of the annual produce is set apart to be employed as capital, the owner must abstain from consuming it. What is destroyed cannot be capital: all capital, therefore, is made out of that part of the annual produce which, instead of being devoted to consumption and enjoyment, is saved.' Now, the disposition to save is so weak in most circumstances of society, Mr. Mill says, and he states various circumstances hypothetically to prove his position, that the progression of capital is much slower than that of population. On this, however, it may be observed that, although A in common language is said to consume his capital when, exceeding his revenue, he spends that capital instead of applying it to the purpose of reproduction, yet his capital is not destroyed, so far as society is concerned quite the contrary; it is transferred to B, C, D, and the rest of the alphabet who are more thrifty; it is added to and becomes part of their capital; and they, being more prudent than A, employ it in reproduction. It is transferred, therefore, into more profitable hands, instead of being destroyed. Mr. Mill * Just as we had written the above paragraph, the speech of Lord Liverpool on the internal state of the country (Feb. 26.) came before us; and it contains a passage which forms so appropriate a commentary on Mr. Mill's view of the comparative progression of capital and population, that we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing it. "There were few persons, perhaps, who now remembered the period antecedent to 1792 so fully as to appreciate the different circumstances of the country with regard to the various branches of its industry, as compared with those in which it now stood. There existed, with reference to this subject, various documents which, as comparative documents, could not deceive, and which shewed not only what the real state of the country was at those two periods, but that a great part of the wealth of the country which had been accumulated during the interval was actually a new creation. This fact was so undeniable, that a man who had lived before 1792, and who might be supposed to have been absent from the country from that time to the present, would find the whole face of the country in many respects entirely altered. Taking the years antecedent to 1792, say, for instance, the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, the average amount of British goods exported was 12,852,000l. In the three years, 1819, 1820, and 1821, (including one very bad year,) the amount was 40,146,000l. In the three former years, the average amount of imports was annually 17,584,000l. In the years 1819, 1820, and 1821, the annual amount of imports was 36,759,000l. It appeared, therefore, with regard to our foreign commerce, that since the year 1790 the exports of British manufactures had been more than trebled, and that the im Mr. Mill will see that, consistently with our view of the subject, we are obliged to withhold our assent from his distinction between productive and unproductive consumption,' chap. iv. sect. 1. What is expended for the sake of something to be produced is said to be consumed productively; and in productive consumption three classes of things are included, namely, the wages of the labourer, the wear and tear of the machinery, tools, buildings, &c. for the productive operations, and, thirdly, the material from which the commodity to be produced must be derived: as seed for corn, wool for cloth, flax for linen, leather for shoes, &c. Mr. Mill, however, contends that men not only consume without any view to production, which we grant, but likewise that they consume without producing, which we dispute. The wages, for instance, given to a ploughman, says he, are for the sake of production; those given to a footman or groom are not given for the sake of production. The flax which the manufacturer converts into linen he consumes productively; the wine which he uses at his table he consumes unproductively. On more than one occasion we have contended that no labor is unproductive which has exchangeable value; and it seems to us that the question as to the productiveness of all consumption resolves itself into the question as to the productiveness of all labor. Consumption is the measure of production, because no one will long continue to produce commodities for which he cannot find consumers. That consumption cannot be unproductive which, by rewarding, excites to farther exertions of labor, and consequently to still farther production. This we hold to be the case with all voluntary consumption. ; By productive consumption,' Mr. Mill says, 'nothing is lost no diminution is made of the property, either of the individual, or of the community; for if one thing is destroyed, another is by that means produced. The case is totally different with unproductive consumption. Whatever is unproductively consumed, is lost. Whatever is consumed in this manner, is a diminution of the property, both of the individual and of the community; because, in consequence of this consumption, nothing whatever is produced. The commodity perishes in the using, and all that is derived is the good, the pleasure, the satisfaction, which the using of it yields.' ports had been more than doubled in the same period. The other great branches of industry had not only kept pace with the great increase of population, but their produce had in many instances exceeded it.""The population of England, Wales, and Scotland, which in 1801 was 10,900,000, had increased in 1811 to 12,500,000, or at the rate of 15 per cent., and in 1821 it had increased to upwards of 14,000,000, or at the rate of 17 per cent." REV. MAY, 1822. C If If exchange assigns fifty pounds to the labour of a dancingmaster, a fiddler, or a footman, and only five-and-twenty pounds to that of a husbandman or manufacturer, we must conclude that the labor of the dancing-master, fiddler, ór footman, contributes twice as much to the production of wealth as that of the manufacturer or husbandman. To deny this is to assert that the most wealth proceeds from that labor which receives the least value in exchange, and is consequently the worst paid; and that the least wealth proceeds from that labor which receives the greatest value in exchange, and is consequently the best paid. If, however, the labor of the dancing-master, &c. be thus productive, that consumption of his labor cannot be unproductive to society which encourages it. Nor, certainly, are we prepared to say that the wine which a gentleman uses at his table is unproductively consumed; since the consumption of it encourages the labor of the peasantry of France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany to produce more, and the labor of the artizans and manufacturers of Britain to purchase the production. When the labors of the dancing-master, fiddler, and footman, — when, in short, labors employed