l
Economy_, Bk. I., chap, iv., p. 29.) Among later English writers,
Cairnes, like all holders of the "Wages fund" doctrine, does not
clearly meet the question, "Does the food, etc., forming the real wage
fund which is one part of capital, cease to be capital when it is
actually paid out in wages?" He plays round the question in _Leading
Principles_, Part II., chap. i. Bonamy Price includes consumptive
goods. "It is to be remarked of all this capital, these materials,
implements, and necessaries for the labourers, that they are consumed
and destroyed in the process of creating wealth, some rapidly, some
more slowly. Thus the very purpose of capital is to be consumed and
destroyed; it is procured for that very end." (_Practical Political
Economy_, pp. 103, 104.) Since, he adds a little later, "an article
cannot be declared to be capital or not capital till the purpose it is
applied to is determined," it would appear that flour in the dealer's
hands is not capital, but that it only becomes capital when handed
over to persons who productively consume it. Thorold Rogers appears to
take the same view, holding the food of a country to be part of its
capital irrespective of the consideration in whose hands it is.
(_Political Economy_, p. 61.) Professor Sidgwick appears to regard
"food" consumed by productive labourers as capital. "On this view it
is only so far as the labourer's consumption is distinctly designed to
increase his efficiency that it can properly be regarded as an
investment of capital." (_Principles of Political Economy_, Bk. I.,
chap. v.)

General Walker apparently holds that stored food used to support
productive work is capital in whosoever hands it lies. (_Political
Economy_, 2nd edit., Sec. 87.) He is, however, concerned with
illustrations from primitive society, and possibly might hold the food
ceased to be capital if paid over by one person to another as wages.

Hearn, on the contrary, definitely excludes consumptive goods. "The
bullock, which when living formed part of the capital of the grazier,
and when dead of the butcher, is not capital when the meat reaches the
consumer." (_Plutology_, p. 135.)

Professor Marshall defers to the commercial usage so far as to apply
the term Trade Capital to "those external things which a person uses
in his trade, either holding them to be sold for money, or applying
them to produce things that are to be sold for money." But turning to
the individual, he insists upo