from it, remuneration which may be to him a considerable source of wealth; but his gain is balanced by their loss; they may have received a full equivalent for their expenditure, but they are so much poorer for it. When a tailor makes a coat and sells it, there is a transfer of the price from the customer to the tailor, and a coat besides, which did not previously exist; but what is gained by an actor is a mere transfer from the spectator's funds to his, leaving no article of wealth for the spectator's indemnification. Thus the community collectively gain nothing by the actor's labour: and it loses, of his receipts, all that portion which he consumes, retaining only that which he lays by. A community, however, may add to its wealth by unproductive labour, at the expense of other communities, as an individual may at the expense of other individuals. The gain of Italian opera singers, German governesses, French ballet dancers, &c. are a source of wealth as far as they go, to their respective. countries, if they return thither. The petty states of Greece, especially the ruder and more backward of those states, were nurseries of soldiers, who hired themselves to the princes and satraps of the East to carry on useless and destructive wars, and returned with their savings to pass their declining years in their own country: these were unproductive labourers, and the pay they received, together with the plunder they took was an outlay without return to the countries which furnished it; but though no gain to the world, it was a gain to Greece. At a later period the same country and its colonies supplied the Roman Empire with another class of adventurers, who, under the name of philosophers or rhetoricians, taught to the youth of the higher classes what were esteemed the most valuable accomplishments; these were mainly unproductive labourers, but their ample recompense was a source of wealth to their own country. In none of these cases was there any accession of wealth to the world. The services of the labourers, if useful, were obtained at a sacrifice to the world of a portion of material wealth; if useless, all that these labourers consumed was to the world, waste."

We have given this long extract in order to place before our readers fairly Mr. Mill's views on this important subject, which Malthus justly says goes to the root of the whole science, and as Mr. Mill says, brings us back to the discussion of what wealth is.

For Productive Labour is Labour productive of Wealth. We see that Mr. Mill has somewhat extended the term beyond Smith's view of it; for while Smith only allows those to be productive labourers who are directly employed in the production of material products, Mr. Mill includes those also who are indirectly employed in that way; and this, of course, is a considerably wider circle of persons. He admits "officers of government" to be productive labourers. Hence managers of manufactories, foremen, the army, navy, and police are gathered within the fold of productive labourers: but we are not sure whether the judicial corps rank as "officers of Government." We are inclined to think they do; and in that case a barrister who earns an income by serving private parties would be an unproductive labourer, but a judge who earns an income by serving the State is a productive labourer. Authors and editors of newspapers take rank as productive labourers; while actors, singers, opera dancers, clergymen, and others still remain out in the cold as unproductive labourers. Bankers may rank as productive labourers, because the operations of banking do undoubtedly cause a very great increase of material products. The labour of railway and other employés engaged in transporting merchandize would be productive, but in transporting passengers would be unproductive. According to the distinction made by Mr. Mill, the labour of instructors teaching artizans and other productive labourers is productive, the labour of those engaged in educating gentlemen, or persons not engaged in business, is unproductive. So the labour of a surgeon, or physician, healing a productive labourer is productive; healing a gentleman is unproductive. According to Mr. Mill, the delight the audience receives from witnessing the performance of a Garrick, a Kemble, a Siddons, a Talma, a Macready, a Wigan, a Taglioni, a Fanny Ellsler, a Lablache, a Catalani, a Malibran, a Jenny Lind, a Grisi, a Mario, an Alboni, a Titiens, a Patti, and a Nillson, is the result of unproductive labour, and the world is poorer by their maintenance, while the opulence of the world would be augmented by the labour of as many pastry cooks.

We do not think that such distinctions as these accord with general usage, or with sound practical philosophy: and on this point we entirely agree with Say, whose doctrines are those of common sense and general usage. In general language pro

ductive labour is labour which is productive of profit. When a person bestows his labour in preparing some material substance, or in rendering some service, which he hopes will be required or demanded by others, what does he expect, and what is his object? It is to draw forth some reward in exchange for it. Every one considers his labour as productive, not according to what he offers, but according to what he obtains in return for it. A theatrical company may produce several pieces during the season, but whether their labour is productive or not entirely depends upon the returns to their treasury. If they play to empty benches their labour is unproductive; if the house is crowded, and their treasury well-filled, their labour is productive.

