Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of WealthGeorge, Henry
General
Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth
George, Henry
Economics; Single tax
In the reign of George IV., some returning missionaries took with them
to England a New Zealand chief called Hongi. His noble appearance
and beautiful tatooing attracted much attention, and when about to
return to his people he was presented by the monarch and some of the
religious societies with a considerable stock of tools, agricultural
instruments, and seeds. The grateful New Zealander did use this capital
in the production of food, but it was in a manner of which his English
entertainers little dreamed. In Sydney, on his way back, he exchanged
it all for arms and ammunition, with which, on getting home, he began
war against another tribe with such success that on the first battle
field three hundred of his prisoners were cooked and eaten, Hongi
having preluded the main repast by scooping out and swallowing the
eyes and sucking the warm blood of his mortally wounded adversary, the
opposing chief.[13] But now that their once constant wars have ceased,
and the remnant of the Maoris have largely adopted European habits,
there are among them many who have and use considerable amounts of
capital.
Likewise it would be a mistake to attribute the simple modes of
production and exchange which are resorted to in new communities solely
to a want of capital. These modes, which require little capital, are
in themselves rude and inefficient, but when the conditions of such
communities are considered, they will be found in reality the most
effective. A great factory with all the latest improvements is the most
efficient instrument that has yet been devised for turning wool or
cotton into cloth, but only so where large quantities are to be made.
The cloth required for a little village could be made with far less
labor by the spinning wheel and hand loom. A perfecting press will, for
each man required, print many thousand impressions while a man and a
boy would be printing a hundred with a Stanhope or Franklin press; yet
to work off the small edition of a country newspaper the old-fashioned
press is by far the most efficient machine. To carry occasionally two
or three passengers, a canoe is a better instrument than a steamboat;
a few sacks of flour can be transported with less expenditure of
labor by a pack horse than by a railroad train; to put a great stock
of goods into a cross-roads store in the backwoods would be but to
waste capital. And, generally, it will be found that the rude devices
of production and exchange which obtain among the sparse populations
of new countries result not so much from the want of capital as from
inability profitably to employ it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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