IV 



CAPITAL THE MOTHER OF LABOUR 173 



those flabby writers who have burdened the press 

 and darkened counsel by numerous volumes which 

 are dubbed political economy " (p. 28) could hardly 

 furnish their critics with a finer specimen of that 

 which a hero of the " Dunciad," by the one flash of 

 genius recorded of him, called " clotted nonsense." 

 Doubtless it is a sign of grace that the author 

 of these definitions should attach no importance 

 to any of them; but since, unfortunately, his 

 whole argument turns upon the tacit assumption 

 that they are important, I may not pass them 

 over so lightly. The third I give up. Why any- 

 thing should be capital when it is " in course of 

 exchange," and not be capital under other circum- 

 stances, passes my understanding. We are told 

 that " that part of a farmer's crop held for sale or 

 for seed, or to feed his help, in part payment of 

 wages, would be accounted capital ; that held for 

 the care of his family would not be " (p. 31). But 

 I fail to discover any ground of reason or authority 

 for the doctrine that it is only when a crop is 

 about to be sold or sown, or given as wages, that 

 it may be called capital. On the contrary, whether 

 we consider custom or reason, so much of it as is 

 stored away in ricks and barns during harvest, 

 and remains there to be used in any of these ways 

 months or years afterwards, is customarily and 

 rightly termed capital. Surely, the meaning of the 

 clumsy phrase that capital is " wealth in the course 

 of exchange " must be that it is " wealth capable of 



