Produced by John Hagerson, Jonathan Ingram, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team SPECULATIONS FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY By C. B. Clarke, F.R.S. INTRODUCTION The following nine articles are "Speculations," by no means altogether recommendations. They are _from_ Political Economy, i.e. they have nearly all of them been suggested by considering mere propositions of Political Economy. Some of them are old, or given me by friends: some are, I believe, new: these many persons will set aside as unpractical or impracticable, as that is the approved word by which people indicate that an idea is new to them. The topics of the nine articles have been largely taken from those now under political discussion, but they can hardly be called ephemeral; and, though they do not form a treatise, they will hardly be called disconnected. As they are speculations, no trouble has been taken to work out suggestions in detail, or give the "shillings and pence" correctly. CONTENTS 1. EFFICIENCY OF LABOUR 2. RECIPROCITY AND RETALIATION 3. UNIVERSAL FREE TRADE 4. THE RANSOM OF THE LAND 5. MAKING THE MOST OF OUR LAND 6. FREE TRADE IN RAILWAYS 7. REFORM IN LAND LAW 8. EQUALISING OF TAXATION 9. WEALTH OF THE NATION SPECULATIONS _FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY_ 1. EFFICIENCY OF LABOUR. Political economists have not overlooked efficiency of labour: they have underestimated its importance in the opinion of Edward Wilson, who has supplied me with the examples and arguments that follow and who has verbally given me leave to publish as much as I like. The English workman, especially in a country town of moderate size, regards capital as unlimited, employment ("work") as limited. A wall six feet high is to be built along the length of a certain garden: if one bricklayer is employed, the fewer bricks he lays daily the more days' employment he will get; if several bricklayers are employed, the fewer bricks one lays daily the more employment is left for the others. It thus appears that the more inefficient the labourer is, the better for himself, his fellow-handicraftsmen, and for "labour" in general: the more money is drawn from the capitalist.