56

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

meaning  in  the  conception.  What  is  it  ?
What  is  the  sense,  it  has  been  asked,  of
saying  that  an  income  of  £100  a  year  is  worth
£1,000  ?—for  that  is  in  effect  what  we  should
say.  Dr.  Marshall’s  answer  is  to  my  mind
complete  and  convincing  :—
“  Of  what  avail  is  it  to  say  that  the  utility
of  an  income  of  (say)  £100  a  year  is  worth
{say)  £1,000  a  year  ?  There  would  be  no  avail
in  saying  that.  But  there  might  be  use,  when
comparing  life  in  Central  Africa  with  life  in
England,  in  saying  that,  though  the  things
which  money  will  buy  in  Central  Africa  may
on  the  average  be  as  cheap  there  as  here,  yet
there  are  so  many  things  which  cannot  be
bought  there  at  all,  that  a  person  with  a
thousand  a  year  there  is  not  so  well  off  as  a
person  with  three  or  four  hundred  a  year  here.
If  a  man  pays  a  penny  toll  on  a  bridge,  which
saves  him  an  additional  drive  that  would  cost  a
shilling,  we  do  not  say  that  the  penny  is  worth
a  shilling,  but  that  the  penny  together  with
the  advantage  offered  him  by  the  bridge  (the
part  it  plays  in  his  conjuncture)  is  worth  a
shilling  on  that  day.  Were  the  bridge  swept
away  on  a  day  on  which  he  needed  it,  he  would
foe  in  at  least  as  bad  a  position  as  if  he  had
been  deprived  of  elevenpence.”