880 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
The brains of man can alone be credited with invention and 
discovery, not his muscular power. Ii is to the accumulations of 
savings from personal consumption by the labourers and others of 
former times that we are indebted for the necessary stores devoted 
to the construction of the powerful and ingenious mechanical and 
other labour-saving auxiliaries now engaged i in aiding the current 
labour of man, oa not, as falsely assumed, to the mere muscular 
energy and labour-time exerted and devoted by those who happen 
to be the labourers or workmen of the present hour. 
Recent estimates of the measure of energy exerted each year 
in the production, distribution, and necessary modification of 
consumable wealth—the’satisfactions of man, by capitalist’s steam 
power machines alone—are approximately equivalent to the maxi- 
mum energy of about 1,500 million persons, of whom it is 
estimated that there are only 600 million breadwinners. We 
may be perfectly safe in assuming that the energy exerted by all 
classes of capitalists: auxiliary machines to be equal to the maxi- 
mum energy of 1,200 million breadwinners, 7.e., equal to twice 
the physical foree of all living breadwinners of the globe. In 
Tasmania at the last census the number of breadwinners under 
£150 income per year numbered 58,726 persons. These, for 
purposes of illustration, may be safely taken as the wage-earner 
group. The breadwinners £150 income per year and over, 
numbered 5,404; and this group, for rough purposes of com- 
parison, may be taken to represent the capitalist group. Now, if 
the capitalists’ energy machines engaged in the production of 
consumable wealth be taken to represent twice all the available 
force of man, their equivalent in Tasmania would be represented 
as that of 128,260 breadwinners, thus :— 
Relative Value of Physical Energy exerted by the various 
agencies engaged in the Production of Consumable Wealth. 
per cent. 
A= Breadwinners under-6l5 0 masses sseeeensesee sean 58,72 30°52 
B—Capitalists and others over £150 ............... 5,404 2°81 
C—Capitalists’ energy machines .. ..............6005 ieee 66°67 
Total energy cmployed in the production 
of consumable wealth ..... Fenntyais veblosies 192,390  100:00 
From this table we perceive that if we ignore the claims of 
intellect and ability, and reserve ourselves to the mere physical 
forces devoted to the production of consumable and other forms 
of wealth, the wage-earner’s contribution only amounts to 30°52 
per cent. of the whole of the necessary energy required to produce 
that volume of consumable wealth, which would yield each class 
and individual that standard of living and comfort to which they 
have been accustomed. 
Pee 12ers i 
Pe Do Be — 
Me. 
