IV CAPITAL— THE MOTHER OF LABOUR. 169 



well seem strange; but no one who consults that 

 interesting museum of political delusions, " Pro- 

 gress 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 real- 

 ity, 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 com- 

 modities, 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 endeav- 

 ours to disprove is the hitherto generally accepted 

 doctrine 



that labour is maintained and paid out of existing capi- 

 tal, before the product which constitutes the idtimate 

 object is secured (p. 16). 



The doctrine respecting the relation of capital 

 and wages, which is thus opposed in " Progress 

 and Poverty," is that illustrated in the foregoing 

 pages; the truth of which, I conceive, must be 

 plain to any one who has apprehended the very 

 simple arguments by which I have endeavoured to 



