i iat i a i i i i eee 
7 
TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 555 
definite small holdings movement, welcome to some and unwelcome to others. 
Causes, immediate and distant, may be found for this movement; and 
among the latter sort must be reckoned the trend of international agri- 
culture, especially in North and South America, which has a tendency to 
turn English agriculture into lines not unsuited to small-scale farming. 
Small holders, however, have many difficulties to overcome in the matter 
of capital, technical knowledge, organised marketing and a suitable environ- 
ment. It is suggested in this paper that co-operation is essential to the 
success of small holdings on any considerable scale; and the suggestion 
seems supported by the experience of Western Europe. Continental experi- 
ence also indicates the varying power of co-operation, the comparative ease 
of co-operative purchase and co-operative credit and the serious difficulties 
of co-operative sale. Small holdings will have to justify themselves as a 
business success first and foremost; but if they can do this they can claim 
additional merit as factors in the revival of a sound rural population. 
3. Is Increasing Utility possible ? 
By W. RB. Scorr, M.A., Litt.D., D.Phil. 
When the nature of Utility was first made the subject of a special examina- 
tion by Gossen, Jennings, and Jevons, the conclusions reached were based 
upon Hedonistic assumptions. Professor Marshall, however, in 1893, ex- 
pressly defines ‘ the pleasure’ obtained as the result of action ‘ as every 
good for which a man strives.’ But the entanglement of many economists in 
Hedonistic presuppositions makes it necessary to define the object of desire 
in light of recent philosophical results. A want of clearness on this point 
often leads to confusion, as for instance in the reasoning by which Weiser 
brings the collector of books or pictures under the law of Diminishing 
Utility. 
Desire is, in fact, a practical problem, the solution of which involves satis- 
faction, which is measurable. The progressive attainment of satisfaction 
need not, however, be conceived as necessarily subject to continuous diminu- 
tion. This is not so in some desires, in which case there is Increasing Utility. 
Are there any economic desires to be placed in this class? An analysis of 
the satisfactions obtained by the philatelist in the reconstruction of plates 
of stamps which yield increasing not diminishing Utility. .This result can 
be verified by his Demand Schedule. The difficulty whether any change in 
character or taste is supposed was discussed, also that raised by Marshall 
regarding ‘ a certain special want’ ; the existence of Increasing Utility was 
confirmed by reference to the ‘ Amherst Caxtons,’ and the acquisition of a 
‘ controlling interest ’ in a company. 
Where Increasing Utility exists there is a reference to the conception of 
completeness, and sometimes to a monopoly in consumption. The conditions 
involved are often the reverse of those in Diminishing Utility, where the total 
quantity of a commodity which a person would desire is very small in relation 
to the amount offered for sale. In Increasing Utility, on the contrary, 
the commodities which are grouped together by the idea of completeness, and 
which with other elements form the object of desire, are keenly sought after, 
and exist only in small quantities. 
Tf Increased Utility be admitted the theory of Economics becomes more 
symmetrical, and such admission would have practical results in relation to 
taxation. 
4. Interim Report on the Amount of Gold Coinage in Circulation in 
the United Kingdom.—See Reports, p. 208. 
