art of manufacturing, had exchanged for one day's toil of a common labourer, may now be purchased for the labour of one third of a day; or three yards may be obtained after the discovery of the more expeditious mode of production, for what one had cost previously. Here we have supposed the exchangeable value of the product to be very much reduced; but the wealth of the community is increased, and the necessaries and comforts of life have been made attainable in the same proportion that their value has diminished. Carry out rigourously the same rule, that wealth increases as value diminishes. Suppose a particular commodity to be produced with infinite ease, so that the supply would be indefinitely great, and the price nothing, as every individual could obtain it without any exertion. This product, according to Mr. Raymond, would not form a part of wealth, because it is without exchangeable value. Suppose all objects of consumption to be produced to the same extent, and with the same ease, there would be no exchangeable value, and, therefore, no wealth, agreeably to our author's system. And we grant that the word "wealth," in such a state of things, could not be used in the received acceptation of writers in our day. Yet the community would possess in the greatest possible abundance, the necessaries and comforts of life; and, consequently, would be immensely wealthy by another part of Mr. R's definition of wealth, which makes it to consist in the possession of the necessaries and comforts of life, or at least in the power of obtaining these, which we think not to be greatly different. Whence then this contradiction? From the simple circumstance that Mr. R. believes wealth to increase as the exchangeable value of the commodities increases-a position directly the reverse of the truth. The wealth of an individual is estimated by the exchangeable value of all that he possesses : but it is evident that if the exchangeable value of the articles of property, which make up the whole mass, be diminished, a larger number of these articles will be required to constitute a definite amount of value. The nature then of private wealth appears sufficiently obvious. The opinion has been common among the best informed writers on political economy, that national wealth is the same in kind and regulated by the same laws. A nation, they reason, consists of individuals; and, consequently, the aggregate of individual wealth will be national wealth. This has very strikingly the appearance of an identical proposition; yet self-evident as it may appear, it is objected to by Mr. R.; and we purpose examining the grounds of the distinction, which he esteems all important, between national and individual wealth. "The pre vailing error about the sources of national wealth, proceeds from that great fountain of error in the science of political economy, the confounding of national with individual wealth." "A nation is a unity, and possesses all the properties of unity."+ "Had writers on political economy preserved the idea of a nation's unity, and had they adverted to the different circumstances in which an individual is always placed, from those in which a nation must always be placed, they never would have concluded that a nation could become wealthy, in that sense of the word in which an individual becomes wealthy, nor would they ever have attached the same idea to the word "wealth," when applied to a nation, which they do when applied to an individual."‡ Our author's meaning seems to be that a nation must be considered as a whole-a unit in the world-and when viewed in this light, nations have relations similar to what exist between the different individuals of a single nation. We may, perhaps, make this more clear by an example. We speak of Great-Britain as a great manufacturing nation. We do not consider the immense amount of wrought goods received from that country, as the production of the small number of persons only, who have been immediately engaged in their fabrication-we say those goods are the production of Great-Britain-of the whole nation. The agriculturists supplied the actual operatives with food, without which the work must have been discontinued. The merchants imported the raw material, and exported the finished article. The Lords were employed in the formation of laws, which protected the labourers in their rights, and enabled them to pursue their occupations in peace and safety. The Commons assisted in the legislation, and also in preserving, by their authority as public magistrates or private individuals, the laws inviolate in the counties. The King himself bore a part in the enactment of the laws, and as the head of the government, had the care of their execution; and thus even the monarch has performed a part, and an indispensable part, in the production of the articles. we are daily receiving from Great-Britain. The manufactures are the products of the industry of the whole nation; and in this sense, we believe, Mr. Raymond uses the words "nation" and "national." We do not think that he intends the government of the nation; although this opinion has some plausibility from his asserting that "a nation is a corporation." Thus to restrict, however, the meaning of the terms "nation" and "national,” would not accord with most of Mr. R's reasonings, though it might with a part; and we are the more inclined to take the + Ibid. p. 35. + Ibid. p. 46. § Vol. ii. p. 117. * Vol. i. p. 94. words in their largest sense from his having incidentally given us definitions. "It is true that a nation is composed of individuals; and that if all the individuals, &c.* When a nation (that is, its citizens) is engaged," &c. By a nation, therefore, we are to understand the aggregate of the individuals who compose it. What then is national wealth? "A capacity for acquiring the necessaries and comforts of life"-that is, wealth is a capacity for acquiring wealth. With equal reason we may say that because an individual has the capacity for acquiring knowledge, therefore he is a learned man; and a marvellously convenient method it would be too for obtaining the character of a savant. We would have supposed that this definition, into which Mr. Raymond had been forced by the necessity of supporting the semblance of a consistent system in his speculations, must have awakened a suspicion of the premises which carried him into such a conclusion. The whole difficulty lies in this: individual wealth consists of objects which have exchangeable value; but a nation, considered apart from others, cannot exchange, since we are now viewing a nation as one body. A unit cannot exchange with itself; it may, however, with other units-that is, other nations; and hence Mr. Raymond says that "any surplus exchanged with