Tales in Political Economy/Chapter 2
II.
The Shipwrecked Sailors.
Once Captain Adam and some twenty of the passengers and crew of a sailing vessel were shipwrecked on a small uninhabited island in the Pacific. They were like Robinson Crusoe in one respect, which was, that they were fortunate enough to be able to save a number of things off the wreck, which they found to be of immense value and comfort. They were not able, like Robinson Crusoe, to go to their vessel before it broke up, and ransack it for the most useful things they could find; they got nothing that was not washed ashore, so they obtained altogether a very motley collection. Their rule was that whoever found anything was the owner of it, or, as it was more tersely expressed by the sailors, "Findings is keepings." The consequence of this rule was that there was very soon a great deal of buying and selling in the little community. Three men, for instance, succeeded in hauling to the shore a case which proved to contain twelve dozen pairs of boots of various sizes. This bit of good luck made them for a time quite the capitalists of the little community. In exchange for the boots, which were very sorely needed by their companions, they obtained a share of the most useful things that had been found. One man, who had found a case of spirits, came and offered a bottle of rum for a pair of boots. Another man had found a box of carpenter's tools, and it so happened that he was quite unable to use them to advantage, whereas one of the men who had found the boots was a carpenter by trade, and very much longed to possess the box of tools. A harder bargain never was struck than between these two men. The carpenter began by offering a pair of boots in exchange for the tools. "Nay," said the other, "boots are very well in their way; but they tell me you have got scores of 'em; and I reckon I can get something more than a pair of boots for my tools. Besides, I rather think I shall keep the tools myself. I am not such a fool but what I can drive a nail and use a saw almost as well as if I had done nothing else all my life." They were not able to come to any agreement, and the finder of the tools so far got the best of it, that he succeeded in getting a pair of boots from one of the other men in exchange for the loan of the saw for one day. By this time the little colony were busy in making themselves small wooden huts in which they slept, and where they found shelter from storms. As the process of building these huts went on, Green, the man who had found the tools, discovered that by lending them he could obtain either a share in what had been found by the others, or an equivalent in the form of labour. "Lend us the axe and mallet, old fellow," said one, "and I'll give you three dinners off the fish I catch in the morning;" or perhaps it was, "Lend me the saw and plane to-day, and you shall have half the number of planks that I am able to make in the time."
It was not long before Green, and indeed all the party, found that amateur carpentering is a very expensive process. One man chopped his toe off with the axe when he was trying to cut down a tree, and was laid up for a month. The planks, that had been sawn and planed by an apothecary's apprentice, might have deserved to be sent to a museum of curiosities; but they were certainly not in their right place when he tried to make them into a door and keep out the blasts of a tropical hurricane. But the shipwrecked sailors not only found that it was easier to cut and bruise their own toes and fingers than to convert the young palms into decent habitations; there was another, and perhaps a more serious disadvantage attaching to their unskilful work. Green often found when the tools were returned to him that they had suffered almost as severely as those who had attempted to use them. The teeth of the saw were bent, the edge of the axe was turned, the chisel was broken in half, and almost as many nails were broken and bent, or were knocked in in the wrong places, as were driven home exactly on the spot where they were wanted. These various misfortunes made everybody see how much better things would go on if the carpenter did all the carpentering that was needed by the little colony. If the carpenter hired the tools of Green, Green would lose nothing, for the carpenter could give him more for the loan of them than anyone else, because no one could make such good use of them as the carpenter. The carpenter would also be a gainer, because he would then be able to turn his skill in his trade to the best account, and would get all his wants supplied by his companions in return for the services he rendered to them. Finally, the entire colony would gain by the carpenter having the use of the tools; for instead of chopping off their toes, bruising their fingers, and spoiling the tools, with the worst possible result in the carpentering line, they now saved their own skin, the tools were not injured, their carpentering was well done; and in return for the services of the carpenter, every man and woman gave him a share of what he or she was most skilful in producing or most fortunate in finding. The advantage everyone enjoyed from this division of labour was apparent: the carpenter had no need to leave his trade in order to go hunting or fishing; he had very little skill in these pursuits, and had sometimes been out all day without bringing home enough for supper. Here was folly and waste of time! If he had stayed at home he could have finished Jack Collins's hut, and made a strong bench for Mrs. Collins; while Jack, who knows the ways of every bird that flies and every fish that swims, would bring back enough game and fish to last all the next day for himself, his wife, the carpenter, and half-a-dozen others; and Mrs. Collins, the swiftest of knitters, whose bench would have been a strange production if she had made it herself, would have made a pair of strong socks for the carpenter in return for the bench. It was therefore agreed on all hands that everyone should find out what he or she could do best, and stick to it. Jack Collins and two others were able to provide the whole company with as much fish and game as they could eat. Mrs. Collins was in great request in consequence of her skill in knitting, mending, and patching. One man, who had been a blacksmith, found that the best thing he could do was to melt down all pieces of old iron, copper, and other metals that were washed up with the wreck, and convert them into nails, saucepans, &c. He was also able to repair the damage done by the unskilful use of the carpenter's tools. Everyone, in fact, found that there was some way in which he or she could be more useful than in others. There were two children, who were always hard at work collecting firewood for the blacksmith and for cooking; and they also searched about on the shore for pieces of the wreck that had copper bolts in them, or any fragments of metal, which the smith was not long in converting into pots and pans.
