"But what I cannot see," the duke broke in, "is why, when wealth is produced by labour, the people who produce it should have no share in it. Don't think, Lord Camborne, that I am a Socialist, or infected in any way with socialistic doctrines." He spoke more rashly than he knew. "But I should like to know the economic answer to the things which Mr. Rose, and Mr. Conrad, and their friends told me when I was ill."
"The answer," replied the bishop, "is perfectly simple. It is intellect, and not labour, that is the creator of wealth. Let me give you a little example."
As he spoke he placed his elbows upon the table, joined the tips of his fingers together, and looked at his young audience with a suave smile.
"Let me instance the case of a saw!"
"A saw, father?" Lady Constance said. "What on earth has a saw to do with Socialism?"
"Listen," the bishop replied, "and I will tell you. If a saw had not been invented, planks, which are absolutely necessary for the construction of building, and, indeed, for almost all the conveniences of modern life, must be split up out of the trunks of trees by means of wedges, a most clumsy and wasteful method.
"Your labourer says that he produces wealth which the planks make. This, of course, is an absolute fallacy. Labour alone might rend the trunk of a tree into separate pieces, though, to be sure, it would be a difficult business enough. But only labour, working with tools, could split up the trunk of a tree with wedges, saw it with a saw, or cut it with a knife. Don't you see, my dear Connie, labour makes the noise, but it is intellect which is responsible for the tune. Men move by labour, but they only move effectually and profitably by intellect. Labour is the wind, intellect the mill. Though there is as much wind blowing about now as there was three thousand years ago, some of it now grinds corn, saves time, and increases wealth. This difference is due, not to the wind, but to the wiser utilisation of the wind through intellect.
"And the same is true of labour. Without the inventions and the improvements of the few, labour would produce a bare subsistence for naked savages. It could not, however, produce wealth, because wealth is essentially something over and above a bare subsistence. A bare subsistence means consuming as fast as producing; and thus, all that labour does when not enabled to be efficient and profitable by the superior intelligence of the few.
"So that the real truth is that wealth, as such, is something over and above a mere subsistence, and, so far from being due to labour, is rather due to that diminution of toil which enables things to be produced more quickly than they are consumed. But such diminution is due to the time-shortening processes, methods, and inventions of the few. The fact is that the general mass of men are of far too dull and clownish a character to do much for real advancement.
"Any forward step which produces wealth is taken by somebody in particular, and not by everybody in general.