the use of it, he could have produced just as easily as his fellow.  Such an arrangement would be obviously and absurdly unjust.  Justice demands—­and practice here follows justice—­that he get at the end of the week, not only his own plane back again, but two of the extra planks due to its use besides.  A plane, in short—­such is Bastiat’s meaning, though he does not put it in this precise way—­is a possession which is fruitful no less than a sheep and a ram are, or a wine which adds to its value by the mere process of being kept, and it, therefore, yields interest for a virtually similar reason.  George, however, seeks to dispose of Bastiat’s argument thus:  If the maker of the plane lends it, he says, instead of himself using it, and the borrower borrows a plane, instead of himself making one, such an arrangement is simply due to the fact that both parties for the moment happen to find it convenient.  For, George observes, it is no part of Bastiat’s contention that the plane is due to the exertion of any faculties possessed by the maker only.  Either man could make it, just as either man could use it.  Why, then, should A pay a tribute to B for the use of something which, to-morrow, if not to-day, he could make for himself without paying anything to anybody?

Now, if Bastiat’s plane is to be taken as signifying a plane only, the criticism of George is just.  But what George forgets is that, if the plane means a plane only—­an implement which any man could make just as well as the lender—­interest on planes, besides being morally indefensible, would as a matter of fact never be paid at all.  Bastiat’s plane, however, stands for a kind of capital, the borrowing of which and the paying of interest on which, form one of the most constant features of the modern industrial world; and he evidently assumes, even if he does not say so, that for all this borrowing and paying there is some constant and sufficient reason.  Now, the only reason can be—­and George’s own criticism implies this—­that in order to produce the machine-capital borrowed certain faculties are needed which are not possessed by the borrowers; and though this may not be true of a simple hand-plane itself, it is emphatically true of the elaborate modern machinery of which Bastiat merely uses his hand-plane as a symbol.  In order to produce such implements of production as these, the exertion of faculties is required which are altogether exceptional, such as high scientific knowledge, invention, and many others.  Let invention—­the most obvious of these—­here do duty for all, and let us consider, for example, the mechanism of a modern cotton mill, or of a boot factory, or a Hoe printing press, or a plant for electric lighting.  All these would be impossible if it had not been for inventive faculties as rare in their way as those of a playwright like Mr. Shaw.