the way of one's getting his pay back, 
 which is only another way of saying that it puts large obsta - 
 cles in the way of his selling at all, since foreign goods ai-e 
 the mai'ket in which domestic goods find their vent, and 
 restrictions on the taking in of foreign goods are in effect 
 restrictions on the sending out of domestic goods. A market 
 for products is products in market. Goods exchange against 
 each other in the markets of the world, even more than in any 
 
488 POLITICAL L'CONOMY. 
 
 one domestic market ; because, small as is the part played 
 by mone^' in any one countr}- as mediating its exchanges, 
 still smaller is that part in international exchanges, since 
 bills of exchange drawn on cargoes both ways offset each 
 other leaving relatively small balances to be settled in money. 
 Exports go forth to seek imports, and to pay for them ; but 
 if these be lessened, as is both the purpose and the effect of 
 protective duties, then the exports are lessened of necessity. 
 If a nation will not buy, then, so far forth, it cannot sell, 
 because buying and selling are inseparable parts of one whole. 
 Just so far as a protective tariff keeps foreign goods out, 
 which would otherwise come in, so far it keeps domestic 
 goods in, which would otherwise go out to a profit. Protec- 
 tion, therefore, is a two-edged sword smiting right and left, 
 compelling people to pay more than is just for much that 
 they buy and to sell for less than is just much that they sell. 
 To the direct losses of a i)eople plundered by " protection " 
 in the values of their supplies made artificially high, must be 
 charged their indirect losses in the values of salables made 
 artificially low, — each in the case of the United States a 
 monstrous sum. Then add to these two columns the derange- 
 ments, the curtailment of natural resources, the deviations of 
 trade from its freel}^ chosen channels, the loss of markets 
 hard to regain, marches stolen on a country by wiser nations, 
 the ill-will begotten of restrictions, and the liability to retali- 
 ations in kind, — all incalculable and enormous. 
 
 (&) A second chief fallacy of Protection is the common 
 representation of tariff-taxes as if they were somehow or 
 other a pos'itively productive agent, a spur to the progress of 
 industry. For example. Senator Frye of Maine said from 
 his place in 1882 : '■^ If there were no piMic debt, no interest to 
 jJay, no pension-list, no army or navy to support, I sJiould still 
 oppose ' tariff for revenue only' and favor protective duties." 
 That is the same as to say, that a protective tariff is a good 
 thing of itself without reference to revenue, something worth 
 havina; for its own sake. A moment's attention to the inmost 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 nature of a tariff will set all this in its true light. One may 
 read a tariff -bill from the beginning to the end, or begin at the 
 end and read backwards, or begin at the middle and read 
 both ways, and all he will find is a series of imperative 
 demavds to pay something; and if it be a protective tariff, 
 he will find heavy demands, frequently a sum to be paid 
 equal to the value of an article before the purchaser can touch 
 it, and what is much worse, demands so cunningly contrived, 
 that they stubbornly re-appear in the enhanced prices of 
 corresponding goods which never smelled the ocean salt. A 
 demand made and met on a Boston wharf instantly re-issues 
 in other demands made and met a thousand miles from the 
 seaboard : a duty on woollen cloth demanded at the seaports 
 may double the price of every suit of clothes vended in the 
 foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, though every ell be domes- 
 tic cloth out of which these are made. The duty of 122% 
 demanded on bunting imported looks comparatively innocent, 
 but the deviltry of it is revealed in the effect on the price 
 demanded for every yard of domestic bunting, which extra 
 price was the only motive for putting the duty on the foreign, 
 and the dutj^ demanded duplicates demands everywhere on 
 each patriotic citizen who wishes to flaunt the flag of his 
 country. The point is, the protective tariff talces out of the 
 people not only at the wharves but also over every counter 
 at which protected goods are sold, and renders notldng hack, 
 so that its symbol is not the engine furnishing productive 
 power, but rather the exhaust-pipe drawing off and dissipat- 
 ing the power. 
 
 If it be said, that a part of what is thus taken out from the 
 masses of the people passes over in artificial prices into the 
 pockets of the manipulators of "protection," that is true; 
 but what sort of justice is it to take moue}^ by law in driblets 
 out of the pockets of millions to pour it in floods into the 
 pockets of hundreds ? To say nothing now of the wrong of 
 that, where is the general gain in it? Is the nation enriched 
 thereby ? Is there any creative power in all that ? Is the 
 
i90 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 whole any larger thau before ? Can an aggregate be increased 
 by mere tricks of distribution? Less at many points, more 
 at few points, and waste and ill-will and loss of markets 
 along the whole line, — that is the true story. Waves rise 
 on the ocean under the impulse of winds, but there are alwaya 
 corresponding hollows behind them, and the general level ol 
 the ocean is not raised however high the waves rise. 
 
 (c) Just before the congressional elections in the late 
 autumn of 1882, the protectionists circulated a pamphlet 
 written by Edward Young and entitled, " The True American 
 Policy — Protect Labor ; ' ' and this title covers up perhaps the 
 commonest of the fallacies and falsities of Protection. One 
 would think from this pamphlet, and from the usual talk of 
 men like-minded with its author, that the tariff ' ' protected ' ' 
 native laborers in the same way as domestic goods , or at least 
 in some way quite obvious and certain. But the truth is, 
 there was never any duty on foreign laborers at all ; these 
 come in in immense numbers every year to sell their services 
 alongside the native laborers ; there is, and always has been, 
 in this country, free trade in labor, and this is just as it 
 ought to be ; a miserable treaty stipulation with China 
 restricts just at present the immigration of laborers from 
 that country, but is scarcely even a temporary exception to 
 the general rule of our national policy; in 1881, there were 
 249,572 immigrants hither from Germany alone ; some of the 
 most highly protected manufacturers, for instance, of glass 
 in Berkshire County, have been accustomed to go to Europe 
 themselves from time to time to hire skilled laborers there, 
 who met no obstacles as to their persons at the custom-houses 
 on their arrival ; and consequently, the implication that 
 laborers are protected in the same way that goods are, is 
 adapted and designed to deceive both the laborers themselves 
 and all others who do not stop to think and to inquire what 
 the facts are. Protective duties are put on certain classes of 
 foreign goods to keep them out of the country, or at least to 
 raise their price to the point at which the home manufacturer 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 491 
 
 is desirous of selling his own goods ; no corresponding efforts 
 were ever made to make difficult the introduction of foreign 
 laborers, whose competition with native and naturalized 
 laborers depresses so far forth the rates of wages, and these 
 receivers of lessened wages are compelled to buy protected 
 goods at enhanced prices, and then are mocked by the pre- 
 tence that somehow laborers are protected by the tariff ; and 
 thus insult is added to injury, and a deserving class of men 
 who have little leisure to look into the intricacies of a com- 
 plex taxation are deceived as to their own interests, since 
 they sell then- services in an absolutely free market and buy 
 their supplies in a strongly restricted market. If laborers 
 are not protected as goods are, and they are not, no one has 
 ever been able to show how they are ' ' protected ' ' at all ; 
 and the fact remains, that the capitalists who get the duties 
 put on for their own benefit are the only persons, if anybody, 
 who get any benefit from them. 
 
 (d) It is frequently alleged, that protective duties tend to 
 raise the wages of laborers in the protective countries, and 
 the relatively high rates of wages in the United States while 
 under protective duties are often appealed to as confirming 
 the assertion. Here is a gross and harmful fallacy. It is 
 all the more harmful because the victims of it, who are the 
 laborers themselves, are also the victims of the policy itself 
 sought to be upheld by it. So far as the alleged proof 
 drawn from the United States is concerned, it is an instance 
 of tlie fallacy called in Logic post Jioc ergo propter hoc, that 
 is, the fallacy of arguing because one thing follows after 
 another that therefore the latter is the cause of the for- 
 mer ; an instance of this fallacy would be, the day follows 
 uniformly after the night and therefore the night is the cause 
 of the day ; and just so, high wages are paid after protective 
 duties are put on and therefore the duties cause the wages. 
 This form of argumentation is always fallacious, unless a 
 natural tie of connection can be shown between the prece- 
 dent and the consequent, and unless it can be probabl}" shown 
 
402 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 that nothing hut the precedent could cause the consequent. 
 In this case the reasoning is wholly bad, because no tendencj' 
 whatever can be shown from the nature and operation of the 
 precedent, " protective duties," towards the bringing in of 
 the consequent, ' ' high wages ; ' ' and because obvious antl 
 sufficient reasons adapted in their very nature to secure high 
 wages can be shown to have preceded and caused them. 
 
 We will first demonstrate, that protective taxes lessen of 
 necessity what would otherwise be the rates of wages pre- 
 vailing in the protected country, and then give some facts 
 and figures confirming the proof and exposing the falsities 
 of the opposite doctrine. 
 
 The original trade interfei^ed with by protective taxes is 
 always profitable, othervv^ise it would not be carried on, and 
 only asks to be let alone to maintain itself as profitable. 
 There is a natural market for the things a nation has to sell 
 in the foreign things offered against them ; now, when this 
 profitable interchange is going forward, Protection steps in 
 and cuts off in part or in whole this natural market, and 
 compels the home things to be sold in a restricted and less 
 profitable market, by putting heavy taxes on the intro- 
 duction of the things seeking these home products in ex- 
 change ; the reason always given for thus depressing a 
 profitable market is, that certain other home things presently 
 unprofitable to make or grow may be encouraged and fostered 
 by this new market made artificially high to those who buy 
 the protected things, bat also at the same time and by the 
 same cause made artificially low to those who formerly sold 
 their goods abroad ; the advocates of protection do not 
 claim that branches of business which would otherwise be 
 profitable and self-supporting should be protected, but only 
 the weak and less profitable kinds ; let it be noted, that 
 "protected" branches of manufacture are by supposition 
 and confession unprofdable, otherwise it would be idle to try 
 to persuade the people to be taxed to help them along ; and 
 so to bolster ip these, protective taxes vutually destroy 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 493 
 
 other branches of industry, which only ask tliat their natu- 
 ral market shall be let alone in order to maintain an inde- 
 pendent and profitable existence. Is it possible on any 
 grounds to characterize in terms of respect so short-sighted 
 and miserable a policy as this, and especially on the alleged 
 ground of higher wages to follow it? Why, Protection 
 starts by withdrawing capital and labor from profitable em- 
 ployments, and putting them into what is confessed to be 
 unprofitable employments ; and how can that process raise 
 wages, or even keep them up to the old point? Protection 
 •proceeds to destroy a market for the exportables of a counti-y 
 by putting barriers in the way of taking in im-portables to 
 pay for them ; and how can this process of stabbing home 
 products which want to go out for a profit raise wages, or 
 even keep them up to the old point? Protection achieves 
 high prices for most of the things the laborers have to buy, 
 since its very object is to make them scarce and dear by cut- 
 ting oif foreign competition in them ; and pray how can this 
 process lift the purchasing-power of wages, or even keep it 
 up to the old point? 
 
 On the contrary. Free Trade tends powerfully to raise 
 both the nominal rates and the purchasing-power of wages 
 in any country in which Protection had found place, let us 
 say, the United States ; because under free trade all natural 
 and profitable home products find their natural and profitable 
 Markets ; because the varied objects of use and elegance 
 offered to our desires by international commerce stimulate 
 labor and capital to create the home products with which to 
 1 uy them ; because the only possible way for us to obtain the 
 results of foreign toil, is to offer in exchange the results of 
 domestic toil ; because the more we buy of foreigners, the 
 more home labor must be employed at those points at which 
 we have the greatest advantage over those foreigners, and 
 hence the most profitable points possible, to make or grow the 
 goods with which to pay for those foreign goods ; because 
 demand for labor is always strongest when exchanges are 
 
494 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 most constant and natural and profitable, and wages are 
 always highest (other things being equal) when the demand 
 for labor is strongest ; because a world market is ever better 
 than a one eountrj- market ; because just so far as tariff- 
 taxes keep foreign products out, they deprive the cheapest 
 domestic products of their dearest market, and thus discour 
 age domestic capital and labor and of course lessen their re- 
 wards; because foreign products are always worth more at 
 home than the domestic products which purchased them, and 
 a part of this excess always goes in wages to laborers making 
 more domestic products of the same sort ; because the neces- 
 saries of life are alwaj's cheap under free trade, and a given 
 rate of wages goes very far in buying, which is additional to 
 laborers to the demonstrated gain in the rates of wages ; and 
 because as a matter of actual experience, a general rise of 
 wages never failed to accompany the adoption of a free 
 commercial policy by a nation whose trade was previously 
 restricted. 
 
 It may be admitted, that protective tariff-taxes put on for 
 its especial benefit may stimulate for a while a certain branch 
 of manufacture, may concentrate capital in it, may call 
 laborers into it, and may perhaps increase for a time the 
 previous wages of those laborers ; but the inevitable competi- 
 tion will very speedily reduce wages in that department to 
 about the average level of other departments in that region, 
 and protected manufacturers were never known to pay wages 
 one iota higher than the lowest sum at which competent 
 laborers can be hired. They are not at all to be blamed for 
 this, and they themselves are often subjected to sharp com- 
 petition in production by other manufacturers eager to avail 
 themselves of the new inducements, the business is shortly 
 overdone, chills succeed to fever, the market is now restrict- 
 ed and of course easily clogged, some of the mills stop and 
 the hands are discharged, the boasted wages disappear, some 
 of the mills combine to work short time and so lessen pro- 
 duction to ease the market and the wages received must be 
 
FOREIGN TBABE. 495 
 
 averaged down to the nine months' work and the three 
 months' idleness. The damning mischief of the system is 
 the market made short by law ; promised wages have tc be 
 reduced as the goods become sluggish ; the workmen do not 
 clearly see the grounds of this, as they have been over and 
 over assured that Protection makes high wages ; they com- 
 bine and " strike " to resist the reduction ; owners are often 
 glad to have them do this, so that the market can get 
 cleared ; but where are now the wages, and who feeds the 
 hungry mouths, and what assurance can be had that when 
 the work begins again they can get even the old rate of pay ? 
 Strikes and Protection naturally go together, because low and 
 broken wages naturally go with protection. It is a note- 
 worthy fact in the United States, that more strikes have 
 happened in the protected industries than in others, and 
 that the worst strikes have happened in the most highly 
 protected industries. The spring and summer of 1882 wit- 
 nessed a combination of laborers stretching half across? the 
 continent, to resist a reduction of wages in the iron and 
 steel industries, whose average protection was 77%, and 
 whose success in holdinsj out against the strike and brius;- 
 ing the workmen back after months of idleness on terms 
 dictated b}' capital and not by labor is the best commentary 
 on the unnatural alliance between Protection and Labor. 
 
 John Bright is a good authority for the statement, :bat 
 English wages began to rise with the removal of the ( orn- 
 laws in 1846, and steadily rose on the whole as other restric- 
 tive features of their tariff were repealed, till 1860, when the 
 Commercial treaty with France was made ; and rose slowly 
 but steadily after and by means of that treaty, till on the 
 whole average they were more than one-quarter, and in many 
 departments fully one-half, greater than when the free era 
 began ; and this is no instance of post Jioc ergo propter Jioc 
 reasoning, because no other cause of this rise could be 
 reasonably alleged, and the hours of labor and the pricea 
 of food and other necessaries had been much reduced in 
 
496 POLITICAL E CON 031 Y. 
 
 the mean time. Since Brigiit's testimony was given, the 
 upward movement of English wages has progressed, until 
 in the year of grace 1882, reliable statistics make them not 
 onl}" by all odds the highest in Europe but also as compared 
 with Germany, for example, more than 100% higher. An 
 official document published in the last-named year by the 
 United States makes it nearly certain that English wages 
 in textile manufactures are higher than the correspor ding 
 wages in the United States. C. D. "Wright, the officii.- 
 statistician of Massachusetts, had previously stated as the 
 result of data gathered by him, that the wages of English 
 weavers were higher than those of American weavers ; and 
 Consul Shaw more than confirms this from independent data 
 in the document just alluded to. James Thornly of Man- 
 chester came to the United States in 1879 as the represen- 
 tative of a journal devoted to textile manufactures, and 
 carefully worked out the data for a comparison of wages 
 in the two countries. Taking four English districts and 
 four American, and comparing widths, reeds, picks, lengths 
 and weights of products, so as to be sure that he is compar- 
 ing identical services in the two, Thornly finds that the Eng- 
 lish weaver is paid an average of 26.94 cents to 20.70 cents 
 paid the American weaver, which is 30% more. Thornly 
 concludes that, in textiles, American wages are quite as 
 low as English, and that the disadvantages of American 
 manufacturers (if any) arise from " ^7ie weigJit of taxation, 
 dearness of coal, and the great expense of mills and machine- 
 ry." The same nominal wages in the hands of an English 
 operative will buy far more than in the hands of an Ameri- 
 can, for the* reason that a free trade country has commodi- 
 ties cheap and a protectionist country has them dear. Mr. 
 Wright has officially shown, that, while nominal wages rose 
 in Massachusetts in 1860-81 31.2%, the prices of necessa- 
 ries rose in the same time 41.3% ; so that, after twenty years 
 of "protection," the laborer •iould only realize in comforts 
 90% of what he had before ! 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 497 
 
 The late Edward Harris, the most successful manufacturer 
 of his generation, told the writer some years ago as the 
 result of his experience in cottons and woollens, that the 
 element of ivages was about 1Q% of the cost of the fabrics, 
 and the element of materials 60%, The census of 1870 
 strikingly corroborated this statement. So did the census 
 of 1880. According to the latter, the woollen products of 
 that year were $267,699,504, of which sum wages paid were 
 18%, and materials used were 63%. In the silk industry of 
 the same year, wages were 22 % of the value of the product, 
 going to 34,000 operatives, two-thirds of whom were women 
 and girls. In a general way it may be said, that wages in 
 the manufacturing and mechanical and mining industries of 
 this country constitute one-fifth of the value of the annual 
 product, while the tnaterials used in the same are three-fifths 
 of that value ; materials, then, are an element in the cost 
 of manufacturing three times as significant as wages ; free 
 trade would surely increase the element of wages, and just 
 as surely lessen the element of materials, in the cost of manu- 
 facturing, but cheap materials are vastly more important 
 than cheap wages; suppose wages be 20% greater in this 
 country than in England, and the efficiency of labor the 
 same, then the disadvantage of our manufacturers on the 
 score of wages paid is only 4% of the whole cost of manu- 
 facture, a bare trifle ; but suppose materials to be enhanced 
 in price by protection 40% on the average, then the dis- 
 advantages of our manufacturers on the score of dearer 
 materials is 24% of the value of the product, almost one- 
 quarter. The disadvantages of American manufacturers, so 
 far as the costs of manufacture are concerned, are not in the 
 rates of wages paid, but in the factitious prices (caused by 
 Protection) of all materials used, and of all machinery, 
 buildings and repairs. The instant repeal of all protective 
 duties would put our manufacturers in a better posture at 
 once, though they would have to pay for some time the fine 
 and penalty of a false system in the interest on theu' build- 
 
408 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 iiigs and machinery, because materials (a chief factor in their 
 expenses) would be instantly cheapened, and especially be- 
 cause foreign markets would be gradually opened to them. 
 
 The distinction must never be lost sight of in this discus- 
 sion between Rate of Wages and Cost of Labor. The first 
 may be high and the second low at the same moment. Cost 
 of labor in manufactui'ed products in the United States is 
 low rel.itively to that in foreign countries, being on the aver- 
 age one-Iifth of the value of the products, while the cost of 
 raw materials is high relatively to that in other countries, 
 boiug on the whole three-fifths of the value of the prod- 
 ucts ; by the census of 1880, wages in the petroleum manu- 
 facture were $4,381,572, raw materials were $34,999,101, 
 and pi'oducts were $43, 705, 218, that is, wages were 10<}^ and 
 materials 80% of the products, or throwing out the crude 
 petroleum, $1G, 340, 581, materials were 43% ; to account for 
 this lower cost of labor, we have (1) the greater efficiency 
 of labor here, owing to stronger and higher motives cop'.mon 
 to the laborers, to a more energetic tone of things gen .ally, 
 and to a more universal use of labor-saving applit,nces ; 
 i^l) fewer itersons ixvQ employed here than abroad in estalilish- 
 mcnts doing equal work, because here are less supernumera- 
 lies and fewer grades in authoritj^ and less persons pensioned 
 by the establishment, each laborer here being put on his or 
 her full power of work ; (o) laborers are more tem.perate 
 and steady here, and are more uniformly ready to begin 
 their work on Monday morning, while the Sunday's debauch 
 belates and enfeebles many foreign laborers; and (1) more 
 ?t ours per meek are given to labor here than abroad, British 
 hours being 54 and ours GO to GG ; and to account for 
 Ihc high relative cost of materials, we need only refer to the 
 high pi'otective tariff, whose design it is to raise their price. 
 The endless opportunities of Agriculture in this land are 
 the steady force that lifts on wages and keeps them to their 
 actual lieight. Cheap and fertile farms to be had almost 
 for the asking arc open to all laborers and all immigrants, 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 499 
 
 who dislike manufactures or are discontented with their 
 wages in any other line of work, and this on tlie one hand 
 reduces the Supply of laborers iu the mills and factorie;3 and 
 on the other keeps up the rates of wages there to a point 
 marked by the average success of labor in agriculture. If 
 protective tariff-taxes were abolished, which compel the 
 farmers to pay more than is right for most which they buy 
 and to sell for less than is right most which they sell, then 
 cgriculture would be far more profitable than it is, and 
 then also wages in all departments would tend to rise to the 
 full height marked by a free and prosperous agriculture, — a 
 stroke that would enormously benefit all the people of the 
 United States. 
 
 If there were any thing solid in the allegation that " pro- 
 tection " raises rates of wages, then it ought to follow tliat 
 wages are higher in protected industries than in others. But 
 the}' are not. Just the reverse is often witnessed. Said the 
 Albany Evening Journal in February, 1883 : " BricMayem 
 and carpenters get better pay than weavers and miners. We 
 all know that. Yet the former are not mentioned in any tariff 
 scheme, and the others are alleged to get all the benefits of 
 protection. We pay our printers higher wages than a like 
 number of operatives in the Harmony Mills of Cuhoes ever 
 got. Yet type-setting is not under the shadow of protection's 
 Chinese wall, and spinning is." 
 
 (e) Another common fallacy of Protection is that called 
 by the logicians the fallacy of composition. It is remarkable, 
 that in nearly all protectionist arguments, the eye of the 
 reasoner is directed wholly to some one protected industry 
 and not at all to the system as a whole, and yet the coiiclu- 
 Bion sought to be drawn is meant to apply to the whole sys- 
 tem. An exain[)le of this fallacy would be : There are good 
 reasons for thinking that one of the 12 jurors is biassed, 
 therefore, it is probable that all the jurors are biassed. An 
 artificial market advanced 50% for all the products of a 
 woollen factory by means of a protective tariff-tax would 
 
500 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 seem, so far forth, to be a very good thing for the woollen 
 factory owners, and the pomt would seem plausible that, 
 were the tariff- tax removed, very considerable harm would 
 come to those owners ; bat all that does not begin to prove 
 that protective tariff-taxes are a benefit even to all factory 
 owners, still less to the people at large, nor does it begin to 
 prove that the removal of all such taxes would be harmful 
 even to factory owners, still less to the people ; extend the 
 view, first, to the consumers of those woollen fabrics, who 
 rre obliged to pay one-third more than is natural, and whose 
 loss completely balances the gain of the factory, — no bene- 
 fit on the whole ; extend the view, second, to all the protec- 
 tive tariff-taxes then and there levied, many of the enhanced 
 prices caused by which these very factory owners have to 
 pay on their materials and machinery and buildings, and it 
 is quite likely that they pay more than they get hack, and 
 very probable that the abolition of all these taxes would be 
 a great relief and permanent benefit to them even as factory 
 owners and still more as citizens ; and extend the view, 
 third, to all those home farmers and manufacturers whose 
 freely chosen market was cut off by all those restrictive 
 tariff-taxes, whose losses cannot be made up to them from 
 any quarter, and the aspect of the whole matter is ver}" 
 different from what it was at first, the probability becomes 
 a certainty that the repeal of the taxes would be a vast 
 national gain, and the fallacy of composition in this case 
 becomes obvious. 
 
 How freedom of trade recovers the foreign market to home 
 producers Js beautifully shown in the experience of Great 
 Britain. In 1849, when the corn-laws disappeared, British 
 exports were only $10.93 per capita; in 1859, they had risen 
 to $22.11 per capita, an increase of 105% in ten years ; in 
 1869, the remissions of import-duties being of course fewer 
 for that decade, the exports per person rose to $29.79 ; and 
 in 1880, they were $32.35. The exports of the United States 
 have been of ccirse less than they normally would 'je per 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 501 
 
 capita, because it has been the policy to shut out imports, 
 which alone pay for exports, making the exports in 1880 
 $17.02 for each person, only about half what the British sold 
 per person. 
 
 (/) Another fallacious and pernicious assumption of Pro- 
 tection is, that manufactures will not come into a new ?OMn- 
 try unless they are coaxed in by taxing the people heavily 
 to support them. In connection with this false assumpticn, 
 Protection always makes a promise which it never yet was 
 known to fulfil, namely, that after the industries have been 
 fostered a while by restrictions in their favor they may then 
 ])e let alone to go forward under freedom. The promise 
 may be dismissed with the remark, tJidt no instance has been 
 Jcnown to occu7' in the whole history of '■'■protection" of an 
 infant industry fostered by it reaching a point at which in its 
 own judgment it could forego the foster-hand and take care of 
 itself hut on the contrary it has been usual if not universal for 
 such dependent to clamor for more and more as time went on 
 until the people refused outright to act as wet-nurse any longer. 
 The assumption may be easily disproved, first, by letting a 
 little common sense in upon it, and second, by a simple state- 
 ment of facts in relation to our own colonial history. The 
 assumption is, that a people cannot prosper until they are 
 roundly taxed, that a new colony settled on fertile land and 
 surrounded by all natural resources cannot get their ploughs 
 and carts and clothes and houses b}' the mere application of 
 labor and capital to land and water, but must first authorize 
 a few of theh' number to levy taxes on the rest before the 
 colony can come into any considerable diversity of occupa- 
 tions. The hoof and tail are quite visible in this assumption : 
 the men who make it are men who like to live without work 
 at the cost of those who do work. If the few can only per- 
 suade the rest to let them do the taxing, the same skill that 
 persuades will not be slow to think out specious pretences, 
 plausible reasons, and even patriotic considerations. But 
 the simple truth is, that diversity of employments is looted 
 
502 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 iu human nature and in the circumstances amid which God 
 has placed men, and so far is it from being true that taxes 
 and restrictions are needful in order to foster manufactures, 
 taxes and prohibitions cannot prevent them from springing 
 into life ! They are just as natural to men and colonies as 
 agriculture is. Indeed, agriculture can scarcely take a st(!p 
 without them. The farmers must have ploughs and carta 
 and other implements, and, depend on it, there are some 
 natural mechanics in that colony. Clothes are as needful as 
 food, and spinning and weaving in some form will begin at 
 once, and prohibitions will be powerless to stop them. Manu- 
 factures require capital indeed, and on a large scale, a large 
 capital. So does agriculture just as much. The progress of 
 these two is interdependent. They naturally keep step to the 
 music of each other. Large capitals are the growth of time 
 and of frugalitj^ and of natural facilities under freedom. No 
 new society can come at once into all the forms of industry 
 which adorn an old established State ; there must be a grad- 
 ual growth of capital and of skill, and as these increase, one 
 branch of industry after another comes in and finds a stable 
 foothold ; and as capital and population and a possible division 
 of labor further increase, and the rate pe?' centum of capital 
 goes down, many branches of manufacture become profitable 
 which it would be sheer folly to undertake at an earlier period. 
 Diversity in manufactures is good for any country, but only 
 a natural and profitable diversity, in which each branch can 
 stand on its own legs, and not find it necessary to tax all its 
 neighbors to make its own profits equal an average of theirSc 
 The only ^ound rule is to enter upon branches of industry 
 just so fast as they become profitable, and no faster. 
 
 The history of the colonies which constituted the original 
 United States is interesting in this regard. The mother 
 country, bound to the doctrines of the Mercantile System, 
 was jealous of colonial industries from the start, and as these 
 gradually developed in the natural way just indicated, met 
 them with growing restrictions and prohibitions. Colonial 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 503 
 
 sl lip-building, commenced in 1631, was firmly established by 
 the first generation of men inhabiting New England shores. 
 The manufacture of linen, woollen, and cotton cloth was 
 begun in Massachusetts in 1638, in Rowley, by some fi mi- 
 lies from Yorkshire ; and became so remunerative in a couple 
 of years that some acts of the General Court designed to 
 stimulate it were repealed. Brick-making, glass-works, and 
 the manufacture of salt, were all begun in Massachusetl 3 
 before 1640. Tannery and shoe-making began about that 
 time, and within 20 years boots and shoes became artichs 
 of export ; while in 1643 the younger Winthrop established 
 iron-works at Braintree and Lynn, which, after some losses, 
 were successfully prosecuted. So native are manufactures 
 to a new country, so rapid was their progress in the first 
 centmy of these feeble colonies, that Parliament, in 1698, 
 entered upon a decided policy to curtail colonial manufac- 
 tures. Take this law as a sample of many: — ^'- After the 
 first day of December, 1699, no wool, or manifacture made 
 or mixed with ivool, being the produce or manufacture of any 
 of the English plantations in America, shall be loaden in any 
 ship or vessel, upon any pretence whatsoever, — nor loaden 
 upon any horse, cart, or other carriage, — to be carried out of 
 the Engliah plantations to any other of the said plantations, or 
 to any other place tvhatsoever." Thus the fabrics of Massa- 
 chusetts were forbidden to find a market in Connecticut, 
 or to be carried to Albany to traffic with the Five Nations. 
 " That the country which was the home of the beaver might 
 not manufacture its own hats, no man in the colonies could 
 be a hatter or a journeyman at that trade, unless he had served 
 an apprenticeship of seven years. No hatter might employ 
 more than two apprentices. No American hat might be sent 
 from one plantation to another." In 1701 the three charter 
 colonies are reproached by the lords of trade " vnth promot- 
 ing and propagating woolen and other manufactures proper to 
 England.'' In 1721 New England alone had six furnaces 
 and nineteen forges, and there were many others in Pennsyl- 
 
504 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 vania and Virginia. Parliament enacted in 1750 tliat no more 
 mills should be erected in America for slitting or rolling iron, 
 or forges for hammering it, or furnaces for making steel ; 
 and in certain cases, agents of the crown were authorized to 
 tear down such establishments as '■^ nuisances." How far 
 all the arts of navigation had been carried in the Colonies 
 before the Revolution, every one may read in Burke's famous 
 speech on Conciliation with America. How far the products 
 of the loom, the forge, and the anvil, were already being 
 exported, in spite of British legislation, to other countries, 
 anj^ one may see in Lord North's last proposals and conces- 
 sions to ward off the Revolution.^ 
 
 (g) Protectionists claim that their system enlarges the 
 ' ' home market. ' ' Professor Thompson has stated that by 
 a persistent policy of protection a home market would be 
 created for all the breadstuffs that the country produces ; 
 and John Roach, the shipbuilder, expatiated before the 
 Tariff Commission of 1882 on the advantages which the 
 farmer derives from the better home market created b}' pro- 
 tection. A ridiculous fallacy underlies this claim. A market 
 is made of buyers with return services in their hands. A 
 bigger home market consists in more domestic buyers than 
 before all ready with acceptable pay in their hands. If pro- 
 tection can enlarge the home market, it must be either by 
 increasing the number of births or diminishing the number 
 of deaths in a given time in a given country. Precisely how 
 a big bundle of big taxes, which the whole population must 
 pay in one form or another, may be made to stimulate births 
 or prolong lives, no reasonable man can see, though a pro- 
 tectionist may see it. If he can see and show it, his task is 
 then but half done, for he must also see and show how these 
 same onerous taxes may multiply return-services in the hands 
 of this increased population ! If he try to get out of this 
 snug place by claiming that the better ' ' home market ' ' is 
 
 1 See Talfrey's N. E., ii. 53, and iv. 19; Bancroft's U. 8., iii. 106, and vii. 179; 
 Ninth Annual Kjep;)rt Mass. Bureau of Statistics and Labor, 1S78. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 505 
 
 mude by new immigraiits with values in their hands, he can- 
 not escajKi by this route, because he must first see and show 
 what there is in big taxes to invite immigrants at all ; and 
 besides, he is scared even by the handiwork of "pauper 
 labor," and of course he is not prepared to welcome the 
 " pauper laborers " themselves, of which class as described 
 by him the immigrants would mostly consist. As a matter 
 of fact, lliompson's " home market " does not seem to have 
 kept pace with the production of cereals, or even with the 
 restricted products of protected manufacuures, as is shown 
 by the frequent clogging of the market for all these ; and 
 the farmers of Iowa, and of the West generall^^ do not seem 
 to reciprocate the warm glances of love which John Roach 
 sends them from the banks of the Delaware. 
 
