The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-07
False Ways of Gausins wealth;
Debt Not Wealth; Is Land Wealth.
Sham and Real Wealth.

We said in the preceding lesson that
wealth or effective value cannot be
gagged by the criterion of exchange
value. We must dwell a moment longer
on this matter, for it is important. OF
course nothing could be more natural at
first than to take national wealth as
simply the total Of the estimated prices
which individual and public properties
would bring if sold: yet no procedure
could be more misleading For instance,
let general prices fer any reason slowly
decline. All business will be sluggish and
there will be much most useful property
which perhaps cannot be sold at all it's
utility for all the purposes of life remain
ing as great as before. Value is not the
same thing as valuation. In the case sup
posed the aggregate of exchange values
may have 1essened a. third, yet the mass
of Satisfactions throughout the nation
not have decreased an iota How idle it
seems to say that under such circum-
wealthy! Such a state of affairs may re-
tard the production of new wealth, but
cannot impair the wealth quality of use
full things already in existence.
According to Sir Robert Giffen the
money value of British exports and i'm
ports between 1865 and 1920 ranged from
about ess,eeO,e0O to about e4509e, eco an
nually. An annual total of nearly e52,-
0OO,e0o was reached in 1915, but did not
occur again till 1886, and no higher figure
appeared till 1910. These money figures
greatly obscure the real fact. During all
those years the quantity of goods ex-
ported and imported was increasing much
more rapidly than the money figures hint,
the tonnag e entered and cleared in 1896
being about 100000 or nearly double that
at the opening of the century. No one
needs to be told that of the mass of salts
factions afforded to the British people by
foreign commerce between 1916 and 1896,
the tonnage of this foreign trade is
far truer measure than the pounds
sterling valuation.
Again, if We are seeking an index of
the contribution which the plant of
railway, for example, makes to the ma
tons wealth, in some cases the par
value of the stock is nearer the mark.
in other instances the market value.
There are doubtless railways so useful
that their total stock, however zealously
bHlled. however copiously watered, would
fall far short of indica ting the benefit
which the existence and work of these
railways confer Upon the body polite.
Still again, how can exchange value
measure the wealth which public works
employ? Roads and parks could be sold
if at all, only for the land they occupy.
Are they not worth far more in their
present form? Harbor improvements it
would be impossible to sell to anyone
but surely they form part of the country's
wealth. What would the Washington mon
ument bring or the capitol or Cleopat-
ras needle or the sewerage system of
any city? In fact, utility, or value in use
satisfaction affording quality, so far as
it is the creature of effort, ought to be
the real unit or criterion in reckoning ma
tional wealth and world wealth, exchange
value coming in only where it can be
trusted as clew to the utility.
In appraising national wealth or the
worlds wealth certain other cautions are
necessary Clearly it would be inaccurate
to reckon into a nations wealth both
property and titles to the same property.
If a railway is listed for so much it
will not do to put down its stock for
so much more. National state, county