BY K. M. JOHNSTON, I.S.O., F.S.S. ,3. 



satisfactions of human life, the conclusion is, surely, in- 

 evitable — 'that man himself as the chief element of instru- 

 mental production, must also be regarded as the principal 

 element of rccumulated capital value. Man's auxiliary 

 natural forces and instruments of production (the lesser 

 element of accumulated capital value generally composing 

 about 19 to 25 per cent, of the whole) cannot reasonably 

 have a better claim to be included in any estimate deter- 

 mining the accumulated capital value of any country. 



Whether as a freeman owned by himself or whether 

 as a slave owned by some other person, man, from an 

 economist's point of view in the initial stage — like all other 

 natural elementary or primary forces — is regarded as 

 devodd of economic price or value. Yet, like all otheo: 

 elementary substances or forces, as soon as the cost of 

 man's labour is incorporated in man (regarded as an eco- 

 nomic instrument of product! oil) he becomes an element of 

 economic price or value like any other commodity or pro- 

 duction machine. 



The existing 82,441 breadwinners of Tasmania regard- 

 ed, from, an economist's point of view, as tHe most import- 

 ant as well as the most costly part of the economist's 

 instruments of production, both produce and expend' Upon 

 themselves and their dependents about 7^ million pounds 

 sterling per year. Regarded as an interminable annuity, 

 at 4 per cent., it represents a present value capital of 

 £179,906,075. 



But this capital value cannot altogether be set down 

 to the credit of the existing breadwinners, for the follow- 

 ing important reasons: — 



In the independent stage — from birth to the average 

 age limit of the dependent breadwinner — say, on the ave- 

 rage, at least a period of 15 years — anterior-labour ser- 

 vices of parents or natural guardians were expended upon 

 the young future breadwinners, in the form of protection, 

 shelter, food, clothing, education, etc., which (for a period 

 of 15 years, say, at £18 per annum, at 4 per cent, interest) 

 would accumulate to a sum of £360, as an element of 

 cajDital value, which, logically, must be assumed as being 

 incorporated in the existing 82,441 Tasmanian breadwin- 

 ners, regarded in the light of economic productive instru- 

 ments. In the aggregate this amounts to £29,678,760 

 of present capital value now incoirporated in the bread- 

 winner economic instruments of production which, logic- 

 ally, must be credited to "the anterior-labour service of 

 man." 



