consumption. Capital, in its true sense, would almost cease to exist. If, under these circumstances, property were accumulated, as no doubt it still would be, through the influence of the strong natural passion for accumulation which exists in most minds, it would be hoarded in the form of substances that could be kept by their owners without injury, but without utility-gold, jewels, plate, pictures, furniture,

'Rich stuffs and ornaments of household.'

And, in fact, in barbarous ages, when there existed a prejudice against the taking of interest on property lent, these were the forms exclusively assumed by accumulated wealth. The owner of such treasures might, perhaps, occasionally gloat over them with a miserly satisfaction, but still with less gratification than if they had been increasing through their productive employmentwhile to none but himself could they be of any service whatever. And thus they remained locked up in chests and closets, without contributing in any degree to the benefit of any person-until, perhaps, the strong temptation they offered to the cupidity of the robber or the tyrant caused the destruction of their possessor, and the dispersion of his treasure into other hands-there to stagnate as uselessly to the mass of mankind.

But when freedom is afforded to the employment of capital, and security to the enjoyment of its returns--when no impediment is offered by mistaken legislation, grasping tyranny, or vulgar prejudice, to the voluntary and mutually beneficial agreement of two parties, one of which is desi

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rous of productively using for a season what the other has painfully produced or saved by a sacrifice of present ease or enjoyment-the self-same passion for accumulation induces every one who is able to save, instead of hoarding his savings in these unprofitable shapes, to give them the form of tools, buildings, machinery, raw materials, and food-objects which he can lend out to labourers for employment in production, on the condition of receiving for their use, a share of the increase of wealth they assist the latter in producing. In this way the miser of former days is converted into the employer of labour, and the promoter of every useful and valuable branch of industry And thus those selfish feelings of our nature which prompt to the increase and accumulation of wealth-not as a means merely, but an end-become in the highest degree serviceable to the common interest, and are enlisted in the cause of the general happiness. The miser of the present day may yet, like his prototype in the dark ages, gloat over his wealth; but he now keeps it by him, in the form, not of gold ingots, jewels, and costly stuffs but of bills, bonds, and securities, the representatives of that substantial wealth, which, instead of rotting in close coffers, is employed in the hands of ceaseless industry, levelling the forest, and cultivating the plain, quarrying the mine, giving motion to the loom, and ploughing the ocean,-taking a thousand shapes, perhaps, but in each aiding man to avail himself of the prolific powers of nature, and multiply his means of subsistence and enjoyment. True it is, this capital would produce no increase without the skill

and labour of those who employ it;-but it is equally true that their skill and labour would produce nothing,-nay, that they could not even maintain their existence, without the capital which they employ, and that by which they are maintained while at work. The wealth which is produced by the union of capital with skill and labour, is evidently, as we have already said, the joint property of the owners of the capital and of the skilled labour. Each has contributed to its production, and each has a right to a share of it. If the capitalist were to be unjustly denied his share, accumulated property would thenceforth never take the form of capital; except that small portion which each man could employ by himself and for his own immediate purposes.

All this seems so obvious to the most ordinary capacity as hardly to be worth dwelling upon. And yet there are persons who still,-in the present light of civilization, in the nineteenth century, and in the midst of all the evidence which is afforded, wherever we turn our eyes, of the prodigious part which capital is playing in the production of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of human life,-declaim against capital as the poison of society, and the taking of interest on capital by its owners, as an abuse, an injustice, a robbery of the class of labourers!* Such blindness is to me truly unaccountable. That those who observe the prevalence of great misery among the inferior classes of workmen in this and other

*See Hodgskin's Popular Political Economy, 'Labour defended against the Claims of Capital,' and other works of the same author,

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wealthy countries,-who witness and deplore the fact, that in spite of all the manifold improvements which are continually adding to the productiveness of labour, the share of the gross production which falls to the common labourer does not increase-perhaps even diminishes-that, on viewing this anomaly, they should conclude something to be wrong in the arrangements which at present determine the distribution of the wealth produced in great part by labour-is no source of astonishment to me, for I arrive at the same necessary conclusion from the same observation. But that any sane person should attribute the evil to the existence of capital-that is, to the employment of wealth in aiding the production of further wealth, instead of being unproductively consumed, almost, if not quite, as fast as it is created, or unproductively hoarded to satisfy the lust of the miser-is indeed wonderful. Why, without capital, this island would not afford subsistence to a hundredth part of its present population. Destroy the security for the free enjoyment or disposal of capital,-deny its owner the privilege of accepting what any one may find it for his advantage to give for its use-and every individual will be reduced at once to his unaided resources. He will find nowhere any store of food on which to live while he is digging, and sowing, and protecting his immature crop, no stock of tools with which to work, or of clothes and other necessaries of existence. All trades would stop at once, for every trade is carried on by means of capital. Men would at once be reduced to the isolation and helplessness of barbarism.

But, perhaps, it is in the imagination of these schemers, that there should not be a general destruction, but only a general division, of the capital at present existing, among the present race of labourers; so that each, it is thought, would, for some time at least, be provided with a stock of food, clothes, and tools, with which to continue the business of production. We suppose something like this is contemplated. But, putting out of sight the injustice, confusion, and attendant horrors of the frightful scramble which is here disguised under the smooth name of a general division of property-(a scramble which, in the extremely complicated and artificial state of society characterizing this country, must be attended with infinitely more violence, convulsion, and disturbance, than any political catastrophe on record,)—how, we must beg to ask, is production to go on afterwards? In a very short time, a large part of the population-all the idle-and in such a crisis there can be but little industry-will have consumed their share of the plunder in riot and excess. Admitting that others have gone to work industriously in the production of the things they require, each for himself-have ploughed and sown, and spun and wove, have stored corn in their granaries, and cattle in their homesteads, and fuel and clothing and comforts of various kinds in their lofts, and cellars, and warehouses,-what is to become of all that large body who, having squandered away their share of the general booty, will have no means left of maintenance? Heps and haws cannot last them long. It is clear that one of two things must occur. Either they will, if