 (/i) One of the bad things about protective tariff-taxes is, 
 that, while their main motive and purpose are obvious enough, 
 no one concerned in their enactment can possibly foresee what 
 their whole action will be in practice ; so that, a general tariff- 
 act is never practically what it is supposed to be, and certain 
 features of it strike in unexpected places, often to the con- 
 sternation of its framers and friends. For example, in the 
 wool and woollens tariff of 1867 an inadvertent description 
 covered the serges and lastings of certain Massachusetts shoe- 
 makers ; and John B. Alley of Lynn, representing them, has- 
 tened towards Washington to repair the menaced mischief, 
 but met in New York members from the session already 
 adjourned, and returned to palliate as best he could to the 
 angered artisans the inevitable though undesigned rise of price 
 in their raw material. He and they were willing enough that 
 other folks should pay protection-taxes, but did not like to 
 pay tliem themselves ; indeed, tlie protectionists are yet to 
 be found, who relish for themselves the dose they mix iu 
 glee for others. The tariff-bill just referred to put a high 
 duty on the fine foreign cloth used as material by a button 
 factory iu western Massachusetts, whose owners were strong 
 protectionists and commended the doctrine to their neighbors, 
 
506 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 but who found the means in the tariff itself of evading the 
 payment of the duty themselves by punching and slitting 
 the imported cloth in such a way as not to harm it for cov- 
 ering buttons, but so as to enable them to claim successfully 
 at the custom-house that it was damaged cloth not subject to 
 duty ! This they did for years and years, and thus gave prac- 
 tical testimony that is worth having to the benefits of free 
 trade. Their own opinion of protection was precisely the 
 same as that of the detested free traders. Not out of their 
 words, but out of their hearts and actions are they to be 
 judged. This is not an isolated instance by any means, nor 
 were those Galileans sinners above all the Galileans because 
 they did such things. 
 
 In the early spring of 1880 the price of white printing 
 paper rose rather suddenly about 50%, owing partly to the 
 tariff duties on newspaper and the chemicals that enter 
 into the manufacture of paper, and partly to patent-rights 
 accorded to the owners of machines for making wood-pulp 
 for paper ; this effect of complex causes not calculated upon 
 by Congress startled the 7,000 newspapers of the country, 
 slumberous before to the burdens of others under similar 
 restrictions, to make a great outer}' for the removal of the 
 20% duty on their paper and the 25% duty on tj^pes and 
 t3'pe-metal ; Congress too was startled for once out of its 
 Vfjijal satisfaction in a false system, because these 7,000 
 newspapers stood very near to the sources of political life, 
 while the cry of 70,000 ordinary and unorganized citizens 
 would not have produced a ripple in that body ; for news- 
 papers can voice their own grievances and compel attention 
 to them, while the minds of the masses of the people are 
 confused as between "revenue" and "protection," and 
 besides they have no organs by which to make themselves 
 felt in the National Legislature. Commonly, however, the 
 unlooked-for effects of a protective tariff strike the farmers, 
 the largest and most defenceless class in the community, and 
 hence the best possible prey for Protection. For example, 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 507 
 
 when the duties upon band and hoop iron of 1| to If cents 
 per pound were laid, it was probably not thought of that 
 thin iron bands would be used to tie up cotton bales for mar- 
 ket, but they were found to be very useful for that purpose 
 by means of buckles attached, while both the foreign and 
 domestic bands were raised in price by the tariff-taxes ; at 
 first, the foreign bands came in as hoop iron, but Secretary 
 Sherman afterwards ruled that they could come in as iron 
 " not otherwise provided for," which made a difference of 
 about 12 cents in the bands needed for a single bale of cot- 
 ton, 01' $720,000 on a crop of 6,000,000 bales ; the iron men 
 of Pennsylvania made gigantic efforts to overturn the Secre- 
 tary's decision, conceding that they had under it about 12 
 cents protection a bale, bijt insisting that this should be 
 doubled by the old construction of the clause on hoop iron, 
 which would make the tribute of the planters to Pennsylvania 
 about $1,440,000 on one year's crop, — so much eccira cost 
 of production just for tying up the bales ! Tariff-taxes on 
 jute ($15 a ton) , on jute butts ($6 a ton) , and gunny-bags 
 (40%), whether that effect were anticipated or not, are a 
 vast burden to farmers in getting their products to market. 
 A wheat grower ^ of California lately told the writer that this 
 extra cost is a chief item in marketing his wheat, and a 
 great discouragement to growers to keep their wheat separate 
 from others, and so to aim at the highest excellence and the 
 highest prices. In whatever way one looks at it, it is plain, 
 that the farmers are the ass that bears most of the burden 
 and eats least of the hay of Protection. 
 
 {i) Anglophobia is often manifested and oftener aj: pealed 
 to by the protectionists. The giant of our childhood re- 
 appears to our mature life, singing the old song, — 
 
 " Fee, foo, fum, 
 I smell the blood of an Euglisliman." 
 
 The idea sought to be conveyed is, that for the United 
 
 1 Mr. Montgomery 8. Currey. 
 
508 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 States to adopt free trade would be to bow the neck to 
 England, would be to copy servilely a country with which we 
 have had two wars and many misunderstandings, would be to 
 lose somehow the Declaration of Independence and smotlier 
 the screams of the American Eagle. The joke and the 
 fallacy come in at the same place. What we have copied 
 from our old enemy down to the word and letter and pointing 
 is just this system of Protection ! We took it bodily and 
 even verbally. Our Navigation Act in its three parts both 
 caught the spiiit and is couched in the terms of the English 
 statutes. There is nothing original and nothing American 
 and nothing continental in the petty and piddling and devil- 
 ish devices of our protective system. It is all insular and 
 old-world and antiquated. When Henry Clay called it the 
 "American System," Daniel Webster ridiculed the desig- 
 nation in the Senate, and pronounced it most rm- Ameri- 
 can. On the other hand, England has no patent- rights in 
 Free Trade. That does not belong to her. It is no more 
 English than it is Greek or Roman or Middle- Age. Pro- 
 tection itself was not born till the second half of the 17th 
 century. England, one of the first to adopt it, was also one 
 of the first to cast it off with every sign of loathing, like an 
 old garment defiled. Said Gladstone in 1856, before one 
 tithe of the benefits and strength of free trade had come to 
 England: " There is one doviestic feature ivhich I wish it 
 ivere in our poioer effectually to eo^hihit to the governments and 
 inhahitants of foreign countries. They Jcnoiv by statistics, 
 which are open to the world, the immense extension which our 
 com'nierce Jias attained under and by virtue of freedom of 
 trade, and the great advancement that has happily been 
 achieved, in the condition of the people; but they do not know 
 what it has cost us to ■ achieve this beneficial, nay, blessed 
 change; what time, what struggles, what interruptions to the 
 genercd ivorJc of legislation ; what animosities and divisions 
 o,mong the great classes ivhich make up the nation; what 
 shocks to our established mode of conducting the government 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 509 
 
 of the country ; what fears and risks ^ at some periods^ of 
 'public convulsion. These were the fine and penalty we 
 
 PAID FOR LONG ADHERENCE TO FOLLY. We JKlld tllis fine Cmd 
 
 penalty upon returning to the path of wisdom, lohich too late 
 we wished we had never left." When the United States 
 adopts free trade, it will follow, not England, but Reason 
 and Riglit and Interest and Natural Law and Good Neighbor- 
 liood av.d the methods of Providence. 
 
 (/) The commonest and shallowest fallacy of protection 
 is this, that free trade toould flood our markets with cheap 
 goods. When every other word fails, this leaps to the lips 
 of our protectionists. From their horror of being " flooded," 
 one would think they had been personally present at, and 
 had a vivid recollection of, the Noachian deluge. Other 
 things indeed may be bad, but to be "flooded with cheap 
 goods "is an indignity to which they at least will never 
 submit ! Does it betray a secret consciousness that their 
 "house is built on the sand," that they have such mortal 
 fear of the time when "floods" will come? One is almost 
 ashamed to expose soberly so patent a fallacy in argument. 
 The only possible way in which this country can be flooded 
 with the cheap goods of foreigners, is to flood foreigners 
 with its own cheap goods. Foreigners may not be fully 
 enlightened, but the}' have not yet shown anj^ great zeal to 
 give away the products of their toil. If they were so foolish 
 as to give their goods, is there- any good reason why we should 
 not take all they will give ? Undoubtedly they are quite ready 
 for an exchange of goods ; and if we were up to our oppor- 
 tunities, we should meet them more than half way. Our 
 liroducers are every little while complaiuing of over-x)roduc- 
 lion; and would it not be a good thing to find a quick 
 market for all this surplus? Would not these cheap goods of 
 foreigners — the cheaper the better — legitimatelj^ houglit by 
 our own cheap goods now liable at au}- time to lie idle in 
 stock be a great relief and blessing all round ? But while 
 this plea of the protectionists is worthless as an argument, 
 
510 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 it has great force as a confession. \i confesses that Protec- 
 tion is a barrier to trade. It openly confesses that a pro- 
 tective tariff makes things dear. It confesses a foudnesfj 
 for Scarcity. It confesses a terror in view of Abundance. 
 It confesses that free trade would make things cheap — very 
 cheap, as they ought to be. 
 
 {h) A curious fallacy of protection is the sanctity sought 
 to be given to a tariff -tax so soon as ever it is gotten upon 
 the statute-book, no matter by what means or in what shape 
 it has been put there. The suppressed argumentation is 
 something like this : Certain tariff-taxes are now a part of the 
 law c f the land ; property has been invested in virtue of this 
 tariff-law ; therefore, the tax must be touched gingerly, if at 
 all. The just argument would take this form : All laws hostile 
 to the public welfare are in their nature void, and should be at 
 once repealed ; protective tariff-taxes are radically in conflict 
 with the general interests of the people ; therefore, such 
 taxes should be at once repealed. A tax levied with the sole 
 intent and effect of getting money for the support of a just 
 government is a very respectable thing, and all good citizens 
 unite in respecting it ; even then, there is nothing sacred 
 about it, but it may be brushed aside any day in favor of 
 another form of tax shown to be less burdensome to the 
 people ; but a tax levied for the benefit of the few at the 
 cost of the many is destitute of respectability, still more of 
 sanctity, and no rights of property can he vested under such 
 a tax good either in law or morals. A high court in the 
 State of New York decided in 1882 that the rights of property 
 vested in what is called " watered stock " are null and void, 
 because contrary to the general interests of the people. The 
 same principle applies to rights of property vested under 
 taxes laid in conflict with the common weal. The taxes are 
 not respectable in their origin or purpose, and any claim that 
 they are not to be touched because they have been enacted 
 is met at once by the superior claim of the rights of the 
 whole people. These indeed are sacred; and no lapse of 
 
FOBEIGN TRADE. 611 
 
 time can give sanctity to any thing that invades them. If 
 we inquire how protective tariff-taxes have been put on in 
 this coantry, we shall find that they have been often put on 
 pell-mell, and no previous notice has been given to the people 
 that the taxes were coming. Edward Harris paid $58,000 
 in gold duties on wool bought, paid for, and on its way to 
 this country, when the wool tariff of 1867 came in. If there 
 be injustice in taking off such taxes in much the same way 
 as they went on, there are a plent}' of competent persons who 
 cannot see the injustice. How can the abolition of taxes on 
 industry do any harm to industries as a whole ? How can a 
 people be crushed down by a removal of their burdens? 
 Suppose every tax of every name in all the earth could be 
 abolished to-morrow, what harm would ensue? Would not 
 all exchanges go on with multiplied power and profits? 
 Taxes are indeed necessary for the support of government, 
 but even when wisely laid for that end they are a necessary 
 evil, because they take just so much out of what would other- 
 wise be the gains of exchanges. But we have shown that 
 protective taxes are the worst possible form of taxes, and 
 the only thing to do with them is to abolish them altogether. 
 When they are numerous, as with us, they become a uni- 
 versal burden, and there are but few of the protected interests 
 themselves which would not be relieved by the repeal of the 
 whole of them. It would be unjust to repeal a part and 
 leave the rest in force, to strike out, for example, the duty 
 on woollens and leave the duty on wools, — they should all 
 go by the board together. If, however, caution and prejudice 
 hedge the way to this simultaneous action, then let the worst 
 duties go first, such as those on coal, pig-h'on, lumber, salt, 
 wool, that is to say, materials. 
 
 It is a notion cognate with this of the sanctity of taxes, 
 that it is needful to publish in connection with the items of 
 tariff-taxes what is called a Free List., that is, a long list of 
 articles not taxed ; just as if the dear people were entitled 
 to be taxed on every thing that is ever imported, but as a 
 
512 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 gracious boon from theii* servants in Congress a large number 
 of articles are actually exempted ! On an actual count of 
 them in an official copy of the tariff in 1882, a list of 388 
 articles were found to be enumerated duty-free, of which the 
 only ones of much consequence were Tea and Coffee. Why 
 not have a short tariff-list of taxed articles, and assume that 
 every thing else is free? 
 
 (?) So full is Protection of contradictions and absurd ties, 
 Ih: ; one often hears propounded a false notion the opposite 
 of the one just considered, namely, that Free Trade is a ?ort 
 of heavenly Theory and would requke a Millennium to work 
 in. "We are told in one breath that protective tariff-taxes 
 are too sacred to be touched, and in the next that free trade 
 is quite too holy for this wicked world ! No missile has been 
 so often hm'led at Free Trade as this, that it is a TJieory, as 
 if that, if true, would be enough to condemn it. Not to 
 seem illiberal, the protectionist is usually willing to concede 
 that it is a good theory, though of course it will not work in 
 practice. . He forgets in all this three truths : first, that every 
 thing that is done of set purpose, and not by more chance, 
 is done on some underlying theory or ground of action, and 
 that it must be better in the end to do things on a good 
 theory than on a bad one ; second, that there is nothing 
 more worthy of respect than a' good theory in harmony with 
 the facts and di-ift of the universe, such as, for example, 
 Newton's theory of Gravitation ; and third, that the conces- 
 sion of the theory as good, concedes also that the practice 
 is good under it, because the only way to tell whether a 
 theory is g"Dod or bad is to test it by practice, since that Is 
 necessarily a bad theory that does not work well in practice. 
 "Wonderfully simple and primitive is the postulate wliicii 
 makes Free Trade a theory at all, namely this, that any two 
 parties wishing to exchange services for their mutual benefit 
 should be allowed to do so, provided no other man's riglits 
 are infringed thereby. Fj-ee trade does not compel anjjhod/j 
 to trade, does not even recommend anybody to trade, it merely 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 613 
 
 allows tJiose to trade who think it for their advantage. The 
 only theory in the premises is, that men are their own best 
 judges in the matter of their own exchanges, and that gov- 
 ernments liave not the right and still less the wisdom to 
 r<^strict this advantageous interchange. No far-off millen- 
 nium is required for the play of these principles, no benevo- 
 lence bayond that natural to men, nothing but an enlighteued 
 self-interest, which respects the rights of others while it in- 
 sists upon its own. Thirty-eight neighboring States of this 
 Union practise an absolute free trade with each other and 
 like it very much, and are not conscious of any other than 
 earthly motives in the matter ; many of them have similarly 
 practised towards each other for a century, and every citizen 
 concedes that it has proved highly beneficial ; why should not 
 the extension of the same freedom, with the same motives, 
 as between neighboring and distant foreign States be highly 
 beneficial also? Does the mutual benefit of an exchange 
 depend upon the accident that the parties to it are citizens 
 or subjects of the same government? The south end of 
 Vermont trades freely and advantageously with its neighbors 
 across the line in Massachusetts ; is there any good reason 
 why the north end of Vermont should not trade just as freely 
 and advantageously with its neighbors across the line in 
 Canada? 
 
 There is a little bit of reason after all in the protectionist 
 reference to the millennium in connection with free trade : 
 it betrays an inner sense that two such good things are in 
 harmony with each other : and they are : free trade, though 
 resting on self-interest only, tends strongly to lessen wars, 
 to jaicrease intercommunication and good neighborhood among 
 nations, to unify the human race on earthly grounds of inter- 
 dependence, and so to aid the coming in of the better and 
 higher Gospel, itself the prelude to millennial glories. Just 
 here, we can see on the other hand, how much of a theory 
 Protection is, and how had a theory it is. Its postulates are 
 many and complicated, are contrary to the natural impulses 
 
514 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of men and hostile to a natural state of things, deny in effect 
 that exchanges are mutually beneficial, assume that somebody 
 else rather than the parties concerned are better judges of 
 their interest, betray an obvious aspect of greed on the part 
 of those who get protective taxes put on, cause in practice 
 dissatisfaction and ill-will as between citizens of the same 
 country, and set all the nations over against each other in a 
 ])osture of armed neutrality if not of actual hostility. For 
 it must be observed, that, if these postulates are sound at 
 all, they are sound for all nations and for all time. Happily, 
 they are not sound for any nation at any time. 
 
 (^m) Because protective tariff- taxes have been enacted in 
 this country, sometimes by large majorities, protectionists 
 have falsely assumed that their system rests back on public 
 opinion favorable to it. All that can be said with truth is, 
 that public opinion for twentj^-five years has passively tol- 
 erated it, while the force that has held it up has not been 
 public opinion at all, but log-rolling combinations among 
 interested men. An analogous instance was that of the 
 River and Harbor bill passed in the summer of 1882 over 
 the veto of President Arthur. That bill was full of jobs. 
 Creeks and other waters or water-courses not down on the 
 maps came in for a share of the spoil. No one pretended 
 at the time that public opinion favored the bill, nor was that 
 necessary ; afterwards many congressmen lost a re-election 
 in consequence of having supported it, so really hostile to 
 it was public opinion. One locality log-rolled with another, 
 and one interest with another interest, and not even a veto 
 could stop its enactment. A knit-goods bill, doubling the 
 duties on those fabrics, was pending at the same time. 
 When Connecticut members were reproached at home for 
 favoring the Harbor bill, they replied, " Tlie knit-goods could 
 not Jiave passed unless the Harbor bill passed too." Here it 
 is. " You tickle me, and I will tickle you." Knit-goods are 
 supposed to be woollen goods, and "protection" accorded 
 to them to be protection for the woollen interest. While this 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 515 
 
 knit-goods bill was pending, the writer met an old pupil, a 
 manufacturer, and asked him, "What are you running on, 
 now? " "On these knit-goods they are making such a fuss 
 about at Washington." "I thought you spun and wove 
 cotton." "I do." " Are not knit-goods woollen ? " "No." 
 ' ' Is there no wool in what you are making ? " " Not a shred.' ' 
 " I thought this bill was to protect woollen manufacturers." 
 " Oh! toe are obliged to print the figure of a sheep on every 
 piece we make, hut every fibre of it is cotton! " So it works 
 The high tax is levied, but whose is the help and the harm 
 cannot be foreseen. 
 
 A worse feature than greedy log-rolling finds place in 
 protective tariffs. Elbridge G-. Spaulding, a distinguished 
 member of the Ways and Means during the civil war and 
 just after, told the present writer, that there were but one 
 or two members of that Committee besides himself who did 
 not hold stock in corporations whose business was " pro- 
 tected " by legislation framed in that Committee. Some of 
 that stock was known to have been " put where it would do 
 the most good," after a type of corruption made famous 
 some time later ; and all of it (however acquired) was a 
 scandal in the hands of men whose official duty it was to 
 shape the taxes of a great country. 
 
 (7i) Another specimen of false assumption and fallacious 
 reasoning will be cited in this connection. Protectionists 
 usually deny in argument that tariff-taxes raise the price 
 of home articles protected to the extent of the tax, and 
 often deny that these prices are raised at all, alleging tliat 
 home competition under the encouragement of the tariff 
 shortly lowers prices to about the foreign standard ; and 
 members of Congress have made elaborate speeches even 
 claiming as the result of protection the natural decline of 
 prices owing to the better organization of industry and the 
 universal use of machinery. This is the assumption and 
 the claim. Fortunately, the language of protectionists uudei 
 other circumstances than in argument is in complete rcfuta* 
 
516 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 tion of the c. aim, and their actions deny it more loudly than 
 their words can assert it. In the " Springfield Eepublican " 
 of Nov. 21, 1882, under the heading " Twenty TJiousaud 
 [die Men," occur these words: " The Joliet and other vjest- 
 ern Bessemer steel companies have decided to shut down Dec. 
 2, because, they say, of the recent fall in the prices of rails and 
 of the prospect that a democratic Congress will reduce the tariff 
 on steel rails." That was more than a year before the demo- 
 cratic Congress was to assemble. A dim and distant fear 
 that the tax on their fellow-citizens of about 100% might be 
 lowered or removed, contributed to stop their production and 
 throw their men out of employ. Two days later the same 
 newspaper announced, that the knit-goods producers, although 
 they obtained what of protection they wanted of Congress in 
 the summer, yet in the late autumn they too agreed to lower 
 wages and work three-fourths time. All this strikingly con- 
 firms also what was said above about the need of foreign 
 markets for our home-made goods. 
 
 There is a simple test of the sincerity of protectionists 
 when they affirm that tariff-taxes do not raise home prices of 
 similar goods, which was never known to fail, and which 
 any one can try, namely, propose to take away the taxes, 
 and watch the reasons given for resistance to that proposal. 
 Those reasons will imply that the taxes do raise the prices 
 of the home commodities. If not, where does the protection 
 3ome in? Or, what is the motive for levying such taxes? 
 Or, why did the Onondaga Salt Company keep selling salt in 
 Canada for years 40% less than in Syracuse itscif? The 
 present writer has seen the price-lists by which that company 
 offered to lay down salt at the stations of the Grand Tiunk 
 Railway in Canada freight paid for less money than the salt 
 could be bought for in Syracuse. There is also a simple 
 test, which any one can try, that settles the point whether 
 consumers pay the duties in the price of the wares they buy. 
 Let the questioner visit any large merchant in any seaport 
 town, and inquire the price of any sort of merchandise " in 
 
FOREIGN TEADE. 517 
 
 boud," and the price of the same goods "duty paid." He 
 will find that the two prices differ by just the amount of the 
 duty, and the merchant will be equallj^ willing to sell him 
 the goods in bond and let him pay the duty for himself, 
 or to sell him the goods at the usual duty paid price. Then 
 let him inquire whether American-made goods of the same 
 quality can be bought cheaper than the duty paid foreign 
 goods : the merchant will say no, and this for two simple 
 reasons : first, because the American maker wants as large 
 a price as he can get, and the foreigner cannot undersell 
 him when he asks the duty paid price of the foreign article ; 
 and second, because if the American maker were willing to 
 sell his goods more cheaply, no foreign goods of the same 
 character could be sold except at a loss to the merchant, 
 and therefore none could be imported. 
 
 (o) Let us now look for one moment at a striking confu- 
 sion of thought and terms, and a coincident fallacy in logic, 
 which one meets with constantly in protectionist argumenta- 
 tion. It is the confusion between the name and the real 
 nature of that thing called " protection." '•'■Let's look into 
 the natur 07i't," said the illiterate though longheaded old 
 larmer while arguing to the point with his college-bred sons. 
 Protection of person and property and reputation under a 
 lawful government is a matter so justly dear to every right- 
 minded citizen, that that good word has been taken as a 
 designation of something entirely different and even diamet- 
 rically opposite. The word is good, but it does not describe 
 the thing at all. Governmental protection in the only true 
 sense of that term is something accorded with a firm hand 
 and an impartial eye to all citizens without distinction, while 
 the same phrase in its bastard sense means something abstract- 
 ed from the masses of the citizens to be then cland^^stinely 
 and indirectly conferred upon a favored few. We have seen 
 abundantly already what " protection " in the false sense really 
 IS, as complicated and comprehensive taxes, and it is a piece of 
 pure and plausible deceit to apply a word so suffused with 
 
518 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 wholesome associations to a thing so penetrated with loath- 
 some selfishness. Government, which is nothing but a com- 
 mittee of citizens to attend impartially to certain great needs 
 of the whole, is thereby prostituted to the end of the possible 
 enrichment of the few at the cost of the certain impoverish- 
 ment of the most. 
 
 This explains a peculiar and long- noticed fact, namely, 
 that protectionist talkers and writers rarely, or never, use 
 radical analysis. Thej^ rarely, or never, begin at the begin- 
 ning, take simple cases and follow them on, try to show why 
 and how high taxes on certain things promote the public 
 prosperity, and thus connect cause with effect and premise 
 with conclusion. On the contrary, they talk endlessly about 
 " Protection," ascribe to it marvellous efficacy, often refer to 
 it as if it were the leading factor in the development of indus- 
 try, without ever once taking it to pieces before our eyes and 
 showing us that it is adapted in its very nature to bring about 
 the results ascribed to it. The truth is, an honest analysis 
 is fatal to it ; and so, recourse is had to smooth words and 
 deceptive phrases and ornamental epithets non-suggestive 
 even of the real nature of the thing. Here, too, Shakspeare 
 hits it to the life, — 
 
 " Ornament is but the guiled shore 
 To a most dangerous sea." 
 
 " Wliat damned error but some sober brow 
 Will bless it and approve it with a text, 
 Hiding the grossness with fair ornament." 
 
 Henry Carey Baird in a lecture at Brooklyn in the spring 
 of 1883, and in various writings representative of the views 
 of a circle of Philadelphians, is fully open to the criticism 
 implied under this head. He also practised a cognate device 
 tolerably well calculated to mislead the unwary, namely, rep- 
 resenting the doctrine of free trade as an inference or out- 
 growth of the doubtful dogmas of Ricardo on Rent and 
 Malthus on Population, just as if that must stand or fall 
 with these. This is a queer confusion of matters no way 
 
FOKEIGN TRADE. 519 
 
 vitally related to each other. The inalienable right of every 
 citizen to sell and buy freely anywhere and everynhere, 
 subject only to the prevenient restraint of morals and health 
 and revenue, is in no way dependent on what Ricardo thought 
 about rent or what Malthus thought about population or 
 what Carey thought about association, or on what any eco- 
 nomical school postulate on any point within this Science, 
 That inherent right does not borrow leave to be, nor hang as 
 a pendant on any set of dogmas or doctrines, because it ante- 
 dates them all, underlies them all, and will survive tliera all 
 except as it is intertwined with other truths as impregnable 
 as itself. One mental twist finds easily its fellow, as woollen 
 fibres interlock in felting, and so Baird advertised himself as 
 an ' ' Industrial Publisher ' ' on the principle of lucus a non 
 lucendo, since the chief aim of all his writings and publica- 
 tions was to stop by force of law some natural and profitable 
 industries. The chief logical fallacy employed by this whole 
 class of writers was the post hoc ergo propter hoc. Because 
 it is hard work to destroy the commerce of a great people by 
 legal restraints however multiplied, and some prosperity 
 pushed itself into prominence in spite of all, behold in such 
 prosperity the effects of our beautiful legislation ! 
 
 {p) Lastly along this line let us look at the monstrous 
 incongruity between the free bounties of Nature bestowed on 
 a nation and the effects of restrictive legislation upon the 
 actual prices of these very bounties when thej' come into the 
 home market. Protection thwarts and virtually destroys 
 those gifts of God to any people which are most peculiar and 
 abundant. It therefore flings its fist into the face of Provi- 
 dence, and robs the people of their natural birthright. We 
 will take the examples from our own country and at the 
 present time. First, in respect of Copper, the purest and 
 most abundant deposits of that important metal in the world 
 are found in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Copper, 
 according!}', should naturally be cheaper and better in this 
 countr}' than in any other country in the world. The situation 
 
620 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of the mines is central on the Great Lakes and almost in con- 
 tact with the two greatest rivers of the Continent, so that the 
 diffusion of the product over the country is providentially 
 easy and cheap. According to the census of 1880, the copper 
 mines of this country put out in that year 50,650,000 pounds, 
 of which the Superior region mined 45,800,000 pounds, or 
 just 90% ; the bounty of God has not been slack in bestow- 
 ing this particular necessary of life upon the United States ; 
 the fact remains, notwithstanding, that ingots of copper cost 
 more to the citizens of the United States than to the subjects of 
 the " effete monarchies " of Europe, many of which have not 
 a deposit of this ore within their borders ; the tax in our 
 tariff of three or four cents a pound on foreign copper, put 
 on on purpose to raise the price of our own product to our 
 own citizens, lifts the price here above the European level ; 
 the Lake Superior copper interest sold 10,000,000 pounds of 
 copper to go to Europe in the spring of 1883 at 16 cents per 
 lb., while it charged every American wholesale buyer 17^ 
 cents ; and at the same time people wondered why Ships 
 could not be built in this country as cheaply as on the Clj^de ' 
 There are vast deposits of white sand in western Massa- 
 chusetts, said to be the best in the world, perfectly adapted 
 to glass-making, whence it is carried by rail to distant parts 
 as well as manufactured on the spot, and one would think 
 that window-glass and other glass products should be at least 
 as cheap in the United States as in those countries (like 
 Great Britain) in which there are no such deposits of sand. 
 As a matter of fact, however, glass products of every grade 
 cost more iu this country, 1863-83, than in any other country 
 in Christendom. Heavy duties on foreign glass, put into tlie 
 tariff at the instance of the domestic manufacturers in oidar 
 to enrich themselves at the cost of their countrymen, more 
 than neutralized the free gift of God in the widespread sand- 
 beds, and turned that intended blessing into a positive curse. 
 If there had not been a bushel of sand in the soil, the pur- 
 chasers of ojlass would have been better off in that int( rval. 
 
