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POLITICAL  ECONOMY

which  would  naturally  bring  down  the  rate
of  interest  to  zero.  Were  a  people  exceedingly ­
  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  inventions ­
  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  payment ­
  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  independently ­
  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