TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 689 



required three generations and three great writers to elaborate in the form in which 

 we know it. Or he will aak them to consider the daily feedinp: of London. 

 There are, he will point out, six millions of people in and about London, so closely 

 packed together that they cannot grow anything for their own consumption, and 

 yet every morning rheir food arrives with unfailing regularity, so that all but an 

 infinitesimal fraction of them would be extremely surprised if they did not find 

 their breakfast ready to hand. To prepare it they use coal which has been dug 

 from great depths hundreds of miles away in the Midlands or Durham ; in con- 

 suming it they eat and drink products which have come from Wiltshire, Jamaica, 

 Dakota, India, or China, with no more thought than an infant consuming its 

 mother's milk. It is clear that there is in existence some machinery, some 

 organisation for production which, in spite of occasional failures here and there, 

 does its work on the whole with extraordinary success. It is easy to be pessi- 

 mistic, especially when the weather is damp, and we are apt to concentrate our 

 attention, and to endeavour to make others concentrate their attention, on this or 

 that defect, and to forget that the system is not made up of defects, but on the 

 whole works very well. Imagine the report of a really outside observer. In all 

 civilised planets, I have no doubt, there must be an institution more or less 

 resembling the British Association. An economist in Mars, let us say, has been 

 favoured with a glimpse of this island through a new mammoth telescope of suffi- 

 cient power to let him see us walking about, and he is reporting to Section F 

 what he saw. Will he say that he saw a confused scramble for the scanty natural 

 products of the earth ? That most people were obviously in a state of starvation? 

 That few had clothes ? And that scarcely any were housed P No, truly ; he will 

 be much more likely to report that he saw a wonderfully orderly population, going 

 to and from its work with amazing regularity, without a sign of compulsion or 

 unwillingness ; that it appeared to be fed and clothed and housed in a way extra- 

 ordinarily creditable on the whole to some mysterious organisation, the nature of 

 which he could only guess at. 



Having endeavoured to make his pupils recognise that we are organised, and 

 that the organisation works, the teacher will go on to show how it works : 

 why things that are wanted are produced in the places where they can be easiest 

 produced and taken to the places where it is most convenient to consume them ; 

 why people go to live in large numbers in spots where it is desirable they should 

 work, and leave great areas sparsely inhabited ; why more people are brought up 

 to follow an occupation when the desire for its products increases, and fewer when 

 it decreases; why if the harvest is short the consumption is economised so as to 

 spread it over the year ; and so on. The answer to all these questions is of course 

 ' self-interest ' or ' the hope of gain.' Durham coal, Wiltshire milk, Danish butter, 

 Jamaica sugar, Dakota wheat, and China tea go to London because it pays to send 

 them there. People congregate in London or Belfast because it pays them to work 

 there. More do not come, because it would not pay them. Young people leave 

 agriculture and go to towns to make agricultural implements or bicycles because 

 it pays. The consumption of grain is economised and spread over the year because 

 it pays to hold the stock. If people with one accord left off doing what paid 

 we should all be dead in two months. 



The reasons why it pays to do the right thing — to do nearly what an omni- 

 ecient and omnipotent benevolent Inca would order to be done — are to be looked 

 for in the laws of value. This used to be regarded as a somewhat arid subject, 

 but the discussions of recent years, especially the contribution made by Jevons and 

 the Austrian school, have fertilised it. Long ago, economists pointed out how the 

 much-abused corn-dealer who held out for a higher price saAed the people from 

 starvation ; and we now, thanks to the theory of final utility, not only know that 

 it is a fact, but also why it is a fact, that value rises with the extent and urgency 

 of demand, so that when a thing is much wanted much is offered to those 

 who produce it, or are ready to part with it, and consequently its production is 

 stimulated or its consumption economised, as need be. 



This will naturally lead to the question of distribution— the question, that is, why 

 much of the produce falls to the share of one individual and little to that of another ; 



1902. YY 



