Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the Dominions and Colonies—in fact± consolidate the various interests of the Empire in a practical form, the money must be raised, and I am confident thatj if we have confidence ourselves in the proposals, the peoples of the Dominions and Colonies will come forward and assist us. " For he who grasps the problem as a whole Has calmed the storm that rages in his soul." J. TAYLOR PEDDIE. N.B.—The sum of One Shilling is being charged for this Book, the whole of the profits of which will be devoted to the needs of the Institute.—J. T. P. BASIS OF NATIONAL ECONOMICS. FIRST PRINCIPLES OF PRODUCTION. The longer we live the more do we recognise that the earning of a living is the main object of human activity. Higher culture is a secondary consideration; man is only ready for culture when his primary wants are satisfied. Faith, hope, and charity are foreign to a hungry man—a fact often overlooked by the prosperous. It is this aspect of human nature that affords an opportunity to Socialists, that gives strength to their movement, that enables them to create bitterness between class and class. And who shall blame the hungry man who adopts Socialism as a creed, if he finds that under existing conditions he cannot secure the basis of all human existence—the earning of a living? But it by no means follows that the hungry man is a good judge of what is the best remedy for the ills which he suffers. The State that encourages its citizens to depend upon social legislation for subsistence, instead of upon individual initiative, is embarking upon a policy fatal alike to itself and the individuals for whom such legislation is intended. Social legislation of that kind is not a force which helps to build up a man's character, nor does it stimulate that independence of thought so ess...