PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 239 



essential demands have been satisfied. Take a survey of some town you know 

 and ask yourself what the multitude of public-houses and picture-palaces 

 indicate but a spending of money on non-essentials. Or look nearer home, 

 and consider whether the things you could quite easily spare do not bulk very 

 large. If we sought to classify our expenditure we might come to some 

 such division as this : 



On essential needs. 



On things making for the irreproachable amenities of life. 



On luxuries which add to and aid our reasonable enjoyment. 



On those which subserve mere pleasures. 



On extravagant expenditure for which no justification can be offered. 



It is difficult to draw any clear line between the heads of this very rough 

 division. Each class passes imperceptibly into the next. Fortunately for our 

 present purpose we do not require to do this. It is enough that we should 

 admit that not all acti\aties are well directed, and that we consume a great 

 many things we could do without. No class is exempt from this blame, if blame 

 it be. Each is disposed to look askance at what is called the extravagance 

 of some other. When people talk of waste, they often mean expenditure on 

 things for which they themselves do not care. But the question is how can we 

 check this extravagance and provide more fully for the more essential needs of 

 the whole people ? 



If rich men did not drive motor cars or drink costly wines, would the people 

 who produce these luxuries be better off? Or if, instead of making these things, 

 they made articles needed for the mass of the people, could these buy the 

 result if they had no more means than they now possess ? Do we not come back 

 at the end to the proposition that men can only have more if they have more 

 to offer in exchange? The great mass of mankind labours to gain 'daily bread.' 

 If more is produced, more of these necessities will be eatisfied. 



It may be contended that men have obtained more or less completely what 

 they wanted most urgently. They wanted shorter hours. In many trades they 

 have got them, and might have had them in more had they gone about it in the 

 right way. They were not sufficiently desirous of having better houses, and 

 they failed to procure what their wellwishers desired for them. It remains to 

 be seen whether the movement in this direction, to which reference has already 

 been made, will produce the results which we all desire to see — though some of 

 us would like to see them obtained under more satisfactory economic conditions 

 than are at present proposed. 



A relatively small part of the population do unquestionably get a very large 

 share of the total income produced by the whole community. Can we do any- 

 thing by which this share may be reduced without bringing about greater evils 

 than those we seek to overcome ? The history of the sumptuary laws do not en- 

 courage much hope that attempts to prevent expenditure in particular directions 

 will have much success. My own studies had brought me, many years ago, to 

 the conclusion that in every industry examined there is no way of giving to those 

 engaged shares greatly differing from what has been afforded in the past. The 

 margins on which manufacture in general is conducted are too small, to make 

 it possitle to give the larger contributors to the ultimate result any considerable 

 addition to what they have been accustomed to receive. This impression was 

 confirmed by the elaborate general survey of the industry of the kingdom 

 carried out by the Cen.sus of Production of 1907. 



No doubt labour (which is much the most important item of cost) has 

 obtained a gradually increasing payment, though not necessarily any larger pro- 

 portionate share. A steady improvement in the methods in which the labour of 

 men is applied has resulted in enabling a larger product to be obtained. Each 

 new implement, each fresh application of energy of various kinds, as, for 

 example, steam and electricity, has meant that the individual man produced 

 more in his day's work, and he got, in fact, a larger return for what he did. 

 But at the same time, the capital engaged was increased, and con.sequently the 

 proportion of the product to be allotted to rewarding capital also increased. 

 It is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to alter this state of things. 



The whole question has been treated in a very masterly way by Professor 

 Bowley in a book published some months ago entitled ' "The Division of the 