There was one man who had been a passenger on the ill-fated ship, who was certainly not very well adapted to a Robinson Crusoe life. Mr. Davies, on a desert island, was about as much at home as "a whale in a field of clover." He was a man who had always acted on the principle, that to have a new hat once a week, new lavender kid-gloves every day, innumerable suits of clothes, no one of which he ever wore more than three times, to smoke the most expensive cigars, to drink the rarest wines, to eat the most costly meats, and consume fruits and vegetables only when they were entirely out of season, was good for trade. He now found, however, that this way of encouraging trade was not appreciated by his companions; he expected that the best of everything on the island would be brought to him for his acceptance, and that if he approved it he would have the opportunity of buying it and paying for it with a cheque drawn on a New York banker. His disgust, when his cheques were refused, and when the dainties he coveted became the possession of those who could give either labour or other commodities in return, was amusing to witness. One day hunger overcame his laziness, and he consented to superintend the broiling of a quantity of fish, on condition that he was to share in the eating of the supper. The weather had been stormy, and fishing had been difficult and very unproductive for some time past; when therefore a large haul was made there was a great deal of rejoicing, and everyone promised himself a good supper. Great therefore was the wrath when it was found that Mr. Davies had left the fish on the fire to broil while he went to sleep under a tree, and that consequently it was burnt to a cinder. Everybody was cross, and no one was less so when Mr. Davies excused himself by saying that burning fish was good for trade. He was quite prepared to argue the point, and turning to Collins and the other men who had caught the fish, he said, "You have nothing to complain of; you have sold the fish that is burnt, and have got all kinds of things in exchange for it; and now everybody wants some more, and you will be able to sell twice as much and get twice as many things in return as you would if the first lot had not been spoiled." "According to you then, Davies," said the captain, "the best thing for all of us would be to pitch half of what we are able to scrape together into the fire. Collins would not have found any difficulty in disposing of all the fish he caught to-day. The only effect of your carelessness is, that everybody will have to pay twice over for their supper to-night, and consequently they will be less able to pay for their dinners to-morrow than they would otherwise have been. For instance, the carpenter has been at work all day making clothes'-pegs for Mrs. Collins; he has made two dozen; for one dozen he had bought his share of the fish you have spoiled; now he will have to give the other dozen with which he would have been able to buy his dinner to-morrow. So burning the fish has reduced his power of buying what he wants by the value of what he gave for his supper; and what is true of him is true of everybody who had bought a share in the food you spoiled. He is no better off now than he would have been if he had only made a dozen instead of two dozen clothes'-pegs; so I think the less you say about wasting things being good for trade, the better."
