Principles of Political EconomyPerry, Arthur Latham
General
Principles of Political Economy
Perry, Arthur Latham
Economics
(a) The only possible and practicable remedy for this state of things,
so far as the employers are concerned, is in a more conservative
attitude of capitalists as a class about passing over their resources
to the hands of men who have not proven their ability to handle them
wisely by a full course of training in the management of practical
affairs. By a wretched policy in this country at present Capital is
prohibited from building and from buying ships, with which to navigate
the oceans; from selling domestic manufactures in foreign markets; and
also from a profitable agriculture, which may sell its products abroad
and take its pay back. Consequently Capital, eager in its own nature
to be invested to a profit somehow somewhere, has rushed without due
circumspection into the hands of domestic operators, who have not been
half fitted for their task, who have knitted relations with laborers
without being able to secure their permanent respect or to control
their services, and who have lost to their owners in multitudes of
cases the entire capital intrusted to them. If capitalists had had
during the last quarter of a century one-half of their natural and
proper chance to invest their money to a profit, there would not have
been such a reckless investment through incompetent hands in building
mills and foundries in this interval of time, and such wholesale
losses in connection with them. When capital comes to be at liberty to
turn right or left according to its own will in view of a prospective
profit, factory companies and projectors cannot draw resources from
the public for their operations, without demonstrating to the owners
the trained and tried capacity of the practical operators, who will
buy the materials and hire the laborers and market the products.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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