Essential mark of the consumption of goods.

1. Economic consumption is the enjoyment of the utilities which wealth is capable of affording. All wealth looks toward consumption. To take away the prospect of the enjoyment of goods is to take away all their value. Consumption involves generally the using up of a thing. Pood is consumed quickly, clothing more slowly, and houses wear out after many years. The using up is, in some cases, due to the forces of nature, and is not hastened by enjoyment. A house goes to ruin more rapidly if uninhabited than with a careful tenant; clothing is destroyed more quickly by moths than by wear. The use of many goods that give esthetic pleasures, as art, painting, sculpture, and the enjoyment of fine scenery or of beautiful building sites, does not destroy the things that afford the pleasure. The idea that all value originates in labor has led to false views on this question. The essential mark of consumption is the using of the income as it arises, not necessarily the using up of the material agents that afford it, though this frequently occurs as well.

Consumers' choice as influencing value.

2. The kind of consumption affects the value of material agents. Each buyer helps to determine the use of productive agents. The control of purchasing power means the potential control of industry to that degree. It was necessary in discussing the enterpriser to recognize that the buyer eventually dictates the direction of industry; the enterpriser seeks to produce that for which there is most demand. A change of taste affects the value of natural agents. An increase in the demand for meat affects the value of wheat and potatoes, and also the land used for producing them. A change in the national diet may be equivalent to the discovery or to the destruction of half a continent. If one chooses to drink wine instead of buying statuary, he increases the value of vineyards and decreases that of marble quarries: If one drinks beer, he bids for barley; if he eats candy, he may be offering a bounty for beets. Therefore, choosing vines or violets, pictures or pretzels, each with his nickel helps to determine what shall be produced.

The distribution of wealth thus affects the value of agents. The wealthy spend relatively more for luxuries, the poor for food and other essentials. Where wealth and incomes are very nearly equally distributed, the demand of different families will be for much the same kinds of goods. If there were no rich men, the demand for vineyards producing fine wines' would be less. The very best qualities of goods take on the highest prices when there is a small, but very wealthy, class of purchasers.

Inventions often shift demand, and value follows. The invention of the bicycle with pneumatic tires, coincident with the adoption of electric traction for street cars, reduced the price of horses between 1890 and 1895. This doubtless was a factor in agricultural land values at that time. This change was sudden, extreme, and temporary, and there has since been a gradual adjustment and a return to the former values.

Inventions influencing value.

3. The production of the next period may he radically affected by the use now made of agents. Some consumption takes the form of using up and reducing the stock of wealth. The demand for lumber causes the* disappearance of the forests, whereas the demand for oranges stimulates the planting of orange trees. The reckless exploitation of natural resources leaves society poorer. Great herds of buffalo were slaughtered to get the hides, which were of comparatively slight value. Rich land has been exhausted to get a few harvests.

Consumers' choice as affecting productive forces.

War is a use of wealth for ends believed at the time to be necessary and believed to forward social welfare better in the long run than would dishonorable. submission; but it causes misery and leaves industry prostrate. The forms taken by saving are affected by the choice of expenditure. In war the savings of individuals are given to the government and used for destructive purposes. The lender parts with his wealth and society uses it up. While the lender has a claim on the industry and on the remaining property of the community, society as a whole is the poorer. If the savings had taken the form of public buildings, libraries, railroads, and factories, the wealth and income of society as a whole would have been enhanced.

Consumers' choice as affecting wages.

4. The kind of consumption affects the wages of the various classes of labor. That an increase in the supply of a given grade of labor reduces its wages and encourages its use, and vice versa, is a truth that became familiar in the study of wages. An influence also is exerted from the side of goods upon the price of labor. A shift of demand from one kind of goods to another depresses the wage of the one kind of labor and raises that of the other. A low grade cf labor that performs only simple tasks, and those but badly, is injured if demand shifts to better products. Back of the sweat-shop shirt is the problem of the inefficient worker. Progress takes place by the effort of labor to increase its efficiency and to move into higher paid callings, and at the same time by the desire of the purchaser to buy as good a quality as he can.

The consumer's responsibility.

Every buyer then determines in some degree the direction of industry. The market is a democracy where every penny gives a right of vote. It is the thought of the society called "The Consumers' League" that through purchases, pressure may be brought to bear upon the employer to provide better conditions of work. The members of The Consumers' League refuse to buy goods not made under sanitary conditions. Undoubtedly there is here a great economic force which an enlightened public opinion, even without a formal association, can make in large measure effective. Every individual may organize a consumer's league, leaguing himself with the powers of righteousness. Will he read a yellow journal or a pink or a white one ? A nickel or two will buy either. He* has a dollar; will he go to the theater or buy ten dishes of ice-cream? He decides to buy a book, and more type and paper are made, and more printers are employed; he subscribes to foreign missions and Christian workers penetrate farther into Africa. Every purchase has far-reaching consequences. You may spend your monthly allowance as an agent of iniquity or of truth. You cannot escape a choice even by burying the money, for that is either a demand for gold or a gift to the issuer of paper currency.