FOREIGN TEADE. 521 
 
 If every pane and vessel of glass had been bought from 
 abroad with the products of domestic toil, and had paid 
 besides a round revenue tax at the custom-houses, the people 
 would have gotten them cheaper and better than they did. 
 There was an extra and onerous tax on light ; and the broth- 
 erly cup of cold water, on which the special divine blessing 
 rests, was made by law more difficult to the Lord's p(>or. 
 
 Twice within two decades separate deposits of be rax 
 have been discovered on the Pacific slopes, and each time 
 proposals were made by the Committee of Ways and Means 
 to put a special tax on foreign borax in order to ' ' protect ' ' 
 the domestic article, that is to say, to force the American 
 people to pay more than before for their borax because they 
 had found a good store of it upon their own soil. The pro- 
 duction of pig iron in this country for the year 1882, reached 
 the enormous quantity of 5,178,000 tons, according to the 
 report of the American Iron and Steel Association, and one- 
 half of this quantity was produced in the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania alone. Iron is the mother-metal, and is the most 
 absolute of the necessaries of ' life ; the deposits of iron ore 
 in this country, and the deposits of coal in close proximity 
 with it with which to reduce it, taken together, are the most 
 remarkable and abundant in the world ; iron, in all its forms 
 and modifications, ought to be cheaper in tlie United States 
 than in any other nation in Christendom ; Providence so 
 designed it to be ; but it is probable that a ton of pig iron 
 costs the American citizen, who is compelled to buy it of his 
 fellow American citizen, more in gold than a ton of the same 
 costs any buyer in Europe, and it is certain that iron, in its 
 more advanced forms and modifications, is more expensive 
 in the United States than in any market in Europe, or Ar>ia, 
 oi" Africa. 
 
 Tlie test of any truth in the economic world is its harmony 
 n-ith otiier known truths, and the test of falsity also is its 
 contradiction to such truths. Protection accordingl}' con- 
 tiadicts such truths at practically innumerable points, but 
 
522 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 enough of these have now been cited, and we pass then 
 briefly to the last branch of the subject. 
 
 4. The Fruitage of Protection is just what might have 
 been expected from the nature of the system. As it is a 
 bad theory, so it works badly in practice of course. Men do 
 not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. In reference 
 to its working in Great Britain, we quote further from Glad- 
 stone in 1856 : " It is not easy to calculate the amount of the 
 fine and penalty im paid for long adherence to folly ^ hut if it 
 could he exactly reckoned and fully exposed to the eyes of other 
 nations^ it might supply them with a timely warning against 
 imitating our former errors^ and with the best encouragement 
 to the adoption^ before they become entangled in the creation 
 of artificial interests^ of our recent and better example.'' In 
 reference to its working in the United States, with which the 
 reader is more concerned and more familiar, we will append 
 specimens in a few particulars. 
 
 (1) The condition of ship-building and shipping gener- 
 ally, and especially of shipping employed in the foreign 
 trade, at the close of this year of grace 1882, is the best 
 commentary on the effects of Protection in this country. It 
 is the best, because ship-building and shipping have been 
 perfectly protected for more than 90 years, the perfection 
 of protection being the absolute prohibition of competitors ; 
 and because our people are peculiarly a maritime people, 
 having enormous natural advantages in that direction, and 
 having begun in the '-'• Blessing of the Bay'' built in 1G31 a 
 a career of great enterprise and success on the ocean. In 
 the original tariff of 1789, all foreign-built ships were ex- 
 eluded from the registry under the American flag, and to 
 the shame of that flag this absurd and fatal prohibition is 
 still continued; and in the biU of 1792, all foreign-owned 
 ships were excluded from the American coasting trade, 
 which only less disgraceful law is also still in force. Both 
 laws were designed to give, and did give, extraordinary 
 privileges to American ship-builders and shippers, including 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 623 
 
 the complete monopoly of the River-, Lake-, and Coast-trade, 
 the sole market for ships employed in the foreign trade, and 
 other advantages under the home registration. Neverthe- 
 less, for the last third of the period named, shipping inter- 
 ests of all kinds have declined more and more ; other causes 
 have contributed to this decline in a minor way, but no 
 adequate explanation of it can be found, though sought foi 
 far and near, except in the navigation laws and in the tariff- 
 taxes, increasing the costs of building and working ships 
 and at the same time curtailing the markets for domestic 
 goods. In 1861 there was an excess of American over 
 foreign tonnage entered at ports of the United States of 
 2,806,363 tons; while in 1871 there was an excess of for- 
 eign over American tonnage at the same ports of 2,523,704 
 tons. Of the whole exports and imports of Christendom in 
 1870, Great Britain had almost precisely one-third, and had 
 increased her amount 91% in ten years, but the United 
 States had increased her amount in the same time but 16%. 
 The bulk of our exports and imports is very large, but very 
 little of it is now carried upon American bottoms. In 1826, 
 when the volume of foreign trade was ^162,000,000, 92% of 
 it was carried in American vessels ; after fifty years of pro- 
 tection to ship-building, when the trade had increased to 
 $1,176,000,000 in 1877, only 27% was borne on our own 
 bottoms ; and in 1882, when the bulk had risen to over 
 $1,500,000,000, less than 16% of it was carried under the 
 American flag. Of about 560 ocean steamers plying the 
 Atlantic in that year between the United States and Europe, 
 only 4 at most wore the Stars and Stripes. Monopoly may 
 reign in inland waters and along shallow coasts, but the 
 deep sea is too broad and too big for any thing but Freedom. 
 (2) The increasing importations of foreign manufactured 
 goods relatively to the exportations of home manufactures, 
 and the consequent loss of the home market in large part as 
 well as the almost total loss of the foreign market for domes- 
 tic made goods, are a second result of this false system of 
 
524 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Protection. The figures on this point are startling. The 
 three great textile industries and iron and steel, which are in 
 general the most highly protected industries in the country, 
 in behalf of which the claim has been vociferated that the 
 home market must be preserved for them by means of pro- 
 tective tariff taxes, show an astonishing surrender to foreign 
 competition for the year 1882. Five years before, in 1877, 
 the imports of foreign manufactures of these stood fis 
 follows : — 
 
 Silk goods .... $21,830,000 I Woollen goods . . . $25,000,000 
 Cotton goods . . . 18,923,000 1 Iron and steel . . . 9,570,000 
 
 After five years more of legally "controlling the home 
 market in the interest of home industry," in 1882, the 
 account stood as follows : — 
 
 Silk goods .... $41,400,000 I Woollen goods . . $42,000,000 
 Cotton goods . . . 40,000,000 | Iron and steel . . . 50,000,000 
 
 To show that this surrender of the home market to foreign- 
 ers in spite of the lofty barriers to keep them out is annual 
 and steady as well as quinquennial as above, it is only need- 
 ful to compare 1881 with 1882. The increase of the impor- 
 tations of the latter year over the former was in 
 
 Silk goods 21 % I Woollen goods 34% 
 
 Cotton goods 25 % I Iron and steel 1% 
 
 On the other hand, the exports of native manufactures 
 along these four lines of protected goods were, in 1882, almost 
 nothing in silks and woollens, and in cottons but $13,100,000 
 (a very trifle more than in 1860), and in iron and steel 
 amounted t-o $15,700,000, or less than one-third of the im- 
 p )rts of the same year. 
 
 As illustrating the same downward tendency of our " pro- 
 tected " manufactures under a system boasted of as calcu- 
 lated to make them paramount, glassware furnishes some 
 interesting figures. The imports of glassware for 1882 were 
 $7,443,211, and the exports $713,792, or less than 10%. 
 Instead of seeking for foreign fields in which to sell glass, it 
 
FOREIGN TBADE. 
 
 526 
 
 would seem to be the first pi'oper business of American man- 
 ufacturers to try to see how they can occupy at least one-half 
 of the domestic market now covered by the foreigners. With 
 all their advantages of the best native sand in abundance, of 
 freely imported skilled laborers from Belgium and elsewhere, 
 and of high tariff taxes to keep out the foreign products and 
 thus raise the price of their own, foreigners sold to Ameri- 
 caus in 1882 more than 10 times the glass Americans sold 
 them. In 1832, to turn the picture, a Birmingham famil}' by 
 the name of Chance, unprotected by any duties such as the 
 American manufacturer deems so indispensable to his success, 
 being obliged to import all their sand from across the Chan- 
 nel, and importing at first all their laborers from France and 
 Belgium, established a self-supporting and prosperous indus- 
 try, in which the laborers (now native) not only receive good 
 wages but are cared for also in all their social and moral 
 well-being. 
 
 The census of 1880 gives the total number of persons em- 
 ployed in the great subdivisions of industr}^ in the United 
 States as follows : — 
 
 per- 
 
 Trade and transporta- Professional and 
 
 tion 1,810,256 sonal services . . . 4,074,238 
 
 Manufactures, mechan- Agriculture .... 7,070,493 
 
 ical and mining . . 3,837,112 
 
 The following table compiled from the censuses of the last 
 four decades will be found to yield food for thought in the 
 light of the present paragraphs. It relates solely to manu- 
 factured goods at the four successive periods. 
 
 
 1850. 
 
 1860. 
 
 1870. 
 
 1880. 
 
 Value of Products , . . 
 
 $1,019,109,616 
 
 $1,885,861,676 
 
 $4,232,325,442 
 
 $5,369,579,191 
 
 Value of Materials . . . 
 
 555,174,320 
 
 1,031,605,092 
 
 2,488,427,242 
 
 3,395,823,547 
 
 Wages paid out . . . . 
 
 236,759,46-4 
 
 378,878,966 
 
 775,584,343 
 
 947,903,795 
 
 Mateiials to Products, %. 
 
 54 
 
 54 
 
 58 
 
 63 
 
 Wages to I'roducts, % . 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 18 
 
 17 
 
 Average Wages earned . 
 
 $247 
 
 $289 
 
 $377 
 
 $346 
 
 Capital to Products, % . 
 
 52 
 
 53 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 No. of Establishments . 
 
 123,020 
 
 140,433 
 
 252,148 
 
 253,852 
 
 Average Hands each . . 
 
 7.79 
 
 9.34 
 
 8.10 
 
 10.79 
 
526 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Our manufactures were put down in the census of 1880 as 
 in value $5,369,579,191. But this sum contains $1,670,000,- 
 000 that does not strictly belong to manufactures, such as 
 flouring, lumbering, blacksmithing, sugar refining, coffee 
 roasting, slaughtering, and a few others. This sum being 
 taken out, there is left in round numbers but $3,700,000,000. 
 This is not a great amount for 50,000,000 of people, and for 
 a land with such natural advantages for manufacturing as our 
 own. And the significant and very serious feature of the 
 situation is, that nearly 26% of this real manufacturing 
 industry of the country is in metal goods, and 13% of it 
 in woollens, both of which were shown above as having already 
 surrendered large parts of the "home market" to foreign 
 competitors in these very things. More than 23% of all the 
 laborers in real manufactures were in metals, and more than 
 13% of all were in woollens, that is, nearly 37% in these two 
 industries alone, both of which are highly " protected," and 
 both of which are weak even in their own home market. 
 
 (3) A third and chief fruit of Protection in the United 
 States, 1862-1884, was a higher range of prices on all the ne- 
 cessaries of life except food ^ and a poorer quality in all manu- 
 factured goods, than prevailed anywhere else in Christendom. 
 For example, a cotton umbrella, a suit of clothes of any 
 grade for either sex, common crockery', a kit of tools, a 
 brass kettle, steel rails, nails and hammers, a silk hat, hosiery 
 and knit goods, writing papers and pens, — and forty similar 
 things besides, — were higher in price in this interval than in 
 any other country of the civilized world. A friend of the 
 writer, who has spent most of his life as a missionary among 
 the Zulus near the Cape of Good Hope, told him in 1882, 
 that he could buy in Natal every form of clothing for him- 
 self and every form of clothing for his wife and daughters, 
 and even paper for his sermons and Bible translations, cheaper 
 and better than he could buy them then in his native Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 Three or four easy and conclusive proofs of the main prop 
 
FOREIGN TBABE. 527 
 
 osilioE uuder this head are open to us. First, it was the sole 
 design and end of these protective duties to lift the level of 
 the prices of home-ruanufactured goods above the level that 
 prevailed in other countries for corresponding goods ; that is 
 the whole theory and purpose of a protective tariff ; the men 
 who got these taxes put on the foreign goods knew what they 
 were about and why they were about it ; and it is a safe step 
 to take to conclude that what such men shrewdly design is 
 actually accomplished by their device. Second, it was 
 avowed over and over again in the debates in Congress, 
 that these goods could not be made and vended here at the 
 current foreign prices for them ; if the duties were taken off, 
 domestic prices would fall at once to the foreign level ; and 
 this is certainly good proof that the domestic level was 
 higher. Third, the already demonstrated increasing control 
 of our Jiome markets by foreign manufactures proves the 
 same thing in another way ; these manufactures have actually 
 paid high duties at the custom-houses, and their price has 
 necessarily been lifted to the full amount of those duties, and 
 yet such was the high level of home prices for manufactures 
 that these duty-paid foreign goods could still sell and under- 
 sell in our markets ; and better proof of our proposition than 
 this could not be desired. Fourth, the action of Congress 
 itself in December, 1871, showed unmistakably the sense of 
 that body, that tariff rates had made the market for certain 
 protected commodities artificially high. In October of that 
 year occuiTed the great fire at Chicago. A city had been 
 burned down, and was now to be rebuUt. When Congress 
 came together a couple of months after, in pity for the sufferers 
 by the Chicago fbe, it voted, by large majorities in both 
 Houses, that most building materials designed for use in re- 
 building the ruined city should come in free of tariff taxes ! 
 Why was this ? Of what significance was that prompt and 
 praiseworthy action, unless tariff taxes actually raise the price 
 of domestic goods " protected," and unless the removal of 
 such duties lowers prices? Glass, brick, stone, and every 
 
528 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 form of irDn and steel materials, were cheapened to Chicago 
 buUders, and were designed to be cheapened to them by the 
 remission of certain tariff taxes ; could there be any better 
 proof by any possibility that the imposition of tariff taxes 
 actually raises prices, just as they are designed to be raised 
 thereby by those who get the taxes put on ? 
 
 Our proposition is also, that goods of a worse qualit}' than 
 elsewhere in Christendom were vended in this country during 
 those years, and that this poor quality was a part of the 
 fruitage of Protection. There were two reasons for this, 
 both of which are all the time operative in a " protected ' ' 
 market. First, the market for protected goods no longer 
 depends upon their quality for goodness. An artificial mar- 
 ket has been created by putting up barriers to the coming in 
 of foreign goods of that grade. Buyers cannot help them- 
 selves. They must buy in the restricted home market, or go 
 without. Sales are virtually forced. Good quality in the 
 product is naturally and inevitably neglected by the pro- 
 ducer, whenever and just so far as his sales no longer turn 
 on the good quality of his products. A monopoly market 
 is always filled with inferior goods, and always will be. 
 Gibbon noticed this a century ago, and said : "The spirit 
 of monopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive. Their work 
 is more costly and less productive than that of independent 
 artists ; and the new improvements, so eagerly grasped by 
 the competition of freedom, are admitted b}' them with slow 
 and sullen reluctance." The second reason for poor goods 
 in a protected market is, that "protection" is just like 
 whiskey : it uses all men that touch it alike. It raises the 
 price of his materials and the cost of all his processes to 
 the protected manufacturer himself, because, in order to get 
 protection at all, there must be many industries protected, 
 and the manufacturer has soon reason enough to cry to be 
 delivered from his friends. He has purchased the right to 
 pluck the community by conceding to his fellow-plunderers 
 the right to pluck him. His costs of production are aug- 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 529 
 
 mented ; his foreign market is lost, because his brilliant de- 
 vice will not let him get his pay back for what he would sell 
 abroad ; if people are such fools as to make laws to prevent 
 their own buying, of course such laws will prevent their sell- 
 ing, since buying and selling are always reciprocal and syn- 
 chronous ; and accordingly, the protected manufacturer must 
 put into his goods less weight of material, pay less attention 
 to good quality, and make every way poor goods of neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Alfred Lapoint, one of our Peruvian consuls, warned the 
 State department in 1883 of this character of some of our 
 manufactures which were trying to find a South American 
 market. He said : " /i is my duty to indicate that great care- 
 lessness prevails ivith our manufacturers ; for instance^ I was 
 called upon to purchase in the United States a steam-pump 
 and boiler, ivhich I ordered from one of our most famed manu- 
 facturers, and lohen it arrived, not alone was the boiler inade- 
 quate for the pump, but actually after two months' work the 
 upper tube sheet split in three parts, a proof of its bad quality 
 and construction. 
 
 (4) Another fruit of Protection is the demoralization of 
 commerce, the encouragement of smuggling, the losses of 
 maintaining expensive vigilance by laud and sea, bribery 
 of custom-house officials, delays and disabilities and ill-will 
 of travellers, and many more such-like things. " Gentle- 
 men," said Sir Eobert Peel to the House of Commons in 
 1842, ^'■ivhat is the use of fixing our rates so high as tp alloio 
 the smuggler to underbid us?" Secretary Hugh McCulloch 
 in his Report to Congress in 1866 estimated the various 
 frauds upon the customs revenue for that year at $92, 000,- 
 000. Smuggling and undervaluations and " custom-house 
 oaths ' ' and all sorts of evasions have always accompanied 
 high protective taxes, and always will accompany them. Laws 
 and vigilance have been Jind are now unable to prevent it, 
 While to evade honest taxation is a high crime against So- 
 ciety, it is a much less crime (to say the least of it) to evade 
 
530 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 laws passed, not to get revenue, but to foster class interests 
 at the expense of the masses. To do that is a rude attempt 
 to right a wrong : government is the first and main offender. 
 Let it yield to all men their just rights, including the right 
 of free exchange subject only to fair taxation, and it will 
 have no need to harry smugglers, and spend millions of the 
 people's money in useless vigilance. To levy such high 
 duties as prevent importations and encourage smugglers is 
 a gross mistake ; because, while the people still pay artificial 
 prices, the treasury loses expected revenues, honest import- 
 ers suffer in their business, the public morality becomes cor- 
 rupted, and even the protected interests are not ultimately 
 "protected." 
 
 So pat to all this is a recent oflScial passage, that we quote 
 from L. G. Martin, supervising special agent of the treasury 
 department, in a report made November, 1882. " The un- 
 dervaluation of all Jcinds of imported mercJiandise has steadily 
 increased from year to year until, at the present time, its pro- 
 portions are enormous. The reports from agents sent abroad 
 to examine into the subject show that nearly all classes of goods 
 paying ad valorem duties exported from various countries to 
 the United States are undervalued, more particularly goods 
 consigned by foreign ma.nvfacturers to their agents in this 
 country. The practice of consigning goods has groion to such 
 proportions that there has been absolutely no foreign market 
 value for many articles imported, as there are no sales of such 
 goods in the open market, the American merchants being com- 
 pelled to p)ur chase from the agent of the manufacturer to 
 whom the-goods are consigned. Investigation has shown that 
 upon the advice of the agent foreign manufacturers often in- 
 voice consigned goods far below the cost of production. It is 
 estimated that less than 40^0 of the 60'% ad valorem duty on 
 silk is collected, in consequence of the undervaluation of that 
 article. Yelvets, plushes, laces, embroideries, edgings and like 
 articles have been reported as systematically undervalued by 
 the foreign raanufacturers, many of whom, when spoken to on 
 
FOREIGN TBABE. 531 
 
 /^e subject^ openly admit that they invoice their goods to this 
 country at lower rates than they do to other countries, justify- 
 ing their action and reconciling their conscience upon the 
 ground that they have the right on th^ score of humanity, 
 if for no other reason, to evade what they term our ^^mon- 
 strous American tariff," declaring that if the Am^erican mar- 
 ket was cut off from them, which is the intention of our high 
 tariff, their manufactories would close and their people ivotdd 
 suffer and starve in many manufacturing centres whence 
 nearly cdl their mamfactured goods are exported to the 
 United States." 
 
 (5) The last fruitage of Protection to be mentioned in 
 this connection is, that it is hard to escape from the clutches 
 of a bad system of taxation long maintained. Prescription 
 pleads for its retention. Privileged classes grown up under 
 the shadow of it are apt to be imbittered by the most reason- 
 able pleas for its abolition. Clear-sighted citizens seeing the 
 wrong of it from a moral point of view, and the losses of it 
 from an economical point of view, are apt to let their per- 
 sonal feelings take a slant towards the persons concerned 
 rather than towards the system, and this begets suspicions 
 and ill-will and class-feelings. As the natural drift of the 
 system is to build up the fortunes of a very few at the cost 
 of the toil of the very many, when the latter clearly perceive 
 this drift, their denunciations are often bitterly personal and 
 sometimes extremely unreasonable. Society gets by the 
 ears in trying to extricate itself from a bad slough : it seems 
 to be alwaj's a part of the punishment for entering upon a 
 false system that it is hard work to get out of it. The ques- 
 tion at bottom is a purely scientific one, and Political Econ- 
 omy is perfectly able to handle it as such ; but it gets 
 entangled with other and diverse social questions, and what 
 is worse, gets mixed up with party politics ; so that, some- 
 times, a matter which not one voter in a thousand really 
 comprehends, becomes a sort of test on one side or the 
 other of party allegiance. A measure which concerns all 
 
532 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 the people equally often becomes a sort of shuttlecock 
 knocked back and forth between the parties. An amusing 
 yet disheartening illustration of this is seen in a letter of 
 Senator Dawes printed just before the meeting of Congress 
 in December, 1882. He had been very instrumental for 
 twenty years in getting on and keeping on the abominable 
 taxes of the tariff that was in vogue at that date. But in 
 the elections of November the people had pronounced un- 
 mistakably against those taxes and the political party which 
 devised and maintained them. The Senator writes : " If the 
 tariff commission presents a hill that the Republicans can sup- 
 port, the first day of the session should not pass before it is 
 offered as an amendment to the internal revenue hill in the 
 Senate and as an independent measure in the House., and let 
 the Democrats fight it if they zoill." 
 
 The fruitage of the tree of Protection becomes soon or 
 late bitter enough even for the persons who planted and 
 watered the tree. 
 
 Shall we try to put into a few brief propositions the 
 principal points of the present chapter? 
 
 1 . The Constitution of the United States plants itself pretty 
 firmly on Free Trade ground. 
 
 2. Tlie motives and methods and mutual benefits of foreign 
 trade are in substance identical with those of domestic trade^ 
 as is seen in the silJcs of France exchanging with the cottons 
 of England. 
 
 3. Tlie origin of Protection is clearly found in the now 
 acknowledged falsities and follies of the Mercantile System. 
 
 4. A tariff from its very nature always takes but never 
 gives. 
 
 5. TJie two kinds of tariffs Revenue and Protective are 
 wholly diverse from each other in purposes, principles, inci- 
 dence and residts. 
 
 6. Protective tariff-taxes are always laid at the instance 
 and under the pressure of those men who wish to sell their 
 wares at an artificial price. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 533 
 
 7. TJiese artificial prices of home commodities tveigJi like a 
 burden on the masses of the people. 
 
 8. If a nation will not buy of foreigners it cannot sell to 
 them. 
 
 9. Foreign markets are lost to exports in proportion as 
 domestic markets are refused to imports. 
 
 10. iVb tariff-tax was ever laid on foreign laborers coming 
 in to compete for wages with domestic laborers. 
 
 11. Protective tariff-taxes lessen the wages of laborers, in- 
 crease the costs of production to manufacturers., and bear 
 doubly on the farmers, compelling them to pay more than is 
 just for what they buy and to sell for less than is just what 
 they sell. 
 
 12. Protection is as full of falsities as nuts are full of 
 meats. 
 
 13. TJie fruitage of a bad system corresponds in badness 
 with the system itself. 
 
 14. Free Trade does not compel any one to trade with for- 
 eigners but only cdlows him to do it if he finds it profitable. 
 
 15. Free Trade secures to each nation the good things of 
 all, arms each ivith the improvements in all, maximizes to 
 every toiler the rewards of his work, and tends to unite all 
 nations in bonds of peace and good-wiU. 
 
634 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 
 
 So long as these Colonies were under the British dominion 
 they were bound by the rigid fetters of the Mercantile Sys- 
 tem. Up to the date of American Independence, Virginia 
 and Massachusetts must buy most they wished to buy in 
 English markets and carry most they had to sell to English 
 ports ; the Navigation Acts, though much evaded in the col- 
 onies, were strictly applied to them, and the Board of Trade 
 were watchful for their enforcement ; a Boston ship, for ex- 
 ample, could not sail directly to China for teas, but the teas 
 muot first be brought to England in British ships, pay a duty 
 there, and then be re-exported to the colonies ; and it was 
 these galling restrictions on their trade, that, more than any 
 thing else, brought on the Revolutionary war. Says Ban- 
 croft- '•'' American Independence, like the great rivers of the 
 country, had many sources, hut the head spring which colored 
 all the stream was the Navigation Act." Any one who will 
 compare the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Tea Acts, and 
 the Act creating revenue commissioners, with the other acts 
 and grievances complained of by the Stamp Act Congress of 
 1765 and the Continental Congress of 1774, will see plainly 
 that the American Revolution was waged mainly in the inter- 
 ests of a free trade. Of the thirteen solemn Resolutions of 
 the first-named Congress, four related exclusively to these 
 interferences with their trade, the last of which was couched 
 in these terms : " That the restrictions imposed by several late 
 acts of Parliament on the trade of these colonies loill render 
 tJwm unable to purchase the manifactxires of Great Britain." 
 
UNITED STATES TABIFFS. bob 
 
 Accordingly, so soon as oui" fathers saw clearly that they 
 must set up for themselves, one of their first great national 
 acts was, antedating the Declaration of Independence by 
 three months, to throw open the commerce of the thirteen 
 Colonies to all the world not subject to the king of Great 
 Britain. The day was April 6, 1776. One grand vote of 
 the Continental Congress thus swept away forever the old 
 and hated colonial system. The vote abolished British cus- 
 tom-houses here, instituted none in their stead, and invited 
 the flag of every other nation to our harbors. Bancroft 
 (viii. 323) says : " Absolute free trade took tJie place of hoary 
 restrictions ; the products of the world could be imported from 
 any place in any friendly bottom^ and the products of Ameii- 
 can industry in like manner exported without a tax." Thus 
 things went on throughout the War, and essentially thus 
 till the establishment of our present form of government in 
 1789 ; although under the Confederation it was one of the 
 reserved rights of the States, each for itself, to lay such 
 duties on exports and imports as it chose, and this powei 
 was sometimes used contrary to the general good. No ill 
 effects followed this general liberty to buy and sell with for- 
 eigners, any more than ill effects follow at present the liberty 
 of all the people of our 38 States to buy and sell freely with 
 each other, because every thing that is bought has to be paid 
 for and the pay has to be taken for every thing that is sold. 
 
 While the war was still going on, in 1778, a treaty of com- 
 merce was signed between France and the United States. 
 The principles of this treaty were excellent. It speaks of 
 ^^ founding the advantage of commerce solely upon reciprocal 
 ictility and the just rules of free intercourse;" it agrees to 
 avoid ' ' all those burdensome prejudices which are usually 
 sources of debate, embarrassment, and discontent; " and it 
 professes as the '■'■basis of their agreement the most perfect 
 equality and reciprocity." It is pleasant to see in these lib- 
 eral terms the then pervading influence of the Physiocrats. 
 The treaty of Peace with England in 1783 was not accom 
 
536 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 panied by any treat}' of Commerce, though our envoys tried 
 hard to get one. The English expected great losses from 
 their political separation from the colonies, but they found 
 they could easily control the trade with them, partly because 
 they had previously possessed it, and partly because the Con- 
 federation was not gifted by the people with power " to 
 regulate commerce." As always in war, the capital of this 
 country had been largely destroyed, and consequently the 
 ability to produce for foreign markets much curtailed, and 
 England easily took most there was in exchange for her 
 ready goods ; the commercial helplessness of the confedera- 
 tion to force England to a position of reciprocity not only 
 led the latter to refuse a commercial treaty, but also led her 
 to exclude b}' an Order in Council American ships from 
 her West India possessions, between which and this country 
 there had grown up, partly through some relaxations in the 
 Act of Navigation and partly in violations of it, a large and 
 profitable trade ; and it was to consult upon a remedy for 
 this bad state of things, that a meeting of the leading States 
 was held at Annapolis in 1786. Hamilton and Madison 
 were there from New York and Virginia respectively. They 
 persuaded the other delegates to decline entering upon the 
 subject of commerce at that time, inasmuch as it was con- 
 nected with other defects of the Confederation, to which 
 their present powers did not reach ; and they wisely drew up 
 an Address to the Congress of the Confederation to call 
 another meeting of all the States, whose delegates should 
 have ample powers to go over the whole ground and to 
 devise a system adequate to the exigencies of the counfay. 
 Thus was summoned the Federal Convention of 1787, which 
 framed the Constitution under which we still live, which 
 gives to the national Congress the needful power " to regu- 
 late commerce." 
 
 1. In pursuance of this power the first Congress framed 
 and passed in 1789 regulations of commerce, which we shall 
 caU the Hamilton Tariff. We name it so, because Hamilton 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 537 
 
 was then Secretary of the Treasury, because he is known to 
 have exerted much influence over the members who framed 
 the bill, because his own principles as a moderate protec- 
 tionist were actually carried out in this tai-iff, and because 
 lie made in 1791 an elaborate Report to Congress covei'ing 
 the whole subject. "We include in this designation, as in 
 subsequent similar designations, not only the original act 
 but also modifications and additions passed in following 
 years in harmony with the ground-thought of the original 
 act. 
 
