1889-90.] TENTH MEETING. 15 



physical force : man wants the finished article. To obtain this finished 

 article toil must be expended. Nature is a coy maiden, and will be 

 wooed only by the hand of industry. Idleness she abhors as she abhors 

 a vacuum, and the idler she punishes with weeds, poverty and death. 

 Man's tenure on this planet depends on his industry ; nature knows no 

 compromise : her decree is short, sharp and decisive toil or death. The 

 first of nature's laws is : Produce to the producer only. 



The productive power of man is limited : for any man or any number 

 of men to produce sufficient to maintain the succeeding generation 

 without toil is a physical impossibility. Human skill can be perpetuated 

 only by continuous practice. Hence nature has so limited production 

 that the exercise of toil is an indispensable necessity. Nature's second 

 law is limited production. 



All human productions are transitory. The food of this year is soon 

 consumed, our machines quickly wear out, even our buildings, stable as 

 they seem, do not last on the average more than one generation. 

 Nature's third law is transition of product. 



These laws summarized are : produce to the producer only, produce 

 limited, produce transitory. 



If, therefore, our statutory law of distributing wealth conformed to 

 nature's laws, we would have for each individual produce only when he 

 produced. In nature's laws we find no continuous income without toil 

 and much less do we find an increasing income without toil. 



How far we have departed from nature's laws of distribution by our 

 legislative enactments may be readily seen in the fact that many obtain 

 large production without producing, many continue to enjoy large 

 product generation after generation without producing, and many enjoy 

 increased production without producing. Our legislative methods of 

 distribution are utterly at variance with nature's laws of distribution. 



How this comes about may at once be seen by noting two fatal errors 

 in our legislative enactments : — ist — Treating raw material, the land, the 

 ore, the water-power, nature's gifts, as though they were the products 

 of labour. 2nd — Treating the values that arise, principally to land 

 simply from the increased demand of a larger population, as though these 

 values were also products of labour. 



The raw material or the natural opportunities are undoubtedly not the 

 product of toil, and to say that the values that have come to the mines 

 and lands of this continent with its growing population is to set at 

 defiance the commonest observation. It is from the non-recognition of 



