is manufactured and handed over to those to whom the
credit is given. It does not set free any labour or goods to be
put into industry. That is only done by the man who abstains from
consumption and saves money by restraining his desire to spend it on
himself, and puts it at the disposal of industry. The man who saves
money, who has always hitherto been rather despised by his companions
and resented by a certain class of social reformer and many other
uneducated people as a capitalist bloodsucker, is thus, in fact, the
person who leaves the world richer than he found it, having put his
money, the product of his own work, into increasing the world's
output, instead of spending it on such forms of enjoyment as heavy
lunches and cinema shows.

The man who does this beneficent work, increasing mankind's output of
goods, and providing employment as long as the factory or railway that
he helps to build is running, is induced to do so, as a rule, by the
purely selfish motive of providing for his old age or for those who
come after him by earning the rate of interest that is paid to him for
his capital. What is this rate of interest going to be, and how much
effect does it have upon the creation of capital?

Some people argue that a low rate of interest makes people save more
because it is necessary for them to save more in order to acquire
independence. Others maintain that a high rate of interest induces
people to save because they can see the direct advantage of doing so.
Both these arguments are probably true in some cases. But, as a rule,
people who have the instinct of saving will save, within certain
limits, whatever the rate of interest may be. When the rate of
interest is low they will certainly not reduce their saving because
each hundred pounds that they put away brings them in comparatively
little, and when the rate of interest is high the attraction of the
high rate will also deter them from diminishing the amount that they
put aside. Moreover, we have to consider, not only the money payment
involved by the rate of interest, but its buying power in goods. In
1896 trustee securities could only be bought to return a yield of
2-1/2 per cent. for the buyer; now the investor can get 5-1/4 per
cent. and more from the British Government. And yet the power that
this 5-1/4 gives him over the goods and services that he wants for his
comfort Is probably not greater, and very likely rather less, than the
power which he got