What capital does for production is to afford the shelter, tools and materials which the work requires, and to feed and otherwise maintain the labourers during the process. Whatever things are destined for this use are capital. That industry is limited by capital is self-evident. There can be no more industry than is supplied with materials to work upon and food to eat. Nevertheless, it is often forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and have their wants supplied, not by the produce of present labour, but of past, and it long continued to be believed that laws and governments, without creating capital, could create industry.
ALL capital is the result of saving.
Somebody must have produced it, and forborne to consume it, or it is the result of an excess of production over consumption. The greater part, in value, of the wealth now existing in England has been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A very small proportion, indeed, was in existence ten years ago. The land is almost the only thing that subsists. Capital is kept in existence, not by preservation, but by perpetual reproduction.