employment, but only lessening the quantity of capital he
has in that employment. In all rich countries, there is a number of men
forming what is called the monied class; these men are engaged in no
trade, but live on the interest of their money, which is employed in
discounting bills, or in loans to the more industrious part of the
community. The bankers too employ a large capital on the same objects.
The capital so employed forms a circulating capital of a large amount,
and is employed, in larger or smaller proportions, by all the different
trades of a country. There is perhaps no manufacturer, however rich, who
limits his business to the extent that his own funds alone will allow:
he has always some portion of this floating capital, increasing or
diminishing according to the activity of the demand for his commodities.
When the demand for silks increases, and that for cloth diminishes, the
clothier does not remove with his capital to the silk trade, but he
dismisses some of his workmen, he discontinues his demand for the loan
from bankers and monied men; while the case of the silk manufacturer is
the reverse: he wishes to employ more workmen, and thus his motive for
borrowing is increased: he borrows more, and thus capital is transferred
from one employment to another, without the necessity of a manufacturer
discontinuing his usual occupation. When we look to the markets of a
large town, and observe how regularly they are supplied both with home
and foreign commodities, in the quantity in which they are required,
under all the circumstances of varying demand, arising from the caprice
of taste, or a change in the amount of population, without often
producing either the effects of a glut from a too abundant supply, or an
enormously high price from the supply being unequal to the demand, we
must confess that the principle which apportions capital to each trade
in the precise amount that it is required, is more active than is
generally supposed.

A capitalist, in seeking profitable employment for his funds, will
naturally take into consideration all the advantages which one
occupation possesses over another. He may therefore be willing to forego
a part of his money profit, in consideration of the security,
cleanliness, ease, or any other real or fancied advantage which one
employment may possess over another.

If from a consideration of these circumstances, the profits of stock
should be so adjusted that in one trade th