JUDGE WILLIAM W. PORTER
into being, while Art and flowers flourished on earth long before Cain killed Abel, or Moses received the Tables of the law; they are coeval with the blue and starry heavens.
But on the score of finance we are irreconcilable. A true disciple of Adam Smith, the Judge will persist in contemplating wealth in terms of bricks and mortar, while my contention is that wealth today is merely a written promise to pay, based on earning capacity. He and his school say that shells burst in warfare are not only wealth wasted, but wealth destroyers. While admitting that they destroy life and property, they serve the same purpose as wealth producers as flowers do that are sold by the florist at ten dollars a dozen, and in a day or two are blown away and consigned to the dustbin. But the florist has booked them, just as Dupont books his powder and shot; and if we trace back to its source the labour expended upon raw materials in the production of flowers and shells, we shall be astonished at the similarity of the steps and processes involved. Before 1914 the Chancellor of the Exchequer found it difficult to raise for his Budget the sum of two hundred millions of pounds. To-day the surplus is more than that, and the revenue required is one billion of pounds—think of it! five billions of dollars! Where did it come from? From making shells and guns, boots and shoes, and food—all of which have been consumed by soldiers, and of which some broken remnants are dumped about, marring the landscape. That money could have built a hundred marble cities roofed in gold. It still is there on books as debts—for some men thought, and other men worked for it. Most wealth is earned by men who think and men who serve, not merely by men who labour with their hands to produce bricks, mortar, and houses. And the men who
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