Of Capital. 25
in the employment of unproductive labourers, instead of consuming it unproductively. Although therefore we believe that too much importance can scarcely be attri- buted to the fact that those who save wealth rather than those who spend wealth are the best friends of the labourer; yet it is perhaps better in stating the principle not to adopt the somewnat paradoxical assertion that a demand for commodities is not a demand for labour. Such a form of expression has, we consider, often induced political economists to lay too much stress on the difference in the effects produced by employing wealth in the payment of wages to unproductive labourers or in the purchase of commodities which are unproduc- tively consumed. The difference should be made to rest not simply upon using wealth in the payment of wages, but upon the circumstance of whether or not it is so reproductively employed that as the result of its con- sumption a greater amount of wealth is created than that which is consumed.
In the course of this chapter it has been frequently remarked that capital is wealth which has been appro- priated to assist future production. Wealth so appropri- ated consists of machinery, stock, implements, and a fund out of which the wages of the labourers are provided; but the capital of the country is not always employed at the greatest advantage, or, in other words, the capital of a country might always administer to the production of a greater quantity of wealth than is actually produced. Capital is wasted through want of skill; inferior machinery is frequently used; industrial enterprises, after having involved a heavy outlay, are often finally abandoned. Wealth which is used as capital, from other reasons, too, never contributes all the assistance it might to the production of wealth. The wages of labourers paid out of capital are generally sufficient to provide some- thing more than the necessaries of life. The worst-paid classes of labourers probably spend some small portion of their wages in luxuries, the consumption of which does not assist, but perhaps rather interferes with, the efficiency of their labour. The advocates of Temperance furnish abundant statistics upon this point. We are assured that the working-men of this countiy annually
BOOKL CH. IV. Capital a- Jrequenily^ waiudor employed^ in^ec-
tivdy,.