ON VALUE—(CONTINUED).

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume IV, Issue 6, 15 August 1857, Page 4

ON VALUE—(CONTINUED).

This is a continuance of a paper explaining the nature of Value which appeared in our February number. On these elementary points, such questions as the following may be usefully put to themselves by those to whom the subject is r.ew. i . Why is air not an article of value ? Because tho' it may be very useful, it is to be had for nothing. 2. Why is some scarce kind of stone, that is of no use or beauty, not an article of value? Because tho* it is not a thing that every one can get, no one desires to get it. 5. Why is a healthy constitution not an article of value? Because tho* it be very desirable, and is not what every one can get, it is not transferable, that is, cannot be transferred or parted with by one person to another. 4. Why is a spade an article of value? Because it has the three qualities which must be combined to make anything an

article of value: that is, it is Ist, desirable as being of use ; 2nd, limited in supply—ibat is, it is not what every one can have for nothing ; and srdly, transferable—that is one person can part with it to auother. 5. Why is a silver spoon of more value than a spade? Because, though it is not more usefiil, it is more limited in supply, or harder to be got, on account of the difficulty of working the mines of silver. \\ hen anything that is desirable is to be had by labour, and is not to be had without labour, of course we find men labouring to obtain it, and things that are of very great rvalue will usually be found to have cost very great labour. This has led some persons to suppose that it is the labour that has feeen feeslowed on anything that gives it value; but this is quite a mistake. Tt is not the labour which anything has cost that makes it to sell for a higher price; but, on the contrary, it is its selling for a higher price that causes men to labour in procuring it For instance, fishermen go out to sea,°and toil hard in the wet and eold to catch fish because they ean gel a good price for them; but if a fisherman should work hard ail Bight and catch but one small fish, while auother had perhaps caught a thousand, by falling in with a shoal, the first would not be able to sell his one fish for the same price as the other man's thousand, though it would have cost him the same labour. It has now and then happened that a salmon has leaped inio a boat by chance ; but though this has cost no labour, it is not for that reason the less valuable. And if a man, in eating an oyster, should chance to meet imb a fine pearl, it would not sell for less than if he had been diving for it all day. It is not, therefore, labour that makes things valuable, but their being valuable that makes them worth labouring for. And God having judged in His wisdom that it is

not good for man to be idle, has so appointed things by His Providence, that few of the things that arc most desirable can be obtained without labour, ft is ordained for man to eat bread in the sweat of his face; and almost all the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life, are obtained by labour.