184 CAPITAL THE MOTHER OF LABOUR iv 



but it is true that it may, and often does, produce 

 that effect. 



To take one of the examples given, the con 

 struction of a ship. The shaping of the timbers 

 undoubtedly gives them a value (for a shipbuilder) 

 which they did not possess before. When they 

 are put together to constitute the framework of 

 the ship, there is a still further addition of value 

 (for a shipbuilder) ; and when the outside planking 

 is added, there is another addition (for a ship 

 builder). Suppose everything else about the hull 

 is finished, except the one little item of caulking 

 the seams, there is no doubt that it has still 

 more value for a shipbuilder. But for whom else 

 has it any value, except perhaps for a fire-wood 

 merchant ? What price will any one who wants 

 a ship that is to say, something that will carry a 

 cargo from one port to another give for the un 

 finished vessel which would take water in at 

 every seam and go down in half an hour, if she 

 were launched ? Suppose the shipbuilder's capital 

 to fail before the vessel is caulked, and that he 

 cannot find another shipbuilder who cares to buy 

 and finish it, what sort of proportion does the 

 value created by the labour, for which he has paid 

 out of his capital, stand to that of his advances ? 

 Surely no one will give him one-tenth of the 

 capital disbursed in wages, perhaps not so much 

 even as the prime cost of the raw materials. 

 Therefore, though the assertion that " the creation 



