Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/116

Rh thousand francs; it only brings it about that out of the four hundred thousand francs a hundred belong to the lender, and that the borrower no longer owns more than three hundred.

The same double reckoning would take place if we included in the total sum of capitals the money lent to an undertaker to be employed in the advances of his enterprise; for this loan does not increase the total sum of the advances necessary for the enterprise, it only brings it about that that sum, and the part of the profits which represents its interest, belong to the lender. Whether a merchant employs ten thousand francs of his own property in his trade and takes the whole profit, or whether he has borrowed these ten thousand francs from another to whom he pays the interest, contenting himself with the surplus of the profit and with the wages for his industry, there are never more than ten thousand francs.

But though we cannot include, in calculating the riches of a nation, the capital which corresponds to the interests of money placed on loan without reckoning it twice over, we ought to include all the other moveable property, which, although they formed originally the occasion of expenditure and bear no profit, nevertheless form, from their duration, a true capital which is constantly accumulating and which, inasmuch as it can at need be exchanged for money, makes, as it were, a reserve fund which may enter into commerce, and, when one pleases, make up for the loss of other capitals. Among these may be mentioned furniture of all kinds, jewels, plate, paintings, statues, ready money shut