‘8

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

ment of the community for the service of its members in the
one case as in the other, If this view of capital be pushed
to its extreme, it will make the definition embrace all produced
 wealth not yet consumed, even though it take a form
of little durability and the act of consumption be in progress.
 Thus the food on the table at a family dinner
would be included. But may it not be asked when food
handled by the staff of a hotel ceases to be capital?
Even here, then, the difference lies in the ownership during
the last stages of preparation for use, rather than in the
nature of the goods. Thus the application of the term
capital in this case is less strained than appears at the first
glance.
The relation of land to capital calls for consideration.
The form of definition frequently adopted for capital describes
it as the product of past labour. Thus land is excluded,
since, in its essentials, it is a gift of nature, not the product
of labour. From the point of view of individual producers,
however, land is commonly looked on as part of capital.
They have exchanged, in many cases, the ownership of other
valuable goods for the right of ownership of the land.
Frequently, too, the services which the land can render are
due rather to the labour spent in modifying its natural condition
 than to other causes, and form but a modest reward
for that labour. In the shape of improvements capital gets
bound up with land, but, generally speaking, the capital
which is associated with any particular piece of land can be
either increased or decreased at will. The land is provided
by nature. It can be made more accessible by man’s efforts,
or more capable of bearing crops, or otherwise aiding man’s
work as a building site. Its amount cannot, however, be
increased or decreased by human effort, and some of its most
essential characteristics are beyond the control of man to
modify or destroy. Hence land does stand in a different
category from capital when looked at from the point of view
of the community. To the individual it appears as a particular
 productive instrument, and whether it owe its power of
rendering service to human labour or to nature, is practically
a matter of indifference. Its qualities, rather than how those