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PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
•could be impressed upon the minds of children in every school in the 
•country. It would save much sorrow if men always remembered it. 
2. The quantity of income. The total income of a community is 
equal to that of all its individual members, and the total income of 
.all the members is equal to that of the community and no more. 
However elementary this proposition may appear, it is continually 
•disregarded. Tor instance, in statistics as to the income of a com- 
munity, it is common to find that so many persons are put down as 
receiving incomes of £5,000 and upwards, so many more of £1,000 
to £5.000, so many more of £500 to £1,000, and so on. Then the 
sums of these incomes are added together, giving a total which is 
taken to be the income of the community, and from which the average 
income of the individual members is calculated, although the total 
exceeds enormously any possible estimate of the value of the annual 
produce of the labour of the community. The explanation is, of 
course, that the same sum is reckoned two or three times — perhaps ten 
times — over, suras paid by one person out of his income being reckoned 
also as part of tbe incomes of the persons to whom they are paid. 
The importance, for the purpose of ascertaining the real material 
•condition of a community, of knowing what is its income — that is, 
what it has to live on — is so great that it mav warrant a moment’s 
digression for the purpose of illustration. It has often been observed 
that many of the elementary principles governing human society may 
be investigated with advantage in the simplest forms of society. 
Allowance must be made for other disturbing causes that operate in 
more complex organisations, but the observation is certainly true with 
regard to physical laws which prevail semper et ubiqite as inexorably 
as the laws of numbers. A man left alone on a desert island must 
provide himself with food or starve. Two men similarly placed must 
■collectively do likewise. In this case, however, one may, if he can, 
provide food for both. It is equally true that a community occupying 
a country must provide itself with food or perish. If it provides food 
enough for some only of its members, the rest will perish. The food 
produced must be sufficient for the whole community. Take the case 
of a tribe, like some of those in New Guinea, who cultivate the laud 
and catch fish, but have no dealings with their neighbours. The 
income of the tribe consists, as in the case of the solitary inhabitants 
of the desert island, of what they can get by the application of their 
labour to the bounties of Nature. No amount of barter or exchange 
of the products of one garden for those of another will increase the 
total quantity. Suppose now that one of the tribe, who is called a 
chief, produces nothing himself, but levies a tax of half the produce 
of their labour from all the other members of the tribe. Suppose 
further that he distributes three-fourths of the produce of the tax 
by way of bounty amongst his sub-chiefs and personal retainers; 
and that they in turn distribute one-third of their share amongst 
others. The sum of the incomes of all the members of the tribe is 
then double the total quantity of the produce of the tribal labour. 
Tor let that produce be represented by the number 200. That 
number will represent also the primary income of all the producers. 
The chief has an income represented by 100, his sub-chiefs and 
retainers an increased income represented by 75, and their dependents 
an increased income represented by 25. The total is 400. But the 
