Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 10.djvu/57

Rh himself to produce others and to obtain those he wants by trade, but it is practically his wealth that is employed in their production.

If a benevolent capitalist wishes to benefit the working classes he cannot do so by giving away his wealth in charity; he only reduces the poor rates and thus benefits his wealthy neighbours. He cannot do so by employing labour in work, the produce of which is not to be enjoyed by the working classes themselves. He has but one path open to him, and that is to devote his wealth to the production of those commodities which labouring men generally use, and to give those commodities to workmen, not in alms, but in exchange for labour, which is to be employed in producing a still larger stock of the same. In other words, he must become a manufacturer and must conduct his business so as to make it pay. If he conducts it so as to lose money he is wasting the wealth entrusted to him and might as well buy velvet at once; the effect on the working classes would be the same.

If he makes money by his business he will become still richer and he must at last get rid of his wealth in some way. How is he to do it? Wealth is like the genius which had to be kept constantly employed or it would destroy its master. Unless it is constantly and properly employed its owner becomes a public enemy, and if it is properly employed it will perpetually increase, and make its owner's responsibility still greater. It is almost impossible to get rid of wealth without doing harm. One way would be to gradually turn it into gold and to throw the gold into the sea. There would be no destruction of wealth more than there would be in throwing so many small pieces of paper away, and even less, for the "proper cost" of gold as a medium of exchange is absolutely nothing; the ownership only of it would be transferred to all other owners of money in the world. This would be therefore giving the wealth principally to the rich, and it would, by increasing the exchange value of gold, be an incentive to further gold mining, a most wasteful expenditure of labour; it would also increase the national debt, and is, on the whole, not to be recommended. Another plan would be to gradually invest it in the national debt and present it to the nation. This would benefit rich and poor and is probably the best means open to a man who having done his share of labour had earned and wished to enjoy the leisure which an old man should have.

A younger man possessed of the requisite energy and knowledge could do still better. He might by engaging lecturers and by other means succeed in impressing on the working classes the vast benefit, even in a merely material way, which education would give to their children, and he might, to some extent, pay the expenses of their education; he might get museums, libraries, and other educational institutions established; forward