Page:Progress and poverty - an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions, and of increase of want with increase of wealth - the remedy (IA progresspovertyi00georiala).pdf/82

56 labor were soon exhausted, and gold mining rapidly took a more elaborate character. Before claims could be opened so as to yield any return, deep shafts had to be sunk, great dams constructed, long tunnels cut through the hardest rock, water brought for miles over mountain ridges and across deep valleys, and expensive machinery put up. These works could not be constructed without capital. Sometimes their construction required years, during which no return could be hoped for, while the men employed had to be paid their wages every week, or every month. Surely, it will be said, in such cases, even if in no others, wages do actually come from capital; are actually advanced by capital; and must necessarily lessen capital in their payment! Surely here, at least, industry is limited by capital, for without capital such works could not be carried on! Let us see:

It is cases of this class that are always instanced as showing that wages are advanced from capital. For where wages are paid before the object of the labor is obtained, or is finished — as in agriculture, where plowing and sowing must precede by several months the harvesting of the crop; as in the erection of buildings, the construction of ships, railroads, canals, etc. — it is clear that the owners of the capital paid in wages cannot expect an immediate return, but, as the phrase is, must "outlay it," or "lie out of it" for a time, which sometimes amounts to many years. And hence, if first principles are not kept in mind, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that wages are advanced by capital.

But such cases will not embarrass the reader to whom in what has preceded I have made myself clearly understood. An easy analysis will show that these instances where wages are paid before the product is finished, or even produced, do not afford any exception to the rule apparent where the product is finished before wages are paid.

If I go to a broker to exchange silver for gold, I lay down my silver, which he counts and puts away, and then hands me the equivalent in gold, minus his commission. Does