178 CAPITAL THE MOTHER OF LABOUR. iv 



fore, they will probably fail, as completely as I do, 

 to discover the relevancy of the statement. 

 Again: 



Or, if I take a piece of leather and work it up into a 

 pair of shoes, the shoes are my wages the reward of my 

 exertion. Surely they are not drawn from capital 

 either my capital or anybody else's capital but are 

 brought into existence by the labour of which they be- 

 came the wages; and, in obtaining this pair of shoes as 

 the wages of my labour, capital is not even momentarily 

 lessened one iota. For if we call in the idea of capital, 

 my capital at the beginning consists of the piece of 

 leather, the thread, &c. (p. 34). 



It takes away one's breath to have such a con- 

 catenation of fallacies administered in the space 

 of half a paragraph. It does not seem to have 

 occurred to our economical reformer to imagine 

 whence his " capital at the beginning/' the " leath- 

 er, thread, &c." came. I venture to suppose that 

 leather to have been originally cattle-skin; and 

 since calves and oxen are not flayed alive, the 

 existence of the leather implies the lessening of 

 that form of capital by a very considerable iota. 

 It is, therefore, as sure as anything can be that, 

 in the long run, the shoes are drawn from that 

 which is capital par excellence; to wit, cattle. It 

 is further beyond doubt that the operation of 

 tanning must involve loss of capital in the shape 

 of bark, to say nothing of other losses; and that 

 the use of the awls and knives of the shoemaker 

 involves loss of capital in the shape of the store of 



