War-time financial problems

WEALTH AND CAPITAL 295

himself a deer-park, the ground that he thus abused
was still wealth, but it is no longer capital because
it has ceased to produce good food and is merely a
pleasant lounging-place for his lordship. May not
the failure of production be partly due to the fact
that, owing to the extravagant and stupid expendi-
ture of so many of the rich, too ,much work is put
into providing luxuries—of which the above-men-
tioned deer-park is an example—and too little into
the equipment of industry with the plant that it
needs for its due expansion ?

Mr Kitson's answer is much easier. According
to him, instead of working better, organising better,
and putting more of our output into plant and
equipment and less into self-indulgence and vulgarity
all that we have to do to work the necessary reform
is to provide more money and credit. Since, he
says, under the industrial era—

" All goods were made primarily for exchange or
rather for sale . , . it followed, therefore, that pro-
duction could only continue so long as sales could
be effected; and since sales were limited by the
amount of money or credit offered, it followed that
production was necessarily limited by the quantity of
money or credit available for commercial purposes."

But is this so ? If goods are produced more
rapidly than money, it does not follow that they
could not be sold, but only that they would have
been sold for less money. The producer would have
made a smaller profit, but on the other hand the
cheapening of the product would have improved
the position of the consumer, the cheapening of