^8 Transactions. — Miscelianeons. 



venient instrument for passing capital from one man to another, he has no 

 difficulty in disposing of it and it takes its place as a circulating medium. 



Money is therefore valuable to the owner in the same way as any other 

 acknowledgment of indebtedness. As a commodity, its proper cost is 

 nothing, but it is a token proving a legal claim to a share of the wealth of 

 others. 



Having now explained the definitions which I believe to represent most 

 accurately what wealth and capital really are, as well as the less important 

 ones which it was necessary for the purposes of my paper also to explain, I 

 will proceed to my main work, which is to test the arguments employed by 

 Mill in the 9th part of chap. V. book I. of his "Political Economy," by 

 substituting these definitions for those employed by him. The greater 

 clearness of view which we get will enable us to detect the fallacies which 

 the confusion of his definitions prevented him frym seeing. 



His fourth fundamental theorem respecting capital may be shortly 

 stated to be, that by purchasing commodities a capitalist is not an 

 employer of labour and does no good to the working classes, but that by - 

 keeping retainers, grooms, gardeners, and others working for him, or by 

 giving away his income in alms, he does good to them and tends to raise 

 their rate of wages. 



His illustrations are very telling and well selected. A man, he says, 

 may spend part of his income in emplo}dng workmen to build houses, dig 

 artificial lakes, and lay out pleasure grounds ; or he may spend the same sum 

 in buying velvet and lace. If he has been in the habit of buying velvet and 

 then changes his expenditure to hiring bricklayers, there is, at once, addi- 

 tional work for bricklayers, and the velvet-makers do not lose their employ- 

 ment, for they are employed making corduroy and other things for the 

 bricklayers, so that the work given to the latter is clear gain to the workmg 

 classes. 



He gives several other illustrations, but none, I think, in which the 

 fallacy lies so deeply hidden as in the one I have selected. At first sight 

 his argument looks unanswerable, but it is really quite erroneous. 



There is in the world a certain store of commodities, part of which is 

 suitable to the wants of the rich, and i^art to those of the poor. The 

 capitalist may select which of these he will take for his share, but he cannot 

 turn velvet into corduroy, nor Chateau Lafitte into gin. The proportions 

 of these which have been produced have been decided by men whose 

 occupation and interest it is to estimate, as closely as they can, the quantity 

 of each that will be required, and any sudden upsetting of then- calculations 

 is pretty certain to do harm. The philanthropic capitahst will find it very 

 difficult to do any immediate good to anyone v/hom he would care to benefit, 



