Credit has a great, but not, as many people seem to suppose, a magical power; it can not make something out of nothing. How often is an extension of credit talked of as equivalent to a creation of capital, or as if credit actually were capital! It seems strange that there should be any need to point out that, credit being only permission to use the capital of another person, the means of production can not be increased by it, but only transferred. If the borrower’s means of production and of employing labor are increased by the credit given him, the lender’s are as much diminished. The same sum can not be used as capital both by the owner and also by the person to whom it is lent; it can not supply its entire value in wages, tools, and materials, to two sets of laborers at once. It is true that the capital which A has borrowed from B, and makes use of in his business, still forms a part of the wealth of B for other purposes; he can enter into arrangements in reliance on it, and can borrow, when needful, an equivalent sum on the security of it; so that to a superficial eye it might seem as if both B and A had the use of it at once. But the smallest consideration will show that, when B has parted with his capital to A, the use of it as capital rests with A alone, and that B has no other service from it than in so far as his ultimate claim upon it serves him to obtain the use of another capital from a third person, C. § 2. In what manner it assists Production. But, though credit is never anything more than a transfer of capital from hand to hand, it is generally, and naturally, a transfer to hands more competent to employ the capital efficiently in production. If there were no such thing as credit, or if, from general insecurity and want of confidence, it were scantily practiced, many persons who possess more or less of capital, but who from their occupations, or for want of the necessary skill and knowledge, can not personally superintend its employment, would derive no benefit from it: their funds would either lie idle, or would be, perhaps, wasted and annihilated in unskillful attempts to make them yield a profit. All this capital is now lent at interest, and made available for production. Capital thus circumstanced forms a large portion of the productive resources of any commercial country, and is naturally attracted to those producers or traders who, being in the greatest business, have the means of employing it to most advantage, because such are both the most desirous to obtain it and able to give the best security. Although, therefore, the productive funds of the country are not increased by credit, they are called into a more complete state of productive activity. As the confidence on which credit is grounded extends itself, means are developed by which even the smallest portions of capital, the sums which each person keeps by him to meet contingencies, are made available for productive uses. The principal instruments for this