Poor Mr. Davies was a long time before he could get over his notion that the way to make everybody well off was for him to do nothing, and to eat as much as he could, and to destroy the products of his companions' labour as fast as possible. He was only prevented acting on this opinion by the stubborn resistance that was shown to it on the part of his comrades; and he had to learn by degrees that a demand for commodities is not a demand for labour; and that the only demand for labour is that which is ready to supply commodities to the labourer in exchange for those which his toil produces. If you demand commodities, you must supply the labourer who produces them with an equivalent value of some other commodities or services. So demand and supply cannot increase independently of each other. If demand increases, supply must increase at the same time. For instance, if Mrs. Collins wants the carpenter to make her a bedstead, she must supply him with a whole suit of clothes; if her demand increases, and she wants, besides the bedstead, two chairs, she must supply him not only with a suit of clothes, but with a dozen pairs of knitted socks into the bargain. It will be noticed, that if production increases, demand also increases; if, for example, Mrs. Collins finds out a new way of knitting by means of which she can make three pairs of socks in the same time that she previously employed to make two pairs, her power of buying the products of other people's labour is increased 50 per cent. Her demand for these products therefore increases in consequence of the increased productiveness of her own labour. It accordingly happens that general prosperity and an increased demand for commodities nearly always go together; but the increased demand is not the cause of the increased prosperity. On the contrary, the increase of production gives those who benefit by it greater power to purchase the products of other kinds of labour; in other words, increased prosperity makes a greater demand for commodities possible.
As the shipwrecked sailors on the island gradually got cleverer in the work they had undertaken to do, their labour became more productive; and directly their labour was more productive a greater number of things were bought and sold, or exchanged. In other words, when a greater amount of wealth was produced, there was a corresponding increase in the demand for, and the supply of, commodities.
Two or three of the sailors were fortunate enough to find a bag of wheat only slightly damaged by the salt water. As may be imagined, it was most carefully dried in the sun, and every grain was valued much more than if it had been made of solid gold. A favourable piece of ground was looked out; it was then dug by the men who had found the wheat, and when what they all thought the best season for sowing had arrived, the precious grains were carefully deposited in the rich soil. When the first green blades appeared above the ground there was a general feeling of rejoicing. It was many months since anyone on the island had tasted bread; for some time after the shipwreck a plentiful supply of sailors' biscuits had been washed ashore; but these were now all finished, or if any more were found on the beach they were so sodden with salt water that they were quite uneatable. Everyone, therefore, looked forward very eagerly to the time when the wheat would be converted into loaves of bread. The fortunate possessors of the small wheat-field spent nearly all their time in looking after it. In the dry season while the wheat was young, they watered it; and when it was nearly ripe, fearing it would be damaged by the violence of a tropical storm, they erected a strong bamboo fence all round it to protect it from the wind. At last the precious grains were ripe, and, after setting apart a due quantity for seed, it was bartered away at an enormously high value for the possessions and labour of the other inhabitants of the little colony. Everyone very much enjoyed his first bit of bread; but there was no doubt that its flavour was improved by the circumstances under which it was eaten. To tell the truth, it was sour and coarse, and the general remark about it soon was, not "How very nice the bread is," but "There's no doubt it will be much better next season." Nearly everyone had an opinion of his own why the first crop was not a success; one said it was watered too much when it was young; another said the bamboo fence kept the sun off it when it was ripening; another said the earth was not properly prepared. The result of all these differences of opinion was, that about a dozen people laid by part of the wheat they had procured for their own eating, resolving to use it as seed, and grow a crop of their own upon their own principles. The result was a great improvement, both in the quantity and quality of the wheat. Those who planted wheat the second season learnt by the experience of those who had planted it in the first season; and not only was there a yield four times as great, but the grain itself was much better in size and quality. As the seasons succeeded each other the growing of wheat became one of the staple industries of the island; and of course the more was produced the more easy it was to obtain it; that is to say, those who did not grow it for themselves could obtain it in exchange for a much smaller quantity of labour or commodities of their own manufacture than was possible after the first harvest had been gathered in. If the people on the island had carried on their exchanges by the means of money, we should say that the price of wheat went down very rapidly when a greater quantity was grown and when improved methods of cultivation were adopted. As, however, they did not use money, but exchanged commodities for commodities, we cannot speak of price declining; for price means the value of anything measured in money. But we can say that the value of the wheat went down; for value is measured by the rate at which commodities exchange for each other. Exchange without the use of money is called barter; and every schoolboy is familiar with its practice, which he calls "chopping." When we say, therefore, that the value of the wheat declined, it is not meant that the wheat became less useful; value, in political economy, is not determined by usefulness, although if a thing were utterly useless it would have no value whatever; the value of a thing is what you can get in exchange for it; everything therefore that has value must not only be useful in itself, but there must also be some degree of difficulty in obtaining it. The greater this difficulty is, the higher is the value of the commodity. Thus, the difficulty of getting a sea-water bath in your house when you are staying at the sea-side is very small; it consists only of carrying the water a short distance from the sea. The value of the water would therefore be very small. But if you want a sea-water bath in Central Africa, the difficulty in obtaining it would be very great, and the value of the water proportionately increased. The usefulness of the bath in the two places may be imagined to be exactly the same; the difference in value is caused by difference in the difficulty of obtaining it. The value of the wheat therefore gradually declined, because the difficulty of obtaining it became less. This decline in value was a very good thing for the islanders, because it showed that they were able to provide themselves with a staple of food at a smaller cost of labour and self-denial.
