Economic Waste. 481 



the means of producing something they could exchange for those 

 other commodities, and the demand, in the ordinary sense of the 

 word, would become an " effective " demand in the economic sense. 



One of our greatest concerns as a State is the discovery of new 

 markets for our products, or the retaining of those markets we already 

 have, and nearly all the wars of modern days have been trade wars. 

 Whatever the ostensible reason for war may have been, go right down 

 to the root of it, and you will find it has been the desire to create 

 new markets, or, at least, to retain old ones. It seems to me clear 

 that in our unemployed we have at our very doors a huge market still 

 unexploited if we could only turn them from mere idle consumers 

 into active producers. Is it not possible to do this? 



Some people will tell you that it is impossible, that the condition 

 of these people is due to over-population, the result of natural laws, 

 against which man is powerless. If all the material in all the 

 world were being worked up, if all the land were being cultivated to 

 the full, it might be impossible to find anything for the unemployed 

 to do, and we might have to seriously consider the lethal chamber. 

 But face Malthus and his doctrine, this state of things has not only 

 not arrived, but its possibility is so far off that it need no more be 

 considered than the eventual cooling of the earth, or the disappearance 

 of its waters need be. There is still abundant land on the earth's 

 surface w-hich is not cultivated, and which could be cultivated ; not 

 one tithe, I imagine, of the food which the earth could yield, if it 

 were required, is at present produced; raw material for manufactures 

 is in excess of the demand for it, and could be almost indefinitely 

 increased if it were worth while ; so that it is clearly not the 

 parsimony of nature which is at fault. Nature still responds 

 generously enough to man's labours, and even if at some times and 

 in some places she requires more labour than at others, one would 

 think that this should make the demand for labour greater, and not 

 less, make it all the more important to have our whole population 

 usefully employed, and no idlers whatever, enforced or otherwise. 

 So that, looked at from the broad standpoint, it seems to me clear 

 that over-population is not a factor in the problem. If all the 

 resources of nature were exploited to the best advantage, the popula- 

 tion of the world might be increased enormously before it came in 

 any way to press on the means of subsistence. 



Nor do I think it is the need of capital. At the very time when 

 the greatest number of men are out of work, you will often find the 

 greatest amount of capital lying idle — show it how to find a profitable 

 investment, and the capital is readily enough forthcoming. It is just 

 this factor of the investment being pofitable on which the whole 

 problem seems to hang-, and as long as wg take no broader view of 

 what is good for the human race than we do at present, and leave 

 the whole question of whether a large part of the race shall be idle 

 or at work to be determined by the direct interest of a comparatively 

 small number, I see no hope of a solution of the problem. Good 

 trade, the possibility of profitably investing capital, may for a time 

 remedy things, and work for the unemployed become' for a time 



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