On Revenues | Page 7

of buying and selling; and thirdly,
public lodging-houses for persons visiting the city. Again, supposing
dwelling-houses and stores for vending goods were fitted up for retail
dealers in Piraeus and the city, they would at once be an ornament to
the state and a fertile source of revenue. Also it seems to me it would
be a good thing to try and see if, on the principle on which at present
the state possesses public warships, it would not be possible to secure
public merchant vessels, to be let out on the security of guarantors just
like any other public property. If the plan were found feasible this
public merchant navy would be a large source of extra revenue.
[25] Reading, with Zurborg, {epi one te}.

IV
I come to a new topic. I am persuaded that the establishment of the
silver mines on a proper footing[1] would be followed by a large
increase in wealth apart from the other sources of revenue. And I would
like, for the benefit of those who may be ignorant, to point out what the
capacity of these mines really is. You will then be in a position to
decide how to turn them to better account. It is clear, I presume, to

every one that these mines have for a very long time been in active
operation; at any rate no one will venture to fix the date at which they
first began to be worked.[2] Now in spite of the fact that the silver ore
has been dug and carried out for so long a time, I would ask you to note
that the mounds of rubbish so shovelled out are but a fractional portion
of the series of hillocks containing veins of silver, and as yet
unquarried. Nor is the silver-bearing region gradually becoming
circumscribed. On the contrary it is evidently extending in wider area
from year to year. That is to say, during the period in which thousands
of workers[3] have been employed within the mines no hand was ever
stopped for want of work to do. Rather, at any given moment, the work
to be done was more than enough for the hands employed. And so it is
to-day with the owners of slaves working in the mines; no one dreams
of reducing the number of his hands. On the contrary, the object is
perpetually to acquire as many additional hands as the owner possibly
can. The fact is that with few hands to dig and search, the find of
treasure will be small, but with an increase in labour the discovery of
the ore itself is more than proportionally increased. So much so, that of
all operations with which I am acquainted, this is the only one in which
no sort of jealousy is felt at a further development of the industry.[4] I
may go a step farther; every proprietor of a farm will be able to tell you
exactly how many yoke of oxen are sufficient for the estate, and how
many farm hands. To send into the field more than the exact number
requisite every farmer would consider a dead loss.[5] But in silver
mining [operations] the universal complaint is the want of hands.
Indeed there is no analogy between this and other industries. With an
increase in the number of bronze-workers articles of bronze may
become so cheap that the bronze-worker has to retire from the field.
And so again with ironfounders. Or again, in a plethoric condition of
the corn and wine market these fruits of the soil will be so depreciated
in value that the particular husbandries cease to be remunerative, and
many a farmer will give up his tillage of the soil and betake himself to
the business of a merchant, or of a shopkeeper, to banking or
money-lending. But the converse is the case in the working of silver;
there the larger the quantity of ore discovered and the greater the
amount of silver extracted, the greater the number of persons ready to
engage in the operation. One more illustration: take the case of

movable property. No one when he has got sufficient furniture for his
house dreams of making further purchases on this head, but of silver no
one ever yet possessed so much that he was forced to cry "enough." On
the contrary, if ever anybody does become possessed of an immoderate
amount he finds as much pleasure in digging a hole in the ground and
hoarding it as in the actual employment of it. And from a wider point of
view: when a state is prosperous there is nothing which people so much
desire as silver. The men want money to expend on beautiful armour
and fine horses, and houses, and sumptuous paraphenalia[6] of all sorts.
The women betake