which must necessarily have reference to the number of consumers, and to the nature of their wants."

I don't know, Sir, at least as far as regards myself, upon what you found that accusation. I have considered this idea in all its shapes that the value of things (the only quality which makes them riches) is founded on their utility, on the aptitude they possess to satisfy our wants.

2

"The need we have of things, I said, depends upon the moral and physical nature of man, the climate he lives in, and on the manners and legislation of his country. He has wants of the body, wants of the mind, and of the soul; wants for himself, others for his family, others still as a member of society. The skin of a bear, and a rein-deer, are articles of the first necessity to a Laplander, whilst the very name of them is unknown to the Lazzaroni of Naples. The latter for his part can do without every thing, provided he can obtain macaroni. In the same manner the Courts of Judicature in Europe are considered as one of the strongest bonds of the social body, whilst the indigent people of America, the Arabs, and the Tartars, do very well without them.

"Of these wants, some are satisfied by the use we make of certain things, with which Nature furnishes us gratuitously, such as the air, water, and the light of the sun. We may call these things natural riches, because Nature alone pays the cost of them. As she gives them indiscriminately to all, no one has occasion to acquire them by means of any sacrifice whatever; therefore, they have no exchangeable value.

"Other wants can only be satisfied by the use we make of certain things, to which the use they are of could only be given them by causing them to undergo a modification, by having effected a change in their state, and by having for that purpose surmounted some difficulty or other. Such are the things which we can only obtain by agricultural process, by commerce, or the arts. These are the only property that has an exchangeable value. The reason of which is evident-they are, by the simple fact of their production, the result of an exchange in which the producer has given his productive services for the purpose of receiving this produce. From that time they cannot be obtained from him, except by virtue of another exchange-by giving him another production which he may estimate at as much as his own.

1

Malthus's Principles of Political Economy, page 354. (I quote from the English Edition, not having yet seen a translation.)

2 Treatise on Political Economy, or simple explanation of the manner in which riches are obtained, distributed and consumed, 4th edition. Vol ii. page 5.

"These things may be called social riches, because no exchange can take place without social intercourse, and because it is only in society that the right of exclusively possessing what has been obtained by production, or exchange, can be guaranteed."

I add; "Let us observe, at the same time, that social riches are, as riches, the only ones which can become the object of a scientific study; 1st. because they are the only ones which are appreciable, or at least whose appreciation is not arbitrary; 2nd. because they are the only ones which are obtained, distributed, and destroyed, agreeably to the laws which we may make."

Is this considering productions as algebraic characters, by abstracting the number of consumers, and the nature of their wants? Does not this doctrine establish, on the contrary, that our wants alone compel us to make sacrifices by means whereof we obtain productions?

These sacrifices are the price we pay to obtain them. You call these sacrifices, according to Smith, by the name of labor, which is an insufficient expression, for they include the concurrence of land and capital.

I call them productive service. They have every where a price current; as soon as this price exceeds the value of the thing produced, a disadvantageous exchange is the result, in which a greater value has been consumed than has been produced.

As soon as a produce has been created, which is equivalent to services, the services are paid by the produce, the value of which, by being distributed amongst the producers, forms their revenue. You see therefore that this revenue only exists in proportion to the exchangeable value of the produce, and that it can only have that value in conséquence of the demand for it, in the present state of society. I do not therefore separate this want, nor do I give it an arbitrary valuation. I take it for what it is for what the consumers will have it to be. I could quote, if it were necessary, the whole of my book iii. which details the different modes of consuming, their causes and effects; but I will not intrude upon your time and attention. Let us proceed.

You say "It is by no means true; in fact, that commodities are always bartered for commodities. The greatest part of commodities are directly exchanged for labor, productive or unproductive, and it is evident that this mass of commodities altogether, compared to the labor for which they are to be exchanged, may depreciate in value on account of its superabundance, the same as a single article, in particular, may by its superabundance fall in value in respect to labor or money.

Allow me to observe, in the first place, that I did not say that

' Malthus's Principles, &c. page 353.

commodities are always bartered for commodities, but rather that productions are only bought with productions.

In the second place, that those who admit this expression, commodity, might reply to you, that when commodities are given in payment of labor, these commodities are in effect exchanged for other commodities, that is to say for those which are produced by the labor that is paid for. But this answer is not sufficient for those who take a more extended and complete view of the phenomenon of the production of our riches. Allow me to lay before you a striking figure; the public, by whom we are judged, will I hope find great facilities in it, in weighing the merit of your objections and

my answers.

For the purpose of showing the operation of industry, capital, and land, in the work of production, I personify them; and I find that each one of these persons sells his services, (which I call productive services,) to an enterpriser who is a merchant, a manufacturer, or rather a farmer. This enterpriser having bought the services of a parcel of land, by paying a rent to the proprietor, the services of a capital by paying interest to a capitalist, and the industrious services of laborers, clerks, or agents of any kind, by paying them a salary, consumes and annihilates all these productive services; and from this consumption, a produce of a certain value emanates.

