both ways. The miseries inflicted by governments and legislatures, in all ages, from their ignorance of its sound principles-indeed, merely from misconception, without any evil intention are infinite, and too notorious to need particularising.

The science, and particularly those vital portions of it respecting the production of wealth, and the causes and results of the increase of our race, though only brought into much public notice within the last half century, are obtaining more and more attention every year; and will continue to do so as long as population increases and real knowledge makes a more general progress. The artificial, crude, abstruse, unintelligible systems and dogmas of theoretical visionaries, may attain to notoriety, or sink to oblivion, according as fashion, or the humour of the age may take a turn. But I speak of the real science and I doubt not, but, from the vast practical importance of its questions, discussions, and decisions, it will rise in interest with posterity, when many topics of scientific inquiry, that highly interested and agitated less populous and less enlightened times, will be thrown to the lumber-hole of science, with the discussions about the philosopher's stone, and other less ridiculous topics, which for their day roused an enthusiasm of inquiry among learned triflers.

WHAT IS WEALTH?

In this discussion you shall deliver your sentiments for yourself. To begin with the definition of Wealth.

"I should define wealth," you say, "to be those material objects, which are necessary, useful, or agreeable, to mankind." p. 28.

Why limit the description of the means of happiness by the term material, except from an illegitimate economistical view? Nature knows no such limitation. According to her arrangements, whether viewed with respect to value in use, or value in exchange, as the source of actual enjoyment, or the means of procuring income, are not science in all its branches, music, amusement of every legitimate sort, mental improvement, &c., which the term excludes, or seems to exclude, as real portions of wealth, as corn, lodging, clothing, &c.?

I shall here add my own definition, which takes Nature as she is. "Wealth, in its most extensive sense, signifies the materials of wellbeing, or happy living. This sense of value in use is rather a theoretical one, and seldom or never adopted by circulators. In statistics, except from special views; and in common life, almost uniformly; it is used with respect to value in exchange, and denotes an abundance of the means of procuring those materials."—"Hap piness of States." p. 612.

In the following discussion I use the term wealth as synonimous with profit, income, capital, property, as the case may require.

WHAT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY INDIVIDUALS OR CLASSES BEING PRODUCTIVE OR UNPRODUCTIVE OF WEALTH?

We come now to the grand questions at issue between our productives and unproductives; as to what is the source of wealth, and whether certain individuals or circulators, by their employments or vocations, create wealth by drawing it from others, and others consume it by returning it to others; or, whether all alike produce it to the amount of their income.

Whatever explanations may be given to the terms productive and unproductive of wealth, by theorists, to suit their peculiar views, the plain practical meaning of them is obvious. Those individuals or classes that produce wealth, create wealth to themselves and their neighbours, and of course enrich the community; while those that are unproductive, must consume more or less of the wealth created by the others, and, of course, impoverish them as well as the nation. If all classes then be productive, they will all combine to give more employment and better prices; that is, the means of a larger income to one another, than would be attainable by fewer. And if any class be unproductive, its influence must tend to lessen the employment and reduce the average prices of the others, and thus diminish their means of income.

In considering the great and important question,-Whether Nature has in reality divided her classes into productive and unproductive?— this practical notion, of productiveness and unproductiveness, is never to be lost sight of, or we cannot come to a just decision. The scientific statistician, the statesman and the plain man of business, understand such a difference. It is, in fact, what they necessarily assume to be intended. And without it the distinction has no intelligible meaning, as applied to what all the world considers to be wealth.

ARE THE TERMS PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE
NECESSARY FOR MERE CLASSIFICATION?

I now proceed to examine in detail, the reasons which you have given for the division of classes, or employments, into productive and unproductive.

"In treating of capital," you say, "it seems quite necessary to have some term for the kind of labor which it generally employs, in contardistinction to the kind of labor generally employed by reve

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nue, in order to explain its nature and operation, and the causes of

its increase." p. 31.

If our economists meant merely to find a term for pointing out the difference between what procures for persons the means of selling in order to obtain profit, or an income, and that part of the latter which they expend in the various articles of house-keeping, the terms productive and unproductive would be incorrectly applied; but the distinction would of itself, if so understood, be very harmless indeed; it would leave the actual fact in Nature as it really is. On such a theory, both mediums of circulation, supplying and demanding, or selling and buying, would be alike mediums of wealth, according to their respective amounts. But this is the grand doctrine of the productive system, and entirely opposite to the distinctions created by Quesnay, Smith, and other Economists.

Nature divides her children, in her process of circulation and of creating wealth, which is the result or production of it, into income circulators and expenditure circulators; and every individual, on her system, is both alternately. These terms, which are characteristically descriptive, are perfectly sufficient for the proposer and the student, for the purpose of classification. But the terms productive, and unproductive, of wealth, imply something of a most serious import, which these functions do not warrant.

ARE THE TERMS PROPER FOR DISTINGUISHING THOSE
WHO SAVE FROM THOSE WHO DO NOT?

