CH. 24

CONCLUDING NOTES

377

fond of their craft that their labour could be obtainedmuch cheaper than at present), to be harnessed to theservice of the community on reasonable terms of reward.

At the same time we must recognise that onlyexperience can show how far the common will, embodiedin the policy of the State, ought to be directed toincreasing and supplementing the inducement to in-vest ; and how far it is safe to stimulate the averagepropensity to consume, without forgoing our aim ofdepriving capital of its scarcity-value within one or twogenerations. It may turn out that the propensity toconsume will be so easily strengthened by the effectsof a falling rate of interest, that full employment canbe reached with a rate of accumulation little greaterthan at present. In this event a scheme for the highertaxation of large incomes and inheritances might beopen to the objection that it would lead to full employ-ment with a rate of accumulation which was reducedconsiderably below the current level. I must not besupposed to deny the possibility, or even the proba-bility, of this outcome. For in such matters it isrash to predict how the average man will react to achanged environment. If, however, it should proveeasy to secure an approximation to full employmentwith a rate of accumulation not much greater than atpresent, an outstanding problem will at least have beensolved. And it would remain for separate decision onwhat scale and by what means it is right and reasonableto call on the living generation to restrict their con-sumption, so as to establish, in course of time, a state offull investment for their successors.

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In some other respects the foregoing theory ismoderately conservative in its implications. For whilstit indicates the vital importance of establishing certaincentral controls in matters which are now left in the