When the trade of wheat-growing was firmly established on the island a very important discovery was made by some of the sailors, who had contrived to manufacture a boat for fishing purposes. In the course of one of their fishing expeditions they landed on an adjacent island, and as they had to wait there some time before leaving, for the turn of the tide, they began to look about them to see if they could find anything worth taking home. They were struck by the appearance of some trees which grew in this island in great numbers, but which they had never seen in their own island. These trees were from fifteen to twenty feet high, with immense leaves of a beautiful shining green. Some of the leaves were ten feet long and three feet broad; in the midst of these leaves rose large stems bearing clusters of fruit. Not knowing what these trees were, the sailors were afraid to eat the fruit, but they pulled some down, and wrapping it round with its leaves, they returned to their own island. When they showed it to the captain, he recognized it directly as the fruit of one of the most valuable kinds of plantain trees. Every part of this tree serves some useful purpose in providing food and clothing for man. The fruit can be eaten either ripe or unripe: if it is gathered before it is ripe, it can be peeled, sliced, dried in the sun, and ground to a powder; prepared in this way an excellent flour is obtained, which serves all the purposes of wheat-flour. The ripe fruit is very good raw; and it may also be eaten boiled or roasted, or fried with butter. A very wholesome drink is also made by soaking the fruit in water, something after the manner in which malt is converted into beer. Wine can also be made by fermenting the juice of the fruit. The top of the stalk boiled is a good vegetable; and the fibre of the leaves can be made into strong cloth. It has been calculated that the food-producing power of the plantain is 133 times greater than that of wheat. Its cultivation requires very little labour; it is generally propagated by suckers, which attain their full growth in about ten months after they are planted; and they go on bearing for fifteen or twenty years.
The ease with which these trees could be cultivated, and the number of purposes they were capable of serving, made their discovery the most important event that had taken place since the shipwreck. Calling the whole of the company together, the captain explained to them that they had now a new source of obtaining both food and clothing; that no more labour need be expended in the cultivation of corn; they would be able to provide themselves with a variety of excellent food free of all labour except that of bringing the fruit from the place where it grew to their own island; and he added that they might confidently expect soon to have plantain-trees round their own settlement. A hearty cheer rose from some of the sailors when the captain finished; but he noticed that the cheer was not universal, and looking round he saw that those who did not join in the general rejoicing were men who had given the principal part of their time and labour to the cultivation of corn. Some of these men had ripe crops now standing on the ground, which they had expected presently to be able to exchange for the clothing, fish, game, and other articles procured by the labour of their companions; and it occurred to the captain, when he saw their downcast faces, that there would no longer be any demand for corn when bread could be obtained so much more easily from a plant, the cultivation of which had cost no man either toil or self-denial; and that consequently the discovery of the plantain-trees, though adding so much to the general wealth and prosperity, would be attended by some real suffering on the part of the men who had grown wheat. Just as the captain was thinking of this, one of the principal corn-growers got up and said:—"I consider, sir, that we are going on too fast when we say that finding these trees is such a wonderfully good thing for us all. I and my mates have been slaving away these three years to make corn grow here, and at last we have made it grow. Now, for the protection of native industry, I say you oughtn't to flood our market with food that costs next to nothing, while the food we are able to produce has cost us many a hard day's work, besides involving an immense amount of risk and anxiety. It is impossible our home-grown corn can compete against these foreign plantains; we can't produce food in our own market with four times the labour that it will take to bring the plantains over in the boats. The corn-trade, the principal industry we have, will be completely ruined, and all those engaged in it will lose their ordinary means of supplying their wants. I say, sir, that it would be a much better thing for us to make firewood of every plantain we can find than to destroy the corn-trade, on which so much of our prosperity has hitherto depended."
