214 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



just here. The savage mind is unable to appreciate future ad- 

 vantages, and therefore they seem to him, at the moment of 

 decision, to be trifling, whereas the needs of the present seem 

 large. The encouragement of habits of thrift and forethought, 

 especially in children, is one of the most effective ways of in- 

 creasing capital. 



Security. An almost equally great hindrance to saving and 

 investment is uncertainty. "A bird in the hand is worth two in 

 the bush." Better consume your income now while you have it. 

 If you invest it, you may never see it again. Where the con- 

 ditions are such as to justify that course of reasoning, there 

 will, of course, be very little accumulation of capital. 



This uncertainty is of many kinds. In turbulent times, dis- 

 turbed by frequent wars, invasions, plundering expeditions, or 

 general lawlessness, it is notorious that industry is backward and 

 accumulations are meager. Men are not only uncertain as to the 

 reward of forethought, but they are frequently afraid to increase 

 their accumulations lest they attract the notice of plunderers. 

 With the era of peace and order came a new incentive to accu- 

 mulation. When men felt reasonably certain that they would 

 get the benefit of their own frugality and forethought, they began 

 to exercise these virtues. 



But uncertainty results also from bad government. Under a 

 whimsical and despotic government the citizen never knows 

 what the taxgatherer may demand of him. In other words, he 

 never knows when he may be plundered in the name of the law 

 and under the form of taxation. This form of uncertainty is 

 common even in the most democratic governments. A democ- 

 racy where the people have a strong sense of justice and of 

 law and order furnishes perhaps the safest possible conditions ; 

 but a democracy ruled by the mob spirit, where the people are 

 easily stirred by denunciations of the criminally rich, but with 

 no very clear notion as to the distinction between the honestly 



