Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/119

 Rh capitalisation of wage-earning power. The short and simple dogmatism of Petty, already quoted, as to the mass of mankind being worth twenty years' purchase as well as land, seems, at any rate, to require elucidation. Why should the mass of mankind, it may well be asked, be worth neither more nor less than land? If land becomes worth thirty years' purchase, will mankind rise in value in equal proportion? and if land falls in value, will humanity fall also? The 'indestructible and original powers of the soil' are, by implication, as immortal as man is mortal, and, unlike him, require no care or labour for their preservation; and the points of contrasts between land and mankind might be indefinitely increased.

This preliminary didiculty, however, must in some way be surmounted before the comparison between 'dead' and 'living' capital can be effected; and a few facts may be noticed which serve to show that the valuation of human beings is not so remote from ordinary thought as at first sight appears. Constantly, for example, cases are occurring in the law courts which recall the methods of compensation adopted by our Saxon forefathers. A money-value is placed upon husbands, wives, sons, and daughters, and even upon their component parts. The loss of a leg has its value appraised equally with blighted affections and shocks to the system. Again, to look at the question from another point of view, every father of a family knows that it costs a considerable sum to rear children to a self-supporting age, and the higher the trade or profession selected so much the greater is the cost.

Estimates were recently given in a newspaper, expressly for the guidance of parents, of the total cost of qualifying for various employments.

These instances, however, do not at once suggest any practicable method of valuing the total human stock of a nation, with its infinite variety of ages, occupations, and abilities, A simple enumeration and summation is plainly impossible. The difficulty involved in the ages alone, from this point of view, seems at first sight almost insuperable.

We must exclude the very old and the very young, so far as earning-power is concerned, or even regard them as of negative value—but where shall we draw the line?

The clue to the solution seems to be given in the practice of insurance companies, based on the principle that whilst the individual dies the race remains, and not merely the race, but the classes and divisions of the race remain to a great extent uniform. Life insurance is mainly concerned with age and