EMPLOYERS' CAPITAL 31 



employed, so that no more are available till 

 properly trained ; or the market for goods of 

 the kind produced in that trade may for the 

 moment be well stocked. Thus the State is 

 already doing, in that particular line, all it, for 

 the present, can, however much the business of 

 certain employers falls short. That is, while the 

 defect of capital to these employers is great and 

 present, the loss to the State is rather prospective 

 than immediate. 



Finally, every employer must have, or should 

 have, a reserve, which is also necessarily a part 

 of his capital, but not necessarily a part of the 

 capital of the State. This part of his capital 

 an employer may invest where he likes ; and 

 accordingly a British employer may be a part 

 owner of the securities of France or Russia ; he 

 may own part of a French railway, or of a 

 Russian oil-well, or of a Chinese coal-pit ; and 

 such capital is no part of the capital of Great 

 Britain. 



The capital of the employer, then, is a type of 

 that class of capital which is required to set 

 labour to work. It is composed partly of capital 

 of that class and partly of invested capital. All 

 three forms are clearly necessary for carrying 

 on the industrial work of the nation ; no one 

 form is of any use without the others. There 

 is, however, this difference in application : the 

 capital of the workmen must be their own ; no 

 one else can use it, and nothing can be produced 

 without it. Nothing can be produced without 

 the other forms of capital, but in theory it is 



