14 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



are even to this day largely undeveloped and unknown. 

 A commission lately despatched by the United States 

 Agricultural Department to China returned with five 

 varieties of useful plants hitherto unknown in America, 

 and with several varieties of plants much superior to 

 those in use in the United States. It will long be 

 possible to extract from nature's storehouse in different 

 parts of the world synthesising instruments, able to 

 do more work, more apt, or otherwise more serviceable 

 (such as affording a variety of diet) , than those at present 

 in use. 



Hoiv human power is increased. — An effect parallel 

 to that of increase in the plant's yield is produced if 

 the extent of human energy is added to so that the 

 same output of labour performs a greater amount of 

 work. 



Primitive man clearing land with his hands and 

 laboriously digging it over with a stick never dreamt 

 that his descendants would be able to clear and dig a 

 hundred times the area with less effort. It would seem 

 to him impossible that human strength could go any 

 further, and that it was exhausted with the result he 

 had brought about. Yet knowledge has brought the 

 use of the plough and of the tamed animal ; no change 

 has taken place in men or in their hours of labour, but 

 they have become capable of possessing many times 

 the amount of food that they formerly could obtain. 



Two principles contribute to this result : the 

 procuring of power and its most efficient use. It was 

 first discovered that the power of large animals could 

 be yolked to that of men ; next that the forces of 

 inanimate objects, wind and water, could be made to 

 amplify human capacity ; and later that the inert 

 matter of coal and oil contained energy which would 

 yield up its strength and do an enormous amount of 

 work. Science also learnt that in the application of 

 force a great deal of the energy used was lost, and it 



