Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1899-10-26

I Department, Arizona Republican,
it is something higher and finer. 1t
may not be particularly helpful in ac-
quiring wealth. A good moral char
acter is doubtless in general an attain
rnent favorable to wealth, but, al
though it is a result of hard work, l
should not call it of itself wealth. 1t
touches welfare, of course, and that
in it's temporal aspects, at a thousand
points. Still, unless you mean by tenn
pora1 welfare something higher than
is ordinarily meant you can hardly
call even a good moral character a di-
rect or indispensable condition of such
welfare. We come round again, there
fore, to the definition that wealth is
or consists in those classes of realities,
whatever their nature material or 9TH
erwise, which proceed from human eff
fort and at the same time directly con-
tribute to human welfare temporarily
considered.
There is school of writer's who limit
wealth to commodities and services
that either are habitually, or might be,
exchanged, denominating political
economy the science of exchanges or
of values. l deem these definitions SUI
conceive a state of society calling for
investigation as to it's wealth and fur
nishing full basis for a science of econ
omics, exchange being totally absent.
Exchange is not the substance of
wealth, but an accident, though an i'm
portant one. Had individuals as great
diversity of productive power as they
have of consumptive power exchange
would nearly disappear. Robinson
Crusoe on his island might be we'll off
now, i'll off next year. There would, of
course, be reasons for the change and
these reasons could be investigated and
their laws ascertained. All the more if
there We're many cases of men so iso-
lated. Their differences in welfare
could be compared and the reasons
therefor studied. If these were ana
lyZed carefully q science of wealth
would emerge but the topic of exchange
would find no place in it.
Among primitive men the distinction
Of mine and thine hardly arises. Their
property is mostly common, their pro-
duction wholly for their own immedi-
ate consumption. In the village COM
munities OF India, in Polynesia, Aus
tralia and over large parts of Africa
may even now be seen families ami
groups of families Producing all that
they consume and consuming all that
they produce, exchange being practi-
cally unknown. Society in ancient
Mexico and Peru is believed to have
been communistically organized no ex-
change being had save trif1ing trade
of tribe with tribe and village with
village. In England so late as the fif-
teenth century exchange was outside
of towns and cities, not indeed absent,
but entirely insignificant as an eco
nomic resource, families producing for
the most part what they themselves
consumed and no more. 1t was much
the same in the American colonies, and
so continued in the remoter portions
of the states till the railway era
opened. There remain to this day iso- |
lated sections in the west and south !
where the play of exchange is extreme |
ly limited.
Writers are led to shut up wealth to |
material and exchangeable things by |
the simplicity which for certain pur-
poses such narrowing brings to the |
study. This motive comes out in the |
current estimates of national wealth |
and of the worlds wealth When we |
place the wealth of the United States
in 1888 at S51, 600, 600 900, the yearly earn
1ngs of our people at from $40 900, 000.-
VVV ~ 9Az,OOV,UuO,UUU, our yearly savings |
at $500, 100000 and our daily savings at
So 900, 900. no account is taken of i'm
wealth or even of public
works.
Mulhall computed the worlds wealth
a few years ago as about $255, 600 000,-
900, lands and forests being worth $S4,-
800, 100000, cattle S10,500 600, 900, railways
$40, 900, 900, 900, houses SOL 600 600 900. fur
niture $30,500, 600. 900, merchandise So
500. 100000, bullion nearly $4,000, 900, 900,
81, SOC, 600, 900 and other forms
Of material goods nearly 1000, 900, 00O
He did, indeed. reckon in public works
at SIS, $50, 900, 000 but as is common
made no effort to list wealth in any
other than material shapes
OF course. an appraisal of immaterial
wealth must be both difficult and in
definite. OF course, too, these esti-
mates of material wealth on the basis
of exchange have their utility. For
the purpose of comparing nation with
nation and section with section they
may be hardly less serviceable than
the truth itself. Yet that is certainly
no scientific conception of wealth,
whether the worlds wealth or a ma
TONS wealth, which begins with ex-
change and ends with material goods.
Here, as often, the less definite and
notion is the deeper and the
more exact.
Editors Note-This is the first of
series of twelve papers which E. Ben