1831 .] 
in Mann fact urea. 
201 
it ; because it is then also, that the disposable income of all producers, and of the 
whole society besides, is greater than it ever was before. After a period of progres- 
sive enrichment, when the country is most wealthy, and has given the greatest 
possible employment to capital, then it is probable complaints will be most general 
ol the slackness of business : — the labouring population, owing to the impulse 
alrerdy given to its increase, will be proceeding, at first, in such ratio, as sufficed to 
supply the formerly progressive demand for their labour ; while that demand has, 
in fact, ceased to be progressive : — many men will, therefore, be found eagerly seeking 
employment as labourers ; and, up to that time, as all that could be saved from 
the national revenue, readily found profitable productive investment, the savings, 
with this object in view, will have gone on increasing in an accelerated ratio, and, 
for some time, saving will still proceed in this ratio, while the profitable invest- 
ments will have been completely filled : — the startling appearance will, therefore, be 
presented, of no investment being obtainable for savings ; and this state of things 
will affect not only what was saved after production had reached its utmost points, 
but all other previous accumulations also ; for then will be the time, when markets 
will begin to be affected by the gluts consequent on overtrading : distress, therefore, 
will be inevitable, and the cry of falling back in riches, and in trade, and anticipa- 
tions of impending national ruin, wiil be in the mouths of many. In reality, however, 
trade will ultimately suffer no diminution ; and will be only subjected to the 
temporary derangement and loss consequent on gluts. It will have been for the 
last addition to the labouring class, and for the last increases of accumulations 
of capital only, that employment could not be found. 
It is known and admitted, that accumulation in a compound ratio, cannot proceed 
for ever ; and the impossibility of productively investing every conceivable ac- 
cumulation of capital, is universally felt. But although this ultimate consequence 
be known and felt to be inevitably true, still the proximate causes, and the modes 
in which the circumstances of production operate, in continually limiting the 
employment of accumulations, have been, I apprehend, but very imperfectly 
understood. Our greatest authorities in Political Economy appear, indeed, never 
to have studied this most important branch of their subject ; for we find them 
all inconsistent here ; at one time calculating as if all accumulations of capital, 
whatsoever their amount, were, of necessity, capable of setting labourers to work, 
productively and profitably ; while, on the other hand, we find them admitting 
the influence of competition on production ; and on the existence of a full com- 
plement of wealth, depending on the physical and political circumstances of the 
country under consideration : — we have latterly had it maintained, on the one 
hand, that production can only be limited by the want of products to be inter- 
changed, and that capital can always be set to work in preparing the deficient 
products 2 ; while we, on the other hand, find the same authors admitting, that if 
the products which alone could open a vent for other products, were food, the which, 
owing to the nature of things, could not be susceptible of indefinite increase ; then 
there would exist a limit to production, and to the inci’ease of demand and supply. 
—I have said, that those writers, who most strenuously maintain the theory, that 
increasing production inevitably opens a vent for additional products, do allow an 
exception, in the event of additional food being the only suitable article for taking 
such products out of the market, as happen to be there in excess. This, however, 
they only do incidentally, and no great importance is attached by them to the 
circumstance ; their general belief being, that wealth is unbounded ; that if products 
a See the writings of M. Say and Mr. Mill on Political Economy. 
