[Footnote 185-8: _Delacourt_ Aanwysing, 1669, I, 7. _Temple_, Observations on the U. Provinces, ch. 6, Works L. 1854. Even _Descartes_ says of Holland's _ubi nemo non exercet mercaturam_. Compare per contra, _H. Grotius_, Jus Belli et Pacis, II, 12, 22. Very large capitalists, in _Smith's_ time, certainly lived generally on the interest of their money: Richesse de Hollande, II, 172. In England, at the present day, likewise, a vast number of persons who live on the interest of their money, occasionally take part in the speculation in commodities; which explains why so-called commercial crises are incomparably more extensive there, and reach incomparably deeper, than in Germany. Similarly, according to _Conring_, De Commercii, 1666, c. 36, in Venice and Genoa.] [Footnote 185-9: Hence the larger cash balances in England at the present day, which, however, are not kept in the form of coin, but of bank notes and bankers' deposits.] [Footnote 185-10: As to how every frugal capitalist works to the injury of capitalists as a class, but to his own advantage, by lowering the rate of interest and increasing the rate of wages, see _Senior_, Outlines, 188 ff.] SECTION CLXXXVI. HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.--CAUSES OF A HIGH RATE IN THRIVING COMMERCIAL NATIONS. There are, however, even where a people's economy is in a flourishing condition, many obstacles which cause the decline of the rate of interest to take a retrogressive course, or which at least may delay it for a time. To this category belong all the modifications of a nation's economy alluded to in § 183.[186-1] Among them, therefore, is every extension of the limits of productive land. Let us suppose a nation which, its capital and labor remaining the same in every respect, should suddenly double its territory. The less productive places where investments were made in the old province are now abandoned, and labor and capital emigrate to the new. The result is, of course, an increase of the aggregate national income, and, at the same time, a decrease of rent. (§ 157.) Hence, the interest on capital and the wages of labor, taken together, must greatly increase. Which of these two branches shall profit most and longest by the increase will depend upon whether capital or the number of workmen increases most rapidly.[186-2] A similar effect must be produced when, by changes or modifications in the commercial situation, in the tariff, etc., a nation is enabled to obtain the means of subsistence at cheaper rates from more fertile and less settled countries.[186-3]