foreigners has value; but if the returns be for the nation's own consumption, the term value no longer applies to them in a national point of view." And thus we arrive at the conclusion already mentioned, that exchangeable value can have no existence. Our author's meaning may be illustrated in the following manner: You may view the whole world as one nation; and then it is evident that when considered as a whole, as a unit, exchangeable value cannot be predicated of anything, since there is no other unit with which it can have intercourse; unless, indeed, the improvements in the art of constructing railways should be the means of opening a communication with the other planets. On this supposition, it may readily be perceived that Mr. R's system must be extended a little: the different habitable globes would, when connected together, form a whole-a unit. We do not imagine, however, that there is any very pressing occasion for this extension of the system. We hope that our readers now see clearly in what manner the error of estimating wealth in the direct proportion of the value, runs through the whole of Mr. Raymond's reasonings. To make this, if in our power, still plainer, we may suppose that commodities, which in the present state of things, are valued at one million of dollars, should, in consequence of improvements in Ibid. pp. 59, 142. # * Vol. i. p. 143. + Ibid. p. 304. + Ibid. p. 47. production, be reduced in value to one dollar; that is, the value designated by one dollar in our own day. It is obvious that their exchangeable value would be so near nothing—a man obtaining for the labour of one or two days, articles which are now valued at one million of dollars-that every individual would possess an almost unlimited command of the necessaries and comforts of life, and would be as wealthy as need be desired, according to Mr. Raymond's own showing: for if the "possession of property, for the use of which the owner can obtain a quantity of the nesssaries and comforts of life," be wealth, a fortiori, the unlimited command of these necessaries and comforts is so. As, however, the exchangeable value of all this wealth would be indefinitely small, but still the possession of exchangeable value entitling the commodities to the appellation of wealth according to the present use of the word, perhaps this illustration may shew that great wealth is not inconsistent with the least possible exchangeable value, and reconcile our readers to our applying the term wealth, to nations in the same sense in which it is applied to individuals. By the wealth of a nation then, we mean the aggregate wealth of all its individuals. We willingly quote from Mr. Raymond when we meet with a sentence so correct as the following: "It is true that a nation is composed of individuals, and that if all the individuals are frugal, parsimonious and wealthy, the nation will be so too; and if all the individuals are extravagant, wasteful and poor, the nation will be so too; and it may also be admitted that frugality or parsimony is more conducive to national wealth than prodigality." We are persuaded that most of our readers will smile at the extreme caution with which our author admits that frugality is only more conducive to national wealth than prodigality. That prodigality should be esteemed conducive to wealth at all, we sincerely desire may be a doctrine new to our countrymen both in theory and practice. This improved method of becoming wealthy by consuming to the full extent of production, and rather than have a surplus, casting part of the commodities into the ocean, is another of the discoveries of Lauderdale, to which Mr. Raymond has given a place in his publication. But even these guarded admissions of our author, as to the influence of frugality on wealth, are scarcely consistent with what he has elsewhere said in connexion with the same subject. "This absurd doctrine of augmenting national wealth by accumulation, proceeds from confounding national with individual + Vol. i. p. 143, * According to present estimation. wealth."* "If there be a surplus of the product of industry, it is as much the duty of the legislature to make provision, if possible, for its immediate consumption, as it could be to adopt measures for the purpose of supplying the nation with food in case it should be in want. It is better that the surplus be converted into manure or thrown into the ocean, than to remain on hand after the ordinary period of consumption:" that is, "one year." It is impossible to mistake our author's meaning on this subject. He maintains that barren consumption, in the strict sense of the word-consumption without any return either of gratification to the producers, or of reproduction, is preferable to accumulation. We flatter ourselves that a very moderate degree of sagacity will be sufficient to expose the gross fallacy of this tenet. Whatever logical precision, Mr. R. intended to exhibit in the use of terms, the foundation of his notions with regard to the accumulation of wealth, is laid upon that abuse of words, which he condemns in others. The most approved witers, since Smith, on the science of political economy, reject his classification of labour as productive and unproductive; and, therefore, the earl and counsellor have no claim to singularity on this point. And as it gratifies most persons to fancy themselves competent to point out the defects of a great man, we have no cause for surprise that Dr. Smith should be criticised by every stripling who might wish to acquire celebrity by running a tilt with a veteran of established fame. Such combatants are secure of coming off with the advantage, whatever may be the issue of the contest, since the reputation of having entered the lists with the renowned, is far beyond anything they can reasonably expect to obtain by their own achievements. We mean not to assert, however, that Dr. Smith has been proof against all attacks, nor that all his challengers have been of the class just described; but we do say that it becomes all who imagine they have discovered gross and palpable mistakes in the productions of such a mind, to pause a moment, and cautiously to examine whether what they esteem his absurdities, may not arise from their own misapprehension. The invidious distinction between the different classes of labourers is certainly liable to many objections; but would not nearly all that is obnoxious of this part of the wealth of nations be removed, by substituting "not reproductive," in the place of "unproductive?" It is undeniably true that the labour of the menial servant does not fix and realize itself in commodities which may be consumed reproductively—that is, in the * Vol. i. p. 138. + Ibid. pp. 123, 124 Ibid. pp. 123, 130, 146. |