WAGES, PROFITS AND INTEREST 179 
who, with their existing tastes, cannot 
reconcile to themselves the full spending of 
their incomes, must not be overlooked. 
Evidently there would be a certain amount 
of capital available in a community even if no 
interest were paid, since some saving is 
independent of the incentive of gain. Indeed 
some capital would exist were interest nega 
tive ; for instance if, instead of interest being 
paid, the possession of capital were taxed. 
This would be so because, the discouragement 
to providence notwithstanding, no prudent 
man would dream of instantly spending to the 
last farthing everything as he earned it. 
Despite these considerations, however, it is 
pretty certain that in every Western com 
munity a rise in the rate of interest swells the 
sums annually withheld from expenditure on 
consumers’ goods. The rate of saving for 
some purposes is left untouched by an advance 
in the rate of interest ; saving for other 
purposes, for instance the procuring of a 
fixed income to retire on, is checked ; but 
saving with yet other objects in view is 
stimulated, and the influence determining this 
saving would almost certainly prove much 
stronger than the influence determining the 
second class of saving. 
So capital, we may declare, has a supply