PRODUCTION AND CAPITAL

Hokitika Guardian, 26 March 1921, Page 4

PRODUCTION AND CAPITAL

A leading article in ‘'The Times” literary supplemnt of danuary 6th. contains these timely remarks on the production of wealth and the cmjdoymeni of capital: As in a primitive prairie where two men are bringing patches into cultivation and one cats and drinks all the product of bis crops while the oilin' saves part of it. sells it and buys the means by which he himself or nnoth.’c man can bring another patch into cultivation, it is solely by the last that production is increased and solely because lie uses part of bis prodm * as capital on which he necessarily expects a return. So he grows rich while the other remains poor. Their relative )o sitions are important only to themselves. What is- important . from '.lie public point ot view is that the men who grows rich has benefited bis country, aml could not help doing '-o if lie were a devil of malice, while- Hie man who remains poor is for whatcu-i reason the man. of the para hie who keeps Ills talent in a napkin, and is an (unprofitable servant to his country. Aif capital has its orign in saving which is postponing a small, presnu, and certain enjoyment to a larger iuture, but problematic one. Flie mere the workman is admitted into the councils of busiiies,. the more he "ill see this. No new railway can be built, no new manufacture begun, without capital which someone must have saved and must be prepared to risk. And as new enterprises often fail, the more risky they are the l-.rg’r B must be the possible profit in the event of success. The workman is apt to fancy that all capital secures a hign return. | The District Railway Company of 1 London has paid wages to labour and given a service of trains to the public 1 for over half a century; and the Man- 1 Chester Ship Canal has done the same * for a shorter period. Bul since 1882 ' the railway has not paid a penny interest, nor did the canal begin to do so till five years ago. to those who found the capital, which made possible the J | paying of those wages and the rend’ring of those services. They need n<t he pitied. They took their risk ami lost. But neither would they have < •?- served to incur obloquy if they bad won instead and secured a return of 20, oO or 40 per cent. It is to be remembered that if an enterprise does badly it may q still provide enough, as these have £ done, for the workmen's wages; indeul of course, it would at once cease altogotlie. if it did not. The barbarism and poverty of Asia nre due to the fact that from time L immemorial, and especially since the conquest of the Turks in Western Asia _ anvone who was visibly rich was in- Istantly despoiled by the agents of the a Government. The consequence is that the temptation to save, on the results of which all economic development depends, has been much weaker in Asia Ini n in Europe; capital has not been U’cumnlated because of the probability ,f its being confiscated; and consepiently th,e trading and manufacturing iperations by which not merely the iradors but their whole countries are mriched, have, for lack of security, not T :ome into existence. The present commrativo prosperity of India is due to of ,ho fact that under the British ride a nan lias known that if he made a forum- it. would remain his, which is just ihat lie did not know under the old ulera of India. Some theorists of the j Vest imagine that the plan of seizing j hrough the tax gatherer half-or three- , liar tors of the wealth of the rich is a j