XV INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 263 



It has now, I think, been made clear how all public 

 works and public improvements may be effected by public 

 credit, properly so called, instead of by public delt, 

 involving far less risk of loss, no permanent charge on the 

 community, but leading, on the contrary, to a continuous 

 reduction of taxation, and cutting away the very 

 foundations of the system by which the financier and 

 speculator are now enabled to plunder the working 

 people. 



Concluding Observations. 



Returning to our main subject, some may think that by 

 thus checking great accumulations of capital by individuals 

 the country would be impoverished ; but the fact would 

 be exactly the reverse, since the accumulation of real 

 capital would be greatly facilitated. For that large class 

 which now makes its wealth by financial operations and 

 speculations — a mere form of gambling — would find its 

 occupation gone, and would be forced to turn its 

 attention to genuine industrial pursuits. Instead of 

 money being used, as it so largely is now, as a mere 

 instrument to make more money by pure speculation, it 

 would have to be invested in true reproductive wealth — 

 machines, tools, buildings, roads, bridges, ships, &c., and 

 thus the whole country would be enriched and benefited. 



When the changes here indicated had been effected, 

 capital could be profitably invested only in some form of 

 agriculture, manufacture, or commerce ; and, while the 

 wealth of the community would thus be indefinitely 

 increased, the accumulation of excessive wealth by 

 individuals would become almost impossible, since, there 

 is a limit to the number of industrial concerns that can 

 be profitably managed by one man. As the race of 

 hereditary idlers would no longer exist, the total 

 production of wealth would be much increased from this 

 cause, while the free use of land in small quantities by a 

 large proportion of the population would render labourers 

 less dependent on capitalists than now, and thus lead to a 

 more equable distribution of wealth than now prevails. 



My object in this brief chapter has been to call 