 Because the new Constitution prescribed that " aZZ bills 
 for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Represen- 
 tatives^" the main debates on the new tariff were in that 
 branch of the Legislature ; and very interesting debates they 
 were, as Benton has abridged them for the use of. posterity. 
 Nothing could be simpler or sounder than the basis of the 
 jiew tariff as proposed by Madison, the acknowledged leader 
 in the debates, namely, the revenue system of 1783, as 
 adopted by the old Congress and ratified in succession by all 
 of the States, excepting New York. That was, small spe- 
 cific duties on wines, spirits, teas, coff-ee, cocoa, molasses, 
 sugars and pepper, and upon all other goods imported 5 % 
 ad valorem. That was the basis ; and in the earlier part of 
 the discussion no other end than revenue was mentioned in 
 connection with the taxes. Madison said : '■'•I own myself the 
 friend of a very free system of commerce : if industry and 
 labor are left to take their own course they will generally be 
 directed to those objects which are most productive, and that in 
 a manner more certain aiid direct than the ivisdom of the 
 most enlightened legislature could point out ; nor do I believe 
 that the national interest is more promoted by such legislative 
 directions than the interests of the individuals concerned." 
 It is significant of after times that the first word in this 
 debate respecting any other end than revenue through the 
 taxes came from Pennsylvania. Hartley said: "/ am 
 therefore sorry that gentlemen seem to fix their mind to so 
 
638 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 early a period as 1783 ; for we very tvell Tcnoio our circum,' 
 stances are much changed since that time : ive had then hut 
 few manufactures among us, and the vast quantities of goods 
 that flowed in upon us from Europe at the conclusion of the 
 war rendered those few almost useless; since then we have 
 beer forced by necessity, and various other causes, to increase 
 oar domestic manufactures to such a degree as to be able to 
 furnish some in szifficient quantity to answer the consumption 
 of the whole Union, while others are daily growing into 
 imptortance. Our stocJc of materials is, in many instances, 
 equal to the greatest demand, and our artisans sufficient to 
 work them up even for exportation. In these cases, I take it 
 to be the policy of every enlightened nation to give their manu- 
 factures that degree of encouragement necessary to perfect 
 them, ivithout oppressing other parts of the community.'^ 
 
 Hartley's cheerful view of the state of manufactures at 
 that time, less than ten years after the close of an exhaust- 
 ing war, without a particle of " encouragement " other than 
 the natural gains of trade is confirmed by Hamilton's 
 Report on manufactures, in which he enumerates seventeen 
 branches as then thriving so as to fairly supply the home 
 market and settle into regular trades. These were skins 
 and leather, flax and hemp, iron and steel, brick and pot- 
 tery, starch, brass and copper, tinware, carriages, painters' 
 colors, refined sugars, oils, soaps, candles, hats, gunpowder, 
 chocolate, snuff and chewing tobacco. He thought some of 
 these should be " encouraged " by a system of direct boun- 
 ties from the treasury, which he much preferred to laying 
 duties of a protective or prohibitive character. He inter- 
 preted the "taxing clause of the Constitution as it is interpret- 
 ed in the opening paragraph of our preceding chapter ; but 
 money being once raised by taxes designed for that purpose, 
 he held a loose construction of that part of the clause relat- 
 ing to its expenditure. Historian Schouler (I. 186) well 
 says: '•'•Once more laying hold of the '•'■general welfare" 
 clause of the Constitution, Hamilton here argued, under color 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 539 
 
 of giving bounties to manufactures^ as tliough Congress might 
 take under its own management every tiling wJiich that body 
 should pronounce to be for the general welfare, provided only 
 it was susceptible of the application of money. Though he 
 limited this central discretion to the application of money, and 
 stated some restrictions rather vaguely, the insidious tenor of 
 his report was to show that the Federal power of raising 
 money was plenary and indefinitely great. '^ Hamilton, ia 
 short, with all his transcendent merits as a statesman, waa 
 a thorough believer in a paternal government instituted and 
 administered by what he would call the "better class;" 
 the drift of this Report, accordingly, excited quick opposi- 
 tion both in the Cabinet and in Congress, and the scheme, to 
 its author's mortification, went over for the time without 
 action; this Report of 1791, nevertheless, gathered friends 
 to Hamilton at the time among influential citizens, and long 
 afterwards furnished (not very logically) arguments and 
 authority to two great political parties. Hartley and Ham- 
 ilton agree as to the thriving state of manufactures at the 
 opening of the new government. 
 
 Massachusetts was not a whit behind Pennsylvania in ask- 
 ing for discriminations in her favor. New England rum 
 was made out of molasses, and Jamaica rum was its com- 
 petitor in public favor ; distillers in the neighborhood of 
 Boston and Salem wanted therefore a high duty on Jamaica 
 rum, but a low one on the imported molasses used in the 
 home manufacture. Madison and others were willing to dis- 
 courage rum-making and rum-selling in the interest of tem- 
 perance, and proposed a duty of eight cents a gallon on 
 molasses, which called out indignant bursts from Ames and 
 Goodhue. The latter said : " Molasses is a raw material, 
 essentially requisite for the well-being of a very extensive and 
 valuable m,anufacture. It ought likewise to be considered a 
 necessary of life. In the Eastern States it enters into the 
 diet of the poorer classes of people, who are, from the decay 
 of trade and other adventitious circumstances, totally unable 
 
540 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 to hear such a loeight as a tax of eight cents would be upon 
 them. I cannot consent to allow more than tivo cents. 
 Massachusetts imports from 30,000 to 40,000 hogsheads 
 annually, more than all the other States together. Fifteen 
 cents, the sum laid on Jamaica spirits, is about one-third part 
 of its value : now eight cents on molasses is considerably 
 more: the former is an article of luxury, therefore that duty 
 may not be improper; but the latter cannot be said to par- 
 take of that quality in the substance, and when manufactured 
 into rum is no more a luxury than Jamaica spirits.'" Ulti- 
 mately the Massachusetts members and the other members 
 inclined to protection partially carried their points, more 
 however through amendments made in the Senate, which 
 then sat with closed doors, and which consequently was 
 more open to the influence of interested petitions which soon 
 began to pour in, than through open discussion in the House ; 
 the tax on molasses was fixed at two and a half cents, and 
 on Jamaica spirits ten cents, a gallon ; on nails, a protective 
 duty of one cent a pound was laid, because Pennsylvania 
 wanted it, and because the making of them was then a house- 
 hold industry in New England, engaging farmers' families 
 through the long winter evenings ; and an accepted Senate 
 amendment classed hemp and cotton together as two products 
 of the soil well worth fostering, hemp at three-fifths of a cent 
 and cotton at three cents a pound, yet hemp constantly pro- 
 tected to this day has never risen to the rank of a staple. 
 
 The last two duties seemed to be a concession to agri- 
 culture, but the members interested in that industry soon 
 perceived .that they were being worsted on the whole by 
 the manufacturers. Says Historian Eliot (p. 282) : " Tlie 
 interests of the Northern industry, its shipping, its com.merce, 
 and its manufactures, called for a very different policy on the 
 part of the Government from that demanded by the Southern 
 agriculture.'' When Lawrence of New York and a region 
 much interested in salt works then as well as now proposed 
 a tax of six cents a bushel on imported salt, it brought the 
 
UNITED STATES T A BIFFS. 541 
 
 farmers and frontiersmen at once to their feet. Burke o' 
 South Carolina said: '•'• I need not observe to the Committer 
 that this article is a necessary of life, nor that black cattle, 
 sheep, and horses do not thrive without it; on these considera- 
 tions alone I should oppose it; but I know likewise that it is 
 a tax piarticularly odious to the inhabitants of South Carolina 
 and Georgia, to whom the price is already oppressively great. 
 The back parts of that State are obliged to haul all they con- 
 sume tioo, three, or four hundred miles in wagons, for which 
 they pay about seven shillings sterling. Add to this the first 
 cost, which is about one shilling, though sometimes more, and 
 you will find the burden sustained by those who live remote 
 from the seashore sufficiently unequal." Nevertheless the salt 
 protectionists had it then their own way, as so many times 
 since. When it came to steel, the antagonism between a 
 protected manufacture and an independent agriculture be- 
 came very evident: said Clymer of Pennsylvania: " The 
 manufacture of steel in America, is rather in its infancy ; but 
 as all the materials necessary to make it are the produce of 
 almost every State in the Union, and as the manufacture is 
 already established, and attended with considerable suceess, I 
 deem it prudent to emancipate our country from the manacles 
 in which she is held by foreign manufactures. I hope, there- 
 fore, gentlennen will be disposed under these considerations to 
 extend a degree of patronage to a manufacture, lohich a mo- 
 ment's reflection will convince them is highly deserving protec- 
 tion." Tucker of South Carolina rejoined : " I consider the 
 smallest tax on this article to be a burden on agriculture ^ 
 which ought to be considered an interest most deserving prO' 
 tection and encouragement; on this is our principal reliance, 
 on it also our safety and happiness depend. When I consider 
 the state of it in ihat part of the country which I represent on 
 this floor, and in some other parts of the Union, I am really 
 at a loss to imagine with what propriety any gentleman can 
 propose a measure big with oppression, and tending to burden 
 ■particular States. I call upon gentlemen to exercise liberality 
 
642 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and moderation in lohat they propose, if they im. h to gioe 
 satisfaction and do justice to their coyistituents." Yet, as 
 Pennsylvania insisted on it, the duty on unwrought steel 
 was fixed at 50 cents per cwt. 
 
 In the course of the same debate, Fisher Ames of Massa- 
 chusetts, who had made the strongest plea against the 
 molasses tax, and who yet was the strongest stickler there 
 for the protectionist view, went to the root of the whole 
 matter of the antagonism between agriculture and artificial 
 manufactures in a few frank and radical words. He said : 
 " From the different situation of the manufacturers in Europe 
 and America, encouragement is necessary. In Europe the 
 artisan is driven to labor for his bread. Stern necessity, 
 with her iron rod, compels his exertion. In America, invita- 
 tion and encouragement are needed. Without them the iifant 
 manufacture droops, and those who might be employed in it 
 seek with success a competency from our cheap and fertile 
 soil.'" These few short sentences let the protectionist cat 
 right out of her bag. Considered as simplicity of admission, 
 they are very amusing ; considered as a condensation of the 
 protectionist argument, they are very admirable ; but consid- 
 ered as to the reality of wrong and loss which have actually 
 followed this antagonism, thej^ are very sad. The substance 
 of the plea is, that our people were not poor enough, and 
 particularly the agricultural classes were not poor enough, 
 for the best interests of the petted manufactures. He 
 seems rather to envy the situation of the manufacturers of 
 Europe, where " the artisan is driven to labor for his bread," 
 and where "stern necessity with her iron rod compels his 
 exertion;" and to deem the situation in America unfortu- 
 nate, where " without invitation and encouragement" (that 
 is to say, without burdensome taxes imposed on the people 
 to support it) " the infant manufacture droops, and those 
 who might be employed in it seek with success a competency 
 from our cheap and fertile soil." Here is a downright 
 admission that high wages in this country are a result of the 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 543 
 
 endless opportunities of agriculture : they do indeed spring 
 from the " competency " which laborers are able to " seek 
 with success" "from our cheap and fertile soil." What is 
 then to be done, what is here in effect advised to be done? 
 Why the only thing to be done is to depress agriculture with 
 onerous taxes, to lessen the profits of farming, so that 
 laborers will no longer "seek" the land! Then bring in 
 from " Europe " " the artisan " " who is driven to labor for 
 his bread." Not the cheapness of foreign labor which they 
 have always been glad to get for themselves at the cheapest 
 possible rate, but the larger returns which their men could 
 get by the same effort "from our cheap and fertile soil," 
 have been the ' ' competition ' ' which our manufacturing 
 employers have had to contend against. Protection assumed 
 at the outset, and has maintained to this day, an attitude of 
 unceasing hostility to the tillers of the soil. Protectionist 
 manufacturers, who are a mere fraction of the population, 
 have cajoled the farmers, who are one-half of the popula- 
 tion, to consent to pay for their supplies prices artificially 
 enhanced by law, and to sell their produce at prices artifi- 
 cially depressed by law, in order to enable the said manu- 
 facturers to carry on branches of industry, which, as they 
 sa}^, would otherwise be wholly unprofitable and impossible. 
 
 As finally adjusted after long discussions, and after the 
 appointment of conference committees between the Houses, 
 the Hamilton Tariff laid specific duties, moderate and yet 
 discriminating, upon thirty articles, mostly manufactured, 
 but including coal at the instance of Virginia at two cents a 
 bushel; and ad valorem duties ranging from 5 to 10% on 
 all other articles, excepting eleven which were duty-free. 
 Cottons, woollens and linens, since so highly protected, 
 came in at 5 % . The average duties on the whole list were 
 about 8% ; in consequence of the assumption of the State 
 debts by the nation, this average was raised a year later to 
 about 11% ; in 1792, in consequence of St. Clair's defeat 
 and the increase of the army, the list of duties was revised 
 
544 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and raised on the average to perhaps 15% ; and domestic 
 difficulties in 1797, and fears of a French war in 1800, caused 
 at each of tliese dates additional taxes upon a few imported 
 articles, cottons, woollens, linens and silks, paying at least 
 12^-%. As the misunderstandings with England thickened, 
 non-importation schemes, and at last positive embargoes, 
 interrupted the play of the Hamilton Tariff. The gnat 
 object of this tariff throughout was revenue ; yet, in select- 
 lUL from time to time the particular subjects for increased 
 taxation, an eye was evidently had to tlie so-called protection 
 of American industry. So little regard for consistency, how- 
 ever, was had by the members of Congress, so little tenacity 
 as to abstract principle, that the same men, who argued for 
 high duties on things their constituents were desirous to 
 supply, voted steadily for low duties on things the same 
 constituency would have to purchase. It is perhaps strange, 
 considering that England was still fully deluded with Protec- 
 tion, and notwithstanding the tenor of the causes of the war, 
 that members were not more protectionist than they were. 
 As has been said in another connection, they adopted the 
 English navigation acts entire ; and in laying tonnage duties, 
 they discriminated strongl}^, as follows ; six cents a ton on 
 vessels American built and owned on entering port from 
 abroad, thirty cents a ton on those American built but 
 owned abroad, and fifty cents on all others. The protection 
 in the tariff-taxes was mild, but it was enough to whet the 
 appetite for more ; it was even allowed, for the Preamble 
 of the Act ran as follows ; " WJiereas, it is iiecessary for the 
 support of tjie Government, for the discharge of the debts of 
 the United States, and the encouragement and protection 
 of manufactures, that duties be laid," and so on. 
 
 As a measure for revenue, this tariff was unexpectedly sat- 
 isfactory. During the eighteen years, 1790-1808, the income 
 from it quadrupled, reaching in the latter year $16,303,550.58. 
 The increase was almost regular from year to year ; and a 
 comparison of these eighteen years with any eighteen years 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 645 
 
 of our after history when we have had decidedly protective 
 taiiffs will yield all that is claimed in respect to the superi' 
 ority of a low revenue tariff over protective tariffs in point 
 of steadiness of income and especially in point of a steady 
 increase of income. 
 
 2. Our second tariff was passed in 1816, and we may 
 designate it as the Calhoun Tariff. It was planned indeed 
 by Dallas of Pennsylvania, then Secretary of the Treasury, 
 who, like Hamilton, was born in the West Indies of Scotch 
 paientage; but the most distinctive feature of the bill, and 
 the one most quarrelled over, was the pronounced protection 
 accorded in time of peace to cottons in the interest of the 
 cotton-growing St«it-es, whose special champion on this occa- 
 sion was Calhoun, which makes it proper that the tariff take 
 Its name from him. Two Massachusetts men, Lowell and 
 Jackson, brothers-in-law, had started a modern cotton-mill 
 inWaltham, near Boston, in 1813, and constructed in it with 
 the help of an ingenious mechanic named Moody a power- 
 loom ; and in 1816 they went to Washington, and b}' personal 
 influence with Calhoun, his colleague Lowndes, who reported 
 the bill, and other members of Congress, contributed largely 
 to the introduction into this tariff of its protective features 
 as towards cottons. Calhoun was under the impression that 
 a domestic market for cotton, in connection with the foreign 
 market, would raise the price of that staple, and he acted 
 accordingly^, though he found reason afterwards for altering 
 his opinion in that regard. Lowell, the cotton city on the 
 Merrimack, founded in 1821, was named from the successful 
 lobbyist of 1816. The tariff of that year is interesting and 
 important, because then first the country entered on the 
 protective system fairly and squarely ; because before that, 
 revenue had been the object of the tariff-taxes and protection 
 to manufactures the incident, whereas now protection became 
 the object and revenue the incident ; because from this time 
 on there grew a strong opposition to the sj^stem on the part 
 of the maritime and landed classes, local feelings somewhat 
 
546 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 excited before becoming now considerably roused ; and be- 
 cause, Webster and New England strenuously opposed this 
 tariff, while Calhoun and South Carolina strenuously sup- 
 ported it, which positions were afterwards exactly reversed. 
 Dallas's plan divided importables into three classes : 1st, 
 Those of which a full domestic supply could be produced ; 
 2d, Those of which only a partial domestic supply could be 
 afforded ; and 3d, Those produced at home very slightly, or 
 not at all. The Secretary recommended, that on the first 
 class, consisting mainly of manufactures of some of Hamil- 
 ton's seventeen branches, duties should be laid heavy enough 
 to secure the market to the home manufacturers, leaving it 
 to domestic competition to keep down the prices. In the 
 tariff as adopted these duties were fixed at 35%, except 
 on cannon, small arms, and printers' type, charged 20%, 
 and except on cordage, window-glass, and boots and shoes, 
 charged specifically. In the second class, he placed cottons, 
 woollens, metal goods, distiUed spirits, and malt liquors, 
 among other miscellaneous articles. On these he suggested 
 an average duty of 20%, as still leaving the door open to for- 
 eign competition, while affording a fair protection to the do- 
 mestic manufacture ; but in favor of cottons and woollens, he 
 was inclined to go further. The manufacturers of these fab- 
 rics, seeing that now was their time, had sent up a statement, 
 of which quite a parade was made in the House, to the effect 
 that the cotton men had a capital of $40,000,000, employed 
 100,000 persons, worked up 27,000,000 pounds of cotton 
 yielding 81,000,000 yards of cloth, of which the value was 
 $24,300,000; and the woollen men had $12,000,000 as 
 capital, 50,000 workmen, consumed wool worth $7,000,000, 
 wrought into cloth worth $19,000,000. These figures look 
 suspicious in view of the alleged ratio of the value of the 
 raw material to the finished product, but they are curious as 
 showing an example of what has always been the general 
 rule in this country, that it is the strong and rich industries 
 which get protection and not the weak and poor ones. Under 
 
UNITED STATES TAEIFFS. 547 
 
 the double war duties of the last two or three years, these 
 fabrics had had a protection of about 30%, and Dallas pro- 
 posed that cottons should now have a duty of 33^%, with a 
 proviso that all cottons sJiould be assumed at the custom-house 
 to have cost at least 25 cents to the square yard. This is the 
 famous principle of the " minimum." On wooUens (except 
 blankets and worsteds), he suggested a duty of 28%. 
 
 It is noteworthy, that the new tariff was not discussed in 
 the House with any thing like the fulness of the former one, 
 and the penetrating reader will not be at a loss for the reason 
 of this. When John Randolph of Virginia moved to strike 
 out from the bill the proviso for the cotton minimum, and 
 argued at some length " against the propriety of promoting 
 the manufacturing establishments to the extent and in the 
 manner proposed by the bill, and against laying up 8,000 
 tons of shipping now employed in the East India trade, and 
 levying an immense tax on one portion of the community to 
 put money into the pockets of another," — Calhoun rejoined, 
 — " Until the debate assumed this new form, he had deter- 
 mined to be silent ; participating, as he largely did, in that 
 general anxiet^^ which is felt, after so long and laborious a 
 session, to return to the bosom of our families. It has been 
 objected to that bill, that it will injure our marine, and con- 
 sequently impair our naval strength. How far it is fairly 
 liable to this charge, he was not prepared to say. He hoped 
 and believed it would not, at least to any alarming extent, 
 have that effect immediately ; and he firmly believed that its 
 lasting operation would be highly beneficial to our commerce. 
 The trade to the East Indies wocld certainly be much affected ; 
 but it was stated in debate that the whole of that trade em- 
 ployed but six hundred sailors. The cotton and woollen 
 manufactures are not to be introduced, they are already 
 introduced to a great extent ; freeing us entirely from the 
 hazards, and in a great measure, the sacrifices experienced 
 in giving the capital of the country a new direction. The 
 restrictive measures and the war, though not intended for 
 
548 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 that purpose, have by the necessary operation o* things turned 
 a large amount of capital to these new branches of industry. 
 But it will no doubt be said, if they are so far established, 
 and if the situation of the country is so favorable to their 
 growth, where is the necessity of affording them protection ? 
 It is to put them beyond the reach of contingency." Thus 
 he goes on to give plausible reasons for his insistance and 
 his vote, but he does not even touch upon the real reason. 
 If he had detailed his conversations with Lowell, it would 
 have been far more to the point. But, as always happens 
 when men really act from unavowed motives, he was sus- 
 pected of having them ; and he guarded himself : ' ' He was 
 no manufacturer ; he was not 'from that portion of the coun- 
 try supposed to be peculiarly interested. Coming, as he did, 
 from the South, and having in common with his immediate 
 constituents, no interest but in the cultivation of the soil, 
 in selling its products high, and buying cheap the wants and 
 conveniences of life, no motive could be attributed to him 
 but such as were disinterested." Randolph charged, that 
 the discussion showed ' ' a strange and mysterious connec- 
 tion ' ' between this measure and the national bank bill which 
 had just passed; Calhoun "wished merely to reply to the 
 insinuation of a mysterious connection between this bill 
 and that to establish the bank. He denied any improper 
 or unfair understanding, and could challenge the House to 
 support the charge." 
 
 The opposition to the bill knew its reasons, and avowed 
 them strongly. For example, Telfair of Georgia: " On tJie 
 subject of impost I hold it a sound general rule that no other 
 or higher duties should be laid than are both necessary and 
 proper for the purposes of revenue. To attempt more, neces- 
 sarily increases the inducements to smuggling ; and if the 
 encouragement of manufactures be the object, it is, in effect, 
 to plunge on the wide ocean of uncertainty, guided by facti- 
 tious lights, emanating from the selfishness of those who tender 
 them, and which never can be relied upon for the purposes of 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 549 
 
 wise legislation. But what is the character of the measure 
 before you ? Instead of contemplating the protection and en- 
 couragement of manufactures as secondary and collateral, it 
 refers to them as the primary and essential cause of legisla- 
 tion; instead of the benefits flowing to them being considered 
 merely as some alleviation of burdens, made necessary by the 
 wants of the government, their encouragement has, in the whole 
 course of the discussion, been placed in the foreground and 
 admitted to be the principal object for which so enormous a ta.v 
 is laid upon the peopjle of this country — a tax, the proceeds 
 of ivhich, so far as it means protection, are never to enter the 
 coffers of the nation, but, by a species of magic, transferred 
 from the hands of the consumer into those of the manufac- 
 turer — paid by the people indeed, but not for the purposes of 
 Government." As finally passed after much chaffering, the 
 bill put on both cottons and woollens a duty of 25%, to be 
 reduced after three years to 20%, and the important proviso 
 of the minimum was retained. This was a device to increase 
 protection without seeming to do so. Pennsylvania was 
 pleased by a duty on pig-iron of $9 a ton, on anchors and 
 bar and rolled iron of $30 a ton, and on sheets and rods and 
 hoops of $50 a ton. Nails were to pay three cents, and iron 
 and steel wire from five to nine cents, a pound ; and raw 
 steel, $20 a ton. 
 
 Of course, this success of the manufacturers roused the 
 hopes of the Louisiana sugar planters. Robertson of that 
 State said: "The State of Louisiana, Mr. Chairman, from 
 its happy climate and fertile soil is competent to furnish the 
 United States with all the sugar they may require ; but that 
 this may be done with certainty and within a short time, 
 some encouragement is indispensable. Is any manufacture 
 more important to the nation? Is thei'e one which maybe 
 aided by a tax on its foreign competition with less injustice 
 to the community, or with greater advantage to the revenue ? 
 Gentlemen call it an agricultural product; is that sufficient 
 to render it an object of prejudice? Have our manufactuiers 
 
550 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 already, by their combinations, succeeded in placing their 
 employment on higher ground than that of the agriculturist ? 
 I fear, Mr. Chairman, that an interest is springing up before 
 which every other is to be prostrated ; the mere manufacturer 
 is to be preferred ; whatever injury be done to the revenue, 
 whatever ruin he brought on maritime industry^ however much 
 the agriculturist suffer^ the manufacturer must and will he 
 encouraged. Does the manufacturer of wool want encourage^ 
 ment, foreign cloth is shut out., the value of the duties given 
 up, and the competition so heneficial to the consumer is de- 
 stroyed; does the farmer ask to he protected in raising sheep, 
 so as to furnish the raw material, the necessary duty on for- 
 eign wool is denied, because it is convenient and profitable to 
 the manufacturer to purchase wool as cheap as possible, 
 whether it he foreign or native." Accordingly, the duty on 
 brown sugar was fixed at three cents, and that on loaf sugar 
 at twelve cents, a pound. On Dallas's third class, the rates 
 were mostly fixed with a view to revenue only : on molasses, 
 five cents a gallon ; on coffee, five cents a pound ; on salt, 
 forty cents per cwt. ; on coal, five cents a bushel ; and on 
 silks, stuff goods, and blankets, 15%. Two-thirds of a 
 century after this date, blankets bore in the tariff 100%. 
 
 The tariff passed in April, 1816, by a vote in the House 
 of 88 to 54. " And thus was inaugurated a new policy with 
 respect to the imposition of duties on imports. Duties now 
 became excessive. No longer the 5%, the 7^, the 10, 12|-, 
 15, which formerly prevailed ; but all these doubled, with 
 additions, and the introduction of minimum valuations which 
 gave to a high duty the further advantage of being calculated 
 upon a fictitious value. It was the commencement of the 
 long discussion on the tariff policy which afterward divided 
 and disturbed the country, and attained the height of an 
 organized State resistance to a tariff of protection, and a 
 conditional ordinance of secession, if it were not abandoned, 
 and that by a given day " (Benton) . The average of all the 
 duties in this tariff at first was about 25% ; the next year 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 551 
 
 there was a further copying from the English Navigation 
 acts, to the effect^ that importations by foreign ships into 
 this country should be substantially limited to the produce 
 of their respective countries ; shortly after, the reductions 
 on cottons and woollens proposed in the tariff itself were 
 postponed till 1826 ; and in 1820, there was a general revis- 
 ion of the whole tariff, on the basis however of Dallas's three 
 classes, under the lead of Baldwin of Pennsylvania, chair- 
 man of the Committee on Manufactures, in the interest of 
 higher duties for the sake of " protection." New England, 
 as voiced by Silsbee of Massachusetts and Foot of Connecti- 
 cut, still opposed the protective system ; and even Lowndes 
 of South Carolina, who had reported the bill of 1816, was 
 scared by the steady push of the manufacturers, and tried 
 to stem the current of increased duties. Let Foot speak for 
 the opposition : " Sir, gentlemen declare that this measure has 
 been requested by the merchants of our country, and that the 
 agricultural interest does not object to it. This bill has been 
 before the public but about one week; and if, Sir, the commer- 
 cial and agricultural interests of our country had as many 
 Representatives on this floor as there are gentlemen of one 
 profession in Congress, you would hear their voice in tones of 
 thunder against this bill. Would they consent to pay direct 
 taxes to the extent of $20,000,000 annually 9 WJio must pay 
 your additional duties? The consumers, all will acknowledge; 
 and it has been truly said, that the agricultural interest com- 
 prises nine-tenths of the whole population. If gentlemen who 
 so strenuously advocate this bill would encourage domestic 
 manufactures by using them in their dress, rather than those 
 very ' articles of foreign manufacture which have driven the 
 American manufacturer to ruin. Sir, you would afford them 
 more efficient aid than any legislative provisions.'^ The vote 
 for the revision stood 90 to 69, and the enhanced taxes were 
 on the average perhaps 30%. 
 
 3. We will call our third 'tariff, which became a law in 
 1824, the Clay Tariff. Henry Clay, though Speaker of the 
 
552 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 House at the time, took a very earnest part in the tariff- 
 debate, advocated the interests of Kentucky in hemp and 
 whiskey, and even ventured to call the system of high protec- 
 tive duties — now eight years old in the United States — 
 the "American System." It was now a savage clash of 
 selfish interests. The debates, which were abler than any 
 ever before had on this topic in Congress, turned mainly on 
 molasses, hemp, cottons, wool and woollens, and iron and 
 manufactures of it. Kentucky and Louisiana wanted higher 
 tariff-taxes on molasses, the raw material of New England 
 rum and the rival of sugar, the first, to make rum dear and 
 help the sale of whiskey, and the second, to make sugar 
 artificially high in the interest of her planters. Ohio and 
 the Middle States now wanted tariff-taxes on raw wool ; Penn- 
 sylvania wanted higher duties on imported iron products ; 
 Kentucky was bound to get good prices for hemp and cordage 
 from the ship builders and riggers ; Massachusetts had 
 always liked protection on ships, and was coming to like pro- 
 tection on cottons and woollens, though Webster voiced the 
 common sentiment of New England in this debate by a splen- 
 did speech against protection in general ; while South Caro- 
 lina now abandoned her position in 1816, and led the general 
 South in a strong opposition. Middle and West won the 
 day from North and South in the passage of the bill by a 
 vote of 105 to 102. The Speaker, doubtful how it might 
 turn, enumerated as adverse to the bill, (1) The splendid 
 talents arrayed against us in this House ; (2) We are opposed 
 by the rich and powerful in the land ; (3) The Executive 
 Go\^ernm,ent aff(jrd us but a cold and equivocal support ; (4 ) 
 The importing and navigating interests from misconception 
 are averse to us ; (5) The British factors and the Britisli 
 influence are inimical ; (6) Long established habits and 
 prejudices oppose us ; (7) The reviewers and literary spec- 
 ulators are hostile ; and (8) The leading presses of the 
 country. 
 
