54

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

inasmuch  as  the  supply  price  (apart  from  the
tax)  of  the  smaller  quantity  is  higher  than
that  of  the  larger  quantity.  The  price  being
thus  doubly  elevated,  consumers’  surplus  is
doubly  sacrificed.
One  minor  difficulty  arising  out  of  the
conception  that  a  surplus  as  above  explained
is  met  with  in  consumption,  may  be  at  once
stated  and  removed.  It  is  derived  from  the
fact  that  the  initial  demands  for  absolute
necessities  of  life  are  indefinitely  high.  Anybody, ­
  for  example,  would  be  ready  to  give
all  that  he  had  for  a  little  water  rather  than
die  of  thirst.  In  cases  of  this  character,  in
reckoning  consumers’  surplus  we  must  leave
out  initial  demands  ;  but  only  very  few  of
the  particular  things  that  we  purchase  happen
to  be  strictly  essential  to  the  maintenance  of
life.
The  reader  will  not,  of  course,  allow  himself
to  fancy  that  consumer’s  surplus  exists
anywhere  as  a  separable  sum  of  something
which  can  be  pointed  to  as  the  surplus  and
labelled  as  such.  The  bare  idea  is  ridiculous  ;
and  did  it  in  any  sense  correspond  with  fact
consumer’s  surplus  would  have  been  discovered
ages  ago.  It  is  on  the  contrary  hidden  in
experience  as  the  ether  around  us—if  it  exist
—is  hidden  in  everything.  The  consumer’s