The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they are rapidly filling up. Already provisions are becoming dearer. ‘The recent talk about the higher cost of living refers to some temporary phenomena, such as increased output of gold, or undue exactions of middlemen; but along with these is a permanent cause, the rising ratio of the demand to the means of supply. Land is on this account beginning again to rise in value. It will no doubt soon be the safest invest- ment, and, unless we be careful, it will be bought in large parcels by the rich and we too shall have our Jatifundia. This will happen in spite, and even in consequence, of the soil’s diminishing fertility, if its renovation be not properly at- tended to. As for the permanent stores of minerals under- ground, which can be tapped only once and are then exhausted, these, as we have seen, are now being drawn upon more prodigally than ever before and at an ever increasing rate, their total amounts have been measured, and the time of their incipient exhaustion predicted. Coal and iron and the other metals will then be obtainable only with greater cost of labour, they will be scarcer and scarcer, and their esteem-value will cer- tainly rise. The same will be the case with those slow-grow- ing products of the soil the renewal of which is only after many years of waiting—the forests. Before long even in our country wood will give place, in the construction of houses, to brick and concrete and: stone. Substitutes, indeed, are at hand for most things; but in most cases they are more expen- sive than the originals. Science may discover some as cheap, even cheaper, in a few instances. Hopes of alleviation may be placed in new chemical combinations and mechanical contriv- ances, but not of prevention. The most common effect of in- ventions is to increase our wants and thereby accelerate our drawing upon nature’s resources. The economies effected by science can at best but retard the deficiency of material sup- lies. ‘ Hard times, then, are ahead, not immediately perhaps (when the present chaos is ended), but certainly before many years, at most a couple of generations or so. A return will set in of the re-active pressure of nature upon mankind. Mankind will again be restive under it. They will not live in the peace and concord dreamt of in consequence of the peace and concord experienced during the last century of augmented supplies.