SPEED THE PLOUGH.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Srs,—Mr. Green in his reply to my letter on the above subject, in your issue of September 9th, states that the interest on American loans is a dead lose to the nation, and he assumes that we should get the same average yield per acre from nine million acres as we now get from two mi lion ; and, further, that for our Government to undertake the reclamation of waste land must increase the prosperity of the country. From the foregoing I see clearly that Mr. Green has made the deplorably usual mistake of assuming that common-sense is an adequate mental equipment with which to attack economic problems. To convince him that this is an error I would point out that common-sense would lead one to believe that to replace hand labour by machinery must inevitably reduce the demand for labour. That this is not so has, I believe, come to be acknowledged by all intelligent men, whether they be economists or not. Here we see definitely that common-sense is at fault, but if we, in studying economic problems, substitute for common-sense our reason, we find that such problems are susceptible of definite solution and are not controversial at all I am confident that if Mr. Green will spend a few hours studying a simple school primer on political economy, he will either see clearly that the assertion and assumptions he makes in his letter are all wrong; or else he will come to the conclusion that he has no aptitude for the subject, and that it is consequently wrong and unpatriotic of him to try to influence the opinions of others.—I am,
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