Hiiman Physiology. 

 CHAPTER IV. 



ECONOMIES OF A TRUE SOCIETY. 



The Waste of Life A Nation of Shopkeepers The Robbery of Idleness 

 Co-Operation and Trade Reform The True System of Trade - False 

 Ideas of Gentility Examples of True Dignity and Nobility The 

 Frauds of Labour General Distrust and Social War Higher Aspira- 

 tions Economy of Honesty Efforts at Reform Mr. Roebuck on 

 Working-men. 



IN any scheme of social organisation, economy of means, 

 and the diminution of waste, which is the friction of social 

 machinery, are among the first things to be considered. The 

 production of wealth is perhaps sufficient now, if it were well 

 distributed, yet that production may probably be doubled, 

 perhaps quadrupled, by improved culture and machinery in 

 the future; but that is no reason for waste. All waste of time, 

 energy, and wealth, is morally wrong. We have no right to 

 spend our strength for naught, nor to give what we gain by our 

 strength without equivalent. Time is money money is food 

 food is life. To waste life is to shorten life. It is suicidal. 

 Therefore, in every social reform, we must study economies. 



I have written elsewhere of needless food, drink, stimulants, 

 intoxicants. These make half the cost of living. One well- 

 arranged kitchen, with a competent head cook and four or five 

 assistants, would save nineteen-twentieths of the fuel and labour 

 expended in the culinary service of a hundred families. Every 

 house could be warmed at half the present cost, and large 

 edifices and towns with about one-tenth the coal and labour 

 now used. These are very important items. The co-operative 

 associations have shown that provisions and clothing can be 

 bought at wholesale prices, and that the cost of distributing 