"Secondly," you argue, "if saving be allowed to be the immediate cause of the increase of capital, it must be absolutely necessary, in all discussions relating to the progress of wealth, to distinguish by some particular title, a set of people who appear to act so important a part in accelerating this progress." p. 32.

Still this amounts only to a classification. It is unquestionably true, that capital is produced by saving. This is as much the doctrine of the productive as of the unproductive system. But if no more be intended than to distinguish those who save, more or less, from those who expend all, why use terms respecting them, which, in the common acceptation, point out, that the one set creates wealth and the other destroys it: that the one class enriches and the other impoverishes a country; while in Nature both are alike necessary, to carry on the process of the creation and accumulation of wealth. Were it not for the consumers or expenders, the capitalists or savers could neither procure profit nor income. As to the "importance of the part which capitalists, and those

whom they employ, act in accelerating the progress of wealth,” rendering a distinctive title for them necessary, while it belongs as much to others, I see no reason in it. That they act an important part in the production of wealth, is true: but so do all circulators, whether in the character of buyers or sellers. On Nature's system they all assist in accelerating her process in the creation of wealth and employment. It is one of the errors of Smith's system, as it is of the other systems of Economism, and shows that they are ex parte systems, founded on a partial and imperfect view of facts, to attribute nearly every thing to the supply and its modes. But what is the use of supplying, unless there be a demand, and unless the demanders have the means of paying? To supply what there is no demand for, whether corn, cloth, or houses, will produce no wealth but the reverse. It will impoverish the suppliers.

Indeed, though both supply and demand be alike necessary and important, on Nature's system, the demander, as the payer of the supplier, and therefore the agent in rendering him productive, appears, at first consideration, to act the more important part.

You proceed: "Almost all the lower classes of people, of every society, are employed in some way or other; and if there were no grounds of distinction in their employments, with reference to their effects on the national wealth, it is difficult to conceive what would be the use of saving from revenue to add to capital; as it would be merely employing one set of people in preference to another, when, according to the hypothesis, there is no essential difference between." p. 32.

I confess I see no force in this sort of reasoning at all, to prove an essential distinction between one set of circulators and another; or to exhibit the one as enriching a country, and the other as living upon the former and impoverishing the State. Where lies "the difficulty of conceiving," on the productive system, "the use of saving from revenue," say, of a cotton manufacturer, to add to capital? Is it not to enable him to supply more extensively; and, of course, to draw more extensively from the purses of his demanders in the other lines, whether they belong to the cultivating, the clerical, legal, medical, or musical classes? Or how is it in the least necesthat there should be an essential difference between them, as to producing and not producing wealth, provided he gets the profit or income from them which he wants?

sary,

So far with reference to the wealth of the capitalist himself. And next with reference to the national wealth. This consists of the sum total of the wealth of individuals. Of course, it must be increased and diminished with theirs; and its amount, like theirs, depends on the quantum of employment, combined with the actual prices of it. Now employment, according to what I have called the

first leading principle of circulation,' is reproduced by income whether this be entirely expended on the articles of good living, by the circulator, or partly saved and partly so expended. Thus, both ways it is alike really productive of wealth.

As to which way income will prove most productive, (but that is a different question) it will depend on the state of the market at the time, with respect to supply and demand, according to the fifth principle. If the supply predominate, to expend the whole income will have the more enriching effect: but, if the demand predominate, to turn part of it into capital will have the most beneficial influence.

Nature here, by the way, displays her usual benevolence. By the differing predispositions, and the unequal degrees of capacity with which she endows men, she has provided for keeping up an equilibrium between the savers and expenders. The opposing influences of different periods of life; of the extravagance of youth, the prudence of middle, and the savingness of old age; of narrow means and of ample; of a small and a large family, and of many other circumstances in which circulators are placed by her arrangements, co-operate along with her, in producing the same happy effect. But unfortunately, she is too often fettered by the pragmatical folly of legislatures, corporations, &c., that check her by their unwise and frequently absurd regulations and restrictions, in her endeavour to maintain the due equilibrium between capitalists and expenders, or the suppliers and demanders, so highly beneficial to all.

And," with reference to the effects on national wealth," if all circulators, whatever be their lines of employment, or whether they be savers of part of their income, or expenders of the whole on necessaries, comforts, and luxuries, be productive of wealth to the amount of that income, as they are supposed on the productive system, and as they certainly are in real life, it must be better for the saver. The reason is obvious. They will all be more capable

To prevent repetition, I subjoin the five leading principles of circulation, as found constantly operating in real life:

1. What is income to one, is, according to the arrangement of Nature, the source of employment and income to others.

The power of reproduction thus depends entirely on the power of production, and is always equal to it.

2. The

process of the production of wealth is carried on by charging and coun

ter-charging.

3. The more various the classes, the richer must they all, or the community, be. 4. The demand regulates the supply, as far as this is dependent on the will. It, of course, also regulates the number of the various classes of suppliers.

5. The quantum of profitable chargeability dependsuniformly more or less upon the relative state of the demand and the supply. “Happiness of States," pp.`vi.

and 600.