COBRESP ONDENCE, 



615 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science ilonthly. 



SIR : In the last number of The Popular 

 Science Monthly Mr. E. R. Leland re- 

 plies to my article in the July issue entitled 

 " Over-Consumption, or Over-Production ? " 

 misstating some and misconceiving other of 

 my arguments. It would be an infringe- 

 ment on your space for me to follow Mr. 

 Leland through all his assertions, and at 

 best I should be only repeating arguments 

 already made. But Mr. Leland attempts to 

 formulate my theories, and, as I think I can 

 do this more accurately than he, permit me 

 to reaffirm what I have said in this com- 

 pact form, which will be the briefest and 

 most satisfactory method of meeting Mr. 

 Leland's reply : 



1. The resources of Nature are gratui- 

 tous ; they are practically exhaustless ; and, 

 as the activity of capital and the energy of 

 labor are not fixities, large consumption or 

 demand (Mr. Leland talks of wasteful con- 

 sumption as if the word " wasteful " were 

 mine) stimulates the energy of capitalists, 

 leads to the application of improved ma- 

 chinery, brings about better transportation, 

 so that as a result all, or nearly all, products 

 are proportionately increased in abundance 

 because of extended consumption, and the 

 possibilities of consumption. Mr. Leland 

 says : " That the demand for a commod- 

 ity stimulates the supply is most true, and, 

 where increase is possible, the supply is 

 increased until the widest area of demand 

 is filled at a minimum cost, but it is only 

 by economy that this minimum can be 

 reached." We repeat Mr. Leland's words 

 " most true." But large consumption is 

 a powerful agent in securing minimum of 

 cost in production ; it brings in competi- 

 tion, it leads to the invention of machinery 

 and improved methods of production or 

 manufacture in fact, minimum of cost is 

 never reached except in those things that 

 are in general use. Consumption or de- 

 mand leads, therefore, as a rule, not only to 

 greater abundance, but to greater cheap- 

 ness. But I do not mean, and I did not 

 speak of, wasteful destruction, which Mr. 

 Leland dwells upon so much, but of use. 

 Waste is foolish, in the first place, because 

 it confers no good upon any one ; and, sec- 

 ondly, because it is only the certainty and 

 regularity of legitimate use that exercise a 

 healthful stimulus upon production. Waste, 

 that destroys machinery, permits bridges to 

 go into decay, destroys roads, lets grain 

 rot in its storehouses, burns up cities, ex- 



hausts the reserves of capital, is direful ; 

 but wse, which is the means of setting mill- 

 ions of busy hands to work, is another 

 thing. I know the economists say that 

 capital alone determines the fact of produc- 

 tion, demand merely governing the direc- 

 tion it shall take ; but is it not clear that, 

 if we reduce consumption to its minimum, 

 production will shrivel up ? 



2. The extravagance of an individual 

 has some essential difference from the ex- 

 travagance of a whole community. Of 

 course, one bankrupt multiplied ten thou- 

 sand times simply gives us ten thousand 

 bankrupts. It was scarcely necessary for 

 Mr. Leland to point this out. But a com- 

 munity considered as a unit has for its re- 

 sources the boundless wealth of Nature, 

 which, as we have already seen, increases 

 with the demands made upon it, so that 

 liberal use makes rather than reduces abun- 

 dance. This proposition hangs upon the 

 first ; if that is true, this is true. By ex- 

 travagance I simply meant free use, not idle 

 destruction ; and what I wished to show is, 

 that Nature yields her treasures in increas- 

 ing proportion to the activity that demands 

 them, so that we are richer in coal, iron, 

 fabrics, food, etc., because our wants are 

 many, our demand eager, our use of these 

 things abundant. It is perfectly true that 

 if the wealth of a community is simply the 

 aggregate incomes of its members, then the 

 whole must partake of the nature of its 

 parts ; but there is a kind of wealth that 

 accrues to the individual and does not to 

 the community as a whole, such as rcid., for 

 instance, which, enriching some, is a tax upon 

 others, and no addition whatever to the sum 

 total of the wealth of the community; and 

 in like manner there is wealth which ac- 

 crues to the whole, but is not a part of an 

 individual's income. 



3. Mr. Leland makes me affirm that no 

 part of the nation's capital has been lost in 

 unproductive enterprises. There have been, 

 as all know, immense losses in foolish rail- 

 road and speculative enterprises ; but I con- 

 sider these losses to have fallen upon our 

 surplus rather than our reserves ; that our 

 ability to keep all our machinery in motion, 

 to run our mills, erect warehouses, build 

 ships, construct railroads really needed, do 

 all forms of legitimate productive labor, is 

 not impaired while, according to Prof. 

 Price, it is impaired, and this is the reason 

 of our business distress. I can detect no 

 evidence that business cannot revive be- 