And it can be easily shewn from Mr. Mill's own words that this is the true meaning, because he says that productive labour is labour productive of wealth. And what is wealth by his own definition? It is anything which has power of purchasing; whether therefore a thing is wealth or not purely depends whether anything can be obtained in exchange for it. And of course the more that can be obtained in exchange for it the greater wealth it is, and the more productive. Hence by Mr. Mill's own definition whether anything is productive or not does not depend upon the nature of the thing, but upon the quantity of other things it can draw forth in exchange, or the amount of the returns.

It is true that Mr. Mill has subsequently narrowed down his definition of wealth by several limitations; but we have already shewn that these are quite inconsistent with his general definition, and they must be rejected. A performer receives ten guineas for his performance; a watchmaker receives ten guineas for a watch. The performance and the watch are each equal to ten guineas. Therefore the performance is equal in value to the watch, by the very simple rule that Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

Hence, in accordance with general usage, we shall always use Productive Labour to mean Labour which earns a profit; and Unproductive Labour to mean labour which produces no, or an inadequate, reward. And anything whatever which earns a profit is, as Senior says all Economists are agreed, CAPITAL.

1 Ante, p. 148.

36. If the absolute property does not pass to the purchaser but only the right of possession, or of use, for a limited period, after which it reverts to its true owner, the sum of money paid for such a service receives different names, according to the nature of the service or property

1. If the money be paid for personal services, it is called WAGES, or SALARY, or Pay, or FEES, according to the different species of service.

2.

3.

4.

If the money is paid for the use of property, such as is usually classed as fixed capital, such as the right to use land, or houses, or running water, as a mill stream, or mines, or fisheries, or a patent, or copyright, it is called RENT.

If for the use of property which is more usually floating capital, or personal property, it is called HIRE.

If it is for the use of money, it is called INTEREST.

All these names are, therefore, applied when the purchaser buys only the use of a thing for a limited period, and that according to the nature of the object.

37. We have now concluded our survey of the General Conceptions of Economics; the investigation has been long, but we hope not uninteresting. At all events it was absolutely indispensable to raise Economics to the rank of a great Inductive Science. The discussions given here have been brief indeed compared to the fierce controversies which were waged about almost every term in Physical Science. We have now obtained a clear and distinct Conception of the Nature and Limits of the Science itself; or of the body of phenomena whose laws we are about to investigate; and we have had the satisfaction of reconciling the Definitions of the two prevailing schools of Economists, and shewing that they are in reality identical. And we have taken each term in succession, and applying the Laws of Inductive Logic, we have eliminated the accidental and intrusive ideas from each one, and determined that single general idea which fits it to be a fundamental Conception of a great general science. Such is the course which has been followed in every other science, and such is the course which must necessarily be adopted to rear up a solid edifice of science.

T

38. In case it may be thought that such discussions are superfluous we may quote a few remarks from Dr. Whewell" Such discussions as those in which we have been engaged, concerning our fundamental Ideas, have been the course by which, historically speaking, those Conceptions which the existing sciences involve have been rendered so clear as to be fit elements of exact knowledge.

"Thus discussions and speculations concerning the import of very abstract and general terms and notions may be, and in reality have been, far from useless and barren. Such discussions arose from the desire of men to impress their opinions on others, but they had the effect of making the opinions much more clear and distinct. In trying to make others understand them, they learnt to understand themselves. Their speculations were begun in twilight, and ended in the full brilliance of day. It was not easily and at once without expenditure of labour and time that men arrived at these notions which now form the elements of our knowledge; on the contrary, we have in the history of science seen how hard, discoverers, and the forerunners of discoverers, have had to struggle with the indistinctness and obscurity of the intellect, before they could advance to the critical point at which truth became clearly visible. And so long as, in this advance, some speculators were more forward than others, there was a natural and inevitable ground of difference of opinion, of argumentation, of wrangling. But the tendency of all such controversy is to diffuse truth and to dispel error. Truth is consistent and can bear the tug of war; Error is incoherent, and falls to pieces in the struggle. True Conceptions can endure the sun, and become clearer as a fuller light is obtained; confused and inconsistent notions vanish like visionary spectres at the break of a brighter day. And thus all the controversies concerning such conceptions as science involves have ever ended in the establishment of the side on which the truth was found.

"The history of Mechanics from the time of Kepler to that of Lagrange, is perhaps the best exemplification of the mode in which the progress of a science depends on such disputes and speculations as give clearness and generality to its elementary conceptions. This, it is to be recollected, is the kind of progress 1 Novum Organum Renovatum, ch. 2. On the Explication of Conceptions.