and political power to wealth, and has conjoined exclusion and disgrace with the poverty it has inflicted on the labourer. On the side of the labourers there is physical strength, for they are more numerous than their opponents. They are also fast losing that reverence for their opponents which was and is the source of their power, and they are daily acquiring a moral strength which results from a common interest and a close and intimate union.

The capitalists and labourers form the great majority of the nation, so that there is no third power to intervene betwixt them. They must and will decide the dispute of themselves. Final success, I would fain hope, must be on the side of justice. I am certain, however, that till the triumph of labour be complete; till productive industry alone be opulent, and till idleness alone be poor; till the admirable maxim, " that he who sows shall reap," be solidly established; till the right of property shall be founded on principles of justice, and not on those of slavery; till man shall be held more in honour than the clod he treads on, or the machine he guides-there cannot, and there ought not to be either peace on earth or good-will amongst

men.

I do not mean to point out all the consequences which result from this view of capital; but there is one, so important in a theoretical point of view, and so well calculated to relieve the wise system of the universe from the opprobrium which has been cast upon it in these latter times, that I cannot wholly pass it by. An elaborate theory has been constructed, to show that there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster than capital, or than the means of employing labour. If my view of capital be correct, this, as a theory of nature, falls at once baseless to the ground. That the capitalist can control the existence and number of labourers, that the whole number of the population depends altogether on him, I will not deny. But, put the capitalist, the oppressive middle man, who eats up the produce of labour, and prevents the labourer from knowing on what natural laws his existence and happiness depend, out of view,-put aside those social regulations by which they who produce all are allowed to own little or nothing -and it is plain that capital, or the power to employ labour, and co-existing labour, are one; and, that productive capital

and skilled labour are also one; consequently capital and a labouring population are precisely synonymous.

In the system of nature, mouths are united with hands and with intelligence; they, and not capital, are the agents of production; and, according to her rule, however it may have been thwarted by the pretended wisdom of lawmakers, wherever there is a man, there also are the means of creating or producing him subsistence. If also, as I say, circulating capital is only co-existing labour, and fixed capital only skilled labour, it must be plain, that all those numerous advantages, those benefits to civilization, those vast improvements in the condition of the human race, which have been in general attributed to capital, are caused in fact by labour, and by knowledge and skill informing and directing labour. Should it be said, then, as perhaps it may, that unless there be profit, and unless there be interest, there will be no motives for accumulation and improvement; I answer, that this is a false view, and arises from attributing to capital and saving those effects which result from labour; and, that the best means of securing the progressive improvement, both of individuals and of nations, is to do justice. and allow labour to possess and enjoy the whole of its produce.*-Anon.

We may distinguish three classes of circumstances under which the effects of an accumulation of capital will be very different. First, if it be made and used by the same persons; second, if it be made and used by different classes of persons, who share between them, in just proportion, the produce of combined labour; third, if it be owned by a class of persons, who neither make nor use it.

First, if the instruments, tools, dye-stuffs, &c. intended to promote production, be made and used by one and the same individual, we are bound to suppose that he finds these labours advantageous, or he would not perform them: and that every accumulation in his possession of the instruments he makes and uses, facilitates his labour. The limit to such an accumulation is plainly the power of the labourer to make and use the instruments in question. In the same manner, the quantity of national capital is always

*This article is abridged from a little work, entitled, "Labour Defended." 12mo.

limited by the power of the labourers to make and use it with advantage. When capital, therefore, is made and used by the same persons; when all they produce belongs to themselves, too much cannot be said in its favour.

Second, capital may be made by one labourer and used by another, and both may divide the commodity obtained by the labour of making and of using the capital between them, in proportion as each has contributed by his labour to produce it. He who makes the capital finds this employment productive to him, or he would not continue it; and he who uses the capital finds that it assists his labour, or he would give nothing for it. Under these cireumstances the accumulation and employment of capital is advantageous.

I should rather express this fact, however, by saying, that a part of the society employed in making instruments, while another part uses them, is a branch of division of labour which aids productive power, and adds to the general wealth. As long as the produce of the two labourers,—and speaking of society, of the two classes of labourers,—be divided between them, the accumulation or increase of such instruments as they can make and use, is as beneficial as if they were made and used by one person. Third, one labourer may produce or make the instruments which another uses to assists production not mutually to share in just proportions the produce of their co-operating labour, but for the profit of a third party. The capitalist, being the mere owner of the instruments, is not, as such, a labourer. He, in no manner, assists production. He acquires possession of the produce of one labourer, which he makes over to another, either for a time,-as in the case with most kinds of fixed capital, or for ever, as is the case with wages, whenever he thinks it can be used or consumed for his advantage. He never does allow the produce of one labourer, when it comes into his possession, to be either used or consumed by another, unless it is for his benefit. He employs or lends his property to share the produce, or natural revenue of labourers; and every accumulation of such property in his hands, is a mere extension of his power over the produce of labour, and retards the progress, of national wealth. In this, which is at present the case, the labourers must share their produce with unproductive

idlers, and to that extent less of the annual produce is employed in reproduction.

If there were only the makers and users of capital, to share between them the produce of their co-operating labour, the only limit to productive labour would be, that it should obtain for them and their families a comfortable subsistence. But when, in addition to this, which they must have whether they be the owners of the capital or not, they must also produce as much more as satisfies the capitalist; this limit is much sooner reached.

When the capitalist, being the owner of all the produce, will allow labourers neither to make nor use instruments unless he obtains a profit over and above the subsistence of the labourer, it is plain that bounds are set to productive labour, much within what Nature prescribes. In proportion as capital in the hands of a third party is accumulated, so the whole amount of profit required by the capitalist increases, and so there arises an artificial check to production and population. The impossibility of the labourer producing all which the capitalist requires prevents numberless operations, such as draining marshes, and clearing and cultivating waste lands; to do which would amply repay the labourer by providing him with the means of subsistence, though they will not, in addition, give a large profit to the capitalist. In the present state of society the labourers being in no case the owners of capital, every accumulation of it adds to the amount of profit demanded from them, and extinguishes all that labour which would only procure the labourer his comfortable subsistence. More than this, however, he adds not want; and thus, accumulation of capital in the present state of society checks production, and consequently checks the progress of population, the division of labour, the increase of knowledge, and of national wealth.-A Labourer.

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CHAPTER III.

THE INSTRUMENT OF EXCHANGE.

SECTION I.

THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY.

THE term money, may, in its most comprehensive sense, be applied to any thing that is employed as an instrument of exchange, or barter. The following remarks will make this intelligible to all. In the earliest stage of society, after the division of labour had been begun, exchanges might possibly be confined to cases in which each of the parties desired to consume, or to appropriate to his own immediate use, the commodity he was to receive. For instance, one man would have an excess of a bushel of wheat, over what he wanted for the consumption of himself and family; but he wanted a table or some other piece of household furniture, which neither himself nor any one in his family could put together. Under these circumstances, he would look round in the little community, for some one who devoted his time to the manufacture of such an article as that we have supposed him to want; and having found him, the two parties would mutually benefit each other, by making an exchange of wheat for a piece of household furniture. The carpenter wanted the wheat, and the agriculturist wanted the piece of household furniture, and the exchange therefore satisfied the wants of both. And what we have supposed to be done in this case would be done in numberless other cases. Wherever one person had an excess of any commodity, he would exchange it with some other person who wanted it, for another commodity of which he himself stood in need. This is exchange or barter.

But as the society in which we have supposed this mode of exchange to be carried on, extended its limits, and the wants of its members became multiplied and diversified, great inconveniencies would be found attendant upon these transactions. For instance, one man having a