of the difficulty by that name. It may be worth while, even| at the risk of tedium, to point out that this concept of " overproduction " applies, not to the material,! mechanical bearing of the situation, but to its pecuniary bearing. The notion is never seriously entertained that there is or may be an embarrassing excess of goods, or of the appliances for their production, atove what would be of some human use if the business situation permitted them to be turned to use.
(1) The supply of consumable goods is, practi-l cally, never greater than the community's capacity for consuming them. An embarrassing excess in' any line is practically a remote contingency at the most.' There are many eloquent passages in the economic manuals which may be called in witness of this truism, where much pains is taken to show that human wants are, in the nature of the case, indefinitely extensible. Nothing stands in the way, we are told, but "difficulty of attainment" of the goods with which to satisfy these wants.