184 CAPITAL — THE MOTHER OF LABOUR iv 



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

 that effect. 



To take one of tlie 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, exce^Dt the one little item of caulking 

 the seams, there is no doubt that it has still 

 more value for a shij^builder. But for whom else 

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

 merchant ? What price will any one who wants 

 a shii^ — 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 ? Supjoose 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 proi:>ortion 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 Avill 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 



