THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
SIR,—There is a point in your admirable article on " The Die. tribution of Wealth " at which I am surprised and disappointed. You contrast the primitive man with a stone axe with the modern workman as a man "without capital." Surely there is no better symbol of capital than that stone axe, no better starting point from which to teach what capital really is and what are its advantages. I do not know that any harm will be done if such method should suggest that it is rather a turning of things upside down always to speak as if capital employed labour, as if the stone axe employed the man, and as if the owner of the axe, if it was a borrowed one, had a greater natural right than the owner of the hands that use it to direct the operations it is used for.—I am, Sir, &c., Balmer, York. HENRY LAURENCE.
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