Dr. William Bulleyn, who lived three centuries ago, first gave currency to the saying, that great riches were "like muckhills, a burthen to the land, and offensive to the inhabitants thereof, till their heaps are cast abroad, to the profit of many." The worthy physician belonged to an age when the class called misers extensively prevailed; and when those who lent out money upon interest were denominated usurers. They were generally objects of public obloquy, and their function was not understood. There are plenty of men still amongst us who, in Dr. Bulleyn's view of the matter, are impersonations of the muck that is not spread. The muck-spreaders, according to the old notion, were those whose consumption was always endeavouring to outstrip the production that was going forward around them. The latter is by far the larger class at the present day; the former, the more powerful.
Let us endeavour, somewhat more with reference to practical results than we have already attempted, to look at some of the general principles existing in modern society which determine the existence, and regulate the employment, of capital.
Whatever is saved and accumulated is a saving and accumulation of commodities which have been produced. The value of the accumulation is most conveniently expressed by an equivalent in money; but only a very small part of the accumulation is actually money. A few millions of bullion are sufficient to carry on the transactions of this country. Its accumulations, or capital, which have been considered to amount to twenty-two hundred million pounds sterling, could not be purchased by several times the amount of all the bullion that exists in the world. A great part of what is saved, therefore, is an accumulation of products suitable for consumption. The moment that they are applied to the encouragement of production, they begin to be consumed. They encourage production only as far as they enable the producers to consume while they are in the act of producing. Accumulation, therefore, is no hindrance to consumption. It encourages consumption as much as expenditure of revenue unaccompanied by accumulation. It enables the things consumed to be replaced, instead of being utterly destroyed.