SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 755, 6 October 1876, Page 2

SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

No 3 —Speculative Industry. The hive of human in 'nstry may he said to he divided into three compartments, with its individual inhabitants of busy workers, each fulfilling • their appointed tasks, the labor of one amalgamating with that of the other, and re'ulling in an harmonious whole. Many persons may, perhaps disagree with us in our designation of speculation as an industry; still, we hold, that where a man makes it a business to trade with money, it is equally an industrial pursuit, as, where ho is dealing in any of the baser metals—as in either cas- he must keep a profit and loss account. The speculator, or capitalist plays hj very important part in the economy of nnr daily life, while, to a very large extent, he is the fulcrum of our industrial pursuits, as without capital to assist it labor could scarcely ho tnrnol to a profitahle account. In our state of refined civilisation capital acts as the pulse of our movements, and before weemh,ark in any undertaking our first necessary enquiry is. have wethe required capital ? Now, to trade with money a very considerable amount of knowledge and caution is required to produce » successful result, because, as n rule, the profits of an investment are mainly regulated hv the amount of risk incurred, while & large number of Speculations, should they )ainv6 failures, leave positively nothing behind to the speculator, or the wreck is not worth saving. Mining for gold is one of these ; its profit!), where success is attained, are very largo and enticing ; hut there is the reverse side to the picture, the speculation necessarily being a hazardous one. Capital at the present day most he looked noon as ft merchantable article, it being the medium of exchange for something else. It becomes therefore clear that whatever may be its re-

prosentative, it should be worth the amount paid for it. Now, os capital is so essential an element in produo ive industry, and is so readily transported from place to place, distance offering no obstacle, tbo main thing re •quired is the opportunity offered for investment j and the speculator trading upon his capital necessarily seeks that market where he can make the most profit. If a manufacturer, to successfully compete with others, he must produce his wares at the lowest possible cost; and it will be found, ere long, that (hanufactureis, instead of confining themselves to established customs, will be found conducting their operations in countries where labor is cheapest, and untrammelled by the interferences and coercive measures of trade unions. The present depressed state of the manufacturing interests of Great Britain give evidence of this, manyEng’ish marinfacturers finding it impossible to carry on their operations at a profit, on account of the high rates of wages demanded by the Home laborer are now ea • tablishing themselves on the Continent, and supplying their customers with a foreign made article, where‘otherwise it would have been locally produced. The rapidity of communication between all parts of the world, places it in the power of everybody to follow out their own natural instincts of buying and producing in the cheapest markets ; and, with the excessive competition now existing in manufactured goods many Countries, which we scarcely, know of at.present as manufacturing countries, must necessarily in the course of time become such. As civilization advances it will be found that where a ship can be built, ! a yard of calico woven, or a pie'x; of iron forged at the lowest cosit there the operation will be performed. To a considerable degree this is already the'ease with the supply of the world’s bnadstuffs, ami partly so with meat; and what holds good with a bushel of corn produced on the prairie lands of California, or preserved meats from Australia, Mexico, or New Zealand, it is only a question of time for manufactured articles to be similarly treated. This is a subject will worthy the attention of the working classes, who must not be blind to the fact that, to a considerable extent, an equalization of the value of labor must eventually overtake them, and we may accept the great influx of Chinese labor into Australasia and America as the beginning of 'this. (To be contmueii in our next.)