one country is an addition to the revenue of the other. The artificers of the commercial nation are, in fact, those of the agricultural country. They have the same relation to it as if they had lived in it; and the only difference is, that their place of residence is at a distance from the market. The manufacturers settled in the agricultural country itself, would be on a level in the market with the commercial nation, even though they should add to their profits a sum equal to the whole expense of carriage. The necessary consequence is, that they would undersell the commercial nation; and nothing could prevent such manufactures from rising in the country itself, except the most essential defects in their system of Political Economy; and it is owing to such defects alone, they tell us, that a merely manufacturing country can exist at all; and the establishment of a more liberal system would necessarily raise up a competition which it could not withstand. In an age, therefore, add the Economists, when the minds of men begin to be enlightened, this is a most precarious resource; and a nation which relies on it entirely, sees in the improvement of its neighbours the presages of its own decline. Nor is this all. It is but a very few articles that can bear the expense of a long carriage; and these are not objects of a general consumption. This, therefore, may support a very small state; but it necessarily forms a very trifling object to a great agricultural nation. We may therefore conclude, that the labour of the agriculturist is the only productive labour, and that the rude produce of the soil is the only revenue of a nation, the only fund out of which all its expenses must be defrayed.

In entering on the discussions which I now have in view, with respect to the Economical system, it seemed proper for me to begin with a general outline of its fundamental principles, delineated as faithfully as possible, after the ideas of its original authors. Something of this kind seemed to be necessary, in order to correct those misapprehensions of its nature which have prevailed to a considerable degree, in consequence of the account of it given by Mr. Smith. I now proceed to consider, at some length, those points in which the doctrines

of Quesnai and his followers appear to me to differ from those stated by Mr. Smith in the Wealth of Nations, endeavouring, as far as I can, to separate real diversities of opinion from mere disputes about words, and to combine what appears to be valuable in both, without adopting implicitly the opinions of either.-(End of interpolation from Notes.)

[Specially on the System of the Economists.]-I made some observations at our last meeting, on the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, according to the doctrine of the Economists, with a view chiefly to a vindication of their language on this subject, against the criticisms of Mr. Smith. Of the particulars in which this part of his system differs from theirs, some of those which appear at first view the most striking, will be found to resolve ultimately into a question concerning the propriety of certain technical modes of speaking which they introduced; and in so far, the dispute may be considered as amounting merely to a verbal controversy. It must, however, be remembered, that in inquiries of so difficult a nature, the choice of phrases is by no means a matter of indifference; particularly when a want of coincidence between their technical and their ordinary acceptations may have a tendency to mislead our reasonings. In the present instance, this is remarkably the case; for the epithets productive and unproductive, as they are commonly employed, being as precise and significant as any which the language furnishes, can scarcely fail to have some effect on the estimate we form of the comparative importance of the two kinds of labour to which we are accustomed habitually to appropriate them. The truth is, that the influence of these epithets may be distinctly traced in various instances, on the conclusions of Quesnai, on the one hand, and of Mr. Smith on the other;-I mean the influence of the popular meaning of these epithets, as contradistinguished from the technical acceptations in which they have thought proper respectively to define them. The difference of opinion, however, between Smith and Quesnai concerning productive and unproductive labour, does not turn entirely on the mean

ing of words. It turns also in part on a fact which they have apprehended very differently, and which it is of great consequence to view in its proper light. I shall make no apology therefore for offering here, (even at the risk of appearing somewhat prolix and tedious,) a few additional illustrations and proofs of the remarks which I have already stated on this fundamental article of Political Economy.

It will contribute to render some of the following reasonings more clear and satisfactory, if it is distinctly remembered, that in the first part of the argument we abstract entirely from the effects of foreign commerce, and confine our attention to those which result from the operations of the different descriptions of labour in a separate and independent society. The fact is, that in a great agricultural country like Great Britain, and still more in a territory like France, where the importation of necessaries cannot possibly bear any great proportion to the consumption of the inhabitants, the conclusions I have in view will hold, in every essential respect, even although the operations of foreign commerce be admitted into the supposition. But it may obviate some difficulties and objections which might otherwise present themselves, to begin with stating the argument in its simplest form.

