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All labour is a form of motion; man can do nothing save alter the positions of objects. By placing them in what observation has revealed as the more useful positions, he enables the forces of nature to act for him and accomplish the transformations his needs require. I open a furrow with the iron of my plough, and throw into it grains of wheat; moisture and heat set the vegetative properties of the seeds in action: all I have done is to alter positions and I obtain a harvest of wheat. Again, I cast into a blast furnace a mixture of ore, coal, and flux, or calcareous stones. I strike a match and set light to the fuel. Once more there is only a change of positions, but chemical forces are set at work and I obtain iron foundings. In all labour, then, objects must be disposed in such manner as to make the forces of nature lend the greatest possible help to the work of production.

Labour, which is always a duty, can never be a right. The prosperity of human societies depends above all things on the wise direction of labour. Let us examine what is favourable to this.

§ 2. Productiveness of Labour.

Since labour is always a pain we must endeavour to obtain the maximum of utilities with the minimum of efforts and pains. As a consequence the question how to attain the knowledge of what may lead to this result, in other words of what will increase the productiveness of labour, is the most important

of any in economy. If considered under all its aspects, it may even be said to include every other.

The causes which increase or diminish the productiveness of labour are very numerous: facts of nature, human ideas, knowledge, sentiments, institutions and laws. Here, in truth, lies the true field for the studies of the economist; it is in this domain of human liberty that he can point out the reforms which should be effected, the ideal which should be pursued. History and statistics supply the facts from which he draws his conclusions. The subject is a vast one. Not to diverge too widely from customary methods I can only touch on it in pointing out the most important causes which render labour productive.

§ 3. Responsibility.

Responsibility is the motive power of the economic

world.

Just as the mainspring turns the wheels of a watch, so the instinctive desire for self-preservation, for development, and for perpetuation, impels all animate creatures to economic action, from the monad, or simple living cellule absorbing in itself the substances on which it lives, to man in the most wondrous creations of his industry. The stronger this spring the greater will be industrial activity; and the greater and better directed industrial activity, the more utilities will then be created, the greater will be the growth of prosperity.

The problem, then, to be solved, is the means of giving to this mainspring a maximum of force. Its solution is simple: we must assure to every act a treatment proportioned to its deserts; reward for the good, punishment for the bad, gratification and comfort to the laborious and thrifty, privation and destitution to the idle and prodigal. In this way we apply to economic relations the great principle of distributive justice. The allotments of rewards in schools are an example of the application of the principle. The thing, then, which we have to do, is to organise responsibility. In the case of animals responsibility is brought home in natural ways under the rule of natural laws. The ox which should sleep throughout the day, or the lion which should neglect the chase, would soon die of hunger. Among men, however, where freedom of will is paramount instead of necessary laws, responsibility has to be organised by social laws. The more completely

these social laws assure to the labourer the fruit of his labour, the greater will be the incentive towards working long and hard, and the more active will be the mainspring of the economic world.

In his article on political economy in the Encyclopedia Rousseau lays down that "The laws should be so framed that labour should be always necessary, and never useless."

§ 4. The Influence of Nature on the Productiveness of Labour,

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Some philosophers, such as Montesquieu, Cuvier, and Buckle, have believed that the degree of prosperity to which nations attain, very greatly depends on the influences of nature. Thus Cuvier writes :"Of varying height and with many branches, small limestone ranges, the sources of numerous streams, intersect both Greece and Italy. Under the shelter of these, in charming valleys, rich in every product of living nature, philosophy and the arts sprang into being, and here mankind witnessed the birth of its most honoured geniuses, while the vast sandy plains of Barbary and Africa have always retained their inhabitants in the condition of roving and savage shepherds." The great naturalist even goes so far as to say "Granite districts produce on all the customs of human life quite different effects from those of limestone. Board, lodging, and habits of thought will never be the same in Limousin or BasseBretagne, as in Champagne or Normandy."

Undoubtedly the constitution of the soil, the conformation of the country, and, above all, the climate, must exercise a great influence on the labours of man, on the produce which he gathers in, and, consequently, on economic progress. A country without mines will produce no metals, and a people living far inland will not be able to devote itself to navigation. Climates, like those of the polar regions, of

excessive cold, or as in the equatorial, of excessive heat, are not favourable to the productiveness of labour. Excess of cold diminishes the activity of nature; excess of heat, the activity of man. It is a temperate climate that most favours industrial progress. As has been well said, "Man is here perpetually invited to labour," for here, if nature is generous, she is so within limits, and only for those who study and understand her.

The variation of the seasons develops a spirit of reflection, habits of foresight, and consequently that creation of capital which is a condition of all economic progress. In proportion, however, as man's empire over nature increases, her influence on his condition diminishes. Under the guidance of science the power of industry in every country turns local resources to advantage, and, thanks to commerce, any people can enjoy the products of every kind of climate.

In the ages of barbarism nature makes man; in the ages of civilisation man makes nature. In the course of a generation we have seen the same country, with the same climate, successively occupied by men plunged in the most abject destitution, and then by other men enjoying the highest degree of prosperity. In Australia, where but lately the aborigines were feeding on carrion and often died of hunger, magnificent towns, like Sydney and Melbourne, are now rising, ornamented with all the splendours of civilisation. In America, on the vast

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