240 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION P. 



Product of Industry,' a title I had myself adopted for a lecture I gave at 

 the National Economy Exhibition in July 1916. Mr. Herbert G. Williams's 

 pamplilet entitled ' The Nation's Income ' also deals with the same subject 

 with much care and skill. In it he makes a critical examination of Sir Leo 

 Chiozza Money's book entitled ' Eiches and Poverty.' 



The coBclusion reached in these publications is practically the same. It may 

 be stated in the cautious words with which Mr. Bowley ends his book : — 



" This ana-lysis has failed in part of its purpose if it has not shown that the 

 problem of securing the wages, which people rather optijnistically believe to be 

 immediately and permanently possible, is to a great extent independent of the 

 question of national and individual ownership imless it is seriously believed 

 that production would increase greatly if the State were sole employer. The 

 wealth of the countiy, however divided, was insufficient before the war for a 

 general high standard ; there is nothing as yet to show that it will be greater 

 in the future. Hence the most important task — more important immediately than 

 the im.provement of the division of the product — incumbent on employers and 

 workmen alike, is to increase the national product, and that without sacrificing 

 leisure and the amenities of life." 



These statesmanlike words need to be borne in mind by all who are engaged 

 in dealing with the difficult problems of to-day. 



I shall have failed in my purpose if I have left my hearers under the impres- 

 sion that I am wedded to or pleading for any particular division of the wealth 

 of the country. We hear much talk about abstractions called "capital" and 

 "labour." The terms are convenient enough if we do not let ourselves be deluded 

 with the idea that they mean more than the sum of those who own the capital or 

 supply the labour. Labour itself is a somewhat ambiguous term. Till compara- 

 tively recently the members of the ' labouring classes ' so called thought it was 

 synonymous with the man who laboured with his hands, and ' the horny-handed 

 son of toil ' was contrasted with 'the pampered minion of luxury.' The Labour 

 Party itself has been fain to enlarge its definition so as to include all those 

 wlio 'labour by hand or brain.' If we could be brought to see that there is no 

 liard-and-fast division of men and women into the one or other of these classes, 

 but that nearly all of us belong to both, a good deal of our present trouble 

 would disappear. Not one of us, if independent of capital, the most poverty- 

 stricken member of the conmiunity relies? as implicitly on it as the richest among 

 us. To talk_ of the ' abolition of capital ' is to use a form of words which is abso- 

 lutely meaningless. What most people who use them really mean is one or other 

 of two things, sometimes both at the same time — either "that the capital is in 

 tihe wrong hands and that it should not be held in the way or to the amount 

 which is at present the case, or that the division of the joint product of capital 

 and industry is defective, and should be altered. 



It will be seen that these are two quite different questions, and call for con- 

 sideration on quite different lines. If great aggregations of wealth are deemed 

 undesirable the community may take means to limit the amount held by any 

 one man. But where the line shcadd be drawn is a very difficult problem. 

 It would be easy to show that human progress has depended on the thrift of our 

 ancestors,, and to prove that, in like manner, our future progress depends on 

 a continuance of tliis policy of not spending on the enjoyment of the hour all 

 the product of our industry. Implicitly this assumption is made by every one 

 who criticises the condition of our various industries in this country and com- 

 pares them unfavourably with those of other lands They are, in fact, saying 

 that our railways or mines or steel works have been starved. Yet, -with almost 

 the same breath, they complain that the men engaged have been insufficiently 

 remunerated for their labour. I see great difficulty in saying no man's fortune 

 shall exceed some given sum, and even in saying no man shall bequeath to his 

 sur\'ivors m.ore than some very moderate amount. In either case I should fear 

 endangering that building up of capital which, however it may be divide<l, is 

 essential to our national progress. 



When we come to the division of the joint product of industry and capital 

 other considerations become apparent. The question at once arise.s" whether any 

 other division would have been possible in the past, or could be accomplished 

 in the future, without great changes in the way in which the product arises. 



