By giving the capitalist wages at all, we put him at once into the
class of labourers, which in my November letter I showed you is partly
right; but, by Mr. Fawcett's definition, and in the broad results
of business, he is not a labourer. So far as he is one, of course,
like any other, he is to be paid for his work. There is no question
but that the partner who superintends any business should be paid
for superintendence; but the question before us is only respecting
payment for doing nothing. I have, for instance, at this moment
15,000l. of Bank Stock, and receive 1,200l. odd, a year, from the
Bank, but I have never received the slightest intimation from the
directors that they wished for my assistance in the superintendence of
that establishment;--(more shame for them.) But even in cases where
the partners are active, it does not follow that the one who has
most money in the business is either fittest to superintend it, or
likely to do so; it is indeed probable that a man who has made money
already will know how to make more; and it is necessary to attach
some importance to property as the sign of sense: but your business
is to choose and pay your superintendent for his sense, and not for
his money. Which is exactly what Mr. Carlyle has been telling you
for some time; and both he and all his disciples entirely approve of
interest, if you are indeed prepared to define that term as payment
for the exercise of common sense spent in the service of the person
who pays for it. I reserve yet awhile, however, what is to be said,
as hinted in my first letter, about the sale of ideas.