bour during one year on an
average. If his food and clothing during one year cost thirty pounds,
then capital worth thirty pounds is sufficient to keep him at work in
this way. Three men cultivating potatoes will of course require three
times as much capital, or ninety pounds worth; ten men will need three
hundred pounds worth, and so on in proportion. But in growing vines it
is necessary to wait several years after the vines are planted before
they begin to bear. Suppose it to require five years waiting, then the
labourer will want 5 x 30, or one hundred and fifty pounds worth of
capital before he can grow vines. Three vine-growers will want 3 x 5 x
30, or four hundred and fifty pounds worth of capital; ten men, 10 x 5 x
30, or fifteen hundred pounds worth, and so on in proportion. Thus we
see clearly that the capital required in any kind of industry is
proportional to the number of men employed, and also to the length of
time for which the capital remains locked up, or invested on the
average. But there is no fixed proportion whatever between the number of
labourers and the capital they require--it entirely depends upon the
length of time in which the capital is turned over, that is, invested,
and got back again. A poor savage manages to live on a few days' capital
in hand; a potato grower on one year's capital. On a modern farm in
which many durable improvements are made, the quantity of capital
required is very much greater. To employ men upon a railway requires
immense capital, because so much of it is sunk in a very fixed and
durable form in the embankments, tunnels, stations, rails, and engines.

#37. Labour cannot be Capital.# It is not uncommon to hear it said that
#labour is the poor man's capital#; and then it is argued that the poor
man has just as much right to live upon his capital as the rich man upon
his. And so he has, if he can do it. If a labourer can go and produce
any kind of wealth, and exchange it for food and necessaries, of course
he may do so. But, as a general rule, he cannot do this without working
for a length of time, waiting till the produce is finished and sold. In
order to do this he wants something more than his labour, namely, his
food in the meantime, besides materials and tools. These form the
required capital, and there is no good in calling labour capital when it
is really quite a different thing. At other times I have heard it said
that #land is capital, intelligence is capital#, a