When he had finished speaking there was a murmur of disapprobation from the majority; but the corn-growers, and those dependent on them, greeted what he said with clapping of hands and other signs of approval. Every eye was now turned on the captain for a reply. He said, "I am not going to deny, and I think no one will deny, that those among us who have ripe corn now in the market will not get in exchange for it what they would have got if these plantain-trees had not been found, and that the labour it has been necessary to give to the cultivation of corn will be needed no longer. But that is not everything that we ought to think of. We do not live to labour, but we labour in order to live—that is, we labour to supply our wants. If our wants can be supplied with a smaller amount of labour than we have hitherto been compelled to give, it is so much the better for us all. We can either labour less and enjoy the same degree of comfort; or we can labour as much as we did before and obtain a larger number of comforts and gratifications. Those who have up to this time given so many weeks and months of labour to the cultivation of corn complain that their labour is now superseded. But this means, that what formerly it took many months of labour to procure can now be obtained as the result of a few hours' exertion. The corn-growers, so far as they are corn-consumers, will profit as much as all the rest of us in obtaining food as an almost free gift, as it were, from nature; every mouthful of bread which they eat in future will represent only a hundredth part of the sacrifice of labour and abstinence which was required to produce the wheaten bread. They will also share to the full the advantage which the discovery of the plantain-tree gives us in obtaining a new beverage, a much needed means of replenishing our clothing, and in preparing a great variety of vegetable food. It is true they will not obtain as much as they expected for their standing crops. But they will obtain something, and the increased wealth with which these plantain-trees have suddenly endowed us will enable us to give more in exchange for what we want than we could otherwise have done. There is no fear that our home-grown wheat will be wasted. As the demand for bread has been satisfied in a cheaper market, let me recommend those who are the possessors of wheat to try if they cannot turn their property to good account, both for themselves and us, by introducing a luxury that we should all very much appreciate; I mean beer. Almost all grain can be turned into malt. Malting is a very simple process; and if when the malt is made, the brewing is successfully carried out, I am sure the value of the beer to its owners will more than compensate them for any inconvenience that they may suffer from being suddenly deprived of their usual means of selling their wheat. If the brewing is a success, the wheat-growers will be able to exchange the beer for the best of everything that we all produce. What would we not give for a good glass of ale after a hard day's work? If it fails, of course there will be a loss to be endured; then the growing of wheat will have to be given up, and those who have till now been our wheat-growers will be able to give their labour to some other industry. Depend upon it, it will not be difficult to find new kinds of paying work; making the fibre of the plantain into cloth will require a vast amount of patient industry, and any labour that can be saved in other employments will be most profitably occupied in weaving, and first of all in manufacturing the necessary apparatus for weaving."
When the captain had finished, the corn-growers still looked very glum. Their loss on their standing crops they thought was certain, and their profits to be made out of brewing and weaving were at present only castles in the air. They soon found, however, that their grumbling was no good; there was no chance of inducing their companions to endure unnecessary privations in order, artificially, to create a market for their wheat;—if they had the power, no doubt they would have passed a law, like the English corn laws, and similar in principle to all measures for the protection of native industry, to prevent the introduction into their island of all food that could be procured at a less cost than the food grown at home. They would have liked to put an import duty on the plantains, so as to raise their price above the price of the home-grown corn; then native industry would be protected and foreign competition effectually excluded. Fortunately, however, they had no power to prevent their neighbours from supplying their wants at the lowest possible cost: i.e., at the least possible sacrifice of labour and self-denial. They were, therefore, compelled to endure what they could not cure. It was impossible for them to deny that the new flour made very good bread, or that the other dishes that were made from the plantain-fruit formed a very pleasant variety in their fare. Some of them began to prepare their wheat for the brewing process which the captain had recommended; but they did this with the air of those who considered themselves very hardly treated. Some of them said they didn't believe it was possible to make malt of anything but barley, and they therefore exchanged their wheat for anything they could get for it. Meanwhile, they began to work at preparing the plantain-fibre for weaving, and before long they succeeded in producing a coarse, but very strong and useful cloth, which they disposed of to their neighbours in exchange for the products of other industry. In less than a year there was not one of the former corn-growers who did not confess, if not to his neighbours, at least to himself, that he had been a great gainer by the discovery of the plantain-trees. The degree of comfort, and even luxury, possessed by everyone on the island had increased fourfold in consequence of finding these friendly trees. Food was now secured to every one almost free of cost; the greater part of the labour that it was formerly necessary to give to obtain daily bread was now set free, and it found new employment in those industries that added to the comfort and enjoyment of life. The growing of wheat was not given up; the brewing was very successful, and, as may be imagined, the beer exchanged at a very high rate of value for other commodities. The wheat-fields, therefore, became as profitable as ever. The brewers were a little jealous at first of the favour with which the plantain-beer and plantain-wine were received; but they gradually learnt that they did not profit by the poverty, but by the prosperity of their neighbours: every discovery or invention that made the community richer made each one among them easier in his circumstances: each one had more time to devote to other kinds of industry; there was, consequently, a greater supply of commodities, and those who possessed this increased supply were anxious to dispose of what they did not require for their own consumption; that is to say, the increased supply led to an increased demand. Hence, the brewers and all the other producers of commodities found that the better off their neighbours were, the brisker was the general demand for commodities, and the greater was the number of exchanges effected.
