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PROBLEMS  OF  DISTRIBUTION  225

the  poor.  You  may  behold  extravagance—it
is  a  vice  ;  but  that  very  extravagance  circulates ­
  money,  and  the  vice  of  one  contributes
to  the  happiness  of  many.  The  only  vice
which  is  not  redeemed  by  producing  commensurate ­
  good,  is  avarice.  If  all  were  equal,
there  would  be  no  arts,  no  manufactures,  no
industry,  no  employment.  As  it  is,  the
inequality  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  may  be
compared  to  the  heart,  pouring  forth  the  blood
like  a  steam-engine  through  the  human  frame,
the  same  blood  returning  from  the  extremities
by  the  veins,  to  be  again  propelled,  and  keep
up  a  healthy  and  vigorous  circulation.”  The
fallacy  betrays  itself  at  once  when  we  remind
ourselves  that  we  cannot  be  ultimately  dependent ­
  for  employment  on  other  people’s
wants,  because  we  have  all  quite  sufficient  of
our  own  to  keep  us  fully  occupied  in  satisfying
them.  Yet  there  are  those  to-day  who  follow
the  lead  of  Marryat’s  hero  along  one  line  of
thought  and  maintain  that  the  excessive
saving  of  the  rich  —  which  is  sometimes
represented  as  forced  upon  them  because  it  is
maintained  that  they  simply  cannot  spend  in
proportion  to  what  they  get—is  withholding
employment  from  the  poor.  But  saving  which
is  not  hoarding  is  indirect  spending—spending
on  productive  instruments  which  make  things