 Let us see how it struck the Speaker himself : ' ' No one 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 553 
 
 will doubt that the grain of our country produces a s^jirit equal, 
 at least to that produced from molasses; nor our ability to 
 produce it in the greatest abundance. He did not mean to take 
 up the moral consideration of the question. He intended to 
 ask the attention of the Committee to the matter practically. 
 A certain amount of spirituous liquors tvill be consumed, what- 
 ever we may wish or think upon it as moralists or philanthro- 
 pists. Assuming that practical principle, we are to consider 
 whether it is not better for our country to derive the whole 
 profit, both as to the production of the raw material and. the 
 distillation of it, rather than divide it with foreigners. Every 
 gallon of spiirits distilled from foreign molasses and consumed 
 within the country takes the place of a galloyi of spirits dis- 
 tilled from domestic produce. Tlie foreigner enjoys the benefit 
 of the raw material, and ive that of its manufacture only. 
 Tills latter advantage loe should still possess, if we substituted 
 a native raw material for that which is furnished us from 
 abroad." The tax on molasses, accordingly, went up to ten 
 cents a gallon ; and similar considerations urged in behalf 
 of hemp carried up the duty on that also from S30 to 
 $44.80. Neither rise was carried, however, except in the 
 teeth of pungent truths thrown in on all sides by members 
 from New England. Let Webster sample these : " One is a 
 little curious to know with what propriety of s])eech this imita- 
 tion of other nations is denominated an '■American p)olicy.'' 
 while, on the contrary, a preference for our oivn established sys- 
 tem, as it now actwiUv exists, and always has existed, is called 
 a '■ fo'.'cign policy.' This favorite American policy is what 
 America has never tried; and this odious foreign pjolicy is 
 ivhat, as we a.re told, foreign states have never pursued. Sir, 
 that is the truest American policy which shall most usefully 
 employ American capital, and American labor, and best sns- 
 tain the whole p)opidation. With me it is a fundamental 
 axiom, it is interwoven with all my opinions, that the great 
 interests of the country are united and inseparable; that agri- 
 oxdturo, commerce, and manufactures, will prosper together. 
 
554 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 or languish tog&.her; and that all legislation is dangerous 
 which proposes to benefit one of these without looking at conse- 
 quences which may fall on the others. All domestic industry 
 is not confined to manufactures. Tlie employments of agricul- 
 ture., commerce., and navigation are all branches of the same 
 domestic iyidustry ; they all furnish employment for American 
 capital., and American labor. And when the question isy 
 whether new duties shall be laid for the purpose of giving fur- 
 ther encouragement to particular manufactures., every reasona- 
 ble man must ash himself whether it can be given without 
 injustice to other branches of industry. TJie true reason, Sir^ 
 why it is not our policy to compel our citizens to manufacture 
 our own iron, is, that they are far better employed. It is an 
 unproductive business, and they are not poor enough to be 
 obliged to follow it. If we had more of poverty, more of mis- 
 ery, and something of servitude, if we had an ignorant, idle, 
 starving population, ice might set up for iron makers against 
 the world. There is no reason for saying that we will work 
 iron because we have mountains that contain the ore. TJie 
 true inquiry is, can we produce the article in a useful state at 
 the same cost at which we can import it. And since it is 
 stated that we have great quantities of fine land for the pro- 
 duction of hemp, of which I have no doubt, the question 
 recurs, why is it not produced? " 
 
 Strong and unanswerable as were most of his points, Web- 
 ster went into this race weighted, and was beaten. He was 
 not ready to apply throughout his own fundamental doc- 
 trines. Ships may be wholly protected by a navigation law, 
 and cottons and woollens to a certain extent ; then, why uot 
 to any extent iron and hemp? Raw bar and bolt iron, which 
 was made $7 in 1816, and was carried up to $15 by Bald- 
 win in 1820, now rose to $22.40 a ton. In spite of Web- 
 ster's emphatic words in this debate, — " I consider the cotton 
 manufactures not only to have reached, but to have p)assed, 
 the point of competition;^' the minimum on cottons waa 
 raised to 30 cents ; and a minimum for woollens was for the 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 555 
 
 first time adopted, namely, 33^ cents, while the duty on 
 woollens was made 30%, to be raised the next year to 33-|^%. 
 
 While things were going lively, the wool-growers thought 
 that they must have something too. It was proposed and 
 ultimately passed, that cheap wool should be taxed 15%, 
 and other wool 20% the first year, 25% the next year, and 
 30% thereafter. Naturally enough the woollen manufac- 
 turers did not like this, and hardly thought the increased 
 duty on woollens balanced it ; Webster said : " TJiis bill xwo- 
 poses, also, a very high duty on imported loool; and as far as 
 I can learn, a majority of the manufacturers are at least ex- 
 tremely doubtful whether, taking these two provisions together, 
 the state of the law is not better for them noiv than it would 
 be if this should pass." It was suggested that the duties on 
 wool be struck out. On this point hear Livermore of New 
 Hampshire : " He said there was a character in the Eastern 
 part of the Union known by the name of the New England 
 farmer, whose voice he wished might be heard on the pres- 
 ent question. When the bill appeared, he had looked it over 
 with anxiety to see what had been done for that character, 
 and he found onl}' two items in it to compensate him for all 
 the rest ; these were the duty on wool and the duty on tal- 
 low. There are memorials against the duty on wool from 
 men who raise a great many sheep, but they are men who 
 own at the same time large manufacturing establishments, 
 and take on them the name of farmers. They are capital- 
 ists ; that is their proper name. But these were not to be 
 heard on the interests of the farmer. To him this tariff is a 
 bitter pill. Do give him a little gold on the outside, just to 
 cover it, and take off some of the bitter taste. If labor is 
 to be protected, let it be protected. Don't give it a less 
 market than it has already." 
 
 The dissatisfaction of the South was well expressed by 
 Govan of South Carolina : " This House, Sir, has been inun- 
 dated with petitions and memorials from the noisy and clam- 
 orous manufacturers of our country, ambitious of their own 
 
656 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 personal aggrandizement, and with a view to the accumtdation 
 of wealth. They are in favor of an increase of duties. TJte 
 noise and clamor come from a few clamorous sets of manufac- 
 turers, who I venture to say, could not prosper under any 
 state of things, even with an entire prohibition. But I ask, is 
 it just or reasonable that we should be called on to protect the 
 %mp)rovident and unskilful manufacturer, who has his factory 
 in a section of country possessing few or no natural advan- 
 tages? We may go on passing tariff upon tariff, and. Sir, 
 we can never benefit the Western grower of hemp, or the manu- 
 facturer of cotton bagging. No merchant sends a single dol- 
 lar ctbroad but what he receives in return something which he 
 considers more than an equivalent, for every exchange is a 
 quid pro quo. Any thing for revenue, but not a cent for 
 monopoly." The average duties under the Clay tariff were 
 about 33 % . It is an excellent proof, that industries which 
 are petted and legislatively protected do not long remain 
 satisfied with what they receive, but are soon clamorous for 
 more "protection," that the Calhoun tariff gave most of the 
 interests described by Govan large protection : eight years 
 run on, and they call for more : they get it : are they satis- 
 fied ? Why should they be ? Instead of being taught to rely 
 on themselves and on their natural advantages, they learn to 
 lean on their governmental privilege of taxing their fellow- 
 citizens in their own behalf. Besides, when one gets help in 
 this way, others must have it too, and all these are soon 
 taxed to help still others, " and still they come," till all are 
 impoverished together. 
 
 4. The next tariff was passed in 1828, and was called in 
 the politics of that time the Abominations Tariff, which 
 designation it may well bear till the end of time. The 
 manufacturers of course had sent in new petitions and 
 memorials by the barrelful to secure certain prohibitive 
 tariff taxes, and had held a convention at Harrisburg whose 
 demands in this direction were so preposterous that Buchan- 
 an, a Pennsylvania protectionist, thus denounced them on 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 5l>7 
 
 the floor of the House: " 7/i my opinion no combination of 
 wool growers and wool manufacturers sJiould ever atteynpt to 
 dictate a tariff to the people of the United States, for they 
 would be more than men if self-interest did not prejudice their 
 judgment, and call forth propositions for their own benefit a< 
 the expense of the community;'^ but the opposition to th«> 
 whole protective and prohibitive system had now become 
 strong in argument and conviction, though it realized the 
 hopelessness of argument against measures which derived 
 no part of their impulse from reasoning, as McDuffie of 
 South Carolina said ; '•''Although experience admonishes us of 
 the impotence of argument against measures of this descrip- 
 tion, it is a duty we owe as well to our constituents as to the 
 nation at large, to protest against the p)assage of a bill preg- 
 nant with so many evils, and to demonstrate its injurious and 
 destructive bearing upon those grectt interests tvhich we are 
 under the most solemn obligations to protect ; " the opposition 
 was not strong enough in numbers to prevent the passage of 
 the bill, but it was able to load it down with objectionable 
 features and make it in many respects distasteful to its advo- 
 cates ; a political design also to make the protective system 
 unpopular appeared and was indeed avowed, but the friends 
 of protection, in view of the higher duties on many articles, 
 came to the conclusion to support the bill notwithstanding 
 its odious features, and they swallowed the whole with the 
 best grace they could ; and Webster, after strenuous but 
 fruitless efforts to reduce its " abominations," for the first 
 time in his life voted for a general bill involving high pro- 
 tective features, claiming that Massachusetts, in spite of her 
 protests in 1824, had been forced into manufactures b}' the 
 policy then adopted, and that she now protested through him 
 that her new investments should be maiutaiued. All this is 
 one reason for the name of this tariff, and a better reason 
 will appear pretty soon. 
 
 Aside from great public considerations and disasters, the 
 interest of this tariff turns mainly on the man whose name 
 
558 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 has just been mentioned. In his great speech of 1824, on 
 the whole the greatest tariff-speech erex made in Congress up 
 to the present time, lie admitted the ample protection accord- 
 ed to cottons and woollens in the Calhoun tariff, and could 
 not bring himself to support the higher rates on those and 
 other select products of tlie Clay tariff. " /i is understood 
 that the present existing duty ojoerates 2^'''ett2/ much as a pro- 
 hibition over those classes of cotton fabrics to lohich it applies. 
 TJie proposed alteration loould jjrohahly enable the American 
 7na,^afacturer to commence competition with higher priced fab- 
 rics; and so woidd, p^'^^'^^^^P^i <^^'^ augmentation less than is 
 here proposed. I consider the cotton manufactures not ordy to 
 have reached, but to have passed, the point of competition. I 
 regard their success as certain, and their groivth as rapid as 
 the most impatient coidd luell exjject. If, hoivever, a provision 
 of the nature of that recommended here, ivere thought neces- 
 sary to commence new operations in the line of the same manu- 
 facture, I should cheerfully agree to it, if it ivere not at the 
 cost of sacrificing other great interests of the country. I need 
 hardly say, that, whatever promotes the cotton and looollen 
 manufactures promotes most important interests of my con- 
 stituents." The Clay tariff passed nevertheless ; and now in 
 1828, Webster supports, though reluctantly, a bill adding 
 enormously to the rates of 1824 on wool, woollens, cottons, 
 hemp, flax, glass, molasses (indirectly) , and a few other pet 
 articles. The subtle device of the minimums had free play 
 and broad scope in this tariff of Abominations. Webster 
 was now in the Senate. His speech was much shorter than 
 that of 1824, as befitted the place, and was confined in large 
 part to indignant protests against certain features of the bill, 
 particularly the molasses tax. As he always had this speech 
 printed in all editions of his works next after that of 1824, 
 as if to provoke comparison between them, it is certain, that 
 he was not conscious of any great defection in it from for- 
 mer principles avowed ; and although he then and afterwards 
 brought forward in defence of protectioli arguments which 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 559 
 
 Political Economy prououuces unsound, and although there 
 doubtless mingled in with his motives a desire to gratify 
 powerful friends and constituents who were directly inter- 
 ested in high duties, there is good reason to believe that his 
 departure from sound principles was never so radical as has 
 been commonly supposed. He said : " TJds subject is sur- 
 rounded by embarrassments on all sides. Of itself hoiuever 
 icisely or temperately treated, it is fidl of difficulties ; and these 
 difficulties have not been diminished by the particular frame oj 
 this bill, nor by the manner hitherto pursued of proceeding 
 toith it. Those loho intend to oppose this bill under all circum- 
 stances, and in all or any forms, care not how objectionable it 
 now is or how bad it may be made. Others, finding their own 
 leading objects satisfactorily secured by it, naturally press for- 
 ward, without staying to consider deliberately hoio injuriously 
 other interests may be affected. Sir, let us look for a moment 
 at this molasses tax. TJiis tax is to be Jcept in the bill, in 
 order that New England may be made to feel. Let gentlemen 
 assign their motives for thus taxing their own constituents as 
 icell as the people of New Engkmd, and abide their judgmeyit ; 
 hut do not let them flatter themselves that New England cannot 
 pay a molasses tax as long as North Carolina chooses that such 
 a tax shall be paid. ' ' 
 
 The duties under this tariff averaged about 43% on dutia- 
 ble goods, and about 37% of the value of the entire imports. 
 Both the debate and the operation of the bill stirred up 
 passions from one end of the country to the other. It is a 
 tariff of abominations, because it stands prominent in the 
 line of the direct causes of the late civil war. The planting 
 States, on which the burden of these duties chiefly fell, dis- 
 covered a deep discontent ; the speeches of members from 
 the South forewarned of this discontent, while the bill was 
 still pending ; and after it passed, this feeling became per- 
 vading, and left a large section of the Union under the 
 painful belief that they were injured and oppressed by this 
 Inancli of i'edoral legislation. Calhoun, then Vice-President, 
 
560 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Lad hoped that President Jackson would co-operate with liiui 
 to bring the protective system to an end ; but that hope 
 failing for political reasons, he betook himself for a remedy 
 to the Sovereignty of the States, and developed and main- 
 tained till the day of his death those doctrines of Nullifica- 
 tion and Secession, which were only wiped out in the blcod 
 of the late war. Many considerate men in other sections of 
 the Union, who had been friendly to the protective polii y, 
 seeing in the light of these debates that it is impossible in 
 the nature of things that one home product can be ' ' encour- 
 aged" by a tariff without a corresponding "discouragement" 
 of other home products, determined to change their course 
 after the inpending presidential election should be over. 
 
 5. The reader has doubtless noticed, that the tariffs so far 
 treated followed pretty closely the years of the presidential 
 elections. The last two tariffs particularly were all mixed 
 up with president-making. So again in 1832, Clay went 
 into the national canvass against Jackson on the avowed 
 platform of high protective duties. He was beaten. The 
 country seemed to indicate its preference for a different 
 system ; even before that election took place, a tariff bill 
 had been passed (July, 1832), characterized by Appleton of 
 Massachusetts ^'- as a fair compromise, as aharhinger of peace, 
 and of reduced excitement;'^ soon after the election, Verplanck 
 of New York, chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
 Means, reported a bill which divested the tariff of most, if 
 not all, of its protective features, which reductions would 
 have gone into effect all at once in case the bill had passed ; 
 and under these circumstances Clay himself brought forward 
 in the Senate a bill, as an olive branch to the South, which 
 soon became the Compromise Tariff of 1833. Clay and 
 Calhoun were not then on speaking terms, but the latter 
 was consulted through a third party, and agreed to regard 
 the former's plan as a satisfactory arrangement of the tariff 
 controversy, and 1)oth spoke and voted for the bill, which 
 passed just in time to prevent the impending collision between 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 561 
 
 South Carolina and the general government. Webster op- 
 posed the bill, as a practical abandonment of protection, 
 both by a series of resolutions and also by argument and 
 vote ; but it passed the Senate 29 to 16, and the House 119 
 to 85. The bill adopted a sliding scale in reference to all 
 duties over 20% in the bill of 1832, providing for their 
 gradual reduction on each alternate year till 1842, when and 
 thereafter the rate on all these goods should be 20% on the 
 home valuation. This was what is called a "horizontal 
 tariff," and it is not a good kind, for it disregards discrimi- 
 nations as to the rate on each article which will yield the 
 most revenue to government with the least burden to each 
 buyer. The horizontal principle implies ad valorem duties 
 only, and disregards equally the claims of revenue, free 
 trade, and protection. Free trade demands that every tax 
 in a tariff shall be levied for revenue only, and so levied that 
 the treasury shall get all that the people are made to pay. 
 Protection demands that the people pay a great deal more 
 than the treasury gets, and the more the better. Calhoun 
 did not like the "home valuation" clause, which of course 
 increased the duties ; but he and his friends made no intelli- 
 gent fight for free trade, and complicated their position 
 besides with doubtful constitutional questions. However, 
 under the Compromise Tariff the taxes were slowly but 
 decidedly lowered, and averaged between 1833 and 1842 
 about 32%. All sections believed the tariff-controversy 
 settled, the country was prosperous, agriculture was extend- 
 ing, almost no tariff could swamp our industries, and cei- 
 tainly not one which largely threw off taxes. 
 
 6. Bank questions, inflation, internal improvements, the 
 consequent crash of 1837, and the hard times following, 
 occupied the public mind for a number of years and brought 
 the Whigs into power through the election of 1840. The 
 Whigs believed in broad functions of government. They 
 advocated the paternal theory of public administration. 
 They were a party of privilege. As the writer remembera 
 
562 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 very well, extravagant expectations were held out in the log- 
 cabin and hard-cider campaign of 1840, that, if Harrison 
 were elected, times would change and the rich take care of 
 the poor and the golden age come in. Precisely how all this 
 y, as to be brought about, was not clear even to the minds of 
 lite orator and song- writer of that day, and still less to the 
 icinds of the masses surging in reaction from the party 
 under whose administration the financial crisis had happened. 
 The Whigs were not unanimous for going back to high pro- 
 tective taxes, and the Democrats were not unanimous in 
 their adherence to the principles of the Compromise Tariff. 
 Said Clay, the Whig leader in the extra session of 1841 : 
 " Carry out the principles of the Compromise act. Loolc to 
 revenue alone for the support of government. Do not raise 
 the question of protection, which I hoped had been put to rest: 
 there is no necessity for protection.'^ On the other hand 
 Benton of Missouri and Wright of New York, both Demo 
 cratic leaders in the front rank, of whom the former had 
 voted against the Compromise and the latter was soon to 
 vote for the tariff of 1842, disagreed as to policy. Under 
 these perplexing circumstances, Harrison dead and Tyler a 
 free trader, there was passed the Whig Tariff of 1842. The 
 state of public opinion did not warrant at all the going back 
 to the high rates of 1832 ; but the manufacturers must have 
 something to reward them for their efforts in the campaign, 
 and the iron men particularly secured high duties on iron 
 products of all kinds ; and so, much capital and many 
 laborers were seduced as usual into those branches which 
 promised factitious rewards, and when the duties were soon 
 after removed, thousands of persons were pecuniarily ruined. 
 It is impossible to speak in terms too deprecatory of an arti- 
 ficial system which inveigles capital and labor into branches 
 of business into which they would never have embarked of 
 their own accord. Nature alone is stable. The Whig tariff 
 was not expected to last ; and it only lasted four years. The 
 average of duties on the entire imports was carried up from 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 563 
 
 1Q% under the Compromise to about 23 % , and on dutiable 
 goods from 32% to 33%. The Whig tarifif was only an 
 eddy in the now pretty steady stream towards commercial 
 fi-eedom. 
 
 7. There was an animated debate in the Senate during the 
 spring of 1844, in which Benton took the leading and ablest 
 part, in the course of which Wright acknowledged his mis- 
 take of two years before and McDuffie agreed that something 
 better than the Compromise was now needed, which showed 
 clearly in general the direction in which the intellect of the 
 country was moving. It was a debate merely : no one pro- 
 posed to undo the Whig tariff until after the presidential 
 election of the autumn : Clay was again the candidate of 
 the protectionists, and the canvass turned largely on that 
 question : he was beaten the second time, and the way was 
 now open for a liberal tariff framed on sounder principles. 
 Polk's Secretary of the Treasury was Walker of Mississippi. 
 His principles and policy were in keeping with the tone of 
 the public mind both in this country and in Great Britain. 
 The year 1846 is memorable in the history of economic 
 legislation : it was the year of the repeal of the Corn-laws 
 of England ; it was the year of the famous free trade Report 
 of our Secretary of the Treasury, which was reprinted for 
 circulation by the British House of Commons ; and it was 
 the year of the Walker Tariff for the United States. The 
 repeal of the English corn-laws opened up a new market for 
 our agricultural produce ; the Sub-Treasury act was passed 
 the same year, which removed the subjects of mouey and 
 banking from our national legislation ; and it was then 
 commonly supposed that the subject of "protection" also 
 was substantially settled for this country as well as Great 
 Britam, for we were keeping at least even step with our 
 British cousins to the music of a Free Commerce. 
 
 The key-note of the Walker Tariff was struck in the House 
 by Jones of Georgia : " Sir, the example of Sir Robert Peel 
 in the modification of the corn-laios ought to speah in language 
 
564 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 stronger than any argument I can use. We copied this system 
 of jiTotection from England; England has found it ruinous to 
 her people of every class; she in her wisdom has abandoned 
 it; and are we in our folly still to cling to it? Sir Robert Peel 
 loas formerly a tory ; he ivas brought into power by the tory 
 interest^ by the landholders, to protect their interests. With a 
 noble magnanimity he preferred the interests of the country to 
 those of a class; he has abandoned the interests of the land- 
 proprietors, and espoused the cause and the interests of the 
 ccwt.try. Would to God there tvere some Sir Robert Peels in an 
 American Congress, who would abandon the interests of a class, 
 and take the interests of the country for their guide." The 
 Bill passed the House by a vote of 114 to 95, and reduced 
 duties down to about the standard of the ' ' Compromise ' ' of 
 1833, although it discriminated, as the Compromise did not, 
 between goods that could be produced at home and those that 
 could not. In short, it approached in its principles and de- 
 tails more nearly to the Hamilton tariff than any other before 
 or since, though the general rate of duties in it was higher. 
 It applied the ' ' horizontal ' ' principle within certain pre- 
 scribed schedules, but not to the imports as a whole. Walker 
 understood the principle, that lower taxes are apt to yield 
 higher revenues, but the yield of his tariff surprised even 
 him. In 1846, it was estimated to furnish $20,000,000 a 
 year : it actually fui^nished $00,000,000 in 1856. Indeed, 
 the revenue rose beyond the legitimate needs of the govern- 
 ment, and large sums from the surplus were expended in 
 l)uying up bonds not yet due at a high premium for the sake 
 of emptymg the Treasury. Consequently, reductions were 
 made in 1857, which lowered the duties atout one-quarter, 
 and applied remissions to the raw materials of manufactures 
 and enlarged the free list. The West did not like the les- 
 sened duties on wool and hemp and lead produced there, and 
 declaimed against the "incidental protection" accorded to 
 Eastern manufacturers through the free list and lower duties 
 on materials. There was indeed sharp practice in that dii'ec* 
 
UNITED STATES TABIFFS. 565 
 
 tion at that time. So it goes. So long as there is any " pro- 
 tection " whatever, somebody will be justly roused by ita 
 inherent injustice. Though the national government had 
 now nothing to do with banking and paper money, the States 
 had unduly multiplied their banks, and the banks had unduly 
 multiplied their bills, the whole credit-system became unduly 
 extended, and the inevitable crash of credits came in the 
 autumn of 1857, the imports of course fell off, the revenue 
 was diminished, and a part of the blame for this bad state 
 of things was foolishly cast on the contemporaneous letting- 
 up of customs taxation. 
 
 As showing the drift of public opinion, and as proving 
 that the United States were quite as advanced in 1858 as 
 Great Britain itself in the march towards commercial free- 
 dom, and also as indicating that the leading men in Con- 
 gress believed that the remissions of 1857 were in the line 
 of progress and prosperity, we quote a remarkable series of 
 Resolutions reported by the majority of a special congres- 
 sional committee (only two members dissenting) in the ^^ear 
 1858. At that time the Walker Taiiff of 1846 had been 
 running for 12 years, and diffusing the blessings of a partial 
 free trade. The Resolutions call for '■'■more" in the same 
 direction — very mncli more. They even call for an enth'e 
 abolition of customs duties, and a resort exclusively to 
 direct taxation. One of the names appended to these strong 
 Resolutions was that of F. E. Spinner of New York, with 
 whose peculiar chirography as Treasurer of the United States 
 the nation became afterwards amusingly familiar. Here are 
 the Resolutions : 
 
 1. Resolved, That the vast and increasing expenditure of 
 the Federal Government indicates the necessity of a change in 
 our fiscal system, whereby the protective policy shall he entirely 
 abandoned, and a resort had at as early a period as may be 
 practicable, exclusively to direct taxation. 
 
 2. Resolved, TJiat the existing tariff is defective, as being 
 founded on the protective policy; as taxing certain articles of 
 
666 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 prime necessity too JiigJi; as not discriminating sifjfficiently so 
 as to throw the burden of taxation as much as possible on 
 articles of luxury^ to the exemption of articles of necessity, 
 and as placing certain articles on the free list which should 
 pay duty; and that any modifications of the tariff ivhich may 
 be made, should be made so as to avoid these defects, and for 
 the purpose of using the tariff merely as a fiscal instrumen- 
 tality. 
 
 3. Resolved, That the highest development of the industrial 
 resources of the country is to be attained by the greatest free- 
 dom of exchanges, which can only be thoroughly accomplished 
 by the entire abolition of duties on imports, and a resort 
 exclusively to direct taxation. 
 
 4. Eesolved, That the system of direct taxation presenting 
 the most advantages is, for each State to collect and pay ovet 
 its quota, to be ascertained by the constitutional rule of appor- 
 tionment, thus insuring perfect equality, and dispensing with 
 multitudes of federal officers. 
 
 5. Resolved, That the navigation laws should be so modi- 
 fled as not to require any portion of the officers and crews of 
 American shijos to be American citizens, and that American 
 citizens shall be free to purchase and sail foreign built ships 
 on an entire equality with American built ships, and that the 
 American coasting trade shall be open on terms of perfect 
 equality to foreign ships. 
 
 Although the revenue recovered somewhat in 1859 from 
 the effects of the severe commercial crisis of two years 
 before, and recovered still more the next year, profound 
 political troubles were then beginning, the thoughts of the 
 people were utterly turned away from tariffs and other modes 
 of taxation to Slavery and its intentions and encroachments, 
 the expenses of the government were increased by the pros- 
 pects ahead, and there came of course a deficit of income in 
 relation to expenditures. The tariff duties on the whole 
 imports under the Walker tariff, 1846-61, averaged only 
 18%, and on the dutiable goods only 23%. 
 
UNITED STATES TABIFFS. 567 
 
 8. We come now to the Morrill Tariff oi 1861, which was 
 still in force in 1883. This designation includes, like the 
 previous ones, all the various supplements and modifications 
 passed in accordance with the leading idea of the original 
 Act. The ground thought of the Morrill Tariff in its history 
 as a whole was, not to get money for the uses of the govern- 
 ment, " to pay the debts and provide for the common defence 
 and general welfare of the United States," but to get money 
 through artificial prices of their wares for certain privileged 
 classes of the citizens. There was a mildly drawn resolution 
 in the platform of the party that triumphed in 1860 in favor 
 of what is called ' ' protection ; " it was a bid for the political 
 support of Pennsylvania ; little or nothing was said upon 
 that subject in the canvass ; and the people pronounced in 
 their verdict on a different set of questions from those in- 
 volved in a protective tariff. Seven Southern States had 
 seceded, when the bill passed the Senate in February ; the 
 need of more revenue was imperative ; there was no intelli- 
 gent agreement as to the means by which more revenue could 
 be obtained ; the existing duties were raised at first about 
 one-third ; in August they were raised again, and members 
 seized the opportunity of discriminating in favor of articles 
 in which they were interested to the extent of diminishing 
 revenue by duties which lessened importations. In view of 
 such a war as that then impending, the relevant questions 
 were, How can we get the most revenue with the least inter- 
 ference with the industries of the people ? and. How can we 
 distribute the tariff-taxes so as to burden the whole people as 
 equally as possible ? If these questions alone had influenced 
 the representatives of the people, the Morrill Tariff would 
 ncAcr have been heard of. It was a clouded thought, hover- 
 ing in many patriotic minds, that what they knew would be 
 immediately and immensely beneficial to some of their con- 
 stituents would not after all be very harmful to the country 
 at large, that carried through the tariff of 1861. But it was 
 harmful to the country at large in a high degree. Enlight- 
 
668 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ened public opinion abroad turned more or less against the 
 country in consequence ; the people were obliged to pay 
 nearly or quite double on some of the necessaries of life 
 what the goods were worth in a free market ; some of them 
 lost also their best chance of selling a part of the products 
 of their industry ; unusual inequality of fortune soon ap- 
 peared among the citizens ; while the duties were put so high 
 that nothing like the revenue was received from them that 
 might have been received. With a much larger revenue in 
 gold, a people obtaining their cloths and iron and similar 
 goods at something near European or Canadian prices, and 
 general industry going forward under its natural conditions, 
 the credit of the government would not have sunk so low as 
 unfortunately it did sink. The new tariff was not honestly 
 adjusted for purposes of revenue, and while it seemed to 
 concede something in its free list to the demand for free 
 trade, the concession was largely delusive, since many of the 
 articles thus admitted free of duty went into manufactures 
 protected by higher duties than were ever before levied in 
 this country. To put articles on a free list is of itself no 
 boon to free trade ; it depends upon the purpose for which 
 they are put there ; whether to benefit the whole people or 
 only a few persons at the expense of the whole people. In 
 all our recent tariff-legislation there is many a snare for the 
 unwary. 
 
 It is not needful for our present purpose to give an account 
 in detail of the various changes made from time to time in 
 the Morrill Tariff. A single specimen of the inequalities of 
 which that tariff was full to a surfeit may be given here by 
 way of illustration. Ex uno disce omnes. A supplemental 
 act that went into operation on the 10th of August, 1866, 
 provides, for the sake of increasing the duties, that the costs 
 of transportation, shipment, commission, brokerage, and all 
 similar charges, be added to the invoice value of imports to 
 make up the value on which the duties shall be levied. This 
 applies to all dutiable imports, except to long-combing or car' 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 
 
 669 
 
 pet wools costing twelve cents or less per pound. Why were 
 they excepted ? Cannot the carpet manufacturers pay duties 
 as well as other people ? They have had a very high protec- 
 tive duty on their own completed product. They compelled, 
 through Congress, everybody to pay this duty on foreign car- 
 pets, and carried up the price of their own in proportion ; and 
 yet this tariff exempted their raw material from an increase 
 of duty applied to all other dutiable goods whatsoever ! Ten 
 days before tliis clause went into effect, the Hartford Carpet 
 Company declared a semi-annual dividend of 20% ; and its 
 shares were announced as worth $275 each, with the divi- 
 dend off. 
 