The value of the produce, provided it be equal to the costs of production, that is to say, to the price which it has been necessary to advance for all the productive services, is sufficient to pay the profits of all those who have contributed, directly or indirectly, to this production.

The profit of the enterpriser, on whose account the operation has been made, by deducting the interest of the capital that has been employed, represents the salary for his time and talent, that is to say, his own services productive to himself.

If his capacity was great, and his calculations well made, his profit is considerable. If instead of talent, he has shown ignorance in his business, he will have gained nothing; he will have lost. It is the enterpriser who takes all the risk; but it is he, on the other hand, who benefits by every favorable result.

All the productions which daily come before us, and all those which our imaginations can conceive, have been formed by operations, every one of which forms part of those I have just explained, but combined in an infinity of different ways. What some enterprisers do to obtain certain productions, others do to obtain other productions. Now it is these various productions, which being exchanged against each other, open a reciprocal vent each to the other. The greater or less want there is of one of these pro

ductions, compared with others, determines an exchange at a greater or less price; that is, for a greater or less quantity of any other production. Money is nothing more in this matter than a passing agent, which, the exchange once complete, has nothing more to do with it, but is employed in other exchanges.

It is with the rent of the land, the interest, and the salaries, which form the profits resulting from this production, that the producers purchase the articles of their consumption. Producers are at the same time consumers; and the nature of their wants, having an influence, in different degrees, on the demand for different productions, always favors, when liberty exists, the production of that which is most necessary, because, being the most in de ́mand, it immediately becomes the article which yields the greatest profit to enterprisers.

I have said, that for the purpose of better showing how industry, capital, and land, act in productive operations, I would personify them, and mark the services they render. But this is not a mere fiction: they are facts. Industry is represented by the industrious of all classes, capital by the capitalists, and land by the proprietors. It is these three classes of persons who sell the productive action of their commodity, and who affix the price to it.

My mode of expressing myself may be censured; but then it will be necessary to produce a better, for it cannot be denied that things take place as I have asserted. I have described the facts. The mode of description may be censured; but don't let any one flatter himself that he can controvert the facts; there they are, and will defend themselves.

Let us now resume your accusation-You say, Sir, that many commodities are bought with labor; and I go further than you do, I say that they must all be so bought; extending this expression, labor, to the service rendered by capital and land,' I say that they cannot be bought in any other way; that it is invariably by such services that use and value are given to things; and that ultimately two things present themselves to us, one of consuming ourselves the utility and consequently the value we have produced, the other to employ it in purchasing the utility and value produced by others; that in both cases we purchase commodities with productive services, and that the greater portion of productive service we employ, the more we can buy.

You pretend that there is no such thing as immaterial pro

'What oftentimes makes English authors obscure is, that they confound by the example of Smith, under the name of labor, the services rendered by men, by capital, and by land.

duce. Ah! Sir, originally there was no other. A field itself furnished nothing towards the production but its service, which is an immaterial produce. It serves as a cruciblein which minerals are put, and from whence come out metal and dross. Is there any part of the crucible in these productions? No; the crucible serves for a new productive operation. Is there any part of the field in the harvest which it produces? I answer the same: No; for if a fund of land exhausted itself, it would finish at the end of a certain number of years, by being entirely annihilated. A fund of land only returns what is put into it; but this is after an elaboration which I call the productive service of the field. I may be criticised about the word, but I fear not any criticism on the subject, because the thing is, and will be, and wherever political economy is studied this will be found to be the fact, whatever name may be thought proper to be given to it. The service which a capital renders, in whatever enterprise it is employed, whether commercial, agricultural, or manufactural, is the same-an immaterial produce. He who expends a capital unproductively destroys the capital itself; he who expends it productively expends the material capital, and the service of this capital besides, which is an immaterial produce. When a dyer puts one thousand francs' worth of indigo into his cauldron he consumes a thousand francs' worth of indigo, immaterial produce, and he consumes, besides, the time his capital is employed, that is its interest. The dye he obtains returns him the value of the material capital which he has employ. ed, and the value of the immaterial service of this same capital besides.

The service of the workman is also an immaterial produce. The workman leaves his manufactory, in the evening, just as he went into it in the morning. He has left nothing material in his workshop, therefore it is an immaterial service which he has furnished to a productive operation. This service is the daily and annual produce of a fund which I call his industrious powers, and which constitutes his wealth; a poor wealth! particularly in England, and I know the cause of it.

All these things constitute immaterial produce; call them by what-, ever name you please, they will be no other than immaterial produce, which will exchange one against the other, or for material produce, and which in all these exchanges will form their regulated pricecurrent, like all other price-currents in the world, on the proportion between the supply and the demand.

All these services, of industry, capital, and land, which are productions independent of all matter, form the revenue of all mankind.