IV CAPITAL— THE MOTHER OF LABOUR 169 



amount consumed during the process of manu- 

 facture.^ 



That it should be necessary, at this time of day, 

 to set forth such elementary truths as these may 

 well seem strange ; but no one who consults that in- 

 teresting museum of political delusions, " Progress 

 and Poverty," some of the treasures of which I 

 have already brought to light, will doubt the 

 fact, if he bestows proper attention upon the 

 first book of that widely-read work. At page 15 

 it is thus written : 



The proposition I shall endeavour to prove is : that wages, 

 instead of being drawn from capital, are, in reality, drawn from 

 the product of the labour for which they are paid. 



Again at page 18 : — 



In every case in which labour is exchanged for commodities, 

 production really precedes enjoyment . . . wages are the 

 earnings — that is to say, the makings— of labour — not the 

 advances of capital. 



And the proposition which the author en- 

 deavours to disprove is the hitherto generally 

 accepted doctrine 



that labour is maintained and paid out of existing capital, 

 before the product which constitutes the ultimate object is 

 secured (p. 16). 



The doctrine respecting the relation of capital 

 and wages, which is thus opposed in " Progi'ess and 



^ See the discussion of this subject further on. 



