tal will be extremely limited, and
consequently the supply of it on offer will go begging to find a user.
It seems likely that, as usual, the truth lies somewhere between these
two extreme views; but we shall best answer the question if we first
get a clear idea of what we mean by capital.

On the subject of the definition of capital, economists differ with
all the consistency that they only show in differing. One of the
earliest descriptions of capital was given by Turgot, who thought that
capital meant "valeurs accumulees." In this wide sense the word covers
all goods which have value, that is, can be exchanged into other
goods. From this point of view, the schoolboy who invests sixpence in
marbles is a capitalist, because he has bought an asset which is not
immediately consumed, but can, later on, if his fancy urges him, be
exchanged into white mice or any other object of his desire. On the
other hand, the schoolfellow who at the same time spends sixpence on
cherries and eats them has put his money into immediate consumption,
his asset is digested, and he has no capital in any sense of the word.

Later, the definition was narrowed by John Stuart Mill, for instance,
into the sense of wealth set aside to increase production. From this
point of view capital practically means the equipment and tools of
industry in the widest sense of the word, including agriculture and
transport. Lately economists have shown a tendency to go back to the
wider application of the word, and an American economist, Dr Anderson,
who has just published a book on the Value of Money, goes so far
therein as to state that a "dollar is capital." The language of the
City generally uses the word in the narrow sense adopted by Mill, and
there is very much to be said for this view of the real meaning of
capital. Marbles to play with, houses to live in, motor-cars to go
joy-riding in--all these are assets which can be disposed of, and so,
in a sense, may be called capital. But the businesslike meaning of the
word is the tools and equipment of industry, because it is only by
their possession that the wealth of mankind not only increases man's
present enjoyment, but enhances his future output of the goods
necessary for his existence.

If we take the word in this sense it becomes at once apparent that the
theory is exaggerated which maintains that war is destroying capital,
so that capital will long be at a famine price. The extent to which
war is actual