222

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

account.  Evidently  a  producer’s  surplus  is
normally  yielded  by  every  kind  of  work.
What  is  the  good  of  the  conception  ?  It
furnishes  us  with  a  clear-cut  notion  of  an
important  part  of  the  national  income  of
utility  which  we  should  otherwise  be  in  danger
of  overlooking,  and  moreover  provides  us  with
a  theoretical  (which  may  become  a  practical)
means  of  measuring  it.  It  is  imperative  that
in  directing  progress  the  influence  of  different
courses  of  action  on  the  real,  though  intangible,
income  represented  by  producer’s  surplus
should  not  be  lost  sight  of,  as  it  is  only  too
apt  to  be.
In  this  discussion  we  have  come  in  touch
with  the  problem  of  the  hours  of  labour,  as
regards  which  it  must  now  suffice  to  say  that,
in  the  settlement  of  the  duration  of  the  normal
day’s  work,  wages,  the  marginal  dissatisfaction
of  working,  the  effect  of  different  hours  of
labour  on  productivity  and  on  the  producer’s
surplus  of  the  operative,  and  the  utility  of
capital  in  relation  to  the  proportion  of  time
that  it  is  idle,  all  play  a  part;  but  not  all
of  them  such  a  part  as  they  ought  to  play.
Having  noted  so  much,  we  may  pass  on  to  the
equally  practical  and  urgent  question  of  the
bearing  of  an  extensive  use  of  capital  on