 On an actual count of the number of distinct rates as- 
 sessed on different articles listed in the tariff in 1868, the 
 number was found to be 2,317; and the following articles 
 actually paid the following rates of duty per centum of the 
 value of the articles in that year : — 
 
 Per Cent. 
 Common window glass ... 49 
 
 Pig iron 55 
 
 Bar iron 67 
 
 Cast iron pipe 109 
 
 Wood screws 66 
 
 Carpenter squares .... 82 
 Sheet lead and pipe .... 54 
 
 Lead pencils 60 
 
 Plain cottons 58 
 
 Spool cotton 66 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Gunny cloth 81 
 
 White marble 57 
 
 Veiiied marble 79 
 
 Salt in bags 81 
 
 Salt in bulk 108 
 
 Scoured wool 94 
 
 Washed wool 121 
 
 Blankets (average) .... 82 
 
 Carpets (average) 109 
 
 Paris white 285 
 
 The average duty on dutiable goods in 1868 was 47.86%. 
 The' first considerable reduction in the Morrill tariff took 
 effect Jan. 1, 1871, and threw off taxes, as compared with 
 1869, to the extent of $26,054,748; but it threw them off 
 mainly from the revenue, and not from the protective, parts 
 of the tariff: for example, 77% of all this reduction was 
 from tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, and molasses ; articles, all 
 the taxes on which go to government, and du-eetly raise the 
 
570 ■ POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 price of nothing else. Precisely those articles, therefore, 
 are the ones to bear a heavy tax. 
 
 In October, 1871, occurred the great fire in Chicago. In 
 the winter following, a bit of legislation took place in Con- 
 gress in consequence, which is too instructive to be passed 
 by without notice. A bill was enacted to last one year only, 
 receiving the signature of President Grant on AprU 5, 1872, 
 to exempt all building materials except lumber from the op- 
 eration of tariff taxes for the benefit of Chicago alone. This 
 was an emphatic confession on the part of Congress that tariff 
 taxes raise the prices of protected goods, and that the remis- 
 sion of such taxes lowers the prices of the goods But why 
 was lumber excepted from the bounty of the legislators to the 
 unfortunates of Chicago? Because, while the bill was still 
 pending, a special car filled with the lumber lords of Michi- 
 gan and Wisconsin was rolled to Washington in haste, and 
 the potent influence of these men was sufficient to cause the 
 express exemption of their product from the intended cheap- 
 ening (for one year) of the building materials for Chicago. 
 The brief official record of this curious transaction will be 
 found in U. S. Statutes for 1872, page 33. 
 
 Congress did not dare to go into the presidential election 
 of 1872 with the tariff as it was, especially, as public opinion 
 had been roused against some of its more iniquitous features ; 
 and accordingly, in that summer, the duties were thrown off 
 entirely from tea and coffee, a large number of previously 
 taxed articles were put upon the free list, the duties on salt 
 and pig iron were reduced, and a general reduction of 10% 
 put on most other protected articles. But the last-named 
 reduction was restored by the "little tariff bill" two years 
 later. The purely revenue taxes on tea and coffee were 
 thrown off under protectionist leadership, in order to give 
 color to the claim of retaining the protective taxes for the 
 sake of revenue ! I'he deceptive cry was raised, by Kelley 
 of Pennsylvania and other protectionists, of " a free break- 
 fas*~*ihie" iu the subtle interest of commercial bondage; 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 571 
 
 seeking to give the impression, on the one hand, that every 
 thing on the breakfast- table was to be free, whereas nothing 
 on it or around it was to be free except the two beverages 
 mentioned, and on the other hand, that the removal of these 
 two taxes was a great boon to the people, whereas the motive 
 for the removal of these was to continue on the people bur- 
 dens tenfold heavier. The duty on raw hides was also re- 
 moved at the same time, and the removal of duties leads at 
 once to increased trade. For example, our whole import and 
 export trade with Venezuela amounted to only $3,345,145 in 
 1870. That Republic sends us nothing of consequence but 
 coffee and hides, both dutied in that year. In 1876, our 
 trade with that country amounted to $9,299,993, an increase 
 of nearly 200*^. The increase of the import of coffee and 
 hides between those dates was over 320%. The increase of 
 our shipping in the Venezuela trade in the same time was 
 from 15 to 134 vessels, from a tonnage of 2,571 to 43,459 
 tons, and from 109 hands to 1,255 hands. All this by free- 
 ing two articles only, one of which ought still to be taxed. 
 Some of the indirect results of just a little freedom are 
 seen in the increase of our exports of tanned leather from 
 $2,864,000 in 1872 under taxed hides, to $7,940,010 in 1876 
 under free hides. 
 
 The average duties on dutiable goods in the fiscal year 
 1874 were 38.50% ; but many of the tariff rates were 
 decidedly raised in February and March of the next year ; 
 so that, any one may still read in an official copy of the 
 tariff, among many other and higher and more complicate:! 
 rates, of 60 different articles put in at that time at 60%. 
 But there were some remissions also and improvements in 
 the years thereabouts. Quinine, which had borne 20%, in 
 the prospect of yellow fever at the South and in disgust 
 at the price of a medicine in universal use kept factitious 
 for the benefit of a single firm in Philadelphia, was put up 
 on the free list ; the price shortly settled to a point quite 
 below what might have been expected from the mere remis- 
 
572 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 sion, and in 1883 it had fallen more than one-half ; there 
 were then five firms making the article from the free material, 
 instead of one firm under the taxed material ; the House 
 Committee of Waj's and Means in their tariff bill of 1883 
 put in a duty of 10% again on quinine, but after an indig- 
 nant burst of eloquence on the floor from McKensie of Ken- 
 tucky, author of the free quinine bill, the House struck out 
 the item by a vote of 108 to 57 ; and the hope may now be 
 indrjlged that a free people may hereafter be permitted fco 
 uurse their aches and agues with a free quinine. The Reci- 
 procity Treaty with the Sandwich Islands was another step 
 in the right direction taken at about the same time. Our 
 exports to those islands were only $655,174 in 1875, but 
 rose under the treaty to $3,272,172 for the fiscal year 1881- 
 82. Our imports also from the islands grew during that 
 period from $1,227,191 to $7,646,294. 
 
 These little points of light serve the better to display the 
 blackness of darkness of the Morrill Tariff as a whole. The 
 bulk of the rates continued monstrously high and mon- 
 strously complicated. In 1882, the following articles actually 
 paid the following rates of duty : — 
 
 Cleaned rice . . . 
 Epsom salts .... 
 
 Chiccory 
 
 Spool thread . . . 
 Common window glass 
 Band and hoop iron , 
 Horseshoe nails . . 
 
 Per Cent. 
 95 
 78 
 102 
 11 
 66 
 75 
 98 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Boiler plates 69 
 
 Locomotive tires 79 
 
 Steel rails 99 
 
 Balmoral alpaca 91 
 
 Blankets ........ 89 
 
 Woollen hosiery 100 
 
 Bunting 121 
 
 If it be said, that the Morrill Tariff was very productive 
 of revenue, that may be admitted, for, of course, if the 
 pe.ople continue to trade at all, such a tariff must be produc- 
 tive, s.uce something near to half the value of the dutiable 
 goods imported goes to government ! To say that such a 
 tariff is productive is only to say that it is hard work to 
 destroy the commerce of a great people ! The question is, 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 
 
 573 
 
 would not a reasonable system be even more productive ? At 
 present, the government indeed gets much ; but the people 
 pay a great deal more ; inasmuch as the ground-thought of 
 the whole system is to raise the price of favored domestic 
 products through the tariff-taxes on corresponding foreign 
 products. Some of these taxes exclude the foreign product 
 entirely : in this case, the people pay much, and government 
 gets nothing. In other cases, the people are made to pay 
 five, and even ten, times as much in consequence of a tariff- 
 tax as the government receives from it. Can such a system 
 properly be called productive ? In round millions of dollars 
 the record of customs revenue is as follows : — 
 
 1861 $39 
 
 1862 49 
 
 1863 69 
 
 1864 102 
 
 1865 85 
 
 1866 179 
 
 1867 176 
 
 1868 164 
 
 1869 180 
 
 1870 195 
 
 1871 206 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 188 
 
 1874 163 
 
 1875 157 
 
 1876 148 
 
 1877 131 
 
 1878 130 
 
 1879 137 
 
 1880 187 
 
 1881 198 
 
 1882 220 
 
 The following table compiled by Philpott of Iowa from 
 the national censuses shows in striking figures the relatively 
 slow rate of progress in the nation under the Morrill Tariff 
 as compared with the progress made in all the leading lines 
 under the Walker Tariff. The comparison lies in the per 
 centum of increase over the previous decade in thirteen 
 essential items of growth of the period 1850-60 relatively 
 to each of the periods 1860-70 and 1870-80. The average 
 of the last two periods is taken for the sake of an easier 
 comparison of the progress of the one decade with the 
 average of the two later ones. The figures give the ^)e/ 
 centum of increase over the previous decades. 
 
674 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Lines of Pboobess. 
 
 C^ CO 
 
 > 1-^ i-i 
 
 <^ 
 
 Population 
 
 Wealth . . 
 
 Foreign commerce, aggregate . . 
 Foreign commerce, per capita . . 
 
 Railroads, aggregate 
 
 Eailroads, per capita 
 
 Capital in manufactures .... 
 Wages in manufactures, aggregate 
 Wages in manufactures, per hand 
 
 Products 
 
 Value of farms 
 
 Farm tools and machinery . . . 
 Live stock on farms 
 
 35.5 
 
 126.6 
 
 131.0 
 
 70.3 
 
 240.0 
 
 150.0 
 
 90.0 
 
 60.3 
 
 17.3 
 
 85.0 
 
 103.0 
 
 62.0 
 
 100.0 
 
 26.2 
 61.0 
 45.6 
 1.5.2 
 69.0 
 34.0 
 66.0 
 58.2 
 9.4 
 69.6 
 23.6 
 27.7 
 17.3 
 
 A deep dissatisfaction with the Morrill Tariff, as thwarting 
 the drift of the previous twenty-five years both in this 
 country and in Great Britain, spread steadily among the 
 people as its deceits and burdens were popularly discussed ; 
 protectionist leaders, as they had raised the cry in 1872 of 
 " a free breakfast- table " to divert the public mind from the 
 real issue, so with the same intent they raised in 1882 the 
 cry of a "Tariff Commission;" and Congress authorized, 
 and the' President appointed, commissioners, each one 'of 
 whom was a protectionist, and most of whom were person- 
 ally connected with protected industries. Their names were 
 mostly unknown to the country at the time of their appoint- 
 ment ; and^some of their private correspondence as commis- 
 sioners, since published, is far from being to the credit of 
 their integrity or intelligence. One of them, Kenner, a 
 representative of the Louisiana sugar interest, in one of 
 these letters, displayed an unseemly anxiety to establish 
 through protective duties an identity of interest between the 
 producers and adulteraters of sugar, — " tJie mere fact of our 
 mentioning your interest in public as identical with ours 
 
UNITED STATES TABBIFF8. 676 
 
 creates a prestige in its favor ; " and another of them, Porter, 
 in a letter to Kelley, gauged the calibre of his own mind by 
 a strain of fulsome adulation, as follows: " On my bed lay 
 a large package, which, on opening, I found to contain that 
 long-expected and magnificent picture of yourself. It is cer- 
 tainly superb, and in the moment of ecstasy which followed 
 its reception, I could not withstand the temptation to take it 
 downstairs and show it to my colleagues, who all agreed that 
 it was one of the finest photographs of one of our strongest 
 men. I put it on my mantel-piece and looked at it for a 
 long time and could almost fancy I was communing with 
 you." 
 
 No intelligent person expected from a commission so con- 
 stituted any substantial alleviations for the people from the 
 burdens of the Morrill Tariff, but only manipulations, — "to 
 change the place and keep the pain." Their Report to 
 Congress was a marvel. It stroked a little here, and struck 
 a little there. It changed the classification of imports, in- 
 creased the free list in unimportant articles and in certain 
 raw materials, plausibly reduced certain duties which re- 
 mained however stiU prohibitive, actually reduced a few 
 duties to the j)rospective relief of the people, and positively 
 enhanced a number of taxes over the old law especially on 
 blooms, and doubled the rates on washed wools, and provided 
 that cow's hair should come m as wool. 
 
 Soon after New Year's, 1883, Congress went to work in 
 earnest in both Houses on the basis of the Report of the 
 Tariff Commission. Shameless as the protectionist debaters 
 in Congress have been from the start in letting it be plainly 
 seen that the sole motive of their effort was a rise of price 
 in certain goods, which their fellow-citizens would be com- 
 pelled, under the law, to pay, the late debate in the House 
 was by far the most shameless and avowed in this respect of 
 any that ever transpired there. In the last days of that 
 debate all pretence, even on the part of the protectionists, 
 of any action for the good of the country at large, dropped 
 
576 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 utterly out of the discourse ; the old pretences and disguises 
 and subterfuges of " home markets " and " higher wages " 
 and "commercial independence," were no longer put for- 
 ward, even in word, under the clash of selfish interests and 
 in the eagerness to secure for their wares an artificial price, 
 to be paid by their countrymen ; proposed reductions in 
 tariff taxes were fought off, and in many cases still higher 
 taxes were urged on, under the open avowal that, unless 
 home prices were thus stiffened by these tariff taxes, they 
 could not sell their wares at a profit ; one honorable member 
 from New Jersey brought his pottery wares upon the floor of 
 the House, and tried to demonstrate to his fellow-members 
 that, unless these very goods were a^rtificially raised in price 
 by " protective" tariff rates, which should shut out foreign 
 competition, he could no longer tread his clay and work his 
 wheels to a profit to himself ; in other words, he and others, 
 like circumstanced, persuaded Congress to pass laws com- 
 pelling their countrymen to hire them to carry on unprofitable 
 branches of business (as they alleged) , b}' giving them more 
 for their products than similar goods were confessed to be 
 worth in an open market ; and the same confession and 
 avowal underlay every speech on that side during that ses- 
 sion of Congress. 
 
 As always in like circumstances, the lobby was there in 
 full force. Jan. 31, a newspaper as nearly neutral as pos- 
 sible on the tariff question printed the following paragraph 
 on this point : " The pressure from the numerous tariffilohhiez 
 is something tremendous and is increasing every day. Most 
 of the iron and steel lords of Pennsylvania and leading cities 
 of the country are here worldng night and day to secure action 
 favorable to their interests. TJiey are now chiefly disturbed 
 over the metal schedule in the Senate. They are bringing to 
 hear every possible influence to secure an amendment of the 
 schedule when it is brought before the Senate from the com- 
 mittee of the whole. If they can succeed in increasing the 
 rates in this way, their viztory will he won, and they will not 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 577 
 
 need look to a conference committee to respond to their de- 
 mands. ' ' 
 
 Nevertheless the Conference Committee aa between the 
 two Houses became needful before the bill could be enacted. 
 Senator Morrill, after whom this tariff was originally named, 
 was active in this conference, and was said by a colleague to 
 have contributed in it to some reduction of the proposed 
 duties on wool and some increase on woollens and cottons. 
 He had a finger in the first bill of 1861, and he had a finger 
 in the last bill of 1883, and for this reason as well as on the 
 main ground of our classification the tariff continued to be 
 the Morrill Tariff. The Conference Committee cut right and 
 left on the work of the two Houses. When the Plouse 
 wanted a duty of Sl5 on steel rails, and the Senate $15.68, 
 the Conference instead of striking between the two, fixed it 
 at ^17. Both Houses had agreed on 50 cents a ton on iron 
 ore : the committee deliberately put it up to 75 cents. On 
 green glass bottles, there was an increase of duty to 66%, 
 being 31% more than the House and 36% more than the 
 Senate had demanded. There was much color of truth in 
 what was said at the time by a daily paper: " The fact is 
 that the Conference Committee without reference to the nomi- 
 nal disagreements of the two Houses set themselves to worTi to 
 placate Sherman and Kelley." 
 
 The bill v^as enacted on the last day of the session as it 
 came from the hands of the Conference Committee ; and 
 it may be truthfully and thankfully' conceded, that it was in 
 many respects an improvement over what had preceded. 
 The rule of 1866 was abandoned, that commissions and 
 freights and other charges should be included in the dutiable 
 value of goods imported. That is equivalent to a lowering 
 of the duties pro tanto. The free list was certainly in- 
 creased, and it had been increased before over the earlier 
 time of the Morrill Tariff ; because, while in 1867, free 
 articles imported were less than 5% of the whole, they be- 
 came in 1882 30%, and perhaps may become under the law 
 
578 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 of 3 883 33|^%. The number of specified articles on which 
 the hew tariff fixed the rates of duty was 631. Of these, 
 524 continued to be described as the tariff commissiou de- 
 scribed them, and 409 retained the commission rate of duty ; 
 in 50 cases more tliere was a substantial agreement with the 
 commissiou rate ; and of the 1 72 cases of departure from 
 the commission rate, 98 were fixed at a lower rate, and 46 
 at a certainly higher and 28 at a probably higher rate. As a 
 sample of slight remissions, for which the million ought to 
 be duly thankful to the powers that be, the tax on spool 
 cotton was reduced from 24 to 14 cents per dozen spools. 
 
 In the mean time public opinion is forming, informing, 
 and formulating, itself. New England is slowly and strongly 
 swinging back to her old and sound position. She must 
 indeed bear her share of the blame for getting and keeping 
 the country in the quagmires of Protection, and now put to 
 her whole strength in helping to get it out. Boston is anx- 
 ious to regain its ocean traffic, and an invincible obstacle 
 to this is the navigation law and a protective tariff. " Go 
 to the ocean!" thundered Webster in 1814, and the echoes 
 of that wise word still linger along the wharves of that city. 
 The West is still more pronounced than the East in favor 
 of commercial freedom, partly from the fact that its vast 
 losses from the opposite are perfectly patent to ordinary 
 intelligence. There is no reason to doubt, that the South 
 holds yet in substance and with firmness the good traditions 
 of its elder statesmen. The Middle States, though they 
 move slowly as becomes their weight, are sure to move in 
 the right direction. A clean and sound and simple system 
 of national taxation is just as sure to be enacted in the next 
 coming years as the sun is sure to shine ; for the sun has 
 already shone in too much on the motives and methods and 
 meaning of " protection " to allow it length of days or lease 
 of life in the good time coming. 
 
 The brief review of our tariff legislation in this chapter 
 amply confirms the strong words of Professor Sumner: 
 
UNITED STATES TARIFFS. 579 
 
 " Practice and experience right here in the United States have 
 established the practicability and advantage of absolute Free 
 Trade by evidence, tohich, for weight, uniformity, concentration 
 and positiveness, is immeasurably greater than the evidence 
 which can be brought for any other theory whatever.^' In the 
 light of this chapter let us read the truth in the lines and 
 between the lines of the following official statement of Sec- 
 retary Evarts : ' ' The average American workman performs 
 from one and a half to twice as much work as the average 
 European workman. This is so important a point in connec- 
 tion with our ability to compete loith the cheap manufactures 
 of Europe, and it seems, on first thought, so strange, that I 
 will trouble you with somewhat lengthy quotations from the 
 reports in support thereof. ^^ Let us also see the great sig- 
 nificance of the words in a like Report to Congress of Secre- 
 tary Blaine: " Undoubtedly the inequalities in the wages of 
 English and American operatives are more than equalized by 
 the greater efficiency of the latter and their longer hours of 
 labor. If this should prove to be a fact in practice, it would 
 be a very important elemeyit in the establishment of our ability 
 to compete with England for our share of the cotton-goods 
 trade of the world.*' The venerable Governor Seymour of 
 New York confirms in these wise words the grand distinction 
 drawn in this chapter and the one preceding : " li is a reve- 
 nue tariff when the duties collected are needed to bear the cost 
 of government and to pay the national obligations. By pro- 
 tective tariff, I mean imposing taxes upon all classes of citizens 
 to build up the ptTOsperity of those engaged in special pursuits, 
 thus placing them upon a different footing from the great mass 
 of our citizens." 
 
 The truth is, the intelligence of the people of the United 
 States is keen enough now to appreciate the wit of Dean 
 Swift in the appended passage, and to repudiate pretty soon 
 and once for all the selfish and short-sighted and misan- 
 thropic tenets of a miserable policy. " Tlie first man I saw 
 was of a. meagre aspect, tcith sooty hands and face. His hair 
 
680 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 and heard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His 
 clothes, sliirt, and skin, were all of the same color. He had 
 been eight years upon a 2)roject for extracting sunbeams out of 
 cucumbers, which were to be put into phials hermetically sealed^ 
 and let out to warm the air, in raw and inclement summers. 
 He told me, he did not doubt, in eight years more, he shoidd 
 he able to supply the Governor's gardens with sunshine, at a 
 reasonable rate; hut he complained that his stock was low, and 
 entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to 
 INGENUITY, especially as this had been a dear season for cu- 
 cumbers." 
 
 We may now summarize very briefly : — 
 
 1. English colonists in America were not afraid of Free 
 Trade, but established it for themselves as a boon before the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 2. Tlieir first treaty as a nation was a commercial treaty 
 with France, founded upon reciprocal utility and the just rules 
 of free intercourse. 
 
 3. Steps taken towards a better and wider Commerce were the 
 steps leading to the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 4. Alexander Hamilton was a willing witness to the thriving 
 state of domestic manufactures in 1 791 . 
 
 5. Fisher Ames demonstrated in debate the inevitable antag- 
 onism between artificial manufactures and agriculture. 
 
 6. Daniel Webster's great speech of 1824 answered for sub- 
 stance his own and others' later sophistries. 
 
 7. Calhoun's well-grounded opposition to protective tariffs 
 led on directly to his ill-grounded doctrine of Secession and to 
 the late Civil War. 
 
 8. It is too late in the history of the world and of Chris- 
 tianity, too contrary to common sense and good neighbo hood 
 among nations, and too hostile to the real interests and power 
 of any nation, to try to maintain anywhere heathenish and 
 loss-begetting restnctions on trade. 
 
TAXATION. 581 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 TmsRE can be no science of Taxation m the sense in which 
 there is unquestionably a science of Production. Production, 
 as we have now seen, goes forward in accordance with posi- 
 tive natural forces, which God has appointed, and which men 
 can ascertain and generalize and profit by. Nature bids 
 men work and save, buy and sell, invent and transport, navi- 
 gate and grow rich ; but Nature has given no whisper, that 
 we can hear, about any taxes. That is the work of Society. 
 That is something negative, not positive. Taxation is indeed 
 something necessary to the social order, as men are ; it fur- 
 nishes means of defence against greater evils than itself is ; 
 but in itself considered, it is an economic evil, because it 
 takes away from exchangers a part of the gains of their 
 exchanges ; it is not strictly, therefore, a part of economic 
 science ; but its relations are, after all, so intimate with that 
 science, that it must be treated as if it were a part of it. 
 There are true principles of Taxation, as related to Ex- 
 changes, although there never can be a true science of Tax- 
 ation in the grand and positive sense in which there is a 
 ecience of Exchanges Proper. 
 
 Value resides in Services exchanged ; but, as men are, 
 Government is an essential prerequisite to any general and 
 satisfactory exchanges, since it contributes by direct effort 
 to the security of person and property ; and justly claims, 
 therefore, from each citizen a compensation ih return for the 
 services thus rendered to him. We do not mean to say that 
 government exists solely for the protection of person and 
 
682 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 property, or that all the operations of government are to be 
 brought down within the sphere of exchange, for government 
 exists as well for the improvement as for the protection of 
 society, and many of its high functions are moral, to be per- 
 formed under a lofty sense of responsibility to God and to 
 future ages ; nor do we mean to say that government has not 
 also a deep ground for its existence, in virtue of which it 
 may on extraordinary occasions demand all the property of 
 all, and even the lives of some, of its citizens ; but we do 
 mean to say that, whatever may be conceded as the ultimate 
 ground of government, the matter of taxation, by which 
 goverment is outwardly and ordinarily supported, and by 
 which it takes to itself a part of the gains of every man's 
 industry, finds a ready and solid justification in the common 
 principles of exchange. If, as far as the tax-payer is con- 
 cerned, the exchange does not seem to be voluntary, on a 
 closer analysis it is seen to be really voluntary ; for in effect 
 the people organize government for themselves, and volun- 
 tarily support it, and there is no government separate from 
 the will of the people. The practical rules of taxation at 
 any rate, whether iho. fundamental reasons for it or not, must 
 always be found within the principles of our science ; and 
 while it is admitted that here is another point of contact with 
 the regions beyond, all that really belongs to it must be vin- 
 dicated for Political Economy. In a very important sense 
 accordingly, a tax paid is a reward for a service rendered. 
 The service which government renders to production by its 
 laws, courts, and oflEicers, by the force which it is at all times 
 ready to exert in behalf of any citizen or the whole society 
 when threatened with evil in person or property, is rendered 
 somewhat on the principle of division of labor, one set of 
 agents devoting themselves to that work ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing some crying abuses of authority which no constitution or 
 public virtue has yet been found adequate wholly to avert, 
 is rendered on the whole economically and satisfactorily. 
 Taxes, therefore, demanded of citizens by a lawful govern- 
 
TAXATION. 683 
 
 ment which tolerably performs its functions, are legitimate 
 and just on principles of exchange alone. 
 
 1. What is the Source out of which taxes are actually 
 paid? The answer is, out of the gains of exchanges of some 
 sort. Gifts aside, and thefts which are out of the question, no 
 man ever did, no man ever can, pay his taxes, except out of 
 the gains of some sales which he has already made. Even 
 the man who lives wholly on the interest of his money must 
 make a true exchange in lending it (a credit transaction), 
 and musi already have gotten his return-service in interest, 
 before he can pay his taxes ; personal and professional ser- 
 vants must receive their wages, the outcome of exchanges, 
 before they can possibly pay their taxes ; and men can real- 
 ize nothing for taxes or other payments from their farms or 
 foundries or stocks in trade except as they sell either them 
 or their products. The more sales, the more gains, and the 
 greater reservoir whence taxes may be drawn. Political 
 Economy, as the vindicator of sales, as the defender of all 
 legitimate gains whatsoever, is the best possible friend of 
 tax-payers and tax-gatherers as such. Whatever thought or 
 force restricts sales, makes it^ro tanto the harder to pay and 
 collect taxes, so much the harder for a government to keep 
 its head above water and reach the ends of its being. 
 
 Green's History of England (I., 322 et seq.) gives an 
 outline of the taxes there from the beginning of the mon- 
 archy. As land was almost the only source of salable things 
 in the early time, so it was almost the only thing on which 
 taxes were levied. Danegeld and scutage and feudal aids 
 fastened only on the land. ' ' But a new principle of taxation 
 was disclosed in the tithe levied for a Crusade at the close of 
 Henry Second's reign. Land was no longer the only source 
 of wealth. The growth of national prosperity, of trade and 
 commerce, was creating a mass of personal property which 
 offered kresistible temptations to the Angevin financiers. 
 No usage fettered the Crown in dealing with personal prop- 
 erty, and ita growth in value promised a growing revenue, 
 
584 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 Grants of from a seventh to a thirtieth of movables, house- 
 hold property, and stock, were demanded. The right of the 
 king to grant licenses to bring goods into or to trade within 
 the realm, a right springing from the need of his protection 
 felt by the strangers who came there for purposes of traffic, 
 laid the foundation for our taxes on imports. Those on 
 exports were only a part of the general sj^stem of taxing 
 personal property. How tempting this source of revenue 
 was proving, we see from a provision of the Great Charter, 
 which forbids the levy of more than the ancient customs on 
 merchants entering or leaving the realm. Commerce was in 
 fact growing with the growing wealth of the people." This 
 passage shows, that, as a matter of fact, taxes have always 
 hinged, and must hinge, on trade. 
 
 2. In what Measure or proportion ought citizens to con- 
 tribute to the fund necessary to be raised by taxation ? The 
 usual answer has been, that a man should be taxed accord- 
 ing to his property. That is the radically correct answer, 
 though most who have given it have not understood clear 'y 
 the meaning of the word property. "We have already se( i 
 that the ultimate idea of property is the power and right 1 ) 
 render services in exchange, and defined it as any tiling that 
 can he bought and sold. Robinson Crusoe, while solitary 
 upon his island, did not and could not have property, in the 
 true sense of that word. It is not the fact of appropriation 
 that makes any thing property ; it is not the fact that a man 
 has made it or transformed it, that makes any thing prop- 
 erty ; it is not the fact that a man may rightfully give it 
 away, that makes any thing property ; but it is the fact that 
 a man has something, no matter what it is, for which some- 
 thing else may be obtained in exchange, that makes that 
 something property, and gives government the right to tax 
 it. In other words, property consists in values, in a pur- 
 chasing-power, and not in possession, or in appropriation, oi 
 in the esteem in which a man holds any thing he has as long 
 as it is his own. The test of property is a sale ; that which 
 
TAXATION. 585 
 
 will bring something when exposed for exchange is property ; 
 that which will bring nothing, either never was, or has now 
 ceased to be, distinctively property. This view may not 
 seem to be as novel as it is, or it may be prejudiced by its 
 very novelty, but at any rate it carries along with it that 
 strongest of the criteria of truth, that it simplifies and illu- 
 mines a confused section of the field of human thinking ; 
 and at the same time justifies a practice which governments 
 have reached, as it were through instinct, the practice, 
 namely, of taxing men who have neither real estate nor chat- 
 tels, on their incomes from industry. 
 
 To the genei'al question, then, in what proportions shall 
 the citizens contribute in taxes to the support of government, 
 the general answer comes, that they ought to contribute in 
 proportion to the gains of their exchanges, of whatever kind 
 they may be. The farm, the foundry, the mill, the railroad, 
 the real estate of every name ; personal property of every 
 kind ; and personal acquirements and elforts of all descrip- 
 tions, best appear, for the purposes of taxation, through the 
 gains realized by means of them. If, for any reason, any of 
 these become unproductive, taxes should cease to be derived 
 from them ; indeed, must cease to be derived from them, 
 because their owners can no longer pay by virtue of them. 
 It may be objected, that lands, for example, presently un- 
 productive, may be held untaxed under this principle, held 
 for the sake of a prospective rise of price. Very well ; when 
 they are sold at a profit, let the owner be taxed on that 
 profit : it will be time enough then, especially as men do not 
 like to hold unproductive forms of property. It may also be 
 objected, that, under this principle, wages, the result of per- 
 sonal and professional exertion, would be taxed just the 
 same as profits and rents, the result of previously accumu- 
 lated property. Very well ; they ought to be so taxed. Can 
 anybody give a solid reason why they ought not to be so 
 taxed? One may say, that a professional man earning a 
 large income, on which taxes are paid the same as on a simi- 
 
586 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 lar income of a land-proprietor, dying, leaves to his children 
 no further means of earning, while the hind-proprietor, dying, 
 does leave such means. Granted ; but the land income con- 
 tinues to pay taxes, while that professional income does not ! 
 Other members of the profession will do the business which 
 the former one would have done had he lived, and they will 
 pay taxes on the income from it. What a man transmits to 
 his children, whether a great name or a great estate, has 
 nothing to do with the amount of taxes that he ought to pay 
 while he lives. There is an illusion about land and realized 
 property that needs to be dissipated before men will under- 
 stand clearly the whole matter of taxation. Without con- 
 stant watchfulness and foresight, without constant efforts in 
 improvements and repairs, almost every form of realized 
 property will rapidly deteriorate and become unproductive. 
 Land even in Great Britain, where land is scarce, is onlj 
 worth about twenty-five years' rent ; and without the exer 
 else of intelligence and will property ceases to be. Property 
 has its birth in services exchanged; services exchanged give 
 rise to gains; taxes can only be paid out of these gains; they 
 ought to be proportioned to tht amount of these gains without 
 any reference to the class of exchanges producing them; while 
 the right to tax on the part of the government is connected with 
 a service rendered by government^ and both grows out of and 
 is limited by the right to exchange on the part of the citizens. 
 These considerations, though they may exclude the propriety 
 of a poll-tax, are consistent with most other forms of taxa- 
 tion, and give unity to them. 
 
