DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0218
202 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
circumstances will cripple the country for more than fifty years to
come, and for having carried as its inevitable consequence a Pro-
tective tariff injurious to colonial progress and unfriendly to the
country which has guaranteed, often at great expense, the infancy
of the colony, this worthless and ignorant adventurer is rewarded
with the dignity of a knighthood in the Order of St.
Michael and St. George. I know no greater evil that has be-
fallen the British colonies than the habit they have of listening
to those who dwell on the boundless and undeveloped resources
of the colony. Undeveloped resources are not resources at all.
They are like the strength or the intellect of a child, and to
anticipate them, by treating them as actual when they are only
hypothetically potential, is as profound an act of folly, as it is
for a private individual to launch into limitless expenditure in
the hope that at some future time he may come into a fortune.
Most of our colonies have succumbed to these temptations, and
some of them are already half ruined. Pessanum genus inimi-
corum laudentcs, says Tacitus. Mr. Mill has touched on this
form of waste.
Rest and recreation are not waste. Neither is the moderate
indulgence in refined pleasures. We cannot always trace the
extent to which industrial energies are invigorated by these
relaxations, but we may generally conclude that as long as they
are invigorated, the expenditure is economically defensible. On
the other hand, indulgences which do not and cannot have this
esfect are waste. So is also the employment of unnecessary
intermediaries. In the early days of economic science, when
laissez /aire was so supreme, that it had almost adopted the
maxim that whatever is is best, the defence of these multiplied
intermediaries who get but do not make wealth, was taken for
granted. In the latter days of unchecked competition, which you
will remember always goes on between nations, however much
it may be denounced in the domestic life of a people, the useful-
ness of these people is increasingly challenged. It is being seen
that many of them are mere waste, and we are told on many sides
that the true producer and his ultimate customer are seriously
mulcted by the number of hands, each claiming a commission
though which the produce passes before it reaches its destination.
circumstances will cripple the country for more than fifty years to
come, and for having carried as its inevitable consequence a Pro-
tective tariff injurious to colonial progress and unfriendly to the
country which has guaranteed, often at great expense, the infancy
of the colony, this worthless and ignorant adventurer is rewarded
with the dignity of a knighthood in the Order of St.
Michael and St. George. I know no greater evil that has be-
fallen the British colonies than the habit they have of listening
to those who dwell on the boundless and undeveloped resources
of the colony. Undeveloped resources are not resources at all.
They are like the strength or the intellect of a child, and to
anticipate them, by treating them as actual when they are only
hypothetically potential, is as profound an act of folly, as it is
for a private individual to launch into limitless expenditure in
the hope that at some future time he may come into a fortune.
Most of our colonies have succumbed to these temptations, and
some of them are already half ruined. Pessanum genus inimi-
corum laudentcs, says Tacitus. Mr. Mill has touched on this
form of waste.
Rest and recreation are not waste. Neither is the moderate
indulgence in refined pleasures. We cannot always trace the
extent to which industrial energies are invigorated by these
relaxations, but we may generally conclude that as long as they
are invigorated, the expenditure is economically defensible. On
the other hand, indulgences which do not and cannot have this
esfect are waste. So is also the employment of unnecessary
intermediaries. In the early days of economic science, when
laissez /aire was so supreme, that it had almost adopted the
maxim that whatever is is best, the defence of these multiplied
intermediaries who get but do not make wealth, was taken for
granted. In the latter days of unchecked competition, which you
will remember always goes on between nations, however much
it may be denounced in the domestic life of a people, the useful-
ness of these people is increasingly challenged. It is being seen
that many of them are mere waste, and we are told on many sides
that the true producer and his ultimate customer are seriously
mulcted by the number of hands, each claiming a commission
though which the produce passes before it reaches its destination.