Is it true, then, to say that it is not the navvy but the spade that makes the trench?
A plough is capital. Is it true to say that not the ploughman but the plough makes the furrow?
A loom is capital. Is it true to say that the loom makes the cloth? It is the weaver who weaves the cloth. He uses the loom, and the loom was made by the miner, the smith, the joiner, and the engineer.
There are wood and iron and brass in the loom. But you would not say that the cloth was produced by the iron-mine and the forest! It is produced by miners, engineers, sheep farmers, wool-combers, sailors, spinners, weavers, and other workers. It is produced entirely by labour, and could not be produced in any other way.
How can capital produce wealth? Take a steam plough, a patent harrow, a sack of wheat, a bankbook, a dozen horses, enough food and clothing to last a hundred men a year; put all that capital down in a forty-acre field, and it will not produce a single ear of corn in fifty years unless you send a man to labour.
But give a boy a forked stick, a rood of soil, and a bag of seed, and he will raise a crop for you.
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