 3. It follows plainly from these principles that an Income 
 Tax, if the exact amount of income could in all cases be 
 ascertained, and if no other form of tax were levied, would 
 be a perfectly unexceptionable form of taxation. The only 
 sources of income are three : wages, profits, rents. It does 
 not seem that gifts are legitimately taxable ; they lie out- 
 side the field of exchange ; they spring from sympathy, from 
 benevolence, from duty ; and while exchange must claun all 
 
TAXATION. 687 
 
 that fairly belongs to it, it must be careful not to throw dis- 
 couragements into the adjacent but distinct field of morals, 
 Hence, it may well be questioned whether legacies, bequeath- 
 ments, gifts to charitable and educational institutions, and 
 gifts to individuals proceeding fi'om friendship, gratitude, or 
 other such impulse, are properly subject to taxation. The 
 property is taxable in the hands of the donor, and may be in 
 the hands of the recipient, but the passage from one to the 
 other ought to be unobstructed by a tax. Gifts then ex 
 cepted, and plunder, which is out of the question, the sources 
 of income are few and simple, and there is no great difficulty 
 in eveiy man ascertaining about what his annual income is. 
 Because this income, exactly ascertained, exactly measures 
 the gains of his exchanges for that year, a tax upon that 
 income is the fairest of all possible forms of taxation, and 
 might be made with advantage, in time, to supersede all 
 other forms. The late national income tax was new in this 
 country, and for certain reasons not inherent in the nature 
 of the tax became unpopular in influential quarters, and was 
 discontinued ; but the English have found their income tax 
 to be for more than thirty years the most uniform, unfailing, 
 expansive, and responsive to control of all their fiscal expe- 
 dients. Their rate has varied from two to sixteen pence to 
 the pound of income. In 1857, it realized $80,255,000. In 
 1866, our own national income tax realized $60,894,135. 
 The Germans, too, are now applying an income tax as one 
 of their sources of revenue. 
 
 Besides the complete harmony of an income tax with the 
 general principles of taxation, as already unfolded, it has a 
 grand advantage over all other forms of taxation in that it 
 has no tendency to disturb prices. Were there no taxation 
 except on incomes, and were the incomes rightly rendered, 
 the prices of every thing would be just as if there were no 
 taxes. Taxation would then be like the atmosphere, press- 
 ing equally on all points and consciously on none. It is 
 through tricks loroiight on prices that the greatest injustice 
 
588 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 is done and suffered in this country at present ; a depreci- 
 ated paper money, for example, raises some prices and not 
 others, and some prices before others, and thus distributes 
 its mischiefs unequally; the "protective" tariff- taxes play 
 fantastic tricks with prices, raising some and depressing 
 others, thus working monstrous injustice on a great scale ; 
 and almost all forms of taxation become unequal and unjust 
 through their diverse action on prices. But a universal in- 
 come tax, properly levied and fully responded to by the pay- 
 ers, would have no influence at all upon prices, could by no 
 possibility work essential injustice, and would be certain to 
 be very productive. 
 
 Another great advantage of an income tax in such a coun- 
 try as this would be, that all men would keep accounts, more 
 orderly methods of business -would prevail, men would know 
 better where they stand themselves and whom of others to 
 trust, failures would be less frequent, and every thing would 
 be more known and above-board. 
 
 In this country, where taxes have to be paid, first to the 
 local municipality, then to the state, and last to the nation, 
 income taxes, were all others abolished, would have this 
 immense advantage, that the municipality might ascertain 
 the incomes once for all, the state and the nation merely col- 
 lecting an additional per cent for themselves ; or better still, 
 by amicable arrangement, neither party yielding its inherent 
 right to tax, one set of officials might ascertain and collect 
 the tax for all three governments once for all. An objection 
 has been raised from the publicity resulting from an income 
 tax. This is no objection at all, inasmuch as every man has 
 a right to know that his neighbors are contributing to support 
 the government pro rata with himself. In bearing up the 
 burden of government all citizens are copartners, and in this 
 view each has a right to demand a look into the books of the 
 others. Another objection has been raised, that men will 
 not give in a true return of their income. Ah ! but they can 
 be made to do so, as the forms are perfected, as fraudulent 
 
TAXATION. 589 
 
 returns are promptly punished by additional assessment and 
 collection, and as the memory and conscience of the payers 
 are quickened by the action of a healthful public opinion 
 brought to bear through the annual publication of the list of 
 their returns. Men are not so isolated from each other as 
 that a man's neighbors do not know pretty well the general 
 amount of his income. There is the additional security of 
 an oath, of the fear of punishment, and of the wish to stand 
 woil with one's class. At the worst, it may be said, that 
 evasions and fraud accompany also all other forms of taxa- 
 tion. No fair experiment has yet been made in this country 
 with an income tax ; special reasons made the late law ob- 
 noxious ; but if the system were permanently established in 
 lieu of all others, the practical difficulties under it would grow 
 less and less every year. It may be long before we shall 
 ever come to this ; but the truth remains that income taxes 
 are the justest of taxes. 
 
 4. Taxes are commonly and properly divided into two 
 classes, namely, Direct and Indirect Taxes. A direct tax 
 is levied on the very persons who are expected themselves to 
 pay it ; an indirect tax is demanded from one person in the 
 expectation that he will pay it provisionally, but will indem- 
 nify himself in the higher price which he will receive from 
 the ultimate consumer. Thus an income tax is direct, while 
 duties laid on imported goods are indirect. There has been 
 a great amount of discussion on the point whether direct or 
 indirect taxation be the more eligible form ; but the reader 
 of penetration will perceive that there is not at bottom any 
 very radical difference between them ; each is alike a tax on 
 actual or possible exchanges, with this main difference, that 
 men pay indirect taxes as a part of the price of the goods 
 they buy, without thinking perhaps that it is a tax they are 
 paying, and consequently without any of the repugnance that 
 is sometimes felt towards a tax-gatherer who comes with an 
 unwelcome demand. Thus indirect taxes are conveniently 
 and economically collected. Especially is this true of impost 
 
590 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 duties ; since one set of custom-house officers collect easily 
 and at once the government tax which is ultimately paid by 
 consumers all over the country. The taxes levied by the 
 present United States internal revenue law are indirect taxes, 
 whereby the government gets in a lump what is afterwards 
 distributed over many subordinate exchanges. The counter- 
 vailing disadvantage of indirect taxation, however, is, that 
 the price of the commodity is usually enhanced to an extent 
 much beyond the amount of the tax, partly because it is a 
 cover under which dealers may put an unreasonable demand, 
 and partly because the tax, having to be advanced over and 
 over again by the intermediate dealers, profits rapidly accu- 
 mulate as an element of the price. 
 
 Direct taxes are laid either on income or expenditure. As 
 the difficulty of a tax on a person's whole expenditure is 
 much greater than one on his whole income, inasmuch as the 
 items are more numerous and more diffused, it is only at- 
 tempted to levy a few taxes on some special items of expen- 
 diture, such as those on horses, carriages, plates, watches, 
 and so on ; but as these do not reach all persons with any 
 degree of equality, they are so far forth objectionable. A 
 house-tax, levied on thfi occupier, and not on the owner 
 unless he be at the same time the occupier, would be a direct 
 tax on expenditure every way unobjectionable.-' Taking 
 society at large, the house a man lives in and its furniture 
 are probably the most accurate index attainable of the size 
 of his general expenditures. They are open to observation 
 and current remark ; they are that on which persc/ns rely 
 more perhaps than on any thing else external for their con- 
 sideration and station in life ; the tax could be assessed with 
 very little trouble on the part of the assessor ; and it is well 
 worthy the attention of our national legislature, whether such 
 a tax, if more taxes should be needed, would not be more 
 equal and more easy of collection than any others now open ; 
 or whether it might not with advantage take the place of 
 
 1 Mill, chip, ill., book 5. 
 
TAXATION. 591 
 
 some of the complicated and objectionable taxes now laid. 
 Direct taxes have this general advantage over indirect, thai 
 they bring the people into more immediate contact with the 
 government that lays the taxes, and subject it to a quicker 
 supervision and more effectual curb, whenever its expendi- 
 tures grow larger than the people think it desirable to incur ; 
 tliey have this general disadvantage over indirect taxes, espe- 
 cially over imposts, that the number of officials required to 
 assess and collect them is much larger, thus swallowing up 
 a part of the proceeds of the taxes, with this liability also 
 of bringing the people into an attitude of hostility to the gov- 
 ernment and to its contemplated expenditures. But whether 
 the taxes be direct or indirect, or whatever be their form, 
 except it be a poll-tax, which is questionable at best, they 
 are laid upon exchanges, and are designed to withdraw for 
 the use of the government a part of the gains of exchanges. 
 5. There is every opportunity in this country to try experi- 
 ments in taxation, and to reach through experience the best 
 modes, since the states establish their own systems inde- 
 pendently of any national action. There is consequently 
 great diversity of methods in different localities and under 
 the different governments. The nation raises its revenue 
 mainly through a tariff, subordinately through an excise, 
 both indirect taxation. Most of the states raise their reve- 
 nue by direct taxes upon land or other property, though 
 Pennsylvania has recently tried with gratifying results the 
 expedient of an indirect tax on corporations in lieu of her 
 former direct taxes. It may possibly be, considering the 
 complex character of our government — the wheels within 
 the wheel — that a combination of different taxes, indirect 
 for the nation and direct for the states, may reach a rough 
 result of justice. But in order that it maj^ do this even ap- 
 proximately, there must be more simplicity m each method, 
 and a more studied harmony between them, than has been 
 hitherto attempted. Taxes must be seen to be taxes, and 
 viewed with a comprehensive reference to other taxes falling 
 
592 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 upon the same persons, before any thing like a system of 
 taxation can exist for the United States. 
 
 The aggregate customs revenue of the United States for 
 the five fiscal years, 1877-81, was $792,222,909, and the 
 direct cost of the collection of this sum was $30,228,113, or 
 3.81%. "We have already seen sufficiently in the chapter ou 
 Foreign Trade the radical objections to raising a revenue by 
 such a tariff as that, under which this vast sum was gathered 
 in jve years; namel}^, (1) the people were made to pay 
 under this form of taxation a manifold vaster sum than this, 
 of which the Treasury did not receive one single cent, which 
 is a monstrous abuse of the taxing power; (2) the most 
 stinging injustice was wrought between man and man and 
 class and class, by artificially raising the prices of some prod- 
 ucts and depressing the prices of other products through 
 the designed action and reaction of such a tariff, which is a 
 monstrous abuse of the general governing power. The In- 
 ternal Revenue of the United States for the six fiscal years, 
 1877-82, was very nearly $718,000,000, and the du-ect cost 
 of collection was 3.51%. In utter contrast with the tariff- 
 taxes, the internal revenue taxes are laid on a very few arti- 
 cles, in a very simple way, with a single view to get money 
 into the Treasury ; and as a beautiful consequence, the re- 
 ceipts increased from $113,000,000 in 1879 to $123,000,000 
 in 1880, $135,000,000 in 1881, and $146,000,000 in 1882. 
 The great bulk of these immense sums was derived from 
 three sources, namely, distilled spirits, malt liquors, and 
 cigars. The only other subjects of excise taxes, which 
 yielded in the aggregate less than $19,000,000 in 1882, were 
 matches, patent medicines, and banks. Compared with tho 
 tariff, the excise is simplicity itself ; and if the tariff were 
 simplified on the same principle, with the same end in view, 
 taxing not over a dozen articles, little would be left to be 
 desu'ed in the tax-system of the United States. Probably a 
 simple and exclusive income tax would be better even than 
 this. 
 
TAXATION. 593 
 
 Great difficulties lie in the way of harmonizing the tax- 
 systems of the States with any existing or immediately pro- 
 spective taxing-system of the Nation. Vermont has a new 
 system under which she is trying to get taxes from her citi- 
 zens on commodities wherever situated and on credits wher- 
 e\ev deposited. Unavoidable frictions arise here, because it 
 may be claimed that parts of the property ai-e in other States 
 and taxed there, or at least are not protected by the law of 
 Vermont, and ought not therefore to be taxed under it. For 
 example, parties depositing bonds and valuables in safes in 
 New York, might claim that they were out of the jurisdiction 
 of Vermont, and if stolen, officials of that State would not 
 be called on to lift a finger. An exclusive income tax would 
 obviate all difficulties of this sort, because a man would pay 
 his tax where his domicile is, no matter what the kind or 
 place of his property. 
 
 6. If direct taxes, other than an income tax, be levied, it 
 is very clear that credits are a legitimate subject of taxation. 
 Whatever is bought and sold is properly enough taxed, if 
 the needs of the government require it, and if such taxation 
 would be productive and not too unequal. As values always 
 spring from the action of individuals, so the incidence of 
 taxes is upon persons rather than upon things ; and the ques- 
 tion is what can a man sell, or what has he already sold, on 
 the gains of which sale the government may lay some claim? 
 If I have a mortgage on my neighbor's farm, I can sell it 
 at any time to a third party ; it pays me interest ad interim., 
 and I can collect it at maturity. Government therefore 
 properly taxes me for that credit in my possession. It is a 
 part- of my property. The holders of the government bonds 
 occupy an economical position exactly similar. They have 
 n lien on the national property and income. The credits 
 they hold are vendible commodities. They are a paper 
 bearing interest. They can be collected at maturity. They 
 are indeed exempted by law from municipal and State taxa- 
 tion. That was a legit mate inducement held out to every- 
 
594 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 body alike to invest in the bonds. But there is no reason 
 why the nation, having withdrawn them from town and State 
 taxation, should not itself all the more subject them to their 
 fair share of the national burdens, unless indeed it be 
 claimed, as perhaps it fairly may be, that the exemption 
 enables the government to borrow at a just so much lower 
 rate of interest. The income at any rate derived from '.ha 
 bonds should be taxed as soon as any other income is. It 
 is no longer any ground of merit, even if it ever Has been, 
 for persons to buy the government debt. It is a mercantile 
 transaction, and should be so considered in relation to taxes. 
 So of other mercantile credits. They are taxable. 
 
 Massachusetts has had a great deal of trouble of late 
 years both in the Legislature and otherwise about the taxa- 
 tion of mortgages on taxed Massachusetts farms and other 
 real estate. The question is intricate and full of difficulty. 
 Some things about it, however, are clear. The mortgage is 
 a different piece of property, and a different kind of property, 
 from the real estate. It is a peculiar sort of credit. The 
 owner of it is a different person from the owner of the real 
 estate. Either bit of property may change hands without 
 changing the status of the other. The question of taxing the 
 mortgage, like the question of taxing the bonds, seems to 
 hinge on the effect it would have on the rate of interest of 
 the obligation secured by the mortgage. If the holder of the 
 mortgage expects to have to pay a tax upon it, he will try to 
 get a higher rate of interest on his money loaned and thus 
 secured. Whether mortgagees taxed as such can throw off 
 the tax upon the mortgagors in a higher rate of interest on 
 the money loaned is a point much disputed and at least 
 doubtful. General principles would lead us to favor the 
 taxation of mortgages in the hands of their holders, so long 
 as such cumbersome forms of taxing as prevail in Massachu- 
 setts are maintained. A universal income tax would solve 
 this diffl<mlty also in a moment of time. 
 
 7. Taxes in general, in order to be most productive in the 
 
TAXATION. 596 
 
 long run, as well as discourage as little as possible the ex- 
 changes which would otherwise go forward, ought to be low 
 relatively to the amount of values exchangeable. A high 
 tax not infrequently stops exchanges in the taxed articles 
 altogether, and of course the tax then realizes nothing to 
 the government. As the only motive to an exchange is 
 the gain of it, the exchange ceases whenever the govern- 
 ment cuts so deeply into the gain as to leave little margin 
 to the exchangers. The greater the gain left to the parties, 
 after the tax is abstracted, the more numerous will the ex- 
 changes become, and the greater the number of times will 
 the tax fall into the coffers of the government. In almost all 
 articles, consumption increases from a lowered price in even 
 a greater ratio than the diminution of the rate of tax ; so that 
 the interests of consumers and of the revenue are not antag- 
 onistic but harmonious. On articles of luxury and ostenta- 
 tion, and on those, such as liquors and tobaccos, whose moral 
 effects are clearly questionable, very high taxes may properly 
 enough be laid, because their incidence will hardly tend to 
 diminish consumption, and it would scarcely be to be re- 
 gretted if it did ; but with this exception, duties and taxes 
 should be levied at a low rate per cent, as well for tlie in- 
 terest of revenue as of consumers. It is to be added, how- 
 ever, that the taxes even on these articles may be too high 
 to meet either a revenue or a moral purpose. The internal 
 tax of two dollars a gallon upon distilled spirits was of iMs 
 character. Experience has demonstrated that a less t;ix 
 will produce more revenue, and the drinking of whiskej', bad 
 as that is, is less culpable than the endless frauds on tho 
 government provoked by the high tax. 
 
 8. Duties and taxes should be simple, and their amount 
 easily calculable by the payer beforehand. The complication 
 of specific with ad valorem duties is a decided objection to 
 the present tariff. The latter is a duty of so much per cent 
 on the invoiced or appraised value of the goods : the former 
 is a duty of so many cents or dollars on the pound, yard, 
 
596 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 gallon, or other quantity. There are too many practical diffi- 
 culties connected with either form of duty to make it proper 
 to combine the two upon the same article. To combine them 
 thus is one of the devices of protection. On the whole, spe- 
 cific duties are preferable to ad valorem because they give 
 less chance to frauds, and because importers, and others, can 
 make their calculations easier on the basis of them. To be 
 sure, this involves that high-priced grades of an article pay 
 no higher tax than low-priced grades of the same ; but this 
 consideration is largely overbalanced by those of convenience 
 f.nd productiveness. So far as is possible, taxes should be 
 levied upon commodities once for all, and then an end. The 
 opposite principle of taxing commodities every time they 
 change hands throws an indefinite burden on exchange, 
 whose weight cannot well be calculated beforehand, either 
 by the consumer or by the government, through uncertainty 
 as to the number of transfers. Exchanges indeed are the 
 only legitimate subject of taxation, but not every specific 
 and subordinate exchange. An attempt to tax all sales what- 
 ever was followed in Spain, and will be followed everywhere, 
 by a sluggish indisposition to trade at all. Let the amount 
 of the tax be definite, and let everybody be sure that when 
 it is once paid government will produce no further claim, 
 and industry will go along under heavy taxes better than 
 under those nominally lighter to which uncertainty as to 
 time or amount attaches. All the more advanced govern- 
 ments have been simplifying of late years their systems of 
 taxation, and collecting their revenue at fewer points, and 
 under more tangible conditions, in order to interfere as little 
 as possible with a free industry and free exchange. Eng- 
 land, for instance, has given up a great variety of taxes, and 
 now collects her revenue of about £70,000,000 a year, from 
 customs £20,000,000, from excise £25,000,000, from stamps 
 £10,000,000, from taxes (mostly on incomes) £9,000,000, 
 and from Post Office £6,000,000. The annual average net 
 income f:om these few sources has been for many years 
 
TAXATION. 697 
 
 just about £64,000,000, of which the income tax yielda 
 £6,000,000. 
 
 9. The bottom-principle of taxation is this, relatively low 
 taxes so adjusted on comparatively few things as not to dis- 
 turb natural prices. The principle is simple : the problem ia 
 difficult ; but wonderfully less so, the moment all attempts 
 are given up to foster any bi'anch of industry whatever. 
 Our legislators are not called upon to foster any industries. 
 They cannot permanently do it, if they try ; and they do im- 
 mense harm, while they try. Their duties would be easier, 
 and better performed, if they looked solely to the best meth- 
 ods of raising money in such a way as shall least interfere 
 with what would otherwise be the ongoing of exchanges in 
 all directions. Duties that prevent importations, and the 
 consequent exportation of domestic products in return ; and 
 duties whose direct effect is to raise the price of other arti- 
 cles than those on which they are levied ; are objectionable, 
 and, for the most part, can be dispensed with. In case 
 duties are laid on articles, as spirits, which are also produced 
 at home, there should be an excise on the home product 
 equivalent to the tariff-tax on the foreign, otherwise the peo- 
 ple will pay more in consequence of the tax than government 
 will get. This subsidiary principle is important, as is also 
 the principle that taxes and duties should be collected by the 
 government in as economical a manner as possible, that is to 
 say, the money should be kept out of the pockets of the peo- 
 ple as short a time as possible, disbursement following quick 
 upon collection. It is poor policy to gather taxes at tliti 
 beginning of the year which will not be disbursed till the end 
 of the year. Let the people use their funds till they are 
 wanted at the treasm'y ; and if the taxes do not then come 
 in as fast as wanted, it is better to issue what are called in 
 England exchequer-bills, and in the United States certificatea 
 of indebtedness, to be redeemed at the end of the year fiom 
 the proceeds of the taxes, than to let the people's money lia 
 idle in the treasury-. 
 
598 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 10. If the necessities of the State require it, goveruinent 
 has the right to demand from all persons who are capable 
 of making exchanges, and who do make them, something in 
 the form of taxes. But it is every way better, when possi- 
 ble, that people of very moderate means should be exempted 
 altogether from direct taxes ; and the payment of indirect 
 taxes is a matter more in their own option, since they are 
 at liberty to buy much or little of those commodities sub- 
 jected to an indirect tax. In the State of Massachusetts, 
 incomes not exceeding $2,000 are exempted by the law. If 
 a house-tax should be levied, all houses below a certain 
 grade of style and comfort should be exempted, and the tax 
 pass up by easy gradations from those just taxed to the pala- 
 tial residences of the rich. In the present age of the world, 
 the well-to-do citizens of every country are able to bear with- 
 out too great difficulty the burdens of the government, and 
 nothing tests better the degree of civilization which a nation 
 has reached than the care and solicitude it displays for the 
 welfare of its poorer citizens. Bismarck has recently acted 
 on this principle in Prussia, where there is a graduated in- 
 come tax, the lowest class of persons subject to which must 
 have at least an income of 420 marks a year ; all persons 
 having a less income than that are wholly exempt from the 
 tax ; those having between 420 and 660 marks a year pay 
 84 pennies as income tax ; persons in the next higher class 
 pay 164 pennies a year; those in the class whose maximum 
 income is 6,000 marks pay 44 marks and 80 pennies a 
 year ; and lately on account of hard times, the Chancellor 
 proposed that all the classes included between 420 and 6,000 
 marks of income should be wholly exempted from one quar- 
 ter's taxes. 
 
 11. At a court ball. Napoleon the First once observed a 
 lady noticeable as rich'y dressed and as wearing splendid dia- 
 monds, and on asking her name, found that she was the wife 
 of a tobacco manufacturer of Paris ; it occurred at once to the 
 quick mind of the French ruler, that the State might just 
 
TAXATION. 699 
 
 as well have those profits as an individual ; and the sale of 
 tobacco in all its forms became accordingly a State monop- 
 oly, which now yields about 400,000,000 francs a year. 
 That is indirect taxation. So is the British and United 
 States tariff and excise on tobacco. This leads to the ques- 
 tion, who pays an indirect tax? Can the producer throw it 
 wholly upon the consumer? Can the banks, for example, 
 throw their taxes wholly upon their customers? Producers 
 and dealers and bankers and companies add the tax demand- 
 ed from them, and sometimes more than the tax under color 
 of it, to the price of their wares. But it is not true that they 
 can always realize the whole of this enhanced price. Gen- 
 erally they can, sometimes they cannot. If the article be 
 one of necessity, or a luxury that has become equivalent to a 
 necessity, and there be no other source of supply than the 
 taxed one, then, as a rule, the tax falls wholly on the con- 
 sumer, and is a matter of indifference to the producer or 
 dealer. But the usual effect of an enhanced price is to les- 
 sen demand, and if the article is dispensable, or its consump- 
 tion can be lessened, or it can be obtained elsewhere, the 
 market will be sluggish under the tax, and producers oi 
 dealers will be likely to tempt it by lowering prices, in othei 
 words, by sharing the tax with consumers, and paying that 
 share out of profits. This is the principle. Producers and 
 dealers would rather the tax were off. Consumers generally, 
 but do not always, pay the whole of it. 
 
 12. Much has been written, and very little is known, about 
 the tendency of taxes to diffuse themselves. By this is 
 meant, that it does not make so much difference upon what 
 or upon whom a tax is originally levied, because the ten- 
 dency of things is to diffuse it, that is, to compel others to 
 assist in paying the tax. The result of much personal read- 
 ing and reflection on this point is the conclusion that taxes 
 do not ' ' diffuse themselves ' ' nearl}^ so much as has been 
 sometimes supposed ; and that, at any rate, it is a good deal 
 better to take the taxes from those who ought to pay them, 
 
600 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 than to luy them at random, and then to trust some unknown 
 forces to make them afterwards just. It is certain that some 
 unjust taxes cannot be diffused ; for example, the protective 
 tariff-taxes paid by the farmers upon articles of necessary 
 consumption. These taxes have no tendency to raise the 
 price of the farmers' produce, for tJiat is determined by the 
 foreign market, to which large parts of the produce are ex- 
 ported. For such taxes the farmers cannot reimburse them- 
 selves. Taxes that affect no prices are the best of all; 
 taxes that affect prices the least are the next best ; and taxes 
 that are designed to affect prices are the very worst. 
 
 A concise restatement of some of the points of this chap- 
 ter will make our last summary, and conclude the volume. 
 , 1. PoUticcd Economy is strictly a Science^ while levying 
 taxes is an Art based on economical truths. 
 
 2. Much so-called taxation is designed to impede exchanges 
 and exalt certain prices. 
 
 3. An abuse of the governmental right to tax is the very 
 core of wrong-doing. 
 
 4. The sole source of riches and taxes is trade. 
 
 5. If a government restricts trade, it dries up so far forth 
 its own well-springs. 
 
 6. Citizens have an inalienable right to know just how., how 
 mtich, what for, and whether in even proportion with others, 
 they pay taxes. 
 
 7. Governments that deal fairly and openly and honestly 
 with their citizens in taxation will find their account in full 
 treasuries and a common good-will. 
 
I]^DEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abominations Tariff, 5.' 7. 
 
 Abraham, 5. 
 
 Abstinence, 282. 
 
 Achan, 4. 
 
 Act of Parliament, 192 
 
 Advantages of credit, 4 50. 
 
 Africa, 325. 
 
 Africanus, 18. 
 
 "Against and in favor," 439. 
 
 Agreeableness of laboi , 215. 
 
 Agricultural school, 45, 
 
 Agriculture, 43, 498. 
 
 Aims and ends, 249. 
 
 Albany Evening Journal, 499. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 327. 
 
 Alley, John B., 505. 
 
 All Sales School, 72. 
 
 Alsace and Lorraine, 34. 
 
 American flag, 198. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, 539, 542. 
 
 Amount of production, 172. 
 
 Amsterdam, 307. 
 
 Analyses of the cost of capital, 307. 
 
 Analyses of the cost of labor, 307. 
 
 Analytics, 108. 
 
 Anglophobia, 507. 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, 58. 
 
 "Annual produce of land and labor,' 
 
 Annuities, 426. 
 
 Antoine de Montchrestien, 40. 
 
 Antwerp, 58. 
 
 Apple-tree blossoms, 93. 
 
 Archangel, 60. 
 
 Archbishop Lanfranc, 25. 
 
 Archbishop Theodore, 25. 
 
 Archipelago, 8. 
 
 Aristophanes, 351. 
 
 Aristotelian logic, 94. 
 
 Aristotle, 12, 34, 65, 295. 
 
 Arthur, President, 514. 
 
 Artificial high prices, 526. 
 
 Artisans, wages of, 311. 
 
 Asia, proconsular, 24. 
 
 Assignats, 358, 366. 
 
 Association, 177. 
 
 Atholstane, King, 25. 
 
 Athens, 9, 16. 
 
 Atkinson, Edward, 256. 
 
 Axioms in reasoning 93. 
 
 B. 
 
 Babylonia, 2. 
 
 Bacon, 50. 
 
 Bacon, his method of reasoning, 91. 
 
 Bailee, 415. 
 
 Baird, H. C, 518. 
 
 Baker, illustration of, 330. 
 
 Balance of trade, 478. 
 
 Baldwin of Pennsylvania, 551. 
 
 Ball, John, 224. 
 
 Bancroft, George, 535. 
 
 Bank bills, 424. 
 
 Bankers' bills, 440. 
 
 Bank of England, 360, 363, 375, 425. 
 
 Bank of Massachusetts, 396. 
 
 Bank of New York, 396. 
 
 Banks, 425. 
 
 Banks defined, 427. 
 
 Barter, 315, 318. 
 
 Bascom, Preface, 81, 101, 114. 
 
 Bastiat, Preface, 53, 98, 131, 285, 334. 
 
 Bayonne, 53. 
 
 Beauty of money, 346. 
 
 Beccaria, 73. 
 
 Beck, Senator, 485. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 101. 
 
 Benton, Preface, 537, 550, 562. 
 
 Bessemer Steel Company, 485. 
 
 Biddle, Nicholas, 400. 
 
 Biens, 52, 170. 
 
 Bills of exchange, 432. 
 
 Biscuit, 122. 
 
 Bismarck, 598. 
 
 Black death, 223. 
 
 Blackstone, 128. 
 
 Blades of the shears, 267. 
 
 Blaine, Secretary, 579. 
 
 Bliss, Dr., 106. 
 
 Boccardo, 74, 81. 
 
 Body in its pregnant sense, 89. 
 
 Bohemia, 390. 
 
 Bois-Guillebert, 44, 62. 
 