in administering to luxury and splendor, are not voluntarily demanded and remunerated by the "productive classes" of society out of their superfluous means, but the latter are compelled by taxation to pay for them on account of others, then, indeed, it may and does happen that this forced payment occasions no increase of production; on the contrary, it takes away the stimulus for production by taking away the means of consumption. This can only be the act of legislative authority. As legislators, therefore, cannot be sure that labors devoted to luxury and splendor, the burden of which they impose on the " productive classes," do not exceed their products, they may create labors not only sterile but oppressive; not merely unproductive, but such as will destroy productive labor. In one word, as we cannot denominate that labor unproductive which obtains the products of other labor for its reward, so neither can we denominate that consumption unproductive which immediately or remotely, but in both cases necessarily, is the occasion of still farther production. * -- As the profits of stock depend upon the share which is received by its owners of the joint produce of labor and stock, profits of stock depend upon wages-rise as wages fall, * See this question discussed more at large in our notice of M. Ganihl's work, M. R. vol. xciv. p. 105., and vol. xcv. p. 115. Also in the review of Mr. Malthus, vol. xcv. p. 60, &c. and and fall as wages rise:' chap. ii. sect. 3. This proposition is stated in too general terms; and sufficient allowance is not made for the friction of the machine as it works. A very few years ago, the workmen in several of our manufacturing towns could not earn above five or six shillings a-week, with the most painful and exhausting exertions of industry. The profits of the manufacturers, therefore, according to Mr. Mill, ought to have risen: but they continued to fall, and wages to fall with them. They fell because profits fell. At the time to which we are alluding, the price of provisions also was higher, although wages were low:- another anomaly, which should make writers on political economy very guarded in their positions. In point of fact, however, does it not generally happen that wages rise when the profits of stock rise, and vice versá? Why are wages higher in the manufacturing towns at present? Surely not because provisions are cheaper, for that is a reason why they should be lower, but because the profits of stock are greater. Wages have fallen in the agricultural districts: have the profits of stock risen in proportion? Alas, alas! "what a falling off is here!" Profits would rise as wages fell, if the price of the commodity were stationary: but fluctuations of price, arising from the uncertain proportions of demand and supply, disturb the natural relation between wages and the profits of stock. Political economists do not make sufficient allowance for the operation of these disturbing forces. For instance, Mr. Mill heads one of his sections (chap. iv. sect. 2.) in these words: 'That which is annually produced is annually consumed; and another, as a corollary from the preceding, 'That consumption is co-extensive with production. Having argued these subjects in our notice of Mr. Malthus's work, we shall not go into them again, but merely remark that whatever approximation to truth there may be in the general proposition, it is encumbered with too many exceptions in its application to permit us to rely on it. Again, it is often maintained that there is a community or identity of interest between the commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural interests; we have often maintained it ourselves, and God forbid that it should be otherwise, as those classes are all members of the same body-politic. Yet, how often do we find their temporary interests, at least, in collision with each other; one rising as the other falls, and the prosperity of the one apparently resulting from the depression of the other. The farmer cannot throw the cost of production on the consumers, as the present state of the corn-markets proves: the manufacturer, therefore, is at this moment flourishing at his expence, and eating up his substance. That this is an unnatural state of things we firmly believe, and that it cannot be permanent; the observation is intended merely to shew with how much caution we ought to receive general propositions as truths of universal application. The only remaining subject on which we can afford room to make any remarks is Rent; or rather the character, with reference to political economy, of those who receive it, namely, landlords. As M. Quesnay and the French economists degraded the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, under the humiliating denomination of barren and unproductive consumers, so do Mr. Mill and some other writers of the same school brand with this opprobious stigma the class of landlords. He first excludes them from the class of producers, and then deduces from this exclusion consequences of the most appalling nature to their interests. He endeavours to prove that their interests are not only different from, but diametrically repugnant to the interests of the rest of the, community, and then marks out the rent of this pernicious caste as the peculiar and proper object of taxation. Land, we all know, is of various degrees of fertility, from the snow-capped hills of Scotland and Wales to the rich vales of Devonshire. Rent, - we take Mr. Mill's definition, though not the simplest and most intelligible, is the difference between the return yielded to that portion of the capital which is employed upon land with the least effect, and that which is yielded to all the other portions employed on it with greater effect.' The rent of land increases, then, as the return of capital employed on it decreases: the inevitable consequence of which is that it is for the interest of the landlord that the cost attending the production of corn should be increased.* The *Mr. Ricardo has supposed a case of a diminution of the fertility of all the lands in the world of one-tenth, and he thinks that it would increase rents by pushing capital on less fertile lands. (P. 505.) Mr. Mill holds the same doctrine. Mr. Malthus (p. 145.) thus replies: "I think, on the contrary, that in any well cultivated country, such a diminution of fertility could not fail to lower rents, by occasioning the withdrawing of capital from the poorest soils. If the last land before in use would do but little more than pay the necessary labour and a profit of 10 per cent. upon the capital employed, a diminution of the tenth part of the gross produce would certainly render many poor soils no longer worth cultivating; and on Mr. Ricardo's supposition, where, I would ask, is the increased demand and increased price to come from, when from the greater quantity of labour and capital neces sary |