That Mr. Smith's opinion with respect to the fact on which the Economists lay the principal stress was the same with theirs, appears (among various other acknowledgments in different parts of his Wealth of Nations) from the following passage in the fifth chapter of the Second Book, entitled, "Of the different Employments of Capital."

"In agriculture, nature labours along with man; and though her labour cost no expense, its produce has its value, as well as that of the most expensive workman. The most important operations of agriculture seem intended, not so much to increase, though they do that too, as to direct the fertility of nature towards the production of the plants most profitable to man. A field overgrown with briars may frequently produce as great a quantity of vegetables as the best cultivated vineyard or corn-field. Planting and tillage frequently regulate

more than they animate the active fertility of nature; and, after all their labour, a great part of the work remains to be done by her. The labourers, and labouring cattle, therefore, employed in agriculture, not only occasion, like the workmen in manufactures, the reproduction of a value equal to their own consumption, or to the capital which employs them, together with its owner's profits, but of a much greater value. Over and above the capital of the farmer, and all its profits, they regularly occasion the reproduction of the rent of the landlord. This rent may be considered as the produce of those powers of nature, the use of which the landlord lends to the farmer. It is the work of nature that remains after deducting or compensating everything which can be regarded as the work of man."*

These observations, although by no means unexceptionable, in so far as they relate to manufacturing industry, not only coincide in the main with the opinions of the Economists, but express in strong and explicit terms one of the fundamental principles on which their system rests. It is a principle, indeed, so perfectly obvious and indisputable, that it is almost as painful to peruse their prolix elucidations of it, as the reasonings of those who have had the appearance of disputing its solidity: I say the appearance of disputing its solidity; for I know of no writer who has directly called in question the principle itself, whatever diversity of judgment may exist about the remoter consequences to which it necessarily leads, or the form of words. in which it ought to be expressed.

In this last respect Mr. Smith's system differs widely; and accordingly, in the sentence which immediately follows the sentence just quoted, he speaks of agricultural and manufacturing labour as being both productive, though not in an equal degree. "No equal quantity of productive labour employed in manufactures can ever occasion so great a reproduction as in agriculture. In them nature does nothing, man does all; and the reproduction must always be in proportion to the strength of the agents that occasion it. The capital employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity * [Vol. II. pp. 52, 53, tenth edition.]

of productive labour than any equal quantity employed in manufactures, but in proportion too to the quantity of productive labour which it employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country; to the wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. Of all the ways in which a capital can be employed, it is by far the most advantageous to the society."*

In Mr. Smith's account of the Economical system, he has entered into a particular statement of the reasons which induce him to reject, as improper and inaccurate, the application which it makes of the epithet unproductive to manufacturing industry. He regards this indeed as the capital error of its authors. "Their capital error," he observes, "seems to be in considering the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, as altogether unproductive and barren." In confirmation of this remark he reasons as follows:

It is acknowledged of this class, that it reproduces annually the value of its own annual consumption, and continues, at least, the existence of the stock or capital which maintains and employs it. But upon this account alone the denomination of barren or unproductive should seem to be very improperly applied to it. We should not call a marriage barren or unproductive, though it produced only a son and a daughter to replace the father and mother, and though it did not increase the number of the human species, but only continued it as it was before."

"Farmers and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains or employs them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord. As a marriage which affords three children is certainly more productive than one which affords only two, so the labour of farmers and country labourers is certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the one class, however, does not render the other barren or unproductive."† According to this statement of Mr. Smith, his objection to * [Ibid., p. 53.]

† [Ibid., Book IV. chap. ix.; Vol. III. pp. 21, 22, tenth edition.]