Page 287 - clra62_0019-(GIPE)

ARE WE LIVING ON ICA\>I1'AL'? ~19
fore, to examine, in a general wa~ the meanIng of"the
expressions used, and inquire to wh'at ;exterit;-and in
what manner nations may waste or expend their capital.
In doing so I may refer with some frequency to actual
concrete cases presented to us by history or recent ex-
perience, and especially to one or two of the cases now
forming the subjects of criticism and discussion.

There appears to be a good deal of confusion of
mind in these discussions and in the use of phrases as
to expending or wasting national capital and a nation
living on its capital, which is really due to a false
analogy, the analogy of an individual who wastes his
capital or lives upon his capital, and, in consequence,
comes to poverty. Weare all familiar with such in-
dividual cases. There is the weII.known case of the
young spendthrift, who comes into a fortune, and who
then, as it is said, "goes the pace" and parts with one
bit of property after another in order to obtain the
commodities and services which he consumes or gives
away. Then we have the business man who draws
out of the concern in which his capital is invested
more than his profits and lives at a greater rate than
he can afford, who does in a quiet way, in short, what is
done by the spendthrift and wastrel recognized as
such, and, substantially, in the same form, that is, by
parting with one bit 9f property after another. Then
we have the business man who makes bad speculations,
buying repeatedly at a high price and selling at a low
one until at last his own mCftley or capital disappears,
or who makes bad ~ebts, which is reaUy another form
of the same disease, the low price at which he sells
being, sometimes, merely an irrecoverable debt. In
these different ways an individual may waste or expend
his capital, and so, it is assumed in common speech, a .
nation gets through its capital when· it engages in a
process of wasting or expending or living upon its
capital.
What I should like to point out, however-and this