Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 10.djvu/53

Rh except at the expense of the very class whose well-being he wishes to promote.

If he does not buy the velvet which was manufactured in the expectation that he would buy it, velvet will fall in price, the manufacturer will lose money, and the wealthy classes who wear velvet having more of it to divide between them will each get more; that is, they will pocket the money the manufacturer lost.

Not having bought velvet, the capitalist has money to spare, and, in accordance with his kind intentions, he lays it out in corduroy and other commodities which the working classes use. These he distributes, as a gift, to people who, but for his bounty, would have had to go without them. Surely he is now doing good? He certainly is doing good to those who receive these good things, but all they get is taken from those who, if he had not interfered, would have got them; that is, the rest of the working classes, for whose use the commodities were manufactured. Our philanthropist's benevolence has, in fact, been paid for solely and entirely by the working classes. The capital he has parted with has gone bodily into the pocket of the corduroy manufacturer, who has been made happy by the rise in prices created by the unexpected and unprovided for demand. This is always the result of spasmodic benevolence; the working man pays for it.

The half million of money which has just been sent to India, or rather the wealth which is represented by it, came entirely from the poorer classes. The rich gave money which passed undiminished into the pockets of the grain merchants. Their alms did not reduce the quantity of bread they eat; they perhaps bought less velvet, thus benefiting those still richer, who did not require to retrench even in their consumption of velvet; but the real privation was borne by the labouring men, from whose stock all the grain was taken which was sent to feed the starving ryots.

If a rich man wishes to share his wealth, after it has once been produced, with the poor, he must give them that which he would otherwise have used himself; he must let them walk in his garden and eat the fruit and pluck the flowers; he must take them drives in his carriage; give them velvet to wear which would otherwise have decked his wife; share his Chateau Lafitte with them, in short he must really be self-sacrificing; if he gives them that which was manufactured for the use of others, he is only using his wealth so as to compel other people to do good to the objects of his compassion.

A capitalist has no power over the past, but he has over the future. Let us see how his endeavours to do good will be rewarded the second year.

The velvet-maker finding the demand for velvet slack will not