 Bolles, Preface. 
 
 Bonds, 423. 
 
 Book accounts, 421. 
 
 Book of Trades, 33. 
 
 Borrow, 417. 
 
 Boston, 578. 
 
 Bottom-principle of taxation, 600, 
 
 Boudinot, Elias, 392. 
 
 601 
 
602 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bowen, Preface, 81. 
 
 Bowls, 140. 
 
 Brazil, 134. 
 
 Bricklayers, 499. 
 
 Bright, John, 298, 495. 
 
 British bread, 58. 
 
 British counterfeiters, 385. 
 
 British hours, 498. 
 
 British Islands, 293. 
 
 Bronson, 379. 
 
 Bruges, 28. 
 
 Brunswick, 29. 
 
 Buchanan, President, 373. 
 
 Buckle, 65. 
 
 Bullion, 337. 
 
 Bullion theory, 23. 
 
 Bundesrath, 75. 
 
 Bunker Hill, 382. 
 
 Bunting, 489. 
 
 Burchard, 340. 
 
 Burden of national debts, 459. 
 
 Burke of South Carolina, 541. 
 
 Button factory, 506. 
 
 Buying and selling, 1, 487. 
 
 Csesar, 111, 410. 
 
 Caird, 265. 
 
 Cairns, 72. 
 
 Calhoun, 547, 557, 560. 
 
 Calhoun Tariff, 545. 
 
 Canal de Briare, 39. 
 
 Canfield, Professor, 85. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 31. 
 
 Capital, 47, 203, 206, 248, 251. 
 
 Capital delined, 252. 
 
 Capitularies, 32. 
 
 Cardinal Mazarin, 41. 
 
 Carey, H. C, Preface, 81, 82, 154, 253, 265, 
 
 279, 285, 519. 
 Carlyle, 367. 
 Carthage, 7. 
 Cases of value, 127. 
 " Cash credits," 418, 448. 
 Categories of valuable things, 300. 
 Cato, 18, 19. 
 Cattle and chattels, 252. 
 Census, 222, 230, 525. 
 Cent, 389. 
 
 Cents and pencil, 123. 
 Certificates of stocks, 423. 
 Chaldea, 2. 
 Chalmers, 184. 
 Chapin, A. L.7 81, 85. 
 Charlemagne, 29, 32. 
 Cliarles IX., 39. 
 Charles O'Connor, 211. 
 Charles the Bold, 134, 
 Charles V., 37. 
 Chase, Secretary, 404, 407. 
 " Cheap goods," 509. 
 Cheap-side, 28. 
 Cheque-books, 446. 
 Cheques, 442. 
 
 Chevalier, Preface, 55, 72, 339. 
 Cheves, Langdon, 400. 
 Chicago five, 527, 570. 
 
 Chief Justice Supreme Court, 208. 
 
 Chinese, 31, 245. 
 
 Chrematistics, 12, 15. 
 
 Christianity, 25. 
 
 Christlieb, Dr., of Bonn, 20. 
 
 Cicero, 3, 17, 23, 260, 442. 
 
 Circular letters of credit, 447. 
 
 Circulating capital, 263. 
 
 Circulation, rapidity of, 321. 
 
 Classes of facts, 90. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 508, 551. 
 
 Clearing-house, 174, 444. 
 
 Cleon, 351. 
 
 Cleopatra's Needle, 199. 
 
 Clients, 22. 
 
 Clymer of Pennsylvania, 541. 
 
 Coasting trade, 200, 528. 
 
 Code of Justinian, 20. 
 
 Coffee, 482. 
 
 Coinage, international, 354. 
 
 Coins, 4. 
 
 Colbert, 40, 46, 57. 
 
 Cologne, 29. 
 
 Colonies, 78, 377. 
 
 Colwell, 83. 
 
 Commercial bills, 440. 
 
 Gommodatum, 416. 
 
 Commodities, 281, 413, 
 
 Common labor, 204. 
 
 Common sense in economics, 463. 
 
 Communes, 33. 
 
 Communism, 54. 
 
 Company of the Indies, 366. 
 
 " Compete," 472. 
 
 Compromise Tariff, 560. 
 
 Conciliation with America, 504. 
 
 Condillac, Preface, 51, 63, 150. 
 
 Conditions of production, 177. 
 
 Congress of German economists, 75. 
 
 Connecticut, 381, 382, 389. 
 
 Conrad, 77. 
 
 Consols, 424. 
 
 Constancy of labor, 217. 
 
 Constantinople, 24, 29. 
 
 Constitution, United States, 78, 370, i61. 
 
 Consumption, 1G7. 
 
 Continental Congress, 382, 535. 
 
 Co-operation, 245. 
 
 Copper, 272. 
 
 Copyrights, 194. 
 
 Cordova, 27. 
 
 " Corners," 162, 
 
 Corn-laws, 291. 
 
 Cornwall, 9, 59. 
 
 Cossa, 74. 
 
 Cost of capital, 304. 
 
 Cost of carriage, 475. 
 
 Cost of labor, 304. 
 
 Cost of production, 300. 
 
 Cotton, 59. 
 
 Cotton ties, 507. 
 
 Cottons and silks, 465. 
 
 Cowry shells, 326. 
 
 Credit, 97. 
 
 Credit-claims, 125. 
 
 Gridit foncitr, 56, 
 
 Cremona, 207. 
 
 Croesus, 279. 
 
 Crossed cheques, 446. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 603 
 
 Crusades, 30, 31. 
 Crusoe, Robinson, .08, 584. 
 Currey, M. S., 507. 
 Custom, 220. 
 Customs revenue, 5 )2. 
 Cycle of labor, 244. 
 Cyrus, the younger, 9. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dallas, Secretary, 399, 545 
 
 Damascus, 5. 
 
 Damask, 30. 
 
 Dana, C. A., Preface. 
 
 Dantzic, 29. 
 
 Dawes, Senator, 532. 
 
 J)ebt, 334. 
 
 Decimal system, 3. 
 
 Decimetre, 395. 
 
 Deduction, 91, 101. 
 
 Demand and supply, 158, 214. 
 
 Democrats, 532. 
 
 Denarius, 18. 
 
 Denomination dollar, 331. 
 
 Deposits, 430. 
 
 Descartes, 92. 
 
 Desires, 124, 133. 
 
 Dessong, 200. 
 
 Diffusion of taxes, 599. 
 
 Digest, The Roman, 20. 
 
 Diman, Professor, 84. 
 
 Dimes and dollars, 389. 
 
 Diminishing returns, 286. 
 
 Direct and indirect taxes, 589. 
 
 Director of the mint, S'iS. 
 
 Disadvantages of credit, 455. 
 
 Discounts, 429. 
 
 Diversity of advantage, 175, 467, 
 
 Divisibility of money, 347. 
 
 Division of labor, 186, 189. 
 
 Doctiine of rent, 290. 
 
 Doge of Venice, 31, 34. 
 
 Dollar, 333, 390. 
 
 Dollar-bill, 357. 
 
 Domes-day book, 297. 
 
 Dorsetshire laborer, 222. 
 
 Double standard, .335, 394. 
 
 Duke of Northumberland, 297. 
 
 Duke of Orleans, 365. 
 
 Dunbar, Professor, 84. 
 
 Duodecimal system, 3. 
 
 Durable machinery, 311. 
 
 Dutch capital, 308. 
 
 Dutch goods, 43. 
 
 Duties and taxes, 595. 
 
 Duties on imports, 16. 
 
 Duty, 108. 
 
 Duty on wool, 511. 
 
 E. 
 
 Easiness of labor, 216. 
 Easterlings, 30. 
 East India Company, 19S, 
 East Indies, 325. 
 Economics, 12, 94. 
 Edict of Nantes, 37. 
 
 Efforts, 124, 133. 
 
 Egibi & Co., 442. 
 
 Elder, William, 82, 83. 
 
 Eliot, historian, 540. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 58, 192. 
 
 Elliot, E. E., 81, .355. 
 
 English re-coinage, 352. 
 
 English taxes, 596. 
 
 Ephron, 5. 
 
 Eryxias, 15. 
 
 Ethical science, 108. 
 
 Ethics, 12, 94. 
 
 Etymology of credit, 414. 
 
 Euphrates, 2. 
 
 Euripides, 234. 
 
 Evarts, Secretary, 104, 200, 579. 
 
 Exact sciences, 94. 
 
 Exchange, 120. 
 
 " Exchange," 434. 
 
 Exchanges proper, 581. 
 
 Exchequer, 361. 
 
 Exchequer bills, 598. 
 
 Experiments in taxation, 591. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fallacies of protection, 487, 
 
 Fallacy of composition, 499. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, 462. 
 
 Fashion, 220. 
 
 Fawcett, Professor, 222. 
 
 Fee simple, 293. 
 
 Feigned cases, 103. 
 
 Penelon, 56. 
 
 Ferrara, 74. 
 
 Feudalism, 25, 27. 
 
 Field, Judge, 408. 
 
 First class of employers, 226. 
 
 Flanders, 25. 
 
 Flax fabrics, 261. 
 
 Florence, 31. 
 
 Flour product, 117. 
 
 Flour war, 49. 
 
 Fluency of money, 341. 
 
 Foot, 3. 
 
 Foote of Vermont, 551. 
 
 Foreign bills of exchange, 435. 
 
 Foreign trade, its principles, 476. 
 
 Forms of capital, 263. 
 
 France, 25, 56. 
 
 France and England, 296. 
 
 Francs, 359. 
 
 Frankliu, 92, 295, 380. 
 
 "Free banking system," 401 
 
 " Free breakfast-table," 570. 
 
 Freedom, 179. 
 
 Freeholds, 295. 
 
 Free list, 511. 
 
 Free trade, 493, 500. 
 
 French-Canadian laborers, 228. 
 
 French revolution, 362. 
 
 French seigniorage, 346. 
 
 French silver, 335. 
 
 French wine, 296. 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 353. 
 
 Fruitage of protection, 522. 
 
 Frye, Senator, 488. 
 
 Fuuds, 423, 
 
604 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galileans, 506. 
 
 Gallatin, Secretary, 80. 
 
 Gambling, 454. 
 
 Gariield, President, Preface, 80, 479. 
 
 Generalization, 92. 
 
 Genoa, 30, 73. 
 
 Genovesi, 73. 
 
 Gentiles, 27. 
 
 George, Henry, 86, 274, 282. 
 
 Georgia mill-owner, 305. 
 
 German coinage, 349. 
 
 German mark, 355, 389. 
 
 Ghent and Liege, 28. 
 
 Gibbon, 193, 528. 
 
 Gladstone, 283, 289, 294, 508. 
 
 Glass in Berkshire County, 490, 520. 
 
 Gloves and hats, 183. 
 
 Glut of products, 184. 
 
 God's bounty, 278. 
 
 Gold certificates, 411. 
 
 Golden fleece, 28. 
 
 Goodhue of Massachusetts, 539. ■ 
 
 Goose and gander, 373. 
 
 Gorriuge, Commander, 199. 
 
 Gouruay, 46. 
 
 Govan of SoTith Carolina, 555. 
 
 Government, 111, 581. 
 
 Government remedy, 233. 
 
 Grain-dealer, an illustration, 415. 
 
 Grams, 395. 
 
 Granada, 27. 
 
 Grand divisions of time, 417. 
 
 Grand Trunk Railway, 516. 
 
 Greeks, 3, 7, 8, 15. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 83. 
 
 Greenbacks, 409. 
 
 Green's Hi«<.ory of England, 583. 
 
 Gresham, Thomas, 59. 
 
 Gresham's law, 351, 368, 378, 392, 406. 
 
 Grote, 16. 
 
 Grounds of money steadiness, 337. 
 
 Grounds of production, 174. 
 
 Guilds of the middle ages, 221. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hamburg, 29. 
 Hamiton, 80, 388, 396, 426. 
 Hamilton Tariff, 544. 
 Hanseatic League, 30. 
 Hanse towns, 29. 
 Harbor bill, 514. 
 Hargreaves, 59. 
 Harmony Mills, 499. 
 Harris, Edward, 497, 511. 
 Hartley of Pennsylvania, 537. 
 Hawkins, John, 59. 
 Hayne, Senator, 461. 
 Hemp and whiskey, 552. 
 Henry IV., 40. 
 Hercules, pillars of, 7. 
 Herodotus, 7, 327. 
 Heth, sons of, 5. 
 High cost of labor, 30f . 
 Hildreth historian, Pi-iif»««. 
 
 Hipparchus, 3. 
 
 Hiram, King of Tyre, 315. 
 
 Historical chapter, use of, 2. 
 
 Holland, 44. 
 
 " Home market," 505, 525. 
 
 Homer, 8, 325. 
 
 Homer, Sidney, 458. 
 
 Huguenots, 37. 
 
 Hull, John, 379. 
 
 Hume, 62. 
 
 Huns, 31. 
 
 Husbandry, three-field, 58. 
 
 Huskisson, 478. 
 
 Hutchinson, Thomas, 381. 
 
 Ideal dollar, 357. 
 
 Illinois, 173. 
 
 Impressibility of money, 348. 
 
 Improvements in agriculture, 287. 
 
 Improvements in machinery, 473. 
 
 Income tax, 586. 
 
 Increase of capital, 269. 
 
 " Indestructible powers of the soil," 581 
 
 Indirect taxation, 589, 599. 
 
 Induction, 91, 126. 
 
 Inexorable laws, 196. 
 
 Inferior money, 249. 
 
 Institutes of Justinian, 20. 
 
 Intornational demand, 470. 
 
 Intrinsic, 148. 
 
 Introspection, 102. 
 
 Invention, 178. 
 
 Invention of money, 317. 
 
 Ireland, 297. 
 
 Irish Land Act, 237, 283, 294. 
 
 Isle of Wight, 9. 
 
 Isocrates, 442. 
 
 Italian farmers, 19. 
 
 Italy, 20, 24, 73. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 400, 560. 
 
 Jacob; 5. 
 
 Jacobites, 361. 
 
 Jamaica rum, 539. 
 
 James H., 361. 
 
 Jay, 385. 
 
 Jefferson, 65, 381, 389. 
 
 Jevons, 132, 302, 339. 
 
 Jews, 5, 26, 370, 442. 
 
 Joachimsthal, 390. 
 
 Job, book of, 6. 
 
 Jones of Georgia, 563. 
 
 Journeyman, 143. 
 
 Journeymen hatters, 503. 
 
 Jute, 507. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kelley of Pennsylvania, 83, 570, 576. 
 
 Kellogg, 132. 
 
 Kenner of Louisiana, 574. 
 Key of Maryland, 392. 
 Kiehl, 112. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 605 
 
 Kinds of mont y, 412. 
 
 Kirkcaldy, 64. 
 
 Knight's History of England, 479. 
 
 Kjiit-goods bill, 483, 514. 
 
 Knives, illustration of, 302. 
 
 Knox, 396. 
 
 Knox, Comptroller, 406, 409, 430, 432. 
 
 I,abor, 203. 
 
 liabor combinations, 240. 
 
 Labor defined, 204. 
 
 Labor-takers, 210. 
 
 Labor troubles, 232. 
 
 Laissez /aire, 197. 
 
 Lake Superior, 520. 
 
 Lancashire, 298. 
 
 Land, 274. 
 
 Land as a physical thing, 276. 
 
 Land in Great Britain, 5S6. 
 
 Languedoc, 32. 
 
 Lapoint, Alfred, 529. 
 
 Latin union, 336, 395. 
 
 Law, John, 46, 364, 380. 
 
 Lawrence of New York, 540. 
 
 Lead-pencils, 120. 
 
 Leadville, 220. 
 
 Legal restrictions, 221. 
 
 Legal tender, 407. 
 
 Leslie, Cliffe, 70. 
 
 Lesser arts, 32. 
 
 Le Trosne, 48. 
 
 Libra, Latin, 322. 
 
 Limits of value, 469. 
 
 Lincoln, President, 405. 
 
 Lind, Jenny, 213. 
 
 Livermore of New Hampshire, 555. 
 
 Loan, 416. 
 
 Lobbying, 576. 
 
 Locke, 61, 353. 
 
 Lombards, 442, 
 
 London, 28. 
 
 London clearing-house, 444. 
 
 Longland, William, 224. 
 
 Lord North, 504. 
 
 Louis XIV., 40. 
 
 Louis XV., 49. 
 
 LoweU and Jackson, 545. 
 
 Lucca, 31. 
 
 Lucius Paulus, 18. 
 
 Jjydians, 9. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macauiay, 25, 352, 361. 
 Macedonia, 23. 
 Machinery, 188, 309. 
 Machpelah, cave of, 316, 346. 
 Macleod, H. D., Preface, 21, 71, 85, 
 106, 113, 131, 253, 259, 333, 414, 426. 
 Macoute, 327. 
 Madison, 536. 
 Magna Charta, 26, 370, 584. 
 Maleshorbes, 50. 
 Malthusiauism, 238, 518. 
 Mandats, 367. 
 
 Mans, 34. 
 
 Manufactures, natural, 501. 
 
 Marchands d'eau, 33. 
 
 Market for products, 185. 
 
 Markets, 493. 
 
 Market value, 158. 
 
 Mars, Mercury, 17. 
 
 Martin, Henri, 41, 62. 
 
 Martin, L. G., 530. 
 
 Massachusetts, 102, 173, 379, 594. 
 
 Master, 143. 
 
 Matter, 169. 
 
 McCulloch, Preface, 144. 
 
 McCullock, Secretary, 80, 403, 529. 
 
 McDuffle, 557. 
 
 Measure of services, 329. 
 
 Mehlig, 132. 
 
 Mehring, 76. 
 
 Meissonier, 211. 
 
 Mercantile system, 35, 38, 42. 
 
 Merchant-Gild, 28. 
 
 Mercier de la Rivifere, 48. 
 
 Metaphysics, 94, 105. 
 
 Methods of protection, 487. 
 
 Metropolitan museum, 442. 
 
 Mexican dollar, 391. 
 
 Middle age, 24, 26, 370. 
 
 mian, 32, 34, 73. 
 
 Mileage of railroads, 257. 
 
 Mill, J. S., Preface, 71, 81, 94, 97, 137, 590 
 
 Milled dollars, 358, 383. 
 
 Millennium, 512. 
 
 Mina, 4. 
 
 Minimums, 558. 
 
 Mining, old modes of, 6. 
 
 Minneapolis, 117. 
 
 Mint, 390. 
 
 Mirabeau, 49, 367. 
 
 Mobility of laborers, 221. 
 
 Molasses, 539. 
 
 Mommsen, 16. 
 
 Monetary conference, 104. 
 
 Money, 35, 153, 314. 
 
 Money a medium, 320. 
 
 Money defined, 328. 
 
 Money portable, 319, 346. 
 
 Monopolies, 190. 
 
 Montague, 353. 
 
 Montesquieu, 327. 
 
 Moody, the mechanic, 545. 
 
 Moon, changes of, 3. 
 
 Moore, J. S., 486. 
 
 Moors, 27, 480. 
 
 Moral science, 107. 
 
 Morrill Tariff, 567, 572, 577 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 388. 
 
 Morris, Robert, 387. 
 
 Mortgages, 422, 593. 
 
 Moses, law of, 369. 
 
 Motion in production, 205. 
 
 Murillo, 161. 
 
 Mutual purchase, 131. 
 
 Mutuum, 416. 
 
 N". 
 
 Nails, 326. 
 Nancy, 134. 
 Napoleon, 191, 593. 
 
606 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 National debts, 457. 
 
 Nation in taxes, 593. 
 
 Nation, the. Preface. 
 
 Natural agents, 203. 
 
 Natural value, 301, 30'.!. 
 
 Navigation acts, 508, 53i. 
 
 Negro suffering, 17. 
 
 Net product, 47, 52. 
 
 Nevada, 349. 
 
 Newburg, 334. 
 
 New Hampshire, 284. 
 
 New Haven, 3S9. 
 
 New Orleans, 366. 
 
 Newton, 353. 
 
 New York clearing-house, 444. 
 
 Nesv York Pm6«c, 457. 
 
 Nicole Oresme, 35. 
 
 Nineveh, 2. 
 
 Nogorod, 29. 
 
 Nominal wages, 305. 
 
 Nottinghamshire laborers, 229. 
 
 o. 
 
 Obelisk, 199. 
 
 Obstacles, 180. 
 
 Occident and Orient, 353. 
 
 Oayssey, 8. 
 
 Old machinery, 303. 
 
 Onondaga Salt Company, 516 
 
 Ores, 123. 
 
 Orient, the, 2. 
 
 Origin of capital, 254. 
 
 Origin of "protection," 477. 
 
 Oscillations of demand, 344. 
 
 Ought, 107. 
 
 Ought-quality, 90. 
 
 Oxen, 8. 
 
 Oxford, 28, 64. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paganinl, 208. 
 
 Paley, 107. 
 
 Paper money, 358. 
 
 I'ar of exchange, 436, 438. 
 
 Pasion, 442. 
 
 Patent rights, 194. 
 
 Patrons, 22. 
 
 Peasant revolt, 224. 
 
 Peculiarity of credit, 413. 
 
 Pecunia, 325. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 529, 568. 
 
 Persia, 12. 
 
 Persians, 7. 
 
 Persons, 115. 
 
 Persons and things, 163, 266. 
 
 Persons in credit, 414. 
 
 Pheidon, 9, 325. 
 
 Phillippe le Bel, 36. 
 
 Philpott, Preface, 573, 
 
 Phcenicians, 7. 
 
 Physical sciences, 94. 
 
 Physiocrats, 49, 274, >■.«. 
 
 Pig iron, 173. 
 
 Pine-tree coinage, 379. 
 
 Pin-making, 187. 
 
 Pioneers, 2. 
 
 Pitt, William, 67. 
 
 " Plant," 264. 
 
 Plate, 339. 
 
 Plato, 10. 
 
 Pliny, 20. 
 
 Political economy, 114. 
 
 Politics, 12. 
 
 Porter, R. P., 575. 
 
 Post hoc ergo propter hoc, 100, 491, 619. 
 
 Post-office, 596. 
 
 Pottery wares, 578. 
 
 Pound, 3. 
 
 Power, 206. 
 
 Powers and wants, 111. 
 
 Prejudice, 220. 
 
 Price, 151. 
 
 Price, Bonamy, 68, 333, 419. 
 
 Prince Leopold, 69. 
 
 Principles of taxation, 585. 
 
 Printing paper, 506. 
 
 Procullus, 150. 
 
 Produce, 292. 
 
 Production, 165. 
 
 Professional labor, 204. 
 
 Profits defined, 253, 260. 
 
 Promise dollar, 357. 
 
 Promissory notes, 422. 
 
 Property, 99-108. 
 
 " Protection," 23, 43, 476. 
 
 Protective system, 43. 
 
 Protective tariff, 482. 
 
 Provence, 32, 37. 
 
 Prudhon, 53. 
 
 Prussia, 74. 
 
 Publicity in taxes, 588. 
 
 Public opinion, 236, 514. 
 
 Pumpelly, 264. 
 
 Quaker City, 392. 
 Quantity of money, 323. 
 Queen Elizabeth, 352. 
 Quesnay, 45, 85. 
 Quid pro quo, 120. 
 Quinine, 571. 
 Quint, 389. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rae, John, 81. 
 
 Railroads, 256. 
 Railroad ticket, 320. 
 Randolph. John, 399, 547. 
 Rates of profits, 309. 
 Ran, 76. 
 
 Raymond, Daniel, 81. 
 Release is payment, 451. 
 Rent of lands, 288. 
 RepubUcans, 532. 
 Revenue tariff, 481. 
 Rhode Island, 378, 381, 402. 
 Ricardo, Preface, 144, 285, 518.' 
 Richesse, 52, 170. 
 Ripley, George, Preface. 
 Roach, John, 94, 504. 
 Robertson of Louisiana, 551. 
 Robespierre, 368. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 607 
 
 Roman law, 420. 
 
 llomans, 16. 
 
 lloscher, 35, 77. 
 
 Rowley in Massachusetta, 503. 
 
 Ruggles, S. B., 104, 395. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabinus and Cassius, 149. 
 
 Salable land, 280. 
 
 Sales, 96. 
 
 Sanci diamond, 134. 
 
 Sartain, John, 211. 
 
 Satisfactions, 124. 
 
 Sa\inga banks, 247. 
 
 Say, Jean-Baptiste, 52, 112, 184. 
 
 Say, Leon, 56. 
 
 Scarcity, 510. 
 
 Schouler, historian, 538. 
 
 Science defined, 89. 
 
 Sciences as classified, 93. 
 
 Sciences, growth of, 1. 
 
 Scotch banks, 425, 448. 
 
 Seigniorage, 346. 
 
 Self-checks in money, 344. 
 
 Self-interest, 271. 
 
 Sempronian law, 24. 
 
 Senior, Preface, 168, 191. 
 
 Service for service, 134. 
 
 Sei-vices, 129. 
 
 Sei-vicos of three kinds, 413. 
 
 Seymour, Governor, 579. 
 
 Shakspeare, 35, 518. 
 
 Shays Rebellion, 385. 
 
 Sheffield, 59. 
 
 Sherman, Secretary, 80, 485, 507, 577. 
 
 Ship-building, 522. 
 
 Shipping in United States, 197. 
 
 Sicily, 19, 2-t. 
 
 Siddons, 132. 
 
 Silk culture, 37. 
 
 Silks and cottons, 466. 
 
 Silver certificates, 416. 
 
 Sismondl, 112. 
 
 Skilled labor, 204. 
 
 Slavery, 24. 
 
 Smith, Adam, Preface, 63, 137, 187, 375, 
 
 478. 
 Smith, Peshine, 83. 
 Socialism, 55. 
 Society, 109, 581. 
 Socrates, 10. 
 Solomon, 315, 346. 
 Somers, 353. 
 Boult, Marshal, 161. 
 Source of taxes, 581. 
 Spaulding, E. G., 514. 
 Spelfing-book, 138. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 452. 
 Spinner, treasurer, 565. 
 " Springfield Republican," 516. 
 Stamp Act, 534. 
 Standard of comparison, 330. 
 Stars and stripes, 523. 
 States in taxation, 593. 
 St. Clair, Gen., 543. 
 Steam-engine, 196. 
 Bteiu, 76. 
 
 St. Louis of France, 27, 33. 
 
 Stocks, 423. 
 
 Strawberries, 141. 
 
 Strikes, 240, 495. 
 
 Sturtevant, Professor, 81, 85. 
 
 Subjugation of land, 277. 
 
 Subsidiary silver coins, 406. 
 
 Sub-treasury, 401. 
 
 " Suffocation," 398. 
 
 Sully, 38. 
 
 Sumner, TV. G., Preface, 84, 578. 
 
 Supreme Court of United States, 407. 
 
 Surgeon, 301. 
 
 Swift, Dean, 579. 
 
 Tailor and blacksmith, 177, 464. 
 
 Talleyrand, 367. 
 
 Taney, Chief Justice, 400. 
 
 Tannery, 503. 
 
 " Tariff commission," 573. 
 
 Tariff, origin of, 480. 
 
 Tariff Resolutions of 1858, 566. 
 
 Tariff taxes, 494. 
 
 Taxation, 315, 581. 
 
 Taxes and prices, 600. 
 
 Taxes on expenditure, 590. 
 
 Tea and coffee, 4S4, 512. 
 
 Telfair of Georgia, 548. 
 
 Terence, 166. 
 
 Thing-dollar, 331. 
 
 Thompson, Professor, 504. 
 
 Thoruly, James, 496. 
 
 Tigris, 2. 
 
 Tin Islands, 9. 
 
 Tobacco, 599. 
 
 Tooke's History of Prices, 162. 
 
 Tours, 27, 37. 
 
 Tripoli, 39. 
 
 Troughton's inch, 333. 
 
 Trust affects wages, 218. 
 
 Trustee, 415. 
 
 Tubal-Cain, 255. 
 
 Tucker of South Carolina, 541. 
 
 Turgot, 49, 259. 
 
 Turkish corn, 30. 
 
 Tyre, city of, 5, 30. 
 
 u. 
 
 UTpian, 20, 99, 127, 417. 
 
 Ulster, 59. 
 
 Uncertainty in credits, 45.5. 
 
 United States Bank, 397. 
 
 Unit of labor, 227. 
 
 Ure, Dr., 312. 
 
 Ustariz, 40. 
 
 Usury laws, 100, 102, 369. 
 
 UtiUty and value, 15. 
 
 V. 
 
 Value, 113. 
 
 Value and utility, 54, 143, 14<J. 
 
 Value defined, 126. 
 
 Van Buren, 401. 
 
 Vauban, 45. 
 
608 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Venezuela, 571. 
 Venice, 36, 73. 
 Verification, 92. 
 Vermont, 389, 402. 
 Vei-planck of New York, 560. 
 Versailles, 46. 
 Virginia, 504. 
 Virginia tobacco, 319. 
 Voluntary associations, 221. 
 
 w. 
 
 Wages, 311. 
 
 " Wages-class," 208. 
 
 Wages-payers, 210. 
 
 Wages-portion, 233. 
 
 Walker, Amasa, Preface, 81. 
 
 Walker, F. A., Preface, 80, 81, 169, 228, 
 
 333. 
 Walker, J. H., 418. 
 Walker, Secretary, 80. 
 Walker Tariff, 563. 
 Wallace, 462. 
 Wampum, 378. 
 Wants and powers, 110. 
 Washington, 386, 396. 
 Watered stock, 511. 
 Water from the spring, 155. 
 Water-wheel, 181. 
 Wayland, Preface, 81, 85. 
 Ways and Means Committee, 479, 515, 521, 
 
 572. 
 "Wealth of Nations," 375. 
 Webster, Daniel, 213, 461, 608, 563, 657, 
 
 678. 
 
 Webster, Noah, 385. 
 
 Weights, 4. 
 
 Wells, D. A., 80. 
 
 Whateiy, Preface, 71, 112. 
 
 Wieel of exchange, 322. 
 
 Whig Tariff, 563. 
 
 White, Horace, 403. 
 
 Wife, 181. 
 
 " Wild-cat banking," 398. 
 
 William and Mary, 353, 478. 
 
 William the Conqueror, 23. 
 
 Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 60. 
 
 Winthrop, Gov., 603. 
 
 Wolowski, 35, 55. 
 
 Wolsey, 84. 
 
 Woollen blankets, 486. 
 
 Worsted, 59. 
 
 Wright, CarroU D., 244, 496. 
 
 Wright, Senator, 562. 
 
 X. 
 
 Xenophon, 0. 
 
 T. 
 
 York shilling, 390. 
 Young, Edward, 490. 
 Young pretender, 362. 
 
 Zeal of absolute ownership, 294 
 Zollverein, 74. 
 ZuIOB, 626. 
 
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