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greater produce, than in one of equal extent and equally good ground, but not furnished with equal conveniences."* But these are all parts and portions of capital; and the additional work they enable the labourers to perform, above what they could do without those conveniences, is wholly to be ascribed to this instrument of production. Let any one then think but for a moment, and calculate in his mind, how much of this sort of capital is existent in Britain at the present time, and he may acquire some adequate notion of its magnitude, and of the saving of labour, or assistance given to the labourers, by this single species of capital in this department.

Under this head also come mines and fisheries; the former of which could not be worked at all, and the latter could not be successfully prosecuted, or prosecuted to any extent, without capitals. Almost the whole produce, therefore, in these two employments might be ascribed to capital; but as a certain number of labourers are also necessary, they must also come in for a share of the produce. But all that part of the produce which is over and above what pays the whole of the labourers who are anywise concerned in the business may fairly be claimed as the produce and reward of capital.

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II. How vitally manufactures depend upon capital, and in what measure the magnitude of production in this department is owing to the use of proper engines, machinery, &c., needs hardly to be stated. The buildings necessary, and the whole machinery, materials, &c., are all capitals; and the amount in Great Britain invested in these forms, as well as the amount of production, or saving of labour under this head, is altogether incalculable. Of the vast aggregate of commodities produced by means of those investments,

• Wealth of Nations, book ii., chap. 2.

how much could be produced without them, I shall not pretend to say, but we may be confidently assured that it would be absolutely trifling in the comparison.

III. Commerce likewise, when it is carried on to any large extent, depends even still more, if possible, upon capital, than any of the other two departments of productive industry. In this department the merchants' stocks are all capitals; and their shops, as also the buildings set apart for containing and preserving their merchandizes, are capitals.

Under this head also we have to reckon canals, roads, harbours, docks, &c., which are chiefly constructed for the convenience of commerce, and which stand in the place of very great exertions of labour, saving those exertions, and assisting the labourers in such manner as to enable them to produce much greater quantities of work or of commodities, than they could do without such powerful helps.

In few words, therefore, it may be stated, that the great mass of wealth within a country, including the whole apparatus of houses, manufactories, structures, machines, tools, materials, and provisions, required or employed in every department of productive industry, to perfect, establish, and maintain the great system of the division of labour, and, in short, every article of wealth which is calculated or applied to assist in the work of production, are all to be considered as parts and portions of this one vast engine or instrument,— capital.

The growth and acquisition of this great instrument is altogether the fruit of saving; for capital can only be produced, increased, and improved, by individual accumulations, self-denial, and parsimony. If every person from the beginning had always consumed immediately all that he produced, it is plain that no accumulations of wealth could ever have been made, or capital existed; and, in like manner, in more advanced times, when, in consequence of par

simony, accumulations have taken place, if then, or at any given period, all saving were universally to cease, this important instrument could never be improved or increased subsequently.

This being the case, then, there must necessarily be some proper benefits attached to the saving and preservation, or possession of capital, else such saving never could be made; for no person will deny himself a present enjoyment fairly within his power, unless it be with a view to some superior enjoyment in futurity. And hence we see the reasonableness and justness of the profit or interest ordinarily derived or derivable from capital. Such profit is to be looked upon as no more (and in reality it is no more) than an adequate reward and inducement held out for the increase and improvement as well as for the use of capital; without the prospect of which there could not exist any regular motive or obligation sufficiently powerful to ensure the preservation and indefinite increase of this great instrument of production, and all that wealth of which it is so fruitful a source would be unknown and unenjoyed by mankind.

Every person, therefore, who saves, and adds any thing to capital, may be considered as contributing to the improvement of this great instrument; and every person who does so, or even who merely preserves undiminished a capital previously accumulated, is a public benefactor. Not that he saves, or ought to save with this particular view, his own private advantage is the only proper and legitimate motive from which his conduct ought in this respect to spring. But he cannot do so without benefiting the public as well as himself, and he is not only justly and fairly entitled to all the advantages he derives in the form of profit or interest from those savings or additions which he thus makes to the general mass of capital, but he deserves the gratitude or good-will of every individual to boot. For, as

we have already shown, and as will be illustrated more fully in the sequel, besides the fund of profit or interest which every accumulation and addition to this great instrument of production establishes as a reward and remuneration to the proprietor and preserver of it, every such addition has likewise the effect of increasing still farther the power and facility of production, and of lowering the cost and price of commodities,—an advantage which is shared and enjoyed by the whole community.

And thus it will appear when the subject is fully investigated, that whoever saves and adds any thing to this great instrument, not only benefits himself and his heirs for ever, but his country and all posterity, so long as the wealth and bounty which he bestows remain existent and unconsumed by some prodigal successor.+

Chapter v., section ii.

+ Not but that there are other ways of benefiting one's country as well as saving; to be generous or munificent is equally useful in its proper place, provided it do not exceed the proper resources of the person who exhibits those virtues; and even the most prodigal may be sometimes as great or even a greater public benefactor than the most saving, in as much as it may happen that he may be the author or contriver of works and inventions which may be of more consequence a thousand times than his savings could be. In stating or considering one fact or principle in political science, we ought not to forget its proper limits, or lose sight altogether of those other principles by which it is modified.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT TO PROPERTY DEFINED AND ENUMERATED.

It has been shown in a preceding chapter,* that there are three distinct material means or instruments of production, or, in other words, three general denominations or heads of arrangement, under which all the inferior and particular material means or instruments of every description may naturally and conveniently be classed. These are,-first, land,— second, man himself, or human labour,—and, third, capital. But the exclusive general means or instruments of production are necessarily the only immediate and original sources of wealth; they are necessarily, therefore, the only immediate and original grounds of right to property.

All wealth is the produce either of land and labour, or of land, labour, and capital; and there is no way of coming by it at first but by one or other or all of these three means. These alone, therefore, can give any original right or title to it, and all other claims of right to wealth or property must be secondary and derivative, and must be founded on the consent of the persons who originally drew it from those exclusive sources, and on the fact of its voluntary transfer from them to the present actual possessors or proprietors; for whoever possesses any portion of wealth, be it great or small, must either have drawn it directly and immediately from some one or other or of all the three original sources just mentioned, or must have procured it by a longer or shorter process from those who must have pre

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