[21] Some Leading Principles of Political Economy newly expounded by Professor Cairnes. 1874.
[22] Labour. Joseph Cook, p. 179.
[23] Macleod’s Economics, p. 116.
[24] An illustration of this is given in [Chap. XV.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
POLITICAL EXTRAVAGANCE.
You are very fond, my Friend, of talking about political economy. Suppose, for a change, we discuss a certain political extravagance, of which you are guilty.
“Look!” you say, “at the visible signs of prosperity caused by free trade, our annual imports are in excess of our exports by £100,000,000. This represents the annual accumulation of our national wealth.”
Now, my friend, I want you to try and take a common-sense view of things:—
Mill says, that “saving enriches, and spending impoverishes, the community along with the individual.”[25] Now let us apply England’s action in this respect to the assumed case of an individual. Suppose a farmer should allow his land to go out of cultivation and purchase farm produce, for his own consumption, from the open market; suppose at the same time he has a limited supply of iron ore on his estate, which he sells at a rate that does not quite cover the cost of its production; would you argue that the more food such a one purchased and consumed, and the more iron ore he sold, the greater was his prosperity; and especially so because he consumed more than he sold?