The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-06

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rendered useless by improved methods or by
use; buildings are undergoing endless repairs;
and even money, whether paper or gold, is
forever wearing out. You need only look
around in farm or shop or dwelling to become
at once convinced that the number of things,
the quantity of property that is ten years old
is extremely limited, and that even of this
limited number, this. limited quantity, bat a
very small proportion would be in exist
ence were it not for systematic re-
pairs. Capital in every form Is extrensly
perishable, and is preserved only by means
of constant repairs. Taking all kinds OF pro-
perty into account, it is not unreasonable to
estimate its average duration at ten years; or,
in other words, to estimate the necessary
repairs to keep it in order, or the necessary
additions to maintain it's quantity, as equal
to ten per cent. of the property itself. While
the percentage may seem absurdly high for
city dwellings and some otner kinds of pro-
perty, it is very low for land, railroads. canals
furniture, implements, machinery, and mer
chandise; and to any one familiar with such
Investigations will seem rather too low than
too high. In other words, in order to main
tain the property of the country at the valua-
tion of 10000 millions of dollars, it will re-
quire repairs and additions to the extent of at
least 1000 millions annually. These repairs
and additions to existing property are
not included In the census account of
annual production, but should be added
thereto in order to obtain the real
annual product of the country. But this
is not all. Of the 13 millions of active pro-
ducers in the country, nearly 6J millions are
agriculturalists, representing, with wife and
child, close upon twenty millions of popula-
tion. The food and sustenance of these 20
millions, in as far as it is the product of his
own farm, is not included in the farmers
estimate of his annual production. Taking
it at only $50 per head, which is evidently a
low estimate, we will have further 400 mill
lions of annual product to add to the census
figures. We have then: Census return, 5000
millions; repairs to capital, 1000 millions;
food consumed on farms, 400 millions; total,
10000 millions as actual value of the total
product of the labor of the United States in
1860, compared with 10000 millions, total
value of all property at the same time. 1t
must be evident at glance that the vague
conception generally entertained of the nu-
merical relations of labor and capital is ab-
surdly erroneous. The fact is that in the
United States labor every year produces an
amount of property equal to five-eighths of all
property in existence. If it were possible to
produce without capital which of course it is
not), and if production could go on without
consumption, we might destroy every vestige
OF property within the United States to-day,
and within nineteen months labor would re-
produce the whole.
These figures, rightly interpreted, are
highly instructive. they show us, in the
first place, what an incredibly rapid increase
in national wealth is possible when economy
and wisdom regulate the consumption of this
enormo GUS product. They explain how it is
possible for countries, desolated by fire and
sword, to resume with magic rapidity their
wonted activity and wealth. They enable us
to set aside the silly theories built up on the
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and deficient in capital. They demolish at a
blow the absurd schemes of the protection
lists, who pretend that labor, capable of pro-
ducing ten millions of value annually, needs
protection against the foreign importations,
which, even under the comparatively liberal
| tariff of 1860, never reached three hundred
millions, or three per cent of our own pro-
duction; or that people which con-
sumes ten millions of its own pro ducts needs
foolish laws to provide it with ''home
market" or nearby market for it's two
hundred and fifty or three hundred millions
surplus. But more useful than all these de-
monstrations are the practical conclusions
which these remarkable figures furnse con-
cerning the relations of labor and capital.
OF the 10000 millions of total property or
capital, large proportion is not employed in
production. An immense amount of uncuti-
waited land, vacant city lots, unoccupied farms.
many factories and their machinery, manv
city houses, costly furniture, iewelry, oil
paintings, etc., are either temporarily idle, or
are in the nature of things totally incapable
of being used, for the time being, for pro-
ductive purposes 1t is evident that all
that portion of the total capital, being idle,
does not earn interest. Estimate it-though
it is more-at only 1000 millions, and you
have, in 1860, 1900 millions of capital ac-
lively employed. Now, no axiom is more
clearly settled in political ecnoomy than this,
that capital cannot honestly earn more than
the average rate of interest; in other words.
that the average rate of interest is the aver
age earning of capital OF course, this has
nothing to do with the earnings of an indi-
vidual, whether capitalist or laborer The
laborer without capital may earn thousands,
and the laborer with capital, whether his own
or borrowed, may earn tens of thousands.
But in either case it is the LI6Or6r that earns
it. Capital only earns its interest, never
rightfully more. If the average rate of inte-
rest in the United States in 1860 was 10 per
cent, out of the 10, 600 millions of property
produced 1900 millions went to capital as
interest, and $500 millions was the earning
of labor, skilled or unskilled, lay or profess
sional. All the labor of the whole country
united produced for its own use $500
millions of property, which by natur Il
laws would be divided in accordance
with the precise value of the labor con-
tributed by each. Neither labor nor capital
can complain. Capital is entitled to its
interest, which it receives. Whatever remains
is equitably divided among labor according to
its deserts. But if Congress steps in and
says to the saltmaker: In addition to the in
terest on your capital, and in addition to