PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 877 
DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH, 
I have elsewhere observed that there are many other fallacies 
current with respect to the creation and distribution of wealth. 
If all the enormous volume of wealth created year by year, viz.:— 
(1) Stored fruits of anterior labour and skill (7.e. capital), of 
which steam-engines alone represent approximately the work of 
1,000,000,000 men, or more than double the physical energy of 
the whole of the world’s breadwinners, engaged in the creation 
of fresh wealth ; (2) current labour; and (3) the gratuitous gifts 
of Nature. If these were directly devoted to consumption or 
immediate enjoyme1.t, no doubt the proportion per head allotted 
to the industrial breadwinner would be small indeed in comparison 
with the rich. But the human body, whether rich or poor, can 
only consume or assimilate a limited quantity of food per day. 
The old, sickly, and very young cannot consume or assimilate as 
much as the strong, healthy persons of youth and prime of life. 
Health and hard physical labour cause the body to burn more 
food ; and the greater tear and wear involves a greater consump- 
tion of the products of the sheep and of the cotton plant, just for 
the same reason as the requisite energy of a heavily loaded engine 
climbing a steep and curving grade, involves a much greater con- 
sumption of fuel and a much greater waste of parts in tear and 
wear than a lightly loaded engine traversing the straight levels 
of a railway. 
From this reasoning it is almost conclusive that a strong, health 
navvy can and does consume more weight of ‘the products of the 
soil, of the flour mill, and the weaver’s loom, than the less robust 
city clerk ox. the brain-worried financier or statesman ; the mere 
quality or rarity of some of the materials consumed by the rich 
is comparatively insignificant, and scarcely involves a greater tax 
on the soil, on the capitalist’s machines, or upon the workman’s 
labour. 
Further, it can be demonstrated that the capitalist’s steam 
engines alone perform more work than twice the number of the 
whole working population of the earth ; and as these only form a 
part of the capitalist’s machinery, tools, and instruments engaged 
in the production of consumable wealth, and known vaguely or 
concealed under nominal values as in “ Statistician’s Capital,” it 
can be demonstrated satisfactorily that it would be utterly im- 
possible for the rich capitalists to abstract from his profits the 
same proportion of his income towards personal wants and enjoy- 
ments as the poorer workman does. On the contrary, what he can 
directly cousume personally of the primary satisfactions which 
make up the bulk of consumable wealth, is limited by the same 
natural laws as is the personal consumption of the humblest work- 
man ; and the necessities of repairing the tear and wear of the 