Some years passed away, and the little colony made rapid progress, not only in riches and industrial skill, but also in numbers. There were several families of young children who had been born since the shipwreck, and who were fast growing up to be men and women. Ten years after the shipwreck it was found, that although they had lost two of their comrades by death, the islanders had increased in numbers from twenty-three to fifty. It is obvious, therefore, that at the end of the ten years, about twice as much food was needed to satisfy daily wants as was required immediately after the shipwreck. It is true that they found food much easier to obtain than they had at first. If there were more mouths to feed, there were also more hands to work; and they had besides had time to find out the best and most profitable way of working. Nevertheless, one result of the increased number of mouths to feed was that food had to be obtained at a proportionately increased sacrifice of time and labour. At first, for instance, the skilful fisherman only went to those pools where the fish were most abundant; and from these, in favourable weather, he could catch enough in a few hours to feed everyone on the island; but now these pools were not such good fishing-ground as they used to be; the stock of fish there had become to a great extent exhausted; and it was necessary, when fish were needed, either to fish for a greater number of hours in these favourite old pools, or to make long and perhaps dangerous journeys to distant fisheries, where the labour of the fisherman was more abundantly rewarded than it now was in the old and easily accessible pools. The fish that were brought home as the result of these distant fishing excursions exchanged for other commodities in proportion to the labour endured and danger incurred by those who procured them. For instance, the carpenter at the end of the ten years had to give a greater value of the articles he produced, in exchange for a meal of fish, than he had when first he began to live by his carpentering. The danger and difficulty of fishing had increased; there was no danger in the carpenter's work, and its difficulty had been reduced by the adoption of various means of saving labour, and by improvements in the tools. Therefore, at the end of the ten years, the products of the carpenter's and the fisherman's labour exchanged in a different proportion to that at which they had exchanged at first. The carpenter's work had become less costly; the fish had become more costly; so that an amount of fish which the carpenter could once obtain in exchange for half-a-dozen washerwomens' clothes-pegs, or a couple of broom-handles, he could not now purchase, except by offering what had cost him twice as much labour—such as a child's stool, or a pair of oars. The same difference in relative value occurred in other industries. Speaking generally, all the food-producing industries became more and more costly; that is to say, to obtain a given amount of food, it became necessary to give a greater amount of labour and sacrifice, and in some cases to incur a greater amount of danger; whereas in the manufacturing industries cost either remained stationary or was actually reduced. In a given number of hours of labour, the carpenter, for instance, produced as much now as he did ten years ago; in a given number of hours of labour, those who wove the plantain-fibre into cloth, produced half as much again as they did when they first applied themselves to the work. This resulted from the improved appliances which they now brought to their industry, and also to the greater skill with which the fibre was prepared for weaving. Fishing was not the only trade that had become less productive in proportion to the amount of labour expended upon it; in a less degree, the same increase of cost had affected the value of the staple product of the island, the plantain. At first, when the plantains were discovered, the islanders only used the fruit of those trees that were in the most convenient situations. They did not row ten miles for their plantain grove, when they could find an equally productive one by rowing five. They did not trouble to gather the smaller fruits, when they could fill their baskets so much more quickly by gathering only the larger specimens. By and by, however, they found that the nearest plantations were beginning to be less productive; then some of the men whose business it was to gather plantains went further away in search of new plantations, and those who remained filled their baskets with the smaller fruit, which at first had not been worth the trouble of gathering. After this, fears were felt by the islanders that they were using up their stock of food too rapidly, and that precautions should be taken to prevent a scarcity in future years. Then a large piece of ground in the most favourable situation was cleared, and plantain suckers were put in, to form a new plantation. Afterwards the same process was repeated on a piece of ground less favourably situated; and so it happened that the amount of labour necessary to procure