228 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
which would naturally bring down the rate 
of interest to zero. Were a people exceed 
ingly well-to-do so that their power to save 
was very great, and were they extremely 
provident so that their will to save was very 
great also, and were it a fact that such inven 
tions had been made that machinery became 
more effective and less costly ; then it might 
be that the marginal worth of capital in 
industry would be zero for such a quantity 
of capital as would be saved without pay 
ment of interest, and our theory teaches 
that interest would be zero if the marginal 
worth of capital were zero. Maybe such 
theoretically imaginable circumstances are 
never likely to be met with in this world, 
as I have already maintained ; but it is 
remarkable that the net rate of interest should 
be as low as it is, despite the prodigious masses 
of capital which industry absorbs. This fact 
seems to indicate that the amount of saving 
which takes place in the country independ 
ently of the inducement of interest must be 
gigantic. 
With the point proved to our satisfaction 
that we are all much the better off pecuniarily 
in consequence of the extensive use of capital, 
the whole of the social problem connected 
with the capitalising of industry has not