532 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



The abstainers will not hoard up their purchases, but dis- 

 continue them. JNo goods will be accumulated at all. 



What the abstainers Avill save is money. If they saved it 

 in the shape of coin, hoarding it, there would again be no 

 accumulation. The money would be lying uselessly idle 

 instead of circulating usefully, and that is all. A little wear 

 and tear would be saved no doubt, but that is hardly worth 

 mentioning. The money was coined for the sole purpose of 

 being circulated, and the withdrawal of so much of it from 

 circulation would disturb prices, cause a tightness in the 

 money market, and derange trade generally. Society would 

 be none the better for its withdrawal, but the worse. But 

 we need not dwell on this supposition either, for we know 

 that the saving will not be effected by hoarding coin any 

 more than by hoarding goods. It will be effected by con- 

 tracting expenditure, by waiving receipt of so much income 

 or wages due, or accepting it from one person only to transfer 

 it to another, and keeping the claim suspended to come 

 down by and by on somebody. So that, so far as the 

 abstainers themselves are concerned, they will have added 

 nothing to the stock of accumulations, but only a lien on the 

 accumulations of other people. 



What, now, will be the effect on other jjeople ? Those who 

 have been supplying the abstainers with bread, boots, and 

 tobacco will suddenly find a quarter of their goods left on 

 their hands. There will be stagnation in those trades, with 

 all its inconvenience and distress. After a while, findjng 

 their customers are resolved to buy only the reduced quantity, 

 the sellers will have to clear out their goods at whatever 

 price they can get, even at a loss, and will have to reduce 

 their production for the future in view of the diminished 

 demand, thereby throwing so many people out of employ- 

 ment, who, under the existing conditions of society, will 

 either crowd into other employment, bringing down wages, 

 or will have to be maintained by charity. 



Thus there will be a dead loss all round. The abstainers 

 will have lost their accustomed comforts, the producers their 

 market, and the labourers their employment. There will next 

 year be no more old accumulations standing over, while there 

 will be fewer newer accumulations brought into existence. 



Saving, then, which consists not in preserving goods but in 

 ceasing to buy them, is illusory. For goods are made only 

 to be consumed, and if A ceases to consume them, B will 

 cease to produce them, unless C takes them instead ; that is, 