a certain quantity of plantains steadily and necessarily increased. And as the labour of procuring food increased, whilst the labour of producing manufactured commodities either remained stationary or was reduced, the exchange value of food compared with manufactured articles steadily increased. It is no doubt true that the cost of obtaining food would have tended to increase, if the numbers of the colony had remained the same. They would still have gathered their plantains at first in those places where they could be found with least trouble, and as these best places began to be used up they would find that the same amount of food could only be obtained through a greater amount of labour than was at first necessary. In fishing, they would have gone first to the nearest and fullest pools; and it is probable that by degrees they would find that they must either fish for a greater number of hours, or move to more distant fisheries, if they wished to obtain as much as they did at first. It is evident, however, that this diminishing productiveness of food-producing industries (and of all "extractive" industries, under which term are included agriculture, mining, and fishing) is made much more rapid than it otherwise would be by an increasing population. Another thing was observed by those whose business it was to bring to the island a sufficient supply of plantains. Doubling the amount of labour engaged in gathering the plantains did not even at first double the quantity of fruit they were able to bring home. At first, five men were able in two hours to gather as many plantains as would fill their boat. But they could not in four hours gather enough to fill two boats. Because, in the first two hours, they would gather the largest, and those that were most easily reached. In the second two hours, they had to gather smaller specimens, and those that grew in places where they were not so quickly reached. If you took four boys to a cherry-tree, and told them they might have as many cherries as they could gather in twenty minutes, they would get in that time many more than four other boys who were allowed to attack the tree afterwards for the same time and on the same conditions. The first party of boys would gather all the cherries that could be most easily and quickly reached; the second party would have to climb to the topmost branches and strip off every tiny fruit. So it was with our islanders and their plantains: every succeeding year an additional quantity of food was required, and it had to be procured at a constantly increasing cost of labour. It may perhaps be thought that as the labour necessary to supply a given quantity of the plantain fruit steadily increased, and thereby increased the cost of obtaining food, therefore the cost of obtaining clothing must also have increased, as the cloth used on the island was made of the plantain fibre. It is true that the cost of the fibre did increase, for the same reason that the cost of the fruit increased; but the cost of the cloth, that is, the number of hours of labour necessary from first to last to produce a piece of cloth, was actually reduced. Only a very small part of the labour necessary to make the cloth consisted in bringing the fibre from the place where it grew to the place where it was manufactured; nineteen-twentieths of the labour required to produce cloth was engaged in preparing the raw fibre, and in weaving it after this preparatory process was complete. A few years' experience in these manufacturing industries caused such an improvement in the implements used, and in the skill with which they were handled, that although the labour of procuring the raw fibre had increased, the total labour of producing a piece of cloth had very much diminished, and its exchange value was therefore proportionately reduced.
There is nothing more about the little colony that I can remember, except that after being on the island for twenty years, they were visited by H.M.S. Leo, the captain of which offered to take away half the colony in his vessel, and to send for the other half in a few months. Only twelve of them, however, wished to leave at all. The others thanked the captain, but said they didn't wish to leave their island and begin life over again on the other side of the world. The visit of the ship, however, was a splendid thing for the colony, for the captain gave them a number of things which they could not otherwise have procured. Amongst these were two guns, powder, and shot, a quantity of old iron, a case of books, writing-paper, pens and ink; and last, but most important of all, two pigs, two goats, two sheep, and some fowls. Captain Adam was one of the twelve who went away in the Leo. He brought letters to England to the relations of those who were left on the island. When I saw him he was thinking of going back to it himself to end his life there; he says he has never felt quite at home since he left it; he thinks that if he took out with him machinery and tools, and a few skilled artisans, the island might soon become one of the richest and most flourishing settlements in the world.