outstrip the two counter-agencies, improvements in production and increased supply of cheap necessaries from abroad. A sudden abstraction of capital, unless of inordinate amount, [would not] have any real effect in impoverishing the country. After a few months or years, there would exist in the country just as much capital as if none had been taken away. The abstraction, by raising profits and interest, would give a fresh stimulus to the accumulative principle, which would speedily fill up the vacuum. Probably, indeed, the only effect that would ensue would be that for some time afterward less capital would be exported, and less thrown away in hazardous speculation.
In the first place, then, this view of things greatly weakens, in a wealthy and industrious country, the force of the economical argument against the expenditure of public money for really valuable, even though industriously unproductive, purposes. In poor countries, the capital of the country requires the