28 ON CAPITAL 



The capital of an artisan or workman is his 

 health, strength, and skill. These may be ex- 

 changed for food, clothing, lodging, and some 

 leisure and amusement ; the object of the ex- 

 change, which is made through the medium ol 

 wages, being to restore a capital very quickly 

 exhausted. A workman's tools are also his 

 capital. As long as the artisan works in his own 

 country, these parts of his capital are truly and 

 absolutely part of the capital of his own country. 



In many countries the returns of savings 

 banks show that some workmen have small 

 amounts of money invested. It probably so 

 seldom happens that any part of the workman's 

 capital is invested in a foreign country, that it 

 may be considered as, upon the whole, part of 

 the national capital, unless it is invested in a 

 Government loan. The principal of a Govern- 

 ment loan must be regarded as expended and 

 gone, leaving, however, the interest as part of 

 the capital of the investor and ol the nation. 



A horse has health, strength, and a small 

 measure of skill : has a horse, then, capital ? 

 No ; a horse is owned ; and what would other- 

 wise have been its capital is a part of the 

 capital of its owner. When, therefore, it is said 

 that a certain person has so many horses, it is 

 implied that he has, in those horses, a definite 

 amount of capital, which is really a number of 

 qualities, such as, swiftness, endurance, strength, 

 beauty, and docility, giving an exchangeable 

 value to those animals. 



In the old da3^s